Welcome to the 19th Century. WSJ Editorial.

Welcome to the 19th Century. Editorial. The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2014.

“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext,” declared John Kerry on March 2 as Russia began its conquest of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Though he didn’t intend it, the U.S. Secretary of State was summing up the difference between the current leaders of the West who inhabit a fantasy world of international rules and the hard men of the Kremlin who understand the language of power. The 19th-century men are winning.

 

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Vladimir Putin consolidated his hold on Crimea Sunday by forcing a referendum with only two choices. Residents of the Ukrainian region could vote either to join Russia immediately or to do so eventually. The result was a foregone conclusion, midwifed by Russian troops and anti-Ukraine propaganda. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Mr. Kerry's pleas for restraint on Friday in London, and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing the Crimean takeover a day later.

 

Next up for conquest may be eastern Ukraine. Russian troops are massed on the border, and on Saturday its soldiers and helicopter gunships crossed from Crimea and occupied a natural gas plant on the Ukrainian mainland. Scuffles and demonstrations in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv, egged on by Russian agitators, could create another “trumped up pretext.”

 

And what is to stop Mr. Putin? In the two weeks since Russian troops occupied Crimea, President Obama and Europe have done little but threaten “consequences” that Mr. Putin has little reason to take seriously.

 

The U.S. has refused Ukraine’s request for urgent military aid, and it has merely sent a few NATO planes to the Baltic states and Poland. The Russian strongman might figure he’s better off seizing more territory now and forcing the West to accept his facts on the ground. All the more so given that his domestic popularity is soaring as he seeks to revive the 19th-century Russian empire.

 

Left in shambles are the illusions of Mr. Obama and his fellow liberal internationalists. They arrived at the White House proclaiming that the days of U.S. leadership had to yield to a new collective security enforced by “the international community.” The U.N. would be the vanguard of this new 21st-century order, and “international law” and arms-control treaties would define its rules.

 

Thus Mr. Obama’s initial response to Mr. Putin's Crimean invasion was to declare, like Mr. Kerry, that it is “illegal” because it violates “the Ukrainian constitution and international law.” As if Mr. Putin cares.

 

The 19th-century men understand that what defines international order is the cold logic of political will and military power. With American power in retreat, the revanchists have moved to fill the vacuum with a new world disorder.

 

Backed by Iran and Russia, Bashar Assad is advancing in Syria and may soon crush the opposition. Iran is arming the terrorist militias to the north and south of Israel. China is pressing its regional territorial claims and building its military. And Mr. Putin is blowing apart post-Cold War norms by carving up foreign countries when he feels he can.

 

The question now is whether Mr. Obama and his advisers will shed their 21st-century fantasies and push back against the new Bonapartes. Jimmy Carter finally awoke after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, but Mr. Obama hasn’t shown the same awareness of what is happening on his watch.

 

We’ve written about the need for broad economic and financial sanctions against Russia and its elites. Skeptics reply that Europe will never go along. Even if that’s true—and that would mean a failure of U.S. diplomacy—it shouldn’t deter the U.S. from imposing its own banking and financial sanctions. The world’s banks can be made to face a choice between doing business with Russia or doing business in America. We know from the Bush Administration's experience with North Korea that such sanctions bite.

 

The West must also meet Mr. Putin’s military aggression with a renewed military deterrent. This does not mean a strike on Russia or invading Crimea. It should mean offering military aid to Ukraine to raise the price of further Russian intervention. Above all it means reinforcing NATO to show Mr. Putin that invading a treaty ally would lead to war.

 

The U.S. and Europe should move quickly to forward deploy forces to Poland, the Baltic states and other front-line NATO nations. This should include troops in addition to planes and armor. Reviving an updated version of the Bush-era missile defense installation in Eastern Europe is also warranted, including advanced interceptors that could eventually be used against Russian ICBMs.

 

Russia’s revanchism should also finally awaken Europeans to spend more on their own defense. The 19th-century men know that nationalism isn’t dead as a mobilizing political force. Western Europe’s leaders will have to relearn this reality or their dreams of European peace will be shattered. They need more modern arms of their own in addition to America’s through NATO.

 

In response to the Crimean referendum Sunday, the White House issued a statement declaring that, “In this century, we are long past the days when the international community will stand quietly by while one country forcibly seizes the territory of another.” We shall see, but Mr. Obama first needs to understand that America’s adversaries reject his fanciful 21st-century rules.

Lying About Abbas Won’t Bring Peace. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

Lying About Abbas Won’t Bring Peace. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 17, 2014.

Obama’s Middle East fallacy. By Jackson Diehl. Washington Post, March 16, 2014. Also here.

Diehl:

Two weeks ago President Obama took time off from the crisis in Ukraine to pursue the foreign policy cause that, together with nuclear disarmament, has been closest to his heart: Israeli-Palestinian peace. Having invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Obama welcomed him by publicly declaring to Bloomberg View’s Jeffrey Goldberg that Israel “could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster — if [Netanyahu] refuses to endorse a U.S. drafted framework agreement for peace,” as Goldberg summed it up.

 

Fair enough, you might say: An April 29 deadline for obtaining agreement to the framework is getting close, so it’s time for a little presidential arm-twisting. It follows that when Mahmoud Abbas troops into the Oval Office for his meeting on Monday, he should be met with equally dire predictions of Palestinian doom if he fails to accept the framework.

 

So far, there’s no sign of it: no presidential interviews, no statements by Secretary of State John Kerry, no leaks of potential U.S. punitive measures if Abbas — repeating a long personal and Palestinian history — says no. Therein lies the fallacy that has hamstrung Obama’s Middle East diplomacy for the past five years.

 

Obama, as he made clear in the Goldberg interview, perceives Abbas as the golden key to Mideast peace — “the most politically moderate leader the Palestinians may ever have,” as Goldberg paraphrased it — and Netanyahu as the potential spoiler. “I believe that President Abbas is sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist,” the president said. “You’ve got a partner on the other side who is prepared to negotiate seriously . . . for us not to seize this moment I think would be a great mistake.”

 

But is Obama right about Abbas? Netanyahu, like most Israelis, doesn’t think so — and with some reason. The Palestinian president — who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has remained in office for five years after its expiration — turned down President George W. Bush’s request that he sign on to a similar framework in 2008. In 2010, after Obama strong-armed Netanyahu into declaring a moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, Abbas refused to negotiate for nine of the designated 10 months, then broke off the talks after two meetings.

 

Abbas agreed to Kerry’s proposal for another nine-month negotiating window last year in exchange for Israel’s release of more than 100 Palestinian prisoners, including many convicted of murdering civilians. Abbas hailed them as heroes. Then he embarked on a public campaign to deep-six the two principal provisions Israel has sought in the U.S. framework, both of which have had Washington’s support. One would allow Israeli soldiers to remain along the Palestinian-Jordanian border during an extended transition period; the other would involve Palestinian recognition that Israel is a Jewish state.

 

The “Jewish state” question is hard for many non-Israelis to understand: Who cares what Arabs call Israel, so long as they accept it? But for Netanyahu and his followers, the question is essential. Arab leaders have never conceded that a non-Arab state can hold a permanent place in the Middle East, they say. Until they do so, there will be no real peace, because Palestinians will keep pressing to weaken and eventually eliminate Israel’s Jewish majority.

 

Obama and Kerry have endorsed the Jewish-state principle; their hope was to use it to leverage Netanyahu’s acceptance of framework language stipulating that the territory of a Palestinian state would be equal to, if not exactly the same as, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some in the Israeli media are betting that Netanyahu most likely would accept that outcome — albeit with many reservations — even at the risk of losing his right-wing governing coalition. After all, the price of saying no, repeatedly underlined by Kerry and Obama, is daunting: more boycotts, more anti-Israel initiatives at the United Nations, perhaps even another violent Palestinian uprising.

 

In short, Netanyahu has resigned himself to the likelihood that the U.S. framework will include provisions he’s not ready to endorse. Abbas has not. “There is no way. We will not accept,” the Palestinian news agency quoted him as saying of the Jewish-state principle on March 7. Two days later, Abbas persuaded the moribund Arab League to adopt a resolution backing him up. He’s said much the same about Israeli troops on the border.

 

Why does Abbas dare to publicly campaign against the U.S. and Israeli position even before arriving in Washington? Simple: “Abbas believes he can say no to Obama because the U.S. administration will not take any retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority,” writes the veteran Israeli-Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Instead, Abbas expects to sit back if the talks fail, submit petitions to the United Nations and watch the anti-Israel boycotts mushroom, while paying no price of his own.

 

Perhaps Obama will disabuse him of that notion at their meeting Monday. If not, another “peace process” breakdown is surely coming.

Indivisible Anti-Semitism. By Caroline Glick.

Indivisible anti-Semitism. By Caroline Glick. Jerusalem Post, March 14, 2014. Also at FrontPage Magazine.

Glick:

For Europe’s elite, radical and increasingly, violent anti-Zionism has become the anti-Semitism of choice. Among other things, anti-Zionists believe that Israel is inherently illegitimate and necessarily, and purposely, evil. For them, Israel is Nazi Germany.

 

And supporters of Israel are for them the greatest evildoers in the world. They should be accorded no courtesy, and be treated as human scum.

 

This has been made clear, most vividly in recent years on college campuses where pro-Israel supporters are run off campuses, shouted off stages and barred from presenting their views.

 

One recent episode of this sort occurred on March 5 at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where British professor Alan Johnson tried to speak in opposition to an initiative to get the university to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

 

A YouTube video of the event showed how a mob of BDS supporters prevented him from speaking. They shouted curses at him and his colleagues and demanded they “get the f*** off our campus!” Writing of the experience and the hate movement that stands behind it in The Times of Israel, Johnson reported that the student leading the effort to silence him is the head of NUIG’s Palestine Solidarity Society named Joseph Loughnane.

In 2008, Loughnane said, “The Jews run the American media and push their agenda.”

 

Johnson wrote that “the border between being radical and transgressive [toward Israel] and being anti-Semitic is now porous.”

 

Although accurate, Johnson’s assertion understates the problem.

 

Opposing Judaism and Jews, denying Jewish rights to education and ritual observance, and attacking Jews; and opposing the Jewish state, denying Jews their right to self-determination and attacking supporters of the Jewish state, are two sides of the same coin. There is no border – porous or solid between them. They are one and the same.

 

And all anti-Semites know it.

Lies, Damn Lies, and J Street. By Janet Tassel.

Lies, Damn Lies, and J Street. By Janet Tassel. American Thinker, March 16, 2014. Also at Heritage Florida Jewish News.

Putin: The Mask Comes Off, But Will Anybody Care? By Walter Russell Mead.

Putin: The Mask Comes Off, But Will Anybody Care? By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, March 15, 2014.

Bill Maher Calls God a “Psychotic Mass Murderer.”

This May Be Bill Maher’s Most Intense Rant Against Religions – All of Them – Yet. By Carol Hartsell. The Huffington Post, March 15, 2014. Video at YouTube.

Bill Maher Calls God a “Psychotic Mass Murderer.” By Rebecca Savastio. Liberty Voice, March 15, 2014.

Bill Maher Absolutely Trashes the Bible and “Psychotic Mass Murderer” God. By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, March 14, 2014.

Bill Maher and Guests Rail Against “Complacent and Smug” American Exceptionalism. By Matt Wilstein.

Bill Maher and Guests Rail Against “Complacent and Smug” American Exceptionalism. By Matt Wilstein. With Video. Mediaite, March 15, 2014. YouTube.

Liberals Outraged by Cadillac Ad. By Rush Limbaugh. NJBR, March 7, 2014.

New Diet, Sexual Attraction May Have Spurred Europeans’ Lighter Skin. By Michael Balter.

New Diet, Sexual Attraction May Have Spurred Europeans’ Lighter Skin. By Michael Balter. Science Now, March 10, 2014.

Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 y. By Sandra Wilde et al. PNAS, Early Edition, March 5, 2014.

How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes. By Michael Balter. Science Now, January 26, 2014.

The Timing of Pigmentation Lightening in Europeans. Sandra Beleza et al. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 2013).

Ancient Hunter-Gatherers Kept In Touch. By Michael Balter. Science Now, June 28, 2012.

Israelis Don’t Care That We Hate Them. But They’d Like to Know Why. By Brendan O’Neill.

Israelis don’t care that we hate them. But they’d like to know why. By Brendan O’Neill. The Spectator, March 15, 2014.

Love-Hate Relationship. By Liat Collins. Jerusalem Post, March 20, 2014.


O’Neill:

Israel is a rogue state for the right-on. It’s the state that it’s super hip to hate. But why? Israel-bashers will say, “Duh, it's because of its crazy military antics,” but that doesn’t add up. Israel’s militarism today is of a far smaller order than it was during the Six-Day War of 1967, and back then most Westerners, including radical leftists, supported the Zionist project.

 

The most interesting explanation I hear for Israel’s unpopularity among latte-sippers comes from Richard Pater, a political analyst from Radlett who has lived in Israel for the past 15 years. (Israel has loads of Jews from boring bits of Britain who have taken the quite wise decision to act on their right to migrate to this far warmer, more exotic part of the world.) “The lesson many in the West took from the Holocaust is that nationalism is bad; the message Jews took from it is that nationalism is necessary.”

 

This cuts to the heart of today’s fashionable disdain for little Israel. What many Westerners seem to find most nauseating is that Israel is cocky, confident and committed to preserving its national sovereign rights against all-comers. In short, it’s a lot like we used to be before relativism and anti-modernism. I think that Israel reminds us of our older selves, our pre-EU, pre-green days, when we, too, believed in borders, sovereignty, progress, growth.

 

Now that it’s de rigueur in the right-thinking sections of western society to be post- nationalist and multicultural, to be fashionably uncertain about one’s national identity, the sight of a border-fortifying state offends and outrages us. In the words of George Gilder, author of The Israel Test, Israel is now hated more for its virtues than for its political or militaristic vices. It’s hated for remaining devoted to “freedom and capitalism” when we’re all supposed to be snooty about such things.

 

If Israel is unofficially being made into a pariah state, it isn’t because of its foreignness, or even necessarily its Jewishness, but rather because it is too western for our liking. We loathe it because we loathe ourselves.

Does Israel Have a Right to Exist as a Jewish State? By Ali Abunimah.

Does Israel Have a Right to Exist as a Jewish State?: An excerpt from Ali Abunimah’s “The Battle for Justice in Palestine.” By Ali Abunimah. Mondoweiss, March 14, 2014.

Reclaiming Self-Determination. By Ali Abunimah. Al-Shabaka, May 21, 2010. PDF. Also here.

M.J. Rosenberg’s Critique of BDS Movement and Ali Abunimah’s Book “The Battle for Justice in Palestine.” Partners for Progressive Israel, March 19, 2014.

Blaming Kerry for Palestinian Rejectionism. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

Blaming Kerry for Palestinian Rejectionism. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 13, 2014.

Kerry’s Unprepared for the Palestinian “No.” By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 14, 2014.

Fatah Central Committee Member Abbas Zaki: Allah Will Gather Israelis so Palestinians Can Kill Them. By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik.

Allah will gather Israelis so Palestinians can kill them, says senior Palestinian official Abbas Zaki. By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik. Palestinian Media Watch, March 13, 2014. Video at YouTube.

BDS Bullies at Galway University. By Alan Johnson.

BDS Bullies at Galway University. By Alan Johnson. The Times of Israel, March 10, 2014. Video at YouTube.

The Apartheid Smear. By Alan Johnson. BICOM, February 2014.

BDS in Galway: “You’re f-ing Zionist, f-ing pricks, get the f–k off our campus.” By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, March 7, 2014.

Will Galway Univ. anti-Israel F-bomber get away with shout down? By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, March 12, 2014.

Why Make Light of PLO Non-Recognition of Israel? By Caroline Glick.

Why Make Light of PLO Non-Recognition of Israel? By Caroline Glick. Real Clear World, March 12, 2014. Also at the Jerusalem Post.

Why the Kerry Middle East Peace Framework Will Fail. By Rabbi Michael Lerner.

Why the Kerry Middle East Peace Framework Will Fail. By Rabbi Michael Lerner. The Huffington Post, March 11, 2014.

The Futile Search for Middle East Solutions. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

The Futile Search for Middle East Solutions. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 10, 2014.

Why Abbas Will (Again) Say No. By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, March 11, 2014.

Tobin:

In today’s Mosaic Magazine, author Hillel Halkin provides yet another entry in the growing list of proposed “solutions” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Put forward as a response to Yoav Sorek’s Mosaic essay in which that writer essentially called upon Israel to annul the Oslo peace process and establish what might be termed a one-state proposal. Unlike most such ideas put forward by Israel’s enemies which amount to nothing more than replacing the one Jewish state with one more Arab one, Sorek’s idea — which was endorsed here by Tom Wilson — is rooted in extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank but within a context in which it is understood that the country will remain a Jewish state.

 

Both Sorek’s proposal and that put forward by Caroline Glick in her new book (which was given a persuasive endorsement by Seth Lipsky in the New York Sun) take it as a given that the two-state solution that has been sought in vain during the 20 years since the Oslo Accords were signed will never succeed. Halkin doesn’t disagree on that point but is less sanguine than either Sorek or Glick about Israel’s ability to incorporate the large Arab population of the West Bank into Israel. In response he offers a compromise that is neither a pure one- or two-solution. He calls it “two-state minus” in which a Jewish state would co-exist alongside a Palestinian one in the territory that is now controlled by Israel. The majority status of the two peoples in their enclaves would be protected but both Jews and Arabs living in the two states would be free to choose either nationality no matter where they lived as well as to travel and work in either sector. He likens it to the way the nation states of the European Union retain their individual sovereignty while having that power restrained by their mutual obligations.

 

But while it sounds nice it is no more realistic than any other “solution” out on the market. Like the advocates of the other two state concepts, Halkin’s idea rests on the assumption that the Palestinians will be satisfied with anything less than the end of Jewish sovereignty in any form over any part of the country. Until the Palestinians embrace the reality of Israel’s permanence and renounce their century-old war on Zionism, the only viable scenario is one that manages the conflict rather than solving it.

 

Sorek and especially Glick, who writes with her characteristic clarity about the fatal mistakes of Israel’s leaders, perform a valuable service in debunking many of the false assumptions about the conflict that are the foundation of the two-state idea. Both rightly point out that Arab rejectionism is not based on anger about Israel’s occupation of territory in June 1967 but on their belief that Zionism is illegitimate. As Sorek writes about the Israeli embrace of Oslo, “In embracing the Palestinian national movement as its partner, Israel pretended not to see that, absent its fundamental objection to the existence of the Jewish state, there was no Palestinian national movement.” The reckless pursuit of peace on these false terms led to the abandonment of Israel’s claim to its own rights in the dispute, a form of unilateral moral disarmament that has helped legitimize the arguments of anti-Zionists, which have grown louder and more vituperative despite the Jewish state’s sacrifices at Oslo and in the Gaza withdrawal. They also call into question the conventional wisdom that the growth rates of the two peoples will inevitably lead to an Arab majority West of the Jordan, based as it is on unreliable population data and projections that may not be accurate.

 

But it is hard to argue with Halkin’s dismissal of their assumptions that, with patience and creative energy, the population of the West Bank can be integrated into a democratic Israel without fatally undermining the democratic and Jewish nature of the state. Indeed, the same factors that render the two-state solution a forlorn hope for peace also undermine the notion that the Palestinian Arabs will ever accept permanent minority status in a Jewish state even if they were never able to out reproduce the Jews. Some form of separation is inevitable.

 

Even more to the point, those who imagine that the Oslo genie can be put back into the bottle at this late point are mistaken. Israel’s predicament is that it can’t go back to the situation that preceded Oslo or that of the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War when it might have been theoretically possible (if still unlikely) for Israel to annex the West Bank in some manner or to give somehow give some of it back to Jordan. By bringing back Yasir Arafat to the country and giving his Fatah movement control over the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s leaders implicitly recognized the right of the Palestinians to self governance in some part of the country and made it only a matter of time until some sort of Palestinian state was going to be created. Though the reality of the PA under the reign of Yasir Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas and his Hamas rivals makes that acceptance look like a self-destructive delusional nightmare, it can’t be walked back. The U.S. and Europe may vainly rail at Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in contravention to international law, an Israeli annexation of the West Bank (which, in contrast to Russia’s aggression, Israel could, contrary to conventional wisdom, make a reasonable case for under international law) would never be accepted by the rest of the world, including Israel’s vital American ally. Israel hasn’t the strength to resist the rest of the world in that matter. Nor, it should be pointed, do most Israelis have much appetite for such an idea. In spite of the fact that Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was a disaster, only a minority of Israelis would favor a plan to reassert their control’s permanent control of the area.

 

Sorek and Glick are right about the dangers of the two-state solution under the current circumstances and Halkin is right that a one-state solution in which the one state is a Jewish state of Israel is a fantasy. Other one-state proposals are merely thinly veiled programs for the eradication of the Jewish homeland and/or genocide of its population.

 

So where does that leave Israel and its government? In a difficult position where it stands to be criticized from the left for doing too little to achieve peace and to be blasted by the right for both countenancing a retreat from the country’s vital interests and the rights of the Jewish people. While the former critics are mistaken and the latter have a point, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hasn’t the luxury of pontificating from the sidelines. Instead he is left to try and do the only thing any Israeli government can do: manage the conflict until the other side comes to its senses and is willing to make a permanent peace on reasonable terms.

 

In the absence of that sea change in Palestinian public opinion that will make it possible for Abbas or one of his successors to recognize Israel as a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and to give up the hope of a “right of return” on the part of the 1948 refugees, talk of a solution of any kind is a waste of time. And though Israel has been told for the past 46 years that the status quo isn’t viable, that has proven to be equally mistaken. As unsatisfying as merely preserving the current unsatisfactory arrangement may be for both sides, doing so in a manner which limits the bloodshed and the involvement of the two peoples in each other’s lives is undoubtedly preferable to giving in to the temptation to replicate Gaza in the West Bank or to imagine that Israel can annex the territories without a terrible cost.

 

That is not the sort of thing most people want to hear since they prefer to believe that all problems are soluble, especially those related to life and death. But it is nonetheless true.

The Palestinian Narrative: The Missing Link in the “Peace Process.” By Eric R. Mandel.

The Palestinian narrative: The missing link in the “peace process.” By Eric R. Mandel. Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2014.

Bashing Netanyahu Won’t Bring Peace Any Closer. By Jeff Jacoby. NJBR, March 8, 2014.

Why Can’t the Palestinians Recognize the Jewish State? By Ahmad Samih Khalidi. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Summer 2011).


Mandel:

Is a lasting Israel-Palestinian peace achievable if only one side accepts the legitimacy of the other’s narrative?

 

“When you say ‘accept Israel as a Jewish state,’ you are asking me to change my narrative.” – Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat.

 

“Every state has created narratives which help its citizen to identify with national culture. These narratives are the foundation on which the state is built.” – Erica Mukherjee, Perspectives on Global Issues.

 

Secretary of State Kerry’s well-meaning attempt to forge a framework agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian governments is based on the conventional Western perspective of conflict resolution. Western democratic nations that sign treaties overwhelmingly respect the words on the paper they sign.

 

But what happens when western democracies ask a democratic nation to sign a western- style treaty with an adversary that values tribe and clan over the nation-state? What happens when one party’s narrative is almost totally based on the negation of the other? While the media look through conventional glasses at the prospects for an Israeli- Palestinian framework agreement and pose certain questions, the view for those truly interested in a lasting peace should be through a more nuanced lens. Such an analysis raises questions that are more difficult.

 

Is a lasting Israel-Palestinian peace achievable if only one side accepts the legitimacy of the other’s narrative? To begin to resolve the conflict, American and Israeli negotiators should consider a western-style treaty only with concurrent recognition of the narratives of both parties. Diplomatic maneuvering, no matter how well meaning, can not lead to a lasting peace in this region without addressing the fundamental narratives of the adversaries.

 

For the sake of peace, would Israel be willing to express compassion and remorse publicly for the suffering of Palestinians without accepting primary responsibility? Would they acknowledge that there is merit to the Arab world’s disillusionment with the West because of the broken promises made to them by the British and French 100 years ago? Can Israelis, for the possibility of a genuine peace, acknowledge understanding and compassion for the descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees who have been used as pawns by autocratic Arab regimes? Convincing the Israelis would be the easy part. Most of the heavy lifting must come from the Arab side, which considers itself the victim of an illegitimate Zionist movement.

 

It is essential to understand how Palestinian Arabs think and what they believe. The Palestinian Arab national identity is almost exclusively defined by negating the Israeli narrative, including Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state, with precious few positive Palestinian nationalistic qualities.

 

Palestinian Arabs mark their historical time by memorializing what others perpetrated upon them. The quintessential narrative marked in time is the “Nakba,” the catastrophe of the creation of the State of Israel.

 

Delegitimizing Jewish historical connections to the land extends from mosques to school textbooks, from the PA press to the PA leadership.

 

They view the Jewish historical narrative as at best exaggerated, but more likely fabricated.

 

On a recent trip to the Middle East, I interviewed members of the PA, PLO, Hamas, the Jordanian Parliament, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

They all shared the same talking points about the Jews living in Israel. Uniformly, Israel is considered a colonialist enterprise – illegally imposed, and populated by foreigners with no legitimate right to the land. Almost all believe that Israel continually commits “war crimes,” targets Arab civilians, and oppresses defenseless native Palestinians.

 

Violence committed against Jewish civilians is rationalized as the only legitimate avenue available to an oppressed people.

 

This troubling narrative is not confined to Hamas, but is part of the DNA of Palestinian Arabs whether they reside in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Judea, or Samaria.

 

Compounding the problem is the western belief that all peoples of the world share its universalistic perspective. It is certainly true that Palestinians want to feed their families and prosper, but the West simply cannot comprehend that any people in the 21st century would choose self-defeating options over economic opportunity.

 

If choosing a better life means giving up on the goal of erasing Israel from the map, then unfortunately too many would choose ideology over prosperity.

 

Israel may be a reality, but to most Palestinians, it is not one that can be accepted for the long-term. That is why the United States and Israel must insist on an acknowledgment of the rights of the Jewish people to a homeland in whatever dimension are agreed to by the parties themselves. This would be one of three game-changing events, if published in Arabic and articulated publicly by their leaders.

 

The second game-changer would be if the international community could acknowledge that Israel has legitimate rights beyond the Green Line.

 

It must be acknowledged that Israel has been willing to relinquish almost all of its legal territorial rights in Judea and Samaria over the past 65 years for a lasting peace. Without this acknowledgment, Israel will continue to be branded a “thief,” forced to return stolen land. If not acknowledged, anything Israel retains in a future land swap will be viewed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as illegitimately gained territory. Occupation of disputed territory from a defensive war is not an outdated theory; it is an essential ingredient for a sustainable peace.

 

The third game-changer is the preparation of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab world for compromise. America must insist on clear and unambiguous public statements in Arabic on all of the lighting-rod issues.

 

If Palestinian Arabs and their supporters are unwilling or unable to accept these three public pronouncements, then the negotiation should transition to how best to improve the lives of Palestinians without endangering Israeli security.

 

Israel and the West need to reset their clocks to Islamic time and think in decades and centuries. Americans and Israelis cannot succumb to the false narrative that this is the last best time for Israel to negotiate with its adversaries.

 

Imposing artificial timelines tilts the negotiation playing field toward an Arab advantage.

 

We will know when the Palestinians and Arab worlds are ready to embark upon a path to true peace when Arab leaders prepare their people for compromise and end the incitement to delegitimize the Israeli narrative. Until then, negotiate not only on territory, but also on accepting the other’s narrative.

Ralph Peters: The Islamic World is a “Failed Civilization.”

Strategist Ralph Peters: Islamic World a “Failed Civilization.” Interviewed by Steve Malzberg. Video. Newsmax, March 10, 2014.

Middle East Genocide. By Ralph Peters. NJBR, June 3, 2013. With related articles and video.


Newsmax:

The perplexing disappearance of a packed Malaysian Airlines jet has all the earmarks of terrorism, Fox News strategic analyst Ralph Peters says.

 

“The indicators are sure there. It looks like a terrorist act. We may find out it wasn't, but there is plenty of motivation,” Peters told The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV.

 

“The Chinese have been just savage in their repression of the Uyghur Muslim minority in northwestern China . . . So, that is one possibility, the Uyghur Muslim activists,” Peters said Monday.

 

The jet, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bejing, suddenly vanished Saturday as it flew over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. Investigators have so far found no traces of it in the water.

 

While various theories abound — including the possibility of an electrical problem or a suicide dive by the pilot — terrorism remains the top possibility, said Peters, author of the acclaimed Civil War novel Hell or Richmond.

 

“China is not immune to Islamic terrorism,” he said.

 

“This problem is not going to go away in our lifetimes, primarily because the Islamic world is so utterly broken, such a failed civilization that is going to continue to generate terrorists.”

Caroline Glick Interviewed by Mark Levin on The Israeli Solution.

Caroline Glick on The Israeli Solution. Interviewed by Mark Levin. Audio. WesternFreePress, March 8, 2014. YouTube.

The Israeli Solution. By Janet Tassel. American Thinker, March 2, 2014.

One State for Two Peoples? By Yonoson Rosenblum. Mishpacha, February 26, 2014. Also here.

Sex’s Feel-Good Evolution: Charles Darwin’s Erotic Shocker. By David A. Rosenbaum.

Sex’s feel-good evolution: Charles Darwin’s erotic shocker. By David A. Rosenbaum. Salon, March 9, 2014.

Time to Put and End to the Fantasy of a Palestinian People. By Mordechai Kedar.

Time to put an end to the fantasy of a Palestinian people. By Mordechai Kedar. i24 News, March 8, 2014.

Small Homogeneous States Only Solution for Middle East. By Mordechai Kedar. IMRA, April 1. 2011.

Imagining a Remapped Middle East. By Robin Wright. NJBR, September 29, 2013.

The Arab Collapse. By Ralph Peters. NJBR, May 20, 2013.


Kedar [fantasy]: 

Despite the benefits of this ambiguous situation, Israel should adopt a clearer policy: Since the PLO has not abandoned its plan to destroy Israel, it must end the dream of establishing a state under the rule of this organization. The Hamas movement began the process in Gaza, and Israel must continue it in Judea and Samaria in order to establish seven city-states and to leave the rural areas under Israeli control.

The seven city-states will free most of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria from Israeli control and Israel can offer citizenship to residents of the rural space. These city-states based on local clans will be real entities and not the fantasies of some Palestinian intellectuals and tired Israeli souls regarding the existence of a single united Palestinian people in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinian people exist just as the Syrian people do, the Iraqi, Libyan or Sudanese people. The social reality in the Middle East is rooted in the culture of the tribe, the ethnic group (Arabs, Kurds, etc.), the religious group (Muslims, Druze, Alawites, Christians, etc.) and sectarian group (Sunni, Shia, etc.). Only countries based on one homogeneous group can survive in this area, and provide their citizens with a reasonable life.

Israel must base its policy on reality, not on dreams and fantasies of a new Middle East.

Naftali Bennett: Palestinians Need to Recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Israeli minister: Palestinians need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Naftali Bennett interviewed by Fareed Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria GPS, March 8, 2014. Additional transcript here.

Russia Has Already Lost the War. By Chrystia Freeland.

Russia Has Already Lost the War. By Chrystia Freeland. New York Times, March 7, 2014.

Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin. By Garry Kasparov.

Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin. By Garry Kasparov. The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2014.

Vikings, Season 2 Episode 1: Brother’s War.

Vikings, Season 2 Episode 1: Brother’s War. Video. Daryl Dixon, March 7, 2014. YouTube. History Channel.