Netanyahu Back in Familiar Position with Coalition in the Crosshairs

As the great sage of baseball said, “It’s deja-vu all over again.” Last time that Bibi Netanyahu was Prime Minister and had a believed-to-be strong coalition, the Clinton administration forced concessions and heaped blame on the Prime Minister leaking damning reports to the press in both the United States and Israel until the coalition broke and new elections were forced. Then the Clinton political machinery sent many of its top election specialists including his pollster, Stanley Greenberg, his campaign guru, James Carville, and his image-maker, Robert Shrum. This was preceded by Secretary of State Albright blaming him for the lost chance for peace with the Palestinians. Just as was noted here, we are witnessing a repeat of that strategy and the aim was to force Prime Minister Netanyahu into a position of making excessive and unreasonable concessions to the Palestinians in the hope that they would be sufficient to force a signing of some form of treaty. The importance of this to the Democrats coming into the mid-term elections, where the polls show them losing and losing big, is immeasurable. An Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty signed on the White House lawn would be just the foreign policy victory the Obama administration could use to ride the Democrats through the November elections with even a glimmer of hope on retaining their numbers. They likely see forcing Israeli complete and total capitulation as their sole route to salvation. This is what was behind Secretary of State Kerry’s blaming of Israel for the failure and breakdown of the peace talks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he stated, “Israel didn’t release the Palestinian prisoners on the day they were supposed to be freed, and another day passed, and another day, and then another 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem, and ‘poof’…that was sort of the moment.”

 

When Prime Minister Netanyahu informed Secretary Kerry that to go forward with the newly demanded release of terror prisoners demanded by the Palestinians and backed by Indyk would likely bring down the governing coalition, that was the moment that Kerry and the Obama administration knew they were close to getting the new Israeli elections they need to elect an Israeli government more to their liking. This was likely part of the move to place a new face at the head of the Labor Party to play the role of American gadfly making charged statements against Netanyahu and giving press releases which could be used to undermine support for Netanyahu on the way to Israeli elections. Once the wedge has succeeded in breaking apart the current governing coalition in Israel we can expect to see the two more liberal and secular parties being wooed by Labor with some behind the scenes pressures from the United States with Labor Party Head Isaac Herzog in the role filled by Ehud Barak in 1999.

 

This is the impetus surrounding the latest mix of pressures and offers to continue the peace talks and the offer to release Jonathan Pollard to Israel in exchange for Israel releasing possibly four-hundred additional terrorist prisoners and freezing all construction in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Abbas is attempting to force even greater concessions demanding that any extension of talks would require an acceptance of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state along with calling for the satisfying the rest of the previous conditions leveled by Palestinian Authority officials. Of course all of these demands cannot be met and the likelihood is that Secretary Kerry or Martin Indyk will give assurances to Abbas that the United States will work, and possibly even guarantee, that Israel will meet all their demands. This would not be any stretch as they reportedly have already said as much in a letter the Palestinians claim was provided stating such guarantees before they entered these last negotiations.

 

This game has been played ever since the onset of the Oslo Accords with the United States pressing Israel into further and further concessions and the Palestinians steadfast in their refusal to accept anything short of the destruction of the state of Israel. Using the endless pressures placed on the Israelis by their presumed friends, the Americans, the Palestinians have pushed the Israeli position back to where they will soon be left with but one unmet demand, the acceptance of the complete right of return. We can expect that the near future the United States peace team will pressure and threaten the Israelis to accept at least a partial influx of Palestinian refugees as a compromise on the right of return. Once Israel accepts even one single refugee returning, the battle will have been lost and the wall of resistance broken. After that the only item left to debate then is the exact number that Israel must accept to prove they are not hateful and refusing to negotiate in good faith. Trust that the target number of the Palestinian leadership, and thus the United States position though such will never be admitted, will be somewhere close to five-million returning refugees. Do not get this wrong, the entirety of the Oslo process has been the complete destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the forcing of the Israeli Jews back into the statelessness of living in the Diaspora once again. This was the original intent of the British when they first chopped off seventy-eight-percent of the Mandate lands to form the Arab state of Transjordan (Jordan) and then allying with the United Nations in 1947 to attempt to cut the remaining land between the Jews and Arabs despite and contrary to their promises in the Churchill White Papers which guaranteed the British would never further allow for the division of the lands west of the Jordan River. The saving grace for the Israelis has been the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept anything short of the complete destruction of the Jewish State as a direct result of any negotiations, something that would be impossible to force any Israeli government to accept.

 

Thus any presumed gains reaped through negotiations could potentially be lost should Israel ever decide to annul the Oslo Accords over the refusal of the Arab Palestinian’s refusal to fulfill their obligations. This has become an even more probable option as the Palestinians making unilateral moves to gain international recognition and to declare their state independent of negotiations with the Israelis is in direct negation of the terms of the Oslo Accords. With the Palestinian refusal to accept anything short of a complete capitulation and thus the defeat through negotiations of the Jewish State of Israel, the only result is the inevitable ending of the charade of the Oslo Accords and Israeli annexation of at the very least the major Jewish settlements including East Jerusalem. This would entail granting, or at least making the offer, to as many as fifty-thousand Arab Palestinians Israeli citizenships or, minimally, resident visas permitting them to remain in their homes and farms within Israel. Such a resolution would likely be denounced and rejected by much of the rest of the world, much as the annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights has been left unrecognized. This should be of little consequence as actions of much of the world tends to display that the existence of Israel has yet to be fully accepted by much of the world, so why would anything else be any different. The only difficulty is that despite the lack of acceptance by much of the world, the Jews and Israel is and will remain to exist and will persevere against any odds. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether or not the pressures applied and news stories leaked will once again prove sufficient to destroy a governing coalition in Israel and whether a leftist and more pliable coalition can be forthcoming with the able assistance of the current American administration should elections become necessary. This is what was accomplished in 1999 which still did not produce the complete and total surrender by the Israelis then and will not do so now.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

United States to Side with Palestinians in Blaming Israel

There has been much made over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the home for the Jewish People. He has stated that just as Israel has accepted the Palestinian demands for their own homeland, that Israel should receive the same recognition from the Palestinians as being the state for the Jewish People. Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas has repeatedly drawn a line refusing to recognize Israel as the state for the Jewish People claiming that no nation has the right to claim to be home to a particular religion. Obviously Chairman Abbas would make exceptions and claim that Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are not really nations whose existence is based on preference of a single religion or perhaps he would claim that Islam is more than just a religion and since it also has a political structure as part of practicing the religion, that it is therefore different and entitled to establish national entities. Of course the same argument could be made about Judaism as there are rules in the Old Testament which pertain to limits and responsibilities of a King or ruling body in relation to the Jewish People when they would form a government in the Promised Land, Israel.

 

The real reason for both men making these demands is being skirted and avoiding direct mention as part of the debate is the demand from Chairman Abbas that over five-million Palestinian refugees be given the right to resettle in Israel as they left Israel right before or during the 1948-9 war during which half a dozen Arab armies attempted to annihilate the nascent Jewish State immediately after Israel declared their independence from British rule. The original number of refugees has been estimated to have been approximately six-hundred-fifty-thousand individuals, the majority of which left voluntarily in response to the demands of the commanders of the invading Arab forces along with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini who claimed that they should allow room so that the Arab armies could freely slaughter every individual in the new state of Israel and the Arabs could return after the victory and share in the spoils of the defeated Jews; but under United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) rules every descendent of a Palestinian refugee is also to be counted as an individual new refugee and is granted the same status and rights as the original refugees hence forth and permanently into the future generation after generations, a separate and unique definition of who qualifies as a refugee separate and different than the definition used in every other instance of refugee status throughout human history. This special situation is the reason that the original approximately six-hundred-fifty-thousand individual refugees numbers have swelled to the number today being quoted as being over five-million refugees spread out in refugee camps in several Arab nations and the Palestinian ruled areas in the disputed territories. The reason for this separate and unique definition being implemented for the Palestinian refugees was the Arab League demand that these refugees be granted special consideration in perpetuity so as to use their existence as a bludgeon to eventually destroy the Jewish identification of Israel through their eventual return no matter the amount of time that might transpire. To simply have utilized the normative definition of a refugee population which counts solely those individuals who were displaced at the time of the hostilities or other cause of their dispossession would have made the threat or repatriating these refugees to have dissolved over time.

 

The United States State Department had originally agreed with the Israeli demand to have the Palestinians give Israel recognition as being the home for the Jewish People but that changed after the recent meeting between Chairman Abbas and President Obama where Chairman Abbas refused the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the home for the Jewish People. To be completely accurate, Chairman Abbas not only refused to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People, he also refused the two other demands which were presented as necessary compromises the Palestinians would need to make to reciprocate the actions Israel had already agreed to make which were, abandon the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and commit to the peace bringing a final end to the conflict. Chairman Abbas has also refused to compromise on numerous other demands which include but are not limited to the complete removal of every Jew from the lands which will be surrendered to form the Palestinian state, compensation for every last Palestinian refugee including those who return to live within Israel as well as those living elsewhere, automatic and immediate citizenship for those refugees returning to live in Israel, complete removal of all IDF forces from all lands that will make up the Palestinian state, complete return to the 1967 lines with any exchange swaps of land completely dependent on Palestinian approval, Palestinian capital to be in East Jerusalem including all of the Old City, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and the Kotel all of which Palestinian leaders have sworn will return to being denied access and made beyond reach for Jews for all time just as they were when they were under Jordanian control. So, why has the State Department, one may assume that their statement along with that of Secretary of State Kerry also represents a recent change of mind by President Obama, has now chosen to back the Palestinian demand thus directly opposing the Israeli insistence. One idea that would explain such a reversal is that it is much easier and more likely to gain worldwide support to agree with the Palestinians and demand Israeli surrender on any given point than it would be to continue backing the Israeli side and attempt to have the Palestinians actually make any sacrifice in order to gain a homeland; a homeland they could have received in 1948 had they simply agreed with the stipulations of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 which suggested that the lands between the Jordanian border and the Mediterranean Sea be divided evenly into an Arab state and a Jewish state and suggested the boundaries for the two entities. As a General Assembly Resolution, the document never had the rule of law or any enforceability and was simply a recommendation. The Arab League refused to accept United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 as doing so would have meant accepting Israel as a Jewish state, something that the Arab powers have yet to accept to this day. Their refusal and the Zionist acceptance is why Israel came into being and there was no Palestinian state.

 

The latest rumors circulating state that the United States is considering offering Israel the release and return of Israeli Johnathan Pollard, who is serving the twenty-ninth year of a life sentence for spying, if Israel would be willing to continue the negotiations beyond their agreed upon ending date in April. What makes this offer so unusual and unexplainable is that Israel has already committed to continue the negotiations provided the Palestinians are also willing. Israel has not demanded any special consideration though the release of Johnathan Pollard has been an Israeli request for many years now but has been repeatedly denied, though President Clinton had intimated he would release him as part of an agreement concerning negotiations only to then refuse and virtually laugh in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s face implying he was a sucker to have believed that the United States would release Pollard. The sole stipulation from Israel for extending the negotiations is that there are no additional concessions placed on Israel or the Palestinians. The belief is the one-hundred-four terror prisoners Israel will have already released as their concession to bring Chairman Abbas and the Palestinians to the negotiation should be sufficient. So, why then is the Obama Administration now offering to release Pollard as a possible enticement to bring Israel to continue the negotiations? The reason has to do with the meeting between President Obama and Chairman Abbas. When the question was breached about extending the negotiations past their April end date, Chairman Abbas reportedly will only agree to extend talks if Israel allows a “right of return” for all five-million Palestinian Arab refugees, free additional terrorist leaders including Marwan Barghouti among them, and Israel must withdraw from Judea and Samaria. It is obvious that the motivation behind Chairman Abbas making these maximalist demands is to bring the negotiations to an end as continuing them would cause Abbas to lose face and possibly face overwhelming opposition from the leadership of Fatah, the Palestinian Authority and the PLO as well as provide Hamas with more arguments to use in any future elections to paint Abbas as being too lenient concerning Israel and the Jews. So, Abbas is making maximalist demands knowing that there is no possibility that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu can agree to allow a “right of return” for all five-million Palestinian Arab refugees, free additional terrorist leaders including Marwan Barghouti among them, and have Israel must withdraw from Judea and Samaria without losing his coalition and thus face new elections while the Obama Administration is offering to release Israeli spy Johnathan Pollard if Israel will agree to continue the negotiations, something the Israelis have already agreed to continue if possible. What is up with this obviously weird set of circumstances?

 

The release of Pollard is being presented to Israel so that when Secretary Kerry, with the full knowledge and backing of President Obama and the State Department, demands that Israel meet the concessions demanded by Chairman Abbas and the Israelis refuse, as obviously they must as granting the concessions demanded by Abbas would leave nothing to negotiate unless Abbas plans on negotiating to reclaim what he always refers to as “all of Palestine from the River to the Sea,” then all of the blame for the negotiations not being extended can be placed on Israel. The news across the globe the next day and continuing for weeks if not months will be that Israel refuses to extend negotiations with Palestinians as Israel not serious about peace. There will be absolutely no mention of the demands made by Abbas which are beyond reason. The only thing that will matter is Israel even refused the release of Johnathan Pollard rather than accept extending the peace process; this proves that Israel is not a serious partner for peace in the Middle East. Then the European Union and many European nations will be pressured by President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the United States State Department to initiate complete boycotts, sanctions and embargos on Israeli goods, services, academics, financial institutions and anything else that they can think up. The Palestinians will be informed that the United States would completely understand should they react by turning to violent uprising and start a third intifada. Then when the United Nations Security Council is petitioned to grant unilaterally statehood for the Palestinians the United States will argue that they can no longer protect Israel as it had become obvious that it has been Israeli intransigence all along that has blocked peace and their recent refusal to continue negotiations even when offered the release of Johnathan Pollard and the United Nations will establish a Palestinian state implementing the 1949 Armistice Lines, the same lines that the Arab League demanded when hostilities ceased would never be used to implement or denote a border as such would recognize Israeli existence, and then time will tell if they would use force to implement that decision. How immediate after the end of the negotiations would the United Nations establish a Palestinian state; but my best guess at an estimate would be after the coming midterm elections in the United States, though if it would be sooner it would be implemented at the opening ceremonies of the Fall session of the United Nations General Assembly with Chairman Abbas once again returning to the United Nations seeking the destruction of Israel, or at least the initial step, as he has done numerous times previously though he has not dared to petition the Security Council as he has known in the past he faced the United States veto. That may no longer be the case as President Obama, with the able assistance of the State Department, Secretary of State Kerry, and the able advice from Senior Advisor Valerie B. Jarrett, has chosen to side with the Palestinians or at least has chosen to twist the Israelis’ arms as that has proven to be easier than attempting to gain concessions from the intransigent Palestinians. We must remember that Ms. Jarrett once purported in an interview that the United States should use military force to impose a settlement on Israel and that it would be necessary to subsequently defend the Palestinians from the Israelis.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Two Diametrically Contrasted Meetings

In the past half a month President Obama has held meetings in the Oval Office with the leaders of both parties to the Middle East peace talks. These two meetings probably could not have had different agendas or more opposite styles and content. The proof of this fact will be made evident in the coming weeks as Secretary of State Kerry continues to attempt to bring the two sides together reaching a framework towards a final peace agreement. Secretary Kerry’s task was not well served by his boss as President Obama’s treatment and demeanor was likely anything but fair, impartial or equal regarding the two men he met with in these two meetings. What we need to investigate in the coming weeks and will try to predict here are the aftereffects of President Obama’s actions done in the vacuum of his mind which is quite separated from the truths of the real world. Secretary Kerry should be, if he is not already, extremely displeased with the disservice done to him and all of his efforts to mold an agreement between two opposing and unyielding sides.

 

The first of the two Obama hosted meetings was with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The demeanor for this meeting was conveyed even before Prime Minister Netanyahu had left Israel in an article written by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News where President Obama laid out his views on the ongoing peace talks and what was necessary for them to bear fruit. Reading the article was distressing enough, I can only imagine how excruciating doing the interview would have been had I been replaced for Jeffrey Goldberg. Fortunately for Mr. Goldberg, he is one of the President’s last remaining stalwarts in whose eyes the President can do no wrong, especially if it is compromising the Jewish state. For those concerned for my stability after reading the article spawned from this interview, rest assured I settled for numerous commentaries which quoted the interview article and spared myself the direct aggravation. The gist of President Obama’s meanderings in fantasyland, which is where he stores his reality of the Middle East, he had claimed to have gleaned and discerned that all that was necessary for peace was Israel to finally see reality as clearly as he has and make the sacrifices necessary to meet the reasonable, polite requests of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Why Netanyahu was so unreasonable after Abbas had agreed to recognize Israel as the home for the Jewish People and made all the other concessions appeared to mystify the President. Oh, but if it was only so.

 

What was interesting was that after the article hit print and before President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu initially met and hopefully at least shook hands, Mahmoud Abbas had convened an appropriate venue with some Palestinian youths and the ever ready and willing press and once again announced his firm commitment to never ever under any circumstances, pressures or other efforts would he recognize Israel as the state for the Jewish People nor would he ever compromise on the universal “Right of Return” for the five-million plus Palestinian refugees into Israel proper and to their receipt of full compensation for their hardships. Chairman Abbas also had other equally accepting and accommodating statements all of which likely do not echo or even exist in President Obama’s little world he inhabits with elves and woodland creatures that speak with him and praise his glory. The meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu went according to the now familiar route initially but then came an unexpected change. After President Obama had berated Prime Minister Netanyahu, very politely but still condescending, and where the Prime Minister had previously attempted to explain reality to the always delusional President, there came no real retorts, contradiction or other protestations. Reportedly, the Prime Minister simply smiled knowingly, thanked the President, requested he be equally as receptive when meeting Chairman Abbas when they were to meet a week hence and left politely and on easy, if not good, terms. The feeling I got from the descriptions was it was similar to the Principle of a school leaving a meeting with the rowdiest and most troublesome student who always had a raft of excuses for his behavior and simply patted the undisciplined child’s head and walked away knowing that school would let out in the very near future and this child would graduate and no longer be his problem. It was as if Prime Minister Netanyahu has simply resigned to the fact that President Obama is beyond hope when it comes to Israel and that all that is left is to wait for this evil nightmare to end.

 

President Obama, for reasons that bode poorly for Israel according to those of us with suspicious minds and memories of past actions, saw no reason to give any interviews casting doubts and aspersions of the soon to visit Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Chairman Abbas was met with the cordiality of an old friend, a friend who was the first person contacted by the newly sworn in President Obama upon entering the Oval Office immediately after his initial swearing in ceremony in January of 2009, even before calling any actual head of state of any nation be they friend or foe. The fact of that phone call should have sent a chill down the spine of every supporter of Israel and been the sounding of a loud klaxon warning of ill tidings, a rough road ahead and challenges that would crush a lesser spirit to any Zionist or lover of Israel. In the initial press conference before they dove into their meeting President Obama, hemming and hawing aside, spoke hesitantly but warmly seeming to have chosen his words with care to what end we can only presume. I got the feeling that the President was attempting to sound optimistic while not appearing to favor Chairman Abbas’s side of the negotiations or giving too much grist for the mills of the media. Then came Chairman Abbas’s time to speak and he chose not to speak in English and instead spoke what I gather was Arabic, a point that is interesting as Chairman Abbas is perfectly able to speak almost perfectly fluent English and usually chooses to speak in Arabic when he is selecting his phrases carefully and to have hidden meanings which convey underlying thoughts to the Arab world that are not conveyed when the translation is given by his translator. There are often phrases which have dual meaning or imply something completely different from their literal translation which allows Chairman Abbas to later claim that he did not mean or actually state what somebody quotes from the translation and purport that the meaning was lost in the translation which was for some unknown reason not exact or precise enough. He has utilized this tactic regularly and is something that should arouse suspicions immediately when he refuses to speak in English as there is always an angle in his double entendres.

 

As far as what was exchanged between President Obama and Chairman Abbas is up for conjecture but should become readily obvious as the peace talks go forward and we hear of supposed promises given Chairman Abbas. The problem is whether the promises claimed by the good chairman were actually offered or are simply imaginings of his wildest desires is something that the world will never know with absolute certainty. One reason for this is there is very little that President Obama would be hesitant to grant to the Palestinians no matter how deep the resulting wound would be to the Israelis. We know this from the first year of President Obama’s Presidency and the lack of evidence of any real change of heart. Right from the start President Obama made obvious that he knew for sure what the problem was that prevented peace in the Middle East and he set right to work to correct the injustices committed by every leader before him. The first move was to demand that Israel initiate a building freeze, preferably permanently. Eventually President Obama accepted a ten month building freeze by the Israelis and Prime Minister Netanyahu obliged despite the move almost collapsing his ruling coalition, yet somehow he persevered. Did the building freeze lead to the guaranteed peace as expected by President Obama? Well, it did bring Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Abbas together long enough to shake hands and then there was no contact, no exchange of points, no negotiations, absolutely no contact for almost nine months, and then Chairman Abbas contacted President Obama demanding that he pressure the Israelis into making the building freeze permanent until an actual peace had been finalized. For some unfathomable reason, OK, for some obvious reason Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to extend the building freeze. President Obama still forged ahead undaunted and insisted that the borders between Israel and any future Palestinian State be based on the 1967 Lines, in reality the 1949 Armistice Lines that the Arab League refuse to recognize and demanded never ever be construed to act as a border in fact or negotiation. President Obama was not finished and continued in his indomitable manner stating that the capital for any future Palestinian State had to be all of East Jerusalem which would include all of the Old City including the Temple Mount and the Kotel including the Western Wall. By the end of President Obama’s first term virtually any of the Palestinians wildest dreams, items they would have never initiated on their own, had been brought to the fore and presented as the new starting parameters for future negotiations and the Palestinians had taken every demand made of Israel by President Obama and molded them into their new Red Line minimal demands that Israel would now be obligated to surrender hence forth and forever going forward.

 

So, what could the two leaders, President Obama and Chairman Abbas have possibly talked about during their tête-à-tête? The greatest fear that grips the hearts of those who love Israel is that Chairman Abbas and President Obama got into a mutual stroking exercise with each attempting to outdo the other at inventing new demands which could be made of Israel. Who could imagine what these two might hatch together that will become the newest parameter forced onto the peace process making it even more slanted against Israeli existence as the home of the Jewish People. The one thing I was able to glean from the press presentation by Chairman Abbas was his claim that the Palestinians had recognized Israel in 1988 and 1993. Where that statement is truthful, it is also couching a lie. That recognition is the very same recognition that the Palestinians, the Arab world and the Muslim world have always contended was their recognition of Israel, namely that Israel could continue to exist with the Jewish People permitted to live within as long as they accepted their status as Dhimmi under Islamic rulers. Israel as a democratic styled state where the Jews would be permitted to have self-rule is unacceptable to the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians. That is the entire argument based around the right of return of the refugees from both 1948 and 1967 along with their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children and so forth in perpetuity. The normal definition under International Law for refugee has been rejected by the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim worlds which is why their refugees are not under the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and instead are under United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) which has its own unique definition for refugee. Any normative refugee loses their status once they take up residence in another nation, get employment in another nation and are not able to pass their status on to the next generation; their children are citizens of whatever nation they may be born within. Palestinian refugees are refugees even if they take on citizenship of another nation and are not only able to but are obliged to pass that refugee status on to the next generation and every generation afterwards in perpetuity. This is why the original approximately 700,000 refugees, the vast majority or which voluntarily fled their homes at the behest of the invading Arab armies and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, a personal friend of Adolph Hitler and the entire Nazi hierarchy, as they were told that once the invading armies of over a half dozen Arab nations had crushed and destroyed the Jews and their infidel state, they could return and take the spoils of the vanquished Jews. Somehow Israel refused to die but did lose the lands of Gaza, Judea and Samaria with Egypt retaining control over Gaza and Judea and Samaria being held by Jordan who renamed them the West Bank to hide their Jewish roots. When Jordan annexed those lands only the British and Pakistanis recognized their claim and even the Arab League refused to recognize their claim. So, if Jordan did not legally hold Judea and Samaria because they had gained these areas in an offensive war, from whom did they steal and occupy the area, Palestine or Israel? (Hint, throughout recorded history, and likely even before that, only one of the two names was that of an actual nation.)

 

The one item that Prime Minister Netanyahu has actually insisted upon, and even Tzipi Livni is in complete agreement on, is that the Palestinians must be insisted upon to recognize Israel as the state for the Jewish People and have the right to hold a Jewish nationality forever into the future. The reason that this demand is made is because the Israeli leadership insists that any peace agreement reached will have to be the end of the contesting between the Israelis and the Arab world. There must not be any hope or chance that there be future claims insisting that the so-called Palestinian refugees be permitted to return into Israel and possibly, if not likely, change the demographics such that Israel would simply become a binational state, or worse, another Arab state where the Jews would no longer control their destiny. The Palestinian argument has been that Judaism is a religion and that there is no such thing as a Jewish People thus there cannot be a Jewish State as there are no states anywhere in the world which are based on a religious belief. Of course that ignores the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republics of Pakistan and the Islamic State of Afghanistan. So, the statement that the Palestinians have recognized Israel is only partially true as they have only admitted that a state or nation may have the name Israel but have at the same time refused to allow any state thusly named to be Jewish and only recognize it if it is Islamic and Arab with the Jews, if at all permitted, to be permitted to live there as Dhimmi as long as such serves and pleases their Arab Islamic masters. Should at any time the ideas be pressed that they convert to Islam or face the sword, then the Jewish People would no longer be accepted living within the Islamic dominated state of Israel. The refusal to recognize Israel as the state for the Jewish People would result in the termination of the Palestinian refugees’ demands to be permitted to reclaim their lost homes resulting from the Arab invasion to destroy Israel when Israel was first established. Their claim does not hold any real legal standing under International Law for a myriad of reasons of which principally that they lost their homes resulting from a war of aggression where they sided with the aggressors which, by International Law, negates any claims they may have had to lands within the areas lost from such an aggression. There are also reasons stemming from numerous treaties, conferences, legal legislative declarations, accords, mandates and commissions entered into by the victorious allied powers of World War I which pertained to the lands surrendered by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

 

There are a few items we have been given a glimpse of by statements and other venues that will likely be proven in the forthcoming negotiations. We know that Chairman Abbas has placed great significance on Israel releasing the final set of prisoners which were agreed upon as an Israeli concession to bribe Mahmoud Abbas to even sit and talk for nine months. That was one-hundred-six prisoners for two-hundred-seventy-two days of talks; that is a mere 2.72 days of negotiations for each terrorist murderer released from Israeli prisons. That does appear to be a very steep price, especially when considering what the Palestinians had to give in return, nothing, absolutely nothing. The really unamusing item was that from the very first day of the negotiations all we heard from Chairman Abbas was incessant whining over his not also being given another building freeze. It did not matter that when Abbas was presented with choices which included at a minimum a building freeze or the prisoner release, he chose the prisoner release and was informed at that time that Israel would continue to build in the areas where Israel intended to retain the lands through land swaps. Abbas accepted this arrangement and then instantly demanded that Israel also initiate a building freeze because he was Chairman Abbas and that entitles him to anything and everything he desires because he says so. Chairman Abbas stated clearly going into the meetings in Washington with President Obama that he would not make the mistake again and that he would only agree to any extension of the peace talks if and only if Israel agreed to further releases of terrorist prisoners including Marwan Barghouti, an arch terrorist planner who is serving multiple life sentences for the murders of numerous Israeli civilians including women and children of every persuasion including Jews, Druze, Christian, Muslims and others as long as they were Israelis, and a total and comprehensive Israeli building freeze. What other demands Abbas is likely to demand is anybody’s guess. What would Abbas be willing to give in return? Come-on now, you’re joking, right? Abbas does not give, he takes.

 

Abbas does not believe that the Palestinians owe anybody anything but firmly believes that the world owes him everything and anything he desires. He has mismanaged the Palestinian territories to the tune of a 4.8 billion dollar deficit and claims the reason is that he has not been able to collect taxes from the Jews living in Area C of Judea and Samaria. Never mind that Area C is under Israeli security and governance while Area A is under Palestinian security and governance while Area B is under Palestinian governance and mutual Israeli and Palestinian security. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are permitted to collect taxes from the Palestinians living in Areas A and B while those living in Area C pay taxes to Israel. There are absolutely no Jews residing in Area A and very few within Area B while there are Palestinians living within Area C which includes areas of Jerusalem. There are other debts owed by the Palestinian Authority which are not included in that 4.8 billion dollar amount and that is an exorbitant amount to the Israeli Electric Company and unpaid charges to numerous petrol stations throughout Judea and Samaria. Abbas knows that should Israel shut off the electricity for nonpayment or the petrol stations refuse to give fuel to Authority vehicles that all Abbas would need do is complain that Israel has shut off the electricity or refused to fuel their vehicles and the entire world would go into panic mode and come down on Israel forcing her to give away these services simply because the world demands such. Abbas believes that his permitting negotiations that he has absolutely no intention of compromising any single item and will walk away from as soon as he has garnered whatever concessions he can pry from Israel with the able assistance of the rest of the world entitles him to be bribed and honored as if he has actually accomplished some noteworthy and great feat. Therein lies the secret on how to forge a real and actual peace between the Arabs and Israel, deny Abbas any aid, preferential treatment, world tours with accommodations in the finest hotels and restaurants all free of charge, flattery and other spoils until he actually takes concrete steps to make a lasting and working peace. Why would Abbas make peace when by doing so the Palestinians would no longer receive trillions of dollars from foolish governments around the world, especially those in Europe who despite financial troubles still finance Abbas as if he were a messiah, and he is treated with dignity, respect and lauded with the finest accommodations, travel and food where he insists on other nations to grant him treasure so he can continue to live the lifestyle he has become accustomed to. Abbas realizes that all of this ends once peace is attained, thus there will never be peace as long as the gravy train continues. Why give up the life of splendor when if peace is made he will actually need to rule a nation which means picking up the trash, actually developing a workable tax base, establishing industries, maintaining roads and utilities, and paying the bills or losing the electricity and fuel he currently gets for free and takes for granted. Ruling a nation takes work, accepting bribes to negotiate in bad faith and refusing to agree to anything is easy. Until Abbas is brought down to earth and made accountable he will continue to live off of those who are for too willing to pay his way as long as he continues to work to destroy Israel. And do not get that wrong, his sole desire in life beyond even being treated as if he were royalty is to destroy Israel and be acclaimed throughout many areas of this world for having committed a second Holocaust. That is the individual the world holds up as a man of peace and that is the sorriest circumstance of all.  

 

Beyond the Cusp