Jeff Nails it on Annapolis...
By mbecker908 Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Jeff recently put up a blog about President Bush following in the late term footsteps of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton by trying to force some sort of "peace" in the Middle East. Some of us view this particular conference as a precursor to a sell out of Israel by their politicial left and our political right.
From Bush's remarks in Annapolis this morning courtesy of Associated Press...
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - President Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday at the Annapolis conference that the time is right to relaunch Mideast peace talks because "a battle is under way for the future of the Middle East."Bush said it won't be easy to achieve the goal of creating two states—Israel and Palestine—living side by side in peace after decades of conflict and bloodshed, yet he urged the two sides to work together for the sake of their people.
"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," Bush said in remarks released by the White House. "Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom, purpose and dignity. And such a state will help provide Israelis with something they have been seeking for generations: to live in peace with their neighbors."
After months of frantic diplomacy, top officials from more than 40 nations were converging on this historic state capital for what Bush said he hopes will launch of the first Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in seven years.
Sound familiar? Sound like muted despiration? Sound stupid? Well...
Despite Bush's lofty rhetoric, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had still not managed to broker an agreement on the conference centerpiece, a joint document or "workplan" on new talks—what the two sides must do going forward.Rice has been meeting with the chief negotiators for two days to try and bridge the gaps.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Monday after an afternoon meeting with Rice, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and others that details of the document had not been finalized. "Our efforts are still going on to reach this document," he said.
A member of the Palestinian delegation, speaking on condition on anonymity because talks were still going on, said three main obstacles have emerged:
_All sides have agreed that two states should be established, but the Palestinians have objected to referring to Israel as a "Jewish state." The Palestinians and their Arab backers are concerned that a specific reference to a Jewish state would prejudice the right of Palestinians who claim a right to return to land they once owned inside Israel.
_American and Israeli officials are resisting Palestinian efforts to include language about "ending the occupation that started in 1967," a reference to disputed Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The West Bank would form the bulk of an eventual Palestinian state and the two sides must decide which settlements would remain a part of Israel.
_The Palestinians want the document to set a one-year timetable for reaching a resolution. The Israelis do not want this, and the Americans are open the idea.
Highlights are mine.
OK, so we are trying to broker a "peace agreement" and one of the parties objects to the name of the other country because they obviously expect, at some point, to "return" and take over the first state. Gee, I wonder how many Kassam rockets will preceed their "return"?
Oh, and they want to talk about "the occupation". Right. And they want it signed in a year.
Look, I'm not a sophisticated diplomat, I'm just a mortgage banker with an engineering degree. But I'd like to think that if somebody wanted me to agree to those terms I'd be laying in large quantities of 5.65 and 7.62 in what passes for our guest room.
Damn the State Department and I really hope Condi goes back to Stanford or to the NFL because, like Colin Powell and Maddy Albright before her, she's been fully beltwayed.
I need a shower.
Look, for demographic reasons alone, the present policy is bankrupt. Rice understands this, even if most people in the American conservative movement do not.
The Israelis have pursued a hideously wrongheaded settlements policy since the early 1970's. Now it has come a cropper. They administer fortress settlements scattered among a hostile and well armed population of angry Palestinian Arabs who grow more numerous every year.
Palestinians, for their part, followed the siren song of Yasir Arafat and Leila Khaled and the "Three No's" agreed upon at Khartoum. This is where it has led them; to perdition and penury.
I have no brief for Abbas, but I would hesitate to believe that further pursuance of Israel's settlements policy will buy her security. It will not. Rice is genuine in her desire to bring about a settlement.
It may not work. Spengler may be correct in his conclusion that what is needed for the Islamic World is more war and confusion, civil war and famine, to bring about the logical conclusion to the decline of Islamic Civilization that we are witness to. However, do not believe that Israel would benefit from this.
Personally, I don't believe that the U.S. benefits from underwriting Israel's settlements policy. We didn't sign on for that. We have to keep American national interest in the forefront of our considerations.
At bottom, I understand that a lot of this is about Arab acceptance of the fact that Israel will not vanish and the Jews will not be pushed into the sea. So there's a lot of persistance to the diplomacy that is involved. Everyone is going to table their maximalist demands up front-people need to get used to that. However, that shouldn't stop Rice from proceeding on her course.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
Or not so sweet.
What part of "Israel sits in the center of enemies who long only for the destruction of the State of Israel and ALL Jews everywhere" don't you get?
Condi, who I used to have a great deal of respect for, has her head in her nether region. As do you. The biggest problem right now, and in the past couple of decades, is that Israel has shown too much willingness to negotiate with terrorists and butchers and not enough willingness to kill them and their offspring.
As long as Muslims hate Israel more than they love their children, there will be no peace. And it's not up to the Israelis to continue to "give up". It's up to the Muslims in the region to act like civilized human beings and they never have.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Look, it's precisely because you assert that all the problems are on one side of the aisle that any agreement becomes, ipso facto, impossible.
Negotiation involves two parties that are willing to compromise. There are some Pallies who are willing to come to the table, and others who want Jihad and the Extermination of the Very Last Jew. I know this as well as anybody, so let's try and have an adult discussion here. This isn't Kos.
Arab enmity is why Israel has nuclear weapons and a Lycurgan-style military, where all must serve.
However, the Israeli state has taken on a burden which it cannot continue to carry-the supervision of Arab lands and populations, also known as the "Occupied Territories". Dealing with Arab hatreds is enough. Dealing with Arab hatreds and increasing Arab demographic trends is a bit too much to ask of any Israeli government. Further, Israel must also deal with these problems plus the possible threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon targeted at the Israeli homeland and possible atomic war with a National Socialist regime in Persia.
This is what Rice is getting at. Negotiation is about getting parties past some of these problems.
Or we can have yet another conflict. Which may yet come anyway, should the Iranians want one.
Now, remember, the downside to that is that Ehud Olmert is still Prime Minister. So, Israel is not exactly living in its Periclean Age now, is it?
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
Really? Who. And what factions do they actually have control of.
You are kidding yourself. And Ehud Olmert is an idiot.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Israeli Member of Knesset Benny Elon has been promoting an alternative peace plan for the area including the following:
1. Rehabilitation of refugees; dismantling of the camps;
2. Integration of Palestinians into the Kingdom of Jordan;
3. Sovereignty of Judea and Samaria to Israel.
The unique nature of the Palestinian refugee problem
The 1948 Israeli War of Independence created hundreds of thousands of refugees throughout the Middle East. Sixty years have gone by, and now their number has been increased by the second and third generations to millions.Since 1948 tens of other "refugee problems" have been created, and millions have become refugees in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Although their problem began later than that of the Palestinians, these people are no longer considered refugees.
They have been aided by the UN in host countries or through their own personal initiative and have become regular citizens. Over the same period, not a single Palestinian refugee has been removed from the tally of refugees and become a citizen of one of the countries of the world.
On the contrary, the number of refugees has only increased from year to year, while introducing fresh generations into the circle of poverty, despair, and hate.
Link to his webpage is at:
From Abbas' remarks at the White House today:
Mr. President, what we are facing today is not just the challenge of peace, but we are facing a test of our credibility as a whole: the United States, members of the Quartet, and all members of the international community, Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, the Arab and Islamic group, as well.
It is a test that would leave its indelible impact on the future of the region and on the relationship among its peoples and the international powers that are entrusted in the peace, stability of our region on the other hand. We came with this perspective to Annapolis today. And, therefore, we do recognize the volume of this possibility that we are bearing and the gravity of the burden that we must shoulder.
We do recognize, and I presume that you share me this view, that the absence of hope and overwhelming despair would feed extremism. Therefore, we have a common duty to spread genuine hope in order to achieve full transformation toward complete peace [inaudible] and long term during your term of office, Mr. President, thanks to your support and understanding.
For 60 years, the Arab states of the Middle East have done their utmost to foster "absence of hope, and overwhelming despair" amongst residents of the so-called refugee camps.
Now these camps are teeming with ready made terrorists. Now the White House calls all together to sponsor creation of a state which appears ungovernable. Even if tomorrow agreement is reached for a Palestinian state, how will it govern itself, promote an economy, etc? How will it provide the basic services its citizens need? How will it deal with Hamas, with Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade et al? For the foreseable future, it cannot.
The question one who follows Red State closely must ask is: will forcing a settlement on the Israelis, which creates an unmanageable state on its immediate borders, make that country, the region, or the world, a safer place in which to live? I don't think so.
Abbas also said:
Here, I must defend in all sincerity and candor, and without wavering, the right of our people to see a new dawn, without occupation, without settlement, without separation walls, without prisons where thousands of prisoners are detained, without assassinations, without siege, without barriers around villages and [inaudible].
If the wall of separation is gone, if there is no consequence to murder, to attempted murder, to terrorism, then will the nation of Israel, the Middle East, or America, be a safer place? I find it hard to believe that it will.
Abbas similarly had these remarks:
May I close by recalling some words of Abraham Lincoln in one of the darkest moments of American history? Quote, Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations, end of quotation.
What he may have missed is that President Lincoln was pressing for the absolute destruction of forces arrayed against the young nation, so that it might go confidently forward.
More apt was his quote from JFK, to the extent that while we will not fear to negotiate, under no circs will we negotiate from fear.
of the Bush presidency. I had such high hopes for the Condy State Department a mere 3 years ago. If anything comes of this, the Bush legacy will be substantially STAINED.
This better be all about the PR---but even in that, it would be totally misguided.
Nothing good will come of this.