'Just World News' with Helena Cobban: Bad timing

'Just World News' with Helena Cobban Info, analysis, discussion-- to build a more just world
« Memo to Sen. Obama on Iraq \| JWN front page \| Selling the tahdi'eh » Bad timing Posted by Helena Cobban June 18, 2008 1:01 PM EST \| Link Filed in Palestine 2008 On the day that Israel announces it's agreed to participate in a reciprocal ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza, Ziad Asali, the head of the "American Task for Palestine" (more rightwing American than Palestinian, as a task force) has an anti-Hamas op-ed in the rightwing Washington Times. It's titled "Miscalculation: How Hamas wastes Palestinian lives." Asali and others associated with the ATFP have been working hard in Washington DC in recent months, urging the US (and Israel) to take even tougher measures to try to "punish", exclude, and crush Hamas. Oops, who miscalculated now? « Memo to Sen. Obama on Iraq \| JWN front page \| Selling the tahdi'eh » Comments Comment from... Inkan1969, at June 18, 2008 02:18 PM: What's the use of discussing a Washington Times article. We already know in advance that the article is hopelessly to the extreme right, rendering it automatically irrelevant. About as useless as the flames you see in imdb.com message boards. Comment from... azazel, at June 18, 2008 10:07 PM: While we're on the subject of timing and Israel, what's your opinion on the Israeli offer of direct peace talks with Lebanon and the Lebanese government's rejection thereof? Comment from... Helena, at June 20, 2008 09:33 AM: Azazel, anyone who knows anything at all about Lebanese politics would tell you that the offer from Israel was 100% bound to be rejected. Siniora refused to negotiate with Israel even when he was still pretty firmly in the pro-US camp, so why on earth would he do so today when circumstances have forces him into an actual political alliance with Hizbullah? Two words for anyone to remember: May 17th. (If you don't know what that refers to, look it up.) For Israel to publicly flaunt this latest offer was childish grandstanding. I didn't even bother to blog about it, it was so stupid. If Israel's overtures to Syria about a final land for peace deal are serious and fruitful, then the Lebanon track will easily get resolved as part of that. But launching any kind of an attempt to make peace with Lebanon prior to or in any other way separate from a peace with Syria?? Fuggedaboudit. May 17th. (Hint: It ended up driving Amin Gemyyel even deeper into the arms of Syria than any of his predecessors have ever been before.) Comment from... azazel, at June 20, 2008 05:13 PM: Helena, I am aware of the significance of May 17th. Surely, though, the situation is different now? May 17th was a gunpoint agreement signed with an occupying power. Israel no longer occupies Lebanon, with the possible exception of Shebaa Farms whose ownership is in dispute. Negotiations now, unlike then, would not be tantamount to surrender. With that said, I am also aware that any offer of bilateral negotiations was bound to be rejected in the present climate. But even so, who is the childish one - the one who proposes the talks with "everything on the table" or the one who rejects them out of hand? It seems to me that the real question is whether the offer was genuine. If it wasn't genuine - if Israel simply wanted to make the offer for propaganda purposes with no intention of following through - then it was of course childish grandstanding by Israel. But if it was genuine, then was it not Hezbollah that was childish? As you have said very often, we make peace with our enemies. Comment from... Shirin, at June 20, 2008 06:33 PM: Hmmmmmm. Let's count the number of times Israel has made a genuine offer and been rebuffed and compare to the number of times an Arab country, or the Arab League has made an offer and Israel has rebuffed them. Oh, and the Arab league offer of peace with full normalization - which has been made twice and rebuffed by Israel twice - should count a bit extra, don't you think? I mean, when has Israel ever made such a generous offer to anyone? (And an important side question is if Israel really wanted peace, why would they not consider such an amazing offer? Not only peace, not only recognition, but normalization with full diplomatic relations? Hmmmmmmm.) Comment from... azazel, at June 20, 2008 08:47 PM: Ah, tu quoque. I distinctly remember you disapproving of that tactic when used by Israelis, but that may have been another Shirin. Anyway, while I'm not part of Israel's inner circle, I'd guess that the rebuff of the 2002 proposal had a lot to do with the Resolution 194 poison pill as well as the fact that the Arab League couldn't guarantee the performance of Hamas. Normalization with Riyadh and Khartoum matter less than one might think if the trade-off involves rocket fire from Tulkarm and Bethlehem. Also, I wouldn't necessarily call the Israeli response to the 2006 (or was it 07?) re-proposal a "rebuff" - Olmert described it as a starting point but didn't reject it outright - but one man's conditional acceptance is another's rejection. Comment from... Shirin, at June 21, 2008 12:01 PM: You missed my point, azazel. Try again. And Israel ALWAYS has an excuse to dismiss or reject every peace proposal, doesn't it, while it continues to grab more and more and more land, dig its hooks deeper and deeper into the land it has stolen, and squeeze the occupied populations tighter and tighter and tighter. Wonder why that is?	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Bad timing

Posted by Helena Cobban
June 18, 2008 1:01 PM EST | Link
Filed in Palestine 2008

On the day that Israel announces it's agreed to participate in a reciprocal ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza, Ziad Asali, the head of the "American Task for Palestine" (more rightwing American than Palestinian, as a task force) has an anti-Hamas op-ed in the rightwing Washington Times.

It's titled "Miscalculation: How Hamas wastes Palestinian lives."

Asali and others associated with the ATFP have been working hard in Washington DC in recent months, urging the US (and Israel) to take even tougher measures to try to "punish", exclude, and crush Hamas.

Oops, who miscalculated now?

Comments

Comment from... Inkan1969, at June 18, 2008 02:18 PM:

What's the use of discussing a Washington Times article. We already know in advance that the article is hopelessly to the extreme right, rendering it automatically irrelevant. About as useless as the flames you see in imdb.com message boards.

Comment from... azazel, at June 18, 2008 10:07 PM:

While we're on the subject of timing and Israel, what's your opinion on the Israeli offer of direct peace talks with Lebanon and the Lebanese government's rejection thereof?

Comment from... Helena, at June 20, 2008 09:33 AM:

Azazel, anyone who knows anything at all about Lebanese politics would tell you that the offer from Israel was 100% bound to be rejected. Siniora refused to negotiate with Israel even when he was still pretty firmly in the pro-US camp, so why on earth would he do so today when circumstances have forces him into an actual political alliance with Hizbullah?

Two words for anyone to remember: May 17th.

(If you don't know what that refers to, look it up.)

For Israel to publicly flaunt this latest offer was childish grandstanding. I didn't even bother to blog about it, it was so stupid.

If Israel's overtures to Syria about a final land for peace deal are serious and fruitful, then the Lebanon track will easily get resolved as part of that. But launching any kind of an attempt to make peace with Lebanon prior to or in any other way separate from a peace with Syria?? Fuggedaboudit.

May 17th. (Hint: It ended up driving Amin Gemyyel even deeper into the arms of Syria than any of his predecessors have ever been before.)

Comment from... azazel, at June 20, 2008 05:13 PM:

Helena, I am aware of the significance of May 17th. Surely, though, the situation is different now? May 17th was a gunpoint agreement signed with an occupying power. Israel no longer occupies Lebanon, with the possible exception of Shebaa Farms whose ownership is in dispute. Negotiations now, unlike then, would not be tantamount to surrender.

With that said, I am also aware that any offer of bilateral negotiations was bound to be rejected in the present climate. But even so, who is the childish one - the one who proposes the talks with "everything on the table" or the one who rejects them out of hand? It seems to me that the real question is whether the offer was genuine. If it wasn't genuine - if Israel simply wanted to make the offer for propaganda purposes with no intention of following through - then it was of course childish grandstanding by Israel. But if it was genuine, then was it not Hezbollah that was childish? As you have said very often, we make peace with our enemies.

Comment from... Shirin, at June 20, 2008 06:33 PM:

Hmmmmmm. Let's count the number of times Israel has made a genuine offer and been rebuffed and compare to the number of times an Arab country, or the Arab League has made an offer and Israel has rebuffed them.

Oh, and the Arab league offer of peace with full normalization - which has been made twice and rebuffed by Israel twice - should count a bit extra, don't you think? I mean, when has Israel ever made such a generous offer to anyone? (And an important side question is if Israel really wanted peace, why would they not consider such an amazing offer? Not only peace, not only recognition, but normalization with full diplomatic relations? Hmmmmmmm.)

Comment from... azazel, at June 20, 2008 08:47 PM:

Ah, tu quoque. I distinctly remember you disapproving of that tactic when used by Israelis, but that may have been another Shirin.

Anyway, while I'm not part of Israel's inner circle, I'd guess that the rebuff of the 2002 proposal had a lot to do with the Resolution 194 poison pill as well as the fact that the Arab League couldn't guarantee the performance of Hamas. Normalization with Riyadh and Khartoum matter less than one might think if the trade-off involves rocket fire from Tulkarm and Bethlehem.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily call the Israeli response to the 2006 (or was it 07?) re-proposal a "rebuff" - Olmert described it as a starting point but didn't reject it outright - but one man's conditional acceptance is another's rejection.

Comment from... Shirin, at June 21, 2008 12:01 PM:

You missed my point, azazel. Try again.

And Israel ALWAYS has an excuse to dismiss or reject every peace proposal, doesn't it, while it continues to grab more and more and more land, dig its hooks deeper and deeper into the land it has stolen, and squeeze the occupied populations tighter and tighter and tighter. Wonder why that is?