Talk:Palestinian views of the peace process/Archive 1

Removed text

Other [high-level officials] have said that it is only a temporary measure designed for the ultimate purpose of destroying Israel.

Not backed up by the article.

Bald-faced falsehood. RK 14:38, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC)

Well that's productive. Martin 15:00, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Many Palestinian officials, such as Yasir Arafat have called for peace in English language press releases but also for the eventual destruction of the Israel in Arabic language statements.

So vague as to be meaningless

Huh? This is a vert clear and explicit statement. Martin, we are warnign you. The censorship of this article that you are promoting has already been discussed in depth on the Wiki-En list, and it has been found to be unacceptable. RK

When? Where? In what context? It's just vague weasel words. Martin 15:00, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

critics claim that they were almost never explicit and unambiguous.

wikipedia:avoid weasel words. "amost never explicit" is completely weasely.

Statements and actions of Arafat and other leaders in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) during the years since Oslo I was signed might well be construed as saying that the PLO and the PA do not hope for, or intend to achieve, a permanent peace with the State of Israel.

Weasely. "might well be construed". And they might not. The construal or misconstrual of statements does not inform us about Palestinian views of the peace process.

These views may be distinct from the views of the common Palestinian citizen, according to a large number of observers in Israel and the West.

Weasely. They may be. They may not be. Sharon may be the devil incarnate... or he may not be. Uninformative.

Many of the following statements refer to making the territory of pre-1967 Israel into a Palestinian state; some have hypothesized that this is only a claim that Palestinians want to annex some Israeli territory into a new Palestinian state; however, the internal documents and statements of principles that the Palestinians refer to include the entire territory of the West Bank and Gaza as their goal. No documents from Palestinian sources exist which make lesser claims.

This is just logically inconsistent. Pre-1967 Israel did not include the West Bank or Gaza Strip, so the whole para is a non-sequitur.

A leading PLO official has recently emerged

"Recently" is bad temporal context. Changed to give rough dates. He's not a leading PLO official any more, either. So, good marks for accuracy.

their demand for millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees to immigrate into Israel

Let's just say right to return, and cease the scaremongering.

Readers may compare this press release to his Arabic statements (below) where he states that any peace treaty must only be temporary.

They don't state that - that's just what you're reading into them.

In 2000, at the Camp David talks sponsored by US President Clinton, Ehud Barak presented a final non-negotiable proposal to the Palestinian leadership. A map of that proposal may be found here: [1] (http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/maps/finalstatus/2000campdavid.jpg)

I fail to see how the actions of an Israeli PM inform us about the beliefs of Palestinians.

In a 1995 speech, Arafat named two cities within pre-1967 Israel among those to which the Palestinian Arabs will be returning: "Be blessed, O Gaza, and celebrate, for your sons are returning after a long celebration. O Lod, O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning." (Ma'ariv, September 7, 1995)

So Arafat hopes to retain, at least in part, the right to return. And how does this mean that the peace process is temporary?

Arafat has also compared the Oslo accords to peace treaties that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, signed and then later discarded. In the Palestinian Arab newspaper Al Quds on May 10, 1998. Arafat was asked: "Do you feel sometimes that you made a mistake in agreeing to Oslo?" Arafat replied: "No .... no. Allah's messenger Mohammed accepted the al-Khudaibiya peace treaty and Salah a-Din accepted the peace agreement with Richard the Lion-Hearted."

In an interview with Egyptian Orbit TV on April 18, 1998, Arafat declared that the Oslo accords are comparable to "when the Prophet Mohammed made the Khudaibiya agreement.. .we must learn from his steps.. .We respect agreements the way that the Prophet Mohammed respected the agreements which he signed."

Speaking in a mosque in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 10, 1994, Arafat stated that the Oslo Accord was akin to the temporary truce between Muhammad and the Quraish tribe: "This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Muhammad and Quraish, and you remember that the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and considered it a despicable truce...But the same way Muhammad had accepted it, we are now accepting this peace effort." (Ha?aretz, May 23, 1994)

As noted above, these three paragraphs are trial by interpretation and innuendo, and on a par with using Bush's word "crusade" to beat him round the head. I'm fine with people doing either of these things, but we shouldn't pretend that it's neutral.

Neither report denies, however, the extreme chauvinism and nationalism predominant in the Palestinian textbooks.

Double negative. States as fact that the textbooks are extremely nationalistic, and uses as "proof" of this that the reports don't deny this "fact". The lack of a denial is not the same as support.

Above removed for reasons stated. Martin 19:20, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

the map "wipes out symbolically... a member-state" of the WHO, the Post remarked. (Washington Post, May 1, 1989).

Six words with an elipsis between them is a rather pathetic "quote". The readers should be intelligent enough to figure out the significance. Removed. Martin 19:40, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A quote does not need to be long to be informative. The point is that such quotes are providing crucial information. RK 21:44, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

I don't believe this particular quote provides any information, crucial or otherwise. Martin 22:19, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)