You know, George Mitchell is retiring at the end of the year. You should send your resume for a gig as aide to the next Middle East czar, Jon Corzine.

Your comment about underdogs doesn’t hold water. I seem to recall the Giants winning a Super Bowl just a couple of years ago after a mediocre season. Never underestimate an opponent.

Underdogs can improve their positions at the margins, but no– they really don’t win. Not unless the stronger power, to use Paul Kennedy’s term, engages in imperial overstretch.

Applying a Kennedy analysis to Israel– isn’t that the problem with its potential death-grip in the WB? Even if it withdraws from most of it, terrible things are likely to happen, just as horrible suffering attended European decolonization in the 40s and 50s. It’s nonetheless in Israel’s interests, regardless of what Erekat is telling the press.

My analysis is not “fear driven” and it is not “fear mongering.” It is an analysis. When you know what you are up against, you change tactics. The idea is that we’ve entered a period where the Palestinians intend to use means other than suicide bombs to achieve their goals, and what I’m reading from their behavior is supreme confidence about the outcome of their various campaigns around the globe.

Your comment about who has nuclear weapons is ridiculous. You can’t explode one in Gaza without getting the fallout on your own people. So nukes are out. It also turns out that if you fight as an army against the pseudo-armies the Palestinians use, then you are committing war crimes. So that’s out as well. The silliest thing about your comment is that for a sports fan you seem to forget that the game is played even when there is an overwhelming underdog because sometimes the underdog wins. Even if they don’t win, just by playing they can cause injuries to your players or harm to your team.

As for being pro-active, you seem to forget that prior to Goldstone and the Toronto Film Festival protests, I wrote a lengthy post about being pro-active. I recommended and then defended at length the proposition that Israel should unilaterally leave Judea and Samaria/West Bank. Today, I have serious doubts whether the outcome of Goldstone’s commission leaves that option dead. At the same time, we saw the face of the new war the Palestinians are waging in the letters and media war run by the film festival protesters and boycotters. Apartheid and ethnic cleansing were on the menu. Tel Aviv itself was dismissed, essentially making the claim that nothing in Israel is actually justifiably there.

I’m really unsure why you are so adamant about lining me up with or next to the Likud while some of the others here are busy lining up next to the Communists. Instead of labeling me, which is a silly exercise, why don’t you try to remember that I am independent of any group or particular ideology. I am very supportive of Israel, obviously, but my ideology is to try to be pragmatic in my views about Israel and this conflict and that’s about it.

Erekat is astute enough to know that Obama’s the potential game-changer. You rather infrequently reference our president these days; one infers that your singular brand of Likudnik/Obami politics is still very much a work in progress. (How do you think your first choice for prez did on her Middle East tour?)

You may not be engaging in ‘fearmongering’, but your analysis is grossly fear-driven. Who gives a rat’s ass about Palestinian public opinion? What do you think the result would be if you polled Serbs whether they want Kosovo back? Think most Russians would love to topple the Kiev government and retrieve Ukraine? How is this relevant to anything? Who cares whether the Palestinians want all of Israel in a perfect world?

Reading you these days, you’d think Palestine had the nuclear weapons, incomparably the strongest army in the region, the support of the world’s hyperpower, etc.

My point about proactivity is this: A Palestinian state is either in Israel’s interests or it isn’t. Bibi, one suspects, thinks not (despite his grudging endorsement of a two-state approach). If you agree with me that it is, your focus should be on urging policies designed to bring that about– and opposing pollcies, like WB expansionism, that retard it.

Or should we hold all of this hostage to Israel’s lousy poll numbers in Nablus?

It’s hard not to conclude that your writing these days amounts to a defense of (a defense of) the status quo– in that regard, you line up right behind Likud.

(btw, as we learned again last night, if you choose to trust polls, make sure it’s Rasmussen.)

haaretz.com/ha...

pcpsr.org/surv...

There is a proposal that after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the settlemnet of all issues in dispute, including the refugees and Jerusalem issues, there will be a mutual recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and Palestine as the state of the Palestinians people. Do you agree or disagree to this proposal?

1) Definitely agree

5.6

2) agree

44.3

3) disagree

36.9

4) definitely disagree

10.6

5) DK/NA

2.6

And I still fail to understand how it can be that 49% of Palestinians find it at least tolerable to resettle refugees outside of Israel without any compensation at all (and 25% consider it essential!) when 87% consider it essential to have both right of return AND compensation. That means at least 12% of Palestinians consider it “essential” to BOTH resettle refugees elsewhere without compensation AND to resettle refugees in Israel proper with compensation, which makes absolutely no sense given how the statements are phrased.

The bottom line is that you can cherry pick specific responses from this survey to support just about any argument, because the responses seem to be all over the map.

The way to reconcile the problem you bring up is answered by the demand that 98% of Palestinians want every last settler gone from “settlements.” In other words, they want the Jews elsewhere and not among them. As you know, this was what Jordan did in 1948 and 1949 to any Jews who were still on land they conquered, so there is a historical precedent.

The question that so confuses things for you is the one where the Palestinians are asked whether a peace agreement should include two states for two people. This isn’t so confusing when you think about the Palestinians seeking to evict every last Jewish settler. Your answer is that they want the Jews “over there” and not “over here.”

At the same time, the Palestinian public is adamant that all refugees, without limitation, should be eligible for “return” to the land upon which Israel sits today. This is a core belief almost as powerful as the core belief that not a single Jewish settler may remain in their home and live with Palestinians. The 71% supporting “Historic Palestine — from the Jordan river to the sea” are also providing a very solid majority, in fact almost an unassailable majority considering that 59% of them believe this for religious reasons.

So:
- A state from river to sea
- All refugees can “return” without limitation
- No Jews can live among Palestinians in the new Palestine
- There needs to be another state for the Jewish people

Obviously, the average Palestinian who is being interviewed wants the Jewish people to live “elsewhere,” just not in the land where Israel sits today because that will have to be Palestine.

The good news is that nobody asked the Palestinians whether they should use violence to remove all the Jews from the state where they are not supposed to be, the one from the river to the sea inhabited by Palestinians from all over the world.

I actually don’t think the survey is suggesting genocide or ethnic cleansing other than in Judea and Samaria/West Bank where all the settlers are expected to leave. I think the survey is giving the Palestinians a wish list and it just so happens that what they really want conflicts with the reality, namely the fact that they can’t really get rid of the Israelis. In their wish list, therefore, they give the Israelis a second state…without being clear where it would reside. Maybe in Kansas.

In this survey, “the person being interviewed…was asked which options they considered to be ‘Essential’, ‘Desirable’, ‘Acceptable’, ‘Tolerable’ or ‘Unacceptable’ as part of a peace agreement.”

There is major dissonance between 71% of Palestinians considering it “essential” that a peace agreement include “Historic Palestine — from the Jordan river to the sea,” and only 24% considering it “unacceptable” that a peace agreement include a “Two state solution – Two states for two peoples: Israel and Palestine,” since these two features of a peace agreement are incompatible.

If I understand you right, you reconcile the two numbers by saying that the overwhelming support for right of return means that the 76% majority of Palestinians who find a two state solution at least tolerable are assuming that both states will end up being Palestinian by virtue of demographics.

But there is dissonance in the right of return numbers as well. How is it that 49% of Palestinians will at least tolerate resettling refugees outside of Israel without any compensation at all (and 25% consider it essential!) when 87% consider it essential to have both right of return AND compensation?

I agree with you that demands for full right of return moot any talk of a two state solution. But these numbers are very hard to interpret.

Perhaps something is getting lost in the translation between what the Palestinians were asked in Arabic and how the numbers are being presented in English? Or am I missing something else?

Morrisey, the Palestinians are not negotiating at all. They have shown that they do not budge on anything and do not even verbally suggest compromise. They just show up to the negotiating table, we offer something, and then there are negotiations about how much we will give them/away. For example; they claim to need police. They say they need 50 000 para-military equipped soldiers, we say 10 000 policemen (like in Israel). They counter and say 50 000 with assault guns, we counter with offering 5000 AK-47s, etc…

And the demographics are BS, unfortunately middle did mention this but kept with the sky is falling news instead. Plunging birthrates occur when society gets materialistic. The young Arabs look at us, leasing cars, plasma tvs, and other items and decide that having so many kids prevents enjoying this.

I still don’t understand why you are proud to be in the middle. On one side, the left with a deathwish to take us down before the religious take over the country, and on the other side the patriotic right-wing.

Second, the issue is not whether 24% consider a two state solution unacceptable, what matters is how they view the two states. For example, I showed a 38% “essential” response to the question in the same section that asks “Two state solution – Two states for two peoples: Israel and Palestine” That seems to be the best news on here and far better than your reading of the “only” 24% consider a 2 state solution “unacceptable.”

How do they view the two states? What the stats I quoted show is that the state we’ll call Palestine will have absolutely no Jews in it, since 98% of Palestinians believe it is essential that all the settlers should leave the occupied territories/West Bank. The question doesn’t state whether this includes east Jerusalem, but I suspect that for many of them it does.

The other state they would allow (if we accept your generous reading of those who would accept a two state solution) will be called Israel. It will be composed of Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis of whom most are Arabs, and… all those Palestinian “refugees” (by which they mean all Palestinians) that also move into Israel. We know that they view this as part of the second state because a full 87% of them state it is essential that refugees be given the right to move into Israel AND receive compensation. A full 48% consider any alternative as unacceptable and 75% are in the “unacceptable” column regarding any sort of limitation on the numbers of refugees – “The number of refugees returning to Israel should be limited to family members and numbers agreed between Israel and Palestine/the Palestinians” 75% “Unacceptable.”

I don’t think I wrote anything misleading, do you still think so?

I also think that this poll reflects what I wrote in the post above. The Palestinians think they are at the stage where they can get what they want if they just push hard enough over the next few years. You could make the argument that in name they agree to two states, but in fact, they are seeking to make Israel into another Palestine. I don’t think there is another way to read to 87% “essential” that refugees be given the right to move into Israel with 75% “unacceptable” on denying a limitation on refugees who move into Israel.

Middle, I think your use of those stats is a bit misleading. Looking at the numbers in context, I find the responses of “unacceptable” (out of choices of “essential,” “desirable,” “acceptable,” “tolerable” and “unacceptable”) more illustrative.

While 71% of Pals consider Greater Palestine “essential,” only 24% of Pals consider a two-state solution “unacceptable,” which seems to suggest that the meaning of “essential” wasn’t well understood by the people being polled (it looks like it was interpreted as “most desirable”). Also, it’s interesting that far more Pals find a single shared solution “unacceptable” (43-59%, depending on what kind of shared state) than find a two-state solution unacceptable.

The more disturbing statistic, however, is that 75% of Pals polled find it “unacceptable” to limit the number of refugees returning to Israel. Yet I find that hard to reconcile with the responses #6 and #7 on Table 3, which gives me hope.