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Ending the Palestinian Exception

September 27, 2016

Ending the Palestinian Exception, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, September 27, 2016

palestinian_demonstration_against_demolish_of_the_village_susya-e1433517117362

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Ahead of Monday night’s first presidential debate, Rudolph Giuliani – former New York mayor and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s current adviser – spoke at the Israeli American Council’s annual conference. Four days of intense debate preparation with Trump preceded the talk. Giuliani insisted the time has come for the US to “reject the whole notion of a two-state solution in Israel.”

It can only be hoped that regardless of who prevails in November, Giuliani’s statement will become the official position of the next US administration.

In his speech before the UN General Assembly last week PLO and Fatah chief and unelected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said many things to drive home the basic point that he is not interested in peace with Israel. He is interested in destroying Israel. But one particular demand stands out.

It stands out not because it is new. It isn’t new.

Abbas says it all the time and his advisers say it all the time. They say it to Palestinian and international audiences alike, and it always is met with support or at least sympathy.

Abbas demanded that Israel stop arresting Palestinian terrorists and release all Palestinian terrorists from its prisons. That is, he demanded that Israel allow thousands of convicted terrorists to walk free and refrain from doing anything to interfere with terrorists engaged planning and carrying out the murder of its citizens.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians support this demand. And so does the US government.

During US Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed peace process in 2013-14, President Barack Obama and Kerry embraced Abbas’s demand that Israel release 104 terrorist murderers from its prisons as a precondition for agreeing to negotiate with the Jewish state.

Bowing to US pressure, Israel released 78 terrorists from its jails in three tranches. Ahead of the fourth scheduled release, Abbas and his advisers bragged that they would cut off talks with Israel as soon as the last group of terrorist murderers were released.

That is, they admitted that the negotiations, such as they were, were nothing more than a means to achieve the goal of freeing murderers.

Rather than condemn Abbas and his colleagues for their cynical bad faith and repulsive immorality, the Obama administration chastised Israel for refusing to play along. When Israel responded to their statements by refusing to release the last group of 26 convicted terrorists, the administration accused Israel of breaching the terms of the negotiations.

Obama, Kerry and their advisers held Israel responsible for the talks’ failure.

It’s important to consider what Abbas’s demand for free-range terrorists says about him. It is important to ponder what the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are partners in this demand says about them as a society.

And it is worth pondering as well the strategic rationality and moral stature of a US government that supports this position.

As far as Abbas and the Palestinians are concerned, their refusal to view mass murderers as criminals tells us a great deal about who they are and what they want.

The Palestinian national movement they have come to embody was never about a deep-seated desire for national liberation. It was never about building “Palestine.”

From the time it was created by Amin el-Husseini in 1920, Palestinian identity has been about the negation of the Jewish national liberation movement – Zionism. And since Israel achieved independence in 1948, the Palestinians have defined themselves by their collective dedication to annihilating the Jewish state – hence their support for terrorists who kill Jews.

Husseini’s heir Yasser Arafat shared his view that terrorism was a both strategic goal in and of itself and a means to achieve the ultimate end of the Palestinian movement – that is, the violent eradication of Israel.

As the heir to both men, Abbas, like his sometimes partners and sometimes rivals in Hamas, has never been interested in building anything. And indeed, he hasn’t.

Consider what is loosely referred to as the “Palestinian economy.”

In an article published this week by the Hebrew-language online journal Mida, economist Uri Redler showed that the Palestinian economy isn’t actually an economy. It is an extortion racket.

Using World Bank data, Redler showed that the Palestinian economy is an optical illusion. In its 22 years of existence, the PA has almost entirely destroyed the private sector in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Seventy-five percent of its tax income comes from indirect taxes that Israel collects for it on imports. Forty percent of its budget comes from donors. Only 18% of it income comes from direct taxation. And most of that comes from deduction at source of PA employees.

Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, only 15% of foreign aid toward the reconstruction of Gaza has been used for reconstruction projects. The rest of the money has been used as discretionary funds by Hamas. Seventy percent of the funds have come from American and EU taxpayers. This means that the US and the EU have been directly funding Hamas terrorists.

It is not surprising that the aid has been diverted.

And it is not surprising that the US and the EU have continued to provide money they know is being diverted by Hamas.

Hamas, like Fatah, has no interest in developing a Palestinian economy. Economic development doesn’t bring in the money. Terrorism does. Palestinians with economic freedom won’t be dependent on the likes of Abbas and his Hamas counterparts for their livelihoods. So they block all independent paths to prosperity.

Rather than build roads, the PA and Hamas pay people to kill Jews. The more Jews you kill, the more money you receive.

They can maintain this policy because the US and Europe pay them to do so. The more terrorism they commit, the more headlines the Palestinians receive. And the more headlines they receive, the more money they are paid by the UN and Western governments – to advance the cause of the “twostate solution.”

This then brings us to the US and Europe, and their unstinting support for Palestinian demands for the release of terrorists. What are they thinking? Earlier this month Prof. Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University Law School and the Kohelet Forum published a paper on the international community’s general interpretation of paragraph 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Protocol from 1949. The relevant clause states that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

As Kontorovich noted, this clause the forms the basis of the international community’s constant refrain that Israeli communities built beyond the 1949 armistice lines in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are illegal.

In other words, it forms the basis of the West’s case against Israel and, by extraction, for the Palestinians’.

Just last week during his speech before the UN General Assembly, Obama attacked Israel for its continued settlement activity.

Kontorovich investigated the same international community’s view of communities built by citizens of a dozen other states in lands occupied by their governments in armed conflicts.

He noted that the activities of Moroccans in the Western Sahara, of Turks in Northern Cyprus, of Indonesians in East Timor and of other nationals in multiple other territories are legally indistinguishable from Israel’s activities in the areas it took control over from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

In none of these other cases, however, has the US, EU, UN or any other international or national authority ever invoked the Fourth Geneva Convention or otherwise claimed that those activities are a breach of international law. In other words, the legal basis for the criminalization and political condemnation of Israel in relation to the Palestinians is entirely specious and discriminatory.

In other words, US support for the so-called two state solution, like the international community’s support for it, is really just a means of discriminating against Israel. It does not advance the cause of peace or justice, for Israelis or for Palestinians. It merely empowers terrorist gangsters to kill Israelis and extort both the Palestinians and the international community.

So again, Giuliani is absolutely right.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Israel - release of Palestinian terrorists, Israel and human rights, Israel settlements, Israeli security, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian economy, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution, United Nations
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Contrasting PA Reactions To Latest Terror Wave – Abbas: Children Take Up Knives Of Their Own Volition To Carry Out Stabbings; PA Foreign Ministry: Israel Executing Palestinians Without Cause

September 22, 2016

Contrasting PA Reactions To Latest Terror Wave – Abbas: Children Take Up Knives Of Their Own Volition To Carry Out Stabbings; PA Foreign Ministry: Israel Executing Palestinians Without Cause, MEMRI, September 22, 2016

(Obama’s “peace partners” for Israel. — DM)

The past week has seen a sharp increase in armed Palestinian attacks on Israelis that included stabbings, vehicular attacks and stone throwing. Among the incidents were the stabbing on September 19, 2016 of two police officers near Herod’s Gate outside Jerusalem’s Old City, in which a policewoman was severely wounded, and an attempted stabbing carried out on September 16 by a Jordanian national near Damascus Gate outside the Old City.

A review of the responses to these events by Fatah and PA officials and institutions reveals a stark contrast between the reaction of Palestinian President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas, who acknowledged that Palestinians were carrying out stabbings against Israelis, and the reactions of other PA and Fatah institutions and officials, who categorically denied that violent attacks were taking place, and consistently described the incidents as executions of Palestinians by the Israeli armed forces.

Fatah’s official Facebook page, like ‘Abbas, did not deny that attacks were taking place. It  posted an obituary for one of the attackers that called him a “martyred hero” and praised his “bold vehicular operation.”

The following are excerpts from the statements by ‘Abbas, from the obituary on Fatah’s official Facebook page,   and from responses by other Palestinian officials and bodies.

‘Abbas: Children Are Taking Up Knives To Carry Out Stabbings

In a September 17, 2016 meeting in Venezuela with representatives of the Palestinian community there, ‘Abbas stated that Palestinian children were carrying out stabbings out of despair: “Children are carrying knives of their own volition. Do not believe those who say that certain elements are pushing and inciting them. These are children who have lost hope and are taking up knives to carry out stabbing attacks.”[1]

30059Abbas in Venezuela (image: Maannews.net, September 18, 2016)

Official Fatah Facebook Page Mourns “Heroic” Perpetrator Of “Bold Vehicular Operation”

Fatah’s official Facebook page featured an obituary for Firas Al-Khadour, killed on September 16 while trying to run down a group of Israelis in Kiryat Arba. The obituary,  released on September 18 by Fatah’s north Hebron branch, described the attacker as a “martyred hero” and the attack as a “heroic vehicular operation.” It stated: “The Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah, north Hebron-Bani Na’im branch, announces [the nuptials of] its martyred hero Firas Moussa Al-Birawi Al-Khadour (Al-Manasra) [to the 72 virgins of Paradise].[2] He was martyred while carrying out a heroic vehicular operation in the settlement of Kiryat Arba… Fatah: action, revolution and revenge.”[3]

30060The obituary on the Fatah Facebook page

PA, Fatah Officials, Institutions: Israel Executing Palestinians In Cold Blood, Although They Pose No Threat

Unlike ‘Abbas, who acknowledged that Palestinian were carrying out attacks against Israelis, and unlike the Fatah obituary that glorified the vehicular attack carried out by Firas Al-Khadour, other PA institutions and  officials denied that such attacks were taking place, describing the events as “Israeli terror” and accusing Israel of “executing unarmed Palestinian civilians.”

A September 20, 2016 announcement by the PA Foreign Ministry read: “In recent days, the Israeli government headed by Binyamin Netanyahu escalated its field executions of unarmed Palestinians, especially in the districts of Jerusalem and Hebron, although [these Palestinians] did not pose any threat to the soldiers of the occupation or its settlers.”[4]

One day earlier, PA Justice Minister ‘Ali Abu Diak addressed an attempted stabbing by Muhannad Al-Rajabi (21) and Amir Al-Rajabi (17) in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, in the course of which they were shot and killed. He said:  “The crime of executing the boy Amir Jamal Al-Rajabi and the martyr Muhannad Jamal Al-Rajabi near Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi [the  Cave of the Patriarchs] in Hebron today… is a [an act of] state terrorism and further proof that Israel continues to perpetrate war crimes and to violate international and humanitarian law. The world must hold Israel to account and prosecute it for its hideous crimes against our people… Israel is waging a one-sided war against our people and escalating its crimes of killing and aggression…”[5]

Similar statements were made by official Fatah institutions and officials. In a communique it issued, Fatah’s Recruitment and Organization Commission spoke of “Israeli terrorism,” saying: “The level of fascism and terror that Israel has reached indicates that it does nothing competently except execute Palestinians in cold blood – at checkpoints, on the roads, and at the gates of the blessed Al-Aqsa mosque. We face a wave of Israeli terror that is developing into another [campaign of] daily killing operations that devour [our] children even more than [our] adults, under the sponsorship and according to the instructions of the corrupt Netanyahu government [whose policy] is based on killing Palestinians everywhere, regardless of their age.”[6]

Fatah spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmeh likewise referred to the violent events as “Israel’s execution of Palestinians at the checkpoints,” and claimed that “this is nothing but the faithful implementation of orders emanating from the politicians and rulers in Tel Aviv.”[7] In a communique issued by Fatah’s Jerusalem branch, the branch’s secretary-general, ‘Adnan Gheith, said that “the occupation forces are targeting Palestinians and permitting their blood directly and deliberately, which will lead to catastrophic consequences… Our Palestinian people has become a direct target of field executions and cold blooded murder by the occupation forces, who commit their crimes in front of the whole world, yet nobody acts to put a stop to these racist crimes.”[8]

Endnotes:

[1] Maannews.net, September 18, 2016.

[2] On the association between a martyr’s funeral and his nuptials to the virgins of Paradise, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 61, The Joy of the Mothers of Palestinian ‘Martyrs,’ June 27, 2001.

URL: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/472.htm –

[3]  Facebook.com/Official.Fateh.1965, September 18, 2016.

[4] Wafa.ps, September 20, 2016; facebook.com/mofa.pna, September 20, 2016.

[5] Wafa.ps, September 19, 2016.

[6] Wafa.ps, September 20, 2016.

[7] Alwatanvoice.com, September 19, 2016.

[8i] Amad.ps, September 19, 2016.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Israel, Israel and human rights, Israeli security, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian child terrorists, Palestinian incitement, Two state solution
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Obama’s Parting Shot at Israel

September 22, 2016

Obama’s Parting Shot at Israel, Front Page Magazine, Ari Lieberman, September 22, 2016

unobama

Obama’s last address before the UN General Assembly was typically and predictably condescending, hypocritical, disingenuous and vainglorious. He used the opportunity to perform some electioneering and take a swipe at Donald Trump. “Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself,” he said in a not too subtle reference to Trump’s promised plans to secure the southern border with the construction of a wall and restrict immigration from high-risk countries.

France, a NATO ally that has partnered with the U.S. to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic extremism in Mali, was also derided. Though he did not mention France by name, he criticized “liberal societies” for their “opposition to women who choose to cover themselves.” This of course was a veiled reference French laws banning Burkas and Burkinis, items of Islamic clothing that are oppressive to and denigrate women.

Of course, Obama made no mention of the Paris and Nice massacres. Nor did he note that as a result of Muslim violence, 70 percent of Europe’s Jews won’t be attending synagogue during the Jewish High-Holy Days. Obama did of course heap praise on Indonesia, a Muslim nation that discriminates against minorities and the LGBT community, still maintains so-called “blasphemy” laws, and imposes draconian Sharia law in some districts. This year, a 60-year old Christian-Indonesian woman was given 28 lashes for selling alcohol. This is the model nation that the president touts before the world community.

The vainglorious president also took the opportunity to tout his disastrous Iran deal, noting that the United States “resolved the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy.” Obama, however, failed to note that he inked the worst deal in U.S. diplomatic history and likely the worst deal since the 1938 Munich Accord. He also omitted the fact that the infusion of $150 billion into Iran’s anemic economy will enable the mullahs to continue to sow misery throughout the region.

Of course, no Obama speech would be complete without the perfunctory assault on Israel. What better place to attack the Jewish state than before a body that is today’s greatest purveyor of anti-Semitism, where anti-Israel invective flows like water and where the Jewish state is incessantly vilified?

Recognizing of course that referring to Jews as “apes and pigs” is a national Palestinian pastime, Obama reminded the Palestinians to play nicely before directing his invective against Israel.

“Surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land,” he said.

There are two egregious problems with Obama’s statement. First, it is insufficient for the Palestinian Authority to merely “recognize the legitimacy of Israel.”

Israel has made clear that the PA must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The PA has rejected this demand outright because they envision a future Palestinian state, exclusively for Palestinians, in Judea/Samaria and an entity that calls itself “Israel” composed of Jews as well as Palestinian Muslims, thereby negating the Jewish character of the state.

That represents the crux of the problem. Palestinian Muslims will never recognize the indigenousness of Jews in their ancestral land. Any peace agreement without such recognition is inherently flawed and sets the stage for more bloody conflict. In terms of strategy, there is absolutely no difference between the PA and Hamas. Both aspire to the ultimate goal of establishing a Muslim Arab state from the River to the Sea. The only difference is tactics. The PA has adopted a more practical and deceitful approach toward achieving their ultimate objective (though every once in a while they slip and reveal their true colors) while Hamas is frighteningly and brutishly honest.

The second problem is that Judea and Samaria is neither “occupied” nor is it “Palestinian land.” It is a territory that is the subject of a bonafide dispute between two parties with competing claims.

From a legal perspective, Israel’s claim has more merit. In 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Israel/Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. General Assembly resolutions have no binding legal authority. The Jews accepted partition, but the Arabs rejected it. Had they accepted it, the matter would have been settled and an agreement would have validated the GA resolution and made it legally binding under international law.

During the War of 1948 that followed, Jordan seized Judea and Samaria as well as the eastern portion of Jerusalem and annexed these territories. Only Pakistan fully recognized Jordan’s illegal annexation, while England’s recognition was limited to Judea and Samaria. The territory was occupied by Jordan for 19 years and during those 19 years, Jewish institutions were reduced to rubble while Jewish headstones in the Mount of Olives cemetery were used to build latrines for the Jordanian army.

In June 1967, Jordan’s monarch, fed on a steady diet of fantasy-like falsehoods of Israel’s impending demise, attacked Israel with Hawker Hunter jets and artillery. Israel responded to the provocation and liberated Jerusalem as well as Judea and Samaria in a matter of days.

The UN considers war and conquests therefrom to be illegal, but Article 52 of the UN Charter provides an exception to the illegality of war in cases involving self-defense. The Six-Day War was as clear as they come in terms of self-defense. Israel acquired these lands through defensive conquest. Never in the history of mankind has a nation been compelled to return territories — acquired in the course of a defensive war — to an aggressor entity.

Following the war and after many months of haggling, the UN Security Council, which has the power to establish international law, passed Resolution 242. The resolution called upon Israel to withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Notably, the word “all” was deliberately omitted thus giving implicit recognition to Israeli territorial conquests. One can reasonably argue that Israel has fully complied with Resolution 242 by virtue of its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, some 40 percent of Judea and Samaria and Quneitra on the Golan Heights, and that no further territorial withdrawals are required.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that two Jewish commonwealths existed on territories now claimed as “occupied” hundreds of years before Mohammedan colonizers set foot on the land. It would be more precise to refer to the territories as “re-occupied,” in deference to the indigenous inhabitants of the land.

Obama likely knows all this but couldn’t resist taking a parting shot at Israel. That he would choose to do it in a forum that is infamous for its anti-Semitic vitriol speaks volumes of the man.

Categories: Abbas, Islamist terror attacks, Israel - Jewish state, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, United Nations
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Netanyahu: Palestinians’ ‘No Jews’ Demand is ‘Ethnic Cleansing for Peace’

September 9, 2016

Netanyahu: Palestinians’ ‘No Jews’ Demand is ‘Ethnic Cleansing for Peace’, PJ Media, Bridget Johnson, September 9, 2016

netanyahuandarabsIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu poses for a photograph with pupils on the first day of school in the Israeli Arab town of Tamra on Sept. 1, 2016. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at calls for Israelis to accept an “ethnic cleansing for peace” deal with the Palestinians, who have long demanded any settlement expel Jews from Palestinian territories.

“I’m sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace,” Netanyahu said in a video. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday that the United States is “concerned that things might be moving in the opposite direction given, on the one hand, and we’ve expressed our concern about this, ongoing Israeli settlement activity, but equally, we’ve been troubled by the fact that — or by the incitement to violence.”

“I’ve always been perplexed by this notion” of settlements being the problem, Netanyahu said. “Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel – that they’re an obstacle to peace. That’s because they aren’t. On the contrary.”

“Israel’s diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace. Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews. There’s a phrase for that: It’s called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous.”

The prime minister added that “it’s even more outrageous that the world doesn’t find this outrageous.”

“Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage. Ask yourself this: Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?” he said. “At this moment, Jewish schoolchildren in Judea Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends. Does their presence make peace impossible? I don’t think so.”

“I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. Societies that respect all people are the ones that pursue peace. Societies that demand ethnic cleansing don’t pursue peace.”

Netanyahu said he envisions “a Middle East where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace.”

“Our region needs more tolerance, not less,” he continued. “So the next time you hear someone say Jews can’t live somewhere, let alone in their ancestral homeland, take a moment to think of the implications.”

“Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd. It’s about time somebody said it. I just did.”

Netanyahu just visited the Netherlands, where a member of Parliament from Turkey, Tunahan Kuzu, refused to shake the prime minister’s hand. Kuzu was wearing a Palestinian flag pin on his lapel at the time.

Categories: Ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israel settlements, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution
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Israel’s PM seeks role in Russian-US duo in Syria

June 6, 2016

Israel’s PM seeks role in Russian-US duo in Syria, DEBKAfile, June 6, 2016

PutinBibi2-480 (1)

During his 48-hour trip to Moscow (Monday and Tuesday June 6-7), Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will try and talk President Vladimir Putin into cutting Israel into the military teamwork evolving between Washington and Moscow for combating the Islamic State in Syria. As a quid pro quo, he will offer to elevate Moscow to senior broker in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, with Moscow or Geneva selected as the venue for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, if they occur – and with US participation. Netanyahu is also keen on a role for Egypt’s Presidents Abdek-Fattah al-Sisi.

DEBKAfile sources in Jerusalem and Moscow report exclusively that the floating of this deal was the reason why Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov abstained from attending the Mid East conference staged last weekend by France’s President Francois Hollande in Paris. The UK and German foreign ministers followed the Russian lead and stayed away.

And Friday, June 3, on the day of the Paris meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikihail Bogdanov, who is in charge of Kremlin Middle East policy, offered a formula for resolving the problem of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.  That formula was very similar to the land swaps plan proposed by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman a few years ago.

It consisted essentially of the transfer to the Palestinian state of parts of Israel with dense Arab populations, in return for Palestinian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Israeli communities of Judea and Samaria.

In comments to Tass news service, Bogdanov said that Moscow is willing to host an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference, and also offered to mediate between the rival Palestinian factions, including Abu Mazen’s Fatah and the radical Hamas which rules the aza Strip.

While some Israeli politicians see the French initiative as offering President Barack Obama a handle for settling accounts with PM Netanyahu before he leaves the White House at the end of the year, Moscow and Jerusalem are concocting a parallel strategy – not merely to block the Franco-American move, but also to lift Washington’s drive for an Israeli-Palestinian accord from Paris to Moscow.

DEBKAfile sources say that this maneuver is based on the early stages of military and political coordination between Washington and Moscow in the Syrian arena, including the fight against ISIS.

No such coordination exists between Washington and Paris.

Netanyahu envisages the tightening military cooperation between Russia and Israel for Syria, along with Israel’s active participation in the airstrikes against ISIS, as becoming integral to American-Russian understandings, and extending also to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Moscow and Jerusalem both estimate that an offer of US-Russian-Arab guarantees to the Palestinians, underwritten by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, can move the negotiations forward.

Categories: Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Israel and France, Israel and Russia, Israeli settlements, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Putin and Israel, Syria war, Two state solution
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The Old Generals’ Old Plan

May 31, 2016

The Old Generals’ Old Plan, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, May 31, 2016

al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The Israeli Left is a one trick pony. As it sees things, all of Israel’s problems – with the Palestinians, with the Arab world, with Europe and with the American Left – can be solved by giving up Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem (along with Gaza which we gave up already).

Once Israel does this, the Left insists, then the Palestinians, the Arab world, Europe and Bernie Sanders voters will love us as they’ve never loved us before.

The events of the past quarter century have shown the Left’s position to be entirely wrong. Every time Israel has given the Palestinians land, it has become less secure. The Arabs have become more hostile.

The West has become more hostile. The Palestinians have expanded their demands.

Because of their negative experience with the Left’s policy, most Israelis reject it. This is why the Right keeps winning elections.

Given the failure of its plan, the Left could have been expected to abandon it and strike out on a different course. But it didn’t. Instead it has tried to hide its continued allegiance to its failed withdrawal strategy by pretending it is something else.

A central component of the Left’s concealment strategy is its use of former generals.

Over the past quarter century, and particularly since the Palestinians began demonstrating in 2000 that they have no interest in a state living side by side with Israel, the Left has carted out retired generals at regular intervals to proclaim that continued allegiance to the Left’s failed policy of withdrawal is not irrational.

Every couple of years, a new initiative of former generals – often funded by the EU – is published.

Each in turn uses whatever the popular memes of the day may be to repackage their call for withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the partition of Jerusalem.

The media, itself dominated by the Left, backs these initiatives. The retired war heroes are paraded before the cameras and presented to the public as responsible adults who have grudgingly entered the political fray, despite their aversion to it, because of their patriotism. Just as they heeded the call of duty and led forces in wars of earlier generations, so today, we are told, they heed the call again, in yet another last-ditch effort to save the country.

Just in time for Avigdor Liberman’s swearing in as defense minister, a new group of old generals released a new version of their old, discredited plan.

A group calling itself “Commanders for Israeli Security” has mobilized an impressive roster of 214 generals that have signed on to a new position paper called “Security First: Changing the rules of the game, a plan to improve Israel’s security-diplomatic position.”

The group has a great website replete with a highend web commercial that has been flooding social media feeds for the past several days. The ad shows a person ripping up a “Peace Now” bumper sticker and replacing it with a call for “Security now, peace later.”

Their plan, the ad proclaims, will improve Israel’s security, strengthen its international position, repair the cleavages in Israeli society and set the conditions for future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, like every leftist plan to date, if the generals get their way and the government takes their advice, the results will be precisely the opposite of what they promise. As has been the case with every other well-packaged withdrawal plan, Israel’s security will be harmed. Our international position will be wrecked. Bernie Sanders voters along with the Europeans will expand their devotion to bashing Israel. And the Sunni Arab states that now flock to us will again abandon us.

The generals’ new package involves opening their plan with a hawkish call for continued Israeli security control over Judea and Samaria, until the Palestinians decide to make peace with us.

But as we soon see, that was just throat clearing.

Having established their sober-mindedness, the generals turn to the Left’s unchanging fantasy.

They call for the government to formally relinquish Israel’s sovereign rights over the vast majority of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

They call for the government to permanently stop respecting the property rights of Jews in the areas of Judea and Samaria outside of the security perimeter.

The more than one hundred thousand Jews who live in those areas, they insist, must be denied all right to property, save the right to sell whatever they now own.

They must not be allowed to build anything – no new houses; no new communities; no new infrastructure.

As for the communities inside the perimeter, the generals insist that those should be permitted to continue respecting Jewish property rights, within limits, albeit. For instance, those communities must not be permitted to expand beyond their current construction boundaries. In other words, Jews can build up, but not out.

Jerusalem, which they believe should never have been unified in 1967, should be effectively partitioned.

The generals call for the municipal government to stop administering the city as a unified mixed Jewish and Arab city. Instead, they say, the city should set up a separate governing authority for Arab neighborhoods in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem. That separate authority should be responsible for all planning and zoning activities in Arab neighborhoods as well as the education system and every other aspect of the daily lives of the Arabs of the city.

Gaza, which has been operating as a Hamas state since 2007, is also brought in from the cold. The generals call for the government to continue to supply Gaza with everything that Hamas demands – water, electricity, employment in Israel, a Hamas-controlled port. They even call for Israel to allow Europe to pay the salaries of Hamas terrorists.

Moreover, the generals recommend that the government announce that Gaza, Judea and Samaria and partitioned Jerusalem are one political entity, despite the fact that they aren’t.

The generals insist that by taking these steps, Israel will prove its devotion to peace and keep the dream of a Palestinian state alive. As a consequence, they say, the Palestinians will be happy and stop trying to murder Israelis. The Arab world will line up to sign peace treaties with Israel. Europe along with Bernie Sanders’ voters will bury the hatchet and embrace Israel.

The problem with the generals’ newest plan and the ones its replaces is that they all ignore basic facts.

There is no Palestinian constituency for peace with Israel. The more Israel offers the Palestinians, the less interested they are in settling.

By announcing that Israel renounces its claims to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and treating the Jews east of the 1949 cease-fire lines as second class citizens, the generals will not only widen Israel’s social cleavages. They will tell the Palestinians that they are right to feel contempt for us. The worse they behave, the more we will offer them. The more Jews they murder, the more the Jews will turn against one another.

As for improving Israel’s international position, it is hard to understand why the generals refuse to learn the lessons of the Gaza withdrawal. Despite the fact that Israel uprooted 24 Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, and removed its military forces from the area, without exception, the international community insists that Israel still “occupies” Gaza. How can the generals expect the world to act more fairly towards a more limited withdrawal plan from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem? As for Gaza, Operation Protective Edge brought out into the open the fact that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab states support Israel in its war against Hamas. They do so because they fear Islamic State and Iran more than they hate Israel, whose power they trust.

If Israel announces its intention of leaving Judea and Samaria, which the Arabs know will become a Hamas enclave faster than Gaza did, the Arab faith in Israel’s power will diminish. As a consequence, if Israel follows the generals’ advice our relations with the Sunnis will worsen, not improve.

It is a tragedy for Israel that the generals have allowed the Left to use them in this way. Their role in perpetuating Israel’s destructive adherence to the devastating two-state policy model diminishes their past contributions and endangers Israel’s future.

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Israel borders, Israeli left, Israeli media, Israeli politics, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution
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Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report

May 29, 2016

Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report, Gatestone Institute via YouTube, May 28, 2016

Categories: Free world, Hamas, Israel, Israel and human rights, Jewish state, Media, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media, Two state solution, UN Human RIghts Council, United Nations
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The day after Abbas

May 27, 2016

The day after Abbas, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, May 27, 2016

The day Mahmoud Abbas departs his post as president of the Palestinian Authority, or is deposed from his dictatorial perch, could be a watershed moment. It could and should force a reassessment of conventional thinking about the feasible contours of accommodating Palestinian independence.

That moment may be coming soon. Abbas is old, sick and tired. He has little to show for his persistent efforts to isolate Israel diplomatically and force Israel into hasty withdrawals. His regime is viewed as utterly corrupt by 95.5% of Palestinians (according to a recent Palestinian poll). The tens of billions of dollars in international aid he has swallowed have failed to build any real institutional basis for a good or democratic Palestinian government.

Abbas’ thuggish underlings are jockeying aggressively around him for pole position in the battle to succeed him as West Bank despot. Hamas, too, smells blood.

On the diplomatic front, Abbas’ departure will leave nothing behind but scorched earth. He has fled from real negotiation and compromise with Israel, espoused maximalist positions, stoked hatred toward Israelis and Jews, venerated terrorists and pushed the criminalization of Israel internationally. He basically convinced most Israelis that there is no reasonable peace deal to be had with the Palestinians.

And yet, the Obama administration and much of the global community nonsensically still considers Abbas and his gang to be viable partners for a two-state peace arrangement. What will it take for them to move beyond this rotten reliance on Fatah leadership and the creaky two-state construct?

Nevertheless, most Israelis, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, still seek to move toward some clarity of borders, stability, and improved quality of life for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

They seek to do so without embarking on insane Israeli withdrawals that would likely lead to the establishment of a second “Hamastan” in the West Bank, or worse, an Islamic State-type regime.

So it’s time for Israel to re-articulate its thinking about the possibilities of an Israeli-Palestinian modus vivendi. Netanyahu should capitalize on his newly broadened government, and the coming transitions in Palestinian and American politics, to reset the diplomatic table. He can outline the acceptable contours of a conflict amelioration process in which Israel can pragmatically participate.

Doing so is especially urgent since the Obama administration is, in extremis, not-so-subtly readying to move the global goal posts farther away from Israel. This, of course, will only make the likelihood of Palestinian compromise with Israel even more remote.

Here are some guidelines and red lines that the Israeli government may want to adopt:

• Regional solutions: Unconventional alternatives to the struggling two-state paradigm must be on the table, including: a Palestinian-Jordanian federation; shared sovereignty with Israel in the West Bank; a three- or four-way land swap involving Egypt and Jordan; and, possibly, a combination of all these approaches.

The major Western powers must be willing to drive serious exploration of such alternatives. Arab states too can take responsibility for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and consider investment of tangible resources in “regional” solutions.

• Baseline: Israel’s position at the outset of talks should be that 100% of the West Bank belongs to Israel, by historical right, and that this right is richly buttressed by political experience, legitimate settlement and security necessity. Only then can Israel hope to obtain a sensible compromise.

Talks should not begin from a 68-year-old armistice line forced upon Israel by Arab aggression; nor “from the point that talks last left off” eight years ago under a previous, defeatist Israeli government; nor from the defensive security fence line forced upon Israel by Palestinian terrorism; nor from any borders high-handedly dictated in advance by U.S. President Barack Obama or the international community.

• Security: The radical Islamic winter buffeting this region, and its inroads into the Palestinian national movement, means that the security envelope encompassing Israeli and Palestinian areas must be militarily controlled by the IDF, fully and indefinitely. This includes the Jordan Valley and the mountain ridges on both sides of Judea and Samaria.

• The Temple Mount: One way in which to wring Palestinian recognition of the Jewish people’s ancient ties to this holy land is to insist on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. This can be modestly facilitated either through a time-sharing arrangement (similar to that in place at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron), or through a small synagogue tucked away on the fringes of the vast Temple Mount plaza (which won’t overshadow the two large Muslim structures on the Mount).

Palestinian denial of Jewish religious, historical and national rights in Israel is the essence of the conflict. It is time to tackle this head-on, cautiously but candidly, at the core — in Jerusalem.

In conclusion, Netanyahu should leverage this turning point to reframe the parameters of how Israel can live astride the very problematic Palestinian national movement.

Categories: Abbas, Hamas, Israel, Israel borders, Israeli security, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution
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Secretary-General Of Palestinian Presidency Delivers Speech On Behalf Of President ‘Abbas: In Fighting For Palestine, Our People ‘Loves Death More Than Life’

May 24, 2016

Secretary-General Of Palestinian Presidency Delivers Speech On Behalf Of President ‘Abbas: In Fighting For Palestine, Our People ‘Loves Death More Than Life’ MEMRI, May 24, 2016

On May 22, 2016, Palestinian Presidency Secretary-General Al-Tayeb ‘Abd Al-Rahim delivered a speech on behalf of Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas to a group of Palestinian National Security Forces. The speech was part of a ceremony celebrating their second-place win in the international 8th Annual Warrior Competition, which took place in Jordan on May 2-6, 2016.[1]

In his speech, ‘Abd Al-Rahim condemned attempts to intimidate the Palestinian people and divert it from its path, and called such attempts futile, as “our [Palestinian] people loves death more than life.” He added that the National Security Forces victory was a step on the way to establishing an independent Palestinian state, and rejected the notion of establishing a separate independent entity in Gaza, or a state with temporary borders in the West Bank alone.

The following are excerpts from the speech:

28164Abd Al-Rahim speaking at the ceremony (Al-Ayyam, PA, May 23, 2016)

“Today we celebrate the Palestinian man, who suffers a lack of means and opportunity, but has will power and is determined to keep the Palestinian flag flying so that it [the flag] remains in the hearts of peace-loving and liberty-loving peoples. We were very happy with this victory [in the Warrior Competition], and the honorable president and commander-in-chief, president Abu Mazen [Mahmoud ‘Abbas], has expressed his esteem for the brothers who won this award and his pride in their achievements. Many commanders in Arab military institutions have also expressed their pride in this new Palestinian man, who is always new and always renewing [himself].

“The occupation wagered that we would forget our cause and that, as the generations passed, we would dissolve into the societies around us… However, the occupation was the first to realize that each new generation was more determined and had a stronger desire to achieve the goals that the martyrs had died for in the distant and the near past and [are still dying for] in the present. Our blood is still being spilled at the roadblocks and the checkpoints by the gangs of settlers and the extremist soldiers of the occupation, some of whom have acknowledged that they do not act according to moral standards when facing our people and children…

“Occupiers are always destined to fail. This fact should be in our minds forever. We must always cling to hope. Our morale will not be influenced or shaken by anything. We will not grow soft or deviate towards personal interests for the sake of dubious goals such as establishing a state or an emirate in Gaza, or establishing a state with temporary borders in the West Bank. We must always tirelessly stick to our truth, and our faith in victory must never falter. It is the faith in our hearts that will lead us to our rights and to the realization of our righteous and legitimate goals…

“Every achievement is a step on the road to establishing an independent state and strengthens our belief that the future is ours, that tyrants will disappear, and that the aggressors will end up in the trash bin of history. Indeed, they are trying to intimidate us today with people who threatened to strike Gaza or the Aswan Dam [a reference to incoming Israeli defense minister Avigdor Liberman], but these threats are hollow as we are a people who loves death more than life when it fights for Palestine.”[2]

Endnotes:

[1] The Annual Warrior Competition is a combat-oriented competition held at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) in Amman (Warriorcompetition.com).

[2] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), May 23, 2016.

Categories: Abbas, Defense of Israel, Gaza, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian media, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank
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Sisi and Mideast Peace

May 21, 2016

Sisi and Mideast Peace, American Thinker, C. Hart, May 21, 2016

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s speech on Tuesday, May 18, set ripples through Israel’s political establishment. Speaking in the southern city of Assiut, Sisi signaled to the Arab world, the Palestinians, and Israel that it is time for an historic breakthrough in peace negotiations.

Responding immediately to Sisi’s comments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he is open to working with Egypt and Arab states towards advancing the peace process, not only with the Palestinians but with the peoples of the Middle East region.

Netanyahu’s comments come on the heels of a visit to Israel by French Foreign Minister Jean-Mark Ayrault. The two men met but disagreed on how to advance peace.

France insists on hosting an international parley to force Israel and the Palestinians to come to the peace table. Israel is against the French initiative.

Netanyahu would like to go beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and work directly with moderate Arab states on a comprehensive peace deal. Sisi could be instrumental in building an Arab coalition for peace which would dismiss or weaken the divisive French initiative, releasing Israel from conceding to European demands.

Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). He is a Middle East expert who has represented Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as former Ambassador to Sweden and Romania, as well. This writer asked Mazel if Sisi’s comments were spontaneous or were released at this time for political reasons because he wants to strengthen Egypt’s position in the region by helping Israel.

“I don’t think there is a big design… I think that Sisi understands what is going on in the Middle East and he is identifying according to his view — a kind of possibility of advancing the peace process.”

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, and Israel have common enemies: Iran and Islamic State. Already there have been discreet diplomatic and business ties between Israel and these nations

According to Mazel, Sisi is also emerging as a strong respected leader among Egyptians despite the Western media’s portrayal of him as a dictator similar to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“Sisi sees himself as a president quite stable among his people. I know that this is not the way they think in the Western media — New York Times and company. They see him as a kind of military dictator; absolutely not! He’s a good man. He’s not Mubarak. He’s Sisi.”

Mazel explains that Egypt is on the way to economic sustainable development. This is what Sisi has been focused on over the past two years and he is seeing success. Unemployment has gone down, despite the fact that almost 90 million people live in Egypt and the country is poor.

“He has started something quite positive, and Sisi thinks that the time has come for Egypt to be in the international arena.”

What that means, according to Mazel, is that Egypt’s current role is still minor. Sisi is asking Israelis and Palestinians to go forward, yet he, himself, does not have a plan. But, in the future, Egypt could emerge as a larger player in the region.

Mazel is pragmatic about the short-term. “It’s a positive step for Egypt, but it is not going to change the world.”

Current peace advances that are being prepared for release are not a positive development for Israel: (a) the French Initiative; (b) a document showing the obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts soon to be reported by the Quartet; (c) the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that, despite being outdated, is still considered a serious option by the Arab world.

In the coming days, the Arab League plans to meet and discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mazel thinks that Sisi’s statement was good timing for that meeting, but otherwise, was not connected to a bigger scheme.

However, on Wednesday, May 18, American Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Egypt one day after Sisi gave his emotional speech. Some analysts believe that the U.S. is behind Sisi’s bold words, in an effort to circumvent the French from becoming a new power broker in the Middle East.

The question is whether Sisi’s encouragement will lead to Israel courting the Arab nations and the Arab nations courting Israel, while by-passing the Palestinians. Mazel thinks that kind of change is slow in coming, because the Arabs continue to entrench themselves in old positions that favor Palestinian demands.

Refusing to sit down and negotiate with Israel, the Palestinians have insisted on preconditions which the Arab League has accepted. They demand that Israel agree on the right of return for so-called Palestinian “refugees” to Israeli land; that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders; and, that Israel stop building in West Bank settlements (Judea and Samaria). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also expects Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, who have blood on their hands, serving time in Israeli jails because of terrorist attacks against the Israeli population.

So far, these unresolved issues have kept Abbas away from face-to-face negotiations with Netanyahu. However, his real diplomatic scheme is to get the international community to affirm the Palestinian position and force Israel to concede to Palestinian demands. Right now, Abbas sees the best venue to accomplish his goal as a French-sponsored future peace conference, followed by a stinging UN anti-Israel resolution.

Meanwhile, the future pressure on Israel will be to immediately stop settlement construction in order to get the peace process going. Mazel declares, “Absolutely not… we have to go on! Half a million people live there. And, they are the shield of Israel. We continue to build until there is peace.”

Mazel has a real problem with the demands of the Arab League, as well. “The Arab Peace Initiative is more or less the same as the Palestinian attitude. The ‘right of return’ is still there. It should be taken completely out. Most importantly, the Palestinians and the Arabs should recognize a Jewish State in Israel.”

Mazel is also not sure that Netanyahu’s insistence on widening his government, to provide greater stability, is a wise idea. Reportedly, Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman will soon become Israel’s new Defense Minister as Netanyahu brings several more ministers into his coalition. Mazel thinks this will not provide a wider diplomatic envelope; nor, will it help change European or Arab attitudes towards Israel; nor will it end the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Then there is U.S. President Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policy, which includes his lackluster support of American allies in the region. Mazel says this policy cannot continue.

“It cannot be like that, because America is the most important power in the world… And, whoever will win the presidency, whether it will be Mrs. Clinton or Trump, both of them are in a certain way connected to the Middle East.”

Mazel believes that with 22 countries and more than 300 million people living in the region, the next U.S. president will be more engaged in leading the nations into greater stability.

In the meantime, currently 80% of the Egyptian people support Egyptian President Sisi. His nation has already made peace with Israel (along with Jordan). Helping Israel to extend an olive branch to other Arab countries will encourage Egypt to take up an important leadership role in a region that continues to be embroiled in major upheaval and violence.

 

Categories: Abbas, Arab nations, Egypt, France, Gulf states, Israel, Israel and Egypt, Israeli security, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Sisi, Two state solution
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