Current Bulletin Issue - Volume 18, Bulletin 2, June 2005

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THE PALESTINIAN CHALLENGE TO FREEDOM

The Palestinians, like all Arabs, tend to prefer strong autocratic rulers, who exploit public funds for their personal benefit, often salting them away abroad. Talk of reform usually leads nowhere. The PLO attitude to foreign statesmen is guided by a simple formula: Demand everything you want and call anyone not ready to give it to you a lackey of Israel. Though Fatah controls the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, it is scared of Hamas, which is more popular in the Palestinian street. This means that any election scheduled is likely to be postponed if Hamas is likely to win it or make serious gains. It also means that – Road Map or no Road Map – the Palestinian Authority will NOT confiscate the arms of Hamas or other dissident groups and only very rarely tries to prevent their terrorist acts. Arafat exploited them to advance his own political agenda. Mahmoud Abbas may do so yet.

Certainly, neither Abbas nor any other conceivable Palestinian leader will give as much as a fleeting thought to the destroying of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. They have no intention of disarming their own terrorist movements – the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Tanzim – so why invite a civil war with the others?

So the terrorism against Israel continues.