By Ted Belman
Herb Keinon, writing in the JPOST, makes the point that in present negotiations between Israel and the PA, Sec. Kerry is prepared to concede on most of Netanyahu’s security demands but expects Netanyahu to concede the land demands of the PA supported by Pres Obama. This deal is called “land, with minor swaps, for peace”.
I believe,, and Keinon makes it crystal clear, that if Netanyahu gets the security he wants, even if limited to 10 or 15 years on some issues, that he will settle for the major settlement blocks and would abandon East Jerusalem, Ariel and E1 and the rest of Judea and Samaria.
Kerry is following the blueprint of Carter who achieved a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. It was based on 100% withdrawal, i.e. land for peace. To achieve it, Carter insisted that Begin and Sadat be sequestered and silent about negotiations. Furthermore negotiations established two Framework Agreements; one on the terms/framework for Israel-Egypt peace agreement and the other on a framework for regional peace. Kerry is likewise insisting on silence and a framework agreement otherwise known as an agreement in principle.
In the latter framework agreement, both Carter and Sadat pressed Begin to agree to creating a Palestinian state but Begin would only agree to autonomy for the Palestinians. It should be noted that autonomy is limited sovereignty. Acceding to Netanyahu’s security demands effectively leaves the Palestinians with autonomy only.
But I view it as a mistake of historic proportions, that Israel doesn’t make borders and land the primary issue rather than security. That’s what the Israeli right wants but not what the left wants.
In a framework agreement Israel would have to agree to ’67 lines plus swaps and a divided Jerusalem. This formula is land, with minor swaps, for peace. She would also agree to a limited return of “refugees” based on family reunification. The details will subsequently be worked out in a future peace agreement. Palestinians would accept the security arrangements specified in some detail and mouth peaceful platitudes and might even accept Israel as the Jewish national home. That is, if they accept it at all.
What bothers me about such a deal is that it ignores that Zion and therefore Zionism is associated with Judea and Samaria and not the coastal plain where Tel Aviv is. Israel would be giving up her biblical heartland. Herzl rejected Uganda when it was offered because, even though he was secular, he realized that the only place for the Jewish state he envisaged, was in Eretz Yisrael which includes Judea and Samaria, because it is to Eretz Yisrael that the Jews prayed for two thousand years to return. Nowhere else would suffice.
Ben Gurion, also secular, felt likewise though he accepted partition thereby giving up on our patrimony. He felt it was now or never for an independent Jewish state. At the same time he maintained our right to all of Palestine. During the War of Independence, he passed legislation automatically extending Israel sovereignty to any additional land we might conquer.
Also, one of the factors that led him to his decision was the fact that in 10 years the status of Jerusalem was to be put to a referendum which he was certain would result in Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. I don’t quarrel with Ben Gurion’s decision to accept half a loaf. But I do quarrel with the idea that Israel should settle for security now, rather than land, Eretz Yisrael, especially since Israel never fought to keep it.
In accepting UNSC Res 242, Israel also accepted “recognized and secure borders” rather than rejecting such resolution and such borders and demanding our right to all of Judea and Samaria. Nothing has changed since then. Even now, as Israel negotiates a final settlement, she doesn’t start by demanding all the land and supporting such demand with strong historical and legal arguments. Instead she doesn’t make such a claim and meekly says she will settle for security and recognition.
There is only one reason that Netanyahu is not stressing Israel’s legal rights and that is because he is intending to abandon them. He would not have entered these negotiations if he wasn’t so inclined. While he rejected the framework of ’67 lines plus swaps as the basis of negotiations, he is free to accept such a framework during negotiations.
Looking to shore up his support, he declared in a Likud-Beytenu faction meeting. “Any agreement reached will come to a referendum. I committed to it and this is essentially correct and would happen if any agreement is reached.” Naftali Bennett, head of Habayit Hayehudit, who is committed to keeping most of Judea and Samaria, said he would accept the will of the people as expressed in a referendum.
But the Referendum Bill that was recently approved by the Israeli Cabinet, applies only to agreements that commit Israel to relinquishing land subject to Israeli sovereignty. This would include Jerusalem and the Golan. The Bill is still under discussion. The right want it to be a basic law requiring 61 votes to amend and the left doesn’t want it all. Some want it to require a super majority to pass. The proposed law does not apply to giving up parts of Judea and Samaria (West Bank). So, just what such a referendum will entail remains uncertain.
I do not believe that Netanyahu is hoping to be saved by Palestinian rejectionism. I think he truly wants this deal. Like he said to the Saban Forum “I’ve made hard decisions to further peace negotiations. I’m willing to make even harder decisions to achieve peace.”
Whether his coalition or the Israeli people are prepared for such a deal, remains to be seen.
yamit82 Said:
my condolences on the death of the Israeli soldier. Enough of these murders.
What is the Saudi explanation for their policies depriving minorities of rights and their undemocratic govt.?
Why do you believe that Israel must explain what others already do and are approved for membership in the UN and appointed to positions on the UNCHR in the UN? Your perspective is the same as those of the enemies of Israel and the Jews and the historical euro christian anti semites.
Then again, why shouldn’t you continue with this MO? After all a con artist will repeat his con until the sucker learns his lesson.
As long as the Jew remains the sucker for double standards, playing along with the con, the con artists and swindlers will continue their chicanery.
bernard ross Said:
ON every forum you misdirect the Jews to an issue of discussing the Pals. You are a successful evil genius; you have conned me too. I don’t care about the pals and yet you catch me every time. However, at least I get to spotlight your MO.
Hopefully, the Jews will wake up and pursue their own interests as opposed to the interests, and red herrings, promulgated eternally by that most evil and pernicious of entities: the euro christian collective.
The “replacement Jews” who are most enthusiastically aiding the Jew killers and pushing BDS have a problem touting their ideology. One must wonder why it is that Hashem has made the barren land bloom for the “classic Jews” that he gathered back to Israel rather than the “replacement Jews” under whom the land was barren? Why aren’t the “replacement jews” in-gathered to receive the prophesied blessings? Did Hashem err? If Israel is destroyed, the Jews dispersed, the land again made barren as it was under the christians and Muslims then the “replacement jews” can return to touting their ideology without having the Jews once again muddy the stream. This is the unenviable position of swindlers and liars and their degenerate behaviors.
Ted, My comments re: your response to my #35:
Generally what you say is true, however there are exceptions.
For instance, an individual who has all the rights but desperately doesn’t want a court case, be it an aversion to litigation, courts and lawyers or sympathy for the other side, will start negotiations with a very fair offer, that amounts to compromising their rights with a view to settling differences amicably.
Similarly, where one party, be it a major corporation that depends for its business on the goodwill of the public or the government that depends on the electorate for support, fears that to take a hard line negotiating position at first instance, based on their superior rights,fears potential backlash to their political or economic fortunes because they might appear to be bullies in the court of public opinion, will also begin negotiations on a compromise basis to give an impression they are fair.
So it is with Israel vs. the Palestinians, except that those non legal influential considerations that enter Israel’s calculus are far greater than the examples I just cited, for Israel’s very existence as a secure and viable Jewish and democratic nation as Israel broadly defines her national aspirations, hangs in the balance. The depth and breadth of international opinion that has little regard for Israel’s lawful rights, save for her right to exist.
The Palestinians have portrayed themselves as underdogs vis a vis Israel through their false narratives, faux claimed rights, propaganda and as valiant courageous warriors in a fight for liberation, independence and freedom to live as a nation on their own terms unhindered by the yoke of Israeli oppression. The Palestinians have captured the imagination and support of most of the international community as that community is itself seized with leftist-liberal underdogma thinking.
Add to that, the international community while consumed with the assumed virtues of peace over war, are also consumed first and foremost with their own national interests.
In that regard the international community fears and with some good reason, that to support Israel’s lawful rights, legitimate security needs and her other legitimate interests to take Palestinians to task for their wrongs and failures, could further inflame anger against the non-Muslim world, throughout the Mid East and jeopardize Western and other non-Muslim nations’ interests bound up largely in their need of Gulf oil and other trade interests. The 1973 Gulf states oil embargo is still a vivid painful memory.
With all that, international opinion ignores:
1. Practically all that is wrong factually, legally, ethically and morally with Palestinian leadership;
2. The Palestinian history of lies, internal corruption and failure to abide by prior agreements;
3. The Islamist inspired Palestinian Jew-Israel hating psyche that in the main (set out in both the Hamas and PLO charters) lies at the root of the interminable Israel vs. Palestinian low grade war;
4. That the Palestinian political, media, educational and other lay leadership have by their positions and statements in Arabic to the Palestinian and Arabs of the Mid East that their objective in achieving a TSS is to use it as a staging ground for a final assault to destroy Israel rather than accepting a TSS as a final peace solution that settles all competing claims as the West has always conceived of it ever since the TSS was first conceived in the British White Papers, Peel Commission and the Partition Resolution of November 1947.
5. That the fundamental reasons for this seemingly interminable conflict is not so much about land as it is Islamist ideology.
Implicit in all this is international community thinking that faint hope remains that Palestinians will ultimately come to their senses, if only Israel makes enough concessions to bring the Palestinians from no to yes to the TSS and yes to accepting the TSS as the West expresses it.
Knowing that the Palestinians have nothing to offer Israel, but more promises, it is practically only Israel that the international community looks to, to keep making tangible compromises.
Both Israel and Palestinians are very much sensitive to and aware of international opinion and the power of that opinion as it moves nations to take the positions it does.
As for the Palestinians they use that international opinion to their own advantage to keep pressing their positions and maximum demands knowing they can do so with impunity and much if any adverse consequences, while Israel is being forced to struggle to find ways to endure that international opinion and try to work around it or to maneuver within the great limitations international opinion puts on Israel.
It is with the foregoing in mind, that I contend the Palestinians and Israelis are not like ordinary litigants and therefore offered as a plausible alternate explanation that Netanyahu is very mindful of Israel’s lawful rights, interests and needs and is trying to protect and advance them while seeming to be only negotiating within the TSS frame of reference that the world community and America demands of her.
You also commented on my statement
saying:
In that regard, the international community and the U.S. would not see the maximum position you suggest Israel should take as a starting position as holding much if any promise of Israeli compromise. Notwithstanding disingenuous accusations by Obama and the international community that Israel must show she is sincere about wanting peace, Israel’s position and actions have over the past several or more decades evidenced Israel’s willingness to compromise.
Suddenly taking a hard line maximum position would be seen by the U.S. and the international community as a big step back from the compromise path Israel has been on and with that, the international community, seeing that their own interests would be at risk could very well react by no longer just imploring and pressing Israel to make compromises, but would force a TSS on Israel and the Palestinians. That such forced TSS would not be stable and enduring would not matter at all.
The prize is for the TSS to materialize. With achieving that, the U.S. and the international community would wash their hands of it, unless of course the manner in which the TSS quickly fell apart, would again jeopardize their respective national interests.
As to how the international community might impose a TSS solution on Israel and the Palestinians, let me remind you of the expression, “necessity is the mother of invention”. How desperately the U.S. and international community feel the need to impose a TSS, will dictate how they will impose one on Israel and the Palestinians.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Answered here:
CuriousAmerican Said:
You deal with it!!
The Palestinian Refugees: a Reality Check
The birth of the Palestinian refugee phenomenon, in the form of a massive Arab flight, occurred during the Arab riots of 1936-39.
By: Yoram Ettinger Published: December 14th, 2013
A definition of a Jew Hater is when they use double standards applied to Jews as opposed to anyone else.
<a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-palestinian-refugees-a-reality-check/2013/12/14/2/“>Read more at:
As for the World?? F..K em!!!!!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Answered here:
CuriousAmerican Said:
You deal with it!!
The Palestinian Refugees: a Reality Check
The birth of the Palestinian refugee phenomenon, in the form of a massive Arab flight, occurred during the Arab riots of 1936-39.
By: Yoram Ettinger Published: December 14th, 2013
A definition of a Jew Hater is when they use double standards applied to Jews as opposed to anyone else.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-palestinian-refugees-a-reality-check/2013/12/14/2/“>:
As for the World?? F..K em!!!!!
CuriousAmerican Said:
A definition of a Jew Hater is when they use double standards applied to Jews as opposed to anyone else.
“At the end of 2012, the UN High Commissioner of Refugees documented 15.4 million refugees worldwide – excluding Palestinian refugees who are administered by UNRWA – and 28.8 million internally displaced persons. Four million of the refugees are from Afghanistan. One of the results of the civil war in Sudan was five and a half million refugees. Fifteen million refugees (Hindu, Muslim and Sikh) were created by the 1947 partition of India, which created Pakistan. The Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 involved a forced population exchange of two million people. From 1990 to1991, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait expelled 800,000 Yemenites and almost 300,000 Palestinians for collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Some 300,000 Palestinians – who were allies of Saddam Hussein – fled Iraq following the first and second Gulf Wars. Since 1945, there have been some 100 million refugees worldwide, most of them resettled. On the other hand, Palestinian refugee camps in Arab territories have remained intact since 1950, while Palestinian leadership conducts a lavish life-style, including bank accounts stashed throughout the world.
According to an August, 1971 Ford Foundation report, by 1950, the majority of the Palestinian refugees began evacuating the camps and non-refugees moved in to benefit from UNRWA’s services. For example, half of the population in the Jelazoon refugee camp, near Ramallah, settled there after 1950. *A November 17, 2003 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) documented that less than 33% of registered Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps. *The actual number of Palestinian refugees is determined by the following: Before the 1948/9 War, 800,000 Arabs (per inflated numbers) resided within the boundaries of “pre-1967 Israel”. At the end of that war, 170,000 Arabs stayed in Israel. Of the remaining 630,000 Arabs, 100,000 were absorbed by Israel’s family reunification gesture; 100,000 middle and upper class Arabs left before the beginning of the 1948-49 war and were absorbed by neighboring Arab states; 50,000 migrant laborers returned to their Arab countries of origin; 50,000 Bedouins joined their brethren-tribes in Jordan and Sinai; and 10,000 were war fatalities. Thus, the actual total number of Palestinian refugees was 320,000. *Most of the refugees followed their political, economic and social leadership, which left before the eruption of the war. Many were enticed to depart by Arab leaders, who promised a quick devastation of the Jewish state that would provide the evacuees with Jewish property. British authorities influenced others, pressuring the minority in mixed Jewish-Arab towns to evacuate: Arabs evacuated but Jews did not. The Claim of Dispossession Examined According to Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna of Ariel University and former head of the Mossad’s Palestinian research division (Line of Furrow and Fire: the conflict for the Land of Israel, 1860-2010, 2013, pp 397-415): “The birth of the Palestinian refugee phenomenon – in the form of a massive Arab flight – occurred during the Arab riots of 1936-39, not during the 1947-49 war…. The flight was confirmed by the British Consul General to Beirut, G.W. Furlonge, in an October 27, 1938 report to the British High Commissioner in Jerusalem…. and by the Lebanese daily, Al Akhbar, in a December 1938 article…. A documentation of 40,000 Arab refugees, during 1936-39, was included in Dr. Rony Gabbay’s 1959 Ph.D. thesis, which was submitted to Geneva University….
Balata is the largest refugee camp in the PA, with an estimated 30 000 residents. Photo Credit: Nati Shohat/FLASH90 “The flight was caused by an Arab wave of terrorism, which was aimed initially at British personnel and Jewish communities, but was rapidly diverted at Arab targets. It perpetrated a violent anarchy among Arabs, totally devoid of Jewish involvement. Just like the 1947-49 flight, the 1936-39 flight triggered a departure by upper class Arabs, followed by lower and middle class Arabs, who felt increasingly insecure. Many returned to their countries of origin…. “The 1947-49 flight was limited, mostly, to Arabs from the coastal plain and valleys of Israel, while most mountain Arabs from the Galilee (which was taken over by Israel, but produced very few refugees), Samaria and Judea remained intact…. Therefore, the Palestinian “claim of return” always highlights the coastal plain [pre-1967 Israel]…. “The coastal plain was devastated by the Muslims, following their victory over the Crusaders…. Consequently, in the 19th century, Jaffa was reduced to a small village, Haifa had less than 1,000 residents and the valleys (Jordan, Beit Shean, Jezrael, Hula, etc.) were desolated, as documented by the 1881-83 surveys of the Palestine Exploration Fund…. “[Since 1882,] Jewish Aliyah [immigration] concentrated in the coastal plain, producing economic growth, which attracted massive Arab immigration from neighboring countries, mostly Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa. It was that coastal population, and its descendants – possessing limited roots in the Land of Israel – which fled in 1947, before the eruption of the war. The flight was accelerated during the 1948-49 war.” Western policy-makers and media who ignore reality, and embrace the claim of Palestinian dispossession, undermine the peace process and squander the Western taxpayers’ resources.”
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-palestinian-refugees-a-reality-check/2013/12/14/2/
As for the World?? F..K em!!!!!
EU set to offer massive aid to Israel, Palestinians for peace deal
Proposed European package, which is expected to be announced on Monday, is valued at billions of euros and would vastly improve Israel’s international standing.
The European Union is expected to announce on Monday that it will offer an unprecedented assistance package to Israel and the Palestinians, if the two parties sign a final-status agreement.
CuriousAmerican Said:
This forum is about land. however, since you want to discuss how Israel should deal with them, here is my view:
they must be kept with their heads reeling like a punch drunk fighter; they must be kept frightened and looking over their shoulders in fear of the next terror attack, targeted assassinations; bombed funerals. In this condition they can only beg for a cessation of hostility. Their leaders must be captured and brought humiliated in chains like eichmann, noriega, Saddam. While being walked in their underwear their arrogant speeches must be played so that the world can see the humiliation juxtaposed with their prior arrogant words. These are what they understand. the only reason the Pals appear to have any “weight” is because Israel allows it. The moment the paradigm shifts, all the prognosis of a future for them are out the window. They will flee for their lives on their own volition. The only thing working for the pals is Jewish self-restraint. There are no other real problems that would not disappear if Israel operated unapologetically with heavy fists. Thus the goal to focus on is to change the Jews from euro-parroting, apologetic, groveling clones to conquering, biblical, Hebrews. The body has already changed and now the mind must follow suit. The european tumor must be purged from the collective Jewish spirit and mind. The dog must turn on its master in fury.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Defend against who? There are countries in the UN with disenfranchised populations with limited rights. Why do you think Israel is different.?
CuriousAmerican Said:
They know it will do them no good, ask the Saudis, they are experienced at saying no to minorities..
Ungrateful Jews, what could they be thinking?
Since when is bargaining democratic?
It is odd your concern about democracy in Israel, for the arabs, fix the rest of the world and then come back to Israel. Why do you thnk the Jews should be more concerned about democracy than others? The pals are not concerned, they have none from their own govs.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Here’s a song for ya from MY SAMPSON here in the diaspora
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-jsCyovGeI&feature=player_detailpage