Olmert tells Bush construction in Jerusalem to continue

At end of meeting with US president in capital, prime minister makes it clear Israel will not halt building plan in east Jerusalem despite American objection. 'We made it clear Jerusalem's status is different than that of the settlements,' Olmert says. Bush chooses not to confront his host, focuses on outposts: 'They must be evacuated'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3492546,00.html

<snip>

"Israel will not accept the American demand to stop building in east Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods and in the settlement blocs, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

"We made it clear that Jerusalem's status was different than that of other settlements," the prime minister stressed during a joint press conference with the US president, on the backdrop of the disagreement between Israel and the US regarding the demand to freeze the construction in the settlement and beyond the Green Line in the capital.

"The president did not ask me for further commitments in addition to the ones I gave in Annapolis. There are many issues on the agenda, and one of them is the continued construction in the settlement.

"Not everyone likes what we have to say about this, but we made it clear that Jerusalem's status was different than that of the settlements," said Olmert.

The prime minister was not afraid to speak against the American stance, clarifying that Israel never tried to hide what was taking place in the area."


Netanyahu to Bush: J'lem to stay under Israeli control for eternity

<snip>

"Opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning told visiting U.S. President George W. Bush that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people and will remain under Israeli sovereignty for eternity."

Netanyahu, who is chairman of the Likud party, made the remarks at a meeting with Bush at the King David hotel in Jerusalem."

<snip>

"Netanyahu said he sees in the U.S. president a true friend, and expressed his esteem for Bush's role in protecting the free world against extremist Islamic terror.

At the beginning of the meeting, which ran 45 minutes over the time allocated to it, Netanyahu gave Bush an ancient coin discovered in Jerusalem that dates from the third year of the great Judean revolt against the Romans in the first century CE. The coin bears Hebrew writing, signaling that the Jewish people's connection to Jerusalem has lasted thousands of years."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943581.html


Bush meets ailing Sharon's sons

<snip>

"U.S. President George W. Bush met on Thursday with the sons of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an old ally who has been in a coma since suffering a stroke two years ago.

"It was a small tribute to pay to a great man and a good friend, a comrade in arms, a tribute from one cowboy to another," Raanan Gissin, a former Sharon adviser, said about Bush's decision to see Omri and Gilad Sharon.

The brothers met Bush at the Jerusalem hotel where the president has been staying during a three-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Omri Sharon, a former legislator, was sentenced in 2006 to nine months in prison for illegal fundraising for his father's 1999 Likud party leadership campaign.

The start of the term was delayed because of his father's ill health and he is appealing the sentence, saying his resignation from parliament was punishment enough."

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31339120080110

if you can find one

From "The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World", by Avi Shlaim, page 25

...Despite all its limitations and anomalies, the UN resolution represented a major triumph for
Zionist diplomacy. While falling far short of the full-blown Zionist aspiration for a state comprising
the whole of Palestine and Jerusalem, it provided an invaluable charter of international legitimacy for
the creation of an independent Jewish state. News of the UN vote was greeted by Jews everywhere
with jubilation and rejoicing. But the followers of Ze'ev Jabotinsky in the Irgun and the Stern Gang
did not join in the general celebrations. A day after the UN vote, Menachem Begin, the commander of
Irgun proclaimed the credo of the underground fighters: "The partition of Palestine is illegal. It
will never be recognized....Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be
restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever."

This morning I heard a report on NPR that state Hamas' position that the "peace process" is a joke.

On this issue I am inclined to agree with them.

is that there will be no peace. They are for eternal war with Israel, and until there isn't a Jew left on any of "historic Palestine".

"By AHMED YOUSEF

Published in the NYT: November 1, 2006

HERE in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace.
A truce is referred to in Arabic as a ''hudna.'' Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one's opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.
Such a concept -- a period of nonwar but only partial resolution of a conflict -- is foreign to the West and has been greeted with much suspicion. Many Westerners I speak to wonder how one can stop the violence without ending the conflict.
I would argue, however, that this concept is not as foreign as it might seem. After all, the Irish Republican Army agreed to halt its military struggle to free Northern Ireland from British rule without recognizing British sovereignty. Irish Republicans continue to aspire to a united Ireland free of British rule, but rely upon peaceful methods. Had the I.R.A. been forced to renounce its vision of reuniting Ireland before negotiations could occur, peace would never have prevailed. Why should more be demanded of the Palestinians, particularly when the spirit of our people will never permit it?
When Hamas gives its word to an international agreement, it does so in the name of God and will therefore keep its word. Hamas has honored its previous cease-fires, as Israelis grudgingly note with the oft-heard words, ''At least with Hamas they mean what they say.''
This offer of hudna is no ruse, as some assert, to strengthen our military machine, to buy time to organize better or to consolidate our hold on the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, faith-based political movements in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey and Yemen have used hudna-like strategies to avoid expanding conflict. Hamas will conduct itself just as wisely and honorably.
We Palestinians are prepared to enter into a hudna to bring about an immediate end to the occupation and to initiate a period of peaceful coexistence during which both sides would refrain from any form of military aggression or provocation. During this period of calm and negotiation we can address the important issues like the right of return and the release of prisoners. If the negotiations fail to achieve a durable settlement, the next generation of Palestinians and Israelis will have to decide whether or not to renew the hudna and the search for a negotiated peace.
There can be no comprehensive solution of the conflict today, this week, this month, or even this year. A conflict that has festered for so long may, however, be resolved through a decade of peaceful coexistence and negotiations. This is the only sensible alternative to the current situation. A hudna will lead to an end to the occupation and create the space and the calm necessary to resolve all outstanding issues.
Few in Gaza dream. For most of the past six months it's been difficult to even sleep. Yet hope is not dead. And when we dare to hope, this is what we see: a 10-year hudna during which, inshallah (God willing), we will learn again to dream of peace.

Ahmed Yousef is a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya. "

Fatah was ousted from Gaza in a coup.

I can find dozens of examples like this (which comes complete with video, so you don't have to take my word for it)

• Fathi Hamad, Hamas Member of Parliament, to al-Aalam Iranian television in Arabic, 15 March 2007:

"Hamas rejects the Arab initiative and wants Palestine from the River to the Sea. If today Israel cannot be beaten militarily, it will be possible in the future."

Hamas can be brought into the political process. One does not need to have any sympathy whatsoever with Hamas to recognize this. And one doesn't have to have any sympathy whatsoever with Hamas to recognize the need if not the necessity of bringing Hamas into the political process and to consider it a catastrophic mistake to so isolate them for so long them thus isolating a very significant minority of the Palestinian public. After all if we look at Northern Ireland for example, the IRA was still using the most inflexible and intransigent language up until an agreement was actually brokered.

For a peace process to hold between Israel and the Palestinians I cannot imagine it working without Likud's at least begrudging acceptance any more than I can imagine it working without at least Hamas' begrudging acceptance.

The former Israeli Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami has been saying that for a long, long time. This is from his debate with Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now on February 14, 2006.

"SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Yes, Hamas. I think that in my view there is almost sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.? Did they run the affairs of the Palestinians in a clean way? You mentioned the corruption, the inefficiency. Of course, Israel has contributed a lot to the disintegration of the Palestinian system, no doubt about it, but their leaders failed them. Their leaders betrayed them, and the victory of Hamas is justice being made in many ways. So we cannot preach democracy and then say that those who won are not accepted by us. Either there is democracy or there is no democracy.

And with these people, I think they are much more pragmatic than is normally perceived. In the 1990s, they invented the concept of a temporary settlement with Israel. 1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce, and the reason they declared the truce is this, that with Arafat, whose the system of government was one of divide and rule, they were discarded from the political system. Mahmoud Abbas has integrated them into the political system, and this is what brought them to the truce. They are interested in politicizing themselves, in becoming a politic entity. And we need to try and see ways where we can work with them.

Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it. The P.L.O., when Rabin came to negotiate with them, also didn't recognize the state of Israel, and they engaged in all kind of nasty practices. And therefore, we need to be much more realistic and abandon worn-out cliches and see whether we can reach something with these people. I believe that a long-term interim agreement between Israel and Hamas, even if it is not directly negotiated between the parties, but through a third party, is feasible and possible. "

----------------

In fact several other prominent mainstream leaders support dialogue with Hamas and recently signed a letter which includes a paragraph very clearly stating so along with calling for real talks which covers substantial real issues.

Some of the signatories frankly surprised me:

"As to Hamas, we believe that a genuine dialogue with the organization is far preferable to its isolation; it could be conducted, for example, by the UN and Quartet Middle East envoys. Promoting a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza would be a good starting point."

Partial list of Signatories:


Zbigniew Brzezinski -Former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter

Lee H. Hamilton - Former Congressman (D-IN) and Co-chair of the Iraq Study Group

Carla Hills - Former U.S. Trade Representative under President George H.W. Bush

Nancy Kassebaum-Baker - Former Senator (R-KS)

Thomas R. Pickering - Former Under Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton

Brent Scowcroft - Former National Security Adviser to President Gerald Ford and President George H.W. Bush

Theodore C. Sorensen - Former Special Counsel and Adviser to President John F. Kennedy

Paul Volcker - Former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System

Jodie Allen - Senior Editor, Pew Research Center; Former Editor of the Outlook Section, Washington Post

Harriet Babbitt - Former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States; Former Director of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs

Birch Bayh - Former U.S. Senator (D-IN)

Shlomo Ben-Ami - Former Foreign Minister of Israel

Lincoln Chafee - Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies; Former U.S. Senator (R-RI)

Harvey Cox - Hollis Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School

Michael Cox - Professor, London School of Economics and Director of the Cold War Studies Centre

James Dobbins - Former Assistant Secretary of State

Joseph Duffey - Director, U.S. Information Agency, 1993-1999; Assistant Secretary of State for Education and Culture, 1977

Peter Edelman - Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Joint Degree in Law and Public Policy; Former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation

Gareth Evans - President & CEO of International Crisis Group; Former Foreign Minister of Australia

Leon Fuerth -Former National Security Advisor to Vice President Al Gore

Gary Hart -Wirth Chair at the University of Colorado; Chair of the Council for a Livable World and the American Security Project; Former U.S. Senator (D-CO)

Robert E. Hunter - Senior Advisor, RAND Corporation; Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Robert Hutchings - Diplomat in Residence, Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University; Former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council

Daniel Levy - Director, Middle East Policy Initiative, New America Foundation; Senior Fellow, Century Foundation; Lead Israeli Drafter, Geneva Initiative; Member of Israeli Delegation, Taba Negotiations

Anatol Lieven - Professor of War Studies, Kings College London; Senior Research Fellow, New America Foundation

John McLaughlin -Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Everett Mendelsohn -Professor Emeritus of the History of Science, Harvard University

Diana Villiers Negroponte - Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution

William E. Odom - Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Ret.); Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; Professor of Political Science, Yale University; Former Director of the National Security Agency, 1985-1988

Christopher Patten - Co-Chair of International Crisis Group; Chancellor of the University of Oxford; Former EU Commissioner for Foreign Relations; Former Commander in Chief and British Governor of Hong Kong

Edward L. Peck - Former U.S. Chief of Mission to Iraq; Former Ambassador to Mauritania

Larry Pressler - Former U.S. Senator (R-SD) & Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Member, Council on Foreign Relations

Theodore Roosevelt IV - Managing Director, Lehman Brothers

J. J. Sheehan - General, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)

Eric Shinseki - General, US Army (Ret.)

Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Stephen J. Solarz - Former U.S. Congressman (D-NY)

Robert and Renee Belfer - Professor in International AffairsJohn F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Phil Wilcox - President, Foundation for Middle East Peace; Former U.S. Ambassador at Large; Former Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Management at the U.S. Department of State; Former Director for Regional Affairs, Bureau for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Lawrence B. Wilkerson - Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.); Pamela C. Harriman Visiting Professor of Government, College of William Mary; Professorial Lecturer, George Washington University; Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of State; Former Director, U.S. Marine Corps War College

Joseph Wilson - Ambassador in President George H. W. Bush’s Administration; Special Assistant to President Clinton; Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council

Timothy Wirth - President, U.N. Foundation; Former U.S. Senator (D-CO)

Frank Wisner - Former U.S. Ambassador to Zambia, Egypt, the Philippines and India; Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Former Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs; Vice Chairman of External Affairs at American International Group

link to full letter and all the signatories:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Annapolis%20Summit%20Statement.htm
.

It may be true that Hamas can't be ignored, but I can certainly understand Israel's reluctance to even make the slightest overture towards a terrorist organization that has not tempered its inflammatory rhetoric one iota since it was elected. Hamas has continued to say that it will not recognize Israel, make peace with Israel, and plans to take back all of the land of "historic Palestine".

What part of that rhetoric needs further explanation?

still Dr. Ben-Ami still signed the letter listed above which is from the past few months. I don't think he has changed his mind

I agree with Dr. Ben-Ami that it was a mistake not to try to open a dialog a long time ago. If I took literally Benjamin Netanyahu's very recent pronouncements about never-ever compromising on Jerusalem and other language from the Likud leadership - I would be forced to conclude that dealing with Likud is absolutely hopeless. If I looked at the relentless expansion which is carried out by all Israeli governments regardless of the party - I would be forced to conclude that arriving at a peace deal is completely hopeless.

The only remote possibility for a lasting peace requires including at the table a lot of people with a lot of inflexible and intransigent language. And hope that in spite of this language and sometimes reprehensible deeds peace is still possible.

What is the alternative?

And why then would the Israeli govt continue its bullshit where it says outposts will be removed shortly and settlements won't be expanded, but then they go ahead and keep on doing it? Do you really think that isn't a huge blocker when it comes to peace?

And don't bother changing the subject again to how bad Hamas is. I know they're bad, but that doesn't give Israel the excuse to act badly...

What happened to his apartment in the Muslim quarter?

Jerusalem - القدس الشريف : Ariel Sharon's house in the Muslim Quarter

http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Jerusalem_528/Picture_11940.html

Sharon overshadows Israeli vote

>snip

Next, I head to the Muslim quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

On a narrow lane, there is a single house flying an Israeli flag. It was bought by Ariel Sharon in 1987, part of his aim to keep all of the city for Israel forever.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4842798.stm

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Palestine-Land-Peoples/dp/0521683157/ref=sr_1_2/105-7315089-8406054?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200148801&sr=1-2

Boim speaks out against division of capital, insists on continuing construction in city despite US objections

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3493785,00.html

<snip>

"Housing and Construction Minister Ze'ev Boim (Kadima) called Sunday for building to continue in sensitive areas in Jerusalem.

"Jerusalem has municipal boundaries that were established and within these domains it is our right to build. If we don't say this, we are pulling the rug out from under ourselves and placing a question mark on certain neighborhoods -- from Ramot Eshkolot to Gilo. That is unacceptable," Boim declared during a speech he made at a Jerusalem municipality economic forum meeting.

Minister Boim made his remarks following recent controversy surrounding the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa which has caused strained relations with the US and drawn criticism from US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

"We clearly explained our position to the US. It is permissible and even necessary to argue with friends about this. America's position with regards to Jerusalem is not new – since the days of (former Prime Minister David) Ben-Gurion they didn't accept this. They accept it de facto and not de jure."

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel has begun constructing 66 new homes in an east Jerusalem settlement, according to an AFP correspondent who visited the area on Tuesday, in a move likely to anger Palestinians.

The development comes as Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in the most serious peace talks in years aimed at solving the thorniest issues of the Middle East conflict, including the future status of Jerusalem.

Infrastructure work for new homes is under way in Maaleh Hazeitim, in the Ras al-Amud area of east Jerusalem which Israel occupied and annexed in the 1967 war and which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

"We are building 66 new apartments in three buildings," said David Ben Hamo, the manager of the construction site where a cornerstone was laid in a ceremony on Sunday.

"We have all the necessary papers and authorisation for the construction work," he told AFP.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-jCJR2AqwaA6YKPmyzSXaT5xV0g

If they ever even get to that point.