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Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

The great Media Fraternity of Israel-Haters has turned its demonization engine in a new direction, and focused it squarely upon Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Adjectives such as ‘racist’, ‘fascist’, ‘ultranationalist’, ‘thuggish’ (all of these are from recent major media ‘news’ articles) are gleefully applied along with the usual ‘hawkish’ and ‘far-right’. In addition to the personal abuse, Lieberman is accused of renouncing prior agreements with the Palestinian Authority (PA), failing to support a two-state solution, and advocating the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. All of this is demonstrably untrue. Apparently one can say anything at all about Mr. Lieberman.

What did he do to deserve this? Start with renouncing agreements and the two-state solution. Here’s  what Lieberman said in his inaugural speech as Foreign Minister:

There is one document that binds us and it is not the Annapolis Conference. That has no validity. When we drafted the basic government policy guidelines, we certainly stated that we would honor all the agreements and all the undertakings of previous governments. The continuity of government is respected in Israel. I voted against the Road Map, but that was the only document approved by the Cabinet and by the Security Council – I believe it was Resolution 1505. It is a binding resolution and it binds this government as well.

The Israeli government never approved Annapolis, neither the Cabinet nor the Knesset, so anyone who wants to amuse himself can continue to do so. I have seen all the proposals made so generously by Ehud Olmert, but I have not seen any results.

What actually happened — or didn’t happen, to be precise — at the Annapolis conference was that Israel and the PA were unable to reach an agreement because the PA refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, insisted on a right of return for the descendants of Palestinian refugees, and demanded all of East Jerusalem.

The “Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict“, which was accepted by the Sharon government (although with some reservations), leads directly to a Palestinian state in its final phase. It makes certain demands on the PA in the first phase, including ending violence, terrorism and incitement against Israel, and establishing an effective security apparatus to suppress terrorist elements.

What Lieberman opposes — and what most proponents of the ‘Annapolis process’ support — is the short-circuiting of the first phases of the Roadmap, in which the Palestinians actually have to do something other than take US and EU aid, and the acceleration of the later phases in which Israel withdraws and the Palestinian state is created. He wants, in other words, to keep the “performance-based” part of it.

Now let’s get to the ‘racism’. Lieberman is famous for having semi-seriously called for all Israeli citizens to take a ‘loyalty oath’. Of course it is aimed at Israeli Arabs — although I strongly doubt that all the Jewish members of the Ha’aretz editorial board could honestly sign such a document — but one only needs to look at the actions of some of the radicalized Israeli Arabs to understand why he said this.

He’s also supposedly advocated the ‘transfer’ or even expulsion of Israeli Arabs from Israel. Well, not exactly. Lieberman proposed a land and population swap in which heavily Arab areas inside Israel would become part of the PA while areas in the West Bank with large numbers of Jews would be appended to Israel. Israeli Arabs opposed the idea vehemently — and not only because they enjoy the economic benefits and freedom of being Israelis. A more important reason is that they believe that what we call Israel actually belongs to them, and they should remain part of it — albeit as a ruling majority instead of a minority. In any event, whether or not the proposal is a good idea, it is hardly racist.

I should add also that supporters of the PA — whose position is that no Jews may live in ‘Palestinian’ areas — and of Hamas — whose position is that Jews should be killed — are hardly in a position to make accusations of racism.

Lieberman’s basic position — with which I wholeheartedly agree — is that additional concessions by Israel do not bring peace closer, but actually drive it farther away. Here’s more from his inaugural speech:

I think that we have been disparaging many concepts, and we have shown the greatest disdain of all for the word “peace.” The fact that we say the word “peace” twenty times a day will not bring peace any closer. There have been two governments here that took far-reaching measures: the Sharon government and the Olmert government. They took dramatic steps and made far-reaching proposals. We saw the Disengagement and the Annapolis Conference.

Yisrael Beiteinu was not then part of the coalition, Avigdor Liberman was not the foreign minister and, even if we had wanted to, we would have been unable to prevent peace. But none of these far-reaching measures have brought peace. To the contrary. We have seen that, after all the gestures that we made, after all the dramatic steps we took and all the far-reaching proposals we presented, in the past few years this country has gone through the Second War in Lebanon and Operation Cast Lead – and not because we chose to. I have not seen peace here. It is precisely when we made all the concessions that I saw the Durban Conference, I saw two countries in the Arab world suddenly sever relations, recalling their ambassadors – Mauritania and Qatar. Qatar suddenly became extremist.

We are also losing ground every day in public opinion. Does anyone think that concessions and constantly saying “I am prepared to concede,” and using the word “peace” will lead to anything? No, that will just invite pressure, and more and more wars. “Si vis pacem, para bellum” – if you want peace, prepare for war; be strong.

We definitely want peace, but the other side also bears responsibility. We have proven our desire for  peace more than any other country in the world. No country has made concessions the way Israel has. Since 1977, we have given up areas of land three times the size of the State of Israel. So we have proven the point.

The Oslo process began in 1993. Sixteen years have passed since then, and I do not see that we are any closer to a permanent settlement.

I believe that Lieberman understands the reason for this: that concessions can only draw two sides together when there is a point somewhere in the middle where they both can stand. Today there is no such point. The Palestinians cannot accept that there is a Jewish state. Period.

Israel, understandably, will never be able to come to this point, so concessions only serve to damage security and make war more likely.

These are not the ideas of an ‘ultranationalist’ or a racist thug. These are the ideas of a pragmatist who, unlike many Israeli politicians, is able to see the situation as it is — and it isn’t encouraging — and does not feel bound to repeat the nonsense formulas so beloved by the UN, the EU or the US State Department.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Avigdor Lieberman

This short video shows what Arab leaders have done to their people. It shows one of the reasons attempts to break down barriers between ordinary Israelis and Arabs so often fail (another reason is intimidation). And it shows, unfortunately, why the road to peace runs through military preparedness and preemption, not friendship.

The speaker is a Syrian actress named Amal ‘Arafa.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Syria, Amal ‘Arafa, Mideast conflict

As the third anniversary of Gilad Schalit’s captivity draws near (he was abducted in June 2006), it’s painful to contemplate what he must be suffering. Most likely he is being held underground in a dark, booby-trapped concrete bunker, deprived of human contact. His family has no idea of what may have been done to him; his physical and mental condition are unknown.

His treatment is probably much worse than that of the inmates of Guantanamo Bay, but unlike the global outcry over Guantanamo, only Israelis and a small number of Jews living outside of Israel have expressed real concern — and that has lately taken the form of demonstrations against the Israeli government for not meeting the impossible demands made by Hamas for his release.

The International Red Cross has asked to be allowed to visit him several times and has been turned down. The most recent update on the ICRC website — among countless news releases detailing the ‘humanitarian disaster’ Gazans experienced during the ‘siege’ and the recent war — is from December 2008. In it, an official says,

There are limits to what we can do and to what international humanitarian law entitles us to do when it comes to visiting people in detention or to finding out what happened to people who go missing in an armed conflict.

In the case of Gilad Shalit, we deplore the fact that political considerations have outweighed humanitarian concerns, and respect for basic humanitarian principles, making it virtually impossible to help him or his family.

As a humanitarian organization, we have limited leverage in these matters. All we can do is to remind those who control the situation of their obligation to act in accordance with the spirit and letter of international humanitarian law. The parties to an armed conflict, be they States or non-State groups, have to uphold the law.

I would have expected at least a clear statement that Hamas is violating international law, but apparently ‘deploring’ is the strongest emotion that they can generate (compare the above to the ICRC report from 2007 entitled “The occupied Palestinian territories: Dignity Denied“).

But for the greatest reality inversion, consider the position of Hamas:

Let’s first be clear that Schalit was no innocent captive. He was an Israeli soldier who aimed and shot his weapon, and probably other armaments, at Palestinian civilians. Furthermore, Israel has imprisoned over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many without trial, and many of whom were abducted from their homes at night. They have also been subjected to torture. — Ahmed Yousef, senior Hamas official

I very strongly doubt that Schalit ever fired anything at Palestinian civilians. And to compare his situation to prisoners in Israeli jails — who are together with other prisoners, receive regular visits from the Red Cross and family members, have electricity, postal, telephone and television privileges and who for the most part have been tried and convicted of crimes up to and including multiple murder — is beyond ridiculous.

Schalit is at least deserving of the treatment demanded by the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war.  Hamas’ refusal to follow international law in this regard, not to mention the continuing illegal bombardment of civilians and attempts to infiltrate into Israel and carry out terrorist attacks, mark it as a terrorist, outlaw entity.

The usual foreign-policy ‘realists’ and  supposedly civilized media like the NY Times are obscenely calling for Hamas to be a part of a Palestinian unity government. Here is what the ‘realists’ advocate:

In brief, shift the U.S. objective from ousting Hamas to modifying its behavior, offer it inducements that will enable its more moderate elements to prevail, and cease discouraging third parties from engaging with Hamas in ways that might help clarify the movement’s views and test its behavior.

It’s hard for me to find an analogy strong enough to illustrate the wrong-headedness of this. Moderate elements in Hamas? Are there elements in Hamas who are not passionately dedicated to the liquidation of the Jewish state by means of violent jihad? Can Siegman, Scowcroft, Brzezinski, et al. point to even one? Would they have advocated offering ‘inducements’ to encourage the moderate elements in Hitler’s SS?

Hamas represents a pure distillate of the violent and racist attitudes in Palestinian society. The cruelty they display in their treatment of Schalit makes this clear. So why are they treated as anything more than the pathological criminals that they are?

Unfortunately, Hamas’ obsessive hatred is the perfect weapon for Iran, which sees Israel as an obstacle to its geopolitical goals — domination of the Mideast and its oil resources and opposition to the US — and so this gang of racist murderers receives financial support from Iran and political legitimacy from those in the US and Europe who would prefer appeasing Iran to resisting it.

There is only one way to bring Schalit home and only one way to lay the groundwork for the ultimate reconciliation of Israel and the Palestinians, and that is the destruction of Hamas as a political and military power. Israel’s failure to do this in the recent Operation cast Lead will bring about even more warfare and suffering for both Jews and Arabs in the not-so-distant future.

Technorati Tags: Gilad Schalit, Israel, Hamas

This is really interesting because it illustrates one of the reasons that there will not be peace between Israel and the Palestinians any time soon:

PA dismantles W. Bank youth orchestra
Khaled abu Toameh and AP

Palestinian authorities disbanded a youth orchestra from a West Bank refugee camp after it played for a group of Holocaust survivors in Israel, a local official said on Sunday.

Adnan Hindi of the Jenin camp called the Holocaust a “political issue” and accused conductor Wafa Younis of unknowingly dragging the children into a political dispute…

The 13 Palestinian musicians, aged 11 to 18, are members of the Palestinian orchestra Strings of Freedom that is based in the refugee camp. The concert was held at the Holocaust Survivors’ Center as part of “Good Deeds Day,” an annual event organized by an organization belonging to Israeli billionaire Shari Arison…

Hindi … said that the participation of the children in the concert was a “dangerous matter” because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians.

He accused “suspicious elements” of being behind the Holon event, saying they were seeking to “impact the national culture of the young generation and cast doubt about the heroism and resistance of the residents of the camp during the Israeli invasion in April 2002…”

Ramzi Fayad, a spokesman for various political factions in the Jenin refugee camp, also condemned the participation of the teenagers in the Holocaust event, saying all the groups were strongly opposed to any form of normalization with Israel. “There can be no normalization while Israel is continuing to perpetrate massacres against our people,” he said.

Leaflets distributed in the Jenin area over the weekend also attacked the event and accused the organizers of exploiting the children. The leaflets also warned the Palestinians against participating in similar events in the future. — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]

So in other words, anything which might teach Palestinian children that Israelis are humans too,  or that it’s possible to find common ground with them about anything, even music, is forbidden. Palestinian “cultural and national identity” means support for “heroism and resistance”, that is, continued terrorist war against Israel. And they are ‘warned’ not to try it again.

This is reminiscent of what happened in 2007 when the One Voice Movement — a naive but sincere group founded by Daniel Lubetzky dedicated to bringing about peace by grass-roots contact between Israelis and Palestinians — tried to hold simultaneous ‘peace concerts’ in Tel Aviv and Jericho. The concert in Jericho was canceled after Palestinian ‘activists’ threatened violence. Here’s the poitical rationale (enforced, as always, by the young men with guns):

According to the widely accepted boycott criteria advocated by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the event falls under the category of normalization projects and violates the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), endorsed by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, trade unions, political parties, and grassroots movements, for the following reasons:

1. Participants are required to join the One Voice Movement and sign a mandate — ostensibly based on a “two-state solution,” but without any commitment to international parameters — which assumes equal responsibility of “both sides” for the “conflict,” and suspiciously fails to call for Israel’s full compliance with its obligations under international law through ending its illegal military occupation, its denial of Palestinian refugee rights (particularly the right of return), and its system of racial discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens.

2. The event is sponsored by Israeli institutions (mostly from the private sector) and endorsed by mainstream Israeli political figures from parties including the Likud, Labour and Shas. These Israeli “partners” are unquestionably complicit in maintaining Israel’s occupation and other forms of oppression.

So much for grassroots efforts on behalf of peace.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians

Tzipi Livni:

Livni said that she hoped the new government would reach peace deals with the Syrians and Palestinians, adding, however, that she was skeptical in light of the coalition agreements.

“For the country, I wish that this government brings peace for the Israeli people, but when I look at the agreements, the matter doesn’t appear in them,” she said. “From my discussions with Netanyahu, I don’t believe that’s what he’s striving for, but I hope he doesn’t miss opportunities.” — Jerusalem Post

I think I would call this statement “not constructive”.

The implication is that if the new government does not reach a ‘peace deal’ with the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Syria, then it will be the fault of the right-wing parties and their demands.

The truth, in the case of the Palestinians, is that they will not (and cannot) agree to terms that could be accepted by the Israeli people.  Barry Rubin has argued this point cogently and in detail (see “The Peace Recess“):

This conflict is not continuing because there is a dispute about the precise boundary line between Israel and a Palestinian state. It is going on because the Palestinian leaders — all of them — are either unwilling or unable to accept Israel’s permanent existence, the end of the conflict, the abandonment of terrorism, and the settlement of Palestinian refugees in a Palestinian state.

Olmert pushed as hard as he could for an agreement with the Palestinians and didn’t get there.  The Palestinians, for their part, hardened their stance — and exposed their intentions — when both Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad announced that they would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. And these are the ‘moderates’.

With Syria the situation is similar. The main obstacle is not in the exact delineation of the border or the mechanics of providing security for Israel without the Golan Heights, although these are difficult issues. The elephant in the room is that the Syrian regime does not find it advantageous to give up its fruitful relationship with Iran and its useful conflict with Israel in return for the Golan and a relationship with the US, which it sees as being pushed out of the region anyway.

Certainly Assad would like to possess the Golan, but he believes that he can get it without paying any price at all. In these circumstances, Israel would be well advised to avoid giving up real territory in return for paper, even if the paper is guaranteed by the US — because today the US is not in a position to enforce anything in the Mideast.

Livni knows full well that the ‘process’ is going nowhere and will go nowhere no matter what government Israel has. So why is she blaming the incoming administration in advance?

Technorati Tags: Israel, Tzipi Livni, peace process, Palestinians, Syria