Israel 2011: An 'Impossible' Peace

 

Israel 2011: An 'Impossible' Peace by Jack Kinsella-Omega letter

After days of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and accelerated rocket attacks on southern Israel from Hamas-led Gaza strip, Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman declared on Sunday that “peace was impossible” suggesting Israel should seek a less lofty goal and cut their losses.

The latest eruption between the two sides followed the continuing violence along the Israel-Gaza border. Lieberman told a conference of Israeli diplomats that instead of a full peace deal, Israel should seek a long-term, interim agreement on security and economic matters.

"It's not only that it is impossible" to reach an overall agreement, he said. "It is simply forbidden."

Lieberman said the West Bank Palestinian Authority — with whom Israel has pledged to negotiate — is "not legitimate" because it has postponed elections.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas remains in office though his term expired almost a year ago, and there is no date for a new election.

Palestinians have consistently rejected that approach.

Lieberman has a reputation for expressing hard-line views that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can’t, allowing him to float alternative plans while officially sticking to the premise of a final, negotiated peace settlement between the two sides.

Consequently statement from Netanyahu's office said Lieberman's comments reflect "his personal positions," not those of the government.  

Peace talks were making progress until Obama switched sides and demanded that Israel cease all construction in Jerusalem.

Obama was eager to make his mark early and earn the Peace Prize awarded him for being black two weeks into his presidency.Being clueless from Chicago, he didn’t know that his demands immediately are transformed into the Palestinian default position.

So when he later tried to walk that back, the Palestinians wouldn’t let him.   Now the Palestinians say that they will not negotiate as long as Israel builds homes for Jews on any land they claim for their proposed state.

That’s what makes further negotiations “impossible” since it requires an Israeli capitulation over the issue in dispute before they will negotiate the issue in dispute.  

Like agreeing on the final price first – as a condition of haggling over the price.   It impossible.

Because the PA is unelected, the only legally-elected representative of the Palestinian people with whom Israel could credibly negotiate would be Hamas. 

Hamas exists by charter for the express purpose of annihilating Israel.   Hamas is a terrorist organization with whom negotiation is forbidden.

So peace is impossible. Israel has no credible negotiating partner. For that reason, French Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher had already discussed a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Israel. 

That information came to light as part of the overall Wikileaks document dump.  According to a ‘secret’ (so to speak) cable written by US Ambassador to France to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

"The French agree with us on the need to help [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas return to the negotiating table by offering assistance programs, guarantees, and the support of Arab leaders. However Kouchner also mentioned to SE [George] Mitchell the controversial idea of offering to recognize a Palestinian state now, with undefined borders, or offering to recognize a Palestinian state within a defined timeline, regardless of the outcome of negotiation.”

The Wikileaks cable says that Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay have already decided on formally recognizing a fully independent Palestinian state within the 1967 (Green Line) borders.

The Wikileaks plan somehow managed to trigger some deep, almost forgotten practice within the US Congress. Some in the Congress actually read the Wikileaks documents.  Having read them, they sneaked by a bill of their own, passing a resolution opposing unilateral steps aimed at a declaration of Palestinian statehood earlier this month.

(We should have leaked the TARP and Obamacare bills -- maybe they would have read them, too!) 

Introduced by Rep Howard Berman,[D-Ca) and then- chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Berman moved to pass the resolution "supporting a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and condemning unilateral measures to declare or recognize a Palestinian state."

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat slammed the action saying that;

"through the passage of this resolution, the US Congress is contradicting the policy of the American government to create a Palestinian state by hindering the ability of the Palestinians to navigate around the Israeli government's obstructionist policies."

In other words, Congress is obstructing the Palestinian ability to ignore its negotiating partners. And they don't like it one bit.  So they're taking it to the UN.

Last week, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas announced his intention to ask the UN Security Council to pass a resolution defining Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as illegal. 

STOP THERE!

Now go back up and read the sentence above one more time, slowly.  Sound out every word until you have a complete grasp of the thought being conveyed.

Mahmoud Abbas co-founded the PLO with Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism. 

His 'Palestinian Authority' exists based on an agreement that if Israel will agree to its existence, then the Palestinians will stop committing acts of terror.

At no point along the way was terrorism legalized or any of the innocent dead revived. The death, mayhem and destruction wrought at the hands of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO was never paid for in any legal sense, neither was there any blanket pardon granted in any legal sense.

Mahmoud Abbas' term of office expired two years ago.  So did the Palestinian Authority's, well,  authority.  The PA won't hold new elections because Hamas would win. 

And because Hamas would win, nobody is pressuring Abbas and Company to hold elections.

So, with no legal standing of its own, the PA is asking for a resolution declaring a Jewish presence in parts of Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem illegal? 

Leaving aside the lack of standing on the part of Abbas, where is the standing of the UN? Israel is a member-state of the United Nations?

Chapter 1, Article 2, Paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter reads as follows:  

"Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll."

The central question is whether this is a domestic Israeli issue? Or an international issue involving Israel and an second member state or country?  The question doesn't seem that difficult.

Totally apart from any religious tradition, history says that Jesus Christ was born a Jew, in Bethlehem, now claimed as part of the Palestinian Authority.  

He was raised a Jew in Nazareth, now claimed as part of the PA.  His ministry was to Jews living in Samaria, Judea and Jerusalem, now claimed as part of the PA.

Jesus lived during the Roman occupation of Judea, a period known to history through the writings of Flavius Josephus as the "Wars of the Jews" because that's who lived in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.  

The Romans conquered Judea from the Greeks.  The Jews were there.  The Greeks conquered it from the Persians. The Jews were there. The Persians conquered it from Babylon, who conquered it from the Jews of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. 

Before that, Sargon the Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  Prior to the division of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, it was all called "Israel."  And Jerusalem was founded by Israel's King David.

The UN's jurisdiction on behalf of the Arab states is itself illegitimate.  The UN recognized Israel in 1948.  The Arab states declared war on Israel five times, each time leaving Israel in possession of more territory.  Under the internationally recognized right of conquest, the territory captured is then part of Israel.

The "right of conquest" is still the functioning basis for the existence of the United States, not to mention ALL of the modern states of the Middle East.  All were part of the Ottoman Empire until conquered by the Allies in WWI.  

Jordan's borders were drawn by England in 1922, not the Jordanians.  The Jordanians attempted to draw their own borders in 1967.  They hoped to extend them to the Meditterranean Sea.  Instead, they were redrawn back to the Jordan River. 

But the UN didn't do it.  Jordan did.  The West Bank wasn't lost by Jordan, it was recovered by Israel.  Under the right of conquest, everything the UN has done concerning Israel and the "Palestinians" is illegal under its own charter.  

The United Nations came into existence as a consequence of World War Two.  One reason was to prevent the re-occurrence of forced deportations, ethnic cleansings and other forms of genocide practiced by the Axis powers, especially in Nazi Germany.

The United Nations defines "ethnic cleansing" this way:

"a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas."  

As part of his request that the UN Security Council criminalize the presence of Jews in parts of Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea, Abbas added the following so there could be no mistake.

“If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it. When a Palestinian state is established, it would have no Israeli presence.”

'A nation without the presence of a single Israeli in it' -- by design.  The Nazis had a word for that; "Judenrein" -- but the United Nations defines it as "ethnic cleansing".  

Caroline Glick summarized the impossible position Israel finds itself in as the books close on the year 2010.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled this month that the Obama administration is wholly on board Fatah’s political warfare bandwagon. In her speech at the Brookings Institute on December 10, she said the Obama administration supports Fatah’s plan to build facts on the ground that will make it more difficult for Israel to maintain its control over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

After calling Jewish presence in the areas “illegitimate,” Clinton pledged the US “will deepen our support of the Palestinians’ state-building efforts.”

Among other things, she pledged to continue training and deploying a Palestinian army in Judea and Samaria and pressuring Israel to withdraw the IDF from the areas.

As she put it, “As the Palestinian security forces continue to become more professional and capable, we look to Israel to facilitate their efforts. And we hope to see a significant curtailment of incursions by Israeli troops into Palestinian areas.”

These then are the contours of the Palestinians’ war plans for 2011. Hamas will launch an illegal missile war to provoke an IDF campaign in Gaza. Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Turkey, the UN and a vast array of NGOs and leftist governments from Norway to Brazil will support its illegal war.

Fatah will escalate its political war. Its campaign will be supported by the US, the EU, the UN and a vast array of NGOs and leftist governments.

The purpose of these two campaigns – which complement one another and which will likely culminate at the UN in September – is to weaken Israel militarily and politically with the shared purpose of destroying it in the fullness of time.

That last statement is what caught my eye.  The Gentile plan to take Jerusalem from the Jews and Glick's use of the phrase,"in the fullness of time."

Jesus predicted the Roman sack of Jerusalem, the Diaspora and the ultimate return of the Jews to their own land in the last days.   He outlined the entire history in a single sentence:

“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24)

Jerusalem is in Israeli hands, but it is still trodden down of the Gentiles.  For now.  But all the signs point to this dispensation as rapidly winding to a close.

"That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him:" (Ephesians 1:10)

As we begin the year 2010, there is little remaining reason to doubt that we are witnessing the waning hours of the Dispensation of the fulness of times. Maybe this year. Maybe next.  But soon.

And after that, the Gathering!  

By Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor 

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

It IS Israel's Fault!

« Clinton: Israel to blame if talks collapse

Israel IS to blame

Posted on Tuesday 14 September 2010 by Stan Goodenough

This is the second part ... read carefully... mid

The much-trumpeted bi-lateral talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) are tottering on the knife-edge of collapse.
As inevitably they must, they will fail.
In anticipation, the Obama administration is preparing to lay the blame at Israel’s door.
What they are already saying, is that the talks disintegrated because Israel insisted on building “Jewish settlements” on “occupied Arab lands.”
For the first time I find myself partially in agreement with Washington.
The issue of construction and growth of communities for Jews in Samaria and Judea HAS repeatedly fouled up the peace process and is, inevitably, leading to its demise.
But it is not the BUILDING of these homes and offices, synagogues, industrial parks and shopping malls (aka “Jewish settlements”) that is the problem – as the world led by Washington maintains.
Israel’s fall down is the fact that this building has been, and is being, done on land successive governments in Jerusalem have increasingly admitted does not belong to the Jews!
What Israel has de facto told the world is: “This land is not ours, but we are going to build on it anyway. … We’ve stolen this land and we’re keeping it, and we’re using it, and we don’t care what anyone says.”
But wait, you protest. When has Israel said anything so outrageous?
And the answer is: Every time Israeli officials and journalists and ordinary citizens refer to these areas as “occupied territories” or “the West Bank.”
There was a time when, for example, even today’s extreme left-wing politicians called the land by its historically accurate name of Samaria and Judea.
It was known as Samaria and Judea in biblical days, and down through post biblical history, even in such publications as the Encyclopedia Britannica in the late 19th century. Google for maps of ancient Palestine and you will find, for example, one by Alexander G Findlay, drawn in 1849, as stored digitally by the University of Texas at Austin. The names Samaria and Judea stand boldly out on the page.
When I moved to Israel in 1991 The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s then right-wing daily newspaper, identified these lands as Samaria and Judea.
Back then, or shortly before, the establishment of a Palestinian state ANYWHERE was seen by so many people as a mortal danger to Israel that should never be allowed.
Believe it or not, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once said:
“Palestine will rise on the ruins of the State of Israel. … A Palestinian state will be a time bomb which will draw the Arab world into war.”
President Shimon Peres once said:
“The Arabs foster the separate Palestinian nationalism, and the myth of ‘restoring the rights of the Palestinian nation’ within the territory of the State of Israel and in its stead, in order to destroy Israeli nationalism. The Palestinian national demand is designed to abrogate the existence of the State of Israel and not to coexist with it peacefully.”
And Netanyahu is on record as saying, many times more than once, that a Palestinian state must NEVER be established.
How far they all have fallen.
What about the Arab side? It hasn’t budged an inch. For more than 62 years the Arabs have maintained that this land is theirs. They insist it is all (including so-called Israel-proper) their land. And they vow not to surrender any of it.
The world agrees. It is hard (impossible?) to find one world leader or a single mainstream journalist – electronic or print – who will eschew calling Samaria and Judea the occupied Arab West Bank.
But on this, most crucial of the Middle East battlefield, Israel has retreated, given ground to the enemy.
Take this opening paragraph from today’s The Jerusalem Post website:
As the second round of Israeli-Palestinians peace talks wrapped up in Sharm e-Sheikh on Tuesday, US Mideast envoy George Mitchell offered no evidence of progress on the issue of West Bank settlements.
“West Bank settlements” instead of “Jewish communities in Samaria and Judea.”
It’s as if almost all Israelis have resigned themselves to calling their land “not our land.”
This course has been followed for so long now. And truly, in the world of 21st century international politics, it is hard, some would say impossible, to reverse.
But Israel, your leaders will have to reverse.
They will have to confess; they will have to repent; and they will have to reverse.
It will cost you blood. First of all, it will cost political blood. But then it will cost red, human blood – the life of your people. But you have to regroup and you have to reform and you have to turn around and charge back onto that battle field, waving the Star of David, trumpeting the charge with your shofars, firing fiercely and determined to never again retreat; never again give ground to the enemy; never again take risks for peace that are in fact risks with your existence.
Whose is the land? This is the battle: You have to announce, declare, proclaim, and assert: “Samaria and Judea is our land. It is Jewish land. It is the cradle of our nationhood, the home and the burial place of our founding fathers, the geographical furnace in which our nation was formed and forged. Our roots are irremovably deep in this land.”
And you have to vow: “We will build on this land; we will develop it; we will live in it, we will grow in it, and we will die in it. We will never give one inch of it away.”
—-
The Jewish people are presently in the middle of the 10 Days of Awe that began on Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) last week and will end with the start of Yom Kippur this coming Saturday.
Every night, they gather in thousands of synagogues across the country to say slichot – sorry – for the sins of the past year.
This is the perfect time for Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to say “slicha” – sorry – to his nation.
He should confess to his people – loudly enough for Washington, the UN, the EU, the Arab states and all the world to hear:
“We, Israel’s governments, ARE TO BLAME for the failure of the land-for-peace process. We have broadcast a mixed message. In our desperate desire to secure peace for our nation we have compromised on what we all now to be true. But no more.”
Yes, Israel’s government should acknowledge that it has failed its people, and ask the nation’s forgiveness. Then it should take the required, resolute step, stopping the peace process dead, and refusing to participate any further in this farce.
There is fault to be found with many of Israel’s leaders – including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu. Every one of these men has contributed to the collapse of a diplomatic process into which world leaders and the international media poured such massive amounts of political and pecuniary capital.
It goes without saying that if these Israelis are to blame – then the other parties – the PLO and its constituents; the Arab League; the Quartet – all have a great deal more to answer for. And they will. But for now I am not dealing with them.
The elected leaders of the State of Israel cannot escape the responsibility they bear. From the point of view of the Jewish people, and in the context of the millennia of Jewish history, their failing is by far the most serious of all.
Unless this is seen, and unless the current government moves immediately to turn the situation around, the danger hanging over Israel could engulf this little land.

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Clinton Blames Israel If Talks Fail...

Clinton: Israel to blame if talks collapse

Posted on Tuesday 14 September 2010 by Stan Goodenough

It suited the twisted political purposes of Israel’s extreme leftist newspaper, Ha’aretz, to headline its top story Tuesday morning with the warning voiced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the night before.
Boarding her flight to the Middle East to chair the much-anticipated renewal of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the American pointed her perfectly manicured index finger at the camera and stated, according to the paper:
“Israel must extend the settlement freeze for the peace talks to succeed.”
Her blatancy should not have shocked Israelis.
She had upped the stakes two days earlier with the scaremongering assertion that “there may not ever be another chance” for the two sides to make peace.
Clinton is on the very same page as her boss in the White House who – while insisting on the impartiality of his brokerage – Friday clarified (for the few who were still unsure) which sides’ position he supported more.
“It makes sense,” he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for you “to extend the moratorium.”
Whether it made sense for the Palestinian Arabs to agree to Netanyahu’s demand that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state, however, he did not say.
These two issues loomed as major stumbling blocks long before the parties booked their flights for the Washington photo opportunity that was held 10 days ago.
For those who may have forgotten, Netanyahu was pressured into agreeing to a moratorium on construction in Judea and Samaria 10 months ago as a “goodwill gesture” to help create an atmosphere conducive to restarting the long stalled negotiations.
No quid pro quo was forthcoming from the “Palestinian” side; not so much as a “we’ll consider it” when informed of Israel’s insistence that the Arab side recognize it specifically as a JEWISH state.
Netanyahu reiterated this expectation at the weekly cabinet meeting on September 12, but, again, has received no backing from Washington.
Instead we have Clinton’s unwavering focus on the Arabs’ demand – that Netanyahu continue to not build homes and businesses for Israelis in Samaria and Judea.
The end game is clear – and the Israeli leader must have known this, even as he sat down with Clinton and Abbas in Sharm e-Sheikh.
True to Obama’s word, when the US saw an obstacle in the way it singled out one party for extra pressure, and set it up for blame.
Clinton will naturally not accuse the Palestinian Arabs – who have taken not one single step backwards, who have taken not one risk for peace – in all the years since Madrid and Oslo.
She’ll not come down on Mahmoud Abbas’ head for saying through his spokesman Sa’eb Erekat last week that the “Palestinians” will “never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”
As Sky News’ Middle East correspondent Dominic Waghorn told his viewers Tuesday:
Unless Netanyahu takes the “bold” step and agrees to extend the freeze, he will “risk incurring the wrath of the Americans.”
It has to be said, even at the risk of digressing from the main players for a moment, that like virtually every single foreign correspondent in Israel, Waghorn is proudly prejudiced in favor of the “Palestinians.” His reports caringly explain why the PLO cannot comply with Israel’s demands on the Jewish state question, while justifying the Arab demands on the settlement freeze because, of course, they “can’t be seen to be talking to people who are building on lands they want for their state.”
Which leads me to the opening of my follow-on article, in which I will explain why, after following the peace process from my home in Jerusalem for more than 20 years, including the recently unfolding efforts to renew this process, I have come to the place where I can no longer ignore this unpalatable truth:
That Israel IS to blame for the failure of the land-for-peace process.

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Middle East peace talks: Where they stand

As the Obama administration relaunches direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the BBC's Paul Reynolds outlines where the three parties stand on the core issues of the conflict.

JERUSALEM

Israel
The Israeli government is unwilling to divide Jerusalem, held to be the political and religious centre of the Jewish people. It stands by the 1980 basic Israeli law that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel". In the past there has been room for manoeuvre on the margins. In talks in 2000 and 2007, the then Israeli governments proposed exchanging some outlying annexed districts.

Palestinians
The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which was controlled by Jordan before being captured by the Israelis in 1967, as the capital of a Palestinian state. The Old City contains the third holiest place in Islam, the al-Aqsa mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, from where Mohammed is said to have visited heaven on his winged steed Burak.

United States
The US does not recognise the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv. President Barack Obama has opposed the building of housing for Israelis in East Jerusalem though he said before becoming president that dividing the city would be "very difficult to execute".

BOARDERS

Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts that there should be a Palestinian state and that there will have to be an Israeli withdrawal from parts at least of the West Bank (captured by Israel in 1967) to accommodate this. Israel has already withdrawn from Gaza. Israel would like the borders to include Jerusalem and the major Israeli settlements that have grown up on the West Bank.

Palestinians
They want the talks to start from the basic position that all the land occupied by Israel in 1967 belongs to a future Palestine. Any land given to the Israelis would have to be compensated for by a balanced land swap.

United States
The US agrees that the starting point but not the end point should be the 1967 lines and that a land swap will have to be the basis of any agreement. It will encourage this.

SETTLEMENTS

Israel
The Israeli government insists on keeping the major Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Any departure from this would break up the coalition which forms the government. An immediate problem is that an Israeli moratorium on West Bank settlements is due to run out on 26 September.

Palestinians
Ideally, the Palestinians would like all settlements to be abandoned as they were in Gaza. However, they appear to accept that some will have to stay but they will argue for a minimum number and a land swap for any that are left. They threaten to leave the talks if the Israeli moratorium is ended on 26 September.

United States
As with the annexation of East Jerusalem, the US has not recognised the international legitimacy of the Israeli West Bank settlements. But it accepts their reality and will press for compromise. It is also trying to reach a compromise on the moratorium problem.

REFUGEES

Israel
Israel rejects the idea that Palestinian refugees from previous wars should be allowed any "right of return" to their former homes. They say that this is a device to destroy the state of Israel by demography in order to re-establish a unitary state of Palestine. For that reason Mr Netanyahu has called for Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state.

Palestinians
Formally, they maintain the "right of return", arguing that without it a great injustice would not be put right. However, there has been regular talk among Palestinians that this "right" could be met by compensation. They refuse to recognise the concept of Israel as a "Jewish state", saying that this is unnecessary and that it ignores the Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel.

United States
The US understands the Israeli refusal to take back refugees and hopes that this can be resolved by compensation and development aid for this whose cannot go back to their previous family homes.

Link to article here



I certainly don't know if the above information is accurate or up-to-date. It apparently was written a few days prior to the Washington DC meeting with Obama, but more than likely has not changed in any significant way.

Don

Obama Wrong about Israel's Terrorist Attacks

In response to the murder of four Israelis by Arab terrorists, President Obama said "The tragedy that we saw yesterday where people were gunned down on the street by terrorists who are purposely trying to undermine these talks …"

The aim of the terrorists, however, was not to stop peace talks, since such an assumption is absurd, and the attack occurred close to the same place where an Israeli policeman was shot in his car several months ago when there were no "peace talks."

Israelis are frequently attacked on roads throughout by rocks and fire bombs, sometimes by snipers; these attacks are not connected to any political or diplomatic process. Framing this attack as politically motivated distorts the nature and meaning of Arab terrorism against Jews.

President Obama went on to say, "The message should go out to Hamas and everybody else who is taking credit for these heinous crimes that this is not going to stop us from not only ensuring a secure Israel but also securing a longer-lasting peace in which people throughout the region can take a different course."

One might have expected him to say, "Those who commit such murders, and those who support them, will be brought to justice and punished to the fullest extent of the law."

Or, "These murders are the result of incitement and we will prevent all funding of incitement."

Or, "We demand that the PA forces, especially those trained and supplied forces by the United States, will apprehend, arrest, and punish anyone who engages in terrorism."

Or, "Unless the PA acts to eliminate terrorism and incitement there can be no progress in political, diplomatic or military cooperation. Actions speak louder than words."

But he did not, and he won't, because no matter what Arab terrorists do, the PA knows it has the support of America, Europe and the international community. It can get away with murder, and does.

President Obama's misunderstanding of and his failure to act against Arab terrorism is due to the mindset that views terrorism as a response to specific causes - and political or ideological motives. In Israel's case, it's "the occupation," which has become a brand-name legitimization for killing Jews and demonizing Israel.
The danger of linking terrorism to grievances is that it rationalizes murder and justifies those who perpetrate it. But those who carry out such acts are not driven by a sense of injustice, or rescuing humanity; they are homicidal criminals who seek to inflict the most damage to the largest number of people, regardless of who they are, or their beliefs.

Arab terrorists, who plan and train meticulously, don't seek political compromises; their goal is Jihad, total elimination of Jews, and the State of Israel. They don't think about a "peace process;" they are committed to annihilation of their enemies. They see themselves as "martyrs," and are glorified by their communities, and by the PA.

And they see their cause as just. This provides the psychological determination to perpetrate murder as an act of religious and political sanctification. And they are not alone, since most of the international community, and President Obama now, justify not their means, but the end – a second Arab Palestinian state, for starters; an Islamic world for "the believers."

This is what President Obama did not understand about the controversial Islamic Center near the site of "9/11." It's not about a mosque, but about what comes along with it. It's not about a building, or religious freedom; it's about full disclosure and transparency.

It's not what Obama said, but what he could have and should have said – and done – as an American president. The American flag in his lapel is not just an ornament.

By Moshe Dann The author is a writer and journalist living in Israel

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Direct Talks For Only One Day

Reporters were scratching their heads Monday as they tried to break through non-answers and flowery talk about the trumpeted “direct talks” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The discussions apparently will last a total of a few hours in Washington next Thursday.

The United States has billed the talks as the beginning of a process that will end in an agreement on “final issues" such as the borders of a proposed new Arab state headed by the PA, the status of Jerusalem and Arab demands to allow several million Arabs from foreign countries to immigrate to Israel on the basis of ancestral residence in Israel.

A readout of the transcript of the daily State Department briefing reads like a wild goose chase as reporters tried to read through a smokescreen of diplomatic semantics that did not address their questions.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dramatically announced last Friday that the direct talks will take place—after weeks of "indirect talks” that never got off the ground. Instead of dealing with substantive issues, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell shuttled back and forth between Israel and PA officials to try overcome the issue of the 10-month building freeze on Jewish buildings in Judea and Samaria. 

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has demanded the freeze be extended as a condition for direct talks, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has insisted that good faith would be shown by sitting down without ultimatums. Reporters discovered that the “direct talks” actually will focus on the same freeze issue that was an obstacle to indirect talks.

One reporter asked U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, "What specifically are you doing about this issue, which seems to be the prime issue for the Palestinians? This is the one [issue] that is going to break the negotiations down before anything else."

Crowley answered, "We’re very mindful of the importance the issue is within the negotiation. That’s why we want to get in the negotiation. None of these issues can be resolved outside of this negotiation."

But will the freeze be extended? Crowley hedged his bets and replied, “The direct negotiation begins on September 2, and you can rest assured that this will be among the topics discussed early on."

The frustrated reporter wondered how the talks will result in anything concrete. “You’ve had five – you’ve had a year and a half of absolutely nothing, or a year and three months of nothing, and then five – and then several months of indirect negotiations, during which presumably we all thought that this was the kind of issue that were going to be discussed. Now you’re saying that basically this is not – this hasn’t been discussed at all?”

However, Crowley would not be pinned down on what will happen if Israel does not agree to the PA demand. “We are very mindful of the Palestinian position and once we’re now into direct negotiations, we expect that both parties will do everything within their power to create an environment for those negotiations to continue constructively,” he stated.

"And what happens after September 2?” asked another reporter. “Right now, we’re just focused on the meetings on the 2nd of September,” Crowley explained. “I can’t rule out that they would continue, but I wouldn’t project that based on what we know now. Right now, we’re only projecting a one-day meeting.”

Virtually all foreign media, from China to the United States, have reported the direct talks as face-saving move for U.S. President Barack Obama. He plans to meet separately with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abbas next Wednesday before they sit down together the following day.

The president’s direct intervention makes it more likely “he going to be called upon sooner rather than later to earn his Nobel Peace Prize," Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six former secretaries of State, told USA Today.

David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the news magazine, "When they reach an impasse, and they will, the expectation will be that the president has to come in and fix these things," says Miller, now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Does he really understand what he's getting himself into?"

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua