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about damned time[W:31:36]

Toggle Almendro said:
That goes both ways. Egyptian leaders finally decided that it would be beneficial to Egypt to make peace with Israel.

But regardless, the settlements were no barrier to peace. When Israel reached a decision to give up land, they removed their settlements from the land.
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Of course it goes both ways , I wasn't suggesting anything else. I was just adding to the debate that it took an large scale Egyptian attack on the Israeli occupying forces in the Sinai to bring Israel to the negotiating table.

Not opposite at all. It is true that it was an attempt to resolve the issue without negotiating with the Palestinians, and that Israel hoped to get a better outcome for themselves by deciding the issue unilaterally. But Israel was still trying to make peace with the Palestinians by providing the Palestinians with land of their own.
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Yes opposite if you are to believe the words of the senior advisor and one of the initiators of the disengagement plan , Dov Weisglass. They decided to get their people out and take the prison guards from the inside to the outside. They had around 3000 troops , costing 10s of millions a year to protect less than 10,000 settlers in a population of 1.3 million Palestinians. Hardly a huge concession imo and more like a strategic withdrawal that saves at lot of hassle and allows you to shoot the Palestinians there like fish in a barrel whenever you feel the big stick should be brought out. Not the actions of peaceniks imo
And Israel still withdrew settlements from land that they handed over, which shows that settlements are no impediment to handing over land.
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You must understand that moving less than 10,000 settlers from somewhere that you don't really want anyway, is a pain in the bum to manage and a massive drain on national resources is different from somewhere you definitely want , that has 100.000s of illegal settlers and provides you with resources such as water and arable land.
And if you are so sure of this why haven't you asked yourself why Israel always seeks to hang on to illegal settlements in the WB and East Jerusalem when it comes to negotiations like the ones at Oslo


The settlements are no more illegal than the Palestinians' refusal to make peace with Israel.
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The law begs to differ. All the settlements are illegal under international law.

As for keeping settlements after an agreement, there would be land swaps involved. Israel and the Palestinians would essentially trade land.
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Yep there would be land swaps but at least be clear , for every settlement Israel keeps/annexes it is a huge concession on the Palestinian side because they have no entitlement to even one of them under the law
Israel's repeated offers to return to 1967 borders show that that is untrue.



By denying Israel's past peace offers, he makes peace more unlikely. Why would Israel bother to try making peace one more time when they know that the only thing they will get for their trouble is Finkelstein telling the world that they didn't actually try to make peace?

Kind of like Lucy asking Charlie Brown to kick the football one more time. Why bother?
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I don't think peace in the Arab/Israeli conflict is reliant/dependent on the concurance of Norman Finkelstein. What Israel " offers " and what the law provides the Palestinians are two very different things , people should be aware of that distinction imo


The agreement wasn't too bad.

But if the Palestinians had wanted to negotiate for an even better deal, that would have been fine.
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Nope, Ben Ami stated he wouldn't have agreed to any of it had he been negotiating on the Palestinian side. That should tell you something
But instead of negotiating, Arafat had terrorists start making horrendous attacks on Israel until Ehud Barak's government fell and that was the end of negotiations for a good long time.

Years later, instead of continuing to negotiate, Abbas simply stopped negotiating and started playing mind games with the peace process. Mind games that continue to this day.

Mind games that include this report condemning Israel, although I remain confident that the criticism will be confined to empty words and not offer any meaningful harm to Israel.
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You are referring to is the Second Intifada which had as much to do with Sharons visit to the Temple Mount and the subsequent heavy handed/murderous Israeli response to a largely none violent popular uprising than it did with Arafats conduct.

And the mind games are played by people on both sides. Don't underestimate the selfish egos of those whose political lives are embroiled into this conflict
 
Sorry but I had to edit the ending of the last post out to meet the character parameters so................

To conclude this post I would just like to say that like many of the other posters before you in this thread you have fallen for the same line which goes something like there would be peace if it weren't for those pesky terrorism loving Arabs. All the Israelis are innocent , even though most have them have served in the IDF at some point and played their part in the illegal occupation of the Palestinians which has lasted for nearly 50 years
 
oneworld2 said:
Sorry but I had to edit the ending of the last post out to meet the character parameters so................

To conclude this post I would just like to say that like many of the other posters before you in this thread you have fallen for the same line which goes something like there would be peace if it weren't for those pesky terrorism loving Arabs. All the Israelis are innocent , even though most have them have served in the IDF at some point and played their part in the illegal occupation of the Palestinians which has lasted for nearly 50 years
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There's no real argument for an illegality of the occupation. It saves human lives and its reason for existing is justified. Occupations aren't automatically illegal and that's a bizzarre notion really. I'll also point that you repeat your Dov Weisglass nonsense even after being pointed out that basing claims on opinions of people with a political agenda is meaningless. Additionally I will point that your claim about Israel and Egypt is wrong, peace became a possibility once Saddat called for peace, unlike what he did before calling for peace and what Nasser did when he was constantly calling for the annihilation of Israel in a total war - you're seriously misleading here. The fact that Israel even held the Sinai to begin with is a reason why the Egyptians were willing to make peace, you present it as if Israel was against peace with Egypt since its creation in 1948 and well that's just laughable and quite sad really that you convince yourself into believing so.

Do take note that you've given no real attention at all to the two points I've made two posts ago in reply to your post.
 
Apocalypse said:
There's no real argument for an illegality of the occupation. It saves human lives and its reason for existing is justified. Occupations aren't automatically illegal and that's a bizzarre notion really. I'll also point that you repeat your Dov Weisglass nonsense even after being pointed out that basing claims on opinions of people with a political agenda is meaningless. Additionally I will point that your claim about Israel and Egypt is wrong, peace became a possibility once Saddat called for peace, unlike what he did before calling for peace and what Nasser did when he was constantly calling for the annihilation of Israel in a total war - you're seriously misleading here. The fact that Israel even held the Sinai to begin with is a reason why the Egyptians were willing to make peace, you present it as if Israel was against peace with Egypt since its creation in 1948 and well that's just laughable and quite sad really that you convince yourself into believing so.
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On the occupation of the Palestinians

To quote Richard Falk UN Special Rapporteur Israels ongoing 50 yearvoccupation of the Palestinians is " an affront to international law "

wiki said:
Talia Sasson, the High Court of Justice in Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has repeatedly stated for more than four decades that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is in violation of international law
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-occupied_territories#International_views

Anybody interested in this aspect of the conflict would profit from reading these pages and they will discover that numerous human rights organisations , international law panels ecte tc , deem the occupation of the Palestinians and their treatment under that occupation anything from a violation of international up to and including war crimes.

Or you can just take the word of Apocalypse who thus far has offered nothing ,imo,of worth to back his claim that the occupation is justified .
 
Apocalypse said:
I'll also point that you repeat your Dov Weisglass nonsense even after being pointed out that basing claims on opinions of people with a political agenda is meaningless.
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I will remind you that , according to Haaretz , Dov Weisglass was " the senior advisor to Sharon " concerning the disengagement plan and one of its initiators. That is completely relevant on any discussion on the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. That you don't like what he said changes nothing.

Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process - News - Haaretz - Israel News Haaretz.com

Everyone involved has a " political agenda " , you have one yourself , so your above comment is null and void and obviously so.
 
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Apocalypse said:
Additionally I will point that your claim about Israel and Egypt is wrong, peace became a possibility once Saddat called for peace, unlike what he did before calling for peace and what Nasser did when he was constantly calling for the annihilation of Israel in a total war - you're seriously misleading here. The fact that Israel even held the Sinai to begin with is a reason why the Egyptians were willing to make peace, you present it as if Israel was against peace with Egypt since its creation in 1948 and well that's just laughable and quite sad really that you convince yourself into believing so.
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Not "misleading " at all.

In 1971 Saddat initiated a peace proposal that was basically the same as the one that was lauded years later. He first tried through the UN and then he approached the US. This is between 1971-73. He stated that should he be rejected he would be forced into a military conflict. He was ignored.

Then we witness the Yom Kippur conflict where initially the Egyptians did really well and scared the pants off the Israelis. It was only after this conflict that Israel moved to make peace with Egypt. That is just historically correct . Live with it
 
Apocalypse said:
Do take note that you've given no real attention at all to the two points I've made two posts ago in reply to your post.
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And finally.

If you quit with the barbed posts and persistent accusations and complaints about stuff you can't handle you might just be taken seriously enough to merit a considered response to your points. Until such times you will just have to accept that its your own conduct that isn't conducive to constructive debate :)
 
oneworld2 said:
Not "misleading " at all.

In 1971 Saddat initiated a peace proposal that was basically the same as the one that was lauded years later. He first tried through the UN and then he approached the US. This is between 1971-73. He stated that should he be rejected he would be forced into a military conflict. He was ignored.

Then we witness the Yom Kippur conflict where initially the Egyptians did really well and scared the pants off the Israelis. It was only after this conflict that Israel moved to make peace with Egypt. That is just historically correct . Live with it
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After Yom Kippur conflict the economic situation of Eygpt was a mass due to the enormous security budget, that cause big riots that threaten Saddat government. In addition Saddat knew he cant win Israel in a battle so the only way he could get Sinai back is in peace agreement. And last he said " No more war, No more bloodshed".

Making a peace with the Palestinians is much different and complicated.
 
oneworld2 said:
Yes opposite if you are to believe the words of the senior advisor
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All he said was that they were trying to disengage from the Palestinians without negotiations, getting Israel a better outcome than negotiations would have achieved.

That doesn't mean it wasn't an attempt to make peace with the Palestinians by letting them have their own land.


oneworld2 said:
moving less than 10,000 settlers from somewhere that you don't really want anyway
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Israel would have been happy to keep their Gaza settlements. Nice beachfront property with sunsets over the Mediterranean.

Also, if the Gaza withdrawal had led to peace, plans were to withdraw from most of the West Bank as well, and to withdraw any settlements from land that they pulled back from.


oneworld2 said:
Israel always seeks to hang on to illegal settlements in the WB and East Jerusalem
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Israel only tries to keep a small portion of their settlements with land swaps. Israel's peace offers include withdrawing from most of the West Bank, and withdrawing most of the settlements in the West Bank.

So whether it is done unilaterally or through negotiations, Israel is willing to pull settlements out of land that they give up. The settlements are no real obstacle to the peace process. It is just something that the Palestinian government is using as misdirection away from their refusal to make peace.


oneworld2 said:
The law begs to differ.
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No it doesn't. The law says that Israel has the right to live in peace.


oneworld2 said:
All the settlements are illegal under international law.
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So is the refusal to make peace with Israel.


oneworld2 said:
for every settlement Israel keeps/annexes it is a huge concession on the Palestinian side because they have no entitlement to even one of them under the law
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So long as the Palestinians agree to the land swap, what is the problem?


oneworld2 said:
I don't think peace in the Arab/Israeli conflict is reliant/dependent on the concurance of Norman Finkelstein.
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Maybe not alone. But when lots of other voices join him in unfair condemnation of Israel's past peace offers, it carries a bit more weight. At some point people start to question why they should bother making peace offers when the only thing they will get for their trouble is people misconstruing what they offered.


oneworld2 said:
What Israel " offers " and what the law provides the Palestinians are two very different things
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I don't see much difference between the Israeli offers and international law. I see a considerable discrepancy between the Palestinian government's refusal to agree to peace and the law's requirement that they agree to peace.

This is why I expect this forthcoming international criticism of Israel to just be empty words. The US isn't going to let Israel come to actual harm when the true problem is the Palestinian government.

I expect there will be a bunch of fury in the media, with Israeli officials publicly denouncing every unfair thing that is said in the report. But in the end, the report will do nothing real, and it will be quickly forgotten.


oneworld2 said:
Ben Ami stated he wouldn't have agreed to any of it had he been negotiating on the Palestinian side.
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His opinion does not override the fact that Israel's offer was fair.

Nor does it change the fact that the Palestinians were free to peacefully negotiate for something better if they had wanted more.


oneworld2 said:
You are referring to is the Second Intifada
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Sharon visited the Temple Mount because the Palestinians were deliberately digging up and destroying priceless artifacts at the site.

Arafat deliberately allowed Palestinian militants to launch their attacks when he had a duty to try to stop them.


oneworld2 said:
And the mind games are played by people on both sides.
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I've heard it suggested that Netanyahu only offers 1967 borders because he knows the Palestinians will refuse the offer.

But the offers from Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were genuine. And if there were ever a Palestinian government that was willing to make peace, assuming the Israeli public have not been too alienated by all the unfair criticism of Israel and Palestinian mind games by that point, if Netanyahu became an obstacle to peace the Israeli voters would replace him with someone who was willing to make peace.

Also, if the Palestinians had made peace when earlier leaders were offering it, Netanyahu wouldn't even be in power right now.


oneworld2 said:
fallen for the same line which goes something like there would be peace if it weren't for
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Well, Israel is the one that repeatedly offered to return land in exchange for peace. And the Palestinian government is the one that always refused.
 
Toggle Almendro said:
All he said was that they were trying to disengage from the Palestinians without negotiations, getting Israel a better outcome than negotiations would have achieved.

That doesn't mean it wasn't an attempt to make peace with the Palestinians by letting them have their own land.



Israel would have been happy to keep their Gaza settlements. Nice beachfront property with sunsets over the Mediterranean.

Also, if the Gaza withdrawal had led to peace, plans were to withdraw from most of the West Bank as well, and to withdraw any settlements from land that they pulled back from.



Israel only tries to keep a small portion of their settlements with land swaps. Israel's peace offers include withdrawing from most of the West Bank, and withdrawing most of the settlements in the West Bank.

So whether it is done unilaterally or through negotiations, Israel is willing to pull settlements out of land that they give up. The settlements are no real obstacle to the peace process. It is just something that the Palestinian government is using as misdirection away from their refusal to make peace.



No it doesn't. The law says that Israel has the right to live in peace.



So is the refusal to make peace with Israel.



So long as the Palestinians agree to the land swap, what is the problem?



Maybe not alone. But when lots of other voices join him in unfair condemnation of Israel's past peace offers, it carries a bit more weight. At some point people start to question why they should bother making peace offers when the only thing they will get for their trouble is people misconstruing what they offered.



I don't see much difference between the Israeli offers and international law. I see a considerable discrepancy between the Palestinian government's refusal to agree to peace and the law's requirement that they agree to peace.

This is why I expect this forthcoming international criticism of Israel to just be empty words. The US isn't going to let Israel come to actual harm when the true problem is the Palestinian government.

I expect there will be a bunch of fury in the media, with Israeli officials publicly denouncing every unfair thing that is said in the report. But in the end, the report will do nothing real, and it will be quickly forgotten.



His opinion does not override the fact that Israel's offer was fair.

Nor does it change the fact that the Palestinians were free to peacefully negotiate for something better if they had wanted more.



Sharon visited the Temple Mount because the Palestinians were deliberately digging up and destroying priceless artifacts at the site.

Arafat deliberately allowed Palestinian militants to launch their attacks when he had a duty to try to stop them.



I've heard it suggested that Netanyahu only offers 1967 borders because he knows the Palestinians will refuse the offer.

But the offers from Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were genuine. And if there were ever a Palestinian government that was willing to make peace, assuming the Israeli public have not been too alienated by all the unfair criticism of Israel and Palestinian mind games by that point, if Netanyahu became an obstacle to peace the Israeli voters would replace him with someone who was willing to make peace.

Also, if the Palestinians had made peace when earlier leaders were offering it, Netanyahu wouldn't even be in power right now.



Well, Israel is the one that repeatedly offered to return land in exchange for peace. And the Palestinian government is the one that always refused.
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Clinton brokered a deal that Arafat turned down. After that you knew someone had no intention of living in peace.
 
coldjoint said:
Clinton brokered a deal that Arafat turned down. After that you knew someone had no intention of living in peace.
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share with us the terms of clinton's deal, which offer was declined by arafat
 
coldjoint said:
Clinton brokered a deal that Arafat turned down. After that you knew someone had no intention of living in peace.
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Actually, the problem isn't that Arafat declined that particular deal. If he would have peacefully tried to negotiate an even better deal, that would have been within his rights to do.

The problem is that Arafat allowed the terrorists free rein to massacre Israelis until Ehud Barak's government fell, thereby ending the negotiations.


justabubba said:
share with us the terms of clinton's deal, which offer was declined by arafat
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The Palestinians would have gotten 100% of the Gaza Strip, 97% of the West Bank in one contiguous block, and East Jerusalem as their national capital.



Am I the only one with a view on the forthcoming report condemning Israel? (I think that, while it may be worded harshly, it will just amount to a bunch of empty words. And rightly so, as Israel aren't actually the bad guys here.)
 
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