An Ever Expanding Israel.

It would be amazing if it did not happen so consistently.

• An attempt (albeit pathetic) is made to advance peace between Israel and Palestine.
• Israel increases its building activity in the occupied territories, thereby undermining the attempt.
• Advocates for Israel try to shift the spotlight from Israel's actual illegal behavior to that of an "evil" Arab state's mythical malfeasance, in this case on to Egypt's supposed inability to control its border with Gaza.

It would be hilarious if the neo-cons were not simultaneously arguing that our own borders cannot be controlled while insisting that the border between Gaza and Egypt is easily maintained. This, despite the fact, that Egypt, recognizing increased activity along the border, has asked for permission to increase the number of it's soldiers patrolling the  border corridor, and Israel refuses to allow them to do so.

The current government of Israel, like so many of its governments before, does not actually want a cessation of hostility.

(memeorandum)

Comments

[Rick]

Someday you will discover (I hope) that this mythology you carry around with you is not supported by any facts whatsoever. They have been stealing Palestine from the Jews since its creation. First through diplomacy and second through failed warfare and most recently by convincing the world that Arabs are Palestinians and could prevail through world sympathy. You can find evidence of this ruse as Arab leaders corresponded about the matter and openly discussed it at Arab leadership councils. This new ‘strategy’ began in the 1960s. You should look into it. What they want is all of Israel. It is in Arafat’s original charter and still is to this day. Arafat wrote that Gaza belonged to Egypt and The West Bank belonged to Jordan and Israel is Arab’s Palestine. And, of course, they want all the Jews to be dead. So, I am utterly stupefied as to why Israel would relinquish one square acre of land west of the Jordan and allow these hoards to create the death and squalor that is the rest of their world.

I mentioned once that I thought you should read Innocents Abroad. Mark Twain describes what he saw 150 years ago. In the mid 1860s, Muslims of Damascus were disturbed by their ‘Christian problem’ There was a Christian community within the city, so they put all 25,000 of them to the sword; men, women and children and left their bodies in the street to rot or be consumed by animals. They considered Christians to filthy to touch and bury. This served as ‘discouragement’ and Christians stayed away.

There are a wealthy few in the Arab world who have done some marvelous things with their oil money. The Jews have created a miracle in the desert where once no one wanted or could, live. Read what Twain found there.

When you write “that Israel does not actually want a cessation of hostilities”, it leaves me believing that you will never want to seek out the truth. Preconceived notions are the hardest thing to change. I am guessing a couple Arab friends have your ear. They are not lying. It’s what they believe. There are millions of Americans who believe 9-11 was an inside job. So they are not likely to read volume after volume of Middle Eastern history. They’ll just believe what they hear. Nasser and his crowd of cronies new this would happen.

[bbbustard]

Thanks for the comment - and you're right that I haven't read Twain, and I will. I also have to get back to you with the names of some of the more recent Israeli scholarship on the founding of Israel, as I fear you are succumbing to myth as well.
My conclusion that Israel does not want hostilities is based on coversations with Jews, and by reading Israeli newspapers - I actually don't know any Arabs particularly well.

[Rick]

I would learn no more about Israel’s desire for war or peace by reading an Israeli newspaper than I would learn about the war in Iraq by reading the New York Times. And, you will learn nothing of the real history of the region by listening to claims of contemporary politicians or leaders or pundits. That has always been my point. One has to ignore all these things. Modern Arabs have tried (with much success) to convince the world that Jews arrived in Palestine in 1947 and bulldozed an ancient Arab Palestinian culture and evicted the residents. But, when you read 19th century and early 20th century accounts of Palestine, you will find no mention of any such culture. You will read about Jews and their declined culture ravaged by centuries of invasion and the sadly decaying Jerusalem, and you will read mention of tiny bands of nomadic Bedouins seeking grazing from the Arabian peninsula to the eastern Mediterranean, and you will read of the occupying Turks trying to extract taxes from these poor souls. If you asked a Bedouin what he was, he will tell you Bedou. If you found an Arab in northern Palestine, he would tell you he was Syrian. If you asked either of these folks what a Jew was, he would tell you the Jew is a Palestinian. The land west of the Jordan and south of Syria and Lebanon was an ‘empty quarter’. Zionist Jews from Europe began to purchase this land from the Turks in the mid 1800s. This money and Jewry flowing in from Europe created irrigation and farming and economic opportunity and began to revitalize the Jewish culture. The Jewish culture was always there, it is simply that nobody cared when it was dirt poor. There are Arabs that do not have oil and covet it and there are Arabs that do not have Israel and covet it.