It is ridiculous that we still get this day off! It is even stupid that we mention it as if it is something to be proud of! A game played by Arafat to boost his popularity as he started a rapproachment policy towards the Americans.
In any case, on our "independence day", the main news items concern Israel's new trick before Annapolis:"The Jewishness of the State".
The Israelis want the Palestinians to recognise that Israel is a Jewish state (or a state for the Jews, too many declarations make difficult to keep track of the real wordings). Surprisingly enough, the Palestinians are refusing this condition. I didn't expect such principled position of our "Steadfast Leadership" as they like to call themselves.
In principle, no one with a slightest bit of intelligence can accept for a state to identify with a religion. It is ridiculous that the Americans and Israelis go on and on about Iran and Saudi Arabia for identifying themselves as Muslim states, when they want the same for Israel.
The repercussions of such an agreement by the Palestinian leadership stretch much further than the "End to all Claims" trick played by Barak during the Camp David retreat back in 2000. Here, they want us to admit that Israel, on 78% of historic Palestine, is for Jews. Thus any claims by Palestinians, whether refugees or Israeli citizens, will be scrapped because our national leadership has admitted that this land is Jewish and therefor, Jews have a right to expel a group of "foreigners" who were occupying their land. In a sense, our acceptance of the Jewish nature of the state, will not only mean that we are accepting the inequalities against non-Jews in Israel. We will be justifying the Nakba as an act of self-defence by Israel. We will be accepting the Israeli narrative of the conflict, and we will put an end to all claims that any Palestinian has to his or her land. We will be justifying the cruelest and longest military occupation in modern history. And, worse yet, we will be accepting the future Palestinian state as a gesture of good-will of the ever so nice Israelis who own the land yet are happy to let us live on one fifth of it!
2 comments:
I read on the BBC website a few days ago that the Israeli parliament will probably soon enact a new legislation making it nigh impossible to change Jerusalem's status in a peace deal.
In other words, the message is loud and clear that Israel will NOT give East Jerusalem to Palestinians.
Seems to me like a clear indication that any attempt at a two-state solution is already well and truly scuppered.
Sigh....
That's true Sheema, the bill will require an 80 votes majority (out of a total of 120 seats) to pass any concessions regarding Jerusalem.
The two states solution will only work if Palestinians accept whatever is on offer, this would be political suicide for anyone who signs on. And even if it is reached it will be unsustainable because such a state will not be viable, and conflict is likely to erupt again.
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