Saturday, June 7, 2008

Land for Peace (2)

A while back I linked to an article in Haaretz that cited a Palestinian source as admitting that in the current round of talks Israel has offered to transfer at least 90 of the West Bank plus an additional land swap.

Here's a link to a similar item, this time in the New York Times. I've linked for future use, when the Israel bashers talk about Israel's avarice for Palestinian land and that sort of stuff.

The main focus of the article is about the negotiations (or lack of them) regarding Jerusalem.
Mr. Qurei, responding to Mr. Regev’s remarks, made it clear in a telephone interview on Saturday that a mere framework would be unacceptable. “If there is no Jerusalem, there will be no agreement,” he said.
Now compare that, if you wish, to the long series of Zionist and then Israeli responses to real partition proposals since the mid-1930 until Clinton's attempted dictate in December 2000. The Zionists (prior to 1948) and the Israelis since have generally anguished over the extent of what they'd have to give up compared to the chance for peace with sovereignty, and preferred the compromise. Now compare that to Abu Alla (Qurei), who says that a sovereign Palestinian state is worthless without Jerusalem. And he's a moderate, remember.

1 comment:

Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf said...

The moderate, compromising Israelis are unwilling to give up settlements like Ariel, which carve deep into Palestinian territory. It's clear that peace can't be achieved, even with a 90% proposal, so long as the 10% that Israel retains breaks the territorial contiguity of the proposed Palestinian state.