Israel 25 Years after the Oslo Accords: Why Did Yitzhak Rabin Fall for Them? by Efraim Karsh

...It was thus Beilin who shrewdly steered his two superiors towards a path they had not planned to take despite his keen awareness of the untrustworthiness of the “peace” partner. As he put it on one occasion: "I never had any illusions regarding Arafat. I never considered him an important world leader. I think he has committed numerous follies. He could have achieved a lot for his people many years ago, and his personal record includes almost every possible mistake … But since I have only Arafat, despite all the stupidities he utters, I must negotiate with him." This approach probably makes the Oslo process the only case in diplomatic history where a party to a peace accord was a priori amenable to its wholesale violation by its cosignatory.

Efraim Karsh..
Middle East Quarterly..
Fall 2018 Volume 25: Number 4..
01 September '18..

Precisely two decades after the failure by the Golda Meir government to identify a willing Arab peace partner triggered the devastating 1973 Yom Kippur war, another Labor government wrought a far worse catastrophe by substituting an unreconstructed terror organization committed to Israel’s destruction for a willing peace partner. Instead of ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the “Oslo peace process” between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) created an ineradicable terror entity on Israel’s doorstep that has murdered some 1,600 Israelis, rained thousands of rockets and missiles on the country’s population centers, and toiled tirelessly to delegitimize the right of the Jewish state to exist.

How did this come to pass? Why did two of Israel’s foremost security and foreign policy veterans—Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres—lead Israel into what a prominent PLO official candidly described as a Trojan horse designed to promote the organization’s strategic goal: “Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea”—that is, a Palestine in place of the state of Israel.

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Peres’s problem wasn’t so much the skepticism of the Israeli people about Oslo—which understandably increased once they realized they were trading land for terror, not peace—but the fact that there was no moral equivalent to him on the other side. He was fond of saying, you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. What was needed for this formula to work, however, was a former enemy who shares the fantasy of a Middle East in which the century-old war against Zionism is consigned to the dustbin of history. There was no such person on the Palestinian side in the aftermath of Oslo. Nor is there one now.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
06 October '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/2144281no-good-deed-goes-unpunished-shimon-peres/

A week after Shimon Peres was buried, the tributes for the last of Israel’s founders have ceased, but the vitriol from the Arab world continues. Rather than praise the man who worked harder than any Israeli for coexistence and the creation of a Palestinian state, the Arab and Muslim world still only sees Peres as a Jew and an Israeli, which is to say an enemy to be destroyed no matter what he did or didn’t do. Even those Palestinians who took part in the Oslo peace process that he sponsored are blasting him as a Zionist who didn’t really want peace. Much of this invective is just the sort of typical anti-Semitic slander that has been slung at Israel for several decades. But what’s significant about the groupspeak his death has generated is not that it shows resistance to peacemaking but that it is tied to a revisionist history of the last 25 years that demonstrates why Peres’s Oslo gambit was doomed to fail.

A lot of the attacks on Peres were related to the decision of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to attend the funeral. Abbas was lavishly praised for this by President Obama and much of the West, but he was panned by Palestinians. The problem here is that Abbas’s typical double game in which he speaks one way in English to the West and another in Arabic to his own people was exposed by his presence at the funeral.

Though Abbas was smart to seek Obama’s favor in advance of the next push for an independence resolution at the United Nations, Palestinians viewed the effort as contradicting the nonstop drumbeat of incitement to hatred against Israel and Jews that flows from the official PA media. While Abbas is still interested in being viewed as a peacemaker abroad, he has done nothing to create a constituency for peace at home. The need to compete for popularity with the Islamists of Hamas has actually decreased the already negligible backing for an end to the conflict.

Elsewhere, the problem goes deeper than Abbas’s double dealing. It is to some extent understandable that opponents of Israel see Peres primarily in the context of his work in helping to defend Israel against those who wished to destroy it in his first decades of public life. Israel’s survival against the odds is something for which they do not forgive him or the Jewish state. That he is accused of atrocities such as the shelling of a Lebanese village in an area where terrorists were shooting at Israel is also not surprising, but the hypocrisy of such charges is lost on those making them.

More important than any of that is the impulse on the part of Palestinians and their cheerleaders to chart a revisionist history of Oslo and the peace process. According to Peres’s detractors, like former PA official Hanan Ashrawi, who penned an attack published Monday in the New York Times, the Israeli’s efforts for peace were fraudulent. In her version of the events of the last two decades, Peres was part of an Israeli effort to deny Palestinian rights and choke off their demands for statehood and sovereignty.

Five lessons I learned from Shimon Peres - by Forest Rain

...The death of Shimon Peres has triggered a slew of articles and segments about him (including this one). Some lauded Peres, practically deifying him. Others demonized him. In Israel, between his death and his funeral, the media focused on nothing else, as if the world had stopped because the man who seemed like he would live forever stopped.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
05 October '16..

The only time I ever saw my grandfather cry was when we were watching the signing of the Oslo Accords.

At 15 I wasn’t really aware of what was happening but his reaction shocked me so much that the scene is forever seared in to my memory…

My grandmother was sitting in stony silence in her chair in the living room, watching tv. As I came in to the room I saw my grandfather standing, leaning over the back of the other chair. I stood next to him and we watched the ceremony. My grandfather, wiping the tears from his face, saw me staring at him. He was pale. My undemonstrative grandfather, a man who (unlike my grandmother) rarely expressed any thoughts on politics said: “He just signed away Israel.”

My heart skipped a beat.

His were not tears of joy. At the time while most Israelis were overcome with a feeling of euphoria, truly believing (or at least wanting to believe) that this event would reign in a new area of peace, his reaction was highly unusual.

Both my grandparents were extremely concerned and it wasn’t long before I began to see how correct they were…

Lesson 1: People are complicated

The death of Shimon Peres has triggered a slew of articles and segments about him (including this one). Some lauded Peres, practically deifying him. Others demonized him. In Israel, between his death and his funeral, the media focused on nothing else, as if the world had stopped because the man who seemed like he would live forever stopped.

The media coverage has bothered me enormously, largely because it has been horribly one dimensional. People are complicated and Shimon Peres was a prime example of this. He deserves better than being flattened in to a character that is “the good guy” or “the bad guy,” depending on who is writing the story.

The influence of my grandparents could have put me in the demonization camp but it was those same grandparents who taught me to look deeper than that.

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In What Country is Shimon Peres Buried? - by Elliott Abrams

...One wonders if President Obama, speaking about the meaning of Peres’s life for Israel, actually thought as he spoke those words at the grave site that he was not standing in Israel, and that Shimon Peres was not being buried in Israel. 

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
01 October '16..
Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/10/01/in-what-country-is-shimon-peres-buried/

Last week President Obama spoke at Shimon Peres’ funeral and watched him buried–in some sort of No Man’s Land. Not in Israel, it seems.

The Obama White House actually issued a correction of its press release of Obama’s remarks, to strike the world “Israel.” You can see a screen shot of the corrected release here at the McClatchy news site.

The absurdity of this move is striking. The ceremony was at Mount Herzl, the Jerusalem cemetery where many of Israel’s greatest figures are buried: Herzl himself, Jabotinsky, Begin, Golda Meir, Rabin, and innumerable military heroes.

Dear world leaders: Thank you, but… - by David M. Weinberg

An open letter to the scores of world leaders who came to Israel today for the funeral of Shimon Peres.
Excuse me if I am a somewhat jaded about, and skeptical of, the love lavished on Peres and Israel today. The love expressed for Peres is largely a love for the Israel of Oslo. We should appreciate such conditional friendship, but remain a bit wary of it. I pray that world leaders will stand up for Israel also when we run into conflict and need their hard core political, not just sentimental, backing.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
30 September '16..
Link: http://davidmweinberg.com/2016/09/30/dear-world-leaders-thank-you-but/

Dear kings, princes, presidents, premiers, and ministers, friends all,‎

Thank you very much for honoring the memory of Shimon Peres and his legacy of ‎peacemaking by traveling to attend his state funeral in Israel today. ‎

The fact that so many of you from all corners of the world arrived on such short ‎notice to attend this extraordinary event, speaks to the power of Peres’ powerful ‎presence on the world stage. It is testament to his exemplary optimism and wise counsel.‎

It also is a powerful statement about the importance you attach to your relationships ‎with Israel, and for that, we, the people of Israel, are appreciative.‎

However, I have to wonder and hope that you’ll be there for the people of Israel and ‎the State of Israel not just at funeral times, like that of Peres and Yitzhak Rabin’s ‎funeral 20 years ago — but also in times of crisis. ‎

I pray that you’ll stand up for Israel also when we run into conflict and need your hard-‎core political, not just sentimental, backing.‎

When the Israel Defense Forces next have to crush the Iranian-backed Hamas and ‎Hezbollah armies that are arrayed on our southern and northern borders — armed as ‎they are with hundreds of thousands of missiles aimed at this tiny state — will you ‎support Israel or condemn her? ‎

Will you rush to take our side as you rushed to Friday’s funeral, or will you hurry to ‎indict us in the courts of global opinion as you have done too many times in past?‎

When the IDF is forced to interdict Palestinian terrorists planning to blow up Israeli ‎buses and cafes, requiring mass arrests or significant crackdown in Hebron, will you ‎show understanding and love for Israel as you showed for Peres, or will you ‎extend to us only “tough love” leading to unfair rebuke and a deepening of our ‎isolation?‎

As Peres is remembered, some keep looking backwards as others face the future

...Sadly, in ways that remind thoughtful observers of how tightly they continue to hold to backward-facing conceptions even as booming, sparkling Israel along with most of the world is busy trying to build a better future and resolve a generations-long conflict.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 September '16..

It's a gorgeous Friday morning here in Jerusalem. The air is still, the sun is bright, the cloudless sky is a luminescent blue.

But residents of the city, like us, know to expect chaos and it's already noticeable how light the road traffic is in our part of town. Many of the capital's major thoroughfares are already closed by the police and others, including the main highway from Tel Aviv, will be shut down for long intervals during the day.

Foreign delegations from dozens of countries are either already here or making their way to the national cemetery on Mount Herzl at this hour for this morning's state funeral of Shimon Peres, former president, major figure on the Israeli stage for the entire seven decades of Israel's renewed existence, and global statesman.

How are our neighbours dealing with this?

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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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Someone who had the privilege of helping to found the community of Ofra

...To understand the spirit of the times, we must remember that prominent members of the Ma'arach party (later the Labor party) were also members of the Movement for Greater Israel. And to a certain degree, in those years Peres was farther to the right than Rabin. From the outset, he came to visit and planted trees, and Defense Ministry officials even ordered ladders for the Kfir fighter jets from Ofra's welding workshop, to provide employment for the people living there. Moreover, when Peres turned 80, at his behest a BBC crew came to Ofra to document his part in the community's foundation.

Pinchas Wallerstein..
Israel Hayom..
29 September '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17317

With the passing of Shimon Peres, I feel the need to reminisce about him, specifically in relation to the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria (without, of course, minimizing the extremely harmful role he played in advancing the "Oslo Accords"), as someone who had the privilege of helping to found the community of Ofra.

I will always remember that Ofra was established as a Defense Ministry "labor base." We received that title because a small group of us, led by the late Hanan Porat, called the construction contractor who at that time was building the army base on Mount Hazor, and pressured him to subcontract the base's fencing. As it was, every day for six months, the "labor platoon" would make the drive from Jerusalem to Mount Hazor. During that time, we would gaze longingly at an abandoned Jordanian army base (today Ofra) as a good place to establish a community. On April 20, 1975, we decided that upon finishing the fencing job, instead of returning to Jerusalem, we would simply stay in Ofra.

During that entire time, of course, then-Defense Minister Shimon Peres' office and Gush Emunim representatives were in contact. Indeed, that night the army received the order not to evict us. It is hard today to appreciate the immense significance of that decision. Before Ofra was founded, there was no Jewish civilian presence between Afula and Jerusalem.

Then, half a year later in Sebastia, Peres struck a deal between Gush Emunim and the Israeli government, which allowed 30 families to settle and establish Kedumim. There are those who say Peres made the deal to undermine then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but I believe this is not the case. It is true, meanwhile, that as a young community leader I requested a meeting with Rabin in the hope that he would recognize us as a legal settlement, but his bureau chief, Eli Mizrahi, told me: "You are Peres' baby; there is nothing for you to find here."

Choosing which Peres to remember - by Michael Freund

...Human beings are complex creatures, full of incongruities, and Peres was no exception. So while I disagreed with his vision over the past 25 years, and believe it to have been decidedly misguided, the Shimon Peres I prefer to remember in light of his death is the one who demonstrated just how much one person can accomplish over the course of a lifetime. There will be plenty of time and opportunities for future historians and analysts to assess the totality of the individual, his accomplishments and failings.

Michael Freund..
Fundamentally Freund/JPost..
28 September '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Fundamentally-Freund-Choosing-which-Peres-to-remember-468933

The demise this week of former president and prime minister Shimon Peres, who served as one of the last living links with the heroic generation that founded this country, is a milestone event, the kind of moment in a nation’s life that cannot but evoke collective and personal introspection.

In death, as in life, Peres remains an intriguing conundrum. Few historical figures have left such an indelible and undeniable mark on the nation they helped to forge and lead, leaving behind a complicated legacy that stirs up a broad range of sentiments among differing sectors of the population.

For those of us on the Right, in particular, Peres’ career encompassed a complex array of actions, prompting many to wonder how best to remember the man and his legacy.

Consider the following: As defense minister in 1974, Peres played a key role in the revival of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

Despite opposition from prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peres pushed for and granted the approval for the establishment of Ofra, north of Ramallah, which is now a thriving community of more than 3,000 Jews.

There is a well-known photo of Peres planting a tree at the site, and it is said that the sapling remains in place until today.

And yet, barely two decades later, in 1993, Peres served as one of the architects of the Oslo process, which ultimately sought to undermine the very same Jewish presence in the territories that he had previously championed.

The Jewish presence in the holy city of Hebron also owes a debt of gratitude to Peres.

In an interview last year with the Israeli news site Walla, Hebron Jewish community spokesman Noam Arnon told a remarkable story about a meeting with Peres that took place toward the end of 1975, when he was part of a delegation of Jews headed by Rabbi Moshe Levinger who went to see the defense minister.

At the time, the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron, was already in existence, but no Jews yet resided in the heart of the ancient city itself.

Speaking with Peres, Rabbi Levinger raised the subject of the Avraham Avinu synagogue, which was built in 1540 in Hebron’s Jewish Quarter but had stood empty after the 1929 Arab massacre of Hebron’s Jews. When Jordan seized control over the area in 1948, they turned the site of the synagogue into a goat and donkey pen.

According to Arnon’s account, when Rabbi Levinger began to explain the sanctity of the site and its importance, Peres cut him off and said, “Do you think I am a goy and that I don’t know what a synagogue is?” Shortly thereafter, Peres granted permission to rehabilitate and refurbish the synagogue, thereby laying the groundwork for the ultimate reestablishment of Hebron’s Jewish community.

“Not that there weren’t further struggles over the matter,” Arnon recalled, “but the greatest and most important breakthrough was the meeting with Peres.”

Some Thoughts Concerning Kerry, Rabin, the PLO, and the “Peace Process”

...Rabin would have been completely familiar with the lies, the incitement, and the terrorism we now see, having experienced all of them. His own daughter said years ago that he wasn’t a “blind man” and would have reacted to it all. We honor Rabin by honoring his dedication to Israel’s security, not by appropriating his name for administration policy at a moment when Israel is once again facing exactly the conduct from which he spent his life defending his country.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
05 November '15..




Marking the anniversary of the death of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin this week, Secretary of State Kerry said this:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin devoted his life to defending Israel. Today, on this solemn anniversary, we express our profound appreciation for his contribution to the cause of peace. And we honor his vision that would create a better future for both Israelis and the Palestinians: two states living side-by-side in peace and security….Rabin is gone, but his legacy endures as a challenge and an inspiration to us all. Recent events and violence in the region underscore the urgency of advancing Rabin’s vision: a two-state solution that provides the security for Israelis and Palestinians to live their lives in peace, dignity and prosperity.

Actually, it is quite uncertain whether Rabin would have pushed forward to the two-state solution under the conditions that existed when he was assassinated, or would today.

Consider these words several years ago from the Jerusalem Post and from his own daughter Dalia:

In fact, Rabin may have been close to calling-off the Oslo process, according his daughter Dalia. Three years ago, she told Yediot Aharonot (October 1, 2010) that “many people who were close to father told me that on the eve of the murder he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the terror that was running rampant in the streets, and because he felt that Yasser Arafat was not delivering on his promises.”

“Father after all wasn’t a blind man running forward without thought. I don’t rule out the possibility that he was considering a U-turn, doing a reverse on our side. After all he was someone for whom the national security of the state was sacrosanct and above all,” former deputy defense minister Dalia Rabin said.

Why might Rabin have made such a decision were he prime minister now? First, because terror is once again “running rampant” in Israel’s streets. And then there is the question of PLO conduct. Consider the most recent move by the PLO ambassador to the United Nations:

Welcome to the Both Real and New Middle East

...All of which is to say Peres’s idea that all the spears would be beaten into plowshares didn’t take into account the fact that Palestinian nationalism is inextricably tied to the struggle to eradicate Israel, no matter where its borders would be drawn. Its failure had nothing to do with Netanyahu and everything to do with the Palestinians.

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

The 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination has set off a bit of nostalgia in some precincts for the euphoria that affected many in Israel and the United States after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. At the time, Shimon Peres’ book, The New Middle East, symbolized the pie-in-the-sky expectations about the peace process. Though all of his predictions proved absurdly and tragically inaccurate, Peres still holds onto his faith in a process that was flawed from the start by placing his trust in a terrorist. He still foolishly blames Prime Minister Netanyahu and not Yasir Arafat for the collapse of his dreams. But while Peres’ idiotic vision of the region turning into a version of the Benelux nations (tell that to Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah), the truth is that there are some things about the real Middle East today that benefit Israel and are every bit as extraordinary as Peres’s fanciful scenario. More importantly, they were achieved by a so-called right wing government staying strong and making common cause with Arabs who share Israel’s fear of Islamists.

This week in a move that stunned the Arab world, Egypt voted with Israel in the United Nations for the first time in its history. Days before that, reports told of Jordanian combat pilots participating in a joint military exercise with Israel and the United States. Neither event is by itself of great significance. But taken together and put in the context of the conflicts in the Middle East that have nothing to do with the Palestinians, they show that that although Israel’s critics harp on its isolation, Israel is no longer completely surrounded by enemies but can, in fact, look at Egypt and Jordan as nominal if not entirely friendly allies.

The vote at the UN was over something relatively minor — membership on the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Affairs — but the mere fact that it was the first time it ever voted for Israel for something is historic. After an avalanche of criticism from the Arab world, the Egyptian government claimed the move was really just a tactical move that might ensure the election of some Arab nations to the committee, too. But that excuse doesn’t hold water, and there’s no denying the symbolism here. After 67 years of fervent opposition that continued even after a peace treaty was signed between the two countries in 1979, the vote indicates just how far the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has moved towards cooperation with the Jewish state since the military toppled the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Cairo now correctly views Israel as a fellow combatant in the struggle against the Islamists of the Brotherhood, Hamas, and its Iranian allies.

That’s the same view held by Jordan’s government, though, to be fair. King Abdullah and his father, King Hussein, always understood that Israel was a covert ally in the Hashemite regime’s struggle for survival against Palestinian and other radical Muslim foes dating back to the 1970s. The only difference is that, with ISIS on the march and Iran (with the tacit acceptance of the Obama administration) extending its influence across the region, the need for close cooperation with Israel on security matters is now more important than ever.

What this means is that, although Israel’s enemies are still legion, and Palestinians remained mired in a culture of hate and rejectionism, two of the nations that posed the most potent military threat to Israel’s existence in the first decades of its life are now more or less allied with it. Indeed, their governments see eye-to-eye with Netanyahu on all major security matters, including their justified concerns about the implications of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Even as we celebrate these developments, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that anti-Semitism and hate for Israel are still endemic in both Egypt and Jordan. The rising tide of global anti-Semitism that has its roots in the Muslim world still constitutes a potent threat to Israel’s future and requires it to, as Netanyahu correctly noted, “live by the sword” for the foreseeable future.

Surprise! More Bad Advice From a False Prophet

...Shimon Peres’s lifetime of service to Israel may balance out the disastrous nature of some of the policies he advocated in the historian’s ledger. Prophets may never be honored in their own time, but unfortunately false prophets often are. So long as Peres is treated as an authority by the media and Western governments, his urging of more such fiascos on his successors is not only deplorable, it is downright dangerous.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 February '15..

After a career that stretches back to Israel’s birth, 91-year-old Shimon Peres is a revered national institution. His multifaceted work in helping to build the state and especially its defense establishment demands respect and admiration. So, too, does a record of public service that saw him serve in virtually every key position of responsibility in the Israeli government. Thus, when Peres speaks, he deserves a hearing. But as much as he should be considered the last of the country’s living founding fathers, his past performance as a prophet is as bad as his resume is impressive. Thus, when Peres tells us today that European Jews shouldn’t panic, that Middle East peace will happen in his lifetime, and that, far from worrying about Iran, we should think the Islamist regime’s days are numbered, these predictions should be dismissed as not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. The problem with Peres is not just that his optimism is foolish, it’s that all too many people in the corridors of power in Washington and Western Europe think he knows what he’s talking about.

Peres served as the headliner at a Times of Israel event held Sunday night in New York and if his hosts were hoping that he would say something faintly newsworthy, the former Israeli president didn’t disappoint. He opposed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s calls for aliyah from Europe as being “political,” claiming that in doing so he was making Israel “a land of fear” rather than one of “hope.” Not satisfied with that astounding claim, he went on to claim that peace would soon break out in the Middle East, said he “trusted” President Obama to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, opposed any “unilateral” acts against Tehran by the U.S. or Israel, and predicted that the Islamist regime in Iran would fall: “In 10-15 years, Iran will be out of water and thus out of ayatollahs, in my judgment.”

To which friends of Israel as well as supporters of the West can only say “amen,” even as they shake their heads in disbelief at the absurdity of much of what Peres said.

We might dismiss this as just a little more of the same optimism Peres has been selling for the last 25 years. Such statements are very popular, especially with American Jews who dislike being confronted with the intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the awful scenarios that the Iranian nuclear program forces us to contemplate and he has done a brisk business peddling these notions among credible Western audiences for a long time.

But as ridiculous as Peres’s pie in the sky sermons may be, they are neither harmless nor without cost to Israel.

Imagining a Shimon Peres comeback? It won't wash

...As for ties with the United States, there was indeed a crisis in 1991, but it was fomented by Shimon Peres. Shamir's Likud government had asked the Bush Administration for a $10 billion loan guarantee to fund the massive absorption of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Peres told the Bush Administration to postpone the signature of the loan by demanding an Israeli commitment not to spend any of the loan money beyond the Green Line. Since Shamir refused, the 1992 Labor campaign accused him of jeopardizing the relationship with the United States and of harming the Israeli economy. Today, when John Kerry threatens Israel with international isolation, he merely repeats the line of Israeli politicians.

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
i24 News..
24 December '14..

Israel’s upcoming elections have something in common with all Israeli elections for the past 56 years: Shimon Peres. Peres was first elected to the Knesset in 1959. For the 2015 elections, he is getting indirectly involved by adding his voice to the lambasting of the current government. As for Tzipi Livni, the former minister of justice and the current partner of Labor party leader Isaac Herzog, she seems to have taken a leaf out of the Peres book. She prides herself on having convinced the Obama Administration to push off the Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood so as not to throw more Israelis into the arms of the right. In the 1996 campaign, candidate Shimon Peres declared that he had convinced PLO chief Yasser Arafat to put terrorist attacks on hold during the elections.

Peres’ latest comment against the government came after publication of two reports on poverty in Israel. “You can’t feed hungry children and senior citizens with mere declarations,” Peres said. “We know how to find money for wars; surely we can find money to fight poverty.” Shortly after, Israeli journalist Assaf Lieberman posted on his Facebook page the recording of a November 1989 interview he conducted with then finance minister Shimon Peres. The interview took place right after the annual publication of the poverty report. “Do you think there are hungry people in Israel today?” Peres was asked. “What is that, an investigation?” Peres replied angrily before cutting the interview short.

In his recent comments, Peres seemed to suggest that the solution to poverty is government handouts. But when he served as prime minister between 1984 and 1986, and as finance minister between 1988 and 1990, Peres implemented Thatcherite policies. His 1985 economic stabilization plan included sharp cuts in government expenditures and deficits, a freeze of wages, a contractionary monetary policy, and the privatization of government-owned companies. Under Peres’ leadership, Israel’s Labor party reconstructed itself in the shape of its sister parties in Britain and Germany in the 1990s, realizing that wealth needs to be produced before being redistributed. During elections, however, politicians such as Shimon Peres tend to rely on the short memory (or ignorance) of voters.

On the economy, yesterday’s promoters of Thatcherism would have us believe today that big government is the answer to poverty. On foreign policy, those who bring upon us foreign opprobrium present themselves as the only ones capable of ending Israel’s alleged international isolation.

Livni and Peres. No Class, But Also No Surprise

...The State Department has recently strongly suggested that the US would veto such a Palestinian resolution. Postponing the vote might well be against Israel’s interest, since it’s hard to predict what the US attitude will be in the future. But apparently Livni and Peres think it is in the interest of the Labor party. Because nothing is more urgent for the impotent Left than getting into power.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
21 December '14..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2014/12/livni-and-peres-conspire-with-kerry-against-israel/

As you may remember, Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin carried on pre-Oslo agreement negotiations with the PLO behind the backs of Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin, and then presented the deal as a fait accompli to Rabin. One doesn’t know how Rabin felt about it in his heart (although the look on his face when he shook hands with Arafat on the White House lawn might give us a clue), but publicly he had no choice but to embrace the initiative and do his best to minimize the damage.

Communicating with the PLO was still against the law in Israel in 1992, and while a Foreign Minister — as Peres became in Rabin’s administration — is certainly permitted to engage in secret diplomacy, to do so in such a sensitive context without notifying the PM is unethical and borders on treason.

But Peres got his Nobel prize (and Israel got the Second Intifada and more than a thousand fresh graves) as a result. And now he — along with one of the most cynical of Israeli politicians, the drooling-with-lust-for-power Tzipi Livni, he has apparently engaged yet again in private diplomacy.

Livni confirmed that she and Peres, now a private citizen, approached US Secretary of State John Kerry and suggested that he delay the UN Security Council vote on a PLO proposal to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria until after Israeli elections, because a vote now would help her opponents Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett. According to a report in Foreign Policy Magazine, Kerry told EU envoys at a recent meeting in that the US would indeed follow their advice.

Mistaken and Misleading Middle East Symbolism

...Any prayer service of act of advocacy on behalf of Middle East peace that ignores this key question is part of the problem, not the solution. While we respect Pope Francis, like his misguided recent trip to the Middle East that bogged him down in dangerous acts of moral equivalency between terrorists and the victims of terror at Israel’s security barrier, this event was a mistake.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
08 June '12..

On Sunday, Pope Francis made good on his pledge to convene a summit of Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a prayer service in Rome. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was there along with Israel’s President Shimon Peres. Along with Francis, both made speeches calling for peace and listened as clergy from the three major faiths spoke of symbolic acts of reconciliation that were, as a number of commentators noted, supposed to show that at the very least, religion can be a uniting factor rather than the engine that drives separation and hostility. Even though no one is pretending that a few speeches or prayers in Rome will change the facts of a stalemate between the two sides in the peace talks, the gesture will reinforce the pope’s reputation as a man intent on healing the world.

Given the pope’s evident good will, it’s hard to argue with the idea that his summit will do no harm and might cause the two sides to think about working harder for peace. But this piece of conventional wisdom is misleading. Though no one should question the pope’s intentions, the event at the Vatican is more than empty symbolism. This piece of grandstanding on the part of the church will not only did nothing to advance the cause of peace that was torpedoed by the Palestinian unity pact that brought the terrorists of Hamas into the PA along with Abbas’ Fatah. By lending the moral authority of a man who is rightly respected around the world for his probity and earnest desire to help others to a stunt that treats the partner of Islamist terrorists as a peacemaker, the event undermines any effort to pressure the PA to make a clear choice between peace with Israel or one with Hamas.

In fairness to the pope, his foolish even-handed approach differs little from that of the Obama administration which has decided to continue to send aid to the PA despite the involvement of the Hamas terrorists in its administration following the signing of the unity pact. Together with the European Union, the United States has effectively given its stamp of approval to a PA government that is making peace impossible. Palestinian unity has not brought Hamas into a government bent on creating an agreement based on coexistence and an end to violence. Rather, it signifies the joint position of the two main Palestinian factions that proclaims their refusal to ever recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn.

Seen in that context, the ceremonial symbolism in Rome is not just a distraction from the reality of a PA that refused Israeli offers of independence and peace three times between 2000 and 2008 and also refused to negotiate seriously in the last year of American-sponsored talks that amounts to a fourth such refusal. So long as the world refuses to place the same kind of brutal pressure on the Palestinians to give up their war on Zionism and accept a two-state solution that it puts on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, peace will remain impossible for the foreseeable future.

Where fools have tread before

...Such folly is inherently dangerous, because the Pereses, Beilins, Livnis and their numerous think-alike cronies/groupies dominate the media, dictate the national agenda and may inspire/impel a future government as they did the one that gave us Oslo. Their unconscionable recklessness casts a lingering portentous pall over us. Someone once wisely observed that fools rush in where fools have been before.

Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg: 
“politics should stop at the water’s edge.”

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
22 May '14..

The Israeli penchant for dismissing official authority and embarking on freelance diplomatic endeavors could presumably be dismissed as an almost endearing eccentricity. The problem is that it’s anything but endearing. It triggers real disasters.

The hubris to flout the authority of any government – no matter who heads it – exclusively emboldens leftwing players. They range from relatively unknown individuals (though they’re always well-connected to the real clout-bearers) all the way to top-ranking ministers who, fired up by their own chutzpah, set out to hijack history-making prerogatives.

Soon-to-retire President Shimon Peres still does it in his ostensibly ceremonial role of president. But he already behaved badly as foreign minister to both prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.

The latest to dabble in unauthorized diplomacy is Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. She recently conferred with Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas in London, despite the government’s decision (which she supported) to freeze contact with him for his kiss-and-make-up with Jihadist Hamas.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reported to be displeased with this rendezvous (by way of significant understatement).

It cannot be easy for him (again, by way of significant understatement). His hold on the reins of Israeli diplomacy is continuously challenged by cliques of conceited self-appointed competitors. Livni’s controversial initiative came only days after Peres informed the nation straight-faced that he had singlehanded all but achieved a comprehensive peace agreement (no less) with Abbas in 2011 and that said salvation from all of our existential woes was summarily scuttled by none other than Netanyahu.

More precisely, Peres claimed that Netanyahu asked him to wait “three or four days,” then “the days went by,” and the deal disappeared with them. Of course, one would assume that had there been any substance to whatever it was that Peres claims to have cleverly concocted – and had it been bolstered by any authentic Palestinian commitment – it would have survived for a few additional days.

However, Peres’s aim isn’t to make peace or to make a sense. It is, as per many a precedent on his part, to impart innuendo and garner glory for himself.

Both of these should be fundamental no-noes for anyone who accepts that it is the right of an elected government to determine its own diplomatic strategy. It’s one thing for the opposition or for overly ambitious coalition members to carp and take potshots domestically but quite another to launch their own foreign policy projects. So, anyway, it ought to be wherever the basics of the voters’ democratic verdict are minimally respected.

Who Might Think That Lying About Abbas Will Bring Peace?

...But if the president continues to double down on a policy of letting the Palestinians off the hook, it is laying the groundwork for a repeat of the same disaster that ended the Oslo process. The resulting bloodshed should be blamed primarily on Abbas. But Obama, and those Israelis who continue to lie about Abbas for what they believe is the sake of peace, will also bear some responsibility.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 March '14..

With Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas meeting today with President Obama, the focus on the Middle East peace process has shifted, at least for the moment, away from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his alleged shortcomings. But while Netanyahu’s most recent meeting with the president was preceded by an Obama interview with Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg in which the Israeli was lambasted and Abbas praised, there was no such ambush for the Palestinian. Most everybody in Washington and a great many Israelis are at pains to paint Abbas in the best possible light. When Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon accurately described the Palestinian as someone who would never be a partner for a final peace agreement, Cabinet colleague Tzipi Livni and Israeli President Shimon Peres both spoke up in his defense.

Livni, who has at times criticized Abbas herself, did not specifically refute any of Yaalon’s points but preferred instead to say that his shortcomings and record were irrelevant to the task at hand and must be put aside. Peres spoke in the same vein saying that Abbas was a “good partner” and that the point of the talks was to move ahead toward peace regardless of the obstacle. That seems much in line with the American approach that is to never directly criticize Palestinian incitement and the refusal of Abbas and his fellow Fatah members to give up their hopes of flooding Israel with the descendants of the 1948 refugees.

In short, peace process advocates believe the only way to plow ahead to an agreement is to keep the pressure up on Netanyahu to give the maximum while treating Abbas with kid gloves, all the while fearing to offend him or to give his enemies within Fatah, not to mention Hamas and Islamic Jihad rivals, any ammunition with which to attack him as soft on the Israelis. Anything else, they tell us, risks blowing up the process leaving no hope for peace.

But the problem here isn’t so much the double standard for Netanyahu or even the blatant dishonesty involved in American and Israeli officials attesting to the sincerity and good intentions of the Palestinian leader. It’s that this theory of peace negotiating has already been tried and failed with disastrous results.

I know it’s hard for many in the mainstream media to think back as far as last week or last month (ancient history in the news business), let alone 10, 15, or 20 years back. But the theory of negotiating with the Palestinians that is being employed by both the Obama administration and Israelis like Livni and Peres, was already tried in the 1990s.

The 2nd Coming of Shimon Peres

...Soon-to-be ex-President Peres should spare us more such questionable diplomatic wisdom, and let his years as President stand as the capstone of his career. Peres should bow out gracefully, and leave the ship of state to today’s elected political leaders. He has had his turn. Enough.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
31 January '14..

The State of Israel owes Shimon Peres incalculable credit for building Israel’s defense industry and nuclear option. Mr. Peres has been a fine president of Israel too. He restored luster and prestige to the position, and earned respect for Israel around the world.

Peres also has largely played by the rules of the game, whereby Israel’s figurehead president is supposed to back the elected governments of the State of Israel, and keep his personal political views to himself.

But this month, Peres began to speak out independently on the peace process, violating the protocol that attains to his symbolic position. Peres pronounced that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is unnecessary. He even called this an “odd demand” and an impediment to the US-mediated peace talks.

This expressly contradicts Netanyahu’s signature diplomatic stance, and undercuts one of the government’s key negotiating positions.

But Peres just can’t help himself. He is chomping at the bit, dying to be free of his golden Presidential handcuffs. He can’t wait even one more minute with the undermining and weakening of Netanyahu. He already is taking the gloves off, readying for a fight.

And if President Peres is shedding his silk gloves, I can too, with apologies.

You see, the wily Mr. Peres has no plans to retire when his term as President of Israel ends this summer. He plans to come roaring back into Israeli politics. Call it his second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) coming.

When Peres is released from the shackles of formal office he intends to set himself up as Israel’s shadow prime minister and foreign minister. He intends to fervently and aggressively advance his ideas for peace with the Palestinians ­– and to wedge Benjamin Netanyahu against the wall.

Peres will strike blue-ribbon commissions to “study” and reach the conclusions that Peres himself came to years ago about the “urgent” need to establish a full-fledged Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. He’ll convene the biggest and most-highly-publicized international conferences we’ve ever seen, with titanic intellectuals, academics, politicians and military men – all meant to wedge Netanyahu against the wall.

There will be no more of the namby-pamby Peres-sponsored presidential “Tomorrow” conferences, where cool entrepreneurs, airy philosophers, and hip sexologists talked nonsense about “bottling the Jewish genius” and “generating the leaders of tomorrow.” Instead, expect an aggressive, focused Shimon Peres with a killer-instinct, out to create Palestine, remake the Middle East, and save Israel – as only he can.

Israel, the state of the Jewish people. What's difficult to understand?

...The Palestinians are not keeping their right to self-determination within the 1947 lines or the 1967 borders, but they are actively striving toward realizing that right on all the lands of the State of Israel, or as they call it, Palestine. That is why they cannot recognize a Jewish state.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
23 January '14..

The Palestinians have invented a new nation -- the "Israeli nation." They are prepared to recognize the right of the "Israeli nation" to exist in peace and security as a state, as long as it is not a Jewish state. That is the Palestinian version of "a state for all its citizens," in which the Jewish and national identity of the State of Israel is completely obscured. Even when the Palestinians grit their teeth and talk about "two states for two peoples," they are not talking about states for a Palestinian nation and a Jewish nation, but for a Palestinian nation and an Israeli nation.

This game, which has a clear goal, is again confusing President Shimon Peres, who is chronically mistaken in his analysis of the true intentions of the Palestinians. See: the Oslo Accords, the New Middle East, comrade Yasser Arafat.

This delusion allows the Palestinians to continue declaring that they will establish a state on the pieces of land in the Palestinian territories that "will be released," without giving up on the continued hope and effort to establish a Palestinian state on the remaining pieces of land, on all the territory in Israel, instead of Israel.

This used to be called the "Phased Plan." The path to achieving it includes the actualization of the "right" of return. The Palestinians have not given up on that either. So they continue to talk, to give speeches, preaching and promising that the day will come when they will return to the "settlements" -- Jaffa, Lod, Haifa and Acre.

(Important Reading) Oslo Revisited - The Yossi Beilin Interviews

...Shavit: That's to say that we are going to an historic process that is second to none in its drama and at no stage you don't say "wait a moment, let's think about this", let's check where we are basically going?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA..
15 September '13..




Yossi Beilin: PM Rabin did not consult with security or intelligence officials over Oslo
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 15 August 2013

Yossi Beilin said in a live interview on Israel Radio broadcast this morning on Israel Radio Reshet Bet (Hakol Diburim) that he carried out the negotiations with the PLO that lead to the Oslo Agreements without the authorization or knowledge of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. PM Rabin was only made aware of the talks at the end of February 1993 after the second round of talks concluded with a working paper.

Beilin said that from the time that PM Rabin was aware of the talks until their conclusion, PM Rabin opted not to consult with any security or intelligence officials. The security and intelligence officials were not advised of the existence of the talks.

Beilin explained that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was also kept out of the loop because PM Rabin had insisted that FM Peres have no involvement in negotiations with the Arabs.

=====
Excerpts from: Yossi Beilin - Interview by Ari Shavit "Yossi removes his glasses" Haaretz Magazine, March 7, 1997
[Translation by IMRA]

Shavit: When you entered the Oslo process, Rabin Peres and you, was it clear to you that this was going to a Palestinian state?

Beilin: No. It is very interesting to note that the talks of the soul regarding "where will this process lead" took place only between the sides, not within them.within the Labor party and within the government and within the negotiating team I don't recall any real and serious discussion of the final solution.

Shavit: I don't understand. In 1992 you were elected to the government. In 1993 you created the Oslo process. At no stage did you ask yourselves where this all was leading to?

Beilin: No.

Shavit: You never spoke with Rabin about the significance of Oslo in the
long run?

Beilin: Never.

Shavit: And with Peres?

Beilin: I also never spoke with Peres about it.

Shavit: That's to say that we are going to an historic process that is second to none in its drama and at no stage you don't say "wait a moment, let's think about this", let's check where we are basically going?

Buying the world’s love for ages, but at a price

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
21 June '13..

There’s something unsavory in taking on very elder statesmen, especially nonagenarians or near-nonagenarians. It seems so uncouth, so unkind, so unfair – just as it would be to slap around helpless little tots or kick cute big-eyed puppies.

Therefore, for many months I struggled hard to suppress my inclination to carp – while preparations for yet another sumptuous birthday bash for our phenomenally spry president, Shimon Peres, got underway with fitting fanfare. But even the most stringent self-control has its limits. In the end, I am succumbing to temptation.

Why? Maybe because too much sometimes really is too much.

There’s a simple acid test for whether all the pomp and circumstance is over the top or not. How would our never-too-objective media react if the birthday boy were not the progenitor of Oslo – the man adored around the globe for having weakened the Jewish state like none of its enemies could?

Worse yet, what if the very same garish ostentation were lavished on the man most of our talking heads irrepressibly love to hate – Binyamin Netanyahu?

Outraged screams would doubtless reverberate around the planet. Our scandal-mongering press would pull out all stops and passionately pour its scathing scorn on the prime minister whom the public again dared reelect against the admonitions of omniscient opinion-molders. The ad hominem onslaughts would be so merciless that the pilloried premier would rue the day he was born, never mind the party thrown in his honor.

But different criteria apply to Peres. Seemingly, he can get away with just about anything. It’s not for the first time either and not because he’ll turn 90 in August (the shindig was scheduled a tad early to coincide with the Presidential Conference, another resplendent get-together that annually glorifies our ceremonial head of state). Dazzling leading lights and eye-popping pop-culture icons were flown here en masse to fete Peres in the past.

He is serially not publicity-shy. It was much the same ten years ago.

He wasn’t even president then. Indeed he was considered a remarkable political flop locally, but out in the warmth of European cosmopolitan broad-mindedness Peres was already in 2003 a lauded luminary, wined and dined and eagerly courted.