The "pro-Israel" lobby's latest hobbyhorse is "delegitimization." Those who criticize Israeli policies are accused of trying to "delegitimize" Israel, which supposedly means denying Israel's right to exist. Even President Obama has gotten into the act, stating in his May 19 speech that "for the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure."
Obama seemed to be referring to the Palestinians' plan to seek recognition of their state at the United Nations this fall, although it's hard to imagine just how that would delegitimize Israel.
After all, the Palestinians are not seeking statehood in Israeli territory but in territory that the whole world (including Israel) recognizes as having been occupied by Israel only after the 1967 war. Rather than seeking Israel's elimination, the Palestinians who intend to go to the United Nations are seeking establishment of a state alongside Israel. (That state would encompass 22 percent of Mandate Palestine, with Israel possessing 78 percent.)
The whole concept of "delegitimization" seems archaic. Israel achieved its "legitimacy" when the United Nations recognized it 63 years ago. It has one of the strongest economies in the world. Its military is the most powerful in the region. It has a nuclear arsenal of some 200 bombs, with the ability to launch them from land, sea, and air.
In that context, the whole idea of "delegitimizing" Israel sounds silly. Israel can't be delegitimized.
So what is the lobby talking about?
The answer is simple: It is talking about the intensifying opposition to the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza which, by almost any standard, is illegitimate. It is talking about opposition to the settlements, which are not only illegitimate but illegal under international law. It is talking about calls for Israel to grant Palestinians equal rights.
The lobby's determination to change the subject from the existence of the occupation to the existence of Israel makes sense strategically. Israel has no case when it comes to the occupation, which the entire world (except Israel) agrees must end. But Israel certainly has the upper hand in any argument over its right to exist and to defend itself.
That is why Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu routinely invokes Israel's "right to self-defense" every time he tries to explain away some Israeli attack on Palestinians, no matter whether they are armed fighters or innocent civilians. If the whole Israeli-Palestinian discussion is about Israel's right to defend itself, Israel wins the argument. But if it is about the occupation -- which is, in fact, what the conflict has been about since 1993 when the PLO recognized Israel -- it loses.
It wasn't that long ago that neither the Israeli government nor the lobby worried about the "forces of delegitimization."
On the contrary, in 1993, following Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's recognition of the Palestinians' right to a state in the West Bank and Gaza, nine non-Arab Muslim states and 32 of the 43 sub-Saharan African states established relations with Israel. India and China, the two largest markets in the world, opened trade relations. Jordan signed a peace treaty and several of the Arab emirates began quiet dealings with Israel.
The Arab boycott of Israel ended. Foreign investment soared. No one discussed "delegitimization" while much of the world, including the Muslim world, was knocking on Israel's door to establish or deepen ties.
That trend continued so long as the Israeli government seemed to be genuinely engaged in the peace process.
The most graphic demonstration of Israel's high international standing back then occurred at Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in 1995, which rivaled President Kennedy's in terms of international representation.
Leaders from virtually every nation on Earth came to pay homage to Rabin: President Clinton, Prince Charles, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, every European president or prime minister, top officials from most of Africa and Asia (including India and China), Latin America, Turkey, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, and Tunisia. Yasir Arafat himself went to Mrs. Rabin's Tel Aviv apartment to express his grief.
The world mourned Rabin because under him, Israel had embraced the cause of peace with the Palestinians. The homage to Rabin was a clear demonstration -- as was the opening of trade and diplomatic relations with formerly hostile states -- that Israel was not being isolated because it is a Jewish state and hence illegitimate, but because of how it treated the Palestinians.
And that is the case today. It's not the Palestinians who are delegitimizing Israel, but the Israeli government which maintains the occupation. And the leading delegitimizer is Binyamin Netanyahu, whose contemptuous rejection of peace is turning Israel into an international pariah.
Sure, Netanyahu received an embarrassing number of standing ovations when he spoke before the United States Congress. But that demonstrates nothing except the power of the lobby. It is doubtful that Netanyahu would get even one standing ovation in any other parliament in the world -- and that includes Israel's. The only thing we learned (yet again) from Netanyahu's reception by Congress is that money talks. What else is new?
So let's ignore the talk about "delegitimization," even though Madison Avenue message-makers certainly deserve credit for coming up with that clever distraction. Israel's problem is the occupation, the Israeli government that defends it, and the lobby that enforces support for it in Congress and the White House.
Once again, Israel's "best friends" are among its worst enemies.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
1. Accept Israel's RIGHT to be - not only the FACT that it is - to exist as the NATION-STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
2. Accept that a peace treaty will be considered "the end of the conflict, and the end of all future demands".
The Palestinians refuse, categorically, to accept the above.
Thus, why should the present Israeli government be held responsible by the writer for the failure? Why wouldn't the writer ask/demand of the Arabs to make the declarative act and simply accept these two points?. After all, if and when they do, at least 84% of the conflict will be resolved.
As arguments go that is the very epitome of "chutzpah", considering that Netanyahu has insisted that certain issues (RoR, for example, and Jerusalem) are Issues That Must Not To Be Mentioned In The Negotiations.
It is therefore ludicrous to expect the Palestinians to sign off on a teaty that "ends all future demands" when Netanyahu flat-out refuses to allow some of those demands to be addressed in that treaty.
Or, put another way: if Bibi insists on leaving some issues out of the negotiations (which he does) then he can't also expect the Pals to agree that the conclusion of the negotiating process will result in the "end of all demands".
After all, his concept of "negotiations" ensures that the result will be some "unfinished business".....
I wonder if, and when, some of the larger entities, Erakat and others are also putting demands to and placing restrictions on, are going to say: *Order your dog around, instead, and keep barking. No cent out of us andy longer.
Bibi Meets Falwell, To Spite Bill -
New York Daily NewsJan 21, 1998 – To Clinton's utter astonishment, Netanyahu's first stop, even before meeting with the President yesterday, was with the Rev. Jerry Falwell ...
articles.nydailynews.com/.../18069593_1_netanyahu-washington-president- clinton-israel - Cached
Salon | Newsreal:
The Falwell connection
Jerry Falwell and a California political organization helped finance and ... featured in "The Clinton Chronicles," a video produced by Citizens for Honest ...
www.salon.com/news/1998/03/cov_11news.html - Cached - Similar
law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/clinton/clintonhome.html - Cached
Jabalya: IDF tank fire kills four members of a Palestinian family, August 2002
IDF Soldier shoot Ibreez al-Minawi, in Nablus, 17 September 2004
IDF gunfire kills Muhammad Ali Zeid, age 16, in Nazlat a-Sheikh Zeid, October 2002
And here's some testimony from Deir Yassin:
"the [zionist forces - my edit] ordered all our family to line up against the wall and they started shooting us. I was hit in the side, but most of us children were saved because we hid behind our parents. ... But all the others with us against the wall were killed: my father, my mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts and some of their children."
Well, that's how Israel was founded, and it seems not all that much has changed
What about the recent palestinian anti-tank missile attack on a school bus? There are thousands of such incidents.
www.independent.co.uk › News › World - Cached - Similar
Actually, that statement is not true.
Even ISRAEL recognizes that it is the occupying power in the West Bank, and that its authority over this territory derives from the Int'l Humanitarian Laws that pertain to belligerent occupations.
What it refuses to recognize is that the Geneva Conventions are applicable to **this** particular belligerent occupation because..... err.... ummm..... because if it were then all these Israeli settlements would be a blatant violation of that convention.
It is in that respect - and in that respect only - that Israel is out of step with the rest of the world.
No, because during the age of Empire building and colonial expansionism doing all those things was perfectly legitimate.
Indeed, you weren't a serious European power if you didn't take those concepts seriously.
But that was then, and we are talking about now.
8,000,000 sq miles Arab colonial empire with more than 300,000,000 Arabs against 8,000 sq miles Israel.
The huge Arab colonial empire will never recognize tiny Jewish state!
Besides, it's immoral for Israel and the whole World to legitimize the illegal Arab colonial occupation of the Middle-East and North Africa!
Mr. Binjamin Netanjahu made a very similar list in his Knesset's speech in May 2011, and added to the four points the demand that the Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and that any peace treaty with them will be considered "the end of the conflict and the end of all future demands", points agreed by both Qadima and Labor in addition to all other Zionist parties in the House.
Yet, no one here was ready to argue with Rabin and Netanjahu's views. Is it possible because the views, shared in Israel and beyond by people of both left and right are grounded in reality, and by contrast, that which Obama has proposed is not...??!!
1. Jerusalem will remain united under Israeli sovereignty and will also incorporate the suburbs of Ma'aleh Adumim and Giv'at Zeev/
2. Major Jewish settlement blocs, e.g. Ariel, Gush Etzion, Qiryat Arba, will be incorporated into the sovereign state of Israel.
3. The Jordan Valley must be viewed from the widest sense of the term, and it too will be ruled by Israel.
4. The future Palestinian state will not be a regular state, e.g. it will be demilitarized, its airspace will be controlled by Israel as will its land, sea and air border passes.
P.P.S. Rabin made these points, taking into consideration both Israel's security as well as national vital interests, and he did so before the 2000 outbreak of violence that followed the Barak/Clinton peace offer and before the intensification of rockets, missiles and mortars fired from Gaza at the civilian population of Israel after the Sharon gesture of good will in 2005. In other words, these and similar events may have even hardened his heart/mind with regard to his Palestinian partners. But, sadly, he was already dead by then.
The reality is that the palestinains will not accept any proposal that includes borders because that would mean recognizing Israel - and they won't do that.
Which law...??
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/22/obama-my-position-on-1967-borders-was-misrepresented/
Try to keep up with the news.
The real answer is in the most recent poll
P/I Dispute 48% Israel 11% Palistinians 4% both - the rest no opinion or neither
Pollingreport.com
Gallup 59%I 23%P - which do you support
Catherine Ashton, the Chief of Foreign Policy for the European Union, has been very pro-Palestinian in her approach to the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Many European Union leaders who are somewhat pro-Israel have questioned Ashton as to whether she is a neutral broker in the peace process. Now with this secret meeting in Europe between some pro-Palestinian foreign ministers and the Arab leaders including the Chief Negotiator for the Palestinians, Saeb Erekat, and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, there is now a real question as to a role for the European Union in the peace process.
However, this scenario is setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled. The ancient Jewish prophet Daniel wrote of the Revived Roman Empire, what would be the European Union today, that the Revived Roman Empire would come to power and become the key player in the Middle East peace process (Daniel 7:24). The leader of this Revived Roman Empire, the Antichrist, would actually bring about a peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors (Daniel 9:27). This peace agreement would lead to an attempt to destroy the Jewish state of Israel (Ezekiel 38).
Nothing in Res 242 precludes the PLO from declaring their state, nor from approaching the UN to gain international recognition for that state.
After all, it is indisputable that Res 242 stesses the need for "acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area".
So I would suggest that
IF the Palestinians are seeking the widest possible "acknowledgement" of their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of their state (which, indeed, they are)
THEN they are complying with both the spirit and the letter of resolution 242.
And since the UN is responsible for that Resolution then I would also suggest that it is pretty hypocritical to argue that the UN *isn't* an appropriate venue for them to seek just such a world-wide and all-inclusive "acknowledgement".
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I agree.
However, the arabs do their best to advance that concept because they see it as a way to excuse their criminal slaughter of Israeli civilians as well as their six decade long agenda to exterminate the *illegitimate* nation and all its people.