Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Why Isn't There Peace

The Economist has a calm and reasoned discussion of the state of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. I defy you to find any trace in the description of Palestinian responsibility for the lack of peace or its unlikely emergence anytime soon. The Economist, for crying out loud, not Andrew Sullivan or Juan Cole.

6 comments:

Sérgio said...

Totally offtopic: the most prestigious prizes in Mathematics were announced today at the International Congress of Mathematics in India. And guess what, at least 4 jews (one Israeli, Lindenstrauss; one french-Meyer; two americans: Nirenberg and Spielman). I´m not sure about Smirnov. Impressive, and adds to a *LONG* series of winners.

* Fields Medal – Elon Lindenstrauss
* Fields Medal – Ngô Bảo Châu
* Fields Medal – Stanislav Smirnov
* Fields Medal – Cédric Villani
* Rolf Nevanlinna Prize – Daniel Spielman
* Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize – Yves Meyer
* Chern Medal – Louis Nirenberg

http://www.icm2010.org.in/prize-winners-2010

Anonymous said...

Sergio
thanks that's great news and yesterday Hapoel Tel Aviv made it into the Champions League (threw Salzburg out). According to my expert Liza that's a first for the club. There is lots of old glory that needs to be revived in that field.

... couldn't Ngo Bao Chau be one also, after all I gathered somewhere that Jews went way into Asia already in antiquity ;-)
- BTW Maccabi Haifa has it already made into the Champions League earlier.
------
but now to Yaacov's topic:

here is Khaled Abu Toameh on the subject:
Abbas & Fayyad: Do They Have a Mandate?
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1502/abbas-fayyad-mandate

concluding:

Abbas and Fayyad are nonetheless not stupid. The two are well aware of the fact that they do not have a mandate to sign any agreement with Israel. This is why they will search for any excuse to withdraw from the direct talks and blame Israel for the failure of the peace process.

one can't have a magazine from a country with a "special relationship" with the US put it so bluntly. That just can't be done ;-(

Silke

Yitzchak Goodman said...

In a way, every word of it is about Palestinian responsibility for lack of peace. What political maneuvering could there be to report from the opaque and intransigent Palestinian side? So it is all about the Israeli side. But you're right, people won't see it that way.

NormanF said...

I defy Yaacov to google for a single mass media article that says peace is also a Palestinian interest.

The only folks who are going to be asked to make all the concessions once the direct talks get under way are the Jews.

The Economist is simply following in that tradition.

Anonymous said...

the experts hypothesizing about it I come across remind me strongly of what our media called during the cold war the

SALAMI TACTIC

I don't know whether that was an Anglo-term also. It was supposed to illustrate that an adversary advances by slicing stuff off of its opponent's position as the butcher slices a salami for its customer, one thin one after another and another until the whole sausage is gone. The image was used as opposed to something like the jousting knight meeting bravely in declared battle.

right now I think the demand to extend the settlement freeze is such a slice of salami - such a minor concession - I beg you - how can the Israelis be so headstrong and unaccommodating to refuse such an absolutely minor concession and thereby endanger the whole peace process - should one remind the US/the West how they kept lamenting Salami Tactic when they were the target?

(and that while at the same time I read with one eye that a place has been named after one of the Munich Massacre Murderers - do any experts call for a minor concession from "them" to delay the naming of the place in the interest of the peace process? - if yes, I have yet to come across it
"they" are so well protected from such demands by the when all is said and done deeply racist attitude that "they" can't be measured by "our" ideas of what's fit behaviour for polite company)

How one can however subject "them" to the salami tactic I don't know (I proved to be helpless when I was subjected to it myself in an office feud)

- but I understand that Israel has a lot of citizens who grew up in Russia and they used Salami Tactic to their benefit during the cold war. So I'd say go out, ask your Russian neighbours what they know about that one from ordinary life and try to upgrade it into big politics.

and since I strongly believe that millenia old traditions survive a lot I'd like you to also keep in mind that both Moscow and the "caliphate" are said to be heirs to Byzantium - so maybe thinking along that path your "Russians" (and "Mizrahis"?) have "it" more from day one on than your "Romans" and can come up with the right stuff (I see glimpses of that in Lieberman and I enjoy them though I have no way to judge whether they have a chance of doing the trick)

Silke

Anonymous said...

I gave up on the Economist's IP coverage a while ago. Some snide remark about how the Arabs wouldn't see Ehud Barak joining the current coalition as reassuring because of Oferet Yetzuka. That Mubarak issued his first invitation to Barak didn't elicit an mea culpa.

But on Turkey, Standpoint magazine has a note "Amberin Zaman, who writes for the Economist, is actually employed by Today's Zaman and Taraf, the latter a newspaper always described in the West as "plucky" and "courageous" for its vigorous willingness to publish information about the Ergenekon case that has obviously been leaked to it by the AKP. (I might suggest different standards for assessing a Turkish newspaper's pluckiness. Is the editor in jail? No? Not so plucky.) "
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3315/full
T34zakat