Harry’s Place

But the lands captured in 1967, were lands that were Mandated to be occupied by both Jews and Arabs and which were annexes by Egypt and Jordan in 1948.

Hence, both Jews and Arabs have the right to live in West Bank and Gaza.

There is always a perception that Israel took something it isn’t entitled to. That isn’t true. The Arab plan MUST include a statement that says Jews have the right to live in a Palestinian State where they already live.

Mel describes it very well http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2768096/another-banana-moment.thtml

“By going over the head of Israel’s fractious politicians, the PA has done something imaginative and productive, which hopefully will at least trigger debate.”

It should be in Arabic and in Palestinian newspapers not Israeli, because the Palestinians must debate frst about what they mean by “a just solution for the refugees”. At the present, their lines are: 1. A complete return of the refugees to Israel., 2. A complete return of the refugees to Israel and financial compensation. 3. A complete return to the refugees to Israel, financial compensation and tickets to watch Jews kill themselves in the Cesarean Amphiteatre.

Yes you are right Fabian, the advert should also be in Arabic and Palestinian newspapers. But the Arab side has made the offer, and it’s Israel which is going to elect a new government next February, so Israeli public opinion is very important at the moment.

Of course the “just solution” is everything in this context. It is absurd to argue for a right of return for all the Palestinian refugees, only a fraction of whom were actually born in Palestine. I often wonder why there is no similar right of return demanded for the refugees from the 1947 India-Pakistan partition, the 1922 Greek/Turkish population exchanges, or even the many tens of thousands of Palestinians expelled from Kuwait after the first gulf war in 1991.

The side stepping of the quasi feudal approach to international relations - powe brokers in darkened rooms negotiating secretly, is to be welcomed, fabian is entirely wrong, it is for everyone to debate the broad and the fine points. What matters, way above the fine points, is the obnjective of peace - at any political price. After all, once peace is established, the precise terms can be altered throuigh negotiation.

“Just and fair settlement of the refugee problem” says Res 242.

Well that’s 800,000 Jews who fled from Arab countries plus maybe 2-3m who fled from Nazi Europe have settled in Mandated Palestine (the bit called Israel).

Compare that with an inflated 750,000 so-called Palestinian refugees (inflated by birth) who can return to a Palestinian State any time they want.

This refugee return is just to destroy Israel by stuffing it with Arabs to create a new Muslim state. It just ain’t gonna happen.

However, the more ridiculous the Palestinian claims the longer it takes. Then there is a small matter of needing to eradicate Hamas. I don’t see peace for at least ten years.

Call me crazy (again) but Peace is a great thing but if things stay the way they are then does Israel really lose a great deal? If they wanted to they could stop Hamas rockets and by and large have stopped terrorist attacks. Its the Palestinians who have the biggest want. The longer they get frustrated then the easier it will be to make them settle for something. Palestinians don’t really hold any cards.

What matters, way above the fine points, is the obnjective of peace - at any political price. After all, once peace is established, the precise terms can be altered throuigh negotiation.

What ARE the objectives of Peace in The Middle East? Peace is something we intuitively want. It means no hostility between parties. The only non-peace part of Israeli side is nutter settlers who Israel needs to more tightly control.

On the Palestinian side the non-peace factions are terrorists. They are terrorists who are simply anti-West and who want to wipe out Israel. At least neither the settlers or Israel wants to wipe out the other side.

So, who has the most to gain from the concept of Peace?

Why do people think they can poressure the side who has least to gain from Peace. Don’t you pressure the side that has MOST to gain to compromise?

We use macro words like “Peace” and “Justice for The Palestinians” but I don’t think there is a single consens as to what these things mean. So, to use them in a political sense still leaves us not knowing what to do.

Do we ever use the phrase “Justice for The Israelis?” Why not? Is it ONLY perceived that Palestinians are WRONGED and Israelis are the reason?

And yet, who can deny trying to process something called “Justice” I mean, we would be bstards for not doing it. Well what is it?

“What matters, way above the fine points, is the obnjective of peace - at any political price.” (Red Deathy)

Of course not. That is simply stupid. If peace at any political price were the only thing that matters, then everybody could just surrender and have the peace of the graveyards, or peace without sovereignty or peace and a dictatorship.

Peace is not the only political objective that matters.

The fact that it’s proposed by an extreme Wahaabi regime makes one suspicious of it. It would be more palatable to me if it came from the Egyptians who had their own peace deal which has survived just about.

However clearly this is the broad outline of what any settlement will contain.

I think however it needs to be enhanced with:-

1. An international dimension to the Jerusalem element.

2. A mirrored “just solution” for Jews displaced from countries in the Islamic world/Jews living in Palestine.

3. A more detailed definition of the just solution. Here’s one idea: the number of returning “refugees” should reflect the number of Jews allowed to stay in Palestinian areas. Jews in Palestinian areas would retain Israeli citizenship and Palestinian returning to Israel would retain Palestinian citizenship. Only persons happy to live peacably on this basis would be allowed to return or stay. Palestinian “refugees” who could not or did not want to return would receive financial compensation. So would Jews displaced from Islamic countries.

4. Economic union to be formed between Israel, Egypt, Palestine and Jordan. To include a fund for equalisation payments and development of common objectives e.g. regional tourism.

And if you try to sell your point of view to the Palestinias, RD, you will find the same argument that I have used from their side. They ask peace with “justice” (whatever the meaning for them). Peace with a state. Not just peace.

“Do we ever use the phrase “Justice for The Israelis?” Why not? Is it ONLY perceived that Palestinians are WRONGED and Israelis are the reason?”
In Israel/Palestine Palestinians are the ones who are wronged or wronged on a much greater scale. Israelis are Israelis because of wrongs done to them or their recent ancestors who were not Israelis- the European persecutions and slaughters, the refusal of any other countries to offer them refuge and the expulsion by Arab countries encouraged by Israeli provocateurs. The paradox is that “Justice for The Jews” then would mean that many- most perhaps- would not be Israelis now.

However clearly this is the broad outline of what any settlement will contain between Iraq and the United States.

I think however it needs to be enhanced with:-

1. An international dimension to the Washington element.

2. A “just solution” for Iraqis displaced from their country by the American-led war.

3. Economic union to be formed between Iraq, the United States and Russia. To include a fund for equalisation payments and development of common objectives e.g. regional tourism.

And include Iran in the economic union with the US, Russia and Iraq.

fabian,

being alive under a dictatorship is better than being dead under a democracy. Living always trumps dying, peace is always preferable to war. Once peace is established that entails peaceful means of existence and co-existence. No country is worth dying for, no country is worth killing for - war is, and should always be seen as, a complete failure of politics and failure for a politician (a concept I nick from Asimov).

To me, both sides by-passing the political elites and the politicians and addressing each other would be a more powerful tool than any US or Saudi Intervention.

“No justice, no peace” is the cry of cretins, and the guarantee of injustice…

This is a positive step but does anyone seriously think the Israelis are interested in a deal that includes allowing East Jerusalem to be the Palestinian Capital? Or remove anymore of the West Bank Settlements then just enough to make a few headlines?

And if that tool Netanyahu wins the election then there won’t be any kind of deal in the foreseable future, the IDF will continue to decline and the whole dog and pony show will drag itself into the next decade. Grrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaaattttttt.

“Don’t you pressure the side that has MOST to gain to compromise?” - lets try a different context, a factory, workers are being maimed, they’re very poor, conditions are terrible, etc. Would we ask strikers in such a situation to comprimise first because they have most to gain?

“being alive under a dictatorship is better than being dead under a democracy.”

Did you take Fallacies 101 last summer?

>By going over the head of Israel’s fractious politicians, the PA has done something imaginative and productive, which hopefully will at least trigger debate. As the BBC reports

What patronising dribble.

Israel is a democracy, the PA is not going over anyone’s head. Israel has a free press.

Trigger debate?

Trigger dabate?

Where does this plonker think he is, the BBC?

Israel does not need to Trigger Debate, it is a democracy, it already has debate.

Some people’s hatred of Israel (Jews) is so extreme, that they imagine the only country in the Middle East with a free press, needs ads in papers so that people can talk freely.

“Living always trumps dying”

No argument against that. Of course, we Israelis think that we have more chances to live and prosper under our state than under an Arab state. And we are not desiring to try that change.

However, the more ridiculous the Palestinian claims the longer it takes.

But Maven, noone goes into talks stating only what they actually want. The same as no-one goes into a job interview and tells the interviewer the exact salary they want. You ask for X, they ask for Y, you both expect X - Y /2. Or, as Harry the Haggler put it:

P.

Ooops, can someone fix that comment please.

Oh, and PLEASE get a Preview button. :)

P.

given the up and coming election in Israel such a move could have positive outcomes, and it hasn’t been dismissed out of hand by the Isaeli govt. or politicians, from what I can see

it would be VERY easy to be negative about it, but that doesn’t achieve anything either.

sometime in the future both Israeli and Palestinian will eventually have to reconcil their differences and accept that they’ll be living next to each other for decades/millinia to come, along with the Arab State’s acknowledgment that Israelis are not going to vanish or throw themselves into the Red Sea

So IF (and I don’t know as I haven’t seen the actual text) these proposals advance that happening then I think they should be cautiously welcomed, because the alternative is the status quo, of continued violence, reaction and further violence which benefits NO ONE

Well, but one of the problems I see is that Adam is very happy that the Palestinians appeal to the Israeli people, going over the head, etc, etc.

That is very nice and democratic until you realize that “The Palestinians” are not the ones appealing to the Israeli people, but the corrupt Fatah clique. So we have an appeal to the Israeli public, made by a small Palestinian elite.

I think I will wait for the grassroots popular Palestinian appeal to the Israeli public.

Fabian,

why not, as the Israeli public, make your appeal to the Palestinian public?

A peace accord between peoples of two different faiths sponsored by a country practicing TOTAL religious apartheid?

That’s like a hardware store selling a line of cosmetics.

May I be forgiven my skepticism?

“why not, as the Israeli public, make your appeal to the Palestinian public?” (RD)

In my respect I did and do. I have signed many petitions including Ami Ayalon’s “The People’s Voice”, I have participated in joint Arab Israeli-Jewish Israeli debates and was part of an NGO that worked among other things, for Palestinian street children, and I debate in many forums. My political positions are clear: two states for two peoples and an end to terrorism. My Hebrew is not so good, so I prefer English and Spanish forums. My Arab is non-existent. I vote left and center.

But I also know that the Palestinians are mostly far from political positions that will ensure peace and that an awful lot of them support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

Out of interest, when is the next Palestinian elections? And what are the latest opinion polls (if there are any) suggesting support for Fatah/Hamas?

sometime in the future both Israeli and Palestinian will eventually have to reconcil their differences and accept that they’ll be living next to each other for decades/millinia to come, along with the Arab State’s acknowledgment that Israelis are not going to vanish or throw themselves into the Red Sea

And when my next door neighbour in the council house starts throwing bricks at my window and trying to kill my cats I go to the Council and get an ASBO. Eventually, if they can’t behave they get evicted.

What doesn’t happen is that the council say “Here, have ownership of the house”.Let’s have a “Just Settlement” but why would that mean Israel get the losing part of a deal? The Palestinians hold a hand with no trumps. Why are we rewarding terrorism when we fight it in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?

This is what most Israelis and most Palestinians have thought for years. As, indeed, have most Arab governments, which do in fact have very extensive “officially unofficial” ties to Israel. Standing in the way have been, and are, people who do not live there and who never will, being mostly resident in London (as British citizens) or in New York (as American citizens).

Irish?

Pappists!

Has the PA stopped hate preachers on its TV? Or is Adam Le Bor so enthusiastic about the PA advertisement, because it seems to be a smart move on behalf of those who preach hatred on their state owned media against Jews and show friendship in Hebrew?

A deal including a ‘just solution,’ which will allow a ‘Right of Return’ to Palestinians and their descendents, calculated by them to be four million, but not Jews, this effectively creates a unitary Palestinian state.

In exchange for what? Saudi Arabia and its other allies complying with their existing obligations under 242 and 338.

Avnery’s reflections on June 67 war

“On the fifth day of the war, just after our army had conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, I wrote an open letter to Levy Eshkol, proposing that he seize the historic opportunity and offer the Palestinian people the chance to establish a state of their own. I had advocated this idea since 1949, but I was convinced that this moment, with the whole region in a state of shock, was the right time to make peace with the Palestinians by making them an historic offer.

Right after the war, Eshkol invited me to a private talk. He listened patiently while I explained this idea. “Uri, what kind of a trader are you?” he said with a benign smile, “In negotiations, one starts by offering the minimum and demanding the maximum. Then, gradually, one raises the offer until a compromise is achieved somewhere in the middle. What you propose is to offer everything even before negotiations have started.”

“That is true when one sells a horse,” I answered, “not when one wants to achieve a historic peace.”

Maven -

The problem with that analogy is that a large part of humanity sees Jews as the interlopers and trouble makers, the anti-social element, in this part of the world.

It’s not something I accept. No one calls for repatriation of the descendants of the Turkish Imperial interlopers do they? But why not? They were from a thousand miles away or more!

However, I don’t think it helps to take the confrontational line you propose. I completely agree there can be no peace until the Palestinians commit to that path. However, one expect any people to take kindly to an inflow of people from a different culture who set up their own state. It is better to accept that hurt has been caused.

OT a bit, but too amazing to pass up.
“Israeli company to secure Vatican: Herzliya-based smart cam company gets contract to secure sensitive areas of Vatican City. Deal estimated at $4-$5 million” at
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3626206,00.html

This story is not a spoof, but true.

What matters, way above the fine points, is the obnjective of peace - at any political price. After all, once peace is established, the precise terms can be altered throuigh negotiation.

Ignorant nonsense - you don’t know anything about the ME or indeed about history, as the above demonstrates. ‘Peace’ is not an abstract thing, completely separated from the concrete circumstances both before or after it happens. Peace ‘at any price’ is what got us into WWII. And you don’t negotiate terms AFTER you come to an agreement - you negotiate them in order to REACH an agreement.

An international dimension to the Jerusalem element

Once again, Field thinks that anyone in the world can have a claim on Jerusalem just because it’s mentioned in his New Testament. What a loser.

In Israel/Palestine Palestinians are the ones who are wronged or wronged on a much greater scale. Israelis are Israelis because of wrongs done to them or their recent ancestors who were not Israelis- the European persecutions and slaughters, the refusal of any other countries to offer them refuge and the expulsion by Arab countries encouraged by Israeli provocateurs.

Ignorant drivel. Did you read this on some neo-Nazi website, or only in some Jew-hating rant by Max Hastings? The so-called ‘Palestinians’ are where they are because they tried to implement a genocidal agenda. They lost. Tough cheese.
You are obviously one of those idiots who thinks that all Israelis came after WWII. They didn’t.
Israeli provocateurs, eh? Those poor Arabs, goaded against their will into pogroms against Jews by Israeli provocateurs.
Moron.

Standing in the way have been, and are, people who do not live there and who never will, being mostly resident in London (as British citizens) or in New York (as American citizens).

Or in Bristol, or wherever the mouth-frothing DL lives.

The problem with that analogy is that a large part of humanity sees Jews as the interlopers and trouble makers, the anti-social element, in this part of the world.

Sure. That’s how antisemites see Jews. That is no reason for Jews to accept that as the basis for their behaviour in their own country.

However, one expect any people to take kindly to an inflow of people from a different culture who set up their own state. It is better to accept that hurt has been caused.

Yeah, those blasted Joos, setting up a state in their own country.

Nearly O -

Yours is a view - just like Hamas’s view that the whole of Palestine/Israel belongs to the Umma.

It’s not the basis for a settlement.

It’s a basis for continued war. And not one that Israel is guaranteed to win.