I’ve given up expecting peace-process zealots like Secretary of State John Kerry or the European Union to pay any heed to mainstream Israelis (i.e., the 83 percent who think even withdrawing to the 1967 lines and dividing Jerusalem wouldn’t end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). But recently, even Israel’s far left has become too “right-wing” for these zealots. That begs an obvious question: Since any peace deal requires two sides, how do they expect to close one by adopting positions so extreme evenHaaretz columnists won’t support them?
Two regular Haaretz contributors and long-time peace advocates wrote columns this month decrying the current approach. First, former Haaretz editor-in-chief David Landau blasted Kerry for treating veteran Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem as “settlements.” Next, psychology professor Carlo Strenger explainedwhy the Syrian crisis makes a full West Bank withdrawal impossible.
Much of Landau’s piece restated what has long been obvious: the “indiscriminate lumping together of Jerusalem suburbs with far-flung” settlements has encouraged mainstream Israelis to do the same–and therefore oppose a construction freeze in either–and made it impossible for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate without a total freeze, because he can’t demand less than Washington does. But Landau also added a new twist: “Kerry’s ham-fisted lumping together of Ramot and Gilo with West Bank settlements” has even forced Israeli leftists to side with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Washington (and, he might have added, the EU as well). It is “veritably forcing myriad moderate Israelis, who long for peace and the two-state solution, to bridle, with the Netanyahu camp, at the entire admonishment.”
Strenger’s piece, however, tackled a broader problem: the ongoing implosion of Syria. Peace activists have long advocated a deal with Syria, he noted, but “most Israelis now shudder when they think what would have happened if Israel had returned the Golan Heights. Al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamist groups would be at the shore of the Kinneret, creating an unbearable security risk.”
This lesson matters for the West Bank, he wrote, because despite his conviction (incidentally not shared by most Israelis) that Abbas truly wants peace, “Israelis ask a simple question: do you have the ability to prevent a takeover of Palestine by extremists?” And the obvious answer is no: Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction, and Abbas can’t guarantee it won’t take power following an Israeli pullout.
“After all, Hamas once won the elections in Palestine,” Strenger recalled. Hamas also routed Abbas’s forces in less than a week when it staged a military takeover of Gaza in 2007–a fact Strenger bizarrely omits, but that most Israelis haven’t forgotten. Hence the inevitable conclusion:
In the Middle East’s current situation no Israeli government will renounce security control of Palestine’s eastern border and no Israeli government will return to the 1967 borders in the foreseeable future, when there are chances that radical Jihadist elements might attack Israel from there.
But another failed push for a deal demanding exactly that won’t merely increase distrust on both sides and thereby reduce the chances of peace in the future–a point both Strenger and Landau make. It also means diplomats aren’t pursuing interim measures that could defuse the conflict and actually increase prospects for future peace–measures that, as political scientist Shlomo Avineri noted in this insightful analysis, are routinely employed in other conflicts where final-status deals aren’t immediately possible, like Cyprus or Kashmir. Thus by pushing a final-status deal now, Kerry and company are actively making things worse at the expense of steps that could make things better.
And if that’s what even Israel’s far left is saying, isn’t it time for international diplomats to start listening?
@ yamit82:
🙂 It’s early morning here and those animal videos made me start my day with a smile. Thank you.
@ Canadian Otter:
Break Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UlsJHKLshVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjWc43FCYlg&feature=player_embedded
@ yamit82:
Blair is also one of the main architects of the destruction of his own country, by deliberately bringing in huge numbers of Africans and Asians who can’t and won’t integrate and contribute, who are instead destroying the very fabric of Britain, and who will soon become the majority. In this video Paul Weston calls Blair a “traitor” several times. https://www.israpundit.org/archives/55619 – What forces were behind those Labour policies? As usual, politicians are only the puppets.
A WARNING: “Just like in 1948, the country is in a state of danger.” ~~~ (If heroes from the 1948 war) “woke up miraculously and saw the divided country of today, “they would run back to their graves.” ~~~ That’s Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Pundak, commander of the 53rd Battalion of the Givati Brigade in the War of Independence, speaking in an interview on IDF Radio. Pundak confirmed that forces under his command razed Arab villages in 1948. “My conscience is at ease with that, because if we hadn’t done so, then there would be no state by now. There would be a million more Arabs,” he said. When asked if he feels proud of his country, he said that his pride runs “as high as the rooftop.” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/168912
Canadian Otter Said:
I’m confident that there is a deep connection between the Clintons and Blairs as well as the Bushes. Blair was considered Clintons poodle by the Brits in the years before he retired from PM position. The two families became quite close personally.
I submit the the Blair Clinton Alliance was one dominated by Blair and not the other way around. I submit that since Wilson the British have manipulated the Americans to act as their agents and enforcers of the British Elites Globalist agenda.
Blair has been the point man or “envoy” of ‘the Quartet’ dictating to Israel almost as long as he has been a knight of the church and candidate for President of the EU.
These entwined events illustrate the nexus of diplomacy, ‘intelligence,’ finance, terror and ecological disasters that lead governments to impose more regulations on individuals and small businesses. It also exposes a facet of London’s long-term engagement with jihad.
East Asia, is being prepped by by the British and the West including the Vatican to be the model for “global governance” in the 21st century. This was the theme of an IMF meeting in Korea July 11-12, 2010. This model is not pleasant; nor is the process by which NATO, the British “Commonwealth” morphs into a World “Commonwealth” the better to eat you with, my dears…
Tony Blair welcomes new role as Pope
Vatican to make Tony Blair a saint for bringing democracy to Iraq?
Blair’s for sale –
I don’t know why you folks treat these people with so much deference, when they and their countries have so much to answer for. I just found this article about Tony Blair, the same Tony who preaches peace and fairness to you. Daily Mail: “Blair’s Dirty Money” – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342032/Blairs-dirty-money-As-tentacles-reach-Mongolia-ex-PM-making-millions-worlds-evil-regimes.html
Also, you must have read articles about the State Department’s latest corruption scandals –
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/12/Clinton-Kerry-State-Dept-Scandals
BK. about what Netanyahu says, regarding Israel’s security:
The current prime minister notably has a history of ether or both speaking with a forked tongue, and/or showing signs of a mental disconnect between what he preaches and policies he practices in regard to Jewish national rights in Shomron and Yehuda. And even more so in the 72 percent of those territories which Area C of the Oslo accords comprises.
The overall security of Israel and the Jewish nation, both in the short run and into the long future, requires permanent Jewish Israeli control over extended belts of territory far larger than encompassed by the 1948 and even the 1967 borders, which in any case never were anything other than armistice lines. That vital expansion requires settlement of large numbers of Jewish residents, industries, agricultural settlements and defenses, which all count for permanent de facto control of lands, which, according to historical experience, ultimately lead to de jury control.
As for Netanyahu rejecting control of Israel’s future by the Obama administration, that remains to be seen. Otherwise, George W Bush’s comment seems to apply:
“All hat, no cattle”.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Israel simply must stay strong a resist the yes we can idiots of Obama, Kerry and the EU. Israel must say as Bibi is saying Israel is in charge of Israels security and no one else.