Condoleezza Rice has urged the Israelis to stop settlement activity. It's not "conducive" to peace negotiations, she says. You'd think she might use stronger language? Peace Now is saying that settlement construction has doubled in the first half of '08, from 200 or so the year before to 400 this year. Panic.
The Palestinians can't trust the Israelis. And my American Jewish friends who stand up for the Israelis say that they can't trust the Palestinians. For how long are these two panicked weak peoples going to keep dragging the rest of the world into their cycle of violence? The best analogy is a domestic violence situation to which the neighbors have called the cops. Cops don't take sides, they take action. They speak to the interests of the community, whose peace the couple is disturbing. They separate the couple, they make an arrest. They change the course of events. They impose a solution. Henry Siegman made this sensible recommendation a year ago:
Council of a resolution affirming the following: 1. Changes to the
pre-1967 situation can be made only by agreement between the parties.
Unilateral measures will not receive international recognition. 2. The
default setting of Resolution 242… is a return by Israel’s occupying forces to
the pre-1967 border. 3. If the parties do not reach agreement within 12
months…
the default setting will be invoked by the Security Council. The
Security Council will then adopt its own terms for an end to the
conflict, and will arrange for an international force to enter the
occupied territories to help establish the rule of law, assist
Palestinians in building their institutions, assure Israel’s security
by preventing cross-border violence, and monitor and oversee the
implementation of terms for an end to the conflict. [my emphasis]
August 22nd, 2008
Border police escalated the violence in Ni’lin, beating one resident nearly to death on Thursday. Occupation forces went on to seal the village on Friday in an attempt to isolate the local struggle *against the Wall*.
On Thursday, the people of Ni’lin gathered in the middle of the village for a demonstration against the Apartheid Wall. Confrontations flared up between local youth and Occupation forces, who fired on demonstrators with tear and sound bombs in addition to metal-coated rubber bullets. Clashes continued in the streets of Ni’lin, with soldiers targeting homes and residents.
Border police also brutalized a local resident, Haythem ‘Elayan Musa, while he was attempting to visit his grandmother. He was surrounded outside her home and severely beaten, with the attackers aiming blows at his head. Leaving the scene, a border policeman fired a single "rubber" bullet from close range at the semi-conscious Musa, striking him in the head.
You can't have final borders until there is a potentially viable Palestinian state.
Maybe with imminent closure, Hamas would actually accept the PA governmental authority, maybe not.
If they didn't reconcile and accept Israeli existence and regard PA agreements with Israel as binding, an imposed solution is murder.
It is true. No matter how ethically uncomfortable we are with the continued status of statelessness for the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza, there has to be a path to move on.
There certainly are things that Israel can do, and should do.
But, your and the world's impatience is not the order of the day, as appealing as it sounds.
the murdering people of walls.
hello walls,
we love walls. long walls, high walls, blocking walls,'settlement'(squatment) walls, leftwing and rightwing walls, land and resources grabbing walls, killing walls. our favorite wall is the wall that talks to god – sends our instructions to god. we love this natural wall, the julan. we will keep it forever because greed gave it to us. talk is… talk, talk, talk. gives us time to prepare for war, to kill more palestinians. keep talking. deceiving talk/ peace talkers are another wall – our secret wall.
snippet from israel adam shamir:
Avnery wrote a piece warning the Palestinians: don’t you dream of living with Jews in one state, because the Jews would rather expel or exterminate you. An Indian-style reservation is as good as you may ever hope to get from us. Our friend John Spritzler wrote a strong reply link to
blogspot. com/ to Avnery, saying: “This is no different from a Mafia thug giving "friendly advice" to a shop owner, warning what the consequences will be for failure to pay the Mafia's "protection" fee. Here we see Avnery the Zionist dropping his facade of "kindly friend of the Palestinians" and making it perfectly clear where he stands: challenge the Zionist project of an exclusively Jewish sovereignty in most of Palestine , and we will all unite as a "fascist right wing" to drive you out of Palestine."
all "good" lefty zionists(a zionist is a zionist is a squat) leave and take your toxic wastes, shutup, drop dead, return to your home – hell.
This morning I had a revelation of a sort — ur, not from an angel; but from my own thimble brain — about why Jews are behaving so horribly in the occupied territories.
As a devout Catholic I had to assume that Israel finally getting back together has something to do with Divine Providence — so why were the "chosen people" coming on like "Israel, Israel, Uber Alles?"
I finally figured out that God is allowing Israelis to commit every terrible sin so that they will be humbled — once they come to their senses and see what they have done, mostly to the Palestinians — so they will realize that being the chosen people doesn't make them such big shots as He brings them back together physically. God is big on humility — especially with anyone who hangs around close to him.
If I may drone on a little further on the same theme: Saint Augustine, the greatest Catholic thinker had an actual angel type revelation before his end leading him to feel that all he had written was so much straw (his words). Why did God reveal such to him and not the rest of us? Because we did not need to know it but he needed it to keep his "greatest thinker" self humble.
**********************
Why do we have to protect Israel? Because 1/3 of Israelis (like 2/3 of all Jews) are American citizens (I assume those making Aliya don't give up their American citizenship — bad strategic mistake) and, if Israel were to over overwhelmed by the Arabs, the US Marines would have to go in there and evacuate almost half the country (most all would be claiming to be Americans) to bring back here.
*****************
Which reminds me of a joke — supposedly a real suggestion: my brother Kevin says we should give the Palestinians the burned out areas of the Bronx — as former Jewish land.
this longer selection from spritzler taken from joachim martillo's site. also there is a critique of spritzler:
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Uri Avnery's Despicable "Devil's Hoof"
by John Spritzler
In his "The Devil's Hoof" Uri Avnery writes as if he were giving friendly advice to Palestinians. But his real message is a despicable threat: If you frame your struggle not as one for a separate Palestinian state but rather for full equality with Jews in a single state for all of Palestine, then we–the Jews of Israel–will ethnically cleanse you from all of Palestine. Using his "friendly advice" writing style, Avnery warns:
"There is no chance at all that the Jewish public will agree, in this generation or the next, to live as a minority in a state dominated by an Arab majority. 99.99% of the Jewish population will fight against this tooth and nail. The demography will not stop haunting them, but on the contrary, it will push them to do things which are unthinkable today. Ethnic cleansing will become a practical agenda. Even moderate Israelis will be driven into the arms of the fascist right-wing. All means of oppression will become acceptable when the Jewish majority adopts the aim of causing the Arabs to leave the country before they have a chance of becoming the majority."
This is no different from a Mafia thug giving "friendly advice" to a shop owner, warning what the consequences will be for failure to pay the Mafia's "protection" fee. Here we see Avnery the Zionist dropping his facade of "kindly friend of the Palestinians" and making it perfectly clear where he stands: challenge the Zionist project of an exclusively Jewish sovereignty in most of Palestine, and we will all unite as a "fascist right wing" to drive you out of Palestine.
Let's look closely at what Avnery and a Mafia thug have in common. The Mafia thug does not want the recipient of his "advice" to know how the Mafia can be defeated, and he does not support the efforts of people to do so. Likewise, Avnery does not want Palestinians to know how Zionism can be defeated, and he does not support the efforts of people to do so.
Good luck with that plan.
Every breath of the ultra-Zionist Likud/Shas faction over the last few decades has been to obliterate any hope for the 1967 borders. Any Israeli government that voiced support for such a plan would be brought down by votes or by scandal in days. Any American president who didn't exercise a veto over that plan at the UN Security Council would face a similar but different fate.
That plan is one that brings actual justice to the situation. Zionist Expansionism and the Israel Lobby are by definition opposed to justice in this situation. Invaders do not retreat of their own volition. Israel is still rules by the Invaders, and the US is still beholden to the Invader sympathizers.
Why should the US impose our will on Israel here, so long as we continue to occupy land we stole from the indigenous neolothic peoples, and Mexico?
I love America. So why are so called conservatives supporting claims of occupations, which can and are made in spades about us?
Hey Ron, I'd be happy to let Israel deal with it themselves, if they gave back all the money, tech, and weapons we mistakenly donated to them, and agreed to no more security help. Could you look into setting that up for us?
On second thought, just hand it all to the Palestinians. They really need it what with being occupied and in a state of genocide. Surely you would have no objections?
Oh, your simple rhetorical attempt to quench any effort by the US to bring about justice through a false use of hypocrisy didn't work like it normally does? I suggest you scratch that particular line of propaganda off your list.
But thank you for completely proving my point, that anything and everything will be said by ultra-Zionists to stop any kind of resolution based on actual justice.
ps. I imagine you're quite happy with the US taking out Iraq and Iran. Where's your accusations of hypocrisy there? We're all waiting.
'You can't have final borders until there is a potentially viable Palestinian state.'
Let's just keep kicking that can down the road for a few more decades, eh Richard? You ought to have the Litani by then, if not the whole Eretz enchilada. The PA are corrupt Israeli lapdogs – everyone seems to know this except you and the US MSM.
Hamas won the election and weren't allowed by Israel and the Big Dog it wags to form a gov't. The prospect of a Palestinian state can ever appear viable while Israel can prevent it at will. You are not interested in taking the USraeli foot off the Palestinian throat so that something viable can be arranged – nosiree.
I can see why you might feel that way, being an Israeli of the mind (or heart or soul – anything but actually living there) but ferchrissakes don't expect us to swallow that 'sadly, we have no peace partner' bullshit.
'Why should the US impose our will on Israel here, so long as we continue to occupy land we stole from the indigenous neolothic peoples, and Mexico?'
For the same reason we should impose our will if the Arab states surrounding Israel suddenly take it into their heads to collectively push it 'into the sea' – or at least occupy and terrorise it. To prevent in other words an immoral collective punishment, like occupation or genocide. I assume you'd agree that this is simply the right thing to do, no?
If it's OK for the Israelis to occupy and steal, just as it was for the pioneer Americans, then it is surely AOK for Arabs to do the same, yes? Might is right, no exceptions, is that it?
I'm afraid Israel is simply too late to get away with trying to pull that caper. The rest of us who imposed ourselves on new territory and indigenous populations were sensible enough to do so well before the wars of the 20th century (which such conquests had done much to engender) and the international architecture of laws and agreements that flowed from them. These were designed to prevent conquests and occupations, in an attempt to make sure we could never be so murderously stupid as to fall into such catastrphe again. Too late Israel – sorry.
The historian David Kaiser recently wrote on his blog History Unfolding:
'No nation or ethnic group, in all probability–and certainly none that has risen to greatness-can claim legitimacy based upon simple justice. All nations have built themselves at the expense of others. Today academia can talk endlessly about the sufferings of the North and South American indigenous populations after white people arrived on the scene–and they were real enough–but they ignore that the Americas before 1492 were not some bucolic, pacifist paradise. Those peoples had fought violently against one another for several millennia. Whole civilizations, such as the mound builders what is now the southern US, had disappeared. Central American empires practiced human sacrifice. The Middle East, too, was the scene of endless conflict both during and after the era of ancient Israel. Well into the twentieth century nations have established their legitimacy, in large part, through violence. The Israelis' misfortune was to come back into the game so late. They are right to argue, in my opinion, that those who reject their right to exist are holding them to a uniquely higher standard. On the other hand, the question of how large Israel should expect to be, and what it can afford to do to maintain particular territories, is one that desperately has to be decided based upon wisdom, not what the Lord supposedly said to Abraham several millennia ago.'
Well said, the money quote being 'The Israelis' misfortune was to come back into the game so late.'
And another thing. The pioneer Americans created a nation tolerant of religious dissent – indeed they scarpered from England in order to avoid persecution or discrimination on the basis of creed. While Israel is a Jewish state; racist by definition and rancidly prejudiced toward it's remaining indigenes.
'But thank you for completely proving my point, that anything and everything will be said by ultra-Zionists to stop any kind of resolution based on actual justice.'
Ain't that the truth.
Ron,
'Why should the US impose our will on Israel here, so long as we continue to occupy land we stole from the indigenous neolothic peoples, and Mexico?'
Uh, maybe if there were a BILLION Indians in the American Midwest when the Anglos showed up — you know 1000 per square mile, like the Palestinians in the West Bank — with an embarrassment of roads, schools, towns, local governments, farms, orchards, factories, etc.
Not as if there were FIVE THOUSAND Palestinians in the West Bank when the Israelis showed up — you know, 1 per square mile, like the Indians in the 1850s American Midwest — hunter gatherers who mostly staked no claim anywhere (and certainly didn't have a modern country with modern borders).