By Ted Belman ——Bio and Archives--December 19, 2010
American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
“We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established, and agreed upon by the parties, any change in the pre-existing lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism.”In 1975, Henry Kissinger, also no friend of the Jews, advised an Iraqi diplomat, in line with US policy,
“On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world …We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions….Pres G.W.Bush supported this policy by including the Saudi Plan calling for it, in the Roadmap. A year later he recanted somewhat in his letter to PM Sharon and embraced Res 242 to the exclusion of the Saudi Plan. “As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.” Pres Obama would have none of it and returned to the Saudi Plan requiring ’67 borders with insubstantial exchanges. Thus the US policy formulated after the Armistice lines were agreed upon in 1949, stands in the way of a solution to the conflict. The US is trying to engineer an outcome in line with this policy without taking into account that Israel now has a population ten times larger than it had in ’48 and has 600,000 of its citizens living east of the armistice lines. To help achieve this end, she arms the Arabs, denies Israel the right of self defense, turns a blind eye to her deligitimation and even contributes to it, encourages the EU to undermine Israel and apply pressure and threatens to no longer protect Israel with her veto. She also funds UNRWA which maintains the Palestinian refugees in camps rather than demands they be resettled. Obama has embraced the Saudi Plan which calls for the application of Res 194 which recognizes the “right of return” for refugees who want to return to pre ’67 Israel. Obama has yet to make a direct statement on the “right of return”. At the core of US policy is the idea that the Arabs are more likely to accept Israel if she were forced to make a full retreat. But where is the evidence of his. All evidence points to the fact that the Arabs object to the existence of Israel regardless of her borders. After all, that is why they went to war against Israel in the first place. A shrunken Israel, rather than advance the cause of peace, will be an enticement to war. Assuming the US goal is peace or at least, stability, her policy should be to keep Israel strong with defensible borders. She should support the Jordan River as Israel’s eastern border and resettle all refugees elsewhere. Remember, if the US forced Israel to accept the return of 5 million refugees or even 2 million, even to the Palestinian state only, this would be very destabilizing to Palestine and to Israel. Imagine the unrest which would be caused by such an underclass within Palestine where they would be a majority. Imagine further that they invade Israel en masse all along the border. How could Israel stop them? Why is it that the Palestinians insist on the refugee “right of return”? The answer is simply that they don’t want them. No Arab country does. They use “right of return” as a tool to destroy Israel. I hope the US understands this. I hope Israel understands this. Sen. Mitchell is back in Israel to work on settling the core issues, Jerusalem, refugees and borders. Pursuant to the original US policy, defensible borders are not in the cards. The US will allow for certain security needs such as Israel’s control of the Jordan Rift, and the air space but she wants these provisions to be time limited. There is nothing to suggest that Jerusalem can be shared peaceably. Instead, its damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. Jerusalem as a city and concept is holy only to Jews. Why should they be required to share it with the Arabs. The Arabs living in Jerusalem could become citizens of Israel just like Arabs now living in Israel are. They would be glad to. The two-state solution harkens back to the UN Partition Plan of ’47. But that General Assembly resolution was illegal in that it violated the UN obligations to uphold the Mandate to create a Jewish state in all of Palestine. It was also only a recommendation. Why is the US slavishly adhering to it. But present policy is worse than the Partition Plan which drew borders based on demographics. At a minimum the US should follow the same principle and work toward borders based on demographics today. But no, she would rather force Israel to uproot in excess of 100,000 of her own citizens. In short, the US is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. She must stop being governed by past policies and formulate a new policy based on current realities,.with a view to future stability.
View Comments
Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and Editor of Israpundit.org. He made aliyah from Canada in 2009 and now lives in Jerusalem.