Netanyahu Believes Obama Has Already Backed Down On Settlements
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes that President Obama has already blinked. The way he sees it, Obama made his demand to stop settlements in Cairo. He, Netanyahu, responded with a firm "no" -- but by uttering the phrase "two states" changed the subject suficiently to get Obama off his back. He also thinks the Iran crisis has diverted Obama's focus away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and saved him from further pressure.
There is no other way to interpret Netanyahu's dismissal of the settlement issue in his interview with RAI TV in Italy. Settlements? "I think that the more we spend time arguing about this, the more we waste time instead of moving towards peace," he said.
He added that his conditional endorsement of a Palestinian state is all that matters. "A demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish State of Israel I think is the winning formula of peace," he said. "I can not understand why anybody who wants peace should reject it."
And, of course, no one does reject it, certainly not the Palestinians who accepted the two-state formula fifteen years ago and remain committed to it. It is just that unless Israel stops settlements, there will be no place for that state to go. And just yesterday the Israeli government authorized another 500 housing units in Har Homa, a West Bank settlement -- a gigantic slap in Obama's face. The US response: silence.
Former Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Arens, from Netanyahu's Likud party told us exactly what the government is thinking in a wonderfully frank Ha'aretz column on Tuesday. "There was a time before the State of Israel was established when the Jewish people had no choice but to take orders from others...We will gladly accept advice, but not orders."
Netanyahu believes that President Obama has gone as far as he intends to go and that he need only dig in to win. Is he right? The longer we have to wait for an answer, the more likely that he is.
Israel-Palestine is the test. It is the one issue all Arabs and Muslims (and most of the world) is in substantial agreement i.e., that the occupation must end and the two state solution must be implemented.
As Obama said about Iran, the whole world is watching. If the administration flinches, it will be noticed. And our credibility in the Middle East will go back to where it was before Jan. 20. That will be despite all the progress this President has already made in repairing our tattered reputation.
President Obama cannot allow that to happen.
RE: "Netanyahu believes that President Obama has gone as far as he intends to go and that he need only dig in to win."
FROM J STREET: Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a full settlement freeze, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said...that President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
This is exactly the sort of leadership we need from the President and Secretary of State if we are going to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the only way to truly secure Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.
Please send the President a message telling him you support his "Freeze means Freeze" approach to Israeli settlements.
* TO SEND MESSAGE - http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=593
June 23, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
FROM 'Americans for Peace Now' (APN): Settlement freeze now. "No shticks. No tricks."
We need you to send a message of encouragement to Secretary Clinton. Tell her that she and President Obama are right in calling for a settlement freeze and that they shouldn't take 'No' for an answer.
Please print a letter and mail it to Secretary Clinton.
TO PRINT LETTER - http://capwiz.com/peacenow/issues/alert/?alertid=13567586
June 23, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Done. Thanks.
June 23, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"the Israeli government authorized another 500 housing units in Har Homa, a West Bank settlement -- a gigantic slap in Obama's face. The US response: silence."
This was only a GIGANTIC slap in Obama's face if you believe that Obama intended to take every measure necessary, including sanctions and U.N. votes, to stop Bibi.
Barack "Undivided Jerusalem" Obama is dealing with a pro-bulldozer conspiracy in his own administration.
How else can Obama's silence be explained? I'm open to considering other possibilities.
June 23, 2009 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
exactly. as soon as i heard that the admin wasn't even considering putting conditions on loan guarantees as the radical hw bush administration had done, i checked the "israel" box on the long list of potential obama letdowns. lots of boxes on that list already checked off...
June 23, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
bibi cancelled the scheduled meeting with Mitchell in Paris.
Laura Rozen's latest reporting on the ongoing WTF-is-up-with-Dennis Ross? mystery is indicating that a huge shake-up/coup with regional implications is underway. Focusing on the I/P portion of the looming disaster:
The other group said to be concerned by Ross's perceived takeover of Middle East turf is the team of Middle East Peace special envoy George Mitchell, which now has to contend not only with resistance from all quarters of the region, but also a rival power center in the NSC that hasn't tended to see Middle East peace issues the same way.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/23/ross_s_expanded_portfolio_riles_iraq_middle_east_teams
bibi's been acting really obnoxious of late and I wonder if "the hawkish/neocon-friendly/Likudist-hugging part of the Obama administration's foreign policy operation [that] may be engaged in a coup attempt against [General Jim] Jones." (as per Steve Clemons) and Israel's reps in Congress have been telling him not to worry.
Rozen's entire article is worth a read and if the speculations about who gets to be in charge of what are accurate, *we will be totally fucked.
*"We" in this case means those who want to see more stability in the region.
June 23, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Steve Clemmons. I follow him regularly
But I have followed Clemmons long enough now to know that he is all too often just a foreign policy cocktail party gossip
I take his takes on internal DC games with a couple grains of salt
June 23, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
? Clemons is but one of the sources re Jones.
June 24, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Q: Who canceled and why?
June 23, 2009 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
This "who cancelled the meeting?" is a tug of war between US and Them. bibi is flat-out claiming that it was his call and this kerfluffle is significent to the interested parties for some reason probably having to do with one-up-manship:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3736091,00.html
June 24, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree that it is a game. In fact, in this post I wrote I convey a Yediot story by Shimon Shiffer not available on the Hebrew or English Yediot site which says the mtg. was cancelled by Mitchell who told Bibi there was nothing to talk about until he's willing to implement a settlement freeze. The Israeli claim they cancelled is a face saving measure in my opinion.
Bibi's been taken to the woodshed again.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/06/25/mitchell-cancels-paris-meeting-with-bibi/
June 25, 2009 4:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course it's a game, Richard. Your post about the back-and-forth reinforces that perception.
BTW, do you believe that this is an accurate representation of the missive from the WH?
An Israeli political source told Yedioth Ahronoth that Netanyahu received the following “stern” message from the White House: “Once you’ve finished the homework we gave you on stopping construction in the settlements, let us know. Until then, there’s no point in having Mitchell fly to Paris to meet you.”
I realize that things are touchy but, unless Rahm was the messenger, the tone and language ("homework"?) are so beyond insulting that I suspect some creative interpretation by the "Israeli political source".
June 25, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again MJ, much too sanguine about Bibi and the "Jewish State" - which as you've said, no Palestinian has recognized, and as far as I know, no country has either
Bibi's played Barack...time to call out Israel for what it is not what you would like it to be
June 23, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Watch Rahm Emmanuel say he would carry Dennis (Israel's Lawyer) Ross' baggage anywhere he wants to go, at 6:18 of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcXXV9YUcLQ
The idea that Rahm is more loyal to Obama than to Israel's "security" is more and more becoming a joke, and not an anti-Semetic joke as M.J. would greatly prefer.
Are you ready to apologize for calling me a jew hater, as you have already done once before?
Or is it still "Morning in America," and anybody who criticizes your favored Jews are racists.
Everyone agrees that rich Jews run AIPAC, and that AIPAC gets whatever it wants from Washington.
Think there's some overlap between the rich Jews who run AIPAC and the rich Jews that made Rahm's career?
Did you see the smug smirk on Rahm's face right before Obama walked out to the podium for his press conference today? It wasn't the look of somebody about to take on an invincible lobby. It was a look of invincibility fully backed up by an invincible lobby.
June 23, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry Johnmccsf, didn't mean to address that to you.
June 23, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently Chicken Little has friends, and they're congregating in this thread!
June 23, 2009 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the state dept. responded to this today actually. Calling all settlements up to 1967 line as "unacceptable."
June 23, 2009 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can anyone say with confidence what is actually going on in the mind and behind closed doors of the president of the united states?
That being said, I have been consistent in my criticism of obama in what I have seen as his refusal to be aggressive and what one would then see as backing down on key issues.
His refusal today to stand up and rule out any compromise on the public option of his health care plan is the most recent example.
There is nothing worse then a president that is perceived to be so weak that he can be backed down on each and every issue that comes before him.
Can anyone say with confidence what is really important to obama and what he will fight for and insist on?
I don't expect him to not compromise even with a dem congress.
But I don't have any idea what is most important to him nor does he give me any confidence that he will fight for the programs that are most important to the average American.
If these perceptions were so wrong would there even be a need of asking the question that MJ asks here?
Perhaps obamas weakness, is his weakness.
June 23, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah....O needs to take Bibi out
I am keeping an eye out for the State Dept statutory report of the military security of "Jewish State" (as Bibi would have it)
June 23, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
i don't know if i agree with you about all the palestinians that want a demilitarized state. i'm not a palestinian but i am no zionist and i think a demilitarized state would be a disaster. a "state" with no military, no air space control, no border control, and whatever other conditions bibi wants is no state at all. it's actually just the status quo.
what i don't get is what the long term looks like in bibi's world. palestine in perpetual occupation, getting squeezed and divided by settlements and israeli-only roads...in 30 years what will it look like? what does he think is going to happen to the people who live there now? are they talking about "transfer" again? i just don't get it...
i also love this discussion about israel as an independent nation. i eagerly await the return of all the money and military equipment. it reminds me a bit of palin, jindal, etc vowing to never take that filthy federal stimulus money...which they then took, of course.
June 23, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Settlements are a form of transfer; more and more land is occupied by Israelis, less and less by Arabs.
That's what Bibi must see.
I doubt that he's any more happy about it than Benny Morris. But neither sees any viable alternative. As long as the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, as the homeland of the Jewish people, Israel must push them as far away as possible.
June 23, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how a two-state solution can be a realistic solution. It was a poor decision to start with, but the only way to create a Jewish state of Israel short of genocide of the Palestinian people. Infer from that what you will.
Eventually the reality of a single state will have to be faced. If I were living there now, I'd be wanting to build bridges and heal wounds with the people whose grandchildren will one day outnumber my grandchildren.
The future of America is a bilingual, bicultural state. My children will learn Spanish, and I have considered learning Spanish, too. There will either be a peaceful transition of power or a violent transition of power, but there will be, eventually, a transition of power, and the people of Israel today should think about what their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will face on that day of cultural reckoning.
June 24, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you see Mexico as a bilingual, bicultural state? How about Saudi Arabia?
I'm sure the answers are no because you didn't say so. You never even thought about it, did you? Your post is just more of the usual white-liberal, boot-licking, beat-me-please-beat-me, guilt and fear.
June 24, 2009 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I didn't think about it because it is completely outside the point.
The current population of America is evolving, and will continue to evolve, and there is nothing that can be done to change that. It will happen, just as one day Jewish Israel will find it can no longer sustain a purely Jewish identity. They can prepare for that day now, by making peace with their neighbors. Democratize or perish is how I see it, and there's no guilt involved. Just recognition of reality.
June 25, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
You raise some interesting points. EVERYONE wants to draw SOME lines SOMEWHERE. For example, why not dissolve the border between the U.S. and Mexico and let people cross the border freely? I know this sounds outlandish and example posed to distract, but why not? Much of America is already Latino. Spanish is our second language and gaining ground quickly.
Why not merge the two countries and be done with it?
June 24, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see no reason not to. That border will come down one day. We can either take it down willingly and gradually while we control the keys, or we can see it overrun by an army and have the keys wrested from our cold dead fingers.
June 25, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 23, 2009 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
That should read
That was the analysis you offered to people on this site and to anyone in the Administration who was willing to listen.
After that, I'm sure the Administration - whatever it decides to do - regards you and all those associated with you as a particularly dangerous species of cretinous vermin.
Sorry for the html error.
June 23, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about no funding to go along with those "no orders?"
I'm still trying to understand exactly what we get in return for supporting Israel? They have no oil, and they are not the only democracy in the region. Maybe it's time to move on.
June 23, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also*, why does the The National Jewish Democratic Council who has approximately 350,000 members feel the need to email out to its members an "Obama still supports Israel" message that basically says don't worry:
JTA: "Obama and Bush are the same on settlements"
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/06/23/1006081/njdc-obama-and-bush-the-same-on-settlements
i.e. Obama will do FA?
Is Netanyahu trying to tell Obama that basically the American Jewish Community has got his back rather than Obama when it comes to Settlements? Inquiring minds would like to know what is going on behind the scenes.
*I think this was also reported @ Huffingtonpost a while back.
June 23, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
NJDC is an Aipac clone. Ira Forman, their director, used to work for Aipac. Looking for anything positive concerning Israel coming from NJCD is a hopeless proposition.
June 25, 2009 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Palestinians have certainly NOT accepted a demilitarized state, as you suggest.
Please correct.
June 23, 2009 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, they have. At Camp David in 2000 but also essentially since 1993.
See Aaron Miller, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Clayton Swisher, President Clinton or any of the other memoirs of the negotiations.
The Palestinians never put forth a demand for anything but a demilitarized state. This is a typical Netanyahu tactic. He only mentions it to embarrass the PA.
June 23, 2009 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
As usual, you're a complete liar
from http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/15/netanyahu_outlines_vision_for_a_demilitarizedand
The Mirage of a Demilitarized Palestine
June 24, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The link to the Middle East Quarterly is
http://www.meforum.org/112/the-mirage-of-a-demilitarized-palestine
I don't know why I can't use the html form. It consistently fails.
June 24, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
First of all, how can you post the RABBI's remark as representing the official PA position?
Second, a militarized Palestine would be the best possible thing for Israel. If they started a war, Israel would be free to engage in the kind of conflict they have always won.
June 24, 2009 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look at the source for the Rabbi's remark. Had he seriously misrepresented the Palestinian position he would have been called out. But, if you know better, you're free to post a source.
So you think you know better than virtually all Israeli governments and the analyst Gar Luft (I linked to his analysis) what is best for Israel? I wish I could say I find you interesting and intelligent...but I can't.
June 24, 2009 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, fortunately for Israel, I have no say and neither do you.
June 24, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and the Israeli populace supports it.
Well fuck 'em. No more weapons, force IAEA inspectors down their lying throats.
June 23, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose it's POSSIBLE that cutting the funding will cause the IG to change course. But let's assume that the IG does what it wants and is rotten to the core. What makes you think that pulling support will force them to change course? Does it force North Korea to change course? Is North Korea unable to obtain weapons and keep a population of 24 million subjugated. Do you think no one else will be willing to sell weapons to Israel?
June 24, 2009 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes but all support for Israel has done for us for a long time is to fuck up our relations with people who it is in our national interest to have good relations with. Israel remains a rogue state, but at least it won't have us by the media's throat.
June 24, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but the problem with this analysis is twofold. First, it is our dependence on oil and quest for it that is the root cause of our problems in ME--not Israel, which is just a more public face.
For example, it was our desire to control Iranian oil and the deposing of Mossadegh which is the beginning of our problems with Iran.
It was the stationing of troops in SA (to protect the regime and our oil) that was OBL's PRIMARY reason for attacking on the US. The Palestinians were tacked on for PR value.
Second, if you make access to oil your "true north" for your foreign policy, then moral considerations sit way back on the bus. So the progressive approach becomes a sort of realism tied to the quest for oil.
IOW, you cut off the Israelis, but you also abandon the Palestinians.
June 24, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a chess game with a lot of moves left on the board.
June 23, 2009 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is a coward on this as he is on everything else. He'll never do anything about it.
June 24, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's uncalled for. And he'll see this through.
June 24, 2009 3:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with MNPundit on this one. Screw that. Cut the funding, and Bibi will be forced to acquiesce to the United States. The Lobby is strong, but Israel's government is on its own with this nonsense.
June 24, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm also skeptical of the "Rahm is being tough on Israel" stance. He is talking a good game, but I think it's a lot of acting-for-non-majors. They could easily pull the cash support. The Lobby is way too powerful (Walt and Mearsheimer come to mind here). People who take on the Lobby, generally, get owned.
June 24, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Israel is like a spoiled child - completely dependent on, and yet completely unappreciative of our support.
We should completely stop all aid to Israel - both financial and military - then let them earn it back.
June 24, 2009 5:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm also skeptical of the "Rahm is being tough on Israel" stance.
Rahm can't even be tough on Max Baucus. What a jerk.
June 24, 2009 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
NOtwithstanding the frantic efforts of AIPAC, ADL, Netanyahu and the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Israel, I have little doubt that the Obama administration will surprise you all and will stop being the dog that is wagged by its tail.
I have little doubt that there will be a shift in the paradigm that is currently drawing us all in to war when it should be building peace around the world.
And I have no doubt that the 51st State of the Union will lose that title within the next two years.
America's future lies elsewhere. The Israeli conflict is yesterday's ideological fight and that country is no longer strategically of importance.
Obama is a true reformer - have patience, wait a little ...
June 24, 2009 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
A green energy revolution would certainly remove our last strategic interest in the area.
June 25, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
rachel corrie vs neda
palestinian uprising vs iranian uprising
palestinian elections vs iranian elections
manipulated information to produce manipulated perceptions.
all the news that's fit to print. funny isn't it?
thank god for the internets.
June 24, 2009 7:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm...
First, Rachel Corrie was engaging in the kind of "interference" most people on these threads decry. There is a conflict going on between these two people. If she wants to insert herself physically between the two parties, she runs the risk of death. Neda was walking on the streets of her own country.
Second, the Palestinian "uprising" is violent. They use lots of rockets to terrorize population centers. The folks in Teheran are demonstrating peacefully.
Third, Hamas won the election, true. But its charter calls for the destruction of its neighbor. Its relations with its competitor party are highly violent. The fact that it provides social services, well, the Israeli government provides social services, too.
June 24, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
research the peaceful palestinian and israeli protests that resulted in deaths at the hands of the IDF. link 1 link 2. do we hear about those in our free MSM press?
rachel corrie was road kill, right? the story of what happened to her was not so black and white. link 3 link 4
the israeli government has its own CrAzY behavior, witness last gaza war. link 5 link 6
June 24, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do I think she could have been deliberately killed by the bulldozer driver? You bet. Do I think she is well-deserving of a Darwin award? Of course.
June 24, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see your points here, of course. But it's also true that the nature of the conflict is fundamentally different and has a different history. Are there innocent and peaceful protesters who die in this conflict? Yes. But is this conflict simply a case of peaceful protesters who want their rights as citizens? Partially yes. Partially no. It ignores the history of the conflict.
June 24, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
11,000 palestinian prisoners vs shalit
saudi royal family financing 9/11 terrorists vs iraq
June 24, 2009 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Standing firm doesn't mean issuing a state-level response to every bureaucratic issuance of a building permit in the territories. A president doesn't squabble on that level. Instead, he takes periodic assessments of the big picture. If, in the big picture, Israel continues to behave like a spoiled child, punishment will come.
June 24, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy had asked (Barak) then, as a candidate for prime minister, what he would do had he been born Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052057.html
June 24, 2009 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The ultimate end of this long, long game could be the failure of that state. In thirty to fifty years it could be overrun demographically or otherwise ... only hard-core zealots would consent to live there.
What if it becomes ever more unlivable ? Then what ? Where would the people leaving go ?
The possibility of such an utter disaster must be on the minds of long-range thinkers. Some things being proposed today would hasten, some would put off, this catastrophe.
Has anyone here read anything about this scenario ?
June 24, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Nobody can see 30 to 50 years into the future on an issue like this. There are too many possibilities.
June 24, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Has anyone here read anything about this scenario ?"
Remember that PNAC had and has plans that included not just Iraq and Iran, but also Syria, Jordan, and perhaps Lebanon. Wesley Clark explains:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ARihMrxdjU
If the existing powers that be have their way, we'll see a de-milatarized Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and the only other military powers in the region will be our favored dictatorships Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
As part of this regional transformation, well underway already, Israel may very well find the "need" to expand it's borders to the River Jordan, and very likely well beyond.
They will continue to talk about peace, and claim that they can't stop expanding their borders, just like now.
Israel as a country has severe megalomania that it's limited borders don't properly service.
Bibi thinks of himself (rightfully so?) as the equal of President Obama on the world stage.
Would the AIPAC American billionaires who helped bring us all these settlements, the Iraq invasion, and a coming Iran invasion work to expand Israel's boundries, or at least work to install proxy pro-Israel dictatorships in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan?
"Israel's Security" can just morph as needed. If the U.S. is now essentially an Israel occupied government, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, and the UAE are essentially American lapdogs, than this proxy control of the M.E. can easily be expanded by Israel and its dear American billionaire friends.
The only thing standing in the way of Israeli proxy control over the entire region are Iran, Syria, Jordan, and perhaps Lebanon.
Iran is by far the biggest obstacle to Israel's hegemony.
June 24, 2009 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction. I believe Jordan could/should be counted as American lapdogs.
June 24, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
More supporting evidence for my Israel Occupied Government claim:
"I asked Rosen if aipac suffered a loss of influence after the Steiner affair. A half smile appeared on his face, and he pushed a napkin across the table. “You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”
* Jeffrey Goldberg (The New Yorker).
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nch43wy8Zb8&feature=fvst
June 24, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very compelling, what you write ... I am not disagreeing with any of it.
The USSR had big plans for Afghanistan - they invaded and occupied - then they were out of business - some big plans do not lead to intended results.
Another parallel : Russia/Serbia - The Serbs see, or saw, or some say they see, themselves as a very important people, a pivotal nation in History ... the Russians are their friends and helpers ... and yet their plans ran into difficulties ...
The US may intend the Middle East to follow a plan that never gets realized ... can the US force a result ? Suppose seventy senators sign a blank sheet of paper and whatever the client state wants is delivered ... does that force the underdogs to go along ? I would not keep betting that way.
June 24, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically what I've said in comments upthread. Jewish Israel isn't going to last a hundred years, in my opinion, for any number of reasons - demographic, economic, strategic, psychotic. As Ordinary says, there are too many variables, but I think it is not too daring to predict that the center cannot hold as long as it tries to support two states.
Here are four possibilities:
1. The Jewish population cannot keep up with the Muslim population. Simple demographics, combined with the electronic blurring of borders and peoples and cultures, will eventually result in a majority mixed population, probably ruled by a hardline Israeli dictatorship of some sort, which will eventually be overthrown, but only after unimaginable tragedy. The grandchildren of those hardliners will be subject to the worst sort of retaliations.
2. An economic collapse would force America to withdraw support of Israel, without which Israel would eventually be overrun. Again, demographics come into play.
3. A technological revolution that ends the west's dependency on oil would end our strategic interest in the middle east, leaving only cultural and religious interest in supporting the Israeli cause. That, in my opinion, is not sufficient to sustain Israel, and once again, demographics come into play.
4. Any of the three above scenarios could end, not with Israel being overrun, but with Israel nuking its neighbors in a last desperate attempt to hold on. But that would put the final nail in the coffin, as one of those neighbors will, by that time, have nukes of their own, and the earth will end up with it's own Forbidden Zone stretching from Africa to Asia.
It is my hope that Israel will realize this is a war that can't be won and start planning for it today. AIPAC may be able to get 70 signatures today, but in a generation, who knows? My guess is they won't be able to get 5. And then what will Israel do? If I were Israeli, I would realize the foolishness of pinning my grandchildren's future upon America. The world is changing swiftly. The survivors will change with it.
June 25, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe your projections to be valid.
Arguing about what current Israeli politicians will do, or not do, is a time-wasting exercise. In a few months or a year, they will all be gone: Netanyahu, Barak, Livni will go to the same old peoples home as Sharon and Olmert. They are of no significance.
What is significant is that in historical terms, Israel is an experiment started just a few decades ago as a political expedient solution to 1.5 million European refugees wandering about Europe, stateless.
It seemed a good idea to shift the problem to the Mediterranean and slapping a religious label on it to hopefully confer some credibility and idea of altruism, whereas in fact it was a European plan for ethnic cleansing.
But as a plan, it was unplanned and unsuccessful as less than half of those who were entitled to emigrate there, in fact, chose to do so. With the result that we now have 5 million Israelis supported by 6 million AIPAC sympathizers.
If it had not led to such continuing tragedy , it would be a joke - a comedy of errors that so not funny.
June 25, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Possibly because there is no recognition of the Palestinian State on the part of Israel?
June 24, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Step back and look at what is really going on....
1. The "settlements" issue is really boiling down to the Eastern Part of Jerusalem and the several large surrounding blocks that are either very close to or abutting the green line. The territory really in contest is pretty small.
2. Most Israelis agree that the vast majority of settlements will be evacuated. Most Israelis, however, will not abandon or freeze natural growth in areas even Jimmy Carter admits will remain part of Israel. (I would also add that, in many cases, these areas were purchased by Jews in the 1920's and 30's and only did not become part of Israel in 1948 because Jews were militarily driven out of these areas--this includes the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.)
3. Recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish People will be a requirement in any final agreement with Palestinians.
I appreciate the deeply held view of many who leave comments here. I would only suggest that encouraging Palestinians to believe they will get Israel to give up any claim to the Old City or to surrounding settlement blocks, or that Palestinians will not have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state does them no favors and much harm.
June 25, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
The territory really in contest is pretty small
The tone of your post is conciliatory but the message is pure hasbara speak dictated by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
I assume that most readers of this thread can also read a map.
June 26, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink