Some days I get the feeling that the Israelis are replaying American 19th Century history, and no, not the part about the Civil War.
The Israeli government has plans to build at least 73,000 new homes for Jews in the occupied West Bank, the anti-settlement group Peace Now says.
If the plans are implemented in full it would double the number of settlers in the West Bank outside east Jerusalem, according to the Peace Now website.
Who doesn’t love the smell of Manifest Destiny in Greater Israel? Especially when the Palestinians get to play the role of the Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee (caution: link to graphic content not suitable for children).
Wonder how far west we would have made it if our own shameful expansion was televised or blogged or stood the light of day in any meaningful way.
If having it televised, blogged, open to the light of day had the same effect it has had on Zionist and Israeli expansion, chances are you would not have stopped at the Pacific, but would have kept right on going.
Israel has been doing this and very openly since well before statehood with barely more than an occasional tepid peep from the world.
In February, 1948 David Ben Gurion eased his Mapai colleagues’ territorial concerns by stating “The war will give us the land. The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning.”
that Israeli propaganda is losing its ability to deceive.
This is a change. But the practical side of this change will take a while.
The Israelis gave up their propaganda edge willingly, because time is short. They know that the US is going to cut them loose, not because it wants to, but because it will soon lose the ability to continue support. When that happens the strategic situation in Palestine changes utterly, and not in their favor.
You seem to be critizing blogs, but the erosion of Israeli propaganda has occurred because of blogs and internet activities such as YouTube. The American Media wanted to ignore the whole Gaza invasion: They were hoping for complete information blackout and silence. They did not get it.
Actually, the US did not stop at the Pacific, but in particular crossed it to annex the Philipines. This was not peaceful, but matched or exceeded the brutality of any colonial war of the time.
I was not criticizing blogs at all. I was not criticizing anything. I was merely pointing out some realities.
You are correct that the U.S. did not stop at the pacific. The Philippines is a good example, and it is not the only example.
As for the U.S. cutting Israel loose, I hope you are right, but I think you are too optimistic.
Right now the US is entering a period of collapse that will have many effects, including limiting the abilitty to conduct far-flung military policy.
The underlying reason is the peaking of resources needed for an ever-expanding (and energy-intensive) economy.
Viewed practically and strategically, the handwriting is already on the wall: Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia–all failures from a national point of view. Pakistan will be a failure as well.
Tide has turned.
All the same, the process will probably seem slow.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29459328/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29461484/
Israel is on the Agenda at the Hague
you bet the ruling is likely to be affirmed, Yes — the Palestianian Authority is “enough like a state” and regarded by others as operating like a state” —
Isn’t President Abbas recognized by Israel as a partner in the peace process? Do they [the PA] not hold elections — the most recent of which Hamas won? Fair and square!
Hmmmm. I suppose Mr. Turd Alan Dershowitz would enjoy being retained for Israel’s defense — to argue collective punishment is legit and that the Geneva Conventions are quaint.
The irony: Nuremberg delivered justice for the once oppressed Jews. The Hague for the once oppressed Jews now accused as oppressors. How far apart are the two cities? As the crow flies, only a spit.
And the Lord spoke: “Justice is mine to give – Hear O Israel, turn not thy face from me”
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The rule of the Shah of Persia (1941-1979) and the CIA purge of Mossadegh in 1953, oil pumped to the fortunes of British Petroleum and Standard Oil, the Savak intelligence at a level of Soviet’s KGB, DDR’s Stasi and Saddam’s Mukhabarat. Human rights and totalitarian regime? Who cared! Oh, yes … trained by Mossad and reaping benefits on the expansion of Israeli borders with extreme religious colonists on the West Bank and Gaza. Want recognition of the state of Israel and refute the crimes against humanity over the past six decades?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."It’s going to cost them, though they may be prepared to pay the price. The Obama administration has informed them that any money spent on expanding West Bank settlements will be subtracted from what the US pays them as subsidy. Congress may holler and rant, but if Obama doesn’t sign the check, it doesn’t go out.
Israel is calling his bluff. I wouldn’t want to do that if I were them.
StevenD, that’s a pretty good anaolgy for how Israel seems to perceive their actions.
It makes me so sad.
Roger Cohen deserves major praise for his courage and honesty in today’s column.
Unfortunately, Cohen is already being slammed on Wikipedia for his comments (scroll down to the “Iran Trip” section):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Cohen
There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Israeli right has planned all along to annex the occupied territories and send the Palestinians into permanent exile; it’s not like they haven’t said as much on numerous occasions. The only question is when the “mass transfer” — or whatever euphemism they’re using for it these days — will begin.
The choice the United States faces in this regard is actually pretty simple. Either we impose our preferred solution — the “two state” model — or we accept the Likud solution. If we accept the Likud solution, then we again have a simple choice. Either we cut our losses by cutting our ties with Israel, or we remain associated with them and, consequently, earn the everlasting emnity of the Islamic world. (And “earn” is the correct word here.)
Unfortunately, it appears that we lack the political will to twist Israel’s arm hard enough to coerce them into the two-state solution, and probably even lack the political will to repudiate Israel’s actions. Both the Congress and the State Department are compromised by the presence of too many people whose loyalty to Israel outweighs their loyalty to the United States. And before anyone goes ballistic and accuses me of reviving the Jewish conspiracy myth, let me note that there are oodles of goyim, mostly from the neocon and evangelical factions, to blame here.
And this is really the heart of the issue when it gets down to it: the United States is crippled in its attempts to either resolve or disengage from the I/P conflict because too many Americans put the interests of Israel — or, in growing numbers, Palestine — ahead of the interests of the United States. When State Department officials act independently to warn the Israeli government of decisions being made in the White House and billions of dollars of private funds go to fuel the conflict, we are basically at the mercy of foreign interests who are more than willing to harm the United States for the benefit of one faction or the other in the middle east.
Corvus, it is not only the Israeli right that has planned all along to annex the occupied territories. One only has to look at the patterns of land confiscation, creation of “facts on the ground” and oppression of Palestinians when the “left” was in power.
Oslo was a ruse to buy time for Israel to tighten its grip on the OPT. Land confiscations and colony building escalated significantly during the Oslo negotiations, and kicked into high gear after the signing. Checkpoints, bypass roads, and other restrictions on Palestinian movement also proliferated, expanding and tightening what Jeff Halper calls the “matrix of control”.
Back in those days we used say that Likud talks a lot about settlements (sic), Labour builds them.
Your version of history would be more interesting if it accounted for Yigal Amir and the election of Netanyahu which followed Rabin’s assassination by a mere four months.
Do you ever mention the role of suicide attacks and political assassination in crushing the peace process? No.
What gives, BooMan? One really has to wonder why you felt compelled to berate me for not dragging assassination and suicide bombing in a comment about the left’s contribution to colonization of the OPT. I pointed out as an example that Rabin escalated land confiscation and colony and “bypass” road building in the OPT during the Oslo negotiations, and even moreso afterward. I fail to see why launching into a discussion of assassinations and suicide bombings would be relevant here.
Hm, it could possibly be relevant because without the ornate compartmentalization of the facts upon which both sides hang their hopes of successfully exterminating the other, it becomes increasingly difficult to attract the foreign donors of arms and money that make the whole ugly affair possible.
What’s interesting to me, speaking of irrelevant tangents, is that you used my post as a springboard for yet another iteration of the all-Israelis-suck theme — apparently, I can’t condemn Israel enough for your taste — instead of addressing the actual point, which is that American foreign policy has been hijacked by the Israelis and the Palestinians, to say nothing of several other major players in the region, to the tremendous detriment of the United States.
It is imperative that the US disengage from the I/P conflict because it is a classic double-bind in which there is no way for any plausible outcome to benefit us and because, with the Cold War at an end, neither party to the conflict is a US interest to begin with. Moreover, appeals to continue our self-destructive policy of engagement for humanitarian reasons fail on the grounds that there are far more dire and deadly humanitarian crises in the world today that arguably deserve much more attention from the US and the world.
Corvus, my response to you was neither irrelevant, nor was it a tangent. It was a direct, fact-based response to a statement you made about your impression that the Israeli right intended to annex the OPT. I responded with information about the “left” that suggests they have had the same intention. It is beyond a major stretch to interpret that as saying “all Israelis suck”. In fact, I did not say anyone sucks, I merely stated known, demonstrable, recognize facts, and I didn’t say anything that plenty of Israelis have not also said. I heard a lot of them myself as a matter of fact.
And for the zillionth time, you are correct that the U.S. should disengage from all involvement. We agree completely on this point, though not for all the same reasons.
As hurria says,
These patterns by Labor-dominated administrations date from well before Oslo, even as far back as 1948, in the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian Citizens of Israel. These patterns continued after 1967 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The first settlements by ideological settlers were not only founded and tolerated under a Labor regime, but Palestinian lands began to be confiscated for military purposes and then turned over to Israeli civilian use. The pattern of settlement in the West Bank is very close to the Allon Plan that was outlined under a Labor administration in 1967. Labor and Likud have gone about the settlement project in different ways, but every Israeli administration since 1967 has increased settlements.
The variety of nations and factions that Israel has fought against and been attacked by are but background to a long history of creeping annexation.
RP, in pointing out that the early colonies were built on land supposedly confiscated for military purposes, you have reminded me of a rather remarkable encounter I had back in the ’90’s with a retired Israeli general – I cannot recall his name at the moment, but he was a somewhat known figure, though not one of the really famous ones. We sat in a cafe for about three hours one night talking (a mutual acquaintance who was with us insists to this day that he was flirting with me, but if so I missed it completely). At one point he looked at me and said “you know, I really get angry whenever I think about Maale Adumim. That was MY land, and they took it away from me to build that settlement. I can never forgive them for that”.
The guy was pretty insufferable, really, but extremely interesting to listen to.
Booman, you actually said this?
“Do you ever mention the role of suicide attacks and political assassination in crushing the peace process? No.”
A history lesson is in order. The suicide attacks which followed the killings of over 300 Palestinians including 86 children in the early months of the second Intifada had absolutely nothing to do with Israel’s ongoing plan to colonize (and presumably, annex) the Palestinian territories. That had been an ongoing project since 1967, which was actually spurred by the Oslo Accords, which led to the doubling of settlements and the rate of settlement of the Palestinian territories during the 90s, Clinton watch. During that period, as Minister of Agriculture, Ariel Sharon supported a “dunam by dunam” policy, in which settler-IDF occupation forces combined to wrest lands, homes and farms/orchards, from their Palestinian owners.
At Camp David, 2000, before the second Intifada was instigated by Sharon, Barak entered the peace negotiations with two conditions: “settlements were off the table,” and nothing was to be put down in writing. 150 settlements had to stay. How can you have a Palestinian state, i.e., peace, when Israel controlled 40% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (which Barak would also not give up) and what was left were a group of enclaves containing Palestinians?
All this happened before the second Intifada (the suicide bombings), and it certainly did not crush the peace process. It was already crushed. But what it did do was to create a new basis for Israeli propaganda, “terrorism,” which Israel then used to its advantage to continue the colonization.
The continuation of colonialism was already in the planning.
PS: The few earlier suicide attacks likewise did not create the basis for Israel’s colonization, which was already underway with Oslo. Likewise, between 1998 and 2000, three years, there were no suicide attacks at all.
Yet, the colonization proceeded as planned. You would be better off condemning Clinton, who failed to stop this accelerating process.
Here’s a pretty accurate assessment of the Camp David talks. It doesn’t engage in hyperbole.
No hyperbole, but it does engage in bullshit and leaves out very important details, critical ones. FAIR took down the so-called generous offer a few years later (especially the significance of “settlements are off the table”), and then Barak himself admitted to the Israeli subterfuge five years later on the Charlie Rose Show.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/1076
As he put it, the Knesset would not have voted for the withdrawal of any settlements; not even his own party, Labor, the so-called left wing party, would have voted to “disengage” (he used Sharon’s term) to “remove even a single settlement.”
Read on Booman, you may eventually get it.
you make a great deal of that interview, but Barak’s comment wasn’t particularly significant. He said that he didn’t have support from Labor for removing West Bank settlements, but he doesn’t say in what context. Plus, he says it in the context of blasting Sharon for not having the guts to remove the West Bank settlers.
No, he clearly stated that HE did not have the power to remove any settlements, not a single one. Hence, his condition for engaging Arafat: “settlements are off the table.”
See the FAIR article. FAIR means Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. It clears the head.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
That’s not what he said or the context in which he said it.
FAIR’s assessment as I quoted above.
Extra! July/August 2002
The Myth of the Generous Offer
Distorting the Camp David negotiations
By Seth Ackerman
If you look at the article I posted, it says, flatly, that Barak offered no deal whatsoever. That’s not my point. The point is to look deeper into the negotiations to see why Barak didn’t offer a deal.
Of course Barak offered no deal. He was not in a position to do so. The Camp David negotiations were a fake, engaged in in order to assuage Clinton, who should have known better.
“Do you ever mention the role of suicide attacks and political assassination in crushing the peace process? No.”
Again, these few attacks which stopped three years before Camp David, has nothing to do with the failure at Camp David. The failure was predetermined by the facts on the ground in the West Bank, and Barak’s inability to change them. If you had the patience to listen to the Charlie Rose interview, Barak also said, back then anyway, that Israel needs to settle its borders and pull tens of thousands of settlers behind it.
Today, for his brutality in Gaza, I don’t think many people would give him the time of day. It equaled Sharon’s brutality in Lebanon and during the Second Intifada.
You are assuming I didn’t watch the video. I did.
Barak is not saying that settlements were off the table. There was never any firm deal, but the framework for a deal assumed the dismantling of many settlements, including obviously the Gaza Strip, and a restoration of sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem.
And, the point of my linking to the NYT’s article was to show you that there were structural and interpersonal problems in the Camp David talks that prevented Barak from ever showing his bottom line and that prevented Arafat from making any concrete concessions beyond those presumed at the start.
The interview you keep citing shows Barak saying that Sharon has no balls and will not follow thru on desettlement. When he talks about not negotiating, he’s talking about the right of return, not settlements.
Your version of history is not accurate. The Camp David talks failed, but they didn’t fail because Barak didn’t want a deal. He knew he needed a deal or his government would fall. Barak deserves a ton of blame for the failure, but not by design.
And, finally, the suicide bombings that helped elect Bibi the first time, helped elected Sharon, and then helped destroy what little support the Palestinians had in America.
It’s hard to get me to defend Israel, but some of the commentators here force me to do it with their extreme, one-sided arguments.
And I suppose you failed to hear Barak’s statements concerning the settlements, THE BOTTOM LINE.
If you listened carefully, Barak clearly stated that he was “unable to disengage (using Sharon’s term) even a single settlement, that not even his own party (Labor) would have voted for it.” I don’t know what you think the bottom line was. Barak could not get the settlers out of the territories to make way for a Palestinian state and he knew it. An implication of the interview was that he could not produce the conditions for two states. Not in the interview, Barak then went back to Israel claiming there was no partner, which is why the talks failed. In the meantime, there was a propaganda effort by Ross to blame Arafat (see the FAIR article above).
If you have time, go over to Daily Kos and search for JohnnyGun’s diary, “How can there be a Palestinian state?” It gives you a well researched rundown of the settlements in the West Bank and the impediment they provide to a two state solution. Hence, the title.
Also try reading the FAIR reference I provided above. Israel just did not come to Washington prepared to relinquish the Palestinian territories. And it is also quite obvious that Taba (which Barak repudiated in the interview) could not lead to a settlement, that Clinton-Ross could do what Barak could not do: provide 97% of the territories by removing the settlements.
In fact, if you google: “settlements are off the table” ehud barak
All four hits are to you.
try “camp david settlements off the table” next time.
The phrase is in the FAIR article, but I read elsewhere that along with this prerequisite understanding, nothing was permitted to be put down in writing at the Israeli’s request or demand.
the phrase refers to Sharon, not Barak.
Well, it seems that Sharon was at Camp David. But that is neither here or there, since he did not have the last say on negotiations.
The point is that Barak, negotiating for Israel, acknowledged that he was not able to come across with the “bottom line,” meaning removing any settlements in the West Bank to make way for a Palestinian state. All other issues, although important to both sides, were secondary to this fundamental one: “the land.” And it is easy to get entwined in them, to believe that somehow, after all was said and done, Arafat missed a “generous” opportunity.
Sharon merely put a rationale on Barak’s impotence regarding his inability to clear out the settlements. There was no difference in these positions. Either way, the settlements were to remain, and if so, there could not be a Palestinian state created. Hence, the failure of Camp David.
There has been much written about Camp David, but no fact was more central to its failure than the settlements, all of the other notions applied notwithstanding. It was not Jerusalem, the refugees, or even land swaps, which Arafat agreed to. It was the settlement status quo including Israel’s intention to maintain control over the Jordan Valley.
Corvus, I don’t completely discount the possibility that there are Americans who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States, but that is not exactly how it looks to me.
I think there are some American-Israelis with dual citizenship whose “loyalty” is to Israel and who only care about the United States for what it does for Israel – Netanyahu would be a great example (do you know, that he actually said that 9/11 was one of the best things that ever happened for Israel, or words to that effect). But I believe that most or all of the Netanyahu types have made a commitment Israel, and are not really Americans at all anymore except technically. I think among people who have chosen to remain Americans it is a different matter.
I think neocons and their ilk have seriously convinced themselves that what they think is good for Israel is even better for the USA (I submit that it is bad for both), and they do not see any conflict of interest there. Therefore, it is not a matter of them putting Israel’s interests ahead.
As for those wack job Christian Zionists, they couldn’t care less about Israel’s or the U.S. interests. They just want to see Armageddon happen. With friends like those, Israel does not need enemies, and even more the Jews don’t. Their idea is to use Israel to promote an agenda which is about as anti-Semitic as it gets, since it involves the obliteration of the Jewish people.