generalspeaking

On Balance...

Hamas is willing to exchange one prisoner it holds, Gilad Shalit, a young IDF soldier who was abducted from the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel, in 2006, and held since in the Gaza Strip. It will agree to exchange Gilad Shalit for one thousand Palestinians held in Israeli jails, most of whom are there for terrorist activities against Israel.

Israel would agree to the exchange, and is prepared to free one thousand Palestinians and has already as a good-will gesture, freed some female Palestinians, but Hamas continues to hold out for the release of those whom it considers high-value. These are generally speaking prisoners held by Israel for truly vicious crimes against humanity, the planners and murderers of Israeli citizens, innocent bystanders, victims of attacks and bombings.

Some of whom who have been released in the past in similar 'good-will' gestures have returned to their life-work of attempting to destroy the State of Israel, through mass shedding of blood, resistant to the very notion that Jews and Arabs could life side by side in two separate states without war. And these dedicated Jew-murderers are hailed as heroes in the pantheon of Palestinian courageous 'resisters' to the 'occupation'.

The UN and the US have prevailed upon Israel to assist them in training and arming Palestinian Authority police and military. Through the auspices of the US military, Palestinians have been trained in the art of modern warfare, taught to use sophisticated weaponry, and the US military is proud of the excellent job they have done in this respect.

It was not all that long ago, while Israel was working closely with the newly-established PA, post Oslo Accord under Yasser Arafat to help guide the PLO-Fatah in achieving civil infrastructure and state structure toward potential statehood that the first Intifada resulted in Palestinian police, taught by Israeli police, turning against their 'colleagues'.

Currently, U.S. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, friends of Israel all, toured the West Bank and met with PA officials, visiting the armed forces' bases in
Ramallah, greatly impressed. They are of the conviction that these armed forces of the PA would never comprise a future threat to Israel.

Senator McCain even gave his opinion of the potential for PA forces in the possibly-near future to police security checkpoints in the West Bank. Belying the reality that there are instances where Palestinian soldiers are still involved in anti-Israel acts.

Israel is continually being threatened by the righteous countries of the West that trade and economic embargoes might result from its intransigent attitude toward granting Palestinians full autonomy of their territories and refusing to withdraw all the settlements of the West Bank, as they did unilaterally in Gaza. A painful, costly withdrawal that resulted in Gazan Palestinians running amok, coming under the control of Gaza, and increasing violent attacks then resulting against Israel.

Can any world power guarantee that this will not be repeated should Israel withdraw all its settlements from the West Bank?

In Western academia and in their unions, the threats of academic boycotts are continuous. And within Israel those threats have their counterpart occasions, where hundreds of Israeli academics are prepared to join the boycott - of Israel and their own academic credentials and freedoms. While political Israel is aghast at the very thought of their own academic community joining ranks with harsh critics of the country's insistence on its right to self-defence, the situation of sabotage from within its own social-activist and peace groups
enjoys no counterpart activity from within the broader Arab and Muslim community.

During the most current visit to Washington and New York by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, support for Israel is evidenced by Members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, along with demonstrations by American campus advocacy organizations, the American Zionist Movement, the National Council of Young Israel, Women's Leagues for Conservative Judaism, and Hadassah chapters among others.

Speeches declaring dedication toward stable and secure requirements for Israel's existence were given and applauded.

And on the other hand, great contingents of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas groups formed themselves in opposition; the anti-Zionist Chareidi organization, Neturei Karta, allies of Iran, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jews Say No!, holding Palestinian flags and chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" made noble, common cause with The Muslim Students Federation and others declaring their revulsion for Israel, holding it responsible for the Turkish flotilla deaths, and the squalor and poverty of blockaded Gazans.

And then there is the human interest factor at a closer scale, where Israeli hospitals and Jewish doctors regularly look after the medical needs of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza whose own hospitals and physicians are incapable of seeing to their most serious medical cases. Where in one hospital in Tel Aviv alone, up to a hundred Gazan residents seek treatment yearly.

Residents of other Arab countries, some of whom still do not recognize Israel, also seek care at those Jewish hospitals. All are provided with care, their relatives given food and a place to stay. Reciprocation? Hardly. Hospitals throughout Israel are accustomed to treating Palestinian and other Arab patients who are not residents of the country; treating them for their ailments, then sending them on their way, back to their places of origin, to continue living in good health.

Hamas itself is involved in sending Palestinian Gazan patients to Israeli hospitals. This is the same Hamas that turns a deaf ear to the pleading of the parents of Gilad Shalit, whom even representatives of the International Red Cross are unable to visit to ensure his state of well being. He remains, inhumanely, a human bargaining chip. But the world does not hold Hamas and Palestinians to account for much of anything.

And the search for peace? Meaningful, trusting and truthful dialogue between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel? In a state of suspended dis-animation. Direct talks broken off with the launching of Operation Cast Lead; which like the defensive IDF operation never did result in anything hopeful for the future.

Palestinian elementary and high school curricula still show a map of the region absent Israel, still teach Arab children that Jews are their feared and detested enemy, to be hated and violently 'resisted'. The achievement of martyrdom for their peoples' cause, the devotion to Palestine, must be embraced as the highest order of the peoples' dedication to itself.

And the moderate Palestinian Arab leader of the long-suffering Palestinian people, Mahmoud Abbas, whose struggles on behalf of the population have as yet availed nothing whatever? Little surprise, given his careful agenda; his Janus-faced vocalizations to the West and his tribal reassurances to his home audience: "If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it", he declared recently.

Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke to Arab leaders in the kind of language that they all seem to understand; that the PA is prepared to engage in war with Israel as long as the rest of the Arab world commits to another such combined war front. The PA daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported these statements by Mr. Abbas, and they were translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

Is anyone listening out there? These were statements issued at the Arab League Summit held in Libya in March.

The PA and Chairman Abbas are engaging in distanced diplomacy. Their negotiations, such as they are constitute demands that Israel cannot possibly accede to without dire consequence to the longevity of the Jewish State itself.

But of course this is the purpose of those demands. While Hamas is openly 'resistant' to Israel's existence and seeks to expunge it by terrorism, refusing to negotiate with the very idea of Israel's existence, the PA dialogues because it is, at the present time, unequipped to challenge Israel militarily.

How nicely all of this is carefully balanced on the scale of world credulousness and willful belief in the incandescently absurd.

Labels: Israel, Middle East, Peace, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 10, 2010