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You forgot the bit about unrestricted “right of return” for Palestinian “refugees.” Revealing all the facts would enable neutral outsiders to make a more educated judgment.

After watching the steadily degrading situation in Palestine over the last 58 years I would have to say that it seems Israelis do not want peace…just a bigger piece.

How can a people (European Jews) claim to have an historic attachment to a land (Palestine) but reject the people who live there?

The Israelites should embrace their Middle Eastern-ness, accept that the people of Palestine are indeed a branch of the same tree they draw their roots from and get on with it! ‘It’ being where we should have been in the first place…minus the Zionist dream.
(http://montreal-palestine.blogspot.com/2006/12/one-country.html)

I support a FREE and democratic country in ALL of historic Palestine…a re-United Palestine for ALL of it’s citizens no matter their religion or language.

Abu-Issa

I think you missed the part where she said that the major obstacle in the initiative is the ‘right to return’, not the borders issue.
The initiative is an offer in Arab terms.
Does it sound reasonable that Israel, who wasn’t represented at all in the preparation of the initiative, would accept it without negotiations?

This is a bit depressing to read.
I didn’t read or watch Livni’s press conference, so if this is in fact the gist of it, I must say I share Shifaa’s annoyance.

I think all us reasonable people have LONG figured out that the 1967 borders (give or take a few MINOR adjustments) are the best and fairest hope for the 2 state solution.

The right of return is indeed going to be the thorny issue in all this, and should be discussed by both sides.

It is comments like those of Ms. Livni that propagate the notion that Israel is not really that interested in a fair peace (but rather, in a peace on its own terms and conditions, with no compromise) and that Israel often applies a double standard and comes across as “arrogant” (with the biased backing of the US).

I hate to sound like one of the countless arab state media outlets, who use words like “arrogant” and “imperialist” and all that claptrap, but Israeli leaders might really benefit from a bit of PR savvy towards the Arab world (as opposed to the perfectly fine PR savvy they have when it comes to Western audiences), because it sure seems like every time SOMEONE takes a step towards a reasonable peace suggestion, Israel comes out with some intransigent inflexible response.
It’s one thing when non-state extremists (like say, Hezbollah or whoever) come up with intransigent statements, but that kind of talk should not come out of state officials who claim to be searching for peace.

Omeran, I quoted what she said word by word. The core of her arugment was teh border of the next Palesetinian state. And no I do not think that either Israel or the Palestinian have the final say on this conflict. I know that this might sound silly but it is ture.
They tried negotiation for the last 10 years and they are worse plance than when they started. This conflict is immoral, and hurt so many people and affect the stablitity of the internatinal community in large. The soloution should be enforced on both sides equally and should be based on the 1967 formula that Bad Vibel mentioned in his responce.

The security concerns for the state of Israel which in the 60s and 70s
made sense are no longer exist today. And Palestinian refugees should be allowed to reutrn to the Palestinian state borders if they want to. Those who were
forced to leave from the 1948 land should be compensated for their
properties. I think that this kind of agreement can be cut if we have decent leaders in both side of the conflict. Abbas seems very reasonable, we are waiting for someone from the Israeli side to stand up and end the insanity. Every minute passes by,
Abbas gets weaker and weaker and there will be a point where the gap is so huge that no body believe that Peace can be achieved

Oh my… sorry, Shifaa, but I think I am just going to vivisect your post here.

The so-called “right of return” (of “refugees” who are third and fourth generation descendants of people who lived in modern-day Israel) is a farce. The sole pupose of this farce is the destruction of Israel, like most other things Arab states do that has anything to do with Israel.

As Omeran said, the “right of return” is indeed the key point. And you cannot expect Israel to say “oooh, we’re going to be swamped with millions of Jordanians, Saudis, Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and such who just want to kill us all! Yei! Come aboard, boys and girls! Should we start digging our graves or would you like to turture us first?”. Moreover, you cannot expect Israel not to have reservations about a deal with Israel in which Israel has no say. Nor can you expect Israel to just accept the words of states that dedicated themselves to the destruction of Israel, with populations who are virulently anti-semitic. Especially given the interesting record of said states when it comes to agreements. Especially when we’re talking about the Saudi Theocracy and take into account certain bits of Wahabbi ideology that has to do with agreements with infidels – namely, that these are by definition not worth the paper they’re written on.

“Of course, she did not explain why the Palestinian state did not exist in the first place”

Could it have something to do with the fact that when Palestinians were first offered a state, they chose to attempt to genocide the Jews and take our state as well? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Jordan and Egypt conquered the lands originally slated by the UN for Palestinians? Nah, let us just ignore this little bit of history. It is obviously of no relevance.

“when she called the Arab World to normalize their ties with Israel without delay; a move that for sure will motivate Israel to engage actively in the peace process!”

You want peace, let us have peace. You don’t want peace, let us have war. Simple. Israel is not the one striving to destroy the Arab states. Peace for peace sounds good and reasonable to me. No? The “Palestinian problem” is the stopgap? Strange, that – if the Arab world cares so much for the Palestinians, why did it fuck them over a thousand times, killed dozens of thousands of them, keeps them in camps for over half a bloody century, makes sure they are ignorant and violent by propaganda and funds for terrorm? BS. The Palestinians are an excuse and a weapon. If they weren’t, the assorted “refugees” would have by now been productive citizens of the respective states they and their parents were born in.

“only 22% of the land” – ??? What?

King Abdullah (despite the great respect I have for the man) got it wrong. Well, it is not exactly surprising – he rules over a population that is largely virulently anti-semitic and anti-Israel. The real options are: fortress state or death.

Next: there was never any peace. Hudna is not “peace”. And even a hudna was not upheld, not for a bloody moment.

And as for the options of Israel for the future:

1) survival. Entails the completion of the separation barrier (and therefore the creation of a de-facto Palestinian state), a strong economy and a strong military (both of which we already have), and the willingness to kick ass when needed (which we will have after the up-and-coming elections which will remove the Government of Worms from power).

2) destruction, closely followed by the genocide of the Jewish people. In this mythical bi-national state, do we get to build our own concentration camps? Or will our dear cousins bring contractors from abroad? I presume the former – arbeit macht frei, after all.

“OR choose to accept the offer, do the right moral thing, return the lands to the Palestinains and enjoy full membership in the Arab World.”

You cannot return the lands to Palestinians. You can give them, yes, and I am all for it (we should not have to carry this pointless burden) – but something never owned cannot be returned.

How, exactly, can Israel enjoy the full membership in the Arab World when even the Arab world doesn’t exactly enjoy the full membership in itself? And given the well over half a century of rabid propaganda, this sounds about as likely as an paper dog chasing an asbesthos cat through hell.

Sorry, but Livni is right. Strange, seeing as she’s in the Government of Worms… but hey, even they can’t always be wrong.

Shifaa – the can certainly be peace, bro. The peace of the desert. We all came from the desert, and we all shall return to it – it is something all we Semites should understand well.

shifaa –it is definitely the “right of return” that is at issue here. If refugees were defined, as they are defined for all other countries and all other refugee populations, as being only those individuals who physically lived in this country pre-1948 and who left as a result of the war and thus NOT their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who were born outside, then there would be no problem. The problem is that, in this case (and only in the case of palestinians, refugees are defined as anyone descended from the original refugees). And there is no way that this would be accepted. the new palestinian state should be the homeland for these people. If they were to return to Israel, Israel would be no more and there is no way that we are going to commit suicide as a nation in this way.

a link to the ynetnews article.

BTW… King Abdhullah is a good man. He is an actual benevolent dictator, stuff of legend and myth – the Good King who is actually trying to help his people. His attempt at remaining in good relations with assorted malevolent ME tyrants and psychotic populations from his own people, though, is preventing him from being a Great King. I honestly believe he could become Abdullah the Great rather than Abdullah the Good… if he didn’t do stuff like this. Moreover, his father (of blessed memory) became greater than himself at an old age, so King Abdullah has a good precedent.

Well, i believe that we all should sit around a table and Talk! Together, we will define who is a Terrorist, who is a Refugee,what the Right of Return Means…otherwise it’s empty talking! Why are we counting on the media to transfer our messages to each other while we can very well do this by ourselves! I don’t have any other thing to say about this subject!

Yael,
Your definition of who is a refugee might be well taken from the Jungles’ Law which can be summarized as” the strong eats the weak.” According to what you’re saying:” any nation can wipe another nation from existence. The stronger nation needs only to occupy a land that belongs to someone else, kick its citizens out and it keep the land for 50 years till the existing generation of refugees die by natural cause. If the stronger nation wants to expedite the process then genocide can take care of timing. Yael, I am sorry but your idea was promoted once by Colonizing France and Britain in the 19th and 20th century claiming that the lands of many other nations belong to them…..!!!

To tell you the truth, I am very surprised to hear that statement coming particularly from a Jew. According to your definition, Germany is not responsible about the Holocaust since all those who commit these horrendous crimes are dead today. The German do not to apologize and they might want to rewrite their history books taking out Germany moral responsibility. Yael, with due respect, but if we all adopt your idea then we all sound like the schizophrenic Ahmed Najad of Iran.

I agree, Ramzi. I do think that the best chance for peace would be for talks to continue.
It seems to me that we are talking about small areas of land here—the territories and Israel—and there is room for each group to have their own country, based on the common interests of each group. The Palestinians could benefit from having their own country and having support from outside to help them make it successful. If the Palestinians had their own country with a stable, reasonable government, the country would draw investors, tourists, and this would improve the economy and the lives of the people who live there.
It seems insane to suggest that the concept of refugees include the descendants of those who left the land of Israel in 1948. The Cajuns in Louisiana (some of my relatives on my mother’s side of the family) were forced out of Canada and had to flee to Louisiana and to rebuild their lives. How crazy would it be if I started trying to reclaim lands and possessions and asking for a right to return? Where does this happen? The best hope for peace in that corner of the ME is for there to be two countries and for them to work toward being good neighbors to each other. What is wrong with that?

Lynne, Yaeli, Lisoooosh ,

My next door neighbour is a Palestinian refugee from Syria…he is more palestinian than myself… i think that these people are part of us, asking us to forget about them is like asking you to forget about the holocaust…two things that will never happen! Whether they stay where they are, come back to Israel, to Palestine, etc… These people should get what they deserve and they should also be given the right to choose between many options, a Refugee is not a term limited by any generation, and as long as they will be treated as refugees , they will stay refugees, even ten generations later… Today, They still live in Camps ( in houses, not tents…) they still feel that they don’t belong to where they live, they are called ” Palestinians ” by all those around them and they refere to themselves as Palestinians too… so they are a huge concern for us, and they must be a huge concern for israel too… What made them become refugees is the state of israel… ( just as my grandpa is a Refugee , he never fled any war, he just went to work and the second day when he tried to go back to his home, they told him : ” it’s not your house anymore” …) But my family doesn’t want any compensation, we don’t want his house back, we don’t want anything back, we just want israel to recognize that if he lost his house, it’s because israel got created and in such cases, the least you expect is an apology…some sort of recognition! I don’t care about how other arab countries treated jews, i’m palestinian, other arab countries don’t represent me…

Ramzi – If, as a Palestinian, other Arab countries don’t represent you, then who is the Arab initiative trying to represent?

Well…That was interesting….

It only took one silly post for people to start spewing ignorance and stupidity, even around these usually “level-headed” parts.

I know i must sound harsh to all my fellow neighbours, but:

1. Racoon: The “All the arabs want to slaughter us jews” routine is old and tired. I thought we were a past that around here.

2. Yaeli: I do agree that the right of return needs to be figured in a way that suits Israel’s jewish character. That’s a given. But I must also express surprise at your definition of where the rights of a refugee end (with his death, and with no rights for the following generation). In an era where African americans are getting reparations for things done to their forefathers, and the Holocaust remains a hot topic to this day (even though it occured about 2 generations ago now), with reparations being made by Germans who were not necessarily alive in the 1930s and 1940s. This is an issue that needs to be talked about, and agreed on, by both sides (and not imposed by one side over the other), but let’s not start making these generalized definitions of what is a refugee and what there right is, lest somebody whip out the mother of all “rights of return”: The return of the jewish people to Israel after 4000 years of diaspora.

I hope no offense is taken. I choose to be a bit harsh out of love for all my fellow neighbours here.

Shifaa –so I take it pretty much the entire population of Australia should be able to return to the UK and take up residence there en masse? Australia’s white population came about because all through-out the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their overburdened correctional facilities. The last convicts to be transported to Australia arrived in Western Australia in 1868. Of course, the crimes committed by the majority of those sent to Australia was no more than the crime of being in dire poverty (yes, being poverty-stricken was indeed a jailable offense). They sent entire families. Should the descendents of those who colonized the U.S. and Canada –the puritans and so forth who were persecuted and had to flee –should they all be able to return as full citizens of the countries from which their great-great-great-great grandparents were hounded out of? How far back do you go?

At some point the past has to be the past.

Restitution? Yes, I agree that those who were forced out –not those who left in order to fight against the country –should be compensated. If they are no longer living, the amount that would go to recompense them would then be shared among their heirs. As for the holocaust, Jews who had all their possessions taken, who were forced to do slave labour for many years, and who were wholesale murdered during the holocaust did receive token compensation from the German government. You may have owned property worth a great deal but you were compensated with a tiny sum, a mere fraction of what the property was worth, provided that you could get your hands on records showing that you indeed owned the property and so forth. As individuals each one received, on average, a sum equivalent to about $5000 in todays currency. For what it is worth, I think our government should be and would be a hell of a lot more generous than that.

What a can of worms. The second I read this post, it stood out to me as a perfect example of how differently we view the world, events and history.

Shifaa – I think your post is so complicated, and built on a different point of view, that it might be wise to take a step back and clarify a few points to be certain that people start on the same page.

Firstly – does anyone have access to a transcript of Livni’s speech so that it can be properly looked at?
Secondly- does anyone have a link to the exact points detailed in the Arab initiative, so that a side by side comparison can be made?
Thirdly – can any of the Arabic speakers provide a translation of any pertinent articles in the Arab press?

Shifaa, I need to work out some other questions for you, in order to better understand your view of history and events, I’ll work them out and post later.

Bad V., you always make me smile with your witticisms
It is an extremely complicated issue. Ramzi suggested that people must sit down and talk–talkng at each other through the media as leaders do won’t work. These are difficult issues that must be debated, discussed, and finally compromised on.
I would hope that Israel would be generous and sensitive to the individuals who have legitimate claims and are owed restitution for lost land and property. That is just and fair, though we all realize surely that no one can truly be compensated for hardship and despair. There is no way to change the past. We all have to move forward.
In some cases, Arab residents in Israel were made to leave, but the majority of the people who left chose to do so. Those who stayed became Arab Israelis and were free to worship as they wished to and live with full rights as Israeli citizens. Not so for many Palestinian refugees who ended up in neighboring countries. They were often confined to camps and were not embraced by the citizens there. It seems to me that Arab Israelis have had better opportunities, rights, and privileges. Anyone who was forced to leave Israel though should receive compensation.
Lisoosh, your suggestions are good ones. I’d like to see the full Arab intiative so that I can more fully understand the recommendations.

Yael, the Australian example does not match the Israeli Palestinian conflict. You took an extreme case want to prove a logic norm. Palestinians whom were forced to leave Palestine in the time of (Naqba) 1948 were not criminals. Criminals lose their rights and privileges following commiting their crimes. Today, people who choose to betray their countries are stripped form their citizenship and rights. Now there were waves of people who followed the prisoners (first wave) and moved by their choice to live in Australia to start a new life. Those who moved by choice, do have the right to return to their mother country if they wanted to. I myself live in the United States and have the right and so is my son to go back to Jordan if he chooses to.
Yael, basically you want to adopt two systems; one applies for the Jews and different one applies for the Arabs. A Jew whom her ancestors lived in Russia for the last thousand years can choose to move back to Israel if she decides to, but Palestinian person who still have the keys for their parents’ house in Haifa and Jafa cannot. There is a word for that “discrimination”
NOW this is not what my post was about. I believe that most Palestinians will drop the right of return for a Palestinians state that will be established on the WB and Gaza including East Jerusalem as a capital. The question is if Israel is willing today to relinquish its control over the territories.

Ramzi -
You bring up some important points, that we are dealing with several issues, including how people view themselves, how the world views them and how the world deals with them.

(Disclaimer – I can’t speak for the entire Israeli people, only as one and one who doesn’t live there anymore and who therefore can’t vote there or influence any elections. I represent myself onl.)

For the record, I believe that irrespective of blame or fault or culpability, the Palestinians who were displaced and lost their homes when Israel was formed deserve both an apology and compensation. Just to note, after 1948 and into the early 1950’s there was in fact an accounting of all lands Israel acquired. Ottoman/British state lands became Israel state lands, religious Waqf lands remained Waqf and private property (later transferred to the State) was listed and compensation funds were created. There is a whole lot of compensation money for Palestinian landholders waiting in a bank for the day there is a permanent settlement/agreement.

As to refugees – there are three issues I can comment on here, the personal view of those who call themselves refugees, the views of those in the place they wish to move to, international standards.

1. You are right, you can’t dictate to someone how they feel about themselves. If a person thinks of himself as a refugee, he can think that way, I can’t tell another person how to feel about himself, or what to call himself.

2. No-one can tell a sovereign nation who they may or may not accept into their fold apart from the citizens of that nation (in a democracy). Mexico can’t tell the US how many Mexican immigrants to accept, Turkey can’t tell Germany how many Turkish workers to accept, China can’t tell Australia how many Chinese to absorb, only the nations can decide that for themselves. Democratic nations are just very very large communities.
By the same reasoning, only the current citizens of Israel can decide who they want to live beside. A country of 6 million, which some want to absorb up to 4 million people they don’t want to absorb. This leaves few choices:
a. Force them to, which means endless war.
b. Israel never accepts any of them, which means endless war.
b. Accept whichever number they decide in a negotiated settlement, probably the return of those born in and who lived in what is now Israel, which wouldn’t make them happy, but most could live with. Noone gets exactly what they prefer. That is the basis of peace.

3. Brings us to International standards.
The world DOES in fact have a standard for refugees. A refugee is someone who is forced to leave his or her home. It is not “inherited”. Refugees come under the protection of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It’s mission is to” protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. It’s primary purose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. UNHCR seeks lasting solutions to their plight” (from their website).

UNHCR currently works with around 20 million refugees in the world. Their goal is integration, they help people to return to their lives, or to start a new life somewhere else. The point if for someone to stop being a refugee. They don’t keep people in camps long term. They don’t run long term education programs.

There is only one group of refugees in the world who do not come under the auspices of UNHCR.
There is only one group of refugees in the world who have their own special UN agency UNWRA.
There is only one group of refugees in the world who are kept in refugee camps for generations.
There is only one group of refugees in the world who have refugee status passed down through generations.

For those who asked about the API

The Arab Peace Initiative (API),the 22-member League of Arab states which pledges their collective and full recognition of the Jewish state and full-fledged permanent peace in return for withdrawing the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to 1967 lines, the establishment of an independent Palestine with eastern Jerusalem as its capital, and “an agreed, just solution” to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with United Nations Resolution 194.

Shifaa, thank you for the clarification of the API. Lisoosh, thanks so much for the informative post.
Let’s hope that the leaders will stop useless dialog in the media and sit down and work some of these issues through to an acceptable solution for all.

Deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Israel, Tzipi Livni, in Canada addressed the ‘right of return’ thusly: A two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would preclude any right of Palestinians to return to homes inside Israel.

“Israel is the national answer to the Jewish people, wherever they were, and Palestine is the national answer to a Palestinian, wherever they are, including the refugees.”

Yes, Israel must compensate the original Palestinians who fled in 1948, and they number approximately 60,000, is that correct? They’ve since extended in number to about ten times the original. They will all find their places in their new homeland of the State of Palestine.

One doubts that the commensurate number of Jews who fled or were expelled from Arab lands will be offered compensation. And so be it. That the two solitudes require equal security and peace, equal opportunities to prosper, to have a future for themselves and their children is without question.

It’s long past time.

The West Bank should be returned, the settlers encouraged to make their homes within the security of Israel proper, while Palestinians may take back that which they claim to be theirs – outside the borders of Israel.

Shifaa, the Arab Peace Initiative when it was originally tabled was without the argument for ‘right of return’ it has been recently added, making agreement between Israel and the PA less likely to occur.

The thing that most strikes me that if the majority on both sides expressed the opinions that most here do, that of accommodation and a true willingness to get along, matters would proceed in a manner that would be fair to both sides.

In the best of all possible worlds Jews and Arabs could embrace one another, celebrating that which brings them together, and learning about that which separates them, adopting a kind of pluralistic approach to their proximity, and a willingness to assist one another.

I do like a whole lot of what Ramzi has to say about it. He is idealistic in the best of all possible ways. And he is absolutely right about race, since there is but one human race. Despite all the artificial dividers we place between us. Those divisions are cultural, traditional, societal mores; all of which could serve to enhance a vibrant, interactive community – across state borders.

“Peace And Love”…” Better have pains of peace than agonies of War” …” Make love not war” ….

I don’t know why, all i feel like right now is to find Cupidon and to bring him to the middle east for a few days! He can enter easily, he holds a Greek nationality :p … His mission will be to teach our leaders to love other ! Imagine Mesha’al hugging Lieberman ! Imagine palestinian youth throwing flowers at israeli soldiers who reply with Candy bullets and love letters … Imagine Olmert having a Candle Light dinner with Siniora and Hassan nasrallah … While Livni shares a very lovely Lunch with Abbas at a Ramallah restaurant and while dahlan goes bowling with Haniyeh and while King Abdullah Of jordan goes for a Golf with Bashar Al Assad … and imagine that on their way, they all meet their friend netanyahu and Mubarak, and all together start singing and dancing Micheal Jackson’s ” heal the world, Make it a better place ,for you and for me and the entire human race…” while holding hands .. The day i will see this, i will start trusting our dear leaders! Wouldn’t our world be a better place that day ?

the Raccoon, just a little point of info : Shifaa is not a ” Bro.” she is a ” Sis.”

” Shifaa – there can certainly be peace, bro.”

Ramzi:
If I saw Mesha’a’ hugging Lieberman I think my eyes would melt!

Rita – Your 1948 refugee numbers are way off. It was nowhere near 60,000.

Numbers vary, but the UN mediator in the area at the time put the number of original refugees at around 475,000 which fits in pretty well with pre and post war censusi. They went to Gaza, under Egypt, the West Bank, under Jordanian rule, Syria and Lebanon mostly.

Ramzi – heh, you can’t honestly expect me to tell hunams apart by their gender? From a Raccoonish POV, you are all a pair of nostrils and a weird smell

Thank you for the clarification, though

BV:

“1. Racoon: The “All the arabs want to slaughter us jews” routine is old and tired. I thought we were a past that around here.”

Not all Arabs. But by far too many. I prefer not to delude myself with either the notion of complete hostility or complete benevolence… but from my observations of the Arab world, I’d say the average level of hatred for the Jews (with the notion that a “final solution” is the solution) among Arabs is somewhere around 70 out of 100. Which is impressively low, given the many decades of propaganda copied straight from the Nazis.

Shifaa –
I’ve been digging around for quotes from Livni about the Arab Peace Initiative. The only thing she says directly about borders is that the 1967 armistace line should serve as a basis for negotiations – I’m guessing that the big sticking point is Jerusalem.

Other quotes I can find (from Ynet and Haaretz):

“”There are positive elements in the Saudi initiative, but some of its clauses are contrary to the principle of two states,” Livni told Israeli public radio from Washington.
 
The Saudi plan also calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
 
Livni said the initiative contained “two additional clauses very problematic for Israel” concerning the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

One calls for the return of Palestinians who fled or were forced out in 1948, the other rules out their permanent settlement in the Arab states where they or their descendants currently live.”

“The foreign minister said that the current version of the initiative was primarily problematic due to its references to the right of return.

On the very day the Saudi initiative was reported in the New York Times, I was interviewed by an Israeli radio station and said that this initiative could be a good starting point (for the peace process), said Livni.
 
Later, they went to Beirut and added new phrases that made the initiative unacceptable from an Israeli standpoint. They added clauses stating that Palestinian refugees cannot be settled in areas where they currently reside, Livni explained.
 
They referred to UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (which addresses the issue of refugees from 1948), while they know that a two-state solution refers to the settlement of refugees where they currently reside, she elaborated.
 
As such, in the beginning, the Saudi initiative was a positive sign. But when extremists in Beirut added ideas that conflict with the two-state solution, it became something that we cannot accept in its current version, Livni said.”

I did some digging on the API:

“Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

It seems the original Saudi initiative was to have the wording “just settlement”. At the end of the meeting, reference to 194 was included, which claims that refugees should be permitted to return to their homes when possible (and Israel point out also says “that wish to live at peace with their neighbours). Because 194 is used as the basis of the Palestinian claims of “Right of Return”, Israel does not see this as the basis of a two state solution – Israel and Palestine side by side, rather as a way of forcing a One State Solution.

Livini started a counter campign in the benign of March to counter the Moderate
Arabic Quartite(Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and the UAE). The peak of this Arabi
diplomacy was with King Abduallah addressing a joint session for the American
Congress. Livini, immediately started her campign first with an interview
with a Palestinna Alarab Alyam newspaper. You can read her full interview
in English at

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=92960&d=2&m=3&y=2007
These statments are direct quotation of her interivew.

“Livni cited the borders of a future Palestinian state as another sticking point. “The borders should be discussed in the framework of future negotiations because a Palestinian state did not exist in 1967, nor were the West Bank and the Gaza Strip connected, the first was part of Jordan and the second, Egypt. “Therefore the dream of returning to the 1967 borders should not be considered the vision of a viable Palestinian state”

The same theme was echoed in her press conference. Her call to normalize relationship with Israel before achieving peace, can be read it at
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/14/news/UN-GEN-UN-Mideast.php

SO the refugees is not the only issue here as everyone is trying to indicate./
The question reamins. Apart from Refugees, is Israel willing for the Palestinan to have their own state including East Jerusalem? That is the real issue here.

Lissoch, (I posted my last comment before editing it so…that what I meant by it and also I included some links for you to know where Livini and the Israeli’s cabinet stand.

Livini started a diplomatic counter campaign in early March to counter the old-new diplomatic initiative by the moderate Arabic Quartet (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and the UAE). The peak of this Arabic diplomacy was achieved with King Abduallah addressing a joint session for the American Congress. Livini, started her campaign first with an interview with a Palestinian Alarab Alywam newspaper. You can read her full interview in English at
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=92960&d=2&m=3&y=2007
These statements are direct quotation of her interview.
“Livni cited the borders of a future Palestinian state as another sticking point. “The borders should be discussed in the framework of future negotiations because a Palestinian state did not exist in 1967, nor were the West Bank and the Gaza Strip connected, the first was part of Jordan and the second, Egypt. “Therefore the dream of returning to the 1967 borders should not be considered the vision of a viable Palestinian state”
The same theme was echoed in her press conference. Her call to normalize relationship with Israel before achieving peace, can be read it at
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/14/news/UN-GEN-UN-Mideast.php
SO the refugees is not the only issue here as everyone is trying to indicate./
The question remains. Apart from Refugees, is Israel willing for the Palestinian to have their own state including East Jerusalem? That is the real issue here.

Yael, I have a suggestion here. I really do not think that you need to continue to moderate the dialogue on this blog especially that we live in different time zones here. It is so annoying to get the “Your comment is awaiting moderation” message after each comment that is posted. I believe that all of us are mature enough to refrain from using hateful or prejudicial statements against each other. If that happens and it might( as in the case with our brother who said that all Arabs are there to kill Jews before moderating his stand to “many of them” do), then you can come and delete this comment if you want. I personally do not dignify any kind of prejudicial comments with a response on this blog or on my own. I do not how other bloggers feel about this suggestion!!!

Lissoch, (I posted my last comment before editing it so…that what I meant by it and also I included some links for you to know where Livini and the Israeli’s cabinet stand.

Livini started a diplomatic counter campaign in early March to counter the old-new diplomatic initiative by the moderate Arabic Quartet (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and the UAE). The peak of this Arabic diplomacy was achieved with King Abduallah addressing a joint session for the American Congress. Livini, started her campaign first with an interview with a Palestinian Alarab Alywam newspaper. You can read her full interview in English at
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=92960&d=2&m=3&y=2007
These statements are direct quotation of her interview.
“Livni cited the borders of a future Palestinian state as another sticking point. “The borders should be discussed in the framework of future negotiations because a Palestinian state did not exist in 1967, nor were the West Bank and the Gaza Strip connected, the first was part of Jordan and the second, Egypt. “Therefore the dream of returning to the 1967 borders should not be considered the vision of a viable Palestinian state”
The same theme was echoed in her press conference. Her call to normalize relationship with Israel before achieving peace, can be read it at
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/14/news/UN-GEN-UN-Mideast.php
SO the refugees is not the only issue here as everyone is trying to indicate./
The question remains. Apart from Refugees, is Israel willing for the Palestinian to have their own state including East Jerusalem? That is the real issue here

Ramzi – “Imagine palestinian youth throwing flowers at israeli soldiers who reply with Candy bullets and love letters”
Well – I personally know someone that used to take candies to his reserves service in the occupied territories and give them to Palestinian kids. He said it calms them down faster than anything.

Shifaa –the problem is not so much what people write as far as moderation, it is the spam. We have a spam filter in place and nonetheless more than 300 messages get through the filters into the moderation pile a day. If the moderation is lifted we will be inundated with plugs for tramadol, see this sexy girl here, and so forth, and they have gotten quite sophisticated by writing entire (quite generic) paragraphs about “the site” with their lovely sales pitches included within them and their only links being in their posting address itself. My suspicion, for what it is worth, is that someone has set the spammers on us because I have the same spam filtering on my personal site which is linked more widely than gnb is so far and I only get a handful of spam messages in my filter per day.

From ha’aretz today:

“Livni believes that the fact that Israel has expressed a clear position on the initiative, and has made it clear to the other side what issues constitute “red lines” (such as the refugee problem), has pushed the discussion in a desirable direction.

Israel is satisfied with the dialogue developing in the Arab world regarding the question of whether and how it is possible to change the initiative so that it may serve as a basis for negotiations with Israel.”

Yaeli – an administrative suggestion – maybe it’s possible for people to register (which would require approval) and then bypass the spam filter?

Shifaa –
I saw that quote about the borders. I do think you are reading into it more than there is. Her point is that as the 1967 line was an armistace line with Jordan (and Egypt around Gaza), not a defacto border with a Palestinian state, therefore she doesn’t see it as a definitive border, rather a guideline.

There are lots of discussions regarding borders in the Israeli government and press, so Israels stand is not a surprise, and she is hardly changing position.
Most Israelis pretty much accept that the borders would follow the 67 line in a general fashion. Gaza is pretty clear, as is most of the West Bank. The big sticking point is and has always been Jerusalem (and unfortunately two big settlement blocks that I personally wish weren’t there and never supported, but are so big now that they have reached the point of no return).
Unfortunately, when Jerusalem was in the hands of Jordan, Jews were expelled and not allowed to visit their holy sites at all. In addition, Jordanian soldiers routinely fired at Israeli civilians over the border, which snaked through the city. Israel has a long enough memory not to want that situation to exist with a Palestinian state, so I don’t forsee them giving up Jerusalem.

That said, in most polls, the majority of Israelis are quite happy to hand over East Jerusalem (apart from the Old City) to the Palestinians as they have no real interest in it. The main issue is security.

If you read all of her interviews and quotes on the topic of the Arab Initiative (I posted some, sorry, they are a bit of a mess), it is pretty plain that 99% of the concern is regarding 194. I think the quote was put at the top of news reports in order to stir things up and cause drama, as the media likes to do in order to sell a story.

Shifaa –
That said, and to be fair to you, her statement is worded really badly. I have to agree with BV, Israel and Israelis could do with having their speeches vetted by someone who is proficient in dealing with the Arab world and in wording things so that they stand the least chance of inflaming ire.

Unfortunately, Israelis tend to be a bit too casual about the power of words at times. It is one area where the cultures differ greatly. In fact, there are plenty of instances where my husbands family (all Israeli) have seriously (and unintentionally) pi$$ed me off by saying something in a way guaranteed to make any non-Israeli take offense.

Yael, I did not know about the spam filter. Anyway, regarding Haaretz article, I do not know if her remarks were actually gearing the dialogue in the right direction.
Clearly, we had a fresh breath when King Abdullah addressed the congress
and asked this administration to get re-engage in the Peace process. She rushly rejected the initiative before it was presented officially, fired up the Israeli lobby in Washington, forced Rice to say that Arabs need to be more flexible and normalize their ties with Israel before the peace takes place, which only strengthen the hardliners’ position in the Arab league weaken the American as a neutral mediator and basically killed the initiative before it was born.

There are so many good and positive points in the initiative:
1- It uses moderate language ‘Agreed and just’ solution for the refugee situation which means that Israel has to agree on this thorny issue.
2-Full normalization of relationships and acceptance, which has been a dream that Israel and the USA diplomacy pressured the Arabs for
3-Any sane person, knows that the formula of 1967 is the only option available here. Now Regarding Lisooch point that about the two settlements there. Well, the settlement were built with the intention to complicate the last status solution, which again tell much how much Israel really wants to have Peace in the first place.
If Israel can not take them out then everybody including “us” are waisting out time to have theis converstation in the first place. Israel can not have its cake and eats it

Shifaa – To me it sounds like that if Israel is forced to eat a cake, it should be allowed to have a saying about the recipe.

Lissoch, I heard the same argument about Jordanian soldiers shooting at Jew worshipers so many times that I am officially sick of hearing it. Life back in the sixties where Israelis used to call Arabs “animals” and where Arabs officially wanted to feed the Jews to the fish, or to the fish, or even when White Americans called Blacks “Negros’ in the United States and use for medica resarch does no longer exist. Yes they will be idiots who still use the same language and have the same intention but they are the minority. Today, the Israeli flag flies over Amman and the last time we have a sad incident where a Jordanian soldiers fired on Israelis tourists ten years ago, the king(Hussien) himself flew to Tel Aviv and asked forgiveness from the parents of the dead children.
SO let’s all be all real here.

Omeron,
The initiative is made of three points. 1-borders of the Palestinian state 2-Refugees and 3-Normalization. Israel rejected two out of three. Yes, Israel should have its saying in the recipe of the cake, but they can not change the ingredients to make the cake Humous:-)

Shifaa –

Why are you taking a statement and inflaming it with racist referrals?
I wouldn’t think that Jordan would shoot civilians nowadays and nor did I infer it, that is called progress.
It isn’t just stories about shooting, I could take you right now to any one of dozens of civilian neighbourhoods and show you the bullet holes in peoples homes. It doesn’t mean that Israel doesn’t trust Jordan. It does mean that Israel does not want civilian homes to be close to and directly face a border. Unfortunately, where Israel does share a border with the nascent Palestinian state, militants are currently firing missiles over it at residential neighbourhoods. When the PA is capable of doing what Jordan did many years ago (and I referenced this in a different thread as an example of how a nation SHOULD behave) and is able to deal with these militants, a great deal of trust will be gained. Period.

I hear a lot about how Israel and Israelis should own up to and accept periods in the past that might not be so glorious. That concept goes both ways. Don’t go dredging through Israels history and then expect Jordans to be swept under the carpet because you’ve “heard the argument before”.

Oh and there has also been a lot here about letting people countries and organizations choose their own names and identities. About letting those who feel like refugees call themselves refugees and Palestinians claiming that identity for themselves. Fair enough and I wouldn’t dream about doing otherwise.
In the same vein, the name of the Israeli army, as chosen by its people is the Israeli Defence Forces, not the Israeli Occupation Forces. It might seem like a cool play on words but it is disrespectful and directly contradicts the claim that someone looks for mutual respect and understanding.
If anyone wants me to respect them and their people, show you respect me and mine, or I won’t believe a word you say.

I do agree that we must keep our language respectful whether or not we agree on matters. I believe that one of the stated objectives of this blog is to keep communication open, respectful, and to learn from each other by sharing our own perspectives.
About 12 years ago, I took a course on African American history at a local university. The professor, Dr. Kashmir, is African American, the first (and one of the few at that time at the University of New Orleans). My purpose in taking the class was to improve my knowledge and gain perspective. Dr. K began the class by talking about what he had suffered when he first came to the campus. He shared that information in a manner that in no way transfered blame for that situation to the white people in general. Throughout that class, though terrible injustices, indefensible terrible acts were described, he taught the class in a way that fostered understanding and gave us all hope for a brighter future. I’d like to see us strive for that tone here on this blog. Dr. K possesses extraordinary skill in communication, and I don’t think that I could ever equal him but take him for my model. His formula seems simple though—that old saying from the American Indians “to walk a mile in another person’s moccasins”. We are all coming from different perspectives and these are extremely emotional issues for us all.

Wow. Lots to read up and catch up on since I last checked over here. Talk about a can of worms.

1. Racoon (i think): Let’s not revisit the tired argument. And I appreciate that you’re not deluding yourself with the all or nothing view of Arabs. I’ll just suggest that your 70% number is WAY off. You have to remember that the Arab media is not indicative of the general population. And the vocal voices you hear/read are, well, always the vocal ones.
Trust me when i tell you that a lot of arabs would quote you a very similar number when talking about Israelis. If i said “70% of Israelis want to keep all of Israel to themselves and hate arabs and wouldn’t mind massacring all the palestinians in Gaza and the WB.” you’d probably roll your eyes at me. Believe it or not, though, a lot of Arabs think that, because of what they hear and what they see in the media (their state controlled media). Ramzi’s comments about how we need to dialogue with each other directly (and not through our leaders and our media) is spot on. That is, to honest God, my hardest belief, and is the PRIMARY reason i chose to join this virtual neighbourhood. Last summer’s Israel-Hizbullah further confirmed my belief. While bombs were falling, and people were huddling in bomb shelters, or basements, on both sides, a LOT of people were still managing to talk to each, on both sides. If we, as peoples, can still find it to talk, even while rockets and bombs are flying at us, then it can’t really be THAT bad.
I’ve been around long enough to know that you HAVE to talk to people (even in everyday life, not just in politics) and see their point of view and that you’ll be surprised how oftentimes, things get blown out of proportion with rhetoric and hyperbole. Apologies for the overly dramatic explanation

2. Lisoosh, Ramzi, Yaeli, etc.
All good points about the definiton of a “refugee”. If anything, this goes to show that this is a very thorny issue, but also one that CAN be discussed (as you all are doing) in a rational and mature way. And that is exactly what needs to happen (as opposed to wholesay imposed solutions) for this to work. What irked me yesterday (and again, I apologize for my tone if anyone was offended), was how quickly everyone seems to fall back in the more “extreme” positions by default, as soon as these sensitive issues come up. The “siege mentality”, if you will. As soon as a topic comes up that’s not in people’s comfort zone, they get defensive and they pull out all the old regurgitated faulty arguments they’ve been taught/brainwashed/whatever for 60 years.

One point i’d like to ask about, concerning the right of return. And maybe here, I ask that both Israelis and Palestinians answering this one, try to do it as objectively as they can:
How is it that a Ukrainian jew, who’s parents and grandparents have been Ukrainian, and lived in the Ukraine for several generations, has a “right” (loaded word) to return to Israel MORE than an “Arab” who’s grandparents lived in Haifa or Jaffa, pre 1948?

I realize that question is loaded, and that there really is NO right answer
I want to see how Yaeli or Lisoosh can justify that one WITHOUT resorting to the “Just cause” type argument.

I’m not trying to load this question in a pro-arab way (even though it clearly seems that way). I think what i’m after here, is getting someone from the Israeli side to maybe find a way to make arabs stomach that “double standard” through some other way than “Just because we’re stronger” or “Just because we can” (which is, as i stated in my first comment, how a lot of arabs perceive israeli behavior).

Hope that made sense.

l am sorry that you took it this way, because I honestly did not mean it to be a referral to a racist referral. I actually refered also to Arabs’ racist practises in the same statment along with the Jews and the Americans to indicate that racism is a
common problem for the human race. The other thing, I do not mind people criticiaing Jordan either. I do that all the time:-) Log into my blogs and you will see that I criticzed the government of Jordan almost more than Hamas, Israel or my wife:-)

I do not believe that people should have fears about wrong behaviors
that happened many years ago and use it as an excuse to do the right thing at the present. And that applies on all who are involved in this conflict.

Bad Vilbel – To answer your question (in my perspective, of course):
The “right” of a Jew to settle in Israel has very little to do with the “right to return”.
The real argument is that Israel has declared itself as a home and a haven for all the Jews in the world, and set its immigration policy accordingly.

Omeran,

But isn’t Israel’s very declaration of being a home for the Jews based upon the “right” of the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland, from which they were basically kicked out thousands of years ago (i know that’s kind of a simplification).

How is that different from Palestinians wanting to return to what they consider (whether rightly or wrongly) their ancestral homeland?

To me, the major difference between the two is that Israel was given the “authority” to declare itself a home for the Jewish people by the international community (League of Nations, UN, etc…) whereas the Palestinians haven’t gotten that “official stamp of approval”. So when Israel settles new immigrants, it’s official “immigration policy” of a fully sovereign state (and there is nothing wrong with that, mind you). So the main differentiator here is the rule of international law (UN recognition, resolutions, etc.)

This brings me to the key point to take from this (again in my humble opinion):the rule of law is not necessarily always fair. And we, as people, have to choose, in general, whether to accept the rule of law, even when it seems unfair (because it’s the law), or to pick and choose which laws and resolutions to abide by based on what we think is fair to us. But we can’t really have it both ways (without conflict errupting), and i think that’s been a major problem in the Middle East. We want our cake and we want to eat. We want the rule of law, but only laws that we like. We trumpet UN resolutions, but we ignore those that don’t suit us. And so on.

quick addendum (and correction) to Omeran’s comment:

The real argument is that Israel has declared itself as a home and a haven for all the Jews in the world

Actually, it’s not so much that Israel declared itself. It’s more that the international community accepted Israel as a sovereign state. I can declare my backyard “home and haven for all the Jews”, and I’m pretty sure that won’t make it so

(And this takes us back to rule of international law, UN resolutions, etc.)

I think that Israel’s declaration of being a home for the Jews is based first on the resolution that the Jewish people deserves a country, and then on the resolution that the Jewish people have a strong religious and historic connection with the land of Israel, and Jerusalem in particular. I still don’t see it as a “right to return”.
I agree with your second point. That’s pretty much what I meant.
The rule of the law is supposed to be “fair”.
There’s a saying – “Fairness is when both sides are equally dissatisfied”.
I guess the problem that it’s hard for us to see that the other side is as dissatisfied as us.

Omeron,
“I guess the problem that it’s hard for us to see that the other side is as dissatisfied as us.” I do not think that it will take a PhD to see that the Palestinian deal is less satisfactory than the Israeli one in terms of land, citizenship, freedom to travel and so on. By the same token and to comment on Bad Vilbel … I really do not see negotiation as way out of this conflict. Realistically, negotiation might work well between two equal parties; each has a leverage to get out with half the deal.
Here. Israel is the powerful party and as Omeron said, and can decide any contraversail policy as a policy of their state. To make things more complicated the USA which is supposed to be the neutral party is heavily leaned toward the Israeli side for reasons that we all know.
That is why I believe that this initiative provide should be either taken as it is or rejected. In brief Palestinian drops the right of return (or allow refugees to go back to the Palestinian State) for a full state on the WB and Gaza including Jerusalem.

BV- the right of return is basically insuring the right of jews to survive. It is a direct response to the holocaust, with the definition of who is allowed to be an automatic citizen based exactly on the criteria used for who was to be executed for having Jewish blood in their veins. It was set because, as we discovered –and sadly as those in Rwanda and now currently in Darfur have found –countries close their doors to keep out those who will be killed if refuge is not given, thus sealing their fate. And of course, the long history pre-holocaust of repeated expulsions and pograms in nearly every country in which Jews have settled. We generally don’t get more than a couple of hundred years in any country without pograms occurring or being expelled (with the expulsion often being lifted –e.g. Jews being allowed back in –only to be enacted again 50, 100, 200 years later). The holocaust, however, was the final straw as our annihilation was very nearly achieved.

Shifaa –unless things have changed, Jews are not allowed to become citizens of Jordan nor to own property there. It was certainly written into Jordan’s original constitution and it was still in effect in the late 80s –I know this because a Jewish girl I was in school with at Tulane married a Jordanian who was in the U.S. to study and the pair had planned to go back to Jordan to live when they finished their degrees until they discovered that she would never be allowed Jordanian citizenship, nor would any children they had together because the children would be considered Jews because of the mother’s status. Is this still part of Jordanian law?

I have never heard of that before but I am 99% that it is not the status neither before nor now. A foreign wife needs to be married for 5 years to get the Jordanian citizenship. If she is from Arabic descent then she needs to be married for 3 years.
Regarding ownership a land or a house. Foreigners were not allow to own a land in Jordan before regardless of their citizenship. In the last 5 years, regulations have changed and any body can own a land in Jordan. Since this woman was married to a Jordanian then the couple should have had any problem either way.

Unless of course, this happened before Jordan and Israel has a peace treaty.
In that case, it is understandble that Israelis were not allowed to invest and buy lands in Jordan for obvious reasons as the two countries were in a state of war.

Yaeli,

I completely understand why the Jewish state was created, as a moral obligation, if you will, to the jews and to all they suffered. (Although it’s creation predates the holocaust, so the holocaust is not really WHY Israel was created, but i get the point you’re making).
But all this talk is not in and of itself “legalese”. Saying “we deserve this because we’ve been persecuted” is not (in my book) in and of itself a right. On the flipside, i’m pretty sure the Palestinians can use the exact same logic to say they “deserve” their own state. No? To “ensure that they survive”…I mean, you can apply the exact same rhetoric, word for word, to Jews, Palestinians, Darfurians (is that a word?), Rwandans, etc.

I think the key to it here lays in Omeran’s last statement: I guess the problem that it’s hard for us to see that the other side is as dissatisfied as us.
And in how clearly it appears that BOTH sides feel this way. (see Shifaa’s reply, stating as much).
This is why i tried separating out what is “fair” from what the rule of law dictates (with the 2 not always being overlapping). Obviously here, both sides feel they are not being treated fairly. Both sides feel the “deserve” better. and both sides feel aggrieved.
You (or Shifaa for that matter) can trumpet about “deserving” until the cows come home, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, in terms of fairness or in terms of rule of law, at the end of the day.

I disagree, btw, with Shifaa on the notion that the proposed peace plan has to be either accepted or rejected, with on room for negotiation. I think it can serve as a starting point, as long as its principles are accepted by both sides, because both sides need to understand that they are NOT going to get everything they want. Both sides are going to have to give up SOMETHING (right of return, settlements, corridors, whatever) for this to work. And i think that continuously going back to the tired rigid arguments of the past, backed up with the sense of moral superiority expressed in statements like “we deserve this” or “they’re not as dissatisfied as we are.” gets in the way, or even goes against, the very notion of compromising and negotiating and giving up something to make things work (and this statement goes for both sides, mind you).

I am reminded of an argument between two kids, over a toy, or a piece of candy, where both kids throw a tantrum and refuse to share the toy, and feel they deserve it more and that they’ve been more dissatisfied than the other kid. At some point, if i were a parent, i’d simply wanna take the toy away and say “Neither of you deserves this toy, so it’s going back to the store! You’ll get it when you learn to share.”
Too bad we can’t do that here.

Shifaa -according to Jordan’s constitution there is an explicit denial of citizenship to all Jews, even those who lived there for generations (pre Jordan becoming a country). Its law provides that “citizenship is open ‘to any person who was not Jewish’ and who meets certain other criteria.” Doing a google search, this still seems to be in place.

BV –

You’re right, the word “Right” is pretty loaded, and we could get into a whole long discussion regarding rights, who has them, who confers them and who enforces them, just from a philosophical point of view.

Looking at Israel as a geographic entity, the fact that someone could have been born there, and yet not have the right to live there now, while someone could come from the other side of the world and be an automatic citizen, isn’t fair. You’re right.

Looking at Israel as a huge community of 6 million people, it makes perfect sense, they get to pick and choose who gets to join their community, just like any other country in the world.

I can’t justify it from a geographical standpoint, but I can from a country/community point of view. That doesn’t make it fair, and it doesn’t make it any less painful for those excluded. I don’t think there is any way that I can put it which would make any Arab or Palestinian feel better and it would be patronizing to try. Just to be clear, I actually have personal experience of this – my mother is British and I grew up there but was born in the US. Until recently, British citizenship only passed through the male line. When I married my husband, I could not take him to the UK and we had to move to the US, far from any family or friends. I grew up in the UK, my whole family is there, but I could not live there with my husband, and yet a South African with a British grandfather who had never set foot in the country, could be awarded instant citizenship. That isn’t fair, it sucked, it forced me to live far from my family. That’s life, I’m not going to waste my life bashing my head against an institutional brick wall.

Just as an aside – the Palestinians were given a “stamp of approval” in 1948 – the partition plan gave them a state. In fact, there was a Palestinian government in Gaza for a short period of time (Egypt destroyed it). Right now, most of the world recognizes that there will be a Palestinian state in the rough regions of 67, most of Israel recognizes and accepts that. It seems that the last step is also the biggest and the hardest.

BV –absolutely both sides will have to give up something. Probably a lot of somethings. The sticking points of course are what those somethings will be.

There is absolutely no question that the Palestinians should have their own state. Not only do they want that but the majority of Israelis want it for them too. we simply don’t want them to have their state plus our state. They should have theirs, we should have ours. That is why the definition of who should be able to return to our State is very important to us. The state carved out to be Palestine should be the homeland of the Palestinian people –wherever they are flung around the globe. The state that is Israel should be the homeland of the Jewish people (along with our arab-Israeli citizens who chose to be part of a Jewish state by remaining here) wherever they are flung around the globe.

Yael, I have never heard of that before. Since you sound sure about it, I am going t to investigate that. Also please pass me a link of where you got this information if you have it. That might save me some time. By the same token, do you think that a Jordanian can ever get an Israeli citizenship? From a personal experience, you need a miracle to get a visa to visit Israel as a Jordanian:-)

BV – Can I ask an equally loaded question?
Actually, Ramzi, Shifaa etc, I would appreciate your viewpoints too.

On the flip side of the whole Israel citizenship thing, what are opinions among Palestinians, Jordanians and Lebanese regarding citizenship of Palestinians in neighbouring countries – such as Palestinians being born in Lebanon but not having the right of citizenship or full rights, or of similar laws in Saudi Arabia, which confers citizenship to just about any long term resident except for Palestinians.

From Israels point of view, this is seen as using the Palestinians as pawns to put pressure on Israel. One of Livnis problems with the API was specifically that 194 was reinstituted and that giving the Palestinians the choice of full citizenship in other Arab countries of their choice (and perhaps birth) was not put on the table.

Just curious how you view this.

Shifaa –
Interesting question. Israel allows Arabs, both Christian and Moslem to be citizens, obviously, and I am not aware that there are any national prohibitions. Israel has two tracks of immigration. One is the well known “fast track” for Jews, but there are also regular paths, such as exist in the US – people can come for jobs, marriage etc, but it is slower and there is a lot more paperwork, and of course refugees, Israel recently took in some refugees from Darfur who crossed over from Egypt. I don’t know what their residency status is but Israel and Sudan have no diplomatic relations, you can’t even visit Sudan if you have visited Israel.

National Prohibitions Lisoosh ?

Can an Arab work at a security post in israel ? …. the Answer IS NO! So….this is a national racial prohibition …

Anyways,
to tell you about my position about all this :

I believe that We must find a just solution for those who are called Refugees, and as a palestinian, i will never give them up…. any fair solution needs negotiations…and any negotiations need people who are wlling to talk!

Lisoch,
50% of Jordan population is from a Palestinian origin. They have FULL citizenship rights and treated as first class citizens. 26 of the last 50 PM in Jordan were from Palestinian origin. Regarding Saudi Arabia, it is not true that anyone can get citizenship except the Palestinians. Actually no one can get a Saudi citizenship except through marriage. The same apply to all Gulf States. From a personal expereicne most Palestinians who live in refugee camps and I worked at one in Jordan identify themselves as Palestinians and consider sticking to their Palestinian identity as a form of resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Ramzi – National prohibitions = There is no law in Israel that says nationals of a certain country are banned from becoming citizens that I am aware of. I wasn’t referring to jobs. And yes Arabs can work at security posts, Arabs can serve in the military – and not just Druze and Bedouin, there are regular Israeli Arabs who volunteer. Is it harder and do they have to go through more stringent security to get those jobs – yes.

Shifaa, here are a couple that are most to the point.

This one from the the U.N. in 1998 in which it notes “Paragraph 9 (b) of the report stated that any non-Jews who had had Palestinian nationality prior to 15 May 1957 and had been normally resident in Jordan during the period from 20 December 1949 to 16 February 1954 were deemed to be Jordanian nationals.” The report asks, “What did the Nationality Act say about Jews? What was the legal status of persons – whether Jews or non-Jews – resident in Jordan after 16 February 1954?” and no response was provided in the report, however, further down in the report the Jordanian government representative notes that there are “no Jews resident in Jordan but, since peace had been restored, Jews could enter the country as tourists or to work.” http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/eed216406b50bf6485256ce10072f637/ab23121dac018b8d852569dc0070227e!OpenDocument

There are references to a number of books and articles available via university libraries discussing the issue of Jews not being allowed citizenship but here is an online source (I’m including the relevant info in its entirety below) that points to the exact lines in the constitution and brief background as to how the law was originally put into place via the British administration pre-Jordan:
“Great Britain also decided that no Jews could reside or buy land in the newly created Emirate. This policy was ratified — after the emirate became a kingdom — by Jordan’s law no. 6, sect. 3, on April 3, 1954, and reactivated in law no. 7, sect. 2, on April 1, 1963. It states that any person may become a citizen of Jordan unless he is a Jew. King Hussein made peace with Israel in 1994, but the Judenrein legislation remains valid today.”
: http://www.parapundit.com/archives/000266.html

oh no! Check your sources, but law prohibits Arabs from working at the Airport for example!

Some security Measures used to prevent arabs to fly from some airports….. I don’t know what happened with this story by the way

I’m gonna try to answer each comment in its own comment (since this is getting a bit wordy!). Here goes:

Lisoosh:

Thanks for the frank and gracious reply. I frankly agree with everything you said about what’s fair, what’s not, the geographical and community aspects, etc.

I also agree that the Palestinians did get their stamp of approval (both in 1948) and with the UN resolutions of 1967 (which, I’ll remind here, have not been implemented by Israel, speaking of the rule of law). That is exactly why I stated that we “all know that in the end, the 2 state solution around the 1967 borders and resolutions are probably where this is going to end up in the end. And this is where Israel can’t pick and choose (any more than the Palestinians can) what “the rule of law” has dictated (I am referring here to East Jerusalem, the Settlements in the West Bank, etc.) This is probably the kind of thing that Israel is going to have to accept “giving up”, if it wants the Palestinians to also give up their “right of return”. And yes, it’s not fair, and yes, it sucks (for those who think Jerusalem is a divine capital, or for those settlers who lived all their lives in the WB).
As stated in your comment: Sometimes things suck, and we have to move on about it.

I think the frustration you’ll hear from a lot of Arabs is that Israel wants the Palestinians to give up their “right of return”, without in turn having to give up East Jerusalem or the Settlements, and then Israel bandies around “rule of law” and “UN resolutions” (with the US and the West nodding emphatically in agreement), all the while choosing to ignore the 1967 resolutions. That, i think (and i speak here as a Lebanese, who is not as invested in this as the Palestinians), is probably the most frustrating thing to deal with, and the main reason Israel is perceived as arrogant, imperialist, expansionist by the general audience in the Arab world.

And lisoosh…what about the Family law in israel…? Can anyone really become israeli…do you know that if you have ONE part of your family that is palestinian, you cannot become israeli ?

Ramzi –arabs do work at ben-gurion airport.

Shifaa –yes, a Jordanian can become a citizen if they were to marry an Israeli citizen –it takes a good while for any non-Jewish spouse to become a citizen but after a number of year (I think either 5 or 7 but can’t remember which) they do. A Jordanian who was married to a non-Israeli Jew who immigrated would receive citizenship sooner (I think it is 3 years) as would any non-Jewish spouse. Getting a visa to visit as a tourist is a whole different thing

Yaeli,

I’m sure that ARABS , (except Druze) Can’t work at Ben Gurion in security posts! Sure sure sure ! And believe me, do some research, you will see! It’s OFFICIAL! Unless this changed during last month….

Lisoosh, Question 2:

How I feel about Palestinians born in Lebanon (or other arab countries), those living as refugees, etc…

I have somewhat strong feelings about this one. And I speak from a Lebanese only perspetive (Palestinians in Jordan are a whole different matter, and I expect Shifaa or someone else will add their 2 cents).

Palestinians in Lebanon have been treated like crap (no way to phrase that any nicer) and that is shameful. They are not allowed to own property, businesses, or work in certain professions that are not menial labor. In short: they’ve been treated as temporary refugees, for over 60 years now. I know WHY, but it’s still not excusable: Lebanon, along with all the arab states, did not want to assimilate Palestinians, for the simple reason that it would take away a “card” in the political game: The right of return. Not to mention that most of these countries, especially Lebanon, did not want to upset its delicate sectarian balance.

Having said that, and putting aside political games and cards…how i feel about it personally, on a human level: I could care less if 500,000 (i think that’s the current estimate) Palestinians were naturalized to Lebanese (since i don’t believe in our crappy sectarian system anyway) as long as they are willing to become fully Lebanese in their loyalties to the state and its institutions. if you want to become Lebanese, you get to be just like every other Lebanese person, rights and warts and duties and all. This means: No more camps, no more weapons, no more right of return, no more trying to attack israel. Just lead a productive life in Lebanon, and that’s it. End of story.
Do I think this has a fat chance in hell of happening? Nope. Sadly.

As an alternative, and here, I am going, once again, to sound harsh, and perhaps offend our Palestinian readers: Get off my lawn (so to speak). Go get your own state, in your 1967 borders, and run it however you please. I had to live most of my childhood where the PLO terrorized my country (this includes personal experience, btw), fomented civil war, and caused 2 Israeli invasions (78 and 82). And to this day, the so-called “Palestinian cause” is so taboo in the Arab world that Palestinian camps are still off-limits to the Lebanese government (and are teeming with terrorists, currently, sent in by Syria’s regime to start trouble). My take on that one is: “This is my house. My rules. You’re a guest here. You don’t get to make yourself at home. Start trouble with the neighbors. Hide weapons. And I don’t honestly care anymore how noble your cause is, or that you lost your own home 50 years ago. That’s no excuse to destroy mine.”

Ramzi –I think what you are referring to is that there was, during a period of 3 weeks, prohibition for those who held the Palestinian green cards to fly from sde boker airport to internal locations such as eilat (the airport doesn’t do international flights) –this was because the security screening equipment broke and it took 3 weeks for the replacement equipment to arrive and be installed. there were several articles in the paper about it a month or two ago.

Shifaa –oh yeah, it wouldn’t have to be only a married couple but, since November of 2004, could also be a same-sex partner for citizenship if they could show they had been living together for a significant period of time.

Ramzi – my sources are people that I know personally. I know Arabs who served in the Army, I know Arabs that have held quite secure positions. I used to work in an field where we were frequently inside the Knesset and the Presidents residence and I worked with several Arabs from East Jerusalem who had the same security clearance I did.

And the Family Law sucks, I am aware that it has caused and does cause a great deal of suffering. One of the problems and one of the reasons it stands is because there is still no Palestinian state, no official diplomatic relations and Palestinians have indeterminate (legally) nationality. I’m not a fan, and I won’t defend it, and I hope that there is a Palestinian nationality soon so that this issue can end.

Finally, a jab at Ramzi who says:

I believe that We must find a just solution for those who are called Refugees, and as a palestinian, i will never give them up…. any fair solution needs negotiations…and any negotiations need people who are wlling to talk!

You say you will never give them up…That doesn’t sound like there is much to compromise or talk about.

I know it’s easy for me to say this, having no stake in the balance, but both sides are going to HAVE to give up stuff, painful stuff, for this to work.

Right of return, East Jerusalem, Settlements have to ALL be negotiable.

Why do i pick those? How do I draw the line where? This is where my previous points become important: The rule of law, the UN resolutions. (Since we all agree that sometimes the rule of law is unfair, but that in the end, we have to suck it up and go with that, instead of fumbling in the dark).

I think the UN resolutions are clear about East Jerusalem and the 1967 borders. I think Israel has to accept giving up East Jerusalem and the WB (not just the convenient parts, but ALL of it to the 1967 borders) as a quid pro quo to the Palestinians giving up the right of return.

Now once those principles are accepted, if the 2 sides want to tweak the borders for logistical reasons (give Ariel and the big settlments back to Israel in return for a corridor, or an equal size piece of land elsewhere, or whatever) that can be negotiated after the main principles have been agreed on.

I’ll quit trying to play King Solomon now, and give the floor to you guys

Well Yaeli,

No, forget about those who hold Green ID Cards, we cant fly from any airport aother than the Jordanian One…. In case you don’t know, since 2003 , We cant enter any Airport or Sea Port in israel….

Shifaa –
I knew that a large number of Jordanians are of Palestinian background, I was of course referring to the camps. I didn’t know that they are very insistant on holding on their status as Palestinians, that was very interesting to hear, I would have assumed that they would have wanted Jordanian citizenship. I would be very interested to hear more about your experiences working there.

I looked up the Saudi issue as I couldn’t remember where I had read it although I knew that there were several test cases in the US of Palestinians from SA who sought asylum based on bad treatment (they lost due to the fact that SA is pretty horrible to lots of people).
Anyway, I found this article regarding a law change in Saudi Arabia in 2004, which must have been when I heard it:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=53213&d=21&m=10&y=2004

A Million Expatriates to Benefit From New Citizenship Law
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
 

JEDDAH, 21 October 2004 — Expatriates of all nationalities are entitled to apply for Saudi citizenship and their travels abroad with re-entry visas will not disqualify them, press reports said yesterday quoting senior officials.
….He estimated that more than a million expatriates would benefit by the amended law, which was passed by the Council of Ministers on Monday. There are nearly 8.8 million expatriates, mostly Asians and Arabs, in the Kingdom.
..

But Al-Watan Arabic daily reported that the naturalization law would not be applicable to Palestinians living in the Kingdom as the Arab League has instructed that Palestinians living in Arab countries should not be given citizenship to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland.

Diplomatic sources have estimated the number of Palestinians in the Kingdom at about 500,000. There are large concentrations of Palestinians in the country’s western, central, eastern and northern provinces.

BV,

What i mean by Never giving the refugees up is simply : …never forgeting about them, never abandoning them and never saying ” they are not my problem anymore” That’s what i will never accept to compromise about!

I never said ” Right of return” as far as i can recall….

BV – I always enjoy talking to you, apart from your reasoned tone, we tend to agree on most things (if only the whole situation were that simple).

As for the issue of having to give up settlements in return for the Palestinians giving up the RoR – you are absolutely right that this is the probable compromise that will have to take place, and I pointed this out once to a settler that if they wanted to focus on Israel as a Jewish State then they couldn’t complain about the Palestinians wanting an exclusively Palestinian State.

One thing you have to realize though about the settlers, outside of the political reasons for settlement placement throughout the years. The West Bank is a place of great religious significance for Jews, and a large number of the settlers are very religious. For many of them, their presence in those areas is a question of G-ds will, and from their perspective, to leave is going against G-d. It’s like asking Christians to leave the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or putting Mecca in the hands of the Vatican.
I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of religious belief, but for secular Jews it is still hard to tell religious Jews that they can’t practice what is for them part of their faith. It is doable, but it is very hard.

In an ideal world, a compromise would be reached whereby those Jews who wanted to live in Palestine (under Palestinian rule of course) could do so, and in return a number of Palestinians could live in Israel under Israeli rule. In an ideal world.
There is enough bad blood that I don’t see that happening, at least in the immediate future, but it is a nice dream.

Sorry. my bad then. I misread what you meant.

I think (and would hope) that the Jewish people, of all people, should be able to understand the need to protect someone’s identity, even after generations of living elsewhere. After all Jews did just that for several millennia.

The problem, as I see it, is that the refugees are going to have to accept giving up SOMETHING (the right of return) in order to maintain their overall identity as Palestinian (by becoming citizens in the new state of Palestine). It might seem a bit counterintuitive to them (give up my right of return so i can be a Palestinian?) but short of this compromise, there really isn’t anything to negotiate over.
And if we ever come to the point where both sides determine their positions are too valuable to compromise over, we’ll be doomed to continuing what’s been going on since 1948. And frankly, I am tired of it, and I’m sure so are a lot of Israelis and Palestinians.
This simply has to end. And it’s going to have to be painful to some, because they are going to have to give up some of their “rights” or “what they deserve” or “what they think is fair” or whatever you wanna call it.

Immigrating to Israel regardless of ones religion is very interesting and new to me. I did not know that before. Well, now may be all Palestinian refugees can immigrate to Israel and the whole conflict will be resolved peacefully after all

By the way that meant to be a joke

Ramzi –I was not referring to the Palestinians in general who live in gaza or the west bank but rather those who are legally living within Israel but without citizenship (e.g., residents of east jerusalem and so forth who have an identity card signifying that they reside here legally but are not citizens). They were the ones who were barred from flying. Our Israeli identity cards for Israeli citizens do not note on them whether you are a Jew or an Arab or a Christian or Muslim or Bahai or whatever –they are absolutely identical in every respect.

Just like the Jerusalem ID’s Yaeli, those who live in jerusalem hold the same ID as you, but two major things allow differenciation : The ID card number The name of the person ….Half of my Family are Jerusalemites and a lot of my friends are Arab Israelis… I know how they live, i know what their ID gives them and what it doesnt give them! It’s true that Arab Israelis have ALMOST all what you have as rights…minus a tiny little bit …but Jerusalemites, it’s a completely different story…

Bad Vilbel,

Are you deliberately overlooking the obvious? Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews. For the simple and quite obvious reason that Jews historically have not been able to find full acceptance anywhere in the world where there is no prejudice against them; prejudice that sometimes can be construed as rather annoying in nature, to the most vicious type of persecution, to the ultimate which demanded the deaths of millions of Jews while the world felt pretty unconcerned about their dire fate.

Jews from anywhere in the world were to be welcomed to Israel with the full right of citizenship as Jews, recognition that they belonged to a nation, an ethnic minority elsewhere in the world, a large group of people sharing elements of tradition and acculturation, but most of all a common history.

Jews were to be welcome in Israel as the place where they could find comfort among ‘their own’, in the security of knowledge that they would not be persecuted as Jews because they were surrounded by Jews in a Jewish country whose very purpose of existence was to give them protection from the outside world.

That is why there is no welcome mat out for people from other traditions, ethnicities, cultures, historical antecedents.

Israel equals Jews equals right of return equals refuge.

Shifaa,

I must have missed something here. Can you please explain to me what this means?

“Here. Israel is the powerful party and as Omeron said, and can decide any contraversail policy as a policy of their state. To make things more complicated the USA which is supposed to be the neutral party is heavily leaned toward the Israeli side for reasons that we all know”

What are the reasons that ‘we all know’ which delineate why the USA supports Israel?

Ramzi,

Your question: can an Arab work at a security post in Israel is interesting.

How about an Arab being appointed a Minister of the State of Israel? How about an Arab MK representing Israeli culture?

Wow, that’s kind of interesting too, isn’t it?

Shifaa,

I’m an outsider, an onlooker, but I dimly recall Jordan’s King Hussein having some acute problems with his Palestinian population. Fact is, I remember, not too acutely, mind, that there was a war of a civil kind with Jordanian troops battling it out with Palestinians and the result was many Palestinian deaths.

Am I nightmaring?

Delightful protagonists (you’re all principle actors in this performance of give and take, push and pull),

“What is meant by the pre-1967 borders? The 1967 Green Line is not a border but a truce line. The only pre-1967 border would be the 19487 border, rendered obsolete by subsequent events. Is that line the one to which Israel must return for full normalization to be granted?”

W.Nicholls, professor emeritus,
Religious Studies, U. of B.C.

It’s blatant hypocrisy, outright deceitfulness for the Arab League to claim the high moral ground with their pressuring of Israel to accept their proposed peace plan, given that this is a situation which they have actually deliberately wrought.

When the assembled armies of the Arab states were routed by Israel in 1948, and Palestinians fled, the Arab countries surrounding Israel were determined to maintain the refugee Palestinians as a festering sore, equally determined not to take them in. That hasn’t changed one iota. Palestinians who might have been handily absorbed into the Arab societies in other countries were denied that comfort and future for themselves.

They were actively encouraged to remain in camps, where the conscience of the international community, not the Arab community, spent untold millions upon millions of dollars to maintain them there in refugee camps which have since become established communities. It was only Jordan, after subduing some militant elements, accepted its huge Palestinian population as citizens, and King Abdullah, the only sincere peacemaker like his father before him who seemed to see the need to absorb and embrace, cementing his intent with his beautiful Palestinian wife.

Where else in the Arab world were Palestinians welcomed and brought into the normalcy of daily life, security and citizenship? Better to keep them in squalid conditions, have the UN strike a commission dedicated to the welfare of the refugee Palestinians ad infinitum, and keep the hostilities alive. This ’support’ of outrage against Israel, helped to confirm to the Palestinians that they had a legitimate grievance (not to say they hadn’t) and that ongoing hostility was the only way to find redress.

No other refugee population in the world to my knowledge had the ongoing attention of the rest of the world to the extent that this one has enjoyed, despite greater numbers, despite more desperate situations. In all that time the Palestinians could have demonstrated self-sufficiency, the determination to make for themselves a prosperous future culminating in their own recognized and legal Palestinian State. Every opportunity to do so was dashed, not so much by Israeli intransigence, but Palestinian inability to grasp the opportunities when they presented themselves. And there were opportunities.

That the statesmen on both sides proved inadequate to the occasion at the present time is sad, but they will have to work within the parameters now set and it isn’t quite clear whether each side acknowledges that. Certainly a Hamas-led government does not. Recognition of Israel’s right of existence is still and for the foreseeable future not an integral portion of their agenda. Hudna means at some future time wiping Israel off the map is back on the map of intent.

So the Palestinian quandary is a very large portion of what the Arab world has designed; the Palestinians used as a helpless pawn, then they themselves embracing their victimhood and using it not to help themselves but to cudgel the world into supporting what is inimical to the future of Israel.

For the Arab League to now demand Israel accede to their ‘reasonable’ and ‘rightful’ demands in exchange for full recognition is absurd; they will ultimately succeed in doing what their initial collective strike against the new state failed to do.

And what does it avail Israel to accede to demands which will gain it full recognition by its neighbours, when the one neighbour to whom it will share closest borders is dedicated to its obliteration?

One thing nobody’s ever been able to explain to me. If I was in the process of building a state from scratch, would I really want a significant portion of my most valuable resource (the people) to move to an adjoining state? Doesn’t sound very intuitive.
And what makes anyone think that hundeds of thousands, if not more, of Palestinian refugees who have been fed anti-Israeli and anti-Jew hatred for decades would, or could become loyal citizens of the Jewish state of Israel? Their natural allegience would of course be to Palestine.
Does it seem to be in Israels best interests to bring in a huge population of of inherently “fifth column” Palestinians.
No, a new country for a people who 75 years ago didn’t have a national consciousness will have to do. you can’t have both a RoR AND a new state. As it is, there will then be two states side-by-side with Palestinian majorities. That will have to suffice

Rita, If you do not think that the USA is biased toward Israel and why? then I really do not know where to start. A good place may be reading the American President: Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace,Not Apartied. In brief, USA policies had been biased toward Israel for three major reasons:T he powerful Israeli lobby who dictates to a certain degree the American policy in the Middle East. There had been lately many articles about how strong the loggy lately in the Newsweek, FP, Econmosit. May be you need to check them out. The Christian fanatic Right who believe that God is gathering the Jews in Israel for the Aramageddon to take place and thirdly the national security issue where Isreal had been seen as a close ally stop the spread of the USSR influence in the region during the cold war and now as intelligent and military source in the war on terror.

Rita and Lissoch,
Israel is as guilty to use the Palestinians as a helpless pawn as the Arab World. Until this day, the Israil Right consist to lift Shamir’s famous slogan in Madrid Peace conference” Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan). Till today, fanatics and Natanyaho and others call for the establishment of the Hashmite Kingdom of Palestine.
Obiviously, the only reason why they can do that is because Jordan grant the Palestinians the Jordanian citizenship. They can not do that with Syria or Lebanon. So it seems me that Arabs are damn if they do and damn if they don’t.

Shifaa, Jimmy Carter is a Southerner who absolutely hates the Jewish people, so I would not take his book as a reference. It contains many inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Carter has verbalized his dislike of the Jewish people for a long time, so this is not something new. The power of the Jewish people is vastly overstated. They are a very tiny minority, less than 1% of all people on Earth. The US supports Israel because it is an ally in the ME—I certainly agree with you.

BTW, I forgot to mention…….great site!

Com’on Lynne, you can do better A southerner who hates the Jews! Not all southerners hate the Jews Lynne, and not Jimmy Carter. He is the first guy to bring Israelis and Arabs together. He was a hero till he critcizes Israel and then all hell breaks loose.

Rita,
The Arab Initiative is an offer; and should not be looked at as a demand. At least one should give them the credit to be involved and engaged to try to do something about this conflict. And as I said Israel can take it this or reject it. In my opinion it will be a missed opportunity like many others if it was not taken, but obviously the choice is for Israel to make this time. I think that the League is in a position to moderate the Palestinian position and their involvement might be very helpful to Isreal in order to reach to an agreeable solution with the Palestinians and decrease the influence of Iran over Hamas.
On the other hand, the reality that there are not so many options out there for Israel, especially if it wants to be a pluralistic democracy. It is either keeps the status quo and deals with extremist forces that are embolden by the lack of peace and the helplessness and hopelessness particularly among young Palestinians, or establish a bi-ethnic state which, we all know that it is not a viable option for the majority of the Israeli people.

Yael,
I have checked your claim that a Jew can not be a citizen of Jordan. I asked also some of my friends who are experts in legal and consititutional stuff. They have never heard of this before. As you said, this might have been passed to them from the British regulations, but the truth is that unlike other Arab countires who had a Jewish populaiton in the past , Jordan never had any probably becasue of the geographical closseness between the two countries.

However, If that is the case then it should be revisited by the Parlimant. But since we do not have a current waiting list of Jews who can not wait to get the Jordanian citizenship I suggest the Jordanina Parlimant to discuss more relevant issues such as….health, educaiton and… do not let me go on that

I am a Southern and most Southerners do not hate the Jewish people, but a segment of them certainly do and are quite vocal about it. Jimmy Carter has made anti-Jewish comments in the past. I grew up around (some) people in the South who were extremely anti-Jewish, so I wasn’t surprised about Carter. Carter is considered by many to be one of the most ineffective presidents ever. I never considered him a hero for many reasons and long before he wrote his controversial book. For a time, I liked him (his wife is a distant cousin on my father’s side of the family). Later, I became aware of his policies toward our South American neighbors and was opposed to him on that basis.

Rita,

Do you remember what happened when the arab minister got appointed ? Do you remember all the Racist comments that he recieved ? Majadleh is the exception of the rule, he is not like all most of the Arab Israelis, he is member of a Zionnist Party….. and yet, he got criticized because he is part of another so called ” Racial group” …. Tartman, Lieberman, Netanyahu , some kadima ministers , and some religious MK’s didn’t hesitate to say ” No, this is the end of israel” … the fact that Members of Knesset, Government Officials , etc… don’t hesitate to use such a language , while being sure that the judicial platform will not punish them, is a problem in itself! Did you ever hear some MK’s talking about Arabs ? Did you hear Ovadia Yossef saying ” We must exterminate them” or this Likud Minister, Turjman i think, who said ” Arabs are like worms”…. No one of them got punished, such comments are very disgusting! Especially Ovadia Yossef’s comments, comments that he repeated on many many occasions! … So ok, maybe in theory , an Arab can become a Minister, but in practice, it isn’t that true! It’s ok to kill an Arab ( 13 got killed by the police in 2000 ) , It’s ok to insult an Arab etc…. And believe me Rita, think about it and you will see that being an arab isn’t the best thing that can happen to you in israel, you are marginalized for two reasons : Western Jewish israelis don’t like you that much, the State doesn’t protect you like it protects all it’s other citizens, you yourself you don’t feel that you are part of the israeli society, but part of the israeli Arab nation, you don’t know what to think of those from your group who serve in the army , you are always reminded that you need extra efforts in order to get what your jewish neighbor gets naturally …. in other words, we need an arab israeli on the Blog so that he tells us about his experience, we always mention them, we never hear them…

Ramzi – concerning your last suggestion -
I’ve been contemplating for some time now to invite a friend from work (who is a Muslim Arab) to take a look at this blog, and see if he’d like to participate.
I’ve got the impression that the reason we don’t hear from them much is that they’ve got something to lose no matter what they say. If they side with ‘Israeli positions’ they’re jeopardizing their relations with their Arab friends and family, and when they side with ‘Arab positions’ they’re viewed as ‘disloyal’ to the country by some people (especially the ‘loud’ ones).

Shifaa –

1. I’m distancing myself from Ritas comments, because she came out with bit of a hysterical screed.

2. BV asked me a difficult question about something the Arab world finds difficult to understand about Israel and I tried to answer as honestly and truthfully as possible.
In return I asked a difficult question about something in the Arab world that Israelis find frustrating in order to better understand. If it is too difficult to answer, or something you don’t want to dwell on, fine. But please spare me the “we don’t have to talk about us, look at you” response that has been so self destructive for the past 50 years. It is a waste of my time and we learn nothing from it.

Hihihihii
Ramzi Ovadia has made statements on secular jews that would let your hair stand up Don’t take him as an equator for Israeli opinion.
Shifaa (I think) – that statement of Shamir was not made because only Jordan offered nationality to Palestinians but because -in the days before the declaration of Jordan- our two countries were considered one. Before Trans-Jordan came into being and later Jordan

True, we seem to get overly emotional and to get further entrenched in our own perspectives. The issue of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict is a painful, difficult subject.

Ramzi – Where are you going with this. So, there are racist Israelis, big deal, there are racist Palestinians and racist Americans and racist Chinese and racist French and racist Argentinians……………..

Every national group has is crazies and its extremists who would like nothing more that to fight continually with the extremists on the “other” side. Bashing their words over the heads of non-racist members of the same nation just builds resentment and gives those racists more power. I could pull plenty of nasty quotes from Palestinian leaders to throw at you, but what would that serve?

Israeli racists and bigots don’t speak for me, or even for a whole nation, and so Palestinian racists and bigots don’t speak for you or the whole Palestinian people.

Lets leave it at that and move on.

Lisooosh, where am i trying to get with this ?

Well notice Rita’s comment …. My comment was an answer to hers, there are very highly ranked people in the israeli political and social scene that are very racist and very “exterminationist” if i may, these people go unpunished, they are democractically representative of the Israeli people …. yet, they go unpunished! Notice what happened with Tartman … The court said that nobody will touch her! In other words, it’s ok to insult Arabs in israel, this contributes to the fact that arab israelis are not on the same citizenship level in israel…. But again, i’m not well placed to talk about this, i’m not Arab israeli, we need an arab israeli on this blog….

But yes, let’s leave it at that and move on! As long as it’s not us who are racist….there isn’t much we can do for now….

There are racists everywhere! I have lived in the deep South all my life. The KKK is a small group that was very vocal for a long span of time and backed those words up with terror. They do not and have never spoken for the majority of people in the South, though at one point, too many Southerns silently agreed with them. Their views are completely opposite from mine though we share the same geographical area. The only way to counter hatred and racism is to offer a different point of view and to stand up for what is universally right (the humane treatment of all people). The US has in place (now) laws to deal with hate crimes and incitement to hatred and violence, and it is critical that those of us who believe in fairness and justice be vigilant in denouncing racism, hatred, and violence against any group.

Lisoosh said 2. BV asked me a difficult question about something the Arab world finds difficult to understand about Israel and I tried to answer as honestly and truthfully as possible.
In return I asked a difficult question about something in the Arab world that Israelis find frustrating in order to better understand. If it is too difficult to answer, or something you don’t want to dwell on, fine. But please spare me the “we don’t have to talk about us, look at you” response that has been so self destructive for the past 50 years. It is a waste of my time and we learn nothing from it.

Indeed. I think Shifaa and Ramzi kinda went off on tangents there and didn’t answer your question. I tried to answer it (from my somewhat outsider vantage point, as a Lebanese). You are absolutely right though, the whole point of the question i asked (and the one you asked) was to get people to think in new terms and not answer using the old “we don’t have to talk about us, look at you” responses (as you put it so well). I am not sure that’s working too well though (looking at the majority of responses you and I seem to be getting).
People, whether we like it or not, tend to fall back into their comfort zone when it comes to arguments. I suppose we simply must remind ourselves that we must continue to challenge folks to look past the “party line” and the old textbook answers. I’ve personally found that even though we’re not there yet, there is a LOT more “out of the box” thinking these days, than there was, say, 5 years ago or a decade ago. So I have hope.

BV – the thread is getting really complicated – actually you gave an excellent and honest answer to my question.

Shifaa,

I know that Lynne has already responded.
Jimmy Carter’s book has been and his thesis, with respect to apartheid has been fairly well discredited, as has he himself been in his blatant anti-semitic attacks on Israel. As for the purported bias in US policies as a result of the ‘powerful Jewish lobby’ that belongs in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it’s not truly reflective of reality.
Simply put, when it comes to politics, the ethics of supporting those whose values and agenda most reflects your own, those are who you will support. Israel is recognized as a democratic society within a geography which is anything but.
As for the Christian fanatic right; they’re like fanatics anywhere, they have their own agendas and will support anything they feel fits into their agenda; if they support Israel it is not because they love Israel but because their reading of the Scriptures leads them to believe they NEED Israel for their vision of apocalypse to occur as predicted welcoming the second coming of Christ.

Shifaa

I cannot disagree with you. In that it might now appear that much of the Arab world – at the very least Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, even for all we know Syria would like to settle the matter of Israel within the geography and make a kind of peace which would give the Palestinians the place they need and deserve. And that the Arab initiative may very well become the starting point to embark on that conclusion to the stalemate.

I just find it somewhat ironic that the parties responsible in large part for the impasse and the suffering of so many people now come to the table with a purported ‘initiative’ that could lead to a final settlement. Overlooking that, and we certainly should, Israel may find it expedient to deal through the initiative.

And then there is the reality on the ground. Israel will still be dealing with Hamas, a group whose end-purpose is stated time and again as the destruction of the State of Israel. Citizens of Israel have no wish to live within a greater Palestinian State dependent on the goodwill of Palestinians; Jews have done that throughout history and suffered for it.

If you believe it is incumbent on Israel to look at the Arab initiative and try to deal with it, do you believe also that Hamas, which is now the leading authority figure by democratic action through a frustrated, long-suffering Palestinian population’s decision to cast in their lot with them, needs to forgo its determination to eliminate the State of Israel?

You’re certainly right that Israel can opt for the status quo and that’s intolerable. But that has nothing to do with its being a pluralistic democracy; it already is that.
Delays as you mention do embolden extremist forces and that’s the truth.And that Palestinians need and deserve far more than what fate has thus far granted them is undeniable.

A bi-ethnic state? You mean a combined Israel/Palestine? Don’t think so. That’s just my opinion, mind. Are you serious?

Anyone aware, however, of the new RM FM with studios in Jerusalem and Ramallah? Set up for the purpose of fostering good relations and an attempt to effect understanding between Israelis and Palestinians? Only good can come of it. And hope for the future.

Ramzi,

The fact of the matter is that Israel has an Arab Mk. He has been assigned a post. Isn’t that progress?

As for the idiocies of people who spout racist cant against one another, it’s a fact of life everywhere. That it can happen and not be considered particularly remarkable is an indictment upon us all.

There are lunatic racists everywhere.

Ramzi, you complain about the miserable way that you perceive (and no doubt experience) Palestinians can be treated by Israelis. My friend, there are many Israelis who have contempt for other Israelis whose backgrounds are not as exalted as their own, whose religious convictions don’t match their own, whose social status is not reflected in their own. This is human nature, much as we detest it.

BV and Lisoosh –thank you both for providing an extremely interesting aspect of this thread (which has indeed gotten very complicated and splintered into about 12 different conversations). I’d really like to hear the opinions of more people to your questions to one another. My input as far as the question put to the Israelis is basically, yo, what Lisoosh said.

Ok ,

My position on this is easy : I can’t compromise on my refugees right to get their rights ( whether by compensation, by RoR, by moving to a Palestinian State….(all of the options, most of the options, some of the options……. etc…) But i am not well placed, just as you here, we are not well placed to decide what their options are! They also deserve to voice their opinions! They deserve to negotiate, to be part of this resolution! As long as all the actors of the conflict are not integrated into the dialog, the conflict will most probably not have a real solution…so Yaeli, I think that we need an Arab Israeli , A Gazan , A Palestinian Refugee from the Territories, a Palestinian Refugee from Huge refugee Camps outside the country…. in other words, we need a comprehensive group of people who can talk about all the aspects of the conflict and not just about perceptions and beliefs we might have about others in our own groups and in different groups…

Ramzi –we definitely do need people from these sectors but getting them to take part is proving very problematic. First, for the reasons Omeran notes but the biggest problem is the language issue. Try getting Israelis of any stripe to read, much less write, in english –good luck with that! The grad students in my program are all fully fluent in spoken english but, with the exception of 3 students, they will not read or write in english at all, despite the fact that all their reading assignments are from academic journals (thus written in english). What they do is come to class completely unprepared, having not read the assignment, and wait until one of the students has translated the thing into hebrew before reading it. They continue to do this even though their grades have significantly suffered as a result of very bad translations having been put out (often giving the opposite conclusion for instance from what the article was saying) and thus the 80% of the class who relied only on the translation being unable to correctly answer questions on their mid-term and final exams. And these are graduate students! 70% of our current first-year class are Beduin and Israeli-arabs and I was really hoping some of them would at least want to comment here but they won’t do the english.

oh…and me who thought that this was only a problem in Europe…. Seems like i am wrong…But you know what ? In The territories, our english is fairly GOOD so i will do my best to find a refugee from Bethlehem’s Refugee camps…. i will try to find someone from some of the Big Refugee camps in Lebanon or Syria… Yasser i will need your help with this task! …

Well, you had Mike, who’s wife was Arab Israeli……..

I’ve lost touch with a lot of Arab Israelis over the years so I can’t be much help here. As I recall, those students from villages near Haifa frequently had very good written English. Maybe you can put out feelers through the other universities, Hebrew U, Technion or Tel Aviv U would probably bring up people with better English (no offense, but BG isn’t exactly a great intellectual draw).

As to Gaza, the Camps, etc, you are absolutely right Ramzi, you do need to hear more from each of these people, and you can hardly be expected to represent their views.

Yael – I just remembered that for a while I had a link to the blog of someone living in a Palestinian camp in Syria (unfortunately I dropped it). I think she was Scandinavian and married to a Palestinian, but her written English was excellent; if nothing else she could perhaps find someone in her camp or family to post. I think I followed a ling once on Imaans blog, but find nothing there now, perhaps you could contact her and see if she knows who I am talking about.

Ok,

Good news, i just contacted some UNRWA officials in the Palestinian Authority and in Lebanon…they will try to give me some names in the coming days…. their biggest concern( for those in lebanon) is secrecy …

I also contacted the Bethlehem University, they must have a few students from local Refugee camps who are excellent in English … they will give me an answer sometime during next week

Stay tuned!

Ramzi – Why is secrecy important for people from camps in Lebanon?

Lisoosh,

I didn’t really discuss this point with them, but i think it’s more than justified and the answer to your question is an obvious one…If i can’t enter lebanon, it’s because my passport says ” Palestinian” ” born in Jerusalem”… you can imagine the ingredients of the bundle that includes such restrictions… Lebanon is country that didn’t participate in last year’s Eurovision because israel participated…. So what do you expect people to feel when they are asked to establish contact with the israeli side ? ( Clarification : i’m not judging lebanon here, it’s not my job to do so, i’m just trying to explain why these people want secercy…i didn’t talk to any refugee , i talked to a German UNRWA employee, he was the one who talked about secrecy…it’s just a concern he had)

Achla Ramzi! If you can find someone for us –or Shifaa, Yaser, Raees and so forth know someone whose arms you can twist (er, I mean using soothing and convincing words) to get them to participate that would be so fantastic. I am still looking here but so far neither arm twisting nor soothing words seems to work. Definitely these are all voices that need to be heard and included.

This “secrecy” excuse is a bunch of BS, in my opinion. “Fear”, perhaps. But not “secrecy”.

Ramzi is right, there is still a lot of taboos in Lebanon (and probably more so in the Palestinian camps) about “talking to Israel”. This is something I have never really quite understood.
I mean, I understand why the leaders wouldn’t want their flock to talk to the so-called “enemy”. It makes it a lot easier to feed them lies. We all know how dehumanizing the enemy, the “us against them” mentality has kept this conflict brewing for a lot longer than it should have been.

Again, this is one of the main reasons the blogosphere is such a welcome medium, as it cuts out the middleman and lets us talk to each other directly. But (putting on my elitist hat here), it is a sad truth that most people in refugee camps don’t necessarily have the means or access to spend their time reading the Internet. Having said that, there are countless Palestinians who grew up in refugee camps and chose a path of education and university and ended up leaving the camps to live abroad and live productive and fruitful lives. We might have better luck finding someone in that latter category who still holds on to a “camp” perspective.

It’s late, I don’t know why I am doing this at this hour, but getting back to Shifaa’s original post.

Am I the only Israeli frustrated by the typical Israeli response? They don’t have to agree with anything but a response that could be 100% more positive from a PR standpoint could go something like this:

“Israel is incredibly excited at this show of willingness by the Arab nations to move towards recognition and to a negotiated settlement of Israeli/Palestinian hostilities. We cordially invite representatives of these nations to visit us in Israel for further discussion”.

Everyone feels good and the ball is firmly back in the other court.

WHY WHY WHY can’t they be more savvy?

Lisoosh –Israeli and PR savvy are contradictions in terms. Now Israeli and PR disasters that is about right. It is very frustrating.

I’m with Lisoosh on this one. I think I said in my initial comment that Israel has long been media savvy with the West (although I think some Israelis would argue that), but has been incredibly BAD in projecting the right image to those who should matter the most to Israel’s immediate fate: The Arab world.

(Mind you, the Arabs are even worse when it comes to PR and image)

I think the long-held taboos of the mere mention of Israel, let alone TALKING to Israel (on the Arab side) and the “high horse” that the Israeli official position often seems to project have gone a long way in erecting more barriers than there already are.

It is high time both sides came out of their childish routines and acknowledge each other, and start talking to each other (and in my opinion, the 2002 Arab peace plan goes a long way, at least, compared to the traditional Arab stance of not even recognizing Israel’s existence).

I guess I see it the way 2 individual who had a fight would deal with each other. There’s the folks who play the “I’m not talking to him” game, much like in some V sitcom where the 2 estranged friends convey messages through a third party “Tell so and so (who happens to be standing right there) that I’m not talking to him.”
And then, there’s the more mature approach, where the 2 individuals recognize they have a dispute and agree to sit down and talk about it.
Pouting has never really worked for me. I don’t know why these folks think it will.

[...] Hmmmm… normalization of relations in return for a complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 border? Cooool! *Jumping around excitedly*. Wouldn’t we all love to see that? I say the only thing that might be a problem is the whole refugee issue. What’s the definition of a refugee? How many would that be? Israelis are a very paranoid bunch from what I’ve learnt. [...]

Shifaa –

“The Palestinian Authority and Jordan earlier this week arrested two Palestinians suspected of selling a house in Hebron to settlers who have been occupying it since March 19.

One of the suspects is being held in Jordan, and the other in Jericho. PA laws call for a death sentence for anyone found guilty of selling land to Jews.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/843839.html

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