A Palestinian Muslim spells out what is wrong with “the Kerry plan” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  It could not be clearer, but we don’t expect Secretary of State John Kerry to understand it. Even if he could and did, we doubt that he’d change or abandon his silly and evil plan, because – plain to see – the intention of Obama and his coven is to destroy the State of Israel.

This is from Gatestone, by Daoud Assaf:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently warned that “the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians” cannot continue, noting that while there is prosperity and momentary security in Israel, it is “an illusion” that is bound to change if [peace] talks flounder. “The risks are very high for Israel,” Kerry said. “People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. We all have a strong interest in this conflict resolution.”

In short, Kerry is threatening Israel with a boycott and even security unrest if it does not accept the peace plan he says he will deliver in two weeks. Is Kerry actually endorsing the anti-Israeli boycott that delegitimizes America’s only stable and democratic ally in the region? Also, what is the peace plan Kerry is so determined to force on the Israelis and Palestinians?

Kerry’s talk of boycotting Israel comes at a time when the anti-Israeli boycott rhetoric is becoming shrill; one day after Kerry’s talk, two major European banks decided on actions against their Israeli counterparts. Sweden’s Nordea Bank, the largest in Scandinavia, asked for “clarifications” from Israel’s Bank Leumi and Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank regarding their activities in the West Bank. Also Denmark’s largest bank, Danske Bank, said on its website that it was boycotting Israel’s Bank Hapoalim for “legal and ethical” reasons, again in reference to its operations in the West Bank.

Recently, the $200 billion Dutch pension fund PGGM also decided to divest from the five largest Israeli banks, ostensibly because of their involvement in the West Bank.

Kerry’s comments were not only a stab in the back that any country would not expect from its closest ally; they also provided support to the enemies of Israel – such as the smiling, racist members of the European Union.

For decades, the EU and many European nations have been secretly funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ euros to organizations that work towards overthrowing Israel. The EU also, despite mountains of evidence, could not even bring itself to declare Iran’s proxy organization, Hizballah, a terrorist group; and if Iran is legitimized, so probably will be Iran’s other proxy terrorist group, Hamas.

Joining this club of racists is the United Nations, whose record of one-sided anti-Israel hostility is so pronounced that even one of its own translators commented on it. This record not only includes the frequent resolutions condemning Israel, as opposed to any other nations that commit far worse human rights violations than those Israel is [falsely] accused of committing, but also the openly racist Durban Conferences, ostensibly organized to counter racism, but which, as anyone can see, in fact promote it.

The cumulative effect of this pile-on against Israel only provides approval for the enemies of Israel to intensify their attacks — including anti-Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] campaigns — even more.

Kerry, and many others in the West, understand perfectly well that boycotting Israel reduces job opportunities not only for Jews, but also for Palestinians who work for in Israeli factories, farms and settlements, inside Israel as well as in the West Bank. The Palestinians who work there often receive ten times the remuneration, as well as better working conditions, than they would find among their own people, as has been revealed recently by the workers at companies that have actually been building real bridges of peace such as SodaStream, rather than organizations that have been sanctimoniously blowing up the bridges for peace, as Oxfam has. As usual, the Europeans know what will happen if there are fewer ways for the Palestinians to earn a decent living, as they knew when they left all their colonies. … The Europeans evidently care more about flagellating Israel than helping Palestinians. …

The question then arises: Why do those in the West who claim such hand-wringing concern for the Palestinians seek to harm Israeli businesses that offer them jobs? Do they forget that the Arabs refused to accept a partition plan in 1948, and started all subsequent wars to prevent Israel’s existence? Do they think that if Israel just withdraws to the 1967 line that the Palestinians will disregard their Charters, which view Israel as one big settlement and which assume a Palestine “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea”?

In our view, it is past time that Israel set its borders – and they should be from the river to the sea.

In other words, is the Arab-Israeli Conflict — which it is, far more than a Palestinian-Israeli Conflict — actually about territory, or about the existence of Jews who have come home to the land given to them by the Holy Qur’an, Sura 7 [Al-A’raf; “The Heights”] 137: ” And We made those who had been persecuted inherit the eastern and western lands which We had blessed. Thus your Lord’s gracious promise was fulfilled to the children of Israel, for they had endured with patience; and We destroyed all that Pharaoh and his people had wrought, and all that they had built.”

An interesting quotation that, of a sura that most Muslims seem to ignore.

Of course, even though we Muslims might prefer it if the Israelis were someplace else, as a Muslim, I must ask why are Israelis always found guilty for defending themselves? Could it be that the old, politically-incorrect anti-Semitism has now simply been replaced by a new, supposedly politically-correct anti-Israelism?

Also, what is this peace plan Kerry is so determined to force on Israel?

Kerry’s plan, recently outlined in the media, includes: the division of Jerusalem; Israel’s withdrawal from most of the West Bank, while it would retain control over the largest Jewish settlements there; a land swap to compensate the Palestinians for the settlement bloc [one can only imagine the years of wrangling about what a “commensurate piece of land” would consist of in each instance, thereby perpetuating the conflict a few more millennia]; recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a “Jewish state”, and compensation for Palestinian refugees who would no longer have a “right of return” to Israel.

But it does not include compensation for the Jews who were expelled from Arab lands or forced to flee, and had all their property confiscated.

In addition, the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, reported on January 8, 2014 that Kerry’s plan actually revolved around solving the Palestinian refugees’ problem through “settling them in Jordan under Jordan’s king and granting the king $55 billion for hosting the Palestinians for five decades.”

And where would they go after that, Mr Kerry?

Actually, that is where they belong. Jordan was created to be Arab Palestine by the British. They took some 80% of the Palestine region over which they were granted a mandate by the League of Nations after World War I,  and handed it to Emir Abdullah, the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, to be – as “the Emirate of Transjordan” –  an Arab-only area in which no Jews would be allowed to live, although the explicit provision of the Balfour Declaration was that Jews should be “settled closely” on the the land. And it was for that purpose the League of Nations had given Britain the mandate.

A careful look at the [Kerry] plan, however, raises the following issues: 

Palestinian Authority President Abbas has already said he would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But the real problem is that even if he did, he or his successor could easily change his mind and retract the recognition of Israel after it had already given back the West Bank …  as in the time-honored tradition of Hudaibiyya which his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, repeatedly invoked in Arabic to justify signing the Oslo Accords.

“Hudaibiyya,” a footnote explains, “is the story of Mohammed’s promise to the tribe of the Qurayesh in Mecca not to attack for ten years; but after assembling a powerful army, Mohammed returned after three years, conquered the tribe, occupied the city and gave tribes’ members the choice of either becoming Muslims, or leaving their homes and going elsewhere.”

So much for treaties, as can presently also be seen in the ongoing Palestinian abrogations of UN Resolutions 242 and 838, as well as of bilateral agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel — again endorsed by Secretary Kerry.

Palestinians also say Abbas does not represent them because he has overstayed his four-year term by six years, and therefore has no legitimacy, or mandate, to sign anything. Abbas would undoubtedly also be regarded by many Palestinian hard-liners as a traitor — as was Egypt’s President, Anwar al Sadat — and almost certainly be assassinated. …

Kerry also wants Israelis, including those who live in settlements, to be surrounded by a Palestinian state. If I were a Jew, I would frankly not want to be living in a tiny country or a settlement surrounded by people who are incited day-in and day-out [by being told that] that their mission in life is to kill you, let alone that the entire country is regarded by many Arabs as one big settlement …  It is bad enough when a country — now home to over a million Arabs, who have all the same opportunities as the Jews — is slandered in a lie that it is [an] apartheid [state], but for a new Palestinian state to be legally born [an] apartheid [state], officially free of Jews, after having had to listen to the international community unjustly hurl that word around all those years — seems both legally and morally indefensible.

Last of all, it is important not to forget that historically, whenever Israel gives land for “peace,” as in Egypt, southern Lebanon and Gaza, instead of rewards it gets concussions. …

Despite everything, the Israeli government has recently exhibited a willingness to accept Kerry’s plan.

As a tactic only, we hope.

The Palestinians have, as usual, rejected the plan: senior Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo called Kerry’s plan “Israeli ideas.” In addition, last month, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told an audience at a conference in Munich he could never agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

To this author, Kerry’s peace plan seems to be based on assumptions that are likely not to materialize or … The Palestinians have been offered a state many times since 1947; each time they have rejected the offer. It seems, looked at dispassionately, that they are less interested in having a Palestinian state than in destroying a Jewish state.

At the same time, Kerry’s boycott threats only embolden Israel’s many adversaries, including the Europeans, who seem to enjoy colluding with the Arabs, probably for the money, to launch new BDS campaigns, as they high-handedly compromise the interests and legitimacy of Israel, the only ally on which America can actually depend in the unstable Middle East.

This article by Jillian Becker and C.Gee appeared first at Front Page Magazine yesterday, March 9, 2011.

If the Palestinians unilaterally declare a State of Palestine this year as they say they will, everything changes. This is not the first time they have announced such an intention: twelve years ago they proposed the same thing but took it no further. This time it seems they mean to do what they say, and if they do, all resolutions, agreements, proposals made in the past for the ending of the Arab-Israeli conflict by negotiation become instantly irrelevant. Resolution 242, Oslo, the Road Map … all will be dead.

The UN Security Council Resolution 242, pursuant to which the parties were to negotiate a settlement, envisaged the establishment of borders within which Israelis should be able to live in peace. Forty-four years have passed, and Israel’s borders are still not fixed and Israelis still do not live in peace.

The Oslo Accords called for a five-year transitional period in which Israel would withdraw forces from occupied territories and accept the creation of a Palestinian Authority in exchange for security undertakings by the Palestinians. This arrangement was supposed to lead to a permanent peace settlement. The agreement was signed September 17, 1993. More than seventeen years later a peace settlement is no nearer.

The Road Map for Peace – “a performance-based roadmap to a permanent two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict” – was put forward by “the Quartet” of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, on September 17, 2002. More than eight years have passed and the conflict continues.

There have also been the failed Camp David and Taba Summits – July 2000 and January 2001 – which were likewise concerned with Israel’s borders. And the Arab Peace Initiative, 2002 and 2007, had the same aims and met with the same failure.

Now the establishment of a State of Palestine, recognized by many if not all other countries, means there will be no more of all that. No more discussion of the “right of return” of Arab refugees. No more “land for peace”. And no more negotiations under international auspices over where borders should be drawn.

The Palestinians want to declare a state without defining their borders. Temporarily, they say, they will claim all the territory of erstwhile Mandate Palestine outside the armistice lines of 1949, drawn when Israel survived the invasion of Arab armies and won its War of Independence. (These lines are commonly referred to as “the 1967 borders”, meaning those Israel had until it fought off invasion in the Six Day War of June 1967, and expanded its territory by conquest.)

Why only temporarily? With those frontiers, wouldn’t the Palestinians have all the territory the world considers they have a right to?

Oh, yes. And that’s what they fear. If they accept those borders as permanent, they will have accepted Israel’s permanent borders too. They will have accepted the existence of the State of Israel, so there would be no pretext for refusing peace. And that is what they have resisted doing all these years since the Arabs rejected Resolution 181 of November 1947 which offered a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel and went to war instead.

In order to have peace, Israel went on proposing the creation of a Palestinian state as an inducement to the Arabs to agree on secure borders. Over and over again, the Palestinians balked. In all the years that they have been negotiating under Resolution 242, the very last thing the Palestinians wanted was an agreement on borders.

The boundaries they will declare for their state are temporary not because they are willing to concede territory in negotiation, but for the very opposite reason: because they want all the territory. They want their state to consist of Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Israel – the whole of the country that is now Israel. Israel will be dissolved in the State of Palestine. It will be abolished. That is what the Arabs have always wanted and continue to want – the abolition of the State of Israel.

It is glaringly obvious that what Israel needs to do is define and declare its own borders now. But surprisingly is seems that the Israeli government is not thinking of making that vital move. If the news out of Israel is to be believed, they don’t seem to be considering the implications of the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, and so cannot grasp the fact that with it everything changes.

They are allowing the Palestinian Authority to dangle them on a string. But why would Israel allow itself to be kept dangling while the Palestinians decide where their state will be and, therefore, where Israel will be – especially since Israel knows perfectly well that the ultimate intention of the Arab side is to wipe it off the map? Why are Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government waiting, as though in shocked disbelief or denial, for the PA to act? Do they not believe that the State of Palestine will be declared? Do they think it will not happen because the US will veto it in the Security Council? True, the Obama administration would have a hard time from Congress and American public opinion if it did not oppose the unilateral declaration, but its veto cannot be relied on. Only under heavy pressure from both parties in Congress was it reluctantly used against the recent Security Council resolution condemning Jewish settlements as illegal.

This is the moment for the Israelis finally to decide for themselves on their own frontiers, having earned that right with victory in three defensive wars. They should declare them to be permanent. Nothing within them would be negotiable. Israel would offer all those within its borders residency or citizenship, but it would not be required to let in any citizens of a foreign state. There could be no question of a “right of return” for Palestinians. This is the time, now, before the Palestinians declare their state – and even if they do not – for Israel to draw the line: this far and no further. This is where we are; whom we let in is our business; how we protect ourselves is in our hands, not our enemies’.

There could be no more talk then of “occupation” and so none of a “right of resistance”. The territories brought within Israeli sovereignty would be part of Israel. Any insurrection from people within the state would be dealt with according to Israeli law.

If there are Jewish settlements left out of the declared borders of Israel, the residents can decide whether they want to stay where they are and live in Palestine (a risky choice, and one that the Palestinians may not allow them), or move to Israel. Equally, Arab citizens of Israel should be free to stay or move.

Once Israel has defined and declared its borders, and asserted control over them, its security will be in its own hands and no longer held hostage in negotiations. Any future dispute over borders with neighboring states will need to be settled the way border disputes between states are always settled: by diplomacy or war. The issue will no longer be concerned with population majorities, no longer clouded by perceptions that superior force used against irregular militants is illegal. It will be state against state. If Israel is attacked, its defense will be legitimate and seen to be legitimate.

Meanwhile the Palestinians can get on with the business of building institutions for their state without being able to claim that the presence of Jews in settlements interferes with its viability. The institutions of statehood put in place by the Palestinians will determine the viability of the Palestinian state, not the presence of Jewish settlements. The talk of wobbly frontiers round disconnected cantons, the cry of “Bantustan” and “ghetto”, the complaint over “viability”, raised as a pretext not to accept borders, will have to come to a stop.

It may be that the Palestinians will find good governance and economic success sufficient to dull the desire to undo the Naqba (their “disaster” of 1948, when Israel came into existence). Until then, let the Palestinians have their state, and, if they choose, continued war with Israel; but they will have to bring the war to Israel’s borders. It will no longer be plausible to call it a war of “liberation” – and that might mean that it will pall as a pet cause for international humanitarians. In any case, the likelihood of a Palestinian state making war alone on Israel is not high. That Iran might join it is another story.