East and West of the Jordan River – Two States for Two Nations
By Elyakim Haetzni
The Left lives on slogans. Ever since the time of the Communist Manifesto, with the brilliant catchphrase, “You have nothing to lose but your shackles,” their flock yearns for political sayings created by masters of brainwashing and psychological warfare. The Israeli Left, for some time now, has not been part of the social or socialist Left. It has become bourgeois and rich, but it has not lost its passion for ideology and for debate and controversy. Its spiritual homeland is no longer Soviet Russia but Palestine, and at the heart of its new argument is not the distribution of wealth but the distribution of the land. They also require, as always, someone who they can condemn as a reactionary, living in the past, who is the object of their hatred.
Formerly, it was the contemptible capitalist; in our day it is the relentless settler, and the red ideology has been replaced by a new belief – the cult of “peace on our enemies’ terms.”
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If Obama wants Israel to release murderers, he should be willing to release Pollard
Observation: American hypocrisy: refusal to release Pollard causes stalemate in talks to return Abbas to table
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 28 June, 2013
Ma’an, the independent Palestinian news agency, reported this morning that
secret talks are being held over the release of pre-Oslo prisoners. PA head
Mahmoud Abbas has insisted that 107 Palestinians detained before the Oslo
agreement must be released before the PLO will return to negotiations with
Israel.
secret talks are being held over the release of pre-Oslo prisoners. PA head
Mahmoud Abbas has insisted that 107 Palestinians detained before the Oslo
agreement must be released before the PLO will return to negotiations with
Israel.
First a technical note: when PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Ma’an
the release of prisoners detained before 1993 was part of the 1999 Sharm
el-Sheikh memorandum and that Israel was obliged to abide by it he was a
barefaced liar. And I say bareface liar because, unlike some of his Israeli
counterparts, Erekat actually knows the text of the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh
memorandum, and that document in no way obligates Israel to release those
prisoners.
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the release of prisoners detained before 1993 was part of the 1999 Sharm
el-Sheikh memorandum and that Israel was obliged to abide by it he was a
barefaced liar. And I say bareface liar because, unlike some of his Israeli
counterparts, Erekat actually knows the text of the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh
memorandum, and that document in no way obligates Israel to release those
prisoners.
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Is Netanyahu planning a unilateral move?
[Martin Sherman has been warning about such a move for quite some time. Obviously if the "negotiations go nowhere, this is the Plan B. Ted Belman]
The music coming from the Prime Minister’s Office in recent weeks is anomalous. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been making uncharacteristically passionate statements about the diplomatic process; statements that go beyond the expected chatter about Israel’s desire to engage the Palestinians and negotiate a two-state solution.
One gets the sense that Netanyahu is desperate for diplomatic movement; that he has bought into the left-wing argument that the status quo is unsustainable; and that he is preparing to launch a unilateral Israeli initiative to concede significant parts of Judea and Samaria.
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Into the Fray: Brain dead on the Right?
By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST
The only thing more dangerous, delusional and disastrous than the Left’s proposal for a two-state solution, is the proposal now bandied about by the Right – for a one-state solution
- The nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things… constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received. – Ernest Renan, What is a Nation?
- A portion of mankind… united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others – which make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively. – John Stuart Mill, On Representative Government
Yes, I know I have cited these excerpts before. Last March to be exact – see “The New York Times versus the Jews” and “Israel’s imperative: Jewish and democratic.” The difference is that then, I harnessed them to debunk far-left anti-Zionist calls for a one-state approach to the Israel- Palestinian conflict. Now it appears I have to invoke them to debunk rightwing proposals, which call for almost exactly the same thing.
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It’s Time to Tell the Truth About the “Peace Process”
By Barry Rubin, PJ MEDIA June 27th, 2013
“He who tells the truth is driven from nine villages.”– Turkish proverb
Has it become time that the absurd paradigm governing the Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the “peace process” be abandoned or challenged?
After all, this narrative has become increasingly ridiculous. Here is what is close to being the official version:
- The Palestinians desperately want an independent state and are ready to compromise to obtain that goal. They will then live peacefully alongside Israel in a two-state solution. Unfortunately, this is blocked either by: a) misunderstanding on both sides or b) in the recent words of the Huntington Post, “the hard-line opponents who dominate Israel’s ruling coalition.”
Israel is behaving foolishly, too, not seeing that, as former President Bill Clinton recently said, Israel needs peace in order to survive. One aspect—perhaps a leading one—why Israel desperately needs peace is because of Arab demographic growth. The main barrier to peace are the Jewish settlements.
A recipe for disaster.
Responding to Moshe Arens’ call for West Bank Palestinians to become citizens of Israel, Carlo Strenger says history shows such a state is a recipe for disaster.
Carlo Strenger writing in Haaretz takes issue with Moshe Arens who argues for a one state solution where Arabs have full civil and political rights:
- I will argue that Arens is too optimistic about human nature. He believes that rational interests primarily guide human action, and disregards the profound human need to feel part of a culture they share with others, and the desire to be governed by people they identify with.
Let me start with Arens’ insistence that the Greater Land of Israel will continue to be the homeland of the Jewish people. Its dominant narrative and national cohesion will be based on a Jewish-Zionist perspective, to which Arens is profoundly attached, and which, for him, is Israel’s raison d’être.
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France’s soaring anti-Semitism lures Jewish Defense League vigilantes out of shadows
French Jewish Defense League activists demonstrating in Paris, 2011. (Ligue de Defense Juive)
PARIS (JTA) — With scooter helmets in hand, a man called Yohan and six buddies stroll around Paris’ 20th arrondissement. The seven look much like a typical group of French students — until they locate a group of Arab men they suspect of perpetrating an anti-Semitic attack the previous day.
Using their helmets as bludgeons, members of France’s Jewish Defense League, or LDJ, set upon the Arabs and beat them. Several of the Arabs attempt to escape in a blue sedan, but the LDJ members pursue the vehicle, causing it to crash into a stone wall.
The attack last August, filmed by a television crew shooting a documentary on LDJ, was one of at least 115 violent incidents that critics attribute to the group since its registration in France in 2001 — a year after the eruption of the second intifada in Israel and the sevenfold increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the 12 years that followed.
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Asia is becoming Israel’s new frontier – here’s why
By Jonathan Adelman & Asaf Romirowsky, Forbes, May 14, 2013
When we think of Israel, we usually think of the Middle East (its neighborhood), North America (its close ally the United States) and Europe (the long history of Ashkenazi Jews). Rarely do we think about Israel and Asia, even less about Asia as Israel’s new frontier. We don’t think of Asia as playing any significant role in Israel’s evolution given the tiny Asian Jewish population, the lack of significant Jewish history in Asia, and minimal relations between Israel and most Asian countries for the first 40 years (1948-1988) of Israel’s existence. Yet, last year Israel called 2012 “the year of Asia in Israel.” The Israeli government sponsored an Asian Science Camp attracting over 220 Asian students to join nearly 40 Israeli students for a week long program of lectures by world class Israeli researchers
How did such a gathering ever happen? Many factors propelled Israel-Asian relations to the forefront. Historically, Asia largely lacks the anti-Semitism that was so prominent in Europe and also the Middle East. Geographically, Israel is in West Asia, only four hours by air from India and 11 hours by air from China. Historically, Israel, like most Asian states, is a new state born after World War II after a struggle with a Western colonial power, in this case Great Britain.
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Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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