How Israeli Leaders Should Solve the Peace Negotiation

With the appointment by President Obama of Samantha Power to replace Susan Rice as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations; the Israeli leadership has been put on notice that they no longer have a friend in the leadership of the United States. There is no reason for anybody who supports Israel to be comfortable with this appointment. Ms. Samantha Power has been quoted responding on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it may necessitate using armed military forces, “a mammoth protection force” and an “external intervention”, to impose a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. This was to be implemented even if it would result in “alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import…or investing…billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new State of Palestine.” Where Samantha Power has not actually called directly for the use of troops to force Israel to remit their control and forcefully remove all Jewish influences from the West Bank in order to fully complete founding of a Palestinian state, this has been the heavily implied and many have taken the collective body of her commentary on this subject and concluded she would be supportive of such a policy and be pleased with such an outcome. This appointment of Samantha Power as United Nations Ambassador is a perfect complement to having John Kerry as Secretary of State and tasking him to mold a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by any means necessary. It has been made perfectly clear that President Obama and his entire Administration favors the formation of a Palestinian State utilizing all of the West Bank as the basis for the State’s borders with Eastern Jerusalem, including the entirety of the Old City and Temple Mount, to serve as the Capital City for said State. The recent moves, appointments, press releases and comments by President Obama and members of the foreign policy departments of his Administration with the new changes made for his second term should give the Israeli leadership sufficient warning that they will need to take actions to resolve the impasse with the Palestinians using whatever political force and capital necessary.

 

There will be those who will support Samantha Power explaining that she is not anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist or anti-Israel but simply stands up for the Palestinians’ rights to their own State and respect for their human rights. Ms. Power is a well-respected human rights activist and a leader in that movement. As such she takes the ‘human rights record’ of Israel as a habitual offender as factual. This goes a long way to explaining why after the United States had withdrawn most of its diplomatic participation from the noxious United Nations’ World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, better known as Durban I, Ms. Power remained to participate in the discussions. This was the conference which transformed from a conference to discuss and address problems relating to racism, xenophobia, and hatred but almost immediately broke down and wallowed in the fetid swamps of anti-Zionist, anti-Israel anti-Semitic blood libels and hatreds while ignoring every other human rights ills anywhere else in the world. The conference was chaired by Samantha Power’s friend Mary Robinson who had no difficulty allowing the laser focus on the purported human rights violations by Israel on the Palestinians, Arabs, and all non-Jews worldwide. With her background and track record displaying such a deep seated disdain and contempt for the State of Israel, how is it going to be possible for the United States to continue to support the Israelis in the United Nations Security Council when a United States veto is politically desired, or even convince Israeli leadership that the United States still presents a credible supporter? The new reality taking shape in President Obama’s second term administration should give Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition pause and question exactly what steps Israel needs to initiate to avoid being overrun by an adjusted, pro-Palestinian United States Middle East policy.

 

There will most certainly be some who profess to be pro-Israel and pro-Zionist who will claim that Ms. Power’s promotion gives Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the perfect opportunity to finally prove that Israel truly wishes for peace. They will point out that should Netanyahu make some unilateral compromises that then President Obama along with Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power would work with him to bring Palestinian President Abbas to the negotiation’s table and the Two State Solution would finally be achieved. One group which is suspected to take such a position would be J Street. Backing them in the media one might expect that Tom Friedman of the New York Times and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic would pen flowing and glowing editorials exclaiming that a Palestinian-Israeli peace is at hand if Prime Minister Netanyahu would just grab the opportunity that would bring Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power to Israel’s side and force Palestinian President Abbas to finally negotiate honestly yielding a resultant Two State Solution with peace and security guaranteed for both peoples. Unfortunately, such optimism ignores the one truth which nobody seems willing to identify; the truth that President Abbas cannot make peace. The Palestinian population, especially those under thirty years of age, has been raised on a visceral hatred for Israelis and Jews. They have been finely tuned to accept only a one Palestinian State solution in which the Jews are either second class Dhimmis or killed. Should Abbas ever sign a peace treaty with Israel which does not include a complete Israeli surrender his life would be forfeit in less time than Egyptian President Sadat lived after making peace before being assassinated by one of his military guard. Further, as long as the world continues to demand that Israel and Israel alone must continuously make unilateral sacrifices and surrender territory and other negotiation points, why would Abbas ever make any move towards negotiating a real peace as all he needs to do is agree to appear once every few years before the media cameras with the Israeli Prime Minister, whomever it may be, and then refuse to return to negotiate and wait for the world to force Israel to surrender everything piecemeal one unilateral concession at a time.

 

There is another path that would actually be productive and make Abbas and the Palestinians anxious and truly eager to negotiate and make a real and possibly lasting peace. This path demands that Israel make unilateral moves but not giving anything, especially land, to the Palestinians to bribe them to come and negotiate but to take concessions they might desire from the Palestinians, especially territory. Perhaps the first step Prime Minister Netanyahu might take to signal with a minor move would be to replace the Muslim Waqf from their supervisory role over the Temple Mount and limit their jurisdiction to the actual Islamic buildings while placing the Israeli Antiquities Authority to supervise the everyday activities and visitation to the Temple Mount. The Israeli Antiquities Authority could be tasked to form a Temple Mount Security Force in conjunction with the Shin Bet and new rules would need to be enacted allowing freedom to pray and freedom to wear religious symbols and universal access for all peoples of all religions to the Temple Mount with allowances made for major religious holy days. This would end the odious limitations currently enforced which limit prayers or other actions deemed to be of a suspected religious nature forbidden to all except Muslims. This condemnable religious stranglehold by Islam and the Waqf has been tolerated and accepted as equal religious rights under the current arrangement. Cancelling this oppressive and hateful arrangement would bring a fresh and liberating transformation to a place that is of primary religious importance to three of the world’s major religions and should never have been allowed to be restricted such that only one sole religion had rights to these holy grounds.

 

Should this reassignment of responsibility over policing the Temple Mount and granting equality to all to visit, pray and enjoy these hallowed grounds and religious shrines not get President Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian leadership’s undivided attention, then Israel should take a second step towards further limiting what Israel would be willing to consider to be negotiable. Annexing permanently a half dozen of the major and closest to the Green Line Jewish residential communities and the industrial, commercial, educational areas etc. would hopefully awaken the Palestinian leadership to realize that the rules have changed and they can negotiate in good faith or find Israel eventually annexing Area C and whatever locations in Area B or even Area A that are desired. Eventually Israel could inform the Palestinian leadership that Israel has annexed all the areas Israel wishes to retain as part of Israel and they have two choices, either form a demilitarized state on what remains or if they still refuse to negotiate then Israel will consider the remaining areas to be under Israeli security control while allowing it to be a semi-autonomous area within which the Palestinians living there have limited self-rule but they will not be granted Israeli citizenship. Meanwhile, whenever Israel annexed lands they would grant the Palestinians residing within a temporary status placing them on a path towards full Israeli citizenship. They would receive new identification cards which would be different from Israeli or Palestinian identification cards currently in use. They would be eligible for full citizenship in five years provided they did not support, participate, harbor, commit or allow the occurrence of any terror related activities. It has become obvious that as long as Israel is forced to give concessions there will be no peace so perhaps it is time to attempt a new approach where Israel no longer surrenders in small unilateral steps but rather takes a positive step establishing a new pro-Israel fact on the ground one annexation at a time. When you are running out of carrots and it has become obvious that carrots are not working, then it is time to try a few sticks and save whatever remaining carrots you have for when the other side truly and honestly desires to negotiate a permanent peace with security and tranquility for both peoples living side-by-side or together in the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Backdoor Gun Control; Not so Fast

The United Nations member States are once again working to implement an all-inclusive weapons treaty with dual intents. The publicized intent is to control the trading of weapons between weapons manufacturers and countries such that all weapons transactions will be covered thus preventing any sales to terror or other non-state actors. This treaty will presumably prevent terrorist and criminal entities from acquiring armaments from handguns to advanced weapons systems such as rockets and mortars. The secondary and less mentioned impetus is to control all private ownership of weapons by individuals. This time the treaty will not be aiming to necessarily disarm all non-state individuals but will instead be satisfied in simply having complete lists of every weapon privately owned. Of course these lists are guaranteed not to be a first step towards eventual weapons confiscation and everyone can believe that the world’s governments would never go back on this promise. But why should this be of any concern to the American people as they have the Second Amendment which guarantees them the right to keep and bear arms. But is the Second Amendment really sacrosanct or can it be abridged through international agreements?

John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Dwight Eisenhower, asserted that treaties are a form of law which overrides the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution is in Article VI and states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” This clause was primarily intended to forbid the individual States from being allowed to enter into treaties independently and also to guarantee that all the individual States would be bound by and treaty entered and legally ratified by the Federal Government. There have been numerous people who have maintained that a treaty entered into by the United States through ratification by the Senate and signed by the President would then supercede the United States Constitution. This statement can be made true if one replaces one little word; remove ‘United’ from before the word ‘States’ and instead replace it with the word ‘individual’ and then it would be correct. Treaties do override the individual State’s Constitutions, not the United States Constitution. This also applied to individual State laws, regulations, statutes or other legally binding resolutions.

The reasoning behind the contention that international and other treaties entered into by the United States would supercede the Constitution ignores the semicolon replacing it with a comma. The treaties that are enacted must be tempered by the Constitution and can be rendered mute if found to be unconstitutional. The phrasing which states that treaties are to be made “under the authority of the United States” places the limitations within the constitution in effect for treaties just as it is for laws passed by the States or Congress. So, the Administration is limited in its power to enter into and negotiate treaties even with the ratification of the Senate by the same restrictions that the Congress and President are under when enacting Federal Law. So, let the world negotiate a presumable universal arms treaty which will eventually be used to implement the universal disarmament of individuals because even should the Senate ratify such a treaty and the President sign same, the Supreme Court, in theory, should render the enforcement of such a treaty unconstitutional and hopefully support the individual rights of the American peoples.

So sorry to those in the Administration and to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who have been rumored to be hoping they could use such a treaty to negate the Second Amendment and were working for Senate ratification. The Founding Fathers were smart enough to preclude the meddling of the outside world with the unique rights granted by the revolutionary Constitution they crafted. The world around them was full of Emperors, Kings, Caliphs and other absolute rulers whose slightest whim was law. With a world where any treaty the nascent United States would enter would be with countries with such autocratic rulers that they realized that the rights provided by the United States Constitution would not be respected or even understood outside the nation they were founding. With such a world surrounding the Founding Fathers it is only logical that they would protect the delicate balance which gave the individual supreme rights even over and above the government which was crafted to serve the people and be endowed with limited powers, a strange and unique concept in their time. The American people will owe those men a debt of gratitude as long as there continues to be those who guard and keep those precious rights safe and protected. That is the task that the Founding Fathers demanded of those generations which followed and upon whom they had doubts and hopes, much as many patriots today harbor.

Beyond the Cusp

United Nations Secretary General Displays Double Standard for Jews and Palestinians

The United Nations General Assembly this past November 29, 2012, granted statehood to the representatives of the Palestinians, the PLO, without any requirement for them to negotiate or recognize Israel or perform even the smallest of conditional acts. The very same United Nations General Assembly regularly demands for Israel to enter negotiations with the Palestinians or face denunciations and challenges to their right to be considered an actual country. This double standard appears to present no trouble or difficulty for the United Nations General Assembly as well as numerous of the various United Nations agencies. Now we find that the same double standard by the denouncing of Israel while praising and defending the same activities when committed by the Palestinians by the head of the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The office of the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement which stated that the Palestinians have “the right to stage peaceful protests that must be fully respected.” The statement further asserted that Ban is “following with concern developments around the E1 area.” The release further noted fallaciously that Israeli construction in the area is “Illegal under international law,” and that “any such settlement plans for E1 must be rescinded.”

It must be noted that the area in question is completely within Area C which is completely under Israeli legal jurisdiction and the security is completely Israeli. Where the Palestinians have similar rights to Area A and Area B is also under Palestinian civilian control, it is also under joint Israeli and Palestinian security jurisdiction. Under previously signed agreements between the Palestinian authority and Israel, new establishment of any form of residence or structures in Area C, permanent or temporary, which includes the E1 area in question, are required to have Israeli permission while Palestinian permission is required in Areas A and B. Apparently this agreement is only to be applied to the areas under any type of control by the Palestinian authority and the areas under Israeli jurisdiction are not recognized by the Secretary General of the United Nations. It is always nice to know that such an august body which is supposedly renowned for being an impartial arbiter of international conflicts and negotiations holds such a double standard from top to bottom. This fully explains the appointment of Richard Falk as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories with the mission statement to detail and report all transgressions and crimes committed by Israel in their occupation. Richard Falk described his duties as,   “One is evaluating whether the conditions of occupation are such as to give the Palestinians some kind of right of resistance. And if they have that right, then what are the limits to that right? The other issue at stake in this current inquiry is to evaluate how Israel as the occupying power is carrying out its responsibility to protect the society that is subject to its control.” It definitely appears that Ban Ki-Moon agrees with Mr. Falk’s attitude towards all things pertaining to the situations concerning Israel and the Palestinians.

It is always nice to know the base attitudes of those who hold power and may have influence in adjudicating and influencing the conditions or actions pertaining to your very survival. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has made his view pertaining to the Israeli Palestinian situation perfectly clear. Focusing on his statements regarding actions by Israeli Jews and Palestinians who choose to make political statements through setting up temporary tent settlements as a way of building “facts on the ground” where he posits that the Palestinians are fully within their rights and have his blessings to commit such actions wherever they choose while the Israeli Jews are denied this right in any locations, especially if that location might be claimed by the Palestinians. What is even more interesting about Ban Ki-Moon’s released statement is that it denies the right of Israel to make claims while granting the validity of any claims made by the Palestinians. With such a view from the one person who, by his office, is presumed to be unbiased and neutral on all disputes favoring only that they be resolved through passive, nonviolent negotiations of the parties involved, it is astonishing that such a biased statement could be issued in his name out of his office. Of course the majority of the member countries of the United Nations will have no problem and see no bias and will accept Mr. Moon’s statement as a fair and honest assessment of acceptable parameters regarding actions of both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. It is always good to know where your friends are, and even more vital to locate thy enemies. The Secretary General of the United Nations has made his choice most evident.

Beyond the Cusp