By Ted Belman
It appears to me that there is an iceberg out there called the “peace process”. So much is going on beneath the surface that the peak only hints at.
Think of Israel as the Titanic.
The following items are all part of a grand plan in no particular order,
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1. Israel decided not to invade Gaza and instead just announced a $70 million program to fortify the homes near Gaza.
2. Olmert has made many speeches offering to give away most of Judea and Samaria.
3. Olmert has tied the hands of the IDF citing diplomatic considerations.
4. Peretz backed off his announcements to build in the Jordan and Ma’aleh Adumin.
5. The construction of the fence is proceeding through Jerusalem.
6. Israel has agreed to the the transfer of weaponry to Abbas and the efforts to make it strong enough to take on Hamas.
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7. Israel has agreed to transfer $100 million in tax revenue to Abbas
8. A three way meeting (Rice, Abbas and Olmert) has been announced to be held soon.
9. Israel has said that the Saudi Plan might be a basis for discussion.
10. Olmert has met with S. Arabia and Jordon.
11. The idea of withdrawing from Judea and Samaria as we did in Gaza has been mooted.
12. There is agreement on removing checkpoints.
13. The GOI continues to clamp down of settlers whom it considers “subversives”.
14. Today we read about secret negotiations leading to withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.
15. Today we read about the “desireability” of joining NATO.
16. Rice has stated that this time “it will be different” referring to the arming of the Arabs.
17. A “ceasefire” is in place as a backdrop to negotiations
18. Livni wants to move past the first stage of the Roadmap requiring an end to violence.
19. Lieberman was brought into the government to enlarge the coalition and neuter the right to some extent.
20. Secret negotiations with Syria have been announced with the outline of a deal.
What I discern from all this is that the intention is that the security force being built for Abbas will enforce the peace. This time it will be different according to Rice, because S. Arabia, Jordon and Egypt are committed to ensure that he does so although she hasn’t said so. All are agreed to destroy Hamas and neuter Hezbollah and to face down Iran and to support the government of Iraq against Iranian influence.
Such an agreement will involve normalization of relations.
Think of Israel as the Titanic.
Inexplicable indeed, but sometimes I wonder if Israel goes along with these suicidal schemes because of too much trust in the U.S. When the 2-state Road Map plan came out, repeatedly I kept hearing people justify supporting it out of “just trust Bush.”
Neither the captain and crew nor the passengers of the Titanic knew of the deadly danger awaiting them from 7/8th’s of the iceberg below the surface. The better comparison would be to lemmings, but even that fails because lemmings do not know why they rush to and over the brink to fall to their deaths.
Likening what little is known and what far more substantially is unknown by Israeli society regarding the GOI’s words and actions supporting the two state solution Road map to an iceberg, probably explains why what is known is inexplicable.
One would think that the MSM would have picked up on this and instead of chasing shadows to explain the unexplainable, the MSM would have in its usual zeal to find answers and make sense of all of this, dived under the surface to reveal the entire iceberg of facts and circumstances and transform a perplexed public into an understanding public.