The Palestinians and their leadership have spent the last 20 years converting a strong Israeli majority in favor of the peace process into one that regards the whole concept as a dangerous fantasy. Twenty years ago the Israeli left romped in an election that relegated the Likud to minority status. In next month’s Knesset elections, not even the Labor party will spend time advocating for more concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for the hope of peace. Terrorism, the second intifada, the rise of Hamas and the conversion of Gaza into a terror state have effectively destroyed the Israeli left. But rather than react to this somber shift in the mood of their neighbors with an attempt to restart peace talks or to convince them that their goal is to end the conflict rather than to merely continue it on more advantageous terms, the Palestinians are planning on doubling down on their negative image.
As the Associated Press reports, the Palestinian Authority is planning on responding to the expected re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a wide range of activities designed to deepen rather than to ameliorate the antagonism and the cynicism with which the majority of Israelis view them. The PA plans to use its enhanced status at the UN to pursue specious charges of war crimes against Israelis in the International Criminal Court and advocating for sanctions and boycotts against the Jewish state. Worse than that, they are threatening not just to organize mass protests and confrontations with Israelis in the West Bank but to end all security cooperation between their armed forces and those of Israel, a measure that has helped keep relative peace in the region. While PA leader Mahmoud Abbas thinks this is a clever tactic designed to force President Obama to pressure Israel into giving in to more of his demands, the result will be nothing less than a third intifada that may help further isolate Israel but which will devastate the Palestinian economy and effectively end all hope for Israeli support for a two-state solution.
The Palestinians claim they have no choice but to resort to this strategy because the Israelis and even many of their foreign friends such as President Obama are ignoring them. But the reason why someone as sympathetic to the Palestinians and hostile to Israel’s government as Obama may have given up on the peace process is that four years of attempts to tilt the diplomatic playing field in their direction was never enough to convince the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
Palestinian harassment of Israelis at the UN and in international forums will be annoying but won’t change a thing. But their decision to go back to intifada tactics is a guarantee of bloodshed. They may claim their protests will be peaceful, but rock throwing inevitably escalates to more violent tactics. It is also a given that Hamas and terrorist elements of Abbas’s Fatah that are tasked with competing with the Islamists in that category will be using the protests as cover for attacks. If the PA ends security cooperation, it will end the same way the second intifada did with PA “police” joining the terrorists in shooting at Israelis.
This will kill what little support remains inside Israel for compromise with the PA. But Abbas is not wrong to believe that it will make the Palestinians more rather than less popular in Europe, where any form of Israeli self-defense will be depicted as immoral no matter what the circumstances might be. A rising tide of anti-Semitism on the continent has made Israel particularly unpopular there. But while heightening Israel’s isolation may seem like a smart thing to do in Ramallah, it won’t do a thing to give the Palestinians a better life or to get them closer to peace or independence.
The only thing that will do that is for Abbas to do the one thing he has refused to do since he fled the talks with Netanyahu’s predecessor when he was offered a state. The best alternative to the status quo isn’t an intifada that will send the conflict into another death spiral of violence and futility. It is negotiations for a two-state solution that no Israeli government could spurn. By choosing to avoid that obvious path to peace, the Palestinians are burning their last bridges to the Israeli people. They shouldn’t expect the United States, even during a second Obama administration to dig them out of the hole they are placing themselves in.
" But while heightening Israel’s isolation may seem like a smart thing to do in Ramallah, it won’t do a thing to give the Palestinians a better life or to get them closer to peace or independence" n nWhat do you think moslems want? n nPeace and Independence and a Jewsh state of Israel, or heightening Israel's isolation and provoking bloodshed?? More shahids and more dead Jews and eradicating Israel? n n"the Palestinians (will be) more rather than less popular in Europe, where any form of Israeli self-defense will be depicted as immoral no matter what the circumstances might be. A rising tide of anti-Semitism on the continent has made Israel particularly unpopular there." n nThe basis of your position is that moslems have the same values as we do! n nTHEY DO NOT n nas an afterthought n nWould Tobin please describe one example of moslems living peacefully with a non moslem neighbor after resolution of a land claim dispute? You have 57 states in the OIC so there are many examples to choose from. n n
Obama's JIHAD: n1. Former US Ambassador to the UN Bolton says Obama could have prevented UN Palestinian vote if he had wanted to (google Bolton, UN, Palestinian) n2. Obama trying to fund UNESCO (google Obama, UNESCO) n3. Georgia President said US Ambassador told him to vote for the Palestinian resolution in the UN (google Georgia, US Ambassador, UN, Palestine)
There are thousands of Synagogues, Hindu Temples and Christian Churches converted into Mosques around the world. n nHow many Mosques, Hindu Temples and Christian Churches were converted into Synagogues? NONE. n n Who is the aggressive colonist here? The Jews fighting for their only small Jewish state (smaller than New Jersey) or the Muslims with their dozens of states? n nThe same way that today the Germans apologize for the crimes of the Nazis and today the Spanish apologize for the crimes of the Inquisition, its time for the Arabs to apologize for the past CRIMES of Islam instead of being PROUD of them and return STOLEN Jewish Holy sites to the Jews
Well, one thing Uncle Abbas, the once-great-hope, never has to worry about is competing for attention. The other great hope, the hip, Western-educated Assad and his celebrity wife can slaughter another 40 K Arabs, cut them up and hang them from trees if they want, but the UN will look the other way and go ape the moment the first "innocent Palestinian civilian" stone-thrower gets a concussion from a smoke grenade. n nSuch admirable loyalty to the impossible "two-state-solution" by our dear and otherwise very smart Jonathan. But all that can happen with that still on the table is that the next kleptocrat will have learned his lesson about rushing things and revealing Arab genocidal psychopathy too openly and will talk peace instead, at least llong enough for star-eyed Jewish intellectuals and Israeli politicians to buy into it and start giving away free stuff again and and then….wham! Same-old-same-old all over again.
I have my doubts whether Tobin unlike Boot & Mandel is really a two-state final solution supporter; I think Commentary requires him to advocate it rather than write non-politically correct comments that might damage the magazine's search for respectability. Furthermore, the magazine closely echoes whatever Bibi does and says, and Bibi since the days of Wye has accepted the Two-State Solution even though he hypocritically continues to call himself a disciple of Jabotinsky.
Jonathan writes that, "The best alternative to the status quo isn’t an intifada that will send the conflict into another death spiral of violence and futility….it is negotiations for a two-state solution…" n nGood Heavens! Not that nonsense again, Jon! There is no alternative to the status quo that doesn't end up either with dead Jews or a mortally crippled Israel. It's also too early for a polite reminder that Jordan is "Palestine" and it's time to go home. So, hold the course on the status quo, I say and don't give the beggars a square inch. The EU is a basket case with no teeth, so keep on building and expanding Israeli communities and wait out the Obamamessiah's inglorious exit and the inevitable UN whining until the Muslim world collapses in economic ruin and fratricidal madness.
these are people who believe that Israel is trying to "Judaize" Jerusalem, which is equivalent to saying that someone is trying to "Islamize" Mecca. they are completely delusional, and the world seems to be happy to go along with their delusions.
I like that. Let the UN declare Mecca an international common treasure and open it up to the curious of all faiths. A rallying cry for our times: "Stop the Islamization of Mecca!"
I posted this Friday, and it disappeared: n n"But while heightening Israel’s isolation may seem like a smart thing to do in Ramallah, it won’t do a thing to give the Palestinians a better life or to get them closer to peace or independence. " n nJeez Louise, Jonathan. Did you really type those words? n nAfter all the time and all the rivers of blood, do you really believe the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians', and whose identity was forged as the anti-Israel, the bizzarro-Israel, to steal and usurp the history and patrimony of the Jews while denying the Jews not only their right to their land but even their right to life in a muslim world, are interested in 'a better life, peace, and independence'? n nAnd if you really do believe that, what would they have to do to convince you that they are not interested in those things, that they have not done yet? n nI don't mean to be rude, but really, what are you thinking? What is the end game you see in your mind? If it is decades or even centuries of 'management' of the 'peace process', say so. If it is something else, tell us. Please! n
Yes as others note. We're at the stage where anyone remotely sympathetic to Israel has simply given up. We no longer worry or pay much attention to what the PLO or Hamas or any of the others rant and rave and threaten. Every single word uttered by them is a lie. Every one. They want a holocaust. That's all they want. That's all they've ever wanted and they will bang their heads on a wall until they get it. In a hundred years they will be no further along. In 200, in 500. It doesn't matter. All they want is dead Jews. Period. Full stop. There is not point in bothering with anything they say. Ever.
Exactly. n nEvery. Word. They. Say. Is. A. Lie. n nToo bad the punditocracy, which knows this to be true, censors themselves. n nTo hear Jonathan and Seth and Max talking about the 'two state solution' is to throw up a bit. n nI feel sorry for them their lack of freedom to speak the truth.
May I remind Your Imperial Majesty of George Orwell's statement that there are times when the first duty of an honest man is to simply restate the obvious? Which, to me, implies the duty no to simply ignore them but rather to respond to their lies by exposing them as such.