Ayalon strongly supported the gaza disengagement plan, which Sharon’s chief advisor at the time, Dov Weisglass, described as “actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” That is, disengagement was about deliberately parking the peace process.

Weisglas’s cynical attitude took into account the knowledge of how the Palestinians would react and actually said that had we been dealing with Norwegians things would have been very different. There was no international or Israel pressure to make the Palestinians behave as they did and to criminally waste an opportunity
1. to establish a mini-state with all governmental roles in place in preparation for the eventual state of Palestine
2. to force Israel to continue with the disengagement in the West Bank as it had promised if the Gaza experiment was successful
3. to give us peace in the Middle East.

I’ve also encountered views like this on certain leftist or “progressive” websites. On Democratic Underground for example outright calls for Israel’s extinction were deleted but they were not uncommon.

Hamid Baghaei, one of Iran’s vice presidents, according to the Iranian website Parsine.com, has said that the Holocaust happened. The catch, however, is that he says that it occurred in Iran and the victims were the Iranian people, who suffered as a result of allied violation of Iranian neutrality during World War II (when British and American forces helped secure a supply route through Iran to supply the Soviets). He is demanding that the Allies pay Iran reparations. No word on whether an apology from President Obama will be forthcoming.

Shhh. Don’t tell Norman “Israel exploits the Shoah in order to oppress Palestinians” Finkelst@#$%ein.

The yellow press of a despot should be allowed no airtime anywhere.

Shame on Britain for allowing this trash on the air.

Yep, propaganda appealing to hatred works very well as every despot knows.

It is horrible that Britain is allowing a foreign to put his yellow press on its shores in order to foment hatred here, just like in a real tyranny.

PressTV has to be shut down.

Zionism per se is a dirty word, there is very little acceptance in my experience to the fact that Jews even have historical connections to Israel. Many people I’ve “spoken” to don’t even believe in the reality of the Temple and now I’m running into claims that Palestinians are actually descendants of the Canaanites regardless of facts about highly variable Palestinian Arab history and origin including European ancestry via the Crusaders and/or descent from local Judeans in the past let alone relatively recent immigration from the Ottoman Empire and subsequently.

Wierdly a lot of the “information” I’m given as “evidence” for these assertions comes from PressTV.

Propagandawise and in terms of historical ignorance let alone compassion for “the other” or the desire to effect reconciliation I think the problem on the ground may be getting worse, not better.

Also, the more reasonable the (Zionist/proIsrael) person or idea the angrier the conversation becomes. A straight-up anti-Arab or anti-Muslim bigot fufills the preconceived idea of a Zionist as evil and this can be dealt with easily – “well you are just a typical Zionist after all!” – whereas a person who wants to communicate let alone a real world, high-level offer like Olmert’s or the Clinton-era proffers elicit real confusion which in the past have resulted in violence.

It’s extremely difficult to undo decades of propaganda especially if there’s a religious component. There’s also constant incitement and the stream of lies and distortions is endless and unceasing.

Also, I’m gathering an impression of religious denial of Judaism’s validity – both Christians and Muslims I’ve encountered seem to feel that Jews/Judaism are per se inferior and flawed which is why Christianity/Islam were created/revealed, ie the existence of Islam “proves” the inferiority of Judaism. I have actually read comments to the effect that the mosque in Jerusalem dates back to the time of Abraham who is also claimed as a Muslim.

Thus a large part of Israel’s premise is undone – Jews either have no history in Israel and/or they don’t deserve one (past, present or future).

This is in addition to the usual slanders comparing Israel to South Africa, etc. and includes, from Europeans, morose tears for the exterminated Jews of WWII combined with rage against the state of Israel, complete with Gandhi quotes.

Ideas?

Josh sez: Possibly because he knows that no one in his target audience in the Arab States has ever been told that that happened. News that tell things that actually happened, as opposed to who to hate, doesn’t exist in the middle east.

Bill sez: What would be the point of bringing it up?

When Sharon left Gaza, Israel was universally demonized as much, if not more, than it was before so as to keep the hate against the Israelis going. Mentioning Gaza is useless because it proves that the adversaries of Israel were never interested in Israel giving up territory, they were only interested in demonizing Israel. If they were to go back to the 67 lines, who actually thinks that that would be an end of the hatred? I suspect it would freak them out more since they would not be behaving according to the Evil-Jew narrative they are locked into and they’d totally have to invent more complaints and demands – and they are already them lined up (e.g., the right of return).

Because of that, there’s no point to discussing such an Orwellian “un-event” as leaving Gaza or any of the deals that the PA rejected. Rather, the option here was to discuss the common existential threat that is Iran, as well as a generalist way forward for the region through cooperation and Israel’s street cred on that matter. The deeper message is that Israel is staying in the neighborhood (whether you like it or not), Israel is willing to be a good neighbor and back it up with collegial neighborly acts (e.g., the Mubarak Project) (whether you like it or not), and that they are not the threat to peace on the block (whether they like it or not).

Now, as you clearly know, the Jordan was never the eastern boundary of anything, and the populations on the two Banks have always been closely related and otherwise connected. They are one people. The pressure for incorporation into the Palestinian State would be unstoppable, with the Hashemites and their entourage told to pack their bags and go home to the Peninsula.

Jordan as it presently exists (i.e., only since the loss of the West Bank in 1967) is so short of water as to be literally unviable. That, no more than anything else but no less so either, makes a Palestinian State, which would have no desire for a Hashemite monarchy, the death knell of the Hashemite Kingdom. Israel is under no such threat from it.