IS AMERICA ABOUT TO HEAD OFF A CLIFF?

Why Is It The Palestinians Are Not Being Asked To Initiate Peace?

The United States is putting pressure on Israel to make some "gestures" to the Palestinians ahead of the Annapolis Summit which will attempt to work out an agreement in the Middle East conflict. From AP:

JERUSALEM - The U.S. is pressuring Israel to declare a complete freeze on West Bank settlement construction ahead of a high-stakes peace conference, rejecting
Israel’s long-standing policy of expanding existing communities, Israeli government officials say.

The U.S. also wants Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners than it plans to free before the meeting, expected to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, later this month, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the information. U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The U.S. has been urging Israel to make a series of gestures to the Palestinians ahead of the summit. American proposals have included an Israeli freeze on West Bank settlement construction and a large-scale release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel holds an estimated 9,000 such prisoners.

Israel maintains that it should be allowed to build housing in settlements to account for the “natural growth” of the existing settler population. The U.S. opposes settlement activity, but President Bush has signaled that he would support Israel’s position that it retain some settlements under a final peace deal.

Why is it that the Palestinians are not being asked to make "gestures"?

Why aren't they asked, or rather told, to cease lobbing missiles at Israeli schools?

Why are they not asked to put a stop to suicide bombings?

Or, at the very least, why aren't they asked to change the charters of Fatah (Palestinian Liberation Organization) and Hamas, which both call for the destruction of the state of Israel?

Why is it that Israel is asked to make concessions and the Palestinians are not?

I believe the reason is everyone knows the Palestinians are not serious partners for peace, and that any request for gestures would be a losing cause.

Read Zechariah, Chapter 12. If we continue to pursue the course we are on - and side with those who would divide Jerusalem - I believe we are in grave danger.

STATE DEPARTMENT GETS BRIGHT IDEA: LET'S SCREW ISRAEL EVEN MORE BY BUNDLING SYRIA INTO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PEACE PROCESS

Sure why not? If we're already all sitting down to pressure Israel to make concessions that endanger its existence - why not go the whole distance:

Syria could attend an upcoming Middle East peace conference in Washington as part of an Arab League committee, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attends a Middle East "Quartet" briefing at the U.N. Sunday. Speaking after a meeting of the Mideast Quartet -- which includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- Rice said Arab League members charged with following up on a Saudi-backed peace proposal were likely to be invited to the November conference. Syria is a member of that follow-up committee.

When we were taught Israeli-Arab Peace Process 101, it was an ironclad principle that Israel pushes for bilateral talks with each individual Arab enemy and the Arabs push for multilateral talks with Israel. Why? Because when the Arab states combine their "negotiating strength", they can make demands in unison: "hey Israel, you want this concession from the Palestinians? Well then you're also going to have to give back the Golan to Syria." Israel has to give something to every Arab state in order to get anything that it wants.

That's why the Saudis are already setting preconditions for their participation (nice to see major media outlets helping them out with that - teamwork). They understand that the State Department has maneuvered Olmert into an impossible situation, and they're ready to exploit it after three decades of Israel successfully resisting multilateral talks. Even Bush I and Baker, when they convened the multinational Madrid Conference, didn't successfully force Israel into large-scale multilateral peace negotiations.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

AWWW... TURKEY'S SO PISSED OFF AT ISRAEL THAT THEY MIGHT NOT HELP ISRAEL GIVE SYRIA BACK THE GOLAN

Although it may look like we don't care on the outside, on the inside we're actually crying:

The three-way diplomatic liaison that binds Ankara, Damascus and Jerusalem is a very sensitive matter indeed. Last week's alleged aerial incursion by Israeli warplanes that reportedly penetrated into Syria through Turkish airspace just served to make things more complicated. Moreover, the incident heightened all the preexisting tensions among all three partners... while Ankara's relationship with Israel is subject to increasing tensions, the Turks and Syrians are undergoing a gradual rapprochement... Turkey has recently been reported mediating between Syria in Israel in an attempt to jump-start negotiations between Jerusalem and Damascus.

Turkey has traditionally been the go-to mediator for any Israeli Prime Minister who wants to give territory back to Syria, one of the worst and least trustworthy regimes on the planet. So we're sure you can imagine how heartbroken we are about this. And don't worry about the broader context of Israeli-Turkish relations. The Turkish army has a very firm answer for Turkish politicians who genuinely seek to undermine relations between the secular Turkish army and the IDF: absolutely not. Turkey's army enjoys extremely warm relations with Israel. But if you did want to start getting a little paranoid about the degree to which the Turkish army is actually on Israel's side, there's this...

One way or another, this will become a problem in a generation or two. By then a massive number of Turks will have adopted the peculiar interpretation of the Religion of Peace that embraces killing people. But until then, Turkey's concern about Israeli bombing raids on weapons meant for Hezbollah is less than dramatic.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

GIVING LAND TO FATAH IS GIVING LAND TO HAMAS

Happy Labor Day:

At a summit Tuesday, Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talked for the first time about the core issues that have scuttled decades of peace efforts - Palestinian refugees, final borders and the fate of Jerusalem. It was the first time Olmert and Abbas addressed the issues in depth and it represented an important building block for the November's peace conference. Before the meeting with Olmert, Abbas had warned the November conference would be a waste of time if the big three issues were glossed over. Bush proposed the conference this fall after bloody infighting split the Palestinian leadership into two rival governments. His administration sees the bitter internal split as an opportunity to push for a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Is there a single serious scholar or diplomat who thinks that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians can be achieved without a reunification of the West Bank and Gaza? Certainly not Syria. Because if a three state solution isn't viable, then any Israeli concessions to Fatah will eventually be followed up by reunification between Fatah and Hamas. Which will happen on Hamas's terms, since Hamas is vastly more powerful. Which means that Israeli concessions to Fatah are de facto concessions to the genocidal terrorists in Hamas. And everybody knows it.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]