Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Palestinian leaders find an "honorable" lie to allow them to accept money from Israel (UPDATE)

Palestinians have now said that they would accept the money Israel owes them for tax revenues, and will resume coordination with Israel, after stopping both in June when Benjamin Netanyahu made noises about annexing part of Judea and Samaria.

That annexation never happened, but Netanyahu didn't say it was permanently off the table, so the Palestinian leadership couldn't resume the previous arrangements - without losing its "honor."

Meanwhile, it went further and further into debt, it slashed salaries of public workers, and it pretended that it would have elections or unify with Hamas - all while hoping that Biden would win and they would have a little leverage against Israel.

Still, there was the honor issue. How to reverse this policy and appear to have won?

Today, they announced that things will go back to the way they were before June.

The PA's civil affairs minister Hussein Al-Sheikh said that "in light of the international contacts made by President Mahmoud Abbas regarding Israel's commitment to the agreements signed with it, and based on the official written and oral messages we received, confirming Israel's commitment to that, the relationship with Israel will be resumed."

PA prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said that the Palestinian Authority received a document from Israel pledging to abide by existing agreements.

Some five months of pain could have been avoided if the PA was not so hung up on "honor." This honor/shame mentality is truly the main obstacle for peace in the Middle East. The PLO is literally willing to make their people suffer so as to avoid perceived shame - even though no one in the world would have blinked if the PA had accepted the funds in August after Israel said it was putting the annexation plans on hold.

That is the refreshing part of the normalization with the UAE. There is no shame there. On the contrary, the Emiratis seem eager to take advantage of peace with Israel to create win/win scenarios.

To the PA, a win/win scenario is a violation of honor - the enemy must appear to have lost. This is why they are making up a story about Israel signing an agreement to abide by existing agreements. Maybe some Israeli minister scribbled something on a Post-it Note to make the Palestinians feel that they won, but there was almost certainly nothing official from Israel. It is as if the PA insisted that someone throw a shoe at an Israeli flag and Israel said, sure, if that makes you happy.

In a sense, BDS is also an "honor" initiative. The BDSers insist it is shameful to treat Israelis as normal human beings and they use shame to keep people in line.

It used to work. It doesn't any more. The sooner the Palestinians learn that the only ones being hurt by their fake pride is their own people, and take responsibility for it, the sooner everyone benefits.

UPDATE: Here's the letter Israel sent to the Palestinians. As I suspected, it simply says that Israel never stopped abiding with the existing agreement, and it was the Palestinians that changed the rules. But the Palestinians are reading this as a huge honor win.

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11/17 Links Pt1: Iran, al-Qaeda, and Joe Biden’s Middle East Trap; The NYTs’ Misleading ‘Analysis’ of Benjamin Netanyahu; Jordan king heads to UAE for meeting with Emirati, Bahrain leaders

From Ian:

Iran, al-Qaeda, and Joe Biden’s Middle East Trap

In terms of power, commerce, and security co-operation in the region, more has transpired in the last four years in the Middle East than the previous forty. The Democrats’ loathing of President Trump aside, reaffirming a commitment to an utterly discredited policy experiment would be a disastrous early foray into foreign policy.

Iran is now thought to have accumulated enormous amounts of enriched uranium. It continues to finance global terrorist networks and, most importantly, because of this leaked information, is now publicly linked to support of al-Qaeda.

And that, perhaps, is most interesting of all in this intrigue. Shi’ite Iran is not a natural ally of Sunni al-Qaeda, but the Iranians have proven to be accommodating when it comes to financing and controlling terrorist entities with aligned interests. But now, this exposure of a key al-Qaeda operative being protected by the regime makes it much more difficult for the Biden administration to court Iran. American forgiveness of al-Qaeda is not a popular position and would appear to play into the extreme left-wing of the Democratic party, which Biden is under extraordinary pressure to control and marginalize.

The leak of this operation will surely heighten the pressure on Biden to rethink his approach to JCPOA and Iran. Perhaps that was the point.

Americans are likely to be enraged by the prospect of appeasing a nation that harbors and supports al-Qaeda’s leadership. And that will mess things up for Biden. It has far less to do with Trump and much more to do with the alliances forged between Israel and its neighbors in the wake of Obama’s JCPOA dream. Whether they can see clearly through their hatred of the outgoing president and properly assess the Middle East four years on remains to be seen.

What is clear is that the prospect of getting all chummy with al-Qaeda benefactors makes JCPOA 2.0 way more difficult.

Dan Schueftan: The U.S. Should Back Allies, "Break" Enemies in the Middle East

The emerging coalition between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and others brokered by the Trump administration has greatly checked Iran's ambitions. The Gulf Arabs now understand that Israel is the "only regional element that has a strong enough motivation to fight Iran" and "can be trusted because it must fight Iran for its own good."

However, Schueftan believes the "one major mistake" in the Trump administration's Middle East policy is its underestimation of the danger of Turkey, which he suggests is "going in the direction of a totalitarian regime" under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Not only is Turkey projecting its military power, notably in Syria and Libya, but it is sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a presence throughout the Arab world. "The Muslim brothers are extremely dangerous because they have learned to pretend to be moderate ...They are as radical as you can possibly get, but smart enough to hide it."

Schueftan strongly recommends "persisting with the existing [U.S.] policy of maximum pressure on Iran" and "supporting local allies" against it, and he believes the same two-fold approach should be applied to Turkey. This means "see[ing] to it that Erdoğan's economy is undermined ... once he is economically challenged, he may lose a lot of support in Turkey." It means not only "backing the Greeks and the Cypriots against the Turkish attempt to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean," but also supporting the Kurds.

"Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side."

Trying to reach an accommodation with either Iran or Turkey is a bad idea in Schueftan's view. "Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side, if they agree to something, it means that we have been given a raw deal." The same zero-sum principle applies to Turkey. "Whatever is bad for Erdoğan, I think is good for the region."

What is the hardest part of brokering a peace agreement?

-- Sometimes, it's just getting the two sides to sit down in the same room.

-- Other times, the problem is getting the two sides just to talk.

-- Even then, there is the problem of getting them to negotiate and be willing to make concessions.

And then there is the problem when you just run out of time.

Following the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria were nearly victorious, a unique possibility for peace between Israel and Egypt presented itself. Nixon's airlift of crucial arms during the war was critical to Israel's victory -- and created an opportunity.

Richard Nixon. Public domain

Seeking to take advantage of this opportunity, in June 1974, Nixon became the first US president to visit Israel while in office.

As Rabin explained in a press conference after Nixon returned to the US:

"Ever since the airlift of the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs have come to understand that America will not allow Israel to be weakened. A defeat of Israel is a victory for the USSR. Paradoxically, this is what has raised America's prestige in the Arab world, and has given Washington leverage. Today in the Middle East, Moscow is a synonym for instability and war, Washington for stability and negotiation." (Yehuda Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 270)

Yitzhak Rabin. Public domain

This leverage as an honest broker would make it possible for the US to go beyond being a supporter of Israel's interests, and show that it was a strong and reliable ally to address the interests of the Arab world as well.

Meanwhile, Nixon began discussing with Egypt's Sadat the possibility of a final settlement, going step-by-step. On June 25, Nixon wrote to Sadat:

Mr. President, I am convinced that we have witnessed in recent months a turning point in the history of the Middle East -- a turning toward an honorable, just, and endurinable peace -- and have ushered in a new era in U.S.-Arab relations. A direction has been set, and it is my firm intention to stay on the course we have chartered. (p. 271)

Two months later, Nixon resigned.

The following month, Rabin was meeting with President Ford -- and Kissinger -- to continue what Nixon had started. The following year, in March, Kissinger came to the Middle East to conduct his "shuttle diplomacy," bouncing back and forth between Israel and Egypt. Kissinger pressured Rabin on a withdrawal from the Sinai, especially from the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Rabin wanted Sadat to commit himself to a "termination of the state of belligerency" with Israel.

Kissinger's efforts failed -- and he blamed Israel.

In the end, however, another attempt was made, culminating in an interim agreement known as Sinai II.

Just to get an idea of what Rabin was up against, here is an excerpt from the notes of a conversation between Sadat and Foreign Minister Fahmi with Ford and Kissinger. The context is the early warning stations in the Sinai that Rabin wanted to retain -- and Sadat's idea of a compromise, where they would be manned by US troops. Note the highlighted portions.

The term "honest broker" is overrated.

In any event, Rabin too ended up resigning because of the 'scandal' surrounding his wife, who had retained a bank account from the years when Rabin was Israel's ambassador to the US from 1968 to 1973. After that, the Israeli law forbidding citizens from holding bank accounts abroad came into play. However, another law prevented Rabin from resigning outright once the date for the next elections has been set. Instead, Rabin withdrew from the race as leader of the Labor Party, to be replaced from Shimon Peres to face Menachem Begin.

Begin became prime minister -- and it was during his term that a peace treaty with Egypt was signed.

Rabin felt his role in making that peace treaty possible was never acknowledged, but at the same time he understood that was the way of things.

In his memoirs, Rabin wrote:

When President Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem on 19 November 1977 I was no longer prime minister. Yet that visit -- and the subsequent moves toward achieving a peace treaty -- could never have come about were it not for the course my government adopted in signing the 1975 interim agreement. That our policy provoked the anger of Likud has not prevented Mr. Begin's government from reaping the fruits of our labors. Of course, that is how things should be, since the quest for peace is not a contest between political parties...The 1975 agreement with Egypt was never meant to be an end in itself. As its title implies, it was designed to advance the momentum toward peace, and in that sense it achieved its purpose. [emphasis added] (quoted in The Prime Ministers, p.302)

Begin benefited from the foundation set by Nixon and the groundwork laid by Rabin, both of whom left their work unfinished.

But that was not the last we heard from Rabin.

After serving as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, Rabin became prime minister again in 1992.

And he was still focused on peace. In 1994, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the Oslo Accords, along with Shimon Peres and Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan that same year.

In late 1995, Rabin described to Yehuda Avner his view of the Middle East, a description that 25 years later sounds familiar:

Number one: Israel is surrounded by two concentric circles. The inner circle is comprised of our immediate neighbors—Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and, by extension, Saudi Arabia. The outer circle comprises their neighbors—Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. Virtually all of them are rogue states, and some are going nuclear.

Number two, Iranian-inspired Islamic fundamentalism constitutes a threat to the inner circle no less than it does to Israel. Islamic fundamentalism is striving to destabilize the Gulf Emirates, has already created havoc in Syria, leaving twenty thousand dead, in Algeria, leaving one hundred thousand dead, in Egypt, leaving twenty-two thousand dead, in Jordan, leaving eight thousand dead, in the Horn of Africa—the Sudan and Somalia—leaving fourteen thousand dead, and in Yemen, leaving twelve thousand dead. And now it is gaining influence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Iran is the banker, pouring millions into the West Bank and Gaza in the form of social welfare and health and education programs, so that it can win the hearts of the population and feed religious fanaticism.

Thus, a confluence of interest has arisen between Israel and the inner circle, whose long-term strategic interest is the same as ours: to lessen the destabilizing consequences from the outer circle. At the end of the day, the inner circle recognizes they have less to fear from Israel than from their Muslim neighbors, not least from radicalized Islamic powers going nuclear.

Number three: the Arab-Israeli conflict was always considered to be a political one: a conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The fundamentalists are doing their level best to turn it into a religious conflict—Muslim against Jew, Islam against Judaism. And while a political conflict is possible to solve through negotiation and compromise, there are no solutions to a theological conflict. Then it is jihad—religious war: their God against our God. Were they to win, our conflict would go from war to war, and from stalemate to stalemate. [emphasis added] (p. 707)

The context for this description of the Middle East is Rabin's response to Avner's question as to why he shook Arafat's hand at the signing of the Oslo Accords:

He and his PLO represent the last vestige of secular Palestinian nationalism. We have nobody else to deal with. It is either the PLO or nothing. It is a long shot for a possible settlement, or the certainty of no settlement at all at a time when the radicals are going nuclear.

With the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, negotiating with secular Palestinian Arabs made sense to Rabin.

Neither he -- nor then-President Clinton -- saw the potential in negotiating and working with other Arab states within those concentric circles. There's no reason they would, when all the contemporary thinking was focused on the Palestinian Arabs as a key to peace, a cold peace in line with the peace treaties signed with Egypt and Jordan with no thought of normalization. According to that thinking, it is either the Palestinian Arabs or nothing.

The Middle East achievements of the Trump administration this year took Rabin's outline and acted on it.

What Rabin might have further accomplished, we will never know.

He was stopped again, this time by a bullet, from pursuing peace.

But like Nixon and Rabin, Trump too will not be pursuing his vision for peace to its full extent.

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It's all about the hate

The FBI Hate Crimes report for 2019 has been released, and - as usual - more than half of all the anti-religion hate crimes recorded are against Jews.

This year 62.7% of all hate crimes are against Jews, but since 2012 that number has averaged some 59%. This year is worse because the total number of hate crimes incidents against Jews increased from 835 to 953, a 14% increase.

People want to find easy to understand reasons for the increase in hate crimes against Jews in recent years, but that is virtually impossible. Many articles automatically blame Trump for the increase, but if that was true, one would expect a much faster increase of anti-Muslim hate crimes. In reality. anti-Muslim hate crime rates has been an almost perfect inverse of anti-Jewish rates, with the anti-Muslim rates increasing during the Obama administration and decreasing during the Trump administration:

Given that Trump is considered to be pro-Jewish and anti-Muslim, if the president exerts so much influence over hate crimes, one would expect the trends to be quite different.

What is indisputable is that Jews are targeted far out of proportion to their population in the US, no matter who is President.

As far as I can tell, the FBI has not embraced the IHRA definition of antisemitism in determining what an anti-Jewish hate crime is. So, if the leaders of AIPAC or the Zionist Organization of America get death threats, I don't think these would be included in the hate crime statistics.

They should be. The hate exhibited by self-declared anti-Zionists is the same as that exhibited by any other bigots.

Think about it: Among the far Left, the worst insults that one can possibly give to another person are:

* Colonialist

* Nazi

* Apartheid-enabler

* White supremacist

* Racist

* Genocidist

* Baby killer

* Islamophobe

* Antisemite

* Anti-gay

* Sexist

* Global warming denialists

The first eight of these epithets are routinely hurled at Zionists by the socialist Left. Some have tried to accuse Zionists of antisemitism as well. And the last three, which Israel cannot remotely be accused of being guilty of, are inverted into the "X-washing" meme that the only reason Israel does anything admirable is an attempt to whitewash its crimes. This proves that the irrational hate of these people is so intense that they must turn virtues into vices as well - they cannot even conceive that there is anything good one can say about Israel or Zionists.

This is not "criticism." This is hate. The psychology behind it is every bit as irrational as any kind of bigotry.

And it is impossible to say that the irrational hate of one nation, which outweighs the hate of any other nation, has nothing to do with the fact that that nation is filled with and controlled by Jews.

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According to Arab media, the Saudi film "3-2-1 Action" that premiered on November 5 closed after five days with absolutely no revenue.

A few days into the release, the distributors tried to give away tickets for free - and no one wanted to go.

On IMDB, it is rated 1/10, with 209 reviewers, so somehow people saw it. However, they universally hated it, with some hilarious reviews like "To be honest, the book is way better than the movie...because it doesn't exist."

Apparently many of the actors are social media stars who have no idea how to act.

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11/16 Links Pt2: Democrats, Media Stand On The Graves Of European Jews To Hit Trump; Israel demands Amanpour apologize for comparing Kristallnacht and Trump

From Ian:

Democrats, Media Stand On The Graves Of European Jews To Hit Trump

To even consider using Kristallnacht in the same sentence as Donald Trump, let alone in an attempt to compare Trump to the Nazi Party, is to stand on the ashes of European Jewry. Hitler and the Nazi Party openly acted upon their expressed desire to eradicate the Jewish people. Given that the Trump administration has yet to discriminate against Jews in any manner, when Amanpour said “after four years of a modern-day assault on those same values,” what exactly does she mean?

Donald Trump and the Republican Party do not have an official paramilitary wing, and any relevant policies during Trump’s first term have been overwhelmingly pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. When it comes to the targeting of Jewish businesses, homes, or places of worship, there are certainly anti-Semites on the radical wings of both sides, but the mainstream implicit endorsement of such actions are unique to one side of the political spectrum, and it’s not the political Right.

After all, it was not a Republican who used the same rhetoric of “hypnosis” and “wealth” when condemning the “evil doings” of the Jewish state. It was not a Republican who supported the boycott of Jewish businesses. It was not a Republican who endorsed a one-state solution which would result in the expulsion or mass murder of millions of Israeli Jews.

So, we must conclude that Amanpour is using one of the darkest moments in Jewish history as a proxy to describe a supposed attack on some unknown set of “values” which Biden and Harris will somehow defend and prevent. For her, the suffering of Jews is a disposable weapon which can be wielded in pursuit of Leftism and the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who are burning books. It doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who wish to actively enable nations who have called for the destruction of the Jewish State. And it doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who are using the very same language which fueled Kristallnacht and the Holocaust.

Israel demands Amanpour apologize for comparing Kristallnacht and Trump

Israeli Consul-General in Atlanta Anat Sultan-Dadon wrote a letter to CNN executive vice president Rick Davis, obtained by The Jerusalem Post on the condition that it not be quoted. The letter, sent two days after Amanpour’s remarks, explained that the Nazis murdered at least 90 Jews on Kristallnacht. They also arrested over 30,000 Jews and deported them to concentration camps. The night of Kristallnacht was the opening chapter of the Holocaust.

The consul-general expressed outrage at Amanpour’s use of the Holocaust for political means, and said it disrespects those who perished. Amanpour’s statements set off an immediate backlash on Twitter.

Former Israeli consul-general in New York Danny Dayan tweeted that “the foolish comparison Amanpour made between Kristallnacht and Trump must bring about her immediate dismissal from CNN. There is no immunity for Holocaust deniers.”

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Amanpour's remarks "despicable," and said the CNN anchor "must apologize for trivializing the Holocaust & the tragic genocide of millions of Jews.

"They must also apologize for slandering the most pro-Israel President in history," she said.

2. Amanpour has thrived because her hatred for the Jewish state is considered "sophisticated" in her little, sick bubble of Western elitists who have spent the past 70 years pretending that anyone could have been Nazis -- especially the Jews. This erases Germany's culpability..3
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) November 16, 2020

Israel to send second astronaut into space

In about a year, Israel will send its second astronaut into space.

Former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe will be trained in the United States, Germany and Russia before taking off from Florida in December 2021 for a 200-hour stay on the International Space Station (ISS).

This mission will be the first to the ISS manned entirely by private astronauts. Stibbe is donating his time and all costs of the journey, including expenses related to the experiments to be chosen for him to bring into space designed by Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs and students.

The announcement was made today at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem by the Ramon Foundation, the Israel Space Agency and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology.

Ran Livne, CEO of the foundation, will lead the project. He plans on special broadcasts from the space mission for Israeli children, including dozens of demonstrations, experiments and live calls from the ISS with schoolchildren across the country.

Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February 2003. Receiving his pilot wings in 1978, Stibbe flew under Ramon’s command in the 117 F-16 squadron.

Ramon’s son Tal said that Stibbe “and his family escorted us through the years through everything we went through, the good and the bad, and their family has become our family.”

Concluding the full text of the PLO's NSU Negotiation Principles Matrix. The previous articles show how impossible the PLO's minimal demands are and how peace is impossible. I will comment on select parts of the remainder of the document.

ISSUE

CORE PRINCIPLES

POSSIBLE FLEXIBILITY

WATER AND OTHER NATURAL RESOURCES

General principles: International watercourses

· Water rights over watercourses that cross international borders – all major shared water sources between Palestine and Israel – must conform to the principle of equitable utilization under international law

· Agree on the allocation of the shared water resources based on the principle of equitable utilization (mainly the Jordan river basin, the West Bank aquifers basins and the Coastal Aquifer Basin)

· Equal per capita approach in determining equitable.

· Agree to transition period of no longer than five years to implement new allocation.

· Trade of water and exchange of water supply

· Third Party Compliance Mechanism

· Agree on the joint management of the shared water resources

· Ensure that persons in its control take no action harming the quality of water or damaging to aquifers

· Right of Palestine to capture its equitable share of watercourses and transport it to and within its territory

· Ability to construct, maintain and operate water installations and water pipelines to transport water through Israel to Palestine

General principles: Natural resources

· The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources. Parties shall each enjoy sovereignty over natural resources that are located entirely within its respective international borders

Since this was written, Israel has greatly increased the proportion of fresh water that it gets from desalination, so this is not nearly as big a difficulty as it would have been when written. Notice however that the PLO is insisting on per-capita calculations to determine how to allocate shared water resources, which means that if their population grows the total amount of water available to Israel would decrease.

SECURITY:

Military withdrawal

· Full military withdrawal from Palestinian territory including airspace and territorial waters.

· Withdrawal according to clear timelines to be phased and coordinated with Palestinian security forces and international monitors.

· CAVEAT: In negotiating security demands by Israel, the details are critical. That is, an agreement at the political level that does not cover technical details leaves open a range of contentious issues that must still be carefully negotiated. Not addressing the details risks granting Israel the effective capability to assert a substantial and permanent military presence on

· May choose to agree to limited, temporary, and specific arrangements to meet clearly defined and legitimate security concerns of Israel. (e.g. early warning station, arrangements for deployment in emergency situations – see below.)

Limits on Palestinian military capacity

Early Warning Stations

Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley

Palestinian territory.

· Palestine not seeking to be a military state (no offensive military capability); however, it requires a small adequately equipped army for defensive purposes including ground, air and maritime components.

· No need for EWS on Palestinian territory.

· Palestine will have full sovereignty over Jordan Valley; no Israeli presence.

· Prepared to negotiate specific restrictions on types of permissible military equipment (based on international standards).

· RED LINE: Will not agree to “dual use” equipment defined as such by Israel. May consider certain limited restrictions, but only based on international standards and practice.

· In past negotiations agreed to EWS in principle – but no more than 2, and subject to detailed arrangements: use and access, leasing, time limits, international presence, inspection.

· Note: Due to developments in technology there are other alternatives that adequately meet Israeli concerns(detecting a threat from the East) , therefore EWS are technically not needed

· This is a red line. As an alternative, Palestine could welcome a strong

Emergency deployment of Israeli forces on Palestinian territory

Airspace

Security Cooperation

· Palestine will not agree to Israeli military presence on its territory under any circumstances.

· Palestine will have full sovereignty over its airspace.

· No military use for training or otherwise.

· Civilian flights will be regulated by the Chicago Convention and applicable international norms of civil aviation.

Agree to bilateral and regional security cooperation

international presence in the Jordan Valley.

· Applicable standard should be international law (law of armed conflict) that regulates the deployment of forces on foreign territory.

· In case of decision to agree to emergency deployment, it is critical to have detailed and specific agreement on such issues as: what constitutes emergency, duration, liability and compensation, restriction on areas of deployment etc…)

· May agree to full coordination and cooperation in management and air traffic control for civil aviation; subject, however, to sovereignty of each state over its respective airspace.

The military demands are the ones that would never be acceptable to Israel.

These demands would mean that any terrorists that attack Israelis and then withdraw to Palestinian territory are immune from IDF pursuit. It means that Israel is returning to a nine-mile wide nation that is indefensible. It means that any terrorists who build rockets in the West Bank can easily reach every Israeli population center with cheap home-grown rockets and Israel has no recourse.

This would be a return to the unacceptable situation that Israel had to live under before 1967 where "fedayeen" - a word that Palestinians regard with respect and awe - would sneak into Israel, wreak havoc, and then return to Gaza or Jordan or Syria, and any Israeli response would be an international incident.

Except now they have rockets.

Palestinian leaders would have every incentive to allow terror groups to flourish as long as they are not threats to their own leadership but to Israel alone.

In total, the minimal Palestinian demands are unacceptable for Israel to remain a strong and secure state. This is the entire point. These demands are meant to weaken Israel financially, militarily, spiritually and demographically with the goal of an eventual destruction of Israel - where Israel would be forced to agree to its own destruction.

Here is the rest of the document:

RELATIONS BETWEEN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS	· Full diplomatic relations both between Palestine	·

	and Israel and between Arab States and Israel shall not be instated until full implementation of the comprehensive agreement
ECONOMIC RELATIONS	· Trade Relations based on free trade and preferential treatment principles. · Removal of all tariffs and non tariff barriers, national and most favored nation treatment for both industrial and agricultural products. · Free trade in services, investments and free movement of labour. · Transit arrangements based on international standards.	· Trade regime should preferably be based on a Free Trade Area model but can also be based on Most Favored Nation model with sectoral agreements. · Trade in services, investments and labour can be freed gradually. · Transit should preferably be based on door to door movement but can also be based on a modern and efficient back to back system.
SECURITY RELATIONS	· See security above	· See security above
BORDER REGIME	· Palestinians must ensure control over their own border regime.	· Border regime will depend greatly on the security and economic regimes agreed. The preference from the perspective of many files is a more open border regime.
CIVIL AVIATION	· Must comply with Chicago Convention and the 1944 International Air Services Transit Agreement. Palestine will have control of its air traffic.	· Possible joint air traffic control.
ELECTROMAGNETIC SPHERE	· Palestine will have sovereignty and control over the Electromagnetic Sphere (“EMS”) covering OPT/Palestine as this is an essential and non- negotiable element of sovereignty. Any	· Very little room to negotiate limited frequency use by Israel for security purposes. Palestine will consider Israel’s requests and allocate the necessary

	interference re: frequencies will be dealt with at the International Telecommunications Union	frequencies (which will be time limited). Any use will be charged at commercial rates and/or exchanged for use of Israel’s EMS.
OTHER AREAS OF STATE TO STATE RELATIONS	· Please see State-to-State Memorandum	· Flexibility is required in negotiations with respect to tourism, religious sites, archaeological artifacts, monetary affairs, etc.
PRISONERS AND DETAINEES	· Release of all Palestinian detainees and prisoners immediately.	·
IMPLEMENTATION MATTERS
TRANSITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS	· Israel shall continue to provide services to the Palestinian population consistent with its obligations under international law until the end of occupation. · Palestinian Jerusalemites shall receive Palestinian citizenship once Palestine takes control of the area they reside in, and upon full implementation of the Treaty. · All rights and monetary and other benefits accrued under Israel shall be preserved.	·
INFRASTRUCTURE	· Palestine shall have all right, title, interest and control to all water, sewage, electricity and communications installations and equipment in Palestinian territory.	·
INTERNATIONAL ENDORSEMENT AND	· Endorsement of the agreement by the United Nations Security Council	· The precise role and composition of the presence can be agreed in many

SUPERVISION

· International monitoring, verification and supervision needed of most elements of both FAPS and CAPS.

· All international involvement must be coordinated and agreed.

· Guarantees should be built in to the mechanism to ensure Israeli implementation of the agreements, and guard against another Oslo situation.

· An independent commission(s) must be established for dealing with claims by both refugees and those Palestinians who suffered losses due to Israel’s occupation. Details can be set in Treaty.

permutations. Core point is that the presence monitors and guarantees compliance with and implementation of the agreements.

· Similarly, details of the independent commission(s) can be agreed in the CAPS, but Israel’s agreement to their establishment must be secured in the FAPS.

SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

· Palestine seeks robust mechanism for settlement of any disputes arising from interpretation and implementation of the FAPS or the Treaty.

· Decisions made in this process must be binding and enforceable.

FINAL CLAUSES

· Israel must not initiate or take any steps that will change the status of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip or violate international law.

· All interim or other agreements between the PLO and Israel shall remain in effect until the signature of the CAPS, insofar as they do not contradict the FAPS.

· Parties shall share maps data and other

information relevant to the negotiations.

The PLO demands that Israel release thousands of convicted terrorists to become heroes in a Palestinian state - and that could quickly rebuild terror networks that the PLO can turn a blind eye to, just as they did in the past.

The PLO reiterates that they demand all infrastructure remain intact, including communications. This means that Iran would have easy access to eavesdrop on Israeli wireless communications.

Many of these demands have nothing to do with building an independent, sovereign state - but to hurt Israel. There is essentially no attempt to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to both parties. This third column, on "possible flexibility," says all you need to know about how little the Palestinians truly want peace.

This document proves that peace is not the goal, and it never was. Any US or international pressure on Israel to give up more for "peace" would have the opposite effect because the Palestinian position spelled out here is not to create a strong, viable Palestinian state but to fatally wound the world's only Jewish state.

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