Secure Roads From Rock Terror Before Worry Over Price Tag

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is once again putting the cart before the horse. She is making a grand display of where her heart lies and it is not with the victims of real terrorism but with a phantom crime which has yet to produce all that many solid arrests, let alone actually taken lives. The vast majority of so-called “Price Tag” crimes have never been solved while those that have produced a perpetrator were found to have been committed in a set-up by Arabs trying to place blame on neighboring Jews for a self-inflicted crime. Yet this same justice and law enforcement system which expends inordinate amounts of manpower and investigative hours chasing phantoms and detaining innocent Jewish youth from the communities in Judea and Samaria only to have to release them due to lack of evidence while not arresting those hurling deadly, life-threatening projectiles including large rocks and fire-bottle-bombs at private vehicles and government vehicles with literal abandon free of any consequences. But you are doing that which government is best at doing, turning the real priorities upside down. You choose, Minister Livni, to chase after the least criminal act in both severity and numbers while turning a blind eye in order to ignore the threat to countless lives of the innocent and challenge to the authority of the State of Israel. Let us simply compare your priorities of placing “Price Tag” crimes above rock and firebomb terror attacks for concerted legal efforts.

 

“Price Tag” crimes are an illegal act against property. Much of the “Price Tag” crimes are a committing of vandalism which in and of itself often would only even be qualified as a misdemeanor and not rise to the level of felony except that the vandalism which qualifies as a “Price Tag” crime automatically becomes classified as a crime against the State. Such an inflation of the perceived importance of “Price Tag” crimes is purely political and minimally a legal classification. Yet a “Price Tag” crime which amounts to under a thousand shekels in damages has become a critical focus for the Justice Ministry. Meanwhile, the potentially fatal barrages on our streets and in our communities targeting our children and our adults, our police and our troops, the youth and the elderly, a universal and lethal threat which is not being taken even as a criminal act yet you want to invest more enforcement assets and resources chasing after phantom criminals and false-flag crimes.

 

Meanwhile, the standing orders which for the police, the IDF, the Border Police, and any other enforcement personnel is to run away should they come under assault by rocks, bricks, or fire-bombs if retreat is at all possible. Israeli citizens have been assaulted, some, like Asher Palmer and his infant son literally days before his first birthday, have died as a result of these so-called nuisance attacks and an innocent little three years-old girl named Adelle Biton continues to lie comatose while fighting for her little life as the result of the large rock that crushed her tender skull weeks ago and still nobody has been arrested for this crime. The Palestinians behind these attacks are having a propaganda field day posting videos on You-Tube of Israel’s cowardly IDF troops running from their brave stone-throwing Palestinians. Free the arms of law enforcement to complete their assign tasks of enforcing the laws using passive, non-lethal measures and arrest the leadership and as many as continue breaking the peace after the first week’s enforcement. A show of fortitude and resolution is all that is required, that and taking the first step and it is all up to you. It could not be any simpler.

 

This is an even worse example of misplaced priorities than your interference with Minister Bennett’s efforts to find accommodations which would satisfy both the religious and the Women of the Wall ending a terrible strife in the religious fabric of the State. What could be your reason to interfere in the procedures being taken by the Minister of Religious Services attempts to reconcile a rift between two factions of Judaism except for your endless efforts to place your name in the headlines. Often your actions seem to have no other explanation beyond that you missed yesterday’s headlines and you refuse to miss them two days in a row. Make a positive headline stating that the rock and fire-bomb terrorism will no longer be tolerated and relative quiet will return to the streets and towns within two weeks; refuse to change the stand-down order against terrorism and you would start the countdown to the Third Intifada.

 

The people have petitioned the Justice Ministry for protection, troops and police on the front lines obey restrictive do-not-shoot orders against such attacks, and the government including the Prime Minister and his Cabinet kowtow to world opinion by allowing these crimes to continue unopposed. You, Justice Minister Livni, if you wish could take steps to enforce the law and provide safety for all Israelis from such attacks. Both Arab and Jew have been targeted at one time or another by these viscous attacks. Knowing that there is little you would love more than to once again be considered for the position of Prime Minister and before you is the golden ticket to that office. What is even more amusing is all you need do is enforce the law and allow whatever measures are necessary and end the attacks on motorists and other civilians. Step up and show that the rock and fore-bombing attacks will no longer be tolerated and they will soon stop because they continue solely because there is no enforcement. End the capitulation to world pressure and protect all Israeli citizens as your position requires and reap the rewards of standing up for justice. A golden opportunity stands before you Ms. Livni and all that is required is for you to grasp a situation and do the right thing by all the people of Israel.

 

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

Kerry’s Middle East Peace Plan Unveiled on Netanyahu

United States Secretary of State John Kerry began his follow-up to President Obama’s visit to the Middle East on Saturday by unveiling his great new hope for developing negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli leaders in order to solve the dilemmas and produce the long-sought two states for two peoples living in peace and security side-by-side. Secretary Kerry had been making grand praises for his mysterious new plan to restart the peace talks between Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership and Benyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership. The current situation is as favorable as any in recent history for establishing a dialogue and possibly even making some headway towards settling the final status agreement from which a Palestinian state would become not only possible but a viable entity as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has appointed his Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to lead the Israeli negotiating team and take charge of all negotiations with the Palestinians. One would be hard pressed to find another politician or negotiator in Israel who would present a more lenient and accepting individual than Tzipi Livni as she has indicated she favors, among other things, release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli custody, a partial acceptance of Palestinian ‘right of return’ accepting some number of refugees into Israel, returning Israel to the pre-1967 War lines, the Green Line, with only mutually agreed land swaps making any necessary or desired changes, granting the Palestinians all of east Jerusalem as their capital including the entirety of the Old City, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall along with the plaza adjacent to it. One might be led to think that with Tzipi Livni leading the negotiations that there would be a peace treaty quickly as what more could Mahmoud Abbas demand that she would not comply with and grant?

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Kerry began his initiative with a meeting in the Jordanian Capital of Amman with Mahmoud Abbas where they discussed what would be necessary to restart negotiations between Abbas and the Israeli negotiators. Kerry was reportedly told that Israel would necessarily have to freeze all building in the disputed areas which are expected to be returned to the Palestinians, accept the pre-1967 War lines as the start point in negotiations for borders with any changes requested by Israel subject to Palestinian acceptance or denial, and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Kerry was soon armed with Palestinian President Abbas’s conditions, the very same conditions he initially made when President Obama attempted to bully Israel into complying with early in his first term which resulted eventually in a crushing end to the peace process as even after Israel froze building in the disputed areas Abbas refused to meet. That evening Secretary Kerry began his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu where he related the events and substance of the meeting with Abbas from earlier in the day. As the meeting continued they were joined by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu’s personal envoy Yitzhak Molcho and his national security adviser Yaakov Amidror so that the entire Israeli team could be brought into the process.

It has been reported that the Israelis were informed that in order to have Mahmoud Abbas return to the negotiations and stay from pressing charges against Israel in the international courts such as the ICC Israel would be required to begin the transfer of the lands within Area B from joint control to unilateral Palestinian control for civil and security responsibilities removing all Israeli influence and having these areas incorporated into Area A where Israelis are forbidden entry without Palestinian approval, and Israel would be required to release prisoners from Israeli custody though the exact numbers or suggested lists were not discussed. Secretary Kerry also relayed that Mahmoud Abbas had stressed that Israeli settlements endanger the peace process. Whether anything else was discussed with Netanyahu and his negotiating team has not been released though there have been rumors that Obama agreed to allow Israel to implement a silent construction freeze where no new building would be approved but there would be no official statement or recognition of such a freeze in construction. This sound very much like what was in existence under Minister of Defense Ehud Barak in the last Israeli government and one will need to wait and see if Netanyahu will have his new Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon or whoever else will be charged with approvals for building permits in Judea and Samaria also to refuse to sign off on any new building permits. As far as restarting the peace process we hold out little hope. Just a reminder to those who will revel in these supposedly new initiatives and the introduction of a path to renewed talks that we have seen these exact same demands from Abbas before the last time he refused to restart the peace process. Israel enforced a ten month building freeze during which Abbas made every effort to avoid talks until three weeks before the freeze was to end when he returned to negotiate the making of the building freeze permanent before he would take even an initial step towards talks. He will once again find reasons to protest and if his protests and complaints are not honored, Abbas will simply once again begin adding more and more precondition and requirements on the Israelis in order to avoid peace talks.

Secretary of State Kerry may actually believe he knows the secret formula that would lead to peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. His making such a statement is only proof that he has not been paying attention to the situation all those years he has sat in the United States Senate. The one point that Secretary Kerry and all others need to understand is that Palestinian President Abbas cannot make a peace with Israel that leaves Israel as the Jewish State. As soon as Abbas would make an agreement to have a Palestinian state formed next to Israel instead of replacing Israel he would be a man marked for death. Just as happened in Gaza once the Israeli people and IDF were removed, Hamas will revolt and take over Judea and Samaria along with any parts of Jerusalem which were surrendered to Abbas for the Palestinian state and to make peace. Once Hamas had taken control of all the Palestinian lands they would try, convict and execute every single leading figure from the Palestinian Authority who had anything to do with forging the peace agreement or cooperating in any manner with the Israeli security and other personnel. They did the exact same thing in Gaza after their successful coup. With this as an eventual possibility which would follow any peace agreement which Abbas makes with Israel, even if it is only in Abbas’s head, he will refuse to even negotiate as there is always the fear that Israel might call his bluff and accept all of his preconditions. Abbas is a survivor and all of his actions are planned to keep him alive and he believes that any peace that does not erase the Jewishness of Israel or erase Israel altogether is a peace which will result in his death. It is this threat which drives Abbas and leaves to his final trump card, the demand that Israel would never acquiesce to. That final demand is for Israeli to agree to blanket acceptance for the ‘right of return’ of close to if not more than five million refugees into Israel with full citizenship and rights. Such an agreement would be the end of Israel as it now exists and that the next election would turn Israel into another Arab Muslim state as that is the intent and only truth Abbas will ever settle for as the peace he seeks. That is the only agreement that has even a remote chance of allowing Abbas to continue to live.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with this settlement as well. The current situation brings along with it a near endless amount of funds from Europe, the United States, the United Nations, the Arab world and sundry other institutions and organizations. These funds have made Mahmoud Abbas a very wealthy man who lives a life of comfort. Should the Palestinian state he supposedly seeks ever be established these funds would begin to dry up and eventually stop. With things the way they are, Abbas simply sobs and cries into the closest microphone with his regular old canard of the Jews are destroying our economy and woe are us under the Israeli occupation ending with we will cease to eat or even exist without many billions of Euros and Dollars immediately. And every time he does his song and dance routine the monies roll in from all over the world. The countries of the world scurry and hold emergency meetings to save the Palestinians and Abbas pockets his commission, say likely twelve percent or so. As long as the world is willing to pay the Palestinians to seek peace the Palestinians will complain and pretend to seek peace blaming everybody’s favorite scapegoats, the Jews, for denying the Palestinians a state of their own and refusing to meet the few minor preconditions, actually not preconditions but more obligations according to Abbas, thus denying the world a peaceful Middle East. Truth be told, if the world really desires peace between the Palestinians and Israelis then they are going to have to begin to pay for peace by promising funding only after peace has been made and the terrorism completely halted. Anything else will simply facilitate the endless continuation of the present situation guaranteeing absolutely no possibility for peace or change.

Beyond the Cusp