How surreal can life get?
Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel, claims that George W. Bush promised that as America's contribution to the peace process, the United States would absorb 100,000 Palestinian refugeesas American citizens if a permanent peace agreement could be reached between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.
One can only imagine what the reaction among Bush's conservative, bible-thumping, Muslim-bashing political base would have been had this detail been widely publicized in the U.S. The notion that their conquering hero planned on inviting 100,000 Arabs with legitimate grievances over their U.S.-backed dispossession, practically (and some cases literally) next door neighbors of the nation he invaded and turned to rubble for absolutely no good reason (some of them perhaps even having lived in Iraq during the war, or having relatives killed in the invasion), to come live in the U.S. as citizens most certainly would have caused many of his supporters a cerebral hemmorhage. I for one personally support the notion of giving U.S. citizenship to 100,000 Palestinian refugees, whether or not there's a settlement. In fact, I could go for quite a few more. You can throw in a few million Iraqi and Afghan refugees as well, and some Somalis, Pakistanis and Lebanese too. Make it a big old refugee grab bag. Middle East Mix'N'Match. But to hear that the ol' "Decider" himself came up with such an idea is a major shock. Of course, one could very well take Bush's promise as an indication of how certain he was a peace deal wouldn't take place, or write Olmert off as a chronic liar, but just imagine the reaction had it actually happened. And think just how much fun you can have taunting Bush's few remaining adherents with it! As far as Olmert is concerned, it might be enough to get America's rabid pro-Israel activists, Jewish and otherwise, to declare him a self-hating Jew bent on Israel's destruction and a terrorist-hugging, freedom-hating enemy of the U.S. Can we get a quote from Alan Dershowitz, Abe Foxman or Norman Podhoretz on this? How about John Hagee, Mike Huckabee, Steve Emerson or Charles Krauthammer? Geez... those guys are never around when you need 'em. Y'know, there was a time when there was a bit of chatter in the Israeli media, and even some in the U.S. media, about Olmert possibly getting the Yitzakh Rabin treatment, that is to say, assassinated by right-wing Jewish extremists for trying to actually make peace, but who knows, maybe since he's been deposed as Prime Minister and is likely headed to jail, maybe all is forgiven. By the right-wing Jewish extremists, I mean. Not so much by his Arab victims, though he seemed a lot more likely to make peace than Netanyahu, despite his penchant for interrupting his negotiations with Syria about the Golan Heights by bombing the Palestinians. At least he fleshed out a few details of a possible agreement there for his successor to immediately disavow, and embraced the Turks as mediators so that his successor could immediately alienate and offend them.
But that's not all that the former Prime Minister, currently facing corruption charges, had to share.
"The former prime minister said that every ruling Israeli government must accept the fact that peace negotiations would be based on the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders and would include a land exchange. Still, he stressed that both sides must realize that neither Palestinians or Israel would ever have full sovereignty over Jerusalem."
In saying this, Olmert has publicly refuted the position current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out for the current round of U.S.-coerced "peace talks", a.k.a. political posturing. Netanyahu has insisted that he won't stop the building of settlements during the talks, won't base the talks on an assumption of Palestinian statehood along the '67 borders, won't stop the building of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, and doesn't even want to start the discussions with borders, he wants the core issues of the talks to be Israel's security and his desire for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a "Jewish State". Recognition of Israel as a "Jewish State" has been a major focal point of Israel's demands recently, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman helped to shed some light on just what that means, in case anyone was unaware of the implications.
"With the Palestinians refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, negotiations must tackle issue of Israeli-Arab 'loyalty', foreign minister says - prompting accusations of 'apartheid and ethnic cleansing' from Arab MK."
"Israeli Arab politicians responded furiously Sunday to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's suggestion suggesting that 'disloyal' members of that sector should take Palestinian citizenship."
Lieberman has long made his inclination to rid Israel of its Arab minority perfectly clear. Unlike Netanyahu, who seems opposed to any sort of deal which might bring about the existence of a Palestinian state, Lieberman seems to have set himself a goal of expelling all of Israel's non-Jewish minority groups from the country, whether it's into the Occupied Territories or anywhere else. He has at times seemed willing to accede to Palestinian statehood on the unspoken, unofficial but widely understood condition that he gets to strip Israel's Arab population, roughly 1/5th of the entire country, of its citizenship and force them into the newly created state. In this regard, he and Netanyahu are at odds... Netanyahu pursues the frenzied goal of Eretz Yisrael, the belligerent landgrab of Greater Israel in which he is unwilling to give up an inch of territory and encourages the settlers to build, while Lieberman seems willing to accept smaller boundaries as long as he never has to look at the face of a non-Jew for the rest of his life. Not that Lieberman isn't up for a little land-grabbing as well, after all, he lives in the West Bank himself, and presumably any "population exchange" agreed to in a final settlement would include him.
Naturally, neither the Palestinians nor their Israeli Arab brethren take kindly to either of these views. "It is very serious that the deputy prime minister is a settler who is constantly concerned with programs pertaining to the expulsion of citizens or the collective expropriation of citizenship," said Knesset Minister Ahmed Tibi, adding "We were here before the fascist immigrant Lieberman and we will stay here even after him."
Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh said his sector just wanted to "live with honor and in equality in our own homes", but clearly in the planning of Israel and Palestine's future, that's not on the menu that either Lieberman or Netanyahu have planned. Indeed, in today's Israel, an Israeli Arab speaking too loudly about his desire for equality is enough to draw the unwanted attention of the Shin Bet Security Service.