Sunday, December 9, 2007
But let’s wait a moment. What do they mean by “confiscated?” What would a Swiss police officer do if his people seized vehicles stolen in Italy? We can assume he would call his counterparts in the Italian police force and hand over the vehicles to them. However, Palestinian police “confiscated” the vehicles.
In other words, the Palestinian police force is short on vehicles, so it confiscates stolen vehicles to meet its own needs. Up until yesterday, a vehicle would be used by the person who stole it, or by the person who bought it from the thief. As of today, this vehicle is being used by a Palestinian police officer.
As it turns out, the Palestinians have developed a unique and creative version of the "good cop, bad cop" routine. This week, we were told that three PA police officers were behind the recent murder of an Israeli man in Judea and Samaria. Two of them were detained by the IDF, while the third one was nabbed by Palestinian officers. So now we have police officers who are murderers and policemen who are thieves.
It is even possible that the murder suspect detained by the Palestinians was arrested by the thieves. Maybe he was even driven to the Jericho prison in a “confiscated” car, which up until recently belonged to an Israeli citizen, but has now been converted into a police cruiser - it no longer belongs to its rightful owner, but rather, serves Palestinian law enforcement officials (while boosting Mahmoud Abbas, of course.)
Forgive me for harping on an insignificant point like 30,000 stolen vehicles, while we have meaningful matters on the agenda such as the boosting of Abbas’ status and the forging of an international coalition of moderate Arabs. But still, before peace breaks out, where are all those tens of thousands of vehicles stolen from Israel?...
It's the little confidence building measures that count -- and show whether you're a real government, or just an ongoing tribal kleptocracy.
