Settlements occupy 1.7% of the West Bank, Kerry lied that “there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years…” by inventing the myth of “…massive settlement construction…”, Obama is trying to create a false sense of urgency to justify a UNSC resolution. The settlements occupy about 1.7% of the West Bank and the construction has been internal in already existing settlements, no new land was taken…
The US is a guarantor of Oslo: Instead of acting as a guarantor of Oslo Obama is enabling Abbas to violate it…Bill Clinton signed as a guarantor of Oslo, the Congress has to protect the accords…
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Tape reveals Arafat planned to betray Oslo, Abbas would not be able to violate Oslo without Obama’s help in the UNSC
by Ezequiel Doiny
Abstract
Abbas would not be able to violate Oslo without Obama’s help in the UNSC. With Obama’s help, the UNSC will declare the Old City of Jerusalem Palestinian in violation to the Oslo accords…
The settlements occupy only 1.7% of the West Bank, Kerry lied when he said “the window for a two-state solution is shutting, there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years…” by inventing the myth of “…massive settlement construction…”, Obama is trying to create a false sense of urgency to justify a UNSC resolution. The settlements occupy about 1.7% of the West Bank and the construction has been internal in already existing settlements, no new land was taken…
The Palestinians could have had a State in over 93% of the West Bank if they had accepted Olmert’s offer in 2008…instead they are in a rush to submit a UNSC resolution before the end of Obama’s term because they know Obama will not veto it and the old city of Jerusalem (including Temple Mount and the Kotel) will be placed in the Palestinian side of the border. The Palestinians prefer a UNSC resolution rather than a negotiated solution because this way the Old City of Jerusalem will be declared Palestinian…
France voted in favor of UNESCO’s resolution that claims Jews have no connection to Temple Mount. France’s conference tries to gather international support for the Arab Peace Initiative which draws Israel’s borders according to the 67 lines (leaving Old Jerusalem in the Palestinian side) and will determine a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank in violation to the Oslo Accords, the main purpose of the conference is to establish a timetable for the negotiations, it tries to replace Oslo with a time-limited framework based on the Arab Peace Initiative (67 borders)…
France threatened that if the conference fails, they will support the Palestinian UNSC resolution, the French would not be doing this if they were not sure OBAMA WILL ABANDON ISRAEL IN THE UNSC…
Obama wants to create a Palestinian State at all cost, even if it causes the destruction of Israel. This UNSC resolution will endanger Israel by enabling Hamas to take over the West Bank. Hamas will then attack Israel with missiles from the West Bank as it does from Gaza…
The US is a guarantor of Oslo: Instead of acting as a guarantor of Oslo Obama is enabling Abbas to violate it…The Congress must reject France’s ultimatum to Israel for violating the Oslo Accords.
Part 1 : Arafat was recorded saying he would betray Oslo to conquest Jerusalem just as Mohammed broke the treaty with the Quraysh to conquest Mecca
Arafat was recorded saying he would violate Oslo at the right time. In 2009 Joel Richardson wrote “When Treaty (of Hudaibiyah was made with the Quraysh) Muhammad’s followers numbered under 1,500 men, but within two years, after destroying the seven Jewish villages (in Saudi Arabia) and assuming all of their wealth and wives, the movement had grown to over 10,000 men. They were no longer the weaker of the two parties to the Treaty. It was at this time that Muhammad exploited a minor infraction in the Treaty-forgetting of course his earlier blatant violation-and the Muslims attacked Mecca and destroyed the power of the Quraysh. Muhammad and his followers were now the undisputed rulers of Mecca.”
http://www.voiceofrevolution.com/tag/treaty-of-hudaibiyah/
Daniel Pipes wrote “Here, in rough chronological order, is how a few authorities have assessed Muhammad’s actions. Note that while the earlier writers used harsher language (pretext, casus belli), the later authors do not disagree with them on the essentials:
William Muir, writing in 1861: “the alleged infraction . . . by the Coreish afforded Mahomet a fair pretext for the grand object of his ambition, the conquest of Mecca.”
Carl Brockelmann, 1939: Muhammad “was simply waiting for a pretext to settle accounts with [Quraysh] once and for all. A brawl between a Bedouin tribe converted to Islam and some partisans of Quraysh, in which some townsmen from Mecca itself are supposed to have taken part, presented a pretext for declaring the peace broken.”
Bernard Lewis, 1950: “the murder of a Muslim by a Meccan for what appears to have been a purely private difference of opinion served as casus belli for the final attack and the conquest of Mecca.”
Montgomery Watt, 1956: “In the year 628 at al-Hudaybiyah it had suited Muhammad to make peace and end the blockade, for he was then able to devote greater energy to the work among the nomadic tribes. In the twenty-two months following the treaty, however, his strength grew rapidly; and when his allies of Khuza’ah appealed for help he apparently felt that the moment had come for action.”
John Glubb, 1970: “It is possible that the Prophet himself was ill content at the prospect of having to wait ten years before he could march on Mecca, which now seemed as ready as a ripe plum to fall into his lap. He may consequently have welcomed the opportunity Beni Kinana had supplied, enabling him to break the truce.”
Marshall Hogdson, 1974: “Muhammad interpreted a skirmish between some Bedouin allies of the Quraysh and of the Muslims as a breach of the treaty by the Quraysh.”
Frank Peters, 1994: “The violation might have been settled in other ways-the Quraysh appeared willing to negotiate – but in January 630 A.D. Muhammad judged the occasion fit and the time appropriate for settling accounts with the polytheists in Mecca for once and for all.”
http://www.danielpipes.org/316/al-hudaybiya-and-lessons-from-the-prophet-muhammads
One of the Jewish cities destroyed by Mohammed in Saudi Arabia was Qurayza. In 2006 James Arlandson wrote in the American Thinker “In AD 627, Muhammad committed an atrocity against the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina: the Qurayza. He beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. In doing this, he wiped an entire tribe ‘off the map’ to use the recent language of the President of Iran.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2006/02/muhammad_and_massacre_of_the_q.html
On September 1999, Daniel Pipes wrote in the Middle East Forum:
“On 10 May 1994, Yasir Arafat gave what he thought was an off-the-record talk at a mosque while visiting Johannesburg, South Africa. But a South African journalist, Bruce Whitfield of 702 Talk Radio, found a way secretly to record his (English-language) remarks. The moment was an optimistic one for the Arab-Israeli peace process, Arafat having just six days earlier returned triumphantly to Gaza; it was widely thought that the conflict was winding down. In this context, Arafat’s bellicose talk in Johannesburg about a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” had a major impact on Israelis, beginning a process of disillusionment that has hardly abated in the intervening years.
No less damaging than his comments about Jerusalem was Arafat’s cryptic allusion about his agreement with Israel. Criticized by Arabs and Muslims for having made concessions to Israel, he defended his actions by comparing them to those of the Prophet Muhammad in a similar circumstance:
I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.
Arafat further drew out the comparison, noting that although Muhammad had been criticized for this diplomacy by one of his leading companions (and a future caliph), ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the prophet had been right to insist on the agreement, for it helped him defeat the Quraysh and take over their city of Mecca. In a similar spirit,
we now accept the peace agreement, but [only in order] to continue on the road to Jerusalem.
In the five years since he first alluded to Muhammad and the Quraysh, Arafat has frequently mentioned this as a model for his own diplomacy.
…
And Arafat – what does the reference to Hudaybiya suggest about his future actions? It appears that he made the comparison with the Prophet Muhammad to make several points to a Muslim audience about his own actions:
- He made unpopular concessions that will turn out well in the end.
- He will achieve his goal – though what that goal is remains ambiguous: it might be just the city of Jerusalem (in parallel to the city of Mecca) or the whole of Israel (in parallel to the whole Quraysh dominion).
- He intends, at the right moment, to exploit a minor transgression to attack his enemy.
The third point is the operational one, permitting Arafat to imply not that he will break his agreements with Israel but will, when his circumstances change for the better, take advantage of some technicality to tear up existing accords and launch a military assault on Israel.
It bears noting how easily Arafat or a future Palestinian leader will find this to do-legally. Arafat has already signed five complex agreements with Israel that include hundreds of pages of mind-numbing detail. The Oslo II agreement of 28 September 1995, for example, runs 314 pages without attachments and includes a myriad of specifics. To take just one clause: Israeli authorities have obligated themselves to help the Palestinian Authority maintain a statistical system by transferring the “estimation procedures, forms of questionnaires, manuals, coding manuals, procedures for and results of quality control measures and analysis of surveys.” The Hudaybiya precedent implies that Arafat can choose any lapse or transgression (say, not receiving the results of quality control measures) and turn this into a casus belli for an all-out attack on the Jewish state.”
Several ulema believe deceit is integral to the waging of war: Ibn al-‘Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.” Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.”[14]…
…That Islam legitimizes deceit during war is, of course, not all that astonishing; after all, as the Elizabethan writer John Lyly put it, “All’s fair in love and war.”[24] Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists—such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes—justified deceit in warfare. Deception of the enemy during war is only common sense. The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Qur’an, “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[25] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: “The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily.”[26]
…The perpetual nature of jihad is highlighted by the fact that, based on the 10-year treaty of Hudaybiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraysh opponents in Mecca, most jurists are agreed that ten years is the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels; once the treaty has expired, the situation needs to be reappraised. Based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the treaty after two years (by claiming a Quraysh infraction), the sole function of the truce is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before renewing the offensive:[33] “By their very nature, treaties must be of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory, the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but warlike.”[34] Hence “the fuqaha [jurists] are agreed that open-ended truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the strength to renew the war against them [non-Muslims].”[35]
Even though Shari’a mandates Muslims to abide by treaties, they have a way out, one open to abuse: If Muslims believe—even without solid evidence—that their opponents are about to break the treaty, they can preempt by breaking it first. Moreover, some Islamic schools of law, such as the Hanafi, assert that Muslim leaders may abrogate treaties merely if it seems advantageous for Islam.[36] This is reminiscent of the following canonical hadith: “If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better.”[37] And what is better, what is more altruistic, than to make God’s word supreme by launching the jihad anew whenever possible? Traditionally, Muslim rulers held to a commitment to launch a jihad at least once every year. This ritual is most noted with the Ottoman sultans, who spent half their lives in the field.[38] So important was the duty of jihad that the sultans were not permitted to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, an individual duty for each Muslim. Their leadership of the jihad allowed this communal duty to continue; without them, it would have fallen into desuetude.[39]
In short, the prerequisite for peace or reconciliation is Muslim advantage. This is made clear in an authoritative Sunni legal text, Umdat as-Salik, written by a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar, Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri: “There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo: ‘So do not be fainthearted and call for peace when it is you who are uppermost [Qur’an 47:35].'”[40]
More recently, and of great significance for Western leaders advocating cooperation with Islamists, Yasser Arafat, soon after negotiating a peace treaty criticized as conceding too much to Israel, addressed an assembly of Muslims in a mosque in Johannesburg where he justified his actions: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”[41] In other words, like Muhammad, Arafat gave his word only to annul it once “something better” came along—that is, once the Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive and continue on the road to Jerusalem…”
http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war
Part 2 – The Paris Conference and France’s UNSC ultimatum violate the Oslo Accords (France would not do this if they did not know that OBAMA WILL ABANDON ISRAEL IN THE UNSC)
On May 6, 2016 the Times of Israel reported that the main purpose of the Paris conference is to establish a timetable for the negotiations “A one-day Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Paris — to which the Israelis and Palestinians were not invited — concluded Friday with a warning that violence and settlement activity are imperiling a two-state solution, and a call for an international conference on the issue before the end of the year.
“We must act, urgently, to preserve the two-state solution, revive it before it is too late,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said after the meeting….He warned that a solution which would see Israelis and Palestinians living side by side was “getting further away each day.”
…In their closing communique, the more than two dozen participating nations…expressed alarm that “actions on the ground, in particular continued acts of violence and ongoing settlement activity, are dangerously imperiling the prospects for a two-state solution.”…Calling for an end to the “Israeli occupation that begin in 1967…”
EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini stressed that… “The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence, and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away,” she told reporters.
The foreign ministers of the United States, European nations, and several Arab states were among those attending the meeting. No Israeli or Palestinian officials were invited.
…Ahead of the summit, an internal document sent by the French Foreign Ministry to participating nations had anticipated that “ministers will agree on the principle that a clear timetable will need to be established for the negotiations when they restart….”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/paris-summit-ends-with-call-for-international-conference-by-years-end/
On February 2, 2016 Ambassador Alan Baker wrote in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs “On January 28, 2016, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, in a statement issued after meeting with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, voiced a somewhat curious and ominous warning and threat, directed solely against Israel: If imminent efforts being organized by France to end the deadlock in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians end without result, France intends to “live up to our responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and recognize a Palestinian state.”1
This curious, unprecedented, biased, and far from friendly ultimatum raises some pertinent legal and diplomatic questions regarding France’s capacity and standing, both in the context of the Israel-Arab peace process, as well as regarding France’s “responsibilities” as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
France, as a leading member of the EU, is party to the EU’s signature as witness to the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.2 This agreement constitutes the internationally acknowledged backbone of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
France Undermines the Oslo Accords It Witnessed
The commitments set down in this agreement, to negotiate the permanent status of the territories as well as other central issues such as Jerusalem, borders, settlements and refugees, are solemn Palestinian and Israeli obligations which France, together with its EU partners, as well as the United States, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Norway are obligated to honor after placing their signatures on the agreement as witnesses.
By the same token, the UN General Assembly in its Resolution A/50/21 of December 4, 1995, supported by France, expressed its full support for the Oslo Accords and the peace negotiation process.3
In its capacity both as a signed witness to the agreement, as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it is incumbent on France, which voted in favor of the UN resolution endorsing the agreement and the negotiation process, not to attempt to undermine the same agreement and process, nor to prejudge issues that are still open and to be negotiated.
France Prejudges Issues Meant to Be Negotiated
In threatening to unilaterally and arbitrarily recognize a Palestinian state, France is clearly prejudging the issue of the permanent status of the territory, which, as set out in the agreement itself, is a negotiating issue yet to be resolved. In this context, France and its European colleagues cannot and should not act to undermine the Palestinian obligation set out in the Final Clauses of the agreement, according to which no step will be taken to “change the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”4
Thus, in acting to unilaterally organize an “international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and make happen the solution of two states,” France is attempting both to bypass and undermine a negotiating process called for by the UN in several resolutions since 1967, all supported and endorsed by France.
France is also undermining the various reciprocal commitments between the Palestinian leadership and Israel, including a letter from Yasser Arafat to Yitzhak Rabin dated September 9, 1993, in which Arafat declared that “all outstanding issues relating to the permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.”5
As such, by engaging in a parallel, un-agreed process with the declared aim of imposing upon one side – Israel – the outcome of an international conference, France is, in fact, acting ultra vires all accepted norms and principles of conflict-resolution. Since all the agreed issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including borders between them, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, security and cooperation, as well as the permanent status of the territory, require reciprocal negotiation, France cannot deceive itself and the international community into believing that these issues can be imposed arbitrarily by any conference or international or regional organization.
In imposing its ultimatum and threat to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state should France’s efforts to “make happen the solution of two states” fail, France is, in effect, granting the Palestinian side the prerogative not to engage in any bona fide negotiations with Israel, knowing that, in any event, France will unilaterally grant the Palestinians what they are demanding.
As such, this statement by France’s foreign minister would appear to be the very antithesis of what is to be expected of a respected and responsible permanent member of the Security Council which presumes to “live up to its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council.”
In view of these considerations, France is urged to reconsider this imprudent, irresponsible and damaging position.
– See more at: http://jcpa.org/frances-ultimatum-to-israel-legally-flawed-and-politically-imprudent/#sthash.N4ackg32.dpuf
Part 3- Abbas confessed on TV that he rejected Olmert’s offer in 2008
Like France, the US has also threatened to ignore the Oslo accords and impose a solution through the UNSC. The US is a guarantor of the Oslo accords yet Obama has threatened to abandon the Oslo accords and support a Palestinian UNSC resolution. Obama blames Israel for the failure of negotiations because of settlement construction yet Abbas confession that he refused Olmert’s peace offer in 2008 proves that settlements are not the issue .
On November 22, the Tower Magazine reported that “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has publicly confirmed for the first time that he turned down a peace offer in 2008 that would have provided for an independent Palestinian state containing all of the Gaza Strip, much of the West Bank (with land swaps), and a tunnel connecting the two areas.
Abbas made his comments in an interview on Israel’s Channel 10, which has been broadcasting a three-part series on the peace talks of 2000 and 2008. According to both Abbas and Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Prime Minister in 2008, Olmert presented Abbas in September of that year with a map that delineated the borders of the future State of Palestine. Abbas said that he “rejected it out of hand” because he claimed not to be an expert on maps, and because Olmert’s domestic scandals meant that he would shortly leave office (Olmert was later convicted of corruption). While both Olmert and other Palestinian leaders have previously said that Abbas turned down a peace proposal, this is the first time that the Palestinian Authority president has admitted as such.
At 24:05 of the video, Channel 10 reporter Raviv Drucker asked Abbas: “In the map that Olmert presented you, Israel would annex 6.3 percent [of the West Bank] and compensate the Palestinians with 5.8 percent [taken from pre-1967 Israel]. What did you propose in return?”
“I did not agree,” Abbas replied. “I rejected it out of hand.”
At 26:53 of the video, Drucker pressed again:
Drucker: Why, really, did you not accept Olmert’s offer?
Abbas: He [Olmert] said to me, “Here’s a map. See it? That’s all.” I respected his decision not to give me the map. But how can we sign something that hasn’t been given us, that hasn’t been discussed?
The existence of the peace offer was first reported by The Tower’s Avi Issacharoff in 2013, when Olmert told him that he presented Abbas with a map proposal during talks at the Prime Minister’s Residence. Shortly after Olmert’s presentation, Abbas redrew that version of the map from memory, in order to make sure that he and Olmert were on the same page. Issacharoff acquired a photograph of that map…
As Issacharoff wrote:
Abbas silenced those present so that he could concentrate. He wanted to sketch out Olmert’s map from memory. The Israeli Prime Minister had told him that as long as Abu Mazen did not sign his initials to the map and endorse it, Olmert would not hand over a copy. Abu Mazen took a piece of letterhead of the Presidential Office and drew on it the borders of the Palestinian state as he remembered them.
Abbas marked the settlement blocks that Israel would retain: The Ariel bloc, the Jerusalem-Maaleh Adumim bloc (including E1), and Gush Etzion. A total of 6.3% of the West Bank. Then Abbas also drew the territories that Israel proposed to offer in their place: In the area of Afula-Tirat Zvi, in the Lachish area, the area close to Har Adar, and in the Judean desert and the Gaza envelope. A total of 5.8% of the West Bank. Abu Mazen wrote on the left side of the letterhead the numbers as he incorrectly remembered them (6.8% and 5.5%), and on the back he wrote the rest of the details of the proposal: Safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank via a tunnel, the pentilateral committee to administer the Holy Basin, the removal of the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley and the absorption of 5,000 Palestinian refugees, 1,000 each year over five years, inside the Green Line.
Abbas’ hand-drawn map, sketched on the stationery of the Palestinian Office of the President and obtained by TheTower.org in the course of this investigative report about the clandestine negotiation between Olmert and Abbas, was published here yesterday exclusively. The two men met 36 times, mostly in Jerusalem and once in Jericho, and arrived at a formula that was to be the basis for a lasting agreement between the two parties. But in the end, peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians were not signed, despite the far-reaching proposal made by Olmert. As an official matter, the Palestinian Authority has not responded.
The next day, Abbas called off talks, saying that he had to attend a meeting in Jordan.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat had a similar recollection when interviewed by Al Jazeera in 2009:
Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to Abu Mazen, offered the 1967 borders, but said: “We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.” Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: “I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine – the June 4, 1967 borders – without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places. This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign.
Abbas’ comments on Channel 10 were first picked up in English by veteran reporter Mark Lavie.
http://www.thetower.org/2580-breaking-abbas-admits-for-the-first-time-that-he-turned-down-peace-offer-in-2008/
On November 2011 the investigativeproject.org reported that “In her new memoir, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirms that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas rejected generous territorial concessions offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.
When she traveled to Jerusalem in May 2008, Olmert invited Rice to dinner to outline his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Rice recounts that she was shocked by how far the Israeli leader was willing to go. Olmert was prepared to give up nearly the entire West Bank and to divide Jerusalem with the Arab world.
Olmert offered to make Jerusalem the capital of two states – Israel in the western part and a Palestinian capital in the east. The Old City of Jerusalem would be administered by a committee made up of so-called wise people including Palestinians, Jordanians, Saudis, Americans and Israelis.
“They will oversee the city, but not in a political role,” Olmert told Rice. And he offered another concession – offering to allow 5,000 Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel.
Rice was incredulous. “Am I really hearing this? I wondered. Is the Israeli prime minister saying that he’ll divide Jerusalem and put an international body in charge of the Holy sites?”
The following day, Rice brought Olmert’s proposal to Abbas in Ramallah. He rejected it, telling Rice the PA could not agree to a deal that prevented nearly 4 million Palestinians from being able to “go home” (i.e., to return to their ancestors’ former homes in pre-Six Day War Israel).
On Sep. 16, 2008, Olmert presented Abbas with a similar plan for a two-state solution. The Palestinians said no, effectively killing the Olmert plan.
More detail on the breakdown of the talks comes from the Palestine Papers – documents about a decade of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that were stolen from PA negotiator Saeb Erakat’s office, leaked to al-Jazeerah and posted on the media outlet’s website in January.
As the Jerusalem Post noted on Tuesday, these documents show that PA negotiators talked out of both sides of their mouths – speaking publicly about compromise with Israel on Palestinian refugees while privately describing the “right of return” as an individual right that must be extended to 7 million Palestinians – a formula most Israelis regard as a demographic blueprint for the destruction of their country.
The documents also show that Washington was apparently unaware that, in preparation for the September 16 meeting, the PA was trying to come up with plans to avoid reaching a binding agreement with Israel and to avoid blame for failing reach a final-status agreement with the Jewish state.”
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3373/rice-abbas-rejected-olmert-peace-plan#
Part 4 – Abbas phased plan for Israel’s destruction
Abbas rejected Olmert’s offer because it would have required him to give up on the “right of return” for most Palestinians. Lt. Col. (ret) Jonathan Halevi explained in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that Abbas supports a phased plan for Israel’s destruction “…Beneath the moderate guise that Abbas tries to project is a Palestinian leader who unreservedly supports terror and demands to implement what the Palestinians call the “right of return.”
…What the Palestinians mean by “right of return” according to Resolution 194 and the Arab Peace Initiative is simple enough and was ratified as an official law by the Palestinian parliament with Abbas’s approval.
According to the 2008 Law of the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees:
“The right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and property, while receiving compensation for their suffering, is an inalienable and enshrined right that cannot be compromised, replaced, reconsidered, interpreted otherwise, or subjected to a referendum.
The right of return is natural, personal, collective, civil, political, passed on from father to son; it is not nullified by the passage of time or by the signing of any agreement and it cannot be abolished or waived in any way.
The Palestinian refugees shall not be resettled or displaced as an alternative to the right of return.
Anyone who violates the provisions of this Act shall be guilty of the crime of treason and will be subject to all criminal and civil penalties prescribed for this crime.
Anything that contradicts this law is considered null and void, and any legislation or agreement that will derogate from the right of return or contradict the provisions of this Act shall be deemed null and void.”
In other words, even after an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state, the conflict will remain unchanged and Palestine will demand the “return” to Israel of the millions of refugees and their descendants. The Palestinian demand for “return” entails the transfer of millions of Jews from their homes and the end of the state of Israel…”
Even though it was Abbas who rejects the two state solution and rejected Olmert’s peace-offer in 2008, Obama and Kerry blame Israeli settlement construction for the collapse of talks and increase of Palestinian terror.
Part 5 – Settlements occupy 1.7% of the West Bank. Kerry lied about “massive settlement construction”
On October 16 Elliot Abrams wrote in Mosaic Magazine that “Secretary of State Kerry made an unhelpful, mistaken, ill-informed comment about the current wave of Palestinian violence yesterday when speaking at Harvard.
Here is the comment Kerry made:
“So here’s the deal. What’s happening is that unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody. And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years. Now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing, and a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any movement.”
Kerry does not know what he is talking about. There has simply not been “a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years.” There has been a steady growth in settlement population, though the bulk of that growth is in the major blocs–such as Ma’ale Adumim–that Israel will clearly retain in any final agreement. Kerry’s imprecision is another problem. Does he mean there has been a massive increase in the number of settlements? That’s flatly false. Does he mean a massive increase in settlement size, as existing settlements expand physically? That’s also flatly false. The so-called “peace map” or “Google Earth map” of the West Bank has changed very little.
The frequent Palestinian claim that Israel is “gobbling up” the West Bank so that “peace will be impossible” is what Kerry is here repeating when he says “a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody.” It’s a false claim and he should know it. If that is not what Kerry meant, he should be far more careful when he speaks about such an explosive topic–and at such an explosive moment.
Moreover, his claim is plain silly. The slow but steady growth in population in settlements is a completely unpersuasive explanation for the sudden outbreak of violence. That outburst of violence and terror appears linked to lies about Israel changing the status quo at the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif. But whatever its explanation, the false linkage to settlements is of a piece with the Obama administration’s continuing obsession with that subject–despite all the evidence. It’s remarkable that the Secretary of State, who has spent so much time with Israelis and Palestinians and has visited Jerusalem repeatedly, has not bothered to learn the basic facts. He is instead parroting Palestinian propaganda. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been under pressure and criticism from settler groups because he has restrained settlement population growth beyond the security barrier. To suffer those political attacks and then hear criticism from the secretary of state about a “massive increase in settlements” helps explain the lack of confidence Israeli officials feel in the Obama administration.
Mr. Kerry is doing something else here that is even worse: blaming the victims. The State Department has of course condemned acts of terror, but here in a question and answer period we get beyond official statements and see what Kerry really appears to think. He seems to believe that the real culprits, when Palestinians stab Israelis to death, are people who build a new housing unit in a settlement.
The Kerry remarks at Harvard were morally obtuse and factually wrong.”
Kerry Links Palestinian Terror to Settlement Expansion by Elliott Abrams
Kerry lies when he says that settlement construction is an obstacle to peace. Settlements occupy now about 1.7% of the West Bank and during Olmert’s term they occupied about 1.6%, new homes were built inside existing settlement land, no new land was taken, there was virtually no expansion outside previous areas. As blogger Elder of Zion wrote “ …how the ~1.7% of settlement land today makes peace so much harder than ~1.6% 20 years ago?”
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/11/bibi-demolishes-j-street-and-peace-nows.html#.VlIKAWBzNf3
On November 10 blogger Elder of Zion wrote “At Binyamin Netanyahu’s appearance at the Center for American Progress, he said that the settlements were not an obstacle to peace.
He answered that “There have been no new settlements built in the past 20 years.The additions have been in existing communities. The map has not materially changed.”
I’m not sure if that is 100% true; I know of three formerly illegal outposts that became legal, and I cannot imagine that there haven’t been more illegal outposts in 20 years that have escaped being demolished. But the larger point is true – there has been essentially no new settlements, as opposed to how they are characterized. and Netanyahu said this:
“By the way, Google this. Because this is just repeated, ad nauseum, so it assumes the cachet of self-evident truth, that we’re ‘gobbling up land’ and so on. We’re not gobbling up land….I mean the total amount of built up land is just a few percent. And the addition, if you look at it over time, it’s got to be a fraction – maybe one tenth of one percent? Maybe I’m off, maybe it’s 3/10ths of one percent. That’s the land that’s being “gobbled up.” That’s a factual question. That is not something that should be debated. And yet it’s become an axiom, that we are gobbling up land. We’re not.”
…(In response to Netanyahu’s statement, Peace Now wrote) “The “one percent argument” is a classic example of how supporters of the status-quo use a fraction of the truth to misrepresent the truth on the ground in the West Bank. Yes, the actual built-up area of West Bank settlements takes up only a little more than 1% of the West Bank. But the settlements’ built-up area is just the tip of the settlements iceberg. The impact of the settlements goes far beyond this 1%.
Almost 10% of the West Bank is included in the “municipal area,” or the jurisdictional borders of the settlements. These borders are so large that they allow settlements to expand many times over onto land that is completely off-limits to Palestinians.
In addition, almost 34% of the West Bank has been placed under the jurisdiction of the settlements’ “Regional Councils.” That is, more than an additional 1/3 of the West Bank has been placed under the control of the settlers, off-limits to Palestinians.
In total, more than 40% of the West Bank is under the direct control of settlers or settlements and off-limits to Palestinians, regardless of the fact that only a small portion of this land has been built on by settlers.”
Elder of Zion responded “Let’s say that this is 100% true. Then this means that Peace Now agrees that there has been no fundamental change in the West Bank map since the PLO rejected Israeli peace offers of 93%-95% of the land in 2001 and 2008!
Somehow, the 40% Israel controls didn’t stop Barak and Olmert from offering nearly the entire West Bank for a Palestinian state. If they could offer it, so could the current Israeli government. So the 40% figure is a red herring, meant to obscure the fact that the intransigent party is the Palestinian side.
…Peace Now and J-Street know this. If you read their literature you can see that they try very hard to distract their readers from these facts by mentioning things that aren’t relevant. Their central claim to raise cash, that Israel – and especially the reviled Likud government of Netanyahu – is gobbling up land is shown to be a lie.
Yet this Peace Now and J-Street lie of Israel “gobbling up land” is repeated without any shame by the White House, by the New York Times, and by many other sources who don’t even bother to read Peace Now reports with a critical eye. Because their own documentation proves their public lies!”
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/11/bibi-demolishes-j-street-and-peace-nows.html#.VlIKAWBzNf3
Arutz 7 reported that “US Secretary of State John Kerry asserted Wednesday that the escalating wave of Arab terror in Israel showcases what would be in store if the Palestinian Arabs were not to achieve statehood.
During a speech in Washington, Kerry emphasized the United States’ commitment to advancing the two-state solution, which he called “the only viable alternative.”
…Stressing that unrest and violence have hurt both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, Kerry contended “the current situation is simply not sustainable.”…
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/202606#.VjF73ZtzPD
Kerry calls the situation “not sustainable” yet Abbas said that “…the Palestinians can wait without making concessions in part because “the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.”
On May 29, 2009 CAMERA reported that “Washington Post Deputy Editorial Editor Jackson Diehl recounts his recent conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in today’s issue of the newspaper.
It seems that yet again Israel offered Palestinians a state on virtually the entire West Bank, and yet again a Palestinian leader — this time the one widely described as moderate — rejected the offer.
Diehl writes:
In our meeting Wednesday, Abbas acknowledged that Olmert had shown him a map proposing a Palestinian state on 97 percent of the West Bank — though he complained that the Israeli leader refused to give him a copy of the plan. He confirmed that Olmert “accepted the principle” of the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees — something no previous Israeli prime minister had done — and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. In all, Olmert’s peace offer was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of Bush or Bill Clinton; it’s almost impossible to imagine Obama, or any Israeli government, going further.
Abbas turned it down. “The gaps were wide,” he said.
Diehl also quotes Abbas as rejecting, again, the notion that he should recognize Israel as the Jewish state, and as saying that the Palestinians can wait without making concessions in part because “the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.”
http://blog.camera.org/archives/2009/05/mahmoud_abbas_acknowledges_rej.html
In 2013 Kerry told the Foreign Affairs Committee “I believe the window for a two-state solution is shutting,” the secretary of state said. “I think we have some period of time – a year to year-and-a-half to two years, or it’s over.”
He added: “Everybody I talk to in the region and all of the supporters globally who care … want us to move forward on a peace effort. They’re all worried about the timing here. So there’s an urgency to this, in my mind, and I intend, on behalf of the president’s instructions, to honour that urgency and see what we can do to move forward.”
Although the conflict exists since 1948, Kerry claims there is an “urgency” to solve it in a short two year window because Obama’s term in office is coming to an end. On March 2015 Newsmax reported that “The White House on Wednesday suggested it could reverse its decades-old policy of using its veto in the United Nations Security Council to protect Israel. It could refuse to veto resolutions related to the Palestinians or introduce a measure of its own, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. could also lend its support to a two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders, a senior White House official told The New York Times.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/israel-un-security-council-veto/2015/03/19/id/631103/
Obama is in a rush to pass a UNSC resolution imposing a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank before his time in office ends. He knows that the next administration will not be willing to concede this to the Palestinians without taking into consideration Israel’s security needs.
Obama has to pass this UNSC urgently before his term comes to an end to tie the future US President’s hands. Future administrations will have no choice but to obey to Obama’s UNSC resolution.
To justify the UNSC resolution, Obama needs to create a sense of urgency. Abbas is escalating the violence through stabbing attacks to create the sense of urgency that Obama needs. Abbas wants to provoke an Israeli reaction which Obama can use as an excuse to justify the anti-Israel UNSC resolution.
The Palestinian Media Watch translated an interview by one of Hamas founders Mahmoud al-Zahar to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam in which he said “transfer what it has [in Gaza] or just a small part of it to the West Bank, we would be able to settle the battle of the final promise [to destroy Israel] with a speed that no one can imagine…[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine…”
Those who advocate for a solution in the UNSC cannot ignore that what happened in Gaza can also happen in the West Bank. After Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas took power and started missile attack against Israel. If a Palestinian State is created in the West Bank Hamas will attack Israel with missiles from the West Bank as it does from Gaza.
John Kerry is dishonest in not acknowledging that after Gaza the situation has changed and imposing a solution in the UNSC will make the situation much worse, it will make life in Israel impossible and lead to war. Only a person that does not care for the safety of Israel’s citizens would advocate for this. For Kerry it doesn’t matter this UNSC resolution will make the conflict worse and lead to war, he wants to impose it at all costs.
Abbas admitted that he rejected Olmert’s peace offer in 2008 (and continues to reject the two state solution now) yet Obama and Kerry falsely blame Israeli settlement expansion for the collapse in peace negotiations and the increase in Palestinian violence.
Only the US Congress can prevent Obama and Kerry from imposing an anti-Israel UNSC resolution that will threaten Israel’s existence. There are 57 Muslim States (see members of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation) but only one Jewish State smaller than New Jersey. This UNSC resolution will lead to the destruction of the only small Jewish State.
The Congress can prevent this UNSC resolution by refuting Obama and Kerry’s false claims that Israel is to blame for the collapse of negotiations, condemning Abbas for rejecting Olmert’s peace-offer in 2008 and issuing a statement supporting the Oslo accords. The US is a guarantor of the Oslo Accords, the Congress must forbid Obama to impose a UNSC resolution that violates its terms.
Ezequiel Doiny is a writer residing in New Jersey. His work has been published in Gatestone Institute, the Jewish Press and Arutz 7
