Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seems clueless as ever. His commitment to continued participation in meaningless discussions with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not only demeaning, it underscores the perception that Hamas, which shoots rockets at Israeli cities with impunity and effectively forces a suspension of those discussions, is not only driving events in the Palestinian world but in the Middle East generally.

Various news agencies reported last week that Hamas is using longer range rockets, many of them imported from Iran. Israeli security officials told the Jerusalem Post that by the end of the year Hamas will have homemade rockets with a range of 20 kilometers. This would give Hamas an unlimited supply of rockets capable of reaching the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon (110,000 residents), 17 kilometers from Gaza.

So Israel now faces another entrenched terrorist group with expanding rocketry capacity on its borders. One wonders just what would happen if Israel tried to retake Gaza. Would there be a sympathy rain of rockets from Hizbullah via Lebanon? Would there be assistance provided to Hamas from Arab capitals? From the Palestinian Authority?

Consider this: Though Mr. Abbas has in the past ridiculed the firing of rockets from Gaza at Israel as a “useless provocation,” he said last week in an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustar that armed conflict remained an option if negotiations failed:

At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different…. I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965 and of being the one who taught resistance to many in the region and around the world; what it’s like; when it is effective and when it isn’t effective; its uses, and what serious, authentic and influential resistance is….It is common knowledge when and how resistance is detrimental and when it is well timed….We [Fatah] had the honor of leading the resistance and we taught resistance to everyone, including Hizbullah, who trained in our military camps.

So at long last the paradigm of Palestinian “moderation” has finally revealed himself to be someone who (allegedly) abandoned violence and terror not as a matter of principle but rather one of practicality. Is even he starting to consider the implications of Israel’s failure to stem the endless barrage of Gaza rockets and deal Hizbullah a decisive blow in 2006?

Does Mr. Abbas visualize a possible confrontation with Israel in which Hizbullah and Hamas blanket Israel with rockets from Lebanon and Gaza? It’s a scenario that may have seemed unthinkable just a couple of years ago but which grows more realistic by the day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 and is filed under opinion. You can leave a response.