generalspeaking

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Making Peace With WarMongers

"We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us — a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place."

"The deal of the century is the slap of the century. However, we’ll get back at them."

"Israel has killed Oslo. It has terminated Oslo. Now we are an authority without any authority, and an occupation without land, and we will not accept this."

"Damn your money!. He said, ‘I will give you a peace deal.’ The deal turned out to be a mess. He said, ‘We will not pay for the Palestinians because they stopped the negotiations.’ Where are the negotiations?"

"We are in a fateful moment of history. If we lose Jerusalem, what do you want to do? Have a state with Abu Dis as its capital? This is what they’re offering now: Abu Dis."

"They asked me to meet him. I said: ‘Him? No, I won’t meet him.’ Not here, not outside the country, in Amman or Washington. I will not meet this man."

"This is a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness. The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land — call it whatever you want. Everything has been made up."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, second from right, addressing the Palestinian Central Council in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday. Credit Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press

"If the Oslo process is dead, as suggested by Abbas, it would follow that the Palestinian Authority and its leadership are irrelevant."

"It’s time to find alternative Palestinian leaders and alternative peace plans that focus on building bridges between real people on the ground instead of making people like Abbas rich and famous."

Oded Revivi, spokesman, Yesha Council, West Bank

"They think it means Palestinians will take the Israeli ID and live under an apartheid regime. But our idea is to have one democratic state, with no privilege for the Jews or for any other ethnic or religious group."

Radki Jarai, Popular Movement for One Democratic State

"I would never give citizenship to the masses of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]."

Yoav Kisch, Likud, Member of Knesset

"If the two-state solution dies, it will be the responsibility of Israel, not the Palestinians. But if the Israelis kill it, which they're in the process of doing now, unfortunately with the help of Trump's administration, then the only option will be for us to fight the apartheid system and bring it down, which means one state with equal rights for everybody."

Mustafa Barghouti, member, P.L.O. central council

As a member of the P.L.O. Mr. Barghouti, held in such respect by the international community as a man of peaceful mien, prepared to live with the State of Israel, as long as it is subordinate to the Palestinians' wish to dominate, seems totally, spectacularly unaware that the P.L.O envisages a one-state solution and always has, and is not prepared to accommodate in any measure the much-anticipated two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority, Fatah, part of the P.L.O. has long issued maps where Israel is absent and 'Palestine' occupies the entire geography.

Israeli negotiators, and particularly under the leadership of two previous prime ministers (see Ehud Barak), offered Palestinian negotiators all that they demanded, and it still was not persuasive enough to conclude a peace agreement resulting in two separate states side by side. The PA never failed to respond to agreement by Israel of its far-reaching demands by extending those demands, itself never once bothering to negotiate in good faith, let alone being prepared to sacrifice anything, but demanding constant sacrifice of Israel. The anxiety to conclude a peace agreement was entirely one-sided.

Now, with the latest negotiations that have been in limbo for years while Mahmoud Abbas refused to return to the bargaining table despite the ongoing appeals of Israeli officials, Abbas sloughs off any responsibility as he huffs and puffs in irate aggrievement, wallowing in the victimhood status so beloved of the Palestinians as they appeal to the international community to condemn Israel's apartheid occupation. Occupation? Self defence time and again fighting off Arab armies attacking Israel, the final conflict restoring Israel's heritage in Jerusalem where Jordanian rule had ostracized any Jewish presence. On the other hand, Abbas vowed he would allow no Jews to live in a Palestinian state.

Apartheid? There is equality and citizenship rights in Israel with an impartial judicial system guaranteeing rights of citizenship. Arabs have their own parliamentary representation in opposition, and are permitted to contest any laws and go so far as to support militant Palestinian violence, but are not prepared to leave Israel to live under Palestinian rule in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority wants a capital presence in Jerusalem? They've been given an offer, but not one that will give them control of the Old City, sacred to Judaism.

The offer to carve out those areas within Israel with majority Muslim populations for Palestinian rule was rejected by the Arabs living in those areas who prefer to remain under Israeli rule, and one unacquainted with what life is like under Palestinian rule might wonder why. That offer was contingent on the Palestinian Authority agreeing to transfer those areas to Israeli rule in the West Bank occupied by settlers, so neither would lose land, but that too was met with upturned nose.

The demand that Israel permit the 'return' of six million Arabs representing the offspring of the original 700,000 that left Israel to await the outcome of the first collective Arab Middle East military attack against the fledgling Jewish state, and were recognized as 'refugees' by the United Nations represents yet another effort to dilute the Jewish presence and render Israel an Arab, not a Jewish state. Those two sticking points; return and Jerusalem represented the most potent demands each of which would destroy Israel.

Underlying all of the negotiations were the assurances from the Palestinian leadership to the Palestinians that it was their intention to restore to the Arab Palestinians the geography that would become Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. To continue claiming victimhood status characterizing Israel as an aggressive oppressor in view of the violent attacks launched by incitement of the PA to ensure that Palestinians would never agree to 'normalization' of relations with Israel; painting Israel as the aggressor and Palestinians as victims is a classic Palestinian/Arab technique.

Lest Israel have any illusions about what life might be like for Jews under a single state dominated by Arabs they might cast their minds' eye back to recent history and pogroms, an importation from eastern Europe finding great popularity in the Middle East. And keep their eyes on Hamas in Gaza which has never deviated from its core goal and mandate to destroy the State of Israel and push its Jews into the sea. When Ariel Sharon ordered Israeli settlements and the Israeli military out of Gaza that experiment to return the strip to Palestinian control was ample demonstration of Arab goodwill.

The ongoing construction of complex, expensive tunnels burrowing from Gaza into Israel for the purpose of giving entry to terrorist fighters to Jewish villages and towns and military outposts speaks volumes of the hopelessness of any efforts for peace between intransigent, deadly Hamas dedicated along with Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria to the destruction of Israel.