There is nothing that makes me more ill than to read about a new US diplomatic initiative for Israel-Palestine. And today’s news that Pres. Biden is sending two senior diplomats covering the Middle East to the region for “talks” in Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, is no exception:
Acting assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Yael Lempert and Deputy Assistant Secretary Hady Amr are expected to arrive in the region on Wednesday for talks with senior officials in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Cairo.
The president is trying to avoid last year’s embarrassment when he was caught flatfooted by Israel’s invasion of Gaza, felt boxed in by traditional Democratic acquiescence before Israeli interests, and then was shamed into voicing his displeasure after a tarmac tongue-lashing from Reps. Debby Dingel and Rashida Tlaib. Only after he publicly urged a ceasefire did Israel stop the missiles and the mayhem.
Gaza is currently under attack by Israel. With around 2 million Palestinians, half of them children, on some 362 square kilometers, Gaza, is considered one of the most densely populated cities in the world. #StandWithPalestine pic.twitter.com/qLW8UIPGLj
— Supporting Humanity (@SocialistAnyDay) April 19, 2022
Last night, brought the first missiles from Gaza attacking Israel, and Israeli retaliation with air attacks on “Hamas camps.” By the way, how do you have a “camp” in a tiny enclave perpetually under air surveillance and attack? At any rate, this is precisely how hostilities developed last year. It’s Ground Hog Day for Middle East mayhem. Clearly, Biden is trying to get ahead of curve this time by sending officials to calm the waters before a storm hits.
But what is the basis for this trip? What will it do and who will the US diplomats consult? Turns out, it’s the usual suspects: Abbas, Abdullah, al-Sisi, and Bennett. They are the same figures who, if not responsible for the hostilities, at least do nothing to fundamentally resolve them.
Israel is advancing the same lies and half-truths to justify the possible looming invasion of Gaza by blaming the Palestinians for praying at their own holy site, while describing the rampage by Israeli Border Police as necessary to end a “civil disturbance:”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said police had been sent in to “disperse” a group of Palestinian “rioters” who were throwing rocks toward the nearby Jewish prayer area of the Western Wall. Over 150 Palestinians were injured and hundreds arrested during the raid.
I have seen no video evidence of images of such alleged rock-throwing. And even if there had been, can we blame Muslim worshippers who see black-coated settlers invade their holy precincts while praying for the rebuilding of the Temple (and destruction of the Haram al-Sharif) aided by black-suited Border Police, with black-coated worshippers at the Kotel below them. Why wouldn’t they assume they’re all one and the same project by Israeli Jews to destroy their holy site?
The truth is as I wrote yesterday, Israel has no right to send settlers to the mosque courtyard. It has no right to send riot police to defile the third holiest site in Islam. This site is Muslim. It houses an existing mosque where millions of Muslims pray every year. True, there was once a Temple on this site, but there is no longer. The Temple has not been there twice as long as it existed on the site. Jews accepted this for nearly two thousand years. They managed to live with it.
Now, as Judeo-fascist power raises its ugly face, all of a sudden there is a Jewish imperative to visit the site, pray for the rebuilt Temple, and deliberately incite Muslim worshippers. Why now? Because the Israeli far-right has gained control of the levers of political power. It has gained control of most of what it considers Biblical Israel (though a few million Palestinians remains to be dealt with later). Now the grand jewel that remains unclaimed is the Temple. This, or so these religious sociopaths believe, will bring the days of the Messiah (or something like that).
Note here how Israeli diplomatic reporter, Barak Ravid diminishes the suffering of Palestinians:
Israeli security forces have also been on high alert amid a wave of terror attacks that killed 14 people in Israel over the last two weeks. Several Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since early March.
Not quite. The last terror attack in Israel was March 29th. That’s three weeks ago, not two. Not a single Israeli has died since then. And 17 Palestinians (not “several”) have been murdered over the past two weeks (not “since early March”) at the hands of Israeli security forces. This is yet another example of the erasure of Palestinian suffering and the magnification of Israeli suffering. It’s standard for global media, but even more typical for Israel.
Here, Secretary of State Blinken offers the same tired old tropes about “reducing the violence,” etc.:
Blinken and Safadi discussed the importance of Israelis and Palestinians working to end the cycle of violence by refraining from actions and rhetoric that further escalate tensions.
I imagine some ragged old tomes in the bowels of Foggy Bottom, which must be taken down from the shelf and dusted off whenever Israel murders more than its usual share of Palestinians in hostilities. Some factotum is assigned the job of pulling the thing out and opening the pages to “Israel-Palestine conflict.” Then he offers incantations to the Secretary, consisting of the same old bromides that his predecessors murmured, and theirs before them.
Returning to Blinken’s statement: actually, no. It isn’t important to “end the cycle of violence by refraining from actions that escalate tensions.” It’s important to resolve the deep underlying issues of Israeli rejectionism and Palestinian subjugation. It’s important to offer the same national and political rights enjoyed by Israelis. If you can’t do that (and they can’t or won’t) then those tensions will escalate repeatedly and result in endless conflict. And Secretaries of State will come and go sticking their fingers in the dyke that is Israeli apartheid. They’ve been doing this and coming up with “peace plans” for well over 60 years: remember the Rogers Plan? Do you know how many Secretaries of State there have been since then?
I for one am through with supporting such nostrums. I don’t believe the violence can or should be stopped. Certainly not by the Palestinians. What have they to gain by remaining quiescent? If you ask: what have they to lose? Their lives of course. And their homes. But what are these worth living under the Israeli boot heel? While I wish that no one would die, that’s simply not possible under these circumstances. Israelis will die. Even more Palestinians will die. But Israeli deaths are no one’s fault but Israel’s. They are the price it pays for being a garrison state at perpetual war with its Arab neighbors.
And do not blame Palestinians for this, even if they pull the trigger. If you lash a tiger hard enough it will react with fury and kill or maim you. Will you blame the tiger for responding in this way? Or blame the man who whipped him? Only in Palestine do they blame the victim for his/her own suffering.
Blinken offers yet more sophistry here:
Blinken emphasized the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sarif, and expressed appreciation for Jordan’s role as custodian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, the State Department said.
What “status quo?” The status quo that gave Jews control of the Kotel while Muslims controlled the Haram al-Sharif? That status quo hasn’t existed for years, if not decades. Israeli Jews encroach upon the Muslim holy site virtually daily. Border Police desecrate the holy sanctuary weekly. The Mishanic tract, Ethics of the Fathers, says the person who claims “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” is a “wicked person.” So is Israel, which maintains control of the Kotel, while ever so gradually reducing Muslim control of its sacred spaces.
Again, the only status that is fair for both religions is total, absolute separation. Jews control the Kotel, Muslims the Noble Sanctuary. No Jews on what they call the Mount, and no Palestinians interfering with Jewish worship. Anything else is self-delusion.
Perhaps the worst, most offensive rhetoric came from the Israelis (of course):
Lapid told Blinken that Israel is making efforts to ensure freedom of worship for Jews, Muslims and Christians, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
He also said Israel acted in a “responsible and measured way” in response to the “riots” on the Temple Mount and condemned “disinformation” that he said was “fanning the flames of violence.”
Ensuring “freedom of worship?” How? By restricting access to the site for Muslim males under 50? By sending Border Police rampaging into the Muslim holy site? By flooding it with hundreds of settlers with messianic visions in their eyes, by locking worshippers into Al Aqsa so that these settlers may pray for holy war against the infidels?
Israel “acted in a responsible measure way” by sending thousands of its troops throughout the West Bank, arresting hundreds, and murdering nearly 20 Palestinians? And “riots?” Sure, Palestinians protecting their sacred spaces from the brutality and thuggery of Israeli forces. That’s a riot. But hundreds of heavily armed police whaling on Palestinians with batons and firing tear gas and stun grenades into the sanctuary is…what? Keeping the peace?
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What Richard, and the Biden Administration for that matter, have failed to grasp, is Islamist Hamas is in a long-term fight with Orthodox Judaism.
It is no coincidence that today, and this past Monday, Hamas inspired activists attacked police and Jewish worshippers participating in the first Birkat Kohanim (“priestly blessings”) at the Western Wall Plaza.
Hamas believes that these Jews are praying for the destruction of Moslem holy sites on the Temple Mount and that these prayers must be resisted.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-704507
https://www.timesofisrael.com/waqf-official-decries-dangerous-jewish-prayers-held-discreetly-on-temple-mount/
@ Becky: No, Becky. A minority of messianic zealots do not represent “Orthodox Judaism” even in Israel, let alone the world.
Two problems with you and your comment. YOu either didn’t read my post or ignored the passage in it which rebuts the point you made. Had you read it, if you were acting in good faith, you would have addressed it in some way here. I’ll remind you of it:
In other words, the settlers invading Haram al Sharif are some of the same people at the Kotel below. They dress the same, they act the same, they hold many of the same beliefs. There is no reason to expect Palestinians would be able to distinguish between them.
Further, this has nothing to do with “Orthodox Judaism.” Neither Hamas nor Palestinians as a whole have any problem with Judaism. Palestinian violence is only aimed at those who specifically threaten Muslim holy sites. If Christians invaded the holy site, they would be resisted the same way. Nor are the Kotel Jews and settler messianists all of Orthodox Judaism. In fact, most Jews could care less about the Kotel, the Temple, or rebuilding it.
Further, “Hamas” doesn’t operate Palestinians like robots. It doesn’t tell an entire nation what to do or how to behave. Palestinians are quite able to see for themselves the terror tactics used against them by the BOrder POlice; quite able to see the rampaging police defiling their holy places. Hamas may make statements encouraging them to continue what they are already doing. But no one takes orders from Hamas at Al Aqsa. Frankly, the implication that they do is insulting to Palestinians, as if they are automatons acting on Hamas’ orders.
“Hamas may make statements encouraging them to continue what they are already doing. But no one takes orders from Hamas at Al Aqsa. ”
Very wrong.
These riots are Hamas led and organized.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjcyps9vq
@stoney: Always amused about what the hasbara Brigade can come up with. First, you quote a media outlet that is, for all intents and purposes, a state media organ. As if Ynet knows anything about Hamas or what Hamas does or doesn’t do. Second, Ynet quotes an unnamed “security source” as the font of this wisdom. So you already have 2 strikes against you. Now come up with a credible source which actually knows what Hamas is or isn’t doing and can offer credible proof that it knows, rather than just winging it, which Israeli “security sources” are doing.
Unlike you, the rest of us are not gullible and do not accept the Israeli security regime’s view.
Finally, the article doesn’t even support your claim. It does NOT claim that Hamas is directing anything. It merely purports describe Hamas efforts to organize terror cells in the West Bank. Do you even read the sources you quote? I do. So do better.
BDS apartheid Israel.
Our cousin Eitam Megini and friends were murdered April 7 in Dizengoff street in a terror attack.
@ Ziva Havilio: You have never commented here before. I don’t know who you are or who your cousin or friends are. Of course, your comment appears to be a subtle attempt to shame me or provoke me to some response.
I wish no one’s friends, fathers, mothers, children or cousins would die in terror attacks. BTW, for every Eitam Megini, there are 20 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces. Do you mourn for them?
In particular I wish no Palestinian would be murdered in Israeli terror attacks. But you’ve never come here or anywhere, I imagine, to mourn their deaths. Do you think your suffering, no matter painful it is to you, is superior to their suffering?
Terror will continue on both sides till Israel is willing to accept Palestinian rights, including national rights. So the real place you should address your anger or sadness is your own government, which is responsible for the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians in terror attacks.
I didn’t kill your cousin. And my pointing out that Israel is just as much a terror state as any Palestinian militant is a terrorist, didn’t cause his death. So your comment is misplaced.