Monday, April 28, 2008

The ‘peace process’ is in need of a paradigm shift Part 2

By Ted Belman (written May '06)

2nd part of 2

On March 20th, 2003, the US invaded Iraq. Ten days later, before the dust settled, the Roadmap was released. One cannot deny the linkage.

I forcefully recommended that Israel Reject the Roadmap and later traced the genesis of the Roadmap in Perfecting the Unifying Theory . The Roadmap set out the steps to be taken leading to the creation of a Palestinian state that was viable and contiguous. It made reference to the Saudi Peace Plan that required a return to the "green line" and recognition of the "right of return". This reference served to undermine the principles set out in Resolution 242 that stipulated secure borders and partial withdrawal but did not reference the "right of return". When Israel demanded that reference to the Saudi Plan be dropped, Secretary Powell adamantly refused.

Notwithstanding that the Roadmap was backed by the Quartet (UN, EU, US, and Russia) and by the Arab League, and was accepted by the PA, the PA failed to take even a baby step along its path. In breach of their commitments, the Palestinians continued to use incitement and terror to advance their cause. Notwithstanding, the US continued to demand goodwill gestures from Israel.

Two years later, with the US mired in Iraq and the PA as intransigent as ever, Ariel Sharon decided to act unilaterally. He introduced his Disengagement Plan for Gaza and attempted to get President Bush to commit the US to supporting Israel's claim to keep the large settlement blocks in Judea and Samaria. The best he could get was a letter from President Bush saying,

"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population's centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,…"

The same letter stressed the need for a negotiated settlement and a two state solution.

The events that followed the disengagement, confirmed the worst fears of disengagement's opponents, namely, that Gaza would descend into chaos and become a base for terrorists of all stripes including al Qaeda. Arms and terrorists flowed in unabated. This didn't stop Secretary Rice from forcing Israel to enter the Rafah Agreement. I commented at that time that The Rafah Agreement is against the law, common sense and prudence.

David Hornik in his article Folly in Gaza:The Sequel, reported,

"Since the disengagement, 35 Gazan export trucks have gone through it daily. Under the agreement, this will increase to 150 by the end of this year, and at least 400 by the end of 2006. But the agreement also stipulates that bus convoys, by December 15, and truck convoys, by a month later, will pass through Karni to the West Bank.

"The result is easy to see," former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, noting that "Kassam rockets and mortars will be transported through Judea and Samaria to be launched at Israel. . . . The biggest danger is that the Palestinians would be able to transfer the Strella [anti-aircraft] missiles, which are already in Gaza, to the area overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport and threaten planes landing and taking off."

Aside from the obvious danger this represented, it also represented an enormous erosion of Israel's sovereignty, particularly because it was imposed on Israel. There is a message here that is very frightening. If Israel couldn't resist this, what can she resist?

Two months later, Israel wanted to prevent Hamas, a terrorist organization from running for election to the Palestinian Council. Once again, Rice overruled Israel and demanded otherwise.

Notwithstanding the conditions for statehood stipulated by President Bush in his vision speech above and the PA's failure to meet its obligations undertaken in Oslo and the Roadmap, the US goes forward with the "peace process" regardless. No matter.

Today, Hamas is in power and fires rockets by the hundreds down on Israel and gives support to suicide bombers. Kadimah is in power in Israel and they are proposing significant "unilateral" withdrawal called "convergence".

Such a withdrawal has been made necessary by US policy of pressuring Israel and will need US support. The cost of such withdrawal and the uprooting of 80,000 Israelis in the process has been estimated at $25 billion USD. Israel cannot afford it. This is the equivalent of a US expenditure of $1,250 Billion USD.

The problem is also that these 80,000 Israelis are to be resettled in the settlement blocks which the Arabs will never accept. For that matter neither will the US. So the Roadmap has reached a dead end. Besides, the US should be against further withdrawal in light of the rise of the Islamist front and the ongoing war in Iraq and the looming war against Iran..

All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put this process back together again. That's because it didn't have a chance to begin with. The US must make a paradigm shift.

A review of US policy is long overdue.

The Arabs always rejected the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine prior to its creation and subsequent to it. They have been at war with the Jews continuously for over eighty five years. Egypt and Jordan are notable exceptions but they both still represent a potential threat to Israel should their governments fall to the Islamic Brotherhood.

The PLO and the PA agreed to recognize Israel and renounce violence and endorse a peace process. Yet rather then prepare the Palestinians for peaceful coexistence, they indoctrinated them through their schools, mosques and media to hate and kill Jew and to deny the legitimacy of Israel. Under these circumstances how can anyone believe in the peace process? Yet the US ignores what they say and what they do in the blind pursuit of an unworkable and unwanted solution. Why?

Furthermore the terrorist forces in the territories (Fatah and Hamas) and in Lebanon (Hezbollah) are controlled by Syria and Iran and readily accept their orders. These countries don't want a settlement of the conflict and instead want the war against Israel to continue. They want Israel and the US out of the Middle East.

Had the US not tried to curry favor with the oil potentates by forcing Israel to yield through peace processes, Israel would have continued the peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in the territories that existed at the time of the Gulf War. Instead, every time the US forced Israel into a "peace process", the Arabs were fortified in their belief that they could destroy Israel. After all the US wanted oil so badly, it would help them to ultimately bring this about. In effect, the US is fighting the Arab battles for them. Why should the Arabs compromise. Talk about being over an oil barrel.

While the American people love Israel and consider it an ally, the State Department and the administration curry favor with the Arabs using Israel as the sacrificial lamb. Furthermore in pursuit of the same goal they allow the Saudis to operate with impunity in the US to spread Islamist and Arab propaganda. They have been allowed to finance our universities, invest in our media, infiltrate our prisons and infiltrate our mosques.

There are two forces at work here. Firstly, the US is so heavily indebted to the Saudis for financing its debt and so dependent on it for its oil supply that it is no longer independent and calling the shots. Secondly, many Americans are benefiting financially from the Saudi relationship and work to continue it. They include the oil companies, ex-Presidents, the diplomats and the money managers. What's to be done?

Obviously energy self sufficiency is the most important imperative. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are taking this imperative seriously. This must change as a matter of urgency.

In the past the US favored a political two state solution. Such a policy has brought war, not peace. In August of '04, the then Shabak Security Chief, Avi Dichter, reported in Haaretz,

"Over the last four years" , Dichter said, "Israel has suffered 11,356 casualties, compared to 4,319 terror-related casualties between November 1947, when the United Nations voted to establish Israel, and 2000."

Translated into American terms, this is the equivalent of a mind-boggling 500,000 casualties. The US should abandon such a policy and opt for a military solution to the terror. Daniel Pipes argues for "utter defeat".

The military solution would be to allow Israel to seriously defeat the terrorist forces in the territories and to destroy the PA. Any terrorists not killed must be expelled. After all, the US is conducting a "war on terror" are they not? Let the Israelis do the same.

After that, assist the Israelis in pursuing a humanitarian solution.

The humanitarian solution would address the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians rather then their political needs. This is exactly what Israel was doing prior to interference by the US.

Israel would then be responsible for enforcing the rule of law, providing for a free media and reforming the educational system. In the process she would be enabling the building blocks of democracy to be developed. It would take a generation at least to detoxify the Palestinians.

Secondly, UNRWA, must be reformed as Daniel Pipes points out in his Aug '03 article The Refugee Curse - UNRWA. Its mandate is to perpetuate the problem and not to solve it. This must change.

The Jerusalem Summit 2004 sets out three major requirements as part of such a solution,

"(a) The dissolution of UNRWA – which will end the discriminatory treatment towards the Palestinians with regard to their status as refugees;

(b) The termination of ethnic discrimination against Palestinians living in the Arab world - which will end the discriminatory treatment towards the Palestinians with regard to their status as residents;

(c) Generous relocation grants to Palestinians living in Israeli administered territories on an individual basis and not via any official Palestinian organization"

In March '06, a new demographic study entitled "Arab Population in the West Bank and Gaza: The Million Person Gap," was presented to Congress by Bennet Zimmerman. Israel National News reports,

"According to Zimmerman, the current official population for the West Bank and Gaza, which is listed as 3,279,141, is a highly inflated figure that does not reflect the demographic reality, which he estimates at 1.4 million in the West Bank and 1 million in Gaza, totaling 2.4 million. The U.S. and Europeans have for years accepted entirely exaggerated data. Now Congress has some very tough questions to ask, including how its own State Department and the CIA could have been duped and what do to regarding future aid,"

If Israel were to annex all of the West Bank, and provide "generous relocation grants" to most Palestinians and citizenship to some over time, the problem would work itself out. Let us assume that 1.4 million Arabs represent 250,000 families. Thus the estimated $25 billion USD for Kadima's convergence plan would be redirected if needed to give $100,000 to each Palestinian family as emigration assistance. Obviously a far smaller sum would be sufficient. Furthermore, these emigrants would be a boon to any poor Arab country that agreed to accept them due to the money they would bring. [It should be noted that the the deal presently being mooted for Annapolis would cost someone about $75 Billion to uproot about 200,000 Israelis.]

There is an alternative by Robert S. Barnes, details such a proposal. There are many other alternatives including Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan?

The US would be well advised to end the "peace process" and support the humanitarian solution.

[1] From A History of the Modern Middle East. 2nd edition

Ted Belman

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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