“Peace to Prosperity”?

Red Sky at Morning

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White House Unveils its Palestinian ‘Peace to Prosperity’ Plan

The Trump administration will roll out the first part of its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, which aims to raise billions to help Palestinians and other Arabs in the region. Top Trump officials and business leaders will attend the unveiling of the plan, spearheaded by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, at a summit Tuesday in Bahrain.

Speakers at the investment summit will include business leaders including Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone Group, Randall Stephenson, chairman of AT&T, and Tom Barrack, chairman of Colony Capital Inc., as well as World Bank President David Malpass and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, according to an administration official who declined to be identified because the details aren’t yet public.

On hand from the administration will be Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, special envoy Jason Greenblatt, Brian Hook, U.S. special representative for Iran, and Kevin Hassett, the outgoing chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and others.

The White House on Saturday unveiled a proposal to raise more than $50 billion in investments for the Palestinians, the centerpiece of the Bahrain meeting and the peace plan. Palestinian officials plan to skip the event and have criticized the U.S. approach to focus first on the investment plan.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-22/trump-mideast-plan-includes-5-billion-transport-link-reuters

White House source document:-

https://www.whitehouse.gov/peacetoprosperity/
 
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DavidSon

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Peddling Lie of Economic Incentives to Obliterate Palestinian Demands

Palestinians Reject Kushner's "Peace Plan"

"In Gaza, Hamas official Ismail Rudwan also rejected Kushner's proposals.

"We reject the 'deal of the century' and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions," Rudwan told Reuters.

"The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn't for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave," he said."
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Palestine is sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave," he said."
Do you understand what they meant by “sacred land” here?

Is something sacred because someone believes it to be so, in which case, apostasy from a particular religion reduces the “sacredness” of a place

- or -

is sacredness something that is external and conferred on a particular place by an actual God?
 
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Karlysymon

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Despite being Jewish, one would try to give Kushner the benefit of the doubt in thinking that he is for a two-state solution because there are Israelis who want that but after this, i guess not.

Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claim, announced in a tweet in March, ended half a century of US foreign policy and broke from post-second world war international consensus that forbids territorial conquest during war.
The US president later said he made the [GOLAN] decision after getting a “quick” history lesson from his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his pro-settlement ambassador to Israel and former bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman.
Friedman was thrilled, Trump said, and reacted like a “wonderful, beautiful baby” getting what he wanted.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/israel-plans-name-golan-heights-settlement-occupied-land-trump

Red, do you really think all that isn't just lip-service? Everything that Trump is doing isn't favorable to a two-state solution. Here: Nadia Matar of Women in Green Discusses why Jewish sovereignty must include all of the land of Israel.
 
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DavidSon

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Do you understand what they meant by “sacred land” here?
Do you?

I have my own interpretation. For millenia tribes of these families have been born on, ate the food from, and are buried in THEIR homeland.

To get to the heart of the debate: Palestinians demand acceptance as their own Nation, i.e. a two state solution. They insist on restoring the pre-1967 border agreements including East Jerusalem, and the UN mandated right to return to their stolen properties.

This is my thought only, but if the Jewish settlements wish to coexist in the now occupied West Bank, they can but will be Palestinian citizens in Palestinian territory.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Do you?

I have my own interpretation. For millenia tribes of these families have been born on, ate the food from, and are buried in THEIR homeland.

To get to the heart of the debate: Palestinians demand acceptance as their own Nation, i.e. a two state solution. They insist on restoring the pre-1967 border agreements including East Jerusalem, and the UN mandated right to return to their stolen properties.

This is my thought only, but if the Jewish settlements wish to coexist in the now occupied West Bank, they can but will be Palestinian citizens in Palestinian territory.
I think you missed the second part of my question as I wrote it after thinking for a minute or two:-

“Is something sacred because someone believes it to be so, in which case, apostasy from a particular religion reduces the “sacredness” of a place​
- or -​
is sacredness something that is external and conferred on a particular place by an actual God?”​

Connecting it with your response is “sacredness” another word for “heritage” “cultural memory” or “nationalism” or something qualitatively different?
 

Thunderian

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I'm unsure of how the Palestinians can be begging Arab nations for money, while at the same time turning their noses up at $50 billion worth of investment in the Palestinian economy.
 

Thunderian

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The PLO and Hamas have called for a general strike in the West Bank and Gaza as a protest against the no strings offer of massive economic aid. Because their economy is apparently doing so well that it can take a day off.
 

Lisa

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The PLO and Hamas have called for a general strike in the West Bank and Gaza as a protest against the no strings offer of massive economic aid. Because their economy is apparently doing so well that it can take a day off.
They don’t care about their people, the people are just a means to an end for them anyway.
 

Thunderian

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Lisa

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Yeah, the end of Israel. The Palestinian cause has never been about the Palestinian people. It's been about the Jewish people.

Israel is making peace with Arab nations. Palestine can get on the peace train, or get run over by it. This is their last, best chance at a state.

Senior Saudi Official: Arab World Realizes “Age of War with Israel Over”
That is kinda weird about the Saudi’s. I don’t know that it’s their last chance honestly. At some point a peace treaty will be signed.
 

Todd

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I think you missed the second part of my question as I wrote it after thinking for a minute or two:-

“Is something sacred because someone believes it to be so, in which case, apostasy from a particular religion reduces the “sacredness” of a place​


- or -​


is sacredness something that is external and conferred on a particular place by an actual God?”​

Connecting it with your response is “sacredness” another word for “heritage” “cultural memory” or “nationalism” or something qualitatively different?
I believe something becomes sacred because a man or women or a group of people submit to the will of God, allowing the presence of God to come upon a place or object and it becomes "sanctified" and set apart for God's glory. The tabernacle was an example and at one time when the Israelites were obedient and submitted to God, the city of Jersualem was sacred. A building were a local congregation meets can become sacred for a moment or season in time. But it only lasts as long as the people are fully submitted and yielded to the presence of God.

Something being sacred is a conditional and often temporary state of being. When anything becomes sacred it does not guarantee it will be sacred forever in the eyes of God. When an object or place is supposedly permanently sacred in the eyes of man, it really means it has become a religious idol, becuase the people's eyes were removed form the glory of God and his presence and became fixated on the object or place instead.
 

Thunderian

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Good point.
From the article I posted:

Pointing to “the advantages of normalizing relations” with Israel, he argued that “the whole Arab world could benefit from it.” He praised Israeli technology as “very advanced” and observed that “the Arab world, including those who hate you, looks at Israel in admiration due to this success and hopes to copy it.”​
It's about changing economies. Israel is making money without the benefit of oil wells, and Arabs need to learn how to do that.
 

manama

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Do you understand what they meant by “sacred land” here?

Is something sacred because someone believes it to be so, in which case, apostasy from a particular religion reduces the “sacredness” of a place

- or -

is sacredness something that is external and conferred on a particular place by an actual God?
My grandmother's great grand aunt's paternal grand father used to live on that place so, obviously I, who came out centuries later. deserve to live there on the basis of it being promised to my race according to some religious scripture written 2 millenia ago.

-Every pro-israeli ever
 

Thunderian

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We should move the Jews to Wyoming. Problem solved.
The problem for the Palestinian people is not the Jews. The problem is that, for 70 years, the Palestinians have rejected the idea of any kind of responsible self-government in favor of hating the Jews.

From 1948 to 1967, Israel was fighting off attacks from overwhelming forces, integrating almost a million Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Arab countries, and at the same time, trying to build a nation. Israel succeeded in all those things, and even if they didn't have legitimate claim on the land then, they sure as hell do now. And they DO have a claim. Do people think that a bunch of European Jews showed up one day, saw some Palestinian land, and said, "Hey, that looks good," and took it over? Of course not, because that would just be stupid. Jews bought the land. They farmed land that no one owned or wanted. They won the land in wars they didn't start.

At the same time the Jews were getting their shit together, the Palestinians were doing ... what? Other than attacking Jews, they did nothing to improve their own lives or to build a state. There were no checkpoints, no walls, no IDF patrols, in Gaza or the West Bank. No "open air prison", no blockade. Israel's capital wasn't Jerusalem, because the Palestinians held all of it. Boy, I bet the wish they could turn back time.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Interesting observations that go to the heart of the “Israel Question”, @justjess -

The big “if” is that if “sacredness” is to be understood simply in purely sociological terms, what happens when two people lay claim to something with contradictory accounts of who a “sacred” site or territory belongs to? Who gets to say who is right? Perhaps they would be best simply meeting in the middle?

If, on the other hand, there is substance to the notion that God has a future purpose for Israel, the question takes on dimensions beyond the reach of ordinary human negotiations.

I’m sure you can see that depending on their beliefs, one person may come to the question with a very different “if” to another.
 
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