I’ve been waiting for Emily to talk about this, but she apparently is off basking in her new-found celebrity, but I’m wondering what the take on this is from you all:
This week, world leaders reportedly telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge him to extend the freeze. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an end to settlement building following a meeting in Paris with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Quartet peacemaking envoy Tony Blair met with Netanyahu twice over four days. All to no avail.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, say they will wait a week before carrying out the threat of withdrawing from the peace talks.
“Of course we don’t want to end negotiations; we want to continue,” Abbas told Europe 1 radio, according to Israel’s daily Haaretz. “But if colonization continues, we will be forced to end them.”
In Israel, the only response is the rumbling of earth-moving equipment headed for construction sites in the West Bank.
That’s because what is perceived around the world as Israeli stubbornness is seen much differently in Israel. The differences in outlook cut to the heart not only of how Israelis view these negotiations but how they view the future border between Israel and a Palestinian state.
In Jerusalem, it is the Palestinians who are seen as stubborn for sticking to their insistence that settlement building be halted before coming to the negotiating table. Never before had such a precondition been imposed on negotiations; in the past, Israelis and Palestinians talked while both continued to build in their respective West Bank communities.
Having offered the freeze unilaterally 10 months ago to coax the Palestinians back to the negotiating table and satisfy U.S. demands for an Israeli good-will gesture, the Israeli government sees itself as the accommodating party whose gesture was never reciprocated. Rather, it took the Palestinian nine months to agree to resume negotiations, leaving virtually no time for substantive progress before the freeze expired.
Then there are the political considerations: Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition partners made clear that extending the freeze was a nonstarter. Perhaps most important, however, the freeze was seen by many Israelis as unfair.
My hunch is that if the talks blow up, the feeling around the globe will be that Israel blew them up intentionally.
Chyron HR
“Never again–except to Muslims, obviously”.
dcdan
Israel blew them up intentionally.
Last time there were talks, they invaded another country. time before that… you see where this is going.
Hardliners need conflict to get elected, pals give just the right flavor conflict (one where Israel can dominate, and look heroic.)
Sad, but the saga continues. I suspect they will not allow Obama any progress on the matter, run out the clock until they get a more conflict-freindly pres to work with. Then, the saga will continue to continue.
Maybe we can give them more weapons, since the budget looks so good and they are being so helpful!
meh
Hush with that. Talk like that will get you an anti-Semitic label faster than you can say Hamas Lover.
Kryptik
Around the globe? Hah. There’s gonna be one place at least aside from Israel which will back the settlements up: The U.S. Congress.
God, why can’t we have another Rabin? Please?
eric
Given that is already what the world correctly thinks about every other time the talks blew up, you are really going out on a limb here. ;)
joe from Lowell
I never understood why there weren’t Palestinian attacks on construction and demolition crews.
If you can get a guy with a bomb belt onto a bus or into a checkpoint, and you can get a hippie protester to stand in front of a bulldozer, you can get a guy with a bomb belt to blow up a bulldozer.
Politically, it would be a lot easier to sell as self-defense than slaughtering a bunch of people buying pizza. It would also appear to accomplish something remotely related to the Palestinians’ stated political goals.
Ditto with the Israeli settlers who steal Palestinians’ crops out of the fields and orchards at harvest time. When was the last time somebody fired a shot or set off a bomb against them?
Why do I always hear about attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and hopeless families camping out in tents and farmers impotently shaking their fists in the West Bank?
John S.
It all has such a delightful “he won’t stop touching me” and “he started it” quality to it. Now If only we could find some daddy figure to threaten to pull the car over before NOBODY gets to visit
Disneyworldthe promised land.Punchy
The king of Jordan (I’ll call him Michael) was on TDS and scared the shit out of me and John when he–without a hint of hyperbole–claimed that without an agreement (and a halt to building), that there’d be a war in that region before 2011. And likely a bigger one during 2011.
Of course, I’m an anti-Semite simply for saying this.
Rick Taylor
Juan Cole’s view is here. In summary: Netanyahu Blows off US; Mahmoud Abbas pleads for Settlement Freeze.
me
But, but bibi wants peace!
Chuck Butcher
Oh hell, thinking either side is a responsible reasonable player is believing in the tooth fairy. Victimhood and hate rule.
Martin
The Israeli government can eat a bag of dicks for all I care at this point. They have most of the power here, and generosity comes with the territory. If the settlements continue, the only conclusion world governments will come to is that Israel isn’t at all interested in peace.
Too bad our Congress can’t seem to figure out what’s in the United States best long-term interests here. If they could, they’d tell Israel that so long as they’re building settlements, they’ll get no direct support out of the US.
El Cid
On this:
It won’t matter in the slightest, because world opinion on Israel never changes things no matter what it is, even the UN concluding in 1996 that Israelis directly targeted and killed UN officials. Heck, the UN will likely be pressured to drop its investigation into the Israeli military’s assassination of aid activists trying to supply the Gazans through a blockade which the international community considered to be completely illegal, this following Israel’s laying waste to so much of Gaza and slaughtering maybe 1500 or more civilians who were apparently too near some people identified as Hamas militants.
In the US, the Palestinians will be blamed for not being flexible enough, the US leadership will express sadness and frustration that ‘both sides’ aren’t willing to move forward, etc., and of course there are never any consequences for Israel. Some various Palestinian armed groups will shoot rocket bombs into Israel and/or attempt suicide bombings and the like, confirming the notion that they can’t be negotiated with.
Here’s what the deal is.
The Israeli government (often by its settler proxies) will continue to extend and muddle the ‘peace’ negotiations until it takes every bit of land and resources from Palestinians (the West Bank and East Jerusalem, for example) and destroys the viability of any Palestinian state.
Once this is achieved to their satisfaction, then they will recognize an ‘independent’ Palestinian state, be done with them, claim alongside the US and UK a huge ‘success’ and historic advance, and the Palestinians will be left to rot in their collapsed pseudo-state and they will not be assisted seriously by any other government since their utility as a piece in international and politico-religious disputes will have been lost.
Zifnab
I don’t think the Palestinians ever really objected to Israelis building settlements on unclaimed lands. But those bulldozers aren’t just aimed at swaths of desert and barren wastes. They’re aimed at Palestinian homes and communities sitting on contested land.
This is the eminent domain dispute in the US, writ transnational. Journalists and politicians love dancing around the 600 pound elephant in the room. But it all boils down to the simple fact that “Israeli settlement building” is widely seen as a code word for “Palestinian settlement demolition”.
El Tiburon
The global feeling will be that way because it will have been true. Israel doesn’t want real peace talks, unless those peace talks capitulate to everything that Israel wants.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Kryptik:
and in the US media, except for some anti-semitic, terrorist-sympathising bloggers
Culture of Truth
I think that’s right – the rest of the world figures a “freeze” should occur while negotiations are going on – no matter the subject matter.
Culture of Truth
“I swear to God I’m worried, I’m worried, oh people, I’m worried.”
Warren Terra
No disagreement here, except that maybe you shouldn’t say Israel will have scuppered the talks, instead laying the blame at the feet of Israel’s government. It’s a democratically elected government, so the average Israeli is hardly without responsibility hot its actions, but that doesn’t quite mean the blame should be placed collectively.
Also, given his latest incarnation as The Scourge Of The Roma, I think quoting Sarkozy in an article about the need to be civilized and promote reconciliation was a bit odd; it’s not like the sentiment he expressed was so rare that no other person could be quoted saying it.
Comrade Dread
Letting a junior client state humiliate you on the world stage: another triumph of American Exceptionalism.
Cut off all aid now. We could use the money here. Or even to pay down our precious debt.
eric
Given the pro-terrorist sympathies being expressed on this blog, i am pretty sure john should expect a subpoena or warrant for the posters’ email addresses, except for the fact the government no longer needs them.
that is all. enjoy your radicalism for peace.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Did they actually freeze 10 months ago or did they just talk about freezing?
It doesn’t matter right now anyway, I don’t think anyone wants a halt, and Israel has no incentive to.
Zifnab
@Kryptik: Because Israel is our nation’s biggest money laundering operation. We give the country billions of dollars for weapons. They buy weapons from US arms dealers. Arms dealers fund American politicians. Politicians hand Israel even more money for weapons.
The circle of politics.
Steeplejack
__
I will yield to Emily’s–or anyone’s–greater knowledge, but isn’t part of the problem that Israel isn’t supposed to be building in the West Bank at all and/or that they are often building on land illegally seized from Palestinians? Or, if these are not correct statements, aren’t they at least contentions made by the Palestinians and presumably to be addressed as part of the negotiation process?
El Cid
@joe from Lowell: Many of the bulldozers most likely to be sent into danger zones are heavily armored and any Palestinians in the vicinity would be shot upon approach.
In addition, settlers are fantastically well-armed (with money supplied by American donors, to boot) and regularly shoot any Palestinians which manage to get close. Occasionally a settler who has shot a Palestinian or a few gets in trouble, but many times there are few serious consequences as it ends up being a he said / Palestinian said dispute, and the latter’s word is taken a bit more lightly.
geg6
That’s because that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Fuck them. Cut ’em loose, I say. I know I, for one, will never again support Israel as it is currently constituted.
Eric S.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
IIRC, they froze new construction but people could expand existing structures.
Face
A settlement freeze is just a soshulistic-imposed Declaration of War on Homebuilders. The free hand of the market must be allowed to exercise its house-building desires, in order that supply meets demand.
El Cid
@Steeplejack: Well, if you accept these petty international conventions on which lands are illegally occupied, while ignoring the puzzling fact that Israel has no declared borders, so pronouncing when they’ve exceeded them is a bit difficult for those who have zero power to change those ‘facts on the ground’.
That’s the purpose of the settler movement, its backing by Labor and Likud governments, and the Israeli courts which largely back them.
In addition, the violence which erupted against Israeli forces and the public outcry against this program when Israel vacated settler communities from Gaza when direct occupation forces pulled out make it much less likely that anything similar would ever be done in the West Bank even if some Israeli government desired to do so.
lacp
@El Cid: And if I’m not mistaken, those American donors can take a tax deduction for their contribution.
I used to actually care about this (I grew up in the Middle East). Now? The Palestinians are screwed; Uncle will never, ever leave Israel’s corner, and Uncle is the only ally Israel needs (even though we don’t have a formal alliance with it). Palestinians could save themselves a lot of serious heartbreak and physical destruction by just packing it in and emigrating. There are never going to be any meaningful peace talks.
upyernoz
Did they actually freeze 10 months ago or did they just talk about freezing?
it wasn’t a real freeze. first, the exempted everything the israelis consider to be jerusalem (which is a big chunk of the central portion of the west bank. second, the freeze didn’t include buildings that were “in the pipeline.” so right before the freeze began they rushed through a bunch of building permits, so those projects could take place even if the stopped issuing new permits.
my guess is once sukkot ends, they will rush through and approve another year’s worth of permits. then they will “in the spirit of compromise” agree to another bullshit freeze after they put in the pipeline a bunch of projects to carry them through the next freeze’s term.
Ailuridae
@joe from Lowell:
Those Bulldozers aren’t what you would think of in an American urban construction environment. They look like how one would imagine a bull dozer of a fascist state in a dystopian sci fi novel. They’re basically tanks and are better equipped to take a blast than most of the US military’s rolling stock (wrong word but w/e)
El Cid
@lacp: There will likely be a two-state settlement (maybe not), and the Palestinians will in fact be screwed because they’ll have a non-viable, Bantustan barrier criss-crossed pseudo-state with most of its valuable resources like urban developed areas (East Jerusalem), farmland and water will have been appropriated by Israel (“settlers”).
Earl Butz
The Israelis had no intent of pursuing these peace talks seriously. Anyone who thought otherwise was either in on the scam or stupid beyond redemption.
It’s like when you want to dump your girlfriend but don’t have the balls to tell her straight up – just quit your job and start smoking a lot of weed. She’ll leave. The Israelis are pulling the same stunt. Piss everyone off, the Palestinians pull out, and Bibi can sit there and shrug his shoulders and say “hey, we tried! They’re just unreasonable – they walked out, not us!”
El Cid
@Ailuridae: The US used them in Gulf War 1.
Eric S.
A question I’ve never been able to satisfactorily answer for myself – and I ask this without passing any judgment on either side – What state interest compels the U.S. to so strongly support Israel?
I honestly can’t get past historical guilt, lobbyist money to law makers, or Jesus freaks trying to bring about the Apocalypse.
eric
@El Cid: Even “better” will be the kind of state the Palestineans get….every other state gets an army and air force…any bets on what happens here?
fasteddie9318
@Kryptik:
Because the Israeli right would just have him assassinated like they did the last one.
wengler
Since the Israelis have turned their back on the peace process is there any hope that that massive leverage that the US has in the form of monetary and military aid will be suspended until they come back to the table?
Oh nvm, simple answers to simple questions.
Dan
I say this as someone who considers himself a supporter of Israel and someone who on occasion has criticized this blog for its characterizations of Israel: Netanyahu is not interested in peace and is squandering what I believe is the best opportunity Israel has had for achieving a real and lasting piece with palestinians that gives the palestinians a state of their own. When was the last time the West Bank was this quiet? When was the last time there were this few attacks on israeli civilians and/or soldiers? In the past Israel always said they wouldn’t negotiate in the face of violence from palestinian terror groups. Now there is little to no terrorism coming out of the West Bank and Netanyahu won’t even agree to halt settlement construction. This is sickening. I generally think there is blame to go around when these talks fail, but this time I think the blame lies almost entirely with Israel.
wengler
@Eric S.
I think ultimately it comes down to the old Crusader notion of control of the holy sites. And diplomatic inertia from the Cold War era.
geg6
OT, but I’m in moderation hell again. And all because I just want to tell an asshole to suck it but need links to really pound the point home. I know you can relate to that, John. ;-)
joe from LoL
Gee, joey, for knowing so much about how Israelis (with American $$$$) slaughter innocent Muslims, you still don’t realize why we were attacked on 9/11, like a good little neolib.
BTW, still haven’t read bin Laden’s declaration of war?
Why does that question piss you off so much?
Steve
I normally just avoid these threads because some people are anti-Israel to a crazy nutso extent and it’s not a lot of fun.
Setting that aside, Israel ought to be capable of understanding that the difference between “Israelis and Palestinians talked while both continued to build in their respective West Bank communities” is that no one seriously doubts that at the end of the day, the Palestinians are going to wind up keeping their West Bank communities. So who cares if they build all they like – well, if they can get permission to build, anyway.
Jeff Goldberg committed the sin of apostasy by suggesting Israel ought to agree to a freeze everywhere outside Greater Jerusalem. This still isn’t everything, I guess, but the Palestinians wouldn’t have much choice but to accept.
Lots and lots of folks in America who are supportive of Israel think the settlements are basically indefensible, and I don’t mean that in a military sense. Israel is going to bleed a lot of support if negotiations break down over this.
trollhattan
Somewhere along the line it seems Israel figured out no matter what they do, we’ll back their play (occasional verbal spankings nonwithstanding). The U.S. acts like the parents of a delinquent child who’s actually been an adult for decades, but still refuse to accept who and what they became.
“He’s just a boy, he’ll grow out of it.”
Unlikely.
General Stuck
@Steve:
sage advice
Ailuridae
@El Cid:
Yep. How else would Israel have something like that if US military R and D hadn’t developed them already?
@Dan:
They are called epiphanies for a reason.
General Stuck
@joe from LoL:
Blog stalking is an ugly enterprise, and you are an ugly blog stalker. Now fuck off or un cloak to see which bj troll you be.
Brachiator
There is an American journalist based in Israel, David Gilbert, who regularly appears on some US talk radio programs whenever there is a major US/Israel/Palestinian Territories event happening. Most recently he appeared on the Bill Handel show in LA (KFI 640).
Gilbert reliably pushes the Israeli hard line position. The Israeli government is looking for any opportunity to scuttle the talks because they fundamentally distrust Obama. They lack any imagination and simply cannot believe that a black man, a black man from Chicago (land of Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson) and a man is probably a stealth Muslim can possibly be “a friend to Israel.”
On the other hand, I increasingly give less than a rat’s ass about “the feeling around the globe,” about the Middle East. It is just one of a series of long simmering, seemingly intractable problems (Cyprus, Basque Spain, Quebec, Kashmir, etc). But as always, only shit that Americans obsess over is real. To bad the Roma, recently kicked in the ass by the French, don’t have as many Americans who feel their pain.
On the other hand, the French can also be relied upon for a little comedy relief:
Now if we could just get Dati and Christine O’Donnell in the same room at the same time….
wengler
@Steve
The settlements are fundamental in building “facts on the ground” for future negotiation. Israel has very little incentive to negotiate anything as long as they have the US backing them unquestionably.
If you were a leader of Israel though it might be time to start thinking about a future where your main sponsor is gone. You are still going to have a small population on a small geographical footprint. Integrating with neighboring states will become all the more essential.
Mark S.
I’m too lazy to look it up, but Bibi once said that Israel has compromised because they aren’t demanding any land from Jordan.
As long as Bibi is Prime Minister, talks are a waste of time. They are probably a waste of time no matter who is prime minister.
Martin
@Eric S.: Well, Israel is a state manufactured out of a perceived necessity. The post-WWII protection of Jews might seem far removed, but not to a Congress that’s older than Israel itself. Israel does have real enemies, Iran being the most serious and vocal.
And the region was intensely fought over during the cold war, both the US and USSR recognizing the importance of the strategic oil reserves there and both sides fearing that the other would gain a serious advantage if they could consolidate support in the region. Israel was a very important pawn in that conflict – something that we worried the Soviets would ‘take care of’ to secure the rest of the Muslim region, and one that we took significant advantage of as a friendly foodhold there.
Not all of those old tensions left when the Soviets broke up. The other states in the region acquired their own power, the Russians still have interests there as do the Chinese as do we, and with Israel becoming a nuclear state, we’re not eager to put too much distance between us and them. The US and Israel also share a fairly significant cultural connection as well – one that might be hard to understand outside of places like NY. After WWII the jewish community understood very well the importance of political connection (for very good reason) and they’ve not forgotten that. That too influences our attitude toward the region.
There are good reasons why we constructed such strong ties to Israel. I don’t think the reasons for maintaining those ties are nearly so strong today, however.
gerry
Of course they blew them up intentionally. The Israelis seem to enjoy the status quo.
Pat
There is an election going on the U.S. That seems to be a signal for Israel’s leadership to step up their arrogance a few notches. Look no further than 2008, and the bloodbath and horror they caused.
El Cid
@eric:
They will be permitted neither control of their borders or airspace. At best this will be up to the control of their Arab neighbors with likely a US or UN complement.
Just like today, they will be permitted an internal paramilitary police force armed with small arms.
El Tiburon
@Martin:
Serious question: how is Iran a serious threat to Israel? Do we really expect Iran to attack Israel knowing it would unleash the full force of the US military?
I just don’t see it.
daverave
Back when I was a mere slip of a lad in the early 60’s reading about the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the NYT every freakin’ week, I made a conscious decision not to give a shit for the rest of my life nor to waste any time trying to figure out who the good guys were. I’ve pretty much held to that opinion and therefore have saved myself a lot of accumulated angst but I gotta ask… what’s ten months in a conflict that has been going on for 50+ years?
Wake me when it’s over ;-)
El Cid
@Steve:
There are plenty of people who think the scenario outlined by me above (the Israeli official ‘facts on the ground’ theft of as much of East Jerusalem and the West Bank territories as possible while eventually, once this is achieved agreeing to a 2 state settlement, leaving Palestinians in a wall-crossed non-viable pseudo-state) is viewed as pro-Israel by quite a lot of people. Including Israelis.
Brachiator is also correct that the controversy over Israel’s illegal occupation outweighs many other situations around the world with similar or larger scale suffering as the Palestinians. Likely if it weren’t connected to the stability of many bordering Arab nation-states and political forces such as Islamic fundamentalists being able to use the situation to gain support and recruits, it wouldn’t make the news too often. At least not in the US. The I/P conflict has drawn attention from many peoples around the world as representing a conflict between a colonial, Western, first world nation and a weaker, poorer indigenous population (to whatever degree one thinks this analogy is correct).
Martin
@El Tiburon: There’s an argument to be made that Iran is currently attacking Israel by providing funding to Hamas. So, yes, it is a threat. Is it an ‘existential threat’? I don’t think that claim could be made, even if Iran had nukes.
The threats against Israel have gotten much less immediate over the last 40 years, and I don’t think they need our support like they once did and we shouldn’t be afraid to turn that support off if Israel isn’t willing to further our interests in the region. We do a lot of things in this country that we continue long past the time that they make sense to do so. Cuba probably being the best example.
El Cid
@El Tiburon: There is no nation or force which represents any existential threat to Israel, any more than any force or nation presents one to the US. (Because MAD is a very applicable theory.)
PeakVT
@El Tiburon: That’s because Iran isn’t a serious threat. It’s bullshit people spit out to distract from what’s actually taking place inside the territories Israel controls. It’s effective bullshit in the US because of the American government’s cack-handed dealings with Iran since the late 1940s, and Americans’ ignorance of said dealings.
Dan
Iran is a threat to Israel. Iran funds/arms hezbollah and hamas. Iran makes no secret of this (or if they’re trying to do it secretly they do a shitty job of it). Whether Iranian nukes present an actual threat is much more debatable. While I find it seriously unlikely iran would ever use nukes on israel, nukes give iran added protection to continue to meddle in gaza and lebanon. I would bet that Israel’s real concern isn’t a nuclear war as much as it is an iranian regime that can’t be touched by Israel or the US because it has the threat of nuclear weapons if they try anything.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
she apparently is off basking in her new-found celebrity
BWAHAahahahahahaha! Oh you make me laugh, how you do!/wipes tears from eyes/ Phew!
No, I’ve been too busy to focus on my life’s passion and the area of my academic and professional expertise, because I’ve been looking for work. One writing gig offered $15 for 1,000 words (and they say there’s no future in the creative fields!). I’ve been sending out networking emails, and I’ve been applying to be a substitute teacher. + I’ve been invoicing for work I did six weeks ago. Like that!
Sigh.
I would say that this reading of the situation is very, very right — but that it’s most important as an indication of the completely screwed up sense of reality that most of my fellow Israelis have. Most Israelis genuinely believe that (partially!) freezing construction was a concession — without an ounce of recognition that not building on land that doesn’t belong to you in the first place is not, in fact, a concession. Without more than about an ounce and half of recognition that if there is to be a two-state solution (which most of them still say they want), that will entail building a state in the West Bank and Gaza, and that will in turn entail giving up the settlement project.
And yes, I believe the world will see Israel (or: The Israeli government) as having wrecked the talks intentionally — and that that will serve to support the sense shared by a majority of Israelis that “the whole world is against us.” Because the average Israeli doesn’t get it, and the Israeli leadership well served by the belief that the whole world is against them. http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=185338
And now I have to run! I may write more about this later, but now, RL calls (at least it involves a supper with lovely friends in our lovely sukkah under a beautiful fall sky!).
Anyone who wants some background on the mess is, of course, always welcome to read “Israel/Palestine: the basics”: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/israelpalestine-the-basics/
Here were my thoughts when this round of talks started: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/so-israel-palestine-direct-talks/
daveNYC
More like “Never again to us.”
I think that opinion in most countries around the world will be that Israel scuttled the talks, but the only opinion that matters is that of the USA, a country where a depressingly large portion of the population is getting all twitchy over mosques and moslems. Even if, somehow, the American population decided that Israel was at fault, and that something should be done to punish them, it still would have about zero chance of getting through congress.
I’d say that it would take a ‘live boy / dead girl’ type event to change the relatioship between the US and Israel, but between Cast Lead and Lebanon 2006, it’s pretty obvious that ‘dead girl’ wouldn’t have much impact.
Honestly, and I don’t think they will do this, at this point Israel could just straight up open up some death camps and the US wouldn’t bat an eye.
Linda Featheringill
@Punchy:
Wouldn’t be surprised.
Those people [on all sides] have been at it since 1948. I have to believe that there have been opportunities for cessation of hostilities.
I don’t think that either side wants peace.
On a slightly more productive point: What are they doing about water?
kindness
I can only imagine the bedlam, the insurrection that would occur if some California organization ‘gave’ me and my fellow liberals free land in Nevada. The only thing we would have to do is build on it.
That’s what Israeli’s are doing with Palestinian land. Just imagine Fox News after liberals started ‘settling’ on land (someone else owns) in another state because it was given to them by someone who had no title to the land. It would be the apocolyps on Fox News.
Just imagine.
losingtheplot
@Eric S.: I think it’s a perfect storm situation. During the Cold War years, Israel was promoted as ‘plucky little Israel’ the bastion of democracy amongst Arab, non-democratic, commie-leaning countries (notwithstanding the fact that the Egyptian gov’t was killing Egyptian commies and Muslim Brotherhooders with great efficiency). This image still stands, and then it’s also true that Israel functions as the pump circulating the arms dealers’ money into US gov’t party politics. But the Apocalyptic meme is really getting into gear as well. Think of the HUGE success of the Left Behind series of books, DVDs, ‘teen’ books, DVDs, etc. Think of how many of former president Bush’s cabinet and lower echelons are Rapture Ready followers, never mind the Teatards and even non-Repugs. They’re not all standing on street corners holding signs saying ‘The end is nigh and Obama is a Mooslim’. For some, it’s just a belief that’s part of their makeup, nothing to get hysterical about, and there are plenty more Christians that aren’t even Left Behind people that believe in the necessity of Eretz Israel from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and never mind the (non-Jewish) people that live there. So you’ve got political ideology, financial opportunism and religious fervor all converging together ever more fiercely. Palestinians don’t stand a chance; so many of them are going to die resisting that – and most Americans will just dismiss them as just another set of fanatical towel-heads.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
Yes. Good point. And yet, Islamic fundamentalists have used the conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir as a rallying point, and again, folks in the US only pay attention to the US/Afghanistan connection with just a smidgen of focus on Pakistan, if they pay attention at all. And here, of course, both Pakistan and India have nukes.
Svensker
@daveNYC:
Hey, that’s my pessimism you’re stealin’, buster.
IOW, what you said.
debbie
I think there’s another possibility: By lifting the freeze, Netanyahu is pandering to his own right wing, dominated by radical settlers who believe that the West Bank, Judeah, is theirs by God’s authority. They have no intention of ever letting the government return the land. When the time comes to finally work out a deal with Abbas, Netanyahu will just shrug and say, “What can I do with these schlemiels?” and Israel will end up not conceding the territory. Netanyahu’s interest in a two-state solution has never been genuine.
Steve
@El Cid:
I’m not suggesting there is something wrong with caring about the illegal settlements or treating them as more important than, I dunno, Russian policy in South Ossetia or whatever. I’m talking about the kind of comments that go on about how Israel is a bunch of savage butchers just like the Nazis and so forth. Other than a couple of genocide hiccups, this thread has been pretty well-behaved; maybe it’s just a couple rabble-rousers who always kill the discussion.
Someone in the Obama administration made a smart judgment that the settlements are a perfect wedge issue to start altering the course of American public opinion. The American public is broadly supportive of virtually everything Israel does, even when they’re wrong. But everyone except the hardcore Likudniks gets at least a little queasy about the settlements. I mean, I’m a pretty mainstream pro-Zionist Jewish-American, or so I like to think anyway, and in my mind the settlers are indistinguishable from the people who killed Rabin. Total nutjobs. It’s like telling the Minutemen they’re free to start colonizing northern Mexico.
salacious crumb
what surprises me is that Obama believed that he could get Netanyahu to actually get anything done regd settlement freeze, let alone the resumption of peace talks and the idea of a two state solution. I am still perplexed that he put his credibility on the line for this..considering that Netanyahu knows that there is no way Obama is gonna risk Congress support over this or the Democratic base (overwhelmingly pro Israel), especially during midterm elections. Netanyahu has no appetite for peace talks because he has the muscle and he is simply using A. Lieberman refusal to negotiate as an excuse to walk away from talks. and why the hell do we have the war mongering poodle Tony Blair involved in all of this? he wholeheartedly Israel’s attack on Gaza and Lebanon and I dont think he really does care whether there is two state or not.
Awktalk
The most logical end to the I/P conflict is not a pretty one. The U.S. empire is on the brink of financial collapse. When the Republicans force Obama to default on our debt, and unemployment goes to 25%, and we literally CAN’T continue to fund and militarize our client state, the Israelis will realize they have no choice but to settle their differences. Until that happens there is no Israeli government, Labor or Likud, which can convince their people that “the Palestinians already have a state, it’s called Jordan” is not the solution. Because that is what a vast majority of their people think now, and it certainly is what Bibi believes (though he wouldn’t repeat it publicly again unless he’s up for re-election).
The Overton window has been pushed so far to the right in Israel that absent the forced collapse of their massive subsidies from the U.S., nothing will change, it can only get worse. Bleak situation.
D-Chance.
Strange that the O’ster and his Palestinian friends decided to wait until the tail end of the settlement freeze to even begin “talks”.
But, it could have just been coincidental timing…
Cain
@Brachiator:
Actually I’ve been reading a lot about that. I think Sarkozy is a fucker for how he treated the Roma. I don’t quite understand the racism that is targeted at them.. well, I guess I do a little. It’s like how some people treat ghetto dwellers with suspicion.
I’m probably more sympathetic because they are of indian stock and their women are pretty attractive. But they are like Palestinians, they have no land, no country and they wander place to place. I’m kinda reminded of that Metallica song “Wherever I may roam”.
cain
joe from Lowell
@joe from LoL:
You mean the one I linked to in the thread that you are, apparently, still butthurt over?
What an odd question. I’m the one who posted it, you moron.
joe from LoL
I said read it, not link to it.
Pop quiz, fauxgressive:
Why did bin Laden attack us on 9/11?
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
Thanks, General.
For some reason, I get the genuinely dumbest and meanest people in the internet obsessed with me.@Steve:
Indeed. Some genuinely evil sonsofbitches of the “Protocols of the Elders” variety consider liberal queasiness about Israel’s behavior to be an invitation to spread their bizarre hatred.
The “person” who posted immediately above you goes so far as to say, note the quotation marks, that we “should do what bin Laden says” about the Israelis. The funny part is, they always think they’ll be able to pass.
joe from Lowell
@joe from LoL:
What, exactly, makes you think you can hijack the thread and give me a “quiz?”
Who are you, exactly, and why am I supposed to follow your directions?
joe from Lowell
Oh, to answer the question:
I don’t agree with your repeated assertions that it’s because of the Joooooooooos.
joe from LoL
Why did he attack us on 9/11 joe?
Because he hated us for Our Freedoms(tm)? Or because bin laden is EVIL, right? that has to be it!
Mnemosyne
@daveNYC:
Pam “Atlas Shrugs” Geller, the woman who created the entire “9/11 mosque” fake controversy this summer, has pretty strong ties to the Israeli right wing through the American neocons she pals around with. (If you’ve never seen her fawning interview with John Bolton, it’s pretty goddamned creepy.)
Just sayin’.
Viva BrisVegas
@Brachiator:
Except for the little detail that the Roma are visitors in France and are being sent back to their homelands, they are in exactly the same position as the Palestinians who are being robbed of land they and their ancestors have lived on for a couple thousand years, and who have nowhere else to go.
Similarly, Mexican illegal immigrants are just like the Palestinians.
The two state solution is dead. The job now should be to find a home for the West Bank Palestinians before Israel pushes them into the Dead Sea.
There is a western country probably more responsible for the Palestinians plight than any other (except Germany of course), but it doesn’t seem very hospitable toward muslim immigrants at the moment.
Steve
Hate is the enemy of peace, but so too is cynicism. Always so many people in the peanut gallery racing to insist that a solution is never, ever going to happen. You know, I used to feel that way about Northern Ireland.
Cain
@Viva BrisVegas:
As I understand it, the Roma don’t really have a homeland.
cain
smeh
In a sane world Israel would be laughed off the map (not “wiped off” as various mistranslations and ravings of true anti-semites like to say).
The whole ridiculous zionist project is based on a delusion that holds that such a thing exists as “Jews”. Jewishness is exactly as legitimate as Scientology or Catholocism. Admittedly its not easy or encouraged to convert to Judaism but it can be done. Can I “convert” to be black or asian or inuit?
Even that itself is bullshit. How come Obama is the first “black” president when he is himself precisely 50% black and 50% white?
El Cid
@Viva BrisVegas: It would take too much energy and work to expel the Palestinians. Just let them keep whatever barren, divided shit territory they end up with. That’s the cheapest and easiest approach for Israeli governments.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
At lot of this is due to close interactions and mixing between the American Jewish right and the Israeli Jewish right. (My spouse (Jewish) and I got plenty of the Obama-is-bad-for-the-Jews wingnut chain emails during 2008.)
Part of it is Israelis mistakenly believing that they understand American politics, because American political discourse is superficially so simplistic. (I’ve often seen Brits make the same mistake.) Americans don’t understand Israeli politics either, but they’re obviously convoluted.
Viva BrisVegas
@Cain:
As I understand it they all have passports, or are eligible for passports, from recognised countries.
The only right they have to French residency is as a refugee, and I don’t think many are claiming that.
Home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Where do the Palestinians go home to?
Brachiator
@Viva BrisVegas:
RE: Too bad the Roma, recently kicked in the ass by the French, don’t have as many Americans who feel their pain.
The Roma have been itinerant, nomadic people in Europe for centuries since moving from parts of the Indian subcontinent. To talk about their being sent back to their homelands does not really make sense. And the French are not only violating EU rules ensuring free movements of people, they are (as a smoking gun memo recently demonstrated) singling the Roma out for persecution. And here is the relevant part of a recent BBC News Q and A about this situation:
“There are at least 400,000 Roma – or travelling people – living in France, who are part of long-established communities.
In addition, there are about 12,000 Roma from Bulgaria and Romania, many of whom live in unauthorised camps in urban areas across the country, according the French Roma rights umbrella group FNASAT.”
Itinerant people in Europe (the Irish Travelers are another example) catch all kinds of hell, but it is neither accurate, nor helpful to try to mix their situation up with that of Palestinians.
Similarly, to attempt to link Palestinians and Mexican illegal immigrants is just plain weird.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Finally got the time to post on the topic:
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/the-problem/
It’s kind of a weird one, starting with the fact that I have family on the West Bank, and ending with some good resources for learning more about the entire settlement project.
bob h
There must be someone in the Israeli establishment who understands that Muslims already know how to make nuclear weapons, and that there are probably Pakistani scientists already working on suitcase versions. Sooner or later, if Israeli provocations continue, someone is going to walk into Tel Aviv with one of them.