[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Hat's off to Khaled Abu Toameh for providing the readers of The Jerusalem
Post with what is probably the most stunning and significant report relating
to the Palestinians this year.

Too bad the folks at the Post who wrote the headline that goes with the
story seemed to miss the point.

Here we have none other than "moderate" senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath
explaining that the "moderate" Palestinian Authority's "moderate" security
forces have every right to launch an attack today against Israel (using,
among other things, their American weapons) but that they can't because the
deployment of IDF makes this unworkable.

Yes.

That's what he says.

Follow his words: "... he stressed that this does not mean that the
Palestinians don't have the right to launch an armed intifada "against an
armed occupation and an armed settlement on Palestinian lands...obviously,
we have the right"

What's stopping the "moderate" PA from trying to slaughter Israelis?

Because it is not a nice thing to do to murder Israelis?

No.

Its because "According to Shaath, the option of an armed intifada under the
current circumstances, where Israel "fully occupies the West Bank and is
besieging the Gaza Strip, is impossible."

So we have some interesting policy question:

#1. President Obama is pushing PM Netanyahu to pull back the IDF from
various locations in the West Bank as a gesture to the same "moderate" PA
that is complaining that it would like to launch armed attacks against
Israel but can't because the deployment of IDF forces makes it impossible.

#2. Would these redeployments make the "armed intifada" possible?]

Fatah: We want a peaceful intifada
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH The Jerusalem Post
02/04/2010 02:32
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=172299

The new "popular intifada" that Fatah is planning in the West Bank won't be
an armed one, Nabil Shaath, a senior Fatah official, said on Thursday.

Shaath's clarification came a day after he and some of his colleagues in
Fatah called on Palestinians to escalate the "popular resistance" in protest
against the settlements, the West Bank security barrier and the decision to
build new homes in east Jerusalem.

"Apparently the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
are in control of the situation to make sure that the intifada is not
transformed into an armed confrontation," Shaath explained. "This was not
the case during the second intifada."

Shaath ruled out the possibility that the "popular resistance" would
deteriorate into an armed confrontation "in spite of continued Israeli
attempts to drag the Palestinians in this direction by using excessive force
to confront the protesters."

According to Shaath, the option of an armed intifada under the current
circumstances, where Israel "fully occupies the West Bank and is besieging
the Gaza Strip, is impossible."

However, he stressed that this does not mean that the Palestinians don't
have the right to launch an armed intifada "against an armed occupation and
an armed settlement on Palestinian lands."

He added: "We're not talking here about whether we have the right to do so
or not; obviously, we have the right, but we are talking about whether it
would be effective and whether we have the capabilities and desire."

The Fatah official, whose was one of the architects of the Oslo Accords,
said the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had every right to use guerrilla
warfare against Israel because their area was "surrounded with mines, tanks
and surveillance balloons that can see every centimeter of the Gaza Strip.
He nevertheless emphasized that the conditions there did not allow for the
Palestinians to confront a "strong enemy."

Shaath said that the possibility of breaking the blockade and launching
armed attacks outside the Gaza Strip was now impossible - a fact which, he
noted, both Hamas and Fatah were well-aware of.

He said that in light of the heavy losses the Palestinians suffered as a
result of the use of weapons and suicide bombings during the second
intifada, as well as the ongoing power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, it
is impossible for Palestinians living in the West Bank to launch another
armed uprising.

Shaath revealed that Fatah was now carrying out a strategy that consists of
four elements in response to the current political stalemate: pursuing and
escalating the "popular resistance," confronting Israel politically,
economically and legally in the international arena, achieving national
unity with Hamas and building institutions of the future Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator Saeb Erekat
reiterated on Thursday the PA's refusal to resume peace talks with Israel
unless the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu canceled plans to
build new homes in east Jerusalem and halted settlement construction in the
West Bank.

Erekat said that indirect talks with Israel, as proposed by US Middle East
envoy George Mitchell, would not take place until the plans to build 1,600
new homes in Ramat Shlomo and 20 in Sheikh Jarrah were scrapped. He said
that the PA was also demanding that Israel also pledge that it would refrain
from authorizing such plans in the future.