Without going into the shameful manner by which ?Geneva Initiative? was authored and handled, there is really little new here - it is a desperate attempt by the authors of the Oslo Accords to resuscitate a failed political process.
Those ?accords? have cost more than one thousand Israeli lives since their inception in the early 90s, notwithstanding Israel?s readiness to make far-reaching concessions to the Arabs. The Arabs must have interpreted that gesture as a sign of weakness inviting far more brutal terrorism. Terrorism is just one tool in the Arab arsenal. At the same time, while continuing to deceive and mislead naive Israeli politicians regarding its motivation and goals, the PLO has managed to demoralize the Israeli public and build up a negative image of Israel in the international media by a sophisticated and effective PR campaign.
The ?Geneva Initiative? is another manifestation of those efforts. I prefer to call it ?Initiative? rather than ?Accord?, because there is no accord as yet between the Arab and Jewish peoples, even if there may be an accord between some deceitful politicians on both sides. The Israeli advocates of the ?Geneva Initiative? fail to recognize that the Arab religion-motivated political goal is to eradicate the Jewish State. Arafat does not keep this plan secret, as it still is part of the PLO charter. The Swiss financial support of the pro-PLO ?Geneva Initiative? is not surprising, as Arafat is a major client of the Swiss banking system. Good businessmen will always try to help their better clients.
I would not have been this critical of those rogue Israeli politicians if the Geneva ?Initiative? would have had a chance to succeed. There is, however, little new in this ?Initiative? and there is no point in an attempt to reconstitute the failed Oslo, Camp David and Taba accords, advocated by the same Israeli politicians.
After murdering close to 1,000 more Israelis, the PLO might be glad to turn the clock back to the year 2000 and complete another step in their master plan to eradicate the State of Israel. If they succeed, it would prove that terrorism has been an effective tool against the Jewish state. Why do those Israeli politicians give a hand to this deceitful, humiliating scheme, which does not even offer the abolishment of terrorism?
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work not only because it seems to willfully give up Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital (the division of the city implies an incipient threat to unify the city under Islamic rule). It will never work not only because it involves the displacement of 100,000 Jewish Israeli citizens just because Muslim Arabs do not tolerate non-Muslim citizens in their territory (even ?moderate? Jordan prohibits residence of Jews in its territory; on the other hand, imagine the outcry if Israel proposed to expel 100,000 Muslims from its territory).
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work because Egypt, Syria, Iran, Libya and Arabia follow basic tenets of Islam that mandate Muslims to retake any territory ever conquered by Muslims; these countries are unlikely, therefore, to stop undermining the very existence of the Jewish State, even if they agreed to an armistice as a temporary tactical necessity. They would expect the proposed Palestinian state to be used as a bridgehead for an all-out Arab military offensive when the time comes.
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work not only because the PLO does not truly represent the political will of the Arab population in PA territories - the promised ?free? elections in those territories will again be limited to candidates hand-picked by the PLO leadership. The ?Initiative? will never work for an entirely different reason.
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work because to be acceptable by Israel, the new Arab state must have limited sovereignty. The entwined geography of the proposed new Arab state mandates that it must be demilitarized, have limited control of its airspace, have limitations on entry and exit of people, have limited rights to form alliances with other counties, and be economically extremely dependent on the State of Israel for many decades to come. All these restrictions seem to be included in the ?Initiative?. Even if the PLO accepted all these constraints as a tactical ploy, they will continue to foment local Arab dissatisfaction, which undoubtedly will be exploited by extramural Arabs to continue to undermine the existence of the Jewish state by incessant terrorism.
Actually, the PLO may welcome these restrictions to be used as leverage to eventually dislodge the Jewish state by a combination of political pressure and brutal violence. The latter critique applies equally to the well-known ?Roadmap to Peace?, which, unlike the ?Initiative?, requires dismantling of the Arab terrorist organizations. In contrast, the ?Geneva Initiative? is an unmitigated reward for terrorism. If accepted, it would only encourage more of it inside Israel and elsewhere.
Although the ?Geneva Initiative? will never be accepted by Israel primarily because it sidesteps the crucial issue of terrorism and the dismantling of terrorist organizations, the media coverage of its ceremonial presentation in November offers an important benefit to the PLO: it legitimizes this despotic terrorist organization as the sole representative of the ?Palestinian? Arabs. The truth is that the PLO represents the ?Palestinian? Arabs just as much as the Israeli citizenry is represented by a bunch of renegade Jewish politicians who are cosponsors of this ?new? ?Initiative?. The ?Geneva Initiative? is evidently collusion between two groups of self-appointed ?negotiators? who defy democracy.
One might ask at this point, is there an alternative suggestion? How can one stop the decline of morale and the deterioration of the economy in Israel? How could one eliminate Arab terrorism?
I suggest a separate and sustainable coexistence under new and different terms.
I suggest the establishment of an autonomous, independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, with a possible increase of its area from 360 to say, 600 sq km. At the same time, all other PA territories west of the Jordan would be annexed to the state of Israel. After an appropriate period of ?dePLOization? (cf. denazification), all Arab inhabitants of the ?West Bank? territory will be offered full Israeli citizen?s rights pending their acceptance of Israeli nationality (i.e., they must swear allegiance to the existence of the democratic State of Israel). Militant religious or nationalistic Arabs amongst them will have the option to become citizens of the independent Palestinian state of Gaza, whether they move there physically or not. If they stay in Israel as alien residents they would have to obey all laws of the country, but have no voting rights. Immigration of Muslims from other countries into the State of Israel would be limited, however, to maintain a demographic balance (immigration quotas have existed even in the USA). My suggestion offers the Arabs a politically and economically viable Palestinian state, while offering Israel its required long-term security and alleviation of the Islamistic demographic threat.
Let us analyze the merits of this suggestion:
1. The Gaza strip does not pose an insurmountable military threat to the state of Israel, even if annexed by Egypt, which is not very likely, or even if it or another Arab country sends there hostile troops. In any case, Israel must maintain its military strength to confront aggression from any Arab country in the region or a combination of such.
2. The border between Israel and the Palestinian state may be open to commerce or hermetically closed, depending on the political relationship between the two countries.
3. The historical geopolitical position of Gaza at the crossroad of three continents lends itself to becoming again a commercial and industrial city-state, similar to Singapore or Hong Kong. Historically, Gaza had this character for thousands of years, long before the Islamic Arab invasion. There is enough land in the Gaza Strip for a large population with a flourishing economy. The population density in the Gaza Strip is currently 3,542 people per sq km. Economically flourishing Singapore and Hong Kong have 6,667 and 6,767 people per sq km, respectively. However, the GDP in Gaza is $600 per capita, compared with $24,000 and $26,000 in Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively (all 2003 statistics are from the 2003 World Fact Book of the US CIA). Moreover, unlike Hong Kong and Singapore, the Gaza Strip has commercially valuable natural gas reserves.
4. Using the 2003 CIA figures, there are at present 1.26 million Arabs in the Gaza Strip and this population could double or triple, given the appropriate political and economic incentives. Adding 240 sq km to the Gaza Strip could economically support an additional two million people, who could live very comfortably in the new commercial-industrial Arab country.
5. On the ?West Bank? (to use that obsolete Jordanian term) there are 1.68 Million Muslims, while within Israel there are today 905,000 Muslim citizens. Thus, if Israel annexed the West Bank, it would include approximately 2.6 Million Muslims and more than 5 million Jews plus over 700,000 others. Even if all these Muslims chose Israeli citizenship they would constitute less than a third of the Israeli electorate. Therefore, the fear of a demographic takeover of the State of Israel by Islamists would be unfounded, especially as the Muslim birth rate is likely to decrease dramatically as their dismal economic status improves.
Today, the GDP of the Arabs on the ?West Bank? is $800 per capita compared with $19,000 of Israelis (this figure includes the GDP of 1.2 Million non-Jewish Israeli citizens). The GDP of Israeli citizens is four times higher than that in the surrounding Arab countries. Moreover, it is also significantly higher than that of the oil-rich Muslim Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Saddam Hussein?s Iraq and Libya (see the World Fact Book).
The new Muslim Israeli citizens would thus have a long way to go to improve their standard of living rather than sacrifice their livelihood to violent, religion-motivated illusions. The experience of the last decade must have taught them that hatred and terrorism do not improve the standard of living, except for that of the corrupt terrorist leadership. Given a free choice, the new Israeli Arab citizens will adopt Western democratic values and abandon militant Islam, in parallel with the majority of Iraqis and other Muslims. Israeli Muslims will have to make the same choice Muslims must make in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands or the US.
Notwithstanding potential abuses by unscrupulous local politicians, if members of Muslim minorities chose to join militant international Islamism to the detriment of their host countries, they would be crushed and expelled. No country will tolerate an ethnic or religious minority that tries to undermine its regime.
This proposed solution would alleviate terrorism while allowing Jews and Arabs to coexist in peace and prosperity in two independent states. Terrorism cannot be sustained without the active support of a large segment of the population. It will not exist anymore in Israel, just as it has not been sustained by the overwhelming majority of the current Muslim citizens of Israel, over the last fifty-five years. What is most important, while it will allow the Jews in Israel to maintain a separate and sustainable existence as an ethical democratic society, it will also allow the ?Palestinians? in the Gaza Strip to maintain a social and political structure of their choice under entirely unrestricted conditions. However, until a major reform takes place in Islam, giving up its illusionary global supremacy and Jihadism, Israel will have to maintain its military superiority.
Those ?accords? have cost more than one thousand Israeli lives since their inception in the early 90s, notwithstanding Israel?s readiness to make far-reaching concessions to the Arabs. The Arabs must have interpreted that gesture as a sign of weakness inviting far more brutal terrorism. Terrorism is just one tool in the Arab arsenal. At the same time, while continuing to deceive and mislead naive Israeli politicians regarding its motivation and goals, the PLO has managed to demoralize the Israeli public and build up a negative image of Israel in the international media by a sophisticated and effective PR campaign.
The ?Geneva Initiative? is another manifestation of those efforts. I prefer to call it ?Initiative? rather than ?Accord?, because there is no accord as yet between the Arab and Jewish peoples, even if there may be an accord between some deceitful politicians on both sides. The Israeli advocates of the ?Geneva Initiative? fail to recognize that the Arab religion-motivated political goal is to eradicate the Jewish State. Arafat does not keep this plan secret, as it still is part of the PLO charter. The Swiss financial support of the pro-PLO ?Geneva Initiative? is not surprising, as Arafat is a major client of the Swiss banking system. Good businessmen will always try to help their better clients.
I would not have been this critical of those rogue Israeli politicians if the Geneva ?Initiative? would have had a chance to succeed. There is, however, little new in this ?Initiative? and there is no point in an attempt to reconstitute the failed Oslo, Camp David and Taba accords, advocated by the same Israeli politicians.
After murdering close to 1,000 more Israelis, the PLO might be glad to turn the clock back to the year 2000 and complete another step in their master plan to eradicate the State of Israel. If they succeed, it would prove that terrorism has been an effective tool against the Jewish state. Why do those Israeli politicians give a hand to this deceitful, humiliating scheme, which does not even offer the abolishment of terrorism?
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work not only because it seems to willfully give up Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital (the division of the city implies an incipient threat to unify the city under Islamic rule). It will never work not only because it involves the displacement of 100,000 Jewish Israeli citizens just because Muslim Arabs do not tolerate non-Muslim citizens in their territory (even ?moderate? Jordan prohibits residence of Jews in its territory; on the other hand, imagine the outcry if Israel proposed to expel 100,000 Muslims from its territory).
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work because Egypt, Syria, Iran, Libya and Arabia follow basic tenets of Islam that mandate Muslims to retake any territory ever conquered by Muslims; these countries are unlikely, therefore, to stop undermining the very existence of the Jewish State, even if they agreed to an armistice as a temporary tactical necessity. They would expect the proposed Palestinian state to be used as a bridgehead for an all-out Arab military offensive when the time comes.
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work not only because the PLO does not truly represent the political will of the Arab population in PA territories - the promised ?free? elections in those territories will again be limited to candidates hand-picked by the PLO leadership. The ?Initiative? will never work for an entirely different reason.
The ?Geneva Initiative? will never work because to be acceptable by Israel, the new Arab state must have limited sovereignty. The entwined geography of the proposed new Arab state mandates that it must be demilitarized, have limited control of its airspace, have limitations on entry and exit of people, have limited rights to form alliances with other counties, and be economically extremely dependent on the State of Israel for many decades to come. All these restrictions seem to be included in the ?Initiative?. Even if the PLO accepted all these constraints as a tactical ploy, they will continue to foment local Arab dissatisfaction, which undoubtedly will be exploited by extramural Arabs to continue to undermine the existence of the Jewish state by incessant terrorism.
Actually, the PLO may welcome these restrictions to be used as leverage to eventually dislodge the Jewish state by a combination of political pressure and brutal violence. The latter critique applies equally to the well-known ?Roadmap to Peace?, which, unlike the ?Initiative?, requires dismantling of the Arab terrorist organizations. In contrast, the ?Geneva Initiative? is an unmitigated reward for terrorism. If accepted, it would only encourage more of it inside Israel and elsewhere.
Although the ?Geneva Initiative? will never be accepted by Israel primarily because it sidesteps the crucial issue of terrorism and the dismantling of terrorist organizations, the media coverage of its ceremonial presentation in November offers an important benefit to the PLO: it legitimizes this despotic terrorist organization as the sole representative of the ?Palestinian? Arabs. The truth is that the PLO represents the ?Palestinian? Arabs just as much as the Israeli citizenry is represented by a bunch of renegade Jewish politicians who are cosponsors of this ?new? ?Initiative?. The ?Geneva Initiative? is evidently collusion between two groups of self-appointed ?negotiators? who defy democracy.
One might ask at this point, is there an alternative suggestion? How can one stop the decline of morale and the deterioration of the economy in Israel? How could one eliminate Arab terrorism?
I suggest a separate and sustainable coexistence under new and different terms.
I suggest the establishment of an autonomous, independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, with a possible increase of its area from 360 to say, 600 sq km. At the same time, all other PA territories west of the Jordan would be annexed to the state of Israel. After an appropriate period of ?dePLOization? (cf. denazification), all Arab inhabitants of the ?West Bank? territory will be offered full Israeli citizen?s rights pending their acceptance of Israeli nationality (i.e., they must swear allegiance to the existence of the democratic State of Israel). Militant religious or nationalistic Arabs amongst them will have the option to become citizens of the independent Palestinian state of Gaza, whether they move there physically or not. If they stay in Israel as alien residents they would have to obey all laws of the country, but have no voting rights. Immigration of Muslims from other countries into the State of Israel would be limited, however, to maintain a demographic balance (immigration quotas have existed even in the USA). My suggestion offers the Arabs a politically and economically viable Palestinian state, while offering Israel its required long-term security and alleviation of the Islamistic demographic threat.
Let us analyze the merits of this suggestion:
1. The Gaza strip does not pose an insurmountable military threat to the state of Israel, even if annexed by Egypt, which is not very likely, or even if it or another Arab country sends there hostile troops. In any case, Israel must maintain its military strength to confront aggression from any Arab country in the region or a combination of such.
2. The border between Israel and the Palestinian state may be open to commerce or hermetically closed, depending on the political relationship between the two countries.
3. The historical geopolitical position of Gaza at the crossroad of three continents lends itself to becoming again a commercial and industrial city-state, similar to Singapore or Hong Kong. Historically, Gaza had this character for thousands of years, long before the Islamic Arab invasion. There is enough land in the Gaza Strip for a large population with a flourishing economy. The population density in the Gaza Strip is currently 3,542 people per sq km. Economically flourishing Singapore and Hong Kong have 6,667 and 6,767 people per sq km, respectively. However, the GDP in Gaza is $600 per capita, compared with $24,000 and $26,000 in Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively (all 2003 statistics are from the 2003 World Fact Book of the US CIA). Moreover, unlike Hong Kong and Singapore, the Gaza Strip has commercially valuable natural gas reserves.
4. Using the 2003 CIA figures, there are at present 1.26 million Arabs in the Gaza Strip and this population could double or triple, given the appropriate political and economic incentives. Adding 240 sq km to the Gaza Strip could economically support an additional two million people, who could live very comfortably in the new commercial-industrial Arab country.
5. On the ?West Bank? (to use that obsolete Jordanian term) there are 1.68 Million Muslims, while within Israel there are today 905,000 Muslim citizens. Thus, if Israel annexed the West Bank, it would include approximately 2.6 Million Muslims and more than 5 million Jews plus over 700,000 others. Even if all these Muslims chose Israeli citizenship they would constitute less than a third of the Israeli electorate. Therefore, the fear of a demographic takeover of the State of Israel by Islamists would be unfounded, especially as the Muslim birth rate is likely to decrease dramatically as their dismal economic status improves.
Today, the GDP of the Arabs on the ?West Bank? is $800 per capita compared with $19,000 of Israelis (this figure includes the GDP of 1.2 Million non-Jewish Israeli citizens). The GDP of Israeli citizens is four times higher than that in the surrounding Arab countries. Moreover, it is also significantly higher than that of the oil-rich Muslim Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Saddam Hussein?s Iraq and Libya (see the World Fact Book).
The new Muslim Israeli citizens would thus have a long way to go to improve their standard of living rather than sacrifice their livelihood to violent, religion-motivated illusions. The experience of the last decade must have taught them that hatred and terrorism do not improve the standard of living, except for that of the corrupt terrorist leadership. Given a free choice, the new Israeli Arab citizens will adopt Western democratic values and abandon militant Islam, in parallel with the majority of Iraqis and other Muslims. Israeli Muslims will have to make the same choice Muslims must make in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands or the US.
Notwithstanding potential abuses by unscrupulous local politicians, if members of Muslim minorities chose to join militant international Islamism to the detriment of their host countries, they would be crushed and expelled. No country will tolerate an ethnic or religious minority that tries to undermine its regime.
This proposed solution would alleviate terrorism while allowing Jews and Arabs to coexist in peace and prosperity in two independent states. Terrorism cannot be sustained without the active support of a large segment of the population. It will not exist anymore in Israel, just as it has not been sustained by the overwhelming majority of the current Muslim citizens of Israel, over the last fifty-five years. What is most important, while it will allow the Jews in Israel to maintain a separate and sustainable existence as an ethical democratic society, it will also allow the ?Palestinians? in the Gaza Strip to maintain a social and political structure of their choice under entirely unrestricted conditions. However, until a major reform takes place in Islam, giving up its illusionary global supremacy and Jihadism, Israel will have to maintain its military superiority.