The Palestinians have pulled out of direct negotiations because, or so they say, the Israeli settlement construction freeze in the West Bank has concluded.
“Both the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have asked us to continue these discussions in an effort to establish the conditions under which they can continue direct negotiations," Mitchell wrote in a statement posted on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo's website. "They do not want to stop the talks."
How blinkered must one be not to recognize this gibberish as gibberish? For ten months Israel maintained a moratorium on building in the West Bank, yet until the very last moment the Palestinians refused to negotiate. Now that the moratorium has ended they again refuse to negotiate. And we're supposed to believe that the Palestinians are desperate for a negotiated peace and for a state of their own next to Israel? And George Mitchell tells us that both governments want to continue negotiations?
A less blunt person might refer to this as "dissembling." I prefer to call it what it really is, a lie. When Barack Obama came into office he demanded a settlement freeze as a precondition for negotiations. The Palestinians thus pulled out of negotiations. The Israelis then called for negotiations without preconditions, but the Palestinians refused. The Israelis compromised with the 10 month moratorium on building in the West Bank and still the Palestinians refused to negotiate. And now George Mitchell is telling the world that both sides want to negotiate?
So, we are to believe that the Palestinians really, really want to negotiate despite the fact that they refused negotiations before the settlement freeze, and also during the settlement freeze, if the freeze is extended? Oh, that makes sense.
And we are also to believe that the Palestinians long for a state of their own next to Israel, despite the fact that they perpetually reject a state of their own next to Israel and despite the fact that between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt, no Palestinian leadership called for a Palestinian state.
Have I mentioned recently that this is a sucker's game?
Well?
It's a sucker's game.
Meanwhile the anti-Zionist left and their Jihadi allies perpetually excoriate Israel. Throughout the Middle East, the Jihadis call literally for the blood of the Jews while the Arab governments continue to incite hatred toward the Jewish state. And even as they do so, the UN writes up resolution after resolution defaming Israel while ignoring atrocious human rights abuses in Darfur and Congo and Chechnya and Iran and Tibet and Saudi Arabia, where they still chop off body parts for the crime of theft. And TIME magazine tells the world that Israelis do not care about peace because they are too busy making money. And on college campuses throughout North American and Europe, Jewish students who support the Jewish state are spat upon and told that they are "racist." And on the liberal blogs, like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, Israel is perpetually demonized, dehumanized, and demeaned.
And through it all, despite international efforts at Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), Israel continues to crank out microchips and advanced computing software and more and more start-ups, and more and more companies on the Nasdaq, and continues to receive more and more investment capital from abroad.
It's nothing short of remarkable, really.
Good for them.
Here's one for the J-Street lovers among the alleged Pro-I's at various blogs. The words of J Street co-founder and advisory board member Daniel Levy
ReplyDelete"One can be a utilitarian two-stater, in other words think that the practical pragmatic way forward is two states. This is my understanding of the current Hamas position. One can be an ideological two-stater, someone who believes in exclusively the Palestinian self-determination and in Zionism; I don’t believe that it’s impossible to have a progressive Zionism. Or one can be a one-stater. But in either of those outcomes we’re going to live next door to each other or in a one state disposition. And that means wrapping one’s head around the humanity of both sides. I believe the way Jewish history was in 1948 excused – for me, it was good enough for me – an act that was wrong. I don’t expect Palestinians to think that. I have no reason – there’s no reason a Palestinian should think there was justice in the creation of Israel."
an act that was wrong.....gotta love them Pro-Israelis progressives.
http://www.mererhetoric.com/2010/10/05/j-street-co-founder-daniel-levy-israel%E2%80%99s-creation-an-act-that-was-wrong/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MereRhetoric+%28Mere+Rhetoric%29
Yup.
ReplyDeleteI was guardedly hopeful about J-Street when they first organized, but they lost me when they refused to repudiate either the anti-Semitic play "7 Jewish Children," or the insidious Goldstone report.
Y'know, Doodad, on the issues I am a liberal, but I sometimes think that many of our fellow Jewish liberals have become so open-minded that their brains have fallen completely out of their skulls.
I hear you, Karma. And it's only gonna get worse as Israelis turn further right (60% in recent polls support building in settlements now after all the bullshite that has gone on.)
ReplyDeleteA lot of it has to do with keeping one's creds in an increasingly far left community. Support Israel and one gets labeled a right winger and Likud supporter. This despite the fact that the Dem party policy remains quite supportive of Israel overall ( aside from the almost insane hatred of the current government.)
Interestingly this broadening of the fringe left into the mainstream has taken place as the fringe right has been marginalized for the most part.
Richard Baehr suggests:
"WHY DOES THE LEFT HATE ISRAEL?
I believe there are several reasons:
1. It is an easy way to express one's hatred for America.
2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.
3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left. Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.
4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land— in other words they feel threatened.
5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.
6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti—Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.
7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists. "
http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/01/why_does_the_left_hate_israel.html