In support of Plan B

From Allison, more evidence that the IDF anti-terror operations and the security fence are doing their jobs:

Five suicide bombings have been thwarted since the beginning of the month, and 60 since the beginning of the year, security officials said Thursday. They were unable to divulge details, as the suspects are still being questioned by the Shin Bet.

There are two approaches to dealing with terrorism: make the terrorists want to stop, or make them unable to follow through with their plans.

Plan A has been tried over and over again. When the Oslo accords were signed, people thought, well, this is it. The terrorists hate us because they want their own country, the logic went. And now that they’re on the road to getting what they want, they’ll leave us alone. I already quoted Imshin’s perceptive words on the misconception that the entire West seems to have about the true motives of the terrorist groups:

Don’t worry, everyone said, the Palestinian people will soon be having such a ball, they’ll just love their independence and newfound affluence so much, that it will have to work. So I didn’t worry. More fool me.

Because it didn’t work, did it? Those bastards stole all the money and what they didn’t they spent on arms and on teaching hatred. Terrorist organizations flourished. No independence for the Palestinians. No affluence. (And no peace for us). Conned by their leaders. Again. And so were we.

The problem is that this dispute isn’t about land, or territory, or independence or even money. The Palestinians could have had a state a long time ago if that’s what they really wanted. It’s not about all the logical, rational things that Westerners assume must be at the root of every dispute. It’s not about poverty, or suffering, or lack of education; most of the terrorists are middle-class and educated.

No. It’s about hatred. It’s about deep-set, ingrained hatred that would take centuries to eradicate, if at all. With that kind of hatred, traditional negotiation goes nowhere. Every time Israel extends her hand, it gets slapped. Every offer is met with more attacks. Every concession is nothing but a sign of weakness. Hamas doesn’t want a Palestinian state; they merely want no Jewish one. Beyond that, they couldn’t care less. It’s right there in black and white in their charter. And yet nobody wants to believe them.

Plan A is the ultimate goal of course. But it’s too long-term. Too difficult to achieve. Too seemingly impossible.

And in the meantime, how to stop innocent people from dying? That’s where Plan B comes in. Build a fence around them, cut off their sources of funding, put up roadblocks and security checks and take out their leaders in military strikes and raid and arrest as many terrorists as possible. It’s ugly, but, as Allison says, it seems to be having at least somewhat of an effect.

The terrorists may not hate us any less, but let’s make it as difficult as possible for them to translate their hatred into action. They’ll keep trying but they’ll succeed a lot less, and that can save countless lives.