Mr. President: The Palestinians already got ‘their turn’, again, again and again - by Stephen M. Flatow

The Palestinian Authority still won’t fulfill its obligations in the Oslo Accords, such as disarming, outlawing and extraditing terrorists, or ending incitement. It won’t even negotiate with Israel.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
23 August '18..

President Donald Trump said this week that following the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, now the Palestinian Arabs “will get something very good because it’s their turn next.”

Somebody ought to explain to the president that the Palestinians have already had “their turn”—again and again and again.

They got their turn in 1921, when the British separated the eastern 78 percent of Palestine, declared it off-limits to Jews and established the Palestinian Arab state of “Trans-Jordan,” whose name was later changed to “Jordan.”

They got their turn in 1937, when the British government’s Peel Commission proposed to give the Arabs a second Palestinian state, comprising most of western Palestine, with a tiny Jewish state alongside it.

They got another turn in 1938, when another British government body, the Woodhead Commission, proposed to give the Arabs an even larger part—and the Jews an even smaller part—of western Palestine.

They got yet another turn in 1939, when the British White Paper blocked off almost all Jewish immigration, precisely at the moment that the Jews in Europe were trying to flee from Hitler. All the British asked in return was that the Palestinian Arabs support the Allies, not the Nazis, in World War II. The Arabs supported the Nazis anyway.

Yet more turns were coming for the ever-coddled Arabs of Palestine.

(Continue to Full Column)

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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Obama’s going-away present? by Vic Rosenthal

...Barack Obama has always insisted that he cares about Israel’s security, but it is also clear that he has always accepted the Arab view of the conflict. At this point, he has little to lose politically.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
11 April '16..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2016/04/obamas-going-away-present/

From time to time we hear that US President Obama hasn’t given up his plan to impose a solution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now there is a hint of the way he may try to do it in his remaining months in office.

The Palestinian Authority has presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council which asserts that Israeli settlements in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” are “illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of peace on the basis of the two-state solution,” demands that Israel stop all “settlement activity” (including in eastern Jerusalem), and calls for the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians on “final status issues.” There is more, but these seem to be the important parts.

In 2011, a very similar resolution declaring settlements illegal was proposed to the security council. It garnered ‘yes’ votes from 14 out of 15 members, but was vetoed by the US. Ambassador Susan Rice said at the time that

…her country rejected in the strongest terms the legitimacy of settlement activity, which undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for a peace settlement. There was an urgent need to resolve the situation through negotiations that would bring about a viable State of Palestine, she said, noting that her country had invested enormous efforts in that regard. The only way to reach that goal was through sustained negotiations between the parties, with active international support, she continued. The great impetus for democracy and reform in the Middle East made it all the more urgent to end “this bitter conflict.” [my emphasis]

Since 2011, Obama has become more and more frustrated that US efforts to get Israel and the Palestinians to sign an agreement have failed. But he has always maintained, as Rice’s statement implies, that the parties must reach an agreement between themselves.

That does not mean that the “active international support” can’t be coercive to some extent, and last month it was hinted that he might consider not vetoing a resolution declaring settlements illegal.

A typically anti-Israel Ha’aretz editorial called for Obama not to veto the new resolution:

The Palestinian resolution does not set out new conditions for the resumption of talks. It is supported by agreements and resolutions that the United Nations has already passed as well as remarks made by U.S. President Barack Obama over the years in favor of new talks and against continued building in the settlements. …

A veto of the latest resolution, which does not include a single clause that contradicts U.S. policy, would constitute a diplomatic and moral renunciation of the peace process. It would give Israel permission to continue its settlement policy and would heighten the Palestinians’ frustration and despair, which feed the terror attacks. [my emphasis]

I wonder if the wording of this editorial was inspired, suggested or even dictated by the Obama administration? Although it clearly does contradict US policy to have a UN resolution define the terms of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, the administration might argue that, since it calls for negotiations, then the final agreement will ultimately be determined by the parties, not the UN.

In reality, the resolution forecloses options, such as “secure and recognized” (in the words of UNSCR 242) borders different from the Green Line, the establishment of some kind of autonomous region less than a sovereign state, or the continued presence of some settlements in Palestinian territory. It implies the forced relocation of some 500,000 Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem. It requires nothing from the Palestinians.

Why negotiations with the PLO are a waste of time by Vic Rosenthal

...I expect that President Obama will shortly resume pressure on Israel to surrender to PLO demands and withdraw from Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem. I would hope that Israel will not only present the argument from security, but also make the starting point the historical, moral and legal rights of the Jewish people to all of the land of Israel, on the grounds that the Jewish people are its original, indigenous inhabitants.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
15 September '15..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2015/09/why-negotiations-with-the-plo-are-a-waste-of-time/


Any “two-state solution” is a bad idea. It is inconsistent with Israel’s security – Judea and Samaria will quickly resemble Gaza – and it generally (but not always) implies that the Jewish people do not have full legal title to the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.

It’s also impossible to implement, because Jews and Arabs have entirely different ideas of what it means. This ambiguity has doomed all negotiations between Israel and the PLO from Oslo to the present.

For an Israeli Jew, the idea is usually stated as “two states for two peoples,” living peacefully side by side. It’s understood that a partition of the land would bring about an end to the conflict.

For the PLO and most other Arab circles, this is not the case. I am indebted to Azmi Bishara, a former Arab member of the Knesset (who fled the country to avoid prosecution for allegedly passing information to Hizballah during the Second Lebanon War) for explaining this:

The “two states for two peoples” slogan turns an historical settlement of a conflict into an acceptance of Zionism as an idea, whereas the two-state solution comprises an acceptance of an existing situation – on condition that any agreement between Israel and Palestinian leaders includes the establishment of a Palestinian state and the refugees’ right of return.

Initially, this was a political deal that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) accepted. However, the PLO did not intend to make a concession regarding its understanding of history, nor must it abandon the contradiction between itself and Zionism as a concept; otherwise, it will give up the right of return and the rights of the Palestinians within Israel.

Bishara’s rejection of “Zionism as an idea” is based on the ‘Palestinian narrative’ that I discussed here. According to it, there is no Jewish people, only a religion. And the Jews have no moral or legal right to the land of Israel. Any ‘recognition’ of Israel, like that made by the PLO at Oslo, is only the acknowledgement of an (unjust) state of affairs, not an acceptance of it.

The Jewish state, he says,

Remaining Steadfast in the Face of Pressure

...Unfortunately, many in the international community who will be pressing Israel to accept their proposals do not appreciate correctly how the dramatic shifts in the Middle East have altered Israel's basic requirements in any revived peace negotiations. There is a tendency to take old peace proposals from the 1990s and to try and rework them and make them relevant for today, ignoring how much the Middle East has changed. The next Israeli government will find itself pulled between the determination of the international community to implement its latest ideas and the necessities of Israel's security on the ground in a much more chaotic and unstable Middle East.

Dore Gold..
Israel Hayom..
13 March '15..

There are increasing indications that Western powers will seek to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations right after the Israeli elections. A Haaretz diplomatic correspondent reported on March 6 that senior White House officials had told him that a new initiative was under consideration. EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini is also expected to appoint an envoy to deal with the renewal of negotiations.

At the end of December 2014, the U.N. Security Council rejected a draft resolution that demanded a 12-month deadline for completing negotiations. The future borders between Israel and a new Palestinian state, according to the proposal, were to be based on the 1967 borders with "limited" land swaps.

The new resolution, if adopted, could be argued by some as superseding U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 from November 1967, which never required Israel to withdraw from all the territories it captured in the Six-Day War. Instead, it called for "secure and recognized boundaries" instead.

In the years that followed, American presidents further clarified the meaning of Resolution 242 by explicitly stating that it did not require full withdrawal. Though the Palestinians initially failed to replace 242, they are expected to renew their efforts to drum up U.N. support for their draft resolution, now that new members have joined the Security Council in 2015.

Why should Israel be concerned about all these initiatives? After all, according to those who were involved in the last round of talks, it was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's framework agreement in March 2014 during a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. The pressure should be on the Palestinian side.

But unfortunately, since 2009, a pattern has emerged. At that time, Abbas wanted negotiations with Israel to pick up where they left off with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who offered unprecedented concessions before he resigned. There was no signed agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but Abbas wanted to pocket Olmert's proposed concessions and then demand that Israel go even further.

Reality Pre-Check - And who guarantees an American "guarantee"?

...Kerry said "one of the lynchpins [sic] of the current peace process is the separation of Israel’s security assurances from the general negotiations, assurances he said would be guaranteed in a separate agreement with the US.

Elliott Abrams..
Weekly Standard..
09 August '13..

Secretary of State John Kerry met with a group of key Jewish leaders this past week, and was accompanied by the administration's all-star team on "peace process" matters: Martin Indyk, Susan Rice, and Ben Rhodes.

Kerry apparently read a prepared speech, which is odd in a setting like this at the White House. He told the heads of Jewish organizations that peace was a "strategic imperative" and that time was running out. The elders among the leaders will have been told exactly the same thing by Secretaries Rogers, Kissinger, Vance, Baker, Christopher, Albright, Powell, Rice, and Clinton.

Few if any of them will have been persuaded by Kerry's arguments. According to the Jerusalem Post, Kerry "argued that the regional strategic environment has become favorable for a peace agreement because opponents of peace have weakened over the past two years." He may believe this, but none of them do. Mubarak is gone and Egypt is unstable; Jordan has seen more demonstrations against the King in the last two years than in the ten before that, and now houses about 600,000 Syrian refugees; Syria is at war and the jihadi presence on Israel's border is growing. Moreover, American passivity in the face of successful and growing Iranian and Hezbollah activity in Syria, while Iran moves closer and closer to a nuclear weapon, will not seem to most Jewish leaders to help create a "favorable regional strategic environment."

Kerry also told them Israeli security issues are central to the negotiations, but his explanation of how Israeli security would be handled cannot have won many fans. According to the Times of Israel, Kerry said "one of the lynchpins [sic] of the current peace process is the separation of Israel’s security assurances from the general negotiations, assurances he said would be guaranteed in a separate agreement with the US. The security track is being worked out under the auspices of retired Marine Corps general John Allen, who is currently Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s special adviser for the Middle East Peace."

This suggests that Israel is negotiating security matters with the United States rather than with the PLO, which is itself unworkable--because the PLO, not the United States, has to agree and sign the deal. For example, in the past Israel has demanded control of the airspace over a Palestinian state (to guarantee against air attacks), no international airport in such a state, and an IDF troop presence on the Jordan River. The Palestinians have said no to all this in the past, so how is peace advanced by arguing over these matters with General Allen?

Why is setting murderers free likely to result in peace?

Wall St. Journal..
12 August '13..

South Africa has Nelson Mandela, Poland has John Paul II, and Burma has Aung San Suu Kyi: Though the measure isn't exact, one way to judge a nation is by looking at its heroes. So what does it say about a prospective state of Palestine that among its heroes is Salah Ibrahim Ahmad Mugdad?

Mugdad is among 104 prisoners Israel intends to release as part of a deal orchestrated by Secretary of State John Kerry to resume peace talks with the Palestinians. In 1993, Mugdad killed hotel security guard Israel Tenenbaum "by beating him in the head with a steel rod," according to the Times of Israel. Tenenbaum was 72 at the time of his murder.

Also being released is Salameh Abdallah Musleh, imprisoned for the murder of convenience-store owner Reuven David. "Abdallah, together with an accomplice, entered David's convenience store on May 20, 1991, bound David's arms and legs and beat him to death, before locking the store and fleeing the scene," the Times reports.

Arlene Kushner from Israel - Both Despicable and Dangerous

Arlene Kushner..
11 August '13..

Last Thursday night, Secretary of State Kerry met for 90 minutes with a select group of heads of Jewish American organizations to speak about the "peace process." Standing with him at this "briefing" were National Security Advisor Susan Rice and special envoy (Middle East "mediator?") Martin Indyk.

Present were representatives of AIPAC, J Street, the ADL, the American Jewish Committee, the Conservative movement (the Rabbinic Assembly according to the JPost, and perhaps also the United Synagogue), the Orthodox Union, American Friends of Lubavitch, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish Federations of North America, Hadassah, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

As the meeting was off the record, there was no official report issued; media descriptions relied upon reports from participants. All reports I encountered had the same basic information, but with varying details provided from one to the other. What I'm reading is that Kerry said there was a "strategic imperative" to arrive at a deal soon. Sounding "upbeat" about the possibilities, he said he "feared" for Israel's future if no deal was reached.

Kerry asked for American Jewish organizational "support" for this diplomatic effort. He is worried about "pressures" on Netanyahu that might sway him away from a deal -- as he has to contend with right wing parties in his coalition.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-indyk-meet-with-us-jewish-leaders-at-white-house/

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Kerry-to-Jewish-leaders-Peace-is-strategic-imperative-322558

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.540618

~~~~~~~~~~

That Kerry represents the ELECTED right wing of the coalition as an "obstacle" to be overcome by Netanyahu -- and asks American Jews to encourage Netanyahu to move on a deal with the PA, in spite of that right wing -- is simply despicable. It's dirty pool. It's Kerry.

This wasn't a "briefing," it was political gamesmanship. And it provided Jewish organizations with a "feel good" rationale for pushing Israel to make dangerous concessions to move the "peace" forward: Since Israel will be at risk without a deal (Kerry says so, after all), they are helping the Jewish State. Right?

~~~~~~~~~~

To show how breathtakingly far removed from reality Kerry is, we need only examine his argument, as reported by the JPost, that:

"the regional strategic environment has become favorable for a peace agreement because opponents of peace have weakened over the past two years."

Say again? This was supposed to help the Jewish leaders feel confident about it being the right time to push "peace"?

Elliott Abrams, former National Security Advisor, took this on in a blink in a piece today (emphasis added):

"Mubarak is gone and Egypt is unstable; Jordan has seen more demonstrations against the King in the last two years than in the ten before that, and now houses about 600,000 Syrian refugees; Syria is at war and the jihadi presence on Israel's border is growing. Moreover, American passivity in the face of successful and growing Iranian and Hezbollah activity in Syria, while Iran moves closer and closer to a nuclear weapon, will not seem to most Jewish leaders to help create a 'favorable regional strategic environment.'"

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mrkerry-un-spins-jewish-leaders_745877.html

Will Gen. Allen's security plan project undermine Israel's position?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
07 August '13..

There is a very good possibility that US Gen. John Allen, working together with top Israeli security people, will succeed in preparing a security plan, vetted by the Israeli security technicians, that can seriously undermine Israel’s negotiating position.

A reminder: Back in 2000 Israel's Senior Negotiator With Syria, Major General (Res.) Uri Saguy , who had served in the past as head of Military Intelligence, took the position that “peace will not eliminate the strategic threats to Israel, but will prevent their materialization”. Saguy believed that since Assad’s goal was to recover the Golan that once he had that Syria would not attack Israel. That belief served as the basis for his support for grossly unworkable security arrangements in the North as part of a plan to leave the Golan.

Saguy is in very good company. Most of the top people in Israel’s various security and defense systems share a similar ideologically driven optimism regarding the efficacy of “land for piece of paper”.

Time and again over the last two decades the embarrassingly naïve analysis of Israel’s security people led them to advocate reckless plans and arrangements – with many of those actually implemented literally blowing up in our faces.

Back to the present.

Again, Who’s the Sucker?

...Poker, or what Obama/Kerry market as negotiations, can be a form of psychological warfare, a fact which behooves Netanyahu to remember that old casino adage: If you’re playing poker and look around the table to see who the sucker is, it’s doubtless you.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
01 August '13..






Almost five years ago the foreign ministry, then under the aegis of Tzipi Livni, published the following official press release:

On 25 August 2008, Israel released 198 convicted Palestinian terrorists. Israel undertook this risky measure in the hope of promoting dialogue with the pragmatic Palestinians who reject terrorism and are engaged in diplomacy with Israel.

It is never easy for Israel to decide on the early release of convicted Palestinian terrorists. The issue is one fraught with emotional overtones, for Israelis in general and the families of terrorism victims in particular.

In these instances, Israel’s decision-makers have been faced with both political and moral dilemmas. All the while, they remain fully cognizant of the security risks posed to the Israeli public by such measures.

Yet Israel decided on 17 August 2008 to unilaterally initiate the release of approximately 200 Palestinian prisoners, a decision that was realized the next week, with the 25 August release of 198 convicted terrorists. Among them were Palestinians serving long-term sentences for the murder of Israeli civilians; their release came at the personal request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel undertook this dramatic step in the hope of promoting dialogue with those pragmatic Palestinians who are both engaged in diplomacy with Israel (most specifically, the Annapolis process) and opposed to terrorism.

Palestinians from many factions have often expressed their interest in seeing prisoners released. The 198 prisoners came from the ranks of those factions that support the leadership of PA President Abbas.

Israel’s large-scale release of prisoners underscores its willingness to take confidence-building measures - and even make painful concessions - during those periods when the Palestinians are interested in maintaining an atmosphere of dialogue and negotiations.

Israel hopes that the Palestinians and its other neighbors will recognize that commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes can indeed produce tangible results. As Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni noted at the 17 August Cabinet meeting, “The release of prisoners to pragmatic elements as part of a process of negotiation conveys the message that those who negotiate with Israel can gain through dialogue.”

Three crucial notes must be interjected here:

1. This group of 198 released terrorists wasn’t the first. In August 2007, 255 were released to entice Abbas to at all palaver along with a further 87 in October 2007. In mid-December 2008 224 more terrorists were liberated. In all, some 1000 terrorists were let go to grease Abbas’s palms during 2007-8.

2. Many of the liberated terror-mongers set loose in order to foster confidence and goodwill quickly returned to their old murderous ways.

3. The Annapolis process – formally launched on November 27, 2007 – was the biggest and costliest Israeli diplomatic flop to date. It even eclipsed Ehud Barak’s colossal failures at Camp David and Taba because Premier Ehud Olmert and Livni offered even more than Barak’s already egregious offers. Olmert and Livni were ready to cede just about everything. Their risky generosity, though, changed nothing. They were rebuffed as gruffly as was Barak.

Abbas plainly cannot do a deal, no more than his way more powerful predecessor Yasser Arafat could. Abbas won’t agree to end the dispute, relinquish the so-called right to inundate the Jewish state with millions of hostile Arabs or at all recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Mideast. Why? Because the object of Ramallah’s honchos was never to establish a Palestinian state but to destroy the Jewish state. All else is a ploy to debilitate Israel.

But it’s not like Barak and Olmert cleverly demonstrated this truth to the watching world. They swayed no minds but they did create a new square-one for future haggling. Abbas already demands that all new talks begin from what Barak and Olmert were ready to surrender. That becomes a given, an already made concession that cannot be retracted, even if nothing was signed or traded in return.

Starting off by meeting PLO preconditions

...Kerry has not accomplished anything special, other than proving yet again that the Arabs are prepared to pocket what they can get from Israel without giving anything up. And it is very hard to imagine the negotiations succeeding.

Fresnozionsim.org..
31 July '13..





The Palestinians had three major preconditions for talks:

• That they will be based on the pre-1967 ‘borders’
• That construction outside the Green Line will be halted
• That prisoners will be released

All of these preconditions have been met, in some sense. The prisoner release was approved at great political cost for PM Netanyahu, an unpublicized limitation on construction if not a complete freeze seems to be in effect, and Kerry has made a promise to the Palestinians that the basis of the negotiations will be the so-called pre-1967 lines (the State Department denied this in the typical careful language that indicates that it is in fact true).

What does it mean that the negotiations will be ‘based’ on pre-1967 lines, or more precisely, the 1949 armistice lines?

The position of the Obama Administration is that land outside the Green Line in Judea and Samaria (excluding Jerusalem, which is another story) belongs, by default, to the Palestinians. Thus, any territory kept by Israel in a peace agreement would require compensation to the Arabs in the form of land swaps from areas that are within the Green Line.

As I’ve written before, this position flies in the face of international law, contravening the Palestine Mandate, the 1949 armistice agreement, the spirit of UNSC resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords. In summary, the Mandate gave prima facie rights in Judea and Samaria to the Jews, the armistice agreement did not establish any kind of borders,

This is the sound of Barack Obama dropping the other shoe (on Israel)

It is impossible to imagine that these talks will succeed (here are 22 good reasons why not). But nevertheless, the administration pushes on. Why?

Obama mentor Edward Said
symbolically throws a stone at
Israel across Lebanese border,
July 2000

Fresnozionsim.org..
30 July '13..

With the start of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Washington, there is one overriding question:

What does the Obama administration think it will get out of this?

We know what the Palestinians want: They hope to see Israel forced to stop construction outside of the Green Line, while they push forward with EU-funded projects to create facts on the ground in Israeli-administered Area C. They hope to make it impossible for Israel to back away from the idea that the 1949 armistice lines are in fact the boundaries of ‘Palestinian land’, and not mere accidents of history. They want to further cement their narrative about history and international law, including fantastic conceptions like ‘right of return’ in the world’s — and America’s — consciousness. They have already gained agreement to the release of many convicted murderers, a humiliating loss of face for Israel and a huge propaganda victory for them.

We also know what Israel wants: To avoid an open break with the Obama Administration at a time of extreme peril for the Jewish state. A confrontation with Iran — or the lack of one, equally dangerous — is certain within the next year. Hizballah’s missiles and Iran’s nuclear program will not go away by themselves. While it would be dreaming to expect the US to take real action against Iran, it is essential to maintain at least nominal American support for Israel’s actions.

In Israel, only the extreme Left, for whom a complete removal of Jews from the territories is literally more important than the survival of a Jewish state, thinks that it would be a good thing for Israel to sign an agreement with the PLO today.

It is impossible to imagine that these talks will succeed (here are 22 good reasons why not). But nevertheless, the administration pushes on. Why?

Negotiating in the Middle East

How The Other Side Sees It

Mark Silverberg
Hudson New York
27 September '10

Our media, talking heads, academics, and even our government strategic thinkers have been dealing with the Arab and Muslim world based on the politically-correct paradigm of even-handedness, attributing most international problems to poverty, misunderstandings, rectifying historical grievances, and, in the case of Israel, territorial disputes -- while ignoring or underplaying key elements, such as the importance in Middle Eastern cultures of the values and importance of honor, shame, clan loyalties, theocratic religion, retaining absolute power, and frustrated religious imperialism.

As Harold Rhode, recently of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, wrote for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, it is crucial to understand the mindset of our enemies – something the current US Administration and the leaders of the European Union appear loathe to do.

Dealing specifically with Iran, but implying that the Arab dictators and despots of the Middle East move to the same beat, Rhode concludes that the paradigms that govern US foreign policy in the Middle East today are totally at odds with the paradigms that actually govern the actions of our enemies.

The Western concept of demanding that a leader subscribe to a moral and ethical code does not resonate with Iranians or the Arab world in general. As Rhode notes: "One coming from a position of strength will only make a concession if he is absolutely sure that doing so will consolidate and therefore increase his power. If one believes that his adversary will gain even the slightest advantage through such a measure, he will never concede an inch." The attitude, quite simply, is: "rule-or-be-ruled." As such, compromise, as we understand the concept, "is seen as a sign of submission and weakness" that brings shame and dishonor on those -- and on the families of those -- who concede.

This was made abundantly clear in Hamas's violent reaction to Mahmoud Abbas's direct negotiations with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in Hamas's insistence that Israel never be recognized as a Jewish state.

Much the same point is made by Richard Landes in Augean Stables: "Arab leaders view any compromise with Israel as a catastrophic loss of face, since such an agreement would mean recognizing as a worthy foe an inferior group that should be subject. Such a blow to Arab honor cannot be tolerated for cultural and political reasons: losing face means to feel utter humiliation, to lose public credibility, and to lose power;" the only way to restore such lost honor is not through compromise, but to shed the blood of this enemy. In this kind of war, negotiations will not work as the solution is in zero-sum terms: I win, you lose. The Palestinians cannot recognize Israel without suffering an unbearable, catastrophic loss of honor; while Israel cannot cede any further territory without absolute security guarantees and its recognition as a Jewish state.

(Read full article)

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Don’t betray us this year

Op-ed: In coming year, may government not harm settlers to curry favor with our enemies


Orit Struck
Israel Opinion/Ynet
10 September '10

Dear Sara Netanyahu,

This Rosh Hashana, not all of us got to sit with our families as we celebrated the coming of the New Year. An hour’s drive from the prime minister’s residence, in the Mount Hebron community of Beit Hagai, the children of the Aimes family had a tough time celebrating. Only recently they ended the mourning period and visited their parents’ grave at Mount Olives, and suddenly here is the Jewish New Year – without their mother’s cooking and their father’s blessings. The honey-dipped apple must have been salty of tears by the time it reached their mouths; they may have very well chocked up on the New Year’s blessings.

This is why I decided to turn to you, Sara. Recently you wrote a letter to the interior minister, saying that “as a mother to two sons and as a child psychologist, I view the profession I chose as a daily mission to help children.” Perhaps just like you helped the children of foreign workers, Sara, you can also help the Aimes children?

A year of cruel decrees has drawn to an end in Beit Hagai and in other Judea and Samaria communities; insulting decrees that turned Eretz Yisrael into the only place in the world where a Jew is not allowed to build a home just because he’s Jewish. May it be your will, God, that our ministers will not impose further such decrees on us.

May it be your will that the prime minister hold his head up high rather than walk with his tail between his legs – so that he won’t capitulate and cave in to the pressure. Let him deliver on his word, not evacuate even one community, and revive the construction effort. The Aimes children are too young to remember where the previous “peace” talks managed by the prime minister led to, but you remember, Sara.

“May it be your will to terminate our enemies and haters,” the Aimes children asked on Rosh Hashana, also referring to the “partners” starring in the new Geneva Initiative campaign meant to confuse us all. As a child psychologist, Sara, you know how to warn people against sweet-talking swindlers. So please warn the prime minister too. “Bibi, be a partner,” they urge him in giant, US-funded ads. Yet we know them, remind him of that. They’re responsible for the Oslo failure and its thousands of casualties, so don’t go with them, Bibi.

(Read full article)

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How to Communicate Concern to the Government of Israel Over the Latest Round of Negotiations

Arlene Kushner
Center for Near East Policy Research
06 September '10

"Taking No Chances"

The ambivalence about where Netanyahu is headed is quite pervasive. His signals are not clear. As someone knowledgeable I spoke to said, "He's dancing between the raindrops." That is, there is no clearly defined, straight-ahead policy. There is, rather, an attempt to keep from getting "wet," which leads to a zig towards the left and a zag towards the right.

Analysts' columns are replete with the suggestion that there is a "new Netanyahu." This new one, if he exists, would not, at least from my perspective, be an improvement on the old one.

Carolyn Glick spoke about this in her column last Friday. She cited him as having said in Washington:

"I have been making the case for Israel all my life. But I did not come here to win an argument. I came here to forge a peace...."

Uh oh. Glick suggests that if he means what he is saying, we should be very worried.

But then, in his defense, she noted that he also said, "We left Lebanon, we got terror. We left Gaza, we got terror...a defensible peace requires security arrangements that withstand the test of time."

~~~~~~~~~~

Will the real Binyamin Netanyahu please stand up. Is there a "real" one?

And it's not only we "common folk" who are in the dark, Silvan Shalom (Likud), who is a deputy prime minister, as well as minister of regional cooperation, complained a couple of days ago that the prime minister is not properly informing his cabinet of what has been said in meetings with Obama and Abbas.

Not a comforting thought. Leads one to suspect that Netanyahu is playing it close to his chest because he assumes his cabinet wouldn't like what he has to say.

(Read full report)

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Constructive Clarity in Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

Benny Begin
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Vol. 10, No. 3
7 July '10

-The PLO platform, as reaffirmed in the Fatah Congress in August 2009, states that their struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated and Palestine is liberated. As a logical corollary, they refuse to accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

-This explains why, when Mahmoud Abbas was asked in a Washington Post interview in May 2009 why he had declined Olmert's far-reaching offer, he answered that "the gaps were wide."

-The Palestinian leadership insists that negotiations now start at the point they had reached with Olmert at the end of 2008. That means they are not satisfied with what was put on the table a year ago. They want more than that.

-One cannot expect a plausible, peaceful solution in the foreseeable future unless the PLO leadership changes its mind, heart, and writings.

What Israel Has Offered

Under the banner of the 2008 Annapolis process, the Israeli government and the PLO leadership failed to reach a lasting agreement. According to Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Olmert proposed that Israel withdraw from 98 percent of the total territory in Samaria, Judea, and Gaza. Actually, the deal encompassed 100 percent because the balance was to be swapped with some territory from inside the State of Israel proper.

Olmert also proposed a safe passage between Gaza and Judea - under Israeli sovereignty. According to Mahmoud Abbas, Olmert also agreed that Israel recognize in principal the so-called "right of return." Mr. Olmert denies this. However, he did propose that thousands of Arab refugees would be allowed to come into the State of Israel on a humanitarian basis.

As for Jerusalem, Olmert proposed the partition of the city into two parts. The neighborhoods populated by Arabs would become a part of the capital of the Palestinian Arab sovereign state. The Jewish neighborhoods would be retained under Israeli sovereignty. In addition, he proposed that Israel relinquish its sovereignty over the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, and the City of David - referred to by some as the "holy basin." Israel's rule of these areas would be replaced by a consortium that would administer them, comprised of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United States, the PLO, and Israel. This far-reaching proposal by Prime Minister Olmert - addressing borders, refugees and Jerusalem - was declined by the PLO.


Why the PLO Said No

Mahmoud Abbas was asked in a Washington Post interview in May 2009 why he had declined Olmert's proposal and his answer was: "the gaps were wide." This truthfully reflects the situation because, from the PLO point of view, the gaps were indeed still wide.

During the negotiations in the Annapolis process, the PLO leadership was asked whether once an agreement was reached to the liking of both parties, they would agree to include an article stating that this agreement puts an end to the conflict and concludes all claims by the parties. That question was answered in the negative.

Why would Olmert's proposal still leave wide gaps, so as to be unacceptable from the point of view of the PLO leadership only a year or so ago? Concentrating on Jerusalem, the answer is that the PLO does not accept a situation of shared sovereignty in Jerusalem over the Temple Mount and its surroundings. Their goal is to have Arab-Palestinian-Muslim sovereignty at that site.

This is not just a whim of the current Palestinian leadership. In 2000, Prime Minister Barak proposed that Israel relinquish its rule over the upper part of the Temple Mount to Arab-Palestinian sovereignty and that the lower part of the Temple Mount would be retained under Israeli sovereignty, but still this was rejected. The PLO assertion was that the whole Temple Mount should be under Arab-Muslim sovereignty.

(Read full paper)

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