Arab officials: US peace plan to focus on Gaza ‎first, circumvent PA ‎

Reported in Israel Hayom

Initiative seeks to alleviate the crisis in Gaza while allowing Arab world to adjust to the fact that a comprehensive peace plan may exclude the Palestinian ‎Authority • PA President Abbas "has to wake up before it is too late," Ramallah official says.

Arab officials confirmed to Israel Hayom over the ‎weekend that the regional peace plan being devised ‎by the United States will focus on resolving the ‎humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip prior to ‎dealing with the other cardinal issues involved in the ‎Israeli-Palestinian peace process. ‎

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has billed the plan ‎as the "deal of the century," is determined to push ‎it through with the help of the moderate Arab state ‎‎– Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab ‎Emirates – even if it means going over Palestinian ‎Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' head, the ‎officials said. ‎

Abbas declared that he would not engage with the ‎U.S. on peace talks after Trump officially ‎recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December ‎and subsequently relocated the American Embassy in ‎Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. ‎

The Palestinian leader maintains that these moves ‎clearly demonstrate Trump's pro-Israel bias and ‎therefore the U.S. cannot act as an impartial peace ‎broker between Israel and the Palestinians.‎

The officials noted that the American plan to solve ‎the crisis in Gaza was also the reason why, despite ‎the growing tensions on the Israel-Gaza ‎border, both Israel and Hamas are trying to avoid ‎escalation.‎

Senior Arab diplomats familiar with the plan as ‎well as top Ramallah officials, said that Cairo, ‎Amman, Riyadh and Abu ‎Dhabi have repeatedly urged ‎Abbas to meet with U.S. officials and discuss the ‎plan but to no avail. ‎

Given Abbas' prolonged rejectionism, moderate Arab ‎leaders see no other choice but to go over his head ‎and have decided to back Washington's plan to ‎present the peace plan to the Palestinian people ‎directly, the diplomats said.‎

A high-ranking Jordanian diplomat told Israel Hayom ‎that during senior White House adviser Jared Kushner ‎and Special Representative for International ‎Negotiations Jason Greenblatt's recent visit to the ‎region, they explained the tenets of the plan, which ‎focused on "neutralizing the Gaza issue."‎

Hamas ousted Abbas' Fatah movement from the Gaza ‎Strip in a military coup in 2007, essentially ‎splitting the Palestinian Authority in two. The ‎Western-backed Abbas and Gaza's rulers have signed ‎several reconciliation deals over the past decade, ‎most recently in 2017, but all have collapsed before ‎the ink was even dry, mostly over Hamas' adamant refusal to ‎disarm.‎

The 2007 coup prompted Israel and Egypt to place a blockade on Gaza, so as to thwart Hamas' efforts to smuggle terrorists and weapons into the enclave. But a decade of Hamas rule has brought Gaza to the brink of disaster, and the ongoing rift between the rival Palestinian factions has also been clouding domestic and foreign policies in moderate Arab states, whose leaders are now pushing for a solution that would alleviate Gazans' distress.

According to Arab diplomats familiar with the details of the plan, the American scheme includes a long-term cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Gaza-based terrorist groups, which would be mediated by the moderate Arab states.

Once the cease-fire agreement takes effect and proves lasting, a series of economic programs will be implemented to improve the situation in Gaza, where unemployment nears 50%. These projects, as well as a series of infrastructural rehabilitation plans – including the construction of a special Palestinian port in Cyprus – will be sponsored by the international community.

"A regional peace plan would be viable only if it includes the changing reality in the Gaza Strip," a senior Jordanian official told Israel Hayom.

"The blockade on Gaza cannot continue. The Strip is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster and if that happens, both Israel and the moderate Arab states would be made to pay a price, and especially the Palestinian leadership.

"Unfortunately, by refusing any diplomatic move mediated by the U.S. and declaring he will boycott the Americans' efforts, Abu Mazen [Abbas] is excluding himself from the negotiations over the arrangements in Gaza," he said.

A senior Egyptian official also confirmed that resolving the Gaza crisis would be the first step in the U.S. peace plan.

"Trump and his people have proven that they can think outside the box and suggest creative solutions. … Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority have not ruled Gaza for over a decade and the bottom line is that any deal involving Gaza will ultimately be in the hands of those controlling it on the ground, meaning Hamas," he said, stressing that Cairo would back the U.S. plan even if it meant sidelining Abbas.

Other Arab officials said that the idea behind the "Gaza first" initiative seeks to both alleviate the crisis in the enclave while allowing the Arab world to adjust to the idea that a more comprehensive peace plan would exclude the current leadership in Ramallah.

"This will ease the blockade and allow for the implementation of dozens of projects that have already been approved and funded," one official said.

A senior Palestinian official told Israel Hayom that "there is great concern in the rais' [Abbas'] office over Trump's move. Obviously, neither Trump nor anyone else can make Hamas and the other groups in Gaza disarm, but unless Abu Mazen rethinks his steps he may find himself as irrelevant as [Yasser] Arafat was at the end of his days.

"Trump pursues unconventional diplomacy – something that North Korea and Iran have come to realize – and it seems that the Arab states and the Europeans have come to accept it," he continued. "Only Abbas remains obstinate and the Palestinian people will end up paying the price.

"This is not the leadership Abu Mazen had envisioned and it is definitely not the legacy he wants to leave behind. He has to wake up and come to grips with the plan Trump and the Arab states are promoting, before it is too late," he warned.

Female Terrorists Are ‘National Symbols,’ Palestinian Women’s Union Leader

The Director of the Palestinian Women’s Union in Gaza praised the female terrorists responsible for some of the most lethal attacks on Israelis.

The Director of the Palestinian Women’s Union in Gaza, Amal Hamad, praised female terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, and Fatima Barnawi referring to them as “national symbols.”

Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack on Israelis, known as the Coastal Road Massacre, murdering 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.

Shadia Abu Ghazaleh was active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization and prepared bombs for many attacks against Israel. While she was preparing a bomb for an attack in Tel Aviv in 1968, it accidentally detonated and killed her.

Fatima Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967. The bomb failed to explode. She was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1977 after serving 10 years. In 2015, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas honored Barnawi with the Military Star of Honor.

How is Israel supposed to make peace with the Palestinians when their national “heroes” commit the most evil, sick and twisted atrocities?

See interview at https://youtu.be/VS4J59cnhQM

Palestinians: Israel's Goodwill Gestures Send Wrong Messages

by Bassam Tawil June 2, 2017

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10464/israel-goodwill-gestures

The West suffers under a major misconception concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that "goodwill gestures" and territorial concessions on the part of Israel boost the prospects of peace in the Middle East. The facts, however, suggest that precisely the opposite is true.

Last week, Israel's Channel 10 television station reported that the U.S. administration was pushing Israel to transfer parts of Area C -- areas under full Israeli security and civilian control in the West Bank -- to the control of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA). According to the report, the U.S. believes that the transfer of the territory to the PA would be a "goodwill step" towards the Palestinians, paving the way for the revival of the stalled peace process with Israel.

This assumption, of course, has already proven wrong. The experiences of the past few decades have shown clearly that Israeli concessions have always sent the wrong message to the Palestinians.

• Here is what is being said on the Palestinian street: Today Israel runs away from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip; tomorrow Israel will run away from Ashkelon, then from Tel Aviv and from there to the sea, and we have achieved our goal of destroying Israel. Therefore, we need to continue attacking Israel.

• As with the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal from Lebanon taught the Palestinians that terrorism could drive Israelis out of their country.

• Never have the Palestinians given Israel credit for its goodwill steps. On the contrary, they scoff at these moves and describe them as "cosmetic changes". The Palestinian line is that Israel's steps are "insufficient" and "unhelpful." Its concessions are regarded as gestures of a terrified people and as the rightful reward for terrorism. Far from satiating the appetite of the terrorists, such steps prompt them to step up their attacks against Israelis.

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.”

Faiths pull together in Haifa for world’s biggest magic trick

Israeli magician Cagliostro broke the record for the largest magic session at the Haifa International Convention Center on Monday morning. The session, teaching the new "Haifa Magic for Peace" trick, brought together 1,573 Jewish, Christian, and Muslim students from 25 schools across the city.

"The world does not know that we here in Haifa have been living in peace for over a hundred years, I really want the whole world to know and learn this magic of peace that we live daily in the city."

Every participant received a pack of cards, each card with a word relating to coexistence written on it, such as friendship, respect, and dialogue. After a lesson and practice runs in front of witnesses, a notary, and qualified surveyors, all 1,573 children and Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav performed the trick in unison, with the one card each participant chose flying out of their pack and into the air.

"We have to enter the Guinness Book of Records with the Haifa Magic for Peace," said Yahav to the participating children. "The world does not know that we here in Haifa have been living in peace for over a hundred years, I really want the whole world to know and learn this magic of peace that we live daily in the city."

The event was hosted in partnership with Beit HaGefen, a Haifa based Jewish-Arab Culture Center, the Haifa Municipality Department of Education – Department of Social Value Education, and volunteers from Maarag, a Tel Aviv based organization promoting multicultural society in Israel. 

Israelis prepare to vote; Palestinians prepare to fight

Khaled Abu Toameh March 16, 2015

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5395/israeli-vote-palestinians-fight

For some Palestinians, the election is not about removing Netanyahu from power. Rather, it is about removing Israel from the face of the earth and replacing it with an Islamist empire.

Kerry's statement about the revival of the peace process shows that he remains oblivious to the reality in the Middle East, particularly with regards to the Palestinians.

Kerry is ignoring the fact that the Palestinians are today divided into two camps; one that wants to destroy Israel through terrorism and jihad and another that is working hard to delegitimize and isolate Israel with the hope of forcing it to its knees.

As Kerry was talking about the revival of the peace process, Hamas announced that it has completed preparations for the next confrontation with Israel.

Abbas will come to the talks with the same demands he and his predecessor have made over the past two decades, namely a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. And when Israel does not accept all his demands, he will again walk out and demand international intervention to impose a solution on Israel.

Talk about the resumption of the peace process is nothing but a silly joke.

The Palestinians Want... Peace?

 Khaled Abu Toameh March 9, 2015

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5347/palestinians-want-peace

      The latest PLO and Fatah campaign is not directed only against settlement products.             Rather, it is targeting anything made in Israel, as a part of an "anti-normalization"                   movement, whose goal is to thwart any encounters between Israelis and Palestinians,           including peace conferences.

While some Israelis, Americans and Europeans are talking about the need to revive the peace process after the March 17 elections in Israel, the Palestinians are clearly moving in a different direction.

"We are headed for confrontation with Israel." — Mahmoud Aloul, senior Fatah official.

The Palestinian Authority's strategy now is to intensify its campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the international community, and promote all forms of boycotts of Israelis and Israeli goods; to force Israel to make concessions through international pressure and through campaigns of boycott and divestment.

These campaigns are further radicalizing Palestinians, driving many of them into the open arms of radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

If Abbas is interested in returning to the negotiating table (as he sometimes declares he is), then he needs to prepare his people for that and not incite them even more against Israel.

Those who are opposed to the presence of Israeli products in their villages and cities will be the first to oppose the resumption of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis.

One of the reasons why it would be very difficult for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to return to the negotiating table with Israel is the massive campaign the Palestinians have launched to promote boycotts of Israel.

This campaign is being waged by PA President Abbas's loyalists in Fatah and the PLO.

Those who are today calling for a boycott of Israeli products, such as milk and dairy products, will be the first to stand against any attempt to resume the peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel in the future.

Although Abbas himself has publicly spoken against the international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel, now he seems to have given his tacit support for the current campaign in the West Bank.

During a visit to South Africa in late 2013, Abbas told reporters, "No, we don't support the boycott of Israel. But we ask everyone to boycott the products of the settlements."

But the latest PLO and Fatah campaign is not directed only against settlement products. Rather, it is targeting anything that is made in Israel, including milk, biscuits and chocolate.

The campaign against Israeli products is the latest in a series of anti-Israel and anti-peace measures that PLO and Fatah activists have taken in recent years. These measures include the establishment of an "anti-normalization" movement whose goal is to thwart any encounters between Israelis and Palestinians, including sports matches and peace conferences.

In January last year, scores of Palestinians attacked a hotel in Ramallah where Israelis and Palestinians were holding a meeting to talk peace. The Israelis were evacuated under Palestinian police protection and handed over to Israeli authorities.

It is worth noting that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership never denounced the attack on the peace gathering, which occurred less than three miles away from the PA president's office and private residence.

Because of the "anti-normalization" campaign, it has become impossible and even unsafe to organize any public meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, not only in the West Bank, but also in other parts of the world.

A number of Palestinian journalists who participated in a conference attended by Israeli colleagues in a European capital were punished by being expelled from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. Palestinian children who participated in a soccer match with Israelis reported that they had received threats from "anti-normalization" activists in the West Bank. A more recent attempt to organize a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in Bethlehem was called off after organizers said they received death threats from Palestinians.

Now that the "anti-normalization" movement has succeeded in putting an end to public meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, the PLO and Fatah are moving on to the next stage, namely promoting boycotts of Israeli products. After preventing Israelis from entering Palestinian communities, now they are working toward blocking the entry of any goods made in Israel.

Mahmoud Aloul, a senior Fatah official who is closely associated with Abbas, defended the destruction of the dairy products and called for stepping up boycott campaigns against Israel.

"Fatah is working toward consolidating the culture of boycotting Israeli products in Palestinian society by all means so that it would become an essential part of the upbringing and education of Palestinian generations," Aloul explained. "We are headed toward confrontation with Israel."

Following the confiscation of the truck in Ramallah, Palestinian merchants in another West Bank city, Jenin, complained that Fatah activists have demanded they stop selling Israeli products, accompanied by threats. The merchants were told that they had one week to get rid of eight Israeli products or else they would face punishment.

When Aloul and other Palestinian officials talk about preparations for another "confrontation" with Israel, they are referring to the Palestinian Authority's efforts to promote boycotts of Israel in the local and international arenas, as well as filing "war crimes" charges against Israelis at the International Criminal Court.

So while some Israelis, Americans and Europeans are talking about the need to revive the peace process after the March 17 elections in Israel, the Palestinians are clearly moving in a different direction.

The PA's strategy now is to intensify its campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the international community and promote all forms of boycotts of Israelis and Israeli goods. The PA is now convinced that the only way to force Israel to make concessions is through international pressure and the promotion of campaigns of boycott and divestment.

This strategy was reflected in this week's resolution by the PLO Central Council in Ramallah. After a two-day meeting, the Council decided to suspend all forms of security coordination with Israel and called for boycotting Israeli goods.

"The PLO's Central Council reaffirms the continuation of boycotting Israeli goods as a form of popular resistance," the Council said. "It calls on the free people of the world and the committees of solidarity with the Palestinian people to boycott Israeli goods and withdraw investments."

Campaigns calling for the boycott of Israelis and Israeli products are further radicalizing Palestinians, driving many of them into the open arms of radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If Abbas is interested in returning to the negotiating table with Israel (as he sometimes declares he is), then he needs to prepare his people for that and not incite them even more against Israel.

Those who destroy milk and dairy products in the center of Ramallah will also lynch any Israeli Jew they see in their city. This has happened before and could happen once again if the Fatah and PLO campaign of incitement against Israel continues.

And those who are opposed to the presence of Israeli products in their villages and cities will be the first to oppose the resumption of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis.