The so-called Geneva Initiative, or Geneva Accords, is not a negotiated agreement at all. It is a public relations campaign. It is a sales pitch to the world, and to the Jews themselves, for the Arab position on the Jewish state; i.e., that the Jews have no right to independence in the Land of Israel.
Footage from inside the discussions around the document were aired on Israeli television like a promo for the big Geneva product launch. Those images confirmed the impression that the Israeli side, meant to represent the Jewish point of view, inherently identified with the Arab perspective on Zionism. Exemplary of this is a dramatic scene wherein Knesset member Avram Burg threatened to ?reopen? the issue of sovereignty on the Temple Mount after PLO negotiator Yasser Abd Rabbo stated that he wanted another Israeli concession on the issue of the ?return? of Arab refugees. When referring to Judaism?s most holy site, MK Burg used the Arabic term Haram, in deference to Abd Rabbo. Burg, it seemed, had completely bought in to the Arab view of his own country: The Arabs are the original inhabitants - hence, their ?return? is a negotiating point - and the Temple Mount is actually Haram A-Sharif.
But leaving Burg?s self-abasement aside, evidence that the Initiative is merely a PR stunt for Arab claims against Israel is to be found in the text itself - and in what is absent from the text.
Absent from the text is any indication that the Land of Israel - all of the Land of Israel - is the patrimony of the Jewish people. On the other hand, the Arab claim to all of the land in question forms the underlying assumption of the entire agreement.
For example: As part of the requirements for a peaceable relationship between Israel and the projected Arab state, the proposed agreement calls for the transfer of a limited number of Jews from Judea, Samaria and Gaza into certain agreed-upon borders of Israel. The reason for this clause is that the Arab interlocutors, in drawing up the Initiative, demanded the removal of Jews from Arab jurisdiction.
If so, one wonders, why did the Jewish negotiators not challenge this racist demand when it was made? Could it be that the Israeli negotiators recognized that such forcible separation between Arab and Jew is in the interest of peace? If so, then why didn?t they demand a similar population transfer of Arabs from areas of pre-1967 Israel (such as from the cities of Fureidis or Umm el-Fahm), also in the interest of a peaceable separation?
The Israeli side of the Geneva Accords made no such demand because there was no true negotiation. There was, however, a vibrant discussion about where the Jews may continue to live, subject to Arab consent. They discussed the shape of the new Pale of Settlement - in the Land of Israel.
And again: The agreement includes Israeli recognition of the perceived right of an undefined number of Arab refugees (and their descendants) from the Jewish-Arab wars to return to their abandoned former villages inside the state of Israel. This clause is a very central point for the Arab side, and with good reason. It formally recognizes that the very creation and subsequent defense of the State of Israel was a crime against the Arabs, who must, therefore, be compensated.
Yet there is no reciprocal clause recognizing the right of Jewish refugees (and their descendants) to return to places in Arab-assigned territory from which they were violently driven during the many clashes over the Land of Israel. This would include, of course, such places as Hebron, the current "Moslem Quarter" of Jerusalem, Gaza, Shechem (Nablus), etc.
There is no such reciprocal clause because the Israeli side of the Geneva Accords accepted, again, the underlying assumption that Arabs have the right to live anywhere and everywhere in the Land of Israel, but that Jews have no such right. Based on that assumption, it makes perfect sense, of course, that Arab loss of property in Israel - even as the result of the 1948 Arab war to kill the newborn Jewish State - is a grave injustice that must be righted. It is also clear, based on this, why the expulsion of Jews from their property in the Land of Israel is not deemed an injustice in the Geneva document, but rather a desirable future course of action.
The Jews, according to the Geneva Initiative, have no rights in the Land of Israel.
Aside from their total identification with the Arab side, the Israeli ?negotiators? failed to even safeguard whatever it is that they felt that they had constructed. There is no clause that voids the terms of the agreement in the event of a material breach, such as continued smuggling of military materiel from Egypt into Gaza. Furthermore, as a sovereign nation, the proposed Arab state of Palestine is not prohibited from forming mutual defense pacts, including with states that are avowed enemies of Israel, such as Syria or Iran. And there is nothing contractually-bound Israel can do about it.
There was no negotiation; there is no agreement. There is, however, a very expensive, very high-profile, European financed PR campaign - with guest stars such as Richard Dreyfuss and former US President Jimmy Carter - to convince the Jews that they have no rights in the Land of Israel beyond what the Arabs, as the natural sovereign, are willing to grant them.
Footage from inside the discussions around the document were aired on Israeli television like a promo for the big Geneva product launch. Those images confirmed the impression that the Israeli side, meant to represent the Jewish point of view, inherently identified with the Arab perspective on Zionism. Exemplary of this is a dramatic scene wherein Knesset member Avram Burg threatened to ?reopen? the issue of sovereignty on the Temple Mount after PLO negotiator Yasser Abd Rabbo stated that he wanted another Israeli concession on the issue of the ?return? of Arab refugees. When referring to Judaism?s most holy site, MK Burg used the Arabic term Haram, in deference to Abd Rabbo. Burg, it seemed, had completely bought in to the Arab view of his own country: The Arabs are the original inhabitants - hence, their ?return? is a negotiating point - and the Temple Mount is actually Haram A-Sharif.
But leaving Burg?s self-abasement aside, evidence that the Initiative is merely a PR stunt for Arab claims against Israel is to be found in the text itself - and in what is absent from the text.
Absent from the text is any indication that the Land of Israel - all of the Land of Israel - is the patrimony of the Jewish people. On the other hand, the Arab claim to all of the land in question forms the underlying assumption of the entire agreement.
For example: As part of the requirements for a peaceable relationship between Israel and the projected Arab state, the proposed agreement calls for the transfer of a limited number of Jews from Judea, Samaria and Gaza into certain agreed-upon borders of Israel. The reason for this clause is that the Arab interlocutors, in drawing up the Initiative, demanded the removal of Jews from Arab jurisdiction.
If so, one wonders, why did the Jewish negotiators not challenge this racist demand when it was made? Could it be that the Israeli negotiators recognized that such forcible separation between Arab and Jew is in the interest of peace? If so, then why didn?t they demand a similar population transfer of Arabs from areas of pre-1967 Israel (such as from the cities of Fureidis or Umm el-Fahm), also in the interest of a peaceable separation?
The Israeli side of the Geneva Accords made no such demand because there was no true negotiation. There was, however, a vibrant discussion about where the Jews may continue to live, subject to Arab consent. They discussed the shape of the new Pale of Settlement - in the Land of Israel.
And again: The agreement includes Israeli recognition of the perceived right of an undefined number of Arab refugees (and their descendants) from the Jewish-Arab wars to return to their abandoned former villages inside the state of Israel. This clause is a very central point for the Arab side, and with good reason. It formally recognizes that the very creation and subsequent defense of the State of Israel was a crime against the Arabs, who must, therefore, be compensated.
Yet there is no reciprocal clause recognizing the right of Jewish refugees (and their descendants) to return to places in Arab-assigned territory from which they were violently driven during the many clashes over the Land of Israel. This would include, of course, such places as Hebron, the current "Moslem Quarter" of Jerusalem, Gaza, Shechem (Nablus), etc.
There is no such reciprocal clause because the Israeli side of the Geneva Accords accepted, again, the underlying assumption that Arabs have the right to live anywhere and everywhere in the Land of Israel, but that Jews have no such right. Based on that assumption, it makes perfect sense, of course, that Arab loss of property in Israel - even as the result of the 1948 Arab war to kill the newborn Jewish State - is a grave injustice that must be righted. It is also clear, based on this, why the expulsion of Jews from their property in the Land of Israel is not deemed an injustice in the Geneva document, but rather a desirable future course of action.
The Jews, according to the Geneva Initiative, have no rights in the Land of Israel.
Aside from their total identification with the Arab side, the Israeli ?negotiators? failed to even safeguard whatever it is that they felt that they had constructed. There is no clause that voids the terms of the agreement in the event of a material breach, such as continued smuggling of military materiel from Egypt into Gaza. Furthermore, as a sovereign nation, the proposed Arab state of Palestine is not prohibited from forming mutual defense pacts, including with states that are avowed enemies of Israel, such as Syria or Iran. And there is nothing contractually-bound Israel can do about it.
There was no negotiation; there is no agreement. There is, however, a very expensive, very high-profile, European financed PR campaign - with guest stars such as Richard Dreyfuss and former US President Jimmy Carter - to convince the Jews that they have no rights in the Land of Israel beyond what the Arabs, as the natural sovereign, are willing to grant them.