Israel Matzav

No great loss?

The New York Times decided to publish a special article in honor of Prime Minister Netanyahu's meeting with President Obama, which pushes the 'Palestinian' agenda in a way that only the Times knows how to do. In a word, the sky is falling.

“I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state, but he sees no state coming,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said in an interview. “So he really doesn’t think there is a need to be president or to have an Authority. This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?”

Mr. Abbas warned last week that he would not participate in Palestinian elections he called for, to take place in January. But he has threatened several times before to resign, and many viewed this latest step as a ploy by a Hamlet-like leader upset over Israeli and American policy. Many also noted that the vote might not actually be held, given the Palestinian political fracture and the unwillingness of Hamas, which controls Gaza, to participate.

In the days since, however, his colleagues have come to believe that he is not bluffing. If that is the case, they say, the Palestinian Authority, which administers Palestinian affairs in the occupied West Bank and serves as a principal actor in peace negotiations with Israel, could be endangered.

Four top officials made the same point in separate interviews. Mr. Abbas, they say, feels at a total impasse in negotiations with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has declined to commit to a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu favors negotiations without preconditions.

And then there's perhaps the most ironic statement of all:

The officials who spoke said they were no longer interested in being part of an artifice that effectively masked Israeli occupation. While others might come forward to take their places, the new leaders would lack legitimacy with the Palestinians.

Let's take that last statement first. The 'Palestinians' were supposed to hold elections a year ago. They did not. 'Mr. Abbas' Abu Mazen has no legitimacy as leader today and he is too weak to reach any kind of agreement. His going out to pasture could be the best thing that could happen for the 'peace process' - not the worst. He's just extending his own term in power and occupying a seat.

Second, there aren't likely to be 'Palestinian elections' in January unless Gaza is excluded. Abu Mazen will use that as an excuse not to hold elections and not to chance his own tenuous hold on power (what would he do with himself were he not 'President'? The question is absurd). Abu Mazen is going to be 'President' for a long time to come.

Third, what the 'Palestinian Authority' is trying to do is to manipulate the United States, the Europeans and Israel to agree to their demands for a 'settlement freeze.' Abu Mazen has been part of negotiations with every Israeli government since 1993 and never once has there been a demand for a 'settlement freeze.' There is no way Israel will agree to one now and there is certainly no way Israel will agree to a 'settlement freeze' in Jerusalem, which Israel does not consider a 'settlement.' That's beyond absurd.

Fourth, anyplace else in the world, 'negotiations without preconditions' would be all you can ask for. Just ask President Obama - that's what he's offered to rogue regimes in Iran and Syria. But not when Israel is involved. When Israel is involved, the outcome has to be predetermined. It's high time we put a stop to that.

If Abu Mazen wants to resign, let him. It's no major loss. Most of the rational 'Palestinians' would probably prefer being ruled by the IDF to being ruled by the 'Palestinian Authority' anyway. Their economy did much better from 1967-88 than it has before or since. Of course, the rational 'Palestinians' are not part of the leadership. This is from Eliot Jager's review of George Gilder's The Israel Test, a book I have recommended to you previously.

GILDER'S BOOK is also an excellent primer against the Palestinian Arab cause.

Their self-induced dependency on foreign aid, exacerbated by the intervention of international aid groups, has "transformed the Palestinians into a ghetto of violent male gangs and welfare queens." Such over-the-top language actually camouflages an otherwise convincing argument.

As proof Gilder cites Musa Alami telling David Ben-Gurion in 1934: "I would prefer that the country remain impoverished and barren for another hundred years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own" than make common cause with the Zionists. Sure enough, between 1967 and 1987 – prior to the first intifada – the West Bank was "one of the most dynamic economies on earth."

True to Alami's sentiments, the Palestinians threw it all away by launching the first intifada in 1988. Then in the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, their economy began thrived again. Hundreds of thousands of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were employed within the Green Line; Nablus license plates could be seen on the streets of Tel Aviv. And still, in 2000, having rejected Ehud Barak's overly generous terms for a state, the Palestinian leadership launched the second intifada and again drove their people into a crater of violence and economic depression. It was all done out of irrational hatred. Gilder says "capitalism requires peace" and the Palestinians want neither.

What would happen if the 'Palestinian Authority' collapsed? My guess is that the IDF would take over, and the 'Palestinians' would either behave and watch their economy flourish, or they wouldn't behave in which case all the rational 'Palestinians' would leave. Given the defensive infrastructure Israel has in place for the last six or seven years, either of those may be acceptable results. They are both far better than a 'Palestinian state' that seeks to destroy us.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:56 PM