Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

UPDATE III: Obama Out Of The Closet On Israel (Cavuto & The Prince)

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Law, Nationhood

On November 20, 2008, I wrote a column titled “Obama’s And Abdullah’s Plans for Israel.” The column pretty much outlined what has come to pass today. Here’s the lead and a little more:

Barack Obama has decided to revive a plot the Saudi Crown Prince hatched in 2002. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz had suggested Israel beat a retreat to the pre-1967 borders, in return for the recognition, whatever that means, of the Arab world.
Back then, Time magazine made the mustachioed monarch its “Man of the Week,” for what it termed his “peace plan.” [Their enthusiasm today is a little more muted.] The Sunday Times now reports that:
“Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.”
A loose paraphrasing of U.N. resolution 242, this “peace initiative” requires Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria, which is tantamount to returning land to the aggressors, and “allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.” For its concessions, the Arab League will doff a collective kafia to Israel. As will Israel be given “an effective veto” on the national suicide pact known as the right of return—the imperative to absorb millions of self-styled Palestinian “refugees” into Israel proper.

Understandably, it’s a little tough locating in US media the precise wording of the president’s plan for Israel. But Ha’aretz has it:

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. endorses the Palestinians’ demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states,” Obama stressed during a major Mideast policy speech at the State Department.

If it continues to return land to the aggressors, Israel will be in violation of Nullum crimen sine poena, the imperative in international law to punish the aggressor (one that seems to comport quite well with the natural law). Israel has already breached this principle—and its own national self-preservation—by signing and honoring agreements (Oslo I and II) with a terrorist organization (the PLO). Israel has also flouted the “rights of necessity,” as explained by Professor of International Law, Louis Rene Beres:

“[T]his norm was explained with particular lucidity by none other than Thomas Jefferson. In his ‘Opinion on the French Treaties,’ written on April 28, 1793, Jefferson wrote: ‘The nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever its preservation and safety require, cannot enter into engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.’”

What will Bibi Netanyahu’s do? That’s the question.

UPDATE I: Bibi has booed Obama’s latest decree. The Israeli Prime Minister, however, still used dhimi-like tones, which can only be ditched once Israel cuts the Gordian Knot that ties it to the US (foreign aid).

“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel would object to any withdrawal to “indefensible” borders, adding he expected Washington to allow it to keep major settlement blocs in any peace deal.”

MORE.

UPDATE II: GANGSTA DIPLOMACY. George Will: “Obama’s dilation on the 1967 borders makes matters worse: Borders are what negotiations are supposed to be about, not what is to be stipulated before negotiations.”

Remember Netanyahu’s last visited to the White House? The boorish Obama practically confined the Israeli Prime Minister and his party to the basement. Once again Obama has exhibited contempt for Netanyahu by making this Middle-East statement on the eve of the PM’s visit to the White House. Bibi can hardly bail on the bastard, and so is destined to be diplomatically humiliated again.

UPDATE III (May 20): I’ve just heard Fox News’ Neil Cavuto complaining about Bibi Netanyahu, while reverentially referening to The Saudi Prince, to whom he had just been making overtures. It was quite bizarre. Cavuto had suddenly turned into a defender of the Leader of the Free World (who presides over the largest welfare-warfare state in this “free” world), against the onslaught of the Israeli PM, who dared to lecture the venerable leader (BHO), as follows:

“For there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some basic realities,” Netanyahu said, sitting beside Obama at an appearance with reporters. “The first is that, while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to 1967 lines.”
In his speech about Middle East issues Thursday, Obama had reiterated U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, suggesting that Israel revert to the territory it held prior to its gains in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, while allowing for swaps of land between the two future states.
“These were not the boundaries of peace,” Netanyahu said at the White House. “They were the boundaries of repeated wars.”

Netanyahu ought to have given Obama a taste of his own boorishness and canceled his visit to the White House. Instead, he firmly but politely told the president what was what.

“Rhymes With Fagin”

Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Middle East

That’s the title of the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens article describing last week’s TIME magazine cover story, “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace”:

“If you’re a reader of a certain age, you might understand the headline.

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.

Mr. Vick’s essay draws on the testimony of a pair of real estate agents, a columnist for a left-leaning newspaper, and a few others to explain that Israelis are too blissed-out by the fruits of their economic prosperity to pay much attention to the subject of peace, much less whatever sad things may transpire among their neighbors in Ramallah and Gaza. ‘We’re not really that into the peace process,’ says Gadi Baltiansky, a peace activist quoted in the story. ‘We are really, really into the water sports.'”

It’s hard to say what to make of this, since the article concludes by contradicting its central thesis: ‘For all the surf breaks, the palms and the coffee, the conflict is never truly done, never far away,’ Mr. Vick writes.

Indeed it isn’t: Nearly every Israeli has a child, sibling, boyfriend or parent in the army. Nearly every Israeli has been to the funeral of a fallen soldier, or a friend killed in a terrorist attack. Most Israeli homes and businesses come equipped with safe rooms or bomb shelters; every Israeli owns a gas mask. The whole country exists under the encroaching shadows of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the prospect of a nuclear Iran. How many Americans, to say nothing of Europeans, can say the same about their own lives?” READ ON.

[SNIP]

What TIME cretin Karl Vick is describing, and depicting with the aid photos of good looking Israelis on the beach, is a plucky people engaged in LIFE; working, playing, making money (horrors!), and having fun, in the face of daily existential threats. This is to be admired not condemned.

My daughter, who was decidedly not pro-Israel when she visited there, came back enthralled with the country and its people (she wrote about it HERE). Never before had she met such tough, positive, feisty sorts (and certainly not in the Jewish school she once attended in South Africa. Israelis and diaspora Jews: never the twain shall meet).

As admirable as is the Israeli absorption with the good life, I’m afraid that regular Israelis need to learn to be more guarded with creeps likes Vick of TIME. And maybe to revive some of that founding patriotism, once again.

Middle East Musical Chairs

Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

Gleaned from its sources in the bowels of the Obama administration, DEBKAfile has provided the likely backdrop, and backroom deals, that have led to the tiresome and futile reunion of Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, second-in-command in the Palestinian Authority, after the Hamas leader du jour.:

“Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks it concluded with Netanyahu’s senior aides Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad.

Part of the deal was for Israel to line up with the Obama administration’s non-reaction to Iran’s activation of its Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr last Saturday, Aug. 21. The United States promised, for its part, to deliver the Palestinians to the negotiating table for face -to-face talks after dropping their pre-conditions (determination of the 1967 lines as the final borders of a Palestinian state and a moratorium on Jewish construction on the West Bank and Jerusalem).

But most of all, the secret deal obliged Obama to refrain from twisting Israel’s arm on behalf of the Palestinians should the dialogue founder – as it is widely expected to do.

Wit this deal in the bag, Netanyahu was able to showcase the Obama administration’s endorsement of his diplomatic strategy and is rejection of Palestinian demands.

However, the deal was shown to have sprung a leak in the formal announcements in Washington of Friday, Aug. 20, debkafile discloses.
Whereas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept faith with Israel and turned down a last minute White House demand to insert this phrase in her announcement: ‘The United States could offer bridging proposals if necessary,’ into her announcement, the euphemistic phrase turned up in special presidential envoy George Mitchell’s remarks elaborating on the Clinton statement.'”

MORE.

UPDATE III: Then There Were Three (Sane Paleos)

Classical Liberalism, Foreign Policy, Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Justice, Middle East, Paleoconservatism

Serbian historian Srdja Trifkovic is one of the finest writers on Islam. Because he tells the truth about Islam, he also tells the truth about Israel. The latter follows from the former. Sane Serbs, Nebojsa Malic is another, have clashed with Islam’s emissaries and view Israel has having been “serbed.” The rest of the paleos are in contradiction: They acknowledge Islam’s aims but refuse to see its workings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I highlighted their inconsistencies in “Paleos Must Defend the West…And That Means Israel Too.” Trifkovic’s “Israel, the West, and the Rest” continues a tradition of three:

“… our primary interests in the Middle East … are not to defend human rights, or to promote democracy, or to build a Palestinian state, or to treat Israel as an existential American ally … Secondary and peripheral [interests] must remain subordinate to the primary interests when policy outcomes come into conflict. Should we promote ‘democracy’ even if its beneficiaries are Osama and Ahmadinejad? Should we seek ‘justice’ for the Palestinians — however defined — at the cost of risking the disappearance of the state of Israel? No, heck no!

Even if an evenhanded and generous agreement were to be offered to the Arabs — including the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, an equitable sharing of natural resources, and a generous compensation package that would resolve the refugee problem — it would be unworkable in the long term — the notion of Israel’s legitimacy is simply unacceptable to traditional Islam…”

UPDATE I (June 16) : To Derek: “Israel” does not have to mimic paleos to deserve a defense against those intent on extinguishing it. However, it so happens that Israelis have “Sued NATO For 1999 Air Strikes On Serbia.” Read my post about this valiant, well-directed, self-interested effort.

We know that Israel was streaks ahead, as far as paleo political philosophy goes, in terms of its relationship not only with Serbia but with the old South Africa. Read about the latter comity.

Put it this way: Israel did not attempt to destroy these nations; the USA did.

Where does that leave paleo incongruity?!

UPDATE II (June 17): The idea, hinted at in the Comments Section, that this column privileges Israel over the US for “tribal” reasons is insulting—at least to those familiar with my positions. As I wrote to Myron the other day, when he asked that I apply the Israel test to an American issue: “I’m an American commentator, first.” I’m also the quintessential individualist. I’ve never belonged or worked for any group/tribe/church.

Why does this writer fight for the Afrikaner, Gringo Malo? Tribal affiliation? What bunk. If I knew what was good for me, I would indeed conform to Malo’s insulting caricature—the book deals would role in. I’d be rewarded for becoming what in Russel Kirk’s estimation the American mind craves: the banal and the mundane.

If anything, paleos work against their “tribe” when they agitate for the Palestinians. An Israeli did not assassinate an American senator; a Palestinian did. Muslim terrorists extolling the Palestinian cause killed 3000 Americans on 9/11. Yet it is Israelis that paleos warn us against.

And don’t dare mention the vast sums of money that go to that nest of vipers known as the Palestinian Authority. We only speak of the Jewish ponces who take from the US.

Equating my mere recognition of the justness of Israel’s existence and its struggle and what it has accomplished with tribal affiliation—this is plain pathetic, all the more so considering I have not ever recommended a foreign policy that does anything other than stay out of Israel’s affairs.

UPDATE IV: THEN THERE WERE FOUR. Thanks, Daniel, for alerting us to Derb’s brilliant piece, “Taking Israel’s Side”:

“Each of us has a mental map of the world colored by partiality, some of it reasonable, some merely emotional. If we are patriotic, we will feel more warmly towards a nation that trades fairly with us, cooperates to some degree in international projects we undertake, and shares some commonality of history, culture, or values with us. Contrariwise, of course, if you believe, as a liberal once told me he actually did believe, that your country is the most evil that ever existed, you will feel affinity with foreign nations whose leaders share that view. …

It remains the case that any fair-minded person must be an Israel sympathizer. A hundred years ago there were Jews and Arabs living in that part of the Ottoman Empire. After the Ottoman collapse both peoples had a right to set up their own ethnostates. It has been the furiously intransigent Arab denial of this fact, not anything Israelis have done, that has been the root cause of all subsequent troubles. It is also indisputably the case, as has often been said, that if Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest were to lay down their arms, there would be peace in Palestine, while if Israel were to lay down her arms, the Israelis would be slaughtered.It is also indisputably the case, as has often been said, that if Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest were to lay down their arms, there would be peace in Palestine, while if Israel were to lay down her arms, the Israelis would be slaughtered.”

[SNIP]

The last very good point was one I made in LIAR, LIAR, ABAYA ON FIRE (2002), quoting Lorne Gunter:

“Cycle of violence” suggests a sequence of events that has no beginning or end. Do the media ever pause to pose the no-brainer the Edmonton Journal’s Lorne Gunter poses? “If Palestinians stopped their attacks today, tomorrow there would be no Israeli attacks. But if Israel stopped unilaterally, would you trust the Palestinians to follow?”