Geneva Sellout

[rini]

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 28, 2003; Page A41


On Monday, a peace agreement will be signed by Israelis and Palestinians. This "Geneva accord" has gotten much attention. And the signing itself will be greeted with much hoopla. Journalists are being flown in from around the world by the Swiss government. Jimmy Carter will be heading a list of foreign dignitaries. The U.S. Embassy in Bern will be sending an observer.



This is all rather peculiar: The agreement is being signed not by Israeli and Palestinian officials, but by two people with no power.

On the Palestinian side, the negotiator is former information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who at least is said to have Yasser Arafat's ear. The Israeli side, however, is led by Yossi Beilin, a man whose political standing in his own country is so low that he failed to make it into Parliament. After helping bring his Labor Party to ruin, Beilin abandoned it for the far-left Meretz Party, which then did so badly in the last election that Beilin is now a private citizen.

There is a reason why he is one of Israel's most reviled and discredited politicians. He was the principal ideologue and architect behind the "peace" foisted on Israel in 1993. Those Oslo agreements have brought a decade of the worst terror in all Israeli history.

Now he is at it again. And Secretary of State Colin Powell has written a letter to Beilin and Rabbo expressing appreciation for their effort, and is now planning to meet with them.

This is scandalous. Israel is a democracy, and this agreement was negotiated in defiance of the democratically (and overwhelmingly) elected government of Israel. If a private U.S. citizen negotiated a treaty on his own, he could go to jail under the Logan Act. If an Israeli does it, he gets a pat on the back from the secretary of state.

Moreover, this "peace" is entirely hallucinatory. It is written as if Oslo never happened. The Palestinian side repeats solemn pledges to recognize Israel, renounce terror, end anti-Israel incitement, etc. -- all promised in Oslo. These promises are today such a dead letter that the Palestinian side is openly bargaining these chits again, as if the Israelis have forgotten that in return for these pledges 10 years ago, Israel recognized the PLO, brought it out of Tunisian exile, established a Palestinian Authority, permitted it an army with 50,000 guns and invited the world to donate billions to this new Authority.

Arafat pocketed every Israeli concession, turned his territory into an armed camp and then launched a vicious terror war that has lasted more than three years and killed more than 1,000 Israelis. It is Lucy and the football all over again, and the same chorus of delusionals who so applauded Oslo -- Jimmy Carter, Sandy Berger, Tom Friedman -- is applauding again. This time, however, the Israeli surrender is so breathtaking it makes Oslo look rational.

A Palestinian state, of course. Evacuating every Jewish settlement in new Palestine, of course. Redividing Jerusalem, of course. But that is not enough. Beilin gives up the ultimate symbol of the Jewish connection and claim to the land, the center of the Jewish state for 1,000 years before the Roman destruction, the subject of Jewish longing in poetry and prayer for the 2,000 years since -- the Temple Mount. And Beilin doesn't just give it up to, say, some neutral international authority. He gives it to sovereign Palestine. Jews will visit at Arab sufferance.

Not satisfied with having given up Israel's soul, Beilin gives up the body too. He not only returns Israel to its 1967 borders, arbitrary and indefensible, but he does so without any serious security safeguards.

Palestine promises to acquire and buy no more weapons than specified in some treaty annex. This is a joke. Oslo had similarly detailed limitations on Palestinian weaponry, and nobody even pretended to enforce them. Last year, a massive illegal boatload came in from Iran on the Karine A. What did the world do about it? Nothing.

Today, however, Israel still has control over Palestine's borders. Under Beilin, this ends. Palestine will be free to acquire as much lethal weaponry as it wants.

And on the critical question that even the most dovish Israelis insist on -- that the Palestinians not have the right to flood Israel with Arab refugees -- the agreement is utterly ambiguous. Third parties (including among others the irredeemably hostile Syria and its puppet Lebanon) are to suggest exactly how many Palestinians are to return to Israel, and the basis for the number Israel will be required to accept will be the mathematical average!

This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note -- by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace.










http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17610-2003Nov27.html

[bluesoul]

1. Typical RW ranting from Krauthammer

The Geneva Accord is a fair deal (where even Palestinians have to give up many things) yet this is not obviously enough for the like of Krauthammer..

[mmm]

2. Krauthammer sucking ass, as always

useless, the guy is useless

[bluesoul]

3. Being a Townhall conservative

that is no surprise. And they say "liberal bias" and then even WP and NYT give space for these people...

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[drdon326]

6. HUH?

news flash !!

i didnt post this.....i didnt even comment on this..

:shrug:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[drdon326]

10. Nooooo problem.....

feel free to bash me on the right thread next time, ok?

:)

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Thanks for posting, rini

It's good to know what one of America's most notorious rightwing shills and Bush/PNAC apologists says about the Genva Accord.

Mr. Krauthammer's critique of the Geneva Accord is hardly convincing. Here, he finds fault with the Accord because it treats Palestinian interests in the region as legitimate and equal to that of Israeli interests. He may find fault that those outside power have negotiated the pact, but he offers no alternative. After all, neither the Sharon nor the Arafat regimes seem to show the slightest interest in bringing this bloody conflict to an end. Given Mr. Krauthammer's history, it should be no surprise that he doesn't have any interest in it, either.

Mr. Krauthammer commits a few errors in the service of rightwing propaganda:

It is written as if Oslo never happened.

No, it is written as if Oslo no longer matters. Indeed, it doesn't. The same can be said of the Roadmap, which Kranthammer never mentions. That's fine, since that was designed to fail anyway.

A Palestinian state, of course. Evacuating every Jewish settlement in new Palestine, of course . . . . Not satisfied with having given up Israel's soul, Beilin gives up the body too. He not only returns Israel to its 1967 borders.

The creation of a Palestinian state and the evacuation of settlements that are built in defiance of international law? What, may I ask, is wrong with that? Krauthammer, while talking about some "surrender" by Israel, neglects to mention that the right of return of Palestinians who lost property inside the Green Line is negotiated away for monetary considerations. Some would regard that also as a violation of international law. Therefore, it would seem as though it is the Palestinians who are giving up one right under international law in order to persuade the Israelis to undo what they have done in defiance of the law.

Unfortunately, as far as Krauthammer is concerned, international law and the will of the US right wing are one.

This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note -- by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace.

No, Mr. Krauthammer, it is quite the opposite. It is a peace treaty, not a suicide note.

Throughout this piece, Krauthammer shills for the status quo, as if the Palestinian people should give up their national aspirations because he finds them inconvenient for his rightwing fiends, both in America and abroad. That's not going to happen. To follow Krauthammer's recommendations isn't a suicide pact so much as it is a death warrant for common people on both sides of the Green Line. The status quo is disaster measured in blood. That anybody would not give the Geneva Accord serious consideration is a disgrace.

[tinnypriv]

7. Krauthammer doesn't even take himself seriously

The only use of his piece is to have it confirmed that Geneva must be on the right track :D

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Charles Krauthammer

There are three traits about Krauthammer:

• He's always lucid;
• He's always straightforward; and
• He's always wrongheaded.

He's very consistant in that respect.

[The Magistrate]

18. Indeed, Sir

Krauthammer is a waste of space. His opposition to a course of action is a certain indication it is the right thing to do.

[pistoff democrat]

9. Hypocrisy

1. And Secretary of State Colin Powell has written a letter to Beilin and Rabbo expressing appreciation for their effort, and is now planning to meet with them.

If this was any other subject, Colin Powell most likely be attacked here.


2. This is scandalous. Israel is a democracy, and this agreement was negotiated in defiance of the democratically (and overwhelmingly) elected government of Israel. If a private U.S. citizen negotiated a treaty on his own, he could go to jail under the Logan Act. If an Israeli does it, he gets a pat on the back from the secretary of state.

Yeppers; when people hate both the US and Israel, it boggles the mind to wonder if those on this forum even care if a Democrat becomes president in 2004...I don't think any of the candidates are going to nuke Israel!


3. A Palestinian state, of course. Evacuating every Jewish settlement in new Palestine, of course. Redividing Jerusalem, of course. But that is not enough. Beilin gives up the ultimate symbol of the Jewish connection and claim to the land, the center of the Jewish state for 1,000 years before the Roman destruction, the subject of Jewish longing in poetry and prayer for the 2,000 years since -- the Temple Mount. And Beilin doesn't just give it up to, say, some neutral international authority. He gives it to sovereign Palestine. Jews will visit at Arab sufferance.

You don't really think Jews would ever see The Temple Mount again, do you?


4. This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note -- by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace.

The State Department has been notoriously anti-Israel throughout administration after administration.


5. So, the article was written by a right-wing politico. I guess I am supposed to explain myself.

Since hatred of peoples is not limited to either the left or the right; maybe, just maybe, in the 4 paragraphs I listed; or perhaps simply because Jews have happened to live through thousands of years of attempts at annhilation; and then, if only a right-winger speaks up, does it really follow that I must be a right-winger? I think not!

[bluesoul]

11. So you are

a right winger?

[pistoff democrat]

13. Quite the opposite,

as I wrote in the post to which you replied.

[pistoff democrat]

14. Or

I could interpret your baiting in a different way:

So, you do wish the annhilation of Jews?

[bluesoul]

15. Certainly not

just as I wouldn't wish the annihilation of Palestinians that are being driven from their homes and land

[Classical_Liberal]

16. A couple of months ago. Krauthammers

said we were only mad at Bush because he stole the election. I put this peice in that same nutball category.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. Of course, he was wrong about that, too

We are made at Bush because he uses his tax initiatives to remunerate his corporate cronies; we are made at Bush because he has use the Spetember 11 attacks as a pretext for other legislative initiatives that attack the Bill of Rights; we are mad at Bush becuase he lied about the reasons for invading Iraq.

Oh, yes, and we are mad at Bush for stealing the election, too.