Sunday, just four days after the hopeful Aqaba summit, five Israelis were killed by Palestinian gunfire in Gaza and Hebron. The most deadly attack, which killed four IDF soldiers, was a joint effort of the three largest Palestinian terror organizations: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades. This new co-ordination between the groups reveals a central terror command that remains unfazed by Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas — despite his international mandate to uproot terror.
In a Monday news conference, Abbas stated he will continue to try to negotiate with the terror leaders, offering them an appeasement carrot instead of wielding a resolute stick. MSNBC reported Abbas’ affirmation that he “will not order a crackdown on the militias under any circumstances.” One thing remains clear — if the road map’s hope for peace is to continue, Abbas must somehow eliminate the terror infrastructure.
Much of the media, however, has diluted this fundamental point. Salon, the popular online magazine, published Thursday an anti-Israeli harangue by executive editor Gary Kamiya, who asserts that Abbas’ hands are tied by Sharon (“Israel’s martial leader”) until the IDF lowers its anti-terror guard: “In order for the Palestinian leadership to fight extremism, the Israelis must make real and tangible concessions. Closures must cease, work permits must be given, and so on [sic].”
[HonestReporting subscribers will recall this same Gary Kamiya claiming immediately after 9/11 that Israeli policy lay at the heart of anti-American terror, suggesting that Israel — alongside Bin Laden — was ultimately responsible for those attacks.]
The very text of the road map calls upon Palestinian leadership at this stage “to undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.” Abbas’ smoothing things over with Hamas falls far short of “arrest,” or even mild “disruption.”
So why does Salon.com blame Israel for Abbas’ false start on the road map?
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Meanwhile, as Ariel Sharon takes tangible steps toward implementing the road map — freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, easing closures and commencing the dismantling of the illegal outposts — some media outlets placed credit in the opposite corner. MSNBC’s Monday headline reads: “Palestinian PM defends peace moves.”
Beyond spinning the Palestinian foot-dragging as “peace moves,” MSNBC makes the following troubling comment:
“Amid the Palestinian prime minister’s troubles, Israel appeared to be fulfilling one of its obligations under the peace plan.”
Objective readers should find it strange that MSNBC characterizes the Israeli concessions for peace as causing “trouble.”
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HonestReporting encourages subscribers to monitor their local media for coverage of Palestinian versus Israeli fulfillment of road map obligations.
