Words and Deeds

While Fatah claims that they're going to lay down their arms against Israel, Israel is actually releasing Fatah thugs from Israeli jails and will not target those Fatah thugs who signed on to this pledge. Which one is the more concrete and permanent action?

Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday.

The deal would grant amnesty to 178 Fatah gunmen who will join the official Palestinian security forces, and Israel will remove them from its lists of wanted militants, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details of the agreement.

An official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office confirmed the deal would extend to wanted militants who openly renounce terrorism, and was part of a series of measures to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

This is also a plan that is doomed to failure. There is absolutely nothing beyond hope and wishful thinking that will keep Fatah from going back to attacking Israel the moment they think the time is right. Symbolically handing over weapons to Palestinian security services may look good for the diplomats, but how quickly and easily can those weapons end up back in the hands of the Fatah thugs, especially when Palestinian security services are Fatah thugs themselves? For now, they're saying the right things, but I'm highly skeptical. I'm not alone.

Israel has been down this road before, and earlier prisoner releases have not bought Israel any more peace than this deal will.

To me, this is nothing more than a hudna - a strategic pause before Fatah resumes its war with Israel.

For Israel, they look to such pauses with a sigh of relief, given that they've got so much on their plate - Hamas continues its war against Israel from Gaza, Hizbullah is busy rearming and preparing for another war along Israel's northern border, Syria is agitating violence inside Lebanon, Islamists are fighting Lebanon's military for weeks and no end in sight and if Lebanon fails, another Islamist force takes hold on Israel's borders, and Iran is threatening Israel with annihilation (including ongoing work on its nuclear program). Israel's leaders are hoping for any kind of diplomatic victory to muddle through for a little while longer.

Diplomats are hoping that these deals with continue to separate and distance Fatah and Hamas - to bolster Fatah's Abbas over Haniyeh and the thugs who continue to call for Israel's destruction, all the while ignoring the fact that Fatah also calls for Israel's destruction - they just do it with finely tailored suits and not simply terrorists with suicide bombs and kassams.

Hamas isn't taking this lying down, and they're trying to get the parliament to see things their way, even though many of their "legislators" have been incarcerated by Israel.