The attack came as Trump’s envoy is in the country trying to push forward the US administration’s diplomatic initiative.
As envoy Jason Greenblatt’s already enormously difficult task of creating an atmosphere conducive to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations just got even more difficult on Tuesday with the terrorist attack in Har Adar that left three Israelis dead.
The attack came as Greenblatt is in the country trying to push forward the US administration’s diplomatic initiative, an initiative based not on top-down negotiating breakthroughs, but rather bottom-up improvement of the atmosphere.
And the terrorist from Beit Surik just threw a huge wrench in the works.
Greenblatt – who in his nearly eight months in the job and has been extremely tight-lipped about what the administration is trying to do – shined some light on its strategy at a meeting of donor countries to the Palestinian Authority held last week in New York.
The US, he said, “is deeply committed to achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement,” and to this end has held deliberations with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, as well as with other leaders in the region.
“It is no secret that our approach to these discussions departs from some of the usual orthodoxy, for after years of well-meaning attempts to negotiate an end to this conflict, we have all learned some valuable lessons,” he said.
“Instead of working to impose a solution from the outside, we are giving the parties space to make their own decisions about their future.
Instead of laying blame for the conflict at the feet of one party or the other, we are focused on implementing existing agreements and unlocking new areas of cooperation which benefit both Palestinians and Israelis.”
A major component of this plan is improving the daily lives of the Palestinians, be it through brokering a deal for water and electricity projects, or plans to develop better roads and new industrial parks.
And in these efforts to improve the daily lives of the Palestinians, allowing Palestinians to work inside the Green Line and making passage from the West Bank into pre-1967 Israel easier are key ingredients.
And it is precisely those two elements that Jabbar’s attack will now call into question.
Indeed, it has already led to calls to rethink increased work permits and efforts to ease the situation at the checkpoints.
Transportation and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz already said in response to the attack that it would have “serious implications,” and that its message to Greenblatt was, “Israel’s security was and remains the supreme consideration in the government’s policy, and is above any other consideration of improving and easing the lives of the Palestinians.”
Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev added that the Palestinians must understand that work permits “are not a license to murder.”
The Trump administration is reportedly urging Israel to make some gestures toward the Palestinians to improve the overall atmosphere. Two ideas – building a new industrial park near Tulkarm and improving a road to the new Palestinian city of Rawabi – were discussed, but not approved, at Sunday’s security cabinet meeting.
The government’s appetite for making further gestures at this point will be reduced following Tuesday’s attack, which was carried out by someone who benefited from Israel’s policy of trying to ease the situation for Palestinians.
And even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might still want to show his appreciation to the Trump administration for its Mideast policies by making some gestures the US would like to see, politically he will have to look over his right shoulder and pay attention to what ministers like Katz and Regev are saying.
That situation could be altered were Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come out and clearly condemn the attack.
But in the midst of trying to reconcile with Hamas in Gaza, and following his words last week to the UN in which he saluted “glorious” Palestinian “martyrs” and “courageous prisoners” sitting in Israeli jails – in other words, Palestinian terrorists – such a condemnation is unlikely.
The net result: Jabbar’s attack has already set back what Greenblatt came here to do just two days ago.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
All I can say is …BRILLIANT….. It would work if the P.C. cowards would put it into force, every last suggestion is valid and proper. But we’re dealing with Jews…….??????
If we were dealing with Halutzim and what they were prepared to do,,,that would have been different.
When you mention Hermeneutics, lets be clear..you mean lies associated with pseudo-religiosity…….don’t you?? We can be as Hypocritical as the Aravim, and with much practice, better at it. Why not…the basis is already there as when promising all sorts of things on Rosh HaShana.?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
All I can say is …BRILLIANT….. It would work if the P.C. cowards would put it into force, every last suggestion is valid and proper. But we’re dealing with Jews…….??????
If we were dealing qwith Halutzim and what they were prepared to do,,,that would have been different.
I can think of only two practical deterrents to Palestinian terror. It won’t stop it but it will lessen the frequency.
1) Instruct the Mossad to quietly assassinate the top organizers of terror wherever they may be. Force them to live in bunkers and wonder who around them or just underneath them might betray them. Irrespective of collateral damage. Anonymously but systematically. This was done before with great effectiveness until the Palestinians protested and begged Israel to stop. Israel should resume this and never stop. Legal mechanisms will never work because of the courts.
2) In response to every terror attack. Take back a concession. Even if it means forcing Arabs out of their homes and nationalizing their land, as was done to Jews for their benefit.
When they respond with terror. Counter by taking back two.
Three. Don’t blow up homes. They will just crowd fund and rebuild. Nationalize them and the land on which they sit. Make them sit empty. Put cameras or use satellites. Arrest any Arab who trespasses. When there are enough Arab homes emptied, force the remaining Arabs to move to the next village down the road using eminent domain. Bring in Jewish settlers. And a military outpost.
4) An important corollary is that a legal strategy must first be devised to at least delay a verdict of ethnic cleansing by Israeli or foreign courts. It’s not necessary to win. Just to keep it in litigation long enough to irreversibly change the facts on the ground.
Israel’s Basic Law says that state lands may not be relinquished.
That’s the key.
That’s why Shaked just nationalized a big tract of land in the Negev.
And if you can justify blowing up their homes, why can’t you justify taking them?
Seems to me good lawyers should be able to have an endless debate about this.
Hermeneutical Exegesis. Great expression.
means debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. or the equivalent.
Sebastien, I strongly agree with you. I have often noticed this “shooting down in flames”, a new initiative either mooted, bruited or in progress, so as to derail it. This has been happening for many years, and I often likened it to a “knee-jerk” reaction against decency, forbearance and sheer goodwill. To think of what we and our ancestors suffered for thousands of years and still to this very day, , to bring us to this Land, and then be forced to give it away…
I also see that 1 single terrorist can murder several irreplaceable Jews, and then go to well paid, quarters where he’ll be allowed to become a Phd, although along with a good income for life. By the law of averages we’ll be wiped out with still hordes of Arabs swarming over our bones.
Our values have become twisted by Ghettos and persecution so that when we’re storm buffeted by jagged, fist-sized hailstones, at least it isn’t forked-lightning striking.
How can any even antagonistic entity, expect the Jewish People to hold out the hand of friendship and co-operation to a gang of bloodthirsty monsters, ravening for our blood, who grab the hand, consume it, bones and all, and then proceed to devour the rest of the body..
I think every single day about the Shalit “bargain” the “metziah”, when we donated 1027 murderers and would-be slaughterers to the outside world, and I curse the stupidity of the “clever Jew” all over again. I wish I could think of some new epithets, mine are all outworn, and not strong enough by far.
****** ****** ****** ******
On a completely different point, why are the Bedouin, (do we remember “The Victory of the Arab Womb”.) who average 7+ children per household, allowed to be polygamists. They should be sterilized after 2….also the Black “Hebrews” ..polygamist tourists who refused to leave the country and counted on being black to be allowed to stay…….. PC..PC..PC..PC. So, over the bext 50 years, it’s a race between being destroyed by Goyim-supported Arabs, or overwhelmed by being swamped at the polls.
Greenblatt and Kuschner need to change course. Instead of working towards pressuring Israel to make more gestures along the lines of freeing pali terrorists they should make sure that US policy includes demanding from Abbas to stop the theatrics of yet again reaching an accommodation with Hamas which will be immediately discarded when the next salami slice has been acquired either from Israel or US or from his point of view from both. The only course Greenblatt and Kuschner should be heading is to get some substantive accommodations and gestures from Abbas. That will not succeed so that they will not be able to mark up any progress at all except if Bibi drops the ball and gives in again to the pressure from his friends in the US gov. Like the old adage goes, with friends like these, you need no enemies.
That was its intention. Think back. Every peace initiative was stopped by Palestinian violence. Why? Because they can’t say openly that they are adhering to article three of their actual constitution, the PLO 1974 ten point plan of phases or the diplomatically and propagandistically gained territorial victories through salami tactics and the foreign aid would stop.
I’m completely secular but I can’t help but be reminded of the reason given for the commandment to liquidate Amalek as a nation, especially since reasons aren’t often given in the Torah.
” …18 When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind…”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+25