Haaretz Daily Newspaper Israel, Israeli News Source

Haaretz Daily Newspaper Israel, Israeli News Source: "Wooed by Kadima and Likud, Lieberman agrees to more talks with Livni
Kadima head: Now is the time for unity; sources: Lieberman won't rule out sitting in coalition with Shas."

from Wiki

leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. A broad spectrum of mainstream media sources within and without Israel label Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, as extreme right^[2][3], far right^[4][5], hard right^[6], or radical right^[7]. They also characterize Lieberman and his party as hardline^[8][9], populist^[10][11], or ultra nationalist^[12][13][14].

In late May 2004, Lieberman proposed a plan in which the populations and territories of Israeli Jews and Arabs, including some Israeli Arabs, would be "separated". According to the plan, Israeli Arab towns adjacent to Palestinian Authority areas would be transferred to Palestinian Authority, and only those Arabs who felt a connection with the State of Israel and were loyal to it would be allowed to remain. On 30 May Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned Lieberman's statements, stating "We regard Israeli Arabs as part of the State of Israel."^[19] On 4 June 2004, as the disputes over the up-coming disengagement plan grew more intense, Sharon dismissed Lieberman from the cabinet.^[20][21]

Though Lieberman's plan would not uproot Arab residents from their homes, it would revoke their Israeli citizenship and transfer their sovereignty to the Palestinian Authority. The plan has drawn sharp criticism from both Left and Right of Israeli politics; by the former for its discriminatory overtones, and by the latter for the idea of ceding parts of the Land of Israel.^{[citation needed]}

According to Lieberman, "The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions; that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."^[22]

In November 2006, Lieberman has called for the execution of any Arab Knesset member who meets with the majority elected and terrorist organization Islamist party Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, saying, "World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in [the Knesset]."^[28]

As usual, the media do not help much. The idea of seeking peace based on folks, on both sides, choosing the people they wish to live with is not all that bad. Would those of us with deep roots in ancestral soil, not choose to live in a non-Jewish state of Palestine? In reverse, why wouldn't some Arabs choose to live in Israel while accepting the cultural identity of its majority?

Unfortunately, the media do not provide the insight needed to tell us whiter Lieberman is a creative rationalist or a corrupt demagogue.

Al Jazeera English - War on Gaza - Israel's fait accompli in Gaza

Eric Margolis

Gaza is one of the world's most densely populated places [GALLO/GETTY] There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza. In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state. ................ The firing of the feeble, home-made al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counter-productive. It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace. ......................... Seventy per cent of Palestinian children suffer from psychological trauma [GALLO/GETTY] While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma. Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want. ......................... Call it a prison riot, writ large. ............... Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls. .................. A fait accompli IN DEPT Latest news and analysis from Gaza and Israel Send us your views and videos Watch our coverage of the war on Gaza The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem. This has pleased Israel's supporters in North America who have been cheering the war in Gaza and have been backing away from their earlier tentative support for a land-for-peace deal. As he concludes forming his cabinet, his Middle East team looks like it may be top-heavy with friends of Israel's Labour party. ................... Arab deal killed Israel's Gaza offensive is also likely to torpedo the current Saudi-sponsored peace plan, which had been backed by all members of the Arab League. The plan, now likely defunct, had called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition and normalised relations with the Muslim world. Arab governments will now be unable to sell the deal as they face a storm of criticism from their own people over their powerlessness to help the Palestinians of Gaza. ................. Israel's security establishment is committed to preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO. ............ Though the torment of Gaza is seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jews against the Nazis during World War Two, Western governments still appear bent on taking no action. ........................... Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognise Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees. .................. Eric S. Margolis is an author, syndicated foreign affairs columnist, broadcaster, and veteran war correspondent. His latest book is American Raj: America and the Muslim world. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera. I posted these excerpts to try and get some balance but I disagree with the author's pessimism. The Iraq war has changed the balance of power in the micro-environment around Israel. There is no strategic combination of Arab forces that can prevent Gaza from being occupied, at a terrible price to the Palestinians. However, Israel knows it can not make such an occupation long term. They will withdraw, as they did in Lebanon but this time the withdrawal will differ in two ways. First, there will be the appearance of victory. That appearance is important for Israel's politics and to provide That One with the opportunity he needs to move fro peace through strength. The trick I see is to let beneficent Arab states enter this fray as liberators of Gaza without doing so with tanks and bombs. Clinton will negotiate a peace force, perhaps under the UN flag but I hope under the banner of the Arab states. These Arabs will be able to pose, with justice, as the force that contained Israel while also providing a meaningful replacement for Hamas. This would serve MANY interests: Egypt ... The government is threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, as an arm of that movement, is a huge danger to Egypt's governing oligarchy. An Egyptian force, under an Islamic flag of peace, could be seen as heroic. Jordan .. Jordan needs a stable economy tied to Israel's economy. Israel needs a way to close the West Bank settlements but has to do it in a way that can be seen as coming from strength. Finally, this may provide a unique opportunity for some new participants in the Middle East. China , India and Europe all need peace in the Indian Ocean. They could all play a role in an economic effort built on a pacified Gaza. Call me an optimist.

Optimism

I guess there are many kinds of optimism .. optimism of the past and optimism of the future. Dan Savage summarized my own views of why we should of invaded Iraq in 2002. Were we wrong? I do not think we where, what we were was naive about the awesome incompetence of the Bush regime. I still believe a large enough, truly multinational force, combined with a real-politic acceptance of the interests of Russia, Turkey, SA, and Sunni elite would have led to a great outcome.

But Savage and I were wrong this fool, this faux president is simply incompetent. How then can anyone realistically beleive we can withdraw now? A strategic retreat led by GWB would be suicide.

At the same time, can we have optimism about Israel and Palestine? I have long believed that peace would come when the Palestinians were able to find decent leaders. Could this be the time?

From the Stranger:

Say "YES" to War on Iraq

Liberals Against Liberation

By Dan Savage

"

No to War! No to Oppression!"

The above anti-war message was delivered to me via a sad-looking pink poster. I pulled the poster off a light pole and hung it in my office over my desk. I look at the poster every day when I sit down to work, and every day I wonder how and when the American left lost its moral compass.

You see, lefties, there are times when saying "no" to war means saying "yes" to oppression. Don't believe me? Go ask a Czech or a European Jew about the British and French saying "no" to war with Germany in 1938. War may be bad for children and other living things, but there are times when peace is worse for children and other living things, and this is one of those times. Saying no to war in Iraq means saying yes to the continued oppression of the Iraqi people. It amazes me when I hear lefties argue that we should assassinate Saddam in order to avoid war. If Saddam is assassinated, he will be replaced by another Baathist dictator--and what then for the people of Iraq? More "peace"--i.e., more oppression, more executions, more gassings, more terror, more fear.

While the American left is content to see an Iraqi dictator terrorizing the Iraqi people, the Bushies in D.C. are not. "We do not intend to put American lives at risk to replace one dictator with another," Dick Cheney recently told reporters. For those of you who were too busy making papier-mâché puppets of George W. Bush last week to read the papers, you may have missed this page-one statement in last Friday's New York Times: "The White House is developing a detailed plan, modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein."

These developments--a Republican administration recognizing that support for dictators in Third World countries is a losing proposition; a commitment to post-WWII-style nation-building in Iraq--are terrific news for people who care about human rights, freedom, and democracy. They also represent an enormous moral victory for the American left, which has long argued that our support for "friendly" dictators around the world was immoral. (Saddam used to be one of those "friendly" dictators.) After 9/11, the left argued that our support for brutal dictatorships in the Middle East helped create anti-American hatred. Apparently the Bush administration now agrees--so why isn't the American left claiming this victory?

Because claiming this victory means backing this war, and the American left refuses to back this or any war--which makes the left completely irrelevant in any conversation about the advisability or necessity of a particular war. (Pacifism is faith, not politics.) What's worse, the left argues that our past support for regimes like Saddam's prevents us from doing anything about Saddam now. We supported (and in some cases installed) tyrants, who in turn created despair, which in turn created terrorists, who came over here and blew shit up... so now what do we do? According to the left, we do nothing. It's all our fault, so we're just going to have to sit back and wait for New York City or D.C. or a big port city (like, say, Seattle or Portland) to disappear.

It seems to me that if supporting tyrants creates terrorists, withdrawing our support from those very same tyrants might help to "uncreate" terrorists. Removing the tyrants from power seems an even better way to uncreate terrorists.

But wait! Taking out Saddam means dropping bombs, and dropping bombs only creates more terrorists!

That's the lefty argument du jour, and a lot of squish-brains are falling for it, but it's not an argument that the historical record supports. The United States dropped a hell of a lot of bombs on Serbia, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, and Italy. If dropping bombs creates terrorists, where are all the German terrorists? Or the Italian terrorists? Or the Vietnamese terrorists?

But wait! Iraq isn't in cahoots with al Qaeda, so why attack Iraq in the war on terrorism?

Because we're not just at war with al Qaeda, stupid. We're at war with a large and growing Islamo-fascist movement that draws its troops and funds from all over the Islamic world. Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, not just an al Qaeda problem or an Afghanistan problem. To stop Islamo-fascism, we're going to have to roll back all of the tyrannous and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East while simultaneously waging war against a militant, deadly religious ideology. To be completely honest, I would actually prefer that the United States go to war against the ridiculous royal family in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been using American money to export their intolerant and deadly strain of Islam all over the world (the kind of Islam that inspires people to blow up discos in Bali), and getting rid of the Saudi royal family and their fascist clerics makes more sense than getting rid of Saddam. But the Saudis are our "allies," so perhaps we can pressure them to reform, as Josh Feit suggests.

In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves.

Post-9/11, post-Bali, what other choice do we have?

From the Jerusalem Post:

We want to offer the Palestinians something different and a new way," said a meeting attendee. "We are actually trying to set up a Palestinian version of the Israeli Kadima Party, which attracted voters from both Likud and Labor. We are aware of the fact that many Palestinians are disenchanted with Fatah and Hamas and would like to see a new party that can offer them a better future."

From Tom Jefferson's Autobiography:

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.