Eye On Israel/Palestine

Sorry, I don't se the palestinians satling for less than full sovereignity over 90 percent of the west bank. This Arafat was ready to settle for too.

We can always hope that the Israelis wil settle for that as well, but I for one remain a sceptic. I just don't see the Israelis accepting a sovereign palestinian state.

Einherjar
Arafat was unwilling to accept what was offered at camp David. Nor was he willing to negotiate. It appears with the passing of Arafat there is a window of opportunity that was not before there.

No way are the palestinians going to settle for a collection of bantustands as offered at camp david. The palestinians will demand free movement within their territories, full sovreignity, and controll of their own natural resources including water. Camp david was just an Israeli publicity stunt.

I don't see the Israelis offering peace on aceptable terms for a couple of generations. Their possition would have to change beyond recognition.

Now, I am curious.
Regarding your above statement. What do you think the Israeli position is?

Einherjar
What do you think are the "acceptable" terms the Palestinians will accept.

I think the palestinians would be willing to settle for full sovreignity over gaza and a contineous segment of land covering no less than 90 % of the west bank (probably closer to 95 %). They would also demand free passage trough israeli holdings in the west bank. I do not think the palestinians would accept temporary Israeli controll over anything without an expiration date.

I think the Israeli possition is basically Baraks offer. Israel anexes around 5% of the west bank, establishes indefinate "temporary" controll over large sections of land along the jordanian and egyptian border (depriving palestine of any border but the palestinian Israeli one), and retains controll over checkpoints and natural resources, including water, in the palestinian territories. Details to be negotiated while the palestinians live up to every obligation expected of them in an eventual peace.

Einherjar,
I think this time is full of potential mostly because the pretext for maintaining the status quo, Arafat, is gone. Niether the US nor Israel would negotiate with him. It's like starting with a clean slate for the Palestinians. The new Palestinian leadership, Abbas and Qurei, doesn't have the specter of corruption or underhandedness--accusations of inciting terrorism--that Arafat did.

So, what you are saying is that checkpoints and control are the sticking points?
Are you positing that if Israel were to give up checkpoints and control, then Hamas; Alabooboo; Alamurders; Alacarte; etc. would stop murdering people in the name of obliterating Israel?

I'm positing that if the palestinians were given a fair settlement, including full sovreignity over their territories and controll over their own water supplies, then these groups might very well take that offer. I'm sure that whatever terrorists were to continue their activities after such a settlement would suffer from a lack of publick support. This would hurt their efforts.

Infra, good point.

You may well be right.
I waver back and forth between believing that Islamic death cultists could be delegitimatized if Islamic reformers stepped up to the plate and believing that the death cult fascists don't need the people or anyone to carry on their suicidal pastimes.
I am currently on the negative end of the spectrum.
Arafat had the support of no one when he first invented murdering innocents as a form of political expression.
The current murderers in Iraq do not have the support of 90% of the Iraqis.
It seems that all it takes is a couple of "Have Death Wish, Will Travel" nutbars to throw a monkey wrench into any negotiable peace.
I hope that you are right and I am wrong.

A step in the right direction

Vote is seen as test for presidential race 
JERICHO, West Bank The voting was smooth and orderly Thursday as Palestinians in 26 West Bank towns and villages voted in municipal elections, an encouraging development for Palestinians who are holding a presidential ballot in just over two weeks..
The turnout was large, and no major glitches or security problems were reported. The Fatah movement, founded by Yasser Arafat and the dominant force in Palestinian politics for decades, was expected to make the strongest showing. However, it faces a challenge from the Islamic movement Hamas, which is participating in elections for the first time. Arafat died Nov. 11. .
"You are deciding on the running of your own municipal affairs in a democratic manner without outside interference and under the shadow of the problems created by the Israeli occupation," Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the favorite in the presidential election, said in a statement..
In Jericho, the largest town to hold an election on Thursday, voters described it as an important step toward greater democracy and political reforms among Palestinians as they seek to establish a state..
"This is the start of our democracy," said Jaffer Saeed, an accountant. "Israel is always claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East. We want to show we can be a proper democracy.".
At one school being used as a polling station, voting was so brisk that many voters had to wait outside, sometimes for hours, before being allowed in to cast their ballots..
Men and women entered on separate sides of the building, and in both places, frustrated voters banged on the doors and shouted at the police, demanding to be let in, though there were no serious incidents..
Inside, cardboard packaging was placed atop school desks to give voters privacy..
In most Palestinian towns, public buildings and shops are covered with "martyr posters" of young Palestinian men killed in fighting with Israel. But in Jericho, which has been calm in recent years, the posters featured the mostly middle-aged candidates in suits and ties..
The voting Thursday marked a modest beginning to municipal elections that will be held in about 600 cities, towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza over the next several months..
None of the larger cities voted on Thursday, and candidates were not running under party banners, making it a bit tricky to gauge precisely how each party is doing..
Still, the voting marked the first municipal elections since 1976 and will give some indication of the relative strength of Fatah and Hamas..
The last election in the Palestinian areas was in 1996, when Arafat was chosen as head of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah dominated the parliamentary balloting..
Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel, has boycotted previous polls and is not participating in the Jan. 9 election for president of the Palestinian Authority..
Hamas has refused to be part of the Palestinian Authority because it was established as part of an interim agreement with Israel. But the group decided recently that it would take part in municipal elections..
In Jericho, 51 candidates were on the ballot, with no party affiliations listed, though many are linked to Fatah. The voters selected 15 names to fill the 15 seats on the municipal council..
In a sampling of voters, most said they knew the party affiliations of some candidates, but stressed that they were voting on local issues, not larger political questions related to the conflict with Israel..
The voters cited problems in the agriculture industry, a major part of Jericho's economy, and higher prices for local government services such as water and various licenses..
"This is about services, not politics," said Subhi Awajneh, a businessman..
No unrest was reported Thursday in parts of the West Bank where Palestinians voted..
However, two Palestinians were killed in an explosion at a house in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip..
Palestinian witnesses claimed an Israeli tank shell hit the house, Reuters reported..
Israel's military said troops in the area saw a powerful explosion at the house, but that the troops did not fire. In many previous instances, Palestinian militants have been killed when explosives they were preparing exploded prematurely..
Also, Palestinians fired at least a dozen mortars in southern Gaza that landed in Jewish settlements, causing minor damage but no injuries, the military said..

Reuters a few minutes ago:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Prominent Palestinian figures appealed on Sunday for an end to violence, adding weight to the election campaign of moderate Mahmoud Abbas to succeed Yasser Arafat and launch peace talks with Israel.

Lending momentum to a fragile new trend of cooperation, Israel's cabinet ratified Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to lift roadblocks in occupied territory to ensure Palestinians can be registered to vote and go to the polls freely on Jan. 9.

"The election is of supreme importance in establishing a (Palestinian) leadership with which we hope to move forward in the road map process," Sharon told reporters, referring to an international peace plan shelved by persistent violence.

Palestinian militants have rebuffed Abbas's suggestions of a truce with Israel since Arafat died in November and fighting has persisted in occupied Gaza. Israeli tanks killed two Islamist militants planting explosives near a border fence on Sunday.

But poll ratings for Abbas have surged along with sentiment for a return to calm to enable talks for statehood. Violence has abated in the larger West Bank and U.S.-led Middle East peace diplomacy is reviving after years of paralysis.

Some 560 prominent Palestinians, including senior Palestine Liberation Organization figures, cabinet ministers, lawmakers, intellectuals and poets, urged an end to militant attacks and a push for democratic reform to advance the quest for a state.

"We reaffirm our legitimate right to confront occupation, but call for restoring the popular character of our intifada and ceasing actions that reduce the range of (international) support for our cause and harm the credibility of our struggle," they said in a front-page advertisement in Palestinian newspapers.

They also pressed Arafat's successor not to compromise on his aim of a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza, taken by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as its capital and a "fair solution" for Palestinian refugees.

ARAFAT'S SPIRIT SURVIVES

All seven presidential candidates have hitched their campaign coat-tails to the image of Arafat as the charismatic patriarch of Palestinian nationalism. But they have distanced themselves from the chaos and corruption he left behind.

Abbas, a veteran PLO pragmatist widely tipped to win handily over fringe challengers, has branded years of suicide bombings a mistake and gained the confidence of Israel and the United States, who boycotted Arafat and considered him an obstacle to peace.....

Full story here: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7179124

My god - what a difficult tightrope these leaders tread between populism and getting elected/reality - and "honouring Arafat's memory/reality!

Could it be that an application of adult-level resistance to terror and tyranny has caused those the thugh and terrorists were once able to mobilize to rethink their self-interest?

So - what made the Israelis rethink a teeny bit - do you know?

dlowan wrote


I guess that is a fitting comment from an Australian. Considering that everything there is upside down. :wink:

Clever twist, but you know well what I meant.

However it is noteworthy that President Bush emphatically announced our firm support for a two state solution in the Mideast, and explicitly rejected any polka dot illusion of a Palestinian state such as the one Clinton and Barak cooked up in 1999 - and he did it as a fait accompli, without prior consultation with Israel. This external creation of a new fact has already beneficially changed the internal political alignments in Israel.

This article voices a question that has plagued me for some time . Why Indeed?
Creating a Palestinian Apartheid State
by Ariel Natan Pasko
Dec 28, '04 / 16 Tevet 5765


You know, for years, leftists and Arabs, and all kind of anti-Semites, have compared Israel to South Africa. For the last few years, there's been a divestment campaign against Israel as was waged against South Africa. Many Jews shrugged off the comparison or hid from it. And most decent people of all persuasions argued, "No it's not true, Israel is a democracy, and the old South Africa had apartheid."

But it has dawned on me that the comparison makes some sense. Not between Israel - the embattled victim of morally degenerate suicide bombings - and the once racially segregated South Africa. Not between Israel, the victor in a defensive war - which pitted several enemies against it, attempting a second Holocaust in 1967 - and a cruel, divisive South African regime that pitted one group against another for racial supremacy. But between Israel, the country that, since 1948, has wanted to live peacefully with its neighbors; between Israel, which has won all the wars that were forced upon it and still made agreements to return territory captured - territory that gave it much needed strategic depth - in return for promises written on paper - and the new, racially diverse South Africa of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the current president, Thabo Mbeki.

You see, Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk - winners of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize - and Desmond Tutu - winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize - called for reconciliation between groups in South Africa. It might not be perfect now, but after Mandela's release from 28 years of imprisonment in 1990, he didn't call for killing whites. Being elected president in the first multi-racial election in South Africa in 1994, Mandela also knew how to step down after five years in office; unlike Arafat - the infamous Nobel Peace Prize winner - who died in office, incapable of releasing power until his death. Desmond Tutu has used his Nobel money to set up the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre.

Will Yasser Arafat's heirs (Mahmoud Abbas, Marwan Barghouti, Hamas and others), use some of his stolen money to set up the "The Yasser School of Safe Explosives Use," maybe?

The Quartet's (US, EU, UN and Russia) so-called Roadmap to Middle East peace envisions the first case of "ethnic cleansing" of the 21st century; this time, internationally legitimized. The Sharon government in Israel intends to be a willing accomplice, if it carries out its planned expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif-Gaza and Northern Samaria (euphemistically called "Disengagement"). I understand from this that if most countries would have favored the Nazi attempt to commit genocide against the Jews, or most of the world supported forced racial segregation - Apartheid - in South Africa, that would have made them okay, too. You don't agree? So why is it okay to close Jewish "settlements," uproot several hundred thousand Jews from Judea and Samaria - the West Bank - and Gaza, in the name of "peace" when the world is being promised an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a democratic Palestinian State?

Forget Apartheid, they're planning a racially-ethnically pure Arab state free of Jews.

If the "democratic" Palestinian state that George Bush and Tony Blair keep talking about, and everyone else envisions, requires uprooting whole communities, towns and villages of thousands, expelling families from their homes, destroying everything built - schools, synagogues, community centers, businesses, people's lives - in the last 37 years, then where, may I ask, is the reconciliation? Where is the peace? When the Blacks in South Africa finally gained power, they didn't throw the whites out or try to murder them.

If Palestine has to be Judenrein - free of Jews - then it won't be "democratic", but Nazi. Palestine won't be an Apartheid State like the old South Africa, but a Nazi state; not racially supremacist, but racially pure. And that's a far cry from the vision being presented to us by Bush, Blair, Ariel Sharon, and all those nice people who say that "we have to solve the Palestinian problem" or that "the solution is two states living side by side in peace."

The Palestinian Authority until now has done nothing to stop the Oslo War for over four years. Plenty of evidence indicates they've actually helped carry it out. Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group, affiliated with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah) just called on Abbas not to give up the option of "armed struggle". The express purpose of the terror groups is to drive Jews out of their homes, and Sharon is helping them with his expulsion plan for Gazan Jews.

But Jews have a longer history as the indigenous population (almost 4,000 years), a greater connection to the ancient places (Hebron, Shechem, Bethlehem, Shilo, Tekoa and Jericho) than the Arabs do. Most of the latter came into the area from the surrounding Arab countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Why should the Jews have to leave? If Arabs can live as equal citizens in Israel, able to be elected to the Knesset (there are Arab citizens in Israel's parliament) or serve on Israel's Supreme Court (there is an Arab Supreme Court Justice), why can't Jews be equal citizens in the democratic Palestinian state-in-the-making, with full rights, responsibilities and privileges?

The comparison between Israel and the old South Africa doesn't fly, but the comparison between the Palestinian state that they're trying to sell us and the old racist South Africa goes quite well. On the other hand, the correct comparison is between Israel and the new multi-racial South Africa. The population of South Africa today is about 75% black, with the remainder made up of Whites, "Coloreds" and Indians. Israel's population is about 80% Jewish, with the remainder Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Circassian, Armenian, etc. Both are democracies with a dominant majority and minorities sharing equal rights.

The proposed Palestinian state will have an estimated population of between 2.4 and 2.9 million people, and almost 10% of the population currently in that territory is Jewish. In Judea and Samaria, there are about 1.5 to 1.8 million Arabs and almost 250,000 Jews, or about 15%. When you include the post-1967 parts of eastern Jerusalem that some want to make into the Palestinian capital city, it brings the total number of Jews in the so-called "occupied territories" to about a half-million, or almost 20% of the proposed Palestinian state.

So why exactly can't Jews stay in "democratic" Palestine?

In Hebron, for example, the media always tells you that there are 500 Jews living among 100,000 or 120,000 Arabs. Big lie. What they "forget" to tell you is that the population figure for the Arabs, is for the greater metropolitan area of Hebron, surrounding villages (i.e., suburbs) and all, and if you include all the Jews living in the same areas (Kiryat Arba and the Hebron Hills' towns and villages), then there are close to 10,000 Jews living there, or about 10% of the total population. Jewish cities in Judea and Samaria like Ma'ale Adumim and Ariel the size of Anytown, USA - they're going to be expelled?

Why can't all these Jews stay living in Palestine, just as the non-Jews live in Israel? Real peace doesn't mean "ethnic cleansing", real peace means reconciliation, respect and mutual trust. If there aren't any of these, then there isn't any real peace. So, why are the Jews being forced from their homes exactly?

Why does everyone (Bush, Blair, the Quartet, Sharon, Shimon Peres and Israel's Left) just assume Jews can be moved like cattle (and have no rights)? Why does the world want to ethnically cleanse "democratic" Palestine of Jews? Why would the world voluntarily create, at best, another old South Africa, or, at worst, a Nazi Arab state? Does the world somehow have lower expectations from the Arabs? That Arabs somehow can't live peacefully among others? No one even mentions the possibility of Jews staying in their homes and becoming Palestinian citizens. Does the world have racist attitudes that somehow Palestinians can't live in democratic societies and share? Or does the world not care about persecuted Jews - just like in the time of the Holocaust?

Where are all the "great souls" of the world, morally outraged by a "peace plan" that calls for the expulsion of people from their homes? Where are all the anti-apartheid activists, who saw such evil in the old South Africa? Why aren't they protesting this latest injustice? Why not divest from Palestine?

So, I challenge you, Desmond, I dare you, Nelson, and all you "anti-Apartheid great souls", stand up for those high morals everyone has attributed to you. Don't just sit back and watch as 8,000 people get expelled from their homes in Gaza. Don't let several hundred thousand more Jews get ethnically cleansed from their ancient homeland and call it "democracy".

Remember, Rev. Tutu, the Land of Israel, Canaan or Judea, that place described in your Bible? Certainly men of such high moral fiber as yourselves, and all the others like you, will call out for "understanding", "tolerance", and "peace and reconciliation" between Arab and Jew in a democratic Palestine. And certainly, you will all oppose expelling people from their homes in Gaza and elsewhere - even if they are only Jews.

(c) 2004/5765 Pasko

Is he voicing what the leaders of the PA and Arab world are thinking? What do you think?

Kaddoumi Promises More Terrorism To Eliminate Israel
16:40 Dec 28, '04 / 16 Tevet 5765

One of the new leaders of the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah movement says his people want to replace Israel with a state of their own, World Tribune.com reports.


Fatah chief Farouk Khaddoumi said the PA strategy toward Israel was two-fold, according to the report. The first stage is acceptance of Israel alongside a PA state. But this is to be followed by an attempt to eliminate the Jewish state.

Khaddoumi replaced the deceased arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat as leader of Fatah
this past November.

This past April, Arutz-7 reported Kaddoumi's remarks to the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab that the Palestinian Liberation Organization - the forerunner of the Palestinian Authority - has never changed its charter negating Israel's right to exist.

Kaddoumi also said at the time that Israel should not expect less terrorism if it withdraws from Gaza. "If Israel wants to leave the Gaza Strip, then it should do so," he said. "This means that the Palestinian resistance has forced it to leave. But the resistance will continue. Let the Gaza Strip be South Vietnam. We will use all available methods to liberate North Vietnam."

"At this stage there will be two states," Khaddoumi told Iran's Al Aram television, World Tribune.com reported. "Many years from now, there will be only one." He expressed confidence that in the end, Israel would be eliminated. "[There are] 300 million Arabs, while Israel has only the sea behind it," Khaddoumi said.

If they wanted to live in a democratic Palestine, there's no indication that they would be barred from doing so. But what is currently happening is that little pockets of what is intended to be Palestine are considered parts of Israel. There would be no need for an apartheid of sorts if Israel were not committed to a Jewish state. Therefore, those living in the territories cannot be allowed citizenship or there will no longer be a Jewish majority. No biggie, but then why not let them have what's theirs. Does anyone think that the Jewish settlers now living in the territories would want to live in a Palestinian state where they are treated as equal to the other citizens?

There is every indication that Jews would not be welcome in a Palestinian State any more than they are welcomed in almost all Arab states.
As for the question could the settlements be absorbed as is into the Palestinian State. It has never even been broached. Imagine the possibility of a Jewish deputy in PA ruling body. I think that is about as possible as finding those little green men on Mars.