Another reason was in answering questions that Joe Biden has posed: If the Israeli-Arab conflict ended immediately, would that have any effect on the war in Iraq? Surely not. If the war in Iraq ended immediately, would that have any effect on the Israeli-Arab conflict?
I would agree that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an irritant which stimulates Islamic extremists to hate us, so it does have an impact on the so-called global war on terror, but not on Iraq. I’m sorry that I have not yet persuaded you that Israel’s supposed security needs was a selling point for the war, rather than a primary reason. But even if we place all the blame for the war on the neocons (and thereby take Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld off the hook), the neocons had nothing to do with how Meretz USA felt about the war. You, in your writing for The American Conservative, are much closer to the paleo-cons than we are to the neocons. I’d never expect to be allowed to write for Commentary or the Weekly Standard.
Since Meretz USA consists mostly of left-liberals, I had to be one of the few board members at the time who hoped for the overthrow of Saddam (albeit entirely for humanitarian reasons). But as I told you in an email some months ago, once the UN Security Council had voted against military action, I felt that unilateral US-led action against Iraq was a bad idea. A ruthless, illegitimate regime like Saddam’s Iraq had to be confronted by a UN-endorsed international coalition or not at all.
A couple responses, Ralph. That question you failed to answer was the Only One I asked you. Your statement that Israel’s security needs was a “selling point for the war, rather than a primary reason” is horse manure. So what? If it’s a selling point, to anyone, then it’s a real factor in a discussion that ended up torching a society and killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing many more. A selling point. Zionists should be ashamed about a, being used or b, allowing themselves to be used or c, most likely, using the American people in this manner. Where’s the mea culpa? Your dismissal of the Israeli occupation, actually the “conflict,” as an “irritant” also seems to me insufficient. An irritant. It’s more than a conflict, it’s an unequal situation that’s a red flag of injustice across the Arab world. Until the U.S. deals with this, it is Absolutely Powerless to Lecture Arabs, let alone invade their ancient capitals and tell them how to conduct their affairs. Saddam was ruthless and illegitimate. The ruthlessness of the Israelis toward the Palestinians under occupation is isolating the Jewish state internationally.
'I would agree that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an irritant'
This is the sort of yawning chasm you have in your apprehension of the world when you prefer ideology to reality, and you are fortunate enough to live in comfort inside history's largest empire.
It is the statement of someone who lives inside a big bubble with lots of other like-minded people, all busy holding forth on what goes on outside the bubble, without ever leaving it.
Phil tears holes in the bubble because it's a fug in there and he senses the dangers associated with never breathing the same fresh air as the rest of the world. Heat can be generated in there, in large quantities, but precious little light gets in. And none comes out.
Treating the Israeli/Palestinian issue as a conflict requiring the equivalent of therapy is MORE DIGNIFYING to the Palestinians than the current Israeli position, which is that THEY are an irritant.
The premise of conflict resolution is that the peoples are peers, with mutual needs.
The premise of using the term occupation is of permanent victimhood, or victimizer-hood.
While you may feel that the term "conflict" to describe the situation is not dramatic enough, it has the prospect of succeeding in resolution.
The situation is of conditional trust. If the character of the conflict gets to unconditional distrust, then it becomes a permanent state of war.
Unconditional and complete distrust is NOT a prospect for either a successful two-state solution or a successful single state.
You are pursuing the wrong process here.
Focus is needed to actually get a job done, NOT condemnation.
Your voice is becoming (becoming?) counterproductive.
Seliger: "even if we place all the blame for the war on the neocons (and thereby take Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld off the hook)…"
A false choice. Both groups can and should be made to pay for their crimes against humanity. Besides, ideologically, they are one. Militant support for Jewish Zionism is merely one plank of the neocon platform.
Seliger: "Since Meretz USA consists mostly of left-liberals, I had to be one of the few board members at the time who hoped for the overthrow of Saddam (albeit entirely for humanitarian reasons)."
This is the feature that Jewish ideologues have brought to the imperial enterprise: the manifest ability to couch clear acts of greed, malice and aggression perpetrated by Empire in flowery, "humanitarian" rationales. They are incredible propagandists, and many have the added benefit of believing their own b.s., particularly the "liberal" ones. Have there ever been a more passive-aggressive people in the history of humanity? Doubtful.
On a side issue, notice how often Ralph brings up the "you have contacts with conservatives" charge, as if it's some kind of character flaw to break bread with people holding different theories of government. Does he honestly think that questions of war and racial triablism are a left vs. right issue, or is he just trying a desperate distraction maneuver?
(BTW what is Mertez USA, a U.S. political party or an Israeli political party?)