A Palestinian Solution: Civil Autonomy Only

IRIS Blog

Tuesday, July 10. 2007

A Palestinian Solution: Civil Autonomy Only

Caroline Glick presents another blistering gust of truth in response to the now-fashionable fantasy of bringing in the Jordanians to fight against the Palestinian jihad. En passant, however, she presents a realistic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that logically attempts to build on what is essentially working now:

Today, for all the talk of bringing in the Jordanian army, the fact of the matter is that the security situation in Judea and Samaria is the only good news in town. Since the IDF reasserted its control over the areas in 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli military has managed to largely prevent the Palestinians from rebuilding terror infrastructures capable of carrying out major or sustained attacks against Israel. Since Israeli military control is the only strategic asset to be found, it is the only thing that should be left untouched.

What should be radically altered is the political strategy informing US and Israeli policymakers. The 14-year obsession with strengthening Fatah has hooked the Palestinians on the belief that they can and should expect Israel to fund and legitimize them even as they become ever more radical in their hatred of the Jewish state and ever more devoted to the cause of its destruction.

It will no doubt take a generation to disabuse the Palestinians of this belief. And as long as this belief informs the Palestinians, there is no chance of ever reaching a political accommodation between them and Israel.

SO RATHER than seeking to appease the Palestinians into accepting statehood, Israel and the US must set the course for an internal Palestinian reckoning with what they have become. To this end, the most Israel can responsibly offer the Palestinians is civilian autonomy with no military component. This state of affairs must last until the Palestinians themselves have proven, through their actions, that they have kicked their addiction to jihad.

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Posted by Barak at 14:46 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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"Civilian autonomy with no military component"? Does that mean they can continue to control their own schools, summer camps and television stations, all of which are heavily used to teach children to hate Israel and strive to become martyrs while killing Jews? Does it also mean they get to keep their current "strong" police force(s), armed with assault rifles and who knows what else?

This could be a step in the right direction because at least it would remove the outright "military components" of the Palestinian Authority, but it is hardly sufficient to bring about serious Palestinian self-reckoning, let alone cause reform.

#1 Sam on 2007-07-10 16:03 (Reply)

Excellent points, Sam. I certainly did not think through the various details you raised. I relayed the proposal as an interesting concept. There was a form of civilian autonomy pre-Oslo which was much better than the current situation, but of course it is not possible to put the genie back in the bottle now.

I would guess that Caroline Glick's municipal autonomy would include jihadist schools and a dramatically scaled-back "police" force.

#1.1 Barak on 2007-07-10 16:18 (Reply)

Glick writes: "SO RATHER than seeking to appease the Palestinians into accepting statehood, Israel and the US must set the course for an internal Palestinian reckoning with what they have become. To this end, the most Israel can responsibly offer the Palestinians is civilian autonomy with no military component. This state of affairs must last until the Palestinians themselves have proven, through their actions, that they have kicked their addiction to jihad. "

What this means is Glick is a little bit pregnant with a Palestinian state. And rather than aborting the monster, she's hoping a little more time in the womb and it will emerge a beautiful little child - maybe even a doctor.

#2 Dan Friedman on 2007-07-10 18:17 (Reply)

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