Shamir was always far right even by Likud standards. Remember he opposed Begin’s making peace with Sadat and led the faction that voted against it in the Knesset.
Should Palestinians feel betrayed? You mean the people who voted for war, use terrorism and wish the USA death?
This was a solid move by the USA, showing the world we value one our best allies.
As for the middle east, things fell apart under Obama. Now Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Isreal, and Egypt are firmly aligned as allies. Iran is the real problem. That and ISIS who is slowly losing its power thanks to a more aggressive strategy.
The truth is Jersuleum is a shared city between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
If there’s animosity towards the US it’s largely because we’ve taken sides on this, and now we’ve lost any claim to be honest brokers entirely.
As for the other stuff, they’re a desperate people and it’s a failed state.
I asked upthread what exactly the palestinians should do and the response was tumbleweeds.
The rest of the world is united in condemning much of Israel’s policy over palestine. Now, I’m aware that there are various handwaves for why the world takes that position, but thinking purely pragmatically for a moment, it’s not a positive message for the US to unconditionally back Israel over this: it makes us look both weak at negotiating (we got nothing for this concession) and tolerant of oppressive policies.
Hahahaha
Yes if only we could go back to the peaceful days when a republican was president #MMEGA
Aside from Israel they were all allied in condemning this recognition however.
Sure, and if trump had made clear in his speech that he was not suggesting all of Jerusalem is Israel’s then he could have avoided a lot of the fallout. Given the history, just declaring it the capital of Israel without disclaimers is essentially saying just that.
[ul]
[li]Recognize Israel’s right to exist and be secure[/li][li]Renounce terrorism[/li][li]Stop firing rockets at Israel[/li][li]Negotiate in good faith for the West Bank and Gaza in return for an end to the settlements[/li][li]Realize that they are not going to get anything by stalling[/li][li]In general, recognize that the losers do not get to dictate terms to the winners[/li][/ul]
Regards,
Shodan
You realize that this gives every single Palestinian veto power over a peace agreement, right? Anybody who doesn’t like the terms can fire a rocket, and thus scrap the deal.
Lists like this one let people pretend to be interested in a fair deal, while actually being firmly wedded to the status quo.
Lists like that, of what “they” have to do just to be considered humans and neighbors, also provide the list-writers with the fierce joy of not having any responsibility themselves, combined with the comforting warmth of self-righteousness.
But they don’t actually help anything.
At this stage, I’d be interested in what would help…or, what YOU think would help. Where is your list? We are into this mess decades…over half a century really. There is a huge amount of history involved in all of this. There is bad blood on both sides. And then there is just the reality of the situation, of strengths and weaknesses on one side or the other, and where the respective negotiating positions of the two sides are in relative terms after all of those decades of the mess.
So…what’s your list? Should be interesting to compare and contrast with Shodan’s.
There’s only one item: True willingness to see “the other side” as fellow humans.
When you’re willing to set down the lists and preconditions and all the other excuses, *then *reconciliation can begin and peace can be made.
Well, that one is going to be pretty difficult to get and, even assuming you get it I don’t see it actually doing anything to change the status quo one way or the other. Essentially both you and Shodan are setting down something that isn’t realistic since it’s not going to happen OR have any meaningful effect on the ongoing situation or status quo.
So…in another decade or two we can come back to this and be basically where we are at today, except that the Palestinian position will have further eroded and they will simply be in a more untenable negotiating position than they are today…as they are in a more untenable one than they were a decade ago, and a decade from that, and a decade from that all the way back to when they were in the best position they had when this was first drafted by the UN.
OK, the Palestinians are fellow humans. Now can they stop firing rockets and negotiate in good faith?
Regards,
Shodan
If you have something to add, feel free to do so. However, dropping links repeatedly with no commentary is little better than spam. Please stop doing that.
[/moderating]
Perhaps at least the “government” can stop encouraging the rockets and supplying them. Try to stop them.
Well, which government? Fatah? Hamas? Israel? This is a huge part of the problem. There is no “the government”, just rival groups of stateless people.
Fatah and Hamas. Palestine is a “state” even tho perhaps not a nation.
Vice versa, you mean, right? A state is a political entity, which as things stand is a definition that cannot be applied to the Palestinians. A nation is somewhat more nebulous.
That is not an incentive for Israel to negotiate. How are you supposed to negotiate with a group that can’t even decide who represents it? And even if you do find somebody to negotiate an agreement with, how do you know they will be able to make people abide by the terms?
That is definitely a Wikipedia article.