Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine'

[breakaleg]

Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine'
Published: 16 June 2007

How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.

Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.

No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?

And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority".

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http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2663199.ece

[sellitman]

1. Hamas is very clear.

No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognize. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?

They recognize Palestine. They do not recognize any place called Israel. That is a part of the problem. No one has to ask.

[papau]

2. Fisk has his head up his A-s - -he really needs to find an angle that makes Hamas the reasonable one

It was a 44% to 42% "victory" - and Fatah was no more discredited than the Democratic Party was discredited with the GOP "victory" of 2000.

Hamas members are now claiming that the Koran is now the Constitution - and Fisk says they do not want an Islamic republic?

Fisk did good work in VietNam - but this article is a joke.

[northamericancitizen]

3. Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine'

Source: The Independent

" How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.

Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.

No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?"

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2663199.ece

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more at the link

[rodeodance]

4. Which Israel?---That is a very powerful comment/question!!

[EFerrari]

5. How Fisk has manage to keep his sanity reporting our ME

"policy" is quite a feat.

/oops

[montanacowboy]

6. Fisk is right on

and the allegiance of the AIPAC lobby with our Congress continues to buid on this disaster.

On CNN this a.m. all blame now is on Iran for the Hamas victory; The people voted for Hamas, Hamas helps these people with food, hospitals, education. But, no, we want the western Stooge Abbas.

And people like LIEberman with their war message and more alliance to Israel than to the US needs to be removed from office.

[xchrom]

7. kicking -- because bush is moer than a little responsible

for this current debacle.

[pampango]

8. If we want the US & Israel to negotiate with the Hamas government

that is rather than the Palestinian government that we would prefer, I guess we could request Hamas to negotiate with the Israel that is rather than the Israel that it would prefer (especially if it would prefer no Israel at all).

Having said that, all that accomplishes is to make clear that neither the US/Israel or Hamas want to negotiate with an entity that they preferred did not exist. Each side can then sit back and say "You can't criticize us because you are doing the same thing." I think we all know where the constant "It's not my fault, it's your fault" exchange has gotten us.

[SOS]

9. Divide and rule strategy

Here and in Iraq, the hidden strategy to divide and rule the entire Moslem world seems to be right on schedule:

Fostering fragmentation
One of the longstanding goals of neo-conservative intellectuals has been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites and others.

Such a policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination - indeed, the neo-cons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians' desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel - but out of an imperial quest for divide-and-rule.

The division of the Middle East has long been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and, more recently, pan-Islamist movements. Given the mosaic of ethnicities and sects in the Middle East, with various groupings having mixed together within both urban and rural settings for many generations, the establishment of such ethnic or sectarian mini-states would almost certainly result in forced population transfers, ethnic cleansing and other human suffering.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC09Ak01.html

This strategy worked out so well for the British in the last century, that the US, UK and Israel are trying it again.
The results will, eventually, be the same.
Their motto should be "Live and Don't Learn".

[wellst0nev0ter]

10. "How do we deal with a coup d'état by an elected government?"

That statement so effectively summarizes the whole insanity surrounding the mideast policy by the bushies that it should be framed and displayed in one of your better art galleries.

[cigsandcoffee]

11. "declines to recognise Israel"

Hamas is committed in every way to the destruction of ISrael. That's kind of a big stumbling block to meaningful dialogue.

[Psephos]

12. Jeez Fisk, can't you find one teeny thing about Hamas' brutality that bugs you? n/t

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. very interesting article

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

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