Britain ready to back Palestinian statehood at UN

[oberliner]

Britain is prepared to back a key vote recognising Palestinian statehood at the United Nations if Mahmoud Abbas pledges not to pursue Israel for war crimes and to resume peace talks.

Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has called for Britain's backing in part because of its historic responsibility for Palestine. The government has previously refused, citing strong US and Israeli objections and fears of long-term damage to prospects for negotiations.

On Monday night, the government signalled it would change tack and vote yes if the Palestinians modified their application, which is to be debated by the UN general assembly in New York later this week. As a "non-member state", Palestine would have the same status as the Vatican.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/27/uk-ready-to-back-palestine-statehood

[PDJane]

1. Good. It's long past time.

In fact, it's verging on the time that the world should bring Israel back to the bargaining table, and ensure that Palestine has the rights of statehood, their water table, and demolishment of the separation wall....which is the way that the Israelis stole the water table in the first place.

[oberliner]

3. What about Israel's water problems?

Check this out:

Israel's Chronic Water Problem

Water is considered as a national resource of utmost importance. Water is vital to ensure the population's well-being and quality of life and to preserve the rural-agricultural sector. Israel has suffered from a chronic water shortage for years. In recent years however, the situation has developed into a crisis so severe that it is feared that by the next summer it may be difficult to adequately supply municipal and household water requirements. The current cumulative deficit in Israel's renewable water resources amounts to approximately 2 billion cubic meters, an amount equal to the annual consumption of the State. The deficit has also lead to the qualitative deterioration of potable aquifer water resources that have, in part, become either of brackish quality or otherwise become polluted.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts%20About%20Israel/Land/Israel-s%20Chronic%20Water%20Problem

What do you think?

[PDJane]

6. I think that, instead of stealing the water table to use profligately,

They should be working on ways to use water that doesn't lead to this result. If you want people to live as though they are in Europe or North America, they should be living in Europe or North America.

Depriving the Palestinians of water is not the answer.

[oberliner]

7. Maybe Israelis and Palestinians can work together

Think of how many positive developments could emerge for both Israelis and Palestinians should a comprehensive peace agreement finally be reached.

[Ken Burch]

8. Such a settlement can't be reached through negotiations with Likud, though.

Last edited Tue Nov 27, 2012, 09:29 PM - Edit history (2)

And let's face it(even though the polls, thank God, have shown Likenu/Beitud/Whatever the Heck They're Calling That Thing This Week is declining in support)Netanyahu is going to be re-elected with an anti-two state, pro-perpetuate the status quo forever coalition.

Why SHOULD Palestine bother with negotiations that will involve nothing but Palestine giving up land and giving up sovereignty? Negotiations in which the Israeli side will insist on terms that make a Palestinian state unsustainable(the settlements mostly staying in place, no right to self-defense, Jerusalem being totally in Israel, not even symbolic RoR)and will destroy all popular support for any Palestinian leadership that involves itself in them?

And it's amazing to talk about "Israel's water problem" when Israel is insisting on taking MOST of the water for itself while leaving Palestine, at this point, dependent on staying in Israel's good graces simply to keep its own population from dying of thirst?

Negotiations are only valid when both sides are treated as equals IN the negotiations. Otherwise, it's just the stronger side imposing surrender terms on the weaker. Palestine must not be seen as having lost to Israel in this, because if it is, that can only lead(as the treatment of Germany at Versailles by the supposed winners of what was actually an inclusive standoff in World War I did)to brutal, horrible opportunists galvanizing the support of the discontented to "avenge the shame". The last thing this situation needs is the temporary creation of Weimar Palestine.

[oberliner]

10. Following your logic

Premise 1: A settlement can't be reached through negotiations with Netanyahu.

Premise 2: Netanyahu is going to be re-elected.

Possible Conclusions:

1. A settlement cannot be reached.

2. A settlement can be reached but not through negotiations.

Which one do you think?

[Ken Burch]

11. Sadly, at this point 2...it needs to be done through the UN

(and it was the UN, after all, that essentially brought Israel into being on the diplomatic front in 1948, so the Israelis really can't complain about the Pals using the same method).

Or through an alternative to that such as the group that negotiated an end to the Balkan conflict.

What possible reason do Palestinians have of trusting in negotiations with a guy who won't even admit that Palestinians have the right to regard the settlements as a legitimate grievance? Who won't even accept the reasonable compromise of, say, physical RoR for the elders of 1948 with some sort of compensation WITH acknowledgement of wrongdoing for their descendants?

To negotiate, you have to have people of good faith to negotiate with. Bibi doesn't want real negotiations...he just wants to be able to say "we WON!&quot even though "winning", in this conflict, is now an utterly ugly and meaningless concept that can't actually resolve anything).

(I might revise my opinion if Likud/Beitenyu were to unexpectedly suffer a massive defeat and, say, Meretz were to win 10-15 seats...but do you see that as a real possibility?)

[oberliner]

13. The UN?

I don't understand what you mean. You didn't really elaborate on that anywhere in the body of the message. How would the UN bring about a settlement?

[Ken Burch]

14. It could be something like binding arbitration in a labor dispute.

Given the feelings between the two leaderships, at this point that might be the only way.

[oberliner]

29. That seems less likely than cutting a deal with Netanyahu

I don't really see the UN having any mechanism to bring about such an agreement.

[aranthus]

31. How could this possibly work?

First, you would need some neutral arbitrator. There isn't one. Second, you would need some method of enforcement. Otherwise it isn't binding. In binding arbitration, the parties agree, and the law provides for, that the winning party can take the arbitrator's award to a court of law, and obtain a judgment, which can then be enforced. There is no International Court of Law. There are no binding international judgments. There is no method to enforce the award, except by making war.

[Ken Burch]

33. How can you say there's NO neutral aribitrator?

Believe it or not, not every country in the world has taken sides on this. Many of them don't CARE who wins.

Your argument is based on the unconsious absorbtion of the Revisionist argument that everybody who isn't Jewish has it in for not only Israel(which isn't true, btw)but for anybody at all who happens to be Jewish.

There is such a thing as not backing either side on the I/P issue. Why is it that you can't accept that?

[aranthus]

34. Because unlike you, I'm a realist.

To be a neutral arbitrator, a country would have to have no need for oil to run its economy, and no need for modern technology (much of which is developed in Israel), and no desire to sell any of its products either to Israel or the Arabs or their supporters. An individual neutral would have to come from one of those neutral countries to have any chance of gaining the trust of both sides. Since their are no such countries, there isn't a neutral aribtrator. Then there's the issue of idology. A Leftist arbitrator would not be acceptable to the Israelis, and anything but a Leftist arbitrator would probably not be accepatable to the Arabs. There's more, such as the two sides aren't even going to agree on what to arbitrate, but I think that's enough for now, especially when you add in the enforcement problems which you haven't even addressed.

[aranthus]

30. False in everything.

Last edited Tue Nov 27, 2012, 09:12 PM - Edit history (1)

My first thought when I hear "UN" is "So what?" Why do you thinhk that the UN is anything more than a shell? You seem to place a lot of faith in its moral legitimacy. Why?

Then you write, &quot and it was the UN, after all, that essentially brought Israel into being on the diplomatic front in 1948, so the Israelis really can't complain about the Pals using the same method)." What is your evidence of this?

As far as negotiations, your position has two faults. First, the Israelis aren't going to negotiate an end to the war as if they were the side that lost it. They aren't going to make peace as if they were the side that started it, since that is also untrue. And they aren't going to make peace as if they are the side mostly in the wrong, because that isn't true either. If the Palestinians don't want to negotiate under those circumstance (and I agree with you that they don't), then that is their problem with reality, not Israeli intransigence.

[Ken Burch]

37. No one is asking Israel to negotiate as losers...just as equals...just in a spirit of mutual respect

and the acknowledgment of common humanity. Since the conflict is at a hopeless stalemate in military terms...what's wrong with trying such an attitude? How is it weakness simply to choose not to be arrogant and petulant?

Why should Netanyahu and Co. put the goal of being able to say "we won!" BEFORE the goal of actually making sure the war ends and nobody else on either side gets killed?

Is pride more important than peace? How can it be?

Israel has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, from treating the Palestinian side as an EQUAL partner and negotiating, not a victory, not a defeat, but just peace...just an end to the madness. Isn't stopping the killing what really matters here?
Isn't life more important than the arrogant, right-wing objective of being able to claim "victory"?

Why spite Israel's children and their future just to claim "the upper hand"?

[aranthus]

41. It's not about saying "we won"

Okay, maybe it is on the Arab side. But there are realities that the Arabs are going to have to accept. One is that there is no right of return. Israel isn't going to accept it, allow it or negotiate as if it exists. Thus, your statement that What possible reason do the Palestinians have to trust someone, "Who won't even accept the reasonable compromise of, say, physical RoR for the elders of 1948 with some sort of compensation WITH acknowledgement of wrongdoing for their descendants?" Is really a call for Israel to settle outside of the reality of the situation. It doesn't help solve the conflict when the Palestinians are encouraged to push for the impossible. You can't run from reality. It always comes around to bite you.

Also, I really would like to understand why the love affair with the UN?

[Ken Burch]

42. It wouldn't harm anything to let the old folks come back

They'll just live out their last years and then quietly die.

For the others, the offer would be compensation WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT and apologies. From what I've read about how ordinary Palestinians see the Ror issue, even an admission that wrong was done to them in driving them out would do a lot to extinguish the anger. It's never a bad thing to admit that harm was done.

The way to end the conflict is to heal as many of the wounds and acknowledge as many of the wrongs done and suffered, on both sides, as possible.

It can't be ended by just saying "this is the offer...suck it up and take what you've got coming".

Israel's existence never required those 850,000 people to be driven from their homes. They could have been allowed back(under the UN deal of 1948, they were supposed to be, that was always part of it)and Israel would have been just fine...would have lost nothing.

Obviously, most Palestinians accept that full physical RoR won't happen...but what's so terrible about offering a humane compromise? It's not as though it's unacceptable to have ANY of them come back...even the 90 year-olds.

[aranthus]

43. Israel has let people come back, but admitting wrongdoing isn't going to happen.

Will the Palestinians admit that they were wrong to start the the war that made them refugees? I don't think so. But that proposition is much closer to the truth than that which underlies the claim for RoR. You are asking that the Israelis admit to a wrong that they did not commit. They won't do that. The Israelis won't apologize for fighting the war that the Arabs started.

"Israel's existence never required those 850,000 people to be driven from their homes." Most were not "driven from their homes." Wars cause refugees, and this war was no exception. If the Arabs want to blame someone for that, they should blame themselves. By the way, most of those 850,000 weren't in Israel as suggested by the Partition Resolution. They were in the proposed Arab state. The one the Arabs through away in their attempt to destroy the Jewish state. They don't get to unwind history. Also, there is no "UN deal of 1948," there is UNGAR 194, which passed so that the Arabs wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of the war that they started, and also so that they could have a weapon to use aganst Israel. And really, what is this love affair with the UN?

I don't have a problem with allowing the old to return as a humanitarian gesture. But the demand for RoR is the ideological and intellectual flip side of the rejection of the Jewish state's legitimacy. There is no way that Israel could, should, or would agree to it.

[azurnoir]

16. well one of our Israeli posters has said that Israel is building desalination plants

and will no longer need the West Banks water see problem solved

[kayecy]

17. Self-deleted...........

[teddy51]

2. I hope this comes to pass, and that Hamas will stand down as well.

[aranthus]

4. If this comes to pass what reason would Hamas have to stand down? n/t

[teddy51]

5. I can't give you a reason why they will, but I can give a number of reasons why

they should.

[Ken Burch]

9. The best thing of all would be for Hamas and Likud-Beitenyu

to disband and go into permanent exile together...in Antarctica, perhaps.

[teddy51]

15. Agreed!

[Dick Dastardly]

18. I certainly do not support Likud but your constant attempts to

equivocate Likud and Hamas as being the same is BS. Its a transparent attempt to by extension make Israels actions the same as Hamas

Hamas is an armed murderous terrorist group, Likud is an unarmed right wing political party in a democracy.
Hamas engages in rockets, mortars, suicide bombers and many other types of terror attacks on civillians. Likud does not launch terror attacks nor does it use the IDF to do such things
Hamas operates independently in areas (like militarily)that are functions of a legiimate government and will operate outside a democratic framework whenever it feels the need to do so. Hamas derives its power by its armed military. Likud derives its power by democratic means and operates solely within the democratic framework.


Likud may be right wing assholes but unlike Hamas they accept operating within a democratic framework and they are not an armed murderous terror group like Hamas.

[Ken Burch]

19. Likud is the lineal descendant of the Irgun(the terrorist wing of the Revisionist movement)

The actions of the Irgun included the bombing of the King David Hotel(a completely unprovoked, unjustified and terrorist act that killed innocent Jewish and Arab civilians along with the British authorities the Irgun thought they had a right to kill).

It also staged the Deir Yassin attack at the end of the 1948 war...an unnecessary attack on a largely civilian city that kept King Abdullah of Jordan from recognizing Israel(he would have if the attack hadn't occurred)and helped cause the Palestinian exodus. It is entirely possible that, had Deir Yassin not occurred, Israel COULD have had peace with the Arabs decades ago. Recognition from Jordan at that time(which Deir Yassin made impossible)also made it impossible for those countries to recognize Israel's legitimacy. Thus, what Begin did at Camp David made a mockery of the obligation his party had to take responsibility for helping keep the war going when it might have stopped in the late 1940's-

It's a major axiom of Revisionist(Likudnik) ideology that everything ANY other country and any other person in the world does or says about or towards Israel that is even mildly critical of its actions is based solely on murderous hatred of Jews...that, essentially, ALL of the gentiles on the entire planet are obsessed with creating a Judenrein world. Peace with the Arabs at the birth of the state would have destroyed that narrative, and would probably have guaranteed that there never would have been a right-wing government in Israel at all, since the election of people like Begin, Shamir, Sharon and Netanyahu could only occur if the Israeli public were persuaded that the rest of the world was made up of billions of Hitlers and near-Hitlers.

And the same group, the Irgun, staged an armed uprising against the elected democratic Israeli government led by David Ben-Gurion , seeking to replace it with what could only have been a fascist dictatorship(again, a totally unjustified action).

The Likud has terrorist roots...the only differences between it and Hamas are a few decades of political institutionalization. And with its merger with the bigoted, expulsionist, anti-democratic Beitenyu party, Likud has made itself even less democratically legitimate. Democratic parties do not merge with parties driven by bigotry.

There's no reason for you to argue that Likud is in any way morally superior to Hamas. Both are parties, at heart, of murderous outlaws. If you care about Israel, you have an obligation to do all that you can to make sure Likud doesn't stay in power...because it is against peace and it always will be.

Israel, and Israelis are better than Likud. They can only be made to vote for parties like that through the manipulation of fear and the creation of perpetual crisis. Those two objectives have been at the root of Likudnik(and before it Herut and earlier parties formed by Begin)actions since the start. Likud is the TRUE enemy of Israel. It does far more damage to that country than Hamas ever could.

[shira]

21. Why stop there? Why not argue Likud/Irgun is no better than the Nazi party?

Likud is nowhere near as bad as Hamas. Are you kidding me?

1. Hamas deliberately victimizes women, gays, christians, and children. You're basically silent about this.

2. They abuse the entire population using them as human shields. To wit, I'm not sure you've ever acknowledged this, much less condemned it.

3. They are very clear in their incitement towards genocide of the Jewish people. This is a subject you won't even touch.

There's no doubt you hate Likud, but that hate is blinding you to what Hamas is all about. It's as if you're using Likud in order not to have to deal with condemning Hamas. And let's face it, this isn't about Likud. Like Mr. Dastardly wrote, you're using Likud to bash Israel. Your bashing of Israel was no less condemnatory when Kadima was in power, or Labor/Meretz before them. To you, Israel has been "just as bad" as Hamas for the past 12-13 years, no matter who has been in power.

You're just here to demonize Israel by attempting to equate them to Hamas. And here's how you do it: You minimize Hamas' actions while exaggerating Israel's. You won't touch #1-3 above WRT Hamas, but you'll pretend that what Israel does is just as bad as the 3 things listed above. You'll ignore facts when it suits you. I brought up Israel's record WRT civilians during combat and you don't even acknowledge that. So yeah, when you ignore what Hamas does and exaggerate Israel's actions, of course they're just as bad as each other.

This isn't about Likud. It's about your hatred of Israel. And when it comes to Hamas, you're silent. The best you can do is say you don't agree with them. That's it.

Let's face it, you're just as bad as Hamas and can therefore claim no moral superiority over them.

[Ken Burch]

22. I would never compare Likud to the Nazis. You know that.

I'm opposed to Hamas. I don't have to scream that to prove it.

To put condemning Hamas above everything else is to give up on peace...it's to root for war. It's to be in favor of making things worse, because Bibi wants to be able to say "even the left-wing(fill in the blanks)agree with me that Hamas is the issue...so everybody has to back everything I want without question".

I have condemned Hamas. It's just that Hamas doesn't care what anybody like me has to say.

And I don't demonize Israel. None of the parties and policies I have criticized were ever necessary for Israel's security or survival. They were just things some people had been conned into supporting. The iron fist was never the ONLY way.

[shira]

23. What are you opposed to if you cannot even acknowledge what Hamas does? n/t

[Ken Burch]

24. What difference does it make whether I go through it point by point or not?

Hamas doesn't care about me. You make it sound like they'd stop if only I said "don't do this, this and this". The truth is, they have never cared about public opinion and never will(just as Stalin and the other Soviet despots were never moved in any way by international criticism of any of their acts).

I'm opposed to everything Hamas does, other than the provision of social services. I always was and you always knew I was. Saying "I oppose Hamas" always meant that. It's childish that you keep insisting on making people say things the way you want them said. It's undignified and there's no way it could actually help Israel.

[shira]

36. Hamas sees people like yourself as supporters...

They see you and your colleagues bashing Israel (like they do) and rarely, if ever, see you challenging them.

Your silence = tacit support for all they do WRT Israel. After all, you're part of that non-violent resistance vs. Israel. I'm sure they appreciate it.

That's not to say you support Hamas, but there's no question they see it that way. Especially bozos from the Free Gaza Movement, PSC, BDS, etc. You're really no different in their eyes.

Imagine all their support turning on them. From the NGO's to the media, the Left, Right, UN, etc. They wouldn't do a lot of what they do w/o all the "support".

[Ken Burch]

39. You actually think Hamas cares about what I think. That's sad, really.

They don't know that I exist, and wouldn't care about my existence if they did.

Not only do II NOT have to shriek attacks on them from the highest mountain 24/7 just to prove I don't back Hamas, they wouldn't care if I did(other than to suggest that I should possibly be hospitalized for frostbite, hypothermia and a possible psychiatric breakdown).

Why do you assume I have such massive powers?

Hamas is going to do what it's going to do, no matter WHAT the world says about them...they're a bunch of psychos and public opinion means nothing to them. If they cared about public opinion OR public relatins, they'd have made some effort, at some point, to give themselves a positive image in the world. They'd have made a clear distinction between Israel and "the Jews". Yet they've never done anything of the kind.

The fact remains, this conflict isn't about Hamas. If it were, there would have been no conflict BEFORE Hamas emerged on the scene. And Hamas likely wouldn't have gained the support it did gain if it weren't for the previous Israeli government/military/security apparatus fixation with doing something the Israelis had no right ever to do...to try and choose the leadership for their opponents. It never, ever works for any country to try to do that. Why would the Israeli government possibly have thought it would work for them?

Hamas, horrible as it is, is simply a product OF the conflict. Denunciations of them from international types wouldn't ever have prevented their rise.

You always have to deal with the the leadership the other side chooses for itself...it you try to replace that leadership with one of YOUR choosing, you end up creating a leadership that, in fact, leads nothing and has no power to do anything. If Israel were to make a peace deal with a leadership on the Palestinian side that it had somehow imposed on that side, that deal couldn't hold...because there's no way the Palestinian people would ever trust or respect such a leadership.

[shira]

44. They care about their support system. You're part of that....

...along with segments of the Left from the BDS movement, PSC, ISM, FreeGaza, Media, and HR organizations. You don't have any problem with those supporters of Hamas. It appears to me you support all of them.

If those organizations were to loudly come out against "resistance" (terror), not allow Hamas to victimize Gazans used as shields, condemn rocket attacks loudly each time, criticize Hamas using children as militants, & condemn Hamas for using millions of dollars on weapons rather than infrastructure, Hamas would not be able to rely on the tacit support of their western fans any longer. They would no longer be able to get away with doing things harmful to all people involved.

As they see it, they have carte blanche to continue. They have the support of their friends who are as loathesome as they are, so why not continue? They're covered no matter what they try.

We'd be closer to peace w/o all that support of Hamas.

It's shameful there is that much support of Hamas from the West, don't you agree?

[Ken Burch]

47. You know perfectly well that none of those groups support Hamas.

Last edited Wed Nov 28, 2012, 11:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Hamas doesn't CARE what the world thinks of its tactics and it never will.

I hate that organization and so does everybody here. It's just that some of us don't think it's the main issue.

Don't ever call me a Hamas supporter again. It was a lie the first time you said it.

It will be a lie the five hundredth time you say it.

[shira]

48. Then why do they do Hamas' hasbara? Why do they ignore/deny, explain away....

...and deflect from Hamas' actions? You can't even acknowledge what Hamas does & neither do they (their atrocious genocidal Jew hatred, child militants/shields, treatment of christians, gays, women). Why do they portray Hamas as victims who have every right to terrorize Israelis? Why describe the rockets as desperate cries for help or harmless firecrackers? Why don't they seem to care about Israeli human rights? Why do they pretend Hamas is reasonable and will live at peace alongside Israel if only Israel offers a fair deal? Why is there so much anti-Jew hatred within the ranks of FreeGaza, the ISM, PSC, etc.? Why do they portray all Israel's Jew-hating enemies as more moderate than they really are (the IHH, MB, Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO, PFLP, etc.)?

And of course Hamas cares if all their fans (who have their backs) suddenly turn on them and start condemning them at least as much as they condemn Israel. They know they can get away with anything with all the Western fan support they have now. That's one of the main reasons they keep doing what they're doing. IOW, they can't keep being Hamas w/o all the support.

[aranthus]

32. Yes, but think like Hamas for a minute. Why stand down?

If they drop their principle goal--the destruction of Israel--and their primary strategy--killing Jews--then they won't be Hamas anymore. It's like expecting the Communist Party to suddenly admit that Capitalism is not a bad thing. They should, but they never will. They wouldn't be Communists if they did.

[Ken Burch]

35. Well, actually, in China the Communists DID say that Capitalism is not a bad thing.

And in Northern Ireland, the Loyalists and the Republicans BOTH gave up what you would describe as "their primary strategy&quot killing people of the opposite community...identified nominally as the opposite form of Christianity, but in fact most of them hadn't attended either Mass or a revival meeting for years).

Are you going to argue that Arabs are somehow constitutionally incapable of making such changes, when other people all over the world make them?

And it wouldn't be a matter of actually asking Hamas to formally stand down. The idea would be that events would make them irrelevant. If a real, vibrant, viable Palestinian state were being created, the hopelessness people in Gaza feel(since they'd be included in such a state and would reap the rewards of it)would ebb away...and it was that hopelessness that gave Hamas its base of support.

Given that there's no chance of anything getting better by Israel just sitting and waiting...given that the status quo is an unsustainable dead loss...why NOT try something else? Why should Netanyahu and his party of death continue to be able to do nothing but say "no" and order more settlement expansion in the West Bank AND more repression and killing in the West Bank AND Gaza? Playing for time no longer produces gains.

[shira]

38. Ken, you're the one arguing Arabs are constitutionally incapable of making changes...

After all, you're the one saying that criticism of Hamas wouldn't result in anything substantial. They'd just continue.

I'm also wondering whether you've ever called Hamas or the PLO a "party of death" like you do Likud...

[Ken Burch]

40. I said, Hamas, not "Arabs".

I hadn't called Hamas that, but fine, they are. Fatah, not quite so much(and there was never an alternative to dealing with the PLO...refusing to deal with them for decades never produced a BETTER Palestinian leadership, and it's not as though the place would be run by saints now if only Arafat had been barred from ever returning).

What I have said is that the stronger power in a dispute such as this doesn't have the right to make arrogant moral demands of the weaker, more oppressed group, especially if the stronger group is going to pretend that IT is the real victim and that the oppressed side should have to prove itself morally to its oppressor before any of the oppression is lifted...You can't demand, in ANY situation, that the oppressed to be purer than their oppressors, especially as the oppression continues. A lot of times, the oppressed have been have been(blacks in the Civil Rights movement in their choice of nonviolence as a tactic, the Indian independence movement under Gandhi, the anti-austerity movement that has been overwhelmingly nonviolent in the face of brutally violent responses even from supposedly "liberal" authorities)but no one ever had the right to demand those choices from them, to act as if they should be expected. It didn't discredit the South African anti-apartheid movement, nor did it validate the preservation of the apartheid system that, in desperation and with no other workable options, they chose the path of armed struggle.

And saying that doesn't mean I'm pro-violence...it means I'm anti-hypocrisy.

[shira]

45. Israel has every right to make moral demands of Hamas and Fatah....

Of course you probably disagree if you believe THOSE groups are oppressed.

Do you?

I find it hard to acknowledge that groups dedicated to another genocide of Jews (twice in 70 years) are victims of anything. Or that those they intend to slaughter are their oppressors. How does that work?

[Purveyor]

12. "If Mahmoud Abbas pledges not to pursue Israel for war crimes..." Interesting that, indeed. eom

[Ken Burch]

20. There would need to be compensation and an admission that wrongs were done

in exchange for that.

And, at the least, a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission where people from BOTH sides could get acknowledgment of their sufferings.

[azurnoir]

25. why with friends like the UK what more can the Palestinians ask? n/t

[bemildred]

26. LOL.

Such a generous offer it is.

[oberliner]

27. Friends?

Iran has certainly been more steadfast in their support for the cause than the UK.

Not even close.

[azurnoir]

28. Iran has backed the PA/PLO do tell

or are you 'accidentally' conflating Hamas with the other 2

[shira]

46. A NATION CHALLENGED: TERRORISM; A Secret Iran-Arafat Connection Is Seen Fueling the Mideast Fire

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/world/nation-challenged-terrorism-secret-iran-arafat-connection-seen-fueling-mideast.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

At the time, there was no Hamas in charge of anything. Iran probably liked that Arafat and his PLO started Intifada 2. Now, Abbas is too Zionist for them so they back Hamas instead.