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The Committee for Truth and Justice
Seeking Justice Through Truth |
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Obama's Mistaken Palestinian and Israeli Priorities
by Asaf Romirowsky
inFocus Quarterly
Winter 2010
http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2136/obama-palestinian-israeli-priorities
Sixty-two years after the establishment of the state of Israel, 30 years after the Camp David Accords, and almost 20 years after Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, Israel remains isolated and friendless in a hostile Middle East.
While the U.S. debate over the costs of its alliance with Israel has recently intensified in the wake of the continuing U.S. recession, the United States will likely maintain its close ties with Israel, not only because of security reasons with the new regional climate marked by the removal of friendly Arab leaders, but because the American people have a strong connection with the small Jewish state. When polled, the majority of Americans regularly say that Israel is a close ally the United States should support. According to a February 2010 Gallup poll, 67 percent of Americans hold a favorable opinion of Israel while only 20 percent think favorably of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Moreover, that same poll discovered that 63 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians in their situation, while 15 percent side more with the Palestinians. These results showing high American public support for Israel are statistically unchanged in recent years. Indeed, Israel is one of a surprisingly small number of countries that a majority of Americans say they are willing to defend with military force.
And yet, the Obama administration spent its first two years criticizing Israel and cozying up with the PA. Unlike U.S.-Israeli relations, which work on a give-and-take basis from both sides, the Obama administration is learning that the PA works solely on a take-only basis in which it gladly accepts U.S. benefits without giving anything in return.
Obama's Israel Attitude
During the last presidential campaign, then-candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both guaranteed to uphold the continuation of the United States' strong and special relationship with Israel by supporting outgoing President Bush's proposal for increasing military aid to the Jewish state by $30 billion over the next decade, calling on the Arab states to recognize Israel as a pre-requisite to any future Israeli territorial concessions, and pledging to take an active role in the search for peace.
President Obama lived up to his final promise by taking an active role in the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiation process during his first two years in office, which culminated in direct talks between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2010. Mere weeks after their start, however, the talks came to a grinding halt as Israel's ten-month settlement moratorium expired and Abbas refused to negotiate unless Israel reinstated the freeze.
This was new: Abbas had previously negotiated with seven Israeli prime ministers without any prerequisites—a settlement freeze was never a stumbling block. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the course of two decades were made possible by a continuing agreement to disagree about Israeli construction of Jewish homes in Jewish neighborhoods outside the pre-1967 line in Eastern Jerusalem. But now, peace talks could not even begin unless Israeli construction ended. What changed?
In short, the new American president shifted course. After securing his victory, newly elected President Barack Obama altered his tone towards Israel and adopted an active policy of outreach to, and appeasement of, the Palestinian Authority, calling on Israel to halt all settlement construction, including expansion to accommodate the "natural growth" of families living in these communities. This effectively forced Abbas to go along with the policy; the leader of the PA could not ask for less from Israel than the American president. As Abbas said, "President Obama stated in Cairo that Israel must stop all construction activities in the settlements. Could we demand less than that?"
Some in the West are sympathetic to Abbas' maneuver, which they see as a form of protest against an Israeli policy to which the United States and the rest of the Middle East Quartet, the four international players that steer peace efforts, also object. But when the Palestinians spurn negotiations unless Israel makes concessions on settlement building, they are blocking the sole path to a solution of the settlement issue, which can only be a negotiated agreement over borders.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly admitted that halting settlement activity is a new Palestinian prerequisite for peace talks. Settlements, she says, have "always been an issue within the negotiations.… There's never been a precondition." Indeed, under President Obama, for the first time since the Oslo peace process started, Palestinian leaders are openly refusing to negotiate with the government of Israel "as long as settlement building continues," as Abbas stated.
Palestinian Priorities
The Obama administration demanded that Israel halt settlement activity from the outset because the president, along with much of the international community, is motivated in his approach to the Middle East by two false assumptions: The key to solving the Middle East's problems resides within the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and the key to solving the Palestinian problem resides within the West Bank settlements and the status of Jerusalem.
This is faulty "linkage theory" thinking. Settlements are hardly a major concern to either party when it comes to the big picture that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it is just an excuse used by the Palestinians to make the Israelis look like the oppressor and the Palestinians the victim. In reality, both parties are aware that the settlement issue will only be solved when final borders of Israel and a future Palestine are created, which is why both Abbas and Arafat previously entered into negotiations without a freeze on settlement construction. Additionally, if a freeze in settlements was so important to starting negotiations with Israel, the PA could have initiated a direct discussion during 2010's ten-month settlement moratorium rather than waiting to start talks during the month that the freeze was due to expire.
Moreover, as illustrated by recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya—in which the populations staged days of protests against their governments, at times forcing their government's collapse or resignation—the Middle East's problems do not reside within the Palestinian-Israeli problem and solving that conflict will not ease Middle East tensions.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration adopted what the PA has defined as Palestinian prerogatives—a state on the 1967 border, and the Palestinian narrative—that Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians the oppressed. Indeed, after emphasizing the permanence of "America's strong bonds with Israel" in his Cairo address, President Obama predicated Israel's existence on the Holocaust and equated it to the Palestinian Nakba—the 'catastrophe' of the creation of the State of Israel itself. In this view, the Palestinians are the true victims of the Holocaust, now suffering under the hands of what Palestinians call the 'victim's victim': Israel. Moreover, the president endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state without building a map on how to get there or expressing American expectations of the character and nature of the future state.
U.S. support for Palestinian statehood, despite the Palestinians' obvious and overwhelming support for terrorism since the early 1950s, has made U.S. policy towards the Palestinians inconsistent with its fundamental policy towards terror regimes and organizations, especially since 9/11. Consequently, the most fundamental contribution the U.S. can make to stabilize relations with the Palestinian Authority is to link its Palestinian policy and its policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict with wider U.S. policy goals. Washington should inform the PA that it cannot expect to receive aid and maintain diplomatic ties as long as it maintains associations with other terrorists and Islamic groups. Likewise, the U.S. must stop falsely proclaiming the moderation and anti-terror credentials of senior Fatah officials; it sends a counterproductive message that there is such a thing as "good terrorism" as opposed to "bad terrorism."
On the more positive side, however, Congress is starting to take notice of the administration's refusal to confront Palestinian unyieldingness. When asked about the Palestinian leadership, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-18), stated, "they know they don't have to do a darn thing; with this administration they will get a blank check, and they will always get helped out.… Try examining where they're using their money and where our U.S. dollars are going."
One State Solution?
When 2010's round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations ended practically as soon as they started, Abbas began courting the international community, requesting that nations recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. And many have, most notably in South America. Yet, pragmatically speaking, Palestinians do not want their own state alongside Israel. They are not prepared to take responsibility for their own people under the rubric of a state. The creation of a state will force them to give up the victim status they have been carrying around for over 60 years; consequently, world public opinion would be forced to judge them as a state and not as the underdog.
If the "radical" idea in the 1980s amongst Peace Now activists and others was to promote the notion of two states living side by side—one Jewish and one Palestinian—over the past 20 years there has been a slow but steady decline and rejection of two states in favor of a single state. A public opinion survey released in March 2010 and conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found "a decline in the Palestinians' support for the two-state solution from 64 percent in December 2009 to 57 percent in this poll." Moreover, an April 2010 poll released by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre (JMCC) found that "nearly 34 percent of [Palestinian] respondents favored a binational state in all of historic Palestine over the two state solution, which only 43.9 percent supported." This is compared to the 18.3 percent of respondents who favored a binational state in 2001, according to JMCC polls.
Tactically, Palestinians believe that—given the ratio between the birth rate of Palestinians versus Jewish families—a one-state solution can effectively create a Palestinian state, removing the need to compromise or negotiate. A November 2010 poll sponsored by The Israel Project discovered that "the Palestinians perceive the two-state solution as a precursor to this entirely Palestinian state." While 30 percent agreed with the statement, "the best goal is for a two-state solution that keeps two states living side by side," 60 percent agreed with the alternative statement that "the real goal should be to start with two states but then move it to all being one Palestinian state."
Moreover, according to the leaked "Palestine Papers," since the Annapolis talks in 2007, the PA has increasingly brought up the one-state solution during negotiations with Israeli and American officials. For example, in one meeting between PA spokesman Saeb Erekat and assistant U.S. envoy David Hale, Erekat himself stated that "Israelis want the two state solution but they don't trust. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than Palestinians." Aside from questioning the Palestinians' commitment to a two-state solution, Erekat's words illustrate Israel's commitment to peace.
No matter the rhetoric and no matter the promises to the U.S., the Palestinian leadership has never shown a commitment to creating peace with Israel. From continuing to teach anti-Israel propaganda in their school curriculum, to funding terrorist groups whose sole purpose is to resist Israel's so-called occupation, to producing television shows that demonize Israel and the Jews, to this day, the Palestinian Authority has failed to create the social conditions on the ground necessary for peace. And Fatah and Washington were surprised when a majority of uncompromising, militant Hamas members were elected to the Palestinian Parliament in 2006, or that the majority of Palestinian society remains unwilling to accept Israel's right to exist.
If the current Palestinian leadership were interested in promoting its people and the prospect for peace, it would be better served by building democratic institutions, laying down an infrastructure that will allow for social mobility, and supporting PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's infrastructure building instead of Islamist groups who feed on destruction.
Changing Course
U.S. opinion on Israel and the Middle East as a whole is not monolithic, nor is it frozen in time. Since 1967, it has undergone significant shifts with some groups becoming more favorable toward Israel and others less so. Nevertheless, as polls illustrate, supporting Israel has become an American value, even if the current president feels otherwise.
President Obama's embrace of the Palestinian Authority and its priorities has not garnered support for the U.S. either from the Palestinian people or the larger Arab world. In fact, his plan backfired. Instead of understanding Obama's policies as a U.S. step away from Israel and enter into negotiations, the Palestinian leaders demanded a new precondition from Israel—a settlement construction freeze—based on perceived Obama backing. A take-only relationship indeed.
The question that remains is whether or not the president understands the damage his policies have caused U.S.-Israeli relations, and if he has what it takes to change course.
Asaf Romirowsky is a Philadelphia-based Middle East analyst, a lecturer in history at Pennsylvania State University, and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Forum.
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Our World: Ehud Barak’s latest Nakba
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
16/05/2011
The defense minister has been too busy warning about the widely exaggerated diplomatic ‘tsunami’ at the UN in September
to notice events in the Middle East in May.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have some explaining to do.
On Sunday, Israel was invaded along its border with Syria. More than 100 Syrians successfully infiltrated the country and
rioted violently in Majdal Shams for several hours.
The IDF was reportedly surprised by these events. It was more prepared for violent riots along the borders with Lebanon and
Gaza. And security forces were deployed more or less effectively in Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Negev, Judea and Samaria on
Sunday.
Jerusalem, a focal point of the unrest since Friday, witnessed rioting in several Arab neighborhoods, which reached its peak
with an assault on Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus.
But the government and the IDF were surprised by the invasion from Syria.
What can possibly explain this surprise? And what does it tell us about the defense establishment’s ability to cope with the
swiftly expanding and changing threats facing Israel? BEFORE WE consider that issue, we need to understand the nature of the
new assault now underway.
Sunday’s events were fully anticipated. In 1998, at the height of the so-called peace process, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and
PLO/Fatah chieftan Yasser Arafat invented a new Palestinian holiday – the Nakba.
That year, for the first time, Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza rioted on May 15 – the secular date of Israel’s establishment
in 1948. The purpose of Israel’s “peace partner’s” initiative was to escalate anti-Israel sentiments of Arabs on both sides of
the 1949 armistice lines. And indeed, the next year, for the first time, the Nakba – or catastrophe – of Israel’s birth on
May 15, 1948 was marked by Israel’s Arab citizens.
In the years since, the Palestinians and their brethren throughout the Arab world have consistently escalated their May 15
attacks, with anti-Israel mass demonstrations now common fare throughout the Arab world.
In recent months, Hamas and Fatah have been ratcheting up their incitement and calling for their followers to descend on
Jerusalem on May 15. Millions worldwide participated in social media campaigns calling for a third Palestinian intifada to
begin on May 15.
Regionally, in recent weeks, as Syrian anti-regime protesters have escalated their calls to overthrow the Assad regime,
Hezbollah and the Syrian media have been joining the Nakba incitement efforts. In Egypt as well, as the Muslim Brotherhood
consolidates its power, the calls for invading Israel and avenging the Nakba have escalated daily.
Politically, the Nakba campaigns couldn’t be an easier target for an Israeli information counteroffensive.
The assertion that Israel’s establishment was a catastrophe for the Arabs makes clear that the Palestinian leadership has no
interest in living at peace with Israel. This goes for both Fatah, which popularized the term, and Hamas, which was happy to
adopt it. If Israel’s existence is the Palestinian catastrophe, then obviously, every patriotic Palestinian must seek Israel’s
destruction.
Actually, the Palestinian and pan-Arab embrace of the Nakba myth doesn’t merely demonstrate that they aren’t interested in
peaceful coexistence. It proves that their true aspirations are nothing short of genocidal.
The declared goal of the Arab armies that invaded the infant State of Israel on May 15, 1948 was to throw every Jewish man,
woman and child in the country into the sea. By calling the Arab failure to carry out that plan a catastrophe, today’s Nakba
rioters and mourners are saying they support the genocidal purpose of the 1948 Arab invaders.
And of course, by making the issue Israel’s establishment in 1948, the Palestinians and their supporters are showing that the
popular myth that they have no problem with Israel existing within the 1949 armistice lines, and seek only the “liberation” of
Israel’s heartland of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem is a complete fabrication. Those areas were lands the Arabs successfully
conquered and emptied of Jews in 1948. The Arab occupation of these areas only ended in 1967 because they again invaded Israel
with the declared purpose of throwing every Jewish man, woman and child in the country into the sea.
In short, the entire notion of the Nakba is proof that the Palestinians specifically and the Arab world as a whole remain
dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jewry.
Netanyahu and the rest of Israel’s leaders have the duty to point out this glaring, yet totally ignored fact. And yet, they
have been silent.
The most Netanyahu could muster in the lead up to Nakba Day was a true but irrelevant mention of the fact that as full
citizens of Israel, Israeli Arabs enjoy more freedoms than citizens of any Arab state.
As for the IDF, it’s hard to know where to begin describing its failures to understand or prepare for Sunday’s events.
Perhaps the oddest aspect of the IDF’s treatment of the mass infiltration from Syria was the IDF Spokesman’s Unit’s response.
First, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai blamed the events on Iran. He called the events an “Iranian provocation aimed
at creating friction.”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Certainly Iran is always interested in drawing Israeli blood and weakening the country. But
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn’t order the rioters to cross the border. Syrian President Bashar Assad did.
As for Assad, an unnamed military source told the media that Assad ordered the whole thing in order to divert world attention
from the fact that he is butchering his citizens. As the official said: “This is a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian
regime to create a crisis on the border with Israel in order to distract public opinion from the very real problems at home.
Syria is a police state; this sort of thing could not happen without the support of the regime. It is clear they wanted this
to play the Israel card in order to silence their own democratic opposition.”
Well said. But this brings us to the next question: If the IDF understands why this happened, why weren’t there sufficient
forces along the border armed with riot-control gear to block the infiltrators? Not only was the regime’s rationale for the
attack easily understandable, the IDF could see the rioters coming. They saw the them get on the buses. They saw the buses
coming to the border. There were enough forces along the border to stop a similar penetration from Lebanon.
Why weren’t there enough to prevent the Syrians from entering Israeli territory? Why weren’t there enough soldiers on the
ground to prevent them from entering Majdal Shams, vandalizing the village and flying the Syrian flag inside Israel? Moreover,
what does its abject failure to deploy adequately tell us about the defense establishment’s ability to properly understand
regional developments and trends, and prepare the IDF to protect the country in the face of them?
HERE, TWO aspects of Sunday’s events must be borne in mind. First, in general, the events of Nakba day are simply an
escalation of the suicide protest campaign that has been ongoing since 2001. The most famous suicide protester to date is
Rachel Corrie. And the most successful suicide protest to date was last year’s Mavi Marmara suicide flotilla.
Suicide protests have two aims. The first is to humiliate the IDF and Israel. If unarmed suicide protesters are able to ta
ke
control of a military target for any length of time, their achievement will harm the reputation of the IDF. This goal was
achieved on Sunday, when Druse villagers in Majdal Shams were allowed to mediate between the Syrian infiltrators and the IDF.
The second aim is to force the IDF to use lethal force against the protesters and so portray the IDF as a criminal army that
kills unarmed civilians. This goal was also partially achieved on Sunday along the Syrian and Lebanese borders.
Since the IDF has already faced suicide protests, it is inexcusable that it has not yet managed to put together a coherent
doctrine for contending with them. For instance, why weren’t there water cannons along the border with Lebanon?
The other aspect of Sunday’s Nakba riots worth noting is that they were the first suicide protests to have taken place on a
regional scale since the popular rebellion began in Syria, and since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt.
IDF sources interviewed on Sunday claimed that since the Syrian border has been quiet since 1973, they didn’t expect it to be
active on May 15. What this means is that the IDF failed to recognize ahead of time what its officials were able to recognize
after the fact. Namely, that the populist upheavals in the Arab world give Assad (and a lot of other Arab leaders who have
kept out of the direct fight against Israel in recent years) good reason to attack. And this new impetus to attack should
have led the IDF to deploy forces along the border in sufficient numbers to prevent infiltration.
So why was the IDF unprepared?
THE PERSON most responsible for the IDF’s poor handling of events on Sunday is Defense Minister Ehud Barak. And his
incompetence is not surprising. Barak is a serial bungler. He is the same man who armed the naval commandos who boarded the
Mavi Marmara with paintball guns, even though it was known that the Turkish IHH, which organized the pro-Hamas flotilla, had
links to terror groups.
In recent months, Barak has been too busy warning about the widely exaggerated diplomatic “tsunami” at the UN in September,
when the Palestinians declare their independence for the second time, to notice events in the Middle East in May.
And that leads to the last disconcerting thing about the defense establishment’s surprise at Sunday’s events. Commentators and
military officials alike are claiming that the Nakba day events are likely a dress rehearsal for even larger riots in September
. And this may be true. But it is equally likely that they are the beginning of a new campaign that started this week and will
escalate in the weeks and months to come. In this vein, of course we should note that a new, expanded Turkish
government-organized pro-Hamas flotilla is set to sail next month with thousands of suicide protesters on more than a dozen
ships.
This brings us back to Netanyahu and his relationship with Barak. It is hard to explain Netanyahu’s failure to condemn the
Palestinians and their supporters for mourning the Arabs’ failure to annihilate the Jews of Israel in 1948 without placing it
in the context of his close relationship with Barak.
There are many explanations for why Netanyahu gives so much weight to Barak’s consistently and dangerously incorrect
assessments of regional developments. If they serve no other purpose, Sunday’s dismal events must cause Netanyahu to finally
reconsider his attachment to Barak.
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Netanyahu Adds Settlement Blocs to Peace Conditions
Iyar 12, 5771, 16 May 11 07:33by Gil Ronen(Israelnationalnews.com)
In a speech before the Knesset’s plenum in its special Herzl Day session, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu laid down five
conditions for a peace treaty with the Palestinian Authority Arabs.
These are:
1. The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish nation’s state.
2. The treaty must be an end to the conflict.
3. The Arab refugee problem must be solved outside of Israel’s borders.
4. A Palestinian state will have to be demilitarized and a peace treaty must safeguard Israel’s security.
5. The settlement blocs will remain within the state of Israel and
6. Jerusalem will remain its united capital.
Netanyahu’s speech can be seen as an accurate indication of what he intends to say when he addresses the U.S. Congress next
Tuesday. It is unlikely that he will go back on any of the principles he laid down, given the venue: a Herzl Day address before the Knesset plenum. Fearing that the prime minister intended to announce concessions in Washington, MKs within Likud had demanded that Netanyahu address Israelis before he goes to the U.S..
Based on Monday's speech, the prime minister does not appear to be planning any retreat from previous positions, and may even
have toughened his stance somewhat, although this is arguable.
By and large, the speech does not depart from the one he delivered at Bar Ilan University in June 2009. In that speech as in
the latest one, Netanyahu said that a PA state would be demilitarized, and that Israel would require security arrangements in a peace treaty. He also said that Jerusalem would remain united as Israel’s capital and that Arab refugees would be resettled
outside Israel.
The condition added by Netanyahu in this speech is Israel’s retention of the large settlement blocs. In the Bar Ilan speech,
Netanyahu said that the territorial issues would be determined in negotiations and that until then, Israel would not be building new settlements or expropriating land in Judea and Samaria.
In Monday’s speech he was less defensive and more confident on this issue, raising the ante and announcing that Israel would
insist on keeping the large settlement blocs in its possession.
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Column One: Obama’s newest ambush
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
13/05/2011
Netanyahu doesn’t have to give in. He can stick to his guns and defend the country.
It is hard to believe, but it appears that in the wake of the Palestinian unity deal that brings Hamas, the genocidal,
al-Qaida-aligned, local franchise of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, into a partnership with Fatah, US President Barack Obama has decided to open a new round of pressure on Israel to give away its land and national rights to the Palestinians. It is
hard to believe that this is the case. But apparently it is.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in Washington next week, and
before the premier has a chance to give his scheduled address to a joint session of Congress, Obama will give a new speech to
the Arab world. In that speech, Obama will praise the populist movements that have risen up against Arab tyrannies and embrace
them as the model for the future. As for Israel, the report claimed that the Obama administration is still trying to decide whether the time is right to put the screws on Israel once more.
On the one hand, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told the Journal that Arab leaders are clamoring for a new US
initiative to force Israel to make new concessions. Joining this supposed clamor are the administration-allied pro-Palestinian
lobby J Street, and the administration-allied New York Times.
On the other hand, the Netanyahu government and Congress are calling for a US aid cutoff to the Palestinian Authority. With
Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization, now partnering with Fatah in governing the PA, it is illegal for the US government to
continue to have anything to do with the PA. Both the Netanyahu government and senior members of the House and Senate are
arguing forcefully that there is no way for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians now, and that the US must abandon its
efforts to force the sides to sign an agreement.
The Israeli and congressional arguments are certainly compelling. But the signals emanating from the White House and its allied
media indicate that Obama is ready to plough forward in spite of them. With the new international security credibility he
earned by overseeing the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden, Obama apparently believes that he can withstand congress
ional pressure and make the case for demanding that Israel surrender Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to Hamas and its partners in Fatah.
THE SIGNALS that Obama is setting his sights on coercing Israel into agreeing to surrender its capital and heartland to Hamas
and its partners in Fatah came in three forms this week. First, administration officials are trying to lower the bar that Hamas
needs to pass in order to be considered a legitimate political force.
After Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal in March 2007, the US and its colleagues in the so-called Middle East
Quartet – Russia, the EU and the UN – set three conditions that Hamas needed to meet to be accepted by them as legitimate. It
needed to recognize Israel’s right to exist, agree to respect existing agreements with Israel, and renounce terrorism.
These are not difficult conditions. Fatah is perceived as having met them even though it is still a terrorist organization and
its leaders refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist and refuse to abide by any of the major commitments they took upon
themselves in precious agreements with Israel. Hamas could easily follow Fatah’s lead.
But Hamas refuses. So, speaking to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius two weeks ago, administration officials lowered
the bar.
They said Hamas had made major concessions to Fatah in their agreement because it agreed to accept provisions of the 2009 unity
deal drafted by the Mubarak government that it rejected two year ago and because Hamas agreed that the unity government will
be manned by “technocrats” rather than terrorists.
Even if these contentions are true, they are completely ridiculous. In point of fact, all the 2009 agreement says is that Hamas
will refrain from demanding to join the US-trained and funded Fatah army in Judea and Samaria. As for the “technocratic”
government, who does the Obama administration think will control these “technocrats”? And as to the truth of these contentions,
in an interview last week with the New York Times, Hamas terror-master Khaled Mashal denied that he had agreed to the terms
of the 2009 agreement.
Indeed, he said that Fatah agreed to add annexes to the agreement reflecting Hamas’s positions.
The second pitch the administration and its friends have adopted ahead of Obama’s address next week is that Hamas has become
more moderate or may become more moderate.
Robert Malley, who in the past advised Obama’s presidential campaign, made this argument last week in an op-ed in the
Washington Post. Malley claimed that by joining the government, Hamas will be more moved by US pressure. A New York Times
editorial last Saturday argued that Hamas may have moderated, and even if it hasn’t, “Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu
back to the peace table.”
Adding their voices to the din, Middle Eastern leaders like Amr Moussa, the frontrunner to serve as Egypt’s next president,
and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan, have given interviews to the US media this week in which they denied that Hamas is
even a terrorist organization.
Here it is important to note that none of the administration’s statements about the Hamas- Fatah deal and none of the media
coverage related to it have included any mention of the fact that Hamas deliberately murders entire families and targets
children specifically. No one mentions last month’s Hamas guided rocket attack which deliberately targeted an Israeli school
bus. Hamas murdered 16-year-old Daniel Viflic in that attack. No one has mentioned the café massacres, the bus bombings, the
university campus massacres, the breaking into homes massacres, the Passover Seder massacres Hamas has carried out and bragged
about in recent years. No one has mentioned that when seen as a portion of the population, Hamas has killed far more Israelis
than al-Qaida has killed Americans.
The final pitch the administration and its surrogates are making is that the deal needs to be seen as part of the overall
regional shift towards popular rule. This pitch too is difficult to make.
After all, the first casualty of the Arab world’s shift towards popular rule is the 30-year-old Camp David peace treaty between
Israel and Egypt. Now that Egypt’s citizens have gotten rid of US-ally Hosni Mubarak, they have committed themselves to
getting rid of the peace he upheld with Israel throughout his long reign.
Again, despite the difficulties, the Obama administration is clearly willing to make the case. Regarding Egypt, they argue that
the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power is a good. This was the point of Obama’s Passover and Israel Independence Day messages.
As for the regional shift, the fact that Obama reportedly intends to place the so-called Palestinian- Israeli peace process
into the regional context signals that he sees potential for an agreement between Israel and Syria as well. His advisers
telegraphed this view to Ignatius.
Obama’s advisers made the unlikely argument that if Syrian leader Bashar Assad survives the popular demonstrations calling for
his overthrow, he will feel compelled to distance his regime from Iran because his Sunni-majority population has been critical
of his alliance with the Shi’ite mullocracy.
This argument is unlikely given that the same officials recognize that if Assad survives, he will owe his regime’s survival to
Iran. As they reminded Ignatius, US intelligence officials reported last month that Iran has “secretly supplied Assad with tear
gas, anti-riot gear and other tools of suppression.”
WHAT IS perhaps most remarkable about Obama’s apparent plan to use the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an excuse for
a new round of diplomatic warfare against Israel is how poorly coordinated his steps have been with the PLO-Fatah. Mahmoud
Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat always viewed the US obsession with getting the Arabs and Israel to sign peace treaties
as a strategic asset. Anytime they wanted to weaken Israel, they just needed to sound the fake peace drum loudly enough to get
the White House’s attention. US presidents looking for the opportunity to “make history” were always ready to take their bait.
Unlike his predecessors, Obama’s interest in the Palestinians is not opportunistic. He is a true believer. And because of his
deep-seated commitment to the Palestinians, his policies are even more radically anti-Israel than the PLO-Fatah’s. It was Obama
, not Abbas, who demanded that Jews be barred from building anything in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It is the Obama
administration, not the PLO-Fatah, that is leading the charge to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.
Like his belated move to demand a permanent abrogation of Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Abbas
arguably embraced Hamas because Obama left him no choice. He has no interest in making peace with Israel, so the only thing he
can do under the circumstances Obama has created is embrace Hamas. He can’t be less pro-Islamic than the US president.
ALL OF this brings us to Netanyahu and his trip to Washington next week. Obviously Obama’s decision to upstage the premier
with his new outreach-to-the-Arab-world speech will make Netanyahu’s visit more challenging than it was already going to be.
Obama is clearly betting that by moving first, he will be able to coerce Netanyahu to make still more concessions of land and
principles.
Certainly, Netanyahu’s earlier decisions to cave in to Obama’s pressure with his acceptance of Palestinian statehood and his
subsequent acceptance of a Jewish building freeze give Obama good reason to believe he can back Netanyahu into a corner.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s hysterical warnings about a diplomatic “tsunami” at the UN in September if Israel fails to
capitulate to Obama today no doubt add to Obama’s sense that he can expect Netanyahu to dance to his drums, no matter how
hostile the beat.
But Netanyahu doesn’t have to give in. He can stick to his guns and defend the country. He can continue on the correct path he
has forged of repeating the truth about Hamas. He can warn about the growing threat of Egypt. He can describe the Iranian-
supported butchery Assad is carrying out against his own people and note that a regime that murders its own will not make peace
with the Jewish state. And he can point out the fact that as a capitalist, liberal democracy which protects the lives and
property of its citizens, Israel is the only stable country in the region and the US’s only reliable regional ally.
True, if Netanyahu does these things, he will not win himself any friends in the White House.
But he never had a chance of winning Obama and his advisers over anyway. He will empower Israel’s allies in Congress, though.
And more importantly, whether he is loved or hated in Washington, if Netanyahu does these things, he will be able to return
home to Jerusalem with the sure knowledge that he earned his salary this month.
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Illustrated Guide: PA Jew-Hatred
by Prof. Phyllis Chesler
See for yourself. Israel does not
exist and the key to trying to make that come to pass is the "right of return".
The propaganda, anti-Israeli and anti-American filth, coming out of Gaza and
the West Bank daily, hourly, year after year, is beyond belief both in quantity
but also in quality.
For example, the very gifted Palestinian cartoonist, Omayya Joha, the widow
of one Hamas bomb engineer and of another Hamas operative, has remained
continually obsessed with the Palestinian “right of return.” The symbol for this
obsession is a key (to the house left behind).
Five generations later, the descendants of those whose grandparents and
great-grandparents fled to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, or Syria, because the Arab
League boasted that five great Arab armies were massed against the infidel
Jewish state and would shortly vanquish it, call themselves refugees. However,
thereafter, no Arab state (with the exception of Jordan, which has since revoked
the citizenship of many “Palestinians”) was ever willing to allow
“Palestinians,” i.e. Arabs who fled the land that Israel conquered in a war of
self-defense, to become citizens in their Arab, Muslim countries.
But how do I suddenly know all this? Because Dr. Mordechai Kedar, one of Israel’s leading
Arabists and counterterrorism experts, currently a professor at Bar Ilan
University and also associated with the Began-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, was just my houseguest. We talked endlessly for hours with great
passion and intensity. But, I also had the enormous pleasure of hearing him
deliver several speeches. One was focused on the cartoons of Omayya Joha.
Imagine being a trapped Palestinian child or adult ruled by despotic monsters
who do not want the populace to blame them for corruption, tyranny, or Islamist
strictness. The only outlet for frustration is the infidel Jewish state and the
infidel West, especially the United States. Imagine being subjected to cartoons
such as these every week, perhaps every day. The cartoons convey the same,
highly significant message over and over again. It would be hard not to be
brainwashed by these simple ideas.
First, the “key,” which is contained in every cartoon and which also
functions as Joha’s own logo, is the symbol for the “right of return.”
Second, the “right of return” is always, always pictured as the return to
Israel “from the river to the sea,” never just to negotiated regions of the West
Bank and Jerusalem. Gaza is now entirely in terrorist hands since Israel
unilaterally withdrew, subjecting southern Israel to non-stop rocket
barrages.
Third, the Palestinians are all portrayed as humiliated, weak, weeping,
burdened, poor, aged, very young, and as slaughtered. In addition, one aged,
barefoot man wearing the Palestinian kefiyyeh and in tattered garments appears
often. He is known as Abu A’id, the Father of Return.
Joha does not show us any masked, male Palestinian jihadists blowing
themselves up, or manipulating others to do so within Israel proper; we do not
see the members of Hamas shooting their Palestinian opponents at point-blank
range or throwing them off the twentieth floor–after having tortured them
first.
We do not see the Hamas “morality” police beating women for refusing to veil
or Palestinian families honor murdering their daughters, sisters, and wives.
Here are some cartoons that you have probably never seen before. With Dr.
Kedar’s help, I have translated them for you.
The Father of Return, holding the key which symbolizes the “right of return,”
and carrying on his back a number of burdens which together constitute the
entire State of Israel “from the river to the sea.” These burdens include the
Balfour Declaration; the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe); the 1967 Naksa (Setback); and
Wye, Oslo, Taba, and Sharm al-Sheikh, all the sites of meetings which led
nowhere.
55 years of an independent Israel, which by definition means that the
Palestinians are in chains, but are still holding the magical key which
symbolizes the “right of return.”
The key is embedded in a barbed wire fence, which represents the security
barrier, but the entire map of Israel is bleeding and red. |
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