Soccer Dad

Ab-normalization

From "Signs of the Times" by David Horovitz:

At a dinner at the home of Dr. Marouf Bakhit, Jordan's newish ambassador here, we're talking student statistics. There are, it turns out, in excess of 1,000 Israelis studying at Jordanian universities this year, their tuition subsidized by a variety of scholarship programs.

Israelis?

Well, to be more specific, Israeli Arabs.

What about Israeli Jews, I ask? Any of them at university in the Hashemite kingdom?

Not one, I'm told.

How about Jordanians studying in Israel? I venture again, remembering the trickle of Jordanians a few years back to overseas programs at our major universities, and to less mainstream initiatives like an environmental study program at Kibbutz Ketura, north of Eilat. Are any of them left these days?

A pause. There is one Jordanian student, I'm told, studying for his doctorate at an Israeli university. But please, I'm urged, don't go seeking him out and writing about him. He's desperate to avoid publicity. You've no idea what kind of trouble it would make for him when he gets home.

Later on in the article:

THE GROWING consensus, ever more openly expressed by Israelis, and Americans, who participated in the former prime minister's unsuccessful peacemaking initiative with the late Hafez Assad, was that Ehud Barak blew it with the Syrians. The deal was there to be done, one of those participants told me recently, but Barak feared the Israeli public was not ready to swallow it.

The outstanding feature of the negotiations, this Israeli official added, was that on the security issues – demilitarized zones, early warning stations et. al. – the Syrians were strikingly ready to accommodate Israel's demands.

Where they dug in their heels was on normalization: open borders, trade, free-flowing tourism. For Assad, desperately trying to maintain his closed regime, the threat of an Israeli tank, this official said, paled in comparison to the prospect of an Israeli tour bus bringing vibrant, colorful, free-speaking visitors into his constrained land.

From Caroline Glick's "Irrelevant Visions":

Thursday morning a senior diplomatic source told Israel Radio that the decision not to accede to Egypt's demands is not due to the government's objection to the cancellation of the agreement to demilitarize the Sinai, which was signed together with the peace treaty in 1979. Rather, the government wants to avoid acceding to the Knesset's demand that any substantive change to the 1979 treaty – and a cancellation of the demilitarization agreement certainly constitutes a "substantive" change – must first receive Knesset approval.

The prime minister knows that there is no way that he would receive majority support for enabling the deployment of the Egyptian military, which Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, notes "has been training for war against Israel for the past 10 years" along the border. And so, in a bid to prevent Knesset oversight, Peres and Sharon have limited their agreement with Mubarak to the Gaza-Sinai border – although according to the committee's legal adviser, this too is a substantive change in the agreement.

In a nutshell then Egypt, the Arab country with the longest standing peace treaty with Israel has been showing increasing belligerance towards Israel. Jordan that might have been the most sincere in making peace with Israel doesn't much want to advertise these ties. And Syria wouldn't make peace with Israel if it included normalization. (I don't know if Horovitz is subscribing to the view that faults Barak for demanding normalization; or simply quoting those who hold that view. It hardly seems that Barak is at fault for there not being an accord between Israel and Syria. Normally peace entails normalization!)

What these cases show, is that the Arab world is keen on Israel making concessions. It's not so keen on reciprocating. This has been the problem since Camp David and continues to be the problem. The Arab world - back by many in the West - claims it has grievances against Israel. Israel tries to assuage these grievances by giving up land (and in the case of Jordan, water). But the peace never comes. Just more demands. Until which time, Israel is still illegitimate. There's no way to win this game. Israel needs to say: This and no more. (or at this point just "no more.") Support trade with us. Support academic, professional and cultural ties. Fight for the Mogen David Adom to be a recognized symbol of the International Red Cross. Stop distributing the Protocols (in any form!) Israel needs confidence building measures too.
If the Arab world cannot allow itself to accept Israel with anything more than weak statements; it is the Arab world that is not ready for peace. The more Israel gives to make peace without getting anything back the more the Arab world's intransigence is encouraged. This is just not an issue of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are the excuse the Arab world uses to justify its rejection of Israel. It's time to demand that the Arab world show concrete signs that it accepts Israel. Normalization with Israel is the first step to peace. Not Israeli concessions.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at July 4, 2005 6:27 PM