Another decade of such a “peace process” and there will be no Palestine left to speak of. A genocide (death of a nation) accomplished and there can be the new apologetics that it is “too late” to speak of peace.

While the support of a two state solution appears on the surface to be fair and reasonable – for the current supporters of the proposal within the Jewish community here (but probably-possibly not Dr Mendes), it is actually a really hollow and empty gesture.

As explained to me by a Palestinian peace activist in Melbourne (who accepts by
the way  the legitimacy of the State of Israel) unless such a proposition is accompanied by an acceptance of the illegality of ALL Israeli colonization of the occupied West Bank since 1967, then indeed there can be only a hardening of the Palestinian position playing entirely into the hands of the fundamentalist Hamas & Hizbollah and worse the Al-Qaeda supporters currently at war with Hamas in Gaza.

Therefore to be consistent as the Sadducee above has tried to explain in relation to UNGAR181 and to comply with International Law in relation to military conquest Israel must either remove ALL
settlers and  colonial settlements (Moshava or Yishuv the correct
translation of the Hebrew  הישוב
according to my Ben Yehuda Dictionary) are by International Law deemed colonial outposts and must be removed or
else Israel should leave the settlements where they are but their Jewish inhabitants can become citizens of Palestine just as there are 2 millions Palestinians who are citizens of Israel!

Appeals to the words of some holy covenant recorded by the hand of man (or woman) but supposedly transcribed verbatim somewhere in the Sinai Desert some 3 500 years ago from the mouth of an invisible and ineffable supreme being just doesn’t “cut the mustard” in International Law.

So Dr Stillman’s suggestion to Dr Mendes (and others in the Jewish Community) to follow the lead of one of the first proponents of the Bi-National State or No State Federation   – Uri Avneri (who incidentally was a member of the Ultra Right Irgun
in his youth) to boycott all Israeli products and produce from Occupied Palestine makes real sense. As Dr Stillman:

 explains the balance of power has continually been in Israel’s favour. Thus, compromise does not necessarily mean equal compromise, but in fact, that Israel may have to give away far more than Palestinians (and in particular, land and resources) to convince Palestinians that this time, it is serious about peace.

This is what my Palestinian friend asks for – a sign that we are genuine and not talking about some sort of weasel worded compromise that will leave 350 000 fundamentalists who reject the notion of Palestinian nationhood and sovereignty occupying and dividing what is left of their homeland. And these
settlers expand day by day – even expelling Palestinian families form their
homes in East Jerusalem (see this weeks Jerusalem Report for pictures of the Umm
Nassir family observing Ramadan on the pavement outside their former home which
is unoccupied while renovations take place – reducing any possibility of making a just settlement that acknowledges that both Palestinians and Jews have rights to national self determination
(but not at the expense of any other people’s right.

This was because the offer to exempt “good” Israeli academics who condemned the policies of their own country and conformed to a test of political orthodoxy was an obvious example of McCarthyism. It also taps into a long history of radical Left anti-Semitism whereby a small number of unrepresentative token Jews (some would call them “Uncle Toms”) are opportunistically encouraged to exploit their own religious and cultural origins in order to vilify their own people. The radical Left would never employ such techniques against other historically oppressed groups.

So now Lynch is not only proposing a bad malevolent idea (the boycott), but obtuse strategies that have been demolished elsewhere.

Philip Mendes

I put the question forward because people refer to UNGAR181 as a vehicle to provide legitimacy to aspects of their arguments eg. your own argument that the Arabs refused to accept it, the Jews did, if the Arabs had accepted all these problems could have been avoided etc.

However the intentions of the Jews (Israel) can be tested because they did not (and have not) implemented the resolution at all.

It is fine to use the resolution as a source of legitimacy, but it is slightly hypocritical to ignore its contents, especially if you agreed to it.

ps I have no control over this site – was there something wrong with my spelling?

PS anyway you could put a spellcheck in somehow, pease.

The problem with going back to 1947 is that other issues pop up which raise uncomfortable questions. For example – just to address resolution 181 – you seem to have forgotten that the resolution proposal called for Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be regarded as neither Jewish nor Arab but rather an international zone controlled by the UN.

This was never implemented despite the Jewish authorities (later Israel) having agreed to it. Noting this, one must ask the question about how genuine they were in implementing the resolution even if the Arabs had agreed to it?