Editor's Notes: The bleak logic of Bennie Begin

To Begin the failure of peace is simple and obvious: The PLO leadership is bent on a two-stage plan to eliminate Israel, not a two-state plan for two peoples.

David Horvitz
Editor/JPost
03 December '10

Bennie Begin happens to be outside the Prime Minister’s Office, talking with some colleagues, when I arrive for our interview on Monday. He greets me warmly, and escorts me indoors, to the elevator and up to his sixth-floor office, his mandatory bodyguard in tow.

Outside his office, along the corridor from that of his Likud colleague and friend, the not always like-minded Dan Meridor, he bends down to pick up some errant, littering scraps of paper. There is no team of waiting aides here; no secretary. He doesn’t employ any. When he wants to write a letter, he tells me later, he takes out a piece of paper and writes a letter.

He unlocks his door to reveal a room remarkable for its bareness, and for furniture that plainly predates this government by several terms. The routine portraits of prime minister and president are there on the wall, along with some artwork, but many of his bookshelves are bare, and his desk is quite unsullied by paperwork.

There is no one to offer either of us a drink. Later in our interview, when his cold gets the better of him and he decides we both could use one, it is the minister himself who disappears to fetch two plastic cups of cold water.

There cannot be too many members of a nation’s most intimate ministerial decisionmaking forums who operate in this way, without a support staff. But then, of course, there are no politicians like Bennie Begin.

When I ask him, at the start of our conversation, what he feels he is doing in this government, he initially mistakes it for a critical, cynical inquiry, and immediately acknowledges that there are some who snipe at him for enjoying the ministerial good life at the public’s expense.

I have to quickly clarify, to explain that there was no such criticism intended. I simply want to know how he sees his role and how much influence and impact he feels he has.

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The Two-State To Nowhere: Another Futile Attempt At Appeasement

Dr. Alex Grobman

Jihad Watch

June 2009

Dr. Alex Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. His is the author of a number of books, including Nations United: How The UN Undermines Israel and The West and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish State.

“There is reason to believe that [the president] cherished the illusion that presumably he, and he alone, as head of the United States, could bring about a settlement –if not a reconciliation—between Arabs and Jews. I remember muttering to myself as I left the White House after hearing the President discourse in rambling fashion about Middle Eastern Affairs, ‘I‘ve read of men who thought they might be King of the Jews and other men who thought they might be King of the Arabs, but this is the first time I ‘ve listened to a man who dreamt of being King of both the Jews and Arabs.’”1 Herbert Feis, a State Department economic advisor, did not say this about President Obama’s address in Cairo in June 2009, but after Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, in February 1945. Roosevelt wanted the Arabs to allow thousands of Jews from Europe to immigrate to Palestine to which Ibn Saud responded, “Arabs would choose to die rather than yield their land to Jews.”2

George Antonius, an Arab nationalist, reiterated this point when he said, “no room can be made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or exterminating the nation in possession.”3

Attempts to solve the Arab/Israeli conflict regularly fail because of the refusal to acknowledge that this dispute has never been about borders, territory or settlements, but about the Arabs refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist. “The struggle with the Zionist enemy is not a matter of borders, but touches on the very existence of the Zionist entity,” declared an Arab spokesman.4

Unlike the Nazis who carefully concealed the Final Solution, Hamas and the Palestine Authority openly avow their intentions in their Charter and Covenant and in the Arab media which is available in English on the Internet on MEMRI and the Palestinian Media Watch.

For Hamas liberating all of Palestine to establish an Islamic state requires a holy war against Israel. Anyone daring to sign away even “a grain of sand in Palestine in favor of the enemies of God…who have seized the blessed land” should have their “hand be cut off.”5

Coercing Israel to make concessions and accept a two-state solution will not bring peace to the region. One-sided concessions have convinced the Arabs of the rightness of their policies and the efficacy of using violence to cleanse the country of Jews and Christians.

What compelling reason do Arabs have to stop launching rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities, refuting the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, destroying artifacts and Jewish holy sites, denying the Holocaust, dehumanizing Jews in their media, textbooks, educational system, political discourse, religious sermons by portraying them as Satan, sons of apes and pigs, a cancer, and using children as homicide bombers, if the West does not hold them accountable?

Instead of demanding that Arabs cease their incitements and attacks, the U.S issues meaningless statements of condemnation, and then grants them foreign aid, arms and military training.

The U.S. pressures Israel to make goodwill gestures in “peace negotiations,” yet Israel has never been the aggressor. Is there any example in history where a victor withdraws from territory when the defeated party does not sue for peace, admits there will never be any reconciliation, declares they will not concede the victor’s right to exist, and labors relentlessly to destroy him? 5

When Israel opens her border check-points as an act of goodwill, the Arabs dispatch homicide bombers to maim and kill Israeli civilians. After Arab terrorists are released from Israeli prisons, they revert to murdering Jews.

Comparing the plight of the Arabs with that of African Americans is a distortion of history and demeans the experiences of the millions of Africans who were brutally abducted from their homes, transported under inhuman conditions aboard slave ships and exposed to torture, murder and rape.

Nothing remotely like this has ever occurred with the Arabs in Israel. Had the Arabs not attacked the Jews before and after Israel was established, they would not be displaced persons today.

If we are to learn from history, we must transmit what actually transpired and not allow those with their own agenda or ignorance to obscure what occurred.

Whether it is naiveté, self-delusion or hubris, a number of U.S. presidents and diplomats have assumed that their powers of persuasion could modify fiercely held beliefs about the sanctity of Arab land. Such reasoning has consistently failed.

Those claiming that Jews have a moral obligation to cede land to the Arabs do not understand Israel’s legal right to exist as a Jewish state. That right was granted by the British in the Balfour Declaration in November 1917 and later recognized under international law at the San Remo Conference on April 24, 1920 by Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan (who defeated the Ottoman Empire and divided up the empire), the Mandate for Palestine and the Franco—British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920, as the Jewish National Home.

There are no comparable legal documents conferring the same right on the Arabs living in Palestine at that time or since. 6 Which other country would relinquish land that is legally theirs to anyone, let alone to a people engaged in internecine warfare, who cannot even live in peace among themselves?

The West has not learned that Israel represents all that is abhorred about the U.S. and Europe—a free and open democratic society, and an ethical system encouraging individual expression and independence.7 Through appeasement the U.S. and the West have enabled the Arabs to continue what Ben-Gurion called a “permanent war” against the Jewish people.

This latest drive to establish separate Arab and Jewish states will fail because as Yasser Arafat said, “We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else. What you call peace is peace for Israel…. For us it is shame and injustice. We shall fight on to victory. Even for decades, for generations, if necessary.”8

(Continue for notes)

A Short Guide to Israel-Palestinian Negotiating Positions

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

18 August 09

(This article by Barry Rubin falls into the category of 'Praemonitus, praemunitus.' or "Forewarned is forearmed". For that reason I recommend reading the full article)

This is a quick, brief guide to the negotiating positions of Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli Negotiating Position

Two-State Solution: Israel accepts a two-state solution--including an independent Palestinian state—only under conditions it believes would lead to real and lasting peace.

It is a myth that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only recently accepted this goal or did so only under U.S. pressure. In fact, he agreed to this as an outcome of negotiations in 1996.

Israel has put forward five conditions:

--Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Without this step, the aftermath of any “peace” agreement would be additional decades of Arab effort to destroy Israel in all but—temporarily—name.

--Absolute clarity that a peace agreement ends the conflict and all claims on Israel. Otherwise, the Palestinian leadership and much of the Arab world would regard any “peace” agreement as license for a new stage of battle using Palestine as a base for renewed attacks and demands.

--Strong security arrangements and serious international guarantees for them. Have no doubt; these will be tested by cross-border attacks from Palestine.

--An unmilitarized Palestinian state (a better description than “demilitarized”), with the large security forces already existing: enough for internal security and defense but not aggression.

--Palestinian refugees must be resettled in Palestine. The Palestinian demand for a “Right of Return” is just a rationale for wiping Israel off the map through internal subversion and civil war.

The PA basically rejects all of these conditions. While the first one—“Jewish state”—is debatable, the rest are obviously reasonable.

Issues to be decided in negotiations

In addition to these points, other issues under negotiation are less specifically delineated. The main issues are:

--Jerusalem: Israel’s general position has been that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel and cannot be divided. However, previous governments have offered most or almost all of east Jerusalem to a Palestinian state. Unless the Palestinians make a very positive offer it is unlikely that the current government turn over all or most of east Jerusalem, yet is should be noted that the previous governments referred to were headed by Ehud Barak who is the coalition partner.

--Future of Settlements: It is likely that Israel would agree to dismantle all settlements in areas that became part of a Palestinian state (see borders, below)

--Borders: There is no one specific plan but the basic framework discussed is that the Palestinian state would get 92 to 96 percent of the West Bank with the offer of additional land to be traded to bring the total given up to the area of the West Bank captured by Israel in 1967. This is vital or strategic reasons (for example, a small portion of the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road crosses the line) as well as the concept of settlement blocs.

Settlement blocs refers to the Israeli idea that by annexing a small portion of the West Bank, say 3-5 percent, near the border and relatively uninhabited by Palestinians, Israel can bring a very large proportion of settlers into the country. This would not only have a strategic value, strengthening the border, but also muster a great deal of popular support for the painful concessions needed to make peace. Most of the construction on settlements is in these areas. By stopping the construction, the United States seems to be arguing for a precise return to the pre-1967 borders, thus damaging support for other concessions in Israel, though U.S. policymakers seem completely ignorant of these issues.

--Compensation: The Palestinian side would probably hear receive tens of billions of dollars in compensation for property confiscated after 1948. There is no discussion of any compensation for Jews displaced in Arab countries or pre-1948 landowners whose property would become part of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian Authority Negotiating Position

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Its An All Or Nothing Deal Now.

By Ted Belman
Israpundit
12 August 09

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

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

Its happened before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Its an all or nothing deal now.

Related: Malley Stumbles Upon the Truth: Peace Isn’t Possible
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