Chutzpa, the Sequel

UPDATE: below

On Monday the 21st, Israel's Gaza pull-out was completed. As of Tuesday the 22nd, there were no more Jewish settlers in Gaza, thanks to Sharon.

Also on Tuesday, President Bush outlined the next step:

[W]hat must take place next is the establishment of a working government in Gaza, a government that responds to the people. President Abbas has made a commitment to fight off the violence, because he understands a democracy can't exist with terrorist groups trying to take the law into their own hands.

In his weekly radio address on Saturday the 27th, Bush repeated the plea:

Now that Israel has withdrawn, the way forward is clear. The Palestinians must show the world that they will fight terrorism and govern in a peaceful way. We will continue to help the Palestinians to prepare for self government and to defeat the terrorists who attack Israel and oppose the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian state. . .

We demand an end to terrorism and violence in every form because we know that progress depends on ending terror.

Palestine sent a five part answer.

1. On the 22nd, the very day of Bush's first appeal, the Palestinian Authority deregulated terrorism:

   Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced on Monday that they have reached an agreement with the Palestinian Authority according to which the two groups would not be disarmed.
   
   The agreement was reportedly achieved during talks in Damascus between PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. . .
   
   Sources close to the two groups said Qurei made it clear that the PA would not confiscate the weapons of any of the armed groups in the Gaza Strip.

2. On Sunday the 28th:

   An unidentified suicide bomber rocked the center of the Negev capital of Be'er Sheva early Sunday, critically wounding a security guard and seriously injuring another, in the first such terror attack since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip earlier this month. . .
   
   
   (source: Haaretz/Reuters)
   
   
   In addition to the two security guards, 46 other people were wounded in the attack. The guards' quick action in pursuing the bomber saved dozens of lives, witnesses said. The target of the attack, mounted during the morning rush hour at the start of the Israeli work week, may have been Soroka hospital, also the intended target of a foiled suicide bombing earlier this year.

3. This part was delivered today, the 29th:

   On Monday afternoon, security forces arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian at the Hawara checkpoint north of Nablus, caught attempting to smuggle three pipe bombs.
   
   Paratroopers and military police became suspicious of the teenager, identified as Hassan Khalifa of the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, as he carried a bag containing a box through the checkpoint. They demanded that he pass through the metal detector, and when he set off an alarm he was inspected and the pipe bombs in the box were discovered.
   
   
   (source: Jerusalem Post)
   
   
   Border Police sappers were called in to blow up the pipe bombs, that contained explosives, shrapnel and glass balls.

4. The next clue also arrived today, when the Palestinian Authority changed its mind about paying Jewish former settlers to turn over, rather than demolish, dozens of commercial greenhouses to Gaza Palestinians--though the U.S. was funding the deal!:

   The Palestinian Authority has refused to funnel $14 million to compensate departing settlers so they can turn over the remaining greenhouses to the Palestinians. Due to bureaucratic rules, the United States Agency for International Development could not pass on the money directly to Israel since it does not qualify for help from the agency. The simple solution would have been for the agency to send the money to the Palestinian Authority which would in turn hand over the money to the settlers. The Palestinians refused.
   
   "The attitude was, 'We are not going to put our fingerprints on anything that helps the Jews,'" Mortimer B. Zuckerman told The New York Times. . .
   
   [T]he greenhouses whose vegetables and flowers . . . have been a major source of Israeli export income and roughly 3,500 jobs for Palestinians, the Times reported.
   
   An Arab spokeswoman claimed the greenhouse owners should not profit after robbing from the Palestinians all these years.

5. Hamas -- which controls most of Gaza -- delivered the final piece today:

   An Islamic resistance group Hamas leader in the West Bank held Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon responsible for a suicide bombing attack in southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva on Sunday.
   
   Sheikh Hassan Yousef told reporters that the ongoing Israeli violence against the Palestinian people resulted in the bombing which wounded at least 21 Israelis, two of them seriously.

Let's see: Another one-sided cease-fire, land for no peace, ever-escalating demands, and attempted child labor (you know, the kind lefties abhor when it's Nike). Somehow, Palestine's never wrong, or even a sweatshop.

How many more clues, and killings, before anti-Israel zealots see the real Palestine: contempt, chaos and chutzpa.

More:

Kobayashi Maru's pithy and pointed summary:

Whatever the history of real or perceived 'oppression', we do the Palestinian people (or any group for that matter), no favors by holding them to a lower standard. The implicit message seems to be: Yeah, I know that encouraging children to use pipe bombs is wrong, but how can we possibly judge their desperation? Such twisted rationalizations betray the utmost contempt for the object of supposed empathy. As any parent knows (or ought to), excusing behavior that from anyone else would be seen for what it is, (uncivilized) only encourages more of it.

And Bernard at A Certain Slant of Light goes further, arguing against the "ill-advised Bush strategy of placating and nurturing the Palestinians, with their rich tradition of terrorism, while invidiously violating our ally Israel and its Jewish citizens living in Gaza (past tense now) and portions of the West Bank."

(via LGF, twice)