The Unilateral Surrender of Israel Continues

by Charles Krauthammer
June 6, 2003
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/

Washington -- President Bush held two Middle East summits 
this week.

The first, with the Arab states, was an abject failure. 
The second, with the prime ministers of Israel and the 
Palestinian Authority, was merely a troubling echo of another 
abject failure, the Oslo handshake of 1993.

Let's be plain about what happened at Sharm el-Sheik. 
The president of the United States put his prestige on the 
line for the sake of Arab-Israeli peace and the Arab states 
gave him nothing. They refused to endorse Israel's right to 
exist as a Jewish state. They spoke of their opposition to 
"terrorism," even as they repeatedly present their own publics 
with the most elaborate intellectual and religious justifications 
of why the killing of Jews in "Palestine" is "resistance" and 
not terrorism.

They did not take a single concrete action, not even a gesture,
toward Israel. Egypt did not offer to return its ambassador to 
Israel. The Saudis threatened a boycott if Israel was even 
invited. And most important, the Arab states refused what 
Bush most desperately wanted: explicit endorsement of the 
American view that Yasser Arafat's time had come and passed.

That would have been crucial in elevating Mahmoud Abbas, who 
appears to want to make peace. What did Bush do? What American 
presidents always do in response to such rebuffs: smile politely 
and say thank you.

Then on to the second summit at Aqaba. Here, Bush managed to 
extract enormous concessions from Israel. Ariel Sharon's speech 
was revolutionary. He explicitly recognized the legitimacy of 
a Palestinian state. He further recognized that the state would 
need to be "contiguous," which instantly conceded to the 
Palestinians the overwhelming majority of the territories in 
the West Bank and Gaza.
And even more painful for Sharon was his statement, largely
overlooked, that "no unilateral actions by any party can prejudge
the outcome of our negotiations." "Unilateral actions" is Middle
East-speak for settlements, which means that in drawing the 
final border between Israel and Palestine, Jewish settlements 
would be of no account.

This is a serious moving of the goalposts. What did Bush get 
out of Abbas? Did Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish state? 
No. He refused to give up the Palestinian principle of "return",
which means eradicating Israel by flooding it with millions of 
Palestinian refugees (the overwhelming majority of whom, 
by the way, have never lived in Israel). Yet without recognition 
of Israel as a Jewish state there is nothing to prevent the 
disaster of Camp David 2000 when Arafat, after pocketing truly 
astonishing Israeli concessions, insisted at the last minute 
that there would be no deal unless Israel agreed to commit 
suicide by allowing the refugees to move to Israel, instead of 
to their homeland of Palestine.

What did Abbas offer? An end to terrorism. Fine. But until 
the lip service is carried out, this is nothing but a restatement 
of the famous letter from Arafat to Rabin --September 1993-- in 
which he pledged that "the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and 
other acts of violence."

At Aqaba, Abbas recognized Israel. So did Arafat pretend to 
10 years ago in the very first line of the Oslo agreement.

Abbas pledged there will be no more incitement of hatred against
Israel -- another repetition of another Oslo pledge. 
The Palestinians then spent the next decade poisoning their 
children with the worst anti-Semitic propaganda since the 
Third Reich.

What then happened at Aqaba? Israel bought the same rug a 
second time.

In 1993, it bought supposed recognition, a supposed end to 
violence, and a supposed end to incitement by recognizing 
the PLO, bringing Arafat and his terrorists out of Tunis, 
planting them in the heart of Palestine, giving them control 
of all the major Palestinian cities, outfitting his army with 
Israeli (!) rifles, etc.

In 2003, the rug was sold again, this time fetching Israeli
acceptance of a Palestinian state with contiguous borders 
in which Israeli settlements are uprooted. This might be 
the outline of the final settlement. But these were concessions 
given away before the negotiations even began.

The unilateral surrender of Israel continues.

Now, forcing the unilateral surrender of Israel might be a policy, 
if it promised peace. But the first round of unilateral
concessions -- from 1993 to 2000 -- yielded nothing but 
the establishment of a terror base in Palestine, a "Trojan horse"
as Faisal Husseini called it, from which the bloodiest Palestinian 
violence ever has been launched.

There is only one hope that we will not repeat that doleful
experiment. And that is if Bush is serious -- as Clinton was not -- 
about requiring more than just words from the Palestinians. 
Abbas must end the incitement, stop the violence and disarm the 
terrorists. Bush, having taken his friend Sharon to the cleaners, 
needs now to make sure that Abbas keeps his word.