There seems to be no conciliating the Palestinians. Where there is talk of peace, it appears to always be a negotiating strategy, a means to an end, the next step being more demands. This is just the saddest conflict, interminable and vicious. The campaign of homicide bombing single - handedly destroyed the peace movement in Israel. Peace Now became Peace Then overnight. The likes of Yossi Klein Halevi stopped thinking about negotiations and started thinking about security.

I just want to take a moment here and thank Mr. Peretz for all his eloquent articles over the years. Even - or especially - when I disagree, I am always stimulated by his writings. The New Republic is a great publication, no matter what the usual suspects like Eric Alterman and Ezra Klein say.

Arab antisemitism is responsible for the mess the "peace process" is in,

"According to the report, by educating generations of Muslims with a deep animus toward Israel and Jews, this anti-Semitism, actively promulgated by many states in the region, holds back the peace process and normalization efforts between Israel and Muslim countries. It also forms the intellectual justification for an eliminationist political program."

www.jpost.com/.../Satellite

A wiseguy commenting on this in the Jerusalem Post website asked, "Would you want to hear Rice and [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni talk about Judea and Samaria or would you rather watch them wrestle naked in a tub of jello?"  At this point, I will go with the jello.

I saw a headline just now with Rice expecting a peace deal before Bush finishes his term, and I thought, "Let's see if Marty Peretz is mocking Rice," for he would be right to do so.

And it's not about that quote (yet), but MP doesn't disappoint.

Just pathetic. Abba Eban's words on Palestinians and opportunities still ring true.

"Ms. Rice was a none-too-passive party to the 2005 full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Full, full. You know what that turned into: a disaster."

Easy there, Mr. Peretz. In the strictest interpretation of your statement, you are correct. But Gaza disengagement was not an American initiative, nor was it the result of American pressure. The Americans never demanded that Israel withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. Hell, they were skeptics of the plan at first. The Sharon government wanted to deflect international crticism while at the same time maintaining Israel's contiguity. It was motivated by an acceptance among the Likud for the principle of partitioning Eretz Yisrael. There was also the demographic issue -- Gaza was 8,000 Jews in the midst of 1.4 million Arabs.

Martin Peretz -

Everyone knows where you stand. You support the continuation for one thousand years of an Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. You do not merely defend Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people, you do not merely support Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people, you advocate Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.

And yet a few days ago you had the chutzpah to mock the French for appeasing the German occupation of their country even as you laud, encourage and advocate for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

Yes, Martin Peretz, we know whose side you are on. And it is not the side of Israel, it is not the side of Jews, it is not the side of America, it is not the side of freedom. You have chosen instead  to stand alongside the racist, the bigot, and the war criminal.

ndmackenzie, everyone knows where you stand.

You consider the murderers of Jewish women and children “freedom fighters.” You think Hamas and Hezbollah are genuine “liberation movements.”

You call Israelis “zionazis.”  Then you pretend that you are not antisemitic.

A few days ago you mocked the exposure of French collaboration in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust as propaganda.

You are a disgrace and a bigot. Everything you write should be read in that light.

This is a libel on Mr. Peretz, ndmackenzie. The vile Nazi analogy is a favorite recourse of rabid anti - Israeli hacks. I don't recall the maquis being allowed to run a Bir Zeit - like university during the the early '40's. Mr. Peretz would happily see the West Bank freed up to become an independent state if it would not subsequently be used as a staging area for further rocket attacks on Israel.

liberal reformer -

My comment about Martin Peretz was no libel because it was the truth. Nowhere in my comment did I mention the Nazis but, now that you mention it, I will point out that just as there were two types of French patriot during the war, the pro-Vichy and the free French - so there are two types of Israeli "patriot" - the Likudnik who willfuly betrays not just his country but his religion and the pro-Israeli who recognizes the damage being done to his country by the occupation.

The New Republic has never been a Combat, Martin Peretz is after all no Albert Camus, it has always been a Vichy Likudnik magazine. And it will remain so as long as Martin Peretz is associated with the magazine and the magazine is edited by a "coward slave."

Here is the entire text of the blog where Martin Peretz mocked the French for not doing enough to oppose the German occupation of France:

-- What the Nazi Occupation of France Was Really Like

-- There are layers and layers of history under the simple phrase, "The Nazi occupation of France." And perhaps even more layers in Paris than in the rest of la patrie. Of course, the French have always had a hard time looking at their past. That past never bore much resemblance to how it was officially depicted.  Charles De Gaulle was a master-mythmaker, and so his glory somehow metamorphosed in the glory of France.  The Communists also struggled to make their part of the resistance seem like the whole of it: broad-based, heroic, ideological. The maquis was actually quite small, infested with turn-coats, and blessed with many successes. The rising in Paris did not happen until the Nazis were almost beat.

-- There is now showing in Paris a photographic exhibition of the streets of Paris while the swastika flew on many public buildings.  How quickly a proud people can be brought low.  But the museum presentation is not of a people being brought low.  It is the other side of the story, the story of normalcy and utter indifference.

-- An article -- with photographs from the show itself -- in the Daily Mail brings the repressed past alive.

The first 250,000 steps on the road to lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the removval of the civilian "settlers." Their Vichy Likudnikism is the root of the problem that has bedeviled Israel for the last four decades.

We see in the rabid howling of the Vichy Likudniks - from Martin Peretz and the likes of jacksondyer in this forum - their recognition of the end of their worthless ideology.  Imbecilic bigotry in magazines like The New Republic and Commentary has caused immense damage to Israel over the last four decades. The Vichy Likudniks have betrayed Israel. But their time is passing and they are being replaced by a new kind of pro-Israeli commentators - commentators who recognize the damage done to Israel by its occupation of the Palestinian Territories. On The Spine we hear the death croaks of a failed ideology but we can look in other venues, and to the likes of Eric Alterman, M.J. Rosenberg, Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein, for a vision of an Israel that has finally regained its morality and its rightful place in the World. Theirs is the road to peace.

ndmackenzie's comments seem to consist of vituperative assertions. Assertion is not a form of proof, and vituperation is hardly an effective technique of debate.  Strong arguments are spoken. Weak arguments are shouted.

I think that peace will only come when it becomes as shameful in Palestinian society for a family to have a member that engages in a suicide bombing or deliberate rocket attack on Israeli civilians than it is in Israeli society for someone to do the same to Palestinians civilians, i.e., when murder is murder.  

Hey Marty -

Ever been to Gaza? Ever heard the American-made, and American-bought Israeli F-16s strafing the territory at night? Ever heard them doing sonic-booms just to toy with people? Ever seen IDF forces come into the refugee camps and throw already overcrowded families into the smallest room in their hovel of an apartment, while they take over the rest? Ever seen them punch holes in the wall for sniper perches?  Ever seen the Rafah refugee camp, still leveled from Israeli's '03 incursion? Ever had the dehumanizing experience of walking through the steel gauntlet of the Erez crossing?

While the situation in Gaza is desperate, we can be glad that Israel at least continues to have some sense of moral duty that you clearly are unwilling to display.  Israel must continue to deliver fuel to Gaza, because they've left Gazans with no ability to sort out their own affairs. Israel owns the borders, the skies and the sea. It is in such besieged desperation that influence of an organization like Hamas can grow.  Rocket firings from the territory into Israel are contemptable, but Israel's response to the "threat to its security" is beyond even-handed, beyond sensible, and beyond counter-productive.

You're a journalist, and such can get a GPO card next time you're in Jerusalem. I'd suggest you use it to go to Gaza. Even you would find it eye opening.

" just want to take a moment here and thank Mr. Peretz for all his eloquent articles over the years. Even - or especially - when I disagree, I am always stimulated by his writings. The New Republic is a great publication, no matter what the usual suspects like Eric Alterman and Ezra Klein say"

Nice to agree with you here, liberal reformer.....

ndee - gettablog, already. You're repeating yourself.

In the meantime mackenzie's type of Patriot in action:

"Polish police storm hotel room in Warsaw to free three Jews"

ukpress.google.com/.../ALeqM5h2Tre3NS8YBZMe3DfZgIn5VbvhUQ

Oh, so now we are members of the "Vichy Likudnik” party according to mackenzie, the nazi sympathizer.

As I said many times before, I am no fan of the Likud but whenever and antisemite like mackenzie calls me a likudnik, my impulse is to become a card carrying dues paying member of that organization. Any Jewish organization that mackenzie hates must be doing something right, even if they do many things wrong.

Speaking of mythmaking, he is a master of misinformation and antisemitic blood libel type mythmaking. None of which is original with him.

Antisemites are seldom original which is why he keeps repeating himself, Tep.

"1967 borders" is a slogan. .. First of all, those are not borders. They were never recognized as borders by any of the Arabs; they were fragile cease-fire lines."

Allow me to expand on this a bit.

During the negotiations in 1949 Israel wanted the cease-fire lines to be recognized as its international borders the Arabs states (with the interesting and noted exception of Lebanon - but that is a separate story) led by the ancient Kingdom of Transjordan refused, insisting that the cease fire lines remain cease fire lines.  The reasoning was simple -- the Arabs still had visions of pushing Israel back to 1947 lines as stage 1, and then into the MedSea as stage 2.  Recognizing the cease fire lines as borders would make that endeavor a bit messy.  Israel had to swallow that one.  And so the Green Line was born.

In the early 1950's Israel asked the US & the UN to recognize the Green Line as its borders.  Eisenhower and Dulles refused, hoping to force Israel to slice off most of the Negev and hand it over to Nasser so that Egypt could have a land bridge to (Trans)Jordan.  Dulles & Co. wanted to use promises the Negev land as a way to bring Nasser into the Western camp, a policy that failed (and in the late 1950's repudiated by a burned but wiser Eisenhower).

So (with the exception of the northern border with Lebanon) Israel never had "Internationally recognized borders" no matter how many times that phrase is repeated in progressobabbleian pontification and discourse.

In late June 1967 (after the war) Israel sent a secret message to Egypt, Syria, and Jordan offering to give up the territory taken during the war (except for Jerusalem) in exchange for peace and recognized borders.  The response came in the form of the infamous Khartoum declaration and the three no's - no negotiations, no peace and no recognition.

In the meantime, the UN Security Council was debating what was to become the famous Resolution 242 on settling the mid-east conflict.  A critical provision was that Israel was to have, for the FIRST TIME IN ITS HISTORY "secure and recognized borders" in exchange for withdrawing from territories taken in the 6 day war.  That is still a promise that has been only partially fulfilled.

BTW if you go over the legislative history and debates over Resolution 242 you will see that that carefully crafted resolution did not specify "all territories" or "the territories", but just "territories".  This was the work of the US UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and his British counterpart (whose name escapes me), reflecting their explicit intent that Israel could not and would not be required to return to the pre-1967 cease fire lines as those lines were INHERENTLY INSECURE (super-dove Abba Even lablled them "Auschwitz borders") and as such would not meet 242's requirement that in exchange for giving up land taken in a defensive war, Israel gain "SECURE and recognized borders".

So the next time NPR or the BBC spout off on the Green Line being Israel's "Internationally Recognized Borders" they are at best revealing their ignorance, and at worst their deeply rooted intellectual dishonesty.

Hershel Ginsburg

(of the horns and pointed tail)

Jerusalem / Efrata

"Israel must continue to deliver fuel to Gaza, because they've left Gazans with no ability to sort out their own affairs. Israel owns the borders, the skies and the sea. It is in such besieged desperation that influence of an organization like Hamas can grow."

Worth repeating prwerdel. Good post.

"Ms. Rice was a none-too-passive party to the 2005 full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza."

Allow me to expand upon this a bit.

Although it is true that the 2005 Gaza "disengagement" (what a euphemism) was purely an Israeli (i.e. Ariel Sharon) initiative and indeed the Bushies & Co. were skeptical (justifiably as it turns out), they got on board and Condi Rice became enthusiastic pusher of the program and ultimately forced a some critical decisions down Israel's throat.

One of the most fateful ones was the question of the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egyptian border.  Many in Israel (including not a few supporters of the "disengagement" plan) wanted Israel to retain control of a relatively narrow swath of territory in the corridor in order to stop weapons from being smuggled in via the warren of tunnels dug under the border (contrary to popular belief, RPG's do not grow on trees, even in Gaza; they are brought in).

But here the naifs at the Israel Policy Forum, lead by the quintessential useful idiot M.J. Rosenberg insisted that Israel should give up control of the corridor and that the Egyptians would see to it that weapons are not smuggled in.  To push their point they lobbied Condi Rice who was quite willing to be lobbied on this and so Israel was forced to leave the corridor.  As a consolation prize to Israel, European "monitors" were to be placed at the Rafiah border crossing to wag their fingers at any nasties (people or goods) that were being brought in to Gaza via the Rafiah crossing, and then let Israel know who crossed in.

For good measure, ol' M.J. also pushed Condi who pushed Israel to reinstate the "safe passage" from Gaza to so-called West Bank and provide for freer passage into Israel.  And there were also promises of reopening the Gaza Int'l Airport.  Israel was able to suspend these latter provisions once the Kassams started flying again in the fall of 2005, and the subsequent rise of Hamas to power.  But control over the Philadelphi corridor was lost and the weapons & ammunition & explosives crossing the border went from a trickle to a torrent (one of the more sensitive indicators of weapons flow into Gaza are the price fluctuations of Kalashnikov's & bullets in the Gaza market; after Israel pulled out, the price dropped precipitously although demand was up).

So all extensive damage (and the thankfully fewer injuries and deaths) caused by the Qassam rockets -- and especially the Katyushas --  since 2005 can be charged in large part to that dynamic dodo duo of Condi Rice and M.J. Rosenberg the "Chief Policy Analyst" of the Israel Policy Forum.

Someday, the mayor of Sderot may just get up enough guts to present them with the bill.

Hershel Ginsburg

(etc. etc.)

Oh aptly named ignorant one, plenty of provisions were left by Israel when we left Gaza for the Gazans to get plenty of fuel etc.  And had they focussed just a bit on building on the economic infrastructure left behind and exploit the natural gas off of their coast, they could have thrived, and Israel would have been pressured to ease up on what little control of the borders it initially retained for itself.  And then pressure for more Israeli concessions would have followed.  And by all indications, we would have capitulated.

Believe it or else, no one, not even those fiends in the Likud (ptooi, ptooi, ptooi) FORCED Hamas & Co. to fire rockets, mortar shells, etc. into Israel after Israel pulled out.  And Israel did not twist their arm to kidnap Gilad Shalit.  Contrary to your ignorant beliefs, there was a functioning government in Gaza when Israel left that could have and should have taken control of the situation and build a model of what peace could and would be like.

For the record, Hamas has made it plain that they would prefer to sever all their connections to Israel and get their fuel, food, electricity etc. from Egypt.  We would love to oblige them.  Can anyone persuade the Egyptians to care for their fellow Arabs?

And back to fuel.  Oh Ignorant One - If Israel brings fuel to the Nahal Oz fuel terminal and Hamas blocks the transfer of the fuel to the Palestinian carriers, how is that Israel's responsibility?  If Hamas then takes the fuel for them selves and their vehicles (which are used to transport arms and soldiers -- yes Hamas is training an army in Gaza) and leaves little if anything for the Gazans themselves, how is that Israel's fault?  And if Israelis working at the fuel terminal are shelled and shot at while they are trying to transfer fuel to the Gazans, please explain to me the "moral obligation" to transfer said fuel to those who are trying to kill you while you are transferring the fuel to them so that they can be more mobile while they try to kill you?

I know.. it's really not the Hamas, IJ & al Qaeda (a recent addition to the Hamas bullpen) that are firing rockets at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal... it's really their evil twin(s).

Hershel G.

(etc. etc. etc.)

P.S.  Since I've mentioned Gilad Shalit...

Let's assume for argument sake that the Geneva Conventions apply to Hamas (the ICRC seems to thinks so and even attempted some seminars in Gaza explaining to Hamas & co. fighters what they are allowed and not allowed to do; I don't think pushing Fatah-ites off of the roof was on the permitted list, but I could be wrong).  Surely all the "enlightened" and "progressive" types think that Shalit should at least have the status of a POW, and allow him visits from the ICRC, letters to and from home, packages and the like.  Maybe even a visit by a relative.

So where are all those "enlightened" and "progressive" demonstrations in front of the Hamas offices in Damascus or in front of the Syrian embassy in Washington (it's a bit safer and more convenient there)?  Where are all those indignant OpEds?  Where are all those oh so human-rights caring NGO's who I am sure really want to demand that an Israeli POW be given his rights under the Geneva convention?  What's this?  Silence? No demos? No OpEds?  I can't believe it.  Surely they are not hypocrites....

And while I am at it, may I also mention Eldad Regeve and Ehud Goldwasser, the Israeli soldiers who were last seen being badly wounded and hauled off by Hezbollah?  No sign of life since.  Where all those pious pronouncements from the progressobabble speaking peoples when it comes to the Israelis kidnapped?  Not a peep.

hg

Ndmackenzie: You juxtaposed the Israeli occupation of the territories to the German domination of Vichy France in your post so your "distinction" is one without a difference. The New Republic is no Likudnik publication. Your hermeneutic skills are pathetic - for God's sake, Leon Wieseltier was at the White House ceremony on the occasion of the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Now Commentary is a different matter. And your Manicheanism just doesn't wash: Peretz, Podhoretz , bad, Klein, et. al, good. That fool Klein has been seduced by Hamasian faux peace rhetoric.

Lisah: Thanks for the kind comments.

Now that I have vented my minimum daily allowance, a note of optimism.  It's not a first, but definitely a rarity - an Arab intellectual (and a lefty at that!) who is calling on his fellow Arabs to recognize and accept the Jewish claim to "Palestine", admitting that Jews were here (in Israel from where I type) before the Moslem conquest of the 7th century.  He even calls the Naqba a great lie!!

Glory be!  read all about it here:  www.memri.org/.../latestnews.cgi

This is even more optimistic than the NY Times report some time ago that many many  Gazans were so sick of Hamas & IJ (not M.J.) etc. & the mess they created that they longed for the day when Israel was in charge and wanted Israel back.

Hershel G.

 Thanks for the link Hershel.

Actually Aref Alwan is not the only Arab to recognize the Jews’ right to their ancestral homeland. I know a number of Arabs here locally who also do. They teach at local colleges and they tell me that it’s not something they could say out loud in their home country.

Some of them are very angry at the Palestinian leadership which they think have betrayed their people. One of them even learned Hebrew and wanted to do a Ph.D. in Hebrew literature but was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get a job in the UAE once he graduated. He has decided instead to write a dissertation on Arab novels dealing with desert life. The guy realizes that in Israel it is possible to do work in Arabic and is very bitter about it.

Sad isn’t it? Another small example of how warped Arab society is when it comes to the Jewish State.

Jackson me buddy, where oh where is "local"?  In the USA? I'm curious where.  Surely not Columbia U. or UC Berkeley.

hg

"...where oh where is "local"?"

Local is a shifter (as the linguists say), it is where I am.

No, I wasn't speaking of academic departments which are in the main trapped in their miserable political correctness. I was speaking just of a few individuals I know.

Here is another sad example of lamentable pc in an academic department; a teacher wanting to sue her students because they wouldn't buy her nonsense:

online.wsj.com/.../SB120995103004666569.html

.

Dartmouth's 'Hostile' Environment

By JOSEPH RAGO

“Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."”

This “teacher” is a weird and pathetic example of what Universities have become.  Sadly she is not unique.

We should suppy Al Quaida  with fuel and a food -Hey the more Americans they kill the better we should treat them. Oh yes also supply Iran with the fuel to make atomic bombs to kill us. Why not ? Israel needs to supply fuel  and food for its enemies. Doesn'tgaza border a huge Arab country that regularly supplies it with arms akready. have them put a chicken and a gallon of gas with each box of shells.