| August 29, 2005: The largest Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas, is openly boasting of the success of its terror attacks in forcing the Israelis to leave Gaza. Hamas, and other Palestinian terror groups believe continued attacks will lead to the destruction of Israel, which has long been the goal of most Palestinian political groups. Officially, however, the Palestinian Authority, says that the goal is a separate Palestinian state. Israel goes along with this, but also continues to build the security wall between the West Bank and Israel. The Wall has proved successful in keeping terrorists out, but it also makes it very difficult for Palestinians to work in Israel, or to export goods, and thus create jobs within the Palestinian territories. As a result, Palestinians, and their European allies, condemn the Israeli wall (ignoring the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks). But the Israelis appear determined to complete the wall, and continue raids into Palestinian territory to kill or arrest known, or suspected, terrorists. Most Israelis have given up on trying to cooperate with the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority has an opportunity to eliminate the Palestinian terrorist organizations and establish peace. But this is not expected to happen, and Israel is preparing to seal off the Palestinian territories and ignore them. |