More on the Israeli Peace Initiative (IPI): Trusting the UN and Ignoring Hezbollah

Seth Mandel
www.newsrealblog.com
12 April '11

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/04/12/more-on-the-israeli-peace-initiative-trusting-the-un-and-ignoring-hezbollah/

In my last post, I took Gershom Gorenberg to task for selling a peace plan that is old wine in a new bottle—a plan that promised peace as long as Prime Minister Netanyahu was “replaced” with someone who would follow orders from the Saudi royal family.

I noted how dangerous this mindset is, and how contemptuous of Israeli democracy you must be to push it. But I don’t think I really showed just how ridiculous and vacuous the plan itself is—a topic that really does warrant an explanation. Here, in their entirety, are the Israeli Peace Initiative’s sections on Syria and Lebanon:

1b) Israeli-Syrian Conflict Resolution Parameters


1. Borders – Israel shall withdraw from the Golan to a border-line to be designed based on the June 4, 1967 status, with agreed minor modifications and land swaps based on a 1:1 ratio, reflecting the 1923 international border. The agreement shall be mutually implemented in stages, based on the Sinai model, over a period not to exceed 5 years.


2. Security Arrangements –A comprehensive security package shall be mutually agreed, defining, inter alia, the scope of demilitarized zones on both sides of the border and the deployment of peace keeping international forces.


1c) Israeli-Lebanese Conflict Resolution Parameters

1. Borders – Israel and Lebanon shall establish permanent peace based on UNSCR 1701, subject to which Israel concluded its withdrawal to the international border.


2. Lebanese Sovereignty – In addition to the full implementation of UNSCR 1701, Lebanon shall exercise full sovereignty over its territory through the Lebanese army.

On the issue of the Golan Heights—territory legally annexed and now part of Israel—the Jews are to withdraw from the entire territory, then withdraw further to create a DMZ. As another safeguard, there will be international peacekeeping forces on the Golan. International forces is code for United Nations forces, much like the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the UN, in 2008, laid out exactly how UNIFIL was fulfilling its responsibilities—not at all. Here’s what Dan Gillerman told the Jerusalem Post:

Mandel: The Alternate Universe of the Left and Their Obsession with Surrendering Israel

Seth Mandel
newsrealblog.com
11 April '11

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/04/11/the-alternate-universe-of-the-left-and-their-obsession-with-surrendering-israel/

Brace yourselves for a revolution in peacemaking. The riddle of Israeli-Palestinian peace has been solved, and anti-settler crusader Gershom Gorenberg would like to draw your attention to the solution, at long last, to the Arab-Israeli conflict: the recently released Israeli Peace Initiative, written and signed onto by former public officials.

This intensely creative, out-of-the-box idea is—drum roll please: borders based on the 1967 lines, a divided Jerusalem, giving the Golan Heights to Syria, and promises—scout’s honor, super-serious promises—of security and eventual normalization from Arab countries.

What’s that, you say? This all sounds suspiciously like the Saudi peace plan, matching Israeli concessions with empty promises from the Arab world? That these retread, recycled ideas have been rejected for a reason? That the Palestinians have never been able to show they are capable of holding up their end of a security arrangement? That the only way to achieve peace with Syria is for the Golan to be in Israeli possession, and that the residents of the Golan don’t want to be under the thumb of Syrian dictatorship? Then you’re simply not listening to how historic and important and awesome and historic this is. Let Gorenberg tell you:

The new initiative’s first target is the Israeli political debate. It’s meant to show that peace terms close to what Arab leaders have proposed are militarily safe and publicly legitimate. It also shows that Netanyahu is the obstacle, and that he must be replaced. Lipkin-Shahak, ex-Gen. and Mossad chief Danny Yatom, ex-Shin Bet chief Yaakov Perry, and other signatories speak the classic national-security language, very short on feelings, that has a strong influence in an anxious country. Their political allegiances, past or present, are not to the radical left, but to the center-left or center, precisely the part of the electorate that has seemingly lost interest in peace. Their endorsement for negotiating based on the June 4, 1967 borders — that is, for leaving the West Bank and Golan Heights — identifies that position as centrist and Netanyahu as the extremist.

Yes, for this surrender (I mean peace initiative!) to be enacted, Netanyahu must go. This peace initiative is so great, that its only obstacle is Netanyahu. We know that, because (at least on Planet Gorenberg) Netanyahu has been prime minister, uninterrupted, since the early 1980s, and that’s why there has been no peace. If Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, or even Ehud Barak had received a shot at leading the country since the beginning of the peace process, we would have had peace.

IMRA interview of Mr. Koby Huberman, one of the drafters of the Israeli Peace Initiative

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
07 April '11

(An excellent interview by Dr. Lerner, concerning the latest in a series of proposed "peace initiatives", and it's fan club. As there has been considerable focus on the current mini-war with Hamas, this plan fallen away from the public eye, but merely awaits an auspicious moment to reinsert itself into public discourse. Dr. Lerner wrote an additional piece, "Weekly Commentary: Would you buy a peace plan from the 100 meter wide Philadelphi gang?", in response to this interview. YH)

IMRA interviewed Mr. Koby Huberman, one of the drafters of the Israeli Peace Initiative (IPI), in English, on 7 April 2011.

[For a copy of the IPI see http://israelipeaceinitiative.com/israeli-peace-initiative-english/the-israeli-peace-initiative-english/
or http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=51790

IMRA: I am Dr. Aaron from IMRA. I have some questions relating to the IPI.

Mr. Koby Huberman: I have an interview in five minutes so let’s make it fast.

IMRA: Is the West Bank and Gaza Strip considered today to be “demilitarized” or are there weapons systems and/or forces currently there that would have to be removed?

KH: Gaza definitely will have to be going through a major demilitarization effort. Even in the West Bank.

IMRA: What role does the IPI see for third parties in verifying the demilitarization?

KH: We see a combination of four elements: bilateral arrangements between Israelis and Palestinians, the involvement of third party forces, involvement of bodies with a supervision role and finally governance by regional security organizations.

IMRA: In the involvement of the international community in providing border security and curbing terrorist threat, would you consider an airport to be a border?

KH: Let me state something very clear. The IPI is a set of principles for a declaration in the same sense that the Arab initiative doesn’t include details we don’t put details either. We leave it to the professional negotiators. It is not our role as people from the civil society to talk about details like these.

IMRA: So the question as to whether a third party would have final say at a port is something that you will leave to negotiations.

KH: This is something that the people who are part of the IPI may have even difference of opinion on. So we did not go to the resolution at the detailed level that you are talking about.

We assume that even in the Arab world there could be various interpretations of the Arab initiative and therefore we think that this is quite legitimate on our side as well.

IMRA: In the IPI reference to a maximum of 7% of the West Bank being in a land swap does this include the Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem?

KH: Yes.

IMRA: In the 7% does the IPI envision Israel retaining the Jordan Valley?

KH: Again, we leave this to the negotiators. We believe that the basis to determine the range of land swaps lies somewhere between the current situation of the Palestinian Authority of about 2% to the 6.5% - 7% offered by Olmert. That’s the range within which a compromise should be found and the exact locations and the exact lines are left to the negotiators.

IMRA: When the IPI states that Jewish holy sites and interests shall be administered by Israel at the Temple Mount is there a specific place that you had in mind?

KH: Anything that will be determined as a Jewish and Israeli interest at the Temple Mount will be governed by us.

IMRA: But you didn’t have anything particular in mind when you wrote this?

KH: Well we know that this pertains to particular locations inside the Mount and outside the Mount and we believe that everything that Israel declares as genuine historic religious and symbolic points that can be described as a Jewish interest or Israeli interest must be governed by us.

IMRA: On the top of the Mount?

KH: Not on top of the Mount

IMRA: But that’s what you wrote. It says “the Temple Mount”.

KH: Well, we think that any point on, around, between. Any point which rabbis, historians, archeologists, leaders and influential security people believe should be governed by Israeli governance or by Israeli authorities has to be under our control. We make it very clear. There is no balance in what we write about the Old City of Jerusalem. There is clear bias towards Israeli and Jewish interests and this is because you are talking to somebody whose grandfather was born in the Old City and whose father fought for the liberation of the Old City.

IMRA: So you envision Jewish prayer on the top of the Temple Mount?

Weekly Commentary: Would you buy a peace plan from the 100 meter wide Philadelphi gang?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
07 April '11

The critical element of the Israeli Peace Initiative (IPI) launched today by a collection of ex-brass and former heads of the security services is the assertion that Israel’s security can be safeguarded via various international forces and arrangements that substitute for defensible borders and for Israeli security control of the West Bank and the inclusion of the Gaza Strip in Israel’s security envelope. ( Koby Huberman, one of the drafters of the IPI even told me today that the IAF won’t be able to fly over the West Bank without Palestinian approval under their plan).

The group behind IPI argue that we should defer to their records in active service in the military and intelligence and simply accept their assertion as a given.

But we know who these people are. We know their records.

They are indeed people who held key position in the military and intelligence services.

But while these Israelis have been involved in some very impressive and important operations for which they most certainly deserve our nation’s praise and gratitude we also know that these same Israelis were intimately involved in the design and implementation of a series of security arrangements in the last decades that cost us many lives.

Let’s keep this simple with an intuitive example that doesn’t require any particular expertise in military affairs to appreciate:

Israel set the width of the Philadelphi Corridor running between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai to 100 meters and declined to widen it when the opportunity presented itself to do so in the various stages of Oslo negotiations.

Many of the top people behind the IPI were directly responsible for this.

The 100 meter width made it child’s play for the Palestinians to turn the Corridor into an ongoing killing field and in turn an area where Israel found it extremely difficult to effectively prevent the digging of smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza and their operation

The 100 meter wide Philadelphi Corridor is only the tip of the iceberg.

Again, while these Israelis have indeed been involved in some very impressive and important operations for which they most certainly deserve our nation’s praise and gratitude we also know that these same Israelis were intimately involved in the design and implementation of a series of security arrangements in the last decades that cost us many lives.

Caveat emptor.

This group is going to have a to a lot more than flash their brass to convince us that Israel’s security can be safeguarded via various international forces and arrangements that substitute for defensible borders and for Israeli security control of the West Bank and the inclusion of the Gaza Strip in Israel’s security envelope.

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.
.