We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Waiting for the Palestinian Godot: Ari Shavit, Ha’aretz, Apr. 24, 2014— There are some moments a journalist will never forget.
Common Objectives: Isi Leibler, Israel Hayom, Apr. 29, 2014 — The timing of the Palestinian Authority's intention to merge with Hamas may have caught many by surprise.
John Kerry's Jewish Best Friends: Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 29, 2014 — Anti-Semitism is not a simple bigotry. It is a complex neurosis.
Running Away From Statehood, Again: Prof. Efraim Karsh, Besa Center, Apr. 28, 2014 — The “historic” agreement of last week between The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all.
Hamas-Abbas: A Reality Check: Prof. Ron Breiman, Israel Hayom, Apr. 27, 2014
Kerry’s Talks Achieve Peace Between Hamas and Fatah: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, Jewish Press, Apr. 23, 2014
Palestinian Deception and the Unwarranted Trust of the West: The Case of Palestinian Accession to International Conventions: Alan Baker, Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs, Apr. 17, 2014
The Crisis in the Peace Talks Was Pre-Planned by the Palestinians: Jonathan D. Halevi, Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs, Apr. 10, 2014
Regaining Control in Jerusalem: David M. Weinberg, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 24, 2014
WAITING FOR THE PALESTINIAN GODOT
Ari Shavit
Ha’aretz, Apr. 24, 2014
There are some moments a journalist will never forget. In early 1997, Yossi Beilin decided to trust me, and show me the document that proved that peace was within reach. The then-prominent and creative politician from the Labor movement opened up a safe, took out a stack of printed pages, and laid them down on the table like a player with a winning poker hand.
Rumors were rife about the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, but only a few had the opportunity to see the document with their own eyes or hold it in their hands. I was one of those few. With mouth agape I read the comprehensive outline for peace that had been formulated 18 months earlier by two brilliant champions of peace — one, Israeli, and one, Palestinian. The document left nothing to chance: Mahmoud Abbas is ready to sign a permanent agreement. The refugee from Safed had overcome the ghosts of the past and the ideas of the past, and was willing to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian future, based on coexistence. If we could only get out from under the Likud’s thumb, and get Benjamin Netanyahu out of office, he will join us, hand in hand, walking toward the two-state solution. Abbas is a serious partner for true peace, the one with whom we can make a historic breakthrough toward reconciliation.
We understood. We did what was necessary. In 1999, we ousted Likud and Netanyahu. In 2000, we went to the peace summit at Camp David. Whoops, surprise: Abbas didn’t bring the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to Camp David, or any other draft of a peace proposal. The opposite was true: He was one of the staunchest objectors, and his demand for the right of return prevented any progress. But don’t believe we’d give up so quickly. During the fall of 2003, as the Geneva Accord was being formulated, it was clear to us that there were no more excuses, and that now, Abbas would sign the new peace agreement and adopt its principles. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen sent Yasser Abed Rabbo (a former Palestinian Authority minister) instead, while he stayed in his comfy Ramallah office. No signature, no accord.
But people as steadfast as us don’t give up on our dreams. So in 2008 we got behind Ehud Olmert, and the marathon talks he held with Abbas, and the offer that couldn’t be refused. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen didn’t actually refuse, he just disappeared. He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, he just vanished without a trace. Did we start to understand that we were facing the Palestinian Yitzhak Shamir? No, no, no. In the summer of 2009, we even supported Netanyahu, when he made overtures to Abbas with his Bar-Ilan speech, and the settlement freeze. Whoops, surprise: the sophisticated objector didn’t blink, or trip up. He simple refused to dance the tango of peace with the right-wing Israeli leader.
Have we opened our eyes? Of course not. Again, we blamed Netanyahu and Likud, and believed that in 2014, Abu Mazen wouldn’t dare to say no, not to John Kerry. Whoops, surprise: In his own sophisticated, polite way, Abbas has said no in recent months to both Kerry and Barack Obama. Again, the Palestinian president’s position is clear and consistent: The Palestinians must not be required to make concessions. It’s a complicated game – squeezing more and more compromises out of the Israelis, without the Palestinians granting a single real, compromise of their own.
Take heed: Twenty years of fruitless talks have led to nothing. There is no document that contains any real Palestinian concession with Abbas’ signature. None. There never was, and there never will be. During the 17 years that have gone by since Beilin took that document out of his safe, he’s gotten divorced, remarried, and had grandchildren. I also divorced, remarried, and brought (more) children into the world. Time passes and the experiences we’ve accumulated have taught both Beilin and me more than a few things. But many others haven’t learned a thing. They’re still allowing Abbas to make fools of them, as they wait for the Palestinian Godot, who will never show up.
Isi Leibler
Israel Hayom, Apr. 29, 2014
The timing of the Palestinian Authority's intention to merge with Hamas may have caught many by surprise. But it was evident that Israel would not reach understandings with a PA headed by the intransigent Mahmoud Abbas, who refused to make a single compromise. In fact, even when the U.S. pressured Israel into making unilateral concessions as a prerequisite to merely agreeing to negotiate, the response from Abbas was to raise new demands.
In the context of the criminal society created by Yasser Arafat and maintained by Abbas, there is no ideological conflict on the future of Israel between the PA and Hamas. As Palestinian Media Watch has noted, Abbas says categorically: "There is no disagreement between Fatah and Hamas. … About belief? None! About policy? None! About resistance? None!" Besides promoting cultures of martyrdom and sanctifying as heroes those engaged in killing Jews, both have generated the expectation amongst their people that the elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region is a goal that will be achieved. There is merely a difference in tactics. The PA recognizes that it can achieve greater success utilizing diplomacy rather than terror as a means to destroy Israel in stages. To this end, Abbas speaks with a forked tongue: To the outside world, he denounces terror and commits to peaceful negotiations while internally he orchestrates vicious incitement, glorifying, feting and financially rewarding murderers of women and children, including the killers recently released by Israel.
In contrast, the genocidal Hamas proudly proclaim their Islamic fundamentalism. They are in every sense the equivalent of al-Qaida, having praised Osama bin Laden and condemned the United States for killing him. Not only does Hamas reject the existence of the state of Israel and pledge to bring about its destruction, its covenant explicitly exhorts followers to kill Jews wherever they may be. They are the pioneers of suicide bombings and take pride that they have launched over 10,000 missiles at Israeli civilian targets. These war criminals will be the partners of Abbas in the new PA leadership.
Ironically, Abbas has indirectly resolved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's internal coalition conflicts, which threatened his government. His announcement to the world that he would never negotiate with a group which incorporated the genocidal Hamas has reunited the coalition and would be supported by the vast majority of Israelis. As anticipated, there was some criticism by the post-Zionist Israeli daily Ha’aretz, which argued that the merger should be considered by Israel as a positive step towards achieving peace. However, its prime correspondent, Ari Shavit, did a remarkable turnabout and, instead of blaming Netanyahu, documented the duplicity of Abbas since the onset of the Oslo accords, noting that "20 years of fruitless talks have led to nothing. There is no document that contains any real Palestinian concession with Abbas' signature. There never was, and there never will be." Those who had hoped that under the leadership of Isaac Herzog, Labor would return to its traditional labor Zionist roots, were disappointed in his lack of statesmanship. He blamed the government for the breakdown and alluded to possible long-term benefits bringing Hamas into negotiations.
One would have assumed that, under such circumstances, Western leaders would have an ethical obligation to condemn Palestinian intransigence and guile. Despite being directly affronted by Abbas, the Obama administration failed to respond adequately, even incessant pressure was placed on Netanyahu to make unreasonable concessions. The State Department merely expressed "disappointment," and later President Barack Obama referred to the PA-Hamas pact as "unhelpful," but still declined to condemn Abbas and once again blamed both parties for the breakdown.
The administration will now be obliged to review its relationship with the PA to conform with legislation by both houses of Congress which unequivocally prohibits the United States from providing financial support to terrorist organizations. Hamas is clearly classified in that category. The Palestinians currently receive more financial aid per capita than any other people, and since 1966 have received over $5 billion from the US alone. Rep. Nita Lowey (Democrat) and Rep. Kay Granger (Republican), who head the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, announced that they would move to defund the Palestinian Authority of its U.S. aid package unless it annulled its pact with Hamas. They were supported by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the Middle East and North African Subcommittee who had framed the 2006 law banning funding to Hamas.
Despite this, I predict that Israel will soon again be facing renewed pressure from the Obama administration. Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy head, who issued a Holocaust Memorial Day press release some months ago which adroitly omitted any reference to Jews, unequivocally welcomed the merger, blithely remarking that it would help promote peace negotiations. She omitted to mention that the EU itself classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization. The U.N. Middle East envoy, Robert Serry, blandly stated that he had been assured that a merged PA Hamas entity would remain committed to peace and that the U.N. welcomed the reunification of the West Bank with Gaza "under one legitimate Palestinian Authority."…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –Ed.]
JOHN KERRY'S JEWISH BEST FRIENDS
Caroline B. Glick Jerusalem Post, Apr. 29, 2014
Anti-Semitism is not a simple bigotry. It is a complex neurosis. It involves assigning malign intent to Jews where none exists on the one hand, and rejecting reason as a basis for understanding the world and operating within it on the other hand. John Kerry’s recent use of the term “Apartheid” in reference to Israel’s future was an anti-Semitic act. In remarks before the Trilateral Commission a few days after PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity deal with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, Kerry said that if Israel doesn’t cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, it will either cease to be a Jewish state or it will become “an apartheid state.”
Leave aside the fact that Kerry’s scenarios are based on phony demographic data. As I demonstrate in my book The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, Israel will maintain a strong and growing Jewish majority in a “unitary state” that includes the territory within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria. But even if Kerry’s fictional data were correct, the only “Apartheid state” that has any chance of emerging is the Palestinian state that Kerry claims Israel’s survival depends on. The Palestinians demand that the territory that would comprise their state must be ethnically cleansed of all Jewish presence before they will agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it.
In other words, the future leaders of that state – from the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad alike — are so imbued with genocidal Jew hatred that they insist that all 650,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria must be forcibly ejected from their homes. These Jewish towns, cities and neighborhoods must all be emptied before the Palestinians whose cause Kerry so wildly champions will even agree to set up their Apartheid state. According to the 1998 Rome Statute, Apartheid is a crime of intent, not of outcome. It is the malign intent of the Palestinians –across their political and ideological spectrum — to found a state predicated on anti-Jewish bigotry and ethnic cleansing. In stark contrast, no potential Israeli leader or faction has any intention of basing national policies on racial subjugation in any form.
By ignoring the fact that every Palestinian leader views Jews as a contaminant that must be blotted out from the territory the Palestinians seek to control, (before they will even agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it), while attributing to Jews malicious intent towards the Palestinians that no Israeli Jewish politician with a chance of leading the country harbors, Kerry is adopting a full-throated and comprehensive anti-Semitic position. It is both untethered from reason and libelous of Jews.
Speaking to the Daily Beast about Kerry’s remarks on Sunday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was quick to use the “some of his best friends are Jewish,” defense. In her words, “Secretary Kerry, like Justice Minister [Tzipi] Livni, and previous Israeli Prime Ministers [Ehud] Olmert and [Ehud] Barak, was reiterating why there’s no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish state. He was talking about the kind of future Israel wants.” So in order to justify his own anti-Semitism – and sell it to the American Jewish community – Kerry is engaging in vulgar partisan interference in the internal politics of another country. Indeed, Kerry went so far as to hint that if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is forced from power, and Kerry’s Jewish best friends replace him, then things will be wonderful. In his words, if “there is a change of government or a change of heart, something will happen.” By inserting himself directly into the Israeli political arena, Kerry is working from his mediator Martin Indyk’s playbook. Since his tenure as US ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration, Indyk has played fast and dirty in Israeli politics, actively recruiting Israelis to influence Israeli public opinion to favor the Left while castigating non-leftist politicians and regular Israeli citizens as evil, stupid and destructive.
Livni, Olmert, Barak and others probably don’t share Kerry’s anti-Semitic sensitivities. Although their behavior enables foreigners like Kerry to embrace anti-Semitic positions, their actions are most likely informed by their egotistical obsessions with power. Livni, Olmert and Barak demonize their political opponents because the facts do not support their policies. The only card they have to play is the politics of personal destruction. And so they use it over and over again. This worked in the past. That is why Olmert and Barak were able to form coalition governments. But the cumulative effects of the Palestinian terror war that began after Israel offered the PLO statehood at Camp David in 2000, the failure of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the 2006 war with Lebanon have brought about a situation where the Israeli public is no longer willing to buy what the Left is selling. Realizing this, Barak, Livni and others have based their claim to political power on their favored status in the US. In Netanyahu’s previous government, Barak parlayed the support he received from the Obama administration into his senior position as Defense Minister. Today, Livni’s position as Justice Minister and chief negotiator with the PLO owes entirely to the support she receives from the Obama administration…
Now that Kerry has given a full throated endorsement of anti-Semitic demagoguery, Livni’s leverage is vastly diminished. Since Kerry’s anti-Semitic statements show that Livni has failed to shield Israel from the Obama administration’s hostility, the rationale for her continued inclusion in the government has disappeared. The same goes for the Obama administration’s favorite American Jewish group J Street. Since its formation in the lead up to the 2008 Presidential elections, J Street has served as the Obama administration’s chief supporter in the US Jewish community. J Street uses rhetorical devices that were relevant to the political realities of the 1990s to claim that it is both “pro-peace and pro-Israel.” Twenty years into the failed peace process, for Israeli ears at least, these slogans ring hollow.
But the real problem with J Street’s claim isn’t that its rhetoric is irrelevant. The real problem is that its rhetoric is deceptive. J Street’s record has nothing to do with either supporting Israel or peace. Rather it has a record of continuous anti-Israel agitation. J Street has continuously provided American Jewish cover for the administration’s anti-Israel actions by calling for it to take even more extreme actions. These have included calling for the administration to support an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council, and opposing sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear weapons program. J Street has embraced the PLO’s newest unity pact with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And now it is defending Kerry for engaging in rank anti-Semitism with his “Apartheid” remarks. J Street’s political action committee campaigns to defeat pro-Israel members of Congress. And its campus operation brings speakers to US university campuses that slander Israel and the IDF and call for the divestment of university campuses from businesses owned by Israelis.
On Wednesday, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is set to vote on J Street’s application to join the umbrella group as a “pro-peace, pro-Israel” organization.
Kerry’s “Apartheid” remarks are a watershed event. They represent the first time a sitting US Secretary of State has publically endorsed an anti-Semitic caricature of Jews and the Jewish state. The best response that both the Israeli government and the Jewish community can give to Kerry’s act of unprecedented hostility and bigotry is to reject his Jewish enablers. Livni should be shown the door. And the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations should reject J Street’s bid for membership.
RUNNING AWAY FROM STATEHOOD, AGAIN
Prof. Efraim Karsh
BESA Center, Apr. 28, 2014
The “historic” agreement of last week between The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all. Not that this should have come as a surprise to anyone. For nearly a century, Palestinian leaders never have missed an opportunity to impede the development of Palestinian civil society and the attainment of Palestinian statehood.
Had the Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, who led the Palestinian Arabs from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, chosen to lead his constituents to peace and reconciliation with their Jewish neighbors, the Palestinians would have had their independent state over a substantial part of mandate Palestine by 1948, and would have been spared the traumatic experience of dispersal and exile. Had Yasser Arafat, who dominated Palestinian politics from the mid-1960s to his death in November 2004, set the PLO from the start on the path to peace and reconciliation instead of turning it into one of the most murderous and kleptocratic terrorist organizations in modern times, a Palestinian state could have been established on numerous occasions: In the late 1960s or the early 1970s; in 1979, as a corollary to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty; in May 1999, as part of the Oslo process; or more recently at the Camp David summit of July 2000.
Had Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Arafat as PLO chairman and PA president, abandoned his predecessors’ rejectionist path, a Palestinian state could have been established after the Annapolis summit of November 2007, or in June 2009, during President Obama’s first term when Benjamin Netanyahu broke with the longstanding Likud precept by publicly accepting the two-state solution and agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state. But why should the Palestinians engage in the daunting tasks of nation-building and state creation if they can have their hapless constituents run around in circles for nearly a century while they bask in international sympathy and enrich themselves from the proceeds of their self-inflicted plight?
The Palestinian leadership in Mandate Palestine (1920-48) had no qualms about inciting its constituents against Zionism and the Jews while lining its own pockets from the fruits of Jewish development and land purchases. So too, the cynical and self-seeking PLO “revolutionaries” have used the billions of dollars donated by the Arab oil states and the international community to lead a luxurious lifestyle in sumptuous hotels and villas, globe-trotting in grand style, acquiring properties, and making financial investments worldwide – while millions of ordinary Palestinians scramble for a livelihood, many of them in squalid and overcrowded refugee camps. This process reached its peak following the September 1993 signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP, or Oslo I) and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. For all his rhetoric about Palestinian independence, Arafat had never been as interested in the attainment of statehood as he was in the violence attached to its pursuit.
In the late 1970s, he told his close friend and collaborator, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, that the Palestinians lacked the tradition, unity, and discipline to become a formal state, and that a Palestinian state would be a failure from the first day. Once given control of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza as per the Oslo accords, Arafat made this bleak prognosis a self-fulfilling prophecy, establishing a repressive and corrupt regime in the worst tradition of Arab dictatorships. The rule of the gun prevailed, and huge sums of money donated by the international community for the benefit of the civilian Palestinian population were diverted to funding racist incitement, buying weaponry, and filling secret bank accounts.
Not only has Abbas done nothing to clean up the Palestinian Authorities’ (PA) act, but he seems to have followed in his predecessor’s kleptocratic footsteps, reportedly siphoning at least $100 million to private accounts abroad and making his sons at the PA’s expense…The attainment of statehood would have shattered the paradise established on the backs of the long suffering public in the West Bank and Gaza. It would have transformed the Palestinians in one fell swoop from the world’s ultimate victim, into an ordinary (and most likely failing) nation-state, thus terminating decades of unprecedented international indulgence. It would have also driven the final nail into the PLO’s false pretense of being “the sole representative of the Palestinian people” (already dealt a devastating blow by Hamas’s 2006 electoral rout) and would have forced any governing authority to abide, for the first time in Palestinian history, by the principles of accountability and transparency. Small wonder, therefore, that whenever confronted with an international or Israeli offer of statehood, Palestinian leaders will never take “yes” for an answer.
Hamas-Abbas: A Reality Check: Prof. Ron Breiman, Israel Hayom, Apr. 27, 2014
Kerry’s Talks Achieve Peace Between Hamas and Fatah: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, Jewish Press, Apr. 23, 2014
Palestinian Deception and the Unwarranted Trust of the West: The Case of Palestinian Accession to International Conventions: Alan Baker, Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs, Apr. 17, 2014
The Crisis in the Peace Talks Was Pre-Planned by the Palestinians: Jonathan D. Halevi, Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs, Apr. 10, 2014
Regaining Control in Jerusalem: David M. Weinberg, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 24, 2014
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