vrijdag 20 september 2013

Israël en de Duitse parlementsverkiezingen (IPI)

 

 

 

http://www.israel-palestina.info/actueel/2013/09/20/israel-en-de-duitse-parlementsverkiezingen/

- door Beate Heithausen –

Op 22 september worden in Duitsland parlementsverkiezingen gehouden. De uitslag zal zeker ook van invloed zijn op het buitenlands beleid van de Bondsrepubliek Duitsland en haar standpunten over kwesties die Israël betreffen.
Het is onbetwist dat Duitsland vanwege haar geschiedenis een speciale band met de staat Israël heeft. Geen van de partijen die in aanmerking komen voor regeringsdeelname, wil hier iets wezenlijks aan veranderen.

Op de website Wahlprüfsteine 2013 Deutschland-Israel krijgen de partijen en individuele politici vijf vragen voorgelegd over het onderwerp Israël, waaraan de onderstaande citaten zijn ontleend, tenzij anders aangegeven. (Klik hier voor een compacte samenvatting en hier voor de volledige antwoorden op alle vragen.)

Alle respondenten erkennen het bestaansrecht ​​van Israël. Echter de opvattingen over hoe het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict op te lossen zijn zeer wisselend, en de formulering van de antwoorden geeft een indicatie voor wat er zou kunnen veranderen in het beleid.

Met het oog op de Duitse geschiedenis worden veel zaken voorzichtiger geformuleerd dan in andere landen en komt het op het eerste gezicht goed over. Als men echter daarnaast de dagbladen en de dagelijkse politiek – en bij Die Linke ook de partijgeschiedenis – in ogenschouw neemt, ontstaat vaak een ander beeld, dat menige "politieke frase" in een andere context laat zien.

Allen spreken zich uit voor een twee-staten-oplossing, maar de beoordeling van het conflict is vaak zeer eenzijdig, waaruit kan worden afgeleid hoe de partijen zich in toekomstige coalities zullen gedragen op het gebied van de buitenlandse politiek.

Dr. Angela Merkel, lijsttrekker CDU en huidige Bundeskanzlerin
Haar bekendste standpunt over Israël is de zin:
"Opkomen voor de veiligheid van Israël is een onderdeel van onze raison d'etat".
In een recent interview met de Jewish Voice from Germany (13 september) bevestigt ze deze uitspraak, en antwoordt op de vraag of anti-zionisme legitiem is:

Voor mij niet, want voor degenen die zoals ikzelf van mening zijn, dat de Joden als volk een recht hebben op zelfbeschikking, is het zionisme als nationale beweging van het Joodse volk de uitdrukking van precies dit recht, dat door zijn tegenstanders wordt afgewezen.

(Klik hier voor het volledige interview in het Engels en het Duits.)

Dr. Philipp Rösler, FDP (huidige coalitiepartner van de CDU)
Philipp Rösler, de landelijke voorzitter van de FDP bevestigt in zijn standpunt ook het bestaansrecht ​​van Israël en het streven naar de twee-staten-oplossing, als ook de intensivering van de contacten op politiek, economisch en cultureel niveau.
Citaat Dr. Philipp Rösler over het Midden-Oosten beleid:

De laatste EU-ministerraad van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft in juli 2013 de steun van de EU duidelijk gemaakt voor het Midden-Oosten vredesproces, met inbegrip van verdere ondersteuning voor de bemiddelingspogingen en het stabiliseren van de regio. Wij steunen deze positie nadrukkelijk.

Over economische samenwerking drukt hij zich als volgt uit:

Wij denken dat daarin veelbelovende mogelijkheden voor samenwerking liggen, gezien het uitstekende Israëlische groeipotentieel en de know-how daar.

Cem Özdemir, landelijk voorzitter van de Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
De kernboodschap van Cem Özdemir in zijn antwoorden is naar mijn mening de volgende :

Duitsland moet in alle discussies over Israel altijd duidelijk maken dat het, los van de samenstelling van de respectievelijke Israëlische regeringen, principieel en volledig het bestaansrecht van de staat Israël ​​binnen veilige grenzen bevestigd, en het zich verzet tegen elke opvatting die deze in twijfel trekt. Evenzo moet Duitsland duidelijk maken dat het essentieel is voor de verdere ontwikkeling en het bestaan ​​van Israël, om het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict op te lossen, en dat Israël in zijn huidige structuur alleen kan overleven, als het conflict in de structuur van twee naast elkaar bestaande staten wordt geregeld. Basis van een zulke regeling is op haar beurt het einde van de ontwikkelingen, die feitelijk of als perspectief de grenzen van 1967 als basis voor een overeen te komen territoriale regeling vervagen of opheffen.

Eigen opmerking: Deze houding wordt ook onderstreept door de positie van de partij om goederen van nederzettingen uit de Westelijke Jordaanoever als zodanig te etiketteren.

Die Linke

Achtergrond: Die Linke ontstond in 2007 door een fusie van de twee partijen PDS en WASG. De voormalige regeringspartij van de DDR, de SED, hernoemde zich in 1990 (na de val van de Muur en de hereniging van Duitsland) tot PDS. WASG stond voor Wahlalternative für Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit, en was medio 2000 opgericht in West-Duitsland.

Dr. Gregor Gysi, fractievoorzitter en lijsttrekker Die Linke
Zijn belangrijkste uitspraak in de enquête:

Een levensvatbare Palestijnse staat moet beschikken over volkenrechtelijk verzekerde grenzen, controle over de eigen grondstoffen en vrije, veilige wegen, ook tussen de Westelijke Jordaanoever en de Gazastrook, en een onmiddellijk einde aan de joodse nederzettingenbouw daar omvatten. De grenzen moeten bepaald worden op grond van die van 1967. Ook moeten bindende regelingen gevonden worden voor terugkeer of compensatie van de Palestijnse vluchtelingen.

Eigen opmerking: Dr. Gregor Gysi was vrijgevestigde advocaat in de voormalige DDR en lid van de SED.
Hij vertolkt de "gematigdere" stem binnen de partij en heeft zelf ook Joodse wortels. Echter verdedigde hij in een interview in 2011 de deelname van enkele partijleden aan de Gaza-flottielje van 2010. In dit interview nam hij ook stelling tegen de beschuldigingen van antisemitisme tegenover Die Linke. Tevens ging hij in op de historisch verschillende Oost- en Westduitse houding ten opzichte van Israël:

In de DDR moesten we altijd solidair zijn met de Palestijnen, ook met andere Arabische volkeren. Allen niet met Israël. De DDR had zelfs geen diplomatieke betrekkingen met Israël. Dat heeft in het oosten een soort schuldgevoel ten opzichte van Israël gevoed.

(De DDR en andere Oostbloklanden volgden het anti-Israël en pro-Arabische beleid van de Sovjet-Unie tijdens de Koude Oorlog.)

Die Linke wordt door alle toonaangevende partijen tot nu toe als mogelijke coalitiepartner uitgesloten, echter zijn op gemeentelijk niveau deze beloften niet altijd gehouden.

SPD

De antwoorden van de partij op de vijf vragen zijn hier als pdf te vinden.

Kernuitspraak: De SPD spreekt zich nadrukkelijk uit voor het uitbouwen en verdiepen van de betrekkingen tussen Israël en de EU. Daarvoor moet Duitsland zich in de Europese Unie met bijzonder engagement inspannen. Israël van zijn kant zou zich meer open moeten stellen voor een nauwere samenwerking met de EU. Daarbij hoort een constructievere bijdrage aan het oplossen van het conflict over de export van producten uit de bezette gebieden naar EU-landen. De Europese Unie moet actieve en concrete ondersteuning bieden aan de door de USA geïnitieerde onderhandelingen tussen Israël en de Palestijnen met als doel een twee-staten-oplossing.

Eigen opmerking: In 2012 vond in Duitsland een grote discussie plaats over de uitlatingen van SPD partijvoorzitter Sigmar Gabriel op zijn Facebookpagina. Vanwege de berichtgeving in de media probeerde Sigmar Gabriel later zijn eenzijdige uitlatingen te relativeren.

Het tijdschrift Focus had hem geciteerd: „Ik was zojuist in Hebron. Dat is voor Palestijnen een gebied zonder rechten. Dat is een Apartheidsregime, waarvoor geen enkele rechtvaardiging bestaat." Daarna zwakte hij dit in twee nieuwe Facebook-commentaren iets af: „Mij is duidelijk dat dit een zeer drastische formulering is. Maar precies zo ervaren de Palestijnen in Hebron hun situatie."

Evenzo zorgde de algemeen secretaris van de SPD Andrea Nahles voor sterke irritaties door te reppen over een „strategisch partnerschap" met Fatah en van „gemeenschappelijke doelen" te spreken. Citaat van de website van Andrea Nahles:

Beide partijen kwamen overeen hun strategisch partnerschap voort te zetten, dat al tot verschillende succesvolle manifestaties en activiteiten heeft geleid. Dit heeft de betrekkingen tussen Fatah en SPD, die stoelen op gemeenschappelijke doelen, verdiept. Dat wordt door beide partijen hoog gewaardeerd.

Persoonlijke conclusie

Samenvattend denk ik, dat onder een Rood-Groene regering in de Bondsrepubliek Duitsland iets zal veranderen in de buitenlandse politiek jegens Israël, daar ik bij beide partijen (SPD en Die Grünen) evenwichtigheid tegenover de conflictpartijen mis.

Dit blijkt niet alleen uit de eenzijdige uitlatingen van Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) bij zijn bezoek in Israël en het „strategische partnerschap" met Fatah, dat Andrea Nahles (SPD) bevestigde, maar ook de acties van Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, die de initiatiefnemers in de Duitse Bondsdag waren voor het apart labellen van producten uit de Westelijke Jordaanoever.

Ook hebben Die Grünen samen met de SPD de levering van duikboten aan Israël fel bekritiseert.

Grünen-fractieleider Jürgen Trittin liet zich volgens Der Spiegel als volgt uit:

Grünen-fractieleider Jürgen Trittin verweet de Bondsregering dat zij bij de duikboot-leveringen de eigen voorwaarden "niet serieus neemt". Zo heeft zij de levering van de laatste van in totaal drie duikboten van de "Dolphin"-klasse ervan afhankelijk gemaakt "dat de Israëlische nederzettingenpolitiek veranderd, de bouw van een waterzuiveringsinstallatie in Gaza mogelijk gemaakt en de terugbetaling van Palestijnse gelden aan de Palestijnse Autoriteit eindelijk uitgevoerd wordt", zei hij tegen "Die Welt". Israël heeft echter alleen de derde voorwaarde vervuld.

Dr. Angela Merkel (CDU) heeft eveneens de nederzettingenbouw bekritiseerd, maar bij haar kritiek ging het om de geplande uitbreidingen, niet om de bestaande nederzettingen. Bij een ontmoeting met minister-president Netanyahu verklaarden beiden het volgende (citaat uit Der Spiegel):

"In het nederzettingsvraagstuk zijn we het erover eens dat we het oneens zijn", zegt Merkel. Netanjahu bevestigt dat – "onder vrienden mag men verschillende meningen uiten".

Angela Merkel heeft zich steeds uitgesproken voor een twee-staten-oplossing, rekening houdend met de veiligheidsbelangen van Israël, en staat in voor een voor beide conflictpartijen acceptabele oplossing.

(Uit het Duits vertaald door Wouter) 

 

donderdag 19 september 2013

Hamas weerhoudt studenten Gaza van reizen naar Egypte

 

De Palestijnen in de Gazastrook hebben de laatste tijd vooral te lijden van Egypte en Hamas. Net nu Egypte de grens weer even heeft geopend, na aandringen van president Abbas, sluit Hamas de grens. Nee, geen verontwaardigde artikelen, demonstraties en oproepen tot boycot van Hamas door de bekende pro-Palestina activisten. En ook geen flotilla’s. 

 

RP

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Report: Hamas prevented Gazan students from going to Egypt 

 

From the PA's official WAFA news agency, confirmed by Palestine Press Agency:

 

 

Hamas police Wednesday prevented Gaza students seeking to travel to Egypt through Rafah crossing to reach their colleges abroad from leaving the Strip, according to the students.

They said that around 200 students gathered at Rafah crossing after Egypt has decided to open it for a couple of days to allow students and other humanitarian cases out of Gaza.

However, Hamas members attacked the students with clubs and pushed them back with their jeeps to prevent them from leaving Gaza.

Students said that Hamas did this because they coordinated their travel with the Palestinian embassy in Cairo, as requested by the Egyptian authority to facilitate their travel.

The Palestinian embassy in Cairo had asked students who want to leave Gaza to attend colleges abroad to coordinate their travel through it due to the closure of the Rafah crossing since last week following an attack on Egyptian security personnel in Sinai.

Egypt agreed to open the crossing briefly on Wednesday and Thursday for special cases after President Mahmoud Abbas Monday called the head of the Egyptian intelligence, Mohammed Tohami, and requested that Egypt allows students, the sick and humanitarian cases to leave Gaza.

 

The siege of Gaza by Hamas continues!

 

Interview met Eitan Haber over Rabin, Oslo en vrede

 

Een interessant interview met Eitan Haber, naaste medewerker van Rabin toen hij werd vermoord in 1995 door een rechts extremist. Hij is nuchter, zoals veel Israelische politici nuchter worden wanneer ze op het pluche zitten en te maken hebben met de realiteit van de machtsverhoudingen.

Let there be no misunderstandings, I want the Israelis to live in Judea and Samaria. I want Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. The difference between me and those in the other camp is that I recognize the reality. We are only 6 million Jews [in Israel] in a world of a billion and a quarter Muslims. America is with us, with a limited guarantee, as long as she wants to be with us.

Over de redenen waarom Oslo geen vrede bracht:

They didn't bring peace because, I think, it became clear to everyone — and I think that this was the greatest downside of the Oslo Accords — that the problems are much deeper and harder and wider than it was possible to imagine. It's very important to me that you emphasize this, though you must differentiate by a thousand degrees of separation, that just as the [former Israeli] residents of Gush Katif [in Gaza] and Yamit [in Sinai] do not forget for a moment from where they were displaced, the Arabs of the Land of Israel as well have not, it seems, forgotten so quickly. It is a fact — they do not forget. And we can shout until tomorrow that they have 21 countries and that they have infinite lands. It's all fine and good, and it makes absolutely no difference to the family that lived in Jaffa or in Acre or in Haifa. They remember. We may not like it, but both sides have to find a solution.

Dat de Palestijnen 'niet vergeten' heeft natuurlijk ook te maken met de indoctrinatie van de kinderen om niet hun eigen woonplaats als hun thuis te zien, maar de woonplaats van hun grootouders, zoals in deze video over de UNRWA zomerkampen duidelijk te zien is. Desalniettemin hebben Palestijnen net als de Joden een historische en emotionele band met het land, en die wis je niet zomaar uit. Zoals het Joden pijn doet om (delen van) de Westoever te moeten verlaten, zo doet het Palestijnen pijn dat hun vroegere plaatsen nu niet meer van hen zijn, en zij er niet naar zullen kunnen terugkeren. Het grootste probleem van Oslo is wellicht dat beide dit verlies niet hebben erkend en beseft maar met andere middelen bleven vechten voor het hele land, al drong in Israel vanaf de eerste intifada het idee langzaam door dat men niet over een vijandige Palestijnse bevolking kan blijven heersen.
RP
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Interview: 'I didn't believe for a second that Arafat was a partner, and I'm not at all sure that Rabin believed he was'
 
'When they become PM, they realize how utterly dependent Israel is on the US'
 
Eitan Haber, Yitzhak Rabin's closest aide, on the 20 years since that White House handshake, why the process failed, and his sense of forgiveness for Netanyahu, who has 'gone much further' toward the Palestinians than Rabin ever did
 / Times of Israel - September 18, 2013, 3:27 pm
 
Exactly 20 years after a clearly hesitant Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat to start the Oslo peace process, and almost 18 years after Rabin was gunned down by an Israeli Jewish right-wing extremist, Eitan Haber, Rabin's closest aide, says he personally never believed Arafat was a partner and isn't sure that Rabin did either. And yet, Haber insists, Rabin thought he could reach a permanent accord with Arafat because he, Rabin, would lead the effort, and he, Rabin, could attain the goal.

Haber issues a series of such complicated observations during an interview marking Oslo's 20th anniversary. He also says that Israel benefited immensely from the Oslo process, even though it did not lead to the hoped-for end-of-conflict accord. He says the second intifada started because of then opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, not because of Arafat. But "to anyone who would say the opposite, I would say, he is also correct."

He says he anticipates US Secretary of State John Kerry, if the current peace talks lead nowhere, "striking the table" and issuing America's "take it or leave it" terms for an agreement… and that if Kerry does so, both sides would be "better off taking it and not leaving it."

Perhaps most interestingly, he displays a highly empathetic, even forgiving, attitude to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who as opposition leader relentlessly critiqued Rabin for rehabilitating Arafat, helping to create a domestic climate of bitter hostility to Rabin. "Netanyahu opposed Rabin when he didn't know anything," says Haber.

And what is it that the Likud leader didn't know 20 years ago, that he does know as prime minister today? That only when you make it to the Prime Minister's Office, says Haber, do you understand the extent to which Israel "is dependent on America. For absolutely everything — in the realms of diplomacy, security, even economically… Slowly your tone changes, because you understand that without the spare parts [from the US], your entire air force is grounded. And when you have no air force you have no defenses. You can barely do anything without America. Her diplomatic support, defensive support, economic support. We are in America's little pocket."

Haber, who first met Rabin when working as a journalist in the IDF, is a regular columnist at Yedioth Ahronoth, with a variety of other business interests. His features have not changed much over the past 20 years — or more pertinently the past 18, since that terrible night, November 4, 1995, when he emerged from Ichilov Hospital to tell Israel and the world, "The government of Israel announces in dismay, in great sadness, and in deep sorrow, the death of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by an assassin, tonight in Tel Aviv."

The following are excerpts of our interview, conducted in Ramat Gan ahead of the Oslo anniversary:

The Times of Israel: Twenty years after the handshake, tell me, when you look back at the historical process — did we destroy it, did they?

Eitan Haber: First of all, I was the only one in the prime minister's bureau who objected to the idea — for one very simple reason: I didn't believe that with one signature, with one ceremony, it would be possible to overcome more than 100 years of terror and spilled blood.  You need years, even decades, of education. In spite of that, I think this event, the Oslo Accords, was possibly the most important turning point and milestone in the history of the State of Israel since the founding of the state, for one simple reason. It removed the masks from all of our faces — Israelis and Palestinians alike.

We all knew exactly where we stood. Most importantly, it removed the most absurd of masks — about not speaking with the PLO, not recognizing the PLO — after it became clear to us that, in fact, the PLO was in charge of the entire Palestinian issue.

We can say that the Palestinians are Jordanians and we can say that they are Cossacks. We can say whatever we want. But in fact, everything went through Tunis, and it was from there that the orders were given. During the period, for example, of the Madrid peace conference, the Palestinians talked and talked and talked, went out, called Tunis, got instructions from there and proceeded according to the instructions from Tunis.

That is also how it was when Rabin, as defense minister, used to meet with large groups of Palestinian leaders from Gaza, from the territories, from the villages, small cities, big cities. Every few weeks there were meetings, with open discussions. But we know that after every meeting, they would report back to the PLO, and would receive instructions from the PLO.

So finally, in 1993, the State of Israel said to itself, the PLO is the partner, there is no other option. We don't love them. But murderers, thieves, contemptible though they are, this is the situation. There is no choice. Peace is made with enemies, exactly as Yitzhak Rabin said.

Now, from that point of view, what happened in Washington and the entire Oslo process became a part of the annals of the Jewish people in the land of Israel for that one simple reason: We now knew with whom we were dealing — the PLO. For good and for bad. That's the story.

Now, did you ever read the Oslo Accords?

I imagine I did – at the time.

There have been additions since, but in the Oslo Accords, the entire Oslo process, a Palestinian state was never mentioned. That term was never mentioned. Bibi started to talk about two states for two people? Well, in the 1980s, I can tell you, only [radically left-wing Israeli politicians] Meir Vilner, Esther Vilenska and Toufik Toubi spoke of it. So we have come a very, very long way since the Oslo Accords.

The accords had holes, that is true, but the accords brought the State of Israel a considerable benefit. Dozens of countries — I believe 36, though I haven't checked it thoroughly — recognized the State of Israel. The prime minister traveled, for the very first time, to various Arab states, to Oman for example, to Indonesia, to Morocco and a few other countries. No one realizes that the prime minister of the state of Israel, had not, until then, ever been to Russia, or China, Japan, Korea. All of those countries opened up to us.

Close to 200 international companies came to Israel — McDonalds, even McDonalds! Scores of kings, presidents, and prime ministers arrived to our shores. We barely had the strength to welcome all of them. Even Prince Philip [husband of Queen Elizabeth II] was here. The president of the Czech Republic, the King of Spain, everyone was here. 

And national growth was 7.4% How much is it today — 2%, 3% at best? It is customary to say, on the negative side, of course, that there were 1,500 killed. That the State of Israeli gave guns to the Palestinians. We didn't give so much as a bullet to the Palestinians. We gave permission. Today, when I lecture and people say we gave them guns, I say we didn't give them even one gun. Not even one gun. Never. I was with a veteran settler leader a month and a half ago. We talked about it. And I said it all started with [the religious settlement movement] Gush Emunim, which adopted the poem of Nathan Alterman — don't let them have guns — they spoke about it during the Spanish civil war. The impression today is that we gave them guns. No.

Everyone talks about the Mitsubishis [given to politicians in return for their votes] and the Oslo Accords — approved by a margin of two votes. Ridiculous. The Oslo Accords passed by an 11-vote majority — the Declaration of Principles. An 11-vote majority. Very nice.

So when was the Mitsubishi for Alex Goldfarb [a right-of-center politician who joined up with Labor]?

That was in the Oslo II Accords [in 1995], on the details of the agreement. And people forget. They needed the vote of Alex Goldfarb and Gonen Segev because Emmanuel Zissman and Avigdor Kahalani left the Labor Party. It's ok that they left? That's fair, that's democratic? But when you bring someone else to replace them, that's not ok?

Okay, but 20 years on, the accords did not bring peace.

They didn't bring peace because, I think, it became clear to everyone — and I think that this was the greatest downside of the Oslo Accords — that the problems are much deeper and harder and wider than it was possible to imagine. It's very important to me that you emphasize this, though you must differentiate by a thousand degrees of separation, that just as the [former Israeli] residents of Gush Katif [in Gaza] and Yamit [in Sinai] do not forget for a moment from where they were displaced, the Arabs of the Land of Israel as well have not, it seems, forgotten so quickly. It is a fact — they do not forget. And we can shout until tomorrow that they have 21 countries and that they have infinite lands. It's all fine and good, and it makes absolutely no difference to the family that lived in Jaffa or in Acre or in Haifa. They remember. We may not like it, but both sides have to find a solution.

Now, how do we get to a situation where they will not remember? This is a very difficult issue. I remember the time that a Jordanian minister visited. I hosted him at a dinner, soon after the peace agreement was signed with Jordan. We were at the David Intercontinental Hotel [in Tel Aviv] and I said to him. You know, this hotel is located on what had been the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa. After the dinner he asked me, can you give me a ride to Jaffa? I said, with great pleasure. I took him — just him and me in the car — and he asked me if I knew where Bustrus Street was. I knew. He then told me the number. We arrived at the house and he didn't get out of the car. He just looked out the car window at the house. It wasn't a house that he remembered. But it was a house belonging to the family. Suddenly he burst into tears. I looked at the tears that were streaming down his face and I said to myself, this, it seems, is the human condition. There is nothing that can be done about it.

Now, will it always be this way? I hope that one day the two sides will see the light and will understand that they are not leaving this place and we are not leaving this place. And so we'll have to live together.

And therefore, I thought, even then, before we traveled to Washington, before Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres went to Washington, I thought that we must be much, much more careful, with many more stops along the way. The Oslo Accords set out a long timetable. No one remembers that. It can't be done in one fell swoop. Though Yossi Sarid wrote an article in Haaretz not long ago that it was a mistake that we didn't go all the way, in one step — back then.

That was also [Oslo pioneer Yossi] Beilin's conviction.

Could be. If, historically, there had been the concept of 'if only,' we could have done an experiment. But there wasn't. There is no concept of 'If only' in history. And therefore we can't work that way.

Once you said to me, though, that if Rabin hadn't been murdered, it would have succeeded.

Rabin's assessment was, in my opinion, that he would be the one to deliver the end-of-conflict agreement — that everything would depend on him, that he would lead, he would do it all, he would get to the goal. And then what happened, happened. And that's how it came to be that the entire process was to a great degree dependent on one man, and that man was no longer.

No comparison, but I remember that when Ezer Weizman [serving as defense minister] appointed Raful [Eitan] as chief of staff, I said to him, 'Weizman, not the most successful appointment that you could have made in your life.' And he said, 'Eitan, I will be defense minister. Trust me. I am the brains. He will do what I ask him to do.' Well, one day, Weizman was gone and we had the Lebanon War.

But the same can be said about the other side. Rabin is gone, yes, but if you believe that we could have reached an agreement if Rabin hadn't been murdered, that still requires another side ready to make peace…

I will never know. And therefore I don't say it with confidence. I say it as an assessment.

It is also, in my opinion, very inaccurate to say that the tens of thousands who came from Tunis with Arafat are those who engineered the Second Intifada. Nonsense. Many of those who came with Arafat were clerks, religious figures, all kinds of administrators. I'm not saying that there weren't terrorists among them. I suppose there were, but there was a seven year gap between the first and second intifadas, so there is no need to exaggerate. I think the Second Intifada started because Ariel Sharon went up to the Temple Mount [in September 2000]. But of course in this case as well, there is no definitive proof. And to anyone who would say the opposite, I would say, he is also correct.

But you thought that with Rabin and Arafat, a deal could have been reached. You really believe that Arafat was a partner?

I didn't believe for a second that Arafat was a partner and I'm not at all sure that Rabin believed he was. But Rabin believed — and of this I am certain, because we spoke about it — that peace is made with these types. I cannot say that he liked him, but toward the end of his life, relations between them were good. Arafat, who was presented everywhere as a liar and a cheat and crook…

and one who encouraged terror

… there were things that he said, and that he said he would do, and he was true to his word. But he also cheated us, and fostered terrorism.

And now, today, with the current effort at negotiations, why do you think Kerry thinks there's an opportunity…?

I think Kerry understands today, better than any of us, that if it will be dependent on the Israelis, nothing is going to happen, and if it is dependent on the Palestinians, nothing will happen. And so, in my opinion, he believes, that in another few months, he will strike the table and will say that, 'Gentlemen, we, the Americans, say this and that and the other.' He will set out what he thinks needs to be done, 'take it or leave it.'

What are the implications of a demand like that?

You're better off taking it and not leaving it. Both sides. I think that he believes that that is how it will be. It is also possible that he is mistaken in this.

I cannot forget for a moment that once, James Baker, the secretary of state, got very angry at Rabin over something, and extended his head over the table and said, 'America is right even when it is wrong.' (Laughs.) America is America. Nothing can change that.

Many people, very many people, ask me what happens to political leaders when they enter the Prime Minister's Office. Is there something in the ventilation system? Is there a special odor that causes dizziness? And I say, no. The people who make it to the second floor of Rehov Kaplan 3 in Jerusalem — only there, only there and not a moment before — is it understood to what extent the State of Israel is dependent on America. For absolutely everything — in the realms of diplomacy, security, even economically — we are dependent on America.

Therefore, when Uncle Sam is angry, they [in the Prime Minister's Office] understand that a lot better than the group of irresponsible people in the Knesset who engage in all kinds of irresponsible argument at America's expense and give advice and instructions.

When you talk about internalizing our dependence on the United States, does that mean that you are a bit more forgiving of Netanyahu?

Of course.

I mean from the historical perspective, as someone who led the opposition to Rabin. How do you feel toward Netanyahu?

When I sit opposite him in the Prime Minister's Office, I see what he carries on his shoulders and how he came to understand over the years the extent to which his steps are constrained and that there is no connection between these incendiary gatherings — where they say, 'We'll tell America,' and 'Who is America to tell us what to do?' — and the truth.

Slowly your tone changes, because you understand that without the spare parts [from the US], your entire air force is grounded. And when you have no air force you have no defenses. You can barely do anything without America. Her diplomatic support, defensive support, economic support. We are in America's little pocket.

Netanyahu opposed Rabin during the years before the murder. Mocked him.

Netanyahu opposed Rabin when he didn't know anything. And today he has gone much further than Rabin. Rabin never spoke about a Palestinian state, two states for two people. Today Netanyahu speaks of this. He could absolutely join the Labor Party's right wing. All of the others are irresponsible and don't understand anything, don't know anything. But when they come to power, if God forbid they come to power, you'll see that they too will inch toward the center, exactly as happened to Ehud Olmert, to Arik Sharon, even to Menachem Begin. It happened to Roni Milo, it happened to Dan Meridor, it happened to Tzipi Livni. All those that came to power were actually in charge of real things, and saw how reality works. All those without experience and often without intelligence, not willing to learn from others' experiences, continue to shout. So the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

And yet we have still not reached an accord. Because the Americans haven't gotten upset enough?

When they are really upset, we will know it. We will know very well when they are upset and it is not recommended that we put them to that test. The fact that the Americans speak in understatement and we say that they are naïve and stupid and that they don't understand the region? It's possible that they don't understand the region and that they are naïve and stupid, but they are America.

And are we obligated to adhere to their suggestions? If they seek to impose a return to the pre-1967 lines…

I don't know what they will seek to impose. I can only tell you that a week or two before Rabin's murder we were in Washington for celebrations marking Jerusalem's 3,000-year anniversary. And Olmert, who was then mayor of Jerusalem, organized a ceremony in Congress to mark the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He had even found a plot of land for the Jerusalem embassy. This was a ceremony with songs and speeches, with members of Congress in attendance and all of the Jewish-American leaders. I said to Olmert, speaking in Rabin's name, that before the US embassy moves from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it'll be another 3,000 years. He laughed and said what are you talking about? It's about to happen. Twenty years have passed since, and even Olmert has changed his opinion.

Let there be no misunderstandings, I want the Israelis to live in Judea and Samaria. I want Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. The difference between me and those in the other camp is that I recognize the reality. We are only 6 million Jews [in Israel] in a world of a billion and a quarter Muslims. America is with us, with a limited guarantee, as long as she wants to be with us.

And Netanyahu understands this?

I am almost certain that he does.

 

Duitsland en Israel na de Bondsdag-verkiezingen: nog 4 jaar vriendschap, nog 4 jaar wantrouwen

 
Ik vind dit artikel wat negatief getoonzet:
Despite Merkel's assurances that Israel's security is a cornerstone of German foreign policy, actual backing amounts to little more than limited military aid and supportive declarations. Merkel categorically rejects any military intervention by German troops in the Middle East, including to support a US-led strike on Syria. The chancellor and her foreign policy advisers also firmly oppose Israeli settlements in the West Bank and reject Jerusalem's argument that Israel needs a permanent military presence in the West Bank to guarantee the Jewish state's security.
Dat Duitsland niet militair wil interveniëren is gezien de geschiedenis alleszins begrijpelijk. En Merkel verzet zich niet bijzonder heftig tegen de nederzettingen, net als de VS is ze tegen verdere uitbreiding en pleit ze voor een tweestatenoplossing, maar binnen de EU neemt Duitsland consequent een pro-Israel positie in en wil men aan dit standpunt geen harde consequenties verbinden.
 
De conclusie is zelfs wat cynisch van toon:
After the September 22 election, the relationship between Germany and Israel will likely remain courteous, at least outwardly, with Berlin supporting Israel via friendly statements and practical military and diplomatic assistance. But behind the scenes, the German government — regardless of who sits in the Chancellery or the Foreign Ministry — will not change its longstanding positions regarding Israel and the Middle East, which include a complete rejection of any military intervention on Israel's behalf, and more importantly, staunch opposition to Israeli settlements, and a deep distrust in Jerusalem's policies toward the Palestinians.
Het lijkt me van belang dat Israel haar vrienden koestert, ook als men het niet over alles eens is. Overigens heeft Duitsland vaker aangegeven dat Israels veiligheid een kernpunt is, en daarbij lijkt duidelijk dat men Israel ook met wapens zou steunen, mocht dat nodig zijn. En het wantrouwen in Netanyahu is natuurlijk niet geheel onbegrijpelijk, al zou dat wat mij betreft gepaard mogen gaan met een nog groter wantrouwen in president Abbas' ware bedoelingen.
 
RP
-------------
 
German officials repeat that Israel's security is important to them, but can't really explain what that means
 
Four more years of friendship, four more years of distrust
 
Angela Merkel expects to be reelected in Germany next Sunday, and an advocate of dialogue with Hamas who accused Israel of running an 'apartheid regime' in Hebron might end up as her deputy
 
 / Times of Israel - September 18, 2013, 8:59 am
 
 
BERLIN — Germany's Chancellor Angel Merkel is set to cruise to an easy reelection this Sunday, securing a third term at the helm of one of the world's most important countries and one of Israel's closest allies. But while Berlin is, besides the United States, Jerusalem's best friend and remains committed to unswerving support for Israel on the international stage, the personal relationship between Merkel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rocky over the last few years.

Despite Merkel's assurances that Israel's security is a cornerstone of German foreign policy, actual backing amounts to little more than limited military aid and supportive declarations. Merkel categorically rejects any military intervention by German troops in the Middle East, including to support a US-led strike on Syria. The chancellor and her foreign policy advisers also firmly oppose Israeli settlements in the West Bank and reject Jerusalem's argument that Israel needs a permanent military presence in the West Bank to guarantee the Jewish state's security.

While surveys predict a comfortable victory for Merkel's center-right party, one possible outcome of the September 22 election could see the foreign minister's post, and that of Merkel's deputy, go to the leader of the Social Democrats — a self-declared friend of Israel, yet one who last year accused the Jewish state of running an "apartheid regime" in Hebron and who advocates for dialogue with Hamas.

After a lackluster campaign, in which foreign policy issues were almost entirely absent, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leads comfortably in all polls. Her party is predicted to garner between 39 and 41 percent of the vote, about 6 percent more than four years ago. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is expected to come in a distant second, polling somewhere between 23 and 27 percent, giving its candidate for chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, little reason to believe he can unseat her. Asked who is better suited for the top job, every second German points to Merkel; only about 30-35 percent name her competitor from the center-left.

What makes the 2013 election interesting is the question of whether Merkel's traditional coalition partner — the pro-business Liberal Democrats (FDP) — will pass the 5 percent threshold needed to enter parliament. Since 2009, when the party reached nearly 15 percent, it has decreased dramatically in the polls and now fears for its very survival. (This past Sunday, the FDP received only 3 percent of the vote in elections for the Bavarian parliament, and Germany's most populous state is considered a barometer for national trends.)

But even if the FDP — the party of Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle — does gain 5 or 6 percent, as current polls predict, and enters the Bundestag, Merkel's CDU will still not have the necessary majority for a stable coalition. (On the other hand, the SPD and its traditional coalition partner, the Green Party, are also far from a majority.) Therefore, the most probable outcome of the election is a so-called Grand Coalition of the two large centrist parties, with Merkel as chancellor and with the leader of the SPD as vice chancellor and foreign minister.

But Steinbrück, the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, is unlikely to agree to such a deal, according to political scientist Marco Michel of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. "Steinbrück is 66, he will not play second fiddle to Merkel," Michel predicted. Therefore, if the Social Democrats fail to replace Merkel, Steinbrück will most probably retire from political life and let party chairman Sigmar Gabriel become vice chancellor and foreign minister in a coalition with Merkel, Michel said.

Wary after Westerwelle

In Jerusalem, not everyone would be thrilled about Gabriel replacing Westerwelle, who is perceived as a true friend. (Unlike many of his European colleagues, Westerwelle had good personal ties with former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman.)

Although Gabriel has visited Israel about 20 times and considers himself a supporter, controversial comments he made last year after a visit to the region may lead Jerusalem to suspect he has less patience for Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians than his predecessor.

"I was just in Hebron. There's a legal vacuum there for Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime, for which there is no justification," Gabriel posted on his Facebook wall in March 2012. The post quickly drew hundreds of responses, mostly from pro-Israel surfers, some of whom threatened to cancel their memberships in his party. Gabriel quickly clarified his remarks in two follow-up posts, saying that he didn't mean to compare Israel with South Africa's apartheid regime but that he was "immensely angry" about how Palestinians were treated in Hebron.

"I think [Israel's] current settlement policy is wrong and I consider the conditions [in Hebron] undignified," wrote Gabriel. "We are not doing any favors to us or our friends in Israel if we continue veiling our criticism in diplomatic figures of speech."

The situation for Palestinians in Hebron is "indeed terrible," Gabriel opined, adding that even Israeli soldiers he met there told him they found the conditions "unbearable." Israel has the right to defend itself, as it is the only state in the world whose neighbors question its right to exist and whose citizens suffer daily from rocket attacks, he asserted. "But that is no justification for continuing with a settlement policy such as the one that can be witnessed in Hebron. It shouldn't lead to us prohibiting ourselves from criticizing the errors of the Israeli government."

In another post, Gabriel answered critics who were offended by him referring to Israel as an apartheid regime. "I am aware that this a very drastic term. But that's exactly how the Palestinians in Hebron see their situation. That drastic term is what came to my mind during the talks and visits in Hebron."

Gabriel said he did not mean to compare Israel with apartheid South Africa, as that would be "more than unfair" to the Jewish state. "But the humiliating way Palestinians are dealt with in Hebron exceeds much of what one is used to from the West Bank. And this makes even someone like me, who supports Israel, immensely angry."

Gabriel is also on the record saying he wants Israel to engage in dialogue with Hamas. "Hamas is a factor in this conflict. And you can't solve a conflict if one factor is being ignored," Gabriel told reporters in Jerusalem in 2012. He also said that he fully supports the Palestinians' efforts to have Palestine accepted as a member state of the United Nations, "because there is no counterargument to that."

Despite these comments, officials in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem this week said they weren't worried about Gabriel becoming foreign minister. "That's the way it is in democracies: elected leaders come and go," an official told The Times of Israel. "Personal relationships are a mystery. Who expected gay, liberal Westerwelle to get along so well with hawkish and powerful Liberman?"

While some see Gabriel as the top candidate for the Foreign Ministry post, others doubt that his party would agree to join Merkel in a governing coalition. Such a partnership, first tried out after the 2005 elections, resulted in a historically poor result for the Social Democrats in the 2009 elections. "I can imagine there are a lot of people in the SPD who aren't going to be interested at all in being junior partners with Merkel again. They saw where that led them last time," Cologne University political analyst Thomas Jaeger told Reuters.

Another possible, though unlikely, scenario, in case the Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats alone fail to get a stable majority, is Merkel's conservative party teaming up with the Greens.

"But the Greens and the CDU are far away from each other ideologically," said Özcan Mutlu, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives and Bundestag hopeful for the environmentalist party. To be able to govern, a coalition needs a majority in both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat (a legislative chamber comprising regional representatives) and there are currently no CDU-Greens partnerships in any of the 16 German states, he said. "To govern with them would be torture, and we're not sadomasochists."

The outsiders

There is also some potential for surprises in an otherwise dull election campaign: two novel parties with high hopes (but little actual chance) of making it into the Bundestag. The Piratenpartei, a local offshoot of the global pirate movement with 30,000 members, is already represented in four regional parliaments and at some point was predicted to get 10-13 percent in national elections. But since the party's charismatic political director Marina Weisband — a Kiev-born Jewish immigrant to Germany — announced her withdrawal from politics last year, the party has plunged in the polls and seems unlikely to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the Bundestag.

Yet party leaders are tirelessly working on their campaign, promoting their message of transparency and grassroots democracy, still believing that a turnaround is possible. "Our voters aren't the types to answer pollsters on the phone," the party's deputy chairman, Markus Barenhoff, said, adding that 30 percent of voters are still undecided and that a concerted advertising campaign could still bring about the desired support.

The Pirates only adopted a foreign policy platform a few months ago. "We don't have any specific positions on different countries," Barenhoff, wearing sneakers and a black-hooded sweater, told The Times of Israel recently in the Pirates' Berlin campaign headquarters. After a lengthy debate, the party decided not to rule out military interventions in third countries entirely. Yet rather than intervene in conflicts, such as the Syrian civil war, it would be better to do more "to prevent" situations where military action becomes necessary, he said. "I think what we don't want to get to is to have this responsibility to protect." Force should only be used when a country is either directly attacked or when sanctioned by the United Nations, he said.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Piratenpartei does not "have any official position," said Barenhoff, who visited Israel for a few weeks in 2010. "It's a very complicated situation." On a personal level, he added: "As a German, one has to be pretty, pretty cautious." His hope is that via the Internet the people of the Middle East will discover that they are all humans and all simply want to be happy, he said.

Another party that garnered much media coverage but currently faces an uphill battle in the polls is the Alternative fuer Deutschland. Founded in April by a group of academics, the party opposes bailouts for European countries in financial trouble.

While few believe the new party stands a chance, at least one recent survey predicted results that could give the AfD some hope. If disappointed CDU supporters and a few protest voters decide to place their trust in the hands of a six-month- old party run by intellectuals, anything is possible. "It could still get exciting," top pollster Klaus-Peter Schöppner told the German weekly Der Spiegel last week regarding the AfD.

Neo-Nazis are playing only a marginal role in this election. A handful of far-right parties are running: Republikaner, Die Rechte, Pro Deutschland and the National Democratic Party (NPD), which is present in two regional parliaments. But not even the NPD stands the faintest chance of making it into the Bundestag. Together, all four parties on the far-right spectrum are not expected to gather more than 2 percent.

Regardless of the election's outcome, Germany was and will remain one of Israel's staunchest allies, both in terms of military assistance and strong backing in international forums such as the United Nations. This support doubtless stems from Germany's dark history; politicians and diplomats in Berlin instinctively feel they "owe" the Jewish state something, though many are highly critical of the course that Israel's right-wing government has been taking.

Doubts over Netanyahu

The relationship between Merkel and Netanyahu has been tense for years, partly because the Israeli prime minister allegedly leaked contents of a private conversation to the media but mainly because she doesn't trust him. In the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, dubbed the "washing machine" by locals because of its peculiar architecture, there is a general mistrust regarding Netanyahu's commitment to a two-state solution.

Some of Merkel's foreign policy advisers believe Israel's participation in the newly resumed peace talks is all bluff. They are totally disillusioned about the prospects for peace, wondering why the Palestinians even agreed to negotiate, despite knowing full well that the prime minister will never agree to their terms for a Palestinian state.

But no German official will ever dare to air such assessments on the record — at least not for the time being. And for all the distrust, Berlin has declared again and again that Israel's wellbeing is one of its foremost foreign policy goals.

In a 2008 speech in the Knesset, Merkel declared that Israel's security is part of her country's "raison d'etat" (Staatsraison in German). Therefore, she vowed, "Israel's security will never be open to negotiation." While she never explicitly pledged to defend Israel militarily if it ever came to a confrontation in the region, some commentators took that statement as a guarantee of exactly that, and criticized her for making promises she didn't intend to keep.

Therefore, German President Joachim Gauck said last year during a visit, rather less dramatically, that "Israel's security and right of existence are determining factors of German policy — Israel shall live in peace and secure borders." When reporters asked him a day later whether he agreed with Merkel's dictum of Israel's security being Germany's "Staatsraison," he responded that he wouldn't have used that phrase. "I don't want to think in war scenarios," he said, adding, however, that "Germany should be the very last country to revoke its friendship and solidarity to Israel."

Merkel, asked last week what her commitment meant concretely in a time of crisis, responded: "That means that we'll never be neutral and that Israel can be sure of our support when it comes to ensuring its security. That's why I also said that Germany's support for Israel's security is part of our national ethos, our raison d'etre."

Last week, The Times of Israel asked Lars Zimmerman, a Bundestag hopeful from the chancellor's CDU party who is running in Berlin's Pankow district, what he thought of Merkel's statement. For long seconds he didn't say anything, thinking hard about an answer. "I don't know," he said finally. "I've never thought about it." While he doesn't believe that Merkel intended to promise German boots on the ground in case Israel was under fire, he added a few moments later, the "protection of Israel" was "absolutely" a cornerstone of the CDU's foreign policy.

Israel's security is important to German officials, but no one — as Zimmerman's hesitant response underlined — can really explain what that means. Berlin has helped Jerusalem acquire advanced submarines and vowed to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. "Containment is not an option," is a slogan used by some senior German officials. Yet no one is willing to elaborate on what Berlin intends to do if Tehran indeed gets the bomb. And there are no German contingency plans for a possible scenario in which Israel launches a strike at Iran's nuclear facilities and the Islamic Republic and its allies retaliate, a senior official admitted recently. (Still, another source in Berlin said that if Israel were under attack and asked Germany for Patriot anti-missile batteries, "we wouldn't think twice.")

Similarly, Germany has declared that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, but both Merkel and her Social Democrat challenger agree that the Bundeswehr will under no circumstances join military action against the Syrian regime for using them. Scarred by World War II, many Germans are exceedingly wary of military campaigns abroad. "It's better to debate for a thousand hours than to have one minute of war," one prominent FDP politician said earlier this month.

After the September 22 election, the relationship between Germany and Israel will likely remain courteous, at least outwardly, with Berlin supporting Israel via friendly statements and practical military and diplomatic assistance. But behind the scenes, the German government — regardless of who sits in the Chancellery or the Foreign Ministry — will not change its longstanding positions regarding Israel and the Middle East, which include a complete rejection of any military intervention on Israel's behalf, and more importantly, staunch opposition to Israeli settlements, and a deep distrust in Jerusalem's policies toward the Palestinians.

 

woensdag 18 september 2013

Het UNRWA dilemma

 
Hieronder wordt de dubieuze rol van UNRWA (nogmaals) uitgelegd betreffende het in stand houden van het Palestijnse vluchtelingenvraagstuk en het opzetten van Palestijnen tegen Israel via het promoten van het 'Recht op terugkeer'.
 
De film 'Camp Jihad' is door UNRWA veroordeeld als zijnde misleidend, maar men gaf toe dat externe organisaties op een UNRWA zomerkamp wel degelijk opruiende workshops hadden gegeven.
Israel steunt UNRWA wat betreft haar sociale en humanitaire programma's, maar protesteert al jaren tegen de politieke opruiing en de infiltratie door Hamas. In de door Hamas bestuurde Gazastrook valt steeds moeilijker een enigermate evenwichtig sociaal en onderwijsprogramma te voeren. Zo eist Hamas gescheiden seksescheiding in onderwijs en andere activiteiten, waardoor UNRWA bv. een marathon in de Gazastrook heeft moeten aflassen.
Ook de lesprogramma's van UNRWA staan onder druk van Hamas.
 
Wouter
________________
 

The UNRWA Dilemma

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3979/unrwa-dilemma

by Timon Dias
September 17, 2013 at 5:00 am

If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that arrives only because the conflict still exists, there isn't much incentive for ending the conflict.

The Palestinian people, according to a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, have received per capita, adjusted for inflation, 25 times more aid than did Europeans to rebuild war-torn Western Europe under the Marshall plan after the Second World War.

Most of these funds, according to the study, reached the Palestinian people through The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

UNRWA is the only UN refugee agency dedicated to a single group of people, and the only agency that designates individuals as original refugees if they have lived in areas affected by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, for a minimum of only two years, before being displaced. UNRWA is also the only UN agency that designates the descendants of the original refugees as refugees as well – even though 90% of UNRWA-designated refugees have never actually been displaced.

UNRWA, furthermore, violates the UNHCR Refugee Convention by insisting that two million people (40% of UNWRA's beneficiaries) who have been given full citizenship in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, are nevertheless still classified as refugees, and by encouraging them to act on a "right of return."

Although, since World War II, fifty million people have been displaced by armed conflict, the Palestinian people are the only ones in history to receive this special treatment.

Before describing why UNRWA is a body that drastically reduces any chance of a lasting peace, let's take a look at which citizens are funding UNWRA. After all: "There is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers' money."

The total 2012 UNRWA budget was $907,907,371. Although the permanent supportive rhetoric for the "Palestinian case" from the Muslim world might lead one to expect that UNWRA is funded mainly by Muslim countries, in fact UNRWA is almost entirely funded by Western taxpayers: The USA, EU, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan pay $644,701,999, or 71% of the annual UNRWA budget. The funds from the second largest donor, the EU, are of course already composed of EU taxes from its member states.

So where do the Muslim states rank? First in, at #15, is Saudi Arabia. The land of palaces and private gold leaf painted Airbus A380's on the Royal runways chipped in $12,030,540 -- less than half of a tiny country such as the Netherlands. Second, at #18, is Turkey, the supposedly economically flourishing state of a prime minister who zealously supports Hamas, but which contributes only $8,100,000. Qatar, which stands accused of paying millions in bribes to win the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, and is now spending millions on the construction of high end soccer stadiums, contributed exactly $0 to its Palestinian brothers in faith.

These figures also reflect the nature of the role Muslim countries play in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. In their rhetoric, they are permanently hostile towards Israel and sympathetic to slogans such as: "Free Palestine," still basically a euphemism for "Destroy Israel." Even this meager support, however, appears to strengthen the Palestinian leadership's resolve to say no to peace whenever that occasion arises. The non-existence of peace, however, is what perpetuates Palestinian agony, along with Muslim states' refusal to deliver anything helpful when it comes to either the material needs or the human rights of the Palestinians. The role of most Muslim states in the conflict therefore seems a subversive one, aimed at the perpetuation of Palestinian suffering to divert attention from their own deficiencies such as their terrible human right record, lack of democracy, and the repression of their own peoples; Assad allegedly lavishly paid Syrian Palestinians to storm the Israeli border in 2011, to divert attention away from his bloody crackdown on his countrymen and to let the world media focus on Israel shooting Palestinians on the border.

Muslim states use the Palestinian people as pawns in a hostile game of chess against Israel.

Now that we know where the money does and does not come from, it might be helpful to review how UNWRA spends it. Just a minor detail to keep in mind along the way: The personal wealth of PA president Abbas is estimated at $100 million. UNWRA also funds for Palestinian children summer camps in which the entire focus seems to emphasize the children's right of return to the villages in which their grandparents are said to have lived, as well as the means to achieve this: Jihad – as shown in a rather disturbing documentary, Camp Jihad, produced by David Bedein.

In one scene from it, for example, a woman asks children to tell her where they are from. They respond with Jaffa, Haifa and so on, but admit they have never been to these places. The woman then shouts: "We will return to our villages with power and honor. With god's help and our own strength we will wage war and with education and jihad we will return!"

A still shot from the documentary film "Camp Jihad".

In another scene, a group of even younger children is told by a woman in traditional Arab clothing that: "Our grandparents were having a BBQ on the beach, and then a wolf appeared. Who was the wolf? The Jews. What did the Jews do to us? They expelled and deported us. They killed us and shot our families."

Apart from summer camps like these, the whole implementation of UNWRA might actually be counterproductive. If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that only arrives annually because the conflict still exits, there isn't much incentive for ending the conflict.

But there might be something more fundamental at play. German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn's 2003 book, Sons and World Power, explores the relation between war and the number of males in a society. Heinsohn writes:

[D]espite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in its own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war-by-proxy against the Jews of Israel.

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- as in Algeria -- would…be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.

Despite the many subversive factors UNRWA adds to an already volatile situation, however, there is outspoken Israeli support for UNRWA. These voices, however, always strongly emphasize that UNRWA should limit its work to humanitarian missions, and refrain from political alignment – even though this train has long-since left the station. In 1967 the Comay-Michelmore Exchange of Letters initiated Israel's policy of cooperation with UNRWA. As recent as 2009 this policy was reaffirmed by a representative of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry, Dr. Uri Resnick, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he proposed to maintain "close coordination."

In 2010, Canada's government of Stephen Harper redirected its UNRWA funding directly to the Palestinian Authority to increase accountability. In 2011 the Dutch government announced it would thoroughly review its UNRWA policy. The Israeli government urged its allies to leave their UNRWA policies as they were. As Steven Rosen and Daniel Pipes explain:

Israeli officials distinguish between UNRWA's negative political role and its more positive role as a social service agency providing assistance, primarily medical and educational. They appreciate that UNRWA, with funds provided by foreign governments, helps one third of the population in the West Bank and three-quarters in Gaza. Without these funds, Israel could face an explosive situation on its borders and international demands that it, depicted as the "occupying power," assume the burden of care for these populations. In the extreme case, the Israel Defense Forces would have to enter hostile areas to oversee the running of schools and hospitals, for which the Israeli taxpayer would have to foot the bill – a most unattractive prospect. As a well-informed Israeli official sums it up, UNRWA plays a "key role in supplying humanitarian assistance to the civilian Palestinian population" that must be sustained.

By perpetuating the Palestinians' refugee status and enabling a demographic that does not educate its members for peace, UNRWA is an obstacle to peace. Ironically, however, UNRWA's humanitarian work relieves Israel of the hypothetical "responsibility" of caring for over five million Palestinians.

Can the West, as UNRWA's largest funder, do anything to realize a more balanced UNRWA policy? In the same piece Rosen and Pipes offer an option that unfortunately has not yet been put in to practice:

Can the elements of UNRWA useful to Israel be retained without perpetuating the refugee status? Yes, but this requires distinguishing UNRWA's role as a social service agency from its role producing ever-more refugees. Contrary to its practice of registering grandchildren as refugees, Section III.A.2 and Section III.B of UNRWA's Consolidated Eligibility & Registration Instructions allow it to provide social services to Palestinians without defining them as refugees. This provision is already in effect: in the West Bank, for example, 17% of the Palestinians registered with UNRWA in January 2012 and eligible to receive its services were not listed as refugees.

Given that UNRWA reports to the UN General Assembly, with its automatic anti-Israel majority, mandating a change in UNRWA practices is nearly impossible. But major UNRWA donors, starting with the US government, should stop being accomplices to UNRWA's perpetuation of the refugee status.

Donor states should, therefore, consider attaching strict conditions to their funding. With its annual $233,328,550 donation, the US should take the lead, and individual EU member states could inquire what the actual share of each is in the annual $204,098,161 EU donation, and then seriously consider imposing conditions on delivering this share.

If the current situation is left untouched, the Palestinians are left suffering, fed on dreams and violence.