| |
In early 2024, Israel’s cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved a declaration rejecting “international diktats” seeking to push Palestinian statehood, in the wake of reports that the US and several Arab partners were preparing a detailed plan for a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians that includes a “firm timeline” for a Palestinian state.
Such interference by countries not directly involved in Israel’s ongoing struggle with violent Mid-eastern terrorists is neither desired nor helpful.
Israel speedily rejected the unwanted proposal.
Continuing it’s unhelpful meddling, a US State Department spokesperson told The Times of Israel that “the best way to achieve an enduring end to the crisis in Gaza that provides lasting peace and security, for Israelis and Palestinian’s alike, is our strong commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state.
“As such, the United States continues to support the two-state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.”
The Israeli cabinet statement echoed comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in response to a Washington Post report on the matter.
The Washington Post reported that the timing for announcing the blueprint was largely dependent on Israel and Hamas being able to reach a deal pausing the fighting in Gaza. The ongoing war was sparked by the terror group’s October 7 massacre, which saw thousands of terrorists break through the border, kill some 1,200 people and kidnap over 250 others, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality including sexual assault.
While Israel recognizes that Mid-East peace will come through cooperation with American and other international actors, it rejects and “one-sided actions” by members of the international community. Israel had to retain the authority to make/endorse any solution that involved the safety and security of the nation and its citizens.
Israeli War Minister Benny Bantz said that the pathway to regional stability and peace was not through one-sided actions like recognition of a Palestinian state. It was through facilitating long-term processes that would consolidate a regional architecture facing the Iranian axis of terror, and by advancing international arrangements that would improve the lives of people throughout the region and promote stability and peace.
Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a member of Gantz’s National Unity party, was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying that the reported US proposal to place a “firm timeline” on the creation of a Palestinian state “would be like the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia in 1938,” referring to the 1938 Munich Agreement and Europe’s failed strategy of appeasing the Nazis in a bid to avoid conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken out against the creation of a Palestinian state and others have also pushed back against comments from Washington and elsewhere suggesting that talks on ending fighting in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s brutal rampage through southern Israel on October 7 be used to jumpstart long-moribund efforts to reach a two-state solution.
While some international actors believe the violence only underlines the need for a peace deal, Israeli leaders argue the attack highlighted the extreme danger of an autonomous Palestinian entity near its population centers. And amid soaring support for Hamas among “Palestinians” in the wake of the atrocities, there is little justification for peace efforts at this time.[1]
President Biden has turned out to be no friend of Israel. His persistent call for a cease fire in Gaza to protect "innocent" civilians encourages Hamas to prolong the fighting in the hope that they will not be eliminated by Israel. Hamas can keep holding Israeli hostages as human bargaining chips in the hope that a cease fire will allow Hamas to survive the Israeli onslaught. President Biden needs to keep his mouth shut about a cease fire and let Israel proceed as rapidly as possible to destroy Hamas.
Following indications by the likes of the United Kingdom and France that they could formally recognize a Palestinian state without Israel’s approval, the Israeli government issued a statement in response:
Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding a final status agreement with the Palestinians. The agreement, in so far as it will be reached, will be solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Rightly, Israel is the one party that must decide on when to end the war with Hamas and what arrangements to make regarding the Gaza strip! The largely anti-Israel community of nations need to butt out of the arrangements!
The Israeli statement continued by stating that Israel would continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would give a huge reward to unprecedented terrorism and prevent any future peace agreement.
Israel’s message was explicit and correct: It will not stand back and allow the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians to be rewarded with what effectively amounts to legitimacy.
What Israel’s statement about unilateral recognition did not do, was oppose Palestinian statehood in general. That is, Israel did not outright reject the idea that a Palestinian state could be formed as part of a larger peace agreement. But that is up to Israel and secondarily, the “Palestinians”, not some meddling and biased other parties.
Meanwhile, the Irish Times, the Financial Times and Voice of America all produced vague headlines that claimed Israel is opposed to a Palestinian state as part of any resolution after the war against Hamas in Gaza, without noting that its objection was to unilateral recognition.
The fact is, Israel has shown time and time again that is willing to negotiate with Palestinians and is not opposed to the actualization of a Palestinian state.
Indeed, one only needs to look at the many occasions over the years in which Israel has come to the negotiating table offering the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state — only for the Palestinians to, invariably with violence, reject its creation.
From the UN partition plan to the Camp David proposals, Israel’s willingness to see Palestinian statehood is etched in the history books.
For the media to suggest otherwise is just historical revisionism. [2]
The plan presented by US President Joe Biden in February 2024 for ending the war with Hamas is Fantasy. He and other professed advocates of peace are not friends of Israel. Their interference will only prolong the death and destruction. Israel needs to continue as swiftly as possible with the elimination of Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations in the region.
Hamas believes time is on their side. A cease fire provides Hamas with the pause in fighting that it needs to survive. The more time passes, the more favorable the offers become for them. A cease fire agreement before Hamas is destroyed would be a surrender agreement because Israel would not have not achieved its goals in the war. For Hamas, this would be a gain. As for the rest of Biden’s dreams, we need to remember that the Palestinian Authority educates for terrorism and jihad - that’s what interests them. [3]
President Biden has been schizophrenic in his dealings with Israel and with Prime Minister Netanyahu. On one hand, he has appeared to be supportive of Israel, while on the other hand, he has called for Israel to halt its efforts to destroy Hamas once and for all.
It appears that the Biden regime, despite its show of support for Israel, is really on the side of Hamas. The Biden administration seems to be in serious talks to respond to Hamas’ brutal and inhuman murder of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 by giving it the biggest reward of all: a Palestinian state.
If you are skeptical that Old Joe and his henchmen are really on Hamas’ side, consider the fact that, in November, they enabled the release of ten billion dollars in frozen funds to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas’ primary financier.
That followed $100 million in “humanitarian aid” to Gaza and the West Bank on Oct. 18, less than two weeks after the massacre. Biden huffed and puffed about how that $100 million better not end up in the hands of Hamas, but really, who else was there in Gaza who could receive it and keep it from the jihad terror group? Hamas-linked UNRWA?
The Washington Post reported in February of 2024 that “Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Palestinian representatives, in addition to the United States” were “rushing to complete a detailed, comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and Palestinians, including a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, that could be announced as early as the next several weeks.”
As you may notice, the one concerned party that would suffer most from any such agreement if such a state were established was conspicuously absent from these negotiations. Thar party is Israel!
And given the Hamas oft-stated imperative to destroy Israel completely, which senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad has restated after Oct. 7, a Palestinian state would almost certainly become a new jihad base for renewed attacks against Israel, as Gaza did after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2005 (which, like the eternal goal of the Palestinian state, was also touted as a move that would finally bring peace). A standing condition for the Palestinians has been that they accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, which no Palestinian organization or leader has ever been willing to do.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently decided, without a scintilla of evidence, that this condition had already been fulfilled, as he spoke in Qatar about the steps that needed to be taken in order to embark upon a “practical, timebound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with Israel.” Where is there a single “Palestinian” leader or political group that has ever expressed any willingness to live side-by-side in peace with Israel? Instead of pressuring the “Palestinians”, the Biden regime has been focusing on efforts to “convince the Arab world that this time will be different.” This is a total inversion of reality.
The Biden regime has completely forgotten, or is more likely deliberately ignoring, the fact that the Palestinian-Arabs were the aggressors who sparked this conflict.
Historically, a defeated aggressor was not rewarded. Would the Biden regime, if it had been in power in 1945, have worked on a plan to expand the domains of Nazi Germany? Based upon its recent actions, the possibility that President Biden and his administration would have done just that cannot be dismissed out of hand.[4]
On 22 February 2024, Netanyahu formally presented for the first time his “day after” Hamas plan, which reiterates his oft-stated goal of completely eradicating the Palestinian terror group and emphasizes ongoing Israeli security control west of the Jordan River, including in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
In the short term, the plan emphasizes the need to completely eliminate the military and governing capabilities of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, free the remaining 134 Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza and ensure that the Strip never again constitutes a security threat to the Jewish state.
To this end, Netanyahu envisions the Israel Defense Forces maintaining full operational freedom in Gaza indefinitely, as well as establishing a buffer zone along the border to protect southern communities.
The buffer zone will remain in place for “as long as there is a security need for it.”
The military will act to ensure that the Strip remains demilitarized, “beyond what is required for the needs of maintaining public order.” This includes creating a “southern closure” along the Egypt-Gaza border, including the Rafah crossing, to prevent the re-emergence of terrorism and smuggling through Hamas’s elaborate tunnel system in the Philadelphi Corridor.
In this matter, Israel will work in cooperation with Egypt and the United States “as much as possible.” In parallel, the IDF will empower “local officials” unassociated with Hamas to govern areas of Gaza.
Netanyahu’s program includes a comprehensive de-radicalization process that replaces school curricula with textbooks that do not promote violent rejection of Israel and hatred towards Jews.
Netanyahu’s proposal conditions the reconstruction of Gaza on both its demilitarization and de-radicalization, which will proceed “as much as possible with the involvement and assistance of Arab countries that have experience” in this regard. It also entails a concerted effort to shut down UNRWA, some of whose workers participated in the Oct. 7 massacre and whose institutions have been infiltrated by Hamas.
Finally, Netanyahu’s proposal reiterates Israel’s rejection of any unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, amid reports the Biden
administration is considering such a move. Earlier, the Knesset plenum voted 99-11 to back an earlier government decision against “international diktats regarding
a permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” with Netanyahu describing such a prospective as a “reward for
terrorism.”[5]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
- Netanyahu declares ‘state of emergency’ in Lod as violent Arab mobs torch city, threaten Jews, The Times of Israel,
18 February 2024.
- Media Distort Israel’s Refusal To Be Bullied Into Rewarding Unrepentant Terrorists, Rachel O’Donoghue,
United With Israel, 19 February 2024.
- Analyst: 'Biden's plan is a surrender agreement for Israel', Zvi Yehezkeli, Israel National News, 23 January 2024.
- Biden wants to reward Hamas for its savage attack, Robert Spencer, World Israel News, 22 February 2024.
- Netanyahu reveals comprehensive plan for a post-war Gaza, Charles Bybelezer, World Israel News, 23 February 2024.
|
|
