T. Belman. Not mentioned in this article is that Israel released some housing units east of green line with very little international opprobrium. Could Israel be giving some to get some? Netanyahu also hinted last week of unilateral moves but said they could go either way or did he mean both ways. If he is giving the PA expanded rights in Area C for permission to build in the settlement blocs, I am against it.
Analysis: The defense establishment has already realized that Israel has no more gestures to offer the Palestinians. There are two options left: A real peace move or instructing the army to prepare to take over the West Bank completely.
The understanding among senior officials at the US State Department ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Israel this week is that Israel will hand additional chunks of Area C over to the Palestinians.
Such a move, if done, means expanding the Palestinian control, and mainly patting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the back, as if telling him that his diplomatic efforts in the past year were not in vain.
The expansion of control, according to this version, will be expressed in expanding Palestinian police presence in Areas B and C and expanding Palestinian construction in Area C, in addition to economic gestures whose harbinger emerged last Thursday: Israel will allow the Palestinians to install a 3G cellular network in the West Bank.
The core of the economic gestures is the establishment of new industrial zones and an expansion of the existing ones, and there are already talks of selling gas to the Palestinians, building a seaport in Gaza, etc.
But even in the defense establishment, there has been a feeling in the past few months that we are a bit too late. Because one also has to know when to give, and the majority of the Palestinian street is disconnected from the PA. If elections were held in the West Bank today, Hamas would score an overwhelming victory. The PA knows that too.
Last Wednesday, Abbas hosted a rare conference in terms of the makeup of its participants. They included heads of the security apparatus, all the governors and Fatah and Tanzim leaders. Abbas asked his guests to keep the “popular uprising” low key, without any armed components.
While Fatah and Tanzim members are distancing themselves from the PA so as not to be affiliated with what is perceived on the street as a collaboration with Israel, they understand that they are in the same boat as the PA against Hamas. The revolution in Gaza in 2007, which threw the Fatah people from the high buildings and removed them from the government, is only a matter of time in the West Bank.
Both sides – Israel and the PA – are playing with themselves at the moment. The Palestinian street is already on a different court. It doesn’t believe the PA, it despises Israel, and the unrest is changing gears to the third stage: The firearm stage.
If the first stage included young people throwing stones and rioting, and the second stage was stabbings and vehicular attacks, the move to terror attacks with firearms reflects a higher level of willingness to launch an armed conflict. This paves the road to institutionalized terror, which will also include suicide bombers exploding on buses.
In the meantime, alongside the shooting attacks of lone-wolf terrorists who go out with weapons to kill Israelis and die, there are those who only want to die. We are witnessing the development of a new model of a shahid (martyr) who faces solders in order to be shot.
In one of the roadblock, a Palestinian stood in front of a soldier as a bullet-proof glass screen separated between them. The Palestinian pulled out a knife and began piercing the glass. He wanted to be shot.
Over the weekend, three women tried to enter an IDF post in Gush Etzion with knives and a screwdriver. It was clear to them that they wouldn’t walk out alive. Someone threw a stun grenade on them, and they were captured.
Israel’s gestures to the Palestinians may put the roses back in the PA’s cheeks and open a certain door for resuming the peace negotiations. As far as the PA is concerned, it will be a resuscitation attempt; and Israel will buy some time off from international pressure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may launch a move which will distance the Bayit Yehudi faction from the government and bring the Zionist Union closer, based on the continuation of land transfers to the Palestinians, and it may end with nothing.
The defense establishment internalized a long time ago that the case of beads Israel hands out to natives has already been emptied out. The third stage of terror is already here, and the fourth stage is on its way. We are left with two situations: A real peace move or instructing the army to prepare for an occupation of the West Bank.
If no concessions why did BB allow the 3G in the middle of the stabbings?
Ted Belman Said:
it appears that we are once more talking about the same units first approved in 2010 and last week given approval to market for pre sales before any construction. Hence 5 years of various announcements for the same project yet to begin. I wonder if he can squeeze another 5 years of various approvals prior to starting construction, perhaps each toilet can get its own approval? ….PLUS he has managed to tack on another announcement of 1000 more mythological units for good measure. all this during the 5 year freeze that BB said did not exist… in fact there was only a 10 month official freeze for the talks.
I already wrote this up on a recent previous page here showing the units were the same ones from 2010, which I believe were originally 900 units…. its easy to forget with so many announcements. This reminds me of the film where the general inspects the troops and the first guy keeps running down to the end of the line so the general keeps inspecting the same few soldiers over and over again.
https://www.israpundit.org/archives/63610799/comment-page-2#comment-63356000163333
LOL, no official concessions are necessary when building 500 units cannot begin in 5 years…. perhaps BB has not been completely honest about his agenda?
Bibi has just told Kerry no concessions.
In the same neighborhood of Jerusalem where 500 units were released (which means they can be offered for presale by a real estate company getting the rights for sale), another 1000 units will be made available (released) provided the first 500 are sold.
@ bernard ross:It is for that reason that I used the word “released” advisedly. We’ll see.
When I first reported on the release, I made note of the fact that the freeze was still on except for where he released some units.
dear Ted, what does “released” mean… does it mean the start of construction? does it mean an announcement of intentions to one day do something. Please ted, lets get accurate, you know that BB is the master of announcements, declarations, mullings, hints, blah blah blah….
having been in construction for many years in the caribbean when construction begins the local old men cut a chickens neck and spread the blood at the four corners… did BB cut the chickens neck and spread the blood? that is only done at the beginning of construction for good luck and blessings….. the thing is you know that the building is beginning but with BB you never know.
Please ask BB if he cut the chickens neck and spread the blood… otherwise I might believe that he is trying to fool us again.
Netanyahu is running down The Obama Count Clock with hints of what seems like a bottomless pit of concessions options. It is to some considerable degree smoke and mirrors. My guess is behind the scenes Abbas is refusing to cooperate in exchange for the concessions batted about.
It is a waste of time and lives. No concessions are called for whatsoever, on the contrary.
Short of conceding the whole country there is no possible concession acceptable to the Islamists. Annexation, the only way forward.
Taking orders from the lurch, the dummy Kerry means that Bibi and the Israel government are dumber than dumber.
The author of this piece sounds like the typical mentally deranged left-wing “journalist”. Of course, in Israel and the US “journalist” and left-wing are redundant. What does this creature consider “real peace moves”? There are only 2 choices: destroy the Fakestinians by implementing the death penalty for any Fakestinian who murders a Jew and carry out the sentence rapidly. Confiscate any payments the murder’s relatives will receive from the head filthy pig Fakestinian Abbas or other Muslim source.
Discouraging the Irish-American Nazi Heinrich Kerry from coming to Israel would help. It is obvious he is coming to threaten Israel if they dare to engage in any form of self defense. He will threaten them with all kinds of consequences if they refuse to commit suicide. When one considers how some Jews with no hope of survival chose to resistance highly trained, heavily armed SS troops who came to remove the remaining Jews from the Warsaw ghetto with a paltry 75 pistols or any form of resistance by Jewish partisans very few of whom survived, with the craven behavior of the government of the first Jewish state in almost 2000 years it is heartbreaking.
Even meeting with the despicable John Kerry who is barely better than a Nazi is incredibly humiliating. What other nation would take orders from an “ally” which is nothing more than national suicide, allow its’ citizens to be murdered with virtual impunity? The ghetto mentality of Jews caused by 2000 years of persecution remains.
Another Hobson’s choice created by the Left meant to handcuff Israelis. And like the ones that preceded it completely wrong, stupid and dangerous.
@ JoeBillScott:I totally agree.
Fishman knows or should know that there is no “real peace move” to be taken.
“A real peace move” is a tendentious phrase I’m afraid. Or is it disingenuous? I would rewrite the final sentence of this article as follows:
“We are left with two situations: Restoring full Israeli sovereignty over the so-called “West Bank” or preparing for war with ISIS.”