Israel Matzav

Barghouti's non-offer of 'peace'

The number 1 'Palestinian' terrorist in an Israeli jail is Marwan the Murdering Moron Barghouti, who was the leader of the 'moderate' Fatah's Tanzim 'youth organization' that carried out tens of terror attacks in the early part of this decade. From time to time, leftist Israeli politicians call for Barghouti's release, including, most recently, Labor MK's Fouad Ben Eliezer and former defenseless 'defense' minister Amir Comrade Peretz. Their 'theory' is that only Barghouti is strong enough to lead Fatah to a 'peace agreement.' Hamas also wants Barghouti released but for different reasons.

Unlike most of the thugs in the 'Palestinian Authority,' Barghouti knows how to play with the hearts and minds of Israelis and other Westerners. So last night, he sent a letter to the leftists at Peace Piece by Piece Now, which will be read at their 30th anniversary 'celebration' tonight in Tel Aviv.

"We have to reach a comprehensive cease-fire that involves both sides as soon as possible," he wrote in a letter that reached Peace Now on Monday night and will be read aloud on Tuesday.

...

In his letter, Barghouti wrote, "I am ready, as is an overwhelming majority of the Palestinian nation, for an historic [reconciliation] based on international decisions, that will insure that two nations, Palestinians and Israelis, will live side by side in peace and security." He noted that he was among those jailed leaders along with those from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who had forged the Prisoners' Document, which supported negotiations with Israel toward a final-status agreement.

The Peace Now movement, he said, had given Palestinians hope that there were Israelis who opposed the occupation and the West Bank settlements. In addition, he called for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, reopen Palestinian institutions, remove roadblocks and stop settlement activity.

Note what I have highlighted above. Here's why this is a 'non-offer.' First, a 'cease fire' is not an end-of-conflict agreement. It's a hudna. It's important that you understand what a hudna is in Islamic literature.

A hudna [also known as a hudibiyya or khudaibiya] is a tactical cease-fire that allows the Arabs to rebuild their terrorist infrastructure in order to be more effective when the "cease-fire" is called off."

That doesn't sound like much of a 'peace agreement,' does it?

I highlighted 'reconciliation' because it appears in brackets which means that what Barghouti said was really something else. I was able to find the letter in Hebrew online here, and what it says is "piyus." Piyus can mean reconciliation, but more often it is a concession that Side A makes to Side B to ameliorate Side B's feeling of being treated unfairly. In this case, the obvious expectation is that Israel is Side A and the 'Palestinians' are Side B.

Then the letter refers to 'international decisions.' That is much more than Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (the traditional measures). It would also include non-binding UN resolutions, like General Assembly Resolution 194, on which the 'Palestinians' base their 'right of return' to do demographically what they could not accomplish militarily: bring about the end of the Jewish state. And it would include the 'International Court of Justice' decision calling on Israel to take down the 'security fence,' a decision that has no legal effect as a matter of international law because Israel never accepted the 'court's jurisdiction, but which would expose all Israelis everywhere in the country to terror attacks.

And then there's the 'prisoners' document,' which I discussed at length here and here. Here's some of that discussion:

The State of Israel is never even mentioned. While the first point refers to lands Israel occupied in 1967, it does not claim that these will be the territorial limits of a Palestinian state:

The Palestinian people... seek to establish their independent state with al-Quds al-Shareef as its capital on all territories occupied in 1967 and to secure the right of return for the refugees and to liberate all prisoners and detainees...

Does this mean that the plan accepts a two-state solution as much of the media claims? According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

There is no explicit statement in the accord that establishing a state within the pre-1967 borders would end Palestinian claims over Israeli territory. In fact, vagueness on two critical points of the document suggest that it can also be viewed as another iteration of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) 1974 phased plan that declared a willingness to accept the establishment of a national authority in any part of historic Palestine as a step toward "completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory":

First, the national accord advocates "the right of the refugees to return." By not specifying where the Palestinian refugees would return to... it is just as likely that signers of the accord favor (them) returning to Israel, the equivalent of advocating a one-state solution (which would include all of Israel in an Islamic State).

Second, the national accord does not condemn violence, but actually supports "concentrating resistance in the territories occupied in 1967."

The plan does not limit Palestinian claims, nor does it reject violence, either within pre-1967 Israel or elsewhere. While the media is currently drawing a great deal of attention to this plan based on Hamas' opposition to it, readers should point out to their local media that in reality, the plan breaks little new ground.

Barghouti's 'offer' isn't much of an offer at all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:19 AM