Sigan: Lie to Me

Lilac Sigan..
Huffington Post Monitor..
05 February '12..




[Someone on the Huffington Post's editorial staff must have been sleeping on the job, because this article by Lilac Sigan somehow managed to not only be published on the Huffington Post but wasn't buried either.]

You know the guy from that TV show that can read people's expressions and tell when they're lying? Imagine what a tough job he'd have if he was in politics. The poor guy would collapse after his first day on the job.

Take, for instance, Mahmoud Abbas's declaration yesterday, that Israel alone is responsible for the failure of the recent attempt for peace talks. I must say, I really don't blame Abbas. I guess if I were him, and I wanted to play my cards right, I would do the same. For him, going back to the UN and asking for a unilateral solution against Israeli citizens' interests is a much better idea. When you're dealing with a twisted world such as the one we live in, some people come to the conclusion that lying is the only way to go.

The UN is a great destination for Abbas to turn to. Why? Take for instance the fact that after a year of brutal killings of thousands, the UN is still contemplating if it's right to condemn Syria. Just this week, Russia declared it would veto any "wrong decision" against it. In our world, if you're called the UN or wearing any other sort of disguise, the sad truth is that political interests are more important than humanity, money is more important than justice, and hate is more important than peace. But if you want to put those cruel political rules aside for a minute for a morsel of truth, here's something you might like to know about Abbas's real intentions.



In her book called No Higher Honor, Condoleezza Rice explains it rather well. Rice wrote that just over 3 years ago she was astounded when ex Israeli PM Ehud Olmert aired his dramatic, hard-to-imagine offer to Mahmud Abbas: he offered a Palestinian state on 94% of the West Bank, with land swaps to account for the rest. He also offered two capitals, one for Israel in West Jerusalem and one for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Rice recalled: "Am I really hearing this? I wondered. Is the Israeli prime minister saying that he'll divide Jerusalem and put an international body in charge of the holy sites?"

Within this very generous offer, Olmert then also offered Abbas to allow 5,000 Palestinians to return to land of Israel. Rice presented the proposals to Abbas, but he immediately said he could not accept the return of only 5,000 of 4 million Palestinians and all their descendants who have been living outside of Israel for decades.

So Abbas is very comfortable with presenting things as if everything is Israel's fault, and as if the argument is over the settlements, but that's not true. Everyone knows that these settlements, although covered widely in the media, are in reality small patches of land, most of which would be evacuated and given to the new Palestinian state, and the rest swapped for identical size land elsewhere, so as to make things work out had there been a real intention for peace.

It's comfortable for Abbas to keep selling this lie, and for a good reason: everyone seems to be buying it. But the truth is that when Abbas was offered this deal he supposedly wants, he refused. Why? Because he doesn't just want "a Palestinian state." He wants much much more.

Do you understand what this "right of return" of millions of Palestinians he's talking about means? It means over 4 million Palestinians will have the right to become Israeli citizens. Not the new Palestinian state citizens, but Israeli ones. Since the entire population of Israel today consists of roughly 7 million, out of which about 5.5 million are Israeli Jews, and 1.5 million are Israeli Arabs, this means that the moment this were to occur, Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish state. Yes, the real issue at stake here is not settlements or the establishment of a Palestinian state. The real issue is this alleged "right of return," which means the end of Jewish Israel. If Israel would agree to this demonic demand, it would be equivalent to a person putting a bullet through his own head.

Still, in a world like ours, in which lies are warmly accepted by whoever has something to gain, Abbas cannot be blamed for playing the game.

But what about you? What have you, personally, got to gain from believing this lie? If you ask me -- nothing. On the contrary -- if you choose to continue to believe the lies, you will only be contributing to the further acceleration of the twisted way this world has learned to turn.

Link: http://hpmonitor.blogspot.com/2012/02/lilac-sigan-lie-to-me.html

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