This Is Palestine

Palestinians were already granted control of their destiny in an area evacuated by Israel-that is the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians used that freedom to wage a civil war between the irredentist Palestinian Authority which is led by Mahmoud Abbas (who has the nom de guerre abu Mazen-every peace loving constituency should be governed by a leader with a "name for war") and the genocidal Hamas terrorist group which by far enjoyed the popular support of the Palestinian man on the street. In the event, Hamas won resoundingly first in the polls and then in the battle on the streets, murdering Palestinian Authority representatives and sending the survivors fleeing to the relative safety of Israel. What emerged in Gaza after the Hamas victory was a rocket-lobbing, hostage-taking nightmare for Israel. Abbas, the alternative to Hamas is himself a Holocaust denier, who spent years helping Arafat orchestrate his campaign of terror, aimed at eradicating the Jewish state. His intention is not peace, but the gradual elimination of the Jewish state, the primary difference between him and Hamas being, he is willing to present the pretense of a peaceful face to the West while destroying Israel while Hamas does not want to wait through any preliminaries. Neither Hamas nor the Abbas government is willing to accept even the existence of a Jewish state much less reach any lasting accommodation with Israel. Israel is being turned by Obama into the scapegoat for the hostility between Muslims and the rest of the world. The Israelis certainly sparked the Muslim problem in the Philippines, in Chechnya, in China, didn't they? The violence between Muslims and infidels couldn't possibly be because of something intrinsically bellicose and belligerent in the Koran, such as an admonition not to take as a friend a Christian or Jew or an exhortation to convert with the sword? The Muslim world will not make peace with the US until it is doing their dirty work by dismantling Israel piece by piece or destroying the Jewish state outright on their behalf, but that won't be enough for die hard Jihadists who will not rest until America turns her churches into mosques. No peace will ensue between the US and Islam until moderate Muslims, like those who in the recent past ruled Turkey, sweep the fanatics from the mosques, no matter what befalls Israel and the West. Israel prays for peace: unfortunately, there is no Muslim arbiter with real popular power among the Palestinians for the Jews to make peace with as even the West's peacemaker of the day, Abbas, wishes the eventual liquidation of the Jewish state.