Peace Partner? Judge for Yourselves
The three wise men of our generation, Barak Hussein Obama, John Kerry and Shimon Peres, together with other followers of the illusory holy grail of a vanishing mirage, continue to assert and maintain that Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as President of the Palestinian Authority expired quite a few years ago, is a genuine partner for peace.
Michael Kuttner
In fact in an ever rising crescendo of frenetic almost apocalyptic pronouncements, these individuals keep warning us that Abbas is our last chance.
Just think about this amazing assertion for a minute. Casting all reality aside let us imagine, no matter how implausible, that in fact Abbas has morphed into a dove of peace and made some sort of Munich type agreement with the hated Zionist State. According to the logic trotted out by those who cast Abbas as a viable peace partner, this historic event should it ever happen, would rest on the shoulders of a man who most probably will disappear from the scene earlier rather than later. In normal democracies when a Government is changed as a result of an election, policies may change but legally binding agreements and treaties usually continue to be honoured. However here we face a situation where according to the collective wisdom of the White House, the State Department and the current President of Israel, Abbas is likely to be followed by someone far worse.
Given the current state of the Arab misnamed spring wouldn’t any normal person now ask themselves the following question? If Abbas is our last chance for peace and his successor is likely to be someone considerably more hostile, how can Israel contemplate making the land and strategic concessions it is being pressured to make? Bitter experience has or at least should have taught us that in the lawless wild west which characterizes the region we live in, any piece of paper signed by someone who is no longer on the scene, will be torn up by those who take over. Where will be left then? Judea & Samaria will be taken over by Iranian proxy terror groups and half of Jerusalem which we will have gifted to the Palestinian Arabs will turn into a terrorist haven from which to attack the Jewish State. No part of Israel will be safe from the follies those delusional politicians and left wing peaceniks will have inflicted on all of us.
The warning signs are there for all to see and hear but those who are blind to reality and deaf to the incitements against us, will never be convinced. Some will point out that Egypt which has had changes of Government has not ripped up its peace treaty with Israel. That is because the Egyptian military know only too well what sort of a threat to their security emanates from Hamas, Iran and the terror groups in Sinai supported by them. No such inhibitions hold back those waiting in the wings to take over after Abbas either resigns or dies of old age. Those who think that we are facing democrats and liberal civil libertarians are dangerously delusional and their fantasies are a threat to every Israeli man, woman and child.
So what about the alleged peace credentials of our last chance partner as promoted by the international community and our own home grown enlightened experts?
Here is a link to the Palestine National Charter as posted on the website of the “State of Palestine” Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations. Read it very carefully and bear in mind that Mahmoud Abbas, our last chance peace partner, is the President of the “State of Palestine” and therefore endorses the declarations stated in this official document. After perusing it, can you in all honesty declare that we have a peace partner at present? If the answer is no, you have obviously reached the same conclusion as every sane thinking Israeli.
If, on the other hand, you are still convinced that Abbas is a peace loving statesman, you will need to explain how you can reconcile this with the declared aims of the document.
http://www.un.int/wcm/content/site/palestine/pid/12363
Shimon Peres once said of Arafat, his peace loving Nobel Peace prize co-awardee that it doesn’t matter what he says – it is what he does that matters. Well, we all saw what Arafat did, namely an intifada of violence and murderous mayhem. Given that past scenario why should we take current declarations that Abbas is our peace loving partner any more seriously, especially when hateful incitement and demonization spews forth every day.
Likewise there will be people who maintain that the Palestinian National Charter is not important because the PA claims it has recognized Israel (but not as the legitimate State of the Jewish People). If in fact the Charter is irrelevant then why is it still displayed on the official website of the Palestinian Arab observer mission to the UN? The capacity for reality denial is never ending and unfortunately this affliction continues to blight our lives.
Truth is only effective if it sees the light of day and is circulated as widely as possible. Therefore our task must be to expose the myth of a peace loving partner once and for all. Circulate this Charter to as wide an audience as possible so that the real intentions of our adversaries is exposed.
Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.
Otto, to an extent your premise depends on duplicitous people with power actually playing the game of blackmail while not believing in it. The problem as I see it is that Obama, Kerry, et al, do believe in it and will use it to destructive advantage. It’s a game to them with very real ulterior motives that can do Israel no good at all.
Liat, I agree ALMOST entirely to your assessment of my argument. The only difference is,as I said prior , that the duplicitous “game” is to Israel’s advantage. The salient points I wish to retain are :
a. Israel DOES exist ( baruch HaShem !!)
b. Palestine, as desired by its “people” does NOT exist ( once again, baruch HaShem !!!).
It all appears to be an exercise of pressure on Israel to relent, but REAL pressure would be if US would change its concrete assistance, tangible support in material terms to Israel. Thank G-d, that is not likely to be seen on the horizon.
Meanwhile I am watching quite relaxed the unfolding of the farce and, trust me, it has a happy ending; nothing will happen !!!
The present governing coalition comprises parties from the left,center and right which helps to explain why it pulls in so many different directions and speaks at cross purposes. The other major problem is that there seems to be a fear of speaking the truth and exposing the lies and incitement. Just look at the USA reaction when the Minister of Defense speaks the truth.
The bottom line is very simple: those who deny reality such as ongoing Palestinian Arab incitement and hate,their almost daily manifestations that all of Israel is really occupied “Palestine”, the ongoing hate education in their schools, the myths and fabrications of the Jewish connection to this land, the lauding of terrorists who murder Israelis as martyrs and heroes and countless other daily examples of their refusal to accept the validity of a Jewish presence here and behave according to the normal rules of a civilized society – are responsible for encouraging the Pals to continue with their tactics.
We now have a country of our own after 2,000 years but anyone who thinks that the Galut mentality of submission and putting one’s head in the sand is the way to go has learnt nothing from our historical experiences. Anyone who thinks that Judeophobia in the Diaspora is a myth is suffering from the same myopia which doomed our people over so many centuries. Anyone who thinks that peace at any price, including the release of murderers and the ignoring of evil intentions as articulated by our so called misnamed peace partners is the only path to an agreement is guilty of naive fantasies. Such delusional thinking has led and will lead us all into another genocidal final solution. Dismissing the clearly articulated agenda of demonization and hate proclaimed loud and clear for all to read and hear is akin to those who dismissed Mein Kampf as a work of fiction.
We do so at our peril.
Michael
yours is a passionate plea for tachles, for the needed recognition of a past we all are viscerally aware of. Yes, a Jew who thinks Israel OUTSIDE his/her subjective agenda would be expected to make certain sacrifices. Some you are alluding to is the break with Gallut and a tangible connection with an Israel which does not look almost ANYTHING like the place we left some 2000 years back. You are assuming that there is a Jew in all of us who resides in a land of haloymes, securing him/herself a cosy little existential cave from which all kinds of proclamations are let out to the world. At the same time we are advised on a daily basis that the same Israel is being prompted from a variety of quarters to enter into some arrangement with an impostor mob so that we would ensure some ki nd of survival/continuity.
AS IF WE DID NOT KNOW ALL THIS STUFf!!!!!
My own version of tachles is that, Gallut or not , the Jew needs to be reminded that Israel is not just in the Middle East and, conversely, the palestinian concoction is not just alongside the ME Israel. They are everywhere by design, intent and incredibly well planned strategies. We are not fighting illiterate kids on the streets of Hebron or their adult versions across the Gazan divide. We are finding the new nemesis everywhere they managed to infiltrate. And they have been doing it with the “composition” label attached on which the small print spells “terror blacmail” with every other word.
Kerry, Obama and quite a few other Governments are frightfully mindful of the need to advocate for a civilized Israel while mimicking the “reasons” terror must be obeyed, inevitable consequences considered if otherwise “inclined”. Duplicity one may say and let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with duplicity. Mr. Duplicity has been keeping this world in more or less one piece FOREVER !!!
We shall come out of this with flying colours. If we play our duplicitous game right we shall arrive in AT LEAST two generations at a point where THE palestinian entity shall be compatible with the compulsory attributes of a real STATE. All those negative aspects of the palestinian “ethos” listed above by you are as real as they are THE impediment to the seemingly necessary conclusion of a peace, one in which, we can be sure, neither Kerry, not Obama believe in. They mus, however, consider the blackmail and play along until the blackmailers’ game shall expire. As it happens, Israel is at the forefront of rendering the strategies of today’s blackmailer dead and gone. It can be done. Sisi’s Egypt is but one such example, Jordan’s far more approachable profile as well. Palestinians shall get the message as well. I just posted it !!!!!
Michael,
You say: “there seems to be a fear of speaking the truth and exposing the lies and incitement. Just look at the USA reaction when the Minister of Defense speaks the truth.”
What is the basis of the paranoid fear of speaking the truth?
Israel is losing on all fronts and the way it is going I feel, like you, that the country is on a one way path to that “genocidal final solution” which in turn will be the end of diaspora Jewry as we currently know it.
To allow Abbas the audacity to dictate terms is an act of pure insanity.
To allow 170,000 missiles to be located on its borders and not take pre-emptive action is another act of insanity. I could go on but what’s the point.
Israel once held all the cards and they’ve squandered the lot.
Gil,
What has happened is that the government is led by a spineless politician elected on a ticket promising an honest striving towards a peasce deal while in relaity the result is starkly different. Rather than the charade he is acting out in order to delay actually having to make a decision, surveys show undisputedly that the majority of Israelis would prefer signing a deal that would bring an end to the occupation of a million others while denying them a vote. Unfortunately Michael seems oblivious to the decay of Israel’s moral fibre that this is causing and prefers to remain prisoner to a wandering-Jew persecution complex that typified the 2000 year existence in the diaspora.
Insofar as Obama and Kerry are concerned, to achieve ‘peace’ on paper between the Palestinians and Israel is to achieve a coup in political world history and feel the wonders of personal egos stroked and elevated – that’s all. (If economics and financial deals come into it as well, then I don’t know enough about that to include them as reasons.) That moment in history is what counts, not what happens thereafter or the good survival of Israel as a Jewish State. As for Peres, who has already experienced this kind of false success sharing his Nobel Prize for Peace with Arafat, I can’t really say; his motivations are more confusing to me, and I can only ponder that perhaps he lives in an internal world of wishes rather than realities, incorporating memory of his own achievements, his own importance …
‘What the hell has happened to Israel’? Too many of the politicians that make up the Knesset are behaving like normal people and acting through ego, personal ambition, greed and lack of a strong sense of vision and inner morality. The trouble is Israel’s situation is one of extreme abnormality in that its people have been fighting for their lives since the inception of the modern State. Israel can’t afford to be governed by people weakened by their own personal motivations. As much as Israeli society should be able to live normally, with all the positives and negatives of human behaviour that are part of that, the fact is they can’t. And it’s the Knesset’s responsibility to act with that in mind.
I took part in a Florence Melton Educational program in Israel some years back, six years before making Aliyah. It involved travelling to different sites, all over the country in the company of a guide supplied by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and continuing in a very concrete way the adult studies I’d undertaken in Australia. At the end of the two weeks involved, the fourteen students involved met with the course administrators at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus and we were asked to speak about our impressions, give our thoughts. I can remember saying that the one thing that stood out for me, in a most over-whelming way, was the fact that if one chose to live in Israel, then it was an act of huge responsibility. I could fee it in the very air. For the whole history of the Jews and the place were on your shoulders and that involved acknowledgement of what it would take to continue the good survival of Israel now that it was back in the hands of Jews. I saw that not necessarily as a heavy weight, but as something vital and sobering, something of grave beauty. I saw that to live in Israel required something extra, out of respect and care for the past and the future. I did not mean this in an idealistic way; I meant it in a very concrete way. I suppose, however, to expect it of a majority of Israelis who happen to live there is an unfair and impossible expectation. We must though expect it of leaders and Knesset members. The people of Israel should demand that much for their own sake and for the sake of the nation.
Michael,
Why is the Govt. of Israel continuing to take a low profile on this?
To answer my own question, it seems like the cabinet is so divided, it no longer has a clue what to do. What is your take?
We both express the same views day in day out, but the Govt. of Israel is not circulating this charter “to as wide an audience as possible so that the real intentions of our adversaries is exposed.”
I ask, like I have asked many times, “What the hell has happenned to israel?”