Rob Browne at Dailykos has an excellent piece on the evolution of the Israeli demand for "recognition-plus"– that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, even before negotiations over land, refugees etc begin. This "new and nonsensical" demand (which preemptively nullifies the right of return and valorizes the second-class status of Palestinian Israelis) began to show up two years ago. And Brown demonstrates, that American groups played a crucial role in installing this language. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, for instance. And congressional bills sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Browne:
Israel did not need this special recognition to start or complete negotiations with Egypt, Jordan, and the PLO. This concept of pre-conditional "recognition plus" appears to have been crafted by certain U.S. and Israeli officials after the electoral victory of Hamas in January 2006. Knowing any Palestinian government would not accept these demands, it was a sure way of preventing the continuation of the peace process in case the members of the Quartet perceived any positive change in the Palestinian's military or political behavior. Since then, the demand has come up whenever Israeli officials, or their American supporter, are aware of a large and sustained international push for the resumption of negotiations.
It seems obvious that American and Israeli actions here were coordinated. One achievement of Browne's piece is to demonstrate, once again, that We do not know the half of it when it comes to the machinations of the Israel lobby in American policy-making. In good part because those machinations have gone unmolested by inquiring reporters.
The veil is being torn at last, and the hypocrisy of all those attacks by journalists on Walt and Mearsheimer is at last evaporating. Here is a piece in yesterday's Times, by Helene Cooper, that frankly addresses the power of the lobby to screw up Obama's work on a peace initiative.
[His] actions have earned for Mr. Obama some wariness in Israel , where recent polls show that 51 percent of Israelis sampled said that Mr. Obama cared more about Palestinian statehood than about Israeli security. Mr. Obama’s administration, from Mrs. Clinton to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Mr. [Dennis] Ross, is filled with politicians and foreign policy experts who have high standing among the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, but moving Mr. Ross from the State Department to right next door at the White House could help to protect Mr. Obama’s flank even further when it comes to Israel.
Related posts:
- Should Americans have a vision of Israel as a ‘democratic Jewish state’?
- How the Jewish Lobby Helped Save My Family
- Jewish IQ drop continues, thanks to Israel lobby
- Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish state’ demand is a sign of panic and weakness
- Unending myth of two-state solution has helped to destroy two-state-solution
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This is one of those keeper posts for the valuable historical info contained in the links.
One achievement of Browne's piece is to demonstrate, once again, that We do not know the half of it when it comes to the machinations of the Israel lobby in American policy-making. In good part because those machinations have gone unmolested by inquiring reporters. Unmolested. I wonder if the unmolesting minders at HuffPo will permit the real reaction the next time Israel bombs Gaza Instead of the few hundred it allowed through. What's the Iranian count after a week? Over 70,000?
Print the truth! The Arab League drove both Muslims and Jews rom their homes in 1948. They refused to accept the partition plan of 1947. Most Israelis including the 25% who are Muslims accept the partition plan. If Muslim citizens in Israel are "second class" then what are they in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Gaza? Muslims in Israel have the right to vote, choose their clothes, and are not used as human shields. Israel was recognized as a Jewish homeland by the world in 1948. How does printing slogans, myths, and stereotypes help the Palestinians? Earl in Haifa
Let idiots like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Sen. Mitch McConnell do this type of thing as often as they like. The more they do this, the sooner the US Congress' views on Palestine will become irrelevant. Outside of the US and Israel, most people have already come to that conclusion. With the way things are going in the US, it will shortly be just Israel that worries about what Congress thinks.
Earl, who rattled your cage? Did Megaphone wake you up this morning? BTW, from my experience, Mondoweiss is pretty hardcore anti-zionist pro-semitic so you will have to put up a considerably better researched and informed post to get anywhere here. Reading zionist Benny Morris' book 1948 might be a start.
Benny Morris changed his story with each thing that he wrote. My research is that my family has been in Israel for sixty years. I am an Israeli. We have the right to live in peace without nonsense from outside of our region. Sixty years is enough. are you an Israeli?
Susan Abulhawa asks an important question about the Zionist state: Palestine Think Tank: Susan Abulhawa – Does Israel Really Have a Right to Exist?.
We hear almost nothing of the overly generous off of Olmert to Abbas from the "progressive" media. "In our meeting Wednesday, Abbas acknowledged that Olmert had shown him a map proposing a Palestinian state on 97 percent of the West Bank — though he complained that the Israeli leader refused to give him a copy of the plan. He confirmed that Olmert "accepted the principle" of the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees — something no previous Israeli prime minister had done — and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. In all, Olmert's peace offer was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of Bush or Bill Clinton; it's almost impossible to imagine Obama, or any Israeli government, going further." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...
Origins of anti-semitism: http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/05/24/holocaus...
B-back is right. You've got to ramp up your game, Earl, if you want to join the discussion here. This is a pro-Semitic, anti-Zionist, pro-peace, anti-apartheid world. Two states for two peoples, 1967 borders, and stop the occupation. That's pretty much what we're about here.
Phil wrote: "And Brown demonstrates, that American groups played a crucial role in installing this language. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, for instance." Ah, you mean the same Americans who scream racism/whatever-ism if not fascism when someone in the U.S. even suggests that the U.S. is a Christian nation. Odd. But then again I suppose they take their comfort in knowing there's always a place they can vacation/retire/move to where they don't have to rub shoulders with anyone not jewish. Standards are such nice things; good to have at least two of them always.
Two states for two peoples? One state fo left-over bits for the Palestinians, and one state for all the world's Jews? I'd call that "pro-Semitic"!!!
No, it does not, but if you can think of a solution which eliminates it without an even more extended human tragedy, I'd love to hear it. As it is, even with a two-state solution, does that imply amnesty for all the Israelis who have taken part in crimes (war and otherwise) against the Palestinians for the last sixty years? There's a big difference between accepting a situation and thinking it's right, or satisfies the demands of justice. Oh, yeah, the Israelis will probably make out all right. When push comes to shove, everybody can put on the striped pajamas and add a "barb-wire" stationary to their e-mail, and maybe get away with it. But they can no longer expect anyone to like them for it. No matter how well they play the violin.
I am working very hard on the establishment of an Anglo-Saxon state, which will unite most of mainland GB south of the line between the rivers Avon and Ouse. This will exclude all those Viking descendants from North England, plus the Welsh the Irish, and the goddam Scots. It will include London, where our freedom-loving bankers have recently done such a good job. It will exclude Gordon Brown, who hasn't. Every citizen will be required to honour his Anglo-Saxon heritage, with a loyalty oath,. The year 1066 will be disappeared from Anglo-Saxon history.
What, he showed Abbas the map from five feet away? And then refused to give him a copy, as you say? Get a grip, dhimmikins.
I've been working on a Lutheran state in Wittenberg, in Germany. All Lutherans thruout the world will have a claim to the home and land of any Catholic in and around Wittenberg. And hey, why stop there. We Lutherans can claim all of Germany, ex-East included.
Where is this map and what are the conditions. Was the right of return recognized? Could the Palestinians have a military and sovereignty over their land/air/sea space? Etc. It's convenient to mention a great plan that was passed up without all the details and the context – especially hearing Abbas's side of the story. This is what Zionists always do – tell half the story ALL the time. Most of the time, they lie too or spew superficial truths and empty platitudes. Constant 'point-scoring'. If most Americans weren't such morons, this conflict would have been resolved decades ago.
I've been working on a Scientologist State. For far too long our people have suffered anti-Scientologism. We've been persecuted so long we must make a country. Just one problem though. Apparently there's a bunch of people living where we want a State. So we're just going to keep making life hell for them, pay off some rich and powerful guys out West and hope for the best. After all, if all else fails, there's still North Africa!
Two states, including a militant Islamic Palestine and a militant Islamic Palestine. It doesn't matter, Palestinian recognition of Israel will not be forthcoming, and every cession of land and empowerment of Palestinian thugocracy has meant more war.
There is one. It's called England. Its Queen rules the captive nations of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Man, Jersey, Guernsey, and part of Ireland. She is defender of the Anglican faith, the official Church of England. You don't get to mock the refuge of Israeli Jews by analogy, you imperialist.
Blowback, Congress holds the legislative power of the United States. The fact that its stature has declined below that of President Bush, and it perpetually humilates itself by queueing up to be led around by the nose by AIPAC, doesn't change the fact of its constitutional power. The Neocons hold power at AIPAC, within the establishment news media, and in the hearts and minds of a majority of the members of Congress, who are led by the carrot of AIPAC coordinated support for their candidacies, and the stick of AIPAC coordinated support for replacement candidates. The Neocons have a clearly stated agenda, which has been proven over and and over to be counterproductive to the well-being of Israel and its neighbors, and the stature of the United States, yet they are never held to account for their fiascoes. The Neocons must be taken on frontally, their power destroyed, their crimes punished, their principles discarded on the ash heap of history. Some day Congresspersons will no more embrace Neocon support than they would solicit endorsements from the Communist Party of the United States. That should be our goal with respect to Congress, not that everyone continue to pay them little attention, to dismiss them as a joke. No part of the power of the United States should ever be written off as a joke.
Close, Mondoweiss is pretty hardcore anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic. They support and sustain the whackjobs that think a Jewish conspiracy runs the world as well as the people who think the Israelis should let the Palestinians take over Israel. To their credit, Adam and Phil seem to be naive enough to think that that wouldn't result in the extermination of the Jews in Israel. Some of their posters hope that it will.
Yup, a refuge for Scientologists, why not. First citizen John Travolta. Makes just as much sense.
These Eurosabra types are truly good at something called transference. How smoothly do they ascribe their own murderous instincts upon the Palestinians! It's militant Zionist Israel that has been doing the killing for the past 60 years, sabrababe. Were you one of those zios standing on the hilltop overlooking Gaza and cheering those "purity in arms" boys on to greater massacres?
Actually, I was protesting against it–it's a clumsy response, even though what we saw was the sharpest, most precise response technically possible–which you'll have to take my word for as a former civilian civil defense medic. What made the larger response inevitable was the expansion to longer-range rockets, which put the entire Southern Israeli power grid within Hamas's reach. Hit that, and Bedouin preemies asphyxiate in the NICUs of Soroka Hospital, Be'ersheva–among other things. Fratricide at both ends, you have to love Hamas.
Hamas, Hizbollah and and some sectors of Fatah are all pledged to the elimination of the stae of Israel (aka the "Zionist entity"). Egypt and Jordon were not so pledged when they negotiated with Israel. Could the leftists who regularly post here attempt–if only as an experiment–to put aside their fashionbable form of judenhasse and examine the differences between their faux-irredentist scenarios and middle-eastern reality.
Guess what. I don't care. A bunch of murderous genocidal racist E. Europeans stole Palestine from the native population, and that situation is creating instability in the region to the detriment of the USA. It is not our problem except in so far as disloyal un-American ethnic Ashkenazi American Zionists (Jewish Nazis) manipulate and swindle the US government out of trillions of dollars and into supporting Jewish genocidaires in Stolen and Occupied Palestine. I was a Rockefeller Republican, and today I see only one way to salvage the US economic and poitical system: Saving America in 100 Words.
BDS needs to be expanded. The money the Lobby uses to finance its activities is donated by individuals and groups. All of it had to be earned or accrued somewhere. American companies whose profits are funneled to subvert American national security by supporting overseas creeping ethnic cleansing and colonization should definitely be front and center on the list.
Printing the truth as you request. Dummy. In practice, Zionists did not accept the UN Partition Plan. Zionists seized areas beyond the proposed Jewish State and did not recognize the International Zone. Using force and terrorism months before May 1948, Jews seized land beyond the UN proposed borders. The UN Plan was used as a pretense for taking over most of Palestine.
The PEOPLE of Egypt and Jordan hate Israel. When you say Egypt and Jordan you are really talking about a few guys. A few guys backed by a superpower in decline. Israel exists because of a superpower in decline. I keep trying to figure out the deeper meaning of that. Not really.
See, this is the issue which leaves me with such mixed fillings about the Iranians. I've seen a number of videos documenting the massive street protests, but I have yet to find a single banner demanding recognition of the State of Israel. Perhaps Pipes and Netanyahu are correct, Israel and the US just might be better off with Almenijad.
I would be very surprised if the "right" of return was recognized to the extent that the Palestinians demand (unrestricted flooding of 5 million Palestinians into Israel). The "right" of return is going to ensure that the peace process never gets anywhere. The settlements don't help the peace process, but even if they weren't there the RoR would still kill the chances of peace. It's pretty straightforward logic: The right of return would destroy Israel by flooding it with 5 million Palestinians who would promptly vote in a genocidal government. Therefore Israel will not grant the right of return.
I think this is a red herring. UN Resolution 181, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1947, which created the modern state of Israel, refers to Israel as "the Jewish State" no less than thirty times. This is nothing new — just something that some conveniently forget when it doesn't fit their preferred narrative. Here's a link to the text of the Resolution: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm
*Whose* "red herring"? A red herring is a subject intended either to deceive or distract, so who do you believe is using this "jewish state" business in this matter? Israel/Netanyahu raised it of course, so how are they so using it? Or do you believe—as I think I read you—that others are falsely/erroneously seizing on this demand of Israel for some deceptive or distracting reason. If so, what? In any event it's interesting that you at least see it as something deceptive or distracting in at least *some* way since that's exactly what's wrong with it; nobody knows what Israel means by it. And who would sign on to that? Presumably Israel has *some* reason for making this demand, and the only thing I can think of is that it is intended to provide it with some later justification for doing whatever to its own arab citizenry, in addition perhaps to saying that it means everyone has acknowledged the Palestinians booted out in '47-'48 have no right to return. And if it *doesn't* mean something huge like this, well then what's its importance? Again, it's *Israel* that has raised this "red herring" if it is such. And it's *Israel* that isn't satisfied with all those references in the UN Resolution, once again indicating that it certainly means its demand to mean something new.
It is intended primarily to prevent a future Palestinian state from providing cross-border aid for the transformation of Israel into the Islamic Republic of Palestine Redux without an acknowledgement that this was always the intention of the PA at this stage of the negotiations. It is intended to underline the fundamental non-acceptance of 181 by the PA, to present the PA with either the necessity of a Hudaybah Hudna lie as usual or a dramatic concession that legitimizes Israel. If the PA refuses, its intentions are known. If it lies in its acceptance, Israel can crush an Islamist Palestine that continues the war of annihilation. If it accepts Israel as a Jewish state and does not continue the war, the conflict ends. The definition itself is purely an Israeli concern, and if you followed Israeli constitutional law debates you would know the varying degrees of "Jewishness" from a nominal binational state with responsibility of refuge for Diaspora Jews to theocracy. Since you only care that the Jews not have a state, you are uninformed.
Is it not curious that nowhere in the Israeli press has been there been a single report of Olmert accepting the principle of the Palestinian's right to return and "offer to resettle thousands of refugees?" All we have to rely on is the questionable word of a "journalist" who works for a paper that was once picketed by the zionist CAMERA for being pro-Palestinian and learned its lesson. What is more irresponsible is that Diehl brought up the subject without giving any source for its validity and then treated it as fact. Moreover, whenever any percentage of the West Bank is mentioned in the US press, it does not include those parts that were annexed in 1967 and became part of greater Jerusalem, increasing the old city to three times its original size.
Oh yes, that perfidious imperialist English plot by which England captured Scotland through James VI of Scotland inheriting the Crown of England from Elizabeth I – the Scottish Parliament even had the cheek to pass an Act of Union! Surely the most evil of all of England's imperial ventures, we can all agree. As for the rest, you missed the point about the Norman Conquest, didn't you? (The Crown Dependencies of the bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, for example have as their head of state the current British Sovereign because the Norman kings of England were already Dukes of Normandy, and the bailiwicks refused to recognise the French Sovereign's right to strip King John of England of his land and title as Duke of Normandy. English imperialism at its worst, again.) Just to clear up an additional constitutional matter: the title of Fidei Defensor is separate from (and, in its original grant, pre-dates) the Sovereign's position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. I'm sure you're fully aware of the fact that the C of E is separate from the (established) Church of Scotland (the Kirk, among friends) and the (non-established) Church in Wales.
The UN also calls for the Palestinian right of return which would negate the concept of a Jewish State as laid out by fascist and racist Zionists. No one has to accept the Jewish State – which illegal occupies Palestinian land. All Israel proves is that they are stronger militarily. The law is on the Palestinian side. If people followed the law, then the Occupation would end. The Palestinians have a right to come back home, from which they were driven out of by fanatic Zionist terrorists in 1948. Israel has no moral or legal argument. They just have lies/propaganda and brute force. Best example is the hasbara bullshit Euro just posted.
Most people hate Israel and would never recognize it. Any colonial/imperial outpost shouldn't be recognized. Any racist State that drove out the original inhabitants of the land should not be recognized.
"It is intended primarily to prevent a future Palestinian state from providing cross-border aid for the transformation of Israel into the Islamic Republic of Palestine Redux…." A.) So what are its *other* intentions? How do we know that it's not to justify some ethnic cleansing of Israel's arab population in the future? And, even more to the point, how do we know that it won't be used in that way even if that's not its present intent? B.) How does the recognition of Israel as a "jewish" state aid in this supposed "primary" goal? If Israel is recognized as a state, period, it has every right in the world to prohibit "cross-border aid for the transformation of [itself]." C.) And if that prohibition is its primary purpose, why not just pursue that primary purpose with direct language instead of with such vagueness? After all, one hardly suspects that Israel would agree to recognize, say, Palestine as "The Implacably Anti-Racist State" given all that might be said to mean. D.) If the "definition itself is purely an Israeli concern" (which contradicts what you said about its "primary" intent anyway), then why insist that others bow to it? I actually am a zionist and do think jews should have a state, but don't think that the rest of the world has an obligation to approve of anything and everything it does to maintain same up to and including ethnic cleansing. Indeed, I even think that there's lots Israel ought to be able to do to maintain its predominant jewish character, even if in some ways they can seem kind of stinky. E.g., allowing any jew from anywhere the right to immigrate to Israel for instance, and no-one else. Or perhaps paying or doing other things to help non-jewish Israeli citizens voluntarily emigrate out. (So long as it would be entirely voluntary.) But it's another thing entirely to say that Israel should have the right to do *anything* to maintain its jewish nature. E.g., if Israel wishes to run itself in such ways as to not only discourage jewish immigration into it but indeed bleed itself of its jewish population (e.g., by being at perpetual war with its neighbors), well then it doesn't get to involuntarily kick out its arabs to make up for that lack of jewish population. And the same goes for the situation if Israeli jews simply decide to have so few children that the Israeli arab population outpaces it. That's what's called Israeli jews making a *choice* to no longer live in a majority jewish state.
Just for the point of historical accuracy. The demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jews was first explicitly raised by a group of prominent Israeli peace activists in July 2001, in direct response to the Palestinain rejection of the various offers made in 2000-2001. And see http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2009/06/ignora... for further information.
I don't give a damn what you do, we drove you out of Eretz Israel and we'll keep the Land of Israel, despite the Norman Conquest, the cancellation of the Palestine Pound, the White Paper, the death camps for European Jews run by the British in Mauritius, or your current love of Islamofascism.
Hey. You broke a taboo. Americans are not suppose to know the real history of the I-P conflict.
Keep your ghetto state. Just get off the dole. Americans have better uses for their money. We also have to make better use of our UN veto power in our own best interest.
I went to Gaza with a Code Pink Peace Delegation, then stayed on alone for a month Here is a video I shot while sitting in on an English class regarding the Future of Palestine : Share or split Palestine? A discussion in Gaza. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8030E34DC... Here are the rest of the videos I shot in Gaza: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8030E34DC...
you must be kidding. You think Iranians, even the secular ones like the ones demonstrating want filthy Israel? Who the hell wants Israel except some freaky Christian sect in Lebanon? Pipes and Natenyahu, you just mentioned by name 2 devils, are they devils you look up to? Whether it's Ahmedinejad or someone else is no favor more or less for Israel. Israel hates this guy because he speaks the truth on TV too much. The Iranians who oppose him only oppose Islamic restrictions. What does that have to do with Israel. Everyone hates Israel, that's not news.
"Right to Exist, A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars" that's the title of your book? You must be sick. And the reason the "offers" were rejected was because the Arabs were being cheated out of their right of return.The implementation of the Palestinian Right of Return, based on UN GA resolution 194, is THE KEY for ending the conflict. And the demand for the recognition of the "right of Israel to exist" was in there too. An even better offer was made to King Hussein and he refused. An offer was made to his father and he refused. And the offers they got were better than Oslo. No one is going to sign away Palestine plain and simple. No one can. I feel somewhat sorry for you Zionists romantics, I guess without your dreamland Jewish state you don't have much going on. You obviously have nothing real or solid for yourself. Like the lonely lady who can only manage a fling with someone else 's husband or visa versa. But on the other hand, killing people for your lack of reality is not kosher in anyone's book.
A)Israeli citizenship protections are pretty good, even for Israeli-Arabs convicted of terrorist offenses, and for their families. The 2003 law on marriage naturalizations probably won't stand on review by the Supreme Court. Of course, a situation of total intercommunal civil war could change that, but by and large the problem is with people in place who can't exercise the full rights of citizenship, including 100,000 DPs from '48. B)Not really. The peace treaty with Jordan shows how futile ANY recognition is that does not take the form of an explicit recognition that Israel is a JEWISH state, not an Israeli-Palestinian state-on-the-way. Jordan's official act of terror on Peace Island against Orthodox Jews, modestly-dressed Jewish women in particular, sent a message. C)I suspect the ambiguity is because N. expects continued non-recognition in every form and continued war. You don't do extra work on a peace treaty when you expect war. D)It will put them on record as liars when they resume Jihad. This is mainly a symbolic point, but it could sway some nations that are still pro-Israel–USA, Portugal, Netherlands, Australia–into continued support.
Incidentally Croatia has had overwhelming emigration to the USA and Australia since the 19th century, however it was still permitted (by the USA) to recover the Military Frontier area of its territory from irredentist Krajina Serbs, once the bombardment of Zagreb by long-range rocket became a daily occurrence. Nations are allowed to do rather a lot to maintain their territory and identities against explicitly separatist armed groups that want to annex their territory to a neighboring state. Israeli-Palestinians have been diligent about keeping their movement peaceful and unarmed, yet they still represent an ambiguous challenge to the state. If they can "flip the script" demographically, they will still have to negotiate a multi-cultural Israel, and in general they have overplayed their hands with violence, in '76 and 2000-1. Also, the demographics are stable for at least the next 30-50 years, and if they aren't, what Israeli Jew will CARE about demographics and democracy if the Third Intifada in Jaffa looks like 1921? The only reason Jaffa didn't become a permanent war zone in 2000 was that Jihad isn't yet the policy of the Northern Israeli Islamic Movement, although it calls for Sharia and non-recognition in Israel. (Unlike the more conciliatory Southern Branch.)
The Act of Union was bribery that was sealed in blood and massacre at Culloden. There IS a party that wishes to do what you intend, the BNP. Its Israeli equivalent, Kach, is banned from representation in the Knesset, unlike the BNP. Otherwise, since the pogroms against British Jews in '48, we have been expecting them, especially since the renewal of British support for Islamism.
While I'm not persuaded you make some good points, and it's good to hear (or at least read between your lines) that the "jewish state" demand is not widely viewed as an attempt to justify some future ethnic cleansing. (Although I still believe it is so viewed by Netanyahu and some others.) In any event though and at the very least still standing is my point that there's simply no way to prevent the recognition Netanyahu and Israel are demanding now from being used as ethnic cleansing justification in the future, by others. No way.
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