Not only do the Palestinian Arabs not accept Israel’s existence, neither do the other Arab states and Iran, even the ones Israel has peace treaties with. Egypt’s state-run broadcasting system, which is massively influential all over the Middle East, is the one that put out the 41-part TV series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Vile antisemitic propaganda appears constantly in all the Arab and Iranian media. They are dehumanizing the Jews just lke the Nazis did to make it easier to get people to kill the Jews. The Palestinian Arabs certainly, and the other Arabs probably, will settle for nothing less than ethnic cleansing, if not genocide, for Israel’s Jews.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, out of which the PA grew, was founded in 1964, years before there was an occupation of the West Bank. And at that time, nobody tought of making the PLO the governing authority over the WEst Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Hieghts, all areas that Arab countries had snatched from the old Palestine Mandate during Israel’s War of Independence. The only “liberating” to be done was of Israel’s territory. The PLO was aimed solely at Israel’s destruction and has never wavered from that goal.

To sum up: When Arabs say “Peace in the Middle East” what they mean is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish inhabitants. When they whine for “American evenhandedness” what they mean is that we should help them do this.

You’re assuming the Palestinians want peace with Israel. The Gaza Strip has been ruled by the Palestinians since 2005, and look how well that’s turned out.

I’m happy you’re confident Israel can defend herself against any future hostilities. So, what, you think they have an impregnable missile defense system? Because Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and the terrorists in Gaza have been stockpiling rockets. Lebanon now has more—and more dangerous—rockets since before the 2006 war. Hamas has been stockpiling rockets since their takeover of Gaza. Syria is digging the same kind of underground systems that Lebanon used against Israel in 2006.

And again, you are putting the onus entirely on Israel, without asking anything of the Palestinians other than to trust that they won’t attack Israel. Big if. If the Palestinians want peace, why are they still inciting against Israel via their media, their textbooks, their Friday sermons, and their quotes in the newspapers on a daily basis? Ahmed Qureia only this month said that Israel needs to stop “Judaizing” Jerusalem. Abbas demands the “right of return” for millions of Palestinians, who claim third- and fourth-generation “refugee” status.

As for the withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines—and that’s what they are, the Armistice lines drawn up at the end of the War of Independence, not international borders—why? The Palestinians lost. Time to suck it up, get over it, and deal with the fact that they will never have Jerusalem again.

The biggest grievance the Palestinians have against Israel is that Israel exists. Let us not pretend otherwise.

The Palestinians will do whatever they are going to do, but that does not mean that Israel needs to be hobbled by Palestinian intransigence. The biggest grievance that Palestinians, and their supporters throughout the world, have against Israel is the occupation. And although any fair-minded person would recognize that taking the WB after the 6 Day War was necessary for Israeli security at the time, I, for one, have every confidence that Israel can now defend itself against virtually any future ME state hostilities against it.

That being the case, holding the WB makes no sense, anymore. All Israel is doing is creating additional hatred through denying Palestinian self-determination in the WB. If Israel truly favors the two state solution then it needs to help create the circumstances under which such a solution can be implemented. And the first step toward that has to be ending the occupation.

Am I wrong?

On the narrow point, Obama has nothing to do with Jackson. In fact, Jackson is anti-Obama because President Obama means the end of the Jackson/Sharpton race-hustling politics. We should all welcome that.

The candidates are virtually indistinguishable vis-a-vis Israel. Jews and Zionists should decide their vote on other issues. I know I have.

it’s late and I was intending to respond to Meryl tomorrow, but I figure I should say something about your post.

Specifically this part:

“like all leftists you blame it all on Israel and America. In your little world, Arabs never have to take responsibility for anything.”

I don’t believe that at all.

If you knew of my participation on left blogs you would never accuse me of that.

Why do you make that accusation?

Is it because you think that liberals or Democrats, in general, are anti-Israel? That is simply untrue. As a denizen of DKos for quite some time, I can tell you that the last thing that mainstream Democrats have is an anti-Israel bias.

You are mistaken.

The two-state solution cannot be implemented until the Palestinians have some form of government that is, well, governing. The Gaza Strip is no longer under PA control. Hamas has no desire to make peace with Israel. The Islamists of Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, and the rest of the terrorist groups have made it abundantly clear that they want all Jews out of Israel except for those that were living there in 1948. Three words: Not. Gonna. Happen.

Of course, there are also those who want Jews completely out of the Middle East. These are the same ones who complain that Israeli is “Judaizing” Jerusalem. Right. “Judaizing” the City of David.

The Muslim way is to destroy all religious history of a site that they’ve taken over (cf: Joseph’s Tomb) and deny that anything else was ever there, or that it wasn’t Muslim.

That’s the problem with Israel and the Palestinians, Karmafish. Israel wants the two-state solution. The Palestinians want that mythical nation of Palestine.

A gaping asshole.

Jackson believes that Zionists have controlled US policy for decades. Well, that’s classic anti-Semitism. It’s a reference to ZOG.

But this has nothing to do with Barack Obama. Barack did not say it, Jackson did. Jackson is not an adviser to the Obama campaign, nor is he a friend or associate of Obama. In fact, they come out of entirely different political traditions. Jackson is the quintessential, old-style civil rights politician of years gone by. Barack is a mainstream Democrat who has had virtually nothing to do with Jackson’s brand of activism.

If the question is, which candidate would be better for Israel, Obama or McCain, the answer would likely be Obama. The reason for that is because Obama is far less likely to continue Bush’s hawkish, and unjust, militarism in the Middle East. We don’t need more fire in that neighborhood, but less.

The more the US maintains a military presence in the Middle East, the more we bust down Muslim doors in Baghdad or Tikrit, the more Jihadis we create. The more Jihadis we create the more enemies we create for both the US and Israel.

Would Obama be more sympathetic to the Palestinians than McCain? Sure he would, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We don’t need hostility to the Palestinians (despite their hostility toward us), but an implimentation of the two-state solution.

The West Bank is an albatross around Israel’s neck, as Ben Gurion predicted after the 6 Day War.

The occupation must end, not just for the sake of the Palestinians, but for the sake of Israel… and for the sake of Jewish people the world over.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/jackson-obama-and-israel/