Arlene from Israel
March 5, 2011
Motzei Shabbat (After Shabbat)
The going is tough because we're in such tremendous flux: Blink your eyes and the situation -- which lacked clarity in any event -- has shifted once again.
Perhaps toughest of all is the fact that rational thinking has been abandoned in many quarters. Our by-word might be "They can't really mean that, can they?"
And so, we slog through...
~~~~~~~~~~
Last week I wrote that Netanyahu was meeting with the Inner Cabinet -- the Septet -- to decide whether to send a representative of the government -- chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, to be precise -- to Brussels to meet with members of the Quartet; they were seeking clarification of the positions of Israel and the PA with regard to "peace negotiations."
The fear was that the Quartet, after having heard both sides, would end up making a statement regarding a Palestinian state with the '67 armistice line as border.
~~~~~~~~~~
Well, we didn't send anyone to Brussels, but Quartet representatives are coming here this week -- oh joy! -- and we can hardly refuse to talk to them.
The members of that Quartet -- the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia -- definitely qualify for a "They can't really mean that, can they?" question. The unhappy fact, however, is that they DO mean it.
Whatever their obviously ulterior motives, how they imagine we can negotiate "peace" when:
The PA is courting Hamas
The PA is expressing rage at the US
Fatah is eager to get rid of Fayyad, the darling of the West and said to be the most moderate
is one of the great unknowns of the moment. Especially while so much is on fire here, and there is a great deal else to attend to.
~~~~~~~~~~
The big question, then, is how we, here, will handle ourselves.
Minister of Strategic Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon recently gave an interview to Besheva magazine. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142671
In that interview, he said, in part:
“No minister among the seven [the Inner Cabinet] believes that an agreement with the PA can be reached in the foreseeable future. We have seen it in their refusal to accept our three conditions - a willingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish nation, a willingness to recognize the arrangement reached as the end of the conflict, and a willingness to accept our security needs... These requirements have been met with absolute refusal.
"The ball is in their court...
“We said that we do not want to control them, and indeed they conduct their own civil affairs. If they do not have a clear willingness to recognize our rights, then we won’t mention even a millimeter of concession. The question is whether there is a willing partner in the process who will prove himself as serious, with an ability to govern, manage the economy and especially educate their youth to accept Israel's existence, or whether they prefer to educate them to explode on us. Now they prefer to educate them to explode, they deny our existence, and their maps are all covered with the flag of Palestine, so there is nothing to discuss regarding conceding space or, G-d forbid, dividing Jerusalem. It is clear that any paper we sign will be lit with the fire of terrorism.
“Our intention is to leave the situation as it is: autonomous management of civil affairs, and if they want to call it a state, let them call it that. If they want to call it an empire, by all means. We intend to keep what exists now and let them call it whatever they want.
“As you can see we have already been serving for two years as a government, despite the left opposition parties criticizing us when there is no progress in the negotiations, and unfortunately their perception of progress is an Israeli withdrawal. Our approach is completely different. Our approach is steadfastness, development, construction, strengthening and so on. This is our approach and this is what we do as a government.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Fervently do I wish Ya'alon spoke for all of the government. But if Defense Minister Ehud Barak were giving the interview, it would sound quite different. And, whatever the official policy, there is no question that construction has been slowed. It's not all as clear and as positive as it would seem here.
And yet..and yet.. This interview is encouraging, especially when Ya'alon says that no one in the Septet believes an agreement with the PA can be reached in the foreseeable future. "No one" includes the prime minister.
But does Netanyahu convey steadfastness and strengthening? I would be hard put to find anyone who thinks so.
~~~~~~~~~~
The simple truth is that Prime Minister Netanyahu's way of handling matters is of singular and primary importance.
The word has gone out that he is "seriously considering" a new proposal. He will be going to the States for the AIPAC convention in late May, and is said to be looking for an opportunity to address Congress with regard to this proposal.
Since Netanyahu is well known for what we might call creeping concessions, rather than steadfastness, there is vast unease about the prospect of another proposal from him. It's been said that he will suggest something interim, because a full agreement is simply not possible now. And from some quarters I've picked up hints that he will propose something in the nature of an autonomy, along the lines of what Ya'alon was describing. But until we hear the proposal, we don't know.
~~~~~~~~~~
Yet, I do not think it necessarily the case that making a proposal is a bad move.
~~~~~~~~~~
I have a confession to make here: I am startled by the persistence and the apparent strength of Abbas, in terms of how he is handling himself. He is coming out on the offensive, after it had been predicted in several quarters, including right here, that he was finished.
With everything else he has contended with, including severe unrest inside of Fatah, it was the Al-Jazeera leaks, which made the PA leaders look more conciliatory in negotiations than they were commonly thought to be, that was said to have finished him. He was accused of betraying his cause.
What he's doing now is showing how tough he is, to counter that damage. And, he gets away with it because the Quartet lets him -- even with regard to courting Hamas. The other day, Caroline Glick made the point, which I cited, that Abbas knows that the US and EU need him because of internal politics. This gives him courage to act as he wishes without fearing repercussions.
Abbas had already let it be known that he won't accept any "interim" plan. And just today he made a demand that the Quartet "force Israel to end occupation of our lands...Our people deserve freedom and independence so that they could live in their homeland like the rest of the people in the world."
By September, he says, he wants a Palestinian state to be a full member of the UN. (This issue I will table for another day.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu hopes to be able to say to the international community, and most specifically the US, that while Israel cannot agree to what Abbas demands, we are not a stumbling block, but, rather, have our own proposal intended to move matters forward.
He certainly wants to shift the onus to the PA. Plus, I would imagine, he wants to give the Quartet something to hold on to, so that they can tout "progress." De-fang them a bit, if you will.
~~~~~~~~~~
I am quite familiar with the line of thought that suggests we simply stand tough and tell the world "no."
But there is a problem with this -- a problem that is at least in part of our own making. The war against the Arabs is being fought on the PR level as well as on a terrorist battlefield. Since, damn it, we have not advanced our own narrative with strength these past several years, the world believes what the PA says.
The world, not having been provided with solid and consistent information, for example, showing that the '67 line -- the Green Line -- was only a temporary armistice, actually believes that it was a border and that everything to the east of the Green Line "belongs" to the Palestinian Arabs.
Because the world believes that we are "occupiers" (we're not), and because the PA has accused us of apartheid (I'll come back to this, as well), the world, or certain portions of it, talks about treating us the way the apartheid government of South Africa was treated -- with the hope that we can be brought down via boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. It is the delegitimizing of Israel that must be fought.
~~~~~~~~~~
And so, on the face of it, addressing the Congress is not a bad idea -- depending, of course, on what is said.
If the position presented by Netanyahu is simply one of further concessions, then he will be making the Arabs' case for them. And that is what he must not do.
Whatever interim proposal he may advance, I believe he should begin with a solid statement about our rights and the historical misrepresentations that have prevailed.
~~~~~~~~~~
In the coming days, I hope to return to this theme. It is THE theme that matters for us.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment