Stating The Obvious

"When you talk about a Jewish state, you are talking about the end of the end of any solution for Palestinian refugees -- do you think any Palestinian can accept this?"
"If Mr. Kerry thinks this is the sum of his brilliant intelligence, the document will go nowhere. It's impossible for the Palestinians to sign such an agreement with Israel."
Nabil Shaath, Palestinian official, former foreign minister

Impossible was just what it was for PLO chief Yasser Arafat, knowing that if he did any such thing he would be a dead man, assassinated by Fatah for betrayal of the "Palestinian cause". At the time that Arafat vacillated and finally left the peace table, deciding to prove his credentials as a Palestinian fighter who would accept nothing less than everything, not 90%, not 98% of demands, he conspired to inspire the First Intifada.



This, at a time, when Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which developed out of initial Oslo Accord discussions, saw Israel helping the PA to form the civil infrastructure it required for a working government, and when the Israeli police and military were working with PA Palestinian police and military in training and security protocols. The Intifada turned it all on its head; Israeli police and military found themselves facing PA weapons turned on them, by those whom they provided the weapons to, by those whom they had given training to.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met directly in Oslo, Norway to agree to basic demands. Each agreed to recognize the other's existence as an absolute fact; Israel recognized Yasser Arafat as a peace partner, agreeing to Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, withdrawing from Gaza and Jericho. The Palestinians recognized Israel's 'right to exist', and renounced terrorism.

In recognition of this historic achievement Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, FM Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat were made Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

Nobel presentations and recognitions which, in the end, turned out to be rather precipitous, much as the Peace Prize award to U.S. President Barack Obama proved to be; expectation and hope winning out over reality. And now, the Palestinian Authority has done Arafat one better. Each time one of the 'peace' negotiations takes place, larger, more urgent and more entitled demands are put on the table.

Any time they are assented to by Israel in the fond hope that a settlement for peace can finally proceed, the agreement is rejected, with the next round featuring ever-increased demands. There is method to what appears madness to the logical, ethical mind. For each agreement represents a capitulation and an encouragement to the mind of people wallowing in the twin pathologies of victimhood and vengeance; that the final demand will be that Israel simply disappear.

What has renewed the Palestinian wrath of being yet again wronged, at the hands of a treacherous America and a conniving Israel, is that an outline of the Middle East peace agreement currently being drawn by John Kerry is set to propose the PA recognition of Israel specifically as a Jewish state. This betrayal at the design of an Israeli henchman, Secretary of State Kerry, has dropped the second shoe. A deal-breaker, ostensibly.

It is, in fact, the cardinal insistence of the Israeli government that it be recognized formally by the PA for the establishment that it was effectively entitled to represent, when the United Nations gave its assent in 1947 to the establishment of a state specifically to become a homeland in the geography of their heritage, religion and culture, for the Jewish people. "The nation-state of the Jewish people".

Mr. Kerry's document states that under his peace plan, Israel, the Jewish State, would exist alongside Palestine, the "nation-state of the Palestinian people". Arab resistance against the very concept of a nation meant to represent a homeland for Jews reflects the usual Arab push-back against a Jewish presence in a largely Muslim geography. Their own nations are all exclusively Arab. Entitled to be so by virtue of Islamic doctrine.

The Palestinian Authority envisages "right of return" as a demand incontrovertibly absolute, theirs to make, theirs to expect, theirs to be entitled to. Representing an opportunity to deluge the Jewish state with an influx of 'returnees', former Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, and their three million descendants, who have the 'right' to 'return'. A right enabled by the United Nations which has conferred ongoing refugee status to the original refugees in perpetuity and their offspring.

A United Nations unable to acknowledge that a like number of Arab Jews was expelled unceremoniously from the countries they had lived within, among their Arab neighbours for thousands of years. They are not considered refugees, for they were absorbed within Israel, for the most part, absent their properties which were confiscated in the lands of the Middle East and North Africa where they were disowned and expelled.

The status of Jerusalem represents yet another decision worthy of the wisdom of Solomon. Yet the prosaic recommendation by Israeli President Netanyahu that the city including the biblical city's holy sites remain with Israel, not ceded to the Palestinians, given the historical antecedents and current realities. And that a site within "greater Jerusalem", somewhere in the city's outer suburbs could suitably be carved out for the Palestinian capital.

Truly, a capital recommendation by a descendant of Solomon.