Aluf Benn, writes in today’s Haaretz:
- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday met with the parents of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser and told them that Israel will negotiate with Hezbollah over their release. Defense Minister Amir Peretz also attended the meeting.
Olmert gave the parents an update on the UN resolution and on the steps Israel is taking in order to release the three abducted soldiers (including IDF soldier Gilad Shalit abducted on the Gaza-Israel border). The prime minister said that Israel is doing its utmost to bring about the release of the two, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah on July 12 on Israel’s northern border.
The UN resolution on cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon calls for the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers, but is not included as a binding section in the resolution.
A senior diplomatic source said Israel has no information on the fate of Regev and Goldwasser, but it is assumed they are still alive. The source said the IDF has launched high-risk operations to obtain information on the abductees, but they were all unsuccessful.
The source said also that Israel did not condition the cease-fire on the release of the soldiers because it would have led to the continuation of the fighting and the loss of more life…
Olmert the humanitarian. (Irony alert, there.)
Well, I am delighted he has decided to subscribe to the UN ceasefire– even if only in his own very unsweet time. But imagine how much death, devastation, heartache, and hatred he could have avoided if he had decided to negotiate with Hizbullah on July 12 not August 12.
The tragedy of this is beyond words.
(There’s a lot more to say about today’s news. But I’m using my friend Ann Kerr’s landline to connect. I’m blocking her phone, and need to stop doing so. I rely on commenters to flesh out the picture here– thanks!)
The Central Committee (CC) of the South African Communist Party (SACP) met from Friday and issued a statement today. It includes the following:
The CC discussed the crisis in the Middle East, notably the conflict in Lebanon and the growing intensity of Israeli military adventures in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel remains the spring-board for United States ambitions to dominate and control the energy resources of the entire region. Whilst the UN Security Council resolution creates the possibility for a desperately needed reprieve for peace and lessens the dangers of a further expansion of the conflict to other countries in the region, it lacks any reference to Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and of the rights of Palestinians to self-determination.
The SACP calls for:
* Mobilisation for sanctions against Israel, including a trade and consumer boycott of Israeli products on sale in our country; and
* The South African government to review its diplomatic ties with the Zionist state of Israel.
In addition, the CC resolved to:
* Intensify our ongoing solidarity ties with the Communist Parties of Lebanon, Israel and the people of Palestine;
* Support the anti-war peace movement in Israel and internationally, including a groundswell of resistance by many Israelis, refusing enrolment in illegitimate military actions.
If Europe had some say in the region, Israel may have started negotiations with Hezbollah on the release of the soldiers it abducted – and hopefully, it still will do so – instead of getting mixed up in war. For some years now, more Middle East-related wisdom emanates from Europe than from the United States. It wasn’t Europe but the United States that invented the diplomatic fable called the road map; it wasn’t Europe but the United States that encouraged unilateral disengagement and is allowing Israel to continue oppressing the population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The United States is not engaged with Syria; Europe is. Syria is relevant not only for settling the situation in Lebanon, but also in managing relations with the Palestinians. This is the real problem. Because, even if the United States conquers Tehran, we will still have to live with the Palestinians. In Europe, they already understand this.
Israel has no set borders because, as far as Zionism is concerned, the real borders of Israel are the Nile and the Euphrates, or at least as much of that territory that the Zionists can get away with stealing. The original UN mandated borders weren’t enough, the 1967 borders weren’t enough, Israel and the Occupied Territories isn’t enough, Israel up to the Litani River isn’t enough. Nothing is enough. They won’t – probably can’t – stop until they are stopped, and the only way I can see to stop them is for individuals to take personal action to make it clear that the human beings in the world – as opposed to the politicians, the media, and the corporations – won’t put up with it any longer.
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/08/anti-zionist-boycott-follow-up.html
Who defines Zionist ideology? Who says where the borders are enough? I knew that there were those who had the Nile-Euphrates idea, but I had assumed those people had become extinct due to the realities of the time. But I’m not so sure now. Evidence from his policies indicated that Olmert still subscribed to the British Mandate idea, in his refusal to let the West Bank+Gaza Strip+East Jerusalem become a truly sovereign state. That way of thinking has to die, and I think realities can put the pressure needed to make it die.
Zionism must be defined as the 1967 borders, as a compromise acknowledging the lives of Palestinians as well as Israelis. I think the people of Israel can accept that: I don’t believe that every Israeli citizen wants to storm to the Euphrates and Nile. I bet few there want to even reach the Litani river; I really think the Olmert government felt the pressure from the Israeli public opposing a new occupation. The rational vision of Israel proper has to be embraced by the government policy.
Ring a ring a poses. Pocket full of nukies. Kerchoo. Kerchoo. Hurchoo. All fall down. Prevailing blusteries. Blowing which way. This way. That way. Every which way. Radio. Activity. Old biblical saw. So so sowing. Beep beep beep heaping weeping reaping. Mojo. Mojo. Mo memory. Memri? Bobster Dylan. Times. Mutability. But you hang in there Major T. J. King Kong Vadim. Yo the man.
News agencies report that Ahmadinejad started his own blog, but it seems he is still here and posting under the name of Dominic. Where do you get the nonsense about the Nile and Euphrates. Look at map drwan to scale. Olmert just evacuated and was planning to unilaterally evacuate more. Your hatred is clouding your vision, and lately it is coming louder than ever. Paraphrasing Helena, what a sad character Dominic.
Seymour Hersh had an interesting piece in the New Yorker about how the White House viewed the Lebanon war. His take is that the lackluster Israeli performance in Lebanon may have spared Iran an attack or invasion. Something about turning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into another Nasrallah—rock star of the Arab street. No hay mal que por bien no venga.
(sorry, I didn’t really mean that last sentence)
Dave M, got to agree with you on su ultima frase. Interesting article.
Actually, as I read it, Hersh maintains that Cheney and Rumsfeld with convinced themselves that Israel won its war on Lebanon and that proves they are right on target to attack Iraq. That would be completely irrational and almost certainly fly in the face of plain facts, but when has that ever stopped our demented rulers?
Well, Davis, I believe you when you say you don’t subscribe to the Nile/Euphrates idea. But where do you draw the line then?
Akiva Eldar puts it into perspective.
The most important achievement of this war lies in the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who dignified the Security Council with a description of the agreement as “a Zionist document.” Iran did not arm Hezbollah with missiles capable of reaching beyond Haifa so that Nasrallah would hoist a white flag and beg Arab leaders to stop the fighting. The ayatollahs did not pour hundreds of millions of dollars into bunkers like those discovered in Maroun al-Ras so that their Shi’ite brethren in Lebanon would unreservedly adopt Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s “seven-point program.” That program, which is mentioned several times in Resolution 1701, not only announces that the era of a “state within a state” in Lebanon has formally ended; it explicitly cites the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel – an agreement that Hezbollah has hitherto adamantly rejected.
Two weeks too late, following much loss of life and an erosion of Israel’s deterrence, Olmert understood that swimming with the aggressive populist tide was liable to deprive us of the opportunity to save Siniora’s pragmatic but weak government. The prime minister related with appropriate seriousness to the danger that the destruction of Beirut’s remaining infrastructure and an influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the south would lead to anarchy and civil war. That would have left us with an Iranian-Shi’ite government to the north and a Sunni-Muslim Brotherhood government to the south.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750046.html
Interesting article JES. I agree with a lot of it, but I would question Eldar’s assumptions about Iran’s motives. The underlying premise seems to be that Iran intended Hezbollah to be some kind of vanguard (the “point of the spear” in the language of embedded journalism) leading the assault that would wipe Israel off the map. Perhaps this is an article of faith where you live, but there are other rational explanations. Suppose the Iranians were anticipating exactly the sort of developments outlined in Sy Hersh’s article discussed above. If so, and if those developments were indeed being contemplated in Washington and Jerusalem, then Iran’s arming and training of Hezbollah would make perfect sense as a purely defensive strategy. I think you will have to agree that Iran has at least as much reason to feel threatened by the US and Israel, as Israel has to feel threatened by Iran.
John,
The two motives are not at all mutually exclusive!
I, too, agree with much of what Akiva Eldar has written in the article, and I don’t think that what you have put forward really changes the bottom line of his argument.
Inkan, the question is not about me, I am just an American nobody. Find me any party in Israel that advocates such nonsense, any electoral platform, any parliament member. This just shows how out of touch Dominic has got in his advocacy/propaganda. His handler must be Salah.
Davis,
Find me any party in Israel that advocates such nonsense, any electoral platform, any parliament member.
Just go and read those statements made by diffrent Israeli Leaders, Minisster will tell you, But as you said “I am just an American nobody” why you bother…
Overwhelming force and proportionality
By Prof. Uzi Arad is the Founding Head of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3288359,00.html
Davis is right, at least insofar as there doesn’t appear to have been a party or MK in Knesset with such a platform for 14 years. Not since Tehiya.
I found one resource on the political history of extremist territorial claims For The Land and The Lord: The Range of Disagreement within Jewish Fundamentalism, by Ian Lustick, chapter V
“Within this mainstream view, the most important point of disagreement is on whether or not to move quickly toward formal annexation. The declaration of Israeli sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is a formal part of Tehiya’s platform, and the party has introduced resolutions to that effect in the Knesset. But many within the movement, if not most, prefer to wait until a very substantial shift in the demographic balance is achieved through massive Jewish settlement and Arab emigration.”
I doubt the Old Soviet Union’s “handlers” have shifted to Teheran, but I generally fall asleep during James Bond movies, so may not be the best judge. But surely everybody is somebody in America, at least enough so to be allowed an opinion on what they argue about? So why not answer Inkan’s question as you must have a view.
Roland,
While we’re on geography, pls go back and look at the posts (by Inkan and Dominic) to which Davis was (quite accurately) responding.
Not Tehiya, nor Jabotinsky – not even Kahane, for that matter – ever put forward the objective of an Israel “from the Nile to the Euphrates!
JES yes I said he was accurately responding. That was indeed what I said.
“Davis is right, at least insofar as there doesn’t appear to have been a party or MK in Knesset with such a platform for 14 years.
That is to say, I looked at Davis’s reply, and found a source that shows he is correct, and linked to it. However, I still don’t believe Dominic ( a poster quoting from the SA Communist party) is some kind of secret agent handled by Salah, I think it’s really quite unlikely.
Thanks for the suggestion about looking back and reading carefully.
I also still feel Davis should answer Inkan’s question., It was very relevant to the issue of establishing peaceful permanent borders for Israel, but thanks for the distraction you ol’devil you! This was Inkan’s question:
Well, Davis, I believe you when you say you don’t subscribe to the Nile/Euphrates idea. But where do you draw the line then?
Posted by Inkan1969 at August 14, 2006 03:33 AM
Thank you Roland.
And I am sure that you will also agree that there has really never been any serious Zionist argument for a state stretching “from the Nile to the Eurphrates” despite the absurd claims made by Palestinian and Arab propagandists.