Israellycool

One of early Zionism’s slogans that took hold of the imagination of the proponents of a Jewish state was “A land without a people for a people without a land.” Coined by Israel Zangwill, it evoked a desolate, empty desert where the industrious Jews could build a modern state.

Israel-bashers are fond of using this quote as proof of early Zionist mendacity, ignoring the 400,000 Arabs that lived in Palestine at the beginning of modern Zionism. To an extent they are right - certainly there were people there - but the slogan was more accurate than they claim.

Firstly, while there were people there, they weren’t “a people” - Arabs at the time identified with the Arab people as a whole, or often as a part of southern Syria, but Palestinian Arab nationalism did not appear until after the phrase was coined, in no small part as a direct reaction to Zionism itself.

Secondly, it is hard to claim that the land was anything but sparsely populated, considering that today some ten million people manage to fit in that same space. In other words, the claim that pre-state Zionism was displacing the existing Arab population is simply a lie, as the aim of Zionism was to build and grow in places where no one was living.

And thirdly, it is patently obvious that the Jews were a people without a land, except for those bigots who deny Jewish peoplehood to begin with.

For all the outrage that the slogan causes in Arab circles for being immoral and inflammatory, though, it was used by the Arab League delegate to the UN yesterday trying to give it a PalArab twist:

YAHYA A. MAHMASSANI, Permanent Observer for the League of Arab States, reading out a message from the Secretary-General of the League, Amre Moussa, stressed the Committee’s vital role. The International Day of Solidarity coincided with the ninetieth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which had paved the way for the expansionist Zionist policy, thereby creating a land without people and people without a land -– the source of the conflict that lasted to the current day.

The bigotry and hypocrisy of the Arab states is neatly on display here:

* He dismisses millions of Jews living in Israel nowadays as being effectively nonexistent, invisibly living in a “land without people.” Similarly, he denies the fact of Jewish peoplehood.

* He dates the beginnings of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem as 1917, not 1948, showing that in the Arab League’s opinion it is the very existence of Jewish national aspiration that is the problem, not the establishment of the State nor the flight of the original refugees.

* He defines the “source” of the conflict to 1917, ignoring that the Arab violence against Jews predated Balfour and that practically all of the attacks would be one-way for decades after that. In other words, in his mind the existence of Jews in Palestine was inherently provocative to the extent that the poor Arabs, who seem to exist without free will, had no choice but to start massacring them.

And, without intending to,

* He subconsciously admits that there were no Palestinian Arab people existing before 1917.

In this case of Arabs attempting to turn the tables on Zionists by using their language, it only proves their own hypocrisy and bigotry.

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the UN vote for Resolution 181, which recommended an end to the British Mandate in Palestine and a partition plan that called for the creation of two states - one Jewish and one Arab. And as usual, the UN General Assembly conducted a discussion marking the anniversary. Well, actually, an annual discussion under the title “the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” which constitutes nothing more than yet another opportunity to bash and demonize Israel.

The man I believe to be Israel’s best public speaker, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, once again delivered a fantastic speech to the General Assembly, in which he claimed back this day as the anniversary of the day there could have been a palestinian state, had the Arabs not been bent on destroying the Jewish one.

There are just so many pearls in this speech that I am reproducing the entire thing, with my favorite quotes highlighted in red.

You can also view the speech here (it starts at 1 hr 35 mins and lasts approximately 16 minutes)

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

I know these words evoke a different voice and a different precedent. But with all seriousness, Happy Birthday. On this day, 60 years ago, the Jewish State was born out of the historic 1947 General Assembly session, where two extraordinary gifts were given to humanity: the gift of a modern state for the Jewish people and the gift of Israel to the world.

I have just come from a commemorative ceremony at Lake Success, where that United Nations, met 60 years ago. You see, throughout history, nations traditionally have been created through war and conquest. Israel, however, was created by UN decree and by the nations of the world. To be there today – representing my Government and my People – was indeed a joyous occasion. So, I wish you all, a Happy Birthday.

Mr. President,

Late last night, I returned from Annapolis. It was a memorable occasion, with representatives from over 40 nations – chiefly among them moderate states of the Arab and Muslim world – committed to supporting the bilateral process between Israel and the Palestinians. The air in Annapolis was filled with the hope that by working together we can realize a peaceful and better tomorrow. I have no doubt that this sense of optimism was felt by all those in attendance.

Yet, back here in New York, standing before this august Assembly – in a place so distant from Annapolis in body, mind, and soul – I cannot help but wonder whether today’s debate will contribute to the spirit, promise, and hope of Annapolis.

After all, this Assembly hall is also the birthplace of the annual 21 resolutions defaming Israel – with a litany of predetermined, impractical, and completely biased conclusions – that have only given the Palestinians a fictitious sense of reality and a discourse of rights without responsibilities, both of which render the United Nations completely incapable of playing a meaningful role in addressing the conflict.

Today – 29 of November – is perhaps the greatest example of how this Assembly continues to stifle hope and faith for peace in our region. According to the calendar of the United Nations, today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which by definition precludes Israel.

Let me be clear: Palestinian self-determination is a cause Israel wholeheartedly supports. Indeed, at the Annapolis meeting, just two days ago, my Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Olmert said “we will find the right way, as part of an international effort in which we will participate, to assist these Palestinians in finding a proper framework for their future, in the Palestinian state which will be established in the territories agreed upon between us”.

Over the years, however, the proceedings held in this Hall and at UN centers around the world have corrupted the cause of Palestinian self-determination and transformed it into a denigration and defamation of the Jewish state.

I have been listening carefully to the statements delivered this afternoon. They all focused on Israel, and I know many will focus on Israel later.

The narrative is the same: it is unjust, draining, grossly erroneous, misleading, and – I dare say – viciously boring. It is sadly, yet again, déjà vu, all over again.

The penchant for blaming Israel for the repeated Palestinian failures is so widespread and contagious that the absurdity of it goes completely unnoticed. And today reminds us why: the Palestinian addiction to the culture of victimhood is fed by this world body and specifically many of its Member States – as we just witnessed – who day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, use this international forum for their rhetorical theatrics. Broadway might have been on strike, but the theater on the East River is always open for business.

It is time to close the gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric in this Hall now, forever, once and for all.

For us – for Jews and for Israelis – today is not a bitter day at all. We are not downtrodden or haunted by vanquished dreams. Today is a day of great victory and success – victory over oppression and tyranny, and success over the painful tragedies and suffering of Jewish history. Today, we celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people and our eternal bond to the land of Israel, where after so many years of yearning and longing in exile we merited the return to our homeland.

The joy felt on 29 November 1947 is recounted by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated writers, and a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature:

“There was dancing and weeping … Bottles of fruit drink, beer and wine passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, strangers hugged each other in streets and kissed each other with tears, … frenzied revelers … waved the flag of the state that had not been established yet, but tonight, over there in Lake Success, it had been decided that it had the right to be established”.

Travel to any city in Israel, and you will no doubt find a street named for this very day – כ”ט בנובמבר – the 29th of November – a testament to its importance and significance to our people.

In fact, I live in Tel-Aviv, just yards from a street named after the 29th of November, and my eldest grandson, Ron, as born on this very day nine years ago. It is on his behalf and on behalf of all children of Israel and the children of the region that I stand before you here today.

Distinguished Excellencies, think of the past 60 years, and consider Israel’s many contributions to the world in the fields of science and technology, medicine, art, and culture. A country that has discovered ways to stop deserts from receding; a country that has engineered critical advancements in medicine, cures for illnesses and limbs for the disabled; a country that has endowed the world with rich treasures of art and culture, through its Nobel Laureates, poets, artists, and writers.

Think about where the world would be today without the State of Israel – and I know some in this Hall perversely dream about such a question. But Israel is here to stay, to flourish, and to continue contributing to the advancement of man, progress, and human civilization.

It is then the greatest insult to us, to history, and to this Assembly that while Israel celebrates, others at the United Nations mourn.

Some Member States will note my delegation’s absence from past 29th of November proceedings. We stopped addressing this session because some Member States hijacked and abused the forum for their own political interests and turned it into yet another venue to demonize Israel. We cannot allow that to happen any longer. Today is our day.

It is high time for Israel and for all those committed to peace in our region, to reclaim this day for what it truly means: the peaceful coexistence of two independent states in the region, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, living side-by-side in peace and security, each fulfilling the national aspirations of its respective people.

Mr. President,

In this regard, it is all the more bewildering that of late the Jewish character of the State of Israel has been called into question. Last week, as Israelis and Palestinians set out for Annapolis, a veteran Palestinian negotiator said “the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity”.

The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance – General Assembly resolution 181 – speaks of the creation of the “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. Even before that, the notion of a Jewish state in the land of Israel was cemented in the 1922 League of Nations British Mandate on Palestine, which put into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to establish a national home for the Jewish people.

The Arab refusal to recognize the existence of our Jewish state has been at the core of the Palestinians’ inability to achieve a state of their own. When the Jews accepted the UN partition plan, the Arabs made a fateful – and indeed fatal – choice to reject it and invade the newly borne Jewish state, rather than coexist with it.

Had the Arabs accepted the UN’s decision, there would have been two states, one Jewish and one Arab, all this time, for the past 60 years. Had the Arabs not rejected the decision, my Palestinian colleague who spoke earlier would have represented a Member State, not just as an Observer entity.

The wrong choices did not end in 1947. We saw them again in 1967, 1973, 2000, and 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip only to have the Palestinians bring the Hamas terrorists to power. The wrong choices of the Palestinians continue until this very day, when, on average, Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip fire rockets at Israel every three hours.

For their brutal violence, arrogance, and intransigence, Israel has paid an enormous price: with the lives of our people – the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism: men, women, and children, young and old, doctors and lawyers, artists and scientists, all who would have contributed so greatly to life in Israel and to the betterment of the entire world.

The terrorism we still see today stems from an innate refusal to recognize Israel, a refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and a refusal to recognize the value of our lives. So long as there is a denial of the existential issues, I fear, there can never be an agreement on the territorial ones.

Mr. President,

Annapolis – I hope and believe – represents a new wind of change. Moderate Arab and Muslim states today recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of instability in our region and that the conflict can and will end. They also recognize that the real dangers come directly from Islamic extremism and its champion Iran, who sponsors terrorism around the globe, tries to attain nuclear weapons, denies the Holocaust while preparing for the next one, relentlessly defying the will of the international community.

The Coalition for Peace, which the world saw assembled in Annapolis just two days ago, will support the process between Israel and the Palestinians. But it is also a coalition that will hopefully counter and confront the extremists in Teheran.

I hope that the winds of Annapolis will blow to the north, to this very Hall. For there could be no better time for the nations of the world – and in particular the moderate Arab and Muslim states in this Hall today – to show their commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian process. And there could be no better place than here at the United Nations –where for decades Israel has been discriminated against and singled out, contrary to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter – for Members States to tell Israel and the Palestinians that they support our dialogue.

Mr. President,

Allow me to take you back once more to sixty years ago, to 2 October 1947, when David Ben-Gurion, founding father and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, two months prior to the General Assembly’s historic vote, said in Jerusalem:

“We will not surrender our right to free Aliyah, to rebuild our shattered Homeland, to claim statehood. If we are attacked, we will fight back. But we will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish cooperation gainful to both. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for the common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals”.

Mr. President, sixty years later, today here, Israel’s message to the Arab nations and the Palestinians has not changed. Shoulder to shoulder for the common good. Now, more than ever, with the winds of change blowing strong from Annapolis, to New York, to the Middle East, to all corners of the earth.

Thank You.

Meanwhile, Hamas could not better illustrate Ambassador Gillerman’s point - they are calling on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem… there is no room in it for the Jews.”

Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that “correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation.”

“They shun her like she is Count Dracula’s younger sister.”

- Franz Timmermans, Dutch representative to the Annapolis summit, talking about how the Arab representatives treated Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Longtime readers of this blog will know I am not one to reveal too much about my personal life on here. The focus of this blog is Israel and the Middle East, and I like to keep things informative and entertaining. At least that’s my goal; whether or not I succeed in this is something I’ll leave for you to decide.

With this post, I’m going to break with Israellycool tradition and get a bit personal.

Right now, I am experiencing some personal pain, with my beloved father recently being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. That is the reason I came out here to Australia; I want to spend some quality time with him. While this is a particularly aggressive type of cancer, my father is fighting it in the only way he knows how - with a positive outlook and in a dignified manner. He truly is an inspiration.

I wasn’t going to mention any of this on the blog, but I figure that having more people praying for my dad certainly won’t hurt.

If you are accustomed to praying to G-d, I ask that you please include my father in your prayers. His Hebrew name is Dahvid Ben Friedel.

The Palestine Post on November 30, 1947 published a small, telling article about the Arab Higher Committee’s reaction to the possibility of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The AHC placed partition in the particular Arab context of an honor/shame society:

“You are standing at a cross road; it will be either a noble and free life or shame and humiliation forever. The matter is now in your hands alone. If you make the required sacrifice for the sake of your country you will win, but if you are mean and treacherous you will be stained with shame and humiliation.”

Unwittingly, the Arabs were already setting themselves up for their “naqba” - they had pre-defined the existence of a Jewish state as an unpardonable affront to their dignity. In the Arab world, nothing is worse than being humiliated, and death is far preferable.

All that they say to the West today about “justice” and “settlements” are just empty words to mask what their true intentions are - to erase decades of humiliation. Nothing is more important. All the volumes of scholarly papers and articles, all the legal maneuvers and speeches, all the pretenses of grudgingly accepting Israel - all of it is a smokescreen to mask what the AHC chairman articulated on their behalf that day, that the very existence of a Jewish state is the definition of shame and humiliation.

This is before there was a single Arab battlefield loss, before there was a single Arab refugee. It is not the humiliation of defeat but the humiliation of Jews controlling land in the Middle East.

The events of recent weeks have shown this to be true, sixty years later. Even though the UN and the world explicitly stated that this was to be a Jewish state, the most “moderate” of Arab negotiators cannot accept that simple fact today. All their empty words about peace cannot erase what Arabs feel, deep down.

The only reason they pretend to accept Israel today is because they assume that they will be able to destroy it demographically tomorrow with the consciously hostile “right to return.” To truly accept a Jewish state in the birthplace of the Jews is as abhorrent and unthinkable to the Arabs today as it was in November, 1947.

And no amount of photo-ops or joint statements can change that.

For more on November 29, 1947 see this post at Elder of Ziyon.

I am sure it’s not deliberate - given Reuter’s history of backing the wrong (Trojan) horse in the Middle East conflict - but this photo seems to be showing PA Chairman “Moderate” Mahmoud Abbas in a true light.

The way his glasses are magnifying his eyes, which appear beady and sinister, suggests his true intentions in attending the Annapolis summit, and, indeed, for all the so-called “peace” talks with Israel.

And if you think I am being unfairly cynical, I’ll remind you that his party still has a terrorist arm, and his Palestinian Authority continues to promote to palestinians an Israel-less Middle East.

This headline in today’s Jerusalem Post drew my attention:

Vatican official backs right of return

My initial reaction? Finally, the Vatican is going to return all of the Jewish artifacts they stole from us!

Unfortunately, this is not the right of return to which the Vatican official is referring.

A Vatican official said Wednesday that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homeland, and said he hoped Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would address the issue.

Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican’s office for migrants, said an agreement to restart peace talks, reached Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland, was encouraging and that he hoped by this time next year concrete measures would be under way.

“It is my hope that all the parts of the problem are taken into consideration such as that of the Palestinian refugees, who like all other refugees, have the right to return to their homeland,” Martino said.

What I want to know is, given that the Vatican support a palestinian state as a homeland for the so-called palestinian people, why don’t they support these “refugees” returning to that state if it is established in the future?

Also, why aren’t the Vatican talking of the right of return of Jewish refugees from Arab lands?

But the real question is who the hell do the Vatican think they are?

Oh, I know. G-d’s representatives on Earth. Which makes their conduct towards the Jews and Israel even more perplexing .. and abhorrent.

From JTA (and also PalPress):

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States rejected recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”There are 1.5 million civilians in Israel who do not define themselves as Jewish,” Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at the U.S.-convened Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Annapolis, Md.

“We do not believe states should define themselves according to religion or ethnicity.”

…said the representative of a nation whose official religion is Islam, whose legal system is based on Shari’a, whose king holds the title “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” and whose constitution starts with:

Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.

Article 2
The state’s public holidays are Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha. Its calendar is the Hegira calendar.

Article 3
The state’s flag shall be as follows:
(a) It shall be green.
(b) Its width shall be equal to two-thirds of it’s length.
(c) The words “There is but one God and Mohammed is His Prophet” shall be inscribed in the center with a drawn sword under it. The statute shall define the rules pertaining to it.

cross-posted to Elder of Ziyon

Can you guess who said this?

“The Israeli people have been the sacrificial lamb of history.”

And this:

“It’s about f****ing time [said as Fox News reported on Israel's attempt to push Hezbollah out of Southern Lebanon]. ..[The Jews] have been getting killed for 5,000 years. Enough is enough. The rest of the world does not give a shit, except America, because the Israelis have no oil. Everyone sticks with those Arabs—because they have the oil.”

And this:

“We should f****ing get alternative energy and tell all the Arabs and the rest of the world to stick it up their ass. F*** them and the oil!”

And this:

“They are talking about Ahmadinejad coming to New York. I hate the bastard. He sponsors terrorists! The shitface …”

And the answer is..

Fabio (!)

You know, the long-haired romance novel model, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! spokesperson, and sworn enemy of George Clooney and birds everywhere.

The quotes come from this Radar Online article. If you read the whole thing, you’ll discover that Fabio is not the vacuous punchline that many people associate with his name.

Just don’t get him to talk about apples.

(hat tip: Hot Air, who came up with the great post title I can’t believe it’s…Fabio getting all hard core on the war. That’s 1-1, Bryan)

There are many of us who consider former Arab-Israeli Knesset member/fifth columnist Azmi Bishara to be devilish. So it’s great to see photo evidence of this.

In a similar vain:

Those Wacky MSM Photographers

Separated at Birth

Separated at Birth

Separated at Birth

Israellycool podcast #54 is now up on my podcast site.

On this week’s show from Australia, me and my dad discuss the Australian elections, the upcoming Annapolis conference, and a subject closer to home.

Or you can listen directly here:

After the failure of Camp David and the resultant intifada, Ehud Barak spoke about what went wrong:

Barak today portrays Arafat’s behavior at Camp David as a “performance” geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without ever seriously intending to reach a peace settlement or sign an “end to the conflict.” “He did not negotiate in good faith, indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying ‘no’ to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own,” he says. Barak continuously shifts between charging Arafat with “lacking the character or will” to make a historic compromise (as did the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977–1979, when he made peace with Israel) and accusing him of secretly planning Israel’s demise while he strings along a succession of Israeli and Western leaders and, on the way, hoodwinks “naive journalists”—in Barak’s phrase—like [Deborah] Sontag and officials such as former US National Security Council expert Robert Malley (who, with Hussein Agha, published another “revisionist” article on Camp David, “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors”^[*]). According to Barak:

What they [Arafat and his colleagues] want is a Palestinian state in all of Palestine. What we see as self-evident, [the need for] two states for two peoples, they reject. Israel is too strong at the moment to defeat, so they formally recognize it. But their game plan is to establish a Palestinian state while always leaving an opening for further “legitimate” demands down the road. For now, they are willing to agree to a temporary truce à la Hudnat Hudaybiyah [a temporary truce that the Prophet Muhammad concluded with the leaders of Mecca during 628–629, which he subsequently unilaterally violated]. They will exploit the tolerance and democracy of Israel first to turn it into “a state for all its citizens,” as demanded by the extreme nationalist wing of Israel’s Arabs and extremist left-wing Jewish Israelis. Then they will push for a binational state and then, demography and attrition will lead to a state with a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority. This would not necessarily involve kicking out all the Jews. But it would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. This, I believe, is their vision. They may not talk about it often, openly, but this is their vision. Arafat sees himself as a reborn Saladin—the Kurdish Muslim general who defeated the Crusaders in the twelfth century—and Israel as just another, ephemeral Crusader state.

Barak believes that Arafat sees the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants, numbering close to four million, as the main demographic-political tool for subverting the Jewish state.

Arafat, says Barak, believes that Israel “has no right to exist, and he seeks its demise.” Barak buttresses this by arguing that Arafat “does not recognize the existence of a Jewish people or nation, only a Jewish religion, because it is mentioned in the Koran and because he remembers seeing, as a kid, Jews praying at the Wailing Wall.” This, Barak believes, underlay Arafat’s insistence at Camp David (and since) that the Palestinians have sole sovereignty over the Temple Mount compound (Haram al-Sharif—the noble sanctuary) in the southeastern corner of Jerusalem’s Old City. Arafat denies that any Jewish temple has ever stood there—and this is a microcosm of his denial of the Jews’ historical connection and claim to the Land of Israel/Palestine. Hence, in December 2000, Arafat refused to accept even the vague formulation proposed by Clinton positing Israeli sovereignty over the earth beneath the Temple Mount’s surface area.

Barak recalls Clinton telling him that during the Camp David talks he had attended Sunday services and the minister had preached a sermon mentioning Solomon, the king who built the First Temple. Later that evening, he had met Arafat and spoke of the sermon. Arafat had said: “There is nothing there [i.e., no trace of a temple on the Temple Mount].” Clinton responded that “not only the Jews but I, too, believe that under the surface there are remains of Solomon’s temple.” (At this point one of Clinton’s [Jewish] aides whispered to the President that he should tell Arafat that this is his personal opinion, not an official American position.)

Repeatedly during our prolonged interview, conducted in his office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper, Barak shook his head—in bewilderment and sadness—at what he regards as Palestinian, and especially Arafat’s, mendacity:

They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie…creates no dissonance. They don’t suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn’t. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as “the truth.”

Speaking of Arab society, Barak recalls: “The deputy director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation once told me that there are societies in which lie detector tests don’t work, societies in which lies do not create cognitive dissonance [on which the tests are based].”

Now, Abbas and his colleagues are saying exactly what Arafat said in 2000 - their goals are identical and the 2000 Barak offer is considered “completely unacceptable and out of the question.”

It is more than a bit ironic for Ehud Barak to talk about “cognitive dissonance” on the Arab side in 2002 and then to sit at a table with them again, willing to go beyond the Camp David and Taba offers - all in the name of a “peace” that is simply a reward for a six-year intifada.

cross-posted on Elder of Ziyon