Jibril Rajoub
Lest the Sword Slip from Our Hand - Ze'ev Schiff
Jibril Rajoub, a former head of PA Preventive Security in the West Bank who is considered a "moderate" Palestinian, has now appeared on television and shocked his Israeli acquaintances with the remark that in the end, the Palestinians will recover every inch of land between the river and the sea.
With all due respect to my Palestinian friends, I can only conclude from these remarks that we must shut our ears when the Palestinians scatter promises about wanting to live alongside Israel. It is not words that matter, but deeds, and deeds alone.
There is only one conclusion, and Moshe Dayan already said it in his eulogy over the grave of Roi Rutenberg, who was murdered by Arabs from Gaza in the 1950s: "This is our life's choice: to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword slip from our hand and our lives be cut down."
(Ha'aretz)
With all due respect to my Palestinian friends, I can only conclude from these remarks that we must shut our ears when the Palestinians scatter promises about wanting to live alongside Israel. It is not words that matter, but deeds, and deeds alone.
There is only one conclusion, and Moshe Dayan already said it in his eulogy over the grave of Roi Rutenberg, who was murdered by Arabs from Gaza in the 1950s: "This is our life's choice: to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword slip from our hand and our lives be cut down."
(Ha'aretz)
3 comments:
Indeed, but you must also shut your ears to asll words, then. Rhetoric like this may be a hope for the future, or may be political pandering. Right now the hardliners were voted in, and Abbas was forced to deal with them. Thus, the Hard-Line is what we are going to see, until the world is able to pressure the Palestinians to rebuke Hamas.
By the way, you should have a lot of interesting sounbites from this past few days. Cheney saying the British troop withdrawal was right on plan, but somehow we have to add over 20,000 troops of our own. White House spokesman Tony Fratto saying that the administration believes it is wrong for the Democrats to push for a withdrawal timetable for our troops because a troop withdrawal could lead to chaos in Iraq. When you stop laughing you can mention that chaos might just be an improvement. And finally, Tony Blair saying that while Basra isn't what we wanted or hoped for, it is ready to begin a new chapter with the Iraqis themselves, taking care of it. Which means that depending on who has more death squads in place, Sunnis or Shia, we could eventually see a quiescent and 'ethnically cleansed' Basra by summer.
I generally like to avoid Soundbiting on material that is overly partisan...i like to address folks across the political spectrum.
i have thus far even avoided posting material on the troop surge in Iraq, though i would consider such material if it came from a military analyist point of view.
My contention is that security and MidEast policy issues are a lot bigger than any representative [be they in the White House or Congress].
As far as I can tell, no politician has yet to detail the kind of military and diplomatic strategy that is needed in the region. I remain hopeful the public will demand it.
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