Abbas prefers security fence to killings: expert

WINNIPEG — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told former prime minister Ariel Sharon before Israel built the West Bank security fence that he preferred it over targeted killings as a way of fighting terror, a former Israeli Defence Forces military prosecutor said here earlier this month.

Amos Guiora – a former Israeli Defence Forces military prosecutor in the West Bank Military Court, as well as a former judge in the Gaza Strip Military Court and legal adviser to the Gaza Strip military commander – spoke about Israel’s position in the Middle East in a talk at the Canadian Mennonite University on March 8.

While approximately 200 members of the Mennonite community came to hear anti-Israel speaker Jeff Halper on Jan. 25, only about 25 members of the Mennonite community came to hear Guiora.

Having been personally involved in the legal and policy aspects of Israeli counterterrorism efforts, Guiora said that before Sharon authorized the building of the security fence, “he went to Abbas” and said that Israel could conduct “more targeted killings” of terrorists or it could “build the fence,” and Abbas told Sharon he “preferred” the fence.

Guiora, now a law professor the University of Utah, added: “The fence is effective… for the Palestinian Authority. It enables them to come to Israel and say we’ve minimized Palestinian terrorism into Israel.”

Guiora also said that “Sharon’s plan had been to release [jailed Fatah leader] Marwan Barghouti,” who has been convicted of murdering Israeli civilians in terror attacks and is in an Israeli prison. Guiora said that Sharon was willing to release him, with the idea he would eventually become PA president, because the head of the PA would have to be “a ruthless tough leader,” capable of controlling the West Bank. In Guiora’s view, Abbas, who he said he has met, is not tough enough for the position.  

Guiora added that although it has been “kept a secret,” there have been some Israeli Arabs who have served in the IDF, “not in desk jobs, but in combat.”

According to Guiora, the Palestinian Authority leadership understands that if it wants a state in the West Bank, it needs to conduct itself “diametrically differently than Hamas.” He said that Palestinians in the West Bank “took to the streets only once” during Israel’s recent Gaza operation, because they know “better than anyone else that Hamas has brought them nothing.”

Guiora said that although he had been a “longtime supporter of a two-state solution” who had voted for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2006, he no longer thinks a two-state solution is on the horizon, especially given Hamas’ control of Gaza.

“Rather than build a liberal society” after Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, “all Hamas has done is lob 600 missiles into Israel in the last three years,” Guiora said, adding that the “Palestinians are masters of their own victimization.”

In considering the extensive terror infrastructure Hamas has built and the level of support Hamas enjoys in Gaza, Guiora said people need to “think long and hard” about who were really “the victims” of Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

Speaking of the wider region, Guiora said that once President Hosni Mubarak is no longer leader of Egypt, his son, Jamal, will likely take over, but it’s an open question “whether the [Egyptian] army will be loyal to him, and whether he will be as ruthless [as his father] toward Islamic extremism.”

Guiora, whose recent books include Fundamentals of Counterterrorism and Global Perspectives on Counterterrorism, said Russia’s support of Iran is “extremely concerning.”

He added, “Does [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin not realize that what can be aimed one way [toward Israel] can also be aimed the other way [toward Russia]?

He also said that “Iranian threats are getting stronger every day” and “we in Israel believe everything they [the Iranian government officials] say” when they threaten the Jewish state.

Guiora was unsure, however, whether Israel would decide to strike Iran. He added that he is also “losing sleep” over the fact that Pakistan has “100 nuclear warheads” and, in his view, “the regime isn’t stable.”