05-03-2017, 09:41 PM
*** 4-May-17 World View -- Channeling Sisyphus, Trump and Abbas say Mideast peace not as hard as it looks
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas commit to work for historic Mideast peace deal
****
![[Image: g170503b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g170503b.jpg)
Mahmoud Abbas and Donald Trump shake hands at the White House on Wednesday (Getty)
Meeting in the White House on Wednesday, president Donald Trump met
with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and agreed to work
together to reach a historic peace deal between Israelis and
Palestinians.
In the briefing that followed the meeting, Trump recalled that Abbas
had participated in the development of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1994:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Almost 24 years ago, it was on these grounds that
> President Abbas stood with a courageous peacemaker, then-Israeli
> Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Here at the White House, President
> Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles -- very important --
> which laid the foundation for peace between the Israelis and
> Palestinians.
>
> The President -- Mr. President, you [Abbas] signed your name to
> the first Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. You remember that
> well, right? And I want to support you in being the Palestinian
> leader who signs his name to the final and most important peace
> agreement that brings safety, stability, and prosperity to both
> peoples and to the region."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Trump didn't mention what a disastrous failure the Oslo peace accords
have been. Another thing that Trump neglected to mention was that
year later, in 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli
nationalist who opposed the Oslo peace accords.
Trump's statement concluded:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"I welcome President Abbas here today as a
> demonstration of ... that very special partnership that we all
> need to make it all work. And I look forward to welcoming him
> back as a great marker of progress and, ultimately, toward the
> signing of a document with the Israelis and with Israel toward
> peace. We want to create peace between Israel and the
> Palestinians. We will get it done. We will be working so hard to
> get it done. It's been a long time, but we will be working
> diligently. And I think there's a very, very good chance, and I
> think you feel the same way."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Abbas then responded with his own statement:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Mr. President, we believe that we are capable and
> able to bring about success to our efforts because, Mr. President,
> you have the determination and you have the desire to see it
> become to fruition and to become successful. And we,
> Mr. President, inshallah, God willing, we are coming into a new
> opportunity, a new horizon that would enable us to bring about
> peace in that regard. ...
>
> Mr. President, it’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of
> our people and of our land after 50 years. We are the only
> remaining people in the world that still live under occupation.
> We are aspiring and want to achieve our freedom, our dignity, and
> our right to self-determination. And we also want for Israel to
> recognize the Palestinian state just as the Palestinian people
> recognize the state of Israel.
>
> Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our
> children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace. And we are
> endeavoring to bring about security, freedom and peace for our
> children to live like the other children in the world, along with
> the Israeli children in peace, freedom and security.
>
> Mr. President, I bring with me today the message of the suffering
> of my people, as well as their aspiration and hope -- the hopes
> and aspirations of the Palestinian people from the Holy Land, from
> that land where the three monotheist religions thrived, and the
> Jewish faith, the Christian faith and the Muslim faith, where they
> all coexist together to foster it in an environment of security,
> peace and stability, and love for all."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Abbas said that "we are raising our youth, our children, our
grandchildren on a culture of peace," but the Palestinian president,
born in 1935, neglected to mention that polls indicate that two-thirds
of the Palestinian people want him to resign, and consider him
irrelevant and unable to do anything to help the Palestinians.
It's the young people today who will not tolerate a peace settlement
of any kind. Many young Israelis consider it to be an almost
Messianic mission to build settlements in the West Bank and to defend
them with their lives.
And the young Palestinians have been given the ironic name "Oslo
Generation," because they've grown up since the 1994 Oslo agreement
and have seen nothing come out of it, and so have no respect for Abbas
and other Palestinian leaders.
So even if Trump and Abbas and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu
did hammer out some kind of agreement, it would be worthless, because
the young Israelis and young Palestinians would not honor it.
NBC News and WAFA (Palestine) and White House
Related Articles
****
**** Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas try again, channeling Sisyphus
****
One of the most well-known characters in Greek Mythology was Sisyphus.
In his life he double-crossed Zeus, the king of the gods, as well as
the gods of the underworld. For his deceit and trickery, he was
condemned to eternal punishment. He would forever roll a massive
boulder up to the top of a steep hill, but whenever he neared the top,
the rock would roll down to the bottom, and he'd have to start over
again.
So anyway, former president Jimmy Carter once said in Jerusalem that
one of the deep regrets of his presidency was that he had not been
able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were numerous
repeated attempts at Mideast peace by Bill Clinton, George Bush and
Barack Obama.
I posted my very first Generational Dynamics analysis on May 1, 2003,
when president George Bush published his "Mideast Roadmap to Peace,"
which described the details of a two-state solution. I wrote that Generational Dynamics predicts that
the plan would fail because the Jews and the Arabs would be refighting
the 1948 war that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the
creation of the state of Israel. Here's what I wrote:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"We are now in the early stages of replaying the
> extremely violent, bloody wars between the Jews and the
> Palestinians that took place between them from 1936 to 1949. So
> far the war has been little more than a series of skirmishes, as
> it was in the late 1930s. The full-fledged violent, bloody war is
> awaiting a generational change.
>
> There's an incredible irony going on in the Mideast today, in that
> the leaders of two opposing sides are, respectively, Ariel Sharon
> and Yassir Arafat.
>
> These two men hate each other, but they're the ones cooperating
> with each other (consciously or not) to prevent a major Mideast
> conflagration. Both of them remember the wars of the 1940s, and
> neither of them wants to see anything like that happen again. And
> it won't happen again, as long as both of these men are in charge.
>
> The disappearance of these two men will be part of an overall
> generational change in the Mideast that will lead to a major
> conflagration within a few years. It's possible that the
> disappearance of Arafat alone will trigger a war, just as the
> election of Lincoln ignited the American Civil War. (It's
> currently American policy to get rid of Arafat. My response is
> this: Be careful what you wish for.)"<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Since that time, Yassir Arafat died, and was replaced by Mahmoud
Abbas, who was also a survivor of the 1948 war and remembered its
horrors.
Since 2006, there have been five wars involving Israel and
Palestinians: the war between Israelis and Hezbollah, fought largely
on Lebanon's soil in 2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas
and Fatah in Gaza in 2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza;
Operation Cast Lead, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in
2009; the two wars between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in November, 2012
and July-August 2014.
In addition, the "Arab Spring" began in 2011, resulting in wars in
Libya, Yemen and Syria, and unrest in Egypt and Lebanon. Furthermore,
tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have surged as a result of the
genocidal acts of Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad
directed at Sunnis. Each day we move closer to a war that will engulf
the whole region, between Arabs and Jews, between Sunnis and Shias,
and between various ethnic groups such as Kurds versus Turks.
With wars occurring today across the entire Mideast, can anyone
serious believe today that some piece of paper signed by Abbas, Trump
and Netanyahu would actually bring about a new Mideast where Israelis
and Palestinians are living together side by side in peace? If there
is, I'd like to give him a good deal on selling him the Brooklyn
Bridge. Jerusalem Post
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Benjamin Netayahu, Sisyphus,
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Oslo peace accords,
Yitzhak Rabin, Jimmy Carter, Yassir Arafat, Arab Spring
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas commit to work for historic Mideast peace deal
- Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas try again, channeling Sisyphus
****
**** Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas commit to work for historic Mideast peace deal
****
Mahmoud Abbas and Donald Trump shake hands at the White House on Wednesday (Getty)
Meeting in the White House on Wednesday, president Donald Trump met
with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and agreed to work
together to reach a historic peace deal between Israelis and
Palestinians.
In the briefing that followed the meeting, Trump recalled that Abbas
had participated in the development of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1994:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Almost 24 years ago, it was on these grounds that
> President Abbas stood with a courageous peacemaker, then-Israeli
> Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Here at the White House, President
> Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles -- very important --
> which laid the foundation for peace between the Israelis and
> Palestinians.
>
> The President -- Mr. President, you [Abbas] signed your name to
> the first Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. You remember that
> well, right? And I want to support you in being the Palestinian
> leader who signs his name to the final and most important peace
> agreement that brings safety, stability, and prosperity to both
> peoples and to the region."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Trump didn't mention what a disastrous failure the Oslo peace accords
have been. Another thing that Trump neglected to mention was that
year later, in 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli
nationalist who opposed the Oslo peace accords.
Trump's statement concluded:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"I welcome President Abbas here today as a
> demonstration of ... that very special partnership that we all
> need to make it all work. And I look forward to welcoming him
> back as a great marker of progress and, ultimately, toward the
> signing of a document with the Israelis and with Israel toward
> peace. We want to create peace between Israel and the
> Palestinians. We will get it done. We will be working so hard to
> get it done. It's been a long time, but we will be working
> diligently. And I think there's a very, very good chance, and I
> think you feel the same way."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Abbas then responded with his own statement:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Mr. President, we believe that we are capable and
> able to bring about success to our efforts because, Mr. President,
> you have the determination and you have the desire to see it
> become to fruition and to become successful. And we,
> Mr. President, inshallah, God willing, we are coming into a new
> opportunity, a new horizon that would enable us to bring about
> peace in that regard. ...
>
> Mr. President, it’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of
> our people and of our land after 50 years. We are the only
> remaining people in the world that still live under occupation.
> We are aspiring and want to achieve our freedom, our dignity, and
> our right to self-determination. And we also want for Israel to
> recognize the Palestinian state just as the Palestinian people
> recognize the state of Israel.
>
> Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our
> children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace. And we are
> endeavoring to bring about security, freedom and peace for our
> children to live like the other children in the world, along with
> the Israeli children in peace, freedom and security.
>
> Mr. President, I bring with me today the message of the suffering
> of my people, as well as their aspiration and hope -- the hopes
> and aspirations of the Palestinian people from the Holy Land, from
> that land where the three monotheist religions thrived, and the
> Jewish faith, the Christian faith and the Muslim faith, where they
> all coexist together to foster it in an environment of security,
> peace and stability, and love for all."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Abbas said that "we are raising our youth, our children, our
grandchildren on a culture of peace," but the Palestinian president,
born in 1935, neglected to mention that polls indicate that two-thirds
of the Palestinian people want him to resign, and consider him
irrelevant and unable to do anything to help the Palestinians.
It's the young people today who will not tolerate a peace settlement
of any kind. Many young Israelis consider it to be an almost
Messianic mission to build settlements in the West Bank and to defend
them with their lives.
And the young Palestinians have been given the ironic name "Oslo
Generation," because they've grown up since the 1994 Oslo agreement
and have seen nothing come out of it, and so have no respect for Abbas
and other Palestinian leaders.
So even if Trump and Abbas and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu
did hammer out some kind of agreement, it would be worthless, because
the young Israelis and young Palestinians would not honor it.
NBC News and WAFA (Palestine) and White House
Related Articles
- Palestinian leader Abbas expected to deliver ultimatum to Israel at UN (28-Sep-2015)
- Mahmoud Abbas's United Nations 'bombshell' something of a dud (01-Oct-2015)
****
**** Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas try again, channeling Sisyphus
****
One of the most well-known characters in Greek Mythology was Sisyphus.
In his life he double-crossed Zeus, the king of the gods, as well as
the gods of the underworld. For his deceit and trickery, he was
condemned to eternal punishment. He would forever roll a massive
boulder up to the top of a steep hill, but whenever he neared the top,
the rock would roll down to the bottom, and he'd have to start over
again.
So anyway, former president Jimmy Carter once said in Jerusalem that
one of the deep regrets of his presidency was that he had not been
able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were numerous
repeated attempts at Mideast peace by Bill Clinton, George Bush and
Barack Obama.
I posted my very first Generational Dynamics analysis on May 1, 2003,
when president George Bush published his "Mideast Roadmap to Peace,"
which described the details of a two-state solution. I wrote that Generational Dynamics predicts that
the plan would fail because the Jews and the Arabs would be refighting
the 1948 war that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the
creation of the state of Israel. Here's what I wrote:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"We are now in the early stages of replaying the
> extremely violent, bloody wars between the Jews and the
> Palestinians that took place between them from 1936 to 1949. So
> far the war has been little more than a series of skirmishes, as
> it was in the late 1930s. The full-fledged violent, bloody war is
> awaiting a generational change.
>
> There's an incredible irony going on in the Mideast today, in that
> the leaders of two opposing sides are, respectively, Ariel Sharon
> and Yassir Arafat.
>
> These two men hate each other, but they're the ones cooperating
> with each other (consciously or not) to prevent a major Mideast
> conflagration. Both of them remember the wars of the 1940s, and
> neither of them wants to see anything like that happen again. And
> it won't happen again, as long as both of these men are in charge.
>
> The disappearance of these two men will be part of an overall
> generational change in the Mideast that will lead to a major
> conflagration within a few years. It's possible that the
> disappearance of Arafat alone will trigger a war, just as the
> election of Lincoln ignited the American Civil War. (It's
> currently American policy to get rid of Arafat. My response is
> this: Be careful what you wish for.)"<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Since that time, Yassir Arafat died, and was replaced by Mahmoud
Abbas, who was also a survivor of the 1948 war and remembered its
horrors.
Since 2006, there have been five wars involving Israel and
Palestinians: the war between Israelis and Hezbollah, fought largely
on Lebanon's soil in 2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas
and Fatah in Gaza in 2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza;
Operation Cast Lead, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in
2009; the two wars between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in November, 2012
and July-August 2014.
In addition, the "Arab Spring" began in 2011, resulting in wars in
Libya, Yemen and Syria, and unrest in Egypt and Lebanon. Furthermore,
tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have surged as a result of the
genocidal acts of Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad
directed at Sunnis. Each day we move closer to a war that will engulf
the whole region, between Arabs and Jews, between Sunnis and Shias,
and between various ethnic groups such as Kurds versus Turks.
With wars occurring today across the entire Mideast, can anyone
serious believe today that some piece of paper signed by Abbas, Trump
and Netanyahu would actually bring about a new Mideast where Israelis
and Palestinians are living together side by side in peace? If there
is, I'd like to give him a good deal on selling him the Brooklyn
Bridge. Jerusalem Post
Related Articles
- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive (18-Oct-2015)
- Jewish extremists clash violently with Israeli soldiers over settlements (05-Jan-2005)
- Yasser Arafat dies (14-Nov-2004)
- How do unrealistically high expectations affect the world? (08-Jan-2005)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Benjamin Netayahu, Sisyphus,
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Oslo peace accords,
Yitzhak Rabin, Jimmy Carter, Yassir Arafat, Arab Spring
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
