Speaking of how our Israel policy is made, here is an excerpt from an interview by an Israeli TV reporter of Sec’y of State Condoleezza Rice two weeks ago. What is remarkable in this interview is that Gil Tamary, the Israeli reporter, is pushing the American secretary of state to do more to stop the settlements:
QUESTION: More than a month has passed since the Annapolis summit and many people are feeling that the momentum in — from Annapolis already gone because not much has been done on the ground. So I wonder, do you feel that both leaders, Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, are doing what you expect for them to do in the pace you expect for them to do in order to meet the deadline of reaching an agreement?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I very much trust these two leaders that they want very much to achieve agreement in the year 2008. They have both made statements since Annapolis that reaffirm their commitment to do so. It’s not easy….
QUESTION: What about the unauthorized outposts? They haven’t been evacuated yet, they haven’t been dismantled yet.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I was very much struck by what Prime Minister Olmert said when he talked about Israel’s need to meet its obligations as well as the Palestinians’ need to meet its obligations….
QUESTION: But what about people on the ground? On the ground, nothing has been done.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I wouldn’t say that nothing has been done.
QUESTION: Very little.
SECRETARY RICE: In fact, again, these are issues that are very, very hard. But we do expect both sides to act with urgency.
What is remarkable about this conversation is that all the pressure to do something about the illegal settlements (an Orwellian term for colonies) is coming from the Israeli reporter. Rice is demurring gently. At about the same time, George Bush said that these colonies "ought to go." Very mild language. And nothing has happened. The disgrace here is that these are the highest officials of the most powerful country on earth, and they are afraid to take this issue on. It is not because they like the settlements. Rice, for instance, has at times quietly likened the West Bank to the segregated south of her youth. The reason they don’t take this issue on–even with the support of leftleaning Israelis– is simply political; that they are afraid of an empowered faction in American society. The Israel lobby, which the Democratic candidates also are afraid to cross. Walt and Mearsheimer once used the word "stranglehold." In a stranglehold you can’t speak…
Related posts:
{ 7 comments }
Rice, Powell, Obama… Not to worry, the status quo will continue.
Truman (the buck stops here–I need the money and votes) always said if you put an underdog in power he or she
forgets and oppresses–with no guilt at all. Race, sex, no matter–look at the queens of history right up through the 21st Century.
"George Bush said that these colonies 'ought to go.' Very mild language. And nothing has happened."
As you've mentioned before, George H. W. Bush went even farther in 1991, and held up loan guarantees to Israel that were being used to subsidize settlements. The Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations publicly blasted him for it, and helped defeat his re-election bid.
Here we are 17 years later, and the language is even milder, with action to back it up nonexistent. What HAS changed is that 17 years of settlement construction, along with secured 'Jews-only' roads to serve them, has carved up the West Bank to the point that a 'two-state solution' is no longer economically or geographically feasible. But the 'peace process' grinds on, pretending that it is.
What are we to make of this? Do the zionists still fantasize that the hapless Palestinians will finally see the light, give up, and shuffle off on their donkey carts into the desert? Or, are they just stalling for time (a few more decades) with a place-holder, pie-in-the-sky proposal, in the absence of any real plan?
I lean toward the latter explanation. But who knows? Israel is in more trouble than it realizes, and the crisis from four decades of dithering is likely to emerge sooner than it expects.
Clearly, the greatest nuclear threat on earth is not Iran, but a badly-positioned Israel which has painted itself into a nightmarish corner through its own chauvinism and belligerence. The most deafening silence on the planet is the absence of any proposal, from anybody, to place this dangerously aggressive nuclear-armed occupier under the restraint of international supervision.
There's nothing more dangerous than vanity on its mission.
When the Israeli authorities released a convicted neocon terrorist named Josh Abramowitz from prison last October, American officials were furious. Mr. Abramowitz helped plan the attack on the USS Liberty in 1867, in which many American sailors were killed.
But the Israelis saw things differently. Mr. Abramowitz had agreed to help track down five other members of his terrorist squad who had escaped from prison, and was more useful to the government on the street than off, said a high-level Israeli government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Abramowitz had also pledged his loyalty to Israel’s prime minister before being released, the official said.
The dispute over Mr. Abramowitz — whom the Israelis quickly returned to prison after being threatened with a loss of aid — underscored a much broader disagreement over how to fight terrorism in Israel, a particularly valuable recruiting ground and refuge for jewish militants in the past two decades.
Israeli officials say they have had considerable success co-opting neocons like Mr. Abramowitz, often by releasing them from prison and helping them with money, schooling or jobs. They are required to sign a pledge not to carry out any attacks on Israeli soil, often backed by guarantees from their tribe or family members. Many have taken part in an Jewish re-education effort led by religious scholars, now being copied on a wider scale in the USA.
A number of these former neconss have become government informants, helping to capture a new generation of younger, more dangerous necons — some of them veterans of the war in Iraq. Others have become mediators, helping persuade escaped prisoners to surrender.
But American counterterrorism officials and even some Israelis say the Israeli government, more than others in the region, is in effect striking a deal that helps stop attacks here while leaving necons largely free to plan them elsewhere. They also say the Israeli government caters too much to radical necon figures to improve its political standing, nourishing a culture that could ultimately breed more violence.
The truth of the matter is, that removing the illegal settlements will not contribute anything to the peace process or anything else. All it can do is extract a political price from Israelis that would do it or Americans that would pressure them to do it. So why do it?
Maybe because it would draw Palestinian support from Hamas? Or, how about because the group with power (Israel) needs to take the first step towards peace? Or (I blush), because fairness might be honored? What did the Palestinians have to do with Auschwitz?
You're spot on when it comes to the colonies. Jews should not be allowed to live anywhere they choose. Or at all, for that matter.
Comments on this entry are closed.