Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Elephants in the room

Showing posts with label Elephants in the room. Show all posts

Sunday, October 03, 2010

The elephants in the room, 2010 edition

Over the years, I have been publishing ever-expanding lists of the "elephants in the room" that would make it impossible to have a real peace. Here they are, updated with more elephants than ever:

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. (See also Elephant 11.)

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. 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 current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs 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 the current prime minister was never elected (in fact, he received a tiny percentage of the vote when he did run for election.) 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 Fayyad/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. 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.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on international welfare would revolt. So 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. (The bulk of the PA budget goes to Gaza, and much of that goes to workers being paid not to work.)

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror. The Al Aqsa Brigades continues to make statement and claim credit for terror attacks, even in 2010.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Even though the US has made statements against Palestinian Arab incitement, it hasn't moved to stop it.

Elephant 8: 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.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of 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 10: 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 11: 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 positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic demands for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 12: 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" not 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 13: Economics

Some 16 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 14: 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 15: 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 16: 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 Syria 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 Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. 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.

Their 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.

But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.

Elephant 17: 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.

Elephant 18: The tension between being pro-West and pro-Arab

The biggest Western success story in the Palestinian Arab territories is the existence of the "Dayton forces" that have been helping crack down on Hamas in the West Bank.

However, most Palestinian Arabs regard those forces as puppets of the West. Not only do Hamas and Islamic Jihad hammer away at this point, but ordinary Palestinian Arabs do as well. The more cooperation between the PA and Israel/US, the more the PA government is delegitimized in the eyes of its people.

Elephant 19: 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. Press freedom remains low; the justice system is improving but hardly competent, 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 20: Palestine would be Judenrein

Statements by PA leaders (with the notable exception of Fayyad) 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 anti-semitism that is completely at odds with the Western standards that the nascent state of "Palestine" is attempting to live up to.

Elephant 21: The Muslim world's antipathy towards Israel

Even if all of the preceding elephants could somehow vanish, 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. Furthermore, any tension between Israel and any of its neighbors - Hezbollah or Hamas or Syria - would result in even the moderate Arab world solidly behind Israel's enemies, no matter what. 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.

Revisiting the elephants in the room, plus one more

PA prime minister Salam Fayyad was interviewed in Ha'aretz where he went into some detail about his plan to unilaterally declare a Palestinian Arab state next year.

His plan has dovetailed with noises coming out of the White House and the EU, and there seems to be growing enthusiasm for this move.

A couple of times over the past two years I published lists of "elephants in the room" that the wishful thinkers like to ignore. Fayyad is saying all the right things for Western consumption, but how do his statements hold up against the elephants?

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza
Fayyad dismisses this in two paragraphs that don't say anything of substance:

People in Gaza are looking at us as well, and saying they also want to have a better life. Look at how fragmented we are in the West Bank, but Gaza you can cover from north, south, east, and west 10-20 times a day. What took us a year to do in the West Bank can be accomplished in two months in Gaza.

"Who would have thought a couple years ago there would be this transformation in the mind-set? Not many thought that possible. All you have to do is travel beyond Ramallah and see for yourself. It's a changed reality.

He is ignoring Hamas completely, implying that a declared state will magically make Hamas disappear and melt into the PA. The only problem is that there is no basis to believe that in reality. His declared "state" would include a territory that is ruled by terrorists, and he would demand that the world recognize it as if it was under PA control.

In addition, the only change in PalArab West Bank mindset, as far as I could tell, is economic, not political. I have yet to see a single example of Arabic comments on stories about Gaza aggression that are remotely peaceful. Plenty of people hate Hamas but no one is against killing Jews to the extent that they would say so publicly.

And the economic boom in the West Bank is because of Netanyahu, not Fayyad.

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government
Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected
Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power
Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

All of these issues are continuously ignored. There are no elections on the horizon. The last elections not only chose Hamas for a national government but also for practically every local government outside Ramallah. The legality of the current PA is questionable even within the PA's own laws. And the PA still gets the bulk of its support from the West, not from its own people.

Fayyad has been working on building institutions, a move that was decades overdue. But he has no political support from within. He has no following. He is not a member of Fatah, and in the end, Fatah is the power behind the PA - and the PA is not independent but it answers to the PLO, another little fact that the West is unaware of or ignores.

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has been keeping a lower profile but it has not been dismantled. In Gaza, Hamas has arrested much of its leadership, but in the West Bank it is simply waiting for the opportunity to re-emerge.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

Fayyad's plan is explicitly rejecting the roadmap and is a unilateral action. This means, of course, that Israel could do the same. If Israel annexes the large settlement blocs - a move that the vast majority of Israelis support - then the declared Palestinian Arab state would start off without any borders.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

I don't believe that this is Fayyad's goal, but it is Abbas' goal, as can be seen by his actions. It is Fatah's goal and it is the PLO's goal. And in the end, Abbas is Fayyad's boss.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

It might have moved to the forefront, so it is not as ignored as it was, but it remains the major point of disagreement. The PA's requirements on Jerusalem is an indication that a state is not its goal, as a state could function just fine with Ramallah as its capital. Their insistence on Jerusalem is simply meant to disassociate Jerusalem from Judaism.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza when Israel withdrew

Gaza could have become a Singapore when Israel left. Instead, it became Afghanistan. The only thing that has kept the West Bank relatively stable over the past few years has been the presence and threat of the IDF - but the world has forgotten what the West Bank was like while the intifada raged and the "peaceful" PA was in charge.

Elephant 11: Palestinian Arab "unity"

Unless the PA gives up on Gaza, Hamas has effective veto power over any moves made by the PA. Any "unification" agreement - which is no closer today than it was last year or two years ago - would inevitably mean that the PA positions would harden to accommodate Hamas. And Hamas is never going to give up on its desire for destroying Israel sooner rather than later. Just they would then have access to more American weapons.

Elephant 12: The Palestinian Arab "diaspora" and Arab intransigence

Fayyad states that his state would welcome Palestinian "refugees." This means that the Arab policy of not granting statehood to those who choose not to move to "Palestine" would become untenable. This would mean that Arab nations like Syria and Lebanon would have a choice: offer citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of "Palestinians" who live within their borders, or force them all to move to "Palestine" where they would quickly overwhelm the existing infrastructure.

And very possibly radicalize the minority who really does accept Israel.

This elephant will grow large indeed.

Elephant 13: Economics

This is something that has improved. Even so, the Palestinian Arab economy is far from self-sustaining and the attitude of entitlement is still there, especially in the camps that many still live in - even under PA control. Add the thousands of new residents and we have a big problem.

Elephant 14: Gaza demographics

Gazans are still having lots of kids, and nowhere to put them. Most will not want to move to the West Bank, where the culture is different, and Egypt won't take them. they will continue to use this to pressure Israel even if somehow Gaza comes under the PA.

Elephant 15: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence

If we take Fayyad at his word, then exactly one has. As mentioned, he has no constituency within his own people. He was never even elected.

And it is hard to take Fayyad at his word, when he answers a question this vaguely:

Q: What are you doing to stop incitement against Israel?

A: Incitement can take the form of many things - things said, things done, provocations - but there are ways for dealing with this. We are dealing with this.

Too bad he cannot give a single example.

Fayyad points to another very large elephant that hadn't been mentioned:

Elephant 16: A unilateral Palestinian Arab state would be militarized

In the interview Fayyad says the Palestinians want an independent and sovereign state, emphasizing they are "not looking for a state of leftovers - a Mickey Mouse state."

This is a codeword for a full army and full control over airspace. Fayyad's state would allow him or his radical successor to invite Syria 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 Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. 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.

Their 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.

But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.

The elephants are still in the room

In January 2008, I wrote a post called "Ignoring elephants" that listed ten major issues that those who are hellbent on a "peace process" find convenient to ignore. With the new administration's emphasis on this same failed "peace process," it is worthwhile to update it.

Sadly, seventeen months later, it requires very few changes, and we can even add a few.

In the reckless chase for Middle East peace, the number of elephants in the room is increasing exponentially. But the ability of the "peacemakers" to ignore them rises to the occasion.

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 has no interest in restraining the even-more extremist terror groups that thrive there. 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. 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 current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. Negotiating with them is, literally, meaningless.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/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. 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.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on international welfare would revolt. So 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 recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Elephant 8: 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.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of 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 10: 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 11: 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 positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic demands for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 12: 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" not 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 13: Economics

Some 16 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 14: Gaza demographics

Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow. 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 15: 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.

Ignoring elephants

Elephants in the room

When you see pundits talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict or terror at large, there are very often a few elephants in the room that for some reason they pretend to ignore. Occasionally it is useful to point some of these elephants out.

"Disengagement" will be followed by increased terror. Every single military and intelligence analysis comes to this conclusion.
Israel will need to retain troops in Gaza after "disengagement" to try to stop Qassam rockets from hitting Israeli towns proper. So in the end, the process will keep just as many Israeli soldiers in the same area.
The maximal Palestinian concessions conceivable for a peace agreement is very far apart from the maximal Israeli concessions. Everyone assumes that in the end the Palestinians will accept a Barak-style plan, yet no Palestinian leader has ever said that this would be acceptable.
The terror suspects that get arrested in the US and Europe, whether they support Al Qaeda or Hamas, are usually successful professionals - doctors or professors. They live good lives in the West. They do not support terror because of "desperation" - they support terror ideologically.
Islam may be a religion, but from a geo-political perspective, it is also an ideology. The Islamic ideology includes the desire, and possibly the obligation, to literally take over the world - politically, militarily or otherwise. As such, it is a world threat. It is more accurate to compare Islam to Communism or Nazism than it is to compare it to Buddhism or Christianity.

Any other elephants out there?