Palestinians land body blow to Bibi


By Yehuda Erdman
September 21, 2011
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Bibi is rushing to New York to speak personally to the UN General Assembly. So far he has been totally outfoxed by the Palestinian Authority, and Mr Abbas prsonally has shown real leadership which has been much appreciated by the majority of the Palestinians. Even Hamas have been left out in the cold and marginalised. Israel must adopt a completely new strategy to avoid an even bigger public relations disaster than she has faced in the last few months because of inept handling of Foreign relations by Avigdor Lieberman. Now is the time when Israel desperately needs good friends but they are not there. This is not because of bias by e.g. the BBC or because of latent or overt antisemitism. It is because the world has waited with bated breath for 44 years for some sign that Israel can actually rise to the prospect of sealing a peace deal with the Palestinians and hence the rest of her neighbours in the Middle East.
Instead everyone has seen the truth which is that Israel wants to keep ALL of the land west of the Jordan River and has only paid lip service to requests from the US and the Quartet to accede to the Two State solution. The true colours came out in the last few days when Israel bluntly threatened to annexe parts of the West Bank which Israeli settlers have occupied for the last 30+ years despite the whole world including the US insisting this is illegal. This threat is blackmail pure and simple, but the Palestinian response is that they have nothing to lose. Unfortunately for Bibi he is going to get a cold reception in the UN despite grandstanding to the US Republican Party and the right wing Jewish groups in the US and his own coalition back home. It no longer cuts any ice and Mr Obama is right to hold him in contempt for failing completely to offer meaningful prospects of peace to his neighbours.

COMMENTS

Jonathan Hoffman

21 September, 2011 - 15:19

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What utter drivel ...

"Now is the time when Israel desperately needs good friends but they are not there."

Sure thing .. that's why Condi Rice just said "President Obama will signal our commitment to supporting Israel and a negotiated 2-State Solution"

.. But I guess you never let the facts get in the way of a good Finkler-style rant ...

Advis3r

21 September, 2011 - 15:45

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Mr Erdman some points for you to ponder:

Point 1: The PLO's 1964 Charter - before the "occupation" - states:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

So if the "Palestinians" said it wasn't theirs please let us know whose land Israel is "illegally" occupying. Hint it's not Jordan.

Point 2: Who turned down offers of peace both in 2000 and 2008 when 98% of what the Palestinians said they wanted was on the table including east Jerusalem? Hint it wasn't Israel.

Point 3: Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal damaging or embarrassing information in order to coerce money or other goods or forms of cooperation out of the victim. Please explain how Israel indicating that it will be lawfully annexing land that was awarded to the Jewish people in the Mandate for Palestine is therefore blackmail.

Point 4: The Palestinians have said that any Arab refugees living in Judea and Samaria will not become citizens of any Palestinian State created there. Why do you think that is?

Point 5: Why do you think that as a condition for peace the Palestinians refuse to accept that Israel is the State of the Jewish people when even Mr Netanyahu has said that Israel is prepared to accept that "Palestine" will be the State of the "Palestinian" people?

Rich Armbach

21 September, 2011 - 16:01

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The Mandate for Palestine did not award( and could not have awarded ) land to "the Jewish people ".

Advis3r

21 September, 2011 - 16:07

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You should read it fool!
to wit

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people

Rich Armbach

21 September, 2011 - 16:14

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Smile . You are too easy. Thank you for that.

Advis3r

21 September, 2011 - 16:17

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Usual troll response when caught out in a lie.

Advis3r

21 September, 2011 - 16:21

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Yep troll!

Rich Armbach

21 September, 2011 - 16:21

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If you say so. Watch this space.

Yehuda Erdman

3 October, 2011 - 15:58

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Advis3r you should restrain your temper and stop ad hominem attacks because they will be reported to the moderator.
Rich Armbach was making a sensible point which you did not answer. There is a distinction between "a national home for the Jewish people" from your post above and awarding land to the Jewish people. Above all it did not say anywhere in the Balfour Declaration that there should be a Jewish State in Palestine.
Coming to the points that Advis3r asked me to ponder:-
1. Your tone is offensive and it is not for you to decide whether the West Bank was either Jordan or Palestine; or by inference that it is now israel's as of right. What is a fact is the late king Hussein of Jordan relinquished any rights of Jordan to the West Bank some time after the Six day War.
2. You were not present at the negotiations in 2000 and 2008 and can not judge what was on offer and what was acceptable to either party.
3. The crime is annexation of land captured in war which the entire world represented at the UN condemns including the USA. You may recall that the first Gulf War resulted from the capture of Kuwait by Iraq in a war, after which a coalition including Arab states then waged war against Iraq to free Kuwait from occupation by Saddam Hussein's forces. Moreover, an occupying power, in this case Israel, is specifically prohibited from colonising occupied land and certainly may not build permanent settlements there. That is International Law.
4. This is patently nonsense as any Arab refugees now living on the West Bank will certainly become Palestinian citizens after the State of palestine is established.
5. The State of Israel is a state for the Jews but that is not the same as a Jewish State. Many Jews who are also citizens of Israel do not wish to have their lives controlled even further by the religious minority in Israel. Many secular Jews (a bigger group in Israel than the Orthodox Jews) wish to have separation of State and religion in Israel to allow e.g. freedom of marriage by non-Orthodox Rabbis, civil marriage, funeral services which are non-religious etc.
Jonathan Hoffman you are more guilty of ignoring facts than I.

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