Israel Matzav

Remembering George Mitchell

President Barack Hussein Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday. I have mentioned before that Mitchell headed up a commission that examined the causes of the Oslo War in 2001. David Bedein has gone through that commission's report to see what light its conclusions shed on Mitchell's fitness for his current position. It's not pretty. Here is some of what he found.

For some reason, the Mitchell Commission characterized the rioters armed with molotov cocktails as "unarmed Palestinian demonstrators" -- a term that they apparently borrowed from PLO information reports that were published at the time.

The Mitchell Commission took the position that Israel's security forces did not face a clear a present danger when faced with a mob trying to kill them with rocks and firebombs.

The Mitchell Commission made no mention that the PA has amassed 50,000 more weapons than they are supposed to have, in clear violation of the written Oslo accords.

The Mitchell Commission surprisingly accepted the notion that the Palestinian Authority security officials are simply "not in control" of their own tightly controlled security services.

The Mitchell Commission would not consider reliable li intelligence reports which documented that the Palestinian Authority had planned the uprising, and did not relate to documentation which showed that the PA spent past seven years preparing its media, school system and security services for a violent confrontation with Israel. Indeed, in late May, 2000, a senior official of Israeli intelligence conducted a press briefing in which he revealed intelligence information that the PLO was planning riots for late September, 2000.

The Mitchell Commission described only as an Israeli "view" the fact that the PA leadership had made no real effort to prevent anti-Israeli terrorism, ignoring consistent incitement that Arafat had conveyed to his own media for the previous seven years.

The Mitchell Commission also condemned the IDF killing of PLO combat officers during a time of war, without giving an alternative as to what actions the IDF is supposed to take in any such military confrontation.

Instead of issuing a clear call to the PLO to stop sniper attacks on Israel's roads and highways, the Mitchell Commission simply "condemned the positioning of gunmen within or near civilian dwellings", leaving the observer to assume that PLO attacks from empty embankments would be acceptable.

The Mitchell Commission suggested that "the IDF should consider withdrawing to positions held before September 28, 2000 …to reduce the number of friction points", ignoring the fact that this would leave entry points to many Israeli cities without appropriate protection during a time of war.

The Mitchell Commission also demanded that Israel should transfer to the PA all tax revenues owed, and permit Palestinians who had been employed in Israel to return to their jobs, strangely recommending that Israel once again pay salaries of armed PLO personnel who were at war with Israel.

Meanwhile, the Mitchell Commission took a page out of Arab propaganda when it called on Israeli "security forces and settlers to refrain from the destruction of homes and roads, as well as trees and other agricultural property in Palestinian areas", and would not relate to the possibility that some of the trees and agricultural land had been razed may have been provided cover to PA security forces during combat.

The Mitchell Commission also accepted the notion that "settlers and settlements in their midst" remains a cause of the Palestinian uprising, because these Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria violate "the spirit of the Oslo process", even though not one word appears in the actual Oslo accords would require the dismemberment of a single Israeli settlement.

Hopenchange? Sounds more like same old, same old to me.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:44 PM