After the latest Israel-Hamas skirmish in late-November, I argued Benjamin Netanyahu was the wrong man to lead Israel going forward. Netanyahu wasn't solely to blame for the latest round of fighting, which killed 130 Palestinian civilians and saw Palestinian rockets land alarmingly close to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem -- as long as Hamas leads the Palestinians, Israel will be forced into this sort of offence-as-defence action from time to time.
But there's no doubt the Israeli Prime Minister's apparent eagerness for a fight was a contributing factor, and, moreover, that he is unwilling to make the hard sacrifice necessary for peace. Namely, accepting a Palestinian state on Israeli land traded for peace. A Peace Now study issued this week reporting settlements have expanded at a record rate under Netanyahu's leadership and the prime minister's approval last month of new settlement construction in the particularly contentious "E1" area of the West Bank drove home that point once again.
Alas, the majority of Israelis don't agree that Netanyahu's time has passed. As the country prepares to go to the polls Tuesday, Netanyahu's Likkud party and its coalition partner, the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which is even more right-wing and led by Avigdor Lieberman, who resigned in December as Israel's foreign minister amid an indictment on fraud and breach of trust charges, appears destined to form the next government. Re-elected to another term, it is likely Netanyahu will continue to lead in the same belligerent way he has led until now.
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke out earlier this week against Netanyahu -- according to Jeffrey Golderg, writing for Bloomberg, in response to the Israeli prime minister's settlement-expansion plan Obama "told several people that this sort of behavior on Netanyahu's part is what he has come to expect, and he suggested that he (Obama) has become inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli counterpart."
Further, "in the weeks after the UN vote (on granting non-member observer status to the Palestinians, in which the U.S. voted against the Palestinians), Obama said privately and repeatedly, "Israel doesn't know what its own best interests are." The president's use of the term "self-defeating" is particularly revealing in that it echoes former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban's famous quip about the Palestinians -- that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
In essence, what Obama is saying is Netanyahu's brand of leadership is evening the political playing field in the Arab-Israel conflict. If the U.S. and the rest of the West lose faith in Israel's political leaders, they cannot support Israel -- certainly not to the extent the Jewish state has enjoyed over the last few decades. Harsh words, indeed, from Israel's best friend.
Which raises the question: What the hell is Netanyahu thinking?
To begin with, I think he believes the Middle East is so topsy-turvy right now -- much more so than usual -- that no one has the energy to stop him, whatever he does. There are too many other, bigger problems to worry about: the Syrian civil war rages on and will likely require Western intervention before all is said and done; Egypt is still trying to figure out its identity post-Mubarak, and its new leaders, Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, are sending mixed messages about how they intend to deal with the West; a new al-Qaida-infused conflict in Mali (plus a confrontation in Algeria) has Europe occupied; and the Palestinians are still led by a) Hamas and b) a spineless Palestinian Authority that Hamas could replace fairly easily if and when it wants to. On top of that, the Americans are counting the seconds till they can escape Afghanistan. An expansionist Israel ranks far down the list of real and potential problems in the Middle East.
On top of that, Netanyahu has been emboldened by the unmitigated success of the Iron Dome system, which knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky with great success just a few months ago and has, by many accounts, only gotten better since (the system even improved markedly within that one-week Hamas barrage). The security fence in the West Bank has effectively ended the efficacy of Palestinian and Islamist suicide bombers -- there's another one on the Lebanese border and Israel this month announced plans to build yet another fence along the Syrian border. If Hamas and Hezbollah can't send militants into Israel to blow themselves up, and if their rockets aren't doing damage, what does Israel have to fear?
That leaves but one worry for Netanyahu: Iran, which will go nuclear soon unless its centrifuges are destroyed (sanctions aren't going to stop the Ayatollahs and the insane Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). I don't subscribe to the theory that the November Gaza campaign was meant to be a warning, or warm-up, for Iran -- localized fighting with inferiorly armed, poorly trained militants does not prepare one to do battle with an A bomb-wielding enemy.
If Israel and Iran are to go to war the stake will be much higher, and there will be immediate global implications -- and that's what Netanyahu is counting on: The Americans, Europe and the UN are going to be forced to help, or at the very least not discourage, Israel -- because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel, but it is also a top-rung problem for the rest of the West. For all their disagreements, Obama will stand squarely behind Netanyahu when it comes to Iran.
So, yes -- it does appear Netanyahu has his bases covered: strong support from Israeli voters, a robust defence against Palestinian and other Muslim terrorists and international backing to take on Iran if/when the time comes. But what he lacks is the vision to see a Middle East that's different from what it is today, and the determination to put an end to the wars, fear and hatred. Peace will come eventually -- or at least we must hold onto the hope it will come -0 and when it does Netanyahu will be remembered as one among many Middle East leaders who could not summon the courage to do what was right -0 for his people and for all the Middle East.
Surely even bellicose Bibi doesn't relish that legacy.
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Quran does not cite once Jerusalem
Original "palestine" of 1922 also included today's Jordan and it is now "gone" and representing more than 50% of the territory.
The Israelis are the ones being ripped off
And there is no more vicious conecept than "land for peace" ; in history the Israelis (and winners of several wars) are the only ones asked to return conquered land; no other nations has been asked to return a territory after it won a war.
Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo. His merchant father, who was from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip first relocated to Jerusalem, and then, for business reasons, he and his wife took up temporary residence in Cairo where his son, Muhammed Abdul Rauf Arafat al Qudwa, nicknamed Yasser (lit, "carefree") was born. Children born to parents working abroad is hardly unusual. Arafat was still a Palestinian.
Jordan (designated as Transjordan by the Allies after WWI) was not part of Palestine. As Ottoman maps attest, today's Jordan was administered separately from Palestine, the dividing line being the Jordan River. Known to locals as Al Baqa, the area east of the Jordan River which became the Emirate of Transjordan in 1923 (as partial fulfillment of Britain’s pledge in the July 1915 to March 1916 Hussein/ McMahon correspondence to grant the Arabs independence – including Palestine – in exchange for their invaluable assistance in defeating the Turks during WWI) was part of the Turkish vilayet (province) of Syria. The area west of the river was governed by the Ottomans as three sanjaks (sub-provinces), two of which (Acre and Nablus) formed part of the vilayet of Beirut, while the third was the independent sanjak of Jerusalem.
Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, 1944: “The concept of a racial state – the Hitlerian concept- is repugnant to the civilized world, as witness the fearful global war in which we are involved. . . , I urge that we do nothing to set us back on the road to the past. To project at this time the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth is to launch a singular innovation in world affairs which might well have incalculable consequences.”
Albert Einstein, who also opposed the creation of a "Jewish state," 1939: “There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people. Despite the great wrong that has been done us [in the western world], we must strive for a just and lasting compromise with the Arab people…. Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs.”
Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the UK cabinet at the time, objected vehemently to the 1917 Balfour Declaration: “All my life I have been trying to get out of the ghetto and you want to force me back there again”. He was overruled by his colleagues, some of them avowed anti-Semites.
Lets turn our attention to the topic of compromise. From the perspective of international law, the Israelis have not made any compromises. There offer is: we will give you back some of your land. It is the Palestinians who have made compromises by conceding that some of the illegal settlements will be annexed to Israel. They have also intimated that they will compromise on their RIGHT of return. At Camp David, after Oslo I & II and Wye River, the Israeli FM Schlomo Ben Ami said that if he were the Palestinians he would not have accepted the Israeli offer (see You Tube). The Israelis have yet to make a reasonable peace offer to the Palestinians even though it is the Palestinians who will be making all the tough sacrifices. Giving back stolen goods is not a
Like all Zionists, Haroldpom blames the victims (the Palestinians) and ignores the victimizer's (Israel's) litany of well documented violations of hard won international humanitarian law, e.g., the UN Charter, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention (binding on all UN members and also ratified by Israel), which came about as a result of the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, including the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews.
There are no 1967 borders for Israel as there were no 1948 borders for Israel. The so-called green lines were the armistice lines where the battle ended in 1948. The question of borders was deferred as virtually no one recognized the Jordian and Egyptian occupation of the land. The International Court had no right to declare the land to be Palestinian. Israel has a greater claim to the land than the Palestinians.