“It’s easy to understand why” imprisoned Arab terrorists are hunger-striking, Israel critic Peter Beinart declared in his April 28 column for the Forward.
Sure, Peter, it’s easy to understand why – just read their list of demands. High on the list are satellite television and air conditioning. But that’s not what Beinart has in mind, because those kinds of demands won’t generate much sympathy.
According to Beinart, here’s the reason it’s so “easy to understand” why the terrorists are protesting: “West Bank Palestinians are colonial subjects. They live under Israeli control.”
And then Beinart added this remarkable statement, in parentheses: “(Yes, Israel subcontracts certain functions to the Palestinian Authority, but the PA is not a state. The Israeli military can enter any square inch of the West Bank and arrest anyone anytime it wants.)”
Now, why do you suppose an arch-critic of Israel feels compelled to suddenly interject a defensive comment like that? I wonder if he’s feeling a little uncomfortable because some of his opponents, including this writer, have been pointing out that the “Israeli occupation” he bemoans actually ended back in 1995, when Israel withdrew from the areas where 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs live?
Needless to say, Beinart’s claim that Palestinian self-rule actually just consists of Israel “subcontracting certain functions” to the Palestinian Authority is grossly misleading.
The “certain functions” the PA has taken on include the Palestinians’ school system, their hospitals, their courts, their police force, their business sector, even their trash collection – in short, everything a state has and does, except for a full-fledged army and the right to import Iranian “volunteers.”
Although, one might add, the PA does have one of the largest per capita security forces in the world – so large that it does resemble an army in many ways.
The fact that the Israeli military “can enter” the PA areas “anytime it wants” does not change the reality of PA self-rule. A handful of soldiers briefly going into some town, arresting terrorists – when the PA fails to arrest them – and quickly withdrawing is not an “occupation.”
Was Uganda under “occupation” when the Israeli army entered to rescue the hijacked hostages in 1976? Was Mexico under American “occupation” when General Pershing was chasing Pancho Villa in 1916?
Sorry, Peter, cross-border anti-terror actions do not constitute an “occupation.”
So why is it that critics of Israel have so much difficulty acknowledging the reality of Palestinian Authority rule?
Why won’t they admit that the Israeli military governor of the territories left long ago, that the Israeli military administration in the territories has long since been dismantled?
Why won’t they acknowledge that the Israeli army was withdrawn, by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, twenty-two years ago?
The sad truth is that they want there to be an “occupation.” They want a way to point an accusing finger at Israel. They are constitutionally incapable of blaming the Palestinians for anything – so they need to be able to blame Israel.
Rabin took that away from them. The minute he pulled Israel’s troops out of the areas where 98 percent of the Palestinians live, he ended the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people. He took away the Jewish left’s main debating point.
Beinart and his colleagues know that if they acknowledge that truth, all they will have left to argue is that the PA’s self-rule territory deserves to be enlarged, and that the PA deserves the right to bring in tanks and planes and Iranians. Those are not exactly winning arguments.
That’s why Beinart and company are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to prove that there still is an “occupation.” They want there to be an occupation; and since there isn’t one, all they can do is pretend there is.