About the only thing missing from today’s little pep rally for the Palestinians in England was a squad of cheerleaders swinging colorful pompoms in the air while reciting some catchy tunes.

Even the name of today’s gathering - the “London Meeting on Supporting the Palestinian Authority” – sounds more like it was thought up by some eager college radicals than by an institution as haughty as the UK Foreign Office.

Graced by the presence of dignitaries such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, those in attendance did just about everything possible to minimize, if not downright ignore, the ongoing Palestinian violence against Israel.

Indeed, just hours before the festive opening in London, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on an Israeli vehicle near the town of Kfar Oranim, injuring two civilian security guards.

In addition, a major bombing attack was thwarted when Israeli soldiers discovered a Palestinian car booby-trapped with half a ton of explosives near Jenin. Col. Oren Avman told Israel Army Radio that, “Even an armored vehicle or bus could not withstand such a huge bomb", and that its discovery had prevented “a huge disaster”. It was said to be the largest bomb built by Palestinian terrorists in the past four years.

But the notables in London didn’t let these inconvenient little facts get in the way of their pro-Palestinian parade. As the left-wing daily Ha’aretz reported,

The final statement to be issued at today's London Meeting on Supporting the Palestinian Authority will not mention terrorism and refers only in vague terms to Palestinian security commitments. But the PA does promise "to restore and revive the lines of communication with the Israeli security establishment on security issues and will seek to strengthen them in the process."

The Palestinians persuaded the British hosts to leave out any mention of a Palestinian commitment to act against the launching of Qassam rockets or armed attacks on Israelis from the territories.

From the comfort of London, cheering on the Palestinian Authority even as it does next to nothing to stop anti-Israel terror might seem like an act of creative diplomacy.

But for the people of Israel, who live daily with such threats, it more closely resembles an act of willful ignorance and futility.

Palestinians go to the polls next week to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority, and the excitement among international observers couldn’t be more palpable.

Take, for example, former US Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross, who writes gushingly in the Washington Post, “Something is stirring in Gaza. There is a sense of hope and possibility, a belief that it is time for a change. And there is a new discourse that includes all Palestinian factions and an open questioning of violence.”

Ross, and others like him, are unwittingly violating rule number one of international diplomacy: allowing wishful thinking to cloud one’s judgment and take the place of rational policy-making.

In the past few days, the leading candidate to replace Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), has made it clear that he intends to follow his predecessor’s route.

Just yesterday, on a campaign stop in Jenin, Abbas “embraced Israel's most wanted man, Zacaria Zubeida, leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Jenin, and accepted his protection,” notes the Guardian newspaper. Zubeida is being sought by Israel for organizing and planning numerous lethal terrorist attacks.

Then, in an interview with the Associated Press (AP), Abbas made a series of revealing remarks that indicate he is no man of peace by a long stretch. Asked to explain why he continues to appear at election rallies with armed Palestinian gunmen involved in anti-Israel terror, Abbas said, “When we see them, when we meet them, and when they welcome us, we owe them,” asserting that the Palestinians have “a debt” to these killers of Israelis and that he would act “to protect them”.

Later in the day, Abbas attended a rally in Gaza, which the AP described as follows: “When his convoy arrived, several hundred gunmen stopped his vehicle to greet their leader. Abbas got out of his car and waved to the ecstatic crowd. The gunmen, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group with ties to Abbas' ruling Fatah party, placed a black baseball cap on his head and briefly hoisted him on their shoulders. Chanting pro-Abbas slogans, they escorted him through the noisy crowd before he headed indoors to deliver a speech.”

In his speech to the crowd, Abbas had nothing but words of praise for those who commit murder and mayhem for a living: “We will not forget those wanted by Israel. These are the heroes that are fighting for freedom.”

If this is what Ross and others have in mind when they speak of a new “sense of hope and possibility”, then my advice is: batten down the hatches.

If “experts” such as Ross would only listen to what Abbas is saying, they might very well begin to understand just how misguided they are in their assessment of the situation.

If Ariel Sharon thought that his plan to withdraw from Gaza would somehow moderate the views of the area’s Palestinians – then he should think again. A glance at the results of Gaza’s municipal elections held last week paints a terrifying picture of growing Islamist militancy and extremism in the strip.

It was, quite simply, a rout - with Hamas inflicting an overwhelming defeat on the Fatah party of newly-elected Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen). Hamas took 77 of the 118 seats that were up for grabs, which is nearly three times the 26 seats won by Fatah.

As a result, Hamas gained control over 7 of the 10 municipalities where balloting took place, including some of the largest Palestinian-controlled cities in the area such as Dir al-Balah. Of the 3 towns that Fatah won, 2 of them - Zahara and Al-Masder – have fewer than 1,000 residents.

Hamas spokesman were quick to assert that the tide of Palestinian public opinion has turned in their favor – and the results would seem to bear this out. If Abu Mazen couldn’t ride the momentum of his own recent victory at the polls to elicit a better showing at the municipal level in Gaza, then how would he possibly be able to assert control over the area should Israel go through with a withdrawal?

Worse yet – the election results indicate quite clearly that the bulk of Gaza Arabs support ongoing attacks against Israel. If they were opposed to Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on the Jewish state, then they surely would have expressed this at the ballot box. Fact is they didn’t.

What does all this mean? Well, to put it rather bluntly – it is just another darn good reason why Israel shouldn’t even consider withdrawing from Gaza. To do so would create a Hamas-dominated terror state just down the road from some of Israel’s major cities and population centers.

This is no longer just a matter of mere speculation – the numbers, as they say, speak for themselves.

Remember the bombing of an Israeli school bus filled with children in November 2000?

Well, if a report on the front page of today’s Yediot Ahronot is accurate, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is about to let one of the main perpetrators off the hook.

Rashid Abu Shabak, the deputy head of the Preventive Security Services in Gaza, is one of two senior Palestinians wanted for their involvement in terror that Sharon has agreed to remove from Israel’s list of wanted suspects as a “gesture” to the Palestinians.

Media reports at the time indicated that Abu Shabak was caught on tape discussing the bus bombing with his boss, Mohammad Dahlan – before it had actually happened. Abu Shabak is also said to have personally supervised the preparation of the bomb used in the attack, while people under him were involved in the planning and implementation of the assault (Ha'aretz, November 23, 2000).

Two Israeli school teachers were killed in the bus bombing, which took place near Kfar Darom, and three young children from the same family all lost limbs as a result of the blast. One of the other 6 victims injured in the attack was an American citizen.

Abu Shabak is also said to have been involved in the past in handing out mortar shells to terrorists in Gaza to fire at Israeli communities (Israel Radio, April 21, 2001), and was accused by Sharon’s own spokesman, Raanan Gissin, as being behind an effort to build a factory in Gaza that would produce nitric acid, a key ingredient used in making heavy-duty explosives (Associated Press, November 25, 2002).

Say what you will about the peace process, or making concessions to the Palestinians – but when it comes to basic issues of morality and justice, there can not possibly be any compromises.

To let a vile thug like Rashid Abu Shabak go unpunished is simply unthinkable. His entire career has been devoted to violence, murder and mayhem. That Ariel Sharon would choose to give Abu Shabak a “free pass”, rather than a small cell with bars on the windows, is an outrage, pure and simple.

Sadly, this is probably just a taste of things to come. Nonetheless, we can not let our leadership deceive us into thinking that such “gestures” are necessary or even desirable – for as it should be clear by now, any process built on a foundation of immorality can not, and will not, endure.

Throughout Europe and elsewhere, a series of commemorations are being held this week to mark the 60^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Among the most impressive ceremonies held so far was the one convened by the United Nations General Assembly, which called a special session in New York. It was the first time the UN had ever paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.

It would be easy, of course, to dismiss this, particularly in light of the UN’s long history of anti-Israel posturing and anti-Zionist pomposity. Easy - but mistaken.

The ceremony held at UN headquarters is in fact of great significance. As the number of Holocaust survivors continues to dwindle with the passage of time, it becomes ever more important to remind the world of what was done to our people. There are so many wackos out there insisting the Holocaust never happened, or accusing Israel of inflating the number of victims for political gain, that it is imperative to garner as many voices as possible on behalf of the truth.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, gave a particularly good speech at the event, the last two paragraphs of which read as follows:

As the number of survivors shrinks all the time, we are on the brink of that moment, when this terrible event will change - from memory, to history. Let all of us gathered here pledge, never to forget the victims, never to abandon the survivors, and never to allow such an event ever to be repeated.

As the Foreign Minister of Israel, the sovereign state of the Jewish people, I stand before you, to swear, in the name of the victims, the survivors, and all the Jewish people: Never again.

Those are powerful words.

Ironically enough, they were said on the very same day that the chief of the Mossad was testifying before a committee in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, about Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Iranians, of course, have made clear that their objective is to eliminate the State of Israel and wipe it off the map, G-d forbid.

And so, six decades after Auschwitz, the Jewish people still find themselves confronted by an implacable foe bent on their destruction.

If the Foreign Minister’s pledge is to have any true and lasting meaning, then Israel may have no choice but to use its military to put an end to the frightening possibility of atomic Ayatollahs wreaking havoc on the region.

As alarming as such a scenario might sound, we can at least take comfort in knowing that this time around, we have the tools and the ability to confront such threats and deal with them.

Whether our leaders have the wisdom and foresight to use those tools – well, that is something only time will tell. Let’s hope and pray that they do.