Renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are opening in Egypt, amid concern over the imminent expiry of Israel’s partial ban on West Bank settlement building.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are holding three-way talks with Hillary Clinton in Sharm-el-Sheikh.
Before the talks began the US secretary of state had said Israel should extend its freeze on West Bank construction.
Why are the West Bank and Gaza strip supposed to be Jewish free when Israel is hardly Arab free?
Speaking of which, the “moderate” imam apparently spoke in favor of having an “Arab Israel” where the Israel becomes just another Arab country. The Jews are so well treated in Iran and Saudi Arabia. What could go wrong?
robroy, can you provide a cite for your “apparent” quote by the imam? When and where did he say it? Is the text or video available online?
Here you are:
[url=http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/14/ground-zero-imam-in-a-true-peace-israel-will-in-our-lifetimes-become-one-more-arab-country-with-a-jewish-minority/ ]Ground Zero Imam: “In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.â€[/url]
#3: It sounds to me like he’s just predicting something that many other people have also predicted. If the demographic alarmists are correct (I’m not convinced they are) then Arab Muslims will eventually become a voting majority in Israel — unless some violent or coercive means is employed to prevent this from happening. If that’s true, then it follows that, given peace, Israel will in time become an Arab Muslim state — which is essentially what the Imam is saying here. That he regards this as a favorable outcome is only natural, since he is a Muslim himself; I don’t think that should be held against him. I don’t hold it against Yankee fans when they’re happy that the Yankees win.
As I say, I’m skeptical that the demographic alarmists are right. But here’s what Michael B. Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., has to say:
#3, you also left out the rest of his comment and the context.
“[b]In a true peace[/b], Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.” His point seems to be that any two-state solution will never be a final solution to the cycle of violence in the Mideast, and only when Arabs and Jews are living peacefully together in one state will there be true peace. The WSJ (and you) is taking one sentence out of a much larger speech and squeezing into your absurd storyline that he is some kind of radical. Fortunately most people recognize the truth.
The article you linked to also has an outright falsehood: “He has refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group, saying ‘I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy.’†He specifically acknowledged and condemned Hamas’ use of terrorism in his CNN interview last week.
Rauf is a tool for radicals. [i]Most[/i] people recognize that.
“…only when Arabs and Jews are living peacefully together in one state will there be true peace.” What utter rubbish. Like the Jews living in Iran? There were 150,000 in 1979. Now the number is less than 30,000. There is certainly “peace “now amongst Muslims and Jews there. Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, Jews actually held positions of power – not so now. Scott and Rauf is advocating dhimmitude for the Jews. Their idea of peace, I guess.
I did read the transcript of the CNN interview and it is true that Rauf is [i]now[/i] condemning Hamas whereas he wouldn’t before the revelations that he declared a one bedroom apartment was mosque for 500 people to save on tax purposes, that [url=http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/sept_11/imam-rauf-associate-911-was-inside-job-newscore-20100913 ]his associate is on a Muslim 9/11 truther organization[/url], etc. The more we learn about Rauf, the more it stinks.
You’re really grasping at straws.
I’ll ignore that vacuous comment and get back on topic and to my original question: why is it that Gaza and the West Bank are supposed to be Jewish free zones? Why is the U.S. government taking this as axiomatic? Jews have been in these places for millenia! We should be demanding that the Palestinian authorities protect the settlers rather than their removal.
Italy is proposing a [url=http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/italy-to-present-resolution-to-un-pressing-for-rights-of-religious-minorities-in-pakistan.html ]UN resolution demanding that religious minorities in Islamic countries be protected[/url]. Will our spineless, bowing-to-Islamic-tyrants president support it?
They should start with Egypt where the peace loving muslims burned one Coptic Christian man alive and stabbed his father to death!!!
http://www.chroniclewatch.com/2010/09/12/how-is-this-for-tolerance-burn-christians-alive/