Another case of Palestinian rejectionism that the world accepts as normal - by Elder of Ziyon

...Palestinian propaganda since 1967 has made the entire world believe the myth that these two issues are critical to a two-state solution, not proof that Palestinians aren't really interested in a two-state solution. Prince Salman is showing that the emperor has no clothes - and the entire world is saying that he is insane and Abbas is clothed in the finest of silks and gold-threaded fashion.

Elder of Ziyon..
04 December '17..

The New York Times has a bombshell report:

In a mysterious trip last month, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, traveled to Saudi Arabia’s capital for consultations with the hard-charging crown prince about President Trump’s plans for Middle East peace. What was said when the doors were closed, however, has since roiled the region.

According to Palestinian, Arab and European officials who have heard Mr. Abbas’s version of the conversation, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented a plan that would be more tilted toward the Israelis than any ever embraced by the American government, one that presumably no Palestinian leader could ever accept.

The Palestinians would get a state of their own but only noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and only limited sovereignty over their own territory. The vast majority of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which most of the world considers illegal, would remain. The Palestinians would not be given East Jerusalem as their capital and there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
... the prince had offered to sweeten the agreement with vastly increased financial support to the Palestinians.

The reaction to this plan by everyone is to reject it out of hand. The highlighted portion of the NYT article shows that even the reporters cannot help but to say that the plan is unworkable - consciously taking as a given that the Palestinian demands for Jerusalem as their capital and ceding large areas where Jews already live as well as giving up on the nonexistent "right of return" are non-negotiable.

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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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Shocking? Thomas Friedman lied about the Saudis? - by Stephen M. Flatow

...Thanks for your honesty, Mr. Shaath. Now we know that while Thomas Friedman and the New York Times were promoting the Saudi peace plan, the Saudis were financing second intifada attacks such as the Passover massacre. They were never interested in peace. Their checkbooks expressed their true feelings about Jews and Israel. An apology from their PR agent, Friedman, is long overdue.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
08 March '17..

For the past 15 years, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been promoting the so-called “Saudi Initiative,” a plan which he says proves that Saudi Arabia sincerely wants peace with Israel. But this week, a senior Palestinian leader revealed that at the very moment the Saudis were launching that plan, they were financing a major wave of terrorism against Israel.

It’s time for Friedman to publicly admit he was wrong and apologize for the harm he caused to Israel.

It all started Feb. 6, 2002, when Friedman devoted his New York Times column to a memo that he wanted President George W. Bush to send to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and other Arab leaders. The memo would urge the Arabs to recognize Israel in exchange for an Israeli retreat to the pre-1967 armistice lines (including re-dividing Jerusalem).

Friedman then flew to Saudi Arabia, where he was granted a rare interview with Crown Prince Abdullah. And lo and behold, Abdullah proceeded to unveil a “Saudi peace plan” identical to what Friedman had been pushing. Friedman’s Feb. 17, 2002 column then became the vehicle for announcing the Saudi plan. Quite an unusual channel for an international diplomatic announcement!

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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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Concerning the suggested revival of the Arab Peace Initiative

On April 30, 2013, Qatar’s foreign minister suggested the revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, introduced in 2002, and for the first time eased its demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, the minister accepted the possibility of tweaking those borders with a comparable and mutually agreed “minor swap of the land.” However, it is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States’ resolutions, since the founding of the Arab League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations.

Eli E. Hertz..
Mythsandfacts.org..
13 May '13..

In March 2002, the Arab League met in Beirut and adopted a two-state solution proposal, based on normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre–Six-Day War and the return of the 1948 refugees. This proposal was a non-starter, designed more as a positive image builder for Arabs and especially for the Saudis, who made up 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers, than a genuine contribution to peace in the Middle East.

On April 30, 2013, Qatar’s foreign minister suggested the revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, introduced in 2002, and for the first time eased its demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, the minister accepted the possibility of tweaking those borders with a comparable and mutually agreed “minor swap of the land.”

However, it is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States’ resolutions, since the founding of the Arab League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations. For instance, prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, the League took the following steps:

Do opponents of Netanyahu in Iran debate have an agenda?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
15 August '12..

The Israeli media portrays Israeli brass and ex-brass who oppose Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the Iran issue as a group whose assessment is based solely on a cold hard analysis of the situation. This with a strong hint that the Netanyahu-Barak team may be driven by considerations and interests that are not directly related to the Iranian challenge.

Unfortunately, there is a reasonable possibility that the Israeli brass and ex-brass themselves have piggy backed their agenda to the Iranian debate.

First a quick explanation for readers not familiar with the Israeli scene.

There is a group of Israelis who religiously believe that if Israel were to withdraw to the ’67 lines that this would result in utopian peace.

I term it “religiously believe” in the sense that as a religious belief rather than policy conclusion it is embraced by its followers as a “given” rather than something that merits serious study and possible revision in the face of reality.

For many years adherents of this belief have made herculean efforts to try and bring about withdrawal to the ’67 lines. At this stage it is abundantly clear that such a withdrawal will never be carried out via the Israeli democratic process.

With utopian peace only a withdrawal away, these Israeli patriots are not going to let the voting preferences of the unwashed masses get in their way.

Simply put: what cannot be achieved at the ballot box can be achieved by foreign pressure.

Which brings us to the Iranian question.

The Iranian threat is seen as ideal platform for creating a scenario in which Israel is forced to agree to withdraw to the ’67 lines in exchange for American military action against Iran.

In point of fact, a review of remarks by many of the brass and ex-brass opposing Netanyahu-Barak finds that they explicitly and openly link Israel’s ability to draft America’s support to Israel’s accepting the Arab League-Saudi initiative that called for Israel to withdraw to the ’67 lines and accept resolution of the rights of the refugees.

How can this agenda skew their analysis and policy recommendations?

Hillary And US Mideast Policy: Forward Into The Past!

Daled Amos
11 December '10

Back to the Future was a great movie.
Forward into the Past is just the continuation of failed US policy in the Middle East.

Last night at the Saban Forum, Hillary Clinton made it clear that the US will continue to make Israeli construction an issue:

The United States will not shy from criticizing the sides in Israeli-Palestinian talks when they take unilateral actions, including when Israel builds in eastern Jerusalem, Hillary Rodham Clinton said..."Provocative announcements on East Jerusalem are counterproductive. And the United States will not shy away from saying so."

Of course, "unilateral actions" are only a problem when they are no unilateral concessions by Israel--but that is not the point of this post.

The point here is that Hillary went further than merely reiterating the issue that directly led to the derailing of his Mideast peace talk initiative.

Clinton went one step further, reviving the Saudi plan:

(Read full post "Hillary And US Mideast Policy")

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Friedman's forgotten amendment

Soccer Dad
08 September '10

Saudi Time by Thomas Friedman

Some eight years ago, in February 2002, I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh. I shared with him a column I had written -- suggesting that the Arab League put forth a peace plan offering Israel full peace for full withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state -- when he feigned surprise and said: "Have you broken into my desk?" The Saudi leader said he was preparing the exact same plan and offered it up -- "full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations." He added: "I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don't reject or despise them."

It was an important, visionary move by Abdullah, and his plan was quickly adopted by the Arab League, with some amendments. It has been floating out there in the ether of diplomatic possibilities ever since. But all that it has been doing is floating. It is time to bring it out of the air. King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present it to him personally.

Never mind that Friedman has since criticized Abdullah for not following though with his "peace plan." (Actually it's more of a peace ultimatum or fraud.) But Friedman here, acknowledges "...his plan was quickly adopted by the Arab League, with some amendments..." but doesn't specify what those amendments were. One of them was the last part of this:

Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

Why's this important and why does Friedman ignore it? Well two years earlier Israel withdrew from Lebanon and was determined by the United Nations to be occupying Lebanon no longer.

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Take your money back

Avi Trengo
Opinion/Ynet
31 March '10

Senior New York Times commentator Tom Friedman is not an anti-Semite and will never be one. He wholeheartedly believes that he is objective and genuinely wishes to help Israel. Yet even a real friend like him is inspired by the “commander-in-chief’s spirit” these days.

In February 2002 I reviewed his peace initiative with astonishment: Full Arab world recognition of Israel’s right to exist in exchange for a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders. As an Israeli leftist, I lauded the fact that a senior commentator realized the problem is not merely Israeli-Palestinian, but rather, has to do with the Arab world’s unwillingness to accept any sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East.

February 17th, 2002 is a day I will never forget: It was during the Intifada, with the worse still ahead of us. I participated in an intimate Peace Now demonstration as an active member. For more than 30 years, I shared Friedman’s view that a return to the 1967 borders is a magical solution. Yet during the rally, we were informed that a suicide bomber killed two children at a pizza parlor. The protestors observed a moment of silence, before the next speaker, a Palestinian “moderate,” took the stage. His speech focused solely on accusing Israel while going back to the Nakba and early days of Zionism. The terror attack at the pizza parlor in Karnei Shomron was not mentioned at all. I left the rally with a sense of disgust.

The next day, I read in the New York Times that the Saudi ruler, who was preoccupied at the time with a PR effort after “fine Saudi boys” carried out the September 11 attacks, adopted the Friedman initiative and turned into the “Saudi peace plan.” Friedman must have noticed that the Saudis added a condition that no Israeli could accept: The immigration of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (“1948 refugees”) to Israel, thereby amending its demographic character. Did Friedman fail to understand back then already that this is a symptom of the problem: The Muslim world’s unwillingness to accept Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East?

(Read full article)
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