By Aviel Schneider & Shlomo Mordechai
When the world powers launched the roadmap peace plan in 2003, they rightly understood that the proliferation of Palestinian terror groups and militias posed the greatest threat to Middle East peace.
After an unprecedented wave of shooting attacks and suicide bombings during the second intifada (uprising) that erupted in 2000, they demanded—as a first step—that the Palestinian Authority dismantle terrorist groups, including the biggest one—Hamas.
But then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat wasn’t interested. Hamas was a perfect proxy. It served the purpose of terrorizing Israel, while Arafat could claim to a gullible West that he was not responsible.
When the more “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Arafat after his death in 2004, he had a different strategy for dodging the roadmap. He chose to appease Hamas by bringing it into the political process. According to his faulty logic, Hamas would become more pragmatic and moderate when confronted with political realities. The strategy backfired.