By Rick Rickman http://tinyurl.com/n3rpr4f
In today’s New York Times, a letter from
Dov Bruce Krulwich in Beit Shemesh, Israel, asks two questions about the
possible release of Jonathan Pollard to encourage Israel to release Palestinian
murderers to convince the Palestinians to discuss a Palestinian state, even
though the Palestinians “refuse even to agree that the end game involves two
states for two peoples”:
(1) Shouldn’t a people who have never had a state be
the ones making goodwill gestures to continue a process that will benefit them
the most?
(2) Why
weren’t the previous good-will gestures, not to mention all the good-will
gestures in the past 20 years, enough to expect the Palestinians to take a step
themselves?
Those questions lead
to some of my own:
(3) Why do people have
to be paid–in the form of cash, prisoners, freezes, etc.–to convince them to
show up to negotiate a state for themselves?
(4) Why do people who
have signed a formal agreement, obligating themselves not to take “any step”
outside bilateral negotiations to change the status of the disputed
territories, have to be paid to convince them to adhere to their agreement?
(5) Why are people who
have already been offered (and rejected) a state three times in the last
decade–with each offer covering substantially all of the disputed territories
and a capital in Jerusalem–entitled to a fourth offer?
(6) Why is a putative
Palestinian state, ruled half by a terrorist group and half by a “president”
currently in the 10th year of his four-year term, with the two groups unable to
live side by side in peace with each other (much less Israel), ready to be a
state–even assuming agreement could be reached on its borders or any other
issue?
(7) Why is U.S. foreign
policy–with the Arab world in a state of chaos ranging from Libya to Egypt to
Syria to Lebanon–fixated on trying to establish another already-failed state
right next to Israel?
Which brings one again to the two questions posed
by Dennis Ross last month in the course of summarizing the Israeli position in
the current impasse:
(8) If you
[the Palestinians] believe in two states, why is it that Israel being the
nation-state of the Jewish people is something that you can’t accept?
(9)
Why is
it that self-determination for the Jewish people in a part of historic
Palestine is something that you [the Palestinians] can’t embrace?
As the American secretary of state reduces his
goal from (a) reaching a peace agreement to (b) reaching a “framework” for an
agreement to (c) simply keeping the Palestinian “president” at the negotiating
table for six months, to be purchased by more Israeli pre-negotiation
concessions, the pertinent questions include those that Elliott Abrams asked
yesterday:
(10)
Where
does it stop?
(11)
What are
the limiting principles? …
(12)
What
will [the secretary of state] want next year [from Israel] when Abbas threatens
to leave the table again?
The history of the “peace process” is now several
stages past tragedy and farce. The side that supposedly wants a state won’t
discuss one without compensation to do so; won’t accept a state as an
end-of-claims solution but only as a stage in a continuing attempt to “return”
to the other one; won’t agree that “two states for two peoples” is the goal of
the process, much less explicitly recognize a Jewish state; can’t even hold an
election, much less manage a stable state; ignores obligations under its prior
agreement with Israel while asking Israel to believe it would abide by a new
one; has already demonstrated three times in less than a decade it will not
accept the “Everyone [Supposedly]
Knows” peace plan; and does not even have a “president” legally in
office, able to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinian groups, much less
enforce any agreement he might reach.
Meanwhile, the U.S.
leans on Israel, because a Palestinian state remains the central goal of an
American foreign policy that long ago lost sight of the fact that–under
the above circumstances–a Palestinian state would not be a “solution” to
anything.
Topics: Israel, John Kerry, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians, peace process
Why is there no attention being paid to the fact that a Palestinian state would be just another terrorist/apartheid entity in the already chaotic Middle East? What is the point of another international agreement when the one endorsed unanimously by all 51 members of the League of Nations in 1922 under the Mandate is still legal and binding? At San Remo (1920) the original promise of the Jewish homeland had included the additional 77% east of the Jordan River which was lopped off by Churchill to create today's Jordan- for Arabs only. The remaining 23% remained as the Jewish homeland with rights of settlement. Until 1948, it was Jews in the land who were identified as 'Palestinian'; with the recreation of the Jewish state on its ancient site they became Israelis. Only years later did the Arabs in the land assume the name 'Palestinians' for political expediency since it matches the name of the territory.
ReplyDeleteSince that partition the remaining 23% - all of today's territory known as 'Palestine' remained for Jewish settlement.