Hillary, Tzipi & Condi & Olmert
Lilly Rivlin, an Israeli journalist, filmmaker and peace activist spoke at the same conference I did this past weekend.
Rivlin was asked what she thought about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. The questioner was worried about Hillary's closeness to the neocons.
Rivlin responded that Clinton will be working for Obama and that it's his policies that will carry the day. But then she added how important she thinks it is that Clinton is a woman.
She said that Condelezza Rice had not produced a deal. But she managed to get Israelis and Palestinians in the same room, talking to each other about an agreement, as at no other time in a dozen years. She then said that she believed that with Clinton as Secretary of State and Tzipi Livni (let's hope) as Israeli Prime Minister, a terrific dynamic could be created. And she said it was one that women are better at creating than men.
It's hard to argue with that.
Of course, Ehud Olmert is a man (married to a very strong, left-wing woman) and he has committed himself more fully to an end to the occupation than any previous prime minister (except Rabin).
And, despite what the critics say, Olmert's conversion to the cause of peace came years before the scandal that contributed to his downfall. Olmert came over to the peace camp not to save his future but to save Israel's. Unfortunately, he won't be around to create the peace he envisions.
Nonetheless, Olmert's words set a marker for future prime ministers of Israel.
A man of the right, he came to understand that a secure future for Israel requires the same for the Palestinians.
For that, the right in Israel and here will hate him til his last days on earth. But Olmert, unlike them, loves Israel. Israel itself. Israel without Nablus, and Hebron, and Jenin and the other Palestinian cities and towns. And even if he loves those places, he is happy to visit them as a tourist. He can live without the West Bank as he knows that Israel must live without them.
The right prefers no Israel at all to an Israel without the Palestinian Arab heartland. What a sick perversion of Zionism.
But the polls show that Netanayho, and not Livni, will be the next PM. It really is up to the Israeli electorate. And if these polls are accurate, they are not interested in a two state solution. Then it seems that there is very little that Obama can do to change the will of the Israeli electorate. Of course, we can render the Palestinian electorate as irrelevant for voting for Hamas, but we really cannot dismiss the Israeli one.
November 24, 2008 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So sexist talk is okay when women do it?
November 24, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure they can, as long as they are "progressives". "Progressive" feminists loved Bill Clinton because he said all the right things even though he personally treated women like pieces of meat or garbage. MJ is a "progressive" so that gives him the right to condemn the Jewish community AS A WHOLE because some Jews support policies he opposes.
November 24, 2008 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon, YBD, you KNOW he's not condemning the Jewish community AS A WHOLE. That's the most ridiculous thing (almost) that I've ever heard.
BTW, I have a question for you. In numerous previous posts, you make the point that the Arabs won't agree to this or that. But what if, in fact, they DID agree?
I'm not suggesting a reinterpretation of their words or their past actions, nor am I trying to peer into their souls or their intentions. I'm just asking, What would you say if they DID agree?
November 25, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have stated this before, but I will repeat....if the Arabs should agree to what Scowcroft outlined, i.e. a complete return to the pre-67 lines in return to the Arabs giving up the Palestinian "right of return", any Israeli gov't, including one of the Likud would have to accept it. I would oppose it, because in my opinion it is a betrayal of Jewish rights in the heart of our historical homeland, and I don't believe such a peace agreement would last. But that is my opinion, and I believe that the media onslaught that would accompany the hoopla around such an agreement would make it inevitable.
In any event, there is no such possiblilty of this happening. I believe the thrust of the Obama Administration would be to try to get Israel to agree to another unilateral withdrawal, like that from Gaza and which would prove even more disastrous, in order to "improve the atmosphere". Should Netanyahu be elected Prime Minister, his test as a statesman would be to prevent this while maintaining good relations with the Adminstration. If he is clever, he should be able to point out why this move would be a disaster.
November 25, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is what MJ said, according to Phil Weiss' blog posting:
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Then MJ laid it on the feet of the Jewish community. “The American Jewish community is not a progressive force in the country… we are a regressive force on any issue that touches on Israel/Palestine… Barack Obama would put through a peace deal tomorrow if it wasn’t for the American Jewish community.”
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HE IS BLAMING THE ENTIRE JEWISH COMMUNITY. He didn't say just "the Orthodox", or "the neo-cons" or "AIPAC". Elizabeth Holtlzman said the same thing. She said "“Why was the only country in the world that would welcome George Bush Israel?” I know all you "progressives" hate Bush , but liking Bush is not a crime as far as I know. In fact Bush is at least fairly popular in Eastern Europe as well, i.e. in countries who feel that their freedom is directly under some sort of threat.
November 25, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well...
Here's a somewhat nuanced answer. First of all, MJ is a passionate writer and speaker, not a careful one. So, when he says "the Jewish community," he really means parts of the community--the most influential parts, politically.
Second, I'm a little surprised that you take umbrage at this point, because you are happy NOT to be counted among the "progressives" on this point. So if "the Jewish community" is "regressive" on the IP front, YOU should be happy (except, of course, with the name "regressive").
Third, you have to distinguish between the ORGANIZED Jewish community which is "regressive" (largely) on IP and "the Jewish community" as being co-terminous with "all Jews in America." IOW, there are a lot of Jews who are passively Jewish and who don't participate in any part of the organized Jewish community. They TEND to be liberals. I don't think MJ is talking about them, and they are, numerically, the biggest piece of the Jewish community, broadly defined.
But organized Jews, Jews who are involved with their Jewishness, Jews who are involved with the organized Jewish community, tend to be conservative--fearful, I'd say--on this issue. The memory of the Holocaust and the American Jewish non-response, or inadequate response, to that event still resonates. They don't want to be blamed for killing off Israel, even though it would be hard to impossible to kill off Israel by getting a peace deal with the Palestinians.
You seem to think the condominium idea is workable and is, indeed, in the works. Can you name another example where this kind of arrangement has actually worked satisfactorily?
BTW, I really appreciate your taking the time to expound your point of view here...
November 25, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
If all sexist determinations were bad and off limits, it would be a boring world. Without inevitably identifying persons supporting or in contrast to general gender characteristics, It is in my experience, and probably most others, that the female gender is better at broad conciliation. Apart from the actual actors involved, I don't think it is unreasonable to see some kind of impact or hope in the involvement of women in Palestinian/Israeli affairs. Criticism of sexist observations should be saved for those that lead to unproved disabilities. So sexist observations without chauvinistic intentions are ok, especially since everything from biology to society proves to make the genders different. I guess it is a distinct difference between sexist and sexism - or, condition vs. manifestations.
November 26, 2008 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ,
I really do give you credit for fighting the good fight here. I see you are a very sincere and committed proponent of a two-state solution. But frankly, I'm having trouble visualizing the basis for any kind of rational hope for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why does it matter what Ehud Olmert thinks? Isn't he extremely unpopular in Israel?
And what reason do we have, as yet, for thinking that Obama will have people in place in his administration with the capacity to solve this problem, and deal with it in any way that diverges from the Aipac-sanctioned standard operating procedures? So far, the appointment process has gone swimmingly well for the usual suspects in the Jewish-American community. Now I'm supposed to hope, according to Todd Gitlin, that Hillary Goes to Israel will be a sequel to Nixon Goes to China? Come on. This seems like another call to abandon realism for wishful thinking.
Obama has now said Clinton can bring in her own people at the State Department. It looks to me like he has just sold out his Middle East policy to the Clinton franchise, in exchange for domestic peace among Clintonistas and Obamanians at home. Maybe that's a necessary bargain, one he had to make for the sake of his other priorities. But it's a devil's bargain. Who can honestly believe that Hillary Clinton, Queen of Israel, is equipped or willing to forge an equitable solution that can stick?
I guess we can always hope that Obama can work some kind of miraculous rhetorical magic with a Killer Speech. But what kind of magic is possible? What can he possibly say that hasn't been said before? The problem here isn't a failure to elicit the right noble sentiments. It's a problem of two peoples whose majorities possess radically different and probably irreconcilable visions of the same small piece of land. Solving it at this point probably requires banging heads together, ripping people's balls off and poisoning their tea.
I'm worried that Clinton and Ross will be of the opinion that they were "almost there" at the end of the Clinton administration, and if they just go back to where we left off, we can solve the problem. Fat chance. Both sides had gone about as far as they thought they could go, and felt the need to back off after that and go back into the bunkers. And a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, including the death of Arafat, the rise of Hamas, and the further marginalization of the Israeli left. It is extraordinarily easy for the Israeli right and the Palestinian rejectionists to scuttle any sort of movement. All we need is for another Israeli pol to take a walk on the temple mount, or another Palestinian car bomb or human bomb to go off in a crowded place.
And I just have no faith at all in the condescending and sexist Rivlin theory that two clever ladies can get all those nasty, brooding men into a room and make them deal.
If I had to place a bet right now, it would be that Obama is poised to be maneuvered into (i) a war with Iran, (ii) accepting and supporting a re-fighting of the war against Hizbollah, (iii) a permanent presence in Iraq, and (iv) continued Israeli occupation of and expansion into the West Bank, culminating in the eventual transfer or forced migration of Palestinians. And of course Obama is committed to stepping up activity in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unless I start to see evidence of a different, more politically ballsy and risky approach from Obama, and a willingness to make powerful enemies, I think we're fucked. I just don't think Obama has it in him to say "no" to your friends in that big building in Washington.
He has turned his attention to the global economy - and I don't blame him - and will probably turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over to Clinton, Ross and other practitioners of feel-good, no-progress, stagecraft politics of fruitless negotiations and peace processes. Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that doesn't amount to the gradual passive acceptance of slow-motion Israeli conquest of the entire West Bank will require a form of brutal global hardball that I don't see Obama prepared to play. He's just not prepared to make the enemies he would have to make. But who can blame him. No American politician - not even the reanimated ghost of Abraham Lincoln - appears to possess the stupendous amount of political capital that would be necessary to get this right. And even if Lincoln did rise from the dead to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I suspect that within a week Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman would have him blubbering apologies on CNN, and removed from the speakers' program at Gettysburg.
Now give me reason for thinking I'm wrong. I admit that my exasperation with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is such that I have stopped paying close attention to developments in the region. Where Israelis and Palestinians are concerned, I now have an cavern-sized empathy deficit, compassion deficit, hope deficit, and all the other kinds of deficits in the place where my concern used to be. So maybe I'm missing some important facts on the ground that would give reason for hope.
November 24, 2008 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, you make many good points here, but you are wrong about attributing malevolent motivations to Israel's policies in Judea/Samaria. I am a "pro-settler" Israeli, I have close relatives who live in the settlements. The vast majority have no desire to drive the Arabs out, they want to live in peace with them. In the past, there were major effort to cultivate good relations with their Arab neighbors, the first intifada in 1988 put an end to them. With the self-destruction of the Palestinian society their terror war brought on them, the Palestinian Authority has lost its sway over much of the population and some Arabs have renewed contact with the Jews of the area. This true also in Hevron.
The ultimate fate of Judea/Samaria is an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian condominium which will be unofficial....the Arab side could never formally accept such a thing but a modus vivendi will be reached, and in fact is slowly being evolved even at this moment. The reason that things look so bad now is due to the idiocy of Oslo..the idea that Rabin and Peres would bring in an archterrorist like Arafat who spent his life spreading murder and mayhem in other places like Jordan and Lebanon, turn him loose to terrorize his own population and to brainwash them to want to become suicide bombers and dehumanize the Jewish population was a recipe for disaster. We are still paying for this.
The fact is that if the Arab side would agree to what Scowcroft is proposing, i.e. giving up the Palestinian Right of Return in exchange for a withdrawal to the pre-67 lines, ANY Israeli gov't would have to accept it. But there never will be such a deal...the Arabs will not give up the Right of Return because it is their ultimate weapon in their war against Israel since they view any Jewish state of any size as being abhorrent to their world-view. This conflict control is the only solution and once radical Islam is seen to be decline (which, unfortunately is not the situation today, but it will come eventually), then we can all sit down and work out the unofficial modus vivendi we are looking for.
There are precedents to what I am proposing...for example in Lebanon, there is still tremendous hatred between the different groups there, but they are trying to avoid rekindling the civil war because no one wants a return to all that bloodshed. Similarly, in Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunnis are attempting to calm things down in spite of the immense gulf between them. So things are NOT hopeless, not at all. It just requires looking at things objectively.
November 25, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
The vast majority have no desire to drive the Arabs out, they want to live in peace with them.
Oh come on, YBD. They've already driven the Arabs out. Why did they even move there? They are probably living on land that used to be inhabited by Arabs, or in the midst of land that used to be inhabited by Arabs. Since even Israelis don't claim that the West Bank is sovereign Israeli territory, than by what legal right was that territory "settled" by Israelis? Who gave them permission to move there? Nobody with sovereign authority over the land that was settled.
Your friends want to live in peace with the Arabs? You mean they want the Arabs who remain on land Israelis decided not to steal to peacefully accept their new neighbors on the land Israelis did decide to steal? And what would be the basis for that peaceful attitude? Confidence that the Israelis won't steal yet more land whenever they are inclined to do so, or when Israel gets a new bumper crop of Jewish immigrants with no room to put them?
Americans might be naive about a lot of things. But we know all about the process by which native people are gradually pushed off their land by "settlement" policies. Don't try to bullshit the people of a country built on dispossession about dispossession. We've seen it; it's our history.
November 25, 2008 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, you beat me to the punch on this one. I was not implying that you were falling for ybd's obsequious crap as may be interpreted in my own snarky reply below.
November 25, 2008 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
My favorite YBD line: "With the self-destruction of the Palestinian society their terror war brought on them, the Palestinian Authority has lost its sway over much of the population and some Arabs have renewed contact with the Jews of the area."
Yes, because we know before suicide bombing Israel never destroyed a single Palestinian village, leveled an olive grove, or created a single Palestinian refugee.
The revolt against Zionist occupation of the West Bank started long before suicide bombing. An inconvenient fact, but a fact nevertheless.
November 25, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes Dan K " I am a "pro-settler" Israeli, I have close relatives who live in the settlements. The vast majority have no desire to drive the Arabs out, they want to live in peace with them." All that I ask is for you to join me in subjugating my Arab neighbors into docile acceptance in my dominance over them. Please be reassured, if they accept that then we can have peace. Yes that is the peace that all Israelis desire. But first the Arabs must accept that they are a defeated people and that we will rule them with beneficience. So join us in this peace movement. Dan K do not be deceived by those evil forces that talk about a two state solution. It is only us that know the road to peace.
November 25, 2008 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Settler's and George W. Bush both understand what "peace" means: give me what I want and then we can get along.
November 26, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
YBD, if they really want to live in peace with their Arab neighbors, why don't they make them citizens of their state? What they mean when they say they want peace is they want the Palestinians not to get in the way of their expansion of the Jewish state. That's always been the Israeli definition of peace. Palestinians, you can stay here, but stay out of our way as we make the state Jewish.
November 25, 2008 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would have to say that your version of West Bank settler relations with their Arab neighbors doesn't comport well with the many reports of settler violence--much of it gratuitous and ugly--that we see over here.
November 25, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much of the reports of "settler thugs" supposedly harrassing "innocent Arabs" are nothing more than urban legends ("everyone knows what those settler thugs are like!"). The goverment, police and IDF (the leaders of which are none-too-fond of the settlers) have repeatedly investigated these reports and have usually turned up nothing. I can not recall any arrests for any of these famous incidents. Phil Weiss on his bizarre Israel-bashing blog posted a YOUTUBE of "settler thugs" supposedly harrassing innocent Arab shepherds and stealing their donkey and then killing it. It didn't show any crime and no one could identify who even appeared in the film.
November 25, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? I find that hard to believe. Do you have a link to the Weiss YouTube piece?
November 25, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Palestinians have cameras now and are capturing the Settlers on film. That is what really upsets YBD.
November 25, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can you point us to any video examples?
November 25, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Google God will provide limitless examples. Here is a summary story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAqJO3zHKAU
November 26, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin,
Phil Weiss' blog had a link to this site with the video:
http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2008/11/17/tuwani-israeli-settlers-attack-palestinian-shepherds-kill-donkey-injure-internatio
November 25, 2008 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, YBD, I took a look.
Obviously, no one can say, just from looking at the video, that these are settlers. Some things like this have been faked--like the piece on the young boy whose name escapes me--however, this looks pretty real to me.
Killing and stealing a donkey? Not the worst, but not good either.
In the YouTube string, there is a video by B'Tselem that shows masked marauders beating Palestinians with sticks and some interviews with the victims afterward. Again, not good.
Could these be fakes? Yes. Are they fakes? Probably not.
YBD, to a religious person like yourself living in Israel...and to a semi-religious person like myself living here in the US...things are going to look differently. I accept, and support, the Jewish claim to SOME part of historical Palestine. In fact, I would say that the founding of Israel has a stronger moral foundation than the founding of the ten next countries, including my own. So it disturbs me greatly when Israel is compared to Nazi Germany, or when Zionism is used as a slur, or when folks claim that the Zionists want to rule the world--and all variations on the same garbage.
But beating people, killing their animals, and running them off their land is not what being Jewish is about. In fact, I would say that it's antithetical to what being Jewish is about. I'm sure you keep more of the mitzvot than I do, but I can't see how any of the 613 condone this kind of behavior. I'm sure you can quote me Mishna and Gemarra, but I would tell you that none of that can justify mistreatment of other people, no matter who they are. And you can't convince me otherwise.
My peace plan? The US has to get everyone--Israel, PLO, Hamas, Arab League--in a room and not come out until there is an agreement. The US draws a line in the sand past which it will not go: 67 borders, two capitals in Jerusalem, access to the Holy Basin, monetary recompense for Palestinian refugees, land swaps, and US marines to enforce the agreement until the two parties can do it on their own. My personal, unsubstantiated view is this is what Clinton was hired as SOS to do. The onus will then be on the Palestinians and the Arab League to uphold their end of the bargain. In any event, the Marines will be there as enforcers until everyone gets the message.
The US supports Israel. The US supports an equitable end to the conflict. End of story.
One final thing: Religious people are very special people. But like all people, their strength is often their weakness. In their case, they "know" what G-d has told them. They are often filled with the righteousness of knowing what G-d has said. This is a good thing in general, but it also blinds them to more humble truths. Like do unto others... Or don't do unto others... Didn't Hillel tells us this was the essence, even the whole, of the Torah? In your passion to hold on to Judea and Samaria, not terrible goals when seen in isolation, you are forgetting this. So are these settlers. So did Yigal Amir. So did Baruch Goldstein.
If you win by simply pushing out these people who have, demonstrably, lived on this land for centuries, you will have won the "ground game" but lost the moral victory.
November 26, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
A more intriguing idea: If you base Isarel's legitimacy on God's Promise to Abraham and Jacob (the YBD argument), then we can literally declaim property rights established over the last 4,000 years. What country--what people--would legitimately own anything? As an American living in Texas, do I want to seriously argue that a "god" gave land to someone else? I am currently living on land that was inhabited by Tejas Indians before the 1830s. Americans, not God, conquered it.
The point is that Israel's legitimacy comes from its formation as a nation state in 1948 like all other nation states. Nations states exist and we accept their reality, whether they be the USA, the Slovak Republic, ROK, etc.
The religious arguments supporting Israel's legitimacy are not arguments. They are just tribalism disguised as argument.
November 26, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm, I don't know if that's YBD's argument. The problem is that the Bible bleeds into a history that everyone would consider history. So, in Western terms, some of it is a matter of belief--G-d created Adam and Eve--and some of it is a recounting of history, if polished up a bit. My point is that Jews DID live on the West Bank for thousands of years. That's not a fantasy nor a theological statement. That they lived there because G-d gave it to them is a theological statement; that they lived there as a matter of fact is an historical statement.
The other piece of the problem is that the Arabs believe that G-d gave THEM the land. Didn't the Prophet ascend to heaven from the area around the Dome?
November 26, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. I say leave God to God. We can only deal with man to man. If a Jewish person has freely purchased a plot of land in Palestine sometime since 1860...or is part of a family that has lived in Jerusalem since at least 66 CE, more power to them.
The problem is not the Jews who were there. It's the Russians, New Yorkers, and Londoners who want to move there now....even though that requires fenses and bulldozers.
November 26, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess, Dan, in general, you worries about what Obama will and won't do in the IP conflict were voiced about the Obama candidacy in general. What reason did Obama give anyone to have hope about anything other than his rhetoric? Change. Hope. Believe in. These words could always be expanded or contracted to mean just about anything anyone wanted to.
So, the reason we believed in Obama then is pretty much the same reason to believe that Obama can, and is willing, to do something about the IP conflict.
But I will pick out this passage from your post: "It's a problem of two peoples whose majorities possess radically different and probably irreconcilable visions of the same small piece of land. Solving it at this point probably requires banging heads together, ripping people's balls off and poisoning their tea."
Who better to bang heads together and rip people's balls off than Hillary Clinton? I know that SOUNDS like Hillary bashing, but what I mean is...she's a very strong person. In some ways, stronger than Obama, and I believe he picked her primarily to solve this one conflict.
Beyond that, is there every any reason to hope for a resolution to the world's enduring conflicts? What about Northern Ireland? I certainly had given up on that one years ago? You think Kashmir is going to go quietly into that good night? Think Lebanon will ever coalesce into one big happy family? What reason is there to hope? None. Hope is its own reason.
November 25, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton may have the toughness, but I believe she has the wrong outlook. Her positions on Israeli issues have been far too one-sided. Maybe she'll prove me wrong, but I believe there is a real chance she will sabotage Obama's whole effort.
If Obama decides to do what needs to be done and push for a settlement that could actually work, Clinton might see a political opportunity, go into her Queen of Israel routine, balk and drag her feet, and then use that pro-Israel wedge to run against him.
November 25, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or she could get her ass fired.
If he's smart, he's not going to wait three years to see any progress on this front. He's going to demand action right away, and she's going to have to do the "right things."
So I doubt she'll have the time subvert and then use the resulting impasse to play Queen of Israel to run against him.
We. will. see.
It's interesting, though, how Obama's supporters keep under-estimating him. They did it throughout the campaign when he didn't get tough enough and hit back. And now they think his team of rivals is going to run roughshod over him. It's almost as if with each new appointment, the Administration is seen as less and less "his."
If that happens, of course, I'm going to be deeply disappointed. Depressed, really. But I don't think he worked his ass off for two years against all odds just to have his Administration wrecked by disobedient cabinet members.
November 25, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jews have been living continuously in Judea/Samaria for thousands of years, since before the Arabs arrived here. Jews have AS MUCH right to live in Judea/Samaria as do the Arabs, if not more. The settlements in Judea/Samaria were built on empty, state lands. The Jewish communities are almost always found on hilltops whereas the Arabs live down in the valleys or on the slopes around them, for agricultural reasons.
Some private Arab land was bought by Jews in Judea/Samaria, but most of the area settled, was, as I said, empty. Arabs violence drove out ancient Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria and Gaza during the 1930's and 1940's, particularly in Gaza, Hevron, and Shechem (Nablus). Israel is NOT a colonialist settler state like Australia, the United States, Canada or New Zealand, Jews are native to the area. I will not apologize for Jewish settlement in Judea/Samaria. In any event most of Judea/Samaria is now off limits to Jewish settlement as a result of the Oslo Agreements.
November 25, 2008 4:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's fine that Jews live there. The problem is that the majority of the population--the Arabs--don't have political rights. That's a grave injustice and a crime. All your justifications about some Jews having lived there don't change that basic fact that the majority of the present-day population has been disenfranchised by the policies of the Jewish state.
November 25, 2008 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jews have been living continuously in Judea/Samaria for thousands of years, since before the Arabs arrived here.
By the middle of the 19th century, as I understand it, there were hardly any left. Anyway, if a Jew legally owns property in the places that were once called "Judea" or "Samaria", that means that particular Jew has a lawful claim to the particular plot of land he owns. It doesn't mean that some collective entity, namely the Jews, has a claim to the whole region around which those particular Jews happen to own property. It doesn't mean that any Jew, anywhere in the world, has a lawful claim to land for which he holds no deed, nor is the lawful inheritor.
If a Palestinian state is ever established in the West Bank, which I tend to doubt will happen, then any Jews in the region who have valid property claims that go back to the time prior to the conquest of the West Bank by Israel in 1967 should have the right to hold onto their property and become citizens of the new Palestinian state. Then we'll see, I suppose, how many of those Jews there actually are, and how many of them really just want to live in peace with their neighbors.
November 25, 2008 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jewish NATIONAL rights were recognized by the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate of 1922 and the 1947 UN Partition Resolution on the basis of the Jewish historical connection with the country as I outlined it above. The Arabs do not recognize any Jewish claim to the country at all, including Jewish "settlements" like Tel Aviv (the official Palestinian Authority books refer to pre-67 Israeli towns as "illegal settlements"). This is the core of the conflict.
November 25, 2008 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, this is a piece of it that tends to get overlooked by progressives. Prior to 1967, Israel occupied none of the "occupied lands," and yet, there was no peace then and the Arabs didn't recognize Israel proper. Nor was there any move that I can recall by Egypt and Jordan to create a Palestinian state on the lands now so much in the news. Israel proper was the point of contention. Now, the argument has simply moved geographically, but perhaps not conceptually.
In terms of "national rights" and other terms normally applied to sovereign nations, I think the problem stems from the fact that Israel is a reconstituted country. Its original "citizens" were dispersed to the four corners of the globe and, somewhat late in the day in terms of human history, were impelled, largely by overwhelming anti-Semitism in other lands, to return. Problem was, much history, a century or so, had transpired between the time of the original country and the return. Other folks had moved in. Call them squatters if you want, but after a century or so, most people would call them native inhabitants and, in fact, many of them are descendants of the Canaanites who preceded, even, the Jews.
But Israel--and this is a good thing, IMO--was never meant to be just a refuge from anti-Semitism. For many of the early Zionist theorists, it also had an extremely positive function as the locus for a rebirth of Jewish culture and life which had suffered from the Jews' centuries-old pariah status. Unfortunately, among US progressives, "Zionism" has taken on an entirely negative meaning--to wit: a violent ideology bent on subjugating an indigenous people and, in some accounts, the world. So the discussion often turns to things like, Is anti-Semitism real? How widespread is it? Are the Jews enlarging its meaning (objective anti-Semitism) for ethnic gain? How many really did die in the Holocaust anyway? And other points like this.
My point is this: the IP conflict is, in many ways, sui generis, and a lot of the concepts used to resolve other conflicts find a hard time getting a purchase on this one. Makes it very hard. But not impossible. Dan hits on it very lightly as does YBD: There has to be a will to resolve--on both sides.
November 25, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Jewish NATIONAL rights were recognized by the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate of 1922 and the 1947 UN Partition Resolution".
Neither of these instruments in any way intended to recreate the Biblical State Israel. Nothing in them gave the Jewish State or Jewish People entitlement to the entire or numerous parts of the West Bank. Why do you continue to use the names "Judea" and "Samaria"?
Jews tend to occupy hilltops and Palestinians the valleys is a disingenous statement. We all know that the short sighted Israeli military see hilltops as key terrain therefore they want to own them.
What gives Jews the right to put up walls that sometimes surround entire Palestinian communites, and private roads that only Jews may use. What gives you the right to setup innumerable checkpoints where Palestinians are humiliated daily. What gives Jewish settlers the right to destroy Olive Groves that have been in Palestinian families for centuries.
Funny you reference the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nation but omit any reference to United Nations Resolution 242. Oh I get it: Any reference to a legal document with which you disagree is inoperative. The fact is Israel is an occupying power, and is occupying the land in violation of International Law, or do you beleive Israel is the only State on the planet that can annex land due to military conquest, or has a historical claim to land?
Former Prime Minister Olhmert is correct, the outlines of a solution to peace in the area has been well known for years. In a flyover of the West Bank after the Six Day War even Ben Gurion reportedly said: To have peace now we have to give it all back. The thing is where are the leaders on both sides who have the guts, determination, and courage to make it happen.
In the same way Palestinians live in Israel and are Israeli citizens, I'm sure that Jews such as yourself will be welcomed to live in and be citizens of a Palestinian State. I hope you would not be treated like a second class citizen as Arab Israelis are often treated.
Israel cannot occupy the West Bank in perpetuity, one people cannot oppress another forever. To do either or both is a death knell for the Jewish State.
November 25, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
gatlingun6 said
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Neither of these instruments in any way intended to recreate the Biblical State Israel. Nothing in them gave the Jewish State or Jewish People entitlement to the entire or numerous parts of the West Bank. Why do you continue to use the names "Judea" and "Samaria"?
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The Balfour Declaration gave the Jews national rights over the entire territory west of the Jordan River AND the territory of what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. (This, of course, includes Judea/Samaria-BTW why shouldn't I call it that-they were called that long before anybody thought of calling the country "Palestine") Of course, after World War I, the British ended up regretting giving the Declaration and ended up whittling down the territory allotted to the Jews.
If the Arabs don't like the settlements, there is a simple solution...sign a peace agreement with Israel. Olmert already offered them a return to the pre-67 lines. They have not accepted the offer. As long as they refuse to make peace, and by this I don't only mean signing a scrap of paper, but changing their entire mind-set and educating their people for peace and not war, Israel will continue settle Judea/Samaria. It is the Arab's choice.
November 25, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Text of the Balfour declaration:
Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour
Who knew it was so easy to disenfranchise a whole population of Arabs? You don't even have to tell them you're doing it. Just send a letter to the Zionist Federation and it's fait accompli.
November 25, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
In a similar spirit, I hereby deed Sheffield to any Pakistani immigrant who wants it. I have about as much right to do that as AJP did to Palestine.
November 26, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The choice Israel has always given the Arabs:
Agree to the theft of your land or the theft will continue. With Israel offering such a reasonable deal, it is of course, as YBD says, all the Arabs' fault that the theft of their land continues.
November 26, 2008 6:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
YBD, if, in fact, the Balfour Declaration is quoted in full just below, wherein there does it give...
"...the Jews national rights over the entire territory west of the Jordan River AND the territory of what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. (This, of course, includes Judea/Samaria-..."?
...especially as it explicitly forbids anything that will "prejudice" the civil and religious rights of non-Jews?
I'm having a hard time following your reasoning here. Unless you're saying that the word "Palestine" as used by Balfour must include the areas you mention. But that strikes me as a stretch in this context.
Balfour would also seem to be asking for a Jewish homeland "in" Palestine, but not encompassing all of Palestine.
So if you could explain your reasoning, I'd appreciate it.
November 26, 2008 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin, the text I provided is indeed the entire text of the Balfour Declaration. The Declaration was made in 1917, prior to the final defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Britain did not, at that time, control Palestine, nor were the borders of Palestine well defined. The declaration was apparently made to give assurances to prominent Jewish citizens of Britain that their interest in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine would be supported by the British government as it divided up the spoils of the Ottoman Empire with its French and Arab allies. (Britain had also promised most of the Middle East to various Arab allies in return for their support against the Ottomans.) The Balfour Declaration is therefore a promise made through irregular channels by the British government (or by some members of the British government) to some of its own citizens about its intention to support the creation of a vaguely defined "homeland" within a vaguely defined territory that was still nominally under the control of the Ottomans and that the British really had no legitimate authority over at the time the promise was made.
November 26, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why, then, was it called "The British Mandate"?
I thought the whole was that they were in control but couldn't effectuate peace between the parties and sort of threw it onto the shoulders of the new UN, no?
November 27, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin, the British gained nominal control in 1918 if I remember right (at the end of WW I). The League of Nations Mandate began in 1922. The British became the Mandatory power at that time.
November 27, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
YBD talks about history selectively. According to Martin Gilbert in "Jerusalem in the 20th Century" Jews made up at least 50% of Jerusalem in 1900--long predating the establishment of the State of Israel. The YBD-ers then erroneously extrapolate that fact to: Jews were a significant presence in all of Historic Palestine before the Zionist Settlers started arriving in large numbers in the 19th Century.
Like most propagandists, YBD takes a kernal of truth and makes it into a generalized falsehood.
Finally, if the Settlers want to stay on the West Bank, they can become citizens of Palestine. Indeed, if I were negotiating for the Palestinians, I would suggest that. A Palestine with a Jewish minority will get better treatment by the United States than a wholly Arab Palestine. Sad, but true.
November 25, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why would a Jew born in Brooklyn has as much right as a Palestinian born in Nablus to live in Nablus?
The only way your nutty logic works is if you think that God is a real estate agent who actually gives people land.
He doesn't.
November 25, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is, Jews NEVER make up a majority of any large area. That would have been fine, except for anti-Semitism. Hence the impetus--the real impetus--for Israel.
Eastern Europe used to be where the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews lived. It might have been the largest Jewish community, period. It was the capital of Jewish culture and spirituality in so many ways. The US was a backwater, by comparison.
I'm morally certain that very few of them would have left their homes to follow Herzl if they hadn't been forced out.
Herzl, a western European Jew, was entirely assimilated and would never have become a Zionist had he not come to the realization that Europe would never accept Jews as equals. In that sense, he was a bit like synvanen and you, perhaps, in his thinking. Fatalistic.
Except, of course, he also had a positive vision for what Israel could be.
November 25, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish the Palestinians would simply offer the settlers the right to live in the State of Palestine under the same terms as Palestinians live in Israel.
They would have to live under the Palestinian flag, observe the laws of the SoP, etc.
Of course, why would Pals want these people in their midst? They wouldn't BUT the ones who would take the offer would likely be very religious folks who just want to live on that Biblical piece of land.
But the offer would do some good and expose what the settlers really want: domination of the Palestinian land and people.
November 25, 2008 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are putting the Settlers to the proof, aren't you? Since the majority of Jerusalem's residents in 1900 were Jewish, it shows that Jews can live surrounded by Arabs--side by side, in fact--if religious attachment to the land is the prime motivation. I doubt YBD is going to take you up on the challenge, though.
November 25, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does this show?
Jews have always lived side by side with other people. Everywhere.
It's the other people who don't always like living side by side with the Jews.
That's where the story begins...
November 25, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is shows is that Jews who lived in Palestine can trace a historical claim. And like anyone else who lives somewhere for centuries, they have a legitimate claim--to theplace they actually are living in. Not to some place across the value or over the mountain.
What is totally illegitimate is to argue some bull$hit religious claim that God wants one religious group to live one one acre of land, and another to live somewhere else.
November 26, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I would say is...
If this is what you're referring to...
The Right of Return is based primarily on the perceived need for Jews, living elsewhere, to have a "back door," a safe haven where they have to be taken in or will be taken in if the need arises.
Of course, now we have this parallel religious track running alongside the secular one.
As I say, it gets complicated because Judaism (and Islam) don't make this sharp distinction between a "personal faith" and the life of the community. That's why Jews aren't simply co-religionists but members of the same people: They had a common language, a different alphabet, customs, a literature, etc. And all of that was imbued with the religion. So lots of terms and concepts that we keep separate get mixed up.
I would have to say that virtually all of the heat from the organized Jewish community around Israel comes from this idea of a safe haven--and the lack of one a few years back--and not from any religious claim to the land, per se. Of course, that gets mixed in because it serves (illegitimately, IMO) to put a "protective wall" around the safe haven.
November 26, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
In fact, the way Judaism came into this word was by G-d entering into history and giving a people the Torah. Now, this is Biblical myth in my view, but it says something important about the structure of the religion and the people. There weren't a lot of individual revelations or conversions: G-d to, and dealt with, his people as a people.
I'm not arguing here for the Chosen People theory or the veracity of G-d doing anything. I'm looking at this as an anthropologist or a student of comparative religion might. The Israelis and the Jews of the Diaspora or real people with a real cultural/religious heritage, and it is the way it is for certain reasons.
November 26, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
They have a safe haven: It's called their internationally recognized borders.
Notice that is not the West Bank or Gaza.
November 26, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with that, and that's why I support the plan I outlined (obviously not my invention).
However, I do think it's important to recognize that essentially the same argument has been made against Israel at every stage in her history, up to, say, 1988. And it was only as recently as 2002 that the Arab League agreed, in theory at least, to have normalized relations with Israel at all--forget the West Bank and Gaza. So the same argument has moved borders.
Okay, so that's in the past and we have to move on.
But one of the reasons that YBD, not to pick on him, keeps bringing up Tel Aviv is that this USED to be the argument against Tel Aviv. And at least one of the reasons that this is no longer the argument is that Israel beat the Arabs on the battlefield and the concluded they weren't going to get rid of her by force. I'm not sure how much they really wanted to get rid of her or how much they were really in the Palestinians' corner, but that's a different matter.
So now, I think, it's high time Israel realizes she isn't going to get rid of the Palestinians by force, moreover SHOULDN'T TRY, nor are they going to be able to dictate this people's future. They need to treat the Palestinians as they would wish to be treated, or not, not.
Look, in many ways, this whole thing is a shit sandwich. I'm sure the Jewish people would vote overwhelmingly to give up Israel and get back the 6 million--but you can't go back. They'd still pray for the Messiah's coming and the return to Israel, but they wouldn't have moved en masse to Israel under terrible conditions simply because G-d had promised them the land. We'll never know if I'm right, but I'd lay serious odds on it.
That said, if peace ever does come to the region, Israel will be a serious asset to the Palestinian state and to the other states in that region. My belief.
November 26, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
No truer words were ever spoken: "That said, if peace ever does come to the region, Israel will be a serious asset to the Palestinian state and to the other states in that region. My belief."
November 26, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish the Palestinians would simply offer the settlers the right to live in the State of Palestine under the same terms as Palestinians live in Israel.
I wish the Jews would simply offer the Palestinians the right to live in the State of Israel under the same terms as Jews live in Israel.
November 25, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship should have all the rights of Israeli Jews.
As for the Balfour Declaration, it has no standing under international law. It is just a declaration by the then mandatory power that Jews could establish a home in Palestine. The mandate terminated in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel. The Balfour Declaration went defunct when the last Brit left.
November 26, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship should have all the rights of Israeli Jews.
Wrong. Palestinians should have the same rights as Jews. No qualifications. That's the true progressive approach. There's nothing progressive about providing equal rights to all citizens when one ethnic group is consistently denied citizenship.
November 26, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
There will never be agreement between the parties on what is the "right" solution for Palestine. But the right tactic is to implement the right solution , anyway.
Even if we think there'll be no more peace afterwards than now.
Even if the parties are condemned to live in a state of hostility better that happen after implementing the right solution. And,anyway, by definition the right solution would be one less apt to ensure perpertual hostility. Put another way a solution that is more apt to ensure perpetual hostility would be wrong.
My object here is not to amaze you with my idea of the right solution.( As if I could possibly do that.)
Just to suggest whatever it is should be implemented now. There isn't going to be any better time in the future.
November 25, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excerpt of good column by "progressive" Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit (a "2-state solution" man) explaining why it is impossible for there to be a peace agreement with the Palestinians:
BTW-congratulations to our very own MJ Rosenberg and his Israel Policy Forum! Israel's Attorney-General Mazuz announced plans to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his "double-dipping" foreign organizations for multiple payments for his flights to the US. One was the IPF...this was the trip where Olmert made in infamous statement "Israel is tired of fighting and winning...".
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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
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Last update - 01:43 27/11/2008
Fake peace, real peace
By Ari Shavit
First, the bad news: More and more evidence suggests the odds of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace are slim. The first piece of evidence was provided by Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh. The document of understandings they formulated in 2002 is an impressive one that clearly and decisively speaks of a solution calling for two nation-states. The six Ayalon-Nusseibeh principles offer an historic breakthrough: The end of the occupation and realization of the Palestinians' right to self-determination, in exchange for the Palestinians forsaking the right of return.
Yet in recent months, Nusseibeh has recanted, turning his back on the two-state solution. A few things have happened to Ayalon as well. As a result, the "People's Choice" initiative, which gave hope to many Israelis and even generated attention from the international community, has collapsed. A courageous attempt to end the conflict via an agreement lies in ruins.
The second piece of evidence suggesting that peace with the Palestinians is far off was provided by the Saudi initiative. The strategic concept behind the initiative is a correct one: providing a pan-Arab wrapping around an Israeli-Palestinian accord. Yet the wording of the initiative is impossible to accept. It speaks of the "achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." Resolution 194 grants all Palestinians the right to return to the homes they left in 1948. Therefore, what the Saudi initiative really offers is an agreed-upon, just and tranquil way to liquefy the Jewish state.
The initiative has received outstanding public interest, but it does not offer a two-state solution to two peoples but a two-state solution to one people - the Palestinian people.
The third and most convincing sign that there is no chance for peace now with the Palestinians was provided by none other than Ehud Olmert. The enthusiasm triggered by the dovish and brave declarations recently uttered by the outgoing prime minister precluded an in-depth discussion on their significance. In the past year, the Israeli leadership has offered its Palestinian counterpart a return to the 1967 borders, division of Jerusalem and even absorption of refugees. If Ehud Barak's peace experiment of 2000 was a flawed experiment, Ehud Olmert's peace experiment in 2008 is a flawless experiment. This time, Israel was not represented by some dark, military-minded figure, but a wholesome man of peace whose positions are those of Yossi Beilin.
Nonetheless, the Olmert-Abu Mazen process failed. Even though Israel went all the way, it did not find a Palestinian partner. Paradoxically, the prime minister who adopted the worldview of the Geneva Initiative is the one who toppled the Geneva Initiative. The real legacy Olmert leaves behind is definitive proof that there is no Palestinian partner ready to pay the ideological and political price necessary to establish peace-for-two-states.
The problem of the occupation remains an existential, moral one which demands a realistic and comprehensive solution. Yet whoever thought it could be dealt with by means of an immediate political agreement with the Palestinian Authority was proved wrong. The lesson accumulated from Oslo, Camp David, Taba, Geneva, the People's Choice, the Saudi Initiative and Olmert-Abu Mazen is that the Beilin way has run its course and reached a dead end.
------> cut rest of article
And MJ pinned such high hopes on the Saudi intiative....to bad!
November 26, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
YBD...do you have any more detail on the reasons behind these two actions...
"Yet in recent months, Nusseibeh has recanted, turning his back on the two-state solution. A few things have happened to Ayalon as well."
When it says that N recanted, does that mean he's now in favor of a one-state solution? And what are the "few things" that have happened to Ayalon?
November 27, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now having read Ari's article, it appears the good news is the possibility of an Israeli-Syrian peace deal. If this can be achieved, then perhaps it will break things up enough to allow movement on the IP front. This is sort of what he suggests toward the end.
Miller also seems to suggest that the time is not opportune for an IP deal--the sides are too far apart. However, that doesn't mean that nothing can be done. If you can't go all the way at this stage, you can set up the final shot with smaller, intermediate steps.
I say, do whatever can be done that leads us in the right direction.
YBD...wouldn't you prefer that Israel not be a pariah state? Wouldn't that be worth a little land and a few concessions?
I believe it was in a Rashi commentary (or perhaps the prophets) where G-d tells Israel that He's giving them this land, but if they act unjustly, He will spit them out. Let's not risk that.
November 27, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin-
The answer to the question you asked about Rashi is answered by another Rashi....the the very first one in Sefer Bereshit (Book of Genesis). Take a look at it.
Regarding Nusseibeh-I had heard that he broke with Ami Ayalon. No Palestinian today is willing to give up the Right of Return. Arafat told Clinton he would be assassinated if he gave it up. Beilin and the rest of the Oslo-Geneva crowd kept up the illusion that the Palestinians would be satisified with a merely "symbolic" implementation, Olmert found that was not satisfactory.
As to Ami Ayalon, he is the latest in a long series of military people that entered Israeli politics and then flopped out. He is currently a Labor Party MK and he ran against Ehud Barak for the party leadership in 2007 but lost. He then announced he was sick of the Labor Party and was going to jump to MERETZ. They then said they didn't want him so he aligned himself with the supposedly Leftist religous party Meimad (which is odd since he isn't religious) and they are desperately trying to find existing parto to latch on to since there is no chance of them entering the Knesset on their own.
Israel is NOT a pariah state, in spite of MJ's constant claims that it is. Israel has good relations with most of the nations of the world. True, "progressives" are always worrying themselves sick about the Judea/Samaria settlements, but they are a minority. Do you recall that a couple of weeks ago, MJ made one of his usual overblown statements like "everyone in the US hates Israel because of the settlements" and then someone posted a recent poll saying 70% of American identify with Israel and support it, as opposed to something like 17% for the Palestinians. Keep in mind when MJ says "everyone hates Israel" he means "everyone whose opinion counts which are the people who agree with me-the rest of humanity is an ignorant rabble so their opinion doesn't count".
Syria is no more interested in peace than are the Palestinians...they want a "peace process" in order to get goodies out of the US without endagering their control of Lebanon and their alliance with HIZBULLAH and IRAN. Syria views Iran as being on the winning track...he perceives them as on the advance with the US, Israel and West in retreat. Why should he make concessions to Israel now when he figures that Israel will panic once Iran gets the bomb and give up everything for free without Syrian having to make any concessions. Think about it.
BTW-has anyone ever noticed how MJ, on the one hand, curses Bush as someone who hasn't been tough on Israel in order to force Israel out of Judea/Samaria, supposedly to help the "suffering" Palestinians, yet when Bush decided to use force to end Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq which kept millions of Iraqis suffering in a totalitarian police state, MJ curses him out for intervening. I don't follow the logic.
November 27, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink