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Arabs
No Longer Take Obama Administration Seriously
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The extension of the peace talks
means only one thing: that Abbas will be able to use the new time given
to him to try to extract further concessions from the U.S. and Israel,
while all the time bearing in mind that Obama and Kerry are willing to do
almost anything to avoid a situation where they are forced to admit that
their efforts and initiatives in the Middle East have failed.
The communiqué issued by Arab heads of state at the end of their
summit in Kuwait this week shows that the Arab countries do not hold the
Obama Administration in high regard or even take it seriously.
The Arab leaders also proved once again that they do not care much
about their own people, including the Palestinians.
The Arab leaders, at the end of their two-day meeting, announced
their "total rejection of the call to consider Israel a Jewish
state."
This announcement came despite pressure from the Obama Administration
on the Arab leaders to refrain from rejecting the demand.
A top Arab diplomat was quoted
as saying that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry contacted Arab leaders
on the eve of their 25th summit in Kuwait to "warn" them
against rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.
Kerry, according to the diplomat, asked the Arab leaders completely to
ignore the issue of Israel's Jewishness and not to make any positive or
negative reference to it in their final statement.
Kerry did not want the Arab heads of state to repeat the same "mistake"
that the Arab League foreign ministers made on March 9, when they too
issued a statement
declaring their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The Arab leaders, however, decided to ignore Kerry's warning and went
on to endorse Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas's
refusal.
The Arab summit's statement was published shortly before Kerry cut
short a European tour to hold an emergency
meeting with Abbas in Amman in a last-minute effort to salvage the
peace process with Israel.
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U.S. Secretary
of State John Kerry cut short a European tour to hold an emergency
meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, pictured
above on March 26, 2014. (Image source: U.S. Sate Department)
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In light of the Arab summit's announcement, all that is left for Kerry
to do is to put heavy pressure on Abbas to agree to the extension of the
peace talks after the April 29 deadline set by the U.S. Administration.
At the meeting in Amman, Kerry warned Abbas that failure to comply
with his demand would result in U.S. sanctions against the PA, including
suspending financial aid and closing the PLO diplomatic mission in
Washington.
Emboldened by the Arab leaders' backing, however, Abbas does not seem
to take Kerry's threats seriously, particularly in light of previous
threats by the U.S. Administration that were never carried out.
In 2012, Abbas had also ignored U.S. threats and pressure by seeking
UN recognition of a Palestinian state. The Obama Administration did not
take any retaliatory measures against the PA or against Abbas himself.
Like most of the Arab leaders, Abbas apparently understands that the
Obama Administration has been weakened to a point where it is no longer
able to impose its will on any Arab leader.
The way things appear now, it is Abbas who is setting new conditions
and coming up with new demands, evidently from a conviction that the
Obama Administration has no choice but to succumb.
Abbas today seems to feel confident enough to set his own conditions
for accepting Kerry's demand to extend the peace talks.
Abbas has therefore now come up with a new requirement: that Israel release
three senior Palestinians from Israeli prison: Fatah leader Marwan
Barghouti, PFLP Secretary-General Ahmed Sa'dat and Gen. Fuad Shobaki. All
three are serving lengthy prison sentences for their role in terrorist
activities, including the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam
Ze'evi.
The Palestinians also continue to accuse the Obama Administration of
exerting heavy pressure on Abbas to soften his position and accept some
of Israel's demands, including the issue of Israel's Jewishness. Some
senior Palestinian officials in Ramallah have even accused Obama and
Kerry of practicing "political and financial blackmail" against
Abbas.
Abbas seems assured that Obama and Kerry are so desperate to avoid a
collapse of the peace talks that they will be willing to accept anything
he or the Arab leaders ask for.
The Arab summit stance on the issue of recognizing Israel as a Jewish
state is a blow to the Obama Administration's efforts to achieve a peace
agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
There is a feeling among many Arabs and Palestinians that the Obama
Administration has no clue as to what it wants from the Arab world. They
point out that the Obama Administration has failed in its policies toward
several Arab countries, especially Egypt, Libya and Syria.
Abbas, in wake of growing US pressure on him, evidently sees the Arab
summit as a "victory" for the Palestinians. As one of his aides
explained,
"The Arab summit's announcement is a political and moral boost for
the Palestinian leadership."
Abbas might eventually agree to the American demand to extend the
peace talks at least until the end of the year. But this does not mean
that he is going to change his position regarding recognition of Israel
as a Jewish state. Nor does it mean that Abbas is about to make real
concessions on any of the core issues, such as the future of Jerusalem or
the issue of borders.
The extension of the talks means only one thing: that Abbas will be
able to use the new time given to him to try to extract further
concessions and gestures from the U.S. and Israel, while all the time
bearing in mind that Obama and Kerry are willing to do almost anything to
avoid a situation where they are forced to admit that their efforts and
initiatives in the Middle East have failed.
European
Boycotts of West Bank Products Based on Faulty Premises
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If the Israeli presence in the
West Bank, and the "settlements" from 1967 on, are the root
cause of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, then why
does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO Charter call for the destruction of all
of Israel?
Because Judea and Samaria had no
recognized sovereign, apart from the Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal
Jordanian occupation, the current Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria
cannot possibly be designated as illegal.
It seems therefore that nothing
Israel offers that is less than 100% of its entire land -- in other words
if Israel agrees not to exist -- will affect the Palestinian Authority's
willingness to make peace.
In a world ablaze, European governments and companies still see fit to
boycott
Israeli companies and products from the so called West Bank. The boycotting
parties claim
to base their actions on the fact that the West Bank is occupied
territory and that the Israeli presence in the West Bank is the one true
obstacle to durable peace.
It is apparently unbeknownst to them that both premises are entirely
false.
In the West, the so-called "Green Line" is usually referred
to when the "peace process" is being evaluated. Someone usually
states that Israel should retreat
behind this Green Line in order to maintain legitimacy and legality. The
Green Line is allegedly synonymous with "the Borders of 1967."
This is a highly misleading semantic trick. By asserting the Green Line
as the borders of 1967, the case is made to sound as if this is the
border from whence the Israelis started an aggressive expansion. The
truth is the opposite. The Green Line is in reality the armistice line of
1949: the border where the Arab war of extermination was halted and where
the Israelis finally prevented the attempted genocide of their people.
The term "occupied territories," even if not correct, is
enough to nonplus the average Israel supporter and send left-wing and Muslim
front groups into a twist. It is probably worthwhile to examine the legal
accuracy of the term "occupied" as it is applied to the West
Bank.
First, it is important to realize that the West Bank had no
legally recognized sovereign prior to 1948. After the proclamation of
the state of Israel in 1948, which then counted
a scarce 660,920 Jewish inhabitants, Israel, literally on the day of its
birth, was immediately faced with a war of extermination launched by
Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, complemented by Saudi
Arabian forces fighting under Egyptian command and a Yemeni
contingent.
During this effort to obliterate the nascent state, Jordanian forces
took control of the area that had, from biblical times, been known as Judea
and Samaria. The Jordanians, in 1950, changed this name to the
"West Bank" [of the Jordan River], apparently in an attempt to
semantically strengthen their case of "occupation" by making
the territory sound as if it were a legitimate part of their East
Bank. The move also appears to be an attempt to delegitimize Israel's
claim to the area by de-Judaizing its name[1] -- a strategy first adopted by
Roman emperor Hadrian, when he changed the country's name from Judea to
Palestine, after a nomadic maritime people, the Philistines, who had
been in constant armed conflict with the Jews.
Moreover, only Britain, Iraq and Pakistan recognized the Jordanian
occupation of Judea and Samaria. The rest of the world, including
Jordan's Arab allies, never recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea
and Samaria as legitimate, let alone legal. The same goes for the Gaza
Strip, only there, it was the Egyptians who ended up illegally
occupying the area after the 1948 war of extermination.
During the Six Day War of 1967, Israel was faced with another war of
extermination launched by its Arab neighbors. To survive yet another
attempted genocide, Israeli forces conducted, in response, a war of
defense in which the Israel Air Force destroyed Egyptian aircraft before
enemy troops could reach Israel's fragile borders. In the process of this
defensive war, the Israelis ended up expelling the Jordanians from the
part of Jerusalem they occupied and the West Bank of the Jordan River:
Judea and Samaria.
Because Judea and Samaria had no recognized sovereign, apart from the
Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal Jordanian occupation, the current
Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria cannot possibly be designated as
illegal. After all, from whom are they occupying the area, save from the
former Ottoman Empire? The area can only be correctly designated as
"disputed" territories, just like Kashmir, the Western Sahara, Zubarah,
Thumbs
Island, and a lengthy parchment of other disputed
territories.
It has been alleged -- originally by diplomats of the Arab and Muslim
world, and later parroted by a gullible European political elite -- that
to leave this dispute unresolved blocks not only the peace process but
also the general stability of the region. Any impartial examination of
facts, however, shows that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria has
no significant relationship to either the "peace process" or
regional stability. It is probably just irresistibly convenient for
autocrats to keep telling diplomats to focus on Israel and the
Palestinian problem to throw them -- as well as their own people -- off
the scent of their own questionable governance.
If the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and the
"settlements" from 1967 on, are the root cause of the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians, then why does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO
charter call for the destruction of all of Israel? "The
liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty. Its
responsibilities fall upon the entire Arab nation, governments and
peoples, the Palestinian peoples being in the forefront. For this
purpose, the Arab nation must mobilize its military, spiritual and
material potentialities; specifically, it must give to the Palestinian
Arab people all possible support and backing and place at its disposal
all opportunities and means to enable them to perform their role in
liberating their homeland."
In 1964, there was not a single Israeli in Judea and Samaria,
nevertheless the PLO called for the obliteration of Israel. It is this
'64 PLO mentality that has pervaded the upper echelons of Palestinian administration
ever since. With the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, although PLO
leader Yasser Arafat said 'yes' to peace, in the period following his
actions led to the first massive wave of terror
attacks, known as the "Second Intifada." In 2000,
then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made Arafat an offer that shocked the
world. Barak offered the PLO nearly everything it demanded, including a
state with its capital in Jerusalem; control of the Temple Mount; the
return of approximately 97% of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip,
and a $30 billion compensation package for the 1948 refugees.[2] Arafat turned this deal down.
In 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas almost 98% of the West Bank, and
again accepted nearly all Palestinian demands. Olmert too, was turned
down.
It seems therefore that nothing Israel offers that is less than 100%
of its entire land -- in other words, if Israel agrees not to exist --
will affect the Palestinian Authority's [PA] willingness to make peace.
The Arabs rejected a plan to partition the land, they did not want peace
when there were no Israelis in Gaza, the West Bank or the
Jordanian-occupied eastern part Jerusalem, and have repeatedly turned
down generous peace offers.
Judea and Samaria are not occupied territories, and the Israeli
presence there has no relationship to the PA's willingness to make peace.
Why then would European governments and companies boycott the region?
They do not boycott other comparable regions. Even more revealingly, in
2006, the EU even actively aided an occupying power, Turkey, by approving
a $259 million
aid package for Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus.
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Anti-Israel
protestors in Melbourne, Australia in June 2010. (Image source:
Wikimedia/Takver)
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Why these double standards and what do they tell us about the morality
-- or lack thereof -- of the people who hold them?
As Thomas Friedman once
wrote "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is
vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction
out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is
anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."
[1] Wim
Kortenoeven, De Kern van de zaak, p. 243.
[2] Alan Dershowitz, The Case for
Israel, p. 9.
Please
save Reyhaneh Jabbari From Execution In Iran
by Reyhaneh Jabbari
March 28, 2014 at 2:00 am
Translated by Banafsheh
Zand
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Note: Reyhaneh
Jabbari is a 26-year-old woman who was convicted of murdering a man
named Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi in Iran, and who has been in prison for
the last seven years and is now awaiting imminent execution by hanging.
Jabbari penned this letter to the mayor of Tehran several days before the
Persian New Year Nowruz (March 20th). Jabbari still has no news
about when the death sentence is to be carried out.
There are wounds in life than can eat away at a person like leprosy
and one cannot display them. This is the house of regrets, in the
Shahr'eh Ray area of Tehran. Rather, I should describe it as a mass
grave. To offer treatment to the prisoners, City Hall set out to create a
psychiatric area, large halls that are called Hijaria Mental Health
Consultation and Psychotherapy.
They have built a wall in the middle of the main hall and they
separate the cases who need therapy from the ones that do not. All the
prison facilities they claim are meant to be for training -- such as
clubs, libraries, cultural activities, amphitheater, co-op and a
vocational training office (which adorns the logo of the department of
prisons) -- are on the other side of the wall. These are only offered to
people who are chosen for therapy and consulting, even if they do not
really care for it. The number of people on this side of the wall fills
two entire other halls. Now the social gap -- uptown vs. downtown -- is
quite easily felt in prison. Uptown is pretty, green, clean and filled
with places to enjoy oneself; downtown is barren, there is not even the
most basic amenities. There is no space, no air, no order, no calm... no
life.
Two hundred and thirty seven people are crammed in a ten meter by
nineteen meter hovel. They sleep, eat and just endure there. Forget about
the fact that the regulations of the department of prisons, whose article
thirteen, item one clearly states that each person must have at the very
least a seven square meter "roofed" physical space.
On the other side of the wall, the uptown side of the prison, three
hundred people live in six huge halls, so why are those who are not in
therapy not being moved to that section, when there is such
overpopulation in this one?
Mr. Mayor, we have not seen many beautiful parts of Tehran designed
with the a clean and proper atmosphere in mind. We urge you not to
deprive the 'downtown' prisoners of culture, work and life. According to
regulations, all prisoners should be permitted to use those facilities.
As this is your concept, your word and your budget, we ask you at least
to listen to us.
Mr. Mayor, you send eulogists to this facility for the observance of
religious ceremonies, to familiarize us with the issues of chastity and
religious purification and so that we can structure our lives for the
future (if there is a future) on those canons so that we do not sin and
do not commit any crime -- to have better lives. But are you aware that
on this side of the wall, those who wish to pray in the mornings have no
room to do so? Do you not consider this important for Muslims?
Mr. Mayor, you who are so enthusiastic, artistic and have the
financial means, why don't you think about these conditions and solutions
for everyone? Isn't it better to build a library, a well-equipped
workroom, a gym or properly supplied infirmary? Although I am sure you
are thinking to yourself that the person writing this letter thinks she
is living in a luxury hotel, you should know that prison is our permanent
home, that God has given all his creatures great or small the right to
live in decent conditions, and that and no one has the right to trample
on that.
I offer you greetings for Nowruz and the arrival of the New Year and
hope for your change of mind with regard.
Rayhaneh Jabbari
March 2014
Background
Reyhaneh Jabbari, an interior designer, was in a coffee shop speaking
on the phone about her work, a conversation which was coincidentally
overheard by Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who approached her for
professional advice about renovating his office. They then set a date to
meet at his office in order to see and discuss Sarbandi's renovation
project.
On the day of the meeting, Sarbandi picked up Jabbari in his car. On
the way to his office, Sarbandi stopped at a pharmacy, purchased an item
(while Jabbari waited in the car), got into the car again and drove to
his office. After arriving at their destination, Jabbari realized that
the place did not look like a work place at all as it was a rundown
house. Inside the house, Jabbari saw two drinks on the table, Morteza
went inside and quickly locked the door from inside, put his arms around
Jabbari's waist and told her that "she had no way of escaping".
A struggle soon ensued. Jabbari trying to defend herself stabbed Sarbandi
in the shoulder and escaped. Sarbandi died from bleeding.
Lab analysis showed the drinks Jabbari intended to serve to Jabbari
contained sedatives. Regardless, Jabbari was arrested. There she was told
by the authorities that the murder had been set up [by them] and was
"politically motivated". Nevertheless, Jabbari was tortured
until she confessed to the murder, after she was given the death penalty
which was upheld by the Supreme Court. As a result she is to be executed
at any moment. The Campaign to Save Reyhaneh asks that all individuals
and organizations help support us in any way possible to save Jabbari. If
you have any contacts or connections with media, human rights
organizations, women's rights advocates or government agencies, please
support Jabbari's campaign by writing to them.
Please help us save her life by signing
this petition.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam
Shabnam Assadollahi
Shadi Paveh
Mina Ahadi
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