negotiate with Hamas
Aziz P
That's basically what the former Chief of Mossad, Efraim Halevy, says Israel has to do. Some highlights:
MJ: Should Hamas be required to recognize Israel's right to exist before Israel would talk with it?
EH: Israel has been successful in inflicting very serious losses upon Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank and this has certainly had an effect on Hamas, who are now trying to get a "cease fire." But this has not cowed them into submission and into accepting the three-point diktat that the international community has presented to them: to recognize Israel's right to exist; to honor all previous commitments of the Palestinian Authority; and to prevent all acts of violence against Israel and Israelis. The last two conditions are, without doubt, sine qua non. The first demands an a priori renunciation of ideology before contact is made. Such a demand has never been made before either to an Arab state or to the Palestinian Liberation Organization/Fatah. There is logic in the Hamas' position that ideological "conversion" is the endgame and not the first move in a negotiation.
MJ: Again and again, Israel and Washington too have tried to engineer which Palestinians would come to power, to whom they would speak or recognize, etc. Is this itself problematic? Should the West step back from trying to manipulate internal Palestinian politics?
EH: Yes, for two reasons. First, is the sovereign right of Palestinians to decide who their leadership should be. I think that is the basis of democracy. More than that, it is the best possible way in my opinion for a country or society to determine how it wants to be governed and how it wants to be lead. And second, so far it must be admitted that attempts to do this [manipulate internal Palestinian politics] have not succeeded. After all, in the final analysis, it would not be possible to create and fashion a leadership from without.
Of course this will piss off the insane, rightwing nutcase settler fringebats who think nothing of dragging their children into warzones, who pretend at self-reliance while being heavily subsidized at the ordinary Israeli taxpayers' expense, and who are ready and willing to attack other Jews.
However, why should the lunatic settler fringe deserve a veto over the peace process? They have an invested stake in the status quo. Just like the scum Palestinian terrorists who target children on school buses or civilians at Sbarro, they need the conflict to continue to justify their agenda. The ordinary folk of Israel and palestine want peace, but they are all held hostage.
Related Posts (on one page):
- negotiate with Hamas
- You'd have to think that at some point
So... Israelis don't have the right to live wherever they want in Israel? Or they don't have they right to live in lands that terrorists claim as their own? If that's the case I don't see how any Israeli could live in the nation of Israel.
No, contested or otherwise the "warzones" you are talking about are warzones not because of Israeli activity but Palestinian. Perhaps if Palestinains stopped shooting those "rightwing nutcase settler fringe bats" you're so very concerned about wouldn't get killed.
God help us if Mexico decides to attack the U.S. I can't help imagine the horror that would be visited upon those rightwing nutcase settler fringe bat Texans that actually think they should be allowed to live in Texas.
bull shit.
I never - NEVER - said that.
Israelis have EVERY right to ,ive FREELY within their nation. HOWEVER - the settlements are not Israel. The West Bank is not Israel. Its occupied territory, and its disputed, and all that, but its not Israel.
And the Palestinians have the same exact right to live freely within their state someday - something that the settlements prevent. But I'm not interested in the Palestinians here in this post. Im interested in the issue of Israeli security, not settler fantasies.
The settlers are israel's worst security problem.
The West Bank is the spoils of war. Don't like it? Tough.
The West Bank is only contested by those that lost the war. If they valued the West Bank so much perhaps they shouldn't have attacked Israel.
But, then, that's the whole point, isn't it? A Palestinian state would exist if Palestinians stopped attacking Israel. There'd be peace in the middle east if Arabs stopped attacking Israel. The entire history of Israeli expansion is the result of illegal attacks upon the state of Israel. You'd think Arabs would figure that out by now.
Attack Israel - lose land.
The West Bank is the territory of Israel. Israelis have the right to settle it.
But, how about a compromise? Since it's contested as you say I'll support ejecting Israeli citizens that are settling it.
If you support ejecting Palestinians that have settled it as well.
yes, lets you and I decide the fate of Israel and Palestine. Right here. on this blog. In the comment thread.
I wield enormous power, tis true.
mark, the situation is analogous, but theres the little fact that the American settlers were settling a vast continent with bountiful resources. Im not excusing what happened to the Native Americans but neither would I put them in the same boat as the Palestinans. I am just saying that the Natives were up against a different sort of historical force.
I guess though that I am hopelessly biased because I very much enjoy the fruits of the Western colonization of North America. But really, it was wide open, SOMEONE was going to come here. If not the Europeans, eventually the Chinese for sure.
You want Israelis out of the West Bank but not Palestinians. Thanks for clearing up who you think the West Bank really belongs to.
So we have a choice between supporting a mass ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories, a permanent secondary citizenship for the Arabs in those territories, or a two-state solution. How anyone can claim any moral authority for any but the last is beyond me.
Now the Palestinian people do need to show that they are willing to embrace civilized behavior before they should be allowed the full benefits of nation-state status, and in the meantime Israel is probably the best (and only) choice as a governor of those territories, but part of that responsibility is to preserve the assets and character of the proto nation-state they are in custodianship of, and that precludes the settlements.
unequivocally, yes, because thats the basis of the two-state solution supported by President Bush, supported by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, by Mahmoud Abbas, by Ariel Sharon, by Mossad... by pretty much everyone who has a sincere desire to see the conflict come to and end and Israel exist as a free, and Jewish, nation.
Jewishness, Democracy, Greater Israel. Pick TWO.
oh wait, but not by settler fruitbats nor a certain segment of Christians who have Millenial end-times aspirations towards the Holy Land.
In the eyes of Hamas and most Palestinians, all of Israel is disputed.
Aziz, you fail to recognize that trading land for peace has failed. Israel left Gaza and now Hamas uses it to stage attacks on Israel proper. 12 years ago it began withdrawing from the West Bank, and the attacks INCREASED as it did so. Hamas, Hezballah, and most Palestinians see such land give aways - like Israel's pullout of south Lebanon - as victories to be imitated, not as goals in themselves.
Say Israel swaps land with the PA in the West Bank to incorporate the settlement blocks into Israel in exchange for land elsewhere. Would that be enough for the Palestinians?
Imagine that Israel gave up the Golan Heights. Would Syria not use it to launch attacks in Israel proper the same way Hezballah launches strikes from south Lebanon or Hamas from Gaza?
Land for peace is a failure. It's unfortunate but true.
I say if Jewish settlers in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) want to stay, give them Palestinian citizenship.
Same goes for Likud, UTJ, Shas... Hell, just the other day the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi called to clear Gaza of Arabs the other day.
The simple truth of the matter is that there are many "maximalists" on both the Israeli and Palestinian side of the dispute, although at the same time polls consistently show majorities willing to recognize the statehood of the other side corresponding roughly to the '67 borders.
Syria uses proxies in other states (such as Hezbollah in Lebanon) to attack Israel so that there is a measure of plausible deniability. But I think Syria would be about as likely to attack Israel from its sovereign territory as is Egypt (meaning not very). Syria knows it would be crushed in a direct confrontation with Israel.
Perhaps - so it uses proxies instead. Then instead of the hills of south Lebanon, Hezballah has the heights of Golan to fire rockets into central Israel.
What's lacking is a positive response for Israeli actions. It leaves an area, and does terrorism go down? No, it goes up. It leaves an area - and gets rockets raining down on its cities.
The reason? As I stated above, the Pals/Syrians/Hez view such actions as victories. Giving up land only increases the appetite for land - it doesn't boost the prospects for peace.
Scott, I think you are missing the point. South Lebanon is not Syrian territory, so Syria does not risk much allowing its proxy Hezbollah to operate from there. But Syria knows that Israel would harshly attack Syria if ANY proxy attacked Israel from Syrian territory such as the Golan (witness, for instance, the vast destruction of Lebanon in July '06). Syria may not be a good actor, but its leaders are rational enough (in an economic sense).
The proposals I've seen have the Golan under UN control. That doesn't seem to me to have stopped Hez from operating in Lebanon, so why would it stop them in Syria? Syria would just say "It's the UN's problem - we don't control it."
And then Israel has a 4th front from which to be attacked.
By your reasoning, after we give back Afghanistan to the Taliban, then wouldn't they have give it back to the various warlords that won it before them? And then they would have to hand it over to.... ? Until it finally goes back to the cavemen who were the original owners?
No, the Taliban shouldn't get Afghanistan because the U.S. beat them back. So, unless the Taliban beat the United States back, I don't know what spoils there are to take. I mean, the Taliban is free to try to take Afghanistan back (as they are) but they're not gonna win.
But Israel has no reason to give up the West Bank. It was illegally attacked and seized the land for its own defense. If anyone could say the land previously belonged to them it's Jordan. Israel took the West Bank from Jordan. Jordan isn't asking for it back. What right therefore do the Palestinians have asking for it? It was never theirs to begin with!
Palestinians fled Israel in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli War. They gave up their claim to anything of Israel then. When Jordan attacked Israel during the Six-Day War Israel did not seize Palestinian land - it seized Jordanian land. It was no fault of Israel that Palestinians happened to settle there. And I've see no historical record to indicate that between 1948 and 1967 did the Palestinians try to claim the West Bank as their own from Jordan.
Only when it came under Israeli possession did all of a sudden this group of Arabs need a state of their own. But they already have one, don't they?
It's called Jordan.
I'm pretty sure Peres, in what Romney quoted, meant that not only as a compliment to America but also as a criticism of Israel for its continued occupation of Palestinian land.
It's been said before by better people than I; but the Palestinians could have peace, prosperity, and land tomorrow if they gave up on their racist, blood-thirsty, violent designs.
That's completely false. Palestinians declared a state of their own in 1948. Further, many Palestinians (and other Arabs) protested against Jordan's annexation of the West Bank. In fact, according to Wikipedia, "Only the United Kingdom and Pakistan formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank" -- i.e. not the US and not any Arab states.
So if Mexican immigrants wanted to declare an independent state in South Carolina, saying there already exists a Carolina, North Carolina, why can't we take South Carolina for ourselves, would you agree with that reasoning? Why should Palestinians whose families have lived in the West Bank for centuries be cleared out for recent Israeli settlers?
In such a scenario it's best for all interested parties to let the victory decide what to do (causes the least bloodshed. If a third party or parties attacked the winning nation to give the land back to the losing nation a bloody, mutually-destructive World War would be started which would devastate not only the parties involved but many non-interested parties.), and it is in the best interest of the losing nation to accept the loss and hope the winning side has a moral conscience as good as the U.S. does.
Palestinians claim the West Bank because they live there and have been living there for centuries, and they still constitute, by any measure, the vast majority of the West Bank's population. Not to mention the minor fact that a majority of Israelis support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza.
Sorry, no. To quote the Wiki article you linked:
Only six countries out of every country on the planet reconized this so-called state. And why these six nations did is very clear:
They wanted to weaken Israel and take Jerusalem away from it.
No Palestinian state ever existed - no matter how much you wanted it to.
I never said the world had to recognize Israel's possession of the West Bank. So, it don't really care if it did or not. Last I looked Israel didn't need world approval to defend herself.
So you're arguing squatters rights? Then why not give all of Israel over to Arabs? I mean, the state didn't exist until 1948.
But, if you really want to get picky, and it seems like you do, we need to redraw the border of almost every state in the Middle East because the League of Nations cut up the Ottoman Empire into several mandates after 1922. Prior to 1922 the Ottoman Empire held their entire region going back some 600 years.
So, tell me, how far back do we need to go to find a state for the Palestinians? Because Jews have been in Israel since the Old Testament as well.
If you don't mind I'm not going to go back any further than 1299 looking for some state the Palestinians never had.
So, to recap:
1299-1922 - Ottoman Empire holds Middle East.
1922 - British Mandate for Palestine comprises Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.
May 14, 1948 - Israel declares independence one day before the British Mandate is set to expire using the borders drawn up by the U.N.
1948 - Arab armies attack Israel beginning the Arab-Israeli War.
1967 - The Six-Day War. Israel is illegally attacked on all sides. Seized Gaza Strip from Egypt and West Bank from Jordan.
Palestinians never had a state and have no right to the land they claim as The British Mandate that was used to create Israel also created Jordan. And the land Israel took was never intended to be used as an independent Palestinian state, rather, in essence, the Jews would have their state and the Arabs would have the rest.
If you want to redraw the borders of Israel you must also redraw the borders of Jordan.
Not that this non sequitur matters, but do you have a link? And make it fairly recent, no going back to a study done in the 90s.
Only after 1948 does anyone start talking about Palestinians. And, all of a sudden, everyone thinks it would be quite swell if they had their own state - within Israel.
Nevermind Israel is the size of a matchbook in a football stadium. It has to be on the matchbook.
To be blunt: Arabs never cared about the Palestinians. They're viewed as the white trash of the Arab people. They only came to be important after Israel couldn't be wiped from the plant. You'd think that if their Arab brothers really cared soooooo much about them they'd open their arms and let them in. God knows there's enough space! But, no, that isn't happening. Israel, on the other hand, isn't demanding Jews all over the world be given their own state. No, any Jew is free to become a citizen of Israel at any time.
That is how family treats one another. Israel opens her door to her Jewish brothers and sisters. The Middle East closed its door to its Palestinian brothers and sisters.
The Palestinians are being used as a tool to weaken Israel. Nothing more.
You wrote
nor did I claim otherwise. I was rebuting your claim that Palestinians in the West Bank were just fine and dandy with foreign (i.e. Jordanian) occupation and had never thought of having an independent state until the 1967 occupation. The point about the 1948 declaration of a state is to prove that, against your claims, Palestinian Arabs desired a state of their own. Though Jordan later occupied (and claimed to annex) the West Bank, almost the entire world, as I pointed out, did not recognize this annexation.
Huh? I was talking (as were you, which is why I responded to it) about Jordanian occupation of the West Bank prior to 1967.
Scott
Don't mean to tag team you with my Evil Nemesis Kevin D, but I couldn't resist the temptation.
Poll shows most Israelis support Palestinian State.
It's from November 2001.
I don't give a flying f@&k about what they called themselves, but the descendents of the people who lived there over these 700 years still deserve political self-determination, a basic human right.
Scott,
I'll get back to you soon with that link.
Who are we kidding here? Their endgame is the destruction of Israel. Any negotiations are merely a means to that end.
are you sure about that? given poll results like this, i increasingly wonder whether the leadership of arab-isrealis really speak for their people, and thus whether we're getting a clear picture of their actual 'plight'.
:-( Kevin D. sad now. Kevin D. not want to be anyone's evil nemesis. Especially evil nemesis with capital "E" and "N."
DanielH,
Seeing as how it was the British that drew the borders for both Israel and Jordan, British approval of Jordan getting the West Bank seems to be in line with what it already did. Also, if you read further, even then, while the West Bank was under Jordanian control, Palestinians were attacking Israelis.
Given the advancement of military technology it would be suicide for Israel to give up the West Bank. Israel would be virtually defenseless from missile attack. There is no reason, not one, to believe that if Israel gave up the West Bank peace would ensue.
Really? Huh, where'd you get that fancy idea? Seems like you're reading Western values into a region that doesn't share them. Other than Israel would you kindly point out a Western-style democracy in the region? I'll give you a hint: The number is lower than 1.
You just don't get it, do you? It's all a ploy. The elimination of Israel is the common goal of every nation in the Middle East.
If the Palestinians would put down their arms they'd have a state of their own the next day. The West bank would be theirs.
They're not. Why, tell me, should Israel trust that these people won't continue to attack them after they receive the West Bank?
Better question: How many Israelis should die before Israel is allowed to respond? 10? 50? 100? 1000? 5000? Give me a number.
The attacks will not stop. Ever.
Then you're saying that the Palestinians are in fact Jordanians. When Jordan took the West Bank in 1950 they gave Jordanian citizenship to everyone in it.
So, since the citizens of the West Bank are Jordanian, and Jordan gave up claims to the West Bank in 1988 (if not when they attacked Israel in 1967), the West Bank is rightfully the land of Israel.
Glad you agree!
Did Jesus tell you that it is okay to treat people like shit if they were not born in Western countries? Unlike you (apparently), I still think that it is good when places with imperfect political institutions make improvements. Jordan and Egypt, while far from perfectly free places, give much more political rights to their citizens than Israel does to Arabs in the West Bank, and have four to five times the level of GDP per capita than West Bank Arabs do. Yes, I think it would be preferable if West Bank Arabs had the political and economic opportunities that Arabs in Egypt and Jordan already do. I think it would be even better if someday in the future they could have the freedoms that Turks do. And one day, maybe not too far off (in relative terms) I think they could attain the level of freedom and economic prosperity that Western Europeans currently enjoy. I believe in the power of humans to make their lives better. People all over the world (and not just Westerners!) have been doing exactly that for many thousands of years.
You wanna bring God into this? Great! I'd love to!
The nation of Israel's rightful borders, the Promised Land, are from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates on the west and east, and Lebanon in the north. Can't quite tell where the southern border is.
So, while Jesus didn't really comment on Western cultural norms, His Father clearly lined out where the borders of Israel were to be.
If you're going to call me on the carpet for not doing as Jesus wishes I would, I'm going to do the same to you for denying Israel what is rightfully theirs by the Word of God.
And if you try to wiggle out of that because you don't believe in the God of the Bible, I'll kindly ignore your criticism of me for not keeping the will of Jesus because neither do you. Do not chide me for not doing as you do not do. That's called hypocrisy.
I meant that as a compliment. :P
I might disagree with you alot, but that doesn't mean I don't respect you.
And you're right about Israel.
Uh, that doesn't agree with this recent AP story:
Guess what? I agree. I think there will be a Palestinian state. They have no right to it but that doesn't matter. And that state will be used to weaken Israel further.
Lucky for me then that I put Tanakh Law over international law.
According to the CIA World Factbook:
Egypt has a per capita of GDP of $5,400
Jordan: $4,700
West Bank (including Gaza): $1,100
Well, I know that Gaza is poorer than the West Bank, so I suppose that I might have been slightly off with the multiple of 4-5, but that wouldn't change the fact that Egyptians and Jordanians, on average, are significantly more well-to-do than Palestinians. And I don't see how one anecdote could disprove that.
Here are a number of recent polls.
Thanks, I wasn't doubting you (even if it came off as that) I just wanted to see the stats for myself. That, and I'm a stat geek and love pouring over numbers.
In the eyes of Hamas and most Palestinians, all of Israel is disputed.
That's exactly the problem.
HankB
Now you've forced me to admit I'm a nutter: I don't like the CIA. In fact if I could I would disband the organization. There are some good people in that organization, and I haven't forgotten Mike Spahn, an operative who died in the same battle that Taliban John Walker Lindh was caught in. But it's a bureaucracy - and by definition not effective.
So in short, I don't believe the figures - and it's not from one anecdote. It comes from living in a country where the "average" wage was a dollar a day. Polls can't be taken scientifically in such places, and there's a tendency for people to lie for fear that what they said will be used by the government to tax them.
However at the same time I don't deny that there's poverty in Gaza; there is. But that's cause and effect. The Palestinians in Gaza chose to be ruled by Hamas; they've been blockaded because of that choice, and their economy is suffering as a result. They can choose to end the blockade by throwing out Hamas. Do that and their economy and prospects will improve.
But until they take that step, I do not feel compelled by their suffering. It does not move me in the same way that suffering in Burma or Kenya moves me. The Kenyans who have died have done so because of their tribal origin. They had no choice in the matter. The Palestinians do. They've always had the choice: Coexist or Fight. They've always chosen the latter path and suffered accordingly.
I once sympathized with them, but time after time seeing them choose the gun over the olive branch has hardened my heart to their plight.
Israel isn't giving the Palestinians an independent state now (as opposed to sometime in the future), because it is widely viewed as being a seriously bad idea. There is NO mainstream Israeli movement calling for Palestinian independence now. Show us an example of a single mainstream politician explicitly advocating otherwise.
I am an Israeli who supports a two-state solution in principle, and I sure as heck don't support Palestinian independence now.
The Israeli public might be wrong, but the settlers are a complete strawman.
Jerusalem is more dangerous than most settlements.
Native Americans are called native for a reason.
In any event, it isn't like we don't have parallels in American history. The Republic of Texas was formed by Americans immigrating, some legally, many illegally, into Mexico, and then later provoking Mexico into attacking them so they could rebel (and in the case of Sam Houston, trying to drag Mexico into war with the US.)
Texas was won from Mexico in a war. Mexico isn't getting it back, no matter how many Mexicans move in, without another war. That is how it works. And you have to win the war -- let's not forget that (even though the PA seems to have missed that.)
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.