The Israeli Left is on a collision course with the Obama administration. It is reportedly trying to undermine negotiations between the Netanyahu government and Fatah. The Obama administration is earnestly seeking to initiate them.
According to an unnamed eyewitness interviewed by Israel Radio, during a July 8 meeting between Kadima Council Chairman and former vice premier Haim Ramon, and Fatah chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Ramon urged Erekat to tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to reject the Netanyahu government’s offer for direct negotiations towards a peace deal.
Ramon allegedly claimed to speak for President Shimon Peres and warned Erekat that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not give the Palestinians what they demand. In light of this, Ramon urged Fatah to reject Netanyahu’s offers to meet.
The implication was clear. If the Palestinians wait out this government, a Kadima-led leftist government will happily give them what they want: Israel on a platter.
Ramon has rejected these allegations. He has also accused the eyewitness of being an agent of the Prime Minister’s Office.
If Ramon is telling the truth, the PMO would have been justified in keeping an eye on him. According to reports from late March, Ramon played a central role in instigating the crisis between Israel and the US that erupted during US Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Israel. Ahead of that visit, Kadima MK Yoel Hasson gave an interview to Israel Radio in which he said that the people of Israel would soon see how bad Israel’s relations with the US had become under Netanyahu.
During that visit, the administration seized on a routine meeting of Jerusalem’s municipal planning committee as a means of provoking the largest crisis in US-Israel relations in some twenty years. After Biden’s visit, Makor Rishon reported that Ramon met with one of Obama’s senior Middle East advisors before Biden arrived.
If Ramon did in fact tell Erekat to refuse Netanyahu’s offers to negotiate, it means that the Israeli Left and the Obama administration are working against one another. Whereas the Left’s chief concern is bringing down the government, the administration has made clear that it fervently wishes for Abbas to agree to direct talks with Netanyahu and begin those talks ahead of the midterm Congressional elections in November.
WHILE THEY disagree on when these negotiations should take place, the Israeli Left and the Obama administration agree on what it will take to get them started and keep them going.
Like Ramon, Obama seeks to woo Abbas to his side by promising to deliver up Israel. According to media reports, Obama has pledged that if Abbas agrees to negotiate, the administration will coerce Netanyahu into submitting to the Palestinians’ demands on substantive issues. These include borders, Palestinian militarization, ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria and large portions of Jerusalem, and other issues.
Unfortunately for Obama, despite these and other massive inducements, Abbas still refuses to negotiate. And so the administration has released its heavy guns.
No, Obama is not threatening to end US training of the Palestinian army. That $550 million training will continue despite Israel’s position that a Palestinian state must be demilitarized and its concern that the US trained force will turn its guns on Israel.
Among other things, that concern is based on the fact that members of the Palestinian security forces and their Fatah affiliates have been responsible for most of the lethal attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria in recent years.
Despite this, the Obama administration’s commitment to its Palestinian army is so massive that the US’s General Accounting Office just published a report criticizing Israel for not being sufficiently supportive of the US-trained military force.
No, Obama is not threatening to end US support for Palestinian statehood or stop defining that objective as the US’s central goal in the Middle East. Indeed, Obama’s decision to upgrade the PLO mission in Washington signals that he is willing to consider accepting a Palestinian state formed outside the framework of a peace deal with Israel. That is, he is willing to consider supporting a Palestinian state that will be at war with Israel.
So what are the big guns that Obama has just turned on Abbas in his bid to cajole him into talking to Netanyahu? According to the Daily Telegraph, Obama is threatening not to increase the pressure he is currently exerting on Israel to extend its ban on Jewish building in Judea and Samaria if Abbas refuses to negotiate. So Obama’s “stick” against the Palestinians doesn’t involve sticking it to the Palestinians. It involves the intensity with which he sticks it to Israel.
It is certainly ironic that Ramon’s meeting with Erekat places Kadima in conflict with the Obama administration it supports. But arguably more remarkable than what divides the two is what unites them.
In both cases, the Israeli Left and the Obama administration are offering to serve up Israel to the Palestinians for negotiations that have no chance whatsoever of leading to a peace deal.
What this means is that both are willing to serve up Israel not for peace, but for political theater.
IT IS hard to think of anything Abbas hasn’t already done to make clear that he doesn’t want to negotiate. He has refused to negotiate. He has demanded impossible preconditions. He has asked Fatah and the Arab League to refuse to negotiate.
While Abbas rejects the legitimacy of the Jewish state, his refusal to sit down with Netanyahu is not primarily a question of ideology. It is important to remember that Abbas doesn’t actually represent anyone anymore.
Abbas has no legal authority to represent the Palestinians. His term of office ended in January 2009. The only reason he continues to be referred to as the president of the Palestinian Authority is because the US insisted that he pretend that he is still represents someone.
But Abbas’s status as a has-been is the least of his problems. Even if Abbas’s term had not ended a year and eight months ago, he still wouldn’t have the power to make a deal with Israel. Hamas, not Abbas’ Fatah holds the cards in Palestinian society. This much was made clear in the first instance when Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006. By most non-Abbas controlled accounts, despite the billions of dollars Fatah has received in US and EU aid since then, if elections were held today, Hamas would likely win again.
And then there are the military realities.
Today, it is not the US-trained and financed Palestinian army that keeps Abbas’ expired government in power in Judea and Samaria. It is the IDF. If the IDF were to withdraw, Hamas would take over in those areas just as it took over Gaza three years ago.
And if Abbas signed a peace accord with Israel tomorrow, he would have no capacity to implement it. He would be dead before he had a chance to declare statehood. And he knows it.
When Hamas reinstated its missile war against Israel last week, the media contended that Hamas is seeking to derail talks between Abbas and Netanyahu. Whether this is true or not, it misses the point.
The point is that Hamas can derail talks any time it wishes because Hamas is the
real power in Palestinian society – not Abbas.
real power in Palestinian society – not Abbas.
And because the US has coerced Netanyahu into agreeing to hold talks with a Palestinian who has no power to negotiate, and because the Palestinians with actual power are controlled by Iran and wholly committed to Israel’s destruction, it is clear that Obama’s most earnestly held goal and the Israeli Left’s greatest desire is not to engage in a peace process, but to engage in political theater with Abbas at Israel’s expense.
UNFORTUNATELY, WHILE the goal is theater, its consequences are anything but entertaining. Indeed, they are deadly.
This longstanding penchant for having Israel negotiate with the Palestinians despite the latter’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state has brought about a situation in which Israel faces the prospect of a two-state solution that involves the creation of two Palestinian states. The first – the Palestinian state in Gaza, has existed for five years. It is run by Hamas and is controlled by Iran and Syria.
The second – the Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is run by Fatah. Protected by the IDF, it wages war against Hamas in the streets. And legitimized by the Israeli Left and the US, Fatah wages diplomatic war against Israel internationally. And when the blinds are pulled, Fatah forces join with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in their common goal of killing Israelis.
Because this political theater requires everyone in a position of power to ignore the fact that the Palestinians have both no interest and no ability to make peace with Israel, the Palestinians are consistently supported. And since it requires Israel to make endless concessions to the Palestinians to keep the drama going, support for Israel has consistently eroded.
Reality on the Palestinian side is not the only thing the likes of Ramon and Obama ignore in the interest of their love of theater.
They also ignore that the Israeli people have had enough of their play acting.
In a poll of Israeli Jews carried out for Channel One last week, by a margin of more than two to one, respondents said the withdrawal from Gaza was a mistake. By a margin of three to one they said they would not support similar withdrawals in the future. By a margin of nearly four to one they said their support for settlers had increased since the expulsions from Gaza. And by a margin of two to one, they said that the withdrawal harmed Israel’s deterrence.
Ramon is the architect of the unilateral withdrawal strategy. He cooked it up back in 1994 when the Palestinian introduction of the suicide bomber to the daily lives of Israelis soured the public on the peace process with the PLO. And now, with no chance that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader will sign or implement a deal with Israel, it is clear that the only way to progress in the political theater Obama and Ramon so fervently desire is for Israel to give more unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians.
The obvious remedy for all of this is for the Israeli Left and the US to recognize what it is that they are doing. Outside the world of theater, neither the Israeli Left nor the US have an interest in building yet another terror state in Judea and Samaria in addition to the one in Gaza. Neither has an interest in weakening Israel to the point where it cannot defend itself and therefore invites aggression from its neighbors.
If the Israel Left and the Obama administration truly want peace, they would be making some demands on the Palestinians. At a minimum they would demand that the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state and reform their anti-Semitic institutions.
But then they wouldn’t have their political theater. And that is something that cannot live without.
What the Israeli left, the Obama administration and Hamas want is far more substantive than political theater.
The left seeks a sufficient level of appeasement, such that Israel’s enemies will desist. If the necessary level of appeasement to accomplish that goal means the dissolution of Israel, then so be it. They are traitors in every sense of the word.
The Obama administration wants the problem to go away. They too seek appeasement as the means to accomplish that goal. Clearly, Obama believes that sacrificing Israel is an acceptable trade.
Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel. Which they cannot accomplish without the assistance of both the US and the Israeli left.
Israel’s problem is twofold. The primary factor is the Israeli left, who will willingly sacrifice Israel to appease Islam and who block any effective Israeli policies and actions from being implemented and maintained.
The secondary factor involves the US. Israel’s dependence upon the US must end because US aid carries too high a price tag; capitulation to US pressure with the US dictating Israel’s policies and actions and options, in return for US financial and military aid and ‘protection’ in the UN…
All of this is very interesting but misses where all this is headed. No one (I mean world political leaders in the West) cares anymore about a negotiated peace although you are correct that Obama would like a media event highlighting his great ”success” in re-starting direct talks. They don’t care if Hamas takes over the West Bank, I believe that everyone recognizes that Abbas & Fatah are irrelevent. They most certainly care nothing about our security or even survival.
”Peace” is no longer the aim of the ”peace process” ……
No, this is definitely headed towards the creation of a Palestinian state unilaterally & supported by the U.N. with the backing of the US, the EU, & basically, everyone else including Russia & China. We are about to get screwed big-time.
The model to look at is Kosovo.
I knew right away the implications of the policy of an independant Kosovo on Israel.
This unilaterally declared independant Palestine will immediately be recognized by the U.N. the EU, America, & all the Arab/Muslim countries. And, they will declare it’s borders to be that of pre-1967. We will be presented with a fait accompli – possibly even the right of return of Palestinian refugees to within Israel will be recognized.
So, the machinations of our traitorous Left & the weasely political juggling of Netanyahu are just a side-show.
The main event is yet to come.
This is all setting the stage for a more intense conflict with the Palestinians in the context of a wider regional war, one in which we will have virtually no support – unless enough time goes by & Obama is replaced by a very pro-Israel conservative US President.
I fully agree with you Caroline, it’s crazy to think that we are lead by such people who seem to ignore or are distracted by seemingly small things. We as Israel have a huge threat in Iran. If they manage to develop nukes then the game will change, Israel will be at the corner, the world will turn against Israel to appease Iran. I fear we are heading that way very fast until Israel does something.
I just wish one day we will have strong leaders who will unite Israelis, not work against one another… many people in Israel, I find, don’t appreciate that we have a country and how important it is.
This type of “meshugana” political theater will destabilize the region, and spawn a regional war. Undoubtedly, as long as Hamas controls Gaza, unprovoked rocket attacks will continue on Israel. If a future Israeli government foolishly agrees to surrender Judea and Samaria, Hamas will takeover that territory, too. The obvious remedy for all this is for the IDF to retake Gaza and decisively defeat Hamas. Finally, the American approach has failed because there is little understanding about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and no goodwill from Arab leaders to negotiate in good faith.
Is this the price we keep paying hoping people will finally accept us? Better yet, is this the death wish from the Jewish left and the US to rid the world of those crazy Jews who won’t give up everything for the “peace” that will never come? G-d help us.
“A Vulture was hacking at my feet. It had already torn my boots and stockings to shreds…” Kafka
Caroline, your article is spot on, and everyone should take keen notice of what is happening. I do believe Louis Rene Beres’s article on Israel and the Vulture is worth reading again. Kafka’s parable is uncanningly prophetic, and though Beres wrote in 2003, his interpretation of Kafka is being fulfilled even moreso today.
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jul03/beres2.htm
Can I ask why you keep calling the PLO “Fatah”? I know that it’s common nowadays to call them by the Arabic acronym rather than the English, but allowing that trick to win has actually obscured the fact that Fatah is just the Arabic for PLO. A lot of people who don’t have a very positive picture in their minds of the PLO might be surprised to find out that that’s what Fatah is.
The Israeli Left has been successfully undermining Israeli government peace efforts for years, and were instrumental in ramming the Oslo Accords and the Sharon Disengagement down the throats of a largely unwilling Israeli public. Thus Haim Ramon’s treacherous behavior is hardly unique and is simply a continuation of a tradition of treachery started by Leftist Israeli politicians like Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, etc.
However by now, the Palestinians no longer need the assistance of the Israeli Left to see the wisdom of their rejectionism and to enjoy the fruits of their uncompromising negotiating positions. Indeed, as one journalist has so aptly pointed out Gideon Lichfield, journalist: “It is ironic that the fundamental disagreement between Jews and Palestinians today is not about whether there should be a Palestinian state; most Israeli Jews accepted that long ago. It is about whether there should be a Jewish one. (“How the other fifth lives,” The Economist, April 3, 2008).
This is the real product of Israeli Left wing duplicity and treachery, that is, an Israel which has become almost entirely isolated internationally, which is not permitted to use it’s military to defend her citizens, which suffers the hostility of most of the so called enlightened Western states, and whose legitimacy to even exist is daily called into question. It is also an Israel which is expected to concede to every and all Palestinian demands, no matter how absurd, how dangerous, and no matter how genocidal.
The Israeli Left has been extremely effective in demoralizing Israelis and empowering Israel’s many and sundry enemies. And that Israeli Left will continue to do so even at the expense of disrupting the Obama administration’s plans for resuming Israeli Palestinian peace negotiations. This is because the Israeli Left has the same one state solution in mind that the Palestinians do, that is, an Arab Islamic Palestine in place of Israel.