December 16, 2009
Constants and variables in the middle east
Ethan Bronner writes about Israeli PM Netanyahu:
After a long career supporting Israeli settlements in occupied land and rejecting Palestinian statehood, Mr. Netanyahu said last June that he accepted the two-state idea. Three weeks ago, he imposed a 10-month freeze on building Jewish housing in the West Bank, something no Israeli leader had done before. Settlers are outraged, and Mr. Netanyahu is facing a rebellion in his party. Together with his removal of many West Bank checkpoints and barriers to Palestinian movement and economic growth, these steps went well beyond what many ever expected of him.Yet skepticism would be a polite way of describing the reaction of the Palestinians and much of the world, who view his steps as either too little too late or a ruse aimed at buying time to pursue his real agenda.
Interestingly, the article never mentions that the first time Netanyahu was Prime Minister he withdrew Israeli forces from most of Hebron. (By the way, the world acquiesced to the Arab conquest of Hebron by force largely as a consequence of the pogrom in 1929.)
Still Bronner gets to the heart of the problem:
But the Palestinians have concluded that they can get further by appealing to international bodies than by returning to talks with this Israeli government. Mr. Abbas repeated his rejection of talks without a full settlement freeze at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Council on Tuesday. Palestinian politics are also deeply divided not only between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank but also within each group.
This, of course, leads to a question, why is there a need for such an article?
Israel hasn't made peace with the Palestinians regardless of who the Israeli Prime Minister had been.
Consider that the Clinton administration was constantly at odds with Netanyahu during his first stint as Prime Minister. The administration must have been thrilled when Ehud Barak was elected. But the Camp David summit didn't work out the way they'd planned and two months later Arafat lauched the "Al Aqsa Intifada." And then:
On December 23, 2000, the United States proposed the creation of a "non-militarized" Palestinian state on 95 percent of the West Bank, plus three percent more traded to it by Israel, plus all of the Gaza Strip, with its capital in east Jerusalem. In other words, this would have been equivalent to about 99 percent of the pre-1967 territory then ruled by Egypt and Jordan.Israel would have annexed small areas including three areas with large populations of Jewish settlers: Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Adumim, and Ariel. All of east Jerusalem would have become Palestinian--including the al-Aqsa Mosque--except for post-1967 Jewish neighborhoods, the Western Wall, and the Jewish Quarter. Israel would have gotten an existing access road--which is about ten feet wide--to the quarter. There would be an international observer force in the Jordan Valley, along the Palestinian-Jordan border, to see that heavy arms or foreign soldiers were not being smuggled into Palestine.
In addition, though this was not spelled out in the specific proposal, the level of aid and compensation to the Palestinians then being talked about by the United States was at around $21 billion.
On December 28, 2000, the Israeli government approved of the offer with only one condition: that the Palestinians accept it, too. For the record, I supported that plan, too.
Yasir Arafat turned it down.
More recently, in the waning days of his tenure as Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert made an offer to Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas too turned it down. For all the talk we hear of the urgency of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians seem not to feel much urgency.
So then the question isn't really whether or not, or how much Netanyahu has changed, it doesn't make a difference. The question is when will the Palestinians change.
Crossposted on Yourish.
Posted by SoccerDad at December 16, 2009 5:40 AM
Hezbollah in passive voice
A cynical and mistrusted offer
Wapo: peace process succeeding because of the great work of the administration
Council speak 100610
Nyt: peace process failing despite the great work of the administration
Do we have enough regulations yet?
Iranian General: "US, Mossad played roles in 9/11 event"
Absolving arafat, ten years later
Rahm can't run? antisemites!
The politics of peace
Israel could have a leftist Prime Minister who gives the Palestinians everything they want and it will never be enough for them. If Israel agreed to Abbas' new condition, the Palestinians would simply come up with a new excuse not to talk to Israel. Its not Israel that is holding up peace; the Palestinians have it clear peace is not on their agenda in our generation.
Posted by: NormanF at December 16, 2009 10:42 AMIt might well have been Israels most generous offer, but it was not nearly enough, in no way comparable, in historical terms, to the generosity which the Palestinians themselves displayed . Israel still demanded much more than the 78% of original Palestine which Arafrat and Abbas offered.What Israel was ready to 'give' the Palestinians was actually much less than the 95% which Israel claimed they were, because even before the caculation of the demensions of the West Bank began, it alway left out certain areas, such as the unilaterally expanded municipality of East Jerusalem, which amounted to 5.5% of the whole. The so callled 5% Israel wanted to annex, cut deep into Palestinian Territory and would have divided it into 3 disconnected cantons in that every time its citizens wanted to cross, or transport goods, they would have to pass through Israeli Territory on roads that Israel could close at will. These and other exactions and indignities, would have locked in place many of the worst aspects of the occupation the Palestinians were seeking to end. It was just Israel offer for the Palestinians to legitimize Israels occupation and rename it Palestine.
Posted by: sass at December 16, 2009 11:28 PM"but it was not nearly enough, in no way comparable, in historical terms, to the generosity which the Palestinians themselves displayed."
..............................
I thank you sass for providing me with much needed comic relief.
I had not been aware before that you are merely doing a parody of a left wing moonbat all this time and I had actually taken you seriously.
Posted by: Laura at December 17, 2009 12:33 PMGlad to help Laura, for this is a web site build on Jewish Mythology which promotes 60 years of zionist propoganda, which can not be taken seriously
Posted by: sass at December 17, 2009 2:35 PMSass, the fact that you keep coming back indicates that you do take it seriously.
Thanks for the inadvertant validation.
Posted by: soccer dad at December 19, 2009 6:36 PMOr could it be that i am amused that there are actually people, purblind orthodoxy , who believe this stuff that you post, even if the evidence shows otherwise.
The same people who give this site credibility are the same people who buy books like Joan Peters 'From Time Immemorial'. Books, just like this web site, which is reinforcing the Zionist Myth.
Hilter once said 'the bigger the lie the more people will believe it'.
The dispossession of the Palestinians by Israel is one of the great examples of Hitler's great lies, promoted by Hitler's ideological heirs.
If the Arab world hadn't refused to accept a Jewish state, the Palestinians would have had their homeland by now. But the Arab world keeps on making demands that would destroy Israel as a condition for peace and the Palestinians keep on rejecting opportunities to set up their own state.
And as I pointed out, if my arguments and those of my friends are so implausible, why do you feel the need to comment? Clearly we must be hitting too close for comfort.
Posted by: soccer dad at December 20, 2009 2:45 PMThat right, it was the Arabs fault that the Palestinians ended up in refugee camps and that the new state of Israel was 'miraculously' cleansed of it indigenous population .
Posted by: sass at December 21, 2009 4:34 AMYes in fact it was. The arabs are exclusively responsible for these refugees, end of story. Multiple arab countries attacked Israel and on top of that ordered arabs to leave in their belief that they would wipe out the Jews and annihilate Israel from its inception. And these same arab states purposely have left them as stateless refugees for all of these decades instead of absorbing them into their own countries in order to be used as a weapon against Israel.
Every other refugee population in the world was resettled. Also the UN has a seperate organization which administers to “palestinian” refugees instead of simply using the one which takes care of the rest of the world’s refugees. Why do you think that is? It is quite obvious that the UNRWA exists for the sole purpose of keeping these people as perpetual refugees to be used as pawns against Israel. And the arabs have useful idiots in the west like yourself to help them.
Posted by: Laura at December 21, 2009 12:38 PMThankfully the Jews, the indigenous people of Israel won and restored their rightful place in their historic homeland.
Posted by: Laura at December 21, 2009 12:42 PM'But the Arab world keeps on making demands that would destroy Israel as a condition for peace and the Palestinians keep on rejecting opportunities to set up their own state.'
Are they something like the same demands the zionist colonialist made against the Palestinians that would destroy Palestine as a Arab country?
What you fail to see is that the Palestinians refugees are now the 'zionists', vowing to return to their 'recent' homeland and accepting no other. The major difference between the Arab Zionist and the Jewish Zionist is that the only connection the Jewish colonialist had to the land of Palestine was spiritual whereas with the Palestinians it is physical.
The one true fear the zionist have, is to have done to them what they have done to others.
Posted by: sass at December 22, 2009 2:54 PMThe physical presence of the Jews in Israel going back 3500 years is proven with tons of archeological evidence. How do can a people be colonialists in their own land?
Posted by: Laura at December 22, 2009 7:31 PM