Filibuster Cartoons
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This Monday, the Security Council of the United Nations will hold a vote to decide whether or not they recognize the State of Palestine as the world’s 194th sovereign country. If they do, the Palestinians would immediately be afforded full membership rights in the UN, including, perhaps, someday a seat on that very same Security Council.
The fact that the Palestinians are not already members of the UN might come as something of a surprise. After all, the Palestinian presidents sure seem to give a lot of speeches there, starting with Yasser Arafat’s famous pistol-packin’ one in 1974. That was the year the Arab League resolved to recognize Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization as the legitimate government of the Palestinian people, and the year before the UN General Assembly voted to accept the same, and grant the Palestinians full “observer” status within the organization.
This was before “Palestine” was even a settled concept. It wasn’t until 1988 that Mr. Arafat would profess proper nationalist ambitious, issuing a press release from his secret hideout in Algeria hereby proclaiming “the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory” — ie, the West Bank and Gaza — “with its capital Jerusalem.” It was pretty gutsy to declare rulership over an area you didn’t even have any permanent office space in, but over half the world’s countries immediately rushed to recognize the country-in-exile anyway. China has a nice Palestinian embassy. So does Russia, India, and most of the countries in Eastern Europe and Africa.
More nations got on board following the Olso peace accords of 1993, in which Prime Minister Rabin shook Arafat’s hand and agreed to recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian self-government on the previously proclaimed lands of Palestine — though not the concept of Palestine itself. This heralded in a new and exciting phase of guilt-free recognition amongst the world’s non-embassy having countries. Now everyone could get a Palestinian ambassador, providing he was willing to just represent a government, not a country. It was a very clever compromise.
The Palestinian mission at the UN has grown larger and larger since the 1970s, befitting its increased role as an international power player. In 1998 its rights were upgraded to the full status of a “non-member state,” just like the Vatican, another place large chunks of the world already recognize as a sovereign country. The Palestinians can’t vote on UN General Assembly motions, but they can co-sponsor resolutions and participate in committees. And, of course, give lots of speeches.
The point is, in the year 2011 the Palestinians are pretty integrated members of the international community. The question of recognizing Palestinian independence is not a new one; most countries have given a clear answer one way or another by now, just as more than a few nations have made their refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state just as clear. This current drive from the Palestinian government to secure a Security Council resolution recognizing their statehood is thus quite clearly little more than a PR move of the worst sort. A gross caricature of everything UN-bashers love to hate, it represents an effort to impose a top-down, one-size-fits-all, globalist “solution” to a contentions matter the nations of the world have proven themselves particularly good at handling through the tools of their own domestic sovereignty.
It is, in other words, a resolution that seeks to solve a non-problem. The fact that the Palestinians want an independent, self-governing country free of Israeli house-builders and army commandos has precious little to do with the status they hold at the UN. Pretty much every country in the world supports this goal already, even if they can’t quite agree how they want to communicate with the Palestinian government in the meantime.
President Abbas can perhaps be excused for engaging in this sort of stunt politics. His term as Palestinian leader is coming to an end, and I can forgive him for wanting to conclude his otherwise lame presidency with a bit of a bang. Much less forgivable are the actions of the governments of Russia, China, India, and Brazil, however, who have all pledged to support the Security Council resolution Monday. At a time when all of these nations are trying to ditch their flaky pasts and embrace new identities as thoroughly modern, mature, superpowers-in-waiting, it really comes off as quite childish and small-minded that they would back a motion that serves no purpose other than the rhetorical. And what kind of rhetoric, even? Knee-jerk opposition to things Israel and America wants? Unilateralism over negotiation? Solving problems by declaring them to be solved, rather than actually solving them?
In 1974, the same year Arafat gave his maiden speech to the body, the United Nations General Assembly voted to expel the Republic of South Africa from its membership, as punishment for its racist domestic policies. That unprecedented gesture accomplished almost nothing of substance. The odious apartheid regime remained as unyielding as ever, and the countries that still cared to have a working relationship with it, continued to. It would take another 20 years before segregation was dismantled and multicultural democracy permitted, and both goals were only achieved through a long, arduous, and frequently hopeless slog of white-back negotiations and compromise.
Supporting the idea that the Israelis and Palestinians should continue their present slog doesn’t have to presume a loyalty to either side, but it is an admission that a hard-fought peace will ultimately be more productive and useful for all involved than a hollow, symbolic one. But a hollow institution can only produce hollow results, and the UN is looking very hollow indeed these days.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
I'd have to disagree that the UN is a hollow institution or becoming moreso of one; it's certainly true they don't have binding authority but they can act as a diplomatic embargo where more forceful organizations like NATO cannot go. Condemning South Africa was the first step in a long struggle for democracy but it would have doubtlessly continued on as an apartheid regime without any rejection from the UN.
With that said, the only way Israel and Palestine can have peace is if they choose it despite decades of animosity drilled into both their cultures; but the UN and the world can send a clear message that they want peace. That kind of shame is what finally pushed the US out of a century of isolationism and toleration of inequality in the 1950's towards a realization that civil rights are the hallmark of a great nation.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I'm inclined to agree that arbitrarily creating a new state would just lead to problems. Look at Israel's history, for example…
September 24th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Israel's statehood wasn't arbitrary; it came after decades of political action and after many Jewish families and firms legally bought land in the region. Then the Jews brought life to the formerly uninhabitable desert using methods described in the Torah. After the Holocaust, Europeans (particularly the Brits who since the fall of the Ottoman Empire had legal control of the region) were more inclined to grant Jews a homeland. On 14 May 1948, they declared independence, were besieged by genocidal barbarians, and repelled them. 15 months later, the UN offered recognition for a Jewish State and a Palestinian one; the Israelis accepted, the Palestinians did not.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
The Palestinian Leadership doesn't want the UN to recognize them as a independent state; Abbas came out saying they have no interest in peace with Israel. What the leadership wants is to be rejected, to justify continuing violence against Israel and the West.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I disagree, according to the Palestinians (leaders and people), they don't expect miracles from this resolution.
The thing is, there's much else they can do to peacefully garner attention for their plight, and force the issue back to the forefront of international politics. The longer they wait, the more land they lose to Israeli settlements.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
It's also much more complicated than that; the British made agreements with both the Zionist movement and the newly founded Arab nations there and Israel never agreed to the original partition deal (taking land allotted for the Palestinians, however unreasonably).
I'm certainly not in favor of Hamas ideology and Israel has become a resolutely strong stable state in the area but 1948 did change a great deal. Before then, Jews were historically safer in Muslim areas than in Western ones becoming police force in multicultural Cordoba, leaders of Yemen, or a go-between for European trade.
There are definitely elements in Palestine who want violence and don't believe in any kind of peace, shared or behind a fence, but they have become more and more isolated even in the Middle East politically as both Western and Islamic leaders push both sides to the bargaining table.
September 24th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
I think the fact that the United States is going to veto all of this renders it rather moot.
Also, if Palestine were recognized, it would actually be the 195th as South Sudan was the 194th.
September 24th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
This is a game of leverage.
Basically, the Israeli government under Netanyahu has declared the following conditions for Palestinian independence: (1) Israeli control of a broad area around Jerusalem and the entire Jordan Valley (making the West Bank an enclave); annexation of all existing settlements (making the West Bank an enclave shot more full of holes than Swiss cheese); total disarmament of any future Palestinian state; and a permanent right for Israeli forces to come and go in the future Palestinian state at will.
This, of course, in addition to denial of Jerusalem, in any part, as a capitol; denial of the 1948 or 1967 refugees and their descendants from returning to either Israel or Palestine; and denial of citizenship or basic human rights for any Palestinian who wishes to remain in Israeli-held territory.
In short, the only change the Israelis would allow from the status quo would be that Palestine could wave its flag and claim to be independent, secure in the knowledge that the next time a rocket is lobbed at an Israeli settlement a declaration of war and total annexation would follow as swift as sunrise.
From the Palestinian point of view, this is the worst negotiating in bad faith imaginable. And, of course, there's no point expecting Netanyahu to bend; as a general he claimed that, in his personal view, the ancestral borders of Israel included Amman and Damascus, and only the Israeli love of peace kept them from taking both.
And, for all practical purposes, Israel has all the guns, all the soldiers, and all the money. Palestine has only a tiny shred of moral high ground, pocked and pitted by all the bad faith their leaders have demonstrated themselves over the years, with broken negotiations and terrorist attacks.
It's not a strong position, but it's all Abbas has to work with, so he's playing it to the utmost: use the injustice of the situation to isolate Israel, weaken their position, and make them more willing to negotiate in good faith.
Netanyahu's response, as we've seen, is to revel in this isolation, grab the American government by the short hairs, and stand firm. So long as Israel has America in its back pocket, it fears no foreign isolation, and thus has a blank check to do whatever it wants… including, as seems more and more likely, force the Palestinians out of the Levant entirely. Members of Netanyahu's own party are now calling for the outright annexation of the West Bank, and most Republicans here are right with them.
For the Palestinian cause, things cannot be worse, so seeking international recognition of statehood does no harm. For Israel, international recognition of Palestine can be flaunted with impunity, but the crisis can be used to bind the United States closer- so it demands a security council veto.
And for the United States, vetoing Palestinian membership in the United Nations means essentially severing all ties with every nation in the region except Israel, to the United States' great detriment… and Israel's advantage.
That's the situation as I see it. Whatever happens, this vote is NOT meaningless- especially for us south of the Sanity Line.
September 24th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
The African has a freakishly long right arm. Quick! Someone come up with a crazy conspiracy/metaphor to explain it!
September 24th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
When you accept a deal and the other side doesn't, and said other side then proceeds to launch a war to destroy your country that ends in failure, you're perfectly entitled to tell them to pound sand.
September 24th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I think it's win-win for them, really.
September 24th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
As opening positions for negotiation go, I think Netanyahu's is still a lot more reasonable than "You know, Hitler's only mistake was that he wasn't really efficient enough at killing Jews", which is pretty much the official Palestinian line.
Also, 1948 was 63 years ago. There's virtually nobody left in those "refugees" who has lived any part of their adult life in the modern borders of Israel. I know that letting your resentment fester is a lot more satisfying than actually living your life sometimes, but frankly, even the people who did leave in '48 of their own accord should have moved on and built new lives half a century ago. And the entire concept of a third-generation refugee is rank absurdity. If they really wanted Palestine to be a country, they'd have made it one by now, not a soapbox or a pillbox.
September 25th, 2011 at 1:45 am
I don't see much happening out of this.
The failure started back in the Ottoman Empire when it was broken up, and subsequent states broken up. Essentially what happened is after the empire lost WWI, the allies carved out a chunk of the area and gave it to the Jewish people. (The Jewish people had been all kicked out of Russia by this point.) The Jews and Arabs did not want to get along, resulting in the division of the Palestine Mandate into what became Israel and the Palestine territories.
So since 1948 neither side recognizes the other side as having any rights to the area, and this is a war that will never be won because they both claim they have "the god given right" to be there. So whatever happens at the UN is ultimately meaningless since neither side wants to be seen as surrendering.
September 25th, 2011 at 6:53 am
If I break into your house claiming that my Granddad used to live there and set myself up in your living room, offering you a deal whereby you get to keep your bedroom and part of the kitchen, am I perfectly entitled to tell you to pound sand if you fail to drive me out?
September 25th, 2011 at 7:04 am
The Jews weren't kicked out of Russia; the Soviets were (initially) quite keen on elevating minorities to equality and set up a communist alternative Jewish homeland… in Outer Manchuria.
It's called the Yiddish Autonomous Oblast and is centred on Birobidzhan.
September 25th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Who needs crazy? Either he's a bowler or he's single.
September 25th, 2011 at 9:11 am
It's kind of hard to make a country when another country has their army scattered throughout your territory pointing guns at you, protecting people who come in, force you out of your homes, bulldoze them and build new homes for themselves.
And for Hamas, you're quite right; Hamas remains committed to expelling all Jews from the Levant. Abbas, and the portion of the Palestinian Authority that control that portion of the West Bank Israel lets them control, have denounced that position- REPEATEDLY. They haven't repealed that point in the PLO charter, I'm guessing, as a negotiating ploy: "We'll recognize you when you recognize us."
(There's also the fact that Netanyahu's current demand for recognition is the recognition of all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan as the ancestral home of the Israeli people. The Palestinians can NEVER recognize that- because if they ever did, the Israeli response would be, "So you admit you don't belong here! Well, out you go!")
September 25th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Jewish Autonomous Oblast, not Yiddish. But yeah, the Jews weren't kicked out – according to the first Soviet census of 1926 there were more than 2,5 million Jews in the USSR, and at the time of the last Soviet census (1989) there were still more than a million of them. Of course, most of them have moved to Israel by now (the Soviet state did not allow them to) – the population of the JAO is less than 2% Jewish.
September 25th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
There are 193 members at the moment. Remember that Taiwan is not a member, and the Vatican is just an observer.
September 25th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Keep in mind that the moment the Palestinians do get their own statehood then the first katushya(sp) rocket that they fire into Israeli land will be considered an act of war. This time the Palestinians won't be able to play the victim card as the Israelis roll over them
OBTW, it's not like someone shows up at your house and says "my grandfather lived here" it's more like you knock on the door of your own house that someone showed up one day at and forced you out. Now you're back, and you're better armed.
Just for the record, even the quran says that it's the jewish homeland.
September 25th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
No, but if I bought that house, and you claim I stole it, it doesn't make it yours.
September 25th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I would connect the creation of any Palestinian State to a Kurdish state taken from lands between Turkey and Iraq, a Basques state from lands between Spain and France, and Chechnya from lands in Putinstan. Maybe something for the Uyghur Muslims in China. That would kill this discussion forever.
September 25th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Except that none of the Jews who lived there back then are still alive now, so it's entirely a matter of "my great great great etc granddad lived here"
It also wasn't the Palestinians or the Arabs who kicked them out, but the Romans (most recently).
September 26th, 2011 at 12:48 am
The jews had been kicked out of Russia before the soviets, by the large pogroms and antisemitic laws put in place by Alexander III . They formed large, impoverished migrant community in western and above all eastern Europe (which already had large existing communities), something that fuelled antisemitism in these countries. Zionism was a reaction to this refuelled antisemitism, and Britain's Balfour declaration (which stated the ccreation of a jewish national home in Palestine) was a response to this.
September 26th, 2011 at 2:28 am
Methinks thou dost protest too much. If it is such a hollow resolution, then why don't we let it pass and move on?
September 26th, 2011 at 2:44 am
If "none of the Jews who lived there back then are still alive now" is a valid argument, than the Palestinians have only a very few years left before the last vestiges of their claim is completely severed by the death of the last few remaining refugees from 1948. One could argue that Israel didn't kick the Palestinians out in 1948 either, since the Palestinians mostly left voluntarily for fear of some potential attack that may never have come if they'd stayed. If Israel were willing to allow first-generation Palestinian refugees to return to the places they vacated in complete good faith, do you really imagine that would restore peace to the area?
I find that "they're no longer alive to have a claim" argument to be insubstantial at worst and radically incomplete at best..
September 26th, 2011 at 5:05 am
Actually it shows off the double standard. Israel's entire law of returns is built on the basic premise that their ancestors once lived there; this is the same basic premise behind the right to return for those born from the original refugees. To deny one is to deny the other. For Israel to deny the right to return based on them not being the original refugees really rather undermines their own law of return as they are declaring that merely being descendants of those exiled is not grounds for return.
I'd also mention is that people leaving their homes because of potential attacks is quite common; that's how refugees are created for the most part. This is why international law recognizes the right to return for all refugees of war. No one should be expected to wait until an attack occurs to flee for their lives. Also while many did leave voluntarily, many were actually forced out by israel's own forces as they worked to secure the area.
September 26th, 2011 at 5:12 am
Except the jews did not buy the whole house. Yes they bought land but by the time they created Israel they only legally owned a very small portion of the British mandate (like about 6-8%). So its more like you only bought a closet but then tried to claim half of the house.
September 26th, 2011 at 5:26 am
Ofcourse it was arbitrary; the creations of Israel was done through a unilateral bid on the part of the zionists. There were discussions on how the land should be parted, but instead of seeing those negotiations through the Zoinists chose to just push ahead with the plan they liked most, which was the plan the arabs hated the most. The Arabs found the UN partition plan to be an unfair deal that gave Israel a bigger and better peace of the British mandate even though they made up a much smaller portion of the population; Furthermore, 45% of the population of Israel were going to be arabs, which hits home at how much land Israel was taking that did not really belong to them. The Jews like to speak of Self-determination, but those hundreds of thousands of arabs were denied such a thing as they would have to choose between saluting a jewish flag or packing their bags and leaving. Israel chose to ignore all of this and basically put an end to the discussion with their independence. This is essentially why the arabs attacked them right afterward, because they had many concerns, some very legitimate that were never settled peacefully; the only options Israel really left them were to yield to Israel's unilateral demands or to fight.
September 26th, 2011 at 7:06 am
I'm excited for the hand holding dance party thing.
September 26th, 2011 at 9:46 am
The Kurds operate more or less independently in Iraq as they have since Hussein took power, the Basques in Spain have a good deal of autonomy already as separatist attacks die down, Chechnya has continually resisted Moscow for 200 years and will continue to, and the Uighurs' fate remains undecided. I don't see your point.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:43 am
The word of the day: Settlements.
Settlements. Settlements. Settlements. That is 100% the issue here.
I used to consistently defend the things the Israeli government did, giving them the general benefit of the doubt. But I, like a lot of Americans, have long since grown tired of sticking up for a government that has such a myopic, short-term perspective.
The West Bank Settlements are an abomination. Period. There is no functional way for Palestine to work as a country when it has been hacked apart and dismembered like this. And yet they continue to be built, the process has even accelerated, a shameless land-grab campaign.
The reality is that Israel's demographics and culture have been changing in a fundamental way. The religious fringe is breeding like rabbits and becoming an ever larger share of the population. A huge number of Russians have migrated there in the last 20 years, many of whom clearly are not adopting the values of liberal democracy. There is a huge reactionary-minded segment of the population that can effectively block liberal-minded actions (liberal in the classical sense.)
Note that neither of those describes Netanyahu: he is a traditional Israeli conservative. But the coalition he has constructed, with the theocratic elements and quasi-fascist Russians, is doing some really dangerous things for the country. It is fundamentally impossible for Israel to be Jewish, a democracy, and contain all the land they really want (River Jordan to the Mediterranean.) One of those three things has to go, and at this point a lot of people are starting to think it will be the second one.
They are just ignoring the Palestinians while they hurry and colonize the West Bank at a frenzied pace; they may not get every last inch, but they figure if they settle Jews and build a bunch of walls, it will be too hard to displace them from a significant chunk of it. they want cheap available land for suburban housing developments, and the very Orthodox want their greater Israel.
Honestly, the so-called "Jewish Lobby" in the US isn't really even American Jews anymore, it's dominated by crazy Bachman-esque Christian zealots. Most American Jews feel increasingly little connection to Israel; what's worse is that many liberal-minded Israelis are starting to feel the same way. I think the Israelis accomplished something great building that country, but now I see a nation dominated by a specific set of the population, pissing away everything they've gained. Theocracies are not exactly known for their flowering intellectual traditions or robust and dynamic economies.
September 26th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Even if you say holding onto stolen land for 63 years makes it legitimate because the owners died off, and thus handwave away the original refugee issue, you still have the problem of Israel military occupation and Palestinian self-determination and human rights. If the occupied territories are part of Israel, it’s an apartheid state that doesn’t even give citizenship to nearly half its residents. If they’re not part of Israel, then it’s in illegal and colonial occupation of another people and *actively* stealing their land and water with settlements.
Pick one.
As for South Africa, JJ, the end of apartheid didn’t come just through “negotiations”. It was helped along by worldwide sanctions and boycotts, non-violent resistance, and armed resistance.
(The GOP Senate overrode Reagan’s veto of sanctions on South Africa. Such was the day.)
September 26th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
The argument your making describes both sides as hypocrites. It doesn't give either side a reason to feel they hold the high ground.
Perhaps no one should be expected to wait until an attack occurs before they flee, but certainly it is ridiculous for Idahoans to flee to Canada on Sept 11, 2001 — there was never any plausible threat within a thousand miles of Idaho. There must be some reasonable standard that separates baseless fears from reasonable precautions. What reasons did Palestinians have to believe that Israelis would attack them, and did those fears meet that reasonable standard? It is an honest question. Despite reading about the topic, I don't know which of the contradictory claims to believe.
September 26th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Abbas' term is coming to end? It actually expired two years a go… the only role this dude still legitimately holds is the Chairman of Fatah
September 27th, 2011 at 12:19 am
Yes it describes both sides as hypocrites! Because they are! I don't see why this is not more widely accepted. I don't see why _everyone's_ position on this topic amounts to "I support Israel/Palestine [choose appropriate] and therefore believe Israel/Palestine is completely and utterly blameless and that Palestine/Israel is absolutely and irredeemably evil". It is possible, nay, certain, that large heterogenous group like, say, a country, will have a mixture of good and bad to it. You can support one and still admit its faults, and the other's virtues. It is even possible to support a sane solution in which there is peace in the region and all people who live there are afforded basic human rights and self-determination (I realise that it is not sane to expect this to happen, rather I call it the "sane solution" because it is only impeded by the agency of insane actors. I furthurmore theorise that if the players in international politics were to ever, for a moment, behave sensibly and in tandem, all war would end)
September 27th, 2011 at 5:01 am
Monte tried to portray "the double standard" on generational homeland claims as Israel's doing instead of a mutual hypocrisy, but his argument didn't maintain that distinction. That's what I was saying. I was not, as you seem to think, making an overall judgment on the two groups' general morality or reasonableness.
Of course every nation (every person!) is a mixture of good and bad. That is immaterial to the question of how these disputed sovereignty claims can be settled.
September 27th, 2011 at 7:33 am
You know, using metaphor tends to obscure how complicated the problem actually is. Regardless of whether or not the Israeli Jews procured the land fairly in the forties or not, the fact of the matter is that they and palestinians both have to share that land now.
There are people on both sides who make the negotiating process difficult if not impossible. There are the rocket-slinging extremists from hamas, and then there's the extreme Zionists who always seem to love equating people who think they should be relying more on diplomacy to Holocaust denying terrorists.
September 27th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Maybe he's an (amateur?) cartographer with an obsession over contiguous states and is insisting on physically connecting Kurdistan with Gaza, Bilbao and Ramallah.
September 27th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
He referred specifically to Israel, but that does not imply he considered Palestine to be blameless, especially when, as you noted "his argument didn't maintain that distinction". I don't know if that's what he actually meant any more than you do, but I feel it's a possible interpretation you are ignoring.
September 27th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
There could have easily been sanctions, boycotts, and terrorism for decades more, just as there could easily be with Israel. Apartheid ended because at some point both sides decided it was in their interest to stop.
September 27th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
You make it sound like South Africa's black majority was a PARTNER in the apartheid regime- as if they had equal political power… or, indeed, ANY political power to leverage against the ruling white minority.
The black majority never wanted apartheid in the first place. "Both sides?" Really.
September 27th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Huh? He's still President of the Palestinian Authority.
September 27th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
You completely missed my point. Apartheid ended because both sides, white and black, eventually wound up on the same page, which is to say, the page of moderation and willingness to negotiate. It doesn't matter if you see Israel as the whites or blacks in this analogy, it's clear that the atmosphere between the two parties is nowhere near comparable at this point.
September 28th, 2011 at 6:12 am
Can you really call something the UN voted to support "unilateral?"
September 28th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
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September 28th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
When people speak of "Unilateral" they are referring to the sides directly involved. Most every other nation are just bystanders. So when the arabs are Israel are excluded from the action when they are the two parties involved then its a unilateral action. Hence why the UN bid is a unilateral action because the palestinians are not involving Israel in the action… and the same could be said of israel's actions back in 1948; their were talks with the arabs over the parition plan, but the plan that was pushed forward was not one that had agreed to; it was the plan that Israel felt best for itself and ignored the arabs needs and desires
September 28th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Actually it wasn't just the threat of being attacked by Israel, but also the simple idea of getting caught in the crossfire between Israel and the arab countries.
Evacuating an area can take a good deal of time and considering Israel's small size the people might not get much warning before they found troops marching through their towns and then bombs start dropping as their neighborhoods get caught up in the fight and become the frontline. I mean if you knew there was a war coming to the land you were living in and you lived only a dozen or so miles from the border would you wait to before moving to somewhere you were told it would be safer? Regardless of how they felt about Israel or the arab nations, the local arabs in and around israel knew a war was coming and they were being offered safe haven in the arab countries; for the sake of their own lives, it was not worth the risk to stay in an area that could turn into the front line in a matter of days when there was someplace safer to stay.
September 30th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Very articulate, and very seemingly true, at least with regards to Israeli politics. Netanyahu seems fairly decent, but the political climate surrounding him does seem to be far more inclined to short-term 'patches' than any comprehensive long-term strategy.
October 7th, 2011 at 3:42 am
..Statement Summary MAHMOUD ABBAS Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO and President of the Palestinian Authority said Palestinians had entered with sincere intentions into last September s round of final status negotiations to reach a peace agreement with Israel. Reports by United Nations missions other institutions and civil society groups showed a horrific picture of the systematic confiscation of Palestinian land construction of thousands of new settlements in the West Bank particularly in East Jerusalem and building of the annexation wall.
October 8th, 2011 at 12:17 am
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