Ehud Olmert is blaming “right-wing extremist” money from the U.S. for derailing his lovely little peace plan. And yet, he glosses over Mahmoud Abbas refusing to accept the peace plan Olmert offered while he was still in office.
He admits that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, never said yes to his 2008 proposal, but also insists that he never said no.
Here’s the thing: Not saying yes IS saying no. Mahmoud Abbas could have had his Palestinian state, but he refused. Because peace is not the goal. “Palestine” is the goal.
The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and too months ago, brother Abu Mazen could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank, but it is not our goal to score points against one another here. Our strategic goal, when we strive for peace, is not to do so at any price. We strive for peace on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip geographically connected.
So I call bullshit on you, Ehud Olmert. Sit down, shut up, and stop passing along lies.
In fact, last fall during the statehood brouhaha, Abbas occasionally and in English said what he’s said in Arabic all along, namely that even a pre-67 lines peace must be accompanied by the “right of return” (which, I assume all reading this post know, is an imaginary right applied to no one else), and occasionally that he would never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state within any borders.
Worth asking again, if anyone would do so: The Arabs always stated flatly from 1949 on that the pre-67 lines were not accepted borders and never would be; they were lines at which the Arabs had for the moment agreed to stop fighting but those lines would be crossed when the time came to destroy the Zionist entity.
So how come they suddenly became sacrosanct?
How ’bout we settle on the 930 BC borders of King David’s Israel?
“He admits that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, never said yes to his 2008 proposal, but also insists that he never said no.
“Here’s the thing: Not saying yes IS saying no.”
Meryl’s conclusion reminded me of an anecdote I read about Queen Elizabeth I in “Renaissance Diplomacy” by Garrett Matingley. King Philip of Spain proposed to her after Queen Mary, his wife and Elizabeth’s half-sister, died. Elizabeth berated the Spanish ambassador to England when, a few months later, Philip married someone else (a niece, if I recall correctly). I quote from memory, not exactly.
“Your master must have loved me very much to marry someone else so soon,” Elizabeth scolded the ambassador.
The ambassador protested that she had refused to marry the King.
“I gave your master no settled answer.”
Mattingley went on to write that here was the quintessential Elizabeth, who kept poor Robert Dudley waiting a lifetime and who elevated procrastination to a fine art, even a method of government.
Stretch,
That’s pretty much what the original League of Nations Mandate specified for a Jewish National Home, all of the territory west of the Jordan and what is now Jordan east of the river (Edom, Moab, and Ammon). The Zionists agreed to let an Arab state have the east of Jordan portion under the impression that they were safeguarding themselves against Arab (and British) hostility to the idea of a Jewish National Home. That agreement removed three-quarters of the Mandate’s territory from “Palestine” and had not the slightest effect on Arab acceptance of a National Home. Every time Zionists compromise about land in Eretz Israel, Jews get the shaft. No more.
If people want peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs they should cut off the latter from the international dole they have lived on for 60 years and insist that the Arab countries where they live extend citizenship to them. Also we should insist that The Wahhabist Entity accept them as potential subjects of His Wahhabist Majesty. When The Wahhabist Entity revised its naturalization law a few years ago, one of the provisions was that no Palestinian Arab could become a naturalized subject.
Maybe their “Brother Arabs” will make up the lost welfare funds to the Palestinian Arabs, but I rather doubt it. Arabs are nototious skinflints when it comes to helping their “Arab Brothers,” they make big promises then give little. If the Palestinian Arabs have to work or starve they won’t have time to plot terrorism.
We should give this peace processing a rest for, oh, about fifty years. Maybe if we came back to it then the Arabs might be ready to make peace, but even that is dubious. The war will last until the Arabs get sick of provoking the Israelis into killing them. When they give up trying to attack Israel and to kill Jews, then there will be peace, and not before. Nothing Israel can do will have the slightest effect until that time, except to fight ferociously when the Arabs attack. No compromises on Israel’s part will bring that day forward. Surrenders of land will not bring peace but only provide Israel’s enemies with bases for further attacks, as we saw with Gaza. For peace to come, the Arabs must have a change of heart.