I thought, and certainly President Obama thought, that Israel and Palestine were pursuing a two state solution.
The key issues to be resolved with regard to this 60 year conflict are as follows:
1. Borders and security
2. End of belligerence
3. Status of Jerusalem
4. Refugee issues
5. Israeli settlements on the West Bank/Judea-Samaria
It’s very easy to get confused with long litany of “peace agreements” , accords, understandings etc. We have Oslo, Geneva, Camp David, Taba, Annapolis, road map, Saudi Plan and so on.
Despite Ehud Barak offering Yasser Arafat 95-7% of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and compensation for refugees, not only was the offer rejected, without a counter proposal, to the dismay of all involved, including the Saudi Ambassador, but Arafat issued orders for the Second Intifada covering his own inability to confront the possibility of a just peace and leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.
Now the Netanyahu government is turning away from seeking a final status solution, including the two-state solution and instead is following a course to ameliorate the conditions on the West Bank and to improve the infrastructure and living standards of Palestinians.
At the same time it is saying that it will honour all previous agreements. It’s getting very confusing. Clearly, the Netanyahu government has decided to follow its own agenda in the apparent belief that there is no current partner for peace. Netanyahu is, therefore, giving the distinct impression that he has accepted a sort of de facto annexation of the West Bank as part of Israel but with Palestinian autonomy.
Whilst Netanyahu kicks the two-state solution into the long grass, Mahmoud Abbas and the PA continue with their own maximalist agenda: Jerusalem is Muslim only and Jews have no claims to it or to any of Palestine (that means Israel too).
Let’s take a look at some recent pronouncements:
Yesterday the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser issued the following:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Wednesday), 28.5.09, convened the Ministerial Committee on Improving the Situation of the Palestinian Residents of Judea and Samaria. At the start of the meeting, he said that advancing economic projects for the Palestinian population of Judea and Samaria would a better economic, social and political reality and would improve the Palestinians’ quality of life and personal welfare.
Note “would be a better… reality”. This means better than pursuing any further peace negotiations which both Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have rejected as having a history of leading not to peace but to Israeli concessions and Palestinian violence.
The communique continues:
Defense Minister Ehud Barak presented economic projects in the PA, including: The establishment of an industrial zone in the Mukibleh-Jenin area of northern Samaria, the establishment of an industrial zone for the processing and marketing of agricultural produce in Jericho, the establishment of an industrial zone in the Hebron-Tarkumiyeh area, the establishment of an industrial zone in Bethlehem, environmental protection projects (waste disposal and sewage treatment sites) and the establishment of a Palestinian city near Ramallah. He noted that approximately 100 projects in various fields in the PA areas of Judea and Samaria are currently in various planning stages.
And so it continues. The strategy here appears to be that an economically stronger Palestine with greatly improved living standards would lead to the de-radicalisation of certain elements with Palestinian society on the West Bank. This in turn would lead to the easing of security arrangements and a better quality of life.
Although I can only applaud the improving of Palestinian economic conditions and easing of restrictions, if they result from this strategy, I also have an impression that this is the language of quasi-annexation. It certainly does not address Palestinian self-determination or any of the agenda items at the top of this page.
Yesterday Arutz 7 reported :
Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon believes that the time has come for Israel to “free itself from the failed paradigm” of the “two-state solution.” Yaalon spoke Tuesday at a meeting of MKs dedicated to finding an alternative to the creation of a Palestinian Authority-led Arab state.
While the creation of a PA-led state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is perceived as a necessity both in Israel and worldwide, such a state would not solve the Israel-PA conflict, said Yaalon. In fact, he said, it is doubtful that the possibility of creating such a state exists, due to Arab and Muslim reluctance to take any step that would imply recognition of Israel or compromise on Arab claims to the entire Land of Israel.
Meanwhile President Obama is advancing his “peace plan” although we only know vaguely what it entails. The Jerusalem Post reported:
US President Barack Obama’s statements about how to advance the peace process do not differ significantly from those of his predecessor, George W. Bush, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told The Jerusalem Post…
He denied reports in the Hebrew press that Obama had drafted a Middle East peace plan calling for a democratic, contiguous and demilitarized Palestinian state whose borders would be determined by territorial exchanges with Israel.
According to the reports, the Old City of Jerusalem would be established as an international zone. The initiative would require the Palestinians to give up their claim of a “right of return,” and Europe and the US would arrange compensation for refugees, including passports for those residing abroad.Arab countries would institute confidence-building measures to clear the air with Israel. When Palestinian statehood would be achieved, diplomatic and economic relations would be established between Israel and Arab states.
“I don’t know of any Obama plan that has been finalized,” said Ayalon, who has been briefed on the closed-door meetings between Netanyahu and Obama. “Don’t believe the headlines. What was in the papers was mere speculation, and there is no substance to it,” he said.
So what IS the plan?
Ayalon said his Israel Beiteinu Party would oppose the internationalization of Jerusalem and the relinquishing of Israeli sovereignty in the “holy basin” around the Old City. He said the party would also insist that Israel not take in a single Palestinian refugee, citing legal, moral and historical grounds.
Tzipi Livni now leader of Kadima said in the Knesset:
“We will not be able to keep Jerusalem if we say no to everything, or if out of fear we adopt unwillingness as a policy and frozenness as an ideology,” Livni said. “I believe that it is possible, through proper management, to make the world understand the things that are important to us, and with them we can keep Israel as a national home for the Jewish people and Jerusalem as its eternal capital.”
Wow! She thinks she can make the world “understand” – that’s more ambitious than a peace settlement given the world’s hatred of the only democratic and free country in the Middle East.
And she seems to fear not just losing Jerusalem but Israel itself as the home of the Jewish people!
Silvan Shalom, Vice Premier puts it most succinctly:
“There aren’t two Jerusalems. Jerusalem will not be divided. Jerusalem will remain the eternal capital of Israel. It’s not a promise. It’s a fact. Jerusalem will not be a topic for compromise.”
Now if you think that’s all a bit uncompromising let’s look what the PA are saying.
Again in the Jerusalem Post, reacting to rumours of a Obama’s “peace plan” President Mahmoud Abbas said:
One PA official said Abbas and his aides were currently studying which, he added, included “several positive points.” The official stressed, however, that some of the proposals mentioned in the plan were completely unacceptable to the Palestinians. These proposals, he said, included the talk about resettling Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, swapping lands between the future Palestinian state and Israel, creating a demilitarized state and granting the Old City of Jerusalem the status of an international city.
“The Palestinian position on these issues is very clear,” explained another PA official. “We insist on the right of return for all refugees on the basis of United Nations resolution 194, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with all of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, as its capital.”
The official said the PA had, in the past, rejected the idea of establishing a demilitarized state and swapping land with Israel.
“The only way to achieve real and lasting peace is by forcing Israel to withdraw from all the territories that were occupied in 1967,” he said.
The interpretation of resolution 194 is highly problematical. 194 does not offer a “Right of Return” nor does it mention Palestinian refugees exclusively. See this article for a full discussion.
The Palestinian position is still maximalist in that it demands ALL of Jerusalem and ALL refugees returning to Israel. As Alan Dershowitz so succinctly puts it:
… the only justification for Palestinians opting to exercise their right of return would be a macropolitical, rather than a microhumanitarian, one. It would be part of a large-scale, carefully orchestrated plan to return millions of Palestinians to Israel in order to overwhelm the Jewish state with a Palestinian majority. (The Case for Peace, John Wiley and Sons, inc. p. 47)
No Israeli government can ever agree to that and the Palestinians know it.
As for Jerusalem, the PA has and continues to make obnoxious statements which deny that Jerusalem was ever Jewish, that the Temple was was not built there, the Torah was altered to lay false historic claim to the Holy Land and all Jewish claims to Israel are bogus. This is nothing less than the negation of Jews and Judaism by denying there clear and evidenced historical connections to the Land of Israel.
June 1st 2008 worldnetdaily.com reporter Aaron Klein provided the following report:
“Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place,” said Abbas’ chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini.
WND also reported March 15th 2007:
The Jewish Temples never existed, the Western Wall really was a tying post for Muhammad’s horse, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built by angels, and Abraham, Moses and Jesus were prophets for Islam.
All this according to Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most influential Muslim leaders in Israel. Tamimi is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
… Tamimi, who preaches regularly from the Al Aqsa Mosque, claimed Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem or Israel and that the Jewish Temples never existed.
“Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880′s,” said Tamimi…
“About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount),” Tamimi said.
This is the same Sheikh Tamimi who ranted against Israel in front of Pope Benedict as I reported here.
Previously, a leader of the Waqf, the Islamic authority which manages the Temple Mount, was dismissed for stating the Jewish temples existed on the site of the Al Aksa mosque and that denying it is purely political.
The PA is supposed to be “moderate”. Maximalist positions are not moderate. In fact maximalist Palestinian positions and historical revisionism by its lay and religious leaders only give fuel to the current Israeli government to claim there is no point in pursuing solutions using old formulas which have always been rejected.
So we now have two entrenched positions.
Meanwhile President Obama seems to be moving ahead like someone driving a buggy without the horses.
Continue reading about What happened to the two-state solution?
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For the first part of this saga see my previous post here.
Having sent off my email to the EIFF (Edinburgh International Film Festival) last week in light of its craven submission to the bullying Ken Loach (who blackmailed the EIFF on behalf of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Committee to return to the Israeli embassy a miserable £300 which it had given to enable the Israeli film maker Tali Shalom Ezer to make it to Edinburgh where her film is to be shown), I received the following canned (that is automatic and unthinking) email reply:
In the light of recent press reports and in the interests of clarity:
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is well known for bringing together people from all over the world, regardless of race or religion, to screen and appreciate films for their own sake and we look forward to continuing this important mission. The programmed film screenings of SURROGATE remain as advertised, and the filmmaker will also attend the Festival as planned.
Statement from Iain Smith, EIFF Chair:
”On behalf of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I apologise sincerely for the distress many people have felt at changes in the arrangements for bringing the producer and director of the film ‘Surrogate’ to the Festival. Clearly we didn’t appreciate enough that our Festival cannot keep itself entirely detached from very serious geopolitical issues and I am instituting a review of our procedures to ensure that there can be no repeat incident. Nevertheless, this experience has strengthened our belief in the need for film to bring people together and I hope very much that many will want to attend this year’s Festival where filmmakers from 33 countries and diverse backgrounds and beliefs will be screening their films.”
But this is no defence at all because it states that “our Festival cannot keep itself entirely detached from very serious geopolitical issues”. This is exactly the point. To remain independent this is precisely what it must do. The EIFF cannot give in to pressure from one group with a particular axe to grind. Where would it all end. Does the EIFF’s response to intimidation depend on the prestige and perceived clout of the person or organisation doing the blackmailing.
Remember what Ken Loach said:
The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.
We shall leave aside Loach’s one-sided and ideological reading of the Gaza conflict and its profound mendacity about the actual events and its ignoring of the true crimes committed by Hamas, but let’s consider what the EIFF actually did:
They returned the £300 and instead donated the money to Tali Shalom Ezer themselves. By so doing they committed two errors of judgement: 1) They succumbed to political pressure and compromised their independence and their own principles 2) They singled out Israel which is a political judgement in which they are now complicit.
Either the EIFF is an organisation dedicated to films “for their own sake” as they proclaim or it is not.
What criteria did they use to decide to give in to Loach? Was it his threat? Is it that he represents the Film Industry, which I doubt? Which other public figures or organisations would they be willing to kow-tow to and for what reasons?
The EIFF has shown itself to be cowardly and unprincipled in giving in to a petty-minded bigot representing a group with a particular political agenda against a particular country. The net result as far as Ezer is concerned is zero. If I were her I’d withdraw my film. The net result as far as publicity and propaganda for the SPSC and Ken Loach’s particular brand of left-wing animus against a democratic state exercising its right of self defence is a resounding victory.
I am quite certain that Loach would not complain about a Palestinian film because Hamas commit war crimes by launching rockets against civilian targets. And I am damn certain no Israeli or Jewish group would be so crass as to try Loach’s particular form of censorship and boycott by threat.
Continue reading about Ken Loach and the politics of spite (2)
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Ken Loach is at it again.
ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh International Film Festival have been forced to return a donation from the Israeli embassy after director Ken Loach waded into the funding row and called for people to boycott the event on political grounds…
A donation – believed to be in the region of £300 – was to have been used to pay travel costs to the capital for Tali Shalom Ezer, a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv University, who directed a short feature film, Surrogate…
The SPSC then enlisted the support of Mr Loach, well known for his support of Palestinian human rights.
Mr Loach released a statement through the SPSC which read: “I’m sure many film-makers will be as horrified as I am to learn the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.
The following day the EIFF – which has since been in talks with Mr Loach – did a U-turn. It said: “The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.
Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.
I was so incensed that I wrote the following letter to the EIFF:
Dear EIFF
I am writing in utter disbelief at your craven surrender to the threats from Ken Loach to organise a boycott of the EIFF as a result of the Israeli embassy funding one of their citizens a mere £300 so they could come to Edinburgh. Loach’s pusillanimity is only matched by your cowardice in the face of unwarranted intimidation, interference with your own internal affairs and the compromise of your principles.
In the words of your own Ginnie Atkinson:
“Choosing not to accept support from one particular country would set a dangerous precedent by politicising what is a wholly cultural and artistic mission. We are firm believers in free cultural exchange, and do not feel that ghettoising filmmakers or restricting their ability to communicate artistically on the basis that they come from a troubled territory is of any benefit. Nor do we see that filmmakers are voices of their government. It is particularly important in situations of strife and conflict that artists be supported in having their voices heard*”
After receiving a threat this turned to:
“The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.
“Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.”
Since when does Mr Loach speak on behalf of the film industry? And even if he does, so what.
I understand that you have funded Shalom Ezer from your own funds. This would be laudable were it not an admission that your organisation does not agree with Loach’s position but still decides to give in to threat. This is mere hypocrisy from the EIFF.
The lessons of history tell us that if as a society we sacrifice our principles on the altar of bigotry that society is doomed.
*Quoted in Harry’s Place
The pettiness of this affair is indicative. What if it were a Zimbabwean director or an Iranian, Sudanese, Sri Lankan. In the distorting prism of Loach and the outraged righteous of Scotland only Israelis are to be singled out even when the director and the subject-matter are completely apolitical. For a £300 grant.
Meanwhile, in Israel, I have it on good authority that Loach’s films are still aired without threat of boycott.
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Apparently Sheikh Tamimi is no longer a member of the board of One Voice as I incorrectly posted yesterday.
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This is a transcript of my letter published today in the Manchester Jewish Telegraph:
READER Stewart Reubens wrote last week that he would never go to Poland and that visiting Israel was a better way to commemorate our survival.
He was responding to the Jewish Telegraph’s complaint that Britain was poorly represented on the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
While I would strongly agree that every Jew should visit Israel as often as they can, I have personal experience of the March of the Living.
I believe it is very important that our youth and, indeed, the older post-Holocaust generation should also visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.
If they can take in “the march”, so much the better.
In 1998 I flew with Manchester’s King David High School to Krakow and then went by coach to take part in the 10th anniversary of the march.
On my return I wrote in the Jewish Telegraph:
“I remember the soul-piercing sound of the shofar which began our march in Auschwitz. I remember walking with pride and defiance beneath those infamous words Arbeit Macht Frei amidst a forest of Israeli flags. I remember our young boys and girls from King David walking with thousands of young Jews and many adults like myself from all over the world in a river of blue coats which stretched in front and behind as far as the eye could see.
“I remember the impassive stare of the Poles who watched in silence. I remember the gates of Birkenau draped in a Magen David.
“I remember the clear, strong voice of Rabbi Israel Lau who told us we are an immortal people.
“I remember the words of Binyamin Netanyahu who proclaimed that we are the victors, not the vanquished and that we are invincible.
“I remember the cry in the voice of the cantor as he sang El Molei Rachamim when I thought my heart would burst.
“And I remember the Kaddish and the singing of Hatikvah in that place, in that hell.”
It isn’t about “survivor guilt”, Mr Reubens, it’s about survivor pride. We are still here, and all the Ahmadinejads, Hamases and Hezbollahs of this world cannot destroy us.
Their efforts to deny or belittle the Holocaust are best defeated by our honouring the memory of the victims; and where better than amidst the ruins of the instruments of their murder.
I returned from Poland with my spirit uplifted and with a bounce in my step. Never have I felt more Jewish than in Birkenau singing Hatikvah. Never have I been more proud to be part of the Jewish people.
Continue reading about Why everyone should make Auschwitz Pilgrimage
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On Saturday the BBC reported that a “makeshift” hospital in what is supposed to be a civilian safe zone has been hit by the Sri Lankan army killing 91 Tamil civilians and injured another 87.
The Sri Lankan army has put the blame on the Tamil Tigers saying that they had carried out suicide attacks and insisted that they had stopped their heavy bombardment some days before.
It was doctors at the hospital who claimed that the Sri Lankan army had bombed the hospital. You would think they would know the difference between a suicide bomb and an artillery shell.
But in the interests of the fair reporting standards that the BBC is so keen to tell us it upholds the reporter offers this word of warning:
Journalists are not allowed near the conflict zone, so the conflicting accounts cannot be independently verified.
I would point out to the BBC that during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military action against Hamas in December and January, no such statement ever appeared on the BBC News website or TV broadcasts. The BBC, and its viewers, were asked to swallow whole reports from just one side of the conflict, coming through UNWRA which, in turn, received all their information directly from Hamas. This lead, for example, to the misreporting by UNWRA head John Ging of the supposed attack on a UN school where 41 people were reported to have been killed. Later, Ging had to concede that no such incident had taken place and about a dozen people had been killed outside the school, the majority of whom were combatants.
But the BBC STILL REPORTS THIS INCIDENT AS IF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. and adds a pathetic “Update” at the end:
In February 2009, the United Nations said that a clerical error had led it to report that Israeli mortars had struck a UN-run school in Jabaliya, Gaza, on 6 January killing about 40 people. Maxwell Gaylord, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Jerusalem, said that the Israeli Defense Force mortars fell in the street near the compound, and not on the compound itself. He said that the UN “would like to clarify that the shelling and all of the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school”.
Some “clerical error”! It doesn’t even mention the fact that only 12, not 40 had been killed, and it only mentions obliquely the IDF investigation which actually names most of the fatalities and identifies them as know Hamas combatants.
Why does the BBC not just withdraw completely this lie. The report is still there with the headline “‘Stray mortar’ hit UN Gaza school” and a photograph of an injured child being carried from an ambulance, presumably to a hospital even though we now know that NO CHILDREN WERE INJURED IN THE SCHOOL.
So why does the BBC continue to post a lie or, to be generous, an erroneous report which appeared to have the authority of the UN and which the UN corrected later? The UN report was so credible that, according to the BBC, even the IDF at first believed it and produced the “stray mortar” story. But:
The [Israeli] statement was made anonymously to the media because the investigation had not yet been made public by the military
So this wasn’t even the official IDF position at the time but suited the BBC’s biased viewpoint, so they printed it.
The BBC report continues:
The dropping of the defence that Hamas mortars had come from within the school compound may cause some embarrassment to Israel in what has been a high profile incident.
The initial “human shield” claim was made forcefully after the killings by the military, politicians and many supporters of Israel.
“Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields,” the military said in its initial statement, and later it went as far as naming two well-known Hamas militants among those killed at the school.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called the incident “a very extreme example of how Hamas operates”.
It is not clear what credibility the change of position will be given by observers.
The last sentence says it all really: the Israeli government was not to be believed. It was Israel who were the war criminals, Israel who breached every rule of warfare and Hamas who were the victims. This is in marked contrast to the BBC’s Sri Lanka report where it emphasises that story cannot be verified.
The IDF has clearly shown that Hamas not only used Human Shield policies but operated in cynical violation and total disdain of international law throughout the conflict. Yet the BBC still sees fit to perpetuate its own misreporting and offer a dismal and ineffective rider.
Continue reading about Gaza and Sri Lanka: The BBC News Double Standard
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