Israel Matzav

The storm was brewing long before September

The following is reprinted from the Long Island Jewish World (Oct. 1-7, 2010 issue) with the author's permission. Liz Berney remains on the ballot in the 5th Congressional District of New York on the Tax Revolt party line. I urge you to vote for her.

Response to Congressman Gary Ackerman’s article “A Perfect Storm in September?” (Jewish World, Sept. 10-16, 2010).

The Storm Was Brewing Long Before September

By Elizabeth Berney, Esq.

The right condemnation: Congressman Gary Ackerman’s article entitled “A Perfect Storm in September?” (Jewish World, Sept. 10-16, 2010) rightfully condemns Hamas’ commitment to Israel’s destruction, the 40,000 missiles pointed at Israel from Lebanon that Syria illegally provided to Hezbollah, the hypocritical international “concern” with Israel’s killing of Turkish terrorists, the Palestinian leadership’s failure to prepare their public for peace, and the constant efforts to brand Israel’s efforts to defend itself from terror as “war crimes.” It was gratifying to read all this.

The wrong solution: However, the “solution” proposed in the Congressman’s article will make the grave situation that Israel faces even worse. The current negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, pushed by the Obama administration, are NOT Israel’s “only viable pathway to lasting peace and security,” as the Congressman asserts. Quite the opposite. Let’s examine this:

Increased violence: First, the events of the past 17 years have repeatedly demonstrated that every Israeli concession and agreement with the Palestinian Authority has resulted in increased violence towards Israelis.

When the 1993 Oslo accord was announced seventeen years ago (this week), the New York Times called the accord “the triumph of hope over history.” Unfortunately, history won. Prior to the 1993 accord, the PLO’s influence and ability to carry out terrorist activity was at a low point. Arafat had lost his state sponsor when the Soviet empire disbanded. The PLO had lost its base in Lebanon. Arafat had lost billions of dollars of revenue previously sent to him by the 400,000 Palestinian workers who were thrown out of Kuwait after the PLO supported Saddam Hussein’s unsuccessful invasion of Kuwait. This was the time to leave well enough alone. The PLO and the unrepentant murderer of Israeli children, Yasser Arafat, should have been left to wither on the vine.

Instead, the secretly-negotiated 1993 Oslo accord brought Arafat into the heart of Judea and Samaria, and resulted in an immediate three-fold increase in Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists (from 34 Israelis murdered in 1992 to 109 murdered in 1994). Injuries of Israelis increased twenty-fold (from 23 injured in 1992 to 456 Israelis injured in 1994). See Summary of Terrorist Attacks in Israel, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisraelsum.html. (During a 1994 visit to Israel, my children and I narrowly escaped from an attempted terror attack.) There were more terror attacks against Israel in the five years after Oslo than there had been in the previous twenty years. Arafat secretly funded and armed Hamas, enabling Hamas to bomb buses and shoot passing Israeli cars while Arafat avoided responsibility. Senior PA legislator Muhammed Dahlan recently explained that Arafat condemned terror during the day and did “honorable” things at night.

Similarly, the Hebron accord of 1997 (under which Netanyahu turned over 80% of Hebron to the Palestinians) resulted in the increased attacks emanating from the Palestinian areas on Jews in the remaining 20% of Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba. The Gaza withdrawal resulted in thousands of rocket attacks on Israel.

Likewise the elimination of Israeli checkpoints, in response to pressure from the Obama administration, has resulted in heartbreaking fatal shootings of Israelis that would have been prevented if the checkpoints had remained intact – including the murder of four Israelis – one of them nine months pregnant – two weeks ago. (One of my disagreements with Congressman Ackerman was over his criticism of checkpoints in a March 2008 Congressional hearing.)

Offers of more concessions have also emboldened the terrorists: Following Ehud Barak’s over-generous offer at Camp David, 984 Israelis were killed and 6,982 were wounded by Palestinians in the Intifada in 2001-2004.

Haven’t we learned yet?

History of Broken Agreements to Stop Inciting Terror: Second, every agreement that Israel has entered into with the Palestinian Authority during the past 17 years has been broken by the Palestinians. Israel kept its end of the bargain, and turned over large swaths of territory to Palestinian Authority control. However, the repeated Palestinian agreements to end terrorist incitement (contained in the Oslo I declaration of principles, Oslo 2, the Hebron agreement, Wye accord, etc.) have not been kept to this day. Palestinian textbooks still teach a steady diet of hatred for Israel and America, and terrorists are honored by the Palestinian Authority leadership and in the official PA media. The PA also continues to fail to meet its agreed-to obligations to hand over terrorists wanted for murderous attacks in Israel and to collect illegal weapons.

Pressuring Israel to enter into another agreement in which Israel will give up territory in exchange for promises that will never be kept is not the “pathway to peace.”

Instead, America, Israel (and our Congressman) should insist that the “pathway to peace” must start with Palestinian compliance with all their past agreements to stop inciting terrorism and harboring terrorists- before any further steps are taken or concessions are made.

Demilitarization is unworkable: Third, the concept of a “demilitarized” Palestinian state is pure fantasy. At a 2002 Likud Central Committee meeting in 2002, Netanyahu explained that even under new leadership, a Palestinian state would quickly become a terrorist fortress, with “all the powers of a state, such as controlling borders, bringing in weapons, control of airspace and the ability to knock down any Israeli plane that enters its area, the ability to sign peace treaties and military alliances with other countries. Once you give them a state, you give them all these things, even if there is an agreement to the contrary, for within a short time they will demand all these things, and they will assume these powers, and the world will stand by and do nothing - but it will stop us from trying to stop them.”

Destruction of Israel in Stages: Fourth, the Palestinian Authority leadership has clearly stated their true intentions, from day 1 of the Oslo “peace process” through today. On the very same day that Yasser Arafat shook hands with Yitzchak Rabin on the White House lawn to celebrate the Oslo accord (Sept. 13, 1993), Arafat announced in Arabic, in a pre-taped interview on Jordanian television (broadcasted into Israel), that the accord was merely a stage in the destruction of Israel. Arafat stated: “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do it in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has, in his own words, continued Arafat’s “glorious heritage” of long “armed struggle” combined with “political action.” Abbas appeared on Palestinian television last year holding up for display a map of “Palestine” and neighboring countries that erased the existence of Israel, and states that he will not accept a Jewish state. Abbas stated this summer that negotiations were the PA’s only option for the time being because the PA is not strong enough to fight Israel militarily now, while urging Arab states: “If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor.”

Other Palestinian officials have also reiterated the Arafat “stages” plan to destroy Israel. PA Religious ministry official Ibrahim Mudayris stated during his regular Friday sermons on PA official television that Israel will be destroyed in stages: Through diplomacy, Israel would be brought to the 1967 borders, and from that position Israel would be destroyed in war.

It is as foolish to ignore Palestinian leaders’ word and intentions as it was to ignore Hitler’s “stufenplan” (stage-by-stage plan for domination of Europe) and extreme anti-semitism revealed in Mein Kampf.

The dangerous Obama agenda: Fifth, the dangers of an armed Palestinian state on Israel’s longest border will be compounded by the rest of the Obama administration’s dangerous Middle East agenda. In a 2009 Charlie Rose interview,Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, stated that “full implementation of the Arab peace initiative” is “the objective set forth by the president [Obama] and the Secretary of State.” Likewise, Obama’s Cairo speech (in June 2009) called the Arab Peace Initiative “an important beginning.”

The “Arab Peace Initiative” (“API,” also sometimes referred to as the “Saudi Peace Initiative”) is actually a plan which would lead to Israel’s destruction.

The API calls for Israel to give up everything in return for an impossible-to-enforce promise of “normal relations.” The API demands that Israel must return to indefensible June 4, 1967 borders (the 1949 Armistice lines), thereby displacing 600,000 Jews from their homes – a humanitarian disaster. The API also demands that Israel must grant a “right of return” for 4 million Arabs who never lived in Israel to come to live in Israel and overrun the country; and insists that Palestinians will not be settled in Arab countries. The API further demands that Israel must agree to a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem – the eternal city of the Jewish people; and that Israel must withdraw from the strategically essential Golan Heights, thereby displacing another 18,000 Jews and rendering Israel’s northern border indefensible.

Consistent with the API, Obama’s United Nations speech in September 2009 called for negotiations to address borders, Jerusalem and refugees, and to provide a “contiguous” Palestinian state (in other words, a state that divides Israel into two separate pieces in order to connect Gaza and the West Bank), and an end to the Israeli “occupation” of 1967 (in other words, return Israel to indefensible borders). The Obama administration has also been actively pushing for a Syrian agreement involving an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. Such a withdrawal would not result in the disarmament of Hezbollah’s 40,000 rockets, and would only make Israel’s situation more precarious.

The Palestinian-Israeli-U.S. negotiations underway now are part of this entire dangerous agenda, and are simply not a “viable pathway to lasting peace and security.”

Other issues: There are a number of other problems with Congressman Ackerman’s article:

Iran Sanctions Waivers: First, the discussion of Iran neglects to mention that the recent Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010 (“CISADA”), like its predecessor (the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996), contains waivers which permit the State Department and President to ignore the sanctions law. As Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Letinen explained in her press release following the passage of CISADA, the waivers (which the Democratic Congress inserted into CISADA, at the Obama administration’s request), can easily render CISADA useless.

Causes versus pretexts: Second, the Congressman is inaccurate when he states that if the Palestinian Authority walks away from the “peace talks” and violence increases, it will be because Israel ends its unilateral settlement freeze. The settlement freeze has made life miserable for Israelis for 10 months, and is scheduled to expire on September 26th. While the expiration of the freeze may be a pretext for the Palestinian Authority to abandon the talks and increase terrorism, it will not be the reason for walking away and engaging in more terrorist activity. History has demonstrated that Palestinian terrorism is planned, and then a pretext for it is found. For instance, the Second Intifada was planned and ordered by Arafat months before the pretext for it occurred (Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, which had been fully authorized by the Muslim wakf).

State of the state: Third, the Congressman is wrong that the Obama administration’s peace plans will prevent Israel from having to one day choose between being a Democratic or a Jewish state. The Palestinian “right of return” included in the Obama-supported API is what would bring about this dilemma.

Israel and her American defenders need to stand strong if they are to survive the brewing storms.

Ms. Berney is an attorney and Republican committeewoman living in Great Neck. She ran for Congress against Congressman Ackerman in 2008 and 2010.

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As some of you may recall, Liz lost the 'Republican primary' to an Ackerman stalking horse who was a registered Democrat who resided in another district. Unfortunately, Ackerman's article appeared a few days before the primary and Liz's response did not appear until after the primary.

Liz Berney remains on the ballot in the 5th Congressional District of New York on the Tax Revolt party line. I urge you to vote for her.

On Tuesday, I was shocked to discover that the Jewish Press, which calls itself the World's largest circulation Anglo-Jewish weekly, and which is probably the Jewish newspaper most widely read by religious Jews in the US, had endorsed Ackerman even before the primary. Ackerman is President Obama's loyal puppy dog; he's probably the most loyal since Robert Wexler resigned from Congress to head up J Street's think tank.

How come no one else gets it?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:40 AM