Fair enough, but preaching to the (largely) converted here is not achieving much. Have you e mailed him at all to give him your own perspective ? Think they are reasonably open to contact. Worth a try since you have been moved to post on the subject.

Oh, no--what happened to the continuation? It doesn't show up on my browser. I'd like to read the rest--this is an important point you're making.

The UN is the reason the Palestinians are still in poverty after 60 years. The UN has frozen Palestinians in place by giving them substance living and nothing else. No education. No job training. No economic infrastructure. Nothing that would help these people live productive lives.

Instead generations of UN bureaucrats have become wealthy “administering” aid. They have a vested interested in keeping Palestinians poor.

Wow. I had no idea. I'm shocked by this.

Well put, Jessica and Jake. There's some kind of massive cognitive dissonance people have (make that most Europeans) whereby every problem the Palestinians have, like poverty, is the fault of the Israelis. What's the excuse for the rest of the Arab world, also mired in poverty? (Besides in the countries with oil, that is).

Never mind that, of course, the suffering caused by Israel is much more pressing than anything else going on in the world, like, say, hundreds of thousands a year being killed in the Sudan.

In the interview, Chris does say that they played in Israel. Where did you hear the news about the boycott? Can we get confirmation on that? If it's true, I may have to stop listening to them altogether. It's too bad, because they're a good band.

Maybe, Mr. Geddes can explain why Arafish had billion(s) in his private swiss bank account when he died if Gaza is so impoverished?

Maybe, Mr. Geddes can explain why if the wall is so horrible, did Arafish and his cronies privately profit from it so much?
http://tinyurl.com/8j34x

From what I hear, things are pretty bad in the occupied territories and the problems there are not totally unrelated to the Israeli occupation.

I also do not think comparisons with South African apartheid are that far fetched. Trying to put Blacks into unviable Bantustans has some similarities to Israeli policies of crowding Palestinians into small enclaves in the West Bank.

And was Barak's offer generous? It may have been the most that an Israeli government could have offered, but that is not the same thing as generous. The Palestinians still have to give up most of Palestine.

Dawn, this link should open the whole thing: http://www.alarmingnews.com/archives/003379.html

Dan, I think Jessica's point is that he has no perspective to counter-weight the points he raised and you re-hashed in your comment.

Dan,

Barak offered 97% of the land the Palestinians claimed they were fighting for. This included a 100% withdrawal from Gaza and a 95% withdrawal from the West Bank. Parts of Israel were to be given to the new Palestinian state to compensate for the 5% of the West Bank that would become part of Israel. This kind of offer had never been made before, and no other country that had control of the territories (Egypt, Jordan) had ever given an offer. Arafat flat out refused it. Not even a counter offer.

As far as the apartheid analogy, the South African policy was a race issue. The bantustans were established to separate whites and non-whites and to prevent non-whites from having basic rights. The wall is a security issue. It was built to prevent suicide bombers from murdering people. There is no analogy.

Yaron, I could not get definite confirmation on the boycott. I saw various references to one, and it seems as if the group is talking about it and will decide whether or not to play Israel if they are invited back. Here's a quote from their site.

Quite a few people have made arguments either in favour or against a boycott of Israel, and it seems that what I said about not going back to play in Israel while the occupation is continuing attracted attention in sections of the Israeli media. I must admit to being more than a little taken aback at my opinions being so newsworthy.

Jessica:

The Palestinians originally wanted all of Palestine back which included pre-1967 Israel. To not even give the Palestinians all of the West Bank and Gaza does not seem too generous to me. It certainly did not seem generous to the Palestinians. If someone occupied all of New York City and then offered to give back 95% of Staten Island, I would hardly call that generous.

The security barrier seems to have the effect of trapping the Palestinians into unviable enclaves and restrict their freedom of movement. Even if the purpose is different than South Africa's, the effect is similar. But I am not sure that the purpose of the security barrier is simply security. The barrier may also be part of a land grab to keep as much as possible of the West Bank for the Israelis. If that is the case, then the motives of the Israelis and that of the old South African regime are not that different.

Nothing to say but this gives me a chance to give a shout out to Jessica for her hautning background vocals and smooth violin on my song of the moment, "Frame by Frame."

thanks, Von Bek! very sweet of you! one of my favorite songs, indeed.

Oh my, we seem to have stumbled across a commenter who shares the same dream as the PLO: removal of all Jews from Israel (or, as you so delightfully put it, "Palestine"). (By the way, that "originally wanted" part is a misnomer: a large number of Palestinians still want all of Israel for themselves). If you think the Israelis can learn to live somewhere else, why can't the Palestinians? Or do you instinctively side with the group that accomplishes little except violence?

Yaron:

You should read my post again. Nowhere do I advocate the removal of all Jews from Israel. I only pointed out that the Barak proposal was hardly generous. If you have trouble distinguishing between those two points, you may need to take a remedial English class.

Well, your analogy to New York City certainly made it seem that way. If NYC were taken over by foreign interlopers, we'd want to take back all 100% of it, wouldn't we? Anything less would be not just ungenerous, but unacceptable. If you think the analogy is truly valid, that seems like the only reasonable conclusion.

Yaron:

I certainly would want all of NYC back if it was occupied, but I might have to live with less than everything. The Palestinians also need to accept that they will not get everything they want back. However, "generous" really does not apply to the Barak offer. The term was used by the Clinton administration and others to try to get the Palestinians to accept what was a pretty bad deal.

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