Blaming Israeli police for using lethal force on Palestinian stabbing attacks, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom called for an end to “extrajudicial executions.” With Sweden taking its share of Palestinian immigrants, Wallstrom’s met with 80-year-old Palestine Liberation Leader Mahmoud Abbas in Stockholm Feb. 10, 2015, showing more sympathy to the Palestinian problem. Abbas, while only speaking for his West Bank government, blames Israel for not yielding enough concessions to satisfy Palestinian demands. Wallstrom, like other U.N. members, wants Israel to return to the pre-1967 borders, something not possible with the Mideast besieged with terrorism. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that U.N. Resolution 242, calling for a return to the pre-Six-Day-War borders, was obsolete as a blueprint for future Mideast peace.
At the root of the Palestinian-Israel conflict is the 1948 British Mandate of Palestine handed over to Zionists to form the state of Israel. When David Ben-Gurion declared the State of Eretz-Israel May 14, 1948, only one day later Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria and Iraq, with help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco and Sudan, launched the one-year-long 1948 Arab-Israeli War. When the dust settled, Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip, Jordan the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria the Golan Heights. Those remained intact until the same countries, together with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation, launched the 1967 Six-Day-War. Israel’s military was so powerful by that time it defeated the Arab onslaught in only six days, annexing the original British Mandate territory back to Israel, including Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
Some 700,000 Arabs fled the British Mandate after Israel’s statehood, told they’d return soon once Israel was defeated. Sixty-eight years and numerous wars later, Palestinians fight a guerrilla war against Israel, stabbing, shooting, suicide bombing, rocket attacks and car ramming, claiming its their right-and-duty of “resistance” to Israeli rule. In the latest guerrilla warfare, PLO Chairman Abbas and his media wing give Palestinian youth the green light to kill Israelis at will. Netanyahu’s order for police to kill attackers in self-defense is no different than any police department in any Western democracy. Excessive forces cases in the U.S. and European Union stem from officers’ interpretations of self-defense, often killing unarmed suspects. Deadly force rules for police apply universally to weapon-wielding suspects, whether using guns, knives or anything else.
Calling Israeli security’s actions against knife-wielding assailments “extrajudicial executions” calls Wallstrom’s objectivity into question. Buying the Palestinian argument that lethal force is a right of an oppressed population wouldn’t fly in any civilized society, let alone a Western democracy. Government’s first obligation is to protect citizens, regardless of the threat. “I think it’s terrible, and it must not happen. Israel has the right to defend itself, to ensure its safety,” said Wallstrom, asked about responses to various lethal attacks. Calling Israeli security’s “disproportionate response” that makes “the numbers of dead on the other side greater than the original deal toll,” Wallstrom reveals her twisted logic. No police force on the planet expects to incur comparable casualties to violent populations, willing to kill civilians or police to advance any political message or agenda.
When oppressed minorities in the U.S. complain of police brutality or “extrajudicial executions,” it’s not when police or unarmed civilians are confronted with deadly force. Wallstrom’s controversial remarks about Israeli security using lethal force to stop various terrorist attacks clearly show she accepts Palestinian violence as legitimate “resistance.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected Wallstrom’s remarks, defending security services right to use lethal force against all attackers. Accusing Israeli security of engaging in “extrajudicial executions” shows the extent of Wallstrom’s bias toward the plight of Palestinians. Wallstrom made the same argument against excessive Israeli force when Israeli Defense Forces responded to Hamas’s 2014 rocket war, decimating Gaza Strip, killing 2,310 Palestinians to only 72 Israelis. When any group attacks a sovereign power, they can expect high casualties.
Wallstrom’s public remarks echo the U.N.’s view that Palestinians get the short end of the stick when it comes to Israel. Miscalculating the path to peace or a two-state solution, Palestinian sympathizers don’t get that Israel won’t negotiate during a state of war. Abbas speaks for less than half the Palestinian people. Controlling the Gaza Strip and the other half of Palestinians, Hamas never ended its war with Israel. No U.N. official can expect Israel to negotiate a two-state solution with any group calling for its destruction. Wallstrom buys the propaganda that there’s a link between radical Islam and the Palestinian problem Israeli security services, like any other police agencies, have a right to apply lethal force to stop violence. Whatever the future holds for Palestinians, violence, justified or not, won’t win concessions from Israel, only push any peace process out of reach.
