Alea iacta est… the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.
There’s an old saying, attributed to Albert Einstein that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s Endgame: Abbas And The PLO Get Ready To Launch The Third Intifada, is my look at what’s going on lately in the so-called Middle East peace process, what the Palestinians have planned, Israel’s options and where it’s likely to end up. Here’s a slice:
It appears the that farce of the so-called peace process is nearing its end. And as you’ll see, this is exactly how Abbas and company planned it.
It started with an uptick in Palestinian violence directed against Israelis emanating from the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria, and a corresponding decrease in security cooperation between the IDF and Abbas’ security forces in the last several weeks.
At the same time, this was coordinated with a massive outpouring of calls from PLO officials to halt the peace talks and formulate what they called an “overall national strategic revolution”.
Meanwhile, Palestine’s unelected dictator Mahmoud Abbas has been blatantly violating the conditions under which the peace negotiations were started. He’s been making the rounds in Europe urging EU countries to enact sanctions against Israel and avoid conducting any economic, academic or cultural activity with Israel that might involve East Jerusalem or the Jewish communities in Judea or Samaria, referring to East Jerusalem as “the capitol of our state, Palestine.”
In an ominous twist, Abbas called for EU countries to take legal action against their nationals whom have dual citizenship and live in these areas. London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the PA has demanded of a number of EU countries that the citizens they have currently living in “illegal” communities should be either pressured to leave or be stripped of their citizenship.
As a final move, Saeb Erekat, formerly the right fork of Yasser Arafat’s tongue and now the chief Palestinian negotiator ‘resigned’ (and later retracted his ‘resignation’) presented Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni with an ultimatum that is the PLO’s final position. It pretty much lines up with what Mahmoud Abbas has always said, that no concessions at all will be made to Israel in any peace settlement.
There was an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinian negotiators to keep the negotiations quiet, but PLO sources have leaked the details, and there’s really no surprise here.
The Palestinians are demanding over half of Jerusalem, including control of all of the major Jewish holy sites. They claim all of Judea and Samaria, although they’ve agreed to consider a land swap of no more than 1.9 percent with Israel in exchange for money and an equivalent amount of Israeli land.That 1.9 percent would essentially be meaningless since it isn’t anywhere near the amount of land necessary to incorporate the majority of Jewish communities into Israel. Geographically, it would amount to a defenseless enclave surrounded on two sides by the Palestinians.
The PLO’s demands further include the Hula Valley and the Valley of Elah, and the strategic Latrun area, the chokepoint that overlooks the road to Jerusalem and could isolate Jerusalem in the event of war. And They want all of these areas handed over to them judenrein, Jew free. They want full control of all the aquifers in the area, thus retaining the ability to threaten Israel’s water supply. And they demand that Israel formally give up any claims under international law to the area by agreeing that these areas are ‘occupied territory’.
They refuse, on the other hand, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,paving the way for further demands later. And they insist not only that all of the convicted terrorists now in Israeli jails be freed, but that all Palestinian refugees be given the right to settle in what’s left of Israel.
Six months after Israel creates 500,000 Jewish refugees, retreats to indefensible borders, allows what’s left of the country to be swamped by genocidal ‘refugees’ and redivides Jerusalem, they will receive in exchange a piece of paper signed by an unelected 75-year-old dictator who doesn’t even come close to controlling all the Palestinian factions – even his own Fatah.And someone who might very well be overthrown by Hamas if left to his own devices, which would make the agreement even more meaningless than it already is.
In our non-Council category, the winner was a fine piece written by Council Alumnus David Gerstman for Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, LBJ: Return to pre-1967 borders “not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities”, submitted by Rhymes With Right. It’s proof, if it were needed, that when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, nothing really ever changes.
Okay then, here are this week’s full results. Both The Mellow Jihadi and The Right Planet were unable to vote this week, but neither was subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:
Council Winners
- *First place with 3 2/3 votes! – Joshuapundit – Endgame: Abbas And The PLO Get Ready To Launch The Third Intifada
- Second place with 3 votes – The Razor – Failure – The Obama Administration’s Foreign Policy Legacy
- Third place with 2 votes – Bookworm Room – Having been caught engaged in out-and-out fraud, Obama engages in a familiar pattern to cover up his lies
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – “Chilling Repercussions?”
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Killing Monsters
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Liberty’s Spirit – Self-Important Intellectuals are Neither Important nor Intelligent: Autism Meme and Dehumanization @Guardian
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – Back Door Gun Control Moves Forward
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet – Folks, They Don’t Care About You!
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Venezuelan MISHAP (Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness)
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator – Screw the Obamacare lies, here’s an Obamacare true story!
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – Made In China…
Non-Council Winners
- *First place with 2 votes! – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – LBJ: Return to pre-1967 borders “not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities” submitted by Rhymes With Right
- Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Sultan Knish – It’s De Blasio Time submitted by The Noisy Room
- Second Place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Keith Hennessy – Flowchart of President Obama’s “You can keep your plan, period” defenses submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Pressure Points – Kerry Foreign Policy: Does The United States Stand For Anything At All? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Victor Davis Hanson – The Double-Dealing Middle East Is Double-Dealt submitted by The Razor
- Fourth place with 1 vote – Charles Krauthammer – ObamaCare Laid Bare submitted by Nice Deb
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Contentious Centrist – The Open Liberalism at Open Zion submitted by Simply Jews
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Fred Barnes/Weekly Standard – Point Of No Return submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Blaze – The Psychology Behind Leftist Lies submitted by The Right Planet
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Gates Of Vienna – The Left, the Right and the March of Death submitted by The Watcher
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Michelle Malkin – First Crony Michelle Obama submitted by The Watcher
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Doug Ross – The 10 Commandments of Government submitted by Joshuapundit
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Seth Adam Smith – Marriage Isn’t For You submitted by Bookworm Worm
See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!
Meanwhile, I really value stories like the following one
(to share my attitude one simply has to recall what state manipulates Hezbollah; and what other government supports those manipulators):
U.S. says Suriname president’s son wanted to host Hezbollah
Fri, Nov 8 2013
By David Ingram
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A son of Suriname’s president invited people he thought were from the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah to set up a base in his country to attack Americans in exchange for millions of U.S. dollars, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday.
Federal prosecutors who already were pursuing drug charges against Dino Bouterse, a son of Suriname President Desi Bouterse, filed the latest allegation in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The younger Bouterse held a senior counterterrorism post in the tiny South American country but in August was arrested in Panama and sent to New York to face charges of smuggling cocaine into the United States. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
According to a superseding indictment, U.S. authorities recorded conversations Bouterse had with unnamed people and at least one U.S. agent who posed as members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
The U.S. State Department has designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization since 1997, and U.S. officials have sought to limit the group’s operations in South America.
The U.S. indictment said Bouterse was willing to allow Hezbollah fighters to have a permanent base in Suriname and agreed to an initial payment of $2 million. The indictment charges Bouterse with violating a U.S. law against providing support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Lawyers for Bouterse did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Desi Bouterse is a former military dictator accused of human rights violations, such as the killings of 15 political opponents in 1982. He ruled from 1980 to 1987, and reclaimed power in 2010.