http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/27/likud-the-party-of-annexation.html
QuoteLikud: The Party of Annexation
by Elisheva Goldberg Nov 27, 2012 2:45 PM EST
Leaders of the organized American Jewish community often claim that across the political spectrum, Israelis have embraced the two-state solution. But as the gates of the Likud primary polls swung shut late last night, the doors to a one-state solution swung open.
Take a look at the top 15 Knesset candidates nominated yesterday by the Likud, who roundly support annexing large parts of the West Bank.
This list was compiled with help from the staff of the new Israeli website "sixtyone." All sources are in Hebrew:
Gideon Sa'ar (#2): "Peace will not be achieved by uprooting Jews from the land of Israel. To the extent to which we build up the land (read: settle) we safeguard the practical and spiritual Land of Israel." "According to our faith, Jews have always lived in Hebron."
Gilad Erdan (#3): "The Palestinians are taking international, unilateral action — Israel, too, will take unilateral action. Israel should announce the annexation of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria."
Silvan Shalom (#4): "We cannot rule out the possibility of annexing the settlement blocs."
Yisrael Katz (#5): "Israel will need to take unilateral steps to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria."
Dani Danon (#6): "The real solution is to extend Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria."
Reuven Rivlin (#7): "Better that the Palestinians become citizens of the state than divide the Land." "So if they come and say to me: 'You decide, one state or divide the Land of Israel,' I will say that the greater danger is division."
Moshe (Bugi) Ya'alon (#8) — [Note: Bugi is "old school" Likud and stands as an exception to the annexationist elite on its way to power]: "The essence of Zionist existence in Israel: settlements across the country."
Ze'ev Elkin (#9): In the political sphere — annexation of the settlements in Judea and Samaria. Because we need to attempt to arrive at...we need move to annex Judea and Samaria, at least those parts of it that are in the Israeli consensus.
Tzipi Hotovely (#10): "The state of Israel needs to put her unilateral solution on the table. Not the unilateral solution of withdrawals, but the unilateral solution of declaring sovereignty over Judea and Samaria."
Yariv Lavin (#11): "The Land of Israel is precious to me. Our right to this land, all of it, is unshakable. It is a birthright, handed down from generation to generation. I have no right to take [that birthright] away from my children, and an obligation to bequeath it to their children." [In a separate statement:] "Regardless of the Palestinian [UN] move, we should have extended sovereignty [to the West Bank] long ago...but the Palestinian unilateral move is good timing."
[And one more, because it's hard not to quote the proud homophobe some are calling the "real winner" of these Likud elections]:
Moshe Feiglin (#15): "I'll summarize it for you in one sentence: Until we're ready to say, full-throated, that "this is our land!" yes, also Gaza. Until we declare sovereignty on all areas of the Land of Israel in our hands, we have no real solution to the situation there [Gaza]."
In a few days Mahmoud Abbas will head to the UN with his palms up. But even if he does make it past the majority vote, the Likud leaders they find in office when they get back don't sound particularly interested in complying. And it's not just Likud. Good chunks of Yisrael Beiteinu, and the entirety of the Jewish Home party headed by Netanyahu's former chief of staff Naftali Bennett, are wholeheartedly and openly pro-annexation of Area C. Some of them are even up for rebuilding the Jewish Temple in the spot where the Al-Aqsa Mosque currently stands. And with a Likud lineup like the one above, they might just be able to. Speedily, and in our day.
On the same day old 'moderates' like Benny Begin - son of Menachem, he left Likud in the 90s because he opposed Oslo and supported Arab autonomy under a Jewish state - were voted off the list. Ehud Barak also announced his retirement from politics. On the upside apparently the Foreign Office has been beaten over the PA's UN recognition bid. Lieberman's suggestion of 'dismantling' the PA for heading to the UN won't be state policy.
The next government is likely to be Likud-Lieberman (from what I've read of that merger, Bibi gets a term and then Lieberman takes over) with parties like Shas backing it. It won't be long before the PA'll be the only body in the region trying for a two-state solution.
The threat for Israel of this shift is that I think it leads us closer to this problem:
QuoteHow Palestinians Can Finally Achieve Independence
By Jeffrey Goldberg Nov 26, 2012 11:30 PM GMT
The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech last week that his group remained committed to a policy of indiscriminate murder. He gave this policy a different name, of course. "Resistance," he said, "is the shortest way to liberate Palestine."
So, how's resistance working out for you so far, Mr. Prime Minister?
The Palestinian liberation movement is one of the world's least successful post-World War II national liberation movements. At the time of the United Nations partition of Palestine, in 1947, the world body had 57 members. Today, the UN has 193 member states. Palestine is not among them.
Blame for this sad fact can be apportioned widely: Arab nations rejected the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, and instead invaded the nascent state of Israel -- and then lost to it on the battlefield. Egypt and Jordan occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 but did nothing to bring about an independent Palestine. The Arab world at large, though possessing the oil- derived resources to free the Palestinians from material misery, sequesters them in refugee camps in order to perpetuate the conflict. Israel has occasionally shown an interest in freeing Gaza and the West Bank, which came into its possession in 1967, but has more often focused on keeping a permanent hold on the West Bank, colonizing it in destructive, and self-destructive, ways.
Not Blameless
To blame everyone but the Palestinians for their current condition, however, is to treat them as a people without independent agency. Palestinian leaders have made a series of terrible decisions that have brought their people nothing. Terrorism -- the Palestine Liberation Organization will be remembered for its great innovations in the field of terror -- brought the Palestinians attention, but no state. Demonization of Israel brought the Palestinians great emotional satisfaction, but not a state.
Today, the two main (and warring) Palestinian parties are implementing strategies that are similarly flawed. Hamas, as its prime minister says, is committed to "resistance." This means waging an endless war of attrition against Israeli civilians and advancing a religiously inspired, hate-filled, maximalist argument for the slaughter of all Israeli Jews, in both the West Bank and in Israel proper. (If you doubt this description of Hamas's agenda, please read the group's covenant. Suffice it to say that the covenant is frankly annihilationist, arguing that God himself demands the killing of the perfidious Jews. Hamas could always change, but it would have to repudiate its very essence.)
This strategy might actually work if Hamas got ahold of three or four nuclear weapons, or if the Jews of Israel would simply acquiesce to their own massacre. Hamas's arms supplier, Iran, is working toward nuclear-weapons capability, though it doesn't seem likely that officials in Tehran would turn over control of a nuclear weapon to their friends in Gaza. It also seems unlikely that the Jews will agree to be slaughtered.
Hamas believes that its war of attrition -- the latest round of which ended last week -- will eventually wear Israel down, causing its Jews to abandon their country before the final, God-endorsed massacre. This is not a realistic expectation.
The current strategy of the more moderate leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, is less bloodthirsty but is also grounded in unreality. Part of this strategy is to continue to argue against the legitimacy of the Jewish state -- against the idea that Israel is the historic home of the Jewish people. This argument, aside from ignoring archaeology and history, has failed to convince Jews that they are not who they believe themselves to be. (Many Israelis have also advanced the argument that the Palestinians are not who they say they are. This, too, has failed.)
Not Unrecognized
The second prong of this strategy is to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza from the UN General Assembly, the world body that 65 years ago offered the Palestinians a state. On Nov. 29, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is scheduled to make this appeal in New York, and he is almost certain to gain some level of heightened recognition for the Palestinians.
This is very nice, and it will make Abbas, at least, feel very good before his imminent retirement. But it won't move the Palestinians any closer to statehood. The only country that can grant the Palestinians statehood in Gaza and the West Bank is Israel. Israeli leaders are opposed to Abbas's gambit, and Israel's Western allies will protect it from the fallout of whatever happens at the UN.
There is, however, a strategy the Palestinians could implement immediately that would help move them toward independence: They could give up their dream of independence.
It's a very simple idea. When Abbas goes before the UN, he shouldn't ask for recognition of an independent state. Instead, he should say the following: "Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza 45 years ago, and shows no interest in letting go of the West Bank, in particular. We, the Palestinian people, recognize two things: The first is that we are not strong enough to push the Israelis out. Armed resistance is a path to nowhere. The second is that the occupation is permanent. The Israelis are here to stay. So we are giving up our demand for independence. Instead, we are simply asking for the vote. Israel rules our lives. We should be allowed to help pick Israel's rulers."
Reaction would be seismic and instantaneous. The demand for voting rights would resonate with people around the world, in particular with American Jews, who pride themselves on support for both Israel and for civil rights at home. Such a demand would also force Israel into an untenable position; if it accedes to such a demand, it would very quickly cease to be the world's only Jewish-majority state, and instead become the world's 23rd Arab-majority state. If it were to refuse this demand, Israel would very quickly be painted by former friends as an apartheid state.
Israel's response, then, can be reasonably predicted: Israeli leaders eager to prevent their country from becoming a pariah would move to negotiate the independence, with security caveats, of a Palestinian state on the West Bank, and later in Gaza, as well. Israel would simply have no choice.
This won't happen, of course. Israeli intransigence has always had a friend in Palestinian shortsightedness.
(Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist and a national correspondent for the Atlantic. The opinions expressed are his own.)
The problem that the Palestinians will start to be smart? I don't see how that is a problem.
Quote from: Valmy on November 28, 2012, 12:49:24 AM
The problem that the Palestinians will start to be smart? I don't see how that is a problem.
No. That if the Israeli right becomes more attracted to a one state solution then Israel either ceases to be a state of the Jewish people or it ceases to be a democracy. Either, in my view, would be disastrous.
Edit: I wonder if part of this is a function of the evangelical support for Israel and part of Bibi's playing US politics. I can't imagine that the diaspora would long support Israel as much if it became a genuinely apartheid state with Palestinian Bantustans. On the other hand I don't think evangelicals would care one way or the other.
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
Yeah, I missed that part. :huh:
Again that analysis and grand plan at the end assumes that Palestinians have no internal politics, and they have only outside factors, and are charactless actors of the Jewish Question of the 21st century.
They are not. Let Abbas drop the claim on independence even as a bluff, and a dozen screaming populist would-be leaders would jump up to denounce him as a jewish agent and an enemy of the people, vowing that they would rather die than give up on a free Palestine.
Quote from: Tamas on November 28, 2012, 04:17:41 AM
Again that analysis and grand plan at the end assumes that Palestinians have no internal politics, and they have only outside factors, and are charactless actors of the Jewish Question of the 21st century.
They are not. Let Abbas drop the claim on independence even as a bluff, and a dozen screaming populist would-be leaders would jump up to denounce him as a jewish agent and an enemy of the people, vowing that they would rather die than give up on a free Palestine.
Yeah, pretty much. The internal factors in both Israel and Palestine are often forgotten with people assuming they're just like countries in a strategy game.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
Disastrous for Isreali Jews, not necessarily anyone else.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
Because millions would be killed, and terrorists would inherit Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Where is Meridor?
In other news, what do we feel about Abbas seeking the UN to upgrade the status of Palestine today?
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 28, 2012, 12:53:18 AM
No. That if the Israeli right becomes more attracted to a one state solution then Israel either ceases to be a state of the Jewish people or it ceases to be a democracy. Either, in my view, would be disastrous.
Ah I guess I was thinking the Pals forcing the Israelis hand in a deft manuever to gain independence.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
Well this particular way of that happening, having their mortal enemies be the new majority, would be pretty disastrous for them.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 28, 2012, 09:49:12 AM
Where is Meridor?
It's the dark land where Merithyn forged the One Ring.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
I think the israeli jews think that this would be a disaster since they are conviced that if they are under arab political rule that israel will be pogromed judenleer. This is what is driving the sabra israelis. They are already convinced that both the single state solution is disastrous (Partition, Black September and Lebanon are repeated examples of that), and now they are convinced that a two state solution is also disastrous (gaza, hizballah and intifadas have conviced them of that).
The Palestinian puppet state option, however, seems viable given what Fayad and Abbas have done in the west bank. To the sabra israeli mind
single state - civil war, massacre and genocide
two state - intifada and qassams
puppet state - trade, business, peace and quiet
Think of this as a choice, Likud which has had the position vis a vis oslo - "we don't think it is going to work but we might as well give it a go" is migrating towards "it failed because of what the palestinians are and the uncivilized barbarians need to be controlled or they will return to violence".
I sort of agree with Likud. The Oslo process has failed, or more generally the peace process has failed. We will not have peace this generation and we will not have peace until the Palestinians cease seeking justice and victory and rather try for peace and compromise.
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 03:00:33 PM
I think the israeli jews think that this would be a disaster since they are conviced that if they are under arab political rule that israel will be pogromed judenleer. This is what is driving the sabra israelis. They are already convinced that both the single state solution is disastrous (Partition, Black September and Lebanon are repeated examples of that), and now they are convinced that a two state solution is also disastrous (gaza, hizballah and intifadas have conviced them of that).
The Palestinian puppet state option, however, seems viable given what Fayad and Abbas have done in the west bank. To the sabra israeli mind
single state - civil war, massacre and genocide
two state - intifada and qassams
puppet state - trade, business, peace and quiet
Think of this as a choice, Likud which has had the position vis a vis oslo - "we don't think it is going to work but we might as well give it a go" is migrating towards "it failed because of what the palestinians are and the uncivilized barbarians need to be controlled or they will return to violence".
I sort of agree with Likud. The Oslo process has failed, or more generally the peace process has failed. We will not have peace this generation and we will not have peace until the Palestinians cease seeking justice and victory and rather try for peace and compromise.
I used to more or less agree with this position, but I think we need to stop blaming Fatah/West Bank for the transgressions of Hamas/Gaza. The dynamic in the West Bank seems to be about the adjusting the border, coming up with some sort of compensation for refugees, and water rights. It's no longer about Israel's right to exist.
An Israeli could argue that's only a function of Abbas' pragmatism backed up by US supplied arms; so seek some sort of international guarantee that if the West Bank is granted statehood no violence will cross the border. A single rocket gets launched, the UN comes in, administers the area and polices it, until such time that all parties believe cross border violence is no longer an issue.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 28, 2012, 03:45:24 PM
I used to more or less agree with this position, but I think we need to stop blaming Fatah/West Bank for the transgressions of Hamas/Gaza. The dynamic in the West Bank seems to be about the adjusting the border, coming up with some sort of compensation for refugees, and water rights. It's no longer about Israel's right to exist.
An Israeli could argue that's only a function of Abbas' pragmatism backed up by US supplied arms; so seek some sort of international guarantee that if the West Bank is granted statehood no violence will cross the border. A single rocket gets launched, the UN comes in, administers the area and polices it, until such time that all parties believe cross border violence is no longer an issue.
The thing is that FATAH isn't trying the negotiated peace either. The issue of refugees has not been discussed between the parties and every time Israel has suggested compensation and relocation the palestinains has walked out of the negotiations. This is the issue that has killed all the peace proposals. Borders, Jerusalem and Water have been discussed and basically resolved and when refugees comes up the palestinians walk out. The Palestinian position hasn't changed and that is return for whoever wants to.
The thing is that refugees = israel's right to exist and a palestinian majority israel can unify with a palestinian majority palestine any time it wants. The issues the palestinians are willing to concede on are the issue that will be irrellevant when israel is palestinian majority.
I agree that Abbas is not to blame for Gazan rockets. It's just that gaza rockets are nothing more than an irritant (and deadly danger to anybody who gets hit).
With all due respect Puff that doesn't make any sense. An Israeli says "now let's talk about refugees," then the Palestinian negotiators get up and leave the room??
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 28, 2012, 04:09:09 PM
With all due respect Puff that doesn't make any sense. An Israeli says "now let's talk about refugees," then the Palestinian negotiators get up and leave the room??
Yes, but more sophisticated. At the US embassy in paris Arafat managed to delay the issue til the next day due to an invitation from Chirac. That scene ended with Madeleine Albright running after the escaping Arafat's car at the Elysee Palace. When Olmert had managed to resolve all non-refugee issue with Abbas in private talks in Jerusalem (iirc) Abbas said that he would return the next day to continue talks, the following day Abbas declared he was boycotting talks.
What does Arafat have to do with anything? He's glowing like a Christmas tree, no longer able to set policy.
I've never read anything about an unwillingness on Abbas' part to discuss refugees. Quite the contrary, it's an issue the Palestinians bring up all the time but the Israelis don't seem comfortable discussing it.
Could it be that the incident you are referring to involves Bibi's crossing Obama's "line in the sand" by building more settlements on disputed land?
Quote from: Neil on November 28, 2012, 11:41:26 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 28, 2012, 09:49:12 AM
Where is Meridor?
It's the dark land where Merithyn forged the One Ring.
If that were true, he'd still be on the Likud list.
I wonder how many of these Likud types think it would have been a better idea to push the Palestinians out of the West Bank/Gaza Strip originally, and not have to deal with all this crap decades later.
Much harder to get away with the necessary atrocities that would have required these days.
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 03:00:33 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on November 28, 2012, 01:11:17 AM
Why would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
I think the israeli jews think that this would be a disaster since they are conviced that if they are under arab political rule that israel will be pogromed judenleer. This is what is driving the sabra israelis. They are already convinced that both the single state solution is disastrous (Partition, Black September and Lebanon are repeated examples of that), and now they are convinced that a two state solution is also disastrous (gaza, hizballah and intifadas have conviced them of that).
The Palestinian puppet state option, however, seems viable given what Fayad and Abbas have done in the west bank. To the sabra israeli mind
single state - civil war, massacre and genocide
two state - intifada and qassams
puppet state - trade, business, peace and quiet
Think of this as a choice, Likud which has had the position vis a vis oslo - "we don't think it is going to work but we might as well give it a go" is migrating towards "it failed because of what the palestinians are and the uncivilized barbarians need to be controlled or they will return to violence".
I sort of agree with Likud. The Oslo process has failed, or more generally the peace process has failed. We will not have peace this generation and we will not have peace until the Palestinians cease seeking justice and victory and rather try for peace and compromise.
The danger of Isreal trying that puppet state idea is that they might think that they're pulling a puppet's string, only to find out at some point that they're holding a tiger's tail.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 28, 2012, 04:53:38 PM
What does Arafat have to do with anything? He's glowing like a Christmas tree, no longer able to set policy.
I've never read anything about an unwillingness on Abbas' part to discuss refugees. Quite the contrary, it's an issue the Palestinians bring up all the time but the Israelis don't seem comfortable discussing it.
Could it be that the incident you are referring to involves Bibi's crossing Obama's "line in the sand" by building more settlements on disputed land?
Abbas doesn't talk about it in meeting with Israelis. The Israelis are uncomfortable talking about it because it is a morally grey area where alot of people are going to get royally screwed over. The Israelis, however, are actually talking about it. Abbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
The incidents I refer to happened when Clinton was President and the second when Olmert was PM.
Abbas has talked about the refugees. In arabic he says all refugees have the right to return and in english he says he personally would not return. The palestinians have never brought up the issue of refugees other than their maximalist position of right of return for all and no compensation for mizrahi and sefardi jews. To be blunt, that is a demand not a discussion.
The palestinians simply do not bring up the issue in negotiations or discussions. To be honest they rarely if ever propose compromises, this is all done by the israelis. The issue which led up to the present boycott of talks by abbas (before this settlement issue was brought up) was the leaking of proposals the palestinians were working on to resolve the refugee issue (among others) to Al-Jazeera. This leak ended the careers of the people working on it (including Saeb Erekat) and Abbas hasn't talked since.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12285739
The one time they brought up the issue it was leaked and lives were threatened. Before then they had ever brought this up, or at least kept it secret. However, don't take my word for it take Dennis Ross' and Madelein Albright's.
Quote from: dps on November 28, 2012, 07:18:11 PM
The danger of Isreal trying that puppet state idea is that they might think that they're pulling a puppet's string, only to find out at some point that they're holding a tiger's tail.
Agree, they have to, at the same time, keep the puppet viable and legitimate as well as peaceful and safe. All the time dealing with a leader who's legitimacy itself depends on demonstrating to his own people that he is continuing resistance and fighting for justice when he is patently doing no such thing.
If anything HAMAS in Gaza makes the west bank puppet possible. As long as the west bankers can get their genocidal anti-semitic fix from cheering on HAMAS rocketmen then they won't overthrow Abbas and do the same from Ramallah.
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 07:25:12 PM
The palestinians have never brought up the issue of refugees other than their maximalist position of right of return for all and no compensation for mizrahi and sefardi jews. To be blunt, that is a demand not a discussion.
OK, I can buy this.
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 07:25:12 PM
Abbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
<snip>
In arabic he says all refugees have the right to return and in english he says he personally would not return.
Those aren't really opposites. It's not any different than me strongly supporting the right of Americans to own firearms under the 2nd Amendment, while not owning any myself, nor wanting to do so.
Quote from: dps on November 28, 2012, 08:18:01 PM
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 07:25:12 PM
Abbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
<snip>
In arabic he says all refugees have the right to return and in english he says he personally would not return.
Those aren't really opposites. It's not any different than me strongly supporting the right of Americans to own firearms under the 2nd Amendment, while not owning any myself, nor wanting to do so.
yes, they aren't real opposites, but to people like sheilbh this allows them to interpret that he is willing to budge on the issue when he isn't and then blame netanyahu, which is what their gut tells them they want to believe.
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 08:20:58 PM
Quote from: dps on November 28, 2012, 08:18:01 PM
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 07:25:12 PM
Abbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
<snip>
In arabic he says all refugees have the right to return and in english he says he personally would not return.
Those aren't really opposites. It's not any different than me strongly supporting the right of Americans to own firearms under the 2nd Amendment, while not owning any myself, nor wanting to do so.
yes, they aren't real opposites, but to people like sheilbh this allows them to interpret that he is willing to budge on the issue when he isn't and then blame netanyahu, which is what their gut tells them they want to believe.
I don't see how. The Palestinian leadership has made it pretty clear that they won't sign any final agreement that doesn't include the right of return for everyone.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 28, 2012, 09:49:12 AM
Where is Meridor?
Meridor, Begin and Eitan are the most prominent 'liberals' dumped by Likud.
QuoteWhy would it be disastrous if Israel ceased to be a Jewish state?
In my view given history there needs to be a refuge for the Jewish people where their security is their own. If Israel was a one, democratic state from Med to Jordan, most Jews would be better off coming to the US or Canada, or Australia, or the UK.
QuoteI've never read anything about an unwillingness on Abbas' part to discuss refugees. Quite the contrary, it's an issue the Palestinians bring up all the time but the Israelis don't seem comfortable discussing it.
The Palestinian position on refugees is that of the Arab Peace Initiative, there's a right to return for a 'just amount' - Abbas has told everyone that a 'just amount' doesn't mean everyone. According to Condi's memoir the rather in-depth discussions on refugees included her proposal that Israel accept 5 000 (chosen by Israel) and the US would help fund the repatriation of the rest (either in the Middle East, in a new Palestine or, she suggested, in South America). That was accepted by Olmert and rejected by the PA.
According to the PA's papers that were leaked, Abbas did accept those terms for 10 000 refugees over 10 years - subject to an overall agreement. That's what Viking mentions as the 'one time it was discussed' and there's been no peace negotiations since.
That's true so far as it goes but I think the problem with direct negotiations in the past 18 months to two years is different. The PA won't talk unless Israel freezes settlement construction. Israel won't agree to that unless the PA recognises Israel as a Jewish state (before negotiations, it's worth noting that neither Jordan nor Egypt recognise Israel as a Jewish state). The PA won't do that, publicly they've called it 'racist', privately the view Erekat put was 'This is a non-issue. I dare the Israelis to write to the UN and change their name to the 'Great Eternal Historic State of Israel'. This is their issue, not mine.' The US wasted a lot of time pushing the Palestinians to accept Israel's pre-condition and the Israelis to accept the PA's.
I think Israel is a Jewish state but, I worry in some of the ways that certain Israeli politicians talk about - especially Ayalon and Lieberman - that there is an element of racism and of 'population exchange' in getting people to agree that it's a Jewish state.
QuoteAbbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
This isn't true. His comment on returning to Safed was noted in Israel particularly because he subsequently said more or less the same thing in Arabic on an Egyptian news channel. The clarifications by his spokesman on right to return are very careful - they've not given it up (who would, it's for negotiating), they're committed to it under UN resolutions and along the lines the API has set out.
Edit: Incidentally I thought this statement by Olmert on the PA's UN bid was interesting:
QuoteI believe that the Palestinian request from the United Nations is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution. Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it. Once the United Nations will lay the foundation for this idea, we in Israel will have to engage in a serious process of negotiations, in order to agree on specific borders based on the 1967 lines, and resolve the other issues. It is time to give a hand to, and encourage, the moderate forces amongst the Palestinians. Abu-Mazen and Salam Fayyad need our help. It's time to give it.
Quote from: dps on November 28, 2012, 08:24:10 PM
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 08:20:58 PM
Quote from: dps on November 28, 2012, 08:18:01 PM
Quote from: Viking on November 28, 2012, 07:25:12 PM
Abbas is doing the Arafat thing of saying one thing in arabic and the opposite in hebrew. MEMRI makes this harder since they keep translating everything he says.
<snip>
In arabic he says all refugees have the right to return and in english he says he personally would not return.
Those aren't really opposites. It's not any different than me strongly supporting the right of Americans to own firearms under the 2nd Amendment, while not owning any myself, nor wanting to do so.
yes, they aren't real opposites, but to people like sheilbh this allows them to interpret that he is willing to budge on the issue when he isn't and then blame netanyahu, which is what their gut tells them they want to believe.
I don't see how. The Palestinian leadership has made it pretty clear that they won't sign any final agreement that doesn't include the right of return for everyone.
I know that, you know that, but there is a whole bunch of eternal optimists that think that Palestinians are the good guys (tm) and think that if only the Israelis start behaving nicely the Palestinians will give up on this very insensible demand and be reasonable. So hints like that are more than enough to get people to ignore the quite obvious clear and oft repeated statements to the opposite.
In response to the UN bid Israel's announced new settlement blocks and have withheld the PA's tax revenues (which of course pays for their cooperative security forces). For myself I used to think Lieberman's lot were extremists who shouldn't be in government, but that was it. I'm no longer sure if the Israeli right believes in a two-state solution, which is a problem.
Abbas stood in the UNGA and said he doesn't want to delegitimise Israel and that the PA acknowledges it's right to 'exist in peace and security' and that they only want 'to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel'. When all Israeli responses, from the UN ambassador, the PM and the FM then repeatedly reference 'Judea and Samaria' and that 'Israel, as the state of the Jewish People, has a right and claim to areas, the status of which is under dispute, in the Land of Israel' then it just doesn't build confidence that this Israeli government actually believes in a two-state solution. If peace were offered would they take it? I think Eban's line is reversed at the moment :(
Specifically on the Likud primary here's a conservative, hawkish opinion piece that I quite liked:
QuoteThe politics of petulance
Israel is moving to the right — unsurprisingly, given the threats on every front — but the Likud just took that shift to a whole new level. Electing a band of grandstanding populists, and announcing settlement plans as a kind of punishment to the Palestinians, won't help Israel negotiate the treacherous new regional realities
By DAVID HOROVITZ December 3, 2012, 3:41 pm 22
Michael Eitan, I can understand. Never mind that he comes from a veteran Herut background, and that he took his job as the minister responsible for government services extremely seriously. He was a prominent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's settlement policies, entreating his colleagues to limit expansion to those areas Israel reasonably expects to retain under any permanent accord with the Palestinians. And he was the leading public opponent of the curious arrangement under which the Likud and Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu will run on a merged list for the elections on January 22.
Clearly he had to go.
Dan Meridor, likewise. Too soft. Too ready to believe an accommodation with the Palestinians might be possible. Too determined that Israel at least work to create a better climate in which negotiations might resume and make progress. Too insistent, damn him, on the rule of law, on respect for the Supreme Court, on moderation.
Dump him.
But Benny Begin?
Benny Begin, son of the legendary leader who brought the Likud to power in 1977? Benny Begin, the most decent, honest, honorable person you could wish to meet in any walk of life? A man of political principle, of consistency. A genuine public servant. A minister who wouldn't spend government money on so much as a secretary. A minister who came to your office to solve your problems, so that you wouldn't have to trouble to come to his spartan quarters. Okay, another stickler like Meridor, and like his father, for fealty to the rule of law. But no moderate. Bitterly pessimistic about Palestinian intentions. A hawk, not a threat to the hawks.
They elevated Danny Danon, a man so blind to the critical nature of Israel's relationship to the United States as to publicly and repeatedly spit in the face of the current US administration. They raised up Miri Regev, she of the iniquitous reference to Sudanese migrants as "a cancer in our midst." And they dumped Benny Begin.
Nobody who looks closely at Israel's geostrategic situation can much blame the Israeli public for swinging to the right. But that does not alleviate the dismay at the sight of the Israeli party of government choosing a Knesset slate overloaded with empty populists, and ditching credible, experienced politicians who recognize the sensitivities and discretions required for effective rule. Our region is free-falling into chaos. All the more reason to select leadership that, rather than exacerbating the dangers, can seek deftly to minimize them. And dangers there are, in every direction.
This is a country that elected Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, Ehud Barak in 1999, and Ehud Olmert in 2005 to try to widen our circle of normalized relations, starting with the Palestinians. But the Israel that ousted Netanyahu in 1999 after three almost terror-free years, because it feared he was spurning opportunities for peacemaking with Yasser Arafat, is in an unsurprisingly very different frame of mind now. Support for the settlement enterprise, and especially the expansion of isolated settlements, is anything but overwhelming, but readiness for high-risk territorial compromise is at arguably an all-time low.
The Israel that reached out for a partnership with Bashar Assad three years ago is mightily relieved that it didn't relinquish the Golan Heights to a dictator now 20 months into the mass slaughter of his own people. It is mindful of how vulnerable we would be now to the overspill of that bloodshed if we had given up the high ground.
This Israel is watching Syria warily, terrified of where the world's second-largest stock of biological and chemical weapons will wind up.
It looks at Lebanon and sees a broken state from which Hezbollah is poised to rain tens of thousands of rockets down on Israel, given the signal from Iran.
It sees an Egypt that has undergone one uncertain revolution, bringing an Islamist president to power, and again seems to be descending into chaos as President Mohammed Morsi comes over all pharaonic.
It watches demonstrators in Jordan denounce the king.
It sees Iran closing in on the bomb, unstopped, confident.
And while it largely regards an accommodation with the Palestinians as the only way to maintain a Jewish and democratic Israel, it is also somewhat wary of the "moderate" West Bank Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, with whom it is supposed to negotiate that accommodation. This is an Abbas who proclaims a desire for reconciliation with the rocket-firing terrorists of Hamas, and whose former foreign minister Nabil Shaath goes to Gaza and praises the Islamists for their "achievements" in hailing 1,500 projectiles down on Israel's citizens. This is an Abbas who assures us kindly in English interviews that he has no claims on pre-1967 Israel and personally seeks no "right" of return to his birthplace in Safed, but tells his own people and others in Arabic from the podium of the UN General Assembly that we are a despicable nation responsible for the "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinians from their homeland — a narrative guaranteed to entrench Palestinian intolerance of the very fact of Israel's existence.
Yet Israel is not going to alleviate those dangers and overcome the challenges by pursuing policies that leave us more isolated, by further straining the alliances we do maintain, by swaggeringly demanding more forceful measures and by berating those who don't share all our sentiments and ambitions.
***
One problem with our new national hawkishness, however straightforward it is to explain, is that it has no international resonance. No major nation apart from the US and Canada voted with Israel to oppose Abbas's abandonment of the bilateral commitments under which the Palestinian Authority came into being, his attempt to impose the modalities of Palestinian statehood rather than negotiate them. Only Abbas's insistent intransigence — refusing even to promise, however emptily, that he wouldn't exploit Palestine's newly upgraded status to harm Israel via various UN forums — prevented many of the 41 countries that abstained in Thursday's vote, notably including the United Kingdom, from casting their voices for Palestine.
No matter that Rabin was cheated by that unreformed terrorist Arafat, Barak spurned by him, and Olmert left hanging by Abbas when they offered viable terms for the establishment of the very Palestinian state that Abbas plaintively laments Israel's refusal to countenance. No matter that Abbas formally holds to the demand for a "right of return" for millions, which would turn Israel into a second Palestine. No matter that he stayed away from peace talks for nine months when Netanyahu did freeze settlements three years ago. No matter that Israel demolished the entire settlement enterprise in Gaza in 2005, and has been pursued by escalating rocket fire for its trouble.
The US, Canada, the Czechs, Panama and a quartet of remote Pacific islands apart, the rest of the world simply doesn't care. They have no patience for Israel any more. Give the Palestinians a state, they chorus. If, as you predict, it brings down ruin upon your heads, you'll have our support in the next UN vote.
And when, as it surely will in January, our next government comes into office still more hawkish than the last, the chorus of international criticism will grow louder. And our capacity to defend ourselves — a capacity whose limitations were so publicly exposed in the imposed cessation of Operation Pillar of Defense, with those called-up ground forces sent home unused amid reported Egyptian threats to abrogate the peace treaty — will be still more constrained.
That's the other problem with electing outspoken extremists. It's the politics of petulance. Stuff-you politics. When push comes to shove, they can't deliver on the promised hardline policies. For all that Likud hawks used to talk about ousting Hamas from Gaza, when they ostensibly had the chance with Operation Pillar of Defense, they never even tried; they didn't really want Israel to be saddled with responsibility for more than a million hostile Palestinians again, and they feared the domestic outrage and the international condemnation that would go with it. Netanyahu and Liberman didn't even dare send in ground forces in the end, so worried were they by the potential international implications.
For all that the hawks demanded Israel annex West Bank territory when the Palestinians pursued their unilateral UN gambit, no such move was even remotely considered when the moment of truth arrived. The government didn't so much as announce the cancellation of the Oslo accords that Mahmoud Abbas had himself essentially abrogated, much less claim Israeli sovereignty in the major settlement blocs.
The next government will presumably feature a more dominant Liberman, the spectacularly undiplomatic chief diplomat confirmed as Netanyahu's number two. Liberman is the more polished version of the Danons and the Regevs — the loudmouths who declaim that Israel should act this way and that way, but whose promotion to high spots on the Likud list, one can only hope without much optimism, will prompt a greater circumspection. Big-talking Liberman was suddenly a very different person announcing the curtailment of Operation Pillar of Defense, arguing plaintively that Israel had "done the best we could" in the complex circumstances. Yes indeed, the circumstances can be complex. The populist promises aren't so easy to honor when you're actually out there, unloved, in the midst of an international community divided not between opponents and supporters but between the implacably hostile and the frustrated.
Abbas's capacity to depict Israel as the recalcitrant player, the rejectionist, will doubtless be yet further enhanced after January 22. The announcement on Friday of imminent approval to build 3,000 new homes over the Green Line underlines the point; the very timing makes it look like anything but a reasoned and reasonable decision in support of consistent government policy, however controversial, and exactly like a childish revenge ploy, pure punishment for the Palestinians' UN success. Again, the announcement was a case of the politics of petulance — a move that actually undermines the claims of those who regard West Bank settlement as an essential repopulation of historic Jewish territory, and suggests rather that settlement is a tool with which to hammer away relentlessly and spitefully at Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Similar such acts from a more hawkish next government will produce still deeper international misgivings about Israel's orientation. Wariness about the region is one thing, even those who regard themselves as Israel's friends will chorus, but why the insistence on acts that seem counterproductive to Israel's own stated interests in seeking to bring the problematic Palestinians back to the negotiating table? The global temptation to blame Israel even for problems not of our making, to brush away the legitimate concerns that prompt Israeli caution, will be all the greater.
Worryingly, the next government may lack the kind of steadying, centrist component that Ehud Barak represents in the outgoing coalition, serving as at least a partial brake on the Likud's ideological commitment to settlement expansion, and a partial salve to international concerns. It's hard to see the newly returning Tzipi Livni agreeing to play that role, when she would not join Netanyahu in the last coalition, with a less extreme Likud slate.
And sadly, too, of course, unless Netanyahu chooses to rescue him from the political oblivion to which the Likud's membership so foolishly consigned him, the next government will lack Benny Begin.
I'm sure he'll be fine. He'll go back to his real profession — geology. It's the rest of us I worry about.