So Bibi has announced a unilateral 10 month "settlement freeze," except in East Jerusalem. Perhaps the proper Palestinian response will be to restart the Kassams? Or the suicide bombing? I can already hear the Israeli hasbara-niks saying, "We announced a settlement freeze, and all we got was terrorism." Good PR for Israel from the master of Israeli PR.
In every generation, Israel needs to sound conciliatory in order to take the diplomatic heat off it. That, dear readers, is why Israel withdrew from Gaza. Not, God forbid, in order to give peace a chance. If that were the reason, then the move would have been negotiated and coordinated with the Palestinian Authority. But Sharon never believed in peace, and he certainly didn't believe in the Arabs. No, he decided to cut and run from Gaza in order to deflect attention from the Geneva Initiative and, more importantly, in order to ease pressure on Israel to cede portions of the West Bank he was not interested in giving up. At least that is what he told the Israelis.
Israel invades, Israel retreats, Israel declares itself a state. All unilateral steps. The important thing is never to acknowledge that there is another side, never take them seriously,never treat them as equals. What the goyyim say is not important; only what Jews do is important. Keep juggling and talking peace in order to keep the world (in this case, Obama) off your back. It's all about hasbara, the medium is the message. Attorney General Mazuz has already said that there is no way to enforce even the partial freeze. "Israbluff" is what they call stuff like that in Israel. Count how many illegal outposts there are today. And come back in ten months and then count.
Only Rabin thought otherwise. And he was shot by a frummie.
You are totaly right. How can anybody (even israeli jews ) disagree with such sensible, reasonable and logical arguments ?
ReplyDeleteI am aware of similar "theories"
( from the white portuguese settlers )to justify the unjustifiable, concerning the african natives of my country's former colonies in Africa. The "others" are non-persons...
If, at least, Palestine was an israeli colony...
Luís
maybe hamas should declare an immediate halt to rocket launches, except on sderot and ashdod.
ReplyDelete"If, at least, Palestine was an israeli colony..."
ReplyDeleteAll the disadvantages of having a colony together with none of the advantages. I guess that's what "chosen people " implies today.
You "progressives" are really losing it lately. I see it in all your blogs, I see it in Yossi Sarid writing in Ha'aretz that "The settlers are not my brothers". Really pathetic. You all thought that there was going to be peace but when the Arabs make it clear there isn't going to be a peace agreement you all start whining and try to find someone else to blame.
ReplyDeleteCome on, your claims that we do everything unilaterally are just plain wrong. The Palestinians were offered a state in 1937 and again in 1947. Israel also made an offer right after the 6-Day War to negotiate. All they did was say "NO" at Khartoum (please don't give me Avi Shlaim's inane view that when they said "No" they really meant "Yes") To all proposals to talk they said a flat "NO" and were not prepared to negotiate as you imply we should have done with them. We didn't unilaterally declare a state...the UN Partition Plan gave us the right to do so and most of the countries of the world recognized Israel in the period following this. Were we supposed to wait until the Palestinians were prepared to talk to us? How long? Decades? Centuries? Benny Morris points out in his book "One State, Two States" that no important Palestinian leaders were prepared to talk to the Zionist leadership.
Now, I can hear you saying "we didn't ask nice enough...we should have said 'can we have a state...pretty please with a cherry on top'"?
Now, it is claimed that the EU or the UN is supposedlly going to give the Palestinians the right to declare a state unilaterally. Are you for that? All it would do is make another big war in which the Palestinians would be the big losers once again.
One of the most pathetic comment to Sarid's column was one that sagreed with him from Kibbutz Ziqim. This guy is really dense. There he is sitting ON LAND 'STOLEN' IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN 1948, two kilometers from the border of the Gaza Strip where the Arabs who owned the land HIS KIBBUTZ IS SITTING ON are languishing and he is ranting about the "settlers" in Judea/Samaria as being the problem. HE IS THE PROBLEM. HE IS THE "SETTLER" as they see it. So is Bernard Avishai, so are you. All are settlers. So am I. It is the existence of the state of Israel which bothers them, regardless of whether it is "reasonable" people like yourself and Yossi Sarid, not "the settlers".
God bless you Jerry for championing the rights of those who cannot do so for themselves.
ReplyDelete