An Abundance of Christmas Gifts for Abu Mazen
A special star must have been shining brightly above Ramallah – a place not too far from Bethlehem in miles but light years away in spirit – when Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was born.
Abu Mazen had always been Chairman Arafat’s right-hand man, and has credited himself with having discouraged Arafat from walking away from the negotiating table at Camp David.
Yet, Abu Mazen has been regarded by many in the international community as a much more reasonable interlocutor than Arafat – a new-born Messiah who can deliver the goods.
Earlier this week, Abu Mazen was bestowed with a multitude of gifts of the Magi. The first is a gift that keeps on giving – an extension of his term until elections are held. Previously, Abbas had extended his own term by delaying elections scheduled for January 2010. Had elections occurred there would have been a distinct possibility that Hamas would have triumphed.
After all, the well-honed skills of the IDF keep Fatah alive in the West Bank. But as of December 16, the PLO Central Committee officially endorsed Abu Mazen’s indefinite term in office.
Abu Mazen has also just been given the gift of impatience by the European Union. This took the form of an EU declaration on December 18 calling for “the urgent resumption of negotiations that will lead, within an agreed time-frame, to a two-state solution with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security.”
Abu Mazen has been bestowed with the gift of billions of dollars in international aid pumped into the West Bank because Fatah is regarded as a more reasonable alternative to Hamas, which governs Gaza. On December 18, President Obama approved an additional $500 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, including $100 million to General Keith Dayton, who is training PA security forces, under the absurd premise (akin to that of Arafat passing out rifles to the Palestinian police force later used against Israeli soldiers and civilians during the second intifada) that this bestowal of American magnanimity will never be turned against the Israeli populace.
Furthermore, Abu Mazen has received the greatest gift of all – the failure of the international community’s collective memory regarding what had happened after the Gaza withdrawal, a virtual lobotomy of the international brain. The international community has totally forgotten the results of the unprecedented Israeli gift to the Palestinian people of territory to be used as a place to call their own, and to prove that they can govern themselves peacefully. The international community has forgotten how Gaza was used as a beachhead to launch a barrage of more than 10,000 rockets on the citizens of the Israeli border town of Sderot. And they apparently have also forgotten that, when Israel exercised Article 51 of the United Nations Charter that calls on the legitimate right of every nation to protect its own citizens, it instead was handed the Goldstone Report that held Israel to a standard that would make it virtually impossible to defend its civilian population. Meanwhile, Israel’s enemies – not unlike those of Western liberal democracies elsewhere – are non-uniformed, non-state combatants who fire rockets from densely-crowded urban population centers.
Given this recent history it would be highly irresponsible for any Israeli interlocutor to accept what is now the newest pre-condition Abu Mazen has asserted is necessary for him to be able to sit down at the negotiating table with Israel – a total return to the pre-1967 borders. That would make every Israeli city within easy target of a Hamas Kassam rocket. Just one missile on Ben Gurion Airport would paralyze the country and cut it off from any air transport, leading to Israel’s isolation.
Yet, the European Union, in its December 18 statement, said, “[We] reiterate that settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law and urge the Government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities.”
This is a gross misreading of international law. The territory in question that was conquered in the defensive war of 1967 was a result of a war of aggression waged upon Israel, not a war of conquest and aggression on Israel’s part. The land in question is “disputed” territory, not “occupied” territory.
United Nations Resolution 242 never called for the withdrawal of all of Israeli armed forces from all the territories. That is why the article “the” was omitted from the resolution which reads, “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” This leaves room for Israel to negotiate which territories it needs in order to reach the second crucial phrase of that resolution, a highly-ignored but equally significant phrase which calls for “the right of every state in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”
The truth is, as Sir Arthur Goldberg, the American Ambassador to the United Nations at the time wrote, “Historically there had never been any secure and recognized boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the cease-fire lines of 1967 answered this description.”
More importantly, however, as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to teach its children through the media and textbooks that all of the familiar triangular map of Israel will someday be theirs, (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and not just Ramallah and Jenin), then there is no way that the first phrase of Resolution 242 will lead to the state of peace spoken of in the second critical phrase.
There is absolutely nothing in Resolution 242 that calls on Israel to withdraw from all of the territories in order to achieve peace. Nor is there any obligation whatsoever for Israel to withdraw prior to negotiations. In fact, as President Lyndon Johnson declared at the time, “An immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4, 1967,” before the outbreak of hostilities, “is not a prescription for peace, but for renewed hostilities.”
But Abu Mazen has been blessed to have been born into a world that suffers from collective amnesia.