Kerry and Abbas Meet Today in Turkey

Here we go one more time. It is not like whatever is decided will be the main theme for restarting the so-called peace process as whatever it is it will end with the same disappointment for the world when Israelis refuse to surrender their entire country to Arab rule. The presumed theme this time is how to energize the Palestinian economy thus making agreements more viable. The problem is that the talks aimed at improving the Palestinian economy will be crafted to carefully avoid one subject, the kleptocracy which has ruled over the Palestinians since the return of Yasser Arafat after the Oslo Accords. Nobody ever mentions the million if not billions of dollars nestled away in European banks in the accounts of Mrs. Arafat. Nobody mentions the others who have benefited monetarily at the expense of the Palestinians. Of course there will be mention of the Israeli withholding tax incomes collected by them presumably for the Palestinians despite their having been released over a month ago when the Palestinian Authority made their desperate plea for more treasure from the entire world to repair their shortfall and inability to meet the payroll. This brings into the argument the fact that the Palestinian government has on its payroll an inordinate percentage of the population and includes many Hamas employees in the Gaza government. But there will be the economy destroying Israeli checkpoints which prevent free traffic of goods. Abbas will turn every discussion into a point of how it is the Israelis who are preventing the Palestinian economy from blossoming. No mention will be made that with Israeli assistance the Palestinians have one of the highest standards of living in the non-oil producing Arab world and that despite any difficulties their GDP has grown faster than the rest as well. Surprisingly to many, the Gazan economy has been even far healthier under Hamas than the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. This is actually due to the odd fact that Hamas has far less corruption and graft as Hamas is funded largely through fees and taxes upon goods brought through the smuggling tunnels. It almost seems completely lacking in logic to claim that Hamas provides greater economic opportunity through honest government than does the Palestinian Authority seems to be able of providing.

Eventually Secretary of State Kerry will likely decide to agree that the economic difficulties are mostly due to Israeli malevolence and attempt to move on to restarting the peace negotiations. This is where the groundwork of blaming Israel will be utilized by Abbas to claim injury and that he will require a number of steps to be taken by the Israelis in order to prove their honest intentions to act fairly and that they truly seek a real and just peace. Then will Abbas start to list the preconditions which he fully knows will prevent the possibility of any talks ever being recommenced. All the parties to this dance already are familiar with these preconditions and are aware that they are a fairly complete list of every of the final status disagreements demanding full Israeli surrender. A partial list include the 1949 Armistice Lines be used as the basis for the border (also misnamed the 67 border), Palestinian Capital to include all of East Jerusalem including all of the Old City and Temple Mount, the removal of all Jews from Palestinian territories, the release of most if not all Palestinian terrorists and prisoners from Israeli prisons, the submitting a map showing the final borders proposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the two biggest one which are a complete building freeze in claimed Palestinian lands, and the “Right of Return” for five million plus Palestinian refugees into Israel itself given full rights as citizens. There has also been one more precondition which, like the building freeze came from the mouth of President Obama in his abortive attempts believing Israel needed to be forced to negotiate rather than Abbas and the Palestinians being the ones blocking negotiations, comes from Secretary of State Kerry’s statements to Abbas during their previous meetings that Israel transfer all of Areas B and a large portion if not all of Area C from any Israeli controls over to complete and total Palestinian control. It is very likely that Secretary John Kerry will be a sympathetic captive to Abbas and his claims of Israeli intransigence as Kerry is another believer that it is Israel who has prevented peace talks and that Palestinians are simply more victims of Western, in this case Israeli, aggressive policies and domination. Every accusation Abbas will give as evidence of Israeli acts of aggressions and colonialism will be naively received by Secretary Kerry as confirmations of his preconceived notions fitting the progressive model of Western oppressions and colonialism. Perhaps Secretary Kerry should read some history of the British Mandate period and learn about the formation of Transjordan out of 78% of the Mandate Lands which were to have formed the Jewish State and how Israel has also been one of the main victims of Western colonialism and that the current insanity of attempting to form another Arab state out of the remaining 22% of the British Mandate lands is yet one more colonialist theft of land set aside by the League of Nations and confirmed by the United Nations Charter in Article 80. But often the truth falls secondary to personal preconceived notions.

Beyond the Cusp

A Lesson from the Holocaust

Today is Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Day in Israel where time is taken to assure that the Holocaust is never forgotten. This year it falls on the 70^th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis where half-starved Jews with almost no weapons other than a few handguns and rifles stood against an entire battalion of the Nazi army and held them at bay for over a month before the entire ghetto was annihilated. This desperate final stand was a response to the planned slaughter of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis which had been scheduled for the first day of Passover in order to celebrate the Jewish holiday of liberation with what the Nazis saw as a celebration of the denial of G0d and the promises to the Jewish People. Throughout the years since the Holocaust there have been many lessons drawn that mainly lead to the one singular goal, the promise Jews must revere and keep to themselves and their posterity, “Never Again!” There has always been one manner of keeping that promise which has always seemed of paramount importance which I will try to explain.

Before the horrors that were the Nazi execution of plans to conquer the world and reshape it in their own image, Germany was the leading country of the modern world with the best minds and most advanced culture. The majority of the world’s leading scientists resided there, especially in the disciplines of physics. Germany was viewed as the new renaissance with benevolent governance under the Weimar Republic. Germany was the leading republic of freedom and thought making their society the envy of many. But there was a problem with this near perfect scene that lay underneath it guaranteeing it would fail in a drastic manner. Germany was suffering under punitive laws placed on her after World War I which undercut her economic health. This eventually led to the printing of monies in order to meet payments levied against the German government. These payments along with large outlays of “investments in the future” led to runaway inflation as the German money became devalued. This led to a cycle which eventually caused unemployment and economic strife which the Nazis promised a solution and blamed it on the outside world and the plotting of those who wished to destroy the German race. Germany had also bought wholesale into the eugenics movement which had blossomed in the United States and spread through Europe. Take all these individual difficulties and social upheavals, shake well, and you do not get a happy ending.

Once in power the Nazis began to implement purity laws which were more about punishing the impure than it was about aggrandizing the pure or master race. This, of course, was not supposed to be possible in the country which a few short years earlier had been the most liberal and socially advanced nation in the history of the world. The overriding thought to many while the initial plots were being enacted by the Nazis was one of, “It cannot happen here,” Nowhere was this denial of reality stronger than in the assimilated Jews of Germany. Many of these Jews had arrived from Russia where they suffered the pogroms under the Czars and then persecution under Stalin and the Communists. Upon their arrival in Germany the Jews tried to assimilate and weave themselves into the German society attempting to be as much like their non-Jewish German neighbors as they could. Assimilation was the answer to pogroms as they happened because the Jews had lived separately from the Russian society preferring to keep amongst themselves. It was the otherness that had caused the pogroms, not the fact that they were Jews. True, there were still some religious Jewish communities which attempted to live apart from the rest of society much as exist today in areas of Europe and the United States. But the Jews in Germany had lived assimilated and integrated into the German society more so than in previous European societies. The Jews lived lives the epitome of, “It cannot happen here.” Yet somehow it happened here in a way beyond anything that had ever come before. One of the first steps taken by the Nazis was to pass laws forbidding the Jews and other undesirables from owning firearms. They went from house to house disarming those determined to be part of the “other” in German society. Yet even this disarming of the Nazis’ future victims did not alarm anybody as they accepted that this was just being done to make society safer by removing guns. It was all done for a better tomorrow and to save the children etc.

I had mentioned that many of these Jews had fled Russia and the Czarist and Communist pogroms. One would tend to believe that these Jews who were but one or at most two generations removed from experiencing the pogroms would have been more sensitive to what befell the Jews starting in Germany and spreading throughout Europe. But what about the Jews from the Russian pogroms, why did they not realize and see the warning signs? Was it because of their separateness? Unlikely as many of the Jews provided needed skills for the Russian people amongst whom they resided. But where had these Russian Jews arrived from? Many of the Russian Jews came to Russia via numerous places throughout Europe which could be traced back to a series of singular events which inevitably nudged and shoved them to Russia. For many of these Jews the previous residence had been Germany, Britain, France, Italy and lastly, Poland. In each and every one of these countries the Jews had faced persecution. One could trace these families’ history simply be tracing where they had faced persecution and managed to get out before the final cleansing and they would flee to the nearest, or sometimes the farthest, safe haven where Jews were not persecuted. This would increase the presence of the Jews in the new country which inevitably led to the next persecution as soon as disease or hard economic times gave way to finding the others who were to blame. This was the coming to fruition of the worst of all curses which were prophesized to inflict the Jewish People. The verse is well known as it is taught in every Jewish Bible study as it is one of the most frightful passages in the Torah.

Leviticus 26:36-38 As for those of you who are left, I will fill their hearts with anxiety in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will frighten them, so that they will flee as one flees from the sword and fall when no one is pursuing. 37 Yes, with no one pursuing they will stumble over each other as if fleeing the sword — you will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And among the nations you will perish; the land of your enemies will devour you.

This history of being chased from persecution to persecution where once Jews had fled the country or province in which they were being hunted or even slaughtered as a reaction to times of trouble had one thing common to all of these troubles and persecutions, the Jews were not permitted to own weapons. Originally the laws against owning weapons were applied to entire groups or classes of societies. Only the nobles and those in their employ were permitted weapons even if one could afford such luxuries. Eventually weaponry became affordable and everybody could own them. This is when governments began the real exercise of disarming the citizenry. When the peoples under a ruler were disarmed, it was not always universal. Still, unless everybody was permitted to own weapons, the Jews were usually among those disallowed such privilege. The two most known cases were in Czarist Russia and Nazi Germany where Jews were explicitly disallowed to possess weapons and their homes and businesses searched and all weapons removed some time before the actual persecutions were begun. That is the lesson that the Holocaust and all of the similar persecutions, pogroms, purifications, inquisitions, and other oppressions throughout the ages have taught me, never allow myself to be disarmed and that if such should become the law of the land and I am not living in the Jewish homeland, move. It is that simple and I choose not to even discuss the supposed realities and niceties which always come along with those who will disarm the people before enslaving the people or worse. I forbid my continuing to reside amongst those who would disarm me. It is that simple, a lesson learned.

Beyond the Cusp

Abbas Casting Blame for Dire Economic Difficulties

Here we go once more into the financial doldrums and the Abbas dance of blame the rest of the Palestinian Authority leadership, blame Israel, blame Arab nations for not meeting their promised obligations and blame the world for not supporting the Palestinian cause with sufficient amounts of support, measured in dollars, Euros, precious metals or other forms of monetary equivalents. As has been the case since the fateful election where United States President Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice forced the inclusion of Hamas in the imminent elections for the Palestinian Parliament, Abbas has claimed he has been forced to act as a man under siege against the fates of the world. As a quick refresher, Hamas won a clear majority in the Palestinian Parliament which caused Mahmoud Abbas to cancel the upcoming Palestinian Presidential election as he faced losing to the Hamas candidate. Soon after this Hamas executed a takeover of Gaza ejecting all the members of Fatah and splitting the Palestinian government into two separate and independent entities which continue to struggle for preeminence. Since then Mahmoud Abbas has become the equivalent of Palestinian President for life as he has consistently refused to allow new elections for his position. All of the past is now once again foaming to the top and displaying the grotesque underbelly of the Palestinian governance which he represents more than anyone else. So, what are the coming events and how exactly will Mahmoud Abbas once again remain President when all else around him changes.

The initiation of the problem was a familiar one, the Palestinian Authority was out of cash and unable to meet payroll of their enormously over-bloated government which employs over half of the residents under Palestinian rule. The payroll includes both employees in the West Bank and in Gaza. When the Palestinian employees threatened to strike if they did not receive their back pay, Mahmoud Abbas made a pitiable plea to the world to honor their pledges or renew new guarantees of monetary aid to the Palestinian cause and to also save Abbas and his government. Israel gave in to pressures from various fronts and released a large amount of the collected taxes they were withholding from the Palestinians as a response to the Palestinians going around Israel and petitioning the United Nations for statehood which was a break against the agreements in the Oslo Accords which specifically forbids any path outside of direct negotiations. The United States also responded with a half billion dollars which was sent by the Obama Administration circumventing Congress which had frozen all funding for the Palestinian Authority also in response to their petition for statehood at the United Nations. The President was able to authorize the aid bypassing Congress utilizing emergency measures which enabled bypassing Congress. This was still insufficient funds to alleviate the monetary predicament the Palestinian Authority finds themselves in once again. This is the predicament which Mahmoud Abbas is facing which he will once again find some way of casting all of the blame onto others and the first leaves have already started to fall from the government tree and more are sure to follow soon.

The first leaf that fell came as Nabil Qassis quit as Finance Minister responding to refutation to proposed austerity measures he had proposed to address financial situation. Nabil Qassis is a former president of the Bir Zeit University near Ramallah who joined the government in May 2012, who gave notice while President Abbas was out of the territories on March 2 that he was resigning. When members of the Parliament began to protest the financial situation and as a reaction to the resignation of Nabil Qassis, President Abbas responded upon his returning to Ramallah saying, “I am angrier than all of you at the government… but I don’t want to say more than that now. Just wait for three days.” It was further reported by an unnamed government official that, “Abbas informed (Salam) Fayyad that if Nabil Qassis did not return to the finance ministry… Abbas would dismiss his government and form a new one.” So, here we are on the verge of yet once again President Mahmoud Abbas placing all the blame upon everybody but himself and holding another round of elections while refusing to stand for election himself. The Palestinian authority seems to lurch from one catastrophe to the next with the solution always being either the Prime Minister or other high office holders resigning or being forced from office or the Parliament being disbanded and new elections held but one thing remains unchanged, President Mahmoud Abbas remains the sole survivor who never need face the people and receive their support to remain as President of the Palestinian Authority.

This is not the sole situation for which President Mahmoud Abbas appears to be more of a dictatorial President for Life than the rightfully elected leader the Palestinian people. The repeated attempts at managing a reunification of the two sectors of the Palestinian leadership bringing Hamas and Fatah together again in unified governance for the Palestinian Authority and its peoples which has been another example of Abbas intransigence. Every attempt at reunification has appeared to have reached an accord with all of the particulars smoothed out and the only remaining item being a general election for a new Parliament, the choosing of a new Prime Minister, and holding election for the office of President. That final little item, the election for President, has been the tripping point each and every time as Mahmoud Abbas refuses to stand for election. He is convinced that he would not have a prayers chance in…, well; he would have no chance of surviving the election and retaining the office of the President. This has caused the agreements to suddenly collapse and disintegrate as soon as the time comes for picking the date for the elections, especially and precisely the elections for the next President. Mahmoud Abbas is for too enamored with being the President of the Palestinian Authority and consistently refuses to risk being voted out of office. Perhaps his fears are completely founded. Perhaps his fears go beyond that of losing the office and are more about losing something far more dear and important to him; his life. It is his fear of death that I believe drives him to avoid having new elections for the office of President of the Palestinian Authority. The problem is that Mahmoud Abbas’s fear for his life will very likely forestall any progression for Palestinian governance until he finally accepts leaving the Presidency which will likely take the exact same path as his predecessor.

Beyond the Cusp