Nice summary of all the illusions you and the "progressives" labor under.
I do agree with you that there is no point in pretending there is a major differences between Abbas and HAMAS, there isn't. They want the same thing, i.e. the eradication of Israel, but they have different ideas about how to go about it and they each want the incoming aid money for themselves and their cronies, and they may disagree about the role of Islam in their societies, but ideologically, regarding Israel, there is no signficant difference.
Your claim that Abbas can sign a peace agreement with Israel is nonsense. Even if he wanted to (and he most certainly does NOT), he couldn't because he is not a free agent. All the neighboring Arab states plus Iran have their fingers in the pie. If he really were to sign such an agreement giving up vital Arab demands like a full "right of return" he would be denounced as a traitor and everyone would be demanding his head. What the Arabs want, including Egypt, with its phony "peace agreement" is an ongoing war of attrition with Israel (note Egypt's ongoing flooding of the Gaza Strip with weapons, for example).
You claim he could sign an agreement based on the Taba talks in 2001 or the Geneva document. ARAFAT TURNED THE TABA TERMS DOWN FLAT. Why do you think Abbas could accept them? He would be accused of betraying Arafat's legacy.
Your claim is that "Abbas could deliver". FANTASY. This is because "HAMAS is no longer in the gov't". Who cares who is sitting in the Palestinian 'government'? IT HAS NO MORAL AUTHORITY among the Palestinians. Bismarck once stated something like "blood and iron determine a nation's future, not majority votes in parliaments". HAMAS has a strong presence with weapons even in Judea/Samaria and Abbas has ALWAYS refused to disarm them or crack down on them, even before they won the election to their parliament when he still had total control of their gov't.
MJ then says there will be a "referendum" to ratify this supposed agreement. Who has the right to vote? The Arabs in Judea/Samaria/Gaza or do we have to include the supposedly millions of Palestinians outside these territories. Many will say they have the right to vote since it involves their fate as well, by giving up the "Right of return". And what if it passes, will the losers accept it, or will it ignite a civil war. After all, Abbas himself has ignored the results of the elections that brought HAMAS to power by illegally disbanding their gov't. Even after they won the election , FATAH refused to hand over many levers of power. Thus, a referendum over such a sensitive matter could never be held or honored if it was carried out..

MJ and his fellow "progressives" refuse to see the truth...there is NO possibility of there being a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. Most Israelis understand this. It is about time that MJ do so as well.

This General Oron you quote seems to be as deluded as the other "progressives". She says she would "encourage Egypt, Saudia Arabia and South Africa (?!) to bring about a FATAH - HAMAS reconciliation". What does she think has been going on for a year? Didn't the Saudi's with their gigabucks negotiate an agreement between the two leading to forming a "national-unity gov't". How long did that last? Did it ever work? She is typical of Israeli Leftists in the Establishment--they project their own hopes and dreams onto the Arabs and then convince themselves "if I were an Arab, I would do what the Israeli Left thinks is in their best interests". This is typical of the old Labor Party Socialist ideology (and that of the "progressives" here) that says "really, everybody in the world is the same and has the same values and if we just educate them they will end up being like us". A good example of these delusions is the belief that the Arab intelligentsia would be for peace because the Israeli intelligentsia is for peace since it is (wrongly) believed that educated people are more "universalistic" or less "nationalistic". That may be indeed true in Europe, the US, or Israel, but it is NOT true in the Arab world. In reality, the Arab intelligentsia is MORE extreme than the less educated parts of Arab society.

Two in a row!

To me, MJ's analysis seems naive.

There's no reason to assume that Bush's speech had anything to do with solving the Israeli-Palestinian controversy. To the contrary -- it's intention is to further isolate Hamas and to be able to later charge it -- and especially, Iran -- with undermining the "roadmap" or the "peace process" or whatever it will be called this Fall when it all, as expected, falls apart.

One more black mark against Iran to put in its "permanent record."

I suspect the speech will prove most effective in achieving the goals it was intended to achieve.

Deluded peaceniks ALWAYS refuse to honestly debate skeptics like bar_kochba or myself.  Time and again, we rebut point by point the fallacies, fantasies and fictions posted virtually every day here and elsewhere.  The typical response is either an ad hominem insult or else ignores the arguments altogether.

Still a pathetic coward.  And now one guilty of moral equivalence as well.  So supporting the Jewish communities in the West Bank is now the same morally as supporting al Qaeda.

Disgusting.

The fact is that bar_kochba overstates his case.  But he debates honestly and engages your arguments.  You are too much of a wuss to do the same.

Hey, brave Brad, what's your real name and who do you work for? We all know you have a high enough testosterone level to produce kids, but seemingly not enough to sign your name to your posts. For all we know, you are a plant who posts here only to help disprove the canard that all Jews are bright.

HA!

Damn it!

I can't do this today; real work beckons like a screaming baby at 3 am. Will everyone just chill!!!!

MJ has drafted a comprehensive overview of what is going on with respect to current peace efforts. There are lots of different viewpoints.

Everybody, take a deep breath, think of little sugar plums and stuff, and rethink where we want this weekend thread to go.

Man there is a lot of stuff in this piece. As just one example I haven't read Michael Oren's latest piece in the WSJ that MJ cites too. Has anyone else? Maybe somebody else has and can tell us about it.

Who says I am against peace?

Certainly, not I. I said you were against a "peace agreement."

bar_kochba: I would oppose such an agreement . . . as much as I might object.

That may have been where I got the idea. Ya think?

I'm throwing the bullshit flag on this, but I hardly think it's necessary.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but all of bar_kochba's posts generally come across as vile and insane. They're also remarkably monotonous, which is the big sin.

The typical bar_kochba post is usually involves a rant about evil and corrupt palestinians, evil and corrupt arab governments which oppress their own people, some paranoid ode to impending genocide, an apocalyptic vision or two. Kochba saves particular ire for those traitors within Israel and America (the 'left') who undermine Israel by projecting their own delusions onto Arabs, not realizing how awful and subhuman they are. Of course, the left is itself awful, subhuman and hate filled. And usually there's room left at the end for a personal attack on MJRosenberg.

Bar_Kochba's posts only accidentally relate to the topic he's posting on. It seems that he's obsessive in his message and doesn't care all that much about the details he's allegedly responding to. He's merely repeating his message.

To be truthful, the only significant variation in Bar_Kochba's posts is his length. Sometimes its a hundred words, sometimes its a few hundred. It's tedious and uninteresting. Having read a few dozen, I realized that they were all the same that that they would be the same ever after. So I stopped reading them.

I do, from time to time, post an acknowledgement so that Bar_Kochba will not feel that he's speaking into a void. So basically, I'm trying to be nice to him.

But generally, I don't think that should go so far as to actually have to read his stuff.

For you, Ellen...

When oh when will you guys get it - Israel does not want peace. Israel wants land.
Here, take a look at this map (link) and let the facts speak for themselves.

Please back off, Valdron. You're taunting him.

The only thing that map says is that the Palestinian Aabs should have accepted the offers of statehood in 1937 and 1948. By constantly rejecting every single offer they end up with less and less.

And you're just as much of a wimp as MJ Rosenberg.  Engage the arguments.

The evidence that the Arabs aren't serious about a true peace with Israel is MUCH stronger than the thin wisps of evidence that they are.  Why is it "bullshit" to point that out?

And please don't respond by saying that Israel does this or that, or isn't serious itself.  That's changing the subject.  The topic is Arab attitudes.  Why do you think they are ready for peace?

That's it! Chickenhawks like BradtheDad will never tell it to the Marines! Keep pressing him to tell us his name. Any guy whose only claim to fame is his sperm count must be one tough hombre.

Absolutely no one should be challenged at this site to give up his anonymity, give his "real name" or do anything that would identify himself and cause possible harm or retaliation upon himself. Brad has never claimed to be anything but a private citizen as most posters at this site are and for you to torment him and accuse him of cowardice is wrong. This is your job, you've made yourself a public figure and you must take the negative comments about your work as well as the positive comments. Brad is under no obligation to do the same and neither is any other poster.

This isn't your site, and you have no right to demand that posters be barred, give up their anonymity, be censored or be ignored by other posters in any way, shape or form.

Bev, I can't demand anything. But I can point to the obvious distinction between those of us who stand by our work and those who don't. And I will.

This is a blog, Bev. It ain't life or death. If I
wasn't the clever phrasemaker that I am, I would resort to the utterly trite, "get a life." But I won't.
Have an intense weekend.

PS. You ask where it will all end. I can only respond with the famous poem that addresses the issues raised by my calling for a ban on the talented BradtheDad. Where, indeed, will it end?

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnt

I often disagree with bar_kochba132, and provacative as he is, he does provoke thought. What do you offer, Valdron? A clever turn of an occasional phrase, you are indeed blessed with the ability to articulate some degree of humor in written form. Not an easy talent to cultivate. Unfortunately, this particular manifestation of talent is wasted on an otherwise mean and insipid dullard. You add nothing of substance to the discussion in terms of reasoned perspective, supported argument or enlightened observation. Some great insults, though -- if that's one's idea of a good time.

I guess it's not part of the software, but I really wish this forum had Ignore User functionality.

Yeah its their fault that Israel kept taking their land from them...

Of course, you're LYING again, bar_kochba132.

According to Israel's own chief negotiator Gilad Sher, at Camp David the Palestinians presented a map of the West Bank as they envisioned it in a peace accord, as reported in his Just Beyond Reach: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations 1999-2001, published in Hebrew in Israel in 2002. Contrary to popular belief and American-Israeli spin, the Palestinians did in fact make a counter-offer at Camp David. It was Barak who rejected the Palestinian proposal...
A similar Palestinian counter-proposal was also presented at the final round of peace talks in Taba on Jan. 23, 2001, showing Palestinian acceptance of Israel's annexation of 3.5% of the West Bank (compared to Israel's Taba proposal of 6%). The Camp David map also showed that the Palestinians accepted the idea of a land swap, under which Israel would incorporate West Bank settlements in exchange for land of equal size and value. Barak had proposed larger settlement blocs, and an unequal exchange of territory.

SOURCE: Barak’s Chief Negotiator Gilad Sher Explodes The Myth of Camp David: The Palestinians Made A Counter-Offer, [PDF] Analysis and Translation from the Hebrew by Gidon D. Remba

Proof yet again that Israel does not want peace, Israel wants land.

Brad, I don't understand why you are so angry. I have never in my life heard anyone say that Israel would be amenable to the peace terms that BK proposes. That is what I thought was bullshit. It is not a criticism of Israel, just a misrepresentation of the state of the world--in other words, bullshit.

I'm not going to get in an argument with a troll. It's a waste of time for everyone involved.

I disagree and I'm sure you're not beholden to that position either. Everyone who has access to the internet does not have a right to post on this site. Sites like these, i.e. political sites, really don't function unless the community is coherent. Trolls like davai, bar_kochba, and abdul-hass are just here to destroy the coherence of the community. I wouldn't be in favor of banning Bradthedad, but those three need to go.

MJR, I've a lot of complaints about Brad's opinions, but I don't think it's at all fair to raise the anonymity issue. (He also keeps a less loony level of dialogue than BK, although he did wrongly lose his temper here and call you a name.) Plenty of posters make up a screen name, and there's plenty of conventional support for it.

Brad gives his first name, which is all one could ask. It's at least as explicit as the abbreviated names most of us fall back since we figure registering demands it. Nor do I worry about people who go further to come up with a cute or ideological identifier. At least we know what extreme Zionista belongs to, right? I admit that the "the Dad" has an implicit claim of moral high ground that grates on me, but again that's entirely his prerogative. I think we'd a discussion when Etzioni used screen names as an excuse to avoid us.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I have never in my life heard anyone say that Israel would be amenable to the peace terms that BK proposes.

Then you just don't know very much, do you?  Four times, in 1937, 1947, 1979 and 2000-2001, Israel has been amenable to a partition of the land.  Four times it was rejected by the Arabs.  The Arab world is unstinting in its demonization of Israel.  Bar-kochba's point is that if there were evidence that Arab attitudes had really changed, Israel would be ready immediately to make peace.  That's ALWAYS been true.

Why did the Camp David Accords happen in 1978-1979?  Do you think Israel would have given back the Sinai if Egypt's leadership took the same attitude as the current Palestinian leadership?  No f**** way.  What made Camp David possible was Sadat.  He went to Jerusalem.  He spoke to the Knesset.  He engaged Israelis and said he understood their fears and was ready to make peace.  No other Arab leader, with the possible exception of King Hussein of Jordan, has EVER done that.  Why?  Well even if they wanted to, all they have to do is look at what happened to Sadat.

I admit that the "the Dad" has an implicit claim of moral high ground that grates on me

LOL!  Actually it's just what my Dad called me when my first child was born.  No claims of moral superiority need be inferred.

The demand that I reveal my real name has to be, hands down, the silliest, most infantile thing I've ever seen on this or any other site that purports to discuss issues seriously.  It's illustrative of why I maintain that MJ Rosenberg is a pathetic coward - intellectually unserious, sanctimonious and immature. 

What's sad about all this is that underlying all his cant, there's a serious position waiting to come out.  One that is worth engaging and debating on the merits.  But every time anyone does that forcefully, he doesn't respond, choosing instead to play to the peanut gallery and call you a "Likudnik" or a "neocon".

It is long overdue, keep hope alive.

So, on Israel-Palestine, I will not address anything written by fact-free ethnic nationalists like Bar Kochba, Davai, BradtheDad, the now disappeared Daniel Greenbaum, and a few others.

What makes you think this represents a change?  You are already too much of a wimp to address anything that doesn't conform to your already fixed in stone beliefs.   

Furthermore, only someone trapped in a far-left bubble would call me a "Meir Kahane type".  Kahane, let's remember, advocated the forcible removal of all Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza, something that I and everyone else here would consider a moral travesty.

But it's all the same to you isn't it?  Anyone to the right of you is a Nazi.  Anyone who isn't for immediate unilateral surrender to the Arabs is an "ethnic nationalist". 

What's hilarious about the "ethnic nationalist" charge is that you call yourself a Zionist.  It's pretty hard to be a Zionist and not be an ethnic nationalist of some sort.  I'm reminded of the quote attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."  By that standard, you are Einstein.

What thoughts does bar_kochba provoke? Are there actually ideas behind his invective laiden diatribes? Is there a glimmer of a notion here or there that makes it worth wading through the spew?

What do you offer, Valdron? A clever turn of an occasional phrase, you are indeed blessed with the ability to articulate some degree of humor in written form.

Isn't that enough?

Unfortunately, this particular manifestation of talent is wasted on an otherwise mean and insipid dullard. You add nothing of substance to the discussion in terms of reasoned perspective, supported argument or enlightened observation.

Insipid dullard? Wow, keep that up and people will start telling us to get a room.

What is there to add to this discussion, Zionista? Seriously. What is there that is meaningful for anyone to contribute that can be heard over the incessant hate-filled screeching of a bar_kochba, the unthinking racism of a davai.

For pity's sake, Zionista, have you paid attention to any of these endless Palestinian/Israel threads? Haven't you noticed that they always go the same way with the same cast of characters arguing over the same buzzwords, throwing the same lies and accusations. Has there been a single f*cking palestine/israel thread that ever turned out to be contructive, that didn't amount to voices shouting past each other?

And what about you? Aren't you in there occasionally shouting past, raising the same old same olds, staking your ground and dishing out the usual worn out arguments. What the hell do you ever bring to the table that anyone ever needed to hear, much less wanted to hear?

So kiss my ass. You want insipid dullards, look to a mirror. The difference between you and Bar_Kochba is merely that you're slightly more sane and civil. It's a difference I approve of, but don't push me.

Every goddammed Israel/Palestine thread degenerates into farce, and it will keep on degenerating into farce, largely because of the efforts of posts like those of Bar_Kochba, and with the eager and willing toleration of those posts by people like you who enjoy the spew but don't have the guts to indulge it themselves.

Well cry me a river.

In a situation like that, do you know what the only meaningful contribution is? What the only meaningful contribution can be?

Mockery and contempt.

So fill up.

So we can have a sympathy party of all like-minded folk here? MJ is not going to engage with those who "are entirely driven by their ethnic identity?"

It is precisely those who are motivated by their partisanship who are creating a good part of the problem and it is their arguments that need to be addressed.

Abdul Hass at least engages Bar-Kochba. Bar Kochba relying on conventional wisdom and the then foreign minister states that Arafat turned everything down flat and just waited for concessions. Hass retorts that Israel's negotiator states publicly that Arafat made a counter offer. What I need to know was this a 'real' counter-offer which could possibly lead to a real agreement or was it a retreat to initial demands or poisoned by something known to be unacceptable? I am not an expert on this but what is the expert opinion on this point? Who is right and on what evidence?

Abdul Hass argues that Israel did not take land after the 1967 War because it did not want to take more land that it could digest. It is true that Israel could not have 'digested' as much as it could have taken but it is also true that Israel ended up with far less land than it could have then digested and did return some of it for peace.

Engage, engage and engage. If people are wrong in their opinions state why and provide your evidence. Simple name calling is school yard stuff and while I enjoy clever name calling and engage in it myself it most often solves nothing.

jhaber,

At least we know what extreme Zionista belongs to, right?

Do tell.

You call names, hiding behind a silly label.

Says "madison1776."

Brad - Egypt demanded the entire Sinai back in order to do a peace deal. Israel agreed and we had a peace agreement.Do you think Sadat would have done the deal with only 90% of the Sinai? If Israel offered the entire West Bank back including East Jerusalem, I believe we would have a peace agreement with the Palestinians. However, keeping the Ariel and Ma'ale Aduumim settlement blocks along with those surrounding Jerusalem makes a deal MUCH more difficult. You might think 91% of the West Bank is a good deal but not everyone agrees.

Now I am not suggesting we necessarily give up Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim but it should be on the table. Right now, Israel thinks it's bargaining position is stronger so it does not have to make as many concessions as Taba represented. If Israel and the Palestinians picked up where Taba left off, I think a deal would be concluded within a year.

MJ's article is hopelessly optimistic. Bar_kochba's conclusion "there is NO possibility of there being a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. " is unfortunately a closer approximation of the current reality. There is something else about Bar_kochba that I think we should all understand: His views are close to the mainstream of Israeli public opinion. His views also represent the thinking of such people like Eliot Abrams and the Aipac lobbyist that really control US ME policy today.

In terms of internal US politics, I think the best course for progressives to pursue is simply to pressure the US to withdraw its military presence from the ME. As time goes on we must pressure the post-Bush US government the let Israel fight its own wars. We should eventually let Israel know that she is an independent country who controls her own fate but that when she gets into future wars over Southern Lebanon, seizure of West Bank lands and whatever retaliations against Gaza, that she is on her own. We will not fight with her.

There should be a recognition that the US cannot be an honest broker in these conflicts. We should simply step aside.

But challenge the CW on the Middle East and academe quakes.

Lord with so much money and time spent honing that Middle East CW into a Israeli lance challenging it seems like...well...a communist plot?

…no wait a Nazi plot? It gets so darn confusing.

And here I though spewing tepid, obviously overstated and too, too dramatic CW was an integral part of McCarthyism. He was on the political right wasn’t he? With the revisionist set it's so hard to tell.

The things I don't know could fill a book or two.

Pre-1967 borders weren't on the table in 2000. A "partition of the land" is not what BK said. He said, any "gov't would agree to withdraw to the pre-67 lines."

BTW, I don't know what word this is: f****. Since you're removing some letters, I assume it's something bad, but "fuck" only has 4 letters. And in this case, it would be conjugated "fucking."

Why limit it to conjugation?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I agree the BK crew gets to be distracting and ends up bringing down the level of the discussion.

I want to go back to syvanen's point.

MJ's polyannaish views can sometimes leave you scratching your head. Is the man serious?

However, if Abbas can show Hamas supporters that he has achieved a final status agreement with Israel, he would likely gain full legitimacy with almost all Palestinians.

This is not just absurd: it's doubly absurd.
First, because Abbas/Olmert will never achieve final status agreement. If you believe that Olmert has the political capital to decide the dismantling of Ariel, Har Homa, Kiryat Arba, Hebron, etc, and the relocation of over 100,000 settlers, then I know a guy in Brooklyn who has a nice bridge for you. And, remember, Olmert is supposed to do all of that with a Bush administration breathing down his neck that won't even allow him to talk to Syria!

Second, MJ seems to forget that Abbas has lost most of his legitimacy among Palestinians. He's their al-Maliki.

Look, I'd love to share MJ's optimism, but I fear it's based on too much wishful thinking.

It takes time. The palestenians are trading land for spent Q3130A, but some would argue at not a fast enough rate.

Is this the best argument MJ has?

"As for the people here I think are anti-Jewish (not anti-Israel but anti-Jewish or racist for that matter) I will continue not engaging with them."

Finaly you admited that there are anti-Jewish here.

Why don't you tell us who they are?
Why don't you do it?
Why are you so scared? I'm confused?

How do you fell to be considred serious by MJ?

Israel needs two things from US,
1. selling advance weapon.
2. Blocking anti-Israeli resolutions in UN.

Mmmm. All you people respond to MJ. Without him, you are nobodies. You should thank him, Davai, Brad, Bar Kochba and the rest of you fruitcakes for
giving you a voice. If I were MJ, I'd go away and then you would all just disappear. You are like satellites and MJ is your sun!

Quite possibly more of the 'Arab' intelligentsia's writings and leanings are reported in the Israeli press than here?

Ya think this might be possible? Possibly they have a greater interest in attending to what their neighbors are saying?

Trying to understand what the other side is thinking is vital.

If you disagree with his description of the views of the Arab Intelligentsia, demand his evidence or present your own. Don't claim that because he is an Israeli partisan that he cannot comprehend what the 'Arabs' are saying.

Because Israel doesn't want to grab more at a time than it can hold at one time.

That makes absolutely no sense as a responce to my comment. Once again, if all Israel wanted was land, why did it offer to return in Aug of 1967 all the land it captured in June of 1967? As history has shown, it could hold that land for quite a while. Why did Israel return the Sinai? Your assertion is pure nonsense.

MJ your post postulates that;

The central problem with the Bush approach is that it is predicated on the idea that one can establish a vibrant democracy at peace with Israel in the West Bank while the other half of Palestine, Gaza, is ignored.

So naturally;

[you] can't quite understand why neither the Bush administration nor the Israelis understand that their embrace of Abbas, while dismissing the elected Hamas government, has the effect of turning the West Bank into the Republic of South Vietnam while converting Hamas into the Viet Cong. We all know how that turned out.

Try to doubt yourself long enough to understand that Bush knows that the war for Greater Israel is a failed war and that continuing to drag out the defeat harms the interests of the U.S. ruling class.

Bush knows that the leadership of the PLO is currently Abbas who co-founded Fatah with Arafat and that the U.S. has not spent the last forty years trying to bring a Fatah led state into existence. But Bush will spend the next eighteen months doing just that.

Bush knows that Abbas is not a sell-out who is about to abandon the Palestinian people of Gaza, but a leader who will see that they are funded and supplied and included in the affairs of the Palestinian government, even if currently outside of the direct control of the Palestinian Authority he leads.

U.S. policy of preventing democracy in Vietnam failed. U.S. policy of backing every rat-bag regime in the Middle East failed spectacularly.

Bush is now supporting democracy because there is now seen to be no viable alternative.
Leftists always insisted that the previous policies would fail and they have.

No Palestinian leader will put up with any Zionist fantasy about keeping some of the conquests from the failed war for greater Israel (now dragging into its fortieth miserable year) without a negotiated swap of other territory such as was proposed in the Geneva initiative.

Despite the delusions still held by ‘moderate’ Zionists that they can have a peace deal and still make the conquest of East Jerusalem stick, it has no more credibility than the stupidity of the holy Hebron enclave of settlers surviving any peace deal.

Just as General Oron realizes “You think they are going to be satisfied living well thanks to Israel and the United States while their relatives suffer?" that Hamas controlled Gaza is a reality that Abbas will work with and just as ‘Oron …believes that "final status" Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can be commenced right now with Abbas, despite the temporary internal Palestinian split, something President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad themselves favor.’

So might commentators consider that GWB also thinks that ‘the foundation’ for that final status negotiation, that he has just spoken about in the July 16, speech will be solidified with the coming conference to the extent that those final status negotiations (that you think are both realistic yet fanciful under the Bush administration) will commence shortly thereafter.

‘If t’were well it were done then t’were well it were done quickly’ for Bush and Rice the Republican party (and even Blair).

The Geneva Initiative has really exposed what the limits are to a deal and it was not one where the Palestinian people had to cop just ‘…an official presence in East Jerusalem and some solution to the refugee problem.’

The Palestinian State will undoubtedly be established with East Jerusalem as its capital. After all everyone except the most deranged Zionists realize ‘no Palestinian – and certainly not Abbas – is going to accept a truncated pseudo-state full of Israeli settlements, checkpoints and highways for-Jewish-settlers-only.

Bush and the rest of us all know that Abbas, as head of the PLO, has the authority to negotiate a final status deal with Israel along the lines …of the Geneva Initiative.

But because

Of course, the peace deal with Israel would have to be put to a referendum (under international supervision) in the West Bank and Gaza and probably in the Palestinian diaspora as well.

And to
…’save Abbas or even re-legitimize him in the eyes of his people. Only one thing can do that. Successful final status negotiations now.

And again because
The name of the game is establishing a viable contiguous Palestinian state.

It is safe to assume that Bush knows what is required.

Yet the following seems to sum up what a lot of hard-nosed skeptics and leftists as well as pseudo-leftist journalists are saying about the latest Bush speech.

Haim Malka, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said there was little new in Mr Bush's speech and questioned what could be achieved without the involvement of Hamas. "It's important that the US engages in diplomacy," he said. "But this seems like the repackaging of an old policy. What the administration needs is a new strategy not a new conference."

Mr Bush is not the first occupant of the White House to turn his attention to the Palestinian problem in the closing stages of his presidency. Bill Clinton also intensified efforts to find a settlement during his final months in office.

Philip Gordon, another senior fellow at Brookings, says Mr Bush's last-ditch diplomacy holds much less promise than his predecessor's did. "Clinton genuinely thought he could pull it off because all the pieces seemed to be in place. There is much less optimism this time round," he says. "Bush is doing it more to avoid being accused of not doing anything."

Yet the writer knows that ‘Mr Bush became the first US president to declare explicit support for the creation of a Palestinian state. (…in a White House speech in June 2002,) Apparently Clinton thought he could pull it off, but failed to even utter the two words side by side. Clinton didn’t talk of ending the occupation but rather of settling the dispute. The West Bank was an area of dispute then but under Bush it is an area under occupation that belongs to another distinct people called Palestinians that deserve their own state.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to take Bush seriously because IMV he seems to have his eye firmly on the ball. He is not trying to achieve a forty year old U.S. goal of bringing justice and a State to the Palestinian people. He is about ending a failed forty year war for the conquest of Greater Israel that the US funded all along.

People will recall that not so long ago we had to put up with U.S. Administrations and Zionists going on about ‘disputed territories’. Bush talks clearly of occupied territories. That ‘disputed’ fantasy is gone with the wind. The U.S. used to talk of Samaria and Judea now they talk about a Palestinian state with realistic borders. For many years the U.S. and the Zionists just talked about Arabs and wouldn’t even call Palestinians by that name.

Here we have another ‘leftist’ talking about the sad reality of Israel having to give up on wild dreams of grabbing the sacred sites of religious Jews such as Hebron, yet the wall was not built to leave settlers on the other side!

For many years it has been apparent that the war has comprehensively failed, and that the Zionists would have to face a shattering defeat when the U.S. pulled the plug. The current U.S. Administration is now pulling that plug. There are hundreds of thousands of settlers that will be moving over the next couple of years. But a deal will be done first. There will not be any unilateral scramble behind the wall and ‘that’s that, because we are a fact on the ground’. There used to be a collection of facts on the ground in Gaza as well but they are no longer facts on the ground.

Bush does not have to concern himself with Gaza as the Palestinian people no longer have to bother with Zionist settlers in Gaza. He is concerned with making it plain to the world that the coming deal (that the Israelis also require) is being brokered by Condi Rice. It is safe to assume that the U.S. Administration knows that continuing the failed war is not in U.S. interests and that the deal will have to be along the Geneva lines.

That’s why Bush is saying.

These negotiations must resolve difficult questions and uphold clear principles. They must ensure that Israel is secure. They must guarantee that a Palestinian state is viable and contiguous. And they must lead to a territorial settlement, with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments.

Patrick

Good post, Patrick. Thanks. The only problem I have with it is the phrase "Bush knows" but I assume you mean "the Bush administration." I doubt Bush knows much about this conflict.

PS, as to my thoughts on Hebron, see this piece. It appeared in my regular IPF Friday spot, in the Beirut Daily Star, and in numerous outlets worldwide. If you want to see the photo I took of the net the Palestinians put up to protect themselves from the shit and other debris the settlers dump on their kids, go here

Hebron Horrors

The reality of Hebron was brought home to me during my stint as an official US observer of the January 9th Palestinian election. Our eighty-person National Democratic Institute group was broken into forty teams and then dispatched throughout the West Bank and Gaza. My partner and I were assigned to a dozen polling places in Hebron, the second largest city in the West Bank.

Hebron is a city considered holy by both Jews and Muslims because of the presence there of the Cave of Machpela, traditionally thought to be the burial place of Abraham, the patriarch of both Judaism and Islam. Predominantly Arab, Jews also lived in the city, adjacent to the tomb, until 1929 when a pogrom launched by Arab fanatics resulted in the murder of 69 Jews and the end of the Jewish presence in the city.

In 1967, following the Six Day War -- with Israel now in control of the West Bank, including Hebron -- ultra-religious Jewish nationalists pressured the Israeli government to permit Jewish settlers to reclaim, and move into, properties that had belonged to the Jewish community prior to 1929.

The government refused. It arranged for Jewish worship inside the tomb but not for civilian settlement inside the city, which it considered to be both impractical and provocative. Only a tiny group of extremists (many from outside Israel) had any interest in living inside Hebron and – in the midst of a city of 160,000 Palestinians – they would need to be defended by hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers.

The settlers moved in anyway, establishing illegal outposts in the heart of Hebron, which have been tolerated by successive Israeli governments for 36 years. Following the Oslo agreements, the Israeli army withdrew from all Palestinian cities except Hebron, where troops remained to defend the settlers. In 1997, the Israeli army withdrew from 80% of Hebron, remaining only in an area labeled H-2 which includes the Cave of Machpela, the Casbah (Arab market) and the Jewish settlements.

Some 400 settlers live in H-2 in the midst of 30,000 Palestinians.

Last month, I visited H-2 despite being told by an Israeli friend that it is “the worst place in the West Bank.” How so? “The settlers there are religious fanatics and dedicate their lives to terrorizing the Palestinians with the goal of driving them all out. The Palestinians can’t fight back because the army won’t let them. On top of all that, the settlers hate the soldiers almost as much as they hate the Palestinians because the soldiers try to curb their activities. These soldiers are in a situation where they have to defend fanatics who routinely refer to them as Nazis.”

But, he added, “so long as the settlers are there, the soldiers must remain as well. Snipers, shooting from the hills, have killed Jews [including a two year old, Shalhevet Pass] and, so the soldiers need to be there, no matter how much they hate it.”

I walked into the heart of H-2 following a short inquisition by an IDF soldier. My first stop was the Ibrahami Mosque, which encompasses the Tomb of the Patriarchs. As I walked down the steps toward the mosque, a young Palestinian made the point of informing me that I was following the same route Jewish zealot Baruch Goldstein took when, in February 1994, he burst into the mosque and shot dead 29 Muslims at prayer.

Goldstein is a hero to the Hebron settlers. His burial place (in a tourist park named after Meir Kahane) was turned into a shrine where settlers annually celebrate Goldstein’s murder spree with parties and games. (In 2004, police arrested some of them for holding an illegal celebration of both the Goldstein murders and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin). For Palestinians, of course, the Goldstein massacre is a symbol of the ultimate threat.

I left the mosque and walked through the mostly deserted Casbah toward the settlers’ neighborhood. There wasn’t much to see, just settlers strutting around with rifles and a few Arabs trying to sell their wares in what was once a thriving market and is now mostly abandoned. And there is the graffiti in English and Hebrew promising death to all Palestinians.

But the most striking thing is the steel mesh screens that the Arabs have installed just above the heads of pedestrians to protect them from the garbage and excrement routinely dumped by the settlers from their second floor windows. The screens catch all sorts of disgusting stuff and lethal objects like cinder blocks, although liquid debris does make its way to the ground or on the heads of anyone below.

It’s an appalling sight. Imagine looking up and seeing and smelling the foulest debris just above your head, stopped only by mesh. But then everything about H-2 is appalling, including the fact that Israeli soldiers are forced to serve there.

Last summer a group of 70 soldiers who had served in Hebron created a photographic and video exhibit at a Tel Aviv college about their experiences there called, “Breaking Silence.” The exhibit, which was a huge success, described from the soldiers’ point of view, the dehumanizing experience that serving there had on them. Many spoke of the fear they had – not only of the Arabs or of the Jews – but of being terribly transformed as human beings by the experience.

One soldier spoke of being frightened by the “rush” he felt from giving Arabs orders. "I was ashamed of myself the day I realized that I simply enjoy the feeling of power…Forget for a moment that I think that all these Jews are nuts and that I believe we should leave the territories. But how dare [a Palestinian] say ‘no’ to me? I am the Law! I am the Law here!

“Once I was at a checkpoint, a so-called strangulation checkpoint, blocking the entrance to a village. On one side a line of cars wanting to get out, and on the other side a line of cars wanting to get in. I stood there, gesturing ‘you to do this,’ ‘you do that.’ You start playing with them, like a computer game. ‘You come here, you go there.’ You barely move, you make them obey the tip of your finger. It's a mighty feeling.”

A second soldier wrote: “The thing that…affected me emotionally…was when we had just arrived in Hebron. I was on guard duty, when suddenly, from one of the small streets, a settler girl shows up and shouts at me very urgently: ‘Soldier, soldier, come quickly, there's an Arab here who's attacking a girl.’ I got very alarmed and advanced with my weapon cocked. The scene that unfolded was of an Arab with his two children. He’s trying to protect them from another settler girl who's throwing stones at them. I blow my fuse and start screaming at her….She’s screaming back that they are Arabs and should be killed…and the father, poor guy, says, with helpless eyes, ‘We're used to it, we've been here a long time now, it's alright.’ "

A third soldier spoke of the day a group from abroad came to visit Hebron for the Jewish holidays. "One morning, a fairly big group arrived, around 15 Jews from France. They were all religious Jews. They were in a good mood, really having a great time, and I spent my entire shift following this gang of Jews around and trying to keep them from destroying the town. They just wandered around, picked up every stone they saw, and started throwing them at Arabs' windows, and overturning whatever they came across.

“There's no horror story here: they didn't catch some Arab and kill him or anything like that, but what bothered me is that maybe someone told them that this is one place in the world where a Jew can take all of his rage out on Arab people, and simply do anything. Come to this Palestinian town, and do whatever they want, and the soldiers will always be there to back them up. Because that was my job, to protect them and make sure that nothing happened to them."

Note that this soldier said that he had no “horror story” to tell, just an ordinary day for soldiers, not to mention Palestinians, in Hebron. And that is, of course, the greatest horror.

That is why Hebron is significant. In one neighborhood, in one city, on any given day, anyone can experience the occupation at its worst -- terrible for the Palestinians and terrible for the Israelis too.

If anyone tells you that the status quo is tolerable, just tell them about Hebron.

Crazy Davai! Armed racist monasteries where the monks slaughter innocent worshippers!!!!
You are a hoot!

You must be new here if you think that Bar Kochba is really trying to understand what the' other side' is thinking--Bar Kochba's 'understanding,' that comes across in all his posts, is that all Arabs are a mindless uncivilized horde, singlemindedly bent on the annihilation of Israel. It's not that he 'cannot comprehend,' but that his mind has been made up, that they are beyond hope or even discourse.

I agree that Israeli media does present a lot of coverage, however, Bar Kochba is the equivalent of an Israeli FOX NEWS viewer.

And how do either of those enhance the national security of the United States, as opposed to being popular with particular constituencies and lobbyists?

During the Cold War, the relationship had much more value, as a source of intelligence on Soviet weaponry and doctrine. Now that the US can buy Russian equipment from the Russians, that benefit is far less. There is considerable truth, when domestic politics is disconnected from international relations, that nations have interests, not alliances.

I would be seriously interested in thoughts on how the US-Israeli relationship benefits the US, when domestic politics is set aside. This is not a trick question.

Apropos of advanced weapons, does the US have a right to impose conditions on their use? What should be the US response when Israel violates conditions of sale, as with the M26 rocket?

I confess to being somewhat dubious about the value of the UN in enforcing peace in difficult situations. Perhaps I am being Machiavellian, but I'm not convinced that not vetoing anti-Israeli resolutions in the UN will particularly affect Israel's freedom of action. Not blocking them, however, might improve the US negotiating position with supporters of those resolutions. This comment is directed specifically to US use of the veto, not situations where a coalition can be organized that opposes the resolution.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I'm still trying to decide if you were complimented or insulted. :-)

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Yes, the world needs more enlightened atheists like Joe Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Walther Ulbricht, etc.

This article is full of gross generalizations. Just one was "Goldstein is a hero to Hevron Jews". In reality, he is a hero to a small group of Hevron Jews. There are indeed some extremist Jews in Hevron and I totally oppose what they think and what they are doing.

In any event, what do you think of the Palestinians who view as heroes suicide bombers who went into synagogue courtyards and blew up women and children there? In the Palestinian towns, they celebrate and give out candies and name streets after the perpetrators of these atrocities. Arafat himself praised suicide bombers and said they were "better men" then he was.
If you think that those who praise what Goldstein did are terrible people, then what do you think about Palestinians and Palestinian society (e.g. its official, state-controlled media) that praises suicide bombers?
If you are going to give me the line that "their violence is 'understandable' because they are under occupation", then I can only answer the Jews were "under occupation" far longer than any occupation the Arabs were under and FAR crueler, so therefore, if you justify Arab violence of this type, then you should also "understand" the violence Goldstein or Yigal Amir carried out.
MJ has referred to me as something like an "extreme ethnic nationalist" which he apparently views as something bad (I have no real problem being called that), but then what did that make his pal Arafat, what does that make Abbas, what does that make HAMAS, what does that make most Palestinians? They are most certainly extremist nationalists. How come MJ thinks it is okay for them to be this but not Jews?

Here is the key quote you make:
(I am sorry, I don't know how to make those nice windows with quotations from earlier postings)

-------------------
What's hilarious about the "ethnic nationalist" charge is that you call yourself (i.e. MJ) a Zionist.
------------------

There, you have put your finger on MJ's dilemma and the source for his hostility to us. He IS a Zionist. He JUSTIFIES 1948-the Palestinian Naqba (catastrophe). He thus feels he has to get this terrible onus off himself because we constantly remind him of what he views as his hypocrisy. He screams to the world "see, I am not one of THEM!", but the Palestinians and other Arabs DO view him as being the same as US! because he DOES, in the end, justify what the Arabs view (wrongly, but it is their perception) as what Abdul-Hass and many other "progressives" would say is "ethnic cleansing". This is why MJ never responds to Abdul-Hass, because, deep down, he is deeply afraid that Abdul-Hass is correct, yet something in him still wants to be a Zionist (the "pintele yid"?). This torments him and he spends his life trying to prove to other "progressives" that is really "one of them" when he never really can be.

The Balfour Declaration of November 1917 and the League of Nations Mandate of 1922 giving the British control of Palestine based upon fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration recognized what I called the Jewish People's rights in Eretz Israel (Land of Israel) which included Trans-Jordan (today's Kingdom of Jordan). This was whittled down to only a tiny fraction by the UN Partition resolution of November 1947 which the Arabs rejected. I am not sure how your point fits in with this. It seems to me that those who supported these decisions seemed to recognize that the Jews had "natural rights" in this land.

Decisions by political bodies do not constitute national rights. The Balfour Declaration, in part, was recognition of the contributions to the WWI effort by Chaim Weizmann. Incidentally, were the Sykes-Picot Agreement or the Hussein- McMahon Correspondence natural laws? Was the Kellogg-Briand accord?

The British were only in a position to make the Balfour Declaration due to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Did the British have a natural right to the area? If so, how could they give it away if it was naturally theirs?

On what basis did the League of Nations decide one people had a right to land when the Ethiopians, of comparable antiquity, did not?

It may seem to you that those political decisions recognized "natural" things. One of the legislatures of a US state voted in a resolution, defeated in the upper house, to make pi equal to three. Even if it had passed both houses and been signed by the governor, the value of pi would not change.

It is arguable that the Reichstag recognized the natural rights of the Leader Principle, or so the NDSAP delegates claimed. The framers of the US Constitution believed in democracy, as long as you were a white male.

Perhaps a more honest assessment of "natural rights", by a political body, was that the pursuit of happiness was an inalienable right. There was no right to catch it.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

e to the x, dx, dy
Cosine secant theta prime
3.14159
Caltech! Caltech! Rah!

Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) ends at sundown and Israel is 7 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time.

Your plea for mercy is duly noted. I'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, mockery and contempt will remain in place. Feel free to continue to whimper and beg.

No, he meant mockery.

"What is more insane than to vent on senseless things the anger that is felt towards men?" [Seneca]

"In order to act, you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking." [Clemenceau]

To defend Bar_Kochba, he presented some ingenious arguments. To wit, there is no difference between Hamas and Abbas, and the proof is that Abbas did not disarm Hamas, moreover, Abbas is not trustworthy because he did not honor his constitutional obligation toward Hamas. Indeed -- if Abbas is screwing even those who are the same as he is, how much would he screw those who are not the same? If he could.

In that vein, are Arabs (and Iranians, who are also the same) dupes of the Left or vice versa? The Left is the world-wide sinister phenomenon, and destroying Israel is but one of many vile projects, beside family as we know it, innocence of children worldwide etc.

I would also object the accusation that Bar_Kochba sees everything in black and white terms. Everything seems to be black in his posts.

When I stated that Arafat turned down flat the Taba proposals, that was called a lie.

This is from the interview Ari Shavit did with Shlomo Ben-Ami
who was Israeli Foreign Minister at the time of the Camp David
Talks in 2000 and the Taba talks in 2001. He was present at all
these meeting and dealt with Arafat face-to-face.
As you read this, remember he is from the Left-wing of the Labor
Party, i.e. a "progressive", not an "extreme ethnic nationalist" like myself.

This is taken from Ha'aretz of 14 September 2001.

Regarding the talks at Taba:

Q- Did the Palestinians accept the map you presented them?

A-No.

Q- You and Prime Minister Barak set out on a journey to the bowels
of the earth, as it were, to the very heart of the conflict.
What did you find?

A- I think we found a few difficult things. First of all, regarding
Arafat, we discovered that he does not have the ability to convey
to his Israeli interlocuters that the process of making concessions
has an end. His strategy is one of conflict.

Q- Are you saying that he is not a partner?

A- Arafat is the leader of the Palestinians. I cannot change this
fact, it is their disaster. He is so loyal to his truth that he
can not compromise it. But his truth is the truth of the Islamic
ethos, the ethos of refugees and victimization. This truth does
not allow him to end his negotations with Israel unless Israel
breaks its neck. So in the particular aspect, Arafat is not a
partner. Worse, Arafat is a strategic threat, he endangers peace
in the Middle East and in the world.

Q- So he still does not recognize Israel's right to exist?

A- Arafat's concession vis-a-vis Israel at Oslo was a formal
concession. Morally and conceptually, he didn't recognize Israel's
right to exist. He doesn't accept the idea of "2 states for 2 peoples".
He may be able to make some sort of partial, temporary settlement with
us, although I have my doubts about that as well, but at the deep level,
he doesn't accept us. Neither he nor the Palestinian national movement
accept us.

Q - Your criticism goes beyond Arafat personally to include also the
Palestinian national movement as a whole?

A- Yes, intellectually I can understand their logic. I understand
from their point of view they ceded 78% of (historic Palestine) at
Oslo, so the rest is theirs. I understand that from their point of
view and they are not going to make a compromise with us....
But when all is said and done, after 8 months of negotiations, I have
reached the conclusion that we are in confrontation with a national
movement in which there are serious pathological elements. It is a
very sad movement, a tragic movement which at its core doesn't have the
ability to set itself positive goals. At the end of the process, it is
impossible not to form the impression that the Palestinians don't want
a solution as much as they want to place Israel in the dock of history.