igloo Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 MIDEAST BREAKTHROUGH By JOHN PODHORETZ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email Archives Print Reprint April 15, 2004 -- YESTERDAY, George W. Bush outlined a path for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that has the distinct advantage of being based in reality. A Palestinian state will only come into existence when Palestinians themselves have grasped that the Jewish state is here to stay and that a peace deal will have to take account of Israel's needs and interests as well as theirs. That was the meaning of the president's historic words yesterday at the White House. "Israel must have secure and recognized borders," the president said. "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 . . . It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities." The peace plans that have littered the pages of recent American history have always allowed Palestinians to continue to harbor delusions about the possibility of achieving Israel's territorial surrender at the bargaining table. How have they done this? By leaving all the really important stuff - the stuff about who gets to live where - for the end. President Bush opened a new era of possibility for peace by stipulating some of the tough stuff at the beginning. His realism - together with the daring vision of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who intends to lead unilateral pullbacks from Palestinian lands in Gaza and on the West Bank - is a wake-up call to Palestinians that their only possible future is one in which they are not placing all their hopes on the negotiated destruction of Israel. The Jewish state will not pull back to the borders of the 1949 armistice, borders that were untenable and dangerous. The Jewish state will never consent to a peace treaty that declares it illegitimate for Jews to live in Judea and Samaria on the West Bank - lands where there now exist some "major population centers" whose destruction the president rightly describes as "unrealistic." Israel will never allow its national identity to be destroyed by the "right of return," which is simply a demographic plot to destroy Israel from within by threatening the Jewish character of the Jewish state. For years Israelis have been told incessantly by the world's opinion leaders about all the compromises and sacrifices they will have to make. Palestinians have been told only that they need make vague promises about accepting Israel's existence and forswearing violence. But the reality is that even a nation like Israel, exhausted by decades of war and desperate to live under the normal conditions that obtain in other democracies, will not commit suicide just because the United Nations and even some of its own leftist intellectuals want it to do so. For example, Palestinians believe, at the very least, that Israel should be forced back into 1949 borders achieved when the pan-Arab war on the nascent Jewish state finally ended. Those borders left the Jewish state so dangerously exposed that the high ground above the only road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem was in the hands of enemy Jordanians who could fire at will on the cars and trucks below. When Palestinians say they accept Israel's existence, what they mean is that it should return to these 1949 borders. That's delusional. But this delusional view is actually the cautious, conservative, sober and responsible Palestinian view. And it's a minority view. Most Palestinians still believe Israel has no right to exist and that any peace agreement with the Jewish state is merely a stage in that state's eventual destruction. In addition, the Palestinian position is that the lands making up a new Palestinian state should be entirely free of Jews and Jewish settlements - but that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians should be allowed to "return" to territory now occupied by the Jewish state. The president made that clear as well: "A solution to the Palestinian refugee issue . . . will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than Israel." Bush, who is often accused of not having tried hard enough on Israeli-Palestinian matters, has done more to advance the prospects of true peace, and the creation of a Palestinian state, than any leader has ever done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramadas Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by igloo Bush, who is often accused of not having tried hard enough on Israeli-Palestinian matters, has done more to advance the prospects of true peace, and the creation of a Palestinian state, than any leader has ever done. I'm not even going to touch this except for :laugh: for the above part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by raver_mania I'm not even going to touch this except for :laugh: for the above part. Please explain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramadas Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by mr mahs Please explain... What has he done to improve peace over there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by raver_mania What has he done to improve peace over there? The Road map...Meeting with Sharon to discuss the pullout from the gaza strip....Just because he hasn't said GET OUT or else, he isn't doing anything to help these parasites? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igloo Posted April 15 Author Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by raver_mania What has he done to improve peace over there? Is Saddam Hussein still funding those suicide bombers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vicman Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 Originally posted by igloo Is Saddam Hussein still funding those suicide bombers? i think the saudi's are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramadas Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 road map??? the one the Israelis threw out! ha.If anybody brought the two parties close to peace it was Clinton, until Jewish extremists assasinated the one leader who really wanted peace with the Palestinians. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tasrit Posted April 17 Report Share Posted April 17 1) a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 2) right of returnThe only solutionAnd the golden rule: treat every person like you wanted to be treated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tasrit Posted April 17 Report Share Posted April 17 Talk WITH the Palestinians not ABOUT the Palestinians.Israel has a conflict with the Palestinians and have to talked with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daprofessional Posted April 18 Report Share Posted April 18 fuck the Palestinians How do you talk WITH someone when they're about to detonate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tasrit Posted April 18 Report Share Posted April 18 fuck yourself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRIANC1046 Posted April 19 Report Share Posted April 19 go ahead and call me dumb.. but I still don't see.. " THE MIDEAST BREAKTHROUGH! " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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