Mideast Media Sampler 05/17/2011

From an email from DG:

1) "hawkish"

According to the online Merriam Webster dictionary a hawk is " one who takes a militant attitude and advocates immediate vigorous action; especially : a supporter of a war or warlike policy." So it is interesting that in today's New York Times Ethan Bronner reports:

Days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet with President Obama, he laid out his principles Monday for accepting a Palestinian state, showing greater flexibility on territory but still pursuing a far more hawkish approach than any Palestinian leader is likely to accept. 

What elements make up Netanyahu's "hawkish" approach?

At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu showed more willingness to yield territory than he had before, strongly implying that he would give up the vast majority of the West Bank for a demilitarized Palestinian state. He said Israel needed to hold onto all of Jerusalem and the large settlement blocs in the West Bank, thereby suggesting that he would yield the rest.  

The other principles he enumerated included Palestinian recognition of Israel as the home of the Jewish people, an agreement to end the conflict, resolving the refugee problem only within the new state of Palestine and an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley. 

It's hard to see how terms that include territorial compromise and recognition of Israel's right to exist constitute hawkishness. The only element that might constitute hawkishness is a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan valley. Of course given the history of Arab aggression against Israel, it is certainly a prudent precaution.

However, as Bronner observes earlier in the article:

He also made clear that if the recent reconciliation accord between Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian parties, led to Hamas becoming part of a Palestinian government, no peace would be negotiated.  

“A government, half of whose members declare daily their intention to destroy the State of Israel, is not a partner for peace,” he said, speaking at the opening session of Parliament. 

Implicit here, is a demonstration of hawkishness. Fatah, the relatively moderate Palestinian political faction, came to an agreement with Hamas, which is an unrepentant terrorist organization. Fatah, then, is the side that demonstrated its hawkishness, not Israel.

Strip away a lot of the verbiage in this article and notice something. Among Israel's demands of the Palestinians is "an agreement to end the conflict." The next sentence, referring to Israel's lists of conditions for peace reads "Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected every one of those." In short then, Israel offered to make peace, Palestinians refused.

I see that Daled Amos and Elder of Ziyon have fisked Mahmoud Abbas's op-ed in the New York Times. Since Fatah came to a working agreement with Hamas, this is one more op-ed by a terror supporter that the Times deems important lest we have a one sided debate.



2) Party like it's 1948

In the AP report about the protests against Israel's existence, there's a paragraph:

Some in Israel suspected that allies of arch-foe Iran, including the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, had a hand in the border breaches or that Syria helped instigate them to divert attention from its brutal crackdown on domestic unrest. In Lebanon’s border area, Hezbollah activists with walkie-talkies directed buses and handed out Palestinian flags.

Why is this qualified with "[s]ome in Israel suspected?" In Syria people don't move without permission of the regime. The fact that hundreds were able to move across open territory to the Israeli border fence demonstrates that this was done with Assad's permission. And, of course, if Hezbollah "activists" were coordinating efforts in Lebanon, that's hardly a suspicion.

Of course the bigger issue is why after three months of protests across the Arab world do Palestinians decide one day to attack Israel? By itself this is an indication of premeditation and coordination.

And in case you didn't read it elsewhere Turkish soldiers shot and killed 12 cross border infiltrators.


3) What will Abbas do for peace?

David Makovsky has an op-ed in the Washington Post What would Netanyahu do for peace? It begins:

Just a few weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to Washington had the makings of a confrontation amid U.S. dissatisfaction over peace policy. Then Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas. Although Washington cannot easily demand that Netanyahu make major concessions on peace as Abbas joins forces with a group sworn to Israel’s destruction, the Israeli prime minister should still arrive this week with a plan for renewed peace talks.

I don't get the mindset of peace processors. The whole premise of making peace with the PLO was that it would reject terror. Arafat never did. There was always some deniability, but eventually after the Karine A it could no longer be ignored. Then Abbas was deemed free of terror despite his history. (He provided the funds for the Munich massacre and was Arafat's understudy who didn't object to Arafat's use of terror.) Now he has joined with Hamas and all Makovsky can write is: "Concerns about the Palestinian unity government are understandable."


Abbas just rejected peace. Read his op-ed in which he states that one of the purposes of statehood is to pursue legal action against Israel in the UN and its affiliated organizations. This isn't a vision of peace. Over the past 17 1/2 years Israel has given up territory and security in return for empty promises. At this point it isn't Netanyahu who has something to do for peace.


4) Will they acknowledge their own complicity?

Wonderful news: Rights groups praise arrest-warrant request for Kadafi, call for action in Syria

Now will Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International come clean about their shameful efforts to sanitize Qaddafi's regime?

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