Welcome to Team Shalom Fry'd Daze. Fry'd Daze is a long running series dedicated to dialogue in the Middle East. Currently we are in our second year. These diaries are not intended to be a flame forum, but rather something where community members can meet and exchange ideas about I/P and/or issues that concern the Middle East.
Generally, these diaries take the form of four to five news articles and short commentary selected by the diarist. These stories however, are just a platform to get discussion going. The diaries from now on will publish under the banner of the Team Shalom
What is Team Shalom:
"Team Shalom is Team Peace. We are a group of Kossacks supporting a fair, pragmatic, and realistic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the two-state solution. We support Israel's continued existence as a Jewish and democratic state, with it existing alongside Palestine, a Palestinian and democratic state, as friends and neighbors. We believe this is the only way forward and the only way to achieve an enduring peace. This is the view endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the world's nations, including the Quartet, which consists of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations."
So please participate. The only thing we ask is that you keep comments respectful, reality based and please no use of Anti-Semetic or Anti-Arab memes. Enjoy!
Our first piece is an opinion piece from J.J. Goldberg over at The Jewish Daily Forward
Israel faces a grave diplomatic crisis this fall. The Palestinians are planning to demand recognition from the United Nations General Assembly as a sovereign state within the 1949 armistice line or Green Line, on the territory governed by the Israeli military since 1967. If this happens, there will be an internationally recognized border separating the sovereign territory of Israel from the sovereign territory of a neighboring state to be known as Palestine. Israel on this side, Palestine over there.
This would be a bad thing, Israelis warn, because the Palestinians do not want a state limited to the 1949 armistice lines. What they really want is the entire geographic expanse known as Palestine or the Land of Israel, including not just the presumed Palestinian part but the Israeli part as well. They want Israel to be erased from the map. Gaining sovereignty over the disputed territory gives them nothing but a base for future attacks on Israel.
That’s why the Palestinians are asking the international community formally to designate the precise line where their state ends and Israel begins. Because they want to erase that line, you see, and they figure the best way to erase it is to have it sanctified beforehand by the nations of the world in solemn assembly. Or something.
Goldberg's article goes on to talk about the inherent contradictions of both sides positions with a focus on the Israeli position. I found the article very readable and extremely interesting.
Ok on to the news. Maan News is reporting:
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- France said Thursday that European nations are considering recognizing a Palestinian state, heightening pressure on the United States and Israel to relaunch the Middle East peace process.
European ambassadors at the UN Security Council joined the Palestinian envoy in calling for "bold" US leadership to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Recognition of the state of Palestine is one of the options which France is considering, with its European partners" in a bid to relaunch the peace process," French ambassador Gerard Araud told a Security Council debate on the Middle East.
Britain also indicated that state recognition could be considered.
"Nothing is off the table with regard to recognition in September," said a British spokesman. "But nor are we specifying what conditions would be necessary, or sufficient, to recognize, or indeed not to recognize -- we'll have to look at all relevant factors at the time."
Linked to that... Israeli President Peres: Israel needs to formulate its own Mideast peace plan
Israel needs to draft its own Mideast peace initiative if it wants to avoid international pressure over a reported U.S peace plan, President Shimon Peres said on Friday, following a report claiming Washington was working on a plan to restart stalled peace talks.
Peres' comments came in the wake of a New York Times report claiming that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was drafting a new peace plan which included a Palestinian state within 1967 borders and which rejected Palestinian refugees' right of return.
Speaking during a visit to southern Israel, the president referred to reported U.S. plans to present a new outline for Mideast peace, accusing those reports as being "all speculation."
"It's too early to say anything, but if we don't want foreign plans, the best way would be a plan of our own, and if we do that others won't go ahead with theirs," Peres said, adding that the "issue isn't offering peace plans but bringing forth peace."
And Ynet reporting on this says:
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders stressed Thursday that they will not waive the right of return in peace negotiations with Israel following reports suggesting the White House is working on an outline for a Middle East peace plan.
"We oppose any US peace plan which wants us to waive one of our most basic rights and that is the right of return for refugees," Fatah Central Committee Member Nabil Shaath said.
Yesterday in other diaries we were discussing just this issue. I think this is where the issue of recognition of Israel as a Jewish State rather than just Israel as a State comes into play. BUT ... by making this as "non-negotiable" (as I have seen in other stories), there is no hope for Peace. Israel will simply not agree and given that they hold the territory and have military power in the area to hold it, I don't see what good this comment does, unless it sets up a final negotiating principle.
Former Israeli Security Offical Yossi Alpherhad this to say in an interview with Americans for Peace now.
Q. Did Abbas discuss Palestinian plans for September? Did he offer any new explanations regarding the failure of his 2008 peace talks with then-PM Ehud Olmert?
A. He was deliberately vague about what is supposed to happen at the UN in September regarding a Palestinian state. So was Malki. This is apparently Ramallah's policy: it's important to the Palestinian leadership there that the possible emergence of a state in September not be seen as a Palestinian unilateral act, but rather as the response of the international community to a prolonged, failed peace process.
Abbas did, however, return frequently to the question of what he and fellow leaders will do if there is no peace process and nothing constructive happens at the UN. He threatened to resign (note: he frequently makes this threat). He kept asking, "What shall we do?" At one point, he answered himself: "I can't answer, but you can imagine?"
Mass resignations? Dismantling the Palestinian Authority? Non-violent (third) intifada? Abbas indeed left that to our imagination.
At one point, I pressed him on issues related to the failed negotiations with Olmert--a hobby of mine. Why did he turn down Olmert's 2008 far-reaching offer of an international condominium to govern the holy basin in Jerusalem? "We never defined what the holy basin comprises". On refugees and other Jerusalem issues, "we couldn't close the gaps". Borders and security? "We were very close [on these two issues]: we agreed on the 1967 borders with swaps, but the [quantitative territorial] gap was not bridged. On security, we finalized the file with Olmert, the Americans, Egypt and Jordan. A third party, NATO, would supervise. Bush agreed, based on the Jones plan."
Both Abbas and Malki (again, uniform talking points) noted that Netanyahu, in a long meeting with Abbas in September, had rejected the Jones plan for a NATO security presence in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in a Palestinian state and had insisted that the Palestinians agree to a 40-year IDF presence in the Jordan Valley before any final status talks could begin.
This demand, which has been reiterated publicly, appears to indicate that Netanyahu is not a candidate for a serious peace process. Abbas protests that he still hopes to renew negotiations and obviate the need for the UN in September. On this point, it's hard to take him seriously.
In other news... everyone's favorite (snark) anti-Semite Helen Thomas has backed out of the "Move Over AIPAC" meeting
Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has withdrawn her participation from an upcoming anti-AIPAC event, which includes a series of protests against Israeli policy, due to the recent controversy surrounding the veteran journalist after she said Jews should leave Palestine and go back to Europe.
According to a statement by the "Move Over AIPAC" campaign, Thomas was invited to speak at the event, scheduled to take place in Washington D.C. during AIPAC's annual conference in May, but withdrew her participation fearing she will become the focus of the events.
“I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and U.S. policy, not me,” Thomas was quoted as saying.
Good move on her part, I mean just because they were going to present her with some "award of courage" or some other nonsense why just add to pointing out the insanity of this "IZREEL IS TEH BAD" event. Perhaps they can replace her with another Z.O.G. speaker - we have Kossacks that could apply. (/snark - but not the last sentence).
Finally, from Americans for Peace Now: