News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-03/news-roundup-hour-2
President Barack Obama holds a working dinner with, clockwise from left, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, Tony Blair, the international Middle east envoy and former British Prime Minister, and President Hosni Mubarek of Egypt, in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2010
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza via Flickr
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Washington for the start of peace talks; the American combat mission ends in Iraq; and heavy violence in Afghanistan claims more lives among U.S. troops. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
Guests
Yochi Dreazen
senior national security correspondent, National Journal magazine.
Kevin Whitelaw
defense and foreign policy editor, Congressional Quarterly.
Abderrahim Foukara
Washington bureau chief of Al Jazeera Arabic.
Comments
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Israelis have proven twice (in Sinai and in Gaza) that in the name of peace they will evacuate settlements. Palestinians have proven many, many times they are unable or unwilling in name of peace to stop terrorist attacks. The view that the growth of settlements is a greater threat to peace than terrorist murders is wrong, both historically and morally. Palestinian terrorism began long before 1967 and before Israeli settlements on the west bank. The inability or unwillingness of the Palestine Authority to control terrorist elements in Hamas and other groups is the reason why peace has not occurred since the Oslo Accords.
Regarding the possibility that trapped miners will have their salaries frozen. My initial reaction was outrage, followed by "why am I not surprised?" It is just another example of how we have become a world in which fiscal responsibility is nonexistent, the CEO and upper management will come out with their personal portfolios and bonuses intact and once again the working individual bears the burden.
I am sadly coming to the belief that the majority of individuals who run this multimillion/billion dollar corporations are amoral, not immoral, for you have to believe that there is a moral code of conduct one should adhere to in order to be immoral and clearly and repeatly that is just not the case.
The historical record, not public pronouncements however, indicate that elder
Israeli statesmen, including Theodore Hertzl the premier Zionist, never envisioned
sharing "Yisrael" with the native Arab population.
The hope now is that there will be sufficient international pressure on Israel to begin
conforming to UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions and International Human
Rights.
Actually, in Herzl's time there were over 10 times as many Jews in the world as there were Arabs in Palestine. That is, roughly 6 million Jews in the world versus 600,000 non-Jews living in Palestine. The idea was that with free and open Jewish immigration, the Jews would soon become the majority and the Arabs would become the minority in a Jewish state. So it depends what one means by "sharing." It was intended to be the sovereign homeland of the Jewish nation, but to protect the civil rights of the non-Jewish minorities. No different than an Irish state or a German state. No one anticipated the rapid Arab growth rate once major Jewish resettlement actually began. Nor was the vehemence and virulence of Arab resistance, since Chaim Weizmann and Emir Feisal had come to an understanding at the Paris Peace conference, wherein Feisal agreed to the "Zionist programme" in Palestine provided that the other Arabs outside gained their independence with himself as "King of the Arabs." Anyhow, things did not work out as had been hoped. Things in the Middle East never do.
Israel is still occupying Gaza -- check with the UN, Red Cross, and all human rights groups. Besides, settlements are illegal under international law -- it is by no means a concession to remove settlements.
And terror attacks were dramatically reduced in the late 1990s (as just one example) -- check your facts -- Israel doubled the number of settlers in the West Bank after Oslo/during Clinton era and in clear violation of UN Security Council Resolutions.
There are now more than 500,000 thousand settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem -- if that is not a categorical rejection of peace, I don't know what is. Palestinians are blocked from more than 40 percent of the West Bank. And this is a conflict about land -- so of course, the settlers are the biggest threat to peace.
As for terror attacks -- no sane person would dispute that far more Palestinian civilians have been killed. Again, check with any human rights organization. Over 1300 hundred were killed in Gaza recently, mostly civilians....and of course we remember Sabra and Chatila as just two examples where Sharon had command/control responsibility.