Over the past week I have posted articles from multiple Middle East sources as those impacted await the outcome of the current negotiations taking place in Annapolis, MD. Included in those posts was a draft copy of a Declaration between the parties which I posted on November 22nd. As I compare the two, noticeably missing is any reference to any UN Resolutions and a different deadline for concluding a Treaty.
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Nov 27, 2007 20:12 | Updated Nov 27, 2007 20:59
The Annapolis Declaration
The following is the full text of the Annapolis Declaration
The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respective by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and President Mahmoud Abbas in his capacity as Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference, having concluded the following joint understanding.
We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis. In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements.
We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008. For this purpose, a steering committee, led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party, will meet continuously, as agreed. The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party. The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December 2007.
President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.
The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, issued by the Quartet on 30 April 2003 – this is called the road map – and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the United States, to follow up on the implementation of the road map.
The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.
Ask yourself the question. Aside from the commendable effort by our State Department to bring the parties together, do you believe that PM Olment and PA president Abbas are strong enough to sign any agreement that will be honored by the people living in the impacted region?
Email response:
If a Peace Agreement is reached and signed guess who doesn’t care about the commitment. Israel has everything to lose and nothing to gain. I can’t believe Dubya is pushing this. He almost seems naive. Besides being un-Biblical the Palestinians still want the Israelis and we Americans dead.
“Besides being un-Biblical the Palestinians still want the Israelis and we Americans dead.”
That is a ridiculous statement. This just shows how ignorant the person who sent you this email is. About 1/3 of Palestinian’s are Christian and thus aren’t “un-Biblical”.
There will never be peace in Palestine as long as the Israelies continue to occupy Palestinian land. Israel stole that land fair and square and as a consequence, they get to live the rest of their lives with terror on their doorstep. If Mexicans were as fanatical as muslims, we would have OCTA buses being bombed every day.
50 years of zionist forgery and land grab
By Zafar Bangash
One of the biggest injustices of the twentieth century – the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel – is being celebrated in a manner bordering on the scandalous. The implantation of the zionist entity in Palestine has been rightly described as al-Nakba (the catastrophe) by Palestinians.
The hoopla surrounding Israeli celebrations conveniently ignores the fact that Palestine was stolen by European Jews in connivance with the European powers, primarily Britain but also France (and later the US) to create a western beach-head in the heartland of Islam. This was only made possible by driving out the indigenous population – the Palestinians – from their ancestral lands, through terror and mass murder.
The zionists have peddled the mythology of turning ‘deserts into orchards’ with the active collaboration of the west. Their claim to Palestine is based on a complete perversion of historical facts sprinkled with Biblical references to geography. The zionists – most of them secular fanatics who have nothing to do with Judaism – have reduced the Bible to a real estate manual.
The zionist colonial settler enterprise was launched by shedding the blood of the Palestinians. It has been sustained through terror, the most common characteristic of the zionists, for 50 years. More than 475 Palestinian towns and villages were completely wiped out. There is no trace left of them anymore.
Soon after the June 1967 war, Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed Israeli general, had boasted to a group of visiting Jews from the US that the present generation had expanded the boundaries of the State of Israel this far. Now it was upto the next generation to take them further. He also candidly admitted that hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns had been wiped out.
Contrary to zionist propaganda, now admitted even by some Israeli historians, the Palestinian inhabitants of these once-thriving towns did not flee on orders from the Arab regimes. They fled in the face of the zionist terror machine. Deir Yasin (April 9, 1948) was but one example of numerous zionist atrocities perpetrated against innocent civilians. Palestinian women were parade naked in the streets. Many of them were bayoneted to death before their bodies were dumped in wells. At least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in this campaign to settle European Jews in Palestine. This obscenity is being celebrated today as a great achievement.
Many leaders of the zionist terrorist gangs – Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir et el – later became prime ministers of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’. The ‘most powerful democracy’ in the world – the US – has such a close relationship with the ‘only democracy’ that massive annual handouts are bestowed upon it even while American citizens are denied many of their basic needs.
The zionist State receives between US$4 to US$6 billion annually in aid (grants and loans) from the US. In the first 20 years of Israel’s existence (1948-1968), it received only $348 million. But in the next 20 years, this shot up to $82 billion. The last 10 years have witnessed further burgeoning of these handouts.
As a colonial settler enterprise, Israel does not meet the standard test for such an entity. Traditionally, colonial possessions not only stand on their own feet but also remit large sums, in goods and money, to the mother country. The zionist entity, on the other hands, thrives as a parasite on the American body. Without American handouts, it cannot survive. Israel is America’s biggest welfare recipient.
If the zionist State cannot survive without US handouts, American politicians cannot survive without Jewish support in the US. This symbiotic relation was alluded to by US vice president Al Gore on April 30 when he joined Israeli celebrations in Tel Aviv. ‘We Americans feel our ties with Israel are eternal,’ Gore said lyrically. He might as well have said ‘without Jewish votes and money, I cannot win the presidency in the year 2000.’
There is another factor that binds the US and Israel. Two hundred years ago, European settlers in America pushed westward, expanding their frontiers at the expense of the Native peoples. Today, the indigenous population of America is found only on reservations. The zionists are pursuing exactly the same policy, only with much greater ruthlessness and efficiency. Many Americans see in the zionists the same ‘enterprising’ spirit that led to their own expansion.
Gore reflected this in his speech when he showered praise on Israel. ‘As I lift up my eyes tonight and see the whole house of Israel, I recognize you.’ Indeed. Gore could see his own forefathers in the crowd. ‘And I remember the prophecy of Ezekiel – that God would raise you up… and restore your land.’ Politicians are prone to hyperbole but Gore was telling blatant lies.
The land belongs to the Palestinians even if Gore was still in diapers when the zionists stole it. And as for God’s fulfilling His promise to the zionists, surely God did not mean the gangsters, hustlers, mass murderers and torturers who rule the zionist State today.
Israel is the only country in the world where torture of political prisoners is not only legal but its supreme court actively endorses it. Palestinians are held without trial under what is euphemistically called ‘administrative detention.’ The maximum period is six months but it is routinely extended. There are Palestinians who have been held without charge or trial for four or five years.
While the western media routinely present Israel as a beleaguered State in a sea of hostile neighbours, it is the only nuclear power in the region with more than 200 nuclear weapons. Its army has grown to 600,000 and it can deploy more than 2,800 tanks and 700 combat planes, according to the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
This gives it a formidable military muscle against the Arab armies which it has defeated in almost all the wars. But since 1982, Israel’s military has found itself mired in less glorious adventures, including the costly 1982-1985 invasion of Lebanon and its attempts to crush the intifadah from 1987 to 1994.
In Lebanon it got a bloody nose at the hands of the Hizbullah, whose spirit of sacrifice put the fear of God into the pleasure-loving zionist thugs. Instead of confronting the Islamic fighters, the zionists bombard Lebanese villages using long-range artillery and planes.
Hostage-taking is also a favourite ploy of the zionists. Literally hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese are incarcerated in the Khiam concentration camp where torture is rampant. Similarly, Palestinians held without trial are also tortured in prisons inside what is called Israel.
If young Palestinians are incarcerated, their leaders are expelled from their own land. It is ironic that alien occupiers from eastern Europe and America should expel people from their own homes and land where their forefathers have lived for millenia.
The zionists are also extremely sadistic. Young children are targeted for special wrath. Thousands of Palestinian children have been brutally beaten up by the gun-toting zionists. Young stone-throwing Palestinians have been buried alive; others have had their bones broken with rocks, on direct orders from Yitzhak Rabin, the Nobel peace prize winner!
During the intifadah, the zionist occupiers frequently used tear gas in confined spaces, resulting in hundreds of pregnant Palestinian women suffering miscarriages. Another of their favourite ploys is to mix flour and kerosene in Palestinian homes, making it unfit for consumption.
Despite such cruelties, the zionists have failed to break the spirit of the Palestinians. Every Israeli cruelty brings out an even greater determination to stand up to the occupiers.
As the Israeli m
ilitary historian Martin Van Creveld of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem admitted, ‘An army which fights against the weak, becomes weak itself.’ He went on: ‘In these instances, the army is the sure loser because its victories are without honour and its defeats are always humiliating.’
Israeli soldiers no longer wish to serve in Lebanon, Ghazzah or the West Bank. An army sergeant candidly admitted ‘We have to hide from reservists the fact that they’re going to serve in the Gaza Strip or they simply don’t show up.’ The time is not far off when Israeli soldiers would not wish to live in Palestine either.
Already, Israel is the least safe place for Jews anywhere in the world.
Lets not forget that the Palestinian’s don’t exactly have a monopoly on terrorism is Palestine. The Jews have had a hand in many acts of terror as well.
Remember The King David Hotel bombing (July 22, 1946) was a bombing attack against the British government of Palestine by members of Irgun — a militant Zionist organization.
The attack, initially ordered by Menachem Begin the head of the Irgun and later Prime Minister of Israel, had members of the Irgun, dressed as Arabs, set off a bomb in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which had been the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them staff of the secretariat and the hotel: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured. The attack was commanded by Yosef Avni and Yisrael Levi.[1]
The attack on the hotel was the deadliest attack against the British in the history of the Mandate.
Israel shall reap what it sowed. It is a nation that was born out of terrorism.
August 20, 1937 – June 29, 1939. During this period, the Zionists carried out a series of attacks against Arab buses, resulting in the death of 24 persons and wounding 25 others.
November 25, 1940. S.S.Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists in Haifa harbour, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants (see below).
November 6, 1944. Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister Resident in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, in Cairo.
July 22, 1946. Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the central offices of the civilian administration of the government of Palestine, killing or injuring more than 200 persons. The Irgun officially claimed responsibility for the incident, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.
October 1, 1946. The British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged by bomb explosions, for which Irgun claimed responsibility.
June 1947. Letters sent to British Cabinet Ministers were found to contain bombs.
September 3, 1947. A postal bomb addressed to the British War Office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring 2 persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs. (The Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972, p.8)
December 11, 1947. Six Arabs were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab buses in Haifa; 12 Arabs were killed and others injured in an attack by armed Zionists on an Arab coastal village near Haifa.
December 13,1947. Zionist terrorists, believed to be members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, killed 18 Arabs and wounded nearly 60 in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Lydda areas. In Jerusalem, bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa, bombs were thrown into an Arab cafe; in the Arab village of Al Abbasya, near Lydda, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.
December 19, 1947. Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.
December 29, 1947. Two British constables and 11 Arabs were killed and 32 Arabs injured, at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun members threw a bomb from a taxi.
December 30,1947. A mixed force of the Zionist Palmach and the “Carmel Brigade” attacked the village of Balad al Sheikh, killing more than 60 Arabs.
1947 — 1948. Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were uprooted from their homes and land, and forced to live in refugee camps on Israel’s borders. They have been denied the right to return to their homes. They have been refused compensation for their homes, orchards, farms and other property stolen from them by the Israeli government. After their expulsion, the “Israeli Forces” totally obliterated (usually by bulldozing) 385 Arab villages and towns, out of a total of 475. Commonly, Israeli villages were built on the remaining rubble.
January 1, 1948. Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slopes of Mount Carmel; 17 Arabs were killed and 33 wounded.
January 4, 1948. Haganah terrorists wearing British Army uniforms penetrated into the center of Jaffa and blew up the Serai (the old Turkish Government House) which was used as a headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than 40 persons and wounding 98 others.
January 5, 1948. The Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, killing 20 persons, among them Viscount de Tapia, the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this crime.
January 7, 1948. Seventeen Arabs were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, 3 of them while trying to escape. Further casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron, were reported from different parts of the country.
January 16, 1948. Zionists blew up three Arab buildings. In the first, 8 children between the ages of 18 months and 12 years, died.
December 13, 1947 — February 10, 1948. Seven incidents of bomb-tossing at innocent Arab civilians in cafes and markets, killing 138 and wounding 271 others, During this period, there were 9 attacks on Arab buses. Zionists mined passenger trains on at least 4 occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.
February 15, 1948. Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blew up several houses, killing 11 Arabs, including 4 children..
March 3, 1948. Heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam building in Haifa (a 7 story block of apartments and shops) by Zionists who drove an army lorry ( truck) up to the building and escaped before the detonation of 400 Ib. of explosives; casualties numbered 11 Arabs and 3 Armenians killed and 23 injured. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility for the incident.
March 22, 1948. A housing block in Iraq Street in Haifa was blown up killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the Stern Gang drove two truck-loads of explosives into the street and abandoned the vehicles before the explosion.
March 31, 1948. The Cairo-Haifa Express was mined, for the second time in a month, by an electronically-detonated land mine near Benyamina, killing 40 persons and wounding 60 others.
April 9, 1948. A combined force of Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, supported by the Palmach forces, captured the Arab village of Deir Yassin and killed more than 200 unarmed civilians, including countless women and children. Older men and young women were captured and paraded in chains in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem; 20 of the hostages were then shot in the quarry of Gevaat Shaul.
April 16, 1948. Zionists attacked the former British army camp at Tel Litvinsky, killing 90 Arabs there.
April 19, 1948. Fourteen Arabs were killed in a house in Tiberias, which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.
May 3, 1948. A book bomb addressed to a British Army officer, who had been stationed in Palestine exploded, killing his brother, Rex Farran.
May11, 1948. A letter bomb addressed to Sir Evelyn Barker, former Commanding Officer in Palestine, was detected in the nick of time by his wife.
April 25, 1948 — May 13, 1948. Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists. They stripped and carried away everything they could, destroying what they could not take with them.
The first act of air piracy in the history of civil aviation was carried out by Israel, in Dec. 1954, when a civilian Syrian airliner was forced down in Tel Aviv and its passengers and crew held for days, despite international condemnation.
The first deliberate shooting down a civilian airliner was carried out by Israel, when a Libyan airliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over Sinai, in Feb. 1973, on the direct orders of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, killing all 107 of its passengers and the entire French crew.
Larry,
Name ONE thing that president Bush has accomplished. He’s been a disaster thoughout his unfortunate tenure.
Maybe this will be it- the one thing he gets right. However, I’ll believe it only when I see it. Just trusting what this guy promises is a recipe for disaster, as we’ve seen again and again.
Wow!.
Somehow I thought I asked a simple question after the media article.
While I do appreciate all of your detailed comments, let’s try again.
Do you think the representatives of Israel and the P.A. are strong enough to sign any peace Agreement that will be honored by the people living in the impacted region?
No one ever said that wars are not bloody. Have you ever visited Gettysburg, PA. We have.
Now that someone has submitted a long chronological listing of engagements, perhaps I might submit a similar response from the other side for balance. In effect, your tone provides the answer I was seeking. You will not be happy until Israel is driven into the Sea. That being the case, why would the state of Israel agree to anything that requires giving up land that diminishes their security?