Dion Nissenbaum of McClatchy has the story. Netanyahu/Lieberman seem unwilling to budge on this issue. As even Yossi Alpher (former Mossad agent and respected analyst) notes in the story, their demand that the Palestinian side first recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" is a non-starter, because it completely tosses out the long-standing Palestinian demand (backed up, by the way, by both UN resolutions and international law) for the "right of return" for those refugees driven out in 1947-1948. (And yes, even top Israeli historians - among them the likes of Benny Morris, who now demonizes the Palestinian Arabs - admit that they were indeed driven out, in contrast to the "they-all-left-willingly" version propounded by Israel for decades.) Most obervers agree that there's no way that Israel will ever agree to let these thousands of people (and their descendants, whose rights are also involved) back in, and many Palestinians have accepted that and are willing to agree to some accommodation that at least recognizes the injustices that were done to them and allows at least a token number of Palestinians to return. But in contrast to Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert more recently (both of whom were ready to negotiate on this issue), Netanyahu/Lieberman leave no room at all. A huge step backward. . . and more ammunition for extremist elements who'd abandon any pretense of diplomacy (and, let's be real here, the diplomacy during the Bush years was more pretense and dog-and-pony show than anything else) and take up arms - or suicide-bomb belts - again. And that, truly, would be another huge step backwards.
The ball's in Barack's court.
Comments and Analysis from John Robertson on the Middle East, Central Asia, and U.S. Policy
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2 comments:
Chapter VI Resolutions are nothing but worthless politicized suggestions.
Where is the right of return codified in international law? When was it drafted? And who has signed on? There is no right of return. There is an Arab demand to abuse the only democracy in the Middle East and destroy the Jewish state. Nothing more.
Although millions of refugees have been formed. The Jew haters at the UN decided to create an open ended supply of Arab refugees by labeling descendants, regardless of need as refugees. They are the only group to have this special status. But what is even more annoying is that none of the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians would have been refugees in the first place if they had not chosen war. Arabs that stayed were made full and free citizens of Israel, those that were found on the Arab side were placed into camps. Who should bear the burden of "accommodation"? And who should bear the burden of accommodation of the hundreds of thousands of Jews that fled with their lives from widespread pogroms at the hands of the Arabs? Do these refugees deserve recognition of the injustices done to them too?
Further, Israel offered to patriate 100,000 Arabs immediately and pay restitution for lost private property, but the offer was rejected at Khartoum. Which brings up another serious question. How many Arabs actually lost property? There was very little mulk land held freely. Miri land was owned by the state.
So let's keep it real...real accurate. The Arabs start a war with the Jews, most of them left without ever hearing a shot fired, some were begged to stay as documented in Haifa, then when the dust settled the majority of the refugees sitting outside the Israeli lines are confined to camps by the Arabs instead of accepting their own kind, they whine to the world for pity, then line up with their hands out demanding the world support them (along with an unknown number of other non-refugee free loaders), Jews with real property and businesses are lynched and chased out of the ME, confined to an apartheid like bantustan called Israel, they build a life and a country, we don't hear a word about Arab Palestine because it was named after the Jordan river from lack of any defining history, then suddenly you're an extremist if you don't buy into the fairy tale that the Arabs have been wronged by the jews.
Your ignorance of anything but grossly twisted interpretations of the facts and events is absolutely stupefying. Where do you get some of this stuff? What have you been reading? I pointed this out to you before: you evidently have read little to nothing of the serious, mainstream histories written by acknowledged experts - including Israelis. Or if you have, their views obviously have had no impact on yours (more's the pity). I'm sorry if this sounds elitist to you, or if you felt somehow snubbed - but people who are acknowledged to be experts are recognized as such for a reason: they've often received highly specialized training, they've taught and written about the subject (often over many years), and - very important - they generally try to bring to their analysis and interpretation a sense of balance and nuance, of gray areas, if you will - rather than a manichean perspective underpinned by raw and almost unmitigated prejudice of the most virulent kind. I recommended several such expert historians and commentators (all of them Israeli, as I recall) to you several days ago. Your response was to call me an anti-Semite, and to refer to Neve Gordon (who I never mentioned) as a self-hating Jew, or something to that effect.
You seem to have no regard for international law - and if I thought it would have any effect on your thinking I'd be referring you to the appropriate sources in re the right of return, the illegality of colonizing the West Bank, etc. A number of academic experts on international law have written on just this very subject. But then again, you seem to have no time or regard for experts, so what'd be the point? And you think UN resolutions to be bogus? (Does that include then the 1947 partition resolution - or is it your view that Jewish immigrants ought to have been awarded all of Palestine?) OK then, who makes the rules in your world?
Actually, if you really believe in what you've been writing here, why don't you put together an essay and submit it for publication somewhere? (Or maybe you already have? Can you tell me where I'd find them?) You're obviously an accomplished writer, and you surely have a lot to say.
Much as I might want to engage you further on so much of this, it's obvious that that would be pointless. We're talking past each other. Your mind is obviously closed (actually, extremely hostile) to anything I might have to offer that would in any way violate your mind-set, which seems locked into the view that Palestinian Arabs (well, at least those who are unwilling to accept domination and marginalization by Israel) are anything but vermin to be crushed or exterminated.
You seem, by the way, to have assigned me to a similar mindset with regard to Jews. If you knew anything about me, who I am, who my associates, mentors, colleagues, and good friends have been over the last 40 years, you'd be ashamed for ever having suggested anything so vile of me. You are free, of course, to post your comments to this blog - but I really don't have time to waste on responding if all you want to do is bash Arabs. If all you want to do is bash my views or comments, so be it.
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