Same Old Song and Dance

US Secretary of State Condi Rice is busy trying to get Israel to make more concessions, particularly on the issue of settlements in the West Bank. This is the same issue that crops up every few years. The Palestinians complain, whine and seethe over Israel's construction of housing settlements on areas captured from Jordan in 1967 saying that they're an impediment to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

It's utter bunk, since the Palestinian terrorists, including Fatah and Hamas, seek all of Israel for their own thugocracy. They don't want to limit their demands to just areas captured by Israel in 1967, but seek all of Israel.

And while Rice is busy trying to force Israel to stop construction of housing projects, the diplomats are busy ignoring the incessant rocket barrages fired by the Palestinians against Israel. The latest kassam barrages injured one Israeli. Oh, and there were mortar attacks as well. Despite all this, Egyptian officials are claiming that a ceasefire agreement between the terrorists and Israel may be concluded in days.

We've heard this before, and it will only provide the terrorists with an opportunity to regroup and rearm. Again.

Meanwhile,
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert continues talking with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, discussing permanent borders, despite the fact that Abbas and his Fatah thugs don't control Gaza and are barely in control of Palestinian Authority areas in the West Bank.

"These were the most serious talks the sides have ever conducted," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the PM's Office. A senior Israeli official added that major progress was achieved mainly on the issue of the permanent borders of a future Palestinian state and the security arrangements such a development would entail.

However, no progress as reported on the core issues of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Olmert's meeting with Abbas was held just a few hours after the PM met Condoleezza Rice for the second time during the US secretary of state's 2-day visit to the region. Rice left Israel a short while later.

Considering that the Palestinians want to divide Jerusalem and demand that the Palestinians have a right to return to land within the borders of Israel and have never wavered from those points in decades of demands, nothing will change unless and until the Palestinians give up the ghost and recognize Israel's inalienable rights to Jerusalem and recognize that the right of return for Palestinians will not happen.

The Palestinians are hoping to use those two issues to get the media to portray Israel as the party that stands in the way of peace, despite the fact that these issues go to the core of Palestinian long term plans to undermine Israel's right to exist and Israel's identity as a Jewish state. What they cannot win in war, they hope to change through negotiations and demographics. The Palestinians hope to use the issue of refugees - grossly inflated numbers of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 and 1967 and who the UN now considers all their descendants as refugees despite never having lived in Israel - as a wedge against Israel with no concessions on their part.

Once again, we're watching the Palestinians make demands on Israel with Israel getting no concessions from the Palestinians other than lip service to carrying out previously agreed-to obligations that they've failed to carry out for years.

The Israeli Shas party says that they will resign from the government should Olmert make any concessions over the status of Jerusalem, but I wonder just how dedicated they are to that proposition since we know that the issue of Jerusalem continues to come up in negotiations and discussions between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to make Jerusalem their capital despite the fact that Jerusalem was never a Palestinian capital and the Palestinians want to redivide the capital.

The UN, for its part, continues to play lackey for the Palestinians, claiming that they can't deliver food shipments in Gaza because Israel is not allowing fuel shipments. It's utter bunk, and the responsibility for the situation in Gaza resides wholly on the shoulders of the Palestinians - it is their ongoing war against Israel, including attacks against the very same Israel fuel depots that supply Gaza with fuel that has resulted in the shortages in Gaza when combined with Hamas thugs taking their customary cut of whatever aid enters Gaza plus hoarding by those terrorists.