Caroline Glick reports that unless Prime Minister Netanyahu finds the spine to stand up to him, US Secretary of State John FN Kerry plans to impose a 'peace plan' on Israel that should lead to our destruction - God forbid - within 5-15 years.
Like the Clinton and Bush plans, the Kerry
parameters will involve Israeli surrender of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to
the PLO , which rejects the historical fact that two Jewish temples were built
at the site that was and remains the cradle of Jewish civilization and history
and holiest site to Judaism.
They will involve the mass expulsion of
hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria
to make room for an anti-Semitic, Jew-free state that maintains its devotion to
the destruction of the rump Jewish state.
Kerry’s framework deal will
involve the mass immigration of hundreds of thousands of foreign-born Arabs, who
have been living in al-Qaida-, Hamas- and PLO -controlled UN-run “refugee
camps,” for the past four generations.
Kerry’s plan will require Israeli
society to destroy its cohesion through the dismemberment and destruction of
hundreds of Jewish communities. As occurred before the Gaza withdrawal, it will
require the government to oversee the demonization and criminalization of well
over three million law abiding, patriotic Israeli citizens who oppose the mass
expulsions.
Kerry’s parameters will require Israel to surrender its
ability to defend itself against foreign aggression and Palestinian attacks. As
for the Palestinians, implementation of the Kerry parameters will guarantee that
all moderate elements in their society, including among Israeli Arabs, will be
overwhelmed and destroyed. The PLO state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, like
the Hamas state in Gaza, will be breeding grounds for global jihadists. They
will actively incite, organize and oversee an armed insurrection of the Arabs of
the Galilee and the Negev, meting out punishment for all dissenters.
As
for the US forces that Kerry proposes deploying to the Jew-free PLO state, they
will be targeted by the Palestinians, just as the Palestinians and the Syrians
attacked US Marines in Beirut 30 years ago. And like the Marines in Beirut, they
will be withdrawn in humiliation and defeat, but the lesson – that the Arabs
perceive the Americans and Jews as enemies of equal weight – will not be
learned. And, at any rate, unable to defend itself after agreeing to Kerry’s
parameters, Israel will cease to be a strategic ally and be transformed into a
strategic basket case. Its destruction will interest Kerry and his supporters
just as much as the destruction of South Vietnam interested them in
1975.
Aside from being a more anti-Israel version of the Clinton
parameters and Bush’s framework, Kerry’s parameters, and framework deal, have
one other unique and particularly dangerous feature. Until now, US peace plans
followed former prime minister Ehud Barak’s dictum that “nothing is agreed to
until everything is agreed to.”
That is, no hypothetical Israeli
concession on Jerusalem, for instance, will be binding unless a final deal is
concluded.
Kerry indicated at the Saban Forum that his goal is to coerce
Israel into making irrevocable concessions up front, before the Palestinians
agree to peaceful coexistence.
As he put it, “A basic framework will have
to address all the core issues – borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, mutual
recognition, and an end of claims. And it will have to establish agreed
guidelines for subsequent negotiations that will fill out the details in a
full-on peace treaty.”
For the past five and a half years, Netanyahu’s
strategy for dealing with US President Barack Obama has been to try to survive
him. He’s withstood Obama’s constant demand for Israeli national suicide for
“peace” by giving the bare minimum of revocable concession possible to keep
Obama at bay.
But with Kerry poised to shove his lethal parameters down
our throats, parameters that will require Israel to irrevocably accept terms of
peace that will destroy the country, it is obvious that Netanyahu needs to adopt
a longer-term strategy. Our goal cannot be limited to waiting out Obama. Our
goal must be to extricate Israel from the two-state trap.
Yes, Israel
will pay a huge price for jumping ship. For 20 years, non-leftist Israeli
leaders have been trying to go along to get along with the Left, and the
Americans and their ever-escalating demands. But Kerry’s obsessive harping, and
his insistence on pushing forward with his disastrous framework deal forces our
hand.
It is popular among the peace processors to claim that 'everyone knows' what a 'final settlement' between Israel and the 'Palestinians' will look like. It's roughly the Clinton parameters.
This week, we had yet another survey that claims that most 'Palestinians' accept a 'two-state solution.' Or at least that's how Israel's largest English language daily chose to headline it.
But as Rick Richman points out (and not for the first time), the 'Palestinians' might say that they accept a 'two-state solution,' but they don't accept the Clinton parameters, which makes you wonder if everyone really knows how a 'two-state solution' would look.
The PCPSR has been releasing these polls since 2003, and they always lead to misleading headlines such as the one in the Jerusalem Post–because a “two-state solution” as used in the polls doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Moreover, in every poll PCPSR poll since 2005, that package has
failed to generate Palestinian majority support. While a slight majority
of Palestinians may support a two-state solution in the abstract, what
they mean is a militarized Palestinian state, next to an Israel pushed
back to indefensible borders, with retention of an asserted Palestinian
“right of return” to Israel. Such a state would “live side by side, in
peace and security”® with Israel for about a week–the period it took to turn Gaza into Hamastan after Israel left in 2005.
The new PCPSR poll also found that “only 42% support and 56% oppose
mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and
Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people.” In other words, the
Palestinians want a state, but not if it involves recognition of a
Jewish one.
Israel is constantly warned it will eventually be faced with a demand
for a “one-state solution” if it does not make the concession du jour
to the Palestinians, but the January PCPSR poll found that “despite the
belief that the two-state solution is no longer practical, a large majority of 71% opposes the alternative one-state solution” (emphasis added). That is not surprising: the peace-partner Palestinians demand a Judenrein
state in Judea and Samaria; the last thing they want is to be in a
state with Jews in it. Fatah and Hamas cannot even live side-by-side
with themselves.
Video: Bill Clinton slams Yasser Arafat for rejecting peace
Who is responsible for the fact that there is no 'Palestinian state' today? We've all heard that Bill Clinton believes that it's Yasser Arafat. But here's what's curious about this video: If you tell the apologists for the 'Palestinians' that Clinton said Arafat was responsible, they'll tell you that the deal wasn't good enough and that Arafat could not accept it.
But here's the key: Those apologists are talking about Camp David. Clinton is talking about the Clinton parameters, and Clinton says (and this is the part I had not heard before) that Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the younger people among Arafat's aides all urged him to accept. It was Arafat himself who turned the deal down.
Scowcroft: Israel not being destroyed quickly enough
Former Bush 41 national security adviser Brent Scowcroft - the eminence grise of the Obama foreign policy team - complains that Barack Obama isn't moving fast enough to destroy the Jewish state.
Resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is not a matter of forcing concessions from Israel or dragooning the Palestinians into surrender. Most of the elements of a settlement are already agreed as a result of the ‘Clinton parameters’ of 2000, the Oslo Accords, and the ‘road map’ of 2003.
What is required is to summon the will of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, led by a determined American president, to forge the various elements into a conclusion that all parties have already publicly accepted in principle. Indeed, a broad-based Israeli group has just announced its ‘Israeli Peace Initiative’ that endorses these elements, and there is strong support from the leaders of Europe, especially Germany, France and the UK.
Thus the time has come for Mr Obama to lay out his view of the parameters of a fair and viable peace agreement. Four issues should be highlighted.
First, territory and borders should be addressed. Two states, based on the lines of June 4, 1967 with minor, reciprocal, and agreed-upon modifications as expressed in a 1:1 land swap is needed, to take into account areas heavily populated by Israelis in the West Bank.
Next, there has to be a solution to the refugee problem that is consistent with the two-state solution that does not entail a general right of return to Israel and addresses the Palestinian refugees’ sense of injustice, while also providing them with meaningful financial compensation as well as resettlement assistance.
Third, Jerusalem has to be made the undivided capital of both Israel and Palestine, with Jewish neighbourhoods under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighbourhoods under Palestinian sovereignty. There should be a special regime for the Old City, providing each side control of its respective holy places and unimpeded access by each community to them.
Last, on the issue of security, Mr Obama must push for a non-militarised Palestinian state, together with security mechanisms that address Israeli concerns while respecting Palestinian sovereignty, and a US-led multinational force to ensure a peaceful transitional security period.
These parameters would serve as a basis for substantive and productive discussion by the parties to move the peace negotiations to a positive resolution. They would achieve priority US national security and foreign policy objectives with respect to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Scowcroft is simply repeating a mantra that has been taken as being correct since Bill Clinton introduced the 'Clinton parameters' in the waning days of his administration in December 2000. They are what I refer to as 'what everyone knows' and I have taken them apart completely here, here, here and here (I suggest you read all four of those if you haven't already).
Obviously, things aren't as simple as Scowcroft says they are. In fact, an astute commenter on Scowcroft's article at the Financial Times got it much better than Scowcroft did (although I think he's wrong about Israel - we've just given up).
The New Yorker's David Remnick is rehashing old arguments regarding what President Obama ought to do about Israel. I won't respond point by point, but to summarize what Remnick can't - or won't - understand, Israelis genuinely mistrust Obama, and by consensus are unwilling to stake their future on the 'Palestinian Authority' maintaining the peace.
Here is a refresher course for those who are new to this blog:
The President has made mistakes on this issue: it was a mistake not to follow his historic speech in Cairo, in 2009, with a trip to Jerusalem. When it comes to domestic politics in Israel, he is in a complicated spot. For some Israelis on the right, his race and, more, his middle name make him a source of everlasting suspicion.
Yes, Obama made a mistake by not coming here in 2009. But that mistake cannot be corrected now. It has been followed by so many mistakes that Obama's polling numbers here are the lowest of any American President evah.
Contrary to the libel of the Left, it has nothing to do with Obama's race (we have Jews who have black mothers and fathers) nor even to do with his middle name. It's the substance of his policies. It's his attempt to disavow promises made to us by previous administrations because they were lead by people named Bush. It's his attempt to act more 'Palestinian' than the 'Palestinians' by insisting on a 'settlement freeze' in Jerusalem that no administration had ever asked for. No Mr. Remnick, it's not his race and it's not his middle name. There are many good reasons why the vast majority of Israelis mistrust Obama. He's blown it with us, and all the fancy oratory in the world will not help him to recover.
Yet he is also a communicator of enormous gifts, capable both of assuring Israeli progressives and of reaching out to the anxious center. A visit to Israel, coupled with the presentation of a peace plan, would also help structure international support and clarify American interests. The Palestinian question is not an internal matter for Israel; it is an international matter.
The 'Palestinian question' is first and foremost an Israeli internal matter and not an 'international matter.' Is Obama going to be sitting on buses here when they start blowing up again (God forbid)? Is Hillary going to be on a plane when the 'Palestinians' fire a strella missile at it when it approaches Ben Gurion Airport? Is Catherine Ashton going to be sitting in a Jerusalem cafe when a 'Palestinian' suicide bomber walks in and blows himself up? Are you Mr. Remnick?
No, none of you are. It is only we who are being asked to take the risk of returning to indefensible borders based on the 'goodwill' of a 'people' (and I have said many times that I do not accept that the 'Palestinians' are a separate ethnic group deserving of either being called a 'people' or being granted a 'state') that continues to this very day to incite their population to murder us because we are Jews. How can that be an 'international matter' and not an internal Israeli matter Mr. Remnick? To be very blunt, is your butt in the sling? Surely not. But mine is, and so are those of each and every Israeli who lives here. As we saw this past weekend, we cannot even be assured of our safety in our own homes, God forbid.
The importance of an Obama plan is not that Netanyahu accept it right away; the Palestinian leadership, which is weak and suffers from its own issues of legitimacy, might not embrace it immediately, either, particularly the limits on refugees. Rather, it is important as a way for the United States to assert that it stands not with the supporters of Greater Israel but with what the writer Bernard Avishai calls “Global Israel,” the constituencies that accept the moral necessity of a Palestinian state and understand the dire cost of Israeli isolation.
And what, pray tell, would be in such an 'Obama plan'? Well, earlier in his screed Remnick writes,
If the Administration has been reluctant to put forward a comprehensive peace plan, it’s not because it has any difficulty imagining such a plan. Inevitably, the parameters of a two-state solution would be like those established at Taba, in 2001, and by Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, in 2008.
That would be the same plan that Arafat rejected at Taba, the same Clinton parameters that Arafat rejected in December 2000. Or it would be a modified version - the same plan that Abu Bluff decided did not even merit a response between October 2008 and May 2009 until he realized that the 'international community' wouldn't look kindly on a non-response, and so he and his cohorts started telling the lie that he had in fact given a counteroffer. In other words, it would be the solution that "everyone knows" is the solution. But everyone doesn't know.
Perhaps Remnick missed it, but somewhere between the Wikileaks bombshells and the Tunisian uprising, we had a little story here called Palileaks. If Remnick were right that 'everyone knows' what the solution is, the types of disclosures made by Palileaks would not have forced the resignation of the 'Palestinians' chief negotiator and the disbandment of its negotiations support unit. You see the big story of Palileaks wasn't what was in the documents, but the 'Palestinian' reaction to them, which showed a 'people' that is unwilling to make any compromises to reach peace.
Why should Israelis be open to any initiative from Mr. Obama, Mr. Remnick? Maybe you've got it all wrong.
'Everyone knows' that a 'final status' agreement between Israel and the 'Palestinians' will look roughly like the Clinton parameters of December 2000: A 'Palestinian state' more or less along the 1967 borders, some land swap with Israel to avoid massive uprooting of revenants, a shared Jerusalem as capital of both states, no right of return for 'Palestinian refugees.' Is that a fair summary of what 'everyone knows'?
The summary has a slight problem. A new survey shows that a solid majority of 'Palestinians' would reject that deal, while a majority of Israelis would accept it subject to the 'Palestinian state' being demilitarized and the number of Jews being uprooted being minimized. The bottom line: The 'Palestinians' reject what 'everyone knows' is the 'solution.'
A new poll conducted jointly by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace shows that the Palestinian public opposes such a solution by a lopsided majority.
The poll presented a package modeled on the Clinton Parameters: (1) an Israeli withdrawal from more than 97 percent of the West Bank and a land swap for the remaining 2-3 percent; (2) a Palestinian state with a “strong security force” but no army, with a multinational force to ensure security; (3) Palestinian sovereignty over land, water, and airspace, but an Israeli right to use the airspace for training purposes and to maintain two West Bank early-warning stations for 15 years; (4) a capital in East Jerusalem and sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and the Old City (other than the Jewish Quarter and the “Wailing Wall”); and (5) a “right of return” for refugees to the new state and compensation for their “refugeehood” and loss of property.
The package was opposed by 58 percent of the Palestinians, with only 40 percent favoring it.
It was not a case of one or more individual elements in the package causing a problem. Each of the five elements was polled separately; not one of them commanded majority support.
Did someone forget to tell the 'Palestinians' what everyone knows? If not, why won't they just get with the program? What could go wrong?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
