Responding to Arthur Wiskows Israel posting earlier this month:
On the subject of the Saudi/Arab League proposal now on the table: As recently as 12 March 2007, Hamas announced that it was still seeking Israel 's destruction despite its agreement to enter a Palestinian unity government with Fatah, which did not object to this announcement or object to this deceleration by the new governments major partner.
Previously, in response to el Quida’s accusation that Hamas was going soft in its partnership with Fatah: Hammas responded:
"We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine."
Yes, as David Zaslow, comments on Israel helping Hammas:
Hamas is the Palestinian section of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt and still active there and in other Arab countries.
It was the Syrian section of that organization that Assad (the father) attacked in Hamra, Feb 1983, killing 25, 000 of them, men women and children. This military response to a dangerous threat was so successful that to this day the fundamentalist Muslims of Syria are no problem to the secular Syrian government.
>The foolishness of Yitzhak Rabin, the Minister of Defense who was so clever as to help Hammas in order to weaken Fatah has and continues to be repeated in various ways over the years. This cleverness seems an intrinsic part of our pathology.
>The claim that the Palestinian national movements would repeat what others had done in the past on achieving power has proven, since Oslo, to be wishful thinking. That hope is equivilant to me of people committed for years to the world view of The Left and the Palestinian view of the mid-east conflict would be effected by the constantly repeated violent results of Israeli compromises and expressions of practical policy expressed in compromise and withdrawal.
>One should also recall the historic instances when the same promise of change and transformation brought about by civic responsibility did not work as promised. Many people, far sighted peace lovers all, also promised that Her Hitler too would be so taken up with affairs of sewage and street repair that all the violent threats of his would disappear. Mussolini in Italy also enjoyed that same protective suit. Belief that Yassar Arafat was also destined to succumb to the same dull boring need to keep the streets repaired and the sewage flowing proved tragically wrong. Arafat concentrated his energies, speeches and efforts on jihad. He has little time for the mundane affairs of state like sanitation, health and the well being of his people.
Arthur writes; “in the early 1990s, the PLO, responding to reality, gave up on its fullest dreams and did affirm a two state peace. - Assertions by one or more posters on this list that Fatah continues to affirm the demand for a single state from the Jordan to the Sea are simply wrong an astonishing obscuring of history.
It would be honest to remember that the PLO also adopted another policy, known as the Policy of Stages. A policy that called for accepting any territory they could get from Israel with the expressed purpose of using that land as a base for taking all the land from the river and the sea. If necessary slowly, stage by stage, piece by piece.
And speaking of that historic moment in front of the White House in 1993
A few hours after that wonderful promise filled Washington public event, handshakes and all, Arafat spoke in a Mosque in Cape Town S.A. He assured his audience that the vitreous paradigm Muhammad initiated in signing a truce / hudna / treaty with the Korash tribe was the model he (Arafat) was following. That paradigm was the historic signing of a hudna with the stronger Korash tribe because the new Muslim community was too weak to prevail over them in battle. The treaty/hudna was for ten years. A few years later, feeling stronger Muhammad attacked to Korash in what we would call a surprise attack, and wiped them out, except for those who choose to become Moslems.
(Note, Hammas is offering us a ten year hudna, should we not be suspicious?)
Indeed, President Abbas, who has been struggling mightily to renew Palestinian support for a two-state peace (with no help from the Israeli government, which refused to negotiate with him when it might have made a difference in the period before the Palestinian national elections), is deeply rooted in Fatah. So I am amazed at the assertions that Fatah still rejects the two-state peace.
>In anticipation of the last election Abbas transfered the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority to his office of the President; lest that important government function fall into hands not those of Fatah. In other words, since the Hammas government PATV and radio have had Abbas as boss. In any review of their programming there is not a hint or attempt to promote peaceful co-existence with a neighboring Jewish state. As a matter of fact there has never been such an effort.
>Then there was that continuing farce of changing the PLO charter.
(At least with Hammas there are no pretensions, no lies)
>Bringing President and Mrs. Clinton to Gaza to witness the cancellation of those clauses that called for the destruction of Israel were a true travesty. ( I witnessed the farce of the unanimous vote live on ITV. It would take another short posting to tell of that sad story.)
>IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THE PROMISSED REWRITING OF THE CLAUSES CALLING FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL AS OF THIS DATE, IN MARCH OF 2007, HAS NEVER BEEN UNDERTAKEN OR COMPLETED.
Arthur states; “The first post-Oslo terrorist attack was not an attack by Palestinians on Israelis. It was, on Purim 1994, the murder of 29 Palestinian Muslims prostrate in prayer at the Tomb of Abraham --our common forebear. (The Rabin government responded not by withdrawing the provocative Israeli settlements in Hebron or near it, but by imposing permanent curfews on the Palestinians.)
>This is simply inaccurate. According to friends who knew him, Dr. Goldstein “snapped” when he was called in his medical capacity to aid his friend Mordecai Lapid and Lapid’s son who were shot while standing at a bus stop outside of Hebron in Dec 1993. They died in his arm, several months before Purim ’94. Scores of other Jews were murdered before the Goldstein attack. (NO justification intended)
>Arthur is also mistaken about the response of the Israeli government. The mosque was indeed closed temporarily until it was redesigned so as to avoid the possibility of another Goldstein incident. It has been open to all since then.
FOR THOSE WHO VALUE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, IT SHOLD ALSO BE NOTED THAT FOR THE EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS PRECEDING THE ISRALI RULE OF HEBRON, ENTERANCE TO THE BURIEL PLACE OF OUR FATHER ABRAHAM WAS RESTRICTED TO MUSLEMS ONLY!! NO JEW, CHIISTIAN OR ANYBODY ELSE COULD ENTER THE BUILDING SO LONG AS IT WAS CONTROLED BY MUSLIMS. AS TO THE FUTUTE; THE MINISTER OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS IN THE P.A. GOVERNEMNT STATED THAT WHEN THE Muslims (in this case the PALESTINAINS) WOULD ONCE AGAIN CONTROL THE BUILDING, THE JEWS MAY BE ALLOWED TO ENTER, BUT NOT TO PRAY.
TODAY AND SINCE 1967, UNDER ISRELI RULE; JEWS, MUSLIMS, BUDDHISTS AND/OR ATHIESTS ARE FREE TO ENTER THE BUILDING AND WORSHIP OR PRAY AS THEY WISH.
The Sharon and Olmert governments rejected out of hand the proposal for a comprehensive peace settlement that came from the Arab League in 2002 – a proposal with some unacceptable items,
>Presented as a take it or leave it, offer. No negotiations no changes. With the totally unacceptable insistence of the movement of millions of Palestinians into our small country. A demand they understand we can not possibly accept.
>The offer also requires us to agree to the whole package before discussing how and when they, the Arab states, will respond. Already Egypt and Syria have voiced strong objections and questioned if they are indeed prepared to comply with the agreement. In addition we need to remember it is not only the Arab states that see us as the enemy. The Persians and other non-Arab Muslims who we have not harmed or threatened, have given full cooperation to the aggression against us. Including Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan all boycott us, culturally, in commerce, in sports in any way they can.
Instead, the Sharon and Olmert governments insisted on "unilateralism." They kept President Abbas out of the loop about withdrawing from Gaza,
>Especially for those who claimed that “The Occupation” was The Evil, the real issue of the Gaza withdrawal was/is not “unilateralism” that’s just the camouflage excuse. Now that the five hundred year occupation of Gaza has totally ended what is it they choose to do with their freedom? Understand, with the complimentary lesson we were taught by Hezbollah (brother to Hammas). There is little reason to avoid the difficult truth. However much of this land we live on, or retreat from, we will always be unwelcome, we will be seen as Crusaders, as thieves, legitimate objects of attack. It was totally rediclus to claim as Sharon did, that ending the occupation of Gaza would lesson the anger towards us by the Palestinians or the Arab world, or by the larger world or of the Left.
>It should be known there, as it is known here, that had the people of Gaza chosen to take advantage of their new found freedom, of their status of non-occupation or of foreign control, to focus their energies and lives on creating a working society, there would be NO power on earth that could have kept our occupation/presence in Judea and Samaria going.
The people of Israel have had enough. We are just trying to find a way out without endangering ourselves any more than necessary.
Y E S
ANYONE WHO LOVES … ISRAEL and or Palestine SHOULD BE PURSUING A DIFFERENT PATH,
indeed. To begin with, THEY SHOULD BE SUPPORTING THE SEPARATION BARRIER, WHICH SINCE
ITS ESTABLISHMENT HAS SAVED TENS of Israeli lives,
IF NOT HUNDRED OF Palestinian lives,
no matter on whose land it is built.
