Changing the game
Israel and the PA should declare jointly that no terrorists will go free
What could challenge the feeling of stability Israeli and Palestinian leaders are trying to create more than a major terror attack in the heart of Tel Aviv on the same day the new Palestinian cabinet was approved and just before an international conference on helping the ailing Palestinian economy?
It is seemingly easy to distinguish between good and bad Palestinians. The headlines in Israel claim perpetrators of the suicide bombing wanted to strike at Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas no less than they wanted to kill Jews. Learned commentators explain that the current political process between Israel and the Palestinians should continue as if there is no terror. But this is to ignore the past decade of terror and its victims, as a result of the misguided policy that attempted to do exactly this – to help the good Palestinians against the bad.
Sure, Abbas is not Arafat. He really wants peace. At least this is the estimate of many Israelis. So is it preferable for Israel to return to the policy of targeted killings, to stop the political process or to delay the disengagement?
On the one hand, if Israel lets such a terror attack pass, and the next one as well, how can a Palestinian stand up and say terror endangers the Palestinian interests and must be eradicated? And if he does stand up, why would anyone listen to him after it’s become clear that terror attacks can be committed and Palestinian interests can be realized?
From this perspective it appears Abbas perhaps needs some kind of proof he can present to his people to show terror truly does not pay.
At least at this stage it is clear Abbas has chosen the Arafat approach. When he was interested in reducing the level of violence, he chose a hudna (cease-fire) agreement with the terrorists rather than a direct confrontation with them.
But it is plausible to assume that in contrast to Arafat, who used the hudna to mislead the world, Abbas needs it to increase his power in the territories, which could in the future allow him to use his renewed strength to neutralize the terrorists.
If this is the way things are, if Israel pushes Abbas into a direct confrontation with the terrorists, which would mean taking actions for which he is neither prepared nor fit, it would mean pushing the Palestinian leader into a chasm by his own hands.
Everyone is right. And everyone also knows that as long as this current dilemma continues, which is the real dilemma facing Israel, the next terror attack, which will be on a similar scale, will be dealt with in the same manner. The only option is to find a way of operating that, even if only symbolic, demonstrates that Israel is not going back to the failed policy of turning a blind eye to terror attacks during the peace process.
Because it appears that today the Palestinian Authority also believes terror harms its people’s interests, the government of Israel should demand that Abbas be part of a joint declaration, in wake of the Tel Aviv suicide bombing, that from this date forward, anyone arrested for involvement in preparing a terror attack or helping to carry it out, will never be freed from his jail cell, even if Israel and the Palestinians sign peace agreement in the future.
Such a joint declaration would change in the rules of the game and be a clear statement to the Palestinian public about how the Palestinian Authority views terror. It would also likely prompt Abbas to raise the stakes for terrorists involved in preparing attacks but who are not willing to commit suicide themselves.
-Dr. Boaz Ganor is deputy dean of the Lauder School of Government and Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and served as consultant to Israeli Government Ministries on counter-terrorism.
