It's nice to see people around the world asking intelligent questions about the situation here. Too bad that Arnon Regular gives mostly non-descript answers.

Over my 10 day visit in the US I was asked several times if I thought that the "roadmap" would finally lead somewhere. Actually people usually asked if it would finally lead to peace, or other phrasings much less cynical than mine. I confess being surprised that it has "held" as long as it has. I do think that no matter what Israel does - ie. withdraw from Bethlehem/Gaza, free murderers, endanger citizens by removing roadblocks, freeze the security fence etc. - noone will be particularly appreciative and the Palestinians will continue to demand more and receive international backing.

T. and I happened to share a gondola in the Rocky Mountains with a woman who had been a nurse in a Gaza hospital from 1968-1970. She said that she thought that "something" had to be done for the people in the refugee camps there before there could be peace, since they were (and apparently are) so without hope. But that results, of course, from what they have been taught to hope for - ie. settling in pre-1967 Israel - and their refusal to be resettled.

Here's a good summary of the situation regarding the intractability of the "refugee" issue (via William Sjostrom).

I don't put much stock in the survey that claims that most residents of refugee camps in outside the West Bank/Gaza aren't interested in settling in Israel.

Norwegian blogger Bjorn Staerk has some good posts on PM Sharon's visit there (here and here).

Seeing the pictures of Sharon's meetings next to Tony Blair reminded me of how unphotogenic our PM is.

Talisker is good scotch. But " the sharp tang of seaweed but also an explosive blast of salt and pepper" ?!?

Fit and working again Back from vacation in the US. More blogging soon.

Abu Mazen and the PA have said unambiguiously that they will not take any action against Fatah's al-Aqsa brigade, Hamas etc. This article describes the PA's earnest attempts to get the US to finance their alternative approach: bribing the terrorist groups and enlisting their members in the PA security organizations.

In an interview for with the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar, PA official Abu Ala criticized Bush's description of Israel as a "Jewish state" at Aqaba and casually stated that the Camp David talks failed because of the refugee issue (report). The linked article also summarizes an account by the Saudi ambassador to the US according to which the Saudis pressured Arafat to accept the Clinton peace plan in 2001 ("you won't get anything better").

This article interviews family members of Israeli Arabs who have died in Palestinian suicide bombings.

Fatah is one of the groups that supposedly announced a 3 month ceasefire of sorts (report). Fatah also claimed responsibility for today's fatal shooting of a Bezeq technician who entered the Israeli Arab town of Baka Al-Gharbiya to repair a phone line (report)

The Israeli media pretty consistently describes the topic of the current Hamas-PA discussions using the same Arabic word as Hamas itself: hudna. Using the term hudna maintains the allusion to Muhammed's tactical truce with the Quraish tribe that he eventually violated.

On Army Radio this AM a PA "coordination committee" official named Soufiyan Abuzaida was asked whether the PA would take actions against terrorist activity by Hamas etc. Abuzaida's response (paraphrased) was "once there's a ceasefire [he didn't say hudna], why would there be any need for action against Hamas". And what exactly does the PA want in the context of an IDF withdrawal from Gaza? Not just withdrawal from the Arab areas: "If the IDF is maintain its checkpoints around the settlements what kind of withdrawal is that?"

Given a podium to appeal to an Israeli audience, the PA responds to what Israelis see as the basic questions with derision and sarcasm.

Moledet or Gush Shalom? Received a wacko postcard in the mailbox today. Ostensibly from an organization called "Lions of Jerusalem" that seeks to maintain Jerusalem's Jewish majority, it calls on people to report on Arab residences available for sale, Arabs living in Jewish neighborhoods, and for other ideas to get Jews in and Arabs out. A PO. Box is provided.

The card is made out to look like it's from a far-right wing group like Herut or Moledet, but it praises the Likud gov't (which the far right would never do) and uses leftist rhetoric about zoning and "home demolitions". So it's more likely from some left-wing group (like Gush Shalom) who want to collect some extremist remarks for a smear campaign.

This article makes the long overdue evaluation of the IDF's conduct of urban warfare in Jenin with reference to similar circumstances faced by NATO and UN troops in Kosovo and Somalia.

The Egyptian paper Al-Ahram was tremendously offended when Bush referred to Israel as a "Jewish State".

"Oslo Lives": A fisking Unlike some similar writings from others, this Jpost op-ed by German parliamentarian Friedbert Pflueger actually precedes each of his EU platitudes with a mild attempt to address the concerns and beliefs that most Israelis have regarding the current conflict:

Was it a mistake for Joschka Fischer to visit him in April 2003, thus bolstering his position in the midst of an internal Palestinian power struggle? This may well be the case. But there is also an argument in favor of Fischer's meeting with Arafat namely, that Arafat's engagement, as pater patriae, remains an essential part of the peace process.

Assuming that Pflueger maintains some awareness of the situation here, he can't really believe that Arafat "remains an essential part of the peace process". More likely that Fischer was seeking either to placate German Muslims and Arab nations; or to demonstrate that Europe doesn't simply follow Washington's diplomatic steps.

In any case, there must be greater transparency within the Palestinian executive branch. In the first months of 2002 the Israeli army discovered documents in Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah indicating that EU funds had been misappropriated to sponsor terrorist-related activities. Two journalists from the German weekly Die Zeit traced the flow of EU funds to the radical movements in a remarkable dossier ("Arafat bombs, Europe pays," June 6, 2002).

At that point the European Union should have suspended direct payments to the PA.

Although it is still important that we provide assistance, particularly humanitarian aid, to Palestine, transparancy is critical and examples of the detrimental impact of this type of support are many.

One particularly problematic example is Palestinian schoolbooks. These educational materials, partially funded by the EU, continue to preach hatred. In these texts the state of Israel does not even exist, nor do Israeli towns appear on their maps.

Rectifying the EU approach to Palestinian rejectionism and extremism requires a real policy shift, not a call for "greater transparency". Pflueger speaks like a true bureaucrat. Can Europeans really wonder why Israel abhors the idea of "international monitors" who would respond to Palestinian shootings and Kassam rocket firings with (at best) appeals for more bureaucracy?

In truth, Pflueger probably intends these paragraphs as a prelude to what he thinks the real problem is:

Israel's settlement policy is one of the biggest barriers to developing mutual trust and creating an atmosphere in which negotiations can take place. The destruction of Palestinian homes to make room for additional settler housing must be halted. The Israeli government must take action on, and be willing to consider difficult solutions to, the settlement question. Furthermore, Jerusalem should grant the Palestinians their own state. Palestinians must also regain the right to earn their living in Israel.

So there you go: the settlements are the issue - not Palestinian (and Arab) rejectionism.

And notwithstanding Pflueger's sympathetic warmup, Israel must withdraw from the West Bank/Gaza (without conditions it seems) to create a Palestinian state and maintain open borders. Why not make an attempt to convince skeptical Israelis how this could possibly work as long as the Palestinian Authority "combats" terrorist groups by offering to share power with them?

What is Pflueger's remark about the "destruction of Palestinian homes to make room for additional settler housing" referring to? Is he talking about the IDF's punitive destruction of the homes of suicide bombers? Is he talking about the separation of Palestinian farmers from their land by the security fence? Conceivably he could mean this (to my knowledge unparalleled) IDF action in Hebron, but more likely he gets too much of his information from pro-Palestinian prevaricators.

Mainstream Fatah (not Hamas) has claimed responsibility for shooting 2 Israeli women a short while ago (report).

Word on the street is that one of the victims of Wednesday's bombing is the wife of a neighborhood shopkeeper.

It seems that Sharon has thrown off the gloves against Hamas in the wake of the bombing and the PA's promise not to act against them. Some people on Channel 2 news were talking along these lines, and said that this approach has tacit support from the US - in the sense that Sharon would not be continuing the Gaza operations otherwise. But the weekend papers say differently.

This Hebrew-only page describes a conference being held at Tel Aviv U. entitled "The Camp David Summit, 2000: What went wrong? - Lessons for the Future".

Co-sponsored by Sari Nusseibeh's al-Quds University and a TAU institute affiliated with the Peres Center for Peace, the conference (as detailed in Jpost) appears to almost exclusively feature people who were and still are Oslo supporters (eg. Yossi Beilin, Robert Malley, Martin Indyk, Ron Pundak and others). As one would expect from these types, the seminar topics focus on "the process" and "methodological aspects", though there's one session titled "Substantive Issues".

Also included on the roster are PA Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan and uber-spokesliar Saeb Erekat. The Oslo skeptics on the roster include Likud MK Yuval Steinitz and former PM Ehud Barak (if he can be called a skeptic now). Also on the agenda is a message from one "President Clinton".

Latest is 15 killed on the bus.

Latest word is 10 dead in the bus bombing. Haaretz news flashes says a IAF helicopter missile hit a car of Hamas guys in Gaza.

How did anyone think it was possible to proceed with the "roadmap" when Abu Mazen's approach to these people is to offer them jobs in the PA security apparatus?

30 casualties, including some dead, in a bus bombing downtown around 20 minutes ago (Jpost, Haaretz)

The bombing was on the #14, which runs down Emek Refaim (the central throughfare in my neighborhood). I hope that none of my friends were on the bus.

I'm certain that the international blah-blahs will say this is a consequence of Israel's attempted hit on Hamas leader Rantisi yesterday. But that's nonsense since an attack like this can't be planned overnight. Earlier today I heard that 10 suicide attacks had been foiled since Abu Mazen's Aqaba declaration. The international blah-blahs don't notice them at all, just like they don't notice Kassam rockets fired on Sderot and barely noticed the 2 Fatah/Hamas attacks on the IDF that immediately followed the supposed ceasefire declaration.

I had spent the afternoon (working) in a quiet cafe downtown near the Eastern end of Yafo Rd (the bombing was at the Western end of Yafo). I got into a taxi in front of the Mashbir dept. store around 17:30. My spouse T. called a few minutes after I got home and told me about the attack. T. didn't sound concerned as she knows that I generally don't ride the buses.

The bombing happened at the bus stop in front of the "Clal building" - which is an unattractive mall + office tower that's adjacent to the Mahane Yehuda market. It houses the gov't unemployment office and Macabi health services.

So far no sign that the Palestinian "roadmap" commitments are anything other than a sham .... "Five Israelis and five Palestinians were killed Sunday in two Palestinian-initiated attacks on Israeli targets" (report). A friend of Harry's was moderately injured in one of the attacks.