At last we have an explanation for what has been going on with Israel-Palestinian talks. It is credible yet ridiculous. And it is very important.
Here is today’s New York Times.
“In recent weeks, Mr. Kerry and his aides have outlined several basic arguments for why his efforts might bear fruit. Perhaps the most important one, which Mr. Kerry advanced almost the moment he was picked for the State Department post, is that the United States does not have the luxury of staying on the sidelines.
“With the Palestinians poised to take their claim for statehood to the International Criminal Court and United Nations bodies, American officials say the two sides were facing a downward spiral in which the Israelis would respond by cutting off financing to the Palestinian territories and European nations might curtail their investment in Israel, further isolating the Israelis.”
Now, what is this saying?
–The Palestinian Authority (PA) intends to violate all the pledges used over the last 20 years of negotiations and in obtaining the West Bank and, previously, Gaza Strip. (Not a good precedent for the likelihood of their keeping future commitments.)
–The PA will seek statehood not through negotiations with Israel but unilaterally. No Israel agreement will be necessary.
–Note a key assumption here: The United States either will not oppose, or effectively oppose, this effort. Let’s pause here. You mean the United States cannot lead or pressure such countries as Britain, France, Germany, or Italy in saying “”no.” The New York Times doesn’t point out what a failure of Obama Administration influence that would be. Let’s also note the incompetence and failure of that government to stop leading allies at the UN General Assembly to vote for non-member statehood (a non-binding vote) last year despite a one-year warning the PA would try this.
–To summarize, the United States proposes surrender to a development breaking its more than 20-year-long policy that no comprehensive solution would be achieved without real mutual agreement.
–After the “”success” of the unilateral independence for Palestine–remember, with no control of the PA over Gaza–Israel will take action, understandably since it has been sold out by its allies.
–European states, again with no effective action by America, will punish Israel and Israel will be worse off.
Where to begin in analyzing this remarkable foundation for policy?
First, as I pointed out, it presumes incompetence and betrayal by the Obama Administration. It presumes that any battle to block either unilateral independence or punishment of Israel for opposing it would be doomed. This includes a refusal for the United State or European states to punish the PA even while they are believed they will eagerly punish Israel.
Incidentally, this explains Kerry’s seeming slip about Palestine already being an independent country! Will the Obama Administration recognize a state of Palestine not achieved through negotiation with Israel?
Second, it presumes that after everything it has done for 20-40 years has proven to be based on false promises, Israel should base itself on more of such promises.
Third, it presupposes that the punishment would be worse than the risk taken by Israel, and ignores any possible costs faced by the Palestinians. Just because the EU has put sanctions–far looser and less significant than they seem–against special economic privileges for Israeli settlements in Europe does that mean the EU will do major sanctions against Israel in its recognized territory? (If Israel has such indications we don’t know about it and, again, it shows how the United States has not fought against this.
Fourth, it assumes that having been given every reason to believe that they hold all the cards, the PA will make any compromises. This is not likely to result in a deal since Kerry has already told them that in a year or two more they can have anything. Here is Mahmoud Abbas radiating confidence that he is about to get a state. Remember that Kerry’s last Middle East negotiations was when he thought he would easily wean away Syria’s dictatorship from Iran.
And fifth, why would the PA keep any post-treaty commitments? We know that Hamas will not, and that Iran would not accept them. How long before new cross-border attacks and new demands would be made.
I presume that talks would fail and after this explanation of what Kerry is doing I feel even more strongly that this will happen. That’s why the Israeli government has accepted this bad deal, believing–I think accurately–that the PA will make the talks fail. I understand why this option was taken–also because there might be American or European additional threats and promises; nobody can be as bad as Obama in future–but really this tactic is getting tired.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
well said. certainly if Israel is being threatened by the US then the gov should make this known. and clear, to the jewish people. secrecy is not always the answer.
Pressures, threats or willing participation?
All three combined. Netanyahu is an unleader working on an unJewish plan to dismantle the Jewish State. Or what is left of that pretense after decades of sabotage by the Peresites. For how long are we going to accept that a government would be reduced to doing the most terrible thing against the Jewish people because… “MOMY, MOMMY, the bad wolf made me do it”. The JEWISH OVERGROUND, (I coined the word and incipient organization about ten years ago), group is gaining numbers and means.
Our objective is to take down the Peresite and 18 families destruction complex.
There will be a meeting in Jerusalem of the top leaders of the group.
Contact me for details starting with a reply to this comment.
We keep willfully forgetting the Islamocommunist upbringing of Obama.
The left and far left have always been the enemy of IL even when led by left parties the Muslim want to convert Europe.
Europe interests align with the Muslim world even though the Muslim do not hide their goal to take over the whole of Europe.
Obama and Europe are basically against IL. History, ethics, morality etc. are not part of any equation in politics. Even a significant number of Jews are anti-Semitics. Obama lies repeatedly in the face of the American people (Obamacare is the best example) of his repeated lies and half of American still support him. Amazing. It looks like there is not much difference btw the US voters and the Egyptian voters; most are inept on both side). Democracy allow people to show their intelligence. Most show their stupidity and ignorance.
This is a sad state of affair for humans.
Isn’t it obvious to the Israeli government by now that they have no real friends. Not even the majority of American Jews. They can only look to themselves, particularly with regard to Iran. If Netanyahu thinks Obama will stop Iran from going nuclear he should be institutionalized. So the big question is not what to do with the Palestinians but when will Israel take steps against Iran?
Screwing Israel is the entire purpose of this administration.
First, consider the comment made somewhere else on Israpundit: “If Obama is so bad, why has he not been impeached?”
The answer is to be found in his nomination and election. He wouldn’t have had a chance even fifteen years ago.
Back then, Clinton was impeached for merely lying about an affair with an intern. Think about that.
Point being, it is easy to use Obama as a lightening rod, but he is the symptom, not the problem. The problem is the infrastructure that put him there and protects him to this day. Glenn Beck has frequently referred to this “red/green alliance” of left wing academics always eager to sell out to some opponent of the West, their progeny in the media, and the Arab/Islamist petrodollar sugar daddies combined with their “bad cop” Islamist terrorist enforcers.
This alliance now is at the apogee of it’s control of Western academe, national/international print and broadcast mass media, and major segments of many national government institutions. Here in the U.S., they utterly control the Foreign Service, some parts of the Pentagon, and now, the White House, with their complete stooge on center stage.
Obama is their programmed, single-purpose, anti-Israel political cruise missile. His administration was put in place for the purpose of shoving a Saudi-style “peace” [surrender] diktat down Israel’s throat. That is why he can’t seem to do anything else…because he really CAN’T do anything else! That is their numero uno priority: appeasing Islamist sensibilities at the expense of Israel, so as to not have to fight the Islamists. We can’t fight them, you see, because that would be dirty and nasty and expensive, and most of all, because they are rightfully mad at us for our past greedy rich white guy imperialist ways, we don’t have the moral authority to justify defending ourselves against him anyway. So, if Jesus the Jew had to die for mankind’s sins…so too does Israel the Jewish state have to die for the grievous imperialist sins of the West.
If Israel overcomes this challenge, and emerges four years from now robust, strong, and without a PA terror state imposed on her doorstep in J&S…that will be pretty amazing!! I’m not saying she can’t, but it is going to be pretty darned difficult at this point.
The last chance we had to avoid this was in 2008. McCain was in fact on solid track to win that election from the time between the GOP convention, and the crash. Were it not for the crash, he probably would have won, and I believe he could have won even then, if he hadn’t fumbled the ball in terms of coming up with a convincing answer to our economic problems. Obama’s answer wasn’t technically convincing, either, but he at least sounded like he knew what he was doing, he looked like an “easy way out” for Americans (i.e., ‘the govm’t will take care of ya, so don’t worry’), and that is how he won (well, besides having twice as much money, a lot of which was illegal overseas cash from Middle Eastern donors…but I digress).
Even then, that election was indirectly rigged by the likely fact that the Gulf Arabs rigged the timing of the crash so coincide with the election, by means of raising oil prices to historic levels a few months beforehand, and letting that device percolate through the markets. This was done in plain sight. Did ya’ll notice how the prices went right back down again, right after the election?
As to 2012, we had no chance then. It was rigged backwards and forwards, big time. The crime of the century. In something like a legitimate election, Romney would have won. I could go on at great length about this, but just for now, consider this: Romney got two and a half million votes LESS THAN McCain did in ’08!! Obama “won” – officially, at least – with somewhat fewer votes than McCain received four years earlier. With everything that was at stake, and Obama’s incredibly horrible record across the board – EVERY Republican and GOP-leaning indie I knew, without exception, voted, and was damned determined to do so before the fact. And Romney led among indies going into the election. Yet voter turnout was not only less than ’08 – even though there were eighteen million MORE registered voters – but even less than the yawner election of ’04. DOES ANY OF THIS COMPUTE, PEOPLE??!! I mean, if I were in charge of rigging the election for Obama, I’d have tried to make it look a LITTLE less obvious…
What motivates them? For the “green” side, this is easy: Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews. For the “red” side, there is anti-Semitism at work but it is more complex than that. Many of them are Jews. It is more a matter of left liberal one-world Utopianism, combined with Vietnam-era defeatism and contempt for traditional Western values, along with basic cowardice and greed ($$$ from Sheikh Sugar Daddy).
Speaking of Jews…so in light of all of this, why did so many Jews – allegedly smart, well-educated, successful, informed people with high rates of voter turnout – fall for this crap?
Short answer: He was perceived as the Second Coming of FDR (which, in many ways he is, but not in ways that they would think of or like). FDR is a veritable deity among American Jews, and this was transmitted generationally to LBJ’s “Great Society”, the “peace” candidates of Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and Geoge McGovern. And finally, Obama was the heir to that final segment of the progressive democrat aura, Bill Clinton, who presided over the comparatively peaceful and prosperous 1990s. And, like Obama, he was a “cool guy”. That last part is very important…it is amazing how many Yuppie-type Jews are obsessed with nothing more than being perceived as “cool”…and well, if you didn’t support Obama, you just were NOT cool! Egads!
@ Bear Klein:
They weren’t merely willing; they were (and most still are, from what I hear from US-based friends and family) utterly obsessed. They seemed- to regard this as some highly moral imperative; a kind of substitute for God-worship. Obama is their modern-day Golden Calf.
Maybe after the negotiations collapse, we could think of a >”second début”</ and restart on more solid grounds.
Peace?
The US cannot even guarantee peace between the Arabs themselves!
And it wants to see peace happen between the Arabs and the Jews? Dream on.
Kerry probably KNOWS the agenda of the E.U. against Israel. Fools. Trying very hard to implement the ‘final solution’. How long will Hashem stand on the sidelines before stepping in? Either way, we can’t lose this time.
This is why I could never understand the American Jewish friends I have who were willing to vote for Obama twice NOT just once as he is extremely pro Palestinian plus stupid!
This is why Yaalon was referring to when he said Israel had two choices on the terrorist prisoner release one real bad and one worse yet.