Before Peace Israel to Release Murderers

Mahmoud Abbas, that intransigent leader that the world considers "moderate," had added another condition for "peace" with Israel:

Abbas now demands that Israel release every single Palestinian Arab prisoner.

This includes, of course, the most heinous terrorists - those that have murdered and slaughtered Israelis - that have been captured by Israel. Abbas is not distinguishing between prisoners with "blood on their hands" and those who merely planned or facilitated terror attacks.

Abbas is saying that peace depends on Israel releasing murderers. Not only that, he is implicitly threatening to support terrorism against Israel until every last of those prisoners are released.

Yet this Orwellian doublethink, that Israel must reward murderers and release terrorists in order to gain "peace," will not register as anomalous at all in the world's media.

Palestinian Arab leaders have learned that no matter how outrageous their demands, they will be treated with deference and respect.
Elder of Ziyon

Where Would Abbas Stay in Gaza?

From Ma'an:

President Mahmoud Abbas has sent three delegates to the Gaza Strip in order to arrange for his stay in the besieged enclave, Palestinian officials said Saturday.

Abbas announced Wednesday that he was ready to travel to Gaza to negotiate a unity agreement with his rival party Hamas, which has been in control on the coastal strip since 2007.

Immediately after the announcement, the Hamas leadership welcomed the initiative saying they would make the needed arrangements for the visit.

But given that most the Palestinian Authority’s institutions in Gaza are under Hamas’ control including the presidential headquarters, Abbas may have a hard time finding a place to stay.

May I suggest the Grand Palace Hotel, which may be visited at www.grandpalace.ps?

Why No 'Tough Love' for Palestinians?

Bret Stephens points out yet another Liberal double-standard: 'Tough love' for Israel - real love for 'Palestinians.' For those who don't have access to the Wall Street Journal, you can also find the full article here. Why is it that Liberals insist that Israel needs 'tough love' for them, but support for the 'Palestinians' is knee jerk and absolute?

Part of the reason surely has to be intellectual confusion, an inability to grasp the difference between national "liberation" and genuine freedom. Ho Chi Minh was not a "freedom fighter," and neither was Yasser Arafat. How many times does the world have to go through this drill for liberals to get the point?

There's also a psychology at work. Harvard's Ruth Wisse calls it "moral solipsism"—obsessive regard for your own moral performance; complete indifference to the performance of those who wish you ill.

Finally there's the fact that liberalism has become a politics of easy targets. Liberals have no trouble taking stands against abstinence educators, Prop 8 supporters or members of the tea party. But when it comes to genuine bigots and religious fanatics—and Hamas has few equals in those categories—liberals have a way of discovering their capacity for cultural nuance and political pragmatism.

Today, by contrast, the task of defending Israel is hard. It's hard because defenders must eschew cliches about "the powerful" and "the powerless." It is hard because it goes against prevailing ideological fashions. And it's hard because it requires an appreciation that the choice of evils that endlessly confronts Israeli policy makers is not something they can simply wash their hands of by "ending the occupation." They tried that before—in Gaza.

Is there a liberalism that is capable of recognizing this? Or are we again at the stage where it has been consumed by its instinct for fellow-traveling? In 1968, Eric Hoffer wrote: "I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us." By "us," he meant liberals, too, and maybe most of all.

I suspect Stephens wanted to write the article without mentioning the word 'anti-Semitism.' So I will mention it, because it's as much a factor as anything else. Yes, even for Jewish Liberals.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:39 PM






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2 Comments:

At 10:07 PM, Blogger NormanF said...

Carl - yes it is. I invite you to go look at Mondoweiss.

Its there in abundance, beginning with of all things, a defense of Helen Thomas! Jewish liberals like Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz appear to have made their choice.

The rest of us don't have to go along with it.

At 10:15 PM, Blogger nomatter said...

No tough love for the Palestinians because the powers that be are lying sacks of crap.

Remember that Abbas sanctioned poster which shows all of Israel, Palestine? The last occupier of the oval office did nothing to admonish Abbas for it.

The issue of Palestinian statehood is NOT ABOUT THE PALESTINIANS but about the Jews!!!

Wonder why there is a fight over Jerusalem?? Wonder why most of the world doubts Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel?

Whose lap can we throw that into? Obama??

In all of this whine fest as to who really treats Israel better is hyper hypocritical. It is all about ideology not about honor and truth. Politics as usual until you need someone.

Indeed, Obama is an openly hostile antisemite but no one dare tell me Israel did not get the ax from George W. Furthermore, the whole of the Republican party ALLOWED HIM TO GET AWAY WITH doing it! To say otherwise is completely disingenuous. (not saying there was no decent but not any in the open and most surely not a drop in the conservative media by any famous conservative writers or talking heads.)

Our friends sign the embassy act. Our friends send representatives of their administration to the anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. Our friends do not admonish us in public that we humiliate the Palestinians with our occupation and that when we give them their state it will be viable, contiguous and not resemble swiss cheese. A friend would never call Abbas a man of peace knowing Abbas is a denier of the Holocaust. A friend would never turn a blind eye to a US trained military who marches to the NAZI GOOSESTEP, after all!!! Lastly, our friends would never ever appoint 3 entities who hate Israel and call it a quartet for peace.

Israel Matzav

Abbass' Waiting Game

Abbass' Waiting Game
Jackson Diehl

Mahmoud Abbas says there is nothing for him to do.
True, the Palestinian president walked into his meeting with Barack Obama yesterday as the pivotal player in any Middle East peace process. If there is to be a deal, Abbas must (1) agree on all the details of a two-state settlement with the new Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu, which hasn't yet accepted Palestinian statehood, and (2) somehow overcome the huge split in Palestinian governance between his Fatah movement, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules Gaza and hasn't yet accepted Israel's right to exist.
Yet on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy, George J. Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small confidence-building measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he insisted in an interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."
For veterans of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Abbas's bargaining position will be bone-wearyingly familiar: Both sides invariably begin by arguing that they cannot act until the other side offers far-reaching concessions. Netanyahu suggested during his own visit to Washington last week that the Palestinians should start by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, though he didn't make it a precondition for meeting with Abbas.
What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position, however, is what it says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and Arab governments. From its first days the Bush administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel.
Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud. "The Americans are the leaders of the world," Abbas told me and Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt. "They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions.' "
It's true, of course, that if Obama is to broker a Middle East settlement he will have to overcome the recalcitrance of Netanyahu and his Likud party, which has not yet reconciled itself to the idea that Israel will have to give up most of the West Bank and evacuate tens of thousands of settlers. But Palestinians remain a long way from swallowing reality as well. Setting aside Hamas and its insistence that Israel must be liquidated, Abbas -- usually described as the most moderate of Palestinian leaders -- last year helped doom Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, by rejecting a generous outline for Palestinian statehood.
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.
Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze -- if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. "It will take a couple of years," one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -- such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.
Instead, he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.