THIS IS BRILLIANT. I AGREE WITH EVERY WORD.
By David Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM
[..]
So it’s time for Israel to re-articulate its thinking about the process of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu should capitalize on his sweeping victory to reset the diplomatic table by outlining a pragmatic process that Israel can participate in, and to draw clear Israeli red lines as to acceptable contours of a solution.
Doing so is especially urgent since Israel is already facing a renewed international campaign for West Bank withdrawals. The Obama administration is not-so-subtly threatening to throw its support behind a new United Nations Security Council resolution recognizing Palestinian independence and demanding rapid withdrawal to the 1967 lines (with some itsy-bitsy possible land swaps mentioned as a sop to Israel).
And Obama is likely to revert to his infamous May 2011 “winds of change” speech, in which he demanded that first Israel withdraw — a “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces” to allow for “a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state” — and only then hash out Jerusalem and refugee issues with the PA.
This, of course, would mean continuation of the conflict and no real Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist. It would simply provide another opportunity for Palestinians to swarm the 1949/1967 lines and to ramp up BDS and lawfare efforts until Israel commits suicide through refugee “return” or the division of Jerusalem. The Palestinians could also interpret administration distancing from Israel as an invitation to violence. And Obama could use the violence not only to heighten pressure on Israel but to cut off the American arms pipeline.
Worse still, there are voices growing among Diaspora Jewry — take the Obama shill, Peter Beinart, for example — to support the administration in “punishing” Israel for its failure to comply with Obama’s push for a Palestinian state. Yes, “punish.” Out of “love” for Israel, of course.
So the pressure is on, and Israel must respond intelligently. Here are some guidelines and red lines that the fourth Netanyahu administration could adopt:
• Not prejudging the outcome of negotiations: Remember this mantra? It was a staple of regional peace diplomacy for decades, and among other things, it meant that a two-state solution was a possible, but not a definite, outcome of a process of direct negotiations between the parties. Thus establishment of a Palestinian state could not be rejected as a possible solution, but it could not be defined in advance as the only possible endgame of talks. Israel should insist on an open-ended process. Perhaps the parties themselves and the international community will yet find different solutions more workable, and even more attractive, as time goes on.
• Regional solutions: Unconventional alternatives to the struggling two-state paradigm must be on the table, including: a Palestinian-Jordanian federation; shared sovereignty with Israel in the West Bank; a three- or four-way land swap involving Egypt and Jordan; and, possibly, a combination of all these approaches. The major Western powers must be willing to drive serious exploration of such alternatives. Arab states too must be willing take responsibility for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and consider investment of tangible resources in “regional” solutions.
• Performance-based process: Remember the “Road Map” articulated by the George W. Bush administration? It was a path forward based wisely on incrementalism and reciprocity. It outlined staged moves toward peace by both sides. It sought to create provisional arrangements in the West Bank at each stage, allowing for verification and, if necessary, pauses, in the process if the parties shirked their responsibilities. Israel should insist again on such a guarded, incremental approach.
• Baseline: Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should not begin from any 67-year-old armistice line forced upon Israel by Arab aggression; nor “from the point that talks last left off” seven years ago under a previous, defeatist Israeli government; nor from the defensive “security fence” forced upon Israel by Palestinian terrorism; nor from any borders high-handedly dictated in advance by the international community.
Israel’s baseline position at the outset of the talks should be that 100 percent of the West Bank belongs to Israel, by historical right, and that this right is richly buttressed by political experience, legitimate settlement, and security necessity. Only then can Israel hope to obtain a sensible compromise.
• Finality: Israel should demand up front a Palestinian letter stipulating that the Palestinian Authority recognizes that the purpose of negotiations is the termination of all claims between the parties, and that any agreement will have to contain an “end-of-conflict” declaration. Nothing less. Netanyahu should drive home this point: Only a crystal clear message from the Palestinians that the conflict is permanently and fully over might merit the ceding of territory by Israel. This reflects the spirit behind Netanyahu’s justified demand that the Palestinian recognize Israel as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people.
• Gaza: Israel should stipulate that implementation of any accord that might be reached with the Palestinian Authority will be contingent on extension of the accord to the Gaza Strip, which means that Hamas will have to be sidelined or sign on to an eventual deal. Israel should not be in the business of birthing two Palestinian states.
• Security: The radical Islamic winter buffeting this region, and its inroads into the Palestinian national movement, means that the security envelope that surrounds Israel and the Palestinian areas must be militarily controlled by Israel, fully and indefinitely. This includes the Jordan Valley.
• Violence: Any purposeful deterioration of the security situation in the West Bank allowed or abetted by Abbas will be met with a crushing Israeli military response. This will, among other, destroy all the fine infrastructure projects and governance institutions built at great expense in recent years in the PA by Western donor governments and NGOs. Similarly, Hamas should know that Israel plans to once again destroy its ongoing re-armament and tunnel construction program, mercilessly.
• Diplomatic armistice: Israel has no reason to negotiate with, or consider making concessions to, the Palestinians as long as the PA is waging diplomatic warfare against Israel at the International Criminal Court and U.N. institutions. A complete armistice in this regard must be declared by the PA as a precondition for new peace talks.
• The Temple Mount: The Palestinians must be willing to negotiate shared sovereignty over the place most holy to the Jewish people. For starters, as a pre-condition of Israel’s joining the talks, Jewish prayer must be facilitated on the vast Temple Mount plaza, either through a time-sharing arrangement (similar to that in place at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron), or through a small synagogue tucked away on the fringes of the plaza. This will not overshadow the two large Muslim structures on the mount, but will demonstrate Palestinian recognition of the Jewish people’s ancient ties to the holy site and to the holy land.
In sum, Netanyahu should leverage his convincing win in this week’s national election to reframe the parameters of how and what Israel is prepared to negotiate with the Palestinians.
@ Max:
Most rational Jewish People understand that ‘home’ means Israel. It is understood. It does not need an explanation.
Why would I need to lie? Maybe it’s your own conscious getting the better of you. I have had other Jews who have no attention of returning to our homeland meet me with the same type of hostility.
@ dove:
You just lied and proved yourself a LIAR. It’s in black and white for a child to read. You tried to save your lie but you have to twist that logic to the moon and back and it still is nonsense,
Do me a favour – don’t agree with me on anything I have no use for intellectual dishonesty. And wake up – there is no “home” here for anybody – you are now in a burning house.
@ Max:
I have been on and off this forum for many years – those that know me know exactly what I am referring to. If I was making the comment directly to you – I probably would have chose different words.
It makes sense to me. Was letting Avigail know that I live in Canada and not the U.S. in case she wasn’t aware.
So YES with me living in Canada and eventually making it home refers to Israel. Why would I have to make it home if I was already at home doh doh?
Your just looking for an excuse to pounce on me which is too bad because I do agree with you on many things but I find you very demanding and you tend to go sketch – just like some others who have frequented this forum.
dove Said:
I don’t care who you were commenting to I make the remark addressed to you on your public comments – if you want privacy move to the arctic, And you are a liar – you were referring to Canada –
You are obfuscating my remark as usual- get your lies and truth straight.
DUH!
@ Max:
I was referring to Israel doh doh as HOME. Wasn’t commenting to you anyways.
dove Said:
I knew there was something wrong with you. Canada can never be “home” to any of the former cultural Canadians again now that it has been fatally poisoned.
You haven’t got a clue what “home” is or what it once was.
Oh I know! And Harper is in favour of a 2 state solution – my one complaint about him – however I think he would be like Senator Cotton and realize there would have to be certain conditions that we know the Pals will never agree to.
I hate it when the WH puts a spin as if the whole onus is back in Israels lap.
Hashem has me focused on other things but brings me in when there is a crisis. Been very involved with Canadian politics.
My Canadian flag has been flying at half mast for years – not happy with what’s going on here.
@ dove:
Obama is also trying to unsit Harper…
I’ve been paying very close attention to US politics since the 2008 campaign, as a matter of fact, since I’ve heard Obama speak for the 1st time. I immediately thought that he was extremely dangerous. For America first and foremost.
Nothing he has done the last 6 years has made me change my mind, on the contrary.
The last 6 years were like monitoring the fall of a once great Nation into the abyss.
@ Avigail:
I don’t usually pay this close attention to American politicians – but now with me living in Canada and eventually making it ‘home’ I feel I really have to make it a priority. The WH isn’t that great with Canada either.
@ dove:
Cotton is great. Nothing would delight me more than seeing the UN defunded.
Not sure if this was posted yet but Sen Tom Cotton gives a great detailed speech – only 8 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s-DkYBJJnEM
@ Bert:
Might be in the Levi report that BB decided to ignore!!!
What ever happened to the Palestine Mandate of the League of Nations?
See “The Legal Foundation And Borders Of Israel Under International Law: A Treatise on Jewish Sovereignty over the Land of Israel” by Howard Grief, 732 Pages.
The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law offers a comprehensive and systematic legal treatment of Jewish national and political rights to ALL of the Land of Israel. The author, Howard Grief, is the originator of the thesis that de jure sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel and Palestine was vested in the Jewish People as a result of the San Remo Resolution adopted at the San Remo Peace Conference on April 25, 1920.
Article 80 of the U.N. charter of 1945 transferred all League of Nations resolutions to the newly formed United Nations thus maintaining the legal rights of the Jewish People to the land of Israel. This is the international law which is in effect to this day.
This is the proper response to critics who question Israel’s legal rights. But this is useless UNLESS Israel firmly DEMANDS that its legal rights be recognized.
Great ideas! Restart the negotiations at a new level, from a position of strength from the electorate. And also add no release of terrorist prisoners.
These are NON-starters for the Pal, Obama and probably the EU.
Abbas has stated repeatedly that the right of return is non-negotiable. What does Obama and Mogherini (EU foreign min) do not understand? This was said many, many times in English, not Arabic.
A starter for IL and the Arabs of IL would be the elimination of the deeply corrupted leaders of the PA and Hamas and a reeducation/civilizing of the Palestinians.
The Obamas and the western liberals have no clue the Palestinians want to destroy Israel not make peace with it. If they do they do not care. They believe the Israeli Palestinian conflict is the Palestinian quest for equal civil rights (like Black-Americans)in the 50s and 60s. They do not realize Israel is in a sea of Arabs who have been trying to drive them out of the middle east from before the state of Israel was recreated in 1948.
These people live in a world were liberalism and political correctness are their religion in actuality. So they do understand the world outside of the liberal bubble and are very antagonistic to people like Netanyahu and any other Israeli leader who will not bend over backwards to these poor Palestinians and give them a state on their terms.
HA! HA!
Reframing the blah blah blah..
Reframe Hamas, Hezbollah into dust and neutralize Iranian influence and maybe talks can start.
They HAVE to be annihilated north and south – this is the re-framing to be done. Everything else is smoke.
@ Ted Belman:
According to a Channel 2 report, Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett wants Prime Minister ‘s election eve pledge of no Palestinian Arab state to become one of the fundamental coalition principles.
As for process? What process? The Arabs have no interest in talks with Israel that don’t begin without Israel’s agreeing in advance they have a pre-defined outcome. The rest are details.
@ NormanF:Its all about maintaining the process and occupying the west.
In a rational world, such initiatives would be feasible.
They don’t work in the Middle East because the Arab goal isn’t peace but to secure Israel’s destruction.