Geoffrey Gray writes:
This assertion is misleading propaganda. These countries and non-state entitites do not oppose a negotiated settlement. Rather they oppose both the current status in which Palestine is occupied and an Israeli imposed two-state solution that would turn Palestine into an archipelago of bantustans.
Weiss adds:
Gray's comment reminds us that Israel is the most powerful agent of conditions in Israel/Palestine. Robert Simon said on Charlie Rose the other night that the two-state solution was killed by the fact that there are 300,000 settlers on the West Bank who won't go without governments falling and worse. In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Walt and Mearsheimer produced an important fact never reported before: that former Senator Adlai Stevenson blamed his narrow defeat in the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial race on his opposition to Israeli settlements when in the Senate in 1980. Stevenson had written an amendment to reduce aid to Israel because of the settlements. He knew the amendment would not pass "but he wanted to show that his colleagues would support Israel even if it was acting in ways that were contrary to official U.S. policy." Emphasis mine. W&M write:
"When Stevenson ran for governor two years later, he quickly discovered that campaign contributions began to dry up, and indeed, went to his oponent. According to the former senator, he and his wife [Stevenson's words] 'were reviled as anti-Semitic. Some in the press turned hostile. Jewish Democratic Committeemen wilted under pressure. Jewish friends and supporters were also reviled... the lobby made the difference in that election many times over.'"
A few necessary comments: 1, Walt and Mearsheimer were attacked for doing no reporting. This was original reporting they did; has anyone picked it up? 2, Mainstream American Jewish defense of the illegal colonies, which included Obama supporters Mel Levine and Dennis Ross, was as vociferous and stiffnecked in its day as the defense of the war crimes in Gaza is today. Both colonies and Gaza actions express the same expansionist desire in the Israeli state.
In fact, they bespeak the unspoken agenda of Israel that Dennis Ross mentions in his book and that John Bolton has lately advanced again in the Wall Street Journal: "confederal" status of Palestinians with Jordanians. Transfer. Ethnic cleansing. End of "the two-state solution."
There's a reason why holy writ calls the Jews "a stiff-necked people."
There are two versions: Witty and SOG (Bill Pearlman) show each of them on Phil's blog, in the comment section responding to each of Phill's essays/articles.
Stevenson also got dragged down by the Larouchies winning the Dem primaries for Lieutenant Gov. and something else.
The Larouchies definitely did paid agitprop for industry against nuclear protestors, union activists and in at least one case Ed Koch's mayoral primary opponents. Basically a private dirty tricks operation masquerading as a fringe political movement.
Wouldn't be suprised if Illinois in '82 was a similar set-up.
It's obvious that the settlers' agenda has been, with the acquiescence of Israel's govt., to make a two state solution simply impossible. They have succeeded. It is now merely a fig leaf for continued occupation so as to ignore actually implimenting "transfer" or formal apartheid (the "One State" solution is stillborn as it threatens the Jewish component of the "Jewish Democratic State"). Since these are in themselves quite repulsive, the fig leaf must be maintained until one of these is seen as less repulsive than the status quo.
Obviously, Mass. Rep. Michael Capuano does not want to make the same mistake. See Open Letter to Michael Capuano.