WASHINGTON — Jordan on Monday joined Saudi Arabia in publicly rejecting U.S. appeals to improve relations with Israel to help restart Middle East peace talks, throwing a damper on the Obama administration’s push for Arab support behind new negotiations.
After talks here with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said confidence-building measures that the U.S. wants Arab states to take will not produce a resolution to the conflict.
Judeh and Clinton both criticized Israel for its weekend eviction of Palestinian families from an Arab neighborhood in east Jerusalem. But as Clinton looked on at a joint news conference at the State Department, Judeh rebuffed calls for Arabs to take incremental steps in normalizing relations with Israel before Israel agrees to withdraw from occupied Arab territory.
“In the Middle East, there has been in the past an overinvestment, perhaps, by the parties in pursuing confidence-building measures, conflict-management techniques, including transitional arrangements, and an overemphasis on gestures, perhaps at the expense of reaching the actual end game,” he said.
Judeh said that “piecemeal approaches that never lead to peace and that have proven repeatedly to be confidence-eroding, rather than confidence-building” must be avoided.
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Comments: 37
Can YOU speculate a bit about "Why it is that the other MUSLIM states are starting to 'think and feel' as they do about 'confidence building"? Why, for instance, do you think the Jordanians (and Saudis too) are enunciating such a position? Is it based on a a secular reason? A 'sacred-religious reason'? A loyalty to one-another Muslim states reason, or reasons? Or ... ? Best guesses would be nmuch appreciated by me!
Does the apparent aggregate dismissal of the "PIECEMEAL" approach' suggest that there IS an approach that can be, and must be, "COMPREHENSIVE"? If so, what are the necessary ingredients of such a position as you see the future likelihoods of success or failure?
Dick
I will probably be blunter than you might like.
However, I feel that it’s all about the land. And only about the land.
There is only so much land in that area to start with and there is getting to be too many people. The Israelis, in my opinion, tho feel that it is their land to do what they wish as they won it in the 1967 war.
The building of the settlements in the Palestinian territory for the purpose of moving Jewish families there into the Palestinian part is and has been a problem with the Palestinians, as well as the destruction of the Palestine homes in the East of Jerusalem. However, the Israel’s I feel think that they need the Palestinian space as there isn’t going to be enough land in the future. That reasoning is the exact same reason that Hitler had when he went into Poland, as Hitler felt that there wasn’t enough physical space in Germany for the German people and they could add more space or the land of Poland to the German land, and remove the polish people that lived there.
At this current point in time, as I see it, there is no country called Palestine as far as the Jewish people are concerned, and likewise there is no country that is called Israel as far as the Palestinian people are concerned. However, as Israel has the military presents in that part of the world they can do whatever they want up to a point, and that point is where ever the US lets them go. Therefore, the people of Israel are removing the Palestinian from their homes in east Jerusalem and building new settlements in the area that is in the West bank.
All of this is not going over very well with the other Arab people in the Middle East.
This needs in fact to be turned back, and not just stopped.
The latest "murder spree" was an act of self defense. It is the instigators, Hamas, who are to blame.
The last time the Israelis withdrew from land it merely encouraged Hamas to continue its efforts. hamas does not recognize any borders.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
TRUTH emerges when the many different views about issues are clearly enunciated by informed folk -- like YOU. This is the way COHERENCE comes to become in my estimation. This blatant honest reasoning by you is a first step and to be honored. "Mix up the stew!" Get ALL important perspectives to see and dwell in the light of day (not always in calm ways, unfortunately). BUT better 'out' than 'hidden within' us speakers and concerned folk.
There then will come the TIME when one idea gains ground, and another one disappears. Or when the system structure of 'ever deeper understanding' starts to appear. PROCESS is a way to develop negotiations and is too often NOT undertaken. Using a TIME PROCESS is a basic GOOD because the TRUTH thrives where breadth of vision and information cohering systemically in intellectual SIMPLICITY, starts to 'shape up'. It is then that there is a readiness for honest to GOD, FULL UNDERSTANDING to start to emerge so that EFFECTIVE LONG-RANGE POLICY can come become a more likely possibility. Gifts from intelligent interactions among wiser and wiser persons and groups!
Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! What is happening here is the slow formulation of a set of operative principles that can suggest new approaches via a scenario of those principles in action. "LAND ALONE" is a legitimate way to think about the possible path toward a long-range solution to this awesome problem which has very, very, very deep HISTORICAL ROOTS. I hope that lots of persons join in. The WORLD desperately needs broader and broader understanding of THIS, which is a most important problem, brought into prominence here by YOU.
But my vote now is that the primary problem is beginning to be not enough land for Israel and all the people that want to live there, not enough room.
Years ago when I was an academic I had a graduate assistant helping me with some reesearch I was doing relating to Top Manager issues in private firms. Much earlier I had been a United Nations Interne during the period of the establishment by the UN of the new state of Israel, and was interested in leaders in governments. My graduate assistant WAS an Israeli and I had the pleasure and good fortune to get to know that young man reasonably well. He -- at the time -- did exhibit real interest in LAND ACQUISITION in Israel and use at the time. That was in the mid fifties.
I had written my doctoral dissertation on the growth of the United States after WWI and extending to about 1950. My focus interested him and I loaned him my notes from a course I had taken named "ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT" which was given by a Russian Jewish professor who eventually won the Nobel Prize for that Ec growth purpose and for the development of methods to MEASURE GROSS NATIONAL (NOW CALLED DOMESTIC) PRODUCT WHICH IS NOW A STANDARD FOR MEASUREMENT IN MOST OF OUR WORLD'S NATIONS {GNP=GDP}. My assistant was taken in by the wisdom in the notes (provided by my professor, Simon Kuznets) and began to lean heavily on ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT concepts rather than my assistant's established concern for the land issue. He saw that a very real problem for a growing Israel had to do with establishing 'profitable' and 'viable' means to improve HUMAN standards of living in his 'homeland' to which, after graduate school, he was pledged and did return.
I had other young Jewish friends who went to Israel to join in the developmnents then (circa 1950++). They too were anxious to develop their NEW homeland but were USA citizens with religious and 'near idealistic' purposes. It wasn't easy to live in Israel in the first years of its creation, but there was an unstoppable intent to do so from many people in the diaspora -- the rest of the World.
I have always thought that Jewish-Palestinian developments hung in (at least) around two FUNDAMENTAL issues : (1) A pragmatic desire of the Jewish to LIVE WELL and develop ECONOMICALLY and SOCIALLY, that seemed NOT to be shared by the Palestinians then (although now I think the scene is changing)., and (2) A philosophic and theological difference that is at present not seen clearly well enough by us 'outsiders' , That key idea goes towards Jerry's perspective. That is : the differences in the VISIONS each group (Israelis and Palestinians) has about their (different?) GOD.
The Jewish believe (perhaps I should say the OLDER Israelis believe) that GOD created every PERSON as divine and perhaps always to be in a growth mode and thus imperfect, so that SECULARISM is, and can always be, an important ingredient in HUMAN LIFE in the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE. This notion may be a contrast with the Muslim Vision which seems to create two categories where basic intents are to try to make all human beings conform to GODLIKE vision expressed in the great KORAN as illustrated by their great thinkers. In a sense (and I feel on shaky ground here because of my ignorance) GOD IS GOD, and PERSON IS PERSON and must become more GODLIKE in order to fulfill GOD's (ALLAH'S) plan for human destiny. The differences between Sunnis and Shi'a express the character of the fault line which is peculiar. Rules on Earth must be fashioned and installed by the generic line of Mohammed's family, versus the far broader vision of the Sunni's who must be presumed to believe that the leaders of the emerging WORLD will and must be picked by a different PROCESS. There seems to be no opposition here to democratic voting (by ALL the people) where there is recognition that ALL persons have to grow up from low knowledge and awareness (babies) to adults who have accumulated world experiences and knowldedge AND consciousness and are thus 'fit' to govern if called upon to do so.
OUR WORLD will come together ONLY when many of us humans see that EVER-FULLER CONSCIOUSNESS based on loving concern for one another, IS the path to WORLD PEACE and PROGRESS and PROSPERITY -- in my (2009) opinion. I don't have a clue of what I will think in 2010, except that I sincerely hope that I am not too off base and wrong NOW!!
Don't get me wrong here with the thinking part.
For I'll get back with something.
As in the seventies I worked in the same office with someone we called the little rabbi, and later with an Israeli national that was very good at her job but one day just up and left to go back to Israel.
Then in the late nineties with a woman from Jordan and several men from Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, as well as hundreds from India and a few other countries.
later, I need to think
That created the problem between Israel and Egypt.
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Why was that done?
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The Israeli cabinet decided to launch a general offensive on May 23, immediately upon receiving the news that the straits would be closed. Some 70,000 reservists were called up to augment the regular IDF forces.] On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack. This claim was, however, disputed by Arab countries that asserted Israel's strike was an act of aggression.
Jordan, which had signed a mutual defence treaty with Egypt on May 30, then attacked western Jerusalem and Netanya.
Syria charged that Israel was harassing Arab farmers in the Demilitarized Zone and opening fire on Syrian military positions, while Israeli armored tractors were cultivating Arab land in the Demilitarized Zone, backed by Israel armed forces illegally placed there. Nine years later, Moshe Dayan, the Israeli defense minister at the time of the war, stated in an interview not published until 1997 that Israeli policy on the Syrian border between 1949 and 1967 consisted of "snatching bits of territory and holding on to it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us." He outlined the situation in much the same way the Syrian government had described it:
After all, I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was. I did that, and Laskov and Chara did that, and Yitzhak did that, but it seemed to me that the person who most enjoyed these games was Dado.
However, some have debated whether his version of what happened was colored by his disgrace after the 1973 Middle East war, when he was forced to resign as Defense Minister over the failure to anticipate the Arab attack. Dayan's contention was hotly denied by Muky Tsur, a longtime leader of the United Kibbutz Movement who said For sure there were discussions about going up the Golan Heights or not going up the Golan Heights, but the discussions were about security for the kibbutzim in Galilee, he said. I think that Dayan himself didn't want to go to the Golan Heights. This is something we've known for many years. But no kibbutz got any land from conquering the Golan Heights. People who went there went on their own. It's cynicism to say the kibbutzim wanted land.
Historian and Israel ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren says about Dayan's comment's
There is an element of truth to Dayan's claim, but it is important to note that Israel regarded the de-militarized zones in the north as part of their sovereign territory and reserved the right to cultivate them-a right that the Syrians consistently resisted with force. Syria also worked to divert the Jordan River before it flowed into Israel, aiming to deprive the Jewish state of its principle water source; Syria also actively supported Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel. Israel occasionally exploited incidents in the de-militarized zones to strike at the Syrian water diversion project and to punish the Syrians for their support of terror. Dayan's remarks must also be taken in context of the fact that he was a member of the opposition at the time. His attitude toward the Syrians changed dramatically once he became defense minister. Indeed, on June 8, 1967, Dayan bypassed both the Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff in ordering the Israeli army to attack and capture the Golan.
During May and June the Israeli government had worked hard to keep Jordan out of any war; it was concerned about being attacked on multiple fronts, and did not want to have to deal with the Palestinian population of the West Bank. However, Jordan's King Hussein got caught up in the wave of pan-Arab nationalism preceding the war; and so, on May 30, Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria. The move surprised both Egyptians and foreign observers, because President Nasser had generally been at odds with Hussein, calling him an "imperialist lackey" just days earlier. Nasser said that any differences between him and Hussein were erased "in one moment" and declared: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."
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Enough of that, which is the why.
OK Land vs religion
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Why this attitude, it has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with land?
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We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.
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More stuff
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The Biblical definitions of Eretz Israel encompass different regions; the actual area defined by these Bible passages is also subject to differences of opinion.
This term should not be confused with historical Israelite kingdoms or with the modern State of Israel or Medinat Yisrael.
Prior to the foundation of the State of Israel, the term Eretz Ysrael was used by Jews to refer to the area then generally known among non-Jews as the Holy Land or as Palestine. Since 1967, the term has been associated with the political right, especially the Likud party.
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I think I'll stop here with this part
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93% of the land in Israel is in the public domain; that is, either property of the state, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) or the Development Authority.
The Israel Land Administration (ILA) is the government agency responsible for managing this land which comprises 4,820,500 acres (19,508,000 dunams). "Ownership" of real estate in Israel usually means leasing rights from the ILA for 49 or 98 years.
Legal Framework
Four cornerstones make up the legal basis of the Israel land policy:
Basic Law establishing the Israel Land Administration (1960)
Israel Lands Law (1960)
Israel Land Administration (1960)
Covenant between the State of Israel and the World Zionist Organization
(Jewish National Fund) (1960)
The Israel Land Council determines the policy of the ILA. The chairman of the Council is the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Industry, Trade, Labor and Communications.
The Council is comprised of 22 members; 12 represent government ministries and 10 represent the Jewish National Fund.
The Director General of the ILA is appointed by the government.
Functions of the ILA
Guarantee that the national land is used in accordance with Israeli laws.
Actively protect and supervise state lands.
Make state land available for public use.
Plan, develop and manage state land reserves.
Initiate planning and development
(Including relocation of existing occupants).
Regulate and manage registration of state lands.
Authorize contracts and agreements with other parties.
Provide services to the general public.
Well as you probably know there are three different types of Jewish folk. There are the black hat Jews, the classical style Jews, and the modern style Jews. There are some differences here in the land spectrum, also that ranges from Israel is only in that little spot on this earth, to Israel is actually in that tiny little spot but I think at time is also can be expanded to the United States, to the modern Jewish thought of some is that the state of Israel is only a state of mind and can be anywhere on this earth, in fact the state of Israel can physically be in every square inch of this Earth as it’s really a state of mind and not a physical space at all.
Therefore, as I have been involved with those modern Jews, one becoming the principle of a Hebrew school in the LA area, and another that desired to go back to Israel that was a traditional Jewish woman that was married that shaved her head every day and always wore a wig. I think I’ll go with the little rabbi that told me that stuff.
Therefore, as the state of Israel is every square inch of this world to the modern Jewish person, I feel that what is going on in Israel at this time is an old fashioned land and water rights grab issue, and nothing to do with religion at all.
That battle has lasted 5000 years.
Nothing the west does will make an effect on the ending.
There is a lot of historical enmity there.
I can see from your informed positions that there are great complexities in coming to a satisfactory 'living together' position, as you se our troubled WORLD. The problem of Jerusalem and Israel and Palestine represent for our (Western only?) WORLD a major issue in "What does to mean to become civilized (and then PROGRESS) in ways where dislike and dysfunctional actionable ideas are set into a background that is NOT charged with anxieties and discord? What is a proper and possible LONG-RANGE solution?
Almost ALL politics is geared up to be Short-Term, as I see the World. Maybe we do need Monarchs and Saints to head up our parliamentary type governments that will properly serve ALL OF THE PEOPLE, ALL OF THE TIME? This might be a viable solution if WE THE PEOPLE could always find such persons, install them into powerful positions, and let them set about then to develop visions of great things to be done to create the cities (and farms) of GOD in our tomorrows. THERE . however, IS THE PROBLEM! Where are these 'change agents'? Do they NOW exist?
Are such persons alive and ready to go at all times? Do reigning Monarchs who are magnificent now have progeny who are equally worthy? Do Saints generate Saints? Maybe, in the LONG-RUN, science will show us presently living human beings that each of us can live to become say 1000 (one thousand) years old. We need special kinds of leaders and perhaps blessed lives over 10 or so centuries that will bring us a greater likelihood of finding those 'hidden and unknown' (not by design) leaders.
I have been convinced for many years that most of our problems are not (at the highest level) organizational design issues but rather PEOPLE DESIGN and EDUCATED issues. Human Beings are created in the image of GOD in one way, certainly. WE -- COLLECTIVELY -- ARE CREATIVE (think artists, musicians, architects, actors, composers, writers, scientists, engineers, carpenters, plumbers, farmers, astronauts, truck drivers, railroad conductors etc). This vast diversity of skills and inherited gifts complicates and enriches the task of creating the cities and farms of our GOD.
The bottom line for me at my advanced age is that the real problem is to identify and train and then use the talents that are necessary for our COMING WORLD. For example I suggest to you that it is my (arguable position, I am sure) likely that we need fFAR fewer lawyers and far more technically trained legislators in our legislatures' governments). I think that our USA government is on the right track when it wants to center long term attention on EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE, and EXISTENTIAL SECURITY in order to join into likelihoods of GREATNESS in years to come on our PLANET (if we don't by stupidity, destroy our selves and our planet in the next few years or decades). 'WAR' and new forms of battling with civilians (especially our children) in the middle ,is becoming more obviously INSANE -- in MY opinion -- of course!
In connection with The tie the comments above to the Israeli-Israel issue, I'd suggest to you that IF we had wise leadership for say the next fifty years or so, WORLDWIDE, we might stabilize likelihoods of JOY and HAPPINESS and genuine PROGRESS for millennia to come. 'CLEAN HOUSE !!!' may be a role for our best psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosopher-theologians to embark upon for the future explosive evolutionary potential that could then be launched. There are many things wrong with LEADERSHIP (and organizational designs) in these troubled days now , and in our days ahead.
Many will not like what I will say now about this issue.
I suggested several years back, that the Shiites probably would be better off with a Caliphate, however, not as a country ruler but as a religious ruler for all the Shea in the world. That would or should be similar in scope to the Catholic Church and the Pope (both eastern and western) with the Sunni having one also for religious purposes.
The Islamic religions are very open to interpretations by all the Ayatollahs, for whatever they deem important. They run the show. However, I recommend that there be two schools of thought one for the Shea and another for the Sunni as a hierarchy where religious thought can give direction to the faithful.
Now then the Agrarian Society I am beginning to think is paramount and forgotten. I really believe that in some parts of most large countries this needs protection and support from the rest of society and rules to exist, which includes financial aid, for there is nothing inherently wrong with the ideas of that.
I also agree with you on Health Care support and Education support, and what you call existential security.
Creativity I feel is an Individual thing and not a group thing that has inherited gifts, complicates and enriches the task of creating the cities and farms or the agrarian society (my term), as you suggest. This I feel should be rewarded in all countries and religions of the world in fact.
However, ‘War’ that little word, as the populations continue to grow there will be more fights over those fundamental things like not enough land, water or the need for more land, water to live on.
I actually see the need to move into the oceans to live for some folks in the future.
I tho am not as optimistic as you about the Middle East.
When I introduced "creativity" as an important ingredient influencing the ways that TOP LEADERSHIPS should be chosen I did not then go into why 'changes' in the composition of our coming civilizations MUST display Creativity and Consciousness broadly. The 'piece' above was long and complex enough. But you picked up THE point that needs further amplification. What is meant by human creativity? What PROCESSES are involved here? HINT: EDUCATION and HEALTH for ALL of us human beings; endlessly!! EXISTENTIAL SECURITY too!!
My background is basically, sciences and technologies, technical. I have been interested almost all of my life with science theories and 'building and constructing' THINGS (my interest in Economic Development is more THING-oriented than THOUGHT-aesthetics-oriented by the reasoned conviction that our human and most basic task on our planet is to make it, our planet, more hospitable for all of us HUMAN BEINGS for ALL of our future 'forevers'. {Infer from that that I think human meaning is based fully on CREATIVE and TRANSFORMING (always) activities.}
That said, for me THE most important focus we humans must have to accomplish that CREATIVE-GROWTH task for our selves is to plan to develop more important WORLD services and industries, to develop more science and engineering and architectural skills in our youth (along with equally needed mathematics and statistical knowlwdge) and to create (via ongoing EDUCATION and TRAINING) MIND-HEART MUSCLE for eternal growth of ALL human CONSCIOUSNESS (whatever THAT is).
This latter intent -- CONSCIOUSNESS DEVELOPMENT -- carries my interests into the deepest part of my personal philosophic/scientific learning efforts and applying endeavors. The ROLES of RELIGIONS and THEOLOGIES as they link up (or SHOULD link-up) to both SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGIES -- very CREATIVELY, for the GOOD of the human race are fundamentals for me. One could suggest, if one were a deist or theist, that that intent flows from GOD's plan for us ever EVOLVING human folks. CHANGE and TIME awarenesses are GIFTS from GOD (I call GOD my Creating Universal Process to duck the debates of whether I believe in a GOD.) We must learn how to use them!! I see much physical and spiritual-design WONDER (engineering-wise) in the birth and functioning of a HUMAN child, not to think that something WONDROUS (about which we KNOW very little at the present time in science) is perhaps knowable but unknown in our present WORLD. That is the goal of CONSCIOUSNESS. We must come to know about the dimensions of that problem and to see its manifest eternal significance. (I have five children and twelve grand-children, and -- so far -- four great grandchildren, and I keep hoping that they will LIVE, LIVE, LIVE in the coming centuries.). They are shaping my politics as I think about their "Existential Security" -- which you and I have started talking about.
If I were to be harsh I would suggest that any physical conflict is close to absurdity, and is childlike in its basic causative drives. I'd place many of todays' conflicts in the category of uninformed and childish actions by national players who keep forgetting what LIFE and REAL CHALLENGE are all about. JIHAD at the basic level has it historicaly correct. It is designed to make persons undertake their PERSONAL TASKS of 'GROWING UP'. I'd have to put a lot about what is going on in the Mid-East and in the West and Far East into that perspective. Our young Children are not trained and educated enough YET to take over the tasks of creating CIVILIZED behavior and CIVILIZATIONS. I hope that some leaders do not fall into that classification but ... .
I am well aware that any physical conflicts are and well be absurd. I also am aware of human thought and that the 'folk' need leaders and the 'folk' will do what is asked of them by their leaders.
I am also aware that there are fewer thinkers than doers in the world now, and that greed is the self motivating factor of more than a few of the leaders at the current time. To change that on a global scale is not possible today. In the future? What rewards do you suggest other than cash or power. For who needs cash if one has all the necessary power?
I do agree that are many are not educated well enough. However, still in the future there must still be cesspool cleaners, as well as retail clerks and truck maintenance folk, and I love the piano players of the world.
That is also why I mentioned that I feel that maintaining an agrarian society would be beneficial and those should be protected and have financial support from governments around the world.
"What rewards?" YOUR QUESTION TO ME!!
Our great religions would suggest that the 'rewards' should be 'appreciation and gratefullness'. I have spent time trying to understand the deep messages within Buddhism (I was born into Catholicism but ... .). The 'words' (1) 'understanding the gifts from 'SUFFERING' (and the inevitability of it) ,and (2) learning about the deep meanings of divine (?) 'EMPTINESS' that can be likened to developing deep objectivity about events and encounters. Both of these key concepts carry basic messages for Buddhists. But there is another even more deep and relevant 'word' for them -- the Buddhists -- that can be factored into your deep question to get at an satisfactory (perhaps) answer. .
That word is 'SURRENDER'. For many years this word bothered me : 'surrender to who or what?" Take the stance that any action or thought can NEVER BE PERFECT. The Universe and our Planet are too complex for easy AND RATIONAL FULL UNDERSTANDING because as 'formal chaos theory' suggests in our current age, "everything is related to everything". The LOGICAL implication then is : any thing or thought can ever stand alone in any decision situation, but the demand is to find a SATISFACTORY solution that you KNOW is imperfect. CHANGE and EVOLUTION are always altering everything (Greek idea that you never put your foot in the same river twice.) . PROCESS is a time process and it may happen that through time a fuller understanding WILL occur in any problem area, but NEVER will any finite being find the 'perfect' enduring 'answer'.
SURRENDER then to the need for 'adequate understanding' and then to accept what the great mystic Meister Eckhart referred to as one's personal 'INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE'. That concept can generate a deep 'understanding of the WORTH OF OTHER PERSONS and even deeper appreciation for the (thought and thing) masterful designs that exist in GOD's NATURE (physical and spiritual) and thus each of us CAN find the great JOYS of knowing that you appreciate the OPPORTUNITY to have contributed. So, I presume that the reward that is available is to FIND a more perfect JOY, and perhaps even better, a BASIS for an enduring sense of one's personal PEACE.
But, like everything else short of the totality of GOD, perfect too is "relative" ... in that there is a dictionary definition, seldom used by folks, that defines it as "whole and complete" ... and of course "that" is what the human "is" that is fully in touch with he Spirit of GOD withIN themselves and following the INtuitive advice of that "still small voice" withIN which tells them to follow the Golden Rule and Love where they can fearing not.
Whole and complete, as GOD intended for that place and time, is as good as it gets, and will get nothing but better all of the time ... such a "realization" and Spiritual relationship is really what we are each and all destined to eventually have ... when that takes place everything else will fall into place and become a heaven on earth ... just saying. :-)
You and I sometimes have differing words and symbols for the same basic concepts. Through TIME I hope I have communicated to you that I am of the tested opinion that as an engineer I have always been fascinated by the wondrous PHYSICAL construction of every human and other animal on Earth. Some people label me as a person committed to the KEY (and much criticized) notion of "intelligent design" (which for many is NOT understood by critics). I also think that the genius of GOD's NATURE is to have living THINGS (humans and animals) EVOLVE which sort of places me in Darwin's Camp at the same time (which then denies me the label of "intelligent design") which more or less implies that the construction of persons is FIXED and PERFECT. Here is a basic MIX-UP : CREATIONISM and INTELLIGENT DESIGN.) The illustration of any CHILD as having 'grown' from 'sperm-ovum' in the womb of a woman. to a birthed CHILD and hence onward to a 'thinking reed' that is even more miraculous than the human beings physical construction makes "OUR HOME" WORLD and UNIVERSE a place where miracles abound, and REAL, You know I have labelled for myself this phenomenon of CREATOR the CUP (Creating Universal Process) which represents my position of the necessity to join Religious Thought with ALL Sciences. You accomplish the 'same' with your symbolism: {+ = -}.
The real issue in bringing our WORLD RELIGIONS together (into "existential harmony" is to extend our IMAGES of the GOD so that each religion holds on to the great and wondrous REALITIES. Then, as time goes on, to remove the notion of simple 'anthropomorphism' from our bounding linguistic etc imagery. GOD is at least, like PERSON, and vice versa but infinitely more. That's why I've tried to think of GOD (as you do) as a warm, loving, ineffable, CREATIVE PROCESS, rather than JUST another PERSON. The PERSON imagery is OK in early stages of knowledge acquisition because it enables each of us to think about PERFECTIBLE and PERFECT HUMAN BEINGS without the DIVINE ADDITIONS of SO MUCH ELSE hat IS and may BECOME.
That's what brings me to human beings purpose-fullness : by learning and participating with loving care, the DIVINE GROWTH ALWAYS toward a broader and broader HUMAN. BOUNDED CONSCIOUSNESS. To ever become, by our own efforts, MAKING OURSELVES INTO the TRUE IMAGE OF GOD. {+=-}. AT PEACE with HARMONY with one-another, PLANET-WIDE (at least).
I'm not sure this is true. It is impossible to move an whole mountain at once. It can, however, be accomplished one shoveful at a time. With lots of shovelers working side by side in cooperation, the mountain will be moved and a bond forged.
Without a desire for peace, the shovels will become weapons and the task will never be accomplished.
On one hand he criticized Israel for its refusal to halt construction of Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory and said the Israelis should respond to a 2002 Arab peace offer.
“Now, in 2009, many would say it is time for Israel to reciprocate,” he said.
Judeh’s comments marked the second time in three days that an Arab foreign minister bluntly refused U.S. calls to improve ties with Israel with measures such as opening trade offices, allowing academic exchanges and permitting civilian Israeli aircraft to overfly their airspace as a way of demonstrating their commitment to peace.
Despite the statements, Clinton maintained that U.S. special Mideast Peace envoy George Mitchell was making progress and praised Jordan for its playing “a strong and vital role” in the region and expressed hope that negotiations could soon resume.
“We are working with the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority and Arab states to take the steps needed to make that possible,” she said. “The foreign minister and I discussed this effort, and I expressed our deep appreciation for Jordan’s leadership in working with other Arab states to support peace with deeds, as well as words.”
At the same time, she criticized Israel for the eviction of the Palestinian families in east Jerusalem to enforce a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court that the houses belonged to Jews and that the Arab families had been living there illegally.
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Israel must comply with the Arabs and not just ignore them isn’t a solution but would be a step in the right direction I feel.