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For Israel, a Two-State Proposal Starts with Security
(U.S. News) Mortimer B. Zuckerman - The world remained silent as Israel endured hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombers, stabbings, drive-by shootings, and kidnappings. No censure or demands for a cease-fire impeded Hizbullah in the north and Hamas from the south as they rained thousands of missiles on almost 40% of the Israeli population. Yet every Israeli effort at self-defense is treated as aggression. Israelis have observed that every effort to make peace breeds new aggression. They have realized, with understandable bitterness, that every defensive military operation that leaves the aggressor still in control of the attack base results only in the enemy being better prepared the next time. If Hamas takes over the West Bank, as it did Gaza, then it and other al-Qaeda-type groups will have access to the overlooks of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The last time Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received control of an area - namely Gaza in 2005 - PLO forces ran away and left it to Hamas.