The Peace Process Two-Step (Updated)

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at News and Views From Jews Down Under.}



In a piece entitled, Is Kerry Precipitating Another Intifada?, by Jonathan Tobin over at Commentary, he writes:

But not everyone is taking the talks that were forced upon the parties by Secretary of State John Kerry as a total non-event. Yuval Diskin, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, is claiming that the net result of the slow-motion failure of Kerry’s attempt to create momentum for peace when virtually no one thought the time was propitious could be another outbreak of violence.

My prediction was (and remains) that the talks will fail and with that failure will come Arab violence against Jews and with that violence will come the condemnation of Israel by the US government under Barack Obama, the EU, the UN, and the entirety of the Muslim states.  This condemnation will be grounded in race-hate toward Jews because it will be based on the idea that Jews should not be allowed to live, and thus build housing for themselves, in Judaea and Samaria.

The notion that Jews should not be allowed to build housing for themselves within the Jewish heartland has become an idée fixe by many who concern themselves with this matter, including those partners in crime, Abbas and Obama.

The idea of "settlement freeze" will be used by the Palestinian Authority as an excuse for either walking out of the talks, or for the failure of the talks, despite the fact that throughout the entire Oslo process, under Clinton, Jews continued to build housing for themselves on that land and the PA, at that time, did not allow such building to prevent negotiations.  Although United States policy has generally been in opposition to the settlement project since 1967, it was only under Obama that it became a deal-breaker entirely.  The reason for this, as we have gone over ad nauseum, is because once Obama turned it into a requirement, Mahmoud Abbas could do nothing less.

This remains Barack Obama's primary screw-up on the Arab-Israel conflict and it came right out of the gate.  Obama wrecked whatever little potential there may have been for a deal and continues to compound the very problem that he created at the beginning of his tenure.

Nonetheless, it has to be understood that Obama put forth this counterproductive and racist policy because his Jewish advisers were in favor of it, which is why I consider him the Accidental anti-Semite.  No one, for example, is a bigger supporter of Israel than is Alan Dershowitz, but Dershowitz opposes the so-called "settlements" and he has made his beliefs very clear to president Obama.  Dershowitz is, in my estimation, a man to be admired, but this does not mean that he is incapable of being wrong.  I, also, for a long time opposed settlement activity because I believed that the Arabs were not only serious about a negotiated conclusion of hostilities within a two-state solution, but that Israel was primarily at fault for the conflict to begin with.

I have since learned better.

Thus, if you want to find the true source of the current impasse, look no farther than the people sitting across from you on any given Passover seder, because many of them agree with Obama that Jews should be allowed to live over here, but not over there, and that those of us who choose to live in the wrong place are the true obstacles to peace in the region between Arabs and Jews.

In my opinion they can be forgiven for taking up this toxic and racist view toward their own people because for a very long time, during the Oslo process, we thought that peace might be in the offing if Israel were to show good will by making concessions, but this has turned out not to be the case.  Israel can handover every single Arab murderer in Israeli prisons to the Palestinian Authority, where they will be hailed as heroes, but this will not bring us even one step closer to peace.  Israel can carve up Jerusalem and give the Old City to the Arabs while contracting to what Abba Eban called the "Auschwitz Borders," but that will not bring about peace, either.

There is only one real way to ease the conflict and that is to shut off the spigot.  The war against the Jews in the Middle East is financed by the west and, in some measure, by Israel, itself.  Orchestrated violence and the creation and dissemination of propaganda cost money and it is "Palestinian" violence and propaganda that keeps the conflict against the Jews going, decade upon decade.  If the west was honestly interested in ending the conflict they would focus pressure not on the victims of the conflict, which is the Jewish minority, but the perpetrators of the conflict, which is the much larger Arab majority.

When that day comes we'll know that the west is serious about peace, but that day will not come anytime soon.  The reasons for that are political, financial, and ideological.  So, in the mean time, the Jews of the Middle East will have to endure this never-ending aggression against them.

All that we can do is stand up to the best of our abilities.

That is all.

Update:

And right on cue, we get this:

Abbas: Israel will be responsible for any failure of talks

Palestinian President says if peace talks fail, Israel will be to blame, backs UN's demand that Israel stop settlement construction

Israel should cease to recognize the Palestinian Authority because the PA is nothing but the PLO in a necktie.

Nothing good will come from legitimizing this anti-Semitic organization.  All that will result is that the European Union and the Obama administration will use PA intransigence as a weapon against the Jews of the Middle East.

There are no good options, here, but the best option is to probably withhold any Israeli recognition of the PA, entirely.  Such a move would upset the apple cart, that much is certain, but perhaps the apple cart is in need of upsetting.