Comments on: Thoughts on the demands made to Hamas

By: Patricia Fleming

Patricia Fleming — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:10:05 +0000

As someone who has spent time over many years giving talks to various Groups (especially Churchgroups) in an effort to combat much misunderstanding concerning Israel and the Jewish people amongst them (viewpoints mostly gauged from the media) I am very distressed to read such misguided and innacurate remarks from the organisation SJJP. May i respectfully suggest you ,first- show support by spending some months in Sderot (where over 4,000 rockets have been fired since the Gaza withdrawal) become better informed by listening to Arabic TV and radio, call to mind even recent history (such as former PM Ehud Barak who offered the Palestinians a State with part of Jerusalem as its capital) or, at least, stand humbly with your own brethren, and if you cannot give active support, at least have the wisdom to remain silent on issues you clearly do not understand.
signed ‘disheartened’.

By: Avileh

Avileh — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:09:35 +0000

Excellent points.

first, that the demand to recognise right of an entity to exist is meaningless unless the entity is defined.

Indeed. And for that matter, if the demand is to recognise an area of land as Israel, why are there no parallel demands on the Israeli gov to recognise Palestine? (Granted we run into the same problems of defining, but why is there not even a discussion of recognising Palestine?)

By: Maurice

Maurice — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:13:47 +0000

Two comments: first, that the demand to recognise right of an entity to exist is meaningless unless the entity is defined. Are the Palestinians being called on to recognise the right of Israel-in-the-1948-borders to exist, or Israel-from-the-river-to-the-sea? A lot of people, not only Palestinians, would accept the the first, but not the second. But what the Palestinians are being told is: get the recognising done, we can decide later exactly what it was that you recognised!

Second: I have seen it well argued that for Palestinians, being asked to recognise Israel’s right to exist rather than its existence, feels like being asked to recognise that what happened in 1948 was justified. That’s a much, much harder pill to swallow than to recognise that it happened and that everyone has to get on with living with the consequences. For them, that can feel like a demand that they agree that it was right and proper that they should have been driven off their land.