I recommend spending some time looking at their materials. By and large they are right about Israel's security needs, and the more people understand this, the better.
They are also wrong. Their conditions for peace are so far from anything the Palestinians will ever accept as to be effectively non-starters; indeed, they don't seem particularly interested in how their positions will impact a future Palestinian state. This is the reason Ehud Barak departed from the positions of his predecessors exactly ten years ago, in July 2000 at Camp David. He thought he was approaching the end of the negotiations, he expected to reach an agreement with the Palestinians to end the conflict, to partition the joint homeland, and to live in peace. This peace, he felt, would override many of the security imperatives which had informed Israel's positions until that moment.
There was an important precedent for Barak's gamble, his willingness to abandon long-held security considerations in the hope that this would enable a peace that would nullify them: The abandonment of the eastern part of the Sinai in the late 1970s. Israel went to war twice over the Tiran Straights, at the southern tip of Sinai, in 1956 and in 1967; a broad consensus of Israelis agreed that in any future peace agreement Egypt would have to accept Israel's presence at Tiran. Then, in 1978, Begin broke the mold and we've had peace with Egypt ever since. Not European-style peace, but a total lack of killing, which isn't bad. Begin accepted that peace would happen only when both sides felt they were getting an acceptable deal; the JCPA papers don't offer that to the Palestinians, so they aren't truly conditions for peace.
Yet Begin's precedent, as emulated by Ehud Barak and in 2008 by Ehud Olmert, is no longer relevant. Look at the picture used by the JCPA: a simple, stark image, which says far better than any potential set of 1000-words why there can't be peace:
That's Tel Aviv, as seen from the West Bank. Would you risk putting enemy guns on the hill the picture was taken from? And if you would, can you at least comprehend why we're not going to take your opinion very seriously, even if you're the president of the United States?Since 1993 Israel has performed a series of concrete actions on the ground, changes in the reality, which have weakened its control over the Palestinians. Not one of them resulted in any advantage durable enough to survive two days of violence in September 2000, when the Palestinians launched the 2nd Intifada. Since 2000 the pendulum has swung both ways, with Israel reconquering the West Bank in 2002, and slowly lifting its hand since 2004; with Israel fully evacuating Gaza in 2005, then reconquering less than a third of it in 2009 and again relinquishing direct control and now, slowly, also indirect control. The wary recognition of having an independent Palestine next door, which was the expression of Rabin's position, has been replaced by a Likud prime minister publicly accepting the goal of a sovereign Palestine.
And in all that time, I dare you to find one single concrete step taken by the Palestinians to assure us they, too, are ready for partition. Not words, which can be uttered in English today and denied in Arabic today. Actions. Find me one. Because I could easily write a 10,000-word article about all the things they've done which prove the opposite; actually, I expect I could limit myself to the first half of 2010.
This is of crucial importance. Reaching peace with the Palestinians will mean Israel gives up all those essential security measures spelled out by the JCPA. It will require a gamble with our lives, in the immediate meaning that people we know will die if it goes wrong, if not we ourselves. There's nothing theoretical or hypothetical about this: it will be real people, really dead, just as it already has been. For this to happen the Palestinians need to convince us they can be trusted with our lives. At the moment, nothing comes to mind - nothing - to indicate they can be trusted.
33 comments:
What do you mean the Palestinians haven't taken concrete steps for peace? They clearly murdered only 727 Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada when they *clearly* could've killed more! How is their restraint not a symbol of good faith?
so that's the ridge on the West Bank overlooking Tel Aviv which has even Jeffrey Goldberg worrying
thanks for having taken the trouble to fish it out of the report.
Silke
I do not believe that an independent Palestine would lead to peace. I am not that naive. I understand that entire generations of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have been propagandized into Jew-hatred, although unlike 4infidels I do not believe that this is inherent to the Palestinians being primarily Muslim.
The reason I support letting the West Bank go, more along the Green Line, is because I believe that it will give Israel greater freedom to defend itself within the borders. Most of the Palestinian's non-Muslim allies are realistic enough to understand that getting rid of Israel is a non-possibility. They would loose interest in the Palestinians once the West Bank goes free. This would help Israel diplomatically in numerous ways. Israel's self-defense within the 1948 borders is harder to criticize than Israeli self-defense within Gaza and the West Bank.
There is also value with signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians even if its a sham. At least Israel has something to hang over their heads diplomatically. The relatively shaminess of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt has gotten Egypt to work with Israel on containing Hamas.
Lee
and when they start shooting rockets from that ridge and Israelis start dying you'll say ooops? and when some more are dying fighting their way up that ridge to silence the rocket throwers you say "who would have thought?" It's human life that's at stake not smart dinner table talk. Visit Omaha Beach and get an impression what it must have meant to scale that rock while under fire and then tell me again that you should just trust your opponents and everything will be allright.
Whoever you listen to on diplomacy over military options has gotten a lot of things wrong, if he/she is not of the kind who wishes that the whole troublesome problem of Israel might vanish in one big ooops and life wherever after that will be pure milk and honey day in day out.
As the run-up to the 6-day-war showed when things get tight Israel finds that to enforce previously given guarantees right now happens to be inconvenient to those who had guaranteed them. But of course that's a lesson from more than 40 years ago so it isn't relevant any longer and Israelis should better forget it happened.
Silke
Well, you're right about this, anyway.
Of course you wouldnt trust this hill to the Palestians. On the other hand, its their land, both the hill and Sheikh Munis, the peaceful village that was obliterated by Las Vegas East (tel aviv). SO there is only one solution that is just. Leave and give the land back to the Palestinians
Strategic depth is even more vital in the missile age for the simple reason your enemy can only hit you from territory he controls. I think Ya'acov and most Israelis now appreciate in hindsight how stupid Ehud Barak's decision was to abandon South Lebanon to Hezbollah. That brought almost all of northern Israel within range of Hezbollah rockets. Now imagine a similar scenario with the abandonment of Yesha. It would be very difficult for Israel to have a normal life with Arabs firing from the hills of Yesha down to the heavily populated coastal plain below. In short, Israel cannot entrust its security to a piece of paper, even one backed up by foreign peace-keeping forces. Only an IDF presence can guarantee a peace, if one is ever reached, will last.
Lee, your scenario presupposes the world would accept Israel's right to defend itself. It didn't accept it in Gaza and it won't accept in Yesha. I see no way it is possible to defend Israel with a waist nine miles wide without a permanent IDF presence in the hills above the coastal plan. A Palestinian entity would of necessity have to have severely circumscribed authority if Israel is to survive. A full fledged Palestinian state and an independent Israel are a contradiction in terms. The most Israel is prepared to offer the Palestinians is "autonomy plus". The Palestinians want full state sovereignty. There is no way to reconcile these two opposed interests.
I wonder, Rabbi, what you think of Kaliningrad, which the Russians (who had never inhabited that land) ethnically cleansed of Lithuanians, East Prussians, and Germans and colonized with Russians. Why? A warm water port.
Or perhaps you could regale us with your opinions of why America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, or Argentina (all of which are majority non-native and all of which had serious anti-native policies up until very recently if not ongoing) are any more "legitimate" than Israeli control over Judea and Samaria, which are indisputably the historic Jewish heartland. What makes New York more "legitimate" than Jewish control over Hebron?
Lee,
In addition to what Silke said about international security guarantees being worthless when Israel is threatened, one only needs to look at the UN certifying Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as ending any occupation of Lebanese land. Yet as soon as Hezbollah made war on Israel in 2006, we started hearing from the "international community" about Shaba Farms being "occupied territory" and returning it to Lebanon as part of the "solution." For those who want to justify attacks on Israelis, there seems to be no move Israel can make--even if that move has been endorsed by that same party--that will mean anything when the Arab raise new claims to excuse their attacks on Israel.
Yaacov,
The other day you wrote that a large majority of Israels agree that the settlement project is wrong and should be ended. I wondered about that statement by itself (really, a large majority believe it is wrong?) and now I am wondering how a large majority could believe that it is wrong to keep that ridge under Israeli control.
Saul
Lee,
unlike 4infidels I do not believe that this is inherent to the Palestinians being primarily Muslim.
The Palestinians are free to change their views or the way they interpret their religion, so using "inherent" makes it sound as though I believe their hostility to Israel and other non-Muslims is a permanent part of their DNA, which I do not.
What I do is read translations of what Palestinians say in their media, educational materials and mosques. Then I look at the history of how the Arabs and Muslims have framed their hostility to Israel to their native audiences over the years. And then I examine how that fits into the larger history of Islam, including how those statement square with authentic interpretations of Islam by the four major Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence and by Shia tradition as well. Conclusion: The Arab-Muslim war on Israel is a jihad, one that is greater in intensity and importance to Muslims around the world due to the proximity of "Palestine" to the heart of Arabia, the priority of returning lands lost to Islam to Islamic dominion, and the role of the Jews in Islamic eschatology as a people whose place in this world is one of humiliation.
And last, but not least, I observe how Palestinian actions, as accurately characterized by Yaacov in this post, square with what is said by Palestinians (in Arabic) and by Muslims throughout history.
So please don't characterize my views with a flip comment that makes it seem as though they are uninformed and prejudiced. I did not casually arrive at these conclusions mentioned above.
Now what of non-Muslim hostility to Israel? I have argued many times here that it is not primarily due to Israel's policies, but to the "international community's" need for Arab oil, access to Arab markets and investment and a desire to avoid being targeted by Muslim terrorists. And of course the long history Western anti-Semitism play no small part as well as do the ideological and pro-Third World sympathies of journalists and NGOs. A callous self-interested or ideological disregard for the safety of the Jews' only sovereign nation-state must be sold to the inhabitants of Western democracies as a just policy due to Israel's "immoral behavior" and then reinforced by hysterical reporting on every supposed human rights violation. The demonization of Israel needs these images to maintain its emotional power, so that betraying the Jews becomes the only reasonable thing for righteous Westerners to do.
But in the Middle East, it is Islam, Islam and Islam that makes people sacrifice their lives and economic well-being to destroy the Jews. And the Koran, Hadith and example of Muhammad are omnipresent in Arabic commentary and incitement related to Israel.
Lee,
There is also value with signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians even if its a sham. At least Israel has something to hang over their heads diplomatically. The relatively shaminess of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt has gotten Egypt to work with Israel on containing Hamas.
Egypt's ruling regime is concerned with containing Hamas because Hamas is the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB is committed to overthrowing the Egyptian government and replacing it with Islamist rule. As long as Hamas doesn't become too powerful or its influence impacts on domestic politics in Egypt (which requires Gaza to be sealed off from Egypt), the Egyptian government is happy to have Hamas causing trouble for Israel and directing its hatred at the Jews. Egypt would be against the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood agenda regardless of whether it had a treaty with Israel.
Saul,
I stand by my recent statement. As for the ridge, if Israel holds onto every place from which Arabs can do damage to Israelis, there's no room let for Palestine, and no prospect for peace. So most Israelis accept that hills such as that one must be handed over to the Palestinians in return for peace, because then the Palestinians won't have any reason left to wage war, and they won't pose a danger up on their hill.
Except that they will, so we won't (hand it over), so there won't be peace. Unfortunate, but true.
I think Ya'acov and most Israelis now appreciate in hindsight how stupid Ehud Barak's decision was to abandon South Lebanon to Hezbollah.
Then how much more foolish was it for Rabin to implant a virulently hostile entity like the PA just a few kilometers from Israel's heartland?
Lee
"They would loose interest in the Palestinians once the West Bank goes free."
there I agree with you and not only other muslim states the whole world would be a lot less willing to give them red carpet events galore. If I were Palestinian elite and liked my Pomp and stuff I'd for that reason alone would find fault forever with whatever.
-----
"Israel's self-defense within the 1948 borders is harder to criticize than Israeli self-defense within Gaza and the West Bank."
Getting harder to criticize makes you want to give up whatever your scheme entails? and bet on "ooops" not happening? Quite a gamble somebody who is living afar is willing to take, don't you think so?
Why not depopulate the border areas to Gaza and Lebanon so their "toy" rockets won't do any harm any longer? If you think that there is any viable appeasement Jews can come up with once the genie has left the bottle you are naive. And it left the bottle at the latest in March 2006 and has staid out of it ever since doing better with every month.
All colleagues of mine on whom the mobbing brigades descended tried becoming nicer and more conciliatory and prostrate without any concession ever achieving anything except making them feel in that weird twist human nature is prone to more guilty about what was being done to them
I trust that Israel in appeasing mode makes social life for Jews elsewhere a lot more pleasant and enriching but for Israelis it means gambling with not just sneers and wink-winks it means gambling with physical injuries and worse.
Silke
It comes down to whether the conflict is a "territorial conflict" or an "existential conflict."
Most of the world views the situation like a territorial conflict. The 90's and 00's were attempts at territorial solutions. They failed.
They failed because the conflict is existential. I hate to say it and I wish it weren't so, but I now believe it. The entire Arab population has been indoctrinated for over 90 years to see Jews and Zionism as a blood-sucking invasion seeking to destroy all of Islam and take over the world. The indoctrination hasn't stopped, and the counter-education is minimal. Until there is a sea change in the attitude of Arabs, there will be no peace.
If you are old enough (like I am) to remember the end of school segregation in the US or the beginnings of the "Women's Lib" movement in the US, then you know that it is possible for attitudes to change, but it takes time and effort - unwavering effort. Even so, some 40 years later, we see old attitudes die hard, and are not completely out of our system. For example, in the US we are about to seat our 4th woman Supreme Court Justice. Yet, some pundits find it appropriate to discuss her looks and marital status. How sexist is that?
I digress. My point is that as long as the overwhelming attitude of Arabs towards Israel is "destroy it," the best Israel can do is protect its citizens.
Nycerbarb
Nycerbarb
if it were just the Arabs one might have hopes for a media campaign, a barrage of super seduceable films but "pretzelberg" just wrote this in a comment over at CiFWatch:
Ambassador(to Jordan) James Watt’s FCO webpage:
The origin of the problem – the arrival of the Zionists in Palestine, with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society, and their policy of importing their co-religionists from cultural and social backgrounds alien to Palestine, changed everything.
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/watt/entry/the_one_state_solution
it makes my head reel - are the compounds where these people presumably live make them so immune to reality? or is it the constant hobnobbing with Queens and Kings that does that?
Silke
Yaacov,
"If Israel holds onto every place from which Arabs can do damage to Israelis, there's no room left for Palestine, and no prospect for peace." Nu, so maybe there is no room, at least in the world as we know it today. (And I don't see that you disagree.)
And if the settlements are necessary to for the safety of Israeli lives, how could they be wrong? (You have previously noted that the Green line was not a border under international law. http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2010/05/myth-of-1967-borders.html)
Silke,
Ambassador(to Jordan) James Watt’s FCO webpage:
The origin of the problem – the arrival of the Zionists in Palestine, with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society, and their policy of importing their co-religionists from cultural and social backgrounds alien to Palestine, changed everything.
This is disgusting. What would Ambassador Watt have to say about Muslims in Europe "with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society, and their policy of importing their co-religionists from cultural and social backgrounds alien to" Europe?
Diversity, multiculturalism and oopen borders are wonderful, except when the Jews bring their alien culture to foreign lands? Is Mr. Watt aware that in Palestine, Christians and Muslims tended to live in separate villages? Oh yeah, truth and history don't matter. What is important for Mr. Watt is to win over the hearts and minds of his Arab-Muslim hosts, and what better way to do so than to put all the blame on the Zionists. What courage, what values, what a loser.
4infidels
actually I got most enraged about
"importing their co-religionists from ..."
as I have been told, lots of those co-religionists were from Arab lands so presumably a lot less alien to whatever Palestine stands for than Bangladeshis are to England or even Anatolian Turks to Germany. (what made me feel most alien on "my" Greek island was btw my complete inability to walk a plank onto a moving boat, a feat which even limping with old age women managed with grace - that just to be clear what I consider as signs of alien and non-alien)
If I hadn't read Nick Cohen "What's Left?" and learned there that the Brits have been equally viciously gaga in the 20s but managed the turn around in the end I'd despair - as European countries go they are my only hope
Silke
Silke,
Amazing isn't it that after centuries of experiencing that famous Islamic tolerance in Arab landsl, the Middle Eastern and North African Jews would prefer to live with in Jewish rather than Arab communities in Israel!
By the way, let's not forget that while Britain was fighting the Nazis in Europe, the British Colonial officers in the Middle East were doing everything they could to prevent a Jewish state from coming into existence. There is a little known, but very ugly, chapter regarding Britains anti-Jewish politicies following WW2. It was the British who armed, trained and led the Jordanian Arab Legion Army in its war against the new Jewish State while continuing to prevent Holocaust survivors from settling in Palestine.
Britain also did nothing to stop the genocide of Jews in Europe or offer refugees a place in Britain as they felt better about Jews being exterminated than a Britain with a large Jewish population following WW2. Hope they have fun with their large Muslim minority, from whom they can expect to benefit from years of community harmony, cultural contributions and medical advancements
4infidels
I came across Desert Patrol and Glubb Pascha when German National Geographic published a beautiful centerfold of them on camels - at the same time somebody I know got interested in Kaffiyahs
- at the time I concluded that Glubb Pascha was something what would have been called in Vietnam a military advisor - but what was so enraging about the centerfold was that they took an old black and white foto from an Australian photographer coloured it into supernatural beauty and tried to make their readers believe that these were the guys who fought valiently in the 1948 war and of course stood no chance against modernity which is, all of it, pure BS
Wherever you dig, you come across these stories. If you want the big guy to treat you nicely you have to offer him something he longs for, otherwise he won't give a hoot. The Brits before WW2 were interested in the French and later in Rommel. Concern for others? you gotta be kidding. But these days Israelis are supposed to care for everybody else more than for themselves.
Here for your "delight" is a foto of the guy http://www.jordanjubilee.com/images2/glubb/xglubb-portrait.jpg
btw I got the very strong impression that the kind of Keffiyah he is wearing on that foto may well stem from the design studio of a British uniform designer i.e. not all roots of that piece of cloth come from oh so "authentic" and admirable peasantry. If I could ever prove that point it would tickle me quite a bit, Arafat in a head dress designed by an imperialist for an imperialist military unit - very fitting for a freedom fighter ...
Silke
Silke,
I highly recommend "The Forgotten Ally" by Pierre van Paassen. He goes deeply into the various schemes of the British colonial officers and Britain's imperial aims in the Middle East.
That "forgotten ally" happens to be the Jews who volunteered in large numbers and played key roles for the British in both world wars. Far from the Arab narrative that Israel was only born out of Western aid and Western guilt, Britain's plans were pro-Arab and it did everything in its power to prevent the Jewish state from being born, despite the huge contributions to the British war efforts compared to the virtually meaningless contributions from the Arab forces. Britain also was happy to foment and publicize Arab violence toward Jews in Palestine, and then use that violence to claim that relations with the Arabs demand opposing Jewish self-determination and Jewish immigration. Same old story!
Silke,
Another great book from that era is John Roy Carlson's "Cairo to Damascus." You can see that the idea how much Islam influenced the hatred of and desire to destroy the Jews of Palestine. This book is so exceptional because it is real reporting from a man who lived among the Arabs and traveled throughout the Middle East posing as a sympathizer to the Arab cause.
Excerpts are available at Solomonia.com, but every page of this great book is worth reading.
While I am recommending books, let me list my top 5 books relating to Israel, in no particular order:
3 Great Older Books:
*John Roy Carlson, Cairo to Damascus
*Samuel Katz, Battleground
*Pierre Van Paassen, The Forgotten Ally
2 Best Books from past decade:
*Yaacov Lozowick, Right to Exist
*David Meir-Levi, History Upside Down
Honorable Mention:
*Efraim Karsh, Arafat's War
*Stephanie Gutmann, The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy
*Benny Morris, One State, Two State (the last chapter is great, even if I disagree with his ultimate conclusion)
Thomas Kiernan, Arafat: The Man and the Myth
Leon Uris, The Haj (fiction, but remarkably true to history)
And 2 books that I want to read:
Kenneth Levin, The Oslo Syndrome
Ariah Avnery, The Claim of Dispossession
Some books I recommend for background on Arab-Muslim thought and behavior:
*David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle
*Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
*Nonie Darwish, Now They Call Me Infidel
*Brigitte Gabriel, Because They Hate
*Wafa Sultan, A God That Hates
*Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad
*Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim
*Lee Smith, The Strong Horse
*Kenneth Timmerman, Preachers of Hate
Books I recommend on Jihad, dealing with historical or current issues:
*Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad
*Video, Islam: What the West Needs to Know
*Andrew McCarthy, The Grand Jihad
*Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept
*Sperry and Gaubatz, Muslim Mafia
Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad
*Brigitte Gabriel, They Must Be Stopped
*Serge Trifkovic, Defeating Jihad
*Sayyid Qutb, Milestones
*Sam Harris, The End of Faith (his chapter on Islam)
*Hassan al-Banna (his writings are available on the internet)
Robert Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers
4infidels
thanks a lot, I really really appreciate it but my book shelves are groaning under the books I haven't managed to get to yet, ever since Amazon came into being and all that lifelong scarcity just evaporated I have been splurge buying
- next on the list after I'll be through with a number of others of course, will be the remaining 5 1/2 volumes of Churchill's WW2 - and Jane Austen needs to be re-read, my education in understanding the economy is lagging behind and some books on what soldiers have to cope with on today's battlefields i.e. COIN from a boot on the ground perspective and and and
Silke
4infidels-
Thanks for the great book list. The Carlson sounds fascinating. I am in the beginning of Nonie Darwish right now (as well as middle of Paul Berman). I have the Avnery book. It is very dry and data oriented, dealing with land deeds and demographics.
Berman keeps going on about this book: "Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World" by Jeff Herf. Herf published this piece in New Republic in April.
"Killing in the Name"
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/killing-the-name?page=0,0
Nycerbarb
Thanks Nycerbarb,
I just printed the Jeff Herf article to read when I get home
Nycerbarb,
Nonie Darwish's book is wonderful...full of heart. She really paints a good picture of family life and the role of women in Egypt and Gaza.
I want to read her latest book on Sharia called "Cruel and Usual Punishment."
The reason there won't be peace is because the Arabs don't want it.
If they really had peace with Israel then they would have no one to blame all of their own problems on.
http://www.jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com
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