Weekly Commentary: Rice's Fantasy

Thursday, December 6, 2007 Weekly Commentary: Rice's Fantasy Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 6 December 2007

Reality check:

Nov 19, 2007 - three Palestinian cops murder Israeli Ido Zoldan.
Israel cracks the case by the next day, capturing two of the cop-terrorists, Abdullah Baram and his brother Dafar, who confess and reveal where the murder weapons are hidden as well as the identity of their ringleader, PA cop Fadi Jama, who still remained at large.
Now, if we lived in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's fantasy world, the "moderate" PA leadership would have jumped at the opportunity to clean house, public denouncing the incident while capturing and prosecuting Fadi Jama to the full extent of Palestinian law (the PA "justice" system has capital punishment).

But we don't.

We live in the real world.

The PA isn't prosecuting Fadi Jama. They aren't even going through the motions. Instead he is being held in protective custody so that Israel cannot bring him to real justice.
If we lived in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's fantasy world, the "moderate" PA security forces now being armed to the teeth would be busy clearing out the illegal arms and ammunition from the West Bank.

In the real world many of the bullets that were supposed to strengthen the PA Police have already flooded the Palestinian black market, where they depressed ammunition prices, just as the large number of smuggling tunnels connecting between "peace partner" Egypt and the Gaza Strip is cutting into smuggling profits.

If we lived in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's fantasy world, the sole purpose of the "moderate" PA security forces would be to maintain order within the PA.

In the real world, the "moderate" PA has already warned that if we dare to launch a major operation to finally put an end to the escalating terror emanating from the Gaza Strip that they will join with Hamas to battle the Jewish State.

There is no question that the PA will be able to provide the photo ops that jibe with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's fantasy world. Photo ops that American officials anxious to sign off on Palestinian compliance could readily embrace.
But it won't be reality,
Fantasy based policy may be convenient in the short run, but it ultimately brings disaster.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il Website: http://www.imra.org.il/