You recently wrote a column in The New York Times entitled "Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?"
Asserting that yours is "an act of friendship," you unleashed a torrent of criticism against Israel, claiming, among other angry accusations, that the Jewish state is "endangered most by its leaders and maximalist stance."
I beg to differ. And no, I don't do so as an opponent of a two-state agreement or a fan of settlements throughout the West Bank. I happen to be neither.
While I've never for a moment argued that Israel should be walled off from critical scrutiny, I simply think you've spun a narrative which is highly selective in its purported analysis.
Stripped to its bare minimum, you believe that peace with the Palestinians would be just around the corner if only Israel had enlightened leadership today.
Your main claim is that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu prefers settlements -- a "national suicide policy" -- to peace.
Is that so?
Yes, it's true another step toward building within Gilo, a well-developed Jerusalem neighborhood, was just taken and the timing was unhelpful.
But, in your column, you noted: "Every negotiator knows the framework of a peace agreement." Those negotiators all understand that Gilo will remain part of Israel in any conceivable deal.
No, I'm not one of those you disparage as believing that "Jerusalem must all belong to Israel in any peace deal." But I do know that, in any final agreement, Jerusalem will necessarily look different from the way it did on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War, taking into account historical and demographic realities.
But what's most striking is that you insulate the Palestinian Authority (PA) from any responsibility for the current impasse.
While going after Israel with a two-by-four, and grotesquely implying that "hard-liners like Netanyahu" are to be lumped together with "hard-liners like Hamas," the PA gets a free pass.
Is that because you genuinely believe they're squeaky clean, or rather because, as the political cliché goes, they're the "weaker party" and, therefore, need to be coddled?
Either way, you're missing an essential part of the story you're seeking to describe.
First, why isn't the PA at the bargaining table across from Israel? President Abbas was there till early 2009, when, it should be noted, neither side imposed preconditions on the other to pursue those talks. Importantly as well, the Israelis put a far-reaching two-state deal on that table -- not the first such offer, by the way -- only to have it once again rebuffed.
Anything to be learned from that experience?
Second, if the Palestinians can now seek to impose preconditions on Israel for a resumption of talks, why shouldn't Israel be able to do the same?
Moreover, when the prime minister you vilify became Israel's first leader to agree to a moratorium on settlement building for ten months, where were the Palestinians?
Third, did you catch President Abbas' speech at the UN General Assembly on September 23, as part of his unilateral UN gambit? If so, would you characterize it as offering an olive branch? If you were an Israeli, irrespective of President Clinton's unbecoming attempt at ethno-religious categorizing of Israeli citizens, would you take comfort from the Palestinian leader's fiery words?
Fourth, did you by chance see President Abbas' op-ed, on May 15, in your newspaper? Did you notice his rewriting of Middle East history, which the fact checkers somehow missed? Was that piece meant to send an encouraging note to Israel, the other half of the equation, about the PA's credibility as a peace partner?
Fifth, did you read President Abbas' comment, in early September: "We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years."?
That, of course, takes the "occupation" back to 1948, the year of Israel's establishment, rather than the Six-Day War.
Does this mean, in Palestinian eyes, that the conflict is territorial or existential?
Sixth, did you notice the comment of the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, as reported the other day in Lebanon's Daily Star?
The ambassador said "even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens."
In other words, he said, the new Palestinian state would "absolutely not" be issuing passports to Palestinian refugees.
Did the PA reject his comment? If so, I missed it.
And if a new Palestinian state is not the answer to the Palestinian refugee issue, then what exactly is?
Seventh, in Brazil, the Palestinian ambassador there, Alzebin Ibrahim, was quoted in the prominent magazine Veja-Brazil as saying to a contingent of university students that "Israel should disappear," expressing his preference for the final outcome. Did you catch it?
Again, if the PA repudiated the ambassador's words, it escaped me.
Eighth, you note that the "Palestinians are divided," but fail to mention the PA-Hamas reconciliation agreement or in any other way address how the Hamas factor is to be addressed in the context of the current diplomatic imbroglio.
Skipping it, however, won't make it go away -- and it's not a minor matter, either.
Ninth, you omit any reference to another PA action that raises questions about prospects for peace -- glorification of Palestinian terrorists.
Among the most glaring examples of late was the visit earlier this year by a PA cabinet minister, Issa Karake, to the family of Abbas Al-Sayed.
Al-Sayed was the Hamas mastermind of the terrorist attack on a Passover Seder in Netanya, an Israeli coastal city. Thirty people were killed in the assault. On March 28, 2011, Isake presented Al-Sayed's family with a commemorative plaque marking the ninth anniversary of the carnage.
If cold-blooded murderers are to be lionized by the PA, does this advance the prospects of peaceful conflict resolution?
And finally, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said more than once, if the PA were to recognize the goal of two states for two peoples, then, from Israel's viewpoint, the way would be paved for a speedy breakthrough.
But President Abbas can't acknowledge the link between Israel and the Jewish people, i.e., the inherent legitimacy of the state. In fact, he's made clear he won't.
How does that stance help inspire confidence to move the peace process forward?
Respectfully, the Israeli people don't need lectures on the imperatives of peace. After 63 years, I assure you, they understand what the absence of peace means far better than you and I do.
But they also know, to borrow a phrase from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro in another context, that "the press's misunderstanding was merely the wish's predilection to be father to the thought."
Perhaps a clearer understanding of the realities on the ground might have steered you away from your own wishful thinking - and one-sided spin.
From my experience so called “journalists” often start with predetermined conclusions then selectively cherry pick facts to support a story line. I suspect this particular editorial appeals to the demographic which purchases the The New York Times. However, the cherry picking process used by Kristof is also used by anti-Semites. Historically “The Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; evil qualities are sought for in them because they are hated.” (Max Nordau)
History has repeatedly shown that words have real power for and can be used for good or evil.
This is what you get from unilaterally building facts on the ground on illegally obtained occupied land for decades: "Yes, it's true another step toward building within Gilo, a well-developed Jerusalem neighborhood, was just taken and the timing was unhelpful. "
It is beyond comprehension, either by sheer chutzpah, or many cheers at drinking the koolaid, that you -such a prominent man- only considers the timing unhelpful. A minimalist view that without context and ignoring the many times such actions of announcing illegal developments at auspicious (you call them unhelpful) times have scuttled peace negotiations. That being Monsieur, you are treating the Gilo affair like is not important. But YOU are failing to realize that is not what YOU think is not important, not what Obama thinks is not important, what Ban Ki Moon thinks is not important, not what Puttin/Medvyeved think is not important, not what Cameron, Blair, Clinton, think is not important. Monsieur, is WHO YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH thinks is important. If with all your accolades you still need help, I would let you know: GILO is important to the Palestinians and to them is not just another Jerusalem neighborhood. You talk past them, it seems very rude for such an accomplished man.
I agree with Harris also pointing out that there is no reason Arabs could not be compensated in money for any property their ancestors lost in the war. The “refugees” are the descendants of displaced Arabs who have been residing in Arab countries for over sixty years. Arabs are a nationality.
The demand to have Israel absorbed the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of Arab nationality, with no direct connection to the land, has no purpose other than to demographically destroy Israel.
The bottom line motive is appears to me like anti-Semitism in a new garb.
Of course, your off the cuff denial or the Right of Return can be done just as soon as you change the UN charter and Geneva convention, and get the whole world to sign up for it.
Imagine, for example Mr Richter, that we all decide that you don't have a right to drive, you can live only in poor neighborhoods, and you can't vote. Oh! and you can't have a cellphone. Only because we don't want you to, but you have the right to do what you want, but hey, the key is, you are old, you can't fight. The only thing you have is that law. That law says that might is not always right. But you are stubborn, and we tell you, why don't you just accept the "facts"?. We are not gonna give you your license, or cellphone, or the right to vote. so deal with it.
In a nutshell, that is what you are saying; and is what Israel has been demanding because the law says the refugees get to go home. Only if you were to realize that it is a most important issue for the Palestinians, and heart-wrenching, to give up. Almost as heart-wrenching, we were told, as when the settlers were moved from gaza.
Thanks, you've established your credibility with that remark.
Not even the UN accords such status to descendants - except tp Palestinians, who unlike everyone else in the world, never get on with their lives, and will continue to suck on the UN teat forever, as they have for over 60 years.
http://www.danielpipes.org/1206/unrwa-the-refugee-curse
Don't take too much notice of Daniel Pipes.
Instead read the actually relevant documents, which are the "Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees" and the "Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees" and the regulations available at the UNWRA website.
From those documents, you will see that refugee status is heritable by all refugees and not merely by Palestinian refugees as Pipes asserts.
Where's your legal foundation for claiming that the grandchildren and great-greatchildren of Arabs that left Jaffa in 1948 can go back to Jaffa in 2011?
Of course, you're not really an individual, so this is pointless.
(PS isn't there a HuffPost rule that disallows repeating the same posting over and over again?)
"Jerusalem belongs to Palestine"
Wrong. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state. It has been central site for the Jewish religion for many thousands of years.
Mohammed never set foot in Jerusalem. Muslims built mosques on the important religious sites of conquered civilizations as symbols of their domination The Dome of the Rock (built over the 2nd Temple)is far from the only example. Others include Hagia Sophia (built over a Greek Orthodox Cathedral), and the Mosque of Cordoba (built over a Visigothic Christian Church).
For example "Jordan" was the reward to the Hashemite family for its aid opposing the Ottomans in WWI. The Hashmites were living in Cairo at the time.
77% of British MAndatory Palestine was given over to them in 1922 to form "TransJordan" where Jews were forbidden to move to. It was the remaining 23% that was again partitioned in 1947
- unless we give too much weight
to the content of the comments of Israel's detractors;
it is true that the propaganda war isn't going as well as it could be
(in Israel's favor).
But the issue needed to be emphasized is how greats Jews and Israelis are
- in the Olympic spirit of the ancient Greeks.
Consider the article below:
"The Region: Israel isn’t in danger of disappearing"
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=241186
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=241186
I'd like to add additional observations.
The egotistical Islamist PM of Turkey, Erdogan, called Israel a "spoiled child."
That reminds me of the reality of how states behave with one another.
Machiavelli was the first realist. Perhaps Kissinger was the last.
It seems to me that we don't know how the Arab Spring will unfold,
and we forget that when it comes to Israel Palestinians are Arabs.
What this means is that the aim of Arabs, ans even all of Islam,
is to wipe out Israel - that's always been the basis of this unity
among all Arab and Muslim regimes.
Yet Israel, as a sovereign state, must not be judged by outsiders,
or citizens of other states. That's the meaning, also, of democracy.
Europe may be uniting in the European Union,
but national states have not been abolished.
Therefore, Jews must also manifest their own irredentism.
Bismark ended Germany's in 1871 after defeating France.
Unfortunately, except for the United States,
Europe has its own oil interests
as well as 54,000,000 Muslims to appease.
As Abba Eban observed, the Palestinians never miss
an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Therefore, Saudi Arabia, the true ancient home of the Arabs
may be what the Palestinians ultimately get
(in the best case scenario, for the non-Muslim world).
What difference is there between Transjordanians,
Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, or any other Arabs,
except for the artificial divisions imposed by the victorious British
after the dismemberment of the Old Man of Europe?