Posted on 05/05/2013 11:36:45 AM PDT by Nachum
Lital Shemesh is a 29-year-old successful, female, Israeli journalist who recently participated in a seminar with other young Israelis and Arabs in hopes of igniting optimism for peace. She returned from the seminar disappointed and disillusioned.
She is a rising star in the Israeli media who openly expresses her political aspirations in the Knesset. She worked as Editor-in-Chief for the Yedioth Youth Magazines, reported for the Israel Broadcasting Authority and the Hot CableTV News channel, and is CEO and Founder of a web-based girls magazine “Pinkish – Everything that Girls Love.”
In her first video blog in English two years ago, she says, “I really want… a peaceful quiet country to live in, and I really want peace to come.”
But her conclusions from the peace seminar reflect a strong trend in Israeli society: Israelis are realizing that the negotiations with the Arabs are destined to fail from the outset, so why waste the time? As is apparent from the February election results, further talks with the Arabs simply no longer interest many people. It is an issue that has been sidelined and tabled to “maybe the next generation.”
Her summary (below) of her experience at the peace seminar will help readers better understand Israeli society of 2013. A must read. Her report appeared this past Thursday (May 2, 2013) on the Walla news site:
Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future by Lital Shemesh I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks. The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future time.
The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar in Turkey.
(Excerpt) Read more at baruchsbreeze.blogspot.co.il ...
When someone’s starting negotiation position is that you have to die, how can there be peace? Peace of the grave?
Why did it take so long to figure out something so basic?
If I were speaking for myself, I would say: my problem is that for my entire existence I have been surrounded by sensible, decent, fair-minded, truth-telling people, capable of being reasoned with, starting with my excellent parents.
My problem is that I have always acted on the assumption that MOST people are trying to do the right thing MOST of the time.
My problem is I have never failed to observe that most people have mundane interests that respond to mundane give-and-take: bicyclists are interested in bikes, tires, roads; gardeners are interested in seeds, plants, soil; cooks are interested in recipes, ingredients, pots & pans; and all will relate with intelligence and fairness to those who have similar interests.
No matter what the religion. No matter what the language. No matter what the nationality.
Are there groups for whom this simply does not apply?
I still have hard time taking it in.
The arabs are amalek. Nowadays I think a fair bunch of the rest are amalek too.
Somewhere on our blog is an arab holding forth why the jews must be destryed: God had commanded the to destroy amalek, and they didn’t. So the jews had to be exterminated for not obeying God.
Kick them out, don’t let them back in. And it’s not the arab that’s the problem. arab is a euphemism for something that noone wants to say.
s/b “Delusions of High Hopes for Peace...”
Thanks Nachum.
In tribal societies (eg. Afghanistan) the occupation of a tribesman is warrior. They care about guns, bombs, and being a warrior worthy of their ancestors. They are only interested in learning and the modern world to the extent that it makes them more effective warriors. Everything else is a distraction or worse, threatens their way of life. Islam codifies tribal mentality and makes it the word of Allah.
Here are some great video clips on the subject by a great author, Stephen Pressfield. Well worth watching, especially Episode 2: “The Citizen Vs. The Tribesman” Pressfield really explains what we are facing better than anyone else I have heard. Too many people, espeically in government simply cannot comprehend what to us is an alien mindset. IMHO Geroge W. Bush’s problem was just that, which got us into the whole nation building fiasco that we can never win.
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/vblog/
"In the course of a dialogue which escalated to shouts, the Palestinians asked us not to refer to suicide bombers as "terrorists" because they don’t consider them so. "So how do you call someone who dons a vest and blows himself up in a Tel Aviv shopping mall with the stated purpose of killing innocent civilians", I asked one of the participants."
“I have a 4-year-old at home', answered Samach from Abu Dis (near Jerusalem). “If G-d forbid something should happen to him, I will go and burn an entire Israeli city, if I can.” All the other Palestinian participants nodded their heads in agreement to his harsh words.
“Three weeks ago, we gave birth to a son,” answered Amichai, a religious, Jewish student from Jerusalem. “If G-d forbid something should happen to him, I would find no comfort whatsoever in deaths of more people.”
The Jewish respondent wants to defend peace and defend life; the Arab respondent wants to defend killing.
The only peace the Palestinians and their associated ilk want is the “peace of the grave”.
Sometimes it’s easier for an “outsider” to see things like that than it does from the inside of a nation. And that applies to the United States too.
IMO Journalists should stick to reporting the news. It isn’t her job to promote peace with people sworn to kill her country.
There will be no peace with Palestinians as long as they wish to kill every Jew in Israel.
How doyou say useful idiot in Yiddish ?
The following terms may apply here:
shlemiel; A clumsy, inept person, similar to a klutz (also a Yiddish word). The kind of person who always spills his soup.
PUTZ: A vulgarism for penis but most usually used as term of contempt for a fool, or an easy mark.
SHLIMAZL: A chronically unlucky person, a born loser, when a shlimazl sells umbrella the sun comes out.
FERTUMMELT: Befuddled, confused
NUDNIK: A pest, a persistent and annoying person.
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