Huckabee says 2 states in Holy Land 'unrealistic'

[ensho]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ik3FeeyI7bBJ_dR-u6FLPnuMbb0gD9A5CCGO0


Former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday there should be no Palestinian state in the West Bank and endorsed Israeli settlements there, sharply disagreeing with Washington and much of the world.

A three-day tour of Israel, hosted by a far-right group of religious nationalists, is taking Huckabee to some of the most contentious hotspots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including a West Bank settlement outpost that even Israel's hard-line government considers illegal and an east Jerusalem housing project that the Obama administration has demanded be halted.

-snip-

Huckabee's opposition to a Palestinian state puts him at odds with the accepted wisdom of both Democrats and Republicans — and to some degree even with conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come out in favor of some form of Palestinian independence.

-snip-

Huckabee is being hosted by the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a pro-settler group seeking to bolster the Jewish presence in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope will serve as their future capital.
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Huckabee is 'unreal'

[JonQ]

1. It probably is at this point

the leadership of palestine has firmly secured it's power base around hatred and constant war with israel. If that were to disappear their heads would soon start to be separated from their shoulders, which they would likely oppose (probably for religious reasons).

So they need constant war with Israel to exist. A two state solution would likely have the same problems except that palestine would be able to train an army, purchase weapons and stockpile them with no sort of regulation by Israel (short of starting an all out war), which would mean an escalation in the violence.

[Scurrilous]

5. Palestinian leader stresses talks, not "resistance"

<snip>

"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday negotiation was the only path to statehood, espousing non-violence after his Fatah party backed an option of "resistance" against Israeli occupation.

"We are peace seekers," the Western-backed leader said at a cabinet meeting in Ramallah of the Palestinian Authority.

"The main and the only path is the path of peace and negotiations. We don't have any other path and we do not wish to use any other path."

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLH445907

[JonQ]

6. Some else who prefered talks, and diplomacy to war:

at least in words:
National Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe... The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation... Germany needs peace and desires peace!

Ah, that's reassuring. Certainly he doesn't want war, he said so.

I generally place actions ahead of words, and their actions to date don't scream "we want a peaceful resolution to this issue".

[azurnoir]

16. A Palestinian - Nazi comparison how classy n/t

[JonQ]

18. More like a:

"murderous sociopath who speaks german and uses demagoguery of the jews to remain in power" to a "murderous sociopath who speaks arabic and uses demagoguery of the jews to remain in power" comparison.

Major difference I know.

[azurnoir]

21. and just who was this "murderous sociopath" the Kaiser?

it was a Palestinian Nazi comparison and if the same type of comparison had been made between any Israeli leader and that same same "murderous sociopath" someone on the ProIsrael side would be running and shreiking to the mods but I will not

magor difference huh?

[JonQ]

23. If the jackboot fits

besides the fact that the person in question is a nazi, how is the analogy incorrect?

Does the palestinian government refused to use jews as scapegoats for their intenrnal problems? Have they renounced violence as a means of public policy? Have they stayed away from propaganda meant to confuse the outside world of their less than peaceful intentions by making themselves appear the victims, forced to respond to jewish aggression?

In what substantial way is my comparison wrong? In one the person pretended to be peaceful, knowing that he would resort to violence, all as part of a scheme to remain in power and kill jews. Does the palestinian government not fit this mold to a T?

[azurnoir]

25. NO the analogy is not correct

your imaginings border on paranoia or are they merely an excuse for continued occupation?

[JonQ]

28. You're right

the Palestinian leadership has shown nothing but peaceful intentions lo' these past 60 years, has never once declared war on Israel, and has never said anything disparaging about the jews. Unfortunately their gifts of peace-fireworks (strapped to them of course, bags are expensive) have been misinterpreted leading to more senseless, and unprovoked attacks by the jews.

My mistake.

[LeftishBrit]

22. Godwinizing the situation doesn't help

The Palestinian leadership is bad, but it's not Hitler!

[JonQ]

24. I don't think hitler comparisons

are necessarily wrong, all the time, merely because they are overused in some cases.

My point was that public declarations of peace cannot be used as de facto proof of peaceful intentions. As they are used plenty by people who have no intention of following through on those promises.

So taking their words of "we want a peaceful solution" as proof that they in fact want a peaceful solution, while they are supporting terrorism, doesn't make much sense to me. Judge a man by his actions more than his words, and their actions are not peaceful ones.

[LeftishBrit]

26. What was exceptional about Hitler and the Nazis...

was not that they were hawks or warmongers against other countries. Many leaders have been, and they often claim that they're acting in the cause of peace. What was unusual about the Nazis was that they set out systematically to exterminate a minority group among their own citizens, as 'enemies within'. Some other governments have tragically also been guilty of genocide against minority groups among their own citizens; but usually over a longer space of time, with less efficiency, and motivated more by self-interest and less by pure hate than in the case of the Nazis.

If all warmongers are compared with Hitler, then one would have to make the same comparison with regard to many others, including Bush.

Public declarations cannot be taken as the sole evidence. But sometimes enemies including very hawkish warmongering types do end up making peace. E.g. Nixon and Chou En-Lai, or Begin and Sadat.

By the way, just as a heads-up, I believe that in this forum, it's against the rules to compare either side in the I/P conflict with Nazis.

[JonQ]

27. My point wasn't that they match

on every particular (although they both seem to have issues with the jews) merely that you can't take such people at their word when it comes to peace.

"Public declarations cannot be taken as the sole evidence. But sometimes enemies including very hawkish warmongering types do end up making peace. E.g. Nixon and Chou En-Lai, or Begin and Sadat."

So you agree then, that their public declaration is meaningless as it stands now.

[LeftishBrit]

29. I don't take everything they say at their word...

but I think my reasons are a bit different from yours (1) different people in the leadership say different things; (2) the same people say different things at different times - altogether too much instability, and the usual political pandering to different groups is increased by the internal conflict and resulting posturing.

However, while it's fairly obvious that there isn't peace *right now*, I think that it's worthwhile aiming for the goal of peace, and having serious negotiations and discussions.

At one time, it looked as though there'd never be peace in Northern Ireland.

[JonQ]

31. Peace is a noble goal

but not always a realistic one. I don't think it would make sense for Israel to begin trading real advantages in exchange for vague promises of future peace, that are easily broken.

And I don't think Northern Ireland ever had a government of people who wanted to exterminate the british race, as many among the palestinian leadership of pined for. Sure they wanted the brits out, but that was about it.

Also they weren't in the midst of a sea of sympathetic catholics, eager to give them guns and explosives, but not humanitarian aid, as a chance to kill protestants.

[Ken Burch]

32. The actions of the Israeli government have hardly been pro-peace

It can't be considered pro-peace to refuse to stop illegal settlements

It can't be considered pro-peace to demolish Palestinian homes(such as the homes of the innocent, nonviolent Palestinian Bedouins of the South Hebron region that Ezra Nawi is being punished for trying to stop)

It can't be considered pro-peace to have destroyed over 100,000 Palestinian olive trees(or to allow those trees, from groves tended by Palestinians for centuries or perhaps longer, to be stolen and replanted on West Bank settlements)

It can't be considered pro-peace to impose collective punishment on Palestinians for the actions of a few militants.

If the Israeli government wanted peace, it would have treated the Palestinian side as an equal partner and Palestinian statehood as a right, rather than a privelege to be granted by an overlord.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Any other solution is even more unrealistic.

The Palestinian leadership is crap, but so is the current situation with the occupation. No one is acting realistically on either side at the moment, partly because the governments on both sides are weak, divided (to the point of civil war in the case of the Palestinian leadership), and preoccupied with internal politics. I hope they can all get their act together before things get even worse. One thing is for sure, people like Huckabee don't help matters.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. True, but not relevant, sadly.

In politics, "situation" is a better choice of word than "problem". Problem implies that there must be a solution.

I agree that no plausible course of events not involving two states will be awful, but that is not evidence for nor against the proposition "a two-state solution is unrealistic".

For what it's worth, I think Huckabee is probably right in his statement, although completely wrong both in blaming the Palestinians and in not blaming the Israelis for a two-state "solution" not being a viable approach.

It has, I think, been made very clear that the Palestinians would accept a 2-state solution if Israel is willing to offer to return enough of the occupied territory to make a Palestinian state viable, and that Israel is not willing to do that.

[Kurska]

13. Where, when, by who? By all factions? By the majority?

In a credible way while at the same time rescinding any claims to Israel? Where is this willingness to accept a state only on the occupied territories?

What is "Enough" of the occupied territory, I really doubt Israel would be willing to reduce themselves to say tel aviv and that seems to be the bare minimum acceptable to a number of Palestinian factions.

[Ken Burch]

34. the pre-1967 lines would be acceptable

And, since that would be much more likely to result in peace than anything the Israeli government proposes(that government still thinks it has the right to stop Palestinians from having a state and demand that the world take its side on that), it wouldn't be much of a risk at all.

The Palestinians are not the Nazis. They want a state. They don't want to turn Jews into lampshades or wipe them off the Earth. It's time to admit, once and for all, that it's totally unfair to use the European sin of antisemitism to describe the Palestinian mindset.

[Kurska]

2. Huckabee is a fool

As he always was, as he always shall be.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. I agree with him there.

One state with equal citizenship for all.

[Kurska]

4. Despite the desires of a major chunk of both states!

That'll work out great.

[LeftishBrit]

8. Nice idea if possible; but also not realistic at present.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Hmm. well when I hear the word 'Huckabee' the next word I think of isn't 'realistic'

All the Middle East needs is someone like HIM around.

[azurnoir]

9. More Huckabisms

Partitioned Jerusalem: like joint US-Canada control of Detroit?

Huckabee also compared the talk of having Jerusalem partitioned so that it would be under the control of two governments, one Israeli and one Palestinian, to the US and Canada trying to share control of Detroit. "It's inconceivable that two sovereign governments claim control over the same piece of real estate," he said. "I don't know how it's workable."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0817/p06s07-wome.html

[Kurska]

11. Can you name a example of a city split between two diffrent countries?

I'm just curious.

[Scurrilous]

14. Berlin? n/t

On Edit: I googled and apparently there's a boatload (esp. in Europe).

One example here in the states would be Sault Ste Marie.

[Kurska]

15. And that worked out great didn't it?

Can anyone name a exmaple of a city split by two governments that resulted in a workable political situation.

[azurnoir]

20. It worked out just fine

once a one state solution was in place;-)

[FarrenH]

35. Berlin was workable

for decades. Unification was just better, when it came. In this case it isn't.

[JonQ]

19. I hope you aren't using east/west berlin

as the model for a Palestinian statehood. That didn't work out so well.

[LeftishBrit]

30. Andorra is a small country jointly ruled by Spanish and French leaders

and also has its own autonomous government (all very confusing, but it seems to work!)

[DCKit]

17. 'Cause the Arabs and Muslims don't hate U.S. enough already, right Mike?

Moran.

You speak for the religiously insane minority Huckleberry, not the United States.

[DU GrovelBot]

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