Hadar: Israel/Palestine need not be a priority

by Philip Weiss on December 18, 2008 · 4 comments

Leon Hadar disagrees with me, and Brent Scowcroft, and Samir Sumaida'ie, and says that Obama can continue to basically ignore Israel/Palestine, until such time as strong leadership emerges over there that could bring about a local resolution, rather than an imposed one. Makes fun of my new coalition:

[I]t seems that many members of the Reality-Based Community who mocked Bush neocons for their grand designs of transforming Iraq and remaking the Middle East have joined with the Hope-Based Community in proclaiming their high expectations of President Obama bringing peace to the Holy Land. There are hopes among many Obama watchers that the new president will take steps to repair America’s ties with the Middle East by withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and opening a diplomatic dialogue with Iran. Thus having strengthened U.S. status in the Middle East, Obama might be in position to embrace a more activist strategy aimed at bringing about Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

Related posts:

  1. Hadar: US is too weakened for Obama to bring peace to the Holy Land
  2. Hadar: US is too weakened for Obama to bring peace to the Holy Land
  3. B+. A stirring speech by the world’s president–but nothin’ new on Israel/Palestine
  4. Why single out Israel/Palestine?
  5. Carter (echoing Obama): ‘A new Palestine’ will see a shared Jerusalem

{ 4 comments }

1 Richard Witty December 18, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Only if its possible. If its impossible, no president will risk his political capital for a vain effort.

What can we do to make it possible?

Discourage the extremists on both sides. In a word, encouraging the NON-RADICAL humanists and moderates.

2 MRW. December 18, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Well, Mr. Hadar, all we have to do is take away the obscene amount of money that the now poor US taxpayers shovel to israel, which few know about, and we can watch that tune change.

Israel is not critical to life in the USA.

3 Ed December 19, 2008 at 2:52 am

I supported Scowcroft and Berzezinski when they were publicly speaking out against the Bush administration and its Mideast policies, but now they both strike me as dirty old men trying to save a decrepit Empire and a corrupt Establishment with tricks, high profile P.R., and minimal reform. Too much damage has been done by the elite to paper over its crimes with a few tweaks here and there, and in some ways concentrating merely on the I/P issue, and even bringing heavy pressure on the Israelis, strikes me as too little too late. Don’t get me wrong, organized Jewry should be brought to heel and made to pay for its role, but let’s not pretend there isn’t real systemic corruption across the entire two-party regime and its various tributaries that has nothing to do with the I/P issue, and that needs to be bored out and eviscerated.

Even if the I/P issue was solved tomorrow, the slime in Washington and New York would remain, and it wouldn’t be long before it was back to its dirty tricks after having appeased some of its most tenacious critics who are animated by the I/P issue. Sorry, blokes. You’re not going to get off that easy. By all means, go ahead and throw the Israelis under the bus, but don’t think that that’ll get you off the hook.

4 stevieb December 19, 2008 at 1:55 pm

I have to agree with Leon. Obama might get troops out of Iraq, though it's looking grim on that count lately. He will probably talk to Iran, though I can't see what good that will do ultimately – they aren't going to change their belligerent policy towards Iran's completely legal nuclear program (the zionist objections are to their legal right to posses nuclear technology).

Basically he doesn't have the guts to stand up to the lobby – we've already seen that….

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