masthead

Powered byWebtrack Logo

Links

To get maximum benefit from the ICJS website Register now. Select the topics which interest you.

6068 6287 6301 6308 6309 6311 6328 6337 6348 6384 6386 6388 6391 6398 6399 6410 6514 6515 6517 6531 6669 6673

Liberal Left devastated by leaks

British Foreign office, BBC, European liberal-left devastated by leaked revelations on Israeli settlements, Guardian furious at “weak” and “craven” Palestinian leadership

Game over. No way back. An entire edifice of anti-Israeli demonisation definitively consigned to the scrap heap, never to be recycled again. This is the uncompromising message that comes out of yesterday’s revelations on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. To the horror of a European political intelligentsia which has been steadfast to the point of fanatical in its opposition to Israeli “settlements” in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership itself, we now know, has long accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlements can be considered legitimate and would become part of Israel under any reasonable peace agreement.

This is utterly devastating since it simultaneously shows that everyone from the British Foreign Office and the BBC to the European Commission and the continent’s passionately anti-Israeli NGO community have been adopting a position which was significantly more uncompromising on “settlements” than the Palestinian leadership itself, and also that that same Palestinian leadership had accepted that the so called 1967 “borders” — the gold standard for practically every anti-Israeli polemic around — are irrelevant to the prospects of a lasting peace.

In one of its most resentful leader columns for years, the Guardian was nothing short of apoplectic: not so much with Israel, but with a Palestinian leadership which has effectively blown the credibility of the Guardian’s very own mantras on the MidEast straight out of the water. The Palestinian leadership, the paper declaimed, had been shown to be “weak” and “craven”. Their concessions amounted to “surrender of land Palestinians have lived on for centuries”. And, in words that look alarmingly close to the position adopted by Hamas, “The Palestinian Authority may continue as an employer but, as of today, its legitimacy as negotiators will have all but ended on the Palestinian street.” This is sheer spite.

The Palestinian leadership accepts what any reasonable person has been able to accept for decades. The Guardian then slams them as surrender monkeys. The Guardian newspaper is more hardline against Israel than the Palestinian leadership itself. And bear in mind, as you mull over the implications of that stark and unyielding state of affairs, that the Palestinian Authority is led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Holocaust denier.

But it gets worse. The only conceivable way out of this for the anti-Israel community is to turn this all upside down and argue — as analysts, reporters (anyone they can get their hands on) have been doing on the BBC all day — that what this really shows is the extent of Israeli “intransigence”: the Palestinians offer all these concessions, and still the Israelis say no! This was the line adopted by Paul Danahar, the BBC’s MidEast bureau chief, who quite casually averred that, “The Israelis look churlish for turning down major concessions”. Good thing no-one’s taking sides then.

Tragicomically, it just won’t wash. Privately and morally, senior Palestinians can see that there is nothing illegitimate or even especially problematic about most of the “settlements”, (as reasonable observers of the MidEast have been saying for years). This we know from the leaks themselves. But publicly and politically they cannot sell such concessions to their own people. This we know because they are currently trying to distance themselves from the leaks, and because they educate their own people in an implacable rejectionism which extends to the “moderate” Palestinian authority glorifying suicide bombers and other terrorists by naming streets and squares after them.

Logically and reasonably, the Israeli response is to see such “concessions” for what they are: well intentioned in so far as they go, but impossible to implement in practice. Quite apart from the question of Hamas-run Gaza, the Palestinians have been playing the same old game of saying one thing to one audience and something else to another. They are not a credible partner for peace, and the Israelis do not look remotely “churlish” for understanding this.

It will be interesting to see how this whole affair now plays out. But never again can the anti-Israel community play the settlement card and at the same time retain a single ounce of credibility.

———

NB: Just for the record, there are no less than four opinion pieces on the subject up on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site right now. This has got them seriously rattled…
p.s. As of 3pm UK time, make that five pieces which I think is an all time record. Not that anyone’s obsessed or anything…


# reads: 338

Original piece is http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/british-foreign-office-bbc-european-liberal-left-devastated-by-leaked-revelations-on-israeli-settlements-guardian-furious-at-%E2%80%9Cweak%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Ccraven%E2%80%9D-palestinian-leadersh/


Print
Printable version

Google

Articles RSS Feed


News

Tell us what you think


It happens that the classical music station I keep my radios set to has dropped PBS news for the BBC. The BBC reporter who read this info took the "bad Israelis" position. He said that these documents "prove" that while the Palestinians have been very willing to compromise over the years, the Israelis have given up "nothing." So that is the BBC position to scam us naive Americans.

Posted by The Old Oligarch on 2011-01-27 22:22:48 GMT


If the Guardian is really concerned about the Palestinians let them convince the UK to give them all British citizenship tomorrow;including all those languishing in camps throughout the Arab world with terrible restrictions on their rights.There is much more room in the UK than in Israel;they will all fit in well there,as there are many Muslims in the UK and a keen interest in Islam there; and it will further foster the alliance between the British and the Arab world.And while they are at it let British take the Israeli Arabs as well as they clearly think they have no equality in Israel

Posted by Ayesha on 2011-01-27 06:14:03 GMT


If the documents lack credibility, why are the parties most harmed by them - eg abbas - not denying their credibility vociferously? Just to exploit the (lesser) Israeli vulnerabilities on this?

Posted by Ralph on 2011-01-26 21:11:27 GMT


Apart from the very good observation that Shepherd makes - that the poms are more hard-line than the pals; well, at least in English - two points are left out. Barry Rubin notes that the "leaks" are essentially the Israeli position and that the "documents" lack credibility. One such falsity is the pals' offer of recognising Israel as a Jewish state in 2008, when that demand was only made by Netanyahu after his election in 2009. Ami Isseroff, makes the other valid point that the concessions claimed to have been made, were not in the pal's power to make e.g. what parts of Jerusalem Israel could have. The Arabs have no control of any part of Jerusalem so they can offer zilch. Those who know seem to think that the "leaks" are fakes, designed to undermine Abu Mazen's regime to benefit Iran's client Hamas and at the same time make Israel look bad in the eyes of its perpetual bashers by making it look like Israel is intransigent. The Arabs have in fact conceded not an inch from their maximalist demands.

Posted by Paul2 on 2011-01-26 20:41:02 GMT


Two lessons 1. Hammas and Fatah cant unite , so all the discussions are a waste of time. 2. Hamma s atleast is honest. They dont want peace. Fattah on the other hand tell so many lies to their own people and the world, that they seem to be unsure of what they say or want. The mob say they want another war. So they can become martyrs and many peop;e will be killed And then back to sqare one !!

Posted by peacenik on 2011-01-26 12:38:33 GMT