Obama is said to have chosen Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrooke and Richard Haass as his envoys re Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Israel/Palestine respectively. And the Israel lobby is just another lobby. It is not that some Jews can't be fairminded. And I don't know much about Haass except that he's utterly conventional, a former Bushie, pro-Iraq, mobbed up with Martin Indyk. The issue here is, religion and ethnicity matter. Where's the balance? Where's Kurtzer? Where's Miller? Where's an Arab-American? Where's…. Obama? (Jack Ross warns: Wait for MSM confirmation.)
Related posts:
- Change we can’t believe in
- Carter says U.S. Presidential envoys have been ‘professional lobbyists for Israel’
- Hope in Obama is ‘evaporating’ in the Middle East as the peace process goes nowhere
- (Groundhog day in the Middle East) Elliott Abrams says if we bomb Iran, the people will turn against the ayatollahs and welcome freedom
- Neocons’ Identity Politics Have Helped to Fuel Explosive Sectarianism in the Middle East
{ 34 comments }
haass is another zionist piece of crap. lies out of his mouth re palestine, arabs, muslims every chance he gets. he is like ross, indyk, et als. should be sent to boiling pots of uzbekistan with tenderizing stop over at abu ghraib.
This is terrible.
Where's Robert Malley? SamPo, as Philip calls Samantha Power? Juan Cole? William Beeman?
What matters about Obama's cowardly choices is not that they're Jewish, but that they're Zionists who liars continually about everything that occurs in Palestine-Israel.
Never underestimate the strength of the lobby.
I retain a faint hope that things may change during Obama's 2nd term.
Yes, my hope features a lot of assumptions!
My next unworthy thoughts were that my family and I would have to skip our friends' Inauguration parties. But, no, we'll have to go and keep talking with all other activists about pressuring Obama (more, since he hasn't yet responded to our concerns) to recognize what everyone who reads this site already knows:
1. Palestine's "RIGHT TO EXIST"!, as well as the Palestinians' right to human rights!
2. Israel's many war crimes and sabotage of any possible treaty and Palestinian state.
Similarities in the Bush-Obama profiles may be:
Both have serious youthful indiscretions with enough negative weight that the threat of exposure combined with their ambition and pride means they'll be good boys and do what they're supposed to, or else.
Meanwhile the presentation is shallow Hollywood imagery, in Bush's case Roy Rogers and John Wayne, in Obama's Sidney Poitier and Will Smith, with a little Cary Grant for style.
Obama went down on his knees to AIPAC as soon as he got the nomination and he hasn't got back up yet.
Obama is not going to save us.
We need to start talking about how Gaza moves toward Iran in the minds of the aggressors. We need to get ahead of them on the timeline, quickly.
Ross has made thinly disguised calls for war with Iran unless that country gives up its perfectly legal nuclear program.
The fact that Obama would appoint him as point man re: Iran should shatter any illusions about the new regime. "Change you can believe in" is a lie as big as any Bush has uttered — at least re: foreign policy.
Ler's face it Phil you and many others were played for naive fools
This is just one blogger citing an unnamed source – everyone calm down and wait for MSM confirmation.
American Jewish Zionists are the last people in the world who should have their hands in US Mideast policy. Morally, this group is among the worst human beings on the planet: 1)they betray their own country on behalf of a foreign power; 2) too cowardly to emigrate to the object of their affection, they instead sneakily try to pull strings for it behind the scenes; 3) many pose as pious “liberals” and lecture the world about the importance of “tolerance” even as they hypocritically line up with extreme right-wing Zionism; 4) they are even further Right on the Palestinian issue than most Israelis, because they don’t have to bear the consequences of their armchair machismo; 5) they exploit their right-wing Zionist network in America for professional advance and profit, which means a good portion of their Zionism is motivated by banal avarice and greed; 6) even as their behavior is the about as scurrilous as it gets, they shout down critics by accusing them of “anti-Semitism,” which is yet another cowardly means of hiding behind all Jews, Zionist or not.
And yet these blackguards are the people that Democrats and Republicans continue to put in charge of Mideast policy, much foreign policy, and even much US domestic policy? Brilliant, and its all worked out so well, hasn’t it?
The two-party regime just keeps digging America deeper the worse things get, somehow expecting Providence to save its bacon in the end. I guess they consider these counterfeit “chosen” as a some kind of Talisman, even though they’re the exact opposite. I have to ask: is it possible they've all made some kind of Faustian, Luciferian bargain, and we're all now reaping the consequences? That's about the only explanation that makes any sense for the continued insanity.
For a great essay enumerating Dershowitz's lies, go to
It's Time for Your Check-Up
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Note Prof. Lamb's email address: I hate the concept of "never forget," but we need constant reminders of Israeli crimes (yes, I know, through Christian Phalangists) against Palestinians until there's a just peace.
Franklin Lamb is a former adjunct Professor of international law at Northwestern College of Law in Portland, Oregon. He is currently doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb01072009.htm
Thanks, Ed.
Where's your "ga ga over Obama" now, Philip? The Talented Mr. Obama is a first-rate con artist, a "gutte ganif." Remember when he said, "put an old fish in a new wrapper and it still stinks." Well, he's put the old fish into his Middle East wrapper and it doesn't smell any better.
I agree with Jack Ross. One anonymous source does not a formal appointment make. P-E Obama will speak for himself soon enough. If he appoints this trio of clowns, then I'll eat crow and hat, but not before.
Fine, we can put off the crow-eating for a day or two by chalking it up to a blogger with an anonymous source, but be advised: Ambinder is not some guy sitting in his basement using his keyboard to madly conjecture. He is more plugged in than just about all big-time media figures when it comes to the Obama team and the Washington world in general. His blog was must-read (multiple times a day) for insiders from every campaign this year, and his reporting has been very solid and credible. I don't recall him taking many — if any — of his stories back. Sorry, but this is happening. Can't say I'm shocked, either — not after the AIPAC speech in June and the trip to Sderrot in July.
S.Kneedler–agreed, but I would add that Palestinians also have A RIGHT TO RESIST under international law. Which is why Israel won't agree to anything if it doesn't include disarmament of Hamas, the rightful government of Palestine.
I'm sorry to report to both Phil and Ed that there Blogging and Commenting rights are being revoked. Turns out there are far too many Jews Blogging and Anti-Semites like Ed commenting. We need to have appropriate quotas, as you're both in agreement.
Yeah, choosing Jews to play "fair broker" between the Jewish homeland and its neighbors has always been a head scratcher to me.
It makes more sense if you assume that the point was never to be "fair" at all. Hmmmm.
Yes, I agree, Delia: you're exactly right about the right to RESIST, which is what the US press–not "reporters" has repeatedly re"press"ed rather than "report".
That's also why Ross, Indyk, and Haas would be such catastrophic appointees, for the "bantustans" Clinton and they played with for a state of Palestine was a fraud: such controlled areas would be just a 21st-century version of Reservations–without any right of defense against Israel's cruel whims–for the "indigenous people"–whose existence Israel won't even admit.
I only meant to refer to the Western insistence that Palestinians bow to, worship even, Israel's sacred "right to exist"–though recognition of such a right is not a legal requirement in international law–contrasted with the utter lack of any such demand that Israel and the US recognize the Palestinian people's and Palestine's right to exist.
BTW, Delia, I always admire your perceptive comments.
Check out this tearingly hilarious rebuke to Israel (and the US) by Philip Slater
[just a sample]
'A Message to Israel: Time to Stop Playing the Victim Role
I can understand that after centuries of persecution it's satisfying for a Jewish state to be the aggressor for a change, but there's a codicil that goes with that role. You don't get to act like a victim any more. "Poor little Israel" just sounds silly when you're the dominant power in the Middle East. When you've invaded several of your neighbors, bombed and defeated them in combat, occupied their land, and taken their homes away from them, it's time to stop acting oppressed.
The Israel lobby has a hissy fit when anyone points out that Israel has been borrowing liberally from the Nazi playbook, but to punish a whole nation for the attacks of a few–which Israel has been doing consistently in Gaza–is a violation of international law–a law enacted in response to the Nazi practice. And please, spare us the hypocrisy–borrowed, I'm ashamed to admit, from my own government–of saying 'every effort is made to avoid civilian casualties'. When you drop bombs on a crowded city you're bombing civilians. Bombs don't ask for ID cards.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-slater/a-message-to-israel-time_b_155978.html
Every line is priceless and searingly apt.
"Anti-Semites like Ed"
How original. I guess its standard issue in the Ponzi-scheming American-Zionist tool box. "Always reach for the A-S charge, comrade. Yes, smart people will laugh, but there are still plenty of idiots who will immediately whimper, cower and go running, like Pavlov's dogs. Your predecessors have conditioned gullible Americans nicely. Heil Zion!"
.
'A more humble foreign policy' (G. W. Bush, 2000)
equals
'Change we can believe in' (B. H. Obama, 2008)
One party — the Depublicrats — has governed the U.S. for 150 years.
Anyone who expects serious 'reform' to result from its periodic reshuffling of faces is lost before they even begin, owing to misapprehension of the system.
As the Ross/Holbrooke/Haass rumor indicates, the guard doesn't even change. It just recycles.
"Why are you pointing fingers at me? I learned everything from the Talmud."–Julius Streicher
Tortured and hung at Nuremberg for engaging in free speech, the original, the icon of the fourth estate in modern times.
Time to apply this model today. Got a list of neocons, anyone? And, now, how about the pure democrats?
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul know the score.
Nah.
Only when the average American without a job or any assets is on
his/her last legs, and the draft comes–we're getting there, step by step. It's coming. Be patient.
Forgive me for being blunt, but how comes many posters here are really that naive to even entertain the idea that PE Obama plans to reshape well-established US Gov policies?
In chronological order, opinion leaders:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1176152765213
than the followers…
http://www.army.mil/institution/leaders/modplan/index.html
From Richard Haass's bio at CFR:
'From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Richard Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell.'
http://www.cfr.org/bios/3350/
That is, Haass was a supporting actor in Powell's 'Saddam's WMDs' lies to the UN Security Council in Feb. 2003. Why is he even eligible to return to government?
But wait, there's more.
'Dr. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan. '
So, Haass is an architect of this ongoing train wreck as well. His bio reveals that he also was heavily involved in Desert Shield and Desert Storm , under Bush I.
What we have here is a real dyed-in-the-wool interventionist, who wants to keep watering the barren mideastern deserts with American blood and treasure for decades to come.
His selection would be yet another betrayal by Obama, added to the betrayal of Surge II into Afghanistan.
Jonathan Cook, a West Bank-based British journalist who knows the territory, raises an ugly possibility relating to Obama and the Richard Haass appointment:
————
Israel believes the current invasion will have achieved nothing unless this time it regains absolute control of the Rafah border, undercutting Hamas’s claims to be running the Strip. The “mechanism” therefore requires that technical responsibility is lifted from Egyptian shoulders. According to the Israeli plan, it will pass to the Americans, whose expertise will be called on to stop the tunnelling and prevent Hamas from rebuilding its arsenal after the invasion comes to an end.
Once Hamas has no hope of rearming and cannot take any credit for the Gazans’ welfare, Israel will presumably allow in sufficient supplies of humanitarian aid. Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst, believes that in this scenario Israel would probably insist that such supplies come only through the Egyptian crossing, thereby “fulfilling another strategic aim: that of making Gaza Egypt’s responsibility”.
And once the Gazan albatross is lifted from Israel’s neck, Mr Abbas and his West Bank regime will be more isolated than ever. Undoubtedly, the hope in Israel is that, with Gaza disposed of, the pressure will grow on the Palestinian Authority to concede in a “peace” deal yet more Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
http://counterpunch.com/cook01072009.html
————
Too horrible — posting U.S. troops to serve as Gaza's jailer. Yet I have seen reports that they are already there, on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing.
If this is Obama's plan for Gaza — taking over occupation duties from the Israelis — it is worse than betrayal.
Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi has already taken impeachment off the table. (For another president, if you want to get technical, but it's all one big happy party.)
Better luck in 2012. Or 20012. The advancing glaciers will have solved the problem by then, I reckon.
I like that idea, actually. The Palis will try to kill Americans–liberals here will see what a bunch of douchebags the Oppressed Palistinians™ really are, and sympathy, such as exists, will dry up.
Plus, Americans will get very good at killing Arabs–probably a useful skill.
Standard interventionist dogma from Michael W. Here's some even nastier stuff from Richard Haass:
————
'The Obama administration will have to persuade Israel not to strike Iran's nuclear facilities while U.S.-led diplomatic efforts are unfolding. That will require enhancing Israel's deterrent and defensive capabilities by providing it with a nuclear guarantee as well as additional ballistic missile defenses and early warning systems.'
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/ross_holbrooke_haass_to_serve.php
————
TRANSLATION: to prevent the rogue state of Israel from veering out of control, we must bribe it with –
1. An unprecedented, one-sided treaty putting the U.S. on the line to defend one of the world's most aggressive, violence-prone occupier states; and
2. Fresh billions of dollars worth of state of the art military hardware.
All expressed in the 'impersonal we' — 'Obama will have to …'
Says who — the Lobby? Who dey?
Let's make zionist Haass a 'haass-been' when it comes to government service. No 'Saddam's WMDs' liar is gonna mother hubbard soft-soap me …
More on the proposal to involve U.S. troops as Gaza's jailers, from Siun at firedoglake:
————
We then learn about one cease-fire proposal Israel apparently likes:
What to do about Hamas' arms smuggling currently appears to be the main sticking point holding up a cease-fire agreement. Israel is holding intensive talks with the United States in an effort to reach a deal that would be acceptable to Egypt. The proposals include sending in the U.S. Army's engineering corps to systematically destroy the entire Philadelphi Road,* where the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border are located. (emphasis added)
And guess what, turns out that oh so conveniently,
“And there are US Army Corps of Engineer personnel on the ground right now on the Egypt side looking at the tunnels to see how Egypt could be reassured that there won't be continued smuggling through on that," [Andrea Mitchell] said on Meet the Press.
We also now have a new “permanent US military presence in Israel:"
U.S. European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent U.S. military presence on Israeli soil. [exactly what Haass has proposed - JH]
So now, in addition to supplying the weapons Israel is using in Gaza, we may use our troops as well.
http://firedoglake.com/2009/01/07/gaza-update-us-troops-role-proposed/
————
If they get away with this — engaging the U.S. in the maintenance of the Gaza occupation — the zionists will have sabotaged us like never before.
Bill Pearlman, aka SOG–hasbara alert:
The following comment from above in this thread is by Bill Pearlman–with a new sock puppet handle:
"I'm sorry to report to both Phil and Ed that there Blogging and Commenting rights are being revoked. Turns out there are far too many Jews Blogging and Anti-Semites like Ed commenting. We need to have appropriate quotas, as you're both in agreement.
Posted by: Dept of Blogging | January 07, 2009 at 01:48 PM"
More hints from the Jpost, as to what the saboteurs in our midst are up to:
————
The cease-fire plan proposed by Sarkozy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak received the endorsement of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a UN Security Council meeting Tuesday night.
According to Israeli officials, the cease-fire proposal was based on the establishment of an international force to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Sinai into Gaza, which would see an increase in the number of US military engineers already on the Egyptian side of the border.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167289976&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
————
Bush's parting shot — making the U.S. a direct party to the Gaza occupation.
Obama's silence suggests that he's in on it. If he appoints Haass, we'll know he is.
Where is Congress? Where they always are — re-inking their well-worn rubber stamps. This roller coaster seems to be running downhill faster than it used to …
Hasbara speck alert: The following is a comment from the thread above actually posted by Bill Pearlman, aka SOG (& his many sock puppets):
"I like that idea, actually. The Palis will try to kill Americans–liberals here will see what a bunch of douchebags the Oppressed Palistinians™ really are, and sympathy, such as exists, will dry up.
Plus, Americans will get very good at killing Arabs–probably a useful skill.
Posted by: Michael W | January 07, 2009 at 04:44 PM"
"I like that idea, actually. The Palis will try to kill Americans–liberals here will see what a bunch of douchebags the Oppressed Palistinians™ really are, and sympathy, such as exists, will dry up.
Plus, Americans will get very good at killing Arabs–probably a useful skill."
LOL.
Not quite. I have it from a reliable source that it won't be Americans targeted by Al-qeuda type groups. Well you can call them Americans if you like, but most Americans don't see AIPAC as an American institution.
And it only makes sense really that they would target the lobby directly – and of course targeting major jewish organizations (WJC, ADL, Simon Weisenthal, CJC, WZO, etc who are the real reason this continues) has the added benefit of being supported by a huge proportion of the American populace.
This will be most evident over the next two yearz when the real impact of the collapsing economy is evident – and the very real hope most Americans had for Obama changing America will be long gone.
And who do you think they will blame?
Don't say you weren't warned….
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