The State of "Palestine" Quiz

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

When Israelis thought there was a chance at peace they voted in left-wing governments that promised to negotiate a peace accord. When terrorism dashed those hopes they voted in right-wing governments promising security. So you went from right in the late '80s with Shamir to left with Rabin and the Oslo accords in the early '90s, then back to the right with Bibi the first time after a wave of Hamas suicide bombings in the mid-'90s and then back to the left with Barack at the end of the '90s beginning of the 00s, then back to the right with Sharon once the second Intifada started....The people I talk to hate the occupation, but they won't support actions to end it if they think it'll put their (or their kid's) lives at risk. In short, it takes two to tango.

That's an incredibly dishonest assessment of the history of the conflict.

Let's just take Oslo as an example. You say that the so-called 'peace process' as it transpired at Oslo was undermined by Hamas suicide bombings?

How about we instead take a look at the reality of what occurred?:

http://www.wrmea.com/component/content/ ... ystem.html

"The U.S. has imposed its wishes so fully that it [Oslo] is universally described as a great achievement for diplomacy," said Chomsky. He described this as both a "very successful power play of U.S. policy" and an "achievement of propaganda that has to be admired."

"The rational way to evaluate whether a compromise was made is to look at the positions of the two sides that allegedly have made the compromises," Chomsky said. "The PLO side has had various ambiguities and internal contradictions, but there's one feature that's been pretty clear for about 20 years, and that's been a broad consensus on some kind of two-state settlement."

The Israeli position since 1968 has been very consistent, according to Chomsky, and is that Israel "should keep parts of the occupied territories, namely, the parts it wants, and it should relinquish the Palestinian population centers because Israel plainly doesn't want the burden of administering them." This vision, clearly spelled out in various Israeli proposals, was later "supplemented with fertile ideas of cantonization—small locally run [Palestinian] sectors separated from one another and surrounded and controlled by Israeli power."

Chomsky pointed out that since the Oslo accords were signed, "settlements have gone up about 10 percent, the land integrated under Israeli control has risen from 65 percent to 75 percent, and the structures of the settlements and the cantons have been instituted." He compared the post-Oslo situation to the apartheid system in South Africa during the 1950s, saying that for the Palestinians "it's not like the end of apartheid, it's like the beginning of it." According to Chomsky, the Oslo accords not only actualized long-standing Israeli goals, but in some ways went further, since they are "more or less the Sharon plan, the extremist position which went well beyond the early [Israeli] proposals."


Origins of the 2nd Intifada:
'The underlying reason is the continuous 30-year Israeli military occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (Oslo Accords) signed in 1993 had raised hope. Palestinians anticipated a state and the end of occupation, but it was constantly delayed while the situation on the ground worsened. Israel expanded settlements and by-pass roads and confiscated more Palestinian property. Israelis continued to demolish homes and to uproot or burn olive and fruit trees, leaving people without sources of income. Checkpoints, closures and other signs of a tighter occupation were imposed; Israeli soldiers detained or turned ambulances back from checkpoints and Israel constantly reduced the number of permits to enter Israel to work. Israeli soldiers humiliated Palestinians at the checkpoints. Frustration, rage and despair mounted as Palestinians' human rights were infringed and their dignity ignored. Many Palestinians became disillusioned with the Oslo Accords and felt betrayed by them.
When Mr. Sharon with about 1000 armed soldiers and police visited the Noble Sanctuary (Haram ash-Sharif), a site sacred to Muslims, on September 28, 2000, it was like throwing a match into a pile of dry tinder. The following day, Palestinians protested and seven were killed by the IDF. This was the immediate reason for the intifada. The underlying conditions that caused the uprising still exist and have been made worse by a siege imposed in early March 2001 isolating cities, towns and villages and by the building of the "Security Fence."


http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e14120.htm
"On September 29th, Ehud Barak put a massive military presence outside the Al Aqsa Mosque, very provocative, when people came out of the Mosque, young people started throwing stones, the Israeli army started shooting, half a dozen people were killed, and it escalated.

The next couple of days -- there was no Palestinian fire at this time -- Israel used U.S. helicopters (Israel produces no helicopters) to attack civilian complexes, killing about a dozen people and wounding several dozen.

Clinton reacted to that on October 3, 2000 by making the biggest deal in a decade -- to send Israel new military helicopters which had just been used for the purpose I described and of course would continue to be.

The U.S. press co-operated with that by refusing to publish the story. To this day, they have not published the fact.

It continued when Bush came in. One of his first acts was to send Israel a new shipment of one of the most advanced military helicopters in the arsenal. That continues right up to a couple of weeks ago with new shipments. You take a look at the reports, from say Jenin, by British correspondents like Peter Beaumont for the London Observer. He says the worst atrocity was the Apache helicopters buzzing around, destroying and demolishing everything.

Now, this is enhancing terror, and we may easily continue. On December 14th, the Security Council tried to pass a resolution calling for what everyone recognized to be the obvious means for reducing terror, namely sending international monitors. That's a way of reducing terror.

This happened to be in the middle of a quiet period, which lasted for about three weeks. The U.S. vetoed it. 10 days before that, there was a meeting at Geneva of the high-contracting parties of the 4th-Geneva convention, which has unanimously held for 35 years that it applies to Israel. The meeting condemned the Israeli settlements as illegal, condemned the list of atrocities -- willful destruction of property, murder, trials, torture.

What happened in that meeting? I'll tell you what happened in that meeting. The U.S. boycotted it. Therefore, the media refused to publish it.

Therefore, no one here knows that the United States once again enhanced terror by refusing to recognize the applicability of conventions which make virtually everything the United States and Israel are doing there a grave breech of the Geneva convention, which is a war crime.

These conventions were established in 1949 in order to criminalize the atrocities of the Nazis in occupied territory. They are customary international law. The United States is obligated, as a high-contracting party, to prosecute violations of those conventions. That means to prosecute its own leadership for the last 25 years. They won't do it unless the population forces them to. And the population won't force them to as long as they don't know it's a fact. And they won't know it's a fact as long as the media and loyal intellectuals keep it secret."


Yosi, can you please explain how uprooting the settlers, fortifying the internationally recognized 1967 borders, with MINOR adjustments, and then fortifying those borders, will put Israeli civilian lives at risk?

polaris_x

yosi wrote:

I haven't seen it yet, but I've read a little bit of the coverage it's gotten. I also agree with you that ultimately it's up to Israel to solve the conflict, and I also don't have faith in the current government. That said, there's a reason that a right wing government is in power. To simplify, the right has won by exploiting security concerns. If you go back to the '90s and look at the governments Israel has had there's a pattern. When Israelis thought there was a chance at peace they voted in left-wing governments that promised to negotiate a peace accord. When terrorism dashed those hopes they voted in right-wing governments promising security. So you went from right in the late '80s with Shamir to left with Rabin and the Oslo accords in the early '90s, then back to the right with Bibi the first time after a wave of Hamas suicide bombings in the mid-'90s and then back to the left with Barack at the end of the '90s beginning of the 00s, then back to the right with Sharon once the second Intifada started. The pattern may not still hold though. I think, unfortunately, that many Israelis have been through so much violence that they've just given up hoping for peace and are content with security. Obviously that's untenable, not least because it leaves the Palestinians totally fucked. My point, though, is that if responsibility for a solution ultimately lies with Israel, there's a lot the Palestinians can do to help convince the Israeli public to put their security on the line again for peace. Cause at the end of the day I think most Israelis have reached the point where security comes first. The people I talk to hate the occupation, but they won't support actions to end it if they think it'll put their (or their kid's) lives at risk. In short, it takes two to tango.

well ... i've stated all along that i do not think this current gov't is interested in peace ... as they are catering to the right wing hardliners and the extremist settlers ... i also think that if peace was within reach - it would be sabotaged ... it may come across as a conspiracy theory but i wouldn't be surprised that there are factions within the powerful in israel that can ensure that there will always be a security threat to israel ... the best situation for those people is to continue to create conflict with the palestinians ..

yosi

Polaris, I'm not sure I'd phrase it as you have, but there are certainly powerful elements in Israel that for a variety of reasons don't want the conflict with the Palestinians to end (or, perhaps more precisely, are prepared to allow it to continue indefinitely rather than make certain necessary concessions for peace). I don't believe, though, that such people are in an inassailable position of power that would allow them to sabotage a peace process no matter what. The key is to convince the Israeli public to demand a meaningful peace process, and to then support it through the inevitable bumps in the road.

B, I'm not going to engage in this debate with you again. Suffice it to say that I'm describing the perspective of the average Israeli voter as I understand it to be. The Israelis majority supported Rabin because they believed that the Oslo process would bring peace. That majority crumbled after a wave of suicide bombings in '96, a pair of them on back to back days in March, including the first two bus bombings in Jerusalem and a bombing right outside the Dizengoff Center in central Tel Aviv, probably the busiest commercial district in the country.

polaris_x

yosi wrote:

Polaris, I'm not sure I'd phrase it as you have, but there are certainly powerful elements in Israel that for a variety of reasons don't want the conflict with the Palestinians to end (or, perhaps more precisely, are prepared to allow it to continue indefinitely rather than make certain necessary concessions for peace). I don't believe, though, that such people are in an inassailable position of power that would allow them to sabotage a peace process no matter what. The key is to convince the Israeli public to demand a meaningful peace process, and to then support it through the inevitable bumps in the road.

the thing is ... if the peace process can be derailed so easily ... and this by no means that i am lessening the impact of suicide bombings and the like ... but, considering all the shit the palestinians have gone through, i would hope israelis would have more resolve in pushing for a peace settlement ...

yosi

polaris_x wrote:

the thing is ... if the peace process can be derailed so easily ... and this by no means that i am lessening the impact of suicide bombings and the like ... but, considering all the shit the palestinians have gone through, i would hope israelis would have more resolve in pushing for a peace settlement ...

I'd hope the same. The problem, as I see it, is that resolve requires trust in the result. Most Israelis have simply lost all trust in the Palestinians. They worry that the Palestinians don't really want a permanent peace, or that those that do aren't powerful/resolved enough to control those that don't. Israelis look at what happened in Gaza and Southern Lebanon (both taken over by groups implacably hostile to Israel that have launched cross border attacks) after they withdrew from those areas, and they worry that the same will occur with the West Bank (only worse, given that the West Bank almost literally sits on top of Israel's major commercial/population centers). That's why I think that a lot rests with the Palestinians. I understand the emotional need to "resist" and accept its legitimacy (though not the immoral tactics often justified as "resistance"), but as I see it what is required is less violent resistance (which destroys trust) and more cooperation to build trust. I'm interested in practical results, and I think (hope) that if Palestinians could regain (and keep) Israeli trust that the Israeli majority will vote in a government willing to make peace. Maybe that's wishful thinking, I don't know.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

B, I'm not going to engage in this debate with you again. Suffice it to say that I'm describing the perspective of the average Israeli voter as I understand it to be. The Israelis majority supported Rabin because they believed that the Oslo process would bring peace. That majority crumbled after a wave of suicide bombings in '96, a pair of them on back to back days in March, including the first two bus bombings in Jerusalem and a bombing right outside the Dizengoff Center in central Tel Aviv, probably the busiest commercial district in the country.

Except that Oslo was never intended to bring peace, but was designed to ensure that Israel could carve up more of the West bank and force the Palestinians to live in isolated enclaves like the cantons in Apartheid South Africa. In the meantime, both during and after the Oslo 'peace process', illegal settlement building skyrocketed. But then I understand it would be convenient for you to ignore that, and place the blame for the Israeli occupation on suicide bombings instead. As if attacks on Israel justify building illegal Jewish-only settlements on land stolen from the Palestinians and placing Israeli citizens in harms way?

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

I'd hope the same. The problem, as I see it, is that resolve requires trust in the result. Most Israelis have simply lost all trust in the Palestinians. They worry that the Palestinians don't really want a permanent peace, or that those that do aren't powerful/resolved enough to control those that don't. Israelis look at what happened in Gaza and Southern Lebanon (both taken over by groups implacably hostile to Israel that have launched cross border attacks) after they withdrew from those areas

Except they didn't withdraw from Gaza. They turned Gaza into a virtual prison after the 2006 elections in which the Palestinians 'voted the wrong way', and the subsequent failed U.S & Israeli backed coup attempt.

But once again it's clearly convenient for you to place the blame for the illegal Israeli occupation on the heads of those people being occupied.

yosi

B, I'm choosing not to engage with your arguments because I've found that engaging with you is almost always pointless. You present extremely one-sided interpretations of events and then insist that they are "the facts" and then you are utterly unwilling to actually discuss the issues. I don't think that I can ever remember you showing even the slightest flexibility in any of the arguments we've had. To me that says that you aren't interested in a discussion and you aren't open to hearing anything that doesn't confirm your preconcieved notions. There's nothing I can do about that, but I can choose not to engage with you any longer.

yosi

Thought this was a really good op-ed in the NY Times last week:

FOR three years, attempts at negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership have failed because of a lack of trust. It now seems highly unlikely that the two sides will return to negotiations — but that does not mean the status quo must be frozen in place.

Israel doesn’t need to wait for a final-status deal with the Palestinians. What it needs is a radically new unilateral approach: It should set the conditions for a territorial compromise based on the principle of two states for two peoples, which is essential for Israel’s future as both a Jewish and a democratic state.

Israel can and must take constructive steps to advance the reality of two states based on the 1967 borders, with land swaps — regardless of whether Palestinian leaders have agreed to accept it. Through a series of unilateral actions, gradual but tangible changes could begin to transform the situation on the ground.

Israel should first declare that it is willing to return to negotiations anytime and that it has no claims of sovereignty on areas east of the existing security barrier. It should then end all settlement construction east of the security barrier and in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. And it should create a plan to help 100,000 settlers who live east of the barrier to relocate within Israel’s recognized borders.

That plan would not take full effect before a peace agreement was in place. But it would allow settlers to prepare for the move and minimize economic disruption. Israel should also enact a voluntary evacuation, compensation and absorption law for settlers east of the fence, so that those who wish can begin relocating before there is an agreement with the Palestinians. According to a survey conducted by the Israeli pollster Rafi Smith, nearly 30 percent of these 100,000 settlers would prefer to accept compensation and quickly relocate within the Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary dividing Israel from the West Bank, or to adjacent settlement blocs that would likely become part of Israel in any land-swap agreement.

Our organization, Blue White Future, holds regular meetings with settlers. We have found that many would move voluntarily if the government renounced its sovereign claims to the West Bank, because they would see no future for themselves there.

Critics will argue that unilateral moves by Israel have been failures — notably the hasty withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which left settlers homeless and allowed Hamas to move into the vacuum and launch rockets into Israel.

But we can learn lessons from those mistakes. Under our proposal, the Israeli Army would remain in the West Bank until the conflict was officially resolved with a final-status agreement. And Israel would not physically force its citizens to leave until an agreement was reached, even though preparations would begin well before such an accord.

We don’t expect the most ideologically motivated settlers to support this plan, since their visions for Israel’s future differ radically from ours. But as a result of our discussions and seminars with settlers of all stripes, we believe that many of them recognize that people with different visions are no less Zionist than they are. We have learned that we must be candid about our proposed plan, discuss the settlers’ concerns and above all not demonize them. They are the ones who would pay the price of being uprooted from their homes and also from their deeply felt mission of settling the land.

The Palestinian Authority has already taken constructive unilateral steps by seeking United Nations recognition as a state and building the institutions of statehood in the West Bank. Neither action contradicted the two-state vision. Although many Israelis and the Obama administration objected to the bid for statehood, it could have moved us closer to that outcome had Israel welcomed it rather than fought it.

After all, Israel could negotiate more easily with a state than with a nonstate entity like the Palestinian Authority. And statehood would undermine the Palestinians’ argument for implementing a right of return for Palestinian refugees, since the refugees would have a state of their own to return to.

Constructive unilateralism would also be in the interest of the United States. If President Obama supported this strategy, he would simply be encouraging actions aimed at facilitating an eventual negotiated agreement based on the parameters proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

We recognize that a comprehensive peace agreement is unattainable right now. We should strive, instead, to establish facts on the ground by beginning to create a two-state reality in the absence of an accord. Imperfect as it is, this plan would reduce tensions and build hope among both Israelis and Palestinians, so that they in turn would press their leaders to obtain a two-state solution.

Most important, as Israel celebrates 64 years of independence later this week, it would let us take our destiny into our own hands and act in our long-term national interest, without blaming the Palestinians for what they do or don’t do.

- Ami Ayalon is a former commander of the Israeli Navy and head of the Israeli domestic security agency. Orni Petruschka is an entrepreneur. Gilead Sher was a peace negotiator and chief of staff to the Israeli prime minister from 1999 to 2001

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

B, I'm choosing not to engage with your arguments because I've found that engaging with you is almost always pointless. You present extremely one-sided interpretations of events and then insist that they are "the facts" and then you are utterly unwilling to actually discuss the issues. I don't think that I can ever remember you showing even the slightest flexibility in any of the arguments we've had. To me that says that you aren't interested in a discussion and you aren't open to hearing anything that doesn't confirm your preconcieved notions. There's nothing I can do about that, but I can choose not to engage with you any longer.

I don't particularly care if you don't respond to me anymore. But I will continue responding to your comments, whether you like it or not. And people can make up their own minds about who to believe.

yosi

My, oh my, your use of italics is so very threatening.

It's actually a little sad that you have no interest in actually talking about this issue, since it clearly means a lot to both of us. That you treat every discussion of Israel-Palestine as some sort of gloves-off grudge match that excludes any possibility of questioning your own positions is, I think, indicative of precisely the sort of mind set that stands in the way of actually achieving peace.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

My, oh my, your use of italics is so very threatening.

It's actually a little sad that you have no interest in actually talking about this issue, since it clearly means a lot to both of us. That you treat every discussion of Israel-Palestine as some sort of gloves-off grudge match that excludes any possibility of questioning your own positions is, I think, indicative of precisely the sort of mind set that stands in the way of actually achieving peace.

Or, alternatively, you could take me out of the equation and actually address the content of my posts?

You claimed above that the obstacle to peace over the past 45 years has been Palestinian violence. I then rubbished that claim and provided evidence to that effect. Your response was that you would now no longer reply to my posts as I have no interest in discussing the topic.

It's really a bit pathetic if you ask me.

Smellyman

yosi wrote:

My, oh my, your use of italics is so very threatening.

It's actually a little sad that you have no interest in actually talking about this issue , since it clearly means a lot to both of us.That you treat every discussion of Israel-Palestine as some sort of gloves-off grudge match that excludes any possibility of questioning your own positions is, I think, indicative of precisely the sort of mind set that stands in the way of actually achieving peace.

ironic

yosi

Yes very ironic. These arguments are pointless. I'm perfectly willing to discuss these issues so long as the person I'm talking to evinces even a little bit of a willingness to engage in open and honest debate, which includes being broad-minded enough to consider the perspective of one's opponent honestly. I have always tried to bring that outlook to these discussions, which is precisely why I don't have a problem agreeing with my opponents on certain points. I rarely see the same openness in the responses I illicit.

You didn't make rubbish of my argument. There was no argument to make rubbish of. I was discussing how Israelis understand events. Even if your version of events were entirely factually accurate, which I don't think they are, that is beside the point. Maybe most Israelis don't understand the true nature of the events going on around them (which I really highly doubt), but that doesn't mean that my depiction of their perspective is inaccurate. If you weren't so caught up in "winning" all the time you may have noticed the distinction before launching into your furious cut and paste antics.

yosi

And where, exactly, did I claim that the obstacle to peace over the last 45 years has been Palestinian violence? I believe that in my response to Polaris I explicitly acknowledged that there are elements in Israel that are not interested in pursuing peace. What I said was that Palestinian violence is an obstacle to peace, not the obstacle to peace. I would think that such a simple statement (violence is an obstacle to peace) would be a truism, but apparently I was wrong. But please, enlighten me. Has there been no Palestinian violence over the last 45 years? Do you believe that launching rockets at school buses and blowing up cafes is the way to achieve peace? I'd really be interested in knowing what you think about that.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

And where, exactly, did I claim that the obstacle to peace over the last 45 years has been Palestinian violence?...What I said was that Palestinian violence is an obstacle to peace, not the obstacle to peace.

Here's what you said. It's pretty unambiguous:

yosi wrote:

When Israelis thought there was a chance at peace they voted in left-wing governments that promised to negotiate a peace accord. When terrorism dashed those hopes they voted in right-wing governments promising security. So you went from right in the late '80s with Shamir to left with Rabin and the Oslo accords in the early '90s, then back to the right with Bibi the first time after a wave of Hamas suicide bombings in the mid-'90s and then back to the left with Barack at the end of the '90s beginning of the 00s, then back to the right with Sharon once the second Intifada started. ...In short, it takes two to tango.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Thought this was a really good op-ed in the NY Times last week:

FOR three years, attempts at negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership have failed because of a lack of trust. It now seems highly unlikely that the two sides will return to negotiations — but that does not mean the status quo must be frozen in place.

Israel doesn’t need to wait for a final-status deal with the Palestinians. What it needs is a radically new unilateral approach: It should set the conditions for a territorial compromise based on the principle of two states for two peoples, which is essential for Israel’s future as both a Jewish and a democratic state.

Israel can and must take constructive steps to advance the reality of two states based on the 1967 borders, with land swaps — regardless of whether Palestinian leaders have agreed to accept it. Through a series of unilateral actions, gradual but tangible changes could begin to transform the situation on the ground.

Israel should first declare that it is willing to return to negotiations anytime and that it has no claims of sovereignty on areas east of the existing security barrier. It should then end all settlement construction east of the security barrier and in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. And it should create a plan to help 100,000 settlers who live east of the barrier to relocate within Israel’s recognized borders.

That plan would not take full effect before a peace agreement was in place. But it would allow settlers to prepare for the move and minimize economic disruption. Israel should also enact a voluntary evacuation, compensation and absorption law for settlers east of the fence, so that those who wish can begin relocating before there is an agreement with the Palestinians. According to a survey conducted by the Israeli pollster Rafi Smith, nearly 30 percent of these 100,000 settlers would prefer to accept compensation and quickly relocate within the Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary dividing Israel from the West Bank, or to adjacent settlement blocs that would likely become part of Israel in any land-swap agreement.

Our organization, Blue White Future, holds regular meetings with settlers. We have found that many would move voluntarily if the government renounced its sovereign claims to the West Bank, because they would see no future for themselves there.

Critics will argue that unilateral moves by Israel have been failures — notably the hasty withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which left settlers homeless and allowed Hamas to move into the vacuum and launch rockets into Israel.

But we can learn lessons from those mistakes. Under our proposal, the Israeli Army would remain in the West Bank until the conflict was officially resolved with a final-status agreement. And Israel would not physically force its citizens to leave until an agreement was reached, even though preparations would begin well before such an accord.

We don’t expect the most ideologically motivated settlers to support this plan, since their visions for Israel’s future differ radically from ours. But as a result of our discussions and seminars with settlers of all stripes, we believe that many of them recognize that people with different visions are no less Zionist than they are. We have learned that we must be candid about our proposed plan, discuss the settlers’ concerns and above all not demonize them. They are the ones who would pay the price of being uprooted from their homes and also from their deeply felt mission of settling the land.

The Palestinian Authority has already taken constructive unilateral steps by seeking United Nations recognition as a state and building the institutions of statehood in the West Bank. Neither action contradicted the two-state vision. Although many Israelis and the Obama administration objected to the bid for statehood, it could have moved us closer to that outcome had Israel welcomed it rather than fought it.

After all, Israel could negotiate more easily with a state than with a nonstate entity like the Palestinian Authority. And statehood would undermine the Palestinians’ argument for implementing a right of return for Palestinian refugees, since the refugees would have a state of their own to return to.

Constructive unilateralism would also be in the interest of the United States. If President Obama supported this strategy, he would simply be encouraging actions aimed at facilitating an eventual negotiated agreement based on the parameters proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

We recognize that a comprehensive peace agreement is unattainable right now. We should strive, instead, to establish facts on the ground by beginning to create a two-state reality in the absence of an accord. Imperfect as it is, this plan would reduce tensions and build hope among both Israelis and Palestinians, so that they in turn would press their leaders to obtain a two-state solution.

Most important, as Israel celebrates 64 years of independence later this week, it would let us take our destiny into our own hands and act in our long-term national interest, without blaming the Palestinians for what they do or don’t do.

- Ami Ayalon is a former commander of the Israeli Navy and head of the Israeli domestic security agency. Orni Petruschka is an entrepreneur. Gilead Sher was a peace negotiator and chief of staff to the Israeli prime minister from 1999 to 2001

Seems like a pretty reasonable assessment, apart from the self-serving and false claim that "withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 [...] allowed Hamas to move into the vacuum and launch rockets into Israel." That's just not what happened.
The repeated claim that the Israeli's magmanimously upped and left Gaza and were then subjected to rocket attacks from the ungrateful and violent Palestinians, is just pure horseshit, as anyone who looks at the historical record will see.

yosi

You're jumping to unwarranted conclusions (as usual). I was simply discussing why many Israelis support a right wing government (in which I personally have no faith). It is a fact that those bombings occured. I wasn't saying that had those bombings not occured there would have been peace (there's no way of knowing what would have happened). I was just saying that the response of the Israeli public to those bombings was to lose faith and trust in the immediate possibility of peace, and to turn to a government further to the right that promised increased security. I actually think that meaning is quite clear from what I wrote. If you could just slow down and actually consider what I'm actually saying (as opposed to what you imagine the zionist monster version of me must be saying) I think you would be able to get my meaning as well.

Now please, I really am curious, how is it that Palestinian violence is not an obstacle to peace?

The Gaza comment isn't horseshit. It's just a different perspective (which you seem to be allergic to). In fact, the comment you quote is factually completely accurate. Israel did withdraw from gaza. Hamas did take over. Rockets were (and are still) launched into Israel. The fact that Israelis interpret these events differently then you do does not, as you claim, make the statements false. I'm ignoring, of course, that you seem to equate interpretation and narrative with factual veracity. In that light, then yes, the statements are false, but only because you disagree with the interpretation being made.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Now please, I really am curious, how is it that Palestinian violence is not an obstacle to peace?

Because Palestinian violence is not a cause of the Israeli occuaption. It is a symptom of the occupation.

yosi wrote:

The Gaza comment isn't horseshit. It's just a different perspective (which you seem to be allergic to). In fact, the comment you quote is factually completely accurate. Israel did withdraw from gaza. Hamas did take over. Rockets were (and are still) launched into Israel.

It's only true if you exclude a large part of what actually transpired at that time, and omit the following facts:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/unpubl ... awal/#ngfc
In a recent study entitled One Big Prison, B’Tselem observes that the crippling economic arrangements Israel has imposed on Gaza will remain in effect. In addition, Israel will continue to maintain absolute control over Gaza’s land borders, coastline and airspace, and the Israeli army will continue to operate in Gaza. “So long as these methods of control remain in Israeli hands,” it concludes, “Israel’s claim of an ‘end of the occupation’ is questionable.”[2]

The respected organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) is yet more emphatic that evacuating troops and Jewish settlements from inside Gaza will not end the occupation: “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery, and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”[3]

The world’s leading authority on the Gaza Strip, Sara Roy of Harvard University, predicts that Gaza will remain “an imprisoned enclave,” while its economy, still totally dependent on Israel after disengagement and in shambles after decades of deliberately ruinous policies by Israel, will actually deteriorate.[4] This conclusion is echoed by the World Bank, which forecasts that, if Israel seals Gaza’s borders or curtails its utilities, the disengagement plan will “create worse hardship than is seen today.”

It also fails to take into account the fact that the Gaza 'disengaement was used as distraction by which large parts of the West Bank could be confiscated in a large escalation of settlement building.

Also, Hamas didn't 'take over', they won a free and fair election.


So, yes, if you exclude all of the above then your quote is indeed 'factually completely accurate'.

yosi

This is an interesting case study in your method. Three simple statements of fact are at issue.
1) Israel withdrew from Gaza. 2) Hamas took over. 3) Rockets were launched into Israel.

You claim that these statements are false, and yet your response doesn't bear that claim out. That's because you aren't actually talking about the veracity of these statements; you're jumping ahead to the argument you imagine will follow these statements.

You don't even try to contest 3 (that rockets were launched into Israel), so I will assume that you aren't so deranged as to contest the accuracy of this statement, and I'll simply move on.

You say that 2 (that Hamas took over) is false, noting that Hamas "won a free and fair election." That's true. It also doesn't show the statement to be in the least bit false. In fact it does the opposite. What does winning an election mean if not that your party "takes over." You are imputing a sinister meaning to the phrase "took over" based on your assumptions about the argument that you think is being implicitly made, and then arguing against your own imputation. However, while we're on the subject, your own account of those "free and fair" elections leaves out the part where Hamas consolidated its power by hog-tying a bunch of their Fatah rivals and threw them off of buildings. But please, go on thinking that Hamas' rule in Gaza is entirely benevolent and legitimate.

Finally, as to 1 (that Israel withdrew from Gaza), you argue that Israel is still "occupying" Gaza because of its actions in closing the borders and controlling movement in and out of the Strip. What you've done is replace one term with another. It's slight of hand. You claim that it's false to say that Israel "withdrew" from Gaza because Israel's subsequent actions somehow perpetuate the "occupation." But the fact remains that there are no longer any settlers in Gaza, nor are there any Israeli soldiers permanently stationed in Gaza. So it seems perfectly reasonable to say that Israel "withdrew" from Gaza. The fact that Israel is still in conflict with Gaza does not falsify the fact that Israel withdrew from the Strip. The very elections you cited, that brought Hamas to power, are proof of Israel's withdrawal. If the IDF hadn't been withdrawn from Gaza there is no way that Hamas would be allowed to openly function as the ruling government in Gaza. And yet they do. More to the point, from the Israeli perspective; if the IDF hadn't been withdrawn from Gaza thousands of rockets wouldn't have been fired into Israel, because the IDF would have been there to prevent there firing. In short, the fact that you vehemently disagree with Israel's actions vis-a-vis Gaza post-withdrawal doesn't falsify the fact of withdrawal itself.

Basically you're imagining arguments that may or may not follow from these simple, factually accurate statements, and then, essentially, you're arguing with yourself. More importantly, you are so caught up in insisting that your own interpretation of events is the only possible, legitimate way of viewing things that you are claiming that simple, factually true statements are false based on the arguments you imagine will follow. That says something about your standard for "truth" (i.e. that things are only true if they support the interpretation you have adopted).

Finally, whether Palestinian violence is or is not a symptom of the occupation (I think the history shows pretty conclusively that it is not, since it predates the occupation by decades) has nothing to do with whether or not it's an obstacle to peace. Since Israelis will only be willing to end the occupation if they believe that doing so will bring them peace, and since Palestinian violence undermines this belief among Israelis, Palestinian violence is an obstacle to peace. Q.E.D. Thus, it can be both a symptom of the occupation and an obstacle to peace.

But again, my bad. I know logic has no place intruding on irrationally one-sided righteous anger.