Acts of Desperation : Defence, Not Terrorism

"The decision to declare the fund a terrorist organization stems from its continuing and ongoing activity in providing massive support for elements responsible for committing severe acts of terrorism against Israel."
"As of today, all necessary actions will be taken in Israel and overseas in order to seize and confiscate property and assets designated for, or belonging to, the fund."
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman

"[This is] an Israeli attempt to obstruct and sabotage U.S. efforts [to relaunch peace talks. It is a] fundamental violation [of interim agreements signed between the PLO and Israel two decades ago]."
"All countries of the world [should] reject this declaration to preserve the agreement."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

What other country of the world is expected to negotiate for peace with an entity claiming to represent the best interests of a large group of people whom the international community has supported as refugees for generations, in the full knowledge that funding given to that authority is used to reward the families of terrorists intent on wreaking havoc and killing as many people in that country as they can manage, the greater good being to sacrifice themselves to oppose the presence of a nation alien to the 'refugees'. 

The 'agreement' that PA President Abbas alludes to certainly never had the intention of glorifying the martyrdom exploits of Palestinians incited to attack a legitimate government and its population. The double game that the Palestinian Authority plays by teaching young Palestinians through television programs, plays, storytelling, summer camps and school curricula that the land Israel sits upon has been taken from Palestinians, the 'legitimate' owners/residents of the land, certainly slants toward grooming children in the fullness of time to become 'martyrs' themselves.

'Resisting' the 'occupation' is an all-too-familiar byword for violence to be launched against Israeli Jews by Palestinians. Palestinians who have been taught to honour the exploits of those who have responded to their leaders' incitement by revering their names and their acts of terrorism, are guaranteed to fall into the pattern of emerging as new-generation terrorists. With the comfortable knowledge that they will gain respect in so doing, and if their terrorism rates high on the atrocity index they will be venerated.

Pride in 'resistance' is characterized by naming streets, civic centres, camps for children and other public institutions after the terrorists who have made their mark in a never-ending circuit of violence. Efforts to have the two sides engage in serious and honest negotiations to reach an understanding and a potential solving of the issues that divide them are a sham when the Palestinians make demands in the full knowledge that to agree to them would result in the dissolution of the Jewish state.

The International community is committed to the theory of two states living in peace side by side because of its idealistic connotations; resolving an issue of symbolic as well as practical importance to an historical region, that must be achieved. By posing as an underdog whom a much stronger adversary abuses, Palestinians have succeeded in establishing the fiction that they are interested in peace, while Israel plots to gain advantage by further victimizing innocent Palestinians, depriving them of the land needed for their future state.

The settlements in areas the Palestinians and the international community refer to as the West Bank and Jewish tradition of heritage lands names Judea and Samaria, began their establishment and growth long after countless opportunities for the Palestinians to agree to peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state, were refused by their leaders. The hidden issue was always the Palestinians' desire to see Israel disappear and the entire land mass 'returned' to the Palestinians.

None of the countries that support the 'rights' of the Palestinians and provide them with the funds to operate their functioning infrastructure on the basis that 'refugee' populations are unable to fend for themselves, would tolerate the reality that foreign nations give funding that is used to financially support a terrorist agenda of strikes against the presence of a country like their own. For some strange reason, however, they find it easy to avert their attention from the inconvenience of recognizing that they are funding terrorism, preferring to view themselves as honest brokers.

It was finally left to Israel to declare the Palestinian National Fund whose main offices are maintained in Jordan, and which is responsible for measuring out generous funding to families of terrorists as rewards for their sacrifice, will now have the status within Israel, as a terrorist group. The "martyrs fund" that the Palestinian National Fund administers was established by the Palestine Liberation Organization  in 1967, to encourage and give awards to those complicit in terrorist acts against Israel.

PLO institutions such as this one receive transfer funds through the Palestinian Authority. Several thousand Palestinian families are compensated handsomely through the budget of $125-million, a fund whose existence the PA's Finance Ministry's website accounts for. The fund is purposed, among other issues, to be a conduit to transfer on a monthly basis tens of millions of shekels to Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails for the crimes of terrorism.  The longer the prison sentence, the greater the funding/reward the prisoner and his family are entitled to.

A young Palestinian loyal to Hamas stands under the stage in front of a poster depicting late Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin during a rally in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Families of terrorist who were killed or wounded in action are also assured a monthly payout in honour of the deeds performed by their relative. In a sense, the countries that fund the Palestinian Authority and its 'martyrs fund' are complicit in the terrorist acts committed by these Palestinians sworn to relieve Israel of its land base and whose actions committing atrocities against Jews are excused by the fiction of Israeli 'occupation', a self-defence necessity by a nation perpetually under attack by its neighbours.