Obama in Cairo

Redvers

No, Melanie

Not troubling. A balanced reasonable assessment of the situation, and real hope for the future.

There are many to choose from, but one point should be rebutted above all others. Nobody can claim a right to land based on the strictures of their religion. If you do, why should people of other faiths accept it?

You cannot rewrite history. Obama correctly set out the reasons why the state of Israel came into being.

You (and many others on both sides)need to move on from your entrenched positions, or the tide will wash right over you.

Drakken

This was pandering of the worse sort, I for one predict that things will go from bad to worse from here. No mention of the sudden jihad syndrome terrorist attack here in the states that killed one soldier and wouded another. I wonder why that is?

Hannah

Melanie, if it wasn't for both yourself and my Mother, I would be a 'secular' Jewish woman and not a religious and spiritual Jewish woman. My love for Israel grows every day and my knowledge increases daily. Thank you for your unceasing diligence, in all your articles your information is an education!
This post will probably not make it tou your comments part but I hope you get to read it :)

Ronnie

Are you remotely interested in the US Administration trying to broker a lasting peace agreement?

Or will you be happy only with either ultimate victory or glorious ultimate defeat?

Larry

In other words it is exactly what anybody who knows anything about Obama would expect - standard boilerplate dhimmi nonsense.

Ruairidh

It's always amusing to come here to see a dark twisted myopic version of events.

It was a speech for god's sake. It is the place for methaphor, soundbites and yes platitudes. It's not a historical thesis.

Vision Aforethought

M, the problem is, O's podium is taller and louder than yours, so the absolute truth remains an unknown to the majority.

Woody

Now we know what he really thinks. Obama is a very dangerous man. I fear the future.

In the Wilderness in America

Melanie,
The ignorance of Obama is totally apparent and unbelievable. His sense of history is missing and unforgivable. And his moral equivalence is despicable and the result of loony left ideology fed to him in his youth and thereafter. The Middle East mullahs will correctly see him as weak, stupid, and foolish. They will con him much more than he ever conned Chicago, Illinois and the American people. When that happens and it already has begun, the world is less secure, and the radical elements of Islam are encouraged.

Richard Pearce

I am intrigued that you choose to quote from the Palestinian Talmud as opposed to the more widely used Babylonian Talmud, is there any reason for this?

Suki

Obama: "[Iran] should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

A New Beginning, then, starts with Israel's Ending.

Quelle surprise.

John Edwards

How refreshing to hear a US President come out with so much common sense in his speech. Of course Obama will be judged on his actions rather than words. But at least there are encouraging signs that this is an American leader who gets the Israel\Palestine conflict.

ZT

Brilliant speech by President Obama!

Richard

The key phrase here is (in Sura 5:32) ‘….or other villainy in the land’, which can, and is interpreted as the individual wishes, and therefore, far from being a prohibition of murder, is in fact a licence to kill. The reason? There is no central authority to delineate the meaning of such sayings, and the result is the free-for-all in the justification for the daily killings which are part and parcel of life (and death) Muslim lands.

Adam B.

The idea that Israel came about because of the Holocaust is ignorant nonsense. Zionism as a political movement predates the Holocaust by decades, and the desire of Jews to return to their ancestral homeland goes back millenia. In any case, half of Israel's Jews came from Arab and Islamic nations, and did not experience the European Holocaust (just dhimmitude and apartheid at the hands of their masters instead). A fact ignored by Obama and his apologists.

Jdyer

“Obama’s Audience in Cairo” by Ben Cohen

“At 6:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, President Obama’s speech hit what the Wall Street Journal’s live bloggers called a “sensitive passage.” This one:

America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

“Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.”

By my count, the President received applause on forty-two separate occasions during his speech. The passage above wasn’t one of them….”

http://blog.z-word.com/2009/06/obamas-audience-in-cairo/

Indie

When obama thinks that women's rights means ensuring that Muslim women can cover their heads with a hijab, something is very wrong. Melanie - you missed that part. I'd hardly give him any sort of kudos for mentioning women's rights.

Terry

Melanie, you are right that this man is deeply troubling. But if Israel has to survive without the level of support previously associated with successive US administrations, so be it. Maybe this is G-d's way of ensuring Israel has to survive by its own means alone.

Also, don't forget that Nixon was quite qntisemitic but eventually helped Israel in the Yom Kippur war notwithstadning his own bigotry. Obarmey is at best naive and it is possible that the penny will drop in his mind if the arabs and islamofascists simply behave in future as they always have.

Irwin Ruff

It might be appropriate to stress that Israel was the land of the Jews (the term Jew deriving from the area of the tribe of Judah - today the southern part of the so-called West Bank) some two millenia before Mohammad. They were an independent people in the land for over half a millenium.

A second point is that there is no such people as the "Palestinians". They were invented by the Arabs, as an Arab leader revealed in a newspaper interview, in 1964, as a weapon to be used against the Jews. Before 1948, a Palestinian meant a Palestinian Jew. The so-called Arab "Palestinians" were not indigenous, but came from every Arab country in the vicinity.

Also, in regard to refugees: the UN counted as an Arab refugee anyone who had lived on the land for at least TWO YEARS.

Diana from Australia

Also Obama seems to believe in ethnic cleansing of Jews but not of Arabs. He wants no Jews in the West Bank but God forbid anyone (eg the "racist" Avigdor Lieberman)who would dare to suggest Israeli Arabs should either to be more loyal to Israel or leave town.

He doesn't seem to know much about recent middle eastern history either. It's not just that the Palestinians hate Israel and incite violence. They perpetrate violence and Israel is forced to act in self defence.

Tom the Redhunter

Excellent takedown, Melanie. You're firing on all cylinders today.

Obama had a chance to challenge the Muslim world to reform itself and adopt principles of liberty and he failed.

Dissidents across the Middle East are weaping.

Jerry

Richard Pearce wrote, "I am intrigued that you choose to quote from the Palestinian Talmud as opposed to the more widely used Babylonian Talmud, is there any reason for this?"

This quote precedes both the (earlier) Jerusalem Talmud and the (later) Babylonian Talmud. Rather, it appears in Ethics of the Fathers which is an early Mishnaic work (extant about 200 CE). While the Mishnah is the basis for Talmudic discussions, Ethics of the Fathers has no Talmudic discussions associated with it, at least none that I am aware of. Rather it is an early Mishnaic work of pithy aphorisms that are common sensical enough not to require Talmudic explication or were the opinion of a single scholar that stood undisputed.

Another example from Ethics of the Fathers that Mr. Obama might have wanted to access would be: "The world is based upon three things: justice, peace and altruistic works."

Maurice, MD

I have been reading many assessments of that speech, and Melanie's is the most perceptive, the most knowledgable, and the most logically analytic.

Esther Elbaz

Sadly, as troubling is the political position of the jewish left within and out of Israel that from the start of the new Israeli State (have they forgotten their roots?)have strayed away from the very reason why/how Jews still exist and have G-dly right to leave in their homeland.

Jay Crawford

It's most unfortunate that the President and his speachwriters have the historic ignorance of fast-and-loose Chicago city politicians.

Robert

Thank you Melanie for an excellent and informed analysis.

It is embarrassing, and frankly disgusting, to see Obama placating himself before people who openly wish for another holocaust.

Some people just can't understand that the Palestinians want dominion and not peace.

deegee

Redvers: "Nobody can claim a right to land based on the strictures of their religion"

Jews claim a right to the land of Israel based on 2000 years of people living in the land. in fact, the only reason so many arabs moved into the area wa due to the economic growth from the Jewish communities predating the Holocaust.

it has nothing to do with 'strictures' or perhaps you meant scriptures? though since you got all the rest wrong it doesn't surprise me.

elixelx

Nobody has asked THIS question--why should the Arabs/Muslims pay more heed to a speech given in Cairo, than to the same speech given in Washington? By that measure every Arab TV would have been turned off were the exact same speech given in Tel-Aviv!
The Arabs were not listening to "the speech" at all! They were listening to "the speechifyer"!
OK OK, we all know that Barry can deliver a well-written line; let's see if there is anything, ANYTHING other than words, he can deliver!

Roy

Thanks Melanie for your thought-provoking dissection of Obama's speech. The suggestion of moral equivalence between the Holocaust and the Palestinians suffering since '48 is of course repugnant and a total misinterpretation of historical record. But he did it for a purpose. To 'reach out' to Muslims everywhere. Its the classical ploy of demagoguery - of which Obama is perhaps the greatest exponent of this century. But as other commentators have suggested, the proof will be in the doing.

He's made a lot of promises to the Muslim world in his speech, at the expense of telling them to their collective faces that Islam's virulent and relentless anti-Semitism has ruined and will likely continue to ruin any chance of real peace. Because that would mean that Muslim's have to reform their religion before anyone in the West (or Israel) can reliably treat with them. And as if that will happen any time soon!

For those that say Obama is ignorant - as far as Islam is concerned, he is not. The formative years of his early life (up until about age 14) were spent learning about and practicing Islam. That he could deliver such a one-sided speech in order to 'win over' the Muslim world shows moral turpitude of the worst kind - and in the end it won't work. He's made too many promises that he simply cannot deliver on.

For what was likely the most important speech by a US President (or any world leader for that matter) since the end of WWII, this was deeply and bitterly disappointing to many - most of them the US closest friends and allies like Israel.

gary ashton

well its official obama is selling israel down the river, who needs a special relationship, lets hope israel wakes up now and understands its best friend just stabbed it in the back.

Paul Freeman

Let us just hope that Obama represents the West's last attempt at appeasement before, following the inevitable failure of this policy, it begins to push back.

Ronnie

Tom the Redhunter.

'Obama had a chance to challenge the Muslim world to reform itself and adopt principles of liberty and he failed.'

Do you REALLY think that's what this speech was about? Do you REALLY think that with Bush having sent the US military in to 'democratise' Arab muslim countries in the Middle East, and failed, Obama could do it it one speech.

You must be a serious Obama fan if you think he could challenge Arab muslim political structures in one show piece event.

You have such high expectations for the man.

Mailman

It seems Barry is more concerned with destroying Israel (throwing it under the bus), than bringing real peace to the middle east.

Richard Pearce

Dear Jerry,

I am aware of Pirkei Avot and understand that although they are included in the tractate Nezikin in the Mishna, they are not considered to be oral law.

It is a shame that more people don't sift through and then follow the ethic and moral insights that they contain.

Ronnie

The Likudniki here are so weak.

You must really love things the way they are now.

tommy

A good atricle Ms Phillips
Meanwhile-- Here is the speech that Obama should have given in Cairo
http://tinyurl.com/krqty5

wally

"...bitterly disappointing to many - most of them the US closest friends and allies like Israel."

According to the DEBKA file an agreement has been made in the last few days for the special relationship with Israel to be gradually severed in favour of an exclusive Saudi, Egyptian, US coalition against radical Islam.
It seems the Israelis are to go under the bus in slow motion.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6109

Nannette

Redvers,

"You cannot rewrite history. Obama correctly set out the reasons why the state of Israel came into being."

WRONG! The State of Israel was on the table long before WW2.

Since the early 1800's Jews had been BUYING tracts of land (at extortionate prices) from the Ottomans which comprise virtually all of what is now known as Israel. The land was to be used as a homeland IN PERPETUITY for the Jews.

"Palestinians" have no country, because Palestine was an area of land mandated by the British government. And Jerusalem had a majority Jewish population at the time of the British takeover.

Before Israel came about, Palestinian JEWS were working on the land, building, planting, and transforming the boggy areas into habitable ground.

Because of the amount of work needed to help improve the land, Jews gave jobs to Arabs who came from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Saudi, etc (where there was little or no work). They were paid well, treated well, and rented their homes from the Jewish landowners.

There was mass migration from the Arab countries into "Palestine", because of the work, arable land, and living conditions.

It didn't take long for the Arabs to turn against the Jews, which culminated in the 1929 massacre of the Jews in Hebron, led by the person who was to become the Nazi leader of the Waffen SS Bosnian Hansar division, Haj Amin Al Husseini (Mufti of Jerusalem). In 1931 it was this man who also decided to politicise Jerusalem by making it the third holiest place in Islam - in spite of arguments from other leading clerics in the Arab world.

So, to answer your uneducated comment to Melanie, the Jews have EVERY right to the land.

flabslab

Obama's speech was cunning stuff indeed. Of course he said all the right guff about the holocaust. That's always a winner and carries no cost since it is history and utterly irrelevant to actual present conditions and policy making. What Obama was doing here was establishing as fact the equivalence between the Nazi massacre of the Jews and Israel's responsibility for the plight of the saintly Palestinians. What he was really saying is;

"Israelis are the new Nazis and Palestinians are the new Jews."

Obama's subtle equation is designed to further demonise Israel. Afterall, who could possibly object to the destruction of a Nazi state.

Next he's swanning off to Buchenwold and Dresden to symbolically draw a similar equivalence between the Nazis and the Allies who opposed them. To him both sides are just as bad, which is why his first act as Pres was to return the bust of Churchill(a gift from Britain in the wake of 9/11), whom he would consider to be merely just another typical-war-mongering-white-male-imperialist. How childishly petty can you get?

I loved the bit about everybody having the right to nuclear power. However, Barry forgot to mention "except America as long as I'm President". It must have been a fault in the teleprompter. But never mind, apparently Crazy Fox Ahmed and Lonesome Kim agree that it was their favourite part too.

Protocol point. As far as I know, non-Muslims are not supposed to say "Salaam Allahquhm". That's a greeting between Muslims only. Usually Muslims get rather hot under the collar about this kind of thing, but they didn't seem to mind. Makes you wonder, doesnt it?

Who is Barak Hussein Obama (aka Barry Dunham, Barry Soetero)?

And if he is, as he claims, a Christian and Barak Hussein Obama is not his original name, why did he choose a Muslim name? Changing names is common among converts in both directions. Furthermore, we know he was a Muslim as a child in Indonesia, so when exactly did he convert to Christianity and why?

Why is he hiding his birth certificate, college transcripts, details of his work at Annenberg etc?

How could any sane reasonable person sit through the deranged hate-mongering of Jeremiah Wright every Sunday for 20 years? It beggars belief.

I'm still not sure whether Barry is a naive innocent, a megalomaniac, a communist, a muslim, or a fascist but he is definitely not what he claims to be. The stench of fraud is overwhelming.

Whatever or whoever he is, I do know he is extremely dangerous and that the major themes of his Presidency are taking shape. I would characterise them thus; weaken America, strengthen her enemies, betray her allies and destroy Israel.

If you think the first half of the last century was bloody, well, hang on to your tin hats folks, cos' you ain't seen nothing yet.

Original Tony

Redvers.."Not troubling. A balanced reasonable assessment of the situation, and real hope for the future."

There is nothing balanced in Obama's speech at all. Yes, the President of the free world must try and reconcile two warring ideologies as best he can, but to bring in half truths and downright lies is not the way to do it.

His speech indicates how little people in leadership cherish the truth and how terribly scared they are to use it in public. After all, politics is defined as 'gaining personal advancement by devious and unscrupulous means.'

We have just watched THE master politician at work. It means more to HIS image than world peace.

Smithy

To get an history lesson from an American president is an insult to all intelligent people who love reading and study of the past. The president is bound to get it wrong. Also it is an insult to all of an older generation who have watched for at least 60 years of adult life to the dissimilar interpretation of news events and the spread of untruths to sanctify a point of view or ideology.

Trumpeldor

Thanks Melanie for your remarkable paper
You share the same opinion as my beloved authors such as Caroline Glick and Robert Spencer
This presidential speech was pure groveling and capitulation
Israeli leaders are now aware that their strategic alliance with the USA is DEAD till at least January 2013....
New alliance with old or emerging powers such as Russia,China or India are much needed
Of course,Israel must keep Judea and Samaria under firm control and fellow Jewish patriots must be allowed to build up their communities without outer interference
Real Jews of heart and guts will feel the yoke of rising antisemitism in Europe and Usa and must contemplate the prospect of joining their destiny in their beloved motherland called Israel.

Rob

A fantastic speech by Obama. It's great to see a US president who really understands the situation.

Leah

I am staggered by your interpretation of the speech and your ongoing blaming of the Palestinian people for what they are suffering. Even if there is a biblical "right" for Jewish people to the land of Israel and even if that time has come - none of this excuses the treatment of Palestinian people by settlers, the destruction of Olice Trees, the massacres in Gaza.

Just comparing the numbers of Israeli people killed by Palestinians (far too many) with the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis shows that this cannot continue. (e.g. 8 Israelis killed buy Palestinians between January 200 and the day before the Gaza attacks; let alone the outcome of the attack on Gaza and the impact of the continuing blockade.

If there is to be any chance fo peace - then Obama's request for Settlemetn building to stop is the absolutel minimum that he could ask and yet this has been denied. What about Palestinian right to build houses for their growing population? - Just at the human level.

Sam Armstrong

Tom the Redhunter
June 5th, 2009 3:12am

A very good point. There are true moderates in the Islamic world who will feel cheated by Obama's speech.

Fran

Leah

It is disingenuous to heap blame upon Israelis because Palestinians have not succeeded in their repeated attempts to kill Israelis. In fact, Palestinian deaths in the conflict suit Israel's enemies just fine for they can then continue nurturing hatred and resentment against the Jewish state amongst their hapless people; this is why so many Palestinian leaders encourage their children to become cannon fodder rather than good neighbours to Israel, and why terrorists launch their murderous attacks from the centre of densely populated civilian areas, ensuring civilian deaths when Israel tries to eliminate the source of attack.

That those murderous attacks have not claimed many more Israeli lives is down to Providence and to the Israeli government's determination to protect its civilians.

Augustus

If Obama believes that his speech in Cairo did anything to bring about peace in the Middle East he is clearly delusional. And the same goes for his solution for nuclear material that is weapons capable in the ME. According to him, no state should have nuclear weapons, so he'll just get all the countries in the world to give up their weapons, and the world, even Israel, will be saved from nuclear annihilation.
Easy peasy! How surprising that no other American administration
has ever come up with that one before! It's truly hard to believe that America could have elected a president who actually believes that Muslims in the ME want to end attacks against Israel in order to achieve a two state solution. Naivete fed by ego: That Barack Obama alone can change the world. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. The Messiah has spoken.

michael

I have only one proof of god, that ever achieved impression over my mind . . .
exactly how perfectly wrong antisermites always are, or were or will be, or as Einstein might say existence doesnt throw dice. So they must evolve as perfect liars.

mike

Anthony Posner

"Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear." "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal." "That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it." (Obama)

But what about forcing Muslim women to comply with conservative Islamic dress codes, particularly in Iran and Saudi Arabia? Isn't that the real issue about freedom that Obama intentionally neglects?

Suki

Leah, the Palestinians are not suffering anything that is not of their own making. The politicians they wish to represent their views are in full-throated murderous cry against the Jews and the rest of the world.

You think differently, Leah. So, please be the first of your number to tell us how anyone who is ‘suffering’, as you claim, has time to spend planning getting the entire world grovelling to Islam as this Palestinian MP does:

"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests thorough da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesised by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam – this capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.

"I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instil these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and The Koran books, and the history of our prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand."

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astral (aired on Al-Aqsa TV on April 11, 2008)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=x_qbKrOF64w

To use your silly little phrase, on what ‘human level’ don‘t you understand those evil intentions?

Here‘s another Palestinian official licking his lips at ripping up Israel: “Let me tell you, when the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine.”

www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3619881/the-final-solution.thtml

So, you see, Leah, it’s not about casualties, it’s about intentions. Tell us why you have been fooled by them.

Anthony Posner

"That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons." (Obama)

Is America going to give up all her nuclear weapons? If America is committed to giving up nuclear weapons, why doesn't she take the lead?

So... is this how the debate between Obama and Ahmadinehad goes?....

Mahmoud: " Barack, Iran has no nuclear weapons. Will America now fufil your promise to give up nuclear weapons?"

Barack: "Mahmoud, err, huh...can you please repeat that question?"

Jon_Boy

Any self proclaimed leader of the Western world should have gone to Cairo to demand an apology from the Islamic world not vice-versa. An apology for all the inumerable terrorist attcks perpetrated by them, for all the Islamically isnpired conflicts around the wrold. An apology for their outspoken desires to supplant other nations and cultures through immigration and high birth rates. An apology from the Arab and Muslim world for their involvement and support for ninety thirties Nazism and their continued hostility and promotion of religious and ethnic hatred towards, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahais, Buddhists and Christians. An apology for their rewriting of history and attempts to rebrand all past cultures form the middle east as 'Arabic or Islamic'. An apology for their continued demands to reclaim parts of Southern and eastern europe they once invaded and controlled even though the Christians do not even consider the return of once Christian lands like Constantinople, Egypt, Lebanon and much of North Africa. An apology to all the openly homosexuals in their own culture who are beaten and murdered even though the practice of homosexuality is in fact extremely wide spread in their cultures and often practiced by thos who are actively punishing openly practicing homosexuals.(Y.Arrafat)
Finally an apology should be demanded for their unrelenting project of trying to achieve a genocide against the Jewish inhabitants of present day Israel and their constant quest to recruit others to their murderous cause through bribery and threats of violence.

LGuapo

When Bush was president, people got used to thinking of dyslexia as somehow coupled to being a nitwit. Obama has decoupled those two concepts.

pyramaze

he also said at the start of the speech that islam was over two thousand years old...yet later on states that people need to learn more about islam.

that would be epic irony if it wasnt so disturbing.

Anthony Posner

Mel,
I attach a comment that I posted on Z Word. I have my doubts about whether it will be published!

http://blog.z-word.com/2009/06/obamas-audience-in-cairo/

Ben Cohen,
It seems that your Z Word blog has fobbed us off with a comment about the audience in Cairo.
How about an analysis of Obama’s speech? I note that David Harris(AJC) has also remained silent. Why?

Peter Burman

Brilliant article. Thank you, Ms. Phillips!

Hyder Ali

Thank you Melanie for clarifying the Quran verse 5:32 through 5:33. But, have you explained that to the US president? I was appalled when I saw 70% of Jews and 90% of blacks voted for Obama, a racist and an anti-semite. He is racist because he allied US administration against Sri Lanka on the advise of EU governments, supposedly over 7000 to 20000 civilian deaths when the Sri Lankan gevernment destroyed one of the most despicable terrorist group in the world. Even the supposed victims, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and their Tamil relatives in India, deny so many have died as claimed by Jeremy Page in the Times. He also equated Israel with Hamas. Both of this were done on the advice of the racist EU politicians/pressure groups who see governments in non-European countries are incapable of humanity. I can only call it as humanitarian racism - racism packaged as humanitarian concern.

JJS

Does anybody agree with me that if Obama had delivered himself of his Cairo speech BEFORE the election, we'd have had a different president today?

John Birch

Anthony Posner: Obama first raised the issue of the elimination of nuclear wespons several weeks ago, admitting it would be difficult to achieve. There's nothing unique in his position. Ronald Reagan also sought to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

janet

Obama's speech was a pie in the sky..Everyone is so damned busy with little, but strong Israel..stop this rubbish about a two state solution..Iran is busy, busy, busy..likewise North Korea shooting off their missiles not taking any notice whatsover of anyone. I also noticed the lack of applause when Israel's right to exist was mentioned and how the jews had suffered in the holocaust..
That just goes to show that the arab world has no intention of changing..as far as I am concerned Obama is in fairytale land....Israel should stand firm and not give in to anyone..

Having tuned into Sky News right after Obama's speech I noticed subject of conversation was as usual the thousand's of palestinian's killed in the last war...I suggest Kay Burley get's her facts straight by quoting Hamas as being the reason for any palestinian deaths...To everyone out there,
do not think for one minute that a two state solution is the solution to world peace..

Bruce

I fear you are correct in your analysis. My only hope is that he postured that way, in the hope that he can extract something from the Muslim world. Let's see what they come up with.
Bruce
www.BrucesMidEastSoundbites.Blogspot.com

Raymond Joseph Douglas

It would be better for Obama and America not to get involved. People criticised Bush for his hands off approach to the Israel-Palestinian issue . But Bush was more wiser than people give him credit for. Because the Bible teaches that those who go up against the Jewish people and the land of Israel , inevitably come a cropper. If a leader cannot bring himself to bless the Israel and the Jewish people, then it is better he say nothing at all !

Andrew Lappin

right on target ! Thank you.

Michael B

Addendum:

TOM BROKAW - What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?

OBAMA - Well, look, there's no equivalency here.

Tom Brokaw is abject and reprehensible, entirely in keeping with the Katie Couric standard, so the baseline set for Obama to surmount is the lowest of the low. Still, at least Obama does surmount that standard and does so without hesitancy.

Daibhidh

Credit where credit is due. Obama did not apologise for America's response following 9/11
“We did not go by choice, we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts…”

Smithy

Fully agree Jon_Boy. Absolutely right, they should do the apologizing.

Chris

"In other words, this turns a Talmudic precept affirming the value of preserving human life into a prescription for violence and murder against Jews and ‘unbelievers’. Yet Obama passed it off as evidence of the pacific nature of Islam."

The Old Testament is full of that stuff too.

Michael Dar / Israel

Yes,it is official now, President Hussein-al Burack- No-Bama strives for the dismise of the Jewish state!International law (League of Nations, 242 etc..)counts for Sh..nothing!We are in for turbulent times..hope we Jewish people will stand up to the task ahead: "Secure further Jewish self- determination and independence"

YA

Until now, Obama is OK, different but at least not worse than previous president. I say that without hesitation, - and I am white, Jewish, middle aged, racist, Zionist, conservative, and dreaming of true meritocracy. In all corners of the modern Mordor, all kinds of orks are disappointed by Obama's speech. Also note absence of his wife when he visited both Egypt and Turkey - they probably find local etiquette humiliating for women, and rightfully so. Also note his decency when visiting Europe. I tend more and more to think that this notorious bow to Saudi king could have been, some kind of intentional PR drill, a temperature check.

Also look at this - http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35117

Derek BLADES

Jon Boy (June 5)

The problem is that the Muslims can make up a list of wrongs inflicted on them by Americans, Europeans and Israelis that would be just as long as yours. It would start with the crusades and would stop (for now) with Israel's war on Gaza. Along the way it would mention the Anglo-French carve-up of the Ottoman empire, the Suez invasion, the overthrow of Mossadeq and installation of the appalling Shah, attacks on Lebanon too numerous to list, and - though it may seem trivial to us - cartoons in Danish newspapers.

Obama's genius is to understand that evaluating each side’s complaints against the other is a mug's game. He is going to the heart of the matter - how to find a practical solution. Given the quality of his ME team under George Mitchell and his own excellent judgement and political skills, he might just do it.

Anthony Posner

Mel,
Obama's speech has forced The AJC into silence and censorship. I remember that Harris(re Durban2) had the chutzpah to denigrate journalists like yourself who were bold enough to comment on what is actually going on.
In the circumstances, I have posted another comment on The Z Word (AJC) blog...

http://blog.z-word.com/2009/06/obamas-audience-in-cairo/

Ben Cohen,

You write...
“By my count, the President received applause on forty-two separate occasions during his speech.”

How many times did you (Z Word) and David Harris (AJC) applaud Obama’s speech?

Of course, you (Ben Cohen) will censor this comment but please don’t think that its legitimacy has disappeared! It is a common misconception of those who foolishly wield the erase button.

Indigo121

Great, and sadly illuminating analysis.
Thanks again, Melanie. You are one fantastic reporter.

TONY BOND

AGAIN MELANIE YOU HAVE HIT THE TRUTH. SADLY MANY WILL LISTEN TO A LIES."TRUTH IS ONLY A THREAT TO THOSE WHO HIDE BEHIND
LIES.KEEP SPEAKING OUT WHILE YOU
STILL CAN.

TONY BOND

frank marsh

To say that the home land where the Jews wandered so manyi years back in history and is a claim to their presence today is very poor logic. They were tribes then, just like the Native Americans were, why is not their claim just a valid for the lands of America. Don't say the bible says so, because that is not a legal deed to land.

Carl

Well said President Obama! The time for Israel to ride roughshod over Palestinians has passed.

Israel needs to learn that negotiation is the only way forward.

Truthifier

Obama is a "captivating" speaker, with little real substance behind his words. On the other hand, Melanie is a captivating writer who spreads truth like wildfire. As someone from across the pond, I am pleased that there are members of the "foreign" (from our perspective) press who see things as they actually are. Thank you, Melanie.

American Jew

This is so well written, thank you!
We should also remember the countless JEWISH REFUGEES who were exiled from Arab lands with NOTHING.

Adam B.

Carl, don't Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran and Syria need to learn that the only way forward is through negotiation as well?

Adam B.

One other point Carl - Israel has always been open to negotiations. She has negotiated successful peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan (and shown willingness to make concessions in order to bring these about) and has been in negotiations with the PA. Hamas, on the other hand, openly rejects negotiations in its founding charter, (indeed, mocks the very notion) and instead extolls the path of jihad and violence.

George

Carl yet again gets it wrong. It's the Palestinians who need to learn the the only way forward is negotiation and not violence.

LaurenceF

frank marsh: 'To say that the home land where the Jews wandered so manyi(sic) years back in history and is a claim to their presence today is very poor logic'.

Frank, maybe you need a little history lesson. The Jews had occupied the land of Israel for over 1,000 years (for the vast majority of it as rulers) by the time they were expelled in 70 AD. During that time they built two temples, repelled invaders, and developed the entire moral code which the Western world lives by.

They were expelled by force by the Romans who promptly renamed it 'Palestine' in order to try and remove any vestiges of Jewishness from the country.

Over then next 1900 years there was a Jewish presence in the land - although the Jews were never allowed to return there en masse. During this time the Jews prayed three times a day facing Jerusalem, inserted a desire to return there in all of their prayers, and finished Yom Kippur and Seder night each year with 'Next Year in Jerusalem'. They broke a glass at every wedding to symbolise the destruction of the Temple and said 'if I forget thee oh Jerusalem'. They left a section of their houses unfinished as a rememberence of the land that they love being destroyed. One day each year they sat on the floor and fasted and mourned over the loss of Jerusalem. Pious Jews would wake up EVERY NIGHT at midnight and pray and cry of the loss of the temple. The Jews never forgot the Land of Israel, and they were certainly never merely 'wanderers' there.

Meanwhile, it became an almost forgotten outpost of the Ottoman Empire with no mention made of Jerusalem in the Koran, more importantly no independent government, and certainly no one (except for the Jews) expressing a desire to have a homeland there.

If it was only a scriptural promise that the Jewish people were arguing over, you may have a point. But it's not. It's 1,000 years of self rule followed by 1900 years of tears, prayers and hopes.

And, by the way it is also true that there is the little aspect of it being promised to them by G-d in the Bible......

Anthony Posner

OBAMA IN DETROIT ?

I wonder whether the creation of a Palestinian state would actually improve the lives of Palestinians. The question, which Oba-mausa fails to address is... how are Hamas and Fatah going to resolve their differences. If Hamas's Gaza coup was anything to go by.. torture and murder will become even more prevalent.

As General Motors and Chrysler fall apart, it is perhaps also worth asking whether The USA is really as influential as Oba-mausa will have as believe. Perhaps instead of lecturing in Cairo, it might have been more realistic if he had spoken to the car workers in Detroit?

MrsJ

I was one of those who found Obama's speech to be deeply alarming (and no, I'm not Jewish).
I'm also concerned about his selective quoting of the Koran. Is he ignorant, or being disingenuous? There's no excuse for the first, and the second reason would raise my alarm level even higher.

Thank you, Melanie, for continuing to bring this issue to the British public.

Lucy

Amir Taheri on the ludicrous Barack Obama‘s latest speech:

‘What do you do when you have no policy, but want to appear as if you do? In the case of Barack Obama, the answer is simple: you go around the world making speeches about your "personal journey".’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5462482/Barack-Obama-extends-his-hand-to-Islams-despots.html

Ann

"To say that the home land where the Jews wandered so manyi years back in history and is a claim to their presence today is very poor logic. They were tribes then, just like the Native Americans were,"

What an ignorant statement. They had a central polity, an established state with a king, a capital city, a civil service and tax collectors, an organised army, a temple with organised pilgrimages and priests, and so on. Perhaps you need to refresh (?) your knowledge of kings David, Solomon, Ahab, Zedekiah, .....?

Will this comment be censored too?

Anthony Posner

Lucy,
Thanks for the link to Taheri's article. I attach the following quote and would be interested to read reactions to it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5462482/Barack-Obama-extends-his-hand-to-Islams-despots.html

"Buried within the text, possibly in the hope that few would notice, was an effective acceptance of Iran's nuclear ambitions: "No single nation should pick and choose which nations should hold nuclear weapons." Mr Obama did warn that an Iranian bomb could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. However, the Cairo speech did not include the

threat of action against the Islamic Republic – not even sanctions. The message was clear: the US was distancing itself from the resolutions passed against Iran by the UN Security Council." (Amir Taheri)

Linda Emmons

Thank you, Ms. Phillips. This is the best analysis I have read about Pres. Obama's speech in Cairo. Sadly, even with your straight-forward, no-nonsense article, some refuse to get past their prejudices enough to "get it" or review history for themselves...surprised they have no idea of the history after WWI-II and the British Mandate.

Augustus

The Arabs can't believe their luck. Obama has brought a whole new meaning to 'lame duck president' in his first half year in office. I'm sure that if he had spoken in a mosque they would have peed on his shoes.

jim comfort

The more I read about the Cario speech, and the more I think about it the more upset I get. This is a speech which blames Israel for all of the problems of the Arab world. Note that in the speech he does not call for a freeze on Settlement expansion, but terms settlements not legitimate. Another speech that follows history in blaming all of the ills of the world on the Jews.

Gene Russell

Thank you Melanie for correcting President Obama.

Anthony Posner

Why didn't Oba-mausa just rock up at Cairo with an "I love Islam" badge?
His speech is not based on any logic since it failed failed to elucidate the realities of 21st century international politics.
When one really analyzes what Obama is saying it adds up to little more than an attempt to try and persuade moderate Islamic opinion (a very broad mosque) that he holds Islam close to his heart.
And the more one thinks about what Obama actually said, the more naive and meaningless
it becomes. It was nothing more than a feel-good "I love Islam" speech and par for the course for a man who ran his campaign on "Yes we can". His intellectual heritage is Deepak Chopra.

Anthony Posner

If anybody has any doubt that Obama is living on his own planet far away from current American foreign policy, just consider the following...

Obama said nothing about Mubarak’s dictatorship which The USA is backing; Egypt is the biggest recipient of US aid in the Middle East after Israel. And of course The Egyptian Brotherhood (who are imprisoned by Mubarak) provided many of the ideas for Osama’s Al Qaeda. And if there was a democratic election, The Egyptain Brotherhood would win power which is presumably the reason that The USA finances Mubarak’s dictatorship.
It seems to be a mute point whether Obama is partial to the Egyptian Brotherhood because some of their members were, I think, invited by Obama and in the Cairo audience.

Koestler*

Oh - lest we forget:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528434

Barbara Blumberg

Every day and every time I hear Obama speak, I get more sickened by his statements and his glib comments. He has already admitted in public (after the election, of course,) that he has Muslim relatives so we know that even though he says he isn't Muslim, we know it runs in his blood. Day by day I feel he will be closer to helping the arab nations assist in pushing Israel into the sea. He has enough friends in the White House cabinet and staff and in Congress who hang on every word of his and will be very happy to help him with their votes. The American people made a big mistake electing him---not only for his getting close to the arab nations, but with the economy,healthcare, his "sticking his nose" into banking, GM, etc. We are turning Socialistic very quickly and, with knowing the friends he has kept in the past and the ones he has now, we will be closer to Marxism soon than we think.

al Rassooli

As always Melanie's brilliant analysis leaves one (or at least any reasonable, knowledgeable person with a proper grasp of history and logic) in no doubt!

I’ve recently uploaded a short talk to YouTube about Obama that I hope Spectator readers (as well as many other people besides) might find interesting. Please do listen then add your comments, criticisms, refutations or support as you feel fit….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-36Ntnpa0o&feature=channel_page
(AhmadsQuran3 on Obama & Islam)

If you’d like to know more about Islam please find time to listen through a few of the other talks listed on http://www.al-rassooli.com/ahmadsquran3.html

Kind Regards,
al Rassooli

peaceNow2009

Dear Miss Phillips

Thank you for your article in the Spectator which also appeared in Haaretz, with respect to President Obama's speech in Cairo.

President Obama's speech was in fact, wonderfully constructed and superbly executed. He was correct in drawing attention to both the suffering of the Jewish people and of the Palestinians (Christians and Muslims).

The observations you made about Palestinian Statehood are with respect inaccurate. For example take the talks in Camp David 2000. The coalition government of Ehud Barak was tottering and unsustainable. It made the Palestinians an offer that did not resemble anything that could be perceived as being viable or contiguous (words that the international community insist upon and reiterated by former President Bush and Prime Minister Blair). Certainly it was incompatible with the scores of UN Resolutions. Today Mr Barak is trying to persuade the new US Administration that "natural growth" should be permitted within the settlement colonies - which has been flatly rejected by US Secretary of State Clinton.

If you wish to refer to the years of conflict soon after Israel's birth then please correctly address UN Resolutions 181, 191 and 194 which remain unimplemented. It is worth making reference to the International Court in the Hague's ruling concerning the "separation barrier", which you avoided in your article and the fact the UN Security Council resolutions deem that settlements are illegal and violate the 4th Geneva Convention – which is a War Crime. Moreover there are over 150 UN Resolutions.

Respect should be given to the Jewish people's biblical heritage. However the Palestinians are a Semitic people too. Many if not all claim to be descended from the Canaanites who originated from the Arabian Peninsula. It is not worth commenting on your claim of a connection between a certain Palestinian and the Nazis when it is well documented that the outlawed Jewish terrorist groups - who hung British soldiers and slaughtered innocent people - in Mandated Palestine also made overtures to the Axis Powers.

Peace is possible but this should be based on a two-state solution, whereby both Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace, secure and within two sovereign states. Palestine should be viable and contiguous. Jerusalem - currently not recognised as Israel's capital by the international community - can be shared by both states.

Thank you and God bless.

Anthony Posner

Further to my above point about Obama's intellectual heritage, I attach a couple of opening paras from Deepak Chopra. Note how
Chopra asserts that the speech had "a powerful emotional effect". We have entered the era of "feel good" politics. It no longer matters what you actually say as long as people are happy afterwards.
Obama is a first class motivational speaker but inevitably his words are, as is par for the motivational course, meaningless nonsense.

"President Obama's superlative speech at Cairo University will be much analyzed. It was, as expected, an address that was rational, intelligent, eloquent, and fair. In stark contrast to George Bush's catch phrase, "clash of civilizations," Obama made every effort to weave common threads between the West and the Islamic world. He won his first applause with the phrase "holy Koran," and in that vein more applause followed whenever he praised Islam and the glories of its past.

Overall, it was a cobweb-clearing speech. The content wasn't exceptional. Before Muslims assumed the role of bogeyman after 9/11, any tolerant educated person realized that Islamic civilization has a great heritage. Nor is it news that the Muslim world is far more complex than the picture painted by a tiny minority of fanatical extremists. Yet to hear an American president reiterate these things had a powerful emotional effect."

Clifford Sossen

Great interprtation of the speach. Thanks for the full explanation.

George

peaceNow2009,

When you state that "Peace is possible but this should be based on a two-state solution, whereby both Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace, secure and within two sovereign states.", does this mean one state for Jews only and one state for Arabs only?

PeaceNow2009

A two-state solution is what is enshrined in International Law and what the Israeli Govenment led by Kadima accepted. Since then Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues have rejected ending settlements and not endorsed the two-state solution. Under International Law and UN Resolutions 191 and 194, the world accepts that the Palestinian refugees can return to their former homes or receive compensation.

Of course Israel will be unwilling to accept millions of people that were displayed back. Some may wish to return to their former homes whilst the overwhelming majority will certainly wish to return to the new Palestinian State.

Once Palestine is sovereign, it is conceivable that Israel can call itself whatever she feels is suitable.

However at this juncture and as has been agreed by the participants in the Road Map and inline with UN Resolutions, nothing should prejudice the outcome of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Both Israel and Palestine will be expected in any final agreement to abide by the Charter of the UN in its entirety.

Best wishes

George

PeaceNow2009,

Wonderful little speech, but how about answering the question? Do you envisage Palestine being only for Arabs and Israel being only for Jews.

Mariah

Hello Melanie,

I do not agree with you that this speech is troubling.. He is very balanced in his speech!! We all need to accept the truth that neither Palestinians nor the Israelis are angels.. and I believe his spech is holding a light for peaceful picture.. I totally understand all the patriotic comments and do not mean to offend but I really believe we should try to be more rational..!!
The other things is you are very wrong as well!! Its not only Obama that is saying things that does not sound right (as you wrote) but when you say the Muslim world I think you are offending many other Muslims who are not living in the Middle East and do not cause any threat to Israel or Jews anywhere in the world.. So, you better use Arab Muslims instead of Muslim world!!

Ronnie

Anthony Posner, if you have a clear point I am struggling to see what it is.

You want Obama, at the possible outset of peace negotiations to make a feel-bad speech?

You want him to, 'throw Mubarak under the bus' so we can deal with the Muslim Brotherhood or not?

What is it you are actually saying?

Adam B.

Mariah - it was Obama who used the phrase "Muslim world."

I think you shot down your own argument.

SHAI

THANK YOU MELANIE.
IT SEAMS IN TODAYS WORLD PEOPLE IDOLIES LIES. THEY JUST CANT HANDLE TRUTH.
READING YOU KEEPS ME SAIN

alanadale

George

May I intercede on behalf of PeaceNow's entirely reasonable and moderate proposals to resolve the conflict?

In answer to your question: would Jews be allowed to live in a Palestinian state, the answer would be 'yes' provided they were prepared to become 'Palestinians'. The whole point of Israeli settlers is that they want to remain Israeli while occupying Palestinian land.

Moses Rosen

Excellent article!!!
The pure facts!!!
Very frightening when the president of the US distorts facts or ignores them.

Jerry

Melanie,

Historically and morally your analysis is accurate but strategically you display a certain naivity, Cairo was not the place to lecture and threaten or provide a History lesson to the Islamic world. President Obamas speech was important as it appealed to moderate Islam and if you take notice of what is happening in the Islamic World you will see that moderate Arabs and Muslims are begining to gain momentum and credibility and see that terrorism and conflictis not the solution to achieve peace and prosperity. I believe Obamas speech was designed to further isolate the fanatics through his open handapproach and only dialogue and a degree of compromise will bring about a permanant solution.

Henry Sidgwick

HAMAS WRITE TO OBAMA.
IS THERE NO END TO THEIR PERFIDY?

Letter to President Obama from Palestinian National Authority, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

06.07.2009

Palestinian National Authority
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Deputy Office

His Excellency President Barack Obama,
President of the United States of America.

June 3rd 2009

Dear Mr. President,

We welcome your visit to the Arab world and your administration’s initiative to bridge differences with the Arab-Muslim world.

One long-standing source of tension between the United States and this part of the world has been the failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It is therefore unfortunate that you will not visit Gaza during your trip to the Middle East and that neither your Secretary of State nor George Mitchell have come to hear our point of view.

We have received numerous visits recently from people of widely varied backgrounds: U.S. Congressional representatives, European parliamentarians, the U.N.-appointed Goldstone commission, and grassroots delegations such as those organized by the U.S. peace group CODEPINK.

It is essential for you to visit Gaza. We have recently passed through a brutal 22-day Israeli attack. Amnesty International observed that the death and destruction Gaza suffered during the invasion could not have happened without U.S.-supplied weapons and U.S.-taxpayers’ money.

Human Rights Watch has documented that the white phosphorus Israel dropped on a school, hospital, United Nations warehouse and civilian neighborhoods in Gaza was manufactured in the United States. Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel’s use of this white phosphorus was a war crime.

Shouldn’t you see first-hand how Israel used your arms and spent your money?

Before becoming president you were a distinguished professor of law. The U.S. government has also said that it wants to foster the rule of law in the Arab-Muslim world.

The International Court of Justice stated in July 2004 that the whole of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied Palestinian territories designated for Palestinian self-determination, and that the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.

Not one of the 15 judges sitting on the highest judicial body in the world dissented from these principles.

The main human rights organizations in the world, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued position papers supporting the right of the Palestinian refugees to return and compensation.

Each year in the United Nations General Assembly nearly every country in the world has supported these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Every year the Arab League puts forth a peace proposal based on these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Leading human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have also stated that Israel’s siege of Gaza is a form of collective punishment and therefore illegal under international law.

We in the Hamas Government are committed to pursuing a just resolution to the conflict not in contradiction with the international community and enlightened opinion as expressed in the International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly, and leading human rights organizations. We are prepared to engage all parties on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions.

However, our constituency needs to see a comprehensive paradigm shift that not only commences with lifting the siege on Gaza and halts all settlement building and expansion but develops into a policy of evenhandedness based on the very international law and norms we are prodded into adhering to.

Again, we welcome you to Gaza which would allow you to see firsthand our ground zero. Furthermore, it would enhance the US position; enabling you to speak with new credibility and authority in dealing with all the parties.

Very Truly Yours,

Dr. Ahmed Yousef
Deputy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry
Former Senior Political Advisor

Linda Smith

Alanadale (9 June 12:13pm) to George: "In answer to your question: would Jews be allowed to live in a Palestinian state, the answer would be 'yes' provided they were prepared to become 'Palestinians'."
What is the source of your understanding that Jews would be allowed to live in a Palestinian state? What would be their status - equal citizens or dhimmis?

Michael B

Henry Sidgwick,

From beginning to end Yousef's letter is rife with basic factual, historical, existential and moral deceits. Even the ICJ advisory opinion of 2004 (and it was an advisory opinion only, not a legal case) is not properly reflected upon since Israel refused to participate. E.g., the following was noted in the formal letter Israel sent to the ICJ:

"The statement [the elaboration to follow] sets out detailed objections to the jurisdiction of the Court in this matter and the propriety of the Court responding to the request. ... the statement also details the ongoing terrorist threat faced by Israel from Palestinian terrorism directed at Israeli civilians.

"... as these words are being written - news has just broken of yet another terrorist atrocity on a public bus in Jerusalem only a few kilometers from this office. In these first few minutes, the news is that ten people have been killed and a further 45 injured. It seems likely that the numbers of dead and injured will increase in the next hours as the news becomes clearer. The television images of the scene are deeply distressing."

That, from both a jurisdictional/legal basis and from an existential/moral basis is emblematic of what the ICJ (knowingly) ignored in rendering its advisory opinion. Accordingly, in the advisory opinion, Judge Buergenthal dissents in no uncertain terms, stating:

"... the Court should have exercised its discretion and declined to render the requested advisory opinion because it lacked sufficient information and evidence to render the opinion. The absence in this case of the requisite factual basis vitiates the Court’s sweeping findings on the merits ..."

That "little detail" serves to reflect upon the entirety of Yousef's preposterously mendacious letter as a whole.

Adam B.

alanadale, unfortunately it's not your decision whether Jews would be allowed to live in any future "Palestinian" state. The Palestinians don't seem to share your view.

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. Just a brief note: the judges of the ICJ were unanimous in stipulating that the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are Occupied Territories and that Israel's occupation is illegal. The one dissenting judge, from the US, joined his colleagues in subscribing to these two rulings.

Linda Smith

PeaceNow2009 (8 June 11:14am) "Under International Law and UN Resolutions 191 and 194, the world accepts that the Palestinian refugees can return to their former homes or receive compensation. Of course Israel will be unwilling to accept millions of people..."

"Return" has never included descendants of refugees, so "millions of people" are not at issue. UN Resolution 194 only permits the return of people willing to live at peace with their neighbours, which excludes the majority of the Arabs as they have always expressed hostility and hatred towards Jews.

The "world", picky as ever, has overlooked compensation for their confiscated assets due to 850,000 Jewish refugees from Muslim Arab countries.

Derek BLADES

Carl (6 June) wrote:

"Israel needs to learn that negotiation is the only way forward." Well said Carl, though you could have added that they will have to be genuine negotiations based on the assumption that both sides will need to make compromises. That is something that Obama and Mitchell certainly understand even if the Israeli and Hamas leaderships seem not yet to have grasped it.

alanadale

Derek BLADES WRITES: there 'will have to be genuine negotiations based on the assumption that both sides will need to make compromises.'

Well said. Hamas will have recognize Israel's right to exist within the 1967 borders and Israel will have to recognize the 1967 borders.

Voila. And whose closer to making the necessary compromise?

Michael B

Henry Sidgwick,

That's mere sophistry on the part of the Hamas official in question since the "occupied territory" issue itself was not being legally/formally called into question by any party. Instead, it was a pro forma principle that was more simply assumed to be a basis for the advisory opinion.

That doesn't even get into this Hamas official's other bases and claims (e.g., CodePink cited as a viable "peace" group; the recent Gaza campaign cited as an aggressive act without so much as an allusion to the thousands of Hamas rockets and mortars that have targeted Israeli civilian centers over a multi-year period; the question begging, eye-rolling claim that Gaza was therefore Hamas's "ground zero"). Nor does it address the issue of international law's viability and limitations in general, e.g., given their lack of enforcement mechanisms and security guarantees.

Further still, the strategic issue of viable defensible borders is directly related to the "occupied territories" issue, and that's merely one of the difficulties that would need to be brought fully into view if the latter concept were to be addressed more directly. Then there's the context of the U.N. as a whole and organs of the U.N. such as the UNHRC that have allowed themselves to be coopted by rogue regimes and leftist and tranzi (transnational) ideological influences and assumptions, etc., etc., etc.

Never mind Hamas's own founding charter, which specifically targets Jews as individuals and the elimination of Israel as a whole.

Again, "little things" like that - that perforce make so much of this general discussion an exercise in Orwellian and Kafkaesque manners and indulgences.

Adam B.

Derek Blades, Israel has repeatedly shown that she is prepared to make compromises for peace.

Hamas has not, and indeed rejects (and mocks the very idea of) any peace negotiations. Lumping the two together is grotesque.

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. To give its opinion on the legality of the wall, or barrier, or fence, the ICJ first ruled on the the occupied territories. The court found unanimously that the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are Occupied Palestinian Territory. It follows that Israel's settlements (and most all of its activity) in the Occupied Territories are illegal. The court found, with one dissenting opinion, that the wall is also illegal. This is clear and unambiguous.

You appear to say that Israel can decide for itself what borders it considers viable and defensible, and presumably can establish such borders by conquest. This is illegal.

You then appear to question whether international law has any foundation. If, in some parallel universe, Hamas had one of the biggest armies in the world, and Israel didn't, Hamas would then be justified in establishing viable and defensible borders for Gaza?

You then appear to question the legitimacy of the UN (your reason would appear to be that it has escaped the control of the US, which remains questionable). In law, Israel's legitimacy rests on the UN's endorsement of the partition proposed by the Mandate power. If the UN has no legitimacy why are Israel's neighbours to accept what appears to them an aggressive interloper?

It remains the case that great powers do what they want and little powers do what they have to. But international law is beginning to impose restraints. It seems to me unwise for anyone to set it aside.

If you want an example of the Orwellian, try the "peace process" Israel and the US have been engaged in for the last four decades (with what effect?). If you want Kafkaesque, try the constraints imposed on the Palestinian Arabs in the Occupied Territories.

Adam B.

Henry, you seem to be under the illusion that there is such a thing as an impartial, equally appled thing called international law. there isn't.

"International law" is ALWAYS politically driven. Hence, the ICJ has not ruled on Tibet. why? Was China's invasion, occupation and suppression of Tibet legal? No - because there is simply no political will to investigate. If i remember correctly, the ICJ's ruling about the security barrier was presided over by a judge from the People's Republic of China - a Communist dictatorship. Think how someone rises to be a judge in such a system, a system which imprisons political prisoners, tortures inmates and executes more people than the rest of the world combined. I also believe the case against Israel was put by Cuba (another beacon of human rights and democracy) and Iran.

To be frank, Henry, I couldn't care less what such a morally destitute and degenerate body has to say. Much like the UN, over half of whose members are despotic regimes.

And henry, the pecae process has failed because the Arab and islamic worlds have not given up on the idea of destroying Israel. And if you want "Kafkaesque", try being a Jew in Iran (or see how long you'd live in Gaza).

Michael B

Henry Sidgwick,

In point of fact the ICJ showed itself willing to act as a pawn within larger gambits that are almost constantly at play against Israel, your own dicta notwithstanding. As Judge Buergenthal succinctly put it, "The Court's formalistic approach to the right of self-defence enables it to avoid addressing the very issues that are at the heart of this case."

Notice the not so subtle "irony" at play in that observation?

And I didn't question the entirety of the U.N. in every part and particular, I took note of large scale cooptations of the U.N., most pointedly mocking the role of the UNHRC (add the UNRWA), one of the most officiously coopted/corrupted forums within the institution as a whole and, arguably, within the west at large. One needs to look at institutions within Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Camorra, North Korea and other such states and organizations that operate outside the rule of law and beyond the realm of human conscience before one can find a still more corrupt forum.

What took place at the ICJ in this instance can be considered an example of lawfare (rather than warfare). Then again and to consider wider contexts still, we're suppose to applaud Obama for having the temerity, in Cairo recently, to defend the bare historical fact of the Holocaust, so that too reflects the absurdist, Kafkaesque and abominably low standards being confronted in the international arena when it comes to this set of issues.

Adam B.

Apologies for the typos!

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. I take it you are going beyond simply saying that you disagree with the findings of the court - but what do you mean when you describe it as a willing pawn in wider gambits?

As far as I can tell, fifteen internationally respected jurists deliberated on the question. They were unanimous that international law applied to the Occupied Territories. On more particular questions about the wall there was one dissenter. I don't know if you have read the dissenting opinion. It is (to the uninitiated like me) very reasonable and carefully reasoned. But fourteen equally distinguished jurists disagreed. (I believe the degree of unanimity in this opinion is unusual for the court.)

I do not understand (so I cannot comment on) how your other comments have a bearing on the question, which is whether Hamas are correct in stating that under international law Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories are illegal.

One remark I would like clarified is: "Then again and to consider wider contexts still, we're suppose to applaud Obama for having the temerity, in Cairo recently, to defend the bare historical fact of the Holocaust". I understood Obama to be rebuking those who out of idiocy or evil intent deny the Holocaust.

Henry Sidgwick

Adam B. There is in fact a growing corpus of international law, as impartial as any law can be. Of course, how it is applied is a highly political question. Are you saying that the application of the law in nation states is not political? To pick just one example: make a study of the rulings of the highest court in Israel on cases involving the military and security services.

The ideal is to minimize political influence on the practice of the law, although clearly not on the framing of laws. This ideal applies to international law as much as to any other branch of the law.

I am not sure what you propose as an alternative: should we resign ourselves to the unimpeded exercise of brute force? Is that how you believe Israel has got where it has?

(Your typos are less frequent than mine, although less entertaining than some others.)

Michael B

It's the right and honorable thing to honorably think rightly of honorable and upright justices of the court, no doubt. Though there is the contrary view. To wit, because a few jurists wear black robes rather than clown suits with painted faces, that fact itself does not disguise their hollow opinings and their artifice in general. Clowns, taken seriously, reveal two sets of clowns, not one.

Zair

This is what some Israeli's think of Obama:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090967.html

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. I am not sure your comment warrants a response, but I will ask just one question. Was Judge Buergenthal a clown only when he agreed with the other judges that the occupation is illegal, or was he a clown also when he dissented from the decision to hand down an opinion on the construction of the wall?

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. Your comment doesn't merit a reply. But I will ask one question: Was Judge Buergenthal a clown only when he agreed with the other judges, or when he dissented?

Hoeiboei

Melanie Phillips excellent text has been translated into Dutch:

http://hoeiboei.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-in-cairo.html

Michael B

Henry,

I wish you well, but you are being simple.

Two or three times I cited, excerpted and commended Justice Buergenthal's reasoning and the basis of his reasoning. Hence your question is obtuse and uncomprehending. And it was his cogency and the coherence, transparency and unbeguiling quality of his reasoning that was relied upon, not the authority of his office as such. In fact, you're the one who has repeatedly applied arguments from authority (among other fallacies and incomprehensions), not I.

Likewise, you might attempt to understand what was said by applying a dose of irony and wit to your comprehensions.

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. You have me intrigued now, or perhaps just dazzled by the irony and wit of your comprehensions, so I will ask again. You say "it was his cogency and the coherence, transparency and unbeguiling quality of his reasoning that was relied upon" ("beguiling" or "unbeguiling"?) So, was he more or less cogent and coherent etc. when he agreed with his colleagues or when he disagreed?

(I rely on authority in most areas of intellectual endeavour: I am not a lawyer, a doctor, a surgeon, a chemist, a physicist, a mathematician... Come to think of it, I rely on authority in most areas of practical endeavour too: I am not an electrician, a plumber, a mechanic, and engineer...)

(I am keen to improve myself. Please point out my fallacies and incomprehensions.)

It is a comfort to know that you wish me well.
Thank you.

Derek BLADES

Linda Smith (June 9) writes "The "world", picky as ever, has overlooked compensation for their confiscated assets due to 850,000 Jewish refugees from Muslim Arab countries." A little common sense here please. What actually happened is that many Jews living in Arab countries moved to Israel around the time of partition through fear, patriotism or in search of a better life. They left behind financial assets and real estate because most - not all - Arab countries restricted capital movements as part of their exchange rate policies. In the 1940s restrictions on capital transfers were widespread throughout Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as in the Middle East. Their assets were abandoned rather than "confiscated".

Derek BLADES

Adam B.June 9th, 2009 1:00am told Mariah - "it was Obama who used the phrase "Muslim world." I think you shot down your own argument."

Wrong Adam B. In her blog Ms Phillips used the term "Muslim world" twice. Mariah is certainly justified in asking Ms Phillips to be more careful in her choice of language. Arab and Muslim are not synonyms.

alanadale

To follow up on Derek BLADES comment on Jewish refugees from Muslim Arab countries, many of the well heeled left as part of the ‘colonial’ exodus from countries like Egypt which was administered till 1949 by the detested Capitulations. The Capitulations gave the nationals of predominantly European countries huge concessions not least the right to be tried under their own and not Egyptian law. Jewish refugees that did not immigrate to Israel usually ended up in Britain, France, USA or other countries whence they or family members originally came or were already settled.

I should welcome comment from either Adam B or Michael B to Henry Sidgwick’s interesting observation that international law is being ‘objectivised’ even if its application is still ‘politicised’ and that we should be trying to objectivise its application too. This seems to be an eminently admirable aspiration both in terms of common sense and natural justice. Of course the major powers (and minor ones when it comes to questions of security and what they can get away with) still engage in ‘real politique’. But the universal and transparent nature of human rights legislation makes it increasingly hard for individual countries to hide behind the expediency of power to pursue their political agendas especially when they ride roughshod over weaker ones.

Si, N

The 'little detail' that Michael B wrenches from Buergenthal’s opinion is just that; a little detail.

To be clear, Buergenthal did not mince his words when addressing Israel's illegal behaviour and the devastating impact those criminal activities have on Palestinians. Buergenthal unambiguously stated:

'I share the Court’s conclusion that international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, and international human rights law are applicable to the Occupied Palestinian Territory and must there be faithfully complied with by Israel. I accept that the wall is causing deplorable suffering to many Palestinians living in that territory.

Paragraph 6 of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also does not admit for exceptions on grounds of military or security exigencies. It provides that “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. I agree that this provision applies to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that their existence violates Article 49, paragraph 6. It follows that the segments of the wall being built by Israel to protect the settlements are ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law. Moreover, given the demonstrable great hardship to which the affected Palestinian population is being subjected in and around the enclaves created by those segments of the wall, I seriously doubt that the wall would here satisfy the proportionality requirement to qualify as a legitimate measure of self-defence'.

An unmangled reading of Buergenthal’s opinion reveals that even the dissenting judge's view is supportive of Yousef's claim.

Linda Smith

Derek Blades' (12 June 6:00am) Arab apologist assertion that Jews willingly abandoned their often substantial assets in Arab countries in order to move to Israel out of patriotic reasons or in search of a better life is false.

That the Jews either fled or were expelled from Arab countries following official persecution and pogroms is substantiated by documentary evidence. Many of the Jews fleeing Arab countries did not go to Israel, contrary to Derek Blades' opinion, but to France, UK, USA, Canada, etc, etc.

Neither did the Jewish refugees from Arab countries all depart at the time of partition as Derek Blades would have it. For example, after being granted independence in 1962, the Algerian government harassed the Jewish community and deprived Jews of their economic rights. As a result, almost 130,000 Algerian Jews emigrated to France. That many Jews have now emigrated from France to Israel due to antisemitic attacks by Muslims is amply documented. Muslim hatred and persecution of Jews is endemic to Islam and rooted in the Koran.

Derek Blades' assertion that the Jewish refugees 'assets were abandoned rather than "confiscated" ' begs the question: why would the Jews of Arab lands abandon their assets in order to find a better life in Israel, France or the USA....? You don't find a better life without your assets living in a tent in Israel - or in France, the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, etc - unless your life has been made intolerable by Nazi-like regimes. Does Derek Blades also aver that the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were not refugees because they "abandoned" their assets out of fear.

I note that Derek Blades' Arab apologist comment was swiftly endorsed by that other arch Arab apologist Alanadale. Anyway here is some info from one of Derek Blades' favourite sources, wikipedia:
"800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were either forced out or fled their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s; 260,000 reached Israel in 1948-1951, 600,000 by 1972. The Jews of Egypt and Libya were expelled while those of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa left as a result of a coordinated effort among Arab governments to create physical and political insecurity. Most were forced to abandon their property."

As this thread is titled "Obama in Cairo" here is a Wikipedia snippet on the Jews of Egypt - should also be of interest to that arch Arab apologist Alanadale who mentioned that he lived in Egypt in the 1980s:

"In 1948, approximately 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt. About 100 remain today, mostly in Cairo. In June 1948, a bomb exploded in Cairo's Karaite quarter, killing 22 Jews. In July 1948, Jewish shops and the Cairo Synagogue was attacked, killing 19 Jews. Hundreds of Jews were arrested and had their property confiscated. The 1954, the Lavon Affair served as a pretext for further persecution of Egyptian Jews. In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted, 1,000 Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses were seized by the government. A statement branding the Jews "enemies of the state" was read out in the mosques of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated and many Jews lost their jobs. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers were not allowed to work in their professions. In 1967, Jews were detained and tortured, and Jewish homes were confiscated.

In 1951, the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion was translated into Arabic and promoted as an authentic historical document, fueling anti-Semitic sentiments in Egypt. In 1960, the Protocols were the subject of an article by Salah Dasuqi, military governor of Cairo, in al-Majallaaa, the official cultural journal. In 1965, the Egyptian government released an English-language pamphlet titled Israel, the Enemy of Africa and distributed it throughout the English-speaking countries of Africa The pamphlet used the Protocols and The International Jew as its sources and concluded that all the Jews were cheats, thieves, and murderers....."

"In the immediate aftermath of trilateral invasion during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on November 23 by Britain France and Israel, a proclamation was issued stating that 'all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state', and it promised that they would be soon expelled. Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of the Jewish community left, mainly for Europe, the United States and South America, but some also emigrated to Israel, after being forced to sign declarations that they were leaving voluntarily, and agreed with the confiscation of their assets. Some 1,000 more Jews were imprisoned. Similar measures were enacted against British and French nationals in retaliation for the invasion."

Michael B

No, Si'N, yours is not an unmangled reading, yours is either uncomprehending or more consciously guile laden. But people can judge for themselves, documents related to the case can be found here.

Henry Sidgwick

Adam B. You have broken your silence! I was beginning to wonder.

The point, before it gets lost, is that the ICJ was unanimous in saying that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is illegal. Judge Buergenthal then went on to dissent from his colleagues on other matters. His opinion seems to me very reasonable and well-argued, although I do not claim any of the legal expertise necessary to determine whether he is right or his other fourteen colleagues are on the questions on which he dissents.

Adam B.

Derek Blades, I'm afraid you'll find that it was indeed obama who used the phrase himself, when announcing that he would make such a speech. I am well aware that Arab and Musl.im are not synonymous - the speech wasn't simply aimed at the Arab world - didn't you see it?

Adam B.

Derek Blades, I suppose the pogroms and mass killings of Jews in Arab countries had nothing to do with Jews fleeing? All property and possessions were stolen by the Arab governments - if it was simply "patriotism" why did they leave with nothing?

Doesn't quite add up.

Derek BLADES

Linda Smith (June 12) has misinterpreted my comment about the confiscation of Jewish-owned assets in Arab countries.

She wrote: "Derek Blades' assertion that Jews willingly abandoned their often substantial assets…". No Linda. I never said that they did so willingly. I am sure that they did so reluctantly.

She claims that I said that Jews "moved to Israel out of patriotic reasons or in search of a better life". Wrong again. I listed fear as a third motive.

"Many of the Jews fleeing Arab countries did not go to Israel, contrary to Derek Blades' opinion, but to France, UK, USA, Canada, etc, etc." No Linda. I said that many Jews moved from Arab countries to Israel. It is not my opinion that they all did so.

"Neither did the Jewish refugees from Arab countries all depart at the time of partition as Derek Blades would have it." No Linda. I never said that they all left at the time of partition I said that many did so.

And so it goes on. Innocent mistakes on Linda's part or deliberate misrepresentation?

Linda Smith

Derek Blades, neither, nor Adam B, have misinterpreted your comment of 12 June 2009 6:00am. There is no other point made in your comment except to dispute my assertion that compensation is due to the (circa) 850,000 Jewish refugees from Muslim Arab countries.

Henry Sidgwick

Michael B. My delight in hearing from Adam B. again clearly befuddled my brain, and I directed a comment to him that was intended for you:

The point, before it gets lost, is that the ICJ was unanimous in saying that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is illegal. Judge Buergenthal then went on to dissent from his colleagues on other matters. His dissenting opinion seems to me very reasonable and well-argued, although I do not claim any of the legal expertise necessary to determine whether he is right, or his other fourteen colleagues are, on the question on which he dissents.

I am unsure why you find this difficult to accept: Judge Buergenthal ruled that the occupation is illegal; but opined that the court was not in a position to rule on the wall. Your initial objection to the Hamas statement was that it misrepresented the ICJ. It didn't.

alanadale

Linda Smith ref the treatment of the Jews after Suez I draw your attention to this exchange in Hansard of 26 November 1956.

‘Her Majesty's Government have been deeply shocked by the news received through the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs who had a report from their Minister in Cairo on 23rd November to the effect that all members of the British and French communities in Egypt were to be expelled within the next week or 10 days. Each person was to be allowed to take a maximum of £20 with him.

The task of the Swiss Legation in assisting the British and French subjects concerned was, at the same time, made almost impossible by the action of the Egyptian Government in removing the local staff formerly attached to the British and French Embassies. We have no information on the means by which the Egyptian Government propose to transport these people from Egypt to the United Kingdom and to other destinations.

The British subjects concerned number about 13,000 in all. These include those of United Kingdom origin as well as Maltese and Cypriots. It is not clear from our existing information whether the expulsion order covers those British subjects who had previously been interned by the Egyptians, including the employees of the Suez Canal Base Contractors.’

It would seem the Jews got off relatively lightly – certainly there was nothing personal about their treatment.

The Greeks and the Italians decamped soon after when Nasser started his first round of nationalisations.

The Jews of Egypt and other Arab countries are indeed victims the Middle East conflict and should be compensated as part of an overall settlement. Indeed the Egyptian government has started negotiating compensation for Jewish property expropriated after Suez.

alandale

Linda Smith ref the Lavon Affair I quote an account from the 1979 book by Israeli journalists Jacques Derogy and Hesi Carmel, The Untold History of Israel.

In 1954 Israel's army intelligence section conceived a plan to attack British personnel seconded to King Hussein's government in Jordan. The purpose was to sour relations between Britain and Jordan as well as between both Jordan and Britain on the one hand and Egypt, which would be blamed for such attacks.

Shortly afterward, the same Israeli army intelligence organization activated two networks of Egyptian Jews who had been recruited in Egypt, secretly trained in Israel, and then sent back to Cairo and Alexandria to await orders to carry out acts of sabotage.

The networks were to explode small incendiary bombs in American installations in Egypt, presumably to sour the budding Eisenhower-Nasser entente. The same networks were then to bomb public places in Cairo and Alexandria, actions that Nasser would attribute to the Muslim Brotherhood and thus create a climate of instability in Egypt during the British-Egyptian Canal Zone negotiations.

An Israeli spymaster posing as a German businessman was sent to Cairo to set the plan in motion. On July 14, 1954, during Bastille Day celebrations, incendiary devices exploded in U.S. Information Service libraries and consular offices in Cairo and Alexandria. Nine days later, on the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution they took firebombs to the central Cairo railway station and to Cairo and Alexandria movie theatres showing American films. The plot failed when one of the incendiary devices ignited in the pocket of a saboteur.

The Israeli authorities characterized this attempt to firebomb crowded cinemas and public places as ‘vandalizing public institutions’.

Gil

Poor Alandale, only now discovering that war is dirty and that each side tries to take advantage of circumstances. Tut tut.

Anything to say about the fradulent results of the elections in Iran, Henry or Alandale? Or did your guy win?

Yehuda

Obama and his administration, like many other anti-Zionists, totally ignore the fact that under international law Jews may legally live in (at least) all of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and that this entire territory should legally comprise the Jewish nation-state. These principles were set in concrete by the 1922 League of Nations Council resolution. The 1947 U.N. general assembly resolution was only a recommendation, which the Zionists accepted, though it robbed them of territory, but which the Arabs rejected.
Obama and his henchmen, however,have the kind of political leverage that can ride roughshod over law with impunity.
They act tough against Israel, but cringe and cower in the face of Iran, North Korea, China etc etc etc

alanadale

Gil wrote: ‘Poor Alandale, only now discovering that war is dirty and that each side tries to take advantage of circumstances. Tut tut.’

Well that’s rich considering the majority of these posts have portrayed Jews as victims of Arab ‘anti Semitism’. The question is who started the dirty business and who was the first to call ‘foul’. You’ll usually find it’s the playground bully.

I’d draw your attention to an interesting admission by Moshe Dyan about Syrian ‘belligerence’ in early April 1967 which led to an aerial dogfight that is often cited as a "catalyst" of the June war.

The main bone of contention was Israel’s constant encroachment on the demilitarised zone.

Dayan said:

‘I know how at least 80 percent of all of the incidents there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's speak about 80 percent. It would go like this: we would send a tractor to plow in the demilitarized area, and we would know ahead of time that the Syrians would start shooting. If they did not start shooting, we would inform the tractor to progress farther, until the Syrians, in the end, would get nervous and would shoot. And then we would use guns, and later, even the air force, and that is how it went. We thought that we could change the lines of the cease-fire accords by military actions that were less than a war. That is, to seize some territory and hold it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us.’

Sound familiar?

Gil

Alanadale, try to be a bit objective and not so blinkered. For example, you could try to respond to Yehuda's excellent points.

Anyway, what good does all this back and forth of points supporting one view or another, do? Anyone can go on the Internet and find points that support their respective views.

This whole exercise is futile and there has been enough demonisation of both parties on both sides.

Adam B.

alanadale, why do you write Arab "anti-semitism" in speech marks? Are you suggesting there is no such phenomenon?

alanadale

Gil writes: ‘This whole exercise is futile and there has been enough demonisation of both parties on both sides.’

I couldn’t agree with you more but at the bottom of all this are very real issues: 3.7m Palestinians made to live in intolerable conditions under Israeli occupation their land and homes inexorably expropriated form them, and Israelis fearful of their own security.

My argument is that attempts to make of Medinat Yisrael Eretz Yisrael ensure Israelis will never achieve the peace and security they crave. Yehuda’s position is not only founded on false premises but is wrongheaded.

For a start nowhere does the 1922 League Nations Mandate do any more than reiterate the Balfour Declaration’s call for the establishment of a Jewish Home in Palestine. Indeed the first article of the 1920 San Remo Conference Resolution, which prepared the ground for the Mandate, reiterated the Balfour Declaration’s concern for Arab rights, stressing that the setting up of a Mandatory Power would only be acceptable if it did ‘not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine.’ At that stage no real thought had been given as to how this state would materialize.

In 1937 the Peel Commission formally recommended the partition of Palestine thus paving the way for the ‘Jewish national home’ to evolve into a sovereign state. In 1967 the UN Security Council determined to recognize Israel within the borders it acquired at independence leaving the lands conquered in the Six Day war to be exchanged for a permanent peace. Zionists have argued that Resolution 242 does not require it to return all the conquered territories – the root of all the misery that has since ensued - but the preamble to the resolution is quite explicit about the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war. And international judicial opinion has overwhelmingly ascribed to that interpretation of 242, considering all Israeli settlement of occupied Palestinian lands illegal.

What Yehuda is advocating - a sovereign Jewish nation state in all of Eretz Yisrael – would delegitimize Israel under international humanitarian law as it would no longer be able to consider itself "a state of the Jewish people" and would have to become “a state of its citizens". And if, as he argues, Jews should be allowed to settle in ‘all of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River’ then so too should Palestinians.

Finally the irony of his complaint about ‘Obama and his henchmen [having] the kind of political leverage that can ride roughshod over law with impunity,’ is not lost in the light of Israel’s serial defiance of UN resolutions.

Linda Smith

Although Alanadale graciously agreed that "the Jews of Egypt and other Arab countries are indeed victims the Middle East conflict and should be compensated....."
his assertion that in comparison with the expulsion of 13,000 British subjects from Egypt in 1956, "the Jews got off relatively lightly" is another load of Arab/Muslim apololgist hogwash:

In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property. Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state," and promised that they would be soon expelled. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government. Foreign observers reported that members of Jewish families were taken hostage, apparently to insure that those forced to leave did not speak out against the Egyptian government.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/egjews.html

alanadale

Linda Smith. Have you considered what happened to the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbour?

My point was not to play a numbers game but to illustrate that there were reasons for the ill-treatment of Egyptian Jews (who were as I have said as much innocent victims of the conflict, if not in quite to the same traumatic extent, as the Palestinians). I must confess that in my use of ‘relatively’ I was thinking of a rich Jewish hotelier who had considerably longer to arrange his affairs than the two days afforded the British and was able to leave with more than £20. If he was the exception to the rule I apologise.

But just consider, if the Egyptians quite justifiably felt ill disposed to the British and French after Suez they would feel doubly so to Israel after: the 1948 war, the border incidents which followed much the same pattern as on the Syrian border I’ve already mentioned, the Lavon Affair (which Sharett had the chutzpah to claim had been set up by the Egyptians - the surviving members of the group were publicly honoured in Israel the other day presumably for their proficiency in ‘vandalizing public institutions’, plain terrorism to you and me) and then the tripartite Suez invasion.

It did not of course justify cases of individual vindictiveness to Jews any more than it did to any other group caught in the crossfire of events. However the expulsion of the Jews and others pales beside the collective punishments Israel regularly metes out to Palestinians now, especially the house demolitions. It might interest you to know that the family of Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994 were spared the trauma of having their home demolished.

By the way you shouldn’t take everything you read in the Jewish Virtual Library as an impartial account of events.

Adam B.

Not so very long ago, Baghdad was a quarter Jewish - a quarter! Now there is not one single Jew in the whole of Iraq. How likely is it that hundreds of thousands all thought exactly the same way and left through choice?

It's called ethnic cleansing.

Gil

Alanadale said: 'By the way you shouldn’t take everything you read in the Jewish Virtual Library as an impartial account of events.'

Actually, they are pretty accurate. And no worse than your cherry-picking comments such as Dayan's without also offering the context which would put your argument in a different light.

alanadale

With respect Gill there is a slight difference between ‘cherry picking’ information from the Jewish Virtual Library and other well funded Zionist websites about facts that are not in the main contested though the contextual use of them may be and a long and explicit quote from Moshe Dayan, one of the chief players in the Six Day War about a crucial episode in its build-up. Numerous posters on this blog trotting out the received wisdom propagated by Israel’s overpowering propaganda machine, have informed us with the kind of certitude denial of which would be akin to denial of the Holocaust – that Israel faced an existential threat in 1967. Evidently Dayan thought differently.

One attractive quality of the Israeli political and military establishment is its inability to keep its collective mouth shut. Dayan was by no means the only military and intelligence chief who believed Israel could handle anything a volatile situation could throw up (remembering Israel’s instrumental role in keeping it volatile). Indeed the CIA believed Israel could fight a war on three fronts and still win comfortably.

Apart from a general policy of border expansionism by attrition which kept tensions alive, Israel was concerned the incipient threat of Nasserism could challenge its regional hegemony. Given its leaders had concluded this threat would have to be confronted sooner or later, they decided to deal with it at a time and place of their choosing. It turned out Nasser provided them with the pretext for a pre-emptive strike which ensured the wing clipping was done with maximum efficiency and minimum casualties – and of course the seizure of all of Israel’s biblical lands.

Henry Sidgwick

Adam B. You say, "How likely is it that hundreds of thousands all thought exactly the same way and left through choice? It's called ethnic cleansing."

I can't remember if you are one of those who told me that the displacement of 700-800k Palestinian Arabs in 1948 and Israel's refusal to allow them back to their homes was just one of those things that happened in war (while omitting to say that it was also one of Israel's war aims). If you were, could you remind me why it doesn't fall under the definition of "ethnic cleansing"?

Henry Sidgwick

Gil, You say, "Poor Alandale, only now discovering that war is dirty and that each side tries to take advantage of circumstances. Tut tut.

Anything to say about the fradulent results of the elections in Iran, Henry or Alandale? Or did your guy win?"

"Alanadale, try to be a bit objective and not so blinkered. For example, you could try to respond to Yehuda's excellent points."

We had a discussion the other week where you were courteous and I came away having learned something new. I find your tone here puzzling.

Your assertion that Israel's behaviour in Lebanon and Gaza and elsewhere is simply an instance of the maxim that War is Hell is surely mistaken given all that has been said by Israeli politicians, soldiers, and rabbis.

Why would you say that "our" man won in Iran?

And which of Yehuda's points do you find to be excellent?

Gil

Alanadale, one of the great things about the internet is that we don't have to go far for information. While you dishonestly dismiss the Israeli narrative as 'propaganda' try and stick to the facts. These were that Egypt was at war with Israel and had been so since 1948. Nasser wanted to achieve regional hegemony in the Middle East and so formed a joint command with Jordan and Syria. They saw how the world said nothing when Egypt used chemical weapons against the Yemenis and decided that this was the time to attempt to wipe out the Jewish State. Do not forget the cries of 'we are coming to throw the Jews into the sea'.

The population in Israel, memories of the Holocaust still fresh - a Holocaust supported by the Mufti - quite rightly looked to its government for protection.

So we have Israel hemmed in by relentless hostility and murderous intent from the North, East and south. Let's not forget the Jordanian breach of agreements to allow access to the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem.

Nasser and co., stupid and blinded by their rhetoric, were also egged on by the Soviets who manipulated events for their own purposes.

Thankfully, Israel was smarter so that today that message can be passed on to you and your ilk.

De Gaulle and others couldn't give a toss about the Jews and probably sobbed when Israel won.

However, since you and Henry Sidgwick seem at the end of the day decent sort of chaps, I'll throw you a bone: I believe that the Occupation (note the word I use) has been a disaster for all sides. Eventually the problem wil be solved because Israel CANNOT be both Jewish and Democratic while ruling over the Palestinians.

Henry Sidgwick

Gil, On what do you base your judgement that the casualties inflicted by Israel are just the usual collateral damage caused by war? and that Israel just takes advantage of fortuitous opportunities thrown up by the fortunes of war?

Why do you suggest that I support the incumbent in the Iranian presidential election?

Which points made by Yehuda do you consider excellent?

What context do you think would change the meaning of what Moshe Dayan said?

And why do you adopt this sneering and overconfident tone in addressing me and Alandale? You were perfectly civil to me last time we spoke.

Yehuda

alandale, in his historical excursus, forgot to mention that in the 1950's and 1960's Egypt was employing Nazi scientists and technicians on its soil, whose task was to develop rockets that would be fired at Israel. At that time Britain was a staunch ally of the Arabs (its 1956 lapse notwithstanding.)
Some of these Nazis suffered misadventure in Egypt, and the remainder departed Egypt.
This exodus contributed significantly to Israeli security.

Linda Smith

Henry Sidgwick you posted to Gil "Your assertion that Israel's behaviour in Lebanon and Gaza and elsewhere is simply an instance of the maxim that War is Hell is surely mistaken given all that has been said by Israeli politicians, soldiers, and rabbis."

What have Israeli politicians, soldiers and rabbis said that is discrepant with Gil's assertion? On what basis do you generalise the opinions of particular individual Israeli citizens, whether politicians, soldiers, or rabbis, to be representative of the attitude of the entire Israeli population? Do you assert that the opinions of BNP politicians, a few selected British soldiers, or British clergymen, are representative of the attitudes of all of Britain's politicians, soldiers, and clergymen, and can be said to represent the attitude of "Britain"?

alanadale

Gil wrote: Alanadale, one of the great things about the internet is that we don't have to go far for information. While you dishonestly dismiss the Israeli narrative as 'propaganda' try and stick to the facts.

Quite the opposite Gil, the Israeli narrative WAS propaganda, Dayan et al spilled the beans.

I had sympathy with some of the Israeli narrative up to 1967. Leaving aside the legitimacy or not of Zionism as anything more than a colonial enterprise encouraged by the British to resolve their own anti-Semitism issues and fulfil the Biblical prophecies of the devout, but equally importantly to divide and rule the subject peoples of the Middle East who had fallen into the Imperial lap with the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, the Holocaust had inflicted a unique tragedy on the Jews that gave the Zionist enterprise a moral force quite independent of its controversial genesis. The counter tragedy of the Jews acquiring a home in Palestine was the dispossession of a completely innocent people who quite naturally didn’t appreciate being made victims for the atonement of another civilization’s wickedness and folly. It is the imaginative failure, putting aside for a moment their own sense of entitlement, of the Zionist posters on this blog to acknowledge this point that I can’t quite grasp. And put away the organ grinder regurgitating the Peel Commission, the Partition Plan etc. etc. etc you all know and I know and indeed as Dayan spelt out the Zionists would have engineered ways to expand their borders by default attrition (moving in if there was no resistance and provoking conflict if there was).

Now I have sympathy with the Israelis’ dilemma that the state needed a critical mass which is why – whatever the monstrous injustice to the Palestinians - a state the size of Israel within its 1967 borders was necessary for its viability.

You write of Israel being ‘hemmed in by relentless hostility and murderous intent from the North, East and south’. That was undoubtedly the case, there was quite naturally a lot of hostility to Israel and undoubtedly it would not have survived as a Jewish state had the Arabs prevailed; they saw it after all as a colonial implant in their region. Israelis could therefore lay claim to an existential threat but that threat from a purely military perspective had probably been eliminated with the establishment of Israel in 1948, certainly so long as Israel retained regional hegemony. This meant keeping the Arabs wrong footed and divided – and why Nasserism had to be nipped in the bud. But after 1967 Israel became one of the essential building blocks if not the foundation stone of the regional strategic balance which no Arab leader could see destroyed without disastrous consequences for regional and their own stability (leave aside Israel’s nuclear arsenal).

How ‘murderous’ that threat might have been thank God we will never know. Suffice it to say that the smashing of power balances creates very dangerous forces (which was why Sadat was concerned in 1973 about being forced to advance on Israel after breaking through the Israeli defences on the Suez Canal). Undoubtedly terrible things would have been done as they were in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 or the Egyptian soldiers taken prisoner and ‘despatched’ after the capture of Sinai in 1967. Terrible things happen in wars and it’s totally understandable that the Israelis should do everything to ensure terrible things do not happen to them. But after 1967 (and probably before) the painting of that threat as existential was pure propaganda to further other policy ends: namely the systematic expropriation of Palestinian lands.

With regional hegemony and patience Israel could have fashioned a settlement. But as De Gaulle alone of world leaders after the Six Day war percipiently realized Israel would never be satisfied with living within its 1967 borders and would want more. Now its self absorbed, greedy and short sighted expansionist policies have undercut the nationalists with whom it could have done a deal and spawned a far more intractable foe in Hamas.

Gil

Henry Sidgwick, you posted that I am supposed to have said:'... that Israel's behaviour in Lebanon and Gaza and elsewhere is simply an instance of the maxim that War is Hell...'.

You are manufacturing quotes. I responded to Alanadale on the 1954 incident and said this:'Poor Alandale, only now discovering that war is dirty and that each side tries to take advantage of circumstances. Tut tut.'

So you are wrong here.

The remark about the Iranian election was, indeed, irrelvant. However, the Left's silence at the violence meted out to the demonstrators in Iran is hypocritical, nauseating and proves the point about it's antisemitsm.

Henry Sidgwick

Gil, I am sorry I extrapolated without justification from your defence of Israeli state terrorism as outlined by alandale to a defence of Israeli state terrorism generally. I was entirely in the wrong, it was a foul, and I apologise.

You provide a useful corrective in a later post by describing how many Israelis genuinely saw their position in 1967. However, it cannot be considered a refutation of alandale's point, which is, as I understand it, that the ruling elite knew they faced no existential threat.

I am puzzled to understand what you mean by the "Left's" silence about Iran, and how the "silence" proves the "Left's" anti-Semitism.

I should also thank you for your comments of 16th June at 10.30am. I am as grateful as I suppose any cur should be to be thrown a bone. However, the gist or marrow of what you say could equally have been said by slippery politicians like Netanyahu, Olmert, Sharon, Barak..., by intellectual thugs like Benny Morris, and straightforward thugs like Lieberman. So, on reflection, I'm not sure what to be grateful for. I would however be interested if you were to spell out what you meant.

Yehuda

In the dictionaries of anti-Zionists "illegal" means "anything we don't like."
As for the UN, it has become a de fact organised crime syndicate, one of whose departments is the International Court of "Justice."
"Human Rights" organisations, likewise, have become arms of the global Jihadist/Trotskyite Axis.
All these evil forces have co-operated in the war against Israel and the Jewish people.
Evidence? Just look at the composition of these bodies- their actions, their world view, their values their mendacity.

alanadale

Yehuda I fear for your moral compass if you dismiss "Human Rights" organisations of becoming arms of the global Jihadist/Trotskyite Axis and the International Court of "Justice" of being a department of ’ a de facto organised crime syndicate’ ie the UN. Why? Because Human Rights organisations record Israel’s human rights infractions and the IJC had the temerity to declare (unanimously) Israel’s settlement of Palestinian lands illegal?

How is it that everyone else has got it wrong?

I note your earlier post about Nasser employing ‘Nazi scientists and technicians on its soil’. So did the Americans after World War II. In fact they made a beeline for the U2 rocket scientists to ensure they got them before the Soviets.

You might reflect that Israel has rubbed shoulders with some pretty unsavoury types over the years (white South Africa?) and many, many others. If the relationship sours with the US one could envisage Israel quite happily jumping into bed with the Chinese; after all both countries have deeply misunderstood colonization programmes. It will be interesting to see how the ‘only democracy in the Middle East card’ plays out in that relationship. And never forget Yitzak Shamir explored the possibility of cutting a deal with the Nazis over Palestine in late 1940 when it looked as though the Germans were going to win the war.

The fact is that when people’s security (or perceived security) is at stake everything else flies out of the window and devils are sometimes supped with with dangerously short spoons. What is particularly difficult to swallow is the implicit assumption in your posts that Israel deserves to be judged by a different standard when it comes to human rights because of its security needs. I’d argue that Israel has abused that special dispensation in its treatment of the Palestinians.

Gil

Once again my response to Henry Sidgwick and/or Alanadale does not appear. I wrote about State Terrorism as practised by Syria in Lebanon.

Something tells me that the moderators are afraid of offending Arab states here. Either that or I am a bore. Let's see if this gets published.

Henry Sidgwick

Gil, Don't get paranoid about disappearing posts - it did me no good. About one in three gets through.

Before seeing what you have written, I should say that I have no intention of defending state terrorism by Syria!

Yehuda

alandale: everyone has not"got it wrong": they just pretend not to know the truth because the truth is for them an inconvenient one.
This applies to the bulk of the U.N. , to its various tentacles, as well as to organisations that practise antisemitism under the guise of protection of human rights.
Has your "moral compass" been encountering some delinquent magnetic field interference?

alanadale

Yehuda, it really won’t do to retreat into mumbo jumbo obscurantism.

Perhaps we contrarians are under the influence of some diabolical KoolAid that induces us to bury our heads in the sand but I am at a loss to grasp what ‘inconvenient’ truth I’m missing or avoiding.

As Lincoln is reputed to have said: 'You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.’

What we are witnessing in Israel at the present time are the consequences of settlement policies implemented by successive governments over the past forty years coming home to roost or out in the wash depending on your metaphorical preference, and the consequences can no longer be disguised, denied or ignored.

To condemn ‘organisations that practise anti-Semitism under the guise of protection of human rights’ simply because I assume you don’t like the way the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention impede the realization of Israel’s ‘manifest destiny’ demeans the courageous work of human rights activists and reflects badly on the underlying (in)humanity of the Zionist enterprise.

Linda Smith

Alanadale, I am puzzled by your phrase "the underlying (in)humanity of the Zionist enterprise". Would you kindly clarify.

John A. Davison

It seems I am persona non grata on this thread as my comment fails to appear.

John A,. Davison

Whatever became of it?

alanadale

Linda Smith asks me to clarify what I mean by "the underlying (in)humanity of the Zionist enterprise".

The consequence of Zionism’s hardwired inability to compromise on what it perceives as its entitlement is a society forced to sublimate the effects of an increasingly oppressive occupation into blaming the Palestinians for simply being there.

That is what I mean by ‘the underlying (in)humanity of the Zionist enterprise’.

Linda Smith

Alanadale,

1. What do you mean by your phrase Israel's "manifest destiny".
2. What is it that you assert Zionism "perceives as its entitlement.
3. Your reasons for: asserting that Zionism has a "hardwired inability to compromise"

Please ensure your response takes account of the following points:

4. As a democracy, the modern Jewish State of Israel does not want to incorporate the West Bank and Gaza as the Jews would be outnumbered by Muslims who would outvote them.
6. The Islamic view of "Human Rights" is antithetical to those of Judaism, as evidenced by the rejection of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights by members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and their adoption of the discriminatory Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.

alanadale

Linda Smith has asked me to clarify the following:

1. Manifest Destiny is a term commonly used to describe the pioneers’ justification for colonizing America: the fulfilment of God’s purpose.

2. The land of Eretz Israel is what Zionism "perceives as its entitlement”.

3. Zionism has a "hardwired inability to compromise" because it deals with transcendent truths, truths that are ‘givens’. You can’t gainsay God’s covenant.

4. Of course ‘Israel does not want to incorporate the West Bank and Gaza as the Jews would be outnumbered by Muslims who would outvote them.’ The question is the ‘state’ the Israelis have in mind for the Palestinians: a ‘two state solution’ based on 242 … with territorial changes? And if no territorial changes what ‘like for like land swaps …Old Kent Road for Mayfair?

6. The Islamic view of "Human Rights" is antithetical to those of Judaism .. ., if so Israel is doing a duff job of upholding the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Palestine judged by scores of complaints by human rights activists.

Linda Smith

Alanadale, unfortunately you have failed to clarify - your responses numbered 1-3 conflict with your response no. 4.

Under nos 1-3 you assert that Zionism has a hardwired inability to compromise on its God-given manifest destiny to colonise the land of Eretz Israel. But under no 4 you contradict yourself and say that Israel is compromising in agreeing to a Palestinian State being created in "Eretz Israel".

Although you say, 'Israel does not want to incorporate the West Bank and Gaza as the Jews would be outnumbered by Muslims who would outvote them' you fail to explain why "colonizing" Zionists would want to live as dhimmis in a Palestinian State that as a member of the OIC subscribes to the descriminatory Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.

As always, under scrutiny your arab-apologist propaganda falls apart at the seams.

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, Can you clarify some terminology for me. "Arab apologist propaganda" is bad. Is Zionist apologist propaganda good? And what do such terms add to the substance of the argument?

alanadale

Fair cop, Linda. I must say you have a way with semantics. But Zionism does have a ‘hardwired inability to compromise’.

It only compromises to adopt the lesser of two evils: in this case, corralling Palestinians into wholly dependent Bantustans on whatever land is too difficult to requisition rather than absorbing them into the Jewish state.

I was thrown by your discursive reasoning. You’ve said you favour a two state solution so I’m hesitant to classify you as a ‘hardwired’ Zionist adopting the lesser of two evils or one that accepts 242 as the basis of a settlement ie no territorial changes. Perhaps you might enlighten us. And if indeed I have been unduly hard on you and you do accept ‘no territorial changes’, what’s your view on like for like land swaps as envisaged in 242. Do you approve, in effect, of Palestinians being forced to give up Mayfair for Old Kent Road?

Your final paragraph loses me. I don’t expect ‘colonizing’ Zionists to live in Palestine as ‘dhimmis’ – a vastly overworked term of persecution, by the way. In Egypt, a country I know something about, many Jews made vast fortunes before the Revolution and lived the life of Riley. What I would expect is for the Israelis to give back the 22% of Palestine accorded to the indigenous inhabitants by Resolution 242 and to exercise their own ‘colonizing’ proclivities on the land that is legally theirs.

Linda Smith

Wm. Hazlitt, you asked 'Can you clarify some terminology for me. "Arab apologist propaganda" is bad. Is Zionist apologist propaganda good? And what do such terms add to the substance of the argument?'

Progaganda: the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc. to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc. (Reverso dictionary online)

According to the above definition, any points made on these threads can be classified as "propaganda".

I say that Alanadale's propaganda is "Arab apologist" because it makes excuses for Arab intransigence. Alanadale's propaganda is also "Arab apologist" because it omits any reference to the root cause of the Muslim Arab/Jewish Israeli conflict - Islam.

Alanadale's omission of Islam in his comments is bizarre because the Muslim Arabs have always openly admitted that their religious beliefs are the reasons for their refusal to tolerate the existence of a Jewish State.

In his contortions to avoid including supremacist discriminatory Islamic beliefs in his comments, Alanadale, on a previous thread, fabricated that the Arabs rejected the 1947 Partition Plan because the Jews were going to get better bits of territory, rather than admit the truth that the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan because the existence of a Jewish State, worse still on land previously conquered by Jihad, is anathema to Islam.

I did not say Alanadale's Arab apologist propaganda is "bad" as opposed to "good", I said it "falls apart at the seams" - because it is of poor quality and shodily made, ie under scrutiny, Alanadale's Arab apologist arguments fall apart as they are constructed on false premises and false logic.

Linda Smith

Alanadale you wrote " I must say you have a way with semantics"

Evidently YOU haven't, because you wrote two contradictory sentences:

"But Zionism does have a 'hardwired inability to compromise.' It only compromises to adopt the lesser of two evils....."

In your first sentence you say Zionism has a "hardwired inability to compromise"; a "hardwired inability" means a structural inability (to compromise).

In your second sentence you say "It only compromises.." meaning it does compromises under certain conditions. w

Therefore in your first sentence you assert Zionism CANNOT compromise. In your second sentence you say Zionism compromises.

On grounds of logic, if your first sentence is true, then your second sentence must be false. Consequently your comments in your third paragraph are built on false logic. This being the case, "I think you'd better think it out again!"

Linda Smith

Alanadale:

"I don't expect 'colonizing' Zionists to live in Palestine as 'dhimmis' - a vastly overworked term of persecution, by the way."

1. Please explain what influence you personally have on the political system which would would be introduced in "Palestine" under a Muslim Arab regime.

2. Please justify your assertion 'dhimmis - a vastly overworked term of persecution, by the way."

"In Egypt, a country I know something about, many Jews made vast fortunes before the Revolution and lived the life of Riley."

Jews were emancipated from dhimmitude by the "colonizing" Europeans. Once the Muslim majority countries rid themselves of European influence, they reintroduced their discriminatory Islamic regimes. For example, in Algeria only people with a Muslim grandfather were granted citizenship. Jordan although allowing Jews to own businesses, still has laws barring Jews from citizenship.

In your previous comments you misrepresented the Arab attitude to Europeans and Jews as merely "nationalism". You ignored the fact that the Arab attitude is "Islamic nationalism", ie a nationalism based on the religious belief of the superiority of the Muslim over all other humanity, and the hatred for the Jew instructed in the Koran, a religious hatred preached in the mosque and taught in schools in Muslim countries.

Your misrepresentations are typical of those who seek to blame Islamic antisemitism on the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. Islamic antisemitism is as old as Islam; it is a religious imperative instructed in the Koran.

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, Would you consider your own propaganda to be Zionist apologist because it makes excuses for Israeli intransigence?

Would you consider your omission of supremacist discriminatory beliefs, supposedly founded on the tenets of Judaism, contortionist? (I refer you to the opinions of the rabbis Kook and their followers and of other such sects and factions who play a significant role in Israel's political and military life.)

You have certainly caught alandale out in an inconsistency (I suspect he forgot just how extensive is the territory claimed as Eretz Israel). Are you arguing that, if one argument is invalid, then they all must be invalid? I am sure you know that such an argument is itself invalid.

I still wonder what your repeated use of epithets such as "Arab apologist" is meant to contribute.

Linda Smith

Wm Hazlitt, which bit of my alleged "Zionist propaganda" were you referring to?

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, "Progaganda: the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc. to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc. (Reverso dictionary online)

According to the above definition, any points made on these threads can be classified as "propaganda"."

Would you call yourself Zionist or anti-Zionist?

Do you defend Zionism by argument?

Do you think Israel should make concessions to the "Arabs" or stand firm against them?

alanadale

Fair cop yet again, Linda. Yes, I should have been more precise; I should have distinguished between Zionism and its practitioners. However, your logic, impeccable as ever, teeters into pedantry, for it’s evident from what followed (at least I think it would be to most disinterested observers) that I make a distinction. Why otherwise would I have enquired where you stood in the pecking order? Dyed in the wool Zionists are ‘hardwired’ (like Islamists), for reasons I’ve already explained and only compromise for a tactical advantage (as Ben Gurion did in accepting the 1947 Partition Plan). If they weren’t I can’t for the life of me see why Israel should not now be content with half as much again as was offered in the Partition Plan instead of grinding on to produce the most Zionist friendly ‘solution’ possible – a ‘solution’ that will always be contested and will condemn Israel to living under permanent siege.

You choose to define this conflict as one between religious ideologies and complain of my failure to face the fact that ‘the Muslim Arabs have always openly admitted that their religious beliefs are the reasons for their refusal to tolerate the existence of a Jewish State’.

That’s a pretty ad hominem assertion. You might equally argue Zionists ‘have always openly admitted their religious beliefs are the reasons for their refusal to tolerate the existence of a [Palestinian] State’. So what? There may be lots of people (on both sides) who have no love of the other; the issue is their ability to deliver on their ill intentions. And on that score the Zionists are in the driving seat.

It’s not clear what you mean by ‘Muslim Arabs’. But for clarity’s sake I’ll divide the construct into three categories: state, clergy, and the general public.

Those countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel have honoured them despite the most extreme provocations. When Sadat visited Jerusalem in November 1977 he called for Israel to embrace a comprehensive settlement and warned nothing else would work. It was not a message the Israelis wanted to hear and they ignored it.

As to the clergy, there are some pretty wacky clerics loose in the Islamic firmament but whacky clerics are not unique to Islam. It’s hard to trump former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef for inciting ‘genocidal hatred’. In a 2001 sermon he invoked God to ‘annihilate’ the Arabs. His imprecations had political as well as religious significance for he headed the Shas party which held the balance of power in the Knesset. Right wing Israeli politicians regularly use parliamentary privilege to spew race hatred against the Palestinians.

There’s considerable animosity against Israel amongst ordinary Arabs (Muslim and Christian), mainly because of the way it has treated the Palestinians. But the overwhelming majority accept the reality of Israel. Polls regularly show a significant majority of West Bank Palestinians ready to settle on the basis of the Arab League Peace Plan.

So it‘s rich to be accused of making ‘excuses for Arab intransigence’ when Israel studiously ignores a Peace Plan based on a deal approved by the world community which has been kicking around for the past seven years.

I have invited you to put your cards on the table as regards Resolution 242 so that we can have a substantive discussion. You studiously refuse. Instead your obsessive focus on the ‘iniquities’ and dangers of Islam in general and ‘Arab Muslims’ in particular over what is an abstract threat smacks of putting down smokescreens to distract attention from Israel’s wholesale looting of Palestinian land which is a very real one. I’d be happy for you to prove me wrong.

Linda Smith

Wm Hazlitt re the questions in your post of 2 July 12:20pm, I find it interesting that you split commentators on these threads into no more than two discrete, and conflicting, groups: Zionist or anti-Zionist. Seems to be a battlefield of your own design.

By dint of your past comments I presume you are an anti-Zionist seeking a Zionist to vanquish. Maybe you should put an ad in the "Lonely Hearts" column.

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, Let us go over the argument one more time.

You label others as purveyors of "Arab apologist propaganda".

When I point out that you could equally be labeled a purveyor of "Zionist apologist propaganda", and ask what purpose you such labels serve, you object (without answering my question). So I ask you which term you object to. Do you object to "propaganda" as applied to your contributions? -apparently not, given the dictionary definition you provide and your comments on it. Is it "apologist"? - I suspect not (I imagine you consider yourself to be providing arguments in support of your cause). Is it "Zionist"? - I would hazard a guess that you are not anti-Zionist and not neutral.

So again, as with the "Arab apologist propaganda" we are left with the question, What is the purpose of your comments?

Linda Smith

Wm Hazlitt, the purpose of my comments is to seek the truth

Linda Smith

Alanadale, "I have invited you to put your cards on the table as regards Resolution 242 so that we can have a substantive discussion"

I am not interested in pursuing a discussion of Resolution 242. If you want to know the Israeli position, I suggest you google it. Ditto The Arab League Peace Plan. Nethanyu's June speech stating Israel's current views on peace with the Arabs is also available on line.

As I said in my last post to Wm Hazlitt, my purpose in commenting is to seek the truth.

re your comment:
"..your obsessive focus on the 'iniquities' and dangers of Islam in general and 'Arab Muslims' in particular over what is an abstract threat smacks of putting down smokescreens..."

A soon to be nuclear Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah's paymaster, is not an abstract threat.

In a television interview on May 7 2009, the PLO's Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki explained that from the PLO to the Iranian mullahs, Jerusalem is seen as the metaphysical key to Israel's wellbeing. As he put it, "With the [implementation of the] two-state solution, [involving an Israeli relinquishment of Jerusalem], in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward."

I think you're the one who is putting up smokescreens.

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, I noticed in an earlier debate you advocated relativism about truth. I think you are right to abandon that position.

alandale has given you a very measured response. Can I suggest you continue your search for truth by reading it and providing an equally measured response of your own. Debate, and not invective, is the way to go.

Linda Smith

Alanadale, "I have invited you to put your cards on the table as regards Resolution 242 so that we can have a substantive discussion"

I am not interested in pursuing a discussion of Resolution 242. If you want to know the Israeli position, I suggest you google it. Ditto The Arab League Peace Plan. Nethanyu's June speech stating Israel's current views on peace with the Arabs is also available on line.

As I said in my last post to Wm Hazlitt, my purpose in commenting is to seek the truth.

re your comment:
"..your obsessive focus on the 'iniquities' and dangers of Islam in general and 'Arab Muslims' in particular over what is an abstract threat smacks of putting down smokescreens..."

A soon to be nuclear Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah's paymaster, is not an abstract threat.
In a television interview on May 7 2009, the PLO's Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki explained that from the PLO to the Iranian mullahs, Jerusalem is seen as the metaphysical key to Israel's wellbeing. As he put it, "With the [implementation of the] two-state solution, [involving an Israeli relinquishment of Jerusalem], in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward."
I think you're the one who is putting down smokescreens.

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, No - debate, not invective. Invective rouses passion and prejudice, and obscures the truth. If you seek truth, debate in good faith, as alandale has done in his very measured and reasonable comments.

alanadale

Linda Smith: ‘Wrote: I am not interested in pursuing a discussion of Resolution 242. If you want to know the Israeli position, I suggest you google it. Ditto The Arab League Peace Plan.’

You can not on the one hand refuse to discuss Resolution 242 and the Peace Plan and on the other dismiss the Arabs as ‘intransigent’.

The Arabs have agreed to recognize Israel within its 1967 borders effectively giving up over three quarters of Palestine; the Israelis (and I assume you too) seem to be having difficulties giving up any of the rest.

Given that the world community has sanctioned Resolution 242 – the consensus version – as an equitable settlement to the crisis I leave it to the impartial observer to determine which side is being unreasonable and intransigent.

alanadale

Linda Smith cites the thoughts of the PLO’s Lebanon ambassador on the psychological impact of having to relinquish East Jerusalem providing ‘the metaphysical key’ to Israel’s eventual collapse as proof positive of the mortal threat Israel faces from its implacable enemies.

Contrast this comment on the anticipated gains by Yisrael Beiteinu (Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s party for the uninitiated) in the February elections in Haaretz: ‘Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse. If there is something that typifies Israel's current murky, hollow election campaign…it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values’

You decide which poses the greater threat to Israel.

Linda Smith

Alanadale: "The world community" whose opinions you revere so much, shut their doors on the Jews and left 6 million to die in the Holocaust. Here is Natanyahu's position on peace:

"I have already stressed the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is demilitarization. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel.

Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza.
We don’t want Kassam rockets on Petah Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion Airport. We want peace.
In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbullah and Iran. On this point as well, there is wide consensus within Israel.

It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized.
On a matter so critical to the existence of Israel, we must first have our security needs addressed.
Therefore, today we ask our friends in the international community, led by the United States, for what is critical to the security of Israel: Clear commitments that in a future peace agreement, the territory controlled by the Palestinians will be demilitarized - namely, without an army, without control of its airspace, and with effective security measures to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory; real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today. And obviously, the Palestinians will not be able to forge military pacts.
Without this, sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan. And that we cannot accept.

I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem.
And here is the substance that I now state clearly: If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.
Regarding the remaining important issues that will be discussed as part of the final settlement, my positions are known: Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths.

The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement. In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements.
But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere. The settlers are neither the enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public.
Unity among us is essential and will help us achieve reconciliation with our neighbors. That reconciliation must already begin by altering existing realities. I believe that a strong Palestinian economy will strengthen peace.
If the Palestinians turn toward peace - in fighting terror, in strengthening governance and the rule of law, in educating their children for peace and in stopping incitement against Israel - we will do our part in making every effort to facilitate freedom of movement and access, and to enable them to develop their economy. All of this will help us advance a peace treaty between us.
Above all else, the Palestinians must decide between the path of peace and the path of Hamas. The Palestinian Authority will have to establish the rule of law in Gaza and overcome Hamas. Israel will not sit at the negotiating table with terrorists who seek their destruction.
Hamas will not even allow the Red Cross to visit our kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit, who has spent three years in captivity, cut off from his parents, his family and his people. We are committed to bringing him home, healthy and safe.

With a Palestinian leadership committed to peace, with the active participation of the Arab world, and the support of the United States and the international community, there is no reason why we cannot achieve a breakthrough to peace.
http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/natanyahus-june-14-2009-speech/

alanadale

No wonder you don’t want to discuss Resolution 242 because it bears very little relation to the conditions Netanyahu is now laying down.

Evidently you don’t see any reason to accept the 1967 borders as the basis for a territorial settlement even though Resolution 242 would not expect Israel to withdraw completely until relations had been normalised. Nevertheless, the principle that ALL the land is returned when peace is established is central to the 242 bargain.

So Israel once again unilaterally rewrites the rules, another turn of the ratchet, ostensibly for what if not to seize more land?

For it’s utterly cynical to suggest that Israel with the fourth mightiest army on earth could ever be under any conceivable military threat from the ragtag Palestinians, as is the new ploy never mentioned until now to insist Israel be recognized as the nation state of the Jewish people – a racist concept incompatible with a liberal democracy and one that would require the Palestinians in effect to recognize Israel’s right to dispossess them of their birthright.

The world community you so despise has made amends in spades for ‘shutting their doors on the Jews’ in the late 1930s by paying massive (and in some cases inappropriate) reparations and by turning a blind eye to Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian lands - in flagrant contravention of international law.

If 242 is not the basis for an agreement all bets are off and we all might as well hunker down for the long haul. But I wouldn’t count on Israel continuing to find a sympathetic hearing for its security needs when it has so blatantly rejected a universally accepted peace deal and continues to occupy another people’s land.

Linda Smith

Alanadale: The reparations made to the Jews post Holocaust were not for the 6 million dead - money can't bring back the dead. The reparations were for the assets confiscated from the Jews.

800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were either forced out or fled their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s; 260,000 reached Israel in 1948-1951, 600,000 by 1972. The Jews of Egypt and Libya were expelled while those of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa left as a result of a coordinated effort among Arab governments to create physical and political insecurity. Most were forced to abandon their property. The Jews of Egypt, a country for which you express a particular fondness having lived there, forced the Jews to sign a document giving up a right of return.

By 2002 these Jews and their descendants constituted about 40% of Israel's population. One of the main representative bodies of this group, the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, estimates that Jewish property abandoned in Arab countries would be valued today at more than $300 billion and Jewish-owned real-estate left behind in Arab lands at 100,000 square kilometers (four times the size of the State of Israel).

The Jews and the Arabs have plenty to negotiate about.

Linda Smith

Error in last sentence of my second paragraph which should read:

"Egypt, a country for which you express a particular fondness having lived there, forced the Jews to sign a document giving up a right of return."

alanadale

Linda Smith wrote: ‘The reparations made to the Jews post Holocaust were not for the 6 million dead - money can't bring back the dead. The reparations were for the assets confiscated from the Jews.’

Not strictly the case. The Swiss banks scam of the late 1990s in which Swiss banks were bamboozled into parting with $1.25bn and spending $500m on an audit of every Swiss bank account for the past 60 years after Jewish groups in the US threatened a $20bn class action and marshalled Wall St to boycott Swiss banks operating in the US blew that cover. It established the pattern for laying claims with other countries for Nazi victims and in the case of some former Soviet bloc countries almost bankrupted them.

The Volcker Commission as the audit on the Swiss banks was known found in the main the banks had done absolutely nothing improper. It concluded: ‘For victims of Nazi persecution there was no evidence of systematic discrimination, obstruction of access, misappropriation or violation of document retention requirements of Swiss law’.

It identified 54,000 accounts with probable or possible connections with victims of Nazi persecution of which about half warranted further investigation. The estimated current value for the 10,000 accounts for which information was available ran to $170-260m. However the overwhelming majority of the accounts identified would have been closed and settled rather than remaining dormant. So the actual amounts at issue were a tiny fraction of the $1.25bn the banks were forced to cough up. Raul Hilberg the principal historian of the Nazi Holocaust declared: ‘It was for the first time in history that the Jews made use of a weapon that can only be described as blackmail.’

Having on Edgar Bronfman the head of the World Jewish Congress’s admission raised $7bn in this manner the WJC sought to milk the cow even further by claiming this was not enough to cover the needs of the Holocaust survivors whose numbers, originally assessed at 100,000, had more than doubled to 250,000 and despite the passing of the years now mushroomed to close to 1m, a number that seriously challenges the iconic 6m figure for the Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Even more scandalous, however, is the fact that the survivors of the death camps have seen a fraction of the $9bn that by August 2000 had been raised, the vast majority of the money going to fund the Holocaust industry.

The investigation of dormant accounts was not extended either to the US or Israel. The Volcker Commission revealed prima facie evidence that the US had far more to answer for than Switzerland but the Jewish lobby was hardly likely to bite the hand that was enforcing the scam; and anyway Uncle Sam was paying back in kind by shielding Israel in the UN. As for dormant accounts in Israel this was judged an internal matter. ‘Here it was negligence at best; in Switzerland it was a crime’, an Israeli legislator explained.

Except that Switzerland did not commit a crime. It took in 20,000 Jewish refugees from the Nazis, the same number as the US. According to Seymour Rubin, deputy head of the US delegation in post War Swiss negotiations, ‘Switzerland did admit many more refugees, in proportion to its population, than any other nation’.

Comments by Burt Neuborne, a prominent civil liberties advocate for the Jewish death camp survivors may come to haunt Israel regarding Palestinian land expropriations. Seeking to establish damages as well as restitution he argued the Swiss should be compelled not only to repay dormant accounts but to ‘disgorge the profits they ’knowingly’ reaped from Jewish assets looted by the Nazis – had they ‘knowingly’ reaped profits which they did not.

Of course Jews should receive restitution for expropriated property under international law. But under no circumstances does it take precedence over Palestinian claims that predated theirs.

Finally, I don't think there’s anything to talk about until Israel accepts the 1967 borders. Resolution 242 was by its very nature a Judgement of Solomon that Israel can not now repudiate.

alanadale

Linda Smith wrote: "Egypt, a country for which you express a particular fondness having lived there, forced the Jews to sign a document giving up a right of return."

Do the Palestinians expelled from their homeland have a right of return? And which came first, the expulsion of the Palestinians or the expulsion of the Jews?

Linda Smith

Alanadale: Muslin Arabs have been persecuting and expelling Jews from their homelands since they conquered the Middle East in holy jihad. But this is not a matter of which came first. Now is the time for the parties to negotiate.

alanadale

Linda Smith. Exactly. There's a deal on the table and has been these past seven years. It's the Arab Peace Plan.

Linda Smith

"Of course Jews should receive restitution for expropriated property under international law. But under no circumstances does it take precedence over Palestinian claims that predated theirs."

It is not a matter of precedence. The claims should be dealt with at the same time. It is all a matter of negotiation between the parties.

"Finally, I don't think there’s anything to talk about until Israel accepts the 1967 borders. Resolution 242 was by its very nature a Judgement of Solomon that Israel can not now repudiate."

The UN is a talking shop of self-interested politically motivated players. Therefore nothing the UN produces or approves could be "a Judgement of Solomon", ie impartial.

Linda Smith

Alanadale:" There's a deal on the table and has been these past seven years. It's the Arab Peace Plan."

Netanyahu's put his peace deal on the table.

Now the parties will negotiate.

But I can tell you one thing I'm sure about. The Jews will never give up East Jerusalem - the Old City - to Muslim control. So I expect it's going to be a long negotiation. As you said, better hunker down for the long haul.

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: ‘The UN is a talking shop of self-interested politically motivated players. Therefore nothing the UN produces or approves could be "a Judgement of Solomon", ie impartial.’

Unfortunately, for all its manifest failings the UN is the only international body we have to manage the world. It was set up (by the Americans) to pre-empt another Hitler rising to power. One of its underlying principles, articulated in the preamble to Resolution 242, is the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war. Israel owes its legitimacy (according amongst others to Yehuda) to being recognized as a member state of the UN. Unfortunately it has not lived up to its solemn undertaking on being granted membership to abide by its rulings. No member state has been in breach of so many UN resolutions as Israel.

The reason for these breaches you complain is that the UN is not ‘impartial’. But let’s not beat about the bush, what you really mean is it does not come to the conclusion Israel wants. I have given examples of how Israel falls back on the sanctity of international law (ie in getting Hizbollah to honour ceasefires) when it suits and dismisses it as biased when it doesn’t. It takes REAL chutzpah to dismiss the unanimous conclusion of the World Court that ALL settlement of Palestinian land is illegal as basically wrongheaded.

One wonders for how long, once the US comes to its senses, Israel can continue to take on the world. Israel has only been able to maintain its control of the agenda because, as I illustrated in my previous post, of the way its supporters have been able to manipulate American public opinion. Can you imagine how long Israel would last if the Palestinians were able to marshal Congress and Wall St to slap a $20bn class action on Israel for the ‘plunder’ of Palestinian lands and a boycott of all companies having any dealings with Israeli enterprises in the West Bank? Once US public opinion rumbles to what Israel has really been up to the game will be up.

Which is why I don’t understand why Israel doesn’t settle while it is ahead? Is history about to repeat itself? The Jews could have settled for a prosperous autonomy under the Romans but chose instead to go for broke; they were crushed and subsequently dispersed. The question as always is knowing when to stop; when to be content with half or three quarters of loaf instead of desiring it all.

Linda Smith

"Which is why I don’t understand why Israel doesn’t settle while it is ahead? Is history about to repeat itself? The Jews could have settled for a prosperous autonomy under the Romans but chose instead to go for broke; they were crushed and subsequently dispersed. The question as always is knowing when to stop; when to be content with half or three quarters of loaf instead of desiring it all."

The Arabs in the West Bank are enjoying unprecedented and rising prosperity. Gaza could have settled for a prosperous autonomy in 2005, but chose instead to go for broke with Islamist Hamas. They were crushed...The question for the Arabs is knowing when to stop; when to be content with half or three quarters of the loaf instead of desiring it all.
Netanyahu's offer is on the table. I don't know why the Arabs don't settle while they are ahead. Contrary to all your bluff and bluster, Israel holds all the cards.

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: ‘The Arabs in the West Bank are enjoying unprecedented and rising prosperity.’

You clearly have not been to the West Bank let alone Gaza. If visiting dignitaries to Israel were required to visit Qalqilyah or Hebron in the same way they are obliged to visit Yad Vashem, the world would have a more balanced perspective of Israel’s occupation and remarks like this couldn’t be bandied around with such insouciance.

Linda Smith

"If visiting dignitaries to Israel were required to visit Qalqilyah or Hebron in the same way they are obliged to visit Yad Vashem, the world would have a more balanced perspective of Israel’s occupation and remarks like this couldn’t be bandied around with such insouciance."

"A Briton entering Yad Vashem might do so in the hope that he would see a compliment to his own nation’s fight against the Nazis. He would be disappointed. Instead, there is footage of a long dead emissary to London recording how Britain’s wartime foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, told him the plight of the Jews was not an important consideration in the war effort. Later, he would see pictures of British soldiers dragging Jewish immigrants from ships on the shores of Tel Aviv and of Holocaust survivors behind the wire of British camps in Cyprus, prevented from reaching the promised land. The message here is equally clear. No one will protect the Jews except themselves.

That remains the position. After all, there was no great perturbation within the UN building in New York during the month upon month that Hamas rained rockets on southern Israel, still less any international pressure on the government of Gaza to desist. ......

It was no longer just Sderot which was taking hits from the Qassams, and where parents would not let their children play outdoors. The Iranian-supplied Hamas ordnance was becoming ever wider in its range. Ashkelon (which incidentally supplies all of Gaza’s electricity) and even the city of Beer-sheba are now reachable targets, and more than 800,000 Israelis the potential victims.

It is undeniable that the consequences for the people of Gaza have been far worse, in numbers of innocent dead and in sheer intensity, than anything the people of Israel have suffered. The word “disproportionate” is inevitably used to describe the Israeli response, with the equally inevitable failure to acknowledge that Hamas targets civilians on purpose and with open expressions of bloodthirsty delight when it succeeds....

“Hamas deploys suicide attackers including women and children, and rigs up schools and houses with booby-trap explosives. Its leaders knew as a matter of certainty this would lead to civilian casualties if there was a ground battle. Virtually every aspect of its operations is illegal under international humanitarian law – ‘war crimes’ in the emotive language usually reserved for the Israelis"....
....on Christmas Eve Hamas legalised crucifixion as a punishment for those who “weaken the spirit of the people”, and have been shooting such political enemies in the head when they find them in hospitals conveniently injured by Israeli bombing raids...

... but consider this: since that campaign, (Lebanon) no Hezbollah missiles have been fired on northern Israel. Indeed, when on Thursday three rockets were fired from Lebanon, Hezbollah rushed to reassure the Israeli government that it was not involved and that the rockets were not the sort it even possessed.
This is not exactly the classical doctrine of deterrence: it’s supposed to stop people attacking you in the first place. Yet the Israeli attack on Gaza is part of the same policy of delayed deterrence. Paradoxical though this might seem, it is also essential if the process towards an independent Palestinian state is to have a future. For until the people of Israel believe that such a state – including the heights of the West Bank, which overlook Tel Aviv – is not a threat to their own existence, they will never support a government which abandons those territories, won in an earlier war of self-defence.

If you believe otherwise, go to Yad Vashem."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article5489436.ece

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: 'There was no great perturbation within the UN building in New York during the month upon month that Hamas rained rockets on southern Israel, still less any international pressure on the government of Gaza to desist. ......'

It is a curious distortion of perspective to suggest any sort of equivalence between the ‘terror’ of months of Hamas rockets raining down randomly on southern Israel (always in response to an Israeli action) and the murderous consequences of Israel’s decades-long expropriation of Palestinian lands – in the total paralysis of normal life: the road blocks, arbitrary detentions and random deaths and injuries (nearly always inadequately investigated) resulting from it and then on top of that the condign punishment to end resistance you so eloquently describe.

Claiming success for pacification in a period of quiet is tautological – and gravely mistaken as Hamas and Hizbollah are unlikely to be cowered and will simply bide their time. Using the iron fist will only produce more Gazas and can only work if Israel is prepared physically to eliminate Palestinians in even greater numbers than it did in Gaza.

It need not be so. Israel is entitled to live in peace within secure and recognized borders, as are the Palestinians - on the land every other nation in the world but Israel has accepted is theirs. With peace Israel will have no need or justification to hold the ‘commanding heights’ of any territory, because as the Dutch Israeli military historian Martin van Crefeld has pointed out the new military technology gives Israel an ever increasing edge over its Arabs neighbours.

It follows that if Israel has no legitimate cause to hang on to the territory once peace has been established why can’t Israel admit this…. unless, of course, it wishes to hang on to territory that is not its own. This is why Netanyahu’s negotiating position is no negotiating position at all. You can’t enter negotiations intending to trade assets that don’t belong to you.

Linda Post

Alanadale, first of all I must point out that had you not overlooked the quotation marks throughout my previous post and the link at the end, you would have realised that Dominic Lawson, not I, was its author.

Secondly I would point out that your remark "It is a curious distortion of perspective" in response to Mr Lawson's column in The Times aptly describes your own comments. A lie runs through all your comments on these threads: land for peace. Here it is again in your last post:

"Israel is entitled to live in peace within secure and recognized borders, as are the Palestinians - on the land every other nation in the world but Israel has accepted is theirs..."

Israel's destruction as a Jewish State is an Islamic religious imperative. The "Palestinians" and their Fatah/PLO leaders do not recognise Israel within any borders. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, do not, and cannot, recognise Israel on theological grounds.

This is the fundamental truth you have sought to exclude from these exchanges - because it demolishes all your arguments and exposes them for the Muslim/Arab apologist cant they are.

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: ‘Israel's destruction as a Jewish State is an Islamic religious imperative…. This is the fundamental truth you have sought to exclude from these exchanges - because it demolishes all your arguments and exposes them for the Muslim/Arab apologist cant they are.’

What is the alternative if all Muslims as you assert are hardwired to eliminate Israel - a charge by the way it is impossible to prove or disprove because there are self evidently many, many Muslims who can live with Israel? To annex all of Palestine which would then leave Israel with the choice of absorbing the West Bank Palestinians; corralling them into a Bantustan presumably beyond the Wall, or expelling and dispersing them?

None of these options will bring about a resolution to the conflict. Absorbing the Palestinians will threaten Israel’s demographic balance, especially as the country is already experiencing net emigration; corralling them beyond the wall will leave Israel in a legally untenable position and in danger of becoming a pariah state. Finally expulsion of the Palestinians would seriously imperil regional stability, mortally damage Israel’s international standing and pitch it into unremitting enmity with its neighbours – a zero sum came it can not in the long term win.

Surely the way forward is to marshal moderates on both sides of the divide to crowd out the ideologues (who are also on both sides of the divide). The only weapon the extremists have is terrorism which can be dealt with as a law and order issue provided there is a political consensus. At present there is none as Israel believes it should have more than the current deal on the table, Resolution 242, and the Arabs feel they have given quite enough in concessions made thus far. Unless Israel can reach agreement with its neighbours terrorism (on both sides) will remain politicised and difficult to contain. And Israel itself will not escape censure on charges of state terrorism for operating an increasingly oppressive occupation.

At least the Arab League Plan offers the prospect of a normalisation of relations. It provides a legally viable basis for a settlement and while requiring Israel to renounce claims to territories beyond its 1967 borders would not necessarily require a complete withdrawal until a full peace was established. That is as close to a cooper bottomed declaration of good intent you can get. I don’t see what Israel has to lose in giving the Plan a whirl – if in fact peace is what it wants rather than land.

Please convince me I’m wrong in painting you an ideologue wanting the mutually exclusive: land and peace.

Linda Smith

Alanadale: "Surely the way forward is to marshal moderates on both sides of the divide to crowd out the idealogues (who are also on both sides of the divide). The only weapen the extremists have is terrorism which can be dealt with as a law and order issue provided there is a political consensus".

I note you are again ignoring Netanyahu's - Israel's - Peace Plan of June 2009 which hinges on preventing Hamas taking control of the West Bank.

You are just going round and round in circles with your same old Arab apologist twaddle blaming Israel for not surrendering to the Muslim/Arab machinations predicated on the Islamic imperative to destroy Israel. There isn't any consensus between Hamas and Fatah. Their only common goal is the destruction of Israel and the creation of a single Palestinian state - Hamas through violence, Fatah through politics.

Resolution 242 and the Arab Peace Plan require Israel to give the Old City of Jerusalem to the Muslims for their capital. It ain't going' to happen. Apart from the spiritual importance of the Old City to the Jews, the area is strategically importance for defence of Israel from military attack.

As for the "Palestinian refugee" argument, Jordan is now revoking citizenship it has heretofore granted to "Palestinian refugees". The Jordanians have justified the latest measure by arguing that it's aimed at avoiding a situation in which the "Palestinians" would ever be prevented from returning to their original homes inside Israel. Seems like another storm is brewing up on the "refugee" front. Don't forget the Jewish refugees are part of the equation.

"I don't see what Israel has to lose in giving the Plan a whirl - "

Ever been to Yad Vashem?

I see you are now posting your 242 and APP views on the current thread. So no point continuing this discussion here with only the moderator for an audience.

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: ‘I note you are again ignoring Netanyahu's - Israel's - Peace Plan of June 2009 which hinges on preventing Hamas taking control of the West Bank.’

Israel and the rest of the world will have to deal with Hamas if Hamas are the elected representatives of the Palestinian people. After all no one would dream of interfering with Israel’s democratic process which has regularly produced governments openly intent on expropriating Palestinian lands. Netanyahu’s government includes a declared racist in foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The reason why the Palestinians elected Hamas is because the PA so woefully failed to protect their interests in negotiations with the Israelis and is corrupt. Polls repeatedly show Palestinians favouring a settlement on 242. A consensus within Palestine and the wider Arab world to settle on 242 is the way to deal with Hamas and its more extreme elements as it will establish the political consensus necessary to depoliticise terrorism and allow it to be tackled as an exclusively criminal issue

But there is another reason why Netanyahu’s plan is a non starter: Israel can not negotiate with stolen goods.

Linda Smith

Alanadale "Polls repeatedly show Palestinians favouring a settlement on 242."

You ignore the fact that the "Palestinans" refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish State.
You ignore the fact that Israel will not give the Old City to a Palestinian State.
You ignore the topic of the "refugees"
You ignore the fact that Israel is not going to return to its pre June 1967 borders which leave it to open to attack.

I'm not surprised that you and your pals the "Palestinians favour a settlement on 242. One more nail in Israel's coffin as far as the "Pals" are concerned.

And all your twaddle about Hamas and depoliticising terrorism - I suggest you tell that to the marines - the ones fighting the Taleban.

alanadale

Linda Smith writes: 'You ignore the fact that the "Palestinians" refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish State. You ignore the fact that Israel will not give the Old City to a Palestinian State.
You ignore the topic of the "refugees" You ignore the fact that Israel is not going to return to its pre June 1967 borders which leave it to open to attack.'

I think we might be approaching endgame – and that is that Israel sets its own rules.

1/ Israel recognized as a Jewish state. This is a startlingly new ‘condition’ sprung on the unsuspecting by the likudniks to paint the Palestinians as the obstacle to peace presumably because they fear that at some future date Israel will be demographically drowned by Arabs. It overlooks the fact that Israel would face no demographic threat if it remained behind its 1967 borders; the threat only arises if it insists on expropriating Palestinian lands as it then has to deal with the unwelcome populations that come with them.

We have been round the houses on the question of how ‘a state of the Jewish people’ (a completely new legal concept) can also be a liberal democracy which by definition is the state of all its citizens.

There is another very good reason (besides requiring them to deny their birthright) why Palestinians baulk at such an illiberal condition. They believe it will be the thin edge of the wedge for politicians like Israel’s racist Foreign Minster Avigdor Lieberman to start implementing a policy of population transfer by putting pressure on them as second class citizens.

2/ ‘Israel will not give the Old City to a Palestinian State’. UN expressly forbids ‘the acquisition of territory by war’. It is by most people’s understanding of the word ‘stolen’.

3/ 'You ignore the topic of the "refugees".' The Arab League Peace Plan makes major concessions on UNGA Resolution 194 of December 1948 which has been reaffirmed every year since that calls for ‘refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with the neighbours should be allowed to so at the earliest predictable date..’ accepting that any Right of Return will be largely symbolic provided proper compensation is paid.

4/ ‘Israel is not going to return to its pre June 1967 borders which leave it open to attack.’ All serious military strategists know this is a red herring. In an earlier post I quoted the doyen of Israeli military historians Martin van Crefeld who pointed out that the new military technology gives Israel an ever increasing edge over its Arabs neighbours that makes the occupation of territory per se irrelevant to its security.

I asked in an earlier post what you wanted: land or peace. I think we can safely assume it’s land.

Linda Smith

Alanadale, the debate has now moved to the current thread, so I will just make two points here in response to your last post:

"We have been round the houses on the question of how ‘a state of the Jewish people’ (a completely new legal concept) can also be a liberal democracy which by definition is the state of all its citizens."

UN Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 prescribed the creation of Jewish and Arab states with equal rights for non-Jewish and non-Arab citizens in each state.

Accordingly, Israeli Muslim and Christian Arabs have equal rights under the law with Israeli Jews.

The UK is a Christian Protestant country - the Queen was crowned in a Christian Protestant ceremony. A Catholic cannot ascend the throne. The UK is, nevertheless, a state of all its citizens - as is Israel.

2/ ‘Israel will not give the Old City to a Palestinian State’. UN expressly forbids ‘the acquisition of territory by war’. It is by most people’s understanding of the word ‘stolen’.

Resolution 181 decreed Jerusalem to be a corpus separatum under the control of the UN. The Arabs "stole" Jerusalem in 1948, in military conquest and ethnically cleansed its Jews, and then barred worldwide Jewry from visiting the Old City. The Arabs have no legal claim to Jerusalem.