(My personal problem with it is that the terrorist is likely to join up with his homies, rather than suffer.)

We have also seen that social and communal sanctions work to stop Palestinian terror and recruitment. There are a lot of Palis who don’t want their families involved in this, and a credible threat of dispossesion/financial ruin helps them avoid being tagged “collaborators” in the sick, Sicily-on-steroids world of Hamastan-Gaza and the Wild West Bank.

The British stopped train bombings by having local Arab sheiks in the engine car of each train.

I also think any terrorist with blood on their hands should be executed if found guilty.

If we apply that democratically we’ll have to expel a lot of Haredim, a whole mess of settlers and right wingers, numerous supporters of opposition parties, a good chunk of the army and reservists, pissed off cab drivers, surly teenagers, anyone who speeds on the highway, drug users, importers of Chinese products into Israel, currency speculators, a number of philanthropists and their employees, almost the entire city of Tel Aviv etc. and me because I would not want to live in a country like that.

Wait… we could deport the hippies. Send them to India with one way tickets and tell them its a free vacation. Also we can deport all those guys who keep opening Bagel shops where they produce imitation NY-Style bagels. A poor imitation of an abomination is like a double abomination. Yeah… that would be good. Lets do it!

For the next stretch, we can count on his continuing to be distracted with bigger fish to fry– Iran, Afghanistan, etc.

But with nothing happening bilaterally, Obama remains the whole ballgame. Witness the Palestinians’ stomping around like two year-olds, pleading for his attention.

Obama ridiculed the Likud before the Likud won, because Obama and his dream team campaigned for Kadima and fully expected them to win…but Bibi, as Ben David pointed out, has done pretty well pretty well maneuvering a very hostile and naive Obama administration.

Israel also has to wait things out. They have to wait out the Obama administration. I don’t think another American president this sympathetic to Arabs or Palestinians will come along so fast. I believe that’s why the Palestinians are launching full scale ahead. They know they only have 3-7 years to have this kind of backing by an American president.

You also completely left Hamas out of the equation. If Abbas wants to play tough then the IDF can stop protecting him. It is reported in major news publications that outside of Ramallah Abbas cannot go anywhere without IDF protection.

also people died in a recent flooding in jeddah

Weakness is when your job is on the line. Is Abbas’s job on the line? Is Fayyad’s?

Nope.

Weakness is when you actually have something to lose.

What do they have to lose? They didn’t have a state yesterday, they don’t control Israel or Jerusalem, they don’t control the West Bank and they know nobody wants Gaza. So it’s not as if they have anything to lose.

Are their brethren from abroad back? No. They are living in refugee camps in Lebanon or getting law degrees in international law at Canadian universities. What do they have to lose there? Nothing.

They have a government, a small but growing American trained and funded army, a plan to build out their government so that it can manage a state, diplomatic and legal tentacles that reach into every corner of the West, prominent and numerous shills who will protest and boycott Israel all over Europe and North America, and effective activism in many major universities. No losses here, only gains.

Diplomatically, they have also gained a great deal of momentum, because alongside the the usual Muslim bloc’s support, they can now count on the Europeans for a great deal of support. Certainly they have nothing to lose there as long as they stay away from blatant terror attacks (rockets launched at civilian centers are apparently acceptable to the EU). No losses or weakness here.

Obama has not withdrawn support for anybody, except Israel. It’s not happenstance that Clinton used harsh language against the settlements, without qualifying between settlements and east Jerusalem and it’s no accident that Bibi was granted only a late-night, media-absent, visit with the leader of Israel’s greatest ally. Abbas was given proper treatment by the President. Certainly, after Bush Jr., Obama is no loss for the Palestinians but a net gain. If you need proof, look at the servility garnered by Abbas’s “threat” to leave the political arena. No losses here, just gains.

Israeli senior officers and politicians are afraid to set foot on the soil of certain European countries, while any Hamas terrorist can do so fearlessly. Jewish students are cowed on campus after campus all over North America, unless they join the shouts of “apartheid Israel,” “Zionism is racism,” and “tear down the wall” while Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Leftist Palestinian advocates openly and confidently spit out the word “Zionist” as if they were saying “Nazi.” The IDF is questioning how the hell it’s supposed to fight its next war, while it tries to deal with a mini-revolt by a small but important group of young soldiers whose actions may be reflecting a wider movement. No losses there, just gains. Not just short term gains, either, these are all long term gains the impact of which will grow and grow.

And ultimately, Tom, what you’ve misunderstood, in case all of the above isn’t sufficient for you, is that the Palestinian plan is TO WAIT. They not only have nothing to lose, they have time as a result.

They don’t care whether the UN does or does not grant them this new wish because even if the UN does create a new resolution undermining 242, and even if the Security Council does, it is meaningless because the Palestinians know Israel isn’t going to pack up and leave. So then why do it? Because it buys them another inch, another right, another point of pressure with implications that it could wield even more leverage over Israel, make Israel’s anemic foreign diplomacy even weaker and continue to chip away at an Israel they perceive as limestone (a soft stone), not hard like granite. You just need time to wear down limestone and the Palestinians believe they see some serious cracks.

The only sucker-punch here is Bibi’s masterful bob-and-weave handling of an antagonistic White House.

He now has insulated himself from that White House’s eagerness to demonize him – the “bad cops” in this good cop, bad cop routine are Liberman and other pols unknown to most Americans, anonymous soldiers holding up “hell, no” banners – no better way to drive home to the Americans that it is not just “evil Bibi” but the entire Israeli populace that is opposed to 2 states West of the Jordan.

Bibi and Liberman have worked masterfully to move the conversation away from the Oslo 2-state paradigm.

They have also moved quickly to capitcalize on the fear generated by Obama’s abandonment of small democracies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

You are right. In reality, on the ground, the Palestinians are very weak. However, this has now become a theme among the Arabs – the strength of weakness. Assad in Syria is sitting on a powder keg so we are not allowed to touch him. Mubarak can die any minute and send Egypt into civil war, so we can’t pressure him too much.

The same with the PA. They are so inept, so corrupt, so petty and self-defeating, that Israel has to make unilateral concessions just to keep them at the table! Who created this insanity?!

Middle did not even consider the role of Hamas, or the larger issue of Iranian interference within Hamas decision-making, which appears to be following the Hezbollah model.