'Palestinian Authority collapse a question of when, not if'

Likud Minister Elkin asserts that Israel will pay price for ensuing anarchy.

By HERB KEINON
Updated: MARCH 1, 2016 03:06
Ze'ev Elkin (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Ze'ev Elkin
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The Palestinian Authority is going to collapse whether Jerusalem wants it to or not, and Israel will pay the price in terrorism evolving out of the ensuing anarchy, Immigrant and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin said Monday.
Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nine-person security cabinet, said at Bar-Ilan University that the current wave of terrorism is just a “promo” of what will happen after the PA collapses.
Most of the scenarios dealing with the day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas leaves office predict a lack of orderly succession, an internal succession struggle, anarchy and the breakup of the PA, he said.
“Israeli citizens, especially in Judea and Samaria, will pay the price for anarchy in the PA. We must prepare for more difficult attacks,” he said.
“The breakdown of the PA is not a question of if, but when.”
As a result, he added, it is important now for Israel to start preparing for this reality, and stop the useless debate about whether the breakdown of the PA is good or bad for Israel.
“The PA will collapse whether we want it to or not, and Israel should internalize that the train has already left the station,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it seems that we have not yet internalized this new situation and are not adequately prepared.”
Elkin added that the international community needed to stop propping up the PA because it is only on “artificial resuscitation” and will “blow up in our faces.”
“The PA was born with Abu Mazen [Abbas], which initiated and pushed [the] Oslo [process], and the PA will disappear with Abu Mazen,” he declared.
Elkin slammed the Oslo process, saying that it was a “mistaken concept” that has led to the current situation.
“We erred when we brought the PLO leadership from Tunis,” he said.
“We erred when we thought they would deal with terrorism and incitement, and we erred in allowing them to run – without supervision – their educational systems and media and sermons in the mosques.”
Elkin said all this has led to a situation where a new Palestinian generation has been raised on hatred and has spawned 13-year-old children who leave school and go out to kill Jews.
He said that to “defuse this time bomb” it is important for Israel to identify and work quietly under the radar with the new central Palestinian players who have emerged.