Policing Palestinian Promises

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of an unresolved event in
Gaza that is emblematic of
U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinians.  Boker tov,
Boulder! remembered it here.

On
October 15, 2003, a
U.S. embassy convoy, consisting of  three unmarked vans, went to
Gaza to interview Palestinian candidates for Fulbright scholarship programs.  Just after it entered the Gaza Strip, a remotely detonated explosive device destroyed the second vehicle, killing the three American security specialists in it — John Branchizio (36), John Linde (30), and Mark Parsons (31). 

The significance of what had occurred was obvious:

Americans on an official State Department mission had been targeted, with sophisticated explosives, in territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

The attack came the day after
America had vetoed a resolution advanced in the United Nations by
Syria and the Palestinians that would have condemned
Israel‘s security barrier. . . . [A] day after the attack a “Palestinian government official” told the Washington Post that had Americans been targeted “it would not be coincidental” that it came a day after the American veto and after other American statements [earlier in the month] in support of Israel.

The PA put the head of the Gaza Preventive Security Service in charge of its inquiry, a man who was himself suspected of involvement in prior terror attacks.  Like O.J.’s search for the real killers, the inquiry did not get far.

In January 2004, the deputy chief of the American embassy met with PA officials and told them “there is not a huge number of people who have the proven capability to carry out an attack like that” and warned that the
U.S. would reduce Palestinian aid if the crime were not solved. 

In September 2004, the head of PA military intelligence (Yasser Arafat’s relative, Musa Arafat) said the PA knew who was behind the killing but that “clashing with any Palestinian party under the presence of occupation” was an “issue.”

After Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the PA in January 2005, Condoleezza Rice met with him in Ramallah as part of her first trip as Secretary of State.  She announced she had been “assured” by him of the PA’s intention to bring the murderers to justice.  

It has now been more than five years since Americans on State Department business were murdered in Gaza; more than four years since the PA said it knew who organized it; and nearly four years since Abbas personally assured Rice that the killers would be brought to justice.  

Far from paying a price for its failure to carry out an elementary governmental duty, the PA has received vastly increased aid; not a single terrorist group has been dismantled; dismantlement — the explicit precondition to final status negotiations under the Roadmap — was waived in 2007 to “accelerate” Phase III; and Rice now brags about how much money the PA receives and how hard she is working to create a Palestinian state.  In a speech earlier this week, Rice said that:

The
United States has provided almost $600 million in total assistance to the Palestinians during 2008, surpassing our pledge at the 2007
Paris donors conference. . . .

I want you to know that as the time draws nigh for the end of the year . . . I still believe that we must make every effort in the time that we have to . . . . find an agreement [to establish a Palestinian state] between these parties by the end of the year. . . .

Know, too, that until that moment when I leave office, I will leave no stone unturned to see if we can finally resolve this conflict between peoples.

As she leaves office having left no stone unturned to produce a document with more promises on it, Rice will not even have secured compliance with the first promise Abbas made to her.