Don't You Miss The Days When The US Propped Up Stongmen and Dictators?

Instead, we have 'moderates' like Abbas is in charge, someone Olmert can negotiate peace with. Too bad Fatah did not get the memo:

Abu Haroon, a black-clad bearded militant from the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, placed a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in the hands of his nephew. The rifle was twice as big as the child.

"Remember, as I may not be coming back: Learn to use this against the enemy one day," he said, giving the boy a farewell cuddle.

..."We have orders not to fire any rockets on Tuesday because of the Annapolis summit, but we can resume normal activities after the summit ends," Haroon explained, claiming he is totally loyal to the political leadership of Fatah.

He would not say who was giving the orders, or what the chain of command is. Many analysts think President Mahmoud Abbas, who has publicly condemned rocket firing as "silly and counterproductive," at most only has limited control over the brigades.

Go ask yourself what kind of leader calls firing rockets at your peace partner 'silly'.

Then again, we all know that Ehud Olmert is nothing to write home about either. On the one hand, we see him as constantly calling for painful concessions, all the while offering dangerous ones. Olmert thinks this creates an environment for peace. That is not so clear. What is clear is that there is now a

second line of thinking - among Palestinians who discern a pattern of unilateral concession from Israel and see no incentive or imperative to compromise at all. Israel has left Gaza. It is talking about leaving all of the West Bank, albeit with settlement bloc adjustments. It is talking about unprecedented concessions in east Jerusalem. It is finding no answer to rocket attacks from Gaza and proved vulnerable to attack from south Lebanon. So why hurry, they ask, to compromise on the refugee issue and other maximalist demands? Why hurry when a two-state solution is so obviously an Israeli interest, and when the single, binational state which inertia might bring spells suicide for Israel?

Olmert has done nothing to convince Palestinian Arabs that they need to bring any sort of concessions to the table--and don't expect Abbas, or Bush, to do that job.

When did it happen that the leaders of Israel turned into politicians?

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Annapolis.