The latest Palestinian strategy – clever or stupid or both?
It could tempt Netanyahu to go for broke and say to the Palestinians something like the following. “Okay. You’ve declared your state. We don’t accept its borders as defined by you, but we will recognise it inside borders defined by us (the two or three Bantustans). Now shut up. The game is over. The file is closed. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”
And he, Netanyahu, would probably think but not say, “If you give us any trouble, we’ll have the lot of you removed to Jordan or wherever”.
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The latest Palestinian strategy – clever or stupid or both? By Alan Hart « Kanan48:
November 16th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
[...] The latest Palestinian strategy – clever or stupid or both? By Alan Hart 2009 November 16 by kanan48 Via: Alan Hart. [...]
Brad Golding:
November 17th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Hi Alan
True enough, but the Zionist regime’s acquisition of the territory it established by 1967, was obtained without the consent of the Palestinian people who had no say in it. That the Zionist thugs systematically committed, (even before 1948), and continue to commit, a “Holocaust” against the Palestinian people, surely makes the apartheid state of Israel morally illegal in the first place, thus making 242 something of a misnomer? Sorry, I forgot, the Zionists have no morals.
On a completely different tack, how come Israel gets to be in the Eurovision song contest? If they use the excuse of geography then Lebanon and Syria should also be in it! If ethnicity is their excuse, how come Canada, Australia, NZ, etc., cannot be in it?
Brad
Chris Crookes:
November 17th, 2009 at 10:32 am
You write that Netanyahu could ‘go for broke and say to the Palestinians something like the following. “Okay. You’ve declared your state. We don’t accept its borders as defined by you, but we will recognise it inside borders defined by us (the two or three Bantustans). Now shut up. The game is over. The file is closed. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”…’
But isn’t that pretty much the Israeli position today minus the explicit ‘game over’ part? They are making their ‘game over’ by stealth with their ‘facts-on-the-ground’ policy of expanding settlements, evictions, right-of-return prevarications and wall ‘land grabs’
Mary:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I think Netanyahu is more likely to say, “if you give us trouble, we’ll kill as many of you as possible and then ghettoize you in your bantustans.” He really is a curse on both Israel and Palestine. Under his leadership the entire idea of a peace settlement has collapsed. With evil genius he has pulled the rug out from under Abbas and thereby effectively made the Palestinian Authority utterly feckless. Hamas remains ostracized, and so no one is representing the Palestinian people anymore. Netanyahu has also completely disregarded Obama (who has proven to be out of his league in this matter) and has made him very unpopular in Israel. I think that Israel’s motives have not changed; they are just blatantly on display under Netanyahu. He doesn’t give a damn whether or not the whole world hates Israel; he will go to hell while continuing to steal Palestinian land.
admin:
November 18th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
@brad
This conflict should be, but is not, about moral and legal rights. It’s about Zionist might v Palestinian right. And that’s why I call in my book for the Jews to become a light unto nations by demonstrating that right can triumph over might and that there is a place for morality in politics.
242 was much more than a “misnomer” as you put it. As I wrote, it was a disaster for real, would-be peacemakers because it gave Zionism a power of veto over any peace process. And this in the historical context of the UN putting itself above the law with the General Assembly partition resolution (leaving aside the fact that it didn’t go to the Security Council and was vitiated).
As for how “Israel gets into the Eurovision song contest”, I offer you this thought as part of the answer. Europe needs, actually can’t do without, Israel’s scientific and technological expertise.
Best wishes,
Alan
admin:
November 18th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
@Chris
I agree that the Zionists, are making it game over “by stealth” and gradually, “slow genocide” as my dear friend Ilan Pappe put it. My main point was that a Palestinian declaration of independence could give Netanyahu the pretext to speed things up, trigger the final ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians sooner rather than later.
Best wishes,
Alan
Peter Hindrup:
November 27th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
No country that supports Israel can credibly denounce any assault against human rights, and certainly cannot continue to bleat about the Nazi Extermination pogrom! Nor do those countries believe in, or support International Law.
No country has ever stood up for the rights of the Palestinians, why would anyone assume that they would start now?
The question is why are the Israelis permitted to get away with flouting International Law?
It is past time that they were put firmly in their place.
Chris Crookes:
November 28th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I agree, Peter, “The question is why are the Israelis permitted to get away with flouting International Law?”
I assume it is because of European sensitivity/guilt over the treatment of jews in WW2, plus the large influence of Europeans/Americans who regard themselves as Jewish and who thus support Israel unconditionally.
As Dispatches showed and as has long been known, influence in Western governments from ‘Friends of Israel’ lobby groups is huge, and mentioning anything about is rewarded with accusation of being anti-semitic.
Hopefully this is now changing… gradually. I have been long in discussions with American Jews who regard any criticism or attempt at evaluation of even a hint of Israel’s excesses as pure racist propaganda. But I feel a change is occurring even with such people.
Otherewise this repeatedly using the race card to divert from legitimate criticism I fear will back fire on ALL jews. So the charge of anti-semitism used so freely and undeservedly may regrettably become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Mary:
November 28th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
You must also look at the UN itself, who its permanent member states are, and who are members of the Security Council and the UN Commission for Human Rights. Politics is everything, even in the UN. Its fecklessness in dealing with Israel’s serial violations of international laws is reflective of the views of those who are in a position to act, or not act, on these violations.
By the same token, these countries were also instrumental in trashing the UN conference on Racism in Durban last summer, in large part due to Israel and its fears of being accused of racism and apartheid. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/957511.html
Peter Hindrup:
November 28th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Chris Crookes said…
‘I assume it is because of European sensitivity/guilt over the treatment of jews in WW2, —-‘
Two points: the Nazi Extermination pogrom is said to have slaughtered approximately 12 million people, the claim is that approximately half of that number were Jews.
It seems to me that there is room for the legitimate questioning of the numbers, both the total and the number of Jews.
However vicious and brutal the Nazis were, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is of no lessor evil or brutality.
A policy of semi starvation, denial of medical aid, daily humiliations, jailing without cause, genocide and the burning of a population with white phosphorous is as bad as anything the Nazis managed to come up with!
‘— plus the large influence of Europeans/Americans who regard themselves as Jewish and who thus support Israel unconditionally.’
Why is it that all Jews outside Israel do not understand that beyond a certain point, all Jews everywhere will be branded with the stench of the Israelis and the consequences will be more ugly than anything the Jewish people have ever endured?
It is past time that the Jews were told that they had long ago milked the last bit of guilt and/or compassion from the Jewish tale of the Holocaust
Mary:
November 29th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Zionism is a political movement which began before the Holocaust, although it is commonly believed that it came out of the Holocaust. It does not matter how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust, that is another issue entirely and is unrelated to Zionism and the formation of the Zionist State.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, as determined by the many records and witness testimonies recorded during that time. “It is past time that the Jews were told that they had long ago milked the last bit of guilt…” The deaths of six million human beings can never be “milked” for anything; it is an atrocity that should never be forgotten or minimized.
The problem is not Jews, it is Zionists. Not all Jews are Zionists, however those who are not are often accused of being “self-hating Jews”. Israel’s increasing unpopularity in the world, as a result of the illegal and bloody occupation of Palestine, is beginning to fuel an increase in anti-Semitism in Europe. And the Zionists’ insistence that Israel be a Jewish state is racist and ignores the fact that a large number of the world’s Jews have no interest in Israel. It seems that Israel has attracted and has become the home of secular European Jews (those who do not practice Judaism and may even be atheists) and fanatics (the extremist settlers whose political presence within Israel has strengthened in recent years).
Chacidy:
November 4th, 2011 at 1:48 am
Is that really all there is to it because that’d be flabbersgtaing.