A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Root Causes of Terror

Robert Pape, a political science professor, writing in today's Times about the motivations of terrorists, correctly says that "there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any religion for that matter... Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel liberal democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective."

Pape counsels against making political concessions to "political causes supported by terrorists." Such political concessions, he argues, lead only to more terror: "Suicide terrorists were thought to compel ... Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and 1995."

While I believe Pape is right that political concessions are not a correct response to terrorism, he is wrong that in 1994-95 Israel pulled out of the West Bank and Gaza due to terror. In fact, Israel negotiated the Oslo Accords with the PLO in 1993, before the first wave of suicide bombings in 1994. Further, at the time Binyamin Netanyahu was elected in 1996, Israel retained more than 70 percent of Judea and Samaria. In fact, the reverse of Pape's argument is true: The withdrawal of Israeli forces from part of Judea, Samaria and Gaza compelled suicide terrorists to attack Israel, both between 1994 and 1996 and after the 2000 Camp David summit, when former prime minister Barak offered to withdraw from almost all of the territories.

Ignoring this, because Pape believes that military attacks on terrorists only incite more terror, he concludes that "In the end, the best approach for the states under fire is probably to focus on their own domestic security while doing what they can to see that the least militant forces on the terrorists' side build a viable state on their own. Israel, for example, would be well advised to abandon the territory it holds on the West Bank but to go ahead with building the immense wall, 20 feet high and 20 feet wide, to physically separate it from the Palestinian population. This would create real security for Israel and leave the West Bank for a true Palestinian state."

Not only does Pape's conclusion appear to undermine his argument against making political concessions in response to terror, it ignores Israel's experience with the Oslo Accords, when it negotiated a deal with (what it then believed to be) "the least militant forces on the terrorists' side" only to face wave after wave of suicide bomb attacks. Pape also ignores the fact that a state - even on all of the territory captured in 1967 - would not meet the demands of even "the least militant" Palestinians, who continue to demand that millions of "refugees" be allowed to "return" to Israel.
posted on 9/22/2003