It's hard to keep track, really. The lies and fabrications and the alternate universe scenarios fly so fast and thick that you can hardly remember what planet you inhabit. That is, after all, the point.
Take this article in Maariv.
MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash-Ta’al) is calling on Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to consider declaring an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borderline.
MK Ahmed Tibi is, well, an MK, which is to say a Member of the Knesset. A duly elected member of the parliament/congress/representative body of the sovereign State of Israel. He's also an Arab (though some say Israel is a democracy only for Jews) who is advocating that his country's main mortal enemy declare itself a state on what is currently, like it or not, Israeli land. Has he been arrested yet? Lost his job? No, I thought not.
On Thursday, Tibi termed the Bush statement as a “fatal blow to peace efforts and slap in the face to the Arab worldâ€, adding, “This is the first time the Americans officially approve settlements and the taking over of land by means of forceâ€.
Let's, please, recall the event of "force" with which Israel took over palestinian land. Well, that's hard, because no such event ever took place. So, instead, let's recall the event of "force" with which Israel took over land that had been unilaterally annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (with barely a word of complaint from anyone). That would be a war of self-defense in which Israel was supposed to be annihilated by Jordan and its allies but instead managed to push back at the invading forces and obtain, for the first time, a defensible border. Did Israel initiate that conflict? Hardly. With several enemies massed at her borders declaring their intention to wipe her off the face of the map, she chose pre-emptive action. You can call that "aggression" if you like. Whatever floats your boat.
Anyway, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this would not, by a long shot, be "the first time the Americans officially approve settlements and the taking over of land by means of force," even if that was an accurate characterization of events.
Meanwhile, PA Chairman Arafat also attacked the Bush declaration regarding the keeping of some of the territories by Israel and the US ruling out of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to Israel. “No one in the world has a right to hand over our land and dismiss our rightsâ€, Arafat told 1500 supporters in Ramallah. “Our people and our leaders are the only ones that have the legitimacy to speak on behalf of our nationâ€, he added.
Which begs the question: what exactly are the "rights" of the Arab palestinian refugees, what in fact constitutes "the land" of the Arab palestinian refugees, who are the Arab palestinian refugees and who actually has the authority to speak for the Arab palestinian refugees? Until these questions are acknowledged as viable topics of discussion and investigation, until this inquiry is responsibly inaugurated (notwithstanding the inevitable screeching and hysteria that such an investigation would engender in the Arab world), there's really no point in pursuing the debate. This is the brick wall that every approach to peace in the Middle East slams up against. And so it will continue until someone finds the sledgehammer that will break through it.
