Know with Whom You Negotiate

From an article by David m. Weinberg  published in the Jerusalem Post march 16, 2017

In a powerful essay published in The American Interest late last month by Brig.-Gen.(res.) Michael Herzog. Herzog blows many myths to smithereens, and reveals both the artifice of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas and the chicanery of John Kerry.

US special representative should read this essay before embarking on another peacemaking circus! Herzog is a veteran peace processer, having participated in most of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians since 1993. He processed peace, or tried to, for prime ministers Rabin, Barak, Olmert and Netanyahu, and worked closely with Tzipi Livni, too. He was part of the Wye, Camp David, Taba, Annapolis and Kerry rounds of negotiation. 

So Herzog is not a right-wing ideologue. When his account thoroughly undermines the global “consensus” regarding the diplomatic process – a consensus unfavorable to Israel – this should be noted.

• First, Herzog tells us that the obstructionist image that Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to have among world leaders is woefully unjustified. Herzog says that Netanyahu was extraordinarily serious about negotiating peace with the Palestinian Authority, and he made significant concessions in the process; so much so, that he still dares not admit the details to the Israeli public and to his current coalition partners.

It is clear from Herzog’s telling (and from previous pieces, such as the 2014 New Republic exposé by Ben Birnbaum and Amir Tibon) that, for lasting peace, Netanyahu was ready to withdraw from vast tracts of Judea and Samaria to facilitate Palestinian statehood, venturing “well outside his natural comfort zone.”

• Second, Herzog makes it clear that Abbas didn’t really want an agreement of any sort, period. He was in the process to cry on the shoulders of president Obama and Kerry about Palestinian rights; to pocket concessions from Israel without being willing himself to compromise on any concrete issue or sign on any dotted lines; and to ensure failure of the talks with blame heaped on Israel, and thus justify breaking previous Palestinian commitments.

Abbas pretended to negotiate before “losing interest”; used Hamas to doom the talks; and ran to international institutions to criminalize Israel, with failed talks as his excuse. Herzog feels that Abbas still expects the international community to “deliver” Israeli withdrawals on a silver platter, without tying the hands of a Palestinian state to any concrete end-game commitments.

• Third, Herzog makes it clear that it is simply not true – not even remotely true! – that the parameters for a settlement between Israel and Palestinians are “well known,” “clear,” “obvious,” and “within easy reach” if only brave leaders step forward. “Unlike some simplistic notions out there,” writes Herzog, and despite 20 years of Oslo-era peace processing, “the gaps are significant and widened by the weight of history, religion, emotions and domestic politics.”

• Fourth, the most interesting and disturbing of Herzog’s revelations relate to the disastrous negotiating dynamics dictated by John Kerry.

To begin with, Kerry drove the notion that there was a constant need to reward Abbas for coming to, and staying at, the negotiating table. This fed Palestinian appetites, and allowed Abbas to continually blackmail the US and Israel for concessions and sweeteners (for example the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israel jails).

Then when the talks reached a stalemate, Kerry’s approach was again to reward the Palestinians for their obduracy (by moving American goalposts on the issues and begging Abbas to stay engaged), and to punish Israel for its flexibility (by pressuring Netanyahu for more sweeteners and concrete concessions).

In fact, according to Herzog, Israel began to realize that Kerry was negotiating mainly with and against Israel, while conducting substantially no such parallel process with Abbas. When the crunch came and it was finally time to prod Abbas into accepting a proposed US framework for continuing the talks, “it was too little too late. Abu Mazen has shut down... no longer interested or invested in the process.”

In other words, the gullible Kerry “discovered” only at the end of the process that Abbas had been stringing him along with no intention of budging.

• Fifth, up against Abbas in “shutdown mode,” Obama and Kerry offered up significant concessions to Abbas in a desperate attempt to reengage him. This involved “new ideas and formulations that departed from traditional official US positions and tilted toward Abbas’s positions (including an explicit confirmation of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and equivalent land swaps) – positions that were never shared with Israel.”

What happened next? Abbas walked away without acceding to America’s entreaties, knowing full well that Obama would never blame him for failure of the process, and that America’s new positions were essentially in his pocket.

And then sure enough, Kerry enunciated these moves away from Israel as official Obama administration policy, when he harangued Israel (and not the Palestinians) in an overwrought 70-minute sermon at the State Department in December.

• Sixth and perhaps most important, Herzog lays bare American unfairness to Israel on the settlement issue. When he testified before Congress, Kerry publicly blamed Israeli housing starts in the territories for the failure of his negotiating effort. I worked so hard to bring peace, he wailed, and then “poof!” – the whole entire effort went up in smoke because of Netanyahu’s damn settlements.

Contrary to Kerry’s casuistic narrative, Herzog makes it clear that Netanyahu never promised to freeze settlement construction for the duration of the talks.

The opposite is true: Israel had fully informed Kerry it would announce construction of up to 1,500 housing units beyond the Green Line to coincide with every phase of terrorist releases. This was the price of getting the very-controversial and dangerous prisoner releases through the cabinet.

In other words, having inappropriately promised to Abbas the release of Palestinian (and Israeli Arab!) terrorists held in Israeli jails, and then foisted these releases upon Israel, Kerry knew that some construction in settlement blocs adjacent to the 1967 line would follow. Abbas knew this too, and they both went along with this.

Herzog notes that the construction announced was in areas that even Palestinian maps in previous negotiations indicated would remain part of Israel. And I note that, for better or worse, the Netanyahu governments since 2014 haven’t actually built most of those promised homes.

In any case, settlements certainly were not the main reason behind the failure of the talks. And yet, Kerry’s egregious “poof” remark pinned the failure on settlement activity, vindictively and dishonestly so. This American sin against Israel has skewed the global diplomatic narrative ever since.

In the end, Herzog’s makes it obvious that the Palestinian Authority under Abbas has not proven to be a “willing or capable” peace partner; that, alas, it isn’t truly seeking an end of conflict and all claims; and that its bottom line seems nowhere near that of even the most flexible Israeli government.

Therefore, it is time for a new approach in dealing with the conflict. “The sea changes in relations between major Arab states and Israel,” concludes Herzog, allow for emergence of a solution strategy “in a broader regional context.”

Palestinians: Kerry and the Game of Obfuscation⃰

(  ⃰The act of obscuring something to make it more difficult to understand)

Khaled Abu Toameh Feb 22, 2016

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7480/palestinians-john-kerry

This current "intifada" is simply a further phase in a larger plan to destroy Israel. When the plan began officially, with the establishment of the PLO in 1964, there were no "settlements" -- not until after the June 1967 War -- so what exactly were the Palestinians planning to "liberate"?

The current conflict is not about "defending" any mosque from being contaminated by the "filthy feet" of Jews: it is about seeing Israel forced to its knees. Abbas and others seek to reap delicious political fruits from this "intifada."

Here is a novel idea: Kerry could put pressure on the Palestinian and Jordanian leadership to cease anti-Israeli incitement and indoctrination. Now that would be pressure well applied.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is back in town. This time he is meeting with Jordanian and Palestinian leaders about "ongoing security issues in the region and continued tensions between Israel and the Palestinians."

For those not involved in political newspeak, here is a translation:

"Ongoing security issues" = the Islamic State terror group (ISIS).

"Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians" = the ongoing wave of Palestinian stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks that began in October 2015.

Kerry comes back, but never calls a spade a spade. The "tensions" to which he deceptively alludes are knifings and car-rammings. And what is the biggest spade that Kerry avoids calling by its name? The new generation of Palestinians brainwashed to believe that Israel can be defeated with knives and car-attacks.

This "intifada" is simply a further phase in a larger plan to humiliate and destroy Israel. This plan began officially, with the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in May 1964. At that time there were no "settlements" -- not until after the June 1967 War -- so what exactly were the Palestinians planning to "liberate"?

The plan continued in 1974, at the twelfth session of the Palestinian National Council in Cairo, with the 10-point "Phased Plan". Article 2 called for "armed struggle" (terrorism) to establish "an independent combatant national authority" that is "liberated" from Israeli rule.

Contrary to Palestinian leaders' pap, the current conflict is not about "defending" any mosque from being contaminated by the "filthy feet" of Jews: it is about seeing Israel forced to its knees. Abbas and others seek to reap delicious political fruits from this "intifada."

That is why, in his meeting with Kerry, Abbas made it clear that he intends to pursue unilateral moves to impose a solution on Israel, with the help of the international community.

Abbas also told Kerry that he intends to continue with his efforts to seek a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel over "settlement construction."

Never mind that on Palestinian maps, all of Israel is regarded as one big "settlement."

Palestinian Authority leaders, official television, schools and media outlets often display maps showing Palestine stretching from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. The maps do not show the existence of Israel.

But back to Kerry. His "tensions" imply two sides engaged in some kind of a dispute that has aggravated a situation and strained relations between them, instead of what it really is: Palestinians openly trying to supplant Israelis -- the entire state.

So the game of obfuscation continues. No doubt, we will witness more pressure on Israel to make concessions that will supposedly ease the "tensions."

Kerry and his friends either do not "get it" or do not want to "get it." Palestinians are waging an out-and-out war against Israel with the goal of making Israelis suffer to a point at which they will beg their leaders to capitulate. In the Palestinian view, such behavior pays off royally.

Im the Palestinian mindset the two previous uprisings -- in 1987 and 2000 -- brought major achievements to the Palestinians.

The first "intifada" led to Israel's recognition of the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians" -- a move that was followed by the signing of the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

The second "intifada," the Palestinians argue, led to Israel's full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005.

And so we arrive at the newest wave of attacks. As the saying goes: Step-by-step.

Kerry would like to see an end to the Palestinian attacks on Israeli Jews. The only problem is that his vacuous rhetoric prevents him from having a snowball's chance in a Middle Eastern summer from attaining that goal.

Let us also not underestimate Palestinian Authority rejectionism. On the eve of the Kerry-Abbas meeting, Palestinian Authority officials were quoted as saying that they did not expect anything positive to come out of the talks "because the U.S. remains biased in favor of Israel."

As always, the Palestinian stance is, "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY."

Moreover, Kerry is dreaming if he thinks that President Mahmoud Abbas or King Abdullah are able to stop the attacks on Israelis. Neither has the mandate or the credibility to do so. In any case, they and their media outlets are too busy with their anti-Israeli ranting to do much on that score.

Thus far, not a word has been uttered by either of the two Arab leaders that could be even vaguely interpreted by their people as "stop killing Israelis." In the Palestinian Looking Glass, it is Israel that is responsible for the deadly attacks. After all, claims that are untrue about Israelis "storming and desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Islamic holy sites" are provocative, to say the least.

Here is a novel idea: Kerry could put pressure on the Palestinian and Jordanian leadership to cease anti-Israeli incitement and indoctrination. Now that would be pressure well applied. And it does not even require funding.

When Kerry and his crew finally wake up to the fact that it is precisely this incitement that is driving Palestinians into the open arms of ISIS, Hamas and other terror groups, perhaps, finally, we will be able to hope for "easing tensions in the region."

Meanwhile, Kerry is back blathering about peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, he seems incapable of calling a spade a spade -- especially when that spade's name is Palestinian prevarication.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Accuracy, Settlements, and The New York Times

Elliott Abrams  November 7, 2015

http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2015/11/07/accuracy-settlements-and-the-new-york-times/

(Too  many  people  are  prepared  to  make  statements  without  checking  their f acts.  Newspaper  journalists  seem  to  be  the worst. Below  the  New  York  Times   article is  just  one  example).

In an editorial on November 6th about Israeli-US. relations, The New York Times states as fact something that is simply false: “new settlements have been pursued so aggressively by Mr. Netanyahu that the land available for a Palestinian state may already be foreclosed.”

Secretary of State Kerry has made similar statements recently, and it is quite remarkable that such a fact question can be gotten so wrong. First, the term “new settlements” has a meaning: it does not mean expansion of existing settlements, nor the creation of a hilltop outpost of a couple of trailers. There has simply not been an aggressive creation of new settlements under Mr. Netanyahu, and in fact there have been close to zero new settlements.

Second, there has not even been an aggressive expansion of “old” or existing settlements. Settler populations have grown steadily, on both sides of the security fence, but the Netanyahu government has very clearly restrained that growth. Settler protests, and the fact that many settlers vote for parties other than Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud, attest to this, but more significantly so do the statistics released annually by the government of Israel. Consulting those statistical reports is apparently beyond the capacity of the Times.

Those who wish to oppose or criticize any growth in population in the settlements have reason to complain, but the claim that new settlements are quickly gobbling up all the land in the West Bank is a fantasy. It is false. The “peace map” or “Google Earth map” of the West Bank shows very little change during the Netanyahu years. It should not be too much to ask for accuracy on such points when The New York Times writes yet another of its endless and dreary attacks on the government of Israel.