Israel-Palestine Debate on Meet The Press with Jeffrey Goldberg (Part 2)

Jeffrey Goldberg and other journalists discuss the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. Later, Goldberg wrote an OP Ed in the New York Times:
IN the summer of 2006, at a moment when Hezbollah rockets were falling virtually without pause on northern Israel, Nizar Rayyan, husband of four, father of 12, scholar of Islam and unblushing executioner, confessed to me one of his frustrations...when I asked him to describe his typical day, he suggested that I might be a spy for Fatah. Not the Mossad, mind you, not the C.I.A., but Fatah.

What a phantasmagorically strange conflict the Arab-Israeli war had become! Here was a Saudi-educated, anti-Shiite (but nevertheless Iranian-backed) Hamas theologian accusing a one-time Israeli Army prison official-turned-reporter of spying for Yasir Arafats Fatah, an organization that had once been the foremost innovator of anti-Israeli terrorism but was now, in Mr. Rayyans view, indefensibly, unforgivably moderate.

In the Palestinian civil war, Fatah, which today controls much of the West Bank and is engaged in intermittent negotiations with Israel, had become Mr. Rayyans direst enemy, a party of apostates and quislings. First we must deal with the Muslims who speak of a peace process and then we will deal with you, he declared.

Periodically, advocates of negotiation suggest that the hostility toward Jews expressed by Hamas is somehow mutable. But in years of listening, I havent heard much to suggest that its anti-Semitism is insincere. Like Hezbollah, Hamas believes that God is opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine...I once asked Abdel Aziz Rantisi where he learned what he called the truth of the Holocaust — that it didnt happen — and he referred me to books published by Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also share the view that the solution for Palestine lies in Europe. A spokesman for Hezbollah, Hassan Izzedine, once told me that the Jews who survive the Muslim liberation of Palestine can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from. He went on to argue that the Jews are a curse to anyone who lives near them.

Nizar Rayyan expressed much the same sentiment the night we spoke in 2006. We had been discussing a passage of the Koran that suggests that God turns a group of impious Jews into apes and pigs. Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce, Mr. Rayyan said. So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people.

I asked him the question I always ask of Hamas leaders: Could you agree to anything more than a tactical cease-fire with Israel? I felt slightly ridiculous asking: A man who believes that God every now and again transforms Jews into pigs and apes might not be the most obvious candidate for peace talks at Camp David. Mr. Rayyan answered the question as I thought he would, saying that a long-term cease-fire would be unnecessary, because it will not take long for the forces of Islam to eradicate Israel.

There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief. The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.

The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamass enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/opinion/14goldberg-1.html?em

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[remo306]

To all those who declare Zionism as racism how do you explain the many arabs in posts in the Israeli government? How do you explain the 3 arab generals in the IDF? How do you explain the numerous arab members of the Knesset, many of whom are ANTI-ISRAEL? And then how do you corroborate this declaration of racism when jews aren't even allowed to be citizens in Jordan and other arab countries?

[NEKO2BOT]

National politicians and the elite news people are always ten years or more behind the times.

The fact is that millions of Americans are starting to see Israel for what it really is. a racist Apartheid regime that hates Christians as much as it hates Muslims, only uses the US for its gain and is not a friend in any way.

8,500 progressive Israelis and American Jews condemn Israeli human rights abuses and the message is getting through.

American support of Israel is almost at an end.

[ParamoreWorshipper]

@Deyabil

Common sense.

[ParamoreWorshipper]

@Thenewholocaust

Iran was given their nuclear material under the condition that it would be used for civilian purposes. They have also said that they seek to destroy Israel.

[remo306]

@Thenewholocaust Well it doesn't matter who has a "right" to make bombs (as if such a thing existed,) countries serve their own interests and Iran's nuclear aspirations are a threat to the West.

[toohnooch]

fateh can't speak in behalf of palestianians, & any agreement signed with fateh won't bring peace cause fateh is under the domination of usa arabs and israel too it has no cards, weaking hamas is for imosing so called "peace " -submition- there won't be no useful negociation even if hamas submits cause israel has an interest in chaos and instability ruther than the true peace so it could get more financial political etc support to prostitute more é more 4 usa which muslims considers colonisers

[allahlovesmycock3]

@Thenewholocaust because iranians are full of shit just like pedophile cock sucking muhammad!

[Deyabil]

@kelema2011

well who the fuck are you to decide who can and cannot have weapons?

[kelema2011]

No way can Iran be allowed to become a nuclear power. The entire country is made up of fanatical and insane people.

[asafpipman]

@Thenewholocaust I commented an answer,in my opinion, to your question if you are interested.

just read the debate between justonemorename and I from the beginning..