#Two-State Solution

[tomorrowusa]

Until this month, Bibi Netanyahu was a HŪGE fanboy of Hamas. Their relationship goes back decades. This is not some wacko conspiracy theory. Much of the information about this comes from mainstream Israeli media and high ranking Israeli former officials.

Here are excerpts from an in-depth article at the CBC – Canada's public broadcaster.

Israelis don't agree on much, especially lately, but polling shows they mostly agree that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is to blame for leaving Israel unprepared for Hamas's onslaught on October 7. The accusations aimed at Netanyahu go beyond merely failing to foresee or prevent the Hamas attack of October 7, however. Many accuse him of deliberately empowering the group for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace. "There's been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority," said Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group. "And we've seen that happening very clearly on the ground." "(Hamas and Netanyahu) are mutually reinforcing, in the sense that they provide each other with a way to continue to use force and rejectionism as opposed to making sacrifices and compromises in order to reach some kind of resolution," Zonszein told CBC News from Tel Aviv.

Bibi and Hamas could be called "frenemies".

Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister." In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's "strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah." The logic underlying this strategy, Barak said, is that "it's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to."

The Bibi-Hamas relationship goes back almost 30 years. In some ways, Hamas helped put Bibi in power in the first place.

Netanyahu first came to power in the 1996 election that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli extremist opposed to the Oslo Accords. Early polls showed Rabin's successor Shimon Peres comfortably ahead. Determined to sabotage Oslo, Hamas embarked on a ruthless suicide bombing campaign that helped Netanyahu pull ahead of Peres and win the election on May 29, 1996. Today, some of the same extremists who called for Rabin's death hold power in Netanyahu's government.

A reminder that the current Israeli government led by Netanyahu is the most far right in Israel's history. Netanyahu filled it with extremists, religious fanatics, and virulent ethno-nationalists in order to stay in power.

Just two weeks before Rabin's assassination, a young settler extremist posed for the cameras with a Cadillac hood ornament he said he had stolen from Rabin's car. "Just like we got to this emblem," he said, "we could get to Rabin." Today, that young man, Itamar Ben Gvir, is 45 years old and has eight Israeli criminal convictions — including convictions for supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism. Once he was rejected by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for his extremist views. Now, Israel's police must answer to him as Benjamin Netanyahu's minister of national security.

Imagine how a second Trump administration would be and you get a hint of what Bibi's pre-October 7th cabinet was like.

The Bibi-Hamas connection only gets worse.

Netanyahu's hawkish defence minister Avigdor Liberman was the first to report in 2020 that Bibi had dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the IDF's officer in charge of Gaza, Herzi Halevi, to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas. "Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas," the right-wing leader complained. A year later, Netanyahu was further embarrassed when photos of suitcases full of cash going to Hamas became public. Liberman finally resigned in protest over Netanyahu's Hamas policy which, he said, marked "the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself."

Yep, Bibi actually had a bag man deliver cash to Hamas.

The Palestinian Authority's Ahmed Majdalani accused the Qatari envoy of carrying money to Hamas "like a gangster." "The PLO did not agree to the deal facilitating the money to Hamas that way," he said.

Netanyahu fancies himself as a clever Machiavellian playing one side against the other. He has even bragged of this to members of his party.

On March 12, 2019, Netanyahu defended the Hamas payments to his Likud Party caucus on the grounds that they weakened the pro-Oslo Palestinian Authority, according to the Jerusalem Post: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel's regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday's Likud faction meeting said," the Post reported. "The prime minister also said that 'whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for' transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Of course Bibi was ultimately being too clever by half.

Netanyahu insisted that neither the money nor the construction material given to Hamas would be diverted to military purposes. But today, the IDF finds itself showing how Hamas has done exactly that — by diverting and converting civilian funds and materials to warlike purposes. The military tried to warn him at the time, former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot told the Ma'ariv newspaper. He said Netanyahu acted "in total opposition to the national assessment of the National Security Council, which determined that there was a need to disconnect from the Palestinians and establish two states."

A lot of radical chic Hamas fans in Western countries will undoubtedly try to obscure the fact that they are cheering the same group which a far right Israeli politician (until recently) has been lavishing with tons of cash.

And the Bibi-Hamas connection is a reminder that while far right politicians in many countries like to portray themselves as tough on security, they will usually put their craven lust for power above all.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Jews are now afraid to walk about freely in London. This isn't just an effect of the miltant, pro-terrorist Palestinian cause; it's an effect of dramatic immigration into the capital city.

We allowed millions in, without checking whether the numbers were reasonable, and more importantly, without checking whether these people would be able to live within British societal norms.

The long-term result of this madness has been the nurturing of anti-British factions who feel totally empowered to abuse our civilisation and democracy in order to intimidate, coerce, and threaten other British people into supporting a jihadist agenda.

These pro-Palestinian protesters aren't interested in human rights, else they would have called for Hamas to be added to the international terrorist list and demanded the prosecution of its terrorists for October 7 before criticising anything Israel did in response.

Their call for a ceasefire is inane, seeing as Hamas had a ceasefire in operation from around April 2023 to October 2023. Hamas chose to violate this ceasefire not with its customary rocket attacks, but with the most savage attack on Jews since Hitler's Holocaust.

Therefore, these pontificating mobs have zero evidence that Hamas would adhere to any further ceasefire. They're also deliberately ignoring Hamas' open theft of the humanitarian aid that they so foolishly believe is going directly to Palestinian civilians.

More importantly, pro-Palestinian protesters are deliberately ignoring the fact that a substantial number of Palestinian civilians are on video participating in the October 7 terrorist attack, celebrating it, supporting Hamas even more since the attack, and therefore being incited enough to commit further terror attacks should they be given the opportunity.

This destroys their narrative of Israel heartlessly killing innocent civilians, which is nothing more than a blood libel copied and pasted from the Middle Ages.

These inconvenient realities expose the fact that the Palestinian cause is part of the wider Islamist jihadist agenda, which has always prioritised extermination of the Jews to win victory for the Muslims, followed by conquering and destroying Western civilisation. This is why Palestinian clerics repeat the same calls to terrorism and genocide heard by Islamic terrorists in al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, the Ayatollah's regime, and others.

In fact, Hamas didn't even use a Palestinian state as the official justification for their attack (contrary to the false claims made by venal terror apologists like Francesca Albanese), but the al-Aqsa mosque.

The few people in Britain who are familiar with Middle Eastern history will understand the significance of this claim, for it was in 1929 that the Arabs launched an especially murderous riot against the Jews, based on whipping up hysteria over Jews 'attacking' the al-Aqsa mosque.

Israel hadn't been rebuilt then, so how do pro-Palestinian terror apologists like Francesca Albanese explain the exact same rationale being used to motivate anti-Jewish attacks in the 20s and 30s, and now?

Islamic terrorism, built on its concept of jihad, is the issue here. Not the lack of a Palestinian state. If the Palestinians were so concerned about obtaining statehood, they 1)-would have accepted the many propositions for one during the last 70 years, and 2)- wouldn't have committed a terror attack so heinous that almost all Israelis now permanently oppose a Palestinian state, including Israelis who openly supported one beforehand.

It is through wild, reckless immigration policies that Britain has imported teeming masses of people who hate this country and want it subverted through aggressive and even terrorist means.

Nobody dares to point this out in public. But the truth is staring everyone in the face, and it won't go away.

[thevardblr]

Every time I hear someone say "I have to believe that two states for two people can bring peace," I think, "Why?? Why do you have to believe something so patently false? Why do you have to believe in a lie?"

[gregor-samsung]

“ Given present circumstances, there are three possible alternatives to the two-state solution [...]. First, Israel could expel the Palestinians from its pre-1967 lands and from the Occupied Territories, thereby preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. Although a few Israeli hard-liners —including current Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman— have advocated variants on this approach, to do so would be a crime against humanity and no genuine friend of Israel could support such a heinous course of action. If this is what opponents of a two-state solution are advocating, they should say so explicitly. This form of ethnic cleansing would not end the conflict, however; it would merely reinforce the Palestinians' desire for vengeance and strengthen those extremists who still reject Israel's right to exist. Second, instead of separate Jewish and Palestinian states living side by side, Mandate Palestine could become a democratic binational state in which both peoples enjoyed equal political rights. This solution has been suggested by a handful of Jews and a growing number of Israeli Arabs. The practical obstacles to this option are daunting, however, and binational states do not have an encouraging track record. This option also means abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state. There is little reason to think that Israel's Jewish citizens would voluntarily accept this solution, and one can also safely assume that individuals and groups in the [American Israel] lobby would have virtually no interest in this outcome. We do not believe it is a feasible or appropriate solution ourselves. The final alternative is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel continues to increase its control over the Occupied Territories but allows the Palestinians to exercise limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled statelets. Israelis invariably bristle at the comparison to white rule in South Africa, but that is the future they face if they try to control all of Mandate Palestine while denying full political rights to an Arab population that will soon outnumber the Jewish population in the entirety of the land. In any case, the apartheid option is not a viable long-term solution either, because it is morally repugnant and because the Palestinians will continue to resist until they get a state of their own. This situation will force Israel to escalate the repressive policies that have already cost it significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished its global image. These possibilities are the only alternatives to a two-state solution, and no one who wishes Israel well should be enthusiastic about any of them. Given the harm that this conflict is inflicting on Israel, the United States, and especially the Palestinians, it is in everyone's interest to end this tragedy once and for all. Put differently, resolving this long and bitter conflict should not be seen as a desirable option at some point down the road, or as a good way for U.S. presidents to polish their legacies and garner Nobel Peace Prizes. Rather, ending the conflict should be seen as a national security priority for the United States. But this will not happen as long as the lobby makes it impossible for American leaders to use the leverage at their disposal to pressure Israel into ending the occupation and creating a viable Palestinian state. “

John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy; 1st edition by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y., 2007.

[ruminativerabbi]

The Two-State Solution

You would think that by now no amount of hypocrisy on the part of the great world out there could surprise, let alone startle, me at this point. Even I think that! And yet I find myself consistently amazed to find myself amazed at the duplicity of our so-called friends, not to mention the out-and-out phoniness of self-proclaimed allies who insist that they only want the best for the Jewish people or for the State of Israel.

If I had nothing to do for the rest of my life I could begin a list. But since my time is limited, I’ll settle for writing about our “friends” who have suddenly discovered, or rather re-discovered, the “two-state solution” as the cure for all that ails Israel and its neighbors. And they are legion: I’ve lost track of how many different newspaper articles I read this last week alone in which the author breathlessly announces that the reason the entire Arab-Israeli sikhsukh wasn’t resolved long ago has to do with the intransigence of Israelis with respect to the famous “two-state” solution, the compromise invariably touted by such authors as the obvious panacea to all that ails the Middle Eastern world. Here, for example, is a story from Taiwan explaining to readers of the Taipei Times how things would calm down instantly if only Bibi would heed President Biden’s call for a “two-state solution.”

The notion itself of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli problem, of course, is as old as the state itself and, in fact, there actually are two states, one Arab and one Jewish on the territory of the old British Mandate of Palestine. Or, rather, there would be had the British not unilaterally sawn the entire kingdom of Jordan, then called Transjordan, off of the mandated territory and offered it to the Hashemites as their own country. So the U.N. was dealing with the part that was left and that, indeed, they voted on November 22, 1947, voted to split down into two nations, a Jewish one and an Arab one.

The next part, everybody knows. The Jews of the yishuv accepted the plan and declared independence on May 14, 1948. (Our apartment in Jerusalem is actually just half a mile or so from November 22nd Street, a pretty place named specifically in honor of the U.N. decision.) The Arabs of British Palestine, however, did not follow suit and declare their own state. Instead, they went to war and lost, which failure laid the groundwork for the subsequent seventy-five years of hostility towards the Jewish state.

Whatever the problem really is, it certainly doesn’t have to do with not enough ink having been spilt—or time wasted—trying to work things out. The Madrid Conference of 1991, the Oslo Accords of 1991 and 1993, the Wye Plantation Memorandum of 1998, the Camp David Summit of 2000, the Annapolis Conference of 2007, the John Kerry shuttle diplomacy of 2013, the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan of 2020—all of these were “about” the two-state solution, each in its own way an effort to finesse the details while ignoring the fact that only one party to the dispute seemed even remotely interested in recognizing the other’s right to nationhood.  Nor does the concept lack international sponsors: a quick google of “international leaders in favor of a two-state solution” yields a very impressive list, a list that includes President Biden, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz, British P.M. Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian P.M. Justin Trudeau, Australian P.M. Anthony Albanese, New Zealand P.M. Christopher Luxon, and, saving the best for last, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. They are all on board!

Most impressive of all is that a full 138 nations have alreadyrecognized the State of Palestine, the fact that none of the above efforts to create a viable two-state solution has succeeded waved away as a mere detail hardly worth mentioning.

So, all that being the case, what actually is the problem? Just this week, we were exposed to the current administration’s pique with Israeli P.M. Netanyahu for not being fully enough behind the two-state solution. The L.A. Times had a particularly interesting op-ed piece on the topic (click here). CNN’s piece (click here) was also quite good. And, of course, nothing could ever deter the New York Times from trying to pry some space out between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations, of which only the latest examples appeared in the last few days: Peter Baker’s “Netanyahu Rebuffs U.S. Calls to Start Working Towards Palestinian Statehood,” Thomas Friedman’s “Netanyahu Is Turning Away from Biden,” or Aaron Boxerman’s “Biden Presses Netanyahu On Working Towards Palestinian State.”

So, okay, I get it. The only solution is the two-state one. But why is everybody so irritated with Israel? The Palestinians could solve the problem overnight by declaring their independence, agreeing quickly to exchange ambassadors with the 130+ nations that already recognize their state, and getting down to the gritty business of negotiating safe and secure border with Israel. Bibi would probably not be pleased. But what could he do? The entire world would be on the Palestinians’ side and all it would take was a single unilateral announcement on the part of the Palestinians to get the ball rolling. The presence of Jewish so-called “settler” types in Judah and Samaria would not be a problem unless the State of Palestine intended itself to be totally judenrein—otherwise, why couldn’t those people live on their own land in an independent Palestine if they wanted to? (Most, I think, would not want to. But some surely would.) Nor would the status of Jerusalem itself be an issue: while the Palestinians are in unilateral-proclamation-mode, they could simply declare East Jerusalem to be their capital, then get down to work organizing a workable plan with Israel for policing the city, controlling traffic, and figuring out who picks up whose trash on which days.

Yes, I’m making light of intense issues. But, at the end of the day, why precisely couldn’t this happen? Everybody is happy to be irritated with Bibi, but Israel has demonstrated over and over—including in the context of all the above-listed conferences—that it is ready to negotiate for peace. And declaring independence would assist in Gaza as well: terror organizations like Hamas flourish in the atmosphere of hopelessness and desperation, but that would quickly move into the past if the Palestinians were occupied with nation-building and self-determination instead of endlessly complaining that the world hasn’t given them enough aid. If the Jordanians were big-enough hearted to create a kind of economic union with New Palestine, then there really would be no stopping the peace train. Even the United Nations would be unable to stop the momentum.

But, of course, none of the above has happened or, I fear, ever will happen. It’s much easier for the Biden administration to waste its time trying to bully Bibi into making concessions in the context of theoretical negotiations in which the other side has not given the slightly indication it wishes to participate. Yes, it’s more dramatic to build terror tunnels, murder babies, rape women, and take innocent civilian hostages. But that cannot—and will not—ever lead to statehood for Palestine. What will lead in that direction is the clear indication that the Palestinian leadership is prepared to create a viable Palestinian state and then to live within its borders peacefully and productively.

If the United States wants to defang Iran and lessen the likelihood that the Iranians will lead the world into World War III, it could take no more profound and potentially meaningful step forward than convincing the Palestinians to stop complaining, to take the independence the entire world wishes to offer them seriously, and to get down to the actual business of nation-building. The mullahs will be outraged. But they’ll get over it. And the world will be a safer and better place.

[hmsharmony]

Entire article is worth a read, but sections that spoke to me in particular.

[plitnick]

In latest visit Blinken offers nothing to Palestinians

With the headlines currently abuzz about popping balloons, it’s worth looking at what the Biden administration means when it talks about diplomacy. It was on display this week in Israel and the West Bank, and it was just as ugly, racist, and counter-productive as we’ve come to expect from Antony Blinken and the United States. Blinken showed concern for Israel’s attacks on its own judiciary, which…

[shi1498912]

!!!SIGNAL BOOOOOOOOOOOST!!!

For my followers living in the UK—it is extremely likely that members of parliament will convene on Wednesday, November 15th, to vote once and for all for whether or not the UK should join the majority of the world's states and vote for a ceasefire to protect the citizens of Gaza.

This is historic. The UK is one of the most powerful nations in the world and on the UN council, and it is one of the few that had been staunchly opposing a ceasefire for the past month. If the UK supports a ceasefire, it would go a long way in securing peace and dignity for the Palestinians.

Please, please write to you MP and demand that they support the ceasefire. Organisations are asking people to implement the idea of "No Ceasefire, No Vote"—let those in power (especially MPs who may not support the idea) know that they will not be voted for in the coming elections if they stand against this.

This is a link that sends the email for you. It takes less than a minute. If you would like to edit it to add your own reasons, do that. And if you're not British, share the hell out of this post.

Free Palestine!

[latestnews-now]

EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, calls for immediate peace efforts in the Middle East. At a key conference in Cyprus, he pushes for a Gaza ceasefire and promotes the two-state solution as a path to lasting peace. Learn about his diplomatic mission in Lebanon and the EU's stance on international justice. Can diplomacy succeed amidst the rising tensions? Watch now to find out.

Subscribe now to stay informed and never miss a beat on what’s happening around the globe!

[tomorrowusa]

A number of Republicans are trying to make an issue out of President Biden suspending the delivery of large bombs (1,800 900kg bombs and 1,700 226kg bombs) to Israel. Of course they ignore the history of GOP presidents doing similar things. Ronald Reagan had a rare outburst over Israel's bombing of Beirut in the early 1980s.

The president was livid. He had just been shown pictures of civilians killed by Israeli shelling, including a small baby with an arm blown off. He ordered aides to get the Israeli prime minister on the phone and then dressed him down sharply. The president was Ronald Reagan, the year was 1982, and the battlefield was Lebanon, where Israelis were attacking Palestinian fighters. The conversation Mr. Reagan had with Prime Minister Menachem Begin that day, Aug. 12, would be one of the few times aides ever heard the usually mild-mannered president so exercised. “It is a holocaust,” Mr. Reagan told Mr. Begin angrily. Mr. Begin, whose parents and brother were killed by the Nazis, snapped back, “Mr. President, I know all about a holocaust.” Nonetheless, Mr. Reagan retorted, it had to stop. Mr. Begin heeded the demand. Twenty minutes later, he called back and told the president that he had ordered a halt to the shelling. “I didn’t know I had that kind of power,” Mr. Reagan marveled to aides afterward.

The Reagan-Begin incident was not the only time this happened.

Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened economic sanctions and an aid cutoff to force Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula after it invaded Egypt in 1956. Gerald R. Ford warned that he would re-evaluate the entire relationship in 1975 over what he considered Israel’s recalcitrance during peace talks with Egypt. George H.W. Bush postponed $10 billion in loan guarantees in 1991 in a dispute over settlements in the West Bank.

In a separate article the NYT described how Israel has been using these huge bombs differently than the US military.

[T]he Mark 80s are "general purpose" bombs, meaning that they can be used on almost any target the military typically expects to encounter in war. In addition to the 2,000-pound Mk-84, they also come in 250-pound, 500-pound and 1,000-pound versions — the Mk-81, Mk-82 and Mk-83. The president has already delayed a shipment to Israel of 3,500 bombs in the Mark 80 series that he feared could be used in a major assault on Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians have taken refuge. [ … ] Course guides used in teaching American troops how to call in airstrikes state that anyone within 115 feet of a 250-pound bomb’s impact has a 10 percent chance of being incapacitated or killed. That lethal radius jumps to nearly 600 feet for a one-ton version that explodes just above the ground.

Essentially, Israel has been using Putin-style tactics against civilians in violation of international law as well as US policy.

Biden should go a step further and insist that Israel get serious about a permanent agreement on Palestine.

Regardless of what both the Hamas fans in Palestine and the far right in Israel fantasize about, the two-state solution is the ONLY real solution. As long as the two extremist groupings think they can wipe each other out and then permanently grab the whole territory, there will be neither peace nor justice. It's time to look at the bigger picture and knock some heads together.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

When then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, he and his associates promised that free from Israeli control or presence of any kind, the Palestinians would turn Gaza into a Singapore. The Association of Rape Crisis Centers’ report served as yet another reminder of how deluded they were. Rather than build a mini-Singapore, the Palestinians chose to organize themselves around the doctrine of jihad and its call to annihilate Israel. The Palestinians chose this path and continue to support it in Gaza, Judea and Samaria because they are a jihadist society. Jihad, meaning Islamic holy war for global domination. It seeks the extermination, subjugation and humiliation of its perceived enemies, starting with the Jews. The Palestinians have never hidden their jihadist sentiments and convictions. They call the Oct. 7 invasion and the current war “The Al-Aksa Flood.” Likewise, then PLO chief Yasser Arafat called the terror war he initiated against Israel in September 2000 the “Al-Aksa Intifada.” Palestinians view Al-Aksa, the mosque that stands at the center of the Temple Mount—Judaism’s holiest site—as the epicenter of their jihadist war to destroy the Jews and the Jewish state. Every aspect of Palestinian society is directed towards Al-Aksa.

Israeli-American commentator Caroline Glick in her latest column, Israel is both traumatized and sober-minded. Glick is one of those who saw straight through the fiction that offering the Palestinians a state would result in peace. As she says elsewhere in the article, Israelis understand today that October 7 was 'the outcome of Palestinian statehood'. Only those clinging to fashionable delusions and with a feeble understanding of the Middle East can continue to advance such a plan after October 7, 2023.

[trendynewsnow]

France and UK Strengthen Diplomatic Ties Amid Global Challenges

France and UK Strengthen Ties Amid Global Challenges In a significant diplomatic meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot convened with his British counterpart David Lammy in London, focusing on pressing geopolitical issues. Lammy characterized these times as “tough geopolitical times,” emphasizing the critical nature of their discussions. “We’ve got very important discussions ahead,”…

[gregor-samsung]

" If Israel remains unwilling to grant the Palestinians a viable state—or if it tries to impose an unjust solution unilaterally—then the United States should curtail its economic and military support. It should do so not because it bears Israel any ill will but because it recognizes that the occupation is bad for the United States and contrary to America's political values. Consistent with the strategy of offshore balancing, the United States would base its actions on its own self-interest rather than adhere to a blind allegiance to an uncooperative partner. In effect, the United States should give Israel a choice: end its self-defeating occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and remain a close U.S. ally, or remain a colonial power on its own. This step is not as radical as it might sound: the United States would simply be dealing with Israel the same way that it has dealt with other colonial democracies in the past. For example, the United States pushed Britain and France to give up their colonial empires in the early years of the Cold War and forced them (and Israel) to withdraw from Egyptian territory following the 1956 Suez War. The United States has also played hardball with plenty of other countries—including close allies like Japan, Germany, and South Korea—when it was in its interest do so. […] public opinion polls confirm that the American people would support a president who took a harder line toward Israel, if doing so were necessary to achieve a just and enduring peace. This policy would undoubtedly be anathema to most—though perhaps not all—elements in the lobby and it would probably anger some other Americans as well. "

John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy; Farrar, Straus and Giroux Editions, N.Y., 2007, pages 344-345.

[newwavenewsandentertainment]

Why Nigeria Is Engaging in the Joint Arab-Islamic Summit: A Call for Peace and Resolution

As the world watches, Nigeria is poised to play a significant role in the Joint Arab-Islamic Summit taking place on November 11, 2024, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

As the world watches, Nigeria is poised to play a significant role in the Joint Arab-Islamic Summit taking place on November 11, 2024, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This summit is not just another diplomatic gathering; it represents a crucial opportunity for Nigeria to advocate for peace in the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict. Nigeria’s Strategic Participation The Minister of Information and…

[batgovernor]

The Two-State Dissolution (3): Smith, Burch, Foster, McCarthy, Helweg-Larsen, Bales

J.D. Smith, ‘Apology in Siege’ I hope you will forgive mefor having given you hope—Too late for youthful indiscretion, thoughI believed my story and felt young in ituntil the metal facts fell. I’d still like to imagine some godwould help, but that line looks brokenlike the water, the gas and electricity. What we have is hours, and in themyou should have the bread and fruitbefore they feed the…