In response to the Time magazine article, Barry Rubin wrote a history of the future explaining what could go wrong with the creation of Palestinian state and why it would be perfectly rational for Israelis to wish to avoid such an outcome. Prof Rubin explains his rationale.

It’s simple: Rather reasonably, Israelis want to know whether they would be better or worse off after making a deal to get a promise of peace in exchange for accepting a fully independent Palestinian state.

Making a strategy requires figuring out where things can go wrong and working to avoid or reduce the consequences. Pretending problems won’t happen is the best way to engender catastrophes.

At the first juncture of this future history Rubin writes:

A gala celebration marks Palestine’s day of independence. Some world leaders come bearing promises of financial aid. Arab leaders attending offer little money and, except for Egypt’s president and Jordan’s king, avoid contact with Israel’s delegation.
. . .
Hardly any of the Western media cover statements by some leaders of Palestine’s ruling Fatah group that the new country’s independence is not the conflict’s end but the first step toward total victory and conquest of Israel.

This should come as no surprise. As Elder of Ziyon notes today that Moderate Fayyad can’t stomach “two states for two peoples”

The terminology “two states for two peoples” was controversial when Netanyahu first announced support for that principle last year. It has been emraced for years by the far left, including Gush Shalom. It goes without saying that Western leaders like Tony Blair support that formulation as a given.

Yet this formulation, which “everyone knows” will be the solution, is anathema to the most “moderate” Palestinian Arab. Obviously they feel that Palestine is for Arabs – and that Israel is ultimately for Arabs as well.

The problems with a peace that would result from a Palestinian state are already manifest. One need not look at Israel to find them.

Credit for the image: Elder of Ziyon.

See previous editions: the original, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi,part vii. and part viii.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Palestinian “moderation” – Don’t kill Jews … at the “wrong” time:

The day after the Hamas killings, official PA media reported that “Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad said that the operation which took place tonight in the Hebron area and its timing, harms the efforts being made by the PLO to gather international support for the Palestinian position… He said: ‘We condemn this operation, which contradicts the Palestinian interests and the efforts of the Palestinian leadership to gather international support…’” [PLO news agency Wafa, Aug. 31, 2010]

Abbas, when he returned to Ramallah, like Fayyad, lashed out at his political rival, Hamas, for the timing of the shootings: “He [Abbas] said that the recent shooting operations in the West Bank did not constitute resistance: ‘… For why isn’t [Hamas] resistance happening every day, and isn’t happening at all, except on the day we went to negotiations?!… Why did resistance become legitimate only today?” [Al- Ayyam, Sept. 6, 2010]

The PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash in his Friday sermon after the killings continued this PA line as he condemned the timing, even accusing Hamas of trying to help Netanyahu: “What is the secret of the timing for carrying out armed operations in the West Bank? We want to know the secret of the timing… Suddenly! – the moment that President Abbas reaches Washington, the moment that Netanyahu finds himself in the corner, pressed, forced to adapt and accommodate himself to the international approach, suddenly there is a respite for Netanyahu, and the Palestinians are in distress [because of the attacks]…” [PA TV (Fatah), Sept. 3, 2010]

The PA doesn’t just dislike badly timed terror; they also are bothered by moderate Palestinians. Translated from the Hebrew of Makor Rishon by the Daily Alert Blog:

The Ahmadi Muslim sect, founded in 1889 in India, now numbers tens of millions of believers, mostly living outside the Arab world. “We believe in a tolerant, friendly and rational Islam,” says Muhammad Sharif, head of the Ahmadis in Israel. Former Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna notes that among this community there is “no incitement, violence, or feeling the need to conquer the whole world.”

Yet members of the sect who live in the Palestinian Authority have been suffering from incessant persecution, confiscation of property, and physical violence during the past year. Muhammad Jaabri, 46, of Hebron, a married father of four, explains: “They have repeatedly written threats and curses on the walls of my house. They’ve burned my car twice, thrown rocks at my windows.” A month ago Jaabri was attacked by a group of radical religious youth near his home. “They beat me with clubs, and I was in the hospital for days.” After his release, “I went to the police to file a complaint and they sent me to PA security service investigators, where I was beaten again and jailed.”

Muhammad Alawi, 34, from Tulkarm, was summoned to a PA Sharia court with his wife, who is not from an Ahmadi family, where she was ordered to leave her husband and return with her three children to her own family, who had initiated the legal proceedings.

And President Abbas is still complaining that a lack of an extension of a freeze on Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem is grounds for not talking peace; even though this was never a condition before the Obama administration came to power.

Still, the issue of what to do about settlements loomed over the day. Mr. Netanyahu has rejected calls, including from President Obama, to extend the partial moratorium when it expires Sept. 26; Mr. Abbas has said the Palestinians will walk away from the table if it is not extended. A senior Israeli official said there was “very little wiggle room” on either side.

Isn’t Abbas the guy who stands to gain the most from negotiations – his own state? So why in the world is he dictating the terms of the talks?

Credit for the image: Elder of Ziyon.

See previous editions: the original, part ii, part iii and part iv.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

1) There is a campaign, financed by U.S. tax dollars, to convince Israelis that Palestinians want peace.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) — which is supposed to help countries raise their living standards — gave a $250,000 grant to the H.L. Peace Education Program of the Geneva Initiative. (I wonder if the U.S. Congress considers this to be within AID’s mandate!) The money isn’t paying for potable water, health clinics, or small factories. It’s paying for billboards and videos in Israel, featuring the faces of Palestinian and Israeli officials asking:

We are partners — what about you?

Typical, isn’t it? The implication of the signs and film clips is that the Palestinians are ready for peace, the question is only whether Israel wants it. Should be very effective with Israelis, right?

Guess what? It’s controversial. To the Palestinians. (h/t my brother)

In its latest campaign under the slogan “I am your partner. Are you my partner?” the Geneva Initiative, which promotes a model agreement as the basis for peace between Israel and the Palestians, has featured a number of senior Palestinians – but it turns out that the two most senior officials, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, did not give their permission for the use of their likenesses.

Which begs the question: is there anything Israel can do that won’t be considered inimical to peace? More and more I think the answer to that question is “no.”

2) I just did a search about the peace process at the New York Times website. Quite a few of the headlines proclaimed that “settlements” are the major obstacle to peace. Khaled Abu Toameh disagrees. (h/t Daily Alert Blog)

The major threat to the peace process is not a new housing project in a West Bank settlement, but the threats coming from the evil forces in Gaza, Damascus, Beirut and Tehran. No “moderate” Palestinian leader will dare make any concessions for peace as long as Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran are continuing to issue daily threats against “traitors.” They are opposed to peace because they believe that Israel has no right to exist and should be wiped off the map. The peace process will never move forward as long as these forces are actively working to destroy Israel and eliminate any Arab or Muslim who talks about compromise. As long as the U.S. and its Western allies continue to turn a blind eye to these real threats, Israel and the PA will never be able to make any progress towards peace.

Syria continues to play host to several radical Palestinian terror groups whose declared goal is to prevent the signing of any peace agreement between Israel and the PA. These groups have armed cells in the West Bank and Gaza that are ready to launch terror attacks against Israeli targets. The Palestinian “rejectionist” groups are under the control of the Syrians, who use them to advance their own interests the same way they have been using Hizbullah and other terror groups in Lebanon for decades. If Washington wants to ensure any kind of progress in the current peace talks and stop these radical groups, it should put pressure on the Syrian dictator in Damascus to rein them in.

Yaacov Lozowick elaborates:

So while there’s no problem with Palestinians building in areas we all know will eventually be part of their state (the corollaries of Midi’in Illit), it should be clear to all sides and the international community that the Palestinians, too, must refrain from actions which harm the negotiations. Things such as firing rockets at Israeli civilians, shooting at their cars, or stoning Israeli civilians. Shhh! There are negotiations going on, and all sides must refrain from harming them.

Why is this reciprocity not crystal clear? Because it isn’t, you know.

3) Sa’eb Ereqat demonstrates the flexibility of the Palestinian position:

PLO negotiations chief Sa’eb ‘Ereqat said that the Palestinians will quit the negotiations with Israel if the latter does not desist from all settlement construction, including in Jerusalem.

He stressed that Israel would be responsible for destroying the peace process if it continued with any construction at all.

4) The Western Wall of the Temple is the holiest place to Jews. And Jews praying there represent “sins and filth” according to a Palestinian Authority TV show:

On the Jewish New year, PA TV broadcast a documentary showing Jews praying at the Western Wall while the narrator called it “sin and filth.”
The same program also described Jewish history as “false.”

Credit for the image: Elder of Ziyon.

See previous editions: the original, part ii and part iii.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Israelly Cool dismisses it with:

Real serious journalism here. A provocative title and they’ve spoken with a couple of Tel Aviv condo salesmen. All in the name of demonizing the Jewish state.

Elder of Ziyon (who is seconded by FresoZionism) writes:

The title on the cover, and the cover itself, are very clearly implying that Israelis do not care about peace itself. The Time editors do not seem to understand basic English. Right now, there is peace, by and large.

On the other hand, Israelis know that the almost automatic result of giving more concessions is terror, not peace.

Hezbollah was not dismantled when its supposed raison d’etre disappeared when Israel withdrew behind UN-drawn borders – on the contrary, it was strengthened. Hamas didn’t get weakened by Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – it moved into the vacuum left by an impotent PA, that just happens to be Israel’s “peace partner.” What person it their right mind would support moving into act 3 of this drama?

Daled Amos questions Time’s methodology and JoshuaPundit, its timing.

Mere Rhetoric goes through Time’s history of questionable taste regarding israel, and My Right Word shows that the cover echoes a Newsweek one of years’ past.

Bret Stephens remembers a rhyme from Time Magazine.

In May 1977, when Menachem Begin was elected Israel’s prime minister, Time magazine set out to describe the man, beginning with the correct pronunciation of his last name: “Rhymes with Fagin,” the editors explained, invoking the character from Oliver Twist. Modern Israeli leader; archetypal Jewish lowlife: Get it?

The magazine’s other characterization of Begin was that he was “dangerous.” A year later, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat.

Maybe there’s something in the magazine’s DNA. This week, readers were treated to a cover story by Karl Vick titled, suggestively, “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.” That’s one way for Time to address the current state of negotiations between the Jewish state and its neighbors, which otherwise barely rate a mention in the article.

Instapundit summarizes VDH’s critique as Those Jews Sure Like Money, Don’t They?. VDH declares (via memeorandum)

I know it’s commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication.

Ironically, last week’s cover story asked Is America Islamaphobic. The article concluded with:

In Sheboygan County, the good old-fashioned American sense of community came through for Mirza, Hamad and the Khans. But when it comes to Muslims and Islam, America’s better angels are not always so accommodating.

Which sounds like a disapproving “yes” to me. But when the question “is this publication antisemitic?” Time Magazine seems to be leading the charge to say “yes” proudly.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In fact, one trouble is the profoundly emotional and irrational nature of many of the Arab demands and expectations—almost an inability to recognize the hard facts of life. The Arabs have seen Israel prosper on soil from which they barely scratched a living when they had it; Israel’s success is not only a blow to their pride but a constant rebuke to the dismal poverty in which most of the Arab world lives.

Then I started searching through Time’s archives to get a sense of how Time’s attitude towards Israel changed over the years. I’m just going to take arbitrary paragraphs. Some are from news stories; others from opinion pieces. And, of course, you can follow the links to see the whole context.

Israel and its enemies (June 22, 1970) focused on the threat presented by the Arab world armed by Russia.

It is on the ground that the odds are longest against the Israelis—at least in terms of numbers. With a population of 2,800.000 v. 51 million Arabs, Israel can mobilize an army of 275,000 against Arab armies of 398,000 men. The Israelis depend on air superiority and wits to protect themselves. One reason that Israeli soldiers have hunkered down for so long on the Bar-Lev Line under barely tolerable siege conditions is that their string of hedgehog forts and minefields serve as a kind of trip wire. The line, using relatively few men, is designed to delay any kind of major Egyptian cross-canal attack until troops stationed in the desert behind them can come up to help.

For a mobile army whose motto has always been “Attack,” the static warfare of the Bar-Lev Line is an often demoralizing experience. So is the war of attrition that Israel is being forced to fight on all its borders. Casualties have been heavy. In May, 61 soldiers and civilians were killed, the heaviest one-month toll since the 1967 war; on the basis of population, this is the equivalent of losing 4,300 U.S. troops in one month in Viet Nam. During the six days of the ’67 war, 777 soldiers and 26 Israeli civilians were killed. Since the war, 558 soldiers and 112 civilians have died, and the nation is feeling uneasy. “Before the Six-Day War,” says Bar-Lev, “there was general danger but day-to-day security. Today we have general security but day-to-day danger.”

A Nation sorely Beseiged ( 1974) also seems rather sympathetic, but has a mention of the “occupied West Bank.”.

The weekend alert could prove to be merely the opening drum roll of yet another crisis. Nov. 30 is the expiration date of the mandate for the presence of some 1,250 United Nations troops stationed along the Golan Heights cease-fire line, placed there last June under the cease-fire agreement worked out by Kissinger. Israel emphatically favors renewal of the mandate by the Security Council and might in fact regard nonrenewal as a casus belli.

To the ultrasensitive Israelis, the present period is all too reminiscent of the situation that existed in May 1967. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser loudly proclaimed his revocation of the U.N. mandate in the Sinai, the Israelis mobilized, and U.N. Secretary-General U Thant precipitately withdrew U.N. forces, thereby setting the stage for the Six-Day War.

American Jews and Israel, ( March 10, 1975) I think, serves as a marker for when attitudes started to change.

Belatedly, the Arabs discovered public relations and began to cultivate U.S. opinion. For all of these reasons, Americans paid more attention to the area’s problems than ever before and began to examine the Arab cause more sympathetically.

Partly because of their continued insistence on security through territory, the Israelis suddenly seem intransigent to many people. The perception comes at a time when, globally, Israel is increasingly isolated. The nations of Western Europe appear willing to bargain away Israel’s security in return for access to Arabian oil. Arab petropower seems aimed at blacklisting Jews from many transactions in international finance, causing President Gerald Ford last week sharply to condemn such practices (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). Last fall UNESCO voted to exclude Israel from some of its activities, and the United Nations General Assembly applauded the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Yasser Arafat, who frankly spoke at the U.N. of generations of war against Israel, as a legitimate spokesman for Palestinians.

In this atmosphere, minor and major events are seen as portents. Kissinger jokingly tries on an Arab headdress in Jordan; to some Jews this symbolizes his wooing of the Arabs (and because he himself is Jewish, he is believed by some other Jews to be bending over backward to demonstrate his impartiality). General George Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declares that there is strong Jewish-Israeli influence on Congress (true) and that Jews dominate most U.S. banks and newspapers (false). The simplistic statement is seen as a harbinger of antiSemitism. There is also alarm when such longtime friends of Israel as Senators Charles Percy and Henry Jackson dare to urge Israel to be flexible.

(Charles Percy was once considered friendly to Israel! I didn’t know that.)

Stroke Talbott took a sharply anti-Israel stand in What to do about Israel ( September 7, 1981):

Israel argues that it is strong, stable and pro-Western, while most of the Arab states are weak, fractious and radical. But one reason the Arabs are that way, and becoming more so, is precisely because of their impasse with Israel. The tragedy and chaos that have engulfed the once peaceful, prosperous nation of Lebanon are a direct spillover of the Palestinian problem. Anwar Sadat’s position both within Egypt and among his Arab brethren elsewhere will remain precarious unless he can point to some success in the Palestinian autonomy talks initiated by the Camp David agreements and due to resume in three weeks. By and large Sadat has shown forbearance over Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and flexibility over the delicate issue of West Bank water rights. Israel, for its part, has done everything it could to prevent the West Bank Arabs from genuinely governing themselves—a goal set by the Camp David accords.

That’s a much different attitude from what was reported in 1967! In 1967 it was the lack of Arabi realism that was the main problem in the MIddle East, but fourteen years later it was Israel’s failings that were responsible for Arab radicalism.

And in an essay title Israel at 40: The dream confronts Palestinian fury (despite the date, it must be from 1988) we have this:

Herein lies Israel’s biggest dilemma. When the virtues of Israel are enumerated, almost the first to be mentioned by Israelis and their supporters is the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. But when it comes to the Palestinians who live in the occupied territories, the Israelis are anything but democratic; Arabs have been denied fundamental civil and political rights. If present trends continue, Israel will have to choose between its democratic principles — which would eventually require sharing political power with Arabs — and its other profound ambition, to offer to Jews around the world a land they can always call their own. The Palestinian problem cannot be brushed aside by rhetoric or obliterated by military force.

Finally, in the February 26, 1990, Charles Krauthammer took aim at the prevailing media biases regarding Israel, in Judging Israel:

Last fall Anthony Lewis excoriated Israel for putting down a tax revolt in the town of Beit Sahour. He wrote: “Suppose the people of some small American town decided to protest Federal Government policy by withholding their taxes. The Government responded by sending in the Army . . . Unthinkable? Of course it is in this country. But it is happening in another . . . Israel.”

Middle East scholar Clinton Bailey tried to point out just how false this analogy is. Protesting Federal Government policy? The West Bank is not Selma. Palestinians are not demanding service at the lunch counter. They demand a flag and an army. This is insurrection for independence. They are part of a movement whose covenant explicitly declares its mission to be the abolition of the state of Israel.

Bailey tried manfully for the better analogy. It required him to posit 1) a pre-glasnost Soviet Union, 2) a communist Mexico demanding the return of “occupied Mexican” territory lost in the Mexican War (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California) and 3) insurrection by former Mexicans living in these territories demanding secession from the Union. Then imagine, Bailey continued, that the insurrectionists, supported and financed by Mexico and other communist states in Latin America, obstruct communications; attack civilians and police with stones and fire bombs; kill former Mexicans holding U.S. Government jobs (“collaborators”); and then begin a tax revolt. Now you have the correct analogy. Would the U.S., like Israel, then send in the Army? Of course.

But even this analogy falls flat because it is simply impossible to imagine an America in a position of conflict and vulnerability analogous to Israel’s. Milan Kundera once defined a small nation as “one whose very existence may be put in question at any moment; a small nation can disappear and knows it.” Czechoslovakia is a small nation. Judea was. Israel is. The U.S. is not.

A recent ADL poll shows that Americans support Israel roughly at three times the rate they support the Palestinians. It’s quite remarkable that the ratio is that good given the propaganda that is so often passed off as news. It makes me wonder what support for Israel would be if the media made any effort to be evenhanded.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Addendum from Meryl: Then there’s this little gem from 1977 that made me cancel my subscription then and forever.

His first name means “comforter.”

Menachem Begin (rhymes with Fagin) has been anything but that to his numerous antagonists.

My grandfather had been telling me for years that Time was anti-Semitic. This was the item that proved it to me.

But here’s a different question. Is the media losing the credibility war? Looking at poll numbers we see that a majority of Americans still support Israel by a ration of better than 3 to 1. The only political group that overall didn’t support Israel are Democrats, and they, as a group are predisposed to accept what they read in the MSM uncritically. Outside of Democrats, independents and Republicans, overall support Israel. So the MSM isn’t exactly winning lots of converts with its advocacy of Hamas.

Whether it’s the outright cheerleading for Hamas at Time magazine or the more subtle “Israel is right to defend its citizens but we wonder if it’s counterproductive” approach at the Washington Post, the idea that Israel should have to justify its self-defense is outrageous.

When you pretend that everything Israel does helps Hamas, condemn Israel for the lawful use of a weapon, accept dubious casualty figures unquestioningly, ignore or play down terrorists using mosques or UN buildings or Hamas looting an aid caravan, it’s no wonder that people think that an average Joe could do a better job of covering the story than you do.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.