More than 10 years ago, the Israel and the PLO worked out the Oslo Accords. This was an agreement where Israel was to allow the Palestinians to form armed internal police forces, which were then supposed to confiscate weapons and forcibly disband terrorist cells. The PLO itself, on the verge of achieving a Palestinian state, would disband. Israel would relinquish some of the territory that had been seized for Jewish settlements, and the Palestinians would hold free and fair elections in order to form a legitimate government instead of being run by a bunch of terrorist organizations.
This was pretty much just the first steps, though. The idea was to eventually have a nation called Palestine which would rule its own territory and leave the Israelis alone, while Israel returned the favor.
A few of the first steps were actually completed. Some of the Jewish settlements were bulldozed and the land was returned to the Palestinians. The Palestinians were allowed to form armed internal security forces. Next step was elections.
Didn’t happen. The newly armed secruity forces recruited and armed many more gunmen than they said they would, many of them murderous terrorists. Of course, the first thing these guys wanted to do was use their shiny new AK’s and murder even more people.
And do you think that the “police” even tried to shut the PLO down or arrest terrorists? Don’t make me laugh.
I’m reminded of this painful episode of naivete on the part of the Israelis because of this news item. The terrorist organization Hamas is claiming that they’ll agree to a “truce” if Israel releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners. They also want the Israelis to redeploy their troops away from Gaza. Don’t worry about Jewish civilians after the army pulls out, Hamas says, because they’ll station Palestinian police forces in order to protect them.
Does anyone else see a pattern here? Or is it just me?
UPDATE
Francis Porretto says that calling a truce simply to gather strength for further hostilities is a favored Islamic tactic.
