Soccer Dad

The french consider jerry lewis a genius

Yossi Beilin the head of a party Israel that couldn't garner more than three seats in Knesset, is nonetheless loved in France. He just received the French Legion of Honour. So a failure in his own country, Beilin can now tell himself how great he is because people who haven't suffered as a result of his policies have given him an award.

But it's not enough for Beilin to tell himself how great he is, he needs to remind everyone what a visionary he is compared to that unmentionable who actually managed to get elected Prime Minister two more times than Beilin did.

"Netanyahu is set to announce in the coming days that he will accept a construction freeze in the West Bank settlements for 10 months but will exclude (Arab east) Jerusalem," said Yossi Beilin, who now leads the left-wing Meretz party.

"The Palestinians will reject the offer and this move will in effect mark a backwards step that will lead to a political vacuum and the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority," he said.

And who's fault is that? Would it churlish to point out that the head of the Palestinian Authority whose existence is foremost in Beilin's mind actually rejected a peace offer made by Netanyahu's predecessor?

Erekat acknowledged that Israel had presented the Palestinians with a proposal in November 2008 which "talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank," and he noted that Mahmoud Abbas could have accepted this proposal, just as the "Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000." Intriguingly, Erekat then proceeded to reveal what he considered a "secret": he explained why the Palestinians had rejected the recent proposals just like the ones offered in 2000/01 during the negotiations in Camp David and Taba. What prevented an agreement every time - at least according to Erekat - was the Israeli request that the Palestinians acknowledge the central importance of the Temple Mount for Jewish history and religion.

It is worthwhile to quote Erekat's description of a scene at Camp David, when Bill Clinton tried to convince Yassir Arafat to come to an agreement: "You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders - give or take, considering the land swap - and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif." According to Erekat, Arafat responded "defiantly" to Clinton: "I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah."

The Middle at Jewlicious expounds:

Okay, so when Abbas says cryptically that "the gaps were too wide," what he means is that if the Palestinians don't get to be sovereign over the Temple Mount, they are not going to sign a deal.

This is called "lying."

Lying, for those of you who forget, is what a person does when he denies a Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. Lying is what a person does when he claims the Jews do not have historical, religious or cultural ties to Jerusalem or to the Land of Israel. Of course, these ideas can be found in the Hamas and Fatah charters, and of course they are lies.

Where is the lie here? Well, there is more than one but the big one is that the Palestinians seek a two state solution.

If they sought one, they would already have their own state. As both Camp David and Taba already showed, and now we have the Olmert offer to prove that the first two were not accidental rejections of Israel's offers, the Palestinians are willing to forego peace in order to make impossible demands. One of the impossible demands is the Right of Return. Yet it appears that Olmert actually signed off on that. My guess is that he offered something similar to the Taba offer Israel made where original refugees ('1948 refugees") are permitted to return to Israel.

Let's emphasiz the lack of any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is not due to any Israeli Prime Minister since 1993; for Beilin to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Back in 1996 I heard Beilin mention that he foresaw three "fingers" of "settlements" - see the Beilin Abu Mazen agreement and map - in any sort of final agreement. Apparently he's now backed off from even that. In other words Beilin believes that the Palestinians ought to be rewarded for sixteen years of bad faith and terrorism.

For Beilin to bash Netanyahu gratuitously shows that the his self image is exceeded only by his self delusion. Beilin demonstrates once again that he is a legend in his own mind.

Crossposted on Yourish.