JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

01/26/09 06:08 PM

Let me correct Mr.Simon on his terminology -
1] The area in question is only geographically called “West Bank”; the correct historic term is Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria) and this is an integral part of Eretz Israel.
2] Definition of Arab Moderate - someone who wants to destroy Israel after convincing Israeli Moderates to give away what is rightfully part of Israel. After all, why fight when there are enough corrupt Jewish politicians who are willing to capitulate?
3] Land for Peace - the triumph of insane hope over experience.
4] Jewish settlers - any Jewish Israeli; unless Mr. Simon can explain the difference between a Jew living in Ephrat or in Tel Aviv.

01/26/09 06:40 PM

I was sorry to see such poor news reporting from 60 minutes and Bob Simon.  His recent captivity by Arabs has, no doubt, tramatized him.
There are some many inaccuracies it is difficult to know where to begin.  Certainly, his discussion of the fence and its dividing up the land which was shown with great description was like the rest of the program....completely devoid of any discussion of sucide bombers and wave after wave of all sorts of Arab terrorism.
The fact that settlement is frequently occured on land not occupied and later paid for by Jews is also absent.
One wonders what type of state the Arabs would create in this area of the world in the absence of a Jewish State.  Would Europe and the rest of the world feel more secure with a violent Hamastan terrorist state in the region.  Do they believe it would represnet a cultural, scientific, and forward looking accomplishment.  It is incredible that such a one-sided view has been presented.  Have they no knowledge of the mansions being built in many Arab villages in Israel and the West Bank.  Perhaps, Simon should go to the West Bank and the Israel arab cities to see for himself.  No one is keeping a secret nor are they unaware of the dimension of Arab terrorists.  Just ask anyone about bus bombiings and rockets all intended for civilians that had become daily occurances in Israel.
Wake up stupid and do your job!!!!!!

01/26/09 07:05 PM

The difference between Jews in Efrat and those in Tel Aviv is that the West Bank settlements violate the Geneva Convention, this according to the Israeli Defense Ministry’s counsel. The harsh reality is that Israel uses settlements the way Hamas uses qassams. Since the end of the 1967 war when Israel was unsure what to do with the West Bank and the Arabs, those idiots, would not seriously discuss a peace deal, Israelis have been torn between the national religious imperative under which the area is ours from Biblical times and the reality of today’s world in which everyone is going to have to give up their dreams in order to live together. The 60 Minutes report is accurate. You can read about this stuff any day you like in Haaretz and other Israeli newspapers. The existence and expansion of the settlements is one of the major impediments to peace in the region. The major impediment to peace is the Arabs’ continuing refusal to accept a Jewish state of Israel takes the form of Hamas, an elected representative, lobbing missiles at Israeli school children and Saeb Ereket, a so-called moderate, telling the press at the Annapolis Conference, that no one has ever heard of a state founded on the principles of a single religion. So here we are. The Arabs won’t give up violence and the Israelis continue to “change the facts on the ground.” George Mitchell’s problem is that both sides have yet to comply with the essential elements of any peace treaty - the Arabs have to give up violence and the Israelis have to give up the settlements. Until that happens we can all just sit around and wait for the next “Operation.”

01/26/09 07:41 PM

It is truly sad to see the children of Gaza killed because of the actions of the Hamas killers. It is also truly sad to see the actions of very few religious fanatic’s be responsible for the lives of thousands of Jews sue to the wars they will continue to cause. As for peace, when was the last time Jordan went to war or shot rockets at Israel, when was the last time Israel was attacked across the Jordon river, when was the las time Israel was attacked by any moderate Arabs??? Truth be told peace can be reached but only if Israel is willing to 1st “tear down the wall” & if it needs to be up, make a straight line with Arab land on the East, not have it wind in & out. As for the settlers, if they won’t move then they will be living in an Arab State, lets see how fast that gets them back to Israel. Israel will not survive in the long run when countries like Iran would blow them off the face of the earth if it could. The only way it will be here 100 years from now is living side by side with an educated working Arab people. Israel needs to make that happen if it wants to be here in the 21st century.

Having said that I am a person who collected money to grow tree’s in Israel, I am a person that has visited there many times, I am a person that has donated money to Israel, I am a Jew who wants the 6,000,000. Jews in Israel to live long & healthy peaceful lives. The woman in the settlement that supposedly spoke for all of the West Bank Jews should be ashamed of herself for being as much at fault for the continuing wars as the Hamas killers. If it were not for people like her, Hamas would not be here. Just as George Bush created hatred towards America with his policies, so to are the West Bank religious fanatics. Htae me if you will but we both know that the present status will end up with a non Israel in the end. Face the fact & help Israel make the hard right choices now before it is to late for anything other then out right war & death to millions.....

01/26/09 09:02 PM

To Messrs. Stolow and Arnold! It is this basic lack of understanding by “enlightened” Jews, how to confront the Arabs, that has been the root of many failed policies of appeasement since the days of the British Mandate. There is nothing in the Geneva Convention that pertains to Jews living in their ancient Land. The pre-1967 borders were the lines where the truce was announced in 1949 and NOT internationally acknowledged borders. As for restitution, ask the descendants of the Jews that were chased out of Hebron in 1929, whose ancestors had lived there since the days of Abraham, or the displaced residents of Gush Katif.
Definition of insanity - to repeat the same failed policy of land for peace and expect a different outcome.

01/26/09 10:48 PM

Bravo Mr. Simon and CBS for having the courage to speak the truth and finally showing it to a US audience.

01/27/09 03:10 AM

I found the Bob Simon 60 minutes segment to be very anti-Israel and very pro-Palestinian.  To continue insisting that giving up Israel land for peace will bring lasting peace between these two is insane.  Gaza was given up in recent years and has been nothing but a battle zone since, with Hamas rockets launched against Sderot, Israel daily. How long was Israel supposed to sit idly by while their innocent citizens were attacked?  60 minutes didn’t even mention that.  Let’s have the whole truth reported on--the land belongs to Israel, past, present and future.

01/27/09 04:33 PM

Truth be told all of this & almost every war since recorded history is about one thing, religion. My god is better then your god & so on & so forth. Your god makes you bad, my god makes me good. Bottom line in the whole middle East is not who got to the land first & planted a flag & said it is mine forever. Please stop with that stupidity because all of the US & Europe would end up changing hands. Who lived where in 1928 or 100 BC is meaningless today. How to stop the killing, how to bring about peace, how to get people living together is the goal so let’s not talk about what each others bible says, they are all nothing more then crutches for small minded people looking for something that is not here...Death is death & this junk about heaven is so incredibly insane that unless you are talking to a person that can think, you will not get anywhere. Holy Land be damned, it is all BS. Just think about this simply, the Arabs have 7 times as many children as the Jews, within a few yeas the whole of Israel will be overrun by the Arabs now living in Israel & that does not count the rest of the Arabs that manage to have babies between rocket’s & war. Lets make it simple, have a 3 States, one for Gaza, one West Bank & one for Israel. Draw the lines in large block walls & let the Arabs in the middle East take care of the two groups. Give Give the East part of the city as the new capital & get it over with. NO road connecting Gaza & the West Bank, that could not be defended & should not happen. As for the 1967 borders, Israel now has 8% extra land wise, OK, make it 4 % & straighten out that fence & be done with it.. The next time a rocket falls on the soil of Israel, don’t invade, send one back that is a hundred times bigger & so on. I think soon they will get the idea. If a bomber blows him/herself up in Israel, send a rocket into a shopping center in the Arab State with is one hundred times larger & kill their people, again they will get the idea. Bottom line, no more invasions, no more bombing & borders stay closed, let the borders of the Arab countries supply them, period the end…

01/28/09 06:21 PM

A good and much needed report by Bob Simon and 60 minutes, though he only showed the poles - a Palestinian, Dr. Mustapha Barghouti, and an Israeli, Dr. Meron Benvenisti, who have dispaired of the two state solution, coupled with suffering Palestinians and an arrogant messianic settler like Daniella Weiss. 
To counteract some of the dispair, at the launching of the left-Zionist Meretz party campaign for the Knesset, 2 settlers appeared and declared that they and their friends support the Evacuation Compensation law that was initiated by Meretz MK Avshalom (Abu) Vilan to enable settlers on the other side of the separation barrier (wall) to return home to Israel.  They said that 50% of the settlers would be ready to return home now to Israel proper if they could afford to build new lives.
So the two state solution is not dead, and it is to be hoped that the new American government and the European Union will help finance an Evacuation-Compensation program.

Hillel Schenker, Tel Aviv

02/03/09 02:21 AM

I thought Bob Simon’s report on 60 Minutes was excellent, and ties in with what I have heard many times over from objective observers who very much want peace in the Middle East.  I thought the comments by the mayor of one of the Jewish settlements in Gaza were ominous.  She minced no words.  She and her fellow citizens will do everything they can to get rid of the Palestinians.  Not a very good attitude from God’s “chosen” people, if you ask me.