Israel Badly Needs To Face Reality

There's a name for trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different result, thanks to Albert Einstein. It's called insanity.And sadly, we're once again witnessing the Israeli government doing just that.

Anyone who still thinks there's any life in the so called 'peace process' and the so-called 'two state solution' is playing this game and wearing blinders.

First, this nonsense has been tried several times with absolutely no success. This was what Oslo was supposed to be all about, remember? And remember how it turned out, with a terrorist squat in Judea and Samaria and one in Gaza? Exactly. 

If we look at the facts, there have been several times when the Arabs who refer to themselves as 'Palestinians' have been offered peace deals...at one time, three different Israeli left wing prime ministers offered the Palestinian Authority ninety-five, and then ninety-six percent of the “occupied” territories. And the 'Palestinians; refused, just as they're refusing now. I wonder why....wait, of course it's an easy one to figure out...this is what they really want:

Why yes! What they want isn't peace. They want no Israel to exist at all. How hard is that to figure out? OK, it's obvious They never intended at all to live in peace with the Jews. After all, they have never kept a single part of any agreement they've signed and have actively promoted terrorism in their mosques, media and schools.  Abbas habitually refers to imprisoned terrorists as 'holy martyrs' for deliberately targeting and killing Jews and Palestinian media actually encourages this...and then of course there's the money you get whether your killed or just thrown in jail, $500 and up depending on how many Jews you killed. It's a nice income by Palestinian standards.

Oslo, of course was a product of Bill Clinton, who had Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign leader.Since Labor leader Yizhak Rabin owed President Clinton for some clandestine aid in getting him elected Prime Minister, Oslo was a done deal, a terrorist enemy right next door to Israel that resulted in zero peace and a lot of dead and maimed Jews.

And guess what? Nothing, I mean nothing has changed. It wasn't so long ago that PLO leader Jibril Rajoub said openly that "If we had a nuclear weapon I'd use it on Israel tomorrow."  This is the same terrorist who the Israelis actually gave medical care to. They also gave Medical care to Abbas and to his wife. Can you imagine doing this for  someone who hates you with all his heart and wants to exterminate you?

And we haven't even mentioned Hamas yet. My point is simply this...the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians' have no interest in peace with Israel. We can accept that as a given, simply because it's be proven numerous times.

The latest manifestation of this fairy tale about peace is known as 'The Deal Of The Century' presented by the Trump administration. And as much as I respect President Trump, it's at least a viable attempt. But it won't ever work since its just another attempt to get the PLO to accept something they will never accept and don't want.

And frankly, as written, it's not really that good a deal for Israel. Let's look at why, shall we?

First of all,Israel is being asked to give up something it owns anyway.

The land in question is Judea and Samaria, AKA The 'West Bank' although it's only that if you're looking at it from Jordan. After WWI, the UK was given a Mandate by the League of Nations to administer all of what was then the former Turkish province known as Palestine. Originally, all of this was supposed to be the Jewish State. A couple of years later, The Brits asked the League for permission to divide the area, the reason being that they wanted a kingdom for one of the Sharif of Mecca's sons, Abdullah. He wanted Syria but so did the French, so what he got was 78% of 'Palestine' as the Arab State, Jordan which consisted of everything east of the Jordan River.  The Jews were to get the other 22%, everything west of the Jordan River for the Jewish state. This division was agreed on and signed on to by the Brits, The Jews, the Arabs and the League in 1922 in a treaty called the San Remo Accords.

The Brits saw to it that the Arabs got their state very quickly. And then proceeded to do everything they could to stop the Jews from establishing theirs in numerous ways. They deliberately limited Jewish migration to what became Israel while allowing unlimited Arab migration. This came to a head when the Brits chose to violate the San Remo accords and stopped all Jewish migration . In 1939, Britain anti-Semitic Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain issued an order not to let any Jews into Palestine at all... at a time when thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany and other countries who had fled to France and other countries had nowhere else to go.

Not content with that,  after WWII, when Labour's Clem Atlee took over, he made the decision to not allow Jews into Palestine. The Brits  even had their own concentration camp on Cyprus for any survivors of the Holocaust they caught trying to get in, and in some cases, they even sent Jews back to the very same camps in Europe they had been  imprisoned in.

In 1948, when Israel declared its independence  the UN recognized it, although  Britain didn't. The UN also made the San Remo Accords part of its charter, in Article 80...which has never been  removed or repealed.

So under international law, Everything west of the Jordan River belongs to Israel. They have no need to bargain about it or make any exchange that will only result in more terrorist violence.

 Israel lost this land for 19 years  because in 1948,  Brit PM Clem Atlee armed the surrounding Arab armies to the teeth, even though they were openly promising a second Holocaust three years after Auschwitz was liberated. Not only that, but he sent British officers to command the Jordanian Arab Legion under Colonel John Glubb, a known anti-semite. It was these officers who oversaw the ethnic cleansing of every Jew in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as well as the destruction of many Jewish shrines and synagogues. While the UN never recognized THAT illegal occupation, they never did anything about it either.

To add insult to injury, the areas Israel is going to be allowed to regain officially involve established Israeli communities already existing  for years. You know, what the UN and EU like to refer to as 'settlements.'

In fact, most of this area was promised to Israel as part of GW Bush's 'Road Map' in exchange for giving up Gaza. These are the same commitments Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton swore didn't exist even though  they were referred to in a Bush speech and in the agreement itself. Arik Sharon, who made the agreement with GW Bush was in a coma at that point, and of course Bushie Boy kept his mouth shut.

Not only that, but the EU is threatening Israel with sanctions if they make these areas an official part of Israel. And the US is still thinking it over, whether Israel gets even this much.Some deal hmm? And here's the cherry on top. Israel has to give the PLO 4 years to decide if they'll abide by any part of this, And during those 4 years Israel is not allowed to build anything in areas they've lived in for years!

Some sovereignty!

And here's the real loser......some of the land the 'Palestinians' and the PLO would retain based on this 'deal' are within easy shooting distance of some of these Jewish communities. These attackson Jewish communities are even actually happening now in Judea and Samaria.

Second, Israel is being asked to give any 'Palestinians' living in these areas Israeli citizenship.

True there aren't that many of them, but would Trump and the US give citizenship automatically to people who had been brain washed to hate America for three generations? People who may conceivably have blood on their hands? People who in many cases have citizenship in a country that has a 'treaty' which is basically a cease fire and which still is extremely hostile to America? That's exactly the situation between Israel and Jordan. There have been numerous instances when 'Palestinians' given work permits in Israel have committed terrorism.

Third, the map lines as now drawn simply give the 'Palestinians' a closer range to shoot from. Several of the Israeli communities we're talking about would be easy targets.

And finally, Fourth,the object here, 'peace' between Israel and the PLO is a non-starter. They're not interested in peace and they never have been. It's that simple. And both the Trump Administration and Israel's current government are fooling themselves if they think this means peace with the PLO and Hamas.

Allow me to present a way to actually achieve peace that will definitely work and end this once and for all.

And the irony of it is that it could have been done years ago.

In the Six Day War, Jordan attacked Israel. The IDF pushed the Jordanian troops back across the river. At that time, they could easily have sent the 'Palestinians' who all had Jordanian citizenship back across the Jordan River as well, and this entire mess would have been avoided. However, Israel's Labor government made a mess of things. They made the mistake of thinking these Arabs would be able to live in peace with them, and it turned out to be a huge mistake.

The Israelis built virtually the entire infrastructure in Judea and Samaria....the power grid, the water systems, schools, houses, roads, sewage, irrigation,hospitals, even a university. Their reward of course was that first Intifada. They definitely should have seen that coming.

The way to finally solve this problem is to do what should have been down back in 1967. Simply move the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians' across the river, perhaps with cash settlements for people who can actually prove they purchased and own property. This  is certainly more than the Arabs gave the almost one million Jews they ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948. They plundered them for everything they had and these Jews left with the clothes on their backs. 

Jordan of course would not like this but there's not much they could do about it, especially since they have already agreed to abandon all claim to Judea and Samaria. Jordan's  midget King Abdullah would also be upset because many of these  people tend to cause problems where ever they go...Iraq, Kuwait,Lebanon, Egypt and yes, Jordan, which Arafat almost took over in 1970's Black September.

Odd, isn't it? All refugees are supposedly taken care of by UNHCR(also known as the UN Refugee Agency) except one...the almost 1 million penniless Jews ethnically cleansed by the Arab world in1948.Most of them ended up living in tent cities in Israel.  They never received a dime except from Jewish charities. President Trump, to his credit, mentioned this in his peace plan, although without actually suggesting any, kind of payback by the countries involved in stealing well over a billion and a half dollars US in property, homes, businesses, bank accounts and personal property according to the most conservative estimates.

Oh, but wait, there's another group the UNHCR doesn't handle They're handled by one of the UN's biggest and well funded sections,  UNRWA which is solely devoted to the care and welfare of these alleged 'Palestinian' refugees many who left willingly under orders from the Arab States attacking Israel and their leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Except these refugees were never refugees at all! In 1954, the Jordanian Parliament gave Jordanian citizenship to all of them including the ones in the UNRWA facilities. And even UNRWA's first American Chief Executive to the US Congress admitted that since they didn't bother checking, many of these 'refugees might never have lived in 'Palestine' at all, but were given food, lodging etc anyway. And unlike any other group of refugees, the train just keeps on rolling.

These people supposedly 'fled ' from Israel 72 years ago but the UN makes sure their refugee status is hereditary! No other group of refugees gets this kind of gravy train. Could it be because they picked the right enemies, the Jews?

I have to give President Trump credit for finally ending US funding of UNRWA. Among other things, UNRWA's schools teach 'Palestinian' kids to hate Jews and that terrorism against Jews is a holy act that will make them 'holy martyrs' as Abbas calls them.  UNRWA has even been caught hiding terrorists and arms in their schools, Mosques and other buildings. 

In short, Jordan is the Arab 'Palestinian' State and the Jordan River the logical and legal boundary between that and Israel. It's time Israel realized  this, instead of wasting time with so called peace plans that have never and will never work.

It's time Israel faced reality.

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications

An Important New Development InThe MidEast Peace Process.

 

President Trump and Jared Kushner have actually made some progress towards achieving a Mideast peace agreement between Israel and the PLO. The progress mainly consists of shifting the entire context around. I still ultimately doubt it will be successful as long as The PLO/Fatah and Hamas are involved, but just doing that much is significant achievement..and it may just actually yield some results.

If you’ve been following the latest developments in the Mideast peace process, you know that Jared Kushner just met again yesterday with the Palestinian Authority’s leader Mahmoud Abbas. Unlike their last meeting, when Kushner insisted that the PA had to give up inciting and financing terrorist attacks on Israel, this one didn’t end in a shouting match between them.

Abbas and the other PA functionaries made polite noises this time.

“We highly appreciate President Trump’s efforts to strike a historical peace deal, a statement he repeated more than one time during our meetings in Washington, Riyadh and Bethlehem,” Abbas said at the start of his meeting with Kushner, according to the PA’s official Wafa news agency.

“We know that this delegation is working for peace, and we are working with it to achieve what President Trump has called a peace deal. We know that things are difficult and complicated, but there is nothing impossible with good efforts,” he added.

Well, except for this. The Palestinians, as they wish to be called are very frustrated by one thing.

When it comes to the peace process, they’re used to being catered to, and being offered what they demand while giving little or nothing in return as concessions. They’re also used to it being a fait accompli, an established fact that there is going to be a two state solution that gives them all or most of Judea and Samaria with their capitol in Jerusalem.

The Trump administration has backed away from guaranteeing that no matter what, an important shift in the context.

“We have clearly emphasized to the Americans the importance of having a public statement that has a commitment to the two-state solution,” Ashraf Khatib, a spokesman for the negotiation affairs department of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told the Washington Post on Friday. “There hasn’t been any.”

Nor will there be for now, as State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert explained earlier this week. The always unworkable two state solution has been sidelined for now and won’t be automatically put back on the table without significant concessions by the PLO. Or as Ms. Nauert politely put it, “Committing to a two-state solution would “bias” the outcome of a peace agreement between Israel and the PA.”

“We want to work toward a peace that both sides can agree to and that both sides find sustainable. We believe that both parties should be able to find a workable solution that works for both of them.”
“We are not going to state what the outcome has to be. It has to be workable to both sides. And I think, really, that’s the best view as to not really bias one side over the other, to make sure that they can work through it. It’s been many, many decades, as you well know, that the parties have not been able to come to any kind of good agreement and sustainable solution to this. So we leave it up to them to be able to work that through.”

Or to put it more bluntly, President Trump isn’t going to make Israel ‘negotiate’ with a loaded gun to its head and a preconceived outcome.

For perhaps the first time in the history of the Mideast peace process, the PLO is being told that if they want a state, they’re going to have to convince the Israelis to go along with it. That’s going to mean significant concessions. And even then, it might not mean statehood. it might just end up being an autonomous enclave.

This is a major change. Obstruction and stonewalling by Abbas and company is not going to work any longer. They will have to deal to get what they want.

At a time when the only Arab leader who seems to have any time for ‘Palestine’ is Jordan’s King Abdullah and most of the Sunni states are far more concerned with putting together a coalition against Iran that will of necessity include Israel, Mahmoud Abbas and ‘Palestine’ aren’t even attracting rhetoric, let alone cash. The Arab states have slashed the aid they were giving the PA by 50%, and bi-partisan legislation is already moving forward in the US to severely limit aid to the PA because of their financing of terrorism.

Will being squeezed and marginalized give the Palestinians an incentive to actually bargain in good faith for once and come up with a reasonable proposal for Israel to mull over? I’d say no, but I’d be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

As President trump once said, the biggest asset in making a deal is the willingness to walk away. Applied to the Mideast peace process, it just might work.

Why Trump’s Pulling Out Of The Mideast Peace Process As DOA For Now

 

President Trump came into office with the idea of succeeding where other presidents had failed. His goal was to forge a comprehensive Mideast peace process that would both end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and create a bloc between the most powerful Sunni States of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates (and possibly a newly formed, U.S. backed Kurdistan) with Israel to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, oppose Iran and reaffirm U.S. leadership in the region. How's that working out? It Isn't, and President Trump may be pulling out of the Mideast peace process, at least the part concerning Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

First, some background.

President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and his remarks there made a huge impression on the Arab states that attended the Riyadh summit. They had experienced 8 years of President Bush's amateurism, which only served to unleash Iran by establishing a Shi'ite dictatorship in place of a Sunni counterbalance in Iraq. And even worse, they had experienced President Barack Hussein Obama going even further to appease and empower Iran with billions of dollars and a clear path to nuclear weapons.



President Trump's speech did not excuse previous winking at or financing of terrorism by Sunni states like President Obama's Cairo speech. What it was instead was a reset, a clear invitation...stand with America, against Islamic terrorism and against Iran and you can expect our help. Otherwise, you stand alone and incur America's enmity. Implicit in that was a new policy by the Sunni states towards U.S. ally Israel, something that had been gradually happening anyway.

Much of the basis of this was solidified behind closed doors with a large deal for the Arabs to buy U.S. arms among other things. One of them was a deal for the Arabs to significantly alter the notorious Saudi 'peace' ultimatum' to Israel in exchange for some minor land concessions to the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians.'

I should also mention that I'm reliably informed that Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu was fully informed about all of this before President Trump went to Riyadh, okayed the arms deal and was on board for certain concessions in exchange for significant quid pro quos from Abbas and the Palestinian authority.

The Sunni states made two significant steps that showed they were taking all this seriously. Of course, with a media concentrating on fake news about phantom links between Russia and the Trumps, you might not of read about them, but I'll present them here.

The first major action was a radical shakeup in the Saudi Royal family.Saudi King Salmon made a surprise decision to elevate his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 31, to crown prince and heir to the throne, in place of his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef. King Salman obtained the support of 31 out of 34 members of Saudi Arabia’s Allegiance Council for confirming Prince Muhammad Bin Salman as crown prince as well as deputy prime minister and minister of defense.Bin Salmon is outspokenly in favor of a new US-Arab-Israeli alliance that will confront Iran, as well as social and economic reforms. Like Egypt's al-Sisi, he favors an end to non-relations between Israel and the Arab world. Other changes in Saudi leadership are already occurring, and will likely continue with Prince Mohammed as heir to the throne.

The second was four Arab nations(The Saudis and the Emirates) boycotting Qatar, with the Saudis in the lead, in response to President Trump's demand for strong action to stop the funding of Islamic terrorism. Qatar’s funding of terrorists is notorious. Along with Turkey and President Obama, Qatar provided the financing,arming and training of radical jihadist elements of the Syrian Free Army that created ISIS.

The aggressive Saudi and UAE stance against Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani makes this a whole new ballgame.

The appointment of Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates as crown prince is another indication of change, since he's a contemporary of Crown Prince Mohammed and they have similar views on these subjects.

So, peace between the 'Palestinians' and Israel?

President Trump is on the verge of walking away from it as a bad deal.

Things started badly when President Trump first met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority's unelected dictator in year 10 of a four year term. Abbas planned to trick President Trump by setting up the route to the conference so that the President would pass directly in front of Yasser Arafat's tomb, where camera men were ready to snap pictures that would be represented as President Trump paying homage to Arafat. Fortunately, the State Department found out about the scheme and changed the route.

In the conference itself, one thing President Trump explicitly asked Abbas for was that the Palestinian Authority stop using international donor funds to pay convicted killers and their families, and to end incitement in it's schools, media and mosques against Jews and Israel. That's why President Trump looked directly at Abbas at their joint press conference and said that "peace cannot flourish where terrorism is funded, encouraged and rewarded."

The PA further infuriated the Trump Administration by having one of its functionaries tell Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the PA was going to comply with President Trump's wishes on funding terrorism. Once Tillerson conveyed this to the media, the PA embarrassed him publicly by denying it. And of course, incitement and the funding of terrorists and their families still continues.

Even worse was to come. The recent meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner on June 25 might have been characterized as 'productive' in some wishful thinking media, but the reality is that it was anything but. The The London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat had a much more accurate account.

Kushner again directly challenged Abbas on using international financial aid to pay salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails and their families, as well as on the constant incitement against israel and Jews. And Kushner also mentioned the White House's disappointment that Abbas had failed to condemn the deadly terrorist stabbing in Jerusalem that occurred shortly before the meeting. It took the life of a young female Border Police officer, Hadas Malka. This is the one the BBC reported with the headline, "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem" *



Abbas was outraged and said he would never stop paying convicted killers in Israeli jails, saying it was his 'social responsibility.' Several people outside the room heard them actually yelling at each other,something I was able to confirm.

Since then, Abbas has ramped up incitement against Israel, continued to finance terrorism and attack Israel at the one forum where anyone takes him seriously, at the UN. In violation of the UN Charter, several UN organizations like UNESCO have 'Palestine' as a member even though it isn't a country. Thanks to the anti-Israel resolution Barack Hussein Obama cheerfully instigated and allowed to pass, Israel is supposedly denied access to its major religious sites like the Kotel and the Cave of the Patriarchs, and UNESCO'S World Heritage committee has deemed them 'Palestinian territory' and thus Judenrein in the Nazi sense of the word. Needless to say, in the real world outside Turtle Bay, none of this means anything at all, None of it is legally binding or calls for the UN to enforce it. But it does show that the Palestinian Authority and Abbas have no real interest in peace or in compromise of any kind. That's never been part of their agenda.



Abbas's rejectionism hasn't gone unnoticed by the Sunni Arab states, who need this arrangement a lot more than they need Abbas and Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas's constant shilling for more money from them hasn't been met with open wallets lately, and Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has abruptly scrapped a series of meeting with Abbas that were scheduled.

And one last bit of evidence on how the Mideast peace process is DOA. Israeli PM Netanyahu (perhaps at President Trump's urging) put together yet another concession to help things along and get the ball rolling. This involved building approval for 14,000 homes in Qalqiliya, a small Arab town on Israel's borders. The new homes would have been in Area C, the part of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank for CNN viewers) under Israeli sovereignty per the Oslo Accords. In other words, a large enclave of hostile Arabs right on Israel's border.

Israeli public reaction was absolutely livid, since building permits for Israelis in the area and elsewhere are rationed, and Israeli residents who lived in Amona and Beit -El are still waiting for the government to keep its promise and build new homes for them to replace the ones they lost when they were forcibly evacuated as part of the 'peace' process.

Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Avigdor Liberman, who brainstormed this idiocy ended up not even bringing it to a vote in Israel's security council, let alone the Knesset. The behavior of Israel's 'peace partners' pretty much killed this, which is actually a good thing given the track record of the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians'.

The recent murder of two Israeli border police (both Druse, whose funerals were accompanied by thousands of Israelis) is yet another sign of where all this is going. The two policemen were shot in the back by Arab terrorists after Muslim prayers with weapons they smuggled into the al-Aqsa mosque.



Mahmoud Abbas (after prompting by the White House) issued a half hearted condemnation of all violence...followed by a rebroadcasting on the official Fatah Facebook page of a Mahmoud Abbas speech calling for exactly that, violence and rage to take over the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Temple mount and to stop Jews from defiling it - in Arabic, of course.



The Palestinians also erupted in violent demonstrations when the Israeli police attempted to put metal detectors up to stop the murder of Israelis from recurring. This was after a number of weapons were actually found stored in the mosque itself.

The Israeli response to this nonsense was to take Jerusalem off the table entirely.

The Knesset Ministers committee unanimously approved legislation on Sunday approving a bill advanced by Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) leader Naftali Bennett. It mandates a special, 80-MK majority on any future legislation dividing Jerusalem. The Knesset has 120 seats, so an 80 seat vote is virtually an impossibility. The Israelis were never going to redivide Jerusalem anyway. But this makes it official.

Meanwhile Abbas is continuing to stir the pot, visiting leaders like French President Macron and China's President Xi and lobbying them to get involved in the peace process. Abbas understands that President Trump now realizes he has no interest continuing the peace process with Abbas as a factor, something I predicted would happen back when President Trump first started dealing with Mahmoud Abbas. Negotiating can't work when one of the parties continues to operate in bad faith.

And pot stirring tactics is about all Mahmoud Abbas has left, and they're totally ineffectual. UN groups like UNESCO could declare all of Israel except a strip near Tel Aviv Palestinian territory and it would have no effect except the cutting of even more UN funding. Abbas can continue to rant about the Temple Mount and do his best to inspire hatred and violence towards Israel, but it won't get him any closer to what he wants. And Abbas, at 82 and a chain smoker isn't going to be around much longer anyway. Another Capo al Tutti will take over the Fatah mafia, thump his chest and attempt to steal as much international aid for his personal fortune as possible, just like Arafat and Abbas did. But his take is likely to be less than theirs as even the gullible Europeans are getting tired of funding one of the longest running con games in history.

Actually, there is a way to bring this sorry situation to a satisfactory climax, believe it or not. But more on that in a coming article.

* Since Donald Trump Jr. is in the headlines these days, I thought I'd share his response to the BBC's disgusting bias:

Donald Trump Jr. ✔ @DonaldJTrumpJr

You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death... right? This is as close to being misleading as possible. https://twitter.com/bbcworld/status/875810753571418113 …

6:08 AM - 17 Jun 2017

• 10,638 10,638 Retweets
• 23,354

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.

Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

Why Trump's Policies And Israel's New Law Could Lead To Real Peace

 

Amid headlines from the usual suspects about President Trump 'criticizing Israeli settlements' (including the leftist press in Israel) the truth is that Trump's policies and Israel's new law could lead to real peace.

What President Trump actually said was that the creation of new settlements was not helpful when it came to “the process of reaching peace."

With a meeting coming up between the president and Israeli PM Netanyahu, someone he's been on friendly terms with for years, it's obvious that the Donald is laying the groundwork for a serious attempt at a deal. In an interview with Israel Hayom, President Trump had some revealing things to say.

After praising PM Netanyahu, voicing his expectation of an excellent future relationship with Israel and harshly criticizing the Iran deal, the conversation turned to Jerusalem and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Actually President Trump has said nothing negative about building and expanding existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Nor will he. In fact when he was asked whether he was going to condemn Israeli announcements of building in existing Jewish communities like the previous administration, he responded "No, I don't want to condemn Israel. Israel has had a long history of condemnation and difficulty. And I don't want to be condemning Israel. I understand Israel very well, and I respect Israel a lot, and they have been through a lot. I would like to see peace and beyond that. And I think that peace for Israel would be a good thing for the Israeli people, not just a good thing, a great thing." ...

" They [ new settlements] don't help the process. I can say that. There is so much land left. And every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left. But we are looking at that, and we are looking at some other options we'll see. "

That hardly qualifies as 'criticizing settlements.' It's simply a self-evident statement and an attempt at prepping the ground with an appearance of neutrality pending any coming negotiations. And President Trump also had this to say about relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem:

Q: How soon will you decide on the issue of relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem?

"Well, I want Israel to be reasonable with respect to peace. I want to see peace happen. It should happen. After all these years. ... Maybe there is even a chance for a bigger peace than just Israel and the Palestinians. I would like to see a level of reasonableness of both parties, and I think we have a good chance of doing that."

Q: And the embassy?

"I am thinking about the embassy, I am studying the embassy [issue], and we will see what happens. The embassy is not an easy decision. It has obviously been out there for many, many years, and nobody has wanted to make that decision. I'm thinking about it very seriously, and we will see what happens."

Q: You always speak about making good deals. Don't the Palestinians have to make concessions as well?

"Yeah. They do. Absolutely. It has to be good for everybody. No deal is good if it is not good for everybody, and we are in that process, and we will see what happens. People have been in that process for many decades, and it has been going a long for a long time. So many people think it cannot be made. I have very smart people that ... say a deal can't be made. I disagree with them. I think a deal should be made, and it can be made," he concluded.

What President Trump is doing here is straight out of 'The Art Of The Deal.' He is deliberately positioning himself so that the U.S. can appear as a reasonable arbiter. With the Israelis, whom he knows are the far more reasonable party, he's holding out certain carrots; an embassy in Jerusalem, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capitol as well as  recognition  of Jewish communities and their right to natural growth in Judea and Samaria. There's also the promise of demanding real life meaningful concessions from the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' as part of any deal  as opposed to just taking Abbas's word for it. He's even holding out the promise of formal relations between Israel and the other Arab states. While those relationships exist in reality, especially with Saudis Arabia and the Gulf States, they're clandestine. And Trump's disdainful mention of the Iran deal maybe points to something big in the future. Nothing unites like a common enemy.

With the 'Palestinians',  Trump's using the stick.

Some fake news articles from the usual sources have mentioned that  'officials' are reaching out to the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' ot reassure them nothing's changed.  It's news to their leaders, who are literally going berserk. President Trump not only froze $21 million Obama gifted to 'Palestine' indefinitely, he's also defunding UN bodies who recognize 'Palestine' like UNESCO. And the U.S. just blocked a UN appointment for former 'Palestinian' PM Salem Fayyad. In contrast, Trump selected as U.S. Ambassador to Israel none other than David Friedman, who supports moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as well as the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

What Trump is doing with the 'Palestinians' is the equivalent of training a puppy. He's letting them know there are consequences for their incitement, violence and intransigence and that if they want to receive certain privileges like anything resembling statehood they had better behave appropriately.

This is something they have never have had to deal with before, and it might actually result in peace if they get the message. The Donald is just setting up the climate for a shot at making a deal, and if Abbas wants anything at all he's going to have to be willing to come to the table with real concessions that mean something or wind up with NOTHING.

Don't be surprised if Abbas ends up with demilitarized autonomy in Area A and perhaps some of Area B when and if a deal gets made...exactly what they were supposed to get under Oslo, rather than 'statehood.'

Another piece of the puzzle has to do with so new legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset.

Israel's newly passed Regulation Law, legalizes Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that were unknowingly built on land that may have been privately owned by Arabs or where the inhabitants had permission from the Israeli government to do so.

The law provides for a legal settlement to owners of private land who can prove their claims of 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land.

Basically, this is eminent domain, similar to laws in many other countries that allow private land to be acquired for public benefit. In many cases, title would have transferred by adverse possession (open use of the land for a statutory period without an objection from the owners) without compensation being required. Again, most countries have this kind of law, so the Israeli government is actually being more lenient in passing this law then they need to be.

This is direct defiance  to the UN's bigoted Resolution 2334, which sought to impose a ridiculous settlement with no regards to Israel or to previous agreements whatsoever.

You'd never know it listening to the UN squawk, but in actual fact,  the Regulation Law changes very little. All of the Israeli communities and almost all of the Israeli population live in Area C, which was always under Israeli sovereignty according to Oslo and was always supposed to be retained by Israel in any peace settlement, at least until Barack Hussein Obama came along. The governing authority, in some cases the Israeli government and in other cases the IDF is already permitted to acquire privately owned land for public benefit just as governments in most countries do.

What the new Regulation Law does is simply this; in places where Israelis built settlements on privately held Palestinian property without knowing it was privately owned or received the government’s consent for building  there, the Israeli government is now required to impose eminent domain and compensate the owners as described above, either 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land. As opposed to evicting people whom may have lived on the land for decades.

While Israel's Supreme Court might challenge this law, there's a decent chance it won't. Israel Supreme Court is far more to the Left than the Israeli government or even the majority of most Israelis, because of the bizarre way the justices are chosen...they pick their own successors. There's currently legislation pending to change that, and since a thumbs down on the Regulation Law might be an incentive to the Knesset approving this  legislation on how Supreme Court justices are chosen, the Court may choose simply to not address it.

The 'Palestinians' saw Resolution 2334 as a victory, giving them everything they wanted while giving up nothing. Trump's actions and the Israeli Regulation Law are showing them how wrong they were. The 'Palestinians'  are now being shown in no uncertain terms that they had better be prepared to make real concession and actually negotiate in good faith for once if they want anything at all. Whether they take that opportunity is anyone's guess, and I personally doubt they will. But if they actually do, than Trump's polices and Israel's new law could actually lead to real peace.