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No green line set bij International treaty or 1967 borders demanded by UNSC resolution? Clinton speaks of “disputed” instead of occupied territory of the West Bank. Netanyahu must be pleased.
- “Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking.”
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MARRAKESH, MOROCCO (Washington Post) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to soothe Arab uneasiness Monday over weekend statements she made praising the Israeli government’s offer to “restrain” growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it “falls far short” of the Obama administration’s hopes and is “not enough.”
Clinton insisted that the administration still considers settlement activity on disputed territory “illegitimate” and advocates a freeze. But she repeated at a news conference here that Israel’s offer was “unprecedented” and that it “holds the promise of moving a step closer to a two-state solution.”
In remarks made Saturday with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Clinton set off a firestorm in the Arab world by emphasizing the “unprecedented” nature of Israel’s offer while failing to add that it was “not enough.”
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Clinton’s attendance here at a conference on development and governance in the Arab world was initially intended to solidify the goodwill engendered by President Obama’s speech to the Islamic world in Cairo in June. But it was quickly overwhelmed by controversy over Clinton’s remarks.
Netanyahu: I hope Palestinians 'get a grip,' renew peace talks
Clinton’s comments represented a shift in the dynamics since Obama took office, with initial pressure on Israel giving way over the past several weeks to apparent impatience over the refusal of Palestinian officials to resume peace talks in the absence of a settlement freeze.
Clinton’s remarks in Jerusalem, made as she stood smiling at Netanyahu’s side, “mean that we are once again in the same vicious circle we were in the 1990s,” Moussa said. “Everything is negotiable. We are not ready to be taken for a ride again by Israeli diplomacy.”
Mitchell: “Goldstone Report Deeply Flawed” …
Mitchell: “Goldstone Report Deeply Flawed”
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(Haaretz) – “There’s a sense of urgency, a sense of involvement and commitment on the part of the president,” Mitchell said before delivering a speech on conflict resolution at Colby College, where his father once worked as a janitor.
Mitchell acknowledged setbacks in the process, including a United Nations report that accused Israel and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes last winter.
“We continue in our efforts, notwithstanding that report,” Mitchell said. He noted that the United States has taken the position that the report is one sided and deeply flawed.
[Biased in Middle-East peace talks? Who, I? – Oui]
See my previous diary on Gulliver’s Hillary Clinton’s travels …
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(GAZA) Jan. 24, 2009 – Among Israel’s Jews, there is almost no higher value than Zionism. The word is bathed in a celestial glow, suggesting selflessness and nobility. But go anywhere else in the Middle East and Zionism stands for theft, oppression, racist exclusionism.
No place, date or event in this conflicted land is spoken of in a common language. The barrier snaking across and inside the West Bank is a wall to Palestinians, a fence to Israelis. The holiest site in Jerusalem is the Temple Mount to Jews, the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. The 1948 conflict that created Israel is one side’s War of Independence, the Catastrophe for the other.
George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader who is Mr. Obama’s new special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, could find something similar when he arrives here.
Even though an understanding crystallized a decade ago over the outline of an eventual solution here — Israel returning essentially to its 1967 borders and a Palestinian state forming in the West Bank and Gaza — the two sides’ narratives have actually hardened since attempts to reach a peace foundered.
(Israel News) Feb. 11, 2009 – Forgive me if this letter is not quite coherent. I’m still weeping over your sad plight. You want to be a good journalist by reporting “in a way both sides can accept as fair” and everyone is picking on you. No one’s happy. What’s a reporter to do? To paraphrase Herr Eichman, you are just doing your job, following your conscience. We all know (we all should know) that there is no such thing as absolute truth. There are only different perspectives, competing narratives. Had you been working for the Times during World War II, you would surely have been the one courageous enough to show the Nazi side (After all, there’s always another side to the story): how traitorous Jews betrayed Germany’s war effort causing it to lose World War I; how plutocratic Jews undermined the German economy; how Communist Jews were trying to take away the profits of hard-working German citizens; how degenerate Jews were leading to the general decline of culture and morality; how even American auto magnate, Henry Ford, and the inspirational Catholic priest, Father Coughlin, subscribed to Nazi views on the Jewish menace.
Wishing the extremists on both sides ‘all the best’ living side by side in a two-state solution to the conflict. Or are you offering another option to the “problem“?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
CAIRO (ESIS) Nov. 2, 2009 – Egypt has received a report on the outcomes of recent consultations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said, adding that he believes Jordan has received a similar report.
Peace efforts are facing a real problem stemming from Israel’s failure to commit to the roadmap, which stipulates a complete halt to settlement activities, he said.
It is not logic to say we can go ahead with the peace negotiations while Israel continues settlement activities, especially in Al-Quds (East Jerusalem), he added.
Egypt hopes the Palestinian side will receive guarantees in light of US President Barack Obama’s address to the UN General Assembly, regarding settlement activities, peace efforts and withdrawal from the occupied lands.
For his part, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Jouda said the Mubarak-Abdullah meeting comes as part of continued political consultations between the two leaders on regional and international efforts to launch direct negotiations leading to materialising the two-state solution.
Clinton to meet Egyptian President Mubarak
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I believe as you read through the Israel Project’s propaganda manual you will find Clinton’s words: call them “disputed territories, not Palestinian territories” or something to that effect. The idea I suppose is to remove the notion that the colonization of Palestine is illegal by international law. You have to wonder whether Clinton and the entire state department boned up on it and honed their arguments using this manual.
This, from Tikun Olam (Richard Silverstein).
Another amazing piece of work by Luntz. In a recent comment, I pointed out the difference between Luntz’s work and that of George Lakoff or Drew Westen. Although their work appears to be very similar, with the only difference being ideology, there’s a profound difference.
Speaking generally — Luntz is ever the propagandist, always using language to deceive. And ethical concerns are not prominent. Luntz-speak frequently demonstrates an underhanded motive and an ‘ends-justifies-the-means’ philosophy, which is consistent with the conservative/Right Wing Authoritarian(RWA) belief that rationalizes ethical-exceptionalism.
Re: “worldview” on page 6. — This is at the core of what Lakoff calls the “nurturant/strict parent” dichotomy, and it can be found in other areas of social-scientific research on ideology, too. That it exists a fact but notice the double-speak quality in Luntz’s languaging, in which peace is professed in order to justify war-like actions, as well as being a way of compartmentalizing, which creates a semantic non-equivalency. And this is what I mean when I say that Luntz uses language to deceive.
Additionally, in regards to worldview — the conservative/RWA belief in good & bad (people) and “the need to protect ourselves … way of life” is a “splitter” strategy (from Rove), crafted to to divide by appealing to raw emotion (located in the mid-brain, Westen). The goal of Luntz-speak is fundamentally different, and this parallels the differences in values between the right and the left. Whereas Lakoff would advocate using emotional language to realize commonalities, Luntz is aiming to instill an irrational response in people, who would then be unable to rationally consider information. Moreover, there’s a strong element of manipulation in Luntz-speak, which is consistent with the double-high RWA practice of using fear as a tool to keep RWA followers obedient.
A final comment — there’s a strongly self-fulfilling aspect to RWA strategy. And the difference between it and the goal of progressives is in the use of a ‘virtual argument’ that can’t be proved. In other words, advocating violence in order to prevent violence always leads to violence. It’s an awkward phrasing but I want the Orwellian, compartmentalized or double-speak nature of the belief to be understood by everyone. Conflict — by it’s nature — is difficult to solve but easy to start and continue. The belief in violence to solve the problem of violence creates an endless loop of violence. All that’s necessary is that both sides see their cause as just, which is invariably true, and this is exacerbated by splitter strategies.
Thanks for the insights your comment provides.
“Luntz uses language to deceive,” no doubt. But as you suggest, it has an ugly side in the way it attempts to justify violence, like the recent Gaza massacres, and those that took place before it. In particular, the references to ‘suicide bombers’ and other sorts of retaliatory violence on the part of Palestinians, without single mention of the instigating causes, like the killings of hundreds of Palestinians beforehand.
Well, propaganda is deception, and a lot of it has taken hold. No where is there a single mention of the military occupation the Palestinians have endured for 42 years, not the colonization that has proceeded under its cover.
The Israel Project deception is merely more cover for the Likud goal of reaching the Greater Israel from the Jordan River to the sea.
Sorry for the late response.
I intensely dislike dishonest framing, and Luntz’s “peace first” section (p. 23) could be taken straight out a “A Clean Break..” It’s reminiscent of its “peace for peace,” which supplanted “land for peace.”
Peace is used as a synonym for attacking Iran, Syria, etc., which is certainly not my definition of peace. I wonder how many people realize that some of the Neocons responsible for the false intelligence that justified our going into Iraq were also responsible for A Clean Break: a new strategy for securing the realm?” I recall that there was some news lately about Cheney’s efforts to start a war in Iran, which were thwarted. Is it a coincidence that we nearly implemented A Clean Break’s objective of attacking Iran for them?
Few people understand these connections. Clean Break also encouraged the courting of the Christian Zionists, which Netanyahu and even Joe Lieberman, Israel’s most well-known representative in the Senate, have done assiduously.
That Clean Break could be haunting us today is just hard to believe.
It is all adding up, and the Obama administration seems to be falling in step, perhaps conceeding the American presidency is not what it used to be.
Interesting.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/07/10/the-israel-projects-secret-hasbara-handbook-
exposed/
I was just looking at Silverstein’s Tikun article and Juan Cole’s article about MEMRI.
http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=4047
Apparently, my comment on Clean Break hit the mark. One of its authors was Mayrav Wurmser, who also co-founded MEMRI, whose propaganda is re-used by Luntz in the Global Language Dictionary.
Oddly, I’ve been focusing on possible connections between Likud-nik foreign policy objectives and the Christian right, who I’ve been studying over a period of time. Besides all the other reasons, it’s hard to ignore religious groups that advocate apocalypse.
One recommendation of the Clean Break authors was for Likud to court the Religious Right in the US and of course that would and eventually did include the Christian Zionists. Netanyahu has been a frequent speaker at the annual conventions of the Christian Zionist organization, and so has Joe Lieberman, and recently Elie Weisel.
Small world.
They are not Clinton’s words, but those of the Washington Post Reporter, deYoung. I’m not a big fan of HRC and I think she’s made her share of gaffes as Secretary of State, but nowhere in the 2 minute tape of her remarks did she utter “disputed territories.” That terminology appears to be favored by the Washington Post’s journalists or editors.
Is anyone actually surprised by this?
Think Cairo, then forget it. Peace in the Middle East was just shifted to the backburner, where the Israeli government likes it. The colonialism continues with eyes wide shut.
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In a new twist Tuesday, Clinton made what appeared to be an inadvertent slip of the tongue in a television interview with the al-Jazeera network, referring to the goal of “an Israeli capital in east Jerusalem.”
The Jordanian government rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel and that the Jewish state has a free hand to set up settlements throughout the West Bank.
“The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are occupied territories according to several resolutions issued by the United Nations,” Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency.
“In particular, the UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967 and resolutions 476 and 478 of 1980 consider Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem null and void and call on Israel to end its occupation of East Jerusalem.”
According to the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, since annexing East Jerusalem, Israel has expropriated 24,500 dunams (6,054 acres) privately owned by Palestinians. By the end of 2007, some 50,197 housing units had been built for Jews on the expropriated land, but none for Palestinians.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I don’t know if I can ever trust Clinton because of her connection to the family.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics
There was a comment reported on BBC World today that a Palestinian negotiator had said something about maybe a two state solution wasnt going to happen and it would have to be a one state soltuion with Israleis and Palestinians living together in the same country! I didnt catch it verbatim
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Palestinian threat for an one-state democracy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river. Doomsday scenario for Zionism and Eretz Israel. Reference and link: Settlements ‘end two-state hopes’
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."One can only concur that the concept of “bi-nationalism” as an alternative to the two state solution is a euphemism for Apartheid. I have also heard the concept of “Palestinian cantons,” which is the same thing. It is what we really have today in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and of course, Gaza, with its ongoing siege. Perhaps that is the idea in mind: retain the Palestinians in a gulag under siege, with Israel, the master, holding the keys to getting in and out.
The one state solution is a subterfuge, a path to what Jimmy Carter was courageous enough to call by its rightful name: Apartheid.
I personally see Gaza as more of the largest concentration camp the world has ever seen than a canton even if the use of the terminology concentration camp upsets some.
Quite how can anyone take seriously our role as a mediator and peacemaker? It is like something from a satirical movie that couldnt happen in real life but does.
Quite honestly the Palestinians would be better served by withdrawing from all negotiations that involved the US and thinking of their own interests. Their interests are always without exception going to be subordinated to Israeli interests if we get our way.
The EU “might” be a more unbiased mediator, only its present envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, is frankly incompetent. Perhaps, heads of state from influential countries might be more effective.
The US has already demonstrated its inability influence the peace process.
I dont think Israel would accept anyone apart from the US.
The EU “might” be a more unbiased mediator, only its present envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, is frankly incompetent. Perhaps, heads of state from influential countries might be more effective.
The US has already demonstrated its inability influence the peace process.