The 'Times' embraces Geneva

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1070942841950

Arafat went back to war three years ago rather than negotiate on essentially the terms of the Geneva Accord - aside from what the Times would call nitpicks. So someone who believes that he is willing to accept this agreement now needs to have a theory about why he has changed, and to point to evidence that he has.

Certainly the war Arafat began after he rejected the Camp David offer of a Palestinian state has greatly increased Palestinian popular feelings against Israel - as well as similar feelings among Muslims and West Europeans. It would have been much easier to make peace with Israel in 2000 than it will be in 2004.

snip

It is a "nitpick" that the "agreement" does not use the word Jew or Jewish, because of Palestinian refusal to recognize that there is a Jewish people, much less that that people has the normal right of a people to a state.

It is a nitpick that the agreement requires Israel to compensate the Palestinians for every acre of land it keeps from the territory occupied by Jordan before its 1967 aggression against Israel - not because they need a few acres of Negev desert, but because they care about the principle that the land Israel acquired in 1967 has always been "Palestinian land" rather than disputed territory to which Israel has strong legal claims.

It is a nitpick that the agreement provides that Israel compensate the Arab countries where Palestinian "refugees" have lived - but makes no mention of compensation to the larger number of Jews who were ethnically cleansed from these same Arab countries when the Palestinians left, and in some proportion were thrown out of, Israel during Israel's War of Independence.
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the geneva scam

I can't take this R/W, neo-con publication seriously.

So, let's just pretend we don't know the source and discuss from the article's merits.

I particularly enjoyed these 2 paragraphs:

"The moral reason underlying the Palestinians' rejection of peace is that there is no justice to a Jewish state here because there is no Jewish people whose ancestors lived in the land; there are only colonial invaders. Recently they have demanded that Great Britain apologize for the Balfour Declaration, which was implemented by the League of Nations's decision that Palestine should become a Jewish homeland because of the Jews' ancient connection with the land of Israel and their need for a homeland.

In other words, the Palestinians insist that the idea of a Jewish homeland in the area is a crime against Palestinians - although they don't like to recognize that it was a "crime" committed by the League of Nations - well before the Holocaust."

however, to argue on this forum about the fact that there has been a Jewish presence there for thousands of years and there wasn't even a people called "Palestinians" before 1967 (Philistines, yes; Palestinians, no) just seems to be beating the proverbial dead Jew; strike that, I meant proverbial dead horse.


:puke: :puke: :puke:

This critique, like all the other critiques of the Geneva Accord, is badly flawed.

Mr. Singer, the author of the piece, rants endlessly of how "the Palestinians" aren't ready to make peace with Israel. That is a sweeping generalization that demands clarification. Such clarification is not to be found in his piece.

It is certainly true that the Islamists regard Israel's very existence as a crime. It is also true that Arafat and his PA have failed to bring about the kind of peace that would give the Palestinian people the sovereignty and independence they will need to make their lives prosperous. If that is what Mr. Singer means by the sweeping term "the Palestinians", he gets no argument from me. However, he should at least clarify the point.

Mr. Singer goes on to attack Arafat's credibility as a peacemaker. Here, too, the historical record bears him out.

The only problem with attacking the militants, the PA and Arafat when criticizing the Geneva Accord is that the process was designed to circumvent these very people. They have indeed proven intransigent in the past, as have General Sharon and Likud and even more so some of his coalition partners and elements of his political base. It is true that these people are the problem and that they are unwilling to be part of a solution.

It seems pointless to wait for these war parties to make peace. They are too committed to each other's destruction; they lust too much for all the land of west of the Jordan to compromise and allow two equal nations to exist there.

The point of the maverick process that produces a virtual peace accord is that the so-called leaders have failed and there is no reason to have any confidence that they will even try seriously to succeed. If the leaders will not lead, it is pointless to follow them. We, the people of good will who live on this planet, should push them out of the way and take matters into our own hands. The accord circumvents these failed leaders and those intransigents who comprise their political bases. To criticize the accord in terms of those leaders and those intransgent elements is to miss the point of the Geneva process.

The accord is the result of the revolt of reasonable men. That is why it is worthy of support.

If there is no collective "Palestinians" there can be no Palestinian State. If the statement: "the Palestinians" are ready to make peace with Israel can't be found true, there can be no Palestinian state.

That should be clear.

You're right as far as you go. However, the author's statement was that "the Palestinians" are not ready to make peace. He is making no distinction between the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority (i.e., Arafat).

This argument could work the other way, if one wanted to propogate agaisnt the Geneva Accord from a Palestinian POV. One could say that "the Israelis" continue to build settlements on occupied land and build a Wall that annexes part of the Palestinian Territories into Israel. Therefore, "the Israelis" are not willing to make peace.

If, in the above, I were to substitute the term "the Jews" for "the Israelis", you'd probably let out a howl and rightly so. That line of fallacious logic is the essence of anti-Semitism when applied to the Jews.

The fact is that many different people on both sides have many different opinions about making peace. It is not fair to say that "the Palestinians" are not ready to make peace or "the Israelis" are not ready to make peace as if all were or were not.

The Geneva Accord, being a virtual agreement, allows us to move away from that line of thinking. It came about because "the leaders" of the respective nations were not willing to do what it takes to make peace. Let's support those who want peace and reject those who would rather spill the last drop of blood over the last acre of land on the Levant.

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