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Why Abbas Will Regret This
By Uzi Landau
When the Palestinians signed the Oslo accords in 1993, they were striking a fundamental deal with Israel: that every issue remaining between the two peoples would be resolved through negotiations. But now, by appealing directly to the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian state, Mahmoud Abbas is making a unilateral decision to abandon the discussion of outstanding issues with Israel, trying to avoid negotiations based on mutual compromise. He is violating not just several legal, binding agreements with Israel but also a major principle of international relations: that conflict can be resolved only through negotiations. He has decided that the time for talking is over.
The Western governments that witnessed the signing of the Oslo accords and bear special responsibility for honoring them have not made it clear to Abbas that violating them is unacceptable. This has made the Palestinians feel that they can help themselves to a free lunch, that there is no price to be paid for this U.N. initiative. They believe they can only gain from it. Just days before the General Assembly session began, the Europeans were trying to appease them, asking them if they would be kind enough to rejoin the negotiations. Instead, Palestinians must receive a clear signal from the Europeans and North Americans that abandoning agreements doesn't pay.
Abbas' flaunting of those past agreements means that he renders them null and void as far as Israel is concerned. The consequences for the Palestinians will be very serious. Should the Palestinian National Authority pursue its bid for statehood, it should fully understand that Israel will respond accordingly.
Any suggestion of a future border with a Palestinian state based on the 1967 armistice line should now be out of the question. I'm reminded of what our legendary Foreign Minister Abba Eban said in 1969: the borders of Israel before the 1967 war, when Israel took control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, are "Auschwitz" borders, because a country cannot defend itself from those lines. Israel's withdrawing to the 1967 lines would allow the Palestinians to cripple our economy and society with very primitive, short-range Katyusha rockets. The residence of the Israeli President would be a mile's distance from the enemy front line. We cannot permit that to happen.
The conflict is not about the division of land between two equal and rival claims. It is about an existential threat to Israel. The Palestinians are unprepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to exist. Their tactics should come as no surprise to anyone. They have repeatedly walked away from opportunities to establish a state, always holding out for more in the hope that ultimately they will destroy the state of Israel. Abbas has recently made up with Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza and is allied to and funded by Iran. In recent years, Abbas, a man who has denied the Holocaust ever happened, has repeatedly failed to reciprocate any of the good-faith measures Israel has made. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would accept a Palestinian state on the condition that the Palestinians recognize us; they pocketed this without making a similar gesture. We created conditions for their economy to flourish, removing hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints. What reciprocation did they make? The government declared a moratorium on new construction in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). In response, the Palestinians just increased their demands.
We still pray for a Palestinian leader who wants to have peace and who can deliver it. We are waiting for a Palestinian Anwar Sadat, the brave Egyptian President who made peace with Israel in 1979. Abbas is no Sadat. Instead his move at the U.N. is deliberately intensifying the conflict. He's encouraging the Palestinian people to think they are going to have a state on Day One, which is not going to happen. He knows frustration will turn into violence. Abbas has introduced additional instability to a region that is already on fire, while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian, is watching from the sidelines, waiting to reap the prize.
Landau is Israel's Infrastructure Minister and a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home) party