Olmert’s Bombshell
Israel’s outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel will have to give up almost the entire occupied West Bank, including most settlements and east Jerusalem, as the price for peace with the Palestinians. “What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” he declared – and he was right. His comments have caused a major controversy: Israel officially considers the whole of Jerusalem its “eternal, undivided” capital, of which Olmert had been a hawkish mayor for a decade (1993-2003) before becoming Prime Minister.
Olmert told told the Yediot Aharonot Hebrew-language daily that any parts of the West Bank retained by Israel would need to be compensated, in an eventual peace deal, by equal territory of pre-1967 Israel: “We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories… We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”
“Whoever wants to hold on to all of the city's territory will have to bring 270,000 Arabs inside the fences of sovereign Israel. It won't work,” the caretaker premier added with reference to Jerusalem. “A decision has to be made. This decision... contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years.” Conceding that “for a large portion” of the past 35 years of political activity he was “unwilling to look at reality in all its depth,” Olmert now admits that he “erred in his foreign policy views and actions for decades.”
Olmert’s assessment goes well beyond any stated readiness for territorial concessions by a key national political figure, let alone a Prime Minister who is still holding office. Even if his words give a much needed boost to the Israeli Left, what would that do for the long-stalled “peace process”? It may well continue humming promisingly on the Syrian front, but what Bashir Assad does, says or thinks is of secondary importance. More worryingly, on the Palestinian side Mahmoud Abbas may be removed from power come January 9 – and his Islamist rivals do not accept the need for any major concessions to Israel, including the recognition of its legitimacy, its right to exist on any territory.
The suspicion that Arab promises are empty – unenforceable, or insincere, or both – is not confined to the Likud. The question is whether people on Israel’s left who agree with Olmert will be able to obtain prior meaningful commitments from the Palestinian side before contemplating a new episode in the never-ending “process” – the one that would not fizzle out like Bill Clinton’s push at Camp David eight years ago.
A leading Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, responded by pointing out that Olmert had not translated his current conciliatory ideas into formal offers during nearly a year of peace talks that started last November. “We have been having serious negotiations with the Israeli side, but up to this moment we have not received any written proposals from the Israeli side and Mr. Olmert,” Erekat told the Jerusalem Post. The Palestinians want to put the progress made so far in writing, so that talks will not have to start back from square one when Israel’s next prime minister takes office, he said.
Who does Olmert speak for, in addition to himself, now that his career is ending in disgrace? (And it is ending thus: Yossi Sarid, a former cabinet minister, summed up the feelings of many when he wrote, “Perhaps only his closest aides and a few personal friends will wipe away a tear.”) Does he cherish some new ambitions, with a new constituency? Not likely.
His former foes on the Left are naturally pleased that he sees the light, but don’t want him at the Bimah. “What an epiphany: In order to make peace with the Arabs, we must give them land,” Aluf Benn mused sarcastical in Haaretz, a liberal daily. “How come we never thought of that before?” And Israel’s veteran dove, Yosi Beilin, complained that Olmert's record included the disastrous war 2006 in Lebanon and building a coalition with the Right “to stifle any peace process” before it could even develop.
On the Right, Zevulun Orlev, a legislator with the conservative National Religious Party, said that Olmert had proved he had lost control and was completely alienating himself from the ideological base that has supported him for decades. “The country is very lucky he is now leaving his post,” Orlev told Israeli Army Radio. Likud’s Silvan Shalom likened Olmert to a blind man driving a car into the depths and said his idea to “establish Iranian and Hamas bases in the Golan Heights and West Bank” proved that he had lost his way.
Among reasonable people of good will on both sides of the divide in the Holy Land – and let us give Ehud Olmert the benefit of the doubt here – the concept of land for peace is still fundamentally valid. It needs to be re-thought more realistically than ever before, however: what land(s) exactly, for what kind of peace? Signed and sealed by whom, on what surety, and with what external guarantees?
In the immediate future Olmert’s statements are likely to make it more difficult for the governing Kadima party’s new leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to put together a new coalition and thus avert elections that could return the Likud to power. It would be ironic -- but not altogether beyond Olmert -- if a secondary objective of his sudden ultra-dovishness is to frustrate his old Kadima rival in her attempt, even if the consequence is the return to power of Binyamin Netanyahu…
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I'll take Dr. Trifkovic's advice and for the sake of this thread give Olmert the benefit of the doubt. This is an important point and is often overlooked: "The concept of land for peace is still fundamentally valid."
Until quite recently it was standard protocol for a victor in a war to give a monetary payment to one's adversaries in exchange for land that the latter had held.
More of the harmful fruits of democracy and technocracy: the masses can become outraged and rise up against calm and reasonable peace proposals. The Israeli government can dismantle all illegal settlements and the P.A. can sign a treaty and call for an end to the conflict, but will this stop the violence?
Terrorism, as Mark Hutchinson observed, seems to be an unfortunate and ineradicable facet of modern life.
In other words: Don't take off your Brown Scapular.
The Israeli's have enough sense to realize that the well went dry!............They love to wage war with U.S. citizens, and play the roll of "Victim" with their 300 nuclear warheads. But, we just spent $3 trillion dollars for what?.....So we could watch a bunch of stupid Iraqi's walk around with purple fingers?(Not counting dead U.S. military.).............AIPAC needs to infiltrate Chinese politics, and see if they have any cannon fodder?......Surely somebody in China needs campaign donations? John McAmnesty is an idiot, and Obamamama needs to understand that Israel has "Useful Idiots" just like Russia!
The 2 party system has failed us............VOTE BALDWIN 2008!
Sorry to be off topic, but we need a bailout thread. The good guys won one for a change.
"The suspicion that Arab promises are empty – unenforceable, or insincere, or both – is not confined to the Likud." Does anyone believe that Israeli promises are one iota different. After all, one of the fundamental tenets of the Talmud is that it is not only moral but laudatory to lie to Gentiles. I think that the Koran has similar sentiments regarding infidels. In the Middle East a bird in the hand is worth infinitely more than two in a bush.
In support of Red Phillips, this should be the end of ALL of our so-called foreign aid, money that, after being stripped of all its sentimental camouflage, has gone to pay thugs to let our elite expand their empire.
Dr. Trifkovic, following on Red Phillip's comment (sorry to be off topic), it looks as though your hope for a financial meltdown to save us from the empire-building schemes of the elites may be coming true. Better to be broke than a party to the world they were creating!
@3 Red
The saga continues as what started as 3 intelligible pages was boosted to 105 only to fail, the elites decided that ramming through 300 more pages of mischievous legisltion is the only way to get this bipartisan (read both stupid and evil) stinkeroo passed. After all what elected official wants to look as though he's too dim to read that much, just vote yea and get it over with. Hell, the elections are in 5 weeks and we need to get back into flyover country to keep our jobs safe.
Now more than ever is the time to call your senators and convince them that bailing out the sharks who fund their campaigns is not necessarily the best way to stay bought. They are out of scratch now, and perhaps the same democracy we're trying to foist off on the rest of the globe might work for us this one time.
'land for peace' is nothing more than taqiyya used to hide US policy--which is to appease Arabs by stabbing the Jews (and other enemies of the caliphate) in the back.
http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000609.htm
Considering that some of the Bosnian handzar migrated to 'palestine' and became a part of the 'palestinian' movement, it's bizarre that any Serb supporters would support or believe any of the palestinian 'liberation' fiction.
Criticizing Israel, and even Jews in general, or even criticizing in some respects Judaism is all fine with me, but the real problem is Islam.
Even if one were to concede (though I don't) the anti-Israeli propaganda -- "They're European refugees who have no right to be there and stole other people's land!" -- even if that were true, it wouldn't explain why Israel is still under attack when other land grabs (Romania, Poland, Germany, Konigsberg, the Kurils, and other post-WWII border-shifts come to mind) have been accepted as a lesser evil than war is.
Therefore, I would have edited "The suspicion that Arab promises are empty – unenforceable, or insincere, or both" to: "The suspicion that Muslim Arab promises are empty – unenforceable, or insincere, or both..."
E.g. Israel's relations with Christian-run Lebanon were never as bad as they have been since Muslims took over almost entirely. [Yes, I'm aware that Lebanon took part in the 48 invasion, but it was only a token force of 1000, who fought only half-heartedly, and were quickly routed. Lebanon feared that Iraq and Transjordan would annex all of "Palestine" and then threaten Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.]
I find it sadly amusing that there seem to be numerically equivalent contingents of people who accuse the US of having a policy of appeasing Arabs by stabbing Jews in the back, and people who claim that Washington is "in the pocket of the Jews."
Since Olmert makes lame ducks look like Olympians; since his opinions are fatuous; since he's an utter failure as both a civil and a military leader; and since even those who agree with him would be ashamed to be seen in public with him; the main lesson of this article seems to be just that Israel is seriously, seriously screwed up.
Israel didn't steal land from anyone. Jews have lived there for two thousand years. During the height of the zionist movement, they bought land from the Arab effendi (including the Husseinis).
This is documented by various historians (Karsh, Morris, etc.). They 'stole' the land from the Arabs no more than Serbs 'stole' Kosovo from the Albanians.
When the history and law are examined, as usual it is the Jews (Israel) that has had her land stolen and given to genocidal Jewhaters.
Read Christopher Simpson's 'Blowback' to get an idea of just how much the US ruling elites love the Jews. They love the Jews enough to tell MSM lies throughout the NATO empire, to blame US imperialism on 'Jewish' neocons, and to blame 9/11 on the US relationship with Israel.
The reality of course is that the US has supported 'captive nation' nazis, 5th column fascists, and similar axis allied losers for 60 years. The US 'lefties' have no problem with this though, b/c the government corrupted NYT only tells them to hate Israel and that the Joooos have a stranglehold on US policy.
Goebbels' big lies are alive and well in the US.