Irreconcilable differences

Israel and Palestine

Palestinian nationalism is not based on a passion for normalization through getting a state as quickly as possible, but rather on the idea that "their land" was usurped by Israel in 1948. Therefore it is more important for Israel to be wiped out than for a Palestinian state to exist. It is more important to get all of the territory than to achieve benefits by compromising to get part of it.


No More ‘Peace Talks,’ Please: The Arab-Israeli Conflict has no Clear Parameters for Resolution

Shoshana Bryen
February 5th 2012

Pajamas Media

Palestine Topics - Prime Minister Salam Fayyad  and PA President Mahmoud Abbas

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad  and PA President Mahmoud Abbas

The current round of Israeli-Palestinian meetings in Jordan ended with a Palestinian decision to leave. "The Israelis brought nothing new in these meetings," said one official, without bothering to note the obvious — neither did the Palestinians.

The talks were the result of a Quartet plan to have Israelis and Palestinians make proposals on territory and security in hopes of reaching a deal in 2012. Questions abound, but the most important is, "How many more times will this farce be played out without recognition of the real and incompatible bottom lines of the two parties?"

It is that fundamental incompatibility — not the lack of pressure or lack of bribes — that prevents the present creation of the mythical "two-state solution" embedded in the Oslo Accords, negotiated without U.S. participation, and signed in 1993.

From the Israeli side, Oslo had three underlying assumptions:

  • That Palestinian nationalism could be understood as the mirror image of Jewish nationalism (Zionism);
  • That Palestinian nationalism could find its full expression in a West Bank and Gaza Strip state; and
  • That there is a price Israel, the United States, and Europe could pay to the Palestinians that would overcome any remaining Palestinian objection to Jewish sovereignty in the region.

All three assumptions have been proven wrong.

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Ayatollah wants to destroy all Jews

MailOnline - news, sport, celebrity, science and health stories

‘Kill all Jews and annihilate Israel!’ Iran’s Ayatollah lays out legal and religious justification for attack

  • Doctrine says Israel would be wiped out in 9 minutes

By Lee Moran

Last updated at 3:52 PM on 6th February 2012

Ties: A website associated with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has outlined why it would be acceptable to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel

Ties: A website associated with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has outlined why it would be acceptable to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel

A website with close ties to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has outlined why it would be acceptable to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel.

Conservative site Alef has published a doctrine detailing why the destruction of the nation and the slaughter of all its people would be legally and morally justified.

It warned that the chance to remove the ‘corrupting material’ of Israel must not be lost – and that it would only take nine minutes to wipe it out.

And it said it was a ‘jurisprudential justification’ for Iran’s Islamic government to then take the helm.

The article, written by Khamenei’s strategy specialist Alireza Forghani, is now being run on most state-owned conservative sites, indicating it has the regime’s support.

The crux of piece said Iran would be justified in launching a pre-emptive strike against Israel because of the threat the Jewish state’s leaders are posing against its own nuclear facilities.

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Arabs miss another opportunity

Palestinian Detente Disaster

By Joe Klein | @JoeKleinTIME | February 6, 2012

I’ve been traveling to the Middle East as a journalist for the past 30 years. During that time, Israel has grown into an ethnically diverse, economically successful country with a strong (internal) tradition of democracy, free speech and the rule of law–a tradition not always extended toward its Palestinian neighbors, especially when Likud governments are in power. And during those same 30 years, governance on the Palestinian side has been an unrelenting disgrace–until recently, when Salam Fayyad, a U.S.-trained economist reformed the government on the West Bank and, with US help, created a tough security force that insisted on the rule of law in the Palestinian territories and was respected by the international community, including the Israelis.

But Fayyad was fired in the new accord between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas. This is terrible news. It changes everything.The success of Fayyad’s government was one reason why I was not entirely pessimistic about a two-state solution in the Middle East. Israel had always demanded, and deserved, a responsible negotiating partner. Fayyad had created conditions amenable to negotiation; the Israelis responded positively, in a limited way, shutting down checkpoints on the West Bank, but not nearly as positively as they should have–with a moratorium on new settlement construction. His firing has undermined those of us who had hoped for a more positive Israeli response to the Palestinian reforms.

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PA glorifies murder

Why No Peace? Because the PA Tells Its People that Murdering Israeli Civilians Makes You a Hero

If the role of this incitement to terror and demonization of Israelis—and there is nothing like it on the other side—isn’t understood then the continuation of violence and the absence of peace cannot be understood

Posted By Barry Rubin On February 3, 2012

By Barry Rubin, Pajamas Media

While the Western mass media virtually always portrays the Palestinian Authority (PA )as moderate the PA simply doesn’t act that way. Its contrary behavior involves not keeping its commitments, daily incitement to kill Israelis and destroy Israel in its institutions, and refusal to negotiate seriously.

Above all, it means refusing to make peace in the context of a two-state solution. Among other things, it rejects the idea off a peace treaty ending the conflict–a pretty remarkable stance–or resettling its people within the state of Palestine but insisting many should go to Israel to live–a pretty remarkable stance for what’s supposed to be a nationalist movement.

But then there are the symbolic things that persuade Israelis not to trust the PA with their future fate, even if Israel must deal with the PA and even save it from being overthrown by Hamas.

To put it in one sentence; there is nothing the PA won’t do in terms of justifying the murder of Israelis as a heroic deed that should be considered. Here is a case so extreme—publicized by the praiseworthy Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) that it should reverberate internationally, making people understand the true reason why this conflict cannot be settled.  Oh, and it immediately follows PMW’s revelation that the highest-ranking, PA-appointed Palestinian Muslim cleric called for genocide against the Jews.

Now, twice in one week, a PA television host praised Hakim Awad, the murderer of the Fogel family who, last March, carried out the bloody slaughter of an unarmed father, mother, and three children (11 years, 4 years, and 2 months, respectively) in their home. The program held him up as a good role model for Palestinians.

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Intelligent Design is growing

In Time for Darwin Day, It’s Our New List of Pro-ID Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers; 50th Paper Published in 2011

Evolution News & Views February 1, 2012 12:20 PM | Permalink

Ann in lab.JPG

Darwin Day and Evolution Weekend overlap this year, providing an extra special opportunity to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 203rd birthday on February 12 and promote Darwinian theory in a variety of venues, including colleges and universities, churches and synagogues. We wanted to do something appropriate to add our own note to the hallelujah chorus. What do you give to an exhausted relic of antique 19th-century scientific materialism that has everything but genuine credibility?

How about a revised and updated list of pro-intelligent design peer-reviewed scientific papers, showing among other things that the 50th such paper was published in 2011? In a series of upcoming articles, we’ve asked Casey Luskin to note some highlights.

While intelligent design research is a new scientific field, recent years have been a period of encouraging growth, producing a strong record of peer-reviewed scientific publications. New publications continue to appear, now listed at our updated page.

The current boom goes back to 2004, when Discovery Institute senior fellow Stephen Meyer published a groundbreaking paper advocating ID in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. There are multiple hubs of ID-related research.

Biologic Institute, led by molecular biologists Doug Axe and Ann Gauger, is “developing and testing the scientific case for intelligent design in biology.” Biologic conducts laboratory and theoretical research on the origin and role of information in biology, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, and methods of detecting design in nature. That’s Dr. Gauger at the Biologic lab pictured above.

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Jordan should be Palestinian state

Posted on January 30, 2012 at 12:44 pm by Ruth King, Mideast Outpost, AFSI

WILLIAM MEHLMAN: ABDULLAH, PICK UP THE PHONE

If it’s solely a National Home for which the so-called Palestinians yearn, rather than the liquidation of the Jewish National Home, such an abode – fully furnished –already exists east of the Jordan River

Filed under Mideast

 

When all the wild, desperate, improbable solutions to a problem have been exhausted, there is    nothing left to turn to but the obvious.

In respect to the Arab-Israel conflict, the “obvious” has been staring us in face for over 40 years. Encapsulated in the mantra “Two States for Two Peoples on Two Banks of the Jordan River,“ it has the distinction of being the most ignored testament to rationality and common sense in the history of international diplomacy.

An “invented ”nation the so-called Palestinians surely are, but given the world’s acceptance of their claim to sovereignty, it  is on the shoulders of the world, not on Israel’s, that the  realization of  that aspiration rests.

Indeed, if it’s solely a National Home for which the so-called Palestinians yearn, rather than the liquidation of the Jewish National Home, such an abode – fully furnished –already exists east of the Jordan River. “Jordan” it may be called, but encompassing 77 percent of Biblical Israel expropriated by the British and handed over to a Hashemite desert potentate, it is a “Palestinian State” in the purest post-Biblical sense of the term.

That this de facto  “Palestinian State” with its 70 percent  Palestinian Arab  majority should be allowed to stand on the sidelines, like some kibbitzer at  an  interminable diplomatic poker game, exempt from any material obligation toward  its compatriots, boggles the  mind.

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Canadian FM supports Israel

In West Bank meeting, Canadian ministers take firm line with Palestinians

In a presentation on Monday evening to a private gathering at the Herzliya Conference, Mr.Baird, who is on his third visit to Israel, explained why the Harper government “believes so passionately in Israel’s right not only to exist, but to exist as a Jewish state and to live in peace and security.”

patrick martin

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK— From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 8:18PM EST

Last updated Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 7:49AM EST

    Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty journeyed to the West Bank on Monday to beard the Palestinian lions in their den.

    Over lunch with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, then later with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Foreign Minister Riad Maliki, the Ottawa tag-team went out of its way to impress upon the Palestinian leadership that it should abandon its efforts to obtain United Nations recognition and return to the negotiating table with Israel “without preconditions.”

    More related to this story

    It was chutzpah of the highest order.

    Adopting a harder line than any of Canada’s allies, Mr. Baird told Mr. Maliki, then repeated it in front of reporters, that it was “profoundly wrong” to take the case for Palestinian statehood to the United Nations, and it is far preferable to resume negotiations with Israel than insist that Israel halt settlement construction before resuming direct talks.

    “Unilateral action by either side is not helpful,” Mr. Baird acknowledged in an apparent reference to new Israeli settlement construction. “But the two sides would be better off talking [to each other] rather than not talking.”

    As for Hamas, many of whose members are being held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons, Mr. Baird said, “We have no interest in interacting with Hamas. It is a terrorist organization.”

    Noting that Hamas is currently in reconciliation talks with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement, Mr. Baird set out certain steps Hamas would have to take should it seek Canadian recognition.

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    Arabs should stop hating

    Yalla Peace: Palestinians’ worst enemy – themselves

    The Arabs, though some may be talented, have a lot of loud-mouthed activists who scream and spew hatred.

    By RAY HANANIA
    Jerusalem Post, 24/01/2012

    If Palestinian groups would band together, perhaps they would achieve something- after 100 years of failure.

    If the Israelis wanted to defeat the Palestinians, Israel would immediately recognize a Palestinian State in Gaza, the West Bank and even east Jerusalem rather than embrace policies that push Palestinians to unite. If they did that, all the Israelis would have to do is sit back and watch as the Palestinians tear themselves apart.
    Yes, the tragedy of the Palestinians isn’t that they are victims of injustice at the hands of the Israelis. It is their own tendency to destroy themselves from within.
    The most powerful factor keeping Palestinians together as a people is the anger they share in response to injustices by Israel. But that’s a pathetic reason for unity. Worse, anger easily turns into hatred and hatred easily turns into violence, terrorism and killings. And violence undermines even the most just of causes.
    Palestinians hate Israelis but they hate themselves even more.
    Palestinian activists spend as much time bashing their own people as they do bashing Israel. The truth is that for the Palestinians, bashing Israel results in nothing but more defeats and losses. Bashing other Palestinians makes them feel better, and serves to distract their community from their inherent leadership failures.

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