This one sure seems like a no-brainer.
1. Jordan's King Abdullah attended Obama's peace talk photo-op in D.C. last week, then he went back home and visited Damascus and the two countries' leaders called on Israel to withdraw from all the lands taken in '67 in order to have peace with its neighbors.
Abdullah and Assad "emphasized that resolving the Palestinian- Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state vision requires the regaining of all Arab rights in accordance with ... the Arab peace initiative," the statement said.
2. Longtime PLO official Afif Safieh says the same thing at Politico:
Truth be told, I never once felt, during the past two decades, that peace might be at hand. Throughout, our negotiating teams faced deliberate Israeli ambiguity about the final outcome and a lack of commitment to the 1967 boundaries. Ehud Barak’s “generous offer” at Camp David in 2000 wanted to keep the Jordan Valley as a so-called security zone, as well as almost all of Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs that deliberately fragment the West Bank into disconnected Bantustans and that are strategically situated on our water aquifers — all the while rejecting any responsibility for the Palestinian refugees.
...So where do we go from here? There has been an Arab peace plan on the table since 2002 that offers a comprehensive peace in exchange for withdrawal to the 1967 borders and a just and agreed-upon resolution for Palestinian refugees. As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has noted, this would bring Israel not only a two-state solution but a 57-state solution because it is also supported by the entire Muslim world. Israel has been saying for decades that it is looking for acceptance and legitimacy. Well, here it is.
I don't understand this. You'd think this was the only path forward for Israel. But it can't take it, because it would tear the society apart? But holding the territories, won't that destroy Israel?
3. Rob Malley on Al Jazeera explains: There does not exist an Israeli gov't, even with leftwinger Yossi Beilin as Prime Minister, that could freeze settlements. That coalition doesn't exist.
Israel really is on a self-destructive course...
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
If there does not exist an Israeli government that could freeze settlements, there certainly doesn’t and can’t exist one that could evacuate them.
Ahmed Tibi in a Haaretz interview gave his opinion on Netanyahu’s schemes: “I think Netanyahu’s proposal is not to end the occupation, but rather to rearrange it.” link to haaretz.com
Israel has made a conscious choice to live in a self-constructed ghetto, literally. It’s the only way to remain a “Jewish state.” If you read this, you will begin to understand the logic:
Israel Demography 2004-2020: In Light of the Process of Disengagement, by Arnon Soffer and Evgenia Bystrov. March 2005.
Available at this link: web.hevra.haifa.ac.il/~ch-strategy/…/Jewish-arab_Relations_in_Israel_en.pdf
If you think about it, many of the measures that have been imposed internally on Arab citizens since that report fall pretty clearly in line with this thinking. And also this explains the ridiculous “ho hum” attitude towards reaching a settlement with the Palestinians, and the odd reality that some disaster always pops up just exactly in time to sabotage those talks just as they appear to be possibly bearing fruit. When Israel is forced to the table, some “deus ex machina” faithfully occurs that would cause it to scream and retreat.
Really the only logical conclusion is that Israel, at least this generation of leadership, has opted for demographic purity in the short term at the expense of peace. Then everything makes sense, especially Sharon’s “magnanimous” withdrawal from Gaza. Which was precisely in line with this strategy.
Arab leaders are talking about the 67 borders for the form and for the folks back home; they have already more or less conceded that the main settlement blocks aren’t moving and that there will be some swapping of territories to compensate the Palestinians for those immoveable settlements. The 67 borders-offer is now 8 years old and it has been revived on a couple of occasions but Israel has yet to react to any of these offers. The 2002 offer even included a provision that the subject of the RoR would be put off to a later date and at which time, anything to do with this RoR will be subject to Israel’s acceptance. In other words, the Arabs in 2002 offered to sweep the RoR under the rug to give some comfort to Israel and this selling out provision was accepted by Arafat over the phone from his besieged HQ since Israel did not grant him permision to attend the Arab league summit in Beirut.
There’s an all around foul smell emanating from those bogus negotiations and this last statement about Arabs reaffirming something or other about 67 borders is show business. Even Abbas’ threats to walk out are part of the act. This is a super show being put on for the natives in the Middle East and for the Americans getting ready for the elections.
Which is to say, the Palestinians should wake up and smell the roses, and fight the battle that is being waged upon them rather than dreaming that they are living in another era. Demographics is driving everything Israel does, and the answer to that is to call for human rights for all. Everywhere in Palestine. Period. Simple, clear, and unifying. Everything else is smoke and mirrors — an illusion.
Moreover they should do as the ANC did in South Africa and target economic and strategic assets on the ground in the occupied territories, not people, if they decide to fight violently. The corollary to BDS is to make the ECONOMIC price of occupation on the ground too high. Forget about targeting hapless civilians whose deaths will always, invariably, no matter what sophisticated arguments are set forward, bolster Israel’s narrative that the Arabs are wild, violent, primitive, and untrustworthy.
Human rights for all in Palestine and for all who were forced to leave Palestine against their will and banned from returning.
We should never forget about them.
bijou ~ I had some problems w/ that link, I think this should do it:
link to sites.google.com
A PDF should automatically start.
I’ve read other pieces by Arnon Soffer, specifically his famous statement from 2004 that after the ‘disengagement’ from Gaza Israel would have to “kill and kill and kill. All day, every day”. Which turned out to be almost exactly what Israel has done (certainly when total casualites are averaged over 5 years), despite Soffer later backtracking on his statement.
A complete copy of the 2004 artile, long since erased by Haaretz:
link to rabbibrant.com
Some of Soffer’s backtrack:
link to palsolidarity.org
What I’d give to hear one talking head say the name Arnon Soffer or Dov Wiesglass (the guy who said disengagement was “formaldehyde” for the peace process) when the usual ziobots bang on about Israel “giving peace a chance” by “withdrawing” from Gaza.
The Wiesglass article:
link to fromoccupiedpalestine.org
I’m looking for where he backtracks on anything and inspiration is not coming.
“That statement caused a huge stir at the time, and it’s amazing to see how many dozens of angry, ignorant responses I continue to receive from leftists in Israel and anti-Semites abroad, who took my words out of context. I didn’t recommend that we kill Palestinians. I said we’ll have to kill them.”
How many interviews with Zionist leaders where they come off like homicidal cranks do we not read.
“Rob Malley on Al Jazeera explains: There does not exist an Israeli gov’t, even with leftwinger Yossi Beilin as Prime Minister, that could freeze settlements. That coalition doesn’t exist.”
This is a speculation, prior to a proposal from the peace talks.
And in its futility, comsistent with the approach of militancy.
There has been nothing to indicate this current peace process will not go as have all the others before it, ineffectually and with increasing illegal settlements. Obama has already declared it’s not within the USA’s power or right to be anything as the agreed (by Israel and Abbas minus HAMAS) peace broker but a conduit to transmit Israel’s assserted concerns, and prior thereto, he stated the first priority was Israel’s security. And prior to that, despite his Cairo speech, Obma silently went along with OP Cast Lead and the dismissal of the Goldstone Report. The one time Obama expressed how he personally felt for public ears, it was to equate slumbering Israeli children with his own kids. Witty speculates on speculation without context; in fact his comment ignores the very context he pretends to address.
>> This is a speculation, prior to a proposal from the peace talks.
>> And in its futility, comsistent with the approach of militancy.
Freezing settlements doesn’t require any proposal from the peace talks. Israel has the power to do it immediately, completely and forever. There are only two valid possible reasons it hasn’t been done yet:
- Israel doesn’t want to do it; or
- there does not exist an Israeli government that can do it.
Your idiotic slogan of “futility consistent with the approach of militancy” applies to neither of those two reasons.
So Arab leaders have “reaffirmed” the 1967 borders. Good for them. I recognize Jordan’s borders. I recognize the sky is blue. And I recognize that before 1967, Jordan gave the Palestinians no national rights whatsoever and did not allow Jews to pray at the Western Wall.
I fail to see the importance of this “reaffirmation,” which does little but almost correctly state the terms of UNSC 242. The Arabs also call for the right of return, which makes their declaration on borders less than meaningless to most Israelis.
Just curious: If Netanyahu and Abbas come to a peace agreement along the lines of the Clinton parameters, will people here support it?
This would be after Zionist militias eradicated over five hundred villages in 1948, right? This is after Zionists, instead of respecting UN 181, tried to seize the entirety of Jerusalem by force of arms? Just so I have my timeline straight.
Israeli Jews should’ve been able to visit the wall and hi-five the Arabs they expelled from Katamon? It was a war zone. Hundreds of thousands of people couldn’t live in their homes in the 1949 boundary, never mind visit a holy place.
By the way, Palestinians who remained in Israel couldn’t visit Jordanian-held territory unless it was a one way trip.
And from 1949-67, no Israeli leader recognized Jordan’s borders. The Herut party was officially opposed to the existence of Jordan. It wasn’t until after the peace treaty that Bibi changed the Jordan to the Yarkon in the slogan, “The Jordan has two banks, one is ours and so is the other.” Something to keep in mind when the Hamas charter comes up.
“Jordan gave the Palestinians no national rights ”
What do you mean by “national rights”? As far as I know, Jordan gave the Palestinians the same human rights as it gave the Transjordanians.
“That coalition doesn’t exist.”
That line sure jumped out a me.
If Netanyahu and Abbas agree on a proposal that differs slightly or even materially from the literal 67 borders, but genuinely agree, will the Arab League honor its offer?
I assume so.
It is so much in their and really almost everyone’s interest for Israel and Palestine to reconcile.
The dismissive usage of the word Bantustan is difficult. Its a grey word. Some describe the 67 borders as a Bantustan.
Viable is a more descriptive word for real criteria, though that obviously is a grey word as well.
“The dismissive usage of the word Bantustan is difficult. Its a grey word. Some describe the 67 borders as a Bantustan.”
Really? Please provide an example of anyone describing the 67 borders as a Bantustans.
So rather than use a grey word like bantustans, would you prefer we stick to blue words like apartheid?
“Viable is a more descriptive word for real criteria, though that obviously is a grey word as well.”
You would have to be the first person since apartheid South Africa describe bantustans as viable.
That’s like describing the Warsaw Ghetto as Club Med.
“Bantustan” is a gray word?! So, now you’re mocking South African natives who had to live under apartheid?
Holy crap. Is there any depth of racial supremacist thinking and trolling thuggery you won’t resort to in order to vociferously defend Zionism’s “right” to ethnically cleanse?