06-Feb-20: A day of rising apprehension

The scene of the vehicle-ramming at First Station, Jerusalem,
Credit: United Hatzalah [Image Source]

Wednesday February 5, 2019

• The terrorists of Hamas issued a call to Palestinian Arabs "for escalating confrontations with the occupation and its settlers and fighting their assaults against the land and holy sites, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque" [Times of Israel].
• Palestinian Media Watch publicized a brief video on TikTok – a social network popular among children - that encourages murdering Israelis by means of graphic animated recreations of actual terror attacks: four specific Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks that involved drive-by shootings, rammings and knifings. The appalling animation clip is here.

Thursday February 6, 2019

• In a pre-dawn, Thursday morning vehicle ramming attack on Jerusalem's David Remez Street, adjacent to the popular First Station restaurant and entertainment compound, a terrorist slammed his car into a group of IDF Golani soldiers brought to Jerusalem for their swearing-in ceremony. (They were walking around just prior to their early-morning ceremony at the Kotel, the Western Wall in the nearby Old City.) Twelve are injured, one of them now in serious condition. Times of Israel says he is in serious but stable condition, unconscious and connected to a respirator in the intensive care unit. A search is underway for the attacker. The vehicle used in the 2 o'clock attack had Israeli license plates and was later found abandoned in the Palestinian Arab village of Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, a few minutes drive from the site of the ramming. "Clashes broke out in the village and the surrounding area as Israeli troops searched for the driver, who had fled the scene after hitting the soldiers. Palestinian media reported that Israeli troops seized security cameras around Bethlehem, apparently as part of the search effort" [Times of Israel].
• Thursday noon: An Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack at the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem's Old City resulted in an Israeli being wounded. According to Ynet, he is a 38-year-old Border Guard policeman. The shooter was shot dead by other police in the vicinity. 
• Thursday mid-afternoon, an Israeli man was wounded by gunfire in an evident drive-by shooting on a road near Dolev, an Israeli community in the Binyamin region. The shooter is still on the loose. Hamodia says the victim, an IDF soldier in his 20s, is lightly wounded and getting treatment at Sheba Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv. Hamodia says the shooting happened at the Post Intersection, named for the post office located nearby during the time of the British Mandate. It's today a busy intersection, near the Palestinian Arab villages of Ras Karkar and Kharbatha Bani Harith, and the Israeli communities of Neria and Na’aleh. Ras Karkar is now under IDF closure as forces search for the terrorists.
• Thursday 5:00 pm: The IDF is positioning an extra battalion in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to respond to the upsurge in Arab-on-Israel violence. Times of Israel says IDF battalions normally include several hundred soldiers.

The post-attack scene this afternoon in the Old City [Image Source]

Few doubt the Trump conflict-resolution proposals announced on January 28 are what has brought the Fatah and Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Arabs to encourage fresh and escalating violence. Times of Israel says

"In the week and a half since the plan’s release, the military has noted a significant increase in violence in the West Bank, with regular riots, rock-throwing and violent opposition to Israeli arrest raids...

We've been down this route enough times already to know that the Arab side act as if the threat to them of peace is more dangerous than war and fighting. The Palestinian Authority (PA) regime rejected the US proposals before they were even announced. Speaking a day before the plan was released, and before he had any way to know what it contained, PA prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said: "We reject it and we demand the international community not be a partner to it".

Writing in Fathom Journal this month, Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry writes that

be sure, it is the Palestinians who have the most to gain from securing a deal. The Jewish people have their national home – a stable, successful, innovative, liberal-democratic state that despite facing incomparable threats and challenges, and despite having virtually no natural resources compared to its neighbours, has matured into an economic and military power in just 71 years. But the Palestinians remain stateless and stricken by all the consequences of such a condition... calling the plan a ‘hoax’ and a ‘fraud’ and summoning their people to a new ‘day of rage’...PA Prime Minister Shtayyeh delivered a strikingly candid explanation, perhaps unwittingly, for why the Palestinians, who claim to seek independence above all else, are rejecting a proposal to give them just that. ‘It is nothing but a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause,’ he said. Herein lies the answer to the vexing question of why a people that claims they want nothing more than a home of their own and an end to the conflict, have rejected five comprehensive offers of statehood and have now taken to rejecting new offers before they are even presented. The conflict is not a territorial dispute to be settled by delineating borders and agreeing land swaps. It is a clash between the Jewish national movement which desperately craved a scrap of land to call their own so that they and their contributions to humanity should not vanish from this Earth, and the ‘Palestinian cause,’ which seeks no precise outcome beyond thwarting its rival, and holding out, digging in, struggling on, resisting. 

Few of the Israelis we know think these irreconcilable outlooks are going to be somehow resolved in the foreseeable future.

UPDATE 6:30 pm Thursday February 6, 2019: The alleged vehicle rammer was arrested this afternoon at Gush Etzion Junction, south of Jerusalem. He's said [Times of Israel] to be a male, 28, a resident of East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighbourhood and with no previous terror convictions.

UPDATE 9:00 pm Thursday February 6, 2019: The First Station ramming suspect is now identified as Sanad al-Tourman, who according to Israel's Channel 13 TV news operates a flower shop in a Jerusalem shopping mall. No further details for now.

05-Feb-20: What do Palestinian Arabs think?

Abbas in better times [Image Source]

The opinions of Palestinian Arabs are, to a great extent, a puzzle.

By that, we don't mean what their elites say they think. Or what outside reporters guess are their opinions. It's not a free or open society. It doesn't have unrestricted media - quite the opposite. And it hasn't had elections for well over a decade.

So, as we keep saying in this blog, what Palestinian Arabs tell trusted fellow Palestinian Arabs who are professional opinion pollsters about the things they actually believe is a subject always worth revisiting. (The last time we did that was here: "04-Jun-19: What do Palestinian Arabs think?")

Our previous poll-centered posts have centered on the published data of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) headed by Dr. Khalil Shikaki. Click here to go to those previous posts - we started analyzing and reporting on  them in 2011. 

We're doing that again now based on PSR's most recent Public Opinion Poll, number 74, which was published [here] on December 26, 2019. 

The polling was done both in the Fatah/PLO-controlled West Bank and in the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip in the period December 11 to 14. Total size of sample: 1,200 adults interviewed face to face in 120 randomly selected locations. Margin of error +/-3%.

‣ President Abbas?

Mahmoud Abbas became president of the Palestinian Authority in the January 2005 elections. That was a four-year term that has famously just 'celebrated' its fifteenth birthday. Hard to avoid the conclusion that elections are not so popular among the mostly-elderly, mostly-wealthy Palestinian Arab insiders who control the operation.

Abbas' power is broad. Beyond the PA role, he holds these additional titles in parallel:

• Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since November 2004
• President of "State of Palestine" since May 2005
• Chairman of Fatah since 2009, conferring bonus leadership of Fatah's proliferating de facto terrorism wings: al-'Asifah, Force 17, Black September Organization, the Fatah Hawks, the Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

The data show that the people he rules don't seem to like him much. 

As of this past December, 61% of the Palestinian Arab public wanted Abbas to resign, exactly the same percentage as three months earlier. This is split between the 52% of West Bank Arabs who hold that view (higher than the percentage 90 days earlier) and the no-less-than-73% of Gazans who want to see Abbas leave office immediately.

‣ A Two-State Solution?

How much support is there among Palestinian Arabs for the concept of a two-state solution? Just 42%. Now ponder this: Fully two-thirds of all Palestinian Arabs say it's the US "declaration of the legality of Israeli settlements according to international law" that blocks the two-state solution.

It evidently doesn't occur to them that their own pretty strong opposition is, let's say, part of the problem. Not for the first time, we get the sense that in Palestinian Arab society, the population don't see themselves as causing things to happen. Rather, they're a people to whom things are done by others.

‣ War or peace?

What's their "most preferred way out of the current status quo":

• "Armed struggle": 39% (which is slightly up on the number of three months earlier)
• "Reaching a peace agreement with Israel": 29%
• "Waging a non-violent resistance" (what they mean by this is unspecified): 14%
• "Keep the status quo": 15%. 

Identify "the most effective means of ending the Israeli occupation":

• "Armed struggle": 47% (three points higher than three months ago)
• "Popular resistance": 20%
• "Negotiations": 26%

In view of how "the peace negotiations are suspended", which alternative directions (more than one is acceptable) do they support?: 

• "Popular non-violent resistance": 60%
• "A return to an armed intifada": 52%
• "Dissolving the PA": 42%
• "Abandoning the two-state solution and demanding the establishment of one state for Palestinians and Israelis": 28%

‣ Their society's most vital goals?

• Option 1: "To end Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital": 44%
• Option 2: "To obtain the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages": 33%
• Option 3: "To build a pious or moral individual and a religious society, one that applies all Islamic teachings": 13%
• Option 4: "To establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights of Palestinians": 9%

‣ The most serious problem confronting Palestinian society today?

• "The continuation of occupation and settlement activities": 28%
• Poverty and unemployment: 26%
• "The spread of corruption in public institutions": 26%
• "The siege of the Gaza Strip": 17%

A final note. In polling to see how they view the future of Palestinian Arab society, the words "child" and "children" don't appear in either the questions or the responses. That's sad.

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Co myślą palestyńscy Arabowie?") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

24-Sep-14: Some questions not yet asked of today's incarnation of Lincoln

Abbas - the New York City edition, speaking on Monday
at NYC's Cooper Union [Image Source]

The president of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas is visiting New York City today. 

On Friday, during the Jewish New Year festival, he will address the United Nations General Assembly. The audience there may hear echoes of a speech he made at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (co-sponsored by Churches for Middle East Peace) just this past Monday in which he outrageously compared "the Palestinian struggle for statehood with historical civil rights struggles in the United States":

“This great hall has been instrumental in suffrage, in Abraham Lincoln’s call to end slavery, in the civil rights movement and the Native American rights movement,” Abbas said, calling upon students to take up the Palestinian cause on campuses across the US. [Times of Israel]

Sadly, tragically, Abbas' UN audience is likely to be as passive and uncritical in the face of his anti-historical account as the Cooper Union crowd were. (The full text of it is here.) If any of Cooper Union audience saw the irony of a political figure eyebrows-deep in personal corruption, presiding over a political entity that routinely honours the confessed murderers of other people's innocent children, speaking from "the venerated New York podium from which Abraham Lincoln catapulted to the presidency two centuries ago" [source], they managed to keep it to themselves.

Abbas - the Ramallah version, arms aloft honouring freshly-released
convicted murderers in October 2013 [Image Source]

With considerably more confidence, we predict Abbas will be utterly silent about the use of human shields by the jihadists of Hamas, his political nemesis/partner; about the massive rocket bombardments on Israeli communities by the pseudo-military forces of Hamas and his own Fatah military throughout this past summer; about how Hamas has stored, and probably still stores, its weapons including rockets and other forms of explosive material in UN schools, in hospitals and in mosques; or about the Hamas-sponsored abduction and murder of three Israeli boys in June.

This is odd because those are precisely the current issues on which outsiders can have an impact for good, and which make all those narcissistic, ghost-written Abbas speeches totally worthless.

Elder of Ziyon posted some sharp questions over on his blog yesterday that highlight some of the many other matters on which Abbas - elected to a presidential term that ended in 2009, and who remains in power via self-issued decrees and endlessly postponed elections - is chronically silent. His suggestion, which we wholeheartedly endorse, is that concerned citizens should send the list to any of the numerous reporters likely to cover any of his various New York appearances. As he writes: "It is way past time the media stops giving him a free pass." He's absolutely right.

Abbas with his Moslem Brotherhood, jihad-addicted
Hamas business partner Haniyeh [Image Source]

Among the questions that EoZ suggests ought to be put to Abbas: Why does the PA name institutions after terrorists who targeted innocent civilians? Isn't that inconsistent with the message you are giving to the West?
   

• Why is there still daily incitement on PA TV against Israel? 
• Do you consider the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with Hitler to be a hero?
• If you are so interested in peace, why did you go out of your way to meet with child-murderer Samir Kuntar?
• What, specifically, have you done to prepare your people for peace with Israel? And this followup: Twenty years after Oslo, 60% of your people say the five year goal of the PA should be the destruction of Israel. Isn't this from your own state-run media and school curricula?
• Do you believe, as Arafat did, that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem? Do you realize that this position is at odds with what Muslims said openly before 1967?
• Describe your position on "normalization" with Israelis today. Can Israeli pro-peace groups visit Ramallah? Would you allow a Palestinian-Israeli sports camp?
• Why did you threaten your citizens who dared to shop in a Jewish-owned supermarket that has low prices?
• Recently you said that you believe that the Holocaust occurred. You wrote a book that claimed that it was exaggerated. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?
• Do you really believe that Hamas would accept Israel's existence if you reconcile with them? Do you believe that Hamas still subscribes to its charter? Why or why not?
• As leader of Fatah, why do the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group still exist? How do they get funded? Why didn't you denounce their shooting hundreds of rockets to Israeli civilians? Aren't you against that? And if they do not report to you, then why do you not distance yourself from them? Why did you say they were dismantled when they clearly weren't? Why did you allow them to hold an armed parade recently in Ramallah?
• Do you agree with the Fatah platform that terrorism is legal under international law?
• Why does some 6% of the PA budget go towards terrorist prisoners and released terrorists? What percentage of the PA budget goes, directly or indirectly, to Hamas?
• You have publicly praised terrorists released from Israeli prisons, even embracing murderers. How do you reconcile that with your claims to be against terror?
• Why did you, last week, praise a terrorist who targeted Jewish children at a circus?
• Why are there still Palestinian "refugee" camps in the West Bank? Do you not consider their residents to be full citizens of Palestine? Are you keeping them away from having permanent homes in your country for a reason? (In 1950, Israel told UNRWA that it would be insulted to have an outside organization be the primary support for refugees, and it mainstreamed Arabs into becoming full citizens within a couple of years, negating their need for perpetual UN support. Do you disagree with that sentiment?)

And here are three more questions of our own:

Abbas: Is this the face of a politician who lets
reporters' questions get in the way of a pleasant hotel stay in
the Big Apple? [Image Source]

• As uplifted as we admit we are by the Lincolnesque calls Abbas made for peace and brotherhood in New York City, does the great man have anything at all of a peace-like nature to say to his own electorate back in Ramallah? After all, more than 60% of them said in a Palestinian poll conducted just in the past month that they favour "an armed intifadeh". Does Abbas believe the proper place for the hard work of making peace is Manhattan? If so, does he plan to finally walk away from the high political office he has held since 2005? Yes? Good. How soon?
• In a speech he made in the Arabic language to an Arabic-speaking non-diplomatic audience in July 2014 and reported on the This Ongoing War blog, Abbas invoked the Quran to justify war i.e. turning to religious Islamic grounds to explain why war is good and essential. Was he taken out of context? Was the Arabic translation wrong? Or is he actually the kind of Arab leader who thinks nothing of basing himself on religious arguments when whipping up the masses for more killing, usually of their own people?
• And how about a response or two about secret bank accounts and those incredible sweetheart deals that appear to have fallen into the laps of his sons [detailed here: "12-Jul-12: Secret bank accounts, sweetheart deals for insiders, incredible riches for the president's sons: why would any Palestinian Arab politician ever give this up for... peace?"]? Does the Palestine president have anything he can say that will restore confidence in a leadership that most people familiar with its character believe is hopelessly flawed, patently corrupt and incapable of bringing anything good to his own people? Or to put it in the words of a notably courageous and independent Arab journalist with an uncommon familiarity with the workings of the Palestinian political echelon: "Even if [Abbas] were to bring home an agreement that includes 100% of his demands, most Palestinians would still receive it with full skepticism because it would be coming from a leader who does not have a mandate to make even the slightest concession. Under the current circumstances, the wisest thing to do would be to maintain the status quo until the emergence of a new Palestinian leader who would have the true courage to make peace with Israel." These words were written in 2012. Does Mr Abbas think they have any application today?

Enough questions for now. How lovely it would be if a reporter worth his/her pencil would take them up, even just one or two of them, and sit there until Abbas actually answers.

23-Apr-14: On the road to... what?

Zahar, rifle and unkissed baby:
Powerful combination in theirvalue system

Now that Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah/PLO/PA and Hamas have decided to spend the next five weeks pursuing "unity" and exploring how to do good things collaboratively, we feel there's value in going back for a short refresher of the views of that senior figure in Hamas who appeared in a post of ours yesterday ["22-Apr-14: Not quite your average foreign minister or baby-kissing politician"]. The brief excerpt below is from an interview published this week in the web magazine, Al-Monitor.

Interviewer:  Has Hamas truly abandoned armed resistance while other parties insist upon continuing it? 

Mahmoud al-Zahar:  Anyone who claims so must be drunk. How has Hamas abandoned the resistance effort? What are the manifestations of it doing so? Where have we prevented the launching of rockets? The last time three men were martyred as they fired rockets, did we stop them..?  

Interviewer:  What about the re-emergence of the armed Qassam Brigades in the West Bank? 

Mahmoud al-Zahar:  An occupied community has the right to defend itself. I do not want to go into the details, yet negotiations did not yield any results until now. Now in Gaza we kicked the occupation out and the people should opt for another choice. We [publicly] declare this choice and we are not ashamed of it. The project of resistance has to be adopted with all its tools to end Israeli occupation.

Knowing what this man says and possibly believes, thinking that an outcome that is somehow good and conceivably includes something close to peace might result means a person (a) thinks Zahar is lying when he makes statements like these; (b) believes Zahar, thinks he means 'resistance' when he says 'resistance' but hopes it will all work it alright in the end somehow; or (c) is convinced Zahar and the other ideological zealots of Hamas will be outsmarted and out-outmaneuvered by the efficient pragmatists of Fatah who, in turn, seriously want peaceful relations with Israel.

Optimistic we're not.

23-Mar-14: Peace, trust and Mahmoud Abbas

Demonstrating the utility of utterly flexible principles, the man at the top of the Palestinian Arab power structure, Mahmoud Abbas, is quoted in an Associated Press report tonight calling for the Obama administration "to intervene to save the peace talks".

Alert readers may recall yesterday's somewhat different message from Abbas, one in which he "rejected most of the proposals made by Obama during their meeting at the White House"... and presented himself to the Palestinian 'street' as the political figure with "the guts to say no to Obama..."

This Saturday variation on the Friday man is connected to what happened in Jenin today. The AP version events comes in a Mohammed Ballas report:

"Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in an early morning raid that was followed by a clash with angry protesters in a West Bank town on Saturday, the military and Palestinian security officials said, in the deadliest incident in months... [It] started with an Israeli raid, which the military said aimed to arrest Hamza Abu el-Heija, a 22-year-old Hamas operative wanted for involvement in shooting and bombing attacks against Israelis. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner described el-Heija as a "ticking bomb" and said he was wanted for months and was allegedly in the final stages of planning a major shooting attack against Israelis. Palestinians officials said the military ringed the house in the Jenin refugee camp overnight and ordered el-Heija outside. When he refused to come out, the soldiers stormed the building and a shootout ensued. Lerner said everyone but el-Heija had left the building before the shootout. The military says el-Heija first shot an attack dog that was sent inside and then opened fire on the troops outside, wounding two soldiers. When he attempted to escape while still shooting at the Israelis, the troops returned fire and killed him, Lerner said. [AP]

So just where was Abbas and his PA forces in all this? Avi Issacharoff, writing in the Times of Israel today, explains that there's a "new reality in the refugee camps of the West Bank", and here's how it looks:

Palestinian Authority security forces generally stay out of the camps, and especially those in Jenin and Nablus. PA forces did try to arrest Abu al-Hija a few months ago, an incident that prompted intense Palestinian public criticism of the PA. Lesson learned, PA security personnel have since stayed away. Israel, as Saturday’s events showed, however, has not. Hamza Abu al-Hija is from his family’s second generation of wanted Hamas operatives, the son of one of the icons of the Islamist group in the West Bank, Jamal Abu al-Hija, who’s been in prison in Israel since 2002. The father, who lost an eye and a hand in an explosion at the beginning of the Second Intifada, is serving nine life terms for involvement in at least six bombings, including the Meron Junction attack that killed nine Israelis in 2002 and the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria bombing that killed 15 in 2001. Israel had tried in December to arrest Abu al-Hija the younger, but he escaped, and fierce clashes ensued between IDF troops and hundreds of Palestinians at the time. [Times of Israel]

In another report tonight, Israel's Channel 2 News expanded on the comprehensive rejection put forward by Abbas in Washington earlier in the week:

Abbas rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that he recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He also refused to abandon the Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for millions of Palestinians and their descendants — a demand that, if implemented, would drastically alter Israel’s demographic balance and which no conceivable Israeli government would accept. And finally, he refused to commit to an “end of conflict,” under which a peace deal would represent the termination of any further Palestinian demands of Israel.

For the record, President Barack Obama - plainly ignoring the photos we published here ["20-Mar-14: Questions to visiting politicians about what lies at the heart of a peace process"] on Friday - summed up Abbas in the White House this week by calling him:

a leader who “has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side in peace and security — a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors.” [TIME Magazine]

Even relatively well-informed observers of the Arab -v- Israel conflict might admit to some surprise at elements of today's events:

• Abbas, who is already unable to visit his own home in the Gaza Strip, has been unwilling and/or unable to send his forces into key parts of the areas he purports to control.
• In parts of the PA-controlled West Bank - Nablus, Jenin, Hebron at least - Hamas demonstrably has free rein. Only the IDF is willing to do anything about this and then only when they have to. Abbas and his forces no longer even pretend.
• Both criticizing and embracing the Obama administration's strategy within a single 24-hour period is no problem at all for a man like Abbas. So long as there are reporters out there who have little factual background, no clue about context and little or (more usually) no familiarity with the Arabic language, he will say and do whatever advances his immediate short-term interests.
• Even if he signs on to peace in some form, it's not a resolution of the dispute/s. He makes it clear this would be just another stop en route.

How anyone can seriously urge Israel to place its trust in this man's good faith and ability to deliver on a peace that requires painful compromise on both sides is simply beyond our comprehension.

21-Mar-14: If Mahmoud Abbas is your idea of a 'peace partner', skip this post

Peacemaking-superpowers eye to eye in the White House
earlier this week [Image Source]

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Arab political figure who this past January notoriously commenced the tenth year of the four year presidential term to which he was elected in 2005, adds another peace-seeking notch to his growing list of career 'achievements'. As Herb Keinon writes in today's Jerusalem Post ["Israeli Official: Palestinians Celebrating Failure of Peace Talks"], Abbas returned yesterday (Thursday) 

to a hero's welcome in Ramallah, where he told thousands of Palestinians at a rally that in his meeting on Monday with President Obama, "I have honored my pledge and kept my promise" not to give up Palestinian rights.

Some hero. Some honor.

This is disturbing on several levels, even by Abbas' shabby standards. When Yasser Arafat, Abbas' unlamented predecessor in office, returned from the Camp David talks in 2000, he famously celebrated the failure of those talks too. He shortly afterwards engineered the eruption of the Arafat Terror War that commenced on Jewish New Year's Day of that year. 

Dennis Ross, the presidential envoy who played a central role for the US government at Camp David, summed up Arafat's strategy in 2002:

Let me give you the sequence, because I think it puts all this in perspective. Number one, at Camp David we did not put a comprehensive set of ideas on the table. We put ideas on the table that would have affected the borders and would have affected Jerusalem. Arafat could not accept any of that. In fact, during the 15 days there, he never himself raised a single idea. His negotiators did, to be fair to them, but he didn't. The only new idea he raised at Camp David was that the temple didn't exist in Jerusalem... [Source: Congressional Record, April 22, 2002]

It appears Abbas adopted much the same strategy in the White House this week.

Keinon's JPost analysis today includes this telling quote from an Israeli government insider:

"If the Palestinians celebrate rejectionism, they're closing the door to Palestinian statehood, because the only way to achieve a Palestinian state is through negotiations and agreement with Israel," the official said. "A rejectionist position makes Palestinian statehood impossible..." [Jerusalem Post, today]

Another Jerusalem Post journalist, the incomparable Khaled Abu Toameh writing on the Gatestone Institute site today, notes that members of the Abbas entourage were already broadcasting the failure of his talks with President Barack Obama over the future of the peace process even before he boarded the flight home from Washington:

The officials said that Abbas rejected most of the proposals made by Obama during their meeting at the White House, including the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and maintaining an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley. Abbas, according to the officials, also dismissed as "immature" Obama's proposal concerning the status of Jerusalem because it did not call for a full Israeli withdrawal from the eastern part of the city. Over the past few months, Abbas and his top aides and negotiators have repeatedly voiced their strong opposition to the U.S. proposals for a "framework agreement," with some accusing the U.S. of failing to serve as a honest broker. In the West Bank, PA employees and schoolchildren were sent into the streets to chant slogans in support of Abbas, urging him not to succumb to U.S. pressure... "These rallies are not real," complained West Bank university professor Abdel Sattar Qassem. "They are similar to what Arab intelligence agencies have been doing - using blackmail and intimidation to force their public servants to show loyalty for the ruler..." Abbas is hoping to turn himself into a hero by telling his people that he had the guts to say no to Obama...

All of this, naturally, so that he can continue to pose as the one Middle East leader who really, but really, wants peace for his people - at least, for those who are inclined to see him that way. Others (including us) worry about how this points to our being on the way to another upswing in this ongoing war of terror.

7-Feb-14: Still wondering how they can imagine in Washington that this is the way to make peace happen

Ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary John Kerry [Image Source: AP]

This past Tuesday, Susan Rice, the National Security Advisor and a former Ambassador to the UN

launched a full-scale Twitter defense of John Kerry, as the secretary of state takes flak for his criticism of Israel. Calling critiques of the U.S. statesman “totally unfounded and unacceptable,” Rice posted four consecutive tweets on Monday night that praised Kerry’s record and affirmed the Obama peace policy concerning Israel and Palestine... "Personal attacks in Israel directed at Sec Kerry totally unfounded and unacceptable..." [New York Daily News]

With Ms Rice's robust defence in mind, David Horovitz who founded and edits Times of Israel published a biting analysis of the current US program for bringing peace to our neighbourhood and of the people driving it. Like many Israelis, he appears to have been struck by Kerry's resort to what he politely terms "an anguished public prediction" of "what awaits Israel if his peace effort fails", reminding us that no matter the substance behind the perception, Israel and not the Arab side will be held to account if the current process ends in failure.

POTUS and Sec Kerry remain committed to negotiations that can secure Israeli and Palestinian futures.
— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) February 4, 2014

That outcome is, by the way, the overwhelming expectation over here, in case that's not already obvious.

You don't have to agree with every word of David Horovitz' opinion piece to feel comfortable with his conclusions. He ends Wednesday's "The petulant Secretary Kerry" with this:

...Good diplomacy, centrally, involves taking practical steps to marginalize those outside powers that relentlessly foster extremism and terrorism and violence — those enemies of peaceful co-existence — led by Iran. The Obama administration failed the people of Iran when they tried to rise up against their regime. It has failed to protect the people of Syria from slaughter. It has offered no coherent guidance to would-be democrats in Egypt.
And its latest diplomatic “achievement” has set Iran more firmly than ever on its path to nuclear threshold status — allowed to enrich uranium, allowed to improve its technology for enrichment, allowed to continue its weaponization and missile development programs. The Iranians came to the table desperate, and you, Mr. Secretary, sent them home crowing — failing to use your authority and influence to force their admission that they were working toward the bomb and to ensure they were halted. In short, the most profound concerns that Israelis have about the fragility of their security and prosperity stem somewhat less from their failures, Mr. Secretary, than from yours.

And a reminder of something Kerry said at the Munich Security Conference last Saturday that got many people on our side thinking:

"You see, for Israel, there’s an increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There is talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better with all of that? ...The fact is the status quo will change if there is failure [in the peace talks]. So everybody has a stake in trying to find the pathway to success..." [NY Times]

At this point, can we suggest going back to the source and reading how David Horovitz gets to his final paragraphs?

This also seems like an appropriate moment to once again air our own deep concerns about John Kerry's personal and professional approaches (we wonder whether one differs from the other) to terrorism and terrorists. 

We offer some links to several Kerry-related posts published on this blog (not all of them, by any means). Until today, every last one of them, along with a letter we delivered to the State Department, have managed to elicit zero response from the State Department's numerous spokespersons in Washington. (The list here goes from from oldest to newest):

• 14-Aug-13: Are the Palestinian Arab murderers who are being released at this moment, freedom fighters or terrorists? Let's check with the State Department
• 19-Aug-13: Is the US State Department breaching its own policy on Palestinian Arab terrorists?
• 25-Aug-13: Wake up call for those who thought the terrorists are walking free for peace
• 21-Oct-13: Incredibly, maddeningly, convicted terrorists are about to be freed again
• 28-Oct-13: A moment before more terrorist beasts are freed, questions for the State Department
• 30-Oct-13: The bogus manufacture of heroes and legends
• 1-Nov-13: Still waiting for State
• 17-Nov-13: Is Washington going to make up its mind whether it sees the killers as freedom fighters or as terrorists?
• 5-Dec-13: Welcome to Jerusalem, Mr Kerry. A moment of your time please.
• 10-Dec-13: Can Kerry and his State Department colleagues not hear what's being said clearly in Arabic? 
• 12-Dec-13: For those who think freeing convicted killers brings lasting peace, another wake-up call
• 15-Dec-13: Confirmed by Kerry: More unrepentant killers to walk free in two weeks
• 29-Dec-13: Tweeting with the State Department
• 31-Dec-13: What is it about US policy that fails to understand the Hamas factor?
• 12-Jan-14: Finally, fully justified outrage from State Department about killers being released to do more terrorism
• 16-Jan-14: Offensive, inappropriate and dangerously, undiplomatically inconsistent
• 2-Feb-14: Reflecting on a momentary slip by the Secretary of State
• 5-Feb-14: Behind careless throw-away statements of politicians, the overlooked humans and their actual lives

We are as aware as our readers are that we are neither political figures nor elected leaders. But though our criticism sticks to what we regard as humanitarian matters, and even though we speak as ordinary citizens (with this small difference, that our murdered daughter Malki held US citizenship), we continue to believe we are making serious points that even the Secretary of State of the US, or one of his many staffers, ought to take out a moment to answer in a respectful and unspun way.

27-Jan-14: For PA leadership, Kerry talks are "futile" and "only martyrdom" will fix the problems

Abed Rabbo [Image Source]

What should we expect from those peace moves now underway? Here a few updated clues.

Yasser Abed Rabbo is "one of only two Palestinian officials authorized to comment on the negotiations with Israel" [source]. So it's significant that, according to Haaretz today, he is calling the current talks

futile and said they would not even produce the framework agreement U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been working to secure... "No Palestinian leadership can accept Kerry's formula for a framework deal" which he says "is vague when it comes to issues important to Palestinians and detailed regarding Israeli concerns... All the illusions that existed in the beginning have since drowned at sea... Israel wants to erase any element of Palestinian sovereignty." [Haaretz]

Tawfik Tirawi, described by Haaretz today as "a senior Fatah official" and a man remembered for his deep personal involvement in terror, is quoted in the same article saying that under current conditions, a Palestinian state would not be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the next two decades. The Palestinians would not accept Kerry's framework deal. Therefore

"We must go back to initiating and become part of a circle of action... I'm talking about all kinds of resistance, but within a unified Palestinian framework that is agreed to by all sides in Fatah and factions outside of it. As part of our plan, we will choose the correct form of resistance and act accordingly... Anyone who thinks there will be a state is sorely mistaken... The negotiations won’t lead anywhere." [Haaretz]

Tirawi [Image Source]

Elsewhere he is quoted today saying

Negotiations with Israel will lead to “zero results” if not fortified by armed resistance... "The big explosion in Palestine is coming. All of Israel’s actions have placed the Palestinian public under immense pressure. They have no choice but to explode in the face of the occupation... The first signs of a new Palestinian uprising have already begun to appear on the ground..." [Times of Israel]

Some of those "first signs" appear in today's Arabic-language news reports (with pictures) of Hamas fighters out in public yesterday in the PA-controlled West Bank city of Jenin, taking part in a memorial service for another deceased terrorist.

Tirawi, who also serves as head of the official Palestinian investigation committee into the death of Yasser Arafat (apparently a lifetime appointment) has praised the usefulness of terrorist violence fairly consistently over the years. This Tirawi speech is from July 2009:

Believe me, brothers, whoever thinks that Israel will give us anything is deluding himself. And why would they give us anything? The Palestinians are divided, and the Arabs are weak. Any negotiations that are not based on a position of strength will not get you anything from the enemy... But let me tell you, Jerusalem needs thousands of martyrs. If we live to see the day, and you become the leaders of the future, mark my words: It is impossible for Jerusalem to be restored to us without thousands of martyrs. Anyone who thinks that America will restore Jerusalem to us is mistaken.

Tirawi made his name as an Arafat confidant in the bloody days of the early 2000s when he was head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service in the West Bank and known to be "orchestrating terrorist operations against Israel".

This message is brought as yet another reminder of what's at stake when convicted terrorists, who play a central role in the PA leadership's narrative, are released from prison without any regard for the length of the terms to which they were sentenced by the courts and the legal justice system.

11-Sep-13: No need to speculate: Palestinian Arabs genuinely, overwhelmingly believe in barbarism as a strategy

Yasser Abed Rabo, co-author of 2003 peace
plan, with Israeli partner Yossi Beilin [Image Source]

A Pew Research Global Attitudes report issued today demonstrates statistically that

Overall support for violence in the name of Islam has declined among Muslim publics during the past decade... In many of the countries surveyed, clear majorities of Muslims oppose violence in the name of Islam. Indeed, about three-quarters or more in Pakistan (89%), Indonesia (81%), Nigeria (78%) and Tunisia (77%), say suicide bombings or other acts of violence that target civilians are never justified. 

But there is one demographic where a clear majority of respondents - 62% - told Pew's pollsters that "suicide bombing is often or sometimes justified". That demographic is Palestinian Arab Muslims.

Knowing the murderous intentions of the Palestinian Arab "street" concerning us ordinary Israelis (and keep in mind that Palestinian Arab terror is rarely directed at the Israeli military), it casts a deadly light on the current strategies of the Mahmoud Abbas regime's inner circle. 

A report published just yesterday by WAFA, the official mouthpiece of the PA, quotes Yasser Abed Rabbo summing up the 'peace' process currently underway. Abed Rabbo is said to be one of the authors of the 2003 Geneva Accord. 

“Israel is trying to benefit from the negotiations to pressure Europe to cancel the boycott (of settlement products),” he said on Voice of Palestine... The negotiations have not made any progress on the ground and that all Israel wants is that no one says anything about its settlements and other activities that violate the rights of the Palestinian people.
“There are no signs of progress... There is progress only in the settlements and in the violations, but not in the negotiations that can cause us to say that US efforts have achieved any real results on the ground or in the peace process..." [Abed Rabbo quoted yesterday by WAFA]

His voice is part of a choir. The Palestinian/Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh writes today on the Gatestone Institute website that -  

PLO, Fatah and Palestinian Authority officials have described the talks as "futile", "unproductive", "a waste of time" and "a cover for Israel to pursue its policy of creating new facts on the ground..." By sounding the alarm bell already, the Palestinians are hoping that when the talks fail they will be able to tell the world, "You see, we told you from the beginning that these Israelis do not want peace." But these statements and threats have also proven to be counter-productive. The more Palestinian officials and leaders talk about the "futility" and "ineffectiveness" of the peace talks, the bigger the opposition grows to the negotiations with Israel. [Khaled Abu Toameh on Gatestone Institute website, September 10, 2013]

Nearly two-thirds of the people ruled by the clique of which Abed Rabbo is a leading member are committed to the most extreme forms of lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. In that light, do we need to speculate about the intended effect when PA insiders like him dismiss so comprehensively the current round of talks between their side and Israel?

16-Sep-06: Peace: What Will It Take?

Don't be misled by the title. The subject of what it will take to create a state of peace between the Arabs and Israel is too large, too complicated for this blog.

To be clear: this is not because we don't want peace, but because peace is a complicated thing, built on a myriad of changed relationships and conditions.

No, this blog is to briefly showcase a bleak, very black-and-white viewpoint. Not ours, but that of a noted veteran expert on Islam, Prof. Moshe Sharon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Speaking at last week's conference on countering terrorism at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, Sharon said: "There is no possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians whatsoever - ever." He's especially troubled by the role of Mahmoud Ahmadinijad ... and throws some light on what the role of a religious lunatic at the head of a major country can mean for everyone else.

Very briefly, some other points made in Prof. Sharon's analysis:

• "The root of the problem between us and the Arab world is Islam. Islam is not only a religion. It is a culture, politics, a state. Islam is everything. It has been like this, and it will be like this for the foreseeable future. Islam is a messianic religion. From the very beginning, it talked about the end of the world."
• From his study of Iranian culture, literature, newspapers and broadcasts and from interviews with major players in the Islamic regime, Sharon concludes that a deep belief in a Shiite messiah is at the root of Iran’s nuclear project.
• “What today moves the Iranian government, its prime minister Ahmedinijad, is first and foremost the wish to bring about the Twelfth Imam, also known as the Mahdi. They truly believe that the Shiite messiah, the Twelfth Imam is here, and that he will reveal himself… What moves the Iranian government and leadership today is first and foremost the wish to bring about the Twelfth Imam."
• Western officials fail to grasp that the Arab and Islamic world truly see Israel’s establishment as a “reversal of history” and are therefore unable to ever accept peaceful relations with it.
• From Moslems’ perspective, “Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Moslem. Non-Moslems are independent of Islamic rule and Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema. Worse, Israel, a non-Moslem state, is ruling over Moslems. It is unthinkable that non-Moslems should rule over Moslems.”
• The power of the ayatollahs in Iran comes from the grassroots and popular belief that they can contact the Mahdi. Everybody believes. How will they bring him? By an apocalypse. He (the Mahdi) needs a war. He cannot come into this world without an Armageddon. He wants an Armageddon. The earlier we understand, the better. Ahmadinejad wants nuclear weapons for this.
• Israel is a side issue for Iran. Iran is using Israel as a means to enter the Islamic world, to dominate it. "But they cannot bluff the Saudis, the Wahabbis. The Shi'ites (Iran) are hated by the Sunnis. The Saudis are far more apprehensive of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran than Israel."
• “What is the difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Judaism speaks about national salvation: at the end of the story, when the world becomes a better place, Israel will be in its own land, ruled by its own king and serving G-d. Christianity speaks about the idea that every single person in the world can be saved from his sins, while Islam speaks about ruling the world. I can quote here in Arabic, but there is no point in quoting Arabic, so let me quote a verse in English: ‘Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions.’"
• "The idea, then, is not that the whole world would necessarily become Moslem at this time, but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam... This is why [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad seeks nuclear weapons,” Prof. Sharon is quoted as saying. “The faster we realize this, the better.”
• The Iranian government is seeking nuclear weapons in order to bring about an apocalypse.

We're not in favor of simplistic analysis or of paying attention to pooled ignorance. Political life in most places is filled to overflowing with both.

On the other hand, ignoring, ostrich-like, what's happening in the Islamic and Arab worlds, and in Iran, and shutting out the shrieks of hatred - the calls to wipe Israel off the map, the rising mass-hysteria for war and global domination - that emanate from those places are among the most foolish and irresponsible things that politicians can do.

Some politicians do, however, get it.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a rising Adolf Hitler with his stand on Iran's nuclear programme, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said [in April 2006]. Merkel said the threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions is similar to Germany's Nazi regime, adding that the world must act now to prevent it building an atomic bomb. "In the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many who said 'It's only rhetoric - don't get excited'," she told a forum of world leaders. Iran "has blatantly crossed the red line", she said. "We must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear programme... A president who questions Israel's right to exist, a president who denies the Holocaust cannot expect to receive any tolerance from Germany."

It's far from clear that the German leader's plain-spoken words stand a chance of being heeded. And just as doubtful that the real significance of the hateful, deadly malevolence emanating from Teheran is being understood in all the places it needs to be understood.

POSTSCRIPT:

An additional morsel of food for thought - a quotation of Adolf Hitler from 1922: "Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews have been really stirred up, their resistance will necessarily crumble in the shortest possible time. They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them."