Israel Matzav

The 'Palestine' Plot

I've mentioned several times that the most important thing to the 'Palestinians' about a 'settlement freeze' extension is to shift the agenda of the 'peace talks' so that only borders are on the table. Journalist Uri Elitzur explains what's actually behind the argument over extending the 'settlement freeze,' and how the 'Palestinians' strategy would work.

"The PA's insistence that it will walk out of the talks if Israel ends the building freeze in Judea and Samaria" he says, "is a political gambit for something Abbas and company are far more interested in: An Israeli agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state before resolving other sensitive issues, such as security, Jerusalem, and PA demands that descendants of Arabs who abandoned Israel in 1948 be allowed to return to their former homes".

...

“Behind this endless game lies an important consideration: What happens the day after the talks fail? What is the alternative plan?” Unlike Israel, Elitzur says, the PA has such a plan: To back Israel into a corner and get Netanyahu to agree to a “shelf agreement” - meaning that most of the impassable issues would be put “on the shelf” for the time being, while the one issue that the PA really wants to see resolved – the borders of the Palestinian state – are decided right now. Tsipi Livni actually agreed to this when she was Foreign Minister, Elitzur says.

If the borders between Israel and Palestine are delineated, Elitzur says, the PA can declare an official Palestinian state – one that has a reasonable chance of being accepted by the rest of the world. Contrary to popular thinking, the PA would not be able to get away with declaring a state unilaterally – not after they signed agreement after agreement that specifies negotiations as the only legitimate path to a PA state.

But if Israel – and the U.S. - agree to delineate the borders, Elitzur says that the PA could probably get a great deal of international support and recognition for the PA state; they might even successfully join the UN. Once that happens, it would be a simple matter to mount a truly effective campaign against Jews residing in “Palestine” - and little by little, Israel would withdraw from all the areas it agreed would be part of a de jure Palestinian state, without achieving any of its security goals – and we would be stuck with a de facto terror state that could pose a mortal threat.

Would the U.S. recognize such a state? “Maybe not,” Elitzur told Israelnationalnews. “But I believe Obama would. And if he does well in the November elections, he could make life unpleasant for Israel if we don't go along with the plan, by doing things like abstaining from Security Council votes against us, and so on.”

In fact, in recent statements, Obama hinted at just such plan, saying in a press conference last week that “ultimately, the way to solve these problems is for the two sides to agree what’s going to be Israel, what’s going to be the state of Palestine. And if you can get that agreement, then you can start constructing anything that the people of Israel see fit in undisputed areas.”

Read the whole thing. It gets worse.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:17 PM