Peters recited that mantra while saying that the Israeli ministers “severely and deliberately undermined that [the two state solution] by personally advocating for the annexation of Palestinian land and the expansion of illegal settlements, while inciting violence and forced displacement”. (1)
The two Israelis involved are National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Ben-Gvir said: “We must encourage emigration, encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza”, and that “there is no need to bring in aid [to Gaza]. They have enough”.
He had previously resigned from the Israeli government when the hostage release deal was made, only rejoining when Israel began bombing again in mid-March.
Is our Foreign Minister, our government, and those four other western governments, aware that Palestinians have rejected versions of a two-state solution on five separate occasions over the past 90 years?
1. In 1936, after an Arab rebellion against the British, who controlled the area, and their Jewish neighbours, a task force known as the Pearl Commission recommended a two-state solution by offering 80 percent of the disputed territory to the Arabs and 20 percent to Jews. The Jews accepted it but the Arabs didn’t.
2. In 1947, the United Nations recommended a two-state solution. The Arabs rejected it and launched an all-out war with Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria joining. But Israel won and got on with building a new nation. Most of the land set aside by the UN for an Arab state, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, became occupied territory. - occupied by Jordan.
3. In 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt and joined by Syria and Jordan, once again sought to destroy the Jewish state in the Six-Day War, which ended in a stunning victory for Israel. Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as the area known as the Gaza Strip, fell into Israel’s hands. Half the Israeli government wanted to return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt in exchange for peace. The other half wanted to give it to the region’s Arabs, who had begun referring to themselves as the Palestinians. The Palestinians said no.
4. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David, with Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Nasser Arafat, to conclude a new two-state plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, and in 94 percent of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the Palestinian leader rejected the offer.
5. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Omar expanded the peace offer to include additional land to sweeten the deal. Like his predecessor, the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, turned the deal down.
So why do Peters and the other amnesiacs in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Norway, think that this time is different?
Remember, when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorist groups there simply carried on killing Jews and trying to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Why have Palestinians resolutely opposed sharing territory? It’s because of the religion.
Palestinians adhere to Islam and according to Islamists, any territory that comes under Islamic rule must stay under Islamic rule, forever, and it is the duty of every good Islamist to maintain or return that territory to Islamic control.
The area now occupied by Israel was under Islamic control for 1286 years, from 632 to 1918, first under the Islamic Caliphate and then under the Islamic Ottoman Empire from the 13th century until the end of the First World War.
That’s what Peters and his short-sighted colleagues in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Norway are up against.
There is something contemptible about having our politicians in secure, affluent, Western nations, make moral pronouncements on the leaders of a nation locked in a life-and death struggle with powerful forces committed annihilating them.
It is time for Peters zip it on the two-state solution and it is time for all New Zealand governments to move on from this failed policy.
Sources
1. 'Undermine a two-state solution': NZ bans two Israeli ministers, https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/nz-joins-allies-in-banning-israeli-politicians-over-gaza-remarks/
2. How Palestine rejected offer five times, Law and Society Magazine, New York, October 13, 2023. https://lawandsocietymagazine.com/how-palestine-rejected-offer-to-have-its-own-state-5-times-in-the-past/
He had previously resigned from the Israeli government when the hostage release deal was made, only rejoining when Israel began bombing again in mid-March.
Is our Foreign Minister, our government, and those four other western governments, aware that Palestinians have rejected versions of a two-state solution on five separate occasions over the past 90 years?
1. In 1936, after an Arab rebellion against the British, who controlled the area, and their Jewish neighbours, a task force known as the Pearl Commission recommended a two-state solution by offering 80 percent of the disputed territory to the Arabs and 20 percent to Jews. The Jews accepted it but the Arabs didn’t.
2. In 1947, the United Nations recommended a two-state solution. The Arabs rejected it and launched an all-out war with Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria joining. But Israel won and got on with building a new nation. Most of the land set aside by the UN for an Arab state, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, became occupied territory. - occupied by Jordan.
3. In 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt and joined by Syria and Jordan, once again sought to destroy the Jewish state in the Six-Day War, which ended in a stunning victory for Israel. Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as the area known as the Gaza Strip, fell into Israel’s hands. Half the Israeli government wanted to return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt in exchange for peace. The other half wanted to give it to the region’s Arabs, who had begun referring to themselves as the Palestinians. The Palestinians said no.
4. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David, with Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Nasser Arafat, to conclude a new two-state plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, and in 94 percent of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the Palestinian leader rejected the offer.
5. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Omar expanded the peace offer to include additional land to sweeten the deal. Like his predecessor, the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, turned the deal down.
So why do Peters and the other amnesiacs in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Norway, think that this time is different?
Remember, when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorist groups there simply carried on killing Jews and trying to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Why have Palestinians resolutely opposed sharing territory? It’s because of the religion.
Palestinians adhere to Islam and according to Islamists, any territory that comes under Islamic rule must stay under Islamic rule, forever, and it is the duty of every good Islamist to maintain or return that territory to Islamic control.
The area now occupied by Israel was under Islamic control for 1286 years, from 632 to 1918, first under the Islamic Caliphate and then under the Islamic Ottoman Empire from the 13th century until the end of the First World War.
That’s what Peters and his short-sighted colleagues in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Norway are up against.
There is something contemptible about having our politicians in secure, affluent, Western nations, make moral pronouncements on the leaders of a nation locked in a life-and death struggle with powerful forces committed annihilating them.
It is time for Peters zip it on the two-state solution and it is time for all New Zealand governments to move on from this failed policy.
Sources
1. 'Undermine a two-state solution': NZ bans two Israeli ministers, https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/nz-joins-allies-in-banning-israeli-politicians-over-gaza-remarks/
2. How Palestine rejected offer five times, Law and Society Magazine, New York, October 13, 2023. https://lawandsocietymagazine.com/how-palestine-rejected-offer-to-have-its-own-state-5-times-in-the-past/
8 comments:
Right on the money !!
Whatever happened to our right to hear and be heard? Does this government not believe that the people it claims to represent have the intelligence to participate in a state of effective communication where individuals both actively listen to others and express their own thoughts and feelings in a clear and respectful manner. I refuse to accept this government's censorship of my right to free speech in such a heavy handed manner is in any way democratic.
The American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote this poem in 2007. In today's world it seems even more pertinent:-
Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation - oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away.
"...the leaders of a nation locked in a life-and death struggle with powerful forces committed annihilating them."
These are just talking points instinctively parroted by Zionists.
The Palestinians have zero ability to "annihilate" Israel. Moreover, a "life and death struggle" connotes two reasonably evenly match antagonists struggling to gain the upper hand. Israel, particularly backed by the United States, whom the Israel Lobby spends so much money bribing to ensure its continued support, has access to hi-tech weaponry supplied by America, as well as an arsenal of about 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is the only nuclear armed nation in the region (which is why its neighbours so rightly fear Israel). In other words, despot the Zionist talking points that justify all the Israel does, there is no real contest when push comes to shove, and so the Israelis are in fact victims of nothing. Indeed, why would Israel ever want peace, when it can use force to ensure that its competitors (real or, for the reasons above, mostly imagined) are destroyed once and for all. Israel wants war, not peace, because it gains nothing from peace.
So please, don't tell me the Arabs have rejected Israel's "offers" that are purposely designed to be rejected in order to justify more blood being spilled by the IDF in the sands of the Levant.
Thank you Mike , for explaining this complex situation.
Bluntly it is quite impossible to negotiate with Hamas and other radical Muslims. They believe they are the chosen ones to be on this piece of land . Nothing will change their thinking. They will never accept a compromise. They believe annihilating the Jewish state is the only solution for ever.
I liked Anonymous ' poem.
“The Two-State solution won’t fly.”
Mike, do you mean the solution that the original Balfour Document supported? The solution that the UN, the US and for a time, even Benjamin Netanyahu once was in favor of?
Good question Anonymous. The Balfour Declaration did not recommend specific areas. I suggest a solution that would be acceptable to non-terrorist Palestinians would be the territory controlled by Israel since 1967, which includes Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Terrorist Palestinians would most probably accept nothing other than total annihilation of the state of Israel.
A poster calling to Globalise The Intifada is being plastered all over Dunedin, depicting a masked fellahin calling for Worldwide resistance, International struggle, Palestinian Liberation. These people have successfully wooed the Dunedin City Council into supporting Chloe Swarbrick's Israel Sanctions Bill obo the Green Party. There is no mandate from Dunedin Ratepayers to make such decisions, when we have leaky pipes, a blown budget and a cost of living crisis (including sky-high rates).
China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups. More than a million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in China's Xinjiang region. The reeducation camps are just one part of the divestment of their ethnic and cultural rights. Perhaps the DCC would like to challenge China about this, instead of poking their nose into the cauldron of violence that is The Middle East. Maybe they don't know or care that there are 2.1 Muslims residing and working in Israel as bona fide citizens, whom they are "boycotting, divesting and sanctioning." Or is it just the Jews they wish to sanction?
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