Bradley Burston van Haaretz is scherp als altijd, maar heeft niet altijd gelijk.
Hij schrijft:
For Palestinians, Hamas was once a pillar of hope and a role model of probity. Now the best that Hamas can boast is that it cannot bring itself to recognize Israel. Even though, in proposing decades-long truces, it has signaled its willingness to sit down with the people it will not recognize, and negotiate with the people it will not recognize, and live alongside the people it will not recognize.
Hij schrijft:
For Palestinians, Hamas was once a pillar of hope and a role model of probity. Now the best that Hamas can boast is that it cannot bring itself to recognize Israel. Even though, in proposing decades-long truces, it has signaled its willingness to sit down with the people it will not recognize, and negotiate with the people it will not recognize, and live alongside the people it will not recognize.
Om zich ondertussen klaar te maken voor een nieuwe ronde tegen het volk dat het niet erkende, en uit Palestina wil verdrijven. Soms moet je geduldig zijn, en je in rust voorbereiden op een betere toekomst. Dat is ook een vorm van discipline, die eigenschap waar Hamas zo om wordt geroemd.
Here's the rub: There was a time when everything that happened, played into hamas' hands. If Israel invaded, or refrained from invading, if it talked peace or made war, Hamas profited. Now those days are over. Time is no longer on Hamas' side. Nor on the side of Fatah.
The world has shown its willingness to let Palestinians suffer indefinitely. The world has shown its impatience with the glorious victories of Palestine, whether that means Qassam-butchering six cows about to give birth in a dairy barn on a Negev kibbutz, or raising an army which spends much of its firepower on fellow Palestinians, as in the memorial rally which left as many as eight dead in Gaza.
Here's the rub: There was a time when everything that happened, played into hamas' hands. If Israel invaded, or refrained from invading, if it talked peace or made war, Hamas profited. Now those days are over. Time is no longer on Hamas' side. Nor on the side of Fatah.
The world has shown its willingness to let Palestinians suffer indefinitely. The world has shown its impatience with the glorious victories of Palestine, whether that means Qassam-butchering six cows about to give birth in a dairy barn on a Negev kibbutz, or raising an army which spends much of its firepower on fellow Palestinians, as in the memorial rally which left as many as eight dead in Gaza.
Hamas is moreel bankroet, zoveel is zeker, maar was dat vroeger zoveel anders? Regeren in Gaza heeft meer Palestijnen hiervan overtuigd, maar op links georiënteerde westerse journalisten en 'vredesactivisten' heeft dit nog niet veel invloed gehad. De wereld is opvallend mild en geduldig wat betreft de 'glorious victories of Palestine', en men geeft graag die machtige buur van alles de schuld. Israël wordt nog steeds hard bekritiseerd voor de zogenaamde humanitaire crisis in Gaza, plannen om de stroomtoevoer te verminderen na raketaanvallen, het feit dat men grensovergangen die door Hamas worden aangevallen sluit, en geregeld een paar kilometer de Gazastrook intrekt om de terroristen die de raketten afvuren op te jagen. Israël wordt verantwoordelijk gesteld voor de leefomstandigheden van de Gazanen omdat het de grenzen controleert.
Het volgende is abjecte onzin:
The world has shown its willingness to let Palestinians suffer indefinitely.
Als er één volk is dat constant op onze sympathie kan rekenen zijn het de Palestijnen. Geen volk krijgt zoveel financiële steun, zoveel aandacht in de media en geen enkel ander volk heeft een eigen VN vluchtelingenorganisatie. Geen enkel ander volk ook heeft waarnemerstatus bij de VN, een jaarlijke internationale solidariteitsdag en speciaal voor haar opgerichte VN organisaties. De Tibetanen, de Koerden, de Tsjetsjenen en de Darfurianen kunnen hier slechts van dromen.
Welkom op Aarde, Bradley Burston.
Ratna
---------
Haaretz / Last update - 18:30 12/11/2007
Palestine, and the crime of being a Jewish state
My heart goes out to the Palestinians. Not only because their entire world has become one of despair, immobility, bloodshed, disillusionment, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling history, crumbling horizons. There's also this:
Their leaders are even worse than ours.
Imagine the most pragmatic, the most moderate, the most persuasive, the most reasonable of their representatives, preparing for the first peace summit in recent memory, by attacking the very idea that Israel should be a Jewish state.
Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, declared Monday that the Palestinians will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Erekat was responding Monday to a series of strong statements by Ehud Olmert the day before, in which Olmert said "We won't hold negotiations on our existence as a Jewish state, this is a launching point for all negotiations," adding that "Whoever does not accept this, cannot hold any negotiations with me."
Erekat's response, speaking to Israel Radio, was clearer than one might have expected from a seasoned diplomat. So was the flat tone of rejection.
"No state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity," he said.
Never mind the fact that the Saudis, sponsors of a peace initiative which the Palestinians hope someday to parlay into an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, are a theocracy of such sectarian dimension that tourists are forbidden from entering the country with bibles, crucifixes, or items bearing the Star of David.
Never mind the fact that leftists the world over can live with the concept of explicitly Muslim states teaching the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other explicitly anti-Semitic texts, while arguing that the very idea of a Jewish state implies and, in fact, compels racism against non-Jews.
The bottom line is that if Palestinians want a state - an actual state, and not just a fantasy, not just trappings but actual indepence - they are going to have to reconcile themselves to the idea of an overtly Jewish neighbor.
The other paradigm, which has certainly gained currency in this decade, is to overpower Israel militarily, clearing away the foreign Zionist weeds so that a glorious, supremely non-Jewish Palestine may arise for the benefit of believing Muslims everywhere.
It's not going to happen. The world has had its fill of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have had their chance. The Iranians would love to help them, but at this point, even their brother Muslims will not stand for it.
It's not going to happen. The Palestinians are either going to have a state alongside a Jewish state, or that can choose to have no state at all.
Arafat knew this. That is why, in speaking to his own diaspora, he consistently held out hope for a Palestinian Right of Return, a way to overwhelm Israel demographically.
But that is not about to happen either. Arafat knew that as well.
These days, in the inept leadership sweepstakes, the graft and ineptitude and impotence has a new opposite number, the splintered and floundering upper echelons of Hamas. Once the most disciplined, well-run, canny organization in the Palestinian territories, Hamas has begun to misgovern Gaza the way Israel once did.
As Monday's disastrous memorial rally for Yasser Araft showed all too well, Hamas has begun to employ a deadly cocktail of apparent tolerance and spasms of brutality.
For Palestinians, Hamas was once a pillar of hope and a role model of probity. Now the best that Hamas can boast is that it cannot bring itself to recognize Israel. Even though, in proposing decades-long truces, it has signaled its willingness to sit down with the people it will not recognize, and negotiate with the people it will not recognize, and live alongside the people it will not recognize.
Here's the rub: There was a time when everything that happened, played into hamas' hands. If Israel invaded, or refrained from invading, if it talked peace or made war, Hamas profited. Now those days are over. Time is no longer on Hamas' side. Nor on the side of Fatah.
The world has shown its willingness to let Palestinians suffer indefinitely. The world has shown its impatience with the glorious victories of Palestine, whether that means Qassam-butchering six cows about to give birth in a dairy barn on a Negev kibbutz, or raising an army which spends much of its firepower on fellow Palestinians, as in the memorial rally which left as many as eight dead in Gaza.
Most Jewish Israelis have come to accept the idea of a Palestinian state. If Palestinians cannot bring themselves to accept a Jewish Israel, there is always the default option. It may be unfair. It may seem that Palestinian suffering has been much too long in vain. But here it is: For Palestinians to choose not to recognize a Jewish state, is to choose statelessness.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten