What were they thinking?
This, many thinking people ask, in reference to the announcement by Israel’s Interior Ministry that it intends to build 1,600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, a Jerusalem neighborhood.
Many other thinking people ask what the Palestinian Authority was thinking when it decided to name a square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, who committed the worst terrorist attack against Israel, killing 37 civilians in 1978.
What were the Israelis and the Palestinians thinking? In both cases, it’s perfectly clear. Israel was thinking that Jerusalem is not up for negotiation.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. There is no building freeze in Jerusalem. Get used to it.
True enough, the fact that the timing of the announcement was without the knowledge of the prime minister does not speak well for his administration. He may have preferred not to make the announcement during the visit of the vice president of the US. However, as Benny Begin put it clearly, had the announcement been made two weeks in advance of Biden’s visit, Israel would have been accused of undermining it. Had the announcement been made two weeks after Biden’s visit, Israel would have been accused of deceiving him.
The fact is, there is never a good time to announce something that either the Palestinians or the US will not like. Apparently, they will never like Israel’s assertion of sovereignty over Jerusalem. The attack against the announcement on the grounds of bad timing is disingenuous. Face the issue. No Israeli government, on either the right or the left, is willing to deny 3,000 years of Jewish history, hundreds of mentions of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible, as over against zero mentions in the Koran. That’s what they were thinking.
Now, the Palestinians are thinking that anyone who harms Israel is a valid fighter against “occupation.” If the so called occupiers are Israeli bus riders, they are legitimate targets. If the dead Israelis are unarmed, then, as PA head Mahmoud Abbas put it, they died as the result of “military activities.” There is no such thing as anti-Israeli terrorism in the eyes of the PA.
The PA is widely deemed “moderate,” but in the thinking of the Palestinians, affiliated with either the PA or Hamas, any Israeli is a legitimate target. Face the issue. The Palestinians do not accept Israel. This is their thinking on Mughrabi Square, named on the eve of indirect peace talks.
The Palestinians will not sit down with the Israelis. This is because of Israeli settlements. To the Palestinians, Jerusalem is a settlement. That is their thinking about 1,600 new apartments in a Jerusalem neighborhood.
Not a positive note for peace talks, whether direct or indirect.
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