FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Construction and Housing Ministry on Friday advertised two tenders for leasing plots of land in the West Bank settlements of Elkana and Ariel in order to build 100 new housing units…

The Peace Now organization issued a response saying that “the government is destroying the chance to arrive at an agreement with the Palestinians and is turning Annapolis [the 2007 Annapolis peace initiative] into an irrelevant joke.”

The Palestinian position is that Israel must go back to 1967 borders. They also insist on a right of return, and other things which are impossible. There cannot be a peace agreement on their terms that will leave Israel standing.

Israel’s position is that there is nothing permanent about the 1967 borders — which are after all cease-fire lines from 1949 — and that a final agreement could include Israel keeping the larger settlement blocs while compensating the Palestinian state with land elsewhere. Israel believes that any final agreement would keep Ariel and Elkana, as well as some neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, etc.

Some have even suggested a ‘swap’ where Israel transfers areas with large Arab populations to ‘Palestine’ and keeps some settlements. Naturally, the Israeli Arabs living in these areas hate the idea. It’s quite OK for them to be Palestinian nationalists while they get the benefits of living in Israel, but they aren’t prepared to give these up. And of course the more Arabs that live in Israel, the greater the pressure to turn it into a binational state.

These ideas could be pursued if the goal of both sides were a Jewish and a Palestinian state living side by side, but it isn’t.

The Palestinians believe that the territories and indeed the state of Israel are all lands that were stolen from them. In their view, Israel is responsible for everything. The Abbas government has agreed to settle for 1967 borders as a temporary step, but only on conditions which will result in a Jewish state of Israel being untenable. A real compromise which could lead to two peaceful states is not desirable to them; what they want is progress toward getting ‘their’ land back.

The position of the US is ambivalent. Although President Bush said, in a letter to PM Ariel Sharon in 2004, that

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,

nevertheless, the State Department continues to insist that any construction within the boundaries of existing ‘settlements’ (including East Jerusalem) “violates the Road Map”. And although the same letter contained the following remark,

It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, as part of any final status agreement, will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than Israel,

there has been no US insistence that the Palestinian demand for a right of return be taken off the table.

Peace Now, after all of these years and all of the lies and murder from Arafat and his heirs, still refuses to believe that the PLO doesn’t have the same goals that they do.

The Annapolis meeting was an irrelevant joke from the start, or worse — because rather than force the Palestinians to be realistic, all it did was institutionalize the impossible US project to fight Hamas with Fatah.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Peace Now

Hamas’ Mahmoud al-Zahar, in the Washington Post:

While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza… [blah, blah, recitation of Israeli ‘crimes’]

Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war…

OK, Israel is “chok[ing] off fuel supplies to Gaza”, so you attack the only place that fuel from Israel enters Gaza?

And today,

Only a week after the lethal terror attack at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, and after complaining of fuel shortages, terror groups are again targeting Israelis supplying fuel to the Gaza Strip.

Thursday afternoon, Palestinians opened fire at trucks transporting fuel to the Strip at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. No injuries or damages were reported in the latest attack. — YNet

Tell us again about how Israel is responsible for the shortage, please.

But not only are the Gazans fuel-less, they are also hungry, says Jimmy Carter:

Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being “starved to death” and received fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. — YNet

How does Carter know this, since Israel did not allow him to enter Gaza? Simple, Mahmoud al-Zahar told him!

Carter’s talks in Cairo were with former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar and former Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, who did not speak to reporters. Hamas officials have touted the meetings as a recognition of their legitimacy after their 2006 election victory.

As I suggested last week, Carter’s visit is already being used to lend legitimacy to Hamas.

Looks like a coordinated campaign to me, with the Washington Post and Carter leading the charge.

Technorati Tags: Hamas, al-Zahar, Carter, Washington Post

News item:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed that plans to present two female Palestinian terrorists with a medal of honor have been withdrawn…

The Al Kuds Mark of Honor, the PLO’s highest medal, was meant be awarded in a ceremony in Ramallah Thursday to two female terrorists who helped kill Israelis. The terrorists’ families were slated to receive the honors in their stead.

The two female terrorists were Ahlam Tamimi, a Hamas affiliate serving a life sentence for driving the suicide bomber who exploded himself in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, killing at least half a dozen people, and Amra Muna, who seduced Ophir Rahum over the Internet and then lured him to Ramallah where he was murdered.

Conferring the Al Kuds Mark of Honor is decided at the discretion of the PA president, and he alone has the final say when choosing the Palestinians to be honored with the medal. — Jerusalem Post

This is almost…unintelligible.

Did Abbas not know who he was recommending for “the PLO’s highest medal”? Did he think the Israelis wouldn’t notice? Did he think they would notice but not care?

Does he think that murdering Israeli civilians is the highest act that a Palestinian can perform?

Why does Israel continue with the charade that there is a possibility of peace with the PLO? How long will it take to grasp that a fundamental mistake that was made at Oslo when the terrorist murderers of the PLO/Fatah were chosen to represent the Palestinians?

After all the historical experience with those who want to destroy the Jewish people and the Jewish state, how can we have forgotten what an enemy is and how we must deal with one? Has this concept been invalidated in the postmodern world?

Mahmoud Abbas (courtesy CoxandForkum.com)

Technorati Tags: Israel, Abbas, PLO

YNet reports:

A group of young Meretz Party activists sent a letter on Wednesday to Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal calling on him to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, recognize the State of Israel and launch negotiations on a ceasefire to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state…

“The Israeli occupation and the Palestinian terror have failed. The only solution is mutual recognition of the fact that both nations are here to stay and must therefore develop a normal relationship,” they told Mashaal in the letter.

If only it were that simple!

I don’t know what the Meretz activists think — that Mashaal will see their point, that his statement that he would agree to an independent Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders was a real offer of peace which must be pursued, or what.

It’s certain that Mashaal has not repudiated the Hamas Covenant, which calls for Israel to be destroyed.

This is a textbook case of why the ‘Western liberal approach’ to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn’t work.

A normal relationship between the two nations is the last thing that Mashaal wants. Ending the occupation of the territories, establishing a Palestinian state and living in peace and prosperity is not his goal. In Mashaal’s world, the Palestinian terror has not failed. It has gained Hamas control of Gaza, and will shortly do the same for much of the West Bank. No, it has not yet succeeded in driving the Jews from Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem, but in time he believes that it will.

Why on earth should he agree to end a policy that is achieving its aims in order to obtain a goal that he does not desire?

The Meretz activists think that Mashaal wants what they want: peace and prosperity. In fact, not even ‘moderate’ Palestinians like Mahmoud Abbas want this. What they want is to reverse the outcome of 1948 and recover their honor by expelling the Jews from the land that they believe was stolen from them.

From a Western point of view, the Palestinians are irrational, but they are what they are.

I think we are not going to succeed in teaching the Palestinians history. We are not going to explain to them that the Jewish state is really legitimate, and that they should give up the irredentist dream which has come to dominate the consciousness of the entire people — indeed, which has in essence created the ‘Palestinian people’.

What we need to do is to teach them in a practical way that terrorism will not bring their goal closer, and that the consequences of its employment will be horrific for them.

What this implies will not make the Meretz activists happy. One thing is that Israel must never respond to terrorism by giving up control of land, as she did in Gaza. ‘Ending the occupation’ is not likely in the near-term. And another is that the response to terrorism must be severe.

Does this mean that there is never a possibility of peace? Assuming that Israel is capable of continuing the struggle with as much or more perseverance as the Arabs, then some day an Arab leadership will arise that is prepared to say, as Rabin did, “Enough”.

But this won’t be today, and it certainly won’t be Mashaal!

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Mashaal, Meretz

Below: the Devil takes full possession of Jimmy Carter’s soul. I wonder what he had to pay for it?

Carter lays wreath at grave of Yasser Arafat

Jimmy Carter is not (entirely) senile, and he has read a history book. He knows full well that Yasser Arafat is personally responsible for the murder of countless Jews, mostly innocent civilians, children, Olympic athletes, and an old man in a wheelchair.

He knows full well that at least three wars were started as a direct result of Yasser Arafat’s machinations, in which hundreds of young Jordanians, Lebanese, Israelis, Palestinians and others were killed.

He knows full well that Yasser Arafat had hundreds of Palestinian Arabs who were his political opponents murdered, allegedly for ‘collaboration’ with Israel.

He knows full well that Yasser Arafat stole literally billions of dollars which were intended to build a Palestinian economy and improve the condition of the Palestinian Arabs, and deposited it in his Swiss bank account. His fat, spoiled wife still gets $10,000 a month from the Palestinian Authority (undoubtedly covered by the US).

He knows full well that Yasser Arafat entered the Oslo ‘peace’ process with no intention to make peace and immediately constructed an ‘educational’ and media system designed to destroy the possibility of peace and to help young children grow up to be martyrs for the cause.

He knows full well that Yasser Arafat destroyed the two-state option by ordering and financing terrorism during the Oslo period and then rejecting the Clinton-Barak proposals in 2000, choosing war instead.

He knows full well that Yasser Arafat made peace between Israel and the Palestinians impossible by intervening at one of the rare historical moments when the conflict could have been solved and preventing its solution. How many more Arabs and Jews have yet to die as a result?

Carter knows all this, but he still honors the foul piece of garbage, the filthy snake who was likely one of the worst political actors of the 20th century (and believe me, he had competition)!

What did the Devil pay him for his soul?

Technorati Tags: Jimmy Carter, Arafat, Satan