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The Scroll

Sundown: Rafah Re-Opened

Plus accused Giffords shooter won’t stand trial now, and more

By Marc Tracy|May 25, 2011 5:04 PM|6comments
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Palestinians rallying at the Rafah Crossing on Nakba Day.(Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

• On Saturday, Egypt will permanently re-open the Rafah Crossing into Gaza. This will not please Israel. [WP]

• Just how “indefensible” are the 1967 borders? (And also, does it matter, given that President Obama did not suggest a return to them?) [AP/WP]

• Hezbollah’s leader condemned Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu for their “mortal blow” to the peace process, and threatened rockets. [Haaretz]

• Jared Lee Loughner, the man who allegedly shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed several others, was judged mentally unfit to stand trial right now. [AP/The Slatest]

• Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was released from the hospital following his heart attack earlier this week. [JTA]

• Excellent profile of the French-Jewish playwright Yasmina Reza. [NYT]

We all need someone we can bleed on.
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  • Yair

    Classic AP incompetence in the “indefensible borders” analysis (aside cites historians and a random politico as its “experts” who question “indefensibility” – while the only person with military credentials in the piece – General Giora Eiland – says otherwise):

    “He added that a demilitarized state, which the Palestinians say they would accept…”

    I kind of stopped caring about the article right there. Falsehood has a way of undermining journalistic credibility like that.

  • http://www.englishquickly.com Reb. Moshe Zalman

    Boruch Hashem, Monday, Yom Chamishi, Iyar 22‏‎, 5771 at: http://www.englishquickly.com (pg. 2), you may read my earnest efforts to secure freedom achieved through the practice of conflict resolution. The news reported President Obama has the prestige of charismatic leaders but there is much more to this figure strutting upon the stage of the world media, he is a Harvard graduate and not only the player of a script he is the author of history. His knowledge of civilization is astute; and the threat of global catastrophe soon to befall a world not repentant of the damages caused by humanity, in the last fifty years, is the goal of the diplomatic strategy well beyond the scope of these remarks. We can follow this brother wherever he’s leading the nations as per his speech from the State Department, over which presides the toughest opponent to become his ally. Bibi, for whatever the double “B” could mean other than baboon struts about singing oh bama don’t you cry for me with no message that even he can convince; himself, has any truth to it. He’s learned in the school of copy and paste bluff your way over the heads of people with phrase digitalized to zap our communication skills. The Israelis and Palestinians have mostly to consider what will become of the weapons trade, economic benefits of the war machine producing: electronic, research and design, psychological warfare, chemical production at the cost of life of the citizen declared terrorists while we’re sacrificed by economic enslavements. This is the source of affliction plaguing all population centers where people become detached from the physiology of their physical being, and has been stuffed into cities, deprived of the direct means of providing their well-earned staff of life. This is how the meek can meek out an eager livelihood while their migrations effect demographic changes and in Israel. The Palestinian United Authority has declared the threat to demand a one-man one-vote Israeli National Palestinian State.

  • Dave

    “He noted that Holland and Belgium have “indefensible borders” and in the past have been susceptible to invasion. “But that doesn’t matter now because they have no external enemy,” he said.”

    Well that settles it. If Holland and Belgium can have ‘indefensible borders’, then so can Israel. Not that there are any differences between the two situations. The above idiocy relies heavily on the doctrine of “linkage” and other mindless drivel, i.e., once the Pals have a state all those other Arabs in the region will cease trying to do exactly what they’ve said they were going to do from the beginning and what they’ve promised to continue to do: make war.

    And Marc, please, at least acknowledge that many, including much more reputable writers than yourself, see in Obama’s speech a clear policy change that does, in fact, raise the 1967 borders to a level of importance that they did not in the past occupy with the US administration.

  • Yisrael

    Dave,

    Marc will not acknowledge that. He had his story right off the bat and he’s sticking to it. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

  • Jerome

    1967 borders! Hardly. Obama never said Israel must return to those borders. He explicitly stated that the parties would make mutually agreed upon swaps. What is te alternative? Such swaps will never be good enough for the “annex the whole enchilada gang!” Israel’s long term survival as a democratic and Jewish state will be over should annexation occur.

    The status quo? Things change and with the opening of Gaza, Turkish flotillas, thousands of rockets poised to plunge into Israel from the north and the upcoming U.N. showdown, the status quo will surely not last.

  • Carl

    You might want to mention that Egypt opening the Rafah crossing without Israeli and European presence there breaks an agreement signed with Egypt, as does the PA conducting a foreign policy.

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Sundown: Rafah Re-Opened

Plus accused Giffords shooter won’t stand trial now, and more