Mr. Abbas Goes to Paris

Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly heading to Paris in order to meet with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as new elected French President Francois Hollande as well as a possibility of meeting with European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton, and the British, German and Norwegian foreign ministers. Along with a group of representatives of several Arab Countries, this virtual cornucopia of diplomatic officials will be in Paris for a “Friends of Syria” meeting in hopes of bridging differences between Arab and Western positions over the Syrian Civil War. Mahmoud Abbas will be in Paris seeking assistance in placing pressure on Israel to surrender to as many of his plethora of unilateral demands as preconditions before he will deign sit and pretend to negotiate before, as was the precedent set by Yasser Arafat, stalking briskly from the negotiations claiming loudly and vehemently he will not continue to be insulted. Of course, should he not achieve gaining the full accommodation of pressuring Israeli compliance with his every demand, then he will still demand for every single precondition his imaginations can fancy accumulating them as each second passes. Saeb Erekat has stated that Mr. Abbas will stress the importance of releasing Palestinian Authority murderer, terror master, bomb maker, and violent jihadist all of whom have the blood of innocent Israeli civilians upon their hands who serve sentences, even those serving numerous life sentences, jailed in Israeli prisons. Maybe a quick look at a short list of some of the preconditions which Mr. Abbas seeks to have the entire world assist him in shoving down Israel’s throat should be up next.

The likely best known one was the one first introduced early in President Obama’s Presidency when President Obama stated that Israel should freeze all building of any sort anywhere in Judea, Samaria or East Jerusalem in order to entice the return of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians to the negotiations. This has never been previously mentioned or even dreamed of in anybody’s wildest imaginations and once stated there was no way in which Mahmoud Abbas or any other member of the Palestinian Authority could hold a position less favorable to the cause of the Palestinians than the President of the United States had shown to be. Under increasing pressures, Prime Minister Netanyahu relented and met the demand placed upon him by President Obama and announced a complete building freeze on Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) but not East Jerusalem maintaining that Jerusalem will remain the undivided Capital City of Israel. The building freeze was not set to be open ended as was initially implied by President Obama in his speech but was set for ten months as a preliminary time frame to observe what developed. What developed was absolutely nothing anywhere near as was claimed would result should Israel simply comply with this one small stipulation. Instead, for almost nine full months all that was heard from both Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and Saeb Erekat, lead negotiator for the Palestinian authority, were a series of additional preconditions and some extremely inventive definitions of the idea of preconditions. The additional preconditions were defined as anything except a demand, simply obligations the Palestinian Authority expected from Israel, steps Israel would need to take to convince the world of their sincerity, investments in the peace process, or steps that are obviously in the interest of the Israelis if they desire peace among other even more twisted definitions depending on which news source you used.

Some of the lesser preconditions can be grouped together for your ease of reading and so your patience is not tested are; pulling all IDF units out of the West Bank leaving the Jewish residents under Palestinian authority protection, permitting the Palestinian authority to import weapons and weapon systems in order to upgrade their capabilities, the repeated demand for prisoner releases of varying numbers or sometimes particular prisoners such as Mustafa and Marwan Barghouti who are both terror masters, and always the final deal-breaker of Right of Return for as many as five and a half million Palestinian refugees. Add to this the continuing claim by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that despite Israel removing every civilian and IDF troop from Gaza that it is still occupied territory. These are in addition to the Palestinian Authority government constant honoring terrorists and terror masters by naming streets, parks, children’s camps, soccer tournaments, public buildings, schools, and numerous other places with great fanfare and publicity. This is also despite the glorification of martyrdom in schools, on television, in film, and in public celebrations. Add to all of this the fact that the Palestinian Authority has yet to modify their Charter by removing its clause demanding the total and complete destruction of the Jewish State or lived up to the vast majority of other obligations and agreements. And the last item is the Palestinian efforts to achieve recognized statehood through whatever route which can be utilized unilaterally such as acceptance into the United Nations, incorporation into United Nations organizations such as UNESCO, thus avoiding negotiations with Israel as stipulated in the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority, like the PLO before it, and Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, have attempted to utilize any deceit, prevarication, avoidance, or any available means to avoid negotiations as there has never been and never will be an honest desire by the Palestinian to make peace as that would require, at least temporarily, recognizing Israeli existence.

What the world needs to understand is that the conflict currently going under the name of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is simply a rebranding of the original Arab-Israeli Conflict which began all the way back near the beginning of the last century. It has had many violence filled events such as the riots in Hevron and Jerusalem in 1922, 1929, 1933, 1936, and 1939. Then there was the first Arab Israeli War which is usually referred to as Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and 1949. There was the Six Day war in 1967 followed by its second staging in 1973. There has been the terror war from the early 1920’s which continues today which too has had some special events. Other than the numerous riots mentioned earlier there was also the founding of the PLO in 1964, three full years before the War of 1967 and any presumably occupied territories, numerous kidnappings, attacks across the northern border by Hezballah, and the near countless rockets launched from Gaza and recently out of the northern Sinai Peninsula. The rebranding of the Arab Israeli Conflict into the Palestinian Israeli Conflict was implemented as the former made Israel to appear to be the weaker side of the conflict and the new moniker placed the Arab cause as the little David fighting the massive Israel Goliath. Do not believe anything has changed. This change came about when the Arab countries, realizing they likely could not defeat Israel in a straight up military versus military war decided to change tactics and try to wear Israel down and eventually either gain the necessary weapons or military strength and abilities to once again try the frontal military conflict route.

Then there is one last item which needs to be understood before any real solution can be implemented. It has never been and will never be for the foreseeable future the Arab, Muslim, Palestinian or whatever name is placed to struggle against Israel idea to settle for anything less than the complete subjugation of the Israeli Jews or the complete annihilation of every Jew in Israel (or, as Hamas has in their Charter, the world). Should by some major mishap the Palestinian find themselves in a position where they have to accept and sign a peace with Israel and establish Palestine, this will not be the end of the conflict. There have been numerous times that both Arab and Muslim leaders as well as Palestinian leaders and spokespeople have stated plainly that even should they attain a state in all of the land lost in the 1967 War, that is just the first stage towards the elimination of the Zionist State. This is almost always said in Arabic or Farsi but on a few rare occasions somebody has slipped and plainly said in English the truth that the only solution acceptable is a Final Solution. All the efforts to establish a Palestinian State are fruitless endeavors which will bear no fruit and will only change the starting point of the eventual next Middle East War when it is thought Israel has been brought low enough for her defeat. That is so very unfortunately the real truth of which everybody prefers to deny and pretend that all these efforts will truly end the drive to undo the founding of the Jewish State. It is simply appallingly amazing that in so much of the world there are calls for removing the Jews from within countries as happened in numerous Muslim countries between 1948 and 1953 yet in many of these same countries they also call for the destruction, or secretly work towards the destruction of Israel, of the only Jewish State. That begs an obvious question, if the Jews should be sent packing from countries where they are a minority and the only Jewish country should be wiped out, then where do these haters pretend that the Jews should live. And yes, that was a rhetorical question put forth simply to provoke thought. One can always hope to point out insanity so that it can be rectified and a real and truthful discussion free of pretenses may take place. Now that is something that would be so very welcome.

Beyond the Cusp

Abbas Announces Death of the Peace Process, Blames Israel

Palestinian Authority President Abbas announced in a conference in Ramallah, “The peace process is clinically dead and the Israeli side is definitely the one responsible. The ball is in their court.” Just days before his meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and putting further emphasis on this not so surprising announcement, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat added the following speaking to AFP on Sunday, “I was assigned by President Abbas to inform US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of our position on resuming negotiations once Israel commits to stopping settlement activity and release of prisoners, among other obligations. These are not preconditions but obligations and Israel must abide by them. We hope the American administration compels the Israeli government to fulfill its obligations in order to get the peace process back on track.”

Before anybody starts digging a grave for the obviously moribund peace process, shall we look a little deeper at exactly what was said, what was omitted, and what it is exactly that Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow conspirators are attempting to achieve by all this bluster. The first thing of note is that these grand statements and high drama come immediately before a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton. So, the first possibility is this was all setting the table for guiding the talks with Secretary Clinton in a desired direction. The crucial phrase was given to Saeb Erakat to relay and were, “…resuming negotiations once Israel commits to stopping settlement activity and release of prisoners, among other obligations. These are not preconditions but obligations and Israel must abide by them.” There are two items to note in this excerpt from Mr. Erakat. The demand that these are not “preconditions” but rather are “obligations” and as such Israel is bound to meet these requirements before anybody can even start to talk of the two sides meeting and negotiations restarting. That begs a few questions starting with where does this set of obligations derive from? Were these parts and parcel of any agreement between the two sides? Was this a binding resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations or similar decree from any other body holding the power to make these demands upon Israel? The answer is no. These are an ever lengthening set of demands that appear to sprout from the furtive imagination of one Mahmoud Abbas. Israel not only has never agreed to these stipulations, they have never discussed such things in all of their negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. And that leads us to the second consideration of what exactly is meant by “…Israel commits to stopping settlement activity and release of prisoners, among other obligations.” The idea of stopping settlement activity was a misstep, intentional or out of pure ignorance, made by the President of the United States Barack Obama which did lead to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu actually committing to place a one-time moratorium on settlement construction for ten months. During that period, Mahmoud Abbas twittered away the first nine months and only in the final three weeks made any appearance of an effort to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The end result was President Abbas demanding that the American President force the Israelis to extend the settlement freeze for an indeterminate amount of time until Abbas judged that the negotiations were completed. That demand never had any chance in the world and President Obama did not even back that demand.

About the rest where it adds, “…release of prisoners, among other obligations.” The release of prisoners is ridiculous as Israel recently released a large number of prisoners, over one thousand in total. But, needless to say, in the world of Mahmoud Abbas such does not count and Israel must release hundreds of prisoners each and every time he requests or they are obstructing the negotiations. The best part is the open ended “among other obligations.” This wonderful catch-all phrase fits the Mahmoud Abbas negotiation method perfectly and defines his approach for the past years explicitly. This allows Mr. Abbas to add item after item after item just in the case where Israel might decide to call his bluff and meet the stated demands. These other obligations inevitably will lead to the one deal breaker Mr. Abbas keeps in his back pocket for those emergencies when he is caught without a new demand, that is the “Right of return” where he insists that Israel absorb four and a half million or more so-called Palestinian refugees. We will get into the unique definition of Palestinian refugee in a moment. Other standard demands that he currently has been including in this list include but are not limited to the following; release of all Palestinian prisoners who have been incarcerated from before the year 2000 (this consists almost exclusively of prisoners who have murdered multiple Israeli civilians and are serving multiple life sentences, or put another way, the worst of the worst), surrender of all of the Old City of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall (which then would be made off limits in practice if not in fact through violence such as is often seen when Jews visit Jacobs Tomb in Hevron), usage of the 1949 Armistice Lines as the starting point for the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, and others. The latest and most mind boggling of President Mahmoud Abbas demands was introduced in the last week or so when he now demands that the Palestinian Authority, fresh off being recognized by UNESCO as a member country, have the right to import weapons. Be assured, he will claim to the press that he intends only to upgrade the pitiful weapons his security forces and police are forced to use currently and nothing really serious. The Palestinian police and security forces are armed with two year old M-16s, a commensurate number equipped with M-209 grenade launchers, M-60 30 caliber belt-fed machine guns, 9MM side arms, and whatever older weapons they have from unofficial sources which include many Kalashnikov assault rifles, Russian and other RPGs, and when including the terror arm of Mahmoud Abbas’s PLO, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, very likely anti-tank launchers and other and various crew served weapons including small and medium range mortars, Grad rockets, Katyusha rockets, enhanced Katyusha rockets, Qassam rockets, and other various mines, explosives grenades and indirect fire weapons. Yet, Mr. Abbas sees the need to enhance their armory with whatever he can drag across the border with assistance from Iran, Russia, possibly some European countries, and whomever else might be willing to trust him to take the weapons now and pay them some time in the future. And this is also an obligation he requires of Israel despite their never having agreed to anything even remotely resembling such.

Now for the promised definition of a Palestinian Refugee. Where in the real world, that is anywhere not part of the Palestinian influence and support groups, the refugees are cared for by the UNHCR which is tasked with caring for refugees and making every possible attempt to arrange for the refugees to return to their homes after any crisis has ended or be absorbed into an accepting country in cases where the refugees are the result of a war or agreement which changes state boundaries. One example were the hundreds of millions of Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu refugees who found themselves on the opposite side of the formation of India and Pakistan and desired to be relocated to their respective states. Oddly enough, today all of those refugees have been relocated and are living as citizens within one or the other country. Pakistan was founded approximately one year earlier than was Israel and due to much the same problems of religiously motivated warfare between Muslim and Hindu people as compared to Muslim and Jews in the founding of Israel. The main responsibility for UNHCR is to resettle and resolve all refugee situations. This was totally unacceptable to the Arab and Muslim states which desired to retain as many refugees as possible to use as a political bludgeon against Israel. They desired a way to actually increase the numbers of refugees. Within a decade of the founding of Israel, approximately six-hundred and fifty-thousand to seven-thousand Arabs were displaced from their homes within Israel by the Israeli War for survival after Israel was attacked by more than five Arab neighbors the day after her founding. The vast majority of these refugees had willingly abandoned their homes believing the promises of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Amin al-Husayni who promised them a quick war where the Jews would be massacred and they could return to their homes and take of the spoils of victory. During the same period many Arab and Muslim countries either forced their Jewish population to leave or the Jews fled extreme violence and pogroms leaving behind their homes, businesses, and any wealth they were unable to carry. These Jews numbered over seven-hundred-fifty-thousand and some estimates place the number near to nine-hundred-thousand. Today there are no Jewish refugees left from that time and even millions of Russian Jewish refugees have been absorbed by Israel and Israel is in the process of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian and Indian Jews currently. Today the number of Palestinian Refugees is estimated at somewhere over four-and-a-half-million. The United Nations went so far as to have an agency just for the Palestinian refugees separate from all other refugees. This organization is UNRWA and has the charge to increase the number of those considered Palestinian refugees by any method possible. Unlike other refugees who had to actually have been alive and lost their homes at the time of whatever event caused their refugee status, Palestinian refugees are not so tasked. If either parent is a Palestinian refugee, then the child is a Palestinian refugee, and their children will be refugees and their children will also be Palestinian refugees. Under the care of UNRWA there exist millions of second, third, fourth, and possible starting to be fifth generation Palestinian refugees. The sole solution the world has been conditioned to allow for these refugees is their incorporation into Israeli society in order to overwhelm the Jewish population of Israel and thus conquer Israel through sheer numbers. This is the intent of the demand for the “Right of Return” for Palestinian refugees. It is simply another imitation of the Jewish laws for the return from the Diaspora of Jews to Israel which is the “Law of Right of Return”. The Palestinians have even now begun to refer to the Palestinian refugees as being the Palestinian Diaspora in order to make them appear to have the same heritage to return to their ancient homeland. To initially qualify as a Palestinian refugee one need not even have been living within the Middle East and definitely not within what became Israel to qualify. All one need claim is that they resided in the British Mandate area for two years between 1940 and 1949 and they became Palestinian refugees. Even if they lived in Palo Alto, California in the United States during the 1948-1949 Israeli Arab War but had lived in the British Mandate from 1941 to 1944 they became Palestinian refugees as have their children and grand-children on and on. This is just the tip of the iceberg that is the scandal that is the Palestinian refugees. There are no Palestinian refugee camps within Israel; they all exist either in Palestinian autonomous areas or in Arab countries such as Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon etc. President Assad has numerous times shelled some of the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria during the civil war that is ongoing. In Lebanon the Palestinians are forbidden from most forms of employment and are not allowed to own land or even rent an apartment and their camps are guarded to keep them within, not to protect them. Jordan was the sole country to grant Palestinian refugees citizenship. Many of those citizens were stripped of that privilege after the Black September uprising by Yasser Arafat when he attempted a coup in Jordan against the King. The Palestinians remain as refugees multiple generations after their original loss of their homes in a war they did not start and neither did the Israelis start, but that was propagated in the Palestinians’ names by their brother Arabs and Muslims. That is an introduction to the reality that is the Palestinian refugee problem. Even under Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian Authority areas of autonomy the Palestinian refugees are contained in squalor of their refugee camps in greater poverty than their brethren who feel nothing for them and only wish to use them to destroy Israel.

Beyond the Cusp

Middle East Round-Up

The beat continues with Israel and the Jews as the focal point for all evils, under-handed plots, media manipulation against Islam, and everything else that goes poorly under the Sun. Let’s just list some of the highlights from just this past week, mostly just the weekend, and see if this is actually the theme throughout much of the Muslim World.

A Kuwaiti teacher was fired simply because when breaking-up a pair of boys quarreling, she committed the ultimate of all possible sins, she told the boys they should follow the example of the Jews and respect each other. “She stopped them and told them they must respect and love each other in line with our Islamic principles,” reported Kuwait’s Alanba newspaper. “If the Jews respect each other, why can’t we learn from our Prophet… and respect each other.” Sure is a good thing they prevented her from continuing to teach. Heaven knows what she might have tried to teach the students next, might have been something truly horrible, like the Golden Rule.

Approximately ten percent of the eighty plus million Egyptian population will possibly be facing such a threat to their lives that fleeing their homeland may be their sole choice for survival. I speak of the Coptic Christians who have resided in Egypt since the first century, predating Islam by more than a half thousand years. Despite all the calls for unity and acceptance which were reported to the world by the media during the demonstrations that brought down the Mubarak Government, since then numerous attacks have been perpetrated against Coptic Christians, their stores, their homes, their churches, and even their monasteries. The future looks to be very bleak as it now appears that the Salafis have joined with the Muslim Brotherhood, sorry, the Freedom and Justice Party and other similarly minded groups who will win the majority of the Parliamentary seats and very likely the Presidency. Such a victory likely will lead to Sharia Law becoming the law of the land in Egypt and despite the presumed protection that will reputedly be conveyed to the Coptic minority, they will face escalating threats and violence pressuring them to convert or leave. This is what the media’s Arab Spring will resemble, for all but the predominant Muslims; it will be an Arab Winter which will freeze them out of the society in which they have lived for many many centuries.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a part of his campaign for reelection, has claimed, according to the state-run Anatolian, “The international media, because they are backed by Israel, wouldn’t be happy with the continuation of the AK Party government.” Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s European Affairs Minister added an allegation that the foreign media are a part of “mafia-like organizations” controlled by “international dark elites.” This was all in reference to an editorial in the British newspaper, the Economist, which called on the Turkish people to cast ballots for the opposition Republican People’s Party. The editorial further stated that voting against Erdogan’s party would be the “best way for Turks to promote democracy.” Once again anti-Israel and anti-Jewish paranoia is seen to be loose within Prime Minister Erdogan’s mind and Party, a seemingly common malady.

Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat spoke on Israel Channel 2 television’s Meet the Press stating, “We do not come to the UN to unilaterally declare statehood. We do not come to the UN to request recognition. We come to request acceptance. We want the UN to accept a Palestinian state within ’67 borders that will live in peace and security side-by-side with Israel. But the Americans said that the UN is not an option. Following that, we told them that our option is negotiation. Netanyahu succeeded in driving us away from the negotiation room. We want to go back to negotiation. This is (Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s) option. If Mr. Netanyahu refuses to say ‘two states along 1967 lines’; he can say it in English, Russian, Hebrew, Latin or any language he chooses – if he continues to build settlements, if the US chooses to veto the proposal to accept us into the UN and if the US Congress decides to cut us off and stop our aid, then Netanyahu can invite both houses of Congress to the settlement of Beit El. I think he will be the only leader between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.”

Mr. Erekat carefully crafted his statements to include the requirement for Israel to accept the 1949 Armistice Lines as the official border for the Palestinian state before entering negotiations. By doing this, Israel’s sole bargaining position is removed thus limiting negotiations to ‘Right of Return’ for close to five million so-called Arab refugees. By making the Armistice Lines the accepted border, it even removes any need to negotiate on Jerusalem as those borders grant the entire Old City of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, to the Palestinian State. Furthermore, when taking into consideration the stipulation that not a single Jew remain within the borders of any Palestinian state, forcing these borders would require approximately half a million Jews to forfeit their properties and be absorbed within Green Line Israel. Couple this with reputed recent demands by Israeli Arabs for autonomy within areas in the Galilee and Arab majority towns, even with an option to choose to join as part of a Palestinian state, Israel could find itself literally sliced in two with a Palestinian state reaching from the Jordan River to Acre on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Also not mentioned was the refusal by Mahmoud Abbas to join negotiations unless all the Palestinian demands including the Armistice Line borders, sole possession of the Old City and Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and the full ‘Right of Return’ are agreed upon by Israel as the unarguable unchangeable facts. This is Mr. Erekat’s and the rest of the Palestinian Authority’s idea of fair requirements of Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu insistence for the Palestinians to accept and recognize Israel as the Jewish State is unthinkable and such a demand is what makes any negotiations impossible. Which side is being intransient and unfair, you decide.

And lastly, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Israel too has its share of crazies. Senior Ben Gurion University Chemistry Professor Eyal Nir wrote on his Facebook page, “I call on the world to come and help break these scoundrels’ necks,” describing right-wing, Israeli flag-bearing marchers on Jerusalem Day as “gangs of bandits swarming in our country.” He continued with his diatribe, writing, “During the Jerusalem Day march, a gang of a few dozen bullies walked through the city’s Arab streets calling death to Arabs, death to leftists, burn their villages.” When questioned, Professor Nir justified the remarks, arguing “The response of any reasonable, peaceful and just individual should be that they must be prevented from acting out their threats such as in terrorist activities dubbed ‘price tag.’” The ‘they’ he was referring to were any Zionist Jews who actually had the nerve and chutzpah to march with Israeli flags within Green Line Israel on a nationalist holiday, especially if the city in which they held such a crass display of patriotism actually had Arab residents who are also citizens of the State of Israel. How dare they show the Israeli flags in a neighborhood of Israeli Arabs. I would like to ask Professor Nir exactly what the difference is between the Jewish Israeli Flag and the Arab Israeli Flag. My bet is his answer would actually claim that the recognized Israeli Flag is solely for the Jews and the Palestinian Flag is the Israeli Arab’s flag. I wonder if every Israeli Arab would agree with the good professor. Somehow, I doubt his feelings would even garner a majority of Israeli Arab citizens, despite what the liberal media would have us think.

Beyond the Cusp