Playing chicken games with the crocks

Cal Thomas wrote in JWR In the James Bond movie "Live and Let Die," "007" encounters a nest of crocodiles bent on having him for a meal. Armed only with pieces of chicken, Bond tosses the fowl at the crocs to hold them off until he figures out an escape plan. The crocks quickly consume the chicken, but keep pressing toward their ultimate objective. Which brings us to Israel's forced removal of residents from Gaza. Israel is "Bond." The pieces of chicken represent land. The Palestinian/Arab/Muslim side are crocodiles. Get it? Most Westerners do not. Israel tosses pieces of land at the Palestinian side, but once it is consumed, the Palestinians only want more until their real objective — the consumption of Israel — is reached and their hunger satiated.

So what we need is a Crocodile Hunter to wrestle with the Croc and hold its jaws closed until a rope can be tied holding them closed (a croc's main muscles are in closing its mouth; the muscles for opening the mouth are very weak).

Reading and listening to the reaction of Muslim clerics, Palestinian leaders and others throughout the region to Israel's unilateral act offers little comfort to anyone with faith in a two-state "solution" consisting of Israel and a Palestinian entity living side-by-side in peace and harmony. That does not deter apostles of this false political doctrine from continuing to promote their flawed plan. An editorial in London's Daily Telegraph represents this thinking: "The onus is now on (Palestinian Authority leader) Mahmoud Abbas ... Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Fatah Martyrs' Brigades and others of their ilk must be persuaded or compelled to abandon their arms in favor of peaceful political engagement." That is unlikely to happen. Among the chants heard as Israeli soldiers forced their fellow Jews from their Gaza homes was, "We will continue with the rest of Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, until we control all of Israel."

True, but the objective of the pullback was not a hope that the Palestinians would be satisfied. The main objective was to get the Jews out of the settlements that were hard to protect, and which they knew they could not extend the wall to include, and then they will complete the building of the wall in the west bank, and then go into a defense mode, with Israel realitively protected behind the wall, and able to use massive retalliation to rocket attacks over the wall. And when the Europeans complain about the massive response, Israel will point at what they did to their own citizens in a gesture for peace.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, in an interview with the Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, said, "We do not and will not recognize a state called Israel. ... This land is the property of all Muslims in all parts of the world. … Let Israel die." That's not the rhetoric of someone who yearns to live side-by-side in peace and harmony with an Israeli state.

Clearly there will be more deaths; the question is whether Israel is willing to respond with massive attacks when the rockets come over the wall.

The new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has rejected democracy as un-Islamic. In a 7,000-word document presented to his parliament detailing his "short- and long-term programs," Ahmadinejad said that in a Muslim country power belongs to God. He said that not only will he fight any form of democratization in Iran, he would mobilize the nation's resources to prevent the United States from imposing its plan for self-determination on nations in the region. While the U.S. has tried to avoid statements about a culture war, Ahmadinejad has no such reluctance. He speaks of a "clash of civilizations" between Islamic republics like Iran and Western "ideas and concepts of government" that he says have no place in Islam.

Because he is afraid of people in his own country rising up and demanding democracy.

The U.S. is a "sunset" power, he says, while the Islamic Republic is a "sunrise" one. That's a pretty clear ideology, matched by an agenda. It says that nothing Israel does to pacify or mollify these religious fanatics will deter them from their "God-ordained" goals, which consist of the elimination of Israel and the domination of all other nations under Islamic rule. These are not secret records kept from the world. They are published documents that are part of government policies and religious doctrine. To pretend people who say such things don't really mean it is to be guilty of self-delusion in the extreme. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government says it won't negotiate with extremist organizations like Hamas, but only with elected leaders of the Palestinian Authority. But what if Hamas supporters win seats in the announced Palestinian parliamentary elections in January? Even if they don't, the objectives of the Palestinian Authority are the same as organizations with which Israel will not negotiate. They are all crocodiles. Tossing pieces of "chicken" in their direction will never satisfy them. They want it all. They say so, and their actions prove they are serious.

But Israel has a lot better weapons than they do (and I am not talking about nuclear weapons, which should be saved until Iran gets the bomb). Israel should be able to tie the mouth of the crocodile closed.