Barriers and Borders
| 16:48 UK time, Tuesday, 28 March 2006
We worry sometimes that we are spending too much time on the Arab Israeli conflict.
We are gripped by it because we study every move in the political chess game, try to assess the impact of every homemade rocket and targetted killing.
We worry especially about the language we use, which is why I wrote 'targetted killing'. You know all about that because you tell me not to be so cautious in your emails.
Even if we do sometimes report too much on the minutiae, there can be no doubt now is the right time for us to try to explain the options as Israelis choose their government and Hamas takes power in the Palestinian territories.
Both sides have set clear objectives and have taken hard lines.
The Intifada that began in 2000 has shown the limits of negotation.
Now both Kadima and Hamas say they aren't especially interested in negotiating. At least not on terms that would tempt the other.
We'll see now what each ignoring the other can achieve.
Hamas will try to llive up to its promises to Palestinian voters to provide reliable services run by politicians dedicated to the people not personal profit.
Kadima will have to try to bring the security and certainty it promised Israelis.
And neither will expect any favours from the other side.
That might prove to be a stable foundation to build on.
Comments
It's so strange to hear the Israeli and Palestinian spokesmen vociferously defending their positions. I wish they could talk to each other, yell at each other, but not bomb each other.
On balance the guilt lies with the ones that deliberately try to cause, rather than to avoid, civilian casualties. The guilt lies with the Palestinians. Perhaps their ignorance of this fact is tied to the general malaise of their society.
I was shocked and outraged by the nonsense Brenda Schaffer threw at the Armenians on today’s World Update 28/04/2006.
I am sure the Turkish minded ´óÏó´«Ã½ won’t print this, but I’ll have my say.
The hypocrisy of the Zionist world is nauseating to say the least.
A country like "Azerbaijan", where their own people’s demonstrations are violently crushed, is called "liberal" and "open" because of its double-dealings with the West, whereas Byelorussia is heavily bashed in the Western "unbiased" news channels.
The blatant fallacy of "thousands of years of tolerance towards minorities" is fantastically ridiculous to say the least.
The state of "Azerbaijan" was artificially created on mainly Armenian territory in 1918 after a treacherous deal between the Ottomans and the Bolsheviks. The name Azerbaijan was stolen from the northwest region of Iran, Azarbaijan (Arabized of original Aturpatekan) that exists for 2300 years.
Subsequently, the entire history of the real Azarbaijan was "adapted" for the artificially created nation, remnants of roaming, tent-dwelling Turkic invader tribes, who were promoted to Tatars of the Caucasus after the region became under Russian rule in the 19th century. Later all Iranian historic figures were also paraded as "Azeri", a nation that never existed throughout human history.
The outright lies produced by Brenda Schaffer, the regular falsifications like "Armenia is occupying 20% of "Azerbaijan"" or the myth of one million "Azeri" refugees were repeated shamelessly, whereas Artsakh (Karabagh) being 5% of the total of so called "Azeri" territory, which was never a part of independent "Azerbaijan", cannot occupy itself and the liberated territory constitutes more or less 9%. 5 + 9 = 14 not 20%.
It is the CONSEQUENCE of "Azeri" aggression on Armenians, after genocidal and up to now unpunished acts in Sumgait, Baku, Gandzak, and other parts of "Azerbaijan", which caused the expulsion of 3 to 400,000 Armenians from "Azerbaijan". Why doesn’t Brenda Schaffer mention them? Why is she taking the side of the aggressor?
The "Azeri" government could have housed their so called refugees long ago in 180,000 houses belonging to the Armenians, most of them wealthy people mainly in Baku, but it prefers to use the "refugees" as propaganda.
What about the savage mutilation of Gurgen Markarian in his sleep, in the framework of NATO’s cooperation for peace, and the glorification of the beast Ramil Safarov as national "Azeri" hero? Why didn’t it make the "impartial" Western news channels?
Is that tolerance for minorities, you hypocritical B. Schaffer?
The myth of one million "refugees" was shattered by the Turkish minded Counsel of Europe in this report:
where it clearly states that:
"13. In Azerbaijan... It is impossible to establish the number of people currently concerned with any certainty. Your Rapporteur notes the figures provided in the report of Mrs Vermot-Mangold10. These figures can however be updated by statistics provided by UNHCR (for the end of 2004)11 which indicate a figure of 578,545 internally displaced persons and 8,606 refugees." Eight Thousand six hundred and six "Azeri" refugees in total.
The barbaric destruction of Armenian Christian monuments in occupied Armenian province of Nakhijevan does not make the money worshipping Western media including ´óÏó´«Ã½:
But for a few drops of oil they’ll shamelessly trample on rights of oppressed people like the Armenians, a nation who suffered (and is still suffering) 9 centuries under Turkish yoke, who was destroyed in their own homeland for thousands of years and whose 90%+ territory remains under Turkish (both siblings) occupation, ethnically cleansed of its indigenous population.