They see the Arab world turn against them - and don't learn a damned thing - by Elder of Ziyon

It sounds like Mr. Ramini might be close to getting it. But, no, the antisemitism that he grew up with is more powerful than actual self-assessment.

Elder of Ziyon..
11 September '20..

Countercurrents has an opinion piece by Jafar Ramini, a Palestinian who lives in London:

I believe that for us Arabs to survive and progress we must have in common more than religion, language and rhetoric. We need unity, transparency and honesty.
We Palestinians are teetering on the edge of a precipice. Until very recently, every Arab leader, politician, cleric and pundit, given half a chance, would mount the platform and raise the Palestinian flag promising to do what is necessary to liberate the land and restore what is rightfully ours. Not any more.
The language has changed totally from support of the Palestinian cause to condemnation of us Palestinians, accusing us of being ungrateful architects of our own demise. The schism between some Arab regimes, especially in the Gulf and the Palestinians has been widening ever since the two Mohammads – Bin Zayid in the UAE and Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia took control.

...This schism became even more apparent during yet another meeting, this time in Cairo two days ago. The Foreign Ministers of the Arab League opposed a proposal put forward by the Palestinian side to condemn the UAE/Israel peace treaty. So, where is the unity? Where is the transparency? Where is the honesty.?
There is none.
You might think that this recent betrayal and open rejection should serve to bring the Palestinian leaders of all persuasions to a realisation that Palestine is not the core subject of most of the Arab regimes.

It sounds like Mr. Ramini might be close to getting it. But, no, the antisemitism that he grew up with is more powerful than actual self-assessment.

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The Old: "Nothing in the Middle East can be solved without Israel/Palestinian peace." The New: "How dare.... !" by Elder of Ziyon

This is a new Middle East, and the people who preferred the old Middle East are having a bad day.

Elder of Ziyon..
01 September '20..

Remember "linkage"?

It was the opinion of supposed Middle East experts that all problems in the region could only be solved if Israel gave in to Palestinian demands for "peace."

Jimmy Carter said in 2006, "I don’t think it’s about a linkage policy, but a linkage fact. There is no doubt: The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with fairly. ...Without doubt, the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem."

Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski similarly said, “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the single most combustible and galvanizing issue in the Arab world.”

The idea lasted even into the 2010s, even as the Arab Spring and ISIS and the Syrian civil war erupted, with the New York Times keeping the flame alive: "While resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the magic bullet for the region that some once thought, it still resonates widely, whether among the crowds in Tahrir Square or the militants of Hezbollah, who cite Israel in rallying around President Bashar al-Assad of Syria."

The Palestinian leaders quickly realized that this false theory works to their advantage, as they would routinely say that if Israel doesn't give in to their demands, the entire Middle East would erupt into chaos and terrorism against the West would return. Mahmoud Abbas' spokesperson ludicrously claimed that ISIS would cease to exist if Israel just did what Palestinians demanded.

The Israel/UAE agreement has proven all of these theories wrong.

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Taking the necessary steps to surmount Palestinian rejectionism - by David M. Weinberg

For European and other diplomats to continue to scurry about the region without pressing inevitable truths on the Palestinians is mischievous, at best. To be overly solicitous of the Palestinians, a long-time mistake of professional peace processors, is similarly unhelpful. Dishing out some tough love and dialing down Palestinian expectations would be much more constructive.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
28 August '20..
Link: https://davidmweinberg.com/2020/08/28/surmounting-palestinian-rejectionism/

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab showed up in Jerusalem this week to pressure Israel and the Palestinians (“both sides”) to renew negotiations towards a two-state solution “based on international parameters.”

Translation: Raab was here to pressure Israel to yield to a stale formula based on maximal Palestinian demands alongside minimal regard for Israeli security needs and national-historic claims; a discredited formula involving the uprooting of settlements, withdrawals from most of Judea and Samaria, and a division of Jerusalem.

Raab’s mission was blast from the irrelevant past. As if Palestinian rejectionism and Iranian-backed jihadism of the past decade had not made such proposals passé. As if the Trump administration’s wiser peace initiative had not been launched. As if the UAE had not recently announced its intention to develop full diplomatic relations with Israel; an obvious dismissal of the Palestinian Authority’s strategy of boycotting and criminalizing Israel. As if Israel needed to be prodded to engage in serious and realistic negotiations with the Palestinians.

Raab showed no inclination to take advantage of recent developments to put pressure where it belongs: on the side that began the conflict and that can end it. On the Palestinians.

Remember: It was Palestinian Authority dictator Mahmoud Abbas walked away from negotiations with Prime Minister Olmert in 2008; Abbas who refused peace talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu even after Netanyahu froze settlement construction in 2009; and Abbas who left US Secretary of State John Kerry out in the cold in 2014. Earlier this year, Abbas declared “one thousand no’s” to the new American peace plan.

Now the PA ferociously has rejected the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE, which Abbas and his spokesman have called “a knife in the back of Palestine and treason against Jerusalem.” The PA’s Grand Mufti issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims who come via the UAE to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Abbas has called for popular resistance, a code word for violence, in coordination with the Iranian-backed Hamas movement, which does not hide its genocidal plans for Israel. Other senior Palestinian leaders talk about “a return to armed struggle,” meaning orchestrated suicide bombings and other naked terrorism. (Israel must act determinedly to deter Abbas from making such a gargantuan mistake).

Abbas and his associates have no problem acting against the interests of their own people - by Khaled Abu Toameh

By arresting and threatening Palestinians who dare publicly to promote the Israel-UAE deal, the Palestinian leaders are again demonstrating that they, like all other Arab dictators, evidently consider basic human rights a privilege they reserve for themselves alone.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
27 August '20..

As Palestinian leaders continue to wage a massive campaign of incitement against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because of its normalization agreement with Israel, some Palestinians have come out in support of the deal and accused the Palestinian leadership of harming Palestinians' relations with the Arab states.

In the past two weeks, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and leaders of his ruling Fatah faction have repeatedly accused the UAE and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Zayed, of "stabbing the Palestinians in the back with a poisonous dagger" and betraying Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, and the Palestinian cause.

They have also accused the Gulf state of acting in violation of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which states that the Arab countries would normalize their relations with Israel only after a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice lines and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

The accusations have prompted Palestinians to stage protests in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during which they burned UAE flags and pictures of Ben Zayed.

Some Palestinians, however, do not share their leaders' rage toward the UAE. These Palestinians say they are worried that the Palestinian leadership's overreaction to the UAE-Israel deal is counterproductive and will cause further harm to the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian leadership, nonetheless, does not seem to care about the voices expressing concern over the damage caused to Palestinian-Arab relations as a result of the incitement against the UAE and its leader.

By ignoring these voices, Abbas and his associates are again showing that they have no problem acting against the interests of their own people. Worse, by condemning the Israel-UAE deal on a daily basis, the leaders of the Palestinians have made it clear that they prefer to side with Iran and its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah -- in rejecting any compromise with Israel.

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A long time coming, but the center of gravity has shifted under the Palestinians’ feet - by Sarah N. Stern

My Muslim and Arab dissident friends tell me that the deep-seated preoccupation with the Palestinian cause that has united the Arab world until this day is being examined internally as an obsession that has held its own people back in their development as individuals and as nations. This obsession was best described by Egyptian Gen. Gamal Abdel Nasser when he called Arab children “bullets in the war machine.”

Sarah N. Stern..
JNS.org..
19 August '20..

The deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates radically shook the ground in the Middle East and begrudgingly awakened the stale, tired, conventional wisdom of the policy establishment. For far too long, the Palestinian Authority has seen itself as the center of gravity and the final arbitrator of independent Arab governments who have wanted to open up to the public their “under the table,” warm relations with the Jewish state but have been held back by the stubborn, maximalist demands of the Palestinian Authority.

This has given far too much power over the years to the Palestinians to reject overtures of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and has stood in the way of a great deal of progress that this region could have benefited from by partaking in what Israel has to offer.

Far too many in the Washington political establishment and the European Union have bought into the mistaken notion that the Palestinian issue is the lynchpin upon which peace between Israel and their Arab neighbors rests. This is surprising considering our long history of involvement in various wars in the Middle East, as well as our education about the myriad, tribal, internecine conflicts in the region.

Even prior to Israel’s birth in 1948, the Arab League rejected any presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. After the Six-Day War in June 1967, when Israel was victorious in its defensive war on all sides, it had attempted to trade the land it conquered for peace. It brought that notion to a meeting with the Arab League in Khartoum, Sudan, several months later in August, and its response was the famous “Three No’s”: “No peace, no recognition and no negotiations with Israel.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinians have consistently proven that they have not negotiated in good faith.

I was in the audience of a Washington think tank on July 25, 2000—the day the Camp David talks between U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat broke up. Elyakim Rubenstein, who had been the Attorney General of the State of Israel, came to address the group. His words were: “There are people crying on the way to Ronald Reagan Airport right now because they felt if we just offered Arafat everything that he wanted, he simply could not refuse it. I can tell you that what we offered was as far as any responsible government could possibly go. In fact, some would argue that we were not being responsible. What we offered was: shared sovereignty over Jerusalem, with the Palestinian control of the Harem al Sharif (the “Temple Mount”), and Israel of the Western Wall; a land mass equal to 95 percent of the West Bank, plus Gaza, (which was still in Israel’s hands); and a ‘right of return’ for thousands of Palestinian refugees, with a monetary package to compensate for those Palestinians that did not want to return. Arafat did not say yes, and he did not say no. He simply walked away from the table.”

His response came a few months later in the form of a renewed intifada, in which more than 1,000 Israeli civilians lost their lives.

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Sarah N. Stern is founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy institute in Washington, D.C.

Who would've thought? Palestinians Join Iran-led Anti-Peace Camp - by Khaled Abu Toameh

By holding a political protest at the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinians are not only desecrating the sanctity of the site, but also sending a warning to citizens of UAE not to visit Jerusalem or the mosque, as many apparently hoped to do....This warning shows that the Palestinians believe they have exclusive control over Islam's third-holiest site and are free to decide who can visit the site and who cannot. It is therefore the right time for Arabs and Muslims to step in to demand an end to Palestinian hegemony over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
18 August '20..

The Palestinians have spent the past few months trying to persuade the international community, including Arab countries, to help prevent Israel from applying its sovereignty to portions of the West Bank.

Now that one of these countries – the United Arab Emirates – succeeded in striking a deal with Israel, according to which the Israeli plan to extend Israeli law to more land would be suspended, the Palestinians are waging an unprecedented campaign of defamation against the UAE and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed.

Instead of thanking the UAE for managing to suspend the Israeli plan, Palestinians are protesting against the UAE because of its decision to normalize its relations with Israel. Palestinians have been burning UAE flags and photos of Bin Zayed and denouncing him as a "traitor," as well as accusing him of "stabbing the Palestinians and Arabs in the back" and "betraying Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause."

The anti-UAE campaign, spearheaded by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is being waged under the banner "Normalization [with Israel] is Treason."

This is the same Palestinian Authority whose leaders signed the Oslo Accord with Israel in 1993, engaged in peace talks with Israelis for nearly 20 years, ostensibly recognized Israel's right to exist and, until recently, even conducted security coordination with the Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

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While Palestinians reject every overture for peace, they are still the darlings of the international system - by Jonathan Schachter and Jonathan Schanzer

Countless Zoom calls will undoubtedly focus on ways to pressure Israel, even with annexation tabled. It's a safe bet that few, if any, will propose putting pressure where it belongs, on the side that began the conflict and that can end it.

Jonathan Schachter/Jonathan Schanzer..
Pundicity/JPost..
16 August '20..
Link: http://schanzer.pundicity.com/24470/palestinians-part-of-intl-system-despite

Last week's announcement about the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE appears to have put annexation plans on ice. But the debate was revealing. The hand-wringing in America about annexation struck a stark contrast to Israelis and Palestinians, who have been more concerned about the second wave of COVID-19. When they do discuss the conflict, few if any believe renewed negotiations right now would bear fruit. The two sides are simply too far apart.

Most Israelis, including the prime minister, seek a negotiated end to the conflict, with an end to all claims. This is the outcome to which both sides committed in the Oslo Accords.

Yet, nearly 27 years after the iconic handshake on the White House lawn, many Palestinian leaders still dream of Israel's demise. Official clergy, Palestinian Authority media, government-issued textbooks, and diplomats all speak of Israel's destruction. The Palestinian Authority's strategy over the last decade has been to try imposing a solution on Israel without negotiating, compromising, or ending historic claims, which extend beyond the vaunted 1967 lines. Even the Palestinians' repeated calls for international conferences and the establishment of a state through UN resolutions are intended to perpetuate the conflict, not end it.

Of course, it would be poor form to adopt such a belligerent position explicitly. In English (and French), the Palestinians' spokespeople speak primarily and passionately of ending Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank. Sympathetic Western audiences have earnestly adopted and parroted this message to the point that it now holds little meaning.

Welcome to the Palestinian War on History - by Bassam Tawil

For Palestinian leaders, denying Jewish history and heritage is far more important than combating a range of domestic crime that runs wide and deep. As Palestinians bury the victims of violent crime week after week, Abbas and his officials take step after step to bury their own credibility. The winners? The Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who dream of extending their control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This dream, thanks to the lawless and lethal regime of the Palestinian Authority -- funded by the West -- appears closer than ever.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
11 August '20..

Palestinian leaders seem more worried about an Israeli plan to install an elevator for disabled people at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron than about a Palestinian upsurge in violent crime.

The Israeli government recently approved the construction of a handicapped access elevator at the holy site. "Every person, irrespective of whether or not they are disabled, should have the opportunity to visit the tomb, which is an important Jewish heritage site," said former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. "The tomb belongs to us after Abraham bought it with his own money 3,800 years ago."

The 2,000-year-old structure was built by King Herod the Great to house the Cave of Machpela, burial site of the Biblical founding fathers and mothers. The site, divided into separate Muslim and Jewish prayer areas, has only steep staircases for entrances.

The decision to build the elevator came in response to the Israeli Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law that requires every public structure to be fully accessible to the disabled.

Palestinian leaders, however, do not seem to care about the rights of people with disabilities, particularly when it comes to providing access to Jews who want to pray at one of their holiest sites. These Palestinian leaders continue to deny any Jewish connection to the holy site on the pretext that it belongs exclusively to Muslims.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki has condemned the elevator plan as an Israeli "war crime" and a "violation of international law." In his opinion, enabling handicapped Jewish worshippers to enter the holy site is part of an Israeli scheme to "forge Palestinian history and heritage."

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The Beinart-like binational “solution”, that collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence - by Sean Durns

“The study of history,” British author Paul Johnson once wrote, “is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”

Sean Durns..
JPost/Opinion..
06 August '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/brit-shalom-and-peter-beinart-analyzing-jewish-palestinian-land-solution-637784

From his home in New York City, the American pundit Peter Beinart has recently called to dismantle the Jewish state of Israel, advocating instead for a “one-state solution” – a binational Jewish-Palestinian Arab state. Beinart’s proposal was hailed as “a monumental, agenda-setting piece” by Washington Post foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor, among other analysts, many of whom live far from Israel. But it is nothing of the sort. Indeed, arguments for a binational “solution” are a century old – and they collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence.

Ninety-five years ago this past May, a group of philosophers, academics and theologians announced the formation of Brit Shalom (the Covenant of Peace) in British-ruled Mandate Palestine. Brit Shalom “sought to promote peace between Jews and Arabs, primarily by arguing that Jews should give up their quest for statehood,” historian Daniel Gordis noted in his 2016 Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

The movement, Gordis documented, “never had more than a hundred members, but its influence far outstripped its members.” This was largely due to its composition. Brit Shalom members would, over time, include prominent and well-known Jewish figures like Judah Magnes, an American Reform rabbi and the future president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Arthur Ruppin, a famous economist and high-ranking Jewish Agency official, as well as well-known philosophers like Gershom Scholem and Martin Buber. Other future members would include then attorney general of Mandate Palestine, Norman Bentwich, and Edwin Samuel, the son of the first High Commissioner to Palestine Herbert Samuel. Brit Shalom even counted Albert Einstein as a supporter. The movement was, in every sense, confined to a small number of the elite and intelligentsia.

Initially, Brit Shalom conceived of itself less as a political party than as a “study circle” which hoped to influence debates about the future of Jewish self-determination. Brit Shalom’s foundational charter articulated the movement’s objective: “to arrive at an understanding between Jews and Arabs as to the form of their mutual social relations in Palestine on the basis of absolute political equality of two culturally autonomous peoples, and to determine the lines of their cooperation for the development of the country.”

The group founded a newspaper, She’ifoteinu (Our Aspirations), authored editorials and made public speeches advocating for the adoption of a binational state. But problems soon arose.

(Excellent) Note to the EU and UN: The Palestinian leopard does not change its spots - by Charles Abelsohn

The time has come for the UN and the EU to recognize that the only parameter and framework relevant to Israel are that the Palestinian leopard has not, and apparently cannot and will not, change its spots. Both pre-1967 and post 1967, the Palestinian policy is for violence and terrorism against Israel`s very existence. The policies of the EU and UN strongly promote the Palestinians needing to be rewarded for their anti-Israel terrorism and violence since 1949.

Charles Abelsohn..
TOI Blog..
27 July '20

In 1948 the independent state of Israel was declared. The armies of several Arab armies invaded what was mandatory Palestine, intended to be the Jewish homeland under the San Remo Agreement. Much of Samaria and Judea was captured by the British officered, trained and supplied Trans-Jordanian forces. In 1949 cease fires were declared and armistice agreements entered into between Israel and several Arab states.

Trans-Jordan itself changed its name to Jordan and then renamed the captured area of Samaria and Judea as the West Bank. For the first time in its history, Jerusalem was divided. The Jordanians expelled the ancient Jewish community from the Jewish quarter of the Old City. The Holy Places, being the Western Wall, Rachel`s Tomb and the Temple Mount, were all held by Jordan and Jews and Israelis were not permitted access to their Holy Places despite provisions explicitly permitting access in the armistice agreement. In the Old City, now held by Jordan, 58 synagogues were destroyed and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives desecrated. Egypt controlled and administered Gaza. The lines (not borders) between Jordan, Egypt and Syria and Israel were set out with a green pen in Armistice Agreements – hence the term “green lines” – without prejudice to the rights, claims and positions of either Israel or Jordan.

In 1967, the above areas were retaken by Israeli forces and Jews were again able to live in areas populated by Jews before their expulsion by Jordan in 1948 and Jews again had access to their Holy Places.

It is the return of Jews to the 6.4 km2 of the Old City of Jerusalem, the re-establishment of Jewish populations in Area C of the West Bank and the unification of Jerusalem (some may add Areas A & B as well; this aspect is not the subject of this article) which is generally referred to, as the “Israeli occupation”.

Since 1967, there has been considerable violence between the Palestinians and Israel. Most critics of Israel take the view “The cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians is triggered by the dynamics of the Israeli occupation”.

As shown above, there was no “Israeli occupation” between 1948 and 1967. Thus, according to this theme and outlook, since there was no “Israeli occupation”, these were the years of tranquility and Paradise Regained. The EU and the UN demand of Israel to return to the 1949 armistice lines so that peace and calm in the Middle East would be restored and the Israel – Arab conflict be deemed resolved. After all, the atmosphere in the Middle East before 5 June 1967 was idyllic. For the EU and UN, there was actually no good reason in 1967 for the UN to withdraw troops, for the Egyptians to impose a blockade on Eilat and for Egypt and Syria, subsequently joined by Jordan, to threaten Israel. Let`s just restore 4 June 1967 lines and all the “problems” will be resolved. It is really so simple.

Except that it is not.

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Arabs and Europeans React to President Trump’s Middle East ‘Vision’ - by Shoshana Bryen

It has been hard for Arab states to move on from decades of adamant rejection of Israel to talk and trade, and generally accept the nation-state of the Jewish people. That is the reality, not an excuse. But for the EU and UNRWA, to encourage Palestinians in outmoded, fanatical, and dangerous thinking is inexplicable. Except it isn’t.

Shoshana Bryen..
Jewish Policy Center..
06 February '20..
Link: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2020/02/06/arabs-and-europeans-react-to-trumps-middle-east-vision/

It takes time for attitudes to change, and changing attitudes in the Middle East is a tough proposition. Moving the Europeans may prove harder.

An Israeli general once told this story (I was there):

The Israeli general commanded a unit that crossed the Suez Canal in 1973 after repulsing Egypt’s surprise Yom Kippur War attack. In his headquarters, he received a message that purported to be from an Egyptian general, telling him to come — alone — in a jeep to a certain spot in the desert and “hear something.” The general told the group, “I was sure I was going to die, but I did it.” The Egyptian proved to be the chief of the Egyptian general staff and he, too, was alone.

The Egyptian said, “The war is over.”

The Israeli general said, “Yes. I know.”

The Egyptian general sighed, “Not this war. In 1948, Egypt was within 11 miles of Tel Aviv and you pushed us back. In 1956, you drove through Sinai — but it wasn’t fair because you had the French and the British. In 1967, you did it again — by yourselves. Now you have crossed the Suez Canal and are 99 kilometers from Cairo. I’m here to tell you that you won’t get any closer. The war is over.”

He got back in his jeep and left.

The Israeli returned to his headquarters and told the story to the general staff in Tel Aviv. “No one believed me,” the Israeli said.

But it was true. The Egyptian government had determined that fighting, losing, and regrouping was not a plan. In 1979, Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem, and in so doing met Israel’s primary condition for peace — recognition of Israel as a legitimate and permanent state in the region, entitled to “secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats or acts of force” (the language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242). Today, Egypt and Israel cooperate on energy, security (including for the Gaza Strip), and trade.

In the broader Arab world, it is taking longer. Unable to countenance Jewish sovereignty in the region, the Arabs went to war in 1948 to erase it. They failed. They tried again in 1967. They failed again. After that war, an Arab League Summit convened in Sudan and issued what became known as the Khartoum Resolution: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.”

Then there were the conflicts of 1973 and 1982, intifadas, and rocket wars with Gaza.

President Trump called them on it in announcing his “Vision” for the Middle East. “It is time for the Muslim world to fix the mistake it made in 1948, when it chose to attack instead of to recognize the new state of Israel. The Palestinians are the primary pawn in this adventurism, and it is time for this sad chapter in history to end.” Three Arab ambassadors were in the room.

Palestinian rejectionism? Who cares? - by Ken Cohen

The Palestinians have spent decades overplaying their hand, but the world seems to be catching on to their lethal game.

Ken Cohen..
FLAME/JNS.org..
04 February '20..

Last week, President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his electoral opponent Blue and White leader Benny Gantz were at the White House for the announcement. So were a bunch of international diplomats, including three from Arab nations. The Palestinians refused to attend and rejected the plan sight-unseen.

The proper question at this point about Palestinian rejectionism ought to be: “Who cares?”

Anyone surveying the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations already knows that the Palestinians’ goal is the eradication of Israel. The difference in the new U.S. plan, however, is that the initial major steps in its implementation can be taken unilaterally by Israel, even with no Palestinian participation.

Having refused four major peace initiatives in the past 25 years, the Palestinians are well schooled in rejectionism. Each of those earlier plans—starting with the Clinton initiative in 2000—would have given them a state roughly corresponding to the original 1949 armistice lines from Israel’s War of Independence.

But the Palestinians’ many “unconditional” demands—like the right of return for millions of Arab refugees and their descendants to Israel proper—created built-in excuses for walking away from the table. The new plan explicitly rules out this refugee demand.

This time, the Palestinian leadership didn’t even walk up to the table, having severed all relations with the United States in 2017 over America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. Similarly, other than some security and bureaucratic coordination with Israel, they have refused all bilateral negotiations with Netanyahu and his government.

But this latest rejection could very well do them in once and for all.

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The Myth Of Arab Buy-In - by Yishai Fleisher

...while many Arabs want to end hostilities, it is a mistake to pine for public Arab buy-in. Israel is anathema to both their Arab nationalism and a core tenet of Islam — and if they must swallow the existence of Israel, they prefer it play out as coercion, or at least a gradual and quiet acceptance rather than voluntary proclamations of “peace in our time.” In the end, helping the Arab world transition from war to cooperation is a delicate task and it will surely benefit Israel. But the Muslim world, which is hungry for prosperity, modernity, and reform, stands to gain even more.

Yishai Fleisher..
Daily Wire..
31 January '20..
Link: https://www.dailywire.com/news/fleisher-the-myth-of-arab-buy-in

When speaking with liberal-minded folks about solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the recently revealed “Deal of the Century,” inevitably the question of Arab buy-in arises. “Will the Palestinians accept it?” is the oft-heard refrain.

While this may seem to be a pretty reasonable question, it actually reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of the Middle East.

Here is a true story involving one of my mentors, Dr. Mordechai Kedar. It helpfully illustrates Middle East thinking.

Kedar has crafted an alternative vision to the “two-state solution” that is called the “emirates plan.” He presented it to a well-known sheikh in Judea and Samaria (i.e., the “West Bank”). The sheikh listened attentively to Kedar and in the end, announced: “I like it. It is good for us. Now you will have to force it upon me.”

Why did the sheikh, who liked the plan and thought it was good for his people, say this strange phrase, “now you will have to force it upon me?”

Surprise? Abbas Chooses Hamas Over Peace with Israel - by Khaled Abu Toameh

In their response to the "Peace to Prosperity" plan, Palestinian leaders have once again succeeded in what they do best: taking any hope for the wellbeing of their people and driving it straight into the ground.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
30 Janury '20..


US President Donald Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians offers hope to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas for more than a decade.

Instead of welcoming the plan, designed to give the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip a prosperous future, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected and denounced it as the "deal of shame" and "slap of the century."

Worse, Abbas has chosen to renew his ties with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the two Iranian-backed groups that are opposed to his policies and have regularly condemned his policies and decisions.

Abbas, in other words, is acting not only against the interests of his people in the Gaza Strip, but also against himself by engaging the same groups that have long been seeking to undermine his rule.

By rejecting Abbas Trump's plan, Abbas is denying the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip the chance of improving their living conditions.

Hamas and Iran have no plans to boost the economy in the Gaza Strip. They also have no intention of creating jobs for thousands of unemployed Palestinians. The only plan Hamas, PIJ and their patrons in Tehran have is one that will bring more suffering and bloodshed to the Palestinians. That, however, does not seem to bother Abbas, who is now seeking to appease Hamas and PIJ.

As the Peace to Prosperity plan accurately points out:

"The people of Gaza have suffered for too long under the repressive rule of Hamas. They have been exploited as hostages and human shields, and bullied into submission. Hamas has failed the people of Gaza and has diverted money belonging to the Palestinians of Gaza, including funds provided by international donors, to attack the State of Israel, instead of using these funds to improve the lives of the people of Gaza. Under the leadership of Hamas, the residents of Gaza have suffered extreme poverty and deprivation. After years of no progress, the donor community is fatigued and reluctant to make additional investments so long as the governance structure in Gaza is run by terrorists who provoke confrontations that lead to more destruction and suffering."

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Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

What If a US Congresswoman Actually Wanted to Help Palestinians? - by Bassam Tawil

While Tlaib is using the controversy surrounding her visit as an excuse to launch scathing attacks on Israel, Palestinians seem to be more worried about failed leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This concern is not something that Tlaib seems to share with Palestinians because for her the only wrong-doing is coming from Israel.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
21 August '19..

Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is apparently upset because she was not able to agitate against Israel during a proposed visit to her grandmother there.

"I would like to request admittance to Israel," she had written, "in order to visit my relatives, and specifically my grandmother, who is in her 90s and lives in Beit Ur al-Fouqa. This could be my last opportunity to see her. I will respect any restrictions and will not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit. Thank you, Rashida Tlaib."

When her letter was leaked to the media, however, Tlaib quickly backtracked:

"Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart."

Her trip was to have been co-sponsored by Miftah, a not-for-profit organization founded by Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Miftah promotes destroying Israel through economic strangulation, such as boycotts, has referred to a suicide bombing as "Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause," and has promoted the medieval blood libel that Jews kill Christian children to use their blood to bake matzoh. The itinerary Miftah had planned included "no meetings planned with Israeli officials of any political persuasion, including Arab lawmakers." As the journalist Charles Sykes noted, "Praising suicide bombers and pushing blood libel is not 'criticizing Israeli policy.'"

Tlaib's retraction came after many Palestinians had criticized her for requesting permission from Israel and for "complying with Israeli pre-conditions."

Tlaib and her colleague, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, have since been attacking Israel for banning them from entering the country simply because of their anti-Israel activities.

While Tlaib is using the controversy surrounding her visit as an excuse to launch scathing attacks on Israel, Palestinians seem to be more worried about failed leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This concern is not something that Tlaib seems to share with Palestinians because for her the only wrong-doing is coming from Israel.

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Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

Been There, Done That. Déjà Vu in Bahrain - by Sean Durns

Karl Marx famously said that history repeats itself—first as tragedy and then as farce. But Palestinian leaders seem stuck on repeat—with only tragedy to show for it.

Sean Durns..
TOI Blog..
16 July '19..

“History,” Mark Twain reportedly said, “doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.” And recent attempts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement prove it.

On June 25, 2019, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, presented part of the administration’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The economic portion of the proposal, entitled “From Peace to Prosperity,” was formally unveiled at a conference in Bahrain, with representatives from several Arab nations in attendance.

The Palestinian Authority, however, refused to participate. Indeed, the PA announced its opposition more than a year ago—long before the terms of the proposal were announced. The PA not only boycotted the proceedings, it threatened retaliation against any Palestinians who would participate.

In an interview on i24News English, a former PA minister, Ashraf Al-Ajrami called the several Palestinian businessmen attending “collaborators” who will be “seriously punished.” On Twitter, Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. envoy in charge of negotiations, noted that Palestinians were “threatened” or “forbidden” from attending. The Jerusalem Post reported that the PA even raided the homes of several Palestinian businessmen who participated, arresting at least one of the participants, Saleh Abu Mayaleh, who was only released after pressure from American officials.

Some commentators, in The Washington Post and elsewhere, asserted that the U.S. is to blame for the PA’s behavior. However, Palestinian leaders’ choosing to reject both negotiations and normalization predates the Trump administration. In fact, Palestinian leadership have rejected any type of compromise and threatened those Arabs who contemplate normalization—and they’ve consistently done so for nearly 100 years.

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The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for the Washington D.C. office of CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

The two sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - by Matan Peleg

For there to be any semblance of a chance for peace in the region, all the existing financial incentives for the Palestinian Arab leadership must be removed, and the philosophy of “mukawama” has to die.

Matan Peleg..
JNS.org..
07 July '19..

Many Western observers were surprised by the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to participate in the U.S.-sponsored economic conference in Bahrain last month, as well as the subsequent arrests of those who participated. However, their response should come as no surprise.

Bahrain was merely the latest manifestation of the ongoing theme of Arab rejectionism. This rejectionism, together with the financial gain of those profiting from it, represent the two fundamental sources of the Middle East conflict.

Only by understanding these two underlying sources of the conflict can one fully understand the P.A.’s modus operandi.

Mukawama is the Arabic word for “resistance,” but it’s also used to describe opposition or rejection. A stubborn refusal. In other words, an attitude and posture of “just say no.” Mukawama underlies and defines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and continues to shape it to this very day.

While this resistance started long ago, in fact from the earliest days of the Zionist movement, it was first formally manifested in 1937 when the Arab High Committee unanimously rejected the Peel Commission, which had recommended partitioning the Land of Israel between Jews and Arabs.

Ten years later, Arabs maintained the same approach and rejected the U.N. Partition Plan, which subsequently led to Israel’s War of Independence.

In 1967, after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, the Arabs responded to Israel’s overture of peace by issuing the “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.

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 The writer is the CEO of Im Tirtzu.

Makovsky's advice? Squeeze Israel, gradually - by Stephen M. Flatow

For those who sit on the comfortable banks of the Potomac and pontificate about what Israel should do, it’s all a matter of semantics and clever arguments and theoretical lines drawn on theoretical maps. But for every citizen of Israel, it’s a matter of life and death.

Stephen M. Flatow..
Israelnationalnews.com..
05 July '19..

Squeeze Israel more gradually!

That’s the advice a former U.S. Mideast emissary is offering Jared Kushner, courtesy of the op-ed page of Tuesday’s Washington Post.

David Makovsky, formerly the right-hand man to the Obama administration’s top Mideast envoy, Martin Indyk, was given the front-and-center spot on the Post’s op-ed page in order to tell Kushner what he’s doing wrong in his Mideast peace efforts.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that Makovsky presumes to lecture the current U.S. Mideast negotiators, after he and Indyk spent years at the exact same task and completely failed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

According to Makovsky, Kushner’s big mistake is that he is trying to achieve too much, too soon. Kushner should seek “short-term gains” instead of “a grand peace deal.” What Makovsky has in mind is “incremental economic progress,” meaning that Israel should make one-sided economic concessions to the Palestinian Authority and the United States should start pouring money into the PA again.

Such economic “progress” would “create the political space to deal with tough policy issues later,” Makovsky claims, because it “would give Palestinian something to lose and would mitigate the chances of an explosion.”

Makovsky apparently wants us to forget that it’s all been tried before, with dismal results. From 1994 until last year, the U.S. donated a total over $10-billion to the Palestinian Arabs. Other countries around the world gave billions more. The Palestinians have had plenty “to lose,” yet they have continued to wage war against Israel anyway.

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The writer, a New Jersey attorney, is vice president of the Religious Zionists of America and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995 on a study trip to Israel when the bus she was on exploded on her way to the beach in Gush Katif. When Alisa succumbed to fatal head wounds at Soroka Medical Center, the family donated her organs to save the lives of others.

Fifty billion reasons why the PA and PLO reject Peace for Prosperity - by Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch

How can the Palestinians accept a plan that clearly points to their leadership failing them for the past 25 years?

Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch..
Times of Israel Blog..
30 June '19..

When you read Peace to Prosperity, the American economic plan to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the first question that comes to mind is why are Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority (PA)/Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) rejecting it?

Setting the goals and path to the $50 billion investment, the plan, which is clearly rooted in the basic paradigms of the Oslo Accords, would appear to give the Palestinians almost everything they want. 

Far from being a solely “economic” vision for the development of Palestine, Peace to Prosperity incorporates themes of a purely political nature, favorable to the Palestinian narrative and detrimental to Israel’s.

The plan refers repeatedly to the area Israel seized in the Six Day War from the Jordanians as “the West Bank” – i.e., the term coined by the Jordanians, and adopted by the Palestinians, for the area of land that Israel refers to as Judea and Samaria. It continues to discuss the need and practicalities of physically connecting the West Bank to the Gaza Strip in order to allow the free movement of Palestinians and goods between the two areas.

Going further than the Oslo Accords, the plan assumes independent Palestinian control over the border crossings of the Palestinian state, granting the Palestinians the ability to gather import taxes. At present, Israel controls the external border crossings and collects all the import taxes, which are then transferred to the PA.

Referring to Palestinian development in the West Bank, the plan integrally requires the extension of the Palestinian control beyond the areas they govern today into the areas which are solely governed by Israel. These development plans include the laying of new roads and the building of both industrial areas and residential housing.

 Additional to these and other plans, Peace to Prosperity makes one major factual claim that represents the US adoption of the PA/PLO narrative. Discussing the development of the Palestinian manufacturing industry, the plan refers to “Palestinian craftsmanship” that has been in demand for “hundreds of years.” Critics of this claim would refer the authors of the plan to the words of Palestinian historian Abd Al-Ghani Salameh, as exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, who said that at the time of the Balfour Declaration – i.e., 1917, just over 100 years ago – “there was nothing called a Palestinian people.”

Since the plan adopts Palestinian terminology and narrative, and is often implicitly critical of Israel, the question remains, why is the Palestinian leadership rejecting it?

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Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch is the Head of Legal Strategies for Palestinian Media Watch. He served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps. In his last position he served as Director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.

The actual reality behind the Guardian’s fantasy about root causes of Palestinian suffering - by Adam Levick

Though economic problems facing Gaza and the West Bank are different, the editorial’s reflexive dismissal of the US plan and myopic diagnosis of the territories’ challenges have one common – and characteristically Guardian – thread: the failure to hold Palestinians even minimally responsible for their fate.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
26 June '19..

In an official editorial (“The Guardian view on Trump and Israel-Palestine: the reality behind Kushner’s fantasy”) published on June 25, the Guardian predictably lambasted the new US peace plan, particularly its economy-first approach of promoting Palestinian prosperity as a path to a permanent resolution.

Whilst there was little in the editorial that was uprising, one sentence in particular caught our eye, because it says so much about how little the Guardian understands the root causes of Palestinian economic woes.

Many of these initiatives have been proposed before – in some cases, more than a decade ago – and are unachievable under current conditions. The report advocates them nonetheless because it simply refuses to recognise that the biggest obstacle to economic development is the West Bank’s occupation and the blockade of Gaza.

On the same day, the Guardian published another analysis by Mid-East correspondent Martin Chulov which similarly opined that “a central factor in the slow growth of the Palestinian economy has been the Israeli occupation”.

First, the suggestion that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is the biggest obstacle to the territory’s economic development grossly misunderstands the basic causality.  The blockade is not a cause, but the natural result of Hamas’s decision to prioritise terror, and their goal of annihilating Israel, over the well-being of their citizens.  No country in the world would allow the unimpeded flow of weapons to a territory on its border ruled by a government that has launched thousands of rockets at its civilians.  If there wasn’t a fanatical, Islamist terror group controlling Gaza, there would be no blockade. 

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Adam Levick has served as Managing Editor of UK Media Watch – a CAMERA affiliate – since 2010. Previously he worked as a researcher at NGO Monitor and, prior to that, worked in the Civil Rights Division of the Anti-Defamation League. Adam has published detailed reports on progressive antisemitism for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.