Soccer Dad is writing about Bill Clinton’s imaginary Israel/Palestinian negotiations, where Yasser Arafat was not an unrepentant terrorist who launched countless terror attacks in the hopes of defeating Israel, but a partner in peace.
But he missed the most deluded portion of the Times op-ed:
The remaining issues can be resolved, and the incentives to do so are there. Israel has its best partner ever in the Palestinian government on the West Bank led by President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, with its proven ability to provide security and economic development. The peace alliance put together by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia offers Israel full political recognition and the prospect of security and economic cooperation with a host of Arab and other Muslim nations in exchange for an agreement. And many Arab states are engaged in their own economic and social modernization efforts, which prove they are ready to let go of past differences and eager to reap the possibilities of cooperation with Israel.
Let’s take it one bit at a time. Israel’s “best ever partner” says it will never, ever recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They refuse to sit down with Israel for direct negotiations, after stalling for ten months. Abbas has made it de rigeur to now get “permission” from the Arab League for any negotiation with Israel, thus adding an extra, more difficult layer to the peace process—especially because the Arab League has declared that Israel was always Arab land.
Compare the paragraph above to Clinton’s recent statements that Russian immigrants are the real reason there is no peace. (Yes, he apologized and backtracked, but he said it. He must have meant it.)
Israel’s “best partner ever” does not see fit to stop Palestinian TV from saying that Jews praying at the Western Wall are “sin and filth.” Israel’s “best partner ever” is constantly pictured with maps of “Palestine” that include all of Israel. Israel’s “best partner ever” says that “resistance” can never be counted out as a way to attain Palestinian goals. And he will never compromise.
Why is it we don’t have peace, exactly? It’s simple. The self-delusion of people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama prevent them from seeing the truth: The Palestinians don’t want peace. They want the land of Israel for themselves.
And this Saudi peace plan, the one that wuld bring sweetness and light to the Middle East but for Israeli obduracy, includes the imaginary “right of return.” We all know what that means.
Some of this, I think, is genuinely wishful thinking. Facing the fact that the Palestinians don’t want peace alongside Israel is difficult to grasp and even more difficult to accept, as it renders the situation unsolvable. This is unpleasant and a way of dealing with it is to assume that the other side is at fault, that there is something Israel in this case could do that would change things.
Of course, continual insistence on this line is not missed by the Palestinians. President Obama, for example, has certainly reduced any chance of serious Palestinian negotiations by letting them know that if they sit tight he will continue to pressure Israel. Why bargain when you know the other side will give you most of what you want without your doing anything?
So true what you said about Clinton and of course Obama whose obvious hostility toward Israel is crystal clear. Yet, I ask you how is it possible to leave George Bush out of the equation? Why do we do that and how disingenuous it appears to supposed friends? Bush came before Obama after all. Bush took millions upon millions of tax payer dollars from his delusion of peace to his very own peace pipeline right down to the sinkhole of Palestinian funding born of lies and enablers all. He did this post 9-11 war on terror post intifada when dead Jews were not yet cold in their graves. Please.
It was bad enough he broke a campaign promise to every Jew whose heart is Jerusalem to sign the embassy act…IN HIS FIRST WEEK OF OFFICE and 7 years latter proving to all Jews that Jerusalem ‘is not’ the UNDIVIDED CAPITAL OF ISRAEL by not sending anyone from his administration to the ceremonies of the Anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. In the time shortly before was leaving office after taking a holocaust denier and turning him into a MAN OF PEACE of sitting back and watching the work of his U.S Palestinian trained security forces and all he could say in apology to the Jewish people who trusted him by electing him to office was “Take good care of OLMERT.”
And that poster showing all of Israel, Palestine, that came from Abbas the man of Peace during the time Bush was president.
We had 8 years to make it right for Jews by a person who promised friendship. What do you think the Jew haters of the world thought as to how a friend treats Israel? Imagine how the world would have looked upon Israel if Bush one time called Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel. Imagine if after the intifada he would have withheld all funding to the Palestinians rather than reward them for terror!! Instead he used every chance he had to tell the world in every public forum he spoke the Palestinians live under the “daily humiliation of occupation” and that the “Palestine should be viable, contiguous and not resemble swiss cheese.” And we yell about Obama’s stance on settlements? What do you think daily humiliation of occupation viable, contiguous and not resemble swiss cheese meant?
Because we constantly leave Bush out of the equation we have learned nothing and will continue to be led astray by both friend and foe alike, I promise. Since Bush left office I have read little if any introspection on the damage he caused for he indeed paved the road for the the narcissist Jew hating Obama. If we continue to overlook it and not speak of it (except at anger toward me) we are no better than liberals and certainly no better than liberal Jews we so love to condemn.
The main problem is Israel: It let Arafat back into Israel; it continues to pretend that the PA is a negotiating partner; it permits Gaza to exist in comfort while they lob missiles at it.
If you have no self-respect, don’t expect that others will.
Meryl,
I should have fisked the op-ed more completely; it was just that two things really stood out and because of it I didn’t read the op-ed as closely as I should have. I was focused on the past more than on the present.
David