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Girding for the Next Intifada

(New York Jewish Week) Gary Rosenblatt - It's time we recognize that a third intifada, and perhaps the most violent of all, is just around the corner. So many signs point to another round of Palestinian-initiated warfare on the Jewish state that it's hard to ignore them. As the Palestinians move toward national elections, it is clear that Hamas, the terror group that insists on the destruction of Israel, will do very well. Abbas insists that after bringing Hamas into the political process, he will be able to convince the group to put away its guns in favor of democratic government. Dream on. The example of Hizballah in Lebanon is instructive. The same argument was made about tempering the group's military impulses - like Hamas, it is a surrogate for Iran and Syria in its attacks on Israel - by bringing it into the political system in Beirut. But after Hizballah went from 8 to 23 seats in the 128-seat Lebanese parliament, it became more emboldened in its attempted terror attacks on Israel. There is no indication that Hamas will be willing to give up either its arms or its calls for Israel's destruction after the Palestinian elections. Israelis who believed that the painful displacement of Jewish communities in Gaza and parts of the West Bank would satisfy the Palestinians and staunch their quest for more land have been proven mistaken. Rather, driven by rhetoric from Hamas, there is a sense among many Palestinians that powerful Israel was forced out of Gaza, proving the military success of the suicide war. The message, then, is that the only way to get Israel to leave the West Bank is to launch another series of violent attacks. And since the security fence has put a crimp on the efforts of suicide bombers to penetrate into Israel, the next mode of attack will be new Kassam rockets - more accurate and with a longer range - that cannot be stopped by fences or walls.
2005-12-30 00:00:00
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