Abbas: No Israeli presence in future state

[shira]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday night that in the future Palestinian state "there will be no Israeli presence."

While touring Ramallah, Abbas rejected the possibility that Israeli soldiers would remain stationed along the borders of the future Palestinian state or will be a part of an international force that will deploy there.

"We are prepared to move toward peace based on international resolutions, the Road Map and 1967 borders, but when a Palestinian state is established it will be empty of any Israeli presence," said the Palestinian leader.

"If a Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital, we will object to the presence of even one Israeli in its territory. This is our position," he said.

more...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4004200,00.html

[jimmie]

1. "not one israeli"

What a nice young man.

[On the Road]

2. From the Context,

I believe Abbas is referring to not having even a single Israeli soldier stationed in a future West Bank state.

[shira]

4. He means no Jews.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=340969&mesg_id=341003

That shouldn't be a surprise.

Everything in the Arabic PA media, from Radio to TV, religious sermons to textbooks - all state sponsored and approved by Abbas himself - is a cesspool of Nazi-like antisemitic filth. Start here...
http://www.palwatch.org/

[Ken Burch]

5. They don't have to let the settlers stay in order to prove they aren't antisemites

There's never been any justification for Israelis settling up settlements in the West Bank. There was never any positive or pro-peace intent. The settlements are a betrayal of the values of the Jewish tradition, a tradition that has always opposed territorial conquest or taking land for the sake of taking land.

[oberliner]

6. What about Jewish families returning to villages that their ancestors were forced out of?

Would they not have a right to return, so to speak?

[Ken Burch]

7. You could tie that into a compensation pool for ALL displaced people on both sides

And once the Palestinian state was established, I suspect that they'd be amenable to letting people like that apply for Palestinian citizenship on a case-by-case basis, with the sole provision that they NOT try to act as advance parties for "Judea and Samaria" revanchists.

But those are not the people this article is concerned with. The intent of the Jerusalem Post in publishing articles like this is to try to force the Palestinian state to accept the settlements as a permanent feature.

[shaayecanaan]

29. do you think that they have a right of return? nt

[shira]

8. It's not just settlers. Abbas and Erekat said no Jews allowed. Can't sugarcoat that one, Ken.

Not even Jews within NATO forces allowed.

[Ken Burch]

9. You're just frying to justify keeping the Occupation in place forever

The Occupation is what keeps the war going, not "the Palestinian leadership". And it's impossible to change the Palestinian leadership through the use of Israeli force without inevitably replacing it with a MORE extreme leadership.

Pro-Israel people SHOULD have realized that when their insistence on isolating Arafat gave Hamas its big break in show business.

[Ken Burch]

13. The intro line of that post should read "just TRYING", not "just FRYING"

I tried to correct it but the 30 minute limit had passed.

[shira]

14. I'm just pointing out rank bigotry and what Israel is dealing with, in regards to the PA

Abbas doesn't have a problem with non-Jewish settlers, only Jews.

And there are many Arabs living in Jewish settlements.

In 2007, the latest year with available statistics, about 1,300 of Pisgat Zeev's 42,000 residents were Arabs. In nearby French Hill, population 7,000, nearly one-sixth are Arabs, among them students at the neighboring Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Neve Yaakov, with 20,000 people, had 600 Arabs, according to the Israel Center for Jerusalem Studies, a respected think tank.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32702595/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa

When Abbas says not one single Israeli will live in a future Palestine, his intent isn't to also throw out thousands of Arabs as well, many who self identify as Palestinians themselves.

What kind of peace are you envisioning if you think it's okay to minimize, ignore, or censor the rank bigotry of the PLO or Hamas? Is it that you think the PLO and Hamas are oppressed, or victims? They shouldn't be criticized?

[Ken Burch]

17. I don't think that the PLO or Hamas AS ORGANIZATIONS are victims

Leaders aren't(by the same token, nobody in the Israeli government can ever be considered "a victim"-other than Rabin, because he was killed while serving as prime minister).

What I'm objecting to is your larger agenda-demonizing the Palestinian leadership(who, I agree, are as deserving of criticism as anybody else in a leadership position anywhere else)in the name of justifying the continuation of the Occupation and the rest of the "security policies".

The Palestinian people are in misery under the Occupation. THEY are not responsible for what the leaders do(you can't hold the people of any state or entity responsible for what their leaders do, which is why Israeli citizens also shouldn't have to suffer for what THEIR leaders do, given that their leaders often do things that are just as bad as any Palestinian leader)and THEY, the people of Palestine, shouldn't have to be kept chained under the Occupation because of the crimes of their leaders. Indeed, keeping the Occupation in place is what makes it impossible to get rid of those leaders and replace them with anything better.

We BOTH know that Israeli military force can't cause the Palestinian leadership to be replaced with a better leadership, but can ONLY lead to the existing leaders being replaced with worse leaders. We BOTH know that keeping the Occupation in place can only harden attitudes on the Palestinian side.

So your whole idea that the Occupation must be kept in place until the Palestinians change, and NOT ended a minute before, is discredited as a hopeless endeavor. It's not possible to crush those leaders militarily, AND it's not possible to use force to replace them with better leaders. Please, for the love of God, accept that, and accept that negotiations and an end to the collective punishment the Occupation imposes on ordinary Palestinians is the ONLY chance there is to end this dispute with anything remotely like peace and justice.

BTW...no Arab in Palestine would ever be "a settler". They're just people who were always there. So don't use the phrase "Arab settler" again. It's inappropriate and inaccurate.

[shira]

24. It's demonization, not mere criticism, to report on how the PA/Hamas are openly proud antisemites?

Do you think it's best to ignore or censor their antisemitism because that gives Israeli leadership an 'excuse' to keep Palestinians down?

[Ken Burch]

26. It's not antisemitism

The issue is the presence of foreign nationals. They'd do the same thing if the Ottoman had sent in a million Turks and declared Palestine to be "Greater Anatolia".

There is no reason for you to keep trying to present this as "hatred of Jews" when it isn't that at all.

You're just doing propaganda in defense of the Occupation.

The way to get a different set of values in Palestine is to end the Occupation and let the Palestinian people have self-determination.

Liberalization and reform never happen when a people are living at the mercy of a foreign army.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

28. I'm defending the Palestinian people

My position is that they should have the right to self-determination and freedom from the misery of the occupation. Yours seems to be that they have to be made to collectively suffer until they get rid of their current leaders(something you KNOW they can't do, since most of them are unarmed).

I don't have much sympathy for ANY leaders.

I just don't believe that the people of a country should have to suffer for the sins of the leaders. That's just simple decency.

Keeping the Occupation in place cannot lead to a positive change in the Palestinian leadership.

[shaayecanaan]

30. The Palestinian National Charter confirms that Palestinian Jews

are indeed Palestinian for all intents and purposes and may lawfully take up residence in Palestine.

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

On the whole, there are probably not many Jews (Mizrahi or not) that are willing to identify as Palestinians or be part of any Palestinian state, even if they were longstanding residents of Palestine prior to the establishment of Israel. Probably the only Jews that still identify as Palestinians are the Samaritans, and there is every indication that they will continue to do so after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Of course, the Arabs that resided in Palestine are also Palestinians (even if Israel has accorded some of them citizenship in the meantime). So naturally, Arab Israelis will be allowed to reside in Palestine if they so wish - because they are Palestinian, not because they are not Jewish.

Again, it is worth pointing out the immense hypocrisy of your position - you accuse the PA of antisemitism for refusing to grant residence to Jews (although there is not a single incidence of the PA refusing any request made by a Palestinian Jew). On the other hand you quite openly support Israel's decision to prevent entry to the 750 000 people refugees it created simply on the basis that they were Arab Muslims.

[oberliner]

32. Samaritans are not Jewish

Visiting the Samaritans on their holy West Bank mountain

Excerpt:

“We are Israelites but not Jewish … we have 7,000 differences between our Torah and the Jewish one”

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/06/03/visiting-the-samaritans-on-their-holy-west-bank-mountain/

[shaayecanaan]

33. That's obviously a fairly silly semantic point...

the Samaritans regard themselves as descended from the house of Israel rather than Judah, and are therefore technically not Jews, but Israelites. OTOH, when someone refers to "Jewish history" for instance, they are generally referring to the history of Israel and Judah taken as a whole. Likewise Israel is called "Israel" and not "Judah". Ethiopian Jews are called Jews even though they are descended from one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Et cetera, et cetera.

If you're talking genetics, the Samaritans are probably the one surviving group today that can establish a fairly reliable direct link back to the original Hebrews (notwithstanding claims that they mixed with Assyrians).

And if you're talking religion, you'd have to admit that the practices of the Samaritans are probably more faithful to the religion of the Hebrews than anyone else alive today as well. Including their Torah, which is closer to the dead sea scrolls than the text used by non-Samaritan Jews.

Bottom line: the Samaritans are not only Jewish (or Israelite, if you prefer) they are substantially more Jewish than anyone else. If they aren't Jewish, no one is.

[Ken Burch]

19. There's no such thing as an "Arab settler"

The Arabs just always lived in those places, and they aren't displacing or harming anyone by moving into those houses. Unlike the West Bank settlers, the presence of the Arabs in East Jerusalem is indigenous and benign.

[shira]

20. Where'd I write that? And how can you say...

...the Arabs just always lived in those places?

These are Jewish settlements that some Arabs from Israel wanted to move into, mostly for economic reasons. How do you know the exact plots of land they bought were "always" theirs?

[shaayecanaan]

31. Re: how do you know...

"How do you know the exact plots of land they bought were "always" theirs?"

I don't think that's the claim. On the other hand, many Arab families/tribes have connections to the land going back an awfully long time.

Moreover, I don't really think one should get into these sorts of questions unless you're prepared to respond to them in kind.

[Ken Burch]

10. The link NEVER uses the word "Jews". And you know perfectly well that that isn't

What Abbas and Erekat meant. THerefore, this whole thread is based on a lie, and is based on your relentless obsession with equating the Palestinian leadership to the Nazis. It was a lie when Golda Meir and Menachem Begin said it and its STILL a lie.

They're fighting against foreign occupation, not "Jews". They'd have done all of this if any OTHER country had treated Palestinians as the Israeli government has. It was never about Israel being Jewish. It's only Europeans that are Nazis.

[shira]

15. Of course they mean Jews.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32702595/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa

Thousands of Israeli Arabs who self-identify as Palestinians live within those settlements with Jews.

Read their words. Do you honestly think Abbas and Erekat want to toss out thousands of Palestinians from the settlements as well?

[Ken Burch]

18. The Arabs in Silwan or Pisgat Zeev are NOT "settlers". They didn't steal land from Israelis

And unlike their West Bank settlers, these people aren't harming Israelis by living where they now live. They didn't force Israelis out of THEIR homes or cut down or replant Israeli olive trees.

The settlements in the West Bank have never had any legitimate right to be there. They don't exist for any positive reason, but only as a symbol of territorial conquest and nationalist arrogance. And none of the Israelis who live in those settlements treat Arabs as equals or approach them in a spirit of friendship and reconciliation. The whole settler attitude is "this is OUR land and even though you've been there for at least fourteen centuries, you have no right to stay there".

That attitude is a mockery of the values of the ethnic/religious tradition it claims to represent, a tradition that was NEVER based on taking land for the sake of taking land.

[shira]

21. So Abbas isn't about to throw out Israeli Arabs living in settlements, just the Jews - right? n/t

[Ken Burch]

22. No. I'm not playing that game.

You're trying to say "it's antisemitism, not a legitimate movement for self-determination, so Bibi's justified in being unrelentingly hardline".

The Palestinian people should not have to stay under Israeli occupation because of the actions of the Palestinian leadership. You can't punish a people for what their leaders do.

[shira]

23. Your answer is contradictory.

On the one hand, you're saying it's not antisemitic. The PA is legitimately fighting for self-determination.

But on the other, it appears you now think the PA is bigoted and antisemitic (Abbas definitely meant no Jews allowed) but that the Palestinian people shouldn't suffer as a result of that.

So which is it?

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shira]

16. He definitely meant that. See posts #14 and #15. n/t

[here_is_to_hope]

3. Saw this in the thread you linked to...@jpost...

wut?
I see what you did there.

mfw :eyes:

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shira]

34. Abbas again: "Not one single Jew in future Palestine"

Abbas Reveals His True Agenda
by Herbert I. London
February 2, 2011 at 4:45 am

In a recent discussion of the anticipated Palestinian state, Mahmoud Abbas, leader in the territory, said he "would not tolerate one single Jew in his new country, Palestine." Speaking before journalists in Ramallah, he clearly noted, "We have already said, completely openly, and it will stay that way: 'If there is a Palestinian country with Jerusalem as its capital, we will not accept that even one single Jew will live there.'"

Abbas rejected any suggestion that Jews in Judea and Samaria, who have lived in their homes for decades, could remain under Palestinian rule. Meanwhile, in all negotiations, the Palestinian position is that "Palestinian refugees" have the right of return to Israel. According to the Abbas proposition, therefore, Israel should open its borders for Arabs while Palestine closes its borders for Jews.

more...
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1854/abbas-agenda