It sure beats those flotilla and flytilla bigots we've been seeing and hearing too much of lately!
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
"Out Of Tune And Out Of Time": The Quartet, Negotiations, and the Palestinian Authority
Writes David Singer:
'The utter futility inherent in pursuing the two-state solution – the creation of a 22nd Arab State between Israel and Jordan – was brought home this week when the most powerful negotiating team ever assembled in history – the Quartet – was unable to come up with a jointly acceptable statement to persuade Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resume direct negotiations.
The Quartet comprises America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
The two day meeting of the Quartet in Washington was attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and Quartet special envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair.
The player out of tune was apparently Sergey Lavrov.
He reportedly prevented the Quartet from issuing a demand that the PA acknowledge Israel as the Jewish State as the basis for negotiations in exchange for Israel’s acceptance of the 1949 Armistice lines.
He also reportedly refused to refrain from raising the proposed PA statehood bid at the UN in September.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/145633
It is this kind of pussyfooting around that encourages the PA to maintain its rejectionist stance.
Israel is the Jewish State referred to in the United Nations1947 Partition Plan which provided:
“Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in Parts II and III below.”The Soviet Union voted in favor of this resolution. Russia has already seen more than one million Russian Jews or of Jewish origin emigrate from Russia to Israel in the 1980s and 1990s.
Why Mr Lavrov should be reluctant to acknowledge Israel as the Jewish State in these circumstances seems very curious indeed.
Certainly the PA has railed against making any such concession. This has been one of the major stumbling blocks to resolving the conflict that firstly the Oslo Accords and then the Quartet-sponsored Reagan Roadmap were designed to end.
PA resistance to acknowledge the existence of a Jewish State is writ large in the Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization which contains the following racist and Jew-hating provisions:
“Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong. “ (Article 20)
“Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-à-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.” (Article 22)It really is time the Quartet took a stance and told the unelected and unconstitutional PA President – Mahmoud Abbas – who also is Chairman of the PLO and head of its largest faction – Fatah – that maintaining these provisions in the PLO Charter pose insurmountable obstacles to peace.
The Quartet had the opportunity to do this in Washington this week and was simply not up to the task.
Tony Blair had explained what the Quartet hoped to achieve when he stated on 26 June:
“I actually think this is a moment where we need to be quite bold, take the initiative and try and set out a framework for revitalising the negotiation. And if you did that and it succeeded, by the way, you completely transform the situation.”He continued:
“What we’re working is to see whether it’s possible to get a framework of principles that could guide a negotiation. Because the problem at the moment is that the Palestinians particularly don’t want to go back into a negotiation with an Israeli government they frankly don’t really trust, unless they are assured that the negotiation is going to be steered in a way that produces something. So, the question is, and this is the relevance of President’s Obama’s speech and the various Quartet statements, the question is can we, as a – as a quartet, as an international community get an agreed situation as to – as to what’s the framework within which you then have a negotiation.”Any such boldness and initiative disappeared down the drain this week.
Israel has already made it perfectly clear it was ready to sit down and negotiate with the PA without preconditions. The PA refuses to do so. That is its perfect right – but it must be made aware there is a price to pay.
The quickest way to get both parties to negotiate is to let the PA know in no uncertain terms that the failure to negotiate unconditionally and immediately will result in the Quartet walking away and leaving the parties to their own devices.
Seven years of failed diplomacy by the Quartet has to come to an end at some time.
The Roadmap is negotiations-based. By failing to get Israel and the PA to resume those negotiations – the two-state solution, Oslo, the Roadmap and the Quartet will continue to founder to their inevitable denouement and irrelevance should the PA unilaterally approach the UN in September.
Only firm and decisive action by the Quartet can have any chance of stopping this happening.
Given its poor performance this week the Quartet has not done its prestige or influence any good. It has only confirmed itself as being out of tune and out of time.'
Essential Viewing About The History Of The Israel-Arab Conflict (video)
Danny Ayalon, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, with a history lesson much needed that should be heeded:
So Is Israel's New Anti-Boycott Law Undemocratic?
"While we are totally opposed to any boycotts or sanctions we are gravely concerned when the Government of Israel makes non-violent protest a criminal act. Israel is the bastion of democracy in the Middle East but such legislation undermines this position and only serves those who seek to deny Israel’s democratic basis. The passage of the anti-boycott legislation, and other recent decisions by the Knesset, tarnishes the open, inclusive, democratic Israel for which we all work each day.
Rather than having to speak out against this legislation we would prefer to be working with Israel to combat the odious efforts to delegitimize her and to encourage our communities to provide moral and financial support."Politically leftist elements are shriller and less temperate in their denunciations; I shall not raise my blood pressure by quoting them here.
But there is an alternative argument, one that hasn't received as much attention as it undoubtedly ought, and which has been well-articulated in the Jerusalem Post by Eugene Kontorovich, who teaches constitutional law at Northwestern University in the United States.
Here's part of what he writes:
'These criticisms are wrong as a matter of principle. More insidiously, they hold Israel to a standard never applied to other nations, and criticizes it for passing laws that are well within the western democratic mainstream. Moreover, the outrage over the anti-boycott law carries a dose of hypocrisy, as it ignores numerous other laws in Israel that are used to restrict political speech generally associated with the right wing.
There is no universal code of free speech. Determining what gets protection involves trade-offs between the very real harm that speech can cause and the benefit of free expression....
The United States has far more robust constitutional speech protections than almost any Western country....
But even the US has a law against boycotting Israel. It has been on the books for decades, and has been regularly enforced, but no one has suggested it is unconstitutional – and that is for a law protecting another country’s economy. Moreover, Israel’s law, unlike the American one, applies only to organizing boycotts, not to actually adhering to one....
Every nation has laws against conspiracies to cause economic harm: antitrust laws prohibit speech when its purpose is to unfairly cause economic harm. And the common law makes it a tort to “interfere with prospective business advantage,” i.e. scaring off someone’s customers.
The anti-boycott law prohibits speech intended to cause economic harm to businesses solely because of their national identity. Nondiscrimination laws commonly ban plans to deny business to specified groups of certain national or ethnic origins.
Israel’s new law bans discrimination against businesses because they are Israeli.
Most European states – and Israel – have laws prohibiting speech that is perceived as “hateful” or which simply offends the feelings of particular groups. Often such speech expresses important viewpoints.
A boycott of Israel promotes hatred of Israel, and certainly offends the vast majority of Israelis. To be sure, boycott supporters argue that at least when it comes to settlers, such hatred is deserved, but that is always the opinion of those whose speech is blocked by such laws.
The boycott movement is designed to imperil the State of Israel, and can actually do so. This danger outweighs the benefits of allowing such speech, especially since the law does not in any way limit advocating policies or viewpoints that such boycotts are supposed to promote. Indeed, the law has a characteristic crucial for free-speech scrutiny – it is “viewpoint neutral.”
That is, it applies to boycotts of Israel whether organized by the left wing or the right wing.
Like most European democracies, Israel’s constitutional protection of speech has long been narrower than America’s....
Israel’s current practice is clearly well within the limits of an open democracy. Singling out Israel for laws that are identical to, or just as restrictive as, laws on the books in America and Europe manifests the very problem that exists with the boycotts themselves – the application of an entirely different set of standards to Israel than to the rest of the free world.'The entire article can be read here: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=229780
Monday, 18 July 2011
Putting Some Grit Into Pro-Israel Advocacy In Britain: The British Israel Coalition
He is the convenor of a new group, the British Israel Coalition, which, in his words,
Having thus set the scene, he continues:
"is an umbrella organization for groups and individuals who want to proactively and unashamedly advocate for Israel, for those who wish to part ways with the hesitancy and placation of the status quo, who condemn bigotry in all forms and who support Israel as the only free and democratic state in the Middle East.
The context in which this organisation was formed, the lamentable developments within Britain (including sections of Anglo-Jewry), that demonstrated the need for setting up the organisation, are described by Sam Westrop in a blog in the Jerusalem Post.The British Israel Coalition is a new umbrella group for all advocates for Israel. Unlike traditional pro-Israel groups in the UK, we ensure that we do not restrict ourselves to a particular segment of the Jewish community, but welcome Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Left-wingers, Right wingers, atheists, the religious – all supporters of Israel fight for Israel under our umbrella." [My emphasis]
Having thus set the scene, he continues:
"There are many good and excellent people within the leadership organizations, who are well intentioned and keen to do their part. And yet the same individuals appear trapped within a stagnant framework that does far more harm than good. This ludicrous and naïve mindset posits that we can fight our corner solely by being. Obviously, this only works while we are around.
Read the entire piece here: http://blogs.jpost.com/content/let’s-make-it-workIf there is injustice and great wrong, and of this there is certainly no shortage, then such turpitudes can only be stopped if they are fought against with courage, creativity and moral clarity. With your support, let’s make it work, so things can get better."
Hey, Al Beeb, It's Your Coverage Of Sderot He Must Be Talking About!
Remember the findings of the Natal report which reveals very high levels of post-traumatic stress in the population of Sderot, especially among children, as the result of relentless Qassam attacks from Gaza such as this one? http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/07/blighted-lives-of-sderot.html:
In the wake of Natal's findings, Noam Bedein, Director of the Sderot Media Centre, has issued an open letter urging the mainstream media to alter the way it reports attacks like the one in the video:
In the wake of Natal's findings, Noam Bedein, Director of the Sderot Media Centre, has issued an open letter urging the mainstream media to alter the way it reports attacks like the one in the video:
"The disproportional coverage of these rocket launchings and explosions is found in a dry, terse report on mainstream media that takes a few seconds of news time. The issue is barely mentioned by the MSM [mainstream media], who state (luckily so far) only that there were no injuries and no damage to property. That is not really the case, as anyone who lives in constant dread of the next missile knows well.
Sderot Media Center urge you to emphasize these strikes more emphatically, to describe them as illegitimate and criminal examples of warfare against innocent civilians. Otherwise, what the media are aiding unintentionally is tacit acceptance of Islamic extremist terror against innocent civilians.
We ask that you change your reports to the following:
1.If there are no injuries, it is important to stress that there were no physical iinjuries reported.There surely are mental injuries, even though we will not let the terrorists change our lives.
2. It is crucial to mention each time how many rockets have been launched against Israel since the last ceasefire of January 18, 2009.
As of today, July 15, 2011, there have been 788 rocket launchings from Gaza aimed at the southern residents of Israel. This has to be brought home again and again so the world will know.
We have decided to write this open letter to all the mainstream media and ask for a change in awareness of the significance and after-effects of this constant bombardment of people trying to live normal lives in an area that has never been disputed even by the UN, that is, unless the very existence of the State of Israel is in dispute." http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/145768
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Reading Between The Lines Of The Prince 's Blank Page
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales delivered a very able and characteristically droll speech to the Board of Deputies of British Jews at the Guildhall in the City of London last week.
The speech was a quarter of an hour's romp through modern Anglo-Jewish history, beginning with the observation that Roderigo Lopes, Elizabeth Tudor's Jewish physician, who was done to death on a trumped up charge of espionage, had been tried and convicted in that very location.
Tribute was paid to such luminaries as Sir Moses Monterfiore, the great, very long-lived (1784-1885) Sephardi grandee and philanthropist who was the Board's president for a total of 39 years during that era – ended as late as 1940 when Zionist activist Professor Selig Brodetsky, an East End boy born in the Ukraine, grasped the Board's helm – when an elite of mainly interrelated patrician families dominated communal affairs and made representations to government sotto voce as befitted "gentlemen of the Mosaic persuasion".
Also mentioned very favourably was the prime minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli, who as Prince Charles reminded his audience, had been baptised in childhood yet still regarded himself proudly as a Jew - the prince referred fondly to Dizzy's self-description as"the blank page between the Old and the New Testaments".
Prince Charles noted the trips overseas made by the extraordinary Sir Moses Monterfiore on behalf of oppressed Jewries, and that Sir Moses visited Jerusalem seven times:
That omission might be termed his "blank page". But does the page contain any lines to be read between?
It might reasonably be asked why he should have mentioned Israel, since the speech was a celebration of the Board's 250 years of existence.
Yet it might just as reasonably be observed that since the Board has to some extent concerned itself with matters affecting Zionism and Israel (it established a "Palestine Committee" in 1928, when even Board members steadfastly opposed to "political Zionism" could acquiesce in "philanthropic Zionism" under the British Mandate, a committee renamed the Eretz Israel Committee when the State of Irael was born), and since Anglo-Jewry has played a not insignificant part in the upbuilding of Israel (as explained, incidentally, in several articles in this recently-published reference book, pictured right) the prince should surely have said something.
The Balfour Declaration, it might be remarked, was conspicuous by its absence, and many people will recall that a few years ago a visit by Prince Charles to Israel seemed imminent, only to be stymied, it seemed, by the FCO Camels Corps. Had it taken place it would have been the first official visit to Israel by a member of the Royal Family since Israel's birth. http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/right-royal-wrong-british-foreign.html
Regarding the speech, I've yet to be convinced one way or the other.
But Zionist stalwart Jonathan Hoffman seems to have no doubt how the lines of the prince's blank page should be read:
The speech was a quarter of an hour's romp through modern Anglo-Jewish history, beginning with the observation that Roderigo Lopes, Elizabeth Tudor's Jewish physician, who was done to death on a trumped up charge of espionage, had been tried and convicted in that very location.
Also mentioned very favourably was the prime minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli, who as Prince Charles reminded his audience, had been baptised in childhood yet still regarded himself proudly as a Jew - the prince referred fondly to Dizzy's self-description as"the blank page between the Old and the New Testaments".
Prince Charles noted the trips overseas made by the extraordinary Sir Moses Monterfiore on behalf of oppressed Jewries, and that Sir Moses visited Jerusalem seven times:
"He so loved Jerusalem that he adopted it on his family crest and wrote it on all his belongings including his bed! He took a bit of Britain to Jerusalem – a Kentish windmill that still stands there, known as the Montefiore windmill – and a bit of Jerusalem to Britain: he is buried in Jerusalem soil, in Ramsgate, in an exact replica of Rachel’s Tomb not far from Jerusalem and Bethlehem."Nowhere in his speech did the prince mention the links between Anglo-Jewry and Israel.
That omission might be termed his "blank page". But does the page contain any lines to be read between?
It might reasonably be asked why he should have mentioned Israel, since the speech was a celebration of the Board's 250 years of existence.
The Balfour Declaration, it might be remarked, was conspicuous by its absence, and many people will recall that a few years ago a visit by Prince Charles to Israel seemed imminent, only to be stymied, it seemed, by the FCO Camels Corps. Had it taken place it would have been the first official visit to Israel by a member of the Royal Family since Israel's birth. http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/right-royal-wrong-british-foreign.html
Regarding the speech, I've yet to be convinced one way or the other.
But Zionist stalwart Jonathan Hoffman seems to have no doubt how the lines of the prince's blank page should be read:
'Over 2000 words about 250 years of history of British Jewry and he didn't mention the word Israel once!"
Moses Montefiore"; "Jerusalem"; "Holocaust victims"; "Kindertransport" ... but not one mention of Israel and what that represents for Jews in the diaspora and could have represented for those who died in the Holocaust. Not one mention of the key role that was played by British Jews and the British Government in the founding of the State of Israel, for example through the Balfour Declaration.
No mention of Chaim Weizmann [pictured left] who spent much of his life in the UK.
No mention that one of the Board's nine objectives is to "take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel's security, welfare, and standing"
Not a word
It's like Hamlet without the Prince ...
Or the Emperor Who Wore No Clothes ...
Did anyone who went to the Dinner actually notice?
Did Charles notice?' http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jonathan-hoffman/charles-speech-the-mystery-of-the-missing-i-word
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