If you thought that the implosion of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was going to mean the end of the Obama team's team's efforts to attack, demonize and dismantle Israel, you're sadly mistaken. They've merely changed tactics.
Borrowing a page from President Clinton's success in shoving Oslo through, the new gambit is to slander and alienate the current Israeli government both within Israel and abroad, destroy the current coalition, and push Israel into new elections. Then, the Obama team will provide logistical and financial support to the Israeli Left to get a more 'flexible' government(most likely headed by Labor's Isaac Herzog) into power to 'negotiate' Israel's surrender.
The effort started with Secretary of State John Kerry's infamous 'apartheid' remarks on Israel, using language never before used by a sitting American government figure. Kerry, of course, tried to spin it, but what he said was exactly what he meant; the onus for the failed peace talks is all Israel's.
At about the same time, there was an interview by by two 'unnamed American officials' with Nahum Barnea in Yediot, one of Israel's most well known columnists. A couple of inquiries enabled me to find out that the two 'unnamed officials' were none other than Kerry's deputy Martin Indyk and his gofer David Makovsky, who created the maps that were referenced in the interview.
In the interview, Indyk and Makovsky placed the blame for the failure of the talks totally on Israel and Netanyahu, not on Abbas' alliance with Hamas. And they essentially gave the go ahead to another intifada war on Israel's civilians.
Barnea described the interview as “the closest thing to an official American version of what happened” in the talks.
According to Indyk and Makovsky, they had prepared maps of what were supposed to be the new borders based on the Clinton plan, which Arafat had already turned down and which Abbas had already said numerous times he wasn't interested in. The proposed maps also divided Jerusalem, "Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians.”
And the Jewish population? All the Israelis were required to do under this so-called plan was to uproot and ethnically cleanse 20% of them, a mere 100,000 people.
This version by Indyk and Makovsky, of course, totally contradicts what Abbas has always said,that he wouldn't settle for anything less than all of East Jerusalem. And what the Israelis have always said, that they're not going to divide Jerusalem and that putting the Jewish holy sites under Arab control will never happen again.
The Israelis, according to them simply never countered the map they presented, and it's all Israel's fault that Abbas went to the UN and to Hamas.
Even more bizarrely, the two amigos blamed the collapse of the talks on - wait for it - the Israeli OK on the construction of 700 housing units in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem that according to the story these two were peddling was supposed to be under Jewish sovereignty anyway on the maps they themselves created!
That's what they claim drove poor, peace loving Mahmoud Abbas to Hamas and the UN..building homes in one of those Jewish neighborhoods these two clowns claim Abbas had already agreed to cede to Israel.
Indyk and Makovsky claim that Abbas agreed to a demilitarized 'Palestine', agreed to those American border outlines that would have created a mere 100,000 Jewish refugees, and agreed that Israel could keep security control of areas in the Jordan Valley for five years.
"He also agreed that the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty, and agreed that the return of Palestinians to Israel would depend on Israeli willingness. 'Israel won't be flooded with refugees,' he promised.
In his public pronouncements, Abbas has said no to every one of those conditions time and again. Obviously, the bit about Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem is a fairy tale if building houses in Gilo was what blew the talks up.The idea that he was willing to abrogate the so-called 'right of return' is almost certainly another tall tale.
You see, in the interview,Indyk and Makovsky, who are supposedly knowledgeable about these things professed being puzzled by Abbas' refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Which of course, also seems to makes their account of Abbas being willing to give up a Palestinian right of return another cock and bull story, since that's one of the chief reasons Netanyahu has consistently insisted on it!
And the Jordan Valley? The Israelis understand full well that Abbas is on the way out and that Hamas will be taking over. The idea that they would agree to put a time limit on control of the Jordan Valley and leave it in the hands of 'Palestine' or anyone else but the IDF so that Iran and Syria could create another Hamasistan there and ship in heavy weapons would be a folly of massive proportions. They've already gone through this with Gaza, where Israel was given security guarantees by the EU and the Bush Administration before the Disengagement that it would never be a security problem. And in Lebanon, where the main condition of Israel agreeing to a ceasefire was UN SC 1701,which called for Hezbollah to be disarmed and stay that way and the deployment of UNFIL, which was supposed to see that Hezbollah neither re-armed not returned to its bases in South Lebanon.The reality, of course was something very different in both cases.
In the end, the message Indyk and Makovsky were pushing all came down to "It's Israel's fault".
“At this point, it’s very hard to see how the negotiations could be renewed, let alone lead to an agreement,” the two Americans said. “Towards the end, Abbas demanded a three-month freeze on settlement construction. His working assumption was that if an accord is reached, Israel could build along the new border as it pleases. But the Israelis said no.”
At that point, according to the dynamic duo, Abbas “lost interest. He turned to the reconciliation talks with Hamas and to the question of who would inherit his mantle.”
Never mind that Abbas had already signed a unity agreement with Hamas months before!
"I guess we need another intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress" one of them reportedly told Barnea.
When Barnea challenged them on that they backed off and said that a third intifada, of course, “would be a tragedy. The Jewish people are supposed to be smart; it is true that they’re also considered a stubborn nation. You’re supposed to know how to read the map: In the 21st century, the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation. The occupation threatens Israel’s status in the world and threatens Israel as a Jewish state.”
“As of now, nothing is stopping the Palestinians from turning to the international community. The Palestinians are tired of the status quo. They will get their state in the end — whether through violence or by turning to international organizations.”
Nothing except a U.S. veto, that is. Which probably was never going to be forthcoming anyway.
And notice those last two paragraphs. Abbas gets no grief for getting in bed with a genocidal terrorist organization or fro violating the Road Map and the Oslo Accords. Israel is the culprit for building in an area that they're going to retain in any conceivable peace agreement anyway, for not observing a 'building freeze' applying to Israel and Israel only that Israel never agreed to in the first place.
And need I say that these two Obama functionaries praised the ever flexible Tzipi Livni as a 'heroine' while demonizing every Likud politician even remotely involved?
But wait, there's more. Fast forward to today and what's in the headlines?
The Obama-friendly Newsweek runs a lovely story about those dastardly Israeli spies targeting American defense and industrial secrets, written, of course, by a reporter with the last name of Stein who is likely Jewish for cover purposes. This bit of 'news' states in it's headline about how Israel spies on the US more than any other ally, and quotes a few unnamed 'congressional staffers' and one former CIA operative who talked about how the 'Zionists' have always spied on America even before Israel was a state:
“They’ve found creative and inventive ways,” Pillar said, to get what they want.
“If we give them free rein to send people over here, how are we going to stop that?” the former congressional aide asked. “They’re incredibly aggressive. They’re aggressive in all aspects of their relationship with the United States. Why would their intelligence relationship with us be any different?”
And to top it off, the always reliable Labor Party stalwart Shimon Peres,Israel's 90-year-old ceremonial president. His contribution to the cause today? To blame Israeli PM Netanyahu for the failure of the peace process, because Netanyahu rejected a deal Peres supposedly concocted with his good friend Mahmoud Abbas three years ago, in an interview on Israel's Channel 2. Peres, of course, isn;t oo definite of th e actual details, but he throws this one out there:
“He was supposed to agree [to recognize] a Jewish state and we were supposed to agree to recognize [a future] Palestinian state,” said Peres.
"I’ve known Abu Mazen [as Abbas is known] for 30 years…and the truth is he has fought terror with the resources that he has,” Peres said during the interview.
“He talks about peace and makes courageous remarks” he added.
Oh, of course he does. And Abbas would never pay murderers a salary for killing Jews,or call them holy martyrs, or give them a hero's welcome when they're released, would he? Or allow PA State TV to lionize them?
You know, if I had been conducting that interview, I might have asked Shimon Peres whether his view of Abbas was tempered just a bit by the fact that they're business partners. In Paltel, among other things, which has a monopoly as the sole cell company in the Arab Occupied parts of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Then there was the "Peace Technology Fund", a project of the Peres Peace Center to the tune of $62 million,back when Arafat was running things. Yes, Peres had a lot of good things to say about Yasser Arafat too,back in the day. The "Peace Technology Fund" back then had large investments in Paltel and in the Palestinian Mortgage Housing Corporation, 'Palestine's' corrupt equivalent of Fannie Mae. Peres' partner back then? None other than Muhammad Rashid, then Arafat's economic adviser and a major stockholder in PalTel.
There's a lot more that would make some must see TV, much of it concerned with the Peres Center for Peace and the substantial percentage of donations that comes in as donations from the EU and elsewhere and goes out as salary and expenses to none other than Shimon Peres and a few select insiders.
I point this out merely to show that President Peres' perceptions on things are rather easily influenced and flexible, and they always have been on these matters.
Expect to see a lot more remarks from figures on the Israeli left, in the Obama regime and in the Obama Media echoing Peres, Indyk and Malkov in demonizing the current government.
President Barack Hussein Obama was quite clear as far back as 2009 about his agenda towards Israel. He's not ending that obsession by any means.
This campaign will backfire.
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu is more popular, Livni is headed for political oblivion, no one trusts Herzog (he's a pretty slimy fellow),Lapid is perceived as an idiot (which he is), Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) is generally viewed as a traitor. The Israeli media has generally lost all credibility.
Thanks for mentioning the corruption of Peres.
All politics are local. Obama's first concern is to keep the Jewish money rolling in for the November elections so he is essentially blackmailing American Jews.
ReplyDeleteThe American diplomats were/are right about one thing. The Palestinians are going to get their state. The only thing that could prevent that is the Palestinians themselves, which they just might do by overplaying their proverbial hand.
ReplyDeleteThere's little to nothing America can do to prevent it. For the most part, American diplomacy in this area has been working within the geopolitical reality as it is rather than what we wish it to be and trying to get the best outcome possible for America and any "allies" we may actually have.
While it is likely theoretically possible for the US to veto a resolution regarding Palestinian statehood, the cost that the nations supporting "Palestine" could and likely would inflect upon the United States in the economic, national security, and other realms of vital importance to America is tremendous. They could and perhaps would further wreck our economy to the point it would be virtually unrecognizable as anything even remotely resembling a "first world" economy and they could devastate our national security interests in ways that would damage our national security even more than it already is.
It really all depends upon how bad the other stakeholders really want this. Do American leaders really want to call their "bluff?" In an election season, this is going to be problematic at best. It seems no accident the Palestinian Arabs seem to always make their biggest moves during US election seasons.
Further complicating matters is the current US Administration likely agrees with the position of the other stakeholders in this. It would require both enormous character and a strong moral understanding of what is right here to stand against the creation of another Arab state at Israel's expense. Unfortunately it appears that the current American leadership has neither the character nor the moral fiber to do this.
All is not lost though. The first thing for Israel to do is to change the nature of the so called "special relationship" with America. After all the only people who seem to benefit from this are a few special interests in America and perhaps Israel as well. Given the current inter-connectedness of Israel to America, Israel is highly susceptible to American pressure. Furthermore America is highly susceptible to pressure from multiple directions. Essentially America gets pressured then Israel gets pressured. By lessening this inter-connectedness Israel is less susceptible to such pressure and since America would no longer be in a situation where it could pressure Israel there would be little to no utility in anyone applying pressure to America to pressure Israel.
As for America, we need to change our leadership. the bill introduced by Senator Paul was a good start. If people like Mr. Paul are in positions of leadership, this would likely lead to a lessening of all foreign aid, not just the Palestinians. If aid to both parties is cut off or if it is made highly conditional to the Palestinians much like Israel gets from the US then parties on a more equal footing and the Palestinians would be much more likely to negotiate in good faith. Furthermore without this "aid" Israel is able act more independently of the US which is a win/win for both nations!!
The background you supply on Shimon Peres is most interesting. All this time I thought he was simply a misguided patriot of Israel. While very respectfully it would require some more research corroborate the information you supply, it appears I may have been mistaken. I find it highly likely that any research done would verify your statements as you have always had an excellent track record.
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it is hard to imagine how a true patriot could be as stupid as this man seems to have been over all of these years. I think this explains it!! He's simply a corrupt politician. I know America has plenty of those. It seems all "democracies" likely do.