Joel Mowbray, RealClearPolitics.com, Nov 4: “Condi’s Dangerous Delusions”

In a keynote speech last month to the American Task Force on Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded very unlike President Bush on the Middle East, lavishing praise on Palestinians and implicitly attacking Israel.

While the words she chose have invited criticism, much more concerning is that the top U.S. diplomat has the same fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East that most do, namely that Palestinians are ready to coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state. This conventional diplomatic wisdom, however, ignores the history of the region since the Oslo accords in 1993: The once largely secular Palestinian society has become increasingly Islamic–and deeply radicalized.

[..] Palestinian society was Islamicized by none than famously secular Yasser Arafat. Once he was given the reins following the 1993 Oslo accords, Arafat instituted an aggressive program of Islamic indoctrination, primarily through the schools and the media. Palestinian Authority-run schools placed far greater emphasis on Islam than ever before, and every Friday PA television still broadcasts sermons of fiery and bitterly anti-Semitic imams.

The indoctrination worked. In a March 2005 poll by the Palestinian Center for Research and Cultural Dialogue, almost 70% of Palestinians expressed preference for living under Islamic law. And a 2003 poll by Birzeit University revealed that nearly 80% support the notion of punishing a thief by amputating his hand.

Most observers, including many in the Israeli establishment, refuse to acknowledge the increasing Islamic nature of Palestinian society in large part because they cannot believe that a secular Arab nationalist could have implemented Islamic indoctrination. But Arafat did so out of necessity. The original Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists had an inherent limitation, as the prospect of their own deaths was a deterrent. Arafat thus turned to Islam, which enabled him to breed a new generation of terrorists, who were far more effective than their wiser and better-trained predecessors for one simple reason: Not only were they not afraid to die, but they actually desired death.

It’s not just the kids who have been brainwashed. To make sure parents don’t follow normal instincts, PA-run broadcasts and newspapers have cynically used Islam to promote the culture of death. This pernicious propaganda campaign has been meticulously detailed by the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch, yet most foreign policy elites seem unaware of the changing face of Palestinian society.

Gerald Steinberg in the Jerusalem Post, Nov 4: “Getting beyond slogans of Palestinian victimization”

This week, the members and staff of the International Development Committee in the British House of Commons are scheduled to come to Israel and the Palestinian Authority for a fact-finding tour. Such committees have a great deal of weight in the British political system, and their reports, including the recommendations, can lead to changes in funding levels and policy. The views expressed by the groups and individuals with whom the members of this committee meet can have a major impact on the report that they issue.
[..
TO WRITE a credible report that goes beyond the decades-old slogans of Palestinian victimization, the members need to talk to Israeli victims of terror and see the evidence of how Palestinians have violated or ignored every commitment to act to prevent terror, including in the November 15, 2005 arrangement brokered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They should see for themselves that one year after Israel's exit from Gaza, with all of the money invested in "development," the major industry is massive tunneling to smuggle in weapons, explosives and terrorists. After being shown how empty containers that carried aid into Gaza are taken back through the crossings with explosives and terrorists, they may understand the logic of Israel's security measures. And to recognize the necessity of keeping Palestinian fishermen from working, the committee should be shown how arms smuggling ships such as the Karine A and Santorini. operate.]

Washington Times Editorial, Nov 6: “A coming Hezbollah putsch?”

The next major battleground in the efforts by the Tehran-Damascus Axis to destabilize the Middle East could well be Lebanon. On Wednesday, the White House announced it is “increasingly concerned that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies were preparing plans to topple Lebanon’s democratically elected government.” Hezbollah may step up its efforts to bring down the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora today, when Lebanese political factions begin discussions on Hezbollah’s demands for establishment of a “national unity government.”