Comments on: Killing Abu Mazen softly by supporting him in the UN

By: Ravi Singh

Ravi Singh — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:14:31 +0000

Larisa you for real…!! Israel needs more people like you, then peace would be possible. A one state between the river and the sea, with Jews and Palestinians living as equals, would be the best and a permanent solution. How many Israelis share your vision? As for the wall it could and should have been built on the green line

By: Larisa Zelbovitz

Larisa Zelbovitz — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:35:30 +0000

Alan McIntyre that's actually not true. There ARE moderate countries in the Middle East. My uncle lives in Oman, openly as a Jew, and hasn't suffered anti-semitism at all. And Turkey invests in education and commerce, as does Saudi and Jordan (certainly those countries are anti-semitic, but they're not warmongers). Bahrain and UAE are also good examples of moderate Arab countries.

The problem isn't the Arabic people, many of whom are wonderful!!! The problem is right-wing extremists. It's not reasonable to treat countries like Pakistan and Syria as representing the entire Arab world.

By: Larisa Zelbovitz

Larisa Zelbovitz — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:27:25 +0000

Technically, the wall isn't there to gobble up chunks of anything, it's a security measure to prevent suicide bombings. It's been VERY successful in doing so… the cost to the Palestinian people has been very high, though. You could question its legitimacy as a security measure, and ask whether there might not be a better way to achieve that, but it's certainly been effective. The wall wasn't ALWAYS there, and if there were no suicide bombings, there'd be no wall.

A 1-state solution doesn't work if even 10% of the population of both sides would like to see the other side dead (and let's face it, that's a ridiculously optimistic figure). Who wants a neighbour who wants to kill you?

The world wants to see a peaceful solution. I think most people on both sides do. And I'm pretty sure the ideal that many Palestinians have of statehood doesn't involve it being run by people like Hamas who do things like shooting people in the legs when they don't like them.

Hopefully a 1-state solution will happen one day. It needs to be 2-state for awhile though, and have the violence end on both sides, before a 1-state solution could be possible.

By: Ravi Singh

Ravi Singh — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:56:22 +0000

And then…? end up becoming a pariah like apartheid S Africa.

By: Ravi Singh

Ravi Singh — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:46:39 +0000

Foolish are those who choose not to read tre writing on the wall

By: Arjon Cohen

Arjon Cohen — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 19:09:13 +0000

On the basis of secure borders.

By: Julian Kasdin

Julian Kasdin — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:45:25 +0000

Unfortunately the peace process is dead, and has probably been dead since 2000. How much more can Israel offer the Palestinian Arabs? At some point if you're the loser in a conflict you have to realize you won't get everything you want, that is unless you're deluded enough to believe that your defeats are victories. Hamas and Fatah use the world stage to constantly put Israel in a bad light, and it seems there is little Israel can do to change that opinion. The best thing Israel can do is adopt a plan that sees her drawing defensible borders in the West Bank and withdrawing to them.

By: Julian Kasdin

Julian Kasdin — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:45:25 +0000

By: Herbert Kaine

Herbert Kaine — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:46:26 +0000

The 2 state solution is dead…it has to be the one state solution… Ravi, couldnt agree with you more. India and Pakistan must unite, so Pakistan will stop exporting nuclear technology and terrorism

By: Herbert Kaine

Herbert Kaine — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:46:26 +0000

By: Alan McIntyre

Alan McIntyre — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:29:21 +0000

There are no borders you fool. The armistice lines as they are internationally and legally recognised and a return to them are an invitation for the Arabs to destroy Israel and you know it. So, it will never happen! Look at it this way, if the Arabs cannot defeat a tiny entity like Israel without such a head start as the 1967 lines becoming borders, do they deserve the land? Would they destroy everything as they did in Gaza, leaving only famine, decay and resentment among themselves? These are questions you need to ask yourself. Arabs cannot even live with themselves! There isn't a country in the entire middle east that has invested in education and commerce other than Israel. All the others invest in the military and starve the common man in the process and telling them Israel is the reason they are starving so they may as well commit to martyrdom. Israel is guilty! Guilty of exposing the arab heads of states for turning all their countries into failed states, even the apartheid gulf states where slavery is still legal. So Israel must go in order to save the face of Islam and its failings. Dream on Ravi. I would rather see the end of life on earth than a caliphate and believe me when the right gain power across europe that is where we are heading. I welcome it.

By: Alan McIntyre

Alan McIntyre — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:29:21 +0000

By: Ravi Singh

Ravi Singh — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 06:18:22 +0000

The world has bought into the Palestinians case.
On what basis does Israel want to negotiate… the basis of preserving the settlement enterprise. Abbas is correct in refusing to fall in with this Israeli tactic.
What's the problem with negotiating with the 67 borders as the basis, and then working out whatever land swaps are possible? The problem is Israel greed for gobbling up large chunks of the W Bank… the wall is testimony to that. The world has woken up to this and will take no more. Israel, like apartheid S Africa doesn't get it.
The 2 state solution is dead…it has to be the one state solution.

By: Robert Werdine

Robert Werdine — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 04:36:39 +0000

Ilana, I largely agree with your assessment here, but remain skeptical of any prospect of negotiations or, for that matter, any prospect of success even if there were any. Abbas has avoided negotiations for two reasons: one, because he has no mandate or authority to make any meaningful concessions, and no inclination to do so even if he did; second, because Obama stupidly inflicted his "settlement freeze" gambit as a precondition for talks and thus handed Abbas a built in excuse to avoid them. Thus, thanks to Obama (or George Mitchell, the real genius behind the initiative) a major obstacle to talks has been put into place where none existed before.

In any event, the Palestinians give absolutely zero indication of wanting statehood and every indication of intensifying their unending war on Israel into new and possibly more fruitful venues. It will get them nowhere, but that is who they are: the Nowhere People.

By: John Yorke

John Yorke — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:11:05 +0000

But what point is there in the forging of any peace process here when events such as those of very recent memory can so easily consign the end-product to the dustbin of history?

If true peace is ever to be established with any sense of permanence in so volatile a region, then the single, stable, most long-standing and guaranteed element in the entire jig-saw puzzle must be co-opted to perform this service. This is the conflict itself; an enduring, generations-old struggle that has seen no falling-off in its drive or reason to be in all of its 65 years of existence.

It, therefore, has some claim to a longevity and a persistence which might be put to much better use in the formulation of a peace formula containing such notable and desirable features.

Http://yorketowers.blogspot.com

Here may be the one and only chance for Jews and Arabs to really become a true 'light unto the nations' and 'repairers of a world' so desperately in need of such alteration and attention.

And, since Jews and Arabs can trace their ancestry back to the People of the Book, do not these same injunctions still apply to both sets of today's descendants?

Or have Jews and Arabs come to believe that such matters are best abandoned in the pressing need to survive and flourish in so hostile a local – and a worldwide – environment?