Israel to World: "Suck It."

...which uses the example of the PA to argue that Hamas gained specifically because they were violent.

It's not true though. Israel has negotiated with Fatah and made huge concessions that they rejected.

Hamas never got or will get a deal like Fatah got from Olmert.

or, an opposing view to Michael White

I think the US policy (especially as inaction) has encouraged terrorsim and despair but it now seems that a large part of the American electorate are crazy, too. Jerusalem is no longer really on the table even as a negotiating point of any kind and while we complain about settlements, we effectively hold the Israeli government less acountable than we did under Reagan or Bush. The post 9/11 rage against the 'Muslins' doesn't help much either nor does historical Palestinian rage against the US and gestures of friendship towards our enemies. Really, I continue to despair 'cause I don't see the impetus on any side to get us out of the impasse. If only Arafat had taken Barak's deal...

can't believe morbs is violentarez

Or Abbas took Olmert deal! Which included Jerusalem!

"On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles.

One, there would be a territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the last 40 years."

This approach by Olmert would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish settlement blocks which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory and relocate to Israel.

In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4 per cent of Palestinian territory in the West Bank: "It might be a fraction more, it might be a fraction less, but in total it would be about 6.4 per cent. Israel would claim all the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. All the lands that before 1967 were buffer zones between the two populations would have been split in half. In return there would be a swap of land (to the Palestinians) from Israel as it existed before 1967.

"I showed Abu Mazen how this would work to maintain the contiguity of the Palestinian state. I also proposed a safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza. It would have been a tunnel fully controlled by the Palestinians but not under Palestinian sovereignty, otherwise it would have cut the state of Israel in two.

"No 2 was the issue of Jerusalem. This was a very sensitive, very painful, soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically, and emotionally, Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was ready that the city should be shared. Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty, Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state.

"Then there was the question of the holy basin within Jerusalem, the sites that are holy to Jews and Muslims, but not only to them, to Christians as well. I would never agree to an exclusive Muslim sovereignty over areas that are religiously important to Jews and Christians. So there would be an area of no sovereignty, which would be jointly administered by five nations, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state, Israel and the United States.

"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees." This issue has often been a seeming deal-breaker. The Palestinians insist that all Palestinians who left Israel - at or near the time of its founding - and all their spouses and descendants, should be able to return to live in Israel proper. This could be more than a million people. Olmert, like other Israeli prime ministers, could never agree to this: "I think Abu Mazen understood there was no chance Israel would become the homeland of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian state was to be the homeland of the Palestinian people. So the question was how the claimed attachment of the Palestinian refugees to their original places could be recognised without bringing them in. I told him I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1000 per year. I think the Americans were entirely with me.

"In addition, we talked about creating an international fund that would compensate Palestinians for their suffering. I was the first Israeli prime minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not indifferent to that suffering.

"And four, there were security issues." Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.

"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."

Olmert believes that, like Camp David a decade earlier, this was an enormous opportunity lost: "I said `this is the offer. Sign it and we can immediately get support from America, from Europe, from all over the world'. I told him (Abbas) he'd never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for 50 years. I said to him, `do you want to keep floating forever - like an astronaut in space - or do you want a state?'

"To this day we should ask Abu Mazen to respond to this plan. If they (the Palestinians) say no, there's no point negotiating."

It also pisses me off in a Schopehauerian kind of way that Olmert had all those corruption charges against him. Yeah, he botched Lebanon and attacking Hamas wasn't the brightest thing he did but he did get along with Fatah pretty well (what was it Annapolis?)

wow, nbc doing work

http://i50.tinypic.com/2nc4hef.jpg

imo

Is that flag sticking out of his butt?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_U84fPuQrKzI/Ri5enWi_sEI/AAAAAAAAA2o/P0m1aV7krjc/s320/jones_00screwball-a.jpg

...which uses the example of the PA to argue that Hamas gained specifically because they were violent.

― Z S, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 18:44 (1 hour ago) Permalink

The reason this argument is somewhat silly is that there would be no blockade in the first place without the violence. Hamas will try to spin anything they get as a victory (as, of course, will Israel). In this case, I would argue that Hamas is wrong.

xp yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=oniFAoHgSmw

xposts, the Olmert story is pretty interesting. I would still like to hear the other side's version of it. I got to have a conversation a few years ago with someone who was pretty intimately involved (on the US side) in Israel-Palestine negotiations and he said that he often saw a lack of good faith in negotiations on both sides. This was pre Olmert's offer.

olmert's offer looks all right, but you can still see why it was rejected, at least politically, by abbas. the settlements remain, and some kind of buy-off in lieu of the right of return. i don't follow this conflict very closely but nobody seems very interested in half-loaves.

this did kind of rub me the wrong way i must say:

So there would be an area of no sovereignty, which would be jointly administered by five nations, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state, Israel and the United States.

yeah thanks for drafting us into this shit officially, forever.

thats what happened in the west wing

the united states would be there in a totally impartial oversight role since we don't have any biases in either direction

well same story for jordan and saudi arabia

in my v naive way i've wondered over the past couple days what would happen if the new egyptian gov't and hamas just announced that gaza was egypt now.

maybe that would be for the best, give west bank back to jordan too

what would be the israeli objection to that?

israel would love that

This is the true story... of five nations... picked to jointly administer a volatile area that is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when nations stop being polite... and start getting real...The Jerusalem No-Sovereignty Zone.

maybe they should sign control over to a body that could be truly independent on account of its lack of baises, like fiji, or greenland, or the NBA, or a marching band of retired australian janitors. add whatever business needs taking care of to the agenda for their annual general meeting & let them figure it out, what the australian janitors says goes.

the Dome of the Rock will be closed this evening on account of the 4th annual retired australian janitor Marching Ninety-Nine!

olmert's offer looks all right, but you can still see why it was rejected, at least politically, by abbas. the settlements remain, and some kind of buy-off in lieu of the right of return.

Ok, but propose a workable full right of return and a workable way of dismantling the largest settlements, which have become somewhat city-like (which I assume are what he refers to by that 6.4%, as opposed to the random outpost settlements which could be easily dismantled). I mean, maybe you could research how many Palestinians would actually want to "return" to Israel proper as opposed to the new Palestinian state, and then propose a number based on that or a reasonable proportion of that, assuming it's not close to the million that are eligible. And maybe you could propose not completely dismantling all settlements but ceding some of them to the Palestinian state with Jews able to stay their if they want or leave if they want (there are arab villages in Israel, there could be Jewish villages in Palestine too). But did Abbas come back with a counteroffer at all? I'm not saying he didn't but I'd like to know.

Israel has been one big pass the baby quagmire as long as it has existed. The British, the Russians, the US ...

xp I mean I understand that you put in the qualifier "at least politically" goole, but what solution is ever going to be "politically" feasible by that standard?

"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees." This issue has often been a seeming deal-breaker. The Palestinians insist that all Palestinians who left Israel - at or near the time of its founding - and all their spouses and descendants, should be able to return to live in Israel proper. This could be more than a million people. Olmert, like other Israeli prime ministers, could never agree to this: "I think Abu Mazen understood there was no chance Israel would become the homeland of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian state was to be the homeland of the Palestinian people. So the question was how the claimed attachment of the Palestinian refugees to their original places could be recognised without bringing them in. I told him I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1000 per year. I think the Americans were entirely with me.

this part seemed especially bogus to me. Olmert, in a wave of generosity that he probably regretted the next day, agrees to accept 5000 Palestinians (1000 per year for five years) back into their original homes, no more. The unbiased Americans were entirely with him, he thinks.

there are almost 10,000 people/sq. mile Gaza and over 1,000 people/sq. mile in the West Bank. Israel's at 809/sq. mile. as i understand, there are over 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank alone, right? but they're only going to accept 5000 Palestinians back? am i missing something?

well total right to return will always be both politically and pragmatically out of the question so it'd be mostly symbolism

I don't think the 5,000/300,000 is really a relevant comparison. It's not an exchange where Palestine takes in 300,000 israelis and Israel takes in 5000 Palestinians -- the settlements would be part of Israel. If anything I'd focus on the land that Israel would be getting, and whether Palestinians were being adequately compensated in lieu of return. There really wouldn't be any feasible way to "return Palestinians to their original homes" -- you're talking about people who lived there 65 years ago and their descendents.

And again, I also ask if Abbas made a counteroffer.

maybe they should sign control over to a body that could be truly independent on account of its lack of baises

worked for cyprus, right?

whether Palestinians were being adequately compensated in lieu of return

this also seems pretty sticky. what if the israelis built a luxury hotel where your grandfather's horse stable was? do you deserve to be compensated for the value of the hotel or the value of the horse stable? "right of return" seems to me to be only a few steps removed from reparations for slavery or compensating the native americans for manhattan.

I don't think the 5,000/300,000 is really a relevant comparison. It's not an exchange where Palestine takes in 300,000 israelis and Israel takes in 5000 Palestinians -- the settlements would be part of Israel.

of course it's not apples to apples, but i still think it illustrates how Abbas could have reasoned that Olmert's offer, albeit the best ever offer from Israel, wasn't reasonable. 300,000 settlers in the West Bank alone. in comparison, 1000 Palestinians per year, for five years, "accepted" back into Israel. as a means of comparison, 16,000 people immigrated to Israel in 2009. obviously not all Palestinians could move to Israel, nor would they want to. still, i don't know about you, but if i was apologizing to someone for screwing them over in the past, i wouldn't blatantly screw them again in my new offer. in typical ilxor fashion i will now use tipping as a terrible metaphor: "jeez, i'm really sorry for not tipping the last 20 times you served me...here, take 35 cents."

what if your meal cost 1.75 though

if you screw someone over with a 0% tip 20 times in a row, the payback tip better exceed 20% imo

well yeah, but presumably that's where the financial part of the reparations would come in (although no specifics are given above)

in typical ilxor fashion i will now use tipping as a terrible metaphor: "jeez, i'm really sorry for not tipping the last 20 times you served me...here, take 35 cents."

it's more 'tipping the full amount would be logistically impossible but I am accepting a certain amount of responsibility for what happened'

Perhaps correctly, the Israelis see the right of return as a Trojan horse and I don't see it ever as a viable political possibility. Similarly, I imagine conceding it is probably not a viable political move on the part of Palestinian politicians. My question, however, is how many in the Palestinian diaspora would want to return, especially if any compensation or permanent status were contingent on them staying for, say, at least five years or whatever? I can't imagine any of the Palestinans I know in SF returning. They wish it were easier to visit their relatives, but they've all made their lives here now.

i'm sure all the palestinian refuges living in jordan, lebanese, and syrian refuge camps would love to return

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/give-the-palestinians-a-state.premium-1.481023

Mordy, do you have any idea how many there are in those camps?

And what do we make of the UK's possible shift alongside France to accepting Palestinian staehood in the UN?

Mordy, do you have any idea how many there are in those camps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_refugee_camps

Is this a good place to talk about this genius?
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/israeli-militarys-twitter-warrior-posed-obama-style-in-blackface/

speaking of palestinian refuge camps...

wait is this true??

Israel is one of the few countries in the world where a large segment of the population believes Obama is a secret Muslim.

yeah he's kenyan iirc, it's a family thing