Palestine: Another "generous offer" mythology in the works?

That's a problem all right, but it isn't a problem of JUSTICE.

Let's take a look at where your objections to what appears to be happening might be legitimate in terms of justice. Suppose Israel withdrew fully, did NOT attempt to control the OUTSIDE borders of the new Palestinian state, the borders with Egypt and Jordan (leaving it up to you to negotiate with them about that). But the inside border (with Israel) was closed -- no transshipment og goods from Israeli ports and airport, no transit across Israel, no jobs within Israel.

I agree not "generous", but what does justice have to do with generousity. I agree that under these conditions, if the world didn't step forward, especially Egypt and Jordan, then the new Palestinian state probably would not be viable. But a demand for JUSTICE does not obligate the Israelis to be concerned with whether or not you can survive, only that THEY not be directly causing your difficulty.

We always need to be careful what we ask for -- might get it. Perhaps instead of pleading for justice you could ask for mercy. That at least gives grounds for complaining that one's enemy is not being "generous".

The problem (from your perspective) is that the Israelis could always unilaterlly withdraw and leave you totally unoccupied to stand or fall as best you can manage. I think you are being unfair to Abbas who apparently is trying to negotiate some way to survive. You are misjudging the changed reality that would apply following a full Israeli withdrawal. How would you "resist" if as it seems to be the case you found that insufficient?

>>>"After almost four decades of deliberate Israeli de-development of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, the Palestinians are left today with scorched earth."<<<

This propagandist is simply a shameless liar. Since 1967 Israel took many steps to develop the disputed territories and vastly improved the Palestinians' life conditions, only to see them partially destroyed during the first intifada, then totally torn down during the second, mostly by the Palestinians themselves.
Mr. Halper has long crossed the lines from being an Israeli genuinely concerned for Israeli society to worshipping the Palestinian cause at any price.


>>>"Two generations of Palestinians have never known freedom, only military occupation blah blah... left with few skills and little hope of employment"<<<

See above.


>>>"Israel... refuses to take in any refugees even though it expelled them in 1948"<<<

Wild hyperbole. He has no use for nuances troublesome to his anti-Israel position.


>>>"One gets the impression that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is being set up for yet another "generous offer." At the end of the Oslo process then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was supposed to have offered 95 percent of the occupied territories to the Palestinians. It is not true (the 95 percent figure came from a Clinton proposal that both the Israelis and Palestinians accepted, but which never materialized)."<<<

Another lie.
Barak's Camp David offer encompassed some 92% of the territory. Barak's second proposal at Taba concerned 97%, including 3% of the Halutza region in the Negev in Israel proper. Both never materialized due to Arafat's (his idol) all-or-nothing abstinence.


>>>"But even if it were, Israel needs only 5 to 15 percent of the occupied territories to retain complete control and confine the Palestinians to a prison-state. Israel could control the borders, Palestinian movement, all the water and most of the agricultural land, the Jerusalem area (which, because of tourism, represents almost half the Palestinian economy), the country's airspace, and even its communications sphere. The Palestinians could get 85 to 95 percent of the actual territory and, like inmates of a prison, still be locked into a series of cells called a "state." This, it appears, is what awaits Abbas in the next few months"<<<

Well, this scenario, on both the general and particular levels, is still a fig of Halper's feverish imagination, not an official Israeli objective.


>>>"The euphoria generated around the "moderate and pragmatic" Abu Mazen in this "post-Arafat era" is intended to put him in a corner, to place expectations of concessions upon him that he cannot possibly fulfill."<<<

Seems like Halper is implying it's illegitimate of Israel or anyone else for that matter to expect Abu-Mazen to meet the Palestinian side's commitments under the road-map, and Israel should be the only party to make good on its undertakings.


>>>"Coordinated, as always, with the Americans, Sharon will spring his Generous Offer: Gaza plus 60-75 percent of the West Bank and a symbolic presence in East Jerusalem.

Sounds okay, and fleshed out on a map it will look okay to most people abroad who have no way of evaluating the issue of viability. Blah blah blah"<<<

Halper and his Palestinian operators should be grateful for even being granted that much territory.


>>>"it will lock the Palestinians into the cantonized entity toward which Sharon has been tirelessly and openly working this past quarter century. It will be a new apartheid."<<<

So now, all of a sudden (if this bozo is to be believed), Sharon has been aiming all that time toward a Palestinian state on Gaza and 60%-75% of the rest? Seems like Halper and his equally miserable ilk change their minds on this particular issue almost as often as they change socks every day.


>>>"If Abbas says "yes," he will be the quisling leader Israel has hoped for. Two things will happen: Abbas will win the Nobel Peace Prize (sharing the stage proudly with Sharon and Bush), and he will be assassinated."<<<

This loser isn't content threatening Abbas with a Quisling adjective, he's also making an assassination prophecy, as if the looned Palestinian terrorists need external inspiration.


>>>"Say "no," and Sharon will pounce: "See?!" he will proclaim, "the Palestinians have refused yet another generous offer! They obviously do not want peace!" And Israel, off the hook, will be free to expand its control of the occupied territories for years to come."<<<

Let's just say this forecast might not come true, if only for the facts that Bush, or Sharon, or both might have been gone before this eventuality materializes IF it even does.


>>>"The Chinese expression has it: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The generous offer, though fictitious, worked once. It is the responsibility of everyone seeking a just and endurable peace to ensure that it does not happen again. Viability is the devil in the details."<<<

What a sick lying clown this Halper is...

http://conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=2749

Daniel Pipes writes in the spring Middle East Quarterly (thanks to Rebecca Bynum) about the surprising attitudes of Palestinians living in Israel:

In the Palestinian Authority's (PA) elections that took place in January 2005, a significant percentage of Arab Jerusalemites stayed away from the polls out of concern that voting in them might jeopardize their status as residents of Israel. For example, the Associated Press quoted one Rabi Mimi, a 28-year-old truck driver, who expressed strong support for Mahmoud Abbas but said he had no plans to vote: "I can't vote. I'm afraid I'll get into trouble. I don't want to take any chances." Asked if he would vote, a taxi driver responded with indignation, "Are you kidding? To bring a corrupt [Palestinian] Authority here. This is just what we are missing."

This reluctance—as well as administrative incompetence—helped explain why, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, "at several balloting locations in the city [of Jerusalem], there were more foreign election observers, journalists, and police forces out than voters." It also explains why, in the previous PA election in 1996, a mere 10 percent of Jerusalem's eligible population voted, far lower than the proportions elsewhere.

At first blush surprising, the worry about jeopardizing Israeli residency turns out to be widespread among the Palestinians in Israel. When given a choice of living under Zionist or Palestinian rule, they decidedly prefer the former....

Pro-Israel expressions fall into two main categories: preferring to remain under Israel rule and praising Israel as better than Arab regimes....

After a detailed discussion Pipes concludes:



In word and deed, then, even Palestinians acknowledge Israel as the most civilized state in the Middle East. Amid the gloom of today's political extremism and terrorism, this fact offers wisps of hope.

Read it all.

Posted by Robert at 08:04 AM | Comments (6) | Email this entry | Print this entry
Two Saudis on watch list cause KLM flight diversion
An update on this story: "Mystery Flight," from Newsweek, with thanks to Mediawatch.

It's part of the routine for air travel since 9/11. Fifteen minutes after KLM Flight 685 took off from Amsterdam for Mexico City on April 8, Mexican authorities forwarded the names of all the passengers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason: the flight was scheduled to pass through U.S. airspace after making a long swing over Canada. The information was then passed on to the U.S. National Targeting Center, based at a secret address in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. That's when the routine became extraordinary: by the time the Boeing 747 had finished its three-hour crossing of the Atlantic, Homeland Security screeners were on high alert. The names of two Saudi passengers aboard the KLM flight had begun producing "hits" on the screening center's lists of 70,000 suspect foreigners....
Some counterterrorism officials worry that the Saudi brothers could be living double lives. One of the Saudis lived in the United States for at least 14 years and took an engineering degree at Arizona State University. A former neighbor of his in Tempe remembers him as "really nice." But another former Arizona neighbor recalls that a day or two after 9/11, the normally self-contained Saudi was behaving oddly. "He was wearing a wide grin. He said, 'Hi, Neighbor, isn't it a great day?' It seemed inappropriate." Other intelligence officials say if the two were indeed part of a Qaeda operation, it is no surprise their destination was Mexico City. U.S. officials fear that Latin America, and more particularly Mexico-with its porous U.S. border-may become a staging ground for Al Qaeda. The big question is, wherever the next threat comes from, will authorities be able to spot it in time?...


Read it all.