A post by Maynard
It seems that Palestinians won’t reopen negotiations if they have to accept the premise of an adjacent Jewish state. This position threatens to derail the upcoming Annapolis joint statement of principles, which was supposed to restart the moribund peace process.
Veteran Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday that “the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity.” In similar vein, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad was quoted by Israel Radio as rejecting Olmert’s demand [that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the “state of the Jews”] as unacceptable. PLO Executive Committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo also dismissed the demand, stating: “It is only a Zionist party that deals with Israel as a Jewish state, and we did not request to be a member of the international Zionism movement.”
In case you needed a reminder of why the “peace process” hasn’t been able to get beyond the starting gate for 60 years.
Update:The latest report has it that Annapolis is falling apart:
The Palestinians have backtracked on all understandings that were reached on a joint Israeli-Palestinian statement to be presented at the Annapolis peace conference, senior diplomatic officials were quoted as saying Sunday. According to the sources, the Palestinians have “returned to square one, to [a point that] preceded the beginning of the negotiations.”
As they say, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Oh, but all we need to do is sit down and TALK! If we just talk about it, we’ll all feel better and we might understand why they believe the way they do! Then we could all have a big group hug.
*Snicker*
This is the same crap that undermines every discussion the Israeli’s have had when it comes to peace. The Palestinians have a “my way or no way” mindset that doesn’t ever seem to change. IMHO, this goes to the heart of Islam. No willingness to compromise or bend. No ability to accept other cultures or religions.
..and the band played on..
Tammy is there anything more pathetic then Clueless Condi Rice of the Veil and her bobo Ehud Olmert (a vain incompetent, insolent and cowardly non entity of a Prime Minister)trying to beg and cajole savages to act civilized? I smell the stench of James Addison Baker and Brent Scowcroft and Daddy Bush, do you?
There will never be true ‘peace’ in that region. From the moment Jews were able to claim their home in 1948, such began the countdown to the last battle of our times according to Christian theology.
There has never been a desire on the part of the Palestinian movement to cohabit in the region, so why should we be surprised? The world demanded Israel hand over land and she did. It still is not enough – and will not be enough until all the land is confiscated and every Jew slaughtered.
It has always puzzled me how the world could remain so blind to the extreme threat against Israel, and any threat against Israel is also a threat against the U.S. We played a most significant role in helping Israel emerge, and we have also contributed to the threats against her through the appeasement process.
If peace talks were at all successful, then why must we have them repeatedly? I almost feel as though America’s foreign policy has been written by the same entities (psychologists, behavioral specialists and education professionals) responsible for the same patty-cake/touchy-feely/let’s-talk-and-understand approach to ‘problem-solving’ that take place in schools, professional development courses and workplace meetings.
Peace talks have only diluted the strength and standing of both Israel and the U.S. while it emboldens terrorists. All Israel gets in these ‘talks’ is an ultimatum while terrorists gain a little more space and entirely too much sympathy.
It’s always distressing to see a Republican administration fall into the familiar fallacies of the left wing diplo dinks. The left actually believes that merely encouraging virulent, crazed terrorists and/or dictators whose every public statement only reinforces their bloodthirsty desire to murder those sitting across the table from them, to talk with those they wish to annhilate, is genuine progress, a significant accomplishment in itself. One would think that Republicans would know better, but apparently not.
Peace can occur only when all parties involved actually want peace and are willing to compromise to obtain it. When the Palestinians are actually fractured into two warring parties, parties happily slaughtering each other while consistently expressing their desire to murder every Jew on Earth when they’re done killing each other (they’ll get around to it eventually, maybe), it boggles the mind to realize that SecState Rice apparently believes that a peace treaty is even remotely possible. Even if one Palestinian faction shows up and makes some sort of agreement, there is no evidence that faction can even control its own people, to say nothing of the other faction. Any treaty would be unenforceable and meaningless before the ink dried at the signing ceremony.
I can only hope that Sec. Rice has knowledge that I lack and that her years of schooling can render common sense inoperative, for there is surely no common sense whatsoever in this endeavor.
Um, isn’t that place really called Judea? Why does everyone keep calling it Palestine? I thought Jordan was Palestine.
It can’t be said enough, especially since Republican bureaucrats have apparently bought into this Democrat juvenile “Can’t we just talk this out and reason together?” idiocy: If any of the Democrat candidates get elected in 2008, there will be no Israel at the end of their time in office. Israel is fated to the extinction described by Allen Drury in his 1995 book, A Thing of State.