Last Straw for the Palestinian "Authority"?

If there were any lingering doubts concerning the status and integrity of the Palestinian National Authority -- and its so-called President, Mahmoud Abbas ("so-called" because his term of office, such as it was, expired almost a year ago) -- they were surely dispelled once and for all by its decision to drop its support for a UN resolution that would have referred the Goldstone Report on Israel's post-Christmas 2008 attack on Gaza to the UN Security Council.

The 575-page Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which was led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, confirmed the already densely documented reports published by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International. Those reports had, in turn, systematically confirmed Palestinian claims that Israel had, for example, recklessly and indiscriminately used white phosphorous on the packed residential districts of Gaza; indiscriminately targeted civilian objects including UN schools (as documented by the widely circulated -- other than in the US -- photographs of an Israeli phosphorous strike on a UN school in Gaza); used Palestinian civilians as human shields; and collectively punished the population of Gaza by imposing on them a suffocating siege, cutting off vital supplies of food, medicine, and fuel (not just during the recent assault and on to this day, but, to a greater or lesser extent, since 2005, and even, arguably, since 1991, when the Israelis first methodically sealed off the hapless territory from the outside world).

The Amnesty report, published in July, found that "hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks carried out using high-precision weapons -- air-delivered bombs and missiles, and tank shells. Others, including women and children, were shot at short range when posing no threat to the lives of the Israeli soldiers. Aerial bombardments launched from Israeli F-16 combat aircraft targeted and destroyed civilian homes without warning, killing and injuring scores of their inhabitants, often while they slept. Children playing on the roofs of their homes or in the street and other civilians going about their daily business, as well as medical staff attending the wounded were killed in broad daylight by Hellfire and other highly accurate missiles launched from helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, and by precision projectiles fired from tanks."

The Goldstone report (though it remarkably reserves its strongest language for Palestinian rocket attacks that killed 3 Israeli civilians, compared to the 1,400 Palestinians killed in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, and a third of them children) reiterates many of the same conclusions, and reports on case after case where Israeli forces launched "intentional attacks against the civilian population and civilian objects," including "the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the [latter] attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status." These incidents -- all of which constitute war crimes -- indicate, according to the Goldstone report, "that the instructions given to the Israeli forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population."

Indeed, among its other findings, the Goldstone report corroborates the well-documented reports (all of them summarily dismissed by the Israeli army, which considers itself "the most moral army in the world") that Israeli soldiers themselves admitted to the brutality of the bombardment of Gaza, and left behind them -- as unmistakable evidence of their officially-encouraged attitude towards Palestinians -- both racist slogans (e.g., "We came to annihilate you; Death to the Arabs; Kahane was right; No tolerance, we came to liquidate") and human feces smeared on the walls of the Palestinian homes they looted and vandalized. "You feel like an infantile little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them," one Israeli soldier confessed of the prevailing Israeli army attitude toward the Palestinians of Gaza, which was fueled in part by the proclamations of the army's rabbinical corps, which compared Palestinians to the biblical Philistines and urged that Israeli soldiers "show no mercy."

None of the conclusions of all these reports ought to come as a surprise. The Israeli army itself had openly proclaimed, months before the bombing even started, that its strategy in both Lebanon and Palestine has been premised since 2006 on the sweeping and indiscriminate use of massive firepower: the so-called "Dahiyeh Doctrine," referring to the Dahiyeh, or southern suburb of Beirut, which the Israelis razed to the ground in their 2006 war on Lebanon, as they also did to many villages in the south of that country. "We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction," one Israeli general (Gadi Eisenkot) announced -- with contemptuous disregard for the law of war. "From our perspective, these are military bases," he added. "This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized."

Other than planning for -- and attempting (to its own satisfaction at least) to legitimate -- the massive and necessarily indiscriminate use of force, the Israeli military legal establishment had specifically authorized premeditated attacks, such as the one that killed dozens of unarmed Gaza policemen parading in their graduation ceremony, with which Israel kicked off its bombardment on 27 December 2008, that inherently involved manifest violations of the principles of proportionality and discrimination that are the pillars of international humanitarian law.

Moreover, not only the Amnesty and Goldstone reports but Israeli commanders themselves openly said that overwhelming and indiscriminate force was used -- deliberately, and in a premeditated fashion -- again, in total disregard for the principles of proportionality and discrimination. "At the start of the ground offensive, senior command decided to avoid endangering the lives of soldiers, even at the price of seriously harming the civilian population," one Israeli media report revealed. "This is why the IDF [Israeli army] made use of massive force during its advance in the Strip. As a Golani brigade commander explained, if there is any concern that a house is booby-trapped, even if it is filled with civilians, it should be targeted and hit, to ensure that it is not mined -- only then should it be approached. Without going into the moral aspects, such fighting tactics explain why there were no instances in which there was a need to assault homes where Hamas fighters were holed up."

Ultimately, all that these inquiries, including Goldstone's, have done is merely to confirm Israel's own (repeatedly flaunted) contempt for international humanitarian law.

Needless to say, from the beginning, Israel utterly refused to cooperate with the Goldstone inquiry, dismissing it -- as it has dismissed all previous attempts to investigate its conduct or to hold it accountable to the principles of international humanitarian law -- as "unfair" and "unbalanced" (as though there were anything "balanced" about the conflict between the sheer force of an occupying power and an essentially defenseless occupied people). Among the many previous investigative commissions which Israel has either summarily dismissed or refused to cooperate with are the investigation led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu into the Israeli killing of 19 members of a Palestinian family in Gaza in 2008; the commission appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2002 to investigate the indiscriminate destruction of civilian areas in the Israeli assault on Jenin refugee camp that spring (the actions of which a separate investigation, by Amnesty International, found amounted "to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes"); and the UN investigation of the Israeli artillery massacre of over a hundred Lebanese civilians huddling in a shelter at a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon in 1995, which found that "it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors," as the Israeli army said at the time -- as, indeed, it always says is the case when its soldiers kill dozens of civilians: not once has Israel actually held any of its officers or soldiers accountable for such crimes. In all previous cases, Israel's adamant refusal to be held accountable to the law has been upheld by the US, and the Obama administration proved that it had no intention of breaking that particular tradition this time either.

Nevertheless, as Professor Richard Falk (the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) points out, the Goldstone report could have provided a basis for referring Israel's conduct durng the war in Gaza to the International Criminal Court or other international courts, or to the establishment of a war crimes tribunal along the lines of those established after the catastrophes of Bosnia and Rwanda. That would have been the best way to finally hold Israel accountable for its grave breaches of international humanitarian law, its war crimes, and its crimes against humanity (not least the sealing off an entire civilian population from the outside world, denying it the ability to flee to safety, and then subjecting that same, defenseless, shelterless population -- most of it composed of children -- to an indiscriminate round-the-clock bombardment).

The process of referral depended, however, on obtaining a vote within the UN to have the Goldstone report referred to the Security Council for further deliberation, the creation of a war crimes tribunal, and so on. And all of that depended in turn on the support of Palestinian diplomats appointed by and accountable to Mahmoud Abbas.

But it is now clear that the Palestinian team representing Mahmoud Abbas at the UN (for they certainly do not represent the Palestinian people) has, on his instructions, dropped its support for the resolution that might have set the legal machinery of the international judicial system in motion. Other states can hardly be expected to stand up to US pressure and support a resolution on behalf of Palestinian rights that the Palestinian delegation itself is unwilling to support -- why should Venezuela or Nigeria or Pakistan be more Palestinian than the Palestinians?

Reports have been circulating in the Arab, Israeli and European media that Abbas and his associates may have been prompted to take this extraordinary action because Israel had been threatening, had they continued with their support of the UN resolution, to withhold its release of a share of the radio spectrum that would have allowed the creation of a new Palestinian mobile phone company, Wataniyya: the product of a joint venture between Qatari investors and the Palestine Investment Fund, to which Abbas himself and one of his wealthy sons have personal connections. Palestinians have suggested that simple corruption and cronyism may have motivated Abbas's decision. The PA and the circle of officials attached to it have certainly had their share of corruption charges -- most shockingly, perhaps, when Ahmed Qureia, then the so-called Prime Minister of the PA (again, "so-called" because Prime Ministers usually have countries to govern, and the PA is anything but a country), was accused of selling cement to the Israelis to build their wall in the West Bank. The corruption of the PA and the narrow circle of Fateh party officials running it, clinging to it, and benefiting from it, is one of the main reasons why Fateh was swept from office in the 2006 Palestinian elections in favor of Hamas: most people then were voting against Fateh and its corruption and general hopelessness, rather than for Hamas (which had, and has, little to offer other than simply not being Fateh: a credit which goes only so far).

It's possible, of course, that corruption and cronyism were not the motivating factors for Abbas's decision to withdraw Palestinian support for the Goldstone report. There are two other possibilities.

One of these is simple incompetence: that Abbas and his associates are so lacking in intelligence, imagination and political skill that they just bungled the whole affair. This is certainly not out of the question: Abbas himself is an extraordinarily unprepossessing and profoundly compromised man, and his circle of associates -- including men like Mohammad Dahlan and Saeb Ereikat -- hardly inspire any more confidence than Abbas himself. Quite apart from their sheer disregard for Palestinian suffering in Gaza (seeking redress for which ought to be their main priority), it ought to be clear that a party to a negotiation that wantonly throws a rarely-held card out of the window while attempting (or at least claiming) to negotiate is, to put it mildly, not qualified to negotiate in the first place, let alone to claim to "lead" a defiant and unvanquished people like the Palestinians. If the Ramallah leadership is really as hopelessly incompetent as this scenario would have it, that's reason enough for their removal from office, if not the dissolution of the PA itself. (It's difficult, though, to "dismiss from office" someone like Abbas who is not actually in office in the first place -- he is there because the Israelis and the Americans want him to be there, because the election for his successor after his term expired has been deferred at the behest of Washington and Tel Aviv, and not because he holds any legitimate mandate from the Palestinian people themselves, the overwhelming majority of whom have no faith in him whatsoever, as opinion polls have regularly found).

Another -- and I think more likely -- possibility is that Abbas, the PA and the essentially defunct PLO are not (and never were, at least since the time of Yasser Arafat's death) interested in serious negotiations with Israel that could have led to the creation of a genuine Palestinian state in the occupied territories. After all, one of the main criticisms of the Oslo Accords of 1993-95 which created the PA, is that, far from ending Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, they merely served to shift the day-to-day burden and cost of administering the occupation to the newly-established PA, while allowing Israel to go on demolishing Palestinian homes, expropriating Palestinian land, and building Jewish colonies in the occupied territories in contravention of international law. Oslo formally separated the three main chunks of Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967 (Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) from each other and the outside world, and, additionally, broke the West Bank itself into Areas A, B and C. It was only in Area A (about 18 percent of the total) that the PA had any kind of practical presence on the ground, and in Area C (60 percent of the West Bank), the PA had no role or presence at all -- and that's where Israel was (and still is) busy demolishing, expropriating and building. Oslo and the PA, in other words, far from ending the occupation and laying the basis for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, actually allowed Israel to consolidate the occupation and further cement its grip on Palestinian land. Which is exactly why the population of Jewish colonists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem doubled during the period of Oslo and has been increasing ever since -- and today numbers almost half a million.

As this latest episode so amply demonstrates, the PA serves Israel by facilitating the occupation -- which is why Israel invented it in the first place, just as, historically speaking, colonial powers have always attempted to create or coerce local elites into helping them deal with the population at large: an approach perhaps most gracefully summarized in Macaulay's Minute on Indian Educationhttp://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/rraley/research/english/macaulay.html of 1835 ("We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect"). Why would the PA want to bring to an end an arrangement from which it benefits? As the French scholar Regis Debray points out, the status quo provides the PA elites in Ramallah "with a living, status, dignity and a raison d'être," and probably (e.g., if the mobile phone contract rumors prove to be true) much more in the way of emoluments besides that.

Even if one were to grant the PA and Abbas and his associates the benefit of the doubt, and say that they really have their people's best interests at heart, it still remains the case that the PA, even under the best-case scenario, can claim to represent only a minority of the Palestinian people, since only a minority of Palestinians live in the occupied territories: the majority live either in the exile imposed on them by force during the creation of Israel in 1948, or (in the case of those Palestinians who survived that year's ethnic cleansing and remained in their homes) as second-class, non-Jewish citizens of the would-be Jewish state, which systematically discriminates against them simply because they are not Jewish.

These, then, are the possibilities before us: not only does the PA not represent the Palestinian people, it is also, on top of that, either corrupt to an almost unimaginable level; or it is profoundly incompetent and guilty of squandering the rights and hopes of a people that it is unentitled to claim to lead; or it is interested not in its people's rights and hopes but rather in perpetuating its own status as the day-to-day caretaker of a permanent Israeli occupation -- in which case it is no less collaborationist than the Vichy "government" of Nazi-occupied France in the 1940s. Corruption; incompetence; collaboration: ah, the agony of choice.

In the unlikely event that Abbas and his associates were to declare the "independence" of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, as has been suggested by the current so-called Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad (another man whose claim to office has no legitimacy, since his arbitrary appointment, by Abbas, to replace the legitimately elected Hamas leadership -- whatever one thinks of it -- was never confirmed by the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, many of the members of which are in Israeli jails), it ought to be clearer than ever that such a "state" would offer Palestinians only more of the same choices (corruption, compromise, collaboration), while continuing to serve Israel's interests, if not actually to take direct orders from Washington and Tel Aviv.

In any case, the Palestinian cause is a struggle for freedom and justice, not for the creation of a statelet in the occupied territories that would, as I said -- even in the best circumstances -- only address the interests of that minority of the Palestinian people who live there.

What, then, are we to conclude from all this?

Above all, that no Palestinian ought to look to the official leadership as a source of guidance and direction: it has betrayed the people and proved itself totally unworthy of their trust -- indeed, many Palestinians, including Abdelbari Atwan, editor of the newspaper al-quds al-arabi, are demanding that those behind this recent decision be apprehended and put on trial. And of course with a leadership this corrupt, inept or collaborationist, Palestinians can hardly expect better treatment from Washington and Tel Aviv than they are getting from Ramallah. And the Hamas opposition and its alternative leadership has little more to offer in the long run other than resistance for the sake of resistance, which is not, in itself, a blueprint for freedom and justice, and in any case has nothing to offer to Christian or secular Palestinians (and hardly much more than that to offer Muslim ones either, for that matter).

The second immediate conclusion to be drawn from this experience is that, as more and more Palestinians are demanding, the PA ought to be dissolved once and for all -- the sooner, the better. This latest action really ought to be the last in a long and dismal record proving that the PA has not only not served the interests of the Palestinian people, but that, on the contrary, it fundamentally serves the needs and requirements of Israel.

Bereft of any credible or legitimate leadership, the Palestinian people will have to look to themselves to continue their struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Indeed, their struggle has been at its best, for example, during the first intifada of the 1980s, when the official leadership -- at the time in exile in Tunis -- was actually least involved in it. No wonder, then, that the Israeli response to the grassroots autonomy of the first intifada was to usher the official leadership back into Palestine; the first intifada then stalled, and things have gone downhill ever since.

In looking for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then, we should once and for all stop looking to governments and officials (elected or otherwise), in the US, Israel, or among the Palestinians themselves. As the Obama administration has already demonstrated, the US government, in the present political conjuncture, will never put peace and justice in Palestine ahead of internal domestic pressures and politics; the Israeli government will not for one moment back down from its continually expanding colonization plan in the West Bank and East Jerusalem until it is compelled by outside pressure to do otherwise; and the Palestinian government -- well, there is no such thing. There is a people living partly under military occupation; partly in enforced exile; and partly as a racialized and discriminated-against minority inside Israel. What they need is to refocus their struggle in ways that they can all identify with, collectively and equally, and, moreover, in ways that people of good will around the world -- who have repeatedly demonstrated in their tens of thousands in support of justice for Palestine.

Indeed, the Palestinians are not alone: they have the support of people around the entire world. And it is to that reserve of good will and good faith among ordinary people around the world that the Palestinians must also look, then. As the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa demonstrated, governments not only can, but do, act, when ordinary people of good will make them act. In fact, even as governments have dithered, a vibrant global campaign to boycott, divest from, and impose sanctions on Israel in order to bring it into compliance with international law and in order to realize the rights of the Palestinian people (all of it) has been recording one success after another, reminding us all that boycotts really do work.

This is the direction in which all Palestinians, bereft of leadership, must now throw themselves. And their demand must be something that addresses and unifies the rights of all segments of the Palestinian people, not just those suffering under occupation, as well as addressing and recognizing the rights of Jewish Israelis -- something that most decent people in the world can readily identify with: justice, equality, one-person-one-vote: in other words, the creation of one democratic and secular state in which Palestinians and Israelis can live equally in a just and lasting peace. For without justice there will be no peace.

 

 

Comments

[arvay]

The LonleyGod writes:

As much as you might love Israel to collapse and its inhabitants murdered, that's not a likely possibility.

I answer:

"you might love Israel to collapse and its inhabitants murdered . . ."

If I really wanted that outcome, I'd back your Mideast policy ideas to the hilt. Your "explanation" is an assertion of Jewish racial superiority, equivalent to white racism.

I want the Zionist state to disappear, and it's Jewish and Arab peoples to form a single democratic state, because:

It's the only alternative to a catastrophic war.

It's in America's best interest to stop alienating Israel's neighbors and one billion Muslims in the world. We get nothing for all the cost and grief this absurd and doomed "nation" costs us except more and more grief.911 is directly attributable to our support for Israel.

Zionist Israel represents an atavistic and dangerous idea of some link between race and nationhood that needs to be erased. I prefer the American model of non-tribal nationhood to the Zionist model of racial separation that you favor.

[TheLonelyGod]

You should know by now that a democratic state with an Arab majority is a contradiction in terms. I see this not because I don't think Arabs are capable of functioning in a democracy (they can), but because of the history in the region.

Every time Arabs (including the Palestinians) have had an election or other democratic process, it has been used to seize power and to hurt their enemies. Basically civil war without guns. And every time the Arabs have had the majority over the Jews, the Jews have been second-class citizens at best. For the democracy to function, you will need to force the Arab residents to be democratic at gunpoint. Totally ridiculous.

Now let me go through your reasons:
-"Catastrophic war": Please. Your dreams of all the world fighting Israel is just that, a dream. Israel has had its catastrophic wars already, those days are over. Besides, your one-state "solution" would be far more of a catastrophe for the Jewish people than any war.

-"America's best interests": We can also stop alienating the Muslims by pursuing a *two* state solution. This argument has no weight, both possibilities will lead to the same outcome.

-"race and nationhood­." Tell that to the 22 Arab states in the region. America is the exception, not the rule. Israel is just like 95% of the other nations in the world, a state for a people. Just like a Palestinian state will be. There is nothing wrong with it.

[arvay]

Easily refuted.

"You should know by now that a democratic state with an Arab majority is a contradiction in terms. "

From the evidence of Israel, I can say the same thing about a Jewish state. But the Arabs should be patient, the israelis can be reformed.. The two groups would have to learn to live together, as whites and blacks in South Africa.

" . . .your one-state "solution" would be far more of a catastrophe for the Jewish people than any war."

Ha, your fear of assimilation is as great as your fear of democracy. Get used to it, racial purity is unattainable and efforts to maintain the illusion are dangerous.

"America's best interests"

You're ducking my point: Israel is an expensive albatross.

"race and nationhood­." Israel's Arab neighbors have no racial requirement for citizenship, unlike Israel, which practices exclusionary Judaism rather than universalist Islam.

Most of the other nations of the world are not tribal like Israel, some examples: Canada, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, China, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and on and on. Israel and Japan are examples of withering nations that believe in racial-national identity.

[murphy80]

is Hillary Clinton responsible for this?

[alexa07]

Saree,
Thank you for the excellent article. (1) BDS (2) Creation of a multi-ethnic state

I agree that in the face of the weaknesses in the Obama adm (of which Susan Rice is clearly one of them), & the longtime foolishness of the US Congress, the best strategy is that of boycotting, divesting & sanctions. In the BDS movement, the mendacity of the American political & media leadership is irrelevant.
(2) I also advocate for a secular, multi-religious state or one without religious identification which grants the vote to all persons who live in the region from the Mediterranean to the Jordan R. The property rights of every citizen must be respected with no benefits or right of ownership given to any one group. Protected by a written constitution. Does this sound familiar? It is a tragedy of huge proportions that the American people have been forced by our short-sighted leadership to support an entity that could be so completely un-American. Moreover, it is also very tragic that nearly every American newspaper, TV network & the like has worked so diligently to bury every story about the overwhelming support all over the world for the Palestinian people, esp. during the IDF onslaught upon the Palestinian families in Gaza, so many of whom were killed in their own homes. I remember on an international network, I believe, Euro News, how one man in Scotland was taped during a large protest in which he held a sign, "We are all Palestinia­ns."

[WBMD]

Why do you want to boycot the only Jewish state, the only democracy in the area, the only country that gives its Arab population voting rights and representation in the government, and yet do not advocate the same against the Chinese who have decimated the population of tibet, or the Sudanese who have murdered millions in Darfur?

Why is it only the Jewish state that you advocate be replaced by a "secular, multi-religious state or one without religious identification" yet accept that there are 23 Muslim states that exclude other religions, or advocate replacing India, and its caste system with the same?

Your motives may be pure, but raise suspicion given this exclusive focus.

[alexa07]

The IDF attacked a concentrated, besieged population who had no place to go with American aircraft including creepy drones & white phosphorus manufactured here in the USA. Unfortunately, our foolish leaders in Congress & as it now appears the Obama adm have condoned such behavior. As an American taxpayer, I do protest the use of my govt's resources as well as the hemorrhage of American tax dollars to support such deeds. I also do not approve of the institutionalized racism evident in bypass roads, tunnels; unequal access to water, electricity; better & more numerous schools for those of one religion only; & more. As far as India's caste system or policies of any number of A

[alexa07]

oops, as far as any other Arab or Muslim countries, I am NOT forced to condone any of the conditions you describe by my leaders, either in govt or in the media. We routinely hear & see criticism of many societies by our leaders, but when it comes to Israel, they are very silent. Even the IBA news cast, which I see from time to time on Link TV's "Mosaic" is more honest about conditions in Israel than anything in the US corporate media or what any of our political leaders would have us believe. What is changing is that with the BDS movement the ordinary American can take charge, even if his or her leaders are too cowed
by vested interests.

[arvay]

"Your motives may be pure, but raise suspicion given this exclusive focus."

Ah, our "minders" are taking notes and looking for ways to shut us up. The arrogance of this line speaks for itself.

[mommamia526]

A people deprived from the bare essentials of life, such as citizenship, decent schools, food, and even WATER, are not all that interested in what the name of the territory they live in is, nor what its Capital is, or even what the main religion of the country is. What they need is the basics plus the freedom and dignity to be part of something, to be able to worship as they want. After all, as we see in Gaza, handing out territory leads nowhere for its population. There is no functional leadership, as the writer points out already, for the Palestinians. There is, however, leadership in Syria, in Jordan and in Egypt. Officially Lebanon has a government, but there are problems with it. Nevertheless, it is better than what is going on in Gaza. If these Palestinian islands were to be made part of existing leadership in existing countries, infrastructure and living conditions were to be improved, we could see how matters develop in a NORMAL SETTING. Only after Palestinians have had their dignity restored could they possibly make a determination on where they want to be part of. Territory is really not the issue. Territory is the issue of a few who have designs for their own finances and importance.

[mommamia526]

Yesterday the grocery delivery guy came. We always have some nice short discussions, but this time he asked about the Palestinian issue. He is black. He had discussed it with friends. They were planning to go on vacation to the ME. He is a Christian. He and his friends have decided to have a vacation elsewhere. Even he had found out, that the Israeli population is about 20% Arab and Palestinian, and that those people are an equal part of the fabric of Israeli society. In fact, my observations about Palestinians outside of Israel came straight from his mouth. Blacks in the U.S. have gone through a non violent struggle for equality. The first essential was to get access to education, jobs, equalaity of rights. That ought to be the first essential for Palestinians as well. It is the case inside Israel proper. It is NOT the case outside Israel proper. THAT MUST BE CHANGED AND IT MUST BE CHANGED NOW. And, that is the responsibility of its *leadership*, be it in Jordan, in Syria, in Lebanon, or in the PA territory. The first essential for Palestinians, who have been kept DP's everywhere they are for over 60 years, is equality, just as has been the case in the U.S. and that is a local responsibility, not an U.S. responsibility, not an Israeli responsibility and not an EU or UN responsibility. The first esssential is survival.

[mommamia526]

I may be mistaken, but it appears to me that *Palestinians* are kept in isolation and cordoned off from society in all countries and areas OUTSIDE Israel, but not INSIDE Israel. Outside Israel they are living in deprived ghettos. I wonder why that is not an issue? It may be easier to use the *Palestinians* as chesspieces if they are kept isolated, uneducated, and lacking the basic necessities of life. Israel is NOT responsible for the condition of the *Palestinians* in the independent territory of Gaza. Gaza is not part of Israel. The PA area is also not part of Israel. In addition the isolated tenement ghettos in neighboring countries are also not part of Israel. Again, all those areas are not under Israeli leadership, not even colonial, and there are no arguments, other than made up ones, for making the condition of the lives of these people Israeli or U.S. responsibilities.

[mommamia526]

Arabs, not only *Palestinians* have called for attacks on Israel and to *protect* the temple mount. Riots have been created by outside forces, and wheelbarrels with stones were stockpiled beforehand. The riots are still continuing and jews as well as tourists visiting Israel are being stoned.
Gaza is indeed closed off, but not only on the Israeli border. It is also the case on the Egyptian border and Gaza used to be part of Egypt, before it became Israeli territory and then was returned to Gazans.

Palestinians are kept isolated in tenements, again, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Syria, and to a lesser extent in Jordan. I think Palestinians would be helped if those countries let their Palestinians out of those tenements and let them have a chance to become citizens and be part of the fabric of the country. It would also be helpful if these countries and other Arab countries, after all Palestinians are mostly Arabs, would help these Palestinians get running water and decent housing in those mainly Arab countries. That certainly ought to be the case in Lebanon which is fairly liberal, and not exclusively muslim.

[mommamia526]

Mahmoud Abbas is insulted. His crown has fallen off his head. Yet, the writer cals him a socalled leader, and agrees that Abbas' *leadership* has expired.

Te writer can not be bothered with the other side of the arguments, or with real facts on the ground. Abbas is not only a disputed leader to this writer, but also to Hamas.

The website theisraelproject.org has an expose about palestinian violence and religious freedom inside Israel. Take a look and check the facts. I am not making an argument, pro or con. We do not hear about Palestinians inside Israel being denied, or not having Israeli citizenship, living in tenements, etc. Those facts of life exist outside Israel, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria and even, with the recent crop of *Palestinians* who were evicted from Iraq where they had lived over a century, in Jordan.

The U.S. and Israel are involved with improving the sitution for these *Palestinians*, none of whom have *Palestinians* citizenship, passports or proof of birth inside some nation named Palestine.

[WBMD]

Never has William Saffire's description of "the nattering nabobs of negativism" applied more aptly than to the same cast of bloggers on this site, posting the same disproven comments, quoted from authors, such as Makdisi, with known agendas.

One must wonder what the desperate objection is to one single Jewish state that drives those who would destroy it militarily; or force it to abandon its defences so that others could destroy it militarily; or to destroy it demographically by envisioning a "secular democratic state" (with an Arab majority.) Why only the Jews? Why not seek to delegitimize, and call for the destruction of the Greek-Orthodox state of Greece; or Sweden, where the Church of Sweden was the official state Church until 2000, and still dominates; or the Muslim state of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or - you name it - there are 23 of them; or the Hindu state of India; or the Catholic state of Ireland?

Why are there no Christians demanding the dissolution of Spain, or Italy, but there are Jews who so fear and abhor the concept of Jewish power, self-reliance, and independence, that they advocate a return to the time when Jews were dependent on the (fickle) good will of their hosts for sustenance and survival?

Why, indeed?

[Thelonius]

Pray tell, which Jewish state are you speaking about? Setting aside the fact that in reality nearly 30% of its population is non-Jewish and the native Palestinian Muslim, Christian and Druze population is quickly growing while Jewish emigration is soaring and immigration is less than a trickle, Israel has yet to define its borders and is illegally and belligerently occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands. I am convinced that while it will probably be preceded by two states (which will provide a time for reconciliation and the emergence of a new generation of leaders on both sides), in the long run there will be one state between the Jordan River and the Med. because both peoples will want it.

[myopinion2]

The CIA's world facts site lists the non-Jewish population of Israel as 23.6%, so your figure overstates the truth by approximately 25%.

A big change in the Jewish Israeli demographics is the large increase in the religious population, who have significantly larger families than secular Israelis 9and secular Westerners in general).

So, I would not hold my breath for a non-Jewish majority in Israel in our lifetime, our children's lifetimes, and their children's lifetimes. further out than that my crystal ball cannot see. LOL

[WBMD]

Pick one. The Jewish state of 1948, 1967, the offers of 2000 and 2008.

Regardless, I am at a loss to understand what you are trying to achieve with these posts. You misrepresent the events preceeding and surrounding the wars in 1948 and 1967 which were the cause ofthe disputed territories coming under Israeli administration. You dispute that the disputed territories are disputed. You apparently share the Arab hope and hunger for the demographic demise of any Jewish state. Why?

And then, do any of your blogs bring that goal any closer, or, on the other hand, work to improve the lot of the Palestinian Arabs?

[piul05]

There's one big difference between the states you've listed and I$rael, and that difference is called "settlers" - and recent ones for that matter (2 generations).

All the countries you've mentioned became whatever they are with their endogenous population; the creation of the latter, however, displaced local people (who were a majority of 68% back in 1948) to make room for European immigrants who had never set foot on the land.

Not quite the same thing.

[WBMD]

Disregarding, for the moment, the fact that the Jews ARE the endogenous population of the area, it nevertheless seems that your take is that the Jewish people who lived on the land for the last 3000 years, who formed the majority population of Jerusalem since the late 19th century, and those who declared the re-birth of their state in 1947, are all "settlers", and the Jewish people, alone and uniquely, have no right to claim one single state on earth as their own.

Is that right?

[Darwin256]

A majority in Jerusalem is not a majority in Palestine.

The expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 was a disgrace. When it comes to it's birth Israel needs to stop pretending that it holds the moral high ground.

[MosheDayanHero]

Amnesty Report;
""Hamas and other armed groups... mixed with the civilian population, although this would be difficult to avoid in the small and overcrowded Gaza Strip, and there is no evidence that they did so with the intent of shielding themselves. "
Note the excuse that it is unavoidable for Palestinain army to NOT mix with civilians. And the astonishing conclusion utterly devoid of any connection to reality that Palesitnain army did NOT intentionally shielded themselves with civilians!!!

Now back to reality:
Lebanon TV interview Nizar Rayan": People of Palestine should gather as one to protect the Jihad warriors' houses. We here made a pledge. that we will protect the Jihad warriors'' houses with our bodies.... the people of this house are now conductiing a sit-down to protect the Jihad warriors."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2G1TZKerTo&feature=related
ANB TV ( Lebanon)
Hmm. I wonder how many civilians volunteered to protect Mr. Rayan's house. And how many were forced into it.

[MosheDayanHero]

Amensty report:
After minute and obsessive discussion of every possible and impossible Israerli trasgression including a picture of cows. Fine.
On the several pages dedicated to Palestinian transgression Amnesty International makes this astonishing statement:
""Hamas and other armed groups... mixed with the civilian population, although this would be difficult to avoid in the small and overcrowded Gaza Strip, and there is no evidence that they did so with the intent of shielding themselves. "
I will repeat the last line : THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THEY DID IT WITH THE INTENT OF SHIELDING THEMSELVES­."

Now for facts:
Hamas TV
"Hamas calls upon all Gaza children to gather near the house of Abu Haitai in the A-Shougaf quarter in order to form a human shield."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBYtij4Q7sE

[MosheDayanHero]

Amensty Intenrtional Report:
“In 2006, the Israeli army telephoned me on my cell phone and told me to open the windows and move
my family to the back of the house because they were going to bomb the building opposite my house.They
then called again five minutes later and asked me to tell my neighbour to leave his house, which was nearer to
the building they were going to bomb."

I challenge ANYONE, to find one single army in the world from the beginning of time until present, which places calls to the enemy population to make sure that they're safe before bombing a target.
U.S. Army? Palestinians? British?Syrians?

Anyone else???!

[MosheDayanHero]

"So-called Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad.... to replace the legitimately elected Hamas leadership­."
This is all one needs to know about this authors' allegiances.
Keep looking for the description of Hamas military coup in Gaza. You won't find it.
Next...

[cohen238765]

"This is all one needs to know about this authors' allegiances" ?? LOL

And you allegiance is to Israel? AIPAC?

[myopinion2]

The PA's current baseless incitement of Palestinians to "protect" the Temple Mount from the mmanipulated spectre of "invading Jews", and the wheelbarrel full of stones which were stockpiled on the Mount to be used to pelt Jewish worshippers at the Wall plaza below, reveals what awaits the Jews in a "one-state solution." The Jews will have the freedon and security that blacks in the Jim Crow South had -- 2d class tolerance if neither seen nor heard.

The theory of the one-state kumbaya solution is a beautiful utopia. the reality will be hell for jews. But if one doesn't give a damn about the Jews, then that's not really a problem, is it.

[NANANACHMAN]

What are they waiting for.......­..........­....Moshia­ch?

[pgmark]

WOW!
I am impressed by your openness that this is a two sided struggle -- NOT!
You who have a myopic view of the I/P struggle always down play or ignore the other sides struggles.

Repeat after me - both sides are at are at fault - both are injured parties.
Many men - women - and children have perished on both sides.

Peace is a two state solution with compromises from both.

No one sided report or suicide bomber or heavy handedness by Israel can convince me otherwise.

STOP playing to YOUR crowd and play and pray for peace!