I share Rachman’s views entirely as to why now is not the time to invest in the “peace Process”. But I don’t share his view of what should be done instead. He doesn’t want to give up on the two-state solution. Ted Belman
It’s time to park the peace process
By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
A lot has changed in the Middle East since the Arab uprisings began. But one thing that remains constant is the obsession of international diplomats with the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process”. Monday saw yet another effort to drag the unwilling parties back to the negotiating table. A meeting of the Quartet (the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia), held in Washington, was expected to call for talks to restart, as a matter of urgency.
Nobody seems minded to point out an obvious fact. With the Middle East in turmoil, starting a new round of Israeli-Palestinian talks is completely pointless.
Speaking last week Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, made the opposite case, listing several reasons why she thinks it crucial to start talks. Reason number one was “changes in the surrounding neighbourhood” – which seems a rather mild description for revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, civil wars in Syria and Libya, and the destabilisation of Arab states from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.
In fact, it is precisely the “changes in the surrounding neighbourhood” that make it a bad idea to waste precious energy on a peace process that is now a sideshow.
Some European diplomats cling to the idea that the Palestinian issue remains at the heart of the instability in the Middle East. But that is a theological position that can only be upheld by resolutely ignoring actual events. If there is one thing that the uprisings across the Middle East have in common, it is that they have very little to do with the Palestinians. What is more, despite the eager predictions of many outside analysts, the occupied Palestinians territories have not (so far) exploded into Egyptian-style insurrection.
The main bearing that the Arab spring has had on the Palestinian issue is to change the calculations of both sides to the conflict, in ways that make them even less likely to risk negotiating a peace settlement.
At a time when Arab leaders everywhere are under attack for being remote, corrupt and elitist, it is simply too risky for the leadership of Fatah, the Palestinian faction in control of the West Bank, to enter into tortuous negotiations with the Israelis that will inevitably lead to accusations that they are selling out their own people. For the moment, the Palestinians seem much more interested in trying to reconcile Fatah and Hamas – and in pursuing the possibility of recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.
The Israelis are also in a defensive crouch. Israel’s regional policy was built around a peace treaty with Egypt, cordial relations with Turkey, a cold peace with Syria and a shared interest with Saudi Arabia in the containment of Iran. The upheavals across the Middle East raise questions about the durability of all of these arrangements – which make it highly unlikely that the Israeli government will take any further risks by pulling troops out of the West Bank.
There is, of course, real doubt about whether the current Israeli government actually has a genuine interest in trading “land for peace”. But even an Israeli government that was completely committed to the idea of a “two-state solution” would hesitate to take any long-term decisions in such a rapidly-changing environment.
One of the great potential rewards for the Israelis of an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians is the prospect that it will lead to a permanent peace with the wider Arab world. But with almost all of the Arab regimes tottering, Israel could have no guarantee that such a peace would last. There are also certain practical difficulties. Any peace with Syria would involve Israel handing back the occupied Golan Heights – but the government of Bashar al-Assad is otherwise engaged, right now.
Rather than waste time trying to pursue a final peace settlement, the “international community” should set more modest goals. The key point, at the moment, should be to try to stop either side from doing things that make a future peace deal actually impossible.
When it comes to the Palestinians, that means continuing to put pressure on Hamas to recognise the state of Israel. Without that, it is hard to see the Israelis agreeing to start talks. As far as Israel is concerned, the US and Europe should take a much harder line on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories that continue to eat into the land of a future Palestinian state. In an ideal world, the Obama administration would cut aid to Israel every time a settlement was expanded. Instead, Congress is currently waving the financial big stick in the wrong direction, at the Palestinians – for having the temerity to pursue their UN bid in September. Yet Israeli and Congressional hostility to the Palestinian charge at the UN is overdone. A General Assembly resolution without Security Council backing would change very little, legally or politically.
Still, the Americans and the Europeans do not relish the idea of being put on the spot at the UN. That might explain their eagerness to get talks started again. The plan seems to be to start a pointless peace process, in the hope of averting a meaningless UN declaration.
Meanwhile, the real action in the Middle East is going on in Egypt, Libya, Syria and the Gulf. Until the outcome of those dramas becomes much clearer, trying to force progress on the Palestinian question is a futile displacement activity.
Ayn Rand speaks her mind on Arabs and Israelis. (1979)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uHSv1asFvU&feature=player_embedded
The world sees a sovereign Jewish State as a threat that must be contained. We’re not dealing with support for Palestinian aspirations. We’re confronting unbridled anti-Semitism. The Peace Process Emperor has no clothes!
I am keep getting surprised reading articles such as this. Naive, or stupid?
Jest one example: The author claims that we should continue putting pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel!
It is like we should continue to put pressure on the crocodiles to become vegetarian.
I respect and honor Hamas for being an honest enemy and saying openly that their goal is destruction of Israel. The worst thing we can possibly achieve is to have Hamas declare that they want to “live in peace with Israel”. This will only give more license to the Israel hating Europeans and section of Americans including the Hussein, to increase the pressure on Israel to commit a suicide.
Israel is following the accepted Middle Eastern pattern laid down by Arab Muslims for the past 1400 years of not relinquishing property captured in war. On top of which it is land that once belonged to the Jewish state. If Israel made an exception for the Sinai, that was their choice on land that was never part of the Jewish State.
Where is the compensation from Muslims for the land and property confiscated from the Jews when they were killed or forced to move out of Muslim countries over the past 1400 years? Where is it? The black indigenous people of Sudan were forced to cut their country in half to protect that much of it from another conquering Arab Muslim group. This is the kind of compromise Arab Muslims like because it doesn’t prevent them from trying to get the other half back by war, which is what seems to be happening at their new border right now.
Why are the tens of thousands of Arab Muslims who came to the Holy Land after the Jewish state was founded, looking for work, included in the numbers of long-time Arab occupants? Under Jewish toil, when the land began to bloom and turn into a desert paradise, the jobless Arabs flocked in and were hired by the Jews and at that time the Arabs were damned glad to find some work.
Now the Arabs want it all. Who says this isn’t jihad?
I hope foreign aid remains slow to reach the Arab Palestinians, and they are forced to stand on their own feet and accept the responsibilities of getting out of the welfare state. They could benefit greatly from being neighbors with the Jews, one of the most successful people the world has ever known. They could also benefit greatly by ignoring the hatred preaching of religious clerics.
I remember almost 40 years ago hearing the Jews hauled in top soil for fields and gardens. Does anyone know if it was done for plantings in the West Bank?
See my post: Duty of genocide authentic Judaism; unburdened by modern Humanist anti-Jewish values.
Rabbis, when they were real rabbis, maintained that Jews must kill all the inhabitants of the Promised Land during the invasion. Joshua bin Nun allegedly sent three letters to the Canaanite nations before the invasion:
Whoever wants to leave, leave;
whoever wants to make a treaty of tribute and servitude, make the treaty;
whoever wants to fight, fight.
They were given no 4th option
Ted, The best answer was given by the American writer and Philosopher Eric Hoffer in 1968!
Solly Ganor
Subject: DO YOU REMEMBER ERIC HOFFER?
WRITTEN IN 1968 – Astonishing !!!!
Do you remember Eric Hoffer?
He was a longshoreman who turned into a philosopher, wrote columns for newspapers and some books. He was a non-Jewish American social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic..
Here is one of his columns from 1968. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
This article was written 40 years ago!!! Some things never change.
ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION by Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are
forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there
is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it.
Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman.
Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single .
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser
triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted afinger to save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.
There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts.
And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally.
We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs with their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us
Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us all.
This is from Chaim’s keyboard.
Dear friend,
The source of our trouble is embedded in YOM HA_ATZTMAUT, as the Arabs call it rightfully NAKKBAH. We did not start on 15 May 1948, we started our Independence Day when Jashua crossed the Jordan river in the year 1273 B.C.E. We are the ONLY people in the entire history of the world that have a TABBO-a written document to prove it. And if anyone, including Jews who don’t agree with me, can kiss me you know where, after they wash their mouth with acid-soap.
Your friend Chaim
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
Unfortunately Israel created the precedent for this by giving Egypt the Sinai, territory for which they had even less claim than Syria has to the Golan
The peace process is the Death to the Jews Process:
Harvard has a Professor of Yiddish (Ruth Wisse) who is given the role there of “token conservative Jew”. She produces numerous opinion pieces attempting to speak truth to the brainwashed delusionals.
Her latest was to designate the “Gaza Peace Flotilla” for what it really is: the “Death to the Jews Flotilla”.
Of course, that is what the “Peace Process” actually is. The name “peace process” comes right out of 1984 Newspeak, where the Ministry of Propaganda is called the Ministry of “Truth”, and the Ministry of War is called the Ministry of “Peace”.
The “Peace Process” should be designated for what it is: the “Death to the Jews Process”. In what rational world, after the Holocaust, the arab-Israeli wars, the Gaza and Lebanon withdrawals, etc., would anyone demand that Israeli Jews retreat to 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements, ethnically cleanse the Jews, surrender Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, recognize a fully armed palestinian state run by Hamas encroaching on an Israel nine miles wide, and trust to UN and US security guarantees?
A la 1984, the delusional brainwashing of the New York Times, the Democrats, and the liberals, is now so deeply set that it cannot be reversed by any attempt at rational discussion. When push comes to shove, it can only be resisted by force.
I mean, how many more times will we have to hear: “the palestinians are actually Jews in the form of arabs. They are rational and reasonable, and only seek a fair and just solution. And we do not hate Jews, just the nazi wannabe settlers and the policies of the right wing, extremist Israeli government.”
Yamit82:Ted don’t you think we have had enough of Gurza aka HP?
Ted I think you might find this interesting!!
Dan Hannan, MEP:Part 1- Why Israel has such a hard time getting a fair hearing in Brussels.
End of part 2 explains why Israel stands in the way of Global NWO now the ideological movement of Europe and Obama.
Dan Hannan, MEP: Part 2-Why Israel has such a hard time getting a fair hearing in Brussels.
Ted don’t you think we have had enough of Gurza aka HP?
The Golan Heights are not “occupied” but rightly belong to Israel after Syria started a war of aggression against Israel and lost. Where does the idea come from that the aggressor in a war gets to have territory back that it lost. Where is the historical precedent for this? Surrendering territory it won in self-defense back to the aggressor is only expected of Israel.
There again with the use of the false term “occupation”. These territories rightly belong to Israel. As to the cutting of aid to the PA, we are not obliged to fund a terrorist entity.