1. BobW said:

Israel's 1967 borders cannot be obtained if the new state of Palestine is to be contiguous. The only possible way I can think of is for condominium status, id est, shared territory.

Jerusalem is a separate issue. It's difficult to believe the EU and Arab League want GOI to exercise sovereignty over any section of Jerusalem. It's also difficult to believe GOI gives reverence toward Jerusalem. Look at the past schemes. Atarot is no longer considered part of Jerusalem. Abu Dis was once offered to the barbarians as a capitol location.

Kol tuv,
BobW

2. Bill Narvey said:

Prof. Paul Eidelberg’s article makes 3 points:

As to the first point that there will never be an independent Palestinian state because that is not what Palestinians, Egypt, and presumably other Arab nations really want and Islam’s global ambitions spearheaded by Hamas do not in any event, allow for a Palestinian nation state:

While Eidelberg’s conclusion may turn out to be correct, his reasoning is wanting.

One cannot deduce from Arafat’s rejection of the Barak offer that that Palestinians never really wanted an independent state.

Recently at the U.N. on Palestinian day, Koffi Annan stood before a map of the region that showed no Israel, but rather a Palestinian state. Arafat the terrorist, on taking centre stage in 1964, made clear in so many ways and especially since the aftermath of 1967, that his goal was to replace all of Israel with a Palestinian state. It takes no genius to understand that Abbas’s goals are the same as Arafat’s though he claims to do so by different means. His failure to go after Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure and on the day of the Netanyah murder bombings, announcing a policy of rewarding the families of suicide bombers and Palestinians imprisoned before or currently by Israel, should have been revealing enough for the West to see that this man who abandoned battle fatigues for a Western style suit is not about to abandon terrorism.

Over the years, both from Arafat’s mouth as well as other Palestinian spokespersons came words that clearly stated that whatever concessions gained in agreements with Israel would represent only a temporary status quo and a new base from which to start pushing, by whatever means for further concessionary agreements from Israel.

It has been clear for a long time now that the Palestinian agenda under Arafat was to eventually take all of Israel for Palestinians.

The West’s arrogance, sense superiority and failure to recognize and understand Islam and the power of Islam on the minds of Muslims, continues to blind the West to seeing that Western perceptions, values, aspirations and goals, in this case, an independent Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israeli state, which makes perfectly good sense to Western minds are not the perceptions, values, aspirations and goals shared by Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.

No leader in the West was taking the Palestinians at their word and they still refuse to see and hear what their eyes and ears tell them.

Complicating things further is Eidelberg’s observation that Hamas is the spearhead of Islam’s global ambitions and the concept of a nation state is an anathema to those ambitions. What differentiates Hamas from Fatah under Abbas is that Hamas eschews the Abbas notion of destroying Israel in stages and seeks to do so in one fell swoop or sustained war until they achieve the outcome they are pursuing.

Surely however Islam’s global ambitions which include the destruction of Israel, has within it some notion for what to do with the land of Israel once it is wrestled or simply taken away from Israelis.

Another factor lurking in the background flows from the premise, for which there is much evidence for, that the Palestinians are the pawns and proxies of the Arab nations that still seek Israel’s destruction by conducting their ongoing war by unconventional means. If Israel were to be so weakened by a mix of concessions on ongoing terrorist attacks, so that Palestinians eventually became poised to take all of Israel, it is doubtful the Arab nations would allow that to happen. Rather, the land of Israel would then become the bone other Arab nations would fight over and would go to one Arab nation or the other or would be shared.

The result would be that the Palestinians would return to being just Arabs, but ruled over by whatever Arab state or states now took control of the land of Israel.

A further complication in the mix is the global ambitions of radical Islam which includes gaining control of existing Arab nations, unseating the established order and re-establishing a caliphate over Islamic lands. In this regard, radical Islam is the enemy of all Arab nations and Arab leaders are getting very worried in that regard. It is conceivable that war will break out between the radical Islamic factions within each Arab nation and Arab leaders sooner than an all out war between Israel and Palestinians. Already, the Saudis and Jordan have felt the brunt of radical Islamic terrorism and have marshaled their forces to contain or destroy radical Islamists in their midst.

Amidst all this turmoil, polls suggest that the priority of the Palestinian issue amongst the Muslim world is dropping as other issues including radical Islam continue to rise.

The West’s hopes for an independent Palestinian state will just as easily not come to fruition as the Arab nations that have pushed the West to push Israel for that result, even as a staging ground for the next stage of actions to take all of Israel from the Israelis, further become increasingly distracted by their own growing concerns with radical Islam.

Hopefully the West at some point will start believing what their eyes and ears tell them about the real thinking and goals of Palestinians and the Arabs.

At some point, hopefully sooner than later the West will open their eyes to the fact that radical Islam is not limiting their war of domination to the Middle East region, but seeks hegemony for Islam globally and that the only way for the West to survive Islam’s ambitions is to mount an unrestrained offensive against the forces of radical Islam throughout the world including those forces within Western nations.

As the West comes to recognize and understand all these factors, the West likely will cease pushing for an independent Palestinian state and that could conceivably lay the foundation for Western or at least American support for Israel to retake that which it has conceded over the past 40 years and for the West to impose its strength and its will to redraw the global political-economic map that ensures Israel’s continued strength and survival amongst Muslim Middle eastern nations that have been defanged.

Prof. Eidelberg’s second point, is his condemnation of Israeli leaders since 1967, saying they have acted out of folly and cowardice by failing to act on what they knew to be the truth and failed to so advise Israelis.

Though there has been folly in some of Israel’s decisions as hindsight has showed, it is both unfair and totally unrealistic to attribute Israel’s ever weakening position vis a vis the Palestinians to say that Israel has been led by a bunch of deadhead cowards. To say so, implies that such deadhead cowards have led an Israeli deadhead cowardly populace. It just doesn’t hold.

Israel’s desire for peace, its wrongheaded Western attitude that peace will be gained by giving up just a bit more this time and always finding there is a next time to give up even more, and mostly heavy Western pressure to push Israel to make concessionary agreements in keeping with the Western view that Palestinians want or are capable of having what Western nations want for them, seems far more likely the kinds of factors that explain Israeli policies and decisions over the last 40 years that to many seem to be a decent into weakness.

Israel has not been the master of its own destiny. Perhaps if those things come to pass that are noted in the first comments here, things could change for the better if not much better and Israel will regain more control of determining its future and satisfying its needs.

Lastly Prof. Eidelberg says that Israel should retake and annex Gaza, Judea and Samaria and assist Palestinians residing there to emigrate to other countries, while encouraging greater Jewish immigration.

Here again, it is easy to say that, but given the current situation, it simply is not practical or realistic.

No Arab or other nation would be prepared to accept Palestinian immigrants evacuated from Israel, for to do so would be helping Israel create an even greater Israel within the Middle East. As of now, Arab nations still hold to the dream of no Israel.

For Israel to make a 180 degree turn at this juncture to initiate a war to take and annex Gaza, Judea and Samaria will put Palestinians back to the top of the Arab priorities and likely would bring about an all out war by Arab and Muslim nations against Israel. America and the West would ensure that will not happen.

As things degenerate into more chaos, confusion and worry both for Palestinians and for Arab nations vis a vis radical Islam and if America and the West begins to believe what their eyes and ears tell them and recognize that the West’s hopes and dreams for the Middle East and Israel were not ever those of the Palestinians, Arabs and radical Islam, that would likely lead America and the West to redefine their goals and objectives including adopting the goal of destroying radical Islam, all its supporters and the creed of radical Islam before radical Islam can do anything more to harm the West.

The West further would also benefit in such revelation and action following on the heals of such revelation, by redrawing the global political-economic map to their advantage vis a vis the Arab world that has had and has not been afraid to use far too many levers in influencing American and Western policy in the Middle East to the advantage of the Arab and Muslim world and the disadvantage of the West.

If these things were to come to pass, Israel would be far better positioned to retake and annex Gaza, Judea and Samaria, force the emigration from Israel of Palestinian Arabs whose loyalty is to the cause of Israel’s destruction and replace those persons with Jewish immigration.

cross posted - Isralert

3. felix quigley said:

Greetings to all, after that mammoth discussion!

Yes, this one will run, as they say. It has been running for 3 thousand plus years so we will not settle it tonight! Things are moving fast though.

The good thing about our discussion is that we have had a bit of clarity and we have some positions taken. I think we will all have an eye on events. For myself I will follow Debkafile closely which I think is a great resource.

What we learned from Yugoslavia and on this BobW agreed with me before, though differences of course on other issues, which is good, is the pivotal role of the Media. We found there it was a power unto itself. That means nothing will come easy to us. The ideas of Bill on organisation I will read again and think about seriously.

4. Ed D said:

I'm really tired of "wooda", "shooda", "cooda". It is past time for a courageous leader to step forward in Israel, along with a courageous Parliment whose feet could be held to the fire. I, totally, reject the actions of the various parties jockying for political positions that place the security of Israel in danger. The new "Forward Party" contains the formula of Israel's destruction, namely Sharon, Mafaz, Halutz (gutless), Peres and the others. General Ay'alon needs to come to the fore and lead Israel in battle against the forces of evil. The IDF will follow him. Let's put an end to all of the party bickering, the harrassment by the US and the EU

5. Per said:

Bob W. said: "Israel's 1967 borders cannot be obtained if the new state of Palestine is to be contiguous"

I agree, and neither can the second of Condi's requirements be obtained, namely that Palestinistan shall be viable. The Abdullah-plan which lies at the root of the Roadmap requires the right to return of millions of "Arabs". All this requires a land that extends far beyond the borders between the River and the Sea.

In former times a Zionist was a Jew who escaped attempted murder in Europe by fleeing to Palestine/Israel. Nowadays it appears to be anyone's more or less weird ideological og religious outfit and political window dressing. This has to change drastically. If Israelis and other Jews no longer agree to who they are and why they are there, they are in grave trouble.