US dusting off old Arab Peace Proposal, ignored for 11 years

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

New developments....

Netanyahu worried Kerry drifting toward Arab League stance on two-state solution

The Arab League declared it will allow small shifts in Israel's 1967 border as part of its Mideast peace plan.

By Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury | May.02, 2013 | 8:00 AM | 44

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem April 9, 2013. Photo by Reuters

The Arab League leaders led by Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, from fourth from left, with Secretary of State John Kerry Photo by AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides fear that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will accept the Arab League definition of the borders for a Palestinian state and the principle of territorial exchanges.

Netanyahu and his advisers believe the Arab League declaration could undermine Israel’s position in negotiations with the Palestinians, according to an Israeli source familiar with talks held in the past two days.

On Monday, the Arab League endorsed a Mideast peace plan that would allow for small shifts in Israel’s 1967 border, moving it closer to the two-state concept endorsed by U.S. President Barack Obama.

“The prime minister’s advisers are not keen about the Arab League’s announcement,” the source said. “Netanyahu and his advisers believe it would have been better had this announcement not been made.”

The source said that while the aides acknowledge positive parts of the Arab League’s announcement, such as the desire to renew the peace process, they see more disadvantages in it than opportunities.

Netanyahu and his aides’ objections result from the emphasis in the Arab announcement that they are willing to endorse “small shifts” in Israel’s 1967 borders, by means of “minimal” land swaps of identical size.

In recent years the Palestinians have said they were ready to exchange 1.9 percent of the West Bank’s area.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said they were willing to accept land swaps of 6-10 percent of the West Bank’s area. That would allow Israel to retain many more settlements than the smaller land exchange the Palestinians favor.

The American administration’s position, expressed in Obama’s speech in May 2011, is that the Palestinian state’s borders must be based on the ‘67 borders with territorial exchanges, without mention of their size.

A few days later Obama added that the Palestinian state’s borders must take into account the changes made since 1967, i.e. the large settlement blocs.

The Israeli source said Netanyahu and his aides see the Arab League’s declaration as a “trick” that could determine opening terms for negotiations that would be bad for Israel.

The fact that Kerry stood beside Qatar’s prime minister while he was reading the announcement increased Netanyahu’s aides’ suspicions toward Kerry.

“Netanyahu and his advisers aren’t sure where Kerry is going and where he stands regarding the Arab announcement,” he said.

Netanyahu’s aides fear Kerry’s news conference with the Arab League representatives could mark a drift in the American position on the Palestinian state’s borders and land swaps, moving it toward the Arab position of “small” border shifts and minimal land swaps of identical size.

...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/source-netanyahu-worried-kerry-drifting-toward-arab-league-stance-on-two-state-solution.premium-1.518705#

and....

Livni flies to Washington for talks with Kerry on Arab League proposal for Palestinian state Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy Isaac Molho also taking part in meeting with Kerry; Haaretz reported earlier that Netanyahu and his aides fear Kerry will accept the definition of the borders for a Palestinian state and the principle of territorial exchanges.

By Barak Ravid | 13:40 02.05.13 | 25

Amid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reservations concerning the Arab League's stance on the borders of a future Palestinian state, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and special envoy Isaac Molho arrived in Washington on Thursday for a lightning visit of just a few hours to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry.

...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/livni-flies-to-washington-for-talks-with-kerry-on-arab-league-proposal-for-palestinian-state.premium-1.518820

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

So.... Kerry pulls out the Arab Peace Initiative, which specifically says 1967 borders, and now the Arab League states that small border adjustments agreed to by both sides are acceptable under the plan.

Kerry stands next to Qatar's prime minister as he reads the new announcement.

(Don't forget that Qatar is an important regional US military partner, as well as crucial in funneling money and weapons to Syria's rebels.)

Small border adjustments are actually not a new idea - as we know from the Palestine Papers, the PA already agreed to make major border adjustments back in 2010 - in fact, agreeing to cede most of the settlement blocs to Israel. It was Tzipi Livni who personally rebuffed the offer, and specifically over East Jerusalem, which she insisted was not even to be discussed in any peace negotiations.

So now, Livni has hurried over to Washington on a sudden urgent mission today.

[Karee 4,191]

My money is on Israel getting what they want. Totally unfair of course, but if history is any guide, Israel pretty much always gets what it wants from the U.S.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

My money is on Israel getting what they want. Totally unfair of course, but if history is any guide, Israel pretty much always gets what it wants from the U.S.

Israel is the Red China of the Middle East.

The Big Story Out of Herzliya Might Be About China and Israeli Drones

This year the big keynote address came from Benny Gantz, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. But it wasnt his speech that will make waves but perhaps the attendance of a certain Chinese Communist Party research fellow.

The key theme from the man in charge of Israels military was that in the future Israel would have to be prepared to send its army into the tunnels of Gaza, into the foxholes and the villages. Israel cannot be content, Gantz said, to play videogamesa clear reference to drones, the preferred method of fighting terrorism for the United States. As for Iran, Gantz told the audience that he preferred not to get into specifics.

---

One name on that panel stands out: Liang Yabin, a research fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Liang is not the first Chinese citizen to attend Herzliya, but he is the only one to attend from what is known in Beijing as the Party School. The communist part is no joke, eitherhis business card features a Soviet-style hammer and sickle in red.

Liang traveled to Israel through a program with SIGNAL, the Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership. The founder and executive director of the organization, Carice Witte, an Israeli, says SIGNAL is aimed at reaching out to the elite think tanks and universities in China that produce the analysts and advisers to Chinas top leaders. Witte was particularly excited about getting someone from the Party School, as the last head of that school was Li Keqiang, the incoming Chinese premier.

Witte stressed that the organization was primarily interested in improving Sino-Israeli academic and economic ties, not in rekindling Israels defense relationship with China from the 1990s.

That relationship landed Israel in a bit of hot water with its most important ally, the United States. Under U.S. pressure in 2000, Israel had to cancel the sale of a high tech radar plane known as the Phalcon to China because the Pentagon believed the sale would provide Beijing with sensitive U.S. defense technology. The Israelis sold a similar system a few years later to Chinas chief rival, India. As one might imagine, this reversal angered the Chinese who, according to Witte, cooled diplomatic ties with Israel in retaliation for the canceled arms deal.

To be sure, Liang said he was interested in talking academics and foreign policy on his visit to Israel. But when asked what China hoped to get out of the relationship with Israel, his first response was, Unmanned spy planes, that is what we want to get. He then explained that he had heard Israel had developed a technology that could break through physical walls, though he did not elaborate further.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/12/the-big-story-out-of-herzliya-might-be-about-china-and-israeli-drones.html

Edited May 2, 2013 by The Patriot

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

My money is on Israel getting what they want. Totally unfair of course, but if history is any guide, Israel pretty much always gets what it wants from the U.S.

Well, not always. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, even George H. Bush all opposed Israeli policies and managed to reverse some of them.

Of course Carter and Bush paid a heavy political price for defying The Lobby. And its influence has gotten even more powerful in the last 2 decades. This is the basic problem - the way AIPAC and its satellites have imbedded themselves into the US political process to advance Israeli government policy.

The Zionist goal has not changed since the earliest days in Palestine: to take the entire territory between the river and the sea (and squeezing out as much of the non-Jewish population as possible.) And every Israeli government has done its part to advance that goal.

“After we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine”.

- David Ben-Gurion, 1938

“The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognised. The signature of institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel, All of it. And forever”.”

- Menachem Begin, 1948

"We'll make a pastrami sandwich out of them," he replied. "We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."

- Ariel Sharon, 1973

They're not opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state per se - just not in Palestine. Perhaps it could be on the moon....

So the whole 2-state solution thing is just a charade - it's a fig leaf for Israel to continue its dispossession of the Palestinians while "regretfully" giving excuse after excuse as to why it "can't" negotiate a final settlement. It comes down to this: Israel is not willing to agree to anything resembling a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. And the Palestinians will not agree to anything less than a viable state. So it's better to just get this charade over with.

This road that Israel insists on continuing will inevitably lead to a single state. Unfortunately for Israel, this state will contain roughly equal numbers of Jews and non-Jews within the territory of Israel's control (unless it figures out an "acceptible" way to do another round of ethnic cleansing, on a scale much greater than the Nakba.) Actually, this is the status quo right now, with all the people under Israel's control, but subjected to an Apartheid system of rights based on their ethnicity.

When the fig leaf of the 2-state solution crumbles, then it's just a matter of time before the Apartheid system crumbles, and we progress to a true democracy - one state with equal rights for all. But of course it also means the end of the Zionist State.

The settlements are Israel's crack. Like all crackheads, it is hoplessly addicted to the substance that is killing it, but unable to stop without outside intervention. Run di riddim....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5E5rkQAY1I

[OriZ 3,157]

It's not going to happen. plain and simple. Time and time again I see it being repeated here: 'eventually Israel will have no choice and there will be one state with equal rights for all imposed on it' basically. This is based on two flawed assumptions;

1. Israel does NOT actually want a Palestinian state. Fact - over 70% of Israelis support a Palestinian state. And despite some government policies some of them want it too(it's called negotiating).

2. Eventually the world will get tired of BOTH sides making no progress and force ONE side into something completely unacceptable. Never will that happen so don't put your money on it.

Meanwhile, back in the reality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict...

RAMAT GAN, Israel — In his short life, Palestinian toddler Mohammed al-Farra has known just one home: the yellow-painted children’s ward in Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital.

Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed’s hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3 ½-year-old carts about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won’t pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.

“There’s no care for this child in Gaza, there’s no home in Gaza where he can live,” said the grandfather, Hamouda al-Farra.

“He can’t open anything by himself, he can’t eat or take down his pants. His life is zero without help,” he said at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, part of the Tel Hashomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan.

Mohammed’s plight is an extreme example of the harsh treatment some families mete to the disabled, particularly in the more tribal-dominated corners of the Gaza Strip, even as Palestinians make strides in combatting such attitudes.

It also demonstrates a costly legacy of Gaza’s strongly patriarchal culture that prods women into first-cousin marriages and allows polygamy, while rendering mothers powerless over their children’s fate.

Mohammed was rushed to Israel as a newborn for emergency treatment. His genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, doctors say, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.

In the midst of his treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn’t leave the baby and return to their home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, al-Farra said. In Gaza, polygamy is permitted but isn’t common. But it’s a powerful threat to women fearful of competing against newer wives.

Now Mohammed spends his days undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs.

His 55-year-old grandfather cares for him. Mohammed’s Israeli doctors, who’ve grown attached to the boy, fundraise to cover his bills, allowing him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.

But it’s not clear how long he’ll stay in the hospital, or where he’ll go when his treatment is complete. As a Palestinian, Mohammed is not eligible for permanent Israeli residency. Yet his family will not take the child back, the grandfather said. His parents, contacted by The Associated Press, refused to comment.

As his grandfather spoke, Mohammed used his knees and elbows to scamper up and down a nearby stairwell, his knees and elbows blackened and scarred from constant pressure. He used his arms to hold a green bottle he found in a stroller. His prosthetic legs with painted-on shoes were strewn nearby.

He crawled toward his grandfather’s lap. “Baba!” he shouted, Arabic for “daddy.” ‘’Ana ayef,” he said — a mix of Arabic and Hebrew for “I’m tired.”

Dr. Raz Somech, the senior physician in the Tel Hashomer pediatric immunology department, attributes Mohammed’s genetic disorder to the several generations of cousin marriages in his family — including his parents.

In deeply patriarchal parts of Gaza — not in all the territory — men believe they have “first rights” to wed their female cousins, even above the women’s own wishes. Parents approve the partnerships because it strengthens family bonds and ensures inheritances don’t leave the tribe.

Repeated generations of cousin marriages complicate blood ties. It’s not clear what affect that has had on disability rates in Gaza; but Somech said a third of patients in his department are Palestinians and most have genetic diseases that were the result of close-relation marriages.

Further worsening the situation, disabled children are often stigmatized.

Some families hide the children, fearing they won’t be able to marry off their able-bodied children if the community knows of their less-abled siblings. And they are seen as burdens in the impoverished territory.

Some 183,600 Gaza residents — or 10.8 percent of the 1.7 million Gazans — suffer some kind of disability that affects their mental health, eyesight, hearing or mobility. Some 40,800 people suffer severe disability, the Palestinian bureau of statistics reported in 2011.

According to the bureau, two thirds of young disabled Gazans are illiterate and some 40 percent were never sent to school, suggesting either their parents kept them home or did not have the means to educate them — a likely scenario in the territory, where about two-thirds of the population live under the poverty line. Over 90 percent of the disabled are unemployed, the bureau said.

Yet attitudes have been changing in Gaza.

Activist Eid Shaboura said Mohammed’s case is “extreme.”

“There’s been a lot of progress. It’s changing now, but of course, not to the level we want.”

There are greater efforts, by about 10 aid groups in Gaza, to increase opportunities for the disabled. Hearing-impaired Palestinians make boutique products in a Gaza center, “Atfaluna,” Arabic for “Our Children.” This year they opened a restaurant run by the hearing-impaired, further raising their visibility.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers have also pushed the issue in recent years. Their matchmakers have helped marry off sight-impaired single men with brides and cover wedding costs. Wheelchair-bound Palestinian fighters wounded in battle are honored in military parades.

The hospital that is Mohammed’s home is a rare meeting ground for Israelis and Palestinians. With Gaza’s medical system often overwhelmed, patients often receive permits to receive treatment in Israel.

A generation ago, thousands of Palestinians, including Mohammed’s grandfather, worked in Israel. But Israel began restricting Palestinian movement over years of flaring violence, particularly since the militant group Hamas seized power of the coastal territory in 2007.

On a recent day at the children’s hospital, patients and medics chatted in Hebrew and Arabic. Women in Muslim headscarves strolled in a corridor. An Orthodox Jewish woman affectionately patted Mohammed on his head. She nodded kindly at al-Farra.

Doctors’ fundraising has covered Mohammed’s years of treatment, Somech said. One donor provided $28,000 for Mohammed’s prosthetics.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is supposed to fund transfers to Israeli hospitals. But it stopped covering Mohammed’s bills six months after he arrived, Somech said. Palestinian health official Fathi al-Hajj said there was no record of the case.

There has been a growing number of cases where the Palestinian Authority stopped paying for patients because of its budgetary problems, Mor Efrat of rights group Physicians for Human Rights said.

Al-Farra said he stepped in to care for Mohammed to save his daughter’s marriage. He sleeps beside Mohammed and ensures he’s clean and fed.

“Taking care of this child is a good deed,” he said.

But after years of caring for Mohammed, his grandfather said he wants to go home. He wished he could find a foster home or caregiver for Mohammed.

“He needs many things in his life,” al-Farra said, absentmindedly massaging Mohammed’s arm stump as the toddler rested on his lap. “He needs a home.”

_

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/abandoned-by-parents-disabled-gaza-baby-lives-with-grandfather-in-israeli-hospital/2013/05/03/b5f8667a-b3ba-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

This heartbreaking story is just one example of the reality behind the conflict which includes alot more co-existance than conflict, including many times settlers and Palestinians who are close friends. And Israeli hospitals play an important role in this

http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-hospital-assists-needy-palestinian-children/

[Karee 4,191]

It's not going to happen. plain and simple. Time and time again I see it being repeated here: 'eventually Israel will have no choice and there will be one state with equal rights for all imposed on it' basically. This is based on two flawed assumptions;

1. Israel does NOT actually want a Palestinian state. Fact - over 70% of Israelis support a Palestinian state. And despite some government policies some of them want it too(it's called negotiating).

2. Eventually the world will get tired of BOTH sides making no progress and force ONE side into something completely unacceptable. Never will that happen so don't put your money on it.

Meanwhile, back in the reality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/abandoned-by-parents-disabled-gaza-baby-lives-with-grandfather-in-israeli-hospital/2013/05/03/b5f8667a-b3ba-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

This heartbreaking story is just one example of the reality behind the conflict which includes alot more co-existance than conflict, including many times settlers and Palestinians who are close friends. And Israeli hospitals play an important role in this

http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-hospital-assists-needy-palestinian-children/

Where's the IDF or Likud in all this? I'm surprised the Israeli govt. is charging these folks with treason for aiding and abetting the enemy.

[Karee 4,191]

Where's the IDF or Likud in all this? I'm surprised the Israeli govt. is isn't charging these folks with treason for aiding and abetting the enemy.

Fixed.

[OriZ 3,157]

That's the common misconception. This was just one case, one example, but I can give you many. And the Israeli govt not only does not prevent it, but if you read the second link this is what it says:

"

She “went around Jerusalem looking for a hospital that would take the children, until she “met a pastor who said that he knew of a hospital that has great compassion.” One month after that date, the Israeli authorities saw to it that the “Rescue the Child” program was approved, in place, and coordinated with the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center.

Yes, there is a conflict. Yes, there are horrible things being done on both sides. Yes, the Israeli govt has its share of the blame, and yes there are many policies in Israel that I do not agree with, not just foreign but internal(economic etc). But at the end of the day, it's people that for the most part live together, including like I said in many cases settlers and residents of the west bank who are best of friends. Just as there have been many atrocities committed by say certain soldiers in checkpoints etc, I can also show you many instances where they helped Palestinians in need. Israelis and Palestinians have lived together for so long that neither side would know what to do without the other by now. They need each other more than they know, and they have alot in common.

[sandinista! 1,816]

Using disabled children to push bigotry against Arabs living in the open air prison that is Gaza is one of the sh1ttier things I've seen here in awhile.

Do you have a clue how many disabled children are horrifically abused in unimaginable ways every day, just in this country?

[sandinista! 1,816]

What Happened to Hassan

Hassan, an 8-year-old Gazan boy, could consider himself lucky. Last year, thanks to his serious illness, Israel let him in to be treated in a Tel Aviv hospital. Israel boasts of its generosity: after four decades of occupation, which has left Gaza's hospitals on a Third World level, followed by years of siege, which has exhausted the little equipment and medicine arsenal those wretched hospitals had acquired, Israel grants treatment to a small number of mostly terminal Palestinian patients, provided the full cost is paid by the Palestinian National Authority. How very generous indeed.

Since every Arab is a terrorist until the opposite is proven, Israel lets at best just one adult, usually a woman, accompany a sick child into Israel. Hassan's mother could go with him. But no Palestinian vehicles are allowed in. Having crossed the checkpoint into Israel, how would the ill child and his mother make the 45 miles to Tel Aviv? Public transport is unfeasible; a taxi or an ambulance is unaffordable.

A solution is offered by a small network of volunteer drivers, Israelis who take Palestinian patients to Israeli hospitals and then back to the checkpoints in Gaza or the West Bank. Many Israelis label these people "Arab lovers" or worse. That's how friends of mine got to know Hassan and his mother, about a year ago. Hassan was diagnosed and treated in Tel Aviv on an outpatient basis and had to be driven back and forth. My friends would pick up Hassan early in the morning, take him to hospital, wait outside till he was finished, and then take him back to the checkpoint. A whole day off. But they earned new friends. Gazans, but humans.

Hassan's illness got worse and worse. Three months ago, with the hospitals in Gaza having only painkillers to offer, Hassan was permanently hospitalized in Tel Aviv. His mother stayed day and night at his bed: first, because Palestinians seem to love their children too, second, because she had to leave her ID card at the hospital, so that she could not get out anyway. She spent months around the clock in the hospital with her ill son.

The doctors recommended bone-marrow implantation. Hassan's four brothers were allowed in for one day, to check their compatibility as donors. But where would they stay the night? My friends offered them a bed. Realizing the four teenagers had never seen anything but the Gaza Strip, my friends did their best to give them a taste of life in Tel Aviv. After 24 hours they returned to Gaza; none of them could be used as donor.

The last hope was Hassan's married aunt, but her husband wouldn't let her go. When he was finally persuaded, it was too late. The war broke out.

About 80 percent of Gaza's residents are refugee families who were driven out of Israel in and after 1948. Hassan's family belongs to the small minority of original Gazan families. They own a house. After the first day of the war all the windows and doors were gone, thanks to Israel's surgical bombing. Hassan's sister was injured: a deep, bleeding cut in her leg. Her father took her to the nearby hospital, behind which dozens of corpses lay in the open air. They poked fun at her slight injury and sent her home.

A week later, the terrified father and Hassan's five siblings were pushed into a single room. The rest of their home was ruined. Yet another surgical bombing. Their text message to my friends sounded like a farewell, and not just because they had no electricity to charge their cell phone.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Hassan's condition deteriorated. His mother, at her dying son's bed, followed the horrors in Gaza on the phone, fearing the Israeli bombings, which targeted cellular antennas as well, would break the little communication left with her bombed family. Her favorite doctor was taken to the army. I never met Hassan or his mother, but I could see their horror and despair, on both fronts, reflected in my friend's sleepless eyes.

In the second week of the war, Hassan, 9 years old by now, passed away. It took several hours to arrange an ambulance to take the bereaved mother and Hassan's body back to Gaza, hoping they would not be bombed there. They entered the Strip shortly before the "humanitarian pause" was over; the ambulance refused to take them home. Hassan's mother left her little luggage behind including some expensive medicines for her brother, unattainable in Gaza and paid for by my friends and walked the last mile home, carrying her dead son in her arms. Hassan was buried the same day.

Now the family could now go back to "normal." The last room left of their house had collapsed, so they moved in with relatives. Another bombing took the life of close friends of theirs, a couple with two young children. One of Hassan's uncles was injured, my friends failed to understand how seriously.

Ten days later a cease-fire was announced. Hassan's family returned to what was left of their home. Like most of their belongings, the fridge too is badly damaged, but there is little electricity anyway. Hassan's mother is physically and mentally exhausted. Her doctor tells her to rest a lot and avoid stress. Sure thing.

This is a true story, but a very unusual one. There are virtually no contacts between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has been doing all it can to prevent such contacts: they jeopardize the national project of dehumanizing the Palestinians. We must dehumanize them, otherwise we won't be able to teach them a lesson they won't forget (experts call it "deterrence"). And we must teach them a lesson they won't forget, in order to prove that they never learn, so that yet another lesson is necessary. Someone has to keep the weapon industry running, and Israel has really tried every possible way to reach peace (except ending the occupation).

So here we are now: a bereaved family in a ruined house in Gaza and an Israeli family in Tel Aviv who have almost become one family through Hassan's illness and death. They phone each other daily, hoping to meet again soon. Will they see each other again not just soon, but ever? The answer is no. Not as long as Israel's apartheid regime is in place. Israel does not allow its civilian citizens to enter Gaza, under any circumstances whatsoever. And Gazans are not allowed to enter Israel, unless they are lucky enough to be dying.

http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=14155

[Karee 4,191]

I think I get it now.

1. Destroy all hospitals in the occupied territories.

2. Make it near impossible to buy medicine (or anything for that matter) from any outside source without Israeli govt. approval.

3. Hold back all Palestinian funds from the Palestinian govt. duties so they can't buy medicine or anything required for basic healthcare.

4. Help out some kid so we can show the world what compassionate people we are.

So basically create a horrible situation for an entire people, and then try to show the world how wonderful you are by saving some kid from the horrible conditions you yourself have created.

Got it now. It reminds me of Kin Jong Un showing the world what a great person he is by releasing some random foreigner that he has imprisoned on trumped up charges.

Edited May 4, 2013 by Karee

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

It's not going to happen. plain and simple. Time and time again I see it being repeated here: 'eventually Israel will have no choice and there will be one state with equal rights for all imposed on it' basically. This is based on two flawed assumptions;

1. Israel does NOT actually want a Palestinian state. Fact - over 70% of Israelis support a Palestinian state. And despite some government policies some of them want it too(it's called negotiating).

2. Eventually the world will get tired of BOTH sides making no progress and force ONE side into something completely unacceptable. Never will that happen so don't put your money on it.

Meanwhile, back in the reality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/abandoned-by-parents-disabled-gaza-baby-lives-with-grandfather-in-israeli-hospital/2013/05/03/b5f8667a-b3ba-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

This heartbreaking story is just one example of the reality behind the conflict which includes alot more co-existance than conflict, including many times settlers and Palestinians who are close friends. And Israeli hospitals play an important role in this

http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-hospital-assists-needy-palestinian-children/

1. What most Israelis want is the same thing the Israeli government wants - maximum land under Israeli control, with the least amount of Palestinians. Look what happens when you ask Israelis about continuing the occupation the way things are:

Actually, even in polls, when faced with the option of maintaining the status quo, Israelis are likely to prefer it to the two-state solution. A Palestinian state becomes the preferable option only when presented on its own (“do you support/oppose…”) or when it is compared to annexing the West Bank.

See for example question 6 of the January 2012 Peace Index: A clear Jewish majority (57.3 percent) agrees with the following statement:

… even long-term continued rule in the territories will not prevent Israel from remaining a Jewish and democratic state.

This result is consistent with previous polls, I was told. In a panel I attended at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Ephraim Yaar, who runs the peace index, explained that Israelis’ political choices are irrational, since they don’t elect leaders that reflect their support for the two-state solution. But his own polls prove the opposite: that Israelis actually support the status-quo, and choose their leaders accordingly. The record-breaking support for Prime Minister Netanyahu, a man whose entire political history is a tale of maintaining the diplomatic status quo, can be easily explained in this framework, and so can the collapse of the parliamentary peace camp. There is not one Knesset party that has leaving the West Bank as the single most important issue on its agenda today – mainly because everyone knows that the public prefers the current state of affairs. So maybe it’s time to stop blaming the settlers alone.

....Israel has never faced the real choice between one and two states. It always faced the choice between one state, two states and the status quo.

http://972mag.com/one-or-two-states-the-status-quo-is-israels-rational-third-choice/39169/

2. As long as it's the Palestinians being forced into something completely unacceptable, most Israelis are perfectly ok with it.

3. Your "United With Israel" hasbara is really shameless.