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Zman
06-10-2007, 08:08 AM
:sl:/Peace To All

General Who Helped Redraw The Borders Of Israel Says Road Map To Peace Is A Lie

The Man Who Commanded Gaza and The West Bank From The Last Day Of The Six Day War Talks To Donald Macintyre In Tel Aviv

Published: 10 June 2007
Independent

Immediately after the Six Day War, 40 years ago, Shlomo Gazit was put in charge of Gaza and the West Bank.

Today, the retired general is in favour of talks with Hamas, describes the road map as a "pretext" for Israel not to negotiate with the Palestinians, and thinks the idea that the US can or should veto a peace process between Jerusalem and Damascus is a "nonsense".

...Yet he enjoys the unique distinction of having, from the heart of the Israeli military, proposed in writing a Palestinian state exactly 40 years ago yesterday - 24 hours before the war had even ended.

And he has never been more convinced than now that such a state, its negotiated borders based on those that preceded the war, and involving withdrawal from most of the West Bank Jewish settlements, remains the only answer to the conflict.

...His grief did not stop him producing a remarkably clear-sighted - and, for the times, heretical - memorandum on 9 June that proposed "the establishment of an independent Palestinian state [without military forces] in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip". The Old City, holy to three great religions, and taken over by triumphant Israeli forces only 48 hours earlier, should "become an 'open city' with an independent status resembling the Vatican".

The memo went to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, to Defence Minister Moshe Dayan and to Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin. "Unfortunately, not one of them responded to the document," Mr Gazit would later write. "No discussion was held, nor was any action taken."

...He set out as far as possible to implement the charismatic Dayan's notion of an "invisible occupation" - one that was progressively undermined by the relentless growth of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, and of the military apparatus protecting them.

While acknowledging that the post-war Israeli Labour government allowed that process to start, Mr Gazit blames Menachem Begin's Likud, which swept to power in 1977, for the policy of "creeping annexation".

That paved the way for the 250,000 settlers in the West Bank today, and helped to "destroy any hope" of the 1978 Camp David accords leading to full Palestinian autonomy.

"When Labour left office, there were maybe 5,000 settlers," he says. "Begin said, 'We're going to have 100,000.' I wish we [only] had 100,000 today."

On the Oslo accords, the ex-general, who represented Israel in back-channel discussions with the Palestinians in the 1990s, says he is "not one of those who thought that Oslo was doomed from the very beginning".

But he thinks that postponement of discussion of a final settlement until the end of a series of "confidence-building measures" was a "totally wrong concept".

He adds: "If I wanted to reach an agreement I would say first, 'these are the principles of a final settlement'."

...But he also believes that "one of the biggest mistakes made by us" after Rabin's death was the assassination of the senior Hamas militant and bomb-maker, Yahiya Ayyash, in January 1996.

It was followed by 60 Israeli deaths in four horrific suicide bombings over the next two months, hastening the collapse of Oslo and Shimon Peres's premiership.

"Arafat told me he could not tell the extremists they had no right to avenge the killing of Ayyash," he says.

Had Ariel Sharon not had his massive stroke in January 2006, Mr Gazit believes he would have realised that withdrawal from Gaza was not going to be enough to fulfil the demographic objective that had come to preoccupy him - ensuring a Jewish majority in the territory controlled by Israel.

As a result, he thinks, Mr Sharon would have embarked on withdrawals from the West Bank.

Where does Israel stand now? Four decades ago, the Khartoum Arab summit of August 1967 famously said "no" to negotiations, to recognition of Israel and to peace. Mr Gazit - now at Tel Aviv University's Institute of National Strategic Studies - is among those who have questioned whether the summit did torpedo peace hopes as absolutely as Israel has always claimed.

However, he points out that in any case this year's Arab summit in Riyadh - which promised recognition of Israel in return for a withdrawal to 1967 borders - turned the three Khartoum "nos" into three "yeses".

On top of that, he says, opinion polls show that a clear majority of the Israeli public want an agreement on a two-state solution. They realise that "small is beautiful, and that if Israel wants to survive as a Jewish state, we have to get rid of the territories".

Nor does he see any problem in Israel talking directly to Hamas, elected to run the Palestinian Authority in January 2006, "not because I'm a lover of Hamas, but because you can't ignore it" - and because he believes that it is impossible to reach agreement without at least its tacit consent.

In the veteran's view, "conditions are very ripe to reach an agreement" with the Palestinians, but as he wrote last week on the joint Israeli-Palestinian Bitterlemons website, the problem is weak leadership on both sides of the conflict.

"It will be sad and painful if... yet more confrontations and more sacrifices... are required before we can fully reap the fruits of [the 1967] war."

That said, Mr Gazit still believes that the Palestinian state he envisaged as the Six Day War continued to rage 40 years ago will happen.

A man who has never bowed to the conventional wisdom of the moment, Mr Gazit declares that "ultimately, I'm very optimistic".

Further reading: 'Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories' by Shlomo Gazit ( Frank Cass)

Source:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2640432.ece
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Zman
06-11-2007, 12:46 AM
:sl:/Peace To All


Why Israel Doesn't Engage The Saudi Initiative

By Carlo Strenger
Last Update - 10:21 08/06/2007
Haaretz

One of the most puzzling aspects of Israeli policy over the last five years is that neither the Sharon nor the Olmert governments have given the Saudi peace initiative any serious consideration.

For most of its existence, Israel could only dream of an offer that explicitly includes peace, recognition of Israel's right to exist and normalization of its relationship with the Arab world.

Why, then, has Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered nothing but lip service to the Saudi initiative, and why did former prime minister Ariel Sharon never even indicate that he took it seriously at all?

There are good reasons to believe that the Saudi initiative, ratified by the Arab League, stems from solid and tangible interests on the Arab side.

...They believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most powerful destabilizing factors in the area, and they have good reasons to think that it fuels Islamic extremism.

The Arab world has come to a point where it is joining the international legitimizing of Israel provided by the 1947 UN resolution that endorsed the partition plan, because it no longer believes that it is in its interest to reject Israel's existence.

Why, then, does Israel not engage with the Saudi peace initiative?

This initiative, like any Arab proposal that will ever come up, demands a "just solution of the refugee problem."

The deep-seated fear in Israel is that the Arab insistence on a solution for the Palestinian refugee problem is ultimately a ploy to wipe Israel as a Jewish state off the map, not through military means, but through demographic means, by flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.

But there are models for the resolution of the problem.


In private conversations, influential Palestinians often say that for them, an acceptance of the Palestinian right of return is far more about Israel accepting moral responsibility for the Nakba (literally, "catastrophe," the Palestinian term for Israel's establishment and the subsequent refugee crisis) than it is about the physical return of Palestinians to their homes within the 1967 borders, and the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement of 1995 has given semi-official expression to this view.
Here, I believe, resides the deepest reason for Israel's reluctance to actively engage with the Saudi initiative.


Israeli public discourse and national consciousness have never come to terms with the idea, accepted by historians of all venues today, that Israel actively drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1947/8 and hence has at least partial responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba.
This has not happened to this very day because this idea is seen as undermining the foundation of the Zionist enterprise and the legitimacy of Israel's existence.

It is as if we were locked into an insoluble dilemma: Either we deny responsibility for the Nakba, or we need to accept that we have no right to be here.

This is the source of the deep fear that prevents Israel from meeting the Arab world face to face and saying "we are here, and we believe that you accept our existence."

Since Israel has not come to terms with its part in the historical responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba, it cannot truly believe that Arabs could accept our presence in the Middle East.

We are locked into a vacillation between self-images of either all-good or all-bad, and hence continue the occupation of the territories, with all the horrors it includes, because the idea of Israel being guilty of anything is still equated with the denial of our right to be here.

The only way out of this deadlock is to raise the question of how Israel can live with its responsibility for the Nakba into public discourse.

The dilemma of "either we are morally impeccable, or we have no right to be here" needs to be replaced with a narrative that accepts that Israel's moral, historical and political reality is as complex and multilayered as that of most nations.

In the best of all possible worlds, an Israeli statesman (a rare commodity in an age of mere politicians) would arise and tell the Palestinians:


"Israel came into existence in tragic circumstances that inflicted great suffering and injustice on your people. We accept responsibility for our part in this tragedy, even though we cannot fully rectify it. Let us sit together and see how we can end the vicious cycle of violence and suffering and live side by side."
This is not likely to happen in the immediate future.

A Jewish Israeli politician who would say such a thing would become unelectable.

Hence it is up to the citizenry to bring this issue into the public consciousness. Otherwise, Israeli policies will continue to be devoid of any creativity and political horizon, and we will miss historic opportunities that may not return.

The author is a professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University.

Source:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868469.html
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Cognescenti
06-11-2007, 05:04 AM
From my perspective in the West, Jerusalem as an "open city" seems like a natural idea. The problem is hard liners on both sides oppose the idea and are willing to oppose it with bloodshed.

Sharon need only walk through a tunell and all Hell broke loose.
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Trumble
06-11-2007, 08:17 AM
Sorry, I seem to be missing something here.

and thinks the idea that the US can or should veto a peace process between Jerusalem and Damascus is a "nonsense"
What 'peace process' between Jerusalem and Damascus? And why would the US want to 'veto' it?
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HBot 5000
06-11-2007, 01:03 PM
Off course the road map to peace is a lie! What are you surprised by this? The Jewish occupation will never end until they have recaptured the greater Israel (the founder of Israel wanted this) and got rid of all the arabs living there.
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Zman
06-11-2007, 01:23 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
Sorry, I seem to be missing something here.

What 'peace process' between Jerusalem and Damascus? And why would the US want to 'veto' it?

Peace Trumble,


Bush To Blame If There Is War With Syria

Former Foreign Ministry Director General Tells Ynet That Syria Willing To Aabandon Iran Camp In Favor Of Alliance With Moderate Arab Nations – But Only If Supported By The US. Bush Meanwhile Refuses To Talk To Damascus

By Roee Nahmias
06.10.07
Ynet

US President George W. Bush is to blame if Israel goes to war with Syria, former Foreign Ministry director-general Dr. Alon Lial charged on Sunday.

Lial, who took part in secret talks with Syria in recent years, accused Bush of torpedoing efforts at diplomacy between the two Middle East nations.


"(Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and (Syrian President Bashar) Assad did their part. If a war breaks out this summer it's US President George Bush's fault, who is blocking the sides from advancing," Lial told Ynet.

Lial said Bush refused to discuss with Assad a "major deal", by which Syria would "defect" from the Iranian camp in favor of the moderate Sunni alliance and the West.


Thus there is no point in talking peace with Syria, Lial said, and tensions are only increasing towards a possible war this summer.

"The situation is really starting to get dangerous," Lial said in conversation with Ynet. "Olmert has undergone a dramatic change in anything to do with negotiations. He's ready to talk with the Syrians, and his direction is very clear. He's ready to go back on the deals made by (former prime ministers Yitzhak) Rabin, (Ehud) Barak and (Benjamin) Netanyahu. There is no doubt the Syrians are interested in talking peace with Israel in return for sovereignty over the Golan Heights. This is a major advance in the Israeli position."

"The problem now lies with Washington, which lifted its opposition to Israel talking with Syria, but the US itself won't meet with Syria about the situation in the region. Assad wants Washington in the picture.

He's saying" 'I can't change camps if the US doesn't cancel its boycott of me, and doesn't open the door for me into the Egypt-Jordan-Saudi camp. I'm willing to disconnect from Iran, but Israel won't be my partner in that – the US will.


"Therefore Bush is the bottleneck.
The fact that he's willing to send an American official to mediate between the sides is significant. I hope the issue comes up in talks between Olmert and Bush next week, and that the Americans agree to send an envoy to examine the issue of Syria disconnecting from Iran," he said.

'Four Years Of Diplomatic Efforts'

..."The Syrians have wanted to talk for four years. They started in the Sharon era. They don't care who the prime minister of Israel is, as long as he's willing to give up sovereignty over the Golan..."


"It's not true that Israel didn't get an answer from Assad. Don't get carried away by every headline," Lial scolded. "The Syrian position has long been clear. The change has to be from the Israeli side."

Complete Report:
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/Art...411052,00.html
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Sami Zaatari
06-11-2007, 02:43 PM
well the article from haaretz was good, for once one israeli admits that they forcefully drove out hundreds of thousands of palestinians from their land, not the usual propaganda crap we hear that all the palestinians left their land at free will. :)
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rav
06-11-2007, 03:01 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari
well the article from haaretz was good, for once one israeli admits that they forcefully drove out hundreds of thousands of palestinians from their land, not the usual propaganda crap we hear that all the palestinians left their land at free will. :)
Peace Sami,

You forgot to add about the "propaganda" that Arab ad-hoc bodies like the Arab Emergency Committee, under the umbrella of the Arab Higher Committee were doing their best to get them out as well. :)
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islamirama
06-11-2007, 03:03 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari
well the article from haaretz was good, for once one israeli admits that they forcefully drove out hundreds of thousands of palestinians from their land, not the usual propaganda crap we hear that all the palestinians left their land at free will. :)
exactly! and now if they can also recognize the massacre sharon did of the 2 refuge camps then we might be able to think about peace process taking place.
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Zman
06-11-2007, 06:25 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari
well the article from haaretz was good, for once one israeli admits
:sl:

Honestly, Haaretz is a good source of info. It has a lot of nice articles. This isn't the first article that I've read where the author was fair & balanced.

Ynet, is a pretty good source, also...
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Bittersteel
06-12-2007, 08:01 AM
why?just becuz its liberal?or is it rational and moderate?or pro-Arab?
saw a pic in the newspaper today.Palestinian homes being demolished in east Jerusalem.
are they kicking out Muslims and Arabs alike from east Jerusalem?
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Zman
06-12-2007, 02:53 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Aziz
why?just becuz its liberal?or is it rational and moderate?or pro-Arab?

:sl:

Because of the above 3 which I highlighted. It's not completely pro-Arab, but at least there is a voice which defends them...

saw a pic in the newspaper today.Palestinian homes being demolished in east Jerusalem. are they kicking out Muslims and Arabs alike from east Jerusalem?

Arabs, as in Christian-Arabs?

I know about the Muslims. But, I did read artciles about how Plaestinian Christians are angry with some of the things the Israeli's did and do, since the Nakbah...
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Zman
07-14-2007, 05:46 PM
:sl:/Peace To All

When Will These Gullible Arabs Learn?



Khalid Amayreh,
In Occupied East-Jerusalem
7/11/07
ThePeoplesVoice

The decision of the Arab League to dispatch a delegation to Israel to discuss the already moribund Arab Peace initiative can only be interpreted as another exercise in futility, gullibility and impotence.

First of all, Israel itself is utterly uninterested in any genuine peace process that would end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bring about a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee plight.

Indeed, a country that has built hundreds of Jewish-only colonies on stolen land, and is now mutilating the West Bank with a hateful, gigantic wall that is reducing Palestinian population centers to open-air concentration camps, is obviously not interested in peace and reconciliation, neither with the Palestinian people nor with the Arab and Muslim nations.

Hence, it is only logical to expect the Arab initiative, which promises Israel full normalization of relations with Arab countries in return for a total withdrawal from the occupied territories and a just solution for the enduring refugee plight, will eventually face the same failure and same fiasco that other similar initiatives have met since the William Roger's plan in the late 1960s.

This is not to say that Israel will not want to talk with the Arab.

Israel does want to normalize relations with all Arab states and peoples from Mauritanian to Bahrain provided that they come to terms with Israel's Nazi-like colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing and attempted national annihilation of the Palestinian people.
The Arab League delegation, which includes Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu al Gheith and his Jordanian counterpart, Abdul Elah Khatib, was supposed to arrive in occupied Jerusalem Thursday, 12 July. However, the Israeli government has decided to postpone the visit for at least two weeks due to "special considerations" pertaining to Israeli premier Ehud Olmert.

The postponement, some observers suggest, should be seen as a proof of Israel's disinterest, even contempt, of the visit.
Earlier, the Israeli government has asked Egypt and Jordan to expand the Arab "contact group" to include other countries such as Saudi Arabia.

There is only one interpretation of the Israeli request, namely that Israel wants to normalize relations with all Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, while the Nazi-like occupation of Palestine and the Nazi-like treatment of Palestinians remain unchanged.

Olmert, a deceitful man with virtually no moral credibility, has said that he sees "positive points" in the Arab initiative, an allusion to the normalization clause.

However, he and other members of his government have made it very clear that a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories was out of question, that ending the occupation of East Jerusalem was out of question and that allowing significant numbers of Palestinian refugees to return home was out of question.
In a certain sense, Olmert is being honest since Israel doesn't consider the West Bank "occupied" land but rather a "disputed" territory.


The fact that the West Bank is already dotted with hundreds of Jewish-only settlements, inhabited by racist-minded Talmudic fanatics who view non-Jews as animals whose lives have no sanctity or value, makes it extremely difficult if not outright impossible for any Israeli government to leave the entirety of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem..

Moreover, East Jerusalem, the contemplated capital of the contemplated but unlikely Palestinian state, has already been reduced to a ghetto, surrounded on all sides by Jewish settlements.


And given the clear drift toward religious and right-wing chauvinism among Israeli Jews, it would a kind of day-dreaming to expect Israelis to agree to give up the Arab town back to its lawful owners even in return for a 100% -peace.

More to the point, if Jerusalem is "red line" for Israelis, government and peoples alike, the implementation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees is even a redder line.

Indeed, Israel and Zionism are about expulsion and deportation and ethnic cleansing of non-Jews, and allowing the refugees to return home would be Zionism's ultimate antithesis.

Hence, a voluntary and willful acceptance by Israel of the return of a significant number of Palestinian refugees to their former homes and property in what is now Israel would be even beyond day-dreaming.

So, if Israel is going to tell the Arab League delegation "No to Jerusalem, No the right of return and no to withdrawal to the 1967 borderline," then for God's sake why dispatch a delegation to Israel in the first place.

Under such circumstances, one is prompted to ask if the Arab League and Arabs in general have to bear another humiliation at the hands of these war criminals in West Jerusalem?
This is a question I put to the Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Mousa, who should be acquainted with the smallest details of Israeli intransigence and hostility to peace.

I realize that the Arabs might want to score a public relations achievement by showing the world that they are exhausting all possible efforts for peace and that Israel is the one that rejects peace.

But such a desperate feat will only be an expression of powerlessness and wishful thinking.

The world knows that Israel doesn't want peace, but this hypocritical and immoral world is simply not willing to call the spade a spade whenever it is in Israeli hands.

Hence, it is vital that the Arabs put an end to all these undignified and embarrassing contacts with Israel, and start exploring another strategy that would bring about both peace and freedom for Palestine.

Needless to say, this strategy lies first and foremost in achieving strategic parity with Israel, a country that understands only the language of brute force.

In the final analysis, the Arabs are acting as beggars, and beggars, as we all know, can't be choosers.

Only when the Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East possess a strategic force, will Israel start thinking about peace.
July 11, 2007 © 2007 Khalid Amayreh

Source:
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-b...8258#more18258
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Hashim_507
07-15-2007, 04:45 AM
I am surprise with that news; since the state of Israel created zionist vow never to have peace with muslim arabs.
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wilberhum
07-15-2007, 04:51 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hashim_507
I am surprise with that news; since the state of Israel created zionist vow never to have peace with muslim arabs.
I think you have your sides mixed. The Arabs attacked Israel on day one.
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Hashim_507
07-15-2007, 05:29 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum
I think you have your sides mixed. The Arabs attacked Israel on day one.
I am not being bias person; when arabs realise their lands being conquor and uccupied by zionist. Every actions have reactions; the muslim arabs rasist the uccopation and they realise they will get nothing from zionist.
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KAding
07-15-2007, 01:38 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hashim_507
I am surprise with that news; since the state of Israel created zionist vow never to have peace with muslim arabs.
I thought Israel was at peace with Egypt and Jordan?
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wilberhum
07-15-2007, 08:00 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hashim_507
I am not being bias person; when arabs realise their lands being conquor and uccupied by zionist. Every actions have reactions; the muslim arabs rasist the uccopation and they realise they will get nothing from zionist.
Conquor? :-\
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