It really is kind of stunning that most Arab governments are more supportive of the Israeli’s war on Hamas than the American government is, but this is the result of the failure of the peace talks. The Obama administration is pissed off, but the Arab governments seem perfectly content to see Hamas decimated.
For those who see America as complicit in this war, they should at least see the distinction between how this war is playing our compared to prior confrontations. America’s position is that Israel should stop the violence, but that position isn’t really shared by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or the United Arab Emirates. They’d like to see Israel crush Hamas.
Given that Israel has this unprecedented amount of regional support for their war, they really should do a better job of avoiding atrocities against United Nations schools, for example. They’re making it very difficult for even the people who approve of their actions to support their behavior.
And when this is all over and Hamas is defeated, assuming that is even accomplished, then Israel will immediately lose its erstwhile allies if they don’t reopen the peace talks and get real about ending the occupation.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates are not beacons of human rights, their interests are selfish, as in say the occupy protests being quashed.
Can’t have a peasant uprising in any of those kingdoms.
They are no worse than the other countries in the region, whether you mean Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, or Iran.
I would challenge you to name one country whose interests are not selfish.
Ummm, the greatest country in the history of the whole wide world … the good ole US of A!!
Maldives?
Regime change in Gaza, eh? But who would replace Hamas?
Three billion dollars in military aid is leverage that the US has never used to end Israeli ethnic cleansing. That is complicity, not diplomatic statements of personal attitudes. The White House might not want to be complicit, but the deep state that runs the foreign policy, intelligence, and national security apparatus of the United States is deeply complicit with the IDF and Mossad. They even cover when Israelis commit espionage against the US. And Congress is a vassal of the Knesset.
I don’t know if all of those erstwhile allies are interested in peace in the Middle East. For Saudi Arabia it is a way of purging Shi’ites and extending Wahabism to keep other countries in turmoil. For the Gulf State supporters of the Moslem Brotherhood, it is a political wedge to have Israel as a continuing issue. Just as long as it doesn’t destablize their monarchies.
Netanyahu currently says the goal is to get rid of the tunnels and stop rocket fire, which not as aggressive as crushing Hamas.
Even If he is lying, how are they going to do it? They would have to occupy the strip again, and/or somehow get Fatah back in charge.
They are blowing up the homes of Hamas members. That appears to be their first priority, even before rockets and tunnels.
/satire: Of course! Easiest way to stop the rockets is to kill the crews launching them.
As a military tactic, fairly useless; as a strategy, worse than useless.
The sad truth is that virtually no national elite gives a f*ck about Palestinians who have virtually no wealth, land, oil, political power or state to guarantee their rights and promotes their interests. At best they are troublesome refugees in States that don’t really want them, at worst they are a focus for troublesome dissidents the national elites want to crush. Somewhere in between they are just in the way of Zionist settlement expansion and the establishment of an exclusively Zionist state.
Cannon fodder, human detritus, collateral damage for the ambitions of others.
They are in very many ways analogous to Jews in Nazi Europe, stateless, friendless, and virtually defenseless – and hated all the more for just being there. Both the Jews and the Palestinians are Semitic peoples. How sad is it that the greatest victims of anti-Semitic behavior are now engaged in building concentration camps in preparation for the Final Solution themselves. Tell them they must leave their homes, herd them into local schools, get them to supply their own GPS co-ordinates, and then destroy.
Then call it the unfortunate, inevitable and unavoidable consequence of war and insult everyone else’s intelligence and make us complicit by our inaction.
We have been there before.
And the republicans will start losing voters if they don’t get serious about working with Obama right?
I don’t understand why you’re saying the current Arab support for this Israeli operation is because of the failure of the peace talks. Except for some hard line pro-Israel people, the majority including the White House place the blame at Israel’s feet. Not to mention, the reason for these countries’ support is because they’ve been anti-MB for decades and Hamas’ roots are as an offshoot of the MB.
BTW, everyone should read this Haaretz article. Debunks many of the canards be floated around by the staunch pro-Israel people.
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.608008?v=9D3E8191C0D2AFBE8F367C467342F6EB
It’s the administration’s attitude that is explained by the failure of the peace talks, not the attitude of Sunni Arab regimes.
I agree with you. The real explanation is that Israel, in this war, is their tacit ally on the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shia war raging across the Islamic world.
It should be obvious that even on a totally amoral and brutal realpolitik basis, being implicated in this via our mindless support for Israel is not in our national interest, given that we have significant common security interests with Iran and are trying to engineer a quiet rapprochement with the Iranian government.
The ‘Arab’ states have always distrusted and abused the Palestinians. The reason: the Palestinians are politically savvy the way their own peoples are not, have not been allowed to become. This is what is going on in Egypt with Sisi now: opression. Hamas has been keeping up reistance against all odds. How do they do it? I’m not approving Hamas or religious fundamentalism, which I loathe (as if there is enough of all that trash in Israel itself). Why have the tunnels now become so important. Netanayhu and his circle have known for ages about the tunnels. Were they used to do business with Israelis? The tunnels to Egypt were commercial enterprises. Why not those to Israel? And all of a sudden the new ‘existential threat to Israel’ consists of the tunnels. Iran has been put on the back burner for the time being. Netanyahu is a very baroque man with all is existential pretentions, who is telegenically ugly.
Netanayhu and his circle have known for ages about the tunnels. Were they used to do business with Israelis? The tunnels to Egypt were commercial enterprises.
It’s all part of the same problem, as I’m sure most people here know. When you blockade a country, or what’s more or less a country, how do you expect them to get the goods they need to survive? The tunnels to Egypt were a commercial enterprise. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that, before the current atrocities, the tunnels to Israel were mostly commercial. Why? There are a million and a half people that need basic things to live. Someone will set aside their racism, if just temporarily, to make some decent cash.
Yes, but there were Israelis at the other end of the tunnel who would have been supplying the Gazans—and they would have been making more than a decent bit of cash. That’s what I’m getting at. And the Israeli government must have known about it. Racism has never stood in the way of making money. Hypocrisy even less.
Racism has stood in the way of getting money. There’s a reason the southeastern US us so backwards compared to the east and west coasts. The feeling of superiority makes a person stupid.