It is a piece by Rabbi Brian Walt who was scheduled to participate on a panel called "Palestinian Human Rights: Your Involvement" until Goucher's President banned the session from taking place.
According to the college newspaper, Sanford Ungar, President of Goucher, put the kibosh on the session, saying: "We don't want Goucher to end up on a list of schools with a reputation of bringing vehemently pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli speakers to campus. I don't think it would be good for enrollment."
]]> I think he's really talking about donor support, not enrollment. (Students do not reject schools because debate at said school is too open. Some donors do).Of course, the whole idea of banning a student forum because it may be one-sided is ridiculous. Does Ungar ban programs on the Iraq war that are one-sided or on climate issues or on the Obama Presidency? Of course not.
Perhaps most ironic is that the Goucher censor is Sanford Ungar who is a lifelong journalist and former head of Voice of America. I doubt he agrees with the position he took. But these are troubled economic times and keeping a small private college going probably requires keeping the lobby off his back.
Is any other issue handled this way? In a country where a group of college kids can get together and organize to impeach the President, to oppose a war, or to address any issue they feel like addressing, this is the one exception. Incredible.
Plus, Peter Beinart on the ugly devoution of Joe Lieberman.
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]]>But I do put stock in this. I do not know a single person who is not disappointed by Obama's first year in office. And the people I know represent Obama's base. Pretty much all of them supported him in the primaries. They worked like dogs during the general. And they took buses, cars and planes to be at his inauguration.
Today much of their enthusiasm is gone.
And the reason for their disappointment is that they wanted a fighter, someone who would implement campaign promises (at least the ones a President can do unilaterally like gays in the military) and challenge the right's lies. Instead they have a conciliator.
]]> One friend said it best. "Would Sarah Palin and her minions be able to scream about the debt if Obama had made clear from day one who was responsible for it? Would they be able to yell about his 'dithering' on Afghanistan if he pointed out that Bush and Cheney's decision to fight in Iraq caused us to lose Afghanistan."Why didn't Obama allow hearings on how we were lied and manipulated into Iraq and how Rumsfeld made the decision to let Osama slip away into Pakistan? Why do we never hear about how Bush converted Clinton's surplus into the worst deficit in history? Democrats kept winning for 20 years by referring to Hoover's depression. And yet Democrats today shrink from the idea of blaming the administration that give Clinton's surplus away to the ultra-rich?
Bottom line. Liberals want an administration that is the left wing equivalent of the Bush-Cheney administration, an administration that had principles and stuck to them (every one of them wrong) and knew the difference between friends and enemies. They are sick and tired of a White House being held hostage by the likes of Evan Bayh and the House bluedogs.
Today all the passion is on the right. At this rate, it's the right that will turn out in unprecedented numbers in 2010 and 2012.
How did this happen? Who is to blame? And who is going to turn this situation around before we are in Jimmy Carterland? We have the smartest, most decent President in our lifetimes. Are we going to blow this opportunity by allowing thugs and bigots to convince the American public that they, and not the Democrats, are on their side?
Michael Jackson said: "I'm a lover, not a fighter." In a President, we need the opposite.
]]>George Mitchell's job as Middle East Special Envoy has got to be terribly frustrating for a man whose life story has been one success after another.
But the Israel-Palestine conflict tends to be a career destroyer. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was the most popular political figure in the United States when he went to the region to kick-start negotiations during the George W. Bush administration.
]]> He accomplished nothing largely because Israel-firsters back in Washington (Elliot Abrams played the leading role) let the Israelis know that they did not have to pay attention to Powell. He didn't speak for the administration. Later Abrams said that he viewed his role in the administration as blocking any moves that the Israelis didn't like.Clinton didn't do too well on Israel-Palestine either. Yes, he encouraged PLO chief Yasir Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to pursue Oslo but, when it came time to cement a deal, Clinton dropped the ball.
The list is much longer than that but there is no need to belabor the point. Everyone knows that successive administrations (with the exception of President Jimmy Carter's) have made very little progress toward ending the occupation that began in 1967.
The reason the United States continues to fail on the Israeli-Palestinian track is because of the power of the lobby in Washington. And by lobby I don't only mean just the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
I doubt Elliot Abrams needed to call any lobbyist to get his marching orders. He simply knew, from long experience, what made Israeli officialdom happy. He has his own internal AIPAC which guides him on all matters relating to Israel and the Palestinians.
Fortunately Elliot Abrams is no longer in power. But others, not neocons but holding neoconnish views on Israel, remain in policy positions.
How else to explain George Mitchell's failure? His history tells us that he is a strong and effective mediator. The diplomat who made Protestant and Catholic extremists not only agree to peace,but lay down their arms is not the kind of guy to be intimidated by the likes of Binyamin Netanyahu -- a prime minister who leads a weak government and has never demonstrated any kind of deftness as a leader.
And yet the American team - including Mitchell - flinched when Netanyahu balked at President Obama's demand for a settlement freeze. A settlement freeze is really very little. In fact, it is nothing more than a symbolic gesture of good faith which would only serve the purpose of getting negotiations started.
But when Netanyahu said "no," we caved. And then Secretary Clinton made things worse by praising Netanyahu for "unprecedented" concessions. Then, as if that was not enough, we repudiated the Goldstone report on war crimes in Gaza and, as if even that wasn't enough, we demanded that the Palestinian Authority do the same. Then the roof caved in.
What's going on?
Again it's back to the lobby. Policymakers throughout the government operate as if the lobby is always looking over their shoulders.
They anticipate what the lobby's reaction to any policy will be. And, if they conclude it will be negative, act preemptively to quash the policy. No one has to tell them not to confront Israel over settlements or Goldstone. They do it on their own, not for AIPAC or for Israel but out of the mistaken notion that they are protecting their principals (most notably the President) from the political damage they believe the lobby can do.
This has all played out horribly in the Obama administration.
Right now, negotiations look dead in the water. President Abbas is resigning and a third intifada is being planned. Meanwhile, American interests throughout the entire Muslim world are being damaged as both Arabs and non-Arabs see how utterly indifferent America seems to be about the oppressive occupation (the only issue in the world about which all Muslims are in agreement).
Unless this changes, not only will we further endanger American forces in the region and our economic interests, we will also fuel the forces of terrorism which, unless checked, will again blow back on us here at home.
The occupation (and especially the settlements) do infinitely more for Al Qaeda than they do for Israel and certainly more than they do for us. Supporting the occupation is, in its effects, a favor we do for Al Qaeda and Muslim radicals everywhere. And yet we keep doing it.
One has to wonder if there are any people around the President (or Secretary of State or Mitchell) who understand a simple truth. The President is infinitely more powerful than any lobby.
Back when I worked at AIPAC, the head of the organization told me this: "You know what I think is going to happen. One day the President of the United States will get on television to announce a peace plan that will get Israel out of the occupied territories and establish a Palestinian state in exchange for ironclad security guarantees for Israel. If he did that, everyone would fall in line behind the President. Congress, the Jewish community and, in fact, AIPAC would too. What choice would we have.." he said. "We are not going to war with a President who has the backing of the American people. And he would."
The man who told me that was AIPAC's founder, IL Kenen. That was over thirty years ago. His vision for the future still hasn't happened. But it will have to. Otherwise the lobby, and all those people who instinctively follow it, will prevent peace from ever happening.
In the meantime, can we just allow Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell do what they know is right rather than being inhibited by the internal lobby of their various deputies?
Of course, powerful lobbies and interest groups dictate most of the policies of our government, not just this one. It is just that this one is a matter of life and death. What a system!
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Crossposted on the PALESTINE NOTE which is the best blog (updated around the clock) devoted exclusively to Israel and Palestine and on Huffington Post.
Andrew Sullivan has been getting better and better on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. After a decade or so of keeping quiet on the 42-year occupation (probably to avoid offending his Likud mentor, Martin Peretz), Sullivan is saying what he really thinks.
And Sullivan's current Atlantic colleague is taking it personally. Jeff Goldberg complains about Andrew breaking with him publicly on Israel. "This is the thanks I get," Goldberg writes, "for defending him [Sullivan] as a Zionist."
Of course, not everyone thinks being labeled a Zionist is a compliment. It seems to me that Sullivan is even-handed, as sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations for a state in West Bank/Gaza/East Jerusalem as he is to a Jewish state within the '67 borders.
He is also one of the most influential journalists in the world.
Goldberg, ever predictable, is discomfited by Sullivan who is anything but. The Gaza war has succeeded in opening another pair of very significant eyes.
Also, Phil Weiss on New York Times columnist Roger Cohen demolishing WSJ's Brett Stephen on Iran at a synagogue debate. Beautiful.
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]]>In response, Americans for Peace Now produced a little primer on Israeli or (using the neocon categories) Jewish religious violence.
And this primer, helpful as it is, barely scratches the surface. The entire settlement enterprise in the occupied territories was ignited by religious fanatics. And the settlement enterprise is violent by its very nature -- displacing Palestinians, starving Gaza, restricting Palestinian movement and, when convenient for religious settlers and/or soldiers, beating and killing those who get in the way. The religious crazies -- supposedly so deeply in love with the Land of Israel -- also rip out olive groves and literally poison the land with chemicals to destroy Palestinian agriculture.
So is Judaism violent? No, but Jewish extremists are, just like their Muslim counterparts. As for Christianity, one need hardly elaborate on the Christianity-blessed extermination of native peoples worldwide or the Holocaust's Christian roots.
]]> So why the screaming about Muslims. One, Muslim extremists are a horrifying bunch who indeed pose a serious threat to Americans. And, two, the neocons are eager for war with Islam (and not just the Muslim extremists either) wherever the opportunity presents itself.AIPAC actually works closely with Hindu religious parties in the Indian government to teach them how to lobby effectively on Kashmir and the rest of the Hindu nationalist agenda. In fact, the Israel lobby trained the Indians on how to lobby effectively.
In fact, one can argue that the Israel lobby is misnamed. It is barely about Israel anymore (except at its foundation). It is all about contempt for Muslims, the same contempt that is at the root of neoconservatism.
Its current goal is, of course, confronting Iran, unless -- as I believe he will -- Obama pulls off a deal with Iran that thwarts efforts to either sanction or bomb the Iranian people.
PS. Question for AIPAC. Is it really "good for the Jews" to make the entire Muslim world their enemies? Do you even think about these things when you decide to add the struggle over Kashmir to the list of issues on which you decide to confront Islam? Of course, you don't. The concept "good for the Jews" is as alien to AIPAC as "good for the United States" or, in fact, "good for Israel." The only question asked is whether it's good for AIPAC. Judging from its fabulous new eight story headquarters, it is!
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]]>So what did the Israelis do today? They approved the Gilo expansion.
This then may be President Obama's last chance to get it right. In his Cairo speech in the spring he demanded that the Israelis freeze settlements. Prime Minister Netanyahu ignored him except to make clear that he had no intention of freezing anything. Then the Secretary of State made it worse by going to Israel and praising Netanyahu for his "unprecedented" moves for peace.
]]> At that point, the roof caved in. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he would resign, followed almost immediately by warning that the Palestinians were finished with negotiations. They would, he said, declare a state unilaterally.This caused great distress in Israel with both Netanyahu and Senator Joe Lieberman warning the Palestinians: "Don't you dare."
Then yesterday, in an effort to undo some of the damage, Mitchell told the Israelis not to proceed with the Gilo expansion causing the Israelis to limmediately announce they were going ahead with it.
It's almost amusing. Almost $4 billion in US aid a year and Netanyahu does not give us the time of day. (And not just on settlements either. The barbaric blockade of Gaza is in its fourth year).
Bibi is making Obama and America look like fools. But we have a chance to begin to show some mettle. Are we going to apply the pressure or surrender?
If past is prologue, we surrender. But hope springs enternal. Can we do the right thing for once? I mean, just how powerful is AIPAC anyway?
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]]>It's a very interesting idea. And it has a lot to recommend it. He writes:
"Abbas owes it to his people, to himself, and to us. This week, there were reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds this possibility very scary, and he expects the Americans to nip it in the bud. But his nightmare is our only chance for an end to the occupation in our time.
When he declares independence, Abbas should call upon the Jews living in the state of Palestine to preserve the peace and to do their part in building up the new country as full and equal citizens, enjoying fair representation in all of its institutions. David Ben-Gurion would not have been upset by such a pretty act of plagiarism from his Declaration of Independence.
And thus, Abbas will become the Palestinian Ben-Gurion. Conditions were no less foggy and circumstances were no more certain when Ben-Gurion declared independence in 1948. But our founding father took the risk, and we are fortunate that he did.
]]> The risk Abbas would be taking is much smaller. Of the 192 member states of the United Nations, over 150 would recognize a free Palestine, and it would soon become the 193rd. Although the American position is an unknown, it is hard to believe that Barack Obama would agree to drag America back into isolation now that it has begun to be part of the world again.And what would Netanyahu do? Invade and re-conquer the West Bank? Restore the military government in the Muqata in Ramallah?
And what orders will Ehud Barak give his army? Serbia didn't dare invade Kosovo after it declared independence, and even Russia the great didn't allow itself to remain inside the sovereign territory of Georgia after their war.
Immediately after the declaration, celebrations will begin in the capital, East Jerusalem, and people from all over the world will join in, including Israelis. The masses of the House of Ishmael will carouse joyously through the city's neighborhoods, and especially those neighborhoods from which they have been evicted by people with priestly pretensions. This will have to be joy without any manifestations of violence, not even one stone thrown.
This week, I phoned Abbas, after not having spoken to him for at least four years. I told him everything that I am writing now. I also told him something else: What happened to the wall in Berlin 20 years ago, and to apartheid a few months later, would also happen to the occupation: It will collapse, even if attempts are made to reinforce it with nails."
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]]>I'll get right to his column today which is a diatribe against the media for not attributing the actions of the Fort Hood killer to his religion. Actually, I have noticed no such reluctance. There is hardly a story about Nidal Hassan that does not mention his adherence to the most extreme and violent strains of Islam. And that is the way it should be. His views matter so do their source.
]]> But Krauthammer wants something more. He ends his column by quoting a headline citing a "Jersey City man" in connection with 9/11. He writes that the man's Jersey-ness is not the point. It's his religion. And the media should say it.Interesting. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we went back to mass generalizations based on religion or race? . Obviously not. Would Krauthammer like these headlines, "Catholics Block Abortion Compromise," "US Defends Jewish Barbarism In Gaza," not to mention the old "Negro Accused Of Killing Woman?"
No Krauthammer would not like that (except the last one perhaps).
The man is a bigot. I suggest he recuse himself from writing on all issues that even tangentially relate to Israel (i.e. Islam). His subtext is always the same: look, Americans, Muslims are anti-American and violent. They also hate Israel. That is why you must back everything Israel does. Its enemies are yours.
That in a nutshell (good word) is Krauthammer's entire ideology. If it's good for the Likud party, it's good for us. He is entitled to his passion. But we can't allow him to mask it even if the mask is so utterly transparent. Meanwhile, here is Americans for Peace Now's primer on right-wing Israeli terrorism (not including military actions).
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]]>Anyway, Marc's life spun off in a different direction from the rest of our crowd when he went to Vietnam.
This is his powerful story. And not just his.
]]>
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu met for two hours last night. Here is the post meeting statement from the White House.
"The President and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed a number of issues in the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship. The President reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel's security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues. The President and Prime Minister also discussed Iran and how to move forward on Middle East peace."
Cold. No photo. No reporters in the room. The President did not escort the Prime Minister to his car (or to the Metro) and the White House issued a statement that said nothing. It was written before the meeting as it made no reference to anything that occurred during the meeting.
Clearly, Mahmoud Abbas outsmarted everybody by threatening to resign. He forced the United States to look into the abyss -- and then push Bibi right to its edge. This was the least friendly meeting between an American president and an Israeli prime minister in memory. The message: don't play with us, Bibi.
Will the administration stick to its guns? Who knows? Its tendency is to follow pressure on Israel with apologetics (like going along with Israel's teeth gnashing over Goldstone and forcing the Palestinians to go along with it too). If it backs down again, its effectiveness in the Israeli-Palestinian arena is done. They need to stick.. For America's sake, and for Israel's and the Palestinians.'
Get ready for a big AIPAC/Congressional push back. Obama should let them sweat too. He has the power (on foreign policy, Congress is near irrelevant unless a President is intimidated by it).
]]>Of course, as a self-proclaimed "man of faith", he won't say that the problem is not Islam but fanatics of all faiths. I mean, just because the history of the world has been scarred by one religious massacre or assassination after another by people of all faiths is no reason not to single out Muslims. Well, not for Joe, anyway. Or the supremely nutty Eric Cantor who believes that all Jews everywhere, including here, are under attack by Muslim "men with guns."
These characters may not recall that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Orthodox Jew, a killing that was justified theologically by ultra-Orthodox rabbis both before and since the killing. Or that physician Baruch Goldstein, a crazed religious nut, opened fire at a mosque in Hebron and killed 27 worshipers while they prayed. Today his grave is a shrine in Hebron for lunatic settlers.
]]> And today the Israeli press reports on a new book by some rabbis in Israel who spell out exactly when it is okay to kill non-Jews. Their answer: whenever they get in the way.This is from the Hebrew (Ma'ariv newspaper) so I can't link to it. Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur determine that children may also be harmed because they are 'hindrances.' "Hindrances-babies are found many times in this situation. They block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by force. Nevertheless, they may be killed because their presence aids murder. There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults."
Of course, there are many, many books like this written by Islamic extremists and Hindu extremists and all kinds of other religious nuts.
As for Christians, millions have been killed by Christians for the sin of not being Christian, or for being the wrong kind of Christian. It is the anti-Semitism introduced into Christianity by St. Paul that led ultimately to the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism is a Christian invention no matter how much Joe Lieberman and Eric Cantor adore anti-Semitic Christian extremists for being pro-Israel.
Bottom line: all religions are the same. Most adherents are peaceful and ethical. But a minority uses a distorted view of the faith's teachings to hate and to murder.
We should condemn the jihadists and guard against them. They are a monstrous bunch and they pose an immediate threat to us all. But they are not unique or alone. All "faiths" have their bloody jihadists. The irony is that the haters who adhere to other faiths are now ganging up on Muslims with the argument that "Islam is different."
Really? Different than what?
Read this from Media Matters Action Network about Tom Friedman and Joe Klein calling for cuts in Israel aid if it continues to stonewall on peace. Andrew Sullivan too.
I'm on twitter@mjmediamatters
]]>I think Obama will be able to get the key elements of his program enacted, not all of it, but enough of it to make him a successful President. Of course, nobody knows.
In any case, either in 2010 (God forbid) or 2012 (more likely), the Republicans will be back. And, when they return, they will be worse than ever -- especially now with the Christianist bigots running the party.
]]> That means that Obama should use the rest of this one term to which he is guaranteed to put in place programs that cannot be undone. That means using Executive Orders to do whatever is doable unilaterally. It means normalizing relations with Iran, addressing climate issues, labor rights, gays in the military, choice, raising taxes-- whatever issue that can be addressed either by executive order or a simple majority of Congress.The politics of consensus is garbage and we cannot afford it, not with an opposition that rejects most American values and traditions waiting in the wings. The alternative to the Democrats is the party of Neocons, Bachmann, Palin and Glenn Beck. That means that Democrats need to lock in policies that cannot be reversed.
You know the saying: life is uncertain, eat dessert first.
Remember LBJ. He got it all done in the first two years because he feared that was all he had. He was right. He lost 47 House seats in 1966 and the Great Society was done.
But the amazing domestic legacy of those two years -- Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights, Clean Air, Clean Water, college loans -- is locked in forever, untouchable. That should be the model even though LBJ governed before the Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Nelson Rockefeller became the Party of Limbaugh, Kristol and Beck. That makes Obama's mission different -- a difference LBJ's would characterize as the difference between "chicken salad and chicken sh*t."
]]>The only reason I ask the question is because Goldberg, the Atlantic blogger, has joined with the usual neocons suspects to assert with ugly vehemence that the Iranian-American scholar, Trita Parsi, is not a loyal American but an operative of the loathsome Iranian regime.
Read this by Daniel Luban. And this by Spencer Ackerman (there are now a dozen similar pieces on the web) describing precisely who Trita is, what he stands for and what the neocons (now hell bent on an attack on Iran by the end of the year) are saying about him. Why Trita? Because he is the most effective advocate for diplomacy with Iran rather than listening to the Israeli hawks and their boys here.
]]> Using Goldberg's standard, I could ask about his loyalties. How can an American who served in the Israeli army be a legitimate commentator on Arab-Israeli affairs? You know how many Americans join the Israeli army. Pretty much none. Even the most rightwing AIPAC kid in your high school or college never dreamed of fighting in the IDF because he or she is an American and we have our own army, navy and air force. A pretty good one too. (I never served in any army. Members of my immediately family served in various American war beginning with WW1 and ending with service in Vietnam. I would not serve in Vietnam because I opposed the war and because I did not want to be killed. One thing that never crossed my mind was choosing some other army to serve in.)I think it is appropriate to ask any American who chooses to enlist in the Israeli, Brazilian, French, or Indonesian military: why, if you felt the call to national service in the military, did you not choose our military? Yes, some Americans, impatient, and rightly so, to fight the Nazis joined the Canadian army to get into the war faster. But that was because they knew that FDR was hamstrung by Congress in his effort to help the allies. The fought alongside the Canadians and Brits as Americans, in a war they knew American would soon join.
That is not the case with an American joining the IDF. Those few Americans who join the Israeli army are utterly devoted to Israel and its interests. That is fine. But one has to question if they should recuse themselves (1) from questioning the loyalty of Americans of immigrant background who are "guilty" only of their foreignness by birth and (2) from reporting on Middle East affairs period. If Israel is the passion of your life, write about Japan or Africa. Don't even pretend (and Goldberg barely pretends) that you come to Middle East issues with any sort of obectivity whatsoever.
Note: Trita Parsi was in exile in Sweden. He did not join the Iranian Army.
]]>