Israpundit.com
The point Lieberman makes below is one that many people have made to me but they go father. In general why are we helping them develop economically at all. Why don’t we keep the pressure on with roadblocks etc so they will continue to emigrate or show a willingness to live in peace with us and to make significant concessions.?
It is one thing when an individual attempts a terrorist act and the PA says we can’t guarantee that there won’t be such acts and it is another thing when the PA itself initiates policies that are anti-Israel. During the Arafat years we kept ignoring his violations of the Oslo Accords because we didn’t want to upset the process and we are doing the same thing now. And we continue to make “gestures” such as the temporary freeze to show them we are sincere.
At a minimum we should not be making nice when they aren’t.
Lieberman: PA Delegitimizes Us with Our Money
by Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com) Much of the international delegitimization against Israel is carried out by the Palestinian Authority (PA), Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday in a session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, adding that some of it is paid for by cash that Israel supplies to the PA.
Most of the legal motions filed against IDF officers are financed by the PA and initiated by it, Lieberman said.
Lieberman said it was not clear if PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, known also as Abu Mazen, represents anyone but himself. “Abu Mazen does not represent the residents of Gaza because Hamas rules there. Seeing as elections in the PA have been postponed three times, one needs to ask whom does Abu Mazen represent. It is not clear that he can supply the goods in negotiations. It is unacceptable that while we cooperate on security, economics and financing, they continue to file lawsuits against us and incite.”
Lieberman said he could not bring himself to trust people who filed legal charges against senior Israeli officials. “In every conversation between Palestinians and senior figures in other countries, the former say they do not trust our sincerity - but I do not believe their sincerity, in view of the boycotts that they are initiating against Israeli goods and the lawsuits. We must examine, as a society, whether we consent to accept these rules of the game – that allow them to negotiate with us while turning many of their resources against us.”
Middle East is on Fire - Territorial Compromise Won’t Work
Lieberman said that in his personal view, an arrangement with the Arabs cannot be reached through territorial compromise. He cited the failure of offers made by former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert. “It is no accident that for 16 years no arrangement has been reached, even when there were left-wing and centrist governments,” he explained. “There are no offers that go further than what Barak offered at Camp David. The conflict has become a religious one in recent years. As such, there is no possibility of reaching an arrangement through territorial compromise. Therefore we cannot achieve peace according to the offers made by Olmert.”
“We in the Israel Our Home party agree to swapping land and territory, as it says in our platform,” he said. “Today, when the entire Middle East is on fire, whoever says that an arrangement can be reached quickly is planting illusions.”
Samson Blinded reports
- The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel issued yet another futile petition for the government to cease sending cash to Gaza. The government currently evaluates a tranche of half a billion shekels.
The transfer itself is not a problem: if not from Israel, Gazans would receive transaction cash from anywhere else. Israel, like any country, profits from exporting its paper currency. Rather, the issue lies in tax transfers: Israel indirectly taxes Jewish consumers to support our Arab enemies. The continuing transfers are especially odd when the PA takes an increasingly militant position in peace negotiations. The transfers make Israel the PA’s largest donor.
But how do Gazans spend shekels? Since Israel instituted the blockade, they cannot spend shekels, but cannot be hoarding that much cash, either. It is clear that despite the blockade Israeli-Gazan trade is in full swing.
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