The outline of the agreement that Obama and Kerry wish to impose on Israel and the PLO is becoming evident. Lead US negotiator Martin Indyk is talking, and reportedly
…told the Jewish leaders on Thursday that under the framework agreement about 75-80 percent of settlers would remain in what would become Israeli sovereign territory through land swaps; he added that it was his impression that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was not averse to allowing settlers who want to remain as citizens of the Palestinian state. …
This implies the ‘relocation’ of about 100,000 Jews (half as many as Ferdinand and Isabella kicked out of Spain in 1492). Practically speaking, this will be impossible, since many of these Jews will resist. Multiply the numbers of the Gaza expulsion by 10 or more, and then consider the ideological commitment of many of these Jews. Blood would be shed. For the Jewish people, it would be a historic defeat and disaster. It would tear the nation apart.
Morally speaking it would be unjust. Jews were encouraged by the ‘international community’ to settle in all of mandatory Palestine, but they were expelled by the Jordanian invasion and ethnic cleansing in 1948. Now they will be expelled again, in order to create a racially pure Arab state.
Yes, a racist state. Jewish citizens of a Palestinian state? The concept is a cruel, antisemitic joke. To even think about this, after the official adulation given to the newly released, joyously unrepentant murderers — it’s incredible. I have no words.
Broadly, Indyk said, the agreement will address: mutual recognition; security, land swaps and borders; Jerusalem; refugees; and the end of conflict and all claims. …
This, too, with a straight face, when anyone can see that if the Jews are removed from the territories and the Arabs do not uphold their end of the deal, then what? Will the Jews return to their homes?
On some sensitive issues — particularly the status of Jerusalem — the framework would be vague, but Indyk went into detail on other issues that participants said was surprising.
Among these was the security arrangement for the border between Jordan and the West Bank: Indyk said a new security zone would be created, with new fences, sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Military experts, including Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, have made it clear why this is worthless. Simply, all of this high-tech equipment, even if it works correctly and can’t be sabotaged, can’t stop anyone. There is a high-tech fence at the border with Gaza, but it is patrolled by the IDF. How long would it stay there if the army were to leave?
Suppose the King of Jordan is overthrown and a Muslim Brotherhood regime is established. Suppose this regime masses an army on the border, even invites other nations to join it. Suppose ‘Palestine’ invites them onto its territory, in view of Tel Aviv.
All this will contravene lots of agreements, and Israel — kept up-to-date by its high-tech sensors — will be able to … do what? Complain to the UN?
Frankly, the whole idea of “high-tech security arrangements” is nonsense — worse, its purpose is to give Kerry an excuse to pressure Israel to abandon its security. It is another aspect of the deceit that characterizes this enterprise.
Indyk also said that the framework would address compensation for Jews from Arab lands as well as compensation for Palestinian refugees — another longstanding demand by some pro-Israel groups but one that has yet to be included in any formal document.
If the world recognizes the need to provide a humanitarian solution for the refugees, which includes resettlement in Arab countries and anything else they need after the way they have been used and mistreated by the Arab regimes, fine. But ‘compensation’ implies a right that has been taken away, and there is no such right. Any vestige of a symbolic right of return will soon transform itself into the demand for a real one. Much simpler and more just to simply consider the Arab and Jewish refugees a population exchange and call it even.
The same principle applies to the land swaps. Legally, the 1949 armistice lines have no political significance. But if Israel compensates the Arabs for land it keeps outside of the lines, the implication is that it belonged to the Arabs in the first place. Otherwise, what is there to compensate for?
He said that the framework would describe “Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and Palestine as the nation state of the Palestinian people,†a nod to a key demand by the Netanyahu government that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state.
Fine. After all, their word is their bond! And now we come to the best part:
He said the framework would address the issue of incitement and Palestinian education for peace.
Here I can absolutely guarantee that the Arabs will not keep their side of the bargain. How do I know? Because this was part of the Oslo accords, part of the Road Map, and probably part of other agreements, and neither Arafat nor Abbas ever took any steps in this direction. Never.
And this, more than anything else — the hate-education system, the glorification of murderers and terrorists — even while ostensibly negotiating for peace, shows that in fact the Arabs are not negotiating for peace. Their objective is to get prisoners released, to get control of territory, to get money and weapons, to build an ideologically driven army of all of their people, to weaken Israel in every possible way in order to ultimately destroy it.
What is the common thread here? Deceit — and not just on the part of the Arabs, who are simply behaving as they always have. No, I am referring to Barack Obama, John Kerry and the Europeans who, by now, must understand the consequences of what they are doing, but keep throwing up smokescreens — like ‘high-tech security arrangements’ — to hide them.
And I haven’t even mentioned yet that they are doing this at the same time that they are pursuing improved relations with Israel’s most dangerous enemy, Iran — and in the process enabling Iran to get nuclear weapons. Here, too, deceit is key.
For whatever reason, the objective of the Obama-Kerry plan is to wreck the only functioning democratic state in the Middle East, the one closest to American ideals, the only one with a flourishing economy. And the only refuge for the Jewish people in a world that is rapidly becoming very unfriendly.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, John Kerry
Deceit is not the only thing that surrounds the misnamed so-called “peace process.”
Then there is the blackmail, fear-mongering, pressure and outright threats. Directed not at the Arabs who refuse to make peace with Israel. The trutal reality in fact is the exact opposite.
They’re aimed at forcing Israel to give away the Jewish homeland and Jerusalem for a piece of paper that wouldn’t be worth the signatures put on it. Secretary Of State John F. Kerry is reportedly going to go on Israel’s leftist TV channels to warn Israelis if they do not agree to commit national suicide, Europe will boycott them, their economy will collapse and their sole ally in the world would abandon them to their fate.
In other words, the absence of peace will be blamed on the Jews’ heads if they do not get the message and go along with the program. Naturally none of this brutal assault on the psyche of a nation is going to be applied to the Palestinian Arabs. No one expects more of them or expects them to give up anything or even to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Israel is going to be expected to make massive unilateral concessions (again) because the Jews after all, insouciant and insufferably stiff-necked as they are, must be put in their place.
The peace process has nothing to with do peace! It has everything to do with making the Jewish State vulnerable to its future demise.
After all, if peace was the real goal, there would be no need for deceit and for Obama, Kerry and their willing collaborators on the Israeli Left to stampede Israel into accepting a “Rwanda Solution.” In the end, those people won’t pay the price if they’re mistaken about future Arab intentions towards the rump Jewish State.
That price would be paid with the lives of every Jewish man, woman and child in Israel. Peace in our time is not about securing Israel’s future. Its about placing Israel in a position in which the Arabs, from a newly created state, would be free to destroy Israel when they became strong enough to do it.
And if Israel was ever destroyed, no one would ever shed crocodile tears for it any more than people who cannot bring themselves to even mention the word “Jew” at International Holocaust Day observances, bother to shed crocodile tears over dead Jews.
Quite simply put, a peace based on deceit and injustice won’t be long for this world. That is why Israel must reject it! It will survive Obama and Kerry. It won’t survive for long without the heart of its homeland and Jerusalem.
Let’s hope that is received loud and clear in Israel because history will not give the Jewish people a second chance.
You are absolutely right on most of your points, NormanF. The only exception I would take to what you write above is your contention that “no one” would shed any tears for the demise of the Jewish state, as if the whole world would not care. That may be true for most of Europe, probably Africa, and maybe South America. But polls here even in the U.S. show that support for Israel in the U.S. “street” is still very high, and is opposed to most positions taken by the Obama administration relevant to Israel. I don’t think China, India, South Korea, or Singapore wish Israel any ill at all, nor does the Philippines. Taken together, this is a large chunk of the world population. And at the state level, the governments of Canada and Australia are solidly by Israel’s side. Even Russia – schizophrenic though they are – is eager to do business with Israel. Putin pays lip service to the Palestinians, but he doesn’t really care.
Even some Europeans are “not playing”….both the Netherlands and Greece announced that they won’t participate in any boycott against Israel.
This leads me to my main point, here.
People, 90% of this “screw Israel” campaign is being LED BY OBAMA.
Vic, you stop just short of saying this, but I’ve been saying this here and elsewhere for years, and I say again, THIS IS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY.
Obama is the one leading all of this crap. Take him out of the picture…and it brightens up quite a bit, doesn’t it?
Someday – probably sooner rather than later – you’ll admit I’m right about this. In fact, within a year or two, I expect this point of view to surface even among mainstream commentators of the ‘polite right’ (e.g., George Will, etc.). Even they’ll be saying by the end of Obama’s tenure in office: “You know, when you stand back and look at it, it seems that in real policy terms, the only thing Obama was ever serious about, the only thing he really cared about, was undermining Israel.”
Obama, by himself, is nothing but a mean-spirited, petty, immature, snot-nosed left wing punk. Yes, he is the president of the U.S., but he is losing credibility both at home and abroad. YOU CAN STAND UP TO HIM..and the anti-Semite Europeans.
What is the worst thing that can happen if Israel says “NO”?
There might be an EU boycott, and that will hurt. But even some members of the EU – at least the Netherlands and Greece – won’t participate, and probably others as well won’t, either. The U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, even Russia, will likely go on trading with Israel. You’ll survive just fine, I’m sure.
The very worst thing that can happen is that the statehood application sitting on the desk of the UNSC, that has been there since September of ’11, will finally be voted on. If it passes, this could lead to real trouble…but it would give Israel the excuse to finally crush the PLO once and for all. Yes, this would result in a massive near-term political/economic shitstorm, but you’d survive that, too. Again, most of the countries I list above would still continue to do business with Israel.
The bigger threat looming over all of this is Iran. I hope it is not too late for Israel to carry out an effective strike. Bibi keeps promising he will never allow Iran to get nukes, but I don’t know if I believe him anymore. Perhaps the pressure is too great from Obama for him to act with any guarantee of success.
A nuclear Iran will not only threaten Israel, but also the U.S. and other Western interests. This will be Obama’s legacy: the trashing of the NPT, the resulting massive increase in global instability, and perhaps Iranian nuclear terrorism against the “Great Satan” – that’s the U.S., not Israel – just because Obama cared about screwing Israel over more than he cared about anything else, period.
Well, I never voted for the bastard.
I fully expect him to come to a bad end. How much damage he’ll do before that, G-d only knows. It will be a lot. But don’t you give in to him over there, Israel. Don’t give him any satisfaction over anything. If you stand strong, this will be the rock against his entire sorry presidency crashes. He will have made it so. Stay stong….LIKE A ROCK.
Good Shabbos, everybody.
Robman,
You write:
There is a lot about Obama that isn’t known. We continue to find that events in his personal biography are not as portrayed. Relatives (google “Malik Obama”) surface with very worrisome politics. The LA Times, years after, will not release its videotape of the 2003 dinner at which Obama toasted his friend, Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi.
But until the smoking gun appears, it is still a stretch to say “the entire purpose of the Obama presidency.”
On the other hand, can anyone doubt that it is the most anti-Israel administration since 1948? Or that its policies are inimical to the continued existence of the Jewish state?
Vic,
Well, to me, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, in terms of his actions while in office.
Yes, there are these other things you reference that could provide a ‘smoking gun’ in terms of intent before the fact. But even without seeing that tape of Obama’s dinner with Rashid Khalidi – whose entire adult life has been dedicated to the demonization and dismantlement of Israel – how much do we need to know besides the fact that Khalidi raised $70K for Obama’s first senate campaign? Does anyone think he did this because he wanted national health care? Yes, one can reply that prominent Jews also raised a lot of money for Obama, but their agenda had to do with many things apart from Israel (e.g., pro-choice, “fairness”, national health care, the litany of liberal Jewish causes). By contrast, Khalidi – who knew Obama very well, was very social with him – what else could his agenda have been? What has his agenda always been?
But also, consider this:
What is Obama’s most important domestic achievement? Anyone would say, “Obamacare”, right? This is his signature domestic legislative triumph.
Now, the most elemental common sense would dictate that if this was going to be his most important domestic political priority – look at all the effort that went into getting this passed – The Boss would have made damn sure that it would have rolled out in as smooth and competent manner as possible. Yet, it is a total disaster. In reality, he was obviously inattentive to this, delegated everything important to incompetents, and apparently was not overly concerned with the outcome.
We see, in real terms, his lack of genuine commitment to just about every other issue that is ostensibly important to him. Gun control, income inequality, global warming, plus retreat/indifference in real tems to every other foreign policy issue….he has not accomplished anything (which is a good thing in many respects, at least on domestic policy, I say, given what he wants to “accomplish”).
Strip away all the lack of attention, lack of accomplishment, lack of resolve…and you still see ONE area where he NEVER budges ONE MILLIMETER: Israel. The ONE place where his “resolve” never seems to flag at all is on the twin related issues of: a) shoving a stupid, suicidal “peace deal” as you describe above down Israel’s throat, and b) making by G-d, by golly sure that those Israelis DO NOT strike Iran! Everything else going on in the world, foreign and domestic, either simply is ignored in favor of time/energy spent promoting this agenda, or to the extent that anything else is pursued, this is in the service of his anti-Israel agenda (e.g., installing the MB in Egypt, this bogus deal with Iran on their nuke program, even “punishing” Canada for her support of Israel – that is is clear if unstated intent – by refusing to support the Keystone Pipeline…in this latter instance, even in the face of opposition from powerful elements of his own base, such as the unions).
Look at his obvious indecisiveness over the Syrian situation this past August/September…here, he was clearly stymied over the fact that action on his part could have easily wound up inadvertantly helping Israel, and forcing him to act more ostensibly as an ally of Israel…so he did nothing, rather than risk this outcome.
Now, you might simply claim that Obama is ‘incompetent’, and at one level, I’d have to say you are right. But isn’t interesting how, in terms of making life difficult for Israel, in this ONE are, he has proven to be EXTREMELY competent? As if……
…THAT WAS ALL HE WAS THERE FOR (at least, above and beyond any other objective). Do you think it is just a mere coincidence that this is all he eeems to be good at, is making trouble for Israel?
I tell you, someday, you’re gonna admit I was right…..