“The Israeli prime minister came here today and said that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it,” Safadi said at a Friday press conference shortly after Netanyahu finished his speech at the UN General Assembly.
“We’re here — members of the Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries — and I can tell you very unequivocally, all of us are willing to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state,” Safadi passionately argued.
Netanyahu “is creating that danger because he simply does not want the two-state solution. If he does not want the two-state solution, can you ask Israeli officials what is their end-game — other than just wars and wars and wars?”
Also, video of the statement.
I mean Netanyahu keeps crying about people wanting to destroy Israel but… uh… Israel is bordered by two allies and one enemy.
Not even one enemy, Lebanon just wants to be left alone. Israel is using conventional tactics in an asymmetric fight which they know doesn’t work. They know it only increases membership in terrorist groups. Israel is destabilizing their region on purpose.
I meant Hezbollah, not Lebanon.
Hezbollah is hostile because Israel keeps massacring, jailing, blockading and depriving of rights their ally. Actually now they’re committing a genocide against it.
Hezbollah isn’t a country. They are, at best, a political party.
Armed with lots of missiles and soldiers
Yup. I’m not saying they’re nice cuddly people. But Lebanon contains other people too.
They’re a paramilitary organization with a small country’s worth of military power (no air force though). Not trying to defend Israel, or course, but they are an Israeli enemy next to their borders.
Okay so 2 allies, 1 neutral, and 2 enemies. I’m purely just trying to head off the whole, “everyone is Hezbollah” argument I fully expect to see when Israel escalates this.
Hamas doesn’t really count in this conversation, I think. Their scale is too small.
Israel obviously doesn’t think so
I don’t think israel sees any allies. It is enemies and usefull enemies.
I mean that’s kind of their problem then.
Uhh…Israel was attacked by every single neighbor in both the Yom Kippur War and the Six Day War. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and others with expeditionary forces too. What neighbors do you think are Israel’s allies exactly?
Egypt and Jordan have both normalized relations with Israel. They are absolutely not threats.
Syria and Lebanon are failed states. The threats to Israel come from non state actors within them. Such actors can only be truly neutralized by (a) capturing and trying the leadership -rather than making them martyrs by extra judicial killings, and (b) by removing their legitimacy, i.e., by ending Israel’s illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank, and by letting Gaza breathe. Basically, these non state actors can only be defeated politically at this point.
That said, it is clear that Israel has gone rabid. The rest of the world at this point is more worried about the safety of its neighbours from it. There is no credible actual threat to Israel any more. But there is a credible genocide and ethnic cleansing going on under/by Israeli arms. The Israeli far right (that is part of the government) contains powerful elements that are already planning the colonization of Gaza and Southern Lebanon. Internally, even dissenting Jewish Israelis are facing repercussions for not towing the extreme nationalist line. The settlers are the strongest political force in the country. Etc etc. Israel needs to be deradicalized. There need to be limits placed and there need to be consequences
Ultimately we need nothing less than the complete and blind application of international law. If that is too radical for Americans or Israelis, too bad.
The only “failed state” is the apartheid colony currently committing genocide and terrorism.
noun: failed state; plural noun: failed states a state whose political or economic system has become so weak that the government is no longer in control.
You might be thinking “morally failed” instead?
The threats to Israel come from non state actors within them.
Are there even serious threats to Israel in Syria?
“failed state” is a funny way to call a geography that has been at the center of Xian conflict for 1500 years.
capturing and trying the leadership -rather than making them martyrs by extra judicial killings
Easy to say, but what was being done about this? Hezbollah and Hamas have been launching regular rockets into Isreal for decades. Iron dome was developed to stop them (and patriot before that), but those rockets shouldn’t have been launched in the first place. If the world (both Arab and the rest) was serious they could have been doing something about those rockets before this all started. For that matter I don’t see anyone other than Isreal responding to the October kidnapping in any way that might have helped.
Don’t read the above as excusing Isreal. They have blood on their hands, but it looks to me like the rest of the world has more.
First off, like @[email protected] points out, Israel’s actions have been far from helpful to begin with.
Second, let’s be completely honest here, the rockets from Hamas and to an extent the rockets from Hezbollah: they are Israel’s problem. I don’t see why my Greek-Canadian ass needs to be solving the problems created by Israel when it completely killed off the Oslo accords. Israel has all the power here. It’s Israel that has been colonizing and besieging the Palestinians. It’s Israel that has been building illegal settlements on illegally occupied land. It’s Israel that was occupying Souther Lebanon for 20 years, etc. In the last decades, unequivocally, they are the aggressors. When Hamas did the October 7th atrocities, I really don’t get why the Israelis were surprised. Gazans have lived in a city-wide concentration camp for 20 years. Any young adult participating in the October 7th atrocities has never experienced anything else in their whole lives. Is it really surprising that some significant percentage of such a people would resort to this kind of utter atrocity? Norman Finkelstein has made a great parallel with the Nat Turner rebellion in the US, when slaves rebelled and did unspeakable crimes to whites, and the abolitionists at the time were right to just say “well, what the fuck did you expect?”.
Third, fuck yes, it’s easy to say. Israel itself in its own history has shown what it is capable. If instead of prepping terrorist attacks with pagers they had been spending their time doing to Haniyeh what they did to Eichmann, kidnap him, then bring him in Israel and give him a fair trial, I would be applauding them, I would be saluting them. When I say that Israel has gone rabid and needs to be deradicalized, I draw exactly this parallel. The generation of Israelis that were the perpetrators of the 1948 Nakba (so, not a bunch of boy scouts) had the moral spine to put Eichmann on the stand, give him an Israeli lawyer who defended him in good faith, and to give him a fair trial. Those bastards, they did that noble act. These petty criminals of today? Bah!
And fourth, if there is any good journalist out there, they should ask the Jordanian minister what he means by “guarantee”. Would an pan-Arab peacekeeping force be deployed in the hot spots to maintain the terms of the deal? It is almost certain that an independent Palestine would immediately fall into some kind of civil war, just like the newly independent Ireland. Is the minister saying for example that they would be willing to fight that war on behalf of the moderate Palestinians? Don’t ask me, ask him.
For that matter I don’t see anyone other than Isreal responding to the October kidnapping in any way that might have helped.
Are you saying that Israel’s response in the last year has been helpful?
More helpful than anything else. They have - for now - eliminated Hamas as a threat. If they have the guts to occupy the Gaza strip for the next 50 years - and do this well they can change the attitude of the people there. I don’t know if they have the political will for that - and the world is clearly against it. (I also don’t know if it will work, but it is just as good a plan as anything else)
I don’t know how to solve the situation there. However what everyone seems to be saying is “despite no evidence I’m going to assert this is the best course of action”. All seem to be built on hopes and dreams that people will get along even though evidence is people don’t get along that well.
They have - for now - eliminated Hamas as a threat.
Big win huh? So why haven’t zionists stopped committing genocide in gaza, west bank, lebanon, etc?
They have - for now - eliminated Hamas as a threat.
How so? Aren’t Israelis still evacuating the border?
If they have the guts to occupy the Gaza strip for the next 50 years - and do this well they can change the attitude of the people there.
My man if occupying Gaza helped there wouldn’t be a Hamas to begin with. Hamas was created in occupied Gaza, remember?
Hezbollah and Hamas have been launching regular rockets into Isreal for decades.
Who’s been launching rockets? Check any graph. It’s no mystery when genocidal invaders are murdering people with billions of funding from their racist daddy.
Fucking 70 years ago. Is Germany still the enemy of the UK and US too?
This is insanely myopic. By your logic, we’d better be on the lookout for Kamikazes.
Why is your idea of Israeli-Arab relations stuck in the 70s?
Israel was attacked
You might want to exchange your zio history books for the real thing.
Come on, bro. We all know the deal. Netanyahu is one of those cretins who considers the two-state solution to be invalid.
Just to be clear: He speaks for the leaders, not the people.
Oh child…let me tell you about republics.
The reps ARE considered the people.
Jordan is not a republic
Fuck. Israel has never been great, but since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, I wonder if there’s any hope for them being anything other than a rogue fucking state.
Good on Jordan et other signatories for making the offer, but I doubt it has any chance of being accepted.
This is quite the shame, as it actually solves a major problem for Israel. But the rejection itself makes it that much harder for even the strongest deniers to deny the type of crimes that are occurring now…
Not sure I’d trust that guarantee if I was an Israeli…
It’s hard to imagine why a cult of genocidal colonizers can’t trust outsiders.
I was just thinking because it’d be the ones you’d want guarantees against. It’d be like Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s security or vice versa, neither side would put their faith in such a guarantee.
Yet it’s the only way to peace. Germany and France put their faith into each others’ guarantees after WW2 and created the EU. Peace is possible.
That peace only came after one side was soundly defeated and occupied. Not sure it makes for a good precendent.
The Arabs have already been soundly defeated and occupied. Multiple times.
TIL Israel has defeated and occupied the 57 Arab and Muslim countries mentioned in the article.
I’m obviously talking about the Palestinians and the Lebanese, duh. And as far as defeat, yes they have defeated also the Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians, and a few others.
Israel will end up using its secret nuclear arsenal for a similar guarantee.
I’ve seen this episode before!
“Of course we won’t invade Ukraine as long as they hand over all their ICBM’s”
-a 5’6" inbred yokel in 2014
That sounds like a reasonable comparison, until one realizes that we are not talking about WMDs here, we are talking about the occupied Palestinian territories. Then, your comparison not only falls apart, but is also exposed as a bad faith one.
First, if Israel giving up the territories is similar to Ukraine giving up its WMDs, i.e., an existential threat, then Israel should never do that. I.e., peace is impossible and the two state solution is impossible. The only option left is … ethnic cleansing and genocide. Is that what you are arguing for?? Be clear about what you say. Because I don’t think you are arguing for the dismantling of the apartheid regime in all of greater Israel: one state from the river to the sea with equal rights for everyone.
Second, Israel actually has WMDs and would be keeping them after the establishment of a Palestinian state. So, if anything it would be in a stronger position than Ukraine, heaving the guarantee from its neighbours and its own WMDs to fall back to.
Third, you are comparing Israel to Ukraine. This casts Israel as the victim, the one that is subjected to occupation and violation of its integrity. The opposite is true. Israel is the occupier, the oppressor and the violator international law.
So, no, your comment doesn’t stand to scrutiny.
How well do you think the Arab politicians can control the actions of every Arab individual?
My only facsimile is the things my government has made illegal (things they don’t want citizens to do). Citizens doing these things (and getting caught/fined)is fundamental to the policing structure here.
Crime still happens, regardless.
So how well will the Arab world follow this order should it come?
My guess; about as well as any other government has wrangled crime; Not very effectively.
You can call it bad faith, but I don’t trust politicians whether or not they’re aligned with Palestine.
So you’re basically saying here is an impossible standard. And then are sad that your impossible standard is not meant.
Say openly what you think is a resolution here buddy. Come on, don’t be shy.
Ukraine had nukes, left over from the Soviet days. They were handed to Russia.
Yeah that statement clearly got outdated as soon as it was stated. Because 2014.
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