COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK                                                             BY DR. AARON LERNER.                                                         

Bush soft on Palestinian security compliance - approach disservice to all



To Mahmoud Abbas' credit, from the very first day he recognized that when it comes to the Palestinians, the Bush team isn't really serious about security compliance.  That the White House is more interested in the melody than the lyrics. That's why Abbas can consistently say flat out that he has no intention to confront the illegal armed militias and it doesn't matter. That's why Abbas could make it perfectly clear - as he stood next to President Bush in the White House today - that he has no intention to collect weapons before the elections.

And that's why Abbas can repeatedly explain that, at best, his idea of "one gun" is that ultimately all the terrorists generously agree to be on the PA's payroll. Sure, Mr. Bush talks the talk about the need for the Palestinians to fight terror - but his carefully crafted remarks, wrapped in praise for Abbas, are bereft of any clear timetable or measurable standards for action.

This is nothing new.

A few weeks ago Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to a question at Princeton University about America being soft on Hamas with a carefully crafted statement that was not only soft on Hamas but soft on Palestinian terror in general. Instead of calling on the Palestinian Authority to immediately disarm the terrorists, Rice showed understanding for this taking an open-ended period of time.  "There are periods of time of transition in which one has to give some space to the participants, in this case the Palestinians, to begin to come to a new national compact. Eventually", the Secretary of State explained, they have to be disarmed. Paradoxically, rather than help Abbas, Mr. Bush is sending a message to the Palestinian street that there isn't any genuine pressure for the PA to take serious steps against the terror infrastructure.

The deleterious absence of pressure from Washington on the Palestinian leadership isn't limited to security matters.  The PLO could readily inject hundreds of millions of dollars from its "war chest" today to alleviate the situation in the Gaza Strip rather than hold out for contributions, but instead Washington acts as if Arafat took the PLO's holdings with him to his grave.

LAST WEEK COMMENTARY

Compensation for administrative detention

                 
The debate over administrative detention pits national security concerns against the rights of people who, while believed to represent serious security threats, for some reason cannot be charged and put on trial. Under the present system in Israel, those held in administrative detention  are not compensated for their loss of freedom - or even the financial  consequences of being unable to go to their workplaces. As a result, when the State weighs the costs of administrative detention  against the benefits in a given case they seriously understate the costs as  much of the costs are borne by the person being detained.

The recent court decision to award 100,000 NIS in damages to Noam Federman  for falsely placing him under house arrest is a step in the right direction,  but hardly enough.  At 100,000 NIS for two years that comes to less than  $1,000 a month. And, of course, the cost is being imposed after the fact.

Present security conditions may make administrative detention a necessary  evil but the introduction of financial  "checks and balances" so that  administrative detainees - both Israeli and Palestinian - are financially  compensated for their loss of freedom would go a long way to insuring that  security authorities think long and hard before resorting to what should be  an exceptional last resort.- 13 October 2005
 

PREVIOUS COMMENTARY Rice soft on Hamas and disarming Palestinian terrorists


Last week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to a question at Princeton University about America being soft on Hamas with a carefully crafted statement that was not only soft on Hamas but soft on Palestinian terror in general. Instead of calling on the Palestinian Authority to immediately disarm the terrorists, Rice showed understanding for this taking an open-ended period of time.  "There are periods of time of transition in which one has to give some space to the participants, in this case the Palestinians, to begin to come to a new national compact. Eventually", the Secretary of State explained, they have to be disarmed. Instead of calling to bar Hamas from running in the PLC unless it first disarms, Rice said that "you cannot have armed groups ultimately participating in politics with no expectation that they're going to disarm" - a requirement that could just as easily be met by Hamas saying that they "expect" to "ultimately" disarm.

And to drive home the point that the Hamas "politicians" can "run first - disarm sometime later", the Secretary of State cited the example of the Good Friday Agreement in which "it was understood that when Sinn Fein came into politics .eventually the IRA would disarm" - adding that "perhaps, hopefully, that process is now underway." One would have hoped that Ms. Rice's remarks would have been met by expressions of concern in both Israel and from friends of Israel in America.

The opposite was the case.

The Israeli media and Israeli politicians to a man embraced the Rice remarks as if they were a no-holds-barred position against the Hamas in general and their participation in the upcoming PLC elections in particular. "Improving" on Rice's remarks might make sense if doing so would somehow transform the forced interpretation into American policy.  But there is no indication that this is the case. By misrepresenting Ms. Rice's very serious remarks, Israel has sent a signal to friends of Israel that all is well in Washington when the opposite is the case.  And with Mahmoud Abbas slated to meet President Bush in the coming weeks this is hardly the time to replace serious concerns with wishful thinking.