According to what Senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told the AFP after a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US envoy Martin Indyk, the Israelis have refused to release the last batch of 28 terrorist killers convicted in Israeli civil courts:
“The Israeli government has informed us through the American mediator that it will not abide by its commitment to release the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 29," Rajoub said.
Rajoub, by the way is another one of those moderate Palestinians President Obama says is ready for peace. Only a short time ago on Lebanese TV, (in Arabic,of course) Rajoub said, "I swear,if we had a nuclear weapon we'd have used it on Israel this morning."
The reason the Israelis didn't follow through is simple. There was absolutely no sign from the Palestinian Authority's unelected dictator Mahmoud Abbas being willing to make any concessions whatsoever in his demands in order to craft a peace agreement, no progress on the talks and no commitment from Abbas to extend the talks past the April 29th deadline unless he was rewarded with even more goodies, just for the dubious pleasure of the Israelis hearing him continue to say no repeatedly.
Freeing these murderers is a very divisive issue in Israel as you can imagine, especially since Abbas and the PA insist on making heroes out of them and rewarding them with money, celebrations and fanfare.So the Israelis have apparently decided that Abbas' days of take, take, take in exchange for absolutely nothing are over, and understandably so.
Even the normally craven Tzipi Livni came out in favor of this, saying said last week that there was never an “automatic commitment to release prisoners unrelated to making progress in negotiations.”
Abbas and the PA will undoubtedly go to the UN and attempt to get the UN to agree to their demands unilaterally. As Rajoub said, “Not releasing the prisoners will mark the beginning of the efforts in the international community to challenge the legality of the occupation.”
Of course, the PA was always planning on going to the UN from day one. Even the PA chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat admitted earlier this month that Abbas was staying in talks just to get the terrorist releases.They never had any intention of crafting an actual peace agreement with Israel, but merely wanted to get whatever they could get for free for as long as it worked. They will of course, use this as an excuse to justify breaking the treaties they signed on the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, but again, they were always going to do that anyway.
And here is where it's going to get interesting. Now that the Israelis are unwilling to be pushed any further, what happens next? The U.S. is also a signatory to the Oslo Accords, and America, the EU and the UN are signatories to the Road Map,both of which insist that the move the PA is making to resolve this without an agreement between themselves and the Israelis is against international law and will not be tolerated.
Most of the EU and of course the 57 nation Muslim bloc in the UN will undoubtedly go along with this. So will a number of smaller third world countries that depend on Muslim good will and/or Arab oil.
So it comes down to what the United States decides to do.President Obama, John Kerry and anyone else connected with this knows that it was Abbas and the PA who rejected Kerry's framework and precipitated this, and anyone looking at this intelligently knew it was coming, even if our president and our secretary of state didn't.
It's a given that Abbas and the PA aren't going to suffer any consequences from Barack Obama for their rejectionism and intransigence in blowing up what was supposed to be a signature achievement for the Obama/Kerry team. But will the Obama team actually allow the UN to pull this off, especially as the Israelis won't comply and no one's going to make them or really has any real interest in making them? Will they allow the UN to make a mockery of what remains of its influence? Was President Obama lying when he said this just a couple of weeks ago? :
"The U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is not subject to periodic policy differences. That’s a rock-solid commitment, and it’s one that I’ve upheld proudly throughout my tenure. I think the affection that Americans feel for Israel, the bond that our people feel and the bipartisan support that people have for Israel is not going to be affected.
So it is not realistic nor is it my desire or expectation that the core commitments we have with Israel change during the remainder of my administration or the next administration."
Of, course, he said a lot of things that day, and many of them contradict each other as usual. I have my own expectations, but stay tuned....
1 comment:
"...Abbas and the PA aren't going to suffer any consequences..." This observation is spot on unfortunately, at least if history repeats itself and it usually does or at least the general patterns do. As long as the Palestinians continue to receive unconditional aid, they have no real incentive to reach any kind of reasonable agreement. If this unconditional aid were to be discontinued, the parties would be on a much more equal footing and a negotiated settlement that everyone claims to want would become much more likely.
These certainly are strong statements by Mr. Obama. You ask is he lying. If he's lying, there's no political benefit for the lie. In fact quite the opposite is the case. With that said some folks are pathological liars who simply lie as a matter of course even when a lie does not suit them. There seems to be some evidence that Mr. Obama might be this kind of individual. Also, there is the matter of the anti-Israel folks he's chosen to associate with over his adult lifetime.
The notion that Americans in general "feel affection" for Israel is a myth that is largely used to demonize America and it's people because the world at large due in large part to vicious one sided propaganda against Israel despises the nation of Israel. By perpetrating a myth that Americans are somehow on the whole affectionate toward Israel one can fan the flames of anti-Americanism. Truth is most Americans are busy with trying to get on with the basics of life like trying to feed their families, keep a roof over their heads, trying to ensure the safety of their families, and trying to keep the jobs that make these things possible to give much thought to Israel. Most Americans could not even find Israel on a map.
"So it comes down to what the United States decides to do." In actuality the United States may have very little choice in the matter. If the Muslim block, the EU, and other powerful stakeholders decide to press the issue of a Palestinian state, they can exert tremendous pressure on the US. They can wreck what's left of the US economy via trade sanctions, they can stop cooperating with the US in areas such as intelligence sharing and military cooperation in areas where our interests would be harmed, or they can come at us with massive terrorist attacks leading a massive death toll among the American people.
Israel was given divine title to the land of Israel by G_d. As believers, we understand that anyone who interferes with this invites trouble upon themselves from G_d. History bears these things out as well. How will men and women who do not hold such an understanding act? While I understand these things and will act accordingly and try to ensure our leadership does as well, I can appreciate the VERY difficult position our leaders are in.
The reality is if other major stakeholders decide to push the issue of a Palestinian state the pressure faced by American leaders will be enormous and barring some type of divine intervention the costs to America will be enormous. The reality is it would take very special and very committed people to resist the kind of pressure they will be under. Unfortunately the evidence to date indicates our leadership is not only not special in this regard but quite the opposite appears to be the case. Hopefully I'm wrong abut this.
It would seem that much prayer is needed. When faced with the prospect of enduring the wrath of man or enduring the wrath of G_d, it would be far less bad to endure the wrath of man. We should hope and pray that we as well as our leaders make wise choices.
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