Peace Now turns 30 this year, and the AP uses the occasion to (of course) blame Israel for the failure to achieve peace.
In the square where Yitzhak Rabin was slain, Peace Now marked a bittersweet milestone Tuesday: Over the past 30 years, it has helped push the Israeli mainstream to embrace Palestinian statehood. But peace remains elusive.
The group pitched a tent in the square where the Israeli prime minister was gunned down in 1995 by an ultranationalist zealot trying to sabotage his attempt to trade land for peace with the Palestinians. Israel’s largest peace rallies also took place there.
Only a few hundred invited guests attended afternoon panel discussions, highlighting what critics say has been one of Peace Now’s biggest failings _ to reach out to working class or religious Israelis, who traditionally hold hard-line views.
Apparently, if you don’t agree with everything Peace Now wants, you are a “hardliner.” Or if you’re working class or religious, you’re a “hardliner.” So only the middle class and elite want peace? Wow, that’s some bias in this article.
The article reports about the group’s founding:
Peace Now was founded in 1978 by army reserve officers who appealed to then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin not to miss a historic opportunity for a peace deal with Egypt.
Now would be a perfect time to point out that Menachem Begin did, indeed, sign that historic peace deal with Egypt, and that today, Israel and Egypt have extremely cold relations, and that Egypt only barely keeps up its end of the bargain.
Now would also be a good time to go into the “land for peace” descriptions, and maybe point out that Israel has left Gaza completely, and yet, rockets and mortars fall on southern Israel almost every day, and terrorists are constantly trying to murder Israelis. But to point out these things would be to, I don’t know, present a balanced article.
Or perhaps the article might point out that when Peace Now protested in Hebron against the “occupation,” their people were stoned by the Palestinians as they left. Now that’s gratitude for you.
After the rally a bus filled with left-wing activists leaving Hebron came under assault as Palestinians hurled rocks at the vehicle and a police squad car traveling near it. No injuries were reported.
Oh, I’m sure the Peace Now fools justified the Palestinian anger at the colonial-settler-zealot mentality, and excused the stone-throwers for not being able to contain their anger at the “settlers”. But that’s not why the buses were stoned.
The Palestinians do not want peace. They want all Jews out of Israel, except for the few that they will determine may remain, in dhimmitude subservience to their Muslim masters.
If the Palestinians truly wanted peace, there’d have been peace already. They have turned it down each time it was offered, and offered war instead.
Polls now suggest a majority of Israelis would be willing to reach a land-for-peace deal. However, many Israelis also doubt the Palestinians could implement an agreement, in part because of the growing influence of the Islamic militant Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction.
Yes. Gee. Funny, that Israel is going to find it hard to reach peace with a group dedicated to destroying them. I’m not seeing how that can be a problem.
And now, cue angry-Israel-Zionist-settler quotes:
Daniella Weiss, a settler leader, denounced Peace Now activists Tuesday. “Peace Now wants to give the historic Jewish homeland away to the enemy, and that makes them back-stabbing traitors,” she said.
Israel Harel, another settler leader said, “The movement signals Israeli weakness.”
“The outcome is not peace now, it is war now, it is a war of terror and a much bigger war of terror than ever before,” he said.
And fade out.
No, no, Meryl. You see, the rockets fall on Israel because of Israeli intransigence and holding on to Palestinian territory. If only the Israelis would withdraw from these areas, the rockets…oh, wait, they’d still fall. Well, it’s still Israel’s fault.