What the Israeli Left Doesn't Want You to Know

The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick has written Column One: Sharon's terror masters in which she discusses the implications of two revealing comments made by the PA's Abu Mazen. The entire article is must reading but I will do my best to summarize the high points for you.

...on Tuesday, Abbas said that upon receiving security control of Jericho, he would release from custody all of the Palestinian terrorists who have been incarcerated there since May 2002.

Those terrorists, who were transferred to Jericho from Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters as part of a British and US deal with Israel, include the assassins of tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi in October 2001 and Fuad Shubaki, the PA's chief arms purchaser who oversaw the Karine A terror weapons ship purchase from Iran that was intercepted by Israeli commandos on the Red Sea in January 2002.

Meanwhile, journalists have reported that rather than imprisoned, these people have relative freedom in the compound and are essentially being sheltered from Israeli forces.

On Wednesday, Mazen told the terror masters from Damascus that after the Israelis are out and power has been transferred, they'd be welcomed to move their headquarters to the Gaza Strip. So after all the Jews are expelled from their homes, Mazen will transform the area into a base for global terror. Glick makes an interesting point in respect to this:

This offer can be viewed as particularly credible given that it was made in the presence of Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Mualem, whose government is now facing increasing international condemnation for enabling these global terrorists to operate in its capital.

Surprisingly, at least to Glick, Israel's government didn't lay down over this one.

Government members and spokesmen took to the microphones immediately after Abbas's statement was published and said that if he dared to free Ze'evi's killers, Israel would contemplate ending the peace process and hunt them down.

Well, that's something! But Glick was surprised by their reaction, given that Sharon and the others gave credence to the demand that all Palestinian terrorists be released from its jails. In fact, Glick feels that every single demand made by the PA chieftain has been met with understanding by Sharon.

Israel has accepted Abbas's demand that it stop trying to catch terror fugitives. Israel has accepted his demand that it allow the Palestinian mass murderers who violently took over the Church of the Nativity in April 2002 to return to Bethlehem from their European exile and receive amnesty for their crimes.

The government has made no protest against Abbas's order to execute 15 Palestinians who are accused of having helped our security forces fight Palestinian terrorists. And Israel has made no protest over the fact that according to IDF sources, wanted Palestinian terrorists are being sheltered in Abbas's offices in Ramallah.

The reason Glick thinks the government is showing signs of outrage is because of public opinion. She discusses predictions made by a couple of Major Generals that Gaza would turn into a new Afghanistan.

Sharon has ignored all such warnings, has fired cabinet ministers and cut short the service of security officials who have doubted the wisdom of his withdrawal policies and has plowed ahead, demonizing and criminalizing his detractors.

So what do we expect Sharon to do now that Abbas has announced his intention to prove all Sharon's naysayers correct? The only thing he can do, if he wishes to continue to force through his plan, is to keep his head down and hope that no one notices what is happening. In this bid he is being ably assisted – to the point of ostensible collusion – by the Israeli media.

Sound familiar? Apparently, almost no media is reporting about this development. But for me, the disturbing part of this is what's going on in the United States.

According to a report this week in The Forward newspaper, Americans for Peace Now, like the Israel Policy Forum, two of the most left wing groups on the American Jewish political and organizational spectrum, are now actively colluding with the Israeli Embassy in Washington and consulates throughout the US to combat opposition to Sharon's policies among American Jews and American Christian supporters of Israel.

On Monday, Ambassador Danny Ayalon participated in a forum on Capitol Hill sponsored by American Friends of Peace Now together with the PLO representative to Washington and the Jordanian and Egyptian ambassadors.

***
In an interview with The Forward, Arye Mekel, the consul-general in New York, said that neutralizing opponents to Sharon's withdrawal policy is "the No. 1 priority on the agenda of the consulates at the moment, and it's the task that is keeping me the busiest."

How about the number one thing being supporting Israel in general? Do we really want to make this the cause out there? Because as they waste their time doing this, the terrorists are getting busy.

Reportedly on Thursday, Islamic Jihad and Hamas accepted the idea of a "thahadiya" or a temporary cessation of attacks for a defined time period. In jihad rhetoric, the purpose of a "thahadiya" is to regroup to enable the forces of jihad to fight their infidel enemy more successfully in the next round.

Glick asks the tough questions about the Cairo conference. I'm sure that the Israeli government hates when she makes such sense but you can't help but see the logic in her discourse.

One of the most absurd aspects of the Cairo discussions as a whole is that in all its concessions to the Palestinians since Abbas replaced Yasser Arafat last November, Israel has justified its moves to the public and to the Americans as payback to Abbas for his achievement of a cease-fire with the terrorists.

And yet, if he already has a cease-fire agreement, why is he negotiating one now? And again, if he is a peaceable man, why is he employing the language of jihad together with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad?

And further, why is Egypt being praised by Israel and the US for hosting this terror parley, whose clear aim is to legitimize terror and whose direct result is Abbas's offer to turn Gaza – where Egypt has supposedly agreed to block terrorists from entering after Israel withdraws – into an epicenter of global terrorism?

She asserts that the answers to these questions lie in internal Israeli politics. Sharon has made his bed, like Rabin and Barak before him, by relying on the whims of terrorists. If Sharon unmasked the man behind the curtain for who he really is, he'd be admitting that his detractors were right all along. Since he isn't doing that, Glick is calling for new elections so as to prevent a "new base for global terror on the outskirts of Ashkelon" -- and it's hard to blame her.

I pretty much gave you the entire article; it was too hard to leave anything out. I feel her pain. While I'm not sure I agree on new elections, I do wish that Sharon would cut his losses and return to being the leader Israel thought they'd elected.