Friedman: We Need State-Building in the West Bank
Thomas Friedman writes about the idea that building the possibility of an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires substantial capacity-building on the Palestinian side:
That said, once Obama is able to think afresh about the Middle East, he will find that the Bush team has left an interesting legacy here: 140,000 U.S. soldiers doing nation-building in Iraq and one U.S. soldier — actually a three-star U.S. Army general — doing nation-building in the West Bank. We need a better balance. [...]
Palestinians need the same chance. You can’t have a two-state solution without two states, and today the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which still supports a two-state deal, doesn’t have the institutions of a state, particularly an effective police force. Therefore, my hope is that Obama will focus not only on peace plans from the top down, but also on institution-building from the bottom up. The best way to isolate Hamas in Gaza is to build the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank into a decent government with steadily expanding control over its territory.
He goes on to describe a promising initiative in this regard that’s already under way. And it certainly sounds like a good idea to me. But on another level, this goes back to the centrality of the Israeli settlements to the situation. Israel doesn’t just let its citizens wander out into Palestinian land and build houses. It also takes action to protect them. That means a series of security barriers, checkpoints, special no-Arabs-allowed roads, and other restrictions on Palestinian movement. Those are not only inconvenient for ordinary Palestinians and offensive to their dignity, they make it impossible for the Palestinian Authority to exercise effective authority over its territory.
And recall the issue I raised in my “cycle of excuses” post. One needs to recall that the lack of Palestinian Authority efficacy is not just a result of settlement activity, but of a deliberate U.S.-backed Israeli strategy of degrading Palestinian Authority institutional efficacy back in the “isolate Arafat” period. Back then, the U.S. endorsed the view that Israel couldn’t negotiate a final settlement deal until it had finished destroying Fatah’s security organs. Now we’re in danger of endorsing the view that Israel can’t negotiate a deal until we build them back up again. The truth is that we need to move on all these fronts. We need to freeze settlement activity. We need to start working on building Palestinian capabilities. And we need to move forward on finding again on top-down political agreement.
66 Responses to “Friedman: We Need State-Building in the West Bank”
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February 8th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
We need to actually require the removal of all the settlers put in since 1967 even without any agreement with the Palestinians, as merely “freezing settlement activity” freezes around 400,000 jewish colonists in place, creating an environment in which no Palestinian state will ever be ‘built’.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I agree that we should lend more support to Palestinian nation-building. I’d add to that the necessity for building up readiness on both sides for living together after an agreement is reached, through a lot of joint programming on both Israeli and Palestinian television.
However you still haven’t answered my question why a freeze on settlement expansion is a pre-requisite for moving forward on a political solution. Even as you decry the existence of preconditions that prevent negotiation, you add one of your own. Please explain. Really. I’d like to understand your reasoning here.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
However you still haven’t answered my question why a freeze on settlement expansion is a pre-requisite for moving forward on a political solution.
Larry, I sympathize completely. As an accountant, I don’t understand why a freeze on my habit embezzling money from my employer should be a pre-requisite on my remaining with the company. Why can’t they just trust I’ll keep my stealing to acceptable levels?
February 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
There’s already a viable state, Israel. Join it with Palestine and put it into the EU, where nobody gives a shit about what country you’re from, what your religious/ethnic identity is, etc. They just want to know where to put the German-funded infrastructure project. I’ve become a one-trick pony about this.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
State-building? There is always some excuse why Israel can’t remove their colonies on the West Bank until the Palestinians do something first. Now we learn that in order to give</i the Palestinians a state on their own land they first have to have a state. Next we’ll hear that the Plaestinians can’t be given any loans until they have a central bank.
I have an idea: Israel dismantles all its colonies, evacuates its people to behind the pre-1967 border, relocates its security wall to the Green Line, and builds that wall 200 feet high. Then they can leave the Palestinians alone to figure out what they want to do on their own land. Maybe the Palestinians will have a state; maybe they’ll just have a party. That’s none of Israel’s business.
Anyway, Matt and Friedman both sound like they are living in 1995, about five or six debate cycles beyond the current state of play. We are approaching half a million colonists on the West bank, while Israeli society is making a dramatic lurch to the far right, led by young brownshirts who just love Avigdoe Lieberman.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Essentially what Friedman wants is an effective West Bank government to discipline Palestinians and beat them up on behalf of Israel while continuing to let Gaza burn.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Meanwhile, Kervick needs to buy better reading glasses, as his typos approach Yglesias-like levels.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
“Israel uber alles”, eh, SLC, you psychopathic genocidal fuck?
February 8th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Friedman’s column is stupid as usual. As if the main problem of Palestinians today was how good-looking are their police uniforms. The US already tried to build a modern PLO police force in Gaza, with state-of-the-art vehicles and weapons. How did that work out?
Solve the political deadlock first if you want to see some improvements in security.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
James, I don’t understand your analogy. A better one might be, I am using a technology that you claim you have a patent on, and that I need to license from you. We negotiate over this. It isn’t a prerequisite for those negotiations that I cease using the technology, or that I immediately start paying you a licensing fee. That’s what we’re negotiating.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
While it is true, larry birnbaum, that Matthew didn’t address your question, perhaps it is because a number of other people did so rather emphatically and persuasively in comments. So you can continue to play (although how much playing is up for debate) dumb about it or you can accept that it isn’t important that Matthew answer your question, so much as that your question is answered.
Here’s the flip side of that: is it important for Hamas (or any other Palestinian representative) to recognize Israel’s right to exist prior to negotiating a peace agreement?
February 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
“Netanyahu will coax Obama into Iran war”
Read all about it here:
FROM: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84974§ionid=351020101
Buck up progressives – it’s you or AIPAC.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
You can’t have a two-state solution without two states, and today the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which still supports a two-state deal, doesn’t have the institutions of a state, particularly an effective police force.
More critically, the Palestinian Authority does not have an effective military force to prevent arbitrary invasion by hostile neighbors.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon” when Israel can no longer be a Jewish state.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
What’s amazing about Friedman’s column is that we think he’s saying something new. His advice would have been great thirty years ago. Now, it’s too late. Stick a fork in Palestine, it’s done.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Re Kafka
Boy, that’s a real authoritative source of information, a web site of the Iranian Government. Anyone who believes that believes that Pravda and Isvestia were authoritative sources of information during the existence of the former Soviet Union. As one wag put it, there was no truth in Pravda (which means truth in Russian) and no news in Isvestia (which means news in Russian).
Re ndm
Mr. ndm is apparently been smoking lefty luckies.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Israeli settlers have fired on the IDF. The settlers are going to be a problem for Israel if they’re forced to withdraw. Israel has also jailed Israelis for protesting against the invasion of Gaza. Many more refuseniks now. A lot of Jews protesting the invasion of Gaza worldwide. The tide is turning against Israel, and their internal problems are growing.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Actually, I would like to hear what Yglesias has to say on this subject. What, exactly, is the mechanism whereby additional settlement activity impedes serious negotiations?
My discussions with other people under his last post on this subject certainly led to a lot of emphatic statements, as you put it. They mostly missed the point though. I understand why the Palestinians hate settlements and are angry about their expansion. I’d feel the same way in their shoes. What I don’t understand is why settlement activity, hateful to them as it is, prevents them from negotiating an agreement that would lead to its cessation.
You raise an interesting question about Hamas, actually one that I’ve given a fair amount of thought to. It might make sense for Israel to enter into negotations with Hamas without this precondition. But in that case I expect they’d withdraw their prior commitment to the proposition that the outcome of the negotiations would necessarily include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. So then the first thing that would have to be negotiated I suppose would be this mutual recognition — Hamas agrees that Israel has a right to exist, and Israel agrees (again, having withdrawn its prior agreement) that a Palestinian state has a right to exist. That’s just another way of saying that Hamas would have to agree that the purpose of the negotiations was to reach a two-state resolution in the first place, before anything could move forward in a more practical sense. This of course they have refused to do.
I should add, in the negotiations which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority which held the elections that underly Hamas’s current legal claims to represent the Palestinians, the Palestinians already agreed to these propositions.
Also, of course, its not like the PA doesn’t exist any more. I’m not sure how the Palestinians in general, or for that matter Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, would feel if Israel just decided to go ahead and commence negotations with Hamas from ground zero again. The best course forward is for the Palestinians — Hamas included — to figure out a way to form a unity government, and then to move forward in negotations with Israel on the basis of previous agreements.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
More drivel from the Friedman Unit
February 8th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
A better one might be, I am using a technology that you claim you have a patent on
Only if you’re a bullshit artist. What part of illegal occupation causes you such great difficulty, Larry? If you need a demonstration, we can occupy your kitchen, build checkpoints on your stairwell and shoot your cat.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Just wanted to state agreement with both Matt and Friedman on these points.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Agree with Matt.
“Then they can leave the Palestinians alone to figure out what they want to do on their own land. Maybe the Palestinians will have a state; maybe they’ll just have a party. That’s none of Israel’s business.”
Israel essentially did just that in Gaza, didn’t it? At first, I mean…
February 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
pseudonymous, look, if you want to debate international law we can have a long and interesting debate over how the Israeli occupation of the West Bank arose and whether it’s legal or illegal. In any case I’ll grant that occupation, legal or not, isn’t a good situation and that it certainly isn’t good to perpetuate it indefinitely.
However, this debate isn’t going to contribute anything to the discussion of how we might move things forward at this point. And specifically, it has nothing to do with whether or how Israeli settlements on the West Bank prevent negotiations.
The end point of arguments like yours, to the effect that the occupation is in and of itself illegal, isn’t that the settlements prevent negotiation and so should end, but that Israel needs to withdraw unconditionally. Israel isn’t going to withdraw unconditionally from the West Bank, not least because of the outcome of their unconditional withdrawal from Gaza.
So, barring that, what would you suggest be done?
February 8th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
As if there is not a long history of Israel destroying Palestinian policemen, police stations, police equipment, policemen’s families and then like you know complaining that there are no Palestinian policemen.
And if we once again build an effective Palestinian police force it will again be destroyed by Israel.
You want peace?
The only answer is the South African answer, a single democratic state.
And to soften the blow the US should give Southern California to worldwide Jewry as a new homeland and Jewish State. Who can dispute the goodness of giving away others’ land?
February 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Larry, Larry, Larry.
Territorial sovereignty is obviously the most basic feature of any kind of polity we can reasonably describe as “a state.” I would not consider negotiating with an occupying power that seemed to have no internal political will to ever withdraw from my country. UNLESS I assumed that my cause was lost and i might as well cut my losses short before the settlements expand.
But the Palestinians do not assume this. Because they know, as I do, that Zionism is not long for this world. Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea – from the Jordan River, to Jerusalem, to the Sea.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
larry birnbaum writes:
pseudonymous, look, if you want to debate international law we can have a long and interesting debate over how the Israeli occupation of the West Bank arose and whether it’s legal or illegal.
There is no debate – long, interesting or otherwise – as to the status of the Israeli occpation of the West Bank. Israel is universally recognized as the Occupying Power of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A consequence is that the Israeli civlian settlement is a war crime and the so called settlers are indictable war criminals.
I realise there remain some misguided individuals who persist with the foolish belief that they are defending Israel by continued masturbation regarding the legal status of the Israel Occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They are merely the modern equivalent of the fellow travellers who refused to see the wrong in the works of Stalin and Mao several decades ago.
The great tragedy of Israel is that the West has allowed Israel to subjugate the Palestinian people because of the fantasy of Palestinian irredentism even as ithe West appeases the brutal reality of Israeli irredentism.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Re Larry Birnbaum
Mr. Birnbaum should have realized by now that this blog is infested with Israel-bashing fucktards like Mr. Adrian, Mr. JT, Mr. Farid, etc. These goatfucking shitheads cannot be reasoned with so Mr. Birnbaum is wasting his time trying to be reasonable. Like the Fakestinians, the only language they understand is that which comes out of the barrel of a gun, as the late and unlamented Chairman Mao once said.
Re Adrian
I have a flash for Mr. Adrian. The Zionists who he so fervently despises will be here and in control of the State of Israel long after his dessicated remains lie a moldering in the grave.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“Israel essentially did just that in Gaza, didn’t it? At first, I mean…”
Well it did. Israel left Gaza and defined it as an entity which cannot trade with the outside world. No entity can survive that way, and Israel knows it. But Israel wants Gaza to fail so it can keep up the blockade. Gaza will always be the failed entity that Israel wants it to be. And if Gaza will ever become a stable place despite the blockade, Israel will nuke it. And they don’t even care that the fallout will land on their own citizens. They just want to kill and starve Arabs. That is the secondary goal of Israel’s policy. The real goal is total control of all of Palestine. With the Palestinians removed, of course. That is the stated goal of the next Prime Minister of Israel. It is no joke or fantasy, it is reality. The Palestinians will leave or die. That is their choice. And those of us who fail to participate in this genocide will draw the accusation of anti-Semitism. So I will proudly call myself an anti-Semite. And I’ll still celebrate Passover Seder with my Jewish friends. Most Jews don’t favor the genocide that Israel wants. Maybe we shouldn’t either.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
SLC:
The Fakestinians and the Fakesisrealis will be an intermarried, undifferentiated mass of agnostics eating the same hummus, watching the same horrible reality T.V. shows, and voting in the same state, when you and I are moldering in our graves.
Say goodbye to your beautiful nationality, it is a corpse. Oprah, Burger King and Yoga are the only things that matter now. As God as my witness, there will be a Taco Bell on Masada.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Re Adrian
Unfortunately, it appears that Mr. Adrian has been smoking lefty luckies. Of course, if we believe Mr. fostert, the Government of Israel is planning an Eichmann solution to the Fakestinian problem so, in that case, there won’t be any Fakestinians to be watching bad TV shows and eating hummus.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Adrian, first, a response to your response to SLC: An interesting vision, and it may even be true. In which case I’ll say, like I do to people who want to end Social Security — let your family go first and we’ll see how it works out.
Second, a response to your response to me: in that case, I’m afraid, one big shitstorm war is coming that will make what’s happened in the Middle East so far look benign. So you know, let’s hope not.
To SLC: Cool it. It’s unreasonable to deny peoplehood to the Arabs in Palestine. And unnecessary.
To ndm: pseudonymous wasn’t arguing that the settlements are illegal; he or she was arguing that the occupation is illegal. If you want to start arguing about the legality of settlement, you know, we can do that too. It will be just as fruitful as an argument about the legality of the occupation itself. I mean, the Palestinians can take the position that all the settlements are illegal and therefore they refuse to negotiate any deviation from the 1948 Armistice line… or Jerusalem… or maybe they’d prefer the Partition Plan… or, you know, the whole shebang as Adrian suggests. In that case, negotiations aren’t going to go anywhere, and they’ll remain occupied entirely until and unless they gain the military or political leverage to overcome that state. And in the meantime, more settlements will be built. Does this sound like a good idea to you?
February 8th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
SLC:
No, Israel’s “final solution” fantasy is that the Palestinians can be brutalized to the point where they give up, stop fighting, and are somehow absorbed in Jordan and Egypt or simply accept life as a subject people. Good luck with that!
I tell you, they will be eating the same shawarma and rooting for the same (lousy) soccer team!
The problem of Zionism was the problem of Moshe Dayan: no depth perception.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
“if we believe Mr. fostert,”
Look, I’m just saying what will happen. I make no judgments. And what I’m saying is what you want to happen. The destruction of Palestine has been a long process. England, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire made damn sure that Palestine would never exist as a country. Now Israel is exerting it’s own muscle in the game. They will destroy Palestine. That is their stated goal. That is what the leaders in the current election are explicitly stating. And with our help, they will succeed.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Larry,
but settlement expansion is the existential threat to the Palestinians. For the first x decades of Israel’s modern existence, the Palestinians held out a hope for the undoing or the failure of the Jewish state. Clearly didn’t happen.
But now we have a different dynamic. A much better analogy than patent claims might be that the settlements are a spreading cancer and Israel is willing to negotiate perhaps allowing surgery, but not necessarily before the death of the patient.
How do the spread of settlements really affect a peace? Seriously?
February 8th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Larry,
My problem is that I am both trolling and trying to make points that I actually believe in.
Your problem is that you mix in your serious points with wishful thinking and hasbara.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Shorter larry birnbaum.
What’s worked so far has worked so well we should keep on doing it.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I would say this, Mr SLC, Mr Hack has not yet cut off your ears and shoved them down your throat. I can only wonder how long I can say that. I’m as crazy as a shithouse rat, but I’ve never done time in Leavenworth. He has. Your ears might not last too long in this world.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
SLC,
The important thing is that Israel remain a constitutively Jewish state. It can’t do that if it includes Gaza and the West Bank. There are five million Arabs in those territories who would constitute a fifth column that would bring down the Jewish state. If you want Israel to remain a Jewish State, then the only solution is for them to withdraw from the territories, force the settlers to leave, let Gaza and the West Bank go their own way, and retrench themselves within smaller and more secure borders.
If, on the other hand, you want the hipster dystopia of a cosmopolitan multi-cultural state where Jews and Arabs ‘can all just get along’, then by all means try to hang on to demographically indefensible borders.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hector hits the nail on the head. While I personally do not give a fuck whether Israel retains a Jewish majority, if that were my goal, I would do my best to promote a two state solution that the Palestinians would consider a dignified and just settlement.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
“Hector hits the nail on the head.”
Umm, yeah that’s the solution if you believe in fairy tales. Israel will never withdrawal from it’s territories. They are a quasi-Democracy where only Jews get to vote. Those Jews won’t vote for withdrawal. Palestine is done. Stick a fork in it, and call them Jordanians.
As an aside, I’m a little surprised Hector would even show his face. If I were a Catholic I would hide in shame. The Pope’s endorsement of Nazi philosophy is so shameful that I would never go into public without renouncing my Catholic religion first. Hector’s got guts, I’ll give him that. So Hector, do you believe the Holocaust didn’t happen? That’s your leader’s belief. Is it yours?
February 8th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
FosterT,
Don’t be dumb. I’m not a Catholic (although I do often attend Catholic services), I’m a high-church Anglican. As for Benedict XVI, I disagree with many of his positions, but he’s unquestionably a good man and a true servant of the faith. I don’t respect your opinion enough to engage you on your point about Nazi philosophy though….believe whatever you choose.
It’s irrelevant if the Palestinians can vote or not- if they become numerous enough, they can assault the Jewish state through insurgency and urban guerrilla warfare. I really don’t think the Israelis want to enter that kind of fight, whether or not they would win.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
ndm, have things worked so well? Not really. But on the other hand, they’ve worked a hell of a lot better than they might have — or than Israel’s enemies hoped. The Arabs have (mostly, or at least in English) stopped saying they want to push the Jews into the sea. That took 50 or 60 years. Two generations. Maybe there’ll be peace after three.
bullsmith, I appreciate an earnest question. Settlements may pose a creaping existential threat to a Palestinian state, as you say. They certainly will tend to lead to a progressively less desirable for the Palestinians. It would probably be in the best interests of the Palestinians to form a unity government encompassing both Fatah and Hamas and commence serious negotiations as quickly as possible. But this is up to them, isn’t it?
Hector, what you say makes sense. I believe Ariel Sharon himself couldn’t have said it better. (Just kidding… for Adrian’s sake… although this was in fact Sharon’s position towards the end of his career…).
February 8th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
“I’m a high-church Anglican.”
I stand corrected. Not that the Anglicans are any better. Their North American genocide isn’t exactly a high point. Maybe to you, but not to me.
“but he’s unquestionably a good man and a true servant of the faith”
Umm, the guy was a Hitler Youth. He didn’t have to be that, he chose to be that. I’ll agree that he’s a true servant to the faith, but this is a faith that invented most of our modern torture practices. This is a faith that endorsed the Spanish Inquisition, and the Portuguese Inquisition too. And they sent people on murderous Crusades. He truly is a man of a faith that has historically been pure evil. If he’s not doing the Devil’s work, nobody is. I obviously don’t believe in the Devil or even the concept of good and evil, but you do. Why would you be the Devil’s Advocate? And not just in legal terms, you actually like this man. Explain to me why you would defend evil people o non-legal grounds.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
“It’s irrelevant if the Palestinians can vote or not- if they become numerous enough, they can assault the Jewish state through insurgency and urban guerrilla warfare.”
So your belief is that Palestinians must be denied the right to vote because you don’t like what their votes will be. You solidify my belief that you contain everything that is bad in India and everything that is bad in America. You might as well absorb what’s bad in Russia too. That will make you the purely evil person you want to become.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
“I don’t respect your opinion enough to engage you on your point about Nazi philosophy though….believe whatever you choose. ”
I will believe what I chose. You are a Nazi. You support Israel only so it can be destroyed in the process described in the Book of Revelation. Feel free to not engage me in this discussion, I’ll take that as your acceptance of my descriptions.
As for your lack of respect for my opinion, trust me, the feeling is mutual. You can’t get your head out of Christian doctrine. And that doctrine is the most insane of any religious doctrines in the world. I’ve read them all, so I have some insight into this. You should give some other religions a try, maybe you’d learn something. But you won’t do that. To you, the thought that someone might accept something else would rock your brain so hard, you’d wish you just died. But try it for your sake. Don’t do it for me.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
jleddel, one of the regular commenters on TPMCafe, visited Israel recently to make Aliyah. He was somewhat surprised at the response when he landed in Israel:
He ends his post with:
February 8th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
The Palestinians, like their Zionist adversaries, are drunk with the wine of romantic nationalism, and so they also see the conflict in epic, mytho-historical terms.
And that is why they will win, because they quite correctly believe that Israel, as it is presently constitutionally defined, will not last forever. And so they do not settle for crumbs now when they can have the whole loaf in the future, by which I mean one Palestinian Republic for all its people.
Israel’s army chief, understanding this dynamic, knows exactly what must be done: “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” Indeed, if the Palestinians saw themselves as history’s losers, they would take what little they have now.
The metaphor of mediation comes to mind. The Israeli’s bluff, telling the Palestinians to settle less or lose big-time. The Palestinians say: your defense is crumbling before your eyes, see you in court, assholes.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
ndm, those are the most moving words I’ve ever read. I want Israel to survive. I just want them to do it in a way that allows Palestine to survive as well. Sadly, I don’t think that’s possible. My tears for the Israelis come as frequently as my tears for the Palestinians. I wish the best for both peoples, but I know that one people must be exterminated. I have no opinion about which people that should be, but I do know which one it will be. Sorry Palestinians, you need to find another place to live. The Israelis won’t ever accept you. And they will always win. This is the toughest thing for any culture to accept: pure defeat. The Palestinians will have to accept that. They will never have a country because our country can never accept it. They will always be stateless people, and we’ll always treat them like crap. They will learn to exist like Gypsies. And when they get sent to the gas chambers, they will be ignored, just like the Gypsies. Sorry about that. I can say that I care for you, but that doesn’t mean crap, does it?
February 9th, 2009 at 12:31 am
The Israelis will not always win. All it takes is for Hamas to figure that out. The problem is that Hamas doesn’t seem to be able to figure that out.
There are ways to take Israel down. And the Arab world needs to start using them.
As for Matt, he still can’t understand that it doesn’t matter what Obama does, if the Zionist freaks running Israel aren’t sidelined, nothing is going to change on the diplomacy front.
The Israelis have been screwing the negotiations since day one, but basically they have no interest in negotiations. And the reason is the one Fostert cites – they think they don’t have to because they have the military.
And what Hamas and the Arab world needs to show Israel is that regardless of Israel’s military might, terrorism and 4th Gen War can blunt that to the degree that Israel will be begging to negotiate.
Kill off enough of the scum running Israel and things will change.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:33 am
The other options, of course, which Obama doesn’t have the balls to do, is to simply haul Israel up before the UN, demand the total unilateral disarmament of its nuclear arsenal under pain of worldwide economic boycott and blockade if it doesn’t comply, then require the UN to reconsider its 1947 partition of Palestine, declare the Israeli state to be illegal as a result, appoint a commission of Israelis, Palestinians and outsiders to create a Constitution for a new Palestinian state with equal rights for Jews and Palestinians, and the impose that state on the entire territory.
Never happen, because the US President doesn’t have the balls.
It is, however, the only international solution that has a snowball’s chance in hell of working.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:09 am
“The Israelis will not always win. All it takes is for Hamas to figure that out.”
Umm, no. The Israelis have enough nuclear weapons to change our climate for a few generations. Two hundred warheads may not seem so threatening in the abstract, but it’s enough to destroy the world’s ecosystem if deployed properly. Who wants to fuck with that? Unfortunately, Israel is no paper tiger, they are for real. And they pose a threat that is big enough to encompass the entire world. This is no joke. They are for real. And they really can hold us hostage, and they already do. The real question here is how do we disarm Israel? How many countries that can destroy the world do we want? And should Israel be one of them? If they weren’t the most violent country in the world, I might be willing to let them have their nuclear weapons. But they are the most violent country in the world. So I’m not very comfortable letting them have a nuclear arsenal. They need to at least prove that they won’t kill their own people. They have not met that standard yet. So I don’t trust them.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:49 am
No, they don’t, Fostert. They have a few city busters most likely, the rest are smaller, lower yield weapons by most accounts. I don’t think they have any fusion devices at all, but I could be wrong.
Not to mention that Israel is UNABLE to deploy their weapons properly enough to destroy any significant area outside of the Middle East. Even if the US allowed them to, which it wouldn’t.
In any event, they don’t have nearly enough nukes to change the climate – it’s not certain even the US has that many (”nuclear winter” is discredited bullshit), and if they fired one without (allegedly) sufficient reason, they would cease to exist as the US – OR Russia OR China – took them out one way or the other.
And even if that did not happen, the resulting international boycott and blockade would terminate the country’s economy within six months and collapse the society.
Israel really is a TINY country. Iran, for instance, is much better positioned to withstand US sanctions, as it has for thirty years and continues to evade even many of the more recent, more severe economic and financial trade sanctions imposed by the US unilaterally.
More importantly, there is no such thing as “military security”. Dick Marcinko proved that in the US with his Red Cell SEAL Team. Israel is no exception. Most of their nukes could be located and taken out by several well-trained teams of specialists, let alone US targeting systems.
So could most of Israel’s leaders.
Meanwhile, Hamas and/or Hizballah could bring down the Israeli government and paralyze the country with correct terrorism and 4th Gen war methods. Which is what they should be doing instead of stupid shit like suicide bombers blowing up restaurants and buses and random rocket launches which are nothing more than “propaganda by the deed”.
Israel does not “hold the US hostage”. What they DO is bribe US politicians to let them do what they want and in addition they support US policy in the region, which as everyone knows – especially bin Laden – is heavily weighted toward the oil monarchies and secular dictatorships. They also provide a good deal of US intelligence in the region – edited to their benefit, of course, like the self-serving “warning” about 9/11, but still valuable to US intelligence.
Don’t get me wrong – Israel has a fairly competent military and a very competent intelligence operation. But they aren’t invulnerable. Quite a few analysts have made that point in the last two years since the Lebanon fiasco, and now this mess in Gaza which did NOT achieve ANY of their (alleged) objectives (except possibly the one of fending off the Likud right – and even that one seems iffy.)
If the Arab world, or any of the major players there, really wanted to take down Israel, it could be done. The problem is that the major players just aren’t smart enough, or don’t want to take the risk of it being tracked back to them – in which case the Israeli nuclear arsenal, if it still existed, might be a problem.
Basically, it’s lack of imagination and will.
Intimidation, if you will.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Re fostert
I don’t lose so much as a microsecond of sleep over Mr. Hacks’ threats. The fact is that Mr. Hack is a yellowbelly who advocates the assassination of police officers but chickened out when he had the opportunity as they were about to arrest him as he attempted to board a bus to escape from his last bank robbing escapade. Mr. Hack is a big man when waving his gun over a group of unarmed bank tellers but is a midget when facing armed police officers.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Apropos of this very interesting discussion, things may be about to get more serious.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801708.html
February 9th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Notice how SLC’s link proves that the Palestinians don’t have a peace partner. (Of course, SLC is too stupid to notice.)
Now for some CLassic SLC:
“Mr. Birnbaum should have realized by now that this blog is infested with Israel-bashing fucktards like Mr. Adrian, Mr. JT, Mr. Farid, etc. These goatfucking shitheads cannot be reasoned with so Mr. Birnbaum is wasting his time trying to be reasonable. Like the Fakestinians, the only language they understand is that which comes out of the barrel of a gun, as the late and unlamented Chairman Mao once said.”
When SLC uses the word “reasonable,” he being intentionally ironic, no? And what’s why this fascination with goats? Somebody had some guilty thoughts during Hebrew School.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Gotta wonder about his obsession with me, too, since I don’t look like a goat (or even eat like one).
SLC is just pissed that I wasn’t stupid enough to commit “suicide by cop” when put in an untenable tactical situation. It’s just too bad that I didn’t have a derringer in a concealed location when I was being transported by two SFPD cops in their car – since they never found the handcuff key I had in my money belt.
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April 16th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Good Day. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
I am from Hungary and , too, and now am writing in English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “Time looking for those precious travel websites that offer cheap airline tickets.”
With respect
, Alban.