Looking to the Future and the Completion of the Peace Process

Reflecting on the entirety of the period after the liberation of Judea, Samaria, Benyamin and reunified Jerusalem I have realized how drastically things have changed since June of 1967. There was great hope and joy that came with the reunification of Jerusalem and having the Old City once again available for Jews and Christians to visit and enjoy their holy sites throughout the Old City and in the eastern heart of Eretz Yisroel. Looking back at that period using that hindsight which is always 20/20 vision coming from crystal clear thought I realize that Israel should have simply annexed whatever lands would have best served the future of the country. Instead Israel limited their annexations to the rest of Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings including the Mount of Olives and the historic cemetery as well as the vital Golan Heights. In hindsight it becomes clear that Israel should have simply annexed all of Judea, Samaria, Benyamin and anything else which made up the areas liberated from Jordanian oppression. Annexing the Golan Heights was wise and it might have even been expedient to have also annexed a mile or so of the lowlands east of the Golan Heights so as to be able to assure that no obstacles, tunnels or other structures of a military nature would even compromise a clear field of view and security from snipers or encroachments for the forces stationed along the heights. And finally it might have served Israel to also have retained at least part of the Sinai Peninsula, in particular the eastern sections from the easternmost mountain range to the eastern fork of the Red Sea assuring that the Straights of Tiran are never again used to cut off Israel’s seaway to all of Asia and the eastern coast of Africa. But that was not the path chosen and it is far too late now to concern ourselves with such fantasies.

 

The greatest error made after the reunification of Jerusalem was allowing the Muslim Waqf to retain control and enforcement of their will over the Temple Mount. This error in judgment has resulted in the destruction of countless priceless archeological artifacts dating back to the periods of both the First and Second Temples. This Jewish heritage has been permanently lost for all times. That mistake pales compared to the most grievous error and mistaken policy decision very likely in all of history. I am referring to allowing Yasser Arafat to return and granting that arch terrorist to hold any position or power. Allowing anyone with the moral depravity to dispatch youths with murderous vests filled with explosives into restaurants, malls, and other venues with the intent of murdering as many innocents as possible to hold any office which commands respect is a miscarriage of decency. The irony of pretending that Yasser Arafat, and after him, Mahmoud Abbas, were people with whom a peace could be negotiated was a fools folly. The vision of bringing two nations into existence living together in mutual peace, security and cooperation was beautiful even if it ended up being a futile venture. The idea was noble but the actual implementation was a completely different matter in which there would be no beauty to be found. After such disappointment and with the realization that an impasse has been reached, now what are the available options and which should be Israel’s target going forward?

 

The question is, knowing what is now known, what path is open which actually can be obtained and how would Israel be best served in reaching whatever goal is deemed to be the most equitable while still providing for a real and enforceable peace along with security for Israel and her citizenry. The first item that has to be resolved in order to begin is to understand precisely what the honest and actual position the Palestinian leadership would be willing to accept. In order to accomplish this not so small a feat one would be required to research and actually listen to speeches, broadcasts, editorials, and even school lessons which are shared between the Palestinians in their private conversing. This is actually something which is seldom taken into account by the Western mainstream media, European Union, European governments, and the American mainstream media and government. For reasons that escape all sanity, apparently there are almost no people in the Western World who are able to translate Arabic into English, French, German or any other native Western language thus their usual suppositions and position on all things concerning the Arabs and Palestinians relating to Israel are simply based on the propaganda which Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and other Palestinian and Arab spokespeople relay in interviews and speeches made in English, French, German, or any language other than Arabic or Farsi. We know that in the European languages that the Palestinian positions are simply that they desire peace above all else and are completely willing to make peace if Israel would simply stop being so stubborn and agree to some simply items which Abbas often claims are just responsibilities which the Israelis need to perform and then negotiations may proceed and peace would be right around the corner. These minor little items actually fit well with what these same spokespeople say in Arabic, and what is that exactly? Let’s see.

 

The preconditions include but are not limited to, release all of the Palestinians held in Israeli prison system with an emphasis on those who are convicted terrorists or security risks, complete Israeli building freeze in West Bank and East Jerusalem, Netanyahu to submit a map of the proposed Palestine and having the map be acceptable to Mahmoud Abbas, remove all IDF and Border Police from Palestinian claimed areas, allow free import of weapons for Palestinian Security Forces, allow training exercises between Palestinian Security Forces and Arab countries’ militaries, agreement from Israel for utilizing the pre-1967 War Armistice Lines as the basis for Palestinian State allowing for exchanges if and only if Abbas approves of them, Israeli accept the Right of Return for all Palestinian refugees into Israel with full citizenship and with or without Israel acceptance the Palestinians demand the right to continue resistance until all of their land has been liberated. Once one takes these demands and digests them it becomes apparent that the only final situation the Palestinians are willing to accept is a one state solution with such state being the Palestinian state and that state must be rendered free of any Jews. What makes this even more obvious is that once you translate what is said between the Palestinians and their allies in the Arab world, you quickly realize that the sole acceptable solution is a Palestinian Arab state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, every single iota of what they believe is Palestine without any Israel. It is the way it is drawn in their textbooks and on the map in Mahmoud Abbas’s office; it is the way the Arab League depicts the final solution; it is the way many in Europe and at the United Nations believe to be perfectly acceptable if not preferable.

 

Once Israel and Israelis fully understand that as long as there is any semblance of Palestinian governance they will not have peace, then Israel will be able to decide exactly what their path going forward should be. Should the Israelis, and the Jewish people, decide that they will continue to live in their own lands where their ancestors resided and are the lands depicted in the Bible, then they too will realize the same thing the Palestinians already have realized, the only solution will eventually be a one state solution. Even if there were sufficient arable land for two viable nations, there is no existing politics which would permit such. Should the day ever arrive where a Palestinian state were founded alongside of Israel, it would simply become the end of the first phase of the conquest and deportation, or worse, of the Jews and their state, Israel. Once this is recognized as the truth of the situation, then it also becomes apparent that for the Jewish state of Israel to survive, it much first prevail in a struggle which has but one possible resolution, a single state where the winner of the conflict takes all of the land and the other side is either deported or murdered. This realization makes the next step painfully obvious; the people of Israel will need to decide whether or not the existence of their state is worth the efforts it will take to keep the land upon which it sits. If the answer is as expected, in the affirmative, then the Israelis will need to implement and execute whatever responses are necessitated in order to establish Israel as the existing state and decide if the Arab populations which are currently considered to be Palestinians is allowed to remain as legal alien residents, deported with compensation for loss of properties, or given a path by which they would attain Israeli citizenship.

 

My preference, though fortunately it is not my place to decide, would be to allow a path for those Palestinians who wished to be able to become Israeli citizens, those who would prefer to remain but not become Israeli citizens should be allowed alien status and those who want no part of the Jewish state of Israel should be given a parting gift and transportation to their desired destination provided the destination country is willing to accept them. The one additional provision which would probably be a necessity is to establish a law that should a member of a family commit an act of terror, the entire family will be deported and the individual perpetrating the act of terrorism will not be eligible to receive compensation for loss of property along with whomever resided in the same location as the terrorist. If Mother and Father live with a young adult who commits an act of terror, then their claim to compensation would initially be voided. Of course some legal challenge might be allowed in exceptional cases, but such would need to be evaluated on an individual basis. Such may not be even close to resembling the perfect solution, but the fact that the Palestinians as an entirety refuse to accept the existence of the Jewish state in any size, manner or form is the impetus forcing such measures. Should the Palestinians wish to avoid such an inevitability, they would be advised to make a real and lasting peace and accept sharing rather than insisting on removing all vestiges of Jewish presence.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

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

Why the Palestinians do not Have Their State

If one is to believe the mainstream news reports or much of the noises coming from numerous sources, the sole reason the Palestinians do not yet have a homeland of their own is Israel. The Israelis reportedly refuse to compromise one iota on any of the items vital and the basis of the Palestinian requirements for a functional state. Oddly, in a strange and peculiar manner, this is exactly the truth. When the Palestinian leaders, spokespersons, representatives, advocates, activists, and other supporters state that if only Israel would grant the few simple and vital core requirements which the Palestinians insist is necessary for their statehood then everything would be complete and the terror and violence would end. It is only because the Israelis refuse to grant the Palestinians simple and straight forward items to complete the formation of their state that one does not yet exist. The question which nobody ever seems to ask of those speaking for the Palestinians is exactly what it is they require for their state to come into fruition.

 

The truth is that the Palestinian list of demands all revolves around one central item, the end of any existence of a Jewish State. They would be perfectly happy if they were able to “liberate” the entire area they believe is their Palestine. They would replace all of Israel and their state would contain every piece of land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Some of their representatives actually accept that some form of the State of Israel would necessarily have to remain existent alongside any Palestinian State. They even accept this fact but insist that Israel be ruled by Muslims and the Jews would be allowed to remain under the protection provided for any Dhimmis. This is what they envision when they demand the “Right of Return” for over five million Palestinian refugees from all of the surrounding countries where the numerous Palestinian refugee camps are located. The vast majority of these refugees were not even born in 1948 when the camps were formed after the unsuccessful war was launched by numerous Arab and Muslim countries including but not limited to Egypt, Syria, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq in order to annihilate any vestiges of the Jewish State. The stated claim of that war in the words of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni in his declaration holy Fatwa, “I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!” In June of 1967 during the prelude to the Six Day War in which Israel defeated several Arab armies from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan; capturing all of the Sinai Peninsula and lands beyond the Golan Heights as well as all of Gaza, Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem, and any other lands which Jordan referred to as the West Bank; President Nasser made numerous speeches often referring to the genocide of the Zionists, the Jews and the State of Israel. And Syria and Egypt allied once more in 1973 attacking Israel on the holy fast day of Yom Kippur presumably to undo the mistakes in history of 1948 and 1967 and despite initial gains, the Israelis held their lands and were approaching Cairo and Damascus when the United Nations, the United States and the rest of the world forged a ceasefire. During all of these attempts to erase Israel there had not yet been even the slightest mention of a State of Palestine. The only usage of the name Palestinian was by Yasser Arafat and the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) which had been formed with the sole intent of replacing the State of Israel with the Palestinian State. The PLO did not lay any claims to Gaza, Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem, or any of the West Bank before the Six Day War. The PLO was content to allow Jordan to retain the West Bank lands and Egypt to retain Gaza.

 

The intent of the Palestinians has not changed since before the Six Day War, they still demand the end of Israel replacing it with a State of Palestine. Yasser Arafat called their plan the liberation of all of Palestine by stages. The aim was to gain as much of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea by negotiations and then continue the resistance through terrorism until they had freed the rest of Palestine and destroyed all of Israel. Hamas continues to hold true to the formula of replacing all of Israel with a Palestinian State and proudly exclaims this regularly. The Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and the PLO also all continue to hold to this policy though they will speak of accepting two states existing side by side in peace and security. The truth is they would accept such only if both States were governed by Muslims and either the Jews accepted Dhimmi status or were annihilated. Abbas has stated on numerous occasions that even if he should accept a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, the Palestinians would retain the rights of occupied peoples and thus the war of attrition through terrorism would continue. Since agreeing to allow the formation of a Palestinian state even if it used the 1967 lines for borders returning every inch of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem would not end the terrorism or bring the conclusion of the conflict. What would Israel gain by making such a so-called peace? This is what is behind the Israeli insistence that the Palestinians admit and recognize that Israel will be a Jewish State. Unless the Palestinians agree to the existence of Israel as the Jewish State, the Israelis are fully aware that peace treaties would not end the terror or the claims of Palestinian lands being under occupation. Everything which is occurring presently including the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) demonstrations and protests against Israel worldwide, the claims of apartheid against Israel and everything else that has grown cancerous from the Palestinian war of genocide against the Jewish State, and that is what they are fighting, would not end with any singing of a treaty which did not include recognition of the right of the Jews to have their State of Israel. Until the Palestinians admit to the existence of a Jewish State there can be no peace. When the Palestinians will permit the Jews to have their State in peace, then there is the possibility for a Palestinian State. Had the Palestinians accepted the existence of a Jewish State at any time previously there would already be a Palestinian State. The real problem separating the two sides is not about land or borders, it is about existence, not only the existence of a Palestinian State but also a Jewish State. That is the sole solution and it is and has been available as soon as the Palestinians are willing to accept a real existence of two states for two people, two equal people both living in peace and mutual recognition. They do not necessarily need to start as friends but that too may someday become possible.

 

Beyond the Cusp