How Does One Tell the President He is Dead Wrong?

Israeli President Peres was in Aqaba, Jordan giving a speech to the WEF (World Economic Forum) over the weekend. When the Israeli president along with the Israeli media entered the hall the Jordanian contingency walked out and refused until the Israelis had been removed claiming they were unwelcome in their home. This was in line with the semi-official boycott of all Israelis and Israeli-related events by professional groups in Jordan. With intervention by WEF officials who provided sufficient flattery and praise, the Jordanian contingent returned probably with a feeling of great accomplishment. Whatever makes one happy, I guess.

 

There had been a fair amount of consternation in Israel over the rumors and reports revolving around what President Peres had told interviewers about his intended speech (Transcript of planned speech can be seen at the end of article). His stated content relayed by the President in his various interviews inferred he would proclaim Israeli readiness to take serious measures for peace. President Peres explained in one interview that his planned statement to Abbas would be, “You are my partner and I am your partner. Let’s promote peace. I know that you know that there aren’t many differences between us. I know that you know that the differences that exist can be bridged.” Peres also reported that he plans to tell the attendees referring to the Saudi Plan with the agreed alterations reported to have been approved by the Arab League. “Israel wants peace. There is an overwhelming majority here that favors a diplomatic solution of ‘two states for two peoples’ on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed and equitable changes to the border.”

 

These statements would be laid out before 800 representatives from 60 countries at the WEF confab, of which 430 will come from Middle Eastern countries. Among those attending, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and United States Secretary of State John Kerry are worthy of special note as every syllable spoken by President Peres will be taken very seriously by each of them and may come back to injure Israel though that is definitely not the President’s intentions. What is unfortunate is that every day that President Peres awakens, for him it is September 14, 1993, and the Oslo Accords signing ceremony happened just yesterday and hopes of peace being imminent abound throughout the land. President Peres honestly cannot help but believe in the imminence of peace as his entire career, his entire life, revolves around reaching a peace with the Palestinians and is unable to divorce himself from the monster he, along with Ehud Barak, created, the Oslo Accords. This eternal driving impetus has forced President Peres to take the job of President of Israel beyond its normal ceremonial role and utilized the position to political ends of finally reaching the elusive peace that has eluded him for all these years. All of this must be weighed and the balance found with the rest of the body of lifetime achievements all for his love of Eretz Yisroel for she has been the one driving love of his life. It is that love that has so captured his mind in that singular focus of effort towards peace at any cost and that is what has become a dangerous force that has backfired so completely. The wrong turn the peace process took is not the fault of President Peres, Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin, or any of the Israeli Prime Ministers who have gone to monumental lengths trying to make peace, but the fault resides with the deceits and deceptions of Yasser Arafat and his second in command, Mahmoud Abbas, who utilized the Oslo Accords and the entire peace process as a weapon in a war to eradicate Israel by whatever means necessary. That President Peres became enslaved into making a peace no matter the costs is not something to be denounced and does not place him as a target for blame but rather he is to be accepted for the goodness in his heart. Keeping this in mind, Israeli leadership will also need to rescue Israel from being harmed by those who actually intend to damage Israel by using President Peres’s words spoken out of an honest and overwhelming desire to find at long last a peace for his first love, Israel.

 

There will be many who will warn of the great harm presumably caused by President Peres and his words spoken in Jordan. There will be those who will convict him of politicizing the Presidency. Some may even denunciate President Peres as being an enemy out to destroy Israel placing her people in great peril. May those who may choose this path please consider all of what President Peres has accomplished for Israel, consider that Simon Peres has held virtually every critical position in the Israeli government and always with honor and honesty, and remember that President Peres began his life helping to form, build and establish Israel and has dedicated his life and every ounce of his efforts all for and in the service of Israel. Let he who has a record near as distinguished be the first to speak, but that would leave almost everybody silent, wouldn’t it. For those who care, read his actual speech below and you decide whether or not President Peres deserves praise or condemnation.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Transcript of Israeli President Peres’s speech at the

 World Economic Forum in Aqaba, Jordan.

 

Thank you, Your Majesty, for graciously hosting us under your roof.

Your Majesty, thank you for inspiring the Middle East with responsibility and hope.

Ladies and Gentleman,

History is made of biographies of men and women who failed to forecast the future. We were born in the age of agriculture, and reborn in the age of science.

This new age changed our agenda and our lives. Depending on land divided people. Borders were marked and armies were built to defend them. The yields of the land hung on the travail of farmers, and the grace of heaven that blessed us with rain or punished us with drought.

The yields were limited.

Science is borderless, and its achievements are limitless. Armies cannot control science. Police cannot arrest innovation. Globality and isolation do not go together. Modern agriculture is cultivated with computers, rather than with ploughs. Sciences enables us to make three drops of water from one drop.

Israel’s shortage of soil and rain has created an agriculture based on hi-tech. Israel is sharing its experience with many other countries and is willing to share it with its neighbors as well. Israel is moved by developments, not just by events.

Looking at the developments in the Middle East today, it is blessed with a young generation, one of the youngest in the world. 99 million of its inhabitants are already online. The young generation uses modern tools to enter the new age.

Friends, the Arab Spring voiced by so many youngsters may become an opportunity for jobs and progress. The age of science calls for economic cooperation, educational exchanges, and scientific collaboration. It provides equal opportunities for young and old, and equal rights for women.

Despite the many hurdles on the way to peace, we must never lose sight of the positive developments in our region. Egypt and Israel made peace. Jordan and Israel made peace. These agreements stand the test of time.

We extend our hand in peace to all countries in the Middle East.

There is no country, no religion, which we consider as enemies. The only enemies are the enemies of peace. The Iranian people are not our enemies. It is the Iranian regime’s policy which is a threat to us all.

Our region, and the whole world, cannot accept this brutal regime’s hegemonic ambitions. And the international community cannot tolerate brutal threatening weapons as a norm for the rest of the world.

Friends, we and our Palestinian neighbors must return to negotiations as soon as possible and bring peace. President Abbas, you are our partner and we are yours. You share our hopes and efforts for peace, and we share yours. We can and should make the breakthrough. We should not permit the hurdles to overcome us. History will judge us not by the process of negotiations, but by its outcome. The today obstacles will pale in the light of peace.

The “Arab Peace Initiative” is a meaningful change and a strategic opportunity. It replaces the strategies of war with the wisdom of peace.

We must depart from the skepticism that claims that war is inevitable.

War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable.

We appreciate the presence of the American Secretary of State John Kerry at this gathering. Secretary Kerry brings with him an impressive momentum and desire to contribute to the completion of the peace process. It will be matched with an imaginative economic plan. President Obama, while visiting our region, offered a new opening for the peace prospect. Dear John, I know that all sides can count on your determination.

The peace process already has a beginning. We have agreed on a common ground to complete it. A two state solution. A Jewish state — Israel — and an Arab state — Palestine. Living side by side in peace, dignity and freedom.

Friends, we Israelis and Palestinians are aware that peace is first and foremost for us and depends upon us. I know from experience how difficult these decisions are to make, on both sides. But this is the time.

Our leaders must say yes to a future of peace.

Our leaders must overcome the difficulties and the dangers, and lead their peoples to a better tomorrow. What holds back the renewal of the peace negotiations are some gaps in the bridge between the beginning and the conclusion. Knowing very well the nature of the missing link, I am convinced that this gap can be bridged.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is still an open wound on the map and this is the terrible bloodshed in Syria. Secretary Kerry is currently trying to bring an end to this tragedy. Israel is not intervening in the Syrian crisis. We support the Secretary’s efforts to bring an end to the violence. We are silent, but not indifferent. There is a need to lower the flames.

Ladies and Gentleman, the potential in our region is remarkable. The attempts to release this potential are worthy and needed. We welcome the efforts of “Breaking the Impasse” initiative.

The fact that hundreds of business leaders from both sides are joining hands to promote the two-state solution and to emphasize the urgency in reaching that solution is an important development. These people can attest to how valuable peace is for economic prospective. Peace should be made between people, not just between governments.

Friends, I am here to express the hope and desire of the Israeli people to bring an end to the conflict and a beginning to a peaceful new age. I hope that this forum will voice a timely call against skepticism. I pray that it will allow for tomorrow’s horizon to shine bright. A horizon that will illuminate the fruits of freedom, science and progress.

Let us cast away the divides and suspicions of the past as a future of harmony awaits. We are still writing the biography of the unknown future.

My friends, it must be a future of peace.

Thank you.

 

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

Ehud Barack Never Learned From History

Ehud Barack is once again calling upon Israel to surrender unilaterally without demand or receiving any compensation towards peace or security simply to prove that Israel can be just as destructive to Israel as those in the rest of the world. Ehud Barack was one of the staunchest supporters of the Oslo Accords and the two state solution. He supported the retreat from Lebanon in order to avoid confrontation. That surrender led directly to the Second Lebanon War and not the peace and tranquility on the northern border as he had claimed the retreat would generate simply out of the good will and generosity of those on the other side of the border, also known as Hezballah. Ehud Barack was fully behind Ariel Sharon’s Gaza giveaway which has produced the unceasing rocket and mortar barrages which have been virtually constant and directly resulting from the Israeli withdrawal and signs of weakness of will. Now Ehud Barack is proposing to surrender the vast majority of Judea and Samaria in order to placate the Palestinian Authority, the Europeans, the United Nations, the United States and the far leftist world-wide. And what is he asking in return? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

 

One might be tempted to say, but surely the Israeli Defense Minister would not suggest such a plan without some form of guarantee of safety and peace in the future and some agreement or recognition and gratitude from the Palestinian Authority? Let me allow his own words answer that question where Ehud Barack stated on this very subject, “I do not know if this will succeed. I have no illusions. I do not think that just by wanting peace there would be peace. I think the government is right; the responsibility is on the Palestinian Authority.” Judging from all the evidence from recent history this appears to be a very precarious and likely self-defeating attitude to take. There exists no historical evidence for generosity towards the Palestinian Authority or its predecessor, the PLO, producing anything but more grandiose demands and increased levels of violence. It actually appears that any concessions or unilateral moves towards any form of compromise simply has acted to make matters worse and compromise even further off than before. Ehud Barack even went so far as to call Mahmoud Abbas a “real partner” for peace. He then continued with, “The time has come to look at the Israeli society with an open mind and say, we succeeded in keeping 80-90 percent of the Jews in Judea and Samaria who are there with the initiative and encouragement of the government. It would be a great achievement if we succeed to bring them within the permanent borders of Israel.” Then came the summary which also contained what may be his real reason for taking this path when Ehud Barack concluded, “This will help us not only with the Palestinian Authority but also with countries in the region and with Europe and the American government, as well as for us. This is not an easy decision, but Yom Kippur is a good time to look at the facts and say, ‘We are not a government that was just born yesterday. We are 64 years old. We have not been in Judea and Samaria for only one or two years but for 45 years. The time has come to make decisions that concern not only ideology and gut feelings but also recognize reality.”

 

Yes, let’s recognize reality and see what the real reality is, not the wild machinations of delusion which appear to have infected Ehud Barack. Every surrendering of land for peace has not resulted in anything even remotely resembling peace. When Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula after the Suez Canal confrontations in 1956, it was not even a full dozen years later when Egypt massed on the Israeli border and closed the Straits of Tiran thus committing a casus belli act of war against Israel. When Israel again returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accords, Israel gained what was likely the coldest peace ever known easily rivaling and outdoing the temporary peace between Rome and Carthage between the Punic Wars. In the present that very treaty is under assault and will likely be abrogated by the new Muslim Brotherhood government which has, in league with the Salafist Islamists, taken control in Egypt. Even the closest Israel has come in reaching an actual real peace was the short lived agreement with Jordan. That peace survived intact until less than a decade later the Jordanians reinstated their claims to Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and bequeathed this claim to Yasser Arafat and the terrorist organization, the PLO. And then there is the infamous Gaza withdrawal and ceding of the entire Gaza Strip to the uncontested rule by the Palestinian Authority.

 

This farcical ploy to allow for the Palestinian people and leadership to demonstrate their readiness and ability to self-rule turned into a nightmare almost from the get-go. Almost immediately conflict arose between Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Movement and Hamas Leaders over which adjunct of the PLO would rule in the Gaza Strip. Within a mere few years the Gaza Strip had exploded into a short but extremely violent civil war between the contesting sides with Hamas soundly thrashing Fatah sending the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and any fragment of sectarian nationalism out of Gaza and returning to the West Bank. From that instance on Israel received its rewards for allowing Palestinian self-rule as the near daily barrages of rocket and mortars began raining down on an ever broader number of Israeli towns, kibbutzim, and cities. The main fault with any concept, idea or plan which includes giving the Palestinian Authority control of parts of the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is that one can likely predict the end result of what will soon follow. Just as occurred in Gaza, the West Bank will fall to Hamas or possibly even worse governance with al-Qaeda of the Gaza Strip, Islamic Jihad, the Salafists, the Wahabbi, or other Islamists taking control and instilling Sharia leading to similar attacks as are currently coming from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. The difference is that the vast majority of the Israeli population, industry, farmland and all resources would then come within the range of these attacks bringing Israel and her economy to their knees. The end result would be an unavoidable war to the absolute finish and elimination of one side or the other. Once the Palestinians are granted full autonomy in the West Bank a clock will start its countdown to a final battle for control over all of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel will be left with absolutely no alternative once the attacks across the border are being launched from the Judean Hills overlooking the valley which constitutes the heart of Israel. The one other truth which those who understand the situation could relate providing they were willing to be brutally honest, once the heart of Israel is receiving withering bombardments week in and week out, Europe, the United Nations, Leftist Israelis, and the rest of the usual suspects will be demanding that Israel show restraint and negotiate with the poor, unfortunate Palestinians living under the yoke of Israeli oppression and occupation and give them back the stolen homelands and retreat to the original United Nations borders under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine passed on November 29, 1947. But not to fear as it is very likely that Ehud Barack will be supporting surrendering these lands as well when the time comes and the next demand will be for the reinstatement of the Ottoman Partition of Southern Syria from 1913.

 

 

 

Beyond the Cusp