JPOST
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Israeli officials, meanwhile, responded to the Quartet statement on the diplomatic process issued Saturday by saying that “it could have been a lot worse.”
The statement, which expressed regret that Israel did not extend a settlement moratorium last September, stopped well short of endorsing a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood on all territory beyond the 1967 lines. Instead, the Quartet
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“reaffirmed that negotiations should lead to an outcome that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and resolves all permanent-status issues, in order to end the conflict and achieve a two-state solution.”
Israeli officials said that the package of incentives agreed upon by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Quartet envoy Tony Blair helped “soften” the Quartet’s statement. Netanyahu met with Blair three times over the last three weeks, and some 10 times over the last three months to hammer out the package, much of which Western officials have been demanding of Israel for months.
The package included the following highlights:
In Gaza:
• Agreement to revive Israeli-Palestinian discussions on the ‘Gaza Marine’ gas field, with approval in principle of the supply of Palestinian offshore gas to Gaza power plants and specific project approval to a new power station there.
• Agreement to provide mobile desalination plants in Gaza and approval in principle for construction of a larger permanent desalination plant.
• Full approval for all the sanitation and water treatment plants necessary for Gaza, with Israel agreeing to facilitate and support the entry of construction materials to enable projects to be completed on schedule.
• Further measures to promote Gaza exports, especially in furniture and textiles as well as agriculture.
• A pilot project for allowing the entrance into Gaza of private sector construction materials beginning on April 1.
In the West Bank:
• Extension of Palestinian Authority security presence in Area B –with agreement in principle for the construction or renovation of police stations in seven Palestinian cities.
• The issuance of West Bank ID cards to 5,000 Gaza-registered residents of the West Bank.
• Agreement of the construction of two housing projects in east Jerusalem.
I’m afraid that for a definitive answer to your suggestion, you’ll have to provide me with the specific “previous posts” you refer to.
It was based on the specifics of Catarin’s comment that I mused over cataract surgery.
Generalities of no greater allusion than “some of [my] previous posts” have the not-so-faint odor of ad hominem about them, and I’m sure you can do better.
I think my ideal queen’s image is the most beautiful woman. The Arabs would love, her she is still a virgin. What do you think?
What’s a Palestinian? As opposed to an Arab?
That Beautiful couple you so much laud are occupying my land. I can see a time hopefully in the not too distant future that your Palestinians will dump them and remove their heads. Inshala!
Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?
Dweller:
After reading some of your previous posts, I was going to suggest that very same move. Perhaps a brain scan for dementia might also be in order?
Abdullah II is handsome?
Guess it’s time for me to get that cataract surgery after all.
Catarin, how long have you been subscribing to People Magazine?
Speaking of barbaric Arab behavior, the attacks on Queen Rania of Jordan by a political entity in Jordan shocked me. The backward Arab men decided to blame a woman for their ills. Not only is the Queen the most beautiful queen in the world, married to the most handsome king in the world, she has been a tremendous booster for Jordan. Although Palestinian, she has maintained her dignity throughout the peace process, putting her loyalty to the King and Jordan before her personal views.
I read about Jordan’s advances in the archaeological world frequently. Jordan is the home of the wonder-city of Petra, and they have opened new sites pertaining to Jesus, built hotels and put themselves on the map for archaeological tourism. This means more jobs for the Jordanians. They are working on a private academy which will accept some poor students from all over the Middle East. The King and Queen are the greatest assets Jordan has.
So we have this political entity who don’t want their Queen on the public stage. Mohammed would be angry with them for this, being that his first wife owned a mercantile company, went to work every day, and knew traders from all over Asia. These rotten men don’t know what’s going on with the world. They expect the Right of Return to be granted to Arab Muslims in any peace deal, but it will not. Not unless Arabia would like to grant Jews the ROR to for those who were forced out of Arabia in the 7th century. When are the Arabs going to repay the Jews for all the land and property they confiscated from Jews over the centuries?
These men owe their Queen an apology. And they need to educate themselves in Middle Eastern history and keep up with current events. Who needs enemies when one has backward citizens like this?
Further measures to promote Gaza exports, especially in furniture and textiles as well as agriculture.
Then let’s be sure to have the Palestinians speak out to all the pro-Palestinians worldwide and be sure they stop the boycotting of Israeli goods. So far, all I see is everything going to Palis and not to Israelis…and still there won’t be peace. Palis don’t want peace; they want Israel so that they can to do that beautiful country what they did to the beautiful city of Gush Katif…destruction. they’re barbarians…and don’t know how to live without handouts; they don’t know how to create, only to destroy. Frankly, I think they’re hopeless. In 45 years, the only thing they’ve ever done to perfection is suicide bombing…there, they excel.
This is madness. Do Israeli taxpayers have to pay for this? Is the Quartet paying for all of these desalination plants or is the Israeli taxpayer? When Tony Blair and company finally go to war against Iran to protect the world’s supply of oil, will they bestow similar largesse upon the Persians? What construction materials are included in the pilot project, concrete to build missile emplacements? Of course this last question is now mute because the Muslim Brotherhood will now supply them with all the concrete that they need. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was of course right when he asked the question what will Israel do in 30 years when the present strong man is overthrown. It was his answer to a question about why he was so against the Peace Treaty with Egypt. The aim is to destroy Hamas in Gaza, not to enable them by pumping in a stimulus package paid for by Israeli taxpayers. The Quartet and especially the European Union is basically Amalek in a business suit.
It is the Arab Muslim occupation of Israel that must end. In all of history, Jerusalem was never a holy place for Muslims and never the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity.
If the Arab Palestinians finally succeed in getting their economy moving and thriving one reason will be they live next door to Israel, which has provided them with a model of success (if they will only follow it) and expertise (if they will only accept it) and cooperation and planning to make them a successful society. At this point I think most Arab Palestinians desire most a safe secure home, cozy in winter and cool in summer, with utilities modernized, good schools nearby, access to medical centers and the helping hands of the Jews when needed, as in the recent Jewish ambulance crew helping an Arab Palestinian woman with a premature roadside birth, then airlifting mother and baby to safety.
Yes, Jews and Arab can live together in peace in Israel and the West Bank.
Shmuel, it is Jews/Israelis who are in charge, who intentionally turn a blind eye to everything which goes on in the Temple Mount. Except, of course, when a Jew ascends there and moves his lips supposedly in prayer. Then the Stasi quickly pounce upon the Jew and haul him into the Russian Compound for arrest and processing.
Dweller, superb comments.
As it is widely seen no one could possibly trust the islamics. And certainly neither their “agreements”.
The insolent, murderous trash is as we speak destroying JEWISH icons in Har Habait. Much as that filth destroys and occupy every religion temples, usually after murdering the people.
Perhaps the time has arrived for islamic locations to be equally erased.
No occupation began in 1967.
That year marked the end of an occupation, not the ‘beginning’ of one.
If those meddling twits in the EU would spend a little time in the public library — or just googling “Mandate for Palestine” — they’d know whom the territories belong to, and that the War of Miracles, which the world has since called the “Six Day War of 1967,” resulted in the liberation of those territories from occupation.
It is ended. All the Pali’s have to do now is stop fighting, killing, raping, maiming, and feeling sorry for themselves.
Already got that too. Two states:
A. Jordan [est. 1946],
B. Israel [est. 1948].
Q.E.D.
End of discussion.
Actually, according to George Antonius, Lebanese Greek Orthodox and one of the first Arab nationalist historians, the nakba began long before either of those dates, but in 1920 (i.e., at the San Remo Conference)– when the Principal Allied Powers [victors in the then-recently concluded GreatWar] elected to break Syria into two parts: a French Mandate in the North (which later became the Republics of Syria & Lebanon), and a British Mandate in the South (later to become Israel & Jordan). For Syrian nationalists living in the Palestine area, THAT was disaster, nakba, because it separated them politically from “the rest of Syria.” A separate & independent “Palestine” was the last thing in the world they wanted.
The only self-identified “Palestinians” at the time were, of course, Palestinian Jews — who had always regarded “Southern Syria” as Eretz Israel.
The first time the word nakba appears in Arab literature is in Antonius’ book, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd),
first published in 1938 — ten years BEFORE there was a Jewish state and the accompanying war that resulted in the self-evacuation of 400,000 to 500,000 local ethnic Arabs: whose grandchildren have since found they like the name, “Palestinians,” after all. As well as “nakba.”
As Macy’s told Gimbel’s (or was it vice versa?), there’s just no accounting for taste.
Someone should tell Ashton and Blair that this statement is an islamphobic insult against the Palestinians. The Nakba began in 1948, not in 1967, and the package of incentives should be delivered equally to the entire Umma, not just to the Gazans.