How clueless is the Obama administration? This clueless:
The time has come to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states: a Jewish state of Israel, and a viable, independent and contiguous Palestine that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes and unleashes the full potential of the Palestinian people.
Sen. Mitchell has worked hard with the parties over the past few weeks to find the right formula through which to begin these talks. We will continue that effort in the coming weeks, because it is our strong and unequivocal view that we must move beyond talking about talks and get to the hard work of addressing the core issues that separate Israelis and Palestinians.
We have reached the end of the peace talk era, according to Barry Rubin, and I agree with him. Hamas has no intention of giving up its attempt to destroy the state of Israel. Fatah has no intention of coming to peaceable terms with Israel, either, as has been shown by Mahmoud Abbas’ many references to “armed struggle” if peace talks fail, his insistence on the “right of return” (flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians descended from the original refugees), and his talk about the “Judaization” of Jerusalem. And the world simply will not accept these facts at face value, preferring instead to believe that Fatah is moderate, and Hamas will moderate someday, if only Israel gives up enough for that to happen. But that day is done.
Israel knows that if it yields territory and is attacked from that territory, no matter how great the provocation, it cannot depend on international support but can rather know it will face international condemnation.
What does this say about a two-state solution? Israel pulls out of the West Bank, a Palestinian state is created (either on the West Bank or that plus the Gaza Strip), that state either attacks Israel or allows (and encourages) terrorists to do so across the border.
Israel has no response to defend itself that isn’t highly costly.
Bottom line: No Israeli government will make such a deal; the Israeli people will not support such a deal.
It’s not just that. The Palestinians, having had their hopes raised by Obama introducing the insistence of a complete settlement freeze, refuse to so much as talk to Israel without having that condition met. And the media place the blame on Israel for refusing to freeze “settlements,” not for the Palestinians for refusing to meet with Israel. There is also the false meme that Israel does not want to negotiate with the Palestinians, spread most willingly by the AP:
Israel’s desire to push forward with the peace process is not clear. Several months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under U.S. pressure, joined his predecessors in endorsing Palestinian statehood, albeit grudgingly and with caveats. But the idea is not popular with rightist members dominant in his coalition, and efforts to coax Israel into halting all settlement construction in the West Bank have not succeeded, resulting in apparent stalemate.
Note the text in bold. This is now AP boilerplate about Netanyahu and a Palestinian state. The “caveats,” by the way, are the insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, have a demilitarized state, and also sign an agreement that the establishment of the state of Palestine ends all hostilities. (Those are “caveats,” but demanding that millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees flood Israel are considered a legitimate demand.)
Israel is willing to negotiate for peace. But Israel is not willing to give up land and then see herself attacked by terrorists from that land, such as happened in Gaza. Without a true peace agreement, acceptable to both sides, there will be nothing further from Israel in the near future. And for that, we can place part of the blame on the Obama administration and its utterly clueless Middle East peace team.
You can say “Now is the time” as many times as you like. Wishing doesn’t make it so.
So Israel, “grudgingly and with caveats” (apparently one such caveat is “we don’t want to be killed by our neighbors”) accepts the idea of a two-state solution. Problem is, of course, that despite soft words whispered to western diplomats and journalists, the Palestinians haven’t reciprocated or even pretended to do so.
As part of Oslo they were going to accept Israel but the most they did was say that they would consider the provisions of its charter about destroying Israel “iniperative.” However, a cursory web search shows they never actually did so, the offendeding provisions are still in their charter, and last summer’s Fatah convention reiterated and re-endorsed the idea of a one state solution.
But that’s OK because as I have discerned, the road to peace in the world’s eyes is: “From the Jews, deeds; from the Arabs, words.”
Good expose. However, I think you missed a point, which may be minor and may not. Note the first quoted paragraph from the linked document:
“The time has come to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states: a Jewish state of Israel, and a viable, independent and contiguous Palestine that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes and unleashes the full potential of the Palestinian people.”
How can you turn the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into one contiguous state of Palestine and still retain anything that looks like the 1967 borders for Israel?
Wolfwalker,
You can’t. I see they did not mention a contiguouos Israel. Here we see the true aims of the Obama “smart diplomacy”. They really are intending to sell out Israel. The Euros should watch carefully. When they get into trouble and call for their ally America (under Obama and his consiglieri) to come help the reply will be “So sorry, we’re busy with financing health care so we can’t finance the military. Best of luck (to your enemies).”
The Israel position for peace is still similar to the one Israel offerred in August 1967, negotiated peace, recognized borders for Israel, and Israel will give back all the captured land except Jerusalem. The Arab response then was the Three No’s: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. For most of them that is still the position. That’s basically what the Palis say, when you distangle their lies. They’ll do some negotiating, but never in good faith, and they’ll always demand more and more, no matter what Israel offers.
There should be a moratorium on the “Peace Process”. Let it cool for a while. Israel’s enemies will still attack, but they’ve been doing that throughout the Peace Process so what else is new? Israel should smash their mouths when necessary. If the Palis see they are making no progress in ten years via their terrorism wars, then maybe they’ll be ready to try a real, negotiated in good faith peace, though I doubt it.