The world abandoned the Oslo accords at the UN
Yet the world’s outrage is reserved for Israel’s announcement that 3,000 apartments will be constructed on land claimed by Israel on the West Bank, all built in settlements whose existence until a bilateral agreement was reached was accepted by the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Incidentally, decisions by Israeli zoning boards that permit construction in future repeatedly provoke global hysteria about the bulldozers moving in next week. Perhaps if the Palestinian Authority would make peace, those buildings would never get built…
What has experience taught us? Simply this: The Palestinian leadership’s priority is not getting a state of their own – they have missed many opportunities to do so – but to gain total victory. Taking a state is only acceptable if it serves to promote that goal. Even if moderation provides material rewards, they prefer militancy. But after all, suffering – even if self-inflicted – brings massive political gains for them.
What has the world’s behavior taught us? Simply this: Nothing we can do will suffice. If Israel were to accept unconditionally a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with its capital in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority would then demand that all Palestinians who so wished to do so and had an ancestor living there before 1948 must be admitted to Israel with full voting and all other rights. And then what would the UN do? What has diplomacy taught us? That the other side will not keep commitments and those guaranteeing those commitments will not keep their word to do so. Not only that, but when they break their word, they will complain that Israel doesn’t take enough risks and make enough concessions, and defends itself too vigorously.
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Culture of death.
Politics of suffering.
Ben Hur on December 10, 2012 at 10:04 PM
Dear World…
Shy Guy on December 10, 2012 at 11:02 PM
I watched a pretty good show on PBS (of all places) on the Oslo Accords…Seems the Palastainians pretty much started ignoring the whole thing right from the git go….
Go figure….
BigWyo on December 10, 2012 at 11:10 PM
Great video Shy Guy.
Lance Murdock on December 10, 2012 at 11:15 PM
Duh. Israel should have learned that lesson long ago – long before that disastrous Oslo stupidity, which the fakestinians broke on the first day and have never honored, since. The Oslo accords were dead on arrival but Israel, stupidly, allowed themselves to be the only party held to them. It’s beyond crazy.
Meanwhile, the UN is as bad as the arabs with respect to honoring contracts – the lifeblood of modern civilization. After Israel inked a deal to establish firm northern borders and pull out of Lebanon (which it had to go into because the PLO was using Lebanon as a base for attacks – after they had been thrown out of Jordan) the UN turned around and violated every element of that deal, allowed Hezbollah to build up arms, and then put Shebaa Farms BACK ON THE TABLE for “negotiations” (which had already been done and signed) to make a mockery of the UN agreement.
Anyone who thinks the UN has any concept of good faith negotiating is demented. The UN is a third world entity that is about as trustworthy and honest as the third world. Israel has known for decades that the UN is out to destroy it. I can only blame Israel at this point for staying in that fetid organization. They should leave, as the US should have left the UN years ago, too. Only the dimmest among us would even think that an organization like the UN – an empowered, peerless, competitionless entity – should even exist. Even a passing familiarity with evolutionary theory or capitalist theory … or just plain common sense informs one that such an unnatural entity is guaranteed to grow in grotesque and destructive ways, as the UN has amply demonstrated over the years. The UN is not a useless organization, by any means, but a very dangerous one that must be put out of our misery.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 10, 2012 at 11:27 PM
Of course. Barry’s right. Abbas and Fatah abandoned Oslo last year, but now the UN has commemorated its grave.
J.E. Dyer on December 11, 2012 at 12:18 AM
You’re off by 18 years. You shouldn’t be.
Shy Guy on December 11, 2012 at 12:48 AM