By Barry Rubin
Nabil Shaath has given a fascinating and insightful interview that is well worth analyzing. But first let’s take a look at who Shaath is.
Supposedly, he is the archetypal Palestinian moderate. There was a time when the Western media ridiculed the Israeli declaration that he was a secret Fatah member. When Israel agreed to negotiate with non-PLO Palestinians, the PLO put his name forward although it knew, of course, that he was no such thing. Peace processors ridiculed Israel’s refusal to accept him.
Since 1994, he has held several high positions. He has been credibly accused, by Fatah militants who criticized Yasir Arafat’s corruption, of taking a lot of Palestinian Authority money for himself and his family.
Nevertheless, it is reasonable to call Shaath as moderate as anyone in the PA’s leadership, more moderate than the Fatah leadership. And what does Shaath say in an interview on July 13, 2011:
Nabil Shaath: The recognition of a [Palestinian] state…will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states, and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel, in order to force it to recognize us and to leave our country. This is our long-term goal.”
In other words, the goal is not to come to a deal with Israel but to gain recognition from other countries which will pressure Israel and force it to give the PA what it wants. (Incidentally, this is pretty much Yasir Arafat’s strategy from 30 years ago, though he was using a higher level of violence in that process.)
But what does the phrase “leave our country” mean as a “long-term goal?” Does “leave our country” mean just the West Bank and east Jerusalem (pre-1967 borders without mutually agreed swaps) or wiping Israel off the map and replacing it with an Arab Muslim state? It’s ambiguous, isn’t it? So perhaps Shaath is a moderate (as advertised in the Western media? In this case, though, Shaath gives us an answer.
“[The recent French proposal, quite friendly to the Palestinians generally] reshaped the issue of the “Jewish state” into a formula that is also unacceptable to us-–two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of `two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this….We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country.”
In other words, Shaath, one of the most important and relatively moderate Palestinian Authority leaders, is against a two-state solution. First, there will be a Palestinian state “for one people,” that is an Arab, Muslim state. But there can be no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state because that implies a permanent peace. Shaath and the Palestinian leadership almost unanimously seek a second stage in which the “Palestinians with Israeli citizenship” plus the “returning…to their country” of Palestinian refugees will turn Israel into an Arab Muslim Palestinian part of Palestine.
This is merely a restatement of the “two-stage” solution of the PLO adopted forty years ago. No real progress in 40 years, despite all the disasters and potential lessons seen by the Palestinians! I have been very skeptical about the peace process, especially for the last 15 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that has so brought home to me why this is such a mirage because Shaath is so open about it and if anyone could be expected to support a real two-state solution it would be him.
Will anyone read and understand what Shaath is saying who believes that peace is at hand and that the Palestinian leadership is eager for a two-state solution?
Incidentally, Shaath also accurately reflected what many Arabs—including relatively moderate ones—think about U.S. policy. He sees Obama as weak: “President Obama will not make his presence felt in the coming 14 months….In practical terms, the US does not play a role any more in the Middle East, although it does not want to acknowledge or accept this….The US has no real presence.”
This observation is equally devastating. And again will it penetrate at all into much of the mass media? Guess you should be congratulating yourself that you read PajamasMedia.
I suspect the strongest proponents of a Palestinian state already know all of the above and support the idea because of it.
Me too. People who just follow the MSM can’t know all this because the MSM never or very rarely report what the Arabs say in Arabic. But those Westerners with a keen interest in the Arab cause are not as ignorant as the common Joe, they don’t take their information only from the MSM, so they can’t possibly be just naive about it. I don’t know why they want so badly to wipe us off, all I know is when I listen to the far-leftist arguments they sound an awful lot like the old Soviet anti-Israel propaganda.
OF COURSE it’s a two-stage solution. Ask any Pali kid what he learns in school, all the Israeli towns are part of the country they plan on having.
It is the height of naivete to believe that any fantasy-state inside the West Bank will be peaceful.
The ONLY solution is deterrence – Israel should quickly annex Judea and Samaria, expel anyone who will not pledge an oath of allegiance or live by its terms, and defend the hell out of every square inch of the land. Eventually the jackals will back off, maybe 100 years or so from now, or else they will irrationally make war against Israel and that time it will be for keeps. (Israel will win.)
You have spoken well, Dallas. Looking for moderate Palestinians (as in moderate compared to what) to deal with, makes as much sense as it would have made to try to find moderate Nazis to deal with instead of Hitler. Evil must be opposed, not accommodated. All the wishful thinking by all the wishful thinkers in the world will not change that fact. Nor will it change the fact that Islam is evil in the extreme.
This nonsense about “moderate Muslims that one can work” with only serves to hamper the will of civilized people to oppose Islam and in the end makes the job of the Islamists easier.
A Palestinian state for one people & Israel as a state for two people. Hmm… No Jews in Palestine? Exactly which of these entities is an apartheid state?
I suggest you forward this article to realclearwater.com, to nationalreview.com and a few others, for a much needed wider readership.
This sort of Palestinian treachery has been going on for decades and alsmost no one, not even most Israelis, pay the slightest bit of attention to it.
In fact, this is what the Oslo Accords were all about, and to this day many Israelis, and not just the ones who concocted Oslo, still stand by them.
Right after signing the accords with Israel Yasser Arafat told Radio Monte Carlo that it’ll be the basis for the ol’ Phased Plan:
http://www.iris.org.il/plophase.htm
A bit off topic but Arabs are aware of the growing media that is focused on the disorders of the ME. Westerners are learning of the drug connections between the Taliban, Iran, Hizb’Allah, Hamas and the network of cartels and people like Chavez in SA. Afghanistan is a drug capital. So how does Arab media focus in on the truth? http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/07/201172795838377646.html
Nothing regarding the slaughter in Mexico or the horrors in Afghanistan. The problem is the UK’s exploitation of the Vietnamese. While Ackerman has received a strong comment thread rebuttal of his mockery of the FBI’s characterization of the “Islamc threat”, few if any Muslim criticisms of Al Jez, are censored.
We are seeing a full court press of propaganda. Ahram posts statements by El-Arian of the Muslim Brotherhood, but refuses to link their comment thread to Michael Totten’s interview with their insane leader. While the West searches for right wingers, by their measure, what would they call El-Arian? He is an actual leader.
Shaath doesn’t seem to moderate. He says they will not accept a Jewish state.If they get statehood,they may bring all the refugees that want to come back.Then the problems really begin.
Thank you, Rick Mallin
You are right – while he doesn’t seem moderate, the problem is he is “moderate” compared to the rest of the palestinians.
He says we have to negotiate in order to get a political situation where they have take over and destroy Israel. This is considered very “moderate” among Muslims.
The non moderates favor skipping the negotations and proceeding to attacking and destroying Israel.
Precisely! But another factor is that “moderates” often hide their extremism. What’s interesting in this interview is that it is so obviously expressed. That’swhy I think people should giveittootherswho might benefit from reading it.
It seems to be a cultural trait in the Arab world in general to hold beliefs with no basis in reality.
Somehow he seems to think that statehood will lead to pressure on Israel and will result in his waking up one day to find that the Jews have all packed up and left.
The same mindset allows him to simultaneously hold that Israel is an apartheid oppressive state and vow that no Jew will ever live in land he controls. It allows arabs like El-Arian to force Palestinians to live in terrible conditions without rights or citizenship and then criticise Israel where Palestinians live under far better conditions.
Jews seem to have the opposite cultural mindset. Pragmatic and reality based. I think of it in terms of the old joke:
News comes that a huge tsunami will arrive in 3 days and will wipe out all life on earth.
The Pope goes on TV and tells all Catholics to pray and repent for their sins so they can enter heaven.
The chief Imam announces a day of fasting and prayer in preparation for the will of Allah
The Chief Rabbi of Israel holds a press conference. He steps up to the microphone and says “OK, we have three days to learn how to live under water…”
Love the joke! So true!
Why, oh, why is so much time, energy, and ink wasted on all this? For anyone to think that the A-rabs have ever changed their spots–or ever will, voluntarily–is to engage in tooth-fairy fantasizing. They have been consistent over the decades, years, months, weeks, and days, never ever changing their tune or hiding the ball. They’ve been saying it from the beginning. There’s never been any material difference between the most savage and the most “moderate” of them. So why continue to engage them and their pipedreams? Doing so only gives them stature and credibility, and fails to accept and then deal with the crux of the problem: Ishmael hates Avraham; Esav hates Yaacov; and Abdul hates Yossi. All this “peace process” garbage–and that’s what it is–is a diversion, a well-oiled plot (how’s the mixed metaphor?)to convince the world “community” (yeah, right)that there is the possibility of movement toward real peace, and that evil, conniving Israel is just too recalcitrant for the entire world’s good. An old trope that should be utterly rejected. Having read a decent chunk of Prof. Rubin’s enlightening book “The Tragedy of the Middle East,” which documents the long-running A-rab political, social, economic, and physical suicide through about 2001, I don’t cotton to why there is the slightest equivocation in evaluating what’s up with them–and that what’s up with them is the same offal now as in 2001. Why is it so hard for Jews–esply Israelis, who are on the frontlines–to refuse the invitation to negotiate the manner of their grisly demise?
“And again will it penetrate at all into much of the mass media? Guess you should be congratulating yourself that you read PajamasMedia.”
Well, I’m not so much into self-congratulation, but I am grateful that PJM is around to inform me about things the MSM ignores.
Maybe he should talk to those “palestinians” in Israel before he makes decisions for them. A recent survey I read found that a majority of them said they prefer that Israel stay as it is, and they prefer living there than in a palestinian state — because, they said, quality of life is better.
P.S. Anyone who believes guys like this would ever live next to the Jewish people isn’t paying attention. They even have TV shows for the little ones to teach them to hate the Jews and aspire to matrydom. They don’t just want the Jews gone — Theyt want them dead.
The problem is that the actual ‘moderate’ Palestinians – the ones who like the quality of life in Israel and don’t want to see it change – don’t have guns and aren’t willing to use them.
As long as that continues, they won’t be in charge and their opinion won’t count for anything.
that is, “weren’t buying his spin”…sorry.
Barry, my #12 doesn’t make sense without my #11…..
And this is a follow up to my missing #11: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-07-29-egypt-cairo-protests_n.htm
Ultra conservative? So the Muslim Brotherhood, doing what we all expected over at MJT, is now in the same camp as the Norwegian nutjob? This is obviously a fiesta of Newspeak ranging from that Ackerman link to the NYT to Al Jezzera to American Thinker to the BBC to Press TV to MSNBC and yes, even Fox News.
You can’t have informed debate without informed definitions of the words debate uses. As use have pointed out, definition of liberal, conservative, friend and foe would be a nice start.