Peace in Israel & Palestine
PEACE IN ISRAEL & PALESTINE
The Annapolis Peace Conference
Mike Ghouse, November 20, 2007
The Annapolis peace conference is scheduled for Tuesday, November 27, 2007.
I do hope some one at the State department is willing to push the REFRRESH button and start thinking about ideas that work. It takes courage and guts, and without it, nothing in the world would ever be achieved.
Mother Teresa said, "If you want peace, go talk with your enemies, you don't make peace with your friends". I do hope the state department brings people who can speak up the harsh truth. If they bring puppets and make decisions, failure is guaranteed.
All our efforts to place wedges between Abbas and Hamas shows the desperation and insincerity of our Administration to bring peace. These efforts will back fire and are a detriment to peace. Dividing the Palestinians for the short term gain will not cut it, it shows our inability to deal with the subject head on and our deviousness. On the one hand we are buying Abbas out with lots of money, and on the other we are letting people die without medicine, potable water and the very basics of life in Gaza. Is this injustice going keep any people apart? This injustice may bind the Palestinians stronger than ever before. We need to bring honesty and integrity to the conference. For God's sake let's be honest once and genuinely bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians.
Although we hate Hamas, they need to be in the picture to get decisions implemented. We cannot bring peace unilaterally without the parties to conflict participating in it.
Our foreign policy has relied on our gun powder and our ability to dole out alms to shove nations around the World to achieve our goals. The state department has forgotten that 'lasting relationships' hinge on a dialogue based on treating all parties on an equal footing.
No doubt our policies have failed as we continue to believe that we can buy other nations disregarding their pride. Those nations that challenge our might stand the chance of annihilation and we refuse to talk with them. Does the state department know what diplomacy means? Please push the refresh button.
A few basics need to be addressed and understood by all the parties.
Jews have a need to be understood and be acknowledged for their eternal security needs, not the military, but mental security where they can put their guards down and live their life in peace.
Palestinians have a need to be understood. They have suffered immeasurably, no human should be stripped of his or her hope and dignity; hope to have a family, work and own a house and call a place their homeland.
Our Presidents need to seriously look at what works. They need to have the vision for peace. They must understand that it may be going against the general opinion and perhaps against their very supporters. They need to take bold steps and produce peace for the people of Israel and Palestine.
We must protect Israel, our ally; however, if that protection is based on injustice to either Palestinians or the Jews, our integrity becomes questionable and peace will rest on doubts. We need to be above reproach. Mighty empires can crush the weak for a short term; in the long run every one goes down the tube. We cannot rob anyone and live with a good conscience.
We must watch out for the hate mongers, who go around campus to campus, pulpit to pulpit spreading chaos, causing people to entrench in hate and bring untold miseries to the world. Of course, they will sucker you into investing in their campaign. These carriers of hate will frighten you and get you to open your pocket book. Creating chaos for others is guaranteed to envelope us. Before you write the check, please ask them to spend their time on spreading peace instead.
It is time for the silent majority to speak up and act on. The State department has not had fresh thinking for over 50 years now, every one that comes in including an individual like Collin Powell, has succumbed to the brain washing. They just don't want to push the REFRESH button.
Once the Palestinian Israel conflict is resolved, much of the frustration and terrorism around the world would thaw out.
I invite you to join me in offering practical solutions, with injustice towards none. If you feel there is an imbalance speak up. I urge you become the mitigators of conflicts and not provocateurs.
You cannot have peace when others are not, and you cannot have securitywhen others don't. It is in every one's interests to drop the prejudices and seriously look for peace. What is good for one has got to be good for the other and vice-versa, if not it is short-lived.
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"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
ReplyDeleteApparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
His response was "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation. These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY.... ( It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!!!! )It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians20enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be. What will we tell our grandchildren about we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?
START NOW- Send this to 18 other people you know and ask them to send it to eighteen others, Jew and non-Jew--it doesn't really matter.