jewish state

where is bibi?...
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-4085974,00.html

by purchase

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=226002

Sergio Wins!!

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/netanyahu-israel-needs-to-separate-from-the-palestinians-1.368795?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.226%2C

jordan and the bedouin

do not bet on jordan...
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2209/jordan-bedouin

china implode?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43403189/print/1/displaymode/1098/

peace pieties

i know how busy you are with important matters, but...
painful to read, but worth the effort.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/269836

shabbat shalom,
mike

one state mini-conference

i still have the transcript of the april 14, 2004 mini-presentation!!
a bit premature, but time will tell.

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-4083295,00.html

shabbat shalom,
mike

one state solution

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:
Date:
From:
Reply-To:
To:	undisclosed-recipients:;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uIEeiDjdUuU  

never recognize israel

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=223181

legal rights

http://new.ba-bamail.co.il/View.aspx?emailid=8885&memberid=726324

david brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=1&ref=columnists

ny times oped.
so what if it is david brooks!
remarkable!!!
cannot believe what i read.
if only we would make peace with syria!!
and hillary said yesterday that

In Washington, D.C., Clinton came closer than ever to calling for Assad's ouster and indicated that only China and Russia were preventing stronger action by the United Nations against Syria's regime.

"The legitimacy that is necessary for anyone to expect change to occur under this current government is, if not gone, nearly run out," she told a news conference.

my heroine......

shabbat shalom!

---

June 2, 2011

The Depravity Factor

By DAVID BROOKS

By now you have probably heard about Hamza Ali al-Khateeb. He was the 13-year-old Syrian boy who tagged along at an antigovernment protest in the town of Saida on April 29. He was arrested that day, and the police returned his mutilated body to his family a month later. While in custody, he had apparently been burned, beaten, lacerated and given electroshocks. His jaw and kneecaps were shattered. He was shot in both arms. When his father saw the state of Hamza’s body, he passed out.

The family bravely put video evidence of the torture on the Internet, and Hamza’s martyrdom has rallied the opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime. But, of course, his torture didn’t come out of nowhere. The regime’s defining act of brutality was the Hama massacre in 1982 when then-President Hafez al-Assad had more than 10,000 Syrians murdered. The U.S. government has designated Syria a state sponsor of terror for 30 consecutive years. The State Department’s Human Rights Report has described the regime’s habitual torture techniques, including pulling out fingernails, burning genitals, hyperextending the spine, bending the body around the frame of a wheel while whipping the victim and so on.

Over the past several weeks, Bashar al-Assad’s regime has killed more than 1,000 protesters and jailed at least 10,000 more, according to Syrian human rights groups. Human Rights Watch has described crimes against humanity in the town of Dara’a, where boys have been mutilated and men massacred.

All governments do bad things, and Middle East dictatorships do more than most. But the Syrian government is one of the world’s genuinely depraved regimes. Yet for all these years, Israel has been asked to negotiate with this regime, compromise with this regime and trust that this regime will someday occupy the heights over it in peace.

For 30 years, the Middle East peace process has been predicated on moral obtuseness, an unwillingness to face the true nature of certain governments. World leaders have tried sweet-talking Syria, calling Bashar al-Assad a friend (Nancy Pelosi) or a reformer (Hillary Clinton). In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy invited Assad to be the guest of honor at France’s Bastille Day ceremonies — a ruthless jailer celebrating the storming of a jail.

For 30 years, diplomats and technocrats have flown to Damascus in the hopes of “flipping” Syria — turning it into a pro-Western, civilized power. It would be interesting to know what they were thinking. Perhaps some of them were so besotted with their messianic abilities that they thought they had the power to turn a depraved regime into a normal regime. Perhaps some of them were so wedded to the materialistic mind-set that they thought a regime’s essential nature could be altered with a magical mix of incentives and disincentives.

Perhaps some of them were simply morally blind. They were such pedantic technocrats, so consumed by the legalisms of the peace process, that they no longer possessed the capacity to recognize the moral nature of the regime they were dealing with, or to understand the implications of its nature.

In any case, their efforts were doomed. In fact, the current peace process is doomed because of the inability to make a categorical distinction. There are some countries in the region that are not nice, but they are normal — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. But there are other governments that are fundamentally depraved. Either as a matter of thuggishness (Syria) or ideology (Hamas), they reject the full humanity of other human beings. They believe it is proper and right to kill innocents. They can never be part of a successful negotiation because they undermine the universal principles of morality.

It doesn’t matter how great a law professor or diplomat you are. It doesn’t matter how masterly you sequence the negotiations or what magical lines you draw on a map. There won’t be peace so long as depraved regimes are part of the picture. That’s why it’s crazy to get worked into a lather about who said what about the 1967 border. As long as Hamas and the Assad regime are in place, the peace process is going nowhere, just as it’s gone nowhere for lo these many years.

That’s why it’s necessary, especially at this moment in history, to focus on the nature of regimes, not only the boundaries between them. To have a peaceful Middle East, it was necessary to get rid of Saddam’s depraved regime in Iraq. It will be necessary to try to get rid of Qaddafi’s depraved regime in Libya. It’s necessary, as everybody but the Obama administration publicly acknowledges, to see Assad toppled.  It will be necessary to marginalize Hamas. It was necessary to abandon the engagement strategy that Barack Obama campaigned on and embrace the cautious regime-change strategy that is his current doctrine.

The machinations of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are immaterial. The Arab reform process is the peace process.

the real begin!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144623

San Remo

http://new.ba-bamail.co.il/View.aspx?emailid=8681&memberid=633833 view

obama and israel's borders

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/world/middle-east/6423-obama-s-vision-of-the-middle-east-means-the-death-of-israel-on-planet-obama.html

Begin and Oslo (Talkback)

Mr. Netanyahu may think he has won, but there is an old saying you may
have "won the battle but lost the war". The congress does not control
the President or UN vote. They do not negotiate or speak to our European
allies. These same allies who are pushing the US to go in the same
direction that was in the presidents speech. If you read the article
written by President Carter in the May 25th opinion section of the New
York Times: "At Camp David in 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat accepted the following words:
"The agreed basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between
Israel and its neighbors is United Nations Security Council resolution
242, in all its parts." Specifically concerning the West Bank and Gaza,
the Israelis and Egyptians mutually agreed: "In order to provide full
autonomy to the inhabitants under these arrangements the Israeli
military government and its civilian administration will be withdrawn as
soon as a self-governing authority has been freely elected by the
inhabitants of these areas. ..." As a result of the Oslo Accords of
1993, a self-governing authority was freely elected in January 1996,
with Yasir Arafat as president and 88 Parliament members. The
International Quartet's Roadmap for Peace in April 2003, supported by
President George W. Bush, began with these words: "A settlement,
negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an
independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by
side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The
settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the
occupation that began in 1967. ..." This was a treaty negotiated with
the help of the US that Israel and Egypt agreed to. So it sets a
precedent for all future negotiations. In my opinion, if our European
allies all push for what President Obama suggested the Congress will not
stand in the way. The question is, did President Obama suggest this or
the US European allies pressure him to do this for their support. As
Tony Blair said today, the president is worried for Israel and the
September UN vote. Mr. Netanyahu may have alienated his biggest
supporter, the President of the United States.

Bibi in Congress

watch the last one minute!!!...view

Abbas OpEd

The Long Overdue Palestinian State

By MAHMOUD ABBAS

SIXTY-THREE years ago, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was forced to leave his home in the Galilean city of Safed and flee with his family to Syria. He took up shelter in a canvas tent provided to all the arriving refugees. Though he and his family wished for decades to return to their home and homeland, they were denied that most basic of human rights. That child’s story, like that of so many other Palestinians, is mine.

This month, however, as we commemorate another year of our expulsion — which we call the nakba, or catastrophe — the Palestinian people have cause for hope: this September, at the United Nations General Assembly, we will request international recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and that our state be admitted as a full member of the United Nations.

Many are questioning what value there is to such recognition while the Israeli occupation continues. Others have accused us of imperiling the peace process. We believe, however, that there is tremendous value for all Palestinians — those living in the homeland, in exile and under occupation.

It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued. Indeed, it was the descendants of these expelled Palestinians who were shot and wounded by Israeli forces on Sunday as they tried to symbolically exercise their right to return to their families’ homes.

Minutes after the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948, the United States granted it recognition. Our Palestinian state, however, remains a promise unfulfilled.

Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.

Our quest for recognition as a state should not be seen as a stunt; too many of our men and women have been lost for us to engage in such political theater. We go to the United Nations now to secure the right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland because we have been negotiating with the State of Israel for 20 years without coming any closer to realizing a state of our own. We cannot wait indefinitely while Israel continues to send more settlers to the occupied West Bank and denies Palestinians access to most of our land and holy places, particularly in Jerusalem. Neither political pressure nor promises of rewards by the United States have stopped Israel’s settlement program.

Negotiations remain our first option, but due to their failure we are now compelled to turn to the international community to assist us in preserving the opportunity for a peaceful and just end to the conflict. Palestinian national unity is a key step in this regard. Contrary to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asserts, and can be expected to repeat this week during his visit to Washington, the choice is not between Palestinian unity or peace with Israel; it is between a two-state solution or settlement-colonies.

Despite Israel’s attempt to deny us our long-awaited membership in the community of nations, we have met all prerequisites to statehood listed in the Montevideo Convention, the 1933 treaty that sets out the rights and duties of states. The permanent population of our land is the Palestinian people, whose right to self-determination has been repeatedly recognized by the United Nations, and by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Our territory is recognized as the lands framed by the 1967 border, though it is occupied by Israel.

We have the capacity to enter into relations with other states and have embassies and missions in more than 100 countries. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union have indicated that our institutions are developed to the level where we are now prepared for statehood. Only the occupation of our land hinders us from reaching our full national potential; it does not impede United Nations recognition.

The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel. A key focus of negotiations will be reaching a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194, which the General Assembly passed in 1948.

Palestine would be negotiating from the position of one United Nations member whose territory is militarily occupied by another, however, and not as a vanquished people ready to accept whatever terms are put in front of us.

We call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and by supporting its admission to the United Nations. Only if the international community keeps the promise it made to us six decades ago, and ensures that a just resolution for Palestinian refugees is put into effect, can there be a future of hope and dignity for our people.

Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the president of the Palestinian National Authority.

MK Katz Shows Scope of Communities Outside the "Blocs"

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Israel Will Never Have Peace

• GLOBAL VIEW
• MAY 17, 2011

This weekend's border-crossing demonstrators believe, like Hamas, that the Jewish State has no right to any territory from the river to the sea.

• By BRET STEPHENS

No doubt it is true, as the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Sunday, that among the Palestinian protesters seeking to force their way into Israel there were some with humbler aims than reclaiming "historic Palestine."

"We've crossed the border in order to stay with our families, away from all the killing in Syria," the paper reported one of the infiltrators as saying. "We ask the powers that be in Israel to help us stay and not send us back."

No doubt it is also true, as White House spokesman Jay Carney noted yesterday, that the attempted breach was an effort by Damascus "to distract attention from the legitimate expression of protest by the Syrian people." The border between Israel and Syria has been quiet for 37 years; it's no accident, comrades, that the embattled regime of Bashar Assad, perhaps advised by Iran, would choose this particular moment to shift violent energies toward a more opportune target.

But here's something about which there should also be no doubt: People don't scamper over barbed wire, walk through mine fields and march toward the barrels of enemy soldiers if they aren't fearless. And if they aren't profoundly convinced of the rightness of what they are doing.

For many years it has been the conventional wisdom of Arab-Israeli peace processors that the conflict was, at heart, territorial, and that it could be resolved if only Israel and its neighbors could agree on a proper border. For many years, too, it has been conventional wisdom that if only the conflict could be resolved, other distempers of the Muslim world—from dictatorship to terrorism—would find their own resolution.

REUTERS

Palestinians attempt to cross the border between Israel and Lebanon.

If the Arab Spring has done nothing else, it has at least disposed of the latter proposition. From Tehran to Tunis to Tahrir Square, Muslims are rising against their rulers for reasons quite apart from anything happening in Gaza, the West Bank or the Golan Heights. This isn't to say they've abandoned their emotional commitments to Palestinians, or their ideological ones against Israel. It's simply to say that they have their own problems.

But just as the West has consistently misunderstood the Muslim problem, so too has it failed to grasp the Palestinian one. And what it has failed to grasp above all is the centrality of Palestinian refugees to the conflict.

The fiction that is typically offered about the refugees by devotees of the peace process is that Palestinian leaders see them as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with Israel, perhaps in exchange for the re-division of Jerusalem. But listen in on the internal dialogue of Palestinians and you will hear that the "right of return" is an inviolable, inalienable and individual right of every refugee. In other words, a right that can never (and never safely) be bargained away by Palestinian leaders for the sake of a settlement with Israel.

In this belief the Palestinians are sustained by many things.

One is the mythology of 1948, which is long on tales of what Jews did to Arabs but short on what Arabs did to Jews—or to themselves. Another is the text of U.N. resolution 194, written in 1948, which plainly states that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." A third is UNRWA, the U.N. agency that has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem for generations when most other refugees have been successfully repatriated. A fourth is their ill treatment at the hands of their Arab hosts, which has caused them to yearn for the fantasy of a homeland—orchards and all—that modern-day Israel succeeds in looking very much like. A fifth is the incessant drone of Palestinian propaganda whose idea of Palestinian statehood traces the map of Israel itself.

Other things could be mentioned. But the roots of the problem are beside the point. The real point is that a grievance that has been nursed for 63 years and that can move people to acts like those witnessed on Sunday is never going to allow a political accommodation with Israel and would never be satisfied by one anyway.

No wonder Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's prime minister, can say he would be prepared to accept the 1967 borders—but that establishing those borders will never mean an end to the conflict. The same goes for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who praised Sunday's slain protesters as martyrs who "died for the Palestinian people's rights and freedom." This from the "moderate" who is supposed to acquaint his people with the reality and purpose of a two-state solution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due in the U.S. soon to deliver what is being billed as a major policy address. What should he say? I would counsel the same wisdom that sailors of yore used to tattoo to their knuckles as a reminder of what not to forget on the yardarms of tall ships in stormy seas. Eight easy letters:

H-O-L-D F-A-S-T.

Letter to UN

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