Israeli and Syrian prezes making nice
So there was Israel's figurehead president, Moshe Katsav, at the Pope's funeral in Rome, reaching out to shake hands not only with Iranian President Muhammad Khatemi but also with Syria's Bashar al-Asad.
(That's one thing big state funerals are excellent for: throwing unlikely seatmates close to each other.)
The BBC, citing israel radio, reported that,
- Mr Katsav first shook hands with Syria's Bashar al-Assad as the funeral ceremonies began.
The Syrian president was seated one row behind Mr Katsav.
The report said Mr Assad later initiated a second handshake as the funeral ended.
Mr Katsav, who was born in Iran, is also reported to have exchanged words in his native Farsi with the Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami.
Later, Katsav, who has no executive power but is reported to be widely respected in Israel, told a web-reporter for the Israeli daily Maariv that he had
- urged the country's leaders to take up a Syrian offer to renew peace talks.
Moshe Katsav rejected Israeli official objections which said Syria's overture transmitted via UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen was insignificant.
"In my opinion it is important and worthwhile to thoroughly check out the intentions of (Syrian President) Assad," he told the Maariv daily.
Mr Assad said he was willing to resume talks with Israel without conditions.
A return to Israeli-Syrian negotiations? Who knows? The two parties got very close indeed to a final peace agreement back when Rabin and Peres were prime ministers in Israel, in 1994-96. In 1994 Rabin gave the Clinton administration an undertaking called "the pocket" that informed the Americans that actually, deep down, his government was indeed ready to withdraw from all the territory of Syrian Golan that Israel had held under military occupation since the June war of 1967-- though in return for a full peace and some fairly severe disarmament conditions that Syria would have to abide by.
Then, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist (November 1995). Then, Peres somewhat seriously misplayed his political hand and lost the election of June 1996. Then, Bibi Netanyahu took "the pocket" off the table. (That much, you can read about in my 2000 book that covered the negotiations from 1991-96.)
Then, in 1999, Mr. Wise-Guy Ehud Barak was elected PM in Israel. However he was just a little too big for his boots, that one, and thought he could pull something off with the older President Asad by sort of pretending to put "the pocket" back on the table, but actually not doing so. (He'd skimmed a vital hundred-meter-wide strip off what he was prepared to "give back" to Syria, running around the northeast segment of the Sea of Galilee/Lake Kinneret. Did he think Hafez al-Asad wouldn't notice the difference?)
Well, so then Hafez al-Asad keeled over and died. Ehud Barak was such an incompetent pol that he completely lost his ruling coalition in almost record time for Israel and then lost an election to Ariel Sharon.... And there things have stood till now.
I personally don't expect a big change. But I'd love to be proved wrong.
I heard a radio report about these handshaking's stories this morning. Concerning Syria/Israrel, the reporter added that Ariel Sharon who is supposed to meet with Bush very soon was furious against Moshe Katsav. Kathami pretended he hadn't talked to Moshe Katsav and this last said it was unimportant, just a civility.
Oh.. and that also : while ME prezes were so civil, that's not the case of Bush. Jacques Chirac stretched his hand three times toward him, but Bush pretended not to notice. THe French TV channels were full of these images.
Note to the reader - running statistic - 3 times my IP address has been blacklisted without due explanation, 9 posts have been censored because Helena disagreed with the contents, and 4 posts have been allowed. This post is a repeat of deleted material.
Tony - This has got to be the funniest, most eager nonsense I've read since Juan Cole's famous "transcendent nationalism" in reference to Muqtada's ill-fated and ill-conceived campaign back in 2003 (see his remarkably silly Le Monde Diplomatique piece at the time). You've just repeated that laughable line. Please get over yourself and your ideological premises (and all the [arab] nationalist mixed with Third Worldist undertones). It's quite the silly spectacle.
Beautifully said Tony.
The problem that the nihilists and leftist-fascists have in their analysis of Iraq is that they deny that Iraqis (and by extension human beings) have aspirations besides power grabbing, ideological and opportunistic ruling on others, and cheap false nationalism (nationalism is better described as social egotism).
For Helena, Iraqis or the socially conscious layers of their society have no desire to bring about civil society and inter-sectarian justice. History is simplisticially reduced down to grab for oil, cheap nationalism, anti-Americanism, and 3rd worldism.
The progress the Iraqis are making in bringing about civil society must be condemened by the Cole-Cobban axis, as it eats away right at their ideological upbringing and biases, and also livelihoods and Entitle VIs. If there are no blood conflicts in Iraq, then who needs these "scholars"?
For them, a thug carrying an AK-47 is a far more romantic and vivid expression of social justice, than all the liberties, elections, parliaments, constitutions, laws and institutions that an Iraqi civil society may ever achieve or require.
Unlike what the piece implies, inter-sectarian political rivalries, in a civil setting, is the only way for Iraqis to reckon with their identity. This sad piece reflects - as us middle easterners like to say - "the camel who dreams of cotton seeds". A lot of wishful thinking about religious, fascist, and opportunistic thugs to come together and rule over the civil and conscious segments of Iraqi society.
Iraqis have made a conscious choice through their participation in the election that they prefer construction of a civil society over cheap cries of "gut independence".
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 0:03
Helena: Tony, could you please keep your frat-boy sexual references off my site. We may disagree but please express your thoughts in a courteous fashion. The best way people learn is through the friendly exchange of views and ideas, you know... Please check the commenters' guidelines before you post here again.
Helena, I challange you to specify what was "discourteous" about Tony's post. Your guidelines has no such definition either. What is this rule of "courtesy" that you wield like a blunt instrument in such eliminative and intolerant manner, and seemingly only at those who challenge your views?
Show me where in civil discourse there has been a rule of dogmatic and politically correct "courtesy" of this sort that you push.
I think it would be best for your readers for you to relax a bit and allow people to post their comments without being bullied every time they have something interesting to say. Saddam and Xomeini were the masters of bullying in the same part of the world that you cover.
So what was censorable in Tony's post, dear Helena?
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 0:20
Helena: "... the beating up on the picnic in Basra apparently was the Sadrists. It was a vile thing to do and let's hope it's not repeated.
How disingenious. The Sadrist lumpen have steadfastedly said they want religious government a la Iran. This has been widely reported by NYT and others.
And you still think this is an isolated incidence that will not be repeated? That religious self-righteous believers and opportunists will now turn tolerant and enlightened human beings, respecting freedom of thought and assembly? Well in Iran, such brutality has been going on for 27 years and counting.
How about the murder, kidnapping, and torture of dozens of professors and students at the University of Baghdad and Mosul, and other universities? This is a copy of what happened in Iran 1980-1981 before they shut down society for the benefit of the Islamists.
Islamophobia - you bet. I have lived it. Helena - you have no idea how communal Islam and Islamism destroys lives like I have seen. Only a fascist will deny atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 2:57
I have been blacklisted and silenced by Helena as well. My posting did not insult my interlocutors, it was censorship based on my views, plain and simple. The excuse that Helena can censor because she pays for bandwidth is analogous to the private media bias that she and her minions on his list constantly denounce.
Ebilpe2
Posted by Ebilpe2 at 10. apríl 2005 3:07
Ebilpe2 - I sympathize with you. I never voiced any opinion of women, even though I am a champion of absolute women's rights and equality in Islam, and Helena accuses me of ad feminam, without saying how and why.
The bandwidth excuse is the most ridiculous. 1 GB of storage costs $ 0.30. 1 GB of bandwidth costs $1.00, which is what I am paying. A 300 word post viewed 100 times, costs exactly $ 0.000212. All the comments posted by ALL readers in one year on Helena's list (10 a day) costs exactly 77 cents. Either she needs to find a proper job, or she can put up a "PayPal Donate" button and I will contribute my one dollar for all readers to post for 1 year, as I have a real and productive job.
If she would only answer to the criticism of her heavy handed actions. But no, its not necessary. The "silence" command is only one keystroke away. I guess for somebody who empathizes with the gun toting thugs of the Wahhabis, Sadrists and Islamists, they would naturally take their cues from Saddam and Xomeini, who never had to answer anything to anybody. Eliminative politics is the simplest - and you can see it in action on Helena's "Just World" blog. (I would really like to know Helena's theory of Justice.)
BTW - Helena has limited the comment page display on her 'haloscan' blog commentary, presumably to make it more difficult to post comments. (I expect any day now she will go the route of Juan Cole, and completely disable all commentary by readers). If the display bothers you, hit F11, and then hit the "resize" button on top right, and then you will get a normal haloscan display.
BTW, the only reason she cannot ban me completelty, and has to sometimes tolerate me, is because through geurilla peer-to-peer technology, I can post without telling her what my IP address is. If anybody wants to find out how this is done, let me know. Power to the people and down with the tyrants. LOL
Warren - these self-labelled bleeding-heart "pacifists" who prefer to see a Saddam or Xomeini like bloody regime instead of a constitutional democracy in Iraq, have a couple of problems. They are anti-enlightenment and anti-positivism in identity - meaning that they do not subscribe to the historic progress of civilization and do not agree that human beings can consciously improve their own lot. They never have solutions because their intellect doesn't extend that far into the future - only cheap dime a dozen destructive criticisms loaded with "memory".
In politics they are fascistic and romanticize a bygone era replete with authority, misogyny, and communalism, which has been idealized and sanitized through the decrepit post-modern lens. These people are the inheritors of Mussolini and Stalin. In economics they are generally pro capitalism, especially state-capitalism, anti-market, and detest scientific socialism.
Finally, their livelihood depends on such "scholarship". They have never had a job in the private sector and since unable to hold a real and productive job, they depend on entitlements.
====
A fellow by the handle tom.t posted some hate speech two days ago on the Syria kiss and make up thread. I complained yesterday and Helena deleted my complaint. Shame. Lady censor displaying her scissors and her bias.
Other
Posted by Other at 10. apríl 2005 15:32
Other - I sympathize with you.
Lady censor just deleted my "repeat" post.
What a sorry individual who cannot stand a shred of criticism. Thank you for fighting back "Other" and Ebilpe2.
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