Problem Solvers
Jonathan Zasloff offers the futility argument with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
All those who insist that the United States should “solve” the problem should explain how. And if they can’t do that, then maybe they should take some quiet time.
I think that would be an appealing solution to a lot of people who have no real desire to try to sit in delicate judgment weighing the moral balance between a Hamas movement that seems indifferent to human life, and an Israeli government that’s lashing out brutally as part of a domestic political drama. But as long as Israel is by far the largest recipient of US foreign assistance funds and by an even larger margin the largest per capita recipient of US foreign assistance funds, then I don’t see how “quiet time” is a realistic option. Israel is not a poor country; our financial backing for them is not a humanitarian gesture the way that funds spent on Malawi or Guatemala might be. Our aid to Israel is a strategic commitment to an allied country in a troubled region of the world and a region where, among other things, the United States is concerned about the low esteem in which we are held by the local population.
Under the circumstances, throwing up our hands and saying “it’s too hard!” isn’t an option. We can decide we don’t want to be involved, which would mean unwinding the ties of collaboration and assistance between the US and Israel, or we can try to play a constructive role in bringing an end to the conflict. I’m not personally sure of how you do that. But I’m quite certain that the first step would be pressing Israel — hard — to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank and start dismantling them. To show to Palestinians interested in a two-state solution (perhaps including some Hamas people or perhaps not) that there’s credibility on the other side. I think Israelis wouldn’t welcome such action by us, but ultimately it would be in their own best interests. On the other hand, those who really do think the best thing for the United States is to just wash our hands of the whole mess have an obligation to really stand behind that belief and urge us to wash our hands of the situation. But just proclaiming a pox on both houses while in practice heavily subsidizing one side isn’t a viable option.
173 Responses to “Problem Solvers”
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December 29th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Good post Matt.
To add: the Israeli army is currently destroying vital infrastructure partly paid for by European countries. Who would have thought that some “foreign aid” should actually go to poor people, instead of the military industrial complex?
December 29th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
We could start by acknowledging that Palestinians are human beings too.
Listening to the US news and Bush’s WH statements, we’d never know that the 300 killed so far were mostly civilians, women and children, and not “terrorists”.
I support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. But this is a massacre, and I suspect it’s being rushed while Bush is still in office.
As a start, I’d like it if representatives of the people trapped in Gaza, bombed and strafed and starved of food and medecine for ages.. on a purely humanitarian basis, -not Hamas- I’d like someone speaking for them to be allowed on US television. Instead we get one-sided PR exercises by Israel . The human cost is hidden, swept under the rug, abstracted. This is unfair, to wildly understate.
A start it would be.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
The essential problem is that there are millions of privileged colonists, living in more or less luxury, pervasively bigoted in their attitude towards the native population, surrounded by millions of that native population, living in squalor and refugee camps, a situation which the colonists hope to solemnise and confirm under the guise of a ‘peace process’ and sometimes a ‘two state solution’ while continuing to intermittently shoot the natives as necessary or desirable for domestic political reasons.
Starting from this fundamental perspective, its really very difficult to see that any sort of plausible social basis for supporting Israeli policies as-they-actually-are can really exist in palestinian arab society. That includes the sort of ‘two state solution’ that the Israelis might eventually offer, any more than the arab Algerians would have accepted a ‘two state solution’ of this sort, even if their leaders could be brought to sign it.
If one wishes to be optimistic, the overall approach must be towards working towards a social basis for palestinian happiness with Israel through massive income transfers and increases in the quality of their lives, so that they share directly and pervasively in Israel’s standard of living, and where the jewish privilege-arab servitude relationship is increasingly blurred (not least by removing all - yes all- the settlements put into Jerusalem and elsewhere since 1967). But that would be a huge break with Israeli policy of beggaring the Palestinians in the hope that many will leave.
(By the way, the solution Zasloff describes - “two states for two peoples, 1967 borders with one-to-one adjustments, Jerusalem split according to demographics, right of return to the Palestinian state but not to Israel” - is largely a disguise for driving many of the remaining arabs out of Israel ‘in return for’ keeping jewish settlements. In other words, it panders to jewish colonial bigotry, and any solution must distinctively break with jewish colonial bigotry.)
December 29th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Didn’t Bush the younger try the “this is too hard!” approach when he first took office? Isn’t that sort of a perfect case study of how NOT to handle this situation?
December 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution. Being truly neutral would mean abstaining.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Ok. We’ll just wash our hands of it.
Does that mean Egypt stops getting the funds predicated on the peace treaty brokered with Israel too?
War with Egypt sounds like a steep price to pay for trying to use the terms of the treaty to stop settlements.
I thought preventing formal military confrontations with Israel was the most important thing to you guys. What gives?
December 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
This post conflates the impossibility of making peace with irredentists with the withdrawal of funds as a punishment for settlement activity in the occupied territories. One has nothing to do with the other. More wishful thinking. And unfair. Where is the proposal for withdrawing the provision of funds to Hamas as punishment for their breaches? Why should Israel suffer militarily because it doesn’t have back channels like Iran to arm it no matter what it does?
Oh, that’s right. Because Hamas will use their population as ransom. Thanks for clarifying things.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
While I agree with Matt and zed, it’s worth checking out a well-argued contrary position in the latest New York Review of Books, “How Not to Make Peace in the Middle East” by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. They’ve two arguments for taking a deep breath before feeling compelled to act.
One is that, while others characterize Bush’s approach to this as uninterested and disengaged, he was in fact acting radically to reshape the Middle East. He just started elsewhere and it was a disaster. The other is that key breakthroughs, such as Israel’s treaty with Jordan, took place with the U.S. “nowhere in sight,” while so many U.S. efforts have failed.
I’d take a stab at counterarguments, but perhaps Matt would give it a go on top of what he’s written about our being necessarily involved, owing to aid to Israel.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
War with Egypt sounds like a steep price to pay for trying to use the terms of the treaty to stop settlements.
Why would Egypt, or any other country for that matter, attack a militaristic, warmongering country with advanced equipment and nuclear weapons?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Israel isn’t going to sit idly
while rockets are being fired.
The US isn’t going to ditch an ally.
And liberal Jews will not waste an
opportunity to strut their purity to their
fellow leftists with words
they don’t really believe.
It’s all so predictable.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Instead of sending more aid, let’s offer to make Israel the 51st state. The overture would go like this: They can tell us what the borders of Israel are. We’ll approve it and defend Israel accordingly; however, that entire jurisdiction will be governed according to American constitutional principles (one person one vote, equal protection, etc.), and no one residing outside its borders will be entitled to any protection.
I say it’s that, or they reach a deal with the Palestinians by the end of March, or we quit writing checks.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
“Why would Egypt, or any other country for that matter, attack a militaristic, warmongering country with advanced equipment and nuclear weapons?”
Two reasons:
1. If the U.S. withdraws funds, then the treaty has no more teeth for Israel, and would now be threatened.
2. If the U.S. withdraws funds to Israel, it would no longer have “advanced equipment” and a harder time keeping up its military infrastructure, including “nuclear weapons”. And hence, countries that were deterred by this would no longer feel as deterred.
Pretty self-evident stuff.
Nice going Lefties with the truthiness and all.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
We need is a one secular state solution, and we need it ASAP. Give the entire population of the West Bank and Gaza full citizenship in Israel, with all the rights that go along with that. As Palestinians vote more and more of their own into government, many Israelis will give up and move to Florida.
Why is this so hard?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I would edit your note to be a bit more really honest: ” … between the Hamas and Israeli governments that seem indifferent to human life … “
December 29th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Israel needs to spend the money needed to show restraint and treat what were in the great scheme of things a minor threat appropriately and bring those responsible to justice while minimizing the damage to third parties. Say what you will about who is right or wrong the fact remains that Israel kills way more people, way more innocent people than Hamas. I know they walk a tough line, but Jesus, if they can’t show the restraint necessary to be, as clearly as possible, the good guys, they shouldn’t get a bounty predicated largely on being the good guys.
And let’s not let the question of terrorism get overplayed killing 10 innocent people by a terrorist attack is less bad than killing hundreds in a military action. Who cares how brightly the killing knife shines?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
UN Observer says: It’s all the Lefties fault
First off, if we withdrawal funds from Israel, how would that eliminate their nukes?
Second off, you are saying Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II could do nothing to stop the ball that Carter started rolling? What?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
If the U.S. withdraws funds to Israel, it would no longer have “advanced equipment” and a harder time keeping up its military infrastructure, including “nuclear weapons”. And hence, countries that were deterred by this would no longer feel as deterred.
Israel GDP: $164.103 billion ($23,578 per capita)
US Aid to Israel: about $2 billion
Yes, Congress is sending tons of money to a country with no dire need for it. Of course, most of that money goes back to US firms in exchange for advanced weapons.
In any case, Israel doesn’t depend on it, and its military power would be just fine without it, dwarfing all of its neighbors put together.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Why should a truly neutral US actually care if Egypt goes to war with Israel? Fuck Israel. It’s not the most important country in the world. It shouldn’t even make the list of Top 100 Nicest Countries To Visit. It’s a stretch of dirt run by a psychopathic little apartheid state. Let’s see them run their country on their own for a fucking change.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I don’t know what you propose I accused the lefties of being at fault for, Miatch, other than a few bad proposals here and there including the one in question. Must be a reason why Obama has the sense to keep Gates in place.
But I digress.
As to the one substantive question in your comment, withdrawing our aid wouldn’t eliminate their nukes. But keeping up military equipment isn’t something that happens in a financial vaccuum. Nukes need to be dropped from planes or launched from silos. Or in Israel’s case, from submarines. Granted, their whole infrastructure wouldn’t fall into disrepair overnight, but the chain of events it would set into place would be established and the precedent it would set for all who currently feel deterred is plain to see.
And of course, the lesson for Hamas and all who are currently benefitting from the conflict by getting guilt-ridden lefties like Matt to respond by wanting to spank Israel is: Perpetuate the conflict!
Yeah!!!
“Pacifism. Fuck Yeah! Coming again to save the mother-fuckin’ day now! Guilt-Ridden Pacifism. Fuck Yeah!”
(Sung to the Tune of “Team America”)
December 29th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Israel is one of the world’s top five arms exporters, accounting for 10% of the global arms trade.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_10/b3923097_mz015.htm
December 29th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Damned Jimmy Carter! He screwed the US — again. If only Jimmy Carter hadn’t committed the US to providing Israel with all those funds
December 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
between a Hamas movement that seems indifferent to human life, and an Israeli government that’s lashing out brutally
= “an Israeli government that seems indifferent to non-Jewish human life”…
December 29th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
If the figures are as you suggest, then perhaps it wouldn’t be as significant problem. But the principle is worth keeping in mind. These things are tied together.
I think that all other considerations aside, we shouldn’t have to send any aid Israel. But I have a sneaking suspicion that your figures don’t include military contracts/exchanges. Those might have to be tweaked out if we are to keep from comparing apples to oranges. From Matt’s post, it’s not clear to me if it’s the financial aspect or military that he’d like to use as an apple/stick against Israel. But perhaps he should clarify that before we go on speculating about which of these inter-relationships would unravel. Some are more important to Israel than others, as they should be.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
All those who insist that the United States should “solve” the problem should explain how.
By doing the same things we did when we successfully mediated an Israeli-Egyptian peace deal, and an Israeli-Jordanian peace deal - act as an honest broker, promise aid if they’re good, and recognize that while it might not work, it’s worth trying.
There, that was remarkably easy.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Ooops. Forgot to add — Jimmy Carter: worst President… ever!
I might have agreed (at least in relatively recent history) with you 8 years ago before Hurricane George brought us Category 5 failure and destruction, both domestically and internationally. Carter floundered. Bush’s toxic blend of ignorance and arrogance was more actively destructive.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
“By doing the same things we did when we successfully mediated an Israeli-Egyptian peace deal, and an Israeli-Jordanian peace deal - act as an honest broker, promise aid if they’re good, and recognize that while it might not work, it’s worth trying.”
Of course, the good faith on the parts of Egypt and Jordan don’t really figure into this calculus, because according to some people, they shouldn’t have to matter. But they do. As does the fact that both Egypt and Jordan are states and have something to lose by not choosing the paths the did. There is a reason that Palestine is not interested in declaring its own statehood: It makes the stakes for not pursuing the aforementioned paths much less steep. But this is all blowing in the wind in the ears of people who sidestep such considerations with easy dodges that assume:
1. The Palestinians have/should have no responsibilities and are not capable of agency,
2. If it’s not all Israel’s fault, we should find a way to pretend that it is. Because having more power in many regards means you inevitably have all the power to make everything in the world happen. As long as a “peace” constituency screams loudly enough about it and the dispossessed make you feel sufficiently guilty for not making every demand of theirs happen. Hell! Let’s just pretend that their demands (an Islamic state throughout the whole land and expulsion of Jews) conform to our own norms of justice (a two-state solution)!
December 29th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Isn’t Iran still flying around with some ancient F-14s? From what I’ve read, the Israeli missile sub(s) is some old French thing, and between Mirage, Saab, MiG, and Sukhoi, I don’t think that they’d have a problem finding a replacement for their F-16I’s. The only difference would be that it’d be on their dime.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
But I have a sneaking suspicion that your figures don’t include military contracts/exchanges.
Huh it’s foreign aid. Of course it doesn’t include all military contracts and exchange. It is just free money from the US to Israel.
(Those funds are voted by Congress as earmarks every year by the way, for all those spouting nonsense about Carter. The US is not committed to any kind of foreign aid by treaty or otherwise; in fact for a time it wasn’t even paying its due to the UN)
Basically Israel is getting tons of military stuff from the US at no cost, with the money going from US taxpayers to US firms. Then later some of those weapons get prime-time exposure on Al-Jazeera, like today. All together it is a very good deal for the US military industrial complex and the Israeli army, but a dubious one for anyone else involved.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I think Zasloff has a point. It’s not the claim that we should throw up our hands and say that the problem is too hard. But an awful lot of commentary on the problem seems to fit into the “I wish some smart and powerful person would come up with some awesome solution to this problem and implement it” category.
We need fewer tediously obvious generic pronouncements in favor of solving the problem, and more actual proposals. And people who propose some approach to the problem as a realistic solution should also grapple with the practical political problem of how we politically get the US and Israeli political systems to take the position we would like them to occupy. Otherwise its all talk.
After all, people who wanted Barack Obama to be president didn’t just say “The US should elect Barack Obama president”. They typically participated in some way in a complex political campaign aimed at electing him. We know the US political system is filled with structural impediments to generating solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that can be accepted by the US political establishment, and also be successful. If we want to get a progressive solution implemented, we’re going to need a campaign. It doesn’t look like we are just going to be able to rely on The Amazing Barack to do it all by himself by the sheer force of his personality.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
“The only difference would be that it’d be on their dime.”
That’s fine - at least in the abstract. Although I’m dubious about the benefit of viewing this through the lens of trying to equalize Israel’s power against that of Iran. As I am ignoring what Why oh why has the sense to point out. A lot of this aid is under the rug or through the use of contracts and has nothing to do with the $2 billion.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Isn’t Iran still flying around with some ancient F-14s? From what I’ve read, the Israeli missile sub(s) is some old French thing, and between Mirage, Saab, MiG, and Sukhoi, I don’t think that they’d have a problem finding a replacement for their F-16I’s. The only difference would be that it’d be on their dime.
I don’t get it: reducing (or even stopping) US aid to Israel is not the same thing as imposing a Cuba-style embargo on this country. Israeli would still be able to buy F-16 and so on. Just, they might start to look for better deals elsewhere, which would be bad for US weapon manufacturers.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Edit:
“As I am OF ignoring what…” It was a good point.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Since it’s futile, let’s keep our 3 billion/yr.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
UN Observer utters: “Where is the proposal for withdrawing the provision of funds to Hamas as punishment for their breaches? Why should Israel suffer militarily because it doesn’t have back channels like Iran to arm it no matter what it does?”
From Wikipedia: “Israel, the United States, Canada, and the European Union have frozen all funds to the Palestinian government after the formation of a Hamas-controlled government after its victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election.”
December 29th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
The notion that the United States has a role to play as an honest broker in the Israeli conflict seems ludicrous. The US is clearly in Israel’s side. It has no credibility with Arabs.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Oh, ok, Skeptic. Thank you for keeping me on the straight and narrow. I guess the only question remaining is why Israel is assumed singlehandedly responsible for ending conflict that occurs regardless of whether or not it’s on the scale that makes you wet your pants.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“The notion that the United States has a role to play as an honest broker in the Israeli conflict seems ludicrous. The US is clearly in Israel’s side. It has no credibility with Arabs.”
And with whom do the Arabs have any credibility? I mean, other than certain well-intentioned travellers down the the road to hell?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
“It has no credibility with Arabs since 2001.”
Fixed that.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I think the question in that last comment actually answers itself. If the U.S. continues to refuse to engage the theatrical peace-”making” charade/Kibuki dance, then finally the Arabs will have to step up to the plate and confirm what they really want. Perpetual conflict with Israel? A way to scapegoat it for the appeal of their populaces? Or peace? If they want peace they will have to say to Hamas what they already say to Israel in private: That they need them to stop this shit.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
The notion that the United States has a role to play as an honest broker in the Israeli conflict seems ludicrous. The US is clearly in Israel’s side. It has no credibility with Arabs.
And that is why there is this Quartet thing, with the US seen as pro-Israeli by some Arabs, the EU seen as pro-Arabs by some Israeli, and Russia seen as pro-Russia by everybody (plus, the UN). Although this Quartet has never done much, since nobody seems to really care about imposing a peace in the region, and unconditional US support for Israel makes any kind of pressure unlikely anyway.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Why should a truly neutral US actually care if Egypt goes to war with Israel? Fuck Israel. It’s not the most important country in the world. It shouldn’t even make the list of Top 100 Nicest Countries To Visit. It’s a stretch of dirt run by a psychopathic little apartheid state. Let’s see them run their country on their own for a fucking change.
I’ve grown more sympathetic to Israel. As Olmert and General Sharon recognized, the demographics are against them. Iran is getting nukes and is run by crazy people but at least aren’t stupid crazy. In Lebanon Israel bombed civilians but they didn’t get all medieval on their asses like Russia did with Chechnya, leveling the place. And Hezbollah scored a victory.
They are just hurting themselves by turning Gaza into an open-aired penal colony and bombing the shit out of it. Palestianians hurt themselves by voting in Hamas, but Israel and the US never gave Fatah anything to show the Palestinian people and Fatah was notoriously corrupt.
Democracy in Egypt and the other Arab countries will help resolve this situation - if there isn’t a huge war, but right now dictators just use the Palestinians and Israel as a distriction. Iraq will change that hopefully.
To me it looks like Egypt is really hanging out there. Good news for Israel is that low oil prices hurt the Saudi Royal family and the holy warriors in Tehran. But after the Saudi Royal family and the Egyptian dictatorship are overthrown or voted out what would the democracies want? A reasonable fair deal for everyone?
If we let these places or Iraq become failed states like Afghanistan we’ll get another 9/11, probably worse. One has to look beyond one’s immediae self-interest regarding taxes and foreign aid to see the big picture.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I don’t think it’d do anything to equalize the military power between Iran and Israel. Considering that Israel has nukes, you don’t really want the power between them to be equalized (if Israel feels threatened, they’re more likely to put them on a hair trigger). But Israel is so far ahead of the region that I don’t think it would have an impact there.
The impact of cutting off all military aid to Israel would show up when Israel considers how to maintain their current level of defense spending without our support. Knowing how difficult it is to consider cutting the USA’s defense budget, I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would result if you tried it in Israel.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The conflict would be solved within six months if the U.S. simply ended its special relationship with Israel. Without the U.S. for cover Israel would have little choice but to offer a settlement along the lines that the international community decades ago decided was a reasonable one. But since they do have that cover they have no incentive to make any concessions.
Obviously, the U.S. is not going to end its special relationaship anytime soon, so for the forseeable future Israel has no incentive to end the occupation, stop seizing land, brutalizing Gaza with collective punishment, and bombing sovereign nations with no consequences. In that sense the situation is indeed hopeless. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
You’re welcome, UN Observer, though I have no doubt that you’ll stray from the path the minute a shiny object appears.
To answer you question as to why it’s up to Israel to find a way out to peace. Two simple reasons:
1) Israel has the power.
2) It’s not sustainable for Israel.
Like it or not, the big dog not only makes the rules but it has an obligation to make rules that hold. Part of Israel’s problem is that it’s at the top of the heap. Every move to peace is a step down, a net loss of power or influence or control.
Make peace with Syria, give up the Golan Heights. Is Syria a threat? No. Then why give back the Golan Heights.
A legitimate two state solution? That’s a net loss of authority over the West Bank and Gaza, relocating a quarter million settlers, recognizing Palestinians as a full state, losing control over its borders etc. Why do they want to give up all that power.
The truth of human nature is that Israel has no motivation to seek peace. The current state of affairs suits it just fine, believe it or not. Sure, the occasional suicide bomber is inconvenient. But lots of people die in traffic deaths in the US and no one talks about getting rid of cars. ‘Terrorism’ in Israel is reduced to the level of public theatre, a tolerable nuisance.
As for your subsequent comment on the credibility of Arabs, your question is meaningless. The Palestinians are not coming forward to be honest brokers, they’re claimants. Saudi Arabia has put forward a peace plan, are you disparaging the Saudi plan? Disparaging the Saudi’s unique position in both the Arab world or global economy? Or were you just indulging in a little ad hoc racism?
December 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
3.Arun:
Listening to the US news and Bush’s WH statements, we’d never know that the 300 killed so far were mostly civilians, women and children, and not “terrorists”.
Huh? From the Associated Press:
A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussen, said 180 members of the Hamas security forces were among the dead, and the U.N. said at least 62 of the dead were civilians.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
Does anyone here genuinely doubt that Israel does its best to strike only Hamas facilities while minimising civilian casualties? Aerial photos of some of their targets:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129055
Meanwhile, Hamas gets a free pass for firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations?
December 29th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
David, I have to disagree. I would argue that the US has not had any credible role as an honest broker in the Arab world since the Carter era.
In my view, the Reagan era coincided with substantive abandonment of any sort of perceived impartiality. Certainly the Reagan era’s meddling in the Iran/Iraq War, the tete a tete’s with Libya, the American adventures in Lebanon in the form of the peacekeeping force that got blown up and the subsequent revenge shelling of villages by American warships, and the adamant US support for Israel kind of tilted the balance of perception. Even Clinton’s Camp David efforts were shadowed by military excursions against Somalia, Afghanistan and the Sudan.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I think we and the Palestinians should give up on the two state solution. Make what was Palestine Israel and then let Israel try to figure out how to keep huge numbers of the populace non citizens. An impossible task of course. However it will focus the minds on the absurdity of a state as an historical accident.
Let’s be clear about this. A distinct quite old political culture was conquered. Modern history offers no analogy. There is no real way to make it lawful or just. It just is. Israel is now and sporadically operating as a conqueror. It isn’t nice, pretty, fair or lawful no matter how hard people pretend it is. Can Israelis face the necessity of a final solution? Well of course not. Some segment of Palestinians will never submit. That’s who most Americans and everyone else wants killed. It’s so silly to beat about the bush on this stuff. No pun intended. So let’s go in and kill them. The pretenses are damaging the US and everyone else.
Well that or offer say the UP of Michigan as the new Jewish homeland.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussen, said 180 members of the Hamas security forces were among the dead, and the U.N. said at least 62 of the dead were civilians.
Those “Hamas security forces” includes anything from recent police academy graduates to doctors. But surely being a member of Hamas, the democratically elected government and local authority, is the same thing as being a diehard terrorist/AlQaeda/9-11/ Axis of Evil type whose death doesn’t matter?
And no Hamas doesn’t get a free pass for firing rockets and killing two people, but by your mathematical logic Israel gets 200 times less of a free pass. By the way, the bodycount is above 350 now, so what is the new “good/bad” death ratio among people of Gaza?
December 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Power to the refuseniks.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Well, anything I can do to stroke your ego, Skeptic. That’s clearly more important to you than sound reasoning or the acknowledgment that you don’t know everything.
As for the rest, most of what you say reiterates your axiomatic worldview in a way typical of your sort of unremarkable boilerplate, and is therefore devoid of anything substantive with which to take issue. The exceptions are the following:
“The truth of human nature is that Israel has no motivation to seek peace.”
Not to get in the way of your axiomatic worldview or anything, but if you want to contend as much, at least be specific. Peace with any one of its Arab neighbors is in Israel’s interest, all other things being equal. Otherwise it never would have done so with Egypt and Jordan. If you mean specifically with the Palestinians, then say so. And say why.
“The current state of affairs suits it just fine, believe it or not.”
To a degree. It’s manageable.
“Sure, the occasional suicide bomber is inconvenient.”
Not only that, it’s deadly. Not that you should care about that, but you’re not running for election in Israel on “The Lives of Our Citizens Don’t Matter” ticket.
“But lots of people die in traffic deaths in the US and no one talks about getting rid of cars.”
Again. Because you assume that murder is only significant if the actor in question is one with whom you take issue politically, or if it’s one who upsets your views on how power should be structured, you assume that everyone either does or should agree. They don’t. If they did, maybe they could kill you and claim that your politics justified the act. And of course, there’s that whole thing about cars not having free will. But it’s nice to know that your opinion of the value of a Palestinian’s actions is not that much greater than your opinion of the value of what is done with a car.
“‘Terrorism’ in Israel is reduced to the level of public theatre, a tolerable nuisance.”
Never will be. They care more about the lives of their citizens than you do. Plus there’s the whole geopolitical consideration thing and the deterrence thing. Minor issues. But they certainly do matter to other Arab governments who have condemned Hamas. This is important. Just not to you. But then again, you don’t really matter much in all this.
“As for your subsequent comment on the credibility of Arabs, your question is meaningless. The Palestinians are not coming forward to be honest brokers, they’re claimants.”
It’s good for someone who claims that his sympathies are with the salt of the earth to pretend that he knows just enough about the Arab world that the fact that there are over 20 countries within it wouldn’t be something to just gloss over. Oh wait. But at least you understood something so basic as the Palestinians’ role in all this. Good Job!
“Saudi Arabia has put forward a peace plan, are you disparaging the Saudi plan?”
Straw man.
“Disparaging the Saudi’s unique position in both the Arab world or global economy?”
Who cares what their place is in the Arab world or the global economy? If it’s of import to the discussion then define how so. If not, then just shut the fuck up and stop trying to disparage me by projecting some meaningless opinion that you conjured up on to me. It’s irrelevant. You are conceding that you have no facts here and just trying to get me to agree to your opinion. Your opinion is nice, I admit. But like assholes, everybody has one. You see, yours is of no more consequence than anyone else’s, though.
“Or were you just indulging in a little ad hoc racism?”
I see. You weren’t interested in having a serious discussion. Just in shutting it down with ad hominems. Any more latin phrases you’d like to sprinkle into your irrelevant tangents, ad hoc?
December 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
47. Skeptic:
Part of Israel’s problem is that it’s at the top of the heap.
That’s not how Israelis see it. Ask any one of them how confident they are that Israel will always have the upper hand against Hamas and Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, etc. The Muslim world is huge, and in regards to Israel, it thinks and speaks as one.
The truth of human nature is that Israel has no motivation to seek peace. The current state of affairs suits it just fine, believe it or not.
Wow, that’s just a really, really unfair statement. The truth of human nature is that no one wants to die. The occasional rocket exploding in one’s garden is not an acceptable status quo for anyone. Trust me. Unlike Hamas, whose official position is the destruction of Israel, Israel has no official policy towards Palestinians. Its sole position is to defend itself. Every other policy stems from that being its first priority.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
1) A BIG reason for dictating a fix to the Israel-Palestinian issue is that it is in the National Interest. US support for Israel was one of three major reasons Bin Laden gave for why 1 billion Muslims should destroy American infidels. It was the reason he emphazised after Sept 11.
2) But our Big Lying WHore in the White House — and our Big Lying Whores at the New York Times — and our Big Lying Whores on the 911 Commission — engaged in a massive coverup to hide that fact from the American People.
3) Tell America the truth — then ask them to vote on whether they want to spend another 3000 lives and $1 Trillion on behalf of Israel.
4) From a Bin Laden interview in Nov 2001 –which the Zionist New York Times REFUSED to report:
“The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government, they elect their president, their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre Palestinians. The American Congress endorses all government measures and this proves that the entire America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims. The entire America, because they elect the Congress.”
Ref: http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/10/top1.htm
December 29th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
“The truth of human nature is that no one wants to die.”
Skeptic’s opinion on the matter is that Israelis should either expect to die from acts of mass murder at a rate he has defined for them as acceptable or that they should deserve to die if they’re unwilling to agree to his terms for how they can be reclassified as “the underdog”.
It’s a really repulsive mindset. But he’ll find a way to squirm out of admitting to it. Maybe he’ll say that an Israeli is like a car, or something similarly poignant.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Don Williams has arrived and he has spoken THE TRUTH! Bin Laden has explained what the problem is, and by extension, what the solution is to be, and Don Williams agrees with it, God bless him! Praise be to Prophet Williams bin Laden!
Obviously the solution to Jonestown would have been for us to have all agreed to Jim Jones’ reasoning and to have ushered a greater share of Americans to join his flock in Guyana.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Don, AQ and other radical groups have used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an excuse and justification for years. If it was resolved tomorrow, they’d just come up with another excuse, such as U.S. support of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc. Our military presence in Saudi Arabia was already used as a major justification by bin Laden.
Remember that bin Laden’s real aim is restoration of the caliphate. They must first topple the individual Arab governments to create a single Arab state. Israel is just one more of those.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Correction: Ask American if they want to spend another 7000+ lives and $3 TRILLION more for the sake of Israel.
I didn’t count Iraq earlier. But Iraq was largely enabled by Israel sympathizers in the Democratic Party who put loyalty to Israel –more accurately, their loyalty to the campaign donations of billionaire supporters of Israel — above the lives of 4000 US soldiers.
By the way, did Ariel Sharon, Bibi Nathanyahu and Shimon Peres ever find those Weapons of Mass Destruction that they told us in 2002 was the reason why we needed to overthrow Saddam?
December 29th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Gee Don Williams. For someone who seems to have such an astute handle on bin Laden’s every wish and desire, I’d be surprised if you weren’t hanging out with the guy. Tell me, does he speak to you freely or in coded messages - these messages he clearly wishes for you to broadcast to the American people?
December 29th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Actually, they sound more like strategems.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “Don Williams has arrived and he has spoken THE TRUTH! Bin Laden has explained what the problem is, and by extension, what the solution is to be, and Don Williams agrees with it, God bless him! Praise be to Prophet Williams bin Laden!”
—————–
Go fuck yourself, UNO.
I’m damm tired of whores betraying this country by dragging us into bloody expensive wars where we have NOTHING to gain — just because said WHORES hope Haim Saban , S Daniel Abraham , Rupert Murdoch or Shelton Adelson will toss them a few crumbs.
I don’t CARE what Bin Laden thinks. What I care about is that he and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in the Islamic world — and recruit support — by using legitimate grievances against us.
Someone dropped a dime on Saddam within a few weeks — but no one has betrayed Bin Laden in spite of a huge reward.
The debate we should have had after Sept 11 was whether the bloody actions the US Government takes in the Middle East on behalf of Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby have been in the AMERICAN national interest. Bush forestalled that with a Big Lie — which was supported by a faction in the Democratic Party.
If your agenda was that defensible you and Fox News would not have to devote such energy to covering up the truth.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
But Iraq was largely enabled by Israel sympathizers in the Democratic Party who put loyalty to Israel –more accurately, their loyalty to the campaign donations of billionaire supporters of Israel — above the lives of 4000 US soldiers.
Don, your “Sarah Palin for President” button is showing.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
CAMERA Obscurer has his list of talking points, and he’s sticking to them.
Truth is, regular spite-smites like this just show that Israel isn’t in a position to make hard decisions on its side.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “Gee Don Williams. For someone who seems to have such an astute handle on bin Laden’s every wish and desire, I’d be surprised if you weren’t hanging out with the guy. Tell me, does he speak to you freely or in coded messages - these messages he clearly wishes for you to broadcast to the American people?”
—————-
Bin Laden gave several interviews to US TV networks in 1997-1998 warning that he was going to launch war on the USA if we continued our support for Israeli aggression, for the Saudi dictatorship and because we killed 600,000 Children in IRaq with our sanctions. Whatever his faults, he is not a bald-faced liar like George Bush.
His arguments for Jihad have been widely reported in the foreign press.
Someone who isn’t a stupid fucking dumbshit — or a whoring propagandist — would know that.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Who cares about oil and every other little piece of your conspiracy theory? No one. These things have nothing to do with the discussion, retard.
And YOU DO CARE what bin Laden thinks. Your whole insertion of yourself into this thread hinges on that fact. As this proves: “What I care about is that he and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in the Islamic world — and recruit support — by using legitimate grievances against us.”
If HE didn’t think it then YOU wouldn’t be able to use him and his epistles as a reason for how policy was or should be structured. If a grievance is legitimate then address the fucking grievance, dumbass! If bin Laden’s thoughts on the matter are irrelevent (at least, if they were to you) then there would be no reason for you to bring them up.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
“CAMERA Obscurer has his list of talking points, and he’s sticking to them.”
None of which you can or will address.
“Truth is, regular spite-smites like this just show that Israel isn’t in a position to make hard decisions on its side.”
You seem to be proving yourself wrong here. See the above.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Those “Hamas security forces” includes anything from recent police academy graduates to doctors. But surely being a member of Hamas, the democratically elected government and local authority, is the same thing as being a diehard terrorist/AlQaeda/9-11/ Axis of Evil type whose death doesn’t matter?
They weren’t civilians, is my point. I have relatives who fought with the Axis. Did they do it for love of Hitler? No, they just wanted to keep their families clothed and fed. So I can certainly empathise with ordinary Palestinians who have no other recourse but to join a terrorist organisation. But… war is hell, as they say.
And no Hamas doesn’t get a free pass for firing rockets and killing two people, but by your mathematical logic Israel gets 200 times less of a free pass.
Hamas intentionally kills civilians, while Israel tries to avoid doing so. That distinction matters. One reason civilian casualties among Palestinians are so high is because their civilian and combatant roles are so inextricably intertwined. Missiles are smuggled in alongside humanitarian supplies, weapons are stored in mosques and universities, etc.
Another reason is, let’s face it, Hamas wins the PR war every time Israel retaliates. While Israel has to measure the military benefits of an airstrike against the political costs of international condemnation, Hamas wins when it attacks, and it also wins when Palestinians are attacked. Why would they do things any other way, when their willingness to put their own people in harm’s way is their one real strength?
December 29th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
If defending yourselves kills more than 2x as many people as not defending yourselves maybe your actually the bad guy. Name another historical good guy that killed way more people in a conflict than they lost. It doesn’t happen that often. I’m not saying it should be tit for tat but asymmetries of power should never end up being viewed as bolstering the moral position of the more powerful actor.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
There are two switches one kills two people who have a 1 in 20 chance of being bad. The other kills 200 who have a one in two chance of being bad. Which one does the good guy pull. Show work.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
“I’m not saying it should be tit for tat but asymmetries of power should never end up being viewed as bolstering the moral position of the more powerful actor.”
Nor should they be used to bolster the moral position of the less powerful actor, Michael.
Morality by numbers is a really inane game. The point is survival. I don’t know if the Mongols were right, or if the Arabs were right, but they sure smote many. History is written by the winner. There is a moral dimension to address, to be sure. I just don’t see why that can’t be separated out from the strategic dimension. Of course, the neocons saw it differently, but we know what you guys think of them…
December 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “Who cares about oil and every other little piece of your conspiracy theory? No one. These things have nothing to do with the discussion, retard.”
———–
It’s not a “conspiracy theory”, asshole.
What I have stated are FACTS. It is a FACT that Bin Laden gave 3 reasons for issuing a fatah against the USA in 1997. It is a FACT that all 3 reasons were true, legitimate grievances.
The only “conspiracy theory” was George W Bush’s Big Lie to the American People — that 19 Arabs, most of them Saudis, came over here and committed suicide “because they hate our freedom”.
If we were truly waging war against Al Qaeda, we would separate them from the people. First rule of counterinsurgency. Instead, Bush has gone out of his way to give substance to Bin Laden’s charges. Ask the heads of Europe who they think has been the lying aggressor in this matter.
The Truth is, we have NOT been waging war against Al Qaeda. Because it is fucking stupid to imagine a nuclear superpower hegemon could be seriously threaten by the equivalent of the Crips. That is why Bush left our southern border wide open until the Minutemen raised hell.
What we have been doing is waging Commerce through other means. Bush has used his Big Lie to promote Big Oil’s agenda far better than he could have ever done if Sept 11 had not occurred. Bush never wanted to capture Bin Laden — Bin Laden is far too useful to several Washington cabals.
Bush has also kissed the Israel Lobby’s ass — because he and Cheney hoped to suck the Israel Lobby’s billionaires over to funding the Republican Party.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Coherence isn’t your strongest point, CAMERA Obs. Or even a weaker one.
It’s easy for Israel to do cathartic shit like this. It’s a way of kicking difficult questions down the road. Those settler-led pogroms in the West Bank — placing IDF conscripts against the batshit Kahane-lovers of Kiryat Arba — are off the front pages now. And it seems that whenever Israel gets into a position to start thinking about the long term, and the difficult questions surrounding what the state will look like in a decade, it curiously becomes time to blow shit up and act like there’s an existential threat from some impotent fucks.
Keep tossing up the strawmen, though.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Ok, no name. You go ahead and lay out the long-term strategy there. You’ve sure got the criticisms down pat. I’ll grant you that. And your dimestore advice must be really cathartic to dispense. Just count me skeptical to assume that your single paragraph captures everything that should or could feasibly be done, your refusal to address any actions or intentions on the part of Hamas obviously notwithstanding.
I understand. Perhaps it makes you feel more coherent to leave out minor details like that. They must be self-evident or something.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Here’s my long-term strategy: kill all the Palestinians.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “If a grievance is legitimate then address the fucking grievance, dumbass!”
————-
I did that above — only to receive a storm of bullshit ad hominem from you.
WHen Sharon bombed the Palestinians in early 2001, do you think that the Islamic world did not know that the bombs were US made and that the F16s were US made?
When the State Department then protested to Israel — and President Bush then gagged the State Department and sold 52 more F16s to Sharon in June 2001, do you think the Islamic world did not notice?
December 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
If defending yourselves kills more than 2x as many people as not defending yourselves maybe your actually the bad guy.
Huh? It’s the responsibility of any government to place greater value on the lives of its own citizens over those of an enemy state. Should Israel behave any differently?
And again… Israel tries to AVOID killing Palestinian civilians as it carries out its military objectives, while for Hamas, killing Israeli civilians IS the military objective. Is this distinction really completely lost on you? Let me know.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
“Bush has also kissed the Israel Lobby’s ass — because he and Cheney hoped to suck the Israel Lobby’s billionaires over to funding the Republican Party.”
Of course, the other possibility is that Bush was Sharon’s friend - actually that’s a FACT (you seem to like those) - and that he actually agreed with him, or came to in time. Just like how you came to agree with bin Laden, although I’m still not sure that you’re not his friend. See, it’s possible to agree with someone without there being a nefarious plan in play. But to see that requires applying sound reasoning to the facts, separating that from conjecture and plausible or even reasonable possbilities, and taking the shaking fear of Allah out of the equation. Less emotion and more reason.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
ceterum censeo Israel esse delendam,
December 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Is that you, Mr. Skeptic?
December 29th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
One phrase that has been used quite a bit lately is that of “client state”, that Israel is a client state of the United States. This means that since Truman voiced his desire for an independent Israeli territory, we are stuck with that decision. But just because we have contributed monetary and moral support to Israel does not mean that this is our problem to fix. It is clearly in our interest for this fire to be put out, in order to preserve our Middle Eastern and North African diplomatic relations and to keep our oil prices down, but the long standing conflict between the Jews and the Arabs is beyond our comprehension.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
“But as long as Israel is by far the largest recipient of US foreign assistance funds…”
That’s the point. And for anyone interested in facts: A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: Almost $114 Billion.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
One more thing and then I’m outta here - at least for the time being. I think some interesting points have been raised, and addressed. But the elephant in the room remains the following: Is it reasonable to suppose that declaring statehood and facilitating a peaceful resolution is in HAMAS’ interest? If so, why? And if one refuses to answer that question, why?
Some things are beyond our comprehension, some aren’t. You’re right on that, Theresa. This may well be one of those things. But what some people here would make of the musings above would also clarify a lot. It’s beyond my comprehension to understand why some people would be too uncomfortable to do so, however.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Benny,
“Part of Israel’s problem is that it’s at the top of the heap.”
“That’s not how Israelis see it. Ask any one of them how confident they are that Israel will always have the upper hand against Hamas and Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, etc. The Muslim world is huge, and in regards to Israel, it thinks and speaks as one.”
Benny, that’s a good point and it deserves some discussion. Let me observe that one of the paradoxes of certain kinds of paranoid societies is a simultaneous belief in both their own rightness and near omnipotence, and a terror of their own weakness and the sense that they’re on the edge of being overwhelmed by a sea of enemies. The enemies are both powerful and weak, they terrify and disgust.
I can easily accept a deep seated sense of threat and paranoia as you relate. Yes, Israel is in a sea of Muslims who outnumber it a hundred to one.
But let’s be serious, run the numbers. Israel has an estimated 200 to 400 working nuclear weapons. The entirety of the Arab world has 0. Israel’s defense investment is nine billion dollars or thereabouts. No Arab state comes anywhere near a fraction of that. There is no Arab state that represents any kind of threat to Israel, period.
Where is this ‘arabs speak with one voice.’ Egypt signed a peace treaty. Jordan signed a peace treaty. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates have always been more interested in selling oil and making money. Syria is a joke. Libya’s gone home. Iraq when it was a warmongering state preferred to attack its neighbors. It’s effort to spark a Jihad fell on deaf ears.
Iran is only considered a serious threat because *every other closer muslim state is so clearly not a threat* We have to travel over a thousand miles and cross three borders to find someone to worry about. Eventually, we’ll work our way to Indonesia. The Islamic states individually and collectively represent no threat. That’s just the fact.
Is Iran really a threat? Its military priorities are dealing in order with Pakistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf. It’s Persian and Shiite with nothing in common with Sunni Arabs. It has no affiliation with the Palestinians. It has no common border with Israel, no direct economic or political rivalries. In fact, if you look at the last few decades, the Mullahs of Iran have, as often as not, found it in their interests to work with Israel, even to the extent of arms trading.
The fact is that Israel is the regional military superpower and there is simply no state in the region which has the ability or motivation to challenge that status, nor is there any collective will.
So what’s the threat to Israel? Hezbollah? Yeah right - hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah troops are poised in the salt mines of minneapolis, ready to invade Tel Aviv in black helicopters. Let’s be frank - they’re a regional lebanese militia with strong backing among the Lebanese shiites who have occasional clashes along the border where there are a number of unresolved issues. There’s a few thousand of them. They’re very good at defensive warfare and border conflict. They’re not any sort of serious threat.
Hamas? Now that’s just pathetic. Again, a few thousand Hamas operatives trying to run a pseudo-country that’s a hellhole without serious weapons or infrastructure, and without even the few advantages of Hezbollah.
Unquestionably, in terms of security and military status, Israel is as or more secure now as its ever been. There’s simply no credible existentialist threat. Hamas and Hezbollah represent no more than regional nuisances. That’s the ugly truth.
And its the truth despite the perceptions of vulnerability and frailty.
Does Israel have genuine vulnerabilities? Well yes. The long term demographics are troublesome. There are issues with respect to regional water resources. There’s serious economic vulnerabilities with respect to Israel’s viability. There are difficulties which have nothing to do with hordes of yodeling arabs pouring over the border but which may lead to serious drops in standards of living. But I don’t necessarily see these addressed in substantive ways. And its not what people think about when they think about vulnerability.
“The truth of human nature is that Israel has no motivation to seek peace. The current state of affairs suits it just fine, believe it or not.”
“Wow, that’s just a really, really unfair statement.”
But I’d argue in context of realpolitik, its both fair and truthful.
“The truth of human nature is that no one wants to die.”
I quite agree. But so?
It strikes me that if one wanted to avoid Hamas and Hezbollah altogether, one should move to Chicago. I can’t recall the last time Hamas struck in Chicago. But creditably, Israelites remain in Israel despite the risk. Do they want to die? No. But there is a willingness to brave circumstance.
“The occasional rocket exploding in one’s garden is not an acceptable status quo for anyone. Trust me.”
Not a happy status quo, certainly. But the residents of the town of Siderot do not abandon their homes to grow gardens where rockets do not explode.
But more to the point, the overall social consensus that governs is prepared to accept the occasional rocket exploding in the garden, if the alternative prices are higher, or if those alternative prices are to be borne by more powerful constituencies.
“Unlike Hamas, whose official position is the destruction of Israel, Israel has no official policy towards Palestinians.”
After holding the occupied territories for 40 years, do you think that it’s quite amazing that Israel would have no official policy towards the people in those territories?
But tell ya what, let me explain my thesis with a case study: Syria.
Israel could sign a peace treaty with Syria tomorrow, all it has to do is return the Golan Heights. That’s Syria’s one non-negotiable issue, it’s something that Israel was prepared to do with Egypt, and it’s something that international law would support - Israel has no right of annexation by conquest, that particular point of international relations was abandoned in 1945.
But why sign a peace treaty with Syria? What’s the advantage?
Well… peace. But Syria doesn’t really have any ability to threaten Israel, it’s military capacity is far inferior, its air force is a joke, its basically impoverished and its got no allies. Syria was only ever really a threat when backed by the Soviet Union and allied with Egypt - both of those are on the board. So the Syrian threat is something of a joke.
Taking down Hezbollah? But Syria doesn’t really control Hezbollah, and peace with Syria would probably eliminate whatever influence Syria had with Hezbollah. Better diplomatic relations with the Arab world? Syria’s an isolated Baathist state with no oil and no pull. Economic opportunities - no oil, and the few things that Syria does produce for trade in terms of agricultural products would compete.
So, what does a peace treaty with Syria give Israel? Israel gives up the Golan Heights and gets what… satisfaction? A warm fuzzy feeling? In terms of realpolitik cost benefit analysis, it’s just not worth it to seek peace with Syria.
As I’ve argued, when you are at the top, every direction is a step down. So the instinct is to stay where you are. The current ‘war’ with Hamas is pointless and will not produce a result. But a real resolution with the Palestinians will be costly, far more costly than the current situation.
Brian, let me posit to you a question: If we could guarantee that removing the 250,000 settlers from the West Bank would forever end the threat of occasional missiles in the guarden… would you go for it? Keep in mind that Settlers are not removed easily, they fight, they make it costly, imagine the political and economic struggles involved in removing those settlers and relocating them within Israel.
The preferred choice: Leave the settlers alone and put up with the missiles, if you must.
Simple cost benefit - we lose and it costs far more to deal with the settlers than to put up with the missiles.
Of course things are more complicated than that. But that’s the way that the realpolitik of social and political policy works.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “Of course, the other possibility is that Bush was Sharon’s friend - actually that’s a FACT (you seem to like those) - and that he actually agreed with him, or came to in time.”
—————-
1) “Friendship” has a more ..er..commercial meaning for George. George Bush had all the advantages of a spoiled rich boy: Andover Prep, Yale, admission to Harvard Business School in spite of medicre grades. Spent Vietnam defending Texas from attack by Ho Chi Minh’s Air Force.
Yet when ole George reached middle age, he was a drunk and a failed businessman on the verge of bankruptcy. Who had to be saved by some rich buddies. And the Texas taxpayers.
I think George knows exactly who his friends are.
2) The biggest donor to the Democratic Party from 2000-2002 was an Israeli Billionaire named Haim Saban. Haim chipped in close to $15 MILLION — DNC head Terry McAuliffe said Haim “saved the Democratic Party”.
Haim Saban has defined his political goals with elegant simplicity: “I’m a one issue man and that issue is Israel”.
3) One of the more comical aspects of the 2004 Presidential debates — if you followed the money flows — was watching John Kerry looking sideways, like a dog with a pistol pointed at its head.
The Democratic grassroots were livid over an unnecessary, expensive war –but every time Kerry tried to criticize Bush over Iraq, he saw those Israel Lobby billionaires drifting toward the exits. That was why Kerry became totally incoherent.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Re Don Williams
What happened to Hiam Saban? I thought he was the guy who ran US foreign policy. Or has he dropped off the radar screen because his think tank has published a report advocating negotiating with Iran and Hamas? Have the authors of that report been fired yet? If not, he must approve of it.
Actually, I find myself in agreement with those commentors who have advocated cutting off all aid to Israel. Getting Israel of the US teat would be greatly to their benefit as they then would not need Bushes’ or Osamas’ permission to apply Hama Rules on the Gaza Strip, which is the only action that will stop the rain of qassems and morters on Israeli towns and villages. As it is, Olmert and his putative successor Bibi or Livni dare not to to the can without getting permission from Bush/Osama.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
U.N. Observer - are you the Uber-Zionist propaganda whore formerly known as “SLC”?
December 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Re Theresa’s comment “It is clearly in our interest for this fire to be put out, in order to preserve our Middle Eastern and North African diplomatic relations and to keep our oil prices down, ”
——————
1) But we have been spending something like $38 PER GALLON on Middle Eastern gasoline — when you divide the cost of our military operations in the Middle East by the amount of oil we import from there.
2) In the meantime, we have INVESTED practically NOTHING on development of alternative energy supplies in the 30 years since Carter wore that sweater in the White House as a response to the OPEC price hike.
That’s idiotic — it makes sense only when you look at who receives Exxon and Chevron’s campaign donations.
Of course, George W did started up a program to look into alternative energy sources a year or so ago. Who did he appoint to run the program? A recently retired EXXON CEO who had just pocketed around $400 MILLION from Exxon for his services.
Don’t hold your breath.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
The unqualified support of the U.S. for Israel’s atrocities in Lebanon and now in Gaza will lead to the enlistment of more and more jihadists whose only aim is to inflict pain on Israel and the U.S. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
U.S. politicians, under the complete sway of the vile AIPAC, not only failed to rein in the Israeli land theft but actively barred the way to a potential peace between Israel and Syria, and more importantly, undermined any possible reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. The obvious result of these policies is that no comprehensive I/P peace negotiations were ever close to being possible.
The Palestinians will not go away - it appears that the Israelis will never consider long-term policies that will allow it to live in peace with the Palestinians or its Arab neighbours and that it is content with this state of affairs. The only hope to compel the Israelis to change this mind-set is for the Americans to alter its policy of absolute support of Israel and to bring real pressure on it to make the necessary concessions to achieve peace.
That this flyspeck of five million Jews has caused so much despair and destruction for such a long time is truly remarkable.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Dearest chet,
Although I assume that your financial and family purity is beyond reproach, if you don’t agree with something that was said, anywhere, kindly state your objection calmly and in a less sexually frustrated manner. Do make an effort to differentiate between opinions and facts, and do have the manners and courtesy to wipe the flecks of spittle from your frothing mouth before posting.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chet. These efforts will be most appreciated.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Re chet380’s comment “That this flyspeck of five million Jews has caused so much despair and destruction for such a long time is truly remarkable.”
———–
In my opinion, the Israelis are not the problem. Nor are most of America’s 4 million Jews. The problem is a few billionaires and their whores.
If some grieving American parent who lost a son in Iraq blew Mort Zuckerman’s fucking head off with a deer rifle — or blew Rupert Murdoch’s limo about 50 feet up in the air with Rupert in it — then I predict there would be a remarkable breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
You guys are imploding, particularly chet.
What concessions will Israel agree to for Hamas/P.A. to accept them as part of a peaceful resolution? What do either of the two latter parties require for statehood? What is preventing them from declaring it now? In 2001? In 1948?
Let’s all pretend that any of you care about Palestinian lives at least as much as you care about the will of the Palestinian people and their leadership, which is to say, not at all.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
So Don, your grievance really seems to be with free speech and capitalism. And with laws against murder. Really not a very strong position from which to set forth a winning argument.
I say this for your sake because you really seem to be becoming unhinged, man.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
This one’s easy, it’s just a matter of who wants it.
Israel: Purges the settlers from the West Bank, withdraws to 1967 boundaries.
Palestinians: Stop breaking shit thenceforth.
Hamas has offered a decade of peace along those lines, Hamas are in power and hugely popular. The only obstacle is the Israeli Right being far too strong and about as keen on settlement removal as the Minute Men are on Mexicans.
Consequentially Israel is demographically unstable insofar as shortly they will have a majority of people who within the state who don’t want to exist. At that stage Israel is left with three options:
1) Self-determinate themselves.
2) Deny arabs votes, begin apartheid.
3) Ethnically cleanse.
So what’ll it be?
December 29th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Very tenuous claims there, James.
Israel’s demography concerns are real but the view that this represents a crisis is now being relegated to the fringe, “Cassandra” bin. And there is even less evidence to suggest that Israel’s Arabs would want anything to do with the kind of government their cousins across the Green Line seem willing to settle for. If anything, they’ll ally themselves with Jews in a plurality to maintain the stability and freedoms they’ve become accustomed to.
“Hamas has offered a decade of peace along those lines”
Where is the motherf—–g evidence for this simplified self-evident truism?
December 29th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
UN Observer: You just make stuff up. Like this gem about Israeli-Palestinians (misnamed “Israeli Arabs”):
“If anything, they’ll ally themselves with Jews in a plurality to maintain the stability and freedoms they’ve become accustomed to.”
Uh, no. This statemetn, of course, is pulled out of the proverbial kosher a$$.
For a reality check, see this statement from The Higher Follow Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel. According to Jewssanfrontieres, it is the highest representative body of the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. It includes all Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as well as elected mayors and local officials.
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/
December 29th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
What Mythbuster said. Additionally I would add that if they left the West Bank they could quite easily save themselves.
Well, perhaps a few pissed off settlers. Ah well.
And if it comes to war with this new Palestinian state, well…Israel would win. Clean and decisive, as it has over many Arab states previously. In a decade’s time.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
That’s a very interesting assertion UN Observer. Would you care to discourse a bit on the political views of Arabs in Israel, or is this yet another subject that you know nothing about?
Here’s some homework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Knesset_members
ROTFL
December 29th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I note the unresponsive heap of gilded bullshit that was CAMERA Obscurer’s #74.
Truth is, Israel has been engaged in sporadic kneejerkery since Arafat popped his clogs. It’s incoherent, and usually counter-productive: who knew that hobbling Fatah would make Hamas look good? But it allows the pols to focus on the present rather than the future, which is especially useful during election season.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
My big list of links is being held up, so for the time being see this:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1GGLS_en-GBGB291GB303&q=hamas+ten+year+truce&btnG=Search&meta=
December 29th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Skeptic:
The fact is that Israel is the regional military superpower and there is simply no state in the region which has the ability or motivation to challenge that status, nor is there any collective will.
The deciding factor in asymmetrical warfare isn’t just the stronger power’s ability to inflict damage, it’s also the weaker power’s willingness to sustain it. Islamic militants are perfectly happy to engage in a war of attrition. Israel is not.
It strikes me that if one wanted to avoid Hamas and Hezbollah altogether, one should move to Chicago.
Does that also apply to the average Afghani girl who wishes to go to school without acid being thrown in her face by the Taliban? Or the average homosexual in Iran who would rather not be publicly hanged? If Israel leaves, will everything be hunky-dory in the Middle East? What if militant organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah are the actual source of the problem? I’m just saying.
But more to the point, the overall social consensus that governs is prepared to accept the occasional rocket exploding in the garden…
This latest airstrike is proof that it isn’t.
Israel could sign a peace treaty with Syria tomorrow, all it has to do is return the Golan Heights. [...] But why sign a peace treaty with Syria? What’s the advantage? Well… peace.
Well, not peace, exactly. Just the promise of it, which may or may not be another empty gesture. And when you look at what happened after Israel left Gaza, can you blame them for being once bitten, twice shy?
December 29th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Noting the degree to which the Left Wing has taken to emulating their just as idiotic counterparts on the fringe Right - replacing facts with assertions, speculation with prediction. I suppose I should have thrown out the caveat that we don’t know, and nobody knows for certain what Arab Israelis would do in the event that the irredentists across the Green Line would take over and destabilize the situation everywhere. I submit that the impulse for tribalism and Arab/Palestinian nationalism is strong and growing more open within in Israel, but that just speaks to the norms with which they are able to openly express themselves and voice discontent over their status in the midst of Israel’s imperfections. We don’t know if they would allow their co-religionists to turn such a situation into a Lebanon ca. 1975 scenario or not, or Gaza/WB 1996 - 2001 and Gaza ca. 2005 - present, however. I believe that if anything the likelihood that the liberalizing norms within Israel would still exert a strong influence on the Arabs who lived there and in Jerusalem - those same Arabs who have no desire to live under a thugocracy and admit as much in private, something which they would never admit aloud.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that they would stand in the way of destroying the state of Israel in its current form, but I never said that. This is all a reasonable conjecture to throw out there, not facts, and not reflective of something that could be derived from using the Wikipedia as a comprehensive research guide. But it certainly reflects a willingness to deviate from the truthiness that forms the basis for every assumption that Skeptic and mythbuster draw on in order to construct their own theologies.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
And what of your fucking Wikipedia article, Non-Skeptic? Four of them are or were part of Likud! It looks like at least a third to half of them have been aligned with either Labor or other Jewish left-wing fringe parties, such as Meretz or Hadash, and other than that, what am I missing? Your odd Communist or whatever? In any event, membership in explicitly Arab parties doesn’t seem to amount to even half of the MKs. And what does that mean anyway? It’s not as if that prevents or ever prevented such MKs from being in coalition governments with the other parties in the Knesset, does it? And none of this explains anything about how Arab Israelis would be allied if people currently represented by Hamas and Fatah beat raped their way into becoming a part of that same constituency. So if you had a point to make, you’d best try picking your laughing ass off the floor and making it.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Matt’s post is absolutely correct - one of the few times his posts have been.
However, Matt also supported the election of Obama, who has surrounded himself with Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden, and Rahm “I Fought for the IDF” Emanual and Hillary “I’m Owned by AIPAC” Clinton.
So I don’t think the US is going to do anything but what it has done for decades - support Israel until somebody throws planes - or maybe a nuke next time - into our skyscrapers again.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.
These aren’t my words — they’re Barack Obama’s. But I attach myself to this sentiment. Obama said this in July, after visiting the southern Israeli town of Sderot. Visits to Sderot will do that for you — make you see things clearly. For what it’s worth, this is how I see what’s happening in Gaza: In 2005, the Israeli government acceded to the longstanding Arab demand to withdraw its settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip. Almost as soon as the Israeli withdrawal was completed, Hamas and other Islamist factions in Gaza began firing rockets at Israeli civilians living in towns and kibbutzim inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel. Sometimes — and I’ve seen this with my own eyes — Hamas rocketeers fired on Israel from atop the ruins of the abandoned Jewish settlements.
No country in the world could afford to ignore such attacks. And no country would. An elected government, such as Israel’s, has a basic, overriding responsibility — to protect its citizens from the organized violence of their enemies. Of course, it can do this in part by negotiating with its enemies (assuming its enemies recognize Israel’s right to life) but its immediate mission must be to stop the violence, which is what Israel is now trying to do. Whether it succeeds or not is an open question (It is Hamas’ indifference to Palestinian life, not Jewish life, that makes it a formidable foe, in the manner of Hezbollah) , but Israel must try to use all of the tools of national power to stop attacks on its citizens. Otherwise it is simply not a serious nation, one that does not deserve sovereignty.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
No name, I sympathize with your having to contend with being a social progressive in North Carolina, but please don’t let your distress over being in such a trying situation obscure your implied interest in reason and responsiveness. You have enough of a handicap trying to be objective. Plus, attempting to use one’s brain in North Carolina must create great heaping gobs of cognitive dissonance as is, as murky as a bowl of grits.
Whether or not Hamas “looks good” is impossible to define, impossible to prove, and immaterial. None of the Arab governments worth a dime have supported your thugs at this time. I can tell you think that there is something approximating “democracy” there, but the only issue with any relevant bearing on public opinion is whether Hamas changes its charter and goals and stays viable. You can shift around from what was done in the past, what’s being done now and in the future - as if your ability to tell time were dependent on which era reveals Israel to have had the most blameworthy impact on current events, but the only thing that matters in the end is if Hamas will accept Israel’s existence and give up terrorism. I know these things do not matter to you, but don’t worry about it. I assume that being a social progressive in North Carolina must accustom you to being a political loner who is used to muffling views that you only wish you could get more practice (and tolerance) articulating better and with a clearer sense of direction. But hang in there, big guy. Just stay out of the backwoods and away from the log cabins that seem to attract your grizzled type. Bad things come out of political activists who hide in the woods.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Carter fixed the economy (”wringing out” inflation), but Reagan got the benefit.
Carter got the hostages back, but Reagan got the benefit.
Carter, not Reagan, started the post-Afghanistan defense buildup.
Carter, however, did not start US aid to Israel. I believe LBJ did, but
it was certainly going strong during the Nixon years.
By the way, looking back on it with what we now know, can anyone doubt that there were treasonous arrangements between the Reagan Campaign and the Iranian ayatollahs ? Does anyone who has paid attention the last 8 years think that this would be beneath them ?
December 29th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Anyone who was paying the slightest attention.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Tut Tut, UN Observer. Do you suck your daddy’s knob with that mouth? I’m very disappointed with you. Scratch away the latin veneer on some gold plated ass, and it turns out there’s nothing but a foul mouthed bitch underneath.
It’s pretty clear that prior to reading the Wikipedia article you had no clue as to what if any political views were held by Muslims in Israel. At this point, it’s also clear that even after reading the Wikipedia article and failing to do any other research, you still don’t have a clue.
So, what are you bringing to the table? Confidence born of ignorance? Your own rock ribbed racism?
Sorry, not impressed. I suppose I could get into a dialogue with you. But really, that dialogue would consist merely of you saying pretentious and idiotic things and me following along with a pooper scooper. Look, I enjoy you, you make me laugh. But I don’t like you *that* much. So you’ll have to be content with my occasionally stooping to puncture your nonsense once in a while, as I dialogue with people who actually have some capacity for discourse.
Have a nice day, oh, and watch your mouth.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Re UN Observer’s comment “So Don, your grievance really seems to be with free speech and capitalism. And with laws against murder. Really not a very strong position from which to set forth a winning argument.
I say this for your sake because you really seem to be becoming unhinged, man.”
————
Actually, my grievance is with assholes who pretend to engage in debate — but duck/avoid/evade addressing the facts by mischaracterizing the positions of others , making snide , content-free comments of no relevence, and cherry-picking whatever argument they can pull out of their butt.
To re-iterate:
1) In 1997-98 interviews with US TV networks, Bin Laden gave 3 reasons why the Islamic World should wage war on the USA:
a) That the US government had killed 600,000 children in Iraq by bombing water plants, blocking the import of water purification chemicals and forcing the Iraqis to drink polluted water, resulting in epidemics of cholera, dysentery,etc.
b) That the US government had supported Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people
c) That the US government had supported/protected the Saudi dictatorship for decades, in order to steal the oil wealth of the Saudi people at low prices
Independent sources support Bin Laden’s claims. US physicians groups warned of an increase in Iraqi child deaths in the early 1990s and the Red Cross confirmed their assessments and the resulting death toll circa 1999. The US government had not just traded with the Saudi royal family — the Saudi dictatorship is based in part on the equipment and training provided to Saudi internal security forces by US defense contractor Vinell Inc.
2) UN Observer did not address any of the above. Nor did he explain how the actions in 1a-c are in America’s national interest. I can see how those actions made several special interests happy — but I don’t see how they benefited America.
We gave Israel our protection for decades and $100 Billion in aid. What do we get in return?
Our politicans get millions in donations from the Israel Lobby’s billionaires and favorable media coverage from news media owned by those billionaires.
But what do the American people get?
Well, in 2002 we got a pack of lies from Israeli leaders Ariel Sharon, Bibi Nathanyahu, and Shimon Peres. Lies crafted to lead us into an unnecessary war against Israel’s enemy. Lies which cost us 4000+ dead, tens of thousands crippled –some for life , and $2 Trillion in lost wealth that could have gone to support our sick, our poor, and our elderly.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
You punctured nothing, I didn’t read anything in your article that informed my understanding of Israeli Muslim views of Israel as they currently stand. There wasn’t anything there to describe! It was a list of party affiliations. Nothing more!
We were talking about what would happen in the hypothetical event that the two areas merged politically. You have not stated a single, specific objection to any point I raised and at this point are just trying to bolster your own ego with rank hypocrisy.
Well, I would wish you a good day too, but that’s too good for someone who does nothing but traffic in sophistry, laden with a heavy dose of either homo-erotic or homophobic ad hominems. I’m not sure which, but since they involve some disturbingly graphic details of some pretty unspeakable acts I’m inclined to go with the latter. I sure you hope you enjoyed the mental imagery they conjured up for you. Perhaps you were getting some long-suppressed memory of incest off your chest. You’re really better off going to a professional who deals with that on a daily basis for that sort of thing, though.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Whatever, Don. You’re the same anti-Semite who used to argue with and berate top notch civil rights scholars such as Ralph Luker on HNN and would rant on about Jews there… and here!
I remember the remedial remonstration you experienced with a scholar of the Holocaust - someone for whom you begrudgingly expressed an appreciation simply because she had Welsh Corgis. Imagine that! You’re not worth speaking to or even having your presence tolerated here and any of these fools who believe they have an unbiased case to make against Israel would surely recognize that, and if they were better men, would act on that. You simply have nothing useful or enlightening to say.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Oh, and what kind of a coward accuses others of racism without an iota of inferiority implied toward any single, mentioned or unmentioned, “race”? Perhaps the same kind that smears incest survivors.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Ah, another pile of cherry-topped unresponsive bullshit from CAMERA Obs.
Now, if you think it’s in Israel’s best interests to careen from airstrike to ground attack to airstrike every 12-18 months for the next fifty years, a non-strategy that guarantees never having to make decisions that entail something other than “more of the same”, then that’s your prerogative. It does, however, make you a fool.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I understand the anger, UN Observer. I provide citations and facts to support my points. You, in contrast, can provide nothing but incoherent slurs.
That is why you have to twist, dodge and duck to evade reality. I am curious — in the course of trying to deceive and mislead others, do you not deceive yourself?
I offered a straightforward debate about what is in America’s best interest. You have repeatedly tried, by several measures i consider to be deeply dishonest, to run that discussion off the rails. In my opinion, your behavior is that of someone who has no loyalty to this country.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
We can address what Israel’s actions may or may not accomplish, and whether they are or wise or not, or part of some ostensible, self-defeating pattern, or not, at some point, North Carolina. But right now I see I’ve pissed off someone who feels that his status as King of the Hill is being threatened, as well as an America-Firster who is apprehensive about his status as an unreformed bigot being revealed, so I’ll have to figure out how or whether it’s worth it to fry those bigger fish first.
But thanks for your pithy, standard-issue insult-with-a-platitude-thrown-in comment in the meantime. Overall, I give it a less impressive rating than your usual: 3.2.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
1)On several occasions, I’ve noted how Israel’s leaders made statements to America re Saddam Hussein’s WMDS that later proved to be ..er.. not true.
2) To see if UN Observer can address the facts, I now note those earlier citations:
a)http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/aipac_and_iraq.php#comment-654345
December 29th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Also,
b) http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/aipac_and_iraq.php#comment-654354
December 29th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
c) http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/aipac_and_iraq.php#comment-654366
3) Maybe UN Observer can explain to us how those acts by the state of Israel reflect the behavior of a friend.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Don, you didn’t hear me. I said you’re not worth addressing. You’re just a pet to those here expressing a reflexive bias against Israel. If they knew you better, they’d speak out on the fact that you hurt their views.
That being said, the point of the whole post had nothing to do with what Israel said about WMDs, or France, or Britain, or whatever. It’s not about AIPAC. Yglesias uploaded this post because he contends that if Israel didn’t get aid in one way or another from the U.S. then somehow peace will break out between Israel and Hamas. That’s his contention - that conflict between them will end and that Israel will act in ways that strike some as less brutal if that were the case. Your conspiracy theories, your distrust of Israel and your hatred of lobbyists only apply peripherally insofar as your obsessions and his ideas might reach a common audience. But they’re not the same topic.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I happen to agree with the blog post, and I don’t like the “settlers” in the West Bank, but there’s also a wrinkle: should the US policy be that the West Bank (like Gaza is today) must be 100% free of Jews? If a Jewish family bought land near East Jerusalem in 1904, should we tell them that they need to leave, because of their ancestry? I realize that Israel needs to give back more land (as it already did with Gaza) and the “apartheid” or “two-world” reality in the West Bank is pretty creepy, but it seems like the alternative is literal ethnic cleansing, not killing but relocation, of every single Jew out of the West Bank. I don’t know what the answer is, but if you look at what happened when Israel left Gaza in August 2005, that doesn’t seem to have worked out either.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Again, you are evading the subject, UN Observer.
The primary point of Matthews post was that the US has to make a decision. If we continue our extreme, one-sided support for Israel, then we will be held responsible by 1 billion Muslims for Israel’s actions. As I noted, the Muslims know that when Ariel Sharon dropped a bomb on a Gaza apartment building in the middle of the night and killed 9 children, that fucking bomb was made in America, the guidance system was made in America, and the F16 was made in America.
When we give Israel $Billions/year in aid and advanced weapons systems like the F16s , WE will be held responsible for Israel’s actions. As we were on Sept 11.
If Israel’s partisans want the US to wash its hands of Israeli aggression, then Matthew’s point is that that will work only if we wash our hands of Israel as well.
Should we continue our support of Israel? That can be debated. From the viewpoint of America’s national interest, I noted above that we have gotten nothing in exchange for our past support and friendship. The reverse, actually. 3000 dead and $1 Trillion lost on Sept 11. Followed by Israel’s leaders helping to lie us into a disasterous, unnecessary war that cost us another 4000 dead and $2 Trillion.
But I’ve also noted that if our politicans, like Hillary, sacrifice American lives in order to whore for Israel Lobby billionaires like Haim Saban, then that is not really Israel’s fault. That is our fault– that we tolerate it.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I would also note that my points about how this country is being seriously damaged by corrupt politicans whoring for special interests is NOT hindsight.
Almost 8 years ago — a month after the Sept 11 attack and with the federal debt almost $6.3 TRILLION LESS — I tried to warn people of what was coming.
Here is a post I put on a leftist site called smirkingchimp.com back in Oct 2001 — crossposted to another site:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whatcomgreenparty/message/1066
December 30th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Benny, a pleasure to have your reply. Let me offer some thoughts in response:
“The deciding factor in asymmetrical warfare isn’t just the stronger power’s ability to inflict damage, it’s also the weaker power’s willingness to sustain it. Islamic militants are perfectly happy to engage in a war of attrition. Israel is not.”
But, my friend, it seems to me that if your argument is that Israel is engaged in an asymmetric war, then you are conceding Israel’s overwhelming conventional military superiority over the region. So you can just write off that sea of hostile arabs, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Oman… not actually a factor in any particularly meaningful fashion.
In that respect then, the conflicts are substantially redefined. We can consider Israel’s lamented invasions of Lebanon failed ventures where opponents successfully used asymmetric warfare. But having said that, there were limits. Hezbollah successfully got Israel out of Lebanon, but having achieved that goal, it’s not like they had any capacity to project force. We weren’t seeing Hezbollah marching on Tel Aviv.
And while Hezbollah finished up the invasion with an estimated stock of 6000 to 10,000 Katyusha missiles and an indeterminate number of larger and longer range weapons, they seem to show little inclination to use them. It’s mode seems to be a cold or cool war situation of mutual deterance.
But I think that the other situation you are referring to is the Palestinians and suggesting that they’re in a ‘war of attrition.’
Without being condescending, I’d suggest that Israel’s generally had it pretty easy. Essentially, the Palestinians are pretty sheeplike as these things go. Look at the comparatively ferocious resistance to occupation experienced by the Russians in Afghanistan, the Americans in Iraq to give the most recent examples. The Palestinians ‘war of attrition’ by contrast is extremely episodic, with long periods of nothing much, not terribly organized or coherent, and not all that effective.
Seriously, think about it. The major expulsions of the Palestinians took place by 1948. Yet it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the displaced Palestinians turned to terrorism or began to adopt any kind of coherent posture. They spent well over a decade dithering ineffectively.
Their major sequence of terrorist activity was through the 60’s and early 70’s, the same period as far more determined and ruthless movements like the Japanese Red Army, the Italian Red Brigades and the Baader Meinhoff gang.
Then they sort of faded. They experienced a mild revival in the early to mid-eighties, not terribly effectively. Their biggest impact was contributing to the Lebanese Civil War.
The Intifada took the PLO and other Palestinian representative groups by surprise. It was entirely an indigenous, grass roots, relatively low violence resistance movement. There was no grand conspiracy.
The resistance that followed, the ‘neutering’ of Fatah, the creation of Hamas by Mossad, and its subsequent evolution as a radical body… it’s just not impressive. Hell, the second Intifada had to be started by Ariel Sharon, the Palestinians simply weren’t organized enough to do it on their own.
The ineffectiveness of the Palestinians ‘asymmetric’ warfare, can be seen in the fact that Israel, through erratic policies and a fair amount of drift, has been able to seed a quarter of a million settlers in the West Bank, and has been able to install a pattern of special roads and services, checkpoints, and water and land expropriations to support its settlers.
The French couldn’t manage that in Algeria, the British failed in Kenya, Rhodesia was a total botch. It’s a tribute to the effectiveness of Israel as a violent totalitarian police state in the occupied territories, and to the general ineffectiveness, incompetence and lack of effort of the Palestinians. Stop and imagine what the West Bank would be like for Israel if it was occupied by people with the ferocity and temperament of Afghans.
So yes, Israel is indeed engaged in asymetric warfare with a subject population in occupied territories who have no significant allies, no substantial resources, not much in the way of leadership or coherence and it’s doing quite well. We’re hardly talking existential threats here.
You suggest that the Palestinians are prepared to wage continuing asymetric warfare and that Israel is not - Israel in your view is the wounded giant suffering a thousand cuts. Rather, I’d suggest its the other way around. The Palestinians are not giants, but as far as asymetric warfare goes they’ve shown very little capacity for sustained effort, unlike Israel, whose network of police state methods and powers grows unabated.
In any event Benny, we have to turn to the very idea of asymetric warfare and ask ‘what’s the point.’ The point of asymetric warfare is attrition, not to win an outright victory, but to increase costs to the occupier to the point where the occupation simply stops being worth the bother, it stops being cost effective, it stops being worth it… the alternative… going home, making peace, whatever, is cheaper.
I don’t think Israel is anywhere near that point. Israel is not endorsing a two state solution. Israel’s current position, and policy near as I can determine, seems to be a variation of South Africa’s bantustans proposal or America’s Indian reservations. Call it a one and a half state solution - with refugee Palestinians left to strangle, and the occupied territories used as large reservations for the remainder with Israel in control of everything worth controlling, exercising police state powers and some form of limited home rule for an impotent and ineffective local leadership of ‘roi negres’ to keep the darkies peaceful.
Well, hello. Israel already has all this (subject to the fact that the darkies have not been properly electing their ‘roi negres’ and are somewhat restive). In de facto terms, it already has all this. It’s at the top of the world, ma. The local geopolitical arrangements have been rendered by Israel to be as one sided in favour of Israel as it can manage.
Which means that any concessions are a straight road downhill, and some of that downhill is pretty steep. Take Palestinian refugees ‘right of return’. Israeli politicians refuse to even allow it on the table. It’s an absolute non-starter. But it’s half of the Palestinians grievance, it’s not going to go away. Even discussing the issue, much less coming to any kind of equitable reconciliation, represents a titanic concession and loss for Israel. What about Water Rights? What about the Settlers? These things will not be easily or cheaply resolved.
From Israel’s point of view, it has every possible motivation to hold onto what it’s got now and to try and find a way to get it set into stone, to get the Palestinians to surrender and accept these terms.
The trouble is that for the Palestinians, there’s really nothing to buy. Peace is very nice. But on what terms? Elsewhere, in reference to Gaza, I’ve pointed out that there’s a 35 to 1 income disparity between Palestinians and Gazans. The Israeli per capita income is around $27,000 and the Palestinian’s is little more than 600. How is this sustainable? What appeal is there to the Palestinians of Gaza when unemployment is 80%, when 20% of all children are starving, when 50% of all women and children in Gaza show the scars of malnutrition. What sort of deal is offered to Palestinians in the West Bank when they’re subject to arbitrary arrest, cannot ride on settlers roads, must continually submit to checkpoints, when Israel controls their borders, their emigration and immigration, their taxes, their economy. When they are reduced to subhuman squatters and second rate citizens in their own homes? What’s the appeal when half the Palestinians, the ones in refugee camps simply get … nothing, an endless future as stateless wanderers, people without homes, without states or citizenship.
Benny, what would you do if that was the deal put on the table for you? Could you take such a deal? Could you condemn your children to such a deal? Would you bow your head and sign the lives of your descendants away? Or would you seek some way to resist?
And yet, through the hard realities of realpolitik, Israel has what it has, and anything else is a step down, its a price. I can’t blame Israel for wanting and struggling to keep what it has. And I can understand Israel making the choice, on a cost/benefit basis, to put up with a lot more attrition than the relatively trivial costs it bears now.
The trouble is that this amounts to offering the Palestinians nothing whatsoever. For them peace is no more than setting a hell on earth of permanent misery into concrete. Their situations are unacceptable, they want something better than what they have now.
So far, Israel’s negotiating strategy, such as it is, is merely to up the misery. To say: “Well, if you think you were suffering before, watch us turn up the screws. And at some point, you’ll be suffering enough that you surrender in the hopes we’ll go back to some older milder level of oppression, or that we won’t make it worse.”
It’s a tricky strategy. How desperate must the Palestinians become before they agree to kiss off half their population in refugee camps. How desperate do you have to be to agree to a fifth of your children starving and half of them malnourished.
Of course, it’s been done before, so perhaps Israel will succeed. Arguably, the United States successfully achieved this in the Jim Crow south with a terrorized and subservient negro population accepting second class human status. South Africa instituted Apartheid as a viable system. Both of these lasted decades. … Neither made it a century.
Personally, I don’t think its viable. Certainly I think in the long run it’s doomed to fail and to be far costlier. But I understand Israel is at least committed to making the effort. But it seems to me that we should understand the Palestinian response, sporadic and ineffectual as it is, is inevitable.
>It strikes me that if one wanted to avoid Hamas and Hezbollah altogether, one should move to Chicago.
>Does that also apply to the average Afghani girl who wishes to go to school without acid being thrown in her face by the Taliban?
Damned straight. If that girl wanted to get the hell out of Afghanistan, I’d sponsor her. Wouldn’t you? I’d think you would. And to be honest, so would a great many Afghans. It’s estimated that something like three million Afghans are refugees displaced by the civil wars or the Taliban. I’m certainly not prepared to denounce that girl for wanting to get out, or Afghans for becoming refugees or leaving areas of violent conflict.
>Or the average homosexual in Iran who would rather not be publicly hanged?
If the alternative was getting the hell out of dodge? See my prior comments.
>If Israel leaves, will everything be hunky-dory in the Middle East? What if militant organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah are the actual source of the problem? I’m just saying.
Or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? I dunno. Used to be the Stern Gang were a pretty bloodthirsty group of badasses, militant and violent as they come. But they settled down. Hezbollah shows a lot of signs of settling down and making the transition from an aggressive militia to a constructive social movement. Hamas preaches revolution, but preaching don’t pay the rent and they’re forced to deal with the realities of governance.
Having said that, would Israel’s departure significantly improve the region. To be honest, it wouldn’t make much of a difference one way or the other. Maybe Egypt would receive less foreign aid from the US. But the truth is that Israel is largely irrelevant economically and politically to the region.
This is not to suggest everything would be fine. Arab governments on the whole have been a pretty corrupt and dysfunctional lot, and have generally failed to deliver on their own promises to their people. Don’t take my word for it - compare a sample group of Arab states to latin American or Asian counterparts and you’ll find they lag significantly in everything from education to economic development to various sorts of freedoms.
>But more to the point, the overall social consensus that governs is prepared to accept the occasional rocket exploding in the garden…
>This latest airstrike is proof that it isn’t.
Au contraire. The latest airstrike is proof that it is. Seriously, they’re not blowing up missiles, they’re not finding missiles, they’re not doing anything that really affects the process of building and firing those missiles. The airstrikes will kill a few hundred people, but won’t stop a single missile.
The truth of the matter is that this ‘war’ will change nothing. All the airstrikes do is kill people and make rubble. This isn’t the first Israeli attack on Gaza. Did the previous attacks stop the missiles? No. Will this one? No. Will future attacks stop them? No. It’s just theatre of violence.
So why do it? Simple, it is cheaper and more politically effective (domestically) to impose air strikes and blockades and deal with the missiles than it is to actually try and do anything substantive, which would be far more costly and uncertain.
>Israel could sign a peace treaty with Syria tomorrow, all it has to do is return the Golan Heights. […] But why sign a peace treaty with Syria? What’s the advantage? Well… peace.
>Well, not peace, exactly. Just the promise of it, which may or may not be another empty gesture. And when you look at what happened after Israel left Gaza, can you blame them for being once bitten, twice shy?
Well, you must admit that the peace treaty with Egypt turned out very very well and that Israel reaped major advantages.
On the other hand, Israel’s ‘departure’ from Gaza was both unilateral and not really a departure.
On the one hand, there was no agreement, no changing of the guard, no orderly transition, no peace treaty or arrangement of any sort. Israeli’s simply stood up, ripped the phones out of the wall and left a vacuum behind, that and a few turd bouquets.
On the other hand, Israel retained control of all of Gaza’s borders, seacoast, airspace and electrical infrastructure. When it comes right down to it, did Israel really leave Gaza, or did it just rearrange things there to try and retain control with less inconvenience?
In any case, friend Benny, we’re getting away from ourselves. Even you acknowledge that Israel has no real advantage to gain from signing a peace treaty with Syria, and therefore no motive to enter into one.
It’s the way the world works.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Shiva, interesting point you raise. I have a question though. How many of the 250,000 current jewish settlers in the West Bank trace their title claim to lands bought in 1904 or prior? Is this a significant number?
December 30th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Re Skeptic’s comment “Without being condescending, I’d suggest that Israel’s generally had it pretty easy. Essentially, the Palestinians are pretty sheeplike as these things go. Look at the comparatively ferocious resistance to occupation experienced by the Russians in Afghanistan, the Americans in Iraq to give the most recent examples.”
————–
I think this overlooks the enormous amounts of resources provided for Israel’s support coming in from the outside.
Not just the $3+ Billion/year in US aid and the massive arms shipments from the USA. I’m also referring to the enormous sums that have been sent to Israel by Jewish organizations from around the world– allowed by the US government while many financial transfers to the Palestinians are blocked by the US government.
I doubt if Israel could have survived if not for past and current support of the US government. That, unfortunately, makes us morally responsible for the plight of the Palestinians.
So Matthew’s suggestion that we could wash our hands of the Palestinian problem by abandoning Israel is not really a viable option. By our past acts, We broke this piece of Pottery Barn –we own it.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:49 am
You seem to think it is unreasonable. You may well be correct. Which prompts the question: Why then does Israel pursue policies that strengthen Hamas?
December 30th, 2008 at 12:55 am
“Re Skeptic’s comment “Without being condescending, I’d suggest that Israel’s generally had it pretty easy. Essentially, the Palestinians are pretty sheeplike as these things go. Look at the comparatively ferocious resistance to occupation experienced by the Russians in Afghanistan, the Americans in Iraq to give the most recent examples.”
————–
I think this overlooks the enormous amounts of resources provided for Israel’s support coming in from the outside.”
Not really Don. While I acknowledge that the Israeli economy and Israeli war machine is heavily supported by the United States, I’d also like to point out that the comparative investment by the United States in Vietnam and Iraq or the Russians in Afghanistan was colossal in comparison. We’re talking several orders of magnitude difference. Israel may have a tap into the money line for occupation, but the US and Russian occupations put their lips directly to the firehose.
“I doubt if Israel could have survived if not for past and current support of the US government. That, unfortunately, makes us morally responsible for the plight of the Palestinians. ”
Yes and no. As I understand it heavy American military support of Israel did not begin until the 1960’s and 70’s. Prior to that it was the Russians and French.
Given that Israel’s last serious war was 1973, I don’t think Israel’s survival was ever in doubt. The principal effect of American subsidy over the last few decades was probably enhancing the Israeli standard of living in comparison to its neighbors.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Miatch is right. U.N. Observer - you poor misguided Zionist.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Zasloff’s own response: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/israel_/2008/12/not_futility_honesty.php
December 30th, 2008 at 1:57 am
0 for 7 on your sad little stereotypes, CAMmy. Funny, though: with this issue, the distinctions between “in”, “of” and “from” matter.
Let’s see if you’ll evade this one: in 2015, do you expect Israel to have engaged in another three or four military operations on a scale comparable to the current one, the Lebanese operation, the 2006 Gaza operation, etc?
Skeptic: Israel’s current position, and policy near as I can determine, seems to be a variation of South Africa’s bantustans proposal or America’s Indian reservations.
I don’t think it’s even that coherent. The policy, if you can call it that, is “kick the can down the road” — change the facts on the ground a bit at a time and see what happens — which usually means having to change them again a year later. In the meanwhile, the West Bank settlers entrench and radicalise, culturally distinct from, say, Israelis in Tel Aviv and Haifa. There might be the right-wing fantasy of dumping Gaza — or the Gazans — into Egypt and the West Bank Palestinians into Jordan, but na ga happen. There’ll just be more of them in a smaller space.
At the same time, Israelis will have to address — or again, kick down the road — the fact that the settler birth rate is three times higher than in Israel proper, while young Israelis from secular families end up in the IDF while haredi children increasingly claim the Tal Law’s yeshiva exemption. Hard to confront that, though, when the religious parties make and break coalitions.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:01 am
But, my friend, it seems to me that if your argument is that Israel is engaged in an asymmetric war, then you are conceding Israel’s overwhelming conventional military superiority over the region.
I never disputed that. My point is to ask what that’s worth, when the other side is willing to sacrifice so much more. All it takes is a backpack and some explosives. And as someone mentioned earlier, Hamas is a hard enemy to defeat not because they’re able to kill Israelis, but because they’re willing to allow much greater casualties from within their own population.
Benny, what would you do if that was the deal put on the table for you?
If I were Arafat in 2000, I would have taken it. If I were a Gazan in 2005… I don’t know, try to kick-start the economy by building a commune? And not jeopardise that opportunity by shipping in missiles alongside food and medical supplies…
Damned straight. If that girl wanted to get the hell out of Afghanistan, I’d sponsor her. Wouldn’t you?
My point was that your original statement seemed to imply that the presence of Hamas and Hezbollah is to be expected and accepted in that region, and tolerated as a condition for staying there, like a natural fault zone. Of course I’d get the girl out of there. But I’d also get the Taliban out of there as well.
Used to be the Stern Gang were a pretty bloodthirsty group of badasses, militant and violent as they come.
I can’t defend the Stern Gang, obviously.
Hezbollah shows a lot of signs of settling down and making the transition from an aggressive militia to a constructive social movement.
What signs? Building schools and mosques isn’t reassuring when those places continue to be new breeding grounds for Islamic fanaticism.
The truth of the matter is that this ‘war’ will change nothing. [...] It’s just theatre of violence. So why do it? Simple, it is cheaper and more politically effective (domestically) to impose air strikes and blockades and deal with the missiles than it is to actually try and do anything substantive, which would be far more costly and uncertain.
Israel is not some monolithic entity that thinks and breathes as one. Doves make up a good segment of the Israeli population, you certainly know that. Airstrikes and blockades are not part of a sinister insider plot to maintain the status quo. They are exactly what they look like: desperate measures, made by a nation left with no better alternatives, to protect itself against attacks.
When it comes right down to it, did Israel really leave Gaza, or did it just rearrange things there to try and retain control with less inconvenience?
You can’t blame Israel for proceeding cautiously with the withdrawal. So the conditions were less than optimal for the Gazans. Is that really ample reason for them to fire missiles at innocent people in protest? There’s a time for war, and a time for peace. 2005 was a time for peace. And they blew it… if peace is indeed what they wanted.
Even you acknowledge that Israel has no real advantage to gain from signing a peace treaty with Syria, and therefore no motive to enter into one.
I didn’t say that Israel stands to gain nothing from a peace treaty. I said there’s no guarantee that a peace treaty would be anything more than empty promises.
Sorry to be so curt in this response, I had originally typed up something longer and accidentally deleted it.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:31 am
I know a certain state in the midwest, slightly larger than Israel, and roughly hand shaped that needs some aid right now.
They even have a large population of jews and arabs, and desperately need the $4 Billion or so we give to rich foreigners to finance warcrimes which eventually endanger us.
Remember back in the 90’s when our good “allies” the Israelis wanted to sell our AIWACs technology to the Chinese?
And as the Israeli over reaction du jour feeds the 247cablebeast you will never hear a peep about the AIPAC spying trials of the last few years.
Has it always been so 1984 or has the surreality of the media gotten worse?
December 30th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Airstrikes and blockades are not part of a sinister insider plot to maintain the status quo. They are exactly what they look like: desperate measures, made by a nation left with no better alternatives, to protect itself against attacks.
I don’t think you can derive the second sentence from the first.
In recent history, the Israeli use of airstrikes or even limited ground incursions has consistently been the easy option. Easy, in the sense that airstrikes limit IDF losses, but easy in the sense that they are, if you pardon the analogy, the political equivalent of a fart gag. Hamas firing missiles into Israel is no different. It’s the easy, lazy option. It’s the one that requires no courage.
I don’t see the use of airstrikes as “sinister”, either. I see them as a tired, non-policy policy. And my gut feeling is that there may well be a reprise later in the year that stems from the consequences of the Lebanon operation, and one next year to deal with the consequences of whatever transpires in Gaza.
[I'm not opposed to a kick-the-can approach in certain circumstances: the periods of direct rule in Northern Ireland may have strayed from the principle of devolved power-sharing, but it normalised peace and got people comfortable with a lifestyle that didn't include the risk of arbitrary murder.]
2005 was a time for peace. And they blew it… if peace is indeed what they wanted.
Sorry, Benny, but that’s revisionist nonsense: “The significance of the plan is the freezing of the peace process.” Disengagement was “formaldehyde”: a way of not having to deal with the tough questions that might lead to peace. Israel has been avoiding that question and making excuses for doing so — the Palestinian top tier has been busy fucking up in different ways — since 2001.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:18 am
There you go. That’s my option.
I consider myself magically blessed with having no emotional ties to anyone or anything in the region. I’m not Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. I’m not related to anyone who is.
I’m perfectly happy with letting the locals tear each others’ throats out, the way we do in Rwanda or Indonesia or Kashmir, etc. — where they have no strategic interest to us, and they have no equivalent of AIPAC in Washington.
China seems to have a pretty businesslike relationship with the Middle East. Let’s try that model.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Marshall, may you live a long and healthy life. Too many people believe the “Reagan was God” myth.
Reagan should get credit for the deregulated, deficit-driven economy, and the creation of the Taliban as a “tactic” for bringing down the Soviets. After 9/11/2001 and the economic meltdown this year, may history judge him appropriately, and may Carter be vindicated.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Psst. UN Observer. With regard to the four Likudnik Arabs you seem to find so relevant — all four are Druze. You may have to look this up on Wikipedia too.
HTH.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Re UN Observer
Mr. UN Observer should be aware that Mr. Don Williams has been lying about the culpability of Israel getting the US involved in Iraq for years. As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the Israeli government was dubious about the Iraq adventure from the get go. This has been testified to by former Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson and and former ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, among others. Far from encouraging the Iraq adventure, officials in the Israeli Government counseled against it. Now Mr. Williams has brought up a speech that Bibi Netanyahu made to Congress as evidence of Israeli complicity. What he neglects to tell us is that the speech was given after the Bush Administration had made the decision, against the advice of Israeli officials. At that point, the Government of Israel went along with it like the good puppets they were. Having spent years sucking up to Bush, Sharon was not about to cross him on this issue. In this regard, Sharon was no better and no worse then Tony Blair, another Bush suck up.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Of course the US can “solve the problem”, having promoted and fostered it since long before Carter. That solution is to stop giving Israel money and to insist Israel complies with teh great heap of Sec Council Resolutions standing against it.
Why does the US support a gang of illegal European immigrants in their theft of land which their particular ancestors never owned? (*). The answer is that 2+% of the United States population has bought each successive United States Congress and each successive Administration.
(*). Read The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein, Director of the Dept of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and Shlomo Sand, Dept of History in the same university. These two show how completely untrue are all Jewish claims to any history in Palestine.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Re maunga
I see that Mr. Farid has now been joined by another lying cocksucker calling himself maunga. Is Mr. maunga now telling us that a Jewish carpenter named Joshua of Nazareth never existed? If there were no Jews in Palestine, how does he explain the fact the founders of Christianity, all of whom were Jews, lived there (e.g. Peter, Paul, etc.).
December 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Hey, SLC, remember a little problem called the Diaspora? Remember how the Romans kicked the Jews out of Palestine?
Which is irrelevant anyway - because the issue is the CURRENT batch of Jews who came in throughout the 20th Century, and when their program - or perhaps I should call it by its rightful name, “pogrom” - against the Palestinian people was resisted, engaged in terrorism against the Palestinians, the British and anybody else in their way, INCLUDING THE US (remember the USS Liberty - and don’t bother with your bullshit excuses for that one!), and have brutalized and oppressed the Palestinians - not to mention everybody in every country around them - for the last fifty years.
Zionists are the scum of the Earth. They make people like Pol Pot look honest. They have ZERO justification for anything and everything they do.
And sooner or later, they’re all going to die - violently.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Richard Steven Hack
Hey, SLC, remember a little problem called the Diaspora? Remember how the Romans kicked the Jews out of Palestine?
Mr. Hack apparently hasn’t been reading some of the comments on this blog. According to an individual calling himself Mr. maunga, there never were any Jews living in Palestine (including Joshua of Nazareth who apparently in the maunga version of history never existed). I really think that the Israel bashers should get their act together and agree on a consistent set of principles.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Hello again, Benny.
I can understand the frustration of a much more detailed post and losing it, it’s happened to me. But I’m pleased to see your response nevertheless, let me offer a few comments:
REGARDING A SYRIA PEACE TREATY
“I didn’t say that Israel stands to gain nothing from a peace treaty. I said there’s no guarantee that a peace treaty would be anything more than empty promises.”
Come, come now, that’s not justifiable. Would a peace treaty with Syria amount to empty promises? Did the treaty with Egypt amount to empty promises? What’s different about Syria?
Consider that Syria has not had a direct military confrontation with Israel (as distinguished from Israel’s occasional bombing raids) since 1982. Consider that Syria’s managed to play nice in Lebanon for decades, face to face with Israel. Consider that Syria’s military is far inferior. Consider that Syria’s economy is tiny and backwards in comparison. Consider that Syria’s government is a stable long term anti-islamist dictatorship (far from the worst case scenario). Consider that Syria is an international pariah with no oil and no international patrons.
I’d suggest that Syria has ample motivation for entering into and abiding by a peace treaty with Israel. There’s getting the Golan heights, of course. But long term, there’s the prospect of assured stability, increased trade and economic opportunities, international aid. They’d be highly motivated to abide by their promises.
The problem is, however, that effectively, most of the advantages that Israel would gain from a peace treaty it already possesses in a de facto sense. So the genuine gains are actually less than it would have to give up. Thus, Israel’s government has very little interest in a peace treaty.
“I never disputed that. My point is to ask what that’s worth, when the other side is willing to sacrifice so much more. All it takes is a backpack and some explosives.
There’s actually been some fairly interesting literature on the subject of suicide bombers. Research into who these people are, what their motivation is, how they go about it.
One of the most fascinating things about suicide bombers is that for the most part, they’re not particularly motivated by religious fanaticism. Rather, the trigger or cause seems to be social stress brought about by repression and occupation.
Interesting, in that the inference to be drawn is that Israel’s repressive tactics to defend against suicide bombers is actually driving the suicide bombers. It’s almost a chicken and the egg thing, except that its clear that the repressive tactics began and escalated before the suicide bombings.
In any event, suicide bombings are a relatively recent development. I don’t believe that they were any kind of factor for quite a long time. The first suicide bombing against Israel wasn’t until 1981 in Lebanon. The first palestinian suicide bombing wasn’t until 1993.
I would recommend perhaps that you take time out to study the phenomenon and try to come to some understanding of it, rather than reacting to it viscerally. So far, visceral reactions have not been useful.
“And as someone mentioned earlier, Hamas is a hard enemy to defeat not because they’re able to kill Israelis, but because they’re willing to allow much greater casualties from within their own population.”
What other choice do they have? Parts of the Israeli population suffer an existential paranoia - the fear that their enemies seek to and are capable of wiping them from the earth.
Think about that for a few minutes. What sort of casualties are you prepared to sustain to defeat or forestall an enemy whose genuine goal is annihilation?
Now explain to me how your sentence makes sense. If you truly believe in the existential threat of annihilation, if Israeli’s as a whole genuinely believe this as a real and valid possibility and not just a political slogan then how can you possibly argue that the Palestinians are prepared to suffer more casualties?
And to return to my original point, what choices have been left to the Palestinians? If what they have before them is unacceptable, and their only choice is to accept casualties…
“Benny, what would you do if that was the deal put on the table for you?”
“If I were Arafat in 2000, I would have taken it. If I were a Gazan in 2005… I don’t know, try to kick-start the economy by building a commune? And not jeopardise that opportunity by shipping in missiles alongside food and medical supplies…”
Start a commune for 1.4 million people, with no resources, no land base to speak of, with significant malnutrition and with a foreign power in control of roads, electricity, airspace, sea and borders? Benny, Benny, Benny.
And supposing you had taken that deal in 1996 or 2000, how many children were your people prepared to watch starve before they threw the deal and you out the door? Surely you realize that the fundamental inhumanity of the terms offered could not be sustained.
“My point was that your original statement seemed to imply that the presence of Hamas and Hezbollah is to be expected and accepted in that region, and tolerated as a condition for staying there, like a natural fault zone. Of course I’d get the girl out of there. But I’d also get the Taliban out of there as well.”
Hmmm. I think I said expected. I don’t think I was so firm on accepted.
Know anything about the Taliban, Benny. Here’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, of the Taliban’s origins. The word is that Afghanistan was ruled by battling warlords who savagely prayed on the population. One night a warlord came to a village on his tank and kidnapped a couple of teenage girls to rape and despoil. Mullah Omar, a local cleric, was outraged, he picked up his gun got a few friends and they went out to rescue the girls and defeated the warlord.
Is it true? I’ve heard it from a few place. But frankly, I’m skeptical, it has too much of the flavour of folk hero myth to me.
But the part about the warlords was true. They really were that bad, abducting girls and boys to rape, slaughtering villages, feuding and battling ceaselessly. Before the Taliban emerged, Afghanistan was being torn to pieces, millions were in refugee camps, the country was a wreck.
The Taliban were a response - a group whose motivation was religion and faith, and not politics and power, a group that the Afghan people welcomed for the stability and safety they provided. The Taliban were a result, not a cause of the Afghan civil war, an inevitable product of those conditions.
The Taliban was not necessary. If things had gone in other ways, the Taliban would never have existed.
But once these things come into being, you have to find ways to deal with them. For better or worse, Hamas and Hezbollah are not going away soon, and the conventional approaches have not worked.
“Used to be the Stern Gang were a pretty bloodthirsty group of badasses, militant and violent as they come.
I can’t defend the Stern Gang, obviously.”
If you won’t, then I will. They mellowed, they showed a capacity to become civilized and stable. Groups such as this often do. Historically, that’s included a lot of bloodthirsty sons of bitches.
“Israel is not some monolithic entity that thinks and breathes as one. Doves make up a good segment of the Israeli population, you certainly know that.”
Acknowledged.
” Airstrikes and blockades are not part of a sinister insider plot to maintain the status quo. They are exactly what they look like: desperate measures, made by a nation left with no better alternatives, to protect itself against attacks.”
Yes and no. Obviously, these things are not accidents. It’s not an ‘oops I did it again’ situation. The decisions to initiate airstrikes are volitional. Why today rather than last month or next month?
Someone else has said that Israel’s policy of turning Gaza and the West Bank into giant reservations are not policies but non-policies, the avoidance of decisions, drift, short term decisions with long term consequences.
I think the truth is somewhere in between. Not secret master plan, not mindless drift, the combination of a lot of ideologies, a lot of policies, plans, contradictory motives and impulses. The result, however, speaks for itself.
“You can’t blame Israel for proceeding cautiously with the withdrawal.”
Cautiously? Or recklessly? The ‘withdrawal’ such as it was, was entirely unilateral, no arrangements or undertakings were made. A vaccuum was deliberately created. What do you think happens in a situation like that.
In any event, my question to you is a little different. Has Israel really withdrawn in any meaningful sense. Israel controls the borders, the airspace, the sea, it controls the electricity, the food supply, the economy. Has Israel really withdrawn from Gaza? Are Gazans free of Israel? Or is this merely a reshuffling of the deck?
“So the conditions were less than optimal for the Gazans. Is that really ample reason for them to fire missiles at innocent people in protest?”
How many of your children would you be willing to see starve before you fired your missile in protest?
“There’s a time for war, and a time for peace. 2005 was a time for peace. And they blew it… if peace is indeed what they wanted.”
Peace under what terms? That’s the key I think. If you offer a man peace and slavery, should he accept?
December 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Re SLC’s comment “According to an individual calling himself Mr. maunga, there never were any Jews living in Palestine ”
—————
1) If you look at the book cited by Maunga, SLC, I suspect you will see the main point: which is that two Jewish archaelogists in Israel have argued that the archaelogical record indicates that much of the Old Testament is a myth — propaganda crafted in the seventh century BC to support the imperialism of King Josiah.
See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00EEDE173FF937A35751C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
2) That is, that much of the Zionist vision behind Israel’s creation — Hollywood’s Charleston Heston crap, the movie Exodus, etc — is a lie.
3) As I’ve noted before, the Roman Historian Cornelius Tacitus had the jump on these archaelogists by about 1900 years. See Tacitus’s discussion on the history of Palestine in his Histories, Book V at
http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/histories.5.v.html
4) Tacitus’s point was that the Jews had rarely held Palestine as an independent nation — that most of the time they had been under the thumb of one or another of the Middle Eastern empires — Egypt, Assyria, the Hittites, the Babylonians,etc. sharecroppers, not landowners. And not native to Palestine.
5) As I’ve noted, early Empires were based on the agriculture of River Valleys. Egypt. Iraq with the Tigris and Euphratates. Being a narrow corridor connecting massive empires and open to invasion from the sea, it was Israel’s geographical destiny to be fucked over by one conqueror or another. As it is today if she pursues the imperialistic dream of King Josiah (look at how he turned out.)
6) What’s kinda sad is that the Palestinians are the Israelis brothers — certainly cousins. Israel herself today is justifying the long and bitter oppression suffered by the Jews by inflicting that same bitter oppression upon the Palestinians. An oppression funded and supported by yet another Empire.
If you want to see Israel’s past, look at the Palestinians’ present.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:00 am
A cynical person like myself can’t help wondering who is the King behind the Lie today. I strongly suspect that King is not Jewish.
British PM David Lloyd George acknowledged that he created Israel as a bargain with “world Jewcy” — to gain their support (read: Money ) in the war against the Germans. But the British plan was much deeper than that.
The pattern set up by the British King continues with the American King. If you want the wealth of the Middle East, you must divide and conquer. A cheap and dirty way for an external oppressor to do that is the same as the one used by the Romans: occupy Palestine and separate North Africa/Egypt from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Also gives you control of the Suez Canal chokepoint.
The day the oil runs out, the US government will abandon Israel and will lose all memory of the Israelites. Their millions of Muslim neighbors, however, will have longer memories.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Re Don Williams
Actually, DNA evidence indicates that the closest genetic relatives to both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are the Kurds, not the Arabs, Palestinians or otherwise.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Re SLC’s comment “Actually, DNA evidence indicates that the closest genetic relatives to both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are the Kurds,”
———–
Really? Did the DNA tests include samples from Middle Eastern Jews –vice European Jews? Haim Saban’s Egyptian family, for example?
December 30th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Here’s a Salon article from 2001 giving more info on Israel Finkelstein and his findings.
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon/index.html
I gotta say, the man must have testicles the size of grapefruits — and made of brass.
I strongly admire a scholar with that devotion to finding the truth, no matter where it leads him.
However, in my experience, it is very difficult if not impossible to discover the full truth about past happenings. The evidence is usually too incomplete –and sometimes lies.
Imagine future historians writing their history of the Bush Administration based upon surviving fragments from the Fox News archives and you get the idea.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
My 2cents.
Skeptic–Amazingly compelling arguments. Thanks.
Benny—Honest concern. Thanks.
U.N. Observer–For accuracy’s sake, why not just drop the periods in your nic. Asshole.
Don Williams–Any recommendations on caliber for that deer rifle? How ’bout a license plate number for that limo?
December 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Re skeptic
Actually, the situation relative to Israel/Syria is rather interesting. The US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are in favor of regime change in Syria, Israel is dubious about it. The reason for the Israeli reluctance is that the intelligence agencies there are afraid that overthrow of the Assad kleptocracy would lead to an Islamic extremist takeover. Prevention of such a scenario was the main reason for the actions of Hafaz Assad in the City of Hama in 1982. Thus, the Israelis are opting for stability in Syria and overlook bad behavior by the Assad regime.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Kleptocracy? I’m not sure if that’s an accurate description of the regime, certainly it doesn’t seem to be the salient feature of the Assad regime in the way that it was with Mobutu, Duvalier or the Somozas.
For better or worse, the Assad regime seems to fall into the mold of second wave secular military/technocrats who sought to modernize their societies via state directed mixed economies. Other examples of the breed are Egypt, Iraq and Libya.
On the whole, they’ve sadly failed to live up to their promise. The feudal monarchies of the first wave are generally corrupt and incompetent.
The third wave may well be radical islamists.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Re Skeptic
I suggest that Mr. Skeptic consult with some Syrians living in the United States. They will inform him that the Alawites in control of the Syrian Government have stolen millions and salted it away in Swiss bank accounts. In fact, my Syrian friend, Ammar Kanaan informed me that he personally was not keen on regime change in Syria because dictator Assad had stolen everything he was going to steal and a new regime would start their stealing from scratch.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Well, as it goes, just about every third world tinpot salts a few dollars away in Swiss Bank accounts from his political career. For instance, there is a Mr. Dick Cheney who is reputed to have accrued a fortune in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of his clever manipulation of government resources.
But that does not necessarily make for a kleptocracy… well perhaps.
But in terms of diversions of GNP, where does the Assad regime rank?
December 30th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
SLC,
The Israelis are exactly right to favor the continuation of the Assad regime. Not for the first time, hard-headed Israeli realism beats silly U.S. “human rights” nonsense. The only alternative to the Assad regime is the Muslim Brotherhood, and that is an alternative best not to contemplate.
As for corruption, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Assad regime is corrupt. The fact remains, however that they have been a friend to the religious minorities of Syria, and the only bulwark between them and the bloodstained claws of the Muslim Brotherhood.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:24 am
I don’t agree with the ideology that drives many Israeli settlers. But I’ve come to think that the settlements serve an important purpose, which is to put the Palestinians under some time pressure. My sense is that a critical problem in coming to an agreement is a belief in the Arab world that time is on their side, logically (they can lose many times, they only have to win once), historically (they got rid of the Crusaders after about 100 years), and demographically (their population is growing a lot faster). It’s awfully difficult to negotiate with someone who thinks time is on his side, because it is rational for him to conclude that the deal will get better the longer he waits. The only way to counter this logic is put into effect policies that lead to the opposite outcome, i.e., that make the deal worse over time. Settlements have a lot of negatives, but this is one thing they do accomplish.
December 31st, 2008 at 7:28 am
Hamas, like Fatah, don’t give a fuck about anything other than surviving. If lots of Palestinians die, this is good from their pov.
However, your statement still buys into the idea that Israel merely retaliates. This is not true. It is absolutely false.
And, it can be said, Israel is indifferent to human life if it happens to be Palestinian. Just look at the various statements from Israeli politicians and officers over the weekend. Livni is on record talking about Gazans paying a price for Hamas.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:08 am
In 1864, shortly before the March to the Sea began, General William Tecumseh Sherman proclaimed that the citizens of Georgia must be made to feel the hard hand of war. The Government of Israel has taken a leaf from the Sherman playbook. The people of Gaza must be made to feel the hard hand of war.
December 31st, 2008 at 9:11 am
Re SLC’s comment “The people of Gaza must be made to feel the hard hand of war.”
——————
I was trying to remember who SLC reminded me of — then it came to me:
“Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality; Genghis Khan has sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. As to what the weak Western European civilisation asserts about me, that is of no account.
I have given the command and I shall shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent.
And so for the present only in the East 1 have put my death-head formations’ in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language.
Only thus we can gain the living space [lebensraum] that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?…
…1 shall let a few companies in Polish uniform attack in Upper Silesia or in the Protectorate. Whether the world believes it is quite indifferent (scheissegal). The world believes only in success…
…Be hard, be without mercy, act more quickly and brutally than the others. The citizens of Western Europe must tremble with horror. That is the most human way of conducting a war. For it scares the others off.”
——————
Ref: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/hitler-obersalzberg.html
So how did that work out?
December 31st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Re Don Williams
I am not surprised that somebody from red neck country, like the blogs resident Bolshevik, would compare William Tecumseh Sherman with Hitler. I would point out that, as lawless as Shermans’ bummers were, the number of civilians killed by them during the Georgia march was less then a dozen.
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