Posted tagged ‘Two state solution’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Perception as deterrence – Israel’s new Defense Minister

May 20, 2016

Perception as deterrence – Israel’s new Defense Minister, American Thinker, Ron Jager, May 20, 2016

The recent news that Avigdor Liberman, a former Israeli Foreign Minister and head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, a small right-wing party, will replace Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon as the new Israeli defense minister  and has been portrayed by the Israeli media and their elitist opinion makers with dismay and stupefaction.  In Tel-Aviv, a city known for its progressive and leftist inclination, many muttered that the municipality should start opening up the air raid shelters as Lieberman’s appointment hit the airwaves. Lieberman, a politician feared and despised by the Israeli left, is being demonized and delitigitimized even before his appointed has gone into effect. Yet the potential appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Defense Minister has thrown the whole Palestinian leadership and Israeli Arab politicians into a frenzy, making the reaction by Israel’s leftist elite seem mild. Claiming that Israel is adopting characteristics of a fascist regime and calling for the boycott of Israel; stating that “the Israeli government is sending a message to the world that Israel prefers extremism, dedication to the occupation and settlements over peace,” and encouraging blatant racism, are only a fraction of the derogatory and slanderous accusations against a veteran politician who has been democratically elected.

The potential appointment of Avigdor Lieberman to the position of Defense Minister may very well herald a new and more effective deterrence against the Palestinians’ desire to get up in the morning and murder a Jew. The Palestinian Arab perception of Lieberman as a person who believes in the sanctification of power, ruthlessness, violence, and ignorance with murderous potential can very well be exactly what will cause the Palestinians to adopt a more realistic assessment of what a negotiated settlement will look like.

This is their dilemma, and this is their choice. Either continue and deny reality, taking their chances with a Defense Minister who is perceived as having no problems with employing a strict crackdown wherever Palestinian terror erupts, who has no qualms about enforcing strict rules of engagement, making it crystal clear that Israel’s strategy is based on the adage of our Sages, “If someone rises to kill you, kill him first,” or begin to negotiate seriously and honestly to achieve a sustainable peace agreement with Israel. The perception of Avigdor Lieberman by the Palestinian Arabs could very well facilitate this change.

As Israel’s strategic deterrence and capabilities have been proven to be highly effective in recent years with land, sea, and air strategic capabilities becoming literally impenetrable, the main task facing Israel’s Defense Minister will be primarily in the Palestinian theatre. The Middle East, being a region highly susceptible to a cultural disposition to base one’s reaction on who how one perceives one’s enemy, may very well bring the Palestinian Arab leadership to fold their cards and start the arduous and unavoidable process of negotiating with Israel.

For the majority of the past eight years, President Obama and State Department “experts” have been treating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the central generator of political upheaval ravaging the Middle East. They do not realize just how marginal the conflict with the Palestinian Arabs has become or understand that as far as the Sunni Arab nations of the Middle East, the future Palestinian State, should it be established, will be just another failed Arab nation in perpetual conflict with its own people and with her neighbors.

As far as the Palestinian Authority (PA) that resides in Ramallah is concerned, the lack of legitimacy in the eyes of their own people is only exceeded by the widespread and institutionalized corruption by its leaders, sustained by international funding from the United States and the European Union. Having rejected over the years any possibility of a negotiated settlement, the PA leadership have proven without a doubt that they have no intention of reaching any agreement.. The only goal of the Palestinian Arab leadership has been to gain territories and use them for the next attack aimed at minimizing and weakening Israel. Apart from that, there is nothing: No democracy, no economy, no law and no future for the Palestinian Arabs other than being in a perpetual cycle of meaningless and unsuccessful conflict with Israel. Israel will continue to move ahead and forge alliances with Sunni Arab neighbors and the Palestinian Arabs will wallow in their misery as they continue to deny reality and believe in their own made-up propaganda narrative.

The unprecedented political changes having taken place in the Middle East in recent years mainly due to Obama’s irresponsible and failed strategic policy decisions have resulted in new emerging alliances between Israel and her neighbors. Despite the challenges that Iran continues to pose to Israel and the potential of her leaders who might use the conflict with Israel as a means of rallying political support in her war with the Sunni Arab nations, the threat of renewed conventional conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors has been downgraded, while more realistic scenarios envision a greater focus on economic cooperation and regional stability. Although it is far too early to predict the success of the new political alliances and strategic order that will eventually emerge from the changes in the Arab world, the inherent asymmetry of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs will maintain this conflict on low burner for the foreseeable future with sporadic eruptions of terror and limited missile attacks similar to what that the Israeli population has had to endure in recent years.

 

Categories: Abbas, Arab nations, Clash of civilizations, Israel, Israeli government, Israeli security, Leftist perspectives, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Rules of engagement, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

French toast

April 22, 2016

French toast, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, April 22, 2016

It comes as no surprise that the honchos in Ramallah are welcoming the French initiative to hold a summit of world foreign ministers to discuss and plan an international Israeli-Palestinian peace conference.

The Palestinian Authority knows full well that “peace” is a euphemism for complete Israeli capitulation to Palestinian demands, with nothing but bloodshed in return. Indeed, if PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen were actually interested in bringing about an end to conflict with Israel, they could do so in a split second — you know, by putting a stop to their own behavior. This includes, but is not restricted to, glorifying and funding the families of terrorists, particularly those who die for the cause in the process of killing Jews.

Contrary to what those who are either not paying attention or who hate the Jewish state for their own reasons may believe, Abbas’ ultimate goal is neither peace nor its companion misnomer, a “two-state solution.” No, his aim is to retain an international stamp of legitimacy as a world leader, to protect him from assassination on the one hand and oblivion on the other, and to keep the dollars and euros flowing.

Palestinian statehood is therefore not in his interest. But pretending to strive for it while portraying himself and his people as victims of Israeli “occupation” and “brutality” is what he’s really after. Meanwhile, he benefits from the West’s ostrich syndrome — the very phenomenon responsible for the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the greatest state sponsor of global terrorism; the one that keeps Palestinian murder machines like Hezbollah in clover. And armed to the teeth.

This is all very old news, as is the fact that an ever-declining Europe and the United States under President Barack Obama would prefer to abdicate all political, moral and military superiority to Third World Islamist thugs than call the shots. It is this Western trait that is at the root of hostility to Israel, which — in spite of its all-too-Jewish inclination to follow suit — dares to defend and steel itself to the Cheshire Cat smiles of its sworn enemies and wagging fingers of its alleged friends.

The irony is that Abbas, like the ayatollahs in Tehran, would be the first to agree with this assessment. Indeed, it is the one thing on which Israel and the Palestinians agree, though the latter would never admit it in any language other than Arabic. Nor do PA apologists bother to believe the translations of such sentiments into English, French or German. They would rather spend their energy interpreting the forked-tongue dialect of parties with whom they insist on engaging in diplomacy.

Which brings us back to the Paris plan for renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians. To avoid being left with scrambled egg on its face, France has decided that the only foreign ministers who will not be invited to next month’s pre-peace-conference summit are those of — you guessed it — Israel and the PA.

PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki was not too happy about this. But he did receive reassurance from the French that the initiative would not be hindered “in any way” by the Palestinian draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as the true obstacle to “peace.”

Never mind little details like Monday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem, perpetrated by a Palestinian terrorist from Bethlehem, who apparently botched the bigger job he had in mind when the explosive device he was carrying went off before he reached his destination. According to American officials, he may not even have been a terrorist in the conventional sense, but rather one of those “lone wolves” — or, as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called them, “misguided cowards.”

Yes, across the ocean, Biden took to the podium at the left-wing J Street conference to chastise the Jewish state, which was still reeling from the 20 wounded victims of the latest act of bloody aggression against innocent people going about their business, in this case, Passover preparations.

“I firmly believe that the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they’re moving us and more importantly they’re moving Israel in the wrong direction,” Biden said, reiterating his administration’s “overwhelming frustration” with Israel and “profound questions” about its ability to remain both Jewish and democratic without further and more massive territorial withdrawals than it has already made. Biden failed to mention that all previous Israeli attempts to appease the Palestinians resulted in terrorism the likes of which European capitals haven’t even begun to experience — though it appears they are starting to get a taste of it.

Still, they tell themselves that Islamic State terrorism is a different kettle of fish from that of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And that Israel is ultimately a provocateur.

It is thus that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to reports of the upcoming “ministerial” summit and precursor to a wider peace conference with disdain.

“Can anyone explain what this initiative is about? Even the French don’t know,” he said.

Categories: Abbas, Biden, Foreign policy, France, Israel, Isreal - Jewish state, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Shame on the US at the UN

April 19, 2016

Shame on the US at the UN, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, April 19, 2016

At an open debate on the Middle East at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Monday — as a bus was being blown up in Jerusalem — Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, that he ought to be ashamed for not denouncing terrorism and incitement.

Danon had brought Natan and Renana Meir to the session to personify the devastation that Palestinian Authority incitement to violence against Jews continues to wreak. Natan is the widower of Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old nurse who was murdered three months ago by a Palestinian teenager at the entrance to her home in Otniel, a settlement south of Hebron. Renana is Natan’s 17-year-old daughter, who not only witnessed her mother being stabbed to death, but tried to help fend off the assailant.

The 15-year-old terrorist later told Israeli interrogators that he had been inspired to commit his heinous act from broadcasts on PA television and social media.

Mansour did not condemn any of it, of course. Instead, he berated Israel for imprisoning and killing Palestinian children. No surprise there, which is why Danon — who should be lauded for standing alone in the hornets’ nest of hypocrisy and deceit that the Security Council occupies — was wasting his breath. As Natan Meir said later in a small press conference after the event, it hurt him to hear a diplomat referring to jailed Palestinian kids as victims, when one of those “kids” had slaughtered his wife in cold blood.

Danon already knows that the PA is a lost cause in every possible respect. So his finger-pointing at Mansour was a gesture aimed elsewhere — but hopefully not at the United States, which is just as deserving of a tongue-lashing as the PA that it morally equates with Israel.

Indeed, “disgraceful” doesn’t begin to describe the statement made by David Pressman, the U.S.’s “alternative representative to the U.N. for special political affairs,” at the session in question. Condemning terrorism and settlements in the same sentence, Pressman talked about America’s “steadfast” efforts to “advance dialogue and progress,” which, he said, “will be borne from hard choices made by both leaders to advance the cause of peace over parochial politics.”

Thus, he continued: “We remain very concerned by the wave of terrorism, violence and the utter lack of progress the parties have made toward a two-state solution. It is important that both sides demonstrate, with concrete policies and actions, a genuine commitment to achieving a two-state solution to reduce tensions and restore hope in the possibility of peace. What we have seen on the ground, and what families like the Meir family present here today have experienced first-hand, is absolutely unconscionable.”

Yes, said Pressman, “acts of terrorism have taken too many lives, including Americans. The victims have included soldiers and civilians, pregnant women and mothers, Israelis and Palestinians. … Terrorism is terrorism. It is wrong. It is bloody. And it must stop. Anyone that aspires to achieve a viable and independent Palestinian state must understand that engaging in incitement to violence only serves to undermine this goal. Only a political outcome, not violence, will allow this goal to be realized.”

And here came the clincher: “We remain deeply concerned about the shooting of a Palestinian assailant on March 24 in Hebron by a member of the Israeli security forces, and are following the legal proceedings against the accused perpetrator closely. We note that just today charges of manslaughter were brought against the soldier. … In cases where anyone from any side acts outside the law, they must be held accountable.”

In other words, while Israel always holds each and every soldier accountable for the slightest whiff of wrongdoing, and the PA encourages, glorifies and funds terrorists as a matter of course and principle, “both sides” share responsibility for the violence that is causing the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

But Pressman didn’t stop there. No, he completed his comparison by reprimanding Israel for “settlement activity” that the U.S. “strongly opposes.” Such actions as “land expropriations, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts,” he said, “are wrong and fundamentally undermine the prospects for a two-state solution.”

Shame on him and the entire Obama administration for not realizing that the only kind of construction the U.S. should be linking to the jihad that the Palestinians are waging against Israel is that of terror tunnels, rocket launchers and lies.

Categories: Israel, Israel settlements, Israeli security, Obama administration, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, United Nations
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel

April 16, 2016

Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, April 15, 2016

♦ The obsession with settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.

♦ Even those who say they have accepted the two-state solution are not prepared to recognize any Jewish link to or history in the land.

♦ In the view of Al-Husseini, Palestinians refuse to acknowledge a Jewish state because they believe this would grant legitimacy to “Jews’ rights to the land of Palestine” and undermine the Palestinian demand for the “right of return” for millions of refugees into Israel

♦ Israeli Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by privileging the perceived interests of Palestinian Arabs, while Palestinian Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by denying any link between Jews and the land. This stance makes peace a non-starter.

Israel as a Jewish state remains anathema to the Palestinian community. This is a top-down attitude, communicated on a constant basis by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is based on the argument that such a move would mean giving up the “right of return” for millions of “refugees” into Israel. This refusal is also based on the continued denial of any historic Jewish connection to the land.

In recent weeks, the PA president has once again reiterated his strong opposition to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is one of the main obstacles to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Settlement construction complaints are nothing more than a Palestinian Authority smokescreen.

There is much talk these days about the Palestinian Authority’s intention to ask the United Nations Security Council to issue a resolution condemning Israel for construction in the settlements. It is not yet clear whether the PA will carry out its threat. What is clear, however, is that this obsession with the settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.

Why, in fact, do the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state?

Abbas has consistently failed to state his reasons for his total rejection of Israel as a Jewish state. In January 2014, the PA president declared:

“The Palestinians won’t recognize the Jewishness of the State of Israel and won’t accept it. The Israelis say that if we don’t recognize the Jewishness of Israel there would be no solution. And we say that we won’t recognize or accept the Jewishness of Israel and we have many reasons for this rejection.”

On another occasion that same year, Abbas stated: “No one can force us to recognize Israel as Jewish state. If they [Israel] want, they can go to the UN and ask to change their name to whatever they want — even if they want to be called The Jewish Zionist State.” Again, Abbas failed to explain the vehement Palestinian opposition to this demand.

1551(Image source: Palestinian Media Watch)

The Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has shed some light on the matter. “We have already recognized Israel’s existence on the 1948 borders of Occupied Palestine,” Erekat explained. He added that he made it clear to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tipi Livni during a meeting in Munich that the Palestinians “won’t change their history and religion and culture by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”

While Palestinian leaders have been rather reluctant to elaborate on the reasons behind their rejectionism, other Palestinians have been more generous about the issue.

One of these is Palestinian political scientist Dr. Saniyeh Al-Husseini, who recently published an article titled, “Why Palestinians Refuse to Accept the Jewishness of the State of Israel.” The article was reprinted by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA — a definite sign that the Palestinian leadership endorses her views.

In her article, Al-Husseini points out that the U.S. supports the Israeli condition, which she described as a “crippling demand.”

The article warns that “accepting the Jewishness of Israel means relinquishing all the Palestinian rights to the Palestinian lands, including the lands that were occupied in 1967.” According to Al-Husseini, there are two main reasons that Palestinians are opposed to this demand. The first has to do with the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to their former villages and homes inside Israel; the second is related to the status of Israel’s Arab citizens.

Referring to the first of these, Al-Husseini writes:

“Palestinian acceptance of the Israeli narrative would deny any Palestinian right on the land of Palestine and give justification to Israel’s wars against the Palestinians. Palestinian recognition of the Jewishness of Israel means accepting the Israeli narrative regarding the Jews’ right to the land of Palestine and exempts Israel from bearing responsibility for the moral and legal consequences of all its crimes against the Palestinians.”

In the view of Al-Husseini, then, Palestinians refuse to acknowledge a Jewish state because they believe that this would grant legitimacy to “Jews’ rights to the land of Palestine” and undermine the Palestinian demand for the “right of return” for millions of refugees into Israel.

Let us take a moment to clarify this: the Palestinian Authority wants a Palestinian state next to Israel while at the same time flooding Israel with millions of refugees. That, of course, is something to which no Israeli government could ever agree. Even more crucial is the Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish right to the land. Such denial is a longstanding pillar of the official Palestinian narrative. Even those who say they have accepted the two-state solution are not prepared to recognize any Jewish link to or history in the land.

The second reason, that which concerns the Arab citizens of Israel, is similarly telling. According to Al-Husseini, Israel’s ultimate goal, as “betrayed” by this demand, is to rid itself of its Arab citizens.

There is indeed a betrayal going on, but it is not being perpetrated by Israel. First, by reprinting Al-Husseini’s article, the PA has “betrayed” the fact that it has appointed itself custodian of the Arab citizens of Israel.

As Israel is a democracy — unlike the dictatorial Palestinian regimes — Israel’s Arab citizens have their own leaders and representatives in Israel’s Knesset. The last thing they need is for the Palestinian Authority or Hamas or any other Palestinian faction to meddle in their internal affairs.

But the betrayal continues. The Arab citizens of Israel are represented by leaders, including some Knesset members, who are so preoccupied with the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that they have forgotten who their real constituents are.

Just consider MK Zouheir Bahloul, who spends valuable time re-defining the word “terrorist.” Bahloul, a member of the Labor Party, seems to be enjoying the public outcry he created recently when he declared that a Palestinian who tried to stab IDF soldiers in Hebron last month is not a terrorist.

It is as if Bahloul and the other Arab Knesset members have solved all the problems of the Arab community inside Israel and all that is left is to make sure that no one calls a Palestinian stabber a terrorist. Needless to say, this issue does not top the agenda of the Arab citizens of Israel.

The betrayal thus runs wide and deep. Israeli Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by privileging the perceived interests of Palestinian Arabs, while Palestinian Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by continuing to deny any link between Jews and the land. This is a stance that makes peace a non-starter in the Middle East. When the international community is presented with settlement complaints and the like, it might wish to ponder these small but critical points.

Categories: Abbas, Israel settlements, Israeli Arabs, Isreal - Jewish state, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Let’s Create a Real Palestinian State

April 14, 2016

Let’s Create a Real Palestinian State, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, April 14, 2016

lets_create_a_real_palestine_state

A Palestinian state has never existed during any period in human history. Let’s change that.

The United States has spent billions of dollars trying to create a Palestinian state. It’s time that we finally got our money’s worth. We’ve been putting money in the broken Palestinian slot machine in the metaphorical Palestinian casino (the real one was shot up when terrorists turned it into a base) for decades. It’s time to finally get our Palestinian jackpot. But to make it happen, we need to be realistic.

Forget the peace process. Forget negotiations. They’ve never worked before. They’re not going to now.

And there’s nothing to negotiate anyway.

There are almost a million Jews living on territory claimed by the PLO. Removing them would be the single greatest act of ethnic cleansing against an indigenous population today. It would also be impossible. But the same people who insist that the United States, a country of 318 million, can’t deport 11 million illegal aliens, think that Israel will somehow deport 1/8th of its own population if they just chant loudly enough about “occupation” outside Jewish businesses in London or San Francisco.

Ethnically cleansing 8,000 Jews from Gaza/Gush Katif led to nationwide civil disobedience, riots and, eventually, the fall of a political party and three straight terms for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now imagine trying to deport 800,000 people from their homes simply because they’re Jewish.

And it wouldn’t just be the Jews alone being rounded up into trucks, buses and maybe boxcars.

52 percent of Arabs in East Jerusalem would rather be Israeli citizens than live under the PLO. Are we supposed to deport 100,000 Arabs from Jerusalem to make way for this imaginary “Palestinian” state?

How much ethnic cleansing do we have to do to make the Islamic colonial fantasy of Palestine real?

It’s not going to happen.

Let’s create a real Palestinian state instead. And I don’t mean the PLO’s President for Life Mahmoud Abbas going down to the UN to give another speech. Abbas is on his 11th year of a 4-year term.  The US spent $4.5 billion promoting “Palestinian democracy” and the last PLO election was ten years ago.

Hamas won. It would win today all over again.

Current polling shows that 2/3 of “Palestinians” want Abbas to resign. Abbas has no political authority to form a Palestinian state, a Palestinian shawarma stand or a Palestinian anything.

If there’s going to be a Palestinian state, it has to be based on the will of the people. That means it will be a Hamas state. A Palestinian state that is not based on the will of its people has no legitimacy. The only legitimate Palestinian state is therefore a Hamas terror state.

And that’s the only kind of state you can have when 2/3 of “Palestinians” support stabbing Israeli civilians, 89% want to live under an Islamic State run by Sharia law, 84% want to stone adulterers to death and 66% support killing any Muslim who leaves Islam.

Only an Islamic terror state can truly represent the homicidal aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Is this some sort of sick joke? Yes it is. But it’s not my sick joke. It’s the sick joke that is Palestine. Now let’s begin the process of turning this sick twisted joke into its own state.

The first thing to do is dismantle the UNRWA, a UN agency specifically dedicated to catering to “Palestinians”. The UNRWA is one of the key elements of the Palestinian welfare state. And the US kicks in around $300 million to the organization which fulfills many of the functions of a state. But a state doesn’t need its own refugee agency. And a Hamas terror state doesn’t need a further $350 million dollars in US foreign aid to promote “democracy” and improve its infrastructure and institutions.

This is going to be a problem because the imaginary Palestinian state also has a fantasy economy. The largest employer in the Palestinian Authority is the Palestinian Authority. Most of its money comes from America, Europe, Israel and, for some inconceivable reason, Japan.

The terror state gets its electricity from Israel. It gets its water and internet through Israel.

So let’s get a clear look at what a real Palestinian state would look like. It would be Gaza writ large. But without the UNRWA and the rest of the NGOs lining up to provide jobs and social services. It would be an “open air prison”, as anti-Israel activists screech of Gaza, but a prison created and maintained by the inmates. It would be constantly at war with Israel and the rest of the world. The way it is now.

The economy will be a thinly disguised feudal system of Islamists with engineering degrees in mansions paying starvation wages to laborers to harvest olives to be shipped to China. There will be shopping malls for some and little shacks on the edges full of smugglers, drug labs and brothels for everyone else.

That’s the Islamist dream.

Palestine’s political system will consist of Hamas and more Hamas. Or maybe once the Hamas alliance with ISIS in the Sinai lapses, there will finally be a democratic election between Hamas and ISIS to decide just how horrible of a place the misshapen slices of Gaza and the West Bank under terrorist occupation will become. Nothing will function except the religious police and the gallows in the dusty squares.

There will be wars every two years. That will be just long enough to rebuild the hospitals, mosques and schools that were being used as launch sites in the last wars. In between the big wars, the terrorist groups, Hamas factions, ISIS, Islamic Jihad and anybody else, will fight each other in the streets.

It will be glorious.

Imagine the last few decades of terror, bombings, missile strikes, firefights, corruption, thievery and utter dysfunction made into a permanent state of affairs. That’s Palestine. That’s the two-state solution. Just don’t ask what it solves except the Middle East’s severe shortage of terrorist states and terrorists.

If you will it, it is no dream. This nightmare already exists and it can be a real country. It already has an anthem, a flag, no elections and no reason to exist except killing everyone else. It’s a foreign aid funded ISIS with more olive harvests and a more robust campus presence.

Everyone talks about creating a Palestinian state, but no one actually wants to do it.

It’s time for Palestine to stop being a pipe dream full of pipe bombs that we spend billions of dollars on. Just pull out a seat at the UN, hold democratic elections and then step away from the explosions.

A real two-state solution is just that simple. And it can happen tomorrow.

Let’s stop fantasizing about peace. Peace and Palestine go together like oil and water. This is what a real Palestinian state would look like. And the moment it comes into being, any possibility of peace dies.

Categories: Abbas, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Israel borders, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinian terrorists, Peace in our time, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

TERROR STATE: 60% of “Palestinians” Back Terrorism Against Civilians

April 12, 2016

TERROR STATE: 60% of “Palestinians” Back Terrorism Against Civilians, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, April 12, 2016

(But Shirley surely, Kerry’s charisma and Obama’s unbiased approach will prevail. — DM)

lecter_palestine2b_3

What conceivable argument is there for creating an artificial country where the majority of the population supports terrorism? What could such an entity be except a terrorist state?

The survey, carried out by the the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and published on April 4, found that 60 percent of Palestinians support “armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel,” while 65 percent think that escalating the current wave of violence into an armed intifada would help Palestinian national aspirations in a way that negotiations could not. A plurality also believes that armed action is the most effective way to establish a Palestinian state.

Efforts by Palestinian Authority security services to contain violence, which a PA official quoted by the survey said prevented 200 attacks against Israelis, were opposed by 65 percent of Palestinians and supported by 30 percent.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas remains deeply unpopular with his constituents, with about two-thirds of respondents demanding his resignation. If new elections took place in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh – the leader of the terrorist group Hamas – would beat Abbas by 11 percentage points. However, if the competition was between Haniyeh and Mahmoud Barghouti – a convicted killer who is currently serving 67 life sentences in an Israeli prison for helping orchestrate some of the bloodiest suicide bombings of the second intifada – the latter would win by 18 percentage points.

Democracy in the Muslim world. This is what it looks like. It’s also why there can be no “peace”. You can’t make peace with terrorists.

Categories: Foreign policy, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Abbas reiterates: All of Israel is ‘occupation’

April 6, 2016

Abbas reiterates: All of Israel is ‘occupation’ Israel National News, Ari Soffer, April 6, 2016

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has once again referred to the entire State of Israel as “occupied” territory, highlighting the wide gulf between his rhetoric in Arabic and his image as a moderate within much of the international media.

In an interview with official PA TV in mid-March, translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas echoed similar comments he made late last year by claiming Palestinian Arabs have been “occupied” since 1948 – the date of the State of Israel’s founding. Such rhetoric lies in stark contrast to perceptions in the West that Abbas’s PA only desires a state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – territories liberated from Arab rule in 1967.

“We have been under occupation for 67 or 68 years,” Abbas said. “Others would have sunk into despair and frustration. However, we are determined to reach our goal because our people stands behind us.”

The extent of Abbas’s doublespeak is apparent when comparing such statements to the more conciliatory tone he takes when addressing foreign audiences.

One example highlighted by PMW was carried by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida later in March, when Abbas met a delegation of Jews.

“We strive for peace through the establishment of the Palestinian state, which will live in peace and stability alongside Israel,” he told them.

Abbas similarly told a Druze audience: “We must hurry building peace here, and find the ideal solution, which is simple – the Palestinians and the Israelis will live in two states that will exist side by side in peace and stability, because we want our children and grandchildren to live a good, normal, and prosperous life.”

Israeli officials often point towards Abbas’s doublespeak to illustrate how they say he manipulates Western audiences with messages of peace, while encouraging his own Arab population to continue fighting to destroy Israel.

Other PA officials have often been far more direct in their statements, describing any future “two-state solution” as only the first stage in destroying Israel, and describing a “West Bank state” as “just a phase” before wiping Israel out entirely.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian media, Two state solution, Western media
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

John Kerry to the World: Let’s Gang up on Israel

March 18, 2016

John Kerry to the World: Let’s Gang up on Israel, Stephen M. Flatlow, March 17, 2016

netanyahu-kerry-bibi-300x178 (1)Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with US Secretary of State John Kerry. Photo: GPO.

JNS.org – John Kerry has a new strategy for achieving Mideast peace: mobilize the international community to gang up on Israel.

That was the essence of the secretary of state’s disturbing remarks in Paris on March 13. Kerry declared that the Obama administration is “looking for a way forward” to bring about creation of a Palestinian state. He said that Palestinian statehood is “absolutely essential.”

Not just “an idea worth exploring;” not just “something to be considered’.” Rather, “absolutely essential.” Kerry and President Obama have made up their minds and will not consider any alternatives. They have decided that establishing an independent Palestinian state is the only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It’s just a question of how to make it happen.

The administration’s attempts to pressure Israel into creating a Palestinian state obviously have not been successful so far. So Kerry is looking for new ways to harangue the Israelis. Standing next to a group of European foreign ministers at the Paris press conference, Kerry said: “There’s not any one country or one person who can resolve this. This is going to require the global community, it will require international support.”

Significantly, Kerry’s quest for an international alliance to pressure Israel comes on the heels of France’s recent announcement that it will try to convene an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The French said that if the conference failed to produce a Palestinian state, they will go ahead and unilaterally recognize such a state. That’s the French idea of “negotiations.”

The French approach, which Secretary Kerry now seems to be moving towards, is reminiscent of similar proposals that were made back in 1985. Alarmed, then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin flew to Washington to try to head off the convening what was being called an “international umbrella” for Mideast negotiations.

“Whenever anyone mentions umbrella, it reminds me of Chamberlain and Munich,” Rabin declared. For Rabin to invoke the memory of Chamberlain selling out to Hitler at Munich — and for Rabin to use those words at a press conference in Washington — vividly illustrates how dangerous he considered the ‘international’ proposal to be.

It’s not hard to understand why Rabin in 1985 opposed such a proposal, and it’s not hard to see why Israel’s leaders today oppose it, too. If Kerry succeeds in his strategy, such an international conference or umbrella would consist of a dozen or more Arab and European countries ganging up on Israel and demanding that the Israelis make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. Knowing the Obama administration’s pro-Palestinian slant, one must assume that the US would side with the Arabs and Europeans.

The French — evidently with Kerry’s tacit approval, or perhaps even his encouragement–are pushing forward. French diplomat Pierre Vimont will be visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority this week to promote France’s initiative. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, appearing alongside Kerry at the press conference: “The conflict is getting worse and the status quo cannot continue.”

The conflict is getting worse? No, it’s not.

The status quo cannot continue? Yes, it can.

I am the last person in the world to minimize the reality of Palestinian terrorism. But there’s no way anybody can say the current attacks are worse than the weekly bus bombings of the 1990s. Israel’s strong military response put an end to the suicide bombings — which shows that if Israel does not fight with one hand tied behind its back, it can beat the terrorists.

And the status quo may not be the ideal solution, but show me a better one that’s feasible. Withdrawing to indefensible borders? Setting up an armed or soon-to-be-armed Palestinian state just a few miles from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? In 1976, people were saying “the status quo cannot continue.” They were saying it 1986 and 1996 and 2006, too. Yet here we are, nearly 50 years after the 1967 war — and it has continued, because the alternatives have been worse.

Of course, what Kerry and French call the “status quo” is not at all the same as the status quo of the 1970s or 1980s. In 1995, Rabin withdrew from the areas where 98% of the Palestinians reside. For the past 21 years, the Palestinian Authority has functioned as a de-facto state in a large portion of Judea-Samaria. The only thing the PA lacks is a full-fledged army and the ability to import tanks and planes. And from Israel’s point of view, that’s not such a bad status quo.

So maybe it’s time for Kerry and his gang of would-be interveners to step back, take a deep breath, and face the fact that the slogans and ideas of the 1980s — “status quo,” “international umbrella” and the like — are just not suited to today’s reality.

Categories: Abbas, Europe, International Community, Israel, Kerry, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Palestinians: The Right Time to Take Big Steps?

March 4, 2016

Palestinians: The Right Time to Take Big Steps? Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, March 4, 2016

♦ Despite the “official” surveys taken among Palestinians, which show support for Hamas, the residents of the West Bank are terrified that Hamas will gain control and destroy our lives and property, the way they did in the Gaza Strip.

♦ The BDS organizations are trying to boycott products made in the West Bank, which only throws masses of Palestinians out of good jobs in an effort to force Israel into a hasty withdrawal that has no chance of taking place. The Israelis and everyone else remember all too well that the last Israeli withdrawals — from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip — led to the terrorist takeover of the vacuums created.

♦ Ikrima Sabri, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, often said that Palestinians were better off with the Jews in charge of Al-Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem, because in the future they could be removed and killed off, but if the Crusaders returned to Jerusalem — such as an international commission headed by the French — it would be harder to get rid of them.

During a visit to Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu that now is not time to move forward with the “two-state solution” and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Merkel, evidently seeing Israel as a dam protecting Europe from Islamist extremists, told Netanyahu that while the Germans recognized the terrorist threat faced by Israel, and that a peace process had to be advanced based on two states for two peoples, now was not the right time to take big steps.

1494Agreed: It’s not a good time to establish a Palestinian state. Pictured: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel address a press conference in Berlin, Germany, on February 16, 2016. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)

The Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are well aware that they are hostages of the terrorist organizations, in particular Hamas. Jibril Rajoub, a senior official in the Palestinian Authority (PA), told Al-Jazeera TV the same thing just last week.

The Palestinians in the West Bank, regardless of public declarations, also secretly support security collaboration with Israel, which protects us from radical Islamist terrorism. Therefore, despite the “official” surveys taken among Palestinians, which show support for Hamas, the residents of the West Bank are terrified that Hamas will gain control and destroy our lives and property the way they did in the Gaza Strip. We do want a Palestinian state, but one that will preserve the lifestyle and accomplishments we have built over the years — not a state that will have them fall to the horrors of Hamas and ISIS.

In light of the quiet, passive public support for the regime of Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas is inciting Palestinians against it. Hamas, in an attempt to overthrow the Palestinian Authority, is portraying Abbas’s security forces as traitors who transmit information to Israel.

Like Germany — and unlike Sweden and France — Britain has recently instituted a more balanced policy. The UK has begun to fight the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) organizations. Matthew Hancock, Britain’s Minister for the Cabinet Office, who coordinates activities between various government ministries, is advancing protocols to prevent the ongoing boycotts by the British establishment.

These BDS organizations are trying to boycott products made in the West Bank, but the boycott only throws masses of Palestinians out of good jobs and great benefits in an effort to force Israel into a hasty withdrawal that has no chance of taking place. The Israelis and everyone else remember all too well that the last Israeli withdrawals — from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip — were nothing more than case-studies for the terrorist takeover of the vacuums created, exactly the same way as the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq made room for the Islamic State (ISIS).

As Palestinians we know that the BDS may or may not harm Israel, but it does untold damage to the Palestinians who support their families by working in the settlement factories and would otherwise be unemployed and then, as a scarcity of jobs will have been created, hired by various terrorists. When the SodaStream factory moved out of the West Bank, 500 Palestinians lost their well-paid jobs.

In view of the current U.S. helplessness in dealing with the Russians, Iranians and Syrians, the Obama administration has now chosen to bare its fangs at Israel. Despite what are apparently his predictable personal objections, U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, which includes anti-BDS provisions. It introduces new policy language by including all “Israeli-controlled territories” as part of Israel. Meanwhile, the American customs authority is still continuing to enforce a 20-year-old law, marking products made in the West Bank and hurting Palestinians. Labeling products hurts the Palestinians, who then are driven look for work in the eager arms of the terrorist organizations radicalizing the region.

The French, as usual, slither and shift. A number of months ago, they tried to build up steam for an international commission of inquiry into the Al-Aqsa mosque. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians objected.

Ikrima Sabri, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, often said that Palestinians were better off with the Jews in charge of Al-Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem, because in the future they could be removed and killed off, but if the Crusaders returned to Jerusalem through the back door — such as an international commission headed by the French — it would be harder to get rid of them.

The French, fearing for their lives at the hands of their own local Islamist enclaves, are in dire straits and doggedly try one maneuver after another to appease them. In desperation, they have proposed peace negotiations for the Palestinians and Israel “with international mediation.” They even brazenly suggested that if the negotiations failed, they would recognize the Palestinian state. The outcome is written on the wall: the Palestinians, who will have no reason to negotiate, will fall over themselves rushing to the conference, then automatically veto every proposal or possible compromise, and then receive the promised recognition of Palestine.

The French are masters of diplomatic flimflam: on the one hand, they will do anything to appease their own Islamists at the expense of Israel, and on the other, they know full well neither Israel nor any other Western country will accept their self-serving suggestion. The French keep revealing their duplicity again and again. They refuse to designate Iranian-backed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization; they instead call it a “political party,” despite its full participation in slaughtering Sunni Muslims in Syria. Hezbollah is also one of the main actors pushing the countless asylum-seekers (and occasional ISIS operative) flooding Europe, Turkey and Jordan.

The atrocities committed today in the Middle East are the direct result of the refusal of Europe (including France) and the United States to intervene, and the stunning silence of the Arab states. Unwilling to fight ISIS, they are more than willing to condemn, slander and criticize Israel, while the Middle East slips into anarchy.

The result for us Palestinians will be bloodletting, either in the Hamas-Fatah rivalry, or as collateral damage in the Israelis’ war against Islamist terrorism, or, when the Palestinian Authority falls, at the hands of ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Al-Nusra Front as they sweep through the Jordan Valley on their way to attack Israel.

Al-Jazeera TV is also trying to serve its master, Qatar, radicalize the Palestinians by saying that the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel, which benefits everyone here by keeping out Islamic terrorists, is betraying the Palestinian cause. In addition, Israeli intelligence, by saying that a seaport for Hamas should be built is, for some mysterious reason, trying to kill off the Palestinian Authority by strengthening Hamas. Both the Egyptians and we Palestinians — and even the Israelis — do not need Hamas strengthened at our expense. Hamas and the many other extremist organizations that have infiltrated the Gaza Strip, including ISIS, are what enable Israelis to justify their security concerns as well as those regarding peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and that prevent a withdrawal from the West Bank. Given the current situation in the Middle East, Angela Merkel was correct. It is not the right time now to take big steps.

Categories: Abbas, Europe, Foreign policy, Gaza, Israel, Merkel, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Two state solution, West Bank
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Canadian FM outdoes himself

February 23, 2016

Canadian FM outdoes himself, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, February 23, 2016

(Please see also, Abu Mazen rebuffs Kerry’s appeal to cool Palestinian terror against Israelis. – DM)

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion exhibited a real knack for the twofer on Friday, by going after both his political opposition and the Israeli government in one disingenuous swoop.

In perfect doublespeak, Dion managed to announce his (Liberal) party’s support for a Conservative motion condemning the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, while attacking it as an attempt to foment discord in parliament.

The motion to “condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals” to engage in BDS — “the demonization and delegitimization” of Israel — was tabled by Tory MP Tony Clement.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he asserted, urging Liberals to “side with us on this motion. Send a strong message to our fellow Canadians and to freedom-lovers around the world.”

Tory MP David Sweet went even further, calling BDS “anti-Semitic.” Sweet also got up and commended the Liberals for joining in a bipartisan effort to combat it. But this was too much for Dion, who made sure to say that though the Liberals would support the motion, they had “reservations” about it, among them the impure and divisive motives of the Tories in pushing the bill forward.

“To me, this is further proof that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are still trying to divide Canadians on issues that should unite them,” he said.

Huh?

And then he proceeded to defend not only “freedom of expression,” but BDS as well — at least its supporters whose motives (unlike those of the Tories) are pure.

“Some supporters of the boycott have bad intentions, do not want peace and are working against Israel,” he said. “However, it cannot be denied that many of the boycott supporters are mistaken in good faith. Many organizations and individuals in Canada and abroad support the BDS movement out of the belief that it will somehow accelerate the peace process and be a nonviolent initiative that leads to a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their goal ultimately is the same as ours: a two-state solution with a secure, stable and democratic Israel, living side-by-side with a secure, stable and democratic Palestinian state. However, they are mistaken in the way this goal may be achieved.”

This is quintessential Dion drivel in its finest. Since the November election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which marked the end of Stephen Harper’s conservative government, Dion has been making it clear in his convoluted way that Israel shares, if not bears, responsibility for the ills befalling it.

The wave of Palestinian terrorism against the Jewish state that surged shortly before Trudeau took office provided Canada’s recently instated top diplomat with the perfect opportunity to show the international community that he — the new peace sheriff in town – grasped this tenet. To illustrate he meant business, Dion promptly took a sharp turn away from his predecessor’s public display of support for Israel as a staunch Western ally, under the same kind of attack at the hands of radical Islamists as the rest of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim world.

The way he did this was to issue a public statement equating Palestinian and Israeli “violence and incitement,” and calling on “both sides” to return to the negotiating table. His timing was impeccable, as an additional heads up about a more harshly worded reprimand to Israel came on the heels of two particularly horrifying stabbing attacks by Palestinian terrorists against two Israeli women — one slashed to death in front of her traumatized teenage daughter, the other wounded while pregnant.

Imagine how painful it must be for him, then, to have to join forces with his enemies at home in countering Israel’s enemies abroad. No need to worry, however. We have not heard the last of Dion, whose ability to distort reality to suit his fantasy may yet surpass that of his counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Fortunately for Israel, Canada has no real power; it has simply become yet another former ally professing to have its best interests at heart.

Categories: BDS, Canada, Israel, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »