Having declared during his election campaign that there was no “Palestinian” peace partner and that unilateral withdrawal was Israel’s only option, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has now seemingly inexplicably shifted course and is seeking to restart negotiations with the PLO.

And this despite the fact PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is apparently on the verge of forging a unity government with those most dedicated to Israel’s demise – the ruling Hamas organization.

There are two possible explanations for this bizarre behavior:

1. Olmert has suffered considerable political damage following the recent Lebanon war, and would like to bring calm to Israel’s external borders before another round of fighting erupts.

   In line with this desire, he is bowing to Arab insistence that Israel will never have peace with its neighbors until it reaches an accord with the “Palestinians.”

2. With his coalition on the verge of collapse, Olmert is relying on the notion that Israelis will be reluctant to go to early elections in the midst of an active round of negotiations.

   Furthermore, he knows that those to the right of his Kadima Party oppose the surrender of Judea and Samaria, and that those to the left oppose unilateral actions in place of a negotiated settlement. Employing the strategy of his predecessors, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, Olmert believes he can enter into negotiations that will inevitably lead nowhere by virtue of “Palestinian” intransigence, thus satisfying the full spectrum of Israeli politics.

Considering that Olmert believes himself to be Sharon’s heir in every way, and that he has demonstrated that his own political survival is of paramount importance, option two seems most likely.

The danger, of course, is that Israel cannot enter into negotiations with the “Palestinians” without the world getting all starry-eyed about the prospect of “peace,” and putting immense pressure on Israel to accept more undesirable terms and offer additional concessions.

There can be no question that with Hamas in charge, the chances for even a pretend peace with the “Palestinians” at this point are next to nothing. And the prime minister knows this. But he is apparently willing to further gamble with the lives of his people for the sake of “four more years.”

The governing Conservatives in Canada displayed outstanding clarity this week when an opposition lawmaker cited Hizb’allah’s “political wing” as justification for treating with the group’s leadership.

Said Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj:

“Hizb’allah has a political wing. They have members of Parliament. They have two cabinet ministers. You want to encourage politicians in this military organization so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.”

The response from Conservative MP Jason Kennedy was right on:

“There was another political party in the past which had democratic support, which provided social services, which played an important role in the political life of its country in Germany in the 1930s, which was also dedicated to violence against the Jewish people.

“The world was wrong to negotiate with that party then, and it would be wrong to negotiate with Hizb’allah today.”

Fortunately that understanding is, for now, also keeping the world from insisting that Israel negotiate with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Shame that Bush Sr. and Clinton did not have such clarity when they accepted Yasser Arafat as a national leader and world diplomat, and strong-armed Israel into talks with the “political arm” of his PLO.

Rightly did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert state that Syria and Iran represent, along with their Hizb’allah proxy, an “axis of evil” determined not only to wipe out the Jewish state, but to bring the entire Judeo-Christian West to its knees.

Amazingly, a growing number of senior Israeli ministers now want to treat with one of the main components of the axis – Syria. And this just days after Syrian dictator Bashar Assad delivered his most venomous warning yet that the Jewish state had better meet his nation’s demands or face a war of annihilation.

According to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, handing over the Golan Heights and signing a piece of paper with Syria will cause the latter to drop its anti-Israel affiliation with Iran and other nasties.

For some reason, many Israelis continue to think they can deal with the Middle East on a state-to-state basis, apparently ignorant of the fact that their Islamic enemy is one, united in its desire to see the “Zionist entity” eliminated. This is evidenced by the fact that the issue of Israel alone is able to cause Sunnis, Shi’ites, Wahhabis, etc to set aside their differences for a common cause.

Israel now risks traveling the route taken by a Neville Chamberlain-led Europe prior to World War II, when it attempted to appease Hitler by sacrificing Czechoslovakia. We all know now, of course, that the concession only whetted Hitler’s appetite for conquest.

The continued description of the Palestinian Arabs as anyone’s peace partners, especially Israel’s, becomes more ludicrous by the day.

“Palestinians” in the Samarian town of Shechem erupted in mass celebration Sunday upon hearing of the deaths of 10 Israeli reservists in a Hizb’allah missile strike in northern Israel. Fireworks were set off, rifles were fired in the air, and candies were passed out to kids – the same kids that will one day be expected by Israel and the West to live in peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state. Yeah, right.

Oh, and by the way America, all those millions you are pumping into the Palestinian Authority are not buying many hearts and minds. They roared with delight, too, when 3,000 of your own were slaughtered by Osama bin Laden’s minions.

A prominent Israeli leftist who formerly advocated surrendering land to Israel’s enemies has seen the error of his ways as a result of the aggression pouring out of Gaza and southern Lebanon.

Playwright Yehoshua Sobol said in a recent radio interview:

“I was wrong when I thought that withdrawing to border lines would bring peace.”

Friday he went even further, slamming those handfuls of Israelis who are demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities against Hizb’allah:

“Anyone who supports an immediate cease-fire is essentially supporting Hizb’allah and it is beyond me how anyone from the Left can come out supporting such a group.”

It is a shame that it takes such tragic circumstances to get these people to wake up, but at least they do wake up. Too bad Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who continues to push his “realignment” agenda, cannot be made to open his eyes.

There is much talk lately of what is the “root cause” of the current fighting in Gaza and southern Lebanon, with much of the world pointing an accusatory finger at Hamas and Hizb’allah.

Former IDF chief Moshe Ya’alon took that one step further by pointing out that the Hamas and Hizb’allah aggression and provocations originated from areas Israel had completely vacated, disproving the long-held belief that “Israeli occupation” is the “root cause” of the wider Middle East conflict. Continue reading »

There is a very important lesson regarding the “land-for-peace” process that Israel must learn from the current battle with Hizb’allah.

Hizb’allah’s raison d’etre – at least as far as the world was concerned – was Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. But six years ago, Israel withdrew from every square inch of Lebanon, as demanded by the international community.

And yet, Hizb’allah remains, and is causing more trouble today than ever before.

That is because Hizb’allah’s true raison d’etre, according to its own covenant and statements, is the annihilation of the Jewish state.

The same is true not only for more “radical” groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also for Fatah and the entire PLO, which were established for the “liberation of Palestine.”

It is telling to watch the reaction of the Palestinian Arabs as Hizb’allah assaults their Israeli “peace” partners. While the entire Arab world outside of Syria is criticizing Hizb’allah, the “Palestinians” are cheering on the Lebanese terrorists.

They are not, as one would expect of participants in their own land-for-peace process, urging Hizb’allah to halt its aggression now that it has achieved its initial territorial demands. No, the “Palestinians” are actually hollering for Hizb’allah to hurry up and start lobbing missiles into Tel Aviv.

The “Palestinians” are demonstrating that even if they are given 100% of Judea, Samaria and Gaza – including eastern Jerusalem – they are as likely as not to follow the lead of their Hizb’allah role models and find a reason (the very existence of Israel) to fight on.

I guess it has been so long since the so-called “Oslo” Accords were signed that the Palestinian Authority forgot it agreed not to conduct foreign relations.

Article IX, Item 5.a of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement clearly states:

In accordance with the DOP, the Council [Palestinian Authority] will not have powers and responsibilities in the sphere of foreign relations, which sphere includes the establishment abroad of embassies, consulates or other types of foreign missions and posts or permitting their establishment in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, the appointment of or admission of diplomatic and consular staff, and the exercise of diplomatic functions.

Israel Thursday morning helped its peace partners to keep in line with their commitments by leveling the PA Foreign Ministry in Gaza City.

For more than a decade Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority flaunted the terms of the “Oslo” peace agreements by refusing to combat and end anti-Jewish “Palestinian” terror.

Now the failure of the Western-brokered land-for-peace process has reached all new lows.

Hamas, one of the terror groups the peace process should have made obsolete and put out of business, is today in control of the PA and has ordered its Western-trained Israeli-armed “policemen” to fight the Israelis and protect the terrorists.

How far must this go before those in power admit this whole formula was a mistake and realize that a new course of action is needed?

A Russian political commentator argues that modern day political correctness is ineffective when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict, and that the two sides should be left to fight it out.

“According to political correctness, bad negotiations are better than a good war. This humane postulate seems beyond question, and therefore all peace initiatives of intermediaries in the Middle East are praised even if they are practically useless. …Political reality is not, and is unlikely to ever become, politically correct.”

The author, Pyotr Romanov, suggests what he admits is today viewed as a “heretical solution”:

“Let the two sides fight it out.”

Romanov goes on to extol the political clarity of the British more than a century ago in realizing there was little that could realistically be done diplomatically to end fighting between the Ottoman Empire and rebel forces in the Balkans, and urging the more emotional Russians to just let the two sides fight it out.

“…the British, who did not know the term ‘political correctness’ then, regarded the problem from the viewpoint of common sense and reason.”