I also found this interesting today. Its a story about the Palestinians weighing their options if Israel refuses to halt the settlement building in east Jerusalem and other occupied territories.

Before reading the story I assumed the options would be either rockets or suicide bombers but instead it turns out they are weighing diplomatic options including going to the UN to be recognized as an official state.

That would of course seem impossible because the US has veto power but I think its significant that the US sort of joined Russia in expressing deep disappointment that Israel did not continue the freeze on new settlements.

So no I'm wondering if the international community with the US included is not getting ready to make an end run on Israel and create a Palestinian state. That would create an entirely new ball game and could even force Israel to vacate all Palestinian land and drop all their blockades.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_israel_palestinians

 

It is coming close to the time for all states outside of Palestine/Israel to walk away and shut the door, leaving them to sort this out for themselves, a lot of people I speak to here have lost all hope for a peace accord that will last, they are saying it will never happen and this is the way of the mid-east, a culture of squabbling tribes who will never agree on anything in total, they will make and break alliances as it suits their short term needs.

After over sixty years of the most recent round of wars boundry issues we have reached mid-east fatigue rather like a marathon runner who has it the wall. Why after all the time, effort and aid that has been thrown at the area should we continue to care.

 

Glad I came back and caught this one because my response is tell that to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Here's a story about what came out of a seven hour meeting between Clinton and Netanyahu yesterday where apparently they struck a deal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/netanyahu-israel-settlement-freeze_n_783217.html

And this whole thread is nothing but empirical proof and all past history of the improbability of that.

But I'm going to go out even further on a thin limb here and say that was before I watched a National Geographic special last night called Inside the State Department (I think it was). And that was one of the most amazing documentaries I think I've ever seen on anyone in our government.

I'm telling you they just threw the NGO crew in the plane and vans with them, let the chips fall where they may, and Clinton allowed more access to foreign, and domestic press than any pubic official I've ever seen, while at the same time sitting with the NGO crew and talking about the latest fuck up she'd just made and how she was going to correct it. And how you damned right in something as complex as trying to survive in this world there were going to be mistakes but you cannot let that paralyze you.

And you can't hardly get US Politicians to sit for a press conference let alone take questions from the audience in the US. Clinton stepped out and held press conferences and question and answer sessions in Pakistan with the Pakistani Press and audiences. That took some guts and she did not stand there and tell them what they wanted to hear. In fact at one point members of the audience were jumping on her about the drone attacks killing innocent people and she points out that is a terrible tragedy that she will take up with the government of the US but wouldn't be necessary if the Pakistan government was doing their own fighting in the war on terrorism.

It may be all as hopeless as ever but I've never seen a better horse in the race than Secretary Clinton.

 

I thought this was interesting but I'm not sure its unprecedented. But here's a story on a Hamas leader saying they would be willing to accept the results of a Palestinian referendum concerning any peace settlement with Israel.

I'm not sure they're sincere or can be trusted. I'm not even sure if Hamas has said this before. Like the last referendum and Hamas' violent take over of Gaza immediately afterward. But it does seem to be another missing piece of past negotiations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/hamas-referendum-on-peace_n_790432.html

 

The sticky point of recognising the right for Israel to exist is still there, and Haniyeh is only representing one faction of Hamas, will the others fall in line and follow suit or will they keep up the attacks on Israel, I still see this as people using a sticking plaster on a broken leg, Admittedly HC is working hard at getting a deal, I just don't see it lasting. Both sides should be told this is the last chance saloon, fuck this up and we, the west, call in the bar tab, no aid or trade for either side, we can buy oranges and dates elsewhere.

 

This makes an awful lot of sense to me and I'm in total agreement. And I've believed for decades if we cut off all aid and assistance to Israel and the Palestinians we'd be amazed how quickly they could achieve a lasting peace.

 

OK just to be fair and point out the games and jockeying for position never stops on either side, here's the US demanding the Palestinian's bury a study that says the Western Wall in Jerusalem is actually part of an ancient Mosque and has nothing to do with Jews.

OH yeah the Jews would give up the "waling wall."

Anyway, to even undermine my position even more here's part of the story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/03/palestinians-remove-claim_n_791298.html

 

This may be equally insignificant but I have to admit at least its different. Brazil has officially recognized the "State of Palestine" as defined by the 1967 boundaries.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/201012504256198565.html

I didn't even know a country could do that, and of course, according to Israel they cannot.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/201012504256198565.html

 

finally some peace in the middle east but i have being told that when peace last for 7 years thats when the rupture will come...

 

I think you mean the Rapture. I Thessalonians 4:16-17 "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

 

That will be painful.

 

More pitfalls thrown in the way by bit players who stand on the very edge of the decision making and yet with little demands and minor political decisions can cause trouble, what will be the next stupid demand/decision made and who will make it. I think like a comedy skit they will announce to the general public very soon that "they have agreed that they cannot agree". Sad but that is what I see happening next.

 

Well if politics makes strange bedfellows, religion has got to be a bed full of perverts. On the one hand many fundamental Christians still blame the Jews for killing Jesus. But then on the other hand fundamentalist Christians will donate money to Jewish settlement groups to keep expanding Israel's borders until they return to the Biblical Israel at which time the end of the earth will take place and Jesus Christ will return.

These from people who deep down inside don't believe the other one will ever get to heaven.

 

You could very well be right but as far as the next stupid demand or decision, how about this one. It's Palestinian President Abbas saying if they can't reach a peace deal he'll ask Israel to "take over the West Bank." WTF?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/04/abbas-ill-ask-israel-to-t_n_792038.html

 

It seems Abbas is about to call the bluff of the Israelis and the detractors on the Palestinian side, he has a difficult job trying to govern the ungovernable while being forced into a corner by Israel, the building projects should stop, or be put under control of the Palestinian Auth. Let the Israeli's live there, if they want but pay rent to the right landlord. The PA, is fiscally reliant on western handouts, let them take some rent from the people who want to occupy their land, isn't that the way of people from there, to make money at any opportunity. (does that sound as bad to you as it does to me)

I fucking despair, in seven days I will be fifty and that is fifty years of this problem, skirmishes, all out wars, terrorism, death of athletes, assassinations, hijackings, student protests, failed peace accords.
If they do agree on something some bit player will put his hand up and try to tack a rider onto the deal, which will then fail. This fucking problem will outlast me and my children.

 

It was never their land. It was a desert and noone was using it. When Israel was created, Palestine ceased to exist. The creation of Israel in 1948, comes 26 years after the passage of the League of Nations Mandate of 1922. Britain was directed to create a "National Home" for the Jewish people.

What people fail to recognize is that Israel would have been happy to settle for what they had in 1948. But that wasn't good enough for Palestine who wanted to push them into the sea. Look what lobbing artillery at an Israeli farming tractor got them in 50 years. See what they get for starting a fight they can't finish.

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/islamandscience/map/islam-map.html#

Islam is about greed and world domination. The Islamic conference consists of 57 member and 3 observer states. Geographically dwarfing Israel to a speck in the middle. Israel is the only free democracy in the ME. Israeli arabs have full civic rights and their own political parties. Jews have been forced out of every arab country. Israel doesn't want Gaza that's why they withdrew. If the Palestinians were interested in peaceful coexistence there would be peace.

The thriving Khatif region was plucked from 2-generations of Israeli farmers and handed over to Palestine in 2007. A bunch of welfare louts looted what they could and turned the rest into a wasteland. They complain they never had any economic leverage to work their own land. Why didn't they work these farms and turn a profit? "Mohammed, Hasan, Borat... come see! These pineapples do not explode at all! Is this some kind of ethnic trickery?"

Yet the little mental-case fanatics keep trying. Palestinian politics mandate that "most charitable" = "weakest". Like all PLO, they follow the laziest path of least resistance. As sad as it is to see them bear the loss of their own children, whom they hide behind and send into the battlefield, I say look at the bright side. The Jews need a summer retreat and Jordan looks ripe for the picking.

I'm going to borrow some phrasing from one of our more astute members:
Palestine - You are surrounded. You are a dying country run by little wailing bitches and uneducated bomb-vest-wearing douches. You won't amount to anything. Ever. Stop trying.

 

This would make a really good story if the Government of Israel had not resorted to terrorism, murder, assassination and war crimes to drive the Palestinians off their land in the first place.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/rokach.html

But if Israel is all you say Israel is Israel should be able to survive on its own with out being the biggest recipient of US foreign aid shouldn't they?

 

Well not really. That was part of the original problem. The Israeli government discrimination against Arab citizens. Which has not really stopped.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...raelis-support-equal-rights-for-Arab-minority

 

CS Monitor? That's where you go for world opinion? My wife is a faith based award winning Catholic journalist who endeavors to respect every world view you can name. And a few you can't. And she openly rejects the CS Monitor. She wouldn't endorse that rag for wrapping fish or lining the bottom of a birdcage.

Their choice to remain exclusive, not Israel's. Beggers can't be choosers can they?

Because Palestine wants to dismantle educational institutions that promote democratic thought, jewish culture, and anything else not in league with Sharia and scholarly lessons that teach you where it's best to splatter the acid in a womans face or apply the bonesaw when cutting the hands off infidels.

The Knesset supports and encourages the involvement all Arab leaders in a democratic process. But Palestinians wont have any part of democracy or anything jewish, so they opt out.

Because they reject everything Jewish, so they refuse to take part in any labor or business markets that do not boycott Jews. That leaves very little, so most of them are welfare louts, protest-marching leeches, or terrorists.

#1 - Sauce? Israel's Parliament does not rely on the views in this poll for setting policy.
#2 - That just makes good security sense. The whole world is obnoxiously patting down the private parts of its citizens in airports and border crossings because fanatical Arab world views promote policies which justify blowing shit up every way and every chance they get.
#3 - Only 3,400 of them left in Palestine. And so many Arab friendly nations to the east west north and south with over a billion of their brothers and sisters. Why are they staying if not to close in on the last speck of non Islamic controlled proprty in the ME? It's their choice. But if they dont like it they should follow their brothers and sisters and just move already.
#4 - Sauce? Israel's Parliament would never support the views in this poll. And even you know that.

 

I'll be the first to admit that these are hard times for Israel. And they only exist because the US wants them to. But that doesnt justify allowing them to perish.