Israel-Palestine Debate on Meet The Press with Jeffrey Goldberg (Part 1)

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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[Reqrezentin]

Look at the bitch saying the Arabs should form an alliance with the US to go against Iran.

That cunt is a host of the "impartial" BBC. What a joke.

[GangstaBlood51]

Islam is the biggest lie in history.

[salvi447]

fuck all debates! it's time for action! you can't claim the ownership of a land based on a book that says the earth is flat and it doesn't move! fuck israel! 1947 borders for palestine!

[xanbex]

where is the Palestinian spokesperson??? These so called' journalists' are such bought and paid for hacks...no wonder Americans know nothing about the issues..............

[gobuddyboy]

israel don't want peace or two state solution. israel want all of the land!!! It has been proven too many times and too often. All israel has to do is go back to the 1967 map and pull out of the occupied land. That's all the international community wants. USA and israel with three other SMALL countries vote against peace every year at UN general ass. Hamas is not a threat to israel. small rocket vs israel army? Hamas has no chance. israel uses holocust and security excuse to carry out crime.

[toohnooch]

negociations with God ? how can anyone accept a jews state? allowing a jew state means not allowing palestinians to some back from refugeand send the ones left to exil so you could have a pure jewish state, and that takes to already believe in certain religions which are not nessesserly your own , so basicly zionism is the cancer not hamas and mahmouh abbas is an american puppet just like most of the unelected arab govs allies of usa, hamas was elected and israel +usa attacks their democracy

[first2blast]

jews are not the problem! they lived with muslims and christians in the holy land! true, they all fought with each other but in the end they lived together! zionism is the problem they wanted to kick the palestinians out and have the land for themselfs and did that in the name of the jews! So its not suprising to see a radical movement like hamas! who will not negotiate and long for the distruction of jews, which is wrong! ehud barak said if he was a palestinian he would join a terrorist group!

[AresRoar]

Yeah lets forget democracy.

That woman is an idiot. I have no right as an American to stop the self determination of other peoples.

I think we need a McCarthy type investigation into double agents of Israel in the US govt and wider American culture.

[YaNaYyyM]

@besmb2105 islam doesnt mean "PEACE"!!!

islam means "Submission To The Will Of God"

[xMaXiMuSx]

@GangstaBlood51

That's intersting.. Go around the world and ask who the terrorist is.. YOu will find that is ISrael who is a terrorist state.  Educate yourself you fu cking and stop listening to propaganda.