Give the Palestinians what they want or else.

T. Belman. Seven years later, Israel is still standing and the pressure is still there.

By Ted Belman (Mar 29/09)

As the Netanyahu government nears completion, everyone is piling on the pressure to succumb to Palestinian demands. The EU made it clear again, if Israel rejects the two-state solution, it won’t be business as usual between Israel and the EU.

Yesterday the NY Times, the publisher of the antisemitic Oliphant cartoon, editorialized,

It will not be that hard to judge by his deeds, and relatively soon, whether Mr. Netanyahu is serious about seeking peace with the Palestinians. His government is expected to win parliamentary approval next week.

After that, we suggest that he start with freezing further settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank, as Israel has so often promised but failed to do. He should lift roadblocks between Palestinian cities and towns that are not needed for security. In East Jerusalem, he should stop the humiliating eviction of Palestinians. And in Gaza, he must expand exceptions to the blockade to allow the import of cement and reconstruction materials.

If Mr. Netanyahu is serious about being a partner for peace, he will not get in the way of the militant group Hamas entering a Palestinian unity government with the rival Fatah faction — as long as that government is committed to preventing terrorism and accepts past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. He will recognize that the United States has its own interests in diplomacy with Syria, Iran and the Palestinians — and allow the Obama administration the freedom to pursue them. He also will not start a preventive war with Iran.

As The Times’s Ethan Bronner reported,

Israel is increasingly isolated and facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades following its Gaza war. Mr. Netanyahu has understandably raised alarms with the expectation that his foreign minister will be an ultranationalist leader with what are widely considered to be anti-Arab views. Failing to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians would only make things worse by causing frictions with the new Obama administration and with Europe.

Essentially what the Times and the EU are saying is, don’t bother me with the niceties, just give the Palestinians what they want. Gone is the pretext that the US or the EU won’t compromise Israel’s security. Gone is the commitment of the Quartet to allow the parties to negotiate the terms of the agreement.

In its place is the demand, nay the threat, give the Palestinians what they want or else. No demands are made on the Palestinians.

The Times suggests that Israel is controlling America, preventing it from pursuing its interests. Its that damned lobby again. More ominous is the idea that the US, if constraints were removed in Congress, could cut a deal with Syria and Iran. Or are they also suggesting that if Israel doesn’t provide the US with bargaining chips, such as the Golan, then Israel is preventing the US from pursuing its interests.

The NYT lowers the bar for acceptance of Hamas to the level that they accept former agreements. Hamas prefers to only “respect” them. No where is there a demand that they honour them. Netanyahu has committed to abide by all Israel’s signed agreements, which by the way do not include the Roadmap which is a blueprint and not an agreement. The NYT wants more from Israel than that it honour all agreements. It wants her to make new agreements. It certainly doesn’t expect the Palestinians to honour their agreements.

This attack by the EU and the NYT culminates a long standing plan of the State Department and others to impose peace. It started with the insertion of the Saudi Plan into the Roadmap. It continued with the publication of The Israel Lobby and the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman of AIPAC. Four years ago, I wrote “Viable State” trumps “secure borders” in which I took the position that the Saudi Plan was the State Department Plan. A few months after this article I commented

“Friends of Israel should recognize reality here. Israel is merely going through the motions of negotiating and agreeing or disagreeing while the reality is that the outcome has been predetermined and forced on Israel.”.

The selection of Gen Jones and Samantha Power to serve in the Obama administration is further evidence of the long standing plan to force the Saudi Plan on Israel. It is no accident that during the period when Netanyahu was forming his government the attacks reached a crescendo to affect the makeup of the ultimate coalition. Just a day before the above noted editorial appeared, the NYT published a Op-Ed by Roger Cohen in the New York Times (The Fierce Urgency of Peace), advising on the right way to deal with Israel, based on a “Bipartisan Statement on U.S. Middle East Peacemaking.”. This report enshrined the thinking of Power and Jones as to the terms of the settlement and how to get there.

In Obama’s recent press conference he said “.. the status quo is unsustainable. That it is critical for us to advance a two-state solution”.

Yet it is critical that Israel not advance the two state solution especially on Palestinian terms.

The pressure applied to Netanyahu will be unbearable.

May 21, 2016 | 4 Comments »
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  1. Israel is not isolated. What it is, however, is badly misunderstood and not universally loved, and both those conditions leave us often wringing our hands.

    A nation often unloved and misunderstood, but not isolated. It’s a tale often told, especially by US politicians speaking to pro-Israel groups. Eleven minutes after David Ben-Gurion declared independence on May 14, 1948, US president Harry S. Truman bucked his entire national security staff and granted de facto recognition to the new State of Israel.

    Three days later, the Soviet Union granted de jure recognition, and then Nicaragua did the same, followed by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Uruguay … until by the end of the year, 21 of the UN’s 58 states recognized the Jewish state.

    Another 33 countries recognized Israel the following year, meaning that by the end of 1949, 54 of the world’s 86 countries at the time had diplomatic ties with Israel.
    x

    And today, 68 years later, Israel has diplomatic relations with 158 of the UN’s 193 states. It has 79 embassies abroad, 22 consulates and six special missions. Eighty-six countries maintain embassies in Israel. Yet today, as was the case in 1948, there is often a sense of intense isolation in this country.

    And this isolation is used by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum.

    Those on the Left play the isolation card when they want to convince the public that far-reaching concessions are needed.

    “Withdraw or our isolation will deepen,” the argument goes. “Make concessions or we will lose US or European support.”

    Those on the Right play the isolation card to argue against any flexibility or initiative. “We are a nation that stands alone,” this argument runs. “Nothing we do will satisfy the world.”

    But the general miasma that goes under the rubric of isolation is something different.

    Israel is not isolated.

    A country that is truly alone does not house 86 embassies; it does not continuously host presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers and parliamentary delegations from around the world; and it is not constantly being visited by bluechip business delegations keen on doing business in the country or benefiting from its technology.

    An isolated country does not do more than $100 billion in annual trade with the world and attract millions of tourists, including first-rate international performers.

    Dozens of international airlines do not fly to an isolated country’s airports.

    Nor does that country send disaster relief delegations abroad.

    The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement would like to isolate Israel as its forebear the Arab Boycott tried to do before it; but it is failing as its forebear failed.

    It is failing because there are reasonable people out there able to see the movement for what it is – a movement that wants to bring about Israel’s end. And it is failing because 68 years after independence, Israel is a serious country of some 8.5 million people, with much to offer the world.

    Take Britain, for instance, the epicenter of the BDS movement. Since 2009, when that country began a voluntary labeling regime for products from the settlements – a soft, polite form of BDS – Israeli exports to Britain doubled from $1.6 billion to $3.2b in 2014. Not because the British are enamored of Israel but because Israel has things they need.

    Israel is not isolated. What it is, however, is badly misunderstood and not universally loved, and both those conditions leave us often wringing our hands.

    Everyone wants to be loved, and – perhaps because of its history – the Jewish people want to be loved more than most.

    Deeply ingrained in the collective Jewish psyche are fears for the worst when others don’t like us, concerned about what those who don’t like us could do to us. This stems from a historical sense of helplessness, living at the mercy of others.

    One of Israel’s problems with US President Barack Obama was his inability, for a variety of reasons, to shower Israel with the type of love our psyche demands.

    We don’t want the president of the most powerful country in the world to like us the way he likes Japan or Indonesia. We want him to like us specially. We are insecure.

    We want to feel that love, and – perhaps even more importantly – we want others to see it. We don’t want a little peck on the cheek from behind the bus stop. We want a smooch on the lips in full daylight.

    Otherwise we feel unloved, erroneously interpreted as isolated.

    Old habits die hard. Sixty-eight years after independence, we have not yet freed ourselves of the feeling that it is not the end of the world if everyone is not going to like everything we do. Not everybody likes everything any country does.

    Sixty-eight years since independence, we have not yet truly internalized that we are a free people in a free land, not at the mercy of others.

    If our enemies hit, we can hit back. If they develop tools to harm us, we can find the antidote. If they try diplomatic tricks to weaken us, we too can deflect them. It is not as if the other side is getting stronger and smarter and better, and we are sitting on our hands or standing static in place.

    We are not a reed pushed this way and that by the rushing water.

    And we feel misunderstood. We feel, not unjustifiably, that the world doesn’t get us, doesn’t understand what we are up against.

    And it doesn’t. It can’t.

    The world doesn’t carry with it our deep historical scars; it doesn’t listen to cries to wipe us off the map through our unique ears; it doesn’t know what it’s like to send kids to the front, generation after generation, or to worry somewhere in the back of the mind about a terrorist stabbing or shooting or a car ramming or a bus bombing on the street. The world does not know what it is like to walk in our shoes.

    The world sees checkpoints and interprets it as a desire to humiliate Palestinians, while we see it as a desire to keep our children safe. The world looks at the security fence and sees it as a land grab, while we see it as a way to keep suicide bombers from making our life hell. The world looks at Israeli action against rockets from Gaza and regards it as “disproportionate” response, while we see it as a natural instinct to defend ourselves. The world sees the Law of Return and interprets it as a racist law, while we see it as a natural right to the Ingathering of the Exiles.

    We see reality through different glasses.

    We are not universally loved, though also not universally unloved. We are indeed often badly misunderstood. But we are not isolated. And even if we were isolated, as perhaps we once were, 68 years of independence has proven one thing: Israel has the ability to handle it. Indeed, it has the ability to handle all of the above – and to flourish.

    http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-at-68-Not-isolated-but-badly-misunderstood-453697

  2. @ 1DavidKA: So Jews building homes in the land of Israel is the problem?

    Actually the situation is getting better Israel is growing in population and in exports of technology, medical, and water products. Israel is strong militarily and growing stronger. Yes we have enemies and the left wingers and anti-Semites hate us. Unless we die they will continue to hate us.

    So we should stop building homes for Jews in our country because anti-Semites and far leftists do not approve? Thanks but no thanks!

  3. Yes, but Israel’s isolation is growing, the BDS threat is growing, more and more people, esp the youth, are taking the side of the underdog, the Pals. Israel’s defenders in the Diaspora are paralyzed by the proliferation of the civil settlements in the WB. The military control is justified by the security needs but the civil settlements are universally viewed as a land grab and resource theft. The situation is bad and getting worse.