The 'natives' are getting restless (again)

I'm always amused when pro-Pali (anti-Israel) blogs and news sources go to great lengths to assert that the Jewish residents of this region are all recent interlopers, while the 'native' Arab residents have long-standing, deep cultural and familial ties to the land.

For the record, I patently reject the Zionist myth of modern Jewish settlers miraculously finding 'a land without people for a people without a land'.  But 19th century Turkish/Ottoman-era maps, photographs and census documents provide incontrovertible proof that while both Jews and Arabs can claim a very modest presence in the land going back centuries... the overwhelming majority of current Jewish and Arab residents are descendants of parallel waves of immigration that occurred in modern times.

[Sheesh... if I had realized it would take two whole paragraphs to explain the 'scare quotes' in the title of this post, I would have picked another title!  :-)  ]

Clear so far?  Good... on to the rest of the post.

On December 25th our Prime Minister announced his decision (against the strong advice of senior IDF staff) to remove 27 roadblocks throughout Judea and Samaria as a 'gesture' to the Palestinian population in order to ease the plight of those who find it difficult to travel to work and to visit family. 

To place this decision in a different context which might be a bit more accessible to some of you... it would be roughly akin to President Bush ordering (against the strong advice of his Homeland Security Advisers) the removal of security screening facilities at a few dozen US airports as a gesture to the traveling public in order to ease the onerous burden of both business and recreational travelers.

To be even more base, it would be like a woman deciding to allow her boyfriend to go without 'protection' whenever they have sex on Tuesdays as a gesture of goodwill and so the experience will be more enjoyable for him... at least some of the time.

In short, while the sentiment behind Olmert's decision might be laudable, it is completely divorced from logic.  Either there is a compelling reason for the protection of security check-points or there isn't.  If not, then take them all down and open the roads.  But if you can't mount a reasonable argument for removing all the check points then you can't make a case for removing any of them.

I know... I know.  Some of you are already getting ready to explain to me that the checkpoints are 'only' in the west bank and not at the crossing into 'Israel proper'.  To you I would ask the following questions:

1.  Would it be OK for President Bush to only remove security checkpoints at small regional airports while leaving them in place at national and international 'Hubs'?

2.  Does the Government of Israeli have a lesser burden of responsibility to protect its citizens who are legally living in 'the territories' under it's direct control?

3.  Is there anything... anything at all... in the past performance of the Palestinians that would suggest that they will not immediately use this 'easing of restrictions' for cynical purposes that will ultimately cost Israeli lives - both inside and outside the green line?

To answer my last question (did you really think it was rhetorical?), we need look no further than the news* since the roadblocks began to be removed.  As if on cue there has been a huge increase in the number and severity of stonings and fire-bombings along the roads of Judea and Samaria. 

On the road I travel to and from work there have been nearly hourly reports of cars damaged by stones and Molotov cocktails since the restrictions began to be eased.

This defies logic!  One would think that increased violence would result form increased pressure/restrictions, right? 

But instead, each and every 'gesture' Israel has ever made towards easing the plight of the Palestinian population has resulted in increased attacks and violence.  Every attempt to make 'occupation' less onerous for the Arabs has been met with direct violence... and the one real test case for removing any semblance of 'occupation' (Gaza) has provided proof of the direst warnings that the response to autonomy would be increased attacks against Israel/Israelis.

I'm sure there are those of you who will 'pooh-pooh' and 'pshaw' the actual danger posed by stones and fire-bombs. Heck, many of us (especially those of us who don't live in Sderot) have already started mentally downplaying the danger of 'primitive' kassam rockets.   I would ask you to watch this short video before rushing to judgment about the danger posed by such improvised and home-made weapons.

To place these new developments on an even more personal level...while I have always taken the precaution of commuting to and from work with a loaded pistol tucked next to my driver's seat, I stopped wearing a bullet proof vest when the last Intifada seemed to have 'ended'. 

Now that the 'natives' are getting restless once again, I may have to seriously rethink that decision.

* Recent reports of attacks: here, here, here, and here. I looked for reports in Haaretz but apparently they are not aware of any attacks against Israeli citizens worthy of mention.