PA, vows it will never, ever cut Rewards for Terror payments, but... by Arnold Roth

...there's no need to be passing the hat for this loathsome and thoroughly remorseless murderer of Jewish children so quickly. We're told by reliable sources she continues to be well-taken-care-of - and funded - by Jordan's powerful and resurgent Muslim Brotherhood. This must be a great comfort to her and her circle as they fight to frustrate the efforts of the United States Department of Justice to have her extradited to stand trial in a Federal court in Washington.

Arnold/FrimetRoth..
This Ongoing War..
02 July '17..

The Palestinian Arab Rewards for Terror landscape is suddenly going through some changes.

That's not the official name of the long-running Palestinian Authority payments scheme that provides lifetime cash rewards and meaningless, well-paying jobs for convicted terrorists. But in the interests of calling a spade a spade it's how we have referred to it for years. (Others call it Pay-to-Slay which captures the nuance of this ugliness well.)

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

Fatah-Hamas Agreement: Another Nail in the “Peace Process’s” Coffin

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
27 April '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/04/fatah-hamas-agreement-another-nail-in.html

Suddenly, after years of persistent failure, Fatah and Hamas--which means the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas--have signed a detailed reconciliation agreement.

Why now? It's preparation for the UN and the claim that the PA is sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinians. In exchange for being able to claim it now rules both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Fatah (PA) made huge concessions that it has always refused to give before.

Naturally, the accord will break down. Presumably after the PA gets a lot of support for being an independent country later this year and before projected Palestinian elections in 2012.

Why is Hamas going along with this? Because the deal gives it a lot, including a promise of elections in a year. Hamas won the last elections and presumably is confident--especially as it looks at electoral successes for Hizballah in Lebanon and probably soon for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt--that it will win again.

But there's also another reason. Hamas is probably quite happy with the idea that many countries--and perhaps the UN--will recognize an independent Palestinian state unconditionally. In other words, there will be a widely, or internationally, accepted Palestine without the need to make peace with Israel. No concessions need be made. The Palestinians will get everything and give up nothing. They will not be bound in any way by border changes or security guarantees. The struggle to wipe Israel off the map can continue.

It's Hamas's dream come true.

Anyone who thinks this helps the peace process is deluded. Hamas will never accept any peace agreement with Israel and will radicalize Fatah's negotiating position out of competition between the two rivals to prove their militancy. The race to commit the most bloody terrorist acts would also intensify.

Make no mistake. Whether or not this development has any direct effect on the ground, it's another step toward the death of any real Israel-Palestinian peace process.

For a detailed account of the deal: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=218098

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.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.
. 

The elephants in the room, 2010 edition

Elder of Ziyon
03 October '10

Over the years, I have been publishing ever-expanding lists of the "elephants in the room" that would make it impossible to have a real peace. Here they are, updated with more elephants than ever:

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that is consistently and wholeheartedly against Israel's existence. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there. (See also Elephant 11.)

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. The current PA president is well past his term of office, and the current prime minister was never elected (in fact, he received a tiny percentage of the vote when he did run for election.) Negotiating with the PA is, literally, meaningless.

(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.
.

The Salam Fayyad show

Economic growth in PA result of foreign aid, not prime minister’s actions


Avi Trengo
Israel Opinion/Ynet
25 April '10

Salam Fayyad has been stating time and again that he is working towards declaring independence across all “occupied territories” in August 2011. He says that although he is willing to engage in negotiations with Israel, he does not view this as a requirement for Palestine’s establishment. The Palestinians demand the application of international laws on self-determination, he says, adding that Israel is not the only player in this game.

Fayyad has also threatened to act unilaterally: “"We are not relinquishing negotiations as a method to establish a state, but in case this doesn't work we are preparing for a second possibility – to turn our dream into a reality."

Fayyad is not a military leader. He is building himself up as a political leader, yet there is no better way to judge his actions than to examine his deeds on the economic front, thereby exposing the immense gap between his words and intentions.

Had his intention indeed been to be the Palestinian Ben-Gurion, he would have been acting for the sake of economic independence and the building of an infrastructure for the state in process. Instead, Fayyad dedicated the huge funds he’s been receiving from the world to paying salaries, in a bid to boost his support. He remembers well that the party he established years ago won less than 2% of the vote in the elections. Just like any politician, this is what truly interests him: building a support base.

Recently, he started rewarding not only the 150,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority and its security arms. Fayyad established a fund (seemingly for development purposes) that hands over funds directly from donor states to salaries in more than 500 city halls and local councils established in the PA. In the past 16 years, these grew fivefold.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
27 March '10

Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?

Up to now my view has been that the U.S. government didn’t want a crisis but merely sought to get indirect negotiations going between Israel and Palestinians in order to look good.

Even assuming this limited goal, the technique was to keep getting concessions from Israel without asking the PA to do or give anything has been foolish, but at least it was a generally rational strategy.

But now it has become reasonable to ask whether the Obama White House is running amuck on Israel, whether it is pushing friction so far out of proportion that it is starting to seem a vendetta based on hostility and ideology. And if that's true, there is little Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli leader can do to fix the problem.

A partial explanation of such behavior can be called, to borrow a phrase from the health law debate, a "single-payer option" as its Middle East strategy. That is, the administration seems to envision Israel paying for everything: supposedly to get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to talks, do away with any Islamist desire to carry out terrorism or revolution, keep Iraq quiet, make Afghanistan stable, and solve just about any other global problem.

What makes this U.S. tactic even more absurd is doing so at the very moment when it is coddling Syria and losing the battle for anything but the most minimal sanctions on Iran.

During his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to defuse the tension. His partners in government, we should never forget, are Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party, and President Shimon Peres, who has done more to promote Middle East peace than any other living Israeli leader.

But according to reliable sources, Obama went out of his way to be personally hostile, treating Netanyahu like some colonial minion who could be ordered around.

(Read full post)
.

The Palestinian Authority Walks Out of Talks with a Big Smile on Its Face

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
12 March '10

In 1994, Israel asserted, and the PLO accepted, that construction would continue on existing Jewish settlements. For the next 15 years, negotiations were never stopped by that building.

In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped negotiations because Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel defended itself. Of course, Hamas is also the PA’s enemy and the PA would be delighted if Israel destroyed that group. But for public relations’ purposes, the PA had to pretend inter-Palestinian solidarity.

Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but announced that it would keep building in east Jerusalem. The United States accepted that arrangement and even highly praised Israel’s policy as a major concession.

But the PA refused to return to negotiations. Why, because the construction offended it? No, because the PA’s radical forces don’t want to make a peace deal because they believe they can win total victory and destroy Israel. The more moderate forces are too weak to make a deal because of Hamas and their own radicals, though they also have some problems with mutual compromise.

In September 2009, Obama announced that within two months there would be full and final peace negotiations in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “yes”: PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said “no.”

No Western media outlet said that the PA refusal to negotiate for—as of today—about 15 months shows that the PA doesn’t want peace. Yet they had no hesitation about saying that Israel doesn’t want peace (or at least maybe doesn’t) because Israel announced the building of apartments on the basis of a policy it has followed for 16 years, without serious complaint for most of that time.

(Read full post)
.

Watch the Themes, Not the Headlines

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
24 February '10

A basic principle is to look at the underlying interests and perceptions of specific governments, not the immediate headlines. Over and over we see stories that prove false in a few days yet probably leave a lasting impression to the contrary on readers.

That thought is prompted by a recent flurry of stories that the Palestinian Authority is about to return to negotiations with Israel. In fact, for reasons I’ve outlined repeatedly in this blog (relating mainly to the radical nature of internal Palestinian politics) that isn’t going to happen for a long time.

Another story we keep hearing is about how Russia or China are about to support real sanctions on Iran. Yet every time an official from those countries makes a statement it is to the contrary.

(Read full post)
.

5 Questions on Vote Rigging at Palestinian Journo Union

Honest Reporting/Backspin
11 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

The PA hijacked recent elections held by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate to ensure key positions for Fatah cronies.

Ramallah journo Hani al-Masri told the Jerusalem Post :

About 300 “journalists” who participated in the election had nothing to do with journalism, he said. “Some of them were members of the Palestinian security forces, while most of the journalists who were registered as members of the syndicate’s generals assembly were actually employees of the Palestinian Authority or political activists,” he added.

The Maan News Agency further adds:

Another scandalous flaw blemishing the new Union is the so-called quota system which means that the union seats are divided among PLO factions in accordance with an anachronistic system dating back to the early 1980s.

Pursuant to this system, Fatah receives the lion’s share of the seats, followed by the PFLP and its former ideological sister, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), followed by a myriad of small factions, most of which have few followers and supporters on the ground.

(Read full post)

.

Abbas supports PA’s naming square after terrorist killer

Itamar Marcus/Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
19 January '10

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has defended the PA's decision to name a square after a terrorist killer, comparing it to Israel's decision to name a road after an Israeli victim of terror.

Last week, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu protested to the US about the PA's continued incitement to hatred and violence. Israel's protest was prompted by Palestinian Media Watch's exposure of a birthday celebration sponsored by Abbas, and the naming of a square in Ramallah. Both were in honor of the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who was responsible for the deaths of 37 Israeli civilians when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus in 1978.

The PA Minister of Culture, Siham Barghouti, subsequently defended this terrorist glorification. Now Abbas himself has defended it, comparing the PA's naming of the square after Mughrabi to Israel's naming a road after Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli cabinet minister who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Abbas refers to Mughrabi's bus hijacking and murder of 37 civilians as "military activities," and compares her to Zeevi, who was an officer in the Israeli army before entering politics.

(Read full bulletin)
.

Muslim Brotherhood Cleric Versus Palestinian "President": A Case Study of Islamism Versus Nationalism

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
17 January '10

Forget about the moderate mythology fed the Western public by its media. Forget the comforting nonsense about reasonable masses held back from being humanitarian democrats only by manipulative dictatorships. Here’s a glimpse of what the region is really like.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of the world’s most prestigious Muslim clerics and certainly the most internationally popular Islamist cleric. Some in the West like to think of him as some kind of pragmatic, modernizing moderate. As such he was welcomed in visiting Britain. But Qaradawi is a very hardline fellow indeed.

Siding with Hamas, Qaradawi, an Egyptian who lives in Qatar, gave a sermon urging Muslims to stone—in other words kill as a heretic—Palestinian Authority (PA) leader (often referred to as "president") Mahmoud Abbas. Angered by this statement, PA officials ordered West Bank imams to denounce Qaradawi for this action. One of those who did so was Raed al-Mahdawi of Ramallah who took a traditional conservative Muslim position, asking Qaradawi to apologize to Abbas and adding, "Muslim scholars should not use the podiums at their disposal to incite against any ruler or offend the feelings of any people."

But those who followed PA instructions were interrupted and forced to stop by angry worshippers; congregations walked out or chased the clerics out of the mosques altogether. In response, PA police beat up and arrested those protesting.

(Read full post)
.

Punishing the Innocent Instead of the Guilty

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
17 January '10

You have to admire Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiating savvy. Someone less shrewd might have assumed that with the whole world seemingly desperate to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, the party that refused would be penalized. Abbas correctly calculated that by refusing to talk, he could reap concrete benefits even before negotiations began.

He has already secured a 10-month settlement freeze from Israel. Initially, that was supposed to be matched by gestures toward normalization from Arab states. But the Arab states refused; Washington declined to press; and in the end, Israel gave something for nothing.

Yet Abbas still said no. So now the world is busily seeking more unilateral Israeli concessions to entice him to the table. Haaretz reported today that at a Quartet meeting last Wednesday, the European Union and Russia proposed demanding that Israel allow Orient House (the PA’s de facto foreign ministry) and other PA government offices to reopen in East Jerusalem. That is effectively a demand that Israel concede Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem even before the talks begin: while embassies are located in foreign countries, government offices are usually located in one’s own.

(Read full article)
.

Mahmoud Abbas, drama queen

Elder of Ziyon
14 January '10

Mahmoud Abbas is really big on making big, dramatic statements that get headlines but are meaningless.

The most famous recent example was when he claimed he would not run for President again. He said this with the full knowledge that there will be no elections in the near future, and that the president of the PA is subservient to the chairman of the PLO - which just so happens to be Mahmoud Abbas. He has no intention of relinquishing power any time soon, but when he makes threats like these (and he has done it numerous times before) he gets headlines and a modicum of support from the Fatah faithful (for whom he is also the leader.)

Today, he came up with a new one. He told an Egyptian newspaper that it is possible that Israel will assassinate him, just like they assassinated Arafat. He compared himself to Arafat by saying that just like Arafat was a man of peace who signed agreements with Israel, so is he, and just like Israel killed Arafat, so might he be killed by Israel. But he believes in Allah so it's no biggie.

(Read full post)
.

The Palestinians' Unilateral "Kosovo Strategy": Implications for the PA and Israel

Dan Diker
Institute for Contemporary Affairs (JCPA)
No. 575
January-February '10

Mahmoud Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.

Senior Palestinian officials note that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration has led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, despite that fact that leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.

The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States.

The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" includes a campaign of delegitimization of Israel, seeking to isolate Israel as a pariah state, while driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, the petition it submitted to the court after the Gaza war was not rejected by the ICC.

Finally, a unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and a Palestinian state.

(Read full report)

Dan Diker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he is also a senior foreign policy analyst. He is also an Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington.
.

Abbas sponsors birthday celebrations honoring terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, killer of 37

The text on the giant banner carrying Mughrabi's portrait at the birthday ceremony read:
"Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas
The Political and National Education Authority
Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos
The Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi."

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch(PMW)
31 December 09

This week Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas once again honored the memory of the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi - this time by sponsoring a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of her birth. Mughrabi led the worst terror attack in Israel's history in 1978, when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus and killed 37 civilians. Present at the ceremony were Palestinian dignitaries and a children's marching band. Earlier this year, Abbas sponsored a computer center named after Mughrabi.

The PA further glorified Mughrabi on the date of her birth when the Governor of Ramallah announced the naming of the "Dalal Mughrabi Square".

An article by Fatah spokesman Jamal Nazal in the official PA daily defined the terrorist Mughrabi as "the heroine of Palestine's heroines."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 30, 2009]

(Read full report)
.

Abbas turns 3 latest terrorists into Palestinian heroes

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
29 December 09

Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai -- a 45-year old Israeli and father of seven children - was killed in a drive-by shooting last Thursday. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, part of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the killing. On Friday night, Israeli forces located and killed three of the terrorists involved in the attack. The fourth surrendered to the PA police.

The response of the PA has been unequivocal support and backing for the terrorists. Since Friday, the leadership of the PA, the heads of Fatah, the heads of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids -- holy Martyrs -- while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as "murder in cold blood" and "assassination."

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared the killers "Shahids" (holy Martyrs) and sent his personal emissary to visit the families:
"Secretary General of the Presidents Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, conveyed condolences on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas to the residents of Nablus and to the families of the three Shahids [Martyrs] for the Martyrdom of their sons, who were assassinated by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning. He conveyed to the fighting families letters of condolences from the President [Abbas] and updated them as to [Abbas's] decision to declare them as Shahids [Martyrs] of the Palestinian revolution..."
Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the [Israeli] occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."
[PA TV (Fatah) News, Dec. 27, 2009]

(Read full article)
.

"Palestinians spend $500m on settlement goods"

Elder of Ziyon
20 December 09

From Ma'an:

Palestinians spend about a half billion US dollars every year buying products made in Israeli settlements, Palestinian Minister of Economy Hassan Abu Libdeh on Sunday.

Abu Libdeh, speaking during a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce in Nablus in the northern West Bank, was explaining the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) decision to crack down on the sale of settlement products.

He told investors, business figures, and local officials that his ministry decided that 2010 would be the last year settlement products would be allowed the Palestinian market.

But, despite some reservations, the PA will continue to abide by the Paris Protocol, the 1994 agreement that dictates that there are no economic barriers between it and Israel.

This number seems very high. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2007 the PA imported some $2.3 billion of goods from Israel altogether. It seems unlikely that over 20% of their goods imported from Israel originate in the territories.

(Continue reading)

.

Shalit deal motivates more kidnappings and strengthens Hamas

Itamar Marcus/Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch
06 December 09

As both Arab and Israeli sources report that an impending prisoner exchange will trade kidnapped Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit for Palestinian terrorists serving life sentences for murder, Palestinian sources report that this move will increase the motivation to kidnap Israeli soldiers. PMW has reported similar statements in the past in response to earlier prisoner exchanges.

In addition, the deal will improve the position of Hamas internationally and internally: Internationally, because Israel's demand that the world boycott Hamas will be weakened as Israel itself has negotiated this release with Hamas; and internally, because Hamas will be strengthened among the Palestinian population as the movement that succeeded in releasing prisoners.

The following are the recent articles:

Headline: "The effect of the prisoner exchange deal on the Palestinian map"
"The degree of influence of the prisoner exchange deal [on Palestinian society] is dependent on the conditions of the deal and whether it follows Israel's criteria, which include not freeing those serving lengthy prison terms ("whose hands are stained with blood") [parentheses in original] ...
The information thus far shows that Israel's criteria have largely been shattered, while the Palestinian criteria have been breached to a lesser degree...
Completing the deal according to Palestinian criteria means:
a. Israel understands only the language of force, since kidnapping is the only thing that leaves open the gates of hope for freedom for prisoners with long prison terms. This encourages others towards self-sacrifice for the sake of the homeland and to respond to the mandatory call to resist the occupation and to cause it loss of life.

(Continue article)
.

Why All the Excuses for Palestinian Intransigence Don’t Make Sense

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
05 December 09

The Arab-Israeli, or Israel-Palestinian, conflict is the most misrepresented subject in the entire world. The most basic facts are often distorted and the most fantastical of narratives provided, even in college classrooms, about what has actually happened.

On the most single important issue in this framework—why isn’t there peace, who wants and doesn’t want peace, and how can peace be achieved—there is a common set of arguments against Israel. It goes like this:

How can the Palestinians make peace when they are suffering so much and when Israel builds settlements, or Israeli leaders make statements saying they want to keep some of the territory or won’t give up east Jerusalem, or do a variety of other things? The idea that the Palestinians don’t year for peace, are eagerly trying to make some kind of agreement, but are only stopped by Israeli intransigence seems completely self-evident to the point that any challenge of this idea is ridiculed, ignored, or treated as some kind of dishonest manipulation.

People think that when they've made these points it constitutes some kind of devastating, unanswerable rebuttal proving why there is no peace and why Israel is responsible. In fact, these statements are all either long outdated or simply beside the point.

In addition, many of the things said are factually wrong. Israel has neither constructed new settlements nor expanded their boundaries for fifteen years. But for the moment let’s leave aside the factual issues. It is easy to show that these claims are inaccurate but either ears are shut or the columns of the publications are closed to such responses.

Still, nothing could be simpler than to answer these claims.

Here’s the answer:

If the Palestinians are so miserable, they feel their situation intolerable, and want to get rid of settlements, they have and have had a very simple solution. Drum roll, please:

Make peace as fast as possible in a way that settles almost all their ostensible claims.

Yet they have refused to do so on numerous occasions going back for decades. In fact, this is the thirtieth anniversary of the Egypt-Israel agreement at Camp David which first opened the door to a Palestinian state. Then there was the Reagan plan and U.S.-PLO dialogue of the 1980s, followed by the peace process of the 1990s, the Camp David 2 and President Bill Clinton offers of 2000, and most recently the offer of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who was absolutely desperate for a deal in order to save his political career) and most recently the Israeli cabinet’s peace plan in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly agrees to accept a Palestinian state.

(Continue article)
.

On Israel's Construction Freeze: U.S. Fails to Deliver: Instead of Praising, Europe Demands More

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
04 December 09

Israel acceded to a U.S. request to freeze construction on existing Jewish settlements; the Palestinian Authority (PA) refuses even to negotiate or to give anything in exchange for this concession. Who did Europe reward and was the United States able to mobilize praise for the former or criticism for the latter?

Need you ask?

It is now confirmed that my analysis of the State Department statement on the construction freeze was correct. It was intended as a statement supporting key Israeli demands—recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and changes in the 1967 borders—while also meeting major Palestinian demands, an independent state based on those borders.

Equally unnoticed, however, is the fact that the United States did not even get its European allies to endorse its new position. Once again, despite all the Obama Administration's apologies, flattery, and concessions, it could not even obtain the smallest things in exchange from those given such rewards.

The main U.S. effort was to get the Quartet of mediators (U.S., Europe Union, Russia, and UN) to endorse the new U.S. stance. The proposed statement would have urged resumed negotiations without preconditions to seek an agreement which:

"would fulfill the Palestinian goal of establishing an independent, viable state, based on the 1967 borders, agreed upon exchanges [of territory], and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect the developments [which occurred on the ground] and which fulfill the Israeli security requirements."

Reportedly, the Russians rejected the Jewish state and reflecting developments on the ground positions. This explains why the Quartet couldn’t issue a statement. But why didn’t the United States obtain the same statement from the European Union alone?

Instead, after making still another unilateral concession, Israel now has to fight off a hostile EU resolution calling for east Jerusalem to be capital of a Palestinian state without any mention of Israeli goals, including mention of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an easy way of making the resolution more even-handed.

So once again Israel is given the message, here reinforced by inept U.S. diplomacy, that the reward for making a concession are demands to make more concessions. This is not, however, to underestimate the importance of the new U.S. position as expressed in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement. The question, of course, is how long and whether the Obama Administration will stick to its new set of promises.

.

Regime Change of the PA Via Annexation

Prof. Alan Friedlander
Jerusalem Defender
02 December 09

Were I a member of the Netanyahu Administration I would have voted against the building freeze in the territories. They are sending a confusing message of negotiating against their own position even before the PA regime returns to the negotiation table with them. This was only to placate a foreign power, not in pursuance of good policy for their people. The destructively self effacing courtship of friendship from the anti Jewish PA must cease so that Israel’s penchant for kindness and patience no longer be used against it by anyone. Fair play begins with being willing to play by the rules.

The Israeli government’s blunder, however, has a silver lining that is found in their special treatment of East Jerusalem in the face of Western linkage of East Jerusalem with Judea and Samaria. It illustrates that they believe that the State of Israel, at least potentially, has absolute authority over the lands conquered in the defensive Six Day War, otherwise how could they assume that their annexation of East Jerusalem is valid? Thus the silver lining in the dark cloud that the Netanyahu Administration performed is that they have incidentally taken a real step in disputing those who erroneously say that U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 make lands conquered in defensive wars barred from annexation by the defensive conquerors. One of the leading foundations in the conflict over the territories is this very dispute.

(To full article)