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Today is a cooler and cloudier day in Jerusalem. Predictions are for rain late this afternoon and all tomorrow. Israel needs the rain. So, I am planning my days around the weather.

I went to Tower of David Museum this morning. I have not been there is awhile. Lots of steps and climbing—probably not for a large group, but an interesting site with different layers of history of Jerusalem from Canaanite to the end of the Ottoman period and the British Mandate. There is also a nineteenth century model of Jerusalem.

The Tower of David Museum and the Ramparts Walk are at the Jaffa gate. So, I walked some of the ramparts and enjoyed the view of Jerusalem from on high.

I am still seeing tourists around town. Not large groups, or as many groups as when we were here, but still the tourists keep coming home.

There has been a teacher’s strike (secondary school) in Israel since October 10th—still no agreement. I have seen the teachers around town with their protest signs. The students are at the malls, on the buses, and at the coffee shops.

Jack Kinsella has a terrific article about the “road map:”

Road Map to Annapolis

The “Road Map for Peace” was a plan mapped out by the so-called “Quartet” of international entities; the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia. The Principles of the Road Map to Peace were first outlined by President Bush in June, 2002, something over five years ago.

In his speech introducing the Road Map Plan to the American public, President Bush announced his plan for an ‘independent Palestinian State living side by side with Israel in peace’:

“The Roadmap represents a starting point toward achieving the vision of two states, a secure State of Israel and a viable, peaceful, democratic Palestine. It is the framework for progress towards lasting peace and security in the Middle East,” Bush said.

The “Road Map for Peace” assumed all the previous agreements and principles from Oslo up to the point where Arafat launched what Israelis call the “Oslo War” in 2000, and then superimposing a three-phase ‘performance-based’ plan over Oslo’s original ‘land for peace’ framework.

Phase I imposed conditions on both sides, but beginning with the Palestinians. The first required the Palestinian Authority to disband and disarm Palestinian terror groups and put an end to terror attacks against Israel. The second condition required the PA to hold democratic elections.

After the Palestinians met both these conditions, Israel was required to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Implementation of Phase I was projected to be complete by May, 2003.

Phase II of the Road Map, set for completion by December, 2003, called for an international conference to help build a Palestinian economy, establish provisional borders for a new Palestinian State, and restore pre-intifada trade links to Israel.

Phase III was set for early 2005 and called for a second international conference leading to a permanent status agreement and end of conflict; agreement on final borders, and agreements on unresolved issues like Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, refugees, settlements, etc.

Under the terms of the Road Map for Peace, Israel should now be living side by side in peace with a new Palestinian State, not headed to Annapolis to negotiate another cease-fire.

What happened? Under any possible reading of the agreement, the foundational obligations upon which all subsequent steps were to depend was the implementation of Phase I by the Palestinians — end terror, disarm Hamas and hold elections, in that order. After those conditions were met, it then fell on Israel to withdraw from Gaza.

The Palestinians began at the end, holding free and fair democratic elections in which, instead of disarming Hamas, they elected them. Instead of ending the terror, they escalated the conflict. Despite the utter failure of the PA to implement any of the conditions of Phase I (apart from the free election of a terrorist government) Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza.

The Palestinians who pledged to end terror as Phase I of the peace plan used the newly-vacated Israeli settlements in Gaza as a staging area for increased rocket attacks into Israeli cities and towns along its border.

What was to be a ‘Road Map to Peace by 2003’ remains a pathway to war four years later.

Assessment:

The absolution of the Palestinians of any responsibility for not implementing Phase I of the Road Map isn’t particularly baffling. The Palestinian Authority never kept any of the terms of Oslo, either.

What is baffling is Israel’s willingness to concede even more at Annapolis even as the Palestinians continue to make war against them.

Israeli Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned the Knesset today that, “Israel is prepared to go very far at the Annapolis conference.” How far? Well, Barak told the Knesset — now, get this — “Israel is going to seek important agreements that would require the Palestinians to implement the first stage of the road map.”

Ok, let’s take another look at the aims of the Annapolis conference: “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said while standing alongside U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he believes that goal can be accomplished before the end of U.S. President George Bush’s term in January 2009,” said Washington Post yesterday.

“Abbas, echoing statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the upcoming peace conference in Annapolis, Md., will be used as a springboard for negotiations surrounding the status of Jerusalem, the borders of the planned Palestinian state, the removal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank and the fate of Palestinian refugees who fled the area in 1948 when Israel was established.

“This is a historic time, a time of real opportunity,” Rice added, saying the upcoming conference “should be a launching pad for the negotiations that we have long sought.” [Those negotiations,] “I sincerely hope … could achieve their goal within the time remaining within the Bush administration.”

But wait! The establishment of a Palestinian state, negotiations over Jerusalem and Temple Mount, refugees, borders, etc., etc. are Phase Three. Did we miss something?

Not exactly. Let’s tally the scorecard up, first. The PA ignored its obligations under Phase I. Israel withdrew from Gaza anyway. Phase II called for international donor’s conferences to underwrite a Palestinian economy.

The conferences were held and billions in donations were poured into the Palestinian Treasury. What Arafat didn’t steal, Abbas managed to ‘misplace’.

The Palestinian effort at self government turned into a civil war between Hamas and the PA, creating a terrorist state within-a-state even before the state itself has been born. Scarcely a day goes by without news of a Palestinian attack against an Israeli target.

But Israel is, according to Ehud Barak, “prepared to go very far” at Annapolis by insisting that the Palestinians AGREE to implement Phase I as part of the final preparations for implementing Phase III.

It is almost as if Israel exists in some kind of alternative universe in which all normal standards of logic and fairness are reversed in some kind of Orwellian way.

As a reward for breaking every single term of every single agreement ever signed, the only ones more eager to force statehood on an unrepentant terrorist population than the Quartet are the Israelis.

It isn’t like Israel doesn’t know that whatever deal it makes won’t be honored. They know it, the Quartet knows it, and the Palestinians know it.

So what is the strategy here? If there is one, it is either diabolically clever or incomprehensibly moronic, but I’d have to cast my vote for incomprehensibly moronic.

One can almost see God rolling His eyes in exasperation. The prophesied restoration of Israel to its ancient homeland was the first in a series of miraculous interventions that pepper modern Israeli history.

By any military standards, Israel should have been squashed by the Arab Legions in 1948-49. At best, it should have lost territory to the Arabs during the 1956 Sinai campaigns.

The 1967 Six Days War should have ended in stalemate; the surprise attack during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 should have resulted in Israel’s defeat and annihilation.

Through all these wars, Israel called on their God, and their God answered and delivered them as He did in the days of the Prophets.

But when it comes to the Palestinian issue, Israel’s government has turned its back on God altogether, putting all its faith in the promises of the world community.

When Joshua entered into the Land of Canaan, he was instructed to drive out the Canaanites and tear down their altars. Instead, Judges 1:21,27-28 reveals:

“And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day.”

“Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.”

There is an interesting parallel here. The ancient Israelites, like their modern counterparts, had experienced the miraculous intervention of God that brought them to the Promised Land. But once they got there, they used what God had given them as negotiating chips in a land for peace deal.

Judges 2:2-3 records God’s reaction as delivered by ‘an angel of the Lord’:

“And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed My voice: why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.”

Fast-forward three and a half thousand years or so . . .

Next week, Israel will head to Annapolis where it will use much of the same territory; Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Temple Mount, — all of which were delivered to Israel during wars she should have lost, as bargaining chips in a land for peace deal.

The big stumbling block is the radical Islamic theology of Hamas, whose god will not countenance the existence of Israel under any circumstances.

“Thorns in your sides… Their gods shall be a snare unto you.”

This entry was posted by Sandra on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under From Israel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.