Israel continues its merciless pounding of the defenceless.

[Happy Face 29]

Anyone seen any good articles on the Palestinian rejection of the latest proposal to freeze the settlements? I only glanced over some; seems they still want a right of return to Israel. Jimmy Carter has been on record saying if they'd relent in that demand then they could get a solid agreement down.

 

Palestinians declined to take the bait of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday. Netanyahu offered an extension of the 10-month freeze on new Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank in return for a PA acknowledgment of Israel as a “Jewish State.” Obviously, the phrase has some covert significance for the Israeli Right, and perhaps it is intended to bestow on Israel a right to denaturalize and expel Palestinian-Israelis. The phrase may also be intended to forestall any return to Israel of the Palestinians ethnically cleansed from that territory in 1948.

 

Fatah official Saeb Erekat said he could not understand what Israel’s self-definition had to do with negotiations over the shape of a Palestinian state, and pointed out that the PLO had exchanged letters in 1993 recognizing the state of Israel. (The Palestinians do not understand how the Israelis can negotiate over the West Bank in good faith if they are de facto annexing large swathes of it even as the talks proceed.)

 

Israeli foreign minister and far-right social engineer Avigdor Lieberman lost his temper Sunday in a meeting with the Spanish and French foreign ministers. He told them to go solve Europe’s own disputes before coming to the Mideast and instructing Israel how to resolve its. Lieberman is then accused in some quarters of having leaked his comments to the press, embarrassing Spain and France. He is said to have pointed to France’s ban on the niqab or full Muslim face veil, and to Switzerland’s ban on minarets as signs of European difficulty in dealing with Muslims.

 

(Lieberman does not appear to understand the difference between banning the niqab, which is worn by almost no one in Europe, and keeping over 4 million human beings for decades in a condition of statelessness wherein they have no real human or civil rights.)

 

Lieberman, already angling for title of most corrupt politician in elective office in the world, now appears to be trying for the additional title of Worst Foreign Minister in the history of foreign ministers.

 

Spain and France, undeterred, continued their fact-finding mission in the region. France’s Bernard Kouchner even admitted that it may be necessary to go to the United Nations for a declaration on a Palestinian state.

 

From another side, Mahmoud Abbas told the Arab League summit this weekend at Sirte, Libya, that Israel has unilaterally abrogated the Oslo accords and other understandings it had reached with the Palestine Authority. It has stripped the Authority of much of its power, and makes daily incursions into PA territory.

 

Abbas raises the possibility that if the negotiations with Netanyahu continue to be frozen, he would go to the UN General Assembly with a plan for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, to be blessed by the UNO.

 

The problem is that although the UN could give Palestine a seat as a nation, unless the Israeli army were induced to withdraw from the West Bank and to cease blockading Gaza (which is being economically strangled by an illegal and inhumane Israeli ban on civilian exports), the resulting “state” would remain a fantasy.

 

If NATO would agree to reassign the troops now beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan to Palestine, and would face down any Israeli intransigence, now that would be a plan.

 

But nothing so dramatic is likely to ensue. Fanatics like Lieberman have taken over Israel and they have no future in a Muslim Middle East that is now growing faster than Israel economically and which is likely to become more and more militarily and scientifically sophisticated. As Obama’s initiative for a two-state solution is thwarted by the Liebermans and Netanyahus, their actions guarantee that Israel’s future in coming decades is bleak. Unfortunately, the attendant trouble generated by that bleakness is likely to fall on the heads of all our children.

 

The go to guy

 

Cheers for the youtube link btw, I'll have a look at some point.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

I've not watched it, seemed appropriate to pass on though. C. Hitchens has written/talked extensively about Kissinger, he absolutely loathes him, did a book on him (The Trial Of Henry Kissinger) which is probably worth picking up as CH seems to be at his best when writing in a polemical style; his articles slating Ratzinger and the Vatican recently have been very lively.

 

 

"Lieberman, already angling for title of most corrupt politician in elective office in the world, now appears to be trying for the additional title of Worst Foreign Minister in the history of foreign ministers."

 

I'm sure he would have some stiff competition on those fronts.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[Happy Face 29]

Leaked documents released by al-Jazeera TV suggest Palestinian negotiators agreed to Israel keeping large parts of illegally occupied East Jerusalem.

 

The TV channel says it has thousands of confidential records covering the peace process between 2000 and 2010.

 

The papers also reportedly show Palestinian leaders proposing a joint committee to take over Jerusalem's holy sites of Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.

 

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the documents.

 

Al-Jazeera says it has 16,076 confidential records of meetings, emails, communications between Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders.

 

The papers are believed to have leaked from the Palestinian side.

 

The alleged offers relating to East Jerusalem are the most controversial, as the issue has been a huge stumbling block in Mideast talks and both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.

 

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements.

 

Increasing frustration

According to al-Jazeera, in May 2008, Ahmed Qureia, the lead Palestinian negotiator at the time, proposed that Israel annex all Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem except Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim), in a bid to reach a final deal.

 

"This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition," he reportedly said, pointing out that this was a bigger concession than made at Camp David talks in 2000.

 

PLO leaders also privately suggested swapping part of the flashpoint East Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere, according to the leaked documents.

 

And Palestinian negotiators were reported to be willing to discuss limiting the number of Palestinian refugees returning to 100,000 over 10 years.

 

These are all highly sensitive issues and have previously been non-negotiable.

 

Current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been suspended for months, ostensibly over Israel's refusal to stop building Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

 

The BBC's Wyre Davies, in Jerusalem, says that for years, the same Palestinian leaders have been talking with Israeli and American negotiators - but getting nowhere.

 

Our correspondent says there has been increasing frustration and protest among many Palestinians over what they see as Israeli expansion and the weakness of their own leaders - a view that will be reinforced by the leak of these documents.

 

The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who features in many of the leaked papers, appeared on Al Jazeera Arabic TV on Sunday to strenuously deny that he had made these sorts of offers.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12263095

[Rob W 0]

Everything is negotiable in diplomacy - that's why they hold the meetings secretly

 

you have to give and take

 

if you don't all you are doing is setting out the ground rules for the next war

 

I'd have thought the Israelis would understand that by now

[LeazesMag 0]

Israel should just sit back and let the whole of the Middle East attack them to keep everybody happy.

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

Would you say the same thing if Israel was a nation of homosexuals instead of Jews? Antisemitism rears its ugly head again. And before you mention anything about prejudice, I have already stated that my record of supporting gay rights is impeccable, having purchased every Right Said Fred album and even voted for Will Young on the X Factor, so don't even try me on that front, I can hold my head high, loud and proud.

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

Would you say the same thing if Israel was a nation of homosexuals instead of Jews? Antisemitism rears its ugly head again. And before you mention anything about prejudice, I have already stated that my record of supporting gay rights is impeccable, having purchased every Right Said Fred album and even voted for Will Young on the X Factor, so don't even try me on that front, I can hold my head high, loud and proud.

 

 

And it basically is, Dana International is just the tip of the banana

[LeazesMag 0]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

[LeazesMag 0]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

[Guest alex]

That and merciless-pounding.com

[Park Life 71]

That and merciless-pounding.com

 

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

[LeazesMag 0]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

 

Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks.

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

 

Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks.

 

I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

He won't likely need it, his sex life is explosive. He has sex in the correct position: up and down.

[LeazesMag 0]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

 

Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks.

 

I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night.

 

I doubt it sweetie. You're obviously quite a bit of an expert yourself, with lots of experience.

[Meenzer 15523]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

 

Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks.

 

I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night.

 

I doubt it sweetie. You're obviously quite a bit of an expert yourself, with lots of experience.

 

I'm flattered. Just for that, I'll PM you some links for when you get bored of David and his "special friends".

[LeazesMag 0]

The phrase "straw man in a wheelchair with learning difficulties" springs to mind

 

http://www.sweet-david.com/

 

I swear you must be on commission from that place.

 

just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear

 

I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

 

Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks.

 

I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night.

 

I doubt it sweetie. You're obviously quite a bit of an expert yourself, with lots of experience.

 

I'm flattered. Just for that, I'll PM you some links for when you get bored of David and his "special friends".

 

nah lad, keep your helping hand for your own special friends.

[Park Life 71]

Papers reveal how Palestinian leaders gave up fight over refugees

• Negotiators agreed just 10,000 to return

• PLO agreed Israel could be a 'Jewish state'

• US suggested Palestinians live in Latin America

 

 

 

Palestinian refugees, who fled the besie Palestinian refugees, who fled the besieged camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon. Photograph: Ramzi Haidar/Getty

 

Palestinian negotiators privately agreed that only 10,000 refugees and their families, out of a total refugee population exceeding 5 million, could return to Israel as part of a peace settlement, leaked confidential documents reveal. PLO leaders also accepted Israel's demand to define itself as an explicitly Jewish state, in sharp contrast to their public position.

 

The latest disclosures from thousands of pages of secret Palestinian records of more than a decade of failed peace talks, obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared exclusively with the Guardian, follow a day of shock and protests in the West Bank, where Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders angrily denounced the leaks as a "propaganda game". The documents have already become the focus of controversy among Israelis and Palestinians, revealing the scale of official Palestinian concessions rejected by Israel, but also throwing light on the huge imbalance of power in a peace process widely seen to have run into the sand.

 

The latest documents to be released reveal:

 

• The then Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, repeatedly pressed in 2007-08 for the "transfer" of some of Israel's own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal that would exchange Palestinian villages now in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

 

• The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and other American officials refused to accept any Palestinian leadership other than that of Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister, Salam Fayyad. The US "expects to see the same Palestinian faces", one senior official explained, if it was to continue funding the PA.

 

• Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under George Bush, suggested in 2008 Palestinian refugees could be resettled in South America. "Maybe we will be able to find countries that can contribute in kind," she said. "Chile, Argentina, etc."

• Livni told Palestinian negotiators in 2007 that she was against international law and insisted that it could not be included in terms of reference for the talks: "I was the minister of justice", she said. "But I am against law – international law in particular."

 

The scale of the compromise secretly agreed on refugees will be controversial among Palestinians who see the flight or expulsion of refugees when Israel was created in 1948 as their catastrophe (nakba) – while most Israelis regard the Palestinian right of return as incompatible with a democratic Jewish state.

 

 

Condolizard the fucking witch.

Edited January 25, 2011 by Park Life

[sniffer 0]

Let;s face it. Even the arabs don't want them.

[Happy Face 29]

The Charade of Israeli-Palestinian Talks

 

Washington’s pathetic capitulation to Israel while pleading for a meaningless three-month freeze on settlement expansion – excluding Arab East Jerusalem – should go down as one of the most humiliating moments in U.S. diplomatic history.

 

In September the last settlement freeze ended, leading the Palestinians to cease direct talks with Israel. Now the Obama administration, desperate to lure Israel into a new freeze and thus revive the talks, is grasping at invisible straws – and lavishing gifts on a far-right Israeli government.

 

The gifts include $3 billion for fighter jets. The largesse also happens to be another taxpayer grant to the U.S. arms industry, which gains doubly from programs to expand the militarization of the Middle East.

 

U.S. arms manufacturers are subsidized not only to develop and produce advanced equipment for a state that is virtually part of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment but also to provide second-rate military equipment to the Gulf states – currently a precedent-breaking $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which is a transaction that also recycles petrodollars to an ailing U.S. economy.

 

Israeli and U.S. high-tech civilian industries are closely integrated. It is small wonder that the most fervent support for Israeli actions comes from the business press and the Republican Party, the more extreme of the two business-oriented political parties. The pretext for the huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia is defense against the “Iranian threat.”

However, the Iranian threat is not military, as the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence have emphasized. Were Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capacity, the purpose would be deterrent – presumably to ward off a U.S.-Israeli attack.

 

The real threat, in Washington’s view, is that Iran is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries “stabilized” by U.S. invasion and occupation.

 

The official line is that the Arab states are pleading for U.S. military aid to defend themselves against Iran. True or false, the claim provides interesting insight into the reigning concept of democracy. Whatever the ruling dictatorships may prefer, Arabs in a recent Brookings poll rank the major threats to the region as Israel (88 percent), the United States (77 percent) and Iran (10 percent).

 

It is interesting that U.S. officials, as revealed in the just-released WikiLeaks cables, totally ignored Arab public opinion, keeping to the views of the reigning dictators.

 

The U.S. gifts to Israel also include diplomatic support, according to current reports. Washington pledges to veto any U.N. Security Council actions that might annoy Israel’s leaders and to drop any call for further extension of a settlement freeze.

 

Hence, by agreeing to the three-month pause, Israel will no longer be disturbed by the paymaster as it expands its criminal actions in the occupied territories.

 

That these actions are criminal has not been in doubt since late 1967, when Israel’s leading legal authority, international jurist Theodor Meron, advised the government that its plans to initiate settlements in the occupied territories violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, a core principle of international humanitarian law, established in 1949 to criminalize the horrors of the Nazi regime.

 

Meron’s conclusion was endorsed by Justice Minister Ya’akov Shimson Shapira, and shortly after by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, writes historian Gershom Gorenberg in “The Accidental Empire.”

 

Dayan informed his fellow ministers, “We must consolidate our hold so that over time we will succeed in ‘digesting’ Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and merging them with ‘little’ Israel,” meanwhile “dismember(ing) the territorial contiguity” of the West Bank, all under the usual pretense “that the step is necessary for military purposes.”

 

Dayan had no doubts, or qualms, about what he was recommending: “Settling Israelis in occupied territory contravenes, as is known, international conventions,” he observed. “But there is nothing essentially new in that.”

 

Dayan’s correct assumption was that the boss in Washington might object formally, but with a wink, and would continue to provide the decisive military, economic and diplomatic support for the criminal endeavors.

 

The criminality has been underscored by repeated Security Council resolutions, more recently by the International Court of Justice, with the basic agreement of U.S. Justice Thomas Buergenthal in a separate declaration. Israel’s actions also violate U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning Jerusalem. But everything is fine as long as Washington winks.

 

Back in Washington, the Republican super-hawks are even more fervent in their support for Israeli crimes. Eric Cantor, the new majority leader in the House of Representatives, “has floated a novel solution to protect aid for Israel from the current foreign aid backlash,” Glenn Kessler reports in The Washington Post: “giving the Jewish state its own funding account, thus removing it from funds for the rest of the world.”

 

The issue of settlement expansion is simply a diversion. The real issue is the existence of the settlements and related infrastructure developments. These have been carefully designed so that Israel has already taken over more than 40 percent of the occupied West Bank, including suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; the arable land; and the primary water sources of the region, all on the Israeli side of the Separation Wall – in reality an annexation wall.

 

Since 1967, Israel has vastly expanded the borders of Jerusalem in violation of Security Council orders and despite universal international objection (including the U.S., at least formally).

 

The focus on settlement expansion, and Washington’s groveling, are not the only farcical elements of the current negotiations. The very structure is a charade. The U.S. is portrayed as an “honest broker” seeking to mediate between two recalcitrant adversaries. But serious negotiations would be conducted by some neutral party, with the U.S. and Israel on one side, and the world on the other.

 

It is hardly a secret that for 35 years the U.S. and Israel have stood virtually alone in opposition to a consensus on a political settlement that is close to universal, including the Arab states, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (including Iran), and all other relevant parties.

 

With brief and rare departures, the two rejectionist states have preferred illegal expansion to security. Unless Washington’s stand changes, political settlement is effectively barred. And expansion, with its reverberations throughout the region and the world, continues.

 

http://www.truth-out.org/the-charade-israe...nian-talks65701

[Rob W 0]

Let;s face it. Even the arabs don't want them.

 

 

aye they're on their own

[Happy Face 29]

A Palestinian man who died in disputed circumstances in Israeli custody has been given a hero's funeral, with thousands thronging his grave and Palestinian police firing a 21-gun salute.

 

Palestinian officials say autopsy results show that Arafat Jaradat was tortured during Israeli interrogation, while Israeli officials said more tests were needed to determine the cause of death.

 

 

The weekend death of the 30-year-old petrol station attendant and father of two comes amid rising West Bank tensions that have prompted talk in Israel about the possibility of a new Palestinian uprising. There have also been daily protests in support of 4,600 Palestinians held by Israel.

 

The fate of the prisoners is sensitive in Palestinian society, where virtually every family has had a member imprisoned by Israel. Detainees are held on a range of charges, from stone-throwing to deadly attacks, and are seen as heroes resisting occupation. Israelis tend to view them as terrorists.

 

 

Palestinian and Israeli officials traded accusations on Monday, each saying the other was trying to exploit the latest unrest for political gains.

 

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel was trying to provoke the Palestinians with what he said were increasingly lethal methods by Israeli security forces clamping down on Palestinian protests.

 

 

"However they try to drag us to that place, we won't be dragged," said Abbas. "We won't be dragged, but they [israelis] have to bear the responsibility."

 

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev alleged that Abbas's self-rule government in the West Bank is inciting violence against Israel. Palestinian officials have called for more solidarity rallies for the prisoners.

 

 

The harsher tones on both sides came less than a month before the expected visit of the US president, Barack Obama, to Israel and the West Bank.

 

A West Bank flare-up in the coming weeks would underscore the Palestinian argument that the US needs to step up as mediator. The Palestinians believe that without US pressure on Israel, there will be no progress in peace efforts.

 

 

Abbas, an outspoken opponent of the shootings and bombings of the second Palestinian uprising a decade ago, has said he would not allow an armed uprising on his watch.

 

But tensions have been rising in recent days, with a number of protests in solidarity with prisoners held by Israel, and then the death of Jaradat over the weekend.

 

 

At Monday's funeral, thousands marched behind Jaradat's body, draped in a Palestinian flag, as the procession snaked through his home town of Saeer, just north of the West Bank city of Hebron.

 

Palestinian police maintained order and seven officers fired a 21-gun salute near the grave.

 

 

Abbas Zaki, a senior member of Abbas's Fatah movement, described Jaradat's death as an Israeli crime. "I am telling Fatah members that our enemy only understands the language of force," he told the crowd in what appeared to be a call to violence. He did not elaborate.

 

Jaradat was arrested on 18 February on suspicion that he had thrown stones at Israelis. He died on Saturday at Israel's Megiddo prison after several days of interrogation by the Shin Bet security service.

 

 

Israel's forensics institute performed an autopsy on Sunday in the presence of a physician from the Palestinian Authority.

 

The Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Issa Karake, said after being briefed by the Palestinian doctor that Jaradat had been tortured. He said Jaradat was bruised over his body and had two broken ribs.

 

 

Jaradat's brother, Mohammed, said he saw the body on Sunday and believed his brother had been severely beaten.

 

Israel's health ministry said the autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death, but that the bruising and broken ribs were probably the result of attempts to revive the detainee. It said more testing was needed.

 

 

Amos Gilad, an Israeli defence official, alleged that Palestinian officials were jumping to conclusions. "It's intended to incite," Gilad told Israel Army Radio on Monday. "There is a clear political purpose to stir things up."

 

http://www.guardian....funeral-custody

 

 

 

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has landed in southern Israel - the first such attack since shortly after a ceasefire ended eight days of clashes in November, Israeli police say.

 

The rocket caused some damage to a road in Ashkelon but no injuries.

 

The strike follows confrontations in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters.

 

Riots broke out across the West Bank at the weekend after a Palestinian man died in Israeli custody.

 

Israeli police spokesman Doron Ben-Amo told the BBC a missile fired from Gaza landed in an industrial area in Ashkelon and some damage was caused to infrastructure.

 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack from militants in Gaza, where Egyptian mediators helped negotiate the November ceasefire.

 

Although levels of cross-border violence have dropped sharply since the conflict, two Palestinians have been shot dead close to the border, where Israel maintains a buffer zone which civilians are forbidden to enter.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/21583481

 

So Israel torture and kill a fella for throwing a stone....BBC don't report it.

 

A couple of other Palestinians are shot dead on the border, not worth a mention.

 

Then a road!!!! gets damaged in Israel and it's the third biggest story on the beeb mid-east. They flag it as "The first" attack since the ceasefire referring specifically to rocket attacks giving the false impression it wasn't in response to Israeli violence. What mention of the dead torture victim there is offers no suggestion of mis-treatment.

 

Standard.

 

Expect more false accusations of palestinians jeopardising the peace process.