There is no sticking point about the settlements. It is a bogus issue and both the Palestinians and Israelis living here know it. Once the so-called freeze on settlements is established new demands will be created. As long as western nations keep their head in the sand in order to draw the oil and blood nothing will change here. I wish and pray that it was the settlements that are keeping us from peace. If that were so Israel would have jumped at the chance..
Both Abbas’s government and Hamas are one in the same when it comes to wanting a two State solution. It is all nonsense. They want one State free of the Jews. That is the truth.
Desire for peace is different then action. There is a nasty narrative that the West has bought into created by Arafat and cleverly refined to play into the already predisposition of European leadership and that includes the Obama administration of accusing the Jews of all kinds of dastardly terrible acts.
Lately there has been incredible relaxing of check-points in the West Bank and now most of the population is able to freely move from town to town unimpeded. The Allenby Bridge will now be open 24/7 for traffic between Jordan and the Territories. This in spite of the danger of a terrorist attack..
Do you hear anything about this, of course not. Because the goal currently is to undermine Israel and its right to exist as a Jewish State with the minority population afforded all rights equally as citizens.
A Muslim-Arab/Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh was just recently interviewed by the Canadian National Post. He said that he had to write for a Jewish newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, in order to be allowed to freely express himself without recrimination. He believes that the so-called “peace process, begun with Oslo of 1993 has been a tragic failure and holds little promise of success.” “The Palestinians are now divided between two bloodthirsty sects—Fatah and Hamas…Fatah considered “moderate and Hamas “radical”, He continued by saying that ” neither of them could be called moderate by any sensible Arabic speaker. Fatah makes moderate sounds in English but in Arabic sounds as anti-Semitic and anti-American as Hamas.”
He then goes on to tell about his experience with foreign journalists and their unwillingness to write about the corruption in the Palestinian Authority. Their reply to him was disinterest by their editors that demanded stories that reflected Israeli “oppression” of Palestinians. As far as settlements were concerned he then said, “I wish the settlements were the problem, because it can be solved by the Israelis and Gaza would now be at peace. But the result has been war—war among the Palestinians, war with Israel.” “The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government. Finally he thinks that, “Israel should simply wait until the Palestinians stop killing each other and create a political entity that can make a deal. Peace will then become possible.”
It is about time that we stop believing in the old and tired canard about Israel. Enough is enough. It didn’t work in Gaza and it is currently not working in the West Bank..
What is working is Israeli insistence that the PA take responsibility to police itself and as they succeed more authority is being handed over to them. But as far as a State is concerned the current narrative by the PA and Hamas is to play the victim card and vie for the power and money being poured in to the PA coffers by a guilty European Union..
