Weak Tea
The continuing gyrations of the Congressional Democrats are enough to make anyone's head spin, if not provoke a general bout of nausea.
What makes it so hard for these creatures to just simply say the war in Iraq has failed and it's time for an orderly and expedited withdrawal linked to a regional diplomatic offensive.
Nope. Instead we get this mish-mosh. There's enough conditional phrasing and weak-willed hedging in this agreement to complete the text of 3,399 yes/but editorials in obscure mid-sized dailies.
This 'strategy' is too cute by a half. Instead of providing a bold, confrontational counter-narrative to the White House war policy, it tries to co-opt and turn-around the fraudulent apologias proffered by the Bushies.
This is the same sort of weak tea the Democrats of two decades ago brewed in response to the Reagan war policy in Central America. As the conflict rages and threatens to become regional, the most the Democrats can come up with is some sort of half-arsed certification policy through which some intangible standard will be deployed to measure whether or not the Iraqi government is doing enough to stop violence. Those results will then be divided by your IQ, added to your body fat quotient and then subtracted from the number of Lesbian angels that can dance on the head of a pin. If the remainder is less than Pi, U.S. troop withdrawal might begin six months later. Or something like that.
One glaring aspect of this measure is that it sets up the Iraqi government to be the villain here, pandering to the great underlying xenophobia of the electorate and side-stepping a head-on confrontation with the architects of this war -- the Bush administration.
Personally, this is no big disappointment to me. Remember, I am one of those soul-less traitors and reprobates that voted for Nader in 2000 (you can call us the Premature Anti-Liebermans). But I would imagine, sometime right about now, that well-meaning Democrats who hoped their November vote would turn things around would be starting to get vocally angry with their donkey reps in Washington.
if the above doesn't do it for you, try this. The largest proposed military budget in the history of the world, proposed by GW Bush, apparently isn't quite big enough. The House Democrats now want to add an additional $5 billion to the supplemental war funding.
Have a nice weekend, if you're not in Iraq.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:49 am
“Those results will then be divided by your IQ, added to your body fat quotient and then subtracted from the number of Lesbian angels that can dance on the head of a pin.”
Pollsters on one side will soon set about trying to find lots of stupid fat people, and some very petite lesbians willing to slow-dance cheek to cheek on a crowded pin-head. (Perhap some microcephalic and glandularly obese individual from the former demographic will volunteer his pate.) Pollsters on the other side will try to identify lots of slim geniuses, and big-boned in-the-closet lesbians willing to square dance without coming within ten feet of each other. Then offer up a government contract to nanotech startups to make the world’s smallest pin.
“If the remainder is less than Pi, U.S. troop withdrawal might begin six months later.”
Lot of formula wiggle room here, too. Was it the Alabama state legislature that tried to legislate the value of Pi?
Marc, I’m afraid you’re going to keep getting “weak tea” for as long as the voting public isn’t asking for something stronger. I’ve argued this point ad nauseum using numbers for a collection of polls, and nobody here has offered a coherent counter-argument.
Fault the Dems if you like, for preferring a safe bet and a go-slow strategy. But by insisting on metrics and conditions (substantial pressure for which can be found on the other side of the aisle), the Dems are just being smart. If things start working out in Iraq, they can say there were just doing their job: holding the President accountable for progress, and working in a bi-partisan manner to do so (or at least going through bi-partisan motions). If they don’t work out, they can counter the “Defeatocrat” jibe by saying that there’s no point in throwing good money after bad, and truly wasting more American lives by measures not too different from those of the White House and the rest of the GOP. If the Republicans in Congress start hedging and backpedaling, they leave themselves open to charges of waffling and hypocrisy.
War is fast. Checks and balances are slow. Six months is a lifetime in politics. Six months is an eon in war. This “weak tea” is the best you can expect for now. But expect things to change. They will.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:16 am
The Department of Defense has identified 3,153 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
ALLEN, Chad M., 25, Sgt., Marines; Maple Lake, Minn.; Second Marine Division.
BEARDSLEY, William J., 25, Sgt., Army; Coon Rapids, Minn.; Third Infantry Division.
VAN SLYKE, Bufford K., 22, Pfc., Marine Reserve; Bay City, Mich.; Fourth Marine Division.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 am
Where is the antiwar movement in all this? All I see is a bunch of local actions in March to “celebrate” the 4th anniversary of the war. Without that pressure, little will change. Do we need 4000 dead before they do?
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:26 am
Credit the Guardian with some good reporting and balance, a bit of a surprise given the post. “A mistake, a damnable mistake” is really pretty generous language to tag the Iraq invasion with, so I guess the Dems can be thankful for that. But why not ask the people who made, and continue to protract the war, to call it as such?
Or, as long as we are going to proudly point to our Nadar vote; why not link to one of those brillent pieces circa 1999, where Al Gore comes off as a cross between Vlad the Impaler and Ted Bundy? Or maybe this will due… http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/03/02/al_gore/
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 am
test msg
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:01 am
For a month after last fall’s elections, I kept asking when the Democrats were going to come out with their secret plan for Iraq. Commenters said that they first had to get into office, and then we would see. Yeah, I’m beginning to see what I suspected–they have nothing. The American people are catching on, too.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:02 am
“Where is the antiwar movement in all this?”
There is no anti-war movement. There’s just a get-out-of-Iraq movement, significantly composed of people who don’t really care how much more war a hasty exit might unleash.
“All I see is a bunch of local actions in March to “celebrate†the 4th anniversary of the war. Without that pressure, little will change.”
Yes, but *with* that pressure, how much more will change? Hundreds of thousands marched against the invasion. We still had an invasion. Maybe people are smart enough to realize that this doesn’t work?
“Do we need 4000 dead before they do?”
Once again, somehow it’s only our deaths that matter. Not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Not the potentially much greater number of Iraqi lives lost if we leave — not to speak of a possible spread of the conflict beyond Iraq, which all governments of all neighboring nation (perhaps save Iran) have publicly warned against.
Marc derides it as “weak tea” when the Dems move to require either *measurable* improvement in the situation or an exit. Nobody points out that this would require the U.S. to formally support and conduct studies like those the Lancet report researchers had to do themselves on a shoestring. It’s pretty amazing that we haven’t had any such effort so far, when you think about it. And somehow, the median figure offered up by those polled isn’t the Lancet’s hundreds of thousands, but only about 9,000. The public should know more. And should hear it from its government. It has a right to that. (And a duty to learn , as far as I’m concerned.)
In the meantime, this administration has decided that maybe the ISG recommendation to talk directly with Iran and Syria wasn’t so bad after all. I find that very interesting.
Critics say the surge isn’t working, when, at this point (with not many more than 3,000 troops have arrived in Baghdad out of the projected 50,000 when all operational support numbers are included) that diagnosis like trying to predict a kid’s SAT scores from fetal sonograms.
The Democrats are NOT going to make any effort to stunt this effort. And for a very good reason: most Americans — even most Americans in favor of getting out — would not support a direct attempt to cut off funding for it. If you’re having trouble with that conclusion, study the polls yourself.
I can’t blame anyone for being very sick and tired and disgusted with this situation. However, if you put blinkers on and go out to yell “Out Now!” in the streets, there will be much you won’t hear over the din of your own voices, and much that you won’t see when blinded by your own fixed picture of this war.
Things are going to change. They are changing. We don’t yet know the consequences.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
No Marc, I don’t call you a “Premature Anti-Lieberman” in voting for Nader in 2000. I call you a “Useful Idiot” in enabling the crackpots of the Bush-Chaney Administration that everyone warned you about at the time.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
rlo, is there some joke I am missing when you spell Cheney’s name Chaney? Are you thinking something Lon-like? That would be a monstrous way to characterize our VP for torture!
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
You got me there MB. Cheney is something of a cross between Dracula and the Wolf-man!
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Lon Chaney was “The Man of a Thousand Faces”. So far as I know, Cheney has only two.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
He’s only got one now. He shot off the other one.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I interrupt “Catch a Rising Star” here for breaking news:
Sec of the Army Francis Harvey has resigned over the Walter Reed mess. And Henry Waxman subpoenaed the former commanddant of Walter Reed after the Army refused to make him available.
Think the Bush people and Lon, er I mean Dick Cheney are getting a little nervous about this?
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:44 pm
And don’t forget Lon Chaney Jr. …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Well Marc, this probably won’t cheer you up — nor prove anything — but I too voted for Nader in 2000. At that election, I thought Mr. Gore had a sufficient surplus in California to bag 55 electoral votes.
Useful idiot? C’mon Richard. Please.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:47 am
The Walter Reed scandal shows once again that Democrats are just chasing their own tails if they fail to defund the war out of fear of being accused of “not supporting the troops.” That accusation needs to be squarely directed at its proper target.
Turner still needs to show us some evidence that the US presence in Iraq is doing anything to stop the civil war there, instead of brandishing vague suggestions that all hell will break loose if we leave. All hell has already broken loose, and the US is powerless to stop it.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:06 am
btw I am not sure what Turner thinks should be done. He agrees the situation in Iraq is a mess, but he doesn’t think we should be getting out. He proposes no actions or policies. Perhaps he thinks we should just be sitting on our asses watching the poll numbers and chanting:
“Things are going to change. They are changing. We don’t yet know the consequences”
over and over. This is what I have referred to as the insidiousness of Turner’s sophistry. Basically, he is a defender of the status quo, whatever it happens to be at any given moment. But boy, can he ever make it sound like deeping thinking.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:48 am
I am posting this oped piece in its entirety because there is an assumption among many opponents of the war in Iraq that it is the wrong war while Afghanistan is the right war. Given the deteriorating situation there, it is time to face reality about that country, as the Russians had to do. Rory Stewart is well qualified to comment on this, and his balanced piece is a breath of fresh air IMHO.
March 3, 2007
Guest Columnist New York Times
An Afghan Policy Built on Pipe Dreams
By RORY STEWART
The international community’s policy in Afghanistan is based on the claim that Afghans are willing partners in the creation of a liberal democratic state. Senator John McCain finished a recent speech on Afghanistan by saying, “Billions of people around the world now embrace the ideals of political, economic and social liberty, conceived in the West, as their own.â€
In Afghanistan in January, Tony Blair thanked Afghans by saying “we’re all in this together†and placing them in “the group of people who want to live in peace and harmony with each other, whatever your race or your background or your religion.â€
Such language is inaccurate, misleading and dangerous.
Afghans, like Americans, do not want to be abducted and tortured. They want a say in who governs them, and they want to feed their families. But reducing their needs to broad concepts like “human rights,†“democracy†and “development†is unhelpful.
For many Afghans, sharia law is central. Others welcome freedom from torture, but not free media or freedom of religion; majority rule, but not minority rights; full employment, but not free-market reforms. “Warlords†retain considerable power. Millions believe that alcohol should be forbidden and apostates killed, that women should be allowed in public only in burqas. Many Pusthu clearly prefer the Taliban to foreign troops.
Yet, senior officials with long experience with Afghanistan often deny this reality. They insist that Taliban fighters have next to no local support and are purely Pakistani agents. The U.N. argues that “warlords†have little power and that the tribal areas can rapidly be brought under central control. The British defense secretary predicted last summer that British troops in Helmand Province could return “without a bullet fired.†Afghan cabinet ministers insist that narcotics growth and corruption can be ended and the economy can wean itself off foreign aid in five years. None of this is true. And most of them half-know it.
It is not only politicians who misrepresent the facts. Nonprofit groups endorse the fashionable jargon of state-building and civil society, partly to win grants. Military officers are reluctant to admit their mission is impossible. Journalists were initially surprisingly optimistic about transforming Afghanistan. No one wants to seem to endorse a status quo dominated by the Taliban and drugs. Humankind cannot bear very much reality, particularly in Afghanistan.
Does it matter? Most people see our misrepresentations as an unappealing but necessary part of international politics. The problem is that we act on the basis of our own lies. British soldiers were killed because they were not prepared for the Helmand insurgency. In the same province, the coalition recommended a Western-friendly technocrat as governor; he was so isolated and threatened he could barely leave his office. Hundreds of millions of dollars invested in anticorruption efforts, and the police and the counternarcotics ministry, has been wasted on Afghans with no interest in our missions. Other programs are perceived as a threat to local culture and have bred anger and resentment.
Still others have raised expectations we cannot fulfill, betraying our friends. I experienced this in Iraq, where I encouraged two friends to start gender and civil society programs; we were unable to protect them, and both were killed. Even when we fail, instead of recognizing the errors of the initial assessment and the mission, we blame problems in implementation and repeat false and illogical claims in order to acquire more money and troops.
The time has come to be honest about the limits of our power and the Afghan reality. This is not to counsel despair. There is no fighting in the streets of Kabul, the Hazara in the center of the country are more secure and prosperous than at almost any time in their history, and the economy grew last year by 18 percent. These are major achievements. With luck and the right kind of international support, Afghanistan can become more humane, prosperous and stable.
But progress will be slow. Real change can come only from within, and we have less power in Afghanistan than we claim. We must speak truthfully about this situation. Our lies betray Afghans and ultimately ourselves. And the cost in lives, opportunities and reputation is unbearable.
Rory Stewart’s latest book is the “The Prince of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.†He runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul and is a guest columnist this month.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:39 am
The failure of Afganistan only underscores the hapless viewpoint of this blog; and it’s attempt to let The Bush Administration skate (Everybody’s guilty=Nobody’s guilty, or when you think about it, the Dems are a little more guilty) on it’s hapless squandering of any post 9-11 opportunities.
And yes Grocholski, there was nothing wrong with voting Nader in a safe state. Certain parties took it a little farther than that, and will never own up. Can’t help thinking today of a certain Weekly writer, in an extremely nasty hit piece on David Brock, writing about how Ann Coulter had tried to help the troubled gay man. Ah, the get Clinton days, when we could let our Hitchens freak flag fly!
In a certain sense the Balters may be right, and the Dems either can’t or won’t be good champions in the fight against the reactionary right. So grow up and do it yourself. If you’re not smart enough to say Jane Fonda was right about Vietnam…. then you get stuck in Iraq.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:43 am
Balter writes: “All hell has already broken loose, and the US is powerless to stop it.”
When “all hell breaks loose”, a suicide bomber won’t be able to drive unnoticed into a market square where hundreds of people are busy shopping, managing a semblance of normality. Because even a semblance of normal life becomes impossible after all hell breaks loose.
Balter, do honestly believe that what’s going on now in Iraq is as bad as war ever gets? You have a few things to learn about war.
“This is what I have referred to as the insidiousness of Turner’s sophistry. Basically, he is a defender of the status quo, whatever it happens to be at any given moment.”
Gee, that’s not a very accurate thing to say about a guy who thinks Bush & Co should be up on war crimes charges. But Balter is seldom accurate, except when he’s copy-pasting a list of U.S. casualties, a dribble that would be a gusher if, in fact, all hell had broken loose in Iraq.
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:38 am
Well, according to Seymour Hersch’s latest in the New Yorker, Cheney’s invasion of Iran has already begun as a “covert” operation.
Michael Turner wants to compare a withdrawal from Iraq against an ostensible plan to stay in Iraq and sort things out. But the administration isn’t planning to do that, it’s planning to attack Iran, and who could possibly believe they aren’t crazy enough, powerful enough and desperate enough to do it.
So what we’re dealing with here is the chaos that would follow withdrawal, versus the chaos that would follow an attack and/or invasion of Iran. And, obviously, an invasion of Iran would just as inevitably lead to the need for U.S. military action in Pakistan and so on and on and on and on.
When a political party’s success is inextricable from war, it cannot but make war. The American right things just weren’t the same without the Cold War and it will do whatever it can to bring about another perma-conflict.
KNardy writes: “If you’re not smart enough to say Jane Fonda was right about Vietnam…. then you get stuck in Iraq.”
Bravo! Great line…
it’s not even a secret that Cheney’s already lined up Saudi Prince Bandar and other Gulf shieks to back attacks against Iran.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:20 am
Boy is Obama eve audacious. I HOPE with audacity that he wil be our next prezidint.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Obama_blames_Bush_Administration_for_strengthening_0302.html
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:25 am
I’m swooning with this audacity…
“We should all be concerned about the agreement negotiated among Palestinians in Mecca last month. The reports of this agreement suggest that Hamas, Fatah, and independent ministers would sit in a government together, under a Hamas Prime Minister, without any recognition of Israel, without a renunciation of violence, and with only an ambiguous promise to “respect†previous agreements.
This should concern us all because it suggests that Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Palestinian leader I believe is committed to peace, felt forced to compromise with Hamas. However, if we are serious about the Quartet’s conditions, we must tell the Palestinians this is not good enough. ”
Great news about a Palestinian unity government is bad news to AIPAC- and B. H. Obama.
Bring on Nader.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 am
“The American right things just weren’t the same without the Cold War and it will do whatever it can to bring about another perma-conflict.”
And a daring, highly technical, and secretive incedent had to be fabricated in order to continue permanent conflict Where is the credits for that highly competent demolition of the two icons of the worlds’ economic power?
All we hear from Bunker is the total and gross incompetence in executing the very thing his enemy loves the most. Bunker has met the enemy, and it is us…..or him. Oh hell, what difference does it make?
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
that would be “..what difference would it make.”
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 am
What K Nardy said about voting for Nader in a “Safe State”.
And K I hope you saw or read of Ann Coulter’s remarks at CPAC the other day where she called John Edwards a fag. Think any of the GOP Presidential candidates will denounce her rhetoric? Of course not!
But let a Dem call Bush a Nazi – even a commenter on the MoveOn websight – and all hell breaks loose. Where’s the civility? Yada Yada Yada!
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I had read Obama’s speech to AIPAC and didn’t think it was bad at all…for a Democrat’s speech to AIPAC – which is going to be an inevitable, if unpleasant, trek for any serious candidate. I’d suggest that folks read the whole speech. It’s available over at TPMCafe along with an opportunity to discuss it. You’ll learn more from the comments thread there about the question of how much Obama “pandered” before this particular audience than from JC’s predictable snark. Check it out and add your own thoughts. You can also start a blog of your own and discuss this and other issues at barackobama.com. If you go there you, to Obama’s website, you can read critical commentary on the AIPAC speech on the community blogs. (Of course the blogs at Obama.com are not always as elevated and sophisticated as the discussion here !!!)
The truth is that most of the Palestinian leadership has been grotesque and almost insanely counterproductive. If you think that a “unity” government with Hamas is some sort of “good news” for Palestinians, fine. Obama would be nuts to share your simplistic binary views of the world. There’s no good news for Palestinians and there won’t be for a long time. As for the question of Iran, he’s absolutely right.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 am
I think that Rudy or McCain might take on Coulter’s comments since she was preceded by Mitt Romney, who praised her, and she endorsed Romney in her Q&A. My question is, if some “pundit” who Hillary introduced in a political forum and who proceeded to endorse her had, let’s say, called Obama – or to keep it across partisan lines, maybe Condi Rice – a “nigger”, would it have just possibly made the front page of the NYTimes – or at least Maureen Dowd’s column. Nagourny, of course, said not a word in his piece on CPAC. Look for ZERO mention of this in the mainstream media. Nothing outside of Olberman and the blogs. I checked out the New York Times political blog, which had I think three reporters there and none of them mentioned – not even on their piddly little blogs. It’s amazing that they can be such a bunch of castrated, useless assholes and the right-wing STILL hates them. This is the woman who said that she wished the Oklahoma bomber had driven his truck to the New York Times – you’d think if they had a grain of self-respect , they’d bring this crowd of wingnuts cheering Coulter’s rancid act to the light of day and, fairly, tag Romney with it. But nothing.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
To RLC -
many of Nader’s supporters – in 2004, as well as 2000 (less so) advocated either a safe state strategy or “trading votes” – Nader voters encouraging Kerry voters to vote Nader in a safe state, while they “Traded” their votes for Kerry in a swing state.
While I have a bit of a problem with the principle involved, it seems like a compromise over which Democrats have no right to lose their cool.
I read Obama’s whole speech. Its disgusting, mouthing liberal platitudes while pandering to the worst of Israel supporters’ fear and prejudice, supporting the war crimes this past summer in Lebanon. As MJ Rosenberg pointed out before the speech, if anyone, Obama could be critical of Israel and still retain support given his magnetism. Too bad he was pathetic. Oh – perhaps his background in which as a leftist in Chicago he worked with Palestinian groups caused him to protest too much, to overcompensate.
I’d like to know what Reg found “reasonable” about Obama’s bullshit – like telling elected Palestinian governments what to do and accept the prevailing discourse of a nuclear armed Israel. I don’t dispute Reg’s contention aobut Palesitntain leadership. Many leadrships are grotesque, and Abbas and Haniya are miniatures in terms of that issue ,compared with Olmert and Bush.
Tell me why he’s right on Iran (yes, he’s right about diplomacy…no he’s wrong that Iran is a threat by any stretch of the imagination.”) Obama has thep olitical skill to do what James Baker did at an AIPAC speech in 89- to demand that Israelis accept a Palestinian state and to stop abusing human rights (I’m no Baker fan, but that took balls) – Instead he was full of shit.
Find me any truth in his disgusting speech.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:59 am
How is my view simplistic and binary? Is it that I reject creating 1,000,000 refugees in Lebanon?
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 am
And finally, a unity government IS good for Palestinians, or would you prefer a continued US backed civil war?
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:05 am
I now notice that Rosenberg, usually reasonable, thought it was a good speech and for some strange reason thought that the concept of the US dictating to Palestine what their government should comprise is not “Palestinain bashing.”
AIPAC and Marty Peretz thought the speech was wonderful.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 am
Trouble is jc Nader didn’t follow that strategy, stumping in Wisconsin, Minnestoa and Florida the last two weeks of the campaign. If his goal was to get the Greens the 5% they needed to qualify for Fed Matching funds his time would have been better spent in California and New York. No, he wanted Gore to lose to Bush so Ralphie could be the “Kingmaker” and “Punish” the Dems for their apostacy.
Trouble is, we and the country were collateral damage.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:14 am
Its more complicated than that. I don’t wnat to get back into the principle of voting for who you want vs. strategic voting because I am on the fence there. But its far more complicated than Ralph wanting to be a kingmaker. His policies on important issues were farther from Kerry/Gore than Kerry/Gore were to Bush.
Lets not re-open this.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 am
I want to say one more thing about the Palestinian issue – a general point that I believe extends beyond them. I don’t judge the quality of someone’s political acumen as somehow being averaged in with the degree of their victimization. The fact that blacks have been victimized doesn’t mean that I can’t differentiate between the political sophistication and ultimate impact of the Black Muslims, the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King. Two of those groups could provide rhetoric that had an emotional appeal to people who felt helpless but were virtually worthless, or worse, as leadership and one had major impact. And of course, the one who had impact wasn’t engaged in attempting to compensate for victimization with bravado and reductionist, binary ideology. The truth is that the Palestinians could have achieved enormous victories – not “total”, but very significant and healing, both to themselves and their adversaries – if they had followed a Ghandian strategy. What they got were a bunch of marxist-leninist and proto-fascist opportunists and nutjobs who have made their situation worse and made them pawns and poster-children for every bad actor in the middle-east, including the Israeli right-wing. Tragic. But I see nothing coming from the current leadership. Nor from the Israeilis, of course. The only hope the Palestinians have is Barghouti, and I doubt that either the Israelis OR the Palestinians will let him develop into the man he would need to become to bridge this situation. Even Barghouti has a way to go if he’s released, and if he is ever released and starts to make progress as a leaders who breaks with a futile past, he’ll probably end up like Yitzak Rabin for his efforts. Pardon my cynicism.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:37 am
“accept the prevailing discourse of a nuclear armed Israel”
That’s not a “discourse” – it’s a reality. What the hell is Obama supposed to do about it ?
Also, that speech was very subtley coded – I’m not going to point out the great things he said in that speech. There were none. But it’s not any kind of deal-breaker for me – or anyone who would likely support Obama anyway. If the left uses it to bash him – that’s a good thing in my book. I don’t want Obama to come on as some sort of kneejerk left-liberal. That’s bullshit – anyone who’s interested has got Nader for bullshit that’s not going anywhere. Frankly, if Obama runs, Nader would be the last thing I would fear. Nader wouldn’t even be a blip if he ran against Obama. Let him, just to prove what an irrelevant crank he’s become. And Obama’s not competing with Kucinich in the primaries for the farthest left-wing of the Democratic party’s protest votes. He’s trying to take down Hillary. He ain’t gonna do that by making jcummings happy. I don’t concern myself with every damned thing a politician says at every venue on the road to the White House. Nor do I think that if Obama succeeds he’ll radically transform the U.S. relationship with Israel. But I know that there will be significant and positive change from a currently disastrous direction on several fronts, foreign and domestic. And of all the candidates who’s got a chance, he’s more likely than any of them to have some positive impact on the most intractible problems like the Palestinians. Of course, to do that he’d also have to have gained the full confidence of the mainstream Zionists. Not solve it, but position the U.S. insofar as that can make a difference. And I know he’d have a positive impact on about a dozen other problems we face that are currently headed in the direction of total disaster. Somehow, that’s enough for me at this point to consider him a positive figure in American politics. And the most “hopeful” that I’ve seen since Bobby Kennedy was killed.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
I agree with much of reg’s criticism. Except for these following points.
1) The Panthers are widely being rehabilitated, except for their later years. It is you who is binary on that issue. Or would you prefer people didn’t have self defense from Klansmen Kops.
2) The Palestinians mostly hve followed Gandhian strategies – every week gathering for nonvioolent protests..the first Intifada started nonviolent – and that got them shot at and killed. Further, Gandhi was not perfect at all, and his giving a pass to Hindu Nationlaists and the ideao fpartition has come back to haunt India. I hate this fetishization of nonviolence. Who was more effective in the long run – Mandela and the ANC which CERTAINLY used violence, or Gandhi?
3) Your characterization of much of (but not most) of Palestine’s leadership is appropriate – but it is still not the job of the USA to starve them, divide them and ensure their continued misery. The Marxist-Leninists among Palestinians (who are not in power) are among the least corrupt, most nonviolent in that movement, by the way.
4) Even if you see nothing coming from the current leadership, its better than gangs shooting at each other – and further, it still doesn’t justify the US starving and manipulating them into civil war while winking at continued Israeli settlement building, including fundraisers for illegal settlements taking place in New Jersey.
5) Barghouti is a decent man. Mustapha Barghouti, a distant cousin of his and a Leftist is an even beter man, got about t20 percent of the vote in the last election. A friend of Edward Said’s AND Christopher Hitchens (!!) he is worth googling. He himself (and Marwan Barghouti) staunchly oppose how the US if fucking with their people, just as Iranian dissidents may hate Ahmedinihad but do not want America to fuck with Iran or attempt to fund “dissidents” (which is why the US ends up funding cults like MEK, etc. – while Ebadi, Ganji, etc. decry the US)
You infantilize the Palestinian population, and you seem clear, with respect, to not be a close follower of Middle EAstern politics in all of its intricacy. I suggest reading the Palestine Chronicle, a print publication.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
Obama should steal Putin’s thunder and state that Israel AND Iran should be nuke-free.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
The previous post refers to Reg’s criticism of Palestinians. To his second post, I agree that Nader wouldn’t be but a blip against Obama. I used his name rhetorically. Both are trying to stop Hillary. In many ways, Nader is thus helping Obama.
I actually agree that Obama is the best placed to bring a positive influence to Israel/Palestine. This is why I was so disapointed by his unaudacious speech.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:47 am
jcummings I really don’t know enough about the political siuation in Canada to comment but here in the Good Old USA what you advocate would go down well in Dearborn and alienate the rest of the country. You may be right but since Obama wants to win he can’t do what you ask even if he believed it. I have accepted the fact that on the middle east the Democrats will always fiht each other to see who is the most “steadfast” on Israel. That is just the way it is.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:50 am
Here’s where I can and do jump on the Dems. Anyone notice who gave the Democratic Response today to the Weekly Bush Radio Address? Why none other than Joe “CT for” Lieberman. Reid picked him. Guess Zell Miller was too busy!
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am
Your Bruce Hornsby aphorism and barely concealed ethnic joke about Dearborn (I think, given Jimmy Carter’s enormous success, that it would play well beyond Dearborn) – you may be right. But in terms of principle, you know that I am.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I’m not “binary” on the issue of the Panthers. I was around then and clearly understand that there were regional and personality differences. Fed Hampaton was decidedly NOT Huey Newton. And the New York Panthers were even more wildly adventurist than most. But don’t give me shit about “rehabilitating” the Panthers. They were completely fucked politically. And they destroyed the lives of many well-meaning types who got caught up with them. Worst, they fulfilled the romanticized fanstasies of white leftists. I know, because I was there and supported them at the time. It was, in retrospect, very sick. And, arguably, when they were in their most “mainstream” mode under Elaine Brown, they were at their most rephrehensible and corrupt.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I never said Ghandi was perfect…what’s the point of that ?
As for being up on news on the Palestinians, I’m perfectly aware of the Intifada – which was when the Palestinians made major gains, frankly. There’s just other news that you don’t seem to be up on as regards the Palestinian strategy. The issue of Ghandian non-violence is one that involves the vulnerability of your opponent to moral suasion. Israel is more vulnerable to that, for internal and external reasons than most. And the notion that there will be NO violent response to Ghandian tactics misses the point. It’s a strategy that requires some perspective and persistence. As for the ANC, they didn’t win because of their rather puny armed resistance – they ended up coming to the table and negotiating because of the mass resistance of the Soweto youth. I’m not even arguing that mass resistance should be totally non-violent. But in a situation like South Africa, mass resistance rather than guerrilla tactics or bombings are most likely to win in the long run. International opinion should not be underestimated. The Palestinians had far more international support during the Intifada than they do now , lionizing their children sent on suicide bombings. Frankly, I think that there’s a deep sickness that pervades any culture that would make such a strategy central. “Infantilizing” doesn’t even begin to describe what I think of that.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
“would you prefer people didn’t have self defense from Klansmen Kops”
Incidentally, in the southern civil rights movement of Martin Luther King, there were always folks involved who were also armed against terrorists, be they cops or whatever. But they didn’t give flamboyent speeches about it, or parade the fact in public or try to displace the mass movement with guerrilla fantasies. Owning a gun for self-defense is as American as apple pie.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
A good response to the republicans wingnuts is Warm Front. I forget who wrote it iut it is a very well written book. Starting to hear a buzz about this book.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Yeah Jason that is interesting. Republicans fail on many levels and practically anyone can point out why.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Update on the Ann Coulter “faggot” thing – Adam Nagourney finally mentioned it in the NYT website’s political blog, in the course of which he turned it into a “question” whether it was offensive and managed to make a comparison of Coulter with Hillary Clinton. Good job, Nags. All The News That’s Fit To Print.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Reg –
All your critiques are valid to one degree or another.. They still don’t provide a justification for starving the Palestinian people and giving Israel a green light to do worse, while threatening ethnic cleansing, audaciously, if you will.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I specifically refered to the early Panthers, going up to Co-intelpro (Which caused a lot of what you’re talking aobut, particulary Elaine Brown) – as being rehabilitated.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Finally on suicide bombing – I agree with you wholeheartedly and hope you’re not implying that I support that….but I can put into context. As for international support – well – who supports Israel aside from the US? Nobody. The international consensus would have been implemented thirty years ago (242, 67 borders) if not for the USA. I blame the USA more than Israel for that one.
March 3rd, 2007 at 2:56 pm
test MSG nna
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Don’t blame cointelpro for the fact that Huey Newton was a psychopath. Even David Hilliard’s book exposes things like the 1968 shootout in Oakland as being a Panther provocation. That doesn’t change such facts as Fred Hampton – who was an extremely effective NAACP youth leader before starting the Chicago Panther chapter – being assassinated by a gang sent by the Chicago State’s Attorney’s office. But the political ideology, strategy and the organizational practices of the Panthers were, by and large, completely indefensible.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Cointelpro built up the psychopaths. Newton may not have been witting, but he was used.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
“The truth is that the Palestinians could have achieved enormous victories – not “totalâ€, but very significant and healing, both to themselves and their adversaries – if they had followed a Ghandian strategy”
Its true that the Palestinian leadership has never seriously sought to use mass, organized nonviolence is yet another example of its monumental lack of creativity. But I wish that reg didn’t indulge in such myth making. While one can admire Mohandas Gandhi’s nonviolent principles, one can hardly point to the Indian experience as a demonstration of their usefulness in overthrowing a colonial regime. Indeed, Gandhi’s concepts of satyagraha, or soul power, and ahimsa, or nonviolent struggle, played an important role during the Indian independence struggle, however the anti-colonial period in India was also marked by extreme violence, both between the British and Indians and between different Indian communal groups. Anti-colonial Indians committed a wide variety of terrorist acts; the British government was responsible for numerous massacres and other atrocities; and communal violence before, during and after independence claimed the lives of millions of people. One simply cannot argue that Indian independence was achieved in a nonviolent context.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I’m a huge fan of Phillip Weiss, but this seems a bit delusional, yet quite interesting
“My dad’s real smart, even if he doesn’t agree with me on my Middle East politics, and a couple weeks ago he said something that stuck. He was saying that Jimmy Carter’s book is a sign of rising anti-Semitism (something I disagree with), a sign we’re entering a new phase for Jewish power in the U.S. That the result of Carter’s book and Walt-Mearsheimer and other developments that I cheer and my dad fears is that Jews will have less power. I said, “So are you talking about pogroms?” My father made a little face. He’s very poetical and ironical. “No. Without fireworks.”
Not to belabor the obvious, but my father was saying that these big sociological questions are going to be brokered and renegotiated beneath the surface, quietly, and Jews and gentiles will adjust to a new reality. Smart guy, my dad.
I bring all this up because I just watched Obama in Springfield. You can prepare all you want for a big moment, but then the moment happens, and we’re all changed. I’m excited. And I have to think one of the consequences of Obama’s globally democratic dream is that, without it being explicit, without his having a fight with big Jewish backers—without fireworks—U.S. policy in the Middle East is going to shift.
I’m an optimist. But I think what’s happening right now in the Jewish community is part of it. Jews are being forced to confront the contradictions in Zionism (as playwright David Zellnik says, describing his play, “Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl”). Despite the AJC’s best efforts, all Jews are Wrestling With Zion (to quote the title of Alisa Solomon and Tony Kushner’s great anthology on the subject that the AJC attacked). This is the water we’re all swimming in now, questions about Zionism; and I’m betting that without fireworks, the next generation of Jews is going to think differently about this, the ground is changing under them.
I’ll cite one little fact that I think makes my point. In a Zionist history I was reading the other day, I read that the purchases of land in Palestine by Jewish agencies in the early part of the last century had covenants on them. The covenants said, This land can only be sold to Jews. (When I remember the citation, I’ll stick it in.) Those covenants still exist, I’m sure. You can try and justify that type of discrimination in a million ways, but there it is. Real estate covenants barring sales to blacks and Jews are what my generation helped destroy in this country 30 years ago. Obama was borne up on that idealism, and his campaign is about bringing that idealism to America’s actions in the world. He’s half-everything, right? The ideology of Zionism is simply out of step with that spirit, and if Obama succeeds, Zionism will lose its hold on Jewish-American intellectual life. Without fireworks.”
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I haven’t made any assertions about Indian history – although no one could deny the Gandhi’s “importance” to the anti-colonial struggle, to use Ahmed’s own words. I’ve made assertions that I believe no one has debunked about competing ideologies among African Americans and their relative effectiveness, assertions about what provided the strategic tipping point for the ANC in South Africa and assertions about various failures of Palestinian leadership and strategy.
I think that guy’s sense of Obama, regardless of the issue of Zionism, speaks to what I find most inspiring. I’ll call it an “X” factor that Obama seems to have – it’s imparting a sense that, while we won’t or can’t simply turn our backs on “business as usual”, we can begin to shift the frame of reference some sigificant if admittedly small measure and start to do better than we’ve been doing. Maybe I’m crazy. But I think that the intangibles often matter more in moving politics forward more than the policy details or the surface rhetoric. I like John Edwards a lot, but he doesn’t have the same feel of being authentic as Obama does. And Hillary, although I’d vote for her in a minute against any of this odd flip-flopping crew being served up by the GOP, would be just a fucking bad dream, albeit a competent one – proof that this country’s political imagination is terminally exhausted.
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I thought it was quite delusional as well when I read it….but I agree broadly speaking that if any establishment politician has the skill to change the discourse on an issue, its Obama. I am talking spefically political skill, not his politics, whic has it turns out leaves a lot to be desired.
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
A friend e-mailed to say that Obama’s reference to “narrow borders” is a code/cue to that he is against the 67 borders (or “Auschwitz border” as some Zionists call it)
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
If Democrats need the imprimatur of Zionists to win elections, they deserve to lose.
How can anyone expect U.S. policy in the Middle East to turn around without shifting to a more balanced relationship with Israel?
American policy in that undermines moderate leaders of Islamic or nominally Islamic states is doomed to failure. The front line of the war against suicide bombings and Islamic extremism is being fought by moderate Islamists, not Jews, not Christians.
Intransigent U.S. support for Israeli chauvanism fatally undermines any efforts to support political moderation in Islam.
Seymour Hersch notes in his New Yorker piece that Israel now finds itself nominally allied with the Saudi Arabia and some other gulf states that are determined to crush a resurgent Shia movement led by Iran.
Israel, the Saudis and the U.S. are, once again, allying themselves with the Islamic Brotherhood and other Salafist forces that generated Al Qaeda. It’s the Afghan freedom fighters redux.
The situation could hardly be more desperate.
Unless the Democrats can demonstrate that they have enough character to be willing to lose over something–Zionism would be a great start–they’ll lose the election anyway.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Jcummings – “Obama has the political skill to do what James Baker did at an AIPAC speech in 89″
Things have changed since 1989. A helluva lot of blood has flowed under the bridge, in all directions. It’s nuts to think you can simply rewind the clock. A peace process was tried and blew up. You and some others here blame the Israelis solely for that. That viewpoint, depressingly prevalent, makes it hard for Israels to contemplate joining in another process. I believe they should and must, but it can only happen if the rest of the world lets go of the binary viewpoint that reg mentioned, where the Palestinian is capable only of victimhood and the Jew is an eternal bogeyman. This only feeds paranoia.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
About that 2000 Nader, vote…Marc ended his post with his zinger about Nader and it leading to some premature-anti-Lieberman thingy & Marc’s view that it fits with the general inability of the Democrats to make something stick regarding the recent election in November. For brevity’s sake, I confess that I took the lazy cliche way and noted that California was safe. Well, that aint and wasnt’t really the case, for me, then. Gore wasn’t getting my vote, period. In the primaries Gore mugged Bradley – a very respectable man – on racial profiling and ridiculed him for offering universal health care. (And then in 2002, Gore comes out as a convert to single payer(!)) Gore was a pitchman for NAFTA and cheered when we ‘deformed welfare’. And his wife is still creepy. Gore was the standard bearer of a dead Democratic Party that was only interested in retaining it’s own power. Best thing that could have happened to the Democrats was to spend some time in the wilderness and start scrapping for some new ideas. Nor do I go for the ‘the country is doomed because Bush got in’ that rlc is selling. No one should spend time lamenting a better day denied because Gore isn’t the current lame duck. Although, I’m sure there’s some who will try. It’s a pointless pursuit to create an imaginary reality — might as well start throwing rocks at the moon…I’m really trying to get back to Marc’s point, here, probably flailing, but I think what we’re getting from the Democrats on Iraq is, well yeah, timid and a bit underwhelming but looking at what just went down with the incompetence over the care of vets visa via Walter Reed is a healthy sign that government is starting to take itself serious again. RLC and K Nardy, with due respect, I’d suggest training your guns on the Grover Norquist types that keep peddling ‘the government can’t do anything crap… ‘ BTW, is it too soon to starting reviewing FEMA’s response to the devastation in the south?
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:42 pm
“No one should spend time lamenting a better day denied because Gore isn’t the current lame duck.”
Except for the dead and the devastated…
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:43 pm
And if you thought the above is a bit meandering, you’ll love this…Mr. Bunkerbuster, that bit about Hersh, I’ve only read it once, and very quickly, but if half of it is true, I’d sign up for the Impeach the President movement. Aiding elements aligned with Al Qaeda? WTF?
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Can’t get one past you, reg.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I blame the Americans, Evets, far more than I blame the Israelis. The Israelis do what states – irresponsible entities usually – do – kill and maim and steal and use spurious racist excuses, complaining about nukes being built (maybe) because of its own nukes. America has the power to stop them. If you are OK with what Israel does, sleep well. I blame America for enabling your fears.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Spare me the bullshit about “Viewpoints” contributing to a gangster state like Israel’s behaviour. So people’s “viewpoints” have bearing on whether Paulie Walnuts kills for Tony, a pretty apt comparison of the US/Israel relationship..
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Hersh’s sourcing is immaculate. Though readers of Angry Arab and others have known about the US/Hariri/Al Qaida connection for a long time.
March 4th, 2007 at 12:29 am
the buster full of bunk wrote: “Well, according to Seymour Hersch’s latest in the New Yorker, Cheney’s invasion of Iran has already begun as a “covert†operation.”
I read through the entire piece, and couldn’t find any reference to an invasion plan on the part of any of Hersh’s informants. Plans to bomb, yes. Possibly hundreds of targets. US covertagents operating in the country to identify targets, yes. Ideas about how to stir ethnic separatism, yes. But no invasion plans.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Nice catch, Michael. Do you think its reasonable to assume the Cheney gang is not developing invasion plans, especially in light of the plans for bombing, insurgency, etc?
March 4th, 2007 at 1:22 am
I’m coming in late on this discussion, but Obama clearly told AIPAC what it wanted to hear rather than what it needs to hear. I share jcummings’ discomfort about this. Does anyone recall what position Obama took when Israel invaded Lebanon last year? Hillary practically fell over herself to run and cheerlead this action, which is one of the main reasons I would never vote for her–she is entirely irresponsible. But at least Obama has taken some leadership on Iraq and Hillary has taken none.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I think it’s reasonable to assume that Cheney et al. would like the Iranian leadership to *assume* that it’s crazy enough to actually invade Iran. Being perceived as batshit has its (un-)diplomatic uses (just ask crazy-like-a-fox Kim Jong Il.)
The reality, however, is that Iran is a much larger country than Iraq (70 mllion to Iraq’s 25 million), much better armed, and much more socially cohesive. Bombing Iran would be open invitation — and provocation — for Iran to simply invade Iraq to “liberate” it from an unambiguous “imperialist aggressor”. Which, for all I know, would have uses for US interests as well, in some stage of the game (most likely the stage where all but Kurdistan has spun completely out of control.)
Balter asks where Obama was on Lebanon last year. Here ya go!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=756712
“I don’t think there is any nation that would not have reacted the way Israel did after two soldiers had been snatched. I support Israel’s response to take some action in protecting themselves.” (August 22, 2006)
“I don’t fault Israel for wanting to rid their border with Lebanon from those Katyusha missiles that can fire in and harm Israeli citizens, so I think that any cease fire would have to be premised on the removal of those missiles.” (July 2006)
March 4th, 2007 at 7:25 am
JCummings -
Since I don’t consider Israel a gangster state, rather something much more complex, I do believe its willingness to deal is affected by international obloquy (thanks for the chance to use that word). If I wanted to shut one eye and half my brain when following what transpires in Israel I could just as easily paint the Palestinians as a dysfunctional Mafia crew; that kind of reductionist obloquy (thanks again) isn’t hard to gin up.
BTW – Are you claiming that Israel is a gangster state in some essentialist sense? In your eyes, are there any actions it can take, short of self-dissolution, which would allow it to achieve legitmacy?
Because self-dissolution usually doesn’t go down well. Historically, it’s a hard sell.
As it was many years ago in Persia on this very day (or so says the Book of Esther). And on that note Cummings let me take this opportunity to rise above all this vituperation and wish you a freilicher Pirim — a happy Purim — may you enjoy the many blessings of the day.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Jason Maine:
York, you are a twerp/jerk/asshat trying to push your damn book on people that just aren’t interested. Your writing is turged and difficult to follow. Now, quit interupting my reading here. This is a good thread and you spoiled it.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Happy Purim to you. Don’t boil to much gentile blood in your hamentashen
Yes, essentially, like all states in one way or another, Israel is a gangster state.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Of course the Palestinian leadership is Mafia-like. The issue isn’t who is more gangster like, etc. – it is who is occupying the other’s territory and starving the other’s people. As I said, America could have pushed Israel in the right direction 40 years ago. It didn’t. While I think the Lobby is influential on the domestic discourse (see Dershowitz vs. everyone), it is not so powerful to prevent America, when need be, from applying maximum pressure to Israel. That it doesn’t makes it all the more blamewortyh.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Evets, I ask you with respect – why is it at all logical, given modern state behaviour, for Israel to use the excuse of “obluquy” (sp?) – or disaproval/rancour? You don’t really believe that, do you? And if you do, that flies in the face of Zionism even (a “state like any other” – since states like any other do whats in their interest, not what is based on some fantasy)/
I never said anything about legitimacy or lack thereof, except by implication, that it would be legitimate if it followed the international consensus. My many Israeli friends, relatives, refuseniks and others agree with me here. Personally, I like the idea of binational state, but it is a little unrealistic and romantic.
And in terms of the post before the one before this one. No – I don’t beliee Israel is essentially a gangster state, I’ll rephrase that. I don’t believe in “essentialism.” What I do believe is that states, especially capitalist states, are prone to greed and hubris and rapaciousness and murder.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:19 am
http://electronicintifada.net/artman/uploads/barackobama483.jpg
March 4th, 2007 at 9:19 am
above: When Obama was a reasonable man, he ate dinner with Edward Said.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Screw yourself Roper. I didn’t post that and a look at the IP address will back that up. Your understanding level of science and what constitutes good writing is at the fifth grade level perfect for Roperworld.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Wait a minute. Since York is banned from this site, that can’t be York who just posted this denial. So Roper, unscrew yourself!
PS to Turner: Thanks for the Obama info. Depressing.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Cummimngs -
I never tried to imply that int’l censure based on a black/white reading of Israel-Palestinian relations is an ‘excuse’ for Israel not to deal, or even the primary stumbling-block. It’s simply harder for Israel, after seeing the Oslo collapse blamed solely on them, to think about taking another chance. That I can attest to from my own talks with “Israeli friends, relatives, refuseniks ” etc. Whether you like it or not, it’s a fact.
BTW – which “international consensus” are you and your friends asking Israel to follow. Are the Palestinians currently toeing the line of that consensus? Are they granted an exemption? What about the surrounding Arab states, which we’re supposed to pretend lie outside the field of play and therefore don’t count (though it’s obvious they have a lot of leverage in this game).
March 4th, 2007 at 9:54 am
If thats how the state of Israel percieves the situation, they are objectively off. I don’t care to argue this further, except to say that you are an outright liar if you think that any refuseniks or anyone on the Israeli (real) Left agrees with you.
Even mainstream Israelis state that it was Netanyahu’s intransigence nad ultimately Sharon’s prococation atthe Temple Mount which screwed Oslo…and every State Dept. person who was at Camp David agree that Barak was unwilling to make the right sacrifices. Taba was a good deal – but this is why I blame America- Bush kicked it to the curb.
The international consensus is a withdrawal to the 67 borders. Iti s not germane to the issue who is runing the Palestinians, if anyone, since the issue to which I’m speaking is Israeli actions, not Palestinian.
As I said, I don’t care to argue this If you can sleep with all the Lebanese and Palestinian dead on your conscience. Stop the references to “me and my friends” and the condescension. Enjoy your Jewish guilt.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:54 am
The surrounding Arab states, aside from Syria, are all friendly with Israel.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:33 am
“Iti s not germane to the issue who is runing the Palestinians, if anyone, since the issue to which I’m speaking is Israeli actions, not Palestinian.”
One affects the other. It’s called cause and effect.
“Even mainstream Israelis state that it was Netanyahu’s intransigence nad ultimately Sharon’s prococation atthe Temple Mount which screwed Oslo”
Not true. Though anyone with any sense acknowledges that their behavoir was quite harmful. Unfortunately they aren’t solely to blame. The behavior of Arafat, Hamas etc was also quite harfmful.
“The international consensus is a withdrawal to the 67 borders. ”
I’m all for that as are most Israelis. But it’s got to come with some plausible security guarantees.
“Stop the references to “me and my friends†and the condescension. Enjoy your Jewish guilt.”
I was referring to those you described as your “friends”, and implying nothing offensive. In the spirit of fairness I can only hope that you too enjoy your Jewish guilt.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:41 am
We all enjoy our Jewish guilt. Really, I don’t want to argue with you, since essentially we want the same thing.
My point about Taba is inarguable.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:56 am
“My point about Taba is inarguable.”
As are all my points — that’s what makes them so convincing!
March 4th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
To paraphrase Marc, enjoy your weekend… in Afghanistan.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Ali Abunimah has traced Obama’s gradual movements towards the Aipac camp in this article. Its quite depressing really, especially since Obama was quite critical of Israel and US policies in the past.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml
March 4th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Yeah – I should have linked the whole article. This is so par for the course in “progressive” politics.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Is anyone else as weary as I am over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian dispute played out here (and elsewhere) on a regular basis. At this point I really don’t give a damn anymore as each side tries to show that it is a greater victim of history. Maybe one of the unheralded benefits of a plan to make us energy independent would be a deemphasis in this country of the whole Middle East and the crazies there with their neverending set of grievances.
jcummings if all states are gangster states then what are you advocating? The withering away of the state? I thought you were a good Marxist. Haven’t you read “The Poverty of Philosophy”?
March 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
all bourgeois states….
My Marxism is tempered by Bakunin.
Not giving a damn is the most isolationist reactionary point of view.
Energy independence – see a recent excellent post by Max Sawicky about Gore – is a myth
March 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Jews ARE victims of history, and indirectly, Palestinians are Hitler’s last victims.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
“Is anyone else as weary as I am over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian dispute played out here (and elsewhere) on a regular basis. At this point I really don’t give a damn anymore as each side tries to show that it is a greater victim of history.”
Those damn Palestinians, robbed of their land, subjected to a brutal and illegal occupation, subsidised by our tax dollars and supported by oue foreign and diplomatic posturing, why cant they just shut up. And why can’t Jimmy catr put a lid in it as well. We are America, the land of the innocent and virtuous. Leave us alone, says RLC. Well, here’s some news for you. We are in the middle of it because we support and maintain an illegal occupation which would not exist without us. We sustain Israels worst delusions that its policies in the West Bank and Gaza are okay. We seek refuge in ‘both sides have a story to tell’ as a way of dodging our own complicity. Rather than us merely hallowing the abuser with the mantel of respectability, our silence draws us into a web of complicity. That’s why the debate matters.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I stand by what I wrote and BTW notice that almost all foreign policy topics here end up being a replay of the Israel-Palestian conflict?
Yeah, I grow weary of the whole mess since each side seems unwilling to consider anything but the abject surrender of the other.
Now that’s real thoughtful stuff!
March 4th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
This just in from the land of the innocent and virutous:
“(Oregon Republican Senator Gordon) Smith said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge has only a one in four chance of succeeding.”
Oregonian daily, 3/3/07)
(I have little sympathy left for either side of the Israel/Palestine thing either. The Palestinians have actually been able to take what I consider an obviously just case on its face and, by virtue of their extremely corrupt and/or insane, fascistic leadership, make me not just think it’s unlikely they can succeed but not to particularly want them to succeed under the aegis of any of the dominant factions. People who make this issue the be-all-and-end-all political litmus test aren’t people I want to have much of anything to do with, no matter who they’re pulling for. I think Obama could have done a bit better even before AIPAC, but this increasingly futile debate is way down on my list. I find the Israelis to be arrogant pricks who shouldn’t have fought a fucking war to be surrounded by anti-semites on a sliver of land if they don’t like the situation they’ve created for themselves and, frankly, I despise every one of the fucking Arab countries. Not just for their governments – the dominant culture strikes me as unbelievably retrograde for the most part. I’d give them a pass because of “the sins of the West”, except there’s enormous wealth there that’s being totally pissed away. And in most countries the opposition seems even worse than the kleptocrats who are running things. So shoot me for finding it difficult to give a shit…or better yet, barrage me with leftist rhetoric that has little or nothing to do with anything that’s actually having any impact within their political or ideological discourse. And Islam seems about as positive an influence there as the Catholic Church was during the Middle Ages. I’d put my hopes in al Jazeera creating some “civil society” openings, but that’s kinda like hoping that Jon Stewart will save America from itself. Fat chance…)
March 4th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Ironically, despite the current theocratic crazies in power, I think Iran is the most likely of the Islamic countries to take a more positive direction. I predict that they’ll democratize and open up their political system before either Saudi Arabia or Egypt and that in a decade we’ll be scratching our heads at what happened to the apparently crazy people, the way we do now with China. Also, although it’s not PC to say this, I think that an Iranian nuclear capability could push the Israelis toward a more serious effort to resolve the Palestinian issue. Totally off the top of my head predictions, but I’d wager more than a small sum on both.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Let me add “…LONG BEFORE either Saudi Arabia or Egypt”
March 4th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Reg and RLC – (I’m not gonna belabor this further cause it is getting boring) exemplify everything wrong with America’s attitude….there aren’t two symmetrical sides here. There is an American proxy which is allowed to do what it pleases, and a people oppressed for near a half century. Regardless of their leadership, justice is clearly on one side. So the “two sides” discourse is bullshit.
Further, the isolationist and reactionary attitudes are to me, even worse than Pro-Israel types who can – with skill – be talked into a Pro-Palestinian position (because it matters to them.) Its an ugly side of American politics. Its on your hands, “both sides” blood, Americans.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I have to add that Reg succeeded without intention I presume, at being both Anti-Semitic and Islam/Arab-phobic.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
“I think that an Iranian nuclear capability could push the Israelis toward a more serious effort to resolve the Palestinian issue. Totally off the top of my head predictions, but I’d wager more than a small sum on both.”
A good point, actually.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Call me even-handed…
March 4th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Well call me Ishmael.
I’m really glad the jcummings is here to explain it all for me. Guess the Israelis should just slink away since they confiscated Arab Lands.
(tell you what jc, why not go back where you came from and give Canada back to the nations whose lands you now occupy. When you do I’ll be glad to move to Italy – better food there, you know!)
March 4th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Did I say anything of the sort? I keep saying 67 borders, yet folks like you imply I’m saying that Israelis should “slink away.”
You do take a side, friend.
March 4th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Balter, how does one “unscrew” one’s self? York can no doubt figure it out since he is absolutely screwed six ways from Saturday, but how does one UNSCREW?
Thanks for the chuckle though.
March 4th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
A sample of York’s writing:
I’ve had about 8 or so hours flying lessons, I’ve hung around pilots for years and years. I’ve heard some say, “I’ve got a new Super Cub!” but I’ve NEVER, EVER, heard anyone say “I’ve got a PA-18 Super Cub”
Sorry folks, but the thread was getting a little stale and Yorkie provides SO MUCH FUN!!!
March 4th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
“I think that an Iranian nuclear capability could push the Israelis toward a more serious effort to resolve the Palestinian issue. Totally off the top of my head predictions, but I’d wager more than a small sum on both.â€
The same thing could have been said about Iraqi nuclear capability Reg, just before Israel decided it would be a wager way to risky for the long term survival of their citizens and their nation, and destroyed it.
It is Hamas and other radical Palestinian sucide recruiters that are calling for Israels destruction, by ANY means necessary to include the self destruction of their own children. It is the radical leadership in Iran that is calling for the destruction of Israel while pursuing the weapons to make this happen.
These are the nuts that have blown up, and continue to blow up, any and all peace attempts. It is not Israel that is calling for their destruction. It is easy to wager and theorize and critize when your nation is not surround by enemies that professly state their intention to destroy you.
Israel would be nuts….or lacking nuts, to let Iran aquire nuclear bomb capability, and I wager they will not. Use their overwhelming wack upside the head of Hezbolla as a guide to future behavior.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Jim R
Israel lost the war this summer.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Israel won’t be able to destroy an Iranian nuclear capability. It ain’t 1986…and they’re not dealing with Saddam.
And their “overwhelming wack upside the head of Hezbolla” was the best thing that’s happened to Hezbolla in years. Unfortunately.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
jcummings:
If what rlc & reg described visa via the Isreali-Palestinian conflict is your definition of anti-semitic & islamophobic, you can put me down for that, too.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
You mean “it ain’t 1981″ reg.
Iran is going to go nuclear. Within 10 years — possibly within 5. The sooner the west accepts this reality, the better off we’re all going to be. Best thing the west could do is drag the Isreali government by the short hairs into meeting with Tehran and cut a deal.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Re: Mike Turner’s 1st post…I believe it was Steven Gaskin who noted that “…the U.S. didn’t get out of Vietnam beacause the hippies were against it; it was because the square citizens started _agreeing_with the hippies.”
March 4th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Thanks reg, for confessing in such a colorful way that, for you, the Palestine/Israel conflict is best expressed as your own personal psychodrama.
Nobody’s asking you to “like” Arab countries or to ignore corruption, be it the Halliburton/Cheney kind or the Abbas/U.S. aid funds kind.
You seem to be suggesting that without some good guys riding around on white horses in easily spotted white hats, the conflict isn’t worth addressing.
The fact that Arab venality and Israeli chauvanism offend you so grandly doesn’t make your arguments any less unpersuasive.
The depth of problems on both sides of the conflict should be taken as reasons for urgency, commitment and open-minded assessments, not two-bit cyncism, blame mongering and faux-ironic detachment.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Rob Grocholski Says:
“Best thing the west could do is drag the Isreali government by the short hairs into meeting with Tehran and cut a deal.”
By far, the most prevalent delusion in the world is that actors like the governments of Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, to keep the list short, and terrorist groups like Fatah, Hezbolla and Hamas, to keep this list equally short, are willing to tolerate the existence of Israel.
They say over and over and over again that they are not. Why do Westerners continue to think that these various Easterners don’t say what they mean and mean what they say?
In my opinion, its racism, pure and simple. The Darkies don’t know what they are saying, they don’t mean what they say; they are so traumitized, oppressed, put-upon, etc. etc. etc.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
reg, it all keeps coming back to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict because that conflict serves stabilizing purposes for the states in the region. It’s a single, simplistic point of focus, and it provides a framework for conveniently simple propaganda narratives in a region where global and local national interests need one. (If some similarly unjust conflict were smoldering in central Africa, how much attention would it get? In fact, such conflicts smolder there all the time, but seldom surface higher than page 5.) For the Arab oil monarchies, the Israeli/Palestinian conflice has been particularly useful. They were winning — or staying even — for as long as it went on. The “mistakes” on both sides weren’t really mistakes, strategically — they were a perpetuation of the sponsors’ status quo.
I suspect this propaganda-generating function of the conflict is outliving its usefulness, or that, at least, the Gulf oil monarchies would prefer to turn the heat way down, if not mothball the cookstove entirely for a while. The combination of the Wall and elections putting Hamas into power changed the picture a lot, as did the U.S. occupation of Iraq. So did last summer’s war in Lebanon. But the new underpinnings were already forming by then — in fact, all of those developments might have been geared toward easing the transition to the new picture, and not merely side-effects of self-propelled changes.
Arab despotisms (with the likely exception of Syria) now have a new, and real enough, external threat for purposes of galvanizing internal support for their regimes: the so-called “Shi’ite Crescent”. And if the civil war in Iraq goes to the flash point, a new term might eventually be added to propaganda discourse in the region: “the Kurdish Entity”, joining the Zionist Entity as a target for state-sponsored vilification of U.S. client states in the region. However, any such vilification will be considerably toned down, at least in comparison to blarings about the Shi’ite Peril, which forms a basis for common (stabilizing) cause among many players: the U.S., Israel, the House of Saud, other Gulf oil monarchies, Jordan, even Egypt,.
The new status quo, when we finally see it (in a year? a decade?), will be a lot more complex, I think. But America will still be staging a lot of the same kabuki, just in a couple more theaters. The charade of bold, high-minded “peace” initiatives followed by hand-wringing over their failure, played out over and over again, is important for our own propaganda narrative as well. We want peace, you see. Because we’re good. And war is, like, bad, yknow. And we want bad things to stop. Because we’re good.
A nuclear-armed Iran is unlikely to force a resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. India and Pakistan both have a nuclear deterrent now, but that in itself hasn’t settled the issue of Kashmir. Most likely, an Iranian nuclear deterrent will just legitimize nuclearization in the Arab states (already underway). And that development will, if anything, put an even greater premium on perpetuating and expanding this Orwellian strategy of maintaining stability through low-intensity conflict with demonized external enemies, in all of the states concerned.
Even with the most aggressive push toward independence from Middle East oil, we’ll be dependent on it for decades more. And, as we’ve seen, a certain controlled level of conflict, to the extent that it makes oil markets jittery and supports high prices, also supports internal stability of the states in the region, without undue economic damage to the economies of the buyers. Even Syria, whose oil exports are relatively measly, has profited. Saudi Arabia has recently arrested its long slide in the direction of lower per-capita income, a major driver of radical islamist recruitment there. Higher oil prices were key to that.
Of course, this is all very complex, and ugly — it’s hard to find the Good Guy. In fact, there isn’t one. Thus the preference for simplistic Good Guy vs. Bad Guy narratives, each tailored to the propaganda requirements of its respective state sponsor. Less to remember, less to keep track of, more to feel unambiguous moral indignation about.
War might be politics by violent means, but politics is often hidden, complicated, secretive. And that makes it hard to sell — the customer’s eyes glaze over, or worse, you engage the customer’s conscience in ways that don’t sell the war. But there is a solution. Clausewitz also said that war is a wrestling match — a simplified spectacle for a dumbed-down audience of roaring fans cheering one side or the other. And this is important, too. Because wars are fought by subjects and citizens, ostensibly on their behalf. People want to see what they are asked to believe, and want to believe what they are then shown. A simple statement of the conflict, and some gory pictures of victims you can sympathize with, and you’re in business. To the extent that the story has an end, similar sales formulae work for satisfying closure. Israeli citizens see that Hezbollah no longer fights, and say “We won, even though they fought dirty!” Hezbollah subjects in southern Lebanon look around, see no Israeli occupiers and say, “We won, even though they fought dirty!” As an Israeli defense official said during that war, “It’s all about the narrative in the end.”
March 5th, 2007 at 12:13 am
“urgency, commitment and open-minded assessments”
When I see any of this coming from the only people who really matter, I’ll consider it an occasion for something other than cynicism. As for psychodramas, the region and the various faction’s supporters are supplying plenty. I’m not involved in a psychodrama on these matters. Frankly, my point was that I’m hardly emotionally involved at all. There are too many things to get upset about in this world without squandering my limited emotional resources at this late date on the Israelis and Palestinians. They are now both officially in the “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” category so far as I’m concerned. There’s nothing “faux” about my disgust. I’ve been accused of being “isolationist” and a host of other things on this, so I’ll toss out the fact that one of the most sensible commentators on the sorry state of the United States relationship to this issue is Pat Buchanan, who thinks our domestic politics are in the thrall of the Israel lobby and that we should distance ourselves. (I’m trying to firm up my alleged anti-semitic and arab-phobic credentials here.) I’ve gotten excited over the years about the initiatives of Jimmy Carter and Clinton in pushing for Middle East peace, but after Oslo where it’s pretty apparent both sides held back from the brink of a real peace agreement, I’m at the point of thinking it’s futile. The Israelis completely lost me with their attachment to the settlements. The Palestinians lost me with the suicide bombers and Hamas. The notion that Sharon was some hero or making a breakthrough in getting out of Gaza was absurd, as is the notion that Hamas – and much of Fatah, for that matter – will in the forseeable future become a credible negotiator for any settlement that allows the Palestinians to get on with their lives. The Israelis need to abandon the settlements – which they won’t do – and the Palestinians need to truly accept Israel’s ‘67 borders as a fait accompli and the Israelis as potential partners in reconstruction and joint economic development. I think that some pragmatic economic – even cultural – integration of the two states over the longterm would be a real possibility and would cement peace if there were ever an outbreak of sanity. But, as you suggest, it matters not a whit what I think – so as long as I see the same indefensible crap being recycled, I’ll leave it at that.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:22 am
The Department of Defense has identified 3,158 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans over the weekend:
CADAVERO, Jonathan D., 24, Specialist, Army; Takoma Park, Md., 10th Mountain Division.
HENRY, Lorne E. Jr., 21, Cpl., Army; Niagara Falls, N.Y., 10th Mountain Division.
SOTO-PINEDO, Karl O., 22, Staff Sgt., Army; San Juan, P.R.; First Armored Division.
SOUKENKA, Richard A., 30, Sgt., Army; Oceanside, Calif., 10th Mountain Division.
WILLIAMS, Wesley J., 23, Pvt., Army; Philadelphia, 504th Military Intelligence Brigade.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Arafat didn’t “hold back” at Oslo.
The “deal” Barak offered maintained Israeli control of Jerusalem, effectively denied the right of return of Palestinian refugees and left the West Bank riddled with exclusively Jewish colonial enclaves.
Why would anyone, even a guy like reg, who hates Arab countries, be disappointed that Arafat declined to swallow such a big turd?
Anyone who recycles Kissinger’s cheesy cliche about the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity has no room to complain about tired narratives or “indefensible crap.”
The narrative at the core of U.S. policy on Israel led straight to the Iraq war. There’s some distance between the two conflicts, but conceptually, their origin bears many parallels.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Samuel Stott: You’re ignoring the issue of what is meant by “Israel.” Do you mean the Israel established in 1948 or the “Greater Israel” that exists today?
As I type this, Israel is building more Jewish-only colonial enclaves within “Greater Israel,” a fact-on-the-ground even you cannot deny. This state has no right to exist, as far as I can tell. You seem to suggest that anyone who doesn’t accept “Greater Israel’s” legitimacy is unworthy to negotiate a settlement that would, um, bring the end of “Greater Israel” by creating a Palestinian state, or by granting Palestinians voting rights in occupied areas.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:46 am
It wasn’t Kissinger, it was the late Abba Eban, an Israeli UN ambassador who said that about Palestinians.
I’ll say this. As a Jew, I am emotionally involved for two reasons (aside from the normal left/human rights/social justice) reason – I see crimes being comitted in MY name, as a Jew, which deeply troubles me. Jews are raised – at least I was raised – to believe in ethics antithetical to the ones pracriced by the state of Israel. So in a way, the reason that many left wing Jews become passionate about what is as a cliche known as the “Palestinian Cause” is that in a secular way, we see Zionism as heresy – or at least Israeli practice as heresy.
I am also involved on a practical level. I have friends – some of whom are absolutely the opposite of me politically – in Israel, even in the IDF. I believe that their states’ practice puts them in danger, and puts Jews in Israel in danger…far from being a safe haven as it was advertised as, Israeli s about the most dangerous palce in the world for a Jew.
Of course, beyond those two, as Isaid are the normal left/social justice/human rights issues….Palestinians are quietly victims of what the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling calls politicide…..They are being economically and culturally squeezed (As well as oppressed) with outright aim of destroying any chance for a society – let alone a state – to exist – (its through this context that one should look at the horrors of the last few years)
March 5th, 2007 at 9:10 am
You know Roper you really have to dig deep to find falut don’t you? That’s where a small mind goes. Since I’m banned, why won’t someone prevent this asshole SOB model ancient, from attacking me on a site where I don’t even post, until now? If you’re going to make fun of someone’s book, do it like a man instead of blocking access at your own site. No telling what ad hominems lurk there, but I’ll check from the library to make sure. Go F yourself you pathetic wingnut.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:27 am
“Anyone who recycles Kissinger’s cheesy cliche about the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity has no room to complain about tired narratives or ‘indefensible crap.’”
Yeah, there’s Hamas and the suicide bombers, Zionist delusions and the fanatical settlers for whom Israel isn’t enough – and me with my cheesy quotes. I promise to stop if they do.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Abba Eban may have been Israeli but he was also right. I agree that the offer made by Barak was one Arafat could refuse but there are ways of saying “yes” that really mean “No” and allow negotiations to continue. Yassir should have studied Japanese!
In general, I think Michael Turner’s last post hit the nail on the head.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
RLC – thats the point – Arafat said no – and the deal got better for Palestinians at Taba – as all parties, including Bill Clinton agree. Then Bush became prez….this is why I blame Americans more thn the Lobby
March 5th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Buchanan may be right on this issue, but I cling to the belief that he is a true Anti-Semite, not because of his correct views on the Israel/US relationship (for which he overstates the role of the Lobby, and understates how much the Military Industrial COmplex LIKES having Israel as a proxy) – but his words on supreme court justices “with las names like ginzburg” or “people with names like Cohen sending people with names like Leroy or Christopher to war” – I’m paraphrasing. The guy’s got a Jew problem.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
It’s always blown my mind that North Americans, who live on a continent where people shoot each other over stolen parking spaces, can’t wrap their heads around the anger people feel at losing their country (maybe if ‘Palestine’ were expressed as a critical mass of stolen parking spaces, folks like RLC would be be a little more on side)
March 5th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
If Pat Buchanan didn’t exist, AIPAC and the AJC would have to invent anti-semites who are critical of Israel.
Oh, wait a minute. They do.
March 5th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
They didn’t lose their country, since it’s right under their feet, still, the problem is they want all of it for themselves and Jews sent back to Europe. Isn’t going to happen.
March 5th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Yorkster- Yes, I know that its just the first chapter but your book needs alot of work. The writing is contrived, stale and banal. Unless the novel (thats what it is right?) dramatically changes pace no one is going to want to read it much less sign onto it. Just some friendly advice. Good luck
March 5th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Perhaps AIPAC would do that….but Buchanan is an Anti-Semite.
March 5th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Perhaps AIPAC would do that ? They “manufacture” anti-semites out of people who criticize Israel all the time.
Buchanan remains true to his roots – like WF Buckleys’, his family idolized Franco.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Oh, and now I’m a defender of AIPAC? Come on now..please.
My perspective on AIPAC and the lobby – and my critique of Mearshiemer and Walt is the one echoed by Joseph Massad, Noam Chomsky, Phyllis Bennis, Asad Abu Khalil and others. It is that the whole monacausal “lobby” theory is that it overstates the influence AIPAC has on foreign policy and understates how much influ’ence it has on domestic policy. Its strength is not in how Mearshiemer and Walt put it – on foreign policy as such, bt in the actions that were taken against M and W, and Carter, etc – that it seeks to remove Israel/Palestine from proper discourse – thus openly stating AntiSemite to anyone who disagrees. But its itnerests dovetail with the state sometimes, and not other times It hasn’t gotten Jonathan Pollard free.
Further, an apporach to recent US foreign policy that attributes the actions to a monocausal lobby is not only shoddy thinking, but ignores capitalism and imperialism, leaving the impression of a golden innocent america sullied by the Lobby (capital L) absolving it from blame, it was those Jews, you know. Not at all Anti-Semitic any more than blaming Anti-Castro policies on Florida Cubans. But in both cases it is far more complicated.
March 5th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
As I said earlier. As long as this is a contest of opposing grievences and who has suffered the most from history the whole thing becomes a sterile excercise. jcummings wants the ‘67 borders. What about you Ahmed?
March 5th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I think that regardless of what one wants, this is not about opposing grievances, since there is no contradiction between resolving one grievance or another, it is not – to anyone – a zero sum game. I want the 67 borders pragmatically, as the international consensus goes. I do believe that it iis human destiny to move away from tribalism and ethnic modes of affiliation and within a half century, naturally, we will see the development (its a small piece of land) of a binational state. As someone opposed to Jewish, Muslim and Christian states, that is what I actually would like to see.
I don’t think even the most “extreme” Hamas member even considers “throwing the Jews into the sea.” Israel has been there and produced generations. The people are there to stay.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
“but your book needs alot [sic} of work”
Anyone exhibiting these kinds of skills, isn’t a critic of merit. It’s the appeal to an idiot defense. Input from the clueless not heeded
March 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
It’s just a thought but perhaps I could have the Alaskan scientists detour to kill some Palestinians, you know, for the hell of it? Dramatic enough for ya? We could blame them exclusively for global warming while we’re at it.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
“I don’t think even the most “extreme†Hamas member even considers “throwing the Jews into the sea.â€
I beg to differ. Everything I read indicates in plain language this is exactly what they’d like to do, if they could, which is doubtful ever. Thank goodness for that.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
“As I said earlier. As long as this is a contest of opposing grievences and who has suffered the most from history the whole thing becomes a sterile excercise. jcummings wants the ‘67 borders. What about you Ahmed?”
As I said earlier RLC, think about the parking lot example if it helps. I think that going back to the 1967 borders was a feasible solution, say, in the 1990’s, before the unfiar Oslo accords, which I supported and would still speak for today if it wasn’t made damn near impossible by contiuned land annexation and the creation of facts on the ground by the Israelis. It doesn’t pass the text of maxiimum justice, but in the real world it could have meant a kind of divorce between the Palestinains and Israelis, giving a people who have been historically dispossed a semblance of national self determination. In other words it could have been the worst of all the options. What has happenned since the Oslo accords had convinced me that any Palestinians state that emerges from the current sham peace process will simply be the peace of the powerful–a collection of banstustans, cut of by settlements and enclosures, with little control over its borders dominated by Israel. You could a “palestinian state” on a dog mat, it doesnt mean its actually a state. God knoiws that there have been plenty of mistakes made by the Palestinian leadership but the fact remains that the struggle is at its core stil a just one and one that I defend. America hasnt sat by and watched innocently. Our goverment allowed Israel to double its settlements throughout the 1990’s and has facilitated a system in the west bank and gaza which people like desmiond tutu and jimmy cater have compared to apartheid. Israel continus to maintain hundred of thousands of people and soldiers in another peoples land in clear violation of international law with the blessing of both American poltical parties. Increasingly I’ve started to agree with people like the erudite Tony Judt and Edward Said that the stuggle must be transformed into one pushing for a binational state, where rights belong to individuals not religious and ethnic groups. I think we need a triuth commision to talk abouit what has happenned in 1948, and 1967, what most serious historians now concede was a ethnic cleasing. Going back to Oslo framwork simply can no longer cut it. The peace process is a sham, which was never predicated on even minimum ideas of justice or international law. There is now deep hatred emenation from both people towards each other. It wont be easy but neither was the civil rights movement not the sturggle against apartheid (i realise that Im getting rhetorical now) I hope this answers your question
March 5th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Yorkster I really do wish you luck in your attempt to publish yet another book. I sincerely hope ths new one is more successful than your previus attempts, which shouldn’t be too hard. Thing is that I’ve read the preview Roper posted and it doesn’t look pretty
March 5th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I found these reviews of Mark York’s lame work over at Amazon. Isn’t this guy banned? Anyways, the reviews are (unlike yorks lame attempts at fiction) woth reading.
“Sorry Mark, but this book needs some first aid. I decided to read it after reading the author’s comments in a Rick Bass review. It reads like a stump-filled hillside, slipping, tripping, and falling all over the place. There is no sense that it was edited; there are mispellings,frags,story lines smashed to bits. Descriptions of the beautiful areas are adjective-free. There is also a lot of what I sense as ” doesn’t play well with others.” I’ll stop here………….”
and
Not something I’d read again., April 14, 2006
Reviewer: Zack Shutt (Salt Lake City, UT USA) – See all my reviews
Alaska Tales falls short of anything you’ll be seeing at the local Barnes & Noble anytime soon. The story is hollow and not worthy of making it’s way onto the paper used to print this book.
“Overall: Yes, this was a story… but not one that I’d recommend to anyone else looking for something to read. I’d suggest that maybe some more crafty writing skills are picked up before attempting a second work. This one fell short of being anything decent.”
March 5th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
“Oh, and now I’m a defender of AIPAC?”
Absolutely. If the shoe fits.
March 5th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
“I don’t think even the most “extreme†Hamas member even considers “throwing the Jews into the sea.â€
Probably not unless it could be cooked up to 212F.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Jcummings isn’t a defender of AIPAC even if he buys into a mechanical, narrrow marxist conception about how exacly the lobby works. As Phillip Weiss suggests, the fact that Chomsky does not seem to have a sociocultural or psychological bone in his body expalins why he sucked so much on the walt/ Mearsheimer issue. I dont agree that the lobby controls US foreign policy (IMHO it goes both ways) but I think that the foreign policy realists have made a substancial contribution to the deabte and people like Weiss and Judt have far more interesting things to say about the Israel lobby than Chomsky.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Samuel Stott writes: “By far, the most prevalent delusion in the world is that actors like the governments of Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, to keep the list short, and terrorist groups like Fatah, Hezbolla and Hamas, to keep this list equally short, are willing to tolerate the existence of Israel. They say over and over and over again that they are not. Why do Westerners continue to think that these various Easterners don’t say what they mean and mean what they say?”
Well, it’s pretty simple, Samuel: after literally decades of this kind of blistering rhetoric, flowing from nations that, in aggregate, have 50 times more cannon fodder and hundreds of billions in petrodollars to arm them with (with arms dealers at the ready, always, to supply them), Israel is somehow still around.
Which means that the continued existence of Israel must be convenient to their purposes. This weird idea had strong support from one of Israel’s most astute military intelligence chiefs. After years and years of reading the enemy’s propaganda about the need to destroy Israel (he was fluent and literate in Arabic), and waiting for the massive crushing blow that never came, I guess one day he smacked his forehead and cried, “Wait a minute: but this is all just *propaganda*! I’ve been reading *propaganda*! They *say*, but they don’t *do*. So they must be saying it all for some other reasons!”
And he hatched this bizarre theory of Israel’s convenience to these despotisms, a theory that has absolutely nothing going for it except that it makes far more sense than any other theory you can think of. As someone once said, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever hypothesis is left might as well be considered the truth. The weirdness of the idea is no strike against it in this context. After, this is the Middle East we’re talking about here. He felt that there was hardly any better strategy for weakening the hostile neighboring, and/or turning their attentions to some other convenient external enemy, than to go with the two-state solution. Well, here we are today: with the Saudi royal family pressing its thumb down on the Palestinians to try to make two-state work, as they shift the focus to the Gathering Shi’ite threat.
Harkabi’s work is out of print in English. Probably still closely studied in Hebrew, though, and perhaps there are copies in Arabic being secretively passed around in the corridors of power in Amman and Riyadh, in plain brown wrappers.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Ahmed – just out of curiousity, where am I wrong? I don’t understate the Lobby’s power in terms of domestic policy, practicaully completely controlling the congressional and public discourse….I simply state that one could easily look at recent events in US foreign policy and find a dozen – capitalism, the will to power, for eample – other contributing factors, aside from the Lobby itself. M and W ignore oil, which is pretty crazy when you are analyzing mideast politics.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I found these reviews of Mark York’s lame work over at Amazon. Isn’t this guy banned? Anyways, the reviews are (unlike yorks lame attempts at fiction) woth [sic] reading.”
Right Ms. Ahmed, and these Amazon reviewers work for th Kirkus and The New York Times Review of Books? On behalf of Mr. York, who has done nothing to you from what I’ve read, give it a rest.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Keywords: yorkster i really do wish you luck in [your] attempt [to] publish yet another book i
Female Score: 116
Male Score: 65
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.php
March 6th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Yorkster/George Boyle definately has some issues to deal with regarding women, deriving from, i assume, a lifetime of failrues with the opposite gender. But onto more seriouis topics. JC–I know the Chomsky argument very well and until quite recently I bought into it. That US support for Israel can be explained vis a vis imperial interests therefore the role of the lobby is overblown. I still think it holds some merit. After the 1967 it was very convenient for US interests to support ISrael. They were a miltary power in an area wherre the US had strategic interests and could be called upon to beat up on third world people. Israel was and is a client state which armed US proxy governments in Latim America during the Cold War. Thing is, what if this is no longer true. Chomsky argues that once Israel no longer serves US capital and imperial intersts the US will drop its support and the Zionst lobby will disappear. This view, seems to me, quite absurd. If anything the Israe lobby would fight much harder for its postions. More so the Chomsly view underestimates the ways in which Israel and US interests are intertwined in poltical discourse. If Israel is so important to US imperialism and capitalism why are ruling class groups like the Iraqi Study Group and individuals like James Baker, isolationist like Buchanan, figures like Jimmy Carter, and foreign policy realists like Walt and company all calling for a more even handed and fair approach to Israel/Palestine? This to me makes no sense under the Chomsky model.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Also why is it that Buchanan, James Baker, the Iraqi Study Group and Jimmy Carter are, when it comes to Palestine, all to the left of supposedly decent libs like RLC?
March 6th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Their shared anti-semitism.
(kidding)
March 6th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Okay last shot at York….Boyle/Yorkster why do you continue to flout your books here, under obvious pseudonyms, when its quite clear that no one interested. And a quick survey for folks here. Who here currently owns or even plans to read any of Marky Marks books?
March 6th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
That satement is false. He didn’t post that assertion about the book in question. Roper is the one who brought it up, and some troll by the name of Jason Maine did it for reasons only he can know. You only assume he’s York. See definition of assume.
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