Israel’s Shifting Red Lines
The revelation that last year Prime Minister Netanyahu offered the release of 50 prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands just to get Abbas back to the negotiating table, is to me an obscenity…writes Gil Solomon.
Gil Solomon
And now it appears from the latest media accounts (The Australian 27/06) that he is prepared to release more than 100 Palestinians from jails and is prepared to freeze all settlement construction in order that “negotiations” be resumed with no pre-conditions, speaks volumes.
Firstly, to the issue of settlements. There has been no settlement expansion. All building activity in recent years was in respect to the building of new houses or extensions to existing ones but all within the boundaries of an existing settlement. So by sticking to his demands, Abbas has had his way. Israel will not place another brick in an existing settlement and will offer to resume “negotiations” without pre-conditions, not even the minimum demand that the indoctrination of Arab children in hate must stop. When children from kindergarten age are taught that Jews are the “offspring of pigs and apes”, thus ensuring the next generation of Jew haters are alive and well, what lasting peace is there to negotiate? And Netanyahu thinks that by just releasing 100 prisoners he can get Abbas back to the negotiating table!
Abbas is far smarter than that.
Now that the Prime Minister of Israel has blinked first, Abbas is now insisting that Israel should declare that the peace talks be conducted on the basis of the borders prior to the 1967 war. It is plain for anyone who has eyes to see that the only peace Abbas has in mind for Israel is the peace of the grave.
When will Jews ever learn that this “partner for peace” as Shimon Peres fondly calls him has only one intention in negotiations and that is to bleed Israel to death, concession by concession until finally there is nothing else left to concede. In this endeavour he is aided and abetted by a none other than the Israeli Prime Minister who said recently that he needs the conflict with the Palestinians resolved as “we don’t want a bi-national state”!
The very concept of a bi-national state means, at its core, the termination of the Jewish state, so why even entertain this comment?
And for an Israeli Prime Minister to utter these words in public and on the world stage only provides Abbas with the idea for his next ultimatum.
Who knows, maybe we Jews have a suicidal gene buried somewhere deep in our DNA.
The bottom line is that the Arab world will never allow this issue to be resolved peacefully, as peace would divert attention to the miserable lives, bloodshed and death facing those residing in those countries on a daily basis. They continue with the lies and propaganda to ensure that the ignorant masses have something to be fixated on to hate and that something is Israel. The only terms acceptable to Abbas & Co. for an end to this conflict is the annihilation of Israel, by force or suicide, it doesn’t really matter to them one way or another.
In spite of all this, that left wing ideologue Shimon Peres, that “elder statesman”, the man who brought Israel the disastrous Oslo Accords, still harbours the view that his good friend Abbas is a partner for peace and that “no one will change my opinion of him”. The fact that Peres still struts the Israeli political landscape is an appalling indictment on how far Israel has fallen. While others may heap praise on him, I do not. His utterances and influence are akin to a spreading cancer on the Israeli body politic.
Peres is the chief architect of the shifting red lines, red lines that were once clear in the sand, but alas are now all but gone.
There were no red lines drawn whereby any breaches by the Palestinian Authority of the Oslo Accords would have brought about an immediate cessation of further discussions. On the contrary, this same Peres is the one who, when learning that Yasser Arafat was caught out preaching for “jihad” in Arabic to his assembled throng, rushed to his immediate defence by saying he was really calling for a “jihad for peace”.
There are no red lines anymore on Jerusalem, the supposed capital of the Jewish nation. It is now up for grabs.
So much for the injunction “If I forget thee O Jerusalem”.
There are no red lines in respect to allowing the Waqf to continue excavations under the Temple Mount, excavations which have resulted in the destruction of any remaining Jewish artifacts from the first and second Temple periods and in the process ensures that a mosque will be completed underground, giving Arabs supposed credibility in their claim to the land.
Now thanks to Shimon, Israel is reduced to hosting annual talk fests where all manner of individuals from has been politicians regurgitating their same old failed solutions to Hollywood celebrities like Barbra Streisand, Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, none of whom has a political track record, all coming together to shower us with the brilliance of their collective intellect, on what Israel should or should not do in matters of life and death.
It is time for Israel to act like a sovereign power in control of its own destiny. Israel has only one option to end this festering boil and that is to walk away from this so called “peace process’, to take unilateral action on borders, hand the welfare of those people outside those borders to the UNHCR, Jordan, Egypt or whoever and to expel all foreign and hostile NGOs. The world would no doubt not recognise these moves but then the world recognises nothing Israel does anyway.
At a minimum, the world would see that Israel has finally got up off its knees.
In conclusion, should there be another war, which is a distinct possibility, it will have profound implications.
Israel must not allow the next one to end prematurely or inconclusively like all others in the past because of world pressure. This one has to end with the unconditional surrender of the enemy on Israel’s terms.This time the gloves should come off, with no more advance warnings and with no targets off limits.
In addition, the absurdity of supplying Palestinians with electricity from the Israeli grid especially during a war has to cease. If Palestinians want to continue their bomb making activities then they should by all means be allowed to do so in tunnels and by candlelight.
Gil Solomon is a retired finance manager and author
Ben Eleijah are you Muslim???
As a matter of mere interest, may I ask where Gil Solomon lives?
Clever lies in the service of colonization. Two examples suffice to expose the untruths. The UN expressed concern on 14 June, at 1000 new building units announced in East Jerusalem and the recognition of four outposts deep in the West Bank.
It also opposed the proposal for 1000 new units at Bruchin and Itamar settlements. Ban ki Moon’s statement can be seen at the UN. Obviously we are expected to believe that Israel is acting in good faith, or madness, in continuing building and moving settlers into a state it will move out of.
Get real ben whoever you are in real life. Approvals are not the laying of bricks. And the approvals are for places Israel intends to keep. There is no Palestinian land until the terrorist kleptocratic jihadis sign AND KEEP agreements on what they may have. At present they have nothing but the good will of Jews and they have no right to demand Israel’s unconditional surrender, the more so as they have not retified or kept to a single one of the agreements which formed the basis for Israeli concessions.
Gil – yes that’s his fair dinkum name – rightly points out the weak-kneed attitude of Bibi. He and all of our current leaders are leading us back into the ghetto. Bibi promised to uphold Jewish principles and rights uner international law – yes ben, real law, not something contrived for convenient Jew-bashing – but it turns out he can’t even hold up his trousers with the dignity that should be a sign of a Jewish leader. He is, oh so clever and soooo diplomatic, that he cannot just tell the mohammedans to take a hike; take what we give or get zilch. And no-one need a president who is an opportunistic trickster who abuses his ceremonial role and plays politics harming Jewish interests in pursuing his delusions. Peres, like almost all of Israeli leadership, has abandoned principle for personal and political advancement; Jews deserve better. And we don’t deserve Jews braying pro-fakestinian lies.