http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6538
By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
The recycled Arab League peace proposal — based on the Palestinian
claim of return and the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swap —
attempts to sell oceanfront property in Arizona. If Israel would buy it,
the Arab League would throw the Golden Gate in free.
Those who welcome the Arab League proposal demonstrate suspension of
disbelief. They subordinate reality to wishful-thinking, urging Israel
to assume tangible lethal risks in return for an intangible agreement.
They ignore the lessons of the 1993 Oslo Accord – replete with
intensified Palestinian hate education, terrorism and the abrogation of
agreements — as well as the last three years on the tumultuous, boiling,
seismic Arab Street.
Fans of the Arab League proposal ignore fundamental Middle East
constraints, which are highlighted by the non-existence of a single Arab
democracy, the AWOL of intra-Arab comprehensive peace, the lack of
intra-Arab ratification of all intra-Arab borders and the absence of compliance with most intra-Arab agreements for the last 1,400 years.
Why would anyone assume that Arabs would shower upon the “infidel”
Jewish State that which they have never shared among themselves — a
long-term comprehensive peace carved in stone!
Western policy-makers and public opinion molders call upon Israel to
commit to “painful concessions” in the most conflict-ridden region in
the world. They would never assume such concessions in their own less
violent regions. However, they expect Israel to accept an Arab League
peace proposal, in a region which has not tolerated non-Moslem
sovereignty since the seventh century. They provide a tailwind to a
recycled Arab League “peace” proposal in a region where Christians, Jews
and other non-Moslem minorities are systematically oppressed,
persecuted and annihilated.
Western promoters of the Arab League initiative are oblivious to
inherent features of intra-Arab relations, which have been underscored
during the last three years from North Africa to the Persian Gulf:
Violent intolerance of the other Moslems/Arabs (let alone of the
“infidel”); flaming fragmentation along tribal, ethnic, religious,
ideological and geographic grounds; shifty, unpredictable, unstable and
unreliable regimes, policies and alliances; and the tenuous nature of
agreements, which are usually “written on ice.”
Contrary to the worldview of Western policy-makers who embrace the
Arab League proposal, the Arab Street has not experienced an Arab
Spring, a transition to democracy, Facebook or youth revolution, the
reincarnation of Gandhi and MLK or a quest for dignity. The tide on the
Arab Street – independent of the Arab-Israeli conflict — has been
predominantly anti-democratic, anti-US, violently Islamist and therefore
dramatically more threatening.
A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would import the tempestuous
Arab Street into the Judean and Samarian suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv. It would establish another rogue/terrorist state, doom Jordan’s
pro-US Hashemite regime, add another anti-US vote at the UN and enhance
the Russian, Chinese and North Korean profile in the eastern flank of
the Mediterranean. The establishment of a Palestinian state would
reward those who triggered the flight of Christians from Bethlehem, Beit
Jallah and Ramallah.
Palestinian Arabs have systematically attempted to annihilate the
Jewish presence in the Land of Israel since the anti-Jewish
pogroms/terrorism of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, through the 1948/9 War
and the sustained campaign of terrorism since 1949. The Palestinian
track record also highlights their alliance with Nazi Germany, the USSR,
Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden and other enemies and adversaries
of the Free World. Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat and their allies were expelled
from Egypt (1950s), Syria (1966), Jordan (1970), Lebanon (1982/3) and
Kuwait (1991) for subversion, hence the limited Arab support of the
Palestinians.
The violent Palestinian track record reaffirms that Palestinian Arabs
have never been preoccupied with the size — but with the existence — of
Israel.
The Arab League proposal distorts, once again, the positive elements
of Land-for-Peace, which was displayed at the end of the Second World
War: deterring future aggression by punishing the aggressor (Nazi
Germany) and rewarding the intended victims (France, Poland and
Czechoslovakia) with land. Land-for-Peace as promoted by the Arab
league, and Western political-correctness, fuels aggression by punishing
the intended Israeli victim and rewarding the Arab aggressors.
In order to survive, the Jewish State must control Judea and Samaria,
the cradle of Jewish history. In order to withstand the Middle East
challenges, Israel must control the mountain ridges of Judea and
Samaria, which tower over pre-1967 Israel – a 9-15 mile sliver along the
Mediterranean. Judea and Samaria are “the Golan Heights” of Israel’s
soft belly: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and 80% of Israel’s
population and infrastructures. The higher the level of Middle East
violence, unreliability, unpredictability and intolerance, the more
intensified the threat, the stricter must be the security requirements,
most especially the irreplaceable value of the mountain ridges of Judea
and Samaria.
The Arab League proposal for Israel to depart from Judea and Samaria is not a peace plan; it is a suicidal proposition.
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