The great perceiver Jim Lobe says that Elliott Abrams has now declared himself to be the official spokesman for Netanyahu in the U.S., at the Weekly Standard and the CFR. The piece on which Lobe makes this judgment, at the Weekly Standard, says that the Palestinians have not undergone the long preparation for statehood that the Zionists went through.
[Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad is well aware of the history of his sometime partner, sometime
foe in Jerusalem, the government of Israel, and indeed of the history
of the entire Zionist enterprise: Institutions were built over long
decades to prepare for Israel's independence despite the uncertainty of
when it would arrive. The Zionists struggled to be ready, hoping
thereby also to bring the day closer. That is Fayyad's task for the
Palestinian people, as he appears to see it.
So: forget about self-determination for the Palestinian people. Forget about a state.
This is fascinating on a number of levels. It shows how scarred Abrams himself, and the neocons are, by the Holocaust. Jim Lobe explained this to me a long time ago, looking at An End to Evil, by Perle and Frum; its theme, he said, (in so many words) is that we underwent the Holocaust so we get to do what we like in the Arab world. "Victory or holocaust" is the most famous line from that book: the U.S. must democratize the Middle East or face a holocaust.
Lobe's psychological reading of this was always accurate. And Abrams's weird piece shows as much. Abrams is saying, in his unconscious way: Let's play the Nazi/Jew game, and this time We get to be the Nazis and you get to be the Jews. We get to put you behind barbed wire; we get to pour chemicals over your bodies; we get to destroy your families.
And you: study the Jews, be the next Jews. So the Palestinians are the new Jews.
Oh and by the way: no Palestinian state. They're not ready. This is the great battle. And look at the American Jewish lobbying forces arrayed on the extremist/apartheid side of this.
So that means the great political struggle on our side is this: To help liberal/left American Jews get their heads around a new understanding: that our golden Jewish path in this country is now the Palestinian path in Israel/Palestine. Equal rights, in a diverse state.
