Though he favored the withdrawal from Gaza:

The Israeli abandonment of Gaza is a withdrawal of despair. Unlike the Oslo concessions of 1993, there is not even the pretense of getting anything in return from the Palestinians. Nonetheless, unilateralism is both correct and necessary. Israel has no peace partner -- Mahmoud Abbas has nothing to offer and has offered nothing -- and in the absence of a partner, there is only one logical policy: Rationalize your defensive lines and prepare for a long wait.

Gaza was simply a bridge too far: settlements too far-flung and small to justify the huge psychological and material cost of defending them. Pulling out of Gaza leaves behind the first truly independent Palestinian state -- uncontrolled and highly militant, but one from which Israel is fenced off.

If Israel can complete its West Bank fence, it will have established a stable equilibrium and essentially abolished terrorism as a regular and reliable means of attack -- i.e., as a usable strategic weapon. That will leave the Palestinians a stark choice: Remain in their state of miserable militancy with no prospects of victory or finally accept the Jewish state and make a deal.

Yet he was distressed by what he saw in the aftermath of the withdrawal:

What follows is the world saying, almost in unison, that the Gaza evacuation is just the beginning of a total Israeli retreat, one Dunkirk to be followed by many more. What follows is Condoleezza Rice declaring that "it cannot be Gaza only," a thrilling encouragement to the Palestinians jeering the Israeli withdrawal with chants of "Gaza today, Jerusalem tomorrow."

Is this what the Bush administration wants? More unilateral concessions to an implacable enemy whose "moderate" leader, Mahmoud Abbas, declares that "we will not rest until they leave from all our land" -- when Palestinian maps show "our land" as nothing less than all of British Palestine with Israel totally eradicated?

This is a prescription for Israel's suicide. Or rather murder, because the Israelis are not prepared to march blindly into further unrequited concessions. The final concession will be getting into boats and sailing back to where?

Poland?

However, a week after Israel is bullied into giving up control of the Rafah crossing Krauthammer, this past Friday hailed "Progress in the Middle East":

First, the more than four-year-long intifada, which left more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians dead, is over. And better than that, defeated. There's no great Palestinian constituency for starting another one. In Israel, tourism is back, the economy has recovered to pre-intifada levels, and the coffee shops and malls are full again.

Second, the Gaza withdrawal was a success. On the Israeli side, it was accomplished with remarkable speed and without any of the great social upheaval and civil strife that had been predicted. As for the Palestinians, without any fanfare whatsoever, their first-ever state has just been born. They have political independence for 1.3 million of their people, sovereignty over all of Gaza and, for the first time, a border to the outside world (the Rafah crossing to Egypt) that they control.

Third, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian line, vigorous electoral campaigns are underway. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has abandoned Likud, established a new centrist party that leads all others in the polls, effectively marginalized those remaining Israelis who want to hold on forever to all the territories, and set Israel on a path to a modest and attainable territorial solution to the century-old conflict.

And to what does he attribute this miracle?:

How did this come about? Israeli unilateralism and Palestinian maturation.

I understand his point about the unilateralism. As long as the peace process was overseen by the rest of the world, Israel was going to be subject to the world's interpretation of what constitutes a sufficient sacrifice for peace. Of course the problem is that the surrender of the Rafah crossing that has Defense Minister Mofaz threatening to shut down traffic between Gaza and Israel due to the Palestinian use of it to bring terrorists into Israel:

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened Wednesday to shut down crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel if the Palestinians don't improve operations at the Gaza-Egypt border.

Mofaz spoke a day after a senior Hamas activist returned to Gaza after 15 years of exile, using the Palestinian-operated crossing. It was not clear whether Mofaz's threat was linked to the return of Fadel Zahar, brother of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.

as a result of international pressure that is deemed so essential to the peace process.

But if the Israeli unilateralism hasn't always been apparent - to Israel's detriment - what about the vaunted Palestinian maturation?

Consider what Krauthammer wrote in the wake of the Beit Lid terror attack that killed over 20 Israelis in January 1995 in "Talk and Murder; The Palestinians' double game" (Washington Post January 27, 1995):

But then it is said that the Islamic groups like Hamas that carry out terror attacks do not speak for the Palestinians. They don't? Why then do Hamas rallies vastly outdraw PLO rallies in Gaza? Why then the celebration of the murders and the lionization of the murderers? "Their pictures hang in homes and are carried in wallets and on key chains," reports the New York Times. "Walls are covered with graffiti saluting them and with bold drawings of their attacks." Palestinian singers write them love songs. Palestinian youngsters carry around their pictures "like an American boy with a pack of baseball cards."

Hamas, whose public pronouncements refer to Israelis as "the sons of pigs and monkeys," i.e., sub-humans fit for extermination, has wide allegiance both in Gaza and the West Bank. It is one of two leading political movements in Palestinian society. Is it a majority? Perhaps, but even if not, so what? This is not parliamentary democracy. This is not the U.S. Senate, where 50 percent plus one carries the day. This is war, guerrilla war, where hard, armed, murderous men determine the future, numerical majority or not.

In any case, they certainly represent a moral majority, enjoying the silent approbation of large sections of Palestinian society. When a Jew murdered Muslims last year at the Hebron caves, there was among Israelis and Jews around the world a vast outpouring of condemnation, anger and shame. Where within Palestinian society are the protests against last Sunday's slaughter? Where is the shame? Yasser Arafat, reputed leader of the "moderate" Palestinians, offered this one public reaction: He deplored the fact that the bombing had made it more difficult for him now to extend his control to the West Bank, and vowed, therefore, that this "nonsense" had to stop.

This nonsense blew the body parts of Israeli youngsters into trees, to be retrieved with cranes. No matter, say the Western peace fanatics. The only answer to such outrages is more peace. This is peace?

Krauthammer was vexed by Arafat's concern failure to condemn the attack in any sort of moral fashion. How did Arafat's pupil and successor respond to yesterday's terror?:

"We condemn this terrorist attack, it's a crime against the Palestinian people," says Mr Abbas. "The people who did this are traitors who are waking against Palestinian interests. It;s an act of idiocy and those behind this will be punished," he says.

He didn't condemn the murder, but that the terror worked against his people and their interests. How exactly is Abbas different from his mentor?

(As I noted a few weeks ago, Abbas is capable of expressing outrage over terror attacks. This is what he said in wake of the recent terror attack in Jordan:

"We saw the outcome of the dangerous crime where there is no description for it in any dictionary," Abbas said, appearing minutes later at a bank of microphones set up for Rice. "Those do not belong to any human race, Arab or Islam. Those are affiliated to obscurity, blackness and sabotage. May God curse them from this day until Judgment Day."

When Israelis are killed there is a description: it's against our interests.)

And if the terrorist group Hamas was more powerful politically than Fatah in 1995 what's its status now? Abbas is doing all he can to ensure that the elections don't bring Hamas to power and weaken Fatah!

I suppose that even that might be forgiven, but now an Israeli paper is reporting that Abbas doesn't just forgive the terrorists, he is now emulating Arafat's hero Saddam Hussein and funding their families! (ht Deja Vu, IRIS)

How exactly have the Palestinians matured?

Like this:

The other great watershed has been the maturation of the Palestinian national movement. Arafat was a revolutionary who disdained nation-building. Revolutionaries destroy the old order. His mission was to destroy Israel. Which is why, to the consternation of his Western admirers, in 10 years he built not a single schoolhouse, hospital or road in the territory he controlled. Instead, he built a dozen private militias and a state propaganda machine designed to poison the new generation against Israel. Now that he is gone, the Palestinian cause can begin the demystification from revolution to nation-building.

Really? Is Abbas really changing things? It's still the militias and propaganda that have priority in Gaza. What exactly happened to those greenhouses that Israelis - still owed their money - left in Gaza? Was looting them "nation building?"

Then, returning to Krauthammer's recent article, this element of Israeli unilateralism is troubling:

Gaza is now 100 percent Palestinian. The security fence Israel is building in the West Bank will, in effect, create a second Palestinian sovereignty on 92 percent of that territory. Everyone knows what that fence means. Israelis on the Palestinian side of the fence will ultimately leave one way or the other. And, in a final settlement -- if and when the Palestinians ever decide to make their peace with a Jewish state -- that remaining 8 percent could be exchanged for pieces of Israel transferred to Palestine. (The New Republic of Nov. 28 has a must-read article on the land swaps that could once and for all end the Arab-Israeli dispute.)

Why does Israel owe the Palestinians the equivalent of 100% of Judea and Samaria? And why does Krauthammer now think they're deserving of all the land they claim? After rejecting something similar at Camp David in 2000 and subsequently launching the intifada why do the Palestinians deserve all they could have received five years ago? Isn't this rewarding the terror and destruction? Why is it better for Israel to surrender to every Palestinian demand unilaterally than under the auspices of signings and handshakes? If Israel has no peace partner as Krauthammer rightly observes Israel should be determining the scope of its withdrawals if it is to make any. (And to make any more without getting something from the Palestinians will continue teaching the lesson that terror and rejectionism pay.)

I'm not criticizing Krauthammer because he is for withdrawal. I am criticizing for his happy talk for progress that is still illusory. Just as he used to do not so long ago.

Boker Tov Boulder, Daled Amos CosmicX and Power Line have also written critiques of the Krauthammer column.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Authority, PLO, Charles Krauthammer.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.