May 14, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4616
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“Peace in Our Time” was
proclaimed by Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in defense of his disastrous
Munich Agreement with Hitler. History testifies that his policy of
appeasement and failure to confront the aggressive Nazi barbarians
virtually made World War II inevitable.
It was in August 1993, just 20
years ago, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, strongly pressured by then
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, embarked on what he described as a
“gamble for peace” and consummated the Oslo Accords with the PLO, an act
which bitterly divided the nation.
Passionate debates ensued, but
in our desperate yearning for peace, until recently many of us deluded
ourselves that we were engaged in an “irreversible” peace process. Some
of us even mesmerized ourselves into believing that Yasser Arafat and
his successor, Mahmoud Abbas were genuine peace partners, despite clear
evidence from their own statements that in referring to peace, they did
so with forked tongues and that their real objective was to end Jewish
sovereignty.
In recent years the vast
majority of us reluctantly concluded that the “gamble for peace” was a
failure and that, in the absence of a Palestinian leadership genuinely
committed to coexistence, any prospect for a genuine peace was a mirage.
This has become especially obvious as Palestinian leaders even refuse
to engage in negotiations without preconditions.
Yet, the vast majority of
Israelis would still now endorse major concessions to the Palestinians
if they were convinced that this would lead to a genuine peace.
Sadly, many - including some of
our friends - fail to appreciate this and continue urging Israel to be
more forthcoming about the peace process.
President Obama reversed his
former confrontationist stance towards Israel and now even publicly
endorses Israel’s right to take preemptive military action to defend
itself. Nevertheless, an Alice in Wonderland atmosphere still dominates
US Middle East policy.
Thus, Secretary of State John
Kerry waxes eloquent over an allegedly revised and improved version of
the so-called Arab League Peace Initiative.
The imperative of placating the
US obligates our government not to outrightly reject this initiative
which “agrees” to accept minor territorial swaps from the 1949 armistice
lines yet still incorporates the right of return of Arab refugees which
would result in an end to the Jewish state.
Moreover, the genocidal Hamas -
with whom the PA seeks to merge - has condemned the scheme and
adamantly reiterated that it would never countenance any compromise.
No Israeli government could
conceivably contemplate acquiescing to a formula in which the opening
benchmark in negotiations required acceptance of the 1949 armistice
lines. This would entail East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, as
well as the major settlement blocs effectively becoming Palestinian
territory until an agreement to engage in swaps is consummated.
Precedents indicate that it is highly unlikely that agreement on swaps
could be achieved with the current intransigent Palestinian leaders.
In this context, we must not
ignore the reality that both Arafat and Abbas refused - and even failed
to respond with a counter offer - when Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and
Ehud Olmert offered them 97% of the territories over the green line.
Nor can we dismiss the criminal
character of Palestinian society and the fact that the PA, no less than
Hamas, inculcate children from primary school to kill Jews and become
“martyrs” and publicly sanctify mass murderers and allocate state
pensions to families of suicide bombers and terrorists in Israeli jails.
Indeed, even “respectable” Palestinian websites such as spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi’s Miftach, recently published an article reviving medieval blood libels, explicitly accusing Jews of drinking Gentile blood on Passover.
The Palestinian state-sponsored
anti-Semitic brainwashing in the media, mosques and schools is in fact
as lethal as the Nazi propaganda which transformed Germans into willing
accomplices of mass murder.
It is thus not surprising that
recent polls show that Palestinians are globally the most supportive
Moslem nation favoring suicide bombings, with over 40% justifying them.
Those promoting Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas as a “peace partner” or “moderate” would be hard
pressed to quote a single positive statement by him about Israel to his
own people. He may tactically have reached the conclusion that diplomacy
is more effective for promoting Palestinian goals than terror. But
while he consistently stresses that this is a pragmatic strategic
approach, his Fatah subsidiary continues engaging in acts of terror and
the PA continuously threatens to revert to the “armed struggle” if it
fails to achieve its objectives by diplomatic means.
According to Palestine Media
Watch, only this month Sultan Abu Al-Einem, a senior PLO official,
“saluted the heroic fighter” who had stabbed an Israeli civilian to
death. At the same time Jibril Rajoub, co-signer to the Oslo Accords and
Deputy Secretary to the Fatah Central Committee, stated that “popular
resistance – with all it entails - remains on our agenda” and that “if
we had a nuke we’d have used it [against Israel] this morning”.
Despite the fact that Abbas has
breached the Oslo accords by unilaterally obtaining UN diplomatic
recognition and is now constantly threatening to charge Israel with war
crimes at the International Court of Justice, the world continues today
to pressure us to maintain the manifestly false charade of engaging with
a nonexistent peace partner.
Moreover, the “peaceniks” and
their Western supporters, including some misguided Jews and Israelis,
still demand that the Israeli government be more forthcoming with
concessions.
We are called upon to engage in
further “confidence building” measures and release terrorists, many of
whom are likely to resume their activities; make further territorial
concessions despite our disastrous experience after the unilateral
withdrawal in Gaza; freeze building of new settlements despite the fact
that we did this for 10 months and failed to even get the Palestinians
to join us at the negotiating table.
We are urged to specify our
desired borders, as if this can be done in isolation from security and
other factors. Besides, every time the possibility of another concession
is even hinted, the Palestinians insist that it represent a new opening
benchmark for future negotiations.
We have made major concessions
but there has been no reciprocity because clearly the PA will not and
cannot concede anything. We face a calculated strategy to destroy Israel
in stages in which our adversaries seek to obtain and absorb
concessions without reciprocity and will continue to demand more and
more until they exhaust us.
We should firmly restate to our
friends our readiness and desire to separate from the Palestinians. But
we must not again jeopardize our security and lives by engaging in yet
another “gamble for peace” with the odds stacked against us.
Were we to have a genuine peace
partner we could achieve a peace treaty and grounds for long-term
coexistence in a matter of days. But until then our friends should not
seek to impose upon us a Chamberlain style “Peace in our Time” formula.
The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Some of my recent articles:
Bayit Yehudi: Choosing Religious Moderation or Extremism (May 6, 2013)
Survivors Languish as Claims Conference issues Unresolved (May 1, 2013)
American Jewish Leaders: Stop the Rot Now (April 23, 2013)
Independence Day and the Zionist Vision (April 15, 2013)
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