Israel is still blocking the road to peace
Israel is still blocking the road to peace
Henry Seigman, International Herald Tribune
(This article will shock you because Seigman is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a former executive head of the American Jewish Congress. What does it say about American Jewish Congress. Or for that matter what does it say for the Council on Foreign Relations. This organization publishes Foreign Affairs. Ted Belman)
In her latest visit to Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to diffuse the crisis created by the failure of Israel to coordinate its imminent withdrawal from Gaza with Palestinian leadership. With less than four weeks to go, not one of the issues that will determine whether the pullout will be a success or a disaster has been resolved.
But as important as it is for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to coordinate the disengagement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for Abbas to finally confront Palestinian rejectionist groups, there is an even more important problem. That problem is Sharon's determination to use the withdrawal not as a precedent for a comprehensive land-for-peace accord but to make such an accord impossible.
From the very outset of his announcement that Israel would disengage unilaterally from Gaza, Sharon made it clear he is doing so to avoid the "dangers" of a resumed peace process that would require Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. As his senior adviser and former chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, notoriously put it last year, the withdrawal was intended to put the road map, the peace process and a Palestinian state in "formaldehyde."
On June 30, Sharon himself said that he would not be deterred by settler protests from completing the Gaza disengagement, since its purpose was to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank, a goal Sharon continues to share with the settlers, whom he described as "the cream of the Jewish people."
The fundamental cause of the paralysis of the peace process even after the replacement of Yasser Arafat by Abbas is the fantasy entertained by Sharon and his government that they can require Palestinians to agree to a further truncation of the shrunken territory Palestinians have been left with - the 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine that lies east of the pre-1967 border - as a condition for a return to peace talks. (Unbelievable)
It is a condition that continues to delay the resumption of a political process, enabling Sharon to continue to create new "facts on the ground," which he is doing despite the informal ceasefire, and despite George W. Bush's insistence that the road map, which forbids such activities, must be observed by Israel as well as the Palestinians.
Sharon has continued the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, the planning of massive housing projects that will remove the option of locating the capital of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, and the enlargement of a vast infrastructure in the West Bank for the use of Jewish settlers only, creating isolated Palestinian enclaves that make a mockery of the two-state solution.
The individual responsible for the intellectual grounding of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza is General Eival Giladi, formerly the head of the Strategic Planning Unit of the Israeli Defense Force and now the director of the Strategic Coordination Unit for the withdrawal in the prime minister's office. Giladi recently explained on Israeli television why Israel "has no choice" but to act unilaterally. It is, he said, because the Palestinian leadership was not in the past, under Arafat, and is not now, under Mahmoud Abbas, "ripe" for a true peace process.
For Giladi, as for Sharon, "ripeness" is a euphemism for an Israeli determination to deal only with a Palestinian leadership that accepts Israel's map of a new Palestinian state. This is consistent with the observation made in 2003 by the IDF's former chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, that a successful negotiation with the Palestinians could begin only after Israel had "seared deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people."
Sharon has dismissed Abbas as a "weak" leader with whom Israel cannot do business. But Abbas's "weakness" is in large part the consequence of his opposition to Palestinian violence and terror. Had Sharon implemented the requirements of the road map and proved Abbas right in his insistence that Palestinians can make progress toward their national goal only by political means, Abbas would have been seen as a strong leader.
Instead, Sharon ignored the road map and betrayed his promise to relieve the misery of Palestinians under Israel's occupation. He has left virtually all of the checkpoints and roadblocks in place, and deeply disappointed Palestinian expectations for significant releases of prisoners being held in Israeli jails. These disappointments assured the outcome Sharon wanted - the discrediting of Abbas within the Palestinian community and the postponement of even the prospect of a return to peace negotiations to a distant future.
As indicated by Rice's statement in Israel that Sharon must immediately follow the withdrawal from Gaza with a return to the road map and further withdrawals from the West Bank, Washington is not unaware of or indifferent to Sharon's intentions. What is not clear is whether, when the time comes, it will back up its rhetorical admonitions with real action.
Henry Siegman, a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a former executive head of the American Jewish Congress.
In her latest visit to Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to diffuse the crisis created by the failure of Israel to coordinate its imminent withdrawal from Gaza with Palestinian leadership. With less than four weeks to go, not one of the issues that will determine whether the pullout will be a success or a disaster has been resolved.
But as important as it is for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to coordinate the disengagement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for Abbas to finally confront Palestinian rejectionist groups, there is an even more important problem. That problem is Sharon's determination to use the withdrawal not as a precedent for a comprehensive land-for-peace accord but to make such an accord impossible.
From the very outset of his announcement that Israel would disengage unilaterally from Gaza, Sharon made it clear he is doing so to avoid the "dangers" of a resumed peace process that would require Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. As his senior adviser and former chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, notoriously put it last year, the withdrawal was intended to put the road map, the peace process and a Palestinian state in "formaldehyde."
On June 30, Sharon himself said that he would not be deterred by settler protests from completing the Gaza disengagement, since its purpose was to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank, a goal Sharon continues to share with the settlers, whom he described as "the cream of the Jewish people."
The fundamental cause of the paralysis of the peace process even after the replacement of Yasser Arafat by Abbas is the fantasy entertained by Sharon and his government that they can require Palestinians to agree to a further truncation of the shrunken territory Palestinians have been left with - the 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine that lies east of the pre-1967 border - as a condition for a return to peace talks.
It is a condition that continues to delay the resumption of a political process, enabling Sharon to continue to create new "facts on the ground," which he is doing despite the informal ceasefire, and despite George W. Bush's insistence that the road map, which forbids such activities, must be observed by Israel as well as the Palestinians.
Sharon has continued the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, the planning of massive housing projects that will remove the option of locating the capital of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, and the enlargement of a vast infrastructure in the West Bank for the use of Jewish settlers only, creating isolated Palestinian enclaves that make a mockery of the two-state solution.
The individual responsible for the intellectual grounding of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza is General Eival Giladi, formerly the head of the Strategic Planning Unit of the Israeli Defense Force and now the director of the Strategic Coordination Unit for the withdrawal in the prime minister's office. Giladi recently explained on Israeli television why Israel "has no choice" but to act unilaterally. It is, he said, because the Palestinian leadership was not in the past, under Arafat, and is not now, under Mahmoud Abbas, "ripe" for a true peace process.
For Giladi, as for Sharon, "ripeness" is a euphemism for an Israeli determination to deal only with a Palestinian leadership that accepts Israel's map of a new Palestinian state. This is consistent with the observation made in 2003 by the IDF's former chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, that a successful negotiation with the Palestinians could begin only after Israel had "seared deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people."
Sharon has dismissed Abbas as a "weak" leader with whom Israel cannot do business. But Abbas's "weakness" is in large part the consequence of his opposition to Palestinian violence and terror. Had Sharon implemented the requirements of the road map and proved Abbas right in his insistence that Palestinians can make progress toward their national goal only by political means, Abbas would have been seen as a strong leader.
Instead, Sharon ignored the road map and betrayed his promise to relieve the misery of Palestinians under Israel's occupation. He has left virtually all of the checkpoints and roadblocks in place, and deeply disappointed Palestinian expectations for significant releases of prisoners being held in Israeli jails. These disappointments assured the outcome Sharon wanted - the discrediting of Abbas within the Palestinian community and the postponement of even the prospect of a return to peace negotiations to a distant future.
As indicated by Rice's statement in Israel that Sharon must immediately follow the withdrawal from Gaza with a return to the road map and further withdrawals from the West Bank, Washington is not unaware of or indifferent to Sharon's intentions. What is not clear is whether, when the time comes, it will back up its rhetorical admonitions with real action.
Posted by Ted Belman at July 24, 2005 01:13 PM
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1.
Robert Kriegsman
said:
It doesn't say much for the American Jewish Congress.
Henry Siegman is what is known pejoratively as a "court Jew" -
a fawning Jew who will say anything or do anything to please
the ruling Gentile masters in his country.
He thus gains the "access" he so craves to their inner chambers.
Posted by: Robert Kriegsman on July 24, 2005 03:04 PM
2.
BobW
said:
The article did not shock me. I grew up hearing from the family terms such as "Sonderkommandos", "Blue Squad", "Red Squad", "Goldjuden", "Totenjuden", "Court Jews" (Hofjuden) and the like.
AJC is a left wing organization with its speakers obviously the same. I believe one of its founders also founded the New School For Social Research in Greenwich Village, NYC. The New School was more Marxist than Patrice Lumumba University, Moscow.
AJC wants to close down Yesha. This is the organization that once gave an award to Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein, besides his mastery of music, was very cozy with the Black Panther Party and was identified as such. Middle America questioned AJC and Bernstein's background and fidelity. AJC supports Oslo. What else need be said other than in the South, AJC is formally identified by certain political groups as being an organization seeking more gun laws. Groups like AJC are hurting Jews.
Nearly forgot to list "kapo".
Kol tuv,
BobW
Posted by: BobW on July 24, 2005 03:26 PM
3.
DovBear
said:
Henry Siegman is what is known pejoratively as a "court Jew" -
a fawning Jew who will say anything or do anything to please
the ruling Gentile masters in his country.
He thus gains the "access" he so craves to their inner chambers
Well done. You've just described Daniel Lapin.
Posted by: DovBear on July 24, 2005 05:23 PM
4.
DovBear
said:
And not to quibble but you've mixed up your terms.
Court Jew is the term Jewish bankers or businessmen who lent money and handled finances of some of the European noble and royal houses. They were usually rich, prominent people who used their influence to protect and their brethren. It isn't a pejorative at all.
Ghetto Jew is the term for someone who cowers in fear of the gentiels and bends over backwards to please them. Daniel Lapin, certainly is one. I am not sure about Siegman.
Posted by: DovBear on July 24, 2005 05:28 PM
5.
BobW
said:
Shalom DovBear,
Actually Robert Kriegsman is accurate in his use of the term "court Jew". There's much more to the term than its original meaning. Above, I had mentioned the German/Yiddish translation: "Hofjude".
You're right re the origin. Court Jews ran the finances. Later, the term Hofjude evolved and was replaced by "Hoffaktor"; meaning Court Factor (More idiomatically: Jewish financier). Continuing with the term's development, Robert is correct in saying the term "court Jew" became negative. A contemporary development shows the use of another term also. It's "token" ie a nominal presence near the inner sanctum. Eg, the "neocons" really don't make energy policy although they and the general public are led to believe this.
"Ghetto Jew" is a different term in the Jewish political lexicon.
Kol tuv, all the best.....
BobW
Posted by: BobW on July 25, 2005 12:43 AM
6.
georg von mecklenburg
said:
You all are referring to Jud Suss. A Court Jew who was in charge of finances. His end result was being placed in a cage where he slowly died a horrible death. The same death that will happen to Israelis because of their own insensitivity to the plight of their brothers and sister. American Jews are certain to meet the same fate, depriving Christians of their right to convert them while they await their false messiah.
Posted by: georg von mecklenburg on July 25, 2005 02:33 AM
Post a comment
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Israel is still blocking the road to peace
Henry Seigman, International Herald Tribune
(This article will shock you because Seigman is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a former executive head of the American Jewish Congress. What does it say about American Jewish Congress. Or for that matter what does it say for the Council on Foreign Relations. This organization publishes Foreign Affairs. Ted Belman)
In her latest visit to Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to diffuse the crisis created by the failure of Israel to coordinate its imminent withdrawal from Gaza with Palestinian leadership. With less than four weeks to go, not one of the issues that will determine whether the pullout will be a success or a disaster has been resolved.
But as important as it is for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to coordinate the disengagement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for Abbas to finally confront Palestinian rejectionist groups, there is an even more important problem. That problem is Sharon's determination to use the withdrawal not as a precedent for a comprehensive land-for-peace accord but to make such an accord impossible.
From the very outset of his announcement that Israel would disengage unilaterally from Gaza, Sharon made it clear he is doing so to avoid the "dangers" of a resumed peace process that would require Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. As his senior adviser and former chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, notoriously put it last year, the withdrawal was intended to put the road map, the peace process and a Palestinian state in "formaldehyde."
On June 30, Sharon himself said that he would not be deterred by settler protests from completing the Gaza disengagement, since its purpose was to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank, a goal Sharon continues to share with the settlers, whom he described as "the cream of the Jewish people."
The fundamental cause of the paralysis of the peace process even after the replacement of Yasser Arafat by Abbas is the fantasy entertained by Sharon and his government that they can require Palestinians to agree to a further truncation of the shrunken territory Palestinians have been left with - the 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine that lies east of the pre-1967 border - as a condition for a return to peace talks. (Unbelievable)
It is a condition that continues to delay the resumption of a political process, enabling Sharon to continue to create new "facts on the ground," which he is doing despite the informal ceasefire, and despite George W. Bush's insistence that the road map, which forbids such activities, must be observed by Israel as well as the Palestinians.
Sharon has continued the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, the planning of massive housing projects that will remove the option of locating the capital of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, and the enlargement of a vast infrastructure in the West Bank for the use of Jewish settlers only, creating isolated Palestinian enclaves that make a mockery of the two-state solution.
The individual responsible for the intellectual grounding of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza is General Eival Giladi, formerly the head of the Strategic Planning Unit of the Israeli Defense Force and now the director of the Strategic Coordination Unit for the withdrawal in the prime minister's office. Giladi recently explained on Israeli television why Israel "has no choice" but to act unilaterally. It is, he said, because the Palestinian leadership was not in the past, under Arafat, and is not now, under Mahmoud Abbas, "ripe" for a true peace process.
For Giladi, as for Sharon, "ripeness" is a euphemism for an Israeli determination to deal only with a Palestinian leadership that accepts Israel's map of a new Palestinian state. This is consistent with the observation made in 2003 by the IDF's former chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, that a successful negotiation with the Palestinians could begin only after Israel had "seared deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people."
Sharon has dismissed Abbas as a "weak" leader with whom Israel cannot do business. But Abbas's "weakness" is in large part the consequence of his opposition to Palestinian violence and terror. Had Sharon implemented the requirements of the road map and proved Abbas right in his insistence that Palestinians can make progress toward their national goal only by political means, Abbas would have been seen as a strong leader.
Instead, Sharon ignored the road map and betrayed his promise to relieve the misery of Palestinians under Israel's occupation. He has left virtually all of the checkpoints and roadblocks in place, and deeply disappointed Palestinian expectations for significant releases of prisoners being held in Israeli jails. These disappointments assured the outcome Sharon wanted - the discrediting of Abbas within the Palestinian community and the postponement of even the prospect of a return to peace negotiations to a distant future.
As indicated by Rice's statement in Israel that Sharon must immediately follow the withdrawal from Gaza with a return to the road map and further withdrawals from the West Bank, Washington is not unaware of or indifferent to Sharon's intentions. What is not clear is whether, when the time comes, it will back up its rhetorical admonitions with real action.
Henry Siegman, a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a former executive head of the American Jewish Congress.
In her latest visit to Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to diffuse the crisis created by the failure of Israel to coordinate its imminent withdrawal from Gaza with Palestinian leadership. With less than four weeks to go, not one of the issues that will determine whether the pullout will be a success or a disaster has been resolved.
But as important as it is for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to coordinate the disengagement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for Abbas to finally confront Palestinian rejectionist groups, there is an even more important problem. That problem is Sharon's determination to use the withdrawal not as a precedent for a comprehensive land-for-peace accord but to make such an accord impossible.
From the very outset of his announcement that Israel would disengage unilaterally from Gaza, Sharon made it clear he is doing so to avoid the "dangers" of a resumed peace process that would require Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. As his senior adviser and former chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, notoriously put it last year, the withdrawal was intended to put the road map, the peace process and a Palestinian state in "formaldehyde."
On June 30, Sharon himself said that he would not be deterred by settler protests from completing the Gaza disengagement, since its purpose was to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank, a goal Sharon continues to share with the settlers, whom he described as "the cream of the Jewish people."
The fundamental cause of the paralysis of the peace process even after the replacement of Yasser Arafat by Abbas is the fantasy entertained by Sharon and his government that they can require Palestinians to agree to a further truncation of the shrunken territory Palestinians have been left with - the 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine that lies east of the pre-1967 border - as a condition for a return to peace talks.
It is a condition that continues to delay the resumption of a political process, enabling Sharon to continue to create new "facts on the ground," which he is doing despite the informal ceasefire, and despite George W. Bush's insistence that the road map, which forbids such activities, must be observed by Israel as well as the Palestinians.
Sharon has continued the expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, the planning of massive housing projects that will remove the option of locating the capital of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, and the enlargement of a vast infrastructure in the West Bank for the use of Jewish settlers only, creating isolated Palestinian enclaves that make a mockery of the two-state solution.
The individual responsible for the intellectual grounding of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza is General Eival Giladi, formerly the head of the Strategic Planning Unit of the Israeli Defense Force and now the director of the Strategic Coordination Unit for the withdrawal in the prime minister's office. Giladi recently explained on Israeli television why Israel "has no choice" but to act unilaterally. It is, he said, because the Palestinian leadership was not in the past, under Arafat, and is not now, under Mahmoud Abbas, "ripe" for a true peace process.
For Giladi, as for Sharon, "ripeness" is a euphemism for an Israeli determination to deal only with a Palestinian leadership that accepts Israel's map of a new Palestinian state. This is consistent with the observation made in 2003 by the IDF's former chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, that a successful negotiation with the Palestinians could begin only after Israel had "seared deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people."
Sharon has dismissed Abbas as a "weak" leader with whom Israel cannot do business. But Abbas's "weakness" is in large part the consequence of his opposition to Palestinian violence and terror. Had Sharon implemented the requirements of the road map and proved Abbas right in his insistence that Palestinians can make progress toward their national goal only by political means, Abbas would have been seen as a strong leader.
Instead, Sharon ignored the road map and betrayed his promise to relieve the misery of Palestinians under Israel's occupation. He has left virtually all of the checkpoints and roadblocks in place, and deeply disappointed Palestinian expectations for significant releases of prisoners being held in Israeli jails. These disappointments assured the outcome Sharon wanted - the discrediting of Abbas within the Palestinian community and the postponement of even the prospect of a return to peace negotiations to a distant future.
As indicated by Rice's statement in Israel that Sharon must immediately follow the withdrawal from Gaza with a return to the road map and further withdrawals from the West Bank, Washington is not unaware of or indifferent to Sharon's intentions. What is not clear is whether, when the time comes, it will back up its rhetorical admonitions with real action.
Posted by Ted Belman at July 24, 2005 01:13 PM