Time for a blast from the past: A Reuters fisking!
Let’s look at the headline.
Israel, Palestinians to offer peace proposals: Quartet
Oh, so the article’s about how Israel and the Palestinians are going to create a basis for negotiation? Cool!
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to make proposals on issues of territory and security within three months, keeping peacemaking efforts alive, an official from the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators said on Wednesday.
Great! It’s all about making peace!
“The parties agreed with the Quartet to come forward with comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months in the context of our shared commitment to the objective of direct negotiations leading toward an agreement by the end of 2012,” a U.N. official said on behalf of the Quartet.
Even better! That’s an awesome lead, and it makes me really think that peace negotations are right around the corner!
Territory and security are two issues that have held up Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which collapsed about a year ago in a dispute over Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
The Quartet envoys also called on the sides to “resume direct bilateral negotiations without delay or preconditions” and said they would meet the parties regularly over the next 90 days.
Well, good. That’s what Israel’s been asking for for two years, ever since Barack Obama screwed things up by insisting that Israel freeze all settlement building. So now the Palestinians are going to negotiate? Wonderful!
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after his top negotiator met the Quartet envoys that Israel was interested in restarting direct talks without preconditions.
Excellent! So when are the negotations going to begin?
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, after meeting the Quartet officials, said in a statement that the Palestinians were “prepared to sit at the negotiating table as soon as the Israeli government freezes all settlement construction and accepts clear terms of reference, specifically the 1967 borders.”
Wait–what?
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, after meeting the Quartet officials, said in a statement that the Palestinians were “prepared to sit at the negotiating table as soon as the Israeli government freezes all settlement construction and accepts clear terms of reference, specifically the 1967 borders.”
What? But—but—Reuters said the Palestinians are going to offer peace proposals. Reuters said that the Quartet called for direct negotiations. What? The Palestinians in this article said NFW will they sit down with the Israelis without a settlement freeze and a return to the 1949 Armistice lines? But I thought the headline was all about offering peace proposals?
This is how the media slants its Israel coverage. The angle of the news story is that the Quartet called on both sides to work towards peace, without preconditions. But buried in the next-to-last paragraph is the Palestinian negation of that. If it were Israel denying the call for preconditions, the headline would be something like “Israel Defies Quartet on Negotiations.” But because it is the Palestinians doing the denying, it is buried and not mentioned—until they can get a different spin on it in an analysis. Well, not a different spin, really. It’s still all Israel’s fault.
The immediate obstacle is the standoff over Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlements on the land where the Palestinians aim to found an independent state. World powers view the settlement as illegal under international law.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants talks now, the Palestinians say he must halt all settlement-building before they come to the table. That is something his government will not do.
Not mentioned is Israel’s nine-month settlement freeze, during which time the Palestinians refused to come to the table until the last two weeks of the freeze. Of course, there was no agreement. But that’s not applicable to the Reuters spin. Or the AP spin. Or the Obama Administration spin.
The real reason for the lack of negotiations, of course, is not that Israel won’t freeze settlements. It is that the Palestinians do not want only to return to the 1967 borders. They want “Palestine” to be the entire state of Israel. That’s why all maps of “Palestine” look exactly like the map of Israel, only without any Jewish areas designated, the way maps of Israel designate all of the Palestinian areas and Gaza.
And just for kicks and giggles, there is also this anti-Israel spin of the trade of prisoners for hostage Gilad Shalit:
The Quartet’s failure stands in stark contrast to Egypt’s recent success in brokering a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, which exchanged an Israeli soldier captured by gunmen in 2006 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
The deal disheartened Palestinian leaders in the West Bank who, unlike Hamas, oppose armed conflict with Israel and believe peace talks are the way to end the conflict.
That’s funny. If they believe peace talks are the way to end the conflict, then why do they refuse to hold them? Could it be that they, too, believe that armed conflict is the way to go? Of course they do. But they’re trying to make sure they can wait until they have Israel in a position where they think they can win. Their funding from the West will dry up if non-Hamas organizations restart the terror war they didn’t finish. Can’t have that. Because the fictional statelets of East and West Palestine run on Western handouts, and will run on Western handouts even after their fictional statelets join to become Palestine for real. When will the Western money dry up? During a war with Israel. Maybe. There are some European nations that won’t care their money is going to kill Jews (I’m looking at you, Norway).
The media bias against Israel. It is naked and unashamed. Nine and a half years, I’ve been blogging about it. I won’t be running out of material anytime soon.
For most of 1967 (204 days) the border was right where it is now, the Jordan river. That makes the 67 borders fine with me.