The evident non-reasonableness of this position is exactly why the most unreasonble and militaristic parties have continued to maintain power in Israel. Haniyeh’s glib use of “dog whistle” phrasing is up there with Bush’s. What do you think “recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine” means? Clearly, one meaning of Haniyeh’s formulation is “first we get a state (to be controlled by our religiously fanatic Saudi funded theocracy that says Jewish presence in Palestine is unacceptable), and then we can talk about the rest of Israel.” This type of nonsense is the source of continued political power of the militaristic wing of Israeli politics.
I know, let’s have another post-Sbrenica/post-Rwanda invocation of UN assurances and the horror of the Israelis refusing to accept them.
The poor palestinians are too useful miserable for any of the powers in the world to allow them any respite. Between the Wahabbi monarchy and the Israeli army, there seems no escape.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 11 2006 15:52 utc | 3

Thanks Bernard,
Juan Cole is doing what he can to bring this tragedy into the limelight. Perhaps if some of the blog sites like FDL, C&L, Kos would do the same. Checked all those sites, didn’t see any headers about this.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 11 2006 16:28 utc | 5

The only “mainstream” blogger that talks about this in the USA, well the ones I visit anyway, is Steve Clemons.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 11 2006 16:50 utc | 7

It would need is for Hamas to fully state that the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine under 1967 borders is fine. Without such a direct statement, given the fact that Hamas’ core statement of principles calls for the destruction of Israel and Hamas’s funders in Saudi are religious nuts who want to restore full Islamic control over Palestine, it would be insane for the Israelis to rely on nudge-wink declarations. No? If you call for restoration of the 1967 borders but also insist that those borders were illegitimate, then how can you expect to get a positive reaction?

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 11 2006 17:12 utc | 9

B – I read his piece. It has to be read in the context of Hamas stated aim to destroy Israel entirely and create a theocratic state. In that context, how do you suppose that any Israeli government will be able to negotiate with Hamas. It would be even more stupid for the Israelis to trust Hamas as it would be for them to continue their moronic policy right now – but the second fatal alternative is politically inevitible in Israel and it makes no sense to ask Israelis to adopt a policy that no state in the world would ever adopt. If Europe really wanted peace in Palestine, which it does not, it would for example do actual economic development in Gaza instead of throwing out some crumbs and tsk-tsking about the Israelis acting like everyone else in the world. Fact is that the current situation suits all the powers quite well.
I think you are also making the error of assuming that the brutality and immorality of Israeli policy means that Hamas wants peace. They do not.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 11 2006 17:35 utc | 11

CC – and so? The Israeli occupation has been a terrible thing. Where do you go from there?
I should point out that a great good will gesture and one that would put Israel in a difficult position would be for Iran, Yemen, and Morocco to guarantee return of property and freedom of worship to Israelis descended from refugees from their countries and for Hamas to strongly urge that freedom of movement, conscience, and religion be mutually respected throughout the middle east. Since we know that this is never going to happen, we can understand the conflict as one between a brutal occupying power and a religious extermination campaign and consider it more realistically.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 11 2006 18:17 utc | 13

Israel’s real fear has always been having a negotiation partner (echoing ww). To stop that happening, the only way forward is to escalate. Never stop, never negotiatie, never accept that the other party has any legitimacy at all. That is what has gone down now.
Olmert said Israel would not negotiate with the militants, and the Maariv newspaper reported the government had given the army a green light to launch a deeper incursion into northern Gaza, though there was no indication when it might begin. “This is a long war, ” Olmert said. “It requires lots of patience, sometimes endless restraint. We have to know when to clench our teeth and to deal a decisive blow.” (my bold)
link
If the Palestinians recognise Israel, they are attacked; if they are willing to negotiate and come away with scraps, they are attacked; if they propose solutions, they are attacked; if they give up, they are attacked; if they blast rockets at Israel, they are attacked; if they lay low, they are attacked; if they are starving, they are attacked ….
Olmert adopts Bushian rhetoric: staying the course, being proper and restrained, and yet knowing when to strike decisive blows. The noble warrior, who is steadfast in purpose, upright and moral, true to his Volk and his principles, shudders at the pain he inflicts while remaining determined to win in the end, in the most ethical way possible, driven by a higher-order morality, rightness, necessity, iron will, belief.
Heh! A watered down Protestant ethic melded with clapped out Nazi crap! Bush is a role model to some…
I just love the Holocaust enthusiasts who scream, mumble or pray Never Again.

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 11 2006 18:28 utc | 15

b
i am disgusted by th european coverage – le monde & the guardian included
they refuse to call what is happening in gaza exactly what it is – a war against humanity
as i have sd on numerous occassion – that survivors of the holocause would be shamed deeply ashamed of the methods used by the israeli govt – the methodology (collective punishments, assasinations, destruction of buildings, disproportionate response etc etc) is familiar for those survivors who were unlucky enough to live in poland, ukraine, the baltic & russia
the methods are exacty the same & the israeli govt is looking for a total solution(Gesamlösung) & await a final solution (Endlösung)to the palestinian problem
who possesses disproportionate force, who possesses nuclear arms, who possesses arms of mass destruction (biological & chemical) – who practices torture & punishments which are forbidden by the united nations, who carries out the destruction of people & propert in complete contravention to the un regulations
israel has inherited the mantle of those states that created the holocaust, they have also appropriated the methodology & as was the case in rhodesia & south africa they also taught these methods
because of my origins the jewish people as a people will always be in my heart – but the criminal israeli government has proved itself as illegitimate as apartheid south africa

Posted by: r’giap | Jul 11 2006 19:27 utc | 17

BBC Censorship
b, I admired your post and being like a cloner that my name begets, I posted the bulk of your post on the BBC message board here.
Have a look how it ended up as.
As Noirette says above They kinda hope that people won’t notice right away, and that they can subtly instill poison and promote hate of Arabs, for about two years; after that, the troops will have to go fight, the people will have to sacrifice, pay the war machine, forget their ‘freedoms’ (all that jazz), immigrants and terrarists will be imprisoned and tortured, etc. The time might stretch on, these are long term plans, two years is a bit short. But it is a done deal. Sealed and signed.
PS: Mossad must have files on every fucking politician in Europe.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 11 2006 20:27 utc | 19

It is a typical west-centric ploy used by anti-semites to place the Israelis and the house of Saud as opposite ends of the Semitic spectrum crushing the ‘dull witted people’ when in fact they are both in the same lackey spot doing amerika’s bidding.
The ‘leaders’ of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two states created by outsiders, have been corrupted by their weakness for the west’s bribery. A small cost for the west compared to the gains USuk and Co extract from the Mid East.
The people of Saudi Arabia, many of whom are not princes and who live in poverty, would do anything to get rid of the house of Saud. A reason why the executioner does a roaring trade on a frday afternoon. In fact people opposed to the puppet regime include many members of that ‘royal’ house.
The el-Sauds were the most malleable and corrupt tribe the Turks could find to use as front for their empire. The west just like the Ottomans before them, has used every deceit and foulness imaginable to ensure that the house of Saud remain in power.
The responsibility for Saudi involvement in the affairs of Palestine need be sheeted home to the West not to the people of the Mid east.
The political structure of an apartheid regime such as Israel, is irrelevant. The state of Israel is a blot on the asshole of humanity and need by wiped off of our shithole asap.
Now even though I’ve said ‘the state’ that won’t stop the usual suspects from extrapolating that into ‘the people’ since it is only by such emotive deception the concept of anything so inherently evil as a fundamental religious state being established and imposed on people of another religion could be countenanced. Especially when ‘statehood’ was achieved by ethnic cleansing on a grand scale.
Israel must cease to exist. After the assets stolen from Palestinians are returned in full, most of the people of Palestine no matter which side of the struggle they began on, are just going to want peace and quiet. So without any external influence tricking them into fighting that is what will most likely happen.
The seeds of Palestinian Liberation were planted long before the 67 war. And for anyone to advocate that a simple return to the pre-1967 situation is being viable, just or a negotiating position that a Palestinian leader should start from, reveals either an appalling ignorance of Palestinian history or complete indifference to the rights of the Palestinian people.
Anyone would think that when the tribes shot through out of Palestine 2000+ years ago, that the place was left empty. That there were no other semites left.
In fact the majority of the people who had been living in Palestine for centuries continued to live there. These are the Palestinians and I am at a loss to understand how anyone could argue for their banishment from lands which had belonged to them since long before Hebrew hegemony over the area.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 11 2006 22:25 utc | 21

B – I am always ready to learn, but I was under the impression that these things were not controversial.

The most fundamental of those beliefs, says Hisham Ahmed, a political scientist at Birzeit University in Ramallah and a student of Hamas, is that the entire land of Palestine belongs to God and is Muslim holy land.
The 9,000-word Hamas charter, written in 1988, is explicit about the struggle for Palestine as a religious obligation. It describes the land as a “waqf,” or endowment, saying that Hamas “believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.”
In the charter, Hamas describes itself as “a distinct Palestinian Movement which owes its loyalty to Allah, derives from Islam its way of life and strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”
It calls for the elimination of Israel and Jews from Islamic holy land and portrays the Jews as evil, citing an anti-Semitic version of history going back to the Crusades. It also includes a reference to the noted czarist forgery of a plan for world domination, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and condemnation of supposedly Zionist organizations like the Rotary Club and the Masons.
It describes the struggle against the Jews as a religious obligation for every Muslim, saying, “For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails.”
from here
Or see the charter
Is that wrong? Did I drink cool-aid?
As for the EU aid, I piss on it. Most people in Gaza live in dire poverty and the EU proudly builds a fucking airport and watches most aid get stolen, leaving Hamas/Saudi to provide actual social services. Color me deeply unimpressed. The EU, as always, is ready with some pompous statements and fuck-all else.
Current estimates are 52% of Israeli Jews are Arab/Muslim state origin. Oddly enough, this voting block is extremely hostile to negotiation and concessions.
As for Iranian Jews, certainly Iran has a much better recent history than for example Yemen or Iraq, but the testimonials of residents of a religious police state lack force. Most Iranian Jews fled after the revolution.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 12 2006 2:01 utc | 23

R’Giap:
who possesses disproportionate force, who possesses nuclear arms, who possesses arms of mass destruction (biological & chemical) – who practices torture & punishments which are forbidden by the united nations, who carries out the destruction of people & propert in complete contravention to the un regulations
Who?
The USA, France, the UK, Germany (by proxy on the nukes), Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel. If we leave off the nuclear weapons, the list gets a lot longer. I hope this information will be helpful to you.
The mighty force of UN regulation. If Israel persists in violating them, will the Dutch soldiers put their hands up in front of their eyes and weep again? Oh, the horror. Will the Belgian and French soldiers go on a scenic bus ride through the countryside handing out machetes? Will the UN forces currently defending Tibet against genocide and environmental destruction be diverted to Haifa? Oh wait! I know. Brussels will take time from endorsing the “election” in Mexico and condemning Venezuala for having the effrontry to take their own oil, and will issue a sternly worded memorandum. That will show those damn jews. But wait, isn’t the UN busy preventing the USA from violating UN rules and making an unprovoked attack on and occuppying Iraq? No? Or telling the French government that Cote Ivoire doesn’t belong to France? Or preventing Japan from raping the forests of Congo and New Guinea? No? They work fast those tireless defenders of the rule of Law. The Freemasons that Hamas tells us run Israel must be quaking in their boots.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 12 2006 3:33 utc | 25

Debs 21
I am well aware of Palestinian history, and the 1967 solution is not the best. But saying Israel must cease to exist will not happen in our lifetime short of a very bloody and probably nuclear war. I don’t expect that the Palestinians would come out the victors in that one.
CK
Multinational force performance has not always been exemplary, but Israel would be less likely to get away with its criminal behavior with observors there and would have to be at least more careful with its missles. When they lobbed one into a UN camp in Lebanon, Israel was not able to spin the incident and I believe it made a difference to bring about their eventual withdrawal from Lebanon. The negative PR from mowing down UN troops with a bulldozer or missle, might be greater than them doing the same to young peace activists or Palestinian children.

Posted by: ww | Jul 12 2006 11:04 utc | 27

Haaretz: ANALYSIS: Israel prepares for widespread military escalation

On the 18th day since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the picture has become all the more complex. From limited fighting on a single front (the Gaza Strip), the Israel Defense Forces is now approaching what might evolve into a near outright war on two fronts.
…
In some respects, however, the situation now is even more complicated than in 2002, because terror groups are holding three soldiers captive: Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip, and two other soldiers who were captured Wednesday morning on the northern border.
The attack on Israel’s northern border was an impressive military achievement for Hezbollah and a ringing failure for the IDF. Despite Israel’s intelligence analyses and despite wide operational deployment, Hezbollah has succeeded in carrying out what it has been threatening to do for more than two years – and it couldn’t have happened at a more sensitive time.
Israel has until now responded with restraint by bombarding bridges in central Lebanon and attacking Hezbollah positions along the border. But considering the nature of the military high command’s current evaluation of the situation, it is clear that the IDF is interested in inflicting a much sharper blow on Lebanon.
Senior officers in the IDF say that the Lebanese government is responsible for the soldiers’ abduction. According to the officers, if the kidnapped soldiers are not returned alive and well, the Lebanese civilian infrastructures will regress 20, or even 50 years.
Lebanon has invested considerable resources in the rehabilitation of its civilian infrastructures from the damage sustained during its civil war in the 1970s and the years of war with Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
If Israel is having difficulty in deterring Hamas in Gaza, and certainly if it is unable to bring the crisis to a conclusion, indeed Hezbollah is a much more sophisticated and experienced rival than its Palestinian counterpart.
…
There is every indication that Israel is on its way to a wide escalation of its military operations, both in the north and in the Gaza Strip.

(emph. added)
– A restrained bombing of bridges in central Lebanon where Hisbollah is not.
– The Lebanon govenments responsibility for something Hisbollah does. South Lebanon is not under the controlof the Lebanon governement.
– All Lebanese to be punished for what the military fringe arm of one political group may do.
Of course it is wrong to abduct the soldieres and they should definitly not be harmed. But the Israeli answer is out of all bounces. Can anyone stop these maniacs.

Posted by: b | Jul 12 2006 16:40 utc | 29

What we see by Israel over the last few days is unforgivable and is war. Even if that word is not being used. But, who is firmly behind the acts of Israel (a country lead by a weak and inexperienced leader, Olmert)? GW Bush and that vile regime. What perfect way to 1) divert attention away from the disasterous situation in Iraq and 2) to weaken Syria and Persia/Iran further. Israel can attack a weak state (Lebanon) and then say that Hezbollah (whose links to Iran and Syria are tenuous at best) is directed 100% by Iran and Syria. Next, we’ll see Israel attack Syria!
Of course, if he was in power, Saddam would also have a hand in it. The fact that Hezbollah and Hamas can act alone without Saddam is proof that Saddam was not the head villain directing all “terrorism” worldwide. If Israel and/or America invade Syria and Persia/Iran and change their regimes, I’ll bet that Hezbollah and Hamas would still start attacking Israel and Israel and America would then blame North Korea and Cuba for it!!
And why is it perfectly okay for Israel to invade Lebanon and not Saddam to invade Kuwait? Israel treats the Palestinians exactly like Milosevic did the Albanians in Kosovo, yet Milosevic died in prison whereas Olmert gets the green light. This is the whole injustice of the West-dominated world. In different times, it was also okay for Saddam’s Iraqi Republic to invade the newly established Persian/Iranian Republic (because the latter was America’s newfound enemy).
What the likes of Bush, Blair and Olmert fail to realise is that there are people in the US, UK and Israel who abhor their violent and aggressive acts and that, someday, it may be their own people who could uprise and overthrow them. God knows, if any 3 countries in the world do need regime change and a complete system overhaul, it is the US, UK and Israel. Imperialism, zionism, expansionism, or whatever you like to call it is wrong and means that these countries get wealthy and that wealth remains in the hands of the select few and not in those of the ordinary people. It is the ordinary people who suffer in the wars that imperialism creates. Being British, American, Israeli or Jewish today means you are hated worldwide (even though you may not approve of what your regime is doing in your name). This is wrong and that is what these governments are doing to their countries and their people.

Posted by: Anti Zionist | Jul 14 2006 0:59 utc | 31

“Specious pretence.” Huh. That’s what was absent in J. Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond’s history was a role call of dominance afforded by a varieties of advantage including things like the domesticability of native plants. I don’t recall any chapters on ethics, cooperation, or rule of international law. Thems that can take the territory, do. Is there anywhere on earth that doesn’t have its own trail of tears?
“The meek shall inherit the earth, in six foot plots.” -Lazarus Long (I think)
“May the lord bless and keep the Czar….far away from us.” -Rabbi, Fiddler on the Roof

Posted by: catlady | Jul 14 2006 1:32 utc | 33