blondy

Israel refuses to negotiate over captured soldier

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 11 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle1171398.ece

And why SHOULD he negotiate?

Hamas' 'constitution' says negotiation is a waste of time!

http://www.conceptwizard.com/terror/a1.html

blondy

http://www.pmw.org.il/LatestBulletins.htm#b300506

Palestinian Authority political leaders
advocated kidnapping-for-hostage policy
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - June 27, 2006

The minute Israel negotiates a prisoner release will be the minute Hamas and the Palestinians begin kidnapping Israelis so that they might get ALL of the terrorists released from prison...no matter what deeds they'd committed.

They must not negotiate.

Aardvark

There are over 9000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Not all of them have been tried and convicted in open court. Many have languished for months and years in prisons without charge. Israel allows torture of prisoners under its own prison laws. The officers at Abu Ghraib conceded in one TV interview, never repeated, that Israelis had taught them the techniques they used on the Arab prisoners. The photos of the American servicemen mistreating prisoners reflect the accounts of prisoners held in Israel.

When Israeli settlers commit acts of terrorism, including murdering their own PM, the Israeli press carries little adverse comment (with the exception of Ha'aretz). Many Israeli soldiers and armed settlers commit acts that in other countries would draw opprobium from all quarters, but are accepted as part and parcel of the continuing illegal occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza.

Blondy, you should go and live in the West Bank for a while, as I have done, and you would understand why the Palestinians have opted for Hamas. Fatah tried to work with the Israelis, but the Israeli government cannot provide a partner for peace.

blondy

Aardark,

Your post presents me a unique dilemma. You sound very intelligent and quite credible. Not at all like an easily dismissed or dismissible wild-eyed hate-filled zealot, but more like an earnest and honest, sober individual who is here telling me not what you have read or heard but what you have SEEN or EXPERIENCED, first hand.

And with that I am moved and impressed.

But what does a man do when faced with a seemingly credible eye-witness account of a situation which is diametrically opposed to the dynamics of that situation as he believes them to be?

I could put my own beliefs to a higher standard of proof. But that is easier said than done. Because we are born with a certain BS factor which is refined and tuned with time and life experiences; our own as well as those of others.

And once we reach a certain point in time or experience that standard is unlikely to be refined much more than it already has been.

My standard is that of a man who has done and seen much in life. Among those things have been positions of responsibility where my WORD and my personal judgment have meant the difference in hundreds of thousands of dollars, affected national organizations, touched people beyond those I knew or will ever know and determined whether people would go to jail or walk freely.

In short, I examine information and when I believe a thing and state that belief in public I am prepared to stand on that truth no matter what winds might blow or however hard they might blow. And there indeed have been times when only the strength of the truth itself kept me from ruin or disgrace.

And I'm sure you hold to the same standards.

And that is why I am perplexed.

After coming to this subject 'cold,' that is, with no knowledge or agenda other than the desire to lend my voice to the efforts to achieve peace and if that wasn't possible, then to find out why couldn't peace be reached, I soon discovered it wasn't going to be as easy as simply slapping both sides on the wrist and sending them to their own corners.

That began a semi-regular journey of discovery and research (albeit only on the internet) over two years, so far, to learn what I could about the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What I discovered after a few months is that getting to the heart of the conflict is difficult, and this seems to be due to one side in the conflict continually confusing the facts and distorting the truth.

And the side that was doing this was the Palestinians.

In my experience the party which plays fast and loose with the facts is usually the one which lacks credibility.

But even with that, the Palestinians have a heart wrenching story to tell.

Their land was taken from them to create the State of Israel and now these usurpers have taken control of the Palestinian's land and are treating the Palestinians like animals in a zoo, or worse!

And with the help of the USA the Israelis and their F-16's and tanks and undisclosed A-Bombs and M-16's and billions of dollars of foreign aid they are victimizing the Palestinians who have nothing with which to fight for their freedom but their own bodies which they are forced to use as weapons against a brutal occupying oppressor.

I could go on but we all know the story and have all been moved by the human suffering that goes on in the West bank and Gaza.

And anything that is said by the Israelis, or on their behalf, to contradict or explain the other side of this terribly poignant story isn't nearly as moving. And this may partly be due to a difference in culture or national style, but the Israelis don't seem to use their suffering or the deaths of their citizens in the same way as the Palestinians.

But we shouldn't allow ourselves to be swayed by obvious displays of emotionally loaded images or descriptions when trying to determine the facts of the matter.

And the facts we are looking for are those which can lead to a cessation of hostilities and lead to a separate Palestinian nation.

And the BIGGEST fact I've determined that exists which prevents the Palestinians from getting their own nation is this one thing...

They refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Sure, there are reasons why they don't want to do this, but none of them are controlled by the Israelis. If the Palestinians decided tomorrow that they wanted to recognize Israel, money and assistance and good faith gestures and materials and people would FLOW into the P/A from all over the world to celebrate and help the Palestinians get on their feet.

Much of that help would come from ISRAEL, which has been helping the P/A with financial assistance for years, IIRC and from the USA.

But the Palestinians haven't been able to get around the Koran's instructions which prevents their recognizing Israel and so they remain firm no matter what. And EVERYTHING that the Palestinian people have to go through and are subjected to or must endure goes back to the Koran.

And though Hamas has stated in their 1988 Covenant that there is no possibility of compromise, Arafat was equally intractable on this issue.
We all know his Uncle the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was responsible for recruiting and organizing an Arab division of Nazi SS troops.

So, even though I believe you are sincere and earnest and intelligent, the salient fact here is that the Palestinian leaders, past and present, as well as a majority of the populace are ideologically opposed to peace with Israel and in fact want Israel to be wiped from the map.

Until they want peace, really want peace, more so than they want to kill Israelis, this terrible situation for the Palestinians will get no better,

But rather than looking for the Israelis for relief the Palestinian people must look to their leadership and to each other.

When they are ready, the world will welcome them with open arms and a bounty of every imaginable means, method and manner of support. And as a side benefit, the Palestinian people will be able to live in peace.

Thanks for your reply.

blondy

Aardvark

...but what Palestine will they get? Israel has built settlements in direct contravention of the Fourth Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, a protocol that was written as a direct response to the Nazi concept of lebensraum that allowed the settlement of occupied territories by 'ethnic' Germans following ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinians I have met were concerned that they will never have a viable state. Their olive groves have been uprooted by settlers, settlements have security zones that prevent Palestinians farming their own land, some 'settlements' are the size of small cities (Maale adumim) and the settlers have roads that criss-cross the West Bank and are off limits to Palestinians on pain of death. Without the removal of the settlements there will never be a Palestinian stste. Camp David would have ensured that the new state was surrounded by Israeli territory and had no borders with other nations - the Jordan valley with its kibbutzes and settlements was to be leased back to Israel for 100 years effectively denying the PA a border with Jordan.

The fact that the Israelis reserve the right to invade PA territory at will and deny PA members free movement means that there is little good will.

The world used to insist that Israel return to her 1948 borders. Bush now talks of facts on the ground, effectively ignoring the Geneva Conventions (which he does with Guantanamo Bay etc) and several UN resolutions. The Palestinians are trapped in a nightmare scenario not of their original making. The lack of support for a perceived fair peace from the US has allowed the situation to worsen over decades.

Now the Palestinians see a wall being built entirely on their land, cutting through communities and effectively imprisoning whole towns (Qalqilya) in isolation from their immediate neighbours and the larger world, much like the Nazis created ghettoes in occupied Europe.

I fear militant Islam as much as the Israelis do, but I am afraid that Israel and the USA with their realpolitik have actually caused the problem by exacerbating problems. The US created the Taliban and al-Qaeda to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they supported saddam Hussein against Islamic Iran (a country created after the pre-war US government replaced a democratic government with the Pahlavi dynasty and its dictatorial methods that brought Islam to the fore).

Israel isinward looking. Thre is only one foreign policy - the security of Israel - and it dictates the way they play on teh world stage. Israel does not act like a normal member of the western international community, but acts like the tribal and religious nations that surround it. Israel needs to look at the world through different spectacles. I remember reading an article in The Jerusalem Post where a senior politician talked about dusting off the Israeli application to join the EU (it exists). I cannot see how anybody on the face of the planet believes that Israel can ever join the EU, but some Israelis actually believe that a country with 9000 political prisoners, many of whom have been tortured and many of whom will never be tried, and which illegally occupies another people will be welcomed with open arms.

Israel will never solve the problem unless it either gives the Palestinians unconditional independence in a viable linked state or gives citizenship to the millions of people that it oppresses on a daily basis. The Palestinians had free and fair elections, they have a right to govern themselves, but Israel will not allow the Palestinian people the right to choose a government with which they disagree. This is absurd by all standards. The Israeli position is that the Palestinians may have an election, but only if they choose a government that Israel approves of. No other country in the world, on granting independence, has chosen the government of the newly liberated people. Israel needs to grow up as a nation, instead they withheld the Palestinian's own money from them and have caused a humanitarian crisis that could rival Darfur when food and water runs out.

What is Israel going to do if people under its direct rule start dying of thirst or starvation?

I know it is difficult to trust many Islamic leaders, but actually when they get the power to run their own countries they often lose support and credibility. Oddly Hamas has 2 parts - one is the militant fighters, but the other is a ruthlessly efficient social services system that has allowed the running of schools and hospitals in difficult circumstances.

Israel could have avoided the present situation by welcoming the newly elected government and inviting them to sit down and talk. This would have put the ball firmly in the Hamas court and might have created a split between the young reformers and the Islamic fanatics. I personally think that Hamas would have had to respond positively to a tentative hand of friendship or they would have lost their international support. Sometimes a generous act, given from a position of strength, will yield positive results. Sadly I think Olmert's hawkish posturing might have exacerbated the situation. Most of the young educated Palestinians I met wanted peace, but they didn't want Brooklyn settlers ruining their daily lives.

conan

The Oslo process broke down when Arafat refused to an offer of 98% of the West Bank and Gaza and refused to make a counter-proposal. Clinton and his staff were furious with Arafat, not Israel.



Israelis bought land before 1948; the UN determined that a "Jewish state" should be formed and determined its borders. When five Arab armies invaded Israel, it did seize land left vacant by Arab refugees.
Palestinian behaviour ranges from foolish to barbaric; in one incident, they played football with the heads of dead Israeli soldiers; on 9/11, they were the only people in the world to dance in the streets until told to desist by Arafat. Is it any wonder they are treated like animals in a zoo?

The Palestinians have never signed the Geneva Conventions, and are not likely to. All references to the Geneva Conventions are a symptom of detachment from reality.

The unconditional and unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip presented the Palestinians with an opportunity to establish a self-governing Palestinian state, which could in time expand into the West Bank. What has been the result of the Israeli withdrawal? There has been ongoing strife between Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian Authority is as corrupt and oppressive as any thugocracy, 1000 rockets have been fired into Israel and now a raid into Israel has provoked a counter-attack. Is it not reasonable to conclude that the Palestinians need a padded cell, not a state?

blondy

While it is reasonable to negotiate the differences between two adversaries how much sense does it make to expect meaningful negotiations with an adversary which says negotiation is a waste of time?

How much sense does it make to compromise with an adversary when you know every concession you make just allows the adversary to get closer to it's goal of destroying you?

The area of Gaza where hundreds of rockets are being launched into Israel is the same Gaza which Israel voluntarily withdrew from a little more than a year ago.

You seem to be a reasonable man. I vote that YOU become the new Palestinian leader.

Mikeuk

Only an American would regard this as a 'unique dilemma'

Those of us who don't see the world in terms of black and white expect there to be reasonable people on both sides of a debate.

Sure, most of the really crazy fanatics are on the Palestinian side, but they get support because the Palestinians have legitimate grievances.

Most of the reasonable people are probably there somewhere on the Israeli side, but nobody hears them because the right-wing extremists have controlled Israel for years.

If I were forced to live in that part of the world I would probably choose to live in Israel because it is the nearest approximation to a Western democracy, albeit a very poor approximation.

I respect the feelings of Jews who have relatives in Israel and feel a natural sympathy for their co-religionists. However, I simply cannot understand the attitudes of a lot of Americans and a few (a very few) Englishmen who feel a kind of proxy patriotism for Israel. It's not my country, and I have more Jewish blood in my veins than the pro-Israel jingo gentiles I used to encounter in the Conservative Friends of Israel (of which I was once a member).

'World Holocaust Guilt' does not entitle the Israelis to behave like a bunch of tinpot fascists, although they and their American friends seem to think it does.

Maybe if Americans got about a bit more they would find out why everybody's out of step except them.

blondy

What I've discovered is that the more layers of the onion I peel away the more I see that israel has done every reasonable thing a nation can do to achieve peace without committing suicide. And when every reasonable thing is tried and found to be futile then what do you do?

Would Churchill have been reasonable in giving up Suffolk, Essex and Kent to Hitler in order to achieve peace?

No. That would not have been reasonable at all. Why? Because no matter what some might have believed justified the idea there was no stopping Hitler. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile!

Hitler was committed to conquering England. His previous deceits became clear and his intent was unmistakable.

The Palestinian leadership is committed to conquering Israel. Their previous ploys have become clear and their intent is unmistakable.

Mikeuk

The Jewish National Home in Palestine got off to a very bad start in that territories formerly administered by the Sublime Porte, and containing Muslims, Jews and Christians were arbitrarily turned over to become what became a settler state largely for the benefit of Europeans and Americans of the Jewish religion.

This was an arbitrary, imperialistic, act, for which the British Government of the time bears full responsibility. The residents were never consulted on the move; nor were the Arab leaders who have helped Britain and her allies defeat their overlords.

Given such circumstances is it surprising that many have taken the view that the State of Israel lacks a certain legitimacy?

The answer of course is that Israel is a fait accompli and common humanity demands that Israeli citizens who had no part in the shady wheeling and dealings of the early-mid 20th century must be protected against terrorism and wanton murder.

But as well as humanity, humility is called for. We must try to find a way forward that will satisfy all reasonable international opinion, and that will involve clipping Israel's wings while affording her all due protection.

If Israel and America continue to alienate world opinion there will be no end to the present conflict, and little sympathy when it escalates.