Why the peace talks are collapsing, part 94
There will be plenty of dire consequence, including the terrible possibility of a lurch back into violent confrontation and an upsurge in terrorism, and plenty of blame to assign if this week does indeed mark the end of Kerry’s bid for a deal. The Palestinians have a weak president who, while no duplicitous, terror-fostering Arafat, never confronted the narrative bequeathed by his unlamented predecessor, to the effect that the Jews have no sovereign legitimacy in this part of the world. The Israelis have a prime minister who, facing a choice of confidence-building demands from the PA, opted not to take the pragmatic path of curbing settlement expansion and instead betrayed victims’ families, undermined the justice system, and encouraged future terrorists to believe they can get away with their crimes, by freeing dozens of vicious killers.SPECIAL REPORT: Palestinians in Flagrant Violation of At Least 11 of 15 Treaties Abbas Just Signed
At the heart of the impasse, however, lies a fundamental asymmetry: Israeli Jews have come to believe that their own best interests, and specifically the imperative to retain a Jewish and democratic Israel, require an accommodation with the Palestinians. There is no comparable imperative on the Palestinian side — not, that is, so long as much of the international community persists in indicating to the Palestinians that they will be able to achieve full independence and sovereignty without the inconvenience of coming to terms with Israel.
Despite U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s best efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians together at the negotiating table and Israel’s support for continued peace talks, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has once again broken his word to Israel and the United States. In addition to rejecting the basic premise of “two states for two peoples,” and instead of meeting with the Secretary to move forward towards peace, Abbas chose to pursue unilateral recognition by signing onto 15 international conventions and treaties.Terror Suit Against Jordanian Bank Tests U.S. Diplomacy and Secrecy Laws
Revealed here for the first time in a TheTower.org special report: The Palestinians are in clear violation of at least 11 of the 15 treaties they just signed. What follows is a synopsis of the treaties signed and key facts on the ways in which Palestinian leaders are in violation of the their obligations.
The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Known as Linde v. Arab Bank, in its current form it focuses on the deaths of 39 Americans and the injury of 102 others in two dozen terrorist attacks during the second intifada in the early 2000s. The plaintiffs contend the Jordanian bank transferred money to Hamas leaders and administered a Saudi-funded program that paid a standard benefit of $5,316 to thousands of families of people killed in the conflict with Israel, including several suicide bombers.
The bank, which operates in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, denies wrongdoing and says it did not knowingly or willfully do business with terrorists when processing electronic fund transfers. But the bank may not be able to make that case because it refused to turn over records — names, account numbers and transactional details — as potential evidence.
Mahmoud Abbas Tailors Statements To Target Audience
This document reviews the PA's political positions and focuses on the difference between Abbas's statements to sympathetic audiences such as the Palestinians and Arabs – which match the PA's positions – and his more conciliatory and flexible positions that he conveys to Israeli audiences.Twelve Questions About the “Peace Process”
Indeed, when addressing Israeli audiences, 'Abbas emphasizes his consent to a demilitarized Palestinian state and to cooperation between Palestinian security mechanisms and the U.S. and Israel as evidence of his desire for peace; when addressing Palestinian audiences, he emphasizes his firm objection to a Palestinian capital confined to parts of East Jerusalem, states that no Israeli will remain in the Palestinian state, and even talks about martyrdom for the sake of Jerusalem.
The history of the “peace process” is now several stages past tragedy and farce. The side that supposedly wants a state won’t discuss one without compensation to do so; won’t accept a state as an end-of-claims solution but only as a stage in a continuing attempt to “return” to the other one; won’t agree that “two states for two peoples” is the goal of the process, much less explicitly recognize a Jewish state; can’t even hold an election, much less manage a stable state; ignores obligations under its prior agreement with Israel while asking Israel to believe it would abide by a new one; has already demonstrated three times in less than a decade it will not accept the “Everyone [Supposedly] Knows” peace plan; and does not even have a “president” legally in office, able to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinian groups, much less enforce any agreement he might reach.Isi Leibler Disastrous outcome of the 'peace negotiations'
Meanwhile, the U.S. leans on Israel, because a Palestinian state remains the central goal of an American foreign policy that long ago lost sight of the fact that–under the above circumstances–a Palestinian state would not be a “solution” to anything. (h/t Norman F)
We should remind them that we face barbarians at our gates and that our principal concern is to ensure the security of our children and grandchildren. For that reason, if we cannot reach a meaningful agreement, we must reluctantly live with the status quo.Jennifer Rubin Abbas to U.S.: Get lost
Israel will continue to promote economic relations with the Palestinians, hoping that in the course of time, new leaders will emerge who are willing to make concessions and recognize our security requirements. Then the two-state solution could become an overnight reality and joint Israel Palestinian cooperation would enable us all to prosper and enjoy a bright future. This is the distant dream to which most Israelis still aspire but alas, as of now, is not even on the horizon.
It is stunning that such an utterly useless exercise could be the center of the Obama administration’s foreign policy; but it is indicative of the cluelessness and immense ego of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy that so much prestige would be invested in something so fruitless, especially with real crises and challenges popping up around the globe.The precondition Israel never presented: Palestinian unity
I don’t mean to suggest that it is the Obama administration’s fault that the process did not lead to a peace agreement, although its obsession with settlements convinced Abbas that he could hold out for a deal to be delivered at his doorstep. In fact, as a former U.S. official critical of the administration relates, there was never a deal to he had: “Abbas will never sign anything. Never. He is the old man serving between Arafat and the next generation, and he will not sign a peace agreement that necessarily requires strong leadership and selling difficult compromises. His decision to leave the table may be reversible, but he is showing his view of American leadership: Defying the Americans is nothing to be afraid of. In this he is following Putin and Iran.”
For six years, Fatah and Hamas have unsuccessfully been trying — or, some would say, pretending — to reach political reconciliation following Hamas’s violent takeover over the Gaza Strip in 2007. Israel officially shuns Hamas, which it considers a terror organization, but Palestinian officials admit that any peace agreement with Israel is extremely difficult to envisage without Hamas on board.Expert: Palestinian Unilateral Moves Part of New Mode of Warfare Against Israel
If Netanyahu wanted to embarrass Abbas, he could easily ask him to prove Palestinian national commitment to talks with Israel — through elections, referendum or signed agreement — at a time when every indication is that Palestinian consensus strongly favors the talks’ failure.
Tuesday’s Palestinian Authority requests to join various international bodies are indicative of a new mode of warfare against Israel in line with the international deligitimization and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, former Israeli Knesset member, Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute and Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Einat Wilf, said.‘Israel need not worry about Palestinian UN move’
Jerusalem has nothing to fear from the Palestinians’ application to join 15 international treaties and conventions, because even if “Palestine” were admitted to them it would have no direct practical implications for Israel, a leading Israeli legal scholar said Wednesday.US opposes Palestinian moves to statehood
“It gives them a feeling of satisfaction and it strengthens their feeling of getting international recognition of their state, but [it has] no practical importance whatsoever,” said Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry and professor of international law at Hebrew University.
However, Sabel acknowledged that accession to international treaties does advance the world’s perception of “Palestine” as a sovereign, independent state.
US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told a House panel on Wednesday that the US opposes all unilateral actions that the Palestinians take to statehood. She says there are no shortcuts to statehood, and that any unilateral actions could be “tremendously destructive” to the peace process.Lawmakers signal Palestinian action could threaten funding
U.S. lawmakers said on Wednesday they were unhappy about the Palestinian leadership's decision to sign more than a dozen international conventions, and warned it could trigger a cutoff of U.S. aid.Palestinians describe hostile meeting with Israelis, Kerry says talks at 'critical' stage
"It was extremely disappointing to me that (President Mahmoud Abbas) chose to take this action at the U.N. It is counterproductive and doesn't move them closer to any final resolution," New York Representative Nita Lowey, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, said at a House hearing.
The Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency quoted Palestinian sources as saying that the "long and heated" nine-hour meeting attended by Kerry's special envoy Martin Indyk, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israel's lead negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, ended early Thursday morning without any agreement.Palestinian official: Talks can continue, but only on borders
The sources told Ma'an that the meeting had been a "fierce political battle," in which Indyk was forced to mediate heated arguments between the two sides.
Speaking to Sky News Arabic on Wednesday, Shtayyeh, who resigned as a member of the Palestinian negotiating team in December, said the Palestinians were prepared to give talks another chance during April, but should they fail, they will seek to join 63 international organizations including the International Criminal Court.Minister Calls to Cancel Oslo Accords
Returning to the negotiations “will be on the border only,” he said, challenging Israel to present a map based on the 1967 lines.
Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) launched sharp criticism at the Palestinian Authority (PA) Wednesday evening, after news surfaced that Ramallah had turned to the UN to apply for legitimacy and recognition, in breach of the conditions of peace talks.Palestinian Authority’s New Strategy in Delegitimizing Israel: ‘Terrorists’ Are Really ‘Political Prisoners’
"The Palestinians applying to the UN breaks all the rules," Ariel wrote on a Facebook post, "and we have to respond in kind - by canceling the Oslo Accords, which have only brought terror and murder."
"The Palestinians have proven once again that there is no reason to give them false gifts, and release terrorists and murderers for a process whose conclusion is well known in advance," he continued.
The Palestinian campaign to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of Western audiences could not be successful on its own merits, since erasing Jewish history in the Middle East, tracing Jewish geneology to apes and pigs or calling plainly for the annihilation of Israel– as commonly articulated to Arab audiences– offends Western notions of equality and justice. Enter the vocabulary of equality and justice, with libels of apartheid, genocide and war crimes, to achieve through the language of human rights what is anathema to human rights.IDF vehicle hit by Gazan sniper fire
The Palestinian Authority is continuing its efforts to invert notions of equality and justice. In an attempt to normalize terrorist acts against Israel, Ynet News reports today that the Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs, Issa Karaka, seeks a determination, through UN agencies, that terrorists held in Israel jails are not, in fact, terrorists.
As HRC noted last year, when a similar attempt was made by Radio-Canada reporter Ginette Lamarche to refer to terrorists held in Israeli jails as “political prisoners”, involvement in terrorist activity contravenes Israeli law, as it does in every democracy, because terrorism is a recognized crime under international law.
An Israeli armored vehicle was hit by small arms fire while operating near the Gaza border fence early Thursday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces said.IDF Medical Team Treats 20 Wounded Palestinian Arabs in Bus Crash
There were no injuries in the incident, which occurred around 1 p.m., but the vehicle suffered damage.
The army said the fire came from a Palestinian sniper and was directed against “security personnel operating adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip.”
An Israel Defense Forces medical team on Tuesday treated 20 Palestinian Arabs wounded when their mini-bus crashed into a car, the IDF said on its website.Palestinians: Israel ‘Turned Marijuana into Heroin’ to Poison Public
The IDF said Captain Karin Yamin, who has served as an IDF Medical Officer in Judea and Samaria’s Etzion Brigade for seven months, responded to the crash, outside the city of Efrat, within five minutes and with three paramedics to treat the injured.
“The challenges facing us … [are] drugs,” Adnan Al-Damiri, the official spokesman for the PA Security Forces, said on PA TV, according to the watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). ”You don’t know how many problems we’ve had these past two weeks.”PA: Israeli lab turned marijuana into heroin for Palestinian use
“A shocking amount of drugs that the Israeli occupation has spit up and vomited onto our land,” he claimed. “A[n] [Israeli] lab was even made in the Tulkarem District. The lab turning marijuana into heroin has been seized [by the PA].”
Police nab 6 lawyers for acting as Hamas messengers
According to the police, the five men and a woman took advantage of lawyer-client confidentiality permitted by Israeli authorities to act as couriers between Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Palestinians incarcerated by Israel. The lawyers allegedly transmitted instructions for hunger strikes and details of prisoner releases, and were paid between NIS 700-500 ($200-$144) per message. Some of the communications were conveyed to Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives abroad.Hamas Lauds Erdogan Victory, Praises Turkey’s “Democratic Success”
The investigation began several months ago and focused on a legal office in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya run by two brothers, Mudchat Issawi, 41, and Shirin Issawi, 36. The brothers hired another four Arab lawyers from East Jerusalem to visit prisoners and pass on the messages from Gaza. Both of the accused Issawi brothers have prior security-related convictions.
Spokesmen for Hamas hailed the apparent victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in municipal elections.Hamas Cleric Extols Palestinian Women "Who Surpass all Women in Jihad and Martyrdom"
"We are greatly happy for this merited win which the ruling party in Turkey has achieved after it has proven its eligibility to lead the country towards progress and prosperity and had honorable positions in support of the Palestinian cause and the steadfastness of our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."
Report: Muslim Brotherhood Members Kill Christian Woman in Egypt
On Friday, March 28, in Ain Shams, a suburb of Cairo, rioting Muslim Brotherhood supporters attacked the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church, including by opening fire on it and setting parked cars aflame. Four people died.Iran appoints suspected US Embassy hostage-taker as their UN ambassador
One of the slain, a young Coptic woman, was savagely mauled and molested before being murdered—simply because her cross identified her as a Christian to the Brotherhood rioters.
According to Bloomberg News, Aboutalebi, whose appointment as ambassador was well known among the U.N. delegations for months, directly participated in the 1979 U.S Embassy hostage take-over as a member of the Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line.Iranian Cleric: Iron Dome Doesn't Work
Meanwhile, the Iranian government is simultaneously pushing the U.S. for a visa for their newly appointed U.N ambassador, to which the State Department has yet to reply, Bloomberg News reports.
“It’s a disgrace if the USG (U.S. government) accepts Abutalebi’s visa as Iranian Ambassador to the U.N.,” former hostage Barry Rosen said in a statement provided to Reuters.
Iranian cleric Mujtaba D'oh A-Nur does not believe the Iron Dome system will protect Israel when the time comes to enact it. The system will not affect Iran in any way – either defensively or offensively, he said.Ahmadinejad Urges Iranians to ‘Raise the Flag of Martyrs Over the White House’
“The illegal Zionist regime located in the heart of Muslim rule does not have faith in its security,” said A-Nur. “That is why it runs to the United States for defense and develops the Iron Dome and other defenses against missiles.”
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged from hiding on Wednesday to deliver a rare public speech in which he told Iranians, “We can rest the day that we raise the flag of martyrs over the White House,” according to an independent translation of Persian language media reports.American Commentator on Iran TV: Israelis, Rothschild May Have Been behind Malaysian Plane Mystery
Ahmadinejad, most notorious for his Holocaust denial and militaristic rhetoric, visited war zones in southern Iran just a week after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made a similar visit to the region.