Memo to Palestine, Hamas, Qatar, UN : If You Want Peace, Recognize Israel

At a conference in Cairo on Sunday -- to which Israel was not invited for fear of displeasing some Arab attendees such as Qatar -- international donors pledged $5.4 Billion for the Palestinians, to be paid over three years. The total, announced by the co-convenor of the conference, with Egypt, Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende, far exceeded the $4 billion the Palestinian Authority had requested. Half the sum is to be "dedicated" to work in Gaza, Brende said, without detailing the uses intended for the other half. The Palestinian and Egyptian presidents, Mahmoud Abbas and Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, called on Israel to commit to a long-term peace initiative, and he urged Israel to give up land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and accept a fair solution for Palestinian refugees in exchange for full recognition. Speaking at a news conference, Mr Brende said half of the $5.4B promised would be dedicated to reconstruction, and the assistance would be distributed in response to the daily needs of Palestinians. "This is a major breakthrough, a very important signal of solidarity to the Palestinian people in general and not at least to the people that are suffering so badly in Gaza," he said. Envoys from dozens of countries attended the Cairo conference. Qatar alone promised $1B. The US pledged $212 Million in new aid, while the United Arab Emirates and Turkey both committed $200M. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said donations from EU member states would reach $568M. US Secretary of State John Kerry said that with winter approaching : "The people of Gaza do need our help desperately, not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now." He added that anything other than a long-term commitment to peace would be a "band-aid fix." In announcing the UK's $32M donation, International Development Minister Desmond Swayne said in Cairo that the international community could not continue to pick up the pieces of the conflict indefinitely. "It is critical that reconstruction efforts now form part of a process of meaningful political change," he said. In a side conversation with reporters in Cairo, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said his country plans to back a Palestinian UN Security Council resolution that sets a deadline for a two- state solution that includes an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem in November 2016. Both Russia and the US are permanent members of the 15-nation UN Security Council and both have veto power. Although Russia is a member of the Quartet, which calls for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Russia also has a history of supporting unilateral Palestinian statehood initiatives, particularly at the UN. Russia has already recognized Palestine as a state. In 2012 it supported the UN General Assembly resolution that granted Palestine de facto statehood recognition by upgrading its status before the international body from that of an observer nation to a non-member state. The English language website of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, quotes Bogdanov who spoke in Cairo about his country’s support for the Palestinian UNSC resolution : “We think that the Palestinian case is fair, meaning that people have a right to self-determination, up to establishing their state.” ~~~~~ Israel was not invited to the conference, but Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman earlier said any rebuilding efforts would need his government's consent. "You can't reconstruct Gaza without Israeli participation and without Israel co-operation....In any case, we will try to be positive about the civil infrastructure and the rehabilitation of civilians." Rebuilding depends on Israel allowing in enough construction materials, BBC journalist Orla Guerin wrote from Cairo. This is a difficult issue because Hamas has used cement to build tunnels into Israeli territory in the past. Israel destroyed many of these tunnels this summer, one of the main reasons the Israeli atmy entered Gaza. The Gaza Strip, sandwiched between Israel and Egypt, has been a flashpoint in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for years. Israel occupied Gaza in the 1967 Middle East War but pulled its troops and settlers out in 2005. At the time, Israel considered this to be the end of the occupation. But in 2007 Hamas took control of Gaza and began shelling Israeli civilian targets. The UN continues to regard Gaza as part of Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. ~~~~~ UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Israel on Monday to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ban called on Israel to halt settlement construction and enter into peace negotiations. Earlier in Cairo, Ban called on both sides to make peace and condemned the rocket attacks against Israel that helped spark this summer’s conflict in Gaza. But he blamed the war on Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territories, and he called on the parties to finalize an agreement for a two-state solution. “We must not lose sight of the root causes of the recent hostilities : a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights, and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.” Ban added, “Going back to the status quo is not an option; this is the moment for transformational change.” ~~~~~ Although excluded from the Cairo conference yesterday, Israel spoke about the current situation between Gaza and itself. Transportation Minister Katz, one of the ministers closest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the countries who pledged vast sums on Sunday to rebuild the Gaza Strip will have made worthless donations if the people of the Gaza Strip return to terror. Katz issued the warning at a gathering of some 2000 Likud activists : "The Gazans must decide what they want to be Singapore or Darfur....They can pick between economic recovery or war and destruction. If they choose terror, the world should not waste its money." He quoted one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud al-Zahar, who threatens Israel using terminology that the minister said sounded like it came from ISIS about turning Palestine into an Islamic Kingdom and destroying Israel. "The days when the Jews did nothing and were slaughtered are over," Katz said. "If one Protective Edge was not enough, you will get two and three until Hamas terror ends." Katz called upon the international community to learn from its failure to prevent large swaths of Iraq and Syria from falling into ISIS hands. "The next time they offer us a deal in which we withdraw from territory in return for promises and international forces, we will send them to do their homework in Kurdistan," he said. "We will continue to trust only God and the IDF. Jewish blood is not worthless." ~~~~~ Dear readers, exercising all the goodwill I can muster - which is already a leap of faith when dealing with Hamas, Qatar and Russia - I cannot understand why Israel is always expected to walk the first mile, in the hope that terrorists, double dealing Arab states and the Palestinians will keep their promises. They have not. They will not. What we are once more watching is the anti-Israel UN and its donor states muscling Israel into accepting a defenseless position - even though we all know that Hamas wants to destroy Israel, not embrace it in a "two-state solution." Has the UN's Ban-ki Moon ever asked Palestine end the Arab world to recognize Israel's right to exist before peace negotiations begin? No. But this is the key-- the only pre-condition Israel asks for, saying all else is negotiable. The US and Secretary of State Kerry ought to be insisting on this - recognition of Israel - instead of snivelling about the need for Israeli understanding in the face of Palestinian-Qatar-Hamas-Arab intransigence while they continue to plot about how best to kill off all Israelis and destroy their country. Enough. As Prime Minister Netanyahu put it so precisely on 5 October 2014 : "With Hamas, what's there to negotiate? The method of my suicide?"