Israel Matzav: What's the change?

What's the change?

I've seen a lot of comments out there on the net claiming that it's not such a big deal that Obama wants the 'Palestinian state' to be based on the '1967 borders' (really the 1949 armistice lines), because Olmert and Barak both offered that in the past.

Well, it is a big deal. Here's why.

There is certainly something very new in the US endorsement of the 'Palestinian' position that the 'Palestinians' are presumptively entitled to sovereignty over all Mandatory areas captured by the Arab League in its invasion of Israel in 1948 and held by the Arab states until 1967, and therefore Israel has to compensate them one for one for anything it keepsu agreement reached between Israel and the PLO that endorses that position, and there is no previous US endorsement of that position. The Israeli position, which is quite reasonable under the agreed-upon negotiating framework of Resolution 242, is that borders should be “secure and recognized” rather than based upon where the Arabs reached in 1949. The US position used to be that borders had to be agreed upon. No more.

There is a major difference between Israel offering to establish a border on the basis of the 1949 armistice lines and the US claiming that negotiations must be based on that Israeli concession. In fact, one of the major requirements for both Barak and Olmert was that nothing was agreed upon until everything was agreed, i.e., that Israeli concessions regarding the borders could not be pocketed but would only be valid when coupled with various 'Palestinian' concessions that Barak and Olmert (foolishly) expected to receive. If Obama is now endorsing the 1949 armistice lines, he is essentially giving the Palestinians the offered Israeli concessions in exchange for nothing.

But the point for the general audience isn't what Obama endorsed, it's the language he used. No president has ever said the words "antagonism toward Israel" in a policy speech, nor have US presidents spoken of the "'Palestinians' suffering under occupation" by Israel.

What this will sound like to most people is that Obama took a position on one of the key points to be negotiated, meaning that the US has taken a giant step away from acting as a comparatively neutral mediator. There is a big difference between accepting an Israeli negotiating position, and announcing that the US will tolerate only that specific negotiating position.

Bush referred to 'Palestinian suffering' and so did Clinton. But neither of them spoke of the Palestinians suffering "the humiliation of occupation by Israel." Neither Bush nor Clinton targeted Israel as the source of 'Palestinian' suffering or humiliation. Obama explicitly did.

Israel Matzav: What's the change?

Israel Matzav: What has been guaranteed to Israel

What has been guaranteed to Israel

Over the weekend, 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen called for the UN to endorse a 'two-state solution' based upon the June 4, 1967 borders between Israel and Jordan and between Israel and Egypt. I have pointed out many times that UN Security Council Resolution 242 does not call for a return to the 1949 armistice lines that were in effect on June 4, 1967. Rick Richman does a good job of summing up the promises that have been made to Israel regarding its eventual permanent border.

The Roadmap calls for final-status negotiations in Phase III “based on UNSCR 242.” It does not mention the June 4, 1967, lines, much less endorse them as “borders.” The U.S. has at least three times formally assured Israel of “defensible borders” as the outcome of the peace process: (1) in the January 16, 1997, letter from Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; (2) in the April 14, 2004, letter from President George W. Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; and (3) in the January 16, 2009, Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. and Israel. Only such borders meet the Resolution 242 requirement that Israel’s borders be not only recognized but also secure.

There will be a quiz tomorrow. Heh.

Israel Matzav: What has been guaranteed to Israel

Love of the Land: Good Governance Post National Trauma: Rejecting a Two State Solution

Good Governance Post National Trauma: Rejecting a Two State Solution

Prof. Alan Friedlander
Jerusalem Defender
12 November 09

Israeli President Shimon Peres recently said, "Those who reject the two-state solution will not bring a one-state solution. They will bring one conflict, not one state. A bloody endless conflict."

Excuse me, but isn't that what the Oslo Accords accomplished? Is that not the very fruit that it brought upon Israel? Isn't that what the Roadmap to Peace (Oslo 3) ended up doing, especially before the security fence was built?

Has it been so long since the first Intifada began that people have forgotten what it was like when Arab refugees didn't try to kill Israelis?

Answer this: Why, when Arafat was a fugitive for the first three decades of his terroristic career, there was no intifada? Why when Arafat underwent a PR makeover and was a pseudo partner in a pseudo peace process, why then did Israel stop looking over its borders with fear, but then start looking within its borders for the most clear and present dangers?

Arafat created a goon squad of terrorist abusers of the national psyche. Did anyone really believe that whitewashing the high crimes of the PLO by calling them by the designation of "diplomats" would bring Israel closer to peace?

Oslo 1, Oslo 2, the Roadmap. Wrong thought processes were at play that conceived these plans, which have brought these decades of endless violence. Like a battered wife who clings to her abusive husband. She should not cower behind the locked bathroom door each night hoping for her husband to calm down. She should leave or call the police.

By continuing to advocate the pursuit of a "one-state solution" you are essentially telling your people to sit there and take it; for eternity. This is peace? This is madness!

Bad policy such as this hopes to placate the abuser long enough so that the victim can just be left alone for a scant few moments of respite from his limitless rage. But no practical plans for long term security are on her agenda. Taking dangerous risks without a clearly obtainable goal is a classic symptom of the faulty reasoning that often affects the thought processes of victims of abuse. For example following up Oslo 1 with Oslo 2, then Oslo 2 with the Roadmap would be an expression of this disorder at the political level.

The healthier choice would have been seeking national consensus on the vital issues at play rather than forcing through the Knesset a left wing agenda.

To have true freedom from bloodshed, you must first inculcate true freedom of the heart and mind. As God told Yehoshua (Joshua) repeatedly, "Be strong and courageous".

Not only has the violence continued, your reaction has you pointed in the wrong direction to fix the problems...

Why should Arabs keep their homes and not Jews? Is this justice?

Why should Israel be forced into "Auschwitz Borders" as your friend Abba Eban used to call them? Is this security?

Why should you have to give anything to get peace? Should peaceful intentions not be shared by both partners?

Currently only one side is committed to peace and freedom of the other side if they should reach a peace deal, while the other guys refuse to accept even the notion of a Jewish State. Is this a true path to peace?

You have been strong and courageous to make sacrifices for peace. Now be strong and courageous to encourage the forsaking of the failed paths of national self destruction, leaving them as history. Only this new direction is a path that can lead to healthy and true peace.

Soon may it be so, by the grace of G-d.

Love of the Land: Good Governance Post National Trauma: Rejecting a Two State Solution

Israel Matzav: The 'road map' gutted

The 'road map' gutted

Last Saturday night, I noted a statement by the 'quartet' (the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations) that effectively gutted the reciprocity requirement contained in the 2003 'road map' to a 'Palestinian state.' In Friday's JPost, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold, who is a close Netanyahu adviser, elaborated on the 'quartet's action, which did much more than gut the reciprocity requirement.

In general, the Quartet wanted to provide its own multilateral stamp of approval on President Barack Obama's UN address from September 22. It is to be remembered that Obama's remarks were unusual in their exceptionally long and detailed treatment of the Arab-Israel conflict: Roughly one-tenth of the speech was devoted to the issue of Israel and the Palestinians - far more than any other conflict in the world. He specifically proposed the establishment of "a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967."

In doing so, Obama adopted language that was not balanced out by an equal reference to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which appears in the Quartet road map and did not call for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines.

OBAMA'S PUSH for the 1967 lines is also evident in his language during his UN address that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."

...

The Quartet statement also goes out of its way to back the Palestinian Authority's new plan for building the institutions of a Palestinian state over the next 24 months - which was drafted by Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. On the one hand, the Fayad Plan appears to address Israel's call for bottom-up peacemaking by tackling head-on the lack of sufficient self-governing bodies on the Palestinian side. On the other hand, it is a program that leads the Palestinian Authority seven-eighths of the way to an independent Palestinian state, leaving ambiguous how the Palestinians get to the finish line. What it leaves open is the possibility of a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians or by someone else.

...

ISRAELI DIPLOMACY is heading for unchartered waters, having to balance between negotiations with the Palestinians and the possibility of a new muscular multilateralism at the UN, led by the Quartet. What is clear is that if the Palestinians understand that they will receive a Palestinian state on a silver platter in two years time - that will additionally be based on the 1967 lines - then why should Mahmoud Abbas bother to negotiate or make a single concession?

Under such conditions, the Palestinians are likely to prefer advancing the campaign to delegitimize Israel, by increasingly turning to the International Criminal Court and other UN bodies. At the same time they will insist that the Obama administration put its own peace plan on the table that prejudges the outcome of negotiations by detailing future borders. An alternative that has been raised is an Obama side-letter to the Palestinians on borders that neutralizes Bush's past guarantees.

The only way to block this drift in diplomacy is for Israel to be very firm about its positions. It cannot accept any negotiating process with Abbas that allows the Palestinians to multilateralize Israeli-Palestinian differences while negotiators sit across from one another.

Read the whole thing.

We may as well come right out and say it: Israel has an enemy in the White House.

Israel Matzav: The 'road map' gutted

Israel Matzav: The 'Quartet' destroys what's left of the 'roadmap'

The 'Quartet' destroys what's left of the 'roadmap'

Hillary Clinton attended a meeting of the 'Quartet' this week. As you might recall the 'Quartet' consists of the United States, the Soviet Union, the European Union and the United Nations and is meant to bring 'peace' to the Middle East. The 'Quartet' was set up under the 'road map' in 2003. The 'road map' is meant to provide a way to a 'Palestinian state' and was accepted by the Sharon government in 2003 with fourteen reservations. The 'Quartet' specifically rejected those reservations in its statement on Thursday. Here's the key passage in the 'Quartet' statement:

The Quartet shares the sense of urgency expressed by President Obama and fully supports the steps ahead as outlined in his statement to the UN General Assembly on September 22. The Quartet calls on Israel and the Palestinians to act on their previous agreements and obligations--in particular adherence to the Roadmap, irrespective of reciprocity--to create the conditions for the resumption of negotiations in the near term. The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth; and to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem and calls on the Palestinian Authority to continue to make every effort to improve law and order, to fight violent extremism, and to end incitement.

But when Sharon accepted the road map, he and his government made the following reservation:

1. Both at the commencement of, and during the process, and as a condition to its continuance, calm will be maintained. The Palestinians will dismantle the existing security organizations and implement security reforms during the course of which new organizations will be formed and act to combat terror, violence and incitement (incitement must cease immediately and the Palestinian Authority must educate for peace).

These organizations will engage in genuine prevention of terror and violence through arrests, interrogations, prevention and the enforcement of the legal groundwork for investigations, prosecution and punishment. In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure; collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed; cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority; activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement.

There will be no progress to the second phase without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the war against terror. The security plans to be implemented are the Tenet and Zinni plans.

The 'Palestinians' have never fulfilled Phase One of the 'road map.' And now the 'Quartet' - including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - has said they don't have to.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: The 'Quartet' destroys what's left of the 'roadmap'

For Zion's Sake: The Cairo Obamination

The Cairo Obamination

Before the eyes of billions of people worldwide, the leader of the free world munched happily on Mohammedan tuches. In what is without a doubt the largest example of appeasement before terror and fascism since Chamberlain, Obama brought his message of love, peace and reconciliation to the Islamic world, in Cairo. Crying "peace, peace in our time", he repeated ad nauseum myths and revisionist history about "civilization's debt to Islam", his hope for peace between "all the children of Abraham", and apologized for America upsetting the Islamic world. This speech is extremely significant in light of the declaration of jihad against the United States and the Western world, since the victim of aggression cannot even recognize that he is at war. Here are parts of Hussein Obama's speech, with my comments interspersed.

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement.

Such higher learning is manifested in Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh's approval of suicide bombings on Islamic grounds.

Read All at :

For Zion's Sake: The Cairo Obamination

Israel Matzav: Could Israel renege on the 'road map'?

Could Israel renege on the 'road map'?

President Obama dropped in on a meeting at the White House on Tuesday between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and National Security Adviser James Jones. Writing in the JPost, former far Left MK Naomi Chazan describes Obama's visit as 'particularly meaningful' coming just a few hours before Obama's departure to Riyadh. She believes that it was an attempt by Obama to show a 'balanced approach.' I believe it more likely that Obama dropped in to read Barak the riot act over Israel's defiance of his command to stop all building in the 'settlements,' including the eastern half of the City of Jerusalem. But Chazan's article raises an important point that deserves airing.

Read All at

Israel Matzav: Could Israel renege on the 'road map'?