Water or Fuel to the Fire?

by Yoram Ettinger

The head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen, stated that 60 percent of released Palestinian terrorists revert to operational terrorism. Most of the 1,150 terrorists released in the May 21, 1985 Jibril exchange played a key role during the First Intifada. Over 50% of the Palestinian terrorists who were released between the 1993 Oslo Accord and the eruption of the Second Intifada participated in that wave of Palestinian terrorism. 

Mahmoud Abbas' commitment to embrace -- and not to condemn -- terrorists shed light on his prime values, which are consistent with his track record: A Holocaust denial Ph.D. from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow; enrollment in KGB courses; the coordination of Palestine Liberation Organization ties with ruthless communist regimes in Eastern Europe; the logistical coordination of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre; collaboration with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait; and subversive and terrorist activities which led to his expulsion from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

Mahmoud Abbas commemorates Palestinian terrorists -- who unlike freedom fighters systematically and deliberately assault civilians -- by naming kindergartens, schools, summer camps, streets, squares, community centers and sporting events for them. 

Releasing Palestinian terrorists upgrades their social status in a society which has been subjected, since 1994, to hate-education and incitement, in Abbas-controlled schools, mosques and the media. The Palestinian (hate) education system -- and not the Palestinian dialogue with Western policy makers and public opinion molders -- has been the most authentic reflection of Abbas' worldview. It constitutes the production line of terrorists and suicide bombers.

The prime goal of Palestinian terrorism is not the murder of Israeli civilians, but the erosion of their confidence in the capability of their government to avert lethal threats. Palestinian terrorism aims at humiliating Israel, undermining Israelis' trust in Israel's justice system, injuring Israel's posture of deterrence, wrecking Israel's image as a strategic asset and role model of counterterrorism and entrenching a national sense of weariness, leading to sweeping Israeli concessions.

Submission to pressure -- and releasing terrorists -- trigger a tailwind to the terrorism and a headwind to Israel's morale and national security. Releasing terrorists transforms them into terror-multipliers, a role model for young Palestinians. Most released terrorists partake in the upgrading of terror infrastructures: enlistment of new terrorists, fund raising, enhancement of motivation, planning terrorist acts, etc. 

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "If the government succumbs [and releases terrorists], the terrorist scores an obvious victory. … Once the line of concessions is crossed, more atrocities and more demands are sure to follow, with the inexorable logic of blackmail in the face of weakness. … The terrorist objective is not negotiation but capitulation. … Government must be made to understand that if they acquiesce in terrorism, they are in practice supporting it. … [It] should be considered an act of collusion. … 

[Citizens] must not pressure their government to capitulate or to surrender to terrorism. … Such pressure can only be called a dereliction of civic duty. … Terrorism tries to evoke one feeling: fear. It is understandable that the one virtue most necessary to defeat terrorism is, therefore, the antithesis of fear: courage. … Confusion and vacillation facilitated the rise of terrorism. Clarity and courage will ensure its defeat." ("Terrorism: How the West Can Win," edited by Benjamin Netanyahu, 1986, pp. 201, 219, 226). 

Netanyahu added, in his 1995 Hebrew edition of "A Place in the Sun," that "the release of terrorists is a mistake the Israeli government repeats time and time again. … From the beginning, I saw the Jibril Exchange a fatal blow to Israel's efforts to form an international front against terrorism. How can Israel preach to the U.S. and the West … when Israel surrendered herself so shamefully? I was convinced that the release of a thousand terrorists would necessarily lead to a terrible escalation of violence, because these terrorists will be accepted as heroes, as an example to be imitated by young Palestinians. … It is clear now that the release of a thousand terrorists was one of the factors that provided a pool of fermenting violence and its leaders ignited the fire of the Intifada."

In 2013, Netanyahu defies his own books, speeches, political platforms and the legacy of Operation Jonathan -- the 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue. 

Israel's release of Palestinian terrorists and Abbas' embrace of these terrorists on one hand, and the war on terrorism and the pursuit of peace on the other hand, constitute an oxymoron. The U.S. pressure on Israel to release terrorists, while the U.S., rightly, opposes the release of terrorists (for example, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is about to be court-martialed for the 2009 murder of 13 U.S. soldiers at Ft. Hood), constitutes moral hypocrisy that adds fuel to the fire of terrorism.

Yoram Ettinger

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5221

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.