"...Left unsaid is that the Israeli electorate is most definitely not in favor of complete withdrawal, and that the prime minister simply reflects the will of the nation in this regard. What is more, Horovitz neglects to say that neither does international law support this: UN Security Resolution 242, which does not demand full Israeli withdrawal, acknowledges Israel's need for secure borders."
“'Last night we carried out between 15 and 20 actions,' a top Israeli commander said of the West Bank raids, in a recent interview under military rules of anonymity. 'That was a fairly typical night. It’s like throwing a blanket on a fire. If we stop for a minute, we will go backwards very quickly. We call it cutting the grass.'”
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I've written that there is concern that if we trade 1,000 terrorists for Gilad Shalit it will strengthen Hamas in the street and make Abbas even weaker than he already is. Well, not to worry, Obama has a solution. That's his second demand: When we release those 1,000 prisoners to Hamas, Obama apparently wants us to release ANOTHER 1,000 terrorists to Abbas. What's another thousands killers on the loose, when it's only Israelis they'll be aiming for?
This policy is so bad it's a parody of itself. But I fear Obama may be serious.
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G-d forbid, G-d forbid! our government should cave to such dangerous nonsense. But I must note this, which has already transpired:
Last week the Shin Bet (Israeli security) "pardoned" 92 Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade members who were fugitives. This means we will no longer pursue them and they are free to move about in the areas controlled by the PA (Area A under Oslo). Above, you read the description by an IDF officer of the nightly IDF raids to maintain peace. It might have been in an operation such as this that we would have gotten these guys, who have now been removed from our "wanted" list. In return they had to promise to renounce terrorism.
This is hardly the first time we've cooperated in an arrangement like this with Al Aksa Brigades, which, by the way, is part of Fatah. I am especially impressed with the idiocy of having them promise to renounce terrorism. The deal is that ultimately they will have the opportunity to join the security forces -- then they can carry their guns legally.
And why did we do it now? To strengthen Abbas, of course.
Does anyone ever consider the implications of this: That if we refrain from pursuit of members of a terrorist group it makes Abbas look good?
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We are witnessing a strong response to the decision made by the Netanyahu and the Security Cabinet regarding the building freeze:
Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beitenu) has filed an appeal for a debate with the government secretariat: "This is a central issue in the state agenda, and it is essential that all members of government get a chance to express their opinions." He is pushing for a debate within the full Cabinet (the Security Cabinet constituting a smaller group).
Within Likud it amounts to a power struggle, and I say forthrightly (and regretfully) that when it comes to playing power politics, Netanyahu gives no quarter. His concern is for sustaining his decisions, not for democratic voice within the party.
Earlier today, MK Danny Danon addressed a rally of activists in Ra'anana, under the banner "Real Likudniks don't surrender." He told those gathered that:
"The prime minister should have told the Americans that on Judea and Samaria he would not surrender. We are starting a campaign to put the breaks on what Netanyahu is trying to do. We will be attacked for this and it won't be easy, but we, the silent majority of the Likud, will struggle and succeed."
He promised to promote a debate on the issue of the freeze within the Central Committee of Likud.
The prime minister's office, anticipating this, last night released a statement stating that Netanyahu would avoid convening the Central Committee (even if signatures were garnered by Danon calling for a Committee debate). Said Netanyahu associates, if the Committee were to be convened, it would discuss only procedural matters. In addition, Netanyahu leaned on Likud MKs not to attend Danon's rally.
Well, Danon today garnered the requisite number of signatures of Likud members on a petition demanding that the debate in the Central Committee be held. He has turned it over to Chairman of the Likud Central Committee, Minister Moshe Kahlon. And Kahlon has advised Prime Minister Netanyahu to convene the Committee for a debate on the construction freeze.
Now we shall see. Danny Danon is to be praised highly.
Perhaps you'd like him to know how much you appreciate his efforts:
E-mail: ddanon@knesset.gov.il
Fax: 02-649-6044 (In the US: 972-2-649-6044)
Phone: 02-640-8659/8 (In the US: 972-2-640-8659/8)
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Chair of Ihud Leumi (National Union), Ya'akov Katz, is challenging the government on another issue. The Shamgar Commission had been charged with examining the implications of a prisoner exchange with Hamas, but the findings, which were completed in 2008, have not been released. Katz has now filed an appeal with the High Court of Justice, asking that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu be ordered to publish the findings before a trade for Shalit is done; he says that the Commission found that the effect of a trade would be negative. "Netanyahu must reveal the findings before we make any decision to release terrorists, and he must have a debate in the government and in the Knesset before he reaches any conclusion."
Don't know that he can succeed with this, but Bravo! to him, as well.
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Today is Kaf Tet B'November -- the 29th of November -- when the UN voted Palestinian partition in 1947. I will return soon to some matters regarding the UN and the international community.
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It is a hopeful matter, that Iran is behaving so defiantly that nations that were hedging are beginning to be genuinely irked and ready to think about taking some action. There's more to say on this, as well... Tomorrow is another day.
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see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
In his column of November 20, "Salam Fayyad builds Palestine," Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief David Horovitz describes "two staunch Jewish supporters of Israel" - Sen. Joe Lieberman, former vice presidential candidate, and Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - "nodding their encouragement" at a recent Ramallah press conference, where Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad explained how he was preparing Palestinians for statehood. The piece goes on to outline a Palestinian state in formation, regarding security forces, the economy and civic institutions, with an optimistic sense of what the PA is achieving. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Regrettably, Lieberman and Berman did not use the press conference to raise some troublesome questions. Since these American elected officials let that opportunity pass, perhaps it was Horovitz's journalistic responsibility to explore these matters, to offer a more balanced picture. Instead, he alluded to "staunch supporters of Israel nodding their agreement" - conveying the notion that, except for some technical problems, all is well. Questions that Lieberman, Berman or Horovitz could have asked would have included: • Renunciation of the PLO state of war with Israel. The charter of Fatah - the predominant element in the PLO and the PA - to this day continues to call for the destruction of Israel. Written in 1964, before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza, it uses the term "Palestine" to refer exclusively to Israel within the Green Line. The charter declares that "Liberating Palestine is a national obligation," and that "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method" for doing so. This cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant anachronism. Last August, Fatah held its first General Congress in 20 years. Hope was held out for a charter revision, with violence officially renounced, but it never happened. Instead, Fatah continued to unambiguously embrace "armed resistance" to liberate Palestine. Why is this so? • Cessation of incitement via changes in PA-produced textbooks. The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT http://www.impact-se.org) has issued six reports on new PA textbooks published over the past eight years. Journalist and scholar Dr. Arnon Groiss, who translated these PA textbooks, has just completed an update. He writes that the new PA texts… "deny the historical and religious presence of Jews in Palestine," "fail to recognize the State of Israel," "demonize Jews and Israel," "assign blame for the conflict exclusively on Israel, totally absolving Palestinians," "stress the idea of a violent struggle of liberation rather than a peaceful settlement." It is disingenuous for Fayyad to profess dedication to peace while the PA curriculum infuses these ideas within its youngsters. Peace is impossible until the message changes. Why do visiting elected officials and journalists not hold Fayyad and the PA accountable for the new PA textbooks? • Cessation of PA pursuit of Hamas as a coalition partner. The PA inclination to participate in a government that includes Hamas remains an "elephant in the room" that the international community, somewhat inexplicably, has chosen to ignore: Hamas is recognized by the US and the entire Quartet as a terrorist entity. Yet in March 2007, Fatah and Hamas briefly formed a "unity government" - negotiated by Saudi Arabia via the Mecca Accord - that saw Fatah acceding to Hamas demands. It fell apart with the Hamas coup in Gaza, but in recent months the news is awash with reports of negotiations via Egypt for a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. Pursuing negotiations with Israel and Hamas at one and the same time is not acceptable. Why not ask the PA to make a choice? • Renunciation of the "right of return." The "right of return," promoted for 60 years by UNRWA and embraced by the PA as a non-negotiable right, remains a recipe for the destruction of Israel from within. If Fayyad and the PA are serious about peace, why not ask them to accept the principle of permanent resettlement of the refugees? UNHCR, the UN High Commission for Refugees - which oversees all refugees except Palestinians - operates according to this principle. Only Palestinian refugees are not resettled, but instead, for purely political reasons, are forced to linger in a (rage-inducing) state of limbo. Fayyad, in his master plan for a Palestinian state, openly states that he supports the "right of return." Isn't it time to ask Fayyad and the PA to openly embrace the UNHCR policy and pave the way for UNRWA to adjust its mandate? LASTLY, HOROVITZ writes that "most of the international community completely supports [PA] demands for a 100% Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank," noting that "Netanyahu… is intent on driving a harder bargain." The reader is left with the impression that Netanyahu is obstinately resisting what the world expects. Left unsaid is that the Israeli electorate is most definitely not in favor of complete withdrawal, and that the prime minister simply reflects the will of the nation in this regard. What is more, Horovitz neglects to say that neither does international law support this: UN Security Resolution 242, which does not demand full Israeli withdrawal, acknowledges Israel's need for secure borders. David Bedein works as director of the Israel Resource News Agency and the Center for Near East Policy Research, www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and the Middle East Correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin, www.TheBulletin.us. Arlene Kushner is the senior research analyst for the Center for Near East Policy Research and author of a daily blog, "Arlene From Israel," www.arlenefromisrael.info.
Middle East & Israel Breaking News » Opinion » Op-Ed Contributors » Article Questions people are afraid to ask Salam Fayyad
Photo: AP [file]
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu weakened Israel this week. And he did so for no good reason. Thursday's headlines told the tale. The day after Netanyahu bowed to US pressure and announced a total freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months,Yediot Aharonot reported that the Obama administration now wants Israel to release a thousand Fatah terrorists from prison. The Americans also want Israel to allow US-trained, terror supporting Fatah paramilitary forces to deploy in areas that are currently under Israeli military control. Moreover, the Americans are demanding that Israel surrender land in the strategically crucial Jordan Valley to Fatah. And these are just American preconditions for starting negotiations with the Palestinians. According to Yediot, if those talks ever begin, the White House will demand that Israel accept a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza and agree to ethnically cleanse all the areas of Jews. So far from winning American support or at least causing the White House to ease its bullying, US President Barack Obama sees Netanyahu's decision to implement a militarily irrational, bigoted policy of prohibiting Jews from building in Israel's heartland as a drop in the bucket. THE TRUTH is that Israel should not be in the business of negotiating the right of Israeli cities and villages to exist and prosper. The notion that it is acceptable to demand that Jews not be permitted to live in Judea and Samaria - or anywhere else in the world - is not a notion that Israel should countenance. That being said, putting the so-called "settlements" genie back in the bottle is a tall order. After all, Israel agreed to place it on the table in the 1993 Oslo agreements and made its willingness to dry out Jewish communities explicit with its acceptance of the so-called road map in 2004. To take Israeli communities off the agenda it would be necessary to repudiate these deals. Given what it will take to remove Jewish communities from the negotiations chopping block, it makes sense that Netanyahu has not moved in that direction since taking office. But willingness to discuss these communities is not the same as giving them away for nothing. In discussing the dispositions of these towns and villages, at a minimum Netanyahu should have taken advantage of the fact that the Americans, the Europeans and the Arabs all consider the so-called "settlements" to be the most important obstacle to peace. Netanyahu should have capitalized on US Congressman and Obama ally Robert Wexler's statement from last July that in exchange for freezing Jewish construction, Israel would gain normalized relations with all Arab League member states. Were Israel to see 20 Arab embassies opening in exchange for a temporary freeze in Jewish construction, one could say that Netanyahu's massive concession was justified. But Netanyahu decided to give away this high card - Israel's ace of spades as it were - for free. Actually, he paid for it. The Arabs rejected Wexler's offer in July. And five seconds after Netanyahu announced the freeze the Palestinians proclaimed his unprecedented prohibition on Jewish building worthless. But then unlike Netanyahu, the Palestinians are playing their cards wisely. Why should they accept his move as sufficient when they know the Americans will demand still more concessions from him? And sure enough, moments after Netanyahu's speech, former senator George Mitchell stood before the cameras in Washington and said that his move is too little to impress the likes of Mitchell and Obama. MANY COMMENTATORS claim that Netanyahu's announcement Wednesday night was his way of balancing his desire to release 450 Hamas murderers from prison in exchange for hostage Gilad Schalit with an equal concession to Fatah. That is, the freeze was required, it is argued, because without a move of this magnitude, the terrorists-for-hostage deal would destroy Fatah completely. This view is the quintessence of the notion that two wrongs make a right. In an interview with Channel 2 Wednesday night, Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitted that in negotiating Schalit's release, Netanyahu has gone well beyond former prime minister Ehud Olmert's offers to Hamas. With Netanyahu and Likud in the opposition loudly proclaiming the truth that any deal with Hamas will imperil untold numbers of Israelis, Olmert didn't dare accept Hamas's demand that Israel release its most brutal mass murderers from its prisons. But now that Netanyahu and Likud are in the driver's seat, they are only too happy to accept what was previously unacceptable. By Thursday, it appeared that the Iranians and the Syrians had placed the Simply by agreeing to negotiate with Hamas, Netanyahu conferred legitimacy not only on the terror group, but on the act of taking hostages. After all, until Hamas had Schalit, no government in Israel was willing to cut a deal with it. But today, in the interest of making a deal, Israel has allowed Hamas commanders - including Schalit's captor Ahmad Jabari - safe passage to Egypt where they are feted by senior Egyptian officials and meet with other senior terrorists. In so doing Israel has effectively accepted them as legitimate leaders. Netanyahu's willingness to release murderers from prison also signs the death warrants of countless Israelis. The Schalit-obsessed local media insists that politicians who claim they oppose the deal must be willing to look Schalit's parents in the eyes and tell them that they will not "do what it takes" to bring Gilad home. But Schalit's parents and the 450-terrorists-for-one-hostage-swap champions in the media and in the Knesset need to be asked whether they will be willing to look the families of the next IDF hostages in the eye after they are abducted due to Israel's decision to spring murderers from prison in exchange for Schalit. So too, they should ask themselves what they will say to the families of the Israelis who will be murdered because of this deal.
Middle East & Israel Breaking News » Opinion » Columnists » Article 
Column One: Bibi's bad week
proposed swap on the back burner. But even if the deal presently being discussed doesn't go through, Netanyahu's moves on the issue to date have already weakened the country considerably.
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