Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 31, 2020

01/31 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The Palestinians' bluff has been called; Caroline Glick: The Oslo blood libel is over; 3 mortar shells launched at Israel from Gaza; IDF tank strikes Hamas post

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Palestinians' bluff has been called

Perhaps the Trump plan's most important achievement is to put on record the truth about the Jews' unique rights to the land of Israel. As it states, the areas that Israel is being asked to yield to the Palestinians nevertheless constitute "territory to which Israel has asserted valid legal and historical claims, and which are part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people."

As for the loud protests that Israel is being allowed to "annex the West Bank," professor of international law Eugene Kontorovich has tweeted that the United States is not proposing to recognize Israeli annexation of the territory: "It is recognizing that Israel has always had a legitimate claim on this land." In other words, the application of Israeli sovereignty is to be based on its pre-existing rights to the land.

The most intractable element of these pre-existing Jewish rights is Jerusalem, which Israel will never allow to be divided again but to which the Palestinians lay claim as their state's intended capital. The plan audaciously resolves this apparently insoluble conundrum by stating that the Palestine capital should be located "in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier," including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and which could be named Al Quds.

In other words, the Trump team has simply redefined Jerusalem to exclude those Arab areas of the city beyond the security barrier. This would enable the Palestinians to tell themselves their capital is Jerusalem, while Israel will have ceased to regard that area as Jerusalem at all.

Of course, the Palestinians would never agree to this. "Al Quds" to them centers on their illegitimate appropriation of Temple Mount – the most sacred site in Judaism.

But the plan states the all-important historical truth denied by the Palestinians because it vitiates their entire claim to the land – that Jerusalem was the political center of the Jewish people under King David, and has remained their spiritual center and the focus of their religious beliefs for nearly 3,000 years.

The Trump plan won't bring peace; however, it restores the truth and justice that are essential prerequisites of peace. Crushing the lethal and poisonous fantasies about Israel and the Jewish people, as well as taking a hard-headed approach to Palestinian intentions, it replaces illusions by reality.

That's no small achievement. Now it's up to the rest of the world.

Caroline B. Glick: The Oslo blood libel is over

When Israel embarked on the Oslo peace process it accepted Oslo's foundational assumption that Israel is to blame for the Palestinian war against it. From the first Oslo agreement, signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, through all its derivative deals, Israel was required to carry out "confidence-building measures," to prove its good faith and peaceful intentions to Arafat and his deputies.

Time after time, Israel was required to release terrorists from prison as a precondition for negotiations with the PLO. The goal of those negotiations in turn was to force Israel to release more terrorists from prison, and give more land, more money, more international legitimacy and still more terrorists to the PLO.

On Tuesday, this state of affairs ended.

On Sunday morning, just before he flew to Washington, US Ambassador David Friedman briefed me on the details of President Donald Trump's peace plan at his home in Herzliya.

Friedman told me that Trump was going to announce that the United States will support an Israeli decision to apply its laws to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.

I asked what the boundaries of the settlements would be.

He said that they have a map, it isn't precise, so it can be flexibly interpreted but it was developed in consultation with Israeli government experts.

David Collier: Trumps vision: knocking the Palestinian cause off its perch

Peace or suffering

To those that oppose it – and are living in comfort in the west – they really need to decide what it is they are opposing – they are not the people who suffer from the perpetual conflict.

The problem for the Palestinians is that non-engagement doesn’t work. And I am speaking as someone with historical knowledge who wants genuine peace – and can visualise a time when the walls between Palestinians and Israelis fall down organically.

The only question we face today is how to build a platform upon which a real future partnership can be built. You don’t start as a doctor – you start in pre-school. If you refuse to enter education until you receive your medical licence – you will remain uneducated- even though education still remains a fundamental human right. On statehood – the Palestinians will never be able to start at the end.

Friends of Palestinians should be screaming this loudly. That historically when the Arabs did not co-operate – they lost. They lost when they didn’t co-operate during the early days of the Mandate. They lost when they refused to engage the UN as it formulated the partition plan. The world is moving on – and Israel has continued to grow and prosper. Talking doesn’t hurt. What ruined Oslo wasn’t the talks – it was the bus bombs.

The ‘vision’ does *EXACTLY* what it says on the tin. It is a clear project to improve the lives the Palestinians (and Israelis). It may not be perfect, but it is certainly something that everyone interested in ending the conflict should take seriously and want the Palestinians to discuss.

The vision looks at Palestinian suffering and finds a way to break through the impasse. But there is the catch. It deals with the Palestinians as people – not as a cause. It deals with their human rights, not their anti-Israel desires. And for that it will be instantly rejected by every Palestinian flag waver in the west. Which given the world will carry on moving with or without them – would be a tragedy for the Palestinians more than anyone else.

The Moroccan army has received 3 Israeli-made reconnaissance planes, according to French intelligence website Intelligence Online as quoted by Ma'an.

The news, which was also reported by Moroccan media, confirms that the size of the deal amounted to $48 million.

The drones are the Israeli Heron.

In 2014, there were reports of another 3 Herons that ended up in Morocco via France.

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It's the peace, stupid

One of the biggest complaints by the anti-Israel crowd against the Trump plan is the supposed "bantustans" of Palestinian territory only connected by roads, bridges or tunnels. This is said to be intolerable for a sovereign nation

Yet if you look at Wikipedia, you can see that there are literally hundreds of examples where the territory or territories of one state is fully or functionally within the territory of another, known as enclaves, exclaves, or variants of those. The largest example in the world (which is really a semi-enclave) is Alaska, only accessible to the rest of the US via land through Canada.

We mentioned one example in passing, that of the border between the Netherlands and Belgium at Baarle-Hertog:

This is the possibly the most complicated one but there are a huge number of others. Up until 2015, the border between India and Bangladesh had not only over a hundred enclaves but enclaves within enclaves (and one parcel of land that was a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh.)

There are even some small Canadian land parcels that are only accessible through the United States.

If there are hundreds of examples of such arrangements working perfectly well, then why is there such an uproar over a pathway to peace that would do the same for Palestine?

The answer is in the question. The Israel-haters have no desire for peace.

It is no coincidence that the Trump plan is named "peace to prosperity." Unlike every single previous plan, this is the first one that is focused on peace, not land.

If there is real peace, then no one would care about the enclaves of Palestinian lands in Israel and Israeli lands within Palestine (i.e., "settlements.")

The ideal, which the plan envisions, is that Israel and Palestine would be like Belgium and the Netherlands - two partners in peace. Any Arab can visit the Temple Mount, any Jew can visit the synagogues in Jericho and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, without the need of heavily armed security protecting the visitors.

When there is real peace, the borders are not important.

This is the fundamental reason why Israel supports the plan and the Palestinians are so dead-set against it. Only Israel has ever desired real peace, just as Israel has thirsted for real peace with Jordan and Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

The "pro-Palestinian" activists, although many belong to groups with "peace" in their names, do not want peace with Israel. They want Israel to be destroyed one way or another, and they - as well as Palestinian leaders - look at an independent Palestine as a weapon to end Israel, not as a goal in itself.

If Palestinians wanted a state, they would have had one in 2000, 2001 and 2008. If they wanted peace, they could have a state tomorrow.

It has been 26 years since Oslo, but in all that time no Palestinian school - not one - has taught students that they should thirst for peace with Israel. On the contrary, Israel is always the enemy and it must one day be reclaimed as "Palestine."

For some reason, the world thinks that the existence of two states would automatically bring peace. Everyone has it backwards. It is peace that would bring two states, because Israel would happily give the responsibility of governance to a Palestinian state that was friendly, where the borders are as open as those between EU states.

The Trump plan is a true peace plan - a vision of how peace and prosperity can bring about a political solution. The reason it is unrealistic is because Palestinians are taught hate from birth.

And that is the real obstacle to peace.

The world seems to have forgotten that peace is the goal.

(h/t Ian)

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There are blood libels every day

A tweet from Alice Rothchild, a long time anti-Israel activist, author, filmmaker, physician and member of Jewish Voice for Peace who says she has written for the Seattle Times and Boston Globe.

Her Mondoweiss link fills in the details of the lie:

An Israeli army statement said the three teenagers had crossed some 400 metres into Israel and were hiding in a thicket when a military jeep approached them. The army said that the young men threw two objects believed to be explosives at the jeep, prompting soldiers to open fire, killing them all. But Mohammed’s father refused to believe the army’s version of events. “The closest he ever got to resisting [against Israel] was by attending the Great March of Return protests a few times,” Hani said of his son. “He never held a gun, he didn’t participate in any military groups and I’m sure he didn’t know how to make a grenade. “If the boys crossed the border, I bet they did it for entertainment only and were unaware of what the consequences could be. The Israelis are lying.”

According to a friend of the slain teenagers, who asked not to be named, Mohammed, Salem and Mahmoud gathered in the square of the village of al-Zawayda on Tuesday afternoon after a long day at school. “It was about an hour before sunset, and they decided to go to some farmland owned by Salem’s family,” the friend told MEE. “They just wanted a break from hard studying.” The Naami family’s land is located some 200 metres from the fence that separates Gaza from Israel east of the Maghazi refugee camp. While the area is often monitored by Israeli forces – which enforce a ‘buffer zone’ hundreds of metres into the Palestinian territory – the teenagers regularly came to the area to relax around a bonfire, the friend said.

It is fairly obvious the boys crossed the fence - meaning they cut the fence. The IDF watched them as they went the 400 meters into Israel. Their bodies were recovered in Israel. They carried a knife and screwdriver. This happened at 8:30 PM. There is infrared video of them:

Mondoweiss, of course, didn't mention those facts.

Some Gazans made up a different story, based on this video: that the things we see thrown are the boys' clothing, and the IDF humiliated them by forcing them to strip before executing them with machine guns.

That's also obviously a lie. Heat is shown as black in the video, so they threw hot things that exploded into smaller components. Clothes would not show up as black.

This is just as much a blood libel as the accusation last week that Israeli Jews kidnapped a boy from Jerusalem and drowned him, the lie that was tweeted by Hanan Ashrawi and retweeted by Rashida Tlaib. Their falsity is obvious to anyone who is not an anti-Israel fanatic.

Which is why her tweet was retweeted and "liked" by various JVP branches and Mondoweiss itself.

Jews who push blood libels are just as antisemitic as non-Jews who push the same libels.

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Tunisian president calls for investigation on how an Israeli junior tennis player competed in Tunis

Al Jazeera reports:

Tunisian President Qais Saeed called for an investigation into the participation of a tennis player with Israeli citizenship in an international tournament in Tunisia.

A presidential statement said today that President Saeed asked the Minister of Youth and Sports Sunni Sheikh "to open an investigation in the purpose to determine responsibilities", pointing to Tunisia's principled position rejecting the establishment of relations with Israel in any way.

Aaron Cohen, holder of French and Israeli citizenship, participated in an international tennis tournament that started in Tunisia on January 26.

Cohen played his first match against Tunisian Karim El-Shazly last Sunday, winning two sets for nothing, and he also won his second match against Italian Simone Cavalieri before losing the third match against Portuguese Miguel Gomez and leaving Tunisia on Tuesday.

The Tunisian presidency confirmed that the player "entered Tunisia with a French passport, but he participated in the tournament as an Israeli."

President Qais Saeed - who is against normalization with Israel - pledged in his election campaign not to allow the entry of Israeli passport holders to Tunisia.

Those sneaky Jews!

Cohen is a 17 year old who is ranked 349 as a junior with a total win-loss record of 4-2. He was born in France and made aliyah as a teen.

The president of Tunisia is seething over an Israeli teen playing tennis in his country. Hate is a fascinating thing.

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01/30 Links Pt2: PMW: PA gave 517.4 million shekels to terrorists as salaries in 2019; Backpacker Naama Issachar walks free in Russia, boards PM’s plane back to Israel

From Ian:

PMW: PMW exclusive: PA gave 517.4 million shekels to terrorists as salaries in 2019

As US President Trump demanded “halting the financial compensation to terrorists” PA documents just publicized show the PA admits to paying 517.4 million shekels in salaries to terrorists in 2019, a rise of 15 million shekels compared to 2018.

Israeli government stipulated that the PA spent 150 million shekels on the payments to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorist “Martyrs” in 2018

PMW has calculated that this figure has grown by at least 1.6 million shekels, in 2019

Accordingly, in 2020, the Israeli Government must deduct no less than 669 million shekels from the taxes Israel collects and transfer to the PA

According to recently published Palestinian Authority financial reports, Palestinian Media Watch can expose that the PA has admitted to spending no less than 517.4 million shekels ($149.7 million/€136 million) paying salaries to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners in 2019.

The PA expenditure on allowances to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists was at least 151.6 million shekels in 2019. Accordingly, the total minimum PA expenditure in 2019 on its payments to terrorists and families of dead terrorists - its Pay-for-Slay policy- was 669 million shekels ($193.6 million/€175.8 million).

In accordance with the Israeli law, Defense Minister Naftali Bennet should present the National Security Cabinet with a report showing that the PA expenditure on its Pay-for-Slay policy was no less than 669 million shekels.

Israeli law demands that this figure be deducted from the monthly tax transfers Israel makes to the PA.

Uganda expected to move its embassy to Jerusalem - report

Uganda is reportedly planning to announce that it is moving its embassy to Jerusalem next week, sources close to the Ugandan president and the Ugandan Christian community told The Jerusalem Post.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry could not confirm the report.

The Hebrew website Ynet reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Uganda on Monday, but did not cite a reason for the visit.

Sources close to the community told the Post that the move has been in the works for three years.

Pastor Drake Kanaabo, who ministers at the Redeemed of the Lord Evangelistic Church Makerere in Kampala, Uganda, told the Post that he had been hearing rumors about the move.

"I got a note from sources that Uganda is moving the embassy," he said, though he noted that he was unable to confirm the rumors with senior leaders by press time.

He said it is important that Uganda move the embassy to the holy city "because of our past good relationship with the State of Israel.

"On a spiritual level, Uganda regards Israel as the mother of Christianity," he told the Post. "Ugandan Christians are no longer standing on one leg for Israel, but two - in prayer and action. Israel is the only first-world country that is near to Uganda and Africa."

Peter Beinart accuses Orthodox Jews of being racists

Peter Beinart has recently joined Jewish Currents as a columnist and "editor at large," leaving The Forward. Jewish Currents was a Communist publication from decades ago that has been reborn recently as an equally leftist publication. (Apparently, the Forward was too right-leaning for Beinart.)

His tweets have been becoming more and more unhinged. It feels like he is following the Max Blumenthal model of going from somewhat respected to off-the-wall crazy. (We'll see how long he lasts at the Atlantic.)

His latest piece for Jewish Currents, where he gives his take on the Trump plan, is a conspiracy theory: the plan, according to Beinart, is nothing more than a way for Trump to attract the evangelical vote that he already has. (If anything, evangelicals would prefer Israel annex the entire Judea and Samaria.)

But Beinart really went off the rails when Jared Kushner said on TV that Palestinians had screwed up every opportunity they have had to gain a state.

Kushner's opinion is hard to dispute. The last offer by Olmert to Abbas not only met all his demands but exceeded them - and Abbas still rejected it. Don't ask me; ask Saeb Erakat:

How can anyone justify rejecting everything you say you want? How can that not be considered a screw-up?

But to Beinart, this is not only a racist opinion - it is one that Kushner clearly learned from the racist Orthodox rabbis and other teachers, and camp counselors. Yes, Orthodox Jewry is inherently racist, according to Beinart.

This opinion would fit in very well in any neo-Nazi publication.

Beinart is so upset at Kushner's using the word "screwed up" that he used today's Daf Yomi Talmud study as a means to give him "mussar" (ethical direction):

Beinart's self-righteousness not to humiliate anyone clearly doesn't extend to his own tweets and retweets. After all, according to Beinart, Kushner is guilty of "humiliating" Palestinians by using the word "screwed up" but Beinart is allowed to call Kushner patronizing, ignorant and racist.

Beinart also retweets Matt Duss:

Our Talmudic sage Beinart condones Duss' language.

His hypocrisy is off the charts.

I have a feeling that Forward editor in chief Jodi Rudoren is relieved not to have to worry about Beinart embarrassing her publication any more.

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Bibi Vows Not To Let Fateful Opportunity Get In Way Of Politics As Usual (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, January 30 - Israel's embattled prime minister promised his citizens today that he will not allow the historic moment facing the country to disrupt his administration's horse-trading, bickering, and cynical manipulation of the public and its institutions.

Binyamin Netanyahu returned from a dramatic overseas trip to the US and Russia with a triumph in hand: de facto official American endorsement of Israeli sovereignty over much of the territory the country took in the 1967 Six-Day War, with an ultimatum to the Palestinian leadership that further intransigence and avoidance of negotiations will result in loss of potential statehood. The premier stood at President Donald Trump's side as the latter made his historic announcement and urged the international community to back the plan which, he and his staff contended, dispenses with the failed formulae of the past and focuses on what works, effectively siding with Israel and Netanyahu on every major issue. Several Persian Gulf Arab states sent representatives, as well, indicating the historic shifts taking place. The prime minister assured his constituents Sunday that this once-in-two-millenniums opportunity, as important as it may seem, will not impede his ongoing effort to make everything about petty politics.

"I stand before you with the most important proposal Israel has accepted in two generations," he declared at a rare press conference upon disembarking. "The State of Israel faces an opportunity of epic, perhaps even Messianic, proportions: US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and other strategic locales in our heartland, the cradle of our culture and history. Already I have instructed my cabinet to prepare for such a move, but in the meantime, I say to you, my fellow citizens, that I will continue to work as hard as I can to make sure this episode causes no interruption in my use of power for personal gain; my machinations to assert and retain control of my Likud political apparatus; and my famed refusal to do anything remotely right-wing of lasting significance despite my campaign promises, lest the unelected officials of the Attorney General and the High Court veto them."

"It's nice to always have them to blame for my lack of political will, so you can rest assured I will not lift a finger to reform anything," he added.

In addition to the question of annexing disputed territory, Netanyahu has been indicted for bribery, and must conduct yet another election campaign for a contest scheduled at the beginning of March, which experts believe will help, rather than hinder, his efforts to make every move with maximum cynicism.

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01/30 Links Pt1: Breaking the 'everybody knows paradigm'; Ben Shapiro: The First Real Peace Plan; Bret Stephens: Every Time Palestinians Say "No," They Lose

From Ian:

Breaking the 'everybody knows paradigm'

In the immediate and intermediate future, the detailed plan and map put forward by President Trump will be rejected out of hand by the Palestinian leadership. For them it is indeed "dead on arrival." Both Fatah and Hamas joined the choir of condemnation. Some violence may ensue, although Mahmud 'Abbas speaks of "popular" rather than terrorist pressure. And yet the plan is of great importance, for the future of the Palestinians as well as for Israel: it is an experiment in breaking the bonds of past perceptions and offering both sides from the opportunity to shake off the effects of their illusions.

Israelis who thought that there was a "free trump lunch" are being disabused of the expectation that he will herald a messianic era, in which all will be given to us and none to the Palestinians. There is nothing to validate the claim, made by some, that a firm Israeli stand would have secured American consent for a total annexation. Trump sees himself as a deal maker – not as an Israeli enforcer.

On the Palestinian side, the problem runs deeper. For years, specifically since the Annapolis process and even more so since the days of the Obama Administration, they have built up expectations based on what may be called the "EKP" – "Everybody Knows" Paradigm. The latter is focused mainly on the territorial dimension: A full return to the 1967 Armistice lines with minor swaps and a partition of Jerusalem, alongside some (symbolic?) concessions on the Right of Return, etc.

"Everybody" – except the broad range of Israelis who find the EKP objectionable and impractical. Well beyond the settler communities and the vocal minority who reject any concessions to the Palestinians, many Israelis find fault with the ideas enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 for several good reasons:
1. To begin with, the great majority of Israelis feel strongly that Jerusalem must remain Israel's undivided capital – give or take some of the outlying neighborhoods beyond the security barrier.
2. Moreover, the idea of another round of violent displacement of tens of thousands of Jews, from their homes in their homeland, raises traumatic memories of the sad summer of 2005 and the disengagement from Gaza.
3. The notion that Israel will be safe, even without a permanent military presence on the Jordan river and firm control of our eastern approaches, became less and less persuasive as chaotic events engulfed the entire region and the danger of destabilization became more acute.
4. Moreover, the experience in Lebanon since 2006 provided proof positive that it would be a deadly mistake to rely on some UN-mandated foreign military forces in the Jordan Valley (or elsewhere): UNIFIL's record in apprehending Hizbullah weapons or curbing Hizbullah's huge arsenal is outright dismal.

Thus, those in Europe, in American progressive circles, and among the Israeli Left who still advocate acceptance of the EKP (rather than the Trump baseline) are actually doing the Palestinians no favor. They help lock the leadership in Ramallah, and the Palestinian political class, into a set of specific expectations that cannot be delivered upon: and thus perpetuate a deadlock they may be of use to 'Abbas or to Hamas but does little to ameliorate the conditions of people in the West Bank or in Gaza.

The Ben Shapiro Show: The First Real Peace Plan (3:30 to 36min)

Ian Bremmer: How the Trump Administration's Israel-Palestine Peace Plan Will Change the Middle East

This plan isn’t just about Israeli-Palestine. It’s central to the administration’s Middle East strategy. For decades, the international consensus has been that peace cannot blossom in the region unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is addressed first. But as the conflict becomes more marginal to the interests of key actors, and the U.S. has generally become less interested, that’s no longer true. Arab-Israeli normalization is only a matter of time, and the Palestinians are at risk of missing that train.

This peace plan is directly connected to the current political situation in both Israel and the U.S. Although U.S. officials insist they’re not taking sides in the Israeli elections slated for March 2, the timing of the plan’s release is useful for Netanyahu, who was indicted today on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust. Given Netanyahu’s troubles (and the likely prospect that he’s not Prime Minister for much longer), the administration was committed to bringing Gantz on board with the plan as well. Kushner told me: “It’s good to see how two competitors in the Israel elections can put aside their differences to promote the interests of their country ahead of their political interests.” That wasn’t the Gantz’s initial position—he first publicly objected to the release of the plan before the election; after weeks of diplomacy he reversed his position and expressed support. Meanwhile, while Netanyahu will receive receive a temporary boost, he will have trouble guarding his right flank. The far-right parties on which he relies for political survival will decry his endorsement of a Palestinian state, whatever else the plan says.

Meanwhile, from the US side, the Middle East peace plan will further energize Trump’s base. Already this year, Trump has secured a “Phase One” trade deal with China, killed a prominent Iranian general, and proposed a fix to one of the most intractable political problems in history with the full support of Israeli leaders. Tomorrow, he will sign a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. This is significant counter-programming to the Democratic Party’s Iowa Caucus and the impeachment hearings in the Senate.

We should consider the release of this plan the end of the beginning of the Trump peace plan. The administration told me they consider it an opening bid. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger told me that he thought the plan was “a responsible first stage and broader approach to the world’s most intractable geopolitical issue.” Whether this bid draws a constructive counter-offer and longer bargaining process plan will depends on a new set of factors in the region, ultimately determining whether (and which) Palestinians will engage. The ball’s heading to their court, whether they want it or not.

Bret Stephens (NYTs): Every Time Palestinians Say "No," They Lose

Nobody will benefit less from a curt dismissal of the U.S. peace plan than the Palestinians themselves, whose leaders are again letting history pass them by. Nearly every time the Arab side said "no," it wound up with less. That was true after it rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which would have created a Palestinian state on a much larger footprint. It was true in 1967, after Jordan refused Israel's entreaties not to attack, which resulted in the end of Jordanian rule in the West Bank.

It was true in 2000, when Syria rejected an Israeli offer to return the Golan Heights, which ultimately led to U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty of that territory. It was true later the same year, after Yasir Arafat refused Israel's offer of a Palestinian state with a capital in east Jerusalem.

The U.S. plan offers Palestinians a sovereign state, mostly contiguous territory, and $50 billion in economic assistance. What it demands is an end to anti-Jewish bigotry in school curriculums, the restoration of legitimate political authority in Gaza, and the dismantling of terrorist militias.

The Jewish state has thrived in part because it has always been prepared to make do with less. The Palestinian tragedy has been the direct result of taking the opposite approach: of insisting on the maximum rather than working toward the plausible.

Author of Arabic translation of the "Protocols," left, with a smiling customer

The annual Cairo International Book Fair is in full swing, and as we've reported in previous years, it is featuring antisemitic books.

The Dar Al Kitab Al Arabi Publishing Company again has an exhibit there where you can see their antisemitic book collection. Here are the covers of:
Arabic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The Masonic Plots to Dominate the World - 10th Edition" by Mansour Abdelhakeem;
"Pawns in the Game..The Practical Implementation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," by William Guy Carr (translated by Magdy Kamel); and
Mein Kampf, trasnslated by Farid al-Falluji

You can see these books in these screenshots from video from the Fair.

The US Embassy in Cairo has its own booth at the fair, and as in previous years, the presence of antisemitic books doesn't cause any concern.

(h/t WC)

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Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations Carl Bildt is an anti-Israel liar

A tweet from Carl Bildt, Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations:

He's referring to the peace plan's tripling the size of Gaza to add agricultural and industrial areas as well as more residential areas:

Of course, there are Israeli communities dotting the Negev, including near the Egyptian border. A quick look at Google Maps identifies Naveh, Bnei Netzarim, Be'er Milka, Kadesh Barnea, Nitzana, Ezuz, Yevul, Avshalom, Dekel, Yated, Sdei Avraham, among others.

The area is hardly uninhabitable.

Yet Bildt pretended to back up his claim with a screenshot from Google Earth:

Note the sarcasm of "generous" when referring to tripling the area that Gazans can live and work.

Obviously, Israel isn't going to agree to uproot citizens if it doesn't have to, so the offer is going to be for areas of the Negev that have not yet been cultivated. But Israel has proven that wonderful and beautiful communities and businesses can thrive in the desert.

Bildt knows this, because when he used Google Earth he had to manipulate the screenshot to avoid the Israeli communities and farms to the north and south:

This hardly shows the size of the communities. Here I zoom in on the Shefa Vines Essential Oils farm immediately to the south of his desert shot, where residents offer an Airbnb for anyone who wants to visit their farm and vineyard.

Bildt is knowingly lying.

He wants to characterize the desert as an impossible place to live and thrive. Not only has Israel proven that wrong, but Israeli expertise would be available to help any Palestinians who would want to build successful communities there in the context of peace.

Something Bildt apparently opposes.

His tweet is even worse than that. He refers to the Israeli communities within the Green Line as "settlements," meaning that he seemingly feels that Jews have no right to live in any part of Israel (besides his implication that any land given to Palestinians must already have Jews to deport.)

Bildt has previously proven himself to be unable to distinguish fact from fiction, as when he complained about an obviously satirical article by our very own PreOccupied Territory.

Bildt is not only a liar but a hypocrite. As Tundra Tabloids has documented, at the same time that Bildt says that a non-contiguous Palestinian state is unacceptable and horrible, he actually celebrates bizarre and non-contiguous borders between different European states with citizens who live in areas dominated by another state:

Belgians and Dutch citizens can live in disconnected enclaves in the others' areas and Bildt celebrates it as a creative solution. But Jews living among Arabs is unacceptable under any circumstances.

The hypocrisy is stunning, but par for the course.

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When Palestinians say that they cannot possibly have a state without their preconditions, which include:

* "Right of return" (to Israel, not to their own state!)
* Jerusalem as their capital
* Israels' release of terrorist prisoners
* 1967 lines

They are lying. None of those are prerequisites for a state. They are completely separate demands.

When Palestinians insist that they will not agree to any peace plan without those demands, they are saying that statehood is really not that important to them. Neither is peace.

A little thought reveals that each of these demands does not even strengthen an independent Palestinian state nor do they help peace. However, every single one of those demands weakens Israel:

* "Right of return" to destroy the Jewish state demographically
* Jerusalem, specifically the Old City, to sever Jewish emotional and religious ties to the holy city
* Israels' release of terrorist prisoners to allow them to attack again (as has happened numerous times with previous prisoner releases)
* 1967 lines to ensure that Israel is only nine miles wide and vulnerable to ground attack

These demands are not only not peaceful - they are the antithesis of peace. They have nothing to do with an independent state. They are only designed to hurt Israel.

Yet Palestinian leaders, and anti-Israel activists, act as if these demands are preconditions for peace and not addressing them dooms any chance for peace. This is the opposite of the truth.

There is another argument to support Palestinian intransigence. It was described in an Atlantic article by Shadi Hamid last year:

I recently took part in a study tour on religion and nationalism in Israel and the West Bank organized by the Philos Project. One Palestinian official whom we met told us, “I’m not going to compromise my dignity.”

Our Palestinian interlocutor’s refusal to cede his dignity wasn’t a performance; it was despair. It felt to me like an epitaph. There have been conflicts in which leaders have made compromises that may have seemed like betrayals, only for history to view them as both bold and necessary. But those conflicts are not this conflict.

Palestinian activists tend to speak in terms of justice. An injustice was done, so it must be undone. Christopher Hitchens, in his valediction for the Palestinian American author Edward Said, wrote that his friend’s “feeling for the injustice done to Palestine was, in the best sense of this overused term, a visceral one. He simply could not reconcile himself to the dispossession of a people or to the lies and evasions that were used to cover up this offense.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters often chant the mantra of “no justice, no peace.” One former Israeli official we spoke with in Jerusalem had a different view. He said, “If we make this about justice, there will not be peace.” Too many Palestinians celebrate victimhood—fueled by a profound sense of injustice—rather than overcome it, he suggested.

But then we return to the question of dignity. No one should be asked to overcome their victimhood by giving up their dignity, the one thing even an occupier shouldn’t be able to take away. That might sound naive and impractical, especially for those who would rather Palestinians just get on with it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Hamid suggests that the conflict is not about land or statehood - from the Palestinian perspective, it is about "justice" and "dignity."

Yet these supposedly "dignified" people happily take charity from UNRWA and the EU. (In fact, when they don't get the free aid they are used to, they riot for their handouts.)

These "dignified" people keep their fellow Palestinians in "refugee camps" even if they live in the areas of British Mandate Palestine or if they are full Jordanian citizens. They choose to use their own people as pawns by pretending to be refugees. What is dignified about that?

And the "justice" argument is similar to the "dignity" argument. When people say that they will not accept any compromise that violates their own sense of dignity or justice, that means that they are the judge and jury as to what kind of peace plan is acceptable. It gives them veto power over any possible plan, no matter how generous, because they are the only people who can say that their dignity is restored or justice is served.

As long as Israel exists, they will not feel like they have any dignity nor justice. Because they consider the entire land theirs. Their maps show the entire British Mandate territory. They are taught that Jaffa and Nazareth are Palestinian cities. Anyone can see that people who believe that will never say that any peace plan will be good enough to make them feel dignified and that justice was served.

Nobody says that Israelis must have "justice" and "dignity" in any peace plan. The reason is obvious: because when that is demanded from both sides, peace is impossible. Yet no one sees any problem with using these terms that are anti-peace as demands for the Palestinian side.

Like it or not, any two state solution will involve compromise on both sides. The concepts of "dignity" and "justice" is incompatible with compromise - which makes them anti-peace.

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The Deal (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

First, divest yourself from the idea that this plan is just a trick to divert attention from Trump’s impeachment or Bibi’s indictment. The document describing it is 181 pages long. It is not a diversion. I am not interested in the question of whether its release now will help Trump (I suspect it won’t matter) or Bibi (it’s unclear). Also, if you are one of my readers who hates Trump – if I still have any, after proposing that he get the Nobel Peace Prize – please put that aside. This paragraph is the last one in this post that will mention him. I want to focus on the proposal itself.

I will not pretend to have read all 181 pages yet. But the broad outline of the proposal, including maps, is contained in the first 40-odd pages. It is a thoughtful attempt to arrive at a solution, and it takes into account the failure of previous efforts. There is a huge amount of material here, and I could write essays about the presuppositions and the implications of every page, but I will try to limit myself to describing the proposal in general terms and discussing its significance in the long and depressing saga of the “peace process.” In recent years, proposals have centered around the ideas first expressed in the Clinton parameters of 2000-1, which envision most of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as a Palestinian entity, with swaps to allow the large settlement blocs to continue to exist. The new proposal diverges sharply from these plans.

Summary of the plan

The plan (the official name is “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People”) is a two-state solution which preserves the original intention of UN Security Council Resolution 242, in which Israel withdraws from some of the territory taken in 1967, while keeping secure boundaries. The Palestinian “state” here is more like Rabin’s vision of something “less than a state,” because Palestine will be demilitarized, and its borders and airspace will be controlled by Israel for an unlimited time.

The plan is intended as a statement of concepts, although it is a pretty detailed one. It calls for an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation whose product will be a final “peace agreement” with all the details worked out. During the period of negotiations, Israel will freeze construction or expansion of settlements (for a maximum of four years) in those areas that are defined as Palestinian in the plan.

The agreement would create a “state” of Palestine that encompasses most of today’s Areas A and B and some of Area C. Israel will receive most of Area C, including the Jordan Valley. 97% of Palestinians will find themselves in Palestine and 97% of Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria will be in Israel. The remainder will be in Palestinian enclaves in Israel, or Israeli enclaves in Palestine. Enclaves will be under civil control of their respective governments, but Israel will be responsible for security in both cases. Israel will provide land swaps (attached to Gaza along the border with Egypt) which will give Palestine roughly the same area as the pre-1967 “West Bank” and Gaza. There will be a high-speed rail link (on the map it is shown as a tunnel) between the eastern part of Palestine and Gaza, and special roads across the Jordan Valley to the Allenby Bridge with Jordan. Infrastructure will be built to ensure that Israeli and Palestinian enclaves are not isolated. It’s possible that some Israeli Arab communities in the “Arab Triangle” near Umm al-Fahm might be included in Palestine.

In no case will any Jews or Arabs be required to move from their homes, a principle that diverges significantly from previous plans which included the removal of Jewish settlements.

I’ve included the two “conceptual maps” from the proposal at the end of this post. They show the borders and other features envisioned by the proposal.

Jerusalem will continue to be the capital of Israel, and Israel will continue to provide security for the holy sites of all the religions. The city will not be re-divided along the 1949 armistice line, but the areas east and north of the existing security barrier (“including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis”) will become the capital of the State of Palestine, and may be renamed “Al Quds” or whatever the Palestinians decide. Arabs living in Jerusalem inside the security barrier will have the option to become citizens of Israel or Palestine, or retain the status of Permanent Resident of Israel (most Jerusalem Arabs chose this status after 1967 rather than becoming citizens).

The “Vision” provides for an economic plan to provide for a viable Palestinian state rather than one that relies on international donors. I won’t discuss this here.

Overall security for both states will be Israel’s responsibility from Day One, “with the aspiration that the Palestinians will be responsible for as much of their internal security as possible, subject to the provisions of this Vision.”

Israel will retain control of airspace and electromagnetic spectrum from the river to the sea. Special arrangements will be made to protect Ben-Gurion airport from nearby Palestinian areas.

The State of Palestine will be expected to take serious measures to prevent terrorism, which should be evaluated in terms “no less stringent” than those applied to Jordan or Egypt.

The Israeli Navy will be able to block the import of “prohibited weapons and weapon-making materials” to Palestine, including of course Gaza. Palestine will be demilitarized, and Israel will have the right to destroy any Palestinian facility used for hostile purposes. There is a list of weapons and systems that the Palestinians are forbidden to procure. Palestine will not be allowed to make agreements with any state or organization that threatens Israel’s security. Any expansion of Palestinian security capabilities will require Israel’s permission. Israel retains the right to “engage in necessary security measures” to maintain demilitarization and fight terrorism, including incursions into Palestinian territory. There will be “early warning stations” manned by Israeli security personnel in Palestine.

Gaza has always been problematic, and with the Hamas takeover in 2007, it became a hostile enclave which has caused several small wars. The plan explicitly calls for the removal of Hamas, saying that Israel will not be required to meet any of its obligations under the agreement unless the Palestinian Authority is in control of Gaza, Hamas and other terrorist factions are disarmed, and Gaza is demilitarized. If Hamas will “play any role” in the government of Palestine, it must first agree to “explicitly recognizing the State of Israel, committing to nonviolence, and accepting previous agreements and obligations between the parties, including the disarming of all terrorist groups.”

The plan calls for Israel to release Palestinian (not Israeli Arab) prisoners held in Israeli jails, except those convicted of murder or conspiracy to commit murder.

There will be no “right of return” to Israel for people with Palestinian refugee status. Those registered as refugees with UNRWA will have the option of absorption into the State of Palestine or their present host countries, or to a limited extent, to other Organization of Islamic Cooperation states that agree to take them. Once the agreement is signed, Palestinian refugee status and UNRWA will cease to exist.

The Palestinian state will not necessarily be created upon the signing of the agreement; the transition from the Palestinian Authority to the State of Palestine will occur only after the Palestinians have created a Western-style democracy and legal and banking systems, and have stopped incitement and education for hatred in its schools and other institutions. Palestinians will be required to “create a culture of peace” which will not glorify terrorism or martyrdom, and will not deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

The agreement will include mutual recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and Palestine as the nation state of the Palestinian people. It will end all claims between the two, and this will be proposed as Security Council and General Assembly resolutions in the UN.

During the period of negotiations or for a maximum of four years, Israel will commit not to build or expand settlements in those areas of Judea and Samaria that are proposed to become part of Palestine. This “settlement freeze” does not apply to settlements in the Jordan Valley, eastern Jerusalem inside the security barrier, or other areas that are expected to become part of Israel. It does apply to Israeli enclaves in Palestinian areas. This is different from previous “freezes” which were applied to the entire area across the Green Line.

At the same time, Palestinians will agree not to join international organizations without permission from Israel, will end its legal actions (e.g., in the International Criminal Court) against Israel, and end the “pay-to-slay” program.

The US will agree to reopen the PLO mission in Washington and provide various kinds of aid.

What do the Palestinians think?

Of course they vehemently reject it. They couldn’t possibly accept the plan without almost as many caveats are there are items in it. The proposed Palestinian “state” is no more a state than Vatican City. The requirements to end what we consider incitement (and they consider education in the fundamental principles of the Palestinian Movement) will be unacceptable to them. Pay-to-slay is inviolable. The “right of return” has always been sacrosanct. Hamas will never disarm. And Palestinians have never been prepared to admit that Israel belongs to the Jewish people, not one inch of it.

What does the Left think?

Leftist organizations in Israel and the US oppose the agreement because of the small size of the proposed Palestinian state and the limitations on its sovereignty, and – in the case of the American Left – because they hate the president and have to oppose anything he does.

What does the Right think?

Many members of the Israeli Right oppose any Palestinian state, because they believe that the restrictions on sovereignty and militarization ultimately aren’t maintainable, and the result of allowing its creation would be another terror entity on our border. They also disagree in principle with any concession of territory that’s part of the Land of Israel. But some think it’s worth the gamble in order to restart building in at least part of Judea and Samaria, and to obtain sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and other parts of Area C.

What do I think?

The plan can’t possibly be translated into an agreement that the Palestinians would agree with, even as a pretense. It pays lip service to the idea that Palestinians want normal lives in a well-run, economically flourishing state. Certainly there are those that do want this, but the leadership and what Barry Rubin, z”l, used to refer to as “the young men with guns” who determine what happens on the street do not feel this way. In Palestinian politics and culture, nothing overrides the prime objective, which is the removal of the Jewish presence from the land that Palestinians believe belongs to them alone. Anyone who says different may be held accountable by the young men with guns. To accept the plan would be to betray their Palestinian identity and their Islamic religion in return for an attenuated, emasculated “state” that would be dependent on the hated Jews.

Having said that, I think the authors of the plan understand Palestinian political culture, and what they want to do is help the West to stop appeasing it. The proposal breaks the sterile consensus that has developed since Oslo, in which the conflict is seen as entirely Israel’s fault, nothing is expected from the Palestinians, and “solutions” are just different approaches to forcing Israel to make concessions. One example of this is that for the first time since 2000, the proposal rejects the holiness of the 1949 armistice lines, and calls for secure borders instead. In my opinion, the paradigm shift embodied in the proposal is its most important feature.

The objection that a Palestinian state, once created, would not remain benign and demilitarized is definitely a concern, but it will not become relevant for some time. Judging by the conditions placed on the Palestinians before they will be granted whatever bit of sovereignty they will have, it’s hard to imagine that it will actually come into being. Accepting the deal now would allow to Israel to take actions immediately, like building in areas that are expected to be part of Israel, annexing the Jordan Valley, and applying Israeli law to existing Jewish communities.

The significance of the deal, therefore, is not that it will ever be fully implemented. It is that it will change people’s thinking about the conflict, freeing Israel from the chains of the Oslo/Clinton paradigm.

Israelis, therefore, should welcome the change in direction and take the opportunities offered, even if they have problems with specific parts of the program.

The PM promised to bring the program to the Cabinet for approval on Sunday, and I would be happy to see this.

Maps

How the proposal views the final configurations of Israel and Palestine:

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