Bibi's Congress Triumph
If Palestinians Want a  State
Let Them Ask for it Unconditionally
  by Dan Ehrlich

In light of America’s foreign policy disasters including needless wars that have cost more than 2.5 million lives, having President Obama instruct Israel on how to secure its future is like asking a bald barber how to grow hair.

Maybe that why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress was accented by 29 standing ovations…a rare feat for any politician. Possibly Congress has a grasp an appreciation of the Middle East that eludes Obama.  Or maybe Congress just wanted to keep things upbeat so America’s less than noble and inhumane past wouldn’t be revisited.

Israel is a nation caught between a rock and hard place…on one hand is pressure to please Western nations and on the other to maintain a defense against the erratic hostile Arab world. Yet, its seems to be to only nation in the world to be singled out for so much attention pressure and even condemnation for two acts: Surviving and thriving.

Before the Obama-Netanyahu meeting liberal commentators were predicting Israel would never make the concessions needed for a peace deal with the Palestinians. This is nothing new.

Which brings up a curious question: Why does Israel always have to make concessions? Who is it that wants a state of their own? I mean, if Israel controls the land the Palestinians want as their state, why is it up the Israel to make concessions?

This is a key question because whenever peace talks are discussed the onus is always on Israel, not on the people who want something from Israel. Not only is this contrary to standard deal making practice, it makes one wonder do the Palestinians really want their own country and peace or are they just tools of rejectionist Arab states who simply want to isolate and weaken Israel.

For a people who have been shunned by their own kind, continually get the shit kicked out of them by Israel for their violent provocations, and are ripped off every which way but loose by their leaders, you might think they would do anything to get a peace deal coupled with statehood. But, no, they don’t

So what do they do? Instead of demonstrating against their divided and crooked leadership, they march on Israel. This possibly is a powerless peasant class reaction oddly similar to illegal Mexican immigrants who demonstrate for jobs in America rather than against their government in Mexico.

Double Standard in Negotiations
Going back to the original question: Why isn’t same pressure put on the Palestinian leadership by the US and European Union as is visited on Israel? You never hear about a rift between Obama and Palestinian leader Mahmood Abbas.

What we hear is Palestinian demands and calls for American pressure on Israel to meet these demands. All this makes one wonder if we are living in an inverse universe akin to science fiction where, as in Bob Dylan’s song, “The loser now will be later to win.”

A screenplay could read like this: Wars of annihilation are waged against Israel by a region of religious bigots. Yet Israel wins these wars and land in the process. But, thanks to big power involvement, the Arabs, who have been the losers, expect to be winners in the end since they aren’t forced to deal with Israel, rather nations such as America, Russia and various European countries, acting as surrogates or proxies for the Palestinians, who are really a proxy of the Arab League.

President Obama’s Middle East objectives, on the surface, seem sensible. But his  mistake in dealing with the Palestinians is the same error made by other US presidents…thinking as westerners supposedly negotiating with honorable people seeking a lasting a peace with Israel and not realizing or  acknowledging what’s the end game.

Yet, he is willing to risk it because it’s not his skin at stake. What is political convenience for America to score points with the Muslim world could be a life and death decision for Israel.

Every time a deal between Israel and the Palestinians has been near, another demand appeared and caused a collapse of the negotiations. The late PLO leader Yasser Arafat was noted for doing this.

The fact remains today and it did in 1948…Most Arab nations want to destroy, now through attrition, Israel and they will use any means to do this. Palestinian Leader Mahmood Abbas, for his seemingly good intentions, is still a pawn of the Arab League with rejects Israel’s existence. How the current Arab upheavals will affect this is still to be seen.
Netanyahu knows Nothing will Satisfy Arabs
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to budge of the 1967 cease fire lines is largely because he knows giving in on this would only encourage the Palestinians to make further demands.

The problem of the West Bank is small when compared to the greater Palestinian refugee problem…one that was created by the Arab nation fighting wars with Israel.

Remember, in 1947 Israel accepted the UN partition plan and stated in writing it hoped for peace with its neighbors. It was the Arab nations, confident of victory, who rejected it in favor of wars, which resulted in successive waves of refugees.
Now Five Million Stateless Refugees
The 750,000 Palestinian refugees created 63-years-ago has multiplied to 5 million today scattered in now permanent camps located in countries bordering Israel.

The short and long-term goal of the Arab League is the have these people return to Israel, thereby doing to this mainly Jewish entity what the sudden influx in the early 1970s of Arafat’s Palestinians did to Lebanon. This would effectively destroy the country, which in Lebanon’s case was predominantly Maronite Christian, leaving it as a chaotic canonized entity similar to the original 1947 UN plan the Arabs rejected.

That aside, the 5 million Palestinian  refugees have been the victims of cynical heartless manipulation and exploitation by their Arab hosts. In 1959, the Arab League passed Resolution 1457, which states: “The Arab countries will not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.”

That stunning resolution is unique in that no other ethnic or religious group in the world denies citizenship to its own kind and keeps them stateless. Yet the UN has never condemned this form of apartheid. And, you never hear Abbas complaining about it to his League masters.

Tashbih Sayyed, a fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized Arab nations for making the children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees second class citizens in Lebanon, Syria, or the Gulf States, and said that the refugees "cling to the illusion that defeating the Jews will restore their dignity".

Unmentioned whenever this subject is brought up are the more than 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were literally driven out of their historic communities by Muslims incensed by the defeat of Islam at the hands of the Infidel. However, these refugees were welcomed into Israel.

This different morality may be why the pressure remains on Israel to compromise. Jews, a numerically small people, will go to any lengths to rescue their own kind. But additionally, they are bound by their biblical code to give shelter to refugees.

The Arab states, however, deny responsibility for the refugees with the view the creation of Israel, and not their wars,  created the refugees so it's not their problem. For their part they are wiling to let them fester in camps for hundreds of years.
No Assimilation Pressure On Arabs States
What Obama and Hillary never talk about are any efforts, or lack of them,  through the UN and the international community, to pressure the Arab League to kill this edict and begin assimilating Palestinians into their massive and largely empty land masses.

In fact, just the opposite has happened. Around 400,000 Palestinian workers living in Kuwait received a second shock when they were kicked out that country after Operation Desert Storm. This was a result of Arafat’s big mouth in backing Saddam Hussein.

As it now stands there are more than 1.5 million Arab Israeli citizens, most of who have no desire to join their brother Palestinians in any new state. Israel is a social welfare state that gives Arabs more benefits and opportunities than they could get in the chaotic surrounding nations.

 In fact, during a recent planned pull back from the Golan Heights on the Syrian border, one Arab village petitioned Israel to keep its troops there for fear terrorists groups would locate in the area.

Jordan supports a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza for one, in hopes such a state would drain much if its majority Palestinian population.

Yet Jordan remains a big question mark. Because there’s a distinct possibility such a state might eventually want to re-link with Jordan, replacing the Hashemite Kingdom with a Palestinian super state. Much of this depends on how attractive the King can make his government seem to the Palestinians in his country.

In the end, it still stacks up at little Israel (7 million), with no oil vs. the Arab world (300 million) and most of the Earth’s oil. Can you blame Netanyahu for playing the hard man?