Hamas 'ready to talk to Israel'

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Suuuure... Isreal was always interested in peace and wanted to let the good Palestinians go. They never really wanted to occupy them and treat them like 2nd class citizens.

Give it a break.

That is correct. Labor govts, from 1967 on wanted to get out of Gaza and much of the West Bank. The arguments within Labour were over how much to get out of, and to whom, and under exactly what arrangements.

Now Likud did NOT want to get out until Ariel Sharon's prime ministership. Likud was aided politically throughout by Pal terrorism, and the failure of the arab world to take up Labours initiatives.

[Fake Boris]

Why didn't it happen then?

[lord of the mark]

1. Israel didnt offer ALL of the West Bank to Jordan, they insisted on annexing several less populous areas to Israel. from 1967 to 1973 Labour saw the Israeli positon as strategically unassailble, and saw no rush and dithered over the details.

2. Then King Husseins father had been assasinated by a Pal nationalist for talking to Israel. the King had to proceed cautiously. PLO attempts to overthrow him didnt help.


3. in 1971 the Arab league published the three nos - no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. These were clearly aimed at Jordan - at threatening the kings throne and life if he cut a deal with Israel.

4. After the 1973 war the Labour party was weakened by its poor performance in that war, and later by scandal. Something as dramatic as a deal with Jordan, difficult enough on the Jordanian end, was very hard. If they were to have made a deal it would have had to be on favourable terms to Israel, while Jordan to consider a deal in the face of Arab league opposition required one on favourable terms to itself.

5. in 1977 the Labour party, reeling from scandal, fell from power. Likud governed till 1984.

8. The issue of the Jordan option, and West Bank policy divided the coalition govt until it fell, in 1988 IIRC.

9. By that point the first intifada had broken out (1987) and Jordan had relinquished all connections to the west bank. In 1992 the new Labour govt under Rabin chose to negotiate with the PLO at Oslo, effectively giving up on the Jordan option.


If and when the Oslo process/road map process is completey dead, there will likely be voices in Israel attempting to revive negotiations with Jordan. Its unlikely Jordan will be interested, as the Jordanian polity and the Pals in the territories ahve moved apart over the years, and non-Pal Jordanians are not at all eager to add more Pals to the Jordanian polity.


Some info on the Allon plan:


"On July 26, 1967, Defense Minister Yigal Allon presented a plan to then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol for a settlement with the Palestinians, which came to be known as the Allon Plan. The plan was clarified publicly in a 1976 Foreign Affairs magazine article. The basic features of the plan were:

1. Israel would retain control of the Jordan valley and of the "back of the mountain." According to Israeli military strategists, this control was needed in order to control the West Bank militarily. Most of this area is desert and is not settled by Palestinians or used by them. However, the plan would control Palestinian access to Jordan and would create several separate enclaves.

2. The Jordan river would remain the eastern border of Israel, allowing Israel to prevent foreign armies from crossing into the West Bank and massing for an attack on the center of Israel.

3. Israel would annex areas in the Jerusalem corridor to secure the approaches to Jerusalem.

4. Palestinians would be given control of three populous enclaves - a northern enclave including Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and Ramallah, a southern enclave including Hebron and Bethlehem, and an enclave including Jericho that included a crossing to Jordan. The enclaves would be connected by connecting roads.

The strategic concepts underlying the plan have been part of Israeli military doctrine since 1948. Labor party settlement policies generally followed this plan, concentrating settlements in the Jordan valley. The settlement in Hebron, and settlements in Ariel and other areas were set up despite Labor government opposition.

The plan did not provide for Israeli control of the aquifers that underlie the West Bank. The plan also did not really solve the major strategic headache of Israel, which is the proximity of the border to Tel Aviv and Nethanya in the North. The assumption apparently was that Israeli control of the border and the Jordan Valley, and Jordanian control of the Palestinian areas, would ensure that the Palestinian areas remained demilitarized. The Israeli government envisaged a settlement that included return of the "Palestinian Control" areas to Jordan, or giving those areas an autonomous status. Several variations of this plan were proposed over the years. Jordan refused to consider any solution that allowed Israel to annex large parts of the West Bank. Though the Allon plan itself became largely irrelevant after King Hussein gave up Jordanian control of the West Bank in the 80s, the elements of the plan continue to influence Israeli strategic thinking and peace proposals. "

[Az]

Oh, gee, thank you hamas!

They are willing to talk to us - aren't they nice?




**** off, Hamas. When you are willing to accept "the zionist state", maybe we could talk.

[Fake Boris]

And what else are they doing, if indeed they'll talk?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
That is correct. Labor govts, from 1967 on wanted to get out of Gaza and much of the West Bank. The arguments within Labour were over how much to get out of, and to whom, and under exactly what arrangements.

How come the number of settlers all but doubled during the nineties, if labor governments wanted out?

[Az]

And what else are they doing, if indeed they'll talk?

nothing of the sort.

[Az]

Originally posted by Sandman


How come the number of settlers all but doubled during the nineties, if labor governments wanted out?

Out of controlling the palestinians, not out of every square inch of 67' gains. 'sides, bargaining chips.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman


How come the number of settlers all but doubled during the nineties, if labor governments wanted out?

"That is correct. Labor govts, from 1967 on wanted to get out of Gaza and much of the West Bank. The arguments within Labour were over how much to get out of, and to whom, and under exactly what arrangements. "


hope this helps.

Oh and of course "the nineties" includes the period when Labour was out of power.

[Sandman]

It's difficult to see how massive settlement expansion could be anything other than a barrier to a peace agreement.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman
It's difficult to see how massive settlement expansion could be anything other than a barrier to a peace agreement.

Thats debatable, and has been extensively debated. My point was that it was not inconsistent with Labour wanting to withdraw from most of the territories, which Imran challenged.

[Arrian]

Well, to be fair to Imran, he didn't specify Labor. You did. Imran said Israel, which includes the entire political spectrum (or at least those parties who formed governments), certainly including Likud.

And yeah, the settlements were a real bad idea if the goal was peace, IMO.

-Arrian

[Edan]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Terrorism already has worked. It was the only way to bring Isreal to the bargaining table in the first place.

And terrorism brought it right back out in the last 5 years.

Before the intefada, there was no bargaining, there was no calls for a Palestinian state.

Israel did offer a Palestinians a state in the aftermath of the six day war in exchange for peace, but that was rejected by the Palestinians for fear of reprisals by Arab countries if they recognized and lived in peace with Israel.

In the decades afterwards, bargaining was conducted with the Arab nations that had controlled the territories before losing them during the war. The countries Israel was seeking peace with.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, to be fair to Imran, he didn't specify Labor. You did. Imran said Israel, which includes the entire political spectrum (or at least those parties who formed governments), certainly including Likud.

And yeah, the settlements were a real bad idea if the goal was peace, IMO.

-Arrian

Imran made his post in response to this

"If the palestinians hadnt used violence then, there might have been negotiations leading to a Jordanian Palestinian confederation. I suspect Palestinians, Israelis, the region at large, and the world would have been much better off had that happened."

Now anyone who knows anything about what was happening in the 80s would immediately recognize that this implied negotiations led by Labour. Now I could have added for good measure that if it hadnt been for Pal violence, Labour would probably have done better at the ballot box through the '80s, but didnt really want to belabour ( ) that point.

And no, im not going to dragged into another discussion of whether the number of residents at Maaleh Adumim and Ariel is really an obstacle to peace or not. We need a term for this - "refusing the threadjack"?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, to be fair to Imran, he didn't specify Labor. You did. Imran said Israel, which includes the entire political spectrum (or at least those parties who formed governments), certainly including Likud.

And yeah, the settlements were a real bad idea if the goal was peace, IMO.

-Arrian

The settlements in question were already in place when the Oslo accord was signed.