Bring him home
Hamas has finally released a video of Gilad Shalit.
Translation of Gilad’s message.
“Hello, I am Gilad, son of Noam and Aviva Schalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who lives in Mitzpe Hila. My ID number is 300097029.
“As you see I am holding in my hands the Palestine newspaper of September 14, 2009, published in Gaza. I am reading the paper in order to find information regarding myself, hoping to find some information from which I would learn of my release and upcoming return home. I have been hoping and waiting for the day of my release for a long time. I hope the current government under Binyamin Netanyahu will not waste the chance to finalize a deal, and I will therefore be able to finally have my dream come true and be released.
“I wish to send regards to my family and say to them that I love and miss them and yearn for the day in which I will see them again.
“Dad, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you visited my base on the Golan Heights on December 31st, 2005, that if I am not mistaken was called Revaya B. We walked around the base and you took photos of me on the Merkava tank and on one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base. We then went to a restaurant in one of the Druse villages and on the way we took photos on the side of the road with the snow-capped Mount Hermon in the background.
“I wish to say to you that I feel good, health-wise, and the Mujahadeen of the Izzadien al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well. Thank you and goodbye.”
Palistinians fail to get vote on Goldstone Report, for now
Last night at the United Nations Human Right Council in Geneva a vote on the travesty that is the Goldstone Report was delayed until their next meeting in March 2010.
Much of the Israeli media is claiming that the vote that the Palestinian representatives pushed for had been dropped after US pressure.
Barak Ravid, writing in Haaretz claims:
The Obama administration has told the Palestinians that a renewal of the peace process must come before any diplomatic initiatives based on the Goldstone report, or any other initiatives that could stifle efforts to renew Israel-PA negotiations
Thats all fine and dandy, but the bottom line is that no negotiations can, or for that matter should, continue until the theocratic regime in Gaza is eradicated.
Whilst the Goldstone report glossed over Hamas ‘war crimes’ of shelling civilian targets during the three week confrontation it entirely ignored the key reasons for Israeli engagement in the first place, 8000 plus projectiles over a number of years being fired into Israeli civilian areas.
In fact, even today, Hamas sees nothing wrong with their actions prior and during the war. Speaking to the Ma’an News Agency senior Hamas official Ahmad Yousef talks about the Goldstone report.
Ma’an: What was your reaction to the conclusions of the Goldstone commission report that came out recently?
Yousef: It depends on how you look at the report. If you look at the report from a moral and political perspective you shouldn’t blame Hamas or the groups that were defending Gaza against aggression. The Israelis started the war, and they used the most advanced military technology known to man to cause that kind of large-scale destruction. So the groups are going to use whatever is necessarily and whatever is in their hands to defend the people.
The report tried to equate in one way or another between the aggressors and the victims. That is actually where we are not satisfied totally with the report.
But in general the report highlighted Israeli crimes against humanity, and they recommended that the United Nations, also, pressure the Israeli authorities to conduct more investigations to bring the criminals to justice. Blaming the Palestinians, one way or another, this is where we have some reservations. From a realpolitik standpoint, you can say the report, it’s quiet fair, because it highlighted the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
And that’s the crux of the matter, Hamas refuses to acknowledge that terrorising one million Israelis living in the south of the country as aggression. With that in mind, the call from Richard Goldstone for both Israel and Hamas to investigate themselves seems rather moot.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN on Wednesday (posted below), Goldstone had this to say when asked about Hamas justice:
CA: We talked about each side conducting their own investigations; Israel has its justice, the wheels of justice that turn. [What] would you expect really that you could get out of Hamas in Gaza.
RG: Well Hamas has courts open. There are courts in Gaza. People are convicted. Some people are, regrettably in my view, are sentenced to be executed. But if Hamas hasn’t got the sufficient resources, hasn’t got sufficient lawyers and judges, which I doubt, I’ve no doubt that the international community will fill any gap that there may be in such an absence of resources.
If this wasn’t so serious it would be funny. Here we have a man who has chaired The South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, a man who was Chief UN Prosecutor for in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well chairing the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo, and here we have a man who believes that Hamas is fit to investigate itself because, “well, hamas has courts open”.
Compare that to his comments earlier in the interview about Israeli justice, and you see how far this man has denigrated himself and his profession.
CA: To follow up there, there are some 100 investigations according to the Israelis that are going on, and some 23 or so that are possibly being brought to criminal trial. Does that go to what you were asking for? Because you talked about individual responsibility.
RG: No, not at all. These are secret military enquiries, in very few cases have the victims been spoken to My understanding is that the Israeli military are relying almost entirely on what they get from their own forces. That’s hardly the sort of enquiry that’s going to satisfy victims.
Like I said, it if this wasn’t so serious it would be funny.
The British Legal System, a terrorists best friend.
The British legal system is a joke.
First we had the cases of libel tourism. One such case involved American writer Rachel Ehrenfeld who wrote a book entitled Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It. In his excellent article, You Won’t Read All About It, published in Standpoint Magazine, Nick Cohen quotes Labour MP Dennis MacShane, who speaking under the protection of parliamentary privilege said:
“Funding Evil examined the flow of money towards extremist organisations that preach the ideology of hate associated with Wahabism and other democracy-denying aspects of fundamentalist Islamic ideology. It is not exactly a secret that a great deal of the money that has financed fundamentalist extremist organisations that support jihad has come from Saudi Arabia. Ms Ehrenfeld’s book, which was published in America, not Britain, named a Saudi billionaire called Mr Khalid bin Mahfouz. Although the book was published in the United States, and was not on sale in any British bookshop, he found lawyers to sue in Britain. A British judge imposed a fine and costs on Ms Ehrenfeld, and said that her book should be destroyed, even though she was not in the court. No American court would have entertained such overt censorship.
“The fullest examination is vital of those raising money, sometimes ostensibly for charitable work, but which ends up promoting fundamentalist ideology that scrambles young men’s and boys’ minds and leads them to become terrorists. There is no freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia, so it is the duty of others to expose what is happening. With the help of British libel lawyers, Mr Mahfouz has launched 33 suits against those who are investigating this important area of public concern. Cambridge University Press was obliged to pulp its book, Alms for Jihad, written by Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, rather than face a libel action. What is happening when Cambridge University Press, not some odd little obsessive publishing house, but one of the flowers of British publishing for centuries, has to pulp a book because British courts will not uphold freedom of expression?”
Simply put, British laws have been used by non-British citizens to ensure that other non-British citizens are silenced.
Secondly we have the case of a Palestinian group in Gaza employing the services of British Lawyers to try to arrest Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Their barrister Michel Massih QC is well known for his defence of terrorists, having represented in the past Abu Nidel gunmen, members of the IRA as well as Tanvir Hussain. Lucy over at Harry’s Place looks a bit more closely at this British legal professional.
Massih was trying to get a British court to arrest Barak for ’supposed’ crimes during Operation Cast Lead. Now granted he failed, but this isn’t the first time such groups have gone after Israelis. Back in 2005 Doron Almog had to remain on an aeroplane because an arrest warrant had been issued in the UK courts.
Both these cases show the ridiculous state of legal affairs in the UK. The British legal system has become more farcical than a Joe Orton play. By allowing terrorists, and those who fund them, to play around with British law to silence those who stand up to them puts the whole of the British legal system to shame.
UNHRC to Israel – You can not defend your citizens from Attack
The United Nation Human Right Council is meeting in Geneva this week to review the report written by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
For those unfamiliar with the report should read it, all 570 odd pages of it, but to summarise, the NY Times wrote:
ISRAEL intentionally went after civilians in Gaza — and wrapped its intention in lies.
That chilling — and misguided — accusation is the key conclusion of the United Nations investigation, led by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war last winter. “While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercises of its right to self-defense,” the report said, “the mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”
Whilst a report written for the UNHRC attacking Israel for defending her citizens is no great shock, considering the council had appointed Christine Chinkin, a Professor of Law in London who earlier this year, during the Gaza war, signed her name to a letter accusing Israel of war crimes.
In fact the framework for the mission that wrote the report was so deeply flawed, that when former Irish President and UN High Commissioner for Human Right, Mary Robinson was initially offered the role of Chairing the mission she is quoted to have said:
“the resolution is not balanced because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of the rockets by Hamas. This is unfortunately a practice by the Council: adopting resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics. This is very regrettable.”
Robinson, a woman not known for being pro-Israel who previously had Chaired the 2001 anti-Israel World Conference against Racism, was spot on. The UNHRC – a body made up of such supporters of Human Rights like Egypt, Pakistan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia – has once again used a UN body to condemn Israeli actions in defence of her citizens.
Israel, for her part, naturally refused to co-operate with Goldstone because its mission was solely to investigate Israeli war crimes.
What is fascinating about the report is that Goldstone and his group have taken as fact every little lie fed to them by Hamas. Their time in Gaza investigating the war was spent with Hamas minders, every Gazan they interviewed was done so in the presence of Hamas, so when the report concluded that they found no evidence of Hamas firing from civilian areas, they believed them, ignoring the vast amount of footage filmed by Israeli drones during the war.
The report, unsurprisingly, found no evidence of Hamas using Mosques and schools for weapon stores. It did however conclude that Israel had deliberately target civilians, a claim easily refuted by Israel with film footage shot during the three week conflict, conveniently ignored by Goldstone.
Palestinian sources are already claiming they have enough votes on the UNHRC to pass the report to the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.
This report is a travesty. It ignores the time frame prior to the war where Hamas and its fellow terrorists in Gaza fired 8000 plus rockets into Southern Israel. If passed by the UNGA it sets a dangerous precedent where a nation state is being told by the international community that they may not, under any circumstance, defend their citizens from attack.
I’m back
I haven’t been around much for the past couple of months mainly do to real life issues getting in the way of me writing.
As the Jewish New Year kicks in, and reflections are a plenty, its time for me to get things up and running again, which I will do after Yom Kippur.
In the meantime may I wish you all a Gamar Chatima Tova.
Mr Silverstein, you just don’t get it!
Imagine for a moment you’re a general about to embark on a decisive military campaign and your intelligence service secures a copy of your opponent’s entire campaign strategy. You open it and you see his battle plans laid out before you, key forces, weaponry, lines of attack, points of weakness, etc. You suddenly undertsand just how weak his forces are and precisely how to mercilessly attack and eviscerate him.
So begins one of the most factually inaccurate and lie filled missives I have ever had the misfortune to read – its writer, an American Jew by the name of Richard Silverstein, claims to be pro-Israel, but as the old adage goes, with friends like that. . . .
Silverstein has a bug up his ass because a document meant for internal use only by an American pro-Israel group has been leaked on the net by Newsweek magazine. The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, a publication initially produced in 2003, has been re-issued by its author Dr Frank Luntz.
Before I rip into Silverstein’s three posts on this internal document, its worth noting that on every page there is a footnote stating:
Property of The Israel Project. Not for distribution or publication. 2009.
So why Newsweek thought it essential to publish an organisations internal documents is beyond me!
Now back to Mr Silverstein.
Silverstein’s tries to discredit this internal publication because its author, Luntz, is a Republican marketer. Silverstein maligns the The Israel Project, the Dictionary and Luntz by claiming that they are “totally tone deaf to the political environment”. His implication is that because America now “has a democratic president and that the two Houses of Congress are controlled by the Democratic party” that a publication offering clear and concise pro Israel arguments written by a Republican is a waste of time because America has freed itself from the era of Bush and Neo-conservatism.
I initially wondered how Mr Silverstein would have responded had this publication been written by, lets say, Harvard Law professor and outspoken Democrat Alan Dershowitz?
It would seem that Dershowitz would have received a similar reaction to Luntz, after all a quick search of Silverstein website sees Dershowitz is clearly one of Silverstein’s pet peeves. So, lets be clear, the fact that this document was written by a Republican and not a Democrat is irrelevant. Contrary to how he starts his missive its not the writer he finds problematic but the message itself.
Silverstein pick out paragraphs from the original text and tries to dismiss them, here’s an example.
Frank Luntz on page 5 has a section entitled “Explain your principles”. Now anyone who has ever worked in or around the media, knows what he is talking about. He claims, rightly so, that Arab and Israeli spokespeople, instead of explaining a point, go straight on to attack each other, therefore ensuring that neither side has the opportunity in explaining “the principles behind their actions”. Furthermore Luntz claims that the American public respond better to “facts, actions, and results when they know why—not just how”. A valid point from a media expert, no?
Well apparently not for Mr Silverstein. He cites example text produced by Luntz and dismisses it. Here’s an example:
Lundz: “As a matter of principle, we believe that it is a basic right of children to be raised without hate. We ask the Palestinian leadership to end the culture of hate in Palestinian schools, 300 of which are named for suicide bombers. Palestinian leaders should take textbooks out of classrooms that show maps of the Middle East without Israel and that glorify terrorism.”
“As a matter of principle, children should not be raised to want to kill others or themselves. Yet, day after day, Palestinian leadership pushes a culture of hate that encourages even small children to become suicide bombers. Iran-backed Hamas’s public television in Gaza uses Sesame Street–type programming to
glorify suicide bombers.As a matter of principle, no child should be abused in such a way. Palestinian children deserve better.”
The points made by Luntz are valid and verifiable, but instead of taking issue with them Silverstein entirely ignores them and literally tries to throw the same back at Israel.
Silverstein: As a matter of principle I believe that no child (Israeli or Palestinian) should be raised to fear that their mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother or grandfather could be killed for no reason than they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a frightened, trigger hungry 18 year army recruit decides to make an example of them.
As for maps, before Frank Luntz or Itamar Marcus make their specious claims about Palestinian textbooks, I’d like to show them to show me a single Israeli textbook that features a map of Palestine. You will certainly find Judea and Samaria. But will you find any acknowledgement of the millions of Palestinians who live in the Territories?
Further, the arguments are entirely dated. Suicide bombings were a serious phenomenon in years past. But Palestinian militants have largely abandoned this tactic, at least in part due to unpopularity among average Palestinians. You certainly wouldn’t know this from Frank Luntz’s agitprop. It’s like he’s living in a time warp and its still the first Intifada (circa 2000)
Brilliant isn’t it – ignoring entirely Luntz’s points he automatically goes in for the Israeli jugular.
Here are a few points for Mr Silverstein.
Firstly, the first intifada took place between 1987 and 1991 – and not circa 2000, if you claim to know what you are talking about, little fact like that you really should get right!
Secondly, no Israeli text books show Palestine because Mr Silverstein there is no Palestine. Had a state been created (other then that of Jordan) for the Palestinian people then I would expect the Israeli Ministry of Education to show that in maps. However unpleasant it might be for such a pro-Israeli like Silverstein, Israel does actually exist and the fact that Palestinian text books don’t acknowledge that fact should really concern him.
Thirdly, to claim that the arguments are dated because there are now no more suicide attacks is a disgusting position for a supposed pro-Israel ally to take. Silverstein rightly knows that one of the reason for there being a huge decline in suicide bombers since 2002 is because of the separation fence Israel has built around the West Bank, what he also ignores are the numerous examples of Palestinian leaders claiming that the sole reason why attacks have stopped is, in main, due to the fence.
Like a screeching banshee Silverstein goes on for pages like this. Ignoring the talking points of Luntz and imposing his own anti-Israel bias in its place. What he seems to forget is that this document was never meant for anyone other than The Israel Project, and it was meant solely for the purpose of working with the media.
Here’s another example:
(Silverstein): One of Lunt’z main themes is to ram to a U.S. audience that Israel wants peace. Of course, neither he nor Israel ever offer any concreate proof of what they will do for peace or how to achieve peace. The empty slogan seems good enough for Luntz:
(Luntz):For American to have hope regarding the Middle East conflict, they need to be reminded that:
Israel has a long-term commitment to peace. When courageous Arab leaders, such as Egypt’s President Sadat or Jordan’s King Hussein, reached out their hands to Israel peace was achieved.
(Silverstein): This passage neglects to mention that these leaders negotiated peace deals with Israel decades ago and that Israel has not achieced any similar agreements with any Arab leaders since. In fact, Pres. Assad of Syria has been “reaching out his hands to Israel” begging for negotiations for almost a year to no avail.
So, according to Mr Silverstein, we should ignore the fact that Israel reached peace with Jordan and Egypt because that happened years ago. We Israelis should be chastised for not accepting Syrian overtures (as I pointed out in an earlier post Syria’s position is “give us the Golan and then we can negotiate”). Furthermore Silverstein IGNORES the fact that Arafat in 2000 rejected Israeli advances for peace when he rejected a two state solution, as did Abbas last year, when former Prime Minister Olmert offered the Palestinians everything they were claiming they wanted.
I could go on, for Silverstein likes to write pages of utter drivel, but you get my point. It should be apparent for all, but it would seem Mr Silverstein, that Dr Luntz’s Dictionary is a media tool for real pro-Israel activists, and not for Israel haters bashers like Silverstein.
To read his entire missive do a google search for Richard Silverstein – I won’t link to him!
Solana to UN Security Council – Impose a two state solution
It would seem that everybody has an opinion where Israel/Palestine is concerned. Since the demise of the iron curtain the Americans, Europeans, Russians, United Nations, Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Iranians, French, Norwegians and countless others have all given their two shekels worth of advice.
For weeks we have had Obama and his administration being such good friends to Israel by actively telling us what we can and can’t do with regards to settlements, as opposed to keeping schtum on the murderous intentions of the theocratic thugs who rule Iran with an iron fist. Then, according to Haaretz, we had France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, speaking in Lebanon over this weekend, warning Israel that:
The United States has given Israel a six-month deadline to accede to its demand to freeze all construction in West Bank settlements,
Notice here how Israel gets warned on settlement activity whilst Obama is more or less silent, like Kouchner, on Iran’s nuclear ambitions or even North Korea’s recent missile tests.
Now it would seem that the European Union is jumping in on the act. Addressing in London this weekend at a conference EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, aiming his comments directly at the United Nations Security Council, said:
“After a fixed deadline, a U.N. Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution,” Solana said, adding this should include border parameters, refugees, control over the city of Jerusalem and security arrangements.
“It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the U.N., and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimise the end of claims,” Solana went on.
Advocating a return to Israel’s borders before the 1967 war with Egypt, Syria and Jordan in which it took the West Bank, Solana said mediators should set a timetable for a peace agreement.
“If the parties are not able to stick to it (the timetable), then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table,” he said.
Solana’s premise here is that after so many years of inaction in the creation of a (2nd) Palestinian State that the international community should enforce a solution on both parties. The problem is that by doing so it totally legitimises the constant inaction by the Palestinians over the past 15 years.
Israel has repeatedly put options on the table to bring an end to the current situation – from Camp David to Taba to the unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Israel has constantly strived to negotiate a settlement. Solana’s comments do nothing more than confirm to the Palestinian leadership and their backers, that by continuing a campaign of inaction with regards to the peace process that the Palestinians will get every think they want.
Furthermore Solana’s claiming that borders should be set as per 1967 further pushes that message home. He has totally negated that the UNSCR 242 that brought an end to the Six Day War calls on:
Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
Solana, like Kouchner and Obama, seem to believe that they only solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict is to entirely ignore the previous 42 years. He seems to imply that turning back the clock to 67 borders will automatically bring stability to the region.
But should the international community back his plans they would be rubber stamping the death of Israel – for they would be ignoring the key elements of 242 which calls for Israel’s neighbours to accept its sovereignty whilst creating another Palestinian state who’s main purpose is the destruction of Israel.
Another Russian defeat. . . .
I’m not really a sports fan, with the exception of Formula 1, but a couple of weeks ago Israeli tennis player Dudi Sela caught my attention during Wimbledon, although if truth be told it was really his compatriot Shahar Peer who I had expected to be carrying the flag through to the second week in SW19.
Whilst Sela did rather well to get through to the last 16, as opposed to Peer who crashed out in the second round, it would seem that we would have to wait a few more weeks to see Israeli tennis stars do rather well at their sport.
This weekend in addition to welcoming some 7000 athletes for the 18th Maccabiah Games, the worlds third largest sporting event that takes place in Israel every 4 years, Israel was welcoming Russian tennis players who were due to play Israel in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup.
Marat Safin, a Wimbledon semi-finalist from 2008, on arriving in Israel spoke with some journalists and said:
“With all due respect, Israel was lucky to get to the quarter-finals.”
How I bet he wishes he could go back a few days and take those words back in light of the thrashing Russia took at the hands of the Israeli team.
During the Davis cup, five matches are played; 2 singles followed by a doubles then two more singles.
With only three games complete, Israel is leading 3-0 thus making the final two matches, well, pointless.
Congratulations to the team made up of Sela, Harel Levy, Andy Ram, and Jonathan Erlich, who now move on to the semi-final in September against either Spain or Germany.
Oxfam: Five years of illegality – 32 pages of rubbish
Oxfam has released a paper to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the advisory opinion that was delivered by the International Court of Justice in regards to the security fence/wall that Israel has built around the West Bank.
The paper claims to be a series of testimonies of those who live in the West Bank and whose lives have been affected the building of the separation barrier. Testimonies are testimonies; we know from recent events in Gaza that often what is said for western consumption is not always the reality. Often testimonies by Palestinians against Israel are often either a series of gross exaggerations or blatant lies – for example Israel bombed a UN school and killed 40 plus people. People testified to it, so it must have been true, right? Er, no. Actually in that case Israel bombed a location out side the school and it took the United Nations a month to admit that one of its facilities was NOT targeted.
So we know how reliable testimonies are! But its not the testimonies that worry me about this paper, its the editorial offered up by Oxfams Executive Director, Jeremy Hobbs.
In its advisory opinion, rendered on 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice stated that Israel’s construction of the Wall in the occupied Palestinian Territory was illegal and called for its immediate dismantling. Although this opinion was the assertion of the most distinguished international legal body, it has been met only by inaction. This is an intolerable situation for the Palestinians, as well for the peace process and the credibility of international law.
The above paragraph is misleading – whilst it acknowledges that the opinion was only advisory, it goes on talking up the court as if they actually mattered in this situation. The court, making an advisory opinion, has no jurisdiction in this matter; they lack the authority in this case to call for anything. And yet Hobbs seems to think that they do. In fact, the whole purpose of the paper is to try an con its reader into thinking that Israel is directly breaking international law on this issue because the court has offered an opinion – an opinion which it itself admits has no legal standing. That’s why its advisory.
Oxfam International wants to remind world leaders that they have an obligation to ensure respect for international law and to guarantee the protection of civilians.
This is a good opening gambit made by Hobbs, protection of civilians for Oxfam, it would seem, is just for Palestinians and not Israeli – for the crucial thing missing from this screed is any historical context as to why Israel built the barrier in the first place. Oxfam don’t mention for example that since the barrier has been constructed suicide attacks, and resulting deaths, coming from the West Bank have been reduced from 220 Israeli deaths in 2002 to just 3 in 2007.
I wonder whether Mr Hobbs believes that Israeli citizens should be protected?
Hobbs goes on to call on the international community to “abide by its responsibilities under international law”, and yet makes no calls on the Palestinians to do, well, anything. For it would seem with Oxfam today that nasty big horrible Israel is ensuring Palestinians can’t get on with their lives because of a barrier that keeps us alive.
Maybe Hobbs should have done a bit of real research before he allowed his organisations name to be associated with such publication, for according to an article in todays Washington Times that barrier or no barrier, wall or no wall, Palestinians living in the West Bank seem to be getting on with the lives.
Five years of illegality can be downloaded from the Oxfam website.
Who are you kidding?
It would seem that Syrian President Bashar Assad is jumping on the Obama bandwagon.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said Tuesday that there is no “real partner” in Israel to make peace, stressing that a halt to settlements is essential in order to restart peace talks.
No doubt those comments about no “real partner” are entirely aimed at a Washington audience; after all you can’t go wrong with your potential suitor if you’re demanding the same things as they are. Hussein Obama has been saying the same thing since his speech last month in Cairo. The blatant overture to suck up to the US is laughable – after all we know how much Syria actually cares for the Palestinians – they care so much that they house the politburo of the one organisation that is actively halting all progress towards peace – Hamas.
Earlier this week President Shimon Peres met with the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In their meeting Peres asked Steinmeier to pass on a message to Assad at their meeting Tuesday.
Peres had asked Steinmeier to make it clear that Assad must understand he could not expect to receive the Golan on a silver platter while he continued to strengthen Hizbullah and maintain contact with Iran.
It would seem however that a silver platter is far from the minds of the Syrians. Assad’s Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, according the Jerusalem Post, actually wants the Golan back on a “gold platter”.
“Let’s face it – it’s our land and our right to have it back is the most normal thing in the world. . . . . Regarding resuming direct talks [with Israel], we still believe that resuming indirect talks through Turkey is the best way to move toward direct talks that can lead to results. But beforehand we want to be sure [if] there is a political decision in Israel to achieve peace,”
So if I’ve got this right, the Syrians entry position to negotiations with Israel is prior agreement to hand them back the Golan Heights – with out offering anything back in return.
Obama should make it clear to Assad that any chance Syria has of a closer relationship with the US necessitates that Syria cut ties with Hezbollah, Hamas and other terror groups based in Damascus, as well as agreeing to sit down directly, face to face, with Israel to thrash out their differences.
The chances of Obama making closer US/Syrian ties based on the above conditions are close to zero I fear, after all in this new American regime it would seem that America’s enemies are offered everything they want, including it would seem, Israels head on a platter – gold or otherwise, while its friends are shafted at every opportunity.
