Harry's Place

Off-topic, but please petition the Prime Minister to declare the UK’s opposition to the Goldstone Report, and to ensure its rejection when a vote is taken in the UN.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoToGoldstone/

This is the one who’s married to a Jewish woman. He was watching their son build a lego wall… “is that a wall, son?”.

Son kicks him, “no, dad, it’s a fence!”.

6. I also think Israelis should find it in their hearts to show compassion and offer their apologies to Palestinians for the conflict.

That’s a bit rich, isn’t it, without at least a quid pro quo, given whose rejection of partition started all this in the first place.

That’s the only bit you object to?

Good!

I support him with my whole heart – but he doesn’t stand a chance.

Point 6 will be the sticking point that guarantees another two decades of conflict. Ironically, it is the only purely symbolic point in a list of otherwise practical and reasonable suggestions.

Ah, I see Greg also spotted that.

Point 6 could certainly be balanced by a similar terrorism-related symbolic provision.

It’s a useful effort: if nothing else it will show us exactly how much support there is in Palestine for these kind of sensible compromises.

This is nonsense. There is no equivalence, and there is no peace partner.

On point 15 and voting, the arrangement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland might be a better model. Following this, current Israeli residents who took Palestinian citizenship would retain voting rights where they were resident, and Jewish residents in Palestine would get voting rights there.

Obviously no-one should be able to vote in both countries simultaneously, but it would seem better to have voting rights tied to residency.

Are Israeli citizens resident outside the country currently able to vote in Israeli elections?

“A subway system should be built”

I’m not sure I would want to live above a Palestinian subway tunnel.

I also think Israelis should find it in their hearts to show compassion and offer their apologies to Palestinians for the conflict.

He’s got to be kidding. Talk about chutzpah.

The comments above show how little there is to substantively object to in this platform; the best you guys can do seems to be “er, surely both sides should apologise?”

The guy sounds fair-minded, sensible and humane. He’ll get creamed.

Try reading more carefully, Eugenides: nobody has said this is the ONLY objection. There are plenty of others: 4 is a non-started, and 14 is nonsense.
But it does encapsulate the basic flaw, i.e. he fails to grasp that Israelis have been the victims of Arab aggression. As do you.

What’s the objection to 4? I don’t have one.

Why is 14 nonsense?

if 20% of israelis with votes and members of paliament are non jewish how can you describe israel as racist? name me an arab nation with actual representation of the minority??? Israeli arabs are the most represented arabs in the world! all this by the desecndents of monkeys and pigs!!

Some of these sound reasonable at this level of detail (indeed, some are motherhood and apple-pie). But with some of them, especially point 4, the devil is in the detail. It’s in trying to draw up the specifics of how it’s going to work in practice that you’ll run into the problems. For example, let’s say a Jewish artifact is found under a Mosque. Who has sovereignty? What about Temple Mount? etc.

Everyone has known what a peace settlement will look like for a long time. This is a statement of that fact.
The plan leaves out major factors. First, it does not settle the Palestinian “refugee” issue. What happens to the people living in camps. Do a million “refugees” whose only connection to the West Bank is through their parents, grandparents and great grandparents suddenly descend on the land jobless, with no home or community?
The other major unaddressed issue is that many Palestinians are in welfare mentality with generations living on the dole. How do you transform a society to self sustaining and self reliant.
The above issues must be worked on and solved now. Solving them does not require a peace agreement, but paves the way for one.

Stan

Gordon Bennet writes: “Try reading more carefully, Eugenides: nobody has said this is the ONLY objection. There are plenty of others: 4 is a non-started, and 14 is nonsense. But it does encapsulate the basic flaw, i.e. he fails to grasp that Israelis have been the victims of Arab aggression. As do you.”

The original Gordon Bennett was a newspaper owner who blew his chance of marrying into one of America’s richest families because he turned up spectacularly drunk and his fiancee’s house and urinated intp the fireplace.

I mention this because the refusal of some Israelis and their cheerleaders to recoognise that this is a two-sided conflict and that they bear some responsibility for its continuation and have done things that merit an apology (at the very least) will be seen as a self-destructive act of folly on a par with Bennett’s.

“The other major unaddressed issue is that many Palestinians are in welfare mentality with generations living on the dole. How do you transform a society to self sustaining and self reliant.”

Good lord, it’s the same with Northern Ireland too, but that’s why you don’t try to iron out every damn detail at the start.

I see the usual suspects in the thread think that Israel has never ever been at any fault in the conflict at all.

P.

This is Hilarious to be honest. This guy must be mentally sick or just an alcoholic. The plight of Palestinians is no laughing matter, and peddling this comedian just adds insult to injury. No wonder why he is being promoted by people who would never choose to shake hands with a Palestinian except when killing.

So what are your objections to the peace proposals Mr M?

Mine calls for one state solution without racists like this:
a black stain, inferior and stupid

The original Gordon Bennett was a newspaper owner who blew his chance of marrying into one of America’s richest families because he turned up spectacularly drunk and his fiancee’s house and urinated intp the fireplace.

This is, of course, a relevant argument and of course conclusive proof that you are right and I am wrong. Well done. Help yourself to a cigar.

I mention this because the refusal of some Israelis and their cheerleaders to recoognise that this is a two-sided conflict and that they bear some responsibility for its continuation and have done things that merit an apology (at the very least) will be seen as a self-destructive act of folly on a par with Bennett’s.

Nobody has said that Israel doesn’t bear any responsibility for anything. This is merely the usual strawman that people who know nothing about the ME – and Israel’s enemies – trot out periodically.

The fact is that there is no symmetry. Israel didn’t set out at any time to annihilate any of its neighbours. Some of these neighbours did do so for decades, and some of them still do so now.

Those who ignore this historical fact have only themselves to blame when they are ridiculed.

Why is 14 nonsense, he asks:

for every Jewish individual seeking to live in Palestine, a Palestinian should be permitted to live in Israel

There are already vastly greater numbers of Arabs living in Israel than Jews in so-called ‘Palestine’.

Is someone suggesting that the numbers should be equalised by deporting Arabs from Israel? No, I didn’t think so.

In fact, major Palestinian populations in Israel could be annexed into Palestine (like settlements).

So, tear off large chunks of Israel (how do you define major Palestinian populations, exactly?). Brilliant.

Some details escape me:
Point 4: Where is the border between Israel and Palestine? Is it the green line from 1949-67? Does the large area of the new Jerusalem neighbourhoods developed over that border now become part of the shared city? (These include both Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods). Does it have its own government? Does the shared city extend as far as it wants or do final borders for the expansion of the shared city need to be set now? Can Jews build where they want towards the east and Arabs build where they want towards the west? Does the Islamic Waqf surrender its control over the Temple Mount/Haram El-Sharif?

From point 10, the unified Palestine consists of Gaza and the West Bank. According to point 2, Hamas will be required to lay down their arms. Is the plan dependent on Hamas relinquishing control of Gaza? Or is Israel expected to allow free passage of Gazan forces and weapons into the West bank? How will this passage be policed?

In fact, the passageway from Gaza to the West Bank was a serious Israeli proposal (Interim Agreements, 1995 and Safe Passage Protocol October 1999). They were put on hold during the second Intifada and dropped after the Hamas takeover of Gaza. The proposal here is not new – just impossible in the face of the facts on the ground, which are not in Israel’s control.

Point 5 depends on the Palestinians giving up what they call their “Right of Return”. There has never been any sign that this would ever be palatable to the Palestinian side.

Point 6 seems to have no practical value and would be a red rag to many Israelis.

From point 13 ”While non-Jewish Palestinians would continue to live in Israel as citizens” and point 14 “major Palestinian populations in Israel could be annexed into Palestine (like settlements).”, it seems as if the author is referring to Israeli Arabs as Palestinians. They are of course ethnically Palestinian but is he suggesting they are Palestinian nationals or Israeli nationals? Would their status and treatment be any different from the current situation?

And in a related note; I will be cloning solar powered unicorns. Seriously, the Palestinians are hardwired to say no to anything that is not extermination of Jews and suffering and misery for all Palestinians.

They are of course ethnically Palestinian

I agree with much of the rest of what you say, but there is no such ‘of course’. The whole idea of ‘Palestinian’ ethnicity is pure myth.

1, 2, 3, 4 OK

5, 7, 9, 12 won’t fly with the Arabs

6 requires two to tango

8 needs the Arabs to disarm. They won’t.

10 – dream on. Why not a supersonic monorail while you’re at it?

13, 14 require the Quran to be rewritten.

15 is Apartheid

16 is fine, but requires all the others first.

What he cannot seem to understand is that there are powerful forces that either want the status quo to continue or have little incentive to change anything.

Among the former are all the Arab governments, for whom this conflict is a convenient deflection from their own abysmal governance and a stick with which to beat the West; and Fatah and Hamas, who cannot conceive of a state of peace in which they might be answerable to their own people for jobs and services.

In the latter is the UNRWA, who have a nice lunch ticket for ever – unless the conflict is resolved. The only sensible thing to do with the UNRWA (to which no Arab governmant pays a penny in support of their “brothers”), is to pull the plug on it.

Hanania could do well to have a long talk with someone who knows Palestine from the inside.

To truly make peace, you have to compromise with your enemies and make concessions, even to the point of conceding major points of principle. Hanania gets it, unlike most Palestinians and many on this board.

thanks for picking this up. i’d just like to get it out there in the open, i know there is plenty there for people to object to if they want to be one-sided about it, but frankly if an apology will help i think it’s a pretty small thing in the context of what is being offered elsewhere as in point 7, which is never mentioned even by the israelis, don’t ask me why that is. if an apology for terrorism is a sticking point, i don’t see why it should be an issue. in fact, point 6 could be expanded to make it more two-sided. re point 4, jerusalem, those details have already been worked out, according to michael melchior, during the geneva process. no reason that can’t be revisited.

the main point is that talking about it in these terms is a MASSIVE step forward.

b’shalom

bananabrain

The comments above show how little there is to substantively object to in this platform; the best you guys can do seems to be “er, surely both sides should apologise?”

you’ve forgotten that this is the Harry’s Place comments section, home to people for whom this entire conflict (and several others) only exists as an opportunity for their self-expression and political vanity. Item 6 is the only one that has any reality to them because it would mean a concession that had importance to the world of internet flame wars. All the rest simply involve the pushing around of people and property somewhere out in the real world. Of course they homed in on point 6.

Sharks:

The Palestinians have certainly been shamelessly exploited and propagandized for generations by both “native sons” like Arafat and ostensible Arab and non-Arab Muslim brothers-in-arms like Nasser, the Al-Assads, Khomeini et al, but if they were truly hard-wired as you suggest, it would not have been necessary to propagandize and bribe them to raise their children to be suicide commandoes.

Only a fool would try to predict what would happen if Palestinians were actually presented with a viable alternative to Fatah and Hamas and allowed to vote in truly free and fair elections. Currently, we have a population caught between rival gangs, but more likely than not, most are fed up with the general decline in living standards since Israel had to adopt security measures to reduce terror attacks and can also connect the dots between the cost of “resisting” Israel and the lack of services and development within the PA.

Would the Palestinians vote for a Christian president anyway?

… this entire conflict (and several others) only exists as an opportunity for their self-expression and political vanity.

I suspect you may have hit a target there. I have always wondered why so many decent people get so wound up on this issue, and the billions of petrodollars spent by Arabs on propaganda does not quite seem enough – we have to be receptive to the message in the first place, and those who are suspicious have to keep quiet. I like it.

To truly make peace, you have to compromise with your enemies and make concessions, even to the point of conceding major points of principle. Hanania gets it, unlike most Palestinians and many on this board.

What you completely fail to get is that one side wants to annihilate the other – and says so quite openly. What would you suggest: both sides agree to have Israel annihilated just a little bit?

Lynne, I am not sure but it sounds to me as though you may be denying them volition and agency. You say “if Palestinians were actually presented with a viable alternative”. Who is supposed to present them with this alternative? They claim to be a nation. Let them prove this by coming up with their own truly civil institutions (rival gangster clans don’t count) as every nation has been doing since the year dot. They’ve had plenty of time to do this.

you’ve forgotten that this is the Harry’s Place comments section, home to people for whom this entire conflict (and several others) only exists as an opportunity for their self-expression and political vanity.

Total bollocks. I, and many others here, have a family in Israel. You really should stop projecting your own shortcomings on other people.

4 would be the stumbling block. Most of the rest is pretty acceptable, give or take a bit of polish here and there.
What is important is that the guy has ideas and seems to understand that some sort of compromise will be necessary.
Good luck to him, I say.

“Would the Palestinians vote for a Christian president anyway?”

Nope.

Just to make it clear to some of the commentators above:
I live in Jerusalem and am familiar with the details of the situation here. I have respect for Ray Hanania and I would like to take such proposals seriously.Therefore I would want to hear serious considerations regarding the problems about Jerusalem (point 4), and how to approach Hamas (part of points 10 and 2). Actually, the violent extremists of Fatah would also be included in this latter issue.
I would love to see ‘grass root’ activism giving a lead where top-down approaches have failed, but as it stands, this isn’t it.

“The whole idea of ‘Palestinian’ ethnicity is pure myth.”

How so?