No Linkage Between Iran and Palestinians
Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is a dangerous linkage.
I have long favored the two-state solution, as do most Israelis and American supporters of Israel. I have also long opposed civilian settlements deep into the West Bank. I hope that Israel does make efforts, as it has in the past, to establish a Palestinian state as part of an overall peace between the Jewish state and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.
Israel in 2000-2001 offered the Palestinians a state in the entire Gaza Strip and more than 95% of the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem and a $35 billion compensation package for the refugees. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and instead began the second intifada in which nearly 5,000 people were killed. I hope that Israel once again offers the Palestinians a contiguous, economically-viable, politically independent state, in exchange for a real peace, with security, without terrorism and without any claim to "return" 4 million alleged refugees as a way of destroying Israel by demography rather than violence.
But the threat from a nuclear Iran is existential and immediate for Israel. It also poses dangers to the entire region, as well as to the United States. The dangers come not only from the possibility that a nation directed by suicidal leaders would order a nuclear attack on Israel or its allies, but from the likelihood that nuclear material could end up in the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas or even Al Qaeda. Recall what Hashemi Rifsanjani said to an American journalist:
[Rifsanjani] boast[ed] that an Iranian [nuclear] attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated by dropping its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose only fifteen million people, which he said would be a small 'sacrifice' from among the billion Muslims in the world.
Israel has the right, indeed the obligation, to take this threat seriously and to consider it as a first priority. It will be far easier for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians if it did not have to worry about the threat of a nuclear attack or a dirty bomb. It will also be easier for Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank if Iran were not arming and inciting Hamas, Hezbollah and other enemies of Israel to terrorize Israel by rockets and suicide bombers. In this respect, Emanuel has it exactly backwards: if there is any linkage, it goes the other way -- defanging Iran will promote the end of the occupation and the two-state solution. Threatening not to help Israel in relation to Iran unless it moves toward a two-state solution first is likely to backfire.
After all, Israel is a democracy and in the end the people decide. A recent poll published in Haaretz concluded that 66% of Israelis favored a preemptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, with 75% of those saying they would still favor such a strike even if the United States were opposed.
Israel's new government will accept a two-state solution if they are persuaded that it will really be a solution -- that it will assure peace and an end to terrorist and nuclear threats to Israeli citizens. I have known Prime Minister Netanyhu for 35 years and I recently had occasion to spend some time with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. I am convinced that despite their occasional tough talk, both want to see an end to this conflict.
Israelis have been scarred by what happened in Gaza. Israel ended the occupation, removed all of the settlers, and left behind millions of dollars worth of agricultural and other facilities designed to make the Gaza into an economically-viable democracy. Land for peace is what they sought. Instead they got land for rocket attacks against their children, their women and their elderly. No one wants to see a repeat of this trade-off.
Emanuel's statements were viewed with alarm in Israel because most Israelis, though they want to like President Obama, are nervous about his policies toward Israel. They are prepared to accept pressure regarding the settlements, which are not related to Israel's security, but they worry that the Obama Administration may be ready to compromise, or at least threaten to compromise, Israel's security, if its newly elected government does not submit to pressure on the settlements. Most Israelis strongly believe that these issues must not be linked.
Making peace with the Palestinians will be extremely complicated. It will take time. It may or may not succeed in the end, depending on whether the Palestinians will continue to want their own state less than they want to see the end of the Jewish state. Israel should not be held hostage to the Iranian nuclear threat by the difficulty of making peace with the Palestinians. Recall again that Israel offered such a peace in 2000-2001, only to be rebuffed. It may be rebuffed again, especially if Palestinian radicals believe that such a rebuff will soften American action against Iran. In the meantime, Iran will continue in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. That cannot be allowed to happen, regardless of progress on the ground toward peace with the Palestinians. These two issues must be delinked if either is to succeed. There are other ways of encouraging Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. Nuclear blackmail is not one of them.
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Dershowitz, Zuckerman, Rabbi Cooper just within a week we see articles from all of them, with one topic IRAN...giv
no surprise Guardian reported earlier HP was one of the sites in the target list of Has.bara..
LoL - on the money!
Only if the money is counterfeit. This posting is proof of only one thing. This site gives evidence, on a daily basis, of the reason Israel has to exist.
Another excellent post!
Dershowitz writes: "defanging Iran will promote the end of the occupation and the two-state solution."
Then what pray tell Mr. Dershowitz accounts for the last 61 years, besides the plan laid out by Jabotinsky in the document "The Iron Wall"?
Thank you for this excellent point which establishes the hypocrisy which is the basis of this man's every diatribe.
ALL matters having to do with Palestinains are to negotiation betweent he two parties with mediation, of course. This will happen when Palestinians have representatives capable of doing whats promised. So far the M.O. has been ( perfected by Arafat) to talk peace to the West and israelis
while sponsoring terrorism.
This was the same electorate which elected Israeli doves willing to let Arafat into territories. And this is the same democratic electorate that witnessed with horror Palestinian leaders' Trojan horse behavior.
And subsequently started electing the hawks with enthusiasm formerly reserved for the doves.
What a laugh. At what point since 1967 has Israel stopped ethnic cleansing and colonization activities in the West Bank?
"No to Syria, Iran agents," by Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor-in-chief of Kuwait's Arab Times newspaper,:
"Arab governments have been caught between political obligations and public opinion leading to more corruption in politics and economics. Forgetting the interests of their own countries the Hamas Movement and Hezbollah have gone to the extent of representing the interests of Iran and Syrian in their countries.
These organizations have become the representatives of Syria and Iran without worrying about the consequences of their action.
This attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has been doing all it can to protect the Arab world from Israeli aggression, is enough to unmask the adventurers, who have violated the rights of their own countries and tried put their people under the guardianship of foreign countries like Iran and Syria."
This would be the same Kuwait that you constantly point out is responsible for ethnically cleansing its refugee Palestinian population, along with Arabs of other nationalities, after their government was restored by the United States. Right?
LOL... yes, the very same! That is also the very same article that ludi has been thread-spaming for the last two weeks by pretending to be knowledgeable of the arab MSM. He actually lifted this article from a spurious website that he does not want to provide us with a link to. This article is about 3 years old.
I'll be very appreciative to see the source of this quote, thanks:
[Rifsanjani] boast[ed] that an Iranian [nuclear] attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated by dropping its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose only fifteen million people, which he said would be a small 'sacrifice' from among the billion Muslims in the world."
Hi, It's on Iran Press Service
http://www
The quotation is not accurate. Here is a reference:
http://www
Apparently, he said "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce minor damages in the Muslim world."
It should be noted that while Rafsanjani was previously a president, he does not rule Iran. In fact, the Web page above also notes: "His remarks had immediately been met with a barrage of harsh criticism from Iranians, observing that not only the dropping of a nuclear bomb over Israel would kill as many Israelis as Palestinians and Christians, but also totally destroy Jerusalem, considered as the Muslim’s third holy place." Taking this statement out of context and quoting it inaccurately is similar to the false claim that Ahmadinejad said he wants to "wipe out Israel."
Excellent post. Some folk do not read beyond the headlines.
fein -
It wasn't in quotes.
The example of Iran is about as close as one can get to the modern definition of Isalmofascism in action.
Supreme Leader with almost unlimited powers, savage suppression of non-conformists , arbitrary arrests, torture and assassinations, sham elections, preoccupation with Jews, employment of terror against the Iranian society, extreme rhetoric and shameless propaganda ( Ahmadienjad).
Lucky for the world, Iranian theocracy doesn't have a disciplined and well-educated populace at its disposal.
Do you have any arguments that are not of the adhominem type?
What is it to you what kind of state they have? Isreal and it's jewish state, jew only roads, jewish only property aquisition, and no divorce for females, is hardly and example of an Ideal secularized state.
actually, all Israelis, jew or not jews, are citizens and have all rights for everything. There are Arabs in the Knesset. There are no jews or christians for that matter running anything in their neighbor's countries.
whatever you say: Is.rael will need to follow 2 state solutions.
Only complimentary comments seem to go through Huffington Post censors. Thank you Mr. Dershowitz for a wonderful and enlightening commentary. Unfortunately, many of us learned long time ago to ignore your diatribes and falsehoods.
"After all, Israel is a democracy and in the end the people decide." but the same rules can't apply to the Palestinians - they can only elect leaders that Israel and the US approve of. The same goes for all other Arab countries in the Middle East.
They can elect who they want - BUT they then suffer the consequences of having a radical government that kill the opposition with in it's borders, has very little regard for its citizens and attacks and wants to destroy its neighbor - RATHER than rebuilding the country.
Bad agenda Horrible result -
BUT yes they are leagally elected
There's a religious narrative of domination which essentially claims all Middle East to exclusive control of one religion: a “waqf.”
This is what Israeli--Arab conflict is all about--- inability of Islamic fundamentalists thinkers and leaders to accept legitimacy of a non-Islamic state.
Especially that of (formerly) weak Jews. ALL Islamic fundamentalists engage in this imperialist notion. Indeed, this is the main thrust of Iranian theocratic argument against the existence of a Jewish state.
Everything else is mostly window dressing used to mask catastrophic failures of Iranian theocracy
The real religious narrative is from the Zionists who claim that as the Chosen People they're entitled to recreate "Greater Israel"
I think they call this "Ersatz Israel".
Here's a far fetched idea that'll probably never happen - Create a nuclear free Middle East. Israel can offer to dismantle its "ambiguous" nuclear arsenal if Iran agrees to permanently forego its nuclear ambitions/activity.
... And all Arab states agree to never developing nuclear weapons.
Then it could work.
yeah let us disarm Is.rael to get some credibility first..
Iran's nuclear activity have no relation to weapons programs unlike Israel.
Right on. A Palestinian state with full rights and sovereignty should be established no matter how Iran behaves. The Palestinians should have a state even if Iran gets nukes and even if Israel keeps them.
The goal should be a nuke-free Middle East with Israel in the crosshairs along with Iran in this regard.
But nukes cannot stop the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for their own state. All settlers out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem would be a start. No right of return for Jews to Palestine and no right of return for Palestinians to Israel. Those Jews who elect to stay in Palestine should be on the same footing there as Arabs in Israel are.
Or, simply work on a one-state solution along the lines of the Sullivan Principles that worked for South Africa. No ethnic preferences in any area, whether immigration, etc. A true one person-one vote democracy. Your choice.
Isreal has destroyed the possibility for two states with their so called 'facts on the ground'.
Incidentally, this is the same Dershowitz who claimed that ethnic cleansing really isn't such a bad thing, and that Palestinians should be held "legally and morally" liable for the Holocaust, since one Arab religious official named Hajj Amin al-Husseini collaborated with Nazis during WWII, and so according Dershowitz "many decent people" believe that the Palestinians as a whole should have simply acquisced to being ethnically
I kid you not. Read "The Case for Israel" by Alan Dershowitz; Wiley, 2003
Funny to claim that there's no connection between Palestine and Iran when it is Netanyahoooooo who claims that he can't make peace with the Palestinians because of the Iranians.
So I guess there is a connection as long as it is framed to serve Israel's purpose of continuing the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The Palestinians have to give up the right of return, and Israel has to get out of the occupied territories. And maybe, just maybe, it's time for Mr. Dershowitz to admit that torture isn't an option...e
Hey I have an idea -- why don't the Zionist give up their right of return first?
Israel is a state. Palestinian territories is not.
Why would they want to return to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
So Palestinians must give up their rights (to return to the land they were expelled from by Zionists) and in return Israelis will stop doing something that is illegal and that they shouldn't have been doing in the first place (building settlements on occupied Palestinian land).
Yes, exactly. That's how ZIonists make peace.
The Palestinians DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP their right of return, that is their inalienable right. Too bad International Human Rights gets in the way of Israel, a Nation, that's existence relies on breaking International laws and Human Rights laws.
hasbara much?
This article is loaded with so many points of spin on the truth I couldn't get through 2 paragraphs.
Start with the resason for the 2nd infitada. Israel militrary built up and planned for it weeks in advance.
Sharon marched on the mosque to cause a reaction that would be used to start the aggression.
Together with Mort Zuckerman's and Rabbi Abraham Cooper's pieces, we've had a day of concerted Zio£ist revisionism and spinning.
Then, on the other hand, we have your usual fare of anecdotical articles on Ara§s and Muslims in general, lest we forget how "backward" they are.
The lobby must be ecstatic.
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