Quite a few people are discussing Israel’s raiding a Palestinian prison yesterday. It was a rather odd event, but I think I can sum up the story in several brief sentences:
Palestinian terrorists kill an Israeli government minister.
They are caught and put in prison by the Palestinian Authority.
Western nations insist that the PA actually keep them locked up, and arrange to have observers in the prison.
Hamas gets elected to run the government.
Hamas announces it plans to release the terrorists in question from prison.
The western observers ask the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, for assurances that he will keep the agreement and keep the terrorists locked up.
President Abbas declines, saying he will allow the prisoners to be released.
Israel, seeing the killers of a high government official (the equivalent of a minor cabinet secretary, such as the Secretary of the Interior or Labor or Commerce) about to be released, say that WILL not happen.
The observers realize that the situation is going to hell in a handbasket and get the hell out of Dodge.
The Israelis, taking the Palestinians at their word and not willing to see these assassins go free, raid the prison and take the prisoners for themselves. Two or three Palestinians (reports conflict) are killed in the raid.
In response, Palestinians unleash a wave of terror in the West Bank and Gaza, seizing a European Union building, kidnaping about a dozen random Westerners, attacked and burned a British consulate,
Now, to my way of thinking, Israel and the West did exactly the right thing. They treated Hamas as a legitimate governing body (or, at least, a soon-to-be one) and took them at their word. Hamas arrogantly announced that they fully intended to violate an agreement made by the previous government, forged with Israel, the United States, and Great Britain, and then was outraged when those people actually reacted as if they were serious.
Of course, that viewpoint escapes the worthies at the Boston Globe. They declare “a pox on all your houses,” dividing blame on Hamas, Israel, and the West. They don’t quite say what Israel, the US and Great Britain should have done, but blame them anyway for “political motives” and “playing with matches in a tinderbox.”
But they do a pretty good job of glancing over the catalyzing event here — Hamas announcing that they will violate the agreement, and Abbas saying he will comply with that. Because to folks like the Globe’s editors, the Palestinians are the perpetual victims, and cannot be held accountable for their actions.
Allow me to expand…
The six Palestinians were not merely “accused “, as the Globe says, of “complicity in the murder of an Israeli minister”, they were given a trial, convicted and sentenced by Arafat, whom the Glove recognized as the duly elected head of the Palestinians.
The Globe says all concerned parties need to to communicate with each other, but to me, it sure sounds like they were communicating with each other, and quite well at that. Everybody made their intentions very clear. So what exactly is the Globe complaining about?
The Globe complains that “Palestinians, the Israelis, and the British and US monitors of the six prisoners all acted on the basis of their own parochial interests and anxieties”. Well, aren’t elected governments supposed to act on the basis of their own interests and anxieties? Didn’t Kerry lose in part because the American voters feared he would act more on behalf of others than he would act on behalf of America?
Is the Globe so out of touch that they think only the “logic of electoral politics” led the Israelis to do what they did, that but for the upcoming elections, the Israelis would have been okay with these terrorists being released?
The Globe blames the Israelis for failing to “institute continuing dialogue and cooperation”. How exactly does the Globe think Israel should cooperate with Hamas, which even the Globe acknowledges, insists on “gaining the release of prisoners it regards as resistance fighters” (and which Israel and the civilized world, with the exception of the Globe) recognizes as murderous terrorists?
It violates probably *the* foundational tenet of government itself… that people agree to not take justice into their own hands in exchange for assurances that justice will be carried out by the governing authority. It can be applied to just about any situation… if people percieve that someone has gotten “off” they consider the social contract void.
In a sense governments are make-believe institutions. They exist as long as everyone agrees to pretend. That ends when they don’t hold up their part of the deal.
That is an overt act of war. When will we start responding accordingly?!?
The nugget I’d seen (forgive me for absence of linkage, here), is that the kidnappings were categorized as “revenge kidnappings”. The kidnapping of people, I might add, who had nothing to do with anything.
If that isn’t a prime indication of the mentality of some of these folks, I don’t think anything else is.
Oh, and the Globe sucks (just so I can stay a bit on topic).
Had Israel done any less these convicted killers would have escaped, been released, to set up shop in Gaza. The Palestinian response was the usual tantrum. Gee, if The House of Saud alone is pumping $15 million a month into the PA couldn’t they at least create something? A working gas station? Taxis?