UPDATES 9 pm Israel time, Monday, July 22 2013:
*Another day, another missile from Hamas strikes southern Israel, another excuse from the IDF.
Doesn’t this sound like a broken record?
At 10:29 pm last night, the 120th rocket or mortar struck southern Israel since the latest ceasefire was declared on November 21, 2012 at the supposed “conclusion” of hostilities with Hamas in Gaza.
120. This is not a number you will see anywhere because the IDF does not report most missile and mortar strikes. As for the rocket last night that forced southern Israelis into their bomb shelters, it was first reported by the IDF to have “probably landed in Gaza.” Then a few hours later, the IDF spokesman amended that statement to say that it had actually landed in the Eshkol Region.
Do you remember how PM Netanyahu blustered (and continues to bluster) that Israel will not allow a situation in which residents of southern Israel are subjected to a “steady” stream of rocket attacks? This is the fourth day this week that Israeli residents along the border have had to run for their lives. The is the fourth day this week that the IDF has done nothing to protect the lives of Israeli citizens.
*But at least one organization is doing something about Hamas–albeit belatedly–and that is the Egyptian Army. And not without losses–another six Egyptian soldiers were killed along the Israeli-Egyptian border early this morning by Hamas terrorists.
In retaliation for these continuing attacks, Egypt has put a stranglehold on Gaza by closing Hamas smuggling tunnels and reducing its economy by an estimated 80%. Fuel and water are in particularly short supply. It couldn’t happen to a nicer place.
TODAY’S BLOG:
“The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”
Harry Truman, Plain Speaking
There was something disturbingly familiar about reports yesterday of Shimon Peres giving way the rights of 700,000 Israeli Jewish citizens of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. According to various news sources, Peres tried to convince Mahmoud Abbas that if Israeli citizens living in these locales accept “Palestinian sovereignty”, they should not be forced to move out, and their cities, towns, communities, and neighborhoods could remain in place.
It was almost 30 years ago that Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin began the process of giving away Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem to the Palestinians in the Oslo Accords. And that is precisely what it was–a give away. Israel was under no obligation whatsoever to “return” land to the Palestinians. The “West Bank” was and is “disputed territory.”
But that reality of disputed territory was simply abandoned by Peres and friends. Over the years, their abandonment has mushroomed into a wholesale belief by the international community that Israel must return to the 1949 Armistice Lines.
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One of the foremost proponents of this return has been Martin Indyk, the person that the Obama Administration has chosen to be the “mediator” in the upcoming “peace talks”. Here are a few paragraphs written by Indyk back in December of 2010 in an article entitled “The way out of the Middle Eastern morass” (click here for the full article):
“While Washington gives the parties time to reconsider priorities, it should go back to basics and create a new design for negotiations. The objective should be unchanged – a two-state solution. That cannot be achieved without defining the borders that separate the two states. So the next negotiation must be about borders – what to do about settlements and security, refugees and Jerusalem will flow from resolution of that issue. “It’s the borders, stupid” should be the mantra.
A negotiation on borders will have to be predicated on the principle in UN Security Council Resolution 242, the original peace process resolution: that the border between the two states should be based on the June 4, 1967 line with territorial adjustments. This is consistent with American policy in recent decades. Mr Obama should pronounce that as the American position going into these border negotiations.
Focusing on the borders leads naturally back to the original idea in the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution that sought to deal with the conflict over Palestine – partition of the land into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab, with a special regime for Jerusalem, and equal rights and equal protection under the law for all citizens of the two states.”
The June 4, 1967 line. A special regime for Jerusalem. This is Oslo, the Barak plan, and the Olmert Plan all over again.
The only new item here in July of 2013 is that Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently signed on hook, line, and sinker. Forget all the bluster about not agreeing to any preconditions–one can only guess how many Netanyahu has agreed to aside from the release of Palestinian terrorists–the indisputable point is that Netanyahu has agreed that the 1949 Armistice Lines will be the basis of the new Palestinian state.
His only task now is to convince the Israeli public of this in advance of the referendum he plans to hold when an agreement is signed, a signing ceremony reported today as already being planned for the White House Lawn in about nine months.
Rabin, Clinton, and Arafat. Netanyahu, Obama, and Abbas.
President Truman had it right: “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.