Jack Ross had a more hopeful, and I am hoping, canny response to my post last night about Obama getting in bed with the Israel lobby in 2003:
When I first read that bit about Obama speaking to Arab students in Ramallah giving the party line and the lack of sophistication of the one girl's question I realized that even a more targeted or thought out question would have gotten only talking points back. Most of the evidence that percolated during the campaign of Obama's sympathy for the Palestinians is a blur now; but what I remember most vividly is that when he first started speaking for AIPAC I felt at the time, out of outrage more then anything, that I had never heard anyone be so transparently phony in doing it - and this was in 2006 or 2007.
The bottom line is that I don't think he's sincere in taking either the Israeli or Palestinian side, in both cases they were based on cold political calculation, and that includes pro-Palestinian statements at certain points in the Iowa caucus and feelers toward the J Street line when it could galvanize support against Hillary. As with all aspects of the continuation of the empire or lack thereof, including with respect to the financial crisis, facts on the ground are what matter; and unlike McCain, Obama is superior to being claimed by facts on the ground.
Obama is the most cold calculating son of a bitch you'll ever meet, but he's not an unprincipled sociopath like Bill and Hillary. He seems to sincerely believe in cooperation over conflict in world affairs, and he knows the facts on the ground with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I go back to what I've always said, that the necessary deal with Iran regarding both those neighbors will inevitably lead to different policies on Israel/Palestine.
I also think its naive to think that Obama and AIPAC have approached each other with anything but mutual distrust. Obama knows how he's perceived by these people, and he knows that sooner or later its him or them. For better or worse, the cases of Alice Palmer and Rev. Wright show that when an apparent friend is about to stab him in the back he'll stab them first and harder.
The key in going forward is recognizing the difference between Obama bringing about serious change and Obama being in lockstep with the loony liberals. Whatever Obama is, the last thing he is is a naif, which is what he would have to be to just go along with the liberal status quo.
P.S. There's no evidence that Obama has ever been opposed to a two-state solution. The big question going forward of course is can the two-state solution be saved and what happens, not so much in Israel/Palestine itself but in American, European, and Jewish politics if it can't be. More good news, which Raimondo felt obliged to point out in his column today, when he was in a huge tizzy about Obama as war party man over the outside chance Dennis Ross could be National Security Adviser, is that the name being floated right now for the post is Anthony Zinni.
I think there will be some push-pull with Obama and some in AIPAC.
For others, Obama is JUST what the doctor ordered. Confidently supportive of Israel's defense, while having the moral emphasis to insist on actually getting to a consented two-state.
I think people in Israel lobby would be wise
remember what dwight eisenhower's secretry of state once said that America dosen't have friends it only has intrests which is ture for all super powers of the world in the past, present and will be in future.
the secretry of state that i'm reffering to is John Foster Dulles
It would be wise of Phil to wait until tomorrow night, to "run with the ball".
The insincerity and cold-blooded calculation is exactly what bothers me most about Obama. The only thing we can be sure of is that he wants power, and whether he wants it for any particular purpose or simply to have it (as in O'Brien's great line in 1984, "The purpose of power is power") remains to be seen.
WHAT A DENNIS ROSS APPOINTMENT BY OBAMA MIGHT LEAD TO:
"The most troubling possibility here is Dennis Ross, a career foreign policy bureaucrat who was instrumental in shaping America's Israel-centric policy in the Middle East under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a longtime associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the scholarly adjunct of AIPAC, Israel's powerful lobbying organization in the U.S., which he co-founded.
The beginning of Ross' career as a civil servant is a good indicator of what we might expect from him, and from the Obama administration when it comes to setting Middle Eastern policy. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he brought in Paul Wolfowitz to run the policy planning at the State Department, and Wolfie brought in his neocon buddies: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, James Roche, Stephen Sestanovich, Alan Keyes (yes, that Alan Keyes!), and Ross. In short, Ross has always been a reliable member in good standing of the neocon foreign policy cabal, the very same group that lied us into war with Iraq – and is now intent on doing the same with Iran. Although the neocons who came to Washington were mostly ex-Democrats, Ross stayed with his old party, although partisan allegiances seem not to mean much to him. He has served under three secretaries of state: James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright.
As special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, Ross was responsible for managing the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, a process described by former negotiating team member Aaron David Miller as follows:
"With the best of motives and intentions, we listened to and followed Israel's lead without critically examining what that would mean for our own interests, for those on the Arab side and for the overall success of the negotiations. The 'no surprises' policy, under which we had to run everything by Israel first, stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking. If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be? Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one – Israel."
"Without critically examining what that would mean for our own interests" – that's the key phrase here, one that fully describes the effect (and also, perhaps, the intention) of our Middle Eastern policy, one that puts Israel, not America, first.
Ross recently signed on to a plan, being pushed by something called the Bipartisan Policy Center, that is nothing but a roadmap to war with Tehran. The report, written in the form of recommendations to an incoming president, says he must begin a military buildup directed at Iran from "the first day [he] enters office." The plan is to begin "pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, placing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries, upgrading both regional facilities and allied militaries, and expanding strategic partnerships with countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia in order to maintain operational pressure from all directions."
That was excerpted from an article by Justin Raimondo, who goes on to offer at least a glimmer of hope in the fact that apparently Gen. Anthony Zinni is also up for consideration:
"Whether or not Ross gets the national security post, the fact remains that the War Party, far from being banished from Washington, will have an inside track in the new administration. What's different about Obama, however, is that the other side also has a seat at the table – or, at the very least, isn't completely locked out of the deliberations. I was astonished to learn that none other than Gen. Anthony Zinni, retired Marine commander and trenchant critic of the neocon influence on the making of American foreign policy, is up for the job. A 2003 Washington Post profile of Zinni reports:
"The more he listened to [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist 'neoconservative' ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. 'The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground.' …
"The goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the 'domino theory' in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands. And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. 'I don't know where the neocons came from – that wasn't the platform they ran on,' he says. 'Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president.'"
I wouldn't bet the farm on Zinni getting it, but the fact that he's in the running at all is astonishing. If that's the amount of change you want in American foreign policy, then you'll be happy with the Obama administration – even as they escalate the conflict in Afghanistan, spread it to Pakistan, and prepare for war with Iran."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13709
Politics, especially presidential politics, is the art of moving the goalposts.
See all the reactionary b.s. the Bush administration foisted on us? They did it by a concerted campaign of shifting the territory of what is reasonable…to the extent now that you're considered an angry left loon if you get outraged at wiretapping and torture.
Obama will not be anti-Israel. He will not be all that pro-Palestinian.
But the mere fact of his election represents a moving of the goalposts on I/P. And his administration is likely to move them a bit more.
So what's the point?
The point is the difference between what is good for the Jews around the world, and what is good for Americans.
The organized Jews say one thing, regular Americans, including Americans jews, say another.
That's a fair assessment of the politics of the situation, slaney black. And, as the politicos move the goalposts back and forth, the Palestinians continue to burn.
Being that both parties' Middle East platforms, especially in regard to the illegal, brutal Israeli occupation and all things Israel, are controlled by the Zionist Israel Lobby, it's entirely reasonable to conclude that this is a deliberate policy with anticipated results (the "moving of the goalposts" in small increments one way or the other) during which time the Zionist agenda of further Israeli expansion and the breakup of Arab societies (using American lives and money) continues unabated.
The best hope for breaking the choke hold on U.S. policies in the Middle East is for Likud/Netanyahu to be associated with the GOP (RepubLikud Party) and Livni/Kadim/Labor to be associated with the Democratic Party. In that event, there will finally be a meaningful discussion of at least some the issues here in the U.S.
I meant Kadima!
I think your insights into Obama are much better than they have been in the past. I certainly do not trust him any more than I trust the Clintons.
Obama will say what is necessary. I do not know if he has any real views about foreign policy at all. However, unlike McCain and Palin, Obama does appear to know the facts on the ground, and his foreign policies will probably be bounded by reality.
I care nothing for Obama's idealism–I trust it no more than I do McCain's shallow militarism. The difference is that I think Obama will discard his ideology when necessary, and McCain will not.