Stop Coddling Fatah!

This Jerusalem Post headlinesays it all: “Fatah youth center near Ramallah names tournament after suicide bomber”.  The story, based on a report from Palestinian Media Watch, states that the so-called moderate, liberal, progressive, secular organization known as Fatah, the “official representative of the Palestinian people,” is once again glorifying suicide terror.

The headline doesn’t read Hamas or Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, Al-Qaeda, or even Muslim Brotherhood youth center, but Fatah – the group charged with negotiating a peace deal between the Arabs and the State of Israel.  Fatah – whose Commander In Chief was Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, and his disciple, Mahmoud Abbas, a known Holocaust denier, is now at the helm – continues to incite against the Jewish state with full immunity.  While preaching peace and tolerance in English time after time, we still hear, when paying close attention to the Arabic, about soccer tournaments, boulevards, town squares, and summer camps named in memory of the beloved “martyrs.”

In this latest report the “martyr” given the accolades is Wada Idris, known as the second ‘intifada’s’ first female Arab suicide bomber.  Idris detonated her explosives outside of a Jerusalem shoe store on Jaffa Road in 2002 killing an 81-year-old- man and injuring 150 people.  I vaguely remember that attack since it was less than a week after I moved from the United States to Israel.  That being said, with literally thousands of attacks carried out by the Arab terror organizations, especially by Fatah and its affiliate groups, over the past decade, it’s hard to differentiate between the attacks by memory alone.

So with Fatah honoring terrorist murderers, and inciting violence almost daily in the media and in the schools and mosques, why does Israel, under pressure from the international community, particularly the United Nations, Europe, and the US Department of State, insist on negotiating with this evil entity?

While the pressure is significant, in my opinion we are our own worst enemy.  From the promises of ‘a New Middle East’ and Oslo, to Wye, Tenet, Mitchell, Camp David, and now Barak Obama, Israel’s leaders over the past twenty years have concocted plan after plan which ultimately have steered the country in the wrong direction. Not all of them all of the time, but most of them most of the time.  It seems that each administration is more willing than the next to appease the already whet appetite of our Arab neighbors, instead of defeating them.  It just doesn’t seem clear to our leaders that peace deals are signed when wars are won decisively, and not while the battles still rage.  Yes, it has been relatively quiet in Israel of late (relatively, because rockets still land in Southern Israel and rocks are thrown almost daily at Jewish motorists etc.), but make no mistake about it, in no way is this the end.

Now I do believe that Israel must formulate a plan to present to the International community, but it must be one based on the realities of the situation and not false hopes. Any agreement which involves ceding parts of the historical Land of Israel – the land designated as part of the Jewish State in the 1920’s, including Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – would be a tragic mistake.  The recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza are proof that land giveaways don’t bring peace, but just the opposite. And when Israel turned security control over to the Palestinian Authority, it was only a matter of time until we paid the price in the form of spilled Jewish blood.

Israel is a technological marvel with some of the most brilliant minds in the world. The human mind is Israel’s ultimate resource.  It’s time we use that brain power and stop pretending that we have a true partner for peace. We must start recognizing Fatah for what it truly is – just another terrorist organization which seeks our destruction from within, one piece of real-estate at a time.