Don’t just stand there, do something.
By Ted Belman
The talk of the town, Jerusalem that is, is that Mitchell, Gates, Ross and a whole US team are in discussions for the sought-after freeze among other things.
One Israeli diplomat commented on Israel’s position,
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“The Americans now understand that if they get anything from us on the settlement issue, it will only be in the broader context of some kind of Arab return,”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to confirm this in a policy speech two days after Obama’s White House meeting with the Jewish representatives.
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“Progress toward peace cannot be the responsibility of the United States - or Israel - alone,” Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations. “Arab states have a responsibility to support the Palestinian Authority with words and deeds, to take steps to improve relations with Israel and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region.”
The Arabs are being asked to allow overflights by Israeli planes and to open trade missions and the like. I personally don’t like where this is going.
Sharon chose to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally but did negotiate with the Bush administrations for two commitments namely that settlement blocks would remain part of Israel and that Arab refugees would not be returned to Israel. Obama shredded these understandings.
Since the bane of Israel’s existence is the constant pressure by the US on Israel to make concessions, at a minimum, Israel should require the US to commit in writing in the form of a treaty to what settlements will remain in Israel. Only then, and providing that the US allows Israel’s retention of all the settlement blocks including Maaleh Adumin and Ariel, should Israel agree to a freeze in the rest. Thus there would be no reason to freeze settlements in the parts being retained. That is the only acceptable quid pro quo for the freeze.
Many would argue, particularly the Arabs, that the US has no right to commit on their behalf. True enough, but she does have the right to commit on her own behalf. And while we are at it, she should get the EU, if not the whole Quartet, to agree to the deal. Who cares what the Arabs think. The Arabs are nothing without the US support.
The gestures being asked of the Arabs are of little value. Better to get them to amend the Saudi Plan in a meaningful way for the gestures to have any meaning. It could be amended to exclude the right of return and to commit to normalization of relations during the peace process. As it is, they will only work toward normalization, whatever that is, after Israel withdraws. Perhaps a Roadmap is required for the normalization process to proceed along with the peace process. This isn’t about to happen.
While I am on it, I would remind readers that Israel never agreed to the Saudi Plan. When Powell added it to the Roadmap in a surprise move, Sharon objected to its inclusion and Powell rejected the rejection arguing the Roadmap was only a process.
Nevertheless the Res 242 was over-ridden as the basis of a settlement with this wording in the preamble,
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A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967, based on the foundations on the Madrid Conference, the principle of land for peace, UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit - calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbor living in peace and security, in the context of a comprehensive settlement. This initiative is a vital element of international efforts to promote a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli tracks.
Prior to that time Israel had not agreed to the inclusion of the Saudi Plan nor to the creation of a Palestinian state, and certainly not to the idea that it must be viable or contiguous.
As for the settlements, it provided
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* GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.
* Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).
Three months ago I asked What settlement freeze commitment? and pointed out that the freeze to be consistent with the Mitchell report required as a pre-condition
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1) (PA) should immediately implement an unconditional cessation of violence.
2) that negotiations “must, in our view, manifest a spirit of compromise, reconciliation and partnership,”
I concluded that “Since the Arabs did not end the violence and incitement, there is no imperative for Israel to freeze settlement activity.”
In 2003 I wrote Reject the Road Map:Its worse than a Trojan horse, its a time bomb.
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The Road Map will prove Israel’s undoing. There is nothing good in it for Israel. No basis for hope. [..]
I could write another couple of pages to illustrate how bad it is for Israel. Suffice it so say that it castrates Israel. They are to be forced to accept a multilateral process at the expense of its own sovereignty. The Quartet will decide if the Palestinians are doing enough to end terror, on the right of return, on the rights of a Palestinian State, on where the borders are and what is to become of Jerusalem. I say this even when the Road Map provides that all issues are to be negotiated.
It is an unmitigated disaster for Israel. It is worse than a Trojan horse, it is a time bomb. Israel should stand its ground now and fight diplomatically before they are burdened with the implications of having accepted it. At the moment Israel has accepted the Bush vision of two states with all the preconditions. They should never accept any other guiding principle as presently in the Road Map, such as the Saudi Peace Plan, or that Israel must cooperate to make the state “viable”, or that the Quartet will decide anything. It is bad enough that they have accepted the vision of a two state solution. I would have preferred that only when borders are agreed upon, to Israel’s liking, would they agree to a state.
All this is ignored.
For that matter, neither is the US going to commit to such a deal as I have suggested.
Netanyahu’s position, backed by a national consensus is that the Arabs must agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, to be unmilitarized, and to accept Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. He made no mention of settlements or borders specifically but I believe that the settlements blocks in the land previously annexed by Israel would remain in Israel along with the rest of Jerusalem as part of his consensus.
To believe that the Arabs will accept this deal is as delusional as the left’s belief in the inevitability of peace.
So why is everyone going through the motions. Better to appear to be doing something rather than nothing.
Don’t just stand there, do something.
You are essentially suggesting that Israel capitulate to American and quartet pressure. That Israel should agree to pay for the same goods at least twice. Maybe down the line a third or fourth time.
What would happen were suddenly the Arabs agree to all of BB’s stipulations? What then? We would be between a rock and a hard place with no where to go or maneuver. Agreeing to and abiding to are not the same thing but should we trust America to guarantee such an agreement? EU? Quartet and the UN?
There is no reason to trust anybody in this mix and especially BB. The Mofaz Law shows where he is going and wants to be. The fool is so arrogant that he doesn’t see the possibility of the same law boomeranging back at him from within the likud.
A weasel like this you believe? I got news for you Ted BB has already frozen all construction except for some previous uncompleted building in Jerusalem but anywhere else is Frozen. He has already essentially if not in fact acceded to the Hussein demands. Lack of building is keeping the real estate market artificially high, young couples are fleeing Jerusalem as the costs are too high. That will only add to inflation and unemployment here and it’s artificially self imposed. America is not worth our capitulation and so far for the thousandth time I ask what can they do to hurt us? Then what would they do to hurt us? Nobody comes up with a credible ans. Do you have any?
My good friend and Teacher Rav Ariel overheard Rav Goren and Motta Gur after the Liberation Of Jerusalem while on the Temple Mount that went something like this : Gur: ” Rav Goren why are you so agitated and running around here”. Goren: I am looking for Burial Plots on the Mount of Olives for the Fallen in Jerusalem” Gur: “I advise you to look in west Jerusalem as we won’t be here too long, in a few weeks or months we will be giving the Temple Mount and Jerusalem back to Jordan” For Gur, Dayan, Eshkol and Rabin; they liberated by accident that which they didn’t want and had no plans to keep. They didn’t know what to do with it. They were detached and even embarrassed having liberated our Holy of holies. All this while most of the nation of Israel was ecstatic believing in the messianic age and prophesy. When Motta declared over his radio that HAR HABAYIT ( THE TEMPLE MOUNT IS IN MY HANDs NOT AS IS POPULARLY UNDERSTOOD: OUR HANDS). He meant mission accomplished from a military point of view and not in a religious one, I have Liberated and control the mount! The Temple Mount, home to two Jewish National/Religious Temples.
BB is in the same mold: It’s just real estate to be traded for something else. Name of the Game with these weasels is LETS MAKE A DEAL!
Comment by yamit82 — July 29, 2009 @ 8:57 pm
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132645
(IsraelNN.com) Despite his stated support for permanent Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently froze a major construction project in the capital city as a diplomatic gesture to the United States. So reported Channel 10 news correspondent Raviv Drucker, citing testimony from Jerusalem city officials.
Netanyahu has denied the report.
According to Drucker, Netanyahu ordered a halt to a construction project in Pisgat Zeev, a major Jewish neighborhood that is home to more than 40,000 Israelis. The project was to provide another 900 housing units in the area.
Comment by yamit82 — July 30, 2009 @ 1:20 am
PM Puts Freeze on 900 Apartments in Pisgat Ze’ev
Reported: 00:28 AM - Jul/30/09
Follow Israel news briefs on Twitter and Facebook.
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu instructed the Ministry of Building to hold up construction on 900 apartments in east Jerusalem, Israel’s Channel 10 reported Wednesday. The project had been scheduled for Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev Jewish neighborhood.
The order to freeze the project comes a day after Netanyahu conducted talks with U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell.
Comment by yamit82 — July 30, 2009 @ 1:26 am
Wrong move. I am disappointed in the PM who I thought would stand the ground. The only freeze needed is with the Palestinian illegal settlement construction.
Israel already provides a diplomatic gesture by maintaining stability in the Middle East. Why do you think little Hitler of Iran hates Israel. Simple, they would prefer to control the whole ME and Israel won’t let it happen.
Comment by rongrand — July 30, 2009 @ 1:30 am
Yamit, I regard your commentaries and your intelligence highly, but do us all a favor and let up on Bibi. We all know what you think of him but most of us are still waiting to see what he does.
Comment by Ed D — July 30, 2009 @ 2:31 am
Ed all I did was to present what are apparently correct news items hot off the presses in support of my previously stated positions. Forget my own personal dislike for BB. Lets deal with facts and truth to the extent we can glean and then come to some conclusions> You may like , trust and believe in him Most of us here in Israel don’t and with good reason.
I had very low expectations and opinions of BB before the elections, I was almost willing to have livni become PM rather than BB. Were that the case all of the Jewish and Israeli right would have united against her and her policies and in all probability blocked her from here most anti Israel, Zionist and egregious inclinations. At the very least the right in Israel could have united against her policies. With BB acceding to American and Husseins diktats and essentially adopting the Policies of Livni and the Left. This divides and weakens the right, reduces the power of the Land of Israel faithful and by political manipulations and pay-offs can remain in power through the support of the left against those very promises and platforms on which he and the parties including Likud stood for before being elected. It is anti democratic, (stole our votes) deceptive,immoral at the very least. It renders democracy a joke(and it is) It shows complete disdain for principles and utter disdain for those who elected him. BB is doing his best to be like Sharon but without Sharons Charisma and ruthlessness. Sharon was feared BB is used and uses others but few fear him as he is viewed by most even his supporters and an unprincipled weak character who may have had potential but because of apparent if not obvious character flaws will never be a leader. He follows daily polls. He can be right wing today ala Jabotynsky or Peres the next.
If I have learned one thing in all the years of living here it is to never be taken in by any politicians rhetoric. The have a past record and a present record. What they have done and what they are actually doing is how to view them and even judge them. Words for them are only a manipulative tool. They seldom give a real insight into the heart and mind of the manipulator. Deeds past and present do though.
Comment by yamit82 — July 30, 2009 @ 8:45 am
Besides Eldad, who would you suggest to be a better PM. Until I see different, I believe that other hard liners will keep him focused.
Comment by Ed D — July 30, 2009 @ 9:21 am
Ed I have come to the conclusion that we are not short of potential leaders and that individual leadership is not the Ans. Even Moses our greatest leader could not prevent the Hebrews from doing a lot of bad and stupid things. Every Jew therefore must become an activist with clear and like goals, vision if you will and support a collective form of leadership that represent our diversity but are able to withstand and reject that and those who might deter us and steer us on a course in opposition to our collective vision.
This is possible by support first and foremost of those groups presently active as a vanguard for others to emulate and follow. Like those great kids in Y&S and other places in Israel. At some point a true Jewish leadership will come to the fore either by draft or voluntarily. There are good potential leaders but mostly on an ad-hoc community level, some will eventually rise to the top or be drafted to that position
The sophist argument of counter arguing critical arguments by asking if not demanding that If I reject A than B what is my alternative is a flawed argument. Firstly because if the criticism is valid it should stand by its own merit and I don’t need come up with a substitute to be able to criticise the actions of our leaders. If he, she or they are bad, they are bad period.
I could use the argument as to why every Jew must come home to Israel for no other reason other than this is what G-d wants. I could say that we must not divide the land or give it over for any reason to a non Jew because simply because it is G-d’s will that we not do so. I could say that we should remove all the Arabs from the Land of Israel because G-d told us to. In these contexts No! or No We Can’t to those principles is an unacceptable answer however irrational it might seem to some or even most.
The party that will lead and dominate Israel in the not too distant future will be that party which places the Temple and the eventual rebuilding of same as the core and fundamental basis of it’s political, economic and social platform. All other matters concerning Israel internally and externally will be reflected within that context including a completely different kind of Jewish leadership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pHXZyNNes0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMDqgwoFUSc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjI1_VC08iw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se0-9ov2F_A&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HpHo4mRoA0&NR=1
Comment by yamit82 — July 30, 2009 @ 11:44 am
Ed
Forgot this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyHUHOqzUPY&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Comment by yamit82 — July 30, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Hi, Yamit.
After sweeping away all the dust flying around what you said, you seem to be advocating that reconstruction of the Temple be THE CENTERPIECE of Israeli policy. Please telll me if I’m wrong, in five words or less.
There is nothing in what Ted said, that goes against what you seem to think is truly important. Ted is simply asking the American administration to put up or shut up: Does Obama want Israel to give up land? WHICH land? And if he advocates Israel KEEPING certain land, there is no reason to call for any sort of settlement freeze there. As I say, it’s a matter of “Put up or shut up”. Ted is not advocating surrendering Har HaBait to the Arabs. He simply wants Obama to be explicit about whether or not the US Administration is demanding this. He wants Israeli Jews to know, up front, what is being demanded of them.
You yourself have said that there are some issues that are more important than others; and you have pointed to the reconstruction of the Temple as the most important issue. If it is indeed important, then you must be willing to concede “less important” items in order to accomplish it. That is why I am so much against the type of maximalist demands I repeatedly hear from the Israeli Right. What you really want is the Temple. Are you willing to give up Macpelah in order to rebuild the Temple? If not, the Temple isn’t that important to you. Will you surrender Ariel in order to build the Temple? Ashkelon? I’m not saying Israel has to give up ANYTHING; because (1) as you have said, they don’t really have to, and (2) in the current situation, it would be pointless. But that doesn’t mean you can’t wheel and deal, and be willing to compromise on issues of less importance.
Concerning the Temple, I would like to see it constructed because it would glorify God. It could cause problems; but Hashem is bigger than problems.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — July 31, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
Yes!
Doesn’t matter, the answer should be no to any concessions of land i.e; no compromises, and let the chips fall where they may.
Making the rebuilding of the temple as core political platform goal negates by definition any compromises on any othe r part of the land of Israel. As far as I am concerned the city limits of Jerusalem can be extended eastwards as far as the Jordanian border like Rome or LA. Can a man choose between the lives of his children or between a child and his wife?
“In a place where there are no men, endeavor to be a man” (2:6) Pirke Avot
Comment by yamit82 — July 31, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
Oat this clip expresses my sentiments better than I can:
http://www.jewishisrael.org/eng_contents/video/video011.html
Comment by yamit82 — July 31, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
Yamit, the Temple will not be rebuilt in my life time, although I would have love to see it, but in the distant future. Your argument that Israel doesn’t need a strong leader, but she needs everyone to be an activist. “Everyone” has their own agenda. No matter what occurs in Israel, each activist thinks that their needs and desires is more important than another’s.
Bibi was elected to lead this nation, in spite of you; therefore, allow him to do so until he either frees Israel from her enemies or surrenders her. You and I do not know what goes on behind closed doors. Give him a break.
Comment by Ed D — August 1, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
Wrong The Likud was elected by the people who think more or less Like me. BB was elected by the likud to lead the likud who without the recommendations by parties I support would not have been given a mandate to form a government. Livni whose party outpolled the likud would have formed the government. He then after pocketing the party I supported after giving many many promises to them promptly excluded them from the coalition and brought in Barak and Labor. He used fascist undemocratic methods to exclude Feiglin and other from a position on the likud lists which cost him (Likud) 5-8 mandates, necessitating without NU, a leftist element in the government. Why because from the get go he is into giving up everything always was and only the internal threat of being deposed keeps him from collapsing totally.
I gave BB my full support once and he betrayed us in every way possible. No second chances, he is weak, leftist, has no G-d, paranoiac and a megalomaniac. He will lead us to national disaster unless controlled and shackled by his party and coalition but he is trying to maneuver around the threat by co-opting part of Kadima into his coalition. Proves where he is going and reinforces my contention he must be dumped ASAP. He has already conceded to Hussein on settlements and construction except for rhetoric but on the ground a different reality. All construction and projects halted.
In short he is the worst of the worst and I would rather see Livni and even Olmert as PM rather than BB. At least we would know what and who we are dealing with.
allow him to do so until he either frees Israel from her enemies or surrenders her
Sounds kind of dumb to wait until he finally surrenders Israel in fact. Leaks already have him far along the way to doing just that: surrendering Israel!
Comment by yamit82 — August 1, 2009 @ 8:24 pm
My you live till 120, and nobody know what will happen 5 min from now or in a week month or year. Never say never! Yes we can!
Comment by yamit82 — August 1, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
Ed:
. While the prime minister arguably made an unnecessary and potentially disastrous mistake in announcing his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, by and large, he has successfully marginalized the Left.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1248277936580&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Comment by yamit82 — August 1, 2009 @ 9:33 pm