Daniel Greenfield: Tears Don't Protect Against Murder

And yet the Shalit deal was reasonable compared to the Peace Process. While Israel has given up a great many lives and a great deal of land, it has yet to receive peace. But in the Shalit deal, it actually did get Gilad Shalit back. If a "life-loving" country cannot afford to keep exchanging one soldier for  1,000 terrorists, then how can it afford to keep exchanging land and lives for the false promise of peace?

Terrorists are a renewable resource. Arrest them, plant them in jail, let them study for advanced degrees and post status updates to Facebook while collecting salaries from the Palestinian Authority, funded by the United States and Europe, then trade them for a soldier. Then when they've gone back to their old habits, arrest them and trade them again. But doing that with territory is much harder. Let Israel try offering Ramallah a second time in exchange for peace and see what kind of howls rise out of the State Department in Washington D.C. and the Foreign Office in London.

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Instead, Israel keeps putting new lands on the table, which Washington and London proclaim to be insufficient because something is too low a price to pay for nothing. Peace is a priceless commodity. while half of Israel's capital is a negotiable commodity. But after two decades of negotiations, Israel is running out of things to negotiate with.

The old joke about the Six-Day-War was that the Egyptians had followed the Soviet battle plan from World War II: pull back and wait for winter. The joke has now turned around. Since the Nineties, the Israelis have been following the American battle plan from Vietnam: sign a worthless peace accord, pull out and then ignore what happens afterward. Just as Egypt doesn't have Russian winters, Israel doesn't have a 6,000 mile distance from its last war.

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That same year, PLO terrorists carried out the "Mother's Bus Attack" taking the passengers of a bus, filled with women on board, hostage and demanding the release of all imprisoned terrorists. The terrorists killed two hostages and Israeli Special Forces moved in, killing the terrorists and saving the lives of all but one hostage.

In response, Israeli commandos stormed Tunis, killing Abu Jihad, a former Muslim Brotherhood member and the number two Fatah leader after Arafat . The United Nations Security Council met and passed Resolution 611, noting with concern the "loss of human life", particularly that of Abu Jihad, and vigorously condemned the "act of aggression", Not a single member of the Security Council voted against it. The United States abstained.

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In 1972, the year of the Munich Massacre, there were three Security Council resolutions condemning Israel. Not a single one condemning the massacre of Olympic athletes at an international event. Not a single one condemning the countries which armed, trained, harbored and controlled the terrorists. The countries that had refused that their flags be lowered in response to the massacre.

This was the law of the jungle disguised as international law. Against the law of the jungle, tears are futile. Jungle law cannot be debated away, it cannot be disproven, it cannot be defeated with Hasbara, it cannot be subdued with the speechifying of an Abba Eban or a Benjamin Netanyahu. It cannot be moralized into decency or signed away with peace treaties. It can only be met with resistance.

Tears don't protect against murder. Bullets do.

FP: What can I say that I have not said countless times already?