Posted on 03/23/2008 12:25:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, starting a visit on Saturday to try to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Washington would never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security.
Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining the U.S.-sponsored peace talks by expanding Jewish settlements, refusing to remove West Bank roadblocks and mounting offensives against militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip who fire cross-border rockets into the Jewish state.
"America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is Israel's right to protect itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction," Cheney told a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security."
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Cheney's comments "inciteful and completely biased in favours of the Israeli occupation."
He said it "confirms the United States is a partner to Israel in its war against our people and against the Gaza Strip."
Olmert said his talks with Cheney would include concerns about Iran and Syria, and that "we are anxious to carry on the peace negotiations with the Palestinians."
Cheney said the U.S. role was not to "dictate the outcome" of the peace talks, launched at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November with the goal of reaching a statehood agreement before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
PEACE PLAN
"Reaching the necessary agreement will require tough decisions and painful concessions by both sides but America is committed to moving the process forward," Cheney said.
"We want to see a resolution to the conflict, an end to the terrorism that has caused so much grief to Israelis, and a new beginning for the Palestinian people."
Cheney will visit the occupied West Bank over the weekend and meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as Prime Minister Salam Fayyad before leaving for Turkey, his last stop on a nine-day visit to the Middle East region.
Israel tightened its economic and military cordon around the Gaza Strip after Hamas Islamists routed Abbas's more secular Fatah forces and seized control of the coastal territory in June.
Bush made his first presidential visit to Israel and the West Bank in January and said he was optimistic a peace deal could be reached before he left office. He is expected to make another trip soon.
The peace talks have shown little sign of progress and have been slowed by increasingly heated disputes over Jewish settlement building near Jerusalem and an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 120 Palestinians.
The United States says neither Israel nor the Palestinians have done enough to meet their commitments under a long-stalled "road map" peace plan.
The plan calls on Israel to halt all settlement activity and to uproot outposts built in the West Bank without government authorization. It asks the Palestinians to rein in militants.
Palestinians want the United States to put pressure on Israel to halt Jewish settlement expansion as well as to lift security restrictions for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
With U.S. backing, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire talks are underway that could bring a halt to rocket fire from Gaza as well as Israeli military operations in the territory, though Israeli officials have played down the chances any lull will last.
“What EXACT international laws are they violating?”
The Geneva Conventions, which Israel was a signatore to. Nations do not seize foreign land by military force, occupy, and colonize anymore. Doing so is a violation of international law. Yet that’s what Israel has done since 1967 and has gotten away with it, thanks to the U.S.
Israel has violated 60 some odd UN resolutions, more than any other nation. And before one scoffs at violating UN resolutions, maybe they should consider how many Iraq violated which we used to justify our going to war with Iraq.
As for the concessions of land by Israel, I suggest you look at the facts. For example, how many settlements did Israel build in violation of Oslo, which Israel also signed?
Historically, neither side really has clean hands on the Arab/Israeli dispute and neither side is trustworthy. So, personally, I’d prefer that the U.S. just cut off foreign aid and let them work out their own agreements from now on.
Thank you Ron Paul.
Now get lost.
“Yes, but it seems Israel gets a free pass on anything it does.”
Yes, Israel does (by the U.S., as you know, not by the rest of the world).
Politicians who cross AIPAC or the AARP, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, can pretty much kiss their re-election good-bye, and they know it.
But another reason for Israel’s unconditional support comes from Dispensationalists (the Hagee-LaHaye-Lindsey crowd), which I believe is an unbiblical theology that has resulted in a sort of deification of the state of Israel.
First: Whose land are they occupying?
THE SETTLEMENT MYTH
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist
Copyright 2001 Boston Globe
May 28, 2001
The Palestinians, you may have noticed, have changed their tune. When the current orgy of violence against Israelis began last fall, the explanation out of Gaza City -- faithfully echoed by most of the Western media -- was that it was all Ariel Sharon's fault. His visit to the Temple Mount on September 28, it was said, outraged and infuriated Palestinians. That, apparently, was why they took to hurling rocks, firing guns, demolishing Jewish shrines, lynching Israeli drivers, and bombing children taking the bus to school.
There were always a few problems with this explanation, such as the fact that the violence began before Sharon's visit. But it is especially untenable now: Even Palestinians admit it isn't true.
"Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong," Imad al-Faluji, the Palestinian minister of communications, declared in March. "This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations."
So the party line has been updated. The real cause of the violence, Palestinians now claim, is the growth of Israeli communities in Gaza and the West Bank.
"A cessation of settlement activities is part of a cessation of violence," says Faisal Husseini, a prominent Palestinian official. Jibril Rajoub, one of Arafat's top militiamen, seconds the motion. "Everybody should know," he announced, "that those settlements are the cancer and the reason at all times for tension."
This excuse, too, has found a ready reception in the media -- especially since the international fact-finding committee headed by George Mitchell recommended, as a "confidence-building measure," that Israel declare a moratorium on expanding the settlements. When Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the press on the Mitchell Committee report, he was repeatedly asked what Washington would do to compel Israel to freeze its settlements. No reporter seemed to wonder what Washington would do to compel Arafat to stop his murderous offensive.
It hasn't taken long for the Palestinian line -- Jewish settlements justify Arab violence -- to become conventional wisdom. "Stop those settlements," commands The Economist in its leading article this week; it asserts that Jewish neighborhoods in the territories "negate all chance of Palestinian-Israeli peaceful coexistence." The Chicago Tribune editorializes: "There is little incentive for the Palestinians to return to the table without an Israeli freeze on settlements."
Nonsense.
Eight months ago, Israel offered not only to freeze its settlements but to dismantle most of them and pull out of 98 percent of the territories altogether. Ehud Barak laid on the negotiating table nearly everything the Palestinians had demanded: all of Gaza and the West Bank, a sovereign state, power-sharing in Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount. Arafat responded by kicking the table over and starting a war.
In other words, Palestinian violence did not explode because Israel refused to give up the settlements. It exploded because Israel agreed to do so.
The Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and suicide bombs of the past eight months are no different from the Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and suicide bombs of the past eight years -- the years of the Oslo "peace" process. The more Israel has agreed to give, the more enraged and uncompromising the Palestinian reaction has been. A paradox? Only to those who have never mastered the fundamental lesson of Appeasement 101: Give a dictator the sacrifice he demands and you inflame his appetite for more.
To insist that Israel "stop those settlements" in exchange for an end to Arab violence is to insist that Oslo be upended. The Israeli-Palestinian accords have never barred Israel from building or expanding settlements in the territories; the ultimate fate of those communities has always been one of the "permanent status" issues to be decided at the end of the process.
By contrast, the starting point of the peace process -- the foundation on which it was built -- was that Palestinian violence had ended. "The PLO commits itself ... to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides," reads the document that Arafat signed on September 9, 1993, "and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.... The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence."
That was the promise that earned Arafat his invitation to the White House, his handshake from Rabin, his Nobel peace prize. That was the promise in exchange for which Israel gave Arafat land and power, money and weapons, diplomatic recognition and the status of a peace partner. The Palestinians did not retain the right to resort to rocks and bullets and bombs whenever they find it useful. They did not promise to end the violence only if Israel agreed to their every demand. They promised to end the violence for good.
If that promise was a lie, the entire peace process is a lie. Is it? Look at the Middle East and draw your own conclusion.
You know there tabby, you might get your point(s) across a little more succinctly if you would just post them in the original German.
“First: Whose land are they occupying?”
As a result of the Six-Day War, thousands of Palestinians who lived in the occupied territories lost their homes, farms, and businesses to Israel to make way for Jewish-only settlements and Jewish-only roads.
But I’m sure you’ll find some propaganda that claims Israel has never actually confiscated private property, such as the old “state land” or “security measures” defense?
How about ‘spoils of war’?
If the A-rabs didn’t want to lose their land and their collective asses, they shouldn’t have attacked Israel.
Case closed.
Now for $1000 tabby, name me the last great Arabic military leader and the time and place of their victory over Israel.
Take all the time you want.
Oh, I see you did find propaganda to support your belief.
Nevertheless, contrary to what this author says, the dispute with Israel was ALWAYS over the settlements:
“Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process on each of my trips I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity. This does violate United States policy. It is the first thing that Arabs—Arab governments—the first thing that Palestinians in the territories—whose situation is really quite desperate—the first thing they raise when we talk to them. I don’t think there is any greater obstacle to peace than settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an advanced pace.” U.S. Secretary of State James Baker – May 22, 1991
Next questions: Who are these so-called Palestinians you keep talking about?
“If the A-rabs didn’t want to lose their land and their collective asses, they shouldn’t have attacked Israel.”
The Fourth Geneva Convention, which Israel is a signatore to, states:
“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
If Israel is really concerned about securing its borders, then it should finally freeze the settlements and negotiate a two-state solution with defined borders. That’s what Bush and Rice, as well as most of the world, have called for, and I agree with them on that.
Are you trying to say that United States Policy is the law in Israeli and must be followed by the Israelis?
I kinda think the Israelis have a different slant on things. Nevertheless, contrary to what this author says, the dispute with Israel was ALWAYS over the settlements:
Please define "always" for me.
According to your vocabulary, any Jew in the territories is deemed a “settler” and any Arab an indigenous “Palestinian”. Sounds rather bigoted to me.
Shouldn’t you ask James Baker? That’s his quote, not mine.
BTW, you have not answered my question.
“Sounds rather bigoted to me.”
When one can’t refute facts, then charge bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, etc. Typical response.
Unfortunately, it often works to silence any legitimate criticism. The NAACP, NOW, and the ADL know that, which is why they use that tactic.
You're the one who's using that as proof of something or other -- not James Baker. How about answering my questions -- exctly whose territory are we talking about the Israelis occcupying; and Who are these so-called Palitinians; and and what is your definition of "always"?
Until you answer at least those so we can have some idea of what the hell you are talking about, I'm taking a break.
By not answering a single question directly — or even indrirectl;y — you’re not doing such a bad job of sounding just like them.
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