Israel Matzav

Shattering illusions

The New York Times this morning reports on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's anticipated 'difficulties' in carrying out his convergence consolidation realignment surrender, expulsion and suicide plan in Judea and Samaria, now that the country sees the results of the unilateral withdrawal flight from Southern Lebanon and Gaza.

“The West Bank disengagement plan may not be clinically dead, but it is in a prolonged state of suspended animation,” said Mark Heller, a political analyst at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Mr. Heller and other analysts acknowledged that if the current crisis is resolved and leads to a reduction or a halt in the rocket fire, Mr. Olmert could receive a political lift, but they did not consider that the most likely outcome.

“Will there be a new set of rules worked out and observed by the parties?” said Efraim Halevy, the former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency who is now the director of strategic studies at the Hebrew University.

“If there is no agreement, then I think there will be a great debate in Israel over further unilateral steps,” Mr. Halevy said, adding that he believed that territorial concessions should be handled through agreements, not by Israel acting alone.

What bothers me about this is the implication that the only problem here is unilateralism. What I hear in all of these comments is that if we actually had agreements with the 'Palestinians,' things would be different. Even my friend Yisrael Medad, who is quoted later in the article, seems to be saying the same thing:

“Unilateral moves will never work,” he added, “because if you don’t have a mechanism in place to maintain security, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah will simply say, ‘We don’t have an agreement with you, and we will do what we like.’ ”

We have - or at least had - more than one agreement with an entity called the 'Palestinian Authority' that purports to represent the 'Palestinians.' Those agreements are subsumed under the heading "Oslo Accords." Despite the existence of agreements with the 'Palestinians,' they did not fulfill a single provision of those agreements. Let's look at the very first of those agreements, the declaration of principles signed on the White House Lawn by Yitzchak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat in September 1993.

The declaration of principles was accompanied by a letter from Yasser Arafat to Yitzchak Rabin, which read as follows:

The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era in the history of the Middle East. In firm conviction thereof, I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments:

The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.

The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.

The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.

In view of the promise of a new era and the signing of the Declaration of Principles and based on Palestinian acceptance of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.

The 'Palestinians' never fulfilled a single one of those commitments. On May 10, 1994 in Johannesburg, South Africa Arafat was secretly tape-recorded while speaking in a mosque. He declared: "The Jihad will continue. Jerusalem is not for the Palestinian people, it is for all the Muslim people. You are responsible for Palestine and for Jerusalem before me [applause], the land which had been blessed for the whole world. Now after this agreement you have to understand our main battle... Our main battle is Jerusalem. The cherished shrine of the Moslems... for this I was insisting before signing [the May 4 Cairo Agreement] to have a letter from them, the Israelis, that Jerusalem... has to be under discussion and not to say the permanent State of Israel! No! It is the permanent State of Palestine! [applause]."

The Jihad did continue. On September 24, 1993, just eleven days after the Oslo Declaration of Principles, Yigal Vaknin was stabbed to death in an orchard near the trailer home where he lived near the village of Basra. A squad of the HAMAS's Iz a-Din al Kassam claimed responsibility for the attack. On October 9, 1993, a little more than two weeks later, Dror Forer and Aran Bachar were murdered by terrorists in Wadi Kelt in the Judean Desert. The Popular Front and the Islamic Jihad 'Al-Aqsa Squads' each publicly claimed responsibility. On October 24, 1993, Two IDF soldiers, Staff Sgt. (res.) Ehud Rot, age 35, and Sgt. Ilan Levi, age 23, were killed by a HAMAS Iz a-Din al Kassam squad. The two entered a Subaru with Israeli license plates outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, whose passengers were apparently terrorists disguised as Israelis. Following a brief struggle, the soldiers were shot at close range and killed. Hamas publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. On October 29, 1993, Chaim Mizrahi, resident of Beit-El, was kidnapped by three terrorists from a poultry farm near Ramallah. He was murdered and his body burned. Three Fatah members were convicted of the murder on July 27, 1994. I could go on, but you get the point. The 'Palestinians' did not keep the Oslo Accords, and have not kept any agreement they have made with us since then. When President Bush announced his 'road map,' the 'Palestinians' agreed to it. But the road map's first requirement was to dismantle the terror groups. That still hasn't happened.

Why does anyone think that if we make a new agreement with the 'Palestinians,' the 'Palestinians' will keep their commitments? Why should we expect a different result when we do the same thing over and over again.

But it's not just the 'Palestinians.' Our experience with the Arabs in general shows that even when they do implement agreements, the underlying attitudes don't change. We may have peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but has that changed anything? Do Egypt and Jordan not still hate us? Have they stopped dreaming of throwing the Jews into the sea?

The Times interviews Lawrence Tendler, a musician who lives in the Katyusha inflicted town of Tsfat (Safed):

“We keep thinking that if we retreat, it will bring us peace,” said Lawrence Tendler, 45, a musician who lives in Safed, a northern town that has been hit hard by the recent rocket fire. “At best, it just buys us time. Ceding land is always interpreted as weakness in this part of the world.”

He contrasted the unilateral pullouts with Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, which have held. “Those two countries have reasonable leaderships that came to the conclusion they could not defeat Israel,” he said. “But that is not the case with Hamas and Hezbollah.”

I have news for Lawrence. Ceding land is interpreted as weakness in this part of the world, even if it's done pursuant to an agreement or treaty. And the Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships have not concluded that they cannot defeat Israel - only that they cannot defeat Israel now. They continue to foment hatred of Israel and of Jews generally with the view to one day renewing the battle. If you think I'm exaggerating, let's have a look:

Two days ago, I linked to a post by an Egyptian blogger called Sand Monkey. Here's what he has to say about the average Egyptian's desire for peace:

But then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations. Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting. In Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people- the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean, if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the population is thinking?

I think that the Israeli want peace with us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they are a cancer.

Just three weeks ago, Egypt warned that Israel should not take the Camp David Treaty for granted. The Egyptians may have been complicit in Gilad Shalit's kidnapping. Egypt branded a Ghanian soccer player who pulled out an Israeli flag at the World Cup a 'Mossad agent.' Egypt has never pushed Hamas to recognize Israel. Egypt puts anti-Israel and anti-American programming on its government television. And by the way, most Egyptians and Jordanians don't believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 terror attacks. And those are just some of the most recent events.

The Jordanians are not much better. In fact, if anything, they are worse:

A 2005 Pew Research Center survey of 17,000 people found that Jordan the most anti-Semitic country in the world. Not just 95 percent of its people have unfavorable views of Jews. It is 100 percent. A full 41 percent of them don't like Christians either.

Queen Rania's largely Palestinian country (a demographic not mentioned on Oprah) didn't just beat the world in hatred for the Jews. Jordan leads in support for homicide bombings AND confidence in Osama Bin Laden "to do the right thing."

A whopping 88 percent of Jordanians support suicide bombings. That's up from 2002, when "only" 65 percent of Jordanians supported this "method" of dealing with perceived problems. Then, there's Bin Laden. Some 80 percent of Jordanians have "confidence in Osama Bin Laden to do the right thing regarding world affairs." And 57 percent of Jordanians said "violence against civilians in defense of Islam is justified."

In conclusion, I don't believe that we can rely upon any peace treaty or other agreement with an Arab country. I don't believe they will keep them. At least when it comes to Israel. If anyone thinks otherwise, they are welcome to try to show me. And because of that, I disagree with the implication of the New York Times article that if only we surrender territory pursuant to an agreement rather than unilaterally, everything will be hunky dory. It won't be. At least not until there is a fundamental change of attitude in the Arab world.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:44 PM