MC and Arafat insist the settlements must be completely withdrawn before any peace deal can be made. Let’s focus on a simple, yet fundamental, question: are the Palestinians living up to their commitments as laid down in the road map?
On June 4, at the Aqaba summit, Abu Mazen stood before the television cameras and said, “A new opportunity for peace exists, an opportunity based upon President Bush’s vision and the Quartet’s road map, which we have accepted
without any reservations.”
Thus, with Bush, Sharon and King Abdullah of Jordan at his side, the Palestinian leader formally undertook to abide by the road map and its obligations.
Among other things, the road map requires the Palestinian Authority to halt terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. It explicitly requires that, “the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence.”
A look at the record, however, reveals that since Aqaba, rather than putting a halt to terror, the Palestinians have in fact accelerated it.
According to statistics compiled by the IDF, there were a total of 142 Palestinian terror attacks in the ten days prior to the Aqaba summit. But in the ten days immediately following it, there were 154 such attacks, signifying an increase in anti-Israel terrorism of almost 10 percent.
These included shootings, stabbings, bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and the detonation of explosive devices against civilian vehicles.
Moreover, in the ten-day period before Aqaba, no Israelis were killed by Palestinian terror, whereas in the corresponding period after Aqaba, 28 Israelis lost their lives.
Hence, both in terms of the quantity of terror as well as its lethality, the Palestinians have clearly failed to live up to their road map obligation to bring about an end to the violence.
The second key Palestinian commitment under the road map involves putting a stop to anti-Israel incitement. The document requires that “all official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel in the Palestinian media.”
Accordingly, Abu Mazen offered the following pledge at Aqaba: “We will also act vigorously against incitement and violence and hatred, whatever their form or forum may be. We will take measures to ensure that there is no incitement from
Palestinian institutions.”
Those were pretty strong words. For the first time in recent memory, a Palestinian leader was speaking out unequivocally against incitement to violence against the Jewish state. But the pertinent question is: have those words been backed up by action?
Two days after the summit, on June 6, the official Palestinian Authority radio station under Abu Mazen’s control broadcast its regular series of weekly Friday prayer sermons. In the first homily, the preacher chose to heap praise on the Palestinian “resistance”, which is better known to the rest of the world as the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, saying, “We salute our political parties and resistance factions, who call for unity.”
The second preacher decided to denounce the establishment of the State of Israel, calling it a “disaster” and a “catastrophe”.
A week later, on June 13, the rhetoric grew even harsher, when Abu Mazen’s official TV and radio broadcast a sermon from the Sheikh Ijlin mosque in Gaza in which the preacher said, “O Allah, punish our enemies. O Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. O Allah, destroy the United States and its allies.”
Hence, it is clear that the Palestinians are not living up to the
anti-incitement requirements of the road map. Not only has Abu Mazen failed to stop such incitement, but the media organs under his direct control have continued to engage in it.
Finally, the road map also requires the Palestinians to take a serious of tough steps against terrorist groups. These include a requirement to “commence confiscation of illegal weapons”, dismantle “terrorist capabilities and infrastructure”, and undertake “visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt
and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.”
Nevertheless, no such steps have yet been taken by the Palestinian Authority. Instead, Abu Mazen has been negotiating with the terrorist groups, and has publicly vowed that he would not use force against them.
In the two weeks since Aqaba, the Palestinians have not arrested any terrorist leaders, nor have they confiscated any illegal weapons. The terrorist groups’ infrastructure remains intact, and they now know that they have no reason to
fear a crackdown.
Thus, on all three counts - ending anti-Israel violence, stopping incitement, and clamping down on terror groups - the Palestinians have failed to deliver the goods. Abu Mazen is batting a solid zero in terms of performance, striking out on all counts.
Yet Israel is taken to task for making only a “token” gesture on a matter important to its very existence.