The latest piece to echo this conventional wisdom is in the Washington Post. I like this conventional wisdom. Netanyahu still doesn't seem to get it. They're prevaricating about settlements, and insisting on the Permanent War theory of the Islamic world. There's this gem:
In the context of that history, said Netanyahu senior adviser Ron
Dermer, there is far more to discuss than Israeli settlement
construction in the West Bank.
"My impression is that the number of people who believe that issue
is the difference between peace in the Middle East and war are few and
far between, after all that happened in Gaza," Dermer said.
Scary. I guess he hasn't seen Obama's video to the Iranians. That's what we call… history.
It's hard to imagine that the US and Israel are on a collision course. If it ever came to that, Netanyahu would just call up Obama or Ehud Emanuel or Dennis Ross and tell him to change course.
Yeah, don't derive more meaning out of "Happy new year" than it's worth, especially not with him asking them to join up. Unless Obama says the settlers each have to either renounce Israeli citizenship to become Palestinians or go, this year won't get us any close to resolve the conflict than the last.
"My impression is that the number of people who believe that issue [Israeli colonization] is the difference between peace in the Middle East and war are few and far between, after all that happened [we fucking did] in Gaza," Dermer said.
Are these people real?
There is no new government in Israel yet. Olmert and Kadima are still the leadership.
The Kadima government is not particularly on a collision course with Israel. The US acknowledges that another jurisdiction that continues to permit or actively shell Israeli civilians, has INITIATED as state of hostilities if not war.
And, in response to that, Israeli leaders are responsible to stop military assaults on Israeli civilians (not matter how petty they are presented as.)
That status will not change without a fundamental change in international law, amounting to an arbitrary selection of renunciation of terrorism considered a crime, an evil.
The only collision course is relative to the settlers, which are the most important issue to reconcile in the conflict. There is no reconciliation without clarification of borders, clarification of title rights to land.
And, with clarification of borders and law that governs title, there is IMMEDIATE reconciliation, IMMEDIATE consent by the standard of a reasonable man.
There will be dissent, but unless that dissent can articulate a better legal logic for title and remedy, it will remain dismissable as vengeful and arbitrary.
And so Witty returns to the same issues debated so often on this blog. Says the same old things, not acknowledging what has been said before endlessly in response to his comments. What law will be applied? By Whom? Israel's judiciary has not, will not be impartial. Sure, let's use the rule of law to decide
title to land. The court has to be of international composition, deciding on international law class actions
brought by either side, and incorporating conflicts of law principles so as to include, e.g., former colonial law, e.g.m by the Ottoman Empire, etc.