ISRAELI-PALI CONFLICT NOT SO BLOODY AFTER ALL

How Bloody the Conflict? (BackSpin)
See FrontPage Magazine, where Gunnar Heinsohn and Daniel Pipes seriously crunch numbers, finding that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't deadly compared to other world conflicts.

Stats were compiled to rank conflicts since 1950 by the number of human deaths incurred. There were 67 conflicts with at least 10,000 deaths. Deadliest was China, where 40 million people were killed outright, in gulags, or man-made famines. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict ranked 49 on the list with 51,000 deaths. Deadlier conflicts receiving far less media scrutiny included Nicaragua, Eritrea, El Salvador, Chechnya, Kurdistan, and Brazil (who knew about that one?)

Heinsohn and Pipes conclude:

Despite the relative non-lethality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its renown, notoriety, complexity, and diplomatic centrality will probably give it continued out-sized importance in the global imagination. And Israel’s reputation will continue to pay the price.

RICE, OLMERT REPRIMAND ABBAS AT SUMMIT

Report: Olmert, Abbas exchange harsh words at summit (YNet)
A senior Palestinian official, who attended the summit, told the Reuters news agency of harsh words between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the Palestinian official: "Olmert told Abbas during the meeting, 'you cheated me' by reaching the deal with Hamas. President Abbas responded (by saying), 'you gave me nothing and didn't keep your promises.'" Meanwhile Olmert said Monday evening that he will continue to meet with Abbas.

Palestinians: Rice Reprimanded Abbas for Mecca Agreement - Khaled Abu Toameh (JPost)
PA officials described Sunday's three-hour meeting between Secretary of State Rice and PA Chairman Abbas in Ramallah as "difficult." A top PA official said, "It was a tough meeting....Rice actually reprimanded Abbas for signing the unity government deal with Hamas."

OLMERT READY TO SURRENDER

Olmert: Relations with Peretz 'intact' (JPost)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that if the new Palestinian unity government were to free kidnapped IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Israel would have to reconsider its position on the PA coalition.

At the previous day's cabinet meeting, Olmert said that Israel neither accepted nor rejected the Mecca Accord. He said that his government had "urgent consultations" over the weekend about the Hamas and Fatah agreement, but had not decided whether to reject or accept it.

WHAAATT???? WHAT ABOUT THE QUARTETS CONDITIONS? WHAT ABOUT THE ROAD-MAP? WHAT ABOUT RECOGNIZING ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST AND CLAMPING DOWN ON TERROR?

HAMAS: NEW PALI GOV'T WON'T RECOGNIZE ISRAEL OR STOP TERROR

WITH THEIR SHAM UNITY GOVERNMENT IN PLACE, HAMAS AND FATAH ARE DEMANDING THAT THE U.S. LIFT IT'S AID EMBARGO. THE U.S. AND ISRAEL HAVE BEEN INSISTING THAT THERE CAN BE NO PROGRESS TOWARD PEACE UNTIL THE PALESTINIANS CLAMP DOWN ON TERROR AND RECOGNIZE ISRAEL. GOOD LUCK WAITING FOR THAT:

Hamas: We will not recognize Israel or stop violence (PMW)
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - Feb. 12, 2007
A Hamas spokesman has reiterated that the new Hamas-led coalition government will neither recognize Israel nor stop terror. According to Hamas spokesman Mushir Al-Masri, Hamas interprets the Mecca agreement to mean that the Arab and Islamic worlds have accepted them as they are, and that "international legitimization" will follow.The following are excerpts from the article:

Hamas movement spokesman, Mushir Al-Masri, said: “Hamas remains as it is: following its principles. It did not retreat, but advanced forward.” He confirmed that it will not recognize Israel, will not abandon the resistance [i.e. terror] and will not discard its principles.” He further said: “The Hamas [that existed] prior to the government, is Hamas of the government. Hamas prior to the unity [government] is Hamas after the unity.”

This was said during a rally organized yesterday by the Islamic University student council, as part of a series of activities of identification with the university. Thousands of university students and a group of representatives from the Legislative Council and ministers participated in the rally…Al-Masri added: “Hamas received national legitimization through the gathering of masses around it and around the option of resistance [i.e., terror] and received legislative legitimization through its victory in the Legislative Council elections. It now received Arab and Islamic legitimization and will receive international legitimization.” [Al-Ayyam, February 12, 2007]

SEE ALSO: New Palestinian govt won't recognize Israel: Hamas (Reuters)

A WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING

THE FATAH-HAMAS POWER SHARING AGREEMENT ISN'T EVEN A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING. IT'S A WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING. BUT WILL THE THE U.S. AND ISRAEL BE STRONG AND STALWART ENOUGH TO RESIST PRESSURE FROM EUROPE, RUSSIA AND THE SAUDIS TO HOLD THE LINE AND INSIST OF FULL, TRUE COMPLIANCE WITH ALL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE AID BAN IS LIFTED?

Palestinian Deal Troubles U.S. - Anne Gearan
A power-sharing deal between the secular, U.S.-backed Palestinian leader and his Islamic militant rivals complicates an emerging U.S. effort to invigorate dormant peace prospects with Israel. The deal announced Thursday between warring Palestinian factions does not expressly commit the new government to conditions the U.S. has called essential first steps toward any political accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians. Officials were troubled at the prospect of a unified Palestinian government that will not renounce violence or recognize Israel. (AP/Washington Post)

See also State Department: New PA Government Must Meet International Demands - Hassan M. Fattah
Israel and international powers have said that they would lift their boycott of the Palestinian government only if it agreed to three conditions: recognize Israel, renounce violence against Israel, and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. The Mecca accord addresses only the last of those and does so rather imprecisely. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said, "The international community has made it clear that in order to be able to have a broader relationship with the Palestinian Authority government, that those principles are going to have to be met." (New York Times) [ED. DOES ANYONE THINK IT'S IRONIC THAT THE NYT'S REPORTER'S NAME IS "FATTAH"?]

Israel: New Palestinian Government Must Accept All International Conditions
Speaking Thursday after agreement was announced in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, between Fatah and Hamas for a unity government, Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said: "Israel expects a new Palestinian government to respect and accept all three of the international community principles." (AP/International Herald Tribune)

See also Israel: Quartet Will Not Accept New PA Government - Rebecca Anna Stoil
Iranian influence over Hamas will preclude the Quartet from approving a Palestinian national unity government, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter predicted on Thursday. Dichter said that the talks in Mecca were "one of the main issues" he discussed this week in Washington. "We have found common ground between America and Israel that the creation of a unity government without accepting the three conditions of the Quartet is meaningless." (Jerusalem Post)

Abbas' Top Concern Is Avoiding Civil War, Not Compliance - Herb Keinon
PA Chairman Abbas wanted a national unity government agreement in Mecca to stave off a Palestinian civil war, even if it meant antagonizing Israel, the U.S. and the EU, according to Western diplomatic assessments. The widespread feeling in Jerusalem is that the U.S., along with Britain and Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, would remain adamant about the need for the three Quartet principles to be upheld, while Russia would push to recognize the unity government even if it did not fully meet the requirements.

According to Western diplomatic assessments, the Palestinians themselves have no illusions the unity agreement would satisfy the Quartet principles. However, there was a feeling among the Palestinians that this was the most that could be gotten from Hamas at the present time. Nobody expected that Hamas would change its fundamental positions. (Jerusalem Post)

RICE: ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN PEACE WON'T HELP IN IRAQ

Rice: Israel-Palestinian Peace Won't Help in Iraq - Yitzhak Benhorin
There is no correlation between efforts to promote negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and the troubles in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the House Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. "I don't wish to suggest that we think if we do that (resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), we're going to get something for it in some other part of the diplomacy," Rice said. Secretary Rice clarified that the Bush administration does not share the views of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group whose report recommends that Washington advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a precursor to stabilizing the situation in Iraq.

However, the U.S. does plan to launch a fresh diplomatic initiative aimed at reinvigorating the peace process. Rice, Prime Minister Olmert, and PA leader Abbas are scheduled to meet on February 19 to discuss what an autonomous Palestinian state would look like. "There are elements that we simply never talk about, like Palestinian capacity to govern a state," Rice said. (Ynet News)

BLAIR: ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CRISIS MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR INFLUENCING WORLD PEACE

WHAT? IS BLAIR CYNICAL OR NAIVE TO STATE THAT THE "ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CRISIS" IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR INFLUENCING WORLD PEACE AND THAT THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT ISSUE TO RESOLVE?

IT'S RESOLUTION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE WAR BETWEEN ISLAMOFASCISTS AND THE WEST? MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENOCIDE IN AFRICA? MORE IMPORTANT THAN - GASP - GLOBAL WARMING? MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE AIDS CRISIS?

IS HE PANDERING TO THE WORST ELEMENTS OF OUR SOCIETY OR DOES HE REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD WILL JOIN HANDS AND SING KUMBAYA IF ONLY ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS CAN ACHIEVE PEACE?

Blair: Progress soon in peace process (JPost)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a radio interview for broadcast Monday that there likely would be progress in the Middle East peace process over the next few weeks.

World leaders agreed that the Israeli-Palestinian crisis was the single most important factor influencing world peace, Blair told BBC radio, adding that a breakthrough could be made soon.

"Our obligation is to put forward a peace process that can work and try and take that forward," he said, according to extracts released in advance by the BBC. "And over the next few weeks I think there will be some real movement there."

Blair has made the search for Middle East peace a priority of his 10-year premiership, and said he would continue to promote peace efforts after leaving office. He has announced he will step down by September.

"I will retain a huge interest in the peace process in Israel and Palestine in the years to come, of course, because it's so important," Blair said.

He said he was "in the end optimistic that this thing can be done." "But it requires a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment and it requires the international community as a whole to recognize that there is no more important issue for us to resolve than Israel/Palestine."

ISRAEL IS NOT THE PROBLEM

Is Israel the Problem? - Amir Taheri (Commentary)

• Arab despots have long sought to divert their tyrannized subjects with dreams of driving the "Zionist enemy" into the sea. Each time Nasser of Egypt faced social and political unrest at home, he would assure his own people and the Arab "nation"" at large that social and political reform had to wait until "the enemy" was dislodged from "our beloved Palestine." For others to embrace such retrograde and easily refuted notions bespeaks a truly dangerous ignorance of reality.
• The greater Middle East consists of 22 states, sixteen of them Arab. All are remnants of various empires and none enjoy fully defined or internationally recognized borders. Every one of them is engaged in pressing irredentist claims of one kind or another against one or more of its neighbors, and most have entered into armed battle with each other as a consequence.
• All told, in the past six decades, this region has witnessed no fewer than 22 full-scale wars over territory and resources, not one of them having anything to do with Israel and the Palestinians. And these international disputes are quite apart from the uninterrupted string of domestic clashes, military coups, acts of sectarian and ethnic vengeance, factional terrorism, and other internal conflicts that have characterized the greater Middle East.
• The notion that all of these problems can be waved away by "solving" the Arab-Israeli conflict is thus at best a delusion, at worst a recipe for maintaining today's wider political, diplomatic, and social paralysis.
• What is the reason behind the failure of the 1991 Madrid conference, the slow but steady death of the 1993 Oslo accords, the collapse of President Bill Clinton's final effort to negotiate a peace deal at Camp David in 2000, and the faltering history of President George W. Bush's "road map"? The reason is hardly the want of diplomatic efforts, especially on the part of the U.S.
• With the exception of Israel and with the partial exception of Turkey, the entire Middle East lacks a culture of conflict resolution, let alone the necessary mechanisms of meaningful compromise. Such a culture can only be shaped through a process of democratization. Only democracies habitually resolve their conflicts through diplomacy rather than war, and only popular-based regimes possess the political strength and the moral will to build peace. Democratization remains the only credible strategy in and for the region, and the only hope for its suffering inhabitants.

THROWING ISRAEL TO THE CROCODILE WON'T APPEASE THE ISLAMO-FASCISTS

Palestinian state won’t solve conflict, says Israeli ex-army chief
HERZLIYA, Israel (AFP) - A two-state solution based on Israeli territorial concessions to the Palestinians will not lead to broader stability in the Middle East, former Israeli army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon has warned.

“The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which I wish we could resolve and I cannot see it being solved in the near future — will not lead to stability in the Middle East,” he told an annual conference on Israeli national security in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv Monday.

“International pressure on the state of Israel for territorial concessions will only strengthen the jihadi threat being led by Iran today and encourage them to continue to attack Israel and the West,” Yaalon said.

“The two-state paradigm as a solution to the conflict is irrelevant at this stage. The solution of the conflict will not solve the Islamic attack against the West.”....

Yaalon also said Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and from southern Lebanon proved that the conflict was not territorial but ideological after last summer's conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza.

"The fact that Israel was attacked last summer on two fronts and continues to be hit by rockets strengthens the sense of a dead-end and proves that the root cause of the conflict is not the occupation of territory," he said.

The cause of the instability in the Middle East is Iran's Islamic regime, which fosters "a clash of civilisations between the West and the radical Islam", Yaalon said.

"We cannot avoid confronting the Iranian regime without which we will not be able to defeat the Jihadi Islam ... I cannot see any change in Iran without external intervention," he said.

Yaalon said the solution to the conflict "requires talking in terms of leading a struggle and not an instant solution, because there is no immediate solution."

"Nowadays what is needed in Israel and the West is a leadership that is not afraid of facing the truth even if it involves blood, sweat and tears and does not attempt through spins to create illusions as we have witnessed in recent years."

IS OLMERT ABOUT TO GIVE ABBAS WEST BANK?

Secret talks handing West Bank to Abbas (WND)
JERUSALEM – Israel and the Palestinians have been conducting behind-the-scene negotiations regarding handing over most of the West Bank to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to top Egyptian and European diplomatic sources who told WND they were directly involved with the talks.

The West Bank borders Jerusalem and is within rocket-firing range of Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.

The Egyptian and European sources told WND the negotiations for an Israeli withdrawal were mediated by Egypt and the European Union, with U.S. input. The sources said major changes in Israeli-Palestinian affairs are expected within a few weeks to two months.

According to an aid to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, speaking on condition of anonymity, there will be a "historic political evolution and movement in negotiations in the next few weeks and few months, unseen since the Camp David peace talks in 2000."

HAMAS TO ISRAEL: GIVE US EVERYTHING FOR 10 YEAR "TRUCE

Haniyeh says he will accept Palestinian state on '67 borders in exchange for 10 year truce (YNET)
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that his Hamas group would be willing to accept a temporary Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in exchange for a 10-year truce with Israel.

His comments, reiterating Hamas policy, came as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to meet Hamas' supreme leader Khaled Mashaal in Syria to discuss ways to form a coalition government and end international sanctions on the Palestinians. (AP)