Sources, as usual being referred to as anonymous high ranked officials, as if there is ever another kind leaking the information, have stated that the talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in Amman, Jordan have produced no tangible results. Well, color me surprised. Another surprise is that each side claims the other is at fault. Oddly, the reason the other is at fault is the one place of agreement. The Israeli claim is that the Palestinians are continuing to make their all-encompassing demands for Israel to agree to end all building in all areas past the Green Line, to use the pre-1967 War lines as the basis for a border, universal Palestinian Right of Return, and the rest of the litany of demands which leave nothing for negotiations. The Palestinians claim that Israel remains intransigent on meeting their reasonable pre-conditions in order to restart direct negotiations. Well, if one is simply looking for any agreement to claim progress, then we have progress. We have progressed from the old impasse to the new impasse which resembles the old impasse to a ‘T’.
Right on schedule, there was a politician from a country which has no direct interest or will suffer no damage nor reap any gain from the success or failure of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Truthfully, just about everybody from numerous different countries seem impelled to make comments and place the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the front burner needing their two-cents worth every time there is a meeting, somebody builds a deck east of the Green Line, uproots a tree claimed by a Palestinian, or any complaint expressed by a Palestinian. You seldom hear from these same critics who claim to be deeply vested and seriously watching everything that occurs between the two sides when rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel; large rocks are thrown through Israeli licensed vehicles, even if they result in deaths; Israeli trees are uprooted unless the event turns violent and there is film of the Israeli Jews fighting with Arabs or the liberal Israelis who often force issues and instigate confrontations; Arabs are caught at a checkpoint with explosives, bombs, firearms etc., or anything that would cast the Palestinians in a negative light or make the Israelis appear as being victimized. This time the affronted politician was British Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Alistair Burt who said “Many will argue that now is not the time to make bold gestures. My advice is if you want stability, security and peace with your neighbors, and the best relations with the rest of the world, then making a deal with the Palestinians is urgent.” Could you imagine if a Knesset Minister had spoken in London and said that England needed to make bold and grand sacrifices as attaining a deal with Northern Ireland was urgent and necessary?
Whenever you hear a politician being interviewed on the evening news, you can safely bet their comments on the Israeli-Palestinian situation will support the downtrodden Palestinians and chastise the evil and oppressive Israelis. Somewhere down the line the debate was reframed from Israel being set against the Muslim World where they were vastly outnumbered and their military vastly under-equipped compared to the arms available to their adversaries, to Israel being the oppressor of the poor, innocent, nonviolent, peace-seeking Palestinians. Of course the world’s media tends to overlook little events such as the Israeli interception of the arms ships the Karine-A, the Victoria, and the Antigua-flagged vessel, Francop; and these are just an example of various arms shipments by sea and land prevented, chosen simply because I actually could find non-Israeli sources. These made the news simply because tons of armaments are intercepted and they include serious upgrades in weapons capabilities. One deadly example of a serious upgraded weapon being used against Israeli civilians occurred when a terrorist from within Gaza fired a guided antitank missile into Israel aiming and destroying a large, bright yellow school bus. This was an intentional act, as in order to guide the missile the attacker had to have visual contact with the target, a school bus. The attack initially seriously injured the sole passenger, a 16 year old boy who subsequently died of his wounds, and moderately injured the bus driver. The bus had let out most of the students just moments before the attack which occurred as the bus climbed an incline and came into view. Had the bus been visible just a few moments earlier the attack’s results would have been horrific. You can read about this insidious attack in the New York Times, or the Huffington Post which spends most of the article making the Israeli response appear as brutal and unnecessarily extensive, or the Washington Post which also makes sure to include the Israeli response as being too large. If you search this particular incident and almost any other incident of terror against Israelis, the majority of the articles will also list in graphic and overt detail the Israeli response and stress to great lengths that Israel killed more terror suspects than Israeli civilians who were killed by the terror attack and will go to the greatest of pain in mentioning any unfortunate apparently innocent Palestinian who was an incidental casualty. When Israel responds to any of the near countless terror attacks which occur almost daily, when including the rocket and mortar fire out of Gaza into southern Israel, Israel is almost universally painted as using disproportionate force.
The real question that needs to be faced is exactly what forces are aligned against Israel, all of which use the Palestinians as one conduit for their war against the Jewish State. We know that Saddam Hussein used to pay the family of every Palestinian suicide killer $25,000 before he was removed from the scene. One wonders how long after before that practice is reinstated by the new Iraqi government. Iran is known to be directly arming Hezballah for a total war of annihilation against Israel and also arming both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Egypt has opened up the flood gates for weapons of virtually any sort to pass into Gaza through the Rafah border terminal, though the Egyptians do monitor who and what is allowed to leave Gaza and enter Egypt. Syria is known to store many longer range missiles just across the border from Lebanon solely for the use of Hezballah. Turkey has attempted to break the legal and internationally recognized Gaza blockade. The rebels who now rule Libya have been caught and state they intend to continue shipping arms to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Saudi Arabia has been unofficially underwriting the Palestinian Authority’s terror wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The Sudan has allowed its shipping terminals to be used for drop points from which arms are taken across Egypt and through the Sinai Peninsula and then into Gaza. The Arab League has made numerous calls for its member states to supply the Palestinians with monies and other supplies. And Europe, the United Nations, the United States and numerous other governments all give monetary support to the Palestinian Authority which in turn admits it pays the salaries of the Gaza government employees, numbers of which who are in the security forces are also part of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror forces. Yet, the new truth continues to be that Israel is fighting just the poor, ill equipped and suffering Palestinians. These are the same Palestinians who have a higher standard of living than their Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, Sudanese, Yemenis, Eritrean, Somali, and many other Arab brothers. And even more surprising, the Palestinians living in Gaza, with the exception of those in the Gaza City refugee camps who are kept imprisoned by the Hamas government, have the highest standard of living of any non-oil producing Arab country and rival those with smaller oil production. Gaza is even touting their new mall with luxury shopping and their new water park in attempts to attract tourists. You can read about the great vacation possibilities in Gaza here. If you should vacation in Gaza, please do us a favor and take lots of pictures and send us some prints and a story, I promise we will publish your story if you wish. Somebody needs to do it and I sure am not planning to take on that story.
Beyond the Cusp
