Withdrawing The 'Occupation'
"The people who gave the order to murder our people and hid in Gaza are no longer among the living. I set a principle: When someone harms the citizens of Israel, we react immediately and with force.Surrender to the international community's demand that the West Bank be cleansed of Israeli settlements, and hand over the Old City of Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall and the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority, and accept with good grace, the return of six million Palestinians who have resulted from the 800,000 Palestinian Arabs who fled the land at the creation of the State of Israel.
"If anyone thinks the State of Israel will resign itself to this, they are wrong." Benjamin Netanyahu
And then ... peace. Guaranteed by whom?
And what matter, in any event, for with those provisions demanded by the PA as a requisite for making 'peace' with Israel, Israel will no longer effectively exist. No Jewish state: !pouf! Over sixty years of turmoil and defence and growth come to nothing. While the Palestinians continued over all that time to be 'refugees', supported by the world community through the ministrations of UNRWA.
For argument's sake, say the West Bank was freed of any Israeli presence, East Jerusalem was ceded, Palestinian refugees welcomed. Does that halt Hamas's vow to destroy Israel? Will that transform Hezbollah into a welcoming committee for the transformed Israel? Is that meant to take the sting-and-intention from al-Qaeda, to allow whatever might be left of a Jewish presence in the Middle East to live in peace?
The recent co-ordinated triple attacks in Israel, near Eilat most instructive. The peace and quiet of only the occasional Kassam rocket careening into Israeli towns near the border of Gaze was too boring, and a message needed to be sent. Duly delivered, and civilians targeted to death. The compliment returned speedily, with the deaths of those who commanded the attacks, in Gaza.
It was civilians who were targeted, people driving their personal vehicles to a holiday destination, and buses en route to that same holiday destination. No one, evidently, informed the attackers that one of those buses might be full of IDF service people on leave and planning a holiday in Eilat, too. Military personnel capable of shooting back, defending themselves from assault.
How can the 'occupation' withdraw, when it is in place to protect the population of Israel from just such assaults?
How can the State of Israel contract to bargain for a peace agreement between itself and its neighbour when its neighbour is so fractured, representing groups who are relatively moderate, just wanting to delegitimize Israel, and others for whom no violent ferocity is sufficient to expunge their hatred for Jews?
Labels: Israel, Middle East, Misadventure, Palestinian Authority, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 19, 2011
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