Obama's Peace Offensive

According to the latest news reports , Lanka has used Cluster bombs to bomb an hospital in Eelam.

I can't reach BO or his foreign secretary HC. So let me circulate my idea here hoping someone will pick it up.

The only permanent and sustainable solution acceptabel to all parties is this:

Combine Isarel, Wets Bank and Gaza into a single teriitory (withperhaps three admin regions and elected administrators), call this the Holy Land Territory (HLT). Then make HLT an off-shore territory of the USA, like Guam.

Logic: USA already finances and arms Israel and there are many isarelis who are dual citizens of the USA. And without the political, financial and military support of the USA, there will be no sustainable solution. With both Palestinians and Isarelis being citizens of the same countr, the USA, there is no reason to fight each other. Esepcialy for the Palestinians, the policital security and economic development will be so enormous that there won't be any reason for most to be hostile to their neighbor Israel.

Har Har Har! Obama says , "My job is to moniter the situation and put together the best national security team. " Hillary Clinton as secratary of state? Har Har Har! What's she going to do?, throw an ashtray at them if they don't act right? Har Har Har! Equally hilarious is Napolitano as head of Homeland Security. The Arizona border has been wide open as long as she's been around. Chertoff is the reason the human flow slowed. She will undo any progress that's been made.

A sure way to stop nuclear proliferation is for Obama to apologise to Japan and the world for Hiroshima & Nagasaki, get rid of America's stockpile simultaneously with all nuclear powers. And the only way to bring Peace to the Middle East is to cease the 3 billion dollar annual arming of Israel and PAY Israeli settlers to move out of Occupied Palestine.

According to his bio on Wikipedia, Dennis Ross was the co-founder of AIPAC. How can someone so tied to the Israeli side of the process claim to be an unbiased arbiter of the peace in Palestine. It sounds to me like Obama is vulnerable to appointing a lot of people that previously served in the Clinton administration or are tied in some way to past failed efforts. This shows a lack of vision and imagination in what is needed for real "change". Real change requires an infusion of new thinking which does seem to be materializing in the new administration.

According to his bio on Wikipedia, Dennis Ross was the co-founder of AIPAC. How can someone so tied to the Israeli side of the process claim to be an unbiased arbiter of the peace in Palestine. It sounds to me like Obama is vulnerable to appointing a lot of people that previously served in the Clinton administration or are tied in some way to past failed efforts. This shows a lack of vision and imagination in what is needed for real "change". Real change requires an infusion of new thinking which does seem to be materializing in the new administration.

It is time for a new pokicy in Israel/Palestinian affairs. The end to the Israelia use of "quietess." The need to cripple your enemy so severely there will not be the capacity for further attacks against Israel. And the worldwide Israeli propaganda machine that elicts sympathy for Israel against any and all its enemies. These two approaches make it almost impossible for any solution to occur in Israeli/Palistinian affairs. AwesomeTexan

The solution is to change American policy to allow Israel to do whatever it wishes without regard to the consequences. The avowed policy of "quiettism" does not work---to cripple or destroy your enemy so no treat to Israeli security exists. This policy leads to endless warfare. It is indeed a time for change.

"..I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms (Ezekiel 20b-22)
"I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them...I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God (Amos 14a-15)

Global Bill makes a very good point, "If you are Jewish and/or a supporter of Israel, would you believe for one second that the U.S. policies were fair and even-handed if the President's key Middle East policy advisors and lead negotiators were ALL Muslim Arabs?"

How can there be any sense of a new approach to Middle East peace if our entire team consists of AIPAC members? We are apparently fully owned by Israel and only exist to do their bidding.

I was almost with Hirsh until I got to the part where he reveals that he thinks Clinton erred in failing to apply "more pressure on Arafat in 2000 to accept what was clearly the best deal he was ever going to get from the Israelis for the creation of a Palestinian state."

The "best deal he was ever going to get"? An archipelago of "Palestinian" enclaves scattered across the remaining quarter of Palestine that Israel has yet to exile the indigenous majority from living on...surrounded and controlled by Israeli forces, Israeli roads and checkpoints, with Israel controlling the water under their feet, and the air over their heads? And someday, someday MAYBE, the Israelies would, out of the future kindness of their hearts, give these captive pet Palestinians "control" (sort of) of MOST of that remaining 1/4 of their former homeland. But no compensation for the hundreds of thousands dispossessed by the Israeli wars of 1947-48 and 1967, no right for them to return to their own homes, and no admission that DRIVING them out in the first place was WRONG. That "deal" constituted perpetual captivity and servitude to the Israelis for the children of the Palestinians, and their childrens' children, for all time. Would YOU sell your children into slavery?

No justice, no peace. If Israel means to conduct a Holocaust of its own...or continue it, with a thorough "ethnic cleansing" of the REST of Palestine, they will have to do it with the world watching.

Somebody, who thinks the 2000 deal offered to Arafat was a good deal, is going to continue the stalemate, endlessly. Negotiations do mean some give & take, but anything less than a contiguous piece of land, that could be sovereign and has the potential to be turned into a state independently responsible for its citizens, would not only be shortchanging the Palestinians but deceiving the citizens of Israel as well. This conflict has continued since 1967 and it has caused enormous distress to the people in the region. Any halfhearted, lopsided effort is never going to end it. Hopefully, Obama would be more practical and forward looking than some of his appointees.

If Obama is for change then Dennis Ross, Jim Steinberg, Dan Kurtzer, Dan Shapiro are the worng people for adivise on the Middleast. All the above are AIPAC members whose only alliance is for Israel not their homeland the USA.
At the camp David Dennis Ross tried to shove down Arafat's throat the Clinton's peae package which gave Palestinians as their state nothing but little islands surrounded by shark infected water. Arafat had no choice but to refuse, other leaders would have done the same

In order for ANY mediator to be effective in resolving disputes between two or more contentious parties, it is imperative that the mediator be trusted by both parties, and appear (???and preferably BE) impartial. The reason that the United States continues to fail miserably in its vital role as a Middle East mediator and its quest for peace and stability, is because the United States exercises a double standard in dealing with the Palestinians and Israelis. The U.S. is NOT impartial and does not even appear to be unbiased. In commenting on Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, the United States routinely "condemns" Palestinian aggression (irrespective of Israeli provocations) and demands an immediate sucession of all hostilities.??? Conversely, the United States invariably "encourages Israel to use lethal force in moderation and to the extent possible, avoid civilian casualties.??? While the United States pro formerly condemns the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian lands ??? that are illegal under international law and are main Israeli provocation that insights Palestinians??? reprisals, the United States enables Israel???s settlements by indirectly funding their construction in providing Israel with $3 billion a year in financial assistance with no strings attached. This fact is not lost on the Palestinians, and Muslims / Arabs throughout the world.

If you are Jewish and/or a supporter of Israel, would you believe for one second that the U.S. policies were fair and even-handed if the President's key Middle East policy advisors and lead negotiators were ALL Muslim Arabs? Of course not. AIPIC would never, ever allow it. Then why should the Palestinians and the Muslim/Arab world give credence to, and accept the notion of United States' even-handedness and impartiality when most of the previous U.S. Middle East negotiators and advisors were Jewish (Henry Kissinger, Dennis Ross, Aaron David Miller, Richard Haas, Dan Kurtzer, Martin Indyk, and Elliott Abrams at the NSC), and all four of the President-elect???s current ME advisors are Jewish (Dennis Ross, Jim Steinberg, Dan Kurtzer, Dan Shapiro). Irrespective of the patriotism, professionalism, commitment, diplomatic skills, objectivity, and possible impartiality of these American public servants, because they are all Jewish, the APPEARANCE of bias and the PERCEPTION on the ???Arab Street??? of the undo influence of the pro-Israeli lobby in ensuring that only ???our own??? consistently are in charge of the Middle East portfolio, is unavoidable. This restricted staffing pattern and enduring construct defies diplomatic logic as well as common sense. The failed results speak for themselves. As a ???confidence-building measure,??? President-elect Obama should re-constitute his Middle East policy development and negotiating team to ensure a balance of views, as well as religious, ethnic, political and cultural representation.

In order for ANY mediator to be effective in resolving disputes between two or more contentious parties, it is imperative that the mediator be trusted by both parties, and appear (???and preferably BE) impartial. The reason that the United States continues to fail miserably in its vital role as a Middle East mediator and its quest for peace and stability, is because the United States exercises a double standard in dealing with the Palestinians and Israelis. The U.S. is NOT impartial and does not even appear to be unbiased. In commenting on Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, the United States routinely "condemns" Palestinian aggression (irrespective of Israeli provocations) and demands an immediate sucession of all hostilities.??? Conversely, the United States invariably "encourages Israel to use lethal force in moderation and to the extent possible, avoid civilian casualties.??? While the United States pro formerly condemns the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian lands ??? that are illegal under international law and are main Israeli provocation that insights Palestinians??? reprisals, the United States enables Israel???s settlements by indirectly funding their construction in providing Israel with $3 billion a year in financial assistance with no strings attached. This fact is not lost on the Palestinians, and Muslims / Arabs throughout the world.

If you are Jewish and/or a supporter of Israel, would you believe for one second that the U.S. policies were fair and even-handed if the President's key Middle East policy advisors and lead negotiators were ALL Muslim Arabs? Of course not. AIPIC would never, ever allow it. Then why should the Palestinians and the Muslim/Arab world give credence to, and accept the notion of United States' even-handedness and impartiality when most of the previous U.S. Middle East negotiators and advisors were Jewish (Henry Kissinger, Dennis Ross, Aaron David Miller, Richard Haas, Dan Kurtzer, Martin Indyk, and Elliott Abrams at the NSC), and all four of the President-elect???s current ME advisors are Jewish (Dennis Ross, Jim Steinberg, Dan Kurtzer, Dan Shapiro). Irrespective of the patriotism, professionalism, commitment, diplomatic skills, objectivity, and possible impartiality of these American public servants, because they are all Jewish, the APPEARANCE of bias and the PERCEPTION on the ???Arab Street??? of the undo influence of the pro-Israeli lobby in ensuring that only ???our own??? consistently are in charge of the Middle East portfolio, is unavoidable. This restricted staffing pattern and enduring construct defies diplomatic logic as well as common sense. The failed results speak for themselves.
As a ???confidence-building measure,??? President-elect Obama should re-constitute his Middle East policy development and negotiating team to ensure a balance of views, as well as religious, ethnic, political and cultural representation.

Dennis Ross is the wrong person for this important job, He is one of the reasons the OSLO peace process failed, He belongs to the hard line camp and does not beleive in compromise but he does not show that, He prtend to be part of the peace camp, I would be very dissapointed and will most certenly give up on any peace prospect if Dennis Ross is really appointed to this important position. It will be indeed a disaster to the middle east.

Dennis Ross is the wrong person for this important job, He is one of the reasons the OSLO peace process failed, He belongs to the hard line camp and does not beleive in compromise but he does not show that, He prtend to be part of the peace camp, I would be very dissapointed and will most certenly give up on any peace prospect if Dennis Ross is really appointed to this important position. It will be indeed a disaster to the middle east.