I asked Steve Walt about Gaza. His response:
I keep thinking that what the US should do is work to get a sharply-worded UN security council resolution condemning the attacks. Let the French or the British sponsor it if we want to be subtle, but then vote for it instead of issuing the usual veto. Go ahead and condemn Hamas at the same time, but make it clear that Washington regards Israel's response as both morally wrong and strategically wrong-headed. That might actually get Israel's attention, and suggest, as Martin Indyk said, that "the era of the blank check is over." Of course, that certainly won't happen under Bush, and probably not under Obama.
I also wonder if there isn't a dangerous precedent being set here. If
the United States and the rest of the international community react
limply to this, I worry that it will encourage Israelis to think that
the rest of the world
really won't care if they decided at some point down the road to solve
the Palestinian issue "once and for all" by another act of ethnic
cleansing. If you can bomb Gaza
with near-impunity (and maybe invade it down the road), then maybe, in
the right circumstances, you can get the world to look the other way
(or merely issue meaningless remonstrances), while you try a replay of
1948. I am not saying this will happen, but there may be more lessons
being learned here than we realize right now.
Last point: when it comes time to vet Obama's Middle East team, there are a lot of good questions to ask Kurtzer, Ross, whoever: 1) do you think Israel's attack on Gaza was warranted? 2) Do you think it advanced the peace process, or made it more difficult? 3) Do you think it was in America's national interest? 4) What steps should we have taken to head it off beforehand?
Last point: when it comes time to vet Obama's Middle East team, there are a lot of good questions to ask Kurtzer, Ross, whoever: 1) do you think Israel's attack on Gaza was warranted? 2) Do you think it advanced the peace process, or made it more difficult? 3) Do you think it was in America's national interest? 4) What steps should we have taken to head it off beforehand?
Livni today on Meet the Press, asserted very strongly that she felt that a limp response to Hamas was what enabled.
For Israel's security the moral question should be "what is the least harmful approach that will achieve the desired outcome."
Of course, its a disaster when there is no concensus on desired outcome, and as all Israeli politics includes "backbone" much much moreso than even US politics, the invasion is a political advertisement.
There is concensus in Israel among all parties that Hamas is NOT blameless in the slightest nor productive even in the advocacy of their own people.
So, Phil.
Will you take Walt's recommendation for the US at the UN and declare mutual condemnation?
You have not yet here uttered a single word of criticism of Hamas.
*************************************
ANALYSIS / With Gaza raid, Barak is back in the political ring
By Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondent (Israel)
Two months after Ehud Olmert was elected as Israel's prime minister, the Second Lebanon War broke out. Two months before Olmert departs, the military campaign in the south breaks out.
But Olmert isn't the story here; he's on his way to the Prime Minister's Bureau pensioners' ward. Ehud Barak is the story here. The man who, until yesterday, had to remind the Israeli voter of his existence with self-ridicule on billboards and satirical shows is returning to the political ring with force. In the coming days, weeks maybe, Barak will stand in he center of the public's attention. For better or worse, he's in his element.
The beginning of the raid in Gaza bears the wily and deceptive fingerprint of Barak, the Israel Defense Forces most highly decorated combat soldier. This does not make him the most suitable candidate for the premiership, but it may deliver him and his party from the humiliating defeat the polls are predicting………
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to haaretz.com
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I consider Walt (and Mearsheimer) complicit in all this, if only because of their, at best, mild criticism of Israel, and their constant reminder that Israel has a right to exist. If what is going on today is wrong, so is what went on in 1948. Anyway, dozens of children are reported to have been killed in strikes just a few minutes ago, most of them died inside their homes, which were targeted directly.
"For better or worse, he's in his element."
Yes and his victims are on the floor in some emergency ward or in their graves.
'You have not yet here uttered a single word of criticism of Hamas.'
Your ethnocentrism has led to a moral retardation Richard. You need professional help to free you from your incapacity to be fair in any argument involving Israel or Jews. The comment above is all of a piece with your demand for Palestinians to quit reacting to the Israeli foot on their throat, and your corollary silence about Israeli theft of their lands, and thuggishness in occupation. The foot is innocent and the throat guilty; which is to me as repugnant as suggesting that the Jews got what they deserved from Hitler.
Israelis I'm sure would today respond to occupation and brutalisation in much the same way as the Palestinians do; that sort of provocation has the same blowback everywhere. So by the way would Nelson Mandela. You are trying to condemn them for being human, while excusing and rationalising Israel's inhumanity.
I for one no longer care about Israel's survival. I hope it disappears from the pages of time. It's survival (as it is now)) threatens the survival of my children more than any other state, creating much of the hatred directed our way from the sharper ends of Islam. I will be writing to my political representatives today to urge them to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel. I don't expect to succeed, but you have to start somewhere and my feeling is more people than ever will do the same thing.
Suspend diplomatic relations. Embargo imports. Express sympathy for and solidarity with the victims. Demand UN and US agreement to implement two state solution with or without Israeli input.
And ask those who howl in protest where their ultimate sympathies lie.
Rich, Phil isn't going to be critical of hamas. hamas are his kind of people.
Glenn;
knock your self out. Hamas calls the truce off, hits Israel with over a 1000 rockets. And Israel is supposed to what, sit and smile. If your little burg 'dpwn under" were getting shelled what would you expect the government to do. We got along without the Condells for 5000 years and we'll go another 5000.
So Witty, while you're demanding that Phil condemn Hamas, when are you going to utter your first words of condemnation of Israel? You're on the clock…
Thanks SOG, it really is time someone told Glenn Condell (aka Sandy Stone) to shut up.
I've stated fifteen times that the response was exagerated, a bad means to attempt to accomplish a good (physical safety for Israeli civilians).
Did you hear the words of Livni?
That the world, including the Arab world, NEEDS to oppose organizations that willingly shell civilians as targets, that to fail to do so is to be complicit.
She is right.
excellent piece from The Guardian:
The recklessness of Hamas
Seth Freedman
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 December 2008 10.30 GMT
The last time I visited the embattled town of Sderot, I encountered a furious young resident who spat out his solution for his community's plight. "We have to kill all the militants [who are launching the Kassams]", he declared. "It's the only way to bring quiet back to the town. They had the chance to stop the rockets after we pulled out of Gaza, but they chose to carry on. I know they're suffering in Gaza too, but that doesn't excuse helping the terrorists attack us – they bring it on themselves".
What those militants sowed over the last few years, in the shape of thousands of rockets and mortars fired over the border at Israeli civilians, they reaped yesterday as the might of the Israeli air force came crashing down on Gaza. For all that I regularly sound off about almost every facet of the Israeli occupation and the government's policies towards the Palestinians, I struggle to see what option Israel's leaders had, other than to take the kind of action that they took this weekend.
As soon as the six-month ceasefire ended, with Hamas refusing to lay down their weapons and resuming their attacks on Israeli civilians, it was plain that Israel was being invited, if not provoked into, an operation to cut the head off the hydra. Hamas knew that with tens of thousands of Israeli men, women and children within range of the Kassam rockets, public opinion would demand action to protect those in the line of fire.
Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli who thinks that Israel was wrong to respond to the rockets in the way it did today. I suspect that Israel's response was no different to that which citizens of any other state would demand of their leaders in similar circumstances.
As Israeli spokesmen have reiterated time and again in the media, there is not a country in the world which would allow such assaults to take place on a daily basis without taking action to defend their citizens. Hamas knew this, and that their barrage of rockets would inevitably bring retaliation on the people of Gaza. Despite the ever-louder sabre-rattling by Israeli politicians during the last week, Hamas continued to use heavily-populated civilian centres as launching pads for their daily attacks on Israel.
On Friday, militants in Gaza killed two Palestinian schoolgirls when a rocket aimed at Israeli targets misfired and slammed into a Palestinian house. That tragedy underlined the rocket crews' utter disregard for civilian lives, Palestinian or Israeli. In response, Israel has called time on these assaults, dealing a serious blow to Hamas's infrastructure. Cue deafening calls for restraint from the outside world.
But not all such calls are quite so deafening. Condoleeza Rice and Gordon Brown, in carefully-worded statements, have expressed their concern about Hamas rockets ahead of Israeli retaliation. Tzipi Livni was in Egypt last week obtaining Egyptian support for yesterday's activities. If Mahmoud Abbas openly condemns the air strikes and expresses support for the people of Gaza, the unspoken message is that he would not be entirely sorry to see Hamas brought to its knees.
Those who have condemned Israel, loudly and unequivocally, for falling into the trap laid by Hamas ought to be just as vocal in their condemnation of Hamas for setting such a trap in the first place. Speaking on SkyNews to an Israeli embassy spokesman, Tim Marshall castigated Israel for responding to Hamas rockets ("which rarely cause fatalities") with an assault leaving around 150 people dead. Who will castigate Hamas for their reckless endangerment of civilian lives in Gaza?
Gordon Brown said in the wake of the strikes: "Peaceful means are the only way of reaching a lasting solution to the situation in Gaza." I firmly believe that this is a view shared by the majority of Israelis, notwithstanding the devastation that is currently being wrought. I also firmly believe that this is a view shared by the majority of Palestinians, notwithstanding that their leadership (in Gaza at least) appears to take a different approach.
We have seen the Israelis rampages before ..remember the US public outcry about Lebanon?
Congress didn't do anything then and won't do anything this time either.
We all know for a fact that there is no reason on earth for the US to support or allow this except for the Jewish pressure in politics. The gentile neo's have no interest in Pal-Isr, it isn't central to their US empire and world control plans. It is only the jewish pressure on congress and in our politics at work here.
We have to add as usual that not all jews (Example – Phil) are approving of this or remainng silent. Some are screaming their lungs out over it as on this blog.
So what to do? Unless you put a cocked 38 up against the head of Pelosi and the usual suspects in congress they will do nothing except continue to pander to Israel's genocide of Palestine and call black white.
I have watched this for so long now it makes me absolutely sick. Every time I think..
surely this will be the last, that this time they have gone too far and something will be done. But the US does nothing.
I will of course call congress again, write to the UN,the EU and etc. But…this time I am going further. I have a business board meeting tomorrow night, there will be a jewish member there. I intend to have a conservation with him about this and find out where he stands and where the local jewish community stands. He is aware of my long time closeness with my deceased jewish friend, who was closer to me than he was to this fellow jew. Depending on what he says I am either going to ask him to get going on this issue with local jews or if he is not willing to do that or hedges then he'sgoing to be informed that he and those like him in this community will be persona non grata in all affairs here. I don't know or have any contacts with pro Israel doomsday evangelicals but if I find some involved in anything I am involved in I will do the same thing with them.
Because standing by and doing nothing in these instances with Israel is worst than the Germans who stood by and did nothing. There is no excuse here. This isn't a WWII struggle, the SS doesn't roam the streets here shooting dissenters and arresting people who sympathize with Palestine. Israel could be stopped by the US without having to fire a shot.
Enough is enough.
If top down pressure doesn't work… maybe bottom up will.
I am sick of it…totally and absolutely stomach churning, beyond enraged, sick of it.
And yes Israel 'will' do a final solution if they aren't stopped. They get closer and closer to that every time.
And make no mistake , the responsibility for what Israel does rest right here in the US.
American,
If you press a Jew (because he is a Jew) to commit to your political agenda in entirely unrelated affairs, then you will be the racist in the process.
You resemble the right-wing AIPAC in what you are willing to do in "solidarity".
It's amazing how little it takes to get "American" to reveal himself for the impotent little nazi he is. I wonder if he'll confront local African Americans for what they're doing to disassociate themselves from their co-racialists in Congo? Yeah, thought so.
***************************
It just now occurred to me that this is like one of Dick Cheney's "canned" hunts. In fact, this may be one of Dick Cheney's "canned" hunts! No, on second thought, this is more likely to be Elliott Abrams' handiwork.
Mr. Freedman's article contains partial truths. For example
"Peaceful means are the only way of reaching a lasting solution to the situation in Gaza."
I agree completely with this sentence, however he leaves out one fact that is essential to note in order to achieve even a basic understanding of the origins of this war. Thus far, violence, and the threat of violence is the only thing that has brought Israel to the negotiating table with the intention of bargaining fairly. If you disagree, speak up. The parties that govern the Israeli state do not want, and have never wanted, a peace other than that between master and helot. It is disingenuous to publicly state that you are in favor of a two-state solution and then do everything you can to derail any agreement that contains the slightest non-trivial concession by Israel, ensuring that Palestinian delegates cannot accept it.
Zionists mention that Hamas has been launching 1000s of rockets.
How many people have died from them? In EIGHT YEARS it's been 15 deaths. The same time period, 8 deaths from Gaza mortar fire.
So once again, who is the terrorist?
This is not a symmetrical debate. Israel is a terror state. Hamas for all their faults, the PLO for all their faults, Fatah for all their faults, were ALL resistance fighters.
We should condemn the killing of civilians but cheer the resistance.
Israel must be dismantled. It's a disgusting country and I think that's a fair statement considering how small it is. Between the racism of Jews, the supremacy complex of Zionists, and the various rhetorical and ideological thuggery used by those in the Jewish community (playing the Holocaust card, calling everyone a Nazi, crying about AntiSemitism) – it's evident they are a shameful bunch.
Once again, the only country to support Israel is one that is fucking up the world in a much greater way (in Iraq and Afghanistan).
Witty/SoG/Steve should rejoice. You Zionists have won basically. I mean, there will be plenty of dissent and it MIGHT even spill over into the mainstream *BUT* it will not stop the eventually colonization of the whole of Palestine.
There is absolutely no way the 2-State solution will work now.
Israel is trying to create another Nakba in Gaza and recent polls show that Gazans (40%) would want to leave for Egypt if they could.
So mission accomplished.
The only thing I can say is that I celebrate the death of every Zionist scumbag soldier. What a monstrosity Israel is. So much so because it pretends (like the Jewish community in the States via constant movies about the Holocaust and Nazis) to be angelic when it's really the horror of the world.
LD:
The US Army AIr Corps/Force killed 5,000 Germans for every plane they lost. So what? Does that mean we were on the wrong side of World War Two?
OOOPS . . .I forgot who I was talking to!
****************************************
FROM ABOVE: "We have seen the Israelis rampages before ..remember the US public outcry about Lebanon?"
ME: As a matter of fact, Israel covered the south of Lebanon with cluster bomblets in violation of the agreements they signed with us. When they did that in the '82 invasion of Lebanon, Reagan refused to give them any more cluster munitions for several years.
This time, despite a finding made more than a year ago by our State Department that they violated their agreements with us during the 2006 invasion, they have suffered absolutely no repercussions.
Meanwhile, Lebanese children continue to lose arms, legs or worse to detonations of these cluster bomblets. Israel has refused to provide the UN with maps showing where the cluster munitions were used because the US has warned Israel that such maps could be used as evidence in the prosecutions of Israelis for war crimes!
You really think a limp response will encourage Israel? That's a revelation! Having heard W&M speak, I don't see a reason to read their book, because they support Israel as a viable state, which is the problem. There is absolutely no reason for the U.S. to support Israel, and conditional support is laughable.
Something is terribly wrong with the political/elite class in this country, but I think it's too late for change. Too much harm has been done already, and we're too far down the wrong road. I'm afraid that momentum is carrying us at this point. I don't even consider my own ruling class to be legitimate anymore.
Obama's silence. I am thankful that Obama did not react with canned support for Israel, as did Bush. He monitors the situation closely, aware that the US only has one President at a time, and therefore unwilling to voice . . . what? Only a countervailing message would create dissonance. If he parroted the talking points, there would be no need for him to defer.
So, what is going on in Obama's mind and in his inner circle, as Israel gets ready to launch a ground assault into Gaza, surely one of the worst tactical options available, and potentially a Palestinian bloodbath. Surely the talking points fail to satisfy the world class mind. But what evidence is there that Hamas authorized the reduced number of rockets during the cease fire? What evidence is there that Gazan police were complicit in these attacks? What objectives are to be advanced by such violence? What objectives can be achieved by invasion? Is this invasion really intended to stop the rockets? Or is it to destroy the Palestinians? How can the deaths of hundreds of innocents advance any objective other than the destruction of the Palestinians? How will an end to rockets and suicide bombs ever occur if Israel continues to bully its co-inhabitants and its neighbors? Bullying doesn't work for long.
We Americans had our Indian Wars, we had our race-based slavery. We know personally how people who regard themselves as good and civilized and honorable rationalize genocide and oppression, advance public safety and similar arguments while ignoring the racist underpinnings, the land-greed, that is obvious to the disinterested observer. We were shocked out of our racism by the Holocaust, and discovered greater truth and depth to our founding documents than we had previously noticed. We adapted, as Americans are known to do. We adapted so well that we elected Barack Obama as our 44th President. And now he wants to know what are we trying to accomplish, and how are we trying to accomplish it. Only truthful answers need present themselves.
Witty calls Israel's actions "exagerated" (sic). Ooohhh….tough words there. If that's your position on a 300+:1 death ratio, then you have no business demanding that anyone "condemn" Hamas' actions.
Seth Freedman's article was a revelation. I had regarded him as a reliable witness to the horrors of the Occupation but by devoting an entire article to the sins of Hamas without mentioning the root causes of the rocket firing (for the blockade and ongoing attacks from the air by Israel surely having something to do with them) he seems to be showing his true colours.
Re Walt & Mearsheimer, to some their moderate positions may disappoint but they have done more than any other two Americans to shed light on the inherent contradictions in the US's relations with Israel.
Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, etc…
Like one commenter above I, too, had hoped Israel's Lebanon rampage would be the last one tolerated by world opinion. Sadly, that now appears naive. Walt's pessimism is much warranted.
"Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, etc…"
I see what you mean, agog, but there is a lot of room between perfection and W&M's version of good.
Here's what's happening.
The so called realist in the Israeli camp are shitting bricks. Becuase they know that Israel cannot totally wipe out Palestine or destroy Hamas without being destroyed themseleves so they are calling on the US to "do something".
Like "restart" the peace process. Of course they are Israeli, like Daniel Levey, who is all over the place now saying something "must" be done. The Arab world according to him is now totally inflamed over this attack and every single US ally has deserted us on this and headed for the hills.
Yea right …more talk…more leaving it up to the US to 'settle it', to Israel's satisfaction of course.
And HERE is the delicious irony of it all…
The parastic twisting and burrowing of Israel and their henchmen into American government,policy and politics to usurp US power for their own benefit has so corrupted our congress and politics that America is not capable of brokering a "Just" deal for the Palestines. And without A "Just" deal for Palestine there will never be peace and Israel will not survive.
Israel will continue to get it's assisted suicide from the US.
A truely Sheakspearian ending for Israel.
The US congress will go down next because we will sufer a retalition from this support of Israel's actions one way or another and everyone will understand why.
American,
If you press a Jew (because he is a Jew) to commit to your political agenda in entirely unrelated affairs, then you will be the racist in the process.
You resemble the right-wing AIPAC in what you are willing to do in "solidarity".
Posted by: Richard Witty |
>>>>>>>>>>>
Please …go Cheney yourself hypocritic.
I can do 'solidarty' for my cause just like the jews and AIPAC do 'solidarty'. They may control my country's congress but don't control the American people or the communities outside of their zio political ghettos. The zionist in my community, if there are any, are about to get a dose of their own medicne. Let's see long they support AIPAC and the zio nazis when they can't get any support or business from their own neighborhood. Maybe we should check our local teachers and see if any of them are zionist and blackball them like your zionist smear artist did to so many American acdamics and universities in our country. Maybe I will put up some WANTED posters on zionist figures like your CAMERA group did on American professors labeling them ANTI SEMITES. Maybe I will put up a picture of Netanyaho and some Jewish congressmen in the local library with WAR CRIMNAL captions….in retalition for the smear job they did on former President Carter.
It's way past time to put some personal heat on these freaks.
It's my right to freedom of expression and representation,individual advocacy and all that rot…and to smear and harass and slur and defame anyone that doesn't agree with me …aren't those the same rights and excuses and tactics you zio-nazis subversives claim as 'citizens to use on our democratic system and the public.
Blowback is here. This crap was the last straw.
The consequences of the intensity of the Israeli assault will cause blowback.
As the consequences of the Hamas shelling caused blowback.
"Let's see long they support AIPAC and the zio nazis when they can't get any support or business from their own neighborhood. "
If you apply racist litmus testing to unrelated issues, again, you will be the racist in the picture.
Anger is NOT IT.
Israelis are ANGRY that their civilians are shelled previously for months, and now again. And, in response they take a WRONG action.
And, you in your anger, are now a programmed doll.
Not related ..Oh really witty?
You would be begging for me to boycott and and excute Germans if this was 1940.
I would NEVER ask you to boycott Germans for the actions of nazis 6000 miles away.
That is the definition of RACIST.
Don't reason with Zionists. Even drawing parallels to Hitler and the Nazis won't cause them to reflect on their actions.
This is the fundamental aspect of this tragedy: No one knows their history.
I applaud people like Phil for keeping this blog up. Same goes for brave souls like Norman Finkelstein. Same goes for the ISM and every other solidarity movement in the world.
In the end, the only hope is the demographic threat. In a couple of generations the population of Palestinians living in Israel will begin to catch up to the Jewish majority. In the OT, I think the same is happening.
So the Palestinians will have to endure. Meanwhile we'll get 1000 movies about the Holocaust and continued to be marginalized while these freaks wreak havoc without any consequence.
This is the world we live in. Money and Power > truth and justice.
Witty why do you even post here? You have basically won. There should be no protest by the Zionists. Their lobby holds more weight than the world consensus.
I see none of the zionists are willing to discuss the starvation policies and Israel's failure to fulfill it's requirement to ease border restrictions as part of the cease-fire agreement.
Palestinians were dying for voting for Hamas – that was Israeli policy the day after Hamas won a free and fair election.
That's alright then?
You people make me sick. If there was a volunteer international force ready to fight the zio-nazis I'd sign up tomorrow….
I often wonder why Witty posts here too. His POV has been long won and our media trumpets it daily in sound bites rubber stamped by
AIPAC and all established Jewish organizations, as well as by all the most influential think tanks. Phil's blog is like
an underground magazine in the old USSR. The 300:1 death rate
in Gaza now merely shows the result of the USA-Israeli Axis of Good. It looks like England has been pulling out of repairing the world; will the Brit poodle join in when Iran is attacked next summer?