Likud’s Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz has me troubled and not for the first time. His bombastic or unrealistic statement “we will need to seriously weigh the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority” is typical of his “just missing” the point.
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz tore a page out of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s playbook on Sunday, warning that Israel would dissolve the Palestinian Authority if the resolution it is expected to bring to the UN Security Council by the end of the year actually passes. “A vote is expected in the UN on the aggressive, hostile and one-sided resolution regarding a Palestinian state,” Steinitz said Sunday. “We must not let it pass quietly.”
Like too many powerful people, Steinitz tries to combine Right, which includes genuine Jewish ethics, and western democratic, Liberal values. He believes they can work together, maybe like mayonnaise, but I think they are more like oil and water; No matter how hard you shake them, they will inevitably separate.
Today’s P.A. Palestinian Authority has taken on the trappings of a state, no matter what the Israeli Government likes to think. We are in a very dangerous situation, because it seems that Prime Minister Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu and his cohorts are in la-la land.
This all started with the late and very first Likud Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, who called for Palestinian autonomy; granted he didn’t use the “P word.”
The administration of the military rule in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip will be abolished. In Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip an administrative autonomy of, by and for the Arab residents will be established. The residents of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip will elect an administrative council which will be composed of 11 members. The administrative council will act according to the principles postulated in this document. Every resident 18 years old or older, regardless of his citizenship or the lack of it. will be entitled to vote for the administrative council. Every resident who is 25 years old or older the day the list of candidates for the administrative council is presented will be entitled to be elected to the administrative council. The administrative council will be elected in general, direct, personal, equal and secret elections. The administrative council will establish the following departments: department of education: department of transportation: department of construction and housing: department of industry, commerce and tourism: department of agriculture: department of health: department of labor and social betterment, department for the rehabilitation of refugees: department of legal administration and supervision of the local police force. The administrative council will issue regulations pertaining to the activities of those departments. quoted from Jewish Virtual Library, Source: Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, ed, The Israel-Arab Reader, (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2001)
But once that “genie”aka “autonomy” was let out of the jar, Israeli security, authority and international standing have gone seriously downhill.
Contrary to what Israeli leaders, yes including the ruling Likud, likes to believe, as far as most of the world is concerned there already is a “State of Palestine,” sic. So they would respond to any attempt of Israel’s “dissolution of the Palestinian Authority” as aggression against a recognized country. That’s “a fine kettle of fish” our so-called Right leaders have gotten us into.