Kicking the PLO Habit

abbas-unga-speech-palestine.siOriginally published by the Jerusalem Post

The signs are everywhere that the time has come for Israel to abandon the PLO.

So long as the PLO remains in power, the lives of Israelis and Palestinians will only get worse.

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Friday at the UN General Assembly where he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide was not merely an abandonment of direct peace negotiations with Israel. Abbas abandoned the very concept of peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abbas called for the UN to pass a resolution that will require Israel to cede Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in their entirety to the PLO within a set period of time. No Israeli consideration can be taken into account. No Israel concern can be attended to.

As he put it, “Palestine refuses to have the right to freedom of her people, who are subjected to the terrorism by the racist occupying Power and its settlers, remain hostage to Israel’s security conditions.”

As is always the case, the immediate victims of Abbas’s blood libels are the Israeli Left. The politicians and media elite that have hitched their horse to the PLO were again left stuttering by the wayside.

For some, like Meretz chair Zehava Gal-On, stuttering is a fine option. So she pushed out an endorsement of Abbas’s genocide speech.

Gal-On said, “Meretz supports Abbas’s international efforts to bring the end of the occupation and to get international recognition as a [Palestinian] state and member of the UN before and as a corridor to reaching peace in bilateral negotiations between equals,” And she joined Abbas in blaming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for Abbas’s rejection of peace.

As the center-left commentator Dan Margalit noted in Yisrael Hayom, Gal-On and Meretz are basically alone in their embrace of Abbas today.

But they are far from alone in maintaining their slavish devotion to the idea that the only way to improve the situation is by giving Abbas whatever he wants.

And here the circle of victims of Abbas’s hostility expands from the Left to the entire country.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Opposition leader and Labor Party leader Yitzhak Herzog latched all of Israel to the Left’s position by seeming to condemn Abbas while insisting that he is Israel’s only hope.

Herzog wrote that Abbas’s remarks, “were disappointing but not surprising.

“I have met with [Abbas, aka] Abu Mazen dozens of times: He is not a friend or a sympathetic ally. He is someone we have to make a deal with,” Herzog insisted.

Herzog then repeated the same points he and his fellow leftists have made for decades: that Abbas is better than Hamas, that Israel’s security cooperation with the PLO is really great, and that he only way to get the world to be nice to us is by maintaining our allegiance to Abbas and the PLO.

Herzog concluded by joining Gal-On and Abbas in attacking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and blaming him for Abbas’s open transformation into Israel’s enemy.

The first problem with Herzog’s statement is that if it is true that he has always known that Abbas is our enemy, then he just told us that he is a liar.

Like all his friends on the Left, Herzog has continuously embraced Abbas and insisted that he is a man of peace and a moderate and interested in making a deal with Israel.

Yet far worse than his apparent serial dishonesty is Herzog’s insistence that Israel remain in the same policy straitjacket of embracing the PLO.

It is true that Israel gets some security cooperation from the Palestinian security forces. But it is also true that the only guarantor of Israel’s security is the IDF. Were the Palestinian security forces to disband tomorrow, Israel would be better off, not worse off.

This is the case because as Abbas showed, the PA views Israel as its enemy. For tactical reasons PLO militias do work with the IDF from time to time. But their strategic goal – Israel’s destruction – is unchanging. Any doubts that this is the case were dispelled by Abbas’s remarks in New York.

As for the PLO being preferable to Hamas, the PLO is Hamas’s coalition partner. Abbas staunchly expressed his commitment to the unity government he forged with Hamas in his UN speech.

Supporting the PLO in Gaza is the same as supporting Hamas.

Finally, Israel’s international position is continuously degraded, and has been since 1993 as a direct result of its embrace of the PLO. As Abbas showed yet again on Friday, the PLO is leading an international campaign to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. By embracing the PLO, Israel is legitimizing the campaign against it.

Due to our adoption of the Left’s catechism, that Israel has no choice but to continue its embrace of the PLO, we find ourselves at this juncture — where the PLO no longer even tries to hide its rejection of peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state — unable to mount a concerted defense of our rights and legitimate concerns.

If we have no choice but to cut a deal with a group that openly seeks our annihilation in collaboration with Hamas, a terrorist group supported by Iran, then how can we defend ourselves and ensure our rights are respected and our interests are secured? The short answer is that we cannot. Since the PLO seeks our destruction, everything we do to strengthen it weakens us. Abbas made clear in his UN speech that he is playing a zero-sum game with Israel. Everything he gains comes at our expense.

Herzog and his comrades are right about one thing. Chances for peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians will increase in an environment where the Palestinians enjoy civil rights and economic opportunities. The problem is that the PLO has harmed, and will continue to harm both for as long as it remains in power.

In large part because the PLO recognizes that freedom and economic opportunity engender social happiness and peace, for the past 21 years they have taken active steps to repress freedom and strangle economic opportunities. Only a Palestinian society that is poor, immiserated and indoctrinated to hate Jews will agree to serve as foot soldiers in a perpetual war.

To this end, the PLO has stolen billions in international aid funds, imprisoned and tortured its critics, built an economy based on graft and protection, and brainwashed the Palestinians with a narrative of hating Jews and blaming Israel for the misery to which the PLO has reduced them.

Israel has two options going forward to secure its rights and protect its interests. Both options are preferable to remaining where we are. But to adopt either of these policies, we first need to abandon the pretense that the PLO is a credible, legitimate actor.

The first option is to adopt Economy Minister Naftali Bennett’s plan to apply Israeli law over Area C of Judea and Samaria – that is, the land lacking a significant Palestinian population, and agreeing to Palestinian self-rule in the Palestinian population centers.

For this option to work, Israel will have to cultivate a security and social environment among the Palestinians that is conducive to the emergence of a genuinely moderate leadership. This new leadership could replace the PLO and lead the Palestinians to a better, freer life based on peaceful coexistence with Israel and freedom in a self-governing territory.

The second option is to adopt the policy I set out in my recent book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. That policy involves implementing Israeli law over all of Judea and Samaria and providing the Palestinians with equal rights under Israeli law.

Palestinians will receive permanent residency status as the Arab residents of Jerusalem and the Druse of the Golan Heights received in 1967 and 1981. Like them, Palestinians will have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship. Those who abide by the criteria of Israel’s citizenship laws will receive citizenship.

Both of these options will improve chances for peace. Both policies with secure the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and foster their rights and prosperity.

Friday Abbas told clearly that he is our enemy, and indeed the enemy of the Palestinians whose lives he insists on imperiling and embittering by locking them into a perpetual war for the destruction of Israel.

He told us to move on.

And move on we must, first and foremost by kicking our PLO habit.

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  • Arf

    Caroline, why don’t you ask Tzipi the whore Livni why she keeps yapping about how it’s so important to continue negotiations with this atrocious man and his terrorist organization. It is time to stop writing articles for U.S. websites and time to start confronting Israeli politicians.

    • Bamaguje

      “It is time to stop writing articles for U.S. websites…” – Arf.

      The article was originally written for Jerusalem post.
      It says so at the top of the article.

      • Arf

        Let’s be honest, Bamaguje, the Jerusalem Post is basically for non-Israelis mostly in the English speaking world. How many ISRAELIS read it and how many Israeli politicians and other leaders use it as a guide on political opinions in Israel? I suspect not many. Ha’aretz also is published in Israel. Its readership is pretty much OUTSIDE of Israel and consists mostly of people who hate Israel. What I have noticed over the years is that Israeli politicians such as Netanyahu and columnists/advocates such as Caroline Glick make lovely speeches in the U.S. but when they get back home to Israel they do relatively little to change the system. Netanyahu sounds wonderful at the U.N. but when he gets back to Israel, he is all for releasing terrorists, tying the hands of the IDF, allowing radical Muslim groups to operate freely inside Israel, and giving Arab MKs a pass on their attendance at terrorist conferences and advocacy of violence against Israel. The idea that Israel has not contributed to the situation it finds itself in is ridiculous. And nobody but a mindless robot buys it anymore. The hushing up of Arab terror inside Israel by the police is rampant. Please do not even attempt to blame this all on U.S. pressure.

        • Bamaguje

          “he (Netanyahu) is all for releasing terrorists, tying the hands of the IDF…” – Arf.

          That again was Obama pressure, purportedly to facilitate the “peace process.”

          As for tying the hands of IDF, I totally agree… Israel should have reannexed Gaza. That’s the only way to wipe out Hamas and ensure the strip is never again used as terrorist or rocket launchpad against Israel.

          “Please do not even attempt to blame this all on U.S. pressure” – Arf.

          Why not? So long as Israel continues to receive U.S. aid, she’ll be vulnerable to American pressure.
          Israel will have to kick the habit of dependence on U.S. aid, so the Jewish nation can act more freely in her own defense.
          Israel also needs U.S. protection in the Israel bashing madhouse called UN.

  • Arf

    By the way, the signs that Israel should abandon the PLO came a very long time ago. Why are Israelis so slow to catch on?

    • David

      Most Israelis aren’t. Unfortunately, there is an alliance between Israeli leftwingers and foreign leftists in the US and Europe that pushes Israel down this dangerous path.

      • Arf

        If the alliance between foreign leftists and Israeli leftists is so strong and powerful that it can push Israel down the road to suicide without “most Israelies” stopping them, then “most Israelis” are going along with it. Even after the worst terrorist events of the intifadas years ago, the polls showed 35% of Israelis still wanted the “peace process” with the PA to continue. This is insanity and we can no longer blame it on the U.S. and Europe. Listen to Tzipi Livni. She is either very corrupt or very crazy but the fact is, Netanyahu loves her and hates Danny Danon. Bibi has had numerous opportunities to negotiate for the release of Pollard but always ends up releasing terrorists instead. The days of blaming everything on Europe, the U.S., Obama, the Arabs, the U.N., and foreign NGOS without acknowledging Israel’s willing participation in the suffering of its own people and its demonization are OVER. If Netanyahu believes that Hamas and ISIS are the same, why is he so anxious to negotiate with Hamas instead of destroying them? Would he advocate negotiating with ISIS? Not hardly.

    • Bamaguje

      It was the U.S. that pressured Israel to recognize PLO as “peace partner.”
      Before Oslo accords, Israel considered PLO a terrorist group.

  • Hard Little Machine

    After Abbas, the Arabs in Yesha will descend into civil war. We need to let them kill and eat each other.

  • Gee

    Caroline as much as I admire your writing you are wrong. The only road to peace is for the Jordanian colonists to live in Jordan. The occupation must end

    • DB1954

      You surely know that the Jordanians went to war with the Palestinians and the PLO many years ago. The Jordanians will never accept their return to Jordan.

  • Vinegar Hill

    Once again another diatribe from glick spouting on about the failure of peace talks due to Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank. Thare are also fundamental factual errors in what she writes.
    One obvious error is that the author claims that Israel has a “right to exist”. It does not have such a right. There is no international law or UN resolution supporting such a claim. The only place where it exists is in a figment of her imagination.

    Regarding economic opportunities for the Palestinians in the West Bank it lacks Israel’s seriousness about making concessions in strategic economic sectors. Israel would have to relinquish spheres of activity that it continues to control such as energy, agriculture, and water. A fundemantal change in the occupation regime’s political handling of Palestinian development is required. Herein lies the problem.
    Palestinian reforms are also required but most change needs to come from the occupying power. More than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank (Area C, outside the PA’s control), East Jerusalem, are under direct military occupation. Something Glick has forgotten to mention.
    Finally, regarding her ideas about offering citizenship for Palestinians it is nothing more than a smokescreen to demonstarte to the world that they will be treated equally. Nothing can be further from the truth as more than 20% of the population living in Israel are discriminated by numerous laws and institutional legislation that has created a two tierd social system. How undemocratic can one get?!

    • Larry Larkin

      To right there needs to be a fundamental change in the occupying regime in Judea and Samara. The arabs need to get off their arses and out of the 6th century.

      • Gee

        And out of Judea and Samaria as well. Thieving Arabs have no legal claim to our lands

    • ADM64

      Didn’t the UN provide the basis for Israel’s existence in 1947? I’m curious, though, which international law or organization conferred a right of existence for our country, the United States of America, to come into being back in 1776? Legitimacy comes from, amongst other things, whether one’s country recognizes and protects individual rights. Arabs in Israel have their rights recognized and protected. The same is true of no one in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia – indeed the entire Arab Middle East and much of the entire Muslim world.

      • Vinegar Hill

        Non Jews living in Israel are treated as second class citizens. There are numerous laws which discriminate against them and they do not receive equal rights. The Israeli social system is two tiered and totally undemocratic.
        To try and cover up this fact by saying that other countries do not offer “rights recognised and protected” is an act of desperation and the response of a loser.

        • yoelk

          Liar. No two-tiered society, They bend over backwards to appease the arabs. and the left. You must confuse it with a muslim regime which have 2 groups indeed: The elite leaders, and the rest. But you being as bitter as vinegar just hate everything decent

        • ADM64

          Okay. Which laws discriminate against them? Can you provide some evidence to support your claim? Which rights do they not have? Again, please provide evidence? Which rights do Arabs have in any of the Muslim countries that I mentioned? Again, evidence.

          There is no cover up. Muslim countries are typically secular dictatorships or theocratic ones. No one has civil and political rights. And non-Muslims absolutely have none. There is not a single church or synagogue even allowed in Saudi Arabia. If you can provide evidence to the contrary, I am happy to receive it.

          I am also curious as to your response to my point that no international organization or law recognized our country’s right to exist back in 1776 (and indeed had it been put to a vote of the established nations, would have been voted down). So, why does that sort of certification matter? And, what did the UN say about Israel back in 1947?

          • Vinegar Hill

            I will elaborate on one or two of them and you can go through the rest.
            The Israeli government defines land as the inalienable property of the Jewish people. As a consequence of that the absentee property laws of 1950 deprived Palestinians who had remained on their properties of possession.
            The nationality law of 1952 repealed Palestinian citizenship and placed stringent conditions on the eligibility of Palestinian Arabs for Israeli nationality but Jewish immigrants were automatically entitled to nationality.
            Simply put why don’t you cast an inquisitive eye over the following:
            1) the Law of Return (1950),
            2) the Law of Absentee Property (1950),
            3) the Law of the State’s Property (1951),
            4) the Law of Citizenship (1952),
            5) the Status Law (1952),
            6) the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960),
            7) the Construction and Building Law (1965),
            8) a 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the Occupied Territories.

            These are discriminatory Israeli laws.

          • Vinegar Hill

            I was responding to your claim regarding “Arabs in Israel have their rights recognized and protected.” which they don’t as answered above. Why bother about “Arabs” in “Muslim countries”? The issue was your claim regarding Israel. Furthermore, what are you trying to argue?…..are you claiming that because they have different laws in Israel compared to those in Muslim countries they are better off. Is that your excuse for discrimination in Israel laws?
            Therefore it is “a cover up” otherwise why say it?
            No country has a “right to exist” within international law. Countries are recognised as existing de facto and de jure, but there is no notion that any country has a “right to exist” in international law. This right that you have claimed exists as a figment of your imagination and those that spout the same claim. I commented about it because the majority of supporters of the state of Israel always make that claim which is totally false.

            I will reply soon regarding 1947.

    • iluvisrael

      You small, vicious and irrelevant little girl – you aren’t good enough to wash CG’s undies.

  • Bert

    Israeli leaders disagree over how much Israel will collaborate with its enemies. Israel accepts the lie of its “occupation” and the lie of the Palestinian narrative. It only balks over Arab demands for Israel to voluntarily commit suicide. Except for Moshe Feiglin no Israeli leader is yet ready to stop lying and to insist on the full truth in defense of Jewish rights. Gentile friends of Israel can see the truth which Israeli leaders either deny or fear to state. Netanyahu wants the Arabs to recognize Israel as a Jewish state but the Israeli government itself refuses to recognize our Torah as central to our Jewish identity because they are governed by fear of the gentile and not faith in G-d.

  • Ken Kelso

    Caroline Glick truly describes the Islamo Nazis the Terrorstinians are.
    Fatah glorifies Kibbutz Metzer massacre of Israeli mother and her 2 small sons.

    It should be pointed out, the Jewish leaders on the left at Kibbutz Metzer in 2002 opposed Israel building a fence. The Jewish leaders at Kibbutz Metzer thought the Palestinians have humanity.
    Unfortunately they found out the savages Fatah are.

    To quote Caroline Glick from May
    http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Pope-Franciss-unfriendly-visit-354557
    Our world: Pope Francis’s unfriendly visit
    By CAROLINE B. GLICK
    05/27/2014

    As the former Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Francis may have heard of the November 2002 massacre at Kibbutz Metzer. Metzer was founded by Argentine communists in the 1950s. Metzer is located 500 meters from the 1949 armistice lines which made it an obvious beneficiary of the security fence. But true to its radical roots, in 2002 members of the kibbutz waged a public campaign against the planned route of the security fence. They feared that it would, in the words of Metzer member Danny Dovrat, “ignite hostility and create problems” with the kibbutz’s Palestinian neighbors.

    Thanks to that concern, on the night of November 10, 2002, a gunman from the “moderate” US- and EU-supported Fatah terror organization faced no physical obstacle when he entered the kibbutz. Once there he killed two people on the street and then entered the home of Revital Ohayon and executed Revital and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4 years old.

    Fatah praised the attack on its website and pledged to conduct more assaults on “Zionist colonizers,” and promised to continue “targeting their children as well.”

    Had he actually cared about the cause of peace and non-violence he claims to champion, Francis might have averred from stopping at the barrier, recognizing that doing so would defile the memory of the Ohayons and of hundreds of other Israeli Jewish families who were destroyed by Palestinian bloodlust and anti-Semitic depravity.

  • Ken Kelso

    Why are the Europeans and U.S giving money to these Fatah mass murderers?

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/cash-strapped-pa-spends-4-5-million-per-month-compensating-security-detainees/
    PA spends 6% of its budget paying Palestinians in Israeli jails, families of suicide bombers.
    Hamas terrorist who orchestrated 2002 Park Hotel massacre, in which 30 Israelis died, gets $3,000 a month, Channel 2 reports; bomb-maker jailed for 67 killings gets $1,000
    ILAN BEN ZION
    September 3, 2012

    • Ken Kelso

      Labor, Livni and Meretz should change their platform to we support Arab
      murderers of Israeli civilians

      As Steven Plaut documented.
      In 2012, an initiative was begun in the Knesset led by David Rotem (from the Yisrael Beitenu party), to cut the stipends and pensions paid to convicted Palestinian murderers and terrorists by 50%. That is correct – the Knesset was only one-half working against welfare support for terrorists, by preserving only half of the stupidest idea in human history.

      Rotem wanted to eliminate the Paychecks for Terrorists Program altogether but there was too much opposition from the rest of the Knesset and the government’s pin-headed lawyers. Israel’s Ministry of Justice bureaucrats opposed any reduction in the welfare benefits for the mass murderers. It would be unjust, you see. Insensitive to the needs of the families of the terrorists. The Israeli Left denounced the initiative as “anti-democratic.”

      What is amazing is that the Israeli Left voted against the bill. How dare
      anyone deny terrorists and their families the benefits of Israeli welfare
      payments! Meretz and Amram Mitzna voted for the terrorists. Mitzna is now a member of Tzipi Livni’s party. The Israeli Labor Party voted against the bill, showing that its electoral strategy seems to be to challenge the ultra-leftist Meretz party over which party will attract the most votes from the treason constituency.

      • Ken Kelso

        Israel passed a law 3 months ago, where it prevents Israeli leaders from freeing Palestinian mass murderer prisoners.
        Who opposed this? Gal-On of Meretz.

        Meretz and Gal-On believe any Israeli leader who doesn’t free Palestinian mass murder prisoners so they can slaughter Israeli civilians again is an extreme right winger.
        This proves once and for all, anyone in Israel who votes for Meretz is either an anarchist or insane

        http://news.yahoo.com/israel-backs-law-block-palestinian-prisoner-releases-130437339.html
        Israel
        backs law to block Palestinian prisoner releases
        AFP June 8, 2014.

        From the article, Zehava Gal-On of the dovish Meretz party said the amendment would tie Israel’s hands in future talks and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “capitulating to the extreme right and supporting a demagogic law”.

        • carpe diem 36

          with friends like these who needs enemies???

  • ObamaYoMoma

    There is only one permanent solution for Israel and that is to help convince the leaders of the world that Islam as opposed to terrorism is the problem. Meanwhile, the only solution for Israel and, indeed, the greater infidel world at large is to eradicate Islam.

    • NSNZ

      Yep. The root of the problem truly is pigslam!

      • DB1954

        Not for Israelis. The root of their number one problem is antisemitism. Same as it has always been.

    • DB1954

      Wrong.

      • ObamaYoMoma

        Seek mental help, because lord knows that Muslim jihadists and Marxist terrorists never ever unite.

  • jetcal1

    I’m sorry to see the Vinegar Hill posts being deleted even though she couldn’t deign to respond to my posts.

    The answer is easy. Give them everything they want. And it will no longer be the PA, PLO, or Hamas. It will be the sovereign state of Palestine. And every sovereign state comes with a return address. More importantly, it can be fairly stated that the Palestinians got everything they wanted.

  • tickletik

    The solution you proposed is not a solution. It assumes those Arabs in the territories who meet your criteria for citizenship would not simply do so on a temporary basis to subvert the country. Which is a real and ongoing concern.

    There is only one solution and that is population transfer.

  • Vinegar Hill

    An error seems to have occurred as my earlier comment was flagged by mistake. Here it is again so that those who want to offer a reasoned response can do so.

    Once again another diatribe from glick spouting on about the failure of peace talks due to Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank. Thare are also fundamental factual errors in what she writes.
    One obvious error is that the author claims that Israel has a “right to exist”. It does not have such a right. There is no international law or UN resolution supporting such a claim. The only place where it exists is in a figment of her imagination.

    Regarding economic opportunities for the Palestinians in the West Bank it lacks Israel’s seriousness about making concessions in strategic economic sectors. Israel would have to relinquish spheres of activity that it continues to control such as energy, agriculture, and water. A fundemantal change in the occupation regime’s political handling of Palestinian development is required. Herein lies the problem.
    Palestinian reforms are also required but most change needs to come from the occupying power. More than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank (Area C, outside the PA’s control), East Jerusalem, are under direct military occupation. Something Glick has forgotten to mention.
    Finally, regarding her ideas about offering citizenship for Palestinians it is nothing more than a smokescreen to demonstarte to the world that they will be treated equally. Nothing can be further from the truth as more than 20% of the population living in Israel are discriminated by numerous laws and institutional legislation that has created a two tierd social system. How undemocratic can one get?!

  • DB1954

    I don’t see what difference it makes who the leader of the Palestinians is. The Palestinians who engage in terror, murder, and violence against Israelis are the power behind the throne, and it seems to make no difference who the Palestinian leaders are or what they might really have in mind. Whether they call themselves PLO or Hamas, their leaders know that they cannot propose, offer, or accept any plans that would solve political problems by non-violent means. So long as the terrorists threaten to kill any political leader who would even remotely call for a genuine peace with Israel, there will be no peace. Therefore, there will never be peace.