 |
| |
 |
No matter how you look at it....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff November 13, 2007 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
Arab leaders once made no secret of their aim to drive Israel into the sea. Yasser Arafat used to say that the Israelis can drink the water of the Dead Sea. Now Arafat's disciple, Palestinian Authority head honcho (at least of the West Bank enclave) Mahmoud Abbas, has his own watery vision of Israel's destiny.
"If peace comes and the occupation comes to an end, Israel will live in a sea of peace," Abbas said Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey, after meeting his Israeli counterpart, Shimon Peres, in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
Of course, as the Palestinians make clear at every occasion, all of Israel is occupied territories, so if the occupation ends, that will means that the Jewish State will need to find some other space to occupy -- presumably offshore, if they have their way.
The intended meaning of "sea of peace" is truly perplexing. South Korea once offered to so rename the body of water dividing their country and Japan, but they never suggested that the Japanese move there. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran once suggested the Caspian Sea should be a sea of peace for the surrounding nations, but he didn't suggest that any one current be surrounded by that sea.
It is also possible that the listening journalists missed the nuance in Abbas' pronunciation and that he meant not peace but a similar sounding word, which would correspond to the traditional Arab position.
"This initiative simply says to Israel 'leave the occupied territories and you will live in a sea of peace that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia'," Abbas said, referring to the Mauritanian capital in West Africa and the southeast Asian country that is the world's most populous Muslim country.
"If this initiative is destroyed, I don't believe there will be another opportunity in the future like this," he said in an interview with news outlets on Tuesday after arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
An indication of his intention may be gleaned from the continuation of his statement: "This is the most important initiative since 1948 to solve the problem of the Israeli occupation," Abbas said, referring to the year when Israel came into existence. He was, therefore, not referring to the lands Israel won in the defensive war of 1967 but an initiative to undo Israel's occupation of even the land it won in the defensive war of independence, which the Palestinians consider a nakba or catastrophe.
Peres welcomed the participation of all "moderate countries" in the Annapolis conference, but noted that this definition did not include the Syrians. He said "the voice of peace will be stronger and louder" with more participants attending, but said Syria had not worked towards achieving peace. Imad Moustapha, Syria's ambassador to the US, last week called the talks a "waste" and a "photo opportunity". |
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
