Mid-east peace: The view from the West Bank

By ⋅ September 22, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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Photo by Matthew Bell

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:

Discussion

One comment for “Mid-east peace: The view from the West Bank”

  • Doron L

    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?