Buried under the deluge of news of recent events in the Middle East is the on-going Israeli-Palestinian debacle. For example, there is a movement on Facebook calling for a third Intifada, which is targeted to begin sometime in May, ostensibly around the 11th of that month. Why the delay until then, I can only speculate that perhaps there is a reasoning that by that time, depending on the overall success of the various Arab uprisings in the Middle East, the Palestinians would then be in a stronger position, not hindered by the very restrained support typically allotted by the various Arab Muslim despots of the region. After all, the likes of Qaddafi and Syria's Assad, to name just a couple, typically engage in rhetoric of support of the Palestinians mainly to defuse the dangers posed by the potential opposition to their own unstable regimes. Others, such as Mubarak, Jordan's Hussein, and even the Saudi royal family, give nothing of value to Palestinian desires for independence and statehood, and certainly do not support violence or terrorist activities against the Israelis. The only ones who openly support Palestinian terrorist activities, to the point of financial as well as moral support, are the Iranians and Hezbollah, the Iranian proxies in Southern Lebanon.
It is understandable that Palestinian supporters are of the hopes that the fledgling new governments of the Middle East will give them greater support, or at the very least not actively or covertly hinder them or the support of their citizens. But they may have overlooked the Palestinians greatest supporter thus far-President Barak Obama.
According to Caroline Glick, there is a diplomatic push recently to pressure Israeli Prime Minsiter Benyamin Netanyahu to grant further concessions to the Palestinians, which like all others would not be reciprocated, nor would any reciprocation be required. And how is the Obama Administration and State Department going about this? Glick claims they have threatened to name an international group to be the main arbiters of the final decision toward recognizing Palestinian statehood. This group includes the US, but also includes Russia, the EU, and the UN.
According to this scenario, the Palestinian state would be granted all of their current demands, which includes, but is not limited to, control over all of Judea and Samaria, as well as all of Northern, Southern, and Eastern Jerusalem. Glick makes the further point that such a declaration and recognition of Palestinian statehood would, by its nature, amount to a state automatically at war with Israel, and that any further counter-terrorist activities by the Israelis on the soil of this newborn Palestinian state would constitute an act of war by definition.
Glick claims that Netanyahu is also facing internal pressure to make these concessions to the Palestinians in order to hopefully forestall such international action, but maintains that such a move would be at best shortsighted, and advises that Netanyahu would be better advised to forthrightly oppose any such move by Obama and the international community, and to do so by appealing for help to the US Congress.
I agree, and would further advise Netanyahu to make it clear that such an action is likely to result in a bloodbath for one side or the other, and that he does not intend to take anything like this lying down. The Israelis have a strong plurality of American public opinion on their side, and probably an outright majority, and Obama knows this very well. Netanyahu would be well advised to appeal to this support while he still has that option. It might not be there forever.
