The USA and Israel

[phyllo]

The proposal was made by the Egyptian mediators, who, along with Qataris have mediated a previous truce in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.

The Hamas delegation, headed by the movement’s head of political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh didn’t reject the proposal, and vowed to respond following discussions with the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

Media reports suggest that while Israel accepts certain parts of the proposal, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the final provisions regarding a permanent ceasefire. An official Israel position, however, is yet to be announced.

The Arabic version of the proposal was published by Al-Jazeera Arabic website. Below is a translation of the Arabic version.

First Stage:

1- (The first stage) includes a humanitarian deal lasting seven to ten days, during which Hamas will release all its civilians, including women, children, the sick and the elderly, in exchange for Israel’s release of an appropriate number of Palestinian prisoners in its custody, as follows:

(a) A full ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip from both sides, the redeployment of Israeli forces away from the vicinity of population centers and the allowing of free movement of citizens from south to north, as well as the movement of cars and trucks. Hamas commits to stop all forms of operations against Israel.

(b) Suspension of all forms of Israeli air activity, including drones and reconnaissance aircraft, in all areas of the Gaza Strip.

(c) Intensifying the entry of humanitarian and relief aid (medicines, medical supplies, fuel, food) to all areas of the Gaza Strip, especially between Gaza (City) and the northern Gaza Strip.

Second Stage:

2- The second phase includes the release of all female soldiers detained by Hamas in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons (to be) agreed upon by both sides, as well as the handover of all bodies held by both sides since the start of operations on October 7, 2023.

This phase extends for seven days, in accordance with the criteria and procedures in the first phase.

Third Stage:

3- During which negotiations will be held for a period of one month to discuss the release of all Israeli military personnel by Hamas in exchange for the release by Israel of a number of Palestinian prisoners agreed upon by both sides.

During this stage the redeployment of Israeli forces outside the borders of the Gaza Strip will take place, with the continued cessation of all air activities and Hamas’ commitment to stop all military activities against Israel.

Determinants of the implementation of the proposal:

4- Ceasefire between the two sides for 48 hours before implementing the proposal so that both sides may agree on the names of those released in the first and second phases, whether from Israel or Hamas.

(The talks will take place) through indirect negotiations held in Egypt between the Israeli and Hamas delegations with the participation of Egypt, Qatari and the US.

5- The transition from stage to stage should not take place until after the implementation of all the procedures of the previous stage.

6- Once Israel and Hamas accept the proposal and once the lists of names are exchanged, the implementation of the agreement will begin.

7- Both parties shall commit to the time limit for negotiations in the third phase. Once an agreement is reached, it will be declared in conjunction with the announcement of a complete ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

8- Egypt, Qatar and the US are responsible for coordinating the formation of a non-factional and political government (technocrats) that will administer the Gaza Strip and the West Bank once a full ceasefire is announced.

9- The agreement is implemented with the guarantee of Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the- ... gaza-text/

Actually, Hamas has already rejected it:

CAIRO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad have rejected an Egyptian proposal that they relinquish power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Monday.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas' political bureau, later denied in a statement what the sources said about the talks, adding: "There can be no negotiations without a complete stop to the aggression."

"The Hamas leadership is aiming with all its might for a complete, not temporary, end to the aggression and massacres of our people," he said, referring to the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed during the 11-week war with Israel.

The Egyptian sources said that both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, had rejected offering any concessions beyond the possible release of more hostages seized on Oct. 7 when militants broke into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people.

Egypt proposed a "vision" rather than a concrete plan, also backed by Qatari mediators, that would involve a ceasefire in exchange for the release of more hostages, and lead to a broader agreement involving a permanent ceasefire along with an overhaul of leadership in Gaza, which is currently led by Hamas.

Egypt proposed elections while offering assurances to Hamas that its members would not be chased or prosecuted, but the Islamist group rejected any concessions other than hostage releases, the sources said. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.

A Hamas official who recently visited Cairo had earlier declined to comment directly on specific offers of more temporary humanitarian truces and indicated the group's rejection by repeating its official stance.

"We also said (to Egyptian officials) that the aid for our people must keep going and must increase and it must reach all the population in the north and the south," the official said.

"After the aggression is stopped and the aid increased we are ready to discuss prisoner swaps," the official added.

ISLAMIC JIHAD

Islamic Jihad, which also holds hostages in custody in Gaza, has echoed that stance.

An Islamic Jihad delegation led by its leader Ziad al-Nakhala is currently in Cairo to exchange ideas with Egyptian officials over prisoner swap offers and other issues, but an official said the group had set an end to Israel's military offensive as a pre-condition for further negotiations.

Islamic Jihad insists, the official said, that any prisoner swap must be based on the principle of "all for all", meaning the release of all hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in return for freeing all Palestinians jailed in Israel.

Before the war, there were 5,250 Palestinians in Israeli jails, but the number has now grown to around 10,000 as Israel has arrested thousands more in the West Bank and Gaza since Oct 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Association.

Overnight into Monday, Gaza endured one of its deadliest nights in the 11-week-old war. Palestinian health officials said at least 70 people had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in the centre of the tiny, besieged Gaza Strip.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-12-25/

Anything to hang on to power?

[Alexis Jacobi]

An interesting thing about Arabs who advocate for the Palestinians today, and about those who support the same, as told by Douglas Murray

It is generally accepted that if we carefully analyze an argument, or some proposed idea, that if we properly and fairly use our reasoning powers, and perhaps also if we have been trained to do so, that we can expose the fallaciousness in a bad argument.

What I propose then is not necessarily that every statement I make is *certainly correct* -- I am in an exploratory process as I have said so many times -- but that I start from the premise, or wish to give credence to the premise, that we have the ability and the power to discern what is true and what is false. However, my premise is couched within a fundamental predicate: that all around us there are powerful interests which employ rhetoric (fallacious constructs) to make what is mendacious seem truthful.

I have also said a few times that I have been influenced by Richard Weaver's ideas encapsulated in his idea that *all speech is sermonic*. If I declare that white bread is *good for your health* and recommend eating it, that is one thing. But if I employ rhetoric and rhetorical skill in casting aspersions on the (sound) arguments of those who propose that whole wheat bread is definitely better, and white bread actually not good, then I can become aware that even in minor instances, that seem to have little relevance, we ourselves can easily show ourselves as trapped within dubious formulations -- bad philosophical or other arguments -- when our own interests are at stake. If I have ownership interest in the white bread company then it is not hard to see how *complicity* functions to obscure what is true.

Douglas Murray is *working* a bad argument. He has reduced all opposition to Israel as instances of Jew hatred. The reason this argument is rhetorically defective, and also devious, is because there is such a thing as Jew hatred and it does have an *irrational* manifestation. If one had doubts one could read, say,

1) The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism by Joshua Trachtenberg, or
2) Europe and the Jews: The Pressure of Christendom on the People of Israel for 1,900 Years by Malcolm Hay.

But general Arab opposition to the establishment of the Jewish state in the region cannot be reduced, as Murray has it (and so does David Mamet in The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the Jews, which, as it happens, I am just now reading) to antisemitism. It is far more complex and requires a far more balanced, realistic and fair initial outlook.

However -- and here is where the issue becomes more complex and nuanced -- though there may be a general mood (among Arabs) as anti-Jewish or Jewish-suspicious, there is beyond any doubt a severe and virulent strain of hatred and suspicion expressed within traditional and Orthodox Judaism for all manifestations of Gentile religion. When you examine the sources (within strict Orthodoxy) the position is made clear: all Gentile religions are false-religions and all of them are demonic manifestations. And going further: the Gentile soul is a demoniac-allied soul. Therefore, the core story of Judaism is grounded in this metaphysical division which, as is obvious, has been inherited by Christianity in its opposition to any metaphysical and religious concept of divinity that is not its own.

So now that we have this out on the table we can, to some degree, stand outside and above the question that appears to be up for debate. What do we see? We see that the entire construct is grounded on a very strange set of assertions. Judaism, Islam and Christianity operate within a similar *grounding structure*. Once one has invested in any one of them (and *investiture* is a notion that would need to be further expounded) one is locked-into not just the metaphysical view, but the ramifications and the consequences of those views.

Here is what I do indeed state and I do so with a near-absolute certainty. Immanuel Can is not a philosopher, does not engage in philosophy nor in *philosophical enquiry* but he is a religious zealot and an apologist for a specific Biblical view and also a specific interpretation known as Christian Zionism. However, Immanuel Can wishes to have people accept his views -- the specific foundations of those views, grounded as they are in faith-declarations -- as philosophically tenable. "It is ad hominem if you state that I am a religious zealot or fanatic! you must take all my premises as being philosophically genuine!"

My suggestion is to examine the following statement in that light:

No, it's isn't. It belongs to the children of Abraham and Sarah, as specifically deeded to them by the One who made the land in the first place.

Here is the key, as it were, to understanding Immanuel Can: the view that he has does not merely declare in one isolated area, but is part of a universalized view that cannot be questioned. This must be understood: cannot be questioned. You cannot question what *God* has ordained. And if *God* has ordained that the Jew have that land, and moreover if the Jew in history has a complex and involved *project* such as, among numerous things, convincing the non-Jew that his entire metaphysical, spiritual and existential platform is wrong and counter-God; and if you then assert, and this is indeed asserted within Jewish Orthodoxy, that it is the God-willed fate that the entire world will be ruled by God/Jew -- these two operate together -- what I suggest that you will see is how astoundingly problematic are the sets of metaphysics that inform this view! I am opposed to this view, to this formulation, and therefore I am anti-Judaic. There is no other option for me. (This does not mean that I do not find value and *goodness* in much in Judaism (or Christianity) it is that a core and central concept and assertion I oppose.)

Going further: any opposition to these declarations by God's own people places you, ipso facto, within the camp of the demoniac.

Now, do you think I am making this up? To get your answer just look around at what is going on right now and today. Just two examples:

One, that Netanyahu has made it plain that what is being battled is a historical metaphysical enemy named *Amalek*. It is now out in the open. No longer occulted, no longer hidden from Gentiles -- nor from Jews who exist on the fringes of Judaic religious concept (that is, tending to Assimilation and classic Jewish Progressivism) -- the actual structure is exposed for all to see.

And Two, that the Evangelical Christian brethren operate within the same metaphysical conceptions.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Therefore, and in conclusion, what I endeavor to point out is just how deeply twisted and dangerous are these central beliefs. A dozen times I have said it is not personal. The game on the forum is played as if it is, but it is not.

And other aspect here -- this is not immediately connected to world-politics, what is going on socially and politically in Europe or America -- is that to all appearances we no longer have any definition of God that can actually be believed in. Certainly the Judaic and the Christian picture or story, when taken at its core level, simply cannot be believed. I do not mean to say that people will not believe it, indeed they will.

And here we can examine our own Immanuel as one who has allied his will, and his personality, with belief. And in this we get to examine one of Richard Weavers key assertions: ideas have consequences.

Weaver was very much in pro of having and defining metaphysics. Rules if you will, or sets of senses about Order that one, by believing in them, by seeing them as *real* and valid, applies to the world.

And if nothing else has come about in these conversations and through these conversations, it is that we make decisive choices about what our metaphysical principles are. To say *we choose* does seem to operate against the notion of *revelation* and *revealed truth*. If there is controvery and if there is confusion or discord, should one then abandon entirely all ideas that have come through *revealed religion*? That is, through men who have seen visions and dreamed dreams?

Personally, I do not think that should be the case nor could it be the case. We are metaphysical creatures through-and-through.

What is the purpose and function of religion then? It is no longer clear. How does one define *God*? That is even less clear.
_____________________

Naturally, all of this is all worked out and all riddles solved in Chapters 77-90 in the 10 Week Email Course and because it is Christmas I offer a 2 hours window to sign up at $499.00 which does include the Isis-Rosary and 2 oz of blessèd Nile water.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What makes AJ such a tragic case is that AJ is 1/3 right. That's just enough to be wrong, but also convincing to those who are a little short on knowledge.

Now you have a fine opportunity to refute my various assertions and to set me straight. What I would wish for is a point-by-point refutation. Here on the forum and witnessed by your peers.

Instruct me, for thou know'st ...

And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

[Immanuel Can]

Instruct me, for thou know'st ...

The incorrigible cannot be corrected.

[bahman]

Instruct me, for thou know'st ...

The incorrigible cannot be corrected.

Oh, come on. You can do better than this.

[Immanuel Can]

Instruct me, for thou know'st ...

The incorrigible cannot be corrected.

Oh, come on. You can do better than this.

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The incorrigible cannot be corrected.

That only cements a primary point I made: any view that challenges or opposes the core religious assertion is by definition incorrigible which actually means demonic.

This cannot be stated out loud — it would embarrass even IC — but nevertheless it is there: operative.

[bahman]

The incorrigible cannot be corrected.

Oh, come on. You can do better than this.

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

This way, you look like you lost the debate. OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis. That is to me a clear discrimination. Do you think that God discriminates?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Oh, come on. You can do better than this.

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

This way, you look like you lost the debate. OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis. That is to me a clear discrimination. Do you think that God discriminates?

Fuck off back to Africa then. That's the only place that humans have a right to live.

[bahman]

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

This way, you look like you lost the debate. OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis. That is to me a clear discrimination. Do you think that God discriminates?

Fuck off back to Africa then. That's the only place that humans have a right to live.

You are not making any sense so I dismiss you!

[Immanuel Can]

Oh, come on. You can do better than this.

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

This way, you look like you lost the debate.

Oh? That's what you think a "debate" is?

OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis.

Why do you conclude that? That's not logical. If my country is my country, that doesn't mean nobody else can live there. It just means that I have the primary right to live there, if anybody does.

[bahman]

Somebody has to be listening. AJ doesn't listen.

This way, you look like you lost the debate.

Oh? That's what you think a "debate" is?

OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis.

Why do you conclude that? That's not logical. If my country is my country, that doesn't mean nobody else can live there. It just means that I have the primary right to live there, if anybody does.

That is what you say but Israelis apparently do not agree with you. Israelis interpret the verse that they have all rights on the land, forcing Palestinians to leave the land, build towns in the occupied areas, and migrate Jews there. Do you think that Israelis interpret the verse wrongly?

[Immanuel Can]

This way, you look like you lost the debate.

Oh? That's what you think a "debate" is?

OK, I give it a try then. According to you, only the children of Abraham and Sarah have the right to live on the land. This means that Arabs must leave the land and their properties so there is room for more Israelis.

Why do you conclude that? That's not logical. If my country is my country, that doesn't mean nobody else can live there. It just means that I have the primary right to live there, if anybody does.

That is what you say but Israelis apparently do not agree with you.

Apparently, they do. They have a significant proportion of Arab citizens all the time, and a smaller one of Christians. It's also Israel that's been campaigning for the "two state" solution, and getting rejected by the Palestinians every time. So I'd say you're not particularly well-informed about that. But you can find out the facts for yourself, so you don't even have to trust me on all that. It's all public record.

[phyllo]

So I'd say you're not particularly well-informed about that. But you can find out the facts for yourself, so you don't even have to trust me on all that. It's all public record.

You seem to be completely uninformed about Palestinian property seized by the Israelis. It's been going on for decades and it's still going on.