By Robert Fisk
"The Palestinians are not only, it seems, an "invented people" – courtesy of Newt Gingrich – but the only Arabs on the Mediterranean not to enjoy a Spring or an Awakening or even a Winter.....
For what? Israel, which in the past could analyse events rationally, if not always correctly, appears, too, to have lost its ability to grasp events, its Prime Minister hiding behind self-delusional speeches when he should be understanding the typhoon sweeping across the Arab states around him. People who will no longer tolerate dictators are not going to accept peace treaties with an ever more expansionist Israel – 2,000 more colonisers' homes, Netanyahu decided last autumn, would be the latest punishment for the Palestinians who dare to demand statehood....
... Indeed, I have a letter beside me as I write, sent to The New York Times on 2 December 1948, warning of the visit to the US of the young Menachem Begin whose "Freedom Party", said the letter's authors, was "closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties". Among the authors of this letter was Albert Einstein....
Now, said Peled, at Silwan just outside East Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians may be evicted from their homes "so that Israel can build a park to glorify a conquest that took place 3,000 years ago, never mind that not a shred of scientific evidence exists that such a king (David) ever lived, any more than there is evidence the world was created in six days. The past trumps the present in Israel – a state that wants to eliminate the existence of people who live on their land to solidify the myth of a glorious past". Strong stuff indeed.
But is it any surprise that the Palestinians believe this when the president who told them they deserve a state vetoes their demand for statehood at the United Nations, while his country deprives them of millions of dollars for daring to believe him, withdraws its funding from Unesco when it bestows a kind of statehood on the Palestinians – and then remains silent when Israel says it will keep money legally owed to the Palestinians of the West Bank? But since Obama's re-election counts for more than "Palestine", what chance is there of peace in the Middle East? Maybe Israel is ensuring that the past also trumps the present in the United States. If only we could ask the one rabbi Netanyahu chose to quote in his UN speech against Palestinian statehood last year: the very same rabbi who inspired the murderer Baruch Goldstein to kill so many Palestinians 18 years ago."
"The Palestinians are not only, it seems, an "invented people" – courtesy of Newt Gingrich – but the only Arabs on the Mediterranean not to enjoy a Spring or an Awakening or even a Winter.....
For what? Israel, which in the past could analyse events rationally, if not always correctly, appears, too, to have lost its ability to grasp events, its Prime Minister hiding behind self-delusional speeches when he should be understanding the typhoon sweeping across the Arab states around him. People who will no longer tolerate dictators are not going to accept peace treaties with an ever more expansionist Israel – 2,000 more colonisers' homes, Netanyahu decided last autumn, would be the latest punishment for the Palestinians who dare to demand statehood....
... Indeed, I have a letter beside me as I write, sent to The New York Times on 2 December 1948, warning of the visit to the US of the young Menachem Begin whose "Freedom Party", said the letter's authors, was "closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties". Among the authors of this letter was Albert Einstein....
Now, said Peled, at Silwan just outside East Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians may be evicted from their homes "so that Israel can build a park to glorify a conquest that took place 3,000 years ago, never mind that not a shred of scientific evidence exists that such a king (David) ever lived, any more than there is evidence the world was created in six days. The past trumps the present in Israel – a state that wants to eliminate the existence of people who live on their land to solidify the myth of a glorious past". Strong stuff indeed.
But is it any surprise that the Palestinians believe this when the president who told them they deserve a state vetoes their demand for statehood at the United Nations, while his country deprives them of millions of dollars for daring to believe him, withdraws its funding from Unesco when it bestows a kind of statehood on the Palestinians – and then remains silent when Israel says it will keep money legally owed to the Palestinians of the West Bank? But since Obama's re-election counts for more than "Palestine", what chance is there of peace in the Middle East? Maybe Israel is ensuring that the past also trumps the present in the United States. If only we could ask the one rabbi Netanyahu chose to quote in his UN speech against Palestinian statehood last year: the very same rabbi who inspired the murderer Baruch Goldstein to kill so many Palestinians 18 years ago."
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