Noteworthy Headlines

The Israeli government, through the IDF, transferred 1,050 Kalachnikov rifles and one million bullets to the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday and Wednesday. The weapons reached the Allenby Crossing, on the Jordan-Israel border, as a gift to the PA from the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. After receiving orders from the government, IDF forces transported the weapons from the Jordanians across Israel and handed them over to PA forces at the Erez and Karni crossings into the Gaza Strip.

... IDF sources report that the low-level war waged between Fatah and Hamas in the PA indicates that the weapons may not stay in the hands of Abbas-controlled gunmen.

Israel's international standing is at an all-time low. Academics and journalists are questioning whether Israel even has a right to exist; it is increasingly described as an "apartheid state"; and campaigns to boycott and/or divest from it are gaining momentum. And, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, which holds that Israel's standing is bolstered by concessions to the Palestinians, these developments occurred not while Israel was still refusing to recognize the PLO or evacuate settlements, but after a string of major Israeli concessions.

So why have Israel's concessions brought opprobrium rather than acclaim? As explained in last week's column, one reason is that Israel has stopped articulating its own valid claim to the West Bank and Gaza, thereby according the Palestinian narrative - that these territories are stolen Palestinian land - the status of unchallenged truth and condemning itself as a thief. Thieves do not deserve acclaim for surrendering some of their ill-gotten gains; they deserve opprobrium for not disgorging the rest.

However, there is another, no less important, reason, which relates to a small but influential group of radical pro-Palestinian activists: Quite simply, Israel's behavior in recent years has stimulated the instincts of a hunter scenting blood.

Continue reading Concessions: Cause and Effect