Last spring I did a post on former Ambassador Dan Kurtzer's book, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace, that argued that it was a coded assault on the Israel lobby--that in vague criticisms of "Jewish-American interest groups" and "absence of Arab expertise," it hinted at the true problem: too many Jews, not enough Arabs in the process. That book is why I continue to hope that between Ross/Indyk/Kurtzer as Obama's Mideast guy (yes it's always Jews who are considered, because of the Christian Zionist lobby), Kurtzer gets the nod (notwithstanding the fact his brother moved to a settlement).
Ira Glunts disagrees with me. I'm not completely persuaded. Politics is the art of the possible. Kurtzer seems much fairer to me than Ross and Indyk, and he speaks Arabic, was the ambassador to Egypt. But here's what Glunts, a former IDF soldier, now a bookseller in N.Y., has to say:
I have listened to a Kurtzer lecture at Princeton in 2006, [link: rtsp://128.112.130.84:554/wws/lectures/20060426kurtzerlectureTAPE56K.rm], heard him at a panel discussion with Afif Safieh, and read his 80 page advertisement for himself as the future Middle East envoy, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace.
My opinion is that Kurtzer is
smart and articulate, but he ain't good. Both Ron
Kampeas at JTA and Jerry Haber, who are not critics of Kurtzer, say he is not
that much different than Dennis "Big Sticks" Ross. Actually, Haber is a
supporter of Kurtzer and a critic of Ross.
Compare his attitude toward Hamas as clearly
expressed in the Princeton lecture with The
Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and
Coexistence by
Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, two Israeli professors. If you do, I
believe you will come to the conclusion that Kurtzer's view is incorrect.
Kurtzer's hard-line view on Hamas is contradicted by two years of reports that
have appeared in the Israeli and world press. The statement that Hamas has
never given any indication that it would be willing to compromise or peacefully
co-exist with Israel contradicts many published reports but conveniently
reinforces the Israeli and American spin.
Also,
this paragraph from Kurtzer's 2008 book struck me as particularly
offensive:
Finally, Kurtzer is currently not throwing the "out pitch" for peace that he
employed with some success in his 2006 Princeton lecture. The pitch
is a proposal that Israel recompense the Palestinians for the settler
blocks annexed by employing a 1:1 land swap. Kurtzer calls this "returning 100% of the land to the Palestinians
using land swaps." The pitch has some movement break and can be
used effectively in the academic leagues. In the Bigs, however, it is no
better than a hanging curve, thus he has currently dropped it from his
repertoire. (Israel has consistently rejected the idea of 1:1 land
swaps.)
I note that Kurtzer does criticize Clinton and
Ross, and apparently has criticized the Israeli government in the past.
However, I think that if our goal is to have even a modest change
in American policy in I/P, bringing Kurtzer in for relief is not going to help
get the job done.
Israelâs âCrime Against Humanityâ by Chris Hedges
link to truthdig.com
Israelâs siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalemâs refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.
âThis is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality,â I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the Council on Foreign Relations to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. âI am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago.â
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza âa crime against humanity.â Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as âa flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.â He has asked for âthe International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.â
….
âThis is a crime of survival,â Falk said of the rocket attacks. âIsrael has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.â
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.
âIsrael, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,â Falk said. âThey [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.â
….
All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a âmartyrâ?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
Somehow I have acquired an almost quasi prophetic certainty that Livni (if she got in) would attempt a land swap, to get rid of the Triangle and gain as many as possible of the 'dormitory settlements' (distinguished at least rhetorically from the 'activist' and 'wildcat' settlements) in exchange. The reason that this seems to me so inevitable is that the precedents have now been set for the idea that The Wall(s) can be moved around at will, so that it becomes quite easy to create de facto 'borders' wherever one wishes, or AROUND whatever one wishes. However, I think the operative element in the statement "Israel has consistently rejected the idea of 1:1 land swaps" is the requirement of "1:1". Knowing the semantic ingenuity of Jewish strategists, I would expect to see land swap proposals in which some land is more equal than other land, and thus "one for one in value does not necessarily correspond to one for one in dunams" or some damn thing.
remember Ben-Ami Kadish? Kadish appeared in court before Judge Douglas F. Eaton in Manhattan on Apr 22 2008. He was released on the same day after putting up a $300,000 bail bond. Kadish also had to turn in his passport, because there was considerable risk that he would flee to Israel, but he was allowed to return home. He was supposed to reappear at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan on May 22, which is where the tale more or less ends. Kadish did not go to court on that day, and his whereabouts and prospects are unknown. The U.S. District Court has a Web site with a search feature that enables one to look for active or past court cases. Typing in âKadishâ produces no results, as if the case were erased. Calling the court to attempt to find out the status of the Kadish trial is also a dead end. Direct telephone inquiries resulted in a complete stonewall. Promises to call back with information on the case were made by court officials, but no one ever did so. Calls to the Department of Justice about Kadish were likewise not returned. It is as if Kadish has vanished. – Phil Giraldi, AntiWar.com
You should find this interesting, Phil:
link to antiwar.com
"Is pay-to-play going to be the modus operandi for Obama's Middle East policy appointments?
Two former Clinton administration officials, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, may provide the answer. They have recently been energized by Hillary Clinton's nomination as secretary of state, and both are attempting to stage a comeback…"
The article that Rowan cites is "Israel's 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card". Give it a read. Thanks for the tip Rowan.
link to antiwar.com
Open question to American Zionists: do you seriously think there will be no long-term consequences for subverting our justice system? When you strive to put Jewish Americans above the law, you are also putting them outside the law. This is a terribly unhealthy direction for American democracy, which is my home AND your home.
tee hee … dont let this happen to u
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/salaami/default.jpg
thus is NOT mine (just someone I know)
The question about Hamas is parallel to the question of whether the PA should accept Israel's current status of offer (losing land, losing continuity of land).
That is that Hamas' "compromises" are exagerated and not nearly far enough nor committed enough.
Its a GREAT sadness that you (Phil) pander to the sentiment that Hamas is currently making anything resembling fundamental compromises either to Israel or to the PA.
â¦Ben-Ami Kadish, an 84-year-old from New Jersey, was arrested Tuesday and charged with four conspiracy counts. Prosecutors said he confessed to FBI agents that in order to help Israel, he gave his Israeli contact 50 to 100 classified documents between 1979 and 1985, including information about America's nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missilesâ¦DiGenova, now in private practice in Washington, said he and other investigators in the 1980s were so convinced there were other Americans involved in the espionage that they nicknamed the phantom individuals "Mr. X." He noted that Yagur knew exactly what documents he was seeking from Pollard and Kadishâ¦Leeper and diGenova agreed that it did not matter that classified materials were provided to a U.S. ally. Investigators in the Pollard case suspected his information was traded by the Israelis to South Africa, which then provided it to the Soviet Union in return for helping Israel get Jews out of the then-Communist superpowerâ¦.(AP, 24 Apr 08)
Kurtzer is right on the exageration of relative power of the "Israel lobby".
If anything, I would assume that your analysis of its power is related to its power to invoke "self-censorship" (as Kurtzer referred).
Its not that the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis is false, but that its already irrelevant.
Congress, President, Agencies, ARE able to determine their policies and positions on rational merits, not force.
And, their conclusions rationally differ from yours (your recent outing as an "anti-Zionist").
anyway, back to serious matters : I find it rather arrogant of Avraham Berg to take such pride in the fact that Haaretz is the only Israeli newspaper he reads. I realise he is probably talking about the hebrew version, but nevertheless, it is typical that today Haaretz is the only one of the english language israeli mass circulation online newspapers that doesn't say Islamic Jihad took responsibility for yesterdays' rockets, describing them as retaliation for an anti-IJ incursion by the IDF. Avoiding all this (and assuming the readers are all incurious to the point of idiocy) Haaretz english just calls them 'militants'.
"Congress, President, Agencies, ARE able to determine their policies and positions on rational merits, not force."
come on witty, if you are going to waste your own time and ours, at least make some effort to be convincing.
The elderly New Jersey man arrested last week on charges of spying for Israel years ago was probably still working for the Jewish stateâs espionage service in tandem with another, as yet unidentified spy, former American intelligence officials say…A former senior CIA counterintelligence operative believes the case âwill never go to trial, because of all the ugly stuff that would come outâ about Israeli activities in the United States. Indeed, Justice Department attorneys have fought to keep âugly stuffâ from emerging in the trial of two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, charged with accepting classified documents from Pentagon official Larry Franklin…..(Congressional Quarterly, 25 Apr 08)
jews cant be involved in the mideast peace process as representatives of the united states.
it wouldnt send the right signal to the arabs nor to the american segment of the population who believes american zionist jews have hijacked their govt will only see it as more of the same b.s we have been fed for years.
other than that good luck to you all….the past as prologue seems to be par for the course.
Colin,
Regarding your "Open question to American Zionists: do you seriously think there will be no long-term consequences for subverting our justice system?"
You forget that for American Zionists putting Israel first and putting themselves above the law is a win win gamble. What's the worst that can happen? A resurgence of genuine 19th century style Antisemitism, a denial of Jewish-Americans' civil rights, a wholesale anti-Jewish pogrom maybe? That will just force all of America's Jews to emigrate to Eretz Israel and provide irrefutable justification for its existence at any price.
Best of all for the hard-core Zionists is that even anti-Zionist Jews like Phil Weiss will be forced to emigrate. Now if you were a Rahm Emanuel, smarting from the weekly jibes you receive from Phil on this website, what better revenge can you imagine than to make life unbearable in America for any guy with a last name like Weiss.
I have been thinking about the story Uri Avnery told about his education. To put it very simply, he said that he and his schoolmates were brought up to take Graetz's "History of the Jews" (1853) as reliable. Here is the most important paragraph of Avnery's statement:
"Graetz accepted the Bible as if it were a history book, collected all the myths and created a complete and continuous historical narrative: the period of the Fathers, the Exodus from Egypt, the Conquest of Canaan, the "First Temple", the Babylonian Exile, the "Second Temple", the Destruction of the Temple and the Exile. That is the history that all of us learned in school, the foundation upon which Zionism was built."
link to zope.gush-shalom.org
I should imagine that, since Avnery came from an Irgun family, his school was right-wing but secular-zionist in tone. If this guess is correct, then we would find that the pupils learned to regard all the transcendental references in the bible sympathetically but cynically, somewhat in the spirit of Marx's bitter-sweet phrase "the heart of a heartless world," but that at the same time, unlike in the case of Marx, the pathos of all this increased rather than reduced their nationalistic feelings. I should like to know if this guess of mine is right. I have always been interested in the details of zionist education and thinking, this is why I wanted to learn hebrew.
Mac wrote:
"Now if you were a Rahm Emanuel, smarting from the weekly jibes you receive from Phil on this website"
Rahm Emanuel is a major player in world politics–one of the most important men in the world, right now. Phil Weiss is a highly excitable unemployed journalist whose wife won't fuck him. Rahm Emanuel has never heard of Philip Weiss, and he never will.
Rahm is a joke.
Interesting to compare Witty's statement about W & M thesis above
with his past comments about their book which have littered Phil's blog for the past few years.
The Haaretz story on yesterday's rockets has now been quietly revised to include the attribution to and claim by Islamic Jihad.
I got up this morning a 5 a.m. israel time, so maybe I was one of the few who saw – and wrote a complaining comment – about the original version.
"Rahm is a joke."
No Rowan, Rahm is the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. You are a pimple on the ass of a council flat somewhere, fighting with Pakis for a government handout.
Anon,
My comments on Walt/Mearsheimer have been consistent.
Not so simplistic as your for/against polarity.
I find Phil's interpretations of "loyalty" questions to be oddly inconsistent. Phil is very much part of his family for example. And, his family is very much liberal Jewish, supporters of enlightened Zionism, critical of expansionist Zionism, but not willing to harm the greater Jewish community in that stand.
Phil has stated that if he discerned that Jewish community was being harmed in fact, that if there were identifiable anti-semitism that resulted from his comments, that he would be inclined to moderate them.
I wonder if that would be too late.
My sense of political agitation is that it succeeds in the same manner as a market crash, that sentiment feeds on sentiment in a rising momentum.
In contrast, NOW is the time to be simultaneously pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian, not either/or.
Those ADL files aren't very accurate.
Witty, I understand that you won't want to air dirty Jewish linen in public. I wouldn't care, except I am an American, and I have a stake
whether I want it or not, in what Israel does. Do you understand that? My tax money, my children's future?
Either/or or mutual.
One is war, one is peace.
"Its a GREAT sadness that you (Phil) pander to the sentiment that Hamas is currently making anything resembling fundamental compromises either to Israel or to the PA."
Sorry to interrupt your disingenuous attempts at making Phil feel guilty for being on the side of truth and justice, but I'd really appreciate it if you would describe why you think Hamas is inadequately compromising towards Israel, and maybe give an example of such.
Thanks, Richard.
Jimbo!(Haygood)
It seems you descended into excessive vulgarity – so unlike you.
If I didn't know better I'd say you sound alot like somebody else I know.
But we know there's only one Jim Haygood.
Only one Jim Haygood
Only one
Only one
Only one Jim Haygood.
Sorry – "you've" descended into excessive vulgarity.
Called NYSD Court – Ben-Ami Kadish case has simply been continued. Next date is 12/22. Case #08MJ881. Judge Peck.
Ben-Ami Kadish case has been continued again until 12/30/08.
OK – update on Ben Ami Kadish case (just following up, though it seems futile in the face of the Gaza situation). He evidently plead guilty and the 08MJ881 Case has been closed (a magistrate case), and a new case 08CR01336 was opened. Judge William H. Pauley will handle the new case – which evidently will just be a sentencing proceeding as Kadish has plead guilty. Info from the court clerk today 1/7/2009. To confirm call clerk at 212-805-0136 then dial 2, then 6 to get the clerk of the NYSD court.