No Recognition For The Violent "Unity" Government

Israel and the United States are taking the only reasonable path they can in their unwillingness to extend recognition to the new Fatah-Hamas "unity" government in the Palestinian territories until it satisfies three conditions: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and commitment to observe past peace treaties.

This is a throwback to the days of the late slimy PLO chief, Yasser Arafat, who always stopped short of recognizing Israel and who repeatedly resorted to violence in hopes that he could get his way. There was no such thing as honorable dealing with Arafat, as many American presidents and Israeli prime ministers found out. He was absolutely not to be trusted, and his successors in Gaza and the West Bank are men of the same stripe.

Indeed, it is a characteristic of Muslim extremists throughout the world that their word cannot be taken seriously, and that their easy adoption of violence puts them outside the bounds of civilization. Their conduct grows more and more despicable and justifies repression everywhere that is appropriate.

As Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today, Muslim separatists in Thailand launched unprovoked attacks that caused six fatalities in the southern part of that country, Iran again refused to commit to suspend its nuclear program, and Sunni insurgents exploded new bombs in Baghdad that killed 63 and wounded 127, just two days after the incompetent and asinine Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, had declared that the new security operations in Baghdad were a "dazzling success."

Earlier in the week, extremist bombs in Algeria killed six and wounded many others, and threats were made to expand the terrorism there to France, Spain and Italy. Islamic killings continued in Somalia, Lebanon, Pakistan and Iran, Islamic terrorists received long prison sentences for earlier bombings in Turkey, and, even in Salt Lake City, a Bosnian Muslim immigrant violated the terms under which his family had been admitted to the United States by walking into a mall and shooting to death five innocent people, before he was shot and killed by police.

So, when Abbas tells Rice, as he did today, that if only the U.S. and Israel recognize the new unity government, Hamas will moderate sometime in the future, there is no reason to accept his assurances. The record speaks for itself: the Palestinians are not to be trusted to be reasonable, and until they prove they are reasonable, they must be given no further concessions. Every day, they fire more rockets into Israel, they prove their intransigence and lack of good sense.

Abbas went to Saudi Arabia to meet with Hamas to develop the unity pact, but, as so often is the case with so-called Muslim moderates, he promptly caved into the extremists on all key points. I hope when she met with him, Rice was carrying pepper spray for her own protection.

The Democrats in Congress may believe we can walk away from all this with impunity. Just yesterday, Sen. Hillary Clinton demonstrated she is not tough enough to be President by knuckling under to naive peaceniks in the Democratic party and advocating that U.S. soldiers begin withdrawing from Iraq in 90 days.

The bitter truth is that we cannot retreat now, in the Middle East or anywhere else, because Muslim violence, encouraged by the withdrawal would only increase the threat to the U.S., the West, and indeed civilization itself.