Why do the murders continue? Because that’s what Palestinians want

...But the killing continues, not because the Israelis haven’t tried, but because the Palestinians don’t want peace. Just like Hamas, Abbas thinks all of Israel, not just the West Bank and Jerusalem, are occupied territory. That’s what Abbas’s admission means. It would be nice if this would be taken into account when Western media and the Obama administration blame Israel for the situation. But those who are interested in the truth can no longer claim there is any doubt about who rejected peace. If the killing continues, it is because that’s what Palestinians want. Don’t take my word for it, just read Abbas’s confession.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
19 November '15..

What if the supposed cause of terrorism against Israel were based on a lie? That’s the awful fact that was exposed yesterday by none other than Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 10, Abbas admitted that in 2008 he flatly rejected an offer of statehood from Israel that would have given him control of almost all the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem as well as Gaza. While fascinating, the revelation — this is the first time he has owned up to the truth about what happened during the negotiations that took place during the last months of the Bush administration — is of more than historical interest. It also undermines the premise of the case against Israel used by critics that claim its policies are the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moreover, the timing of the admission, coming as it did as a surge in Palestinian terrorism escalates, makes the true motive for the killing painfully obvious.

With each passing day, the toll of horrifying violence perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis grows. Today there were two separate attacks. One took place in the Gush Etzion bloc of the West Bank. There (in an area that was settled by Jews before 1948) a Palestinian opened fire with a submachine gun on a group of people at a road junction killing an American Jewish teenage tourist, an Israeli man, and a Palestinian passerby as well as wounding several others. Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, a Palestinian killed two Jews and wounded at least two others with a knife at the entrance to a synagogue. The total of five fatalities is the highest since the current surge of terror began two months ago. One can only pray that’s a record that won’t be broken. Given the support for terror among Palestinians (as a comprehensive survey of Palestinian public opinion has proved), there’s no reason for optimism as what is being called a third intifada continues.

We know the slaughter will be cheered on Hamas TV. The Palestinian Authority will also honor those who committed these crimes. But even some Westerners who will condemn the terror will add that it is merely the result of Israel’s own wicked policies that oppress Palestinians. We’re constantly told, both by voices in the mainstream media and the Obama administration, that if only Israel would offer the Palestinians a state of their own and end the occupation, then none of this would be happening. As I noted earlier, European political leaders have echoed this theme blaming Israel not only for the attacks on its people but also for ISIS terror directed at non-Jewish Europeans. That kind of scapegoating is reminiscent of traditional anti-Semitic attitudes in which Jews are blamed for all of society’s ills rather than being focused solely on prejudice against Israel.

But what if Israel had already offered the Palestinians the state their apologists say would be the solution to all of the region’s problems? Well, actually they have. Several times.

Abbas Already Spurned Everything Palestinians Demand. Where's the Coverage?

SC..
CAMERA Snapshots..
17 July '13..

In an interview with The Tower published two months ago, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a detailed description of his negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in September of 2008:

“In the last meeting I brought a big map, like the size of this whole table,” recalls Olmert. “With colors for all the regions that go over to us and the reverse. We would receive 6.3%, they would get 5.8%, but they also get a safe passage in a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank that was the equivalent in territory of the remaining half percent.

[…]

“I completely gave up on having an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. That was because I could protect the line of the Jordan River through an international military force on the other side of the Jordan River. There was no opposition on the Palestinian side to our having a presence in warning stations along the mountain range.”

TheTower.org: But you essentially gave up on Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount [the holiest site in Judaism]?

Olmert: “Correct, I proposed a compromise on sovereignty over the Temple Mount. There would be no sovereignty for anyone else. There would be the joint administration of the five states [Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestine, the United States, and Israel].”

In addition, the article outlines Olmert’s proposal to take in 5,000 Palestinian refugees, 1,000 each year over five years, into Israel proper.

In other words, Olmert offered a territorial proposal based on the 1949 armistice lines –often incorrectly referred to as the 1967 borders– with “land swaps”, contiguity between Gaza and the West Bank, no Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, relinquishing Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount, and absorption of some Palestinian refugees. This amounts to basically meeting all of the demands Abbas claims he seeks in final status negotiations. And yet, what was his response to Olmert? Olmert says, “I am still waiting for a phone call from him.”

Given the current efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, you’d expect the details of this ground-breaking offer to be picked up widely by the media. However, aside from the Israeli or Jewish press and specialty Web sites, only The Washington Post even mentions Olmert’s spurned proposal.

Olmert offered but Abbas couldn’t take yes for an answer

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 May '13..

Those who choose to absolve the Palestinians of any responsibility for their own plight are faced with a difficult dilemma. After 20 years of peace processing that have included enormous concessions on the part of Israel, including the empowerment of the PLO in the West Bank and Gaza via Oslo, the withdrawal from Gaza and three separate offers of an independent Palestinian state that the Palestinian Authority rejected, it ought to be impossible for an objective observer to argue that Israel has not tried to make peace. But that hasn’t the stopped the Arab and Muslim worlds as well as American and Jewish apologists for the Palestinians from still trying to portray them as the victims of an intransigent Israel. When confronted with the chance for statehood they were given in 2000, 2001 and 2008, they argue that the offers were insufficient even if it isn’t clear what, short of Israel’s dissolution would satisfy them.

These are important facts to remember as Secretary of State John Kerry tries to restart the peace talks the Palestinians have boycotted for four and half years. Though the political realities of Palestinian life — the most stark of which is the fact that the Islamists of Hamas control Gaza and exercise and effective veto over peace — make it clear his effort is a fool’s errand, Kerry and those inclined to blame Israel for the lack of peace are hoping to get the Palestinians back to the table and to agree to what they’ve already repeatedly rejected. It is in that context that we should understand the importance of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recollections of his 2008 attempt to make a deal with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert gives a detailed accounting of his negotiations with Abbas in an interview in The Tower, is important, not just as a matter of historical detail and the curious fact that he and Abbas sketched out the proposed borders of a deal on a napkin and then on a piece of stationery. By explaining just how far reaching the Israeli offer was Olmert demonstrates just how empty the Palestinian excuses for their refusal to make peace really are.

The offer was every bit as far reaching as previously reported. Olmert was not just prepared to sanction Palestinian independence in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem. He was also prepared not just to partition the capital; He agreed to relinquish Israeli sovereignty over the center of Jewish religious and historical memory: the Old City of Jerusalem. Though the only period in history in which Jews or members of all faiths have had full access to the holy sites has been the 46 years that it has been under Israel’s control, Olmert was prepared to abandon that in favor of a special committee made up of representatives from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United States, Israel and the Palestinians that would jointly administer the Old City. He also agreed to take thousands of Palestinian refugees into Israel as a symbolic bow to the Palestinian “right of return.” In order to keep some of its major settlement blocs in the West Bank, he was also prepared to hand over large chunks of Israel to make it an even swap.

But Abbas couldn’t take yes for an answer.

Negotiations resume based on Olmert concessions? No laughing please.

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




Weekly Commentary: Absurd to demand negotiations resume based on Olmert concessions

Once again Palestinian officials are demanding that negotiations resume with Israel’s opening position being the tremendous concessions that Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas.

This demand is an insult to our intelligence.

The Palestinians know full well that when an Israeli prime minister makes an offer that it is not binding on Israel unless the offer is brought before the Cabinet and approved. And even then, until a deal is signed, it only takes a unilateral vote of the Cabinet to rescind the offer.

One might argue that the same limitation applies to Palestinian offers.

This is a dynamic of the negotiations that introduces a risk to rejecting an offer in the hopes of getting even more concessions in the future.

If anything, “friends of peace” should rebuke the Palestinians for their ridiculous demand.

After all, if every concession made in the course of negotiations is permanent, an almost inevitable consequence will be that the Palestinians will never conclude an agreement as they continually seek more Israeli concessions.

Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=59874

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.

.

Can Olmert’s Career Be Resurrected By Abbas?

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
15 October '12..

The mini-boomlet fueling the attempted comeback of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert got a boost yesterday from an unlikely source: Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. As Haaretz reported, Abbas claims that had Olmert remained in office only a couple of months longer, peace might have been possible. Abbas praised Olmert in a meeting with a group of Israeli politicians in his Ramallah headquarters. This says more about Abbas’s desire to avoid blame for his walking away from Olmert’s offer of an independent Palestinian state in exchange for peace than it does about the latter’s political future. But even though Abbas has zero credibility with the Israeli public, this is a message that is integral to Olmert’s far-fetched hopes to replace Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Olmert scenario, promoted by such otherwise savvy observers like the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, is based on the idea that the Israeli people can be made to forget just how rotten a prime minister Olmert was and how unpopular he became during his three years in office because he can persuade the Palestinians to make peace. If what’s left of his Kadima Party backs him along with other opposition centrists as well as the left-wing Labor Party, then it is theoretically possible that this coalition can hold its own against incumbent Prime Minister Netanyahu and his center-right and religious party allies. The problem with this scenario is not just that Olmert might not be eligible to run for the Knesset because of ongoing legal problems or even how utterly unlikely it is that such a coalition could be cobbled together. The real fallacy at the heart of the Olmert comeback is that the Israeli people are not so stupid as to forget what actually happened in 2008 no matter what Olmert and Abbas say.

Nope. Peace was never in the cards

Ruthie Blum..
Israel Hayom..
13 July '12..

This week’s announcement of the “not guilty” verdict in two of the three indictments against former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert became the focus of a post-courtroom drama.

Olmert’s defense team beamed with satisfaction, not only pleased as punch for a job well done, but quick to point a finger at (and give the finger to) State Prosecutor Moshe Lador.

Before the day was out, everyone in the country had taken a side. Those displeased with the outcome of the trial rushed to defend the State Prosecutor’s Office for having had more than reasonable cause to proceed with the case, and for treating even the leader of the country as it would any other citizen suspected of corruption.

They attested, and continue to insist, that the only reason Olmert was acquitted of the two more serious charges was due to the unreliability of the prosecution witnesses, and the lack of concrete evidence.

This group fears that the surprising verdict will unjustifiably tarnish the State Prosecutor — which, they argue, could have a negative impact on the ability of the “people” to go after their politicians when warranted.

On the other side of the debate are those who were happy with the relatively light conviction on a third charge — breach of trust — made out to be far lighter than it was by Olmert himself, his supporters, Lador’s detractors, and by much of the media. This group, consisting of Kadima party members and other friends of the previously disgraced premier, accused the state prosecutor of having orchestrated a witch hunt against Olmert, compelling him to resign from the prime minister's post three years ago.

They feel that it is now Lador’s turn to exit his post in disgrace. After all, they claim, it was he who single-handedly brought about the ouster of an incumbent head of state by going after him with “trumped-up” charges that ended up having no evidentiary basis. (If this had been true, the courts would have thrown out — not tried — the case; but that’s another story.)

This is not their only contention, however. Nor is it even their main one.

No, their key pronouncement is that Lador is at fault — get this — for having hindered the “peace process” with the Palestinians.

Shragai - Olmert's weakness

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
21 May '12..



Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is running away. It's unclear to where, but the remarks he made on Sunday in the name of "national responsibility" not only neglect that very duty but also avoid coping with reality, which he preached about for many years. No one ever promised us a rose garden in Jerusalem. This city, the essence of our identity, is a testament to endurance, but Olmert has grown tired and weak. His comments Sunday in Maariv about partitioning Jerusalem and making concessions in the Old City and the Temple Mount convey panic and infirmity.

It is hard to believe that the man, who saw the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo being fired upon for four years from the nearby Beit Jala, is now advocating putting additional Jewish neighborhoods in similar danger: Mount Scopus and French Hill near Issawiya, East Talpiot near Jabel Mukaber and Pisgat Ze'ev near Beit Hanina. After all, Israel doesn't really stand a chance in preventing the transfer of small arms into these Arab neighborhoods, into Palestinian hands, just like it wasn't able to prevent weapons from reaching the Beit Jala gangs.

In his address, Olmert failed to mention what happened in the past when Jerusalem was divided. In 1948 a quarter of the Jewish residents abandoned Jerusalem because they were not willing to live in a divided city. He also did not mention what happened in the early 2000s, when the separation fence in the northern part of the city essentially removed parts of Jerusalem from sovereign Israel. Some 70,000 Palestinians voted with their feet and relocated to the Israeli side of the fence, just to avoid being on the Palestinian side.

Gordon: Olmert’s Self-Serving Myth Promotes Cause of Palestinian Rejectionism

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
03 June '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/03/the-myth-of-why-peace-process-failed/

Testifying at his corruption trial yesterday, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asserted that, if only he had not been forced to resign by the multiple police investigations against him, there would already be an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

“I know how close we were and what was at stake,” Olmert told the court. “We stood on a brink that could have changed life here. But I also know that such decisions cannot be made when a black cloud is overshadowing your life.”

Olmert has propagated this myth with great success ever since leaving office in March 2009. Indeed, the standard narrative in the international media today, and in parts of Israel’s media as well, is that the sides were near agreement in autumn 2008 when Olmert’s legal woes interrupted the talks.

Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas backed this narrative once Olmert was safely out of office and he was spared the danger of actually having to accept the prime minister’s September 2008 offer—conveniently forgetting that at the time, he never even bothered to respond to it, and later told the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl that this was because “the gaps were wide.”

Those “wide gaps,” incidentally, followed Olmert’s offer of the equivalent (after swaps) of 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem; international Muslim control of Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, even including the Western Wall; and resettlement in Israel of 20,000 Palestinian refugees—the most generous offer any Israeli leader has ever made and one unlikely ever to be bettered. In other words, there never was any chance of an agreement. Yet the myth that the sides were “on the brink” has nevertheless gained wide currency.

Of course, this is merely a new incarnation of the myth’s original version: that if only Yitzhak Rabin hadn’t been assassinated in November 1995, he would have made peace.

In reality, Rabin most likely wouldn’t even have won the following year’s election. Throughout much of 1995, polls showed him “seriously trailing” his rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. And the main reason for this was that his September 1993 Oslo Accord produced not peace, but a wave of terror. In the following two and half years, more Israelis were killed by Palestinian terror than in the entire preceding decade. In response, as Oslo architect Yair Hirschfeld admitted in a 2009 interview with Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar, Rabin’s popularity rating plummeted from 90 percent in September 1993 to 22 percent a year later.

But the real problem with these myths is less their historical inaccuracy than the way they distort the future. The delusion that peace would have been achieved if only Rabin hadn’t been killed or Olmert indicted implies that any Israeli prime minister in fact has the power to achieve peace. And if he doesn’t, the fault is clearly Israel’s. This in turn enables its adherents to ignore the true cause of the ongoing failure to reach an agreement: Palestinian rejectionism.

And unless the world stops ignoring this root cause and begins seriously addressing it, peace will never be possible.

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.
.

The New York Times Revises the Peace Process

Sol Stern
Jewish Ideas Daily
14 February '11

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/2/14/main-feature/1/the-new-york-times-revises-the-peace-process

"The Peace Plan that Almost Was and Still Could Be": blazoned over the entire cover of the February 13 New York Times Magazine, the sensation-seeking headline comes accompanied by a photograph from the back of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, each with his arm around the other. The two men, declares the Times excitedly, "almost made a historic deal in 2008," and now—right now—"is the moment to resuscitate it."

The article within, by Bernard Avishai, follows closely on a news story that appeared in the Times as a front-page "scoop" on January 27. In that story, written by the paper's Israel correspondent Ethan Bronner, readers had early word of just how tantalizingly "close to a peace deal" Olmert and Abbas had been toward the end of 2008, only to have the deal put on hold because of Olmert's legal problems and the start of the Gaza war. According to Bronner, progress toward peace was then finally stopped in its tracks by the election in early 2009 of a new hard-line Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bronner's account was itself based on an interview with Olmert (and a similar one with President Abbas) that had been conducted for the Times by the same Bernard Avishai—a freelance writer, peace activist, and proponent of transforming Israel from a Jewish state into a secular "Hebrew republic." It is Avishai's own 4,700-word account of the Olmert-Abbas negotiations that has now, complete with illustrations and maps, been sprawled across several pages of the Times Magazine. Thus, within a period of two weeks, the paper has twice put its weight behind pieces of copycat journalism that, by coincidence, happen to fortify its own editorial position on which party is most responsible for the Israel-Palestinian impasse and how best to resolve it.

As Avishai's is intended to be the fuller and more "authoritative" account, let us focus on his telling of the story. According to him, both Olmert and Abbas have separately confirmed that they did indeed meet many times in 2007 and 2008—and that the critical breakthrough toward a peace agreement and a two-state solution came on September 16, 2008. On that day, at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, Olmert presented Abbas with a large map showing how Israel could retain 6.3 percent of Palestinian land on the West Bank and thus avoid evacuating most of the Jewish settlements. To compensate, Olmert proposed transferring an equivalent amount of Israeli land to the future Palestinian state. He also agreed to divide the city of Jerusalem, with a five-nation consortium controlling the Old City and the Jewish and Muslim holy places. For their part, the Palestinians would have to drop their historic demand for the "right of return" to Israel of the 1948 refugees and their descendants—although Olmert offered to admit 5,000 refugees over five years on "humanitarian" grounds.

As for Olmert's map, Abbas assured the Israeli prime minister that it was worthy of study and further negotiations, and the two men parted on that note. But then, according to Olmert, Abbas "went silent" on him—although discussions with the Palestinians continued at a lower level until the election of Netanyahu tragically turned the clock back. Abbas's version of the same events is that Olmert, distracted by the corruption charges being brought against him and by the pending Gaza war, failed to send a representative to a meeting in Washington called by Condoleezza Rice, but that he, Abbas, had been ready to resume talks anyway, even after Israel invaded Gaza.

And what is the urgency in publishing such an article now? As Avishai puts it, the further passage of time, together with the current turmoil in the Arab Middle East, has raised the breakthrough possibility of reviving those talks, abandoned just at the moment when "the gaps appear[ed] so pitifully small." In self-aggrandizing mode, Avishai touts his "exclusive" revelations as themselves constituting a new opportunity for peace—particularly, he pointedly adds, if President Obama now steps into the breach, picks up where the Israelis and Palestinians left off more than two years ago, and with the aid of the international community pushes through a deal that Israel has no choice but to accept. Otherwise, Avishai quotes a frustrated Abbas as saying, "If nothing happens, I will take a very, very painful decision. Don't ask me about it."

Video: Saeb Erekat - Palestinians gave Olmert counter proposal

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRANEWSVIDEO
13 February '11

Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat asserts in an interview on Israel Television Channel 2 on 13.2.2011 that the Palestinians responded to then PM Olmert's offer with a counter offer.



Why doesn't Olmert mention this? Is it because the Palestinian proposal was so far beyond anything acceptable in Israel that revealing the details would show the Olmert's claim that a deal could indeed be cut is a fantasy and that the only thing Olmert's own generous offer achieved was to erode Israel's red lines in Palestinian and American eyes.

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.
.

Erekat gone; AFP lies

Elder of Ziyon
12 February '11

From AFP:

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat tendered his resignation on Saturday amid deadlock in efforts to renew peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian official said.

Erakat told AFP he was stepping down because of his responsibility for the disclosure of confidential documents on Al-Jazeera, shortly after his resignation was announced by senior PLO Yasser Abed Rabbo.

The chief negotiator said he was assuming "responsibility for the theft of documents from his office" that he said had been "deliberately" tampered with.

Last month, Erakat accused Al-Jazeera of taking part in a campaign to overthrow the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the Doha-based television began to release more than 1,600 confidential files known as "The Palestine Papers."

The documents, shared by Al-Jazeera and Britain's Guardian daily, expose concessions to Israel in 10 years of secret peace talks, embarrassing and angering the Palestinian leadership.

(Read full "Erekat gone; AFP lies")

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.
.

[With video link] Ironic interview: former PM Olmert explains his peace proposal

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
05 February '11

[For video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH2Hr1H7OOc ]

When former PM Olmert interviewed the idea of basing the “solution” for Jerusalem on the assumption that Israel could count on the current regimes ruling Jordan and Saudi Arabia continuing forever may not have sounded so silly.

Now it sounds silly to most Israelis, so Channel 2 Correspondent Udi Segal was kind enough to former PM Olmert to explain that the interview took place before the disturbances in Egypt.



Former PM Ehud Olmert interviewed by Channel 2 Correspondent Udi Segal Broadcast 5 February 2011
[IMRA translation of excerpts]

Interview took place before the disturbances in Egypt.

Olmert: With regard to the Holy Basin I showed him[Mahmoud Abbas] the area of the Holy Basin on the map. I told him that this is in the trust of 5 nations – 3 of them Moslem: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state that would be established, the U.S. that also represents the Christian world, and of course Israel.
…
Segal: Tell me. But this map isn’t dangerous? It isn’t very dangerous?

Olmert: We know how to protect ourselves. I believe we can better defend ourselves when we are in territories that the entire world recognizes as our territories if we are attacked within out territories.

Segal: It seems to me that the main concern in Israel is that we make a deal with Abu Mazen and then a year or two later Hamas comes and takes over the state..

Olmert: We left Gaza. Hamas came. We went in Gaza. We hit them as needed and we left Gaza.

Segal: Hamas remained

Olmert: That’s because of various reasons this is not the place to go into them We didn’t complete this mission

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.
.

Olmert Offered Peace Plan, But Palestine Papers Give No Evidence That Abbas Ever Came Back With A Counteroffer

Daled Amos
01 February '11

http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2011/02/olmert-offered-peace-plan-but-palestine.html

The group Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East has taken the time to read through Al Jazeera's "Palestine Papers" and they noticed that for all the talk about Palestinian concessions, the bottom line is that Abbas failed to respond to Olmert's offer for peace:

Sr. Ruth Lautt, O.P., Fair Witness National Director, says "What the documents from the post-Annapolis talks reveal is that members of the respective negotiating teams shared pragmatic talk about borders, Jerusalem and refugees. While there was not complete agreement on core issues, there was hope of reaching a compromise. A 'Palestine Paper' dated August 31, 2008, memorializes Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's peace proposal package. But there is no indication that Palestinian President Abbas ever came back with a counteroffer."

The "Palestine Papers" reflect claims about an alleged counteroffer, but no evidence that one was ever relayed to Olmert. A December 14, 2008 memo shows Saeb Erekat telling Israeli negotiator Udi Deckel that the Palestinian counteroffer had been 1.9%. It appears, however, that 1.9% was a number Palestinian negotiators had been discussing with the Israeli negotiators prior to the Olmert offer. And, as Deckel points out, "discussions on territory" between negotiators do not constitute a leader's response to a comprehensive peace offer.

An internal Palestinian document reveals that Abbas never intended to respond to the offer at his September 16, 2008 meeting with Olmert, which he regarded as merely "ceremonial." A memo drafted in preparation for that meeting states:

In order to avoid the blame game, the President [Abbas] today is going with a positive attitude, where he will ask more questions from Olmert on his offer, and he will tell him that the Palestinians will respond later.

There is no record of a subsequent response from Abbas.

The account in the Palestine Papers that Abbas failed to come back with a counteroffer is reflected in Olmert's account of what he and Abbas talked about. In an interview on November 28, 2009, Olmert's description of that September 16, 2008 meeting corroborates the Palestine Papers claim that Abbas failed to make a counteroffer:

"On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles...

Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.

"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."

There is of course no downside for Abbas in this: on the one hand the fact that he failed to do what was necessary to finalize a peace agreement will counter the arguments that he and his team betrayed the Palestinian Arabs in making concessions for peace--and on the other hand, the West is always willing, if not eager, to ignore the fact that Abbas refuses to do or concede anything that might bring about peace.

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.
.

Tzipi Livni refuses to let reality interfere in JP interview

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
01 January '11




Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Hats off to David Horovitz for this tremendous interview.

It is hard to know if Ms. Livni realizes what she said here.

But here it is:

#1. She says she was responsible for the talks with the Palestinians and that they never reached the point that Jerusalem was discussed.

#2. On the other hand, she recognizes that while she was talking with the Palestinians as FM, that PM Olmert not only discussed Jerusalem - he made a tremendously generous offer to Mahmoud Abbas.

#3. She recognizes that Mahmoud Abbas rejected Olmert's very generous offer.

But Kadima head Livni refuses to do the math.

#4. Livni adamantly insists that it doesn't matter that Abbas rejected Olmert's very generous offer.

Why? Because Livni was in charge of the official negotiations and she didn't make the offer. The prime minister of Israel made the offer.

Question: Does Ms. Livni think we are idiots? Or is her ego so huge that she genuinely thinks that the only thing that matters is what took place between her and the Palestinians in the formal window dressing talks?

(Go to full interview)

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.
.

A message to Abbas: haggling with a democracy different than with dictatorship

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
29 July '10

(While the points here may be valid from our perspective on what would be in Abbas's best interests, it's pretty clear to me that he doesn't have the same end-game in mind. If that's a given, then what are we pushing him for, other than to sign an agreement that no one other than ourselves will expect him to honor.Y.)

These are the indisputable facts:

#1. In the waning days of PM Ehud Olmert's administration, Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas an Israeli package of concessions far beyond what any Israeli leader proposed in the history of the Jewish State.

#2. If Abbas had accepted the outline of PM Olmert's generous offer, it could have been brought up for approval by Olmert's cabinet to formally tie the Jewish state to the deal. Additional activities, both in the region and beyond, could have further locked Israel into PM Olmert's concessions.

#3. But Mahmoud Abbas decided to hold out for even more concessions. And he did this knowing that elections were going to take place in Israel with a very real possibility that a Likud lead coalition would replace Kadima.

#4. As a result of the Israeli elections, a Likud lead coalition did indeed come to power. A coalition that utterly rejects the concessions offered by PM Olmert.

As a negotiating tactic, Mahmoud Abbas walked away from the Israeli "stall" in the market, in the expectation that the Israeli would ultimately call him back offering even greater concessions.

Now this tactic may make sense when negotiating with a stable dictatorship.

But Israel isn't a stable dictatorship.

It is a democracy.

And we changed, via the ballot box, the man in the Israeli "stall".

And the new man in the "stall" has absolutely no obligation to honor the generous offers that his predecessor made since a deal was never concluded.

In a word, Mahmoud Abbas blew it.

And that's his problem. Not ours.

Here's the puzzle: if Abbas is so confident that his final status demands enjoy broad international support, and in turn, that the world will consider Israel's final status offer unacceptably stingy, he has only to gain by doing everything and anything necessary to expedite entering into final status talks and getting the Israeli "cards" on the table.

But instead he is burning time dickering over pre-conditions for direct talks.

There are some reports that Mahmoud Abbas thinks he can manipulate the situation to ultimately bring about a regime change in Israel.

A word of advice for Mr. Abbas: Your manipulations may indeed lead to a regime change in Israel. But the odds are that should your manipulations precipitate a regime change that the change would be a shift to the right rather than a return of Kadima to the helm.

You blew it when you walked away from Ehud Olmert's "stall".

Don't repeat the mistake with Netanyahu.

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.
.

Interview: Tzippi Livni - would start negotiations from offer to divide Jerusalem?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
20 July '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

"Kadima would have continued the negotiations from where they stopped. I negotiated with the Palestinians for nine months. "

Yes, Ms. Livni, you negotiated with the Palestinians. And so did PM Olmert.

And we don't have to speculate what Mr. Olmert offered the Palestinians - division of Jerusalem, etc., since he has been pretty open about it.

So when you say "Kadima would have continued the negotiations from where they stopped" please don't think we are idiots.

Oh, right. You reply to reporters that "no one can teach me about loyalty to the unity of Jerusalem".

But when you say "Kadima would have continued the negotiations from where they stopped" without very specifically and explicitly saying the intention is what you negotiated and not what PM Olmert negotiated then you are indeed saying that the negotiations should start from Israel's acceptance of the division of Jerusalem.]

Interview: Tzipi Livni
by Charley J. Levine Hadassah Magazine June/July 2010
www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=5698175&ct=8439219

Tzipi Livni led the Kadima Party to a plurality victory in Israel's 2009 Knesset election but became leader of the opposition after Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud-which garnered one seat less-was able to form a larger coalition. Livni, a lawyer, served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces and in the Mossad. First elected to the Knesset in 1999, she served in senior government positions including minister of justice and minister of foreign affairs.

Q. Do you share the Israeli public's deep-seated resistance to President Obama's efforts to pressure Israel to stop building new housing for Jews in East Jerusalem?

A. Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli consensus. I disagree with how [Prime Minister] Netanyahu is handling the issue, however. We have a prime minister who tries to keep everyone happy without taking a clear, direct path. Thisweakness is leading us to a diplomatic collapse. In the past, I said specifically after earlier criticism from Washington that Gilo, on the capital's southern flank, will always be a part of Jerusalem and Israel. Since '67, the United States has never accepted any settlements or building activities over the green line.

(Read full article)

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.
.

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)

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.
.

Palestinians Freak — No Direct Talks!

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
08 July '10

This makes it clear just how petrified by the prospect of direct negotiations the Palestinians are:

The Palestinian Authority has added new conditions for resuming direct talks with Israel, presenting new demands that in effect preclude negotiations.

The stipulations stated to the BBC by PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat reflect a previously stated strategy of waiting “a year or two” for the United Nations to recognize it as a new Arab country instead of trying to reach a compromise agreement with Israel. …

Erekat told the BBC that in order for direct talks to resume, Israel also must accept former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s proposal as a starting point. Olmert has said that the PA never replied to his offer, which accepted most of the PA’s demands on Jerusalem but did not satisfy its insistence that Israel allow the immigration of millions of foreign Arabs claiming ancestry in the country.

You almost get the idea that the PA has neither the will nor the ability to make a deal and has been banking on Obama to deliver Israel (or what would be left of it ) on a platter.

(Read full post)

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.
.

Abbas: Israel cannot change negotiating positions as result of Israeli elections

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
23 May '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Mahmoud Abbas is not a child. He knows that when an Israeli prime minister makes an offer that it is not binding on Israel unless the offer is brought before the Cabinet and approved. And even then, until a deal is signed, it only takes a unilateral vote of the Cabinet to rescind the offer.

So when he rejected then PM Olmert's reckless offers (that, by the way, then FM Livni was aware of - so she knew that Jerusalem was being divided even though she claims now that she was never involved in such a thing, and the Shas party - that was promised that Jerusalem wasn't yet on the chopping block was also lied to, but that not the point of this note) he blew it.

We had elections and as a result of this democratic process we have a coalition headed by a PM who won't come close to offering what Olmert did.

And now, like a child, Abbas is trying to turn back the clock.

Were is a comment from the Obama team putting Mr. Abbas in his place for this chutzpah?]

Abbas challenges Mitchell: Will Netanyahu uphold Olmert's promises? PA President stresses that Palestinians are still committed to the positions they presented in response to Olmert's offer in 2008.
By Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
Published 01:48 23.05.10 Latest update 01:48 23.05.10

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell during their meeting in Ramallah Wednesday to clarify with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his stance on several issues. Among them, former prime minister Ehud Olmert's proposal on the borders and security arrangements for a future Palestinian state, as well as Netanyahu's views on the Palestinian response to that offer.

A source privy to the details of the conversation between Mitchell and Abbas told Haaretz that the Palestinian leader stressed that the Palestinians are still committed to the positions they presented in response to Olmert's offer, during negotiations held between August and December 2008.

(Read full article)

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.
.

Why Isn't There Peace? One Reason: Few People Know How Much is Being Offered

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 February '10

I’ve been having a dialogue through correspondence lately with someone describing himself as a moderate Palestinian who lives in the United States. What most impressed me in the exchanges--both from what my interlocutor said and how he described the views of other Palestinians--is the total lack of comprehension on their part—those who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along with those who live elsewhere, both moderate and radical--about Israeli positions toward peacemaking that are easily available on the public record.

Among Palestinians, as more broadly with almost all of the public in the Muslim-majority world and a lot of the elite classes in Europe, there exists a mythical Israel, reminiscent of the fabricated antisemitic stereotypes of the past, that has little to do with reality. They believe Israel isn't interested in peace, doesn't offer the Palestinians anything, opposes any real Palestinian state, intends to keep the West Bank (until Israel's withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip they would have added that territory as well), and is led by intransigent hardliners. Such a conception was comprehensible--if not fully accurate--describing the situation in parts of the 1980s but has nothing to do with the last 20 years.

In 2010 they have no idea what Israel actually offered in the 1990s' peace process, or at the Camp David summit in 2000, or what President Bill Clinton offered with Israel's agreement in December 2000, or what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proffered in 2008, or what is in the current Israeli government’s peace offer in 2010. All proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, the first three in close to 100 percent and the last three as equivalent to 100 percent (with some small, equal land swaps) in size to the pre-1967 West Bank and Gaza Strip.

(Read full post)
.