The big news in the U.S.-guided Israel/Palestine talks is that a renewal of a so-called “settlement freeze” in the West Bank is basically dead. Ethan Bronner has a post-mortem of sorts in the New York Times (12/9/10), where he describes the backdrop for the previous round of negotiations:
The Israelis had insisted that the only way forward was through direct talks. Yet when those talks began in September, the Israelis engaged in little substance. The Palestinians had insisted that there could be no direct talks without a settlement freeze, yet they waited nine months into the last such freeze before agreeing to negotiate.
Bronner added that a “second settlement freeze was viewed as unnecessary and politically painful to achieve.”
But the first “freeze” wasn’t a freeze at all–though it was often portrayed that way. I have an articlein the new issue of Extra! that lays out the case. (Subscribe today and you canread the piece.)
What’s especially interestingis the fact thatBronner once wrote one of the few pieces explaining that the freeze was mostly fiction. As he explained back in July:
an examination of the freeze after more than seven months suggests that it amounts to something less significant, at least on the ground. In many West Bank settlements, building is proceeding apace. Dozens of construction sites with scores of Palestinian workers are active.
To be able to write these facts once, and then somehow forget them, takes a special kind of talent.
“To be able to write these facts once, and then somehow forget them, takes a special kind of talent.”
Peter, you might add, one highly prized by the corpress.
Of course, the capacity not to recall them in the first place is even more highly sought, isn’t it?
To continue to spin a fiction one must do it all of the time with extraordinary attention to the faux details. Rather like writing fiction patterned after a hoax. For the Reich wing they must continue it all the time and publish it all of the time. To falter means that the whole truth might get out and someone somewhere will see it an remember it. Fortunately for them most people either don’t care or watch TV or read their publications.
I get this sad feeling that the Israelis have excepted the fact that they are hated- and that negotiations will never be done in good faith with a group that simply wants their destruction.Think if you were trying to negotiate with someone who is at the same time planning your demise.And so i know longer trust the israelis to parlay in good faith.
Bronner’s post mortem failed to explain why the Clinton/Bibi agreement died. The US refused to put into writing as Bibi demnanded all the conditions Clinton offered–especially the acceptance of the illegal annexation of East Jerusulem. Here’s hw Bronner desrobed the deal at the time:
Under the proposed freeze, negotiated by Mr. Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during nearly eight hours of talks in New York last Thursday, the Israelis would stop most construction on settlements in the West Bank for 90 days to break an impasse in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
In return, the Israelis would receive 20 advanced American fighter jets and other unspecified military aid, as well as American promises to oppose any Palestinian attempt to obtain international recognition of statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza without Israeli agreement.
The United States would veto a United Nations Security Council resolution along those lines and actively work against similar resolutions in forums where it does not have a veto.’
michael e gets it exactly backwards, as if the Palestinians have the power to do what Israel has been doing to them for the past 62 years i.e. ethnically cleansing them from their land. Indeed, the Palestinians have tried negotiating with those that were at the same time planning and actively implementing their destruction.
Well Joe ethnically cleansing would in effect mean “Removing them”as a first step in the process.Look at the sensus of how many Palestinians lived in greater Israel before Israels dedication….. and after.The numbers are upside down.Once no more then tens of thousands now millions(REmember most Palestinian land was on Arab lands.Arab lands that have not a thought of giving any back).I tell you if the rolls were reversed you would see what ethnic cleansing really is.Something many Arab nations helped the nazis with in WW2.THE divergence of method could not be more stark.
You certainly know how to pack a lot of long ago debunked hasbara into a small space there michael e. You might want to look a little further than Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial for your source of “historical” information.
Pieces from the likes of Bronner only serve to encourage vicious lying racists lie michael, who apologise and smear for the racist apartheid state Israel, who have been ethnically cleansing, stealing, murdering and bullying Palestinians and theirs lands for decades.
So Joe says I read too much John Peters(I will Google him as I have no idea who he is).And R bobert says Im a racist because i believe these blogs are very one sided in their attacks on Israel?Well better than last when I was called both a zionist, AND an anti semite!
Has the Palestinian charter been changed yet to remove the phrase “destruction of Israel yet?NO….so what is it we are talking about exactly?
The Palestinian National Charter never included the phrase “destruction of Israel.” It used to refer to Israel as “entirely illegal,” but such phrases were removed by amendment on April 24, 1996. The Israeli government acknowledged the amendment on February 1, 1999.
Jim
Read “palestinian national covenant”The charter was never actually changed.As usual the wording in the 99 agreement was ambiguous and as of now it is” slated” for change yet not implemented.Israel swings between saying that she has no partner- and more pragmatic hopeful statements. Palestinian leaders continue to demand land returned from Israel(yet strangely no such demands are given to arab neighbors who own the great majority of ancient palestinian lands) with little concrete promises toward Israel security concerns.The dance goes on
“michael e gets it exactly backwards” should be the FAIR blog’s new motto.
So Israel is the bad guy who deserves what she gets, and the saintly Palestinian leadership is right side up on this issue and beyond reproach?Probably lots feel that way.And felt that way.Way back in 1939 in another time and another place.If I be wrong than- wrong I shall happily be on this issue.I have seen the results of being “right”.
Good guys/bad guys is of course an inaccurate and simplistic (not to mention childish) way of looking at any conflict. What generally most illuminating is to look at who has power and in this conflict Israel has all the power – they are the (illegal) occupier of a people and a land. They use this power to continually steal land and water and to humiliate, imprison and murder.
“So Israel is the bad guy who deserves what she gets, and the saintly Palestinian leadership is right side up on this issue and beyond reproach?”
Only a true conservative sees things in black and white terms and then projects that thinking onto those who don’t.
And only a Liberal sees everything as ” shades of grays” ….lost in smoke and mirrors. Unable to project any confidence because in the end they themselves feel none.Many i do not feel…”feel” good about this country.We hope soon to “project” a robust message that will launch this country forward, and throw off the chains of the Obama years. Positivity and rugged individual exceptionalism will be the TNT that will ignite us once again.Debby downers can go back to their basement blogging.
Uh, “shades of gray” is the only way to view the mideast conflict. Nobody comes off looking perfect.