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Photo by Matthew Bell
Climate isn’t the only topic under discussion today in New York. President Obama made his most direct foray into Middle East diplomacy by convening three-way talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Obama said his top Mideast negotiator, George Mitchell, would meet with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators again next week. The President also urged a relaunch of formal negotiations and said there has been progress but more needs to be done. The World’s Matthew Bell gauges the mood in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Nablus street scenes, shot by Matthew Bell with a Flip camera:
Dear The World,
Marco Werman said today that names have changed, but the issues remain the same on Middle
East peace. One thing certainly has not changed: your overwhelming anti-Israel bias in
covering the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Matthew Bell listed only one issue, the “settlements”, blaming Israel at length. This was
followed by a report from Nablus, on the wonderful food there for Eid. Several
Palestinians were interviewed, and some decried Israeli raids, checkpoints of old, while
there was mention of improved conditions.
As always – Israel is to blame, and its people are faceless, dehumanized, while
Palestinians are personalized and interviewed at length.
There was not even a hint that the checkpoints and raids were a response to Palestinian
suicide attacks.
How long will it take The World to ask if there would be peace if there were no
settlements? After all, there weren’t in the West Bank in 1967 when Nasser instigated a
new war to destroy Israel. And when Israel withdrew its people from Gaza, the response
was far more extremism and rocket attacks.
How long will it take The World to ask why there was no peace when the Arabs invaded in
1948 after rejecting a two state solution? Or why they have consistently rejected
coexistence since?
How long will it take The World to even mention the hard line taken by Mahmoud Abbas at
the recent Fatah conference? At the conference in Bethlehem, Palestinian president
Mahmoud Abbas rejected ever recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. He demanded that
refugees be resettled in pre-1967 Israel, not the West Bank. This denies the rights of
the similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. It sidesteps Arab responsibility
for starting the wars
that led to both refugee issues.
If there were no “settlements”, if the Dalai Lama was Israel’s Prime Minister, and Israel
consisted of just Tel Aviv, there would still be Arab hostility. The bottom line has
remained the same ever since the 1948 Arab invasion of a tiny Jewish state: Arab refusal
to accept permanent Jewish self determination.
Recent political pressure on Israel has only reinforced the Arab belief that the “peace
process” can be used to dismantle Israel. Israelis understand this, just as they have
seen how the Gaza withdrawal led to thousands of missiles hitting southern Israel.
How long will it take The World to even mention these most justified Israeli concerns?