A few weeks back CBS's "60 Minutes" ran a groundbreaking piece by Robert Simon showing that settlements had destroyed the two-state solution. One thing the piece left out is that American extremists have played a crucial role in that destruction by supporting the settlements and quietly undermining the "peace process" (such as it is).
Well, last week CBS named one of those extremists, Jeff Ballabon, to a top job: its new senior vice president for communications. Ira Forman of the Democratic Party's Jewish caucus says that it's "astonishing" that CBS would name such a man to such a big job when Barack Obama is in the White House. Forman and I agree.
Why do I call Ballabon an extremist? He's well to the right of even George Bush; he's in the Sheldon Adelson/Doug Feith camp. Here Ballabon helped sponsor a fundraiser for the extremist Hebron settlers who have colonized and antagonized the second-largest Palestinian city. Here he says, forget about the two-state solution
and return to a regional idea (hint: send the Palestinians to Jordan). Here he is advising a campaign that staunchly opposed Annapolis and any effort to divide Jerusalem or give up territory, and urging fellow Israel lobbyists to deluge the White House with phone calls to stop the Annapolis process:
“The results are very gratifying and the turnout is incredible for a virally marketed campaign.” says Jeff Ballabon, the political consultant coordinating the strategy of the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. “We have created a new way literally to give a voice to the Pro-Israel community’s thoughts and the calling volume is growing every hour.”
Here he is in a belligerent, neocon rant against a Palestinian state. He reflects the Likudnik/Weisglass concept of deluding people about a "peace process," while gobbling Palestinian land–and counting on the Israel lobby back home to quietly shore up Israel's support:
Israel’s political star rose in America
precisely because it was unapologetically
aggressive about protecting Jewish and Israeli
interests – whether in unilaterally declaring
statehood, capturing Eichmann, launching war
preemptively in ‘67 and against Iraq’s
nuclear infrastructure in ‘81, refusing to
negotiate with terrorists and engaging in
daring raids like Entebbe and in exacting
punishment, like after Munich – and the
list goes on.
…If Israel continues to pursue the conjoined
fictions that “the local Palestinians want
peace with Israel and therefore we have
to create a new state for them,”
McCain is far more likely to get fed
up and do a deal with those more
likely to be able to stabilize the
radicals in the region – not to
mention bring down oil prices…
Privately,
Israeli officials at the most senior levels
often will reveal their “strategy” –
which is that the illusion of a “peace
process” or at least negotiations is
useful to keep the West off Israel’s
back. But, they argue reassuringly, they
have no real illusions that anything
concrete will ever happen because the
Palestinians simply are not interested in or
ready for the creation of a state.
Thus, they have concluded, the longer we
talk the longer we retain the status
quo – and they are willing to endure
kidnapped soldiers and traumatized towns to
retain this status quo. Indefinitely.
You heard that right: Palestinians are "not ready" to have a state.
Ballabon is said to be Orthodox. He believes that antisemitism today recalls antisemitism in the time before the Holocaust. Here he is on the importance of Jewish tribalism:
In today’s world, largely as a
result of Judaism-Christianity-Islam-Enlightenment, we tend to overlook
the real tectonic plates along which human conflicts erupt: tribes.
Tribalism – simple, instinctual, unintellectual, amoral tribalism – is
a far more potent force than any of the big unifying universalist ideas
to which we generally attribute the great victories and tragedies of
civilized humanity.
post-Enlightenment secular ideologies, Judaism and Jews are uniquely
“tribe-faith” and we famously do not seek converts, although we embrace
them when it is beyond doubt that they are imbued with commitment to
the faith and want to cast their lot with the tribe.
He seems to be anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion, and to think that antisemitism is the eternal Jewish condition in the west.
Wow. Imagine if CBS had named an extremist Christian fundamentalist to that job! But this has gone down without comment on Ballabon's religious-nationalist agenda. Amazing. Thus has the Israel lobby corrupted our discourse. Even liberal Jews have been powerless to turn on the neocon crazies who have influential position. Arise, ye citizens from your slumber!
(Thanks to Nabil al-Khowaiter for the assiduous spot.)
