No negotiations because Palestinians shun practical solution, interim agreement

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3840241,00.html

The Palestinians do not wish to negotiate with Netanyahu because they perceive him as a practical politician seeking practical solutions; this is the kind of mess the current Palestinian leadership wishes to stay away from. It doesn’t even want to get close to it
....
“We won’t be signing yet another interim agreement with Israel,” a very senior Palestinian figure says in closed-door sessions. “Ever since the Camp David talks, no agreements have been signed with Israel, and the Abbas government will not breach the Palestinian consensus of refusal. We also don’t wish to get our ‘state in progress’ from Israel. We already have it. We got it on our own.”

“The current situation serves us well. Palestine is growing, the security situation is decent, Hamas is under siege in Gaza, and global public opinion endorses us and opposes the occupation. There is no rush for us. The demographic clock is ticking and the option of a bi-national state is being realized. We have no incentive for entering talks with an Israeli prime minister who wants to get down to business, that is, who wants to show results.”
...The Palestinians are willing to engage in vague negotiations with the Netanyahu government while knowing in advance that this will not lead to any results, but are unwilling to embark on practical talks as long as there is a chance that this will lead to results on the ground. They fear a situation whereby they will be asked to reject or accept a viable interim agreement, which includes the evacuation of some settlements and the transfer of more land to their control.

-- By Sever Plocker, Ynetnews.com.  1/27/10

Israel's position on the Hamas government

 

"The Israeli position is that the Hamas government in Gaza does not meet the conditions set forth by the international community and the Quartet. And as long as Hamas continues to attack Israel with missiles and other means, Israel will not open the border crossings. With this, Israel is doing everything possible to ensure that humanitarian aid enters Gaza in a controlled manner so that it is ensured that the population receives what it needs, including medical care in Israel. But Israel will not allow a neighbor that calls for its destruction to enjoy the benefits of an open border."

 

1/26/2010

 

 

Below is the text of the videotaped message from President Barack Obama for the ceremony commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The video of the President’s message will be posted on whitehouse.gov later today. Please share this message with anyone who might be interested.

 

 

 

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 27, 2010

 

 

Text of the videotaped message from President Barack Obama for the ceremony commemorating the

65^th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

 

Good morning.  And thank you to everyone who worked to bring us to this day, especially the International Auschwitz Council and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

 

To President Kacynski Prime Minister Tusk and to the people of Poland—thank you for preserving a place of such great pain for the Polish people, but a place of remembrance and learning for the world.

 

Although I can’t be with you in person, I’m proud that the United States is represented there today by a delegation of distinguished Americans, including Ambassador Feinstein; my wife Michelle’s chief of staff, Susan Sher; and my good friend, and the son of Holocaust survivors, Julius Genachowski.

 

And let me commend you for recognizing a woman who has devoted her life to preserving the lessons of the shoah for future generations—Sara Bloomfield of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

 

But most of all, I want to thank those of you who found the strength to come back again, so many years later, despite the horror you saw here, the suffering you endured here, and the loved ones you lost here.  Those of us who did not live through those dark days will never truly understand what it means to have hate literally etched into your arms.  But we understand the message that you carry in your hearts.

 

For you know the truth that Elie Wiesel spoke when I stood with him at Buchenwald last spring.  There, where his father and so many innocent souls left this earth, Elie said that “memory has become the sacred duty of all people of goodwill.”

 

We have a sacred duty to remember the twisted thinking that led here—how a great society of culture and science succumbed to the worst instincts of man and rationalized mass murder and one of the most barbaric acts in history.

 

We have a sacred duty to remember the cruelty that occurred here, as told in the simple objects that speak to us even now.  The suitcases that still bear their names.  The wooden clogs they wore.  The round bowls from which they ate.  Those brick buildings from which there was no escape—where so many Jews died with Sh’ma Israel on their lips.  And the very earth at Auschwitz, which is still hallowed by their ashes—Jews and those who tried to save them, Polish and Hungarian, French and Dutch, Roma and Russian, straight and gay, and so many others.     

 

But even as we recall man’s capacity for evil, Auschwitz also tells another story—of man’s capacity for good.  The small acts of compassion—the sharing of some bread that kept a child alive.  The great acts of resistance that blew up the crematorium and tried to stop the slaughter.  The Polish Rescuers and those who earned their place forever in the Righteous Among the Nations.

 

And you—the survivors.  The perpetrators of that crime tried to annihilate the entire Jewish people.  But they failed.  Because 65 years ago today, when the gates flew open, you were still standing.  And every day that you have lived, every child and grandchild that your families have brought into the world with love, every day the sun rises on the Jewish state of Israel—that is the ultimate rebuke to the ignorance and hatred of this place.

 

So to those of you who have come back today, I say, no, you are not “former prisoners.”  You are living memorials.  Living memorials to the loved ones you left here.  And to the spirit we must strive to uphold in our time—not simply to bear witness, but to bear a burden.  The burden of seeing our common humanity; of resisting anti-Semitism and ignorance in all its forms; of refusing to become bystanders to evil, whenever and wherever it rears its ugly face.

 

Let that be the true meaning of Auschwitz.  Let that be the liberation we celebrate today—a liberation of the spirit that, if embraced, can lead us all—individuals and as nations—to be among the righteous.  

 

May God bless you all, and may God bless the memory of all those who rest here.

 

###

ADL: Rush Limbaugh Reaches New Low With 'Borderline Anti-Semitic' Remarks About Jews

New York, NY, January 21, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with "borderline anti-Semitic comments" on his radio show, in which he raised the possibility that liberal Jews were having "buyer's remorse" with President Obama in light of the outcome of the Senate election in Massachusetts.

 

Limbaugh told his listeners: "To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting?  He's assaulting bankers.  He's assaulting money people.  And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there's – if there's starting to be some buyer's remorse there."

 

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: 

Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline anti-Semitic comments about Jews as bankers, their supposed influence on Wall Street, and how they vote.

 

Limbaugh's references to Jews and money in a discussion of Massachusetts politics were offensive and inappropriate.  While the age-old stereotype about Jews and money has a long and sordid history, it also remains one of the main pillars of anti-Semitism and is widely accepted by many Americans.  His notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans, plays into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

           

When he comes to understand why his words were so offensive and unacceptable, Limbaugh should apologize.

Netanyahu: "I'm ready to make peace. Are the Palestinians?"

On commencing peace talks: Israel is ready.



[T]he Palestinian [leaders] are piling demand upon demand [they want met, just to start negotiations.] Let’s get on with peace negotiations.  The only way we can finish the peace negotiations with a peace treaty is to begin them.  We’re ready to begin.  I’m ready to begin them.  I’m prepared for peace.  Are the Palestinians ready for peace?  That’s my question to you.

On negotiating with Hamas: 

 
  The principle that is always raised is that you make peace with your enemy.  That is absolutely true – you make peace with an enemy who wants to stop being an enemy and move to peace..... You cannot negotiate peace with an enemy who wants to destroy you [such as]  Hamas and its parent regime, the Iranian tyranny, [who] openly say that their goal is to destroy us.

From an Address and Interview with PM Netanyahu with the Foreign Press Association  1/20/2010

Evidence: Arab atrocity propaganda triggered Arab flight from Palestine

What Hazem Nusseibeh told the BBC about Deir Yassin The video focuses on an interview with Hazem Nusseibeh, a member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent Arab families.  In 1948 he was an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news. In this interview with the BBC he admits that in 1948 he was instructed by Hussein Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin in order to encourage Arab regimes to invade the expected Jewish state.  He made this damming admission in explaining why the Arabs failed in the 1948 war.  He said "this was our biggest mistake", because Palestinians fled in terror and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims. Nusseibeh describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi... 'I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,'. He said, "We must make the most of this." So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped, all sorts of atrocities,  though these things didn't happen. In the video clip Abu Mahmud, who was a Dir Yassin resident in 1948, told the BBC that the villagers protested against the atrocity claims: We said, "There was no rape." But Khalidi said, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." This false press statement was released to New York Times correspondent, Dana Schmidt leading to an article in the New York Times on April 12, 1948, claiming that a massacre took place at Deir Yassin that was reprinted worldwide and cited even in Israel as proof of Israeli atrocities Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh was a representative of Jordan at the Mixed Armistice Commission and he was Minister of Foreign Affairs.He was also the Permanent Ambassador of Jordan to the UN and has authored several books, including The Ideas of Arab Nationalism, Palestine and the United Nations and A History of Modern Jordan. http://www.youtube.com/v/GkhSHiwzaIY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0

Three times as many urban Saudis favor Israeli strike on Iran as accept Israel as Jewish state

Three times as many urban Saudis favor Israeli strike on Iran as accept Israel as Jewish state

Asked about an Israeli military strike against Iran, one-quarter of urban Saudis said that they would support it at least "to some extent."

Interestingly, that figure is three times larger than the number of respondents who said that they would accept Israel "as a Jewish state," even "under the right conditions" -- a mere 9 percent of urban Saudis took that position. But regional differences are relatively significant here: in Jeddah, hypothetical acceptance of a Jewish state was 17 percent, compared to barely 4 percent in Riyadh or Dammam/al-Khobar.

Israel Matzav   1/20/10>