The Gaza Strip Withdrawl
The Ball In Their Court
Aaron Goldman
Issue date: 1/19/06 Section: World Views
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In recent months, Israel has revealed a sense of sincerity which it has not exhibited in the past: the disengagement from Gaza along with prompt evacuation of settlements, as well as the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt with an agreement allowing European Union supervisors at the crossing. Israel even left behind vacant Israeli greenhouses for Palestinian farmers and has recently brokered a trade deal to support Gaza's ailing economy, despite Palestinian terrorist threats against Israel. The Israel Defense Forces have also recently, at least temporarily, ceased the targeted killings against leaders of Palestinian terrorist organizations. A day before this week's homicide bombing in Netanya, the Israel Defense Forces declared the permitted entry of an additional 6,000 Palestinian employees and 1,000 Palestinian merchants to work in Israel. The predominant response by Palestinians was to increase homicide bombings in Israeli cities and Qassam rocket fire from northern Gaza by Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Islamic Jihad toward Israel's Negev communities.
Of course, not all Palestinians are to blame for the incessant attacks against Israel as not all physically participate in the launching of rockets towards Israeli homes, or the bombing of innocent civilians in Israeli streets. Not all Palestinians aid terrorist organizations in raising money to support the families of homicide bombers. Not all Palestinians refuse to acknowledge the self determination of world Jewry and the right for a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East. Then again, not all Germans in the 1940s aided the Nazis in the lynching of their Jewish neighbors in ghettos, or the patrolling of the death camps, or the enforcement of anti-Semitic German laws, and the annihilation of some of their finest citizens. They chose instead to contribute to such atrocity with a proud and everlasting sense of identity as Germans, or in this case, as Palestinians, by looking blindly towards the criminal actions of their politicians, their neighbors, their people. Such sentiment is not based on a matter of cowardness or fear of consequences; it is one of hate, bitterness, and antipathy.
Of course, not all Palestinians are to blame for the incessant attacks against Israel as not all physically participate in the launching of rockets towards Israeli homes, or the bombing of innocent civilians in Israeli streets. Not all Palestinians aid terrorist organizations in raising money to support the families of homicide bombers. Not all Palestinians refuse to acknowledge the self determination of world Jewry and the right for a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East. Then again, not all Germans in the 1940s aided the Nazis in the lynching of their Jewish neighbors in ghettos, or the patrolling of the death camps, or the enforcement of anti-Semitic German laws, and the annihilation of some of their finest citizens. They chose instead to contribute to such atrocity with a proud and everlasting sense of identity as Germans, or in this case, as Palestinians, by looking blindly towards the criminal actions of their politicians, their neighbors, their people. Such sentiment is not based on a matter of cowardness or fear of consequences; it is one of hate, bitterness, and antipathy.