‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

 

by Richard Z. Chesnoff

Maybe it's time to inscribe it high on the walls of Jerusalem. I'm talking about that old Abba Eban line :"The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity".

Here's Israel's right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, admittedly responding to pressure from Washington but finally admitting in public that he believes the best solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in establishing two independent states in the Holy Land: the existing Jewish one and a new, sovereign but demilitarized Palestinian Arab state on the West Bank, eventually joined to the Gaza Strip. Let's sit down and negotiate, says Bibi. Let's co-exist in peace.

So what do the Palestinians do? They rant and rave and summarily reject his proposals. . "Netanyahu's speech was very clear" insists chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat . "He rejects the two-state solution."

As they say on Saturday Night Live, "Really? Did he? I don't think so!"

So just what do the Palestinians — who have rejected every Palestinian partition/peace plan ever offered them since the 1920s — object to now?

For starters, like the vast majority of the Mideast's Arabs, the Palestinians still steadfastly refuse to accept the very idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. As Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek put it, "Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace."

Excuse me — what do Mubarek and the rest of the Arabs think Israel is?

It was dreamed of, conceived of and built to be a Jewish state. "The right to establish our sovereign state here…", Netanyahu said in his speech, "arises from one simple fact: the Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people."

What's more, it's not a new idea. It was clearly defined by Israel's founding fathers in their May 14, 1948 Tel Aviv declaration of independence. "We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".

That's what it says in black and white (or blue and white). Since then, more than 160 nations in the world (including Egypt and Jordan) have recognized this Jewish state of Israel and/or established diplomatic ties with it. And the Jewish State of Israel has been a member of the United Nations since 1949.

Palestinians will argue that their adamant refusal to admit the obvious is more than just stubborn ideology. As they see it, by recognizing a "Jewish state" the Palestinians negate any "right of return" for the families of 600,000 or so Palestinian refugees who fled from what is now Israel in 1948.

Yes and no. Fact is, most of the Palestinian Arabs who actually fled 62 years ago are either old or deceased. And clearly Israel will never agree to allowing untold millions of their descendants to be "repatriated" to Israel proper, thus totally demolishing Israel's demographic balance and destroying the Jewish nature of the Jewish state — which, just by chance, happens to remain the ultimate Arab goal.

That doesn't mean that many of these remaining refugees and their descendants can't be repatriated to the future Palestinian state — just as most of the 800,000 Jews who fled Arab lands between 1947 and 1967, leaving everything they owned behind, have been resettled in the Jewish state. Nor is there any reason why mutual compensation agreements can not be worked out for lands and property lost by both sides.

The bottom line is that the Arab world must settle the bulk of this nagging refugee problem within the Arab world — not in Israel whose total land mass of 12,877 square miles remains a tiny fraction of the 8,368,272 square miles that comprise the 21 Arab countries surrounding the Jewish state.

Let's face it. Why has every major post war refugee problem in the world been settled except for the Palestinian one? You know the reason: the Arab states have never wanted to settle it. With the exception of Jordan, no single Arab state has ever offered citizenship to Palestinian Arabs, preferring instead to maintain them as political fodder, locked in refugee camps, surviving on the international dole and the political wet dream of destroying the Jewish state..

The other excuse the Palestinians give for their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is that it will somehow weaken the standing of that 20% of Israel's population that is not Jewish but Israeli-Arab. These are the descendants of those Palestinian Arabs who wisely chose not to run in 1948. They already know — even if many of them don't always like it — that Israel is a Jewish state. They also know that while their growing minority has not always enjoyed full equality with its Jewish compatriots, Israeli Arab citizens of the Jewish state — Christian and Muslim — still enjoy more benefits, more democracy and more freedom than Arabs anywhere else in the Middle East.

Here's something else to mull over. Arab Christian populations are rapidly shrinking throughout the region — the Christian population of Bethlehem has gone from 90% to less than 25%; in Lebanon it has dropped from 60% to 27%. The only place in the Middle East where Christian Arab communities are expanding is in the Jewish state of Israel where since 1949, the year after Israel's birth, the number of Israeli Arab Christians has grown by an astonishing 345%!

Palestinian naysayers also complain that Netanyahu's insistence that Jerusalem will not be re-divided is another monumental block to peace. Yet it has been only under Israeli control that the Holy City developed and became open to worshipers of all faiths — Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Nor should Israel's insistence that a Palestinian state be demilitarized stand in the way. Internal Palestinian violence is growing. Besides, what should Israel do — allow the West Bank to be turned into the same kind of rocket launching pad for Palestinian terrorist groups that Gaza became when Israel voluntarily withdrew from that benighted territory?

President Obama twisted Netanyah's arm enough to produce Sunday's two-state acceptance speech. Now's the time for the administration to start twisting Palestinian arms — before they and we miss another opportunity.

 

Richard Z. Chesnoff was Senior Correspondent at US News & World Report, and is now a columnist at the NY Daily News and the Huffington Post. A two-time winner of the Overseas Press Club Award and a recipient of the National Press Club Award, he was formerly executive editor of Newsweek International.

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

 

Obama's losing streak and Israel.

 

By Caroline B. Glick

Netanyahu's speech suffered from two flaws that may come back to haunt the premier in the years to come

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech Sunday evening at Bar-Ilan University had one goal: To get US President Barack Obama off of Israel's back.

Netanyahu's speech was an eloquent, rational and at times impassioned defense of Israel. For Israeli ears, after years of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni's continuous assaults on Israeli rights, and their strident defenses of capitulation to the Palestinians and the Syrians, Netanyahu's address was a breath of fresh air. But it is hard to see how it could have possibly had any lasting impact on Obama or his advisers.

To be moved by rational argument, a person has to be open to rational discourse. And what we have witnessed over the past week with the Obama administration's reactions to both North Korea's nuclear brinksmanship and Iran's sham elections is that its foreign policy is not informed by rationality but by the president's morally relative, post-modern ideology. In this anti-intellectual and anti-rational climate, Netanyahu's speech has little chance of making a lasting impact on the White House.

If rational thought was the basis for the administration's policymaking on foreign affairs, North Korea's decisions to test long range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, send two US citizens to long prison terms and then threaten nuclear war should have made the administration reconsider its current policy of seeking the approval and assistance of North Korea's primary enabler — China — for any action it takes against Pyongyang. As Nicholas Eberstadt suggested in Friday's Wall Street Journal, rather than spending its time passing UN Security Council resolutions with no enforcement mechanisms against North Korea, the administration would be working with a coalition of the willing to adopt measures aimed at lowering the threat North Korea constitutes to regional, US and global security through its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its proliferation activities.

But the administration has done no such thing. Instead of working with and strengthening its allies, it has opted to work with North Korea's allies China and Russia to forge a Security Council resolution harsh enough to convince North Korean leader Kim Jung Il to threaten nuclear war, but too weak to degrade his capacity to wage one.

Similar to Obama's refusal to reassess his failed policy regarding North Korea, his nonreaction to the fraudulent Iranian election shows that he will not allow facts to interfere with his slavish devotion to his ideological canon that claims that no enemy is unappeasable and no ally deserves automatic support. Far from standing with the democratic dissidents now risking their lives to oppose Iran's sham democracy, the administration has reportedly expressed concern that the current postelection protests will destabilize the regime. Obama has also refused to reconsider his decision to reach a grand bargain with the ayatollahs on Iran's nuclear weapons program that would serve to legitimize their continued grip on power.

His refusal to make a moral distinction between the mullahs and their democratic opponents — like his refusal in Cairo to make a moral distinction between a nuclear-armed Iran and a nuclear-armed America — makes clear that he is not interested in forging a factually accurate or morally clear-sighted foreign policy.

 

ALL OF THIS brings us back to Israel — and Netanyahu's speech about the nature and causes of the Palestinian conflict and the conditions that must be met if peace is ever to be achieved. His address aimed in two ways to lower US pressure while averting an open confrontation with a president whose approval ratings remain above 60 percent. First, Netanyahu demonstrated that through their consistent rejection of Israel's right to exist as the Jewish state, the Palestinians — not us — are the side responsible for the absence of Middle East peace.

Second, Netanyahu tried to decrease US pressure on his government by conditionally accepting the idea of a Palestinian state. Clearly, it was Netanyahu's acceptance of the idea of a Palestinian state — albeit a demilitarized one — that was supposed to do the most to fend off US pressure. After all, Obama and his advisers have made the swift establishment of a Palestinian state their primary foreign policy aim.

Irrespective of its impact on the Obama administration, Netanyahu's speech was a positive contribution to the general discourse on the Middle East and Israel's place in it. He made good use of his opportunity to address the nation above the heads of the uniformly leftist media to forge a new definition of the national consensus. Whereas his defeatist predecessors consistently spoke of the people's willingness to make painful concessions for peace, and treated the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state as their primary duty as Zionists, Netanyahu recast the national consensus along patriotic lines.

He echoed the sentiments of the vast majority of Israelis when he refused to end building inside of Jewish communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines; when he asserted that he would make no concessions on sovereignty over Jerusalem; would insist that we retain defensible borders; would refuse entrance of so-called Palestinian refugees to our territory; and demanded Palestinian recognition of our right to exist as the Jewish state.

He stridently and eloquently corrected Obama's false characterization of this country as the product of the Holocaust during his speeches at Cairo and Buchenwald by recalling the 3,500 year old Jewish ties to the Land of Israel. And he made clear that the association Obama made between the Holocaust and this country's founding was a precise inversion of the historical record. It is not Israel that owes its existence to the Holocaust. Rather, the Holocaust was only able to happen because there was no Israel.

 

NETANYAHU'S SPEECH was a much-needed strong defense. But it was not a perfect defense. It suffered from two flaws that may come back to haunt the premier in the years to come. First, his demand that the US lead the international community in guaranteeing that the Palestinian state is demilitarized provided the Obama administration with a new means to trick Israel into making suicidal concessions.

The only way to ensure that a Palestinian state is demilitarized is to send in forces to demilitarize it. Obviously the Americans won't take such a step. In Gaza, a militarized Palestinian state already exists and the Americans have no intention of demilitarizing it for us. As for Judea and Samaria, today, the only thing the emerging Palestinian state has to show for itself is its US-built army.

The only force that would ensure a Palestinian state (or states) stays demilitarized is the IDF. But by appointing the US the guarantor of its demilitarized status, Netanyahu is inviting the US to lie and so make it impossible for us to take the steps necessary to ensure that the Palestinians lack the means to threaten the country.

In requesting that the US guarantee disarmament, Netanyahu repeated a mistake he made in his first term in office. In 1996 he conditioned his willingness to move forward with peace talks with the PLO on the terror group's amendment of its charter calling for the destruction of Israel in line with its commitment under the initial Oslo agreement. Netanyahu empowered Bill Clinton to judge Palestinian compliance with this demand. In due course, Clinton travelled to Gaza and mendaciously announced that the PLO had in fact amended the charter. No such action had been taken, but Netanyahu was in no position to accuse Clinton of lying.

While his decision to appoint Obama arbiter of Palestinian demilitarization was ill-conceived, things could have been much worse.

Netanyahu ignored the so-called road map peace plan. That plan is one long list of Palestinian commitments that the US is empowered to judge compliance on. From terror fighting to ending incitement, the road map places Israel in the position of being forced to take America's word on issues paramount to its national security. By ignoring the road map, Netanyahu managed to avert the need to call Obama a liar directly.

The other problem with Netanyahu's speech is that by accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, and embracing Obama's fantasy that it is possible to reach a deal with the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu blocked the possibility that Israel will be able to forge a new policy that will move it to a more advantageous status quo in the coming years. That is, Netanyahu's conditional acceptance of Obama's false and ideologically motivated two-state paradigm damns Israel to the position of foot dragger in relation to someone else's policy rather than trailblazer for its own policy.

In fairness to Netanyahu, in light of Obama's ideological commitment to the two-state paradigm which blames Israel for the absence of peace, it is far from clear that he has any choice other than to go along with the president and just play for time. Were Netanyahu to apply Israeli law to the large settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley or establish security zones along Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, he would likely instigate a full breach of relations with Washington.

At this point, it is up to the public and our representatives in the Knesset to pave the way for a better policy in the future. This we can do by rejecting the two-state paradigm and conducting a public discourse relevant to our national interests. For Netanyahu, however, buying time with a hostile administration may be the best he can aspire to during his current term in office.

Of course, buying time in and of itself is no great accomplishment. The voters did not elect Netanyahu to lead us simply to buy time. We elected him to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. If his speech succeeded in blunting US pressure on Israel — even temporarily — on the Palestinian front, and in light of the results of the Iranian presidential race, Netanyahu has gained the opportunity to act on the Iranian front. If during his current term he prevents Iran from becoming a nuclear power and makes no concessions in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, he will be remembered as one of our greatest leaders and his speech will be remembered for posterity as a pivotal event.

On the other hand, if Netanyahu sits on his laurels, he will be surprised to see how quickly Obama — desperate for a foreign policy achievement after being laughed out of Teheran and Pyongyang — forgets his happiness at Netanyahu's address. In no time flat, Obama will try to force Israel make him look like he knows what he is doing. At that point, an open confrontation with the White House will become unavoidable.

 

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

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

 

 

"Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa"

 

 by Jock L. Falkson

 

Israel's victory in the Six Days War (June 1967) left her in charge of all the territory previously annexed by Jordan which they referred to as their West Bank, and the land of Sinai, previously held by Egypt.

 

Israel was prepared to return some of the conquered territories in the peace agreement she expected to sign. But while most wars end in a peace agreement, Egypt, Jordan and the other warring Arab nations had not the slightest intention of making peace though they had clearly been defeated by the infidel Jews they were so confident of conquering and annihilating.

 

 So all Israel got were the Three Noes of Khartoum. No peace, no recognition, no negotiations. This was the unanimous decision of the Arab Summit Conference held that August.

 

 The disposition of the territories which Israel had conquered in 1967 was framed by the United Nations. On 22 November 1967 the Security Council's Resolution 242 was passed. Since then the Palestinians and their friends have tried to change the meaning the resolution to grant them what it had not offered.

 

Here are some of the responses of major political figures who were involved in the phrasing of 242.

 

 

JUSTICE ARTHUR GOLDBERG, FORMER US

AMBASSADOR . . . key author of 242.

 

 "The notable omissions in regard to withdrawal. are the words 'all', 'the' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines'.There is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from all of the territories occupied by it on, and after, June 5, 1967."

 

 ". The efforts of the Arab States, strongly supported by the USSR, for a condemnation of Israel as the aggressor and for its withdrawal to the June 5, 1967 lines, failed to command the requisite support."

(Columbia Journal of International Law, Vol 12 no 2, 1973).

 

"UN Security Council Resolution 242 calls on Israel to withdraw only from territories occupied in the course of the Six Day War - that is, not from 'all' the territories or even from 'the' territories. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawal from 'all' the territory were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly one after another. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the 'fragile and vulnerable' [1949/1967] Armistice Demarcation Lines." christianactionforisrael.org/un/242a.html

 

"Does Resolution 242 as unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council require the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from all of the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 war? The answer is no. In the resolution, the words the and all are omitted."

 

"Resolution 242 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 conflict, without specifying the extent of the withdrawal. The resolution, therefore, neither commands nor prohibits total withdrawal."

 

"If the resolution is ambiguous, and purposely so, on this crucial issue, how is the withdrawal issue to be settled? By direct negotiations between the concerned parties. Resolution 242 calls for agreement between them to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement. Agreement and acceptance necessarily require negotiations". (American Foreign Policy Interests, 1988)

 

 

MICHAEL STEWART, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

 

"As I have explained before . . . the omission of the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate." Motions to require the withdrawal of Israel from 'the' territories or 'all the territories' . . . were put forward many times with great linguistic ingenuity.

 

"They were all defeated both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council.

 

"The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories." (In Parliament, 19 December 1969)

 

The United Nations could not have conceived that this resolution would not have been implemented 42 years later. However, this did not prevent innumerable attempts to alter its meaning in favor of the Palestinians who, at the time, never even whispered (let alone clamored) for the West Bank to become a Palestinian state. For they were not even a nation in the making.

 

In response to the ongoing debate on "settlements" it is appropriate to recall some of the comments and clarifications offered by Presidents and other high ranking politicos. was Here are a few of the citations of one of the more important of these, namely . . .

 

 

BRITISH AMBASSADOR, LORD CARADON (Hugh Foot) a key drafter of Resolution 242

 

". . . withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be recognized. . . It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1948, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary . . ." (Interviewed on Kol Israel in February 1973)

 

 

FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE EUGENE W. ROSTOW, key author of 242.

 

"The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to close settlement in the whole of the Mandated territory.

 

". . . the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then. . .

 

"Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949 Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose a psychological obstacle to the peace process."

 

". . .the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa."

(The New Republic, October 21, 1991)

 

 

FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON

 

"There are some who have urged, as a single, simple solution, an immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4. As our distinguished and able Ambassador, Mr. Arthur Goldberg, has already said, this is not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities." (Address June 19, 1967)*

 

"It is clear however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders." (Address, Sept. 10, 1968) "Israel should not have to withdraw its forces to the pre-June 5 armistice lines. This is not a prescription for peace, but for a renewal of hostilities."(Address, June 19, 1967)

 

"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967 will not bring peace." (Front Page Magazine, August 2, 2006.)

 

 

FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN:

 

"While the Carter administration did deem "settlements" illegal, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did not. Neither did President Reagan, who said: "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there - I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they're not illegal."

(New York Times, Feb. 3, 1981)

 

"U.N. Resolution 242 remains wholly valid as the foundation-stone of America's Middle East peace effort." "Israel exists; it has a right to exist in peace behind secure and defensible borders, and it has a right to demand of its neighbors that they recognize those facts."

 

"In the pre-1967 borders Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again." (Address to the Nation, September 1, 1982).

 

 

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, GEORGE SCHULTZ, to President Reagan

 

"Israel will never negotiate from, or return to, the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders." (Address to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Sept. 16, 1988).

 

 

FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE McNAMARA

 

". . . has said that if he were the Israel's Minister of Defense, he would never agree to giving up the Golan Heights.UNSC 242 does not require the Israelis to transfer to the Arabs all, most, or indeed any of the occupied territories."

 

"A few days before the UNSC vote on 242, President Johnson summoned UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and Undersecretary Eugene Rostow to formulate the US position on the issue of 'secure boundaries' for Israel. They were presented with the Pentagon Map, which had been prepared by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. The map displayed the "minimum territory needed by Israel for defensive purposes," which included the entire Golan Heights and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria. The participants . . . agreed that the Pentagon Map fulfilled the requirements of 242 for 'secure borders."

 

(Prof. Ezra Zohar, A Concubine in the Middle East, Geffen Publishing, p. 39)

 

 

JAMES BAKER, FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"At the Middle East Insight Symposium in Washington on May 4, 1998. Hoda Tawfik, from the newspaper Al Ahram asked James Baker, former US Secretary of State, "What do you think is right? That these are occupied Arab territories and not disputed territories?" Baker replied, "They're clearly disputed territories. That's what Resolutions 242 and 338 are all about. They are clearly disputed territories."

( Washington, May 4, 1998.)

 

 

JOSEPH SISCO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."

 

 

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

 

"In 1991, the Bush administration assured Prime Minister Shamir that the ´´United States does not intend to issue a call for a return to the 1967 borders or for only cosmetic changes in these borders." (Wikipedia)

 

 

GEORGE SHULTZ, SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"Israel will never negotiate from, or return to, the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders. So the state of Israel cannot agree to anything other than its own secure, defensible, and internationally recognized borders." (Address to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Sept. 16, 1988).

 

 

VASILY KUZNETSOV, USSR AMBASSADOR TO UN

 

"There is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far as the lines which it judges convenient."

(S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)

 

And now comes the sea change bringer of American politics who has not the slightest respect for the views and decisions of his predecessors, great presidents and administration leaders. He has the nerve to tell us that only he and Carter are right. That all previous clarifications from legal eagles who are certainly the more legally knowledgeable than he, are nitwits who do not compare with his regal wisdom.

 

"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Thus Obama.

 

Hillary Clifton echoes her master's voice: "The president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to "settlements" - not some "settlements", not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."

 

Thus he commands Israelis living in West Bank "settlements" that they have no right to build additions to their homes, or new ones to house their newly marrieds. Nor for the new generation born in Yesha!

 

Israel must not give up the rights of Yesha's citizens because their right of settlement was and is unassailable. We must, if necessary, sit this Pharaoh out. The Palestinians have shown us the power of patience. Let us wait for a successor who will reverse Obama.

 

Meanwhile we must ratchet up our puerile public relations to win public opinion. For the Palestinians have beaten us hollow by the power of their public relations. Their narrative has beaten ours. Our governments have misjudged the power of public relations ever since the day Ben Gurion famously said "it matters not what the goyim say but what we do." Then how come it does not matter what the Palestinians do - but what they say?

 

 

Jock (Joshua) L. Falkson

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

 

A statement from first principles.

 

 by Melanie Phillips

 

The essence of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech a few hours ago, which you can read in full at http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/  , was simply this:

 

     Israel wants peace with the Palestinians. The cause of the conflict remains, as it ever was, the Arabs' refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in their historic homeland of Israel, which (contrary to Obama's claim) predated the Nazi Holocaust by several thousand years. Those (like Obama) who think the cause is the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza are confusing cause and effect. The fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is therefore a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Far from Israel occupying Palestinian land in  Judea and Samaria, it is the Palestinians who are living within the ancient Jewish homeland. Israel does not wish to rule them and they can have a state of their own, provided they accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and provided a Palestinian state is demilitarised so  that it does not possess the means to destroy Israel.

 

To this statement of historical truth and the most elementary requirements of morality and justice, the Palestinians' reply was unequivocal. The BBC reports:

 

     Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Israeli leader's speech 'torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region'. Another Abbas aide, Yasser Abed Rabbo, told the AFP news agency that recognition of Israel's Jewish character was a demand for Palestinians 'to become part of the global Zionist movement'. The militant Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, said the speech reflected Mr Netanyahu's 'racist and extremist ideology'.

 

Well, all that rather seems to make Netanyahu's point for him. How can there be a 'two state solution' when the Palestinians refuse to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state? Quite obviously, such a solution is off the table as far as the Palestinians are concerned.

 

So now the situation is clear for even the most blinkered to see. It's not the wretched settlements but the very existence of a Jewish state that is total anathema to the Palestinians. Yet as far as Obama is concerned, it is not the Palestinians who are the problem but Israel, which must now be forced to surrender its security to them - even while the so-called moderates of Fatah threaten to resume open warfare because of Netanyahu's temerity in stating the truth of the Jews' right to their own land and with Jerusalem its historic and undivided capital.

 

Thus the veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeeb Erekat, who said that Netanyahu

 

     will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him with this feeble state...

 

instantly threatened a resumption of violence:

 

     'President Obama, the ball is in your court tonight,' Erekat said. 'You have the choice tonight. You can treat Netanyahu as a prime minister above the law and ... close off the path of peace tonight and set the whole region on the path of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodletting.

 

As the Jerusalem Post noted, however, Netanyahu espoused the vision of a Palestinian state living at peace alongside Israel, and reaffirmed that Israel would build no new settlements and take control of no more West Bank land. Just as Obama wanted.

 

So now will Obama pick up that ball and ask the Palestinians very nicely if they could possibly accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state? After all, what could be more reasonable than that?

 

 

Melanie Phillips

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

 

FULL TEXT OF NETANYAHU'S FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH AT BAR ILAN .

 

Bibi Netanyahu

June 15, 2009
 Honored guests, citizens of Israel.

Peace was always the desire of our people. Our prophets had a vision of peace, we greet each other with peace, our prayers end with the word peace. This evening we are in the center named for two leaders who were groundbreakers for peace -Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat - and we share their vision.

Two and a half months ago, I was sworn in at the Knesset as the Prime Minister of Israel. I promised that I would establish a unity government, and did so. I believed, and still believe, that we need unity now more than ever before.
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We are currently facing three tremendous challenges: The Iranian threat, the financial crisis, and the promotion of peace.

The Iranian threat still is before us in full force, as it became quite clear yesterday. The greatest danger to Israel, to the Middle East, and to all of humanity, is the encounter between extremist Islam and nuclear weapons. I discussed this with President Obama on my visit to Washington, and will be discussing it next week on my visit with European leaders. I have been working tirelessly for many years to form an international front against Iran arming itself with nuclear armaments.

With the world financial crisis, we acted immediately to bring about stability to the Israeli economy. We passed a two-year budget in the government and will pass it through the Knesset very soon.
The second challenge, rather, the third, so very important challenge, facing us today, is promoting peace. I discussed this also with President Obama. I strongly support the idea of regional peace that he is advancing. I share the President of the U.S.A's desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region.

I discussed this in my meetings with President Mubarak in Egypt and with King Abdullah in Jordan to obtain the assistance of these leaders in the effort to expand the circle of peace in our region.

I appeal tonight to the leaders of the Arab countries and say: Let us meet. Let us talk about peace. Let us make peace. I am willing to meet at any time, at any place, in Damascus, in Riyadh, in Beirut, and in Jerusalem as well. (Applause)

I call upon the leaders of the Arab countries to join together with the Palestinians and with us to promote economic peace. Economic peace is not a substitute for peace, but it is a very important component in achieving it. Together we can advance projects that can overcome the problems facing our region. For example, water desalinization. And we can utilize the advantages of our region, such as maximizing the use of solar energy, or utilizing its geographical advantages to lay pipelines, pipelines to Africa and Europe.

Together we can realize the initiatives that I see in the Persian Gulf, which amaze the entire world, and also amaze me. I call upon the talented entrepreneurs of the Arab world, to come and invest here, to assist the Palestinians and us, to give the economy a jump-start. Together we can develop industrial zones, we can create thousands of jobs, and foster tourism that will draw millions, people who want to walk in the footsteps of history, in Nazareth and Bethlehem, in the heights of Jericho and on the walls of Jerusalem, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and at the baptismal site of the Jordan. There is a huge potential for the development of tourism potential here. If you only agree to work together.

I appeal to you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Let us begin peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions. Israel is committed to international agreements, and expects all sides to fulfill their obligations.
I say to the Palestinians: We want to live with you in peace, quiet, and good neighborly relations. We want our children and your children to 'know war no more.'

We do not want parents and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, to know the sorrow of bereavement. We want our children to dream of a better future for humankind. We want us and our neighbors to devote our efforts to 'plowshares and pruning hooks' and not to "swords and spears" I know the terror of war, I participated in battles, I lost good friends who fell [in battle], I lost a brother. I saw the pain of bereaved families from up close  very many times. I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war. (Applause)

Let us join hands and work together in peace, together with our neighbors. There is no limit to the flourishing growth that we can achieve for both peoples - in the economy, in agriculture, in commerce, tourism, education - but, above all, in the ability to give our younger generation hope to live in a place that's good to live in, a life of creative work, a peaceful life with much of interest, with opportunity and hope.

Friends, with the advantages of peace so clear, so obvious, we must ask ourselves why is peace still so far from us, even though our hands are extended for peace? Why has the conflict going on for over 60 years? To bring an end to it, there must be a sincere, genuine answer to the question: what is the root of the conflict? In his speech at the Zionist Congress in Basel, in speaking of his grand vision of a Jewish homeland for the Jewish People, Theodor Herzl, the visionary of the State of Israel, said: This is so big, we must talk about it only in the simplest words possible.

I now am asking that when we speak of the huge challenge of peace, we must use the simplest words possible, using person to person terms. Even with our eyes on the horizon, we must have our feet on the ground, firmly rooted in truth. The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been  and remains - the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland.

In 1947 when the United Nations proposed the Partition Plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state, the entire Arab world rejected the proposal, while the Jewish community accepted it with great rejoicing and dancing. The Arabs refused any Jewish state whatsoever, with any borders whatsoever.

Whoever thinks that the continued hostility to Israel is a result of our forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is confusing cause and effect. The attacks on us began in the 1920s, became an overall attack in 1948 when the state was declared, continued in the 1950s with the fedaayyin attacks, and reached their climax in 1967 on the eve of the Six-Day War, with the attempt to strangle Israel. All this happened nearly 50 years before a single Israeli soldier went into Judea and Samaria.

To our joy, Egypt and Jordan left this circle of hostility. They signed peace agreements with us which ended their hostility to Israel. It brought about peace.

To our deep regret, this is not happening with the Palestinians. The closer we get to a peace agreement with them, the more they are distancing themselves from peace. They raise new demands. They are not showing us that they want to end the conflict.

A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers.

We tried withdrawal by agreement, withdrawal without an agreement, we tried partial withdrawal and full withdrawal. In 2000, and once again last year, the government of Israel, based on good will, tried a nearly complete withdrawal, in exchange for the end of the conflict, and were twice refused.

We withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last centimeter, we uprooted dozens of settlements and turned thousands of Israelis out of their homes. In exchange, what we received were missiles raining down on our cities, our towns and our children. The argument that withdrawal would bring peace closer did not stand up to the test of reality.

With Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north, they keep on saying that they want to 'liberate' Ashkelon in the south and Haifa and Tiberias.
Even the moderates among the Palestinians are not ready to say the most simplest things: The State of Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish People and will remain so. (Applause)

Friends, in order to achieve peace, we need courage and integrity on the part of the leaders of both sides. I am speaking today with courage and honesty. We need courage and sincerity not only on the Israeli side: we need the Palestinian leadership to rise and say, simply "We have had enough of this conflict. We recognize the right of the Jewish People to a state its own in this Land. We will live side by side in true peace." I am looking forward to this moment.

We want them to say the simplest things, to our people and to their people. This will then open the door to solving other problems, no matter how difficult. The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People. (Applause)

For this to have practical meaning, we need a clear agreement to solve the Palestinian refugee problem outside of the borders of the State of Israel. For it is clear to all that the demand to settle the Palestinian refugees inside of Israel, contradicts the continued existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People. We must solve the problem of the Arab refugees. And I believe that it is possible to solve it. Because we have proven that we ourselves solved a similar problem. Tiny Israel took in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were uprooted from their homes.

Therefore, justice and logic dictates that the problem of the Palestinian refugees must be solved outside the borders of the State of Israel. There is broad national agreement on this. (Applause)

I believe that with good will and international investment of we can solve this humanitarian problem once and for all.

Friends, up to now, I have been talking about the need for the Palestinians to ecognize our rights. Now I will talk about the need for us to recognize their rights.

The connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah  this is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers. (Applause)

The right of the Jewish People to a state in the Land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish People over 2,000 years -- persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations. There are those who say that without the Holocaust the State would not have been established, but I say that if the State of Israel had been established in time, the Holocaust would not have taken place. (Applause) The tragedies that arose from the Jewish People's helplessness show very sharply that we need a protective state.
The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People. (Applause)

As the first PM David Ben Gurion in the declaration of the State, the State of Israel was established here in Eretz Israel, where the People of Israel created the Book of Books, and gave it to the world.

But, friends, we must state the whole truth here. The truth is that in the area of our homeland, in the heart of our Jewish Homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives. We do not want to force our flag and our culture on them. In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence.

These two facts  our link to the Land of Israel, and the Palestinian population who live here, have created deep disagreements within Israeli society. But the truth is that we have much more unity than disagreement.

I came here tonight to talk about the agreement and security that are broad consensus within Israeli society. This is what guides our policy. This policy must take into account the international situation. We have to recognize international agreements but also principles important to the State of Israel. I spoke tonight about the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarization, with solid security measures. Without this condition, there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza. We do not want missiles on Petah Tikva, or Grads on the Ben-Gurion international airport. We want peace. (Applause)
And, to ensure peace we don't want them to bring in missiles or rockets or have an army, or control of airspace, or make treaties with countries like Iran, or Hizbullah. There is broad agreement on this in Israel. We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized. This is crucial to the existence of Israel  we must provide for our security needs.

This is why we are now asking our friends in the international community, headed by the USA, for what is necessary for our security, that in any peace agreement, the Palestinian area must be demilitarized. No army, no control of air space. Real effective measures to prevent arms coming in, not what's going on now in Gaza. The Palestinians cannot make military treaties.

Without this, sooner or later, we will have another Hamastan. We can't agree to this. Israel must govern its own fate and security. I told President Obama in Washington, if we get a guarantee of demilitarization, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state. (Applause)

Whenever we discuss a permanent arrangement, Israel needs defensible borders with Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel. (Applause)

The territorial issues will be discussed in a permanent agreement. Till then we have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements. But there is a need to have people live normal lives and let mothers and fathers raise their children like everyone in the world. The settlers are not enemies of peace. They are our brothers and sisters. (Applause)

Friends, unity among us is, to my view, vital, and unity will help with reconciliation with our neighbors. Reconciliation must begin now. A strong Palestinian government will strengthen peace. If they truly want peace, and educate their children for peace and stop incitement, we for our part will make every effort, allow them freedom of movement and accessibility, making their lives easier and this will help bring peace.
But above all, they must decide: the Palestinians must decide between path of peace and path of Hamas. They must overcome Hamas. Israel will not sit down at conference table with terrorist who seek to destroy it. (Applause)

Hamas are not willing to even let the Red Cross visit our abducted soldier Gilad Shalit who has been in captivity three years, cut off from his family and his country. We want to bring him back whole and well.
With help of the international community, there is no reason why we can't have peace. With help of USA, we can do we can do the unbelievable. In 61 years, with constant threats to our existence we have achieved so much. Our microchips power the worlds computers unbelievable, we have found cures for incurable diseases. Israeli drip irrigation waters barren lands throughout the world. Israeli researchers are making worldwide breakthroughs. If our neighbors only work for peace, we can achieve peace. (Applause)

I call upon Arab leaders and Palestinian leaders: Let's go in the path of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein. Let's go in the path of Prophet Isaiah, who spoke thousands of years ago, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and know war no more.
Let us know war no more. Let us know peace