Condi’s back in Israel wheedling and cajoling in her usual fitful, unsuccessful way. In the process of her visit, Tzipi Livni made some darkly (unintentionally) humorous comments:
”The idea is to ease the lives of the Palestinians, to help, as far as we can, in order to improve their lives, to advance and have progress,” she said. ”Like always, the formula is to do whatever we can as long as it doesn’t affect our own security.”
Translation: Like always, the formula is to do whatever we can as long as we don’t have to do anything.
But both Rice and Livni said it was important to make progress on an overall agreement as soon as possible.
”Time is of the essence,” Livni said. ”Stagnation and stalemate is not the Israeli government policy, it doesn’t serve our own interest.’
Time is NEVER of the essence as far as Israel is concerned. Stagnation and stalemate is always the preferred government policy and it does serve their interest if you define such interest as maintaining the status quo of Israeli dominance and Palestinian subjugation.
We’ve also heard this “promise” at least fourteen times before:
Israeli defense officials said they would remove a major West Bank checkpoint and dozens of smaller roadblocks…and grant more permits to Palestinian merchants for access into Israel.
The officials said Israel will take down the military checkpoint controlling movement in and out of the West Bank city of Jericho, which would be the first time residents of the largely quiet city will enjoy unrestricted freedom of movement since violence erupted in 2000.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because there has not yet been an official announcement of the steps.
Translation: officials spoke on condition of anonymity because as soon as Rice leaves they have no intention of honoring their pledge.
Besides, calling Jericho’s a “major checkpoint” is like saying that Spokane is a hotbed of Muslim terror. Jericho is the most peaceful of all Palestinian cities and aside from Israel assaulting the city’s jail to kidnap imprisoned Palestinian militants last year, it has seen very little violence during the conflict. So what kind of sacrifice is it for Israel to remove a checkpoint from Jericho?
Let’s just stop this charade shall we? Neither Condi nor George Bush are going to come remotely close to a peace agreement before he leaves office. It’s just another of his empty, broken promises. We’re so cynical and jaded at this point how can we be disappointed? We never believed him to begin with when he said he would do so. He’s never achieved anything during his presidency, at least not anything constructive like a peace agreement. So why should (or could) he start now?
I just HAVE to say this:
It is a breath of fresh air to come across such constructive sarcasm!!!
CONDI and TZIPI ..eh? – Bless ’em. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so tragic.
Here’s an interesting link to Tzipi’s backgound:
http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/tzipi-livni-aboutface-now-against.html
All the best.
For those too lazy to click Count’s link:
“Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, now grandstanding at the UN, is the daughter of Eitan Livni, the chief operations officer of the Irgun terrorist organization. Among Irgun’s most spectacular operations was the blowing up of the King David tourist hotel in Jerusalem, which killed dozens of innocents (also some British intelligence officers).”
In all fairness to Livni, I think she’s done a much more successful job than Ehud Olmert (also the son of right-wing Zionist ‘royalty’) in breaking from her past. She, as opposed to many other rightists, is a pragmatist and nowhere near as driven by cant & ideology in her political views. She is one of the few Israeli politicians who sat out the Lebanon war. You’ll notice she was not quoted & nowhere to be seen during the entire sordid affair. She opposed the war fr. the get go. In my opinion, she deserves our eternal gratitude for this.
I’m not saying she’s my favorite Israeli politician. But she’s a damn sight better than some of the other dreck floating around the Knesset.