No question that the French initiative will bring no peace - by Ze'ev Jabotinsky

...Abbas is clearly not interested in peace with Israel and has no intention of recognizing Israel as the Jewish state. He wants to secure the right of return for millions of Arabs to enter our sovereign land, destroy it and build their state upon its ruins. This is clearly stated in the Palestinian National Charter, which Abbas insists on teaching every child in the Palestinian education system. But the destruction of the Jewish state can only be achieved by forcing a deal on Israel, and the French are doing their best to lend Abbas a helping hand.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky..
Israel Hayom..
21 June '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16465

The French peace initiative, based on the two-state solution, has been gaining steam in recent weeks. Note that the goal is not "two states for two separate nations" but rather two states.

It is clear that the French version of two states means one Arab country free of Jews, because within the framework of this deal, Jews living in the Arab state will be transferred, while Jews and Arabs will live together in the other state. There will be increasing pressure to transform the nation-state of the Jews into a state of all its citizens, and the Jewish state's Palestinian neighbor will increasingly incite its Arab minority against its Jewish majority.

Members of the Quartet -- the U.S., Russia, the U.N. and the EU -- are planning to issue a report Thursday that will stress that the future two-state solution is in jeopardy and provide an overview of the diplomatic moratorium imposed on the so-called peace process by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas is clearly not interested in peace with Israel and has no intention of recognizing Israel as the Jewish state. He wants to secure the right of return for millions of Arabs to enter our sovereign land, destroy it and build their state upon its ruins. This is clearly stated in the Palestinian National Charter, which Abbas insists on teaching every child in the Palestinian education system. But the destruction of the Jewish state can only be achieved by forcing a deal on Israel, and the French are doing their best to lend Abbas a helping hand.

The Delusion of Peace Initiatives

by Prof. Efraim Inbar
Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies
Perspectives 136
14 April '11

http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/perspectives136.html

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel is under pressure to present a new "peace initiative," but the wisdom of such a move is not self-evident. While a peace initiative may deflect some of the international criticism, it is unlikely to bring about conflict resolution – it will hardly meet the approval of the Palestinians or even the Americans. Moreover, it will propagate the fallacy of a two-state solution, which until now has totally failed.

The Israeli government seems to be under great international pressure to come up with a peace initiative. The politically discredited Israeli “peace camp” has also joined the fray and is pushing again for an almost total withdrawal to the 1967 lines, the partition of Jerusalem and limited land swaps.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been partly responsive to the international atmosphere and has indicated that he is preparing some kind of initiative, although its specifics are still under internal discussion. Another “Bar-Ilan speech” seems to be in the offing for sometime in May, during a planned visit to the US. It is not entirely clear, however, that accommodating the wishful thinking of the international community is wise.

The fact that the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership refuses to sit and negotiate with the Israelis leaves much of the world unperturbed, continuously evoking Pavlovian responses about the need to pursue peace negotiations while there is a “window of opportunity” (whatever that means). The fact that the PA is very weak, hardly rules over the West Bank and failed to hold onto Gaza – which shows its unreliability as a partner able to implement an agreement with Israel – is ignored. A large part of the world instead deludes itself in believing that an understanding between the Israelis and Palestinians is within easy reach. The bad news, which is that the differences between Israelis and Palestinians are unbridgeable in this generation and that the two societies are not yet tired of fighting for what is important to them, seems to be extremely hard to digest. While protracted conflict is a well understood feature that characterizes ethno-religious disputes in such places as Kashmir and Nagorno-Karabakh, the difficulties in solving such conflicts do not register in the minds of many contemporary politicians and diplomats.

Ironically, the protagonists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more mature and understand their predicament. All polls show that large majorities of Israelis and Palestinians do not expect conflict resolution any time soon and are fully aware that peace is not around the corner.

If this tragic prognosis of the conflict is any indication, how can an Israeli “peace initiative” do any good? Most members of the current Israeli government agree with the prognosis, but some believe that it is up to Israel to show additional flexibility in order to fend off international criticism, particularly from Washington. Moreover, an Israeli “peace initiative” will preempt initiatives by other actors that would otherwise be unlikely to accommodate Israel’s best interests, and will give the international community something to chew on in the meantime, enabling Israel to have some added breathing space. This strategy of gaining time, in the hope that the world will eventually develop a better understanding of the situation and/or that the Arabs will become less intransigent, has always been a central part of Israeli policy.

Group of ex-brass who were consistently wrong on Palestinians drafting new plan

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
05 April '11




[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA

What happens when you take a collection of ex-brass who were profoundly wrong in their analysis and in turn policy recommendations vis-à-vis Arab Israeli affairs in general and Palestinian Israeli affairs in particular because they were driven by a set of what might be generously termed a set of quasi-religious leftist beliefs and have them slap together a peace plan? [Or do they simply pull up the Geneva Initiative or one of the other plans on the screen and make a few minor revision, change the date and title and hit the "save button" ?]

The same poorly thought out proposals that this group of people have been serving up for years at various confabs at 5 star hotels around the world.

Here is the frightening thought: if this collection of "40 prominent Israelis" is so glaringly thin in the depths of their thinking on their "peace plan" what does this tell us about the depth of the thinking that they put into the critical projects that they were involved in over the years.

Or is there a difference between drafting "peace plans" and other activities?]

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Former Israeli defense chiefs draft new Mideast peace plan
Group who created the plan, which includes ex-IDF chief Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and ex-general Amram Mitzna, hopes to use it to pressure Netanyahu to renew talks with the Palestinians.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Reuters Haaretz 18:51 05.04.11
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-israeli-defense-chiefs-draft-new-mideast-peace-plan-1.354278

Former Israeli security chiefs have drafted a new peace plan they hope to use as a platform to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to renew deadlocked talks with the Palestinians.

A spokesman confirmed the outline of the plan on Tuesday, saying it was based on a 2002 Arab initiative which Israel has avoided adopting because of its call to repatriate refugees and fully withdraw from land captured in a 1967 war.

About 40 prominent Israelis backed the project, among them dovish former political leaders as well as former heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and Israeli military, who say they will publicize their ideas fully on Wednesday.

The plan has been devised "in light of the dramatic events in the Middle East" -- an allusion to popular uprisings against autocratic rulers in the Arab world flaring since January -- and was meant to urge the government to "immediately renew peace talks," a statement issued by the group said.

NY Times touts 'new' peace plan that Abbas previously rejected

Annual re-packaging
of failed proposals YH

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
05 April '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/ny_times_touts_new_peace_plan.html

In its April 5 edition, the New York Times carries an exclusive article by Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner about a new initiate for peace with the Arab world that's being promoted by a group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military ("Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan" page A6).

The plan's sponsors -- mainly centrist and left-wing figures -- slipped an advance copy to the Times, which in turn spreads it over four columns to tout its presumed importance.

But is there anything really "new" in this plan? According to Bronner, it envisages a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, most of the West Bank, and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Israel would retain up to 7 percent of the West Bank -- with compensating land swaps -- so as to absorb major population blocs like Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion. The Palestinians would have to abandon their absolute claims to a "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Israel also would retain the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

Upon closer observation, as Bronner himself concedes, this plan "resembles the Clinton parameters of 2000" when a similar proposal was advanced by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Clinton at the Camp 'David summit, and later sweetened a bit more at Taba. What Bronner fails to point out is that Yasser Arafat summarily rejected the Clinton-Barak initiative..

Bronner also fails to point out that an even more generous Palestinian statehood plan was advanced by then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008, only to have it summarily rejected by Mahmoud Abbas.

So why all the fuss about a two-state "solution" which the Palestinian leadership -- the "moderate" one, to say nothing of Hamas which is against any two-state solution because it wants Palestine to swallow all of Israel -- repeatedly has turned down?

At best, this is a PR tactic by the political opposition in Israel to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu to concoct something similar so as to placate President Obama and persuade the Arab world that Israel also is fully committed to Palestinian statehood.

As one of its sponsors puts it, "We want to signal to moderate Palestinians and Syrians (the plan also envisages giving up most of the Golan) that there is a new horizon and light at the end of the tunnel."

The truth of the matter, which Bronner avoids, is that there always has been a light at the end of the Israeli tunnel. It's just the darkness at the end of the Arab/Palestinian tunnel that that blocked the way to peace.

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Palestinian Authority: Fayyad's Gamble

Mark Silverberg
Hudson New York
Foreign Policy Analyst
Ariel Center for Policy Research
24 December 09

A new “peace initiative” is in the wind. According to the pan-Arab daily newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, the initiative, to be unveiled in the coming weeks is designed by the U.S., Egypt and France to compel Israel to implement a full building freeze in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and to obtain an Israeli commitment to recognize a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, thereby effectively prejudging the outcome of any future negotiations.

This, together with the recent attempt by Sweden to push the EU to recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority (while omitting any recognition of the rest of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel) and to recognize the PA as a “democratic” and independent entity if it unilaterally declares statehood, have added to Israeli concerns over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the June 4, 1967 borders - a move which could be recognized by the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued a 54-page plan (“Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”),on August 26, that proposed the establishment of a de-facto Palestinian state within two years – a state to be established regardless of negotiations with Israel and outside the framework of the performance-based March 2003 Roadmap and the Oslo Agreement. While the Plan adopts an anti-Fatah posture by discarding the traditional PLO position of “armed struggle to liberate Palestine” (a position that was reaffirmed at the Sixth Fatah Congress in Bethlehem in August), it is based on the tenuous assumption that the Palestinians can adopt Western-style institutions and standards and thereby re-shape their future over a two-year period.

The problem is, Fayyad has little or no political backing to effect such reforms. Nevertheless, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz revealed on November 14th that Fayyad has already reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration which would provide for U.S. recognition of such an independent Palestinian state within two years.