The Times of Israel:
For the first time since he managed to restart the talks in July, [Secretary of State John] Kerry dropped his statesman-like public impartiality, and clearly spoke from the heart — and what emerged were a series of accusations that amounted to a forceful slap in the face for Netanyahu. It was a rhetorical onslaught that the prime minister cannot have expected and one he will not quickly forget.
Kerry seemed to place the blame for the failure to make rapid and major progress in negotiations overwhelmingly on Israel, with no acknowledgment — in his statements as broadcast Thursday — of two intifadas, relentless anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian territories, the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the constant rocket fire from the Strip.
For Netanyahu, watching Kerry’s from-the-heart interview must have topped what was already a pretty lousy day. In Geneva, the six world powers were inching toward a deal with the Iranians that the prime minister fears would leave Tehran with an enrichment capability even as the sanctions are eased — something Netanyahu considers a “historic error.”
Kerry weighed in on that, too, in the interview. Ultimately, if Iran doesn’t “meet the standards of the international community,” said the secretary unhappily, “there may be no option but the military option.” But, he quickly insisted, “we hope to avoid that.”
Just the sort of message Netanyahu has been urging the US not to deliver to Tehran.
Some of this is typical right-wing grumbling, but the shift in policy and tone is real. Freed from the need to win reelection, the Obama administration is no longer willing to put up with Netanyahu’s bullying.
I like the idea that somehow the US has been impartial before, and now is striking a more “anti-Israel” tone. As if they were ever (and currently are) impartial, and not bending-over-backwards in favor of Israel.
It reminds me of Bill Keller’s idea of how the media should act lol.
Any US stance other than ‘collared, obedient attack dog’ is likely to be seen by RW press as anti-Israel…and Netanyahu knows this, and knows how to work it.
Things will work out as they will at this point–I keep popcorn handy just in case
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whose “side” anybody favors, or where any fault lies; the Israelis hold the keys to the land. Security issues can (and actually have been) be addressed, with the exception of the area immediately adjacent to the Gaza Strip, but until the settlements move, nothing can move forward. They are a physical obstacle that must be removed. Blaming an occupied people for rebellion, no matter how violent, is a useless endeavor, anyway.
I’ve noticed the Israeli embassy spamming my twitter stream with tweets about Iran this week (one had a picture of anti-American Iranian protesters and asked something like “do you want them to have the bomb?”). Why on earth Israel would be opposed to an agreement that could disarm Iran, at least in the nuclear arena, is utterly beyond me. Based on their logic, Iran could never do anything to please them, which pretty much makes the Israelis irrelevant. They’ve done this to themselves.
Israel desperately needs new leadership. But such a small country is so easily swayed by virulent movements and money from abroad (including fundy christians), I worry it can’t happen.
Kerry is just matching thuggery for thuggery. “Oh hey, Israel, nice country you got there, be a shame if terrorists were to start blowing buses up all over again.”
If I was of the Israeli right (or even center), I would literally despise American interlocutors. To sneer so hard despite profiting for so long from and being so integral to Israeli colonization (in what would have otherwise been a complete regional dark zone for 70 years) is just ridiculous. The US and Israel have been partners in crime for generations now, except it wouldn’t be the US who has to live with a cancerous, post-colonial ward of the international community with a massive refugee crisis on its borders.
The Iran news is real and most welcome though. Both sides have finally climbed down from their stupid perches. The West is abandoning its war on enrichment, and Iran is giving up…its claim to permanent revolution? Turns out resistance carries quite the price.
So you think Palestinians are a “cancer”?
Jesus, I hope we can discuss this topic in a more civilized way than that.
Civility was going just fine until you butted in with your complete lack of comprehension and stereotypical panic.
What is the best case scenario for any post-colonial or post-Soviet or post-anything state in the last fifty years?
95% not good. For a generation plus, they poor, corrupt, and unstable, and that instability metastasizes across their neighbors. In the event that Palestine is created, East Jerusalem would have to operate under strict and punitive immigration and movement controls for at least ten years. If I was Israeli, I’d be damned if I let hundreds of thousands of Gazans and Jordanian refugees start pouring onto my new borders. Sinai and Gaza sure turned out great, huh?
There is little precedent for a colonial power voluntarily giving up possessed territory contiguous with its own land. Germany and Japan had theirs stripped and seized, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the European empires gave up lands far away from home. Israel is unique in its predicament.
I guess they shouldn’t have gone down the apartheid route in the first place should they?
Didn’t end well for the bigots in South Africa and won’t end well with them in Israel.
And YES Zionists ARE bigots.
Exactly. Shouldn’t have been murderous bullies for the past few decades.
Congratulations, you just realized that Israel annexing territory from its neighbors after war is the cause of its troubles.
Welcome to 1973.
The core problem with Zionism existed long before 1973 …..
Calm down, kiddo. How exactly am I panicking by objecting to this blog becoming another den of I/P inequity?
Nobody seriously believes Palestinians – the “cancer” you referred to earlier – are going to “pour into Israel’s borders”. Nobody in any sort of power is actually suggesting that. The “right of return” bargaining chip will be traded for some kind of land swap, or for guarantees of foreign aid that will not be paid by Israel. At most, a handful of very elderly people might be given a passport, which they would probably not use. Jerusalem will be divided, but the Israelis will very likely get the best of that deal. Anyone who has followed this conflict closely knows that. Good grief. Talk about panic.
a. The word chosen was onto, not into, so you failed to quote me correctly despite the words being printed on the screen in front of your eyes.
b. East Jerusalem is not expected to be a part of Israel
c. a and b do not, thus, refer to Israel or the right of return. Palestine exists right next to Israel, not in its own dimension.
d. Still haven’t called any person a cancer, champ. That’s your own racism that’s blinding to you to the fact that nations can have characteristics independent of any great statement about race, religion or ethnicity. Any country can or has been cancerous to its neighbors for any number of reasons over history. The good ol’ US of A has been a source of malignancies in its neighbors for the last 170 years, for example (earlier if you want to count Haiti, or even earlier still if you want to count the Iroquois or whatever).
e. You seriously lack reading comprehension. Provisional Palestine is already a failed state. The previous three Israeli withdrawals (Sinai, south Lebanon and Gaza) have not promoted stability, peace or prosperity. It’s your own racism that’s leapt to Arabs swarming Israel when I’ve all been referring to is failed states and ungainly transitions worldwide from even the best of intentions.
Stop blaming me for your own inadequacies.
To paraphrase the former Senator from Nebraska, now Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel: Secretary of State John Kerry is not the Secretary of State of Israel…
The United States holds some power of Israel in these forms that US policy-makers have been carefully holding onto:
Domestic politics changes. Muslim-Americans number as many as Jewish-Americans and after the overreach by law enforcement after 9/11, Muslim-Americans have become politically active in electoral politics. And AIPAC has been exposed as receiving funding from the Israeli government, making it a lobbying group for foreign interests. Calling Israel to account is not necessarily the domestic political disaster it once was.
And the sentiment of the Jewish-American community is changing in part because of the testimony of Miko Peled and the reporting in Max Blumenthal’s new book, Goliath.
The is a little more freedom in what US policy can be toward Israel.
US national interest now points to detente with Iran (and maybe ever restoration of normal diplomatic relations) and at least a temporary restoration of the Assad regime in the midst of political dialog among Syrians. Iran has called for the removal of all foreign fighters in Syria, including Hezbollah fighters.
The Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf, principally Saudi Arabia, are now in a tough spot. And so is Israel. Either they participate in the diplomatic opening with Iran or they will be left out. The Saudi and Qatari intervention in Syria has failed. To the extent that the US CIA was involved in military intervention in Syria, it also has failed. The legitimate Arab Spring movement of peaceful protest among Syrians must now reset just as their Egyptian counterparts are doing.
Turkey has already shifted to improved relations with Iran. And Turkey is opening stronger relationships with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
And it is not outside the bounds of possibility that enough diplomatic pressure can be placed on Israel to turn the Middle East into an area free of weapons of mass destruction. Netanyahu just has to do the “Nixon goes to China”/”Sadat goes to Jerusalem” gambit. Which is why Kerry pointedly reminded Israel (and Netanyahu) about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Kerry should not play poker with President Obama. He doesn’t have the body language control to win.
We are seeing signs of major shifts in the geopolitics of the Middle East that might, although it is much too early to tell, make that part of the world a less dangerous place.
If America is pissing off Israel and the Saudis, we must be doing something right. I noticed that it seemed like the Iranians became much more receptive to negotiations after we didn’t bomb Syria.
My impression is that Israel doesn’t want a solution to the Iranian problem. Having the Iranians to scream about is central to their posture of righteous victimization.
You think that Bibi’s BFF Mitt and Bandar’s BFF Poppy Bush might be a little on the outs with a second-term President who wants to earn a place in history with foreign policy?
Ha! Bibi earned himself many slaps in the face for openly endorsing Romney.
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My new diary – Obama On Way Towards Grand-Slam In Diplomacy.
From my earlier comment on Sept. 13, 2013 …
If John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov illustrate their determination …
STEP 1 – Resolve CW issue on Syria <done>
STEP 2 – Arms embargo and a political solution for Syria <soon>
STEP 3 – Resolve nuclear issue of Iran with president Rouhani <first phase today?>
STEP 4 – Finalize a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine <settlement build-up E. Jerusalem>
Obama made a courageous decision stepping away from 35 years of biased US policy on the Middle East. Angry Arab states Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar plus Turkey and Israel. Praise from Russia, Iran and Iraq (Maliki).
Cross-posted from kafkananda’s diary – Kerry Speaks Truth To Israel, Peace Train Rolling Now.
○ Op-Ed in Israel: It’s 1939 all over again
The CW issue in Syria is not done until the OPCW has access to the production and mixing sites outside of Assad forces control. Or was that what the Israeli air strike was about? (mmmm, watch to see if this surfaces)
Tweet that Russian and Chinese officials on way to Geneva. Looks like some sort of a deal is going on today.
STEP 4 is not happening until Israel accepts 1967 borders, withdrawal of all post-1967 settlers from occupied territories, shared administration of Jerusalem through some Vatican-like arrangement, and swapping full civil rights of Palestinians in Israel for Palestinian foregoing right of return to Israeli territory. The alternative is a single-state solution with full civil rights of Palestinians and an immediate election. That’s where the lines of a practical deal fall. Have we really reached that point of realism?
They just accessed one of the two remaining sites and the important machinery and supplies had already been moved and claimed by the Syrians. Nothing that shows any irregularities has been presented. My bet is that, with the Russians overseeing things, the deal is solidly on the way to being done.
It’s about time we at least mentioned this ongoing and shameful dysfunctionality in our support for Israel. They have been playing Sparta-and-the-Helots on our dime, and with our tacit approval, for so long now that they have felt they could get away with it forever.
What we need to see now is whether our harsh words will be backed up by a real threat of loss in strategic support. That’s the only thing that will really modify their behavior.
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○ Netanyahu Extending His Middle Finger to the World Dec. 3, 2012
○ 20 Years of Failed Middle-East Peace Policy July 12, 2012
○ Bibi Netanyahu: Book of Esther, Persecution, Deliverance and the Holocaust March 7, 2012
○ Dennis Ross Back in Town, George Mitchell Resigns May 28, 2011
BooMan’s fp story – Thoughts, and a Warning, on Israel April 7, 2005 .
OK, it’s time for me to acknowledge that I’m never going to actually learn enough about Israel to answer the only questions that I really find interesting, so I’ll ask here and hope some of you will be inclined to forgive my ignorance–So, what is so damned important about Israel? If there any practical reason why the US is still supporting it, despite the fact that they seem disinclined to actually be cooperative with us any longer? Is it only a matter of cultural and historical ties? Is it just that they’ve bought off a majority of our politicians? They come across as arrogant, cruel, and unreasonable. We don’t appreciate such behavior from anyone else, so why is Israel allowed to get away with it?
A bit like the continuing trade embargo of Cuba. An old habit that we can’t break even though it hasn’t made any rational or national security sense for decades.
It’s easy not to recall that anti-semitism in the US was rampant before WWII — and only somewhat lessened as the horror of the Holocaust became known. But we didn’t exactly extend wide open arms to Jewish refugees then either. And it was the brilliant Ralph Bunche that was one of the principle UN negotiators in the establishment of Israel. (He stated that the hard work was still to be done.) After that, support for Israel was principally maintained by the Democratic Party but not strenuously opposed by the GOP. The “A land with no people for a people with no land” effectively silenced the anti-semites in both parties wrt Israel. And the GOP was too busy anyway going after American Jews that were labeled commies.
Israel gained respect among right-wingers in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, but it was a confused sort of respect. The 1973 conversation between Richard Nixon and Billy Graham encapsulates that confusion and continuing anti-semitism among Republicans at that time. — they’d like Israel well enough if the Jews would simply convert to Christianity — Here’s the incident of Israel shooting down an airliner that Nixon mentions with displeasure.
The more belligerent and hawkish Israel became the more the GOP favored the country and the more liberals began to question their support. The Israeli-apartheid S. Africa alliance further strengthened it. With the GOP also becoming the favored party of white racists as they left the Democratic Party, only a small sliver American Jews became Republicans.
Ignoring ethnicity and religion, Zionists and Teabaggers have much in common. And with the elites of KSA as well. Strange bedfellows that are birds of a feather.