George Mitchell, scheduled to address Lincoln Square Synagogue on March 2, 2002: Is His Record Balanced and Fair?

In late October, 2000, US president Clinton appointed an international investigation commission to investigate the causes of the rioting in Israel, naming an Arab American and former US Senator, George Mitchell, as its chairman.

Mitchell initially evoked a sigh of relief when his commission did not blame Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for instigating the riots in September, 2000 during his visit to the Temple Mount.

However, even with that allegation out of the way, Mitchell accepted all of the other specious PLO premises for the current PLO insurrection:

• Mitchell accepted as a given that the PLO uprising is based on some some kind of movement for “independence and genuine self-determination”, without giving credence to the clearly stated PLO goal, stated in all PLO publications, maps and media outlets, even during the current Oslo process, which remains “liberation” of all of Palestine.
• Mitchell characterized the rioters armed with molotov cocktails as “unarmed Palestinian demonstrators”. a term that they seemed to have borrowed from several PLO information reports that have been published of late.
• Mitchell took the position that security forces do not face a clear a present danger when faced with a mob trying to murder them with rocks and firebombs
• Mitchell did not even mention that the PA has amassed 50,000 more weapons than they are supposed to have, in clear violation of the written Oslo accords, and not only the “spirit of the accords”, which seem to carry more weight with the Mitchell Commission.
• Mitchell accepted the notion that the Palestinian Authority security officials are simply not in control of their own tightly controlled security services.
• Mitchell rejected the notion that the PA planned the uprising, as if the PA did not spend the past seven years preparing its media, school system and security services for any confrontation wit Israel.
• Mitchell described only as an Israeli “view” that the PA leadership has made no real effort to prevent anti-Israeli terrorism, ignoring the message that Arafat has conveyed in his own media for the past seven years.
• Mitchell rejected Israel’s characterization of the conflict, as “armed conflict short of war”; (how else would you describe an army that fires mortar rounds into Israeli cities?)
• Mitchell rejected the right of the IDF to kill PLO combat officers during a time of war, without giving an alternative as to what actions the IDF is supposed to take in any such military confrontation.
• Instead of issuing a clear call to the PLO to stop its sniper attacks on Israel’s roads and highways, Mitchell simply condemned “the positioning of gunmen within or near civilian dwellings”, leaving the observer to assume that PLO attacks from empty embankments would be acceptable.
• Mitchell suggested that “the IDF should consider withdrawing to positions held before September 28, 2000,…to reduce the number of friction points”, ignoring the fact that this would leave the entry points to many Israeli cities without appropriate protection at a time of war.
• Mitchell demanded that Israel should transfer to the PA all tax revenues owed, and permit Palestinians who had been employed in Israel to return to their jobs, strangely recommending that Israel once again be in the position of paying the salaries of the armed PLO personnel who are now at war with Israel.
• Mitchell took out a page from Arab propaganda brochures when it calls on Israeli “security forces and settlers to refrain from the destruction of homes and roads, as well as trees and other agricultural property in Palestinian areas”, not even relating to the remote possibility that some areas of trees and agricultural land had been razed because it had given cover to the PA security forces during combat.
• Mitchell accepted the notion that “settlers and settlements in their midst” remains a cause of the Palestinian uprising, because these Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria violate “the spirit of the Oslo process”, even though not one word appears in the actual Oslo accords would require the dismemberment of a single Israeli settlement anywhere.
• Mitchell somehow found a connection between “settlement activities” and the Palestinian ability to resume and makes a judgment that negotiations cannot continue, so long as “settlement activities” continue, thereby introducing an excuse for the PLO to continue its armed conflict.
• Mitchell accepted the notion that “settlers and settlements in their midst” remains a cause of the Palestinian uprising, because these Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria violate “the spirit of the Oslo process”.

  Mitchell knew full well that not a word appears in the actual Oslo accords would require the dismemberment of a single Israeli settlement anywhere.

• Mitchell never mentioned a word about the role played by UNRWA in its policy of continuing to encourage Arab refugee camp residents to believe that they must return to the homes and villages where they came from in 1948.

• Mitchell never mentioned a word about the new curriculum of the Palestinian Authority which prepares a new generation for war and not for peace