Jim Lobe picks up Jim Baker interview at National Journal. Note my favorite point, that Obama is reversing US policy on settlements. I wonder where the hell our policy has been for decades? What is policy without some means of enforcement, or sanctions? Oh yes and he says "apartheid." Don’t forget how many people accused Jimmy Carter of anti-Semitism for saying as much.
Baker: I don’t fault President Obama for making settlements an issue, but I do fault him for caving in. You can’t take a position that is consistent with U.S. policy going back many years, and the minute you get push-back you soften your position. When you are dealing with foreign leaders, they can smell that kind of weakness a thousand miles away. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have long endorsed the U.S. policy that settlements are an obstacle to peace. If “land for peace” is the path to a resolution, then settlements clearly create facts on the ground that foreclose the possibility of negotiations.
I would also stress that United States taxpayers are giving Israel roughly $3 billion each year, which amounts to something like $1,000 for every Israeli citizen, at a time when our own economy is in bad shape and a lot of Americans would appreciate that kind of helping hand from their own government. Given that fact, it is not unreasonable to ask the Israeli leadership to respect U.S. policy on settlements.
NJ: Secretary Baker, how do you assess today’s prospects for a peace deal?
Baker: Well, the situation is difficult, but there are some new dynamics in play. First and foremost, there is a general appreciation on the part of the Israeli body politic that Israel will be unable to maintain both its Jewish and democratic character as long as it continues to occupy Arab lands and, in particular, the West Bank. More and more Israelis understand that sooner or later, the demographics of occupation [given higher Arab birthrates] are going to overwhelm them. If Israel doesn’t want to become an apartheid type of nation — and as a democracy I don’t believe it does — then in order to retain its Jewish, democratic character Israel will have to find a negotiated peace.
This is bad for the US in more ways than just Netanyahu. Obama caved in to Israel and that’s blood in the water for China. You don’t think China is looking at us kowtowing to podunk little Israel and the disproportionate power of their lobby, and then looking at the massive amounts of debt and trade deficit leverage they hold over the US and wondering what sort of cooperation that can buy them?
Hard not to believe China isn’t planning to use the Israel Lobby lock in the USA for its own purposes. Israel did train and arm the Chinese military–the Israelis tweaked US made and paid for weapons, and sold them to China as Israeli-made.
C-4700 — you’re spot-on, as always. The Chinese are keen to become the sole superpower in the world, displacing the USA, and they’re already not-so-quietly reducing their holdings in Treasurys. And they’re calling for an end to the dominance of the US dollar in world trade. link to atimes.com
Our weakness is our elected officials’ preoccupation with the interests of Israel ahead of our own country. China sees a weak leader in Obama, due in great part to his powerful speech in Egypt, which crashed and burned in less than a year, diminishing his standing in the world. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is now seen as pathetic irony — he should have given it back until he could demonstrate he deserved the Prize.
China is also playing games with the Iranian situation. China has the most to lose by disrupting trade with the Iranians. As Germany and France are cajoled by Obama’s neo-con foreign relations team to cut off trade with Iran, the Chinese are ready, willing and able to step up and provide goods and services (and weapons) to the Iranian government.
Meanwhile, China would cheer if Obama and America are stupid enough to open up a third front in the Middle East. Our military would be stretched to the breaking point and our national debt would kill off America’s coveted AAA credit rating once and for all. Then the world would dump Treasurys all at once, the dollar would plunge, we’d be immersed in permanent war, and a debt-free China would step up and become the world’s premiere super-power.
America, like AIG is too big to fail. China is to heavily invested in our ‘debt’ and to entwined into our economy to do anything more than talk.
LOL! Silly conservatives. Right, yonira, China will continue to feed our debt because they have absolutely no choice. Keep believing that, sunshine.
Yonira, you’re either dangerously naive, or spinning hasbara to convince us not to worry about those pesky consequences that come about for the US destabilizing the region by attacking Iran (don’t worry about $10-a-gallon gas prices!).
AIG was NOT too big to fail, It would have failed in the biggest bankruptcy of all time if the US federal government hadn’t stepped in with an $83 billion bailout. You say the US is “too big to fail?” With two wars in the Middle East costing a million dollars per soldier, and a third front in Iran — a shrinking tax base due to an ongoing 10.2% unemployment rate — do you truly believe that the US is “too big to fail?” Unlike Greece, which is effectively bankrupt, we cannot count on the rest of the EU to bail us out. We can keep printing money, yes, but then that will lower our precious AAA credit rating, and give other countries an impetus to bail on Treasurys.
I suspect you’re just maintaining the Zionist hasbara party line: what’s good for Israel is good for the United States . . . we can survive any consequences . . . Obama needs a “wag-the-dog” on steroids moment to show radical Islam it can’t mess with the West . . . all the blah-blah blather the neo-con think-tanks are spewing on Fox News. At the end of the day, however, there is no clear and present danger to the US with Iran — it is not threatening the US in any way.
The most effective solution to this scenario would be to have Israel give up all its nuclear arms, and have Iran do the same.
China, unlike the US, thinks in the long term. They play the long game.
Well, here’s a bright spot inthe inevitable decline of USA world power: Israel will no longer look to us, but move heaven and hell and earth to convince the heirs of the mass-murdering CCP that [1] the Palestinians are a mortal threeat to the PRC [2] the Arabs are a mortal threat to the PRC and [3] that the Moslems are a mortal threat tothe PRC. With a restive Muslim population in Xinjiang, #3 may not be as far-fetched as all that and could gain some traction amongthe giddier minds of the sons anfd daughters of Cathay.
Wonder if the hier sof Mao and Cho and Deng and Lin Pao will be buying that line? More to the point, to what extend will they be willing to sacrifice the national interests of the PRC for the national interests of Israel? I suspectt he Likudists are in for a very rude awakening several decades down the line.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, after a half-century of decline andreally hard times, perhaps the USA gets it’s house back in order and re-emerges as a power. This time a power pursuing it’s own interests, not the interests of israel.
Israel, sad to say, is f*cked if they turn to China for help against Middle Eastern states. To put it crudely… Israel has no oil.
Nor does China have any white guilt over the Shoah. They had their own Shoah.
or a zionist nobility and hordes of servile Leviticus Christian puppets.
it is always interesting to find out what people thought in retrospect. I hope that I am wrong, but I don’t believe that Israel actually wants a two state solution. Things can always get worse, and everything I see so far says that the nadir will be steadily worsening apartheid, folllowed by more expulsions.
Of course they don’t want a two-state solution. What they appear to want is slow-motion ethnic cleansing leading to the annexation of all the land that the 1947 UN partition plan set aside for a Palestinian state. This is the only way they can preserve a Jewish majority and expand their borders at the same time.
Baker really shows up Obama’s amateurishness and inexperience. It really is unfortunate that our two major political parties no longer put up qualified, competent candidates for the Presidency. Then again, I’m not sure they ever did, or that the minor parties are any better.
Ouch. Baker sure didn’t mince words.
And Obama signed over an extra $30 billion for that thuggish regime?
I was hoping for a touch of Angela Davis when I voted for Obama, and now it seems I’m getting more of a Bill Clinton meets George W. Bush – pure corporatist shill who jumps when israel barks.
And as for China, why does that culture – which has been around over 5000 years – feel the need for a military campaign to re-integrate Taiwan? They will naturally re-align and merge over time so it’s a pity the Chinese leadership’s bloodlust and need to flex their military muscle will lead to so much senseless death when they do move against Taiwan … and if they take a cue from Netanyahu they may do it sooner than later
The $30 billion deal was inked under Bush and locks in our approximately $3 billiona year to Israel for 10 years.
These statements by Baker in the NJ piece also bear scrutiny:
” NJ: Secretary Baker, given current circumstances and your long experience with this problem, is a two-state solution still attainable?
Baker: Yes, because everyone knows what a two-state solution looks like and the general formula for getting there. Ed is right — the tough thing is marshaling the necessary political will. In that regard, I always stress a few axioms for negotiating the Arab-Israeli conflict. First, because of our special relationship with Israel and the fact that we’re trusted by the Israelis in ways that other nations are not, you will get no progress toward peace without active U.S. participation. Second, there is no military solution to this conflict, meaning a lasting peace depends on United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338. Three, it’s the hard-liners on both sides that are the real problem.
My fourth axiom is the real Catch-22: Israel will never enjoy real security as long as it occupies Palestinian land, and Palestinians will never achieve an independent state as long as Israel feels insecure. The most important thing the United States can do is help them both out of that conundrum.”
RE: “…and Palestinians will never achieve an independent state as long as Israel feels insecure” – Baker
MY QUESTION: Does Israel ever really seem to feel more secure over time? Or do Israelis seem less and less secure (in their own minds)? If Iran were to disappear, would Israel “feel more secure”? What if Syria and Lebanon also disappeared? Wouldn’t they then obsess about Egypt? and Libya? and Yemen? and Somalia? and…. The Israeli children will still be taken to the Holocaust museums and the concentration camps in Europe. IDF indoctrination will still include a trip to Masada. If Israel were secure, then it would not be Israel. If “Jews” were secure (in the minds of Israeli’s) then there would be no reason for Israel to exist. Consequently, I suspect Israel will “feel insecure” for the indefinite future.
Israel doesn’t exist unless they can whip non-Israeli Jews into a constant state of panic that concentration camps and gas chambers are always just around the corner. Israel could control the Middle East clear to the border with India, and you know what? Then it would be India who was the threat to Jews. Or Europe again.
Zionism is an industry that predicates itself on the exploitation of fear. That’s why you can have the absurd image of Israelis sunning themselves and boozing it up in Tel Aviv, while Gazans are starving and living in misery just down the coast, and yet Israelis worry about “existential threats.”
And check this out:
“NJ: You were the only senior U.S. official to ever use the leverage of U.S. aid to try to halt the continuing construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Did you ever regret that decision?
Baker: No, because if we hadn’t done that, the [1991] Madrid Conference would never have happened. But you have to remember the context. At the time Israel was asking for $10 billion to help them settle Jewish émigrés from the Soviet Union and elsewhere, on top of the $3 billion we were already giving them annually. We had also recently repealed a United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism. We had just decimated the Iraqi military machine, removing a major threat to Israel.
Against that backdrop, we had an opportunity to convene a historic conference where the Arabs were willing to reverse 25 years of policy and meet face-to-face with Israeli leaders. So we told the Israelis that we wouldn’t give them the extra $10 billion unless they agreed to respect the U.S. position regarding settlements. Israeli leaders told us they would just get the money from the U.S. Congress. Our reply was, “We’ll see you on Capitol Hill.” And we eventually won the vote on that bill. So I don’t regret that decision at all.”
Too bad Baker is not president, or Ike.
Nothing like having a brat who thumbs his nose at you while digging into your pocket
for your wallet.
“Too bad Baker is not president, or Ike. ”
Baker the the man who got Bush into the White House. Be careful what you wish for.
OK, point taken. Too bad Nader is not president, or Kucinich.