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Obama's Middle East Burden--and Opportunity
Longtime State Department Middle East specialist Aaron David Miller on the outlook there, and the test for Obama:
Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it's serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking. The departure point for a viable peace deal--either with Syria or the Palestinians--must not be based purely on what the political traffic in Israel will bear, but on the requirements of all sides....Israel has every reason to defend itself against Hamas. But does it make sense for America to support its policy of punishing Hamas by making life unbearable for 1.5 million Gazans by denying aid and economic development? The answer is no.
In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity--including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions--does to the peacemaking process.
This last paragraph is especially shocking. Not surprising but shocking.
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January 4, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Todd - It's no surprise to me. I've been to Israel more than 70 times since 1956 and all my relatives are settlers. One constant since 1967 has been the settler enterprise - supported overtly and covertly by every Israeli government including the latest. In November, my IDF nephew even took me out to a thriving Maskiot smack in the middle of the Jordan Valley. These people are refugees from the Gaza settlements and they have been absolutely assured they will never have to move again.
The settlers all talk about their game plan of continuing the growth of outposts and settlements to the point of it being impossible for a viable Palestinian state. All they need is time - and I'm sure there will be provocations enough (like the current Gaza campaign) to put off serious peace negotiations into the far distant future. I can assure you the Israeli government is making NO effort to curtail the settlement expansion. I take that as a sign of Israel's aquiesence to the settlers dream of making the problem too big to solve. Viola - no Palestinian state but Palestinian "reservations" like America did with the Indians.
January 4, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It shouldn't be "Obama's burden" or any American's burden. It should be Israel's problem.
I'm sick of this pernicious effort to make the Palestinians the world's problem. Don't let Israel abdicate responsibility.
It's not Obama's burden at all. Our only burden is the moral burden of having our planes and bombs used in these actions.
January 4, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very good point. It is amazing that our country is so willing to let Israel operate our Middle East foreign policy. If Obama does nothing else, he should disconnect us from that mistaken policy.
January 4, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also the moral burden of vetoing every Security Council call for a ceasefire, and pouring billions into the Israeli occupation machine.
January 4, 2009 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
BBpdx,
I don't think you are being realistic.
America will never withdraw its support for Israel. There are simply too many extremely influential American Jews who are too deeply invested in Israel politically, economically and culturally - not to mention all the crazy Christian Zionists. Israel and America are joined at the hip; Israel is the 51st state. It is likely that what Israel does will always be seen as an extension of American action, at least into the far foreseeable future. We just have to deal with that reality. To indulge in fantasies about detaching the US and its foreign policy from Israel is to engage in idle wishful thinking. Similarly, it is just not even remotely on the political horizon that the US Congress will stop selling our weaponry to Israel, or stop providing other forms of support.
We could of course say that we are going to take no interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that it is "Israel's responsibility." What will then likely happen is that Israel will press on with its century-long war. It will continue to colonize and gobble up territory in Palestine; continue to enclose, confine and control the wretched Palestinian masses in prison-like encampments in Gaza and the West Bank; and perhaps in the end it will engage in even more obvious and brutal forms of ethnic cleansing and transfer until it has pushed all of the Arabs out of Palestine for good.
This process might take 10 years, or 20 years or 30 years. It will be infamous and notorious, and since Israel is the 51st state, America is destined to catch much of the global shit for it: more terrorist attacks, more opposition to our interests in the Middle East, more global contempt. And it is also not at all unlikely that Israel's running battle with Middle East peoples and neighbors of all kinds will eventually spark a broad regional war. And since that region is one of the most strategically vital regions in the world, a regional war spreading out over the Persian Gulf region might very quickly become a world war.
So that's reality. We're stuck. We're hooked. The global problem of Israel is our problem too, because no matter how much you and I might wish we could detach ourselves from Israel entirely, it's just not going to happen. Nobody who pays attention to how power works and flows in this country could think otherwise. Our only option is to try to use our relationship with Israel, coupled with alarms sounded to the US public about the all-too-realistic scenarios to which I alluded, and fears of eventual cataclysmic disaster among some of the more enlightened Zionists in the US, to try to get Israel to stop its expansionist policies, withdraw its colonists and occupation forces from the Palestinian territories it occupies, and accept a two-state solution along lines that can win the support of a majority of Palestinians. Otherwise, we are very, very fucked.
January 4, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I don't think any of us is saying America should lose interest in Israel, stand back and let they do their thing. Instead we are saying Israel is a foreign nation, not the 51st state. If any foreign nation is wreaking havoc in their area of the world the US should be working with the UN to bring them back into compliance with civilized behavior. That should be our approach to both Israel and "Palestine".
Those influential people who want America to act only in favor of Israel's interests, even when those interests are contrary to our own interests, are being treasonous. Perhaps they should become citizens of Israel instead of the US.
January 5, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K as someone who finds your arguments not only very well written but on the mark in general, I have to admit that I believe the only thing that the US can do is to disengage. That should be our political position. Part of the message is to try to convince the American people that the Israel lobby is moving the US against its own national interests and they do that because their primary loyalty lies with another nation. I also agree with you that this is not a politically viable position at the present time.
Now you, after an analysis that I agree with, conclude that we must try to try to get Israel to stop its expansionist policies, withdraw its colonists and occupation forces from the Palestinian territories it occupies, and accept a two-state solution along lines that can win the support of a majority of Palestinianst We come to just about opposite conclusions. Where do we differ? It is that your conclusion is even less viable than mine. The only people we need to convince for US disengagement are the American people. Your suggestion requires that we also change the Israeli people. That is just not going to happen -- the settler movement is not some isolated extremist element but is a vanguard movement that has the support, either openly or implicitly, by a very powerful plurality of the Israeli public.
Though the demand for disengagement is not viable today, I think we should be making it loudly and clearly. The reason is that the next war that Israel sucks our troops into will weaken support for Israel even more than now and it is a position that could take root in such an environment.
January 5, 2009 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Israel has to do what is best to stop [the attacks]," said the conference's incoming chairman, Chicago attorney Alan Solow. "It's our job to get the story about what's happening here out to the world."
Solow said the close brush with a Hamas rocket wasn't his first experience of terrorism. "I was on Rehov Ben-Yehuda Street [in central Jerusalem] when Sbarro was blown up in August 2001 [on nearby King George Street]. It's a frightening experience, but I have stronger feelings for the people of Israel who live with this. I'm only here for a short visit."
"I've been in Sderot many times, but this is the first time I've seen a rocket attack firsthand," said Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress. "I've never experienced this. I can understand the fear, emotion, anxiety when something like this happens to you. If I was living here with my children, I would be extraordinarily nervous."
The Jewish leaders, including former conference chairman James Tisch, said the vast majority of the American Jewish community supported Israel's operations against Hamas.
"Even among the dovish groups there is widespread understanding for Israel's action," said Hoenlein.
Asked about the influence of far-left groups such as J Street and the Israel Policy Forum who have called on Israel to stop its operations, he dismissed them as "very marginal and not representative" of American Jewish opinion, noting that the dovish president of the Union for Reform Judaism himself castigated J Street's call for an end to the operation. "
Jerusalem Post 1/4/09
Listen up,all of you Israel-haters: you don't speak for American Jews. We do, and we'll do every single thing the law allows to stop you from hijacking the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration. Now fuck off.
January 4, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just curious...what makes us "Israel-haters" in your view? That we want Obama to make tough demands of Israel as well as the Palestinians? That we acknowledge the Occupation? What is it?
January 4, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should make tough demands of US as well as Taliban.
January 4, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just curious...what kind of tough demands the Palestinians do you want Obama to make?
What would be the consequences for no complying? The answer is no demands on the perpetual victims, no consequences.
January 4, 2009 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie,
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, Wordie, but I recall that your discontent with Israel goes much further than these points that you question here. As I recall previous disputations, you particularly dismiss Jewish national rights in Israel, deny any legitimate national component to Jewish identity altogether and acknowledge only a religious component to Jewish identity whatsoever. Again, please correct me if this recollection is in error. But, if correct, such perspective would at least fall well within the perameters of a definitive distaste, though perhaps falling a trifle short of full-on hatred.
January 5, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bar Kafka said:
To conclude that those were my views, it appears that in the past, you were listening not to me, but to the peculiar and constant reinterpretation of my views that was offered by Zionista and some others.
January 5, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am Zionista, Wordie. And I asked to be corrected if my recollection is in error. I even said "please."
January 5, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I did correct you.
Since you're really Zionista, however, I have little expectation that the same mistakes - fictional and inflammatory "interpretations" of what it is that I've really said - will cease. This is based on several years-worth of evidence. You aren't here to communicate, in my view, you're here to propagandize.
January 5, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presume what you will about me. For whatever it is worth, I am neither here to propagandize nor to make friends, but to discuss issues of interest and concern. Nevertheless, I appreciate you restating your positive opinion of Zionism for my benefit. Henceforth, I will make a better effort to remember. See you around.
January 5, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hate requires energy, which the Zionistas don't deserve. However, if I wasted a few precious minutes of my glorious life thinking about the Davai-tnathan-SholomA-YBD-Sageemetchai Axis of Dribble, I probably would.
January 5, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone saw Cassablanca....
January 5, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's an excellent article. I hope that Obama proceeds in the direction that Miller proposes, and that pro-Israeli people realize that such a change is not an abandonment of Israel, but instead represents the best hope for it's future.
January 4, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
But instead represents the best hope for it's future as a part of the Muslim state of Palistan.
January 4, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, you admit that you just want the Palistinians to die. That is the only thing that will make you happy.
Frankly, having been to that piece of sand that you call "holy", I would suggest that you all clear out, and let it go back to being nothing but dunes. What an absurd obsession for nothing.
January 4, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, you admit that you just want the Jews to die. That is the only thing that will make you happy
January 4, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are all mortals and will all die someday, SholomA
But nobody is going to cause "the Jews" as a whole to die out. Even Hitler had no hope of killing more than about half the world's population, though he was hundreds of thousands of times more successful at murder than Hamas (which, in turn, is hundreds of times less successful than Israel is at killing Palestinians.)
Something like six million Jews live in the United States today. (This is more than in Israel though it is testimony to the power of mass denial that more Israelis haven't fled the madness of their country.) Nothing the government of Israel does or ever could do could conceivably cause those six million IN AMERICA to die prematurely.
Of course, thousands of Jews die every year in Israel -as all peoples do in every region of the world- from old age, traffic accidents, etc. plus in the specific case of Israel since 2000 maybe a dozen or so, give or take a dozen, per year from Gazan rockets. Even if the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians were helping save Israeli lives (which it clearly is not), the effect on Jewry as a whole would utterly negligible. The number of Jews actually being killed by Arabs is already very small. Fewer in TOTAL than the number of Palestinian CHILDREN being decimated by IDF bombs.
Your irrational paranoia about "The Jews" dying is however, utterly typical. Nonetheless, this is YOUR problem. There is no reason why the US Congress should coddle YOU and not represent the interests of the people of the United States as it has being doing for FAR too long already.
January 5, 2009 4:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
But nobody is going to cause "the Palestinians" as a whole to die out.
January 5, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right, SholomA. It is ridiculous to think that either (a) the Palestinians or (b) the Israelis are going to die out (no matter what happens in Gaza or anywhere else in the world and for the foreseeable future).
So why should the US Congress continuously kiss the behinds of those believing EITHER of these two absurdities? But it does, and has done for many years, and always with respect to the second idiocy: Rotely repeating the paranoid AIPAC crap that pretends, assumes, or otherwise implies, that each time an Israeli is blown up by a terrorist, or killed by a science-fair quality rocket that hits a target 1% of the time, that this somehow means the EXISTENCE of ALL Jews is gravely threatened, unless the IDF goes on a rampage to slaughter ten or a hundred times as many Arabs, many of whom had NOTHING to do with the terrorism or attack against Israel. And unless the US acts as a doormat for Israel NO MATTER WHAT atrocities it commits.
Enough is enough. It is time for Americans to assert their right to a government whose Mideast policy represents THEIR interests, not those of a bunch of Mideast kooks.
January 5, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why isn't anyone digging up what AIPAC's talking points are for this matter?
This is clearly part and parcel of Israel's policy of disproportionate response, demonstrated first with Sharon's offensives in the West Bank, then by the attack on Lebanon.
This attack on Gaza cannot be justified under any circumstance. It is an unprovoked military attack on a civilian population that has no means of defending itself. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza, in a very small area. Shelling Gaza is like shelling the Lower East Side. There is no way that shelling and air strikes, nevermind ground assault can be implemented here without huge loss of life. The majority of those killed will be civilians, most of those affected will be children.
Hundreds, and possibly thousands of Palestinians have been killed and injured so far. Possibly more than in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
This is a crime, it is a crime against humanity, the entire international community EXCEPT us will agree on that.
Gaza poses no real threat to Israel. What threat it does pose, that off unguided homemade rockets being fired towards Israel, is brought about in large part because of Israel's continued support of settlement in occupied territory.
January 4, 2009 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here they are;
http://aipac.com/130_19671.asp
January 4, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Israeli-Palestine conflict argues against realpolitick. Apparently the real interest of certain groups in Israel and certain groups in Hamas is war. Just because war is the real interest of these people doesn't mean the US should see cater to this real interest though one might argue this is exactly what the Bush administration has done. Of course, another nail in the coffin of Kissinger's politics is hardly required but neo-cons have been trumpheting the return of political realism. Robert Kagan has a nonsensical book out on this, 'The Return of History' as if the leaders of foreign nations were always trying to maximize some value at least minimally acceptable to the US. I do think there are people interested in peace in Israel and Palestine and I think the US is going to have to work with these people. There difficulty here is that these contacts are done out of sight of the media and are unrewarded by the media whereas rocket attacks are front page news. I think there would be fewer crises if a sustained pressure, at least 8 years of pressure, at the low and mid levels could be put on both sides for peace.
January 5, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing surprising or shocking about the last paragraph...and the reason is because the settlements in Judea/Samaria are not the cause of Israel's conflict with the Arabs. I think Prof Gitlin deep down knows that but he, like MJ and the other Jewish "progressives" we hear from are in denial because they wish the conflict was different than it actually is. The Jewish "progressives" have deluded themselves that the conflict is over the territory Israel captured in 1967, Judea/Samaria, and so they think that if only Israel would give that up , the Arabs would be satisfied and there would be peace. But this is not the case. Everyone knows that if the Arab world would make a Sadat-like gesture, come to Jerusalem (e.g. Kings Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Assad of Syria, Abu-Mazen the Palestinian, Mubarak of Egypt) and offer real peace with Israel in return for a complete withdrawal to the pre-67 lines and the Arab side give up the so-called "Palestinian Right of Return" and guarantee Jewish access to the Western Wall, ANY Israel gov't, even one of the "Right" led by Netanyahu would have no choice but to accept. The settlements would be bulldozed down and the synagogues would be burned down by rampaging mobs, just like we saw in Gush Katif (Gaza) in 2005. That would be that. But this is not going to happen because the Arabs world REJECTS ANY JEWISH STATE WITHIN ANY BORDERS. That is why they INSIST on the Palestinian Right of Return...this indicates they do not recognize Israeli sovereignity even within the pre-67 lines.
So why then does Prof Gitlin, MJ Rosenberg and the other Jewish "progressives" fixate on the non-issue of the settlements? Because it brings out their Jewish guilt and angst. Because the ideological drivers of the Jewish settlement movement in Judea/Samaria are Orthodox/Religious Jewish Nationalists. This embarrasses "progressive" Jews like Prof Gitlin, MJ, Bernard Avishai and the others. Although they claim to be "universalists" and "anti-parochialist", they know that Zionism can not really be reconciled with "progressivism", (althought many "progressives" are really hypocrites since they do actually support "nationalisms" like that of the Palestinians, the Irish, the Kossover, the Muslim Bosnians, the Muslim Pakistanis, etc, etc...the only nationalism they really object to is Jewish nationalism). In the past, Jewish nationalism was embodied by the MAPAI-Labor Party and their phony socialism and the Kibbutz movement, things Avishai, MJ and others identified with, but since this ideology has died the Jewish "progressives" feel orphaned and thus they turn their wrath against the modern Jewish nationalists exemplified by the Orthodox/religious Judea/Samaria settlers. They try to distance themselves from it saying "I am against them as much as the rest of the 'progressives' are." That is why, in particular MJ and Avishai are in such a rage about them saying "they are not the same people as me!", because they know the antisemitic "progressives" (I am not saying all "progressives" are antisemitic, I am sure most are not, but we do see a fair share of them here in the comments at TPM) out there DO identify them with them. And this is the terrible dilemma they face...trying to square the circle. They have my sympathy.
January 5, 2009 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting rant, YBD, but irrelevant. The question is: what interest do the people OF THE UNITED STATES have in supporting the slaughter of Palestinians, the robbing of their land, and the building of hideously ugly "settlements" for religious nutcases in the desert they are turning into a hell?
January 5, 2009 4:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ptroub-thank you for proving my point. Israel expelled all the settlers in Gaza in 2005, arranged to have the hi-tech agricultural facilities the Jews built there left behind for the Gazans and arranged economic aid for them to build a model Palestinian society that would be the forerunner of what supposedly would happen when Israel gave up Judea/Samaria as well. Did the Palestinians in Gaza take advantage of this opportunity. NO. They elected HAMAS, reject any peace with Israel, they destroyed (heaven knows why) the agricultural facilities left for them and fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Of course, you justify all this...which is my point. Palestinian advocates who really understand them (not like Prof Gitlin, MJ, Bernard Avishai and most of the Jewish "progressives" here who live in a fantasy-land regarding what the Palestinian society is like) keep pointing out that no amount of Israeli concessions will ever satisfy them...only the eradication of Israel (G-d forbid).
January 5, 2009 5:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Of course, you justify all this." Of course, I do not. If the US Congress were incessantly spouting Hamas propaganda, and if Hamas dupes were spreading lies all over this website, I would point out that such fanatical nonsense does NOT serve the interests of the UNITED STATES, which "G-d" Forbid, should not take orders from ANY foreign murderers, Palestinian, Israeli, or Martian.
January 5, 2009 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Every notice that Zionists love to tell us that Israel has nothing to do with anti-Americanism in the ME?
January 5, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Y Ben David - I believe I am much more familiar with the settlement movement than you are. It is where my relatives live and where I have been many dozens of times. Gaza settlements were abandoned because they would never be viable. It simply cost too much money and lives to defend forever. In addition, that crappy piece of sand was never vital to the concept of greater Israel.
On the other hand, Judea and Samaria are considered to be the "true" Israel. Even the secular have an attachment to that area. Your statement that Israel would pull back to the 67 lines and bulldoze all the settlements in return for thrue peace is BS and you know it. Do you REALLY think Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim and other major settlements are going to disappear?
Every Israeli government since 1967 has supported the expansion of settlements. As Bibi and Sharon stated after Wye River we have to grab whatever land we can and they did. There are now almost 500,000 Jews living beyond the green line - do you seriously think they will move? Tell me another funny one.
I'm sure you realize that a peace agreement is now far off in the future - time used to expand the settlements even more. What is Israel going to do when there are 750,000 or 1,000,000 Jews living beyond the green line. The settlers know that time is on their side to make the problem too large for a Palestinian state to exist.
Israel's government officials are running around the settlements assuring the settlers not to worry - I know - I listened to them in November. They told the settlers to calm down and let the government "manage" the situation so they would not have to move.
As a long time observer of the situation, I don't believe Israel has any intention of letting a viable Palestinian state emerge - EVER. I think the whole game plan is to make the problem of settlements so large that the government can legitimately throw up it's hands and say "there is nothing we can do, sorry". The settlers have a concept of "Palestinian reservations" and I heard Zeev Boim use the same term in November.
January 5, 2009 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
JDLEDELL-
I am at least as familiar with the settlement movement as you are. I live in Israel, I also many relatives living in them, including a daughter and son-in-law. I am active for years in support groups for them, I worked as a volunteer in the vote Sharon called of Likud members to ratify his expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif on the side that opposed them, and which he lost.
I certainly hope the settlements will continue to expand. If the Arabs don't like that, then they should agree to make peace with Israel as soon as possible. They know that. So why don't they do it? Suppose the Arabs came forward like I said above. If the Israeli gov't turned down their offer, the whole world would come down on the Israeli gov't, not to mention the Israeli Left. The reason the Left has not succeeded in stopping the settlement movement is for the reasons I have stated many times.....deep down , they know that Israel can NOT pull back to the pre-67 lines because it would be suicide to do so, and that the Arabs don't want peace with Israel on any terms.
I am sure you follow the Israeli media...you see how much hatred there is for the settlers in the main newspapers, especially Yediot Aharonot and Ha'aretz. Leftist politicians compete with each other how much they can curse the national religious public and the settlers. Haim "Jumas" Oron of MERETZ said proudly he spits in the direction fo settlements when he drives near them. You have certainly seen the comments in the media about how there are too many religious soldiers, and particularly religious officers. Even right-wing parties have toned way down their public support in the media and the election campaign for the settlements. The Establishment in Israel is largely post-Zionist and would love to get rid of the settlers. However, they have a lot of support in the public. This is the situation. Like I said, the Arabs can get rid of settlements if they wanted to. Obviously , they don't. The Arab states don't care about the Palestinians and the Palestinians themselves don't want a state. So the settlements keep growing, fortunately.
January 5, 2009 8:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ben David - Here is your original comment" Everyone knows that if the Arab world would make a Sadat-like gesture, come to Jerusalem (e.g. Kings Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Assad of Syria, Abu-Mazen the Palestinian, Mubarak of Egypt) and offer real peace with Israel in return for a complete withdrawal to the pre-67 lines and the Arab side give up the so-called "Palestinian Right of Return" and guarantee Jewish access to the Western Wall, ANY Israel gov't, even one of the "Right" led by Netanyahu would have no choice but to accept."
Implicit in this statement is your contention that Israel would give up the settlements for true peace. That being the case why expand the settlements and put more Jews thru the trauma of moving? In November, my IDF nephew took me out to Maskiot which is thriving. These poor Jews were thrown out of Gaza and you would tell them they have to move again. Why put them thru that trauma.
Ben David - Why not tell the truth. In your heart you REALLY don't want a peace agreement that would involve moving the settlers. You are really happy with the status quo so that more of Judea and Samaria can be taken. You believe that Israel's military suppiority can forever hold the Palestinians stateless.
January 5, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does this statement from Aaron David Miller not kill forever the lie that America is an "even-handed broker":
"In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity--including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions--does to the peacemaking process."
January 5, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
America is not an even-handed broker between America and Taliban, so what?
January 5, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that you feel the need to compare Palestinians to the Taliban reveals the weakness of your argument.
January 5, 2009 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would you bulldoze the settlments? You sell them. Unless we are going to see the repeat of the racism from 2005 when the Settlers demanded that their homes be leveled so that Palestinians could not live in them.
January 5, 2009 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've often thought that the dwellings and other structures left behind by the settlers could form a part of the compensation to the Palestinians for whatever relinquishment of the Right of Return they may eventually agree upon (and I believe they are willing to give up a substantial portion of this right in exchange for a good deal from the Israelis). If the Palestinians were able to provide decent housing for many of the refugees, on the Paletinian side of the Green Line instead of within Israel proper, that might help lead some of the refugees agree to settle there, rather than in Israel proper, when the final negotiations about the Right of Return are undertaken. It wouldn't work for many, however, who are determined to return to the land of their ancestors. And it's not exactly what the settlers have in mind either; it's an idea that would probably be nearly impossible to realize.
And any peace deal is looking more and more distant anyway, given what's happening now.
January 5, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't there something really sad about Condi, a black women, trying to explain away the leveling of those Jewish homes in 2005? Nothing quite so poignant as making an African-American the mouthpiece of a racist lie.
The Palestinians have a shortage of homes and those settler homes were plush--ney, manorial--by Gaza standards. Yet they paid some poverty stricken Gazans a few shekels to demolish them.
January 5, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
mythbuster: Yes, although given the rabid fury of the Gaza settlers, I can kinda understand why it was done. But Israel just brought them back and allowed the majority of them to resettle in the West Bank, which should tell us something...
The best solution to the settlers at this point may be for Israel and the PA to go ahead and conclude a peace deal, and then offer the settlers the option to stay in the new Palestinian state, but under new Palestinian laws that will provide just punishments for the murder, abuse or harrassment of any of the new state's citizens, as well as fair punishments for land theft. The problem would work itself out pretty quickly, imho, if Israel and the PA were ever to announce that was the plan. Here I am dreaming of peace again, with the Gaza in flames and the hopes of a peace fading into the far distance.
January 5, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
jdiedell, how refreshing for someone who has heard and seen the actual policy in action to state it as you have. It cuts through all of the smoke. What has been missing is Israel not stating what their actual policy is. The politicians talk about peace process, terrorism, defense, peace partners, etc. - all of which are basically lies to cover up their true intention. Are they ashamed of being honest?
January 5, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are not. Hamas politicians are being honest about their goals:
January 5, 2009 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You might enjoy this article about your hero, Moshe Feiglin.
See http://jewishleadership.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-moshe-feiglin-matters.html
I like the way that the writer's (and Feiglin's) hero Zabotinsky wanted Israel on "both sides of the Jordan" and even suggested that Arabs could join the Army to protect a Jewish State! Gee, why didn't they take them up on that generous offer? Imagine this sales pitch:
"Mohammad, I know I leveled your village and my god gave me this crappy land, but if you don't get too uppity, I'll let you stay and protect me."
January 5, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
This process might take 10 years, or 20 years or 30 years. It will be infamous and notorious, and since Israel is the 51st state, America is destined to catch much of the global shit for it: more terrorist attacks, more opposition to our interests in the Middle East, more global contempt.
Oh, well, "global contempt" . . . .
But seriously, might not everything work out fine for Washington, if not for Tel Avîv, if we can only manage to get the timing right? Let Hyperzionism carry on as it has been carryin’ on -- or maybe even more so -- until the oil runs out, and then there will scarcely be any "our interests in the Middle East" left, so who cares what happens at that point? Let Palestine be Somalia, if it likes, what will that have to do with US?
As long as the Levant does not go totally haywire during a comparatively short and foreseeable period of time, Uncle Sam ought to be able to muddle through.
Presumably this will also be to some extent a controllable period of time, unless it should turn out that to wield Sole Remaining Hyperpower™ is of no use at all. The stumblebum incompetence of the AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP (&c.) invasion and occupation of the former al-‘Iráq may suggest that conclusion, but Dr. Gen. Petræus of Princeton and West Point is generally thought to have retrieved the bushogenic quagmire pretty well. As matters stand, there is not a snowball's chance in Hell that the Tel Avîv pols and their ideobuddies in the Homeland will allow a petræification of Occupied Palestine, but all the same, it is a comfort to feel sure that one’s Uncle Sam would know how to go about such a community organizing project if called for.
Should haywire time seem immediately impending whilst there remains enough fossil fuel to be worth hanging around the ’hood for, Sam might even consider acting as unilaterally and preëmptively vis-à-vis Tel Avîv as formerly vis-à-vis Tehrán and Baghdád and ... and ... and .... Such an intervention would, after all, be "for their own good"! At least temporarily. But any contingency like that will be a number of years off if it is fated to ever happen at all.
It would be rash to prejudge the consequences of the currently on-going aggression, but I incline to guess that its general tendency will be away from, rather than towards, Haywire Hour. Mais nous verrons. Operation Tin Soldier™ is another story not to be discussed here.
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Recurring to "global contempt," I am aware that these off-the-cuff suggestions solicit it. Nothing annoys (most) others more than one’s being quite as narrow-mindedly selfish as they are. And of course it will cut no ice with anybody Levantine to point out that sixty-odd years of broad-minded peace processing have never yet proved a rewarding investment for poor old Sam. Unless you count the scrumptious petroleum that we've managed to winkle out from under them, that is -- admittedly rather a major item.
Happy days.
-- McInfamous
January 5, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of these discussions prove how vital the whole concept of separation of church and state really is to all of mankind.
Take religion out of the equation and this would all have been solved long ago.
January 5, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink