The Weekly Sam: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Israel

 

Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Israel
By Samuel Blumenfeld

What makes Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama think that peace is
possible between Israel and the Palestinians so long as Iran threatens to nuke Israel, is
rearming Hisbullah in Lebanon, and arming Hamas in Gaza, which is still determined to
destroy Israel?

What makes the Obama administration think that the Palestinians want peace when they
propose that Israel no longer maintain itself as a Jewish state and insist that it take in over
three million descendants of the 700,000 Arabs who once lived there? Forgotten are the
800,000 Jews expelled from Muslim countries after the 1948 war.
All the fuss being made by Biden and Clinton over the building of 1,600 new housing
units in Jerusalem is a case of misplaced indignation. Short of Israel committing suicide,
the Palestinians under Abbas are not about to assume the responsibilities of statehood
which would require it to behave like a legitimate sovereign nation. And that is why
they have rejected every offer the Israelis have made in the pursuit of peace.

The Palestinian government is the recipient of world charity which makes it unnecessary
for it to create anything of value. As the recipient of billions in free money, why bother
to work for a living? And as long as there is no peace agreement, they can continue to
launch suicide attacks against Israel at will.

Ever since the Oslo peace process began in 1993, Israel has had to make concession after
concession in the interest of peace. The Palestinians saw this as the successful result of
their intifada waged from 1987 to 1993. Many Israelis saw the Oslo process as the road
to a real peace that would bring untold prosperity to the region.
After President Clinton’s famous Camp David summit in the summer of 2000 between
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat, Barak offered the Palestinians the
most generous peace terms any Israeli government could ever offer: 88 percent of the
West Bank and most of East Jerusalem. The response? The second intifada of
2001-2002 in which over 1,000 Israelis were killed in terrorist and suicide bomber
attacks.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, destroying the homes, farms, and
businesses of over 8,000 Israeli citizens. Did this disengagement bring peace? From the
date of withdrawal to the 2009 war, Gazan terrorists fired about 6,000 rockets and
mortars into Southern Israel. And even after the Gazan war, Hamas is still rearming
with the help of Iran, and Al Qaida has made inroads in the territory.
In September 2008, Prime Minister Olmert offered to withdraw from 94 percent of the
West Bank and create international Muslim control over Jerusalem’s holy sites. This
far-reaching offer was also rejected by the Palestinians.
Israel’s unceasing efforts to achieve peace in order to demonstrate to America that it truly
believes that peace is possible flies in the face of the intransigent realities on the ground.
The simple fact is that more and more Israelis are beginning to acknowledge that peace,
seemingly so near at hand, yet so elusive, is in the long run unachievable. Why?
Because the pre-conditions set by the Palestinians are simply impossible to meet.

Another fact is that despite the absence of peace, Israel has not only survived for 61
years, but has become a high-tech powerhouse, achieved a high standard of living, and
has managed to fare much better than most countries during the world financial crisis.
Yet, sixteen years of piecemeal concessions made under pressure from America and the
Europeans have convinced Israel haters that the Jewish state is quite vulnerable. Thus,
Israel’s yearning for peace and willingness to uproot its own people in Gaza and the
so-called settlements in Judea and Samaria, has encouraged its enemies to go for the
jugular.

And that is why what Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton hotly said in response to the notice
of the building in Jerusalem will provide ammunition to those who claim that it is Israel
that stands in the way of peace. Israel wants to please its American ally, but suicide is
not the most practical way to do it.

It should be noted that Israel now has a population of over 7 million inhabitants, of which
1.5 million are Muslim citizens of Israel, most of whom would object to becoming
citizens of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, no Jews are permitted to be citizens of
Palestine. So much for a democratic, multicultural Palestinian state. There were even
Israelis in Gaza willing to live under a Palestinian government provided they were not
persecuted by that state.

Why doesn’t the American government insist that the projected Palestinian state permit
Jews to live in it? Unfortunately, the Palestinians would have to stop hating Jews, and
Barack Obama is not about to impose on the Palestinians their Allah-given imperative to
hate and kill Jews