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Ali Abunimah: Many Palestinians killed including 17 children in latest 'period of calm'

by Ali Abunimah, zmag.org
It has been almost two months since the last deadly attack on Israeli civilians by a Palestinian suicide bomber and there are currently intense diplomatic efforts, principally by Egypt, to turn this hiatus into a new global cease-fire by Palestinian actions.

Such efforts are in jeopardy, however, because while Israelis have seen a dramatic drop in attacks, Palestinians continue to suffer daily.

Since the last suicide attack, the Israeli army has killed more than 70 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, among them 17 children.
Geneva Accords offer False Hope
by Ali Abunimah

The medium-term future for Israelis and Palestinians remains bleak, but in the long run peace will be created.

It has been almost two months since the last deadly attack on Israeli civilians by a Palestinian suicide bomber and there are currently intense diplomatic efforts, principally by Egypt, to turn this hiatus into a new global cease-fire by Palestinian actions.

Such efforts are in jeopardy, however, because while Israelis have seen a dramatic drop in attacks, Palestinians continue to suffer daily.

Since the last suicide attack, the Israeli army has killed more than 70 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, among them 17 children.

This carnage prompted Israeli journalist Gideon Levy to observe in a Nov. 30 column in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that, "Quietly, far from the public eye, Israeli soldiers continue killing Palestinians. Hardly a day goes by without casualties, some innocent civilians, and the stories of their violent deaths never reach the Israeli consciousness or awareness."

Along with this violence, Israel continues to do everything possible to undermine the basis for peace, and the Bush administration, which could use its enormous influence with Israel, chooses instead to do almost nothing. With much fanfare, the U.S. announced recently that it would withhold nearly $300 million of loan guarantees from Israel as a penalty for its continued construction of a massive barrier that annexes huge tracts of Palestinian land. But while this action is designed to look tough, the Financial Times reported that the true cost to Israel is a negligible $6 million in higher interest payments on new loans.

Emboldened by this slap on the wrist, Israel has begun work on a new Jewish-only settlement with 500 homes in the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber near Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli public radio reported on Monday. The new colony, "Nof Zahav," Hebrew for "Golden Landscape," follows hot on the heels of the announcement that Israel is giving legal status and providing utilities to dozens of other settlement outposts that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had personally promised President Bush would be dismantled.

Bush, with a tough re-election campaign ahead, is unlikely to challenge powerful U.S pro-Israel groups that unquestioningly support Israel's policies. But nor is there much to be optimistic about in the Democrat field. In September, Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean stated that the United States ought to be "even-handed" and should not "take sides" if it wanted to be an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians.

The strongest protestations of outrage at Dean's remarks came from his own Democratic rivals, and from the party's top leadership. This lack of courage and genuine debate in the U.S. about how to break the Israel-Palestine impasse means that peace is pushed further away, and U.S. standing around the world continues to plummet.

Faced with official Israeli intransigence, ineffective Palestinian leadership and U.S. inaction, some Israelis and Palestinians have put their hope in the so-called Geneva Accord, a virtual peace agreement negotiated by former Israeli and Palestinian officials. Yet this accord offers only false hope.

Many Palestinians oppose it because they see it as being fundamentally unfair and unworkable, a rehash of the failed Oslo agreements. The initiative proposes that Israel annex the vast majority of its settlements on Palestinian land, and almost all of Jerusalem. At the same time, Palestinian refugees, forced from their homes since 1947, are expected to give up their right to return. Israel's government and its hard-line supporters reject the deal because they see it as being too generous to Palestinians. In short, this accord looks superficially promising, but close-up it fails to resolve any of the key issues that have torpedoed every earlier peace plan.

Given these fundamentals, the prospects of a negotiated settlement to the conflict remain close to nil. Yet the terrible situation cannot continue forever. Senior Israeli security officials increasingly acknowledge that Israel's policies intensify the conflict. But by the time enough Israelis wake up to this and demand change, the basis for the two-state solution that Palestinians and the international community embraced will have been irretrievably lost. Israeli settlements will cover too much land, while Palestinians will in a few years be the majority population.

Some Israelis and Palestinians acknowledge a need to seek a radically different solution: If dividing the land between two peoples is impossible, then why not give 100 percent of the land to both peoples? In practice this means a single democratic state with a constitution that guarantees the political, cultural and religious rights of Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims. A common homeland where Jews and Palestinians can flourish instead of fight.

As I have traveled around the U.S. discussing this idea with college students, among them many Palestinian-Americans, Israelis and American Jews, I have found a great deal of openness and support. Above all, there is a strong desire to talk about solutions beyond the tired formulas that have failed for decades. This debate should continue.

Israeli youth this week demonstrated the kind of integration and normality that such a future promises when they voted a 21-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel, Firas Khoury, the winner of the Israeli version of the TV show "American Idol." A tiny sign of hope, perhaps.

But hope, nevertheless.

*Ali Abunimah is a political analyst based in Chicago
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by But...
Why not make India and Pakistan one state?

Why not make Holland and Belgium and Luxembourg into one state?

Why not make Saudi Arabia and Yemen into one state?

Why not make China and Mongolia into one state?

The occupation of the Palestinian territories needs to end. The sooner the better. People need to realize that 100% of the world, including a lot of the people directly affected, will never be happy with any proposed solution.

But if there can be 21 Arab states and 35+ Muslim states, there can be 1 Jewish state.
by ANGEL
Or we can have a Palestinian State in all of the West Bank and Gaza with reasonable Borders set to the Pre 1967 Israeli Border (Green line).
In the U.S. and many other Countries there are more then one religion and more then one ethnic group.
There is no reason why you cannot have 300,000 or so Jews living in the Country of Palestine. Just like you can have some 1,300,000 Arabs living in the Country of Israel. Fair and Just Borders are more important then who lives inside these Borders.

"""Emboldened by this slap on the wrist, Israel has begun work on a new Jewish-only settlement with 500 homes in the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber near Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli public radio reported on Monday. The new colony, "Nof Zahav," Hebrew for "Golden Landscape," follows hot on the heels of the announcement that Israel is giving legal status and providing utilities to dozens of other settlement outposts that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had personally promised President Bush would be dismantled."""(from above article)

Example of a possible solution:
SET THE BORDERS BACK TO 1967...
In return the Refugees have no Right of Return inside the 1967 Israeli Borders..
One complaint that Israel has is that the Right of Return will result in two Palestinian States, (The Right of return is almost impossible any way because the land and homes they lost are now built up with Jewish homes businesses etc…)
The Refugees can be compensated and helped to settle somewhere in the new Palestinian State..
The Settlements are now part of Palestine...
If the some 300,000 Israeli Settlers living in Palestine do not like living there, they can move to Israel...
If the 1,000,000 or so Palestinians who now live in Israel do not like living in Israel, they can move to Palestine...
If 1,000,000 or so Palestinians can live in Israel, then some 300,000 Israeli Settlers can live in Palestine if they choose to stay..
If you take Israel, West Bank and Gaza, West Bank and Gaza is only 22% of the total area in Question, This small amount is not too much to ask for millions of Palestinians who must have their freedom to have a peaceful life.
If this solution was implemented there is a good chance the so called terrorist (seen as freedom fighters by the oppressed Palestinian People) would stop their fight, if not they would be very foolish because then Israel would have a just cause to fight back and the U.S. would have a just cause to help Israel fight back.
Otherwise we will continue to have:
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes. We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
The era of colonization is past,. We can not expect to oppress millions of Palestinian People and still have peace.
West Bank and Gaza are only 22% of what is TODAY, Israel, West Bank and Gaza.
PLEASE LOOK AT THE MAP IN THE FOLLOWING WEB PAGE:
The Orange areas are Israeli settlements in the already small 22% that is West Bank and Gaza. What kind of carved up mess will the Palestinian State be unless all the settlements are removed (which will probably never happen) or just make the settlements part of the New Palestinian State (which can happen right now)??
CLICK HERE > http://mondediplo.com/maps/IMG/artoff3260.jpg


by TheTroll
Or, the Zionist invadors (not neighbors) can end thier bloodsoaked crusade and get the fuck out of all of Palestine and never return to torment and destroy the Palestinians again. Palestine is no Jewish homeland. Sure, 3000 years ago, Hebrews murdered the local Canaanites Amorites etc, to rule the land for 1200 years (((Romans also invaded the land, spilt less blood than Hebrews and ruled the place for 700 years, 1200 -700= 500, if invading the land makes it a Jewish homeland, is it not also a Roman homeland? And are the Italians also entitled to 2/5s of Palestinian lands because thier anscestors were also murderous thieves?))). That doesn't give ZIonists a "birthright" of murderous theft in Palestine. Hebrews murdering the locals to steal the land makes for a piss poor pretext for ZIonists to also be murderous thieves stealing the land. Not only is Palestine NOT a Jewish homeland, Jerusalem is NOT a Jewish city. When the Romans kicked the Jews (only the Jews, not the slaves of Jews who got new Roman masters) out of the land the Hebrews murdered the locals to steal, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. 40 years later, Romans had the former slaves of Jews rebuild a city on the site. "Next year in Jerusalem" is what ZIonists who want to feed off the misery of the vanquished Palestinians like the 48ers, like to say. Why? Jerusalem might be a Jewish name, but Jerusalem is not a Jewish city. What could they possably be thinking, other than, steal more land from Palestinians and murder more Palestinians who resist the continuing theft of thier land by ZIonist invadors.

21 Arab states. So what? There are numerous Christian coutries too. Would Zionists have a right to do the same in Costa Rica even if the Costa Ricans had other Spanish speeking Catholic lands to move to? NO. It even sounds stupid when applied to Costa Rica. But because Palestinians have other Arabic speeking Muslim lands to move to, and you prejudicialy bought into that OFFENSIVE horseshit. Palestinians could move out, sure, right, like that is supposed to make the Zionist's bloodsoaked crusade any less of a bloodsoaked crusade. After the Arabs invaded the land ruled by foreign Byzantine (East Roman empire, but still the same upper crust families)masters, they offered the slaves (Of Romans 700 years and before that, Hebrews for 1200, 2nd cronicles chapter 2 puts the number of slaves in the Hebrew ruled, but not thier's, lands at 135,600) instant freedom in exchange for conversion to Islam. Guess what, the slaves converted. After 2000 years of foriegners enslaving the people, Islam offered them freedom. Arab armies then left the land to liberate more slaves/converts from the foriegn Byzantine masters in other lands throughout the middle east. Arabs left ministers and government types to run the place, but it still took over a hundred years for the locals to adopt Arabic as thier own language. Palestinians are not Arabs any more than Egyptians are Arabs. The Egyptians darker skin makes this obvious. Egytians are Egyptians, as Plaestinians are Palestinians. Sure, other Arabic speeking muslims have emigrated to palestine to become a part of palestine. So what? If the Palestinians don't mind, then it is non of our business. Who but palestinians have any right to decide who gets to live in Palestine? The Judeo-christian dominated UN and Leage of Nations? The Britts, like longshanks promised his minions lands in Scottland to be murderous thieves? Sure as hell, NOT the bloodsoaked Zionist crusaders? Zionists invaded palestine like Hungarians invaded Slovakia in 1938. Germans occupied Czechoslovakia, took the industrial areas they wanted, and offered the moutainous, forrested, difficult to controle Slovakian portion to the Hungarians. Hungarians didn't have to invade Slovakia. But, it was an easy steal, being under the German guns, they had a history of ruling the land, and they wanted to feed off the misery of the vanquished Slovaks. Brittain occupied Palestine, and offered it to ZIonists who aided the Brittish war effort in the great war. Zionists didn't have to invade Palestine. But it was an easy steal, being under the Brittish guns. Jews had a history of ruling the land Hebrews murdered to steal. And they wanted to feed off the misery of the vanquished Palestinian people. So, ZIonist chose to destroy Palestinian lives and lifes for the ZIonist's own gain. Palestinians didn't ask for foriegn invadors to be murderous thieves destroying thier lives and lifes. Zionists force destruction onto the locals. And somehow, the TV set god tells us that Palestinians are the genesis of the "conflict" (Zionist's bloodsoaked crusade) for not getting the hell out. What a load of crap we are expected to believe, and slandered as anti-semetic when we reject the offensive crap, when the Zionists have NEVER even tried to explain thier alleged "birthright" of murderous thieving crusade in Palestine. Sure, ZIonists argue that a Jewish country has a right to exist. But...

A Jewish country having a right to exist is not the same as Zionists having any "birthright" of bloodsoaked crusade in Palestine or any where else. To suggest that a Jewish country having a right to exist equates to a "brithright" of Zionists to be murderous thieves stealing Palestinian lands is just going to show your own psychopathic prejudice. First, explain how Jews have a "birthright" of murderous theft in Palestine when the only claim Jews have to the land is that Hebrews were also murderous thieves. If you can't do that, can you at least admit that the ZIonist's bloodoaked crusade is even rude? Not the bloodsoaked crusade we all know it to be. Just rude? Nazis were murderous thieves, and they got routed into the jungles of South America (and Nasa). The existance of Israel shows us all (ZIonists too) that Zionists are also bloodsoaked murderous thieves, but they end up getting financed by whore politicians in the west lusting after religious fanatic votes and campain contributions. Would Americans be forced to subsidize the destruction of Costa Ricans if the ZIonists had chosen to be murderous thieves in a Christian land? I can't see that ever happening, even though Palestinian Christians also suffer under the bloodsoaked crusade of Zionists.

If someone comes into your home and takes your TV set god, then that person would be a thief. RIGHT? We all know that much. And if you or one of your nieghbors tried to stop the thief's crime, only for the thief to pull a gun and blow you or your nieghbor's brains all over your family and still takes your survivor's TV set god, then that THIEF would be a MURDERER as well. That is just what ZIonists did and do. Every new settlement is more theft in the Zionist's collective (so all are guilty) efforts to carve a country out of the Palestinian's homeland. And every time a palestinian resists the continuing theft of Palestinian lands, only for the ZIonists to blowthem apart, is MORE MURDER. How do ZIonists have a "birthright" of murderous theft? That is a simple enough question. Why can't you answer? Is it because the murderous thieving ZIonists (( like the Nazis )) have NO "birthright" of murderous theft in Palestine or anywhere else? And deserve, like the Nazis, to be driven into the jungles of South America and NASA.
by Angie
Can't believe the Electronic Intifada either, hmm? Well, what's the world coming to at all?
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