The snippet below was written by Khaled Abu Toameh and Tovah Lazaroff for the Jerusalem Post:
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s plan to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority calls for a cessation of settlement construction outside settlement blocs in the West Bank and the release of 103 Palestinian prisoners, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Saturday.In other words, the local Arabs are so oppressed that they need Israeli inducements to negotiate their own freedom and autonomy. I have to say, I have never heard of an oppressed people who need to be persuaded to accept release from their own oppression.
According to the paper, the plan calls for economic development in the Palestinian territories in three phases.
It is a very odd thing, indeed.
Before the allegedly oppressed local Arabs are willing to negotiate their freedom Israel must give them a variety of presents according to the Obama administration. Israel must stop building housing for Jewish people on historically Jewish land. Israel must hand over a bunch of imprisoned thugs and murderers. And the west needs to give the local Arabs billions of dollars in economic assistance.
And all that is just to induce them to agree to negotiate a state for themselves.
One would think that if the local Arabs were as oppressed and persecuted as they constantly tell us they are that they might not need any inducement whatsoever to agree to their own autonomy. I feel reasonably certain that, for example, the Tibetans would need no inducements at all to agree upon the withdrawal of the Chinese from their country and the reestablishment of home rule.
They would not need to be bribed into negotiating the details of their own freedom.
And, excuse me, but I do not see where the historical record shows that anyone offered the Jews anything to accept our freedom within a Jewish state in November of 1947.
The reason that the local Arabs need to be bribed to even negotiate a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one is because that is not what they want. If they wanted a state for themselves in peace next to Israel then they might have accepted such an offer in 1937 or 1947 or 1967 or 2000 or 2008, but in each and every case they rejected such an offer.
What is it do you suppose that they really want?
The US wants Israel to do what the British and the French forced the Czechs to do in the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteIt might buy America some time. But in the end it would seal America's fate. The US was able to save the British and the French from their fruits of their own appeasement.
Who will come to the rescue of America? Its not Israel's future that hangs in the balance here.
...and so it goes on and on and on.
ReplyDeleteThe "Palestinians" are happy to keep playing this game forever. Why wouldn't they? The money alone makes it all worthwhile. Businesses forced to pay "protection" racketeers usually despise the gangsters as much as they fear them. Not the West. We have to celebrate the gangsters and ennoble them lest we admit who they are and therefore who we are.
Israel has never adopted the Arab tact of 'negotiating' and doesn't really understand that they're not playing the same game. Arabs, are 'negotiating' when they make these opening demands. In fact these demands are more important to them than 'negotiations'. The point is to make your opponent weaker so the actual 'negotiations' are simply a formality which acknowledges their greatness and supremacy.
ReplyDeleteWhen Arab 'barter' they are moving to win in the first move. If they can't do that, they aren't interested. This is why negotiations don't work. They don't see the process as a process - it's a conclusion. The subjects come to grovel at the feet of the Caliph who then decides whether to grant them an audience and perhaps listen to their complaints which he will never agree to. It remains only for the Caliph to decide to punish his subjects for bothering him, ignore them, or, in the case of other Arab Muslims grant them some small favor, cash award or tax farming job title and royal charter.
Israel has always made this mistake and seemingly always will. They see negotiations as modern westerners do - an iterative process of give and take where, if you're successful everyone walks away with a little less than they wanted. That's how 'we' in the west do these things. But that relies on an opponent playing the same game with similar rules, objectives and limits. John Nash would call this disoptimized optimization - a non linear solution to the best weak outcome feasible.
Arabs don't use that method; in fact one couldn't call it negotiation at all. It's closer to brinksmanship instead. It's very difficult to approach brinksmanship with any approach other than brinksmanship, as a result. But there is one approach, used to some success by North Korea; being extremely difficult, and, a little crazy.
What Israel should do is claim to agree to all demands flat out, whatever they are. Don't even wait for them to be articulated. And in exchange tell the Arabs that they want to meet soon but not immediately. Work out a protocol to put in motion an agreement on any and all terms demanded. Then literally in the first minutes of meeting with the Arabs, flip out, scream and break all commitments. Demand that all the Arabs at the table MUST be replaced by others, demand the meeting be moved to some other location, deny ever having made any agreements, shout and scream that the Arabs are lying pig dog savages, walk out of the room. The next day demand a formal apology from the highest levels of 'government' of the Arabs. Give it a week or two to pretend to calm down and agree to meet with them just like the first time. And refuse to show up at the last second. Tell them no talks can proceed for a period of several months while they 'consult' with others. Then not only back away from all commitments like building freezes and prisoner releases, but ACCELERATE all of that, built twice as fast, arrest twice as many terrorists.
And never EVER EVER EVER not in a million years EVER apologize or clarify your position on anything no matter what. If ever questioned by the US the response must only be increasingly cryptic and vague. Then publish a public statement condemning the Arabs and tell them that the opportunity for peace is rapidly closing possibly forever if the Arabs don't apologize and come to their senses and come to the negotiations in good faith. If they refuse it's on them. If they want to show up and do, go through the whole circus again from the beginning.
The goal is ensure they understand you don't care what they do, want, need, feel, say or think. The objective is to make the Arabs understand you think they are dirt, slaves, worthless foreigners beseeching the king who is free to treat them however he likes.
That is how you deal with honor cultures; with a brutally insane fist.
Trudy,
ReplyDeleteI agree - the Arabs can be shamed into doing the right thing! But supplicating them as a dhimmi will never lead to the peace because it will never occur to the proud Arab to elevate the lowly Jew to being his equal.
That's where Israel is doing it all wrong and also in the Arab souk, a truly shrewd buyer never accepts the seller's opening offer. Israel insults the Arabs by telling them their price is good enough to work with, when the Arabs to no one's surprise raise the price to a point Israel is unable to pay. What Israel ought to be doing is compelling the Arabs to meet its price not theirs and if they don't find it acceptable, to walk away.
Jews are poor negotiators and are easily taken advantage of by the Arabs who know the Jews neither understand their sense of honor nor do the Jews know how to get the best possible deal from them.
I'm not suggesting honoring them. I'm suggesting dealing with them in a completely irrational and unpredictable manner melded with furious anger. Essentially, ignoring their presence. It has the added benefit of dropping all objections to meeting with them and since it's likely they wouldn't meet anyway, Israel could sweep that pretense off the table once and for all.
ReplyDeleteI should clarify my position: the problem isn't a lack of Arab honor. Its a refusal by the Jews to assert theirs. When the Arabs insult them as they do, they should return it in kind. If you want their respect, behave exactly as they do themselves. No - its not going to lead to peace but its going to result in the Arabs showing fear of the Jews. And as Machiavelli observed centuries ago, with enemies, fear works far better than love. Israel could show that Jewish honor is more important than Arab honor. Driving the other side crazy would be a good place to start.
Deletehttp://fnotw.org/Article/Full/1294
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fnotw.org/Article/Full/1237
Two articles on FNOTW that tries to explain the deadlock in the Israeli and Palestinian point of view. It's not just about the Palestinians. It's about the cycle of distrust and a history that cannot be re-written.
I have been more sympathetic to the Israel state lately, from understanding political obstacles which is standing between her and peace with her neighbors.
It is also in foreign interests that the region is semi-unstable. True peace is not in the interest of some groups or organizations.