After decades, perhaps centuries, in which we, Jews, have been able to count on the Arabs to rescue us from the catastrophic errors of our own leaders by committing even worse errors—as the late Abba Eban put it: The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity—we may be up against the first Arab who is a whole lot better than us at using opportunities, and how.

Mahmoud Abbas, whom Arabs and Israelis call by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, has figured out how to outmaneuver his opponent, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and how to defeat the greatest democracy with the strongest army in the region. Frankly, the only real hope Israel has at the moment is that some Palestinian idiot would assassinate the crafty Abbas, and leave Netanyahu to deal with leaders to whom he can measure up.

Secretary of State John Kerry is coming to town next week, ready to twist Israeli arms, and we might as well face up to it: the Obama and Kerry visits have been planned as a one-two punch, with Abu Mazen being heavily prompted to let America do the job for him.

When Barack Obama was making nice with our children in Jerusalem, he made a statement that, at the time, sounded like a rebuke to the Palestinians, who had been insisting that the precondition to renewing talks on peace with the Israelis is a new settlement freeze.

That one was right out of Abba Eban’s book of missing opportunities. Netanyahu tried a settlement freeze early on in his second term. It didn’t bring the Arabs to the table, but it did create a fervent resentment against him among settlers, who responded by doubling Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home Knesset faction, all at the expense of Bibi’s Likud party.

Palestinian sovereignty and Israeli security are “the core issue,” Obama told Abbas in Ramallah. “If we solve those two problems, the settlement problem will be solved.”

It wasn’t a rebuke, it was golden advise, it was the kind of strategic thinking the Palestinians had not been able to generate, with the glaring exception of the UN assembly statehood vote – which was Abu Mazen’s brainchild, he managed to break the fundamental rules of the Oslo Accords and got away with it relatively unscathed.

Now the PA president has announced that he won’t be asking for settlements freeze as a precondition, he wants to see a map instead. Let Mr. Netanyahu bring to the first meeting of the new round of negotiations his version of where the new Palestinian state should be.

It sounds so harmless. After all, what’s more logical than starting the wheeling and dealing with each side showing where they think the new border should run in the future. One side wants this much, the other side wants only this much – and they’ll reach a compromise.

In reality, this demand robs Netanyahu of his entire arsenal of negotiation moves. In Netanyahu’s play book, you get to map drawing in the distant future, years from now, after a lengthy series of small moves, tweaks, minute gestures, back and forth. If he shows his map at the start, then the future borders become the one and only topic of negotiations, everything else is moot, the battle has been lost before it began.

Meanwhile, AFP reports, President Mahmoud Abbas will temporarily refrain from unilateral action against Israel at the UN and other international arenas, to give U.S.-brokered peace talks a chance to resume.

For a couple of months, the Palestinians will nobly “refrain from taking a case against Israel to the International Criminal Court,” an anonymous Palestinian source told AFP.

But the same official warned that if Israel failed to halt settlement building, the PA would immediately begin working through the international bodies again.

“Settlement building in E1 is a red line and erecting so much as one stone in the area … would destroy the two-state solution,” he said.

Speaking of stones, the PA has been utilizing those very well, along with firebombs, sending bands of angry, unemployed youths to literally get themselves killed by challenging IDF units all across Judea and Samaria. Two Arab teenagers have already been killed, and young Arabs in the Hebron area continued to clash with Israeli troops all day Thursday, protesting the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, who was serving a long prison sentence for attempted murder, in Israeli custody. Abu Hamdiyeh died from cancer which the Israeli prison system failed to cure.

Occasionally a journalist must show his readers a disturbing, difficult and complex picture, so that they will not be surprised when reality hits them in the face. It is not my intention to spread anti-Israeli propaganda, but rather to illustrate the prevailing mood that confronts us, for this is the task that I am entrusted with and this is the responsibility that rests on my shoulders.

“Since the PA is meaningless, dissolve it if you can and leave us be!!”

By Ahmed Muhsin

Western media have publicized Abbas’s announcement and called it “Earth-shattering News”, thus revealing how the West regards the PA. We have no intention of analyzing the announcements, their meaning or their timing (the Israeli pre-election season) but only to raise questions that we have heard from the various shades and sectors of the general public. The people are convinced that the PA is not the seed from which a Palestinian state will sprout.  Those who designed it and brought it here have promised us (so that the masses will applaud them and we will believe in it) that it will bring us peace that will turn us into Singapore in Palestine.

The PA is a bitter experiment for which the Palestinian people have paid a high price, as we see today and as the martyr Abu Amar (Yasir Arafat) remarked in his last days. The result, which we witness and live each and every moment in the occupied territories, is a rapid growth of settlements, the building of the racist separation wall, the Judaization of Jerusalem and the land, a rise in the number of captives and prisoners, security collaboration with the occupiers, dependency of our people on the hook of salaries that the PA pays, to the point where we beg our enemies to pay us what we have earned and beg for crumbs at the doors of donors, who pay and give grants – and nothing comes for free – in addition to the results of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PA, which caused the shameful split (between the PLO and Hamas). So where is the threat in dissolving the PA when it is [directed/ toward the occupation and especially to Netanyahu? Must we wait until the outcome of the elections in the occupying country with its militaristic society? Must we wait also for the results of the elections in the United States in order to formulate]] our policy each time anew?

Is the slogan “The PA is a national achievement” true or false? Are those right who claim that the PA is not a Palestinian entity, and that’s why it serves its resignation to its masters (the Israelis)? Is it logical that an entity that is on such a (high) level as the PA, a state with observer status at the UN, should present its resignation to the occupation and call for the occupation to return and its army invade Palestinian land? Is Abu Mazen the only one who has the authority to take the decision to dissolve the PA? Where are the Palestinian institutions, who are interested in the subject? The PLO? The Fatah Movement? The various Palestinian offshoots? Was the issue presented to them and were they consulted on the matter of dissolution of the PA? Or perhaps we belong to the third world and have become a one-man organization, a one-man political entity where all governmental authorities are held by one man?

Was the goal of Abu Mazen’s threat to dissolve the PA and hand over the keys of the West Bank to the Israeli occupation, just another attempt to drag Israel into negotiations by pressuring Israel and the United States; will he give up the condition that settlement activity must be stopped before returning to negotiations? If this is true, can the problem of Palestine endure another twenty years, treading a path with no possibility of arriving at a solution?

Does Abu Mazen have the authority to decide to dissolve the PA? Can such a decision be reached by Palestinians alone (without the involvement of higher bodies such as the Arab League and the UN)? Why – after all of the marching in place – is there no decision to confront the arrogant occupation and call for (violent) resistance as the martyr Yasir Arafat did, may Allah have mercy on him? Is Abu Mazen serious in the threat to dissolve the PA? Or perhaps it is just another empty threat, like previous threats which were not carried out? Does Abu Mazen hear the voices of nationalist demands to return to the situation that preceded the Oslo Accords and its consequences, to escalate the (violent) resistance and to place the responsibility on the occupation, especially in light of the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territories?

Will Abu Mazen carry out the threat to dissolve the PA? Or perhaps he will respond to the pressure of special-interest groups who stand to gain from the continuation of the PA, are these the topics that provide meaningless descriptions for the hallucinatory analysts of the situation? These people produce declarations] that weaken our determination; they are bullies of surrender, supporters of the (Zionist) lie who defend it at any price, under the illusory signs and slogans that have no connection to reality beyond their own narrow interests.

Is the threat to dissolve the PA the admission of the Oslo architects of its utter failure? Will a power vacuum reign in the occupied territories after the dissolution of the PA? (This is the most concerning situation of all, because then the Arab society in Judea and Samaria might deteriorate into violent internal conflicts, as is currently happening in Syria.) Will the resistance (Hamas) fill this void? (What will the situation be between Hamas and the PLO) after the reorganization of the PLO and activation of its institutions, as it continues to grapple with the occupation until liberation, the return (of the refugees into Israeli territory), the achievement of freedom and independence?

Dissolve it! O Abu Mazen if you could only do that!!! Turn your threat into reality!!! Translate it into deeds!!! Enough already with empty talk and wasting time, because the PA has become meaningless and it doesn’t even have control of its own decisions. It is a mere hired hand, or contractor for the occupation, and there will not be a power vacuum after the dissolution, since the heroic arms of the resistance will be there to deal with the occupation and sweep it off to hell!!!”

This concludes the article, which, in my opinion, reflects the mood of many. In the past seven years, since the second intifada was put down, many have forgotten its horrors and severe consequences, and many youths – who were only children then – have today become “shabab” who lead the resistance against Israel. There is in this situation a generational struggle, between the elders who seek a solution and the youth, who see solution as surrender.

On his official Facebook page last Saturday, Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) negated the concept of 2 states divided on the basis of the Green Line, and said that the Palestinians also have claims to the “lands the Israelis occupied before 1967″.

In his post Abbas says that he doesn’t just claim the West Bank, but wants to take all of the Land of Israel. By the UN to recognizing Palestinian rights to the West Bank, “it also proves that Palestinians have rights to all the land that is occupied.”

In short, Abu Mazen is saying he doesn’t support a two-state solution and an end to the conflict, just an end to Israel.

PM Netanyahu said in July that, “The Palestinians haven’t made peace all these years, ever since Israel began talks with them, because they are not just talking about the West bank, but they also want Haifa and Tel Aviv, and have not given up on that dream.”

Abu Mazen just confirmed that.

A scheduled meeting of prominent American Jews with Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was cancelled under heavy pressure from Israel’s Prime Minister’s office. Both American and Israeli sources confirmed the report in Maariv.

A private meeting was scheduled in New York on Monday between Abu Mazen, who had come to attend United Nations deliberations, and several influential members of the American Jewish community. The meeting had been arranged by Jewish media tycoon Mort Zuckerman, who is considered close to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Also invited were VP of the Conference of Presidents Malcolm Honlin and Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

When the prime minister became aware of the pending meeting, he informed Zuckerman that it was unacceptable for the Jewish community will meet the Palestinian Authority chairman as long as he refuses, in policy, to meet with the Israeli leader.

As a result, the meeting was cancelled. A Jewish source in New York told: “In light of Abu Mazen’s actions and his refusal to meet the prime minister, this was the necessary conclusion.” The Prime Minister’s office refused to comment.

Israel’s problem with the Palestinians is that it has not established a clear strategy, or any strategy at all for that matter, regarding its most intimate neighbors, “and that is why we are not leading any course of action except merely responding,” argued on Thursday Israel Beitenu leader and Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.

“All we try and achieve with the Palestinians is to keep the quiet at all costs,” he complained.

Liberman’s contribution would be to remove the current president of the PA, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas):

“Between Abu Mazen and Khaled Mashaal there is a clear division of labor. Khaled Mashaal leads the armed terror and Abu Mazen the diplomatic terror. This is the division of labor and all of Abu Mazen’s initiatives in the international arena point to diplomatic terror: The Durban Conference, accusations that Israel is an “Apartheid” state, filing alleged war crimes charges at The Hague against the IDF, the creation of an investigative commission at the UN Human Rights Council, boycotts against Israel, Israeli academia and Israeli products, unilateralism at the United Nations and UNESCO and the charges against Israel of stealing natural resources from the Palestinians. All of these are examples of blatant diplomatic terror that is led by Abu Mazen himself.”

Wait, there’s more:

“Other examples of this, are calls for a square named after the ‘Engineer’ Yehiya Ayyash and a street named after Dalal Mughrabi. Both were vicious murderers responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent women, children and infants.

“In addition, Abu Mazen organized a homecoming celebration for the terrorists released in the Shalit deal, including those responsible for the murders in the Sbarro Restaurant and the Park Hotel in Netanya, who he called ‘freedom fighters’ – and gave them a financial reward of $5,000 and an apartment.”

In Liberman’s view, “These facts speak for themselves.”

But even if Israel were to forgive Abu Mazen all of his underhanded tactics, and decided to trust him with her security, the problem remains that, according to Liberman, “Abu Mazen is unable to deliver the goods.”

It’s been several years since the Fatah has lost control over Gaza, where the ruling government is sworn to eliminate the Jewish state. But Abu Mazan’s legitimacy is problematic in the PA as well.

“He continuously postpones the elections for the presidency, the parliament and municipal elections for years,” argued Liberman. Therefore, “there is also a clear understanding that in Judea and Samaria he also has no real control. He has no legitimacy, and even if we were to sign an agreement with Abu Mazen, it is clear that any Palestinian government that arises after him will claim that the agreement has no support and will not be recognized. They will then say: What he received, we received and now we will start again from scratch.”

Liberman, who has written to the Quartet of Mideast mediators – the U.S., the UN, the EU and Russia – this week, calling for new elections in the Palestinian Authority in order to replace Abbas, and accusing the Palestinian Authority of being ‘a despotic government riddled with corruption,’” says it’s time Israel start to “initiate and lead courses of actions, and not remain passive and only react to the initiatives of others.”

Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, said Liberman’s statement to the Quartet was an “incitement to violence” that “doesn’t contribute in any way to an atmosphere of peace.” He said Israel and the international community must condemn the letter.

But then, elections for new Palestinian leadership were scheduled for 2010, and have been delayed because it’s quite possible Hamas could take over in Judea and Samaria as well..

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disassociate himself from the Liberman letter. An official in the prime minister’s office told the AP: “While Abbas has created difficulties for restarting negotiations, the government of Israel remains committed to continuing efforts to restart a dialogue with the Palestinians.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement…

According to Foreign Policy magazine, in an article titled Hard times in Hebron, the United States has spent $3.4 billion in development funds in the Palestinian territories of West Bank and Gaza

So, it appears that this poor, oppressed, underdeveloped Arab city has doubled the number of building permits issued since 2006, and is preparing to solicit bids for a road to a new $13 million water treatment facility — financed, of course, by USAID.

Not everyone is happy about spending so much money in the PA.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “By providing the Palestinians with $2.5 billion over the last five years, the U.S. has only rewarded and reinforced their bad behavior.”

The US State Department disagrees: “We think it is money that is not only in the interest of the Palestinians; it’s in U.S. interest and it’s also in Israeli interest.”

What is this money used for?

New schools were built to teach incitement ["The Zionist gangs stole Palestine ... and established the state of Israel"], and judges were trained to sentence Arabs selling property to Jews to death [PA affirms death penalty for land sales to Israelis].

What about accountability? Where is the money really going? Where are hundreds of millions of dollars that went missing under Yasser Arafat?

Ghassan Khatib, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority: “This money is going mainly to development and humanitarian projects. There is no justified reason for holding it. It’s important for stabilization.”

From the objective of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, ‘development and humanitarian projects’ are those that “counter and limit Israeli settlements inside the Old city [of Hebron] by surrounding settlements with inhabited buildings to prevent their horizontal expansion; and avert the urban interconnection of these settlements by increasing Arab demographic density between them.”

There are others who believe and act otherwise. South Carolina State Representative Allan Clemmons initiated a resolution, passed unanimously, declaring: “Whereas, Israel has been granted her lands under and through the oldest recorded deed as reported in the Old Testament, a tome of scripture held sacred and reverenced by Jew and Christian, alike, as the acts and words of God; and Whereas, as the Grantor of said lands, God stated to the Jewish people in the Old Testament; in Leviticus, Chapter 20, Verse 24: ‘Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey’; and Whereas, God has never rescinded his grant of said lands.”

This resolution was used as a model for a similar resolution passed in Florida, called Florida Stands with Israel. And most recently, the Republican National Committee adopted a similar policy, with a resolution stating: “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the members of this body support Israel in their natural and God-given right of self-governance and self-defense upon their own lands, recognizing that Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others; and that peace can be afforded the region only through a united Israel governed under one law for all people.”

Presently, USAID to Arab Hebron is in jeopardy as a result of Abu Mazen’s attempt to unilaterally declare a ‘Palestinian state’ at the United Nations as reported in the Foreign Policy article quoted above. This ‘threat’ to stop USAID to Arab Hebron must be consummated, and the flow of billions of American taxpayers money halted.

I have no doubt that as Rep. Allan Clemmons, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Rep. Louis Gohmert from Texas, (who introduced a similar resolution in the US House of Representatives) and other like-minded US politicians continue in major leadership positions in the United States, they will ensure that US tax dollars are properly utilized, rather funneled to their enemies and ours.

Each day we read and hear about new atrocities carried out by Arab terrorists and we find that our reactions have become numbed. Our own Israeli government is so filled with a spirit of self-delusion that we wonder why every leader who reaches the Prime Minister’s chair suddenly develops an unshakable faith in Arab promises.

What would happen, I wonder, if Southern white supremacists would blow up a busload of black children and adults? The government would go bananas to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators. They would not negotiate a “Black free” zone and offer the white supremacists time to regroup and rearm and live quietly in their own enclaves. Above all, the Southern blacks would not agree to a policy of appeasement and concessions. Yet, President Bush and world politicians demand that Israel negotiate and leave the poor “freedom fighters” alone. Isn’t American policy a two-faced policy to demand that Israel negotiate with and grant concessions to those who deliberately murder Jewish children?

It is also strange that the normally super-critical news media allows the Arabs to turn fiction into truth and to blame the victims for their own murders. Isn’t it strange that the normally aggressive news media calls “murder” killing? They write, “Twenty three killed by suicide bomber” instead of “Twenty three murdered by a terrorist murderer!” They make it sound so parve.

Everyone is affected and everyone is hurting, but Arik Sharon, in his old age, turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to what is happening and he continues to offer concessions and to capitulate to American pressure. I recently attended a Bris in an ultra-religious community in Jerusalem. The Chareidi rabbis are very careful not to deviate from the accepted text, and I was very surprised when the Mohel expanded the traditional blessing for a quick healing of the newly circumcised child by adding a phrase asking Hashem to also heal the recently wounded victims of Arab terrorism.

I wonder what our government expects to happen and what exactly is the plan. Do Sharon or Peres actually believe that Abu Mazen will actively prevent Arab terror? Does anyone really believe that the Arabs will be satisfied with the small subsection of the entire Palestine that Israel is offering to give them? Will they be happy with any partial division? Do our leaders really believe that the Arabs will stop trying to wipe out every trace of history that shows that Jews ever lived in Israel, as they are doing on the Temple Mount?

Does anyone actually believe that the Arabs want to co-exist with Jews in a Jewish state? Has any Arab stood up and said, “Let’s share our homeland with the Jews”? Does any Israeli really believe that the world will think any better of us if we make “painful” concessions and if we continue to quietly bury those murdered by Arab terrorists and not react with the full power of our armed forces? Are our leaders really so religious that they have implicit faith that their prayers for “reasonable” Arab leaders to arise from among the terrorist murderers will be
answered?

It is that time of year when all of us should examine our motivations and plans. It is time that
Jewish and Israeli leaders begin to seriously examine their dreams and motivations. It is time for American and world leaders to be honest with themselves. It is time to stop the murders of innocent Jews. It is time to realize that the fiction that “there is no military solution” is a ridiculous fiction. It is time to realize that no matter what we Jews do, the world will criticize us, so let’s do what needs to be done to make terrorism against Jews too costly for the Arabs.

Comments may be sent to: dov@gilor.com

Those of you who have been following my columns will recall that, time and again, I have pointed out that one can always find a correlation between the parsha and events that unfold before our very eyes. And this past week, Abu Mazen’s visit to the White House was no exception. Parshas Ma’asei reminds us that the land of Israel is our Goral - our G-d given destiny (Bamidbar 33:54, 34:13). The land was not simply acquired on the battlefield, but was given to us by the Almighty G-d Himself as an eternal inheritance. So President Bush may push his Road Map, the European Union may spout its anti-Semitic venom, Abu Mazen may make his belligerent demands, and Sharon may cave in, but Eretz Yisrael will forever remain ours – for in the end, it is G-d’s “Road Map” that will triumph, and this quartet-sponsored road map will go by the way of all previous “peace plans”. The only painful question is how much Jewish blood will have to be spilled in the process.

There is something odious about the Road Map – it is rotten from its source. Stop and consider for a moment – who are its authors’ Russia, who throughout Israel’s existence has supplied Israel’s enemies with the most lethal weapons? Russia, who has a long history of pogroms and persecution of Jews? The UN, which from its very inception has shown its bias against Israel and sought every opportunity to condemn her? The UN, which to this very moment in time denies Israel the right to a seat on the Security Council - a privilege granted to all other nations? The members of the European Union whose virulent anti-Semitism made the Holocaust possible? It is unconscionable that Israel, a sovereign, independent state, should be pressured to accept policies affecting her very survival from these nations.

To be sure, there is also the U.S., the fourth member of the quartet. Yes, the United States has traditionally been a friend of Israel, but politics make strange bedfellows, and it is obvious that our President is trying to curry favor with the Arabs who feel violated by the Iraqi war. Furthermore, he has to pay his dues to Tony Blair, who made support for the Road Map one of the conditions for British participation in the invasion of Iraq. Based on these facts alone, the Road Map should be rejected out of hand by Israel. Prime Minister Sharon should remind President Bush (whose belief in the Bible is no secret), that even the best of plans, when they emanate from a malevolent source, are unacceptable. Such was the case with Laban. G-d warned him: “Stay away, do not speak with Jacob good or bad” (Genesis 31:24). The teaching is clear – if a plan comes from an evil source, then even when it appears to be good, it is bad. Hence the saying of our sages, “Not your sting nor your honey.”

But all this does not absolve us from remaining alert and assuming our responsibilities as Jews. Since our Israeli government leaders lack faith, vision and Torah, it is we who must storm the heavens with our prayers and teshuva, and it is we who must cry out in protest at the blatant injustice and hypocrisy of which the United States and the nations of the world are guilty.

Consider the hypocrisy of the President of the United States in sending troops to combat terrorism in remote parts of the globe, but when Israel attempts to defend herself from the cold-blooded murderers who are within her borders, who have launched over 18,000 attacks against her since the year 2,000, the White House clamps down and expects her to turn the other cheek. Consider the hypocrisy of our American Administration which has adamantly refused to release the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, while at the same time demanding that Israel release terrorists who have cold-bloodedly murdered Israeli men, women and children. Are they to once again flood the streets of Israel, free to maim and kill? Does Washington really believe that these programmed-to-kill terrorists have become boy scouts during their incarceration?

Consider America’s INS policy which heavily screens new arrivals to insure that no one of questionable background be admitted, and consider the hypocrisy which demands that Israel allow terrorists to roam freely in her midst and refrain from even erecting a protective fence.

But what is most outrageous are not the demands and the hypocritical policies of the non-Jewish world (after all, there is nothing new about that), but that which emanates from Israel itself. One cannot help but wonder what there is in the psyches of Israeli government leaders that compels them to compromise the security of the land as soon as they take office. It was one thing when it was Peres or Barak who betrayed us, but Arik Sharon - the Lion himself? Who would ever have believed that he would cave in and refer to Yehuda and Shomron as “occupied land?”

Tom DeLay, the Republican House Majority Leader, expressed it best when he said, “You could have knocked me over when I heard Sharon declare that the time had come to divide the land of Israel with the Palestinians.”

Tom DeLay’s words bring to mind King Solomon’s parable of the two mothers who each claimed to be the parent of the same infant. Solomon applied a simple test to determine the truth. The woman who refused to allow the child to be cut in two was the real mother.

We can all echo Tom DeLay’s shock, How can Sharon allow Eretz Yisrael to be cut…to be divided?

It defies the imagination that we, who are a wise nation, should fall into the same folly time and again. Was it only yesterday that, through Israel’s influence, Washington rolled out the welcome mat for Arafat, the terrorist murderer? It was the Rabin-Peres government that enabled him to exchange his terrorist garb for that of a head of state. It was that same government that supplied him with weapons for his so-called police force - weapons that were quickly turned against us. Was it only yesterday that Arafat and Rabin embraced, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize? How long did that peace initiative last? Where did it lead us? How can we be so foolish as to once again fall into the same trap and open the door for Abu Mazen by endorsing a sovereign state for terrorists in our midst.

Has anyone stopped to consider who this Abu Mazen is? Does anyone care to remember that he was Arafat’s right hand man? That he financed many terrorist operations, including the Munich Massacre? This same Abu Mazen has been quoted as saying that the Holy Temple and the Holocaust are myths. And just recently, he proclaimed that he has no plans to disarm Hamas or Islamic Jihad, for if the cease-fire is working, he asked, “Why should I fight my brothers?”

As for the cease-fire? That’s another joke. Haven’t we yet learned that the Arabs are always willing to accept a cease-fire when it is to their advantage to do so? They make no bones about their agenda which is “salami tactics” - call for a cease-fire, collect some slices of land, and when you’ve extracted all you can, attack again and keep up the pattern until the entire salami becomes yours.

Even as I write these lines, Israel intelligence reports that Hamas is taking good advantage of the three-month cease-fire. Israeli patrols have come to a halt, so it’s a perfect time to produce rockets by the hundreds.

What then is the solution? What should Israel and Sharon do?

The answer is simple – and precisely because it is so simple, it continues to elude us. It is written in the Book of Psalms: “If only My people would heed Me, if Israel would walk in My ways, in an instant, I would subdue their foes and against their tormentors turn My hand”
(Psalm 81).

That could be our “Road Map,” if only we had faith and feared G-d as much as we fear man.