Lessons Taught

Daniel Pipes says Israel is making progress using their new tactics:

In a word, Mr. Sharon’s tough policies have established that terrorism damages Palestinian interests even more than it does Israeli ones. This has led some analysts deeply hostile to Israel to recognize that the “second intifada” was a grievous error. Violence “just went haywire,” says Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University. An “unmitigated disaster,” journalist Graham Usher calls it a “crime against the Palestinian people,” adds an Arab diplomat.

After the execution of Hamas’s other leader, Ahmed Yassin, last month, 60 prominent Palestinians urged restraint in a newspaper ad, arguing that violence would provoke strong Israeli responses that would obstruct aspirations to build an independent “Palestine.” Instead, the signatories called for “a peaceful, wise intifada.”

Ordinary Palestinians, too, are drawing the salutary conclusion that murdering Israelis brings them no benefits. “We wasted three years for nothing, this uprising didn’t accomplish anything,” says Mahar Tarhir, 25, an aluminum-store owner.” Anger and disillusionment have replaced the fighting spirit that once propelled the Palestinian movement,” finds Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a reporter for Knight Ridder.

Makes me wonder why we’re still letting Sadr live and breathe in Iraq.