One reason to root for John Kerry to get the position of Secretary of State is that it looks increasingly likely that such an appointment would result in Russ Feingold getting the chair of Foreign Relations. Sen. Feingold is only the fourth-most senior member of the committee. But the chair is being vacated by Joe Biden, Chris Dodd sounds inclined to keep his chair on the Banking Committee, and Kerry is third in line.
I can definitely see things unfolding this way, and it would lead to an interesting atmosphere for the issue of Israel/Palestine relations. Consider the following:
With Sen. Feingold as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Rep. Brad Sherman as chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, there would be two Jewish-Americans in charge of influencing U.S. policy and State Department policy. Vice-President Biden is a very strong supporter of Israel, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is an even stronger ally of Israel. But, before advocates for Palestine despair, consider the very real possibility that it is precisely this kind of team that would have the special credibility to force a two-state solution without worrying about massive domestic backlash. Just like Nixon’s hard-core anti-communist reputation gave him room to normalize relations with China, a foreign policy team with flawless pro-Israel credentials might be just what the doctor ordered for revitalizing the peace process in the Middle East.
Everything will depend on the leadership decisions of Barack Obama, and it’s hard to know right now how is inclined to act. In any case, if John Kerry at State means that Feingold gets to chair Foreign Relations, I am happy to support Kerry for State.
What ever happened to Wesley Clark? He’s never mentioned, and would probably be a fantastic SOS. I can’t imagine Obama wasting his talent.
I’ve never understood the fascination with Clark. I think he’d be most useful in an advisory role, like on the Council of Foreign Relations, or the Intelligence boards.
Kerry wants it, was a strong supporter of Obama, and frankly, I think he screams diplomat.
I can’t think of a more boring guy to attend boring conferences. I would prefer an anti-war SoS, but don’t really object. In the election’s aftermath, I realize we made history and elected a Democrat, but not a Liberal Democrat. It’s still better than some scrofulous neocon nut.
Hope here is that the foreign policy advisers who happen to be Jewish, and those that are not would continue the Bush too late to matter peace initiative on Israel-Palestine peace.
The problem is that the will is just not there within Israel. It seems as if the liberal Israelis have left for a better life in other countries, like the USA. Olmert could talk the reality, but no one within Israel is listening. Hence, the inability of Livni to bring together a coalition that would support a Palestinian state with all its requirements, especially conformance with international law.
Think Obama could do better? Israel does what it likes pretending to listen to America, then sending another 10,000 settlers into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. What’s left? Not much that could constitute a viable Palestinian state. Everyone aware of the situation never listens to Israeli politicians; it watch what it does, and what it is doing to closing down the two state solution. Fifty percent of the Palestinian territories are now controlled by Israel, and no one is going to take that away from them. It is God’s will.
Everyone aware of the situation never listens to Israeli politicians; it watch what it does, and what it is doing to closing down the two state solution. Fifty percent of the Palestinian territories are now controlled by Israel, and no one is going to take that away from them. It is God’s will.
wouldn’t count on that.
Those territories will be returned…and the wall taken down. In a changing world, Israel will be openly called a pariah. Israel will be shamed. The Palestinian time has come. The moment is now…because America must turn its back on torture and that includes funding Israeli torture of Palestinians.
Know Hope. Obama is very secure in his skin. When he chairs a meeting, no matter the titles in attendance, he is in charge. He listens and then decides. Obama brings a unique perspective to the office.
Well, at least we can hope that there is hope.
Rahm Immanuel is the son of a terrorist (Irgun) and has been a strong cheerleader for all of Israel’s crimes.
As for Olmert, talk is cheap. What actions has he taken that reflect his apparently new-found awareness of reality? Oh, yeah, that’s right. He sang a couple of choruses of Amazing Grace, and continued with business as usual.
As for Livni, last I heard she was one of the biggest supporters of the colonization/strangulation movement. Has something changed?
you’re spelling his name wrong.
Do you dispute the facts I have enumerated, or their significance?
Sorry for the misspelling. I should have taken the time to confirm it before posting.
I don’t know his father’s biography. I understand his father immigrated to America from Israel. I suppose Rahm was influenced by his father but I wouldn’t tar the son with the sins of the father (if they even exist).
Emanuel, like almost every Jewish member of Congress, supported the AUMF-Iraq. He worked against candidates that opposed the war. He was supportive of the Lebanon invasion. He has been horrible on immigration. I have a lot of problems with Rahm.
However, I know who the president is and it isn’t Rahm. And, it’s quite possible that Rahm could be an important player in getting a solution, as counterintuitive as it might seem.
The Statement of our President-elect
Ambinder has it Nov 2008 03:46 pm
I do not tar the son with the father’s sins unless he shows that he is inclined in a similar direction.
The President-elect is a man who, the moment he had the nomination assured, made a frantic mad dash to grovel in front of AIPAC, making them such outlandish promises that he actually had to retract some of them later.
The President-elect is a man who has promised his undying devotion to Israel.
The President-elect is a man who, when he visited Israel as part of his his much-ballyhooed world tour, devoted virtually the entire time to the Israelis, giving the Palestinians a paltry and cursory 45 minutes.
The President-elect is a man who in one declaration has repeated emphatically three times, each with increasing intensity, that he will do “whatever is necessary” – got that? – “WHATEVER is necessary” – did you HEAR me? – “WHATEVER IS NECESSARY” to eliminate the threat to Israel from Iran. Aside from the frightening implications, in that statement, he apparently does not know, or prefers not to mention the reality that there IS no threat to Israel or anyone else from Iran, has NEVER been a threat to Israel or anyone else from Iran, and virtually certainly never WILL be a threat to Israel or anyone else from Iran for the simple reason that Iran has nothing to gain from attacking Iran or anyone else. Apparently he does not know, or prefers not to mention the fact that Iran has not attacked another country in 250-300 years, has shown no inclination to do so in the next 250-300 years. He also seems either to have drunk the kool aid regarding Ahmadinajad, or finds it advantageous to pretend he has. He is either unaware or prefers to pretend to be unaware of the fact that Ahmadinajad not only has never threatened to attack Israel, let alone wipe it off the map, he has no more power to attack another country than does the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
The President-elect is a man who has gathered around himself a group of foreign-policy advisors with an extremely poor, and in some cases blood-stained track record on matters concerning Palestine in particular, and the Arab and Muslim worlds in general.
And yes, it is at best counter-intuitive to expect Rahm Emanuel to be part of a solution.
Iran has never posed any threat to Israel? Yeah, I suppose that’s true if you don’t consider the lives of Israel citizens to be part of Israel’s security. Without question Iran has been the most aggressive state government in funding and training and giving moral support to Palestinian and anti-Israeli resistance. They get credit for that, unlike the do-nothing Saudi family. But to say they have taken Israeli lives is ridiculous.
No, they are not about to drop an atom bomb on Tel Aviv. But you act as if Iran never touched a hair on Israel’s head. I’d be more impressed if you justified Iran’s actions than in your argument that there is no conflict between the two nations.
Please do not put words into my mouth. When did I ever say there was no conflict between Iran and Israel?
Resistance against the occupation is an absolute right – a duty, in fact – of Palestinians. The only way to make it illegitimate is to end the occupation. How interesting, too, that the more brutal and violent Israelis make the occupation, and the more aggressively they steal Palestinian land, and the more tightly they squeeze the Palestinians in their effort to drive them out of their land (see Israeli Jeff Halper), the less the Palestinians are seen as having a right to resist, and the more passively they are expected to accept their fate.
Resistance against Israeli aggression is the absolute right, and duty, of those who are subjected to that aggression. And that, of course, brings up the almost entirely unreported reality of Israel’s multiple highly provocative daily violations of Lebanese territory on land and in the air, not to mention its frequent, unprovoked violent attacks on Lebanon. The only way to make resistance illegitimate is to give them nothing to resist.
As for terrorism – that is, actual terrorism, meaning attacks which target civilians (including acts of collective punishment and intentional destruction of homes and civil infrastructure, which do indeed qualify as terrorism), I do not condone it at all from anyone. At the same time it is necessary to point out the unquestionable fact that terrorism committed against Israelis is dwarfed in both quantity and magnitude by the multiple acts of terrorism committed every day by the State of Israel and by the colonists in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Aside from the attacks that target civilian persons, including an appalling number against children, I would point out that Israel has repeatedly and systematically destroyed the civil infrastructure in the Palestinian territories, and then, in a Kafkaesque manner, taken the Palestinians to task for not be able to adequately manage their own civil affairs. I would also point out that in the bizzarro world of western thinking any act of violence committed by a Palestinian, or an Arab, or a Muslim is immediately labeled as terrorism, even when that act is clearly an act of self-defense, or directed against military and occupation targets.
Oh, yes, I know you don’t want to discuss grievances, you just want to get to a solution that suits your idea of what a solution ought to look like. Unfortunately, as long as Israel is allowed to continue its daily murdering, pummeling, starving, and strangling of the Palestinian people Palestinians’ ongoing grievances are going to take precedence over your or Obama’s or – heaven forbid, Rahm Emanuel’s – notion of what the Palestinians ought to accept as a solution.
So, are you justifying Iran’s actions, or not? I can’t tell.
So, Iran is not allowed to look after its interests in the region by supporting groups who are seeking freedom from foreign aggression and tyrrany?
Tell me, BooMan, what types of “actions” has Iran taken that the United States has not itself on a scale orders of magnitude greater in number, frequency, and bloodiness? Or do you espouse American exceptionalism which allows the United States to take or support any and all vile and bloody actions it deems to be in its interests anywhere in the world while Iran is not even allowed to support national liberation movements in its own region?
Maybe this is the key aspect of our disagreement.
Over the course of this campaign you have probably noticed my consistent respect (awe, really) for John Lewis. John Lewis is, to me, a figure much like Moses. [I think Moses probably was a little less than advertised.] Lewis literally set his people free and brought them, if not to The Promised Land, then to the road that led to The Promised Land. Racists beat John Lewis up repeatedly. They fractured his skull with billy clubs. They arrested him over a dozen times. And John Lewis persevered with love and a belief in the inherent goodness of his adversaries.
People compare Israel to apartheid South Africa, and people rightly compared apartheid South Africa to the Jim Crow south. I’d rather not get into characterizing Israel in these terms because I feel that the issues surrounding Israel are a great deal more nuanced than apartheid and Jim Crow. But I will say that I see enough similarities to acknowledge the rationale for the comparison. When John Lewis found his friends growing frustrated and turning towards violence, he told them they were wrong and they needed to be patient. John Lewis was right. John Lewis just watched Barack Obama get elected president.
When you are right and you don’t do anything wrong to create morally equivalency with your opponents, you will eventually prevail.
Iran does not understand this. Iran believes, as you apparently do, that it is their moral obligation to kill Israeli citizens by any means necessary as part of a duty to resist. They, and you, are wrong. And we will never agree otherwise.
Iranian-backed violence against the Israeli and Lebanese governments has created moral equivalency and set back the people it was supposed to liberate.
“Iran believes, as you apparently do, that it is their moral obligation to kill Israeli citizens by any means necessary as part of a duty to resist.“
Oh, come on, BooMan. That is an incredibly lame and poorly focused argument based on the ludicrous assumption that the goal of resistance against Israeli occupation and aggression, and therefore the goal of those who support that resistance is to kill Israeli citizens by any means necessary. This argument is not worthy of you. You are much smarter and a much more sophisticated thinker than this.
And without in any way minimizing the suffering of Blacks in the Jim Crow South, there simply is no comparison at all between that and what Palestinians have had to endure and continue to endure. It is an extremely unfair analogy. And with all admiration and respect to John Lewis, what he went through is not at all comparable to what Israel puts Palestinians through.
And yes, you can try to make some kind of case that the Palestine situation is more “nuanced” than that of apartheid. However, Bishop Desmond Tutu and other first hand experts insist that it is far worse than apartheid was. And they would know far better than you or I would what apartheid was like to live through, and what is even worse.
It is much, much too easy to sit in your safe, comfortable place in the United States and self-righteously insist that people who are faced with daily crimes and horrors that you can only try to imagine should respond only non-violently.
I wonder how you would respond under the same circumstances. I wonder how you would respond in that situation. I know you know more about it than the average American does, but do you really grasp the enormity of it? The daily horror? And do you understand the kind of systematic, creeping ethnic cleansing that Israel has been patiently perpetrating for decades? Do you understand that it is not just the daily humiliation Palestinians are subjected to, but that there is not one single Palestinian in the occupied territories who has not had a friend, neighbor or relative murdered by the Israelis, and that most have lost multiple people this way? Do you realize that most Palestinians in the occupied territories have experienced seeing their families, including their children, seriously threatened?
And are you aware of exactly what non-violence has gotten for the Palestinians (and the Golan Syrians) – i.e. freedom for Israel to quietly and invisibly steal and colonize their lands and create a fait accompli that results in slow, silent ethnic cleansing – something a few Israeli writers have written about, but very few in the west are aware of? Or are you, as is nearly everyone else in the world, unaware of the history and result of decades of patient non-violence, and non-violent resistance in the occupied lands?
There is no evidence that strict adherence to non-violence is effective in the kind of situation faced by the Palestinians (or the Iraqis), and plenty of evidence that it it is ineffective, and guarantees victory for the aggressor.
There are circumstances, BooMan, in which non-violence alone simply leads to a defeat that takes place quietly and out of sight of the world. There are circumstances in which the choice is to be quietly crushed or to resist violently. Sometimes violence is necessary and justified in the name of self-defence.
Please.
What we are discussing is Iran, and Iran’s actions with regard to Israel. Iran has been instrumental in assisting a war of terror on Israeli civilians. At issue is not a moral equivalency that America or Israel might share with Iran for this situation. I never disputed that. At issue is whether Iran has created moral equivalency, and thereby undermined the Palestinian’s moral case for justice. Also, so long as Iran engages in this behavior, it is impossible for them to be trusted as a member of the nuclear club.
You have a completely one-sided view of the history. You cannot point me to a history of non-violent resistance to Israel. Was 1973 non-violent? What did it gain? In the whole history of this dispute, nothing was more counterproductive than the Second Intifada (which had Iran’s fingerprints all over it).
Don’t mistake my attitude as indifference or siding with Israel. I am pushing back against your biased interpretation of history. I’d sound much different talking to a pro-Israeli proponent.
The United States has been more than instrumental in encouraging, funding, supporting diplomatically and otherwise, and assisting directly and indirectly a war on Palestinian civilians that includes every crime in the book up to and including ethnic cleansing. In fact, while Palestinian terrorism would continue with or without the assistance of the Iranians, the Israelis would not be able to continue any of their wars, or their colonization projects if the United States withdrew its financial and diplomatic support. Iran’s contribution to what you rather hyperbolically call a “war of terror on Israeli civilians” pales in comparison. This is so far beyond the pot calling the kettle black that I don’t know how to characterize it.
And you grossly exaggerate Iran’s contribution by calling it instrumental. The Palestinians did not need Iran in the beginning, and they would somehow manage to go on without Iran’s assistance if they needed to. As for Hizbullah, their existence does not depend on Iran, and more importantly, their “war” never was and is not now against Israeli civilians no matter how hard propagandists try to portray it that way.
I also find it interesting the way you put the onus on the Palestinians to be peaceful in the face of what are not only daily threats and oppression beyond anything you can possibly imagine. In fact, unlike the threat to Israel, Israel’s threat to Palestinians IS an existential one. I never see you suggesting that Israel has even equal responsibility, let alone that, as the oppressors, they have the greater responsibility.
As for my view of history, on the contrary, BooMan, it is you who have a very limited and one-sided view of the history and the realities of the conflict with Israel. You are also not making a coherent argument when you bring 1973 into the discussion. We were talking about Palestinian resistance. The Palestinians were not involved in the 1973 war.
Do you know the reason for the 1973 war? Or do you believe the hype that the Arab countries that attacked Israel really had annihilating Israel as their purpose and goal? In fact, the 1973 war was undertaken for a very specific purpose with the limited goal of regaining the territory that Israel had taken in 1967. It was a direct reaction to the fact that despite all efforts to work PEACEFULLY within the UN, and despite two UNSC resolutions requiring Israel to withdraw, Israel was not only refusing to even consider withdrawing from their territory, it was openly colonizing it (after systematically ethnically cleansing the Golan Heights of 96% of its Syrian population, and expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem), and stealing its natural resources for its own use and profit (oil in the Sinai, water and agricultural land in the West Bank and the Golan Heights).
So yes, I CAN point to a history of attempts at non-violent resolution on the part of the Arabs throughout the conflict, including consistent attempts to work via the UN, and attempts at more direct diplomacy – attempts which have been for the most part rejected out of hand by Israel. The most recent attempts include multiple efforts by Bashar al Asad of Syria to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Israel, as well as two attempts on the part of the Arab League to present Israel with an extraordinarily generous offer of full recognition and normalization of relations in exchange for Israel’s compliance with UNSC 242. Israel’s response? They have refused to even consider it as a basis for negotiation, although recently there are signs that they might be reconsidering.
I can also point out to you that 1973 is the only one of Israel’s wars that was unambiguously initiated by Arabs and not by Israel. In addition, I can point out to you that Israel was the clear aggressor in every other one of its wars, with the possible exception of 1948, and for 1948 it is, at best, ambiguous as to who initiated it, although the latest reseasrch and anlysis points more to Israel than to anyone else (see, for example, Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine).
And now moving away from your diversion into the 1973 war and back to the subject of the Palestinians, I absolutely can point to a strong history of non-violence and non-violent resistance on the part of Palestinians, and the fact that you seem to be unaware of it speaks volumes about its lack of effectiveness. In fact, Israeli propagandists are very fond of pointing out that during the first decades of the occupation the Palestinians seemed “quite happy” with the occupation, since they were so quiet. Their reward for those years of non-violence was massive land and resource confiscation for the purposes of colonization with the intention of slowly squeezing them out of what was left of their homeland. Throughout the occupation there has been non-violent resistance of various kinds, in some of which they have been joined by Israelis.
And finally, as to the second Intifada having “Iran’s fingerprints all over it” – come on! I followed that situation very, very closely from the very first days and continuing for several years, including personal reports delivered to me from Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans on the ground. I know how it started, and I know how Israel’s actions turned it from a series of spontaneous demonstrations that would probably have slowed down and died out over a few weeks into what it became, so don’t try to blame Iran for it. And it is once again very telling that you put not one iota of the onus on Israel for 1) creating the inhuman conditions that led to the rise in tensions, 2) allowing that fat bastard to make his provocative strut (or should I say waddle) through
Al Haram Al Sharif, and 2) reacting with extreme deadly violence to a series of demonstrations by Palestinians armed only with rocks – violence in which at times they clearly targeted children.
And shall we talk about all the ceasefires that have broken down because of Israel’s actions? Shall we talk about all the ceasefires that the Palestinians have kept unilaterally during weeks of pounding by the Israelis?
Israeli leaders know what they need to do to make a peaceful end to this, but they are not willing to do it because adding to their territory means more to them than living in peace. Only when Israelis are sufficiently tired will they finally do what they need to do. After that they will have a chance to become accepted members of the community.
It’s always the same. I never once in this conversation made any defense of U.S. or Israeli policy, yet you return to it again and again as a justification for murder and violence. You cannot point to any evidence that murder and terrorism have contributed positively to the Palestinian cause, nor anything but a negative role from Iran’s influence.
You know, I didn’t just oppose the second invasion of Lebanon because it was murder, but also because it was bad for Israel. The same is true of Iran’s role in Middle Eastern politics.
BooMan, whether you intended to or not, you have exhibited a double standard by focusing solely on Iran’s relatively minor and non-critical role in Palestinian and Lebanese violent resistance without so much as mentioning the United States’ absolutely critical role in Israel’s six-plus decades of massive crimes against humanity. Israel could not do what it does without the United States’ financial, material, and diplomatic backing. If the United States ever withdrew its massive support of Israel it would be forced to give up its expansionist program and accept peace (on the very generous terms offered – twice so far – by the Arab League?). Without the U.S. veto to depend on it would have been held to account by the UN long ago. Palestinians, on the other hand, would continue to resist oppression with or without Iran’s help.
If you say you do not hold the double standard you appear to, then I accept that as true. However, you cannot blame me for inferring a double standard based on what I have seen you express here.
And by the way, it is a gross fallacy to hold the oppressed and the oppressor, the weak and the powerful to the same standard, let alone, as you appear to do, to hold the weak and oppressed to a higher standard than the oppressor. As Elie Wiesel said “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
The oppressed side, the weak side, must always be the smarter side.
There is is. You DO hold the weak and oppressed to a higher standard than the powerful oppressor. I wonder what your attitude would be if you weren’t part of the powerful side.
Wich is it?…ultra right Israelis see Obama has surrounded himself with pro-Arab advisors.
The times are a changing with our eyes wide shut. You think Olmert said what he said for a joke? Look at the polls in Israel. Hardliner Bibi (Benny) Netanyahu is trailing. The NeoCon, ultra conservative era has ended.
There’s pressure on Israel in the back channels. They’re losing friends worldwide. The election of Obama to the presidency is also a hidden message to and from the rest of the world.
60 years on — Israel has to change. The Palestinians time has come. Call it the fatigue effect. We can’t afford three wars on top of a total global financial meltdown amounting to thousand trillions.
Olmert’s words have no meaning if they are accompanied by actions that contradict them. His actions continue to invalidate his words.
As I said to shergald at the European blog, Jesus Fucking Christ, cut it out.
The guy’s been President-elect for two. God. damned. days. You’ve got your panties in a twist before he’s even done anything.
I know that discussing the state of a lady’s undergarments is an American cultural norm for Americans, but not everyone appreciates it.
Actually, he has made his intentions toward Israel, Palestine, the Middle East and South Asia very clear by his own repeated policy declarations, and by the people he has chosen to advise and support him, and it is perfectly appropriate to express concern.
Then don’t.
Fuckin’ guy ran on building relations with Iran. Holy shit, are you really that ignorant? Why do you think the Likudniks despise him, and why they tried to undermine him from Day One?
I’m so fucking tired of the Middle East. If it were up to me, I’d get everything and everyone we have there the hell out and never look back, quite honestly. They’re ruled by hyper-religious psychos, and I get enough of that sort in my own country, thank you very much.
We’re 75 days away from being able to do anything. We’ve got massive problems to deal with here, and I’m sick of wasting our time and resources on a conflict that neither side ever trusts us to be the middle man in.
Seriously, I’m a supporter of a Palestinian state and an end to the occupation, but the whole thing strikes me as utterly pointless for the United States. Why can’t the fucking Europeans sort this shit out? Why is it our job to sort the idiots in Israel and Palestine out?
If our government can’t be trusted to be an honest broker, then stop pounding on our God-damned door to demand it.
As a matter of fact the west has played the single greatest role in the creation and continuance of problems in the Middle East and South Asia, including but not limited to the creation and unquestioning support of the criminal ethnocratic Jewish State of Israel, the demolition of democracy in Iran (that would be the sainted Eisenhower), placing and maintaining in power various horrifically brutal dictators (not the least of which was Saddam Hussein), and the scuttling of democratic and other secular egalitarian movements throughout the Middle East.
So don’t whine to me about the Middle East. Your country has played a huge part in making it what it has become, and as long as your country insists upon continuing to muck about in Middle East business, they will continue to be responsible.
US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! Maybe that is something we can agree upon.
Yes, and, as with the neocons who fail to consider that Ahmadinejad plays politics by hyping a fight with Israel, you’re apparently completely ignorant of campaign realities that have no bearing on matters of policy and implementation. Or am I to take Ahmadinejad at his word that he seeks to annihilate Israelis?
First of all, given that I’m a non-interventionist, I’m curious to know how the Middle East could be tired of me. I’m among those who say, “Fuck all of them. Let’s get the hell out and tell them not to come to us anymore.” So maybe you could explain it to me. Or are you just following the typical Mid-East view that all Americans think precisely the same way?
You think I enjoy seeing my tax dollars getting plowed into that shithole? I’ve got bills to pay. And I don’t care to see my tax dollars, and my president’s time, squandered on an age-old fight over some useless pile of dirt that a bunch of lunatics believe the Magic Space Daddy bestowed upon them (and did not bestow upon on the other side).
You are ignorant on matters political. Period. You further strike me as little more than just another hatemonger.
As it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s all hyper-religious psychos. The only question is the degree from person to person.
Hell yes. Get our stuff out. What the Jews and the Arabs do is their choice. They’ll either sit down and negotiate, and learn to live with each other, or they’ll kill each other. (shrug)
it might be somewhat more polite not to refer to her home region as a ‘shithole’.
“the neocons who fail to consider that Ahmadinejad plays politics by hyping a fight with Israel….“
The neocons are not that ignorant of reality. They know very well the reality about Ahmadinajad that 1) he has not “hyped a fight” let alone threatened Israel, 2) the position he holds in the Iranian government is roughly the equivalent of the United States Secretary of the Interior, meaning that even if he did want to attack Israel it is not within his power or authority to do so.
Ahmadinajad has been misrepresented as all-powerful “leader of Iran” when he is anything but. Either Obama believes that nonsense, or he finds it expedient to pretend he does. Either option is not good.
“,you’re apparently completely ignorant of campaign realities that have no bearing on matters of policy and implementation“
So, Mr. Big Fat Expert on Campaign Realities That Have no Bearing on Matters of Policy and Implementation, since I am such a bloody moron and completely ignorant, I ask you to educate me. Obama has taken at least three contradictory positions on Iran, which one is he telling the truth about, and which ones is he lying about? Should I believe the campaign rhetoric about building a relationship with Iran, should I believe the rhetoric about using “diplomacy” as a tool of coercion to compliance with the U.S. will, or should I believe the more bellicose rhetoric? Or is he lying about all three? What is the campaign reality here, and what is the real reality?
“am I to take Ahmadinejad at his word that he seeks to annihilate Israelis?“
Well, now it is you who are completely ignorant of reality. Ahmadinajad has never said he seeks to annihilate Israel. He has never said anything remotely like that in fact. What is more he has never so much as threatened Israel.
Ahmadinajad’s statements supposedly threatening Israel have been consistently maliciously translated, mistranslated, taken out of context, and distorted beyond recognition by MEMRI, a powerful uber-right-wing Zionist organization whose only raison d’etre is to demonize Arabs and Muslims by cherry picking and grossly misrepresenting whatever they can find in the print and electronic media. MEMRI provides these and hundreds if not thousands of other maliciously distorted “translations” each day to the media, government, and various organizations (remind me one day to give you a side by side comparison of MEMRI’s translation versus an accurate translation of that Palestinian children’s show with the Mickey Mouse-like character that had all of America so scandalized last year – parts of it are rather startlingly different).
I don’t expect an ideology-driven fool like Bush to be aware of this fact, but I would have liked to think that Obama would have at least some people around him who could fill him in on realities like this. Rest assured the foreign policy advisers he has gathered around him so far never will either because they do not know, or it does not suit their agenda to inform him.
“ I’m curious to know how the Middle East could be tired of me. are you just following the typical Mid-East view that all Americans think precisely the same way?“
In a discourse, if you use the first person in your comment, I use the second person in my reply to you. That’s how it works. If you want me to use the third person in a discourse with you, then you don’t speak in the first person. Got it?
As for the second part of your remark above, you certainly have learned your ignorance-based stereotypes thoroughly and well, haven’t you?
“I’m among those who say, `Fuck all of them. Let’s get the hell out and tell them not to come to us anymore.’“
Funny, I don’t recall anyone coming to you. Oddly all I recall is you insisting upon charging in, sticking your big ugly blood-stained fingers in other people’s business, inevitably making things worse, and then blaming the people whose lives you have screwed up for having screwed up lives. So, please, do get out. Hit the road, Jack, and don’t come back no more. Let people in other parts of the world manage their own lives, whether they do it badly or well.
“ You think I enjoy seeing my tax dollars getting plowed into that shithole?“
Do you have any idea, to the extent that it IS a shithole, how much your tax dollars have contributed to making it so?
And by the way, you would be lucky to live in a “shithole”, as you call it, with such astonishing breadth and depth of history, so much richness of culture, beauty of landscape, and people of such grace, kindness, and fortitude, often in the face of adversity you cannot even begin to imagine.
“an age-old fight over some useless pile of dirt that a bunch of lunatics believe the Magic Space Daddy bestowed upon them (and did not bestow upon on the other side).“
You are so eager to display the fullness of your ignorance, aren’t you?
“You are ignorant on matters political. Period.“
And you are abysmally, and apparently willfully ignorant of Middle Eastern matters. Period.
Worse yet, you appear possessed of a particularly nasty form of self-satisfied, closed-minded, hate-based bigotry against the Middle East and the human beings who inhabit it. I am sorry for you for that, because you are missing a lot that would enrich your life.
“You further strike me as little more than just another hatemonger.“
And you strike me as just another willfully ignorant, America-centric asshole. But I try not to judge people’s character only by what they write in blog comments.
“As it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s all hyper-religious psychos.“
More willing display of your abysmal ignorance – fascinating. Most people are not this eager to show how ignorant they are. For your information, this is not and has never been about religion. If you knew even the most basic realities of the conflict you would understand that.
“What the Jews and the Arabs do is their choice. “
And yet more ignorance willingly displayed. Lovely! For your information this is not, and has never been about “the Jews” and “the Arabs”, but you wouldn’t be interested in really understanding it, would you? That might force you to climb down from your high horse and recognize the humanity of people you would prefer to despise.
The other side of the coin is that there will be those who will attempt to mis-portray the presence of Jews in these three key positions.
No doubt. And if it leads to more thoughtless pro-settler policy, people will have cause to wonder. I’m optimistic that that won’t be the case.
Most Palestinians do not share your optimism.
The one who concocted the phony “generous offer” in 2000, that even Ehud Barak later dismissed in 2005. This article from the Electronic Intifada:
Obama adviser Dennis Ross’s dodgy record
LINK: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9933.shtml
By Michael Flynn, 4 November 2008. Michael Flynn is the founder of the Global Detention Project at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.
Continued at the LINK.
No one with an awareness of reality is concerned about the presence of Jews per se. I would rather see most Jews in key positions like that than Christian Zionists like Sarah Palin, for example – those people are really scary and dangerous, because, unlike most Jews, they are motivated by an end-of-days scenario that requires the violent end of Israel, and of the Jewish people. Jews are apt to be at least somewhat more moderate than a Christian Zionist would be since very few Jews have a desire to see Israel go up in flames (though an unfortunately large number of Jews do not mind if Israel sets fire to everyone else).
There are Jews who are knee-jerk mindless uber Zionists, there are Jews who are knee jerk ordinary mindless Zionists, there are Jews who are thoughtfully moderate Zionists, there are Jews who try desperately to reconcile Zionism with their humanitarian side, there are Jews who are not Zionists at all, and there are Jews who are anti-Zionists. Rahm Immanuel is an example of the first category.
Feingold I don’t know about. Biden worries me because he is not a Jew, and is, like so many non-Jewish Democrats, politically motivated to prove his credentials by out-Zionisting most Jews. Kerry is likely of a similar ilk, and Obama’s immediately-post-primary mad dash to grovel embarrassingly at the feet of AIPAC suggests that he is of that ilk as well.
Today Senator Reid and Joe Lieberman had a meet up. Looks like Sen. Reid is making waffles.
TPM alert: Senator Reid just released a statement:
We don’t need no stinking several conversations. Lieberman must GO. NOW!
Josh Marshall leads the way: Joe has to go
How you can help give Lieberman the pink slip.
Harry’s letting Lieberman run the Senate. Nancy’s already surrendered to the GOP and the Village Centrists.
It’s not Lieberman that needs to go.
It’s Harry and Nancy.
what leads you there?
Americans are centrists.
Whadda ya know:
Lindsey Graham weighs in on the Rahm Emanuel choice for CoS….. contrary to his GOP colleagues
Rahm always preferred working with Republicans to working with Democrats.
“Vice-President Biden is a very strong supporter of Israel, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is an even stronger ally of Israel. But, before advocates for Palestine despair, consider the very real possibility that it is precisely this kind of team that would have the special credibility to force a two-state solution without worrying about massive domestic backlash. Just like Nixon’s hard-core anti-communist reputation gave him room to normalize relations with China”
and he had HIIIIIGH hopes, that ant had HIIIIIIGH hopes.
That is a real stretch Booman. A real stretch. That’s coming close to arguments that the market takes care of itself.
Mind you, I’m not saying that Kerry wouldn’t be great as SoS, or that Feingold isn’t a fine choice for foreign relations. I think they’re great choices.
I understand that you’re a perennial optimist (and that I tend to be a pessimist), but i think in this case it behooves you to be a realist.
I think it will be much easier to move Israel into action if you have Rahm Emanuel on the phone saying ‘move’. I think it will be impossible to demonize Feingold and Berman as closet anti-Semites. I think it will be hard to ignore Biden saying ‘Fucking get going’.
The question remains, will the foreign policy team press Israel to move? What kind of counsel will this team give Obama and what kind of counsel will Obama give them?
But, for, say, AIPAC, how could they effectively sidetrack a process initiated by a team like this?
The opportunity is there. That’s all I’m saying.
Rahm Emanuel has never told Israel to “move” unless he was cheering them on in their atrocities.
If you think it would be impossible to demonize Feingold and Berman as closet anti-Semites, you need to talk with someone like Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Amira Hass, or any other Jew who criticizes Israel.
I think there is little doubt what kind of counsel the team Obama has selected so far will give him. These people all have a very well-known history, which is why on election night my friends in Gaza said to me “he will not help us”.
I don’t think you have a fair impression of his record.
I think my impression of his record is very accurate.
Of course, I saw the results, nearly two years later, some of what he was so thrilled to see Israel do to Lebanon. And I saw it after the Lebanese had managed to rebuild a lot of it.
And one of the things I did NOT see, because I did not visit that part of Lebanon, was the carpet of cluster bomblets that Israel laid down there AFTER the cease fire had been declared. Nor did I see any of the Lebanese – mostly children, who have been dismembered or killed by those cluster bomblets in the two years since that atrocity. And Rahm Emanuel thought that was a fine thing for Israel to do.
BooMan, I have never had any illusions about what to expect from Barack Obama when it comes to the Middle East, including Palestine and Iraq, or the Muslim world. Therefore, unlike many starry-eyed Americans, I will not be disappointed.
I AM, however, looking forward very much to the positive steps he will be able to take domestically, and I expect him to do a great deal to mend relations with Europe. And it will be a huge relief to have someone in the White House who is driven by reason rather than blind ideology, and who presumably does not take his instructions from God. It will also be a pleasure to have a President who is able to express himself clearly and in complete, grammatically correct sentences, not to mention one who has decent social judgment and who does not make an ass of himself every time he appears in public. Just so you know I am not all negative on the President-elect.
Just so I’m clear, I share your horror at the invasion of Lebanon and I was stridently vocal about it at the time.
I am not happy about the selection of Rahm Emanuel, and his record on foreign policy is more than half the reason why.
But, I am also pointing out to you that there is a potential upside to all of this. A president that was perceived as weak on Israel and that was not surrounded by people with solid pro-Israel credentials, would have little hope of doing anything. That may seem counterintuitive, but it’s true.
I am not surprised to hear that you were vocally horrified by what Olmert’s government did to Lebanon two years ago. I demonstrated in front of the Israeli consulate daily, along with large numbers of Jews, Arabs, and “others”. There were small, extremely lame counter-demonstrations across the street. They had nothing at all to say, so the best they could do was bring lots of noisemakers – including one guy who brought a shofar – to try to drown us out. My favourite was the hysterically red-faced woman who kept screaming “Hezbullah out of Lebanon!”. I don’t think she had a clue why we were cracking up, and the more we laughed the louder she screamed and the redder she got in the face.
And I do understand your reasoning, BooMan, but I don’t see that particular crowd doing anything we would consider productive anywhere in the Middle East. I just don’t think the will is there.
That particular crowd being not the red-faced Hizbullah lady and her companions, but the crowd that Obama has gathered around himself so far.
“I think it will be impossible to demonize Feingold and Berman as closet anti-Semites.”
You mean Sherman, right? I tangentially know one of his aides, the brother of my former housemate, who stayed in our house last year around this time when Sherman was delivering an address to AIPAC titled “Radical Ambitions: Iran’s Efforts to Dominate the Middle East”.
here’s mr. sherman testifying about NPR’s anti-Israel bias in 2004. Money quote: “For many years, National Public Radio programs have presented a view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is too often biased against Israel.”
I can’t speak to Feingold’s views on the matter, but from what little I know of Sherman I don’t see him playing the hard-ass with the Israelis.
I’m not sure that “only Nixon could go to China” translates well into a US/Israel context. Bill Clinton was the most pro-Israel President the US ever had up till his time, and the Palestinians used to quietly complain that six of his seven leading advisors on IP issues were Jewish-Americans who proved utterly unable to look at the issues from anything but a Zionist perspective. Yet that pro-Israelness didn’t translate into credibility – Clinton left us with twice as many settlers as at the beginning of the Oslo process, he let Netanyahu – who had boasted from the start that he was going ignore Oslo – get away with doing just that, and he laid the basis of the “we offered them everything but they refused” story, that was supposed to save Barak’s ass in the Israelis elections but failed to do that and instead destroyed the very idea that a negotiated peace was possible.
I’m not saying an Obama Administration couldn’t be different – Dan Kurtzer, his mid-east adviser who strongly advocates for the US to get in there with a sense of urgency and start pushing hard was in Jericho last week before the election was even won, quietly meeting already with Saeb Erekat, which might suggest an Obama Administration is already preparing to hit the ground running from day one.
But I am saying that the experience of the Clinton years is that being pro-Israel and loading your team with Jewish-Americans doesn’t mean a thing unless the people in question have shown some inclination to put their foot down with Israel. And I haven’t seen any of that from the people Obama has surrounded himself with – just the opposite in fact, when you recall the speed with which the Obama campaign threw Bob Malley and Rashid Khalidi (and Arab East Jerusalem and applicable international law) under a bus. All of which I really hope is just Obama doing what he had to do to get elected…
The corrupt Fatah collaborationist thugs do not have a whole lot of credibility. They lost it ages ago, which is why the majority of Palestinians, including a hell of a lot of secular and Christian Palestinians voted for Hamas.
If Obama really wants to have an impact, he will have to talk with Hamas. In addition he will have to make Israel stop punishing the Palestinians for their democratic choices, and release the legally elected Palestinian government officials it arrested almost immediately after the election. He will also have to get Israel to stop murdering Palestinians, destroying their homes, and stealing their land.
Good luck to him on all of that. Given his selections so far, I doubt he has the will to do any of that.
And by the way, isn’t it interesting that Bill Clinton had not one – NOT ONE – Arab-American – not even a Christian one – on his Middle East team.
And neither has Obama, nor, as far as I can tell, will he.
I hope Obama will surprise me. And I will be more than happy to eat a meal of crow if he does.
I don’t think Obama will surprise us in the sense that he turns out to be principled about the I/P conflict and willing to take a stand to do the right thing. But it’s possible that he might deliver anyway because he is smart enough to realize that US policy on Israel is unsustainable, and recognizes that if he hopes to salvage anything from the mess we have made in the Middle East and in our foreign relations generally, the key is that he is going to have to get in line with international consensus on Palestine.
As for Hamas and Fatah, of course it’s true a lot of Palestinians, including Christians in E Jerusalem and Ramallah, voted for Hamas in the 2006 elections. 44% per cent of them voted for Hamas, and 41% voted for Fatah, which suggests to me that both of them retain a whole lot of credibility with large sections of the Palestinian electorate, and that no peace deal can be made that excludes either of them. And I think both parties know that, which is why they agreed to be bound by the formula that the PLO will hold negotiations with Israel, but any agreement that results will have to be approved in a popular referendum.
I also don’t see Obama getting much involved in any of the other steps in yr second paragraph. I think he’s more likely to see those repressive acts by Israel as symptoms of the lack of a peace agreement, and to think the US’ most useful role in ending them would be to push for a comprehensive agreement that would contain within it provisions for all these individual issues. I think there’s a feeling of “now or never” for the two state solution among advisors like Dan Kurtzer, and that makes it less likely that Obama would focus on extracting individual “concessions” from the Israelis, which never change the underlying dynamics of the conflict anyway and historically have just been used by Israel as a means of putting off discussion on anything significant like actually getting out of the Occupied Territories.
But I’m just speculating. Obama could just as likely take the path of least resistance vis a vis AIPAC, and turn out to be as ineffectual as Clinton in dealing with anything I/P related.