Israel should have taken my advice.
By Ted Belman
I wrote Reject the Roadmap in April 2003 just after the US invaded Iraq and just after the US announced the Roadmap..
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Its worse than a Trojan horse, its a time bomb.
The rush to publish, or more accurately, to impose the Road Map is obscene and an act of desperation by the US.
Powell argued that by vanquishing Iraq, a dedicated enemy of Israel, Israel would feel more secure to make peace.
My G-d, the dust isn’t even settled yet. What kind of Iraq will come into being? Will it be controlled by America? If so, what ever happened to creating a democracy? Will it be a hotbed of terrorism with various factions fighting for power and to throw out the US? If America gets out, who will be in charge? Will the UN have a role? Will Egypt or Saudi Arabia be more or less stable? Will the threat of terrorism and support therefore, from Syria and Iran, be ended? Will Turkey and the Kurds be fighting? Will Iran be trying to curry favour with the Iraqi Shi’ites? Will Syria be looking to extend its influence in Iraq?
Any half brain would know, that at a minimum, one should wait for all this to settle down and be made clear before arguing Israel can proceed in confidence. The only reason this is being done is for America to do what all Arab regimes do, deflect criticism and attention to Israel.
The Road Map will prove Israel’s undoing. There is nothing good in it for Israel. No basis for hope.
Res 242 authorized Israel to remain in occupation until it had an agreement for secure and recognized borders. Some of the land was to go back to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The Palestinians, let alone Palestine, were not even a concept.
Then came Oslo, unfortunately, brought upon Israel by its then government, which recognized the Palestinian Authority in exchange for commitments to foreswear violence and incitement. It proposed a negotiated settlement based on Res. 242. It did not prejudge borders and did not restrict settlement activity. Nor did it promise a Palestinian State at the end or the return of the refugees. The Palestinians never took their commitments seriously and neither did the governments of Israel or the US. Oslo proved to be a Trojan horse, as the Palestinians intended, which greatly weakened Israel.
Then came Mitchell who recommended that settlement activity stop notwithstanding that it wasn’t required by Oslo. It never got off the ground because the Palestinians wouldn’t stop the terror. Tenent tried to chart a course to effect Mitchell to no avail.
Then there was a chorus of voices, or should I say “vices”, from Europe, claiming that the Palestinians had to be given hope and another chorus of vices demanding international observers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Europe was paving the way to get a better deal for the Palestinians then they had agreed to in Oslo. No one demanded that the Palestinians live up to their commitments given in Oslo.
Finally Bush cracked and in his June speech articulated a vision of a Palestinian State upon certain conditions being fulfilled. Israel accepted this vision because of the conditions imposed. The Quartet was formed in the belief that if everyone agreed on a solution beforehand, that the Palestinians and the Israelis, who could not do so themselves, would have to accept it. The Quartet then worked out a Road Map while the US was trying to get support from the other members of the Quartet for authority to make war on Iraq. Need I say more? The Road Map picks up on the two state solution and abandons all the conditions precedent to its creation set out by Bush, and imposes some of its own.
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.
If Israel maintains its independence and sovereignty, what can the Quartet do? They can pass a resolution at the UN, perhaps even under Chapter 7, which makes it binding. But to do so requires Bush to take on Congress, the Senate and the Christian Coalition. Remember 71% of Americans according to the latest poll are against a Palestinian state being created. And Bush must do this as he approaches an election year. Even if such a resolution gets passed, Israel is better off than if it accepted it, save for the anger of Bush for having caused him, this fight. And maybe, just maybe, Bush will be happy that he pleased the Arabs and the EU by publishing the Road Map while at the same time having it rejected by Israel. Bush could even go so far as to collect more brownie points with the Arabs for pressing Israel to accept it, even if it doesn’t.
I can dream, can’t I?
I wrote in the early 1980s that Israel should annex the West Bank and Gaza to punish the Arabs for starting four wars in the space of 25 years, and as compensation for the harm the Arabs caused. If Israel had done that, Oslo and the Roadmap would not be problems.
Normal country for normal Jews
Our real problem is Jews, not Arabs. Palestinian guerrillas are nuisance; they cannot defeat the Jewish state. Jews can. Israel originally attracted only Jews with pioneer mentality who overcame barriers to enter the land. Even the post-WWII aliyah was zealous: Jews who preferred safety, stayed in Europe. Brainwashing in Israeli schools and huge economically motivated Russian aliyah of 1980-90s turned Israel into a ghetto. Most Jews are still passively normal: they want a state without Arabs, favor overwhelming reprisals, detest Arabs, and respect religiosity. That’s not enough: passively normal Jews cannot counter the active Left. Leftists come to power on the heels of massive propaganda and Arab votes, not supported by Jewish majority, but only the result matters: leftists reign. Actively normal right wing Jews cannot hope to change the balance in Israel, short of a major civil war – not an unwelcome prospect. For now, Jewish normalcy is doomed in Tel Aviv and the beachside Israel. Normal Jews can build a normal Jewish state only in leftist-free areas – the settlements.
Instead of trying to change Israeli politics, normal Jews should develop autonomy of settlements with the goal of eventually expanding the autonomy into the state of Judea – at Arab expense.
Ted this article should back you up!
The End of the State of Israel
by Ya’akov-Perez Golbert
On Sunday afternoon, the 25th of May 2003, the State of Israel ceased to exist. It became, by its own action and consent, a protectorate of the United States of America.
On Sunday afternoon, the 25th of May 2003, the State of Israel ceased to exist. It became, by its own action and consent, a protectorate of the United States of America. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon presented the cabinet with the ?Road Map?, the plan that calls for the creation, in Eretz Yisrael, within five years, of a sovereign state for the Arabs who call themselves ?Palestinians.? Israel gives up the right to enter ?Palestinian? cities in pursuit of terrorists and terrorist organizations that attack and murder her citizens; commits herself to desist from ?targeted assassinations,? which is what the world calls the surgical attacks on terrorist commanders. It is understood that Israel must desist from un-targeted strikes against the population at large, even against parts of a city where terrorists operate. That?s obvious, when Israel may not even hit the specific persons who endanger and murder Israeli civilians. In short, Israel forgoes the right of self-defense.
Israel also forgoes the right to judge whether Palestinian compliance with its obligations is acceptable or even fraudulent. That judgment is given over to the Americans and the other members of the?Quartet?: the European Union, Russia and the UN, all of whom are implacably hostile to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Their observers will determine whether Palestinian compliance is satisfactory. In the past they all, including the United States, have judged anything the Palestinians have done to be satisfactory, proof positive to the contrary notwithstanding.
Sharon faced some opposition in the government, lackluster and spineless though it was. Seven of the 23 actually voted against. Four abstained, including Binyamin (?Bibi?) Netanyahu, the man who would be Prime Minister again. Sharon offered them a fig leaf and they rushed to hide behind it. Netanyahu made a point of attaching Sharon?s 14 points of objection to the plan, as if that made any difference, given the fact that the cabinet approved the plan by a vote of 12 to 7, with 4 abstentions. Of course, the American government had given assurance that Israel?s objections would receive ?due consideration? when it comes to implementation. It cannot be lost on any intelligent person, not even an Israeli cabinet minister, that the phrase is utterly meaningless blather, given the fact that the objections are entirely contrary to the plan, which the Israeli government voted to accept by a decisive majority. That did not stand in the way of Netanyahu posturing as Bibi the Bold, insisting that it be appended to Israel?s acceptance. It was empty bluster.
Israel has many friends in the United States, and many enemies. In government, Israel?s friends are mainly in the Congress. Congress has sided with Israel overwhelmingly, often putting individual representatives at odds with the president. Israel?s enemies are in the State Department, the CIA, the Defense Department, the foreign policy establishment in general. Sharon and his government have decided to leave her friends in the lurch and place Israel?s fate in the hands of its enemies in the State Department.
Will America protect Israel? Don?t be stupid. This is the very same State Department that has worked to undermine Israel by duplicity and treachery since the Balfour Declaration in 1916; the very same State Department that imposed an arms embargo against Israel in 1948, while selling arms freely to the Arabs; the same State Department that withheld intelligence information from Israel that the US was obligated by treaty to give Israel, information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, capabilities and strategies. Will the US protect Israel? Ask Jonathan Pollard. They railroaded Jonathan Pollard to life in solitary, without ever having had a trial, for having had the temerity to give Israel that information.
The very tack taken by the US now has been used before, to Israel?s disaster. Israel must accept the Road Map so as not to undermine Abu Mazen. If Israel is seen to be the one to scrap the Road Map, it will destroy all chance of Abu Mazen, whom they assiduously paint as a ?moderate?, to succeed and leave the field to the ?extremists? like Hamas. This is the same argument that prevented Israel from mobilizing its forces in 1973 against a planned Egyptian-Syrian aggression. Israel was persuaded not to mobilize, because Israel would appear the aggressor and that would provoke the Egyptians and Syrians and force them to attack.
And who is Abu Mazen? He is a ?moderate? Holocaust denier, a ?moderate? terrorist, who believes in using terrorism only when it produces positive results for the terrorist organization, one of the founders of the PLO (Remember when it was a terrorist organization?), the ?moderate? financier of the Munich Massacre. His only point of disagreement with Hamas is over the question of whether terror tactics in the present circumstances produce a positive or a negative result. Hamas believes the result is positive. If it has gotten them Israeli acceptance of a ?Palestinian? state, who can say they are wrong?
The Road Map will cause more terror, G-d forbid, not less. It will increase the threat to Israel, not decrease it. The State Department knows that and, if they push these policies nevertheless, it is because they want that result.
It should be clear to all that the Israeli government will not protect Israel either. Our future depends on us. We have seen it all before. We can expect to see it again, this time much worse, G-d forbid. Enough of complaining. Now is the time for action.
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Ya’akov-Perez Golbert is a practicing lawyer in Jerusalem. He was a full professor of law in Los Angeles until his aliyah in 1984. He represents several non-governmental organizations and is a founder of Netzah Yisrael Lo Yishaqer.
25 Iyar 5763 / 27 May 03
Bill, you, Yamit and I along with numerous others have advocated the annexing of Gaza, Judea and Somaria for years; however, so long as stupid Israelis and stupid Jews in American, accept the liberal indocrination of those such as Olmert, there can not be relief from these attitudes. When is the next General Election due in Israel?