Saturday, February 25, 2006

When the salt goes rotten

There is a saying in Persian... my literal translation would be: You add salt to keep perishable from rotting, god forbid if salt goes rotten.

I run across this artile: Hamas leader lists terms for recognizing Israel. So Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Leader, says:

"Let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs,"


Sounds reasonable to me. Then David Makovsky chimes in. His position? He is “director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy”. Impressive title! Makes you wonder if he brother to mother Teresa, or a disciple of Dali Lama! Here is what he says:

"This interview is filled with contradictions, including putting old wine in new bottles.”


Putting old wine in new bottle! Hamas Leader is asking Israel to recognize the Palestinian state. If that is an old wine, then what is the “Project of Middle East Process”? Do “The Project” believe in a two state solution?

But then it gets funnier:

"He is hinting that they might be reasonable if Israel does everything and they do nothing, while in Arabic they say they will not recognize even an inch of Tel Aviv,"


The language is funny... "hint" and "might be" vs "say" and "will not". But the content is ever more comical.


So “Israel does everything “ means Israel accept a two state solution and “they do nothing” means Hamas accepts two state solution.

Makes you wonder how the director of “The Project for Middle East War” would have responded.

But to add some spice to his views, he says “while in “Arabic they say they will not recognize even an inch of Tel Aviv,”.

Now this is putting old wine in new bottle. More like putting vinegar in wine bottle. This is what Israel always said about any Arab politician they didn't like. If it is so why don't they bring the Arabic text of the interview and let others translate it. That would be easy to do wont it? In this particular case the Hamas statements were in an interview with The Washington Post, does he have problem with Arabic translation of Washington post?

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