The best I can say about this, without going on for 3 pages, is: total bullshit. ”

Agreed. I hope you understood I was describing Friedman’s views, not mine. Anyway, that attitude underlies every foreign policy piece he writes, even the rare ones where he makes a certain limited amount of sense.

link to salon.com

@ Donald: “The US always means well, is always trying to bring peace, and is at worst guilty only of naively expecting others to be as good as we are. ”

The best I can say about this, without going on for 3 pages, is: total bullshit.

link to monstersandcritics.com

link to reuters.com

The Reuters’ article was esp. interesting in noting that Mofaz’s idea was the talk of the Israeli political media over the weekend. (Or at least interesting to me given my suspicion that in one form or another I think the idea might well prove to have some legs in Israel.)
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In terms of declaring a Pal state that’s kind of interesting and Chaos4700 is on the right track: Many countries already recognize a Palestinian state because way back in the 1970′s I think—maybe when their leadership was in Morocco or Tunis or somewhere like that?—the PLO *did* declare such a state and that’s what has provided these other countries the basis to recognize same.

However, the idea that the PA would do so again in essence still has power because, essentially, via its negotiations with Israel the PA has essentially admitted it does not yet have a state. So the possible re-declaration of one unilaterally does sto;; hold some significant concern for Israel because of what this might mean now, such as many more countries than before and even the U.N. recognizing it and recognizing its borders as being ’67 borders, and all kind of other things both related to that and unrelated. (For instance, if a Palestine with ’67 borders were recognized then Israel’s occupation would perhaps be raised from merely being viewed as illegal internationally to something more, perhaps meaning that almost no matter what it did the Pals would be deemed to be acting in rightful defense of aggression and etc. and so forth. There was a recent Haaretz story about this—dealing with a rumor that Obama had a secret deal with the Pal’s approving their unilateral dec. of a new state—but its disappeared. I at least suspect that’s because some Pal came out and said it wasn’t true.

Why the Pals would not pursue this course or use to to their advantage more I can’t say, and can only speculate that it’s via U.S. pressure or bribery of the same sort that persuaded Abbas and the PA not to push the Goldstone Report.
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Lastly and on an unrelated point—albeit not unrelated at all to Bernard Avishai’s recent talk here about “the grandeur of the Torah” at least—Haaretz is carrying an interesting report about a new book being put out by some Rabbi there entitled “The King’s Torah.” The report says that “[s]everal prominent rabbis have recommended the book to their students and followers and it’s thus even more piquant to me at least as a Gentile:

link to haaretz.com

tree – thanks for the spirited defense. Well put, as always. You explained quite cogently the basis for my little dig at Mooser, which I meant only in a friendly way.
It seems to me that robin probably wasn’t aware of some of the previous discussions.

Cliff – I think it is obvious to everyone here that you are angry. Many of us are angry and frustrated about the state of the world. I often agree, at least in part, with the general drift of many of your comments. But I want to say again that I think you are fully capable of expressing and defending your views without resort to name-calling and verbal abuse.

One further point, Cliff. I think it is very important on this blog – ESPECIALLY this blog – not to talk as though all Jews were alike, not to paint all Jews with the same brush. To do so, particularly with explicit rage, inevitably suggests the possibility of antisemitism. This lumping of Jews together in one homogeneous group is one of Mooser’s pet peeves, and I agree with him entirely that it is never appropriate.

As far as I know, Mondoweiss is unique as a forum permitting intelligent people to exchange wide-ranging and controversial commentary concerning Israel/Palestine and US Middle Eastern policy. We want to keep this good thing going by keeping it civil. (Here again, I suspect Mooser and I are in agreement.)

I said: “I think its great that people stand up to the anti-semitic goons that troll this site.” Since Mooser and Call Me Ishmael were in the process of agreeing, I didn’t think Mooser could be interpreted as “standing up” to Call Me Ishmael in that instance. So my “slur” would not apply.