Israeli Elections Update Three, Future Coalitions

 

The main result of elections is the eventual composition of the governing coalition. There have been rumors claiming, as we did immediately after elections were called, that Bibi Netanyahu will form a coalition with his Likud Party and the left centrist merged Lapid-Gantz Blue White Party. The purpose behind this is to repeat the same mistakes of both Gaza and South Lebanon, except this time it will be the Shomron. Most of the border will fall along the anti-terror barrier dividing Jerusalem once more. We believe that instead of a total partitioning of all of East Jerusalem, the region to be gifted to Mahmoud Abbas will merely include the predominantly Arab neighborhoods with the Jewish Quarter and the entirety of the Temple Mount remaining under Israeli rule and control. There are those who have claimed, as has Naftali Bennett, that this plan was worked out between Bibi Netanyahu and President Trump when they discussed the future of the region after President Trump announced the pulling of American forces from Syria. We cannot validate nor refute these claims but believe they are simply used to add fuel to the fire, so to speak, of Mr. Bennett’s claims. As far as Bibi Netanyahu is concerned, this is the path to a legacy and a Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, should this come to pass, it will almost certainly have even worse results than did the retreat from South Lebanon giving Israel Hezballah and over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles pointed at every inch of the nation and the Gaza Disengagement which resulted on Hamas and Islamic Jihad launching rockets over half the nation at will. Both of these borders are now basically controlled by Iran who can yank Israel’s strings at will and from either border, or eventually both borders at once.

 

Bibi Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz

 

There could be a completely different result from the election with the Blue White Party receiving the plurality of mandates and forming a coalition with Labor, Meretz and other left wing parties and anyone else as required to reach the magic number of sixty-one. The wildcard for this proposition are the Arab parties who also have a coalition which will likely get between eight and twelve, possibly as many as fifteen or so, mandates which could make or break any attempt by the Blue White Party to form a ruling coalition. We spoke about the change with Jewish Home and National Union bringing Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) into their electoral list at the urging, more like brow beating, of Bibi Netanyahu in yesterday’s article. We had predicted the result of such a merger and these results are coming true in spades. Rabbi Benny Lau made references against the merger, which is fine as he is an avowed liberal who loathes teachings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (ז״ל), but he made references against fellow Jews which should never be used. Referring to Jews using the terms he utilized is an insult and a disgrace to the memory of millions of Jews and their surviving families. But what about the coming elections, who will win and who will lose, that is the big question.

 

Rabbi Benny Lau

 

The elections end results are going to depend heavily on how three parties do and whether or not Bibi Netanyahu desires to go with a right wing government or follow a similar path as his Likud predecessor, Ariel Sharon (ז״ל), who took a large block from Likud and merged with groups from across the political spectrum forming the ill fated Kadima Party and executed the Gaza Disengagement under pressure from President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This was an epic disaster, and that is an understatement. Before Prime Minister Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a desperate and ill-planned withdrawal from Southern Lebanon leading to Hezballah filling the void left behind and now perched on the northern border as a Sword of Damocles over the entirety of Israel. An interesting aside is that both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon were generals in the IDF, which kind of puts a large dent in the argument by Gantz that with him you get the wisdom of four IDF Generals of which many were Chiefs of Staff. With the results of the previous generals, including Chiefs of Staff, we are not sure that advertising having a plethora of generals is all that wise though there are those who believe that nothing could ever go wrong with such people running the nation. We only hope that such is so.

 

Former General Benny Gantz has designs on being Prime Minister which begs the question, where does he stand on such things as the Oslo Accords, a Palestinian State and the Gaza and Lebanon disengagement/withdrawals. Well, wait no longer, as he gave a recent interview since his declaration to form the Resilience Party where he answered these questions on the record telling Yediot Ahronot the following, as reported here.

“The central question is a security question. We need to ensure the State of Israel’s security. Now, we have here a question of interests – and even Bibi [Netanyahu] said this at his Bar-Ilan address [in 2009] – that we don’t want to rule over anyone else. We need to find a way for us not to be governing other people.
“The [Gaza] Disengagement was carried out based on the State of Israel’s policy concerns. All the sides involved got high scores for the ability to not tear the country apart when [the Disengagement] was carried out.
“It was a legal undertaking, which was adopted by the Israeli government and carried out by the IDF and the settlers in a way that was painful, but also good. We need to take the lessons [we learned there] and apply them elsewhere.”

 

His running mate is Yair Lapid, a longtime supporter of forming a Palestinian Arab State within the Shomron, even at the price of having to relocate the Jews residing there. Both he and the general, as well as at least two of the other generals the list presents, have made references to hard choices and difficult but necessary concession and even that if we would just find the right balance and sacrifice lands, then there would be peace. Why we would have peace after retreating to the same borders which had produced terrorism before the Six Day War and the borders which resulted in the Six Day War and expect that they would bring peace and tranquility this time is simply folly. The plans which have been bandied about have an even darker and more adverse side than simply retreating. The repeatedly proffered idea would be to retreat to the anti-terror barrier plus east Jerusalem but allow the IDF to remain in order to prevent terror attacks and to gather intelligence to protect the people of Israel. Now, there will be those who ask what is wrong with such an idea. Well, the main problem is that was tried before in a place called southern Lebanon and it led to serious repercussions. Once Israel retreats behind whatever line which is chosen, that results in Israel surrendering those lands to the Palestinian Arabs and whatever government they choose or end up having over them. We tried the first thing, the disengagement in Gaza, which resulted in three terror wars thus far and who knows what will come in the future. There have been rockets, suicide bombers sent while presumably going for medical treatments, infiltration tunnels, incendiary kites and balloons, colorful balloons with poisoned candy attached, colorful balloons with explosives in the shape or inside toys with contact detonators and who can even guess what will be the next exiting plan by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their masters in Tehran to try and murder Israeli civilians. So by pulling back and granting them lands to make a go of a state, we have repeated Gaza only with lands which overlook Tel Aviv. This means that these lands would no longer be Israeli in any means as compared to now where all the land is by right still belonging to Israel, and giving them a state rules out Israeli ownership. Leaving the IDF or any forces within what is, for all intents and purposes, Palestinian Arab land outside of Israel, the IDF would be an occupying force and this would play well for all those whose lives are thrilled by scourging Israel. The IDF would be facing almost daily attacks either from what would have been terrorists but now could rightfully claim to be freedom fighters attempting to oust a foreign military from their country. The young Israeli soldiers who would die as a result would mount and there would be another set of mothers of the IDF demanding to bring their sons home. Eventually, between domestic demands and foreign pressures, the IDF would be pulled and then there would be an Arab terror state siting overlooking Ben Gurion International Airport with shoulder fired anti-aircraft weapons along with lines of rocket launchers with line-of-sight for targeting downtown central Tel Aviv. The borders would be returned pretty much along the former 1949 armistice lines known as the Green Line. We discussed the differences between the Green Line and the anti-terror barrier here. The map shown at the link depicts the entirety of the security zone and much of the areas colored in blue will be surrendered and the furthest west (left) area is where the border will result being drawn. Such a plan would leave close to three-quarters of a million Jews homeless with over half also losing their place of employment. Further, after the Arabs destroy everything built by Israel, there will be tens of thousands or more Palestinian Arabs without a place of employment. Any plans for allowing the Israeli companies to remain operational and run by the Palestinian Arabs will fail just as the greenhouses in Gaza were destroyed and the pipes and other materials used to build rockets and launchers.

 

Tel Aviv Now Before Green Line Peace
and
Tel Aviv the Day After Green Line Peace

 

The above image is equally as likely to be the result even should the anti-terror barrier become the border as they are almost indistinguishable, especially since any protest by Arab interests, including Palestinians, which petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court and resulted in a decision for the route to be redrawn to comply with whatever demands were demanded. So, simply replace Green Line with Security Barrier and the rest remains the same as the Arabs will, in either case, hold much of the Judean hills overlooking central Israel and over three-quarters of Israeli infrastructure and about the same percent of the population. The one thing which will become true is that should such a plan be instituted and the Arab Palestinians be given their third nation, with Jordan and Gaza being their first two, soon after the above picture becomes reality and rockets are sent raining down on central Tel Aviv and a couple of the skyscrapers are brought down; the hue and cry from even the most pro-Arab Palestinian leftists will demand that the entirety of the Shomron not only be retaken, but for the Arabs to be pushed from the land and it be cleansed of any Palestinian Arab presence. This is what it will take as when the Gaza Disengagement was taken as a means of giving the Arab Palestinians a chance to prove they could have a viable civilized nation, the Bush administration promised that Israel could just retake Gaza and end the problem. Anybody looking at Gaza today can see how well that idea was implemented, as Gaza remains a terrorist stronghold for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their Iranian sponsors. The probability is that within the first year after such another horrific disengagement is carried out, then Hamas will either overthrow Abbas or win in a landslide if elections were to be held, which is why Abbas never allows elections as such would throw him from power and his life would be endangered. But somehow, governments seem to never learn from their past mistakes and insist that this time they will do it the right way. When people insist that such is delusion and not logical, they disregard those warnings and will always claim that those claiming it will not work are just too negative and have no faith. When the predictions prove correct, then they claim that you are a racist or fascist and with the echoing media repeating these claims, in time, they become accepted fact and then you can be ignored when they go to try the same failed policies elsewhere. The problem this time is they are taking the two largest errors of the past and rolling them together to make the way they will get it right this time. Sometimes all you can do is shout from the hills and shake your head sadly as those who never seem to know better make the same tired mistakes of the past, and this is true of for too many ideas and concepts which history should have wadded-up and tossed into the trashcan of history. Somehow, bad ideas seem to be repackaged and sold as new every so many years and the youth and the fools gravitate to them as if they will bring in all the promises made the last time are repeated and swallowed whole by the public. Somethings are simply too sad to even rant against, but what else can one do?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Rumored Plans Imply Unity Government Imminent

 

There have been persistent rumblings that Prime Minister Netanyahu was in the late stages of replacing Jewish Home in his coalition with the Zionist Coalition of the Labor Party including Tzipi Livni and one or two of her Party’s members and the Labor Party. Politically this would appear to be a dangerous move as it could also serve to tear Netanyahu’s Likud Party apart with those truly loyal to Netanyahu and what some are referring to as his leftist leanings remaining with him and the nationalists possibly defecting to Jewish Home. Any move by any members of Likud to side with Jewish Home against a merging with Yitzhak Hertzog’s Labor Party risking Netanyahu replacing them with more left leaning, compromise through surrender wing of the Likud Party. For all those claiming that such would not be possible as Netanyahu had to have learned his necessary lesson from Arik Sharon’s forming a coalition of the willing under the banner of his own Party which he called Kadima and was molded carefully to allow for the surrender of Gaza to the Arabs, as a warning that such is political suicide. But on the other hand Prime Minister Netanyahu was a part of the loyalist Likud members who remained in the coalition as a Likud Member up until the very end and thus may have taken an entirely different lesson from the ill-fated Arik Sharon recasting of his ruling coalition without requiring new elections as a potential route to placating those nagging problems from all sides.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu has to read the polls and political winds and realize that he is by far the most powerful political inevitability that Israel has witnessed, ranking even higher than Arik Sharon. A recent poll showed Netanyahu’s inevitability for the office of Prime Minister were elections to be held today with his topping every list of potential opponents by safe and unassailable numbers. Such a situation has to make one believe that nothing they could do would damage their position at the top of the heap, especially if such moves were seen as cutting the legs out from under any political threat from the leftist end of the political spectrum. The one consideration not looked into was the potential for a right of Netanyahu political figure rising were Netanyahu to move leftwards and make that unity government everybody claims would be required in order to make the Prime Minister’s position unassailable. Perhaps those taking these polls see Prime Minister Netanyahu as so right wing that there are no politicians in Israel today to the right of Netanyahu. Of course Israelis to the right of Netanyahu could easily argue that point and do so with vigor. What is making these rumors persist has been the adopting by Yitzhak Hertzog of a unified stand against the Iran nuclear agreement standing aside Netanyahu providing him the political cover to take such a strong stand.

 

The rumor that persists is that Prime Minister Netanyahu remained in Arik Sharon’s government for as long as he did was because he agreed with the whole plan which was never implemented where Gaza being turned over to the Arabs would have been followed within a year of turning over of almost all of Judea and Samaria all in order to forge a seemingly maximalist Palestinian body which Israel could rightfully claim was the definition by all of the borders of an Arab state named Palestine was and should be and by surrendering these lands Israel was unilaterally ending the entire Arab Israeli conflict as if forming an Arab state was the end of any protests and further demands. The reality, something we fear may soon come to fruition, is that by Israel surrendering all the lands that the United Nations, European Union, Russia and even many Arabs consider not only fair but beyond what any Israeli politician could survive relenting for the formation of the demanded Arab state, that Netanyahu would be rewarded with peace and an end to the claims by the Arabs for Israel to surrender more lands and not only would the entirety of the Arab-Israeli conflict be over but Netanyahu would be assured of the next Nobel Peace Prize.

 

But there is an elephant in the room that apparently has found a place to hide in the open. Mahmoud Abbas has made it adamantly clear that even if granted such borders that doing such would not end the war against Israel. Saeb Erekat has made it just as clear that the only conceivable end to the Arab Israeli problem would be borders replacing Israel with an Arab state whose first acts would be the extermination of the over six-million Jews residing in the Holy Lands and the destruction of every Synagogue and Jewish holy site. Hamas leadership has included all of this plus the eradication of the entirety of the Jewish peoples worldwide. Apparently the sole people who see giving the Arab fanatics exactly what the rest of the world imagines would be a fair and equitable solution ending the problem overlooks the actual problem, this is not a struggle over land but rather a religious struggle over who has a right to live anywhere, not just from the River to the Sea. The Arab-Israeli conflict is but a minute part of the Islamist puzzle and one the majority of the Islamic world could even bother to stop and utter an opinion about as currently there are far larger fish to fry, namely the conquest of Europe. There are refugees to send as the advance shock troops which will further tax the European Union and individual European Governmental ability to pay out the funds which will most certainly be required when these refugees have resided and gained identity cards and decided which country they can receive the greatest amount of benefits for the least amount of effort as many of these refugees were not overly wealthy in Syria or whatever other nation they originated from and view the governments of Europe as potential gift baskets to be tapped for all they are worth. Nowhere in these plans is there a chapter on the Arab-Israeli conflict though there is a diagram in the appendix as seen below defining the areas between Lebanon-Syrian Border and the Egyptian Sinai-Negev border defined as the River to the Sea meaning the Jordan River to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea marked Palestine.

 

 

 

 

The Arab and Muslim worlds regard the Arab-Israeli conflict as being over; decided and any loud noises from the area must be celebratory gun fire and most certainly not a potential renewed conflict. The problem is that the rest of the world sees the Arab-Israeli conflict as the seminal cause of all evil committed in the world by the powers of Islam. As long as the rest of the world holds Israel responsible for any and all acts of violent extremism from within the Islamic world simply because they have refused to just give away the candy store, the mantra of it’s those Israeli Jews causing the problems because of their selfish demands for defendable borders as the seminal cause of every last injustice and criminal intent in the world. The Arabs and the terror wielding kleptocratic criminal leaders in Ramallah all realize that as long as their war is solely with Israel they can do no wrong and Israel will be blamed for all sins, period. They hold dear to the idea first put forth by Yasser Arafat when he was, as the supposed joke goes, asked by Osama bin Laden (fill in your favorite living evil genius here in place of Osama bin Laden for modern context), ‘How it was that I, Osama bin Laden who has a few paltry attacks while the Arabs under Arafat’s control have been responsible for the murder of near uncountable people worldwide is supported and lavished with honors and given podiums the world over to spit his vitriol?’ To Which Arafat replied, ‘Osama, my dear friend, it is simple. You attack people and take cause against the imperial western governments while I claim to simply wish to take the land from the Jews and murder Israeli Jews. The world supports what it is I plan to accomplish and will forgive my every transgression providing I can frame it all as part of getting the Jews to surrender their nation and once more become the living embodiment of all evil the world desires to heap upon an innocent people and I promise to give them what they want.’

 

Now we have Mahmoud Abbas, otherwise known as Yasser Arafat without the two day beard growth and with a suit and tie, who is giving the world the same old swan song. Muslim terrorists are gunning innocent civilians in the streets of Paris and countless other tragedies as, London, New York, Madrid, Bali, Mumbai, Beslan, Moscow, Boston and the assassination of Robert Kennedy yet the world blames the Jewish State. Hatred of the Jewish State of Israel is this generation’s anti-Semitic target of choice, and now the Israeli Prime Minister may be planning to fall into the trap of believing that by doing just this one last sacrifice and the world will love him and the Jewish State. Doesn’t he get it that no matter what he does, if it leaves one Jew free to rule themselves then the world will demand they surrender the spot on which they stand and hound them to death every step they take claiming they are moving just to change where the spot is drawn. The blame has to be the Jew’s fault and thus it is the Jewish State’s fault for Paris as if only they had given back more and sacrificed more Jews; for London as if only they had given back more and sacrificed more Jews; for Hebdo as if only they had given back more and sacrificed more Jews; for London, New York as if only they had given back more and sacrificed more Jews; for Bali, Mumbai, Beslan, Moscow, Boston, the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the Barbary Pirates plundering. It matters not what the latest and greatest tragedy is, the reason always is traced back by those intrepid reporters for the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Fox News, AFP, al Jazeera, AP, Reuters and whomever else is reporting, even Israeli media such as Haaretz; Israel must return to the peace talks even if they are left sitting at the table while the world burns down around them. They must give up other concessions to please and mitigate the great insult which Arafat, Abbas, Erekat or whomever is tasked with sitting that close to the Israeli representative faces and is forced to suffer. As the hot microphone discourse between then French President Sarkozy and United States President Obama went on privately unknowingly with one of their microphones still live;

“I can’t stand him. He’s a liar,” Sarkozy said of Netanyahu.
Obama replied, “You’re tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day.” 

 

 

 

 

So now it is starting to look as if Netanyahu has finally tripped and is about to fall beyond the cusp and surrender all of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem. He will remove upwards of three-fourths of a million Jews destroying their cities and communities and destroying their livelihoods and dreams. He will claim it is all occupied lands which belong to the Arabs. Netanyahu will claim by making it Arab lands, he will have found the magic bullet to puncture the obsessive vitriol suffered by Israel at the hands of the rest of the world. This, Netanyahu will claim, finished the dream first put forth by Arik Sharon who was struck down before he could accomplish his ingenious plans. Netanyahu will claim to know this because of his bravely standing with Sharon until he didn’t stand with Sharon and now he is completing that which Sharon began and given the Jewish State the legitimacy it deserves and has lacked until this point. Netanyahu will have now given those who took the name Palestinian for its name recognition and power to steal the story of the Jews, the recognition that their claims to all the land are valid as why else would the Jews give up even half of Jerusalem if it were actually their historic Capital city. This, Abbas, Erekat, Rabbo and the rest will claim proves everything they have ever said including from the River to the sea Palestine must be free. When Netanyahu loses the support of Jewish Home Party and one-third of the Likud Party he will simply make a deal with Herzog, which will be blessed by the Supreme Court as Netanyahu surrendered just as they have demanded nearly forever. Of course this new coalition of the willing to surrender to every demand no matter its legitimacy because we must appear reasonable before the world, thus the party name we have chosen is Quisling Party. Is there any sanity left in this world or has everybody gone beyond the cusp?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

A Zionist Approach to a Palestinian Solution

 

There are so many rumors and misconceptions that one normally has no idea where to start. Perhaps taking a broader look and see what are some of the realities which even many of Israel’s detractors know are valid but are want to ever admit as to admit anything which shows Israel in an acceptable light, let alone a good light, is simply untenable as if we start to recognize those things Israel has attempted to do and offers made to try and reach a fair deal which meets almost every last demand made of her, where would such admissions end? Israel must be demonized and all unfair treatments must originate because of Israel existing at all. The reality is the pro-Arab Palestinian supporters refuse to admit, believe or allow any facts which might place Israel as having made any concessions ever to meet Arab demands because Israel must be drawn in the most unfavorable light and in hateful pictures and framed as pure evil on the brink of committing genocide at any moment. The Six Day War and its second attempt six years and a few odd months later known as the Yom Kippur War where Israel was attacked on the most solemn of days in the Jewish calendar, our Day of Atonement where virtually every Jew is in Synagogue and that particular time even two-thirds of the IDF soldiers and officers were on leave and Israel took precious hours before she was capable of repelling the assaults which from Syria were well on their way to Tel Aviv rolling across the Galilee while the Egyptians were dashing across the Sinai Peninsula and had surrounded and captured a whole division at the Suez Canal guarding the border from the Six Day War at half strength at best and completely under manned and easily overpowered. Israel turned the tide and was half way to Damascus from the Golan Heights, the previous armistice line and across the Suez Canal and advancing on Alexandria and Cairo when the world finally decided to protest the fighting. While Israel was being slaughtered and destroyed the world sat silent but once Israel had obviously turned the tides and within a few hours became the side advancing and approaching the aggressors’ capitals and major cities the world could stand the fighting no more. Despite the fact that had the tide not been turned nobody would have sparked the slightest objection but the world including the Soviet Union, Britain, France, the United States, the rest of the Security Council as well as the General Assembly, the Arab League, NATO, and a plethora of other groups, nations and associations as well as every human rights and anti-war group finally had to end this atrocious situation which could not be stomached; Israel must be prevented from spreading more violence and destruction, their advance is an affront.

 

Israel heeded the demands and even retreated back to the armistice lines from 1967 despite now holding both sides of the Suez Canal. She surrendered control of that vital waterway and once back where the Suez Canal was the border Israel did not press that she should share in its management as the forces of the world demanded that Egypt must control the Waterway even if one side was Israeli held. The entirety of nations sided with Egyptian control denying Israeli use of the Suez Canal as that was to be the normal and accepted fact of things. Israel was not to be permitted free access to the Suez Canal even if the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) occupied one side of the waterway. That is the world’s idea of fair and balanced. When time came to make peace with Egypt Israel offered Egypt every inch of land they had controlled but Egypt admitted that she had been occupying Gaza and that Gaza actually belonged to Israel and Egypt returned Gaza to Israeli control. Is Israel credited with returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control as part of their peace agreement? It does not appear as Israel is still denigrated as being an aggressor whose desires are to steal Arab lands at every corner, well, I guess if it has to be mentioned, except that one when Israel returned the Sinai but that was only done because Israel knew they could not defend those longer borders, yes, that is what we will tell ourselves, Israel had no other choice tactically. Never mind when Egypt had the advantage of the greatest surprise attack possible they still were routed by Israel who knew she could not defend that border? That does not appear to match the historic picture. But Israel must never be credited with doing anything noble or decent, Israel must be denigrated and trodden into the mire and never allowed to clean herself. Israel must be vilified at every opportunity thus Israel returned the Sinai because she was weak and unable to defend it must be the reality we sell the world, Israel was not being magnanimous after all, what could the Sinai provide Israel? The Sinai only has all of Egyptian oil wells and would present Israel with several multiples of size and depth and would allow Israel to defend her waterway to the Red Sea and on to the Indian Ocean and Asia and the Pacific coast of the Americas. What would Israel want with all of that? Those who are Israel detractors cannot admit the obvious as to do so would allow for that first crack in their arguments which are made of the most fragile of structures that are crafter out of lies, deceit and pure hatred, anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism, anti-Zionism and nothing more.

 

Camp David Talks on a Break as President Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ehud Barak Stroll the Grounds of the Complex Located Ten Miles North of Frederick, Maryland

 

 

Then there were the offers during the final weeks of the administration under President Bill Clinton where Yasser Arafat walked out of the talks in Paris in disgust, that we can admit, but why disgust. Yasser Arafat felt betrayed and trapped so he fled. He knew that the end of his objections had been breached so he had his car and driver running and waiting in the front of the hotel to make good his escape. The reality hit him and he felt the walls closing in as President Clinton demanded an early morning meeting for the signing of the agreement, the very agreement Arafat had demanded just the night before that had to be why President Clinton was so excited that he called an early morning meeting with both sides to be in attendance. The trap had been set and was about to be sprung, the trap set in motion by Arafat’s own demands and words, that the worst of traps when one’s own words made the trap. The late afternoon President Clinton had met privately with Yasser Arafat and demanded politely as was his way of disarming even the arch terror master who invented aircraft hijacking, suicide murdering bombers and a plethora means of death and destruction was now asked the question no Arab Palestinian ever cares or is willing to answer, namely, what would you accept to make peace. Yasser Arafat was trapped by that wily master, President Clinton had done the unthinkable, the unprecedented, he had demanded to know what would seal the deal of Arafat and he would have to give an answer. What could he demand that the Israeli Prime Minister could never accept, what would guarantee rejection. Yasser Arafat knew he had to sell a lie because President Clinton would never in a million years accept his demand that Israel be destroyed, its Jews turned into slaves to serve the Arabs, which would never be accepted by President Clinton. What would President Clinton accept and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack would have to refuse. Yasser Arafat took a gamble and demanded all of the West Bank and whatever part of Jerusalem or land swaps, things we can only guess but he gave his word, his worthless word to President Clinton who probably walked him back from the extreme demands but not so far that Arafat feared the worst, Israeli agreement. But the breakfast meeting gave away the worst possible situation, President Clinton had also pressed Barak to meet those demands Arafat had agreed were acceptable, what to do, run, that must have made Arafat feel like a trapped rat and all he could do was flee with Madeline Albright, the United States Secretary of State, waddling and shuffling as fast as he little body permitted calling after Arafat to come back and fulfill his promise, but the car was running, the door open and the driver behind the wheel, the getaway went off as required by the dire situation, peace with Israel the alternative.

 

Madeline Albright and Ehud Barak Press Conference in Israel Discussing Peace Process and Camp David Talks During Meetings Before Start of Talks Between Prime Minister Barak and Yasser Arafat

 

 

Perhaps President Obama who claimed he wanted to have his Presidency reflect the best of the former Presidents, the Presidencies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps in the back of his mind also James Madison, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Jefferson Clinton and even once I believe even Ronald Reagan might have snuck in there in a moment of weakness, weakness from President Obama, what am I thinking. Actually, should President Obama desire to make the world remember him for making the impossible possible and actually reach an agreement between Israel and the Arab Palestinians led by Mahmoud Abbas then there is a suggestion I would love to place in his ear that might just make such a deal achievable. President Clinton had the right idea, don’t press Israel, just sit down with Mahmoud Abbas, mano-a-mano, one-on-one, in a place where two men can ignore the bothersome world of political gamesmanship and discuss real problems and find real solutions and work with Mahmoud Abbas, President Obama by himself with Mahmoud Abbas by his self and allow that gifted oratory which was supposed to swoon the rest of the world and give it all President Obama can with lilt and tenor voice with whispers and exclamations of dire demands and hammer out an agreement which President Obama honestly believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu might be persuaded to accept and get the one item President Clinton miscalculated on, get Abbas to sign the offer such that if Netanyahu signs the document as well then there is peace. Let the Arab Palestinians finally once again tell the world in writing what it will take for peace to be achieved. If Abbas is honest he will hand President Obama a map without any Israel on it and everything between the Jordan and the Sea as Palestine and President Obama will have his answer, this is a war to the last soul and nothing less. But if Abbas signs an acceptable agreement which has even the most remote possibility that Netanyahu will accept, then President Obama will not only have earned that Nobel Peace Prize but made himself eligible to be the only man in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize twice and he will deserve such. What about it President Obama? Great risks is what makes great men, risk not gain not, risk it all and maybe gain the accolades you know you deserve but have been denied, take this chance, take the offensive and ask Abbas what he will agree to for peace and what he is willing to give up. Unfortunately, I honestly suspect that Mahmoud Abbas heard from Yasser Arafat about the Clinton entrapment and has been warned against being even remotely reasonable and Abbas will demand everything right down to that last piece of sand on any Tel Aviv beach and the furthest tip of a pier in Eilat and the furthest heights of Mount Hermon and all seven hills of Yerushalayim, nothing less. Then President Obama, himself, should be obliged to tell the world of the intransigence of Mahmoud Abbas and how when faced with the opportunity to make reasonable requests and have the State he claims to desire, refused to accept any State of Israel. As that is the truth, then the world needs to hear it and the truth will set all the world free from this folly which simply continues to take lives needlessly. We know Hamas’s answer, every Jew on the planet dead, that is their idea for peace. Let us see if Abbas is any less the lunatic and desires a state or simply desires the slaughter of the Jews as many suspect. Prove one side or the other and then be honest before the world. Is that too much to ask, because if it is, then we need to find some world leader willing to go that extra mile and find that path which President Clinton found and once again risk taking that otherwise untrod path one more time and seek a real answer, a real truth and a real peace.

 

Beyond the Cusp