The situation in the PA couldn’t be more different. Abbas ran for office as Arafat’s heir apparent, pre-anointed by the White House. Neither Fatah chief and imprisoned mass murderer Marwan Barghouti nor Hamas challenged him. The other candidates were pro forma, lacking funds and access to the media (both controlled by Abbas) that were necessary to raise any sort of challenge to Arafat’s deputy of more than 40 years. And yet, despite the open field, Abbas’s campaign was marked by vote fraud and voter intimidation. Its endemic corruption – which included keeping polls open an extra three hours and busing PA militiamen from poll to poll to vote multiple times – was overshadowed only by Abbas’s embrace of master terrorists and attacks on the “Zionist entity” to prove his bona fides as Palestinian leader.
The Palestinian election experience, then, is in no way similar to the Iraqi elections or to the Lebanese anti-Syrian protest movement. Whereas in both Iraq and Lebanon, terrorists such as Hizbullah, and terrorist-supporting regimes like Jordan and Syria and Iran, are seen as part of the problem, among the Palestinians the opposite is the case. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians believe that it was terrorism that forced Sharon to move to withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza and northern Samaria, expel all Jewish residents and declare a cessation of offensive operations against terrorists throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The terrorists themselves have been promised protection from the PA regime, which has put out the red carpet and the gravy train to make them feel welcome in the “newly reformed” PA militias, rather than keeping its word to Israel and the U.S. by casting them out of its ranks and imprisoning them for murder.
At the Bush-Sharon press briefing last week, we saw which way the wind will be blowing in the coming months and years. For his part, Bush refused to countenance the notion that the PA’s current lack of action against terrorism (that is, active protection and support of terrorists) might hold up further Israeli concessions. He explained that his native optimism makes it impossible for him to believe that things will be bad and so he can’t foresee a situation in which events warrant putting off further Israeli land giveaways to the PA.
The only clear position Bush adopted during his appearance with Sharon was that he sees the expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria as a mere first step. If this hadn’t been the case, he would not have said – three times – that Israel mustn’t build in the rest of its communities in Judea and Samaria, even those that Sharon insists Bush has slated for inclusion in the envisioned shrunken, post-roadmap Israel.
Sharon, with no way to hide the fact that for the past year he has been lying to the Israeli public by claiming that in exchange for the destruction of the Jewish presence in Gaza and northern Samaria he received American support for expanding the Jewish communities in the rest of Judea and Samaria, has simply changed the subject. He has changed the subject by changing the enemy. It is not the Palestinians who worry him anymore, but the Jews. It’s the Jews – and in particular his political supporters turned opponents who two years ago elected him on the basis of his declared opposition to precisely the unilateral giveaway plan he is now forcing them to swallow – who are the greatest danger.
In an exclusive interview with NBC TV, which set the tone for his entire visit, Sharon said that Israel “looks like on the eve of a civil war.” He then went on to say, “All my life I was defending [the] life of Jews. Now, for [the] first time, security steps are taken to protect me from Jews.”