Palestine @ MindSay 
israel
“Mr- President -
The problem isn’t settlements, it’s Arab rejection. We all support peace in the Middle East. But pressuring Israel is not the right approach. The obstacle to peace is not Israel. The settlements are not the impediment. The issue is simple: the Arab and Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist, including through violence and terrorism, for over 60 years. Israel’s right to exist is undeniable and is based on its right to self-determination in its historic homeland. The path to peace is clear. With recognition, Israel has said again and again that everything is on the table without preconditions. Mr. President, it’s time to stop pressuring our vital friend and ally. It’s now time to direct your attention to the rejectionists who refuse to recognize Israel and negotiate an end to the conflict. With your leadership, yes, we can have peace. But the path begins with the recognition of Israel.”
You can see the ad and the formatting here
I really wish this organization would stop espousing it's over-simplified statements on behalf of Israel, because I truly believe they are ultimately to its detriment, and to the detriment of the entire peace process.There are many things I find irritating, and, beyond that, disturbing about this ad. For one thing, it’s this stolid, bull-headed view that the problem is one thing and not the other, that “the issue is simple”: but the issue is ANYTHING but simple! Is it at all possible that both the illegal, aggressive settlements and Arab rejection of the legitimacy of the state of Israel might both be parts of a much larger and much more complex problem, one that, in its complex enormity, has been brewing for many generations, into which people have been born and died, because of which directly people have been born and died?
It’s reflective of a general tendency of the extreme wings on both sides of this conflict to paint it simple, to pretend that it’s an issue of black and white, good guy and bad guy, evil side versus saintly side, when the actual case is, both sides have “good guys” and “bad guys”, and those “good guys” and “bad guys” do not emerge from a vacuum: they emerge from reactions to complex cultures of crisis. As part of this absolutist tendency, there is this cry to absolve Israel of all blame, as if in its entire history, especially its recent history, it has never had a single action that was in any way impeding the process of peace in the Middle East. That statement itself is impeding the process! It only fuels absolutist groupthink on both sides that has so far absolutely failed to solve anything (for proof, see the current state of the Middle East).
There is also this voice involved that exemplifies its own narrative as the only narrative of the situation, in complete denial of the other narratives of the same situation that exist in tandem to it, which themselves are essential to approach and consider if there is going to be any peace at all. The assumed simplicity of all Arab peoples accepting a narrative of the events in Israel’s history foreign to their own--and that all Arab people have one narrative, at that--is not only arrogant: it’s unrealistic. The acceptance of the validity of the state of Israel is more than just a symbolic action, as this ad seems to assume: it’s the acceptance of a point of view of the situation which denies the dispossession and the suffering that people have accumulated in their national memory. It is a complex and difficult struggle, one which I myself have fought with, to announce the legitimacy of the state (and to therefore imply that one condones the actions that occurred in order to establish/maintain/expand that state.) I do believe that, at this point, because there are Israelis who have been born multiple generations in Israel, that at this point the state has a right to exist (noting of course that this is not a simple thing for me, and that it is something which I struggle with daily, and that I do not feel comfortable with condoning the aformentioned things that went into the state and that continue to occur in the state. However, I am not a dispossessed Palestinian. It is much easier for me to come to that conclusion. Especially considering Israel’s past refusal to even consider the Palestinian people a people at all, let alone giving them the right to their own lands (a very, very recent development, one which even to this day has not fully come to fruition), how could it be considered so simple for them to do the same for Israel?
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this ad is its condoning and alleviation from all blame of the Israeli settlements. The settlements are, in my own opinion and in the opinion of many others, a very pointed and continued obstacle to the path of peace in the region. Spurned by the biblical imagining of the land of Israel as including the West Bank and Gaza and the right of the Jewish people to that land, these settlements are aggressively moving into areas outside of the “Green Line” into areas in the West Bank (mostly ceased in Gaza since תוכנית ההתנתקות, the Unilateral Disengagement Plan in August, 2005), much of which is occurring on lands privately owned by Palestinian citizens, and all of which occurs with the intention to “claim” all of Biblically imagined land of Israel for the Jews, devoid of Palestinians. The development of the settlements were unfortunately at various points encouraged and even developed by the Israeli government (therefore making even that issue complex, as there have been people who settled in that land without religious motive, albeit those are not the people who move out to the settlements today),but at this point many of them occur illegally (again, unfortunately, with support from the current right-wing Prime Minister, Netanyahu), but are actively dismantled by the Israeli Army and police---however, to this end, many of the settlers have taken on an anti-government attitude, saying that they will just keep re-building and re-building. If that is not a “problem” in terms of Israel and Palestine developing peaceful relations, I honestly do not know what is. Terrorist activities, suicide bombings and violence against citizens are absolutely awful and cannot be condoned, but neither can actively colonialist, disenfranchising structures and complexes, white phosphorus bombs and aerial fire-strikes on civilian homes and disproportionate military force, or blockades on basic goods. Extremism on both sides must be accounted for and called to end.
This ad is misleading and over-simplistic at best. Of course, to this argument, I have heard the counter-point "But look at what other people say about Israel!", and honestly, I absolutely do not buy that. I for one am sick of the "they did this so we can therefore do that" game. It is obvious to me that the pattern of that attitude will only form the shape of a snake biting its own tail, granting eternal life to and obliterating all hope for an end to a conflict that is creating hostility, unsafe environments, death and destruction for millions of people. The history of this conflict is long and complex, with shades of gray all over the damn place. If anyone truly wants peace, on either side of the conflict, there needs to be a removal of the albeit attractive, appealing goggles of black-and-white visions of righteous anger and the absolutely good nation and the absolutely bad nation, and there needs to be a move to start seeing the conflict for what it is: complex, with good things and bad things being done from both sides. There needs to be an acceptance (which, of course, I realize is a difficult one, and one which will take time and effort to reach) of the multiple narratives involved in the situation. Only once we switch our focus from Us vs. Them to Us and Them (if we can't get it down to just "All of Us") can peace even begin to grow.
Israel has far fewer restrictions
Over the last week, many are asking why India does not "do a Gaza" on Pakistan, referring, of course, to an emulation of Israel's use of force against Terrorists Hamas-run Palestine, a territory from which rockets rain down on Israeli soil with reliable frequency (if not reliable destructiveness ...).
The answer for this question comes always with a painful grip on reality, is simple: India does not because it cannot.
Here are five reasons why:
1. India is not a military goliath in relation to Pakistan in the way Israel is to the Palestinian territories. India does not have the immunity, the confidence and the military free hand that result from an overwhelming military superiority over an opponent. Israel's foe is a non-sovereign entity that enjoys the most precarious form of self-governance. Pakistan, for all its dysfunction, is a proper country with a proper army, superior by far to the tin-pot Arab forces that Israel has had to combat over time. Pakistan has nukes, to boot. Any assault on Pakistani territory carries with it an apocalyptic risk for India. This is, in fact, Pakistan's trump card. (This explains, also, why Israel is determined to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.)
2. Even if India could attack Pakistan without fear of nuclear retaliation, the rationale for "doing a Gaza" is, arguably, not fully present: Israel had been attacked consistently by the very force--Hamas--that was in political control of the territory from which the attacks occurred. By contrast, terrorist attacks on India, while originating in Pakistan, are not authored by the Pakistani government. India can-- and does--contend that Pakistan's government should shut down the terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil. (In this insistence, India has unequivocal support from Washington.) Yet only a consistent and demonstrable pattern of dereliction by Pakistani authorities-- which would need to be dereliction verging on complicity with the terrorists--would furnish India with sufficient grounds to hold the Pakistani state culpable.
3. Israel enjoys impressive support from many countries especially from the Americans, in contrast to the Palestinians. No other state--apart, perhaps, from Britain--evokes as much favor in American public opinion as does Israel. This is not merely the result of the much-vaunted "Israel lobby" (to use a label deployed by its detractors), but also because of the very real depth of cultural interpenetration between American and Israeli society. This fraternal feeling buys Israel an enviable immunity in the conduct of its strategic defense. India, by contrast--while considerably more admired and favored in American public opinion than Pakistan--enjoys scarcely a fraction of Israel's "pull" in Washington when it comes to questions of the use of force beyond its borders.
4. Pakistan is strategically significant to the United States; the Palestinians are not. This gives Washington scant incentive to rein in the Israelis, but a major incentive to rein in any Indian impulse to strike at Pakistan. However justified the Indian anger against Pakistan over the recent invasion of Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists, the last thing that the U.S. wants right now is an attack--no matter how surgical--by India against Pakistan-based terror camps. This would almost certainly result in a wholesale shift of Pakistani troops away from their western, Afghan front toward the eastern boundary with India--and would leave the American Afghan campaign in some considerable disarray, at least in the short term. So Washington has asked for, and received, the gift of Indian patience. And although India recognizes that it is not wholly without options to mobilize quickly for punitive, surgical strikes in a "strategic space," it would--right now--settle for a trial of the accused terrorist leaders in U.S. courts. (Seven U.S Citizens were killed in Mumbai: Under U.S. law, those responsible--and this should include Pakistani intelligence masterminds--have to be brought to justice.)
5. Israel has the privilege of an international pariah to ignore international public opinion in its use of force against the Palestinians. A state with which few others have diplomatic relations can turn the tables on those that would anathematize it by saying, Hang diplomacy. India, by contrast, has no such luxury. It is a prisoner of its own global aspirations--and pretensions.
Polls conducted by Arabs that call themselves Palestinians and polls conducted by Israelis demonstrate that a majority of these Palestine Authority Arabs support terrorism against Israel while the Israeli polls show that a majority of Israelis want to stop further withdrawals from Judea/Samaria (the West Bank).
So someone in the West tell me again how creating a sovereign Palestinian State will bring peace to the Middle East.
JRH 3/24/08
Bob Tyrrell writes of the foolishness of Appeasing a people whose reason for existence is to hate Jews, the nation Israel and America.
At the direction of America and the anti-Semitic pressure of the EU, Israel has given and given and has received absolutely ZERO reciprocity.
This is a Western hypocrisy that will end the existence of Israel or inevitably end in an upgrade from the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) to a World War. The stakes will be a defensible Jewish homeland and the threat of the world’s oil reserves that is the current energy life-blood of the globe.
JRH 3/21/08
Yasser Abed Rabbo is a top aide of Palestine Authority terrorist President Mahmoud Abbas. He has recently quipped that Palestinians are better than the Muslims of Kosovo which just became a recognized sovereign nation in the Balkans area of Europe. Rabbo is reported as saying the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians should unilaterally declare their independence as well.
The BBC News story I read this at made sure to use all the pro-Arab/Palestine words such as “occupied.” The story is also slanted to promote sympathy for the cough victimized Arabs that call themselves Palestinians.
In case anyone was wondering there was no such thing as a land called Palestine after 1948. That year Israel declared independence and various Arab nations (notably Egypt, Syria and (then) Transjordan (now) Jordan) invaded the new independent nation of Israel. The land that was supposed to be a Palestinian State for Arabs became a part of the sovereign Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
In 1967 Jordan was part of a greater Arab plan preparing to invade and dismantle Israel. The obvious troop movements indicated the imminent invasion was on the way. Israel chose not to be a victim and simply preemptively attacked Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. What became known as the Six Day War became a complete victory for Israel occupying the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and most importantly the uniting of a divided Jerusalem and what the West calls the West Bank and Israel calls Judea and Samaria.
The land won from aggressor Jordan has been considered part of traditional Jewish land from their historical perspective. It was land acquired by right of victory of Jordan. The land was not taken from Palestinians, it was taken from Jordan. The holy city Jerusalem was finally united under Jewish sovereignty.
Now here is the thing: Rabbo says the Palestine Authority should unilaterally declare a sovereign nation and call it Palestine just as Kosovo did. Kosovo was a province of Serbia of which 90% of the primary ethnic group is Albanians and over 70% of the Kosovo population is Muslim. Serbia did not want to allow Kosovo independence; however American support became the leading factor toward Kosovo independence.
Rabbo has the view if Muslim Kosovo gained sovereign independence from a nation which did not wish to allow it to happen, then the global powers of America and the EU should guarantee a similar sovereignty to a Palestine State.
You know what? I don’t think that is such a bad idea. Probably not in the same way as the PA/PLO leadership views it; however I think Palestine declaring itself a nation unilaterally with the land the currently possess is not a bad idea.
Here is my scenario. Israel has all of Jerusalem. A unilateral declaration of independence will not change that. Unless Israel and Palestine work out an economic and resource package, Palestine would be on their own to figure that out. Their Arab neighbors should step up to the plate for that anyway.
Here is my thinking of a probable outcome of Palestinian independence. The Palestinians would acquire weapons from Russia or China or worse – from North Korea. The thugs that are leaders in Palestine will inspire their constituency to have animosity toward Israel. I suspect a combined Palestine, Syria and Hezbollah (nation within a nation) will do something foolish because of the results of the last Israel VS Hezbollah war in Lebanon. Then Israel dismantles the new Palestinian State, maybe even chasing the ding dongs that supported the thug Palestinian government into Jordan or Syria.
Time will tell.
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