There is absolutely no comparison between the  problem we have with Cuba and the one with Israel.  Totally different and of incredibly different magnitudes.  The Cuba "problem" is entirely of our own making and can be corrected in a few months anytime we wish to do so.  Our only real hang up there is that we don't wish to solve that trivial problem.

Israel is a real problem, one that doesn't offer much in the way of possible solutions, and no solution that I have heard of that has the sllghtest chance of success.  While America is a part of that problelm, we are only a small part, and I know of nothing we can do that would solve the problem. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

I abandoned ANY hope that USA can play a constructive role in the Middle East. The current administration represents people who enjoy vicariously being as tough as they think America should be --- this is how I read the enthusiasm of people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for neo-con rationalisations, as well as the enthusiasm of our religious right (railing against homosexuals is not nearly enough, world-wide diabolic threat is sorely needed, and currently this is Islam).

Democrats come in two flavors -- some, like Lieberman, share the outlook of the right wing on ME matters. Others are thoroughly cowed. Recall flack that Hillary Clinton got for being civil to Arafat's wife, or that Howard Dean got because we uttered words "we should be even-handed". Even-handedness was aclaimed to be an anti-Israeli, if not anti-Semitic codeword. Such Democrats may push toward peaceful solutions and negotiations, but delicately so, and not against determined Israel's opposition --- opposition that would be promptly magnified by big sectors of our media and political sphere.

No Democrat with ambitions on national scale will crusade against death penalty, or against ridiculously high prison sentences, or for "evenhandedness" on Middle East matters. The punishment for daring in those matters is so high that other, more realistic priorities will win the day. In 5 years the political climate may be altered, but right now, demagogic scripts rule. Say, two Israeli governments and one complete presidential cycle in USA. Then again, may be not. The sane people of Israel are on their own.

I sincerely hoped that the modest re-alignment engineered by Sharon will lead some fruits in the peace process, but now it does not seems so, and I understand Jo-Ann's lack of confidence that Israel can proceed with peace process without American help. But this is the only way.

I have great faith in Marwan Baghouti and the Prisoners' Document, but I think Israel is years away from the kind of sanity and self-preserving common sense the country will need to take advantage of either. I disagree, however, that the U.S. needs to be a part of this process. The sooner Israel realizes that the U.S. is a failed hyperpower -- if not a failed state -- the sooner they'll start facing the bitter realities of their situation.

Tom Segev has an interesting piece in today's Haaretz in which he writes:

This process of Americanization has led Israel in recent years to covet a role in what Bush has described as a war on the "axis of evil."

As such, Israel has adopted the moral values of Hezbollah: Whatever they are doing to the residents of northern Israel, we can also do to the citizens of Lebanon, and even more.
......................
......................
If Europe had some say in the region, Israel may have started negotiations with Hezbollah on the release of the soldiers it abducted - and hopefully, it still will do so - instead of getting mixed up in war. For some years now, more Middle East-related wisdom emanates from Europe than from the United States. It wasn't Europe but the United States that invented the diplomatic fable called the road map; it wasn't Europe but the United States that encouraged unilateral disengagement and is allowing Israel to continue oppressing the population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The United States is not engaged with Syria; Europe is. Syria is relevant not only for settling the situation in Lebanon, but also in managing relations with the Palestinians. This is the real problem. Because, even if the United States conquers Tehran, we will still have to live with the Palestinians. In Europe, they already understand this.

Ms. Mort says:

In fact, I went to meet with Fares to discuss Palestinian prisoners and the document that some of them penned: the National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners, which sets principles for negotiating with Israel.

I'd like to read this document and more about the background.  Is it on the net anywhere?  Can someone provide a link?  Thanks in advance.

aMike

"...I think Israel is years away from the kind of sanity and self-preserving common sense the country will need to take advantage of either."

Agreed. But the Segev piece is one more example of why this is so; it releases the Israelis from responsibility for their own actions. Are they the children to be led by either Europe or the US? We're told often enough that the Israelis unlike the barbarians that surround them, are an 'enlightened' people. Isn't that why so many defend them? Or is it simply paranoia on the one hand and guilt on the other.

:-)

Thank you for providing the links 

aMike

Just one preemptive quibble: What's so intractable, especially internationally, about Cuba? I would say that, considering that it's a fundamentally peaceful country, open to the tourist and foreign trades with any country that cares to have normal relations with it (and that's every country minus 2, as far as I know), I see very little intractability in Cuba's international relations.

Cuba's human rights record is dismal of course -- hardly something that makes Cuba's very existence more intractable than, say, Pakistan or Egypt or China.

The intractable problem with Cuba survives only in U.S. domestic politics, and is entirely a product of Cold War fanaticism. In fact, it exists only in Florida politics. Poll after poll has shown the vast majority of the US public is ready to have normal relations with Cuba regardless of Castro's health conditions.

Sure, if you define anything Israel does which undermines its security as "self-defense" then its acts of "self-defense" have the paradoxical effect you describe. But that seems to take definitional liberty with the concept of "self-defense".

If it is true that Israel is engaged in actions which it believes constitute self-defense, and as a consequence of those actions it in fact undermines its security, the problem is tactical, and suggests a pressing need for better political and military leadership.

Unfortunately, that may in fact be the case. I was discussing the tactics Israel is using in Lebanon with a friend, and asked who would have chosen Israel's tactics against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He responded, "It had to be an air force officer, as only an air force officer would tell you that you can win this type of conflict primarily through air power." I am inclined to give that assessment considerable weight given that my friend is an air force officer.

I ask because the standard point in Iraq stories is that all the Iraqis imprisoned and all the mistreatment is creating more people who will fight the US. What Jo-Ann reports is the opposite of Iraq and even some of what we read about US prisons where prisoners can get"worse" inside.

I don't think there's necessarily a contradiction. In Northern Ireland, it is commonly understood that the policy of internment in the early 70s was a PR disaster for the British and swelled the ranks of youth willing to join the IRA. Those new recruits were coming from people (a) who had been interned - for relatively short periods and (b) people who knew people (friends, relatives) who had been interned and were outraged on their behalf.

That doesn't mean that some others who were imprisoned, perhaps for longer periods, didn't realize in the time they had to reflect that they weren't doing themselves (or the cause) any favors by languishing inside. All the Sinn Fein leaders would have had time interned behind bars. (As a meaningless aside I once shared a table in a West Belfast bar with Danny Morrison former Sinn Fein assembly member, as he and another former internee (my friend's uncle Colm) reminisced about their internment time together. I should say my feelings about Morrison - he had by that time served a long prison sentence for conspiracy to murder - made it a rather uncomfortable experience for me).

For another example, there is no doubt that the existence of Gitmo enflames opinion across the Muslim world. But we shouldn't assume that those men who are actually spending time inside are actually going to take up arms (again?) against the US should they get their freedom.

In Iraq and in Palestine it is probably best to distinguish between those people picked up and harrassed by the occupying forces for a short time, and those who are spending large portions of their lives behind bars.

In summary, an oppressive and apparently discriminatory policy of repression against an occupied populace can both serve to inflame the community at large, while having a different perhaps sobering effect on the individuals particularly affected.

Jo-Ann, I am not sure why there is such a fetish for US involvement, when historically the peace treaties (and other agreements) between Israel and Arab countries have come about without it. The two peace treaties that Israel has - with Egypt and Jordan - did not involve any US involvement. They were negotiated in secret between the parties and only brought to the US when everything had been worked out. The US was asked to be the guarantor, but did not participate in any of the negotiations.

The "Prisoners Document" like the "Geneva Initiative" are nothing substantive; they are pure PR which will lead nowhere. Once there is a true desire on the Arab part to have peace with Israel, and to accept Israel's existence in the Middle East, such discussions will take place away from the limelight and away from the US - which has interests of its own that do not always line up with Israel's, even in peace negotiations.