David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy sees the writing on the wall:
I think U.S. support for Israel is about to go through a measurable
weakening. Part of this is due to the growing popularity of views like
those of Cohen's regarding the U.S. having been too slavishly
supportive of Israel in the past. Part of this is due to the odiousness
of some of the approaches taken by the Israelis-either in Gaza or with
regard to settlements. And part of this is due to the missteps of some
supporters of Israel in Washington.
Like calling critics of an alleged Israel lobby anti-Semites?
How many more decades do Palestinians have to suffer before Israelis get over their psychopathology? –especially given that Israeli politicians and policy makers just keep stoking that illness through the politics of fear.
Where are the voices of those Israelis who are fed up with the way in which the Holocaust has been hijacked and Zionized? Throughout the social science literature, you can find those voices represented as data in studies carried out among Israelis, but when it comes to moving forward on the political issues, those voices are nowhere to be heard.
Rothkopf backhandedly refers to this excellent article by Roger Cohen "Israel, Iran and Fear" link to nytimes.com
Obama is frankly barking up the wrong tree encouraging a two-state solution: it's dead on arrival. The only sensible alternative for Israel is to (1) recognize the existence of the Palestinian people, and (2) give them their human rights and their civil rights in the State of Israel.
"Part of this is due to the odiousness of some of the approaches taken by the Israelis-either in Gaza or with regard to settlements. And part of this is due to the missteps of some supporters of Israel in Washington."
The odiousness of Israeli approaches has not changed for decades, not the 'missteps' of their supporters. A less gate-keepered media may however be behind the changes.
But still no proposal as to how to deal with Hamas.
Wonder how Hamas would respond if Israel uprooted its settlements?
Those were the only enlightened lines in Rothkopf's article.
But still no proposal as to how to deal with Hamas.
Posted by: Richard Witty | April 22, 2009 at 04:30 AM
Wonder how Hamas would respond if Israel uprooted its settlements?
Posted by: kit-kat | April 22, 2009 at 05:40 AM
I'm not listening to any more whining about Hamas (if it weren't Hamas, it would be some other whipping boy convenient to distracting the casual observer from Israeli aggression) until the colonies outside of 1967 borders are removed. You (plural) are stealing their land at gunpoint. Of course some of them hate you. Stop stealing their land, make good-faith attempts to live in peace without oppressing them, and if they still hate you then you'll be able to make a legitimate case to which I will listen. Until then, it is your fault that they hate you and it is neither my country's responsibility nor in its interest to clean up your mess, much less pay for your odious ethnic cleansing and colonization. You(plural) will reap what you sow. Perhaps you should think about planning a different harvest next season.
Hamas is a problem, but it is a small one compared to the twisted values and horrible judgment of Israeli and American colonial-Zionists. Humanity has a moral obligation to ensure that another Holocaust is not inflicted upon Jews, but no obligation at all to defer to religious lunacy and help you ethnically cleanse and colonize the region where your ancestors lived TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. America and Americans have given enormously to and sacrificed much for Israel and the Jewish people. Our trust has been abused beyond the breaking point. A complete separation of American and Israeli destinies is imperative.
And, according to Shlomo Sand, probably not even then.
I see Colin has finally admitted that the facts don't mean shit to him. If not Hamas, then it will be some other group of Islamic fascist assholes disrupting any chance of peace.
"How many more decades do Palestinians have to suffer before Israelis get over their psychopathology?"
None. It is the Palestinian inability to get over their own psychopathology that causes their suffering.
But still no proposal as to how to deal with Hamas.
Posted by: Richard Witty | April 22, 2009 at 04:30 AM
As soon as you have peace and prosperity, the extremists die out and are pushed to the fringe. Less stability and more fighting means more extremism – just look at the Israeli elections.
Once there is peace, Hamas will have to either moderate itself or face dying out.
"But still no proposal as to how to deal with Hamas."
Posted by: Richard Witty
Richard, this is becoming simply cruel. You know as well as I do that nothing will be accomplished in Israel until you and Chris Berel are on the spot, taking command, dealing with Hamas, and doing something-or-other with the settlements. Or do you two intend to hang around "humming Temple melodies" with your hands in your pants, like Kafka said?
Richard Witty and Chris Berel between them have every solution to what ails the Jewish people. (They're stout fellows, you know?) It is beyond belief that they deny their services to The Jewish State.
But we don't. We are dealing with the riff raff aiding the palestinian terrorists, like Mooser the loser.
Hamas continue to use supersonic Jets to slaughter Jews all over the world, not just in Israel, Mooser.
You don't have a problem with that??
Just let Hamas (with the largest naval armada in all of recorded history) continue firing nuclear-tipped warheads at every synagogue until even microbial life is extinguished?
THAT's your solution??
It's a gamble, moving everyone out of the West Bank and exposing Israel's heartland to rocket attack. The distances are so small and the density of habitation so high that there will no longer be any "short rounds" or any misses to speak of, producing de facto a much higher casualty rate than the Hezbollah bombardment of nothern Israel and the Hamas bombardment of the South (which have a heckuva lot more empty space) have to date. You are essentially arguing for Israel to accept a 10,000 round bombardment of its heartland in the two years following a Hamas takeover, and gambling that that will not 1)render life in Israel unsustainable and 2)not lead to a permanent Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank under "Operation Storm" conditions that will handle the issue of the Military Frontier, Croatia-style. Hamas's conduct in Gaza shows that governing encourages them to make total war on foreign and domestic opponents, and is pretty much a non-starter. Israel's Islamic Movement, in contrast, has been moderated by governing a pretty substantial section of Israel itself. Studying the reasons behind the different socio-cultural evolution of those two groups could be vital, but taking Iran out of the business of large-scale weapons smuggling is key. Jordanians are NOT going to be happy about pre-emptive bombardment of clandestine weapons shipments from Iran to the West Bank via Syria and Jordan, so either they will themselves engage in a cat-and-mouse denial of large rockets (Israel is so small without the Territories that "long-range" is no longer an issue) or Jordan once again becomes the locus of a Palestinian war against Israel, as in Black September.
The problem with Colin's proposal is that the Palestinians can also reap an unpleasant harvest, should Israeli concessions (for the fourth time, Oslo, '96, Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank) prove an excessive temptation for Hamas/Jihad, as they did '93-'96. The level of destruction may be so great that the creation of empty buffer zones and permanent reoccupation may be worth the international opprobrium and the loss of support of fair-weather friends like the EU, with the possible exception of the Netherlands.
I say we use Rykart as a human shield. Let him put his life up as guarantee.
Once there is peace, Hamas will have to either moderate itself or face dying out.
Shafiq
Eurosabra: Not us, we aren't. You are; you set the problem up and define the solutions. You weigh it to meet your expectations, and what comes out is death for one party or the other.
But you have no right to hold life and death power over others just because. There is no there there when one considers authority; Israel has none except might, and we aren't living in the 19th Century. Blow one of your hot-tips and it will f*k the world. The world you share with us.
Unfortunately, that is not how things work in the world of states. In the real world, peace is a function of inter-state arrangements, and in the case of war, new arrangements are made. My expectations have been borne out by the previous Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, which brought massive chronic terror into Israel even when Hamas/Jihad were dissident forces outside a Fateh government theoretically committed to peace, and by the withdrawal from Gaza. Another withdrawal from the West Bank risks being more of the same. Israel is a legal belligerent occupier and it has the right to demand real peace in return for its withdrawal, even under the international law you esteem so highly. That a Hamas government cannot meet that demand is not only Israel's problem, whereas the fact that a Hamas non-state cannot, IS.