Netanyahu standing in the way of his own peace

TChong says:

08:01am | 31/12/10

Yes Eric, they (the palestinians) want the Israelis off their land, much like any other people would.
Agree, spread the blame around evenly, including shining a light upon Israel and its use of collective punishments, brutal military control, and its store of nuclear weapons, which of course cant be mentioned, otherwise the default cries of “antisemitism” are used to defend the indefensable actions of Israel.

James says:

08:31am | 31/12/10

Hey TC, any ideas on what to do with those Israeli people?

TChong says:

09:14am | 31/12/10

We have an alternative govt that would turn the boats around, maybe the palestinians need a politician who advocates turn the far right nutters-settlers moving vans , with police, army escort around.
We have issues with boat people, imagine how the palestinians view the israeli sanctioned invasion of their homeland.
In fact, many conservative pundits would identify with the palestinian cry of letting them ( the pals) decide who arrives in their homeland, and in what manner.

Brutus Balan says:

09:16am | 31/12/10

Yes TChong, you too have a skewed understanding of Jewish history dated back 3,000 years.  You are not an anti-Semite but simply ignorant. Ignorant of even the recent offers made by previous Israeli PMs to almost all the Arab demands. Ignorant that the so called Palestinians are Jordanian Arabs spilled over to Israel during the British occupation of Jewish land and during their exile.  Ignorant that the so called Palestinians are pawns of the ‘hate Israel campaign’ by Arab nations. Instead of absorbing them into the neighboring state they are left in limbo for so long.  Where is your indignance at the Arabs?  Ignorant that there are no such thing as a Palestinian race or people and it was an invention by the Arabs to oust the Jews off their native land.  You are ignorant TChong !!!

Vaunted says:

09:45am | 31/12/10

Over 76% of the population of Israeli territory is Jewish by religion, that’s about 5,700,000 people, versus about 1,300,000 Muslims, so I’d say as far as giving Israel back to the Arabs is concerned the horse has well and truly bolted. You may as well say all white folks in Australia go back to where you came from, or for that matter, all you Normans get back to Normandy. The regional Arab population will eventually have little choice but to stop chafing and harassing the Israeli mainstream and capitulate. Is that fair? Probably not, but any well-armed legitimate government (and Israel is UN-sanctioned and well armed) has a right to assert itself in the face of terrorist insurrection, no matter how well-justified some may believe such insurrection to be. In the broad brush of historical reality, apportioning relative ‘blame’ hardly comes into it.

Brutus Balan says:

10:16am | 31/12/10

Well said Vaunted, “You may as well say all white folks in Australia go back to where you came from, or for that matter, all you Normans get back to Normandy. ”

TChong says:

10:37am | 31/12/10

Dear Brutus, i think you are playing fast and loose with the truth if you seriosly claim ther we no palestinians in the disputed area.
Ignorant ? dont know, apologist ? - I hope your not
Vaunted - palestinians who want the israeli military occupation to end are terrorists are they?
Then so were the Jews in Warsaw- how dare they disrupt and object to the legitimate occupation of warsaw ( from German POV ) ?
Outrageous!, theres differences you say?
Like what?
To the palestinian children and ambulance drivers shot during the last israeli invasion,by state sanctioned army snipers, they are just as dead as any of the Holocaust victims.
Israel relies on blaming its victims.

Mitch says:

11:37am | 31/12/10

Brutus Balan, you cannot accuse others of ignorance if you believe Palestinians are just Jordanians who walked into Palestine during British rule.  Who do you think the majority of people living there have been for the past millennium and a half??  Besides that there was always transient migration between the modern day countries of Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel prior to the British coming in and creating arbitrary borders.  Kicking people off the land they own and call home is no more justified whether they are from a small or large ethnic group, and to suggest so is absurd.

Secondly Fatah has been pushing for reinstatement of the 1967 borders for quite a while now, not the total destruction of Israel.  Even Hamas have been coming to this view over the past few years despite its militia wing actively taking part terrorist attacks and firing rockets across the border during that time.

To the author, Fatah is not a democratically elected Government, Hamas won the last election and Fatah decided to ignore that and take control of the West Bank.

Marky says:

12:25pm | 31/12/10

Mitch, correct me if I am wrong. I very well could be. But Isn’t Mahmoud Abbas the president of the future start of Palestine and was democratically elected to that position by the PLO?

I realise it is not exactly the same as a full and free election, but hasn’t the PLO been recognised by many countries around the world as the representative body of Palestine? Even Israel recognises them.

I may be completely wrong, if I am, I’d love to know more

Brutus Balan says:

01:47pm | 31/12/10

TChong: Your response is even bizarre man.  I said there is no such thing as a ‘Palestinian” race but this so called Palestinians are Arabs as Mitch has pointed out.  Transient Arabs occupying the Land the Jews historical lived for 1,000s of years till their exile and diaspora.  Palestine is and was Jordan for they are the majority there.  They are the transient Arabs from elsewhere.  The transient Arabs now called Palestinians were there in Jewish land but that was never their ancestral home country.  Arafat walked away from the generous offers made at Camp David when almost all Arab demands were met by the Israeli PM for peace.  They want Israel to go into exile again.  No democratic people
will put up with Arab-Muslim aggression who is bent on decimating the Jews openly.  You are ignorant TChong !!!

Mitch, read more Middle east history before you comment, please.

You are not just ignorant but you don’t pay attention to words too.  You also seem to have a problem considering the whole context but selective in truth.

Dan says:

06:53pm | 31/12/10

Eric, make no mistake, but you are no friend of Israel!

Brutus Balan, I find that whenever someone talks about there being no such as Palestinian, they attempt to deny their rights to statehood. Make no mistake about it, the Palestinians (who are absolutely a people) are morally and legally owed a state of their own. Many of these Palestinians have ties to the land stretching back hundreds of years. They have an absolute moral and legal right to statehood.

Also, with all your talk about Arab-Muslim aggression, has it occured to you that the dispute isn’t so black+white?

Gregg says:

11:00am | 01/01/11

@ Marky, re
” Mitch, correct me if I am wrong. I very well could be. But Isn’t Mahmoud Abbas the president of the future start of Palestine and was democratically elected to that position by the PLO? “
Mahmoud was elected as President but just like you can have a lame duck President in the US, the US/Israelis and media gave him a pair of crutches for Mitch was correct.

There were elections which Hamas won and Fatah, the PLO party had more people in the West Bank, that being separated from Gaza and the two not the best of pals, Fatah usurped control of the WB.
Whether or not it was that Hamas have been prepared to make more of a militant stand or that in being seen as a terrorist organisation and thus less politically palatable, their win in the elections was glossed over and has received absolutely minimal further media coverage since and you can ask questions of appropriate people why.

With the IRA saga and outcome whatever it ultimately may be, it is ironical that the Brit poodle has been some sort of an envoy in the region.

A Dose of Reality says:

11:06pm | 02/01/11

Brutus Balan

“It is wiser to be silent and thought a fool that to speak up, and remove all doubt”

Please, if nothing else read the above over and over.  You need to consider it - desperately.

The palestinians are indeed a people/race, over millennia they have absorbed invading/occupying races but they are genetically a Semitic people of the Levant , mentioned in ancient text and are not only related to Jews (as are arabs) but possibly pre-date the Jews in what was referred to as “Palestine” during the English occupation of the Ottoman territory after WWI.

Their genetic make-up and “name” is similar to how Britain’s population is genetically Celtic, although always referred to as Anglo-Saxon.

Your view of more recent history is also completely false and rather fanciful, - refer to the quote above.

At the time the Jews started leaving Europe to settle in palestine (after WWI) there were some Jews living there, as there always had been (The idea that they were completely dispersed is false).  There were approximately 80,000 of them.

However there were approximately 800,000 Palestinians.

You will find that these people were forced FROM their ancestral homes INTO Jordan and Lebanon, causing massive refugee problems. 

As for the Jews “native land” - this is akin to the English “reclaiming” Holland and Saxony (Germany) as this is where the Saxons and Angles invaded Britain from.

You have either one of the worst comprehensions of history I’ve come across or you simply have a racial hatred.

I hope it is the former, that can be helped.

marty healer says:

09:40am | 31/12/10

Please please please look up the history of what the palestinians have and are suffering ,it is like samson and goliath ,the zionists have never had any intention of a two state solution , palestinian land has gone from 45% to 11% in 50 yrs, the land that is left is broken up into bits and pieces ,on average there are 3 farmers killed by sniper fire every week ,just for tending THERE land .the settlers have stolen there water ,they are blockaded in illegally , 800,000 palestinians driven off there land through murder and indiscriminate killing , i challlenge you too find pics of dead israeli children on the net , yet there are 100s of the palestinians ,this is not an equal battle ,it is a slaughter ,i am anti zionist not anti semetic and i am an orthodox jew so how could i be !

grumpy old man says:

11:01am | 31/12/10

Marty,
I spent 6 months on UN peace keeping duties in the middle east, including some time in Beirut, I have a pretty good understanding of the history…from all sides!. I also lived in Bahrain for 3 years as a child.

The rights and wrongs are basically irrelevant at this stage, its pretty difficult to right the historical wrongs without going back to the end of the first world war, possibly earlier, and unraveling from then.

What is needed is a solution that resolves todays issues, and my point is that neither side ( or rather should I say sides as there are at least 4), is willing to concede anything. In the absence of any goodwill from any of the players, then options for resolution are pretty limited. The involvement of foreign governments is not a help, since they are only involved to further their own objectives, and one cannot help but wonder if things might be better if everyone else butted out.
Whilst not questioning the facts of what you say, how does your saying it further the cause of resolution? Will what you say alter the position of any of the parties involved, or will it simply act to further harden views? Moral indignation will not resolve the issues, but it will prolong the time before there is a resolution, and therefore result in more suffering.

Sherekahn says:

11:05am | 01/01/11

However, the problems of human relationships are not ready to accept diplomacy to settle issues, Israel is a living example.
War is the only choice left for some people, so let IRAN have nuclear weapons to defend themselves and help other people in the Middle-East defend themselves against fanatics.
So much money is wasted on diplomacy that would be better spent on a clean up after the dust settled, even Nuclear dust. Perhaps we really NEED such a wake-up call to bring us to our senses.

Sherekahn says:

11:20am | 01/01/11

I am sickened to my soul that Israel is allowed to do this!
Any other Country but Israel would be held to account; this surely shows that power of ARMS wins over sanity. This is why Countries such as Iran MUST obtain nuclear arms to defend itself and combat Terrorism in the Middle East.
Israelis are Western people in the middle of Non-Western people.
This Religious Israeli sickness has no rights above other communities in the world.
Only 6 million Jews were killed in WW II.
44 million other people were killed.  Does anyone spare a thought for those people?
We are; ‘sick, sick, sick.’ of Israel being the cause of 90% of the world’s problems.
If Obama wishes to spend a second term in the Whitehouse, then he’d better stop vetoing resolutions by the rest of the world against Israeli behaviour.

Ben81 says:

09:49am | 31/12/10

It’s sure as shit their land now.  What group of people politically convenient to you should take over the place to make you feel better about things?

Chris L says:

11:22am | 01/01/11

@Ben81, I don’t think Radagast was suggesting to displace the English. He was simply pointing out the relevance of claiming land that was there before the population had ever arrived and will be there long after they have faded into obscurity.

Or perhaps you understood the point and were reinforcing it with an adversarial point of view. Such subtleties are beyond me.

I think the point is that everyone is where they are and they can live with it, or not live with it. I hope I can remain philisophical about it if ever the Chinese decide they want a piece of Australia.

Marky says:

12:10pm | 31/12/10

Real Dave. I think you will find the first Palestinian government was formed during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948. Sept 22, if my memory serves me correctly., by the arab league.

I think you will find there is a rich and long history of both Palestinian and Jewish populations in the area, well before this time too.

While this article is a little one sided. Both sides have caused huge amounts of harm to each other. You can’t deny both sides right to exist.

Katie says:

06:55pm | 31/12/10

Just because someone isn’t anti-Israel doesn’t make them anti-US, and vice-verca. Although I personally don’t think that anti-Americanism is crap.

Levi says:

02:18pm | 31/12/10

Too right G.David.

The western media has grown too comfortable with labelling Israel as some sort of evil force in the middle east. Kick the Jews out of Israel and where will they go? People are all to quick to forget their history.

St. Michael says:

05:20pm | 31/12/10

Where will the Jews go from Israel?

Probably the same place Palestinians sick of fighting have gone: spread out across the various nations of the Earth.  Which, by the way, is where the Jews went en masse the last time they had their asses handed to them militarily, albeit by the Romans—under Vespasian if I remember right.  There’s this little thing called the ‘Diaspora’ you might want to look up sometime.

Also, G. David, it mightn’t be such a problem if the Jews were actually content to remain on the little postage stamp sized area to which they claim strong historical and ancestral links and which they occupy already.  The behaviour of Jewish “settlers” in Palestine seems to indicate otherwise - which is a big cause of the problem.

stephen says:

06:31pm | 31/12/10

The problem is, who will give it, and, whose is it to give.

DS says:

06:56pm | 31/12/10

The Palestinians are not the Arabs. The Palestinians deserve a place of their own as well.

Sherekahn says:

11:23am | 01/01/11

The Israeli’s will never try for Peace until the whole world applies sanctions on them stemming their trade.
If the United Nations was a Democratic Organisation that would be happening now.
Move the UN to Europe and cancel all vetoes.

Sherekahn says:

12:16pm | 01/01/11

As with flies, Jews are to be found in EVERY country in the world.
If all the Jews in the world were to go to their professed ‘homeland’ ie: Israel, then Saudi Arabia,Jordan and Lebanon and possibly Syria would be required to house them!

DS says:

03:19am | 03/01/11

“Palestinians already have their country.”

No, they do not. The Palestinians do not have a state of their own as yet, which they are legally and morally owed. Many of the Palestinians barely have any connection to Jordan. They need a state of their own, no matter what extremists like you think.

“This mess has nothing to do with a Palestinian “homeland”. “

Yes, it does, and you can not deny them statehood by putting it into inverted commas.

” It has everthing to do with the destruction of Israel.”

Not quite.  However, it seems that you want the destruction of the Palestinian people.

“Israel would be far better off to get it over with once and for all and expel every arab from west of the Jordan river and stuff the consequences. “

Are you serious? It’s fanatics like you who are responsible for this. There is no difference between an extremist like you, and the extremists who want Israel destroyed.  I don’t know (or care) what your background or religion is, but if you are advocating the expulsion of all Arabs, and are are willing to deny the Palestinians their just statehood, then you are NO friend of Israel. You’re just a fanatic and an extremist, the sooner that the likes of you take your fanaticism elsewhere, the sooner there will be peace.

Oh, and don’t bother to give Israel any advice. Israel doesn’t take advice from ignorant extremists who use Israel to perpetruate your hatred and Islamophobia!

Bigos says:

03:59pm | 03/01/11

DS I think you live in fantasy land. When the UN divided up the land of the British Mandate, no calls were made for a “Palestinian” state. There never was a Palestinian people, language or culture. Try finding it for yourself; What did the Palestinians trade in 1800s, what money did the use, what was their national anthem, any traditional dishes? You won’t find this information because there was never such a thing as Palestinians. It was always Arabs and Jews living in an area called Palestine by the Romans after pre-historic enemies of the Jewish people, the Philistines who were actually descendants of Greeks. The mandate was divided into Jewish and Arab areas. The Arab areas belonged to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

James1 says:

08:29am | 04/01/11

Bigos, given that Australian is not a race, and is a constructed entity, I guess we could argue that the state of Australia has no right to exist.  Also, did the Jews living in modern Palestine call themselves Israelis in 1800?  Did they use shekels for currency?  What was their national anthem?  Why, by your own standards, are they so much more entitled than other ethnic groups like Arabs?

Bigos says:

12:15pm | 04/01/11

James1; You are right, Australian is not a race, it’s a nationality. All nation states are “constructed entities”. To answer your questions, yet the Jews of Palestine called themselves Iraelites for a long, long time. Yes they used the shekel for over 2000 years. Also I don’t have my own standard, I simply saying that the people who call themselves Palestinian never existed historically, they were just Arabs living in Palestine, as such they got their state when Jordan was created. As for entitlement, I don’t think either side it entitled to anything more then they got initially. Virtually most nation states in that region were created by fiat.

DS says:

10:34pm | 04/01/11

Bigos, the Palestinians morally and legally deserve a state of their own regardless of what you think!

Bigos says:

09:37am | 05/01/11

DS, while I am not the arbiter of morality I am saying that the land, which was called Palestine was divided into 2 states. One was Jewish and one was for the Arabs. As such the “Palestinians” have a state, this state is known as Jordan.

James1 says:

08:26am | 04/01/11

A bit one sided loxy.  Since the World War Two, the Arabs living in what is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank have made nothing but concession, even though those concessions were often forced on them.  What has Israel ever had to concede, that someone didn’t concede to them to begin with?

What is needed for peace in that region is for Israel to stop stealing land from the Arabs and for the Arabs to renounce violence, and accept Israel as it currently exists.  Nothing less from either side will suffice, although I seriously doubt that either side has the courage to undertake such actions.

For those of you that you are so committed to historical ownership, I suppose you will be giving your house and land to a local Aborigine..,.