By Ted Belman
I can understand why Jewish patriots are against the DoP but why are the Arabs against it. I though would see what they are saying.
The (Lebanon) Daily Star reports Abbas under pressure to stay away from peace conference
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is under pressure from his Fatah faction not to attend a US-led Middle East conference, aides said Tuesday, citing uncertainty over its participants and outcome while the Arab League chief said Arab states were not interested in the conference as a “gimmick.”
Abbas is seeking a more explicit “framework agreement” with a timeline for implementation on the core “final-status” issues of borders, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.,
- Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official, said Palestinians should not participate in a meeting that does not include “all concerned Arab parties,” naming Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Pro-Western Gulf Arab states do not want the Middle East peace conference called by Washington to be aimed at helping get it out of “the Iraqi impasse,” the oil-rich bloc’s chief said on Tuesday.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states “welcome any attempt to reach a just and comprehensive solution of the Palestinian issue and settle the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Abdel-Rahman al-Attiyah said in remarks released at GCC headquarters in Riyadh.
He said he hoped the proposed conference will address core issues and will “not be aimed at linking movement in the Middle East peace process to developments in Iraq in a bid to attract Arab states to a conference whose real goal is to help [the US] get out of the Iraqi impasse.”
Attiyah did not elaborate on his suggestion that Gulf monarchies, which have close ties with the United States, fear Washington might use the conference to ease its difficulties in war-torn Iraq, where the continuing insurgency is fueling mounting domestic criticism.
And then there is the standard Arab threats
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Egypt’s FM warned of “adverse consequences” if the summit fails to revive the peace process.
“If the meeting was held without achieving its goals of pushing forward the peace process to set up a Palestinian state, there will be adverse consequences,” he added.
Thus two things come out of this,
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1. Arabs want a comprehensive solution only and
2. They don’t want to link it to a solution to the US difficulties in Iraq.
I read this to mean that they don’t want a solution to the Arab/Jew conflict at all and they want to keep the US mired in Iraq.
So I wonder if the US is asking for linkage without which they won’t push for a deal. After all that’s what Baker recommended. Furthermore even if there was no linkage why wouldn’t the Arabs want an incremental approach? Why all or nothing? Perhaps Israel is a convenient whipping boy?
If the US was so anxious to have this conference succeed, why did it exclude Hamas and Syria in opposition to what Saudi Arabia was asking for? It would appear that this is a deal breaker.
We certainly don’t hear anymore about the “moderate” camp joining together to oppose the radical camp. But we do hear about the progress the US has made with both the Sunnis and the Shia in Iraq without having to kiss the Saudi or Iranian asses.
It seems to me that events are moving in the direction of a federated Iraq with all groups, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, wanting the long term presence of the US to help secure it.
The US and Israel are going to deal with the radicals by themselves just as they did with Syria.
Mr. Quigley makes many cogent points in his assessment above.
I do think he errs, however, when he speaks about “revolutionary socialism” in the “tradition of Leon Trotsky.”
I think there needs to be a United Front of all Jewish people, allied with all progressives, and I speak as a revolutionary socialist who stands in the tradition of Leon Trotsky in his support of the Jews in the 1930s. (This is a direct quote from Mr. Quigley’s assessment).
Also, Olmert, Barak and Netanyahu are not to be trusted. They are part of the elite oligarchy that has damaged Israel, continues to damage Israel will damage Israel in the future.
Jeff (sanderzack@yahoo.com)
The Arabs are not opposed to a peace summit. They just want to be paid to attend it. So they will demand prisoner releases, road block removal, money, halting of building in Judea and Samaria, all concessions they think Condi can extract from Ehud. When they get their concessions their demands at the conference will be so extravagant that even Ehud will not agree. Then they get to keep their bribes until the next meeting.
On the other hand, as long as the US is mired down in Iraq the US army cannot be anywhere else. This suits the Russians and the Chinese just fine, so they will pay the Arabs, in cash, oil and weapons, to keep the pot boiling in Iraq. If you call that linkage, then I guess there will be linkage.
Unless and until the Israelis find some real political leadership they will be pawns in the great game. Eventually Israel will be whittled down to an indefensible entity or they will stand up and say enough to Condi, her successor, and anyone else who demands concessions in advance. Maybe, hopefully in my lifetime, we will see the day when an Israeli prime minister says we made enough good will jestures. Now it’s time for Arabs interested in peace to release all Israeli hostages and to make some tangible jesture of their own. When they accept Israeli control over all of Jerusalem, including Har Habayit, along with the right to settle and live in Judea and Samaria maybe there can be peace. This will not happen for decades if it ever comes about.
You write above
Fairly simple to answer. The Arabs want all or nothing because the all entails the launching of the Palestinian Jihadist State in order to destroy Israel.
That is their main objective and has been all along.
This is also what the US Government supports. And they are well on the way to bringing it about, which is what this Conference is all about.
Furthermore the Palestinian state cannot happen without the direct involvement of the US and EU, under the umbrella of Europian antisemitism and NATO.
This is why the Yugoslavian dismemberment is so vital, the whole of it, not just Kosovo, although you can see General Petraeus, lauded here on this site by yourself Ted Belñman and by Bill Levinson, riding in at the head of NATO troops into Judea and Samaria, just as General Wesley Clark rode into Kosovo leading in his tail the Fascist forces of the KLA, telling lies about the Serbs in a psyops operation which could/will be repeated in the heart of the Jewish psyche, Judea and Samaria.
And so the Jews of Israel will pay the dear price of American Jewish organizations lining up with the forces of US and British Imperialism, and seeing Iraq as a separate issue which is one of defeating Al Qaeda. How Bush wants us to see it.
When I asked Bill Levinson how he justified his attacks on Milosevic (on the Armenia Massacre thread) do you know who he quoted, or could you believe it credible, he quoted the opinion of General Wesley Clark to me, the very person who led the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the charge by NATO into Kosovo.
To me this represents the total bankruptcy in his politics. How can Levinson support Clark against Slobodan Milosevic, who was murdered by the US led NATO, lead a patriotic American campaign on this site, and yet say that he defends Israel. It is a total contradiction.
Do the US elite want Israel destroyed. Who knows, some do some do not perhaps.
But the point is they are all prepared to sacrifice Israel to the Islamofasciists.
What to do?
I think there needs to be a United Front of all Jewish people, allied with all progressives, and I speak as a revolutionary socialist who stands in the tradition of Leon Trotsky in his support of the Jews in the 1930s.
I mean all Jews. That means that I support Olmert critically when he takes a step to defend Israel, such as the Barak inspired collaboration with the IDF, to allow the IDF to destroy the Syrian North Korean nuclear mencace.
The position of Netanyahu in relation to Iran is the most interesting and progressive of all in the nationalist camp.
Somehow while the nuclear threat clock danger from Iran keeps ticking away day by day the inveterrate sectarian Paul Eidelfeld has found time to push his theories on abortion, something which must divide and perhaps upset many women.
There needs to be a thorough political debate and discussion about the existential issues facing Israel at this moment in time.
I want all of these leaders and leaderships to put forward their political programme and have it debated.
The issues it must deal with are
1. How to make Israel independent, especially from the influence of the US Government
2. How to prepare the IDF both theoretically, politically and organizationally for what is inevitable war on many fronts
3. How to prepare the ground for a strike against the Iranian Bomb. This entails an appeal to the Iranian mass movement outside the Mullah Islamofascist circle, and they are millions
4. How to support the Israeli “settler” movement and people like Ruth Matar
5. How to build a leadership internationally based on principles which will support Israel.