Warning 70-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, 84-year-old Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would end all security arrangements. Abbas flatly rejected 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s peace plan, establishing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognizing only the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Since the 1967 Six Day War, Israel controlled Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Jordan’s West Bank and Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. Palestinians led by Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] Founder Yasser Arafat demanded Israel return to the pre-1967 borders, something Abbas has tried to get. Yet with today’s security arrangements with Israel, it’s impossible to Israel to give back all the spoils of the 1967 War, something that won’t happen without another war.
European Union [EU], United Nations U.N. and liberal Democrats like 77-year-old Democrat presumptive nominee former Vice President Joe Biden subscribe to 1967 U.N. Resolution 242, requiring Israel to give back spoils of the 1967 War in exchange for peace. Israel did give back the Sinai Peninsula under former President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 Camp David Accords. Eventually Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave back the Gaza Strip Sept. 22, 2005. In the ensuing years to present, Palestinian radicals, backed by PLO or Palestinian Authority, have launched two Intifadas or uprisings, suicide bombing Israeli citizens. Two years after Sharon gave back the Gaza Strip to the PLO, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas seized the seaside territory June 14, 2007, leaving the Palestinian people split between Hamas and Ramallah-based PLO. Abbas has no control over Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Speaking today, the aging Abbas reprised his war-like rhetoric, saying he was “absolved, as of todoay, of all the agreements and understands with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones,” Abbas said, essentially returning to the state of war against Israel. Despite pressure from the EU, UN or liberal Democrat candidates, Israel will not compromise its security over threats from Abbas or other terrorist groups. Under former President George W. Bush, while the U.S. faced Sept. 11, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the U.S. stopped placating the PLO, seeing it as another terror group. Arafat died of suspicious causes Nov. 11, 2004, never realizing his dream of a Palestinian state because he resorted to terror to achieve his political goals. Abbas now says he returns to the PLO’s right of resistance against Israel.
Abbas showed all this warlike bluster to discourage Netanyahu from formally annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Instead of sitting down the to peace table with Israel and U.S. mediators, Abbas can’t get his way, so he threatens more terror against Israel. Unlike 1967 Six Day War or the 1973 Yom Kippur War, no Arab state would join Palestinian’s fight with Israel, knowing, in the end, they would watch their militaries decimated by Israel. Netanyahu’s the last Israeli Prime Minister to threaten with more terror, nor can any U.S. administration, Republican or Democrat, back terror as a way to settle territorial differences. Abbas and his counterparts in the Gaza Strip have no resources to launch a new war with Israel, where the so-called Palestinian territories have record unemployment, poverty and anarchy trying to maintain order in their own impoverished territories.
Ending security cooperation with Israel means that Abbas could align himself with other terror groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda or rogue states like Iran to try to exact concessions from Israel. No U.S. administration, no matter what their sympathies to Palestinians, could back using terrorism in lieu of peace talks. “The impact isn’t just freedom of movement, it is everything, even where food supply lines come from,” said Tareq Bacconi with the International Crisis Group [ICG]. “It can’t be dismantled overnight.” Bacconi thinks Abbas beats the war drums to discourage Netanyahu from annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “Yet, as the annexation looms his [Abbas] declaration should nonetheless be interpreted as on last desperate shot across the bow,” said Hugh Lovatt, analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, seeing Abbas’ threats as largely ceremonial.
Annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank fulfills a promise to West Bank settlers but only throws gasoline on an already volatile situation. Netanyahu, who recently finished a bruising campaign for prime minister and still faces possible corruption charges, should maintain the status quo for now until the Nov. 4 U.S. presidential election. If Trump loses, Israel would face mounting pressure to make concessions to Palestinians for a two-state solution. If Trump wins reelection, Netanyahu could do what he wants but still faces more political upheaval in the U.N. and EU. “We have been here before, many times, Abbas has yet to follow through employing such threats of any potential deterrence,” Lovatt said, doubting whether Abbas would make good on his threats. Netanyahu would be wise to keep the status quo until after the U.S. presidential election.
