RUTHFULLY YOURS

Wolfe – Settlements Are the Issue Robert Wolfe New English Review August 2011http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/93385/sec_id/93385
thanks to: LOVE OF THE LAND… http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/

You often hear defenders of the Netanyahu government say, in opposition to demands for a settlement freeze, “Settlements are not the issue. The issue is the Palestinian refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.” The unspoken subtext behind this argument is that if only the Palestinians would accept the existence of Israel, the issue of the settlements could easily be resolved, with Israel retaining some and abandoning others. And it is certainly true that the Palestinians have never accepted the existence of Israel and have always found one pretext or another to avoid a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but even if the Palestinians would formally accept the Jewish state, it is far from clear that a compromise on the question of settlements is either possible or desirable.

In the first place, although some Palestinian negotiators have given the impression that they would accept Israeli retention of the large settlement blocs in return for the surrender of some Israeli territory elsewhere, the official Palestinian and Arab position has remained that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, which are invariably referred to as the “1967 borders.” When the Palestinians ask individual countries to declare their support for the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, the boundaries of that state are always described as the “1967 borders.” All this creates the impression that one of the main reasons why the Palestinians are not interested in a negotiated settlement is precisely because they are not willing to accept the existence of any Israeli settlements, whether big or small, beyond the 1949 armistice lines. This impression is further reinforced by the repeated statements by Abbas and other Palestinian leaders that they do not intend to accept the presence of even one single Jew within the territory of their new Palestinian state.

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http://jewishworldreview.com/1111/glick112511.php3

There is a price to be paid for calling an enemy an enemy. But there is an even greater price to be paid for failing to do so.

Next month, the US’s long campaign in Iraq will come to an end with the departure of the last US forces from the country. Amazingly, the approaching withdrawal date has fomented little discussion in the US. Few have weighed in on the likely consequences of US President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw on the US’s hard won gains in that country. After some six thousand Americans gave their lives in the struggle for Iraq and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on the war, it is quite amazing that its conclusion is being met with disinterested yawns.

The general stupor was broken last week with The Weekly Standard’s publication of an article entitled, “Defeat in Iraq: President Obama’s decision to withdraw US troops is the mother of all disasters.” The article was written by Frederick and Kimberly Kagan and Marisa Cochrane Sullivan. The Kagans contributed to conceptualizing the successful US-counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, popularly known as “the surge,” that former president George W. Bush implemented in 2007.

http://townhall.com/columnists/carolineglick/2011/11/25/the_scourge_of_clientitis/print For many years, observers of the US State Department on both sides of the American political spectrum have agreed that State Department officials suffer from a malady referred to as “clientitis.” Clientitis is generally defined as a state of mind in which representatives of an organization confuse their roles. Rather than advance the cause […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577037921612867912.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop ‘For all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators.’ Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful. […]