The core reality is that a
Palestinian population has been systematically brainwashed from childhood to
the extent that it is impossible for any individual to go up against the anti
Semitic orthodoxy even if he has made the transition away.
We can likely thank the Nazis for
inoculating the methodology and ultimately inspiring the Moslem Brotherhood
everywhere as an organizing principle.
We forget that while Islam suppressed non conforming groups, they did
not fully single out Judaism at all and simply relied on the power of economic
suasion through punitive taxation. All
that changed with the advent of organized Anti Semitic propaganda coming out of
Europe .
It is pretty clear that Israel has done
everything possible to arrange a formal bi lateral peace with no takers and
outright constant betrayal. That now
opens the door for Israel
to actually make a peace. Such a peace will
likely include the re occupation of the West Bank and a programmed annexation
of the West Bank and the Golem
Heights .
In such a scenario, it is
inevitable that Gaza will also be annexed and
the present population transferred to the West Bank .
The process of annexation
immediately allows several nation building steps.
1
Educational reform to meet modern standards and
not propagate hatred. Insure bilingualism
in Hebrew or Arabic and perhaps English as the new standard. All will be expected to provide military
service also. Graduates will be
automatically be made Israeli citizens. The purpose of this is to avoid actual
transportation to end the problem.
2
Extend modern infrastructure into the annexed
lands as quickly as possible.
3
Weed out the Bitter Enders and de Nazify all in
leadership by imprisoning if necessary for several years. .Otherwise it is reeducation for all new
leaders.
This is never perfect, but it
provides everyone time and space and a superior way to make their
livelihood. If in ten years they are
all prospering as Israeli citizens, it all will be over.
At the moment, the Arab Spring
has effectively ended any potential Arab military threat; however unilateral
action must happen naturally without appearing to be blatant opportunism. We already see a creeping annexation anyway
and simply reopening that option in Gaza
is an option. Faster will be better, but
may not be an option. Imposing new
standards of good governance on the Palestinian government could provide an
appropriate wedge as that also applies to education.
In fact the Arab Spring has been
mostly unappreciated. It has actually
removed the most critical authoritarian regimes from power that were
established enemies of Israel
and replaced it with new regimes forced to look firmly inward to the task of reforming
their own societies. As well, Lebanon will
now be in a position to confront Hezbollah with the likely cessation of Iranian
and Syrian support.
In practice this also means that
Israeli hegemony can be extended to Southern Lebanon at least, Southern Syria possibly, and Jordon as already in
effect. These are small buffer states
with much to gain and little to lose if Israel
becomes the New York of the Levant . One or all will in time find an accommodation
that is mutually beneficial. Egypt already has an accommodation that has
actually stood the test of time and merely needs the elimination of the Gaza scar. Even allowing a connecting highway to the West Bank and Jordon would lift that burden.
The Oslo process was a formula for two peoples to
reach an accommodation. The Palestinian leadership
has instead engaged in one gross miscalculation after the other. In the meantime, Israel has grown hugely in
population and economic power generation after generation and this has taken
territorial options off the table one by one.
Annexation is the natural outcome.
The Oslo Accords Are Dead —
And the Palestinians Killed Them
On August 13th the Jerusalem Post reported the release of a
report on Palestinian incitement, authored by Strategic Affairs Ministry
director-general Yossi Kuperwasser. Among other things Kuperwasser wrote:
The
bottom line is that Palestinian incitement is “going on all the time,” adding that the phenomenon
is “worrying and disturbing.” He said that at an institutional level the
Palestinian Authority was continuously driving three messages home: that the
Palestinians would eventually be the sole sovereign on all the land from the
Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; that Jews, especially those who live in
Israel, were not really human beings but rather “the scum of mankind”; and that
all tools were legitimate in the struggle against Israel and the Jews, though
the specific tool used at one time or another depended on a cost-benefit
analysis.
The unceasing phenomenon of Palestinian
anti-Israel incitement is prima facie evidence that Oslo is dead.
When international agreements like the Oslo Accords are born it
is very difficult for them to go out of existence. In general in the world of
international diplomacy, when two countries make a diplomatic agreement it is
permanent, like a country’s laws or its constitution. Once the powers that be
agree on the small print in the newly codified laws or the country’s venerable
constitution these documents are solidified. They remain in existence and
remain in force ad infinitum – just like the countries themselves.
When Israel
and the Palestinians signed the Declaration of Principles for the Oslo Accords in September
1993, the general assumption then also was that the agreement would be
permanent and provide a constellation for bilateral negotiations between the
sides that would ultimately lead to a permanent settlement.
In fact a series of twisting, difficult
negotiations took place between the sides all through the 1990s and these
negotiations also produced viable agreements. It looked like Oslo really was the answer to reaching a permanent
settlement between Israel
and the Palestinians.
The Oslo 2 Agreement, for example, signed
in 1995 turned control over to the Palestinian Authority in the following
West Bank cities – Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah,
Tulkarm, and some 450 villages. This agreement is a clear demonstration of
Israeli good will and good intentions under Oslo. Oslo’s underlying purpose was to bring
about the termination of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and
here under Oslo 2 Israel was following the letter of
the law.
Then PM Ehud Barak came along and
attempted not only to negotiate territorial and political issues with the
Palestinian side but go the whole nine yards and reach an end to the whole
conflict.
Barak’s
dramatic offer to Arafat
at Camp David in the summer of 2000 reportedly included the following proposals
to achieve an end to the conflict:
• Israeli redeployment from 95% of the
West Bank and 100% of the Gaza
Strip;
• The creation of a Palestinian state in
the areas of Israeli withdrawal;
• The removal of isolated settlements and
transfer of the land to Palestinian control;
• Other Israeli land exchanged for West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli control;
• Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City;
and
• “Religious Sovereignty” over the Temple Mount,
replacing Israeli sovereignty in effect since 1967.
Arafat for his part simply rejected the
offer. Around January 2001 Clinton
met with Arafat again in the White House but there were no developments. Except
that President Clinton was deeply offended and insulted that Arafat turned down
the best offer for a peace settlement anyone would ever offer him. Indeed,
inexplicably Arafat and his team said no again to the US-brokered Israeli
proposals and they had no proposals of their own to offer.
Of course the immediate Palestinian
response following the failure of the Camp David
summit was the bloody Second Intifada. The brutal terrorist violence of the
Second Intifada lasted through 2004 and took the lives of 1000 innocent
Israelis. One shift on the Palestinian side was that Arafat was pressured to
surrender a measure of power, and he did so by appointing Abu Mazen as prime
minister in 2003.
Abu Mazen later succeeded Arafat as Chairman of the
Palestinian Authority and it was with him that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conducted a long series of intense negotiations.
These negotiations culminated in yet another extremely generous Israeli offer
to the Palestinians that would conceivably answer all their needs and lead to a
permanent settlement between the sides. However Abu Mazen just let Olmert’s
offer roll off his back and did not respond one way or the other.
Olmert in fact concluded that if the Palestinians never
respond to his plan there is no point in negotiating with them at all.
Although the Oslo Agreement
is predicated on bilateral negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel it seems that 2008 is the last year in
which the Palestinians willingly participated in such talks with Israel . Clearly
PM Olmert went the extra mile to negotiate with the Palestinian side during his
term of office. But almost from the moment he was replaced as PM by Benjamin
Netanyahu the Palestinians chose to turn their backs on bilateral negotiations
in favor of a unilateral attempt to achieve statehood recognition in the UN.
Their statehood scheme in the UN failed, however, because
the UN Security Council would not approve, and the US threatened to veto the move. It
goes without saying that from the moment the Palestinians chose the unilateral
path to statehood in the UN, there have been no bilateral negotiations
whatsoever. The Palestinians claim that if Israel will agree to withdraw to
the 1967 lines and stop building in the Jewish settlements they will agree to
resume negotiations. But these are totally unacceptable preconditions and Israel will not
concede on them. Israel
has repeatedly stated it will negotiate with the Palestinians without
preconditions. But for the Palestinian side it seems to be standard operating
procedure to refuse every offer to negotiate and seek their fate on a
unilateral plane. Consequently this approach to the problem has led to a
protracted stalemate. No negotiations. No agreements. No nothing.
The stalemate has lasted so long, however, that one must
ask if the Oslo
process isn’t just dead in the water – but actually dead with no chance of
revival or arousal.
Common sense and a superficial review of history
unfortunately lead to the conclusion that Oslo
is dead – and the Palestinians killed it. But attributing blame for the
demise of Oslo
isn’t productive. The critical issue Israel
faces as a result of the death of Oslo
is how to cope with the social and political reality that exists without
leaning on the agreement that effectively governed Palestinian/Israeli
relations since 1993. How does Israel
proceed into the future — in other words, with the reality of occupying the West Bank and the lives of some 1.5 million Palestinians?
The answer isn’t a case of atomic science. Between 1967 and
1993 institutions and policies were established by the Israeli government that
deal with the procedures in place for dealing with the Palestinian population
in the West Bank . Since Hamas took over Gaza , that area is a no
man’s land and will never be included in any negotiated settlement with the
Palestinians. But the question is moot because there will never be any
negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. The Palestinian desire for
self-determination in the West Bank , in other
words, is a complete hallucination. Oslo foresaw Palestinian self-determination
at the end of the process, but the Palestinians have eviscerated Oslo . Israel’s only
logical path facing a dead Oslo Agreement is to turn the clock back to before
1993 and deal with the West Bank as it was handled before 1993. Recognition of
the Palestinian Authority and all dealings with it should be erased from the
picture. It is an antagonist to Israel
and its behavior proves it has thrown the positive substance and logic for
which it was created in the garbage.
The country must adapt to the disappearance of the main
historic framework for achieving a mutually acceptable settlement of the
conflict. But better to adapt to this than to go on endlessly under the
illusion that the Palestinian Authority has something positive to offer along
the lines of peace.
The operation of the Palestinian Authority is based on
finding any way under the sun to stab Israel in the back – and even though
they know they will achieve nothing from stabbing Israel in the back, they
persist in doing this because stabbing Israel in the back is what motivates
them and gives them satisfaction in general.
That was not the character of the Palestinian side’s
behavior when Oslo
was born in 1993. But one would have to be blind to ignore the fact that today
the Palestinian side wants nothing more than to stab Israel in the back. Consequently, Israel must make a severe assessment of the Oslo Agreement. And the
assessment must be that the agreement is indeed dead and something needs to
take its place. Insofar as the prospects for positive developments are
incredibly dim, the logical approach is to revert to the status quo ante – the
status quo before 1993 and let the chips fall where they may.
Once upon a time the Oslo
process envisioned Palestinian self-determination and even Palestinian
independence in the occupied territories. In 2012, however, the Palestinians
have snubbed their noses at peace and coexistence with Israel, are making
completely illogical and unattainable demands, and there is no profit for
Israel in maintaining the illusion that the Palestinian side’s objectives have
anything whatsoever to do with reality. In particular the Palestinians seem to
think that the Oslo
Accords are still operational but they aren’t. The Oslo Accords are dead and the Palestinians
killed them.
1 comment:
Again, we have Orwellian Zionist propaganda where they portray themselves as the victims while wiping Palestine off the map.
The information about Barak’s plan is also a lie. Zionists pretend to want peace whereas they want to invade more land.
This opens the way for the Zionists imperialist to occupy and colonize more of the Middle East.
The Zionist invasion of the Middle East started in 1914. In 1948, over 400 Palestinian villages were burned and thousands of Palestinians massacred.
The Zionist cruelties continue to this day.
Regards
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