generalspeaking

Just Saying....

"This is the first time a Palestinian official said 'I have no right' to live in my original home.  He should have said 'something is preventing me' from living there.  But if you read the Oslo peace agreements from 1993, it says the right of return is to the Palestinian territories."
Nashat Aqtash, professor of communications, Bir Zeit University

"I am a refugee but I am living in Ramallah.  I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine.  And the other part is Israel", said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.  He said this, speaking in an interview with Israel Television's Channel 2.  This is the president of the PA speaking to the West, in essence.  And this is what Western communication sources heard via the Israeli news sources.

This does not reflect what Mr. Abbas has said time and again to a different audience: Palestinians and the Arab world.  To Palestinians he urges "resistance" to the "occupation".  In Palestinian territory school curricula children are taught that the map they see which has no Israel on it, just Palestine, is the map that will result in the near future.  That the Israeli presence is a blot that will be removed.

Children are encouraged to daydream of becoming martyrs for the blessed cause of returning the land to its rightful owners, Palestinians.  And this is indeed what Palestinians dream of.  And they are encouraged to continue doing so by the Palestinian Authority and by Mahmoud Abbas.  Both of whom are pleased to name streets, public squares and buildings commemoratively in honour of the blessed martyrs of Palestine.

Those shaheeds whose memories are so blessed are the suicide bombers who succeeded in blowing men, women and children to smithereens, pieces of human flesh plastering wrecked infrastructure where moments before active, lively men, women and children were going about their business on buses, in restaurants, in busy streets scenes.  The medium was the message; another martyr, another triumph.

"I want to see Safed and it is my right to see it but not to live there", he said; "I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine.  And the other part is Israel", he declared.  What?  Mahmolud Abbas suddenly found the truth revealed?  The Palestinian notion of 'right of return', the 700,000 who originally departed, removing themselves from the path of oncoming allied Arab armies destined, they swore, to crush Israel - plus their newer generations since that time.

An incoming potential estimated at six million, equal in size to the Jewish population of Israel itself.  Stifling, and swarming and suffocating the Jewish population in the greater throngs of what were once Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese Arabs, now 'Palestinians' whose right of return is guaranteed by their understanding of their entitlements, a refugee solution unheard of anywhere else in the world.

"What I said about Safed is my personal stance.  It means nothing about giving up the right of return" was the message he gave Al-Hayyat newspaper.  Different audience, different story.  "No one would give up their right of return.  But all those international formulas, especially that of [UN Resolution] 194, speak of a just and agreed-upon solution to the refugee issue, and 'agreed-upon' means on the part of Israel".

"This is within the limits of the agreement signed by the [Palestine Liberation Organization] so I don't think Abbas did anything wrong.  I don't think he crossed the red line, but now he's under a lot of pressure from everybody", according to Saleh Abdul-Jawed, professor of political science at Birzeit University.

As for Israel, the interpretation of those unself-censored words reflects the audience that parses them. 

"These are significant words.  These positions stand exactly in line with those of Israel and with a clear majority of the population, which supports the solution of two states for two peoples.  This is a brave and important public declaration in which [Abbas] makes clear that his aim for a state is only within the West Bank and Gaza....  His courageous words prove that Israel has a real partner for peace."  President Shimon Peres

As for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:  "I heard that he has since rescinded his remarks but this proves how important it is to hold direct negotiations without preconditions."

Labels: Communication, Diplomacy, Heritage, Human Relations, Israel, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Particularities/Peculiarities, Peace, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 07, 2012