The recent municipal elections held in the Palestinian Authority (PA) should be sounding a clear warning signal to all those who believe IsraeliPrime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan will advance the road map agreements. Candidates from the Hamas terrorist organization scored widespread victories, winning 30 out of 82 elections, and placing Islamic extremists in control of some of the most densely populated towns and cities in the PA. This election followed the popular trend established in January’s municipal elections in Gaza, in which Hamas won 76 out of 118 local council seats.
The powerful showing by Hamas, whose charter calls for the obliteration of Israel and all Jews, plainly foreshadows the electoral determination of the Palestinians in this summer’s national elections and presents the perilous likelihood that the Iranian-backed terrorists will soon be established as the dominant ruling force in the PA.
Inspired by the Hamas campaign claiming it was armed struggle, i.e., terrorism, that forced Israel to plan to evacuate 9,000 Jews and give the Jewish section of Gaza to the Palestinians, the Palestinians are preparing to oust the ruling Fatah party and rally behind Hamas, alongwith its Nazi-like political platform. The Sharon plan, which calls forIsrael to unilaterally retreat from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria, would be placing these areas, along with the territories already under PAcontrol in the hands of those extremist Islamic leaders who have openlyvowed that thy will never negotiate with Israel and are merely waiting toresume their terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
Moreover, the refusal by current PA leader Mahmoud Abu Abbas to disarm Hamas ensures that the terrorists will have succeeded in using the temporary lull in the terror attacks to stockpile weapons and explosives to recommence their suicide attacks when they grab the leadership reins.
As outgoing Israeli Chief of Staff General Moshe Ya’alon has predicted, “Immediately after the disengagement we can expect a burst of terrorism…all the signs point to it.”
In April, I traveled to Israel with other American Jewish leaders to take part in a fact-finding mission and further develop my own understanding of the situation on the ground in the Jewish section of Gaza. As former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had already turned over 88 percent of the territory there to the Palestinians, the area remaining in Israeli hands is only 12 percent of the entire Strip.
During our short visit, more than 80 Kassam missiles were fired by the Palestinians at Israeli civilian targets in Gaza and in the Negev town of Sderot. While mercifully there were no deaths as a result of the terrorist barrage, it was not for lack of trying. What we personally witnessed, during this so-called “period of relative calm,” was a small preview of the hell that will reign down upon Southern Israeli cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod and Be’er Sheva when Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza and create a new border. Those cities have already begun to invest in the Red Dawn early-warning missile detection systems and are building new homes with concrete roofs to brace themselves for the bombing attacks they are certain awaits them.
It is for this reason that the Sharon withdrawal plan defies all sound logic. The plan, which calls for the forced evacuation of about a dozen Jewish communities and the unwilling eviction of over 9,000 Jewish residents provides no precautionary measures to ensure that the Palestinian missile attacks will be countered once Israeli troops withdraw. Indeed, few in the Israeli leadership really believe the Palestinians will undertake any actions to ensure that the terrorist organizations will not immediately abandon even the pretext of a “cease-fire” with Israel and recommence their daily missile attacks.