Those who are merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful

Submitted by David Olesker (Israel), Jun 16, 2009 at 03:52

If every Palestinian Arab population center included a lavish Jewish-Arab Friendship League office (preferably staffed by elite IDF troops and equipped with tanks) then I would feel much easier about maintaining friendly relations.

Seriously; one thing that everyone should have learned from the withdrawal from Gaza is that (at least) a strong ... Read Morepossibility exists of Palestinian Arabs using increased autonomy to attack Israel. Now everyone proposing increasing the autonomy that Palestinian Arabs could enjoy is obligated to show how Israel could defend herself against the possibility of such attacks.

The answer that the Left has been offering for decades is to use the IDF in its traditional role as an army to launch wars against a Palestinian entity. We saw in Cast Lead the cost that approach inflicted on Palestinian Arab civilians and Israel's image.

Netanyahu has stated that he doesn't want Israel to be running the lives of Palestinian Arabs. Yet to control their lives might be -- ultimately -- more humane. If Israel can use methods such as spying and (for example) threatening to deny people business licenses in order to pressure them into betraying terrorist, surely that's ... preferable to attacking mosques and schools that the terrorists turn into bases? Isn't it better than economic sanctions (such as those being used on Gaza today) that inevitably hurt the average civilian more than Hamas apparatchiks?

Compare the quality of life of the average Gazan in 1991 to what it is today and tell me if they have benefited (in a material sense) from their "freedom" from Israeli rule.

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