Response to George Mitchell: Over My Dead Body!

Speaking on the Charlie Rose Show last week, George Mitchell specified the concessions demanded of Israel by the Obama administration:

"We believe that neither can attain its objective by denying to the other side its objective. The Palestinians are not going to get a state until the people of Israel have a reasonable sense of sustainable security. The Israelis, on the other hand, are not going to get that reasonable sense of sustainable security until there is a Palestinian state.

. . . .

And we think the way to move forward is an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon, and full implementation of the Arab peace initiative. That’s the comprehensive peace in the region that is the objective set forth by the president and the secretary of state."

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10796#frame_top

What is "full implementation of the Arab peace initiative"? Answer: An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to the June 4, 1967, borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state and "a just and agreed-upon" solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. The Arab peace initiative does not provide Israel with defensible borders.

Ignored by Mitchell is the fact that both Barak and Olmert, while prime ministers of Israel, already offered Arafat and Abbas, respectively, withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem in exchange for peace. In both instances, the Palestinians were unwilling to acknowledge Israel's right to exist within the 1967 borders or any other boundaries.

I favor a two-state solution and Israeli evacuation of settlements in the West Bank, with land swaps as necessary, but I have no intentions of placing my security in the hands of a Palestinian state. Nor am I naive enough to endanger the lives of my family in exchange for kind words from the likes of Abdullah, Assad and Nasrallah.

Israel unilaterally evacuated Gaza in 2005, and the south of Israel was subsequently hit with a hailstorm of mortar fire and rockets. If Israel evacuates the West Bank with no ironclad security arrangements in place, you can be certain that Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, and the Hadera Power Station will all be under sustained rocket fire.

Bring the U.N. into the West Bank to ensure that the Palestinians do not arm themselves with missiles? Look what has happened in south Lebanon since the 2006 war: U.N. observers have ignored Hezbollah's rearmament.

"A just and agreed-upon" solution to the Palestinian refugee problem? What about the rights of the 600,000 Jews who were physically evicted from their homes and deprived of all their belongings by the Arab countries when Israel was created?

Apparently Mitchell still does not understand that the Middle East, where prevarication is a time-honored craft, is not Northern Ireland. Moreover, the creation of a second Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, is not going to provide me, in and of itself, with a "reasonable sense of sustainable security".

By all means, the Palestinians should have independence and prosperity in the West Bank, but it's going to be free of Qassam rockets and Grads, or it's not going to be at all. Meanwhile, I prefer to sustain the wrath of the Right and the libels of the Left, while maintaining the means to defend myself.

George, how about as a starting point for negotiations that Fatah's Abbas acknowledge Israel's right to exist? Or, given that Obama has already personally told Abbas that he will be placing extreme pressures on Israel, of a kind never known by Israel in the past, Abbas feels no need to make this concession?

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, told The Washington Post last week that Mitchell's timetable is "unrealistic and might prove counterproductive." I agree with Mike; however, I am not practiced in the art of diplomacy, and my undiplomatic response to George Mitchell remains:

Over my dead body!