Updates

In a hard-hitting analysis that raises some important reasons why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not been resolved, columnist David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen notes:

The Palestinians, so far as they are a people, have now a long history of being able to do things without consequences.

He compares this with how the world treats Israeli actions that are demonstrably undertaken in the cause of self-defence:

Israel is consistently held to account, both internally and externally, as an old-fashioned, formal nation state. When the Israelis respond to rocket attacks from Gaza, they are compelled to justify their action. But the people who sent the rockets are not. And supposing them to have been launched “freelance” by independent terror cells, the authority which governs Gaza is not held gravely responsible for having failed to stop them.

Imagine what the consequences would be, if Israeli citizens, acting independently, began lobbing missiles into the Palestinian territories, gratuitously at targets both civilian and military – whatever happened to be in range. And then, the Israeli authorities made no gesture to stop them. The diplomats of the world would spit up their sherry. Our peace-loving politicians would go berserk.

Yet they have nothing to say after each of many thousand Qassams comes down within Israeli borders of the strictest 1947 definition.

In other words, as Warren points out, the most glaring double standard is the game the West plays which sees the goal posts constantly shifting to overlook the flagrant Palestinian breaches of the minimum requirements for demonstrating a genuine commitment to the concept of two states for two peoples:

If an identifiable Jew from Israel wanders, unguarded, into any part of the Palestinian territories, he is a dead man. This is a fact of life, and everyone knows it. Leftist and Islamist rhetoric about Israeli “apartheid” masks a very big truth: that more than a million Muslim Arabs live, work, and move freely around Israel, with full citizenship and protection under Israel’s laws (enforced by very liberal courts). Whereas, the number of Jews enjoying this status under the Palestinian Authority is zero.

Commenting on Palestinian plans to secure UN recognition of statehood, Warren writes:

The UN will be granting Palestinian statehood without a resolution of anything. It will be a reward for consistent Palestinian refusal to negotiate in good faith, or to deliver on any significant undertakings made under the various Madrid, Oslo, and other “peace agreements” reached in the past.

Israel was told to exchange Gaza for peace. All the Jewish settlements in Gaza were uprooted. All the Israeli troops were withdrawn. Observe what happened.

Meanwhile, analyst Barry Rubin is on scintillating form in his latest piece – ‘You can’t spell “chutzpah” without “pa”‘ – satirising the Palestinian Authority’s request for Israel to transfer it money in advance of what is specified by signed agreements precisely when it is going to the UN in violation of those agreements:

Hi! I know I’m in partnership with a group at war with you; am inciting my people and teaching my children to murder you, am refusing to negotiate with you, have stolen most of the money I’ve received in foreign aid, which is why I’m broke, am rejecting and breaking the agreements on which your obligation to pay me rest; am going to the UN to get international support for breaking the previous agreements I’ve made with you; am lying about you every day (a PA minister has just accused Israel of stealing organs); am seeking an outcome in which I can then wipe you off the map; and using the money you would be giving me to pay people who have murdered your citizens….

BUT can you move up your payment of money to me as a favor?

This is the absurdity of the Israel-Palestinian issue, whose reality is never reflected in the Western mass media.

Allon Lee