NY Times calls for 'imposed solution'

The only demand Bibi has made is that Palestine recognize a Jewish state. Outside of this he has agreed to everything before sitting and meeting with Abbas. He is the only party that wants to meet. Abbas does not. Because of this the NYTimes knows there will never be a deal... and all the generous offers Bibi makes will not be a reality. Since the Times knows that the Palestinians are not capable of being fair they are asking Obama and the West to force an unfair position through military force. Bibi has his hand out saying recognize me and we will give you what you want and the NYTimes is in fact saying force Bibi to give everything and don't recognize him at all because being fair is not enough... the Palestinians don't want fair and will end up losing it all. Read the details at Carl's blog. He worked so hard on dissecting the NYTimes position I didn't think it would be fair to repost completely his complete work like I usually do...
In an editorial that says that 'all share the blame' for the Middle East impasse - and then conveniently forgets Barack Hussein Obama's role in the impasse - the New York Times concludes that the United States 'and its partners' must impose a 'solution.'
Let's look at what Israel's Prime Minister has done since he took office in March 2009. He accepted the 'two-state solution,' the first time any Likud Prime Minister had ever openly done so. He imposed a ten-month 'settlement freeze' in Judea and Samaria. That 'settlement freeze' has continued de facto beyond that ten-month deadline and has included 'east' Jerusalem. Netanyahu has continuously repeated the mantra that he will meet with Abu Bluff anytime and anywhere without preconditions - but Abu Bluff won't meet unless he is first assured of the outcome. And now, despite the fact that most Israelis are opposed, Netanyahu is apparently on the verge of accepting a negotiating framework in which the default position would be going back to the ''1967 lines'' 1949 armistice lines (and yes, they really are indefensible despite the fact that the Times poo poos it - look at a topographical map). But that's still not enough for the New York Times. Netanyahu is number one on their list of those to blame for the Impasse. via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

What kind of line the US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer would of drawn in a Warsaw Ghetto?

Abu Mazen Agrees!

the 67 lines were quite defensible and the 73 expanded lines were far less defensible?

Where are the 67 borders?

I have often written about the manipulation of technology to fabricate an ahistorical and counter-factual narrative; for example the replacement geography in Google Earth, and the relocation of East Jerusalem to Palestine in Yahoo Weather. History is a critical part of the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel. Getting it right is important. The current discourse over “67 borders” in the media, blogosphere and social media, presents a narrative so removed from fact that its propagandistic nature can be exposed even by someone with only Google Maps and Wikipedia to guide them. The propaganda has been triggered by discussion over the Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood. More and more people are speaking about Israel’s borders, and in particular the idea of “returning to the 67 borders.” Those with a knowledge of history would know there is no such thing. For a start, they mean pre-1967, not 1967, and to be fully accurate, they mean boundaries or lines not borders. The loss of the “pre” prefix is the most blatant attempt to wipe clear the historical narrative, see for example the recent Washington Post op-ed by Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s Former Ambassador.
Even in Israel there has been a move away from the “green line” to “67 borders,” articles in both Haaretz and Jerusalem Post have used this terminology. This is unsurprising given the use of this terminology by Israeli leaders, the British Prime Minister, and many other. The White House, whatever one thinks of their policy, at least have the terminology right, despite media headlines and reporting to the contrary, at AIPAC, President Obama’s actual words referred to “pre-1967 lines,” a formulation that the White House press office has also used consistently.
The 1949 Armistice Agreement Line shown on Google MapsOn Google Maps the line is clearly and correctly labelled the “1949 Armistice Agreement Line.” In Wikipedia, the article on the Green Line, refers to the boundary as “the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.” The narrative of ’67 borders is a Palestinian one. It obfuscates the fact that a return to these borders would be a return to the unstable position after the war of independence.
The Wikipedia article itself notes this was never an “international or permanent border,” it also notes the position in international law, expressed by the deputy legal advisor to the US Department of State in the American Journal of International Law (1970). He said “...modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful... whether those modifications are...'insubstantial alterations required for mutual security' or more substantial alterations - such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.” The Palestinian narrative seeks to lock in the minimalist idea of insubstantial changes and make even that look like a serious sacrifice that is almost too much to ask of them.
History is important. Last week was the anniversary of the Six Day war, and the relevance to today was well outlined by David Harris last week. Language and rhetoric are also important. Let’s stop the downwards slide into a Palestinian narrative. Let us begin to speak of the 1949 ceasefire lines, the psychological trauma of insecurity they imposed, the real danger they created in the face of a conventional warfare threat, and why Abba Eban referred to these indefensible borders as Auschwitz borders, meaning they put Jews, at the time many of them Holocaust survivors, again at the mercy of being slaughtered on mass by those who wished them harm. Israel’s recent experience with Hamas in Gaza justifies a continual concern about such dangerous borders. Not only are there the rockets on Sderot, let’s also remember Gilad Shalit kidnapped by terrorists who made the short journey from Gaza almost 5 years ago.
A two state solution is possible, and large parts of the future border may indeed be along the green line, but the negotiation and public discussion must have a basis in history and fact. It cannot be built on the ahistorical changing sands of Palestinian propaganda. In the mean time, all of us, from international leaders and the media to Facebook users, should watch our language and ensure we don’t strengthen a narrative that will lead not to peace but potentially to renewed bloodshed. If, despite all their flaws, Google Maps and Wikipedia can get this right, so can the rest of us.

Dr. Andre Oboler via docstalk.blogspot.com

US to veto Palestinian statehood bid in UNSC, PA Backing Off Declaration of Statehood‏

Fatah and Hamas both realized that they are in no position to create a prosperous state and are much better off maintaining the status quo while blaming Israel for their lack of a state. The PA is and will continue to be entirely dependent upon Israel. Going forward, the PA will need water, gas, electricity and medical care. Add to this the fact that Israel is going to be by far the PA’s major trading partner, though Egypt may become a greater partner than Israel for those in Gaza.

Fatah has come to realize that it not only will not achieve the full 1967 borders including all of pre-1967 “East” Jerusalem through a UNGA vote declaring as much, but the PA would at that point also take a position fundamentally abandoning the goal of achieving total victory in the future and therefore may be trying to back out or even sabotage those efforts.What is underway right now would appear to be an effort by the Palestinian Authority to halt the creation of a two state solution so as not to abandon the long hoped for single state one. It appears, once again, that the PA may be trying to sabotage efforts to achieve a state alongside Israel, including its own leadership’s attempts, while preserving the status-quo indefinitely. Rabbi Kaufman via docstalk.blogspot.com

Erekat calls for ‘alternative to two-state solution’?
Translation he is asking the United Nations
for recognition of Palestine,
and the end of Israel.

There is no way that a Palestinian state could become a member of the United Nations without a recommendation from the Security Council.  If the United States or any other permanent council member used its veto, the General Assembly would not be able to vote on membership for Palestine.

The Palestinian demand is that Israel go back to the pre-1967 lines and then start negotiating a two-state solution. If Israel doesn't agree, then Palestinians would ask UN to recognize "Palestine" as a member state based on the non-existent temporary 1949 borders which the Arabs refused to recognize even back in 1949 and over which they went to war with Israel in 1967.
Nice logic.

(JPost) Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the US will veto the request to recognize Palestinian statehood in the UN Security Council in September, Al-Ayyam reported on Thursday.
Erekat told the Palestinian newspaper that during his recent trip to the US, officials said negotiations are the only option.
Erekat visited Washington this week, where he met with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Obama adviser Dennis Ross and members of the US National Security Council. He plans to meet with members of Congress on Thursday.
Erekat said that Palestinians will only agree to peace talks if Israel agrees to a two-state solution based on pre-1967 lines with land swaps and stops all construction in settlements, as well as east Jerusalem.
If Israel does not agree to these terms, the PA will ask the UN to recognize Palestine as a member country, Erekat explained.
The Palestinian negotiator added that all members of the new Palestinian government, to rise from the Fatah-Hamas unity deal, will be committed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas's [AKA Abu Mazen] previous agreements. via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

One of the reasons you have to be careful who receives these veto status statehood is that it is a powerful ability to reject the majority state's will. The bad thing for America is that an enemy can also get this position.

Abbas rules out peace

Any recommendation for admission must receive the affirmative votes of 9 of the 15 members of the Council, provided that none of its five permanent members — China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America — have voted against the application.

Attorneys to Ban: Halt unilateral Palestinian statehood

Int'l group of some 60 lawyers say UN resolution on statehood would be a violation of all past agreements between Israel, the Palestinians.

An international group of some 60 attorneys, including former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker, has appealed to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to prevent a General Assembly resolution on unilateral Palestinian statehood, based on the pre-1967 lines.
In a letter dated Wednesday, the attorneys noted that such a resolution would be a violation of all past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. They added that it would also contravene UN resolutions 242 and 338.

According to the attorneys, the legal basis for the establishment of the state by the League of Nations in 1922 affirmed its presence on territories that included Judea, Samaria, and what is now east Jerusalem. “This was subsequently affirmed by both houses of US Congress,” the attorneys stated. According to Article 80 of the UN Charter, the attorneys said, rights granted to all states or people by already existing international instruments – including those adopted by the League of Nations – remain valid. As a result, the attorneys said, the “650,000 Jews [who] presently reside in the areas of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, reside there legitimately.” The 1949 Armistice Agreement stated that these lines “are without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines, or to claims of either Party relating thereto,” the attorneys said. Therefore, they said, “the 1967 borders” do not exist, and have never existed. Past resolutions have called for a negotiated solution to the conflict, the attorneys affirmed. Additionally, attempts to unilaterally change the status of the territory would be a breach of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the attorneys said. When the Palestinians agreed to the Oslo Accords, they knew that the settlements existed and would be one of the issues that would be negotiated during talks for a permanent-status arrangement, the attorneys said. The Olso Accords did not limit settlement activity, they added. By TOVAH LAZAROFF via jpost.com

BiBi to Obama: before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide — half the width of the Washington Beltway.

And these were not the boundaries of peace; they were the boundaries of repeated wars

Three Cheers for Terroristine

By endorsing the 1967 borders, he endorsed the outcome of the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948. Every time his administration condemns a Jewish house in Jerusalem, he endorses the Jordanian conquest of the city.

Nakba Historiography

Why are the borders of the 1948 war, so much better than the borders of the Six Day War? Because the Terroristinians came closer to winning that war. Came closer to driving the Yahood into the sea and ululating over mile after mile of their corpses.

But the dream failed. Farmers armed with outdated rifles. Volunteer pilots from America and Canada. Refitted cargo ships filled with half-dead men, women and children straight from the camps. Used Czech artillery. They held off the armies of seven Terroristinian nations. Farm by farm, they stood off tanks and infantry. In Jerusalem, they fought for every house. And so the Zionist entity survived. Allah curse them. They survived.

more via sultanknish.blogspot.com

image via foxnews.com

Resolution 242

If the 1949 Armistice Line was not a recognized international border,

Then_why_is Clinton saying,"we believe that the 1967 borders,with swaps, should be the focus of the negotiations over borders."

...but the 1949 Armistice Line never was a border. Jordan repeatedly clarified this through history. Example days before the Six-Day War Jordan clarified that for any claiming parties the the old armistice agreement "did not fix boundaries".Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated by exclusively by military considerations.  Even the "famous" UN Resolution 242 which was passed by the UN Security Council five months after the Six-Day War recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not supposed to designate final Israeli borders.

At the UN General Assembly in September 2009, Obama used in his address the road-map phrase of "ending the occupation that began in 1967," but he did not refer to Resolution 242 as his predecessors did.

Over the last decade, Israel has made repeated mistakes in allowing the restoration of the 1967 lines and the downgrading of Resolution 242. It should have fought harder over the language of the Road Map back in 2003. Israel's right to defensible borders, that must replace the 1967 lines, has a strong foundation in international law and in the past policies of the UN Security Council.

Arab declarations about destroying Israel were made preceding the war when control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (or Sinai and the Golan Heights) were not in Israel’s hands, and no so-called Israeli occupation existed.
That is why the UN Security Council recognized that Israel had acquired the territory from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria not as a matter of aggression, but as an act of self-defense. That is also why http://xrl.us/Resolution242 was passed under Chapter VI of the UN Charter rather than Chapter VII. As explained above, UN resolutions adopted under Chapter VI call on nations to negotiate settlements, while resolutions under the more stringent Chapter VII section deal with clear acts of aggression that allow the UN to enforce its resolutions upon any state seen as threatening the security of another state or states.

Professor Julius Stone, a leading authority on the Law of Nations, has concurred, further clarifying:

Julius Stone via stonelab.osu.edu

“Territorial Rights Under International Law. … By their [Arab countries] armed attacks against the State of Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and by various acts of belligerency throughout this period, these Arab states flouted their basic obligations as United Nations members to refrain from threat or use of force against Israel’s territorial integrity and political independence. These acts were in flagrant violation inter alia of Article 2(4) and paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of the same article.”(11)

If the West Bank and Gaza were indeed occupied territory
– belonging to someone else and unjustly seized by force – there could be no grounds for negotiating new borders. via crethiplethi.com

Lord Caradon

President Lyndon Johnson made this very point in September 1968: "It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders." It is for this reason that Resolution 242 did not call for a full withdrawal from all the territories that Israel captured in the Six Day War; the 1949 Armistice lines were no longer to be a reference point for a future peace process.


Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the UN admitted at the time: "I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where the troops had to stop." He concluded: "it is not a permanent border."

Arthur Goldberg
via cpsalumni.org

His U.S. counterpart, Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, added that "historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the area"; he then added that the armistice lines did not answer that description.

Lord Caradon, sponsor of the draft that was about to be adopted, stated, before the vote in the Security Council on Resolution 242:
“… the draft Resolution is a balanced whole. To add to it or to detract from it would destroy the balance and also destroy the wide measure of agreement we have achieved together. It must be considered as a whole as it stands. I suggest that we have reached the stage when most, if not all, of us want the draft Resolution, the whole draft Resolution and nothing but the draft Resolution.” (S/PV 1382, p. 31, of 22.11.67)

Even the Soviet
delegate to the U.N.,
Vasili Kuznetsov,
who fought against
the final text,
conceded that
the resolution
gave Israel
the right to
"withdraw its
forces only
to those lines
it considers
appropriate."
- Danny Ayalon

Arthur Goldberg, US representative, in the Security Council in the course of the discussions which preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:

“To seek withdrawal without secure and recognized boundaries … would be just as fruitless as to seek secure and recognized boundaries without withdrawal. Historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the cease-fire lines of 1967 have answered that description… such boundaries have yet to be agreed upon. An agreement on that point is an absoute essential to a just and lasting peace just as withdrawal is… S/PV. 1377, p. 37, of 15. 11.67

MICHAEL STEWART via independent.co.uk

Michael Stewart, (Great Britain) Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in reply to a question in Parliament, 17 November 1969:

“Question: “What is the British interpretation of the wording of the 1967 Resolution? Does the Right Honourable Gentleman understand it to mean that the Israelis should withdraw from all territories taken in the late war?”


Mr. Stewart: “No, Sir. That is not the phrase used in the Resolution. The Resolution speaks of secure and recognized boundaries. These words must be read concurrently with the statement on withdrawal.”

George Brown
VIA spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, on January 19, 1970:

“I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. “I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said ‘Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied’, and not from ‘the’ territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.” (The Jerusalem Post, January 3 1970)

Joseph J. Sisco via nndb.com

Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State, 12 July 1970 (NBC “Meet the Press”):

“That Resolution did not say ‘withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines’. The Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties.”

Eugene V. Rostow,
Professor of Law and Public Affairs
via images.library.yale.edu

Eugene V. Rostow, Professor of Law and Public Affairs 

, who, in 1967, was US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs:

“… Paragraph 1 (i) of the Resolution calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces ‘from territories occupied in the recent conflict’, and not ‘from the territories occupied in the recent conflict’. Repeated attempts to amend this sentence by inserting the word ‘the’ failed in the Security Council. It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the provision requires Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied under the cease-fire resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines.” (American Journal of International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 69)

Geraldo de Carvalho Silos via untreaty.un.org

Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, Brazilian UN representative, speaking in the Security Council after the adoption of Resolution 242:

“We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East has necessarily to be based on secure, permanent boundaries freely agreed upon and negotiated by the neighboring States.” (S/PV. 1382, p. 66,22.11.67 ).

So this is what adults, from both political parties, have had to say about UN 242, and pulling back to 1967 borders. 

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recalled the first time he heard someone invoke "the sacramental language of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, mumbling about the need for a just and lasting peace within secure and recognized borders". He said the phrase was so platitudinous that he thought the speaker was pulling his leg. Kissinger said that, at that time, he did not appreciate how the flood of words used to justify the various demands obscured rather than illuminated the fundamental positions. Kissinger said those "clashing perspectives" prevented any real bargaining and explained: "Jordan’s acquiescence in Resolution 242 had been obtained in 1967 by the promise of our United Nations

Arthur Goldberg
via exhibits.library.northwestern.edu

Ambassador Arthur Goldberg that under its terms we would work for the return of the West Bank of Jordan with minor boundary rectifications and that we were prepared to use our influence to obtain a role for Jordan in Jerusalem."
However, speaking to Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon said "You and I both know they can’t go back to the other [1967] borders. But we must not, on the other hand, say that because the Israelis win this war, as they won the '67 War, that we just go on with status quo. It can't be done." Kissinger replied "I couldn't agree more"
Moreover, President Gerald Ford said: "The U.S. further supports the position that a just and lasting peace, which remains our objective, must be acceptable to both sides

Of all the Presidents, Gerald Ford said it best: it must be acceptable to both sides.  Trying to jam a dead UN Agreement down the throats of Israel, sets the stage for another blood bath. via Bob Schneider

http://xrl.us/Resolution242

President Bush made clear in his 2004 letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that "it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949".
The Bush letter was approved by massive bipartisan majorities in both houses of the US Congress. 

the Obama administration has avoided stating that it is legally bound by the contents of the letter. This came out in a long exchange between a Fox News reporter and the State Department's Deputy Spokesman, Robert Wood, on June 1, 2009.

At the UN General Assembly in September 2009, Obama used in his address the road-map phrase of "ending the occupation that began in 1967," but he did not refer to Resolution 242 as his predecessors did.

- The Myth of the 1967 Borders - Jewish Internet Defense Force via thejidf.org

the truth about Resolution 194

[Count Bernadotte's]  report also considered the possibility of resettlement outside Palestine, with those who chose not to return being adequately compensated for their lost property. “It must not... be supposed that the establishment of the right of refugees to return to their former homes provides a solution to the problem” the report read.

Mike Huckabee: "President Obama has betrayed Israel"

the 1967 lines...
that NEVER were

"President Obama has betrayed Israel and made a grievous mistake by suggesting borders of Israel go back to pre-1967 borders.  This is an outrage to peace, sovereignty of Israel, and a stable Middle East.  The nation of Israel was attacked in 1967 from all sides with a determination to annihilate her.  Israel needs more security, not less.  The Palestinians have steadfastly refused to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, despite long standing international law to the contrary.  The President needs to worry less about the borders of Israel and start securing the borders of the United States." via blogs.cbn.com

Mahmoud Abbas AKA Abu Mazen Writes his Naqba in the NYTimes.com

...Nakba Historiography...

Abu Mazen AKA Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the president of the Palestinian National Authority via nytimes.com...

...It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued. - Abu Mazen AKA Abbas

compare that to the account from Barry Rubin:

based on German and U.S. intelligence materials:

The international community offered to make Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Arabs’ leader, head of a state despite the fact that he and his closest colleagues were the subject of a 1938 British arrest warrant for terrorist activities (not mythical but for killing lots of people), and had spent World War Two in Berlin doing pro-Nazi propaganda, recruiting for SS units, and planning a Holocaust of Jews in the Middle East.

But al-Husseini rejected partition and so did all of the Arab states. While Jordan wanted to make a deal and Egypt’s government wasn’t enthusiastic, they all had to go along with al-Husseini’s intransigence, their hysterical public opinion, and the other Arab states’ pressure. The Arab League’s leader, a Nazi agent during World War Two, bragged that the Jews would be massacred. The Muslim Brotherhood, which collaborated with the Nazis during the war and were subsidized by them before the war, sent volunteers to fight the Jews. And so a Palestinian Arab army, whose three chief commanders had all fought for the Nazis during World War Two, went to war against the Jews using Nazi-supplied weapons (provided for the Palestinian Arab revolt in 1939 and for an Egyptian revolt that never happened in 1942). They lost. via A Brief Guide to Why 1948 Was a Palestinian Arab and Arab Disaster by Barry Rubin via docstalk.blogspot.com

Indeed, it was the descendants of these expelled Palestinians who were shot and wounded by Israeli forces on Sunday as they tried to symbolically exercise their right to return to their families’ homes.  - Abu Mazen AKA Abbas

NO...The Syrian government, with the encouragement of anti-Israel Palestinian groups, Hezbollah and the Iranians, has sent hundreds of supposed "Palestinian refugess" surging across the Israeli border in the Golan in an attempt to provoke a confrontation.

...A key focus of negotiations will be reaching a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194, which the General Assembly passed in 1948... - Abu Mazen AKA Abbas

...here is the truth about Resolution 194

[Count Bernadotte's]  report also considered the possibility of resettlement outside Palestine, with those who chose not to return being adequately compensated for their lost property. “It must not... be supposed that the establishment of the right of refugees to return to their former homes provides a solution to the problem” the report read.

The Drafting History of 242 Shows it Pertains to all Refugees – Jewish and Arab

Resolution 242 speaks of “a just settlement of the refugee problem,” not ‘the Palestinian or Arab refugee problem.’ The history of the resolution shows that it was intentional and reflected recognition that the Arab-Israeli conflict created two refugee populations, not one. Parallel to the estimated 600,000 Arabs who left Israel, more than 899,000(12) Jews fled from Arab countries in the aftermath of the 1948 war – 650,000 of them finding asylum in Israel.
A history of the behind-the-scenes work drafting the resolution shows that the former Soviet Union Ambassador Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kuznetsov sought to restrict the term ‘just settlement’ to Palestinian refugees only. But former U.S. Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, the American Ambassador to the UN who played a key role in the ultimate language adopted, pointed out:

“A notable omission in 242 is any reference to Palestinians, a Palestinian state on the West Bank or the PLO. The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees, for about an equal number of each abandoned their homes as a result of the several wars.” via crethiplethi.com

...We call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and by supporting its admission to the United Nations. Only if the international community keeps the promise it made to us six decades ago, and ensures that a just resolution for Palestinian refugees is put into effect, can there be a future of hope and dignity for our people. - Abu Mazen AKA Abbas

the 1949 Armistice Line never was a border.
there is no such thing as pre-1967 borders.

Jordan repeatedly clarified this through history. Example days before the Six-Day War Jordan clarified that for any claiming parties the the old armistice agreement "did not fix boundaries".
Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated by exclusively by military considerations.

bias in International Herald Tribune - NYTimes owned

Today's European edition of the International Herald Tribune, published by the New York Times, is a stark display of bias, absolving Palestinians of any role as perpetrators in the conflict while placing Palestinian grievances against Israel under a microscope. The "global edition of the New York Times," today's paper runs two stories about alleged Israeli wrongdoings, including the most prominent front-page story, a lengthy article on Israeli actions in the West Bank village of Awarta, as well as an inside article on Israeli plans for construction beyond the 1949 armistice line (Green Line). At the same time, the Tribune fails to give even passing mention to two major news stories which broke yesterday, both of which involve alleged Palestinian wrongdoing -- the murder of Israeli film director and activist in Jenin and the indictment of a Gaza engineer for his alleged role in rocket development.

more via camera.org

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his sons are said to have bankrolled dozens of Arab journalists in return for turning a blind eye to what the Libyan regime was doing to its people. The list of beneficiaries included newspaper editors, reporters and columnists from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, the Gulf and the Palestinian territories.
Senior Arab journalists living in London and Paris also said to have been on the Libyan regime's payroll.
Gaddafi and his sons are not the only ones who have been bribing journalists in the Arab world. The regime of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and several oil-rich Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia have for decades offered bribes to Arab journalists.
This explains why many Arab journalists have refrained from reporting anything that reflected negatively on their paymasters.
Instead of reporting on the grievances of Arabs living under dictatorships, these journalists often engaged in heaping praise on Arab regimes and criticizing only one country: Israel.

via hudson-ny.org

Fast train between TA, J'lem to run through West Bank

via jpost.com

Critics say the long-awaited railway violates int'l law because the construction has seized "occupied Palestinian land." Ramot, where the train is due to have its Jerusalem terminus is beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Mevasseret Tziyon is beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Left-wing critics stated that the planned rail route violates international law because the construction has seized Palestinian land and won't serve Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Israeli government officials say they have taken steps to ensure that the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem line would one day benefit Palestinians. Transport Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadiah said planning has begun on an extension that would connect Gaza with the city of Ramallah, the West Bank's center of commerce and government. . But researcher Dalit Baum said that idea is "a cynical ploy that is only suggested in order to justify this train route as legal." Baum wrote a report on the project published this week by an Israeli watchdog group, the Coalition of Women for Peace. Most of the six-kilometer (nearly four-mile) stretch of the railway inside the West Bank runs through tunnels. The high-speed train would cut the trip to 28 minutes between the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv that is Israel's business and cultural center, and the religious center and political capital of Jerusalem. The current train takes 90 minutes and is rarely used.
of course there will be friction. the armistice line is not a border.... and it should be ignored. Any unsustainable line from the past is not going to apply to the reality on the ground today.

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous