In his remarks so far on the Trump peace initiative, Joe Biden saw nothing to praise and much to deplore:
“A peace plan requires two sides to come together. This is a political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to annex territory and set back peace even more. I’ve spent a lifetime working to advance the security & survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel. This is not the way,” Biden said.
Does Joe Biden know that the “two sides” have not “come together” because Mahmoud Abbas has refused to negotiate in good faith with Israel for many years? Even now Abbas will not discuss the Trump Peace Plan, a discussion that commits him to nothing. He hasn’t even bothered to read it, so how does he know just how terrible it is? Abbas maintains that he will only enter into discussions with Israel if he is given a guarantee that the final outcome will satisfy his demands as to a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, replaced by a State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its undivided capital. He wants the outcome of the negotiations set in stone before the parties negotiate. He has also made clear that the State of Palestine in all of the West Bank will require the uprooting of 450,000 Israelis who are now living there, to make the territory just as the Palestinians want it – free of Jews, Judenrein. 1.9 million Arabs now live in Israel, and no one even hints at of removing them, but in the Palestinian view, no Jews should be allowed to live in a “State of Palestine.”
When Biden says that Trump’s peace plan is a “political stunt,” he adds his voice to the chorus of those – there are so many! — who refuse to believe that this is a good-faith effort at fashioning a plan that meets the reasonable needs of both sides. For Israel, its security is enhanced, through permanent control of the critical Jordan Valley, that bestrides the invasion route from the East, and also by annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. These settlements do not only provide housing for Jews, but also do double duty as defense outposts, filed as they are with settlers who, like all Israelis, have served in the IDF and remain as Reservists until the age of 40. Further, the Trump plan requires the demilitarization of the State of Palestine. Israel will retain control of the skies over that State. Aside from security matters, Israel will allow the Palestinians complete control over their own lives in their own state. And what’s more, they will be the beneficiaries of what is certainly the most generous program of international aid and development since the Marshall Plan. And while the Marshall Plan sought to improve the lives of people in a dozen war-torn European states, the Trump peace initiative is aimed at improving the lives of the Palestinians alone. If the Palestinian leaders change their minds, and accept the plan – they would be fools not to — Palestine will be the most coddled new state in history.
If what Israel needs most is security, what the Palestinians most need is prosperity. The corruption and mismanagement of their leaders, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, needs to be dealt with, and the Trump plan puts in place proposals to promote good government, responsive to its people through monitored elections and a professional civil service to replace the rampant spoils system. Four-fifths of the Trump plan is devoted to improving the lives of the Palestinians. Biden dismisses the plan as a “political stunt”; he claims to know this by having read “some outline’” of the plan that he read. That “outline” is no substitute for reading the entire, extraordinarily detailed plan. He should not say anything more before he has read the Trump plan. Biden appears not to have understood the magnitude of the concessions Israel has made in indicating its willingness to recognize an independent State of Palestine, with its capital in East Jerusalem, and in agreeing to a four-year moratorium on any future settlement building, as long as the Palestinians are engaged in good-faith negotiations. Neither he, nor Sanders, nor Warren, nor any of the other Democratic candidates has yet said a word about the concessions Israel has shown itself willing to make under the Trump Plan. This careful document, which so much thought has gone into, is no “political stunt.” It shows a way forward, if only the Palestinians show enough sense not to reject it out of hand. So far the signs are not good.
Biden says he has “spent a lifetime working to advance the security and survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel.” He served as Vice President under Barack Obama, who was the most anti-Israel president since Jimmy Carter; it was during Obama’s administration that Washington refused to veto a Security Council resolution claiming that Israel’s settlements “on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem” have “no legal validity” and demanding a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities,” saying this “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.” In December 2016 Obama instructed Ambassador Powers not to veto this shameful resolution. Did Biden say anything about the resolution at the time? Has he said anything since?
The resolution reiterated that Israeli settlement was a “flagrant violation” of “international law.”
But which “international law”? Not the international law that has long recognized the right of a victor in a defensive war to hold onto territory it deems necessary for its defense. Not the international law that was created when the League of Nations established the Mandates system, and in particular, the legal regime created by the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine. Not the international law that allowed Israel, by U.N. Resolution 242, to make such territorial adjustments as it deemed necessary for attaining “secure and recognized boundaries.”
No, the international law that was being invoked was the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer of a civilian population into another area or country. Its framers had in mind the forcible transfer of millions of people by the Nazis, some sent to work as slave laborers in Germany, others to be killed. But the Israelis who have moved into the West Bank since 1967 were not “forcibly” moved; they did so voluntarily, eagerly. The Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to their move into, and settlement on, the West Bank. These voluntary settlers moved onto lands that, furthermore, the Jews had a claim based on 2,000 years of history, that was recognized by both the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine – a claim superior to that of any other claimant, including Jordan, which was merely a military occupier from 1949 to 1967.
Biden tells us he has always been working “to advance the security and safety of a Jewish and democratic Israel.” How did he do it when he was Vice President? Did he try to convince President Obama to veto the resolution about the supposed “illegality” of the settlements? When did he stand up for Israel behind the scenes? What bureaucratic battles did he fight for the Jewish state from within the Administration? Even if he did fight such battles, he clearly didn’t win any – the Obama administration remained deeply unsympathetic to Israel. Still, one would like to hear from Biden about all he has done for Israel’s security, not just in voting for aid packages when he was a Senator, but what he has done behind the scenes, in the corridors of power, to make the case for Israel.
If Joe Biden has been fighting for the “security” of Israel during his whole political life, he can hardly be unaware that Israel’s military men are unanimous in insisting that Israel must hold onto, and annex, the Jordan Valley, and it must continue to control other parts of the West Bank as well, by annexing the existing settlements, which should be conceived of as both residential areas and as military outposts, given the military training all Israeli Jews receive, and the updated training Israelis are given when they perform their annual reservist duties (as miluim) which they do up to the age of 40.
Israel’s security fears are well justified. It has had to fight more wars than any other country on earth. The Jewish state has had to fight three major wars (1948-49, 1967, 1973) for its survival, as well as three smaller wars in Gaza against Hamas (Operation Cast Lead, 2008-2009, Operation Pillar of Defense, 2012, and Operation Protective Edge, 2014), and two wars in Lebanon, one against the PLO in 1982, and another against Hezbollah in 2006. And then there have been constant attacks by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli civilians, on schools, on buses, at bus stops, at Passover gatherings, at pizza parlors.
Can Joe Biden be that arrogant as to dismiss what Israeli military men think Israel, at a minimum, must hold onto for its security? And what does Biden think of the report by a delegation of American military men sent by the Joint Chiefs on President Johnson’s order, to visit Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War and to report on Israel’s security needs there? The report they prepared stressed that the minimum conditions for Israel’s security required it to retain the Jordan Valley and other areas, too, of the West Bank. But what do professional military men, at the highest level, American or Israeli, know about military matters? Joe Biden knows better.
Israel is now willing, under Trump’s initiative, to double the size of the territory the Palestinians would possess in their newly-created state. They will possess 70% of the total land area of the West Bank, while Israel would retain only 30%. Again, this is one of the startling concessions by Israel that it was not required to make, either according to the provisions of the Palestine Mandate, which recognized the Jewish claim to all of Western Palestine, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, or according to U.N. Resolution 242, which allows for territorial adjustments by Israel in order to ensure that it has “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries.”
Joe Biden’s four-sentence dismissal of a 180-page peace plan — he’s only seen the “outline” — is deplorable. This is the first peace plan proposed for Israel and the Palestinians that recognizes that the Jihad against Israel is permanent, and that the Jewish state must not trust to agreements alone for its security, but needs to create, and maintain, the conditions for a credible deterrence. That is what the Trump Peace Plan does. It gives Israel what it most needs, security, and gives the Palestinians what they most need, prosperity. Many people, heedless of the real aims of the Palestinians and other Muslims, do not understand that the only reliable guarantor of the peace between Arabs and Israelis is the IDF, with its regular forces supplemented by the civilians living in settlements in 30% of the West Bank, both providing the deterrence that keeps the peace.
Read the Trump plan, Joe, the whole thing, then get back to us. Look at all the benefits – housing, health, education, medical care, jobs, business creation, infrastructure of all kinds — that are to be lavished on the Palestinians. And look, too, at the provisions having to do with creating the minimum conditions of Israel’s security. Do those provisions, about a demilitarized state of Palestine, seem unreasonable to you, given Israel’s size, and the many wars Israel has had to fight to survive? Could you tell us, Joe, what the Palestine Mandate has to say about “close settlement by Jews on the land” everywhere west of the river Jordan, and why that still matters? And finally, Joe, can you explain to us what U.N. Resolution 242 says about Israel’s right, after the Six-Day War, to make territorial adjustments in order to create for itself “secure and recognized borders”?
Remember, Joe, your campaign slogan. No more malarkey. Especially not about the peace initiative. It’s a last best hope. Okay?
mortimer says
Joe Biden is uninformed about the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors. The partition is a fait accompli. The Jewish homeland is the land west of the Jordan River. The question to resolve is the role Arabs will play in that homeland. Israeli citizenship is an option for them if they wish. The choice is up to Arabs whether they will choose Israel or Jordanian citizenship. They can negotiate their place within Israeli if they so choose. A choice of destroying Israel is not an option, but they want to keep that option alive. Muslim countries play along with the Pally delusion whenever the governments need a distraction from scandal or economic failure.
Joe Biden has no understanding the Pally ideology is a grand DELUSION, because Sleepy Joe is somewhat delusional himself.
mortimer says
Joe’s Delusion: Israel will give the Pallies all their demands FIRST. Only then, will the Pallies ‘negotiate’.
But the problem with Biden’s delusion is this: If Israel acquiesces to all demands first, there is no further need to negotiate.
The Pallies will just continue making demands and continuing their terrorism until the Jews leave Israel and close shop.
That is the only way the Pallies want to ‘negotiate’ … namely, by making demands which Israel meekly comply with without any discussion.
The Pallies are positioning themselves as a dominant, mighty power that can afford merely to dictate to Israel without giving concessions in return. This is indeed delusional.
The Pallies rely on two things to bolster their position: 1) a moral argument that they are the ‘real’ owners of the West Bank and 2) terrorism. Biden hasn’t examined either of those incoherent arguments
Biden presents himself as a spontaneous, unstudied expert.
James Lincoln says
mortimer,
An excellent and informative post, my compliments.
Giacomo Latta says
Joe seems to be ignorant of the fact that muslims (superiors) do not negotiate with inferiors. Just as Joe will not negotiate with anyone until the Democratic convention when Joe gets his sorry ass whipped.
keith says
What a crock of s*#t.
The ONLY thing Biden has worked a lifetime to promote is his and his families bank balance.
If Trump started a bucket brigade to put out a fire at an orphanage, Biden would fill the buckets with petrol and then blame Trump.
Wellington says
Joe Biden is similar to Karl Marx in this respect: Conclude exactly the opposite of what he states and you have around a 98% chance of getting things down correctly—and especially when Biden speaks about foreign affairs.
Biden, though, is not similar to Marx in another respect, i.e., the quality of mind. Marx was absolutely brilliant but, a la Orwell, some ideas are so stupid only intellectuals could come up with them. Fortunately for America, the West in general, and the preservation of freedom, Biden is a complete mediocrity intellectually speaking. Here Biden is dissimilar to Marx and thank God he is.
gravenimage says
How Joe Biden Rejected Trump’s Peace Plan (Part 2)
……………….
What a tool.