The Olive Branch

So simple when one is willing to see things as they are.......tachless

Back at you Dave......... viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6205

This a long piece from Evelyn Gordon, written in January 2010 that could conceivably belong in the "How to avoid distasteful peacemaking" thread. Here is a brief excerpt, but I would highly recommend reading the whole piece http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-deadly-price...

Thought this might be appropriate here.......if not, mods please move to articles We Won't Let Terrorism Stop Us From Appeasing the Terrorists Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived in Washington D.C. over the bodies of four of his citizens and one unborn child, murdered by Islamic terrorists. The...

Look at it this way, 15 years AFTER Israel signed a supposed "peace treaty" with Jordan, the various Jordanian professional unions still blackball and threaten any Jordanian who does business or tries to have professional connections with any Israelis. Not to mention that it's still punis...

Dave (or Dan), what is your vision of a "link" between Yehuda and Shomron, and Gaza?
Overland raised bridge? Underground tunnel? A land corridor splitting Israel in two?

.......However I believe we have no choice but to take another gamble, try it all once again. What I would add however, is that this time we should make no mistake, build no additional housing, give them what they want during the negotiation and do everything possible to reach an agreement..... Dav...

It all sounds like a pretty moot point anyway..... Abbas stressed that he would not make any concessions to Israel. “If they demand concessions on the rights of the refugees or the 1967 borders, I will quit. I can’t allow myself to make even one concession,” he said. http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/...

Let us pretend for a moment that the Palestinians will never pick up a weapon again, will they be allowed to call parts of East Jerusalem their capital? Yes, but I don't, and I hope our leaders don't, live in a pretend (dream) world. Let us pretend for a moment that the Palestinians will never pick...

[quote="DanChazan]
......It will also be a mistake to misinterpret their motives in a way which elliminates all road to peace.
[/QUOTE]

That's the crux of it Dan, one would have to be deaf and blind in order to misinterpret their motives, much as we would wish it to be different.

davebt wrote:Dan

I just want to say it is an absolute pleasure to read your posts.

Variety is the spice of life

It is important to understand the motives and the thinking if we wish to make a better world. Not our job. Our job is to survive, and not be worried, for the time being, about making a better world. the problem is that there is no road to peace. Any road to peace requires a long period of nation bu...

Dan, it strikes me that you are a good, and well intentioned person. I also believe that your naivete is a product to some degree of the Jewish concept of Tikun Olam. David Ben Gurion had hoped for the impossible......for Israel to be both a "Light Unto Nations", as well as "A Nation ...

That whereas the injustice of the "Naqba" was indeed horrible but after so many wars and and two failed Intifadahs it is time to start living. Just for my own edification Dan, on whose doorstep would you lay the "horrible injustice" of the naqba? Please don't answer by telling m...

Shana Tova to all here. May it be a healthy and safe New Year for you all, and may He bring peace to us, and to all עם ישראל

Dan, I have to take issue with your post and inherently (imo) dangerous naivete. Of course it's Islam. Islam is rife with vile anti-Semitic incitement. Perhaps to a small degree xenophobia played a part in the Mufti's actions, but they, along with his words, were deeply steeped in Jew-hatred. Muslim...

Another perceptive piece from Toameh...... Hypocrites in Washington: What Egypt's Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah Really Want by Khaled Abu Toameh September 3, 2010 at 5:00 am Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, who were invited to Washington attend the launching of direct negotiati...

peter wrote:Happy Birthday Iva...

We'll all meet in Tel Aviv one day....together.

Now that brings a smile to my face.

As for RoR, aside from the many aspects of this which make it a non-starter, no one yet has been able to satisfactorily explain to me how or why is it that, when thinking of building a State of ones' own, one would prefer some of the best and brightest of this new "Nation" to settle in ano...

It is a fact that Palestinias (all or most of them) view the killing of unarmed civilians as a proper tool of the weak to fight a "horribly unjust" Jewish state. Here is one of a number of areas that we differ Dan. Can you imagine that during WWII, with everything that was being perpetrat...

Happy belated birthday Iva! I hope you had a particularly great day......I also hope one day we'll meet

Much like the New York Times.... "The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could ...

Absolutely correct Peter. I won't however let Davebt's comments go without response by me, although I do appreciate Gerald's post. First of all dave, you know nothing about me or my almost 30 years of donning my country's uniform, and I'll not listen to your shallow moralizing regarding my behavior ...

Double post

There Will Be No Peace On Monday all the talk in the news was of an Israeli Rabbi who had called on G-d to strike down Abbas, the head of the terrorist Palestinian Authority, and the rest of his gang. On Tuesday, terrorists murdered a pregnant woman and three other people. The same media that dedic...

I have reserve duty in three weeks and it can't come soon enough, now if I can just control my rage. It also didn't take long to remind me why I don't like posting here. That's funny davebt, because it only took one glance back over at that other hangout of yours to remind me why I left it.... if I...

This is on Barak's (mostly) and on Bibi's head. We've taken down over 180 roadblocks in YESH, 20 in the Hevron area alone, to purportedly show the world how "humane" we are. Well, putting Israeli citizens in mortal danger in order to kiss the ass of an anti-Semitic US President is a perver...

Ouch!

I dunno JB, but my guess is that that view postulates the eventual end of the Hashemite rule in Jordan, with the result being what we already know to be true.......Jordan becomes the Palestinian State. Realistic? Who knows, but it works for me. Unfortunately as we also already know, even that wouldn...

What's this? A mainstream journalist actually listening to "settlers" In Defense of Settlers BY FRED BARNES August 27, 2010 When direct talks begin next week between Israelis and Palestinians, the fate of Jewish settlers in the West Bank – tens of thousands of them – will be a major issue ...

Yes, it does sound familiar. It reminds me a little of when Obama said that he wouldn't weigh in on the NYC mosque issue, because after all, it was an issue for New Yorkers. I remember thinking at the time......that bastard, he won't weigh in on a huge Muslim middle finger near Ground Zero, but he h...

Great news Lynn! Congratulations, and if you ever get out to Seattle (while I'm still here ) champagne's on me!
.....er, make that Dr. Lynn!

Thanks for that Margie. That's a major issue.....no matter what a "peace agreement" looks like, a large portion of Palestinians (including many of their "leaders") will never agree to the "end of conflict" portion. We're going to have to figure something else out, becau...

Yawn, You beat me to it Peter. Where's P.T. Barnum when you need him? A final peace agreement in a year? Uh huh, and to whomever buys that one, I've got a really swell suspension bridge in the Negev I'd like to sell them. No, really ......it's a bargain! On a more serious note, Abu Mazen will do wh...

I don't buy the underdog theory Lynn. There are real "underdogs" fighting for their lives throughout the world. How about Tibetans, Kurds, and Copts, to name only three out of dozens of examples, not to mention those "underdog" Palestinians with close to zero rights in other Arab...

A pretty decent analysis........ AUGUST 6, 2010 The Enemy of My Enemy Facing the threat of a nuclear Iran, the hostile Arab-Israeli relationship is giving way to a more complex picture By ELLIOTT ABRAMS http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ifestyle_5 Being an Arab leader has its rewards: the ...

Who'd athunk they were Mad Magazine fans in the Land of Cedars?

<insert gagging smiley here>

SOL STERN The Nakba Obsession The Palestinian national narrative is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations—the specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is “disaster”; but in its current, expan...

Let's be real, we don't know how the eventual solution will look, but one thing is certain.......there will never be a sovereign "Palestinian" state.
Because that is not their end goal, they will never agree to conditions that might allow that to happen.