The tidbit below was written by Evelyn Gordon and published by Commentary:
For the second time in two weeks, France has proven itself the most serious foreign-policy player the West currently has. First, it thwarted an abysmal nuclear deal with Iran. Now, it’s come up with the most creative idea for advancing Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy that I’ve heard in years.The point of Gordon's article is to emphasize the fact that if they truly wanted to create an atmosphere conducive toward ending the long Arab war against the Jews of the Middle East, western leaders need to pressure not only Israel, but the Arabs, as well. Of course, Gordon also recognizes that Hollande's initiative won't bring peace, either, because the local Arabs refuse to make any concessions, period.
Speaking in Ramallah yesterday, French President Francois Hollande essentially told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the following: You think Israeli settlement construction is destroying prospects for a two-state solution, and therefore want it halted. I agree. But the Israelis think these prospects are being destroyed by your demand to relocate millions of Palestinians to Israel (aka the “right of return”). So why not trade concessions on the right of return for a settlement freeze?
Furthermore, she writes:
Abbas told Hollande he has no authority to deviate from the Arab League’s stance on the refugees, begging the obvious question of what the point of the current talks are if he has no power to actually negotiate.This neatly suggests something that I have been trying to emphasize for a long time, now. The reason that dictator Abbas is not free to actually negotiate is because the conflict is not between the Jews of the Middle East, as represented by the State of Israel, and some local Arab entity, but between the Jews of the Middle East and the vast Arab world that refuses to accept Jewish sovereignty within the tiny Jewish homeland. The Jews lived as a despised, persecuted minority for thirteen hundred years under Arab imperial rule, yet the Arab governments won't even go so far as to acknowledge the history of that persecution.
Nevertheless, the French proposal at least acknowledges the obvious fact that peace requires concessions by both sides, not just one. And that is a necessary first step. For as long as the world keeps pandering to Palestinian rejectionism by not demanding any concessions, as the Obama administration has, the Palestinians will never have an incentive to make any.
Can you imagine if the United States refused to even acknowledge the history of African slavery in the Americas? That is, essentially, what we are facing. Of course, the reason that they can get away with that is because the west, including western Jewry, is overly squeamish about criticizing the Arab world, particularly if it concerns Islam, which this issue most obviously does. In effect, we are erasing thirteen hundred years of Jewish history so as not to discomfort our former masters. This is how craven western Jewish discourse is on the topic of the long war.
Nonetheless, it is a step in the right direction to see a western leader recognize that everything is not always and forever up to Israel and that sometimes, perhaps, the so-called "Palestinians" should also be pressured to make concessions if we ever possibly want to see peace between the great Arab majority in the Middle East and the tiny Jewish minority there.
Gordon further noted that this too was of course pointless and would lead nowhere. Arabs have never been and will never express anything but utterly 100% maximalist demands 100% of the time. They only have two speeds, extermination of the vanquished and glorious defeat. We're never going to hand them the former so we may as well bash their heads in on the latter. We talk a lot about Arab racist hate and hardwired antisemitic genocidal fantasies and that's all well and good and probably true much of the time. But lots of peoples and countries hate the Jews. Mostly they grumble whine and scratch out complaints on liberal blogs. They know we're not going to disappear. They like being unpleasant nasty little racist trolls. But what Israel is confronted with, and by extension all of the rest of us, is a completely Manichean world view - There is either absolute victory or disastrous failure and in either case they get to sing songs and tells stories of glory and gore.
ReplyDeleteConceding anything to them is weakness. And were they even to pretend to occasionally agree to a single tiny demand it's all silly because their goals are always and forever 100% the end of Israel and the end of all Jews. Death or Glory. We don't have to understand it most in the west don't. We have to appreciate it. So Gordon's is about all of 'us' outside of it. Israel could extend any sort of rational concession to them and often in the past has. It's meant nothing. In fact if you want to end all talks with Arabs simply agree to one of their demands. They walk away. They've won that round until they are begged to come back to make more demands. If they agree on paper to anything subsequent to that, it's all of a set piece of lies and tactics once again heroically defended by the teachings of Mohammed.
Trudy, I have to say, I very much respect your intelligence, but you are certainly among the most hard-line people to have participated here, with the possible exception of ZionTruth.
DeleteHere is my question:
At certain points your views must have changed on the conflict as you have watched it unfold over the years. Those of us with political flexibility tend to have moments in which we are nudged in a different direction. For me, one of those moments was the Mavi Marmara incident. Another was when I went to an anti-Iraq War rally in San Francisco's Civic Center and found myself staring up at a banner with a Shield of David entwined with a Nazi Swastika.
That was my last "peace" rally.
Will you share some such moments for yourself?
My response was too long so I posted it as an article.
DeleteFact is, a huge part of Arab culture, especially Palestinian culture would have to change before any real peace could be reached. The odds? Miniscule.
ReplyDeleteGoing further, another culture, that of Palestinian activists/supporters, could do with some changes to as outlined in Elder of Ziyon's reportage on "SFSU "MY HEROES KILL COLONIZERS" followup: President wimps out, haters double down ..."
ReplyDeletehttp://elderofziyon.blogspot.ca/2013/11/sfsu-my-heroes-kill-colonizers-followup.html#.Uo0cvycmWDE
Their mental gymnastics to support violence and terrorists like Leila Khaled is beyond belief; yet they and their kind BELIEVE they are in the right.
That's my alma mater.
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