Has Israel Jumped The Shark?
Israel is just days away from elections so it is no surprise that its people are not focusing on whether or not the Gaza war was worth the price. But the polls reveal that well over 90% are satisfied with the way the war went.
They also show that Bibi Netanyahu will be elected prime minister on Feb 10th with the race-baiter Avigdor Lieberman -- he says that Israeli Arabs must sign oaths of loyalty to the Jewish state or lose their rights as citizens -- running a strong third. He will probably win more seats in Knesset than the Labor Party. He is the Israeli George Wallace, not a crazed extremist from outside the system like David Duke or Meir Kahane, but an insider who echoes Kahanist themes. With his 15 or 20 Knesset seats he replaces Ariel Sharon as the political establishment's iron fist, except that his views on Arabs (any and all) make Sharon look like Eleanor Roosevelt.
It is no wonder Israelis are satisfied with the war. It was the clear "winner" while Gaza, still burying its dead, was the loser. Unfortunately, it is not clear that Hamas lost-- a critical distinction. The people of Gaza are not Hamas. They are just people; many of the dead were children. Hamas, however, is surviving.
In one area, Israel clearly lost: public opinion. In the past, a distinction could be made between how America reacted to a Middle Eastern war and how the rest of the world did. Judging from media coverage, this time there was little difference between America and everywhere else.
That was not the case at the start. The American media took the Israeli side and the Europeans lined up behind the Palestinians. But as the war went on and Palestinian casualties mounted, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other major dailies began covering the war little differently than the Independent, the Guardian, or Le Monde.
The focus was on the humanitarian disaster, not on who was or wasn't responsible for the war. The blogosphere--now as influential as the mainstream media--was almost uniformly opposed to Israel's position. The prevalent view there was that Israel's blockade of Gaza was no less a casus belli than the Kassam rockets.
As for the television networks, only Fox consistently supported Israel's position. The others focused on the suffering of Gaza's people. This was remarkable because Israel had banned the media from covering the story from Gaza. But the media made do --with Al Jazeera-English often setting the pace --and the heart-rending stories of human suffering came out.
The impact on public opinion has been striking. Other than within the more conservative segment of the pro-Israel community, there was little show of support for this war. In New York, a city where crowds of 250,000 have come out for "solidarity" rallies in the past, only 8,000 came to Manhattan for a community demonstration on a sunny Sunday. The same skepticism about the war was true elsewhere and Israelis noticed the break with past patterns.
So did the media. The current issue of Newsweek features a story called: "Israel Has Fewer Friends than Ever, Even in America."
"Israel has never been more isolated," it reports. It has "just one key friend. Could Obama, who promised the Muslim world 'a new way forward' in his Inaugural Address, loosen the bond? A recent Pew poll shows 55 percent of U.S. Republicans, but only 45 percent of Democrats, approve of Israel's actions in Gaza. Given that Democrats now rule, Israel may need to worry
more about the mood on Main Street than on the Arab Street."
Then came 60 Minutes. Last Sunday, the highest rated program in the United States ran a scathing Bob Simon segment on the occupation. One part stood out. Simon and his crew filmed a private home in Nablus, which the Israeli army seized so that its soldiers could use the upper floor as a lookout post.
The family who lives in the house was relegated to the bottom floor, while soldiers took their beds. Later, when the kids came home from school, soldiers barred the door. Apparently, such house seizures happen often and Palestinians have no one to whom to protest. And this is not Gaza but the West Bank, governed by Israel's friend, Mahmoud Abbas.
The segment also featured prominent settler activist, Daniella Weiss, pledging that never again will any settlement be dismantled by the IDF. If the Israeli government decides to evacuate the settlers in the context of a peace treaty, they (and their rabbis) will urge the soldiers to disobey their orders. She is confident that they would. She picked up a piece of sod and made clear that, for her, neither the State of Israel, nor its government, matters much. All that matters is God's promise of the land to the Jews.
Weiss, an eloquent and influential advocate of the settlers' position, explained the rationale that motivates her and the settlement movement: obstructing peace. "I think that settlements prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the land of Israel. This is the goal and this is the reality." There you have it.
Simon's conclusion: "Demographers predict that, within ten years, Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state, the Israelis would have three options. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank. They could give Palestinians the vote. That would be the democratic option, but it would mean the end of the Jewish state. Or they could try apartheid, have the minority Israelis rule the majority Palestinians. But apartheid regimes don't have a very long life."
Pretty incredible television, at least for the United States (not so in Israel where these issues are freely discussed). But this type of analysis is becoming more and more common. Just check out Jon Stewart's Daily Show, on which the brilliant and hugely influential Jewish comedian repeatedly and consistently takes on the safe and conventional wisdom about the Middle East. Or Bill Moyers, who has assumed the Edward R. Murrow/Walter Cronkite mantle as conscience of the media.
Some pro-Israel activists are preparing for intensified war against this phenomenon. They have long been in the business of shooting the messenger, believing that it is not the occupation that is the problem but the reporters who write about it. But the messenger has suddenly discovered that he can take a bullet, especially ones that invariably misfire.
Supporters of the status quo had better get used to it. The American approach to the Middle East is changing and the shift in the media is just one sign of it. Most important of all, America has changed.
Could anyone have imagined in the first years following 9/11 that the very next President of the United States would be an African American named Barack Hussein Obama, who makes a point of addressing Muslims in his inaugural address and telling Al Arabiyah about his Muslim relatives? The Americans who voted him into office are not going to reflexively stand in opposition to Palestinian or Muslim aspirations based on ethnic bias or knee-jerk attitudes.
Obama's America is going to be even-handed in the Middle East not only because that is what Obama is, but because it is what most Americans today expect and want. Younger people, in particular, cannot even imagine that anyone would suggest that even-handedness is bad. To them, that is like saying that the best referee is one who bends the rules to favor one team.
It is offensive to assume that even-handedness is bad for Israel. To decry even-handedness as intrinsically anti-Israel is to argue that any fair observer will always choose the anti-Israel position. That is as perverse as it is wrong. And it is insulting to recommend that the United States be anything but an honest broker in the Middle East.
I do not expect that the conservative pro-Israel activists will change their ("the whole world is anti-Semitic") tune. It is the only one they know.
But the Israelis might be getting it (although the election poll results don't suggest it). Every major front page in Israel ran Obama's interview with Al Arabiya, his first with any foreign media since his inauguration. Israelis heard him endorse the Saudi plan and state that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to our problems in the region. They recognize a clean break with the past when they see it. And they may be beginning to realize that Obama is a friend, even if he does not mouth simple-minded rhetoric about the Middle East and what will fix it.
Even Bibi Netanyahu is eager to convey that he gets Obama. He has moderated his tone since Obama's election and has made it clear that the last thing he wants is a difficult relationship with America's most popular president in a generation.
I would expect that, no matter who is elected prime minister, he or she will try to get along with our new President. What choice do they have? They know that George W. Bush, with his utterly destructive "support" for Israel, is gone. It's a new day and, for Israel, that will mean dialing down the rhetoric. Far more significantly, it means changing policies -- starting with an end to the settlement enterprise.
That is what Israel's friends here want -- an end to the occupation and the full implementation of the two-state solution now, before it is too late. As for the heroic champions of the status quo - the ones who are always warning Presidents and Congress that any deviation from the tired and predictable "line" will mean political trouble - -they are part of the past. They may not know it yet. But they will soon enough.
Obama promised change; on the Middle East, he is already delivering.
Some Democrats who voted for Obama believing that, once in office, he would give Israel its usual carte blanche are already kicking themselves. Had McCain won, Israel might be halfway to Tehran by now. With Obama, Israel is halfway to peace and security -- no matter who wins on February 10th. Netanyahu is ultimately a realist. Lieberman is just a demagogue. It is Obama who decides.
POSTSCRIPT: My son, Peter, the hip hop media personality, is quoted in the cover story in this month's Atlantic on the end of white America. Peter is a post-white America kind of guiy but, despite his self-description, he is not "nerdy."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/end-of-whiteness
What did you think about what happened yesterday in Davos:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dan_k/2009/01/erdogan-to-peres-you-are-killi.php
January 30, 2009 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Peres was embarassed by what he had say. No wonder.
January 30, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you mean that Peres was embarrased after the fact by what he said to everyone? I watched the speech and thought this was the moment when Peres pulled a Cheney. As Maureen Dowd has said, remember when people thought Cheney had "gravitas"?
These brave Jews outline why Obama's challenge is really enormous: http://www.factsontheground.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/peace-now-report-summary-of-construction-in-the-west-bank-2008.pdf
January 30, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The onus, in other than US/Israeli sources, is falling on David Ignatius for his utterly inept handling of the discussion. Why would he be chosen as the moderator in the first place? The inflated prominence and egos of journalistic hacks was on full display in Davos. That Ignatius would behave so rudely and dismissively after allowing Peres to rant on for 25 minutes reinforces the one-sided American pov.
Another problem was that the interpreter who was translating Erdogan's commentary was considered to be shockingly lousy at her job, given the high profile of the meeting. This wasn't some forum at an American university or think tank so why an amateur was given the responsibility has people scratching their heads.
What I find amusing are the conflicting narratives over whether or not Peres apologised to Erdogan. The first reports that he called Erdogan to do just that were in the Israeli media and the subsequent denials that Peres apoligised to him are coming from Peres' office.
January 30, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Erdogan incident was wonderful luck, it has made him a hero at home in Turkey, but also in Gaza and the entire Muslim world. The add enormously to his value as an intermediary/negotiator.
January 31, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well stated, M. J.
January 30, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for another thoughtful commentary. One can only hope (as a secular Jew, I do not pray)that reason and enlightend self interest will prevail but it is not at all yet clear that it will
January 30, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
You write: "He has significantly moderated his tone since Obama's election"
from Haaretz
"I will not keep Olmert's commitments to withdraw and I won't evacuate settlements. Those understandings are invalid and unimportant," Netanyahu said.
Of course you might say that he's just saying that but in his heart he will work with Obama. And I say keep dreaming, brother! Netanyahu will say all the right things, to appear as accommodating as he can be while in reality the colonial project will continue with his blessing.
Haaretz has an article on a "secret" government database which shows the extent of the settlement expansion. That is the reality and true motivation of the Israeli government, "on the ground" as they say.
US presidents come and go, and all that Israel has to do is wait it out with endless talks, conferences, and quartets about peace.
The time for the two-state solution has run out. It will be apartheid for a while. The best short-term hope for Israel is that the natives don't get too restless, that they learn to lick and like the boot on their throat.
Ethnic cleansing won't happen. If it was a time prior to instant communication, then yes, ethnic cleansing would have been the "solution". Israel would have done it by now but the eyes of the world can see everything and it won't happen.
Ultimately, there will be a bi-national state, one person and one vote. Israel had the chance to have a two-state solution but, in it's desire to have it all, Israel will ultimately lose what it really wanted, a Jewish state.
January 30, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
They join every Western country. Remember when Pat Buchanan used to rail about America no longer being a White, Christian Nation?
To which this White Christian says: Who cares. It's still the greatest show on Earth and the envy of the world. (Gobama!)
January 30, 2009 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right. I wrote that line yesterday.
January 30, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Friendship goes both ways. Israel is a client state, not a friend. What has it ever done to be a friend of the US?
January 30, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
from No Happy Ending
January 30, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
The answer for Israel will be to cut the deal establishing clear borders, and then tell the settlers living on the non-Israeli side that they have until X-date to relocate if they wish to remain Israeli citizens, and that after X-date they will no longer have the IDF to protect them. Although there might be some who are zealous enough to wish to remain and become Jewish Palestinians, I think the majority would move. After all, as Palestinian citizens they would be subject to Palestinian land laws and without the IDF would be held responsible for their crimes against their Palestinian neighbors. It appears to be a very extreme plan, I'm sure, but it would eliminate the problem for Israel of sending in the IDF to forceably evacuate the settlers. It's for this reason also that the U.S. may need to force the Israelis to negotiate a deal (whatever that "force" may mean - a threat to remove financial assistance, perhaps). The settlers and extremists have enough clout now - and appear to be so entirely oblivious to the implications of the three possible outcomes suggested by Bob Simon - that the Israeli PM will need some sort of cover to be able to negotiate any sort of a deal, and a forceful U.S. role is the only thing that can possible provide it. It's time for a fish-or-cut-bait approach by the U.S. anyway.
January 30, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually think this is a very good suggestion. It doesn't involve having to remove the settlers, but it still applies tough pressure on them. Of course, the Palestinians and settlers will be in for a fight, read civil war, which might ignite a similar conflict within Israel.
Hard to tell what the consequences would be...
January 30, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, my thought was that the majority of the settlers, when faced with such a possibility, would return to Israel, especially if the Israeli government established a date-certain for the removal of the IDF troops, and hence the support that the settlers have learned to depend upon. The project to settle Judea and Samaria would not look as attractive when it became unambigously clear that the area was definitely going to be part of a Palestinian state, never Israel.
You're right that there would be a tremendous risk of violence against any settlers who chose to remain. Would there really be many of them? I'm too far removed to really have a clear idea of what would happen if Israel really set such a policy in motion. A lot also would depend on how it was executed; the settlers would have to believe without doubt that the IDF was really going to be withdrawn from the West Bank. Since most of the settlers find their motivation in religious extremism, I suppose it's possible that a certain percentage would stay and fight anyway.
Maybe this is a time for a program on Israeli TV showing that the story of the suicide of the rebels at Masada is myth. It was an inspiring story, but it's also had it's downside. Of course, we have our own, "Give me liberty or give me death."
At any rate, I do think a considerable percentage would return to Israel, and that would be something positive. Once the majority had returned, maybe it would be easier for the Israeli government to go and get the remaining stragglers and forcibly bring them back? Obviously, this is not a fully worked out plan, but something along these lines might be helpful, imho.
January 30, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for a thoughtful and, I might add, even-handed analysis. For me, this is the money quote:
This is what Obama was referring to when he said the ground was shifting. The many parties with vested interests in the status quo should realize this.
My son is 13 and attends a public school in a predominantly Christian conservative community. Every day he is witness to the hatred instilled in children by his father's generation. Nonetheless, he and his friends are astonishingly blind to race and ethnicity, to an extent that is difficult for me to comprehend.
This is why I continue to have hope for the future.
January 30, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Me too, for the same reason.
Here's a quote about my son from this month's Atlantic. It's dead-on, except where he describes himself as nerdy, which he isn't.
"Peter Rosenberg, a self-proclaimed “nerdy Jewish kid” and radio personality on New York’s Hot 97 FM—and a living example of how hip-hop has created new identities for its listeners that don’t fall neatly along lines of black and white—shares another example: “I interviewed [the St. Louis rapper] Nelly this morning, and he said it’s now very cool and in to have multicultural friends. Like you’re not really considered hip or ‘you’ve made it’ if you’re rolling with all the same people.”
January 30, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does that mean I have to be friends with tnathan?
January 30, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why would it? He's not of a different race, just a different planet.
January 30, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Sigh of relief.)
January 30, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
M.J., I need to share this with my son Zachary. Peter is living Zack's dream.
I'm not sure he'll be able to handle the embarrassment of being tagged, even namelessly, in a public forum. By his father. But it's a growing experience.
Thanks.
January 30, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tell Zachary that Peter started dreaming it at 10 and now he's living it! Good luck to him,
January 30, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ has preformed a classic verbal piece of gymnastics and as they say, he stuck the landing!
Alas he managed to prove exactly the opposite of the point he thinks he's making and that's no easy thing.
First, neither the "radical" nor the so-called "moderate" Arab states want the same "peace" as either Israel or the US.
Radicals want radicalism because they either believe in their radicalism or they're professional cynics who want to stay in power and will use radical methods when it suits their needs.
The Moderates want peace and a Palestinian state that is, a)economically dependent on oil wealth and western largess, and b) fundamentally non-democratic, aristocratic and tribal and culturally antagonistic to the west so that they can continue to write an ossified narrative that calls western-Isralie-Euro culture pernicious and a threat to Islam/Arabs, and let's be honest...they're correct because even a psuedo democratic state like Isrel (about as politically corrupt as France or America or Italy) poses a profound threat to the dominant political and social cultures of the Arabs.
A Palestinian state in the pre-67 borders will be unable to allow a free press, freedom of religion, freedom of personal expression and will not be able to allow emancipation of women, or freedom for artists and a free and independent judiciary, because those things will if successful spread through the Arab world and give rise to reactionary violence and a civil war in "Palestine" which will either be contained and pit Hamas against Fatah or will pit Hamas against Fatah and bring in Israel, Syria/Iran and Jordan...and no one wants that so the whole thing will be scuttled before it even gets started...
The false meta-narrative that claims the core issue is "the occupation" misses every central point of importance.
When an Arab says it's the core issue and that an independent Palestinian state (and therefore the return to the '67 borders) is the solution no one ever asks them what a Palestinian state will look like.
If your a senile christian in the Jimmy Carter camp you buy the aristocratic Fatah/Moderate narrative of a happy Palestinian who get 40 acres and a camel(because it fulfills your Neo-Biblical narrative) and above all keeps his mouth shut while the Palestinian elite run a vast ponzi scheme...if you're a "radical" the state will be a fascistic theocracy...in neither case will there or can there be peace...only a pause until the next fit of violence and the next spasm of circular rhetoric...
The fourth solution for Israel, that no one mentions is really simple: Stop letting Palestinians into Israel for work because it's apartheid (like American Apartheid in which, for example, we support thugs in Central America who eviscerate their impoverished and force them to choose between the devil they know at home and the devil they don't know in the US...)and strategically unbalanced...
Israel's most serious strategic dilemma is that it can't really make the case that the Arab states are culturally decrepit because they would draw everyone's attention to the fact that america supports countries who practice misogyny as a matter of faith, practice slavery and wage slavery, openly denigrate other forms of Islam and any other religion, prevent freedom of expression in every facet of life (unless it's wobbly-kneed and decadent and thus ineffectual) and as Israel is dependent on the US that's not going to happen.
So, we are not going to see any major changes at all...and eight years from now...the Middle East will still look like Picasso's Guernica...and when a German officer came to Picasso's studio during the occupation (sic) he sniffed around, found a postcard from the '37 pavilion, that showed Guernica, and said, did you do this?
No, said Picasso, you did...
January 30, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should add the following: Israel, of course, can not, and will not, stop exploiting the Palestinians of the W.Bank, because if they can't get work in Israel, they will turn to Jordan, which would be destabilized by a larger and or massive demographic surge and since the Isralies know this, and the Jordanians know it, and the US knows it, it's not going to happen...which means this thing of ours (sic) will go on and on as it does everywhere else with each side violently clinging to survival and hoping other tribe(s) eventually vanish...which, is exactly what happens...or as Joseph Heller put it in Catch 22...Italy won the war...because after 2000 years of one occupation after another...and long after the Americans have come and gone...they will still be there...and this works both ways...and Bibi and E.Barak and Obama and the Saudis and everyone else knows it...so...it goes...and goes...
What will happen is exactly what always happens...events will continue to proceed hery-jerky style and if it doesn't look like Guernica, it will sound like the end of Lord Jim, or Heart of Darkness...or the end of The Quiet American...take your pick; the number of blueprints for how humans make a cock-up of things is extensive...
and everyone will continue to shuttle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse...
January 30, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If your a senile christian in the Jimmy Carter camp you buy the aristocratic Fatah/Moderate narrative"
You are so wrong!
Former President Carter was on the CBC radio yesterday. (there's a link below and a podcast is available too). He is optimistic about the new foundation laid by President Obama. He urges the US government to talk to Hamas.
To banish the notion that President Carter is senile, check out his interview by the CBC coming from NYC yesterday, right here:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200901/20090129.html
January 30, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I always enjoy the "Arabs are decrepid" arguments. It's like saying that Irish are drunks, Blacks are lazy, English people are snotty, etc.
That is to say, it just tells you the person saying it is totally ignorant. Full stop.
January 30, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except for the idea that facts are annoying things you would be correct...
Adunis, one of the leading Arab poets of our time has said Arab culture is dead...and decrepit...so, I agree with him...
If you would like to disagree with him you are of course free to do so...
"There is no more culture in the Arab world," he said. "It's finished. Culturally speaking, we are a part of Western culture, but only as consumers, not as creators."
(You may read the entire article here):http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE7D71130F930A25754C0A9649C8B63
and then there are the members of 187...the Persian/Iranian writers who signed a petition demanding freedom...and were all ether jailed or fled Iran...one of the leaders of the group opened a bookstore in Berlin, called The Blind Owl, named for a famous Persian author's novel of the same name...like every other Arab and Persian intellectual he's of the view that the Arab stats (and Iran) are culturally dead...
So, you can refute them if you like though how you would find an Arab or Persian/Iranian intellectual to support that refutation is beyond me.
Cheers
M.
January 30, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your argument: Arab culture is dead.
Your proof: Adonis, an Arab academic, says it is.
My argument: Being governor of Alaska makes me an expert on Russia.
My proof: Sarah Palin says so.
Point: Citing one person to prove an opinion about an entire culture is an exercise in stupdity. Ir's also the fallacy of arguing from "authority."
But in this case, it should be called "arguing from self-hatred." See this excerpt on Adonis. See http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1111
Money quote: "There is no more culture in the Arab world. It's finished. Culturally speaking, we are a part of Western culture, but only as consumers, not as creators."
That means Adonis is talking about himself. An Arab poet says that he is only a consumer of culture. That makes him a pretty lousy poet, don't you think? And not much of an authority on anything.
January 30, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're moving the goalpost...
Adonis or any other writer or artist you care to name will prove the same point...Arab culture is morphing and merging with the non-Arab cultural trend(s) because dictatorships are always culturally ossified and the Arab states are culturally turgid...
as I said, Mafouz wasn't attacked in LA or Paris...(two places full of enough racism to fuel a klansman's wet dreams for a decade or more)...
so best perhaps to distinguish between Arab culture in exile and Arab culture at home...exiled culture whether Arab or any other grows changes and often thrives...dictatorships have a null culture which is exactly their mission...to live in a museum...
you of course neglected to address Group 187...187 Persian writers artists and even some dreaded academics...are you saying they are all wrong?
While you can get Paul Auster or Saul Below in Iran (hell you can even listen to Auster being interviewed on Iranian radio)the fact is...Auster would be taken out and shot if he lived in an Arab state or in Iran and he said publicly the government is wrong...about anything...
So back to the original point.
A democratic and independent Palestinian state will be a threat to the Arabs...to dictatorships supported by America...and everyone in power knows it...so there will be no independent Palestinian state because free expression of anything would reveal the rot at the heart of any of the states in the ME...and as I mentioned...it was Mubarak who let the open cat secret out of the bag...a thriving Palestinian state would be a natural commercial and cultural ally of Israel...and an emancipated Palestinian populace would publicly ridicule their Arab cousins and inevitably call for freedom to be extended to every corner of the Arab world...which would put them on a collision course with America who supports Arab dictators...thus it goes in a horrid vicious circle...just like the writers keep telling everyone...
And lastly...if, as you say, one can not or should not appeal to authority then all ideas are equal and as such no one is ever wrong and none is ever right...but you don't really mean that...what you really mean is that you haven't heard of Adonis or Group 187...until now and you're over you head and are using a thinly disguised ad hominim attack...Adonis is Arab and Adonis is critical of his home culture and since he's an "academic" and since authority is a sham, he's a sham...
but the idea that everyone is stuck in a horrid historical trap as say, Tolstoy, or Faulkner, or Pynchon, etc, etc, etc, etc, have said, is wrong because they're "authorities" and we can not appeal to them because that's...silly...or wrong...or illogical...or something...so I guess we should just designate the humanities as an extra credit diversion...
and every writer, painter, musician, or philosopher who ever told us history goes in vast cycles of "thud and Blunder"* is wrong...wow...that's a stunning headline if I ever read one...Mythbuster Declares Academe intellectually bankrupt...film at eleven...
*James Joyce, noted fraud, hack and no-talent poser who tells us absolutely nothing about the human condition...or history...or anything else for that matter...which means by extension, every other writer or artist or academic who ever praised him, is a fraud...what a world view...
January 30, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't respond to your stream of consciousness. If you want to make two or three points, I can respond to that.
January 30, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right...too much Faulkner can make a person's head swim...so, pick one and respond...but they are all connected...which is exactly one of the major themes inherent in modern lit...or zen..."this" is also "that...
so...the US supports dictators...dictators preside over culturally stifled and ossified societies...expression of any opinion must be done in exile or via Zamizdat...such countries can not openly engage in exchanges with democratic countries or so-so democratic countries because open exchanges results in the collapse of the dictatorship...an independent contiguous democratic Palestinian state would be a threat to dictatorships...
human beings are rarely reasonable...rarely logical...and as (insert author/artist here) we keep being told...things rarely work out well...
Instead, apparently they go in hideous but amazing repetitive cycles...as Faulkner or Tolstoy have pointed out...so what is one to do?
The existence of competing narratives is a sin qua non of human existence...a man takes a wrong turn and ends up placing the Archduke in the line of fire of an assassin...WW I is sparked...
Is the assassin a nationalist hero or a murderer?
I used to know someone who was from Iran. They told a story about a "hero" of the Iran-Iraq war...a school teacher who blew himself up to stop an Iraqi tank...the story was later told by someone else as an example of a suicide jihadist...
the terrible problem is...what if both versions are true?
As Tolstoy put it, a clash between good and good is far more interesting than one between good and bad...
On the other hand as Richard Belzer's Detective Munch phrased it when asked what would have happened if Hitler had made it into art school..
"He'd have decorated the camps in pastel..."
History is a record of things hardly ever working out well or easily...and literature is full of people of a wide variety of political views all seemingly saying the same thing...we're screwed...and one must, as Kierkegaard has it, make a leap of faith in the face of an impossible state of inherently absurd existence...but then what does one do with Emanuel Kant saying (as translated by Isaiah Berlin) "From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing will ever grow..."
The existence of the "troubles" in the ME are suggestive of a recurring pattern that seemingly defies a solution...because it is, or is seemingly, human nature to be violent, unreasonable, and narrow...and logic and openess and related virtues work in fits of a kind of punctuated equilibrium...that comes and goes in...cycles...one year there is peace...and the next...the crops fail...there's a famine...
there's a coup...there's a war...there's a hero and a villain...
and as Kurt Vonnegut said...so it goes...
and mind you, just for the record...I often find Western culture to be as much of a stinking corpse as any other...T.S. Eliot said the Jews should be locked up in camps (In his essay After Strange Gods delivered at the University of Virginia in the 1930s...) but that doesn't invalidate The Wasteland...it only gives it a layer of irony...but it is still a devastating indictment of Western culture and a terrifying suggestion that we move in and out of repeating cycles of this, and that...
Now there is Israel...and once upon a time...there were the Romans...but Joseph Conrad was right (wasn't he...) when he said in Heart of Darkness that "...this too (London) was once one of the dark places of the earth..."
And then, brilliantly, he takes one of the then young Winston Churchill's Hazzah-for-the-Empire speeches, turns it on it's pointy head, and deflates the entire notion that a government or an empire (no matter how powerful) can run the world...for ever...
So...Obama's people will make a lot of speeches...they will have a lot of meetings...summits will come and go...and in the end, the ME will look like Absalom, Absalom...or War and Peace...or Catch 22...or a Farewell to Arms...or...
Cheers,
M.
January 31, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hello,
I meant/mean the christian narrative of where the Middle East has come from as an issue and where it is going and where some would like it to go is obsolete...Carter's optimism is rooted in christian evangelic and baptist ideology...optimism doesn't stop bullets...or money...so i remain sadly convinced there wont be peace though I'd love to be wrong:-)
Cheers
M.
January 30, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing that interests me is how Israel seems to be poisoning its own information well. First we have Michael Oren, a professional historian, announcing publicly that he works for the Israeli government. Now we have news reports of a blogospheric truth squad, with young Israeli immigrants working for the government by being sent out to blogs to do battle with anti-Israeli sentiments.
Don't they realize that this kind of activity will only serve to cast a shadow of suspicion on those who defend Israel, but who do not work for the government as an official propagandist?
January 30, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the article MJ.
There are not many articles on the Israeli/Palestine conflict on liberal blogs.
What are the polls inside Israel telling us? Are the people there still 80% in favor of the Gaza offensive, does the majority see it as a just response to 'the rockets?'
January 30, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gosh, Marlow, I've heard the market for oracles is recession-proof! You're a lucky guy.
January 30, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's funny;-)
However...what is one to do with Tolstoy? dismiss his view of history as...fraudulent? Ok...let's strike the Count...what do we say about Checkov? Hack? Hmmm...how about Faulkner...a drunk...who makes no sense? Ok so much for Quentin Compson...so, what about the end of Gatsby? Ridiculous...the past holds no sway over us what so ever...besides, the man couldn't hold his liquor... so the hell with him too...Camus...Sartre...Malraux...Robbe-Grilliet and the other Nouvelle Roman-ists...all hacks...
so...Pynchon...well, we don't even know what he looks like so F**k him...and Dellio...ha!
the next thing we know someone will be telling us that Joseph Heller's Catch 22 really is an excellent mirror of human stupidity and the mendacity of war-mongers...but that's bs...after all, Milo Minderbinder has some cotton to sell...and Heller was a scribbler...a hack...why he's no more significant then say...Darwish...or Hemingway...or ...um...I forget...right...Huxley was an idiot...and so was Orwell...and Etger Keret and AviDan tell us nothing about anything...
So the hell with writers...or philosophers...in fact the hell with the arts all together...
Now IF only people would just be reasonable...logical...IF only the elites and the media and the racists and fools would step aside and let good people everywhere breath free...
Then the world would look like a Bosh painting...oh, sorry, that proves the point I'm making...but Bosh was another artist and thus a fraud who tells us nothing about anything...
I mean after all...no one ever heard themselves being described in a Springsteen song...shoot...guys been singing uplifting hymns for near on 40 years...and stuff like The River tells us nothing about the vast paradoxical nature of life where sometimes you get Sgt. Pepper and sometimes you get gulags...sometimes you get Coltrane and sometimes you get Rove...right-o...Maugham was an idiot...that's why The Razor's Edge is such a lousy book...I mean c'mon; who would base a novel about man's search for meaning on the Upanishadic idea that life goes in vast repeating cycles...that's crazy talk...
yeah...right...
Cheers,
M.
January 30, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh, and I forgot to be dismissive of Samuel Becket...as "Mythbuster" so smartly points out, we should not appeal to "authority" because Sara Palin is a moron...so let's be clear; no one will ever make a dime comparing the Middle East to Waiting for Godot...or Craps Last Tape...after all...Becket tells us zero about the way of the world...
and if anyone wants to know what's best for the Middle East they can check out MJ...I hear he's up for the Nobel in Lit...and his blog is going to be anthologized and then translated into a hundred languages...and his plays have been compared to the greatest works of the human imagination...for the ways they reveal the terrifying dilemmas of existence...
Cheers,
M
January 30, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marlow, I think you have a doppelganger over at The Washington Note named "Questions." Check "her" out sometime.
February 2, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Netanyahu will smile and shake hands and talk with Obama for the cameras.
Off camera he will be working with his American friends that are trying full-time to undermine the president.
As usual the American news-consuming public are regarded as morons, particularly by the Neocon-Netanyahu axis. They are quite sure they have everything wired. The fix is in.
Unfortunately for all their clever schemes, the rest of the world is moving away from them at a rapid pace. Young people are not interested in the world view promoted by the Netanyahu faction.
Justifiable wars with the same old justifications are not in style now.
However Netanyahu's people are still running a lot of the institutions in the US, have a lot of financial backing, and will be players for years and years.
January 30, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, you cite polls showing well over 90% of Israelis were satisfied with how the war went.
Twenty per cent of Israeli citizens are Arab. Everything I read suggests they overwhelmingly opposed the war.
The poll figure is for Israeli Jews.
You make the same mistake your far-right opponents make -- not counting the Arabs.
January 30, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find that 90% Israeli approval poll of the Gaza offensive at this time to be difficult to believe. Not after Israelis have seen all the reports coming out of Gaza. Maybe they are not seeing the reports or turning a blind eye to them.
I would like to see a range of polls taken yesterday.
January 30, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the question was narrow: Do you support a military effort to stop rocket fire?
That question may have garnered 90% support.
January 30, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The IDF were already making a 'military effort' - the rockets were always met with reprisals.
In the year before the the June 19, 2008, 'truce' -
The number of Palestinians killed by IDF fire was 49 per month.
IDF deaths during the entire period was ONE.
from Gaza Timeline.
The number of rockets had dwindled to less than 12 per month during the 'truce' period with zero casualties. It was never about the rockets.
January 30, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. The Arab numbers don't matter. They have no say in anything the Israeli government does. The Jewish Israelis are 100% in charge. Very democratic!
January 30, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I started reading Haaretz about 5 years and was confused also from some of their polling data. It is routine to just poll the Jews, this is understood. If Arabs are polled it is explicitly stated. Next time someone tells you that Israel is the only democracy in the ME, ask them about this peculiar custom.
January 30, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Syvanen, the reason for polling only Jews in question like the attacks in Gaza is that the opinion of Arab-Israelis are well known and not out of any racist reasons. It's like saying that because every form in the US asks for your racial category means that the US is not democratic. Believe me that foreigners in the US are amazed by this habit, but would not read into it more than what it is.
The fact that Israel has tide of xenophobic politics in the last decades and is unwilling to change its course is indeed true and depressing, and as one of the 10% Israeli Jews who opposed the Gaza war and was horrified by it I'm afraid to say that I agree that Israel has jumped the shark. Yet attacking Haaretz, the most important progressive newspaper here, in racism, is simply silly.
January 31, 2009 4:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Adenauer, syvanen was not singling out Haaretz for criticism. I think we can all agree that it is the most courageous news source within Israel.
He (or she) was criticizing the mindset that implies the opinions of Israeli Arabs don't matter.
I respect your opposition to the Gaza "war."
But I reject your explanation that "the reason for polling only Jews in question like the attacks in Gaza is that the opinion of Arab-Israelis are well known and not out of any racist reasons."
No, That doesn't cut it. And the fact that "moderate" Israelis like you don't perceive the underlying racism is very disturbing.
January 31, 2009 5:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, acanuck, my point was not to claim that Israeli politics and culture are not deeply xenophobic, or that mainstream and even many progressive-oriented are free from it. Denying that would be fullish. My point was that the fact there are some polls that are based on ethnic lines (and it should be stressed that these are by no means the rule) do not automatically make pollsters racist. U.S. press is full of polls that divides the population along race, gender and religion lines, not out of racist and chauvinist reasons, but out of recognition that these are categories that in our society are relevant to one's political identity. The fact that U.S. audience is interested in, let's say, what was the rate of whites' support of Obama, or African-American support of proposition 8, and that poles did reflect these categories (and yes, there were polls that asked only whites or blacks about their opinions), does not mean that all pollsters and their readers were racist. Israel politics and society is full of xenophobia and racism, as most societies in conflict are, and unfortunately the Bush administration's support of these only strengthened these tendencies. However, one has to know where the problems are, not to target the wrong issues, and to be to careful with accusations. Even if those accusation of racism come in the form of quotation marks around "moderate" for someone who suggested that maybe not all Israelis are racist.
January 31, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Adenauer, I did not intend to imply you (or the editors at Haaretz) are immoderate or racist.
My beef is with this poll, and polls like it.
It's one thing to break down your sample by ethnic group; it's another thing to present the results for just one group as representing "the Israeli public."
And that's precisely how this widely cited poll has been used. Even unwittingly by MJ.
No democracy can systematically ignore the views of 20% of its citizens; neither should a reputable pollster.
January 31, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. I agree with your clarification of my comments. My first reaction on discovering Haaretz was to wonder why such good reporting wasn't appearing in MSN in the US.
January 31, 2009 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think Israel has jumped the shark. I do not believe we can expect anything positive out of the new Israeli government. As a political observation, I must say it seems like every time the Israelis have a government that's willing to move forward, we don't, and vice versa.
My prediction is now the following. Bibi and the rest of the yahoos will dig the country and region into a deeper hole by building settlements and allowing the settlers to run rampant, as they currently are. This will continue for a number of years. Finally, the situation will be obvious to everyone on the coastal plain: the country won't survive in the long run without peace.
Bibi & Co. will become discredited, as the country sinks progressively into the swamp. A new party of force within an older party will arise, ultimately gaining enough mass and will within the Israeli political system to force the settlers to withdraw, any way they want it, as the country survival will demand it.
Then a peace of sorts will occur, based on teh '67 borders. Over time, this peace will become deep and permanent.
Too bad so many have to die beforehand. Why not just skip to the end of this movie now?
January 30, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
By that time there will be one million settlers in the West Bank. It will be too late.
January 30, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post, thanks as always for wading in where few will dare to tread.
Personally I don't expect anything like a sudden transformation, but I do agree that Operation Cast Lead Around Gaza is a real turning point in how the west sees Israel. And in no small part that's due to the Israeli side of the story being presented as very much propaganda and very much not any kind of real discussion of the reality in Israel and the occupied territories. Since the official narrative simply doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny, despite congressional proclamations that it does, even the media and the uninterested public slowly notice it. It doesn't matter where it happens when armies bulldoze villages to the ground and all the deaths happen in the village, not in the army, the words 'self-defense' no longer explain what's happening.
January 30, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
mythbuster, your number may be a bit high. But it will be large. But the survival of the state will be at issue. And survival tends to focus the mind.
January 30, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right, but consider these facts:
If we assume there are already 282,400 settlers on the West Bank, and Israel has a Jewish population of 5,534,320 (76% of total Israeli population. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel). If you include East Jerusalem, the number rises to 484, 562 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlements
).
That means we are talking about relocating between 5.1% and 8.7% of the population. And that is now. Israel has made the problem too big to solve.
January 30, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You should also add to the equation that the IDF officer corp is disproportionately recruited from the settler population. I suspect that this is one of the major reasons that the government will not act against the illegal settlements -- since many of their ministers are IDF, they know better than we do what orders their active comrades are prepared to obey.
January 30, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
So far I see nothing concrete to indicate that the Obama administration will be "even handed".
In fact, the recent statements from Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice provide evidence that it's business as usual.
Obama's much ballyhoed interview w/ Saudi mouthpiece Al_Arabiya has had more effect on Americans indulging in wishful thinking than on the supposed target audience. It's about time for Americans living in the dreamtime to finally internalize the fact that the Muslim world has long ago decided that it's American actions that count, not precious words, no matter who the president is who is uttering them.
However, the persistant pov that only American and Israeli opinions about what Arabs or whomever think still persists within posts such as this one and among the "serious" policy poobahs in DC and the media.
Those who actually know WTF they're talking about because of fluency in the region's languages or because they actually live in the areas under discussion are still ignored.
We only hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. When things continue to go tits up in the ME, the usual suspects will be flailing around to explain the reason's why and no doubt, will blame it all on Iran.
At least George Mitchell has finally admitted that the Gaza situation has caused "setbacks" and he has yet to finish his trip.
Israel is heading right and even more disturbing, two accounts in two completely different media sources, Haaretz and Arutz Sheva, have noted this trend is showing up among the young.
January 30, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The appointment of Mitchell =s change.
By selecting him Obama has deliberately painted himself into a corner, psychologically. He knows that with any less heavy an advisor-including Hillary- he'd retain the option of rejecting the advice-deciding that he himself knew better. Not with Mitchell whose combination of experience and judgement is simply too great for that.So by selecting him Obama has signalled that what George wants , George gets.
Of course conceivably Mitchell would recommend a continuation of Bush's policies. We can each make our own assessment of that probability. Mine is: zero.As no doubt is Obama's.
So Obama has just issued a subliminal announcement of a change to an intelligent Middle East policy. As a supporter of Israel I'm heartened that we're finally going to save it from itself. Just in time.
January 31, 2009 4:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't place as much importance on Mitchell's appointment as you do; probably because I'm aware of how much of the institutional FP superstructure is adamantly against any "change" that includes Congress, Obama's key advisors (Daniel Shapiro) and expected holdovers from the Bushies (Jeffrey Feltman). Feltman is a neocon mole/minder installed in the DoS and expected to be given a portfolio that includes the Levant excluding Israel. Although, one pro-American Lebanese source said he was expected to accompany Mitchell on his trip to the ME.?
Both of the above individuals are heartily endorsed by none other than Steven Rosen of AIPAC spy games fame.
The desperate monarch holding on in Jordan is advocating the S.O.S:
"Jordan’s King Abdullah II met US President Barack Obama’s new envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, in Amman on Saturday and urged him to renew US efforts to reach a two-state peace deal between Israel and Palestine.
The king “insisted on the importance of relaunching peace negotiations on the basis of two states, Palestinian and Israeli, stressing that we must not start a different process,” a Jordanian palace official told the AFP news agency.
“We need to act quickly - without wasting time - on negotiations based on two states and not be diverted by new proposals,” the king was quoted as saying in his meeting with Mitchell. "
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=35414
I expect Mitchell will hear the same stuff in Riyadh.
OTH, Tony Blair has joined the talk to Hamas chorus although he rather weakly repeats the mantra of conditions to be met first.
Then Mitchell is off to talk with Brown in the UK and Sarkozy in Paris. (The proposed stop in Ankara has been canceled.) Mitchell may hear more nuance from Brown and certainly from Sarkozy, but the bulk of opinions from the usual suspects thus far engaged is not really any different from the failed recipes cooked up with the same stale ingredients.
Gaza has made things so terribly unpredictable.....and the elections in Israel are making things even worse.
So many powerful interests are invested in no diversion from the basic course that it's hard to see that one man, George Mitchell, can turn this Titanic.
Even if he becomes convinced of the absolute necessity to do so.
What a mess.
January 31, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your conclusion and am not sufficiently informed to comment on the rest.
January 31, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Financial Times
January 30, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ is trying to have it both ways. He makes a devastating argument that Israel as a whole is a decrepit racist nation deserving of isolation (90% supportive of brutal murder & the popularity of Lieberman - an extremist Nazi like politician). Israel is living in the colonialist past and has truly "jumped the shark." Why then does MJ pull his punches and by contending that even Nettanyahu will work with Obama? Previously, MJ argued that right-wing American Jews were the problem and implied that Israelis as a whole were more reasonable. Now he convincingly writes that Israelis are even worse than their American enablers. If Israel is the nation that MJ presents, then it is deserving of complete boycott. Why then MJ won't openly condemn Israel as the irremediably, despicable nation it is, declare its illegitimacy and call for the the one-state solution, which will dilute the Jewish-racist majority and end this "intractable" problem once and all ? I challenge you to clearly support these positions - or are you too tied to your Jewish establishment friends at IPF to speak your conscience?
January 30, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly these are your words not MJ's so they raise the question of whether you think Israel is a decrepit racist nation .
Which I'll answer it by saying I'm sure you don't.
The Israelis ,like the Palestinians, get up in the morning ,drink coffee , see their kids off to school and lead normal lives. Are normal.
Sadly most Israelis hate the Palestinians. And vice versa. Also normal for citizens of warring countries.Like us celebrating Hiroshima.
Or those Palestinian women we saw on TV celebrating 9/11. After which they went home and cooked supper and continued to lead their normal lives, doing good or doing bad .
It's understandable we deplore Israeli public approval of the far too extensive Gaza bombing Or Palestinians celebrating 9/11. They're deplorable.
But it seems to me that if we wish e.g. the Israelis to rise above their terrible circumstances and show some understanding of their opponents we should start by trying to understand why that's hard for them to do.
January 31, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks flavius. It's good to have some common sense when discussing these issues, common sense that is sadly equally absent in the blogosphere and in the Middle East.
January 31, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Funny. Whenever Israel's defenders bring up Palestinians celebrating 9/11, I think of the Israelis high fiving eachother in NJ as they watched the Twin Towers burning and future PM Bibi saying that the event would be "very good" for US/Israel relations.
February 2, 2009 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't recall the high fives. I do recall Sharon saying something like "now you know what it's like to be attacked." Which I put down to the same insensitivity that spurred his provocative visit to the Temple Mount ,Dennis Ross:
I also have no doubt that many Israelis- and many Palestinians, remember the photo of Arafat donating blood ( a political gesture, sure but an index of how he expected his people to react)-shared our grief.
Demonizing any people is counter productive- not that I am accusing you of that.
February 2, 2009 5:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah flavius, and I wasn't accusing you of demonizing Palestinians, either.
BTW, the Israelis were arrested and held for more than 2 months; 2 of the 5 were determined to have been Mossad assets.
February 2, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting
February 2, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, DRW, I am way too tied in to the Jewish establishment. I'm a stalwart of the establishment. How else did I get to invest my millions with Madoff?
January 31, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, DRW, I am way too tied in to the Jewish establishment. I'm a stalwart of the establishment. How else did I get to invest my millions with Madoff?
January 31, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you MJ for reading my post and responding (twice!). and, I notice, not disagreeing with a word i wrote..
January 31, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
And don't be disingenuous MJ. You are #3 are on the IPF leadership right behind Zicklin and Joseph - it's hard to be more connected in the establishment than you are (although, it is admittedly on the more "progressive" side of the mainstream). http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/display.cfm?id=1&Sub=54
January 31, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here you go, DRW. I'm going to respond to you again! Knock yourself out. You've made it, lad.
January 31, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And this is not Gaza but the West Bank, governed by Israel's friend, Mahmoud Abbas."
The man who provided funding for the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes is now described by El Pollo Psycho as "Israel's friend".
Has Israel Jumped The Shark? You claimed that Israel jumped the shark years ago, Rosenberg, yet it is economically and militarily stronger than ever.
Maybe Obama can change that...maybe he will listen to your fellow Hebrewphobe Samantha Power and militarily attack the Jewish State...but until he does you are left to bay haplessly at the moon.
January 30, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
M.J., I wanted to ask you about your ideas of Netanyahu as pragmatist. I was just looking up what I could recall about him signing the Wye Accords, then according to some sources http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0199/9901007.html searching for a way to get out of them (as the situation deteriorated?) and ultimately cancelling implementation.
I was shocked when he signed them, though. To think of his hard-line rhetoric, bold lies that Jerusalem has always been the unitary, undivided capital of Israel alone, when a look to its actual history gives a completely different account, how a guy so seemingly on the extremist fringe could have signed those.
Could it go down like this, then? Bibi Netanyahu,
1. gets elected by selling himself to the settlers as their champion.
2. Makes a deal with Obama nonetheless and pushes the settlers off their stolen land. (Presumably, this gives him immediate credibility with very different segments of Israeli society, partially offsetting settlers’ rage.)
3. Upholds the deal provided that Obama (a) arranges for him and (b) energetically provides, whatever security is truly needed.
4. Gets credit as father of Mid-East peace?
Hardest one is number 3 to me (though he can play a lot of games as to 2, as well). Bibi is such a conniver and back-stabber, that it is hard to imagine him keeping his word to anyone. Obama/Mitchell would have to plan very proactively to prevent a Bibi betrayal, by denying him a pretext and exercising a lot of continuing agility in doing so.
Interested in your comments.
January 31, 2009 2:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points but the fact is that Netanyahu is pretty awful on all the issues. But he is a total opportunist. Accordingly, anything is possible with him and Livni/Barak are utterly predictable. Not in a good way.
January 31, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points but the fact is that Netanyahu is pretty awful on all the issues. But he is a total opportunist. Accordingly, anything is possible with him and Livni/Barak are utterly predictable. Not in a good way.
January 31, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, your short statements there give a lot of food for thought. If I'm Obama, these insights immediately suggest a certain crass, realpolitik strategy to me.
Thanks much for the exchange.
January 31, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Davos adds to Erdogan's credibility as a negotiator to the Arab/Muslim world, but American/Israeli interests are working hard to discredit him.
George Mitchell's Sunday stopover in Ankara was canceled for dubious reasons that of course, had nothing to do with Davos....according to US sources.
Uh huh.
January 31, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your knowledge and experience with these issues is certainly impressive, MJ, and your solid commentaries in these blogs as appreciated as ever, but I nonetheless find it difficult to share your degree of optimism.
The last 15 years offer plenty of examples, across widely varying geopolitical situations, of extremist Israelis and extremist Palestinians successfully (and arguably, jointly successfully) sabotaging peace efforts, while the US Congress and news media sleepwalks.
What is the lasting value of wheeling dealing between opportunistic Netanyahu and "even-handed" Obama, if any agreement struck can be blown to bits by one West-Bank settler's bullet, or one Islamic terrorist's bomb?
The new US administration has some very clever people working for it. I don't doubt that they can recycle something like the 2006 Geneva compromise, add a few new twists and successfully market it as a creative and historic breakthrough.
But to make it hold, Obama -it seems to me- will have to invest tremendous energy and effort at overturning three deeply ingrained lunacies:
1. That terrorist slaughter of civilians is equivalent to "resistance to Israeli occupation"
2. That colossally disproportionate collective punishment equates with "Israel defending itself, as any other country would."
3. That no matter whatever Israel does, all any American politician can really do is talk about its right to exist, otherwise he is anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, or an fellow-traveller with Arab terrorists.
On subjects that really matter to them, such as the scariest economic recession since the days of "Grapes of Wrath", Obama certainly seems willing, rhetorically for sure and probably in deed as well, to occasionally deliver a necessary kick to Americans' backsides. Will he ALSO be willing to tolerate the unceasing barrage from paranoid dupes and tools of extremist Israelis, from the brainwashed Arab "street," and from a Congress addicted to licking AIPAC's boots, that will come if he seriously blasts away against their most cherised and deeply-ingrained myths? There are certainly audacious and even non-audacious reasons to hope so, but there is also a long and winding road ahead, in a world facing planetary ecological catastrophe and a Mideast heading for an Moslem-Arab demographic time bomb.
January 31, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well-said.
My "optimism" is very much a sometime thing. There is just as much reason to be utterly pessimistic but, because a pessimistic view, leads inevitably to the "one-state" idea, I reject it. I don't see how that would work. But, if the status quo holds, that is where we are heading.
January 31, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep on keeping on.
January 31, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only one-state idea that makes any sense to me would be for Israeli Jews to pack up and move to America (where there are more Jews already than in Israel and for highly understandable reasons) and leave Arabs -as likely or not in some kind of failed Palestinian "state"- to do what they are best at: fighting each other. But of course, believing that would ever happens requires not just pessimism, but apocalypse-ism. The more fashionable, but not much less further fetched, notion of a harmonious Palestinian-and-Israeli state somehow magically appearing seems to me to be based not so much on pessimism or optimism as on some mixture of blind fantasy and pure BS. I recently read a NYT op-ed piece advocating a "one-state" approach roughly along such dubious lines (others here might recall it too) that nonetheless approached vague plausibility in a few places, but only afterwards checked the by-line: It was written by (was he EVER sane?) Qaddafi!!
Such tangential quibbling aside, I fully agree with what seems to be your basic point, MJ, that achieving Mideast peace will require continued doses of both optimism and pessimism. And, to second the motion of flavius above, perseverance.
I may be an optimist myself in believing that if a lasting agreement DOES come, it will be because of commentators such as you speaking out clearly, steadfastly, and intelligently. Optimistic or not, please do continue the fine job you are doing.
February 1, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink