Rubin - The "Oslo Syndrome" and the Terror Attack in Norway

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
31 July '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/07/oslo-syndrome-and-terror-attack-in.html

One of the most sensitive aspects of the very sensitive subject of the murderous terrorist attack in Norway by a right-wing gunman is this irony: The youth political camp he attacked was at the time engaged in what was essentially (though the campers didn’t see it that way, no doubt) a pro-terrorist program.

The camp, run by Norway’s left-wing party, was lobbying for breaking the blockade of the terrorist Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state without that entity needing do anything that would prevent it from being a terrorist base against Israel. They were backing and justifying forces that had committed terrorism against Israelis and killing thousands of people like themselves.

Even to mention this irony is dangerous since it might be taken to imply that the victims “had it coming.” The victims never deserve to be murdered by terrorists, even any victims who think that other victims of terrorists “had it coming.” This is in no way a justification of that horrendous terrorist act. It’s the exact opposite: a vital but forgotten lesson arising from it that can and should save lives in future.

Call it the Oslo Syndrome.

The Stockholm Syndrome is named after an incident in which hostages taken by a terrorist group then quickly became supporters of that group. A combination of intimidation (persuade these people that we’re friends or they’ll kill us); human psychology (get to know someone and hear their sad—whether or not true—story and sympathy arises); and ideology (having—or thinking you have—common ideas and interests with the terrorist movement).

Then there was the Oslo Process, the 1993-2000 effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In retrospect, it can be read as an attempt to solve a conflict by offering a great deal to those who instead rejected the offers, believing they could total victory through tactics including terrorism. Many in the West—especially Norway--think it only failed because not enough was offered and exculpating the terrorist side and strategy.

The Oslo Syndrome encompasses all of these things but goes a step further, for the most dangerous things you can do about terrorism is to make it appear politically successful and hence a great thing to do. For terrorism is not an ideology or a movement but merely a tactic: to murder noncombatants systematically and deliberately for political ends.

If you do this, will others, including the victims, be so terrorized as to give you whatever you want? Will they ignore the moral implications and support you nonetheless? Can you successfully make the argument that you are so oppressed as to justify terrorism, as the ambassador of Norway implied is true against Israel after the killings in the summer camp? Is it possible to engage in terrorism yet convince much of the world that your victims are the real terrorists?

JINSA - Twisting Terror So That Israel Deserves it But Norway Doesn't

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA Report #: 1,110
July 29, 2011

http://www.jinsa.org/node/2420

It should be hard to pick on Norwegians and their government this week, but it is impossible to overlook Svein Sevje, Norway's ambassador to Israel. Trying to "outline the similarity and the difference in the two cases" (mass murder of Norwegians by a Norwegian and mass murder of Jews by Palestinians) the ambassador showed himself to be both ignorant and arrogant.

"We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel," he said. First of all, who cares what Norwegians "consider"? Consider for a moment upon whom they have bestowed the Nobel "Peace" Prize. But beyond that, his point is that a political situation that the Palestinians don't like is an understandable - if not acceptable - reason to engage in terrorism against Israel. In other words, dead Jews are Israel's fault.

The Palestinians were offered a state at the UN in 1947, next to the State of Israel. The presumptive Palestinian state was aborted by Arabs who ended up in illegal occupation of most of where it should have been. Israel acquired the territory in a later attempt by the Arabs to erase the Jewish state. Israel, even after decades of war and terrorism is still willing to agree to a neighboring Palestinian state (an act of enormous forbearance and generosity) as long as the legitimacy of Israel is finally acknowledged and accepted by those same Palestinians. But it isn't. So killing Jews makes sense. Right?

Na'ava Applebaum and her father Dr. David Applebaum were murdered in a café the night before her wedding; six members of the Schijveschuurder family were massacred while eating pizza at a Sbarro restaurant; and 92-year-old Chanah Rogan was blown up at a Passover Seder. Their deaths, according to Ambassador Sevje, were "because of a defined (Palestinian) goal that is related to the Israeli occupation. There are elements of revenge against Israel and hatred of Israel. To this you can add the religious element to their actions.

"In the case of the terror attack in Norway," he continued, "the murderer had an ideology that says that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is forgoing Norwegian culture," trying and failing to make sense of Anders Breivik, who blew up a government building and killed scores of children at a summer camp with a hunting rifle.

Let's see if we understand. The ideology that says Israel cannot be the nation-state of the Jewish people and Jews are expendable in the quest for Palestine "from the River to the Sea" is OK, but the ideology that says Norway should be for Norwegians of a certain sort and not for others is not OK.

Or - it is understandable for Palestinians to kill Jewish children but it is not understandable for Norwegians to kill Norwegian children. There are "elements of revenge...and hatred" in Palestinians who kill Jews, but that's because Jews are occupiers. There were no "elements of revenge...and hatred" in Anders Breivik. He just loved those Norwegian government employees and Norwegian children he killed. Or maybe the Ambassador meant that no one in his right mind would kill Norwegian children, so Breivik is demented. But you - or at least he - can understand how Palestinians could kill Jewish children, that act isn't demented, it is rational, caused by the damned Jews and their state. Breivik, by his theory, is a fluke in an otherwise nice, loving, rational, diverse, multicultural and superior Norway.

By Ambassador Sevje's accounting, Israel is a miserable occupier that deserves whatever it gets. "Those who believe [that terrorism against Israelis is the result of Israeli behavior] will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo."

This man is a representative of the Norwegian government.

Ignorant and arrogant doesn't begin to cover it.

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Stern - Norway's Tragedy a Wake-up Call?

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
27 July '11

http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/2011/07/norways-tragedy-wake-up-call.html


At least 76 people have been murdered in Norway in the country's most shocking and horrific terror attack in the country's history. Words are being thrown around - as is the blame. Already, people are criticizing the police for not getting there fast enough, for not being prepared. My country is prepared for such a massacre of innocents, and let me tell you, there is, to mangle Tevye's quote from Fiddler on the Roof, no great honor in being prepared.

We are prepared because we have been living this reality for decades. Our children are raised with the same trauma these Norwegian youth are feeling. Those that survived will be afraid - afraid of the dark, of being in places where things aren't locked, of noises and things that move quickly in the peripheral of their sight. If they are like my youngest daughter, they won't believe their parents can protect them - we failed already once and cannot be trusted. In my case, perhaps it is guilt by association - I'm a parent...and little Hadas Fogel's parents didn't, couldn't protect her. All evidence points to the fact that Ruthie Fogel managed to protect her two small sons by blocking the door behind which they slept. That thought brings my daughter comfort and last night, for the first time in months, she slept with the window opened and the door to her bedroom unlocked.

I did not tell her about what happened to the children in Norway. She has suffered enough trauma and I do not want to bring it all back to her again after she has, slowly over the months, begun to put this behind her.

The children of Norway, in fact all of Norway will cry rivers of tears, only to find that even when you think you have cried your last, there is more. And they will wonder at the hatred of one man, who could inflict such suffering on those he never met, those who did nothing to him, those who wanted to live.

Labels are needed, or so people think, to make put this tragedy into terms that can be understood, blamed. "Christian fundamentalist" is one that is being spread around.

I think the point here isn't the religion, so much as the action and, perhaps even more important, the reaction after the fact.There were those who jumped to the conclusion that this must have been done by Muslim extremists. That was wrong.

Now, because it was done by a Christian extremist, there are those who feel Muslim extremism is somehow vindicated, absolved of guilt, etc. One man wrote to me and asked what percentage of Muslims are terrorists. Obviously, if you factor in the hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world, only a fraction of a fraction can be counted as among those who have crossed the line into barbarity.

I asked him a different question. What percentage of terrorists are Muslim? He didn't like that question; didn't really respond to it. We got into a discussion of profiling. He said it was racist; I said it was a necessary evil. He said it was humiliation. I said better the humiliation of one; than the deaths of dozens. I explained that I go through checkpoints every day of my life; the difference in the way I am treated and the way the Arabs are treated is in the few minutes it takes to ask for their identity papers or permits.

He said those few minutes were too long; I said you would not feel that way if it was your child. I told him about Aliza; about the months of trauma she has been slowly overcoming. I sent him links to posts about her. He said he would read them.

Medad - Official Norway Just Lost My Sympathy

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
26 July '11




According to this JTA report

Norway's ambassador to Israel drew distinctions between the Oslo and Utoeya massacres and Palestinian terrorism. Svein Sevje said in an Israeli newspaper interview Tuesday that while the Norwergian bomb and gun rampages that killed 76 people and Palestinian attacks should both be considered morally unacceptable, he wanted to "outline the similarity and the difference in the two cases. 

"Palestinians, the ambassador told Maariv, "are doing this because of a defined goal that is related to the Israeli occupation. There are elements of revenge against Israel and hatred of Israel. To this you can add the religious element to their actions."

..."We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel," he said. "Those who believe this will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo."

Since we all know that Arab terror preceded the 1967 war, "occupation" cannot be the cause - unless, of course, all of Zionism and the return of Jews to their homeland is defined as an "occupation". And, I'm guessing, the ambassador and the political establishment of Norway does believe that. Like that "boycott" sign at the island the day before the slaughter.

Woe is Norway.

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Oslo - not the "occupation" is undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
17 December 09

"The truth is harsh. The occupation is destroying Israel. It is undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations."

So claims Haaretz Correspondent Ari Shavit in today's edition.

I would suggest that, in retrospect, much of the activity surrounding Oslo - rather than the "occupation" - has been "undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations."

Oslo corrupted our respect for human life. Soldiers and civilians alike became no more than pawns in a game of peacemaking under the gun. And today, after sinking up to our noses in the mire of Oslo, with politicians often ultimately treating brutal murders as temporary insignificant inconveniences, we find a dramatic increase in murder, violent crime, even violence in the schoolyard.

Oslo corrupted the very top of Israel's intelligence system. Some allowed their ideology to seriously cloud their judgment as they naively thought they could sub-contract Israel's security to their Palestinian pals who they wined and dined on open expense accounts. Others, with an eye on their career track, opted to present reports and analysis that supported the "process" rather than what they really thought. And it didn't stop there. Some of these top Israelis entered into a web of business relations with their Palestinian counterparts. Money - the ultimate corrupter.

Oslo corrupted the political system, with it becoming acceptable to make bare-faced lies to the Knesset, as was the case when Shimon Peres denied the existence of his "Jerusalem Letter", and later when time and again the explicit policy choices made by the citizens was ignored after election day. But it wasn't just the lies and the vote buying. Oslo introduced brazen and open foreign interference in the Israeli democratic process with money from the European Union and other nations financing various leftist groups in Israel and even some politicians.

Oslo so corrupted respect for the democratic process that the ruling government even went so far as to use the services of the State's intelligence apparatus to undermine the standing of their political rivals and silence them rather than engage them in serious debate. To this day serious public debate is marred by the efforts to silence voices with charges of incitement and the "extremist" label.

Oslo corrupted the news media as reporters abandoned their critical "watchdog" role, opting to either distort or ignore the truth as their contribution to the "peace process".

(Read full post)
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A Point of View

Marc Prowiser
Yesha Views
14 December 09

Many have asked that I give an update and my view of the Security situation in Yehuda and Shomron today. Not an easy task, due to the many mitigating factors that change every time a Government official - either here in Israel, an Arab or American - sneezes.

The simplest way to put it is that we are here in our communities in our heartland and there are many Arabs that want us out, (not all of the Arabs wish to see the Jews leave this area). It is important to remember, that the want and desire to be “Jew Free”, doesn’t apply just to Yehuda and Shomron, but all of Israel, this view is not held by all Arabs, but certainly most.

It is impossible to discuss the Security situation in Yehuda and Shomron without first reminding everybody that this conflict did not start yesterday. Whereas this is not the place to get into a history lesson, it is the place to remind everybody that ignorance regarding the conflict is the wrong foot to stand on. To quote a friend, “the Jewish –Arab conflict started when Jews decided to fight back”.

I will discuss the situation today. Since Oslo, we have witnessed the birth of a new Arab army in the Middle East, that of the “Palestinian Authority”, however this is not the only Arab Military body in this region. There are many branches to this tree, with each branch spreading out to even more factions. Fatah itself is divided into many factions based on regions and philosophies, i.e. Nablus, Ramallah and so on. The same principal applies to Hamas, of course from there we can add on the Jihad Islami, PFLP, Al Qaeda, the list goes on. Each of these “Units” claims their own agenda and “work load”, but they do work also in accordance to the strategical and political whims of the two (Fatah and Hamas) leaderships.

(Full article)
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Weekly Commentary: Palestinian demands to free terrorists - the failed litmus test

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
1 October 09

If a Palestinian gunman was captured tonight as he was murdering an Israeli family what would "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas like Israel to with him?

Transfer him to a Palestinian prison to serve his sentence?

No.

Transfer him to the Palestinian Authority to be tried and punished?

No.

How about banish him from the country?

No.

Then what does "moderate" Abbas demand that Israel do with a Palestinian gunman captured as he was murdering an Israeli family?

Release him.

That's right.

And for a hero's welcome.

This is a fundamental problem.

Because when Palestinian "moderates" want Israel to release all Palestinian terrorists regardless of when they committed their crimes, they are effectively saying that no Palestinian commitment is binding. - including the very anchor commitment of Oslo to abandon violence.

In the heady early days of Oslo when some leading Israeli Leftists argued for the release of terrorists with "blood on their hands", the debate was over murderers serving time for pre-Oslo crimes. Post Oslo crime was just that: crime.

But not in the eyes of the Palestinian "moderates".

For these "moderate" Palestinians, terrorists aren't guilty of murder - at most they are guilty of bad PR for the cause.
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Another Tack: Friendly Little Green Men

Sarah Honig
JPost
24 September 09

It's hunky-dory to kick off another year with comforting reassurances of stability. There are no unsettling changes in the wings. What was is what will be, albeit with slight superficial variations. For instance, Yossi Beilin will keep on tinkering with our existential interests as he did so assiduously hitherto. Although he announced his retirement, indefatigable Beilin is still out there avidly looking for E.T., still trying to broker that intergalactic encounter between alien life-forms, the one that will bless us with universal bliss.

Seeking peace in our time and in our land has often been likened to seeking friendly little green men in the outermost cosmos. The probability of finding what you're looking for is infinitesimally negligible in both cases. Yet Yossi won't let disheartening odds dampen his enthusiasm. Same goes for stunning past failures.

So what if the Oslo he concocted behind the backs of Israel's elected government unequivocally manifested itself as a gargantuan flop, as have his Geneva Initiative and his political aspirations (the Meretz he led until recently was trounced in the last elections). Beilin won't let staggering setbacks get in the way of grand designs.

IN THE 1950s prominent social psychologist Leon Festinger, progenitor of the Cognitive Dissonance theory, focused on the obsessive rejection of tangible reality by fanatic followers of fantasy. He studied a small cult that awaited the imminent arrival of aliens from another galaxy. They calculated dates and prepared meticulously for the great event - which never materialized. Yet members of the flying saucer cult didn't relinquish their faith in "Guardians" from outer space and their promises for a new universe.

This led Festinger to observe in his ground-breaking 1956 book When Prophecy Fails that the collapse of prophecies disseminated by cults "often has the opposite effect from what the average person might expect. The cult following gets stronger and the members even more convinced of the truth of their actions and beliefs."

Israel's homegrown peace cult is proof positive.

Buoyed by his blunders, fearless Beilin hasn't given up on the Geneva washout. Valiantly insisting it's still a viable option, he last week ceremoniously announced the publication of a 400-page, most-detailed-yet version of the "grassroots" recipe for peace he first inflicted upon us in 2003. Shimon Peres, Yossi's patron of old, received an advance copy of the updated Geneva Initiative. So has Hillary Clinton (in the hope she'd get Washington to impose it on the vast majority of Israelis who clearly rejected the original) and all EU's movers and shakers (in the hope they'd egg Hillary to do their bidding).

The fact that nobody authorized him to represent Israel, haggle on its behalf and determine its future is of no hindrance to Beilin. He's done it previously. In August 1993 the then-deputy foreign minister pulled off a similar stunt in the Norwegian capital. He later pitched the Osloite concoction to his boss, Peres, who proceeded to convince then-PM Yitzhak Rabin that the Palestinians had undergone a strategic metamorphosis.

With much fanfare and self-congratulation the clandestine deal was unveiled to the citizenry as a glorious fait accompli. The intelligence community didn't raise a ruckus, the intellectual elites celebrated and the obstinate opponents were lumped with Hamas as "enemies of peace."

Eventually, however, Nobel prizes notwithstanding, the strategic metamorphosis was revealed as nothing but a marketable version of the old Arab phased plan for Israel's destruction, rendered feasible via the invaluable complicity of duped Israelis.

This is what comes of lack of accountability and failure to demand reckoning. We're now in the midst of our annual neurotic Yom Kippur self-flagellation orgy, wherein we commemorate the 1973 war. This faultfinding frenzy, however, only accentuates the dearth of probes into Beilin's Oslo fiasco.

There are no academic studies, investigative reports or exposés about how our national leadership was bamboozled into crowning Arafat the prince of peace, importing him and 50,000 henchmen from Tunis and arming them. This gratuitous debacle is of unprecedented proportions. It's still ongoing, unresolved and with no happy end in sight. It's far from being behind us.

NONETHELESS, ACADEMICIANS and media hotshots refrain from pointing fingers at the enlightened bunglers who brought us Oslo, because they're all chums in the same progressive fraternity of radical postmodernist flying-saucer devotees.

A decade after Oslo literally bombed, an undeterred Beilin promoted its Geneva spin-off to demonstrate that, contrary to overwhelming empirical evidence, we do have interlocutors with whom to chew the fat. Substantiating Festinger's conclusions, Beilin went on the offensive to redeem his incontrovertible flop, to show Israel's benighted masses how right he is - even if it kills them.

He is still at it. In the coming year, the resurrected Geneva's boosters plan seminars on each of the 13 intractable irritations which keep peace away, among them Jerusalem, security, water, the PA economy and refugees. A cult convocation is already scheduled this October in Prague to palaver there about our H2O-shortage here. A much-ballyhooed junket to pleasing faraway climes never hurt any space cadet.
(Continue)
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Why Have a Forced Marriage?

Ted Belman

israpundit.com

23 September 09

Sultan Knish suggests Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars

The answer is simple enough. Defensive PR, like defensive warfare, never works. And Israeli PR and Israeli warfare has been on the defensive for decades now. If you break down Israel’s message to a single sentence, it’s “We didn’t do any of the things we’re accused of.” That is the kind of message you expect to hear from criminal defendants, and it’s a message that impresses no one. The only thing it does is produce a debate about the validity of the accusations themselves, which is to PR what Stalingrad was to the Russian front.

I go further. Our diplomacy, if it has any chance to overcome the demonization of Israel and win us a better deal, must be rights based.

Rather than resist the demanded freeze with the argument that such settlements must be permitted internal growth, we should have been asserting our right to build because it is our right.

Rather than hide behind the necessity for Palestine to be demilitarized or to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, we should be claiming our right to Judea and Samaria.

Rather than stand by failed agreements which have been honoured only in the breach, such as Oslo and the Roadmap, we should be discarding them.

Rather than wait passively for the next peace initiative to broadside us, we should have an initiative of our own. We must take matters into our own hands.

In a way, Netanyahu, with his economic plan for the “Palestinians”, is doing just that, but it is the wrong plan. It is premised on the basis that as the Palestinians develop a greater stake in peace, they will be more wont to preserve it. That may or may not be so. Essentially he is investing in a marriage, believing that it will work to our advantage in the long run. By doing so, he forecloses the option of squeezing the Arabs out of Judea and Samaria.

Many accept it as inevitable that we will have to live with them and must make the best of it. Others reject such a marriage, or separation or divorce if that’s what it leads to. They don’t want to get married in the first place.

Why struggle to share a house? Why not get one party to move out.
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Israel's Self-inflicted Woes

Daniel Mandel
JPost
10 August 09

When foreign pressure mounts on Israel, Israelis, still an embattled people, tend rightly to criticize those applying the pressure. Yet they often neglect their own role in stimulating a climate of foreign pressure.

The Oslo process greatly augmented this ruinous pattern.

Today, Israel is under pressure from the Obama administration to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and to proceed with the creation of a Palestinian state. Most ominously, the auguries are that the US will do little to nothing to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons if Israel doesn't cooperate with dictates such as these.

Such pressure, misguided and hostile as it is, has its origin in Israel's own errors. In return for having legitimized Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement in 1993, logic and prudence dictated that Israel obtain strict Palestinian adherence to the Oslo agreements, protest violations as these occurred, and even break off negotiations if compliance was not forthcoming.

YET BIG gambles often lead to further gambles and matters proceeded very differently. Although the late Yitzhak Rabin spoke of rolling back the Palestinian Authority if it violated the trust Israel had placed in it, this proved an empty resolution. Once Oslo had been signed, Israeli governments preferred not to notice the fact that the PA was building up terrorist militias and radicalizing the Palestinian public for jihad. Merely to point this out was to earn official umbrage as an opponent of peace.

The truth, of course, was diametrically opposite: The only possibility of peace lay with the Palestinians fulfilling their agreements, not ignoring their violations of them.

Supporters of Oslo often contended that it would improve Israel's standing in the world. The opposite has been true. Even before Oslo's collapse in 2000, Western governments ended up accepting the logic implicit in dealing with the Arafat-controlled PA: that the Palestinians must be seeking just ends like statehood alongside Israel, not Israel's elimination, and that concessions from Israel were therefore the key to peace.

As a result, rather than ostracizing the PA in 2000 for its resort to a war after it rebuffed president Bill Clinton's peace proposals, much of the world merely concluded that Israel had not offered enough. Anti-Israel boycotts and divestment campaigns became commonplace, especially at universities raising tomorrow's leaders. Anti-Semitic activity in Europe has risen steeply since 1993, according to all statistical data.

Ariel Sharon was elected in 2001 after Oslo had foundered in bloodshed and produced a new Palestinian terror wave. He spoke frequently of the PA as not warranting Israeli concessions due to its continued promotion of terrorism and incitement.

Yet he too ended up recommencing talks with Mahmoud Abbas and agreeing to the 2003 road map, without the PA having done anything to justify those huge steps.

Previously, Palestinian compliance had been theoretically necessary, but practically ignored: Each new agreement simply reiterated Palestinians obligations that had been dishonored since the last signing ceremony.

Now, the road map discarded even the need for the appearance of compliance. It called for major Israeli concessions in advance of Palestinian compliance with past agreements.

Israel accepted the road map with 14 reservations relating, among other things, to unfulfilled Palestinian obligations, but the US never seriously took note of these. Again, the conclusion was drawn: If Israel was prepared to negotiate with the PA, it should make further concessions. In other words, continued negotiations undercut Israel's ability to insist on Palestinian compliance.

PEACE NOW pioneer Amos Oz had once prophesied that Oslo would make Israel justifiably tough on all Palestinian violations. This too was a delusion: PA atlases and textbooks continue to pretend that Israel doesn't exist, and Fatah's constitution remains unchanged in its call for Israel's destruction and the use of terrorism. Terrorists like George Habash and Samir Kuntar were personally lauded by Abbas; and terror acts like the slaughter of eight students in a Jerusalem seminary in March 2008 were considered acts of martyrdom, the perpetrators praised in Abbas's publications.

The result of ignoring Palestinian malfeasance has been that today, the unreconstructed PA continues to get handouts from the international community (more than $900 million this year from the US alone), while Israel comes under relentless pressure to make concessions in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Palestinians regard this as happy division of labor: Recently, Abbas told The Washington Post that "I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements... Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality... the people are living a normal life." That much of the world, including the Obama administration, ignores Palestinian incitement, terror and rejection of Israel while blaming Jews living in the West Bank and Jerusalem as the cause of the impasse was not inevitable. Oslo - which no one imposed on Israel - paved the way.

The writer is a fellow in history at Melbourne University, director of the Zionist Organization of America's Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (London: Routledge, 2004).
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Its An All Or Nothing Deal Now.

By Ted Belman
Israpundit
12 August 09

Yesterday, I commented on the NYT article The Two State Solution Doesn’t Solve Anything but failed to address it on a strategic level.

For years now, many, myself included, have commented on the intent of the far left and the Muslim movements on Campus and elsewhere was not to usher in the two state solution or end the occupation but to end the State of Israel. Now the NYT has brought this intent into the mainstream. In the weeks and months to come, you will see more and more voices abandoning the two-state solution for the bi-national state.

Its happened before.

When Oslo wasn’t going anywhere, Thomas Friedman of the NYT, reported that he had a conversation with King Abdullah about the peace process and the need for a plan and Abdullah said something to the effect that he happened to have such a plan in his drawer. Freidman introduced it to the world. That was in 2002. When the Roadmap was introduced in 2003, the Plan was given great prominence though it was in great conflict with the governing principle for 35 years, namely Resolution 242. When Sharon strenuously objected Powell rammed it down his throat saying the Roadmap was only a process. And now it has totally replaced Res 242 as the operating principles to achieve peace. But peace isn’t what it aspires to.

For years the left was complaining that Israel was a liability to the US and that the US was acting against its interest by allowing “those powerful Jews” to control policy. These complaints went mainstream with the publication of The Israel Lobby two years ago. Since then the attack on Israel as a liability has gained momentum. Obama’s policies certainly reflect this view.

And now the NYT leads the way again with its attack on Israel’s legitimacy arguing there is no peace in sight without satisfying the Arabs on the refugee problem created in 1948. This issue, it implies, can only be satisfied by Israel by accepting a bi-national state solution. This would be the end of Israel. No problem, they say, the creation of Israel was a mistake to begin with.

This issue could long ago been satisfied by the resettlement of the refugees all over the world. But the Arabs would have none of that and the West went along. No one cares about the refugees. They care about the take-down of Israel.

It is not just the Right that have recognized the futility of the peace process and the fact that a two-state solution is unattainable and unworkable. Now the Left is openly saying the same thing.

The choice is clear. Either Israel will be forced to accept a bi-national state or Israel will resist the pressure and hold on to Judea and Samaria and ultimately annex them giving the Arabs autonomy only.

This has been driven home by the ongoing Fatah Conference which adopted a hard line on the refugee issue and even went so far as to demand all of Jerusalem. You might ask what’s it to them. A lot. It would mean the end of conflict. For the Arabs, the conflict will only be ended when Israel is ended. This is what the conflict has always been about.

Obama is clamouring for the commencement of negotiations. To what end? There is no compromise to be had from the Arabs and hopefully no compromise to be had from Israel and certainly no expectation that Israel will accede to all the demands of the Arabs.

Now that the Times has broken the ice, more and more people and countries will be promoting the bi-national state.

Its an all or nothing deal now.

Related: Malley Stumbles Upon the Truth: Peace Isn’t Possible
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Need U.S. imposed comprehensive plan .....

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Haaretz Correspondent Zvi Bar'el: Need U.S. imposed comprehensive plan for complete withdrawal - freeze pointless otherwise

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
It is hardly surprising that Haaretz Correspondent Zvi Bar'el, like anyone who dogmatically thinks that withdrawal to the '67 will yield utopian peace (give me that Oslo religion - it's good enough for me) and thus recommends that a temporary reduction in terror be considered permanent in order to justify full withdrawal. The twist here is that Bar'el is linking a settlement freeze to the presentation of an imposed American "solution".

The propaganda campaign for an imposed "solution" is on.

Damn the democratic process.

We know what's best for Israel and if we can't get our way via the ballot box then let America impose it.

Meretz (3 Knesset seats) head MK Chaim Oron this morning embraced an American imposed solution (whatever it is) this morning in a live interview on Israel Radio in which he explained that it didn't matter what Fatah adopted at its meeting in Bethlehem. What matters is that Israel and the Palestinians sit at a table to be presented with the American plan.]

Freezing for failure

By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent 09/08/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106160.html

It should be said from the onset: Do not freeze settlement construction, do not stop it in part or periodically, not for six months, not for a single day. As long as the U.S. administration does not present a comprehensive plan that explains its endgame - what the end will look like and what the shape and character of the Palestinian state will look like - the demand for a cessation of construction is pointless. It is a pathetic return to the doctrine of "confidence-building measures," which led nowhere. The demand to freeze settlement construction is like the demand to remove roadblocks or cease razing homes; all these demands and similar ones mean only one thing: making the continuation of the occupation a little more pleasant.

The demand for a cessation of settlement construction will have no impact on the political process as long as they are not telling the Israeli and Palestinian public what will happen with the half-million Israelis who already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. How many of them will have to be evacuated? How much money will this cost and who will pay for it? Evacuating 7,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip cost more than NIS 10 billion.

Even if only 100,000 Jews are evacuated from the West Bank the move will cost, on the basis of this estimate, some NIS 150 billion - about 50 percent of the national budget for an entire year. It is true that it amounts to "only" about 8 percent of the cost of the American war in Iraq to date, and maybe for the sake of peace in the Middle East the U.S. administration would be willing to invest another 8 percent in the area, but someone in Washington must articulate this clearly. That would be much more convincing than halting the work of a crane.

American pressure yielded an impressive achievement when they twisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arm and got him to say that he wants "two states for two peoples." But what comes next?
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