Israeli Peace Camp Heartened By Obama’s Approach, Some NY Democrats Pushing Back
My man AD sent me these two links from Haaretz showing Israel’s once-demoralized peace camp is taking heart from the Obama administration’s recent hard line on the settlement issue. Meanwhile, back at home Israel hawks are working to undermine Obama’s effort to simply enforce what’s long been actual American policy. Leading the way are opportunistic Republicans, and some Democratic members of congress from New York:
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said focusing on settlement activity “detracts” from top U.S. goals in the region. However, he added: “I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow, get married, or forces them to throw away their grandparents. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane.”
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that “we have to be careful not to cross the line where it sounds like we are exerting overwhelming pressure . . . on our rather isolated ally.”
Weiner here is capturing the cognitive dissonance that afflicts a lot of the conventional discourse on this subject. He doesn’t want to say that he supports continued Israeli land grabs or that he stands with the settlers. But heaven forbid anyone actually criticize Israel or exert meaningful pressure on the largest recipient of American foreign aid! Ackerman, meanwhile, is more straightforward. To him, halting settlement expansion means telling people not to have children. And telling people not to have children is unjust. But of course as Ackerman well knows, people are never going to stop having children. Which means that, by Ackerman’s logic, the settlements can never stop expanding. But everyone knows that for peace to be achieved, many settlements would have to be removed. Ackerman’s position is just the position that peace is impossible, and that Israel must fight forever to squeeze the Palestinians out of the West Bank, while the Palestinians must fight forever for the destruction of Israel.
This is a bleak vision, and I think it would be nice if the people who hold to it would come out and say so rather than pretending they’re interested in peace.
49 Responses to “Israeli Peace Camp Heartened By Obama’s Approach, Some NY Democrats Pushing Back”
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June 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I dream of the day when US debate over Israeli policies is as free and open as it is in Israel, itself.
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman: “Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane.”
What a crock of shit. Did Obama really say that?
June 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Someone should ask Ackerman, if Israel’s policy of denying building permits to palestinian families in East Jerusalem signifies a desire for them to stop having children.
Weiner should be told that if this was a purely domestic concern for Israel then the palestinians would have to be considered citizens. As they are not considered citizens, it is hard to see how you qualify this as a domestic issue.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
This is a bleak vision, and I think it would be nice if the people who hold to it would come out and say so rather than pretending they’re interested in peace.
Both Weiner and Ackerman are obviously doing AIPAC’s bidding. I bet their tune would change is AIPAC is made radioactive(meaning they are marginalized).
June 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Good thing no one’s proposing that.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Israelis themselves do not seem entirely supportive of the “natural growth” justifications of a settlement program, either, and the cited Ha’aretz writer sees no likelihood of Netanyahu’s gambit on this matter to fly, no matter the crazed protests of the lunatic settler fundamentalists protesting with signs of Obama in a keffiyeh, etc.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Strained interpretation, Ygleaisias, of the remark. A more honest exploration of any remark of any Ackerman is a requisite
June 4th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The old “everyone knows,” combined with the passive voice. In active voice, the sentence translates to “everyone knows that Palestinians will continue committing terrorism until Israel shuts down the settlements.” Even in this formulation, the word “until” is ambiguous, leaving it unclear whether Palestinians will cease committing terrorism if Israel does shut down the settlements.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
To be fair to Ackerman and Weiner, they may just be thinking about their own potential retirement homes in New Jersey-on-the-Levant.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Is living 5-10 miles away the same as throwing away your grandparents? Because that’s all that’s being asked of most settlers, for them to move about 10 miles to the west.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Portland, Oregon real estate value went up when development was restricted beyond a certain radius. Maybe Obama is trying to drive up real estate values in Israel.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“everyone knows that Palestinians will continue committing terrorism until Israel shuts down the settlements” is different from “everybody knows that as long as Israel doesn’t shut down the settlements, the terrorism will continue.” Shutting down the settlements is necessary, but not sufficient, which is why there was a roadmap of interlocking moves for both parties to follow, and the agreed roadmap is pretty clear that settlements are not to expand, regardless of wether terrorism is presently occurring… The presence of terrorism simply prevents phase 2 implementation…
Acerman’s line is just a riff on Ariel Sharon to Colin Powell: “What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?”
June 4th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
“the word “until” is ambiguous, leaving it unclear whether Palestinians will cease committing terrorism if Israel does shut down the settlements.”
What a crock of bullshit. Stop arguing that Israel’s still in the midst of an intifada. There has been almost no terrorism to speak of for year, so this argument is a transparent canard to allow Israel to continue settlement development unabated.
And, before you bring up sporadic acts of violence committed by Palestinians, I would just point out that no country can ever be free from politically-motivated violence, as the recent murders in Kansas and Arkansas attest.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Israelis themselves do not seem entirely supportive of the “natural growth” justifications of a settlement program, either
Not least because of the social divisions between the Haredim (lots of kids, lots of welfare payments, dodge the IDF), the Russians (fewer kids, pork sausages and Arab-hating) and secular non-Russian Israelis (fewer kids, end up in the IDF).
A more honest exploration of any remark of any Ackerman is a requisite
hummbumm provided it. The argument for natural growth is predicated upon the state of occupation. House feeling full? Well, the grown-up kids can move to Tel Aviv. It’s not far.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Should be “years.”
June 4th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I wouldn’t expect “liebensraum” to be a popular mode of political argument.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
” A more honest exploration of any remark of any Ackerman is a requisite”
Is there some nuanced reading of “Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane” that we should be aware of?
June 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Which one of the NY hardcore Likudniks is it who is dating Hillary Clinton’s gorgeous aide Huma Abedin? You’d think they could take out all their hate on Muslims through “hatefuck”ing that exquisite specimen of Middle Eastern beauty. (yeah I know she’s technically South Asian, but she could easily pass for Persian or Arab).
June 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
The solution is obvious. Build the new settlements in New York. New York probably has as many Jews as Israel anyway. So let’s just displace people in New York to make room for these people. Who could possibly complain, after all, nobody really minds losing their home so that someone else can live there, do they?
June 4th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Israel’s once-demoralized peace camp is taking heart from…
What the hell is this “Israel’s peace camp”? A handful of Jewish anti-Zionist journalists and activists? Sure, of course, Israel’s=Jewish, doesn’t it.
Yeah, it sure does make a huge difference whether all 7 or 8 of them are taking heart or demoralized…
June 4th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
It is indeed odd, as Ackerman’s actually ruffled feathers for speaking out against the settlements in February.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/12/1002975/ackerman-slams-settlements-israeli-attitudes
That said, “natural growth” only account for a portion of the growth of settlements, and freezing natural growth was part of the Road Map.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
13 -pseudo in nc – How Yglesias can take Ackerman’s remark and take it mean that Ackerman thinks that peace is impossible is pulling it like play-dough.
Clearly, Yglesias has never gone to any school where they offer courses in philosophy or even basic logic.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
A commenter “almost no terrorism to speak of,” so it turns out that peace is already achieved, meaning that there are no barriers to peace (depending on what “almost” and “to speak of” mean.)
June 4th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
hummbumm–
Actually that’s pretty much exactly what it signifies. The Israeli government has fretted for as long as they’ve been around about the number of Arab babies vs. Jewish babies being born, both within Israel and in the territories. They would LOVE it if Arab birthrates dropped precipitously, preferably to zero. Arabs in isolated towns in Israel comment on how health care might be totally substandard compared to Jewish towns, but you can always find a family planning clinic.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
If Bibi had any balls, which he does not, he would respond to President Osamas’ demand by immediately starting new settlements on the West Bank. That’s why somebody like Uzi Landau is needed in the prime ministers chair; Dr. Uzi would have no hesitation in doing so.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
As an antidote to the Arab lovers who write for the newspaper, Haaretz, heres’ a link to a real Israeli newspaper article.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244034988150&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A juicy sample from the article:
Over the coming days, activists plan to hang posters throughout the country of Obama wearing a keffiyeh, flanked by the words, “Anti-Semite,” and “Jew-hater,” written in red in both English and Hebrew. Another poster published by the campaign shows Obama shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a background of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Links to a couple of posters by the protesters.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urlimage&blobheader=image%2Fjpeg&blobheadername1=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=max-age%3D420&blobkey=id&blobtable=JPImage&blobwhere=1244035000467&cachecontrol=5%3A0%3A0+*%2F*%2F*&ssbinary=true
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1194419829128&pagename=JPost%2FPage%2FVideoPlayer&videoId=1244034988097
June 4th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Time for the US military to enter Palestine and root out the violent religious extremists who threaten the State of Israel since Israel does not appear willing or able to do this on their own. The day is coming.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
SLC -
You are degenerate piece of subhuman filth.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
27-Nope. The US has done enough for the Israelis. They’ll have to uproot their extremists themselves, as will the Palestinians.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I forgot to add:
Dead Israelis today, dead Israelis tomorrow, not single Israeli left alive on the furthest horizon.
Hama rules will be the death of you all.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Re Eric H
Can’t Mr. Eric come up with some of his own insults?
June 4th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If Bibi had any balls, which he does not, he would respond to President Osamas’ demand by immediately starting new settlements on the West Bank. That’s why somebody like Uzi Landau is needed in the prime ministers chair; Dr. Uzi would have no hesitation in doing so.
Well I think Lebanon took balls and Gaza took balls but those military ventures didn’t do any good. New settlements haven’t been doing any good and won’t do any good.
I’m afraid the Israelis’ balls are too big and they will bomb Iran which will be a disaster for all of the Middle East.
The US should give Israel a _written_ security guarrantee if they stop settlements.
You’d think the Israelis would be smarter than to accept a verbal agreement with the Bush administration. Come on! That doesn’t make any sense.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Time for the US military to enter Palestine and root out the violent religious extremists who threaten the State of Israel since Israel does not appear willing or able to do this on their own.
Israel should take of the “settlers” on its own.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Re Poptarts
The problem with both the Lebanon and Gaza actions was the timorousness of the Israeli approach. The IDF and the incompetent politicians in charge spent far too much energy worrying about collateral damage. They have to learn to take a page from the Hafaz Assad playbook. Half hearted measures don’t work. Hama Rules work.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow…. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane.”
Why don’t the Israeli’s just call the damn thing Generalplan Ost, and stop pretending otherwise.
Lebensraum — good for the Aryan, and good for the Jew!
June 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@34 “The IDF and the incompetent politicians in charge spent far too much energy worrying about collateral damage. They have to learn to take a page from the Hafaz Assad playbook. Half hearted measures don’t work. Hama Rules work.”
Some guy called Barack Obama earlier said today
“But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.”
I guess SLC reckons these sentiments are for fools.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Re Maynard Handley
On the contrary, I think they are fine sentiments. Unfortunately, they don’t work in the Middle East where the law of the jungle prevails.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Maynard Handley,
Precisely. Real political struggles are not won by holding hands and singing Kum-Ba-Ya. They call for tough men, hard men, not hipster p*ssies who dicker about ‘civil society’ and ‘liberal democracy’ like a couple of English governesses at a tea party. The Middle East needs to be ruled with an iron hand.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
So, SLC and Hector, your contempt for the Palestinians is based on the fact that they are not ruthless ENOUGH? If they attempted to show the Israelis who is really king of the jungle, by nuking Tel Aviv, or by poisoning the water supply, or, heck, simply by blowing up 500 school kids, you would applaud this effort as worthy of tough hard men, rulers with iron hands?
I guess, Hector, that sermon on the mount, turn the other cheek crap in the New Testament wasn’t actually meant to be applied to the Middle East? Where was Jesus born again?
June 4th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Hector,
C’mon buddy, stop mangling the word “hipster“.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Maynard Handley,
DOn’t be absurd. Jesus also said, “To him who conquers, and keeps my works until the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and shatter them as shards from a potter’s wheel, even as I have received from my Father.” Our Lord was not a hippie pacifist.
What is needed is toughness and hardness in the name of righteousness, not in the name of evil. And I do not support the Israelis any more than I support the Palestinians. I support the truth.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
THIS HAS BEEN MISREPORTED by politico, etc, so much that Ackerman issued a statement because of how his words had been twisted to mean the opposite.
http://peacenowconversation.org/?p=195
======================================
ACKERMAN URGES FREEZE ON SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION, NOT GROWING FAMILIES
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, issued the following statement today on the subject of U.S.-Israel discussions on the subject of Israeli settlement activity:
“The most important thing to remember with all the talk right now about settlements is the strategic threat from Iran. It is the overarching threat to the region and to the interests of the United States. The most worrisome settlement is not in the West Bank and it’s not even Israeli: it’s the Iranian settlement in Gaza.
To bring together the kind of unified international pressure that stands a chance of pushing Iran to back down from its nuclear ambitions and its subversive activity, the United States needs to demonstrate it is capable of resolving conflict and providing regional security. And for the states in the Middle East, that means normalizing relations with Israel and the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It means statehood for the Palestinians and it means, at long last, real peace and real security for Israel.
The priority has to be on stopping Iran. And all terrorism. Whatever detracts from that goal has to be subordinated.
The growth of Israeli settlements, unfortunately, detracts from the goal. Palestinian violence destroys the goal. Stopping settlement construction won’t turn off a single Iranian centrifuge, it’s true. But it will demonstrate that the United States is driving the political agenda in the region and is serious about peace. That fact will help shore up the moderate Arab states-some of whom are weak, some of whom have been wavering-reinforce American leadership with our allies in Europe, and give hope to both Israelis and Palestinians that peace, not merely a peace process is in the offing.
I do not believe in, and I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow, get married, or forces them to throw away their grandparents. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane. Real life is messy and the exigencies of any vibrant population need to be acknowledged and accommodated.
The real question is expanding, construction and building. I think it’s fair to say that the big blocks of settlements will probably wind up in Israel. But this question, like the other questions related to a final peace agreement, has to be resolved in negotiations between the parties. A freeze on settlement construction-not family life-will set the stage for those negotiations to begin in earnest.
============================================
June 4th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Re Maynard Handley
Mr. Handley, you can bet that if Hamas had the ability, they would do just as you suggest. Unlike the Israelis who are more or less civilized, the Hamas terrorists are nothing but savages. Or as former Secretary of State George Shultz once said, they’re not even people.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
re MR SLC
MR SLC wishes he could be in Hamas.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Ackerman, the United States Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia appears to have a huge conflict of interest.
Why is a US representative who should be dealing with the interests of the United States on foreign policy, especially in the Middle East also be the President and member of organizations whose raison d’être is to advocate for the interests of Israel?
President of International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP)
http://www.icjp.net/who.htm
Noting members of his steering committee also include Knesset members that we can only assume are advocating policy exclusively for Israel’s interests?
June 4th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Ackerman is also a member of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish advocacy group
http://www.nndb.com/org/511/000042385/
B’nai B’rith’s Press Release on Obama’s speech
http://www.bnaibrith.org/latest_news/ObamaEgypt.cfm
Note B’nai B’rith is not happy about Obama neglecting to mention the supposed threat of Iran — seemingly to echo Ackerman’s statement.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Bibi’s ‘natural growth’ argument is bogus and Ackerman should know that.
“House Hunting in the West Bank
– Our Jerusalem correspondent finds that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument for allowing continued construction in settlements contains layers of deception. [by Gershom Gorenberg]
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=house_hunting_in_the_west_bank
h/t: Laura Rozen @ warandpiece
June 4th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
One can’t bargain with ideologues. One can only reduce the numbers that support them. To further that goal, it should be obvious that settlement expansion has to be stopped.
The only hope for Palestinians is to have their own state. What kind of message does it send to those who may be open to peaceful coexistence to have someone else continuing to build and populate territory that may be a part of that state? Is that any way to build trust to those who may be amenable to some kind of deal? Is it any wonder why so many Palestinians won’t trust the Israeli government when it has said in the past that it supports a two state solution but won’t stop settlement expansion? No wonder it’s so easy for Palestinians to dismiss Israeli claims as just talk when the actions seem to contradict what they were saying.
It is senseless to continue to expand settlements as some kind of bargaining chit. It only increases support for radical elements. Israel faces a choice: continue present policies and admit that it’s a part of a policy to further the present stalemate, or stop settlement activity as an attempt to build trust and erode support for those who think peace is impossible and violence is therefore justified.
I don’t see any other serious solutions. I’m glad Obama has the courage to say so.
June 5th, 2009 at 4:49 am
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2649
The General Assembly … affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal.