My friend Christopher Varley of Toronto writes:
A friend has said to me, "I keep seeing/hearing reports that now that Tzipi Livni can't get the
ultra-orthodox into a coalition, Netanyahu is the favourite to win the
election she will be forced to call. This is not good news. I hope when Obama gets elected, he can soothe Netanyahu into a
less hawkish frame of mind."
That's a tough assignment. I don’t believe that Netanyahu can be “soothed”,
but if Obama is elected he could always put him on a short chain, and give it
a sharp jerk whenever required. I don’t think that there’s a snowball’s
chance in hell that Netanyahu can talk Obama into attacking
Iran.
The sooner the separate and distinct national interests of
Israel and the
U.S. are disentangled, the
better. The entanglement only feeds Israel
’s megalomania and ties America
’s hands. It also lends credence to the suspicion that North American
Likudniks have “dual loyalty” or “double identity”.
The Zionist hawks demand too much from the
United States
, and have naively placed too much faith in the continued success of the
(currently failing) American project.
For more insights into Israel
’s behaviour, I strongly recommend Zeev Maov’s “Defending the Holy Land” (
University of
Michigan Press , 2006). It’s an
insider’s critique of the pernicious effect that creeping militarism has had
on Israel
and its prospects.
Maoz argues that
Israel initiates practically all
violence in the region.
Here are 2 excerpts from an op-ed that he wrote during
Israel ’s war on
Lebanon in 2006:
Both in Gaza and
in Lebanon ,
Israel–as if
it has been cast into an infinite programming loop– repeats the policies that
had failed so many times in the past, by using disproportionate force against
weak governments or political authorities that lack the capacity to impose
order on their constituents.
Israel
carried out massive area bombardments in
Lebanon in the past (operations
Accountability in 1993 and Grapes of Wrath in 1996). Beyond the suffering
they inflicted on the Lebanese people and on Israeli residents of its
northern border, these operations yielded no tangible results…Israeli resort to disproportionate force is
predicated on a conception of "escalation dominance," a flawed
notion that the massive force can reduce the motivation of its adversaries to
attack Israeli targets. Israelis still subscribe to the notion that if a
problem cannot be solved by force, it would be solved by applying greater
force.
Is Maoz a “self-hater”, or will his name be counted among the
righteous 50 years from now?
'I hope when Obama gets elected, he can soothe Netanyahu into a less hawkish frame of mind'
I hope when Obama gets elected, that he doesn't give two shits about Netanyahu's frame of mind.
It is Netanyahu who ought to be thinking about how to 'soothe' Obama, when it becomes obvious that the dog, sick of being led the edge of several abysses, finally starts wagging it's tail again.
I have read that some vets think it cleaner and safer to have tails removed.
obama will not stand up to any power…he is the suckup that the powerful want because he will not go out on a limb to stand up for any anti imperialist statist cause.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/alexander-cockburn-obama-the-firstrate-republican-973691.html
"Every politician, good or bad, is an ambitious opportunist. But beneath this topsoil, the ones who make a constructive dent on history have some bedrock of fidelity to some central idea. In Obama's case, this "idea" is the ultimate distillation of identity politics: the idea of his blackness. Those who claim that if he were white he would be cantering effortlessly into the White House do not understand that without his most salient physical characteristic Obama would be seen as a second-tier senator with unimpressive credentials.
As a political organiser of his own advancement, Obama is a wonder. But I have yet to identify a single uplifting intention to which he has remained constant if it has presented any risk to his progress. We could say that he has not yet had occasion to adjust his relatively decent stances on immigration and labour-law reform. And what of public funding of his campaign? Another commitment made becomes a commitment betrayed. His campaign treasury is a vast hogswallow that, if it had been amassed by a Republican, would be the topic of thunderous liberal complaint.
Obama's run has been the negation of almost every decent progressive principle, with scarcely a bleat of protest from the progressives seeking to hold him to account. The Michael Moores stay silent. Obama has crooked the knee to bankers and Wall Street, to the oil companies, the coal companies, the nuclear lobby, the big agricultural combines. He is more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain, and has been the most popular of the candidates with Washington lobbyists. He has been fearless in offending progressives, constant in appeasing the powerful.
So no, this is not an exciting or liberating moment in America's politics. If you want a memento of what could be exciting, go to the website of the Nader-Gonzalez campaign and read its platform on popular participation and initiative. Or read the portions of Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr's platform on foreign policy and constitutional rights. The standard these days for what the left finds tolerable is awfully low. The more the left holds its tongue, the lower the standard will go."
Netanyahu is a stinking bigot – I hope Obama treats him with the contempt he deserves.
'I hope when Obama gets elected, he can soothe Netanyahu into a less hawkish frame of mind'
Here's the only upside I see: Obama is a Harvard guy, Netanyahu is an MIT guy.
Cultural BS like that can make a much bigger difference in negotiation than ideology.
As such, Bibi will be less opaque to Obama than previous Israeli PMs have been to previous American presidents…think Ehud Barak treating Clinton like a "goddamn wooden Indian".
Yes, really funny that "judeo-american" values can't hold a candle to
to the guy who laid the way for the Lemon Law on American vehicle laws…
And Arab Americans aren't viable for a better world?
I'm worried that in the leadup to the Israeli elections we'll see a campaign of provocations designed to wreck the Hamas ceasefire. Just like Sharon's 2000 visit to the al-Aqsa mosque.
This kind of thing, perhaps-
Netanyahu is an unabashed racist. Of course, Bibi will have Sheldon's money to fund his campaign. I suspect that a win by 'El Duce' (the moose) would be the death knell for a two-state solution. Netanyahu will likely be more eager to please Adelson and Hagee than he will be to please Obama.