What to Do With Lemons

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proposes a solution to untangle the Palestinian Authority-Israeli problem in his column What to Do With Lemons: The United Nations 1947 Partition Plan

He proposes an amendment  should be voted upon in the UN:

 “This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.”  

His arguments are interesting - read them. As are two criticisms posted:

• Thomas Friedman's "What to Do With Lemons": A Lemon of a Proposal
• Thomas Friedman ‘Solves’ the 'PA Homeland' with Sour Lemons

What Friedman and his critics seem unable to grasp is the pivotal point of his proposed resolution as applied to the party who originally accepted the United Nations' Partition Plan in 1947.

He wishes "This body recognizes the Palestinian state...".

Israel rightly expects all to recognize the State of Israel and this State's right to exist within secure borders.

Unless all interested parties can accept this fundamental truth then any lemonade made by any body will be undrinkable.

Iran Increasing Support to Help Assad Kill His People

Just as the latest chilling reports of government crackdowns in Syria emerged -- today, a 12-year-old boy was reportedly killed by security forces and a 10-year-old arrested to punish his parents -- another report surfaced that Bashar Assad's buddies in Tehran are playing an "increasingly active" role in the violent crackdown on demonstrators. Reports the Guardian:

"A senior western diplomat in Damascus expanded upon assertions, first made by White House officials last month, that Iran is advising President Bashar al-Assad's government on how to crush dissent.

The diplomat pointed to a 'significant' increase in the number of Iranian personnel in the country since protests began in mid-March.

Mass arrests carried out by door-to-door raids, similar to those that helped to crush Iran's 'green revolution' in 2009, have been ramped up in the past week.

Human rights groups suggest more than 7,000 people have been detained in total since the uprising began. More than 800 people are said to have died, up to 50 of them during last Friday's 'day of defiance'. 'Tehran has upped the level of technical support and personnel support from the Iranian Republican Guard to strengthen Syria's ability to deal with protesters,' the senior western diplomat said, adding that the personnel were not involved in any physical operations on the ground and numbered in the few hundreds.

'Since the start of the uprising, the Iranian regime has been worried about losing its most important ally in the Arab world and important conduit for weapons to Hezbollah [in Lebanon],' the diplomat said."

Also among this weekend's casualties are four women who were killed when government forces opened fire on an all-female demonstration against the regime.

Britain is among the nations now trying to get the United Nations to refuse Syria a seat on the Human Rights Council, a denial that should be a no-brainer but the body doesn't exactly have a golden record of weeding out human-rights abusers from its ranks. A supporter of Syria's appointment? Bahrain, where the ruling regime has enjoyed its own brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

If anyone harbors any doubts about the murderous acts of the Assad regime, take a look at the numerous videos of the carnage shot by brave Syrians and uploaded to YouTube (such as this one of Dara'a crackdown -- warning, the footage is bloody and graphic). Look at what Bashar Assad does to his own people.

Thank God they are not Jews

The Jews in their desire to establish independence and realize control of their own democratic institutions accepted the UN partition of Palestine in 1947. They were attacked by the surrounding Arab nations who had rejected the UN partition plan. After a hard fought War of Independence the Jews were not "pushed into the sea", the State of Israel was declared and established. 500,000 Arab refugees were created - a sad fact that was to be manipulated and distorted and misused far outweighing in the eyes of so-called impartial third party observers the criminal acts of the rejectionists of the UN partition.

And who are these rejectionists who have constantly supported terrorist actions and promoted, participated in wars against the State of Israel? Who are these rejectionists who took the high moral ground when judging Israel’s almost impossible task of policing the intifadas that were fuelled by these rejectionists' anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli rhetoric?

They are the same toilets (Gadaffi and Assad et al.) who are indiscriminately killing their own people for the terrible crime of wanting control of their own democratic institutions.