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Rice and Abbas at a press conference (Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff November 6, 2007 |
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The US says invitations are likely to be sent out in two weeks for a conference at the end of the month, according to some sources beginning October 26. But reports on the Palestinian positions suggest that the meeting will turn into a fiasco resulting not in peace but war and chaos. Abbas is said to be rejecting recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, demanding control over the Kotel ("Western Wall") and Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and insisting on an unlimited "right of return" of Palestinian "refugees" and their descendants to Israel. And now Syria appears to have won the right to use the conference to pressure Israeli to withdraw from the strategic Golan Heights.
Such positions have been anathema to previous Israeli governments, at least pubicly, but Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni seem to be cheerfully welcoming what is looking increasingly like a conference to roll back Israeli sovereignty beyond even the 1967 borders to something that resembles the pre-State UN partition plan of 1947, perhaps sixty years to the day after the resolution passed in the General Assembling, partitioning Mandatory Palestine/Eretz Yisrael into Jewish and Arab areas.
Except that, according to a report by DebkaFile, the Palestinians and Arab states have no intention to recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Instead, led by "moderate" head of the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (or that part of it not representing the majority-supported Hamas Islamic movement) will recognize Israel simply as a state of its citizens, leaving the way open for the gradual dissolution of the Jewish character of the state as the higher Arab birthrate increases their political control over the state. That strategy is also reflected in the Palestinian insistence on an unfettered right of return by Arab who claim to have been made refugees by Israel and two or three generations of their descendants, totalling millions of people throughout the Middle East, who will not be satisfied by residency in the Palestinian State but will instead demand to turn Israel into an Arab state.
In addition, Abbas made it clear to Rice, according to reports, that he does not intend to allow any Israeli control over the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter, the Temple Mount (site of the Jews' two Holy Temples), and the Kotel or Western Wall, among the sole remaining remnants of the Temple structure to which Jews have access and hold sacred.
Despite these reports and "difficulties" in discussions reported by both side, the Israeli government appears unfazed by the prospect of the conference and wants to expand to include additional intransigent enemies who also hold maximalist positions.
"The US expects to send out invitations in the next few days,'' Olmert told reporters after discussions with President Shimon Peres. "I hope Syria and other Arab countries will participate.'' The conference was proposed in July by President George W. Bush as a way to establish a Palestinian state. Olmert, Abbas and Rice said this week that they agree to try to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement before Bush leaves office in January 2009 or according to one report, before August 2008, when a Republican candidate is selected to replace Bush and the US Presidential election gets into high gear.
In fact, according to Debka, Olmert was trying to put the best face on an American fait accompli after President Bush authorized the inclusion of the return of the Golan Heights to Syria as a subject to be negotiated and mentioned in the final statement of the Annapolis conference, over Israel's head. The report said that the Syrians are demanding that the restoration of the Golan to Syrian hands must be laid out in a speech at the peace conference, or Syria will not attend.
While Olmert insists that no formal negotiations are to take place at Annapolis, he has agreed to start a round of peace talks immediately after the meeting. Israeli and Palestinian teams are trying to wordsmith out a joint statement for Olmert and Abbas to deliver at the meeting. that prospect seems distant, unless Israel continues to cave in on its own long-held positions demanding recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, opposing any return of Arab refugees or their descendants to Israel, and insisting that Jerusalem -- at least the Holy Basin including the Old City and its immediate surroundings -- remain under Israeli sovereignty and control.
Once negotiations begin, Olmert said today that he will accept Palestinian demands to discuss all issues central to the conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the resettling of Palestinian refugees. Two coalition partners, Yisrael Beitenu and Shas, have vowed to quit his government if such negotiations begin, which would leave the Prime Minister without a parliamentary majority.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, now the defense minister, negotiated with the Palestinians under similar circumstances seven years ago at Taba and was pummelled by Ariel Sharon in the February 2001 election.
Meanwhile, Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon, trying to score points against Barak, objected to the delays in Israel's ability to cut electricity to Gaza following continuing Kassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilian areas, which continued Tuesday evening.
"It is a grave mistake for Israel to uphold the absurd situation whereas it continues to supply water, electricity and fuel to an entity that has a terrorist organization at its helm," Ramon said. "In my eyes this is legitimate beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, referring to sanctions against Gaza.
Then, in a twist of logic that has come to characterize the left side of Israel's political spectrum, Ramon went on to call for expanding the failed Gaza experiment in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), handing over more land to Palestinian control and exposing vast new portions of Israel to rocket attacks. "If it becomes evident that Israel does not have a partner that can bring results, there will be no choice but to take unilateral steps in Judea and Samaria as well," he said.
The Chairman of the extreme leftist party Meretz, Yossi Beilin, claimed that cutting off electricity and fuel was not the best way to halt rocket attacks from the Strip. Instead he called for talks with Hamas.
"Former prime minister Ariel Sharon's biggest mistake was to allow Hamas participation in the Palestinian elections. We must arrive -- via indirect means -- at a cease-fire agreement with Hamas," he said. "They approached us, but we weren't interested."
"Cutting off electricity and water is an inhuman and un-Jewish act," he added.
Monday evening a rocket attack from Gaza blacked out the Israeli city of Sderot, silenced its early warning system, damaged homes, and sent residents to the hospital suffering from shock.
It is becoming apparent that in Annapolis, as in Sderot, Israel is set to become the willing victim, inviting attacks from its enemies and rewarding them with increasing concessions.
Former Ambassador to the US Zalman Shoval has been stressing this point for weeks: "This conference, if it does take place, has every potential of becoming an event where Israel will be on the defensive from the beginning [until] the end," former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Shoval told foreign journalists in Jerusalem in October.
Israel's "original sin" was agreeing to participate in the "Annapolis charade," Shoval said.
"In a forum where Israel will be in splendid isolation, facing the entire Arab League, European Union, the U.N., Russia ...the chances for Israel to have its positions...recognized are practically nil," he said.
Shoval pointed to a report that the US intends to submit a "bridging proposal," which would most certainly not favor to Israel. He lambasted "Israel's inexperienced team" for agreeing to let Washington oversee the Road Map initiative's implementation, ruling whether the Palestinian side fights terrorism (the experience has shown that the US not only turns a blind eye to violations -- except when Americans are killed) and whether Israel freezes settlement activity.
Shoval said that "the United Nations Secretary General?s intention to turn the Annapolis understandings into Security Council resolutions could emerge as another obstacle for Israel."
In short, Israel appears to be putting herself blithely into an indefensible situation where she will be forced to accept entreaties that will strip the country of its defenses and yield her most sacred places. It will be no surprise, as Stan Goodenough has written in Israel Insider, that the days of Jewish State's submission to international rape will be the sixtieth anniversary of the date on which the Jewish State was created.
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