Dennis Ross personifies the Israel lobby. That gives him his power, that’s why Obama has him in his administration. Putting Ross in a policy job–the Iran portfolio–makes the lobby happy. And Obama has to keep the lobby happy.
It would be a sign of real independence if Obama could lose this guy whom Bush I and Clinton couldn’t lose either. Here Matt Berkman reminds us that Dennis Ross wrote a book with David Makovsky just a year or so back in which he argued vehemently against an idea that is becoming a tenet of the Obama doctrine in the Middle East: linkage, the (plain as the nose on your face) idea that the Israel/Palestine conflict is linked to America’s fortunes in the Middle East.
So Ross is against a key principle of the Obama administration! And he works for him… Go figure! Berkman:
"Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East” devoted a chapter to debunking the “myth” that Israel’s violent occupation of Palestinian land foments challenges for U.S. foreign policy in the region.
"Of all the policy myths that have kept us from making real progress in the Middle East, one stands out for its impact and longevity: the idea that if only the Palestinian conflict were solved, all other Middle East conflicts would melt away," Ross and Makovsky wrote. "This is the argument of ‘linkage.’"
Makovsky, a frequent commentator on U.S.-Israel relations who never fails to recapitulate this argument, launched into it earlier this month during testimony for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “There are no strict linkages between the Palestinian and Iranian issues,” he said. “Regardless of progress on peace, Iran will seek a nuclear weapon. Moreover, senior Arab security officials say privately that they do not see progress on peace as decisive in influencing Arab efforts to halt Iran in any way.”
Of course, formulated in this way, the “linkage” thesis is an easily refutable straw man. No reasonable observer of the Middle East believes that “all other Middle East conflicts” will “melt away” if the U.S. succeeds in brokering a peace agreement. Nor has anyone ever contended that resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict would “decisively” impact U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran, or that Iran would immediately abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons should the long-suffering Palestinians achieve national self-determination.
But by concocting and then launching an assault on spurious iterations of the “linkage” idea, hawkish Zionists like Ross and Makovsky are attempting to inoculate Israel’s settlement and occupation policies from any criticism that might implicate them in the degeneration of regional security dynamics.
So Ross was against settlement evacuation too? Maybe Obama should blow him off for dinner, or can him.
Pingback: Rick Ross & Ryan Leslie in studio creating Maybachs and Diamonds | Today Auto Blog
Pingback: Does anyone know a store where it sales handbags, purses, or totes? | WHOLESALE CANVAS BAGS
Are we shocked? Really now? I think between Rahm Emmanuel and Dennis Ross (with a smattering of David Axelrod for good measure) we’ve got a pretty good idea who pulls the purse strings in the White House — and in modern American politics, that amounts to pulling all of the strings.
And that is what we can call “strict linkeage.”
The proof in the pudding is that, although the settlements are against declared US and international policy (Except Israel’s), they have been expanding for over 42 years–going on half a century. And, going back farther, even as Israel declared itself a state, we know from recently opened Israeli archives that the Israeli leaders in 1948 were busy expanding, grabbing more land even as Truman was hastily signing his letter recognizing
the new state, in part to beat the USSR to it (the other more major factor being getting
money for his whistlestop campaign and preventing the same zionist money going to
Dewey).
RE: ““There are no strict linkages between the Palestinian and Iranian issues”
As Phil makes clear, this is so–it’s a matter of loose linkeage, as General Patraeus spelled out so recently. The slave question was not the only motive for the US civil war either.
RE: “Dennis Ross personifies the Israel lobby. That gives him his power…” – Weiss
JUST FOREIGN POLICY: Protect Obama from AIPAC on Israeli Settlement Expansion
AIPAC lobbyists are demanding that Congress pressure Obama back down from his opposition to Israeli settlement expansion. Urge your representatives in Congress to support President Obama’s opposition to Israeli settlement expansion.
TO SEND E-MAIL – link to justforeignpolicy.org
ALSO SEE: Zionist Organization of America: Obama’s Israel stance ‘an insult’ to all Jews – Haaretz, 03/27/10
(EXCERPT) The Zionist Organization of America has called U.S. President Barack Obama’s stance on Israel “an insult” to all Jews, in a statement released on Friday. “We consider Obama’s actions an affront and an insult to all Jews in America and throughout all the world,” the statement said. The ZOA also suggested that Obama’s behavior is biased against Israel…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to haaretz.com
Coffe or tea? What’s the difference between the coffee parties and tea parties? Here’s an attempt to delineate the difference–note there’s nothing on US foreign policy in the Middle East, regardless if you attend either party events:
link to 1-800-www.helium.com
A MOT’s look at the grass roots USA tea party phenomenon :
link to jewishjournal.com
Pls consider the source.
David Makovsky wrote:
“There are no strict linkages between the Palestinian and Iranian issues….”
Well of course there are, thereby requiring Makovsky to say the Iranians are liars when they expressly say there are. Just as he and other Israeli partisans have to say bin Laden is a liar for saying there is a linkage between the I/P conflict and al Queda and 9/11. Just as they have to say everyone’s a liar who said there was a linkage between the oil embargo of ’73 and U.S. support for Israel.
What’s particularly delicious now however is that yet another link that was always there has just been brought front and center again with the Arab League calling for a nuclear-free Mideast pact. (Which of course would not just mean Iran would pledge and agree to verification of no nukes, but Israel would too.)
But Israel of course has always refused this idea, showing it’s more interested in just being the *only* nuke power in the ME than having no nukes whatsoever in the region. Very funny now however that Israel is constantly saying that Iran’s nukes threaten the whole world though: Puts Israel to the point of whether it is willing to really actually *do* something for the rest of the world or not.
Sunday hasbara
Dershowitz: Obama needs hard line on Iran to win Israeli support
I think Pres. Obama knows exactly with whom he is dealing. If her were under any illusions, the barbarous treatment of his Vice President has cleared the air. Israel is no more a democracy than apartheid South Africa. Israel does not need the clear support of the US to make peace. Ehud Barak’s offers in 2000/2001 were anything but generous.
Dershowitiz is under the misimpression that we have to persuade Israelis of anything. All we have to do is defeat the Israel Lobby and sever relations with an apartheid state engaged in ethnic cleansing and colonization.
I wonder if he actually believes any of this nonsense. The American people are far, far more concerned with jobs, job security, and health care than with Iran. We learned to coexist with a Soviet Union armed with 10′s of thousands of nuclear weapons, most aimed at us. We’ll muddle along just fine with a nuclear Iran.
The Dersh is a traitor, an Israel-first Zionist who believes the goyim are rubes, and can be convinced of anything. You’ve got to watch the tape of Dersh with J Street’s Susskind to see the true Dersh in action, trying to squelch J Street by seducing Susskind and team to be absorbed by AIPAC and have its disagreements with the right-wingers “in private.” The most intellectually dishonest man on the planet, shocking in his smashmouth tactics, a guy who claims to defend American rights of free speech while destroying the careers of Finkelstein, Cole and threatening college students who attempt to organize BDS.
When Iran can build, from their own resources, a goddam jet plane which can fly from Iran to the US, I’ll start to worry. Maybe.
Who the fuck needs “Israeli support”?
Like a cholera we need it.
When Kinky Friedman was voted “Jew of the Year” (as he referred to the award) by some American Jewish organization a few years ago, he was moderately pleased until he found out the previous year’s recipient was Alan Dershowitz. As Kinky said: “If you made a pie chart of Dershowitz’s brain, you would have 1% legal ethics and 99% Larry King Live.”
Pingback: Download Free 3 MP3 – Britney Spears | Best Download Reviews | Britney Spears Celebrity Monitor
Can this be a case of : “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”?
Ross is inside, where it’s [we hope] slightly easier to isolate and to amrginalize him.
Pingback: TraVotez