Faith-based foreign policy may be as bad as Feith-based policy:
)At a dinner addressed by the Israeli ambassador, a handful of Republican senators and the chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, Mr. Hagee said.
He called the conflict “a battle between good and evil” and said support for Israel was “God’s foreign policy.”
The next day he took the same message to the White House.
Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East.
Longtime readers are aware that I am pro-Israel to a fault- I do see the nation as one pillar of Democracy in a swamp of tyranny (did that even make sense? You know what I mean). However, I think that this nation should be pro-Israel because it is a liberal democracy- not because God said Israel is part of some end-times heaven/hell scenario.
I think we all can agree that people who think NY is 28 feet from San Francisco should not be calling the shots on our Middle East policy.
capelza
This is what drives me nuts. The whole field of archaeology in the “holy land” is hostage to it. It is used and abused by both sides (the Palestinians have a Dept. of Archaeology), though I have to say that the Christianists and their fellow travelers in Israel are more guilty just by seniority and money.
Our relationship with Israel is one that needs to be approached from a political and , oh I don’t know, rational????? point of view. Perhaps dealing with events in this century instead of biblical prophecy and trying to justify whatver by digs and research designed to back up their worldview.
Zifnab
I think you mean that Isreal is fucked.
capelza
Eh…I just got into an argument with a fundie over this the other day…they said that the archaeology backs up the fact that God exists and all the malarkey…I pointed out that Troy was believed to be a myth until Schliemann found it…so should I raise altars to Athena and Poseidon now that it is shown to have existed?
Zifnab
Only if you want to burn in hell with all the other non-believers.
capelza
Zinfab..better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven…or however that goes…
If I have to live for eternity with the idiots like Feith and Falwell, I’ll choose the alternative.
Besides, Poseidon is much more appropriate for my family’s lifestyle. And I like ponies!
wilfred
This is the kind of hypocritical bullshit that makes it ok to say nothing when Palestinians and Lebanese are killed en masse by the peace loving Israelis. They support democracy so it´s ok to for them to kill 18 civilians while we block any resloution condemning their use of Gaza as a training ground for urban warfare. To the Christian fuckheads, Muslims are just some species of heathen nigger, better off dead, cf. Falwell, Robertson et al.
But to secular, democracy loving Israel supporters the deaths of Palestinians (83 so far this month) is…what? The price to pay for freedom? So the Christians shrug off dead Muslims because Jesus says it’s ok – what’s your excuse?
The Other Steve
As far as I’m concerned Revelations can only be interpreted as “Live your life well, for you never know when God may come back and smite you”, which means that everybody claiming we have to support Israel simply because it’s predetermined in revelations or somesuch is going to BURN IN HELL for trying to second guess God’s will.
So there.
Tsulagi
Damn, that’s a sure sign of too much education. I heard Rove once say voting Democrat was a symptom of that affliction.
ThymeZone
Hmm, well I wouldn’t call a nation that brings a rain of missiles down on its citizens in order to wage a useless and hideous war last summer exactly a “pillar of democracy.” But we might have different standards.
However, let’s say for the sake of conversation that Israel is doing better at the liberal democracy thing than its rivals in the Middle East. Okay, fine.
That’s reason for the United States to anchor its foreign policy to Israel’s fortunes? If not, then what is the damned reason? If not some pseudo-religious bullshit, I mean? What is it? Rationale, please, anyone?
I am for foreign policy that serves the interests of the United States first. When you (generic you) can explain to me how this country’s ME policy vis a vis Israel has been solidly in America’s interests for the last fifty years, maybe I’ll change my thinking. I’ve been looking for that explanation for a lot of years and I haven’t seen it yet.
The Other Steve
Here’s a fun game.
What’s your excuse for overlooking the attacks on Israelis by Palestinians?
Are you going to claim you don’t excuse it? Ok, great. So why are you accusing John Cole of something similar?
You want peace? Stop calling people names.
ThymeZone
Where have I heard this kind of “logic” before?
Oh yeah. “No matter how bad we are, the Democrats will be worse.”
The “he started it” theory of international affairs. So appropriate in the era of weapons of mass destruction and “clash of civilization” rhetoric. Really, so helpful.
RSA
I can’t be the only one who thought, “Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.”
What I find scary about the fundies in charge of foreign policy is that the Rapture, an event some people are apparently looking forward to, will involve horrific war in the Middle East, so the story goes. I’d like to have people in charge who think that’s a bad idea.
ThymeZone
To reprise a theme from earlier this year …
Join the Republican Party — where the End of the World isn’t just a campaign promise any more.
James F. Elliott
“What I find scary about the fundies in charge of foreign policy is that the Rapture, an event some people are apparently looking forward to, will involve horrific war in the Middle East, so the story goes. I’d like to have people in charge who think that’s a bad idea.”
The End of Times “will” involve untold pain and suffering. And yet there are certain elements of our society who gleefully look forward to it. Indeed, the very name for their part in it – “The Rapture” – suggests that the pain and suffering of others will invokw in them, in some sense, a certain orgasmic sense of joy. We have a name for people who derive pleasure from other people’s pain – sadists – and we classify them as sexual deviants. We certainly don’t reward them with influence over the direction of foreign policy.
(Me, intolerant? No, I’m untolerant!)
jenniebee
LOL, it goes a bit farther back than that.
Pb
Oh, you laugh now, but just wait until they find fossils of Seraphim and Nephilim!
VidaLoca
John,
If you want to argue that Israel is a liberal democracy, what was South Africa before 1994? Both support representative governments (that represent one part of the population), both hold elections (though not everyone can vote) — both face internal resistance movements that commit atrocities. In both cases the words “liberal” and “democracy” are warped beyond useful meaning.
And insofar as it is an important US policy goal to keep the end game in Israel from looking like the end game in South Africa — first, is that possible (at a cost you are willing to pay), and second is it in our interest?
ThymeZone
I know. If only it weren’t true. That’s the thing.
I am thinking of trying to get a measure on the ballot out here which would outlaw Rapture stickers on cars.
Here’s my thinking: Do we want cars operated by people who are advertising that they are hoping to be snatched up out of the car while they are driving it?
I’m just asking.
skip
“I do see the nation as one pillar of Democracy in a swamp of tyranny (did that even make sense? You know what I mean). ”
Well, I know what you probably mean, which is that you’d rather not have Hillel picketting your office.
And well no, it didn’t make sense, given that there were two other democracies (Lebanon and the Pal authority) and Israel invaded both of them.
As for The Other Steve, I suggest he do a body count of who continues to die in Gaza and in what numbers–not just notice the bodies toe-tagged by former AIPAC exec Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
RSA
You mean like these? Oh, never mind–I thought you were talking about cherubim.
Jack Roy
I’ll take it. Not all voters take the right positions (considering only those issues where there is a “right” position, e.g. global warming and whether or not homosexuality is a choice etc.), and of those that do, not all take the right position for sound reasons. In fact probably few do.
But if evangelicals get behind efforts to clean up the environment and protect endangered species because Noah was told to save all the animals (and not just those that are economically useful or tasty), then while I might roll my eyes at their logic, they are, for present purposes at least, my homeboys.
Plus I have to admit I get a little touched by their faith. I’m vaguely religious (although the truly religious would probably term me more “spiritual”) but I don’t always walk the same faith as I’m talking. You can and should worry about potential bad consequences, but this is a tendency of human nature and it’s not going away, so I’m inclined to accept what’s good about it.
Now, once “support for Israel” turns into “pave the rest of the Middle East” you have to go back to step one and ask whether they’ve actually got the right position. But for this much (and maybe this is just from all the evangelicals I knew growing up), these guys are my homeboys.
Zifnab
First, the Holocaust. The entire European world owes them a soveriegn nation.
Secondly, Isreal was actively loyal to the US throughout the Cold War. They have been as reliable an ally as Britian or France and they make an excellent military base in the middle of the Middle East.
Thirdly, we support the Jews in Isreal for the same reason we support (or should support) the Palestinians in Palestin and the Egyptians in Egypt and the Turkish in Turkey and the Germans in Germany and the Canadians in Canada. There were approximately 6,869,000 citizens living in Isreal as of Jan 2005. To “not” support them would imply that the US condones turning said 6.8 million citizens over to the wolves.
Fourthly, Isreal has nukes. It’s nice to keep on good terms with a nation armed with nuclear weapons, just because.
Fifthly, our presense as Isreal’s ally keeps shit like Lebanon from happening more often. If Isreal didn’t have our friendship, they wouldn’t have to worry about losing it. Withdraw support from the country and you take one of the few plugs holding back the dam on a Middle-Eastern firestorm.
Finally, because it is the right thing to do.
Pooh
We’re well past the point in any discussion of I/P affairs for “started it” to have any meaning. It’s sufficient to say that both sides have legitimate reasons to feel aggrieved and simply leave it at that. Otherwise, we’re stuck in the same infinite feedback loop of reprisal and counter-reprisal.
capelza
Zinfab, good points and rational ones.
Though think about point number one,
Yes, the Europeans do owe the Jewish people a homeland where they are safe from the genocide committed by Europeans. Wasn’t it nice of the Europeans to give them one. Though of course, not in Europe. Hence someone else had to be moved out of the way.
Here, we go back to the Biblical rationale.
I believe that Israel has a right to exist, but I also would like to be able to discuss issues without the “European guilt” and charges of anti-semitism getting brought up if I question something one of our allies is doing. Any approach to could be peaceful has to deal with issues like water. I don’t hear about that very much.
And I have a question, and this also regards India and Pakistan…why isn’t Israel formally recognised as a “nuclear weapons nation”?
Gregory
What’s your excuse for overlooking the attacks on Israelis by Palestinians?
Who, exactly, is doing that? Condeming attacks on civilians — no matter who is doing it, even if it’s an ally — is a totally consistent position. Giving Israel a free pass, not so much.
That said, I generally agree with Zifnab, although I suspect that the fact that Europe gave the soveriegn nation they owed in the Middle East has something to do with the ongoing conflict.
ThymeZone
Rational, but not convincing.
You’ve described a reason to treat Israel as an ally, and as you say, a mutual ally.
You have not described a reason for the United States to anchor its most important foreign policy to Israel and its fortunes, nor to slavishly line up to salute its misbegotten policies and grotesque misadventures, nor to carry its water in the most volatile region on earth, and continue to treat it as a combination sacred cow and beloved Little Person who requires constant protection and constant excusing of its blunders.
Nor have you described a reason why the United States should be in the business of unquestioningly supporting a nation that fosters a notion that it is God’s Special and Precious Little Country in a region where that kind of superstitious and nationalistic bullcrap is the coin of a volatile realm. If anything, we are in the business of fostering the same kind of silliness in our own country.
If there weren’t any oil in the Middle East, and nobody really cared what the people in the rest of the region think, we might have gotten away with this lopsided state of affairs. Instead, we have …. what we have now. A mess in the Middle East and a government in our own country that can’t make proper and effective policy decisions because it is tied to a large rock. Oh, and our energy supply dependent from day to day on the situation in that Middle East, further skewing our thinking about the region.
Between the oil, the religious nonsense, and the foolish idea that we are somehow helping to make reparations for the Holocaust, we have …. ta da … an ugly mess and things like Shock and Awe and American presidents kissing the hands of Saudi princes.
If you elect me president, my first move wrt to Israel and the Middle East is to announce to Israel that the United States wants, deserves and expects peace in the Middle East, and that any nation that wants to be our ally needs to demonstrate committment to that objective starting today. Any policy or action that threatens peace in the region will be looked upon unfovorably by the ThymeZone administration.
Redleg
I support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. I don’t think the U.S. should feel obligated to side with all of Israel’s policies and actions just because Israel is a rare democracy in that part of the world.
I think the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to Israel’s recent actions re: Palestine and Lebanon and has actually encouraged Israel to engage in higher risk actions that put more civilians at risk. I feel that Israel, while defending itself, has used heavy handed methods and disproportionate force, often to the detriment of the civilian populations. Yes, yes, I realize that the anti-Israeli terrorists don’t care about killing Israeli civilians, but shouldn’t we expect better behavior from Israel since it is a rare Democracy?
I think that our one-sided support of Israel has damaged our ability to be perceived as an honest broker of peace in the middle east, especially since we provide Israel with weapons while at the same time demand the disarmament of armed Palestinian and Lebanese factions.
I think that our U.S. interest should be peace and stability in the Middle East rather than simply a strong Israel.
The Other Steve
Apparently Darrell can’t read. Not a surprise since he suffers from a severe form of BDS.(Bullshit Denial Syndrome)
That wasn’t the point of my post, but rather to question why the asshat moron was trying to put words in John Coles mouth. So I put them right back.
And guess what? you were more than happy to take it out of context and start a flame war.
How typical of you Darrell.
The Other Steve
Gregory apparently can’t read either, or he would have noticed this…
Funny that.
jh
Then they should have carved it out of Europe.
Or alternately, Cleveland.
Zifnab
Unfortunately, you can’t be half-in on the Isreal situation. None of my rationales were sufficent to allow us to condone relentlessly bombing their neighbor Lebanon, holding innocent muslims captive indefinitely without probable cause or due process, repeatedly bulldozing Palestinian homes and farms for vitually no good reason, or any number of the asshole-ish Isreali foreign and domestic policies. But, you asked how we can “anchor [our] foreign policy to Isreal’s fortunes” and Isreal’s fortunes just happen to be the fundamental foreign policy question that’s driven Middle East politics for the past fifty years. You can’t support Isreal today but not tomorrow. You can’t drop the $3 billion a year in subsidies on the country, then yank it back when the government does something you disapprove of. You can’t offer military aid and buy up military bases today, then pull everything back tomorrow. It is neither political nor practical. So when Isreal runs off and picks a fight with Iran or Egypt or Jordan, when some Syrian terrorist blows up a hotel and the Prime Minster decides to level Damascus in response, the US doesn’t have to ignore (and certainly shouldn’t encourage) such fool-hardy behavior (like the Bushanistas are so fond of doing), but it can’t just up and de-anchor itself in disapproval. But geo-politics don’t let countries be friends just some of the time. Geo-politics in the Middle East, which is the rough equivalent of geo-politics in a mexican stand-off REALLY discourages rocking the boat.
So as it stands, probably my best and only rationale for supporting Isreal today is that we supported them yesterday. They haven’t done anything so grievous as to lose our support (yet) and we already dropped anchor on this under Eisenhower. I know this sounds suspiciously like the Iraq Arguement, but Isreal isn’t Iraq. They really do want us there. We really do want to be there. In the Middle East, Isreal is the biggest and best friend we’ve got, even if it isn’t the most civil and well-tempered.
So… there.
*shakes fist at retardedly long post length* I’ll try to cut these down, next time.
ThymeZone
If you say so, then I’ll withdraw the blast.
VidaLoca
Zifnab,
Well, WWII ended more than 60 years ago. Since then, Israel has been doing just fine; it’s more than capable of standing on its own feet politically, economically, militarily, diplomatically. As a nation it’s an established fact — with its own history, own internal issues, own goals.
So when do we start treating it like all other nations with their own history, issues, needs, interests — China, Russia, Great Britain, South Africa (to pick four at random)? All of whom form their policies based on their perceived self interest, exactly as we do. When can we stop with the paternalism toward Israel and treat it like all the other mature nation-states in the world, with the same realization that our interests and their interests may not align at all, and may in fact be contradictory?
If our “support” takes the form of underwriting any and every policy goal of the Likud party (as it has seemingly done over at least the past six years) is that necessarily the best thing for those 6.8 million citizens? Arguably no, it lends to lack of stability in that part of the world and makes the “wolves” more dangerous. But even if you don’t buy that argument, is it as a policy in our best interest to continually act in such a way as to postpone the day when the Israelis and the Palestinians will have to find a way to settle their disagreements? I don’t think you have to grant either the Israelis or the Palis an inch of any moral high ground to believe that the sooner that war is settled, the better for everyone, us especially.
Here’s a case in point: if the Likud thinks we will back them no matter what, doesn’t it make it more, rather than less, likely that shit like Lebanon will escalate from a localized military response to the rocketing that Israel was under, to an attack on the country of Lebanon as a whole?
And is that the kind of outcome that is in our interests to encourage — or prevent? Obviously, I think, the latter.
ThymeZone
Extremely well thought out and stated.
However, I think I will come down, at the end of the day, as they say, to disagreeing on your core point, which is that we support them because we’ve supported them.
I can’t pry myself away from pragmatism. I can’t understand how any democratic processes can work unless there is a pragmatic link between action and result, and with Israel, and for that matter in the entire Middle East, everybody wants to go all over the place with the imperatives. Religion. Tradition. Tribal history. Sectarian passions. Blah Blah Blah. Oh, and the Holocaust. I mean, throw in the kitchen sink.
Here’s my idea: Do you have peace? No. Okay, then get some, you crazy sonsabitches, or I will knock your heads together. Fifty goddam years and this is the best you can do? Sorry, I ran out of patience with all of them a long time ago.
The Other Steve
VidaLoca wrote:
Who doesn’t get to vote?
The Other Steve
Why was it ok for the Normans to take England from the Anglo-Saxons?
Shouldn’t we make them return it?
capelza
TOS…I don’t know what point you are making?
Zifnab
Palestinians.
Hey, if it was that simple, I’m sure someone would have done it already. The Middle East conflicts are the centerpoint in my thesis entitled “Why People Are Stupid”. I think half the violence in the Middle East is caused by people driven to blows because they are so disgusted with the violence in the Middle East.
ThymeZone
Well, Israel is part of an ongoing tableaux of ear, death, destruction, pain and suffering that goes back at least 50-60 years.
“No justice, no peace” I think is the name of the movie.
So what the hell, why not go all the way back to the Normans?
I support that. Let’s start with Norman Podhoretz, Norman Rockwell, and Norman Thomas. Then, on to Norman, Oklahoma.
Darrell
TOSser suffers from DDS – Darrell derangement syndrome, calling out my name and hurling accusations at me in threads where I don’t even post.
VidaLoca
In South Africa, prior to 1994, the Africans, Indians, and other groups disenfranchised under their aparthied system.
In Israel, the Palestinians. Although now that I think of it and if I might anticipate your response, if the Palestinians are trying to carve out a separate national identity it would not be sensible for them to vote in Israeli elections. If that’s the point you’re driving toward I’ll grant it. I’ll also grant that that’s a distinction from the South Africa case, where the ANC never was trying to carve out a separate national identity.
ThymeZone
Well, it can be that simple.
Here’s the thing. I’m the US, and I want peace. I say to you, Mister Israel, that I am not convinced that you really want peace. Prove to me through your actions that your first desire is for peace. I am saying the same thing to your neighbors.
If you are on the side of peace, I will support you. But if you are on the side of conflict, I won’t. The free ride is over. The world is too dangerous now and we are too sick of the bullshit over here.
Before you write this idea off as too “simple” then ask yourself what the alternative is. Staking world peace on the continued nationalistic and religio-jingo-istic behavior of this region full of crazy people who apparently hate each other?
That to me is the simplistic course that is not acceptable. Those people don’t get to decide the fate of the world. Sorry, tough shit.
Show me the committment to peace, because that’s the new standard. Show me how you get from where you are, to peace. If you don’t have a plan for that, then you don’t deserve my support. You had it for fifty-plus years, but that period of time is now over. Now you have to earn it.
VidaLoca
To carry on with this, I don’t know if voting in Israeli elections is even a demand of the Palestinians; if it is a demand it doesn’t seem like a logical one — not that it would be granted in any case. However, therein lies the rub, because clearly the Palestinians are heavily affected by innumerable Israeli policies. And getting back to my original question, how does such a state (even conceding the issue of direct voting) square with a claim of liberal democracy?
srv
Here’s what that ‘liberal’ democracies leader said to GW yesterday:
Either the royal ‘we’ Olmert is publically fellating GW (doing his supporters proud), or his grip on reality is far less than Ahmadinejads.
Zifnab
So you’re saying you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists? /snark
Ok, seriously, Isreal is practically a military base in and of itself. Bombings are a daily affair. Soldiers patrol the streets. They’re building a fifty foot high wall across their boarder to defend against RPG attacks from neighboring Palestinian settlements.
Imagine you’re sitting at home, and your next door neighbor’s kid shoots you in the back of the neck with a bb gun. You go over to tell him off, and he shoots you again. You go find his parents, who politely tell you that you’re on his lawn and he has every right to shoot you if he wants to. So you go lock yourself in your house, but the kid just takes potshots at the windows. Finally, in digust, you buy your own bb gun and start shooting back at the kid. The parents are enraged. The neighborhood watch gets up in arms. The family three doors down slashes the tires on your car. The people down the street light your bushes on fire. You get super pissed, and buy a real firearm from your good friend across town. You shoot a couple of neighbors trespassing on your lawn who are planning to kill your cat, skin it, and hang it on your front door. The police come by, say its justifiable homocide, and drive off. The neighbors are furious. You’re furious.
Now, every get along.
HyperIon
First, thanks to all for a SUBSTANTIVE discussion!
I love B-J when its commenters eschew the spoof and write enthusiastically.
ppgAZ said:
Yes! this Chosen People bullshit needs to be addressed by anyone discussing US policy toward Israel. The role of religion (Christianity as well as Judaism) here is crucial. Another case of religious moderation enabling bad policies.
srv
That gives me an idea. Let’s tie aid to Israel with them accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. How could any evangelical disagree?
Better to drive a wedge between evangelicals and the Israeli welfare state before it’s too late for both of them.
TenguPhule
Er…that would be because they’re not Israeli citizens. I don’t know of any country that allows non-citizens to vote in their elections. Now Arab Israeli citizens ARE allowed to vote.
And maybe if the Palistinians stopped lobbing rockets, mortars, or sending gunmen to shoot little kids in their beds, the Israelis would let them use their streets again.
The wounds run deep there, but I prefer backing the side that doesn’t make it their standard M.O. to target women and children first.
VidaLoca
Ummm… wait a minute.
To my knowledge the phrase “God’s Chosen People” refers specifically to people of the Jewish faith — but I’ve known quite a few people of the Jewish faith in the US who are strongly opposed to the policies of the Israeli government w/r/t the Palestinians and I understand that there are many Israelis who are opposed to those polcies as well. So I’m cautious about generalizing across religion and politics.
If you mean “God’s Chosen People” in a broader sense — it becomes an issue of translation. In the US context, “GCP” translates into good old American Exceptionalism. I would claim that we are just as wedded to that notion as anyone in Israel is to a notion of being “Chosen”, and that it’s every bit as religious (in the sense of being an unquestioned belief) although it takes on a different form.
So to get to my point then, understanding and solving this problem requires looking at the roots of our own policies, just as much as (if not more than) it requires looking at the roots of other peoples’.
Zifnab
Remember what started the 13-day straffing run over Lebanon? Some Hezbollah insurgets kidnapped an Isreali soldier to ransom him in exchange for?… … … Women and children.
In the game of “they did it first” you can’t win in the Middle East.
VidaLoca
Yeah. I realized that after I had put the comment up and TheOtherSteve started questioning me about it.
The next question that comes to mind, though, is: although Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, are they forced to pay Israeli taxes? (I personally don’t know the answer).
That’s the side I’d like to back too, and as soon as someone can remind me which side it is we’ll be all set to go. In the mean time I don’t see much moral high ground left there; the formal participants are monsters wrestling in a lake of blood while the bystanders try to stay out of the way and carry on their daily lives. Getting back to John’s post, I see no “liberals”. I see no “democrats”. I see 60 years of US policy (under Democratic and Republican administrations) there enabling a bad situation to do nothing but get worse.
Exactly WTF have we got to show for this?
ThymeZone
Yes, the point is well taken, but what I am really saying is, I want policy based on results and pragmatism. Not on bathos, not on tradition, not on religious imperatives, not on feelings, not on “doing what’s right.”
Pushing the world to the brink of war is never “the right thing to do” unless there is a proximate threat that cannot otherwise be abated. But more to the point, those people in the ME seem to think nothing of pushing the world to the brink of war for their own reasons.
I have no use for that, no matter which side it is at the moment that is doing the pushing.
You put an idiot in the White House, and some religious fanatics in the administration, and give us the situation in Lebanon last summer, and the Middle East in general …. gasoline, spark, etc. For what? So that a bunch of hotheads can claim to be doing God’s work?
Pooh
ppG, I think you’re taking an overly narrow definition of what our national interests are. I could be misreading you, but it seems like an underlying question you have is what are we, the U.S. getting out of supporting Israel. And that’s a fair question, but to my mind somewhat irrelevant. I think Zif did a good job upthread of laying out reasons why supporting Israel is in general the right thing to do. FWIW, I am particularly sensitive (somewhat due to genealogical accident) to the moral argument and opposed to this position:
It’s simply a historical fact that the Jews have been scapegoats throughout the ages, and I’m not sure why we expect that to change. Heck, Israel’s own history should indicate that it’s not likely to change.
Yes, some of the issues are far more simple than that – people who used to live there got moved against their will. Imagine if the whole state of Delaware got taken through eminent domain…but there are still a lot of people who really, REALLY don’t like the Jews.
Further, the reading that “they’ve done fine for themselves” completely ignores the massive amount of aid they’ve received from us over the years.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, I will agree wholeheartedly with your point to the extent you mean that once we have decided to support Israel, the application of that support has got to be more pragmatic. We have to be more willing to criticize and restrain Israel when there more bloody minded factions gain ascendancy. “More rubble, less trouble” can conceivably work for us (I don’t think it is likely to work in practice unless we actually do have to ‘kill em all’ for some set of “all.” We’re nowhere close to that yet) because we are somewhat protected through accidents of geography – Israel, obviously cannot. So moderating their hawkishness serves their narrow and our larger interests as I see it.
Plus the extent to which we are willing to critique Israel (and substantively, rather than Condi-esque tut-tutting) and to be seen to do so helps are credibility as an honest arbiter.
wilfred
If anyone actually believes that the United States is even remotely interested in being an ‘honest arbiter’ they have not been drinking kool aid but mainlining the powder. here’s an easy question. If that really were the case, and you’d have to go back to Bush I to even assume the possibility, then why would we have not only done nothing to prevent the continued Israeli settlements on the West Bank but guaranteed the 10 billion in loans that they needed to do so? Guarantees denied by Bush I and ok’d by Clinton, btw.
Credibility? Give me a fucking break. The only people in the world who think that’s even possible are those who look for ‘substantive’ critiques of 1) Preventive detention – last seen in erstwhile Israeli ally apartheid South Africa; 2)US made cluster bombs dropped over Lebanon – yet another broken agreement with US; )Collective Punishment – at will all over Gaza and the West Bank, including blowing up a power plant in the middle of summer. On and on and on and on.
Here, apply the Black test. If a US ally treated Black Africans the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians would the Left stand by and stroke their collective beards at the folly of it all?
More rubble. less trouble? You mean like the SS and the Warsaw Ghetto?
TenguPhule
That would be a no, the Israelis collect the payroll taxes from Palistinian workers, which goes over to the Palistian Authority…or at least it did until the Israelis stopped the transfers when the Palistinians started another round of fighting.
In fact, Israel provides the Palistinians with free electricity and running water, because the Palistinians can’t even pay their bills.
If the Israelis really wanted to play hardball, they could put it plain and simple as ‘stop attacking us, or we cut you off and you die.’
But kinder hearts then mine prevail there.
TenguPhule
If Black Africans kept sneaking into your local neighborhood to blow up the malls and movie theaters, would you react emotionally or logically?
Pooh
Wilfred, it would help if you actually read what people wrote and responded to that. It’s instructive that you brink up the settlements because that’s exactly what I’m thinking of when I say that we need to take more thoughtful positions. The settlements are an atrociously terrible idea, and the fact that we backed them is idiotic beyond belief. If you want to talk about a policy that is antithetical to pragmatism, even from the Israeli standpoint, I might add, you’d have to work pretty hard to find it.
TenguPhule
Because when the Israelis try going in to get the actual perps, all they get are dead/wounded troops and howls of complaints from the world about violating ‘the rights’ of the Palistinians. At some point, the enablers of the suicide bombings, kidnappings and so on have to be held to account. Maybe I’d feel more sympathy for the Palistinians if they behaved like adults instead of angry teenagers with guns.
wilfred
I’d like to think like a thoughtful man rather than a bloodthirsty murderous thug. But I see your point. Mexicans are constantly sneaking into the US and making all sorts of violent crime. So if I start shooting them the government will subsidize my weapons bills, veto any court effort to prosecute me and tut-tut my understandable extreme self-defense.
VidaLoca
Pooh,
Wait — there are two separate issues here. Anti-Semitism and religious prejudice certainly aren’t going to go away, not in that part of the world or any other. But Israel isn’t going away either; I just can’t see any evidence that after 58 years in business it’s going to disappear — unless there’s something that I’m missing and then I’d have to wonder what set of policy choices led to that state because it sure wasn’t foreordained, especially in light of the past history of aid we’ve given Israel.
My disagreement, if I read him right, was that he was too general, and I think your word “pragmatic” is better. But “pragmatic” to what end? I agree that moderating their hawkishness serves their narrow and our larger interests, but we’ve been through “moderating” that situation before and where are we now? No closer to a solution that I can see.
I’d ask a slightly different question: to what degree, and in what way, does our support for given Israeli policy decisions serve our interests? The distinction is in getting away from binary supporting/not supporting Israel, and looking at specific policies. This, I would say, is your “pragmatism” test.
Where we probably disagree is I see no future in the blanket generality of “supporting Israel” while “moderating their hawkishness” because they (both hawks and doves) will gladly accept all the support they can get while doing the least possible to fundamentally change a situation that is in our — and their — long-run interests to settle. This has been the essential pattern there for as long as I’ve been able to observe it — what’s going to change?
And given that my implied answer is “nothing” — I don’t see why we should continue to enable it.
TenguPhule
Now you’re just being silly.
And now you’re being dishonest.
Mexicans armed with military grade weapons are calling for the extermination of you, your family, friends and basically everyone who lives near you? They’re suicide bombing you, sneaking into your home to shoot your wife, into your school to slaughter your kids?
Are they pledging to kill you for capturing or killing a terrorist who more often then not boasts in front of cameras of killing civilians?
Must be a tough neighborhood you live in.
TenguPhule
wilfred
Now I know you’re an Aipack hack. Every Palestinian is a terrorist, right? Every Arab, every Muslim is a potential threat, correct? So the Israelis are being perfectly logical then.
The only justifiable bigotry in the US is against Arabs and Muslims. That’s why the Israelis get to kill who they want and scumbags like you justify it. They act out your fantasies, just like they do for the Christian right. You couldn’t even give a disclaimer against the 18 women and children killed most recently. They don’t even register anymore.
The Israelis get more criticism within Israel then they ever get in the US. There are still some people left there who remember Warsaw, who still have a conscience.
ThymeZone
Well, I could argue this point, but I’m feeling magnanimous and will let it slide. Besides, there’s this:
The basis for agreement!
I don’t mind being Iran’s worst nightmare in order to protect Israel or any ally in the region. But I do mind being expected to sit still for any childish thing Israel decides to do.
Pooh
I don’t disagree with this at all. I do think that you are eliding the key point that in order to answer this question, we still have to answer the larger strategic question of what our general policy towards Israel should be. We cna’t make accurate policy choices unless we have a reasonably defined set of policy goals. Unless we want to be Instapundit and answer the question “what should we do?” With “just win.”
As tough as Israel’s defense infrastructure is (very, to be sure), they have to use it less then they might because of the deterrent presented by, well, us. Sure, the IDF can take probably any other ME army, but all of them back-to-back-to-back? Plus, the general badassedness of the IDF is in no small part dependent on our technology (and probably to a lesser extent, training), and the superiority of that technology to that of the armies they might face.
WMD considerations aside (a pretty huge caveat, granted, and a major reason why Iranian nukes would be a Very Bad Thing), if we withdrew our support, Israel would be faced with a long war of attrition which they can’t hope to win. They don’t have the population to replace lost soldiers or the resources to replace lost equipment at nearly the rate that the combined Arab(+Iran) states could manage.
ThymeZone
What’s the standard for the number of layers of spoofapalooza allowed in one post?
Your conditional is too deeply nested, can you please use a CASE statement?
Thanks.
TenguPhule
Obviously, you haven’t watched the funerals of Hamas or PLO members.
The Snark is beyond you today.
Pooh
Right. And the American dialog on this issue is so warped for whatever reason coughAIPACcough that arguing that we should do anything else tends to get one labeled an anti-Semite, and or self-hating (I love that one…)
As with so much, the neocon set often (willfully?) confuses “you are doing it wrong” for “you shouldn’t be doing that at all”
TenguPhule
See, now you’re just acting like a Redstater and trying to stick words in my mouth that I didn’t say. Did they screw the pooch in Lebanon? Of course they did. Give a disclaimer? Many civilians died on BOTH SIDES in that mess, so should I start asking for a disclaimer from you for the Israelis killed by rocket attacks next?
Lebanon was a big FUBAR for Israel, no mistake. But that is not a reason to write off the entire country.
ThymeZone
I hate it when agreement has been reached and there is nothing left to argue about.
Pooh, this is your fault. No good deed shall go unpunished.
Consider this a warning.
srv
Yeah, right. The paper. You seem to have forgotten Vietnam and the soon to be virtual heir – Iraq. Or the ABM treaty, and probably a few others we’ve torn up. I don’t remember NATO collapsing.
Nobody else does, or should care about another little welfare state.
TenguPhule
My apologies, I got you confused with another post, you were referring to the recent incident where the women used themselves as human shields between the Israelis and their men, correct?
Or has something else happened recently?
Pooh
Well, I think there remain substantive differences on how we would apply roughly the same policy (based on our head to head re: recent Lebanon conflict). But as long as we keep it sufficiently abstract, yes we can all get along…
ThymeZone
Damn it.
wilfred
The courage of Palestinian women is already well known to the Israelis, just as the Russians learned the courage of Afghan women. The entire Palestinian people have been revolutionized. Get used to it. So just fire into the crowd, we’ll understand.
Actually, the incident I refer to is the Israeli tank shell fired into a house in Beit Hanun – killing 18 terrorist nigger cocksuckers. Nice shooting, see above.
Blindly supporting this shit for the past 30 years has not only been morally wrong but strategically stupid. My adversary here is a fine example of the Christian right positiion regarding Palestine, in which the only good Muslim is, well…
After 20 years of being involved in this I’ve heard it all and seen enough to mske up my mind. The truth is that your side has all the guns and power and in the real world, for people like you, might really makes right. Cole’s post about the Christian right hardly matters, does it? There’s little doubt in the Arab press that anything will change with the Democrats in Congress -the Israeli position has long become normative, as demonstrated in this thread. Some of you may feel good about yourselves for your highminded consideration of Palestinian rights, but spare us, please. The left in the US aren’t about to piss off the Israelis.
There’s a movement starting in the Muslim world that’s been a long time coming. The Lebanese refusal to meet with Rice during the war was an indication of it. The US is the enemy of the Muslims, and all the bullshitting in the world isn’t going to change their awareness of that fact. Every Muslim is a terrorist, every Arab antionalist who resents the occupation of his country is a terrorist, every Arab is a terrorist. Fuck you.
VidaLoca
If you don’t mind if I rephrase the question slightly (because I’m bothered by the “general policy” formulation) let me try:
1. Israel is a sovereign nation; it has all the rights that usually accrue with that status, such as the right to set its own domestic policies based on its own perceived self-interests.
2. The US is also a sovereign nation. As Israel’s ally we can choose which of these policies to support based ultimately on our own perceived self-interest. The self-interests of Israel and the US may not align; in this case the self-interest of the US is decisive. Our particular self-interest in this situation is peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians because that part of the world is too crazy and too violent to allow the past 58 years of war to go on any longer. We have no hope of keeping a lid on that part of the world, as long as the Israeli-Pali war continues. Ending it is a priority for us. This could be problematical but fortunately in this case it is not because
3. The people of Israel (and also Palestine) also have a serious, immediate, short-term and long-term interest in settling the differences between them. Two-state solution, one-state solution, doesn’t matter; it’s for them to decide. Whatever solution is decided upon will take several generations to achieve but if the past 58 years has proved one thing it is that putting the job off does not make it easier. In fact the opposite.
4. On the other hand, numerous politicians in Israel and in Palestine have crafted a cottage industry in continuing their war. Having lost whatever image we may once have had among the Palestinians as an “honest broker” we have little influence with the politicians on the Palestinian side. However we have quite a bit of influence with the politicians on the Israeli side.
5. To the Israeli politicians we say: “You have two choices: you may continue on your current path of fighting the Palestinians, or you may reach an agreement with them that is mutually agreeable to both sides, and it’s up to you to figure out how to do this: we have neither the ability nor the patience to broker you through yet another damned “peace process”. If you choose the former, you get bupkis from us. If you choose the latter we will cover you against your other (foreign) enemies for one year. If you have no deal at the end of one year, you get bupkis from us in the next year. If you have a deal, or show progress towards a deal, we’ll continue to back you for as long as it takes. You had better start thinking about how to put together peace treaties with your neighbors though, because that’s the problem we’re going to be putting in front of you next.”
In other words I’m willing to continue to support any Israeli policy that leads toward a solution to the war with the Palestinians. No others. I think this is not only in the interests of the US, but also in the interests of the Israeli and Palestinian people as well. If the Israelis have no other policies they’re willing to consider, my view is that that’s their choice but I’m not willing to enable those choices any longer.
ThymeZone
This thread has some of the best-argued points I’ve seen on the blog in a long time. Kudos to all.
We’ve come a long way since the Stormy Doctrine: Light up Palestine!
VidaLoca
TenguPhule,
The short answer would be “yes.” That’s how diplomacy works.
When it’s interests vs. treaties — you expect treaties to lose.
Hyperion
VL–I’m not sure i follow.
yes. IMO the phrase God’s Chosen People was trademarked by the Hebrews long ago. (i don’t know how to get the little TM superscript some have displayed recently.)
i’m thinking that none of these folks ascribes to the opinion that the Jews are “special” in the eyes of the one god worshipped by Jew, Christian, and Muslim.
but now you’ve got me wondering: what exactly is mentioned in the “founding documents” of the state of israel vis a vis Judaism. so i will try to become more informed on this issue.
VidaLoca
So in other words, “no harm, no foul”? You could be right; personally I’m an atheist and so I lose interest real quickly when the topic of religion comes up. My observation would be that faith and religious devotion can be othogonal to political stance on this topic.
Here at BalloonJuice(tm) you just go left-paren tm right-paren (with no intervening spaces). r’s and c’s can be handled similarly. :)
ThymeZone
Just write ™ in parentheses and it will display in the familiar Trademark format.
Pooh
VL, to your point 5, all I can say is can we have ponies too?
Further, such a public policy gives the ne’er do wells mentioned in point pretty strong short term incentives to do nasty things (as if they ever needed good reasons…)
But I think my main criticism still stands in that you are skipping over what exactly U.S. interests are. A solution to the conflict is simply too broad and essentially content-free to do much of the heavy lifting.
As to your point 3, from our point of view, they only have interests in “settling their differences” to the extent that they internalize the truism that neither side can really “win” at this point. Until that happens, you’ll have a hard time convincing either side that there is any sort of unity of interests.
[Please, please take my snark in the good humor with which it is intended, I agree with TZ that this has been one of the better I/P discussions (or BJ discussions) I can remember.]
VidaLoca
Pooh,
Of course you can. And no offense taken, it’s hard not to be snarky in situations like this because it’s too depressing to do otherwise.
You raise a good point. Under my scenario, if the Palestinians knew that the Israelis were faced with a deadline it would be tempting for them to dig in their heels. This behavior would have to be disincentivized and frankly I don’t see an easy way for us to do so, and certainly not alone. The Palestinians aren’t listening to us much any more and won’t start doing so again in the near future.
Not sure what you’re looking for here. It seems to me that after 58 years of trying to get that situation settled we’re standing here with what amounts to a bag full of shit. That’s in many ways our fault, particularly in the recent past, but we can’t afford to let it continue going forward; the place is too much of a powderkeg. And we’ve been jobbed by the Israeli and the Pali politicians who’ve made a life’s work out of killing one another while they go through the motions of another “peace process.”
The Palestinians won’t accept anything less than a sovereign state with enough contiguous territory and resources to have some kind of a chance of viability. That means for sure that the Israelis will have to give up a lot of big settlements on the West Bank. Tough: “gentlemen, those are the consequences of the bad decisions you made back when you thought you were going to prevail in this. Continue on that path if you want but we won’t support you.” Israel is going to have to back down a lot on this. On the other hand, the Palis are going to lose the territory beyond the West Bank and Gaza so they’d better get used to that.
If you mean do I favor a one-state vs. a two-state solution, I don’t care — any solution they can agree on works for me. They know each other’s bottom lines backwards and forwards, much better than I do.
But that’s sort of the definition of the interface between war and diplomacy — the shooting always continues until both sides realize that they can’t win anything more by force, then they sit down to negotiate borders around what they’ve gained on the battlefield. All we can do, as outsiders, is disincentivize the alternatives to negotiation by refusing to underwrite continuation of pursuit of results by force.
ThymeZone
Well said. One of the things that galls me about the situation we’re in is that we seem to have established, with Israel, a Middle East paradigm based on policy at gunpoint.
I could rant for an hour, but the short version, this is nuts. In a region where people have been killing each other for centuries, deciding to solve every problem at gunpoint just strikes me as something you’d have to be crazy to adopt as policy. Crazy, as in believing that you are going to be snatched up into “Rapture,” or that your country is chosen by God, or Allah, or whatever. Katherine Harris crazy. That crazy.
grumpy realist
Well, there’s what my friend said (background Christian Arab, who left the area with most of his family some time ago.)
“Everyone in the Mideast is nuts.”
This is a raid….
This is a retaliatory raid….
This is a counter-retaliatory raid….
This is a anti-counter-retaliatory raid….
Welcome to the Holy Land.
My own feeling is, ahh, the heck with it. Just drop a damn asteroid on the entire Mideast already. Get rid of all the religious idiots and the oil as well. Only problem is we can’t get rid of our own religious crazies at the same time.
VidaLoca
Well, as long as you hold a monopoly, or at least an overwhelming superiority, in the number of guns it could be a very successful policy — as long as that situation doesn’t change. When it does, the payback starts. It seems to me that the lesson for Israel of the Lebanon mess this summer would be either that it has to figure out asymmetrical warfare or it needs to mend its relations with its neighbors both internal and external.
VidaLoca
Well, as long as you hold a monopoly, or at least an overwhelming superiority, in the number of guns it could be a very successful policy — as long as that situation doesn’t change. When it does, the payback starts. It seems to me that the lesson for Israel of the Lebanon mess this summer would be either that it has to figure out asymmetrical warfare or it needs to mend its relations with its neighbors both internal and external.
Beej
Excellent discussion here! I do think there is one point that hasn’t been discussed yet, however. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not going to be a matter of just getting those two sides to agree. Hezbollah and Hamas are, to some extent, proxies for Iran and Syria, and each of these nations has a vested interest in prolonging this conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict gives the Iranian mullahs a plausible and popular cover for their own authoritarian regime and nuclear ambitions. In Syria, Assad uses the Israeli “threat” to suppress criticism of his own government (criticizing the President in a time of war is treason! Where have I heard that before?)and to advance territorial ambitions. And since both Syria and Iran provide funding for Hamas and Hezbollah, those two organizations don’t have a great incentive to seek peace with Israel either. Any true solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is going to have to include more than just the Israelis and Palestinians.
TenguPhule
It’s nice to know that Darrell has found a new friend in wilfred. More pie for that ignorant assuming potty mouth!
TenguPhule
I suppose it depends on where your interest lie, short or long.
Personally, I don’t think it wise to set a precedent of breaking treaties simply because they’re not of much benefit in the short term. I believe the long term value of having a reputation for being true is worth it.
Of course, I honestly can’t see any real answers to the problems in the Mideast that don’t involve lots more bloodshed. At this point in the game, nobody will be happy with any solution that benefits anyone else more then themselves.
wilfred
Smarmy condescension, the last refuge of a twit. It’s probably been a long time since someone challenged your version of events – plucky little Israel against the brown Muslim hordes. Go back to sleep.
Frankly, I don’t find this thread interesting in the least, it’s just the usual claptrap about what ought to be done. It’s too late for that. Bush, God bless his soul, has planted the seeds for exactly what the religious right wanted. This isn’t a joke or an intellectual exercise. You should go to the Arab sites and listen to what they’re saying.
I pitched the American rap about peace and democracy in Palestine for 20 years. I believed that we were fair. We’re not. The Arabs know it, the Muslims know it and the Israelis know it.
Do the American people know it? Do they care? I don’t expect much from the Democrats. Cole’s smarmy comments about Christians don’t mean that the Dems will make any radical changes in American foreign policy in the region. Besides, it’s much too late for that. The Muslims will simply wait for the Ikhwan to take power in Egypt and for Hezbollah to do the same in Lebanon. This is the real legacy of the Bush administration – a growing sense of unity amongst Muslims based on clear signs that Islam itself is in danger.
VidaLoca
Beej,
You raise a good point. It highlights an area in which the argument I’m making may be lacking, if not naive.
My model implicitly assumes interests of states in internal stability and peaceful borders, allowing them to carry out their affairs (which basically boil down to allowing the people running them to become wealthy while providing some minimal services to everyone else) in good order. That’s the big gain for both the Israelis and the Palis in ending their war. Similarly Israel is going to have to settle affars with Syria vis-a-vis the Golan Heights and that will mean Israel has to give back all of the Golan that it holds, and hope to defuse that problem.
I don’t have a prescription for Israel’s Iran problem. If the Iranians perceive the Israeli incursion into Lebanon as road-testing the US incursion into Iran — well, that would probably be a good thing to do less of going forward. Unlike Syria, Iran is a good long distance from Israel; at least they don’t have to share a border. And, although they might be fundamentalists, the mullahs that run Iran have the same interests as other state actors in secure borders, peace with the neighbors, etc.
You raise the issue of non-state actors however, and my model does not account for them as well. Insofar as their patrons have an interest in regional calm, they are on a shorter leash. Hamas, if it’s running a nascent Palestinian state that’s not at war, has an interest in not provoking a new war; it becomes a state actor once it has a state. Hezb. is a tougher problem: does it become the state of southern Lebanon? I don’t know.
VidaLoca
TemguPhule
Well, in my view instead of breaking treaties I’m advocating more for something like sitting down with the Israelis and saying “changed situation, new interests lead to new rules, time to adapt”. And leaving the ultimate choice up to them.
And I don’t take that lightly; it’s just that the alternative — changing nothing and going down the same path we’ve been following — leads to nothing but disaster.
jh
To be fair Wilfred,
Vida has delineated very good ideas on what a sane Israel/Palestine policy would look like.
Problem is, no sitting politician could advocate any policy that does not involve subsidizing Israel to the tune of several billion dollars a year – in perpetuity, without being ravaged by the pro-Israel lobby.
VidaLoca
wilfred,
Right. But we still have choices and our choices matter (though probably less than we like to think they do). So we can choose to keep screwing up, or we can choose to re-examine and try a new approach.
No. No.
I don’t expect anything from the Democrats either; they’re as committed the the policies of the Likud as the Republicans are if not more so. So you’re right, this is essentially an academic exercise.
Thanks for passing all that along. Now, do you have anything useful you’d like to contribute?
VidaLoca
jh,
Yeah, that’s the 800-pound gorilla that’s sitting here in the room with us.
Look, it seems to me that AIPAC drives US foreign policy w/r/t Israel in about the same way that the Miami Cubans drive foreign policy w/r/t Cuba — and with the same disastrous results. Difference is, the stakes are a lot higher in the Mideast.
What may be changing in the wake of the Iraq debacle however is that the people who pushed hardest for the war are also some of the same people who push hardest for a pro-Likud policy towards Israel. They’ve been discredited. At the same time, the fighting in Lebanon in July-August was an opportunity to get a vision of what hell would look like if a really big war breaks out there again.
In other words this may be an opportunity for a different set of opinions to be heard.
wilfred
Fair enough; despair is never productive. Even so, there is no over estimating the damage that Bush and his creature Rice created during the war in Lebanon. No Muslim will trust the US again, nor should they. That is an enormous and positive change, I think, one that will help the Palestinian cause in the very long term.
Soemthing useful? I’m burned out. I don’t see any politician in the US staking out a position not fully compliant with Israeli/Evangelical interests, although there is now one Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, who might.
Here’s a no-brainer: You know exactly what the Bush/Evangelical/Likud axis has in store for the region – anything other than Israel is expendable, including, of course, the very Cedar Revolution that the State Department named itself. If you don’t agree with that program, decide for yourself what it means to be political, and act accordingly. To me it means, among other things, to take a position – pro-Palestinian.
VidaLoca
Well for what it’s worth despair may be the only realistic position to take. You are quite likely right, it probably is too late. I meant it when I said I saw this as an academic exercise.
However, you’re not really beaten until you give up. Things do change; a year ago I never thought there would be as many people fed up with the war in Iraq as there are now. I also never thought I’d live to see any peace between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland.
Fair enough. And by the way, from a national-liberation point of view, in the abstract and on paper, I respect that position. It’s just that in real life the paper is just completely saturated with blood. It’s said with some justice that the whole history of the Palestinians is that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity — yet still they persist in the belief that one day they’ll get back the lands they lost to Israel. Well, good luck with that and if they happen to win one day I hope there are enough left alive to hold a reasonable-sized victory party. I mean, come on: right in the middle of their national liberation struggle they’re holding a civil war: what’s up with that?
And as you’re no doubt aware, taking either a pro-Palestinian or a pro-Israeli position in any discussion leads you immediately into the long dark tunnel of recursive atrocities that is modern middle-east history. You end up in bitter and unproductive debates with principled people of good faith (such as, I might point out, the people who were disagreeing with me last night and who you were dissing; they aren’t any of them AIPAC hacks) who would like to see whatever remaining influence the US has there put to the purpose of getting some kind of a frikking solution in place (if that can in fact be done; it’s no sure thing) before the mushroom clouds go up.
TenguPhule
And yet here you are, flinging Poo all over the thread, making wild accusations, cursing when the snark is turned on your silliness and generally acting like a Darrell.
Do I think Israel can do no wrong? No. It’s a strawman claim at best and one you wouldn’t be making if you’d thought it through a little more.
It’s not black and white there and I realize that. I also realize that trying to form policy based on personal preference isn’t a good idea, but that *doesn’t* change which side I feel more empathy for.
wilfred
VidaLoca said:
People of my generation, and we are getting old, were committed to a political solution in Palestine. People like you who, in the abstract and on paper, were never any good to us, so save your balanced and considered words for people who might care. I’m not interested in the rest of your Israeli agit-prop, self-conragratulatory bullshit.
wilfred
To TenguPhule:
Go fuck yourself. We’re enemies, how else should I speak to you? Your nationality or religous persuasion do not interest me. Your kind have killed or jailed thousands of our people and rip the skin off the faces of our children every day. I don’t care what you think or believe, it’s too late for that.
If I use my name I subject myself to at the very least difficulties from the feds, if not rendition. But I’m no less American than any of you. But you subject yourself to nothing – your side kills and maims with impunity.
TenguPhule
And you wonder why you’re called a Darrell?
Instead of reason you choose hate, instead of logic you argue fallacy after ignorable fallacy. And yet you wonder when people call you an idiot.
With friends like you, the Palistinians don’t need any more enemies. I almost pity them for having such a raving case trying to speak on their behalf.
wilfred
I repeat:
Beej
I have always wondered why the Palestinians have not tried the Gandhi/Martin Luther King strategy. A state like Israel, which needs the assitance of the U.S. and, at the very least, the neutrality (in action if not in policy)of Europe and the other industrialized nations, would be highly susceptible to a well-planned and executed campaign of non-violent resistance, particularly with the world press looking on. I doubt that Israel could resist such a strategy for long. But maybe it’s simply an impossibility to coordinate such action among all the players on the Palestinian side. It would be breathtaking to see, though. I’d give it 5 years at the outside before the Palestinians had virtually everything they wanted, except, of course, the non-existence of Israel.
TenguPhule
Yeah, that would be the big sticking point. Every time Israel eases up and they try to talk it out, some idiot decides to stir the pot up again.
Of course, the Pro-Palistinian wilfred-Snarks would also have to give up their dreams of genocide on Israel, which of course they will not do.
And so the blood keeps spilling and the wounds keep growing.
wilfred
For more than 20 years they did. The first intifada began about 1988/89. before then, non-violent protest were made against Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories with zero results. There are many non-violent movements currently working in the territories. One, the joint Arab-Israeli ISM, was home to Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie, two of the people either killed or maimed by the IDF, has been essentially banned by the Israelis.
Earlier this month Olmert apppointed Avigdor Lieberman, the head of Yisrael Beitanu, to his cabinet. This gentleman is an open advocate of ethnic cleansing within Israel and a staunch supporter of annexation of a large part of the occupied territories. Ofir Pines-Paz of the Labor party immediately resigned his cabinet post in protest. Even Herzog was embarrassed. This is prelude to Israel’s unilateral de-marcation of the borders of a Palestinian state within the next two years, a state that will contain less than 60% of the land allocated in UN 242.
And so forth. The point of this exercise is to show that no matter what language is used, no matter what grasp of the facts is available, or how they are presented, the critical mass necessary for real change has not yet been reached.
Most of the commenters on this thread understand that Israel does what it does because it is enabled by the US. We furnish the Israelis with everything they want, including rushing off cluster bombs in the middle of their bombing campaign against Israel. This will not stop unless the American people make our government stop. And there is only one way left to do that.
The Palestinians are a completely radicalized people. They are prepared now to compel the Israelis to destroy them as a people, to give them no choice. The recent killing of two women acting as human shields is prelude to this. It is near, but not quite yet, our Amritsar.
Remember, black people didn’t win their rights by sitting at lunch counters but by being willing to have dogs and fire hoses turned on them.
Beej
wilfred,
I think you have misunderstood me. When I talk about non-violent resistance, I am not talking about it as one strategy among many. I am talking about it as THE strategy, the one, and the only. You are quite right that these tactics have not worked in the isolated instances where they have been tried by the Palestinians in the past. Non-violent resistance requires several things to be effective:
1. all parties working toward the goal MUST avoid violence. A non-violent resistance in one place is not going to work if a Palestinian suicide bomber is blowing up a pizza restuarant somewhere else at the same time. Guess which one the “if it bleeds, it leads” media is going to focus on. One of the keys to non-violent resistance is to build sympathy for and a sense of outrage on behalf of those conducting the non-violent resistance. They must avoid violence at all costs while their opponents engage in violence. This turns the opponents into the villans. There’s a very good reason that the name Bull Conner is infamous. Turning police dogs and fire hoses on peaceful marchers is not the way to be seen in a sympathetic light.
2. media exposure is essential. Until you told us, I had not been aware of any non-violent protests taking place in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Where was the media? And this goes right back to the necessity for ALL parties on the side seeking change to avoid violence. If the opponents can point to voilence at another location, the media is going to hotfoot it to that point. Not only does this defeat the goal of turning public opinion, but it leaves the peaceful protesters without the protective cover of media attention. The civil rights protests in the U.S. were heavily covered by the media because MLK and his lieutenants made sure they were the ONLY thing going on and worked out a sophisticated strategy for working with the media.
Again, it seems to me that such a unified strategy, under the eye of the world media, should work. The difficulty would be bringing all the various parties together to agree on the strategy. And, make no mistake, non-violent resistance is not for the timid. It takes courage and immense self-control.
wilfred
Beej,
I appreciate your point of view. The African-American struggle for status as human beings is critical to efforts to effect political change within the US, where the most consistent supporters of Palestinians have been African-Americans. Historical connections abound:
This taken more or less at random from my library (Oscar and Mary Handlin “The Origins of the Southern Labor System”, In: Black History: A Reappraisal.)
Substitute Palestinian for Negro in the quote above and you have an accurate approximation of the current situation in Palestine – walls, passes, no right to carry a weapon, no right to strike an Israeli, etc. Palestinian is the nigger of the world. Until that understanding enters into the consciousness of American voters the Israelis will continue as slave owners and sucessive American administations as the armed upholders of Virginia law.
I disagree with you on one matter. You overlook the role that Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam played in the struggle for African-Americans’ status as human beings. I’d argue instead that it was his outright rejection of any residual slave mentality, including that of the passive Stepin Fetchit ‘negro’, and Farad Muhammad’s insistence on the lex talionis that actually liberated Black men from the entire historical/ontological process that had denied them status as human beings to begin with.
The right to make violence is at the heart of the master-slave narrative. To surrender that right is to accept status as a ward of the master, who will never surrender his own right to kill whomever he chooses.