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FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST -- October 8, 1998
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On October 3, 1998, Dr. Aaron Lerner, director of IMRA (Independent
Media Review & Analysis) published some excerpts on Internet from the
September 14, 1998 interview that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
gave to a small group of reporters. After Netanyahu said that Oslo
is "a flawed deal. I never said that the deal is good. It's
not a good deal," he was asked "why not drop it?" The answer was, "First
because we made a commitment to continue the process and to seek its conclusion.
Its conclusion, by the way, is fulfilling the interim agreement although
there is no road map in Oslo
to the actual shape of a final settlement."
Netanyahu is wrong. There is not only a road map but a complete
map for a final settlement. This map hangs in Yasser Arafat's office
in Gaza -- it shows a Palestinian state that replaces all of Israel.
This is the map that appears at the beginning and the end of daily news
reports on the Palestinian Authority's television network: the map of Palestine
that erases all of Israel. This is the map from the fifth grade textbook
Our Arabic Language, which accompanies the lesson entitled "Palestine,
Our Homeland" that encompasses all of the State of Israel, specifying
numerous Israeli cities: Safed, Acre, Haifa, Tiberias, Nazareth, Bait Shean,
Jaffa, Jerusalem and Beer-Sheba.1 It does not matter whether Netanyahu
does this willingly or whether he is dragged along, he is helping in making
this map a reality. As member
of Knesset Benny Elon told Arutz-7 on October 4, 1998 after meeting
with the Israeli leader, he "sees Prime Minister Netanyahu establishing
a Palestinian state."
There should not be any doubt that the Palestinian Arabs have
made a big step in this direction since the beginning of the Oslo process.
Their only goal is to gain as much territory as possible. They were
unable to wrestle it from Israel by force, now they do it "peacefully."
The Clinton administration does its best to help them to achieve their
goal. Although usually it tries to camouflage its position
through vague statements, it does not always succeed. On September,
25, 1998 a
senior American administration official said in a briefing,
At this particular moment what's very important is to try to get an agreement that in its fulfillment would result in more territory passing from Israeli control to Palestinian control, and that is far more important for Palestinian interests, because it's tangible -- it's territory -- and that's far more important for Palestinian interests than declarations -- we've had plenty of declarations.
Just listen again: it is important to Palestinian
interests, it is tangible, it is territory!
What about Israel's interests?
What is the tangible commodity that she
will receive in return?
On October 2, 1998, participating in the Middle East Policy Council
Panel discussion, Martin Indyk made an important statement that should provide some answers to these questions. He said, "Negotiations are focussed on an exchange of land for peace, in which Israel has to give up the land, we have toconvince the Israeli government to do something which is difficult and painful -- and it should never be underestimated, the difficulty involved in this for them as a nation."
How do the Americans want to achieve this? Indyk is very honest: "the prescription of working with the Israeli government [is] to encourage it and cajole it, and find ways to meet its concerns."
If we recall that just several months ago Indyk admitted that
the only example of the PLO's compliance with the Oslo Accords is that
"they have declared their support for peace," it becomes obvious
that all of
Israel's tangible commodities consist of empty declarations. Far worse,
these declarations are made for Israel's "internal" consumption and the
Israeli leaders are well aware of it. On October 7, 1998 Israeli
Trade Minister Nathan Sharansky routinely confirmed this i a Jerusalem
Post article, "Arafat pays lip service to peace in the English-speaking
press, while his speeches in Arabic are laced with calls for a holy war
to re-conquer Palestine and Jerusalem. Official Palestinian TV broadcasts
programs with school children praising jihad and idolizing suicide bombers."
Why is it so important for the "most friendly" to Israel American
administration to press its ally? Another participant of the Panel,
Ambassador Robert Pelletreau, who was assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern Affairs, from 1994 through 1997 answered this question,
the time is right for an agreement from the United States point of view,
not only because we have midterm elections on the horizon, and there is
an obvious political return for the president, but also because the world
in general and the Middle East in particular, are badly in need of restored
U.S. leadership in foreign affairs
Everything is extremely simple. Cajoling Israel to proceed along the Oslo road serves American nterests, it is good for the American administration.
The process is good for the Palestinian Arabs too. Both
the Americans and the Arabs know this. It is interesting to compare
two voices that speak in unison. One is Martin Indyk's at the Panel
discussion,
one should not lose sight of what the Palestinians have gained in this
process. How far they have come, from exile to having a government
of their own, elected more or less freely, in Gaza and the West Bank,
compared to the decades in which they were in exile and had no independent
base of their own, that is a dramatic achievement for the Palestinian people.
And in that context, were we to succeed in the next few weeks in achieving
an agreement now, the Palestinian Authority would expand its control in
the West Bank, to 40 percent of the West Bank.
The other voice is Palestine National Council Speaker Salim al-Za'nun's
who said on October 5, 1998 in an interview with Al-Hayah Al-Jadidah (Internet
Version), "the Oslo agreement, allowed us to enter parts of our land.
The Palestinian leadership is now inside the homeland, not in Tunisia.
Struggle from inside Palestine helps us achieve our goals more than a government
in exile does. It is wrong to cancel the Oslo
agreement."
The situation seems perfectly clear, yet Netanyahu's actions are
puzzling. Oslo is good for the U.S. administration, Oslo is good
for the Palestinian Arabs, but Oslo is bad for Israel; nevertheless, Netanyahu
keeps sticking to it. Today he says that he is ready to take political
risks. So why do it through granting the lands of Yesha to the PA?
Why not take the political risk through the abrogation of the Oslo Accords?
Why not tear apart this suicidal pact leading to the establishment of a
second Palestinian state?
In a speech delivered in New York on December 15, 1996, Professor
of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University Louis Rene
Beres, proved that Israel has substantial rights to abrogate the Agreement.
Among many arguments that he brought up to support his point of view was
the following,
[The right to terminate the agreement] stems also from a principle of national self-preservation. Under this peremptory norm, any agreement may be terminated unilaterally following changes in conditions that make performance of the agreement injurious to fundamental rights, especially the rights of existence and independence.
Known in law as "rights of necessity," this norm was explained
with particular lucidity by none other than Thomas Jefferson. In
his Opinion on the French Treaties, written on April 28, 1793, Jefferson
stated that, when performance, in international agreements, "becomes impossible,
nonperformance is not immoral. So if performance becomes self-destructive
to the party, the law of self-preservation overrules
the laws of obligation to others."
The continuation of the Oslo process is extremely precarious for
the Jewish state. Every new move along the road of Oslo brings closer
the possibility of it's destruction. The next expected step
- the October 15 Washington summit - could lead to Israel's abandonment
of more than 40 % of Yesha. As Gesher MK Michael Kleiner said
on October 6, 1998 in an interview with IMRA, "Once you have given 42%
of the West Bank you have already given 70-80% of the mountain ridges,"
and none other than
Netanyahu "made hundreds of speeches in the Knesset explaining that
whoever controls the mountain heights controls the Land of Israel."
To put it plainly, the existence of the Jewish state is in mortal danger and adherence to the Oslo Accords is self-destructive for Israel. These two conditions are more than sufficient to terminate the agreement. Theodore Roosevelt said, "No treaties can ever be regarded as binding in perpetuity; circumstances may arise which render it not only expedient, but imperative and honorable to abrogate them."2
Ab Mishe, in his book The Preliminary Draft, recalled the words
of one of the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Ari Vilner ("Jurek")
said, "We do not intend to save ourselves. None of us will survive.
We want to save the honor of the People." It is Netanyahu's turn
to save the honor of the Jewish People. By abrogating the Oslo Accords
he will save not only the Honor of the People but the People itself too.
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1. Material provided by The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace
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http://www.edume.org
2 Quoted in Norman Finkelstein's book The Rise and Fall of Palestine.
10/08/98
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Boris Shusteff is an engineer in upstate New York. He is also
a research associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.
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The translations of the Arab press and quotes from the transcript of
the Middle East Policy Council Panel discussion are from Israeli &
Global News.