Sermon on the Mount

[josephpalazzo]

And neither are the Palestinians; the ultimate big issue underlying the conflict: Two peoples, one land.That is a fine idea, but not a realistic one. Even setting aside Jerusalem and settlement expansion into areas nominally under Palestinian control, we can't realistically expect Palestinians to build a state in 39% of the West Bank while being denied access to the rest (including most of the areas resources) or the ability to travel between areas under their control.

We also can't expect Israel to simply hand control of the West Bank back (especially after how Gaza went--although, unfortunately, the message once again sent to Palestinians is that Hamas gets shit done and the PLO/Fatah is ineffectual), expel settlers or relinquish claims their claims to (more of) Jerusalem. We have a situation where neither side can honestly be expected to make concessions necessary to make peace but, for some reason, people actually do expect with ever side they dislike most to unilaterally make all the concessions while their favorite side reaps all the benefits.

The way I see is that whoever has the bigger guns will dictate. If they were a conflict, say between the US and Canada, I hardly see the US ready to make concessions. That's the reality of geopolitics. Right now, Israel has the bigger guns. They can inflict more pain if they want to. If the political will were there, Israel could go into Gaza or the West Bank, and turn every town into rubble. And the Palestinians would be helpless to stop that. So don't expect Israel to make any concessions whatsoever. They won't. In the meantime as the violence continues, the result is that the Israeli Right has the upper hand - Israel is not a monolith society - and so bargaining with the Right, you'll get very little. Should ever the violence go away, leaving some opportunity for moderates to have more clout in the Knesset, then you could expect a relaxation towards the settlement or some open hand towards the moderates on the Palestinian side. But we are very far from that situation. On the Palestinian side, there is little interest towards any peace initiative as violence flares up, and Israel predictably counter-attacks, that leaves the Palestinian extremists with more clout with their own people. So the Right on the Israel side and the extremists on the Palestinian side need each other to carry their respective agenda, and that's why the endless cycle of violence continues.

[Baruch]

PLO/Fatah was a cat's paw of the Nasser of Egypt and of the Soviet Union.  Once those two sponsors were gone, they were powerless.  And they were powerless, for the same reason why cops don't get rid of crime ... the more criminals you have, the more cops you can hire.  Hamas was originally created by Israel, as a counter to PLO/Fatah ... and like Al Qaida and the US ... it went feral on its original sponsors.  With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was no way that Hamas would allow PLO/Fatah to exist on its territory, because they were just as much infidels as Sadat, Saddam or Old Man Assad.  Thus the support of Saudi Arabia et al for the invasion of Iraq, and now Syria.  And the turmoil in Egypt.

[pr126]

Baruch wrote

Hamas was originally created by Israel, as a counter to PLO/Fatah ..

Could you please elaborate on that?

[josephpalazzo]

Baruch wrote

Hamas was originally created by Israel, as a counter to PLO/Fatah ..
Could you please elaborate on that?

It comes from the same source that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 - in the vernacular, Conspiracy Theory.

[Baruch]

Taken from a relatively factual website ... other sources corroborate the basic outline:

"In 1964, a number of Arab countries sent representatives to Cairo for the Arab League Summit. The goal of the summit was to resolve inter-Arab conflicts in the region so that the Arab countries could unite in their struggle against what they saw as western imperialism and Israeli aggression.

It was at this summit that the idea for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, was born. The stated goal of the PLO was to “liberate Palestine through armed struggle”.

Although the dominant religion in these Arab countries was Islam, the PLO was comprised mainly of secular Palestinian factions (the largest being the Fatah party), who were actually wary of the rise of Islamic extremism.

Historically, Palestinians have been a religiously tolerant people. For hundreds of years, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike lived peacefully together as fellow Palestinians. The PLO wanted to make sure that this tolerance was preserved.

In fact, the Islamic extremism which is now considered the backbone of Hamas was actually encouraged by Israel itself.

In 1967, Israel fought the Six-Day War against an Arab federation led by Egypt. At that time, the PLO was quickly becoming popular among Arabs in the region, and this worried Israel.

So using PLO guerilla activity as a pretext, Israel took over the Palestinian territory of Gaza and began systematically hunting down members of the PLO and the Fatah party.

To combat the PLO’s secular influence in the region, Israel began encouraging Islamic activism in Palestine. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this Israeli policy was a man named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza at the time.

In 1973, Yassin established the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya. The organization was officially recognized as a charity by Israel  in 1979.

Yassin used the organization to establish mosques and Islamic schools in Gaza, as well as a library. But Yitzhak Segev, an Israeli official who served as governor of Gaza in 1979, says that he had no illusions about Yassin’s real intentions.

Segev had personally witnessed an Islamist movement in Iran which eventually led to a military coup that toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. The coup cleared the way for the Shah of Iran (the country’s highest-ranking Muslim cleric) to take power.

He and other Israeli officials worried that the same would soon happen in Gaza, but because of the tensions in the region at the time, they were reluctant to speak out, fearing they would be accused of being enemies of Islam.

So Segev said nothing. In 1984, Israeli intelligence got word that Yassin’s group was stockpiling weapons in a Gaza mosque. They raided the mosque and arrested Yassin, who claimed the weapons were meant for use against secular Palestinian groups like the PLO, not for use against Israel.

He was released from jail a year later, and continued to spread Mujama’s influence in Gaza. Then, in 1987, he established Hamas with six other Palestinians as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The first leaflet they distributed blamed Israeli intelligence for undermining the social fabric of young Palestinians in order to recruit Palestinian “collaborators”.

But despite this harsh language, Israel continued to focus on the Fatah party and the PLO, even meeting with senior Hamas officials as part of “regular consultations” that they held with Palestinian officials not linked to the PLO.

It wasn’t until Hamas kidnapped and murdered two Israeli soldiers in 1989 that Israel started to pay attention to the group."

So basically Israel supported this sometimes charitable/militant group for 10 years, started by Yassin, and eventually after Hamas went rogue, the Israelis killed him.  There must have been opposing groups in Israeli intelligence, for or against this ... as there must have been with the American adventure with Al Qaida and more recently with ISIS .. American associates that also went rogue.  The ultra orthodox Jews in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, still recognize Hamas, and don't recognize Israel.  Pete and repeat of the adventure of Lawrence of Arabia ... and the immediate betrayal of the Arabs at Damascus and Baghdad, and the Palestinians as well.  GB and France played all sides against each other ... Arab, Palestinian and Zionist.  This only coming to an end shortly after WW II.  Muslim Brotherhood operatives were part of the outcome of that betrayal, and were part of the feedstock for the Egyptian component of Al Qaida ... and the recent unrest in Egypt.  Muslim Brotherhood operatives were also in Syria, but were well suppressed by the Baathist regime there and in Iraq.  George W came along and upset that whole applecart.

[Poison Tree]

Segev had personally witnessed an Islamist movement in Iran which eventually led to a military coup that toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. The coup cleared the way for the Shah of Iran (the country’s highest-ranking Muslim cleric) to take power.

Typo?

[josephpalazzo]

Funny that the guy who doesn't believe anything the US government says yet is ready to believe anything that is posted on dubious websites by dubious people.

[Baruch]

I believe you, Dr Dubious ;-)

Yes, I think that was a typo ... but they were referring to the 1953 coup ... which did happen.

It would seem that Israel reinvented the idea of using feral Sunnis as tools, and then the US copied them in Afghanistan in the 80s.

[josephpalazzo]

I believe you, Dr Dubious ;-)

I guess you believe what you read only if it is in accordance with your presuppositions. Welcome to the human race.

[Baruch]

I guess you believe what you read only if it is in accordance with your presuppositions. Welcome to the human race.

Did you think I was a Google bot released on the Internet by the CIA?  Why did Twitter go down the same time as when the CIA started Tweeting?

[josephpalazzo]

Did you think I was a Google bot released on the Internet by the CIA KGB?  Why did Twitter go down the same time as when the CIA KGB started Tweeting?

FIFY

[jonb]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jmcgd

BBC a dubious people?
Yes and no, there is always an agenda, but the basics of what Baruch says is well documented.

[Baruch]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jmcgd

BBC a dubious people?
Yes and no, there is always an agenda, but the basics of what Baruch says is well documented.

But if you don't swallow the dogma of the KKK and John Birchers whole, you are a commie, pinko, f*****t ... and a n*****r.  Ideologues (you know who you are) are not freethinkers, because freedom is their kryptonite.  They sleep in SS jammies.  Control of the media isn't hard, when the average person's attention span is less than 24 hours.  I have a long if inaccurate memory, so advertising has never ever worked on me.  Think of all those trillions of dollars on marketing wasted ... bwahaha.

I rely on the BBC to escape the fascist control of the US media (per media today Nixon would still be president, and Watergate would be unknown) ... though it is not trustworthy when they touch GB news ... generally their agenda has less need to distort news outside GB.  No skin off my nose, since GB news is only entertainment to me.  My colleagues at work laugh every time I sit down at the piano to play, or I tell them I get my news from the BBC.  But if they were good enough for the Blitz, then they are good enough now ;-)

[jonb]

There is always an agenda, and the BBC represent the British ruling class, who like to present themselves as a fair arbitrator and as such will play to an audience of say Americans, Indians, or Chinese that are disaffected with their own news services.

The BBC always under reported RAF losses.

[Baruch]

Nothing reported in war time is true ... and I don't blame GB or Germany on that.  And the British ruling class is your problem, not mine.