Olmert Regime: EU-led Trusteeship — Return to British Mandate Rule

Why Not an EU-led Trusteeship? Shlomo Breznitz (Jerusalem Post)

Commentary;

Today’s politicians are in denial. The elistists, in their “peace panic,” think that they have come up with an interesting, new, novel, workable concept to separate Jews from their heritage — The Land of Israel. World Net Daily’s Aaron Klein reported earlier this week about a proposal for “transferring control of Judea and Samaria to a European task force.”

Never mind that we have been there, done that once before, that an EU-led Trusteeship is nothing more than recycling the British Mandate of the 1920s through the 1940s which preceded the modern-day State of Israel as we know it.

The Aish.com site contains a scholarly, yet realistic history of the British Mandate era replete with the broken and failed British promises, discrimination against Jews, unhindered freedom of movement for Arabs while severely restricting Jewish immigration in the years leading to and during the Shoa, Arab pogroms incuding rioting, looting and murdering of Jews unrestrained by a Mandate Authority which was often benignly complicit and more. This history is MUST reading, particularly for those who think that with EU-led Trusteeship with they have struck on a novel workable concept.

It is inevitable that with EU-led Trusteeship will turn the clock back 85 to 90 years and return us to an era of unrestrained pogroms, bombardments and terrorization of Jews (by bombing, by rockets and more) who would then be living within what remains of Israel’s borders, those which Abba Eban accurately characterized as Auschwitz borders. MB

Excerpts;

From the Israeli perspective, attempts to find a way out of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have been stymied by a conceptual contradiction never faced before.

On the one hand, there is a broad consensus among the Israeli public that ruling over the Palestinians is causing the country lasting damage and should end as soon as possible. Kadima, the main component of the government coalition, ran on the platform of a major unilateral withdrawal from most areas of the West Bank.

On the other hand, the outcome of our painful withdrawal from Gaza indicates that repeating this in the West Bank would be suicidal. With Hamas’s rise it became clear that Israel’s Gaza disengagement was not only misperceived, but exploited. No responsible leader would consider exposing practically all of Israel to the kind of Kassam attacks being experienced today by areas near Gaza. The Palestinian side has clearly demonstrated that unilateral withdrawal is not an option.

That means some kind of trusteeship for Palestine, as articulated by Martin Indyk in a 2003 Foreign Affairs article. At that time, the US might have been a natural choice to serve this function; but in the current political environment it is, unfortunately, unrealistic.

On the other hand, the EU, which has a paramount strategic interest in resolving the conflict in our region, is better suited to this role. With large Muslim minorities residing in Europe, the Israel-Palestinian problem further fuels discontent and extremism in these countries. Consequently, Europe could serve its interests – and the region’s – by providing a political incubator for Palestine and, as in the case of Bosnia, prepare it for full independence.

This political incubator is in the interest of all parties, including the EU, and could be initiated by a joint Israeli-Palestinian request. In no way does it harm US interests in the region; quite the contrary. Such a framework could revive the road map and allow it to move forward.

The transition from political incubator – trusteeship – to full statehood is achievable depending on how quickly progress can be made. Likewise, the deeper European involvement, the greater the prospect of success.

The EU’s main goal would be to pacify the situation on the ground (in effect achieving the first stage of the road map), help build democratic institutions necessary for independence and effectively manage how foreign aid is spent in order to dramatically increase the quality of life for Palestinians.

The writer is a Kadima Knesset member and serves on the Foreign Relations and Security Committee.

Related Editorials;

Mideast Rules to Live By, Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times)

This rule (below) and 14 other axioms apply equally to the “Pa (sic)” as well as to the US war in Iraq;

Excerpt;

“Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn’t count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.”

Our World: Welcome to Palestine, by Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post)

Excerpts;

“Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced that he supports negotiating with Hamas…. He supports extending the ban on IDF operations from Gaza to Judea and Samaria. It should go without saying that such IDF operations are aimed at preventing massacres of Israeli civilians like the one that happened in Eilat Monday morning.”

“LIVNI has become the international champion of Fatah.”

“Of course, neither Livni nor Peretz, who insist that Israel’s most urgent priority is to establish Palestine, is willing to recognize that Palestine exists already. They refuse to acknowledge what we already know: Palestine is a terror state.”