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News item:

Israeli and U.S. officials said on Wednesday that Kerry began discussing a “framework agreement” for a peace treaty with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and the head of the Palestinian negotiation team, Saeb Erekat, in Washington on Monday. …

[Kerry] said the solutions to each core issue are known from pervious negotiation rounds. He cited the outline presented by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 2000 and the Annapolis talks in 2007-2008 as a basis for these solutions.

“It is essential, in my judgment, to reach for a full agreement and to have a framework within which we can try to work for that. … A basic framework will have to address all the core issues – borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, mutual recognition, and an end of claims. And it will have to establish agreed guidelines for subsequent negotiations that will fill out the details in a full-on peace treaty,” Kerry said.

This represents a departure from the philosophy of the Oslo agreement that informed previous American attempts to broker a solution, in which the  the “core issues” were left for the end. The original idea was to build trust with small steps, so that ultimately it would be easier for both sides to make the ‘hard choices’ that would be required.

This failed for several reasons. One was that the PLO was incapable or unwilling to repress the extremist elements in Hamas, Fatah and other factions, so that continuing terrorism made it impossible to build trust on the Israeli side.

In turn, Israel’s actions to protect its population — the security barrier, etc. — were considered to be aggression by the Arabs. The PLO leadership also claims that construction in eastern Jerusalem and within existing settlements in Judea and Samaria is evidence that Israel isn’t serious about reaching an agreement, but I believe that this is only a pretext and their real opposition rests on the issues listed below.

Kerry claims that the basic principles of a solution have been known since the Clinton parameters of 2000. This is nonsense — in fact the issues that prevent a solution have been known for years, by both sides. They are:

1. A truly (or even partly) sovereign Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is inconsistent with Israel’s security. Israel will never offer a degree of  sovereignty that will be acceptable to the PLO.

2. Any Jewish sovereignty between the Jordan and Mediterranean is inconsistent with the PLO’s reason for being. The PLO will never recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and will never stop trying to end the Jewish state.

3. The PLO is unstable, corrupt, and incapable of protecting itself against radical elements (Hamas, Salafists, etc.) and therefore could not deliver peace in return for concessions, even if it wanted to.

No degree of prodding by the US can overcome these facts.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Arabs

Leaving aside the historical, religious, economic and political objections to an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, there is one issue that can’t be ignored: security. Israel has always insisted that security issues be settled before such things as borders, refugees, etc. Which of course makes sense, to a degree: no security means no Israel.

The US has made a proposal which is intended to allay Israeli concerns. It calls for an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley for a limited time (3 or 4 years) and for ‘Palestine’ to be “demilitarized of heavy weaponry” but with a “strong security force for internal security and fighting terrorism.” There are more details, including surveillance by US drones, etc. Apparently the — beyond ludicrous — idea of replacing the IDF with international peacekeepers has fallen by the wayside.

One problem is that no effective plan can possibly be accepted by the Palestinians, because it would have to allow the IDF freedom of action in the territories similar to what it has today. As everyone knows, the most heavily populated areas of Israel, as well as its international airport, are in easy rocket range of terrorists operating from the territories. If you wanted a sovereign state, would you agree to the presence of enemy troops in it? Why would they?

There is also the need to control the borders of the new state. If it is to be demilitarized to any degree, someone has to ensure that weapons are not imported. How sovereign is that? And will the ‘sovereign’ state be allowed to invite, say, Iranian troops if it wants?

Then there is the question of the ‘refugees’. There are millions of individuals claiming refugee status according to the special rules for Palestinians created by the UN. The PLO position has always been that they have a right to return to “their homes” in Israel, but that they will not be given citizenship in the new ‘Palestine’. So what will happen to them? Israel won’t take them, so they will either have to stay where they are forever, or be taken into ‘Palestine’, which can’t even support its present population.

Finally, and most importantly, even if — a big if — the PLO were sincere, what would a deal with it be worth? How will it defend itself against Hamas when the IDF isn’t around? And Hamas isn’t even the biggest problem anymore. Guy Bechor writes,

A new force is growing in the territories: The Salafi movement, part of which is called the Party of Liberation (“Hizb ut-Tahrir”) and whose center of activity is in Hebron. Two huge demonstrations of force held by the movement in central cities in Judea and Samaria were attended by tens of thousands, carrying the black al-Qaeda flags. They hate “the Authority” more than they hate Israel, and they hate Hamas too. They reject a Palestinian state and refuse to recognize any borders or negotiations. Their proclaimed aspiration is to establish Islamic caliphates all across the Middle East, and their point of solidarity is the Salafis in Syria, Lebanon and the rest of the Arab countries.

This week the al-Qaeda movement announced the establishment of its first branch in the Judea and Samaria territories, and the IDF has already killed three activists of this Salafi organization. The Salafis accused the Palestinian Authority of passing on the intelligence on their location to the IDF. Al-Qaeda admitted that the terrorists killed belonged to the movement and vowed to carry out additional acts of terror.

Let’s just imagine a reality in Judea and Samaria without the permanent presence of the IDF and the defense establishment. Why, within several days the territory will turn into Salafland. Will Secretary of State John Kerry rush to defend Israel with the “security arrangements” his experts suggest? Not to mention the fact that the Palestinian leadership has announced that it plans to import to the independent territory hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of “Palestinians” from Syria and Lebanon – in other words, trained Salafis with their weapons. What will the reality of life in Israel look like then, if there even is a life?

The trouble is not that it is difficult to ensure Israel’s security next to a Palestinian state. It is that a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is incompatible with the continued existence of Israel. All of the effort being expended to this end is being wasted (unless the goal is the elimination of the Jewish state).

What the US and Europeans should be doing if they are interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict is to explore arrangements to provide autonomy and self-government for the Arabs of the territories within Israeli and perhaps Jordanian sovereignty.

At the same time, states such as Lebanon, Jordan and (some day) Syria should grant full citizenship to ‘Palestinian refugees’. UNRWA should be abolished, and the funds it receives should be used to integrate these Arabs into their countries of residence.

The idea, expressed by President Obama, that the Palestinian Arabs “deserve” a sovereign state is nonsense, and continuing to push it against the constraints of reality is not doing anyone — including these Arabs — a favor.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians

Nelson Mandela and Shimon Peres, 2002

The recent death of Nelson Mandela has prompted some interesting discussion. For example, was Mandela a friend or an enemy of Israel? He certainly saw the PLO as a ‘national liberation movement’, but he also said “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.” Mandela saw the world through the lens of his experience, but although he couldn’t help but sympathize with Palestinian Arabs that presented themselves as an oppressed people, he did not embrace their cause of ending the Jewish state.

The subject of Israel’s cooperation with the apartheid regime has come up also. It’s become known that Israel and South Africa shared intelligence about Soviet and terrorist activities, and Israel provided weapons and technology in return for uranium.

It is very easy for Americans to criticize Israel ensconced in our relatively safe (for now) homeland, with our huge resources and strategic depth. Israel does not have these things (and the Obama Administration is doing its best to further damage Israel’s strategic position).

Israel’s leaders have a mission, an overriding moral duty that is tested every day: to preserve Jewish sovereignty, and therefore to protect the Jewish people. Sometimes moral duties conflict, and when this happens, one is obliged to choose. Apartheid was clearly evil, and I don’t doubt that Shimon Peres (the architect of Israel-South African cooperation) was aware of this.

But Peres chose the uranium because Israel needed it to survive. It is as simple as that. Israel’s enemies had massive amounts of non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. In 1973 — before the deal with South Africa — US President Nixon was moved to resupply Israel’s armies, something which arguably saved the state, when Israel began to deploy its then rudimentary nuclear arsenal. Just the possession of nuclear weapons has added immeasurably to Israel’s strength.

Apartheid is gone and Israel is not. So it seems that Peres made the right choice after all.

As an aside, I can’t resist mentioning that we heard this on NPR:

This is a leader who had, certainly, a profound impact on the world but also a profound impact on Barack Obama as a man. Symbolically, you have these two men who are both the first black leaders of countries that had a history of deep racial tensions. And we know that President Obama saw echoes of Mandela’s legacy in his own story.

It is entirely consistent with NPR’s Pravda-like adulation of Obama to compare him to Mandela, but it’s still shocking (I am waiting for their special Christmas program that will compare him to Jesus). Mandela paid his dues, in struggle and in suffering, while Obama was given everything from a Senate seat to the Nobel Peace prize as affirmative action. Mandela was about reconciliation, while Obama is about punishing his enemies. Mandela was tough but warm, Obama is flabby and cold. Mandela was humble, while Obama is arrogant.

Well, Mandela is gone. I think the world is a worse place without his moral force. If he was indeed an enemy of Israel, would that more of our enemies were like him.

Technorati Tags: Nelson Mandela, Israel

So now it’s clear that the agreement signed with Iran last week isn’t really an agreement, and anyway the ‘moderate’ Iranian president doesn’t intend to stop enriching uranium or dismantle any of his nuclear facilities (see also here).

The only aspect that seems to be a good bet is the weakening of sanctions.

The interim deal, when it is implemented — even the ‘interim period’ has yet to begin because of ‘technical’ issues — will provide some degree of sanctions relief to Iran, worth between $7 and $40 billion, depending on whom you believe. For their part, the US and Europeans will get an excuse to prevent Israel from interfering with Iran’s nuclearization, an important part of the overall obeisance they have chosen to pay to Iran, the terrorist superpower.

This follows other anti-Israel actions such as forcing Israel to apologize to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara affair, pressuring Israel to supply the Hamas regime, leaking confidential information about Israeli military actions to interdict Syrian weapons sent to Hizballah, as well as supporting a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt.

For its next act, the Obama Administration plans to tighten the screws on Israel to withdraw from Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. There is absolutely no American interest furthered by this, unless you consider hurting Israel a goal of  American policy (as Caroline Glick does).

My regular readers know that my wife and I are moving to Israel in September. I don’t call it ‘aliyah’ because we already lived in Israel for almost a decade in the 1980s. One practical reason to move is that most of my children and grandchildren are there. If I were a spiritual person, I would talk about the benefits accruing to the Jewish soul from living in eretz yisrael. If I were younger I might be looking forward to army service. But recently one other reason has become more and more important:

I am infuriated by and ashamed by what my country — the United States of America — is trying to do to the homeland of my people, the state of Israel. I was born and grew up here, and I have always felt at home, even when I disagreed with US policy. The US was on the right side in WWII and in the Cold War, it finally extirpated the vestiges of slavery from its legal codes and to a great extent from its culture, and it was responsible for more technological innovation than the rest of the world combined.

There were missteps, wrong decisions, incompetence, even evil done from good (and sometimes not so good) intentions. There is justice in many of the the complaints of both the Left and the Right — although I emphatically reject the contention of the extreme Left that this country is the primary force of evil in the world. What great nation can claim moral perfection? The British? The Japanese? The Chinese? The Germans? The Arabs? The French?

But in the words of Aaron David Miller, “Obama really is different”. For the first time, really, the US has adopted an anti-Jewish policy. Yes, I am saying this despite the fact that American Jews overwhelmingly supported Obama — and probably still do.

I am quite sure that the officials who have time and again leaked statements impugning the loyalty of pro-Israel American Jews who oppose their policies would respond with some form of “some of my best friends are Jewish.” But of course that isn’t the point: a policy to end the first Jewish sovereign state established after 2000 years of oppression is profoundly anti-Jewish. Even Roosevelt’s polite refusal to take any action to mitigate the Holocaust does not compare.

I don’t accept the excuse that the administration believes that it can prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons with a policy of appeasement. I don’t accept that the administration believes that the PLO state it wants to create will exist peacefully alongside the Jewish state. I believe that administration policy is deliberate and that the desired goal is the end of the Jewish state.

It’s not just incompetence and lack of experience. Barack Obama is a product of Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi. He has chosen advisers and appointed officials who share his admiration for Islam and his antipathy for a sovereign Jewish state. Despite his protestations of support for Israel, his actions have been the reverse.

Yes, Obama and his crowd are “different.” And I would prefer to have as little as possible to do with them.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama Administration

With the US jumping to promote an interim agreement with Iran which weakens sanctions — probably forever — and does little or nothing to prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, many people are asking “what are the intentions of the Obama Administration in the Middle East?” The answer will be particularly important to Israelis, who see the development of an Iranian weapon as an existential threat.

Israelis also wonder about US policy concerning the conflict with the Palestinian Arabs, which seems to be moving to a far more anti-Israel place than before. The idea expressed by UNSC resolution 242 and accepted by previous administrations, that secure borders need to be negotiated between the states in the area, is being replaced by the radical position that the 1949 armistice lines are the legitimate borders of the state of Israel. The administration has also studiously avoided taking a position (the Bush Administration did) against the extraordinary and unacceptable demand for a “right of return” to Israel for the descendants of Arab refugees.

While it might have been possible in the past to attribute a tilt against Israel to pressure from the oil-producing Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia, this explanation has less force today as the US approaches energy independence. And of course the Sunni Arab regimes are even more threatened by Iran than Israel.

It is also hard to explain the administration’s cooperation with Russia to ensure the maintenance of the Assad regime in Syria, and its status as an Iranian satellite, or its support for the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — something that undermined one of the bases of Israel’s regional security, the Camp David treaty. Although the army can’t be called pro-Israel, it is at least pragmatic and not interested in upsetting the status quo.

So what in fact are the motives and objectives here (assuming that there is more behind our policy than ignorance and incompetence) as they affect Israel? I believe that there are two motivations here, one pragmatic and one ideological.

The pragmatic aspect is that the Obama Administration has decided that Islamism and in particular revolutionary Shiite Islamism, is the strong horse in the region, and it is placing its bets on it. The expectation in Washington is that Iraq and Syria will be firmly in the Iranian column, soon followed by Lebanon. The influence of the House of Saud will be greatly diminished, and perhaps the royal family will be overthrown. In overwhelmingly Sunni nations, like Jordan and Egypt, conservative governments will be replaced by Islamist ones (this has so far proven false in Egypt, where the Islamists took power but were unable to hang on).

The US considers itself at war with Al Qaeda, which is just fine with the Iranians (it fails to understand, though, that Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Turkish AKP — which it supports — agree on ideology; their differences are mostly about tactics).

The administration sees Iran’s nuclear weapon as a fait accompli. It thinks that it can establish a relationship with Iran that will replace the one it has with the doomed Saudis and enable it to exercise some influence in the region. Failing that, it hopes that it can appease Iran (which is already a world power in the field of terrorism) to prevent terrorist attacks against its interests and even the US itself. It has almost certainly been told by the Iranians that they will hold the US responsible for Israeli actions against Iran, and therefore considers preventing Israel from striking its nuclear facilities a top priority.

Israel is diametrically opposed to most of these policies. It supports conservative Arab regimes in Jordan and Egypt. It has fought a war with Iran’s subsidiary, Hizballah, and will almost certainly fight another. It opposes the spread of Iranian revolutionary Islamism and considers an Iranian nuclear weapon unacceptable. No wonder Israel is a “key target” for US intelligence, along with China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Cuba!

Turning to ideology, Aaron David Miller (no Zionist ideologue!) said that “Obama really is different” from previous presidents. He has a perspective “much closer to the Palestinians than to Israel,” and it shows, in his policies and in his appointments. This is not at all surprising, given Obama’s associations and education. I think it is probably true that he accepts the Palestinian (actually KGB!) narrative of an oppressed indigenous people displaced by a colonial power — it’s certainly what he would have heard at Columbia.

There is no doubt that in addition to pragmatic attitudes, there is also a belief on the part of administration officials that the moral high ground belongs to Third World nations, to ‘black and brown peoples’ who have been historically oppressed and colonized by the West. I would go so far as to say that they see Zionism as racism, and view the creation of a Jewish nation-state as a mistake.

I don’t have the time and space to go into this here, but the ideology is part and parcel with the wildly inconsistent attitudes of many Americans of their generation, who seem to think that at the same time a) nothing is more important than race or ethnicity; b) racism is evil and it is racist to treat people differently in any way because of race or ethnicity; and c) some peoples have been oppressed and therefore are exempt from all of the above.

The combination of what they see as realpolitik and ‘idealism’ make them profoundly unsympathetic to Israel. But I don’t they think they want to see another genocide (which in fact is the goal of many of Israel’s enemies). They do not wish for a nuclear war in the Middle East (although  their policies may bring one about).

The main objective of American policy toward Israel is to limit her freedom of action. To that end they want to weaken her by forcing her back to indefensible borders, to strengthen her enemies so that she will be deterred from taking action that might upset US relationships, and to make her more amenable to US pressure. In addition, they will get a warm feeling from obtaining ‘justice’ for the Palestinians.

At the same time, they would like to change Israel’s nature, from a Jewish state, a nation-state of the Jewish people, to something more like the US. In the strange world of political correctness, Jews are ‘whites’ and Arabs are ‘people of color’ (tell this to an Ethiopian Jew). While they see Jewish nationalism (Zionism) as racist, they accept Palestinian nationalism as legitimate for an ‘oppressed’ people.

All of this is intended to be a peaceful process.

If they succeed, they will destroy Zionism as well as Israel’s ability to defend herself. She will have neither the desire to survive nor the means. In the end either the state will fade away gently, with Jewish Israelis fleeing to a new diaspora, or be destroyed in war and genocide.

Israel can short-circuit this process by asserting its right to self-defense and attacking Hizballah and the Iranian nuclear facilities. The dangers inherent in doing this are obvious, but one has to weigh them in comparison to those of inaction.

Technorati Tags: Obama Administration, Israel