The true reason for the Middle East impasse

Richard

It will be interesting to see other polls both before and in the future.
This is a big shift from the last few years ago.
I remain to be convinced that it is not just words but looks like just under half of the Pallies would accept the reasonable terms for peace.
Wait and watch, I guess...

Truthtriumphs

For any serious, informed person on the ME, this report will come as no surprise.
Just waiting to see how Rippon, Harold and the other nasties who frequent this blog, will use their talents for creative writing (of a kind) to blame Israel and/or the Jews, as usual.

rippon

People’s actions are an infinitely better basis than polls, opinions and words upon which to assess sides in a dispute.

There is vehement hatred on both sides. Therefore, eminently sensible steps towards peace include cease-fires, settlement freezes and adherence to international law.

Israel broke the cease-fire, which had endured throughout the summer, between itself and Hamas in 2008. Israel has always favoured expansion over security and Hamas’ success in preserving the cease-fire on its side was construed as another one of their diabolical devious peace ‘offensives’. Israel deliberately broke the cease-fire (Israeli soldiers invaded Gaza in an operation which included the killing of four Palestinians) to provoke a response. Operation ‘Cast Lead’, aka the ‘Gaza Massacre 2008-9’, had been months in the planning, and Israel needed some fig-leaf for implementing it.

There was some Palestinian armed response; Israel used that as its fig-leaf.

The settlements (e.g. West Bank) are all illegal under international law, which Israel treats with contempt. Rather than dismantling them and paying compensation to Palestinians, Israel chooses instead to compound the injustice, rub salt into the wounds, and treat the Muslim untermenschen with the contempt they ‘deserve’, by +expanding+ the settlements at breakneck speed, consolidating and expanding their grip on land and water that they have illegally seized through violence and aggression.

Whatever one may think of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, nothing that those activists did breached international law. In stark, chilling contrast, Israel attacked civilians in international waters.

The typical response to such simple transparent truths is the demented response: ‘Lies! All lies! The whole world hates Jews; and all the Jews who criticise Israel hate themselves!’

The “true reason for the Middle East impasse” is that America currently judges that it has more to gain through supporting rather than criticising or restraining Israel. Moreover, ‘impasse’ misconstrues the situation because it implies that people are trying, but failing, to change the situation – people with the power to do so, that is, i.e. America and Israel, Hamas having no power because they are excluded from negotiations, Abbas having no power because he has no legitimacy with the people he supposedly represents.

US-Israel are +not seeking+ a peaceful resolution, so it is not ‘impasse’ but, rather, business-as-usual. The pet delusion of apologists is that Israel is a plucky little country bravely defending itself in a sea of hostility. The truth is that Israel is a poisonous little rottweiler whose ‘bravery’ derives entirely from the support of an even bigger aggressor: Israel will do no more (to ‘defend’ itself, i.e. attack and oppress others) than its master allows, such are the ‘high-minded principles’ of this rogue state.

The ugly truth of Israel’s preference for expansion over security is the reason why it prefers military actions over diplomacy. You can prevail in an armed conflict if you have (vastly) superior firepower, but you are bound to lose in diplomatic engagement if you have a (vastly) inferior moral case.

NicoleS

Richard: 'I remain to be convinced that it is not just words'. It is not just words. It is a poll. What does it take to get people to hear anything that contradicts what they already think?

Daibhidh

There never was a 'Palestine' and there never will be because of the simple fact that the word is not an Arabic one but Latin and was the name given as a governate by Rome to northern and southern Judea. There was an Israel though and the small land space that it occupies at present does not represent its original size e.g. from the Nile to the Tigris. The Arabs on the West Bank are simply pawns of surrounding hostile Arab states (and the lone Persian state)bent on destroying Israel. These states would never countenance a separate 'Palestine'. Facts such as these are lost on most of Western journalists and reporters who have come through universities hosting academics infested with the virus of anti-semitism and a skewered view of the West in general. Tragic.

Truthtriumphs

Rippon.
You didn't disappoint, but do tell us, which of the 22 Arab nation states are you in the pay of?
You are truly a worthy disciple of Goebbels---- repeat the lies over and over again and hopefully they will stick.
Do the phrases "international law" and "illegal" give you a frisson of excitement when you use them in order to give your calumnies an air of authority?

Now what about "expansionist"?
Have you looked at a map of the ME lately---just work out and tell us the percentage of Israel in land terms as compared to the Arab lands?
Considering that the Arabs originated in the Arabian peninsula, you might like to explain why Arabia has colonised vast areas of the globe?
Now about untermenschen---- that's an interesting one!
How about reading a real historian's account of Jews in Arab lands to learn about untermenschen? You know---dhimmis and all that.
It's called In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert----Amazon are offering it at a discount.
Or maybe Martin Gilbert doesn't count, because he's the wrong type of Jew for you.

You should try to vary your rants a little-- they're becoming boring--- and they're verbatim from the Palestinian propaganda machine.
Melanie's readers are sophisticated enough to see through them.

rippon

Truthtriumphs says, “Rippon, You didn’t disappoint”.

Glad to be of service.

Also, “You should try to vary your rants a little-- they're becoming boring”.

I’ll do my best.

I note that you, Truthtriumpths, take issue with the contention that Israel is “expansionist”. Presumably, then, you deny that Israel is racing to build more settlements – in the West Bank, for example – and that this is in defiance of international law.

(Will browse amazon now re: Martin Gilbert.)

Okey

Is rippon employed by the "Palestinian" Authority?

Derek BLADES

Many of the Palestinians polled have either seen their homes and farms seized by Israelis or they are children of these unlucky people. Some of those polled live in the West Bank and are subjected to daily harassment, racial abuse and physical violence by Israeli settlers and the occupying army. If they live in Gaza they are in a prison whose gaolers’ main goal is to make life insufferable for the inmates.

The surprising thing about this poll is that a small plurality of those polled do not support killing Israeli civilians inside Israel.

wonderer

It's worth noting the attitude of the sample to the single state solution under question 35-3:-

35-3) Abandon the two state solution and demand the establishment of one
state for Palestinians and Israelis
5.7 1) Certainly support
21.3 2) Support
53.8 3) Oppose
16.9 4) Certainly oppose
2.3 5) DK/NA

So, say it not in Islington but more than three-quarters of the sample were opposed to the single state solution.

PW Virginia USA

Rippon...due to internationally recognized treaties Jews have every right to live in Judea and Samaria...The political issue of today is sovereignty and that according to the UN RES 242 is to be done thru negotiations...

rippon

Thanks, Truthtriumphs (October 27th, 2010 10:25am), for alerting me to Martin Gilbert’s ‘In Ishmael’s House’.

The amazon reviews, so far, don’t mention the nature of his scholarship re rigorous use of sources.

However, reviews on Gilbert’s ‘Israel: A History’ give this reason to be sceptical about his scholarship: perhaps because he is such good writer, people, especially those eager to defend Israel no matter what, overlook Gilbert’s lack of rigour.

The review comments include:

“To my mind, you can judge the seriousness of an historian of controversial subjects by the thoroughness of their references and footnotes. These allow the interested reader to evaluate the sources and thus make judgments about the information being presented. Pappe's 'Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' has nearly twenty pages of them. The same goes for Schlaim's 'Iron Wall'. Mearsheimer and Walt's 'Israel Lobby' has 106. Gilbert's 'history' has none.”

“It may well be a good read, but it's not a history. It's an opinion piece.”

“My main criticism so far, then, is why Gilbert has no references at all? No foot notes or end notes. Granted, he references some of what he says from within the text, but Gilbert's readers pretty much have to take what he says (especially the quotes) on trust. I think this is unusual for an academic book. Are we simply to presume that Sir Martin Gilbert knows his stuff and therefore doesent need to bother with references? Can anyone offer an explanation?”

Augustus

Rippon - You talk of 'eminently sensible steps towards peace', and mention the Settlements (in the West Bank) as an obstacle to that peace. But prior to 1967, when Israel assumed the administration of Judea and Samaria in a defensive war, there was no occupation by Israel, nor any so-called settlements in the area (there were Jewish communities there before 1948, and before that until 1929, but these were all ethnically cleansed of Jews, either in the Mandate riots, or
the Arab aggressive war against the UN's Partition resolution, but there was no peace then. In the 1950s Arab fedayeen terror killed hundreds of Israelis, and then in 1964 the fatah was founded by the PLO, but that didn't produce peace either. So,
can anyone honestly believe that
dismantling the Jewish communities today will solve any problem that the Arabs have
regarding peace with Israel?

You talk of American involvement
and international law, but in the past American inaction against Britain's perfidy was particularly unforgivable because the US was the only state that could have forced Britain to restore the rights of the Jews of Europe to gain refuge to their homeland, and thereby largely preventing much of the effects of the Holocaust.
Palestine was legally created as the Jewish national home, and international law was the source of those rights. In the Anglo-American Convention of 1924 the US recognized all the rights granted to the Jewish people under the Mandate, and in particular, the right of Jewish settlement anywhere in Palestine or the Land of Israel.
Therefore, in ultimate legal terms the US Government is legally bound to recognize the right of Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. Any opposition by America to those rights is a fit subject for Judicial review in US courts.
And talking of legal occupation,
Jordan's occupation of Jerusalem after 1949 was certainly illegal. When asked on Israeli TV why he insisted on a construction freeze as a condition for peace negotiations
Abbas said: "...when Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it,
you want me not to say it?"

The truth must be that it is the Palestinians more than anyone else who show the least interest in peace talks succeeding, certainly at the present time. They are the ones who make a point of being dragged to the bargaining table.
They are the power freaks least interested in peace.

wonderer

I apologise. I should not have said that more than three-quarters of the sample oppose the single state solution. The correct figure is more than 70 per cent.

Truthtriumphs

Oh, come off it, Rippon.
Gilbert is a highly regarded historian. He's "arrived" unlike that creep, Ilan Pappe.

As to your other points, will respond later when I have time.
Some of us have a day job, believe it or not.

C.Gee

rippon:

"Can anyone offer an explanation?”

Without footnotes, what would it be worth? (1)

(1)" If footnotes are not read, understood, checked, correct or relevant, does the text still have authority?" E. J. Thribb, Scholarly Musings (Penguin, 1973)

AY

There is another reason, - cowardice and nihilism of the West.

Ha'aretz:
"Israeli Arab activist confesses to spying for Hezbollah"

BBC:
"Israeli Arab activist convicted of spying for Hezbollah"

Our engineers of human souls.
Garbage of a garbage.
And I pay taxes to keep these mazafaka parrots in their positions.

Lao Tzu's best friend

You may not like those satirical cartoons, but freedom of speech and expression must surely prevail. In the long term, arguments are won with logic and reason, not by censorship.

After the publication and subsequent controversy of the Jyllands-Posten "Mohammed cartoons", it seemed that the majority of people supported the general principle of publishing the pictures, even if they did harm to cultural cohesion. At the time, most of the Muslim world objected to the cartoons in the belief that it demonstrated the very basis of Western attitudes towards the Middle East (and not, as the media portrayed, because of the offence of showing a picture of Mohammed).

Although I do appreciate that this was printed in an official government newspaper, it seems rather hypocritical to assert that the Palestinians were wrong to publish "offensive" cartoons, and rather naive to assume that this has any reflection on the hopes of building a peaceful, prosperous Palestinian state.

pterodactyl

And are not these Palestinians (average age 15) being sponsored by the West? I would be interested to know the amount of sponsorhip money they get per individual. No wonder the left tell Cameron to ring fence foreign aid.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

pterodactyl
October 28th, 2010 11:49am
"And are not these Palestinians (average age 15) being sponsored by the West? I would be interested to know the amount of sponsorhip money they get per individual. No wonder the left tell Cameron to ring fence foreign aid."

Well, if nothing else, the Eu, in it's current budget, has earmarked Euros 300 million for the palestinian Authority - currently ruled by a what the EU itself designates as a terrorist organisation.

The world sure is a funny place. perhaps someone should check the fine print of that budget to see how much we're giving to the Taliban..:)

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar .. said that the West should be "ashamed of supporting Israel, You cannot support the foundation of Israel?" Zahar said.

Zahar told Reuters in an interview that Islamic traditions deserved respect and he accused Europe of promoting promiscuity and political hypocrisy.

"We have the right to control our life according to our religion, not according to your religion. You have no religion. You are secular," said Zahar, who is one of the group's most influential and respected voices.

"You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?" he said earlier this week..

"We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you," he said.

"You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends," he added. "You don't know who is the father of your sons because of the way you respect women."

Well, well...how inspiring can you get? Perhaps the EU should up their Euros 300 million earmarked payment to the PA for the next fiscal year by a few hundred million - just a little salute to Women's Lib and Gay Rights...

God forgive us, for we know not...

rippon

John Roosevelt (October 28th, 2010 5:08pm): “palestinian Authority - currently ruled by a what the EU itself designates as a terrorist organisation”

I thought the EU had only designated Hamas a terrorist organisation. Are you sure that they’ve done that to the PA too?

Btw, It is certainly true that we have supported/endorsed/colluded-with the Taliban in the past, as we have with many fascist, fundamentalist and mass-murdering regimes. The US&UK lead the world in transparent brazen hypocrisy. That is how we know that, whatever our reasons for invading other countries, concern about human rights is not one of them (and never has been).

Skeptic

>>>>Israel broke the cease-fire, which had endured throughout the summer,

Well, if you ignore a few dozens or so of random rocket firing into Israeli cities.

In fact on the very day the "cease fire" was announced there were two Kassams fired at Israel. The same number -- two, three, five a day -- continued throughout the "cease-fire" summer. There was practically not a single day without firing rockets.

I know, I know, just shooting randomly at Jews -- since when does THAT count as breaking a cease-fire?

Skeptic

>>>>>>>>Ha'aretz: "Israeli Arab activist confesses to spying for Hezbollah" BBC: "Israeli Arab activist convicted of spying for Hezbollah".

Ah, the A-word.

When someone supports an organization whose goal is to kill all, say, Chileans or Norwegians or Kenyans, he's a terrorist.

When someone supports an organization whose purpose is to kill all the Jews, well... he's an "activist".

C.Gee

Lao Tzu etc.:

"At the time, most of the Muslim world objected to the cartoons in the belief that it demonstrated the very basis of Western attitudes towards the Middle East (and not, as the media portrayed, because of the offence of showing a picture of Mohammed)."

How do you know this? A poll? Pundits? Islamic apologists whose mission it is to explain Muslim violence as stemming from civil grievances (cultural, racial discrimination - Islam is the new black) rather than as being what it obviously is: mob religious zeal whipped up to intimidate the infidel?

rippon

Skeptic (October 28th, 2010 6:10pm):

“>>>>Israel broke the cease-fire, which had endured throughout the summer,

“Well, if you ignore a few dozens or so of random rocket firing into Israeli cities.”

This is the problem – the determination of people like Skeptic to contrive their own versions of history.

The problem for Israel apologists in this instance is that not even Israel or the IDF accused Hamas of bad faith in their adherence to the cease-fire while it lasted, merely disagreement over who was responsible for its ultimate collapse.

But Skeptic wants to go further even than Israel&IDF by saying that Hamas +never+ adhered to the cease-fire.

By going too far like this, your defence of Israel is more likely to be embarrassing-to than supportive-of it.

Skeptic

>>>>>>This is the problem – the determination of people like Skeptic to contrive their own versions of history.

Well, I was in Israel in that "summer of ceasefire" and my country was bombed daily with Kassam rockets, not to mention the "usual" mortar shell firing, etc.

In fact during some of that "summer of ceasefire" (almost as absurd as "the religion of peace", isn't it?) I was also on reserve duty and we were constantly getting reports of those firings, not only on the public radio and television broadcasts, but through the grape vine of the military communication networks, as well.

Apparently, it's "contriving a version of history" to believe my own eyes and ears.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Rippon: "The problem for Israel apologists in this instance is that not even Israel or the IDF accused Hamas of bad faith in their adherence to the cease-fire while it lasted, merely disagreement over who was responsible for its ultimate collapse.

But Skeptic wants to go further even than Israel&IDF by saying that Hamas +never+ adhered to the cease-fire.

By going too far like this, your defence of Israel is more likely to be embarrassing-to than supportive-of it"

What does it matter, to Rippon, if Hamas broke the ceasefire or not; kills women and children or not; murders any Palestinian who opposes it or not etc? They are "Freedom fighters", after all, and Israel has "stolen" Palestinian land and oppressed Palestinians. They can, therefore, do no wrong. No argument against them can, therefore, hold up.

It is not sure whether or not Rippon would similarly excuse what we would consider to be unconscionable tyrannical behaviour of all other Arab and moslem states or significant non sate actors in the region. I guess he would, like Harold et al, at least ignore it.

It begs a simple question: what is the world of "freedom" that Rippon imagines Hamas and its ilk will, if victorious, bring about; and is this the Brave New World that EU citizens should be paying for to help realise, especially in these times of economic hardship?

Derek BLADES

Augustus tells Rippon that there was no peace between Palestinians and Israelis either before or after 1967 although there were no Israeli settlements in the West Bank before 1967 while settlements have been established since then. From this he concludes that settlements are not an obstacle to peace.

The notion that the settlements are not an obstacle to peace is bizarre to say the least. The Palestinian negotiators think they are as do President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Cameron, President Sarkozy, the EU Commission and virtually all member countries of the United Nations.

How could all these people have got it so wrong? Only Augustus has got it right. Or might there be some flaw in his reasoning?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades:"The notion that the settlements are not an obstacle to peace is bizarre to say the least. The Palestinian negotiators think they are as do President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Cameron, President Sarkozy, the EU Commission and virtually all member countries of the United Nations.

How could all these people have got it so wrong? Only Augustus has got it right. Or might there be some flaw in his reasoning?`'

Oh Derek, how could you possibly be wrong? Or do you mean you, like Merkel, Obama etc have it right but you imply what is certainly not right, that there are NOT myriad other obstacles to peace besides the settlement issue? Minor detail, I know :)))

But, hey, you ingenuous? Not a chance...

Alex Bensky

Skeptic, I have to go with rippon on this one. He seems to be aware of the special meaning words have in the Middle East. You persist in trying to give words their plain meaning.

In the Middle East, "cease fire" means that the Arabs aren't shooting quite as many rockets at Israel as they were before. It doesn't mean "cease fire" as in "not shooting at all," but simply "not as much as previously."

Likewise, when it comes to Israel, "disproportionate" is a synonym for "effective."

Similarly, the settlements are illegal because everyone knows they are. No actual international law need be cited...or can be, because the area does not come under "occupation" which is defined as holding the territory of another state. The area could have been the Arab state envisioned by the UN's 1947 partition plan but the Arabs didn't go for that.

And similarly, "attacking innocent civilians" means "defending themselves against premeditated attacks," for which there is ample video evidence. The other ships in the flotilla were inspected and sent on their way.

Skeptic, when you learn to understand the particular meaning of words in the Middle East you'll understand the problem.

Oh, by the way, "another round in the cycle of violence that besets this war-torn land" means "Israel is shooting back."

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Cleric Choudry wants to "invite" every infidel to see the "light" of Sharia Law.The invitation will be a peaceful one, he maintains...but what happens when the "invitation" is rejected and "submission" doesn't get the "non-believer's" toe tapping?

And what are, exactly, "moslem lands", the “return” of which is, according to the cleric, an Islamic imperative, when Islam knows no bounds?

Derek Blades, no doubt, either disputes the cleric's interpretation of Islam or, perhaps, he just thinks he's a “loony “and not at all representative of a substantive number of moslems; or perhaps he is just a liar. I believe the latter...

International Relations is fraught with hypocracy, duplicity and violence. It is hard to imagine it being easy to support the moral position of one state against another without a sense that one is compromising and is partaking in the murkiness that tends to characterise the relations between large groups of disparate peoples. However, choose one must; and choose with a clear strategy one must.

The non Islamic world must define clearly its position towards the Islamic world. Whatever else it comprises, it must not entertain any appeasement in the face of jihad whatsoever. All policy towards the Islamic world should always be informed by this fundamental and immoveable position.

If Lauren Booth, for example, without a tear of shame in her eye, can maintain that Islam liberates women, Derek Blades can maintain that Ahmedinejad is 6 ft tall and pulls all the babes.

It's cloud cuckoo land and we can only hope that Obama has - finally - begun to have a reality check; and Sarkozy can influence his EU piers to realise that being a quisling is not actually part of Europe's Dna, so we don’t have to be victims of that lethal concoction of rank opportunism and wishful thinking - as Baroness Catherine Ashton would have us be.

Love or hate him, Blair has the measure of the Arab and moslem world. I guess one advantage of having the raving Lauren in the bosom of his immediate family might be to reinforce that virtue.
Blades’s blithe indifference to the violence of Islam and the extent to which it’s victims and those it threatens are obliged to resist it is a laughably stupid and/or dishonest. His excising it from the equation of relevant influences on Israel’s policy towards its neighbors is crass.