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The Inevitable Disintegration of the Hudna

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Eli Kazhdan and David Keyes - Roadmap requirements have been categorically ignored both by the Palestinian Authority and the Quartet. This was due partly to the fact that the hudna, a temporary truce offered by the terrorist organizations, never fulfilled the terms of the roadmap's cease-fire. While the demand for "effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure" is explicitly clear, PA Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas repeatedly insisted that he would not dismantle the terrorist organizations but would persuade them through a dialogue. Despite a call for "confiscation of illegal weapons," a vast network of some 50,000 illegal arms, 24 bomb manufacturing plants, and 20 weapons smuggling enterprises is being systematically ignored by the PA. Thus, rather than reducing the weaponry of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in accordance with the roadmap, their military capabilities grew. The roadmap calls on Arab states to "cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror." Yet Saudi Arabia funds approximately 60% of Hamas's budget and the Saudi share of Hamas funding is growing. The U.S. and its European allies compromised their own roadmap by working with the Palestinian hudna. Now with the breakdown in security they should be supporting the steps Israel must undertake to protect its citizens. Israel has every moral right to complete the construction of a separation fence along a route of its choosing in order to optimize the protection of its citizens.
2003-08-26 00:00:00
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