Middle East Peace in Our Time!

What could possibly go wrong with the United States shuffling the cards?

The peace process is all process and no peace.

Barry Rubin wrote on June 27th about the “peace process” involving Israel, the “Palestinians” and a bunch of people who think they know best how it should go forward. Here’s the most I can in good conscience steal.

Has it become time that the absurd paradigm governing the Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the “peace process” be abandoned or challenged?

After all, this narrative has become increasingly ridiculous. Here is what is close to being the official version:

The Palestinians desperately want an independent state and are ready to compromise to obtain that goal. They will then live peacefully alongside Israel in a two-state solution. Unfortunately, this is blocked either by: a) misunderstanding on both sides or b) in the recent words of the Huntington Post, “the hard-line opponents who dominate Israel’s ruling coalition.” Israel is behaving foolishly, too, not seeing that, as former President Bill Clinton recently said, Israel needs peace in order to survive. One aspect—perhaps a leading one—why Israel desperately needs peace is because of Arab demographic growth. The main barrier to peace are the Jewish settlements.

This interpretation has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with reality. People on both sides know this, even if they rarely say so publicly. For the Palestinian side, the pretense of peacemaking—which every Palestinian leader knows—obtains money, diplomatic support, popular sympathy, and pressure on Israel. Here’s the dirty trick involved. If anyone raises in Israels raises issues about whether a “peace process” can really bring peace, concerns about how it would be implemented, and documented experience about Palestinian behavior in the past, the response is that Israel doesn’t want peace. The actual arguments and evidence about these problems is censored out of the Western mass media and distorted in terms of political stances. [Emphasis added.]

In reality, the vast majority of Palestinian leaders favor establishing no Palestinian state unless it can continue the work of trying to wipe Israel off the map. They are in no hurry. They do not want to negotiate seriously. And, of course, in the case of Hamas, which controls or has the support of about one-half of the Palestinians, this violent and genocidal intention is completely in the open. You can’t negotiate seriously with those who are not–to recall the old PLO slogan–the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.  I say this with deep regret but it is the truth.

Please do read the rest. Also posted here it is outstanding, as are most of Mr. Rubin’s articles, and puts Israel’s dilemma in keen perspective.

This is a picture of the unmanned aerial vehicle on which Secretary of State Kerry is “shuttling between Jerusalem and Amman for more talks with Palestinians and Israelis on reviving their stalled negotiations:”

Here is a bit more perspective.

Israeli imperialist

On January 29, 2012, I wrote about the “Palestinian Heroes” who murdered members of the Fogel family in Israel’s Itmar. Their actions were obscene but not aberrational and brought them high praise in “Palestine.”

As I had already written at PJ Media’s Tatler,

Very lightly reported in the principal media, several heroes of Palestine “broke into the house of Udi and Ruth Fogel (36 and 35 years old, respectively), and stabbed them to death along with their 3-month-old daughter, Hadas, and two sons, Elad (3 years old) and Yoav (11).” YouTube promptly removed a video – not of the actual murders (there apparently was none to remove) but showing still photos of the dead Israelis. As all left thinking people know, YouTube did the right thing. The many heroes of Palestine have for too long been disparaged in the media.  While these heroes’ efforts to produce true peace will not likely be effective other than for the few Israelis noted above,  I look forward to viewing,  at YouTube and elsewhere, videos showing the peacefully joyous reactions  of these

residents from the southern city of Rafah [who] hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy “is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.”

This brings me to the venomous snakes which want to come into our yard to play with us and with our puppies. In many respects like Palestinian heroes, these pitiably downtrodden snakes are peaceful beings; unless hungry and wanting to assert their natural rights to food, or disturbed after asserting those rights and then merely wanting to relax and bask in the warm sunlight as they also have every right to do, they are harmless. Yet I have sometimes sinned by trying to drive them away or even to kill them (the snakes). May Allah – whose beloved children we all are – hear my confession and have mercy upon me.

This article tries to draw parallels between the “Palestinian” missiles then striking Israel and la Raza missiles then striking El Paso, Texas (not really thus far, but only as an analogy).

Following years of demands by la Raza that the United States relinquish all occupied territories to Mexico, missiles began falling on El Paso, Texas and neighboring areas north of the border between Texas and Mexico during the early morning hours of December 6th. Under the previous administration, the United States had imperiously ignored all such demands and no significant progress toward returning the territories to Mexico had been made even under the current administration. Due to the persistent failure of the imperialist United States to agree to a peaceful negotiated settlement, Amigos de la Raza in Juarez, Mexico understandably found it necessary to take appropriate action. No spokesperson for Amigos was authorized to speak to the press. However, informal off the record remarks made it clear that El Paso had been selected because too many Mexicans could have been injured if the missiles had been directed toward occupied territories in California. It has not yet been possible to calculate the death toll in the El Paso area because the MOP (Missiles of Peace) continue to strike.

. . . .

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, speaking from Tel Aviv, expressed solidarity with the United States while wiping tears from his eyes. (NOTE: Earlier reports had suggested that the tears had been shed during uncontrollable fits of laughter when PM Netanyahu heard the news. However, an aide to the PM brushed off the suggestion: “The PM laughs only at stuff he thinks is really funny.”)

PM Netanyahu did not offer the United States any of Israel’s WMDs (Weapons Minimizing Destruction) because Israel recently had to use some and can’t spare any. Instead he suggested that the United States should halt construction in all occupied territories (including not only in Texas but also in California, Arizona and New Mexico) as the best road map to peace. He noted Israel’s smashing successes in negotiating with her peace partner, Hamas, following Israeli acquiescence in similar demands suggestions from United States and other bastions of freedom, democracy and peace around the world.

Even though that peace process isn’t working out well, the Arab Spring continues to bubble along.

Egypt is part of the bubbling mess. There, according to an article at Maggie’s Notebook yesterday,

The one-year anniversary of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi will be acknowledged with large protests this Sunday, June 30th in Cairo bearing the message to Morsi – “Leave.”  In Alexandria today, “thousands” of protesters marched on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. Reports are that Morsi had about one-thousand police to protect the location. They lost the battle as Morsi opponents eventually broke into the building and threw furniture and papers into the streets. Seventy persons are reported injured by birdshot fired by “Islamists” and other means. Egyptians are flowing out of the country – said to be mostly the families of  Morsi government officials, the Arab League and some Christians. Note the photo below. Obama hasn’t missed the scrutiny of freedom-lovers in Egypt.

Photo by Betsy Hiel on Twitter

But I thought President Obama was buying bringing peace and love throughout the world. I probably missed something because the memo was heavily redacted.

Many of those leaving were families of Egyptian officials and businessmen and those of foreign and Arab League diplomats – as well as many Egyptian Christians, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press. Source

In the city of Aga, protesters set fire to the Brotherhood ‘s Freedom and Justice offices.

. . . .

Morsi supporters are already gathering in Tahir Square and other locations ahead of Sunday’s protest. Five, at least, are dead in the Alexandria and Aga. Millions are expected to march, protest, support and there will be more injuries and deaths. The Muslim Brotherhood is warning of a possible Civil War. What have the Young Guns learned in the last couple of years? What can they learn that will help their cause other than to leave Islam and get out of the country if they want to live freely? See a video here that gives a good feel what the people want and need. Readmore from Betsy Hiel, Middle East Correspondent, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, here.

That’s all I feel reasonably comfortable stealing from Maggie’s article. Please do read the rest as well the update here. It reports that

A senior military source told the Guardian on Thursday that the army did not want to intervene. But they stated that if Sunday’s protests were as widespread and prolonged as those that drove Egypt’s 2011 uprising, and if serious fighting broke out between Morsi’s supporters and his opponents, then the army may regard the protests as a more legitimate representation of the people’s will than the elections that brought Morsi to office a year ago – and would step in to facilitate a transition of power to a technocratic caretaker government.

Demonstrating once again his clear grasp of the facts on the ground and his profound wisdom,

U.S. President Barack Obama called on Egypt‘s government and opposition on Saturday to engage each other in constructive dialogue and prevent violence spilling out across the region.

Political violence on Friday killed three people, including an American Jewish college student, and mass rallies are planned for Sunday aimed at unseating Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. Obama said he was “looking at the situation with concern.”

Hundreds have been wounded and at least eight killed in street fighting for over a week as political deadlock deepens.

. . . .

The U.S. embassy evacuated non-essential staff and warned citizens to avoid Egypt. An airport source said dozens of U.S. personnel and their families left Cairo for Germany on Saturday.

The U.S. ambassador has angered liberals by saying Morsi was legitimately elected and that protests may be counter-productive for an economy crippled by unrest that has cut tourism revenues. [Emphasis added.]

Here is a recent video showing Washington experts interacting with personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Egypt.

It is clear that the Arab Spring is not working well for those who had hoped that it would bring democracy and freedom. For most who not only hoped for change they could believe in but joined in demanding it, it has been a disaster that surprisingly has brought mobocracy and servitude. For those who preach from the sidelines in Washington (and what I guess I should not refer to as “the rest of Europe,”) it has been neither a disaster nor, apparently, even a teaching point. They continue to spew their homilies with impunity and to win applause from members of their choirs.

Since they neither learn from their mistakes nor suffer from the damage that flows from their own commandments, it’s high time for them to climb down from their pulpits and to kneel sit, quietly, in the back of the mosque church. Similarly, it is time to let Israel deal with the “Palestinians” as Israel sees fit — not under pressure from the Obama Administration, the United Islamist States Nations (possibly the most farcical international entity ever to exist) or the good people of Europe who, well on the way to succumbing to Islam themselves, perhaps look forward to having Israel join in their misery.

UPDATE:

Things are going really great in merry old. For our Islamist brethren, that it.

This is a historic day in England’s history. June 29, 2013, is the official inauguration of England’s first Muslim Sharia zone. It also happens to be the British Armed Forces Day. Members of the EDL, the anti-fascist group and its spokesman Tommy Robinson, was released on bail after being arrested for entering a Muslim Sharia zone in London. The EDL marched to raise funds for a little girl with cancer, and to put flowers on soldier Lee Rigby’s memorial spot in Woolwich where he was beheaded by a devout Muslim on May 22, 2013.