No Spring in Palestine

Despite the uptick in violence, it's going to require something truly nasty or spectacular to put the Israeli-Palestinian issue on the front burner again.

BY AARON DAVID MILLER | MARCH 24, 2011

Just when you thought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in the deep freezer, things are getting hot again. Hamas and Israel are back at each others' throats; and for the first time in four years, there's been a terror attack in Jerusalem, killing one Israeli. The bombing capped a week of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, which resulted in a number of civilian deaths in Gaza. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that Israelis and Palestinians watching the historic changes in the Arab World just can't stand not to be the center of attention.

But I do know better. And this time around, precisely because of those transformative changes, it's going to take something truly big -- either nasty or spectacular -- to put the Palestinian issue back on center stage. Because right now, despite the loss of life on both sides, it's still old hat. And here's why:

If the onset of the Arab spring (Egypt, Tunisia) and Arab winter (Bahrain, Libya, Yemen) suggest anything, it is that priorities have shifted away from external reference points -- Israel and the United States -- to the more authentic forces of internal processes of political change. I say this fully aware of the Libyan exception, where the United States and the international community is very much in the picture.

Something truly profound is playing out in Arab capitals and countrysides: a process of ownership, the regaining of control over the Arab story (and future) by Arabs themselves. And this process of self-determination will continue to play out for years to come, affecting those Arab polities which to date have largely escaped significant change. Colonialists and Zionists are unlikely to figure as prominently in the Arab story -- either as an excuse or justification.

The debate over the centrality of the Palestinian issue to regional stability and to U.S. interests has been argued in hot and heavy fashion for years. Proponents of centrality have argued that there's no issue more resonant or more emotional in Arab politics; none more threatening to the viability of Israel or morally unfair to Palestinians; and certainly none more likely to radicalize Arabs and Muslims around the world.

Others have argued the opposite: that the sources of instability are deeper and broader, including turmoil within Islam, the Iranian challenge, a democracy deficit, and authoritarian regimes and extractive leaders who have bilked their public for years and kept them bottled up in a kind of Nasser time warp. Instead, they argue, the Palestinian issue has been used to distract and divert attention from meaningful reforms -- a cruel deceit to keep autocrats in power.

Uriel Sinai/Getty images

 

Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. His forthcoming book is Can America Have Another Great President?

VSEST

9:42 PM ET

March 24, 2011

Is this coinsidence?

This news from March 23th on http://justworldnews.org/archives/004183.html about one brave assassin and this article's author could not be coincidence. No wonder that Mr. Miller would like the world/Arabs to forget about Palestine and his client.

 

YJ DRAIMAN

10:58 PM ET

March 24, 2011

YJ Draiman for Mayor of LA said...

Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict

Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation; these were compiled by a Christian university professor. It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew --it doesn't matter. Thank You.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E., the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugeegroup in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians.

There is only one Jewish nation.

The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost.

Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

January 2, 2011 6:08 AM

YJ Draiman for Mayor of LA

 

YJ DRAIMAN

10:59 PM ET

March 24, 2011

Moral and ethical bankruptcy

Moral and ethical bankruptcy

Americans are finding a grotesque echo in the moral – ethical bankruptcy and worse of a substantial sector of American society.

The “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who kill innocent civilians. It is more than moral depravity. It is a culture that teaches, educates and breeds hate toward other societies that are not like them as they say “infidels”.

There is no way this situation should be handled with kid gloves – when a poison strikes your body, you remove it and destroy it completely, leaving no trace of such poison.

History has shown that these types of atrocities and acts of barbarism have increased in the past half a century and getting worse by the day.

With today’s advancement in technology and telecommunications, the world has shrunk, events on the other side of the world affect everybody (like the Japanese Nuclear reactor fallout etc.) it affects our health our economy brings fear and uncertainty to our lives.

The financial crisis we are facing today is the price we pay for years of neglect and government abuse of power.

Is today’s society heading toward annihilation, you be the judge?

YJ Draiman

Every time there is a terrorist act, Israel should vacate an Arab village and raze it.

 

YJ DRAIMAN

11:00 PM ET

March 24, 2011

“Israel’s Disproportionate Restraint.”

“Israel’s Disproportionate Restraint.”

Israel is guilty of anything it’s of disproportionate restraint.

Israel has the right and obligation to defend its citizens

The brutal slaughter of a family of 5 in Itamar just shows that we are dealing with a barbaric mentality.

Add to it the bomb at a bus stop in Jerusalem.

The daily launching of rockets from Gaza against civilian population and schools.

No country and government that cares about its citizens would tolerate such atrocities.

Terror should be handled in the following manner. When a poison strikes the human body, the only way to address it, is to remove it and destroy it completely.

It is a known fact that any country if attacked, its citizens kidnapped, rocket bombardment on a daily basis.
Has the right and obligation to defend its citizens.

It is sad that innocent civilians are hurt, but that is the cost of war and conflict.

Any government and its citizen who do not resist terrorism and let terrorist organization entrench themselves in their country and utilize those countries as bases of armed terrorism against a neighboring country. Eventually pays the price for permitting such actions.

If you gave the Arab population a vote in Israel and the west bank and Jerusalem the option to vote freely and without intimidation, you would find out, that they would rather be living under Israel’s government. They derive more stability more benefits, pensions, welfare, etc.

If the United States or any other government were to be attacked from across the border on a daily basis, have its citizens kidnapped, rockets launched at them on a daily basis, the citizens would demand that immediate military action be initiated with no holds barred, collateral damage or not. That is the fact of life.

Terrorist and those who support them do not know what peace is, they thrive on violence. That is the only way they control the masses. Any negotiations or compromise only strengthen those terrorist organizations. When a poison strikes the human body, the only way to address it, is to remove it and destroy it completely.
There is no such thing as a “disproportioned response to terror.”
Our problem today is “Israel’s Disproportionate Restraint.”
This puts Israel and its citizens in grave danger.
That is the way the terrorist organizations should be treated.

“Like all sovereign nations, Israel has not only a right, but moreover, an obligation, to ensure the safety and security of her citizens”.

As quoted in a statement “the only time of a chance for peace is, when the Arab mother would love her children more than she hates the Israelis.

The big mistake is that people are missing the economic benefits for Israel and its neighbors. That is if there was a true peace, you take the Israeli Technology and know how, add to it the Arab labor and natural resources – and you have an economic prosperity beyond your widest dreams.
The Qur'an 17:104 - states the land belongs to the Jewish people
Every time there is a terrorist act, Israel should vacate an Arab village and raze it.

YJ Draiman

 

JBROCKLE

4:05 AM ET

March 25, 2011

Seriously?

Wow! I'm totally convinced by your completely objective copy and paste analysis of this apparently very simple problem!

 

GAHGEER

9:14 AM ET

March 25, 2011

Go and see a Hamas web forum

you'll see the same pattern: people who don't read the article, but copy and paste pages of nonsense.

 

ELDORET

4:51 AM ET

March 25, 2011

20 STEPS TO STOP WAR in PALESTINE NOW

1. STOP the killing of children - Israeli or Palestinian!
2. STOP the killing of civilians – Palestinian or Israeli!
3. STOP suicide bombings & rocket attacks!
4. STOP white phosphorus as illegal weapon
5. STOP the illegal expropriation of land!
6. STOP the illegal settlement on occupied territory!
7. STOP the importation of arms from US or Iran!
8. STOP the propaganda from foreign embassies!
9. STOP claiming democracy when corruption is rife!
10. STOP the torture of political or other prisoners!
11. STOP all state-sponsored assassinations!
12. STOP using forged passports to kill enemies abroad!
13. STOP the killing of passengers on the high seas!
14. STOP foodstuffs not clearly marked with country of origin!
15. STOP cluster bombs used to contaminate other countries!
16. STOP export of arms to repressive regimes worldwide!
17. STOP Jerusalem not remaining an international city!
18. STOP the building of secret nuclear weapon arsenals!
19. STOP the refusal of IAEA inspection of WMD stockpiles!
20. STOP alleged war criminals evading trial before the ICC!

________________________________________

 

GAHGEER

9:41 AM ET

March 25, 2011

Mixing poison with honey

The writer contends that the Arab spring will shift the priorities of Arabs from the plight of the Palestinians to their own problems, which is good (the honey).

But to believe that because of that, the Palestinian cause is gonna get back to the backbenches is, I think wrong. (the poison)

First, the onus now is no longer on the Arabs, or their leaders. Everyone knows - including the writer - that Palestine raises a sense of loss and victimhood inside the mind of every Arab, thus making them weaker psychologically, which what their leaders wanted.

But the game is shifting now towards Israel. Israel is missing out big time with the fall of its friend Mubarak and the imminent changes in the Syrian leadership (i.e Israel losing its sources of "stability").

Therefore, the onus is now on Israel and particularly Netanyahu, who needs to think that relying on dictators for security is not sustainable, and that Israel needs to make peace BECAUSE it has to, not because it is forced to.