A former Israeli prime minister knew that lasting peace is built one agreement at a time, not through grand regional bargains that demand Israel surrender first.
The " Palestinian" state, an a-historical roll back of the entire conflict, should be finally put to rest. It is not really desired by so-called " Palestinians", whose goal was always to destroy Israel or make their lives impossible. If " Palestinians" had wanted a state for every decent and legitimate reason, they would have had one long time ago.
In fact, Gaza became a " Palestinian" state when Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005. Now, see how that turned out.
On a rotten basis a pretext "state" cannot and should not be built. "Palestinians", in the blind seemingly genetic hostility that has made them unable to desire anything worthwhile, have forfeited such a " state" from day 1, from 1947 when a state was offered them, one more Arab state amidst so many. " Palestine" then ceased to exist. In 1948, those territories became Jordan and Egypt.
The so -called " Palestinians" were Jordanians for as long as Jordan allowed it. The KGB had already created a fake identity for them in the 1960's, and a terrorist organisation led by an Egyptian to harass the region and the world and weaken the West.
There is no " Palestinian" state because that ship sailed many times, since 1947. Enough of this charade.
The trend initiated by those few UAE nations in the Abraham Accords is the only hope. The " Palestinian" cause is just a self-serving genocide of Israel. It is a mere "Palestinianism", the greatest hoax of the 20th century and larger than that, not a Middle-East benefit. It should be finally abandoned .
Arabs need to make peace with the fact that Israel is there to stay, and that commerce and interaction with it is beneficial for the people of the Middle East. When that barrier is crossed, as it begins to be, albeit slowly, a true proportion of what matters will be set . The PA should have been a success. It is corrupt and useless, and must be turned around. The PA should suffice as governance for the former Jordanians and Egyptians. Neither Jordan nor Egypt wants them now. And they don't deserve a "state" - read: a state with a military, allowing Iran and other beasts to plant weapons there, capable of threatening and hurting Israel.
We aren't there yet, but we could be on our way, on a road already initialised, if we are able to put " Palestinians" in their true geopolitical place: Arabs like so many others, Arabs that no Arab nation wants, Arabs that Israel is not responsible for procuring a state for them.
The world now psychotically insisting that Israel is illegitimate is what kills any " Palestinian" viable solution. The entire case is thought out upside down, as is today's moral inversion turpitude. It is in defence of its own psychosis that this world so opposes Israel defending itself.
Hamas on 10/7 succeeded in convincing most Israelis of the " Palestinian" fraud and futility. Israelis no longer believe in a " Palestinian state". Israelis saw the light. Better said, they saw the darkness.
What is most frustrating is the complete lack of coverage in the Western press about what Palestinian Media Watch(PMW) reports every single day. They simply translate what the PA themselves are saying, and what it reveals is that the PA is a murderous, anti-Semitic organization bent on the mass murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, just like Hamas and maybe worse. They are even (illegally) building an army just to attack Israel and murder Jews (and calling it a police force). They continue to use Pay for Slay, honoring and rewarding terrorists who murder innocent Israelis. They seek a union with Hamas. Their textbooks teach children to hate and kill Jews. All of this comes from their own mouths. Until the press starts reporting this, anything they write that tries to blame Israel or force them to capitulate should be summarily rejected. I, for one, have cancelled my subscriptions not just to the NYT (years ago), but also the WSJ, which is becoming just as biased. This issue is the most revealing of any I’ve experienced: pure, unadulterated anti semitism on a huge scale. A stain on the human race.
This is so bizarre, the podcast (which I just listened to yesterday) seems to have been removed. Too controversial perhaps? Anyway Lt Col Maurice Hirsch pretty much summarized this above article. Scariest thing I’ve read in a long time.
I don't hear about anything like this from Israeli media, like various TV channels. Israel would have reported this. Secondly, that's why the IDF is posted there still and why Palestinians are not getting any state at this point. They forfeited Gaza, which Israel gave them, the irony of it. Secondly, the last I heard it was Hamas that was growing in the PA territories, and the IDF was actively involved in getting the PA to do its duty and rein them in.
I disagree with the author that Rahm Emmanuel is a friend of Israel, otherwise he would not be spewing such garbage. He has great yichas from his father but that doesn’t make him a friend of Israel. Remember he’s the “ never let a crisis go to waste” guy.
Western leaders don’t stop in Gaza or Ramallah to deliver hard truths because the Palestinians won’t care or listen. The West is more interested in using the Palestinian cause as a weapon against Israel than laying the groundwork for peace. When Hamas guns down Palestinians in Gaza, the West is silent. When Hamas steals humanitarian aid, Israel is accused of starving the Palestinians. The West does not hold the Palestinians accountable for their choices or actions. UNRWA has aided and abetted terrorism yet remains funded by much of Europe. The Palestinian Authority continues its pay for slay program and faces no consequences for doing so. Palestinian textbooks continue to preach the destruction of Israel. The draft Palestinian constitution, which France may have helped draft, erases Israel completely. The Palestinians are watching the hate protests in Western cities, are listening to the rhetoric coming from the Democrats and Western governments and have to believe they are winning. The Palestinians have neither a political nor economic reason for moderating their position. There will be no lasting peace - whether through a bilateral or regional framework - until the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with its capital in Jerusalem. Nothing suggests this will change.
October 7 changed everything. The Abraham Accords may be a good place to start, but this is not the Israel of Begin anymore and it shouldn't be. Israel has given enough. It is time for the Arab world to do some introspection. Arab and Palestinian worlds need to deNazify their societies, then there will be a comprehensive peace. Until that is done, nothing will change and Israel knows that and she doesn't have to put her children at risk to soothe the egos of some elitest Jews in the Diaspora because their Jew-hating colleagues wont let them into their club.
I'm not expecting the "Arab and 'Palestinian' worlds" to "deNazify their societies." The Jew-hatred and the intolerance of any once-Muslim territory becoming non-Muslim is part and parcel of Islam.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. It helps me organize my own thinking on the topic.
For me the most telling line is this "The next American leader who visits Israel to deliver hard truths should also stop in Ramallah and Gaza..."
Peace will never come until the world forces Gazans and West Bankers to accept their responsibility for the state of affairs. They must reject the practice of teaching hate. They must purge themselves of terrorism as a solution rather accepting that it is an obstacle. It can't be all on Israel. Indeed, as the article reminds us, Israel will take great risks for real peace.
Palestinians taking responsibility must be the structural steel of any architectural plan for lasting peace. Until then Israelis will be justified to view any Palestinian state, as Gaza became after 2005, a terror state.
Sadly, propagandists have persuaded far too many that the bully Israel is responsible for the violence. This sad situation will continue until Palestinians and their useful idiots in the west are force fed some "hard truths."
Oct 7 demonstrated exactly what the Palestine Arabs do when given their own state, along with means and opportunity. Israelis will not commit national suicide just to pander to the western regressive left.
Barak apparently can't accept that "Palestinianism" has always and continues to have a single goal - the destruction of Israel. Any formula that leads to another "Palestinian" state is nothing other than implementation of the Phased Plan. The brilliance of the Abraham Accords is subordination "Palestinianism" to the self interest of the actual states in the region. Attempting to resuscitate the two state solution at this time is gratuitous and suicidal.
Bullshit to that! Emanuel is no friend of Israel. His purpose is to throw Israel under the bus to aid his presidential ambitions which as a Jew in the Democrat party, he has less than ZERO chance of being nominated no matter how much he craps on Bibi and Israel.
Israel's eroding standing among young Americans is a judgement on the moral degeneracy of young Americans, not on Israel.
"Rahm Emanuel is a true friend of Israel, and much of his diagnosis is right: Israel’s standing, especially among young Americans, is eroding at alarming speed".
You are correct: Stating that "Israel's standing...among young Americans is eroding at an alarming rate" is describing the situation, NOT a "diagnosis," as Barak Sella asserts. What is the treatment for the disease "diagnosed?" What does Sella propose Israel do to cure it? What does he imagine that Rahm Emanuel would do?
“Had Palestinian (and the broader Arab and Muslim) leaders ever been willing to live in peaceful coexistence with Jews, there would be nothing to “resist.” Had the Palestinian and Arab leadership accepted the partition resolution in 1947; had they not launched genocidal war in 1948 and again in 1967; if they had accepted the invitation for a Palestinian state in 1967, instead of responding with the famous three no’s; if they had accepted any of the endless opportunities to live in a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state, there would be peace and Palestinian self-determination today.
There isn’t, of course. And that has precious little to do with either Israel’s existence or any imagined intransigence on the part of successive Israeli governments. Labor or Likud, hawk or dove — not one has been able to find a way to negotiate peace and a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That’s not the fault of Israelis. That’s the fault of Palestinians and their allies.
In other words, the Palestinian violence that we saw on October 7, which is a perpetuation of the aggressive antisemitic violence we have seen for decades masquerading as “resistance,” is not a reaction to anything Jews or Israelis have done — indeed, it is the cause of whatever Israelis have done. The root of this conflict is Palestinian and Arab/Muslim intransigence, the refusal to tolerate so much as the idea of Jewish national self-determination. This is why there is a conflict.
The use of the term “resistance” implies that their behavior is defensive. It’s not. Their side started this conflict, perpetuates it, and could end it today. The Palestinians and their allies are the only ones who can make peace because they are the only ones making war.”
Thank you Barak .. I think I get the gist of your views. The Arab world has shown time and time again that it has no genuine interest in the plight of the palestinians of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (known as the West Bank) or the palestinians living elsewhere, both groups having been so badly treated by the UN, UNRWA, Hamas, the PA and the myopic NGOs. I only need to see the words J Street and Jeremy Ben Ami, and I realise we're heading in the wrong direction.
Rahm Emanuel is NOT a true friend of Israel. He is a turncoat and enemy who is aware of the danger Israel faces from the Palestinian National Death Cult and is also aware of what is happening in his party but is (futiley) trying to placate the Jew haters by selling out Israel for something he knows can't and won't happen.
You laud Rabin as a wise leader who understands the need for concrete action by the adversary before Israel makes irrevocable concessions. And yet you fail to mention tha he along with Shimon Peres are thr architects of the greatest mistake in Israeli history, the disastrous Oslo accords in which Israel normalized the PLO and Yasser Arafat and agreed to the creation of a defacto Palestinian government with the obvious understanding that the end result would be a division of the land and a full Palestinian state. The Accords contained NO mechanism for reversing the process when bad faith was proven (which it was within a single year) and these huge and dangerous concessions which have now cost thousands of Israeli lives have proven to be irrevocable. Rabin is no model and Oslo and its fruits are why the Labor party and the Israeli left has basically ceased to exist outside the pages of Haaretz.
The " Palestinian" state, an a-historical roll back of the entire conflict, should be finally put to rest. It is not really desired by so-called " Palestinians", whose goal was always to destroy Israel or make their lives impossible. If " Palestinians" had wanted a state for every decent and legitimate reason, they would have had one long time ago.
In fact, Gaza became a " Palestinian" state when Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005. Now, see how that turned out.
On a rotten basis a pretext "state" cannot and should not be built. "Palestinians", in the blind seemingly genetic hostility that has made them unable to desire anything worthwhile, have forfeited such a " state" from day 1, from 1947 when a state was offered them, one more Arab state amidst so many. " Palestine" then ceased to exist. In 1948, those territories became Jordan and Egypt.
The so -called " Palestinians" were Jordanians for as long as Jordan allowed it. The KGB had already created a fake identity for them in the 1960's, and a terrorist organisation led by an Egyptian to harass the region and the world and weaken the West.
There is no " Palestinian" state because that ship sailed many times, since 1947. Enough of this charade.
The trend initiated by those few UAE nations in the Abraham Accords is the only hope. The " Palestinian" cause is just a self-serving genocide of Israel. It is a mere "Palestinianism", the greatest hoax of the 20th century and larger than that, not a Middle-East benefit. It should be finally abandoned .
Arabs need to make peace with the fact that Israel is there to stay, and that commerce and interaction with it is beneficial for the people of the Middle East. When that barrier is crossed, as it begins to be, albeit slowly, a true proportion of what matters will be set . The PA should have been a success. It is corrupt and useless, and must be turned around. The PA should suffice as governance for the former Jordanians and Egyptians. Neither Jordan nor Egypt wants them now. And they don't deserve a "state" - read: a state with a military, allowing Iran and other beasts to plant weapons there, capable of threatening and hurting Israel.
We aren't there yet, but we could be on our way, on a road already initialised, if we are able to put " Palestinians" in their true geopolitical place: Arabs like so many others, Arabs that no Arab nation wants, Arabs that Israel is not responsible for procuring a state for them.
The world now psychotically insisting that Israel is illegitimate is what kills any " Palestinian" viable solution. The entire case is thought out upside down, as is today's moral inversion turpitude. It is in defence of its own psychosis that this world so opposes Israel defending itself.
Hamas on 10/7 succeeded in convincing most Israelis of the " Palestinian" fraud and futility. Israelis no longer believe in a " Palestinian state". Israelis saw the light. Better said, they saw the darkness.
What is most frustrating is the complete lack of coverage in the Western press about what Palestinian Media Watch(PMW) reports every single day. They simply translate what the PA themselves are saying, and what it reveals is that the PA is a murderous, anti-Semitic organization bent on the mass murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, just like Hamas and maybe worse. They are even (illegally) building an army just to attack Israel and murder Jews (and calling it a police force). They continue to use Pay for Slay, honoring and rewarding terrorists who murder innocent Israelis. They seek a union with Hamas. Their textbooks teach children to hate and kill Jews. All of this comes from their own mouths. Until the press starts reporting this, anything they write that tries to blame Israel or force them to capitulate should be summarily rejected. I, for one, have cancelled my subscriptions not just to the NYT (years ago), but also the WSJ, which is becoming just as biased. This issue is the most revealing of any I’ve experienced: pure, unadulterated anti semitism on a huge scale. A stain on the human race.
The latest IDSF podcast detailing this 70,000 thousand strong terror army is terrifying.
Please give us a link. Thanks.
Here is a link to the original article:
https://jcfa.org/article/the-pas-massive-army-threatens-millions-of-israelis-within-just-22-kilometers/
This is so bizarre, the podcast (which I just listened to yesterday) seems to have been removed. Too controversial perhaps? Anyway Lt Col Maurice Hirsch pretty much summarized this above article. Scariest thing I’ve read in a long time.
I don't hear about anything like this from Israeli media, like various TV channels. Israel would have reported this. Secondly, that's why the IDF is posted there still and why Palestinians are not getting any state at this point. They forfeited Gaza, which Israel gave them, the irony of it. Secondly, the last I heard it was Hamas that was growing in the PA territories, and the IDF was actively involved in getting the PA to do its duty and rein them in.
Thanks. This needs to be publicized everywhere.
I disagree with the author that Rahm Emmanuel is a friend of Israel, otherwise he would not be spewing such garbage. He has great yichas from his father but that doesn’t make him a friend of Israel. Remember he’s the “ never let a crisis go to waste” guy.
Western leaders don’t stop in Gaza or Ramallah to deliver hard truths because the Palestinians won’t care or listen. The West is more interested in using the Palestinian cause as a weapon against Israel than laying the groundwork for peace. When Hamas guns down Palestinians in Gaza, the West is silent. When Hamas steals humanitarian aid, Israel is accused of starving the Palestinians. The West does not hold the Palestinians accountable for their choices or actions. UNRWA has aided and abetted terrorism yet remains funded by much of Europe. The Palestinian Authority continues its pay for slay program and faces no consequences for doing so. Palestinian textbooks continue to preach the destruction of Israel. The draft Palestinian constitution, which France may have helped draft, erases Israel completely. The Palestinians are watching the hate protests in Western cities, are listening to the rhetoric coming from the Democrats and Western governments and have to believe they are winning. The Palestinians have neither a political nor economic reason for moderating their position. There will be no lasting peace - whether through a bilateral or regional framework - until the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with its capital in Jerusalem. Nothing suggests this will change.
October 7 changed everything. The Abraham Accords may be a good place to start, but this is not the Israel of Begin anymore and it shouldn't be. Israel has given enough. It is time for the Arab world to do some introspection. Arab and Palestinian worlds need to deNazify their societies, then there will be a comprehensive peace. Until that is done, nothing will change and Israel knows that and she doesn't have to put her children at risk to soothe the egos of some elitest Jews in the Diaspora because their Jew-hating colleagues wont let them into their club.
Amen!
I'm not expecting the "Arab and 'Palestinian' worlds" to "deNazify their societies." The Jew-hatred and the intolerance of any once-Muslim territory becoming non-Muslim is part and parcel of Islam.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. It helps me organize my own thinking on the topic.
For me the most telling line is this "The next American leader who visits Israel to deliver hard truths should also stop in Ramallah and Gaza..."
Peace will never come until the world forces Gazans and West Bankers to accept their responsibility for the state of affairs. They must reject the practice of teaching hate. They must purge themselves of terrorism as a solution rather accepting that it is an obstacle. It can't be all on Israel. Indeed, as the article reminds us, Israel will take great risks for real peace.
Palestinians taking responsibility must be the structural steel of any architectural plan for lasting peace. Until then Israelis will be justified to view any Palestinian state, as Gaza became after 2005, a terror state.
Sadly, propagandists have persuaded far too many that the bully Israel is responsible for the violence. This sad situation will continue until Palestinians and their useful idiots in the west are force fed some "hard truths."
I agree. Palestinians must be expected to take responsibility.
Oct 7 demonstrated exactly what the Palestine Arabs do when given their own state, along with means and opportunity. Israelis will not commit national suicide just to pander to the western regressive left.
Barak apparently can't accept that "Palestinianism" has always and continues to have a single goal - the destruction of Israel. Any formula that leads to another "Palestinian" state is nothing other than implementation of the Phased Plan. The brilliance of the Abraham Accords is subordination "Palestinianism" to the self interest of the actual states in the region. Attempting to resuscitate the two state solution at this time is gratuitous and suicidal.
Bullshit to that! Emanuel is no friend of Israel. His purpose is to throw Israel under the bus to aid his presidential ambitions which as a Jew in the Democrat party, he has less than ZERO chance of being nominated no matter how much he craps on Bibi and Israel.
Israel's eroding standing among young Americans is a judgement on the moral degeneracy of young Americans, not on Israel.
.....................................................................................................................................................................................
"Rahm Emanuel is a true friend of Israel, and much of his diagnosis is right: Israel’s standing, especially among young Americans, is eroding at alarming speed".
You are correct: Stating that "Israel's standing...among young Americans is eroding at an alarming rate" is describing the situation, NOT a "diagnosis," as Barak Sella asserts. What is the treatment for the disease "diagnosed?" What does Sella propose Israel do to cure it? What does he imagine that Rahm Emanuel would do?
Pat Johnson, Substack:
“Had Palestinian (and the broader Arab and Muslim) leaders ever been willing to live in peaceful coexistence with Jews, there would be nothing to “resist.” Had the Palestinian and Arab leadership accepted the partition resolution in 1947; had they not launched genocidal war in 1948 and again in 1967; if they had accepted the invitation for a Palestinian state in 1967, instead of responding with the famous three no’s; if they had accepted any of the endless opportunities to live in a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state, there would be peace and Palestinian self-determination today.
There isn’t, of course. And that has precious little to do with either Israel’s existence or any imagined intransigence on the part of successive Israeli governments. Labor or Likud, hawk or dove — not one has been able to find a way to negotiate peace and a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That’s not the fault of Israelis. That’s the fault of Palestinians and their allies.
In other words, the Palestinian violence that we saw on October 7, which is a perpetuation of the aggressive antisemitic violence we have seen for decades masquerading as “resistance,” is not a reaction to anything Jews or Israelis have done — indeed, it is the cause of whatever Israelis have done. The root of this conflict is Palestinian and Arab/Muslim intransigence, the refusal to tolerate so much as the idea of Jewish national self-determination. This is why there is a conflict.
The use of the term “resistance” implies that their behavior is defensive. It’s not. Their side started this conflict, perpetuates it, and could end it today. The Palestinians and their allies are the only ones who can make peace because they are the only ones making war.”
Thank you Barak .. I think I get the gist of your views. The Arab world has shown time and time again that it has no genuine interest in the plight of the palestinians of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (known as the West Bank) or the palestinians living elsewhere, both groups having been so badly treated by the UN, UNRWA, Hamas, the PA and the myopic NGOs. I only need to see the words J Street and Jeremy Ben Ami, and I realise we're heading in the wrong direction.
Rahm Emanuel is NOT a true friend of Israel. He is a turncoat and enemy who is aware of the danger Israel faces from the Palestinian National Death Cult and is also aware of what is happening in his party but is (futiley) trying to placate the Jew haters by selling out Israel for something he knows can't and won't happen.
You laud Rabin as a wise leader who understands the need for concrete action by the adversary before Israel makes irrevocable concessions. And yet you fail to mention tha he along with Shimon Peres are thr architects of the greatest mistake in Israeli history, the disastrous Oslo accords in which Israel normalized the PLO and Yasser Arafat and agreed to the creation of a defacto Palestinian government with the obvious understanding that the end result would be a division of the land and a full Palestinian state. The Accords contained NO mechanism for reversing the process when bad faith was proven (which it was within a single year) and these huge and dangerous concessions which have now cost thousands of Israeli lives have proven to be irrevocable. Rabin is no model and Oslo and its fruits are why the Labor party and the Israeli left has basically ceased to exist outside the pages of Haaretz.
Excellent piece! Thank you!
A very good article. Has a very large amount of truth in the contents.
Palestinians have always vetoed the one non negotiable point, stop the war and stop the murdering.