Quite simply, they want it all

Barry Rubin, JPost:

No matter what the Palestinian Authority is offered – money, concessions and even steps toward statehood– the response is always “no.” Media, academic “experts” and governments seem to find this amazing phenomenon very hard to understand.The answer is simple, but a lot of the people paid to deal with this stuff don’t get it. So let me elucidate: The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants everything.

The PA wants an independent state on all the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem with no restrictions, no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, no serious security guarantees, no limits on militarization, no agreement that this means an end to the conflict, no insistence that Palestinian refugees be resettled in the state of Palestine, and nothing to prevent them from pursuing a second stage of wiping Israel off the map entirely.
Now, one could say it’s common for people to want everything and to give nothing in exchange but that certain factors – missing in this case – push them toward compromise.

These factors include:

• Knowing they can’t get a better deal. The Palestinians know the West will always offer more if they are intransigent.

• The impasse favors your adversary because your intransigence will gain it international support. In this case, the more stubborn the Palestinians are, the more Israel is blamed.

• Economic pressure. Since the PA is almost completely supported by foreign aid that is not threatened by its hard line, this pressure does not exist.

• Public opinion pressure to change the situation. In this case, Palestinian public opinion is relatively radicalized and ideological and does not demand a compromise settlement.

• Concern that your political rivals will “outmoderate” you and win by offering to make a deal. In this case, the opposite is true: rivals “out-radicalize” one another and threaten to destroy you politically (and perhaps even physically) if you make a deal.

• Belief that time is not on your side. Due to religious and nationalist ideology, along with misperception of Israel, the PA (and even more so Hamas) believes that time is on its side.

That’s not a complete list. But the point is that the world in general – the United States and Europe, the UN, Arabic-speaking countries and Muslim-majority states – have created a “perfect” system.

Here’s a brief description:

• The PA has no incentive to make compromises for peace, so it won’t.
• The world insists that “peace” is an urgent top priority.

• The only variable is Israel, which must be made to give way. But Israel won’t because of past experience and the fact that the risks are now too high.

Deadlock.

So nothing will change. There will be no peace process, no Palestinian state. No “progress” will be made.

...

This is not left-wing or right-wing but merely an explanation as to why all the schemes and theories of those who do not see these facts never actually take wing. It may not be politically correct, but it is most definitely factually correct.

Now, you might ask, do I just criticize or do I have constructive policy advice?

I do. Here it is: When the Palestinian Authority rejects the Quartet proposal for negotiations, the United States, European Union and anyone else who wants to go along tells them, “We’ve tried to help you and you don’t want to listen, so since we have lots of other things to do, we’ll go do them. Good luck, and if you ever change your mind and get serious about making peace you have our phone number.”

The previous paragraph would send shock waves throughout policy circles, right? But why? If you can’t solve a problem and – let’s be clear here – the problem doesn’t need to be solved immediately, then you work on other problems. There are no shortage of those! I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. We are left, however, with the following problem: Those in positions of political, media and intellectual power don’t get it.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center. He is a featured columnist at Pajamas Media and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal.

Alan Dershowitz: Israel-Hamas Prisoner Swap

Alan Dershowitz, Huffington Post:

The Israeli government has agreed to release hundreds of properly convicted Palestinian terrorists in exchange for one illegally kidnapped Israeli soldier. This decision, understandable as it is emotionally, dramatically illustrates why terrorism works. By agreeing to this exchange, Israel has once again shown its commitment to saving the life of even one kidnapped soldier, regardless of the cost. And the cost here is extremely high, because some of the released terrorists will almost certainly try to kill again.

Leaders of terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, fully understand this cruel arithmetic of death. As Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, put it: "We are going to win because they love life and we love death." Democratic societies that value the life of each citizen are more vulnerable to emotional blackmail than societies that are steeped in the culture of death. Terrorists understand what history has shown: that democratic societies, regardless of what they say about not negotiating with terrorists, will, in the end, submit to emotional blackmail. They will release their terrorist prisoners in order to obtain the release of their own kidnapped or hijacked citizens.

Accordingly, the threat of deterrence against terrorists is weak, because every terrorist knows that regardless of the prison sentence he receives, there is a high likelihood that he will be released well before he has served it. This not only encourages more terrorism, but it also incentivizes kidnappings and hijackings that provide the terrorist with hostages to exchange for captured terrorists.

... Israelis know Gilad Shalit. He is everyone's son. They do not know those who may someday be killed by the released terrorists. They are faceless and nameless statistics -- at least for now. The pleas of the Shalit family resonate with every Israeli who loves their children.

Contrast the pleas of the Shalit family with the plea of Zahra Maladan. Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber. At the funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children, and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times offering the following admonition to her son: "If you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."

Nor is Ms. Maladan alone in urging her children to become suicide murderers. Umm Nidal, who ran for the Palestinian Legislative Council, "prepared all of her sons" for martyrdom. She has ten sons, one of whom already engaged in a suicide operation, which she considered "a blessing, not a tragedy." She is now preparing to "sacrifice them all."

It is impossible, of course, to generalize about cultures... Democratic leaders, on the other hand, urge their citizens to act in the interests of life and who see death as a necessary evil in fighting against even greater evils.

While the preference for life over death may appear to be a weakness in the ability of democracies to fight against terrorism, in the end it is a strength. It is a strength because it signals a democracy's commitment to value the life of every single one of its citizens. Israeli and American soldiers go into battle knowing that their countries will do everything in their power to rescue them, even if it means taking extraordinary risks. Nations that are committed to such humanistic values tend to have superior armies, as the United States and Israel do.

An important goal of terrorists is to force democracies to surrender their humanistic values. Israel's values include never leaving a soldier behind, whether he is alive, as Shalit is, or dead, as have been other soldiers whose bodies have been exchanged for prisoners. Israel, by agreeing to exchange hundreds of terrorists for one soldier, has shown the world that it will not compromise on its value system which proclaims that "he who saves one human being, it is as if he has saved the world."

Alan Dershowitz's latest book is the Trials of Zion. An earlier version of this article was published in Newsmax.

Read the full article here.

U.S. Urges U.N. Nuclear Inspectors on Iran

New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. The president’s push is part of a larger American effort to further isolate and increase pressure on Iran after accusing it of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

If the United Nations’ watchdog group agrees to publicize the evidence, including new data from recent months, it would almost certainly revive a debate that has been dormant during the Arab Spring about how aggressively the United States and its allies, including Israel, should move to halt Iran’s suspected weapons program.

Over the longer term, several senior Obama administration officials said in interviews, they are mulling a ban on financial transactions with Iran’s central bank — a move that has been opposed by China and other Asian nations. Also being considered is an expansion of the ban on the purchase of petroleum products sold by companies controlled by the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Revolutionary Guards are also believed to oversee the military side of the nuclear program, and they are the parent of the Quds Force, which Washington has accused of directing the assassination plot.

The proposed sanctions come as administration officials confront skepticism around the world about their allegations that Iran was behind the plot and limited options about what they can do — as well as growing pressure from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to take tougher action against Iran, with the central bank and the oil industry high on lawmakers’ lists.

The Israel Awareness Commission has helped push for tougher sanctions against Iran, and while current sanctions do indeed exist, they are not implemented to the fullest extent.  It seem as though this is changing rapidly.

Read the rest here.

Ramallah lyncher to be freed

The Ramallah lynch in 2000 - besides being a clear example of Palestinian Apartheid where a Jew can't travel to Ramallah without being brutally murdered - was a horrific and disgusting incident, whose very details sends shockwaves into the reader.

Now, one of the lynchers will be freed.

Ynet:

Abed Alaziz Salaha, who was photographed in the horrific photo with his hands covered with blood in what has become the symbol of the second intifada, was sentenced to life in prison but is expected to be released on Tuesday.

The pain is stronger today," Michael told Ynet. "Not because of the deal itself but because of the way it is carried out. It is not a deal but a major loss. It is a twisted deal. You don't release at any cost. There is a price. You cannot give it all."

On the one hand, the bereaved brother says, the family is happy for the parents and siblings who will see their son Gilad Shalit come home. "On the other hand, our family is angry that nobody cared about our sensitivity. No one (in the government) experienced our pain," he said.



Michael does not feel any pity for the families of the Palestinian prisoners. "They are all the devil's children. I don’t feel sorry for them and not for the tears of their mothers. A mother that sends her child to blow up?!"

The Ramallah lynch took place on October 12, 2000, when a mob of Palestinians murdered two IDF soldiers, Vadim Norzich and Yossi Avrahami, and mutilated their bodies.

The lynch occurred at the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada and despite attempts by the Palestinian Authority to erase any documentation of the brutal murder, the horrific images reached every corner of the world and sent shockwaves in Israel.

Salaha, 30, from the village of Dir Jarid near Ramallah, was arrested in 2001 and admitted that he was part of the mob that stormed the police station, and that he strangled one of the soldiers while the others beat him.

When he saw that his hands were covered with the soldiers' blood, he went to the window to proudly show his hands to the mob below.

This would be like America releasing members of the Ku Klux Klan who lynched blacks during the early/mid 1900's.  How can you just let that go?  It's a crime against humanity.

(Here, I am showing one argument about the Shalit deal, or at least that certain prisoners shouldn't be released)

Direct negotiations are VITAL to peace

Ari Alexenberg, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New Hampshire, in Sea Coast Online:

Abbas coming to the U.N. for acceptance of a Palestinian state without acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state is ironic. For it was the United Nations' Resolution 181 in 1947 that recommended British mandated Palestine to become two states, a "Jewish state" and an "Arab state."

It is worthy to note that Resolution 181 called for an "Arab state" not a Palestinian state. The reason for this is that the notion of a Palestinian people didn't exist. A search on Google books (a database of millions of books going back hundreds of years) on the subject of "Palestinians" before 1948 will return no results.

Yet, Netanyahu, in his speech to the U.N. explicitly stated he will accept a state for the Palestinian people alongside Israel. The Israelis have shown a remarkable willingness to compromise, agreeing to cede land that is the heart of Jewish civilization dating back thousands of years, for the sake of peace. Giving the Palestinians statehood without their acceptance of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people portends the continuation of the conflict, not the end.

Israel wants peace! It does not want to rule over another people and it does not want to send their children into battle. But just like any other nation on Earth, they must know their neighbors are not sworn to their destruction. In his speech, President Obama articulated Israel's need for security by saying, "Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them."

If the Palestinians have a state, its borders will run beside the heart of Israel's population center, a mere primitive rocket launch away from Tel Aviv or Israel's only major airport. How can the Palestinians be granted statehood when approximately 40 percent of its population is ruled by Iranian backed Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist group. Netanyahu made this clear in his speech when he said "Israelis are prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there."

Peace is not a unilateral decision, it is a partnership. There are difficult issues that need to be negotiated. Borders, status of Jerusalem, settlements, Palestinian right of return, security arrangements and many more. A unilateral declaration of statehood doesn't address or solve the real issues on the ground. As President Obama iterated, "peace is hard, peace is hard." Netanyahu is willing to sit down without preconditions to do the hard work of negotiating peace. Abbas' unilateral declaration avoids doing the work necessary to bring a Palestinian state to fruition. It is a shallow exercise that will yield nothing on the ground for the Palestinians. It will only serve to isolate Israel and embarrass the United States by potentially forcing it to veto a Security Council resolution. The Palestinians need a leader whose vision for creating a democratic Palestinian state is greater than his aversion to accepting a democratic Jewish state.

What Isolation?

Michael Oren in The Washington Post:

Is Israel really more isolated now than in the past?

Isolation, of course, is not automatically symptomatic of bad policies. Britain was isolated fighting the Nazis at the start of World War II. Union forces were isolated early in the Civil War, as was the Continental Army at Valley Forge. “It is better to be alone than in bad company,” wrote the young George Washington. That maxim is especially apt for the Middle East today, where one of the least-isolated states, backed by both Iran and Iraq and effectively immune to United Nations sanctions, is Syria.

Israel, in fact, is significantly less isolated than at many times in its history. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel faced a belligerent Egypt and Jordan and a hostile Soviet bloc, Greece, India and China — all without strategic ties with the United States. Today, Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; excellent relations with the nations of Eastern Europe as well as Greece, India and China; and an unbreakable alliance with America. Many democracies, including Canada, Italy and the Czech Republic, stand staunchly with us. Israel has more legations abroad than ever before and recently joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which comprises the most globally integrated countries. Indeed, Egypt and Germany mediated the upcoming release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for five years.

Israel is not responsible for the upheavals in the Arab world or for the lack of freedom that triggered them. Israelis did not elect Turkey’s Islamic-minded government or urge Syria’s army to fire on its citizens. Conversely, no change in Israeli policies can alter the historic processes transforming the region. Still, some commentators claim that, by refusing to freeze settlement construction on the West Bank and insisting on defensible borders and security guarantees, Israel isolates itself.

The settlements are not the core of the conflict. Arabs attacked us for 50 years before the first settlements were built. Netanyahu froze new construction in the settlements for an unprecedented 10 months, and still the Palestinians refused to negotiate. Settlements are not the reason that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas in May, or why, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Abbas denied the Jews’ 4,000-year connection to our homeland. As Abbas wrote in the New York Times in May, the Palestinian attempt to declare a state without making peace with Israel was about “internationalization of the conflict . . . to pursue claims against Israel” in the United Nations, not about settlements.

As for borders and security, Israel’s position reflects the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. After uprooting all our settlements, we received not peace but thousands of Hamas rockets fired at our civilians. In Lebanon, a U.N. peace force watched while Hezbollah amassed an arsenal of 50,000 missiles. Israel’s need for defensible borders and for a long-term Israeli army presence to prevent arms smuggling into any Palestinian state is, for us, a life-and-death issue. Moreover, in a rapidly changing Middle East, we need assurances of our ability to defend ourselves if the Palestinians who support peace are overthrown by those opposed to it.

Despite repeated Palestinian efforts to isolate us, Israel is not alone. And we have a great many friends, especially in the United States, who we know would not want to imply that Israel stands alone in a dangerous region. Prime Minister Netanyahu remains committed to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians anywhere, any time, without preconditions, while insisting on the security arrangements vital to Israel’s survival. Meanwhile, we will continue to stretch out our hand for peace to all Middle Eastern peoples. To paraphrase one of George Washington’s contemporaries — if that be isolation, make the most of it.

The writer is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

Iran plots to kill Saudi ambassador and bomb Washington

Very cute...

CNN:

Washington (CNN) -- U.S. agents disrupted an Iranian assassination-for-hire scheme targeting Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Elements of the Iranian government directed the alleged plan, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

A naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports and a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard face conspiracy charges connected with the plot.

"In addition to holding these individual conspirators accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions," Holder said.

...

The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington thanked U.S. authorities for stepping in.

"The attempted plot is a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions and is not in accord with the principles of humanity," the embassy said in a written statement.

The Saudi ambassador was not the only intended target, U.S. officials said. The suspects also discussed attacking Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington and possibly Buenos Aires, Argentina, a senior U.S. official said.

We're just going to let this fly?  Or will the Obama administration do something about this?

Read the rest here.

UPDATE: Obama vows to punish Iran with tougher sanctions.  Indeed, previous sanctions have been crippling, but have not stopped their nuclear programs, nor were they implemented to the fullest extent.  The Israel Awareness Commission has lobbied extensively in support of the sanctions, and in support of tougher sanctions.  Hopefully, the world will decide to take decisive action against the Iranian threat.  Time may run out soon.

Vandalism on Safed Synagogues

Ynet:

Two 16-year-old teens were arrested in suspicion of spraying slogans reading "death to Jews" on four synagogues and vehicles in Safed.

During their investigation, the two admitted committing the acts and claimed they did it to protest the mosque arson in Tuba Zangaria. The two will be brought in front of a judge on Thursday for a remand hearing.

That's called "price tag."

Maybe I have terrible hearing... But I just can't seem to hear the world shouting over this.  I can't seem to hear the UN Human Rights Commission screaming about this either.  I don't see any op-Eds on Ha'aretz condemning the attack and trying to alert us to this trend of terrorism.

Ooops! Just re-read the Ynet article. It appears that a Jewish holy site was vandalized - NOT a Muslim/Palestinian holy site.  In that case, it is apparent the world won't care one bit, nor will Abbas issue any condemnation or visit the synagogue or meet with their leaders (as President Peres met with leaders of the Muslim community, visited the mosque, and other top officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, deeply condemned the attack, and saying justice will be delivered).

Shalit has been informed about the deal

Ha'aretz:

Gilad Shalit, the Israel Defense Forces soldier who has been held largely incommunicado in the Gaza Strip for more than five years, has been told that he will be freed as part of a prisoner swap deal, a Palestinian militant leader said Wednesday.

"Of course, we informed Shalit yesterday about reaching a deal on releasing him," Abu Attaya, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Gaza, told the German Press-Agency dpa.

The PRC is one of the three groups holding Shalit.

Abu Attaya did not say how Shalit reacted.

We don't need a Palestinian terrorist spokesman to know what he thought.  It obviously went something like this:

I greatly deplore this motion to free me on behalf of Israel.  The generosity, warmth, and kindness that I received as a prisoner in Gaza has been deeply profound, and will not be forgotten.  True, very few details about my detainment were announced, nor has the Red Cross been allowed to visit me, which violates international law.

True, if I was a Palestinian in an Israeli prison, I'd be allowed to receive an education, T.V., phone, throw parties, be visited by the Red Cross and other organizations, and all other aspects of a 4 star hotel would be met.  Indeed, it is quite astonishing how Palestinian prisoners - many of whom have killed Israelis personally, others who have attempted, and still others who facilitated - are launching a hunger strike that their conditions were downgraded to a 3 star hotel (but still fitting international law criteria), in order to persaude Hamas to swiften my release, and since it doesn't quite make sense to give the murderer of 50 people a 4 star hotel life.

Yes, Moussab Hassan Yousef was able to come to this realization.  But still, Israel has to ruin everything!  Why can't they just let me stay captive?

It obviously went something like that.

Gilad Schalit and the Sea Turtle

Interesting article in Aish:

A couple of years ago I remember seeing an incredible contrast on YouTube. A very large and very old leatherback sea turtle (which is on the endangered species list) had been caught in a fisherman’s net off the coast of Gaza. The beautiful creature was hauled ashore and surrounded by a large crowd of Gazans. One of the men in the crowd explained to the reporter how the meat of the turtle would feed Gazan children, who were suffering due to the Israeli occupation, and the blood would help cure various ailments. The turtle was dragged behind a truck, flipped on its back and then slaughtered.

Further up the Mediterranean coast in Israel, a much younger and smaller sea turtle had been injured by a boat and lost one of its limbs. The turtle was rescued by some Israelis and then taken to a special turtle sanctuary where it was operated on, nurtured back to health and then released back into the sea.

The contrast couldn’t have been more extreme.

When I heard about the impending exchange of Gilad Shalit for over a thousand Palestinians prisoners, many with “blood on their hands,” I was reminded of those two turtles.
To me those two turtles represented a microcosm of the values of Israel and the Jewish people versus the enemies that surround us.

Read the rest here.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef backs Schalit deal

JPost:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received strong backing for the Gilad Schalit deal Tuesday night from Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

The rabbi was one of the first Israelis briefed about the deal when Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited him on Sunday.

Yosef hosted Schalit’s father Noam in a meeting Tuesday night that was described as emotional.

“We believe there will be a majority,” Shas chairman Eli Yishai said. “This is good news for all the people of Israel. It’s important to the rabbi, who strongly supports it. He asked the ministers to fulfill the commandment to redeem captives by voting for the deal.”

Rabbi Yosef, a great Halachik scholar, is a strong supporter of a peaceful two state solution, arguing that the Israeli-Palestinain conflict takes lives, and is therefore categorized as Pikuach Nefesh, or danger of life.  Hence, it is appropriate to make lengthy concessions as long as they result in peace.  For that reason, he strongly condemned the intifada that followed the Oslo Accords, and the unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

With Rabbi Yosef's blessing, many can be somewhat more assured that the released terrorists will not be able to significantly (or at all) harm Israelis.  But again, time will tell.

Ma'an: Terrorists in Israeli jails; Barghouti is a "charismatic activist"

Ma'an reported on the Hamas-Israel deal to release Gilad Schalit.  Here is an excerpt about what struck my eye:

There are at least 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. They are regarded as heroes in their struggle against Israeli occupation and quest for statehood.

Ma'an isn't an Israeli media outlet.  It's a Palestinian media outlet - and if they say that terrorists in Israeli prison are regarded as heroes by other Palestinians, you can be pretty confident that's a fact.

Why isn't the UNHRC doing anything about this?  Why isn't the media waking up and reporting about this? About the fact that Palestinians view terrorists in Israeli prison as heroes - that terrorism against Israel is heroic.

Peace?

The wife of Marwan Barghouti, a charismatic activist seen as a future Palestinian leader, told Reuters in the West Bank that she was eagerly awaiting word that he will be included in the prisoner swap.

Turns out he's not on the list (perhaps because he's Fatah, and Hamas doesn't have a liking for Fatah).  But how does Ma'an describe him? "A charismatic activist seen as a future Palestinian leader."

Yeah... Ma'an doesn't mention that while he first believed in a peace process, he now rejects the idea, was a key leader in the First and Second Intifada, and is regarded as the key figure behind the Second Intifada. 

And Ma'an informs us that such a person - who was the leader behind the bloody intifadas - is seen as a future leader for the Palestinians.  That the Palestinians view such a person as a future leader.  The Second Intifada, according to notoriously leftist group B'tselem, took the lives of 1,053 Israelis by Palestinians, 4,475 Palestinians by Israeli army, and 575 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians.

Has Ma'an forgotten he is the head of Tanzim - a militant faction of Fatah which uses armed "resistance?"

Have they forgotten that he was charged with the murder of Israelis?

But that's exactly what makes Palestinians want him so badly as a future leader.

Peace?

Sure.  When they reject terrorism and intifadas.  Only then can you expect a realistic, viable peace.

Welcome home Gilad!

Gilad Schalit is returning home!  Check out these links for more info.

• The deal between Israel and Hamas


• Excitement at the Schalit tent


• Op-Ed against the deal


• Schalit and the Arab Spring


• Celebrating and Sukkot connection


• MK's split over deal, majority supports the deal


• Palestinians celebrate release of 1000 terrorists and murderers

Excerpt from last article:

Abu Attaya, spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees, whose fighters joined Hamas in the capture of Shalit, said militants would kidnap more Israeli soldiers until all Palestinian prisoners are freed.

"The coming weeks and month will witness more responses and more, similar operations. We will continue the same path to kidnap Zionist soldiers in order to clear all prisons," the masked spokesman said, clutching an AK 47 assault rifle.
"Today the resistance talks," an activist cried over the loudspeaker of one mosque. "Today the enemy submitted to our demands and that was just the start."

This deal has its goods and its bads.  The good being that Gilad Schalit is coming home.  The bad being that 1000 terrorists are now free to kidnap more soldiers and plant bombs and committ terrorist acts.  Hopefully, Israel's security will prevent these attacks.  This is a tough time period, and it is impossible to predict what will come next.

Legal arguments against PA statehood bid - Israel Foreign Ministry

Up until now, legal experts and bloggers have taken the stand of arguing why the Palestinians don't fit the criteria for statehood.

It's pretty much repeated in the Foreign Ministry's report.  It was circulated to members of the foreign ministry to serve as a guidelines for arguing against a Palestinian statehood bid and when meeting with foreign countries.

JPost has the story:

With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas circling the globe drumming up support from UN Security Council countries for his statehood bid, the Foreign Ministry circulated a document to its representatives abroad this week, spelling out legal arguments against the move.

The document, written by the Foreign Ministry’s legal department at the behest of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is to serve as a basis for Israel’s envoys in their continued efforts to poke holes into the Palestinians’ argument that they are ready for statehood.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

“The Palestinian request for membership in the United Nations, which was submitted to the Secretary-General on September 23, 2011, implies that a Palestinian state already, somehow, exists,” read the document, obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

“The request asked to build upon this supposedly existing status to request membership in the United Nations. However, based on both traditional and contemporary legal and tangible tests, it is clear that while one day the Palestinian state could come into existence, today the Palestinian entity has not achieved the status of statehood.”

The five-page paper states that under the accepted principles of international law going back to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, there are four prerequisites for statehood: a permanent population; defined territory; effective government; and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Regarding its permanent population, the paper stated that the Palestinians have “been ambiguous about which group of people would constitute the permanent population of their state.”

“The Palestinians seem to be seeking to establish a new state, and at the same time preserve the status of Palestinians living in the diaspora as so-called ‘refugees,’” the document continued.

“As part of this effort, they have presented contradictory positions, wanting to continue to represent all Palestinians on refugee-related claims, but, at the same time, stating that they do not intend to grant citizenship to members of the Palestinian diaspora.”

According to the document, this is an “internal contradiction” that necessarily leads to ambiguity on the population issue since a state can only represent the claims of its own citizens.

The document cited a report in Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper in which Abdullah Abdullah, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, said the future Palestinian state would not be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees – even refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza.

As to the prerequisite of effective government, the document said it would be difficult to argue that the Palestinians presently meet the most basic test of effective governmental control of the territories they are claiming within their state.

“Hamas continues to exercise full control of the Gaza Strip,” the document read. “Despite the signing by Fatah and Hamas of a so-called ‘Reconciliation Agreement’ in May 2011, nothing has changed in practice.

Palestinian Authority leadership, which submitted the UN request for membership, is completely excluded from responsibility in Gaza and retains no control in Gaza.”

One glaring example of this lack of effective control is that Abbas himself has been unable to visit Gaza since Hamas seized control there in 2007.

In addition to a lack of control over Gaza, the Palestinians also do not have control over the West Bank, with some 60 percent effectively under full- Israeli control, as part of Area C.

The paper also argues that “recent trends” suggest other criteria as well when considering whether an entity is a state: that it be based on a “lawful claim of statehood;” that it commit itself to international law, human rights and global peace; and that it constitute a viable entity. On each of these counts, the paper argued, the Palestinians fell short.

Additional details of Israel’s legal arguments against the Palestinian statehood bid will appear in Friday’s Jerusalem Post.

Hypocrisy: Kurds, Syrians, and Palestinians

Jonothan S. Tobin:

The assassination of a Kurdish opposition leader in Syria may lead to more violence as protests against the Assad regime escalate. But it should also serve as a reminder of the hypocrisy of much of the world’s attitudes about the Middle East.

While most of the world has been obsessing about the alleged wrongs of the Palestinians, few seem to think it’s worth caring about the fact Kurds remain the object of violent suppression in both Syria and Turkey. Yet as we saw this past week, when Russia and China vetoed United Nations resolutions condemning the crackdown against dissent in Syria, few among the globe’s chattering classes seem willing to condemn any nation in the world other than Israel. Nor do many seem concerned with the plight of any national or ethnic group demanding sovereignty or rights other than those seeking to do so at the expense of the globe’s only Jewish state.

The focus of global attention in recent weeks has been the attempt of the Palestinians to get the United Nations to give them statehood without first having to make peace with Israel. This has resulted in an orgy of rhetoric about the right to self-determination of all peoples. But the plight of the Kurds, who have arguably suffered far more than the Palestinians or any other stateless people, doesn’t move the international community. Indeed, the only reason this latest outrage committed against the Kurds in Syria is getting any attention at all has been because it comes in the context of efforts by the Assad clan and its Alawite allies to hang on to power in Damascus.

...

Unlike Turkey and Syria, Israel has repeatedly stated its desire to negotiate a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. And unlike the situation of Kurds in most of the Middle East, Arab citizens of Israel also have full civil and legal rights. It should also be stated that, whatever crimes have been committed in the name of Kurdish independence, the goal of Kurdish groups is not the eradication of other nations. The same cannot be said of the Palestinians. But no one should hold their breath waiting for the UN or its misnamed Human Rights Council to give the Kurds’ far more grievous wrongs the same hearing they give the Palestinians.

Tobin's just saying it as it is.

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