Ready to R&R: Running Up To The Peace Process - by Shoshana Bryen

The PA appears to have mistaken America as an “honest broker” for America as a “neutral party.” Between Palestinians and Israelis, the United States is not, and should not, ever be “neutral.” With Israel we share goals, values, and history; with the Palestinians we do not.

Shoshana Bryen..
JewishPolicyCenter.org..
27 January '20..
Link: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2020/01/27/running-up-to-the-peace-process/

We have to wait until President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan is unveiled to discuss it; those already discussing are likely to be wrong. But it is worth reviewing where Israelis, Palestinians, Arab states, and Americans have been — and why this time may be different.

The central flaw in the “Palestinian-Israeli peace process” has never been addressed. There has not been — and there is not now — a shared goal toward which Israelis and Palestinians can be induced to work. Instead, each side has three specific and irreconcilable objectives.

The Palestinians — both Hamas and Fatah — seek:

- An independent state without recognizing a legitimate and permanent state of Israel in any territory. Both factions are willing to accept a temporary agreement with Israel on the way to the fulfillment of the PLO Charter to which both are committed. (Reading the Charter will tell you what else they are committed to, and it isn’t a “two state solution.”)
- Sovereign control of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
- The right of entry for all remaining 1948–1949 Arab refugees from Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, as well s their descendants, to any place within pre-1967 Israel in which they or their antecedents claim to have lived.

Israel seeks three different things:

- Recognition of the legitimacy and permanence of Israel within finalized “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”: U.N. Resolution 242’s security promise to Israel.
- The capital of Israel in Jerusalem and Israeli protection for Jewish patrimony in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
- “End of conflict; end of claims.” After an agreement, the Palestinians will not be able to press additional claims against Israel for territory or other “rights.”

Beyond the issue of objectives, all previous “Palestinian-Israeli peace processes” were doomed because they operated as if the protagonists were on an island in the middle of the sea rather than in the middle of the Middle East. Until recently, the Palestinians counted on lip service, at a minimum — guns and money in better cases — from the so-called “Arab world” and a variety of African and Middle Eastern states. This broad, if shallow, support covered up the fact that the Palestinians were the weakest link in regional politics. It was impossible for Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas — let alone Hamas — to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood and accept a split, rump state squeezed between Jordan and Israel if the Arab states with the money and the guns didn’t go along.

John Kerry and the violent non-violence on the road to peace - by Arnold Roth

...This must have been a welcome message for the entirely-Arab audience, as we assume was his summing up of the Palestinian Arab role

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
08 November '17..

The man who was America's most senior diplomat between 2013 and 2017 and before that a failed candidate for the highest elected office in the land, has some surprisingly naive views, it turns out, about the Palestinian Arabs.

In a recording broadcast last night by Israel's Channel 10 News, John Kerry is heard telling an unspecified conference in Dubai "in the past year attended by Middle East leaders" including the head of Israel’s Joint (Arab) List (a Knesset/parliamentary party), that he

blamed the Israeli government’s resistance to the establishment of a Palestinian state for harming the prospects of a peace deal

and foresaw a "violent Palestinian uprising if there was no progress in peace talks" ["In recording, John Kerry says Israeli government doesn’t want peace", Times of Israel, November 7, 2017]. We can only guess which peace talks he means. Kerry warned

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. 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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Netanyahu, Israelis and the Peace Charade - by Jonathan Tobin

...Despite his reputation as a hardliner Netanyahu continues to try to meet the West halfway as befitting the fact that his stances place him in the center of the Israeli political spectrum rather than its right wing. But Israelis who tire of the peace charade should not be faulted for labeling these exchanges as pointless gestures that do nothing to convince the Palestinians to put down their stabbing knives and start thinking about ending the conflict.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
31 May '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/netanyahu-and-the-peace-charade-arab-peace-initiative/

Israel’s critics lambast its government as incorrigibly right wing and unwilling to advance the peace process. Those criticisms grew shriller in the last week after Prime Minister Netanyahu expanded his coalition by bringing in the Yisrael Beitenu Party and making its leader Avigdor Lieberman minister of defense. But on Monday, the same Netanyahu who embraced a two-state solution and expressed willingness to give up most of the West Bank as part of a negotiated agreement, took one step further to try and make clear that Israel is serious about peace. Netanyahu did what no other Israeli leader has done by saying he was willing to negotiate the terms of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative first suggested by Saudi Arabia and embraced by the Arab League.

After swearing Lieberman into his new office, Netanyahu said the following:

I remain committed to making peace with the Palestinians and with all our neighbors. The Arab peace initiative includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians. We are willing to negotiate with the Arab states revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002, but maintains the agreed goal of two states for two peoples.

Though left-wingers and pundits have embraced the Saudi proposal as a real breakthrough for peace, there were good reasons why Israel did not rush to embrace an idea that included recognition of Israel and an end to the conflict. The Saudis presented it as a take-it-or-leave-it proposal. Its terms required Israel to give up every inch of land it won in 1967, including Jerusalem. It also said that peace must also include a “just” and “agreed upon” solution to the question of Palestinian refugees, a poison pill that is equivalent to calling for an end to Israel as a Jewish state that seemed incompatible with the notion that its sponsors were truly prepared to live in peace. It was later adjusted to imply the possibility of some territorial swaps, but the refugee clause remains problematic because the only “just” solution to that problem in the eyes of the refugees and the Muslim world is a “right of return” that means the elimination of Israel. Many in the peace process crowd continue to ignore the fact that a nearly equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries were forced to flee their homes after 1948.

In spite of all that, Netanyahu has just said he’s willing to talk about it and, provided that it be changed to reflect certain obvious problems, such as the refugees and the sheer impossibility of giving the Golan Heights back to a Syria wracked by civil war and the rise of ISIS, it could even serve as the starting point for negotiations.

But in spite of that, do you think Netanyahu will get any credit for this? Will the Palestinians leap at his suggestion? Will the United States, the Diplomatic Quartet or Western European nations like France, which are so interested in starting their own peace process, start devoting their efforts to following up on this opening?

Of course not.

The Peace Process that Actually Matters - by Evelyn Gordon

...Haick said he sees the course as a way of building bridges between Israel and the Arab world. And he’s right; this is an online version of the Haifa-Jordan trade route. Just as that route for the first time enables the broader regional economy to benefit from Israel, Haick’s course for the first time enables the broader region to benefit from Israel’s world-class universities and high-tech expertise. And the more Israel’s neighbors benefit from its existence, the greater their interest will be in reaching an accommodation with it rather than destroying it. All of the above may seem like baby steps. Yet the series of baby steps that have been taken over the last few years not only represents a major shift from the utter stagnation of previous decades, but is slowly adding up to significant progress, even if there’s still a long way left to go.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
29 February '16..

I just returned from a few weeks in America, where the only thing from Israel that makes the news is the ongoing Palestinian violence. So it was a pleasant surprise to come home and discover that the peace process is actually progressing quite nicely. I don’t, of course, mean the one the West is fixated on, the consistently fruitless and currently nonexistent “peace process” with the Palestinians. I mean the far more important process of creeping normalization with the rest of the Arab world, which will not only improve Israel’s long-term security, but is probably essential for any progress on the Palestinian track.

As the Jerusalem Post reported last week, Israel is becoming an increasingly important player in the Arab world’s trade with Europe. Until a few years ago, the main overland route for this trade was through Syria. But with the Syrian civil war having made that impossible, a growing proportion now comes by ferry from Turkey to Haifa, then trucks across Israel to Jordan. This route is cheaper than the other main alternative, which involves shipping from Europe to Egypt.

Last year, some 13,000 trucks used the Israel route, up more than 25 percent from the previous year. And next month, a new shipping line between Turkey and Israel is slated to be inaugurated, enabling another 150 trucks per month. Israel’s Sheikh Hussein border crossing with Jordan is being expanded to handle the increase.

All this obviously benefits Israel’s economy, since Israel collects duties on every truckload. More importantly, however, it means that Israel – for virtually the first time since its establishment in 1948 – is playing a useful role in the broader regional economy rather than being largely isolated from it. And the more Israel’s Arab neighbors benefit from Israel’s stability, the more they will have an interest in trying to maintain that stability rather than disrupting it.

No less noteworthy was last week’s decision by an Egyptian parliamentarian and media personality to publicly challenge his country’s longstanding opposition to “normalization” with Israel. Though the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979, Egyptian politicians, journalists, cultural figures and other elites have long opposed turning the cold peace into a “normal” relationship. Hence despite the exchange of ambassadors, bilateral relations have long been limited and kept largely under the radar, even as security cooperation has grown increasingly close over the last few years.

Indyk’s Appalling Answers

...Abbas bet that an American administration that conducts its foreign policy like a troupe of innocents abroad would once again blame Israel. Indyk’s appalling performance last week demonstrated it was a good bet.

Rick Richman..
Commentary Magazine..
14 May '14..

Ambassador Martin Indyk’s address last week to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, castigating Israel for “rampant settlement activity,” featured assertions that, as Elliott Abrams and Tom Wilson have noted, were simply wrong. Settlement activity was not rampant, and almost all of it was in areas Israel would retain under any peace agreement. Indyk nevertheless made it clear he subscribes to the “poof” theory of peace-process failure.

Even more troubling than Indyk’s prepared remarks, however, were his unscripted replies in the Q & A session. By pre-arrangement, he took only three questions–all from the Institute’s executive director, Robert Satloff. In response to the first, about settlements, Indyk said he had no idea what Satloff was talking about. In response to the second, about Palestinian recognition of a Jewish state, Indyk misstated the year Israel first raised the issue–by 14 years. In response to the third, about the U.S. role in the process, Indyk acknowledged that Mahmoud Abbas was “quite content to sit back and enjoy the show” of Israeli-American disharmony, but Indyk said it was a “puzzle” to figure out “what happened” after that.

I think I can help here. I know what Satloff was talking about; I know when recognition of a Jewish state was first raised; and I have a theory about Abbas that might solve the mystery that puzzled Indyk.

In his first question, Satloff noted that an “unnamed American diplomat” (reliably reported to have been Martin Indyk) told the Israeli media that settlements were the reason talks ended, but Satloff informed Indyk that others took a different view, believing Prime Minister Netanyahu, far from authorizing “rampant” settlement activity, in fact limited it, but had failed to “take public credit for how little there was,” lest he isolate the Israeli right. Indyk replied:

I’ve not heard of this second account — it doesn’t make any sense to me — and I honestly don’t understand what it means. Maybe someone else can explain it to me.

Allow me. When Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, he sought to correct what he saw as the main error in his first term (1996-99): governing from a narrow political base. In his second term, he formed as wide a coalition as possible to negotiate peace. Ron Dermer, currently Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., described Netanyahu’s approach in 2009. The approach gave Netanyahu support across the Israeli political spectrum, so he could explore a different path to peace than those that had failed. He supported the principle that Jews could build anywhere in their capital or in the disputed territories, while in practice significantly limited actual building. Indyk’s ungracious (not to say undiplomatic) response to Satloff’s question demonstrates that Indyk was oblivious to this.

The Hamasian Paradox

...The paradox is that Hamas, weakened by the loss of its Muslim Brotherhood patron, may now become stronger than ever. It is quite capable of winning elections, so it might not even need to use force to get control of the PA and its American trained and armed ‘security’ forces — which were supposed to be used to ‘fight terrorism’!

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
14 May '14..





The players:

Hamas — The Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood; Sunni Islamists committed to the destruction of Israel; believe that killing Jews is a religious mitzvah.

Fatah — Yasser Arafat’s gang, secular terrorists committed to the destruction of Israel, the single organization that has murdered more Jews than any similar group. Fatah’s chairman today is Arafat’s former deputy, Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah dominates the PLO.

The PLO — An umbrella group of about 10 secular, variously leftist groups committed to the destruction of Israel. It was founded in 1964 as an Egyptian front, taken over by Yasser Arafat in 1969, and today is run by Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas is not a member of the PLO.

In one of the worst decisions in its history, Israel agreed to accept the PLO as the “legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” in the discussions leading up to the Oslo agreement in 1993.

The Palestinian Nationsl Authority (PA) — the PA was established in 1993 by the Oslo agreement. During the period following Oslo, Israel transferred control of the areas of Judea and Samaria containing from 95-98% of their Arab residents to the PA. The PA is funded by the US and the EU, and would probably be overthrown by Hamas if not for the presence of the IDF. The ‘President’ of the PA (although Oslo specifies that the chief executive will not be called a ‘president’) is Mahmoud Abbas, elected in 2005 for a 4-year term. Presidential elections have not been held since. Currently the PLO and the PA are effectively the same.

In 2006, Hamas won a majority in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, the PA’s parliament, and Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh was appointed Prime Minister. In 2007, Hamas violently took full control of the Gaza strip, and Abbas dismissed the Hamas government.

Now Hamas and Fatah have agreed in principle to ‘reconcile’ and are negotiating the details. These will include Hamas (and Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-supported faction in Gaza) joining the PLO and their candidates standing for election in the PA legislature.

(Must Read) Inside the talks' failure: US officials open up by Nahum Barnea

An absolutely infuriating interview by Nachum Barnea, presumably with former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and academic David Makovsky. It is difficult to express the personal disgust this evokes, but nevertheless should be read in order that one understands why. The prior post by Fresnozionism is an excellent first response and there will likely be many others. Y.

Nahum Barnea..
Ynet Magazine..
02 May '14..




In an exclusive interview, American officials directly connected to the talks reveal the real reason for the collapse of the negotiations.

The American version of why the current round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians failed is fundamentally different to the one presented by Israeli officials. The list of those to blame for this failure is also very different. From the US perspective, the issue of the settlements was largely to blame.

Senior American officials involved in Secretary of State John Kerry's peace push this week agreed to share with me their take on the talks' failure.

They had one condition, in line with instructions they had received - that I didn't name them. But what they told me is the closest thing to an official American version of what happened.

The American team will be disbanded in the coming days - most of it, or all of it. Kerry has yet to decide what he is going to do - whether he will wait several months and then try to renew his effort, or release the principles of an agreement formulated by the Americans.

By releasing the American principles, Kerry would force the two sides to play offense - each side in its own internal battleground - but in doing so, he also risks exposing himself to criticism over the many errors he made along the way.

Using advanced software, the Americans drew a border outline in the West Bank that gives Israel sovereignty over some 80 percent of the settlers that live there today. The remaining 20 percent were meant to evacuate. In Jerusalem, the proposed border is based on Bill Clinton's plan - Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians.

The Israeli government made no response to the American plan, and avoided drawing its own border outline.

The criticism against the Israeli government is presented in terms of wounds inflicted by a friend who could still be trusted: Israel is very dear to them, but the wounds are deep.

Netanyahu-Obama rift

Let's go back to the beginning. Was this round not doomed for failure from day one?

"The negotiations had to start with a decision to freeze settlement construction. We thought that we couldn't achieve that because of the current makeup of the Israeli government, so we gave up. We didn't realize Netanyahu was using the announcements of tenders for settlement construction as a way to ensure the survival of his own government. We didn't realize continuing construction allowed ministers in his government to very effectively sabotage the success of the talks.

"There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort's failure, but people in Israel shouldn't ignore the bitter truth - the primary sabotage came from the settlements. The Palestinians don't believe that Israel really intends to let them found a state when, at the same time, it is building settlements on the territory meant for that state. We're talking about the announcement of 14,000 housing units, no less. Only now, after talks blew up, did we learn that this is also about expropriating land on a large scale. That does not reconcile with the agreement.

"At this point, it's very hard to see how the negotiations could be renewed, let alone lead to an agreement. Towards the end, Abbas demanded a three-month freeze on settlement construction. His working assumption was that if an accord is reached, Israel could build along the new border as it pleases. But the Israelis said no."

Did President Obama's decision to distance himself from the negotiations contribute to the talks' failure?

"The president supported Kerry throughout the duration of the talks. The clearest example of that was his willingness to prepare for Jonathan Pollard's release. Such a move wouldn't have helped his popularity in the American security system.

"Moreover, when one of the president's aides accused Kerry of the talks' failure during a background briefing with the New York Times, the president made an exception and publicly supported his secretary of state.

"It is true that the president was doubtful. That was obvious from the start. He questioned the willingness of leaders on both sides to take the necessary risks. In the end, he realized he was right."

Ignorance, arrogance, bias or all three?

..."Israel is not China. It was founded by a UN resolution. Its prosperity depends on the way it is viewed by the international community."
This is a remarkably ignorant statement. The Jewish nation is actually a lot like China, going back thousands of years, always with a presence in and a connection to the land of Israel. Created by a UN resolution? Do they mean the non-binding and never implemented 181? The modern state of Israel was created by the struggle and blood of the Jewish people who threw out the British colonialists and defended themselves against the genocidal Arabs, who quite literally subscribed to Nazi doctrine...

Fresnozionism.org..
03 May '14..

I have seen these people, the LORD said to Moses, and they are a stiff-necked people. — Exodus 32:9

Two unnamed members of the Obama/Kerry negotiating team — probably former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and academic David Makovsky — gave an interview to Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea, published yesterday, in which they displayed the ignorance, arrogance and bias that characterizes this administration and its clumsy attempt to force Israel into a disastrous deal with the PLO.

The interview is here. The officials’ account is riddled with inconsistencies — for example, they claim that the last straw, the final blow that caused Abbas to abandon negotiations was the announcement that Israel intended to build in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem:

And then came the Housing and Construction Ministry’s announcement of building tenders for more than 700 housing units in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood.

Abbas lost interest. He turned to the reconciliation talks with Hamas and to the question of who would inherit his mantle. According to the Americans, this is the reason for his recently launched public front against Mohammed Dahlan.

The Americans understood from their Israeli counterparts that the Gilo tenders announcement was an intentional act of sabotage, one of many, by Housing Minister Uri Ariel, an extremist who opposes any agreement with the Palestinians.

But earlier they said that Abbas agreed to the Clinton parameters regarding Jerusalem: Jewish neighborhoods would be in Israel, Arab neighborhoods would become part of Palestine (never mind that this might be a terrible idea). What is Gilo if not a Jewish neighborhood? And they fail to mention that prior to this announcement, Abbas violated his commitment not to seek statehood through the UN, and applied to join various UN treaties and conventions. So how could this have been the ‘last straw’?

Throughout the interview, they blame Israel for the failure of the talks, in particular for settlements. They completely fail to understand the significance of the recognition issue, or the degree of importance attached by Israel to security:

A Peace Process or the Process of Blaming Israel?

...The big peace lie killed the peace it was lying about. And now all that's left is protecting the lie, no longer for the sake of peace, but for the sake of the liars.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
30 April '14..

Big lies don't always start out big. They don't even always start out as lies. They only grow big in the cover-up when the truth has to be beaten off with a stick made out of even bigger lies.

A brief read of the daily newspapers, a quick flick through the cable news networks and an ear
cocked to the drive time news minute might give you the idea that Israel is isolated and besieged. Israel is indeed a small country. It's always been isolated in a Muslim region that is willing to kill even fellow Arab Christians and fellow Arab Shiites over differences of religion.

But contrary to the Peace Lobby sloganeering, Israel isn't morally bankrupt, the intellectual premises of Zionism aren't shattered and it's not a failed state on the verge of destruction.

It's the Peace Lobby that is frantically struggling to keep its big lie together. Its attacks on Israel are not a show of strength, but a desperate cover-up. From the high chambers where John Kerry suggests Israel is going to be an Apartheid State to the low chambers of failed boycotts against academics and soda companies, the purveyors of the big lie are coming apart at the seams.

The big peace lie started out small. Both sides would shake hands and make peace. And white doves would fly from Jerusalem to Ramallah. To some it wasn't even a lie; just blind idealism and wishful thinking. It was only when the lie was tried and failed that it truly became a lie and then there were no more idealists, only desperate liars covering up one lie with another.

The entire peace process rested on the lie that the PLO wanted to make peace. Israel had successfully reached peace agreements, including territorial compromises, with its enemies. Its credibility was never in question. The PLO's credibility was the big question mark and when its willingness to make peace was put to the test and it failed, again and again, the big lie began.

Israel can’t do anything right in the peace process and the PLO can’t do anything wrong. When Abbas blatantly violated existing agreements by going to the UN, Secretary of State John Kerry took a seat in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and blamed Israel.

Then Abbas made a unity deal with Hamas, which is committed to destroying Israel, and Kerry told the Trilateral Commission that Israel was on the path to becoming an Apartheid state.

Kerry may be notorious for his terrorist sympathies, but he was following the grand tradition of his predecessors and of the entire Peace Lobby by blaming the peace partner with the most credibility instead of the one with the least credibility because the credibility of the peace process depends on its weakest link. And that is the Palestinian Authority’s Abbas and his PLO terrorists.

If you were trying to negotiate the sale of a home from a seller acting in good faith to a buyer acting in bad faith, you would blame the seller because once you admit that the buyer is acting in bad faith, the credibility of the sale vanishes into thin air. The smart thing for the seller to do is to walk away, but unfortunately Israeli leaders have become convinced that they can prove their good faith by eagerly showing up to negotiate.

What they don't understand is that blaming Israel is a structural part of the peace process.

A Friendly Reminder From Hamas

...Those who continue to believe peace is “an inch away,” or that construction of houses in Israeli settlements is the true barrier to peace, should ponder Haniyeh’s celebration of terrorism and murder.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
16 April '14..

Every once in a while we get a useful reminder why there is no peace between Israelis and Palestinians–and the answer isn’t that Israel has put up 100 or 1,000 housing units.

This week, Palestinian terrorists attacked an Israeli family on their way to a Passover seder in the West Bank. The terrorists murdered the father of the family and left the wife and nine-year-old child wounded.

Here’s part of an AP report:

The prime minister of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday praised a shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded his wife and son as they drove through the West Bank the previous evening en route to a Passover meal. Speaking in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh said the attack outside the city of Hebron “brought back life to the path of resistance” against Israel and warned of more attacks in the Palestinian territory.

Too many commentators fail to take Hamas’s history and ideology seriously, but the Hamas charter makes it clear that the murder of Jews is not only defensible but necessary. Thus we see Hamas’s leader applauding the murder of a father and wounding of his wife and child for the crime of driving to a seder. There is a precedent: In 2002, Hamas proudly claimed responsibility for a bombing at a Passover seder in a hotel in Netanya, Israel, that killed thirty people and injured well over a hundred.

Israeli society is lucky -- They paid a heavy price but have woken up

...The world must know that casting aspersions on the prime minister and defense minister's intentions to make peace will not hurt the strong spirit of the people of Israel. Rather than trying to attack the defense minister, spokespeople in America and the rest of the world had better start looking for the black hole into which their own security disappeared.

Dr. Haim Shine..
Israel Hayom..
20 March '14..

The echoes of the beginning of the universe picked up recently by the equipment of leading astrophysicists prove that Einstein was right. God doesn't roll dice, and leaders are not supposed to release doves (an ancient method of gambling.)

Unfortunately, there is a small group of people in Israel today, some of whom hold senior public positions, who know what will happen 50 or 100 years from now but haven't the slightest clue what will happen tomorrow or next week. In a weird spring ritual, they are trying tirelessly to revive the dove of peace that was slaughtered in Oslo.

Those who are declaring to Israelis and to the world that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a loyal partner in peace are the ones who put Yasser Arafat on a pedestal and celebrated a brave peace. They were prepared to give up the Golan Heights, and today they explain that there is no need for Israel to control the Jordan Valley. As far as they are concerned, Jerusalem can once again be divided and a partial right of return for Palestinians implemented.

But Israeli society is lucky -- those same dreamers have been distanced from decision-making; they were woken up and paid a heavy price. You have been warned about illusions. There will never be peace with the Palestinian Arabs under Abbas' leadership if their precondition for negotiations is the release of cold-blooded killers of women and children. There can never be peace with a society whose national heroes are murderers. The welcome the killers received in Ramallah expresses the Palestinian essence, not the hugs and smiles at the White House. We can only hope that Israel will not agree to stop construction in the settlements and release more imprisoned terrorists.

The chimerical quest for a melodramatic resolution of all problems

...It is not that Israel cannot tacitly cooperate with Sunni Arab states, cannot successfully deter them from military aggression, and that these states’ pragmatic interests never dictate nonbelligerency or even “cold peace” (Egypt, Jordan) with Israel. All that can happen and does. It does mean that the quest for a melodramatic resolution of all problems, based on a Palestinian state, remains as delusory as ever...

P.David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com
24 January '14..

“With respect to Israel,” President Obama said in his interview this week to the New Yorker,

the interests of Israel in stability and security are actually very closely aligned with the interests of the Sunni states…. What’s preventing them from entering into even an informal alliance with at least normalized diplomatic relations is not that their interests are profoundly in conflict but the Palestinian issue, as well as a long history of anti-Semitism that’s developed over the course of decades there, and anti-Arab sentiment that’s increased inside of Israel based on seeing buses being blown up.

Obama meant, of course, an alliance against Shiite Iran. Indeed, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has referred several times to behind-the-scenes cooperation between Israel and Sunni Arab states against the Iranian threat. The catch is “behind the scenes”; Israel is still too much the regional pariah to bring these interactions out in the open.

Obama adduces the Palestinian issue and Arab anti-Semitism going back “decades” as the factors preventing an “informal alliance” and “diplomatic relations.” The implication is that these problems—along with Israeli “anti-Arab sentiment”—can be overcome. The administration, spearheaded by Secretary of State Kerry, has indeed thrown itself headlong into another round of the “Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

The problems with Obama’s take on the matter, however, begin with the word “decades.”

On that point the Daily Caller turned to experts Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer, both of whom observed that “Arab”—more properly Muslim—anti-Semitism goes back to the Quran and the dawn of Islam.

In Bostom’s view, “You’re dealing with an intractable situation, and people hate intractable situations…diplomats are the worst.”

Peace process? What about the peace process?

Let's examine which option is preferable: a certain possibility of daily bombardment of central Israel and the international airport by various "flying objects," including the smuggling of heavy weaponry and the establishment of an Iranian outpost on a mountain right next to us; or an outbreak of worldwide protests and delegitimization?

...he has totally lost his bearings

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
06 March '13..


Nothing has been done in the last four years. This is the consensus view held by the overwhelming majority of pundits regarding the outgoing government. The "nothing" they refer to has to do with the "peace process," of course.

Imagine, if you will, a small boat making its way amid stormy waters and crashing waves. At any moment the enormous waves may crush the boat and splinter it into pieces. But the boat continues on its way. Inside, wonder of wonders, life effervesces: there is creativity, culture, science and Torah, and there is even time for debate and demonstrations. Not just for a day or for two months — but for over four years the boat safely navigates this stormy sea.

If we enter one of the cabins on the left, we overhear harsh complaints against the captain, whom people say "did nothing" for over four years. Not only is this blind and naive, but it is enormously ungrateful, wouldn't you say?

This blindness seeks to take us back to a place where we have been many times before. God forbid, the boat of Zionism could be crushed against the rocks of reality, all in the name of "making progress" on the peace process.

How long can we cast about on the waves, they say, thrown about by the sea? This is despair speaking — despair with the Zionist vision, despair that pushes us to clamor for any dry land we see on the horizon, even if it harbors existential danger. This despair arouses hatred against those steering the boat because if it were not for them, we would have long ago reached dry land.

The “Peace Process” and John Kerry

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
25 February '13..

There must be something in the water over at the State Department that leads successive secretaries of state to decide, seemingly on their first day there, that now is the time for a big new push at a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Here we go again. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry intends to place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the center of his diplomatic activities and to strive to achieve a breakthrough agreement between the two sides during President Obama’s second term in office, according to the assessment of well-placed sources in Washington and New York.

Why? The article continues:

Nonetheless, the overall impression left by the discussions conducted in recent weeks by Kerry and his advisers with European, Israeli and Arab officials, as well as American Jewish leaders, is that the former Massachusetts senator is “determined to the point of obsession,” as one skeptical interlocutor put it, to change the tone and direction of relations between Israel and the Palestinians during his term as Secretary of State. “He sees it as the holy mission of his life,” the source said. Kerry is convinced that his years of experience with the region and his deep personal relationships with many of its main protagonists, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, place him in a unique position to succeed where his predecessors have failed and to bring about not only a resumption of talks but a long-term agreement as well.

Can wishful thinking on Israel's part allow being fooled again?

Israel has been fooled not once, not twice, but at least five times in a quest for peace that has gone nowhere.

Moshe Arens..
Opinion/Haaretz..
19 February '13..

"Hope springs eternal," wrote Alexander Pope, in "An Essay on Man." And so it is with Israel's hope for peace with the Palestinians. After every disappointment, hope rises again.

When Yasser Arafat seemingly renounced terrorism at a press conference in Geneva in December 1988, we wanted to believe him. We signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, brought him and his minions from Tunis to Gaza and Ramallah - only to find that he had by no means abandoned terrorism.

In May 2000 we decided to unilaterally leave the South Lebanese security zone and abandon our allies, the South Lebanon Army, hoping that after the Israeli withdrawal Hezbollah would cease terrorist activity against Israel. We hoped it would become just another Lebanese political party, and we would have peace on our northern border. These hopes were in vain. Not only did Hezbollah not abandon terrorism against Israeli civilians, but the unilateral withdrawal was advertised by Hassan Nasrallah as a Hezbollah victory and perceived by the Palestinians as a sign of Israeli weakness. This in turn led to preparations for the second intifada.

The second intifada was launched shortly after Ehud Barak offered Arafat, at Camp David in July 2000, the most far-reaching concessions ever proposed by an Israeli government. These concessions were rejected, and what followed was a wave of terror which brought suicide bombers into the streets of Israel and led to the death of over a thousand Israeli civilians.

The Israel Defense Forces' entry into Judea and Samaria put an end to it. We uprooted 8,000 Israelis from the Gush Katif settlement bloc hoping that this would further the peace process with the Palestinians. Instead, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and rockets started raining down on the towns and villages of southern Israel.

(Video) Why can't we be friends?

Calev..
LOTL..
10 February '13..





In today's Times of Israel:

The leader of the left-wing Meretz party (Zahava Gal-on) said that following her meeting last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu she understood that he has no intention of pushing ahead with a peace process with the Palestinians....“Netanyahu has no intention of vacating the settlements or dividing the sovereignty of Jerusalem,” she said according to Ynet. “He will try to let the peace process slip by.”

Actually, without much difficulty one might be able to come up with a couple other reasons why the "peace process" has more than slipped by.


HRintheMiddleEast  05 Feb '13

Any questions?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. 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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

.