Posts with the tag 'Israel'
Absolutely impossible, so say a united punditry. And, if you wish, you can pick out of this joint press conference between President Bush and Palestnian President Abbas all you need to “prove” that peace can’t be done - Abbas calls for the barrier wall to be torn down, for Palestinians to move freely and for Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian State. These are three things inconsistent with the survival of the State of Israel - ergo, peace is impossible.
Or is it?
As it turns out, I have a friend who is a Palestinian - a Christian Palestinian, but a Palestinian none the less. Not too long ago, we were discussing the Israel-Palestinian issue and my friend told me something I’d never heard before - from what he understands from friends/relations still living in Palestine, Arafat was ready to make a deal with the Israelis, but was pressed to the Second Intifada by various outside forces; a sort of, “start fighting the Isrealis, or we’ll find someone who will”, with the implicit threat of Arafat dead. Verification? No, I have none - but it always struck me as odd that in 2000 Arafat was offered nearly the whole ball of wax and yet turned down the deal. This was irrational, and I put it down to the irrational behaviour one could expect from a terrorist leader like Arafat. But perhaps I was mistaken…
Things are not always exactly as they seem - as Winston Churchill once put it, dictators ride to and fro on the backs of tigers; whatever might have been the original motivation of any tyrant’s action, by the time it all comes to the end the motivation might be the exact opposite. Certainly, the dream of an Islamist tyrant would be a victorious Islamic army marching to Tel Aviv, slaughtering every Jew it could lay its hands on - but the reality of at least some Islamist tyrants might be a realisation that such a march isn’t going to happen any time soon, and might as well make the best of a poor situation. Perhaps Arafat was just bloody minded - perhaps he was a rat trapped by events; who knows? Abbas might be bloody minded, and he might be a rat trapped by events - but if there is a chance we can work a deal with him and by propping him up de-facto destroy Hamas, then we will have done a good thing for the people of Palestine, the people of Israel and the people of the world.
Abbas will never set up the offices of a Palestinian government in Jerusalem - its just never going to happen. At best, the Israelis might allow an eastern suburb of Jersualem to be incorporated into the city and then ceded to the Palestinians as their “Jerusalem” capital with some sort of quasi-authority over the Temple Mount - but Jerusalem will in all essentials remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel. But in making his statements, he could just be making the expected, pro-forma statement of the Palestinian leadership, meanwhile he’s down to brass tacks off camera and asking how much foreign and military aid he can expect to help him both buy support amongst the Palestinian people, and crush the life out of Hamas (with, perhaps, some selective help from the Israelis in the form of taking out Hamas leadership via airstrikes).
At all events, I’m not sure that President Bush is being unrealistic here - if there is an ounce of sense and courage in Abbas, then peace (at least between Abbas’ people and Israel) is possible. There still might be some fight left in Hamas, but locked into an impoverished enclave, cut off from sources of funding and pounded by Israeli airpower in preparation for Abbas’ troops to return to Gaza, Hamas might feel that Allah ain’t really on their side…
Tags: Hamas, Israel, Palestinians
January 14th, 2008
Indeed:
Last Sunday, before praying the midday Angelus, Benedict XVI seconded an appeal from the U.S. bishops to pray for the success of the meeting.
In Annapolis, with help from the international community, Israelis and Palestinians will try to relaunch negotiations and aim for a just and definitive solution to the conflict that has bloodied the Holy Land for 60 years, the Holy Father said.
In his appeal, the Pope recalled the many “tears and sufferings” the conflict has caused the two peoples. He asked people to “implore the Spirit of God for peace for that region so dear to us and to give wisdom and courage to all the protagonists in this important meeting.”
The day of prayer marked by the U.S. bishops’ conference is another step in an ongoing plea for peace in the Holy Land, L’Osservatore Romano reported in its Italian edition today.
The Annapolis encounter “offers a lot of hope,” newly elevated Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, told the Vatican newspaper. “I hope that those who are involved in this international conference dedicate themselves with diligence to a resolution that effectively assures peace in the regions of the Middle East.”
Cardinal DiNardo said parishes and Catholics all over the United States “are praying, following the encouragement of the prelates, so that the prospect of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples becomes a concrete reality.” He added that even in a political initiative, such as the Annapolis meeting, prayer “has a great value, also for the future.”
“We are called to persevere in prayer,” the Texas cardinal concluded, “entrusting to God our hope for peace in the coming weeks and months.”
As “jaw jaw’ is better than “war war” (per Winston Churchill), it might also be better to just pray that the men and women gathered in Annapolis listen to the voice of God and figure out a way to make at least some peace. Human beings, of course, are a stubborn lot and pride usually manages to mess up most things we do…but we can hope, and we can pray…and, this time, I think we’ll actually see some moves in the right direction.
We’ve fought a long time and a lot of blood has been spilled - there is still a lot of fighting left to do, and we have not shed all the blood necessary to secure a just and lasting peace…but the amount shed so far is, hopefully, enough for some to start to listen to reason.
This is why, I think, President Bush has called this conference - not out of a hope for a complete fix for what ailes the Arab/Moslem world, but to fix a few things and start down a path where more things can be fixed in the future. The central fact of this peace conference, however, is 130,000 or so US troops in Iraq…still there in spite of a relentless campaign of defeatism in the United States…still there, and thus informing the leaders of the Arab/Moslem world that America, indeed, has the grit to see it out. And it should be kept in mind that this is important on both ends - our enemies know we can take it, and our friends do, too; and that is the more important part of it. There is a reservoir of sense and goodwill in the Arab/Moslem world, but people are wary of sticking their neck out…we’ve now shown them that if they’ll join us, we’ll be there for them. At long last, the stain of our dishonorable surrender in Vietnam has been erased. America’s word is, once again, something people can rely on.
Tags: Annapolis Conference, Islam, Israel, Middle East, Palestinians
November 28th, 2007
Some good questions from Bernard Lewis over at the Wall Street Journal:
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow’s Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, “What is the conflict about?” There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
Mr. Lewis, at the end of his piece, asserts that at present it does not seem that the Arab/Moslem leadership is interested in mere negotiations over the size of Israel…at best, they are interested in a temporary, tactical deal as part of a long process to eventually result in the destruction of Israel. Such has been the long-stated position of most leaders of the Arab/Moslem world, and their actions have almost always matched their rhetoric in this area. So, why are we having this conference?
A lot of my fellow conservatives are dismayed by the calling of this conference - and some ask how we who are supporting it would view it if a President Clinton had called it. To me, that expresses a cynical vision of the world I refuse to hold. When President Clinton tried to broker a peace deal in 2000, I thought it wouldn’t work - but I hoped it would. Anything to bring an end to the fighting, as long as it was a good peace. As I expected, it didn’t work - Arafat, offered 99% of what he said he wanted, refused to agree to anything less than 110% of his demands, and the whole conference went down the tubes, and Arafat then instigated the Second Intifada. But here we are now in 2007, and things have changed a lot.
Saddam is no longer in power in Iraq. Iraq has a democratic government - makeshift, to be sure, but functioning all the same; and with military and police forces growing in strength and competance by the day. The United States will not cut-and-run…even if a Democrat wins in 2008, the political realities will prevent a precipitate withdrawal, and even after a withdrawal, we will still be in the middle east, and will still support the Iraqi government. Arafat is dead - and in his place is Mahmous Abbas, a man just about as wicked as Arafat ever was, but also facing the fact that he either makes a deal with Israel and the US, or falls to the Hamas terrorists, who will kill him. Syria has been doing its level best to ruin our efforts in the middle east - but has failed to derail us…and now faces an ever stronger Iraqi democracy, which bears Syria no good will. At bottom, while it may seem on the surface that things are similar to 2000, they have actually undergone a sea change - now is the time for us to hit the diplomatic trail and reap in politics what we have won by war.
It won’t be easy - and there won’t be a comprehensive peace deal worked out in this Annapolis conference, but the fact that so many have agreed to participate shows that under the surface, the leadership of the Arab/Moslem world can see a new day a-dawning, and they’ll want to try and shape its course, and that requires deals with the United States and Israel. Bin Laden said that the Arab/Moslem world should bet on him, as he was the strong horse - what we’ve proved by our dogged persistence in Iraq is that we are the stronger horse, and while a person or nation might loath us, they must also deal with us.
Tags: Iraq, Islam, Israel, Middle East, Palestinians, Peace Talks
November 27th, 2007
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