Sunday, September 26, 2010 - 11:55 AM
It ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Israel's 10-month settlement freeze expires at midnight Jerusalem time today, and rather than the explosion many feared -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's withdrawal from the talks, fresh violence from Hamas, a provocation from the settlers -- it looks like the moratorium will disappear with little drama. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his ground, while dispatch his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to offer compromise proposals that he could always disavow. Meanwhile, he urged the settlers to "show restraint" and asked his cabinet to keep quiet.
Abbas, who had vowed in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't stay at the table unless the freeze was extended, instead kicked the decision to the Arab League, which gave him political cover to join the talks in the first place. It seems likely Arab governments will swallow their pride and instruct Abbas to continue.
Haaretz columnist Aluf Benn says that Netanyahu is emerging the big winner in this showdown, and that may be true. He's conceded nothing while deflecting U.S. and international pressure to give way on the settlements. His coalition remains intact, and he's proven that the United States, with all its might and power, can't push tiny Israel around (at least, not before the midterm elections). Barack Obama took a huge risk calling on Israel to extend the moratorium at the U.N. Thursday, and now he looks ineffectual and weak.
In the end, though, this isn't supposed to be about winners and losers. If Netanyahu is serious about peace -- and it remains an open question whether he is -- he'll have to make painful concessions that probably will rip his government apart. There are at least 60,000 settlers who will have to leave their homes in the event of a peace deal, according to the estimates I've seen. The last time settlers were uprooted, in Gaza, it took several thousand Israeli troops to evict them.
As for Abbas, I don't envy the man. If he's equally serious about peace, he'll need to tell his people that the "right of return" is dead, and that they'll need to give up on the notion that Palestine will control its own border or have many of the other prerogatives of normal states. All the while, Hamas and various other Palestinian factions will be eagerly looking for him to fail.
For now, I guess, the talks will limp ahead.
Goverment: Arab by Arabs- Jews by Israel
1: ARABS GOVERENED BY ARABS. JEWS BY ISRAEL
1:1-Israel will hand over to Palestinian government land inhabited by Arabs from Israel and Jews from settlements governed by Israel
1:2-Both Arabs and Jew will remain in their current homes nobody will have to move physically.
1:3 Artificial boarders or imposed boarders are major conflict reasons.
Avoid future similar conflicts while defining boarders
Examples:
Canada-French want state: Belgian Flames separations. Basques in Spain. Irish and Scotts independence from UK . Wars in Africa because tribes have been separated or united by Europe. Kashmir- Cyprus- Kurds in Turkey, Balkan wars. wars in Russia.
2; DEAL WITH THE CORE ISSUES.
Don’t be fooled again by the Arabs tactic to get real estates in exchange to uncommitted words,no peace and open doors for conflict continuations and terror.
2:1 – Arabs refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Jews to a state in their 3500 old homeland.
2.2- The refugees: 1.000.000 Jews from Arab countries -650.000 Arab refugees from mandatory Palestine.
2.3- Jerusalem
Arab will govern Muslim holly places.
All the other governed by Israel.
Arabs have a very poor record of protecting or offering equality to infidel cultures.
Don’t be misleading by the presided: OBAMA THE CHANGE.
Impressive TV shows. Charismatic speeches without facts backup.
Covering the emptiness of:OBAMA THE CHANGE
Where to he leads?
In the end, though, this isn't supposed to be about winners and losers. If Netanyahu is serious about peace -- and it remains an open question whether he is...
As for Abbas, I don't envy the man. If he's equally serious about peace, he'll need to tell his people...
Blake, I notice you seem pretty sure that Abbas is serious about peace (or at least, sure enough not to explicitly question or cast doubt on it) while questioning Netanyahu's motivations.
As you know, one can look at either man's history and/or present actions and draw a reasonable conclusion that they are not serious about peace. You only question one of them. It's just one small example of the editorial bias that runs throughout FP's coverage of the topic.
I only questioned one of them. Netanyahu has a pretty long and articulate record of doubting the wisdom of a two-state solution. Have you read his book? Abbas has a pretty clear record of being desperate for peace, but not so desperate that he'd do anything to achieve it. He also has a questionable ability to deliver.
The Germans call it "Ratlosigkeit"
An expression of helplessness in the face of moral responsibility.
"All the while, Hamas and various other Palestinian factions will be eagerly looking for him to fail."
Abbas has failed. And all you can do is offer pity. The history of western attitudes towards Palestinians: from indifference to contempt to pity. When you respect Palestinians you'll respect their right to resist.
And you're lying if you say Netanyahu wants peace according to your definition of peace.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/tricky-bibi-1.302053
"This video should have been banned for broadcast to minors. This video should have been shown in every home in Israel, then sent to Washington and Ramallah. Banned for viewing by children so as not to corrupt them, and distributed around the country and the world so that everyone will know who leads the government of Israel. Channel 10 presented: The real (and deceitful ) face of Binyamin Netanyahu. Broadcast on Friday night on "This Week with Miki Rosenthal," it was filmed secretly in 2001, during a visit by Citizen Netanyahu to the home of a bereaved family in the settlement of Ofra, and astoundingly, it has not created a stir.
...Forget the Bar-Ilan University speech, forget the virtual achievements in his last visit to the United States; this is the real Netanyahu. No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he's even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse's mouth.
And how did he do it? He recalled how he conditioned his signing of the 1997 Hebron agreement on American consent that there be no withdrawals from "specified military locations," and insisted he choose those same locations, such as the whole of the Jordan Valley, for example. "Why is that important? Because from that moment on I stopped the Oslo Accords," he boasts. The real Netanyahu also brags about his knowledge of America: "I know what America is. America is something that can be moved easily." For the White House's information.
He calls then-U.S. President Bill Clinton "extremely pro-Palestinian," and says the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea. With such retrograde beliefs, no one can convincingly argue that he wants an agreement."
"There are at least 60,000 settlers who will have to leave their homes in the event of a peace deal,"
Why will they have to be evicted? Why can't they be offered the choice of remaining as citizens of a Palestinain state just as there are a million or more Arabs livigf as citizens of the Jewish state?
Furtheremore , the steadfastness of Netanyahu in not extending the building freeze creates the possibility that eventually there will be a piece treaty. Negotiations are not a simple matter. .Robert Aumann, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for economics for his work in game theory, has said when it comes to the Arab-Israeli peace process, the problem isn't that the Israelis and Arabs don't want peace, but rather that the Israelis and their U.S. patron believe they are playing a one-time game, whereas the Arabs see themselves as playing a repeated game. Jerusalem and Washington are in a hurry to conclude negotiations immediately, whereas the Arabs are willing to wait it out and keep playing the same game. The result is that Israel's concessions have brought no peace.
Poker players are familiar with the principle: Don't show your hand with chips still on the table. "The players must not be too eager for immediate results," Aumann said. "The present, the now, must not be important. If you want peace now, you may well never get peace. But if you have time - if you can wait - that changes the whole picture; then you may get peace now." "Israel must act with patience and with long-term vision, even at the cost of not coming to any present agreement and continuing the state of belligerence, in order to improve its position in future negotiations." As the Arab novelist Abdul Rahman Munif once observed, showing your interest in an item immediately triples the merchant's price.
There can be no co-existence if one person isn't willing to negotiate as hard as the other. The appeaser will always be swallowed up and simply cease to exist. It is stubbornness rather than the willingness to make immediate concessions that brings about successful negotiations.
As I understand Aumann's point, Israel's biggest mistake was when former Prime Minister Barak boldly, but foolishly, made a maximalist offer. Naturally the Arabs tried to get more. But more was not ,and is not, something that any Israeli can give if Israel wants to survive.
"In the third quarter of 2009, before the restrictions were imposed last November, there were 2,790 settlement homes in various stages of construction, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. The number rose to 2,955 in the last quarter of 2009, reflecting a last-minute surge of housing starts in the days leading up to the freeze.
In the first quarter of 2010, with the freeze in full effect, the number stood at 2,517.
That means that even months into the halt, the number of homes under construction had declined by only about 10 percent."
Here's Barak's maximalist offer.
Settlements:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100923/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_what_settlement_freeze
Barak:
gush-shalom.org/media/barak_eng.swf
I was referring to the offers made by then Prime Minister Barak in 2000 or 2001
Cut and paste the second link.
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