Time is right for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, Obama says
President Obama on Tuesday called for progress in solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as part of the wave of change sweeping through the Mideast.
Yes, but the only problem with the "wave of change" is that radical Islam is gaining unprecedented power in the Middle East. Somehow the U.S. administration sees this as a good thing. Go figure.
Speaking after a White House meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Obama said resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict was vital. Obama is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, a day after he addresses the nation on Middle East policy, including the pro-democracy uprisings and related issues.
“We also discussed the situation with respect to the Israel and the Palestinian conflict, and we both share the view that despite the many changes or perhaps because of the many changes that are taking place in the region, it is more vital than ever that both Israelis and Palestinians find a way to get back to the table and begin negotiating a process whereby they can create two states that are living side by side in peace and security,” Obama said.
Did he just say "peace and security"?
Syrian Problem Grows as Obama Tackles Arab Spring Peace Process
President Obama has a Gordian Knot to untie in the Mideast, as the "Arab spring" starts to get entangled with the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And with the president set to deliver a major speech Thursday on U.S. policy in the region, Syria is emerging as one of the central obstacles.
Syria pushed the envelope over the weekend, with reports showing that Palestinians living in Syria were bused to the border with Israel in the Golan Heights, where demonstrations and violence broke out.
But Carney said Thursday's speech will focus neither solely on Syria, nor on the Mideast peace process. He said the focus is a discussion on the "historic developments" of the last five or six months.
Of course, this discussion wouldn't be complete with at least one threat to Israel:
But if the weekend protests were a distraction, they might have also been a warning. Tony Badran, a fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Syrians were sending a message straight to Israel with the weekend clashes.
"They brought (Palestinians) to the border with Israel in order to basically show Israel that this is what you can basically look forward to if something happens to the Syrian regime," he said.
And Tim Pawlenty actually gets it right:
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a likely presidential candidate, also urged Obama to "stand with Israel" and oppose the statehood vote.
"The United Nations has been-and continues to be-the single worst forum to resolve key issues between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians should be sitting down to negotiate peace with Israel, not creating a unity government with Hamas or grandstanding at the UN," he said.
This article from the Jerusalem Post adds some interesting insight:
For the Palestinians' sake
Initial indications suggest that in his upcoming Middle East policy speech, President Barack Obama will ask the Palestinians to recognize Israel, but not as the homeland of the Jewish people.
Huh?
It seems that the US president believes – as some suggest – that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, is merely a hawkish ploy to avoid negotiations and a sad mark of Israel’s low self-confidence that it needs the Palestinians – of all people – to tell it what it is.
A "hawkish ploy to avoid negotiations"? Hardly. God actually gave that land to the Nation of Israel. Additionally, how can the Nation of Israel still be the Nation of Israel, without their land?
Where should the people of Israel go?
But the prime minister’s demand is neither of those things. It is the one core demand that, once met, will mean that peace is truly possible. Indeed, Israel does not need Palestinian recognition of its identity as the Jewish state. Those who have dreamt, founded and built it have done so with one purpose in mind: to create a homeland for the Jewish people. It is Israel’s raison d’être. Rather, it is the Palestinians – for their own sake and dignity – who need to recognize this.
Zionism, unlike colonial movements, was a movement of people who were coming home. As such, it was not about exploiting the (nonexistent) resources of a foreign land, but about exploiting the only resources the Jewish people ever had – their own brains and ingenuity – in order to build one, literally from the ground up.
As long as the Palestinians continue to divert their own country-building resources into resisting Israel and hoping for its disappearance (and yes, hoping that Israel will become a country with a Jewish minority among Arabs is hoping for its disappearance), there will be no peace, and they will have no state.
And yet, should the Palestinians finally recognize that in creating the state of Israel, the Jewish people have come home, they will signal to the world, to Israel, and above all to themselves, that they have chosen to leave behind the siren call of resistance and are ready to get down to the remarkable, difficult and immensely rewarding task of building a state they can call their own.
Unfortunately, we know it won't happen. They will never recognize the Nation of Israel and their right to exist on their God given land.
This region is destined for warfare and turmoil until Jesus comes during the final moments of the Tribulation. There will be brief periods of what appears to be peace, but these periods will be short-lived and warfare will be the norm.
Only Jesus can bring peace.
Its too bad that so many people will have to endure the Tribulation and the last human leader (the antichrist) in order to learn that lesson.
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