Harry's Place

We’re all Palestinian Arabs now.

Incidentially, I’ve met quite a few separate from any political environment (and even some genuinely from there, and not with a grandparent). They’re lovely people.

The most abuse for my views I receive are from white Europeans.

Whatever it takes to stop the fighting is fine by me.

It would appear that Palestinians want peace an prosperity. What a bunch of sell outs! If only they were as committed to the struggle as the SWP!

Guess who said this?

“The state of Israel is a hydra-headed monster, comprising Zionist ethnic cleansers, US imperialists, and Arab collaborationist regimes. Arrayed against this monster are the forces of human progress.”

No peeking!

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1612

An enemy of the Palestinian people.

“It would appear that Palestinians want peace an prosperity. What a bunch of sell outs! If only they were as committed to the struggle as the SWP!”

They wanted peace and prosperity before Oslo imposed on them Arafat and the PLO.

This woman http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100013252/arabs-for-israel-meet-the-egyptian-woman-who-campaigns-against-islamic-culture/ seems to have the right idea

They were offered a one state binational solution or two states for two peoples. I wonder how many would have voted for a one state solution without Israelis or Jews had it been an option.

As for the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt, Jordan comprises 75% of Mandate Palestine. It only captured the West Bank in 1948, otherwise this area would have been an undisputed part of Israel, not “occupied”.

It is about 65% Palestinian, although culturally it would be pretty hard IMO to distinguish Jordanian Arab culture from Palestinian Arab culture.

Feasibly at some point the Palestinians will outnumber the Jordanians to the point where the descendants of Abdullah 1, put in place by the British (I think the Jordanians rejected Faisal 1 who ended up in Iraq) , will be overthrown and Jordan will be a true Palestinian state. Akin to Albania, Northern Macedonia and Kosovo (Greater Albania), it would surely seek to join with the West Bank.

So is it really that off the wall to suggest joining the WB to Jordan? Better for many than suggesting the WB be a permanent part of Israel!

B

Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm

Nice link, Venichka

“Tolerating intolerance is not a sign of virtue, but gross negligence. The West hates itself and it’s very sad.”

Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm

I don’t think there is any sudden support for Israel from the EDL types. I think the answer is far simpler – the EDL folk want to wind up their target (Muslims) with what they think will upset and aggravate them, i.e. Israeli flags, etc. A bit like waving a red flag to a bull.

Live long and prosper.

Meanwhile, DebkaFile spots “something seriously amiss” on the military front:

“US and Israeli forces were already poised to launch their joint Juniper Cobra strategic missile defense exercise, which takes place every two years, to begin Monday Oct. 12, when at noon an Israeli military spokesman suddenly announced its postponement by one week. [. . .] It was not immediately clear whether the highly exceptional week’s postponement of the exercise on the very day it was to begin was a joint US-Israeli decision or one made by Israel for political or perhaps technical reasons. At any rate, it indicates something seriously amiss.”

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6315

>> Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm

Remind us of the goons welcomed at supposedly pro Palestinian rallies.

Erm, still not a word on the Sayeeda Warsi speech? Or have I missed something?

“Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm”

If I didn’t know who “John Bloxham” really was, I’d suspect that it was either Nick Griffin or Simon Darby of the BNP.

They also seem to think that the EDL is a Zionist plot, and have accordingly banned their members from participating in it.

The extreme Left and the far Right seem to hold many common positions these days.

@not John Bloxham

Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm

…and your point is?

I’ve always supported a 3 state solution myself, given the practicalities on the ground. The majority of Gazan Palestinians are ethnically, culturally and linguistically inseparable from their Egyptian counterparts living in North Sinai (many of whom emigrated there from the Nile Delta), but the Egyptian govt. with its own multitude of problems would never accept responsibility for Gaza. The bedouin of North Sinai are culturally, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the majority of Gazans, have far more in common with Hijazi Arabs, and are pretty well disenfranchised as it is without lumping another few million people on their doorstep. As Barad says, Jordan is a de facto West Bank Palestinian state and it would make far more sense for the Palestinians there to link up with their Jordanian cousins with whom many share close familial ties to this day. Whatever the solution, the key aspect is that it secures a plurality of support from Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank. This is all pie in the sky stuff at the moment though as are talk of elections in the new year. Palestinians must be given the opportunity and the wherewithall (and that includes involving successful Palestinian ex-pats in the process, of which there are many) to develop the structures and institutions for sovereignty to mean something – without them, and a stable economy, any talk of 2/3/4 state solutions is just more wishful thinking.

OT
It’s been a long time since the Afgahn elections and still no mention of it here. It would seem pretty hipocritical of this site. Is there any reasonable explanation for this?

PS
I don’t normally trust polls but the margin of error is only +/-3 so it seems pretty reliable, at least on face value.

a “just settlement” of the issue of Palestinian refugees.

How one interprets this means everything, no? Until this sort of dodgy language is cleaned up, polls mean little.

Generally a just settlement means letting all the “refugees” which means the original Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948 and all their descendants back into Israel. This definition of refugee is, I think, unique to Palestinians. It also means dividing Jerusalem; paying these “refugees” lots of money (and probably including their descendants); opening the borders to Gaza so everyone can pretend Hamas doesn’t exist; possibly dividing Israel in half so Gaza and the WB can be one. This is probably a minimalist interpretation because if you look at what the PA actually says, it believes (and teaches) that Israel doesn’t exist at all.

I think most Palestinians are pretty realistic about what is likely to happen.

I agree with David T. Most Palestinians would agree to a two state solution.
Most Palestinians would have agreed to the Clinton/Barak plan.

There is something missing from this. The understanding that there are no more refugees, and no more living on the dole.

Stan

So perhaps that realism is why so many of them are resigned to a bad peace rather than any sort of justice.

‘Some in the far right are now big Israel supporters, as anyone who has seen the EDL marches through Manchester & Birmingham will confirm’

Yeah, and matadors are all communists, because they use red flags to bait bulls (the way the EDL use the Star of David to bait their targets). Deep down inside, neo-Nazis still hate Jews, and as Alec M notes, you see more than a few anti-Semites and fascists marching in so-called ‘anti-war’ rallies – they just don’t happen to be white.

“Most Palestinians would have agreed to the Clinton/Barak plan.”

Stan, could you tell me what is the basis for this statement?

B

On the basis of this poll, I think you could fairly say that Harry’s Place is more of a pro-Palestinian blog than…

This is a surprising statement – do we have any word on whether the Palestinians appreciate your rubbish analysis aimed at disproving their own violent deaths? How do they feel about your propaganda campaigns against newspapers and NGOs that report violations of their rights, or your non-stop attempts to paint protestors against their mistreatment as Nazis? Do we know whether the Palestinians enjoy your relentless rah-rah pompom waving every time their neighbours start bombing their cities?

I think we all agree on a two-state solution and favour Hamas fucking off, but the idea that HP is pro-Palestinian at all, in comparison to 99% of anyone, is hilarious in the extreme. Every time the Israelis start flinging the whizzbang at heavily-populated Palestinian cities, you lot turn into some kind of fucked-up, half-apologetic Pravda and your commenters make your threads sound like a drunken, late-night phone-in on Rwandan state radio.

“Stop cheerleading for Hamas. You’re pissing off most Palestinians:”

Your statement is not backed up by facts, assuming that the majority would vote for Fatah does not mean the majority hates Hamas.

HP is not pro Palestinian for the simple reason that they oppose reparations, heck even Germany had to pay victims of the Holocaust and their families.

Yes, they quite often do, Sackcloth.

I read somewhere that the original hope of the PLO was first to conquer Israel and then to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, so as to truly win back all of Palestine.

“So perhaps that realism is why so many of them are resigned to a bad peace rather than any sort of justice.”

Pretty much in the same way that the Jews of the Middle East and Europe are resigned to the sad fact that antisemitism will recur, periodically in the societies in which they live.

Barad,
The basis is my personal experience. Working in the “peace movement” during the Oslo years, I spent a lot of time in Ramallah and Bethlehem. I worked directly with Palestinians, and my overwhelming sense was they were genuinely amenable to a two state solution similar to what was offered.
I also was involved in Israeli/Palestinian listserves around the time of the Clinton/Barak proposal. I did not hear support for the proposal at that time. What I heard was complete ignorance as to what was offered. The Palestinian leadership decided to demonize Israel rather than report the facts of the proposal. The Palestinian people heard nothing but the demonization.

Stan

How eerily familiar it is… The enemies of peace on side A can always rely on the enemies of peace on side B and vice versa. What would the Yesha Council did without Hamas and what would Hamas has done without Yesha Council. And, needless to say, the trick is to identify the “other side” with its most extreme elements.

However, once you check actual opinions and real people, they fail to play this game. Both Israelis and Palestinians are considerably more moderate and realistic than their extremes (represented so richly on HP, often in the most mouth-foaming variety), certainly more than those external “friends” of Israel willing for Israelis to fight to their last drop of blood and those external “friends” of Palestinians, willing to sacrifice every single Palestinian to their “vision”.

“So perhaps that realism is why so many of them are resigned to a bad peace rather than any sort of justice.”

Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) Source: De Natura Deorum (III, 15).

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

[Lat., Summum jus, summa injuria.]

Justice means justice for both peoples: a sovereign state, with right of return for both peoples, shared Jerusalem, old and new, cessation of hostilities now and forever etc.

It’s odd how for some “justice” means only justice for Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

Stan,

Thanks-interesting perspective and you have had far more direct contact with Palestinians than I have.

FWIW my occasional contact with individual Palestinians (and Jordanians of Palestinian origin), much of it soon after Oslo, in a social and sporting context in the UK was generally that they were deeply anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish (indeed barely making the distinction), keen believers in Protocols-style conspiracy theories (Jews control banks, media, everything) and overall very hostile. They certainly wished Israel to disappear even if they thought that unlikely. They did not seem open to any compromise such as Barak was proposing. But as you say, there may well have been ignorance and demonisation so that they could not fairly judge.

B

Harry’s is naive or foolish or both.

During periods when the Israelis sit on the Palestinians, the Palestinians appear to grow more moderate.

As soon as the Israelis loosen up, the Palestinians revert to their former irredentism and dreams of eliminating Israel.

Then, Prostate, I take it you consult your Central Committee.

Shmuel @ 12 October 2009, 4:53 pm

“a “just settlement” of the issue of Palestinian refugees.

How one interprets this means everything, no? Until this sort of dodgy language is cleaned up, polls mean little.”

I think it means an opening for talks about how much money is paid to give up property claims.

ref: 28% prioritize the removal of the settlers…

See

The Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank is about 2.5 million. There are about 200,000 “settlers” living beyond the Green Line, i.e., less than 10% of the prospective “two-state” Palestinians. This compares to about 20% of within Green Line Israel’s present population comprised by Arabs, mostly Muslims.

So if the two-state solution is predicated on the complete ethnic cleansing of Jewish settlers, then please explain to me why post-two-state Israel is allowed no equivalent ethnic cleansing options of their own, from inside the Green Line?

And explain once again also why that any Jews who opted to stay in Palestine –agreeing to live under Palestinian sovereignty– would be more likely by far to be murdered, rather than fully and duly protected by the emergent Palestinian state, should give the Arabs a pass on ethnic cleansing?

How many Israeli Arabs, in toto, have been murdered by the “Zionazis” since the establishment of the State of Israel? Two? Twenty?

And, of course, regarding recompense or justice due the 800,000 Jews ethnically cleansed from the Arab countries after 1947… let’s not even go there.

Hopefully, here’s the link deleted from the post above:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574446931027154794.html

(by R. James Woolsey, Bubba’s CIA Director, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal online)

The story I hear from Klein at Worldnet is that the USA promised to squeeze Israel if Abbas dropped his opposition to a hearing on Goldstone.

Then Hamas hammered Abbas for selling-out. Now Abbas has said that he will now raise the issue of an early UN discussion on Goldstone and offer to investigate the idiot who sold out the Palestinians on this (him!).

If Abbas goes ahead then Israel will rightly treat this as hostile and disengage from Abbas while he persues this course. Meanwhile I expect Western nations to snooker the discussion on Goldstone at the UN because the allies are as guilty of the same ‘war crimes’ alleged against Israel. If they let Goldstone go to a condemnation vote of Israel then they will be next. Israel would simply disengage if the USA allowed a debate to happen.

Interesting stuff!

Previous polls have shown the majority of Palestinians want peace and an accommodation with Israel – the last I saw gave it at 75%. But their leaders will never accept it. Why? Because the only thing stopping the people from lynching their dismally inept leaders is the constant “war” with Israel.

Before Argentina invaded the Falklands, the Foreign Office received a report from our embassy that the only thing that would stop Galtieri and his fellow bums from overthrow was a war. It duly followed. The bleak world of 1984 was held in three political blocks by constant war. The people did not want it, only the leaders.

So why does the dismally inept Obama keep talking to the bums running Palestine, and pandering to their worst desires by slagging off Israel? How many Palestinians must have groaned at this naive dupe?

What is wrong with all this? The Liberal narrative of the metropolitan elite, the chattering classes, the Guardian, the BBC, the Left in general and the forlorn hope that all people are basically nice, once you have found the right buttons.

I think most Palestinians are pretty realistic about what is likely to happen.

What obvious crap. Are they realistic about what’s the likely result of teaching your children to attack soldiers? That has been official policy for a long time, encouraging children to “drop their toys and pick up rocks!”

If they were realistic, they would have seen this a the greatest possible crime against the Palestinian people, destroying the future of their children and destroying their potential for peace, prosperity, life without fear etc.

They are not a society of reality-based people.

However the more they lose the fighting and lose obviously and massively, (as in Gaza recently) the more support for continuing war falls. Even in war time, people respond to losing.

HarrysNoPlace, exactly!

The problem is that the Brits who inhabit this blog think of winning as too sinful to even contemplate.

>>> However the more they lose the fighting and lose obviously and massively, (as in Gaza recently) the more support for continuing war falls. Even in war time, people respond to losing.

They find a better way to fight.

And win.

I’ve always found Khaled Abu Toameh, who has the huge advantage not only of being Palestinian and therefore native Arabic speaker but also having cut his journalistic teeth working for a Fatah publication, a fairly reliable guide to Palestinian opinion. Better in fact than the polls quoted here.

His latest report is at variance with David T’s sunny optimism about the outlook of the Palestinian people (who did after all vote for Hamas in 2006 in much larger numbers than any poll had suggested). He now believes that Abbas and Fatah have completely lost their credibility with ordinary Palestinians who wish to see Israel branded as a criminal nation and its leaders arraigned for war crimes. He was one of the few people who predicted the huge electoral success of Hamas in the last elections in 2006.

I’d like to know what the evidence is that there is a majority of the Palestinian people who would agree to a Palestinian state being founded without also ensuring that 1948 Palestinian refugees and all their descendants have a right of return to Israel.

I think it’s naive to believe that the Palestinians are a people with political views largely compatible with those most readily received in Stoke Newington who somehow get landed with leaders whose views are totally at variance with their own, and nevertheless keep on voting for them.

Or that, basically, their views are sort of mainstream Guardian reading liberal left, but they just keep voting for Hamas out of annoyance with the kleptocracy of the Fatah leadership. Just as we will all go out and vote for groups who promise armed resistance against the House of Commons because we’re so enraged at all those MPs from the leaders downwards who feather their own nests and duck houses out our long-suffering expense and then complain how hard done by they are.

What is your definition of the Palestinians “winning”, HH?

“So if the two-state solution is predicated on the complete ethnic cleansing of Jewish settlers, then please explain to me why post-two-state Israel is allowed no equivalent ethnic cleansing options of their own, from inside the Green Line?”

Because the settlers are illegal in international law and Palestinian Israelis are citizens of Israel. Besides, I don’t want to live in a monolithic country anyway. Population transfer might need to be done to some extent, but it is disturbing to see how many people would be willing to forcibly remove millions of people from their homes in the name of ethnic/religious purity.

“and what would Hamas has done without Yesha Council.” (SO Muffin)

What? Did the former left any atrocity untried? I don’t think so.

Well, Fabian, this is exactly what I suggest: start thinking.

Most Israelis want a two-state solution, with peace, recognition by the Arab world, secure borders, stuff. Whether you want it or not, this is a fact.

Most Palestinians want a two-state solution, with peace, solution of the problem of refugees (not necessarily within Israel) and a viable state of their own. This is a fact.

Yet… There is no two-state solution and its prospects are more distant than ever. Why?

Most Israelis believe that Palestinians are out to get them, that there is no partner, that what the Palestinians really want is to extinguish the Jewish state (and as many of its inhabitants as possible). This is a fact and Hamas has a great deal to answer for this.

Most Palestinians believe that Israelis are out to get them, that there is no partner, that what the Israelis really want is either to expel the Palestinians to the desert and take away their land or to enslave them as Israeli carriers of water and hewers of wood. This is a fact and Yesha Council has a great deal to answer for this.

You might be happy about all that. This is your prerogative. In that case, you are in league with both Yesha Council and Hamas and, I am afraid, you can’t escape this.

Who the fuck is “the Yesha Council” and I take it they’re sending Jewish boys to Gaza with suicide vests on and rocketing civilians?

They’re not?

What the fuck are you on about?

Ok, I googled.

“The Council works to improve security by (for instance) arranging the acquisition of bullet-proof ambulances and buses. The Council works with the Israeli government to provide roads, electricity, and water to the settlements.”

They sound genocidal to me, I can see how you came the conclusion that the Palestinians are exactly like the Israelis, only misunderstood.

What a moron SOM always is.

Yo, Gabe…

“Because the settlers are illegal in international law and Palestinian Israelis are citizens of Israel…”

Oh, yeah, “illegal in international law”. Plum fergot about that. For the reality-based community, its the deal-breaker, alright. Always has been, always will be.

As for the “citizens’ of Israel” part, no problem then, with Avigdor Lieberman’s love-it-or-leave-it loyalty oaths, ehhh?

Most Palestinians believe that Israelis are out to get them, that there is no partner, that what the Israelis really want is either to expel the Palestinians to the desert and take away their land or to enslave them as Israeli carriers of water and hewers of wood. This is a fact and Fatah and Hamas and the entire Arab/Muslim/Western-leftist propaganda industry has a lot to answer for.

Fixed

RE: Even germany had to pay reparations to victims of the holocaust and their families.

Aside from the rubbish equation of Palestinians and holocaust victims, the above is not even true. My mother receives reparations money from the Germans not because her family was killed and not because of the holocaust in general, but specifically because she was a slave labourer in a concentration camp for 4-5 years. Had she not done the forced labour, the German govt would not hand out the money. End of story.

Population transfer might need to be done to some extent,…

the ugly head of Stalinism rears up.

the ugly head of Stalinism rears up.

Well, since policing, “occupation,” fails, the question is how do you stop people who want to murder from murdering. Distance and impenetrable borders seem like the most humane answers.

I don’t know if transfer is necessary, but I do know that mocking the wish for peace as “Stalinism” is reprehensible.

Josh: I wasn’t mocking the wish for peace. Far from it. But forced population transfer has a rather ugly history.

But I do agree with you (confusing, I guess). Impenetrable borders and distance does work wonders. I don’t think there is any chance in the near or middle future of peace between Jews and Muslims anywhere in the world, due, entirely, to the actions of Muslims.

I don’t have an answer to this (at least one which is politically doable).

‘This is a fact and Hamas has a great deal to answer for this.’
True, Muffin, but it would be unwise to ingnore the wording of the original PLO charter, created in 1964 – a full 3 years before any Israeli set foot in Gaza, the Golan or Judea & Samaria. It’s not light years away from the Hamas charter -just with fewer religious references because of the more secular nature of the PLO. The recent Fatah conference didn’t exactly reject that world view either, did it?
Of course I am not privy to the inner workings of the Yesha council, but logic and previous experience of evacuations would suggest that they are a lot more pragmatic than you suggest. Remember the ‘Tik Afarsek’ affair? For those who don’t; almost a decade ago, when it seemed as though Ehud Barak was about to made a deal with Assad senior to relinquish the Golan, the Golan regional council (area equivalent to the Yesha council) was caught up in a scandal which became known as ‘Tik Afarsek’. It came out that whilst the council was on the one hand organising a big PR campaign against the evacuation of the Golan, including hunger strikes, at the same time it was also making contingency plans for that evacuation.
Personally, I thought that my council was right in taking a double headed approach, but many others saw it as defeatism on their part.
Any ’settler’ knows that part of our job is to make sure that the Israeli public does not forget that this land, that some would relinquish at the drop of a hat, was gained through great sacrifice. So many people died so that Israel could push back the threats from Syria, Jordan and Egypt to a manageable distance. We have to ensure that we do not make their sacrifice worthless by voluntarily or hastily returning to a position in which we cannot defend ourselves; that the price the other side pays for gaining control of any land we relinquish is one which will ensure future years of quiet and calm, not a return to war and violence.
That tiny minority of us who live on the front line have a responsibility to remind the majority, whose daily experience in Gush Dan sometimes leads them to forget these factors, of the huge responsibilities involved in relinquishing territory.

Hah! Silly Willy Yeats said it first:

“… the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity …”

The chaps with the guns will prevail.

All comments get me confused, really. It blurry..

True, Muffin, but it would be unwise to ingnore the wording of the original PLO charter, created in 1964

Not just in 1964 but much later the Herut Party, and its successor Likud, were formally in favour of not just “Greater Israel” extending from the sea all the way to Jordan, but also of annexing the Hashemite Kingdom to Israel: as Beitar youth sang, “Jordan has two shores: one is ours and so is the other one!”.

Does it mean that this is the official policy of the Israeli government and that we should disregard (or consider as sheer hypocrisy) Bibi Netanyahu’s agreement to a two-state solution?

So many people died so that Israel could push back the threats from Syria, Jordan and Egypt to a manageable distance.

Those people – many of them my friends, many of them who died at my side – did so to safeguard the existence and well-being of the State of Israel, not to allow your settler friends the opportunity to evict Palestinian villagers in the West Bank, behaving like Cossacks on rampage and establishing an empire of their own.

That tiny minority of us who live on the front line…

Now Manchester is the front line? Even Begin in his madder moments didn’t claim it.

S.O.Muffin -

Israelinurse was making the perfectly valid point that when southern Lebanon was handed back it became a launching pad for rockets. Ditto Gaza.

It took some sharp smacks to compel Hizbollah and Hamas to cease and desist, as we all know.

Equally, Northern Sinai became a conduit for smuggling rocket parts and explosives into Gaza; the Egyptian who’ll refuse a bribe has yet to be born.

Of course, in both cases power should have been handed over to well-armed unscrupulous local clans who would have run both places like personal fiefdoms, but the opportunity was missed and probably won’t come again.

Israelinurse simply does not want the Golan to become a rocket-launching pad or a terrorist base, as it was before 1967.

The fact that she chooses to spend some of her time in chilly Blighty is neither here nor there!

Israelinurse was making the perfectly valid point that when southern Lebanon was handed back it became a launching pad for rockets. Ditto Gaza.

No, Jimmy, this point is not valid.

Neither South Lebanon nor Gaza were “handed back”, this is a convenient legend.

In the case of South Lebanon, and as a consequence of the idiotic Lebanon War in the early 80ties (which, more than anything else, eroded Israeli deterrence, created Hizbullah and served, in the long term, the most extreme Iranian interests: it was just about the worst strategic disaster!) and the “asymmetric warfare” that followed, IDF retreated, leaving the ground to Hizbullah.

In the case of Gaza, Sharon steadfastly refused to “hand it over” under any sort of agreement or negotiations with the PLO (something that might have proved that “there is a partner”). Instead, Gaza was left in a vacuum, effectively given away to local clan thugs and, in the long run, to Hamas and its goons.

The art of politics, Jimmy, is not to make grand (and ultimately idiotic) gestures that look good as newspaper headlines but, in the long run (and even before newsprint turns into mulch), help nobody but your worst enemies.

Equally, Northern Sinai became a conduit for smuggling rocket parts and explosives into Gaza; the Egyptian who’ll refuse a bribe has yet to be born.

Leaving aside your charming racism… The reason Israel marched into Sinai in 1967 was the presence along Israeli borders (and in defiance of written agreements) of Egyptian army, poised to invade Israel. Since peace with Egypt, Sinai is demilitarized and nobody claims that Egypt is not keeping to this. (Indeed, one reason why Egyptian army and police are fairly powerless in face of massive smuggling is that there are so few of them. I seem to recall that Israel proposed increasing their numbers above those prescribed in the Peace Agreement.)

It is easy to rewrite history. Indeed, rewriting history is a popular sport of those keen that we repeat time and again the same blunders.

SOM, I’m not convinced that the “handing back” that you claim Israel missed could have been more that photo opportunities.

Israel did it’s part, it left, it’s up to the people on the other side to take responsibility once she left.

So your claim is that if an Israeli premier shook a few hands before leaving then peace would be magically possible? Well if thats true, then you have the secret to the universe and should be telling every Isaeli not us…

As for Jimmy’s “charming racism”, I think he was making an observation about the lack of civil responsibility common in third world countries, he said “Egyptian” not “Arab” though since there are no first world Arab countries that might not be a problem either.

Josh Scholar, you’ll understand that I have no intention of replying to you or engaging with you in any argument.

I don’t mind arguing with anybody, as long as minimal standards of civility are respected. These cannot be switched on and off at will. Prove over a period of time that you’ve shed your boorishness and we will be able to talk.

Fine, then fuck off

SOM thinks it’s convenient to be too sensitive to take arguments on their own merits. A hint for you, sane people are not impressed with that.

Also, beyond correcting you by pointing out that of course sane adults can turn civility on and off at will, I would like to point out that you would never be insulted in this comment section if your so many of your arguments weren’t apparently deliberate insults to our intelligence.

You seem to think you can bulldoze over reason and fact with your pious poses, for our own good. “If wishes were horses then beggars would ride, and the world would drown in an ocean of pride.”

Worry not, Muffin; this part of West Yorkshire will soon be liberated from its Israeli settlers, albeit by process of unilateral withdrawal.
Will this justify the ‘Eee By Gum Liberation Front’ firing missiles at them inside Israeli territory? I think not.