This is the problem facing any president who attempts to show even a limited amount of tough love to Israel. It might seem like I’m tough on Israel or even favor the Palestinians in their dispute with Israel. But that is not really the case. I support that state of Israel and, above all, want them to live in peace. But I do not believe they serve their own security concerns by occupying Palestinian territory. I think Israel has made one mistake after another, beginning with the decision to invade Lebanon in 1982 and their decision to create permanent settlements in areas they conquered in the 1967 war. I believe the United States has largely solved their existential security risks by brokering peace between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan. But we have not been rewarded for these efforts and Israel has behaved as if they didn’t even occur. Our international image suffers terribly not because we support Israel, but because we enable them to continue and expand their occupation of Palestinian land. We have the right to demand that Israel make concessions for peace, but everytime a president attempts to pressure Israel, a supermajority of Congress rebukes the president and undermines his foreign policy.
Israel knows what steps it must take, but it doesn’t have the political will to take them. America knows, too, but we don’t have the political will either. That’s why people need to show support for the president if and when he or she tries to lead Israel in a sensible direction.
As I said, there is now worldwide Jewish conspiracy, but in a totally legal an open way, Israel controls the actions of the US Congress in respect to itself.
I DO favor the Palestinians in the dispute. But the first mistake was ours in re-creating Israel there to begin with.
I only favor the Palestinians in the dispute to the degree that Israel is taking actions that are unjustified and, as the stronger party, must make the first move on making concessions. I don’t support actions like the second Intifada or the rocketing of Israel towns or the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, as I see them as similarly self-defeating.
I think Israel knows that it must create a two-state solution, but they don’t have an electorate that will allow them to make the concessions needed. The divided Palestinian government is no prize either, as it makes it almost impossible to negotiate with them.
But, what bothers me the most is our own Congress undermining the president when he tries to steer Israel on a path that even they know they must be led down.
In all fairness the United States did not create Israel. In fact, it had very little to do with its creation at all, especially compared to Britain and other European powers. However, at some point the United States adopted this child that has proven to be most unlovable, ungracious, and ungrateful, not to mention deeply dangerous. Time to terminate parental responsibility (there ARE no parental rights in this case, that is clear) and put that child on a plane and send it back.
We as in “the West.”
I would have gladly given up my home state of Minnesota to be a new Jewish homeland instead.
That said, your conflation of this with the Moscow woman’s return of the child is nauseating. That’s unbelievably cruel, harmful and dangerous to do to any child. I agree with the sentiment of ending the alliance with Israel (I think our natural allies are Turkey and Iran in the region) but your analogy is poor.
You are quite right. It was a thoughtless and poor analogy. I agree with you that what that woman did was beyond appallingly cruel, and I don’t care HOW disturbed, difficult or dangerous the child was. In fact, if anything it was worse to do that to a child who clearly had severe mental/emotional problems.
It was a poor analogy in large part because Israel is not a child, it is a very dangerous adult that refuses to behave in a decent and civilized way, so cutting it loose and sending it off to take care of itself is not only appropriate it is the right thing to do.
I’ve made similar analogies myself and been rebuked for it so I’m kind of sensitive to the issue. To me Israel is like a guy in a tank shouting about how that Palestinian guy sticking a knife into the treads is the Ultimate Threat Ever.
That should read THERE IS NO world wide Jewish conspiracy. I do not believe in the existence of one.
Back before 9/11, I was saying that we could do a LOT to ease tensions overall in the Middle East by finding a workable solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. While real support from the leaders in Arab nations about the Palestinians was (and is) somewhat lukewarm, the feelings of the Arab populace overall are quite strong. And groups like Al Qaeda did not hesitate to draw on those feelings to recruit others to their cause (in addition to things like non-Muslim troops stationed near their holy cities).
How things have changed — and not — in a decade.
Still, the Israel/Palestinian situation has continued to get worse, in large part because Israel continues to build settlements in occupied territory, displacing Palestinians from land they’ve had for generations — AND doing so in incredibly heavy-handed ways. And the US has stood behind them, or at least kept quiet and continued to sell them military equipment and arms (Bush’s refusing to recognize the results of the elections in Gaza didn’t help either). And so the cycle of violence has continued, and the problem (especially because of the settlements and annexation of West Jerusalem) has become harder and harder to solve.
But this situation is still one of the rallying cries of terrorist groups — they use distrust of and resentment towards Israel in tandem with the US troops in Iraq as recruitment incentives, and the Palestinians as poster children for their cause — which in many cases, has very little to do with actually helping the Palestinians.
Working out a solution in the Israel/Palestinian conflict would be a MAJOR improvement in the situation in the Middle East overall — and start to undermine the popular support of violent extremists in the region. (So would withdrawing troops from Iraq, but that’s at least in process and totally under our control.)
I know President Obama and the State Dept. have a lot on their plates… but this is something that really, really needs some serious attention.
I don’t favor either side, but I empathize and sympathize with the Palestinians far more than I do with the Israelis.
As MN said, the state shouldn’t have been created in the first place. However, now that it’s there, you have to make do. Nothing less than a one-state ruled by a secular government is good enough for me; and giving all refugees the right of return.
In the mean time I can accept a two-state solution, I suppose, but I don’t think it will end there. It’s not going to be resolved until the apartheid ends, and both regions are unified under one secular flag.
I don’t support Israel being a Jewish state. A lot of countries in Europe have the same racist mentality, which is mostly why they don’t want Turkey a part of the EU. Sorry, but “ethnic regions/states” are a thing of the past. Europe and Israel are going to have to accept that.
I have an almost infinite empathy for Israelis. And, yet, I don’t think I’ve agreed with any decisions they’ve made since signing the Camp David accords.
I’m not interested in debating whether Israel should have been created. I think it’s obvious that it came at a much higher cost than anticipated in the salons of the developed nations of the time. But, whatever.
Any Israeli, however, who stake a claim to territory not granted to them under the United Nations resolution is going beyond what I can support. I know they were nearly destroyed in 1973. But we fixed that problem. They ought to recognize that we fixed that problem for them and that we can fix their current security risks to a large degree. But they must give up this idea that they own Judea and Samaria.
Yeah I agree, I have no real interest in discussing whether or not it should have been created; I was just pointing out what I thought on it.
Anyway, your response to MN up there is right where I stand, mostly. When I say I empathize with the Palestinians more, I mean to say that being the more educated, powerful, etc in this negotiation, Israel has to be the “bigger man,” to to speak. I don’t see that happening, though, which is why I don’t advocate the Palestinians to react with violence, even when it’s justified. Even when justified it pushes us farther away from a solution. So because Israel is the big bully that it is and our Senators/Reps are chickenshit little weaklings, the Palestinians need to embrace non-violence under all circumstances.
Israel keeps giving them “concessions” that don’t even amount to anything meaningful. They’re empty, just given to make them look reasonable, even though they know the Palestinians and their leaders will never accept them. Mostly this is dealing with the refugee problem, and it’s obvious why Israel refuses to deal with it: it would be the practical end to the “Jewish state.”
It’s not so much that Israel is the “more educated*, powerful, etc.” that puts the onus on Israel as it is that Israel is the one who has throughout its history and until today committed ethnic cleansing, theft of land and property, oppression of others, etc., etc. If the Palestinians were forcibly occupying Israeli territory, taking land outside its borders for itself, and violating the rights of the inhabitants of that land, then the onus would be on the Palestinians to stop committing those crimes.
As for how the Palestinians react, it really doesn’t matter whether it is violent, non-violent or not at all, Israel will do what it will do until and unless the UN or someone else decides that international law should apply as much to Israel as it does to anyone else.
The first paragraph deals with what I am talking about in general, though. You just went into the specifics.
As for the latter, I disagree. Israel might be able to do whatever it does, but it would be a lot harder for them to do so with our blessing when it’s a clear sign of engagement. I know, I know…a lot of what happens right now is already the result of their instigating. That’s the goal, though: to cause intifadas and make the Palestinians look unreasonable while poor Israel is being encroached upon.
Take the horrid Gaza war in December. From what I have read and researched, the Israelis broke the ceasefire; it’s a lot more muddled in the mainstream, though. Thus, Israel just looks like a saint, reacting in self-defense.
A sign that you are correct, though, is the recent Georgian/Russian conflict. Russia had the right to strike; if they should have is something else altogether. Regardless, they were justified. Where it stopped being justified, and where it was condemned among a lot in the US was the disproportionate use of force. I thought Bush’s response was pretty good.
You could be right. Who knows? I’m just not so sure…
Israel unequivocally broke the ceasefire using the rather transparent, and unverified pretext that Hamas was going to tunnel into Israel and “kidnap” a soldier (only Israeli soldiers are kidnapped; all others are captured). This follows a well-documented pattern set by Israel in the first years of its existence that has continued throughout its history. Hamas, on the other hand, has a documented record of keeping ceasefires, including a number of unilateral ones, even in the face of strong provocation by Israel. In fact, at least one study showed that in 75-80% of cases it has been Israel that has violated ceasefires leading eventually to a resumption of violence. Unfortunately, just about everyone has a breaking point.
It is reasonable to discuss and debate the relative merits of strictly non-violent resistance, violent resistance, and a mixture of the two. My experience and observation have led me to the conclusion that liberation cannot be achieved by non-violence alone unless the other party is already prepared to let go. In fact, I cannot think of a single liberation that has ever been won without some violence. People like to pretend that Ghandi’s and Mandela’s were the only strategies used in the liberation of India and the ending of Apartheid, but in both cases there were concurrent violent movements that contributed to the end result. And at the same time in both these cases there was a certain level of readiness to let go on the part of Britain and white South Africans that does not exist for Israel, and probably will not in the foreseeable future. And of course in the case of South Africa especially there was considerable and very public pressure from the rest of the world (except Israel, but that relationship is another, sort of interesting story).
And I know most of the world has been kept conveniently in the dark about this, but as you probably know, the Palestinians have a strong history of non-violent resistance going back to the ’20’s and ’30’s. They have tried every possible non-violent means from diplomacy, to petitions, to demonstratiins to civil disobedience, boycotts, and peaceful demonstrations (which, propaganda to the contrary, is overwhelmingly what the First Intifada was all about), and on and on. Even some people who are aware of and will admit the long, and often quite creative and determined history of Palestinian non-violent resistance insist upon discounting it by saying that any level of violence at all negates the whole non-violent effort, which is of course both unfair and unrealistic, and not something they have demanded of other resistance/liberation movements. They don’t seem to think that Indian and South African violent resistance negated the efforts of Ghandi and Mandela, or example. In fact you will rarely hear a word from them about that.
I cannot think of a single significant liberation that has been achieved completely without violence, can you? So, while non-violence can be an important element in any resistance/liberation movement, it may be that violence is important too, and perhaps equally important. I suspect that the correct balance of violence and non-violence might depend on the strength and determination of the oppressor.
I am not necessarily trying to persuade you to see it my way, just trying to explain some my thinking and its source.
Let’s just say it out loud, shall we: brutal repression is wrong. It is no less wrong than the tactics of some in the Palestinian camp, and no less wrong than other notable repressions in the past.
Was that so hard? Israel flagrantly ignores international law, has built a massive illegal nuclear arsenal that has set off an arms race in the Middle East, commits crimes against humanity that are well-documented, and yet speaks as a victim and expects to be treated as a victim. Our Congress, bought and paid for, abets and encourages Israel in its folly. Which brings that country, as BooMan notes, ever closer to ruin. It’s become painful to watch.
The Palestinians, for their part, have responded mistakenly to Israel’s actions. They have failed to learn from the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. They have responded to violence with violence, and in many cases initiated violence. While I empathize with the frustrations of the Palestinians at the horrific injustices visited upon them, I cannot condone their resort to violence.
As a Jew of conscience, I cannot support the actions of the political leadership of the State of Israel. They are inhumane to the Palestinians and to the people of Israel, and are ruinous to my hopes for a peaceful prosperous country that lives up to international legal obligations. Let alone its moral obligations.
I have an almost infinite empathy for Israelis.
Why? What have they done – say, since the Yom Kippur war – to deserve empathy?
As a kid (67 war), and young teen (73 war) I had sympathy, maybe even admiration for them (probably misguided, blame the media). But subsequently, it is certainly clear that the state of Israel and its policies is a human rights disaster. Israel is a rogue state and passes up on no opportunity to demonstrate so.
Why? Mainly because of the circumstances that led to the creation of Israel. A desire to have a state to call their own, where they would no longer have to rely on the unreliable benevolence of hostile forces for their existence…that I completely understand.
That I have empathy for them doesn’t mean that I agree with the decisions they’ve been making. But my empathy for the plight of the Jewish people, going back many centuries, is great. And I understand that the Israeli people feel besieged and friendless.
That I can empathize with even their bad decisions, doesn’t mean that I excuse them.
I think every ounce of empathy that anyone can muster should be directed towards the Palestinians in Gaza (in particular) and the West Bank, as well as those who have otherwise been displaced.
The Israelis have elected a regime displaying apartheid attitudes and practices – a regime which apparently has solid popular support. No empathy earned or deserved.
And by the same token the Palestinians have voted in Hamas. I don’t think that’s a very fair gauging of the situation. Of course, as I’ve said, obviously the Israelis should be looked at under closer scrutiny, being a state with an actual army/economy. However, I don’t think it’s fair to measure who is deserving of empathy and who is not on that metric. Every innocent person deserves empathy; on the bloc scale, the Palestinians obviously amount to more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t empathize with Israelis and their families, either.
When it comes to the governments themselves, I think when the playing field is fair and justice has been served, we can talk about two sides. Until then, then there is absolutely no balance to this situation at all.
I have empathy for both sides. I don’t have much sympathy, however, for the decisions either side has made.
But my main concern is the same as Obama’s. It’s about U.S. security. And from our point of view, Israel’s behavior is the more dangerous of the two.
I don’t get this. You seem to agree that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, yet shrug that off in favor of not sympathizing with the decisions either side has made. You equate the Palestinians’ pathetic efforts to resist an occupation with Israel’s ongoing occupation with all the human rights violations that goes with it? Would you make the same equation between the French Resistance and the Third Reich? Aside from sentimental empathy with the historic oppression of the Jewish people, what arguments for continuing the occupation do you accept?
I might be misunderstanding his position, but Booman appears to be one of the many who insist upon viewing it as a “dispute” among two more or less equal parties with equal culpability and equal power to end it, not as a weak victim trying to defend itself against crimes and oppression committed against it by a stronger party. I know a lot of people who despite everything insist upon holding this position, which is a bit like describing slavery in the U.S. as black slaves having a “dispute with white European slave owners”.
I will refrain from stating my view of those who cannot bring themselves to see the Israel-Palestinian situation in accurate terms. I WILL quote Elie Wiesel from his Nobel acceptance speech:
Yeah, you basically misunderstand my position.
A full airing of my position would require tens of thousands of words. And no comment could possibly do it justice.
But my simplistic explanation is that I support the existence of the state of Israel despite recognizing the basic unfairness its creation did to the people who were displaced. I also recognize a country’s right to be secure from foreign invasion and to keep territory won in a defensive war. And, a stronger party should not be provoked by a weaker party and be expected to show restraint. Suicide bombing is not only self-defeating, it undermines any moral case the Palestinians might make.
On the other side, the Palestinians have a legitimate grievance from the creation of Israel to the current state of affairs. The Israelis had a right to defend themselves in 1967 and 1973 and they had a right to hold territory as a negotiating ploy and for defensive purposes. But the policies they pursued of ‘changing the facts on the ground’ through the settlements was immoral, self-defeating, and stupid. We have solved the problem of Israel facing a reprise of 1973, and so they don’t need the land for defensive purposes.
So, in short, I think Israel has pursued a deeply flawed and ultimately immoral set of policies since the Camp David Accords. And while I feel for the Palestinians and their suffering, the Second Intifada basically lost my sympathy. I want Israel to abandon the settlements and help create a Palestinian state because that will be good for the United States. It will be good for the Palestinians and Israel, too. But after watching the Israelis and the Palestinians go back and forth outdoing each other in their immorality, I don’t feel too much concern for what either of them deserve. I care mainly for my own country and how the conflict endangers us and make us insane.
I won’t comment on most of what you said, but I can’t get around the nationalist tinge from your post.
There’s a qualifier in there, and I realize perhaps it’s the theory of states’ looking out for their own interests…but as a person I can’t have this view, nor rationalize how anyone could. Could you expound upon it more?
Sure.
There are conflicts, injustices, criminally negligent and outright evil governments in many places around the world. But most of them only concern the United States in the same way that they concern everyone. No one likes to see injustice and human suffering and we all share some responsibility to try to put an end to it when we see it happening.
The United States shoulders a heavier burden than most countries when things happen like the war in the Balkans or the tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti or what have you. I accept that to a degree, but I’d like to share some of that burden.
However, the conflict in Palestine puts us directly at risk. Not only that, but for the last decade we have been enabling the injustice being done there rather than plausibly advocating for a resolution. So, my main concern is not that an injustice is being done and how to assign relative blame, because I have that concern in Darfur and Zimbabwe and Burma and Tibet. My main concern is that the conflict implicates us morally and results in blowback in the form of a pretty constant threat of terrorism against our cities and our modes of transportation, even our government and military installation, which then puts our civil liberties at risk.
Solving the conflict is more important than just solving one among many humanitarian concerns that exist around the world. This is in a special category.
Now, I’ve been scathing in my criticism of Israel both during the recent war in Lebanon and in Gaza. But the biggest reason was that I saw it as self-defeating and disproportionate. But, I also think it took a criminal lack of foresight on the part of Hizbollah and Hamas to not be able to predict how Israel would react and avoid bringing immeasurable suffering on the people of Lebanon and Gaza through their thoughtless provocations. No one will reward acts of terror, and acts of terror only serve to strip you of the moral high ground and to give your enemies an excuse for making you more miserable.
Because terrorism hardens the hearts of all parties and feeds a cycle of violence, and because this winds up taking away people’s freedoms all over the world, it is an intolerable practice. And anyone who engages is systematic campaigns of terror, particularly targeting civilians and civilian transportation and using brainwashed and often drugged often mentally disable youths, is going to earn the misery that they get in return.
And it should go without question that the terror attacks on the United States and the Second Intifada led to nothing but misery for the people who carried them out. This should have been predictable, but for some reason it reason was ignored.
I don’t care about who started it back in the 1920’s or whatever. I have a concern for the Palestinians who suffer under occupation and economic blockade, and I have a concern for Israelis that live with a regular shower of low-grade missile attacks. But my main concern is how Israeli settlement expansion provokes an anti-American response and makes it ever harder to craft an end to the conflict.
“I also recognize a country’s right to be secure from foreign invasion…“
I take it that means you recognize Lebanon’s right and Egypt’s right, and Syria’s right, and Jordan’s right, and even Palestinians’ right to be free from Israeli invasion? And who has ever invaded Israel? No one is, I believe, the correct answer, unless you count Syria entering the Golan Heights and Egypt entering the Sinai in 1973 as invading Israel.
“I also recognize a country’s right…to keep territory won in a defensive war.“
Then you recognize a right that does not exist. No country has a right to acquire territory from war, whether that war is defensive or not. That is, by the way, the governing principle of UNSC 242 pertaining to the Israeli occupation of land outside the Green Line since 1967, one of the few UNSC resolutions regarding Israel that the US has not vetoed. Further, countries do not have a right to settle their citizens in lands occupied as a result of war, defensive or not, to deport inhabitants of those lands, to destroy or build structures on that land, to alter the governing or civil structure in that land, or to exploit the resources of that land for their own benefit, all of which Israel has done in spades.
“And, a stronger party should not be provoked by a weaker party and be expected to show restraint.“
One person’s self-defense or resistance against aggression and oppression is apparently another person’s provocation.
“Suicide bombing is not only self-defeating, it undermines any moral case the Palestinians might make.“
I find attacks on civilians abhorrent whether they are suicide bombings or dropping one ton bombs on apartment buildings containing sleeping families, or herding tens of people into a building and then bombarding it for hours. Attacks on occupation forces and structures of the occupation are quite a different matter. They are legitimate defence, and legitimate resistance, and are completely moral and permissible under international law, even if they are in the form of suicide bombings. Whether they are self-defeating or not is very debatable. Many of us believe that it depends very much on the circumstances whether violence or non-violence is productive or self-defeating.
“The Israelis had a right to defend themselves in 1967…“
Your concept of self-defense is very interesting. The Israelis clearly initiated the military violence in 1967, and since then a number of very high-level military and government officials have admitted as much. At least one very high-level Israeli official has acknowledged publicly that they knew Nasser was not going to attack, another stated explicitly that 1967 was a war of choice. The Israelis could have stopped the escalation at any time, but it was convenient for them as a cover for an attack on Nasser that they had been planning for quite some time.
“and 1973…“
Yes, in 1973 they were defending themselves and were within their rights to do so, though as always the claimed threat of annihilation was completely bogus. 1973 is the only one of Israel’s wars that was clearly not initiated by Israel. All the rest, with the possible partial exception of 1948 were clear wars of aggression on Israel’s part. And 1973 could have been avoided by responding to Egypt’s and Syria’s attempts to negotiate through correct diplomatic channels for the return of their territory.
“they had a right to hold territory as a negotiating ploy and for defensive purposes.“
Not really. Although 1967 was clearly not a defensive war, they may have had a right to temporarily militarily occupy territory in keeping with the Fourth Geneva Convention, and other applicable international law. They have done nothing of the kind, of course. Quite the contrary, they have violated virtually every applicable provision of virtually every applicable legal instrument, including UNSC 242, which mandates a full withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967.
“But the policies they pursued of ‘changing the facts on the ground’ through the settlements was immoral, self-defeating, and stupid. We have solved the problem of Israel facing a reprise of 1973, and so they don’t need the land for defensive purposes.“
This is contradictory. Your words: “I also recognize a country’s right…to keep territory won in a defensive war.” Assuming just for the sake of argument that this right exists (it absolutely doesn’t), what is the point of keeping the territory you “won” if you don’t colonize it and use it to expand your territory?
“So, in short, I think Israel has pursued a deeply flawed and ultimately immoral set of policies since the Camp David Accords.“
Only since Camp David? And what makes all of Israel’s policies between June, 1967 and the Camp David Accords acceptable and moral? Israel has had a policy and practice of ethnically cleansing, colonizing, “changing the facts on the ground”, denying the rights of the inhabitants, and exploiting the resources of the OPT’s and the Golan Heights (which it illegally annexed quite some time ago) since June, 1967. Why are the first eleven years of such policies and activity not deeply flawed and immoral?
Ethnic cleansing began immediately in the West Bank (and East Jerusalem), Gaza, and the Golan Heights. By July, 1967 there were around 200,000 refugees in the East Bank area of Jordan, around 70,000 in tent camps, and 140,000 or so in mostly squalid conditions in towns and cities. Tens of thousands had been loaded by the Israeli military onto trucks and buses, taken to the borders with Jordan, Lebanon, or Egypt, and forced to cross. Israel ethnically cleansed the Golan heights of 95% of Syrians, selectively leaving some Druze in place while driving out the Arabs almost completely. They destroyed 96% of the villages.
In July, 1967 Israel adopted the Alon plan which laid out the colonization scheme that is being followed in revised form until this day. The first illegal colonies were established shortly after that.
And you have to wait until 1978 to find something deeply flawed and immoral?
That’s another misreading of what I wrote. I believe Israel has not made a good decision since Camp David. Actually, the made a good decision when they made peace with Jordan in 1994. But other than that, they have been off-track since Camp David. That does not mean that all their decisions prior to Camp David were a model of rectitude. The reason I use Camp David as a marker is because once we brokered a peace between Israel and Egypt and flipped Egypt from the Soviet to the American camp, Israel no longer had a defensive need to hold territory that they captured in the 1967 or 1973 wars.
And, while recognizing international law on the matter, I believe Israel had a right to hold territory they captured until their legitimate defensive concerns were addressed. That doesn’t mean that they could or should colonize that territory, however, or that they could keep it permanently.
“Any Israeli, however, who stake a claim to territory not granted to them under the United Nations resolution is going beyond what I can support.“
Not the it was ever right for the UN to grant the Zionist colonists any part of Palestine, but virtually every Israeli stakes a claim to territory not granted them under UN 181 since 1948 was a war of expansion (and ethnic cleansing, but that is another topic) for Israel, and during that period they went from the inequitable 57% granted by the UN to 88% of what was then Palestine. Documentary evidence makes it unarguable that expansion was part of the plan.
“I know they were nearly destroyed in 1973.“
Simply not true, though it fits nicely with the “Israel is under perpetual existential threat” justification for virtually everything Israel does.
It may not meet the legal standard of treason, but elected federal officials siding with the leader of a foreign nation over its own, feels treasonous. Not to mention the scab that barely covers the unhealed wounds of black and Jewish discord. Let’s not pretend that racism is not a leading factor in the open disrespect that Israel is showing for OUR president. And for white Democrats, particularly in NY, IL, CA, to instigate seems like a deliberate slap in the face to the African American Community they need to win.
To the Palestinians ALL of Israel is Palestinian territory, so there can never be a two state solution.
That’s a canard. If a viable Palestinian were created that was accepted by the Arab nations, then any further harassment of Israel would have no international support and could be crushed with impunity.
See Hurria’s comment below…
It seems Hurria agrees with me.
Exactly.
Oscar, I am rather disappointed.
Sorry, but my comment is not even remotely related to what you wrote above, and there is nothing in it to suggest that I agree with you. In fact, I do NOT agree with you at all. To be specific, I do NOT agree with your statement that “to the Palestinians ALL of Israel is Palestinian territory, so there can never be a two state solution.” Please consider the following:
There is more, but those four points should give a good start toward understanding why I do not agree with your statement.
.
To the Israelis ALL of Palestinian territory is part of Eretz Israel, so there can never be a peaceful solution.
At the end of European colonialism and the desintegration of the British Empire at the end of WWII, Jewish terror groups murdered sufficient British troops and UN officials to force their Zionist hand and build on a Jewish state. The rest is history and only a strong man can stop Israel evicting the Palestinian people across the Jordan river into our ‘friendly’ Kingdom of Jordan.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."There can be only one state, either Jewish or Muslim, because neither can allow the other to exist. When the Israeli PM or the PLO speaks to the American President about two states, it’s just a con job for the benefit of the naive. Each understands that this is a fight to the finish. Since the Israelis will never kill every Arab, ultimately the Arabs will finish Hitler’s job and the Americans will cry crocodile tears and wail that it didn’t have to be.
I’m pretty sure that Israel would turn the ME into a glass sea before allowing that to happen…
Nobody outside of a few radical wack jobs intend for that to ever happen, and those few radical wack jobs will never have the ability to make it happen.
Okaaaaay! NOW we see where you are coming from. Sorry, this is pure crapola. I am interested in talking about the real world, not in debating people’s paranoid fantasies.
Oh, and Palestinian is not a contest between Jews and Muslims. Palestinian Christians have been and are being persecuted and deprived of their homeland and rights right along with Palestinian Muslims, and Christians have been at the forefront of both the non-violent and violent struggle since the beginning. Ever heard of George Habash and the PFLP, for example?
“It might seem like I’m tough on Israel or even favor the Palestinians in their dispute with Israel.“
No, it doesn’t seem that way at all. Quite the contrary. In fact, your very language indicates your bias. The Palestinians do not have a “dispute with Israel” any more than the Armenians had a “dispute with the Turks”, or the American Indians had a “dispute with the white Europeans” who colonized their land and forced those they could not annihilate onto squalid reservations. The fact that you can even think of putting the situation in terms of Palestinians having a “dispute with Israel” speaks volumes.
Underlying such letters is the “zomg! you criticized Israel! You’re anti-Semitic!!!!!!!!” mentality of many.
Most of us aren’t anti-Semitic, just anti-apartheid. They’re quite different concepts.
How can the US people keep putting up with Israel’s selfish, nasty behavior towards them and Israel’s neighbors which it can only maintain because of—well—those very same US people who are being insulted, belittled, ripped-off by that very same Israel? Is it true or not true that a Palestinian Israeli is not allowed to bring a spouse from Gaza or the occupied territories to live with him or her in Israel? Is this true or not true? This is the democracy of Israel, the values the US shares with that insufferable country which holds the world hostage. They hate us for our freedoms———–HA!
Who says the American people are putting up with it. Most feel helpless enough to get their own economic lives in order these days. Worrying about US-Israel relations is completely off the radar. This is exclusively an inside-the-Beltway issue, except for those Jews for whom Israel is the single issue.
And asking for better US-Israel relations is a two-way street. Some of those folks who signed the letter have been cheerleading Netanyahu’s intransigence.
Barbara Boxer and Johnny Isakson, both up for re-election.
About the only thing bipartisan that Congress has done and the only reason Republicans participated was to give the Obama administration grief. They don’t give a shit about what happens to Israel.
There will be a solution when folks are able to move beyond the dead hand of history. There are a lot of Israelis and Palestinians who want a different situation, but the Israeli government, which represents the Likud and religious parties seeks a different vision.
The issue is with the Israeli government and whatever reaction that government’s actions get among Palestinians. Right now, it is in the political interest of both Hamas and Fatah to pursue a solution and it is in the political interest of Likud and the religous parties not to.
And the recent unpleasantness began with Netanyahu’s snub of Joe Biden.
The reality is that the American people will not continue to increase our deficit just to ensure the security of an “ungrateful Israel”. Remember that “cut foreign aid” solution to the deficit that folks keep mentioning to pollsters. Guess what happens if we indeed to cut foreign aid?
I’m tired of being Deebo’d by the Israel lobby.
We’re supposed to be allies. Not patsies.
I got nothing except exhaustion with the Israelis and their tools in this government. Sick of their stupid asses.
If you think you are sick of them, imagine how a Palestinian feels!
This image, I think, embodies the struggle since before WWII.
http://gutterpoetry.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/settler.jpg?w=500&h=374