JINSA Report #: 1,009
July 23, 2010
JINSA has long expressed concern about military skills being transmitted by the U.S. to a Palestinian Authority military force while the Palestinian government remains openly hostile to Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. The Israelis tell us, “The more they do against Hamas, the less we have to do.” The Americans tell us, “Everything we do is coordinated with our friends in Israel.”

We believe them both, while remaining enormously skeptical about the ultimate wisdom of the plan and right now have a queasy feeling about the future of what has been called “Dayton’s Army.”

LTG Keith Dayton, USA, who for the past five years was the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Palestinians, is being replaced by MG Michael Moeller, USAF (who will receive his third star along with the assignment). Interestingly, while LTG Dayton’s career in the Army centered on EUCOM, the European Command of which Israel is a member, MG Moeller comes to the job from CENTCOM, which specifically does not involve itself in matters involving Israel or the Palestinians.

Until now?

MG Moeller, currently director of strategy, plans and policy at CENTCOM, is said to have had no contact with the Palestinians to date, but is it possible that the U.S. is thinking that Americans working with a Palestinian army should be integrating their thinking with CENTCOM – an operationally largely Arab command – while the Americans working with the IDF continue to be EUCOM? Is someone thinking that a Palestinian army should not be partnered with the IDF, but with Arab armies?

Yes, we are channeling a report from January that said overtures had been made to move the PA to CENTCOM – to which Gen. Petraeus said such overtures had not been made, and we believed him. Yes, we are also channeling a report that said CENTCOM was “red teaming” the idea that the U.S. should engage Hamas (and Hezbollah). The reports were by the same person, and refuted by people we trust, but still, it is hard not to think that somewhere in the U.S., military people are taking the approach that Hamas (and Hezbollah) is not an enemy of the U.S., but only of Israel. From there, they can “solve” the “Palestinian problem” with the “two-state solution” and declare victory.

In fact, Hamas is an avowed enemy not only of Israel, but of Fatah, Israel and America’s current Palestinian partner and the object of Dayton’s army’s training.[1] It is impossible to consider American engagement of Hamas while training the army that wants to destroy it- unless you are training a PA army for national purposes regardless of what the future Palestinian government decides to do with it, for example, use it against Israel, not Hamas.

MG Moeller will take over a force with three immediate issues – one Palestinian and two American.

1) Over the past several months, reports of Palestinian dissatisfaction with LTG Dayton have surfaced along with increased resistance to his management. Fatah clearly wants American money and training, but then wants us out of the way. Salam Fayyad, the American governments’ favorite Palestinian, said LTG Dayton is involved in “training and only training,” and “does not interfere in the security mission of the Palestinian Security Services.” The PA appears to believe LTG Dayton is too “hands on.”

2) The U.S. GAO, on the other hand, believes he is too “hands off.” On 10 July, GAO issued a critical report entitled, “U.S. Assistance Is Training and Equipping Security Forces, But the Program Needs to Measure Progress and Faces Logistical Constraints.” The report says, “Although U.S. and international officials said that U.S. security assistance programs for the PA have helped to improve security conditions in some West Bank areas, State and USSC have not established clear and measurable outcome-based performance indicators to assess progress.” The report, quoting State Department officials, notes the failure of the NSF (the “army”) to coordinate with the PCP (the civil police) “despite U.S. programs that encourage NSF units to work with the police and other security forces.”

Perhaps because they have different end games in mind.

3) The third problem is definitional – Americans often state Palestinian goals in terms that work for the US, not necessarily for the Palestinians (see Andrew Shapiro’s definition of Palestinian national goals in JINSA Report #1008). The GAO notes, “[Documents] for the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem identify performance indicators… however, the targets they set to measure progress toward these indicators focus on specific program outputs, such as the number of battalions or personnel trained and equipped, rather than on broader program outcomes such as helping the PA meet its Roadmap obligations to achieve the transformation of its security sector and create a professional, right-sized PASF [Palestinian Authority Security Forces].”

Has anyone ASKED the Palestinians if they PLAN to meet their Roadmap obligations? Has anyone ASKED the Palestinians if they WANT to create a “right-sized PSAF” and what “right-sized” means to them? We didn’t think so, but if you don’t know that, the PALESTINIAN emphasis on “specific program outputs” unrelated to the UNITED STATES considers the political goals of the Palestinian Army is precisely what we’ve been worried about.

And the fact that MG Moeller’s focus on American security issues is CENTCOM-oriented makes us worry that the Palestinian force will be disconnected not only from American policy goals, but from the IDF that currently shares its obsession with Hamas, but which may find itself with a Palestinian army relating to Arab state armies on its borders.

[1] And similarly, Hezbollah is an avowed enemy Israel, a multi-ethnic and democratic Lebanon AND of the United States and a forward arm of Iran.

Op-ed: `Palestinianism’ no more than political construct, rather than legitimate national identity

Moshe Dann Published: 09.13.10, 18:50 / Israel Opinion

Prime Minister Netanyahu has called upon Palestinian leaders to recognize the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination – “two states for two nations.” But are Palestinian Arabs a nation, or a people? What is “Palestinian national identity” based on? Although taken for granted today, Palestinianism has neither a long, nor distinguished history, which may explain why the peace process between Israel and the Arabs has failed and will continue to fail.

Palestinianism, inherently meant only one thing: the rejection of a Jewish state in any form. A few elite Arab intellectuals did talk about Palestinianism, but it was not widely accepted. As Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi shows in his book on the subject, not until Zionists began settlements did local Arabs seek an alternative.

Focused on opposition to Zionists, rather than a positive self-definition, “Palestinian identity” then, as now, was negative. Palestinian leaders, like the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, an ardent supporter of the Nazis, and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat – “fathers” of Palestinianism – rejected Zionism and promoted terrorism.

Anti-colonial and anti-Zionist uprisings against British rule were not directed towards another independent Palestinian state. Nor were Arab riots and pogroms, like those in 1929, 1936, for example, nationalistic. There were no calls for a Palestinian state; the battle cry was, “Kill the Jews.”

Arab leaders like Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: “There is no such country as ‘Palestine’; ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented!”

During the 1930s, anti-British and anti-Jewish riots were enflamed by the newly created “Arab – not Palestinian – Higher Committee,” the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine.

In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that “there is no such thing as Palestine in history.” In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”

In 1947, the UN proposed a “Jewish” State and an “Arab” – not Palestinian – State. Efforts to organize a political leadership in 1948, in response to the establishment of Israel, soon collapsed.

The womb of Palestinianism was war, the Nakba (catastrophe) in the Arab narrative, the establishment of the State of Israel. Five well-armed Arab countries invaded the nascent state, joining local Arab gangs and militias in a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. This was not seen as a war for Palestinian nationalism, however; it was a genocidal war against Jews and Zionism itself.

`Palestinians’ used to be Jews

Arab gangs that attacked Jews in 1947/8 were called the “Arab – not Palestinian – Army of Liberation.” The reason is that prior to Israel’s establishment, the notion of a “Palestinian people” was irrelevant, since Arab affiliations are primarily familial and tribal – not national. And also because “Palestinian” meant something else back then.

Before 1948, those who were called (and called themselves) “Palestinians” were Jews, not Arabs, although both carried the same British passports. In fact, only after Jews in Palestine called themselves Israelis, in 1948, could Arabs adopt “Palestinian” as theirs exclusively. Indeed, the central organ of the pre-Israel Jewish community was called “The Palestine Post” – later changed to the Jerusalem Post.

The establishment of UNRWA in 1949 to provide for Arab refugees provided the institutional structure to build and preserve the idea of an “Arab Palestinian people” – and their “right of return.” Today, in 58 camps, with an annual budget of nearly a billion dollars, the residents are indoctrinated with hatred and Israel’s eventual destruction. Except in Jordan, which granted most citizenship, the residents of these UNRWA towns are severely restricted and denied basic human and civil rights.

Were it not for UNRWA, there would probably be no “Palestinian refugee” problem today. The problem is UNRWA’s controversial definition of “Arab refugee,” which includes anyone who claimed residence in Palestine since 1946, regardless of their origin; this date is important because it marks the high point of a massive influx of Arabs from the region into Palestine, primarily due to employment opportunities and a higher standard of living.

This category of “refugees” was different from all others in that it included not only those who applied in 1949, but all of their descendents, forever, with full rights and privileges; the total population is expected to reach seven or eight million next year, and keeps growing. This is one of the core issues preventing any resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA’s existence, therefore, perpetuates the conflict, prevents Israel’s acceptance, and breeds violence and terrorism.

Palestinianism was defined in 1964, in the PLO Covenant, when Jordan occupied “the West Bank,” a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the East Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. On behalf of the “Palestinian Arab people,” the Covenant declared their goal: a “holy war” (Jihad) to “liberate Palestine,” i.e. destroy Israel. There was no mention of Arabs living in “the West Bank” and Gaza Strip, since that would have threatened Arab rulers. Arab “refugees” were convenient proxies in the war against Israel; Palestinianism became a replacement nationalism for Zionism, a call to arms against Jews.

Solution is regional

This balancing act was no longer necessary after 1967, when Israel acquired areas that had been originally assigned to a Jewish State by the League of Nations and British Mandate – Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – and the Golan Heights, all rich in Jewish history and archeology. A year later, the PLO Covenant was amended to cover both “occupations” – in 1948 and 1967.

Dedicated to armed struggle, its goal has never changed; unable to defeat Israel militarily, however, the Arab strategy is to demonize and delegitimize, creating yet another Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan. In order to accomplish this, it concocted a narrative, an identity and ethos to compete with Zionism and Jewish history: Palestinianism.

Presented in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter (1988), the purpose of Palestinianism is to “liberate Palestine” and destroy Israel; neither reflect any redeeming social or cultural values.

“Palestinianism” lacks the basic requirements of legitimate national identity: a separate, unique linguistic, cultural, ethnic, or religious basis; it is nothing more than a political-military construct, currently led by Fatah and Hamas terrorist organizations. However, it became legitimized by the UN.

Despite mega-terrorist attacks and, backed by the Arab League, Muslim and “non-aligned” countries, the PLO was accepted by the United Nations in 1974. The following year, the UN passed its infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution, sanctioning Israel’s demonization, and setting the UN on a course of Israel’s destruction.

The myth of Palestinianism worked because the media accepted Arab and PLO claims and their cause. Nearly all media, for example, use the term “Palestinian,” or “Israeli-occupied West Bank,” reinforcing Palestinian claims, rather than the authentic designation which appears on earlier maps, Judea and Samaria, referring to its Jewish history. The term “West Bank” is a political, not geographic statement.

By the early 1990s, some Israeli politicians, Left-dominated media, academia, cultural elite and some jurists accepted “Palestinianism as a way of expressing their opposition to “settlements,” and hoping for some sort of mutual recognition with the PLO. Their efforts culminated in the Oslo Accords (1993), which gave official Israeli sanction to Palestinianism.

Anti-Israel academics around the world promote “Palestinian” archeology, society and culture as a brand name, and a political message. Advertising works; every time someone uses the term “Palestinian,” it acknowledges and reinforces this myth. Palestinianism, however, regardless of its lack of historical, cultural and societal roots, is now well-established as a political identity that demands sovereign rights and a territorial base. The question seems to be not if, but where.

The solution is regional. Arab Palestinians are entitled to civil and human rights in their host countries where they have lived for generations. A second Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine in 1922 – whose population is two-thirds “Palestinian” – will not resolve any core issue at the heart of the conflict. The conflict is not territorial, but existential; recognition of a Jewish state is anathema. That explains why Palestinian Arab leaders refuse to accept it in any form.

The problem, for Palestinianism, is not “the occupation” in 1967, but Israel’s existence; seen as an exclusively Arab homeland, Palestine is an integral part of the Arab world, completely under Arab sovereignty. This is axiomatic; there are no exceptions and no compromises.

Promoted in media, mosques and schools, anti-Jewish incitement, denial of the Holocaust and Jewish history, and rejection of the right of Jewish national self-determination, by definition, Palestinianism is the greatest obstacle to peace.

The author is a writer and journalist living in Israel

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3953601,00.html

The primary theme of Rosh Hashana is repentence. On Rosh Hashanah, we relate to God as the Ultimate Judge. The Book of Life is opened before the Divine Being and we become advocates for our personal inscription into this book. We review the choices we have made over the past year, our actions and our intentions, as we attempt to honestly evaluate ourselves. Ultimately we hope our names are inscribed in the Book of Life, an image that speaks clearly of securing our destinies in a positive way for the coming year.

Rosh Hashana was first held on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri (our October) which began the civil year of the Jews and still is to this day. It corresponded to our New Year’s Day, and on it, from morning to evening, horns and trumpets were blown, intended to symbolically awaken the listeners from their “slumbers” and alert them to the coming judgment. Read Leviticus 23:22-32 to find the first Rosh Hashanah mentioned in the Bible. Rosh Hashana is the first of the High Holy days or Yamim Noraim (“Days of Awe”), or Asseret Yemei Teshuva (Ten Days of Repentance) which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

The traditional Hebrew greeting on Rosh Hashanah is שנה טובה shana tova [ʃaˈna toˈva] for “[a] good year”, or shana tova umetukah for “[a] good and sweet year.” Because Jews and the world are being judged by God for the coming year, a longer greeting translates as “may you be written and sealed for a good year” (ketiva ve-chatima tovah). It is customary that during the afternoon of the first day (second day if the first coincides with Shabbat) the practice of tashlikh is observed, in which prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one’s sins are symbolically cast into the water. Many also have the custom to throw bread or pebbles into the water, to symbolize the “casting off” of sins.

Rosh Hashanah meals usually include apples and honey, to symbolize a sweet new year. Various other foods with a symbolic meaning may be served, depending on local minhag (“custom”), such as cooked tongue or other meat from the head of an animal or fish (to symbolize the “head” of the year). May we explore the heritage of our Christianity by learning from Bible history.

Empowering you as a friend of Israel,
Rev. Lisa Marie Ives

Artificial peace messages

Op-ed: Israeli desire for peace genuine, no need for
clumsy advertising campaign funded by US

Gerald Steinberg

After failing for 18 months to reverse the results of the 2009 Israeli election that brought a coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu to power, the Obama administration appeared to have stopped the clumsy efforts to manipulate Israeli democracy. But now the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is using a small opposition group to sell artificial peace messages to Israelis.

This US-sponsored campaign is based on political advertisements with the message “that there is a (Palestinian) partner, that the problem is specifically with us.” The texts are prepared by a group calling itself the “Geneva Initiative,” and include video clips of Palestinian officials telling Israelis that there is a “window of opportunity” for reaching a peace agreement. USAID is also funding a parallel campaign aimed at a Palestinian audience.

In December 2003, amidst the mass terror campaign that followed the Oslo “peace process,” the Geneva Initiative began to promote its peace plan, using funding provided by Swiss politicians with no understanding of the Middle East. While most of the Israelis involved were opposition figures (including Yossi Beilin), the Palestinians were all linked to the Fatah organization, which was still controlled by Arafat.

Dubbed “Oslo 2”, the substance of the proposed agreement was also problematic, including very weak security provisions and a highly ambiguous framework for dealing with Palestinian refugee claims. As a result of the terms and the catastrophic experience with Oslo, this initiative had no traction. Nevertheless, the efforts to sell the framework have continued, but foreign government funding has not contributed to public acceptance.

Similarly, the USAID campaign is particularly ill-advised, and is likely to lead to results which are the opposite of the intended objectives. The Israeli desire for peace after 62 years of conflict and rejectionism is genuine, and there is no need for a clumsy advertising campaign. After Sadat accepted Begin’s invitation to visit Israel in November 1977, the US did not need staged video clips in order sell peace with Egypt to the Israeli public.

Peace requires halt to demonization
Instead, Israelis need to see an end to the Palestinian media incitement against Israel and the denial of the legitimacy of Jewish national self-determination. In addition, peace requires a halt to demonization through apartheid rhetoric, discriminatory boycotts, and calls for the UN and the International Criminal Court to open “war crimes” cases against Israeli officials. A few staged Palestinian pronouncements on peace made in English and funded by the US will not erase this behavior.

Indeed, the impact of the USAID-funded advertising is likely to be counterproductive, and add to Israeli doubts and concerns. Polls show that the Israeli public is tired of the political manipulation that, until now, has been engineered primarily by European governments, under the guise of “civil society” and non-governmental organizations. Most of these efforts are highly guarded secrets, with no information on the processes by which a few marginal figures get large amounts of money to oppose the policies of the elected Israeli government. Such direct interference by one democratic country in the internal affairs of other democracies is also a blatant violation of international norms – but these rules are ignored when it comes to Israel.

Following the negative European precedent, the USAID website makes no mention of this political campaign. The absence of full public disclosure or Congressional oversight for this unusual venture is also exceptional. To their credit, the leaders of the Geneva Initiative acknowledged that “The campaign is supported with the generous support of the American people through USAID.”

But in other ways, the behavior of the Geneva Initiative highlights the problem of secret foreign manipulation. They are funded via an organization known as H.L. Education for Peace, which is not registered with the Israeli government’s Non-profit Registrar. In this way, the NGO evades reporting requirements regarding the large-scale support received from the European Union, Switzerland and other governments.

The issues of political manipulation and secret funding processes used by foreign governments are at the core of the draft legislation recently approved by the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. The “Disclosure Requirements for (Groups) Supported by Foreign Government Funding” bill will require groups that receive such funding for a specific advertising campaign to acknowledge that support within the framework of the campaign. (The New Israel Fund and allied NGOs have wrongly denounced this clause as anti-democratic, a position that protects the partisan NGO recipients and leaves the Israeli public in the dark.)

If there is a real prospect for a workable peace agreement, Israelis do not need to be persuaded by secret funding for false advertising – including the absurd claim that 62 years of war, terror and rejection is “our fault.” These difficult decisions need to be based on detailed debate within the context of Israeli democracy. If Israelis are convinced that this time, there is a real basis for peace, and the benefits outweigh the risks, they will act accordingly. And if the incitement and terror continue, more NGO advertising will make no difference.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, Political Science, Bar Ilan University and president, NGO Monitor

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3947082,00.html

THURSDAY, 2ND SEPTEMBER 2010

Melanie Phillips

Obama has called it senseless slaughter.

On the contrary, the cold-blooded murder of four Israeli civilians near Hebron was not senseless at all. Just look at the reaction in influential parts of the western media, in which the dead have effectively been blamed because they were ‘settlers’ and thus are deemed to have brought the atrocity upon themselves.

Now two more Israelis in the West Bank have been shot and wounded, one seriously, in what has been described as another drive-by shooting which riddled their car with bullets.

This was the obscene reaction by Hamas supporters to the murders. They rejoice because they glory in the killing of Israeli civilians. Yet as Just Journalism observes, in the Guardian Harriet Sherwood used the atrocity to blame the settlers for being the principal obstacle to peace, while providing

no discussion of the relevance of Hamas, or any background information on its history of violence aimed at civilians as exemplified by yesterday’s killings;

while the New York Times similarly blamed the settlers for

the disruptive role

they were playing in the ‘peace process’. But the only reason they are ‘disruptive’ is because people like the New York Times and the Guardian single them out as such, vilifying them as the core of the problem between Israel and the Arabs.

This claim is of course as absurd as it is repellent. Any morally literate individual can see that it was obviously Hamas that set out to ‘disrupt’ the negotiations taking place in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians by murdering Israelis. And it is not just Hamas but Abbas’s Fatah too who are ‘disruptive’ to the peace process – to put it mildly — through their stated aim of destroying Israel as a Jewish state, and their continued incitement of their population to the hatred and mass murder of Jews.

The attacks on Israelis are not senseless, because what Hamas knows is that its murderous attacks upon Israeli civilians inevitably results in pressure by the ‘civilized’ world not on those who wage such terror campaigns but on their Israeli victims. It is not Hamas or the Palestinians who are punished by America, Britain and Europe for murdering Israelis, but Israel for either defending itself against them or refusing to make more suicidal ‘concessions’ which expose yet more of its civilians to murderous attack. The more Israelis are murdered, the more Palestinian children are incited to hate and murder Jews, the more vehemently America, Britain and Europe insist that Israel should weaken all its defenses — because their attackers have the ‘right’ to a state of their own. As Barry Rubin writes:

And how can Obama say the U.S. government is going to ‘push back’ [against such acts of terrorism] since only a few weeks ago he handed a huge victory to the organizer of this attack, Hamas, by pressuring Israel into reducing sanctions on the Gaza Strip while himself granting about $300 million to pay salaries (through the PA) to civil servants in Gaza who implement Hamas’s policies?

The U.S. government also forgot its former policy of making things tough in the Gaza Strip so that the ‘moderation’ of the West Bank looked better and more beneficial. Now the idea is to promote prosperity in the Gaza Strip so that for some reason–I can’t imagine why–the populace will turn against Hamas.

But here are scenes of Hamas supporters celebrating the attack. They have nothing to worry about, since they know that Western governments and other international forces will block Israeli retaliation against the terrorist group, while now there are no restrictions on non-military goods coming into the Gaza Strip. And if Hamas stages ten more attacks or twenty? If it fires rockets and mortars into Israel or launches cross-border attacks, is there any likelihood that the United States will ‘push back?’

The real charge against the western world is actually far graver even than this. Obama himself, along with the British and Europeans can be said to have actually helped bring about this horror — because the obsessional focus upon the settlements has allowed the Arabs to pretend that the core issue is indeed the settlers, and if only they were removed from the territories there would be peace.

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that this is a ludicrous analysis. The Arabs have been waging a war of extermination against the Jewish presence in first Palestine and then Israel from the 1920s onwards. The proof, if any were really needed, that the settlements were not the issue came when Israel evicted the settlers from Gaza – to which the reaction was not peace or nation-building towards a state of Palestine, but thousands of rockets fired from Gaza at Israel. Indeed, down through the decades each and every concession made by Israel to the Palestinians – including the offer to them of more than 90 per cent of the disputed territories in 2000 and subsequently – has resulted in a huge intensification of Palestinian violence and yet more Israelis murdered. As this week, the Jews talk peace – and the Arab reaction is to murder them.

Yet still the settlers are blamed – insanely — as the principal impediment to peace. And the more this lethal diplomatic farce continues, and the more the settlers are scapegoated for the Middle Eastern impasse, the more that impasse is guaranteed to continue. The Palestinians play upon this western derangement to camouflage their real aim – the destruction of Israel – and to ratchet up the murder rate of Israelis, knowing the west will merely shrug its shoulders because they are ‘only’ settlers and therefore untermenschen. The fact that they are murdered in cold blood counts for nothing.

This is even more hideous since it is not the first time that Jews have found themselves demonized and dehumanized in order to soften up the ‘civilized’ world for their destruction. We have all been here before.

And it is even more obscene because of the lies and indeed the racism upon which this animosity against the settlers is based. The settlements are said to be illegal: this is false. Jews are entitled to settle Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) under international treaty obligations which have never been rescinded – obligations entered into by the world in 1920 in respect of the unique claim of the Jewish people to that land. They are also entitled to be there under the terms of UN resolution 242 as long as the Arabs refuse to end their war against Israel, in line with all situations where land is taken to defend a country against a belligerent.

The settlers are said to have stolen land from the Palestinians. This is false. The land never belonged to a sovereign country of Palestine because there was none. It was ‘no man’s land’, illegally occupied for a while by Jordan. Nor was it ‘stolen’ from individual Palestinians since most of it was empty space, or bought from Arabs, or it was land originally owned and lived in by Jews.

Moreover, the demand that the settlers must leave is a racist demand, because it effectively states that no Jew can be allowed to live in a future state of Palestine. In this upside-down world of gross cognitive dissonance, it is an outstanding and eternal reproach to the ‘progressive’ western world – including, let it be said loud and clear, the Ha’aretz mob in Israel’s own media and the universities, along with idiotic or twisted Jews in the diaspora — that it thus endorses racist ethnic cleansing and demonizes anyone who dares to disagree.

The fact that the Jews are morally and historically entitled to settle in Judea and Samaria does not mean, however, that it is necessarily in their interests to do so. On the contrary. They would – and should – give up much of it tomorrow if there was a real prospect that the Arabs would genuinely abandon their war against Israel. The main reason that this is not likely to happen, however, is that, with the western world determined to blame Israeli ‘intransigence’ over the settlements as the core issue in this conflict, the Arabs can hide their genocidal aims behind western dupes and worse who are doing the Arabs’ dirty work for them.

It cannot be said too often that the overwhelming reason for the Middle East impasse is that for decades now, America, Britain and Europe have rewarded the Arabs for their terrorist violence and taken uniquely hostile action against their Israeli victims instead.

Hamas is actually committing these murders. But just as with their Nazi forbears, the connivance of other, ostensibly neutral, players in this process is crucial. In today’s pre-pogrom atmosphere against Israel in the west, the demonization and dehumanization of the settlers is a crucial element in the terrorists’ strategic calculation. With every article in the western – and Israeli – media painting the settlers as monsters while the truly monstrous terrorists are presented as injured freedom-fighters, more Israeli death warrants become sealed.

The western intelligentsia are not passive onlookers to this never-ending tragedy. They are active players in ensuring that it continues. It is high time that they were held to account for this murderous obsession.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/

Tuesday night we heard the news about four Jews attacked in a drive-by shooting a few kilometers after Hevron, on the main road, road 60, that connects Jerusalem to Beersheva. A bit later we find out who the victims were. Our dear friends Yitzhak and Talya Amis HY”D, longtime Erets Israel lovers and activists. They were driving from Jerusalem to their home in Bet Chaggai, in the southern Hebron hills. Talya was pregnant with their seventh child. With them in the car were two hitchhikers who also were murdered: Kochava Ben Meir HY”D and Avishai Shindler HY”D.

According to the news report, the Arab murderers had shot at them in a drive by shooting, riddling the car with hundreds of bullets. Kochava was a kindergarten teacher in Efrat. She leaves behind a husband and one daughter, for whom she had been waiting and praying for, for years, to get pregnant with. Avishai was newly wed, married just a few months ago to Moriah Bar Nitzan from Efrat.

Upon hearing that our friends Yitzhak and Talya had been murdered, Yehudit Katsover and I felt the need to drive out immediately to their house in Bet Haggai and try to comfort the children. Talya and Yitzhak had come on aliya from the former USSR, and build a wonderful family with their six children. Just recently they had become first time grandparents. Their youngest son, Oz David, is only 4 years old.

We met the Amis five years ago, in Gush Katif, where we had all moved to, to try and prevent its destruction. Since then we had been together at so many activities for the Land of Israel. Yitzhak and Talya built a home of love. Love for Erets Israel, love for Am Israel, love for Torat Israel. They always, but always, were seen together. To all the Erets Israel activities they came together.

Even in their last moments they were together. The first witness who arrived at the scene of the massacre was quoted at the funeral, saying that when she looked in the car, riddled with bullets, she saw Yitzhak and Talya, dead, hugging each other. Together. The ride to Bet Chaggai, which usually takes 30 minutes from Efrat, took a long time. The road was still packed with army and police searching for the murderers. Just a few weeks ago the government had once again made “confidence building gestures” for the Arabs and had removed even more roadblocks. We warned that this was a recipe for the murder of Jews but no one listened.

We arrived at the house. What does one say to six orphans? The house was packed with friends and neighbors hugging and comforting the children. Yitzhak and Talya were longtime activists for the Temple Mount, organizing groups to go up, in holiness and according to halacha, to Har Habayit. They couldn’t bare seeing the Jews’ holiest place being desecrated by Arabs who control the Temple Mount. Yitzhak and Talya believed that we must bring thousands of Jews to the Mount, and work every day to prepare for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. In fact the morning of the murder Yitzhak had been on his weekly visit to the Temple Mount. At the house, four year old Oz David was crying saying: “My Abba is dead. Who is now going to bring me to the Temple Mount?” And he turned to Yehuda Glick, main activist for the Temple Mount and asked; “Yehuda, will you bring me?” Yehuda, with tears in his eyes, hugged him and said: “Of course I will.”

At the house, friends told us that the police, months before, had taken away the gun licence of Yitzhak. As part of his activity on the Temple mount, Yitzhak had been arrested a few times for the “crime” of praying on the Mount (as you know, Jews are not allowed to utter prayers on the Temple Mount and if they do, they get arrested). Yitzhak had been arrested a few times accused of praying and thus had a few police files piled up. Because of these files, they took away his gun licence and thus prevented him from defending himself on the day the Arab terrorists murdered him, probably using guns they had received from Israel as part of the criminal Oslo agreements.

After Bet Chaggai we returned to Efrat, looking to comfort Moriah, may she have a long life, whose husband Avishai HY”D had been murdered too. Moriah’s parents, Rabbi David and Zehavit Bar Nitzan from Efrat are also long time Erets Israel activists. Moriah had served her sherut leumi (national service) in Bet Haggai, fell in love with the place and the people, and it was only natural that after the wedding she and Avishai established their home there.

The next day, Wednesday, were the funerals. Three funerals. Seven orphans. The funeral, attended by thousands of mourners, started at Bet Chaggai where hespeidim (eulogies) were said to the victims. After that we all drove in a car convoy to the different cemeteries. Yitzhak and Talya were going to be buried on Har Hazeitim, facing the Temple Mount they so much cherished and worked for. On the way to the cemetary, hundreds of residents of nearby communities, Karmei Tsur, Gush Etzion, Efrat, Elazar, Neve Daniel, had come to the main road, holding Israeli flags, giving their respect and love to the victims.

Among the speakers at the funeral were; Rabbi Dov Lior, Knesset head MK Ruby Rivlin, Rabbi Israel Ariel, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, MK head of the coalition Zeev Elkin, the rabbi of Bet Chaggai, family and friends of the victims and MK Ayoub Karra who, despite his being Druze and not Jewish, gave the most passionate speech of all. MK Karra said that as a descendant of Yitro, he turns to us and urges the Jewish leaders to stop being so naive.  The Arabs do not want peace. All they are interested in is the destruction of the State of Israel and of the Jewish People. The only way the Jewish People will be able to survive is by being strong and not capitulating.

At the funeral there was a lot of crying. A lot of sadness. Anger. But also a lot of strength and determination.
Let our enemies not be fooled.  As all speakers said, and as we all felt: Murdering our friends will not break us. On the contrary, it only strengthens us in our determination to safeguard our homeland and to fight for Erets Israel. We know that Erets Israel is bought with painful sacrifices. For each sacrifice, we will be strengthened and determined
even more.
The message is clear: 

This land is ours and only ours! We continue, now more than ever, to hold on to Erets Israel, to build, plant, expand and settle it. For every victim of Arab terror we will build more and plant more. In different communities they indeed, in reaction to the murder, started building already last night.  Amazingly, while we all were at the funeral, the Civil Administration was busy hanging expulsion orders against trees we had planted the night before in Netzer, in reaction to the murder.

The Civil Administration is that part of the army that is supposed to watch and safeguard the state lands in Judea and Samaria. Unfortunately though, over the past years, the Civil administration has become a pro-Arab and anti-Jewish body that somehow never see any of the tens of thousands of illegal homes the Arabs built, nor the tens of thousands of trees they plant on our lands in order to steal our lands and strangle the communities. But when Jews plant 30 trees, on Jewish state land, in order to prevent Arabs from stealing that land, the Civil Administration acts immediately and efficiently. Even during funerals.

As you know, we have started a campaign this past summer of redeeming land through plantings. In the summer we held an agricultural youth camp in which 60 youth participated and redeemed some 20 dunams of land in Netzer, in the heart of Gush Etzion.  On our way back from the funeral we went to Netzer to check on the plot we had redeemed, to make sure the trees we had planted the night before were ok. To our utter shock and disbelief, we saw that expulsion orders had been put up! Yes, you read correctly…expulsion orders against trees planted on state land. According to the papers telling us that we have 45 days to remove the trees or else they will do so, the Civil administration had put up those signs that morning at 12:00 noon, exactly the time of the eulogies. Pictures of the order can be seen by
clicking on the Hebrew Arutz 7 article:  http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/208765

The Civil administration obviously had not heard the speeches by the members of Knesset who all clearly stated that we must strengthen ourselves now through building and planting in Erets Israel.  Upon seeing the orders, we called a few additional activists to come  immediately and finish off the work at the site.  Planting trees is done in different stages. First you clear the ground with a tractor, then dig holes, plant, connect the water pipes and then protect the saplings with cardboard so that animals won’t eat them. We had planted the trees the night before but we still needed to put up the protective cardboards.

We decided there and then to name that piece of land “Netzer Yitzhak and Talya ” in memory of Yitzhak Amis HY”D and the other victims we had just buried. For not only were Yitzhak and Talya active for the Temple Mount, they also were with us in all our activities in Netzer, Shdema, and Adurayim. 

This coming Tuesday, at the end of the shiva (the seven day of mourning) we will, please G-d, redeem more lands in memory of the four Kedoshim who were murdered. We will plant tens of trees and show the authorities that the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. We urge you to join us.

In addition, on Monday September 13, a few days before Yom Kippur, we will, please G-d, have a very special and moving evening for women in the Machpela Visitors Center in Hevron at the foot of the Machpela Cave. An evening of Emunah (faith), Neshama (soul) and Erets Israel. We will show all that no Arab terror attack around Hevron will deter us. We are connected, forever, to our roots. To our forefathers and mothers.  Hevron is where it all began. Hevron and Jerusalem are twin sisters.

The struggle to safeguard Hevron and Judea is the struggle for the survival of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. To our political leaders who are now in Washington we say: Draw your strength from quiet and humble proud Jewish heroes like Yitzhak and Talya Amis HY”D. Stop talking to Jew-haters and murderers.  There is nothing to talk about. Come home and start avenging the blood of those who were murdered, by building four new communities in their memory, in Judea and Samaria.

As these lines are being typed, we received the news of an additional drive-by shooting by Arabs against Jews, this time in Binyamin.  We, the People of Israel in general and in Judea and Samaria in particular, are strong.  Now we must make sure our leaders will be strong too.

Hashem will give strength unto His people; Hashem will bless his people
with peace. (Tehillim chapter 29)
Nadia Matar
http://www.womeningreen.org

Palestinian Authority Referred to the terror attack as a “military operation” .
By *Dr. Michael Widlanski Thu Sep 1 2010

Dr. Michael Widlanski is a specialist in Arab politics and communication whose doctorate dealt with the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a *former reporter, correspondent and editor, respectively, at The New York Times, The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta Constitution, and The Jerusalem Post. He has also served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem.

As Israeli-Palestinian talks get started in Washington after last night’s terrorist murder of four Israelis near Hebron south of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority referred to the attack as a “military operation” in its English language web site.

(http://english.wafa.ps/?action=detail&id=14713 ) and in its Arabic web sites and programs.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Palestinian leaders “condemned” what it called “the operation” because the PLO and the Palestinian Authority opposed “any acts against Palestinian or Israeli civilians.” Attached article. Attached article.

In essence, Palestinian leaders issued a limited and conditional warranty on the so-called peace process by issuing a limited official news report that was billed as a condemnation, when it really was not a condemnation.

The reports by the official PLO News Agency WAFA in Arabic and English, were more interesting for what they did NOT include:

· Neither the comments by Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad in Ramallah nor the comments by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Washington (TWO SENTENCES ALTOGETHER AND WITHOUT A SINGLE QUOTE) called the terror attack “terror” or “an attack,” preferring to use the term “operation” (amaliyya ) and not “terror” (irhaab in Arabic) or “attack” (muhajama ).

· Neither statement condemned the perpetrators-the radical Islamic movement, Hamas-by name or as terrorists, but only said that the “operation” was “against Palestinian interests.”

· Neither man was quoted at length directly, as the news agency reported their comments as indirect summaries of their views.

Meanwhile, the Voice of Palestine radio station controlled by Abbas and Fayyad repeatedly referred to the four Israeli murder victims as “settlers from settlements built on Arab land.”

Chairman Abbas, who is considered a “moderate,” is very hesitant to condemn Hamas directly for shooting at Israelis, and five years ago made public statement in which he called on Hamas to unite with his Fatah organization, saying, “let our rifles, all our rifles be aimed at the occupation (i.e. Israel)”.

Abbas is in Washington, where he is meeting President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

 

Cal Thomas: More peace talks? No thanks

By: Cal Thomas
Examiner Columnist
August 24, 2010

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Never has George Santayana’s oft-quoted warning had greater significance than when it comes to Middle East “peace talks,” including the latest round scheduled to begin Sept. 2 in Washington, D.C. In constantly pressuring Israel to go far beyond the multiple and unreciprocated concessions it has already made, the United States ensures repetition of past mistakes, which will produce the same outcome.

Some history and the results for those who would learn:

- The Balfour Declaration (1917) and the Palestine Mandate (1922). These called for the formation of a Jewish homeland while recognizing “nothing shall be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The Arab response: A series of riots, largely instigated by Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni.

- The Peel Commission (1936-37) was formed to investigate the cause of the Arab Revolt (1936-39). The commission recommended the partition of Jews and Arabs.

The Zionist Congress accepts the proposal as the basis of negotiation. The Arab response: Outright rejection and a continuation of the revolt.

- U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine (1947) proposed a two-state solution and a divided Jerusalem supervised by the United Nations. The Arab response: Outright rejection, followed by violence.

When Israel declared its independence on May 15, 1948, armies of the neighboring Arab states invaded. According to the secretary general of the Arab League at the time, Azzam Pasha, the goal was “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

- Oslo Accords (1993). Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians lead to a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. The response, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The killing continues.

By one estimate, nearly 300 people were killed by Palestinian terrorism between 1993 and 2000.

- The Camp David offer (2000). Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat most of what he asks for. The response: rejection and a second intifada, which, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, killed more than 500 and injured more than 8,000.

There were other “peace talks” and initiatives, among them the Madrid Peace Conference (1991), the Wye River Memorandum (1995), Oslo II (1995), Taba (2001), Road Map for Peace (2003), and the Geneva Accord (2003). Some of these led to Israeli withdrawal from land it had occupied for security purposes, amid continued threats and terrorism, following the 1967 Six-Day War. These withdrawals predictably led to more terror attacks from Arab regions.

To Israel’s enemies, talks and agreements are incremental steps toward their ultimate goal of annihilating the Jewish state. Two examples: According to the Endowment for Middle East Truth, 16 years after Oslo, in 2009, the official platform of the terrorist organization Fatah continues to affirm “armed struggle” against Israel. And the Palestinian Authority continues to practice incitement against Israel through student textbooks, television programs, sermons, editorials and the naming of public streets and buildings after terrorist “martyrs.”

At the upcoming talks in Washington, the issues likely will be the same as they were at Camp David in 2000:

- Jerusalem.

- The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for “refugees” and their descendants to places in Israel from which the original “refugees” claim to have come.” This would overwhelm Israel, which is the point of the demand.

- Territorial compromise (again).

- Agreement on the legitimacy of Israel’s sovereignty in the region, producing an end to the war and termination of future claims, which Hamas and Hezbollah have promised never to accept.

If the all too familiar scenario plays out, Israel will give up more land; the Palestinians will make more promises, which, like the others, they will break and more riots and terrorism will follow under the pretext that Israel has not ceded enough. After the maximum propaganda value has been extracted, the Palestinians will agree to more talks and the scenario will be replayed.

To top it off, the Obama administration has assured Israel that Iran is not an “imminent” nuclear threat. This claim has been made before and then withdrawn. Why should it have credence now?

The United States and the West have learned nothing from history and, thus, are doomed to repeat it.

Examiner Columnist Cal Thomas is nationally syndicated by Tribune Media

Skip the lecture on Israel’s ‘risks for peace’

By George F. Will

Thursday, August 19, 2010

JERUSALEM

In the intifada that began in 2000, Palestinian terrorism killed more than 1,000 Israelis. As a portion of U.S. population, that would be 42,000, approaching the toll of America’s eight years in Vietnam. During the onslaught, which began 10 Septembers ago, Israeli parents sending two children to a school would put them on separate buses to decrease the chance that neither would return for dinner. Surely most Americans can imagine, even if their tone-deaf leaders cannot, how grating it is when those leaders lecture Israel on the need to take “risks for peace.”

During Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s July visit to Washington, Barack Obama praised him as “willing to take risks for peace.” There was a time when that meant swapping “land for peace” — Israel sacrificing something tangible and irrecoverable, strategic depth, in exchange for something intangible and perishable, promises of diplomatic normality.

Strategic depth matters in a nation where almost everyone is or has been a soldier, so society cannot function for long with the nation fully mobilized. Also, before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel within the borders established by the 1949 armistice was in one place just nine miles wide, a fact that moved George W. Bush to say: In Texas we have driveways that long. Israel exchanged a lot of land to achieve a chilly peace with Egypt, yielding the Sinai, which is almost three times larger than Israel and was 89 percent of the land captured in the process of repelling the 1967 aggression.

The intifada was launched by the late Yasser Arafat — terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — after the July 2000 Camp David meeting, during which then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to cede control of all of Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank, with small swaps of land to accommodate the growth of Jerusalem suburbs just across the 1949 armistice line.

Israelis are famously fractious, but the intifada produced among them a consensus that the most any government of theirs could offer without forfeiting domestic support is less than any Palestinian interlocutor would demand. Furthermore, the intifada was part of a pattern. As in 1936 and 1947, talk about partition prompted Arab violence.

In 1936, when the British administered Palestine, the Peel Commission concluded that there was “an irrepressible conflict” — a phrase coined by an American historian to describe the U.S. Civil War — “between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country.” And: “Neither of the two national ideals permits” a combination “in the service of a single state.” The commission recommended “a surgical operation” — partition. What followed was the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939.

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations recommended a partition plan. Israel accepted the recommendation. On Nov. 30, Israel was attacked.

Palestine has a seemingly limitless capacity for eliciting nonsense from afar, as it did recently when British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to Gaza as a “prison camp.” In a sense it is, but not in the sense Cameron intended. His implication was that Israel is the cruel imprisoner. Gaza’s actual misfortune is to be under the iron fist of Hamas, a terrorist organization.

In May, a flotilla launched from Turkey approached Gaza in order to provoke a confrontation with Israel, which, like Egypt, administers a blockade to prevent arms from reaching Hamas. The flotilla’s pretense was humanitarian relief for Gaza — where the infant mortality rate is lower and life expectancy is higher than in Turkey.

Israelis younger than 50 have no memory of their nation within the 1967 borders set by the 1949 armistice that ended the War of Independence. The rest of the world seems to have no memory at all concerning the intersecting histories of Palestine and the Jewish people.

The creation of Israel did not involve the destruction of a Palestinian state, there having been no such state since the Romans arrived. And if the Jewish percentage of the world’s population were today what it was when the Romans ruled Palestine, there would be 200 million Jews. After a uniquely hazardous passage through two millennia without a homeland, there are 13 million Jews.

In the 62 years since this homeland was founded on one-sixth of 1 percent of the land of what is carelessly and inaccurately called “the Arab world,” Israelis have never known an hour of real peace. Patronizing American lectures on the reality of risks and the desirableness of peace, which once were merely fatuous, are now obscene.

georgewill@washpost.com

In the Mideast, the peace process is only a mirage

By George F. Will

Thursday, August 26, 2010

JERUSALEM Immersion in this region’s politics can convince those immersed that history is cyclical rather than linear — that it is not one thing after another but the same thing over and over. This passes for good news because things that do change, such as weapons, often make matters worse.

A profound change, however, is this: Talk about the crisis between Israel and “the Arab world” is anachronistic. Israel has treaties with two Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan, and Israel’s most lethal enemy is Iran, which is not an Arab state. It and another non-Arab nation, Turkey, are eclipsing the Arab world, where 60 percent of the population of 300 million is under 25, and 26 percent of that cohort is unemployed. The prerequisites for Arab progress — freedom, education and the emancipation of women — are not contemplated.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a dictator buttressed by torture, recently called Israel a state “based on crime, slaughter.” Imagine what Israelis thought when, at about the time Assad was saying this, a State Department ninny visiting Syria was tweeting to the world, “I’m not kidding when I say I just had the greatest frappacino [sic] ever.”

Israel has changed what it can, its own near neighborhood. Since 1967, faced with unrelenting Palestinian irredentism, Israel has been weaving the West Bank into a common fabric with the coastal plain, the nation’s economic and population center of gravity. Withdrawal from the West Bank would bring Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport within range of short-range rockets fired by persons overlooking the runways. So, the feasibility of such a withdrawal depends on how much has changed since 1974, when Yasser Arafat received a standing ovation at the United Nations when he said Israel had no right to exist.

Thirty-six years later, Israelis can watch West Bank Palestinian television incessantly inculcating anti-Semitism and denial of Israel’s right to exist. Across the fence that has substantially reduced terrorism from the West Bank, Israelis see Ramallah, where Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, lives and where a square was recently named in honor of Dalal Mughrabi. In 1978, she, together with 11 other terrorists, hijacked an Israeli bus and massacred 37 Israelis and one American. Cigarette lighters sold on the West Bank show, when lit, the World Trade Center burning.

The Obama administration, which seems to consider itself too talented to bother with anything but “comprehensive” solutions to problems, may yet make matters worse by presenting its own plan for a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Barack Obama insists that it is “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure,” although he does not say how. Gen. David Petraeus says Israeli-Palestinian tensions “have an enormous effect on the strategic context.” As though, were the tensions to subside, the hard men managing Iran’s decades-long drive for nuclear weapons would then say, “Oh, well, in that case, let’s call the whole thing off.”

The biggest threat to peace might be the peace process — or, more precisely, the illusion that there is one. The mirage becomes the reason for maintaining its imaginary “momentum” by extorting concessions from Israel, the only party susceptible to U.S. pressure. Israel is, however, decreasingly susceptible. In one month, history will recycle when the partial 10-month moratorium on Israeli construction on the West Bank expires. Resumption of construction — even here, in the capital, which was not included in the moratorium — will be denounced by a fiction, “the international community,” as a threat to another fiction, “the peace process.”

This, even though no Israeli government of any political hue has ever endorsed a ban on construction in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, where about 40 percent of the capital’s Jewish population lives. Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon, who says “the War of Independence has not ended” 62 years after 1948, says of an extension of the moratorium: “The prime minister is opposed to it. He said that clearly. The decision was for 10 months. [On] Sept. 27, we are immediately going to return” to construction and “Jerusalem is outside the discussion.”

Predictably, Palestinian officials are demanding that the moratorium be extended as the price of their willingness to continue direct talks with Israel — which begin Sept. 2 — beyond Sept. 27. If this demand succeeds, history will remain cyclical: The “peace process” will be sustained by rewarding the Palestinian tactic of making the mere fact of negotiations contingent on Israeli concessions concerning matters that should be settled by negotiations.

georgewill@washpost.com