Monday 30 May 2011

6 million less Jews in Israel if Palestine is stronger?

"The Israeli general asked him a very sobering question: If the
Palestinians had the Israelis' military capability and vice versa,
what would happen? After a brief pause, the official said, "I guess
there would be six million fewer Jews in the region.""
Using this GUESS, a former US diplomat concludes that there will be 6
million Jews if Palestine were more powerful than Jewish Israel!!!
This is all a falacy and not backed up by any single fact in the past
and in the immediate future.
The FACTS are very clear:
1. There ARE 6 MILLION FEWER ARABS in Israel NOW, when JEWS were and
ARE strong in Israel.
2. The ARABS had never been stronger than JEWS, in the PAST AND
FORESEEABLE FUTURE. Especially TINY PALESTINIAN ARABS.
When FACTS are ignored by US diplomats in favour of FALLACIES, there
will be no peace at all.
The SOLUTIONS IS VERY SIMPLE: DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM FOR ALL, not JUST
FOR JEWS.
1. Return all Israeli Arabs to their native land in ISRAEL and grant
them voting rights. Then there is no reason for them to do suicide
bombing or as it is now getting popular, SUICIDE DEMONSTRATIONS.
2. DO NOT ASSUME THAT PEOPLE ARE GUILTY FIRST, and then proven
innocent, like OSAMA BIN LADEN.
Arafat and HAMAS. US and Jewish Israelis are more terrorists than
these FREEDOM FIGHTERS ARE and YET they don't want to sign the ICJ
agreements. Prove that US and Israel are not TERRORISTS BY submitting
THEMSELVES to the ICJ.

Obama's speech on Middle East was most perfect
By Mark Paredes
Deseret News
Published: Monday, May 23, 2011 7:12 a.m. MDT
From my perspective, this has been a great month for President Obama's
Middle East policies.
First, the Navy Seals dispatched Osama bin Laden to the depths of the
Indian Ocean, then the president slapped personal sanctions on the
thugs ruling Syria, which was a step that no other president has had
the guts to do.
More kudos are due to President Obama for delivering a 5,450-word
speech on the Middle East on Thursday that was almost perfect.
These actions were all courageous ones, and one can only hope that
they portend decisive American engagement with the region.
The president began his address by highlighting the impending
withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever one
thinks of the wars that we have waged in those countries (I supported
both of them), this is a positive development, especially in the case
of Iraq. As for Afghanistan, a gradual reduction in U.S. forces is the
only way to see whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai can actually
impose his will on an area larger than his palace.
After lauding the courage of protesters in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Iran
and Yemen, the president observed that "through the moral force of non-
violence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six
months than terrorists have accomplished in decades."
Needless to say, there were lots of target audiences for that
statement in the region.
The president was careful both to make his case for intervening in
Libya and to remind his listeners that the U.S. "cannot prevent every
injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people…We have learned
from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to
impose regime change by force."
It bears repeating again: Every country in the Middle East needs a
U.S. policy that is tailored to its unique history, demographics and
power dynamics. A one-size-fits-all approach to protests and uprisings
is most unwise. Well said, Mr. President.
After imposing unprecedented personal sanctions on Syrian President
Bashar Assad, President Obama told Assad that he had two choices: lead
a transition to democracy or leave office. My guess is that Assad will
choose the third option of continuing to murder his people, but it was
refreshing to hear an American president dispense with the illusion
that the Syrian government is a potential partner for peace.
More than a few eyebrows raised when the president singled out
regional ally Bahrain for criticism. Not only did the Bahraini ruling
family use brutality to put down the protests by the Shiite majority,
but it did so with the help of Saudi soldiers. Surely the corrupt al-
Saud family in Riyadh felt just as targeted as their feckless Bahraini
counterparts did by Obama's broadside. I only wish that the president
had mentioned the Saudis by name when he spoke of the crying need for
women's rights to be respected in the Middle East.
In a laudable effort to support the new governments in Egypt and
Tunisia and to offer encouragement to protesters in other countries in
the region, the U.S. will offer them significant financial support in
conjunction with the World Bank, IMF and other countries. Let us hope
that this aid will produce stable democracies in those countries.
The president must also be praised for demanding that Coptic
Christians in Egypt be accorded the right to worship freely.
Christians continue to be persecuted and harassed throughout the
region, yet few religious leaders mention their plight. As a result,
many Christians are leaving historically Christian cities like
Bethlehem and Nazareth, both of which now have Muslim majorities.
Had President Obama ended his talk there, he would have delivered the
most detailed and comprehensive speech on the Middle East in recent
memory. However, he made the mistake of ending the talk with a
lamentable analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that showed he
does not really understand it.
I'm not sure that there was a need to mention Israelis and
Palestinians in the talk, but if he was going to do it, he should have
reflected more on the lessons of the failed Oslo process.
Jews who vilify President Obama for his positions on Israel have it
wrong as well. I do not believe for a second that he intends to sell
out Israel or compromise its security. It's just that Jews have been
spoiled by 16 years of Clinton and Bush II, both of whom had a special
place in their hearts for Israel.
Like Bush I, President Obama does not get misty-eyed when he talks
about the country. In all likelihood, he regards it as an important
ally that must be defended, but it does not tug at his heart strings.
Given the president's background, there's no reason that it should.
To be sure, there were plenty of positive statements in the speech in
support of Israel. The president noted that "antagonism toward Israel
became the only acceptable outlet for political expression" under the
region's authoritarian rulers; expressed his uneasiness with the
recent Hamas-Fatah pact; called on Palestinians not to take unilateral
steps towards statehood and condemned Hamas's terrorism.
Unfortunately, all of these positives are outweighed in many circles
by his call for the borders of Israel and "Palestine" to be based on
the pre-Six-Day War borders of 1967. As Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu told the president to his face, this proposal is
simply unworkable.
Mr. President, the problem is not the plan.
As Israel has shown with Egypt and Jordan, the details of peace
agreements can be worked out when there is trust on both sides. The
problem here is with who is sitting on the Palestinian side. For years
Bill Clinton's naÏve advisors told him that if he just came up with
the right formula and invited the terrorist Yasser Arafat to the White
House enough times, there would be peace in our time.
More sensible people knew from the beginning that as long as a
terrorist was sitting on the other side of the table, there would
never be peace. The compromises that Israel is being asked to make are
almost all permanent in nature (e.g., land), while the Palestinians
are only asked to make statements and promises that can be retracted
at will. Right now the Palestinian representatives are a weak,
illegitimate president whose term expired more than two years ago and
the terrorist group Hamas. Would the U.S. negotiate away land to them
if they were our neighbors?
President Obama did well to observe that "everyone knows … a lasting
peace will involve two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish
state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of
Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state
enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition and peace."
The problem is that no one, certainly not their Palestinian
counterparts, can guarantee the Israelis that their state will be left
in peace after the ink is dry.
In a remarkable and little-noted statement, the president called for a
"non-militarized" Palestinian state. (No Arab leader wants a
militarized Palestinian state, but it was refreshing to hear this come
from the mouth of a U.S. president.) The reason for this statement is
precisely the reason that negotiations to establish a Palestinian
state are useless right now.
During a briefing given to a senior State Department official and me
(the note taker) by the Israeli Army's Head of Research some years
ago, the official remarked that he was profoundly troubled by what he
was hearing, which seemed to suggest that murderous anti-Semitism was
alive and well in the region.
The Israeli general asked him a very sobering question: If the
Palestinians had the Israelis' military capability and vice versa,
what would happen? After a brief pause, the official said, "I guess
there would be six million fewer Jews in the region."
The president is only kidding himself if he believes that the answer
has changed in the intervening years. Until it does, there is no point
in talking peace, regardless of the plan.
Mark Paredes served as a U.S. diplomat in Israel and Mexico, blogs for
the Jewish Journal, and will begin leading tours to Israel next year
for Morris Murdock Travel. He can be reached at
deverareligione@yahoo.com.

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