One Israel, four Jewish members of Congress and four oxymorons - by Stephen M. Flatow

The statement issued by four Jewish members of Congress challenging Israel’s prime minister may have set a new record for contradictions.

Stephen M. Flatow..
Israel National News..
15 April '19..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23736

Have you ever seen so many oxymorons in a single paragraph? The statement issued by four Jewish members of Congress challenging Israel’s prime minister may have set a new record.

The statement was issued by Representatives Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey of New York, Ted Deutch of Florida, and Brad Schneider of Illinois, all Democrats. They were responding to a remark made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent interview, in which he indicated he might propose extending Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria.

Anyone who is familiar with the actual situation on the ground in those territories knows that way back in 1995, the Palestinian Authority extended its laws to the cities in which 98% of the Palestinian Arabs live. So why the double standard? Why can’t Israeli law be implemented in the Jewish towns? Why do the Jews still have to be governed by the arbitrary and cumbersome system of the old Israeli military administration, while the Arabs get to live under their own laws?

The four congress members didn’t offer an answer to that question. You know why? Because nobody ever asked them. Journalists never pose such questions, because they might not get the answers they like. Even more risky—such questions might stimulate the members of Congress to give some genuine serious thought to these issues, instead of just regurgitating the talking points that their advisers pick up from the opinion pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the talking heads on the Sunday interview shows.

The first oxymoron in the statement by the congressional gang of four was this doozy: “Israel’s ability to guard itself from threats is non-negotiable. We hope that any security measures are implemented within the context of preserving the eventual possibility of a two-state solution.”

The definition of an oxymoron is an expression that has within it two terms that contradict each other. The creation of a Palestinian state in Judea-Samaria, which these members of Congress are advocating, would make it impossible for Israel to “guard itself from threats,” as they put it.

Actually, Hamas Control of Gaza Does Not Delay Deal With Abbas (assuming that pigs can fly) - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...I frankly do not think that there is such a things as a "genuine and viable deal according to which a sovereign Palestinian state is established", but talking heads who still think that pigs can fly have no basis to assert that Hamas is stopping it.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
18 August '18..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73340

Many talking heads suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu has a Machiavellianinterest in keeping Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip as this situation precludes the conclusion of a deal with Mahmoud Abbas.

But it doesn't

In fact, if there really was a genuine and viable "deal" according to which a sovereign Palestinian state is established, the implementation of such a deal in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) with implementation postponed in the Gaza Strip until the end of Hamas rule and the demilitarization of the area, would provide the strongest possible pressure for Hamas to end its rule.

The fact that a deal accepted by the Palestinian representative bodies, was already concluded, would strip Hamas of its legitimacy.

Gazans would be reminded daily of the very tangible fruits of a sovereign Palestinian state that they are missing.

I frankly do not think that there is such a things as a "genuine and viable deal according to which a sovereign Palestinian state is established", but talking heads who still think that pigs can fly have no basis to assert that Hamas is stopping it.

The implementation of any semblance of a logical sovereignty deal would make the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state contingent on the Gaza Strip first being demilitarized.

After all, no one in the world claims that Gaza isn't bristling with weapons that no doubt would be prohibited by a deal.

If anything, a restoration of PA control of the Gaza Strip would postpone implementation of any deal since there would be no justification for a "West Bank first" implementation of the agreement and the failure to demilitarize Gaza would serve to permanently postpone Palestinian sovereignty.
________________________________________
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis: Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations
Website: www.imra.org.il

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. 

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We cannot afford to embrace a program that hinges on best case assumptions - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...because a sovereign Palestinian state that decides to send the IDF packing would continue to be a sovereign Palestinian state. And if you can't think of a scenario under which the Palestinians find a way to pulls this off then you either are operating under the working assumption that the Palestinians will actually be permanently satisfied with the "deal" or have absolutely no respect for their intelligence and drive. 

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
08 June '17..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=72545

A sovereign Palestinian state with a Palestinian agreement that the IDF can operate within its territory.

That's the "deal" Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu apparently has in mind. And it’s a "best case assumption" deal (see below).

I say "apparently" because Netanyahu had Minister Tzachi Hanegbi on the radio today to pitch his talking point that if post WWII sovereign Japan and Germany could agree to the then permanent deployment of foreign troops in their countries that the Palestinians can agree to the deployment of the IDF within their sovereign state.

But that's not the question!

I fear that the presentation of this argument lulls us into making the incredibly reckless assumption that if the Palestinians were to sign an agreement that the IDF can operate within their sovereign territory that this would somehow miraculously resolve the fundamental - I daresay existential - problem with having a sovereign Palestinian state.

And it wouldn't.

That's because a sovereign Palestinian state that decides to send the IDF packing would continue to be a sovereign Palestinian state.

And if you can't think of a scenario under which the Palestinians find a way to pulls this off then you either are operating under the working assumption that the Palestinians will actually be permanently satisfied with the "deal" or have absolutely no respect for their intelligence and drive.

We cannot afford to embrace a program that hinges on best case assumptions.

Time for a Real Program - 2 Sovereign States Clearly NOT the Solution! - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

The independence of Palestinian sovereignty from compliance is not some obscure irrelevant fact. It undermines the very foundation of the two sovereign state solution program.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
8 February '17..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=72143



For two sovereign state solution advocates its pretty much a foundation of their faith - that somewhere out there is an ironclad, rock solid, watertight security arrangement just waiting to be finalized.

But I have checked with top Israeli International law experts. Including former senior diplomats who themselves base the programs they pitch on the hypothesis that such a security arrangement exists.

They all concede that a sovereign Palestinian state would CONTINUE to be a sovereign state even if it openly declared that it was cancelling whatever security arrangements it agreed to in order to come into existence.

The independence of Palestinian sovereignty from compliance is not some obscure irrelevant fact.

It undermines the very foundation of the two sovereign state solution program.

And with a new president in the White House who has yet to embrace the "two sovereign state solution" faith, its time to talk about what can and should be done given that two sovereign states is anything but a solution.

A Necessary Talk About the Palestinian Treaty Problem

...More specifically, said the prime minister, "In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel." This was a very daunting condition. On the surface, of course, such a contingent agreement seemed to represent a manifestly "smart" concession, but only if there were also certain reasonable expectations of Palestinian compliance. In fact, such expectations were implausible.

Louis René Beres..
U.S. News and World..
24 June '13..

From the beginning, the state of nations has been the state of nature. Always, states and empires are poised for war. Normally, in order to secure themselves within this condition of protracted peril, they have fashioned assorted written agreements under international law. These formal codifications, expressed as treaties, have sought to smooth over the dreadfully harsh realities of anarchic world politics.

Still, on a fragmenting planet, law insistently follows power politics. Throughout history, more or less grievous problems have arisen whenever particular signatories had determined that lawful compliance is no longer in the "national interest." The overriding takeaway here is that treaties can be useful whenever there is a conspicuous mutuality of interest, but they can also become worthless whenever such mutuality is expected to disappear.

For the moment, Israel's 1979 Peace Treaty with Egypt – Muslim Brotherhood rule in Cairo notwithstanding – remains in place. But, at literally any moment, should President Mohamed Morsi decide to shore up his popularity with important Islamist constituencies, this could change. While any willful abrogation of treaty obligations by the Egyptian side would almost certainly be in violation of The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), there is little that the United Nations or the wider "international community" could actually do about it.

For Israel, this prospect should raise a critical warning about certain related issues of Palestinian statehood. Already, in June 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state. Yet, with an apparent nod to presumptively prudent diplomacy, he also conditioned this acceptance upon Palestinian "demilitarization." More specifically, said the prime minister, "In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel."

This was a very daunting condition. On the surface, of course, such a contingent agreement seemed to represent a manifestly "smart" concession, but only if there were also certain reasonable expectations of Palestinian compliance. In fact, such expectations were implausible. This is not only because virtually all treaties and treaty-like agreements can easily be broken – an incontestable historical conclusion - but also because, more particularly, any post-independence Palestinian insistence upon militarization would likely be lawful.

Neither Hamas nor Fatah would ever accept anything less than full sovereignty. And why should they?

Bar-Ilan Address – Autonomous Or Sovereign State?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
10 January '13..

In the 14 June 2009 Address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Mr. Netanyahu described the security requirement for a Palestinian state as follows:

"The second principle is: demilitarization. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel."

At the time, MKs and even ministers in his party suggested that it is virtually impossible to have "ironclad security provisions" if a Palestinian state is truly a sovereign state.

Why not?

Because even if a sovereign Palestinian state was actually created as a result of an agreement that included security provisions that on paper sounded workable, that Palestinian state would continue to be a sovereign state even if it opted to renege on the agreement.

So much for "ironclad".

There were, of course, those who opted to ignore this fundamental problem and still saw the Bar Ilan Address as an endorsement of a truly sovereign state.

This week Mr. Netanyahu tightened the requirement.

Poll - Israelis Support Two State Solution....If Pigs Can Fly

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA..
18 December '12..

Go to the website of Blue White Future (“BWF”) - http://bluewhitefuture.org and you won't find a copy of the actual poll that they paid for. Instead there are links both in Hebrew and English to the same Jerusalem Post item below.

That's too bad.

It seems from what one can glean from the Jerusalem Post article that the poll was designed to yield some figures that could be used to support the group's agenda rather than seriously study Israeli public opinion.

Here is the problem: it appears that they are asking what might be termed "if pigs could fly" questions.

IMRA - PM Netanyahu continues the fan dance?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
26 April '12..





From the latest “fan dance”:

NETANYAHU: Well demilitarized is a real state. It just means that they can't field the armies. They can't fire rockets. We want to make sure that if we have a peace arrangement, we walk away from certain areas that they won't be used a third time by Iran and its Palestinian proxies to fire rockets on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but we don't want to run their lives. I don't want to govern the Palestinians. I don't want them as subjects of Israel or as citizens of Israel. I want them to have their own independent state but a demilitarized state.

BURNETT: And to be clear, one that isn't separated by Israel as in there's a Palestine part here, Israel --

NETANYAHU: No --

BURNETT: All one --

NETANYAHU: That is Swiss cheese (ph) now --

- CNN Interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Aired April 24, 2012 - 19:00 ET

Until this interview we still had the then PM Sharon concept that “contiguity” could be achieved in a “have your cake and eat it too” arrangement via a series of unobstructed bridges and tunnels that would enable Palestinians to move between various locations without the presence of Israeli communities in the same general area interfering with that movement.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Netanyahu's Dream

IMRA
20 March '11

Middle Eastern Insights
No. 2 - 20 March 2011


Netanyahu’s Dream
Dr. Mordechai Kedar

In the Bar-Ilan speech Binyamin Netanyahu delivered almost two years ago, he articulated two conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel: Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish nation, and the demilitarization of the Palestinian state. These two conditions are not being met, as Palestinian spokesmen repeat day and night that they would not dream of recognizing the State of Israel as the Jewish national home, because this would harm their Arab brethren in Israel and would negate, for Palestinian refugees, the right of return to Israel. They do not discuss demilitarization because they know, as well as Netanyahu knows, that there is no such thing as a “demilitarized state” in the Middle East. We were provided a reminder last week: A civilian cargo ship carrying many tons of advanced weaponry from Iran to Alexandria via Syria and Turkey, to be smuggled eventually into the
Gaza Strip. At the same time, Egyptian security forces announced that they had intercepted five trucks loaded with arms being smuggled from Sudan to Egypt; these weapons, too, were destined for Gaza via the tunnels.

This arms smuggling, which does not cease for a moment, constitutes a clear and pointed Palestinian statement to Netanyahu, to Europe, to the United States, to the United Nations and to non-governmental organizations throughout the world: “Forget about a demilitarized state, for our state will be armed to the teeth with the longest range, most modern weaponry, and Iran, together with our friends and allies, will see to it that the future Palestinian state will be demilitarized only in Netanyahu’s dreams.”

This statement applies not only to the Gaza Strip, but also – and primarily – to Judea and Samaria, which, if allowed to form territorial contiguity, will become a terrorist contiguity that will present a strategic threat to the State of Israel, whose hands will be bound by Goldstonian shackles. Yet, despite this clear statement, many countries are poised to recognize a Palestinian state at the General Assembly of the United Nations during its annual session this coming September, i.e., in about a half a year from now. Thus, the Palestinian state will receive in 2011 the same international recognition that Israel did in November 1947.

This will be the greatest failure of Israeli public diplomacy, which has not succeeded in conveying the simple message that a Palestinian state with territorial contiguity is a terror state that will embitter the lives of its neighbors, not only of Israel. This public diplomacy fiasco stems from – among others – the fact that on a daily basis, Israel’s government fails in its obligation to bring Israel’s word to at least every English-speaking household. This can be done with an Israeli satellite television channel, similar to the American CNN, the British BBC, France 24, Hungary’s Duna and dozens of national satellite stations received in every living room in the world. Because Israel does not operate such a television channel, neither in English nor in Arabic, it is not on the media map, and a country not on
the media map may also not exist on the geographic map. The distance from here to the de-legitimization of Israel is very short.

The technology exists, the studios exist, the personnel exist, the knowledge exists and the need exists. Lacking only are a decision and a modest budget which will engender the change in Israel’s public posture and thus effect a change in the political situation. Speeches and declarations, meetings and rallies will not help us as long as our message does not reach the average citizen in Atlanta who sees, hears, comprehends and picks up the phone to ask his/her congressperson to vote in Israel’s favor.

Translated by Nachama Kanner


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Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
JCPA.org
02 June '10

In light of a widening range of threats to Israel's security, for the first time a group of senior Israeli generals has come together to outline the basic principles of a defense policy - rooted in a consensus spanning past and present Israeli governments - which is focused on Israel maintaining defensible borders.



The crisis over the Hamas flotilla to Gaza illustrates how some of Israel's critical alliances in the Middle East are changing, especially its relationship with Turkey, and the importance of designing a defense policy that takes into account the uncertainties that Israel faces with many of its neighbors.

Recent events only underscore that it is critical for Israel to preserve the principle of defending itself by itself.

Restoring a Security-First Peace Policy
Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon

Defensible Borders to Secure Israel's Future
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan

The U.S. and "Defensible Borders"
Dr. Dore Gold

Key Principles of a Demilitarized Palestinian State
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash

Control of Territorial Airspace and the Electromagnetic Spectrum
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Udi Dekel

The Risks of Foreign Peacekeeping Forces in the West Bank
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror

Israel's Return to Security-Based Diplomacy
Dan Diker

(Click here for full study, videos,and maps.)

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