Antisemitism on rise across Europe 'in worst times since the Nazis"

[Karee 4,191]

It's like saying that people who don't like the U.S. govts policies are anti-American. Just because someone doesn't like the policies of the Israeli govt., doesn't mean they're anti-semitic, although that term is thrown around quite a bit when someone rightly criticizes the Israeli govt.

[SaharaSunset 165]

The mere comparison says alot...

The point is not that everyone who criticizes Israel is anti semitic. Believe it or not there are many things I, too, criticize Israel for.

The point is there are also many people who jump on the bandwagon and use it as an excuse, hence the new anti semitism. And the people like you, who do it for the right reasons it seems - should denounce those people and not stick their head in the sand and claim it does not exist, because it does, and it is not just a small group doing it.

The purpose of the comparison was to illustrate that there is a wide range of oppression that I think is wrong. I mention the Nazi's to re-enforce that I am not antisemitic.

At any rate, I denounce anti-semitism of course, but the tricky thing here is that the very foundation of the creation of the state of Israel is based on a religious claim. So it does not shock me that some people direct their anger at what is happening towards the religion. The state of Israel and the Jewish faith are inextricably tied together. So how does one express anger at Israel's actions, without in part, being angry at the Jewish belief that the land is essentially their "God-given" right. Its tricky.

But I even would venture to say that you could even disagree with that Jewish claim and religious belief without being anti-semitic. I think calling all these actions anti-semitic is like people saying that anyone who hates Obama, hates black people. Obviously its different, but I just feel like writing it all off as blatant antisemitism is unfair. I think there are a lot of people outraged at recent events, and the whole historical takeover of Palestine. So, I don't know. I don't condone attacks on religion, but unfortunately, because in this instance Israel the Judaism are so closely woven together, and just don't how there wouldn't be some overlap.

[OriZ 3,157]

The purpose of the comparison was to illustrate that there is a wide range of oppression that I think is wrong. I mention the Nazi's to re-enforce that I am not antisemitic.

At any rate, I denounce anti-semitism of course, but the tricky thing here is that the very foundation of the creation of the state of Israel is based on a religious claim. So it does not shock me that some people direct their anger at what is happening towards the religion. The state of Israel and the Jewish faith are inextricably tied together. So how does one express anger at Israel's actions, without in part, being angry at the Jewish belief that the land is essentially their "God-given" right. Its tricky.

But I even would venture to say that you could even disagree with that Jewish claim and religious belief without being anti-semitic. I think calling all these actions anti-semitic is like people saying that anyone who hates Obama, hates black people. Obviously its different, but I just feel like writing it all off as blatant antisemitism is unfair. I think there are a lot of people outraged at recent events, and the whole historical takeover of Palestine. So, I don't know. I don't condone attacks on religion, but unfortunately, because in this instance Israel the Judaism are so closely woven together, and just don't how there wouldn't be some overlap.

I know you denounce anti semitism, but I think that people who protest alongside those anti semites who are hijacking their cause - instead of denouncing them - are doing themselves a huge disservice. Nothing justifies directing your anger at Jews living in France, Germany, the US or elsewhere, some of whom might not even be supportive of Israel, only for being Jewish. That's anti semitism disguised as anti Israeli actions only.

Like I said, I myself have a problem with certain things, one of them is the settlement project. Alot of Pro Israel people would hate me for saying it and I myself have been called anti semitic in the past which I found utterly hilarious being I am not only Jewish and was not only born in Israel and spent 80% of my life in Israel but also served in the IDF. So obviously anti semitic I'm not. And then you have the pro Palestinians that have a problem with my opinions on some other things, such as fighting Hamas terrorism. What people do not understand is that it's not as black and white as they think, and that if Israel built settlements, it's evil, and responsible for anything having to do with there even being Hamas, therefor Hamas actions are justified and Israel should not fight it and defend itself. It does not work that way. I try to see the whole picture, in some ways, I guess it's kind of like being a ref in a sports game - if both sides are complaining about you I guess you are doing something right?

in the past couple of decades there have been some serious negotiations, the closest to a deal was just a short few years ago. I do think, that eventually, whether be it 5 months, 5 years, 50 years or 500 years from now, with slight changes, the framework for the agreement is already there, and any bloodshed on either side till that happens is a huge waste of human life and a waste of time. The gaps are not that wide.

This is from 3 and a half years ago but still true today:

The street demonstrations roiling the Arab world have riveted and moved many Americans, who have visions of democracy sweeping through northern Africa and the Middle East. As I write this, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president, has announced he will not stand for re-election, as has Yemen’s longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Tunisia’s ruler fled, and the nation has a new government; King Abdullah of Jordan replaced his own cabinet and now has a prime minister who promises reform. There are even stirrings in Syria. President Obamahas signaled his determination to support democratization in the region, as promised in his 2009 Cairo speech, and not to remain tied to authoritarian regimes.

Enlarge This Image

Doug Mills/The New York Times

IN PRINCIPLE Abbas and Olmert at talks in Annapolis, Md., in 2007, intended to revivify the peace process.

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Map

Related

• The White House Waits(February 13, 2011)
• Letters: A Separate Peace(February 27, 2011)

In Israel, by contrast, there is fear. Whatever their doubts about how Egypt and Jordan were ruled, most Israelis counted on the Mubarak and Hashemite regimes, if not as true allies then at least as stable neighbors committed to the peace treaties they signed. Israelis understand that their occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are sources of rage in the Arab street, but many have come to believe that the peace process is futile — especially since President Obama seems to have despaired of achieving meaningful negotiations — and they fear democracy will bring Islamists to power, or at least encourage anti-Israeli politicians. They feel a strategic pillar has been kicked from under them, and the regional unrest only strengthens their sense that they must defend themselves against, rather than make peace with, the Palestinians.

Yet amid this turmoil are opportunities, not the least of which is precisely the chance to end the Israeli occupation and found a Palestinian state. A viable plan exists: it is waiting to be forged from the far-reaching proposals that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority made to each other in 2008. We had a glimpse in mid-January of these negotiations — the “Palestine Papers,” leaked by Al Jazeera; and then excerpts from Ehud Olmert’s memoir, published in Israel. But the picture emerging from these accounts was unfocused and confusing, and the achievements of the negotiators were lost in the excitement generated in the streets of Tunis and Cairo. Yet the Israeli-Palestinian talks in 2007 and 2008 provide an invaluable template for a new, Obama-led push for peace. As unlikely as it might sound, now is the time. Obama’s hand in Israel has been strengthened by events in Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan. At the same time, the U.S. is paying a growing price for the current impasse between Israel and Palestine and the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands, for which Americans receive much of the blame. A settlement in Palestine will not put bread on Egyptian tables, but it will transform American status in the region. And it might rescue the fortunes of Israel.

OVER THE COURSE of almost two years, from December 2006 to mid-September 2008, Olmert and Abbas met 36 times. Lower-level talks were also going on, led by Israel’s foreign minister at the time, Tzipi Livni, and one of the Palestinian Authority’s longtime negotiators, Ahmed Qurei. These talks were the source for the “Palestine Papers” published by Al Jazeera just last month: notes from the Palestinian side on how negotiations were going. The top-level talks were considerably more important. The leaders never consummated a deal. But both had gone far enough to tee up new American “bridging proposals” that Abbas, in particular, was counting on. I spoke with Olmert this year in Jerusalem on the morning of Jan. 21, and that same evening with Abbas in Amman, Jordan. The leaders revealed in detail what was proposed, what was implicitly agreed, what the gaps were and what they suggested was susceptible to compromise.

Each told me that if new violence breaks out in Palestine, as seems quite likely, historians will look back with a sense of pathos on how narrow and, in some key areas, trivial the gaps were. “We were very close,” Olmert told me, “more than ever in the past, to complete an agreement on principles that would have led to the end of the conflict between us and the Palestinians.” Abbas said the talks produced more “creative ideas” than any in the past. He took pains to assure me that he had been most flexible on Israel’s security demands. Olmert, in retrospect, agrees, saying that Abbas “had never said no.” Olmert insisted that he had conceded to Abbas every major demand Palestinians had made for decades: a border based scrupulously on the 1967 lines, a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and “recognition of the problem” of refugees. “I was ready to take complete responsibility and move forward forcefully,” Olmert told me. “I believed, I still believe, that I would have broken through all the barriers and won over public opinion in this country and the world.”

THE ISSUES THAT were supposed to be intractable — demilitarization of the Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees — proved susceptible to creative thinking. Even on borders, Olmert and Abbas were able to agree on fundamentals: a desire to disrupt as few lives as possible and to maximize the contiguity (and therefore the economic possibility) of Palestinian cities. “We didn’t waste a minute during our months of negotiation,” Abbas said.

Where bridging proposals seemed most called for was over the extent and nature of land to be swapped — in effect, the fate of specific large Israeli settlements. The Israeli position, where it diverged from the Palestinian, was not about principle but focused primarily on the practical matter of how many (often violent) settlers the Israeli government would have to force back behind the Green Line. The most important discussions were on security, borders, Jerusalem and the Palestinian “right of return.”

The Question of Security

In his pivotal Bar Ilan University speech of June 14, 2009, Olmert’s successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally promised to work toward a Palestinian state and made much of his demand that Palestine be demilitarized. But he must have known he was pushing on an open door: Olmert and Abbas had already come up with a series of principles that would leave Palestine demilitarized (“I agreed to the term ‘nonmilitarized,’ ” Olmert told me) while preserving its sovereignty.

Olmert’s security principles were the following: Palestine would have a strong police force, “everything needed for law enforcement.” It would have no army or air force. The Palestinian border with Jordan, through which missiles and heavy armaments might be smuggled, would be patrolled by international forces, probably from NATO. There would be a procedural guarantee that no foreign army would be able to enter Palestine, and its government would not be permitted to enter into any military agreement with a country that does not recognize Israel. Israel, for its part, would have the right to defend itself beyond the borders of a Palestinian state — say, against land forces massing on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Israel expected to reserve the right to pursue terrorists across the new borders. Israel would be allowed access to airspace over Palestine, and the Israel Defense Forces would have rights to disproportionate use of telecommunications spectrum (though commercial rights would be equalized under international law). When I spoke with Abbas in Amman, I did not have to refresh his memory about these overarching principles. “We don’t need a Palestinian army,” he said emphatically. “We don’t want an air force or tanks or rockets.” He insisted that the whole matter had been worked out with Gen. James Jones, who eventually became Obama’s national security adviser. Abbas confirmed that Israel could indeed negotiate special permits regarding Palestinian airspace.

Abbas further offered Olmert his choice of international forces to patrol the border with Jordan, and he even said that he had consulted the Americans, who agreed to participating in a NATO force as long as it was under American command. Jordan and Egypt, whose borders were implicated, made some conditions of their own: no Jordanian or Egyptian would participate in the force, and it would be based only on Palestine’s side. “The file on security was closed,” Abbas told me. “We do not claim it was an agreement, but the file was finalized.”

REWRITING THE BORDERS

Abbas opened the negotiations over land with a map showing how Israel could annex 1.9 percent of Palestine in return for tracts of land equal in size and quality; Olmert produced a map of 6.3 percent, suggesting that for the percentage of Palestine Israel would annex, it would compensate Palestine with 5.8 percent, plus a 25-mile tunnel that would run under Israel from the South Hebron Hills to Gaza. “The built-up area of all the settlements was 1.1 percent,” Abbas said, “so when I offered them 1.9, it was more than enough.” Olmert’s bid was somewhat less firm from the start: “I gave him reason to believe that I would go down to 5.9, but that would be final.” Notionally, the leaders would then be looking to the United States to help them split the difference; this was what Abbas, at least, expected. (Since the talks ended, various compromises in the 4 percent range have been floated by teams working at the James Baker institute at Rice University.)

But so much talk of percentages can be misleadingly abstract. There could never have been an exchange of maps had there not been a mutual agreement on the definition of the “occupied territory.” And here American diplomacy proved decisive in advance of any possible compromise.

Historically, Israel has tried to exclude the territories of expanded Jerusalem, about 25 square miles, from the territory to be divided. Israel passed a law in 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, claiming this entire territory as its own. Secretary of State Condoleezza Ricemade it clear, however, even as Olmert and Abbas were negotiating, that this Israeli claim was counter to U.S. policy. Occupied territory, she said, would be defined as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Dead Sea, Jordan Valley and “no man’s land” — the last being small areas neither Israel nor Jordanian forces patrolled before 1967. (These areas are still crucial, since the no man’s land around the monastery in Latrun is now paved over by the major highway connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.)

So when Olmert finally showed Abbas his map on Sept. 16, it was an established principle of these negotiations that any territory Israel sought to annex in Greater Jerusalem would have to be compensated like any other occupied territory. This was unprecedented. Olmert held that the no man’s land also be divided 50-50, with Israel understandably taking more around its highway and ceding more in other areas, but this slight divergence from Rice’s definition was of no great consequence. “I told Abbas this land had never been used, so the only reasonable thing was to divide it,” Olmert said. “He seemed quite happy with it.”

The real issue in contention, however, was which Israeli settlements would be permitted to stay, and which would have to be removed. When Abbas alluded to “built-up settlements,” he was conceding that, yes, it would make no sense to move the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem — except Har Homa, begun by the first Netanyahu government after the Oslo process had started — or the settlements of Gush Etzion and Alfei Menahse, towns by now adjacent to the Israeli border. Under Abbas’s offer, more than 60 percent of settlers would stay in place.

Olmert, for his part, was presenting a plan in which the most sparsely populated settlements would be evacuated, but Efrat (extending from Gush Etzion), Maale Adummim (a town just east of Jerusalem) and Ariel, a town of 18,000 between Ramallah and Nablus, should be permitted to stay. From Olmert’s point of view, the problem was not helping settlers fulfill their dream of redeeming promised land but helping the Israeli military avoid the pain of removing them. Many settlers are fanatical, armed and contemptuous of Israeli democracy; some even like to call themselves Judeans. Israelis, Olmert implied, are loath to fight Judeans for the sake of Palestinians; and his map already called for removing the ultrafanatical town of Kiryat Arba, abutting the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Not that Abbas was willing to make Olmert’s problem his own. “We have criteria for which settlements must be removed,” Samih Al-Abid, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority and a negotiator, reasoned. “We cannot tolerate settlements that disrupt our territorial contiguity, disrupt the economic development of Palestinian cities or leave people in place who are bound to become security threats” — either because they are fanatics or because their very presence will be provocative to the towns around them. By these criteria, Ariel is the most blatant problem. Olmert told me that Abbas “kept coming back to it.”

Ariel, after all, was plunked down in the hills between Nablus and Ramallah precisely to make a statement that the historic Land of Israel was being claimed as indivisibly Jewish. Its residents, many of whom were Russian immigrants taken directly from the airport to Ariel and given cheap apartments by Ariel Sharon, have no local industry to speak of. When the Baker Institute teams suggest compromises of between 3 and 4 percent, Ariel is almost always removed. One possibility raised by Al-Abid was “space for time.” If Israel agreed to vacate a large settlement like Ariel, a complex task, Palestine would agree to give it considerable time to do so.

Olmert and Abbas both acknowledged that reciprocal relations would be necessary, not some hermetic separation. They also acknowledged the need to share a single business ecosystem, while cooperating intensively on water, security, bandwidth, banking, tourism and much more.

The negotiations on borders ended here, with Olmert telling Abbas among other things that no Israeli prime minister could ever remove Ariel, and Abbas telling Olmert that no Palestinian president could ever accept it. “I told him, ‘Sign,’ ” Olmert said. “ ‘You will never get a better proposal from any Israeli government for the next 50 years.’ ” Abbas would not sign. He asked for Olmert’s map, which Olmert refused to give him unless he signed off on it. Olmert told me he thought Abbas delayed partly because he hoped to get a better deal on the map from an Obama administration. Removing Ariel, in any case, remained perhaps the most freighted border dispute, since this settlement would be the most disruptive to Palestinian development.

WHO GETS JERUSALEM?

Olmert and Abbas departed from transcendental claims to holy space and decided to base a solution on the practical challenge of governing the holy sites — so as to maximize access for all pilgrims from the three Abrahamic religions — and adherence to the principle that sovereignty derives from the consent of the governed.

The leaders agreed that Jewish neighborhoods should remain under Israeli sovereignty, while Arab neighborhoods would revert to Palestinian sovereignty. (Olmert even showed me an architectural sketch for a symbolic Palestinian checkpoint leading to the American Colony Hotel in Sheik Jarrah.) At the same time, Abbas suggested that East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem would be municipalities, but the city as a whole would not be divided. “There would be an overall body to coordinate between them,” he said.

The really creative ideas were about the disposition of the Old City and holy places — the Islamic sites of the Haram Al-Sharif (or Temple Mount), the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and so forth, which both sides agreed were indeed part of the “holy basin.” Olmert suggested that it be governed by a kind of custodial committee, made up of five countries: Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel. (Abbas was under the impression that as many as seven trustees might be involved, including Egypt and theVatican.)

The trusteeship would maintain the holy sites and guarantee access for all religions; some kind of international force would administer it. Abbas accepted Olmert’s proposal in principle, as long as the two could agree on precisely what the holy basin was. And there was the rub.

Olmert wanted the holy basin to include not only the Old City but also the Mount of Olives, the so-called City of David (an archaeological site) and a considerable part of the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Abbas was willing to define the holy basin as the Old City only, since the Mount of Olives includes the Palestinian neighborhood of A-Tur, and he was unwilling to exclude residents of A-Tur and Silwan from a future Palestinian state. He implied, but did not say, that these neighborhoods had been inflamed by Jewish settlers. The extremist Ateret Cohanim, a settlement organization, has moved into expropriated apartment blocks there.

Olmert knew his offer was an important concession, one that redeemed in its way theU.N. partition plan of 1947, which envisioned ancient Jerusalem as an international city. “You cannot come away from negotiations without a scar that will bleed for a long time,” Olmert reflected. “I, the mayor of Jerusalem, the man who stood in the front line advocating how the city was the one, undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people, was the first to propose unambiguously not only the division of the city, which [Prime MinisterEhud] Barak did in a way, but to give up sovereignty over the entire holy basin. This is not something I did with joy; this is something I did with a broken heart.”

Abbas told me (as Olmert had) that he assumed the status quo regarding the governance of Islamic sites by a Palestinian religious authority would be preserved, and that he would try to get an endorsement for this plan from the Arab League.

And so the putatively impossible problem of Jerusalem now boiled down to the question of whether A-Tur and parts of Silwan would be excluded from Palestine and whether the Har Homa suburb would be excluded from Israel. I checked back with Olmert about the question of the holy basin, and he replied, “The exact lines were not drawn, but I believe it could easily be agreed.”

THE RIGHT OF RETURN

Olmert is a lawyer and appreciates, he told me, the usefulness of “constructive ambiguity.” With regard to Palestinian refugees — as many as five million people descended mainly from those 750,000 who lost their homes in the 1948-49 war — it was crucial, he said, “to come up with a formula that allowed each side its own interpretation.” Olmert agreed to allow 5,000 Palestinians to return to Israel proper, 1,000 a year for five years — each applicant to be reviewed by Israel, and each accepted “for humanitarian reasons.” As “an integral part” of this offer, Olmert said, there would be a signing statement that strongly emphasized how repatriation of any refugees would be carried out “in the spirit of the Arab League peace initiative of 2002.” That initiative stipulates “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.” And U.N. 194 resolves that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.”

Olmert suggested in addition that the peace plan include strong wording to the effect that “Israel is sensitive and is not indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians who lived in what became Israel and were forced out of their homes as a result of the conflict and then lived in misery for years.” He added that there should be some wording recognizing also the suffering of Jews from Arab countries who were forced out of their homes after 1948. Equally important, Olmert proposed that all sides work with international bodies and financial institutions to establish an international fund to “generously compensate” refugees for their loss of property. He made it clear that Israel would help organize this fund. “In return for this,” Olmert said, “I expected a written commitment that this was the end of all claims and the end of the conflict.”

So Olmert did not specifically recognize the Palestinian right of return but agreed to do everything that someone who did recognize it would do, suggesting 5,000 returnees but leaving the exact number subject to further negotiation. (Olmert said the final number would be only “symbolic” and not more than 15,000.) Abbas, in this context, welcomed the principles but not the number: “I told Olmert that I have five million refugees, all of them expelled from Israeli territories — all of them. If I ask you to accept that all five million should return to Israel, you will tell me, and you are right, that I would destroy Israel. I said, O.K., let us talk about how to find a solution. But don’t tell me that no single Palestinian can return to Israel” — by which he implied that 5,000 was a negligible number.

Palestinian negotiators have mostly accepted “the modalities for compensation” that were negotiated during the round of talks held in Taba, Egypt, and later made public: refugees could immigrate to Palestine or stay in the states in which they now lived (especially Jordan), or go to a third country. In exceptional cases, refugees could go to Israel. In all events, they would be compensated and their relocation paid for.

In other words, both leaders agreed on the principle that a certain number of Palestinians should return, but that the governing question should be how to limit that number in a way that preserves Israel’s distinction as a state with a Jewish majority but that does not prejudice the rights of the Arab minority. As with the land question, the leaders agreed on the principle but disagreed about a number.

Abbas did not tell me what number of returnees he had in mind. The Geneva Initiative, in which people close to him participated, stipulated in 2009 that Israel should “consider the average of the total numbers submitted” by other nations that would accept Palestinian refugees. But this gave only vague guidance.

OLMERT KNEW THAT if he and Abbas — with an American thumb on the scale — produced a deal, he would then be facing something of a hard sell. That is why, he said, he made his comprehensive offer in September. He knew that the annual General Assembly of the United Nations was coming up. He wanted to prepare a world-historical diplomatic drama.

“My idea was that, before presenting it to our own peoples, we first would go to the U.N. Security Council and get a unanimous vote for support,” Olmert told me. “Then we would ask the General Assembly to support us, and you can imagine that if we both would ask, only Iran or Syria might say no. Then we would go to a joint session of Congress, then to the European Parliament, then a big ceremony on the White House lawn with 25,000 people, with all the leaders of the region where we would initial it.”

Olmert and Abbas would then return to the region, he said, and invite all the leaders of the world: “No one would be missing, I suppose. The Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese, the Europeans, all the Americans, Canada, Australia — you name it. And they would stand at that point connecting the west side of Jerusalem to the east side and declare their commitment to support the agreement in all its aspects. And then we would go to elections, with the accumulated impact of this process at our backs.”

Olmert made his most comprehensive offer to Abbas on Sept. 16, 2008, the opening day of the General Assembly in New York. Abbas then “went silent” (as Olmert puts it), weighing a response as the Gaza border was heating up, not sure which American presidency the Palestinian leadership would confront — and also questioning the point of continuing negotiations with a lame-duck prime minister. (Olmert was under investigation for corruption and announced in late July that he would be stepping aside once his Kadima Party chose a new leader.) Yet negotiations were not formally suspended until January, after Israel attacked in Gaza. Rice had invited the sides to meet in Washington. Olmert, facing political exile and preoccupied with the war, failed to send his chief diplomatic aide, Shalom Turgeman, to the meeting. But Abbas was still determined that American diplomacy could bridge the gaps and was ready to risk the embarrassment of sending Saeb Erakat, the Palestinians’ longtime chief negotiator, to meet Israeli representatives while Gazans were under Israeli fire. “I had promised Bush,” Abbas explained. “I thought: There would be fruit from this meeting. Let us seize this opportunity.”

To this day, Abbas still expects America to put the deal over. The gaps appear so pitifully small: Ariel and a couple of other settlements, the question of whether parts of Silwan would be a part of the holy basin, a compromise number on refugees? “We still want bridging proposals,” Abbas told me, adding, “we want America to be a strong broker.”

Without a deal, Jerusalem and the West Bank will almost certainly explode again, this time perhaps igniting the kind of local war we saw in Bosnia: violence spreading to Israeli Arab towns and drawing in both Syrian-backed Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamasfrom Gaza, each armed with thousands of missiles. “Jerusalem is becoming a tinderbox; it could explode any minute,” the Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki told me recently. “We now see the collapse of the nonviolent vision but not the replacement. . . . Any unilateral Palestinian step [to statehood] will be meaningless — no one is fooled by this. There is fatigue. They don’t want to go back to the days of bloodshed. I think when they reach the conclusion, ‘The hell with it,’ we’ll go back to that dark period, then all hell will break loose.”

But Abbas could anyway soon be gone. He told me he expects America to act to bring about a plan by this fall. That is what the Obama administration once promised, that it would work to secure a deal on a Palestinian state by September 2011. “If nothing happens, I will take a very, very painful decision,” Abbas said. “Don’t ask me about it.” He grew wistful. “We have to live with each other. We have to talk with each other. We have to know each other. Many have criticized me since the 1970s, but until now I am committed to peace. But not forever. I don’t mean I will return back to violence — never! In my life, I will never do it. But I cannot stay in my office forever doing nothing.”

OLMERT AND ABBAS conveyed the details of what they had achieved to both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell, the Middle East envoy. Condoleezza Rice, Olmert said, prepared a confidential memo for the incoming administration. He could not understand why Obama “did not adopt these achievements as policy.” Abbas told me he is still waiting for an American initiative: “America is the broker; we cannot replace it.” Did he want the understandings he reached with Olmert to become the basis of new American-sponsored talks with Netanyahu? “I demanded this,” he said.

Olmert made his offer as a sitting prime minister familiar with the views of the Israeli general staff and military intelligence. Now, with a new regime taking shape in Egypt and serious changes under way in Jordan, Israel will be more dependent on American diplomacy and military support than ever. It is hard to imagine Netanyahu resisting an Obama initiative should the president fully commit to an American package based on these talks and rally the E.U., Russia and the United Nations.

Abbas, for his part, still leads the P.L.O. and governs the West Bank. Hamas controls Gaza but has committed to honoring any deal Abbas negotiated for the 1967 borders as long as its terms would be submitted to a referendum, which Abbas has solemnly promised to call.

“There is a danger that the events in Egypt will mislead some to lose hope in peace,” Olmert told me pointedly in an e-mail. “I think the opposite, that there can be another way to challenge the events near us. This is the time to move forward, fast, take my peace initiative with the Palestinians and make a deal. This will be my advice to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Don’t wait. Move, lead and make history. This is the time. There will not be a better one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In her new memoir, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirms that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas rejected generous territorial concessions offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.

When she traveled to Jerusalem in May 2008, Olmert invited Rice to dinner to outline his plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Rice recounts that she was shocked by how far the Israeli leader was willing to go. Olmert was prepared to give up nearly the entire West Bank and to divide Jerusalem with the Arab world.

Olmert offered to make Jerusalem the capital of two states - Israel in the western part and a Palestinian capital in the east. The Old City of Jerusalem would be administered by a committee made up of so-called wise people including Palestinians, Jordanians, Saudis, Americans and Israelis.

"They will oversee the city, but not in a political role," Olmert told Rice. And he offered another concession – offering to allow 5,000 Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel.

Rice was incredulous. "Am I really hearing this? I wondered. Is the Israeli prime minister saying that he'll divide Jerusalem and put an international body in charge of the Holy sites?"

The following day, Rice brought Olmert's proposal to Abbas in Ramallah. He rejected it, telling Rice the PA could not agree to a deal that prevented nearly 4 million Palestinians from being able to "go home" (i.e., to return to their ancestors' former homes in pre-Six Day War Israel).

On Sep. 16, 2008, Olmert presented Abbas with a similar plan for a two-state solution. The Palestinians said no, effectively killing the Olmert plan.

More detail on the breakdown of the talks comes from the Palestine Papers – documents about a decade of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that were stolen from PA negotiator Saeb Erakat's office, leaked to al-Jazeerah and posted on the media outlet's website in January.

As the Jerusalem Post noted on Tuesday, these documents show that PA negotiators talked out of both sides of their mouths – speaking publicly about compromise with Israel on Palestinian refugees while privately describing the "right of return" as an individual right that must be extended to 7 million Palestinians – a formula most Israelis regard as a demographic blueprint for the destruction of their country.

The documents also show that Washington was apparently unaware that, in preparation for the September 16 meeting, the PA was trying to come up with plans to avoid reaching a binding agreement with Israel and to avoid blame for failing reach a final-status agreement with the Jewish state.

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3373/rice-abbas-rejected-olmert-peace-plan

[OriZ 3,157]

I'm sure many Libs won't be happy to see that even Hillary seems to hit the nail on the head:

JG: So, Gaza. As you write in your book, you negotiated the last long-term ceasefire in 2012. Are you surprised at all that it didn’t hold?

HRC: I’m surprised that it held as long as it did. But given the changes in the region, the fall of [former Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi, his replacement by [Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi, the corner that Hamas felt itself in, I’m not surprised that Hamas provoked another attack.

JG: The Israeli response, was it disproportionate?

HRC: Israel was attacked by rockets from Gaza. Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult. Of course Israel, just like the United States, or any other democratic country, should do everything they can possibly do to limit civilian casualties.

"We see this enormous international reaction against Israel. This reaction is uncalled for and unfair."

JG: Do you think Israel did enough to limit civilian casualties?

HRC: It’s unclear. I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets. And there is the surprising number and complexity of the tunnels, and Hamas has consistently, not just in this conflict, but in the past, been less than protective of their civilians.

JG: Before we continue talking endlessly about Gaza, can I ask you if you think we spend too much time on Gaza and on Israel-Palestine generally? I ask because over the past year or so your successor spent a tremendous amount of time on the Israel-Palestinian file and in the same period of time an al Qaeda-inspired organization took over half of Syria and Iraq.

HRC: Right, right.

JG: I understand that secretaries of state can do more than one thing at a time. But what is the cause of this preoccupation?

HRC: I’ve thought a lot about this, because you do have a number of conflicts going on right now. As the U.S., as a U.S. official, you have to pay attention to anything that threatens Israel directly, or anything in the larger Middle East that arises out of the Palestinian-Israeli situation. That’s just a given.

It is striking, however, that you have more than 170,000 people dead in Syria. You have the vacuum that has been created by the relentless assault by Assad on his own population, an assault that has bred these extremist groups, the most well-known of which, ISIS—or ISIL—is now literally expanding its territory inside Syria and inside Iraq. You have Russia massing battalions—Russia, that actually annexed and is occupying part of a UN member state—and I fear that it will do even more to prevent the incremental success of the Ukrainian government to take back its own territory, other than Crimea. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Ukraine on both sides, not counting the [Malaysia Airlines] plane, and yet we do see this enormous international reaction against Israel, and Israel’s right to defend itself, and the way Israel has to defend itself. This reaction is uncalled for and unfair.

JG: What do you think causes this reaction?

HRC: There are a number of factors going into it. You can’t ever discount anti-Semitism, especially with what’s going on in Europe today. There are more demonstrations against Israel by an exponential amount than there are against Russia seizing part of Ukraine and shooting down a civilian airliner. So there’s something else at work here than what you see on TV.

And what you see on TV is so effectively stage-managed by Hamas, and always has been. What you see is largely what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza. It’s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it’s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have their own state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel.

"There’s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict and did so to leverage its position."

JG: Nevertheless there are hundreds of children—

HRC: Absolutely, and it’s dreadful.

JG: Who do you hold responsible for those deaths? How do you parcel out blame?

HRC: I’m not sure it’s possible to parcel out blame because it’s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war. Some reports say, maybe it wasn’t the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict and wanted to do so in order to leverage its position, having been shut out by the Egyptians post-Morsi, having been shunned by the Gulf, having been pulled into a technocratic government with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority that might have caused better governance and a greater willingness on the part of the people of Gaza to move away from tolerating Hamas in their midst. So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.

That doesn’t mean that, just as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as possible in going after targets to avoid civilians, that there aren’t mistakes that are made. We’ve made them. I don’t know a nation, no matter what its values are—and I think that democratic nations have demonstrably better values in a conflict position—that hasn’t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.

JG: Several years ago, when you were in the Senate, we had a conversation about what would move Israeli leaders to make compromises for peace. You’ve had a lot of arguments with Netanyahu. What is your thinking on Netanyahu now?

HRC: Let’s step back. First of all, [former Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin was prepared to do so much and he was murdered for that belief. And then [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak offered everything you could imagine being given under any realistic scenario to the Palestinians for their state, and [former Palestinian leader Yasir] Arafat walked away. I don’t care about the revisionist history. I know that Arafat walked away, okay? Everybody says, “American needs to say something.” Well, we said it, it was the Clinton parameters, we put it out there, and Bill Clinton is adored in Israel, as you know. He got Netanyahu to give up territory, which Netanyahu believes lost him the prime ministership [in his first term], but he moved in that direction, as hard as it was.

Bush pretty much ignored what was going on and they made a terrible error in the Palestinian elections [in which Hamas came to power in Gaza], but he did come with the Roadmap [to Peace] and the Roadmap was credible and it talked about what needed to be done, and this is one area where I give the Palestinians credit. Under [former Palestinian Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad, they made a lot of progress.

I had the last face-to-face negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu. [secretary of State John] Kerry never got there. I had them in the room three times with [former Middle East negotiator] George Mitchell and me, and that was it. And I saw Netanyahu move from being against the two-state solution to announcing his support for it, to considering all kinds of Barak-like options, way far from what he is, and what he is comfortable with.

Now I put Jerusalem in a different category. That is the hardest issue, Again, based on my experience—and you know, I got Netanyahu to agree to the unprecedented settlement freeze, it did not cover East Jerusalem, but it did cover the West Bank and it was actually legitimate and it did stop new housing starts for 10 months. It took me nine months to get Abbas into the negotiations even after we delivered on the settlement freeze, he had a million reasons, some of them legitimate, some of them the same old, same old.

So what I tell people is, yeah, if I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security [on the West Bank], because even if I’m dealing with Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu could not do this in good conscience. If this were Rabin or Barak in his place—and I’ve talked to Ehud about this—they would have to demand a level of security that would be provided by the [israel Defense Forces] for a period of time. And in my meetings with them I got Abbas to about six, seven, eight years on continued IDF presence. Now he’s fallen back to three, but he was with me at six, seven, eight. I got Netanyahu to go from forever to 2025. That’s a negotiation, okay? So I know. Dealing with Bibi is not easy, so people get frustrated and they lose sight of what we’re trying to achieve here.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/?single_page=true

Edited August 11, 2014 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

Nothing to see here, move along and keep looking the other way

A protest in Holland, that was approved by the Dutch government and meant to be a peaceful demonstration against Israel's Gaza operation and against the arrest of an Islamist operative, turned into a terrifying rally of hundreds of ISIS supporters.

The protesters marched in the streets of The Hague uninterrupted while waving the black ISIS flags, calling "Death to Jews" and shouting other slogans calling to murder and fight the West and specifically the United States.

The Dutch were shocked of the protest, and The Hague's mayor was called to resign after his staff were the ones to approve the protest without realizing the danger it poses.

The Dutch were also shocked to see pictures posted by ISIS recently that show a Muslim Dutch national alongside severed heads of Syrian soldiers he murdered in cold blood.

Analysts estimated that the extremist organization was using this protest rally to recruit youths to its religious war in European cities.

Some 3,000 European youths of Muslim descent are believed to have joined ISIS for fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of which have already returned home after having trained with ISIS and murdered many.

Over the weekend, hundreds of ISIS supporters attacked several hundreds of Yazidis, who were protesting in the German city of Herford against the slaughtering of their people in Iraq

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4557201,00.html

[JohnR! 5,495]

I don't disagree. Just because a few say they are committing these crimes in the name of some deity doe not make it so. But these are the one that get airtime on the news, as you say, and unfortunately so.

As far as the notion of god, it doesn't matter if it is real or not. My opinion works for me as I am sure your works for you. We can find common ground on an other of millions of important issues. The problem is not really whether there is a god, or two or ten, so much as what men do in its name. That is where the real problem is and that, imho is what separates faith in what is real from mythology.

I disagree. The carnage and killing we see today has very little to with religion. It has to do with the selfish actions of a very small percentage of the world's humans population. Oh yes, people have always used religion to justify their actions. But it is always a distortion of what the religion actually teaches. Not one of the "Big 3" you mentioned really and truly teach people to destroy others. Extremist in all religions have interpreted the various scripture and texts to mean what they want it to mean. But the religions themselves actually teach quite the opposite.

I'm sure it makes one feel quite superior to call God a "fairytale" - but in reality, the notion of "God" has actually been a driving force for more good in the world, than evil. But if you rely in the internet for your info, of course you will get the most salacious and notorious descriptions of human behavior associated with religion. But again, it is a distorted perception of religion.

We are not a sad race. The news paints a sad story, but if you actually leave the wonderful worldwide web and travel in the real world, and see the human race in action, I think you would be shocked at how many people are leaving good and happy peaceful lives. Even though the news tells us otherwise, the reality is, there is much more goodness in the world...and much of it is because of the billions of good people who believe that wacky fairytale about God, and are striving for goodness that religion teaches.

Peace

[SaharaSunset 165]

Nothing justifies directing your anger at Jews living in France, Germany, the US or elsewhere, some of whom might not even be supportive of Israel, only for being Jewish.

On this point I do agree with you. But I still disagree with saying that "We are not anti-Jews, just anti Israel" is a myth.

Sadly I think most people are fairly uninformed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I think most Americans feel that they would be accused of anti-semitism if they expressed any negative sentiments about Israel. And I think your post is the kind of thing that perpetuates the "myth" that being anti-Israel is nothing more than disguised antisemitism. Again, obviously people shouldn't target Jews in general when they are angry about whats happening in Israel. I totally agree with you on that.

But I do think that, what we could call, "antisemitism mongering" is doing a great injustice to the cause of the Palestinians. Nobody wants to be "Hitler" - and accusations like yours make people scared to oppose Israel. I think people are even afraid to attempt to inform themselves, because any real or even perceived opposition to the cause of Israel is immediately tagged as antisemitism. And of course, you can site many lengthy articles proving your point, but its the attitude about opposition to Israel that is a slippery slope to me.

[unsmiley 111]

It's like saying that people who don't like the U.S. govts policies are anti-American. Just because someone doesn't like the policies of the Israeli govt., doesn't mean they're anti-semitic, although that term is thrown around quite a bit when someone rightly criticizes the Israeli govt.

OK.

However, one cannot deny that most of the time, being so-called anti-Israel is just a fig leaf for anti-Semites to "safely" spout their propaganda.

[SaharaSunset 165]

OK.

However, one cannot deny that most of the time, being so-called anti-Israel is just a fig leaf for anti-Semites to "safely" spout their propaganda.

Actually one can deny that. I do. Its ridiculous to say that someone cannot be opposed to the actions of a country and its oppression of a people without be called antisemitic. If Israelis were Christian, I would still be outraged at the whole thing, from the Zionist movement of the 1940's, to the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in recent weeks. Sorry but it has nothing to do with antisemitism, and has to do with being anti-oppression.

I suppose by your logic because I am outraged at the black skinned Hutu's for their attempted genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, then I am racist. I mean the Hutu's are black, so my anger at their behavior is just a "fig leaf" for my propaganda racism against blacks right? Give me a break.

Some people are just anti-bullies, anti-war, anti-kicking people out of their homes because you want to settle there, anti-senseless killing in the name of self defense....no hidden antisemitic agenda....just anti-Israel.

[TBoneTX 46,300]

As a matter of courtesy, please avoid reposting walls of text that necessitate lots of scrolling. If something in a previous post merits citation, please quote it by the quote method or by cutting/pasting, or highlight it. Thanks for your attention.

VJ Moderation

[Karee 4,191]

OK.

However, one cannot deny that most of the time, being so-called anti-Israel is just a fig leaf for anti-Semites to "safely" spout their propaganda.

One can deny that. I'm denying that. It's not MOST of the time.

Show me another country on the planet where a whole group of people is held hostage with the full support of the U.S. govt. Not only that, show me another country who is slowing annexing land that doesn't belong to them, while the U.S. govt. rewards them with billions in aid. Try to think in the present instead of citing some reference from the 1800s.

[BatmanUSA 105]

where are all the protests against militant muslims?...

we can protest Israeli policies, but no one will protest Islamist Jihads...

we are told its not muslims... but when it comes to Israel, all Jews are included.??

[decocker 7,198]

we are told its not muslims... but when it comes to Israel, all Jews are included.??

a couple posters here keep repeating this nonsense..like good little propagandists.

but no one has said this here. if they have, i've not read it. please show me where.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh boy.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Oh boy.

http://www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CC4QtwIwCQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUGNX4pkcpkA%26autoplay%3D1&ei=MkfpU63bN9De8AWWqILYCQ&usg=AFQjCNGSeyx5_xBogLHihAoueliyi_3HlQ&sig2=V1hluDiK2OfFzLV7Yl38gw