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"A Peace-Seeking Country" |
Current rating: 2 |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
03 Jan 2004
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A funny editorial on the Sharon administration's spectacularly ill-timed announcement of intention to increase settlement on the Golan Heights at the very time when Assad is making US-backed peace overtures. |
A peace-seeking country
By Doron Rosenblum
Mazal tov! This is the fourth time in the past two weeks that President Assad has made overtures to Israel about opening negotiations with no prior conditions.
Nu?... So?...
Negotiations! For peace! With no prior conditions!
Big deal. Now he's suddenly smartened up, when the Americans are pressing him and his pal Saddam isn't in power anymore. Thanks very much! No favors, please! Israel is a peace-seeking country, but the motives of the other side are also important to us. How do we know what his intentions and motives are? Maybe he's not serious? Maybe he's after a one-night stand? Just a quickie?
What difference does it make what his motives are? Syria has always upheld agreements, and as a peace-seeking country, isn't it worth Israel's while to ...
To Israel as a peace-seeking country it's clear that this is not the time, and that this is not true peace we desire. "We will not rush to make peace with Syria in order to get the American pressure and the economic sanctions lifted," as Sharon said. And besides, as the Polish women say in their jokes, Why should he get enjoyment? Why in the world should he get peace-schmeace? No, this is not the time. Not when "Syria has become a remote village where the leaders are fighting for their rule," as Netanyahu said. It's not serious. Go away. Come again another day.
When? When will we know that it's serious? When Syria comes as a threatening power?
Of course not. Because we won't give in to threats, you know. We will not conduct negotiations under fire and we have no reason to conduct negotiations if there is no fire. It will be serious only when Assad comes to us and says: "Let's renew the negotiations with no prior conditions."
But that's exactly what he did say: "Let's renew the negotiations with no prior conditions."
Nu?
What nu?
Isn't that a prior condition in itself? Even an impertinent one? The man comes and lays down a condition: The negotiations will start with no prior conditions. Who does he think he is? That of course is a condition that we reject out of hand, because we said: without conditions. As a peace-seeking state, we can accept the opening of negotiations only from the zero point, as Sharon said.
What's the difference between the "zero point" and "with no prior conditions"?
A prior condition is a situation in which Syria refuses to state in advance that it is forgetting about the Golan Heights. On the other hand, the "zero point," to quote Sharon, is a situation in which we will enter negotiations with no prior conditions, on condition that Syria "removes from its soil the training camps of the terrorist organizations, stops supporting them economically, kicks out the Iranian Revolutionary Guards from Lebanon, disarms Hezbollah, furnishes Israel with information about the captives and the soldiers missing in action, returns frozen Iraqi funds to the Americans and disarms itself of its weapons of mass destruction." We might just ask them to iron a few shirts, too. And maybe to give a soothing back massage. But without tickling in the armpit. Only then will we be able to enter negotiations without any conditions on our part.
And if Assad agrees to enter negotiations from the "zero point"?
Then Sharon will have to come up with some other idea as a condition for negotiations with no conditions. That's what's meant when we say that Israel - as a peace-seeking country - "is conducting a serious, cautious examination" and that this is a subject that "has to be examined with all seriousness." Who knows what he's capable of agreeing to suddenly, that unserious guy?
What's unserious about him? How can he prove his seriousness?
A small example: In reply to the Syrian peace initiative our planes launched nonstop flights over Lebanon, including sonic booms. That made no impression on that radish. So we bombed targets in Syria. That helped like cupping glasses for the dead: the man wants negotiations: how unserious can he get? And to think that at first we thought he was this guy who surfed the Web, maybe even doing chats with settlers. Then the truth came out, thanks to reports by Military Intelligence: the man only mucks around with PlayStations. And I'll let you in on a little secret, from reliable sources: recently Sharon has begun to suspect that Assad is actually an Arab.
Okay, Sharon is known for his suspicious nature. But what's the bottom line?
That it's a nonstarter. For sure not now.
Then when?
Maybe after the holidays.
We've already had the holidays.
Then ahead of 2004.
That's already here.
Look, there's a flu epidemic on now. There's no knowing who you'll catch it from. Why walk around outside for no reason? Besides, as the foreign minister said: "We are deferring the Syrian matter for a month so that we can get a broader handle on the subject." And after that: "We want to renew the negotiations with Syria, but unfortunately now it's more difficult in an open channel." And as minister Tzipi Livni said this week on television: "That isn't the right order of discussion in the conflicts we are in today... The Syrian track has become a kind of substitute track for what we were supposed to do in regard to the Palestinians... The central issue before us is the Palestinian issue, and a channel like that, like the Syrian channel, is liable to divert us from the main thing. As I see it, that is an incorrect order of things. We have to reach a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians, that is the more correct order."
Uhh ... At long last I understand why Sharon is conducting the negotiations in the Palestinian channel so intensively, why he's at it day and night: It's all so that peace in our region will be achieved "in the right order."
Exactly. Guys, just let us do the work in the right order! First of all, to show that the Palestinians aren't serious, and only then - according to the right order of things - to show that Assad isn't serious. Just as Sharon was about to prove again that the Palestinians aren't serious, along comes this Assad and distracts him. Now you can forget about the Palestinian channel, too. After all, Israel can't cope simultaneously with two channels of unseriousness, and not even with one.
Is there actually a peace plan or an idea for negotiations that could be "serious" enough for Sharon? Not the Jordanian-Egyptian plan, not the Mitchell plan; not the Tenet plan and not the Peres-Abu Ala document; not the Zinni plan and not the Saudi peace initiative; not the road map without reservations and not the Geneva initiative; and now not the Assad initiative, either. Nothing is "serious" enough for him.
Look, Sharon has set very high standards of seriousness. Especially when he's making jokes.
Could it be that the only serious person for Sharon is someone who uses force? Maybe Assad will prove his seriousness when hundreds of Scud missiles and thousands of long-range rockets start flying around here? Maybe only then - the same as with the Palestinians - something will start to move even with Sharon?
Don't make me laugh: My lips are dry and they crack easily this time of the year. Assad has no military option. The man is trembling with fear that the Americans will catch him, too, and discover that he hasn't had his teeth cleaned for the past two years. Forget it. It's ridiculous! He knows we'll break their bones. The man is no more than a clown. Just like Sadat was.
Apropos Sadat: Why are we wasting so much energy in evasions and hair-splitting? What we're actually saying today is the same thing we said before the Yom Kippur War about Sharm el-Sheikh: "Better the Golan Heights without peace than peace without the Golan Heights." Why not come clean about it?
Why? It's simple: because Israel is a peace-seeking state.
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These Folks Need To Get Their Act Together |
by reuters via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 2
03 Jan 2004
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Israel denies Golan plan reports
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has dismissed as "untrue" reports that Israel planned to expand its Golan Heights settlements.
Mr Olmert said the government had "no such programme" for the Syrian plateau Israel occupied in the 1967 war.
He was referring to earlier comments by Israeli Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz who said Israel would build 900 new homes on the Golan Heights.
Mr Katz's comments immediately drew international condemnation.
-- Settlements pledge
In an interview with the BBC's HARDTalk programme, Mr Olmert dismissed Mr Katz's remarks - published by the Yediot Ahronot daily earlier this week - as a personal view of a politician.
"He (Katz) may have declared something... but in terms of the government policy... there is no such approved programme," Mr Olmert said.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had already denied an expansion plan ever existed, adding that the government would never agree to finance such a programme.
Mr Olmert also denied suggestions that the cabinet was deeply split on the issue.
At the same time, he said Israel was committed to removing unauthorised Jewish settlements from the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza - as required by the US-backed Middle East peace plan, the roadmap.
He said some 100 settlements would be dismantled despite a possible backlash from tens of thousands of settlers that would be affected by the move.
"We have to do it... and we'll do it," Mr Olmert said, adding that the government was ready to use all the "necessary measures" to ensure its decisions were implemented.
-- 'Unequivocal message'
On Tuesday Mr Katz said a $60m expansion plan would see the population in the Golan Heights rise by 50% over three years.
The goal is for al-Assad to see from the windows of his home the Israeli Golan thriving and flourishing
"The aim is to send an unequivocal message: the Golan is an integral part of Israel," Mr Katz said.
He also charged that Syria "on one hand announces that it is interested in peace, and on the other hand openly supports Palestinian terror".
Damascus reacted angrily to the latest move, saying Israel was "deluded that it can achieve something by relying on power and occupation".
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has only recently called for renewed talks over the possible return of the Golan.
Syria denies that it supports terrorism, saying Palestinian militant groups had only information offices in Damascus and even those had been shut down.
Mr Katz's comments also drew harsh criticism from the Palestinian Authority and France.
-- Water resources
There are currently 31 settlements in the Golan Heights with about 10,500 inhabitants.
The Heights were occupied by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and were annexed in 1981.
They are a grassy plateau overlooking north-eastern Israel and south-east Syria and have important water resources - providing Israel with a third of its water needs.
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