Thursday, January 02, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
I haven't done it since 2013, and the list is still very similar to what it was then. The real issues are swept under the rug, while everyone talks about "occupation" as if that is the main obstacle to peace.
It isn't.
So here is a slightly updated list of elephants that is still being ignored by nearly everyone:
Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza
Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that is consistently and wholeheartedly against Israel's existence. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there.
Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government
In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. (52% still support a violent intifada in 2019.) The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.
Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected
This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the people representing "Palestine" on TV and at the UN do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. The current PA president is well past his term of office, and none of his prime ministers were ever elected Negotiating with the PA is, literally, meaningless.
Similarly, the unelected PLO is the real power behind the PA. The PA officially reports to the PLO, and all negotiations are done by the autocratic, Fatah-dominated PLO, not the PA.
Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power - and no respect
Outside of Ramallah, the Abbas government has little popular support and little power. Hamas is a very real threat to the PA in the West Bank and is quietly building its base, although the PA is pretty ruthless in attacking Hamas directly and indirectly through financial means. The attitudes that forced the PA to abandon Gaza - a lack of passion by people for its positions - could very well play out in the West Bank as well, especially if there are new elections.
Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods
The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers, including terrorists who receive a salary for not working. The PA may also still be paying Gaza workers who were kicked out of their government jobs in 2006 by Hamas. The very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem.
Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA
Despite the claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. The PA might arrest Hamas members in the West Bank, but there still remains - today - terrorist groups that report to Fatah. Here's the webpage of one of them. There has been no serious move by the PA to dismantle their own terror groups, and they still appear in public with their guns.
Elephant 7: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel
Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process. One only needs to look at the maps of "Palestine" in official PA documents and schoolbooks.
A 2011 poll that remains criminally under-reported proves that when Palestinian Arabs say they want a two-state solution, it is only a stage towards their real goal of destroying Israel.
And polls in 2019 confirm it.
Elephant 8: Jerusalem
Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of ("east") Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.
Elephant 9: What happened to Gaza
Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.
Elephant 10: Palestinian Arab "unity"
Related to Elephant #1. No peace plan can work unless Hamas and the PA/Fatah reach some sort of unification agreement. This is not possible in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Hamas is powerful enough that any such agreement must include a hardening of PLO positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic minimum standards for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.
Elephant 11: The Palestinian Arab "diaspora" and Arab intransigence
Any final peace agreement would mean that Arab countries could no longer justify keeping Palestinian Arabs in "refugee camps" nor could they justify their continued refusal to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs from becoming citizens of their countries should they want to stay. The millions of PalArabs in the Middle East becoming citizens would not be accepted by many Arab countries as it would endanger their own tenuous holds on power.
Elephant 12: Economics
Some 25 years after Oslo, the economy in the territories is still close to non-existent and wholly dependent on foreign aid. Not only is there no free market, there is no incentive to build one as the very mentality of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders is one of welfare rather than responsibility. All the plans to create a Palestinian Arab state do not consider Day 2 and how such a state would be able to sustain itself. The expected influx of hundreds of thousands of people from "refugee camps" would make it even worse. It would take at least a generation to turn the poisonous attitude of entitlement around.
Elephant 13: Gaza demographics
Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow at among the fastest rates in the world. Theoretically they could move to the West Bank but only a small percentage would. This is another Day 2 powder keg that is being ignored in the interests of a "solution" of a "Palestinian state."
Elephant 14: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence
The West assumes that the goal is an independent Palestinian Arab state where Arabs no longer have to live under "occupation." But the actions and words of Palestinian Arab leaders have never borne that goal out; they have not worked towards building the institutions and infrastructure that would be necessary in an independent state. Their insistence on "right of return" and "Jerusalem" as issues that must be resolved before independence betray their thought processes - inconsistent with independence (neither of which require those two issues to be resolved) and consistent with a desire to destroy Israel in stages.
Elephant 15: A unilateral Palestinian Arab state would be militarized
There is no way that a new Palestinian Arab state would remain demilitarized for any length of time. The Palestinian government could invite a friendly Muslim nation to position anti-aircraft weapons within its territory; to shoot missiles at El Al planes landing a few miles from the Green Line, or to get a few thousand tanks poised to cut Israel in half.
Iran already effectively controls Lebanon and Syria and is working to ensure Gaza comes back under its orbit. They would use the nascent state of Palestine to position themselves on the West Bank as well. Just like the PA ran away from Gaza at the first sign of trouble, so would they abandon their state to Iranian proxies and Islamic terrorists.
The PLO's will to defend themselves is not nearly as strong as their will to destroy Israel, a desire that has been inculcated in them for generations. Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fundamentally weak and externally-imposed construct. Iran is poised and anxious to take advantage of the chaos that would follow a unilaterally declared state, even if at the moment they are distracted.
But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.
Elephant 16: The so-called "right to return"
The PA is showing no interest in integrating the Palestinian Arabs outside of the territories into their state. On the contrary; the "refugee camps" in PA controlled territory continue to grow, rather than shrink. Clearly, the PA expects the bulk of the "diaspora" to go to Israel, not a Palestinian Arab state, and decades of incitement both within and without the territories have brainwashed generations of Arabs to not accept anything less than a "return" to a land that most of them have never stepped foot in. (UNRWA has been a major promulgator of this lie.)
Elephant 17: Corruption and human rights abuses are still endemic in the PA
Despite the publicized successes, the PA remains mired in corruption, hardly a model for an independent state. The 2008 Global Integrity Report rated the West Bank as close to the bottom in its corruption ratings and more recently Palestinians rated local corruption among the worst in the Arab world. Women are discriminated against by law. Press freedom remains low; the justice system is opaque, and whistle-blowers are forced to go to the Israeli press to expose corruption. The success that the PA has had in weakening Hamas in the West Bank has come at the expense of massive human rights violations, including torture.
Elephant 18: Palestine would be Judenrein
Statements by PA leaders make it clear that their state of Palestine would not have any Jewish citizens allowed within. Jews whose ancestors have lived in Judea and Samaria, whether for decades or for millennia, will be legally barred from living in Palestine - an extraordinary display of state antisemitism that is completely at odds with the Western standards that the nascent state of "Palestine" is attempting to live up to.
Elephant 19: The Muslim world's antipathy towards Israel
Although this is weakening, the Arab world and the Muslim world remains implacably against the idea of a Jewish state in the midst of supposedly Muslim lands. Iran remains in de facto control of southern Lebanon and Gaza; ordinary Jordanians and Egyptians remain among the worst anti-semites in the Arab world. The best "peace" would be bitter cold; it will not include any real normalization, and the threat from radical Islam remains potent in Arab and Muslim states. The best peace plan would result in Israel being exactly where it is today - surrounded by enemies, with less of a land buffer, and Israel relying on US money to prompt Arab neighbors to keep radicals in check.
That is not peace, and that is not security.
Elephant 20: The Arab Spring
We now see how tenuous is the hold of Arab leaders on their nations. The chances of a similar upheaval in the Palestinian Arab-controlled areas is not small. What would happen to the "peace agreement" then?
Abbas has no successor. Polls show that if elections were held today, the new president of the PA would be a convicted terrorist now in Israeli prison. Even if Abbas would sign a peace agreement today, that paper would be next to worthless after he is gone.
