I have two words for this story: Bull and shit. Marwan Barghouti says the conflict with the Palestinians will end if Israel withdraws to the 1949 Armistice lines, a.k.a. the 1967 “borders”. Oh, really?
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said on Monday that the Palestinian Islamist movement will never give up its armed struggled against Israel.
The statement comes as Gaza Strip officials openly attacked the movement’s leader-in-exile Khaled Mishaal, who has decided not to run again this summer for the leadership of Hamas, for prioritising “peaceful resistance”.
“We are fighting for our dignity and rights. Jihad is our path, our life, our pride and we will not renounce it no matter the sacrifices,” said Zahar, quoted on the website of the Izzeddine Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing.
Hamas will “never give up its armed struggle against the Zionist enemy”, he said during a speech in Zeitun, a neighbourhood in east Gaza, in honour of the “martyrs” of Israel’s December 2008 — January 2009 Cast Lead operation against the enclave.
Yeah, pull the other one, it has bells on it. He’s a liar, but don’t expect that to change the media narrative that it is Israel that is blocking peace. Take this latest story, for instance. the Palestinians are saying, in effect, “We won’t negotiate until you give us everything we want.” The angle of the story, however, will be the intransigence of the Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority will not restart direct peace negotiations with Israel unless Jerusalem recognizes the borders of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA).
“If the borders are set it’s possible to return to negotiations, but the Israelis do not want established borders” Abbas said following a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II.
The fact that the negotations are for exactly that purpose–to discuss the borders of the Palestinian state–will not be mentioned. And how do I know this will happen? Because the above is the Jerusalem Post’s version of the AP story, with an interesting change in wording to the quote. Here’s what the AP writes:
Palestinian officials said they submitted their proposals, but that Israel did not. “If we demarcate the borders, we can return to negotiations, but Israel does not want to do that,” Abbas said Wednesday, after talks in Jordan with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
Israel says it has submitted a document outlining the areas that need to be discussed, but it was not characterized as a proposal.
Interesting change, from “demarcate” to “set”. The JPost is actually the simpler of the two. Demarcate means exactly that: To set borders. But it’s a word that many people don’t know.
Let’s translate the rest of the above subtext: “it was not characterized as” means that Israel did not clearly state it was, or label it as, a proposal. You see how the AP can get away with the bias? Look at the Palestinians, all ready to submit border proposals, but the Israelis refuse to do so. So it’s only logical the Palestinians will now say they won’t sit down to talk until Israel submits a border proposal. Lies, lies, and more lies, and they are passed along uncritically by the news media, in particular the wire services. The rest of the article serves up more Palestinian excuses, and more beat-downs to Israel (and especially Netanyahu).
Underlying the impasse is Abbas’ conviction that it’s impossible to reach an acceptable border deal with the hard-line Netanyahu.
The Palestinians are ready for minor adjustments in the lines of the West Bank through land swaps, but Israel has not submitted a proposal. Netanyahu has not endorsed the land-swap concept and insists that east Jerusalem belongs to Israel.
Netanyahu has also rejected Palestinian demands that he halt construction in Jewish settlements on occupied lands or recognize the pre-1967 war’s cease-fire line as a baseline for border talks.
Abbas argues that without such assurances, there is no point in returning to negotiations. He fears Israel will use continued negotiations as a diplomatic cover for seizing more land, through settlements, that the Palestinians want for their state. Israel counters that the Palestinians have not made a halt to settlement construction a condition for peace talks in the past.
Note that makes four paragraphs in a row where Abbas is held up as the model of reasonableness, willing, nay, urging negotiations–but that evil, bad, wicked, awful, horrible Bibi–well, he won’t do a thing to move negotiations along. Here are the only positive words on Israel that can be found in this article:
Israel is eager to keep talking and to “try to achieve a historic agreement before the end of the year,” an Israeli government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. “We hope that the Palestinians aren’t looking for an excuse to walk away from the table.”
It was followed by the anti-Israel section quoted above, thus utterly negating the point of the quote.
What objective media? When I read things like this, I marvel that that most Americans are still friends of Israel. The media is trying its damnedest to change that. Thankfully, they’ve failed.
