Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Trump’s Peace Plan
For the first time, an actual proposed map has been published by a player in the Israeli-Arab negotiations. It is truly fair to both sides. And it includes this wonderful gem:
“People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.”
This punchline is why the Palestinians would never accept this deal. Jews are currently not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.
It is a very solid proposal. Israel could add a “stick,” if not accepted, Israel will annex the West Bank. The Palestinians would still reject it. And so Israel should annex anyway and be done with it.
Published in General
In what way is it good for Palestinians?
Stability, a nation, and economic prosperity.
Computer scientist and novelist Richard Weyand:
Shalom Spiegel’s The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice also collects some Arab legends. In the Arab version of the family story that Spiegel brings, it’s Ishmael who was the one on the altar — and therefore Abraham’s spiritual heir
When I read that many years ago, my thought was “that’s not a negotiable difference.”
They seem a little sceptical.
Given how Oslo unfolded, perhaps understandably?
From the Guardian:
Which I don’t think they will while the US is involved?
And no one is uprooted from where they live with continuous borders
But the Palestinians *are* a defeated people. They’ve lost every single one of the wars they’ve started against Israel. It’s their failure to accept this fact that is the problem.
So why does their opinion matter? Wrt Israel’s ‘right to exist’? Or being a Jewish State? Why do Israel and the US keep asking for this? Why is what Palestinians agree to about these things relevant as a precondition to peace?
“It’s their failure to accept this fact that is the problem”.
the Germans were defeated in 1918. They still caused more problems until we REALLY defeated them again.
Why does it matter what they accept?
Because they keep trying to kill their neighbors as a solution to their problems. First rule of holes — stop digging.
Yes, these “everything Trump is a disaster!!” know-it-alls are obviously people happy with the status quo because it’s working for them. Selfish bastards.
Yeah, I remember how bone-chilling that claim was the first time I heard it. The other one that is at least as noxious is the blatantly political claim to the Temple Mount based on religious fabrications (Mohammed was here! Well… maybe in a dream… riding a winged horse… Yeah, that’s the ticket!) . The list of stolen stories and holy sites could go on, but these are probably the top two deceptions causing the most destruction.
“Once a piece of land is ruled by Muslims no subsequent rule is legitimate” is another problem.
Everybody seems to blame the neighbours for everything.
No, I’m blaming the people that keep trying to kill the Jews.
I have no tolerance for that. If that is even brought up, they can shove where the sun don’t shine.
The Guardian article makes a major error in calling the Arab Palestinians the indigenous people of the region. They demonstrably are not. What is present day Israel, previously British Mandate Palestine, was, prior to that, an underpopulated (well under 1 million in the late 1800s, some say under 500,000), barely self-sustaining, crossroads of the Ottoman Empire. The few Arabs that lived there were mostly peasants and tenant farmers–with the land owners usually absentee and resident elsewhere in the Empire. The Arab population greatly increased in the early to mid 1900s once Jews purchased land (at inflated prices) and started cultivating the swamps and deserts, and productive farming jobs using modern techniques became available. These (and the tenant farmers) are now claiming to be the indigenous people of “Palestine,” a Roman insult to the resident Jews dating back nearly 2000 years. No Arabs prior to the 1960s claimed to be Palestinian–that was what the Jews living there were called before they could be called Israelis (Palestine Post, Palestine Philharmonic). Prior to the Roman re-name, the region was Judea. Named for…well, it’s obvious, eh? Arabs come from…Arabia. All of these facts are easily accessible, yet the Guardian and the Jew-haters continue the lie. The Palestinian Arabs named themselves after the region, not the other way around. The fact that people claim–and others believe–the opposite shows how successful was their lie.
The history is on Israel’s side. The Guardian is a left wing rag that yes is anti Israel.
I think it’s a made up thing. I’ve never heard it from a Muslim.
I did a search. I can’t seem to verify it. Perhaps it is made up or perhaps just folkloric common talk.
Yes, but not Muslim folklore.
Its not made up, its an explicit part of Islamist/Jihadist interpretation of Islamic law regarding Dar al Islam, its even part of the Hamas charter: https://www.hudson.org/research/10459-refuting-jihadism-can-jihad-be-reclaimed-
Its also the reason why Palestinians must recognize Israel’s right to exist in perpetuity in any final-status agreement; its to explicitly reject this religious/ideological interpretation of peace treaties with non-Muslims being nothing more than temporary truces of convenience or necessity-or else Israel is simply giving self-declared enemies of their existence the space and resources to resume hostilities at a later date, with potentially genocidal consequences.
Any peace plan will also specify the right of Palestinian Arabs to their own state (whatever the boundaries) within the shared biblical Holy Land, though Kahanists and their Baruch Goldsteins are far less common than Islamists/Palestinian radicals and their terrorists operatives. This is not to say that the parties involved won’t hope to someday receive the totality of their perceived religious or national patrimony, but it will officially renounce and unofficially discourage and stigmatize the use of coercive human agency to bring it about.
What happened to the San Remo agreement? That established the two states, Jewish and Arab-Muslim. Everything since has been changed–or not–through war or treaty. Why is there a presumption that an additional Arab state must be formed from within Israel? That already happened in 1920-22 with the creation from British Mandate Palestine of Transjordan on 78% of the Mandate. There is no “shared biblical Holy Land,” certainly not shared with Muslims. The Christians make a claim to it being their Holy Land, too, but it’s a claim based largely in replacement theology or, more kindly, piggy-backed on the Jewishness of Jesus. San Remo still has legal status, yet is conveniently forgotten. ALL of the 22 Arab countries were created in 1920 by the League of Nations and not one has an a priori greater right to existence than does Israel– with the Jordan River as its eastern border.
I don’t think it can be, but I’m sour on most religions.
re: this land thing : do you know where Hamas etc get this claim? AFAIK it isn’t in the Koran or the Hadith, hence not in folklore either.
I’m honestly surprised, because it’s on the verge of anthropophormising land, which doesn’t seem to sit right. ?? It seems like a competition with ‘promised land’, imho. Like a politico-theological Chanukah Bush.
Because they’re there, and Israel cannot be both a democratic and Jewish state if they annex areas densely inhabited by a hostile population that has lived there for generations (and 80-100 years does constitute 3-4 generations, regardless of the proportion whose ancestors moved there after Jewish settlements made it more prosperous).
If I ever knew the specifics, I’ve forgotten them; I remembered enough from my ‘History of Islamic Political Thought’ class to google through the lens of the ‘Dar al Islam’ concept, and that paper was the first to give a succinct explanation that was consistent with what I do remember from the literature. I do remember that scholars from various perspectives were in agreement that this interpretation exists and is based in some way on historical interpretations, but there was (not surprisingly) a lot of disagreement as to the legitimacy of such interpretations, either inherently, or as accurate approximations of what was considered authoritative opinion in different time-periods and regions.
But yeah, mutually exclusive divine promises/mandates are a huge part of this from the perspective of both religious Zionists and Islamists.
The belief that Muslim lands can never revert is also why Osama Bin Ladin used to bitch about the need to return Spain and the Balkans to Muslim rule.
Every time I see this headline in my alerts, I misread it as Trump’s Pence Plan.
I guess we can’t depend on religious people to beat their swords into plowshares in this instance….