Today's Financial Times has an editorial decrying the "siege" of Gaza and the creeping "annexation of the West Bank" and concludes ominously:
The choice has never been clearer, for Israel and the US: it is either peace or the settlements. It will never be both.
I guess they're our settlements now.
This is an indictment of the Israel lobby. For why is the US so
implicated in the settlements? The lobby. Hillary is raging against the oil companies, and so is Obama, and no one in our politics can say a word about the settlements! When they are serving to nullify our image in the Arab world.
U.S. Presidents have been "against" the settlements since Nixon and been able to do nothing about them. Aaron David Miller makes this clear in his important new book, The Much Too Promised Land. I have been meanspirited in two niggling posts about this book, I apologize to Miller; but he shows through the tireless accumulation of incident that again and again U.S. presidents objected to the settlements and were warned by their aides about "domestic considerations." I will offer chapter and verse in a future post, but the most damning thing Miller demonstrates is this: that the President who did more than anything for Israeli security, Jimmy Carter with Camp David, did so by deciding he was willing to give up his presidency to try and get peace in the Middle East, and then threw himself at the problem. He used every ounce of political and personal capital he had over two years, including hectoring his friend Anwar Sadat to basically sell out the Palestinians on their promised piece of any deal and sign a land-for-peace Sinai deal. And still Carter could not get the Israelis to move an inch on settlements. Menachem Begin refused to yield at all. And he could stare down a president because he had the Israel lobby working for him to sandbag Carter's efforts. So even Carter, willing to sacrifice his political future, could not scale the illegal and immoral colonization project back one iota.
That was 30 years ago. And today England's leading financial newspaper warns us about this folly and our candidates can't say a word. When will American Jews wake up to their role in this disaster
of American foreign policy? I heard a crushing story about Aaron David Miller. He's from Cleveland and a big Jewish family. He went to a synagogue there recently and spoke from the pulpit and said, The problem's simple, two peoples fighting for a disputed piece of land, there will have to be a compromise. There was dead silence in the synagogue and the rabbi came up and said, "In Numbers 34, God promised the land of Israel to Moses, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean...." Colonize! When will the enlightened portion of American Jewry cry out against this madness?
Why has not the FT come into the stable of of responsible newspapers like the NY Times, WSJ, and LA Times?
Where are Mort Zuckerman and Murdoch when you need them?
"Jimmy Carter with Camp David, did so by deciding he was willing to give up his presidency to try and get peace in the Middle East, and then threw himself at the problem. He used every ounce of political and personal capital he had over two years, including hectoring his friend Anwar Sadat to basically sell out the Palestinians on their promised piece of any deal and sign a land-for-peace Sinai deal. And still Carter could not get the Israelis to move an inch on settlements. Menachem Begin refused to yield at all. And he could stare down a president because he had the Israel lobby working for him to sandbag Carter's efforts. So even Carter, willing to sacrifice his political future, could not scale the illegal and immoral colonization project back one iota."
Thank God for Jimmy Carter willing to not pander. Wouldn't it be wonderful if campaigns were not 18 month affairs, spending $2 billion, and requiring funding to do so?
"sell out the Palestinians" – Thank God Sadat acted from maturity and hope rather than the cynicism of permanent refugee status that the rest of the Arab world "offers" the Palestinians in solidarity.
Phil,
The Israel Lobby is not going to go away, in the sense of financing campaigns and expressing their voice.
In the name of open dialog and democracy you advocate in many many ways shutting down pro-Israel voices FROM debate, and on the basis of their ethnicity largely.
Dissent in the negative sense that is presented here, is the long hard road, that requires you to kill 4 of your cherished jewels, for every 1 victory.
I like that Jews are sympathetic with Israel, that they are committed to NEVER AGAIN endanger Jews physically, nor accept the possibility of persecution.
I think that there is a better argument to be made, every argument that you can frame, than the tactic of demeaning Jews in general, which you do too damn frequently.
You're NOT making the better argument. Form it and make it already.
Where is your proposal for a more benign and effective strategy for the US and for Israel!!!?
Where is Mearsheimer's!!!?
This is a DIFFERENT issue than Vietnam, then South Africa. The method of civil dissent might work on limited issues. The method of mass movement against Jews is more fascist than the Italians that you decried.
Richard, in 1968 the Israeli submarine DAKAR was on a routine delivery voyage from Great Britain to Israel. The DAKAR was formerly HMS TOTEM, built in 1943 and modernized with a snorkel, among other improvements. The sub had a crew of 69 Israeli sailors and it simply disappeared without reaching Israel. What probably happened is that the Israelis indulged in self-destructive behavior during the voyage. Their British instructors had warned them that in their experience, while the sub could cruise underwater at high speed with the diesel engines, this was very unwise. If the bow of the submarine dipped then it would reach crush depth too quickly to be stopped. Using the electric motors only while submerged was far safer. But the Captain wanted to set an underwater speed record for crossing the Mediterranean Sea, so he used the diesels underwater. In 1999 the sub was finally found on the bottom only 310 miles from Haifa. It was in pieces, indicating that it had simply gone too deep.
The point is that self-destructive behavior on the part of the Israeli crew led to their deaths. They were killed by their own stupidity because they wanted MORE even though less would have been more prudent under the circumstances. How did these senseless deaths make Jews safer? How does a self-destructive policy in the Occupied Territories make Israel safer? The settlements are dragging Israel down into the depths.
Re the Aaron David Miller experience, if synagogues are being used for secular political purposes (i.e. to proselytise for the colonising state of Israel) then the answer is simple – stop attending synagogues.
As for the FT, the FT has been putting its toe in the water for some time in this regard, and the editorial is in stronger language a line that it has been pushing softly for some time.
The ongoing question is – why do not all papers supposedly catering to commercial imperatives take their brief seriously? Why do they take party-political stances? The WSJ of course is the most heinous offender (and under Murdoch promises to get even worse, if that is humanly possible) but it's a generalised problem. The editorial pages of the Australian Financial Review, in the far flung colonies, is consistently and unashamedly pro-Israel, and to what end?
Thank you for your twisted version of reality Witty.
In the name of open dialog and democracy you advocate in many many ways shutting down pro-Israel voices FROM debate, and on the basis of their ethnicity largely.
Nothing's like a good laugh to start my day. We all know there is no debate in US about their relationship with the Zionist regime, whatever atrocities IDF and jewish settlers commits. The flow of money into Israel’s warchest never stops. Not even the attack on USS Liberty could rise a debate in U.S. of Amnesia.
The MO of Horowitz, Pipes, Dershowitz, Foxman..and organizations like CAMERA, Campuswatch and ADL is to kill every sign of criticism against the Zionists.
Israel is still a young state, and like children they need guidance and learn how to behave. The lack of discipline of this US protégé in ME has led to collective sociopathy , deterioration of moral and little empathy for other people.
Actually, they have it backwards.
The choice is settlements AND peace or
NO settlements and NO peace. The reason there isn't peace at the moment is because the Israeli gov't refuses categorically to state that ALL settlements MUST remain. By holding out the promise that at least some settlements will be destroyed, the Arabs conclude that they can eventually have ALL settlements destroyed and then the rest of Israel along with them. As long as Arabs have hope of getting Israel to make more and more concessions, then they have every incentive to keep the war going. Once Israel STOPS making territorial concessions and tells the Arabs of Judea/Samaria that the future of that territory is a condominium with Israel and the Palestinians with a possible tie-in with Jordan, THEN the Arabs will realize their war is futile and eventually they will reconcile themselves, grudgingly, to Israel's presence and they will eventually find that they will only benefit from cooperation with Israel.
HAPPY ISRAEL INDEPENDENCE DAY!
from BAR-KOCHBA132
AM ISRAEL HAI!
"The lack of discipline of this US protégé in ME has led to collective sociopathy , deterioration of moral and little empathy for other people. . . ."
And placed US national security in danger (911) and now threatens the US again with the possible horror of war that Israel and selfish right-wing pro-Israel factions here in the US want with Iran.
The moment one "pre-emptive" US bomb lands in Iran, whether that's against a nuclear power plant or the Revolutionary Guard, the feeling against Israel for hijacking our foreign policy in this country will turn visceral and no one will be able to change Joe Six-Pack's mind. Instant hate and hard-headedness about it. Mark my words. And it will happen 31 years faster than finding the DAKAR submarine. Compound that with the knowledge of the 2002 MOU update that specifically guarantees Israel $3 billion in 2002-priced oil "even if it causes domestic shortages at home" and you can kiss any sympathy for Israel goodbye.
How do I know this? Informal surveys at my bar with Joe Six-Pack types for 18 months. And the change came in Dec 2007 when I heard the NIE discussed. These guys watch sports shows non-stop at the bar, but they heard about the NIE from their military buddies who convinced them there was no reason to be bombing Iran. Getting the word from military friends trumps any arcane wonky policy statement. One of the bartenders served in Iraq in 2003 and he's gone from being Bush's flag bearer to a despising the man and believing nothing that the DoD says.
Though I hesitate to give Witty more attention than his continuously reiterated non-arguments deserve let me try once more:
"Where is your proposal for a more benign and effective strategy for the US and for Israel!!!?
Where is Mearsheimer's!!!?"
The answer to this question has been known for a long time but Witty and kindred spirits have studiously ignored it.Israel should act on Security Council Resolution 242 to which it is a party. SCR 242 demands withdrawal from territories occupied in the Six Day War except for insubstantial border corrections to straighten out the armistice line of 1949.
Israel has chosen to ignore this resolution attempting to distort the historical record in the process. And now with the connivance of the Bush administration it indulges in blackmail with the argument re 'facts on the ground'.
I remember that, when the Gaza settlers threatened all kinds of mischief in case they were forced to leave, Hillel Halkin proposed to give them the choice to live under Palestinian sovereignty but without any protection by the IDF. He foresaw a miraculous effect on their willingness to leave. Why wouldn't the same apply on the West Bank?
I believe that the last time the original American policy on SCR 242 was fully stated was in December 1969 when Nixon's Secretary of State, William Rogers, did so.
Donald Neff quotes him in his book on U.S. policy towards Palestine and Israel (Fallen Pillars, 1995) as follows:
"Resolution 242 ‘calls for withdrawal from occupied territories, the non-acquisition of territory by war, and recognized boundaries'. We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established, and agreed upon by the parties, any changes in the preexisting lines should be confined to insubstantial alternations (sic) required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism." (quoted in Neff. P.102)
Uri Avnery wrote:
"Usually, Israeli governments use two deadly torpedoes in their arsenal: the US Congress and the American media. William Rogers, President Nixon's secretary of state, for example, proposed a peace plan that included the withdrawal of Israel to the pre-1967 border, with "insubstantial changes".
Israel released its torpedoes and sunk Rogers together with his plan. His job was taken over by the Jewish megalomaniac, Henry Kissinger, and that was the end of peace plans."
But even Kissinger, wrote in his memoirs:
"Jordan’s acquiescence in Resolution 242 had been obtained in 1967 by the promise of our United Nations Ambassador Arthur Goldberg that under its terms we would work for the return of the West Bank of Jordan with minor boundary rectifications and that we were prepared to use our influence to obtain a role for Jordan in Jerusalem." (quoted in Neff, p.103).
Yet, ten years later, the lack of US assertiveness in this area led President Carter to ask for a State Department report "to determine if there was any justice to the Israeli position that the resolution did not include all the occupied territories". Though this report was secret it was apparently leaked to Neff who quotes copiously from it. It says among other things:
"Support for the concept of total withdrawal was widespread in the Security Council, and it was only through intensive American efforts that a resolution was adopted which employed indefinite language in the withdrawal clause. In the process of obtaining this result, the United States made clear to the Arab states and several other members of the Security Council that the United States envisioned only insubstantial revisions of the 1949 armistice lines. Israel did not protest the approach." (Neff, p.101)
Carter discussed the matter with Menachem Begin and the Israeli PM "asked the president to stop talking in public about resolution 242 meaning minor adjustments to the frontiers". Neff draws on publications by William B.Quandt, a key member of the National Security Council Staff under Presidents Gerald Ford and Carter, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s security adviser, to report what happened next. In a note on his meeting with Begin, Carter wrote:
Begin "asks that we not use phrase ‘minor adjustments’ without prior notice to him – I agreed. He will try to accommodate us on settlements."
Less than one week later, writes Neff, "Begin’s government conferred legal status on three Jewish settlements in the occupied territories." Carter kept mum on the "minor adjustments". (Neff, p.104)
"This is a DIFFERENT issue than Vietnam, then South Africa. The method of civil dissent might work on limited issues. The method of mass movement against Jews is more fascist than the Italians that you decried."
The vast majority of Jews have no interests in common with the 400-500 hyperwealthy Zionists that pay for the Israel Lobby.
From link to members.aol.com
"In some histories of the Chmielnicki Rebellion, Chmielnicki offered ordinary Jews safe passage out of cities about to be attacked, but they rejected it under the influence of a religious elite co-opted by the wealthy merchants allied with the Polish gentry."
Are Jews today going to stand with the exploiters or with the victims?
happy independence day…zionism is a madness that has enthralled the judaic masses…no heart, not even when it came to saving the lives of european jewry. judaic zionist worship the golden calf, israel: state worship.
Yitzchak Greenbaum
Yitzhak Gruenbaum was chairperson of the Jewish Agency's Rescue Committee.
In the beginning of February, 1943, Yitzchak Greenbaum addressed a meeting in Tel Aviv on the subject, "The Diaspora and the Redemption" in which he stated:
"For the rescue of Jews in the Diaspora, we should consolidate our excess strength and the surplus of powers that we have. When they come to us with two plans–the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemption of the land–I vote, without a second thought, for the redemption of the land. The more said about the slaughter of our people, the greater the minimization of our efforts to strengthen and promote the Hebraization of the land. If there would be a possibility today of buying packages of food with the money of the "Keren Hayesod" (United Jewish Appeal) to send it through Lisbon, would we do such a thing? No! and once again No!"
…Holocaust Victims Accuse, pp 26.
Excerpted from a speech in 1943
happy independence day, zionism has been such a triumph for the zionist jews, go go gadget zionist.
from the book perfidy.
the Torah-leaders were successfully establishing contacts with Hitler’s lieutenants and might have rescued millions, if not for the non-cooperation of the powerful and wealthy leaders, and also because of outright obstruction (read “Perfidy” by Ben Hecht if you can find a copy which was escaped the attention of the Zionists). When leaders are not doves, but ravens and buzzards’ the masses are not favored by G-d’s approval.
In July 1938 President Roosevelt convened the Evian Conference to consider the problem of Jewish refugees. At that time a German offer was made to release Jews at $250 per person. The Jewish Agency, headed by Golda Meir, decided to ignore the offer.
At this conference, the delegation from the Jewish Agency made no effort to influence the United States or any of the 32 other participating nations to open their gates to admit German Jews.
755. When a shipload of Jewish refugees on the Danube river were refused permission to disembark anywhere, Henry Montor the leader of the United Jewish Appeal explained that they could not be allowed to sail the Holy Land because “Palestine cannot be flooded with old people or with undesirables”. (Feb. 1, 1940).
756. On Nov. 25, 1940 the Haganah commanders ordered the blowing up of the ship Patria in Haifa Harbor as a protest against England’s plan to send refugees to Mauritius instead of to Palestine, and thus 272 Jewish refugees perished.
757. On Dec. 17, 1942 both houses of the British Parliament declared readiness to afford temporary residence for endangered persons, but on Jan. 27 a spokesman for the Zionists stated that the Jews opposed the motion because Palestine was omitted.
758. The New York papers (Feb. 16, 1943) publicized Rumania’s offer to the 70,000 Jews of Trans-Dniestria at the price of $50 each. On Feb. 24, Stephen Wise the president of the American Jewish Congress and leader of U.S. Zionists publicly denied the authenticity of the offer and declares that no collection of funds “would seem justified”. The Jewish Agency in England also ridiculed the news of the Romanian offer. But Undersecretary of state A. A. Berlo affirmed privately that the Rumanian government had actually made such an offer to the State Department. Some time later, when all the Jews who could have been rescued had been annihilated, the facts of the offer were confirmed by Bartley Crum, an expert on affairs of the Near East, who declared that the 70,000 Jews could easily have been transported through Turkey by a few days travel in trucks, but the State Department had refrained from publicizing the news of the offer due to Jewish (Zionist) pressure.
759. On Feb. 18, 1943 Yitzhak Greenbaum, chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency declares at a Zionist Executive Council in Tel-Aviv: “When they asked me: Could you not give me money from the United Jewish Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe? I said No! And I say again, No! One should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to secondary importance”.
760. In 1944 the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People called upon the United States to establish a War Refugee Board. Stephen Wise came before an especial committee of Congress to object to this proposal.
761. In 1948 President Roosevelt planned to open gates of America to 150,000 refugees, and Great Britain agreed to follow suit. When Roosevelt’s emissary Morris L. Ernst came to England, the Zionist leaders declared: “This is treason. You are undermining the Zionist movement”. As a result, Roosevelt informed Great Britain that the project must be abandoned: “We cannot put it over because the dominant vocal Jewish leadership won’t stand for it”.
762. In 1947 Congressman William Stratton sponsored a bill to grant immediate entry to the U.S. of 400,000 displaced persons. The bill was publicly denounced by the Zionist leaders, and it was therefore not passed.
763. On Feb. 23, 1956 J. W. Pickergsill, the minister of immigration was asked in the Canadian House of Commons: “Would we open the doors of Canada to Jewish refugees?” He replied: “The government has made no progress in that direction, because the government of Israel… does not wish us to do so”.
764. On July 15, 1971 the Zionist leaders, through Herman Weissman the president of the Zionist Organization of America, successfully opposed an effort in the U.S. Congress to allow 30,000 Russian refugees to enter the United States.
happy independence day to the blight of the nations, zionist israel.
"Where is your proposal for a more benign and effective strategy for the US and for Israel!!!?"–Witty
Fully leverage all US aid to Israel to end all the settlements.
Sam, I am sure you are aware that the book, "Perfidy" was written by a Revisionist Zionist, Ben Hecht.
Sam wrote:
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761. In 1948 President Roosevelt planned to open gates of America to 150,000 refugees, and Great Britain agreed to follow suit
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Here's another gem from Sam:
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In July 1938 President Roosevelt convened the Evian Conference to consider the problem of Jewish refugees. At that time a German offer was made to release Jews at $250 per person. The Jewish Agency, headed by Golda Meir, decided to ignore the offer.
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In 1948, President Roosevelt had been dead for three years. What other marvelous "facts" do you have, for us, Sam.
Golda Meir was not the head of the Jewish Agency in 1938. Sam, if you are trying to convince people of your falsehoods, you should do your homework first and not make such stupid mistakes.
Hag Ha'aztmaut Sameach!
"I guess they're our settlements now…U.S. Presidents have been "against" the settlements since Nixon and been able to do nothing about them."
Why is this? What force is more powerful than successive US presidents, who are backed by the entire US government?
Joachim Martillo calls it "Judonia"…James Petras calls it the "Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC)"…I call it "Judeofascism"…but whatever the label, it is attempting to usher in a globalized Zionist dystopia:
It is not only about Palestine
link to israelshamir.net
Ed is right.
Jews have no safeguard against Zionism, nor do the goys.
Zionism make sure the safety haven of Jews in the whole world; they will destroy the world unless it recognizes Jews are superior. Just so you know.