The west bank and Jerusalem are tough issues , but the bigger issue is the right of return, which calls for all descendants of the independence war refugees to be granted the right to return to towns and villages inside Israeli borders pre 67.
There are very few Israeli’s left wingers who will agree to that.
Kalle
1882
The right of return is something the Palestinians are willing to compromise on as far as I can tell. But not unless they actually get something in return,
Jag
1883
Former Israeli defense chiefs draft new Mideast peace plan
Amazing. This is a very influential and powerful group within Israel. It proposes having Jerusalem as a ‘co-capital’ of both countries, but I’m not really sure how that works.
A spokesman confirmed the outline of the plan on Tuesday, saying it was based on a 2002 Arab initiative which Israel has avoided adopting because of its call to repatriate refugees and fully withdraw from land captured in a 1967 war.
About 40 prominent Israelis backed the project, among them dovish former political leaders as well as former heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and Israeli military, who say they will publicize their ideas fully on Wednesday.
It proposes possible financial compensation for Palestinian refugees and dividing control over Jerusalem, with largely Palestinian neighborhoods being put under their control while Jewish areas would be governed by Israel. Palestinian refugees could be offered compensation and a small number may be permitted to return to former homes in Israel, the spokesman added.
People in Israel are concerned and rightly so. They need to make a move, but I don’t see the current government going along with it.
Lum
1884
Not really. It’s composed of ex-military/security service leaders, but that’s a requirement for anyone in Israeli politics almost (Netanyahu was a commando, Livni was a Mossad agent). more importantly it’s composed of figures from the Israeli left (Amram Mitzna, the spokesperson, was a PM candidate for Labor) and the Israeli left is almost utterly demolished. Labor advocating a West Bank withdrawal is nothing new, and Labor has very few seats in the Knesset (sadly there is a connection) and Ehud Barak, the ex-Labor PM, who was invited into Netanyahu’s government as an excuse for ‘a coalition for peace’ left Labor when the party demanded Barak stop enabling Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate in good faith.
So, yeah, it’s a great plan and the chance of Israel taking it seriously is about zero.
Palestinian leaders saying they’re willing to compromise the right of return are as common as Israeli leaders willing to split Jerusalem. (i.e. everyone knows that this is what it will take, but nearly no one is willing to admit it to the protocol)
Anyhow, it’s easy to guess how a future agreement will look (The geneva initiative - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Accord is a good example). But the problem is that two strong leaders are needed to make that happen. Currently we don’t even have one.
Lum
1886
So, Hamas and Fatah are forming a joint government to govern Palestine, which has been a sticking point for Israel all this time (Fatah can’t claim to negotiate in good faith, because they don’t control Gaza.)
Israel’s reaction? Literally stated: Fatah has to choose between peace with Israel or Hamas. Well, gosh. It’s almost like Israel wants a constant state of guerilla war!
Almost unnoticed: Egypt is lifting the siege of Gaza as a result.
Just as a side note of how panic-stricken and paranoid discourse in Israel is getting, here’s a snippet from an editorial in a left-leaning newspaper.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks around, he sees a world gone mad. The United States undermines Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt but stands by idly as Bashar Assad’s Syria murders its citizens. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is attacking Muammar Gadhafi (who relinquished the bomb ), but it is not lifting a finger against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who is building a bomb ). The United States is systematically sabotaging its own interests and shooting its bodyguards in the head. Europe is acting in a confused and childish way.
No surprise from the Israelis, I’m not sure they’ve ever negotiated in good faith over Palestine. They certainly haven’t been recently, as Wikileaks made clear.
I’m surprised at Egypt’s reaction though! Good for them.
Frankly speaking, Israel scares me more than Iran. They’ve become so paranoid who knows what they might do. Everything is all about them, so much so that they can’t even see why intervention in Libya is much easier than doing the same thing in Syria, and think that the revolution in Egypt is more about sort of anti-Israeli plot rather than the Egyptian people’s freedom from an obvious tyrant.
And as you say, that’s apparently a relatively left view in Israel.
Jag
1888
If Israel scares you, then the US should terrify you.
As far as that article, did you even read its conclusion?
Time is up. There is no more room for ambiguity. Precisely in order to divert the international community from the insane trajectory it is following, Netanyahu must offer it an alternative and sane trajectory. He must formulate a realistic and responsible path to ending the conflict. The end is known: a Palestinian state in modified 1967 borders.
Yeah, a viable Palestinian state on 67 borders, just crazy.
Shiroko
1889
You know, a left-leaning newspaper doesn’t mean every opinion article appearing in it is also left-leaning.
Most opinions in mainstream media push towards asking Netanyahu for some kind of initiative. (But main-stream Israeli media might be mor left leaning then the people right now, hard to tell)
Lum
1890
Yeah, but the initial framing is very typical of discussion in the Israeli media, which essentially sees human rights issues in Arab states undergoing unrest/revolt as completely irrelevant to policy. “So what if Assad kills hundreds of his own people, he keeps our border quiet”
Kalle
1891
Crazy assumptions that lead people to make rational statements are still crazy.
Shiroko
1892
Actually, Assad doesn’t keep the border quiet. He actively supports Hizbollah who maintains a very non-quiet border with Israel. I think that even without human rights concerns almost all Israelis will be happy to see him go.
Perhaps you mean Egypt. In which case, with all due respect, Israelis are entitled to be concerned about a possible rise of less peaceful government leading to wars with thousands of casualties as was before the peace-treaty. I assure you that if you could convince Israelis that a true democracy would rise in Egypt which will keep the peace process that would hail for it and be happy-campers. But as long as you cannot assure such a thing, you can expect people to be nervous.
Kalle
1893
Which still doesn’t make it right to frame the Egyptian struggle for political freedoms in the narrow context of it’s impact on the peace with Israel. It is dishonest and utterly disrespectful of the Egyptian people’s right to determine their own future.
Shiroko
1894
How did you reach a conclusion something like this is done?
Kalle
1895
Everything I heard from Israel and from the Israeli media during the revolution in Egypt was concerned with one thing and one thing only. Peace and security for Israel and Israelis. I can’t remember a single statement of support for the people of Egypt. Obviously you have access to a lot more Israeli media, and a lot more diverging views, than I have but that was the impression I got.
It was cynical, narrowminded, and utterly repellant to me, like Egyptians were pawns to be sacrificed for the sake of Israel.
And in that light, the op-ed article about Israel inhabiting a crazy world fits right in. The world is crazy, Israel is sane. Right.
Timex
1896
Everything I heard from Israel and from the Israeli media during the revolution in Egypt was concerned with one thing and one thing only. Peace and security for Israel and Israelis.
This seems pretty rational to me. Instability in Egypt poses a potential for big trouble for the Israelis.
This stuff isn’t just a story that shows up on the TV while watching the evening news for those guys. This is stuff that actually has the potential to dramatically impact their lives.
If all of the countries neighboring you started having revolutions, and you had previously been at war with basically all of them for your very existence, you’d probably be pretty concerned with your own future too.
Shiroko
1897
Then as much as I saw it, you got it wrong. Sure a lot of the attention went on what will happen to the peace-treaty and is that revolution will be lead by seculars or religious fanatics. You might have gotten that impression from the fact that no Israeli officials talked about the situation, which is the only reasonable thing Israel could do. (For example we cannot publicly support the rebels in Libya or Syria, it will just give ammunition to the current dictators claiming its another zionist conspiracy)
I have had a lot of talks about the Egyptian revolution, and all those who oppose it go back to the same excuses: they would love Egypt to be democratic, but they’re skeptical of it happening (as until now dictators were usually replaced by the next dictator in line) and afraid of a fanatical religious group seizing control (ala Iran) or that the next leader in line will go for a simple anti-Israeli rhetorics to gain support from the people resulting in a much more violent middle east.
I would like to believe this is not going to happen (At least not in Egypt). But considering past similar revolutions its more my optimistic nature and general hope, and I have to accept that we might find in a year or more that the pessimists were right. In which case, Israel better be ready. (For example, there’s a public outcry to cancel the gas-trading treaty between Israel and Egypt which is critical to Israel’s energy market)
Kalle
1898
Well, you can’t discuss fears of populist anti-Israeli rhetoric without adressing the fact that the lack of a Palestine state will keep feeding such rhetoric in perpetuity. But we’ve certainly been over that particular issue a hundred times already in this thread.
Jag
1899
According to today’s WSJ, it isn’t only Israel that is worried.
Assad’s Neighbors Watch Worriedly
Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel have all had tense relations with Syria at one time or another. Yet none of them are eager to see the Assad dynasty’s four-decade-old rule end because they fear that its downfall would leave a power vacuum in Syria that could further destabilize a region already in turmoil.
I have no love for Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, but I understand why they would be concerned over a destabilized Syria.
Lum
1900
I guess it says something that no one’s commented on Obama’s support for a Palestine with 1967-era borders.
Israeli reaction was… well…
Yes, because not annexing Arab land is just like Nazi death camps.
