When Abbas reflexively threatens a prominent European guest with violence

...Unable to countenance even mild criticism, and unwilling or unable to engage in serious conversation even with European interlocutors, much less with Israel, Abbas may finally have made the Palestinian cause too difficult for the Europeans, bring the circle back around to Boris Johnson. Not only did he criticize BDS (in which he clearly criticized British academics more than Palestinians), he continued, "I cannot think of anything more foolish" than to boycott "a country that when all is said and done is the only democracy in the region, the only place that has in my view, a pluralist, open society." If there was a gaffe, it wasn't by Johnson.

Shoshana Bryen..
Gatestone Institute..
17 July '16..
Link: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8492/boris-johnson-abbas

The naming of Boris Johnson as Britain's Foreign Minister set off in his home country a storm of name-calling and hand-wringing that approximates the Democrat reaction to Donald Trump. Without wading into British politics, there is one specific incident that the Daily Mail called an impolitic "gaffe" that should be assessed at greater length -- and from a different angle:

Last November local [Palestinian] officials called off a visit to Palestine on safety grounds after the then-London mayor told an audience in Tel Aviv that a trade boycott of Israeli goods was "completely crazy" and supported by "corduroy- jacketed, snaggletoothed, lefty academics in the UK."

Palestinian officials accused him of adopting a "misinformed and disrespectful" pro-Israel stance and said he risked creating protests if he visited the West Bank.

Johnson was right on the merits: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is largely a function of university campuses and has little to do with Israel-UK trade, which is robust and growing. But the incident should be understood as a window into Palestinian strategy, and as such should not be overlooked.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas did not use the opportunity presented by Mr. Johnson's visit to offer his view, to explain why Johnson was wrong, to promote UK-Palestinian trade, or even to argue for BDS. He reflexively threatened a prominent European guest with violence. It surely would have erupted on schedule if Johnson had continued his visit. The Palestinians are no longer interested in discussing their interests/demands/wishes. They have entered a period of ultimatum: one-hundred percent or nothing; my way or violence even with their friends.

It was in the atmosphere of "no criticism/no negotiation" that Abbas went to a European Parliament meeting in Brussels in June, following an inconclusive French-sponsored "peace process" meeting that included neither Israelis nor Palestinians -- a mechanism Abbas assumed would result in French demands on Israel. It did not -- putting Abbas in a foul mood for the European Parliament meeting that was prelude to the release of the Middle East Quartet report on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Again, Abbas expected to hear only criticism of Israel.

Then, European Parliament President Martin Shulz tried to arrange a meeting between Abbas and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. Rivlin agreed, Abbas declined -- and it was later revealed that Abbas even changed hotels when he discovered he and Rivlin were sharing a roof. It was in Brussels where Abbas claimed that some Israeli rabbis were calling for Israel to poison Palestinian water -- an echo of Suha Arafat's claim in 1999 that Israelis were poisoning Palestinian air and water. Abbas received a standing ovation at the end of his remarks; Suha received a kiss from then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

(Continue Reading)

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Abbas' Eid al-Fitr attack on the Quartet - by Ruthie Blum

...It is due to the Oslo Accords that his mentor, Arafat, signed -- and which only Israel upheld -- that he controls a de facto state in Judea and Samaria. With all the foreign money that has been earmarked for its development, the PA should have been Singapore by now. Instead, its best-known commodity is "martyrdom." No reports or recommendations can alter that fact.

Ruthie Blum..
Israel Hayom..
07 July '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16629

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas marked Eid al-Fitr -- the end of Ramadan -- by making a ritual pilgrimage on Wednesday to a very holy site among his people: the grave of former PLO chief Yasser Arafat.

It was a fitting occasion for the PA leader to pay respects to his predecessor, a mass murderer whose greatest achievement was persuading the world that he had changed his stripes. Though Arafat's vision all along was to annihilate the Jewish state in stages -- which caused his internal rivals to consider him too moderate -- the West took his acquiescence to negotiate and sign the Oslo Accords to be a turning point.

Between the signing of Oslo I in 1993 on the White House lawn and Oslo II at Taba in 1995, the archterrorist was even awarded a joint Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in 1994.

At the Camp David summit in 2000, aimed at actually achieving the "peace" for which he had won the most prestigious global award, Arafat first blew up the talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and subsequently launched a five-year suicide bombing war against innocent Israelis.

Abbas never enjoyed the kind of popularity at home and abroad in which Arafat basked. But he is made of the same cloth, in spite of sporting a suit and tie, rather than a keffiyeh and phony medal-studded army fatigues.

It should have come as no surprise, then, when the PA leader took the occasion of the Muslim holiday and the site of Arafat's burial to blast the report, released last Friday by the Middle East Quartet, calling on Israel and the Palestinians "to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations."

Incensed that the Quartet -- comprised of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia -- had the gall to include the PA in its recommendations rather than single out Israel for wrongdoing, Abbas called on the U.N. Security Council to intervene and reject the document.

Can You Imagine? The EU Causes Peace Process And Quartet Meltdown

...It is hard to conceive any action more likely to undermine trust or prejudge final status issues than the Quartet’s failure to condemn the EU’s own aberrant behaviour and call for an immediate halt to its illegal activities in the West Bank.

David Singer..
Jwire.com..
17 February '15..

Revelations that the European Union (EU) has been acting illegally in funding and facilitating the construction of more than 400 unauthorised buildings in areas in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) under exclusive Israeli control – signals the end of:

- negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap and
- the role of the Quartet – America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union – as mediator in those negotiations

The Daily Mail – in exposing the EU’s bizarre behaviour – reported on 6 February that:

“Official EU documentation reveals that the building project is intended to ‘pave the way for development and more authority of the PA over Area C (the Israeli area)’, which some experts say is an attempt to unilaterally affect facts on the ground. Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank. They proudly fly the EU flag, and display hundreds of EU stickers and signs. Some also bear the logos of Oxfam and other NGOs, which have assisted in the projects.”

The EU through its spokesman- Shadi Othman – attempted to justify such conduct by reiterating the EU’s unilateral opinion as to the final outcome of the currently stalled negotiations:

”We support the Palestinian presence in Area C. Palestinian presence should not be limited Areas A and B. Area C is part of the occupied Palestinian territory which eventually will be Palestinian land.”

Why Israel’s approval was not first sought before the EU surreptitiously undertook such activity – remains unexplained.

IMRA - Quartet Statement Declines to Insist PA Performs

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
11 April '12..




Let me walk you through this:

#1. ISA Monthly Summary of Attacks – March 2012
43 attacks in the Judea and Samaria ; 29 attacks in Jerusalem.
Of which: 2 stabbings; 70 firebombs (29 in Jerusalem).

#2 Statement of the Middle East Quartet April 11, 2012

"… Noting the significant progress on security achieved by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the Quartet calls on the Palestinian Authority to continue to make every effort to improve law and order, to fight violent extremism, and to end incitement. The Quartet emphasized the need to continue assisting the Palestinian Authority in building its law enforcement capacity.

The Quartet also expressed its concern over ongoing settler violence and incitement in the West Bank and calls on Israel to take effective measures, including bringing the perpetrators of such acts to justice…."

Inbar - The Amman Talks: Another Exercise in Futile Diplomacy

Prof. Efraim Inbar..
BESA Center..
Perspectives Paper No. 162..
01 February '12..


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent Israeli-Palestinian "pre-negotiations" in Amman mark another ineffectual endeavor to bridge the wide gap between the two sides. The Palestinians were quick to accuse the Israelis of bad faith, while still refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Furthermore, as Hamas becomes emboldened by the "Islamic Winter," Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation seems impossible.

Few should be surprised by the failure of the Amman talks, which constituted an additional attempt by the international Quartet to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. These meetings were intended to break the impasse in the peace process, after the Palestinians decided to relinquish the option of negotiations with Israel and to adopt instead a unilateral approach to attain their goals.

This unilateralism, reflected in the PLO's failed attempt to gain recognition as a state at the United Nations, was not well received in the United States and most of Europe. In order to overcome the international repercussions of such a move, the Palestinians heeded the advice of the Quartet and returned reluctantly to a "pre-negotiation" table in Amman, still committed to "go it alone" if their territorial expectations were not fulfilled by Israel.

As expected, Israel's offers did not satisfy Palestinian desires. Over the years, the Palestinians have rejected generous offers by then-prime ministers Ehud Barak (2000) and Ehud Olmert (2008). Obviously, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could not do better. Not many details emerged from the Amman talks, but it seems that the Palestinian demand for Jerusalem was a serious obstacle for progress in the peace talks. Similarly, Israel's insistence on a defensible border along the Jordan River did not sit well with Palestinian visions.

The Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state--a core issue in the history of the Arab-Israel conflict. While Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" in 1978, the Palestinians still have not reciprocated. Denying the legitimate right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel only reinforces the majority Israeli consensus that the Palestinians are not a serious partner for peacemaking.

Indeed, the gap in positions between Israelis and Palestinians is extremely large and cannot be bridged overnight. It is totally unrealistic to expect an agreement on final status issues in the near future. The best that can be achieved is interim agreements, tacit or formal, that do not entail grave security risks for Israel. Even the Obama administration learned the hard way that conflict resolution should be replaced with conflict management. That is the only strategy that has a chance to minimize suffering on both sides and achieve a modicum of stability in a stormy Middle East.

To a great extent, the Amman talks can be seen as an international effort to maintain a facade of negotiations within the framework of a conflict management strategy. Their failure will inevitably bring about another bout of diplomatic activism in pursuit of another forum for an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of views that will similarly fail. Such failures hardly discourage professional diplomats who make an honorable living by trying to bring peace.

Lord - The peace process has never been so irrelevant

Amnon Lord
bitterlemons.org
12 December '11

http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=177


The news last week that the Quartet is suggesting indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over the territorial issue caught me by surprise. I believe most Israelis were not aware of any development at all on the Palestinian front, let alone that the Palestinians had responded favorably and that Israel rejected the proposal outright. You could not find much ado about it even in a pro-Palestinian paper like Haaretz.

The reason is sadly simple: Israelis have nearly forgotten about the existence of the Palestinians as an entity. The Palestinians may be at the center of conferences in many important and glorious places in the world at this very moment, but Israelis just don't know anything about it.

If you travel to the depths of the West Bank, around Nablus or Ariel, you'll observe a routine of civilian and economic life moving along busy roads. From Hizmeh checkpoint all the way to the heartland of the Palestinian villages surrounding Nablus, you can hardly notice an Israeli soldier. Only in Tapuach junction are there a few border guards. By my estimate, at least two-thirds of the traffic volume is Palestinian.

You could define this as a semi-transparent occupation. The friction is concentrated in a few sour spots or at a couple of terminals. But otherwise, both sides seem to make the best of co-existence inside a strange bubble that hovers in the midst of regional turmoil and international economic distress where stability and growth are a rarity.

There is a feeling in Israel that the peace process has never been as irrelevant as it is now. And strangely, there is a near consensus in Israel about this perception. Only the experts might remark that, while nobody expects a peace settlement as a result of possible contacts between the two parties, negotiations themselves are necessary in order to create a favorable atmosphere in the region surrounding Israel and the Palestinian territories--in Jordan, for example.

Fresnozionism - Why they aren’t at “the damn table”

Leon Panetta: his fury
is misdirected

Fresnozionism.org
05 December '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/12/why-they-arent-at-the-damn-table/

One of the themes of the Obama Administration’s policy is that Israel is responsible for the non-progress of the ‘peace process’ between Israel and the PLO.

For example, last week the US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said this directly:

“I understand the view that this is not the time to pursue peace, and that the Arab awakening further imperils the dream of a safe and secure, Jewish and democratic Israel. But I disagree with that view,” Panetta said.

He said Israel needed to take risks, including by breathing new life into moribund peace talks with Palestinians. When asked by a moderator what steps Israel needed to take to pursue peace, Panetta said: “Just get to the damn table.”

But yesterday, as if more evidence were needed, a Palestinian Authority/PLO spokesman proudly announced that it was they who did not want to sit at the table with Israel:

Freund - The 'P' word

Michael Freund
Pundicity
Jerusalem Post
06 October '11

http://www.michaelfreund.org/10465/the-p-word

It is one of the international community's favorite adjectives to hurl at Israel. Time and again, whenever the Jewish state takes some action of one sort or another, a parade of world leaders turns to their lexicons and reaches for this old, reliable term of censure with which to berate us.

With little regard for the facts, they inevitably seek to lay the blame at Israel's doorstep by invoking one particular slur.

It is the 'P' word, as in "provocative" or "provocation."

Just last week, this prejudicial profanity was repeatedly flung at Israel in the wake of the Interior Ministry's decision to grant initial approval for 1,100 new housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.

Barely had the gavel come down on the ruling before the leaders of the Free World rushed to outdo one another with their condemnation and criticism.

Calling the move "counter-productive," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference, "we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative" – there's that word – "by either side".

Going a step further, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the move "illegal" and said, "This is a time when all parties should be striving to return to talks and responding to the Quartet statement call to refrain from" – here it comes… – "provocative actions."

It didn't seem to matter one whit that the approval of the Gilo proposal was just one small step in a lengthy bureaucratic process and that the bulldozers won't be starting work any time soon. The mere idea of Jewish homes being built in Jerusalem appears to be sufficient to evoke anger across the globe.

Clearly, both Clinton and Hague are suffering from "selective provocation syndrome," which is when one deems Israel's actions to be provocative while ignoring similar moves by the Palestinians.

Fresnozionism - Stop indulging Arab fantasies

Fresnozionism.org
28 September '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/09/stop-indulging-arab-fantasies/


Everyone is disappointed with Israel again:

[EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine] Ashton urged Israel to “reverse” its decision to build 1,100 new housing units in Gilo, saying that “settlement activity” threatens the viability of a two-state solution.

Both Ashton and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague slammed Israel for seemingly ignoring the Quartet of Middle East mediators, which called last week for a resumption of peace talks and for both Israelis and Palestinians to resist “provocative actions” …

This new housing plan, Hague said, was just the kind of “provocative” move to be avoided. “Settlement expansion is illegal under international law [false -- ed.], corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace,” Hague said, calling on Israel to “revoke this decision.”

Earlier, the United States said that Gilo plan was “counterproductive” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians not to take steps which could complicate resumption of direct peace talks. “We are deeply disappointed by this morning’s announcement by the government of Israel,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

And Mahmoud Abbas said this in his UN speech last week:

The occupation is racing against time to redraw the borders on our land according to what it wants and to impose a fait accompli on the ground that changes the realities and that is undermining the realistic potential for the existence of the State of Palestine.

So where is Gilo? Let’s see exactly how it is “provocative” and “redraws the borders”?

Rubin - Western Policy on Israel-Palestinian Peacemaking is Ludicrously, Totally Wrong and Will Produce Only Humiliating Failure

Barry Rubin
Rubin Reports
pajamasmedia.com
29 September '11

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/29/western-policy-on-israel-palestinian-peacemaking-is-ludicrously-totally-wrong-and-will-produce-only-humiliating-failure/

It’s truly remarkable about how international diplomacy on the Middle East, especially Israel-Palestinian issues, is so out of touch with reality. Consider the Quartet’s response to the mess at the UN. The proposal is for Israel-PA talks to start within a month, both sides to present proposals on borders and security within three months, and to reach a final agreement by the end of 2012.

This is insane. The premise here is that the PA is really eager to negotiate a compromise agreement with Israel. Everything that’s happened in the past three years—indeed the last 18 years since the Oslo agreement was signed—shows the exact opposite. The PA spent a year building its campaign for unilateral independence at the UN precisely to avoid negotiating with Israel at all.

Why then create a Western policy that is not only doomed to fail but certain to fail in the most obvious and humiliating way? The Palestinians won’t negotiate in a month, they won’t rush to present any proposals in three, and they certainly won’t reach a peace treaty in a year. It looks like the PA will reject the whole proposal—a step for which they will pay no penalty but in fact will get more rewards and concessions, and thus will be encouraged to ignore the West even more.

The dumbest possible thing to do is to put a strict time limit on talks when your spoiled and rejectionist “client” doesn’t want to cooperate. The outcome will make the PA look very bad but “fortunately” the media and Western governments won’t point that out. Instead, the PA will run out the one-year deadline, then complain that Israel is at fault and doesn’t really want peace. and then urge speedy Western concessions to the PA and pressures on Israel.

Could anything possibly be more predictable? Perhaps the only possible explanation is that the U.S. government, UN, and EU (I doubt the Russians do so) believe their own propaganda. They really think the PA can’t wait to make a deal if only Israel is forced to negotiate and some more concessions are offer. Haven’t they learned anything?

Rennert - Abbas arrives at the UN with a bang, leaves NY with a whimper

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
25 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/abbas_arrives_at_the_un_with_a_bang_leaves_ny_with_a_whimper.html

(While the actual scenario leaves much to be desired, Leo Rennert gives a good accounting of what seems to have occurred over the last week, and the current positions of the parties involved. Y.)

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas arrived in New York with supreme confidence that the United Nations would approve Palestinian statehood and give Israel a black eye. But a funny thing happened on the East Side that sidetracked Abbas's agenda, leaving him sputtering against a joint move by the most potent international players who confronted him with a starkly different course that Israel readily embraced.

To parse what actually happened in New York, one has to recognize that, in delving again into the morass of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there actually were two proceedings going on.

While the cameras were focused on Abbas strutting to the podium of the UN General Assembly, there were more significant, behind-the-scenes meetings of the Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the UN. And the Quartet, instead of endorsing Palestinian statehood, put all its influence behind a quite different move to get Abbas to sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and resume serious negotiations --- something Netanyahu repeatedly advocated for the last year.

And here was the real rub: The Quartet's statement called for resumption of bilateral talks "without conditions" -- a slap at Abbas, who kept demanding that Israel freeze Jewish construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and agree to borders along the 1967 lines before talks could even get under way.

No wonder that the Palestinians, suddenly on the defensive, slammed the Quatet's communique, while Israel signaled its acceptance.

In its call for unconditional talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the Quartet set a tight deadline -- a start of negotiations in one month, comprehensive proposals by each side on borders and security in three months, substantial agreement in six months, and a final two-state peace deal before the end of 2012. And since the Quartet wants the two sides to grapple early on with borders, this means that Jerusalem would be in immediate play. Because if you're going to chart a border between Israel and Palestine, Jerusalem has got to be located somewhere -- whether split in two as Abbas wants or united, as Bibi wants.

Western Negotiators Give Up on Israel-Palestinian Peace Process (At least for a few weeks)

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
18 March '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/western-negotiators-give-up-on-israel.html

This is one of those buried news items that has much wider importance. After their umteenth (a non-word used in English to indicate a very large number) attempt to bring progress in Israel-Palestinian peace, the Quartet (U.S., EU, Russia, UN) actually admitted (gasp!) that nothing is going to work at present.

Yes! They are actually going to go away for a few weeks before trying again. AND they didn't just blame Israel for the deadlock. Of course, some of the Europeans are thinking of just recognizing an independent Palestinian state, thus eliminating the need to have actual negotiations or give Israel any say in the matter. But that doesn't seem about to happen.

As I've pointed out previously, nothing at all is going to happen this year because the Palestinian Authority is putting all of its bets on getting this recognition. So why bother to talk to Israel? On the contrary, its interest is in proving that talks are hopeless. That's why, the Palestinian leadership is saying, it has to just be handed independence on a silver platter.

People ask me whether the latest upheavals in the Middle East will show people that it isn't all about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. (In fact, it hasn't been--if it ever was--for about 30 years.) My response is that objectively, of course, the obsession with Israel and the conflict doesn't make sense.

But then I list a lot of previous events that should have had that effect already. Some did, at least temporarily: the long conflict for hegemony among Arab states; Egypt-Israel peace; the failure of Arab states to help Syria and the PLO in the 1982 war; their growing indifference to the issue; the Iranian revolution and the rise of revolutionary Islamism; the Iran-Iraq war; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; and so on down to the present.

Perhaps the recent revolutionary upheavals in several Arab countries coupled with the obvious rise of Iran and its bloc will finally break the fanatical (because it's not responsive to logic) belief by many in the West in "linkage." More realistically, these events might just put a dent into it.

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Continually Condemning

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
19 March '10

Even when trying to repair the gash in the fabric of U.S. relations, administration figures can’t keep their “condemn”s to themselves. In Moscow (more about that), Hillary Clinton employed the now familiar Obami tactic — praise generically and skewer specifically our ally Israel. One the one hand, she proclaims Bibi’s effort to soothe Hillary’s affronted and insulted boss “useful and productive.” But then she’s at it again. She pronounces, in case anyone had missed it, that “we all condemned the announcement, and we all are expecting both parties to move toward the proximity talks and to help create an atmosphere in which those talks can be constructive.” Meanwhile we learn:

Friday’s meeting came amid new fears about the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East. On Thursday night, Israel carried out air strikes on six sites in the Gaza Strip in what it said was retaliation for a rocket attack from Gaza on a southern Israeli town that killed a Thai worker. [Did anyone condemn the murder of the Thai worker?]

The prospects for reviving the peace process were already murky. The Palestinian Authority insists it will not negotiate until Israel freezes construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel’s housing plan, Mrs. Clinton said, further soured the atmosphere.

You see, it’s Israel’s fault. On the verge of peace talks — indirect ones, because the Palestinians can’t even get in the room with the Israelis, of course — when along comes the “affront.” It works like this: the Obami provide the pretext; the Palestinians bring the intransigence. You can imagine the dialogue between the West Wing and Foggy Bottom: What to use? The Ramat Shlmo housing announcement! Nah — absurd! No, no — that’ll work! No provocation of violence, no murder by Israel’s foes warrants such a retort. (Funny how the White House never got back to me on my follow-up inquiry.) Israel is in a class by itself.

And the Quartet gets into the “condemn” act. (”Israel’s housing plan was condemned for the second time in a week by the Quartet, a group that focuses on Middle East peace and comprises the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.”)

(Read full post)
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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)
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Pressuring Israel To Sign A Peace Agreement Will Not Bring Peace To The Middle East

Alex Grobman
UCI Exclusive
29 October 2009

The failure to find a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict has lead to a number of questionable conclusions about what a peace agreement might achieve. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who served as envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the U.N., the European Union, the U.S. and Russia, believes that many of the problems facing the West today are a direct result of the inability to resolve this dispute.

"How can we bring peace to the Middle East unless we resolve the question of Israel and Palestine," he asked. A peace settlement would provide clear confirmation that different faiths and cultures can be accommodated in the region, and "would not only silence reactionary Islam's most effective rallying call but fatally undermine its basic ideology."1

Solving the Arab/Israeli conflict will not bring the Middle East closer to resolving their fundamental problems notes the American Jewish Committee's David Harris. If the Jewish state did not exist, would the Iranians and the Iraqis have fought an eight-year war in which a million people were killed? Would it have precluded the Iraqis from invading Kuwait in 1990? Would the Iraqis have refrained from using chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds?2

Without Israel would the Saudis have ceased promoting their Wahhabi form of Islam that regards non-Muslims as infidels? Did al-Qaida attack the U.S. in 2001 because of Israel? Osama bin Laden did not even mention the issue in his primary complaints against the West. Would the Shi'a/ Sunni conflict that began with the creation of Islam completely vanish? Would the Sudanese halt the murder and plundering in Darfur?3

The Arab/Israeli conflict centers on three basic questions: Does Israel have the right to exist? If she does, then where should the borders be? And what would be on the other side of the borders? The Arab refugee problem is among the most conspicuous and strident problems in the Middle East.

As Middle East expert Bernard Lewis explains, their suffering is real and heart wrenching, but in comparison with the millions of other refugees who escaped or were driven from their homes in Europe, Asia, Central America, Africa and other places and who have no representation, no backing and no support, they are more fortunate.4

Yet even if a solution could be found for the Arab refugees and Israel managed to establish a serviceable relationship with the Arab states, the major problems in the region would remain unresolved. There are religious and economic human rights issues that need to be addressed, democratic institutions and an independent judiciary that have to be established, social justice needs to be promoted, and rampant corruption, nepotism, intolerance, terrorism and religious fanaticism has to cease or at least be tempered.5

Regional cooperation will not be possible as long as tension exists between Iran and the majority of the other Arab states. Iran is a "classic imperial power," with the determination and ability to reshape the area to its wishes.6

Iraq is no longer a major power center in the Middle East, and will not be one until a strong central government is re-established, the society becomes united, and sectarian violence comes to an end. A full-scale civil war involving other Arab countries is a worst-case scenario.7

Few countries in the area produce goods and services that would interest others to buy in significant quantities, so that sophisticated manufactured goods have to be imported from outside the region. Until these factors change, the Arabs will not reap the benefits of integrating into the global economy.8

Of the 22 members of The League of Arab States, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia-are "traditional monarchies." Algeria, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Tunisia are "Authoritarian Regimes." Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, and Somalia are amongst the "world's most repressive regimes."9

There are 330 million Muslims in the Middle East, yet only 486,530 living under Arab regimes are under democratic rule. This is 0.15 per cent of the total.10

Under repressive Arab regimes, there is extensive poverty, illness and illiteracy. The UN reports that 25 percent of their populations cannot read or write. Imam Ali Ibn Ali Taleb, an Islamic leader and fourth Caliph (head of state), said, "If God were to humiliate a human being HE would deny him knowledge."11

Free political expression is prohibited, access to information and knowledge is limited, and women are disenfranchised. From the time they gained independence in the past century, a number of families and Army officers have governed these countries whether it is the Al Sabah's in Kuwait, the Al Saud's in Saudi Arabia, the Al Qaddafi's in Libya or the Hashemites in Jordan. They do not share power, have created police states to maintain their positions, and earn billions in commissions purchasing vast quantities of weapons.12

In contrast to the Arab states, Israel is the only parliamentary democracy in the Middle East where there is universal suffrage with numerous political parties and candidates competing in highly spirited elections. Seventy-six percent of more than Israel's six million citizens are Jewish and 23 percent are non-Jews-mostly Arabs. Israel has six universities rated among the top in the world with The Hebrew University is in the leading 100. The country spends $110 a year per person on scientific research while the Arabs spend $2.13

The world's largest producer of antibiotics is Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which is in the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and among the largest generic pharmaceutical companies in the world.14

Israel is a major contributor in technology, heath-care and medicine, the environment, and security and the war on terrorism.15

Compelling Israel to make futile concessions will not produce peace with the Arabs and will not solve the problems with Arab states. They are separate issues. Middle East veterans Dennis Ross and David Makovsky found that for the most part, Arab regimes develop their foreign policy based on their own primary concerns that are not connected with the U.S., Israel or the Arab/Israeli conflict. Such linkage has "misled" the U.S., and produced "counterproductive" policies. American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East will continue to fail as long they maintain this fiction that these two conflicts are connected. 16

1. Tony Blair, "A Battle for Global Values," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007. Blair is not the first to articulate such views. See also James A. Baker and Lee H. Hamilton, "The Iraq Study Group Report," The Baker Institute, (December 6, 2006): 39; Brent Scowcroft, "Getting the Middle East Back on Our Side, New York Times, (January 4, 2007) : Jimmy Carter, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 12-13); Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (Oxford University Press, 2006), 316-332; Richard W. Tucker, "Our Obsolete Middle East Policy," Commentary (May 1983): 21-27; Herb Keinon, "Israel-Palestinian conflict is key," The Jerusalem Post (January 2, 2007); Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding A new Direction in the Middle East. (New York: Viking, 2009), 6-7, 12-30.

2. David A. Harris, "It not about Israel," The Jerusalem Post (December 30, 2006).

3. Ibid; for an analysis of the conflict between the Shi'a and the Sunni, please see Bernard Lewis, "The Shi'a," in From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. (New York: Oxford University Press), 290-298.

4. Bernard Lewis, "The Other Middle East Problems," in Middle East Lectures Number On, Martin Kramer, ed. (Tel-Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East Studies of Tel Aviv University, 1995): 45-46.

5. Sami Alrabaa, " A Guide to the Mideast Tinderbox," Kuwait Times News (January 3, 2007); Youssef Ibrahim, "Who's Your First," The New York Sun (January 11, 2007); Richard N. Haass, "The New Middle East," Foreign Affairs (November/December 2006); Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003; Mshari Al-Zaydi, "Who Is the Master of the Middle East?" Asharq Alawsat (December 12, 2006); Uriya Shavit, "The Road to Democracy," Azure No. 26 (Autumn 2006); "Renowned Syrian Poet "Adonis': We in Arab Society, Do Not Understand The Meaning of Freedom," MEMRI Special Dispatch Series-Number 1393 (December 14, 2006); Benjamin Balint and Daniel Doneson, "Israel and the Arab Spring," Azure No. 22, (Autumn 2005).

6. Haass, op.cit.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Farrukh Saleem, "Arab vs. Israel," The International News (January 4, 2007); freedomhouse.org; "A special report to the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights;"Youssef Ibrahim, "Who's Your First," The New York Sun, (January 11, 2007).

10. Farrukh Saleem, "Arab vs. Israel," op.cit. ; freedomhouse.org; "A special report to the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights," op.cit..; Youssef Ibrahim, op.cit.

11. Saleem, op.cit.

12. "Arab Human Development Report 2005: Empowerment of Arab Women," Online; "Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society"; Harris, op.cit; Sami Alrabaa, "Only Flies Are Free In Arab World," Kuwait Times News, (September 6, 2006); Youssef Ibrahim, op.cit.

13. Saleem, op.cit.

14. Teva, Online.

15. Israel21c.org.

16. Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding A new Direction in the Middle East. (New York: Viking, 2009), 15.

Dr. Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. His is the author of a number of books, including Nations United: How The U.N. Undermines Israel and The West, Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish State to be published by Balfour Books.
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The Quartet's disturbing shift and America's new direction

Dore Gold
JPost
02 October 09

Amidst the major developments of the last few weeks surrounding Iran and the opening of the UN General Assembly, the Quartet - representing the US, the UN Secretariat, the EU and Russia - issued a new policy statement in New York on September 24 about the state of Israeli-Palestinian contacts that was extremely disturbing. Surprisingly, it has received little if any notice in the mainstream media.

As usual, the Quartet meeting in New York that issued the statement was held at a very senior level - including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with the US special envoy George Mitchell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, and Tony Blair, the Quartet representative.

At the outset, the statement discarded the principle of reciprocity, which not only is closely associated with the diplomatic principles advocated by Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but is also a fundamental axiom of international law. Astoundingly, the Quartet called on both parties to "act on their previous agreements and obligations - in particular adherence to the road map, irrespective of reciprocity (emphasis added)..."

The road map was issued in March 2003 by the Quartet, which was formed by the Bush administration to provide European states with a formal peacemaking role in exchange for gaining their support for the Iraq War.

But the original road map was "performance-based" - movement from one stage to the next was contingent upon the fulfillment by both Israelis and Palestinians of their respective responsibilities. Now this critical element appeared to have been removed. True, the erosion of the road map was helped by past Israeli governments that plunged into permanent-status negotiations before the Palestinians fulfilled their obligations. But it is the new formal position of the Quartet that provides the final blow to the road map's carefully structured conditionality.

In general, the Quartet wanted to provide its own multilateral stamp of approval on President Barack Obama's UN address from September 22. It is to be remembered that Obama's remarks were unusual in their exceptionally long and detailed treatment of the Arab-Israel conflict: Roughly one-tenth of the speech was devoted to the issue of Israel and the Palestinians - far more than any other conflict in the world. He specifically proposed the establishment of "a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967."

In doing so, Obama adopted language that was not balanced out by an equal reference to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which appears in the Quartet road map and did not call for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines.

OBAMA'S PUSH for the 1967 lines is also evident in his language during his UN address that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."

In April 2004, president George W. Bush sent a letter to prime minister Ariel Sharon stating that it was unrealistic to expect that Israel would withdraw from its large "population centers" in the West Bank. This acknowledgement of the settlement blocs granted a portion of the settlements a degree of legitimacy that Obama's formal remarks denied.

It also led Bush to accept the fact that Israel was not going to withdraw to the 1967 lines and was entitled to "defensible borders." The Bush letter, moreover, received massive support from both houses of the US Congress in June 2004, providing it with bipartisan backing (including Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Hillary Clinton). Given the language Obama used at the UN - and the Quartet now backed - it is not surprising that his administration has not openly committed itself to the 2004 letter.

The Quartet statement also goes out of its way to back the Palestinian Authority's new plan for building the institutions of a Palestinian state over the next 24 months - which was drafted by Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. On the one hand, the Fayad Plan appears to address Israel's call for bottom-up peacemaking by tackling head-on the lack of sufficient self-governing bodies on the Palestinian side. On the other hand, it is a program that leads the Palestinian Authority seven-eighths of the way to an independent Palestinian state, leaving ambiguous how the Palestinians get to the finish line. What it leaves open is the possibility of a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians or by someone else.
(Full Article)
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Land for Peace (1991)

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