Terror strikes Israel again. Why now?

By: Alan Levine

We know the usual answers of why Israel is under attack: Islamist radicalism, anti-Semitism, incitement, and hate.

But why now?  Wednesday’s bus bombing was the first major bomb attack in Jerusalem since 2004. It was preceded by the murder of the Fogel family in Itamar, one of the most brutal attacks in Israeli history. Meanwhile, the number of Hamas rockets and mortars fired into Israel from Gaza is at its worst since the Israel-Hamas war of winter 2008-2009.

This escalation of violence against Israel comes at a time when Israel is out of the headlines, as the world focuses on the dramatic revolutions turning the Arab world upside down, from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya and Yemen.

With the region in upheaval, the Palestinian leadership sees public outrage in most of the corrupt Arab dictatorships (CAD) throughout the Middle East, and it makes them nervous because they are a CAD.  Moreover, they are beginning to see political unrest in their own territories. For this reason, Hamas and Fatah both shut down “Palestinian unity” protests earlier this month in the Gaza Strip and West Bank respectively.

But the Palestinians have a secret weapon that the other CAD’s do not. They can fight Israel at little cost.  The struggle against Israel serves as a powerful distraction from the very real issues that plague Palestinian society—corruption, poor governance, and lack of civil rights under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.

Moreover, Palestinian leaders continue to incite their people toward violence and the demonization of Israelis instead of educating for peace. And while both Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad often condemn violence to appease their Western benefactors, the two so-called “moderate” Palestinian leaders constantly craft their statements, so as to not overly offend his people’s sympathy for jihad against Israel.

Just look at Abbas’s Arabic speeches where he frequently expresses his support for tahdiah (calm or cease fire), but not for peace. He is against Hamas rocket attacks, not because they are wrong, but because they are “futile.” Although both Abbas and Fayyad belatedly condemned last week’s murder in Itamar, the PA aligned Ma’an News Agency cast doubt as to whether it was really committed by Palestinians. In condemning this week’s bus bombing, Abbas had to imply that the terror attack was the fault of the IDF—as if collateral damage in Gaza were morally equivalent to the targeting of civilians by Palestinian terrorists.

This kind of skillful rhetorical maneuvering allows the PA to turn around and name squares after terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi. Abbas and Fayyad can then attend heroic funerals of people like the mastermind of the PLO massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

And Abbas’ actions are as “flip-floppy” as his words. PA security forces arrested two Palestinian Islamic Jihad members for this week’s bombing, but they were released 24 hours later.

Meanwhile, the international community gives the Palestinians a free pass. The PA is emboldened by the recent wave of countries recognizing “Palestine” as an independent state and the upgrading of Palestinian diplomatic missions in Europe. They also welcome the dozens of U.N. resolutions against Israel.

And Israel is blamed—at the UN, in the media, and by foreign leaders—for not doing more to empower the PA autocrats. This is happening, ironically, at a time in which Western countries are re-thinking their own relations with CAD’s even though the PA’s two-faced corruption, incitement and placating of Islamists makes them look exactly like Mubarak and the other CAD’s. But in this case, instead of it being called “propping up of dictators”, it is called “Palestinian self-determination.”

Abbas knows that very well and does not feel the pressure to issue real condemnations against terror, let alone to fight terror. Thus PA leaders—and this is nothing new—feel that they can have their cake and eat it too. He can come off as a fighter against Israel to Arab audiences and as a responsible statesman to Western audiences, just as Arafat used to do.

That in a nutshell, is the obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Arab civilization is deeply troubled, and peace with Israel is a political liability. The only way to achieve peace is for the PA to truly become a partner.