Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: impossible peace

Showing posts with label impossible peace. Show all posts

Monday, November 16, 2020

The PLO's Red Lines for a Palestinian state, from the Palestine Papers, part 1: Borders and recognition

In 2011, Al Jazeera and The Guardian released a collection of over a thousand documents related to the Israel/Palestinian peace process, most of them leaked from the Negotiations Support Unit (NSU)of the PLO headed by Saeb Erekat. They were known as The Palestine Papers. One of Erekat's many resignations came in response to these papers being leaked, presumably by one of his own people.

The articles at the time from Al Jazeera and The Guardian cherry picked out-of-context quotes from Israeli negotiators quoted in the papers to make them look bad. As far as I know, I am the only person who spent a bit of time actually reading the Palestine Papers and discovering many embarrassing things about the PLO as well as how Al Jazeera and The Guardian mischaracterized their findings.

After Saeb Erekat's death, I revisited the Papers which are still available at the Al Jazeera site. I found one document that is terrifically important, possibly the most important document in the collection, that no one else seems to have noticed - or wanted to report on.

It is called the NSU Negotiation Principles Matrix and it lists, over fifteen pages, every single issue that Israel and the PLO negotiated over, what the PLO's core position was on each issue, and what the PLO was ready to be flexible on and exactly how much.

It is a blueprint to the maximal concessions that the PLO would ever give for peace and what their true "red lines" are. This document, in all probability, is why Erekat dissolved the NSU and resigned - it showed all of the PLO's negotiating cards.

It also shows how impossible it is for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. The PLO's public negotiating position is entirely consistent with this document and there is no reason to think that the Palestinian leadership has moved from these positions one bit.

Given that a new Biden administration will go back to an Oslo mentality, trying to negotiate a two state solution, this document is more relevant than ever. It shows, in the PLO's own words, how intransigent they are and how intransigent they always will be.

It makes no sense to pressure Israel for more concessions when the PLO already says that they won't be enough.

The matrix starts off with the PLO positions on the negotiations as a whole, upon which there is no flexibility.

ISSUE

CORE PRINCIPLES

POSSIBLE FLEXIBILITY

CORE PRINCIPLES

· No end of claims until full implementation of the CAPS

· Strong implementation and verification mechanism

· No backdoor acceptance of state with provisional borders

· No end of occupation until full withdrawal of army and all settlers and full Palestinian control over all the territory, its inhabitants and all external relations

· Full normalization with Israel by any Arab State shall only commence following the full implementation of the Treaty.

Most of these are things we have heard before as PLO demands.

Note here that the PLO is insisting that they must receive all of their demands, completely and up front, before Israel gets anything. Notice also that the PLO is speaking for all Arab states, whether they like it or not.

MUTUAL RECOGNITION

· Should include recognition of Israel along recognized and agreed borders.

· Must not include recognition of certain characteristics of the state of Israel, i.e as a Jewish state.

Here the PLO is saying that they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is meant to protect the "right to return" so they can plan to turn Israel into an Arab state by forcing it to take in all so-called "refugees" which will be discussed later on in the document.

INTERNATIONAL BORDERS

Location of international borders

· Must be based on 1967.

· 1967 line = 1949 armistice line, including all legal and agreed modifications. [Alternatively,

· Land corridor/link could be part of swap package if Palestinians get sovereignty over the land corridor.

language could specify that the West Bank includes East Jerusalem and No Man’s Land.]

· Demographic arguments cannot be used to draw the border. If Israel wants to argue demographics then UNGA 181 must be the basis of discussion.

· Negotiate size of area, not percentages.

· Swaps must be minor - not more than 100 km² in TOTAL .

· No swap of land inhabited by Palestinians, regardless of citizenship (e.g., Um el Fahm).

· Equal in quantity and quality (e.g., Jerusalem land for Jerusalem land, agricultural land for agricultural land).

· Swap only settlement built-up areas, not empty Pal land (i.e., no ‘blocs’).

· Swap only settlements adjacent to the border. Swapped areas cannot disrupt contiguity. (No annexation of Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Ya’cov, Giv’at Ze’ev, or Efrat.)

· No swap of land inhabited by Palestinians regardless of citizenship (i.e Um el Fahm).

· Proposals for tripartite land swap with Egypt (or Jordan) should be rejected.

· No leasing.

· Most of the options with respect to borders will be in the various swap scenarios, which should be guided by the principles herein.

· Residency rights is a creative option to avoid swapping difficult areas and which may make Palestinians look more reasonable at the table.

Here the PLO is saying that the 1949 armistice lines must be the basis for the final borders, and the Palestinians should even get the "no man's land" between the Israeli and Jordanian positions in 1949.

It is saying that it does not want to gain land in Israel that includes a single Arab. Only lands where Jews would be expelled, or empty land, can be swapped for small settlement areas adjacent to the Green Line.

It explicitly says that Israel must give up all lands that are not, in the PLO's view, contiguous with the 1949 armistice lines. Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Yaakov, Giv’at Ze’ev, Efrat - and certainly places like Bet El, Hebron and scores of other communities - must be emptied of Jews.

But if Israel pushes back, the PLO can consider allowing a few Jews to stay as residents of Israel "to make Palestinians look more reasonable."

All of these are clearly non-starters for Israel. But the PLO is saying that it will not budge on this - hundreds of thousands of Jews must leave their homes before Israel can get any benefits of peace.

Delimitation and demarcation	· Delimitation on agreed and appropriately scaled maps.	· This is purely a technical issue. It should not be contentious.
Maritime Boundaries	· Palestine will claim full share of what we are entitled to under international law as a coastal state. · Maritime boundaries must be agreed, according to international law. · Include clause that says maritime boundaries will be agreed in the future [ideal time would be at or immediately post CAPS].	· Willing to negotiate shared/joint zones. · Maritime boundary does not have to be agreed at the FAPS or CAPS stage. It can be agreed post-statehood. · There are many options for the maritime boundaries in line with international law and equitability.
Private property	· Deal with private property interests in the swapped areas separately from delimitation of the border	·
Sovereignty and Inviolability	· West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip are one united and integral part of the territory of Palestine · Palestinian sovereignty must be full and respected by Israel	· NOTE: issues of sovereignty should not be confused with functional arrangements that suit both Palestinian and Israeli interests. For example, Palestine could enter into arrangements based on its sovereign equality on various issues in accordance with its own interests.

The next section we will look at contains the PLO demands about Jerusalem.

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How would Palestinians act under Peter Beinart’s “one-state” solution?

Peter Beinart has gotten a lot of press this week over his essays in the far-Left Jewish Currents and the increasingly far-Left New York Times opinion pages for his proposal that instead of a two-state solution, the preferred outcome is a Jewish “homeland” in a single state that would presumably be called “Palestine.”

This is of course not a new idea. In 1947, when Arabs faced the possibility that the UN would vote for partitioning the land and creating a Jewish state, they suddenly declared that they were interested in a “bi-national” state with the Jews – predicated on the idea that Jewish immigration must end first, which would ensure an Arab majority in any election.

The more modern version of the idea espoused by many English-speaking Arabs also emphasizes to their Western audiences that a one state solution with equal rights is wonderful, as long as millions of Arabs with Palestinian ancestry are first allowed to flood the area and ensure that there is an Arab majority in any election.

Another version of the plan is Iran’s, where only the Jews whose families were in Palestine before 1917 would be allowed to vote.

The New York Times published a similar op-ed in 2009 for a one-state solution. It’s author was that famous peacemaker, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, where he actually pretended to be proposing this plan for Jews’ security:

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point.

Obviously Jews should live next to Arabs who want to kill them rather than across a border. See how much he cared?

These thinkers’ interest in “democracy” is only to ensure that Jews do not have a state, not out of any love of the democratic system. And this is obviously true, because these same people never advocate for democracies in Jordan or Egypt or the UAE; they don’t even demand that Palestinians have elections themselves. They only want a single election meant to dissolve the Jewish state – what happens after that is unimportant.

But let’s look at that very question – what would happen after that?

We just have to ask Palestinians how they would envision sharing the entire area from the river to the sea with a sizable Jewish population.

One indication of their answer can be in polls over recent years about whether Palestinians are willing to share Jerusalem, which is a key part of most two-state plans, and therefore a good proxy for how they feel about sharing all of the country with Jews.

A clear majority of Palestinians demand not only full control over the formerly Jordanian-occupied portions of Jerusalem, but the entire city. 52% of West Bank Palestinians, and 80% of Gazans, agree with the statement “We should demand Palestinian rule over all of Jerusalem, East and West, rather than agree to share or divide any part of it with Israel.” This means that they would immediately ban all Jews from entering the city the way Jordan did from 1948 to 1967. Say goodbye to the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter – Palestinians aren’t quite willing to share anything.

And there is no reason to think that they would consider Tel Aviv to be any more Jewish than Jerusalem is. Their maps make it very clear how willing they are to share the land, although there is no shortage of clueless Westerners who believe the lie that “Arabs and Jews lived in peace and harmony before Zionism.”

Beinart says that a two-state solution is ideal, but Israel has made that impossible. (Palestinians, as always, have no agency or responsibility in his eyes.) But how do Palestinians feel about a two state solution where they can have a state of their own?

Most Palestinians who say they want a two-state solution do not see that as the end of the conflict, but a stage towards the strategic goal of ending any Jewish rule.

And they see the “right of return,” flooding Israel with millions of Arabs, as the ideal way to destroy the Jewish state.

How would Palestinians act towards a significant Jewish minority of Jews in a single state? Again, one needs only to look at the history of Jews in Arab lands, or even in Palestine. Jews were attacked before Zionism. Immediately after the 1947 partition vote, when Arabs solemnly pledged that they would respect Jews as equals in their binational state, they started slaughtering them.

I made a cartoon last night to illustrate the immorality of an American telling Israelis what is best for them:

An Arab-majority state that would treat Jews as equals is nothing short of a fantasy. The reality would be a return to the daily attacks on Jews that were seen in Palestine before 1948.

Beinart’s plan is based on a theory of a peaceful Palestinian Arab population that has absolutely no objective support. Does he seriously believe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be disarmed in this fantasy state?

Peter Beinart is supremely concerned over what he sees as Jewish mistreatment of Palestinians yet shows literally zero concern over the certainty – not probability, but certainty - that his plan will result in massive Arab abuse of Jews.

Why peace is impossible, reason #8210

At first this looks like a heartwarming story from Haaretz:

In First, Yad Vashem to Bestow 'Righteous Gentile' Honor to an Arab
Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center will for the first time recognize as “Righteous Among the Nations” an Arab who saved the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. The family of Dr. Mohamed Helmy will accept the award from Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum in a ceremony in Berlin on Thursday.

Helmy, an Egyptian-born doctor living in Berlin, risked his life when he sheltered four Jews throughout the period of World War II.

But then we read this:

Yad Vashem recognized Helmy, who died in 1982, as Righteous Among the Nations in 2013, but his family initially refused the honor because the institution is Israeli.

“If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it,” said Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy’s grandnephew, told The Associated Press during an interview at her home in Cairo in October 2013. Now, after a four-year search, a relative was found who agreed to accept the award.

Nasser Kutbi, an 81-year-old professor of medicine from Cairo whose father was Helmy’s nephew and who knew him personally, will travel to Berlin to accept the award.
In 2013, when Yad Vashem recognized Helmy and Szturmann as Righteous Among the Nations they tried to locate Helmy’s relatives, and even turned to the Egyptian Embassy in Israel and the press.

The Associated Press located a relative in Egypt who refused to accept the award. Other relatives explained to German historian and journalist Ronen Steinke why they refused: Yad Vashem is political institution representing Israel and has no right to represent Jews everywhere, they said. In addition, Israel was not founded until 1948 and did not exist at the time Helmy carried out his actions, so today Israel has no right to represent the Jewish victims of that period, they added. They also criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians, saying one of their relatives had died in one of the wars between Israel and Egypt.

Helmy’s relatives feel he saved Anna not because she was Jewish but because she was a human being and the attempt to recognize him for saving Jews is inappropriate, Steinke told Haaretz.

Yad Vashem has recognized some 26,000 Righteous Among the Nations from 44 countries and nationalities so far. A few dozen are Muslims, including from Albania, the Caucasus and the Balkans. But Helmy was the first Arab so recognized.

Ordinary Egyptians refused to accept a huge honor on behalf of their relatives - because, you know, Israel, hand waving, Israel, mumble, Palestinians, 1948, Nakba, Israel.

In other words, by traveling to Israel to accept the award, the relatives would be guilty of the crime of "normalization with the Zionist enemy" that has been at formal peace with Egypt for 40 years, longer than the two countries were at war. (Arab media accurately noted the reason was "normalization," not the four absurd reasons listed in the article.

This is how relatives of a hero behave today in a country with a peace treaty with Israel, today's Egypt that has no interest in real peace but only in the benefits it receives from the peace agreement.

This is yet another reason that true peace is impossible.

(h/t JW)

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Why peace is impossible, reason #9729

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Muslim Brotherhood supporter and member of the Jordanian parliament, Dima Tahboub.

"They're enemies and they mocked the Jordanian people," Jordanian MP Dima Tahboub said on the 7 killed Israeli schoolgirls. #AhmedDaqamseh pic.twitter.com/vWTxJsZ4hR
— DW Conflict Zone (@dw_conflictzone) July 19, 2017

At the very same time that she claims to be against violence, she justifies and cheers the murder of 7 Israeli schoolgirls in 1997 in the Island of Peace massacre.

Dima Tahboub is not the reason peace is impossible in the Middle East. She's a hater, a bigot, an antisemite, a Muslim supremacist and an inciter, but there are lots of those around.

The reason that peace is impossible is because it is impossible to find any Arabs, anywhere in region, who are aghast at these comments and willing to publicly stand up and condemn them.

If one cannot find a a single Arab government, a single Arab "human rights' organization, a single Arab lawmaker or a single Arab pundit or columnist willing to condemn Tahboub for cheering the murder of innocent girls because they are Jewish, then that silence tells us far more about how the Arab world thinks than a thousand statements that they are against violence and don't hate Jews.

I have no doubt that many Arabs do not support the wanton murder of innocent girls, even Jewish ones. But even those Arabs live in a society where they both do not feel strongly enough about it to speak up, and where if they did there would be very unpleasant consequences for them and their families. Such a society is not capable of making real peace, ever.

The full disgusting interview is here.

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Reason #4933 why peace is impossible

Times of Israel reported a heartwarming story this week:

A Palestinian Authority official has donated tens of thousands of shekels to the Rambam Medical Center after receiving life-saving treatment at the Haifa-area hospital, the hospital said.

According to a statement from Rambam, the unnamed PA official made a financial contribution to help hospitalized kids in an effort “to build peace through medicine.”

The official, who chose to remain anonymous, was hospitalized at Rambam earlier this year for cancer treatment and said he was motivated to donate after witnessing the coexistence in practice.

“When I arrived at Rambam, I saw a medical team that treats its patients with dedication, but I also saw the suffering of sick children,” he said according to the statement. “Palestinian children, Israelis, Syrians, and children from other countries who are being treated at Rambam for serious illnesses and are in need of all the help they can get.”

His donation will go toward building a kids’ playroom in the Institute of Radiology of the Joseph Fishman Oncology Center.

“I decided to make a donation to help save human lives apart from any political considerations,” he said.

“Both Israeli and Palestinian societies suffer from violence and I am striving for a situation where we all can contribute to peace and health: to treat children, save lives, share knowledge, and train Palestinian doctors at Rambam, in order to improve the state of the health systems and the capacity to treat people in the PA areas, and to encourage others to donate and contribute to the betterment of health within our two nations.”

“Medicine is a bridge between peoples and my hope is that with the help of this small contribution and others like it in the future, we will all see a better tomorrow,” the official added.

This is a wonderful story that shows that Palestinian Arabs can appreciate how at least some Israelis treat them.

But there is one problem.

The official chooses to remain anonymous.

Instead of telling his people that he is making this donation out of appreciation and in the interests of bringing peace, he is staying silent.

Because his career and reputation would be over if his Arab neighbors knew that he donated a sizable sum of money to a "Zionist" hospital.

In fact, chances are such a move would result in death threats.

Later, official PA media named the supposed official and denied the story altogether!

The government Thursday denied media reports that a senior Palestinian official donated money to a non-Palestinian hospital.
Government spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud rejected claims that Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr had donated money to any hospital outside Palestine after receiving treatment there, describing the reports as “baseless.”
Al-Mahmoud said Abu Amr was well and working normally, noting that he was not aware that Abu Amr was receiving any kind of treatment at Palestinian or foreign hospitals.

How dare anyone consider that a Palestinian officia donates money to a "non-Palestinian" hospital?

The PA is forced to deny the story on the official's behalf, because it is so threatened by the very idea of a Palestinian showing any appreciation to Israeli Jews. It couldn't even ignore the story - it had to deny it.

For honor.

Think about that. It is a point of honor not to show gratitude to Israeli doctors.

And understand that as long as Palestinian Arabs are brainwashed to hate Israel and Jews, to the point that they must issue statements denying gratitude to even Israeli hospitals that cater to them, there is no chance of peace. Ever.

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Dawabshe family rejects Jewish money

A Jewish anti-racism organization in Israel named Tag Meir ("light tag", a pun on the Hebrew for "price tag") has been raising money to give to the Dawabshe family for the past month:

We are raising money for the Dawabshe family - can you help?

On the eve of the approaching Tishrei holidays for the Jewish People, while yet in the month of Elul, the month of forgiveness and compassion, we at the Tag Meir Forum decided to run a crowd-source campaign to raise money for building Ahmed’s future and assisting the Dawabshe family.

Together with you we will attempt to take care of all his needs in three main channels:

Emergency channel including Ahmed’s treatment and rehabilitation and assistance to his grandfather Ahmed

An educational and assistance channel for Ahmed’s future

Channel for State housing and family support

The effort has received some media publicity and at the moment they raised over four times their original goal of 80,000 shekels - they have now raised over 350,000 shekels.

The Dawabshe family doesn't want Jewish money.

Ma'an Arabic says that the family has rejected the offer out of hand.

The brother of the father who perished, Nasr Dawabshe, denied reports that his family agreed to receive help from the organization, saying they will not accept any money and stressing that the family lawyer contacted the Jewish peace activists and told them not to contact the family.

Presumably, accepting Jewish money would be a form of "normalization" that is completely unacceptable to the peace-loving Palestinian Arabs. Jewish money is tainted, even from left-wing peace activists.

Tag Meir writes that it feels compelled to raise the funds because

We hope that together we can prove that this is neither Judaism’s nor the Israelis’ path.
Our ways are ways of pleasantness and peace.

That is a message that Arabs do not want to spread. Anything that is slightly positive about Jews or Israelis is verboten in today's Palestinian Arab society. Accepting the money to help Ahmed Dawabshe would mean accepting the idea that not all Jews support the hideous burning of a family - and that message must not be allowed.

It is a sickening kind of hate where the future welfare of a victim of terror is deemed less important than allowing the possibility of Arab society believing that some Israeli Jews are moral human beings.

UPDATE: Chava writes in the comments:

I just read a post on the (Hebrew) site of Tag Meir which responds to these reports, saying that the fundraising was done in full coordination with the family and that the money will not be given to the family but placed into a fund for Ahmed Dabwashe to insure his future - rehab and education

Poll shows PalArabs use "peace" as a stage to destroy Israel

From Fikra Forum:

The long-term Palestinian political perspective has long been a subject of much polemical speculation – but without much evidence on either side. Do most Palestinians hope for a small state of their own at peace with Israel, or do they still aspire to reclaim all of Palestine someday? Now an actual survey, conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion in the West Bank and Gaza from June 7 to 19, provides some solid answers to this intriguing question. The survey was based on personal interviews with a representative, geographic probability sample of 504 West Bankers and 413 Gazans, yielding a statistical margin of error of approximately 4.5 percent in each area.

Overall, responses demonstrate a dichotomous set of attitudes: some tactical flexibility toward Israel today, but much potential for irredentism in the future. The tactical flexibility—even on recognition of “the Jewish people,” or restrictions on the Palestinian refugee “right of return”—was highlighted in a previous report. One other important sign of short-term pragmatism is a willingness among around half the Palestinian public, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, to share sovereignty over Jerusalem with Israel. Another sign of tactical flexibility is that among West Bankers, the large majority (79 percent) say that, “in the current situation,” they would like a highway through that territory which bypasses Jerusalem altogether.

For the longer term, however, many Palestinians have a much more maximalist orientation. Unlike other surveys, this survey asked about three different time frames: the next 5 years, the coming 30-40 years, and the distant future 100 years from now. The results are instructive, suggesting a widespread expectation of “two stages” rather than “two states” in the long term.

Even in the next five years, a plurality pick “reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea” rather than “a two-state solution” as the “main Palestinian national goal.” In the West Bank, the margin is 41 percent vs. 29 percent; in Gaza, surprisingly, the margin is much closer, with 50 percent opting for all of Palestine, compared with 44 percent in favor of a two-state solution. But the difference is largely accounted for by a third option: a “one-state solution in all of the land in which Palestinians and Jews have equal rights.” Among West Bankers, 18 percent select that option; among Gazans, just 5 percent do.

From a normative perspective, too, Palestinian attitudes are clearly maximalist. In the West Bank, 81 percent say that all of historic Palestine “is Palestinian land and Jews have no rights to the land.” In Gaza, that proportion is even higher: 88 percent.

Nevertheless, looking ahead to the next generation, only one-fourth of Palestinians in either the West Bank or Gaza expect Israel to “continue to exist as a Jewish state” in 30-40 years. Another fourth think Israel will become “a binational state of Jews and Palestinians.” And 38 percent of West Bankers, along with 53 percent of Gazans, think Israel will no longer exist at all, even as a binational state. That group is about evenly split between those who predict that Israel “will collapse from internal contradictions,” or that “Arab or Muslim resistance will destroy it.”

As for the really long-term view, a century away, a mere 12 percent of West Bankers and 15 percent of Gazans say Israel will still exist then as a Jewish state. In the West Bank, a plurality (44 percent) think Israel will either collapse or be destroyed; although 20 percent quite reasonably say they don’t know what will happen in 100 years. In Gaza, an absolute majority (63 percent) anticipate the destruction or collapse of Israel within that distant horizon.

We have seen surveys like this before across the years - but the media ignore them.

I even made a video about a previous poll showing the same attitudes that no one wants to admit:

Reason #9328 why peace is impossible.