Drumbeats of War - Death Before Peace
The promises of Hamas to disrupt the direct Israel-Palestine Authority peace talks to begin in Washington Thursday have been translated into tragic reality.
Two couples were gunned down as they drove through Kiryat Arba in Hebron, at 7:30 pm Wednesday night, local time. Hebron is a West Bank community where Israelis have built settlements. To the west is central Israel, and further west is the Gaza strip. One couple was about 35 years old, the other 45 years old. They were pronounced dead at the scene by Israeli paramedics.
It was predicted. Everyone was alert for it. It happened anyway.
It is not expected to be an isolated incident, but rather the first of many violent deaths in protest against the peace talks.
Some in Israel are saying this is proof enough that peace is not achievable at this time, that the peace talks, doomed to failure for many reasons anyway, should be abandoned. They say that strengthening the Palestinian Authority as a national entity with weapons of war is intrinsically foolhardy, since the best solution that could possibly come out of the peace talks would eventually turn around on Israel with renewed violence.
Others say stopping the talks is exactly what the violent Palestinians want, so Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should continue despite the carnage.
Reality is that he has little choice but to continue. The full force of the Obama administration is behind the talks. It is their last, desperate attempt to salvage the Middle East policy they have pursued with such vigor and so little success.
Obviously, there are Palestinian elements who want the peace talks stopped now. They say the best possible outcome… a two-state solution so loved by the Obama administration… will forever void their Right to Return to former Palestinian lands. Return could only happen with a single state solution (in which there would soon be a Palestinian majority and a Jewish minority), or if the state of Israel were dissolved in some way.
Despite the desires of those elements, Palestinian Authority President Abbas has little choice but to at least begin the peace talks. Same reason as for Netanyahu.
Both Abbas and Netanyahu seem to be counting on the issue of Israeli settlements in disputed territory to rescue them from peace.
Abbas is saying the talks cannot go on if the Israelis continue to build: Netanyahu is saying there is a strict policy that the building will continue after the moratorium on such activities ends at midnight September 26. This issue alone seems sufficient to torpedo the peace talks. There would have to be incredibly heavy pressure from the Obama administration to change the frequently repeated, cast in stone, absolute and clear intention of the Israelis in this regard.
But the Israelis agreed to the talks only upon the specific promise of the US not to apply such pressure. Of course, as reported in earlier posts, the US has done so already, and continue to do so with increasing vigor.
On the whole, it is a very, very bad start for peace talks.
Yet what is the alternative? Can the status quo be maintained? Can Israel live with a nuclear Iran? Is the fact that the armies of Syria and Lebanon are joining together making the IDF just a little nervous? Will Iraq erupt into civil war? Will Lebanon avert a civil war, only to go to war with Israel? Is Iran interested only in peaceful hegemony in the Middle East? Does the US believe that? What are the Israelis going to do with the huge numbers of bunker busters we have supplied them, and a billion liters of limited-lifespan jet fuel?
This post should end on such questions. But it can’t. There is more
Friday, September 3, is World Quds Day. It’s not on my calendar, but it is a very big deal day on the Iranian calendar, and they are publicizing it to the rest of the Muslim world in a big way this year.
If you are wondering what ‘Quds’ might possibly be, you are not alone. It is the Muslim name for Jerusalem.
A statement by the Iranian army quoted in Iranian official news sources puts it in complete perspective: “‘On the threshold of World Quds Day, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army, while renewing allegiance to the cause of Palestine and reiterating its solidarity with the Islamic Resistance, calls on vigilant and faithful Iranian nation’ to show their hatred of Israel and global hegemony in the rallies.”
The statement goes on to state that “massive participation of Muslim nations in the rallies will bring the ‘usurper Zionist regime’ closer to its impending doom, which is ‘ignominious annihilation.’ ”
In the same spirit, Iran will publish next week a list of Israeli companies, and companies doing business with Israel, that are targeted for a boycott worldwide by Muslims.
In Israel, President Perez has made a major speech reported in mainstream Israeli media. He believes that, “Iran is trying to convert Lebanon into a battlefield.” And that ‘no-one will be able to sleep quietly at night while Iran develops nuclear weapons, especially in light of the nature of the Iranian government.’
At the same time, the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, formerly the most ant-Iranian leader in Lebanon, but now declared by Hizballah to be a ‘Hero of the Resistance’, met with the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon to strengthen ties between Lebanon and Iran. He plans a trip to Iran in the near future.
And putting the icing on the cake, official Iranian news reports that Lebanese President Sleiman has officially asked Iran to ‘equip and modernize the Lebanese Army’.
Totally unrelated… or is it?… the US and South Korea just now decided to have another joint naval exercise. But this time it will be on the west side of Korea in the so-called Yellow Sea that also borders China. The joint forces did not enter this area during the last exercises, after China had a conniption fit over such operations being carried out in a part of the ocean they see as part of their territorial sphere.
The new exercise is severely ‘in your face’ to China.
China has their annual naval exercises scheduled for Wednesday, September 1, through Sunday, September 5.
The US-South Korean exercise in the same general area begins September 5.
We’re definitely living in interesting times.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Would a post-monarchy democratic Jordan unify with the West Bank?