Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dc_dux
Will and Host......Israel has demonstrated a commitment to peace for the last thirty years as long as it does not severey threaten its security, all the while facing terrorist attacks against civilians by Fatah, then Hamas along with Hezballah and its sponsorship by Syria and Iran.
In the 70s, the Likud govt of Begin negotiated a lasting peace with Egypt and in the 90s, the Labor govt of Rabin did the same with Jordan.
The leaders of both parties have been willing to negotiate with Palestinian authorities. Rabin negotiated the Oslo agreement that started the formal process of a two-state solution, including the return of the Gaza strip to Palestinian authority...asking two things in return ...a willingness to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and denouncing violence against civilians. THe world community, through the "Quartet" (UN, Russia, EU and US) has adopted the same principles....and that acknowledgement never comes from the Palestinian authorities.
Instead, the Palestinians, with the tacit support of Fatah, at the time, responded with the Intifada and the new Hamas govt continues to deny Israel's right to exist.
The Palestinian people want peace, the Israeli government and people want peace. The Palestinian leaders do not.
If you can demonstrate any willingness by the Palestinian Authority or political parties to seriously negotiate a two-state solution we can continue this discussion.
|
dc_dux, this is just one, small excerpt from my last post....one of many points that seems to directly contradict your argument:
Last week....from NPR:
Quote:
.........According to the government's own Sahsohn report, more than 100 new unauthorized outposts have been built in the West Bank <h3>since 1996.</h3> The report says most have basic infrastructure provided with direct help from the state.
The first Israeli settlements in the West Bank began cropping up in the fall of 1967 — just a few months after the Six Day war.
Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg said that back then, there were warnings at the highest levels within the government that settlements would be viewed by some as neo-Colonial occupation and could backfire. But parliamentary proponents of settlement consistently won out. The romanticized allure of settlement, Gorenberg says, was hard to stop. It was the way Jews in the late 19th century returned to their homeland before independence.
"It had this log cabin, frontier mystique — or the equivalent on Israeli terms — and people who settled the land were heroes," Gorenberg says. "But it was anachronistic. It was this out of date ideal that, when applied to the post-'67 reality, led Israel into a quagmire."
Today the Israeli government, on the one hand, concedes that Migron and the other outposts like it are illegal and contrary to established government policy. Yet, at the same time, the government has actively supported their development and, so far, has done little to remove them.....
|
....and I have never known you to respond as you have done on this thread. You answered my questions with a question...and you pass by my main concern...a theme in most of my posts related to the thread subject...that Israel and the US are separate entities with separate interests....but we witness the US constantly cedeing to Israel's interests and priorities, often at the expense of our own, and this cannot be a good thing for the US.
If I cannot persuade even you.....someone who I respect from past experience, as a reasonable voice here....to be counted on to examine and to respond reasonably to "fact rich" presentation of opinions, into an actual discussion, reading your last post helps me to question whether to continue to post on this forum. Your last post persuades me that you and I, on this issue, could not disagree more. Could we even agree that the US has not been an "honest broker" between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and that is a hugely aggravating factor in the current "result"?
You've helped me to see how "radical" my opinions about this are, and how unrealistic any hope is of untangling US relations from those of Israel and the malignant influences of AIPAC on US policy and on legislative agendas.
Are you even alarmed about AIPAC lobbying or about the influence of JINSA/Stephen and Shoshana Bryen on US politics and military policy, to name just two examples of my concerns, since you indicate no tendency to alter your "take" on Israel as a consistent practitioner of reasonable "peace seeking" statecraft?
Do you even regard my reaction to AIPAC and the Bryens as "useful" in the sense that it is possible.....and necessary...... to criticize Israel and it's motives just as one would criticize any other "special interest" lobbying our Congress....as one would criticize the agenda of say....the pharmaceutical lobby?