Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: intransigence

Showing posts with label intransigence. Show all posts

Friday, May 20, 2011

Hamas responds to Obama: "We will never recognize Israel"

Hamas' Palestine Times newspaper quotes Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, reacting to President Obama's speech.

He called it bereft of content and said that Obama's speech was a failure, and "the nation does not need to take lessons from Obama."

Zuhri added, "Reconciliation is an internal affair and we reject the American intervention, and Hamas will not recognize Israel."

If it was Islamic Jihad, this wouldn't be news. And for Hamas, this shouldn't be news, because they have been nothing but consistent in their adamant rejection of the concept of recognizing Israel. But since so many clueless journalists and others are insisting that Hamas actually does support a two-state solution, and since this is part of the government that Israel is being cajoled to turn into a state, I am afraid that I need to post every time I see Hamas repeat what it has been saying, practically daily, for years.

NYT's Tom Friedman endorses Abbas' intransigence

Yet more idiocy from Thomas Friedman in the guise of being a concerned observer:

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is always wondering why his nation is losing support and what the world expects of a tiny country surrounded by implacable foes. I can't speak for the world, but I can speak for myself. I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian or Syrian partner for a secure peace that Israel can live with. But I know this: With a more democratic and populist Arab world in Israel's future, and with Israel facing the prospect of having a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs - between Israel and the West Bank, which could lead to Israel being equated with apartheid South Africa all over the world - Israel needs to use every ounce of its creativity to explore ways to securely cede the West Bank to a Palestinian state.

I repeat: It may not be possible. But Netanyahu has not spent his time in office using Israel's creativity to find ways to do such a deal. He has spent his time trying to avoid such a deal - and everyone knows it. No one is fooled.

Israel is in a dangerous situation. For the first time in its history, it has bad relations with all three regional superpowers - Turkey, Iran and Egypt - plus rapidly eroding support in Europe. America is Israel's only friend today. These strains are not all Israel's fault by any means, especially with Iran, but Israel will never improve ties with Egypt, Turkey and Europe without a more serious effort to safely get out of the West Bank.

The only way for Netanyahu to be taken seriously again is if he risks some political capital and actually surprises people. Bibi keeps hinting that he is ready for painful territorial compromises involving settlements. Fine, put a map on the table. Let's see what you're talking about. Or how about removing the illegal West Bank settlements built by renegade settler groups against the will of Israel's government. Either move would force Israel's adversaries to take Bibi seriously and would pressure Palestinians to be equally serious.

Once again, Friedman tries to sound even-handed - he understands Israel's precarious position, he doesn't know if Israel has a peace partner, he knows that the situation is complex and fluid.

Yet he does not ever mention that all of the intransigence is from the Palestinian Authority. He doesn't point out that even the dovish Israeli governments got nowhere with Abbas, even with specific maps and plans.

To Friedman, there is but one goal: Israel caves to Palestinian Arab territorial demands. And if the PA refuses to make a deal, then Israel must give more, and more, and more until they do.

In Friedman's fantasy world, once Israel shows it is "serious," then somehow some magic pressure will appear that will force the PA to respond. Unfortunately this has never happened. In fact, Abbas' position hardened not during Netanyahu's time in office - but during Olmert's!

What is particularly galling is that Friedman, like J-Street, couches his calls for Israel and Israel alone to make concessions as if he is doing it out of love for Israel. This is garbage. If he loves Israel, he needs to wake up and use his bully pulpit to expose the Palestinian Arab intransigence and constant calls to destroy Israel via "return" - a demand that has not changed one bit since 1948. He needs to expose the incitement in Palestinian Arab society. He needs to expose the fact that the PA has not changed its position one bit since 1988 - and brags about it. He needs to point out that previous Israeli creativity to reach a peace agreement was met not with flexibility but with more demands. All of this is well-known, even to a know-it-all like Thomas Friedman.

That's what someone who cares for Israel would do.

UPDATE: The Islamic Jihad newspaper "Palestine Today" loved this column, quoting it extensively. Which is exactly what one would expect them to do with something written by such a concerned friend of Israel, right?

Abbas: "My threats to quit are my strength"

We've mentioned how many times Abbas has threatened to quit, and how the West cowers when he makes these threats.

He has now said fairly explicitly that he uses those threats as the main weapon for his continued intransigence.

In a press conference at the end of his three-day visit to England (one wonders why no leftist tried to have him arrested as a terrorist,) Abbas said,

I often ask myself, "Who are you to say no to the Americans when you are living on their assistance, as well as from European aid,"... but there is a reason that I am in a position of strength. I am not stuck to the chair [of the presidency,] and I can leave at any moment that I want; I will not nominate myself in the upcoming elections, and I will not sell out, I will not give up and I will not do something I am not convinced is right.

It is way past time to call his bluff.

The PLO is insulting the US - more examples

In the past week I highlighted two stories, all but unreported in the media, of explicit insults against the US by the Palestinian Arab leadership.

The first was a press release by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry saying that US actions were themselves "obstacles to peace" and that the US was not an honest broker in the negotiations.

The second was the Palestinian Arab delegation walking out during Hillary Clinton's speech at the UNHRC in Geneva.

There have been others, and Palestinian Media Watch caught them.

Mahmoud Abbas, January 24:

The US is assisting us in the amount of $460 million annually. This does not mean that they dictate to us whatever they want, because we do what we view as beneficial to our cause. I recall that they said, 'Don't go to the Arab Summit in Damascus,' but we went. They demanded that we should not sign the Egyptian reconciliation document [between Fatah and Hamas], but we sent Azzam Al-Ahmed to sign it.

Fatah's Jibril Rajoub said:

The American administration has chosen unilateral aggression against human rights.

PMW brings many editorials from the official PA media as well that is sharply critical of the US.

Yet these insults, which go way beyond the diplomatic pale and should be reserved for countries like Libya and Iran, have been ignored by the media that is emotionally invested in blaming Israeli intransigence alone for lack of progress in peace negotiations.

(h/t David G for reminding me of the PMW article.)

PLO upset at Quartet statement

From Ma'an:

PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo told Kuwait news agency KUNA Monday that the latest Quartet statement on the peace process was "regretful" and fell short of the Palestinians' expectations.

The statement, which focused on getting sides back to the negotiating table as an "imperative" for regional stability, did not mention Israel's failure to stop settlement construction on Palestinian lands, an issue PLO negotiators say remains the stumbling block to a return to talks.

In their statement, the Quartet urged sides "to undertake urgently efforts to expedite Israeli-Palestinian and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, which is imperative to avoiding outcomes detrimental to the region."

Abed Rabbo told KUNA that he blamed Quartet Envoy and former British premier Tony Blair for the weak statement.

In fact, the Quartet statement did say

The Quartet regrets the discontinuation of Israel’s ten month moratorium on settlement activity and strongly reaffirms that unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community.

So once again, the PLO is lying.

What they are really angry about is that the statement called on them to resume negotiations, and they don't want to have their intransigence exposed for the world to see. They'd rather pretend that the "settlements" - with all of the building activity being within existing boundaries of the communities, none of them expanding into any areas that the Palestinian Arabs would end up with at the end of any negotiations - are the obstacle.

But perhaps they weren't happy that the statement also condemned rocket fire from Gaza.

Abbas again brags about his intransigence

From Ma'an:

President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told his party's young members that the Palestinian Authority never abandoned the national agenda.

“The Palestinian leadership is still adherent to the national agenda which was approved by the Palestinian National Council in 1988, and never gave up on any of the inalienable principles as some claim."

Meeting with Fatah Youth in his Ramallah office, the president said negotiations with Israel were suspended because of the PA's firm stance.

Meaning that the PLO has not changed it's position one bit since Arafat's heyday, just as Abbas has said in the past.

If the Palestinian Arab leadership brags about how they have not deviated from the position devised by a master terrorist - who continued to use terror long after 1988 - what exactly makes them "moderate" again?

PA rejects unilateral Israeli proposals

Netanyahu proposes several specific moves to help the PA and its citizens - and the PA rejects them.

From YNet:

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected on Saturday a series of economic incentives proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Quartet envoy Tony Blair.

During their meeting Friday, Netanyahu and Blair agreed on a new Israeli proposal aimed at easing economic and security restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank as part of the effort to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and convince the Palestinians to return to the negotiation table.

The proposal was presented as the committee of the Quartet – made up of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia – prepared to meet in Munich, Germany. It reportedly includes expanding Arab construction in east Jerusalem and giving the Palestinian Authority security powers in seven West Bank cities.

Netanyahu also agreed to begin discussions on the development of a Palestinian Authority gas field adjacent to an Israeli gas field off the coast of Gaza. The PM said future revenues from the Palestinian field will go to the PA.

Erekat said the proposal "is just a trick and procrastination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

"What Netanyahu should do, if he wants to build confidence, is immediately stop settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and recognize a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967,” the Palestinian news agency Ma'an quoted the chief negotiator as saying.

Once again, the "hawkish, right-wing" Israeli is the one making concrete suggestions for moving along the peace process - suggestions that could be worth missions of dollars - and the "moderate, flexible" PA is rejecting it.

And there's more:

Addressing the dramatic political developments in the Arab World, Erekat said "what is driving the region to violence and extremism is the continued occupation and Israeli insistence to maintain the settlement enterprise."

Why does anyone take this guy seriously anymore? Seriously!

The Palestinian Arab leaders are just babies who want all or nothing - and they complain when their enemies want to give them stuff for free that would help their own citizens.

And the West will ignore this further evidence of Palestinian Arab intransigence as they always have, because it doesn't fit the meme.

Just imagine if Netanyahu said this

Let's pretend that Binyamin Netanyahu went in front of the Knesset and declared, "Jerusalem is a Jewish city, the heart of the Jewish nation, and If Jerusalem does not remain in Jewish hands, there will never be peace."

How many op-eds would be written by the next news cycle castigating the Israeli premier for making such a statement? People would say that this proves he is a warmonger, openly sabotaging the peace process and intentionally provoking the entire Arab world. Any terror attacks that follow would have this "context" mentioned, as the media would be quick to label Arab violence as a reaction to Netanyahu's intransigence.

Yet on Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbas said

"Jerusalem is the heart of the Palestinian cause, and unless Jerusalem is the capital of an independent Palestinian state, there will not be peace."

This was reported, without the least bit of embarrassment, by the official Palestinian Arab news agency, Wafa as well as on the Ministry of Information website. And Abbas says this practically every day.

Isn't this the exactly the same as a Mafia-style protection racket? Doesn't it sound suspiciously like "Do what we want, and no one will get hurt."

And then when they get what they want - they ask for more.

Saeb Erekat's lies in CiF

Saeb Erekat, that Palestinian Arab negotiator who the West feels is so moderate because he wears suits and not army fatigues, has once again called for the destruction of Israel - this time in the pages of the Guardian's Comment is Free column.

He couches his demand to the end of the Jewish state in terms of the specious arguments that descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 have a "right to return" to the homes of their ancestors.

Here are some of his lies:

Israel's own admission as a member to the United Nations was contingent on its adherence to the principles of UNGA 194, something it proceeded to disregard once membership was granted.

While the resolution granting Israel's membership in the UN mentions UNGA 194, in no way does it say that it is contingent on it:

Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,

Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,

1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;

2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

While I cannot find the specific "declarations and explanations" noted at the moment, Israel's interpretation of 194 at the time was clear - no "return" of Arab refugees could be contemplated until there was a comprehensive peace and until the Arabs who return were willing to "live at peace with their neighbours", a UNGA 194 condition that was never met. The idea that Israel's admittance was somehow conditional is clearly a blatant lie.

The lies continue. Erekat says that "Palestinian refugees [are] the oldest and largest refugee community in the world today." The fact is that the vast majority are not refugees, but descendants of refugees, and that designation was created for them by UNRWA for practical reasons as a working definition but not as a legal definition. If they are legal refugees, then so are hundreds of millions of other people.

The lies continue:

The fact that Israel bears responsibility for the creation of the refugees is beyond argument. Even if the state still claims amnesia for its deeds, Israeli historians have debunked the traditional Zionist mythology and shown how Zionist leaders prior to 1948 formulated plans to displace the indigenous Palestinian population in order to create a Jewish majority state.

While there is a tiny amount of truth to this - plans are created for a lot of situations - there was no actual implementation of any such plans. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs fled out of fear, not from force; their leaders fled early quite voluntarily leaving the masses without any anchor in the land. They fled because they thought that their Arab neighbors would allow them to resettle or stay until the Jews would be destroyed, but their fleeing showed that their attachment to the land was far more tenuous than the Jews who had no choice but to stay and fight, or die.

The lies continue:

Resolution 194 must provide the basis for a settlement to the refugee issue.

Resolution 194 was a General Assembly resolution, not legally binding. It also required that the Jerusalem area be under UN control - something ignored by Arabs. It does not specify only Arab refugees - in its language, Jews should have been allowed to return to their homes in the Old City and Gush Etzion and elsewhere - a provision rejected by Arabs even today. The entire resolution has no legal validity whatsoever in any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, as Israel argued in 1999:

The letters of invitation to the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Agreements signed between Israel and the PLO expressly provide that permanent status negotiations are to be based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). No other United Nations resolution is cited. The Palestinians have thus affirmed that a permanent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be achieved by a negotiated settlement in West Bank and Gaza Strip territory that is the subject of those Security Council resolutions.

Other provisions of UNGA 194 were roundly ignored by the Arabs as well, such as free access to holy places. It is the Arab actions no less than anyone else that made 194 irrelevant.

Erekat's final lie is that masses of so-called refugees flooding Israel "will lead to a lasting peace." On the contrary, it would lead to the kind of internal terrorism that Palestine suffered before Israel was established, where thousands of people were slaughtered while Jews were a minority.

The entire issue is a ruse meant to destroy the Jewish state, and when the most "moderate" Palestinian Arab leaders are still publicly calling to dismantle Israel by demographic means, it shows that their stated desire for a two-state solution with both states living side by side in peace is an utter sham.

This article also proves that Palestinian Arab rejectionism is not merely a tactical move to improve their negotiating position, but an absolute rejection of Israel as anything other than yet another Arab state. This is the mainstream position of so-called "moderate" Palestinian Arabs, not a fringe extremist position. If the West is serious about a real peace - something that seems literally impossible given such intransigence - it needs to insist that Palestinian Arab leaders admit, publicly, that Israel is not where descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 will live and that they need to be absorbed in Arab countries instead of being the victims of institutional discrimination in every single Arab country as they are today.

That is the issue that Erekat and his ilk studiously avoid mentioning, and it proves beyond all doubt that they do not give a damn about their people but rather want to continue using them as pawns in their six-decade old, single-minded goal of destroying Israel.

Fatah keeps saying "NO!" No one is listening (Toameh)

Another winner from Khaled Abu Toameh in Hudson-NY:

The Western-backed ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank has just concluded its fifth convention in Ramallah with a series of statements that will make it virtually impossible for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to reach a deal with Israel that includes any compromises.

A statement issued by the Fatah Revolutionary Council, which consists of more than 100 Fatah officials, said no to almost every proposal or idea that could have paved the way for some kind of a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

No to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state; no to any solution that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders; no to the idea of a land swap between Israel and the Palestinians; no to any resuming peace talks with Israel unless construction in settlements and east Jerusalem is halted; no to understandings between Israel and the US regarding the future of the peace process; no to supplying Israel with US weapons; no to recognizing the Western Wall's significance to Jews and not to a new Israeli law that requires a referendum before any withdrawal from Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

With a position like this, it is hard to see how any progress could be achieved when and if the peace talks ever resume. What Fatah is actually saying is that Israel must accept 100% of our demands if it wants peace. This is the only "yes" that Fatah had to offer.

The Fatah statement should not come as a surprise to anyone: this has in fact always been the faction's position, especially since the beginning of the peace process with Israel. Fatah has actually been consistent in its policy and its positions have not changed over the past two decades.

The problem is not Fatah as much as it is the Western governments that continue to ignore what Fatah is -- and always has been -- saying. The international media is also to be blamed for ignoring or downplaying such statements made by the "moderate" Fatah in the West Bank.

Abbas could not make any concessions to Israel in light of the Fatah declaration even if he wanted to.

The message that Fatah has once again sent to all Palestinians is that no one has a mandate to reach a deal with Israel that does not meet all their demands. This is why the Fatah communiqué was published in Arabic in Fatah-controlled media outlets – to make sure that Palestinians read every word and understand the message.

Of course Abbas, who attended the Fatah gathering, has endorsed the statement, vowing that he would not make any compromises on any of the Palestinians' rights.

...In this part of the world, it is important to listen to what people say in their own language -- not only what they say in English to US and European governments and journalists.

Abbas bragged about his intransigence at a rally two weeks ago, in a story that was only reported in Arabic.

Mahmoud Abbas brags about his intransigence

At a rally commemorating the anniverary of Arafat's death today in Ramallah, PA president Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the crowd.

Abbas bragged that the fundamental demands of the Palestinian Arab leadership have not changed at all since 1988, implying that they never will. this would include the 1949 armistice lines, the "right to return," Jerusalem and all the other conditions that the so-called "moderates" have been insisting on.

Abbas also added yet another condition for "peace". He would not sign any final agreement with Israel until all Palestinian Arab prisoners are released. This includes those who have murdered Jewish women and children in cold blood.

Because, to him, they are heroes.

What a "peace partner!"

Good news! Arabs who want to destroy Israel down from 90.7% to 83.1%!

AWRAD has just completed a new survey of Palestinian Arabs in the territories.

In answer to the question:

With regard to the final status of Palestine and Israel please indicate which of the following you consider to be Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, Tolerable, or Unacceptable as part of a peace agreement.

The number of people who said "Essential" or "Desirable" to the option "Historic Palestine – From the Jordan River to the sea" is now 83.1% (64.8% "Essential"). This is an improvement over their August survey, when the total percentage who wanted a single Arab state was at 90.7% (78.2% "Essential.")

See how moderate they are?

In another indication of how flexible the Palestinian Arabs are in desiring a realistic peace with Israel, the AWRAD asked a new question:

If Palestinian negotiators delivered a peace settlement that includes a Palestinian State but had to make compromises on key issues (right of return, Jerusalem, borders, settlements, etc.) to do so would you support the result?

85.2% of the respondents said a flat "NO."

So even if the US and Quartet could cajole Abbas to accept a compromise in an area that "everybody knows" requires one - namely, no "right of return" and territorial compromise with large Jewish settlement blocs as a part of Israel - the Palestinian Arabs themselves, raised up with intransigence and a massive sense of entitlement, would not accept it.

And Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be waiting for their new recruits with open arms.

But don't let facts get in the way of the holy "peace process." That problem, like many others, can wait until Day 1 of "Palestine."

And when that day comes, people will start to look back at today - when very few people are being killed on both sides and there is relative prosperity and autonomy in the West Bank - with nostalgia.

(h/t Daled Amos)

You can always count on Palestinian Arab intransigence

I've mentioned how an outgoing UNRWA official, Andrew Whitley, caused a storm of protest by stating an obvious truth: that most Palestinian Arab "refugees" will never end up in Israel and that it is cruel to keep feeding them that fantasy - a fantasy that has already ruined three generations of families.

Now, that oh-so-"moderate" PA spokesman and serial liar Saeb Erekat has added his voice to the complaints, writing a letter of complaint to the UN and happy that UNRWA distanced itself from the speech Whitley gave.

An additional lie that Erekat added to his stellar record is that UN General Assembly Resolution 194 calls for the "right of return" for Palestinian Arab refugees from 1948. Of course, it doesn't - it calls for "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." That clause about living at peace with their neighbors limits its applicability by quite a bit, besides the simple fact that it was a General Assembly resolution that is not binding (it also called for the internationalization of Jerusalem and a huge chunk of the West Bank, including Bethlehem - something that Jordan certainly didn't do and that Palestinian Arabs today are not contemplating.)

And, I would add, the definition of "refugee" used at that time did not include descendants of refugees, a unique interpretation that was made up only for Palestinian Arabs by UNRWA, an agency that didn't exist at the time this resolution passed.

So, no, UN 194 does not give any "right of return" and those who say it does, like Erekat, are liars. They are placing the well-being of millions of people behind their own petty politica and hatred of Israel. Erekat doesn't give a damn about the descendants of the refugees - he just wants them to fester in misery forever, rather than have them become full citizens of the host countries that the vast majority of them were born in.

And while we are talking about Erekat's and the PA's intransigence, he also said that the "secret plan" supposedly floated by the US to Israel where Israel would lease parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank from the PA for a number of decades is a non-starter, saying that "Palestine is not for rent." A Fatah leader also said that Abu Mazen (Abbas) would never agree to that.

So no matter what possible compromises anyone comes up with, rest assured that the Palestinian Arabs will not accept them - secure in their knowledge that their consistent rejectionism will not be noticed by the West, who will continue to label only Israeli leaders "hardline" and "intransigent" and Palestinian Arab leaders as "moderate" and "pragmatic."

Jewish flexibility and Arab intransigence, 1947

Moshe Sharett (Shertok), the head of the Jewish Agency, spoke to the Special Committee on Palestine on July 17, 1947. He described an anecdote that he felt was illustrative of the difference between how Arabs and Jews think of co-existence.

The problem of mutual adjustment in this country is an extremely difficult one. Its solution entails a sense of realities, a capacity to accept facts. And it is essential in the interest of peace, in the long run, that certain facts should be very firmly fixed and that any idea that they can be disregarded or changed by threats, or by force, should be disregarded. I will illustrate by an example what I am trying to convey to you. I will take the case of the Municipality of Jerusalem.

There is a Jewish majority in the City of Jerusalem. Yet there has always been an Arab mayor at the head of the Jerusalem Municipal Council. As time passed this became anomalous. The city kept growing, so did its population, and its services developed. The Jews came to play a very important part in the administration of the city's affairs, and they felt that it was to their detriment, and they also presumed to think that it was to the detriment of the city as a whole, that they should be denied their fair share of the city's Government. They felt that they should all have a chance of being at the head of the Municipal Council.

Now, this problem engaged the attention of the Government and of both Arabs and Jews for a long time. Eventually the Government reached a certain decision and announced that decision officially. They worked out a scheme for the rotation of the Jerusalem mayoralty — a triple rotation — a Moslem mayor, a Christian mayor, and a Jewish mayor should serve in turn. The idea was not quite palatable to the Jews. It was particularly unpalatable because if you appoint as a Christian mayor a Christian Arab, then it means that the proportion is established of one Jew to two Arabs and the Jews are then in a way, in terms of time, if not in terms of space, relegated to the position or a minority. But the Jews realized, at least they tried to realize, the wider aspect of problem, the unique character of the city of Jerusalem, the associations which it carried, and they decided to acquiesce and accept that proposal. They informed the Government accordingly. Though they were and are a majority and felt entitled to having the post of the mayor permanently, in view of the past tradition, in view of the present associations, they declared themselves willing to cooperate in the implementation of that scheme. ...Mind you, that was not in the process of preliminary soundings or informal negotiations; that was after the Government had definitely committed itself by announcing officially that that was their decision.

The Arabs refused to cooperate. They rejected the scheme. They insisted on the office of Mayor remaining their exclusive possession — the exclusive possession of the Moslem community for all future.

The result was that the Government backed out — the Government retreated from the scheme — they dropped it. In retreating from the scheme they blamed their failure on both parties in equal measure. Un-qualified rejection and complete acceptance with certain additional desiderata, were represented by them in an official announcement as ranking equal — as if both parties refused to cooperate. They proceeded to disband the Municipal Council.

The Jewish councillors were ready to carry on. A Jewish gentleman was at the time acting Mayor and had been acting Mayor for years. There was no complaint whatsoever on the merits of the way he conducted municipal affairs. Yet, all the municipal councillors, including the Jewish councilors, were sent packing and a direct British rule was instituted in the City Hall of Jerusalem. For two years now Jerusalem has not enjoyed elementary municipal self-government. Municipal affairs are being ruled by appointed British officials.

Now what does it mean?

It means a premium on intransigence — a definite discouragement to face realities and to develop a spirit of accommodation to those realities. It is a victory for boycotting tactics. We all felt that the Arabs took that uncompromising attitude only because they knew that by so doing they would wreck the scheme — that they would force the Government to retreat. If they had the conviction that the Government would stick to its decision and that what they would then be facing would be that the conduct of municipal affairs would be exclusively in the hands of the Jews, and they would be left completely out, they would think twice before deciding on the attitude which they adopted. They would give in, and it would not mean in any sense sacrificing any legitimate rights. Although the Jews are a majority, the composition of the Council is fifty-fifty, between Jews and Arabs, .and they would have had their share of rotation of office of mayoralty. It would not mean any unwarranted concession — any undue concession on their part.

Well, to us that was a lesson. We are setting it as, an example not to follow.

Do these mindsets sound familiar? The Jews were willing to accept a compromise that was overwhelmingly skewed towards the Arabs, and the Arabs rejected it completely - because it would mean that the Jews gained something.

By any sensible measure, one would think that 2/3 Arab control of Jerusalem's mayoralty is better than zero. Yet the Arabs preferred that Jerusalem be under the full control of the British than two-thirds control by Arabs - because of that one third that would be Jewish!

This was not a logical decision. This is hate-based politics, where hurting your enemy is more important than helping your own people.

The question that needs to be answered is - has this attitude changed? Have Arab leaders matured to the point that they care more about helping their own than hurting their enemy?

Look at how the Palestinian Arab leadership are unwilling to lobby for equal rights of their people in Arab lands, instead wanting to use them as seething cauldrons of hate to pressure Israel for an eventual and illusory "right of return". Think about that: every Arab leader would prefer that millions of Palestinian Arabs remain stateless, and hundreds of thousands remain in "refugee" camps, rather than help them, because of the minute possibility that their very misery hurts the Jewish state.

The entire political philosophy of Palestinian Arabs is based on hatred of the other. In fact, their entire concept of "peoplehood" is defined in opposition to the other. After all, what are "Palestinians" if not "non-Jews whose ancestors lived in Palestine in the 1940s"? As long as their entire existence and history is defined in terms of countering Jewish political gains and not in terms of their own independent existence, there is zero chance for real, permanent compromise, and zero chance for real peace.

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.

The Arab "refugee" playbook hasn't changed since 1948

In the light of the recent news about how Lebanon slightly eased its onerous restrictions on Lebanese Palestinians, it is worthwhile to look back and see exactly how the Arab world's use of the Palestinian Arab issue has stayed exactly the same over six decades.

Here's an article from the Herald Tribune news service from August, 1958. Little has changed in the past 52 years.

Ralph Galloway's words are as true today as they were in 1954: "The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. they want to keep it an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."

There is one difference between 1958 and today: in 1958, people were still trying to find a way for Palestinian Arabs to be integrated in their host countries, or at least into the Arab world. Now, the world has given in to years of Arab intransigence and abuse of their "guests" and ignores the problem altogether.

No UN agency is tasked with solving the problem of stateless refugees. UNRWA long ago gave up on that idea. The world's collective head is in the sand, hoping that somehow these stateless millions will magically disappear if there is only peace between Israel and the Arab world. Yet even if there was a peace treaty, the problem would not go away, and the way that UNRWA has defined it, it will keep getting bigger and bigger.

No one is willing to stand up and say publicly that it is time for the Arab world to stop treating the Palestinian Arabs as cannon fodder against Israel. It is time for them to accept their responsibility for taking care of the people in their midst, the vast majority of whom have never lived in Palestine.

The Arab world is still keeping the Palestinian issue alive for one reason: to ultimately destroy Israel. That has not changed over the years. It has been obfuscated, it has been buried, but if you read this article and look at the debate in Lebanon over their Palestinians you can see that it has not changed.

Every Palestinian Arab who was born in an Arab country should automatically become a citizen of that country. Without this simple rule, no amount of treaties will defuse this looming crisis. It is a simple implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 7:

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.

Why has this been so roundly ignored by NGOs? Why has the world accepted Arab abuse of their Palestinian "brethren" as normal? Mostly, why does the world still blame Israel for the plight of people who are born in misery, raised in misery and die in misery in Arab countries under Arab rule suffering from Arab laws meant to keep them stateless and dependent?

The Arabs created today's "refugee" problem, and the Arabs are the ones than can solve it. Until the world opens its eyes to this simple truth and starts to exert pressure to that end, everyone is in danger.

Abbas claims US contacts with Hamas

Mahmoud Abbas gave a wide-ranging interview to the Arab press yesterday.

Abbas said that Washington is putting him under "unprecedented" pressure to resume direct negotiations. He stated that he was still insisting on a precondition of acceptance of the 1949 armistice lines (usually referred to as the 1967 borders) as the basis of the borders of another Arab state, but he may be willing to accept a statement by the Quartet - rather than Israel - that this is the aim of the negotiations. He says that the March 19th Quartet statement affirmed that goal (I couldn't see an explicit reference to the borders in that statement, although it refers to UNSC 242.)

He again spoke about the PA's financial woes, warning that it will collapse if it doesn't get the usual amounts of money from the West. he also complained about how Arab nations are not fulfilling their pledges, without naming names.

He criticized the fatwa by Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi prohibiting Arabs from visiting Jerusalem. He said that he was politicizing religion, and that such visits are meant to show solidarity with the "prisoner," not the "warden."

Abbas said he had information from "reliable sources" about contacts between the U.S. administration and Hamas. He added: "I understand it, this is politics, and countries change their positions according to their interests." Smiling, he added: "If we refuse to go to the negotiating table tomorrow, perhaps [the US] is looking for others [to negotiate.]"

That sarcastic statement indicates that Abbas knows that he is considered the "moderate" no matter what, and that in that position he can call the shots because no one wants the alternative. And since the word "moderate" is used in relative rather than absolute terms, he knows his intransigence will never get criticized.

The "direct talks" farce

The world is abuzz over the supposed fact that the Arab League has given Mahmoud Abbas the green light to hold direct talks with Israel.

From what I can tell, that is not what happened.

Abbas has been adding pre-condition upon pre-condition for months, saying that he cannot agree to direct talks until he gets specific, written concessions from Israel in advance. He has demanded a complete and permanent halt to settlement building (not just a freeze,) a pre-condition of progress in the indirect talks (which were in themselves something that he only agreed to after massive US pressure,) a newer pre-condition of Israel accepting the 1949 armistice lines as the basis of talks and then a condition that Israel accept an international force to guard those borders.

It must be understood that all of these conditions are a violation of the status quo. Abbas had negotiated with Israel directly in the past, as did his predecessor Arafat.

Both Arafat and Abbas, when given real (and foolhardy) peace proposals that would have resulted in a Palestinian Arab state, rejected them when they did not get their maximal demands. They have consistently refused to compromise, which is of course what negotiations are meant to do. They have played a waiting game for the world to pressure Israel to make every concession but have never come forward with their own plan that would take into account any of Israel's legitimate concerns besides empty promises.

Abbas is no fool. He knows that his biggest weapon is the myth of Israeli intransigence, even over decades of Israeli and Jewish offers of peace. But he also sensed that he must give the illusion of flexibility to keep world public opinion on his side.

So he added a new card on the table. He demanded concessions before real negotiations can start. Now, if he agrees to negotiate, he can appear to have given a concession himself - a completely inconsequential agreement to an Israeli demand that has no bearing on the final status of the relation between the two sides. Abbas has turned the idea of direct negotiations into a proxy for real concessions.

This is a tricky game, because he needs to save face for the Palestinian Arabs. He cannot simply say that all his conditions are now out the window. But he can use the Arab League as window dressing to move towards this illusory concession, making the Western diplomats/wishful thinkers ecstatic that they have achieved a "breakthrough" and then they would ask Israel to give up something real in return.

Look at what the Arab League really said:

Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani, who chaired a meeting of foreign ministers and representatives, spoke in response to a question about whether they had given Abbas a green light to start talks.

"I'll be clear. There is an agreement but with the understanding of what will be discussed and how the direct negotiations will be conducted. And we will leave the assessment of the position to the Palestinian president as to when the conditions allow the beginning of such negotiations," he said.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa said at the press conference that written guarantees were required for direct talks.

There "must be written guarantees ... and the negotiations should be serious and final status talks," he said.

The Arab League isn't pressuring Abbas to negotiate. They are providing cover for his position which hasn't changed. If he decides to cave to pressure from Washington, he now knows that the Arab League will not denounce him - which is significant - but he can make it appear to be a huge concession on his part.

The fact is that Palestinian Arab statehood was never the goal. Palestinian Arab nationalism was never a positive movement for the liberation of a people. Since its inception, it has been a reaction and a weapon against Zionism and Jewish self-determination, not a desire to see a Palestinian Arab nation emerge. The idea that Jerusalem is a necessity for such a state proves the point - if a people yearn for freedom, they should eagerly accept a state being handed to them. Only if the goal of the state is to weaken and ultimately destroy another state does this entire farce make any sense.

A people yearning for independence would pressure their leadership to accept that independence as quickly as possible, not to wait for years for more and more concessions. A people yearning to be free would be working on real state-building. They would be demanding that their brethren be released from the UN-administered camps in their very midst. They would be insisting that their people who are stuck in neighboring countries be either given equal rights in those host countries - or allowed to emigrate into their "promised land."

None of this is happening. Instead, the world is sidetracked and distracted by these silly games of "direct talks" and "written guarantees" which are simply smokescreens for the fact that Palestinian Arabs have been screwed by their own and other Arab leaders for decades. They were pawns in 1948 and they are no less pawns today, for the exact same reason - to enable the Arab nation to pressure, weaken and ultimately destroy Israel.

Instead of allowing the world to see this reality, the facts are hidden by layer upon layer of obfuscation, distraction, misdirection, false history, propaganda, and baldfaced lies. "Direct talks" is merely the latest of this ever growing list.

The entire framework is an elaborate game in which the rules have been rigged by its creators, a game within which Israel cannot possibly win but only delay its own ultimate destruction. After a Palestinian Arab state would be established, the next round of demands will bubble up from those who didn't accept these terms, and over years the next set of demands will become more reasonable sounding by dint of their very repetition and acceptance by plenty of Westerners who claim to only yearn for "peace."

(h/t Daled Amos for the list of Abbas preconditions)

Today's Arab intransigence

As I've been mentioning this week, there have been recent statements from Palestinian Arab leaders absolutely rejecting the idea of direct talks with Israel, which President Obama called for.

Today we can add two more examples of Arabs willing to insult the US by utterly rejecting the call for direct negotiations.

One is from Fatah's official spokesman Fahmy Said Zarir.

The other is from the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.

Notice that Obama is not asking for a single concrete concession. If Arab rejectionism against a return to direct negotiations - which was the status quo only a few years ago - is so harsh now, how can we expect any real, lasting concessions from any round of talks?

Even though the Palestinian Arab leaders (the "moderates" - not Hamas) have been very forthright in metaphorically throwing their shoes at Obama, the media is loathe to use the words "hardline" or "intransigent" or "extremist" when referring to Fatah. No, they reserve that for the side that wants negotiations, that has already made many real concessions on the ground, and that has consistently and genuinely shown a desire for peace.

That deceptive use of language is what frames the debate for hundreds of millions of consumers of the news. And that is a real problem.

PA: No direct negotiations before full Israeli capitulation

Saeb Erekat, speaking to a Syrian newspaper, emphasized yet again the intransigence of the Palestinian Authority - a word that the Western media applies exclusively to Israel.

He said that the PA will not enter into direct negotiations with Israel unless there is a full, and permanent, end to building in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

He said that Barack Obama made a direct phone call to Mahmoud Abbas asking for direct negotiations, but that the Palestinian Authority would not agree to that no matter how much international pressure is applied.

This is, of course, exactly the attitude that the world ascribes to Israel - of ignoring the international community and acting arrogantly. Yet when the PA does this, explicitly, there is no public criticism to be heard anywhere.

It hardly needs to be mentioned that the PA used to negotiate with Israel directly and that these demands are completely new conditions that were unilaterally added by Mahmoud Abbas - the so-called "moderate" who expects to get all his demands met without a single concession.

In fact, Mahmoud Abbas, that man of "peace" who is pushing to get a Nobel Peace Prize, is more intransigent than Yasir Arafat was in his negotiating positions.