Ron Klein, a Florida congressman, puts out a statement saying, "I am deeply disappointed that even after the Israeli government apologized, State Department and White House officials have sustained their condemnations against the State of Israel, using harsh terms." He wants to get back to the Iran issue! Palestinians just incite violence, he says.
Howard Berman, chairman of House Foreign Affairs, released this statement on the contretemps today. Notice that it ends on the issue of inciting violence: Mughrabi square in the West Bank. Shelley Berkley of Nevada is also exercised about this: "Where was the outrage when the Palestinian Authority this week named a town square after a woman who helped carry out a massive terror attack against Israel?“
(I ask you to imagine how many town squares in Muslim Occupied India would be named after suicide bombers if Pakistan wasn’t a state, 62 years after the people there were promised one by the world and India said they don’t deserve one because they’re violent….) Berman:
"The Administration had real justification for being upset with the timing of the settlements announcement. A process was supposed to be in place to keep the United States from being blindsided by just such a development, and yet once again we were blindsided. The Israeli leadership needs to get this right and put a system in place so it won’t happen again.
“But let’s put the situation in perspective. The United States and Israel have very good cooperation on any number of matters, and this will continue. These include keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the Goldstone Report, and security assistance. U.S.-Israel security ties are in many ways closer than they have ever been, and they are certainly far stronger than the news stories of the past few days would lead one to believe.
“We need to disentangle bilateral relations from the peace process. Let’s keep in mind that peace talks are not a gift to one party or the other. They are an opportunity for both parties, Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom badly need peace. The Palestinians may not like an Israeli announcement about prospective housing in Jerusalem, and the Israelis may not like the Palestinians naming a town square after a brutal terrorist, but the talks need to go forward.”
There’s so much going on behind the scenes in this situation — it’s Phil’s prophecy come true. The War of Ideas in the Middle East has finally broken out.
As an Israel-firster, Berman seems to be doing a mea culpa on behalf of Israel to put the “kerfluffle” behind the two “longtime allies and friends.” It’s going to be very interesting to see how Hillary deals with her keynote at AIPAC, while she knows Haim Saban is watching and has promised her a river of gold to oppose Obama for the Dem nomination in 2012. Does she have the cojones to stay the course, or will she fold?
One thing’s for certain — the AIPAC-WINEP-JPPPI-CAMERA crowd must be caterwauling like a jilted schoolgirl over this “family feud.” The world is watching this diplomatic crisis and waiting to see how it plays out. Electronic Intifada thinks it’s all a choreographed show to make it seem as if the US is an honest broker for Mideast peace. If Ali is right, then it will be up to the EU to step in and disintermediate Obama’s inept crew.
“Electronic Intifada thinks it’s all a choreographed show to make it seem as if the US is an honest broker for Mideast peace. If Ali is right, then it will be up to the EU to step in and disintermediate Obama’s inept crew.”
I like how they think.
And as for the EU stepping in…let us be realistic here. Action would be needed, not more words.
Europe’s sluggish, not stupid. I think sooner or later, they will act. Sooner or later the cost-benefit analysis of being dragged down by the US and Israel will compel them to do nothing otherwise.
If nothing else, Iraq after Afghanistan has shown them that.
Europe’s sluggish, not stupid.
Not stupid, but driven by the interests of its ruling elites, just like everyone else. Don’t hold your breath.
Europe is badly split politically. The Right needs an enemy and the Clash of Civilizations with Islam serves as that purpose, and that puts the Right and part of the Center on the side of the Israelis. The Left is more sympathetic to the Palestinians, but is in disarray and doesn’t have a coherent political platform at the moment. As a result I-P as a subject ends up as a proxy for domestic politics, and in reality European governments have handed over the decision-making to the United States.
More likely that Brazil, Turkey and China will at some point step up and insist the playing field be leveled. Sad to say, but Europe appears increasingly to be a spent force.
Bruce,
Europe’s current economic and political leaders, both on the centre-right and the centre-left, are fundamentally pro-US and pro-Israel, and this is unlikely to change any time soon. Israel’s “right to exist as a Jewish state” for example, is recognised across virtually the entire political spectrum, and the two-state solution (according to the inherently skewed Oslo-Geneva process) is gospel in Europe. Discourse may be a little freer and public opinion a little better informed, but that has little effect on the decisions taken in Brussels, Berlin or Paris. Our parliamentarians may chatter a little, but it is the European Commission (representing the ruling governments in member states) that makes the actual decisions, and these inevitably favour Israel, the US and international capital.
The discourse “may be a little freer and public opinion a little better informed” in Europe, but the populist Right is also much better organized politically than in the US, and let’s face it they are approaching 25% of the vote or more.
The center-left had decided it needs to compete with the populist Right for middle and working class votes, and the Parties have had ties with pro-Israel elites forever. It seems to me the left is quite marginalized, the most since the War, whereas one would think the economic situation would have provided an opportunity. On I-P, I observe the populist left as more sympathetic to the Palestinians at this point.
I accept much of what you say, but I don’t see the reasons that ruling governments would “inevitably” favor Israel and the US. I do see why center-right governments favor the US, and having watched them and their supporters for forty years, I conclude the main reason is due to domestic politics. International capital is too big a subject to take on here.
I am writing from Oslo, so maybe that skews my thinking somewhat, but Norway takes the most independent line in Europe on I-P.
I would not have believed 5 years ago that a majority of Norwegians would now be in favor of having their troops in Afghanistan as a recent poll indicated, but that is the case. Immigration and the GWOT has had a really pernicious effect on European politics.
Bruce,
I also accept much of what you say, but maybe writing from Rome skews my thinking somewhat ;-)
I think there a number of reasons for the centre-left inevitably favouring Israel and the US, including competition with the centre-right on issues of immigration (and accompanying anti-Islamic sentiment), but also an attempt to distance itself from its radical (often communist) past, presenting a more “moderate” face to voters. All of this is inexorably linked to economic interests and the global economy – perhaps too big a subject to take on here, but nonetheless crucial to policy and decision-making in Europe, whether those making the decisions call themselves reformists, socialists, progressives, democrats, populars, centrists, moderates or conservatives.
Completely agree. Europe at least for now has moved right, and I attribute it to the effects of economic globalization.
Not to be the silver lining on the cloud, but if it really is linked to economic interests and the global economy, then the next time the US economy plunges off the same cliff it did a year or so ago (which shouldn’t be all that far off), the tune will change.
The “legacy of 68″ debate (at least in Italy and France, and I assume Germany) should not be underestimated. Many centre-left politicians came up through the radical left, and have been doing their best in recent years to distance themselves from the image of long-haired keffiyeh-wearing protesters clashing with police. Palestine is a fundamental part of that legacy – no less than Che Guevara and Mao. Defending Israel’s “right to exist”, supporting a lukewarm TSS and a “responsible” attitude to Israeli settlement and human rights violations – so as not to “jeopardise US peace efforts” – are part and parcel of that rehabilitation (both as individuals and as political parties).
How come they don’t talk about Operation Wrath of God in Europe, then?
I don’t understand your question, Chaos.
I think I misunderstood. I assumed that “legacy of 68″ referred to the Munich Olympics (yeah, I double checked, 1972). Maybe I should ask a different question first — what do you mean by legacy of 68?
Sorry, Chaos. I should have explained. 1968 was the year of the student revolt in much of Europe – particularly in France and Italy. It was very radical and changed society profoundly – politically, religiously, culturally, sexually. Much of the welfare state, progressive attitudes to education, mental health, labour laws, gender equality and Europe itself can be traced back to the student movement of that time. In recent years there has been a conservative reaction, an attempts to “turn the clock back”, to “abolish the legacy of ’68″.
The tune will change, but I-P will hardly be on the top of US worries.
Imagine what politics you are going to get after the next economic crash.
Okay what I don’t understand is why that isn’t easy for Europeans on the left to fight. You have a conservative movement that hearkens back to… what? The time of the World Wars? The Dark Ages?
Even putting that aside, can’t the short reply to conservatism in Europe be, “Look what it’s doing to America! Let’s elect a European Bush!”
I continue to be baffled by conservative thought. It defies logic.
If we’re all lucky, Bruce? Total isolationism. Then at least Middle Eastern families can stop worrying about the next F-16 or Predator drone or Blackwater “contractor” or CACI “intelligence specialist.”
Isolationism is no longer possible. It would get in the way of “free” trade. The powers that beep would not stand for it. On that, the US and EU are in complete sync.
Yeah. We’ll see if the insular, xenophobic, largely white American public that still has the market cornered on “primary voting base” in American discourse will keep playing along with that. I don’t think people understand just what the Tea Party movement is evolving toward.
Not to take away from your points, this is just an aside…
Are jilted schoolgirls not allowed to caterwaul without being thought less of or otherwise criticized for it?
I’m not sure who Mugrabi is, but I find that comparing the naming of a town square after a ‘evil person’ (i’m taking that at face value for now) to the active erasure of Palestinians going on this very minute to be ludicrous. Quite the farce, eh?
Btw, what the hell does disentangling bilateral relations from the peace process ultimately entail? Translation: “Just accept continued ethnic cleansing…it’ll be over within 50 years!”
Israel recently issued commemorative stamps in honor of those terrorists.
Of course, in Israel and in many circles in the US, those terrorists are being hailed as “freedom fighters”.
“We are Israel’s bestest friend in the world! We will always be their friend and we will always have their interests at heart! So, of course, that has absolutely nothing to do with our offer to be a neutral arbiter between Israel and the vile Palestinians.”
Seriously? Are these the people we vote for? As a country?
It makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
Usually, “special relationship” has “friends with benefits” connotations and it seems to me that the US is the one getting screwed while Israel is the one doing all the screwing in this relationship.
What I don’t get is how I can see this innate contradiction for what it is, and so can most of here, but the average American it apparently goes completely over their heads.
It’s beginning to feel like I’m in a zombie movie, only instead of drooling over the chance to eat my brains, they’re all shambling around mumbling barely coherent phrases like “Islamofascism” and “Iraqi (or presently, Iranian) nukes” and “keep socialism away from mah Medicare.”
Medicare is the public option for those over the age of 65.
Duh, yonira? I know it’s difficult, but try to keep up, would you?
For a little while the 60s/70s hippie Hillary who supports Palestine has reemerged, but will she quickly put back on her zionist shawl? She is probably the best weathervane to watch as to where this is going – and I bet it is no accident that this all happened right before AIPAC (who will get the most attention they’ve ever received as all try to decipher the words in the speeches and the posturing)
Indeed; more directly if honoring terrorists is a sign of bad faith, then surely Israel, say, wouldn’t do it. They did put a plaque to commemorate the bombing of the King David Hotel. the UK protested. Does anybody know if the plaque was removed? Oh dear, in fact the Knesset held a eulogy for several famous Israeli mass murderers, including a massacre of civilian Palestinians on a bus, just last week. The arab members of the Knesset protested, to no effect.
Are the actions of the Knesset somehow different? Enquiring minds want to know.
Actually, they were removed from the chambers entirely, as I recall reading.
“Jewish AND democratic,” yup-yup!
“Where was the outrage when the Palestinian Authority this week named a town square after a woman who helped carry out a massive terror attack against Israel?“
Where were YOU when Israel’s leadership, both Kadima and Likud saluted and honored Zionist militia terrorists? Apparently numbnuts didn’t get the memo about Oleh Hagardom.
The Israeli leadership needs to get this right and put a system in place so it won’t happen again.
Sure. You see folks, the problem is the timing of the announcement, otherwise Israel can go on stealing more land, evicting more Palestinians and building more illegal colonies to its heart’s content. Meanwhile, the hypocrites in DC still think the Arabs are dumb enough to swallow that “honest broker” nonsense whole.
The f**** arrogance of the US is astounding.
Could someone tell me what Shelley Berkeley is referring to? Which town square was named after who?
They’re referring to this woman who was responsible for the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978, in which 38 Israelis died.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Notice how her Wikipedia entry labels her a “militant” in the very first line, but Baruch Goldstein’s entry doesn’t label him a “militant” even in the first paragraph.
In fact, her act is called a “terrorist attack”, but his isn’t.
He “was a physician”, the reader is told.
Now look at the entry about her in Wikipedia Arabic (using Google translate if you can’t read Arabic) and you suddenly find out that she was born in the Sabra (of the well known Sabra and Shatila) refugee camp near Beirut in 1958 and belonged to a group called “Deir Yassin”.
Now the article in English makes no mention of those two facts. In fact, the English version states that she belonged to the Fatah movement while the Sabra Refugee camp and Deir Yassin are nowhere to be found in that entry.
God forbid English readers were introduced to those two names, eh? Surely, no one would want to “open the 1948 files” as Eran Shayshon told Naomi Klein.
Avi, do you consider hers an act of terrorism? Does her coming from Sabra make her act any less vicious? Would you rather they call her a freedom fighter?
I’d consider them both terrorists.
Do you consider Moshe Dayan a terrorist, yonira? How about Ariel Sharon? Golda Meir?
They all masterminded attacks on civilians. Particularly within the borders of other countries.