Israeli election: Likud out, Qadima in. Now what?

[FinnAgain]

@tomndebb

Had you pointed to the ten year old renunciation (accepted and rejected by successive Israeli governments) as an indication that the PLO had (at least publicly) changed its views, you would have a case.

[hijack]

Then again, that same pattern of accepting and rejecting peace was mirroed by Arafat himself and his changes in rhetoric based on whether he was speaking in English, or Arabic.

[

As For example, on December 16, 2001, with American forces suppressing terrorists in Afghanistan, an ostensibly chastened Arafat appeared on PA-controlled Palestinian television to warn Hamas and Islamic Jihad against “all military activities” against Israel, and to purportedly “renew” his “call to completely halt any activities, especially suicide attacks, which we have condemned and always condemned.” This time, the ploy fell flat — undercut, no doubt, after the Nobel laureate characteristically followed it up only two days later with a speech at a Ramallah rally — the kind of red meat always conveniently ignored in the halcyon pre-9/11 days. “With God’s help,” he boasted:

"next time we will meet in Jerusalem, because we are fighting to bring victory to our prophets, every baby, every kid, every man, every woman and every old person and all the young people, we will all sacrifice ourselves for our holy places and we will strengthen our hold of them and we are willing to give 70 of our martyrs for every one of theirs in this campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to fight for this blessed land and I call on you to stand strong."

](http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200411120827.asp)

IIRC, although certain articles were declared null and void, the actual PLO charter was never actually rewritten. The PNA site seems to confirm this, stating that it was decided that the charter would be revised in the future. I am unaware as to whether or not it ever actually was… and the Palestinian Central Council did, indeed, meet after the ‘null and void’ statement was made. What, exactly, should be made of that I leave up to the reader.

[/hijack]

[Sevastopol]

To be more precise then, this is what I want a cite for:

@Astorian

The dream has been to drive the Jews into the sea, … after decades of proclaiming to his people that he was going to exterminate the Jews, … (my emphasis)

Further, contrary to your claim tomndebb, it is not up to me to show what the PLO has not done or called for. Astorian having made the positive claim must show evidence.

The material you have quoted is not a cite for Astorian’s extraordinary claims. I do now recall we have had this discussion previously. You may recall I suggested that no-one would be happier than Hamas if Israeli Jews spontaneously decamped. You appeared to agree then, although expressing some reservations. I don’t see why your opinion may have changed, such that you now write:

…the elimination of … the Jewish people.

I am surprised to see such a claim from someone having recently read the PLO Charter as it states, early on:

Article 6: The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

which is clearly incompatible with the view that the PLO intended to eliminate or exterminate the Jewish people. At the worst we have an arguable claim about what the real intention behind the words might have been. However that is nowhere near the extraordinary evidence needed to support the claim.

Moreover, AIPAC does not make the same claim as Astorian or yourself and it is hardly a friendly witness to the PLO. So the residual and interesting question is: Where does this claim come from?

The most significant point is that we are not talking about a quibble here. It is not a matter of ‘eliminate the Zionist State’/‘Kill all the Jews’ , what’s the difference? One view is that the Palestinian people have a territorial claim that includes armed struggle, the merits of which may be debated. The other view is that the territorial claim is merely a new face of Nazism, masked.

One analysis is that the proponents of the ‘hidden-Nazi’ view do so in order to exclude a rational debate of the Palestinian territorial claims. By claiming: ‘they’re really Nazis in Arab dress’ those proponents are obscuring the living issues in Palestine with an irrelevant but powerful historical comparison. That comparison exists to favour the responses suggested by extremists.

[Sevastopol]

Another post, another point. The PLO Charter, as above also states (directly preceding the article quoted):

Article 5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian.

Read together with Article 6, this contemplates an ongoing Jewish community in Palestine as envisaged by the PLO.

[FinnAgain]

Man… I know I shouldn’t get drawn into this… (Tom, feel free to tell me to shut up or open a new thread.)

From Palestinian Media Watch:

[

The Hamas website this week presented the parting video messages of two Hamas suicide terrorists.
[snip]
Each terrorist had a separate message for Jews. This first said,

"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

The second terrorist said the following:

"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."

](http://www.pmw.org.il/Latest%20bulletins%20new.htm)

(Some of the cartoons are especially interesting given the recent “cartoon crisis” that we saw with the Mohamed cartoons.)

I think it would be good to get this thread off of this hijack, for rational posters to agree that both Israeli and Palestinian claims have merit in some places, and lack merit in others… but to derail the thread into a godwinized strawman that calling certain Palestinian factions on their genocidal goals/rhetoric means you’re saying that they’re Nazis, well… that seems counter productive.

And, to bring it back to the OP, I think it’s too soon to make any solid predictions. The Israeli government has shown itself to be notoriously open to manipulation by determined voting blocks, and since no side has a clear mandate, we’re going to, by necessity, see a lot of political maneuvering and compromise… both within the Israeli government and between the Israeli government and the Palestinians.

I’d wager that a good deal of future events will depend on the level of agression (or lack thereof) from both sides. A renewed campaign of suicide bombings might see hawkish factions in the Knesset bolstered. Likewise, IDF incursions into Palestinian areas would likely cause Hamas to take action on their hardline rhetoric.

As is often the case in the region, I think it’s best to hope for the best, plan for the worst, and exert diplomatic pressure where and when able. Which, of course, touches on the fact that depending on Bush’s actions, the Israelis’ actions in turn may or may not be constrained/directed. I am reasonably certain that, through back door channels, Bush could compell quite a bit of Israeli policy on certain issues. But by the same token, I’d assume that Bush would have to believe that the Palestinians had a credible leader with whom to negotiate… which seems unlikely under a Hamas led government.