Why the Israel Palestinian Peace Talks Fail

This is not an article on why the current peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority will most likely fail but about why all of these negotiations have and will forever fail. The common perception is that all that is necessary for there to be peace is for the Israelis to make sufficient sacrifices and surrender sufficient land for there to be peace. The mantra we hear over and over to the point it has become almost a chant that the world leaders recite whenever the Israelis and Palestinian Authority leaders meet is “Land for Peace.” There is actually no amount of land that Israel can surrender which will result in peace or even an agreement with the Palestinians. The simple truth is that there is only one result which the Palestinians are willing to accept, the complete annihilation of the Jewish State to be replaced by an Islamic Sharia State completely free of any Jewish, Christian or any non-Muslim religious group allowed to reside within. There will be protests with this claim which are fully expected.

 

I can hear the protestations already that the Palestinian Authority has been accepting and good to the Christians in their midst as claimed by those very same Christians who place the blame for their troubles with the Israelis where it belongs. The reason that the Christians leaders from within the Palestinian areas in Judea, Samaria and Benyamin have little choice in expressing their preferences; as if they do not blame Israel for their every woe, then the Muslims will lose vindictive destructions upon Christian businesses, churches, homes and people even higher degree than they currently inflict. Explain why in all of North Africa and the Middle East, an area almost exclusively under Islamic rule, everywhere in every location with but one exception the numbers of Christians have been decreasing for decades upon decades. The sole exception where the numbers of Christians has been steadily on the increase is Israel where freedom of religion is a treasured value which is held in high esteem. The Muslim lands are not so generous with their acceptance of those who even follow a branch of Islam which is different from that of the governing preference, let alone any religion other than Islam. If you wish to see what the treatment the Christians would receive under Palestinian rule if they spoke the truth all one need do is look to Egypt at the treatment of the Christians by the Muslim Brotherhood since they were removed from power. There have been days where as many as fifty churches have been completely looted of anything worth taking before being burned to the ground. Also, Christian owned businesses which have also been torched along with Christian homes, all of which have burned solely as the result of Muslim anger and perceived insult resultant to President Morsi being removed. The Christians were victimized and blamed for his removal despite the protests of literally tens of millions of Egyptians against his actions which excluded all except his cohorts within the Muslim Brotherhood. The Christians who used to make up approximately three quarters of the population in Bethlehem before the Palestinian Authority was gifted security and political control over the birth place of Jesus but now only a remnant making up less than ten percent still reside in this holies of holy cities in Christendom. The only part which Israel played in this entire procession of events was to gift control to the Palestinian as a result of the tragic Oslo Accords.

 

There are a number of horrific results from the continuing tragedy called the Oslo Accords. Perhaps the greatest of these has been the requirement on the Israelis to placate those who cannot be placated. We can boil down the Israeli needs to a single item which would be sufficient to destroy any possibility for peace. This one item is probably not one the majority of people would even be able to name, let alone be high on their list as Israel is often chastised for making too many demands and not showing a willingness to do what is necessary to reach a peace agreement. This one item has absolutely nothing to do with the settlements or Israeli towns and businesses that are in areas liberated from Jordanian illegal occupation as a result of the June 1967 War. It does not have anything to do with whether or not Israel will be allowed to retain the eastern half of Jerusalem which they have already made an integral part of Israel placing all of Jerusalem under Israeli political and security rule. This one item is not in reference to Israel being permitted to keep some defensive positions and monitoring stations in the Jordan Valley just west of the Jordan River as an early warning system to detect any attack approaching from over Jordanian space. The one item Israel insists the Palestinians meet is to recognize that Israel exists as the state for the Jewish People. The recognition that Israel is the reestablishment of the ancient Jewish homeland is about as basic an understanding of the real reason the world agreed upon when they setup the British Mandate with the stated intent to establish a homeland for the Jewish people. This was voted upon and established international intent for the creation of a state for the Jews before 1920 which is decades ahead of the horrors of the Holocaust. The claim often made that Israel was established as a guilt offering by a world shocked by the horrors of the Holocaust is so easily proved false it is remarkable that it has survived. The Balfour declaration came in 1917 and by 1920 the entire League of Nations had made the Balfour Declaration an international treaty recognized by the world. There have been numerous conferences and accords made all before World War II and the Nazi horrors which echoed and restated support for the establishment of a Jewish State in the Jewish ancient homelands. So, requiring the Palestinians to simply recognize that Israel is and was established as a state for the Jewish People is far from asking the impossible, yet this is the one point above all others which the Palestinians and rest of the Muslim World refuse to grant. Until the Muslim World can recognize that Israel is the state for the Jews, which is even mentioned in the Quran, there can be no peace and that is as simple as it gets. If the world really wishes to find a path to peace between the Jews and the Muslim World they need to require the Muslim World recognize that the Jews have rights to a homeland and that homeland is located as stated in the Old Testament, the Christian Bible and the Islamic Quran on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and includes all of Jerusalem, and only after this has been established should they demand that Israel give even more lands to the Palestinian authority.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Fear of Netanyahu Implementing Another Disengagement too Limited

One of the major points of contention being exploited against the new Likud-Beiteinu conjoined effort in the coming Israeli elections are based on the theory that if Benyamin Netanyahu is reelected to the office of Prime Minister with a sufficient mandate by the electorate he will implement another disengagement with the Palestinians, this time in much of the West Bank. Theories about how much of Judea and Samaria Bibi will be willing to surrender to the Palestinians is the subject of pure conjecture. The most optimistic estimations claim Israel will retain all of Area C while allowing for a Palestinian State to be formed within Areas A and B while the most pessimistic predictions propose that solely the major blocks around Jerusalem and bordering the Green Line will be retained and anywhere from fifty to ninety settlements approximately may be evacuated, forcefully if necessary. This would result in anywhere from fifty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand Jews to be torn out of their communities and relocated in similar fashion to the forced evacuation of Gush Katif, and we know exactly what a series of disasters were spawned as a result. Unfortunately the truth of the matter may be far more sinister and depressing than anyone might wish.

No matter who is elected to be Prime Minister of Israel in the coming elections, that person will end up facing pressures and situations where the only available choices are bad, worse, and disastrously worse. The problem that will vex and tax the next Prime Minister of Israel will be in the form of attacks on political and legal levels married to ultimatums tied to threats of war, dissolution, abandonment or complete isolation from the rest of the nations of the world. The initial warning came with the announcement of a request, nay, a demand by the Arab League directed to President Obama to do everything in his power to force a solution that meets and satisfies the needs expressed by the Palestinian demands for their borders upon Israel. Even should President Obama choose to ignore this call from the Arab League, the Palestinians have worked in coordination with the Arab League in taking steps, measures, judicial procedures, petitions of world bodies, especially the United Nations, and alliance building in mutual treaties aimed at isolating Israel with nations sympathetic to their cause, including some of the European Union as well as most of the nations in the Non-Aligned Movement. All of these will serve to slowly force Israel into making the concessions or face what may seem to be terrifying consequences. So, it is very possible that it really does not matter who sits in the Prime Minister’s office, they will face such dire consequences that they may see no other acceptable path than to grant the Palestinians their State on the terms dictated to them as reasonable by those nations, institutions, NGOs and other alliances which have joined in the coming storm that will be aimed at Jerusalem. Yes, I mean Jerusalem as control over the Temple Mount and the Old City is as important if not more so as any other demand made by the Palestinians and their Islamic allies because by controlling Jerusalem they hold the beating heart of Judaism and a central node of Christianity and as such, possessing Jerusalem is of tantamount importance for simply psychological and propaganda purposes. For a corollary to what exactly Jerusalem means to the forces of Islam, simply read up on the conquest by the powers of Islam of Constantinople and their conversion of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral into a Mosque, transforming from the largest Cathedral of its time to the largest Mosque in its time.

To those who head their respective parties’ lists and dream of being the next Prime Minister of Israel, I have the following well known and over used admonition; be careful what you wish for, you just may get it. I really feel for the person, whoever it will be, who is chosen to be the Israeli Prime Minister as he will end up facing the most polarized divide of Israelis and have to make decisions which will make one third or more of the population call for his head on a pike. The Israeli population will divide on issues along differing fault lines depending on the subject. Some of these divides are the Secular and Religious; those living beyond the Green Line and those living inside the Green Line; the ones who still believe in the land for peace formula as a valid path to a solution and those who have completely lost any faith in peace by any means; the extreme leftists with the anarchists who support the Palestinians over Israel and those who support Israel above all else; The Ardent Zionists and the Post Zionists; and even many of the old divides found in almost every country such as the well off against the needy. The traumas that could possibly assault the Israeli population resulting from the forces aligning against the existence of a Jewish State may cause new divisions within the population that have never been witnessed before but the one thing which will act as a multiplier of any divide that forms within the public is the media and their drive to cause news and form public opinions rather than provide nonpartisan and purely factual reporting of events and situations.

There is one saving prayer that Israel needs to find is some avenue which would bring the public together and unite them in overwhelming numbers behind the Prime Minister and the government allowing them to represent a united face to the world and enable the Israeli governance to resist the pressures of an antagonistic world. This hatred and antagonism has been building for decades and has been most evident in the changing attitudes of much of Europe which have steadily moved to align with the Islamic forces which have the destruction of the Jewish State as one of their foremost priorities. Another front where a growing antagonism towards Israel and with it a resultant rise in anti-Semitism has been the campuses of universities worldwide and is manifested during the yearly campaign calling for supporting the Palestinians by agitating for countries, organizations and anybody else they can influence to join the BDS campaign against Israel and also impose boycotts, disengagements, and sanction on Israel with the intent of isolating Israel and slowly destroy the economy. The most disturbing occurrences of these efforts within the University communities which aim to destroy Israel, or at the very least remove any vestige of Jewish identity from Israel, are those which occur inside Israel on the very institutions of higher learning where a segment of ardent anti-religion leftists who call for and urge support of the BDS campaigns.

The other confrontation which will assail Israel and be a threat that the next Prime Minister will need to resolve will be a legal assault through some of the most anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic agencies spawned by the United Nations at the urging of the Non-Aligned Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and others sympathetic to their ideas concerning Israel or the Jewish people. Since the United Nations General Assembly granted the PLO, and thus the Palestinian Authority and potentially all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, nonmember statehood, there have surfaced numerous threats made by Mahmoud Abbas, other leadership from the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Authority to take their grievances to higher authorities and use various means and routes now made a viable for them to destroy Israel by other than military means. Some such threats may even deserve mention. One of the most laughable was the threat to take Benyamin Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes. There has been mention of taking a petition to the United Nations Security Council to demand an enforceable motion demanding that Israel return all of the lands beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines that they gained during the Six Day War including East Jerusalem, the Old City, the Temple Mount, the Kotel, and all of the settlement blocks placing them under Palestinian rule as well as requesting the assistance of the forces that would be marshaled to force this implementation to also assure that all Jews were removed by any means necessary. There have been references to the Palestinian “Right of Return” for five to seven million; the number varies from one day to the next, Muslim Arabs to their original homes within pre-1967 Israel along with immediate citizenship thus allowing for a Muslim majority which could vote to totally change the makeup of Israel as the Jewish State and possible vote in Sharia and thus even force the Jews to leave Israel. The ideas and avenues that granting of statehood by the United Nations General Assembly vote has opened up for the Palestinians new and simply fantastic avenues to harass and possible to eventually eviscerate and destroy Israel as it is currently understood. For this reason alone it has become of paramount importance that the people of Israel must come together or they risk losing the country which is the sole place of refuge for Jews should the world once again choose to follow the insanity which has gripped it so many times in history culminating in the horrors of the Nazi camps.

Beyond the Cusp

World Comments About Israeli Victims of Terror in Burgas

Following the heinous terrorist suicide bombing attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, comments of condolences and support were issued throughout the rest of Wednesday and into Thursday, as one must choose the words carefully and not rush out such statements which required time leaving some remarks to come the following day. Commenting on the attack itself, the President of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneliev, told local media that the authorities in Bulgaria held a meeting last month with representatives of the Israeli Mossad but that they did not warn the Bulgarians against a possible attack. He was further quoted while visiting the scene of the bombing commenting that his country had taken every precaution to protect the lives of the victims of the attack. He added that there are good relations between Bulgaria and Israel, and that his country would have acted seriously had it been warned of a possible attack. So, are we to understand that before any Israelis go on vacation outside of Israel, especially if they are traveling as a group on a planned tour, that the Mossad needs to perform a full security sweep and be given sufficient time to research for any possibilities of a terror attack and without such warning being issued by the Israeli Mossad, no country can be expected to take any steps to prevent terrorist attacks upon Israelis visiting their country? This is preposterous and a simple case of laying the blame on the victims and skirting any responsibility. It is also a rather disgusting response.

 

The sympathies expressed for the victims of this horrid slaughtering of innocents by the purveyors of terrorism were, while commendable, missing one important reference, the mention that this was an act of terrorism. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a condemnation through his spokesperson and despite his claim of condemning the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” he omitted any reference to it being an act of terrorism, referring only to the deadly “bombing” of Israelis. This stands in stark contrast to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon statement two weeks ago on the bombing of the Christian Churches in Kenya where he rightly spoke of “terrorist” attacks … saying the perpetrators “must be held to account.”

 

Next up is the President of the United States, Barack Obama, who was quoted by Reuters as saying, “The United States will stand with our allies, and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack.” They further quoted his observation that the attack was “completely outrageous.” President Obama was later quoted commenting while speaking at a gathering of activists in Florida where he said that the attack was “barbaric” and added, “I want everybody here to know under my administration, we haven’t just preserved the unbreakable bond with Israel, we have strengthened it.” The term that is once again obvious due to its omission is any reference to terror, terrorists or terrorism. President Obama later telephoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and expressed his condolences for the deaths of Israelis.

 

And then there is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, the Lady Catherine Ashton. She was quoted to have said,    “I was appalled to hear of this afternoon’s apparent terrorist attack on Israeli tourists arriving in Bulgaria. I am deeply shocked by the scenes at Burgas airport, where what should have been the beginning of a happy holiday ended in murder. I send my condolences to the families of all those killed. Many more have been injured. We wish them a speedy recovery. The EU utterly condemns all acts of terrorism, wherever they take place. The terrorists who planned and carried out this attack must be brought to justice.” To her credit she did finally manage to refer to terror definitively in her final sentence after original reference to this calamity as, “apparent terrorist attack” earlier in her statement. The earlier qualified reference which allowed for some doubt as to whether this was terrorism takes a good deal away from the later reference to terrorists and exposes the Lady Ashton’s well established disdain for Israel and Israelis.

 

The worst and by far most offensive reaction to the terrorist bombing of the Israeli group’s tour bus is attributed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. Ms. Pillay has been known to be one of the first to express her opinion on a wide range of incidents including her 2010 rush to condemn Israel over the Mavi Marmara Flotilla confrontation where she omitted no term of condemnation in her berating the needless slaughter of innocent protesters. But on this day where a terrorist suicide bomber murdered seven people and injured thirty more, three in serious condition, Ms. Pillay had no comment. This was an actual attack upon honestly innocent vacationers which included children, teenagers and young couples among those murdered or injured, unlike the terrorists who were engaged in martyrdom operations planned to capture and/or murder Israeli IDF security personnel engaged in enforcement of a legal, United Nations and universally recognized maritime blockade when they suffered their fate. Ms. Pillay has added yet one more disgraceful action, or lack of action, by her silence in the face of this act of blatant terrorism which she has given her own personal affirmation through her shameful silence.

 

Lastly we have the comments from the United Nations Security Council who apparently had not received the memo not to mention terror, terrorists or terrorism or any reference to suicide bombing when referring to the attack on the Israelis in Bulgaria. To their credit, the Security Council of the United Nations statement read, “Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. All acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, no matter the motives for them, where, when and by whom they are carried out. The perpetrators and organizers, as well as those who finance such reprehensible acts of terrorism must be brought to justice.”

 

One final note on a related but separate issue, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department have gathered a conference of nations to discuss the many facets of terrorism and the methods which can be utilized to fight both the commission and the financing of terror in order to prevent further acts and their consequences. This gathering has been titled as the Global Counter-terrorism Forum’s High-Level Conference on Victims of Terrorism and began on July 9 in Madrid. The gathering had an interesting collection of countries who, according to much of the publicity for the “Global Counter-terrorism Forum”, were victims suffering from terror and terrorism and all associated difficulties. The member states came from two distinct groups and the entire conference was co-chaired by the United States and Turkey. The first group were the eleven member nations of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation), Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The other members are, usually referred to as the remaining members as they do not neatly fit into any group other than not members from the OIC; Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. The European Union also has a seat and the United Nations is “a close partner of and participant in the Global Counter-terrorism Forum and its activities.”  There is one country that is most conspicuous by its absence from this little get-together, Israel. Fortunately rumors have surfaced naming the country which spearheaded the exclusion of Israel, Turkey. Turkey made the exclusion of Israel a condition for their participation and the State Department graciously and eagerly agreed that Israel had no place in such an important and vital conference and would likely not contribute much in the way of substance. We have our suspicions that at least another dozen of those attending countries either heartily agreed or felt no loss at the exclusion if Israel from the Global Counter-terrorism Forum.

 

Beyond the Cusp