Palestinian Rejection

Oh, those silly Palestinians! Why do they hate peace so much? All they ever seem to want to do is declare jihad and have endless war. What's wrong with them?

Well that's what you'd get if you read the headline of the latest G&M article:

Palestinians reject partial peace accord offered by Israelis

I couldn't find the Ottawa Citizen headline, but I'm sure it's the same.

The article highlights how the Palestinian "leader", Mahmoud Abbas (whom I believe lost the last election) was insisting on an all-or-nothing agreement. "All-or-nothing" is, naturally, a quote from the Associated Press article, not from Abbas or anyone speaking for the Palestinians.

AP was nice enough, however, to put this little mysterious bit in at the bottom.

The Palestinians charge that Israel is swallowing up West Bank land they claim for their state. Israel counters that it is not expanding settlements; rather, building inside settlement blocs it plans to keep in a final peace accord.

This sort of thing always make he sigh heavily.

Of course the Palestinians would reject this proposal. If the proposal contains in it language that makes Israeli settlements inside this future "Palestinian state" permanent, then of course it will be rejected. And any nonsense about "not expanding settlements" completely misses the point. The settlements shouldn't be there. Period. The fact that the Israelis intend to keep these settlements as part of "a final peace accord" is the problem.

The present arrangement completely carves up "Palestine" by placing Israeli settlements everywhere inside its borders, and then having roads going between these settlements that are only for the use of Israeli settlers. On top of that, there is the "separation fence" (which is sometimes a fence, sometimes a wall) that carves further sections of "Palestine" away for Israel.

It would be completely irresponsible, even for a stooge like Abbas, to accept any agreement that allowed or made permanent the settlements the Israelis have built for themselves inside this supposed Palestinian state.

If you want all of the terrorism to end (and by that I refer to both the Palestinian suicide bombers and Israel's collective punishment), if you want peace between these two peoples, then the agreement has to be that Palestinians will stop terrorism simultaneously with Israel stopping its attacks and disbanding its Israeli-only settlements. No Palestinian leader could ever bring an agreement to his people without this concession. He would be ridiculed if not shot outright.

Pretending, as this headline does, that the Palestinians are responsible for the "rejection" is ridiculous. The offer was made to be rejected.

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