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The Questions
No One Asks
by Bassam Tawil
March 12, 2014 at 5:00
am
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the first of your friends to like this.
The Palestinians aspire to control all the holy sites in the Old City of
Jerusalem, not only those holy to Islam, but those holy to Christianity and
Judaism as well.
They understand that [in a peace agreement] they would have to declare the
end of the conflict. That is not a situation the Palestinians are ripe for
yet.
The next Palestinian leader will simply say that any agreement was Abbas's,
not his, and does not commit them or the Palestinian people. Both Palestinian
society and public policy are based on the rejection of peace with Israel, and
the Palestinian street is bombarded daily with propaganda from the Palestinian
establishment advocating war, the return of refugees and the destruction of
Israel.
American Secretary of State John Kerry recently asked Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas about the possibly of locating the capital of Palestine in Beit
Hanina, the eastern neighborhood of west Jerusalem. That would allow the
Palestinians, for the first time in annals of the emerging Palestinian people,
to have a capital in Jerusalem, in the eastern section known as Al-Quds. The
proposal was ostensibly an achievement for the Palestinians, but actually it was
a bad omen. It would end the Palestinian dream of controlling the holy sites of
Islamic and Christianity in Jerusalem, and the Palestinians would no longer be
able to demand the Old City Jerusalem as the capital of their country.
The Palestinians aspire to control all the holy sites in the Old City, not
only those holy to Islam but those holy to Christianity and Judaism as well.
Needless to say, that is to be accomplished at the expense of both Israel and
Jordan, which manages the Islamic holy sites as part of its peace agreement with
Israel.
Secretary Kerry's question was the reason Jordan reacted badly to suggestions
in the Israeli parliament from the Israeli right to give sovereignty over
Al-Aqsa mosque – managed by the Jordanian Waqf – to Israel. Kerry told Abbas
that, as part of the agreement being formulated, the Palestinians would have to
recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Mahmoud Abbas and his close associates
understand that this request would force them to accept that they will no longer
be able to claim the "right of return" of the Palestinians refugees to the State
of Israel or destroy it by changing its demography. They understand that the
refugees would have to settle in the future state of Palestine and that the
Palestinians would have to declare the end of the conflict. That is not a
situation the Palestinians are ripe for yet.
Kerry also told Abbas that the Palestinians would have to waive security
control of the Jordan Valley corridor along the border with the Kingdom of
Jordan. The Americans have therefore foiled the Palestinian plan of "stages,"
Yasser Arafat's original plot, never abandoned by the Palestinians, of
dismantling Israel one slice at a time like a roasted lamb. The initial plan of
"stages" was for Islamists to cross the Jordan river, join the Palestinian
Authority's armed security forces (or those of Hamas, if it managed to take over
the West Bank), and attack Israel's cities with missiles, cross its borders and
slaughter its citizens.
If Israel were to waive security control, first the Palestinians would reap
the political and territorial fruits of the agreement, then soon they would
violate it by flooding the West Bank with mujahidin from all over the world.
In rejecting the American proposal the Palestinians now accuse Kerry of being
a foil for the Israelis, ad have told him that Abbas is the one rational man
with whom Israel can make peace. Some Palestinian leaders threaten that if no
agreement is reached, a third intifada may break out. For Israel, that clearly
means the entire peace process depends on one man alone, not on the will of the
Palestinian people. The result of such a deal will be that the conflict will not
have been resolved even after Abbas's eventual departure from the political
scene: the next Palestinian leader will simply say that any agreement was
Abbas's, not his. Thus, according to Palestinian reasoning, Israel's one chance
for peace depends on one rational man, and will evaporate when he quits, is
ousted or dies. The enterprise is not only fragile, it is doomed to failure from
the outset.
The Israeli demand for the end of incitement and threats against Israel is
directly related to its demand to construct a foundation for the Palestinian
people which includes a real peace that will continue even after Mahmoud Abbas
is no longer the Palestinian leader.
It is therefore obvious why Israel hesitates to sign a peace agreement in
which all its political and territorial concessions are liable to fall into the
lap of Hamas or the other subversives waiting to oust Abbas. This highly
collapsible situation is also the reason Israel insists on dealing with the fate
of the agreement should Abbas's successors suddenly change their minds and claim
that whatever Abbas signs does not commit them or the Palestinian people.
Israeli has good reason to be suspicious, especially in view of the amateur
and irresponsible policies of the current Obama administration, which now has a
pattern of abandoning friends in need. Kerry's proposal reflects an
understanding of historical truth: the need for both a Palestinian state and
Israel's security needs -- but what will happen if Arab or European pressure
forces the Americans to alter their policies, as they have done so often
before?
The Arabs regard Israel as a well-oiled, state-of-the-art war machine, but in
reality it is vulnerable, fragile and easily blackmailed, unable fully to
implement its forces to counteract the Islamic terrorism deliberately hidden
within the Palestinian population in the territories. In the meantime, Hamas
continues to use human shields and the Palestinian Authority continues its
anti-Israeli incitement, especially via Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV channel in Arabic.
Qatar funds Hamas and supports Islamic terrorist organizations all over the Arab
world. *
In addition, the permanent support the Arabs and the Europeans give the
Palestinians -- such as the Europeans' demand for "proportional" force and the
expectation that Israel will compromise its own security by sacrificing its
territorial assets -- only serves to encourage terrorism, makes the Palestinians
less flexible and leads them to believe that between pressure from the Arabs and
the sanctions and boycotts they expect to be imposed by the Europeans, they will
eventually be able to defeat Israel.
The Arabs seem to have forgotten that Israel already overcame Arab and
Palestinians boycotts. During the last two intifadas, when there was a
Palestinian boycott of Israeli-made products and Palestinians were forbidden to
work in Israel, Israel began using automated industrial building techniques,
thereby leaving the tens of thousands of Palestinians who had previously worked
in construction permanently without jobs.
Now the EU is trying to impose a boycott on goods manufactured in the Israeli
settlements, but ignoring that most of the workers there are Palestinians. The
result will be that Palestinian workers will again be let go and again find
themselves unemployed. Palestinians were also always the ones who were
harmed.
The Palestinian leadership might do well to understand that the consequences
of a third intifada will be even more destructive, with no chance of success. It
can be assumed that Abbas understands the situation, but unfortunately the
Palestinian people still think they will be able to destroy Israel and install a
Palestinian state on the ruins.
When it comes to changing their situation, the Palestinians still refuse to
ask the right questions. Is there a single Palestinian, for example, who really
thinks Israel will sign an agreement that would settle millions of Palestinians
into its territory? Would Israel agree to have its future depend on a leader
like Mahmoud Abbas, who does not enjoy either a consensus or a legal Palestinian
constitutional status? ******Can Israel ignore that both Palestinian society and
public policy are based on the rejection of peace with Israel, and that
the Palestinian street is bombarded daily with propaganda from the Palestinian
establishment advocating war, the return of refugees and the destruction of
Israel?
And is there really a single Palestinian who thinks Israel will rush to sign
an agreement while the Palestinian Authority works unceasingly in international
forums to delegitimize it, boycott it and maneuver to achieve unilateral
international recognition without a gesture towards Israel?
There are other questions the Palestinians refuse to ask themselves: for
instance, is there a single Palestinian who really believes that Israel places
faith in the upper echelons of the Palestinian Authority who are now planning to
have Israel's leaders tried as war criminals in the International Criminal Court
in The Hague and threatening of a third intifada? Can Israel make concessions to
the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and ignore what happened after the Israeli
army withdrew from south Lebanon, which it saw it turn into a vipers' nest of
Hezbollah-instigated terrorism? Will Israel ignore the lessons of the past,
especially after Hamas's border with Egypt turned into a highway for smuggling
arms and the Gaza Strip itself became a regional and global stronghold of
Islamism?
The Palestinians fool only themselves as they waste their time theorizing,
inventing excuses and plotting, while the Jews engage in practical matters, and
do not plan their future on the unattainable. Do the Palestinians not understand
that once the murderers terrorizing the civilian population of Syria in the name
of jihad have finished there, they will turn their attention to the Palestinian
Authority and do the same to the Palestinian population there? The Palestinians,
who expect the jihad fighters in Syria to liberate "Palestine" for them, do not
understand that the men who went to fight the Assad regime in Syria have nothing
to lose. Their own families are far from the confrontation and when they enter
the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian women will be their first victims.
The peace process is not simple, it requires time and the building of trust.
Israel has territories the Palestinians want and holds the key to the
international recognition of "Palestine." The Palestinians have the resources of
trust necessary to win over the hearts of the Israelis. The more that time
passes, the more the Palestinians waste that precious resource. The Israelis dig
in their heels and the Western world is gradually coming around to their way of
thinking. If the Palestinians really want to establish a Palestinian state, they
might start by asking themselves the right questions.
Bassem Tawil is based in the Middle East.
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