Posted on 12/04/2016 8:58:59 PM PST by detective
Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians.
In unusually stark terms, Mr. Kerry warned that the building of Israeli settlements was undermining any hope of an agreement to allow two states to live side by side.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
thank God we won’t have to listen to this loser any longer.
Boy does he need to get lost.
I am sure Israel is tired of responding to surrender terms.
Kerry: shut the heck up and go away, you brainless loser. Don’t bother Israel or other grownups with your childish problems and ideas. No one wants to hear them.
Kerry can take James Taylor and return to Antarctica.....they can sing to the polar bears and seals.
Of course they’re causing problems in the ME!!
Israel must surrender and all the Jews leave. Then the Muslims will become peaceful.
BWA-HAHAHA. What a maroon that fool Kerry is. He needs to share some rum soaked raisins with Theresa.
In harsher terms: if it wasn’t for 14 centuries of Muslim aggression we wouldn’t need this peace process.
But by all means continue to blame anyone but besides the aggressors, Mr. Kerry.
Uh...no John, it is the TERRORISTS who undermine the peace.
Capitulation to the enemy is NOT the “path to peace”.
5 Nations attacked Israel and Israel kicked their collective butts.
There is NO obligation to return the land to the vanquished aggressor.
What Kerry really means is that Netanyahu is keeping his country from being nuked by Iran by restablishing a healthy relationship with Trump. The Msulim Manchurian Candidate ruined our relationship with Israel intentionally for the very fact that he is Muslim whose sworn enemies are the Israelites.
John Kerry has always been a self-serving BS artist not worth the time of day.
Why should what he says or thinks today.
Only a certified imbecile would believe that the primitive killer Palestinians want to live side by side with Jews today any more than they did in 1949, or 1956, 1967, 1970, 1972-73, 1993 and pretty much every year since...
The fool has not improved with age.
I think it's safe to say no one who matters takes him seriously any more.
Lighten up Johnny boy. A couple more months and it won’t be your problem anymore. You’ll be able to go yachting every day.
Israel just refuses to commit suicide.
Now that John Kerry has made his pronouncement, it seems timely to dust off my writing about Middle East peace. The below link to the video ties into the Krauthammer piece also noted. The video does a good job of putting the efforts for peace into perspective and expands on the Krauthammer piece. Krauthammer makes the best case with the fewest words.
I already knew some of the history and went to my past letters and a lot of other sources to verify the information in the first two pieces listed. I started making notes and ended up with a 2,000 plus word narrative before feeling comfortable with what seemed two excellent sources, which are the second and third links listed. Now a lot of the sources I retained the links for are Wikipedia, but I ended up listing them instead of many others I looked at that were narrower in their focus. Overall the links are more valuable than my narrative, but that is how I got there. I guess I am harder to convince than some.
When I read Charles Krauthammer’s article that the Palestinians do not ever want peace with Israel, I decided I was interested enough in the subject of Middle East peace to not just accept his premise. I wanted to see if I could actually confirm his was a reasonable assertion. This essay is the result.
The British received the Mandate for Palestine after WW I and issued the Balfour Declaration promising a homeland for the Jews that did not prejudice the civil or religious liberties of non-Jews living in the area. The British encouraged Jewish immigration thereby initiating unending Arab violent opposition to the presence of Jews. After suppressing Arab attacks within the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, the British created the Emirate of Transjordan east of the Jordan River for the Arabs. A Jewish state would then need to reside within the remaining one third of the Mandate. The violent agitation continued unabated in the Middle East and in Europe, especially with the rise of Hitler. Finally in 1937 the Peel Commission proposed a Jewish state occupying about 20% of present day Israel. The Grand Mufti, who became an ally of Hitler, opposed the proposal. However, the Jews seeing an increasingly brutal or disinterested Europe accepted this truncated safe haven for their people. The final result was continued Arab armed revolt against the Mandate and severe limitations on Jewish immigration.
Next came the Holocaust, which murdered two of every three Jews residing in Europe including the European portion of the Soviet Union. An equivalent event in the U.S. would consign 200,000,000 people to gas chambers, incinerators, and landfills. However, when Abba Eban served as a U.N. observer for Israel before the partition of Palestine, another diplomat noted that 6,000,000 dead Jews had purchased no more than two years of tolerance. The comment confirmed for Jewish leaders that the slaughter was a source of international embarrassment and not of grief.
After WW II the British relinquished the Mandate to the United Nations, which recommended a two state solution. The proposal divided the remaining territory about equally between the Arabs and Jews. The proposal was accepted by the Jews and President Truman immediately recognized the new Jewish state on May 14, 1948. Even the Soviet Union voted for the resolution.
The 20 member Arab League rejected the U.N. solution and immediately attacked the Jewish state with their Arab Liberation Army composed of regular forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Their objective can be synthesized in words, attributed to Abdul Raham Azzam their Secretary, which proclaimed, “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mogul massacres and the Crusades”.
They reasonably expected to eradicate the Jewish people and their nescient country, because their Arab Legion had defeated a European army during WW II when they were instrumental in overcoming the Vichy French in Syria. The Arab League encouraged the Arabs living in Palestine to temporarily seek refuge in places like Gaza and the West Bank, while the Arab armies destroyed Israel. However after a year of fighting, armistice saw the Jews winning a decisive victory expanding their territory 40% beyond indefensible enclaves.
Egyptian and Jordanian troops occupied the Gaza and the West Bank respectively and 650,000 Arabs from Palestine became permanent refugees. At no time did leaders like Yasser Arafat protest occupation of these territories, nor did the occupiers and the Arab League propose forming a Palestinian state within these boundaries. The refugees instead served as political props for Arab unsuccessful wars of aggression to eliminate Israel in 1967 and 1973.
The U.N. response to these wars were the provisions and principles found in resolutions 242 and 338. Israel would return to its pre-1967 borders. The Arabs would terminate all claims and states of belligerency. The refugee problem created by the surrounding Arab states would find a just settlement.
Anwar Sadat brought an end to conventional wars, set the stage for implementation of 242 and 338, and prevented a looming catastrophe for his own country with his historic trip to Jerusalem on November 7, 1977. He formalized the peace process with the Camp David Accords the following September, and with the peace treaty of 1979.
Through three wars, elements in the Arab world had used Egyptian blood for vicarious satisfaction of their hatred of Israeli Jews. By conclusion of the 1973 war, Sadat was certain Egypt’s price for an Arab victory would not only include the copious effusion of Egyptian blood, but also destruction of the Aswan Dam leading to an unparalleled economic and human disaster. For his extraordinary statesmanship, the Arab League suspended Egyptian membership, and Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by an amalgam of Islamic radicals including Ayman al-Zawahiri who came from the Muslim Brotherhood and became the leader of al-Qaeda.
Islamic and secular Arab terrorism then became the centerpiece for a continued war against Israel. In the midst of terrorist attacks the Oslo Accords attempted to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Secret negotiations resulted in a public ceremony in Washington, DC on 13 September 1993, in the presence of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and US President Bill Clinton. The documents themselves were signed by Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, foreign Minister Shimon Peres for Israel, Secretary of State Warren Christopher for the United States and foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev for Russia.
This arrangement would last for a five-year interim period during which negotiations for a permanent agreement would begin no later than May 1996. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, to have control over much of the area that would become the Palestinian state. Permanent issues such as positions on Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, security and borders were deliberately left to be decided for a later stage.
In 2000 President Clinton brought the parties together at Camp David in a failed attempt to provide fresh energy to the stalled process. Most criticism for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit has been leveled at Yasser Arafat.
Ehud Barak agreed with Clinton to offer Arafat an eventual 91% of the West Bank, and all of the Gaza Strip, with Eastern Jerusalem as a capital of the new Palestinian state. In addition, all refugees could apply for compensation of property from an international fund to which Israel would contribute along with other countries. Arafat’s initial position demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Israelis from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and only subsequently would the PLO dismantle its terror organizations.
Clinton blamed Arafat for failure noting he missed the opportunity to give his people a state promising a better life and a lasting peace. Yasser Arafat walked away from the table without making a concrete counter-offer. He returned home to launch the second Intifada targeting gatherings of Jewish civilians for suicide bombings.
This three year brutal campaign ignored the Saudi-inspired 2002 peace proposal adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut. It followed closely the Camp David discussions by stating Israel must withdraw to its 1967 borders, requiring resolutions 242 and 338 be fully implemented, establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and requiring a comprehensive peace with Israel. The one result for these years of brutal chaos was Israel departure from Gaza in 2005, when Premier Ariel Sharon decided it was against the country’s security interests to govern the 1.1 million Arabs in Gaza.
In defending against these attacks, Israel was repeatedly castigated by the U.N. for killing civilians, while Articles 28 and 29 of the Fourth Geneva Convention say terrorists operating through organizations such as the PLO and Hamas are exclusively responsible for those deaths. These civilians qualify as Protected Persons within terrorist control, and civilian presence cannot be used to render certain points and areas immune from military operations. Once again the Arabs in Palestine served as biodegradable sandbags and political props.
Perpetual Arab intransigence was next exacerbated by disastrous differences within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO is recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestine people by the United Nations and over 100 countries with which it holds diplomatic relations. The PLO has been granted U.N. observer status, and diplomatic recognition despite never changing its charter to remove provisions calling for the eradication of Israel. In late 2004 when its longtime leader Yasser Arafat died, tensions between the two main parties of Fatah (secular) and Hamas (Islamic) rose until culminating is civil war following the 2006 parliamentary election won by Hamas.
Frictions became intolerable when Hamas renounced all agreements made by the PLO with Israel. The Hamas charter calls for an Islamic Palestinian state to replace Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Hamas offers a long term truce but not peace, and demands over one million Arabs be granted the right to uproot Jews from any land they contend was abandoned in 1948. In response the United States and the European Union directed PNA aid into the offices of Mahmoud Abbas, who is president of the PNA and aliened with Fatah. During the 2007 civil war Fatah was driven out of Gaza, but retains control of the West Bank. Presumably, Hamas and Fatah reached reconcilement in Cairo in 2011, and yet all practical evidence confirms two mini-states moving in different directions. Hamas prospers without Western aid by accepting private Arab sources of funding and Iranian aid.
Even though there was no recognized legitimate Palestinian representative to sign a peace agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried once more in 2008. He offered Mahmoud Abbas a proposal closely following that from the Arab summit in 2002. A Palestinian state would include after land swaps nearly 100% of the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem would be divided to allow the Eastern half for the new capital. Some refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, and the others would be generously compensated. Olmert formalized his proposal into a map given to Abbas. Promising to return the next day, Abbas took this map to his office in Ramallah a few miles outside Jerusalem. He did not return and that was the last time Israeli and Palestinians leaders met.
The only Palestinian initiative in 63 years was the blundered attempt in September 2011 to bypass the Oslo Accords, Camp David Summit, 2002 Arab Summit, and U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 by having the U.N. Security Council declare Palestinian statehood. The British during their Mandate, the international community, and Israel have repeatedly offered the Arabs of Palestine their own state. In each case the offer has been refused, and subsequent violent attacks have been directed against Jewish civilians.
To settle the issue of Middle East peace an important theory has always been for Israel to leave the occupied territories as a precursor to negotiations with the peace maintained by international troops. Supposedly, such a move would result in strengthening Arab moderates and marginalizing radicals.
That approach was tried by Israel in 2000 in Lebanon and in 2005 when it left Gaza. When leaving Gaza it uprooted settlements, bulldozed synagogues and left a thriving flower export business to jump start the local economy. In response the Arabs in Gaza burned the donated green houses. In Gaza and Lebanon Hamas and Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets and missiles against Israeli civilians. Radicals devoured the moderates, land for peace failed, the international troops of UNIFIL and UBAM (ph) stood aside, and the settlements proved irrelevant.
Another point diligently ignored reminds why Israel demands true peace in exchange for accepting the 1967 borders. At minimum distance Israel is the width of San Francisco Bay. At its widest the country is the length of the bay. At its present size or at 1967 borders, Israel fits easily inside Lake Michigan and can be flown across in 1.5 to 10 minutes. In terms of population, the five countries that attacked Israel in 1948 have a combined total of 145.5 million and Israel has 7.5 million or 1/20th the human resources. If literally defined by 1967 borders, Israel would inhabit what should be an indefensible enclave. If you consider European wars, the region resembles much more Belgium than Switzerland.
These facts point to the reason Israel maintains that Resolution 242 and 338 must be understood in light of overarching precedent found in the U.N. Charter. Article 51 asserts nothing shall impair a country’s inherent right of self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations. Therefore, a just and lasting peace terminating all Arab states of belligerency and acknowledging Israeli sovereignty must proceed from secure and recognized boundaries free from threats of force. Given the Jewish experience over the last ninety years, secure and defensible boundaries against these endless threats require long-term Israeli military presence in critical areas of the West Bank.
The international community has arrayed itself against Israel. Twenty one out of twenty seven U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel – the one true democracy in the Middle East. The U.N. not only finds Israel evil, but often exalts evil as when it chose Gadhafi’s Libya to chair the Commission on Human Rights, and Saddam’s Iraq to head the Committee on Disarmament. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon has presided over the U.N. Security Council.
Further confirmation that the Arabs do not ever want peace can be found in the charters of the current principal Arab factions surrounding Israel. For the PLO the Jewish state has no historical relevancy or recent legitimate legal existence. For Hamas its eradication is inextricably linked to living out the Muslim religion. For Hezbollah eradicating the state of Israel is a primary goal which includes each and every Jewish civilian who lives in Israel. Therefore a two state solution would be no solution. As Golda Meir said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Otherwise any formula only validates Charles Krauthammer’s assertion and renders the Middle East peace process is just a make work program for over educates political scientists.
Israel desperately hopes for and needs peace, because any military defeat brings to fruition the vision of a new Holocaust. Even as Mahmoud Abbas tried his end run at the U.N. around 63 years of diplomacy, Benjamin Netanyahu offered to meet with him again in New York. “I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand – the hand of Israel – in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him Ibraham. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah. ‘The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.’ Let that be the light of peace.”
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Palestinians don’t want peace with Israel— ever
http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/26960788-47/peace-israel-state-palestinian-abbas.html.csp
The Middle East ProblemThe
http://www.prageruniversity.com/Political-Science/Middle-East-Problem.html#.U6ocJBbe71r
Debunking the Palestinian Lie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U
Hamas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization
A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/
Council on Foreign Relations: Hamas
http://www.cfr.org/israel/hamas/p8968
Palestinian National Authority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority
2000 Camp David Summit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit
Fatah–Hamas conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_conflict
Palestinians Don’t Want Peace with Israel— Ever
http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/26960788-47/peace-israel-state-palestinian-abbas.html.csp
The Palestinian Blunder
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18685
The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league/peace02.htm
Netanyahu’s U.N. Speech
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/netanyahus-un-speech_594122.html
Palestine liberation Organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization
Charter of the United Nations
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml
U.N. Resolution 242
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/UN+Security+Council+Resolution+242.htm
U.N. Resolution 338
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/UN+Security+Council+Resolution+338.htm
Prime Minister’s Speech at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University
http://middle-east-analysis.blogspot.com/2009/06/prime-ministers-speech-at-begin-sadat.html
Bill Warner, PhD: Jihad vs Crusades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
Full text of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee 2015
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/02/full-text-of-benjamin-netanyahus-speech-to-the-american-israel-public-affairs-committee/
The complete transcript of Netanyahu’s address to Congress 2015
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/03/full-text-netanyahus-address-to-congress/
The PLO Charter
http://www.iris.org.il/plochart.htm
Hamas Charter (1988)
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397
Ideology of Hezbollah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology_of_Hezbollah
Golda Meir Quotes
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/we_will_have_peace_with_the_arabs_when_they_love/163272.html
OH GEE; Israel refuses to commit national suicide, how dare they.
...with his islamist pals....
All the poor Palis are doing is killing Jooos! every chance they can, and they’re used to that anyway. Why should it have any effect on the piece process?/s
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