I have been following The Heathlander for some years for his insights and grasp of knowledge about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, much of it requiring a vigilance of on-going developments, like the Netanyahu take over of the Israeli government, and just where he, as a right wing Likud prime minister, intends to take the peace process. Of course, that path involves the Palestinians. With Netanyahu’s recent commitment to the two state solution, something Likud is avowedly against, it is to everyone’s interest just how he intends to balance these contradictory goals.
The Heathlander came up with the answer in this piece called Proximity talks, dated 26 March 2010,
Israeli Vice Prime Minister, Minister for Strategic Affairs and close Netanyahu ally Moshe Ya’alon explains that Netanyahu’s attempts to resume “indirect negotiations” with the Palestinian Authority are just a “maneuver” designed to “create the illusion that an agreement can be reached”:
“And I say so out of knowledge,” Ya’alon told Yediot. “Nobody in the forum of seven [senior cabinet ministers] thinks that we can reach an agreement with the Palestinians.” Yediot Ahronot reports (print version, translated from Hebrew):
Q: So why all these games of make-believe negotiations? It’s possible to announce that we will not reach an agreement, and that is all.
YA’ALON: Because in the political establishment there are pressures. Peace Now from within and other elements from without. So you have to maneuver. But what I’m saying now has to be given over to the Americans, and I hope that they will understand.
Some of what we have to do is maneuver with the American administration and the European establishment, which are also nourished by Israeli elements, which create the illusion that an agreement can be reached.
Ya’alon disclosed that Netanyahu has made clear that he intends to increase settlement activity as soon as the freeze expires. “The prime minister reiterates all the time,” Ya’alon said, “and also brought a decision to the security cabinet that says clearly, that immediately after the freeze, we will continue to build in Judea and Samaria as we did before.”
Q: Will we evacuate settlements in the end?
YA’ALON: I do not accept that. What has happened to us in recent years obligates us to stop with everything connected to withdrawal.
Meanwhile the press is wetting itself over Obama’s alleged walk-out of his meeting with Netanyahu. Whether that happened before or after the `massive arms deal`, we’re not told.
As Tony Karon writes,
“Israel’s leaders, and its voters, have amply demonstrated that they will not voluntarily relinquish control of the Palestinian territories as long as there are no real consequences for maintaining the status quo. Sure, you can tell them that the status quo is untenable, but the whole history of Israel from the 1920s onward has been about transforming the impossible into the inevitable by changing the facts on the ground. Building settlements on occupied territory in violation of international law after 1967 seemed untenable at the time; today, the U.S. government says Israel will keep most of those major settlement blocs in any two-state solution. It is precisely in line with this sort of improvisational logic that Sharon calculated he could hold on to the settlements of the West Bank if he gave up the settlements of Gaza; the same logic allows Netanyahu to say the words “two states for two peoples” while always winking at his base that he has no intention of allowing it to happen…
…progress in the Middle East will not come until the U.S. changes Israel’s cost-benefit analysis for maintaining the status quo. The only Israeli leader capable of accepting the parameters of a two-state peace with the Palestinians, which are already widely known, is one who can convincingly demonstrate to his electorate that the alternatives are worse. Right now, without real pressure, without real cost, with nothing but words, there is simply no downside to the status quo for Israel. Until there is, things are unlikely to change, no matter the peril to U.S. troops throughout the Middle East.”
So what can we make of this acknowledgment by one of Netanyahu’s closest allies, the Vice Prime Minister, and Minister for Strategic Affairs?
This post about the Likud Charter by mainstreet (MyDD) reveals that Likud’s real intentions are “to wipe Palestine off the map” and there is no reason to believe that Netanyahu has changed that goal. It provides the basis for understanding all future negotiations between the Netanyahu Likud government and the Palestinians.
Observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often talk about the Hamas Charter, and the earlier PLO Charter, but no one speaks of the Likud Charter, the Bible of Israel’s Likud party now in power, which intends to wipe Palestine off the map. But that is precisely what has been happening for the past 60 years.
The Likud Charter
PEACE AND SECURITY chapter of the Likud Party Platform
- Declaration of a Palestinian State: A unilateral Palestinian declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state will constitute a fundamental and substantive violation of the agreements with the State of Israel and the scuttling of the Oslo and Wye accords. The government will adopt immediate stringent measures in the event of such a declaration.
- Settlements: The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria [West Bank] and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.
- The Permanent Status: The overall objectives for the final status with the Palestinians are: to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of a stable, sustainable agreement and replace confrontation with cooperation and good neighborliness, while safeguarding Israel’s vital interests as a secure and prosperous Zionist and Jewish state.
- Self-Rule: The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.
- Jerusalem: Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city.
- The Jordan River as a Permanent Border: The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan River will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan is a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians in matters that will be agreed upon.
- Security Areas: The government succeeded in significantly reducing the extent of territory that the Palestinians expected to receive in the interim arrangement.
The Likud Charter wipes Palestine off the map for good, leaving the Palestinian people in a kind of limbo, which some (like Jimmy Carter) propose is nothing less than an Apartheid existence, a collection of bantustans, within an Israel that extends from the Jordan River to the sea, not unlike what existed for Black South Africans under the Afrikaaner government in the 1980s.
What more is there to say?