Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted by Ma'an news agency as saying that Obama's speech showed the U.S. government will continue "to support the occupation at the expense of the freedom of the Palestinian people."Moreover, Abu Zuhri emphasized that the U.S. "will fail" in forcing Hamas "to recognize the occupation."Occupation, in the Hamas vocabulary, means anything and everything in what was once British Mandatory Palestine, a fact they never try to hide.
Meanwhile, at a meeting of EU bigwigs, the suits competed with one another in their haste to praise Obama and castigate Netanyhu for his obstruction of peace. The Swedish Foreign Minster, for example, thundered that Netanyahu's positions are indefensible, and "the only defense possible is peace". The only solution to poverty, I expect, is money, and the only response to illness is health.
I wish I knew how to inculcate such terminal childishness in adults elsewhere. Imagine if we could reduce Hamas folks to the blathering idiocy of "the only conceivable way to live is in peace". Or "Fatah functionaries have our peoples' best interests at heart, and we must work with them to realize our common goals." Or "Christian Palestinians are just like us, and we must embrace them as our brothers." Or "Jews have needs just like we do and the only way to reconcile them is to talk about things until we all accept our differences." Or "women are half of our nation, and only by ensuring they can realize their full potential will we achieve a just society."
10 comments:
The Europeans don't have to pay the price of the positions they urge Israel to adopt. Israelis do. And what will Europe offer to minimize the risks of what it wants Israel to do?
Nothing. Which is why Israelis don't take European demarches seriously. Europe won't live or die as a result of what Israel doesn't or doesn't do. Jews will and the wrong decision could spell the end of the Jewish State.
Israel has repeated the "land for peace" approach ad nauseum, with nothing to show for it. Not even Western understanding and sympathy for the risks Israel took. What would be different the next time?
Better a bad press than a good epitaph. That is a motto Israelis live by to good effect.
This is not "terminal childisness" or naivete. Bildt and his European colleagues are not idiots and know very well what are they speaking about - the end of the Jewish state.
I don't share this impression, it's far less decisive than you think. E.g. Bildt or Miliband just do not WANT to recognize the total lack of will to peace within the (official) Arab societies. They use to project their lives within their parties & institutions towards their countries, continueing to project their understanding of a globally enlighted society towards the Arab world. Too simple this??, yep, it is, but it's just like thissss...
Recently, Judith Butler stated: "The Hamas is still within the leftist range". Nuff said. How CAN she dream on like this? Is she evil or crazy or does she want the Jewish state to be to destroyed? No, it's far less spectacular - she just objects to LOOK.
One keeps forgetting that the definition of "peace" is the erasure of Israel.
(And that, contrarily, "war" is the continued existence of Israel.... And that the world, along with a respectable contingent of Israelis and Jews from outside of Israel, is getting weary.)
Keep this in mind, and things start making a lot more sense.
File under: "Definitions, definitions, definition..."
I totally agree with Peterthehungarian. The euro-trash are just doing what they are used to with regard to the Jews. Their naiveté is in thinking that by behaving like such abject dhimmis they´ll safeguarded against encroaching jihad. Sooner or later they´ll get anoother reality check.
BTW, Yaakov, why no comment about the amazing speech by Netanyahu at Obama´s face?
Looking for something amazing?....
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/05/23/col-richard-kemps-speech/
thanks Barry for linking to Kemp -
Reading him makes me feel better every time - the first time I encountered him he called Israelis brave i.e. the people who are constantly asked to take risks and be bold he considers brave. The sad fact is that that is so extraordinary that a name like that sticks in my mind immediately and the lovely fact is that he exists at all.
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Norman
I think Europeans are wrong to believe that how Israel fares doesn't concern them. As I like to say even if I were the wildest anti-semite imaginable I would hopefully have enough sanity left to see, that blinking on Israel is not only allowing but inviting the crocodile to get closer.
Richard B. Myers (the one before Admiral Mullen) calls it a global insurrection and to want or even facilitate what those nutters want is sheer self-destructive madness.
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yes aristobulus
they are just scared silly but if they wouldn't have that predisposition they might chose their words with a bit more care.
How Israel fares certainly does concern Europeans. If the Arabs could destroy Israel, the next target would be Spain.
DC
Silke, yes - e.g. there was Merkel's angry protest against the flotilla; no, just the opposite, she protested against Israel's "überzogene" reaction while not knowing all information, but already knowing what had happened while Zahal still was quiet... it's just this fatal predisposition you mentioned, did you? So, far too much European leaders prevent themselves coûte-que-coûte from seing things as they are.
yes aristobulus
and a bit later our precious parliament came up with a unanimous resolution asking Israel to investigate. Did they ask Turkey to investigate? Not that I remember.
So much for special relationship.
The one thing that gives me still hope is that they confiscated the computers of German IHH. I wonder if we will ever be told.
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