Biden Rains on AIPAC's Parade
Vice President Joe Biden told AIPAC this morning today that the administration is not backing down from its commitment to the two-state solution or to negotiating with Iran.
Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel told AIPAC the same thing. Biden prefaced his remarks with the phrase, "your're not going to like me saying this...."
The AIPACers were polite, if not as out-of-their-seats enthusiastic as they were for Newt Gingrich, who attacked Hitler and condemned the peace process as tolerating evil.
The good news for America is that this administration does not change its line on Mideast peace to please an interest group. The good news for AIPAC -- news about which the delegates were ecstatic -- is that the Justice Department is not pursuing the espionage case against Steve Rosen.
For AIPAC, that outweighs the bad news that the Bush-Cheney-Abrams-Feith-Bolton Middle East policy is truly dead and buried. At least, it outweighs it for this week.
The page has turned, thank God.
PS Watch Eric Cantor demonstrate the full reverse Ahmadinejad, exploiting the Holocaust to score some applause (pretty lurid, even for this genre).
But we like it. We like it very much. Go Joe!
May 5, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, just words so we will see.
Amid all this cheering for the love of bombing and war we don't see anyone speaking about how iran could retaliate.
Everyone here should do some research on that.
I assure you aint a pretty picture what they are capable of.
May 5, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't honestly say I've got a good grasp of their capabilities.
I've seen the reports on the war games replicating such a scenario, though.
As I recall, Command reset the game because all US naval assets had been destroyed or disabled, effectively sealing the Straits of Hormuz.
I guess that wasn't supposed to happen.
May 5, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Google sn-22 and yakhonts to find information on the Russian built weapon that could sink any US warship sailing in the Persian Gulf. They are remarkable anti-ship cruise missiles for which the US navy has no defense. They are the reason that the US no longer routinely stations aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
If Israel attacks Iran we could see hundreds if not a few thousand dead US sailors the following day.
May 5, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
No way. Get real.
Iran won't respond to a surgical strike on a nuclear facility with an all out conventional war with the US or Israel. We'd then have to retaliate by bombarding Iran, destroying their airfields and such.
No, way.
If Israel strikes Iran's nuclear capacity then Iran will retaliate with increased support of anti-Israel asymmetric warfare, potentially in Palestine and the ME. It'll become more aggressive with oil. Iran would gain greater world sympathy and it would be a alarming to other oil producing states.
Also it would change the political dynamics in Iran towards greater militarism and fundamentalism, which in the long term would greatly increase the probability of terrorism originating from Iran, or destabilizing or radicalizing the regime so that Iran might do something really crazy down the line.
If Israel does this that Israel is long overdue for a reality check. Israeli craziness is really threatening global stability, and we just got rid of Bush so a little peace and sanity would be nice for a change.
May 5, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have seen some Israeli analysts that support your position, namely, Iran will not do anything if they are attacked by Iran. But the Iranians have said that an attack by Israel will be considered an attack by the US and they will shoot at American forces in the Persian Gulf.
I have no special insight into Iranian military thinking but I do worry that they might do as they say.
May 5, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The worst scenario would be the Iranians retaliating against the USA by attacking the US Government in Washington. A suicide mission, but one which cannot be counted out or not even considered.
.
May 7, 2009 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, now that it's clear Gingrich is anti-Hitler man, I guess people need to take a more serious look at him as a 2012 candidate. Nobody wants some pro-Hitler fella slipping through.
He's also against "evil" (i.e., against Muslims, especially Palestinians) and he's also anti-New York Times as he reveals. By that, he means he's against educated people, Northerners, city-dwellers as he's going for the neo-Confederacy vote, hoping to outflank genuine know-nothings like Palin for the shrunken-base primaries.
May 5, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we all know Germany was the epitome of continental culture and liberal sophistication in the early 20th century, and Eugenics was a form of Science; hence education, liberalism, and science = Hitler.
QED, like Duh!
May 5, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Before everyone starts to get all excited about Biden's pronouncements, here's Shmuel Rosner take:
"Why Biden's words have no meaning
VP Joe Biden saved some tough love for Israel on his AIPAC Conference speech. But was he really tough or just pretending to be tough?
Let's examine his words line by line:
1. "Israel has to work toward a two-state solution". That's in the Road Map, that Israel accepted. In fact, Netanyahu has already achieved something. if he now says he agrees to a two state solution the Obama team will be able to show some success without him giving anything that wasn't already given.
2. "not build more settlements". Israel doesn't build "more settlements". The question is whether it can build more in existing ones - to which Labor Party leader Ehud Barak just responded with a resounding yes (see here).
3. "dismantle existing outposts". I happen to agree. There's no excuse (or, no good excuse) for Israel's broken promise to evacuate the illegal outposts.
4. "allow Palestinians freedom of movement". Yes, we all want that. Biden just forgot to explain what happens if Israel does it and as a result a suicide bomber reaches Netanya. Will he officially apologize? will he resign? will he just say it's the price for peace? In short: what are we getting in return for this good advise?
5. "You're not going to like my saying this". The oldest trick in the Biden book. You aren't going to like my saying this, but the sky is blue. Wow, that was a shocker."
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/rosner/entry/
why_biden_s_words_have
I get the impression that the overall message from this conference was:
Yeah yeah yeah twostates uh huh blah blah blah..........
IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN!
May 5, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel has in fact been both expanding settlements and adding new settlements, both of which would qualify as "building more settlements" i.e. the practice that needs to stop.
Demanding that Israel dismantle settlements for a two state solution isn't new, but it's still very important politcally.
The settlers are often religious fanatics who beelive God gave them that land, and very much intend on keeping it. It's actually a bit like the problem Pakistan is facing with their own fundamentalists in remote provinces.
Israel is on one hand happy to have them becasue they also serve in the military in large numbers and fanatical in defense of Israel. On the other hand, they're pretty crazy, anti-democratic, reactionary, and ultimately corrosive to the modernity and prosperity of the nation as a whole.
Any time a US leader speaks of the settler issue openly, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, it's important.
May 5, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's actually a bit like the problem Pakistan is facing with their own fundamentalists in remote provinces.
Very poor comparison. Those remote provinces have been populated with Pashtun speaking people for centuries. They were once part of Afghanistan until the British in the last century drew a boundary line through the Pashtun speaking lands and made those south of it part of the British mandate (they tried for all of Afghanistan but suffered a terrible military defeat). The west bank settlers were until about 1970 residents of Williamsburg, USA.
May 5, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even if Biden's words are as lally describes them, the fact that they're getting said and publicized marks, and helps, the rise of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians into the public's mind. A good thing, that.
May 5, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, a US leader saying these things openly and decisively is a pretty big deal.
Everybody has known for a long time the illegal settlements and have to go (some can stay with land swaps) and bantustanization of Palestine has to stop. But, Israeli leaders have been afraid to say so for the most part, wanting to appease the settlers and religious fanatics.
This is much the same way Arafat or other Palestinian leaders were loathe to criticize militants. Or for that matter Pakistani leaders were loathe to criticize the Taliban.
May 5, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
These are insightful comparisons. To paraphrase GW Bush after 9-11: The Netanyahu coalition has a choice to make. Either it is with the civilized world or it is with the West Bank settler-terrorists.
May 5, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yea, that's actually kinda true.
It's a complicated and a delicate process of extracting their government from the kooks, and the kooks from the settlements, and at the same time winning concessions from the kooks on the other side while helping the reasonable people get control of the Palestinian government.
But, yea, ultimately they need to pick a side: fundamentalist kook-militants or the civilized world.
(Hopefully we Americans are doing the same.)
May 5, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too bad everything the Purse-Lipped Piece of *** said and did after that insightful and trenchant remark had the effect of allowing Israel to take the second option.
May 5, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't say the settlements have to go. The statement has two built-in dog whistles.
First, "outposts" is Israeli lingo for settlements that are not authorized by the Israeli government. Most Israelis are already opposed to the outposts, since they think that Jews should only build settlements when its expansionist, colonialist government "authorizes" them to do so. Big deal. The problem is that the Israelis believe most of their colonies are legal because they have been authorized by their own government, despite the fact that international law rejects them.
The other dog whistle is "new". Even the right-wing Netanyahu's platform was opposed to "new" settlements, and supported only the "natural growth" of existing settlements.
This is another case of the blowhard Joe Biden tooting his own horn. He apparently thinks he should get some sort of courage medal for avoiding all the difficult questions, and telling Aipac that they should support policies that even right-wing Israelis already support.
May 6, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan - You have to carefully parse Israeli government announcements to figure out the actual truth. For example, Maskiot is what we would consider a new settlement in the Jordan Valley. However, as far as Israel is concerned it is not new since it is being built on the grounds of an old army base. The fact that they moved former settlers from Gaza into the place is another broken promise.
Second, settlement expansion comes in numerous flavors. Some is, as advertized by Israel, just a few additional homes to accomodate the growth of existing families. However, much of the significant growth comes from establishing "new neighborhoods" of existing settlements. An example is the new Adam East, built a kilometer away from Adam, is just considered natural expansion but most observers would consider it a new settlement.
Natural expansion of the settlements is just a euphemism for artificial growth. Look at any Israeli newspaper to see the real estate ads begging people to move to the west bank with all sorts of incentives.
May 6, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even before it took office, MJ Rosenberg was singing the praises of the Obama Admin. and predicting a major shift in policy towards Israel and Palestine. Many of us commenters were skeptical back a few months ago. It begins to look now as though the skepticism was overdone.
Clearly, Obama's team knows how to identify good ideas and articulate them. Many of us got perhaps a bit too used over the past 8 years to a near total absence of both traits being exhibited in Washington DC. There is, however, a difference between (1) grasping and articulating difficult- to-accept realities and (2) getting things accomplished in response to them. Significant moments of truth still lie ahead surrounded by many a sidetrack and pitfall.
The one essential component I am not hearing of yet is the kind of very tough and very necessary position that acts of terrorism will not be allowed in any way to influence, alter, or delay progress towards a two-state agreement, AS they were very stupidly and cravenly and disastrously allowed to do in 1995 and 2001 (and of course, in an even larger context and more idiotic way after 9-11-01 when the Bush-Cheney admin. leapt at the chance to fulfill wish after wish after major hope of Osama and Al Qaeda).
May 5, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no raining on the parade yet. But there are dark clouds for Israel in the horizon.
Blair: Quartet to unveil new Mideast peace plan
Envoy says plan being formulated at highest levels of Obama administration, will be presented in 5-6 weeks.
Arabs revising peace plan to win Israel backing for two states
Arab paper: Countries amending clause on 'right of return,' making changes at Obama's request.
U.S. urges Israel to sign anti-nuclear arms treaty
Foreign Ministry official voices amazement at call, says treaty has failed to prevent proliferation.
CrazyWisdom aka BluePearl
May 6, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink