Martin Indyk spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy yesterday and placed most of the blame on the Israelis for the breakdown in talks and echoed Palestinian frustration. He said in essence that the Israelis aren’t serious about negotiations. They can’t even stop settlements for three months; and those unending settlements are acting to bring on a binational state and “mortally wound the idea of Israel as a Jewish state,” which would be “a tragedy of historic proportions.” (Do you think that would be a tragedy? I don’t. Neither do most Americans.)
Here are some of his comments. I’m leaving out Indyk’s faulting the Palestinians for seeking to join international bodies and reaching a reconciliation deal with Hamas, because the blame on Israel had so much more weight in his remarks.
First, on the unending settlement construction, all over the West Bank:
We have also spoken about the impact of settlement activity. Just during the past nine months of negotiations, tenders for building 4,800 settlement units were announced and planning was announced for another 8,000 units. It’s true that most of the tendered units are slated to be built in areas that even Palestinian maps in the past have indicated would be part of Israel. Yet the planning units were largely outside that area in the West Bank….
The Palestinians have demanded that Israel show the borders of its state. Indyk echoes that demand.
Indeed, according to the Israeli Bureau of Census and Statistics, from 2012 to 2013 construction starts in West Bank settlements more than doubled. That’s why Secretary Kerry believes it is essential to delineate the borders and establish the security arrangements in parallel with all the other permanent status issues.
In that way, once a border is agreed each party would be free to build in its own state.
Here’s the bit about Israel mortally wounding the idea of a Jewish state by creating a binational state.
I also worry about a more subtle threat to the character of the Jewish state. Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has made clear, the fundamental purpose of these negotiations is to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish and democratic state − not a de facto bi-national state. The settlement movement on the other hand may well drive Israel into an irreversible binational reality. If you care about Israel’s future, as I know so many of you do and as I do, you should understand that rampant settlement activity – especially in the midst of negotiations – doesn’t just undermine Palestinian trust in the purpose of the negotiations; it can undermine Israel’s Jewish future. If this continues, it could mortally wound the idea of Israel as a Jewish state – and that would be a tragedy of historic proportions.
Indyk says that 80 percent of the settlers will stay under a deal, but that Netanyahu is politically incapable of agreeing to any freeze on settlements, even for three months, which is a condition for negotiations.
Of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu can no more do a three-month construction freeze in the West Bank and east Jerusalem than he could before we started the negotiations, in the run-up to that, because that would collapse his government. And there’s no prime minister that I know anywhere who is willing to sacrifice his government. So, it’s not just that it sabotaged the negotiations, but it’s also a roadblock— one of the roadblocks, now—to the resumption of the negotiations. So, you know, we can rationalize it, we can explain it away, we can argue that they’re all going to be evacuated, or 80 percent of the settlers are
going to be accommodated, as part of the deal, which is probably true. But, in the meantime, the building of settlements, expansion of settlements, on land that the Palestinians believe is supposed to be part of their state—and the prevention of their ability to build in the same land—is a very problematic situation in terms of trying to resolve this conflict.
On Abbas’s terms for returning to negotiations. Indyk doesn’t see the Israelis as serious:
He will come back to negotiations if his test of seriousness is met, as I explained it to you: construction freeze in the West Bank and east Jerusalem for three months while the border is drawn—because if an Israeli government is prepared to do that, then from his point of view, that’s a serious negotiation. Other than that, he’s not interested.
Update: Arutz Sheva the rightwing Israeli website describes Indyk’s statements as “harsh” criticism and accusation, and quotes Netanyahu’s Deputy Minister Ofir Akunis saying the U.S. has fallen under the influence of Palestinian “propaganda.”
“It is unfortunate that a Palestinian lie also affects our friends,” Akunis stated. “There are not two truths here, only one: the Palestinians torpedoed the negotiations by choosing to reconcile with Hamas and take unilateral steps to apply to UN agencies.”
““mortally wound the idea of Israel as a Jewish state,” which would be “a tragedy of historic proportions.” (Do you think that would be a tragedy? I don’t. Neither do most Americans.)”
You’re completely misusing Telhami’s survey. Telhami’s survey did not ask Americans whether they would regard the end of the world’s only Jewish state as a tragedy. I suspect you’re doing this because you know that if he had asked that question, the answer would likely have been different.
WINEP is a satellite organization of AIPAC, so Indyk was preaching to the choir.
Israel and the co-called Palestinian “authority” (which in fact has no authority) should not be negotiating about borders, because Israel is so much stronger than the PA. Instead, the world should decree that the borders are those recognized by the world, the pre-1967 borders. This would require Israel to get out of ALL of the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. Not “freezing construction” of new all-Jewish settlements. Evacuating the settlements: All of them, new and old.
And under international law, the Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homes, from which they were expelled.
This whole negotiation process (so-called peace process) is a fraud.
Indyk is not credible. He has been intimately involved in the joke “peace process” for at least 15 years. He could have stood up at any time to say what he’s saying now. Why didn’t he ?
More chutzpah from the political backers of YESHA
Zippy Livni is an old negotiating hand. Here she is from 2007
http://972mag.com/the-palestinian-papers-an-end-to-the-myth-of-israels-generosity/9328/
“Livni: My problem is that of security. Some said to me that there would be violence among my people if I evacuated them, but the pressure will be less if I give the right to choose. I cannot bear the responsibility of their life in case they are exposed to danger and then the army will have to interfere. ”
And here Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insists on annexing the settlement of Ariel – which lies some 15 miles to the east of the Israeli border, deep in the West Bank: Livni: “The idea behind our desire to annex Ariel settlement was not to get more water but because thousands of people live there. We want to have an answer for those who have lived there for forty years.”
Those people are going nowhere. As always planned.
Elsewhere :
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/27/erekat-finally-hits-mark#
“Livni is recorded confirming what Palestinians have always accused Israeli governments of doing: creating facts on the ground to prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.”
When Mr Erekat asked Ms Livni: “Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?”. She replied: “No. In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you have to choose not to have the right of choice afterwards. These are the basic pillars.”
“Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible . . . the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
Another choice comment from Livni, this one from a Nov. 13, 2007 meeting, where she and Abu Ala (Qurei) were discussing what should be included in the “terms of reference” for the upcoming Annapolis meeting (the eighth meeting on this question):
AA: International law?
Livni : NO. I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer…But I am against law — international law in particular. Law in general. If we want to make the agreement smaller, can we just drop some of these issues? Like international law, this will make the agreements easier.”
And now in 2014 she blames the settlers . Bots don’t ever do responsibility.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.589764
“The settlers want to prevent us from living a normal life and do not accept the authority of the law,” Livni told Army Radio on Friday.
Echoing U.S. special envoy Martin Indyk’s comments Thursday night that settlements undermine negotiations and and could “drive Israel into an irreversible binational reality,” Livni said that the settlers “are preventing us from reaching a resolution,” adding that “settlement construction makes it impossible to defend Israel around the world.””
a bit of slapper pop for Zippy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4nKOzk8qbw
The idea of a Jewish state- as in a country that will take in a Jew who has nowhere else to turn, is an idea that was “historically inevitable” given the facts of 1881 to 1945. The fact that to establish such a state a large population of Palestinians “had to be” kicked out certainly casts a shadow about the justice of such a state coming into existence, but no one aware of the history of that period can remain callous to the need that was crying out to be filled. Of course history is not inevitable and there were other strands of history that sought a cure in the international brotherhood of men, although knowing what we know now about Stalinism, that cure also contained a good deal of toxic side effects. And of course I must mention that the US post WWI changed policy towards immigration made the need for such a refuge, such a country that would of a matter of policy accept Jewish refugees, more obvious more glaring and more painfully necessary.
The disappearance of Israel is not going to be voted into effect overnight and even Phil, you imagine that violence will be the path of the birth of this change that you see as inevitable and good. But how do you know? You hope and suppose, but you do not know. I can be condemned for my fears, but Las Vegas would give better odds to my fears than to your hopes. (Of course the Jewish role in Vegas makes that a tainted way to phrase myself.) Your lack of feeling about the loss of a Jewish refuge reflects both your optimism re: the future of the Jews in America and your lack of concern regarding the future of Jews elsewhere in the world. Your lack of fear regarding the new Palestine reflects an optimism that has little basis in reality, but merely is a preferred stance given your politics.