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Abbas Must Act

(U.S. News) Mortimer B. Zuckerman - * What is the price of trying to make life easier for the Palestinians? A simple answer: murder most foul. Israel voluntarily removed roadblocks; so terrorists in a Fatah group, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, put stolen Israeli license plates on a car, sped by a crowd at a hitching post, and opened fire with automatic weapons. Three young Israelis, including a 15-year-old, were killed, and four others were wounded. * The Fatah group freely boasted of what it had done, but Abbas did not pursue the terrorists nor even condemn them. Nor is he doing anything about the smuggling of people and weapons from Gaza and Sinai into the West Bank. Terrorism and the incitement to violence continue unabated outside the attention of Western media. * Israel and the U.S. try hard to keep faith in Abbas. He is not personally a bad man. He just lacks the will to control the anarchy. All we get from Abbas are nice interviews explaining how he will persuade the militias to give up their guns. In the meantime no terrorist has been arrested, tried, or sent to prison. * Gaza will almost certainly determine the future of the region's peace prospects. Sadly, it is essentially becoming a Hamas base for launching missiles into Israeli communities. Hamas's leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, said, "If we win the elections, Hamas will not shake Sharon's hand; we will continue to aim our gun barrels at his head." * The time for "evenhandedness" has been washed away in blood. Now is the time to hold the Palestinians accountable as they have never been held before. We must ensure that in a two-state solution, one of them will not end up as a terrorist state.
2005-10-24 00:00:00
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