Israelis have no confidence in international guarantees
The Obama administration's shabby treatment of Israel has woken Israelis up and forced them to smell the coffee. A survey released on Friday shows that Israelis are overwhelmingly mistrustful of both American and international guarantees. The poll, carried out by the Maagar Mohot Survey Institute and made available to The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, showed that 64 percent of Israeli Jews believe Israel would not be able to trust international pledges for its security in return for settlement withdrawals in the West Bank, while only 9% said it would.Israelis overwhelmingly recognize that our conflict with the Arabs, including the 'Palestinians,' is existential.
The survey also found that a whopping 71% were adamant the government must insist that the Palestinians freeze all West Bank construction if a similar freeze were forced upon Israel, in order to prevent problematic "new facts on the ground." Only 20% said the government should not make that demand.
Especially prominent were the figures revealing the degree of suspicion toward the Palestinian Authority leadership, and in particular its president Mahmoud Abbas.
When asked what they believe the ultimate intention of Abbas and other leaders is when striving for a Palestinian state, 62% said the PA leaders want to establish a state instead of Israel, while only 27 said Palestinian leaders want the two nations to live side-by-side.
In total, 58% said they believe any pledge from Abbas would not bind future Palestinian leaders, while 18% gave it a "so-so" chance, and only 12% thought it would bind them.
...
When asked what solution to the conflict would best serve Israel's interests, 70% chose "autonomy," in which the Palestinians rule over their day-to-day lives, with their borders and air space under Israel's control. Only 15% expressed support for a sovereign Palestinian state.
However, respondents were not asked their opinion of the demilitarized Palestinian state envisioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Unfortunately, most Israeli Jews are still leery of 'demographics' overtaking us.
I've discussed the so-called demographic problem (which is the local version of 'global warming) here, here and here.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:31 PM
2 Comments:
Barry Rubin today wrote up an article on Fatah, the main Palestinian secular rival to Israel and he observes its mostly elderly leadership is radical and opposed to peace with Israel.The younger generation waiting in the wings is even more extreme.
In short, Israel has no peace partner on the other side. International guarantees can help to reassure the parties to an agreement if trust exists between them. There is none between the PA and Israel today.
Rubin says Fatah is weak, divided,intransigent and faces far bigger problems down the road. All of which does not augur well for the prospects for negotiations and in any event Fatah's main objective is reconciliation with Hamas, not peace with Israel.
This is the big picture and the reality about Palestinian politics and their leadership is ignored by both Western leaders and the Western press. Its easy to talk breezily about a two state solution but the truth is different altogether.
There's lots more. Read it all.
I've often wondered why the Govt of Israel doesn't have a far better program of getting Israel's side of the story out. At least in the American MSM, one doesn't read or see much at all of the Israeli side or point of view.
Any international guarantee, UN guarantee, whatever, isn't worth the paper it's printed on. If I were an Israeli, regarding international guarantees, I'd take the Czechoslovakia lesson to heart. Israel has to have the means and will to defend itself, regardless, and not count on any other nation, even the US (as long as Obama and the Democrats are in power.)
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