Tall tasks

Israel is trying to run before it can walk in its pursuit of bilateral relations with Arab countries, writes Nevine Khalil

A day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signaled that Israel would continue to tighten its hold on Palestinian land his Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was in Egypt soliciting Cairo's help in improving Tel Aviv's ties with Arab capitals.

Shalom's talks with President Hosni Mubarak, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Chief of Intelligence Omar Suleiman on Tuesday came in advance of Israel's anticipated withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in July and the security vacuum that may follow.

During their 90-minute meeting Shalom urged Mubarak to help Israel improve its relations with the Arab world and to pressure the Palestinians to take stronger action against militants.

"Israel and Egypt have much to gain from enhancing the relationship between Israel and its Middle East neighbours," Shalom told reporters after the meeting. "This is why I believe it's important to launch a new roadmap to promote Israel's relations with the Arab world." The new roadmap, he said, would aim at "full diplomatic relations and full normalisation between Israel and the Arab world". Israel, he added, "looks to Egypt to cooperate in promoting this vision".

Last month's Arab summit in Algeria rejected a Jordanian proposal opening the door for normalisation with Israel before a final peace settlement is reached with the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/738/fr2.htm

No mention of Israel's pullout from Gaza in which is get nothing in exchange I guess it does not matter how much land Israel gives up Some people in this forum just don't see israel as legit

get used to it.

If people don't gush about how wonderful and generous Israel is for talking about pulling out of Gaza (note: it hasn't happened yet), which of course Israel had every right to be in, seeing as how it belongs to Israel and there's no such thing as an occupation, then people not gushing away about that just don't see Israel as legit! What an absolute load of crap it is to accuse people of not acknowledging Israel's existance if they dare pay attention to ANYTHING else other than the talk about disengagement from Gaza, though it's a load of stinky crap that the more simple-minded would rush to embrace...

Did you actually have anything constructive to say about what was in the article? Did you even read it, or just run a quick find over it to try to locate words like 'Gaza' and 'disengagement' and 'Israel is soooo kewl!!!'? Some of us do find Israel's up-and-down relationship with other countries in the area worth discussing, even though doing it will clearly earn us a rebuke as not seeing Israel as legit from folk who must think that every post in this forum should contain nothing but gush about how wonderful the disengagement plan is and how it takes care of EVERYTHING!!!!!

btw, you never did answer my question about why you don't believe the Gaza Strip and West Bank are occupied territory, hence yr use of the dit-dits around the word occupied in another post...

Violet...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I could explain it to you, but I want you to attempt to do some thinking. While yr at it, you can also explain why removing settlers from Gaza is enough to make whatever Israel does with the West Bank none of anyone's business. Then to top it off, you could explain to everybody why the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip isn't really an occupation, and why it's nasty and evil to say it is...

A suggestion, but if you are soooo sensitive about criticism of Israel, then why are you posting in a political forum about the conflict? And do you also give the US the same treatment and call any criticism of its policies 'attacks on the US'?

Violet...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Personally, I think I got it spot on in my post given the post I was replying to. Nothing rude about it. I wasn't directing the viewpoint at anyone other than the poster I replied to, and there was no misrepresentation there that I can see...

Yes, they did refer to the West Bank and Gaza as "occupied" (note the dit-dits) in another thread and didn't answer when I asked them about it. The territory is every bit as occupied as post WWII Germany and Japan and more recently Iraq, which is why I wonder why folk who don't acknowledge that it's an occupation don't go round talking about the "occupation" of Iraq...

From what I can work out, we seem to agree on most of the important stuff, and probably veer away from each other on the nitty-gritty stuff. I don't mind arguing with you at all though. Apart from yr lack of fondness for my writing skills in my earlier post, you get the thumbs up from me :)

Violet...

(even when they call for a boycott of East Bank Settlement products but not Israeli products) Says they are not forthocming enough about borders. http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/1998/june/ler4.htm, admitted it's an old article.

But Khalil tends to be dismissive of Peace Now.

Nevine Khalil wrote an article for GAMLA? Blech. Anyway, I don't tend to do background checks on people who write articles that get posted here, but the criticism of Peace Now that you spoke about is one I've heard before, and nothing against the good intentions of Peace Now, but sometimes they can be just a bit too nambypamby about things for my liking. That's not saying that I think Peace Now should be dismissed at all, but that I'm aware of the limits Peace Now works under and places on itself...

Violet...

It's called getting some Knesset seats - even if only from the left side of the political spectrum.

Here's the link--
http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/1998/june/ler4.htm

Actually, I was raised in a household that was to the left of Peace Now -- google "Jewish Autonomous Region" and "Birobidzhan".

Hey, If grand dad had gone to Birobidzhan instead of the US - I would have been a "Big Oil" Executive (ok, Deputy Assistant Commissar-Apparatchik)

Dos V'donya and King's Knight and Queen's Bishop, and Borscht and Black Bread, etc. :toast:

Thanks for posting it. I'm still trying to work out why that article was sitting on the Gamla site of all places, but I guess it's really not all that important :)

Violet...