Those of us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace camp do not enjoy being proven right -- although we invariably are.
Our standard recommendation to Israel is that it moves quickly to achieve agreements with the Arab states and the stateless Palestinians before it is too late.
And the Israeli response is that there is no urgency to make peace -- except on Israeli terms -- because Israel is strong and the Arabs are weak.
The most egregious example of this phenomenon comes from Egypt, when in 1971 President Anwar Sadat offered to begin negotiations toward peace in exchange for a 2-mile wide Israeli withdrawal from the east bank of the Suez Canal, which Israel had captured along with the rest of the Sinai Peninsula in the 1967 war.
The Nixon administration told the Israeli government to explore the idea because Sadat was intent on going to war if he did not get his territory back.
The peace camp in Israel and its allies here urged Israel to follow Nixon's advice and hear Sadat out. The lobby, of course, told Nixon to mind his own business.
As for the Israeli cabinet, it told Nixon's emissary, Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco, that it had no interest in discussing Egypt's offer. It voted for keeping all of the Sinai Peninsula and sending Egypt a simple message: no. After all, the Egyptians had shown just four years earlier that they were no match for the IDF.
Two years later, the Egyptians attacked, and within hours all of Israel's positions along the canal were overrun and its soldiers killed. By the time the war ended, Israel had lost 3000 soldiers and almost the state itself. And then, a few years later, it gave up the entire Sinai anyway, not just the two mile strip Egypt had demanded in 1971.
The peace camp was proven right. But I don't recall anyone being happy about it. On the contrary, we were devastated. 3,000 Israelis (and thousands more Egyptians) were killed in a war that might have been prevented if the Israeli government had simply agreed to talk.
This pattern has been repeated over and over again. The Oslo Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which gave Israel its safest and most optimistic years in its history, collapsed after Prime Ministers Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak repeatedly refused to live up to its terms.
During the Oslo process, Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority did what it was supposed to do: it combated terrorism so effectively (Hamas had launched a series of deadly bus bombings to thwart the peace process) that Netanyahu himself telephoned Arafat to thank him for it. By 1999, terrorism was effectively defeated in Israel. It was an amazing time, with the free and safe movement of goods and people from Israel to the West Bank and back again -- not the way it is today, with a towering wall separating Israelis from Palestinians and dividing Palestinians on one side from Palestinians on the other.
But the temporary end of terrorism did not achieve the permanent transfer of any land to the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Barak nickeled and dimed the Palestinians to death -- actually, to the death of the peace process, which for all intents and purposes is now buried. By the time Clinton convened the Camp David summit in 2000, any good will between the two sides was gone.
One could go on and on. According to President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak could have had peace with Syria in 2000 until, at the very last minute, Barak chickened out. (He was afraid of the settlers.) The opportunity for full peace with Syria (which would almost certainly also mean peace with Lebanon as well as a lowering of tensions with Syria's ally, Iran) came again in December 2008.
The Turks had brokered a deal with the Syrians that Prime Minister Olmert celebrated with a five-hour Ankara dinner with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Olmert went home. The Turks waited for Israel's final approval.
And then this is what happened next, according to the Israeli New York University professor, Alon Ben-Meir:
...to the utter surprise and dismay of the Turkish government, five days after Olmert returned to Jerusalem, Israel began a massive incursion into Gaza. Ankara felt betrayed by the Israeli action and deceived by Olmert's failure to inform the Turkish Prime Minister of Israel's pending operation of which he, as the Prime Minister, was obviously fully aware of and could have disclosed to his Turkish counterpart while he was still in Ankara. For Mr. Erdogan, the problem was compounded not only because he did not hear from Olmert the message of peace which he eagerly anticipated, but a 'declaration' of war with all of its potential regional consequences.
It is hard to describe the depth of the Turks' disappointment, not only because they were left in the dark, but because a major breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli peace process of historical magnitude was snatched away.
This incident was a major first step toward the collapse of the Israeli-Turkish friendship, which -- along with the relationship with Mubarak's Egypt -- was the cornerstone of Israel's sense of security. Whose left? Jordan but Israel consistently ignores King Abdullah's demands that it end the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza.
And then there is our own country. President Obama put his prestige on the line to achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but all Israel did in response was to ridicule him and reject every suggestion the President made. (No matter that Israel receives more US aid than any other country, by far).
Anyone who cares about Israel at all has to be appalled by these repeated blunders -- all backed by AIPAC and its cutouts in Congress.
When will Israel's supposed friends learn?
Maybe never. In today's New York Times, Yossi Klein Halevi, an influential Israeli journalist, expresses fear, almost terror, about the Egyptian revolution. He tells of:
...the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.
Note how Halevi conflates Turkey with Iran (a ridiculous comparison based only on the fact that democratic Turkey opposes Israel's blockade of Gaza) and then adds Egypt to the list.
And then there is the latest fright word, the Muslim Brotherhood. You would never know it from Halevi but the Brotherhood is non-violent, has always opposed Al Qaeda, and condemned 9/11 and all other acts of international terrorism. Yes, they are an Islamic organization which would prefer an Egypt based on Islamic law much as the Shas party (a significant part of Israel's ruling coalition) pushes for an Israel based on its extreme interpretation of Torah.
Halevi may want the Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorists but, sadly for him, that is not true. And, besides, the January 25 Revolution is not a Muslim Brotherhood revolution. They support it -- almost all Egyptians do -- but that does not make it theirs. Nor do they claim otherwise. (See this interview with George Washington University professor Nathan Brown, who explains what the Brotherhood is and isn't.
The bottom line: I am happy for the Egyptian people, but I am sad for Israel -- not because it is genuinely threatened by this revolution but because Israel's leaders seems determined to turn the revolution against them.
One can only hope that Israel, and its lobby, wakes up. I hate always being proven right when it comes to Israel. I care about it too much.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
Do you believe that if Israel signed a peace deal with the Palestinians terror attack would stop?
Why do you expect Hamas that started a deadly terror wave to prevent any sort of concession of Palestine from the river to the sea to start playing nice after its rivals close a deal?
And if Hamas does agree to temporarily stop attacks , there will still be at least 30% of the Palestinians that would object to the deal surely there would be enogh of them to Join PIJ or which ever organization not honoring the agreement. The question is not whether Palestinian terror attacks continue the question is what will you do and say when those attacks become unbearable.
Because if you and the likes of you do not stand behind Israel in just wars like the 2nd Lebanon War and the Gaza war, why would another Palestinian war be any diffrent?
Peace camp proven wrong.
Lebanon withdrawal, Peace camp said a retreat from south Lebanon will end Hezbulla agression and force the abiding of UN resolution and disbanding Hezbulla, result Hezbulla got stronger than ever attack on Israel continued and forced Israel into a war.
Peace camp proven wrong.
Gaza Withdrawl, Peace camp said a retreat from Gaza will bring secure borders and allow Israel to respond in case it is attacked from an area it doesn't occupy and help bring peace.
Peace camp proven wrong Hamas attacks on Israel from Gaza intensified Hamas took control over the strip and refuse to let go of its hold making any future peace deal impossible.
Peace camp proven wrong.
Should be in the Guinness Book for most seperate falsehoods written with the fewest characters.
The war with Egypt in 1973 in which Israel lost 3,000 IDF soldiers.
Should have been proof to the Israeli government that they are not invincible.
The best chance for long term survival is total equality for the Palestinians.
You sound like a loyal 3rd wife of the sultan of Bahrain..
Actual the 1st wife is loyal the third one always nags him.
I agree with the information in Mr Rosenberg's article.
If you find it factually incorrect this is your chance to correct it.
Go for it.
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun01/shusteff2.htm
Its means having the courage to address its many FAULTS! MJ does a great job at it!
And you seem to be missing the point that it is not only Israel's desires and wishes that matter. So do a few hundred thousand settlers that are eventually either going to be proud citizens of a Palestinian state...or a Palestinian majority "Jewish" in-name-only state. But that's okay. You'll all get it eventually.
No one burdens the Palestinian government with the responsibility to play a part in peace negotiations, and it is this lack of pressure that has allowed for decades worth of Palestinian government corruption, wasteful spending, and futile actions to go unchecked.
I do not like when the conniving can blame ignorance or circumstance for planned actions.
Still they have time to make peace, but knowing Netanyahu and his ilk, they will just get more hardline.
"Dozens of Fatah supporters demonstrated in Ramallah on Wednesday in support of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The demonstration coincided with the attack that was launched by Mubarak's supporters against anti-government protesters in Cairo.
Sources in Ramallah said that the demonstration was initiated by the PA leadership, which has banned anti-Mubarak protests in the West Bank.
The demonstrators shouted slogans condemning Egyptian opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei as a “CIA agent” and warned against foreign intervention in Egypt’s internal affairs.
Fatah-controlled media outlets on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on ElBaradei, dubbing him a “war criminal” and holding him responsible for the Iraq war.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=206421
ElBaradei accused of being responsible for the Iraq War? Encroyable.
The revolution is against Israel indirectly. Mubarak has been a puppet for years to Israel. Even tripping his fellow arabs in Palestine.
Protesters tell 'The Jerusalem Post' they don't feel Egypt is completely free of Israeli occupation
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=206357
i read you.