Premature Celebration

I know that people concerned about the situation in Israel were in a celebratory mood yesterday over Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to not run for reelection in Kadima's primary elections on September 17.

Your celebrations are premature, because Olmert is still in power, still wants a peace deal with the Palestinians at all costs, and there is a way that he could hold on to power until next year.

At the same time, the diplomats and President Bush are scrambling to try and keep the peace process going, even though the only process the Palestinians are interested in is obtaining more weapons and time to prepare for a war with Israel. I'm seriously concerned that Olmert may try to ram through a peace deal that harms Israel's long term security.

Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is seen as the front runner to replace Olmert, and he's calling for new elections since changing the guard at Kadima would be little more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Expect the Palestinians to start carping that this is simply a tactic by the Israelis to avoid making peace with them. Ignore the fact that the Palestinian terrorists in Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad (and all their offshoots) are still busy seeking nothing less than Israel's destruction.

The Syrians, eager to regain the Golan Heights, are sure to push forward with what's left of Olmert's term to seek a deal. Let me remind my readers that Syria, which lost the Golan in the 1967 Six Day War when they attacked Israel, and failed to recapture it in 1973 in the surprise attack on Yom Kippur, has been in a cold peace with Israel since then. If you define peace as the absence of war, then the Syrians already have it. There's no reason to return the Golan, which provides Israel with a measure of security against attack.

An official peace deal with Israel should be defined not by the return of the Golan, but by Syria's actions to stop terrorism against Israel through its proxies. That, however, will not happen since the Syrians are beholden to the Iranians and therefore will not accept any deal that doesn't deliver the Golan, which will be used against Israel in the future.

As for those who would even suggest that UN peacekeepers should be stationed to monitor the border, note that the UN just withdrew its peacekeepers from the Ethiopia-Eritrea border because Eritrea refused to cooperate. UN peacekeepers withdrew prior to the 1967 war, and will not enforce UN resolutions against Israel's enemies because that would be seen as taking sides. In other words, the UN is not to be counted upon for providing stability or peace in the region.

UPDATE:
Indeed.