Fayyad unable to commit to 'two states for two peoples'

WASHINGTON  – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad left a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon outraged on Tuesday following a dispute about terminology to be used in the meeting summary.


The dispute followed Ayalon's demand that the meeting summary refer to the notion of "two states for two peoples," rather than just "two states." 



"I wanted that at the very least it will note two states for two peoples. I demanded to know what they meant. One Palestinian state and one bi-national state, or another Palestinian state?," the deputy minister told Ynet. "I made it clear that we were out of the picture if the summary didn’t say two states for two peoples."

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3958403,00.html   9/21/10

TIP: NY politicians demand a full 180 from Ahmadinejad

Governor David Paterson, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and other elected officials and community leaders gathered at a press conference yesterday to call for a tougher response to the Ahmadinejad regime. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York City and addressed the Millennium Development Goals Conference today. Senator Gillibrand announced that she will be introducing new legislation, The Gulf Security and Iran Sanctions Enforcement Act, which brings a new level of public and government scrutiny to the activities of the Iranian government and multinational companies doing business with Iran. Watch the press conference now. Other officials who appeared and spoke at the press conference included Reps Ackerman, Crowley, Engel, Maloney, Nadler, Weiner; NYS Comptroller DiNapoli; Public Advocate de Blasio; NYC Council Speaker Quinn; Manhattan Borough President Stringer; State Senator Krueger and Councilwoman Gail Brewer. Media coverage of the event included: NY's Congressional Delegation Take On United Nations In Advance of Ahmadinejad Visit The New York Observer, September 20, 2010 Gov. Paterson and city lawmakers lead Ahmadinejad protests outside UN New York Post, September 20, 2010 NY Politicians Speak Out Against Ahmadinejad CBS Channel 2 News, September 20, 2010 Get more coverage of the Iran180 press conference Iran180 is a movement of people and organizations who have come together as a unified voice to demand a 180 by the Iranian government on their pursuit of nuclear weapons and the treatment of their citizens. Iran180.org has already collected over fifteen thousand signatures signing on to its online petition proclamation, and will be holding a "street event" at 10:00 AM, Thursday September 23rd at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza to protest Ahamadinejad. Everyday New Yorkers are invited to attend and "send a message to Mahmoud." Details are available at www.iran180.org or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Iran180. You can still sign the Iran180 Declaration and send to a friend. Thank you for your support! Visit us on Facebook and at Iran180.org Sign the Iran180 Declaration Visit Iran180 on Facebook

French Canadian antisemitism

Political cartoon from the French Canadian press [ Sept. 20, 2010]  appears to insinuate that Jews control the Canadian legislature.  

PLO ambassador: stage in deligitmizing Israel

Peace talks are stage
in delegitimizing "rebellious, racist" Israel
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3188

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

The PLO's ambassador to Lebanon says that the current peace talks "are not a goal," but just another stage in the Palestinian attempt to undermine Israel's legitimacy. The Palestinian Authority official daily reported that the Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah described the peace talks as part of a broader process to isolate Israel, "threaten its legitimacy" and present it as a "rebellious, racist state."

Abdullah indicated that this goal to call attention to Israel's "war crimes" and isolate it, as was done to South Africa, is already being realized: "Many Israelis in senior positions are afraid to travel to European countries lest they be put on trial for their crimes."

Following are the Palestinian goals for the peace talks, according to the PLO Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah:

"The PLO's representative in Lebanon, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah, emphasized yesterday that the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, which have started in Washington, are not a goal, but rather another stage in the Palestinian struggle... He believes that Israel will not be dealt a knock-out defeat, but rather an accumulation of Palestinian achievements and struggles, as happened in South Africa, to isolate Israel, to tighten the noose on it, to threaten its legitimacy, and to present it as a rebellious, racist state. He noted that Israel faces international isolation with doubt cast on its legitimacy, because of its actions and the war crimes which it has carried out. He added, 'Many Israelis in senior positions are afraid to travel to European countries lest they be put on trial for their crimes.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 9, 2010]

 

 

 

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3188

Dutch anti-Semitism reaches record high

http://www.google.com/gwt/x?source=reader&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FJewishWorld%2FJewishNews%2FArticle.aspx%3Fid%3D188486%26R%3DR5

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Bard: Time magazine promotes myth about Israel

Time magazine purports to explain why Israel doesn't want peace: That's a dangerous lie

By Mitchell Bard      Thursday, September 16th 2010, 4:00 AM

 

As the author of a book on myths and facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict, I am often asked to identify the most prevalent myth. The answer can be found on the cover of the recent edition of Time magazine, which purports to explain "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace."

This assertion reinforces the views of the Arab lobby, especially State Department Arabists, who often work in tandem with foreign interests to frustrate broader U.S. policy goals. They have long believed that Israelis don't know what's best for themselves and must be forced, like recalcitrant children, to capitulate to the demands of the Arabs for their own good.

The Arabists, especially concerned that the creation of a Jewish state would jeopardize our access to Saudi oil, initially tried to prevent the creation of Israel altogether. Since 1948, their consistent posture has been that U.S. interests are best served by distancing the United States from Israel in order to improve our ties with Arab states.

We now have more than six decades of experience, which has utterly refuted this view. During these decades, we've seen U.S.-Israel relations grow closer without adversely affecting either our ties with Arab allies or oil supplies. Moreover, the true threats to U.S. interests have been external powers - the Soviet Union, regional provocateurs like the Iranians, inter-Arab rivalries (e.g., Syria and Lebanon) and terrorism, all of which the Arabists either ignored or downplayed.

Although their fears proved unfounded - the Arab states, especially the Saudis, need our support a lot more than we need theirs - the Arabists have never abandoned the view of U.S. Middle East policy as a zero-sum game in which it is impossible to have  close ties with both Israel and the Arab states. Many are therefore convinced that the United States must save Israel from itself by imposing a peace settlement aimed at satisfying American interests in the Arab world. Consequently, they have advocated pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians they hope will end the conflict they believe makes our lives difficult in the region.

Unfortunately, this view has come to be shared by many American liberals, including some liberal Jews. The idea promoted by people like Daily Beast commentator Peter Beinart is that Israel needs "tough love" from its American Jewish supporters - because Israelis are too stupid, immature or politically constrained to make decisions people 6,000 miles see as in their best interests. They also naively believe that by piling on with other critics of Israel they can change the policy of Israel's democratically elected leaders.

Israelis need to be pushed now, according to Time, because Israelis are enjoying prosperity and see peacemaking as a low priority. To the contrary, as any serious observer knows, Israelis have not enjoyed a day of peace in 62 years and crave peace more desperately than any other people on Earth.

You can go back as far as the 1937 Peel partition plan to find the first example of Zionists offering to share land with their neighbors. As recently as two years ago, Israel's prime minister offered the Palestinians a state in nearly 97% of the West Bank to go along with the entire Gaza Strip that Israel already evacuated. In between, Israel has offered a variety of other compromises to which the Arab answer has repeatedly been no recognition or peace with Israel.

It is true that Israelis are not in the rush to diplomacy favored by the Arab lobby and adopted by President Obama. It is not that they do not want peace, however, but rather that they have no faith in the Palestinians. What evidence, they ask, can anyone present to suggest that if they did capitulate to every demand of the Palestinians, peace would ensue? Mahmoud Abbas does not control the Gaza Strip, where 40% of the Palestinian people live and the Hamas rulers have made clear they want Israel to withdraw not to the 1967 borders but to the Mediterranean Sea. As we saw from the recent terror attacks, Abbas does not even fully control the West Bank, so what good is his signature on any peace agreement?

Israelis will have to live with the consequences of their decisions for decades to come. What if the "moderate" Abbas is replaced in 10 years by a Hamas-like extremist government? In that decade the quality of weapons will have improved and suddenly Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben-Gurion Airport will be in the cross hairs of Palestinian rockets.

The Arabists only care that a Palestinian state is created in a year, not whether it will be a threat to Israel then or at any time in the future. Israelis, however, do have to take these possibilities into consideration. It is this calculation that is most affecting Israeli attitudes today. They are no less interested in peace than ever before; they simply want to be sure that before they make decisions that may endanger their security, their partners are equally committed to peace - and the United States has their back.

Bard is a foreign policy analyst whose latest book is "The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America's Interests in the Middle East" (HarperCollins Publishers).

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/09/16/2010-09-16_time_magazine_purports_to_explain_why_israel_doesnt_want_peace_thats_a_dangerous.html

Lozowick: Blindness to Palestinian aggression harms the negotiations

Commentary by Yaacov Lozowick

 "Why is this reciprocity not crystal clear? Because it isn't, you know."

Tuesday, September 14, 2010     http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2010/09/terms-of-negotiations.html

Terms of Negotiations

Up front, unambiguous, and with no obfuscations: I'm in favor of the continuation of the settlement freeze. Not in Modi'in Illit, which will remain in Israel no matter what, and certainly not in any part of Jerusalem. But in all the places we know we'll leave some day - and let's define them broadly, not narrowly - I'm in favor of the freeze. I'd be in favor of it even if there were no negotiations: we know that someday we're going to disband those settlements, so there's no rational point in building in them, is there. So let's stop.

On that level, I've got no problem with the American position that since negotiations have finally started it would be a bad idea to interfere by building in the settlements. So long as the negotiations may possibly lead to peace, no changes should be made in the disputed areas.

By either side.

So while there's no problem with Palestinians building in areas we all know will eventually be part of their state (the corollaries of Midi'in Illit), it should be clear to all sides and the international community that the Palestinians, too, must refrain from actions which harm the negotiations. Things such as firing rockets at Israeli civilians, shooting at their cars, or stoning Israeli civilians. Shhh! There are negotiations going on, and all sides must refrain from harming them.

Why is this reciprocity not crystal clear? Because it isn't, you know.

Update: Khaled Abu Toameh (a Palestinian) says the same, only with greater fervor.