Bit by bit, now in a piece on the "pro-Israel lobby," Andrew Sullivan works his way toward the crucial understanding of the Israel lobby’s role in nullifying American policy in Israel/Palestine. There is simply no way to explain the policy nullification, with respect to settlements, over 7 or 8 US presidencies, without talking about a special interest. And you cannot then talk about the special interest without talking about its lopsided size in the American political process.
No one in Washington – apart from a few Likudniks and Palinite end-timers – actually supports more settlements or any settlements in the West Bank. At the same time, Washington exercizes a UN veto to protect Israel from international law, funnels a vast amount of foreign and military aid to the country, helped finance the pulverization of Gaza last year, provides absurd international cover for Israel’s 150 nukes, has worked tirelessly to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capacity, and on and on.
In return? Fuck you, Obama. To which the overwhelming response in Washington is: Obama screwed up.
Even Haaretz is franker about this process than our media: "[T]he [Obama] administration will avoid taking any position that suggests disagreement with Israel, because of the support that Israel enjoys among both parties in Congress." Why? One must talk about money, media, and religious belief.
Its because Israel is sovereign, and currently governed by an advocate for settlements, formerly governed by those that accepted or criticized settlements, but didn’t fight them.
The relationship with Israel is complex, and Netanyahu is playing Obama. At some point he will lose patience, but his assessment of lesser of two evils will likely still rest with Israel, more reluctant than enthused though.
“Its because Israel is sovereign, and currently governed by an advocate for settlements, formerly governed by those that accepted or criticized settlements, but didn’t fight them.”
Israel is only sovereign within the 1967 borders Witty, and it’s government only has jurisdiction within those borders. No one argued against pushing Saddam out of Kuwait on the grounds that Iraq was a sovereign state.
A good point. My point was relative to the expectation that “US dictates, Israel does”. It doesn’t work like that in practice.
Well, not completely, just mostly, e.g., with poor nations like Haiti that tilted the final vote in the UN for partition. The general rule in practice is a country exercises true sovereignty in proportion to how economicanly independent it is, just as with individuals. The lone exception is Israel, which does what it wants eeven though it is dependent on US dollars and UN Sec Veto. Iran is trying desperately to remain and retain its sovereign independence; Egypt is sovereign in
name only, its regime was bought and sold by the USA to benefit Israel.
BDS activists should look at stopping Israel’s accession to the OECD.
Israel’s OECD Bid Poses Problems for Members
Once justice dwelled in Jerusalem, now settlers do
By Avraham Burg
Greater, unified Jerusalem is being torn apart. The Israeli – Jewish and Arab – capital is becoming the capital of the hallucinatory, dangerous fanatics. This is not the city of all its residents nor the capital of all its citizens. It is a sad city that belongs to its settlers, its ultra-Orthodox, its violent residents and its messiahs.
We also need people like Burg to make proposal, not just prophesy.
link to haaretz.com
As I recall, it was Israel who unilaterally declared Jerusalem its capital by act of the Knesset in 1980.
Also of note, Menechim Begin, on the day after the UN vote on 181:
So who are the dangerous, hallucinatory fanatics, specifically?
” A good point. My point was relative to the expectation that “US dictates, Israel does”. It doesn’t work like that in practice.”
That pretty much debunks your entire platform doesn’t it Witty? Your advocacy for a hands off approach and coddling of Israel and how this is supposed to bring about change. I’m glad you accept your position is fundamentally flawed, even though you are insisting on it.
Frankness is rare. To be frank, who wants the settlements is a handful of reactionary Jewish billionaires, mostly American, who keep pumping money into the projects and pumping more money into the pit of corruption in Congress.
Nowhere will you see this discussed.
It’s a problem being a billionaire. The capitol doesn’t help the nation and the media moguls will never target other wealthy friends/colleagues.
The recession has at least done some good by taking big bites out of the coffers of Leviev and Adelson, may their funds decrease.
“Who wants settlements” evidently includes potsherd‘s “handful of reactionary Jewish billionaires, mostly American” but it is surely a larger group (including those — among the 25% [??] of Americans who are fundamentalist Christian Protestants — who hope for the war of Armeggedon) and importantly including the militarists/merchants of death in particular (whom, in our carefully polite language, we in the US call the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex). I have reluctantly joined Noam Chomsky in the belief that the MICC is the important factor, and not the AIPAC element of The Lobby, and the Jewish neocons, etc., could be thrown out on their collective ears in a heartbeat if the MICC did not desire to keep the Israel/Palestine conflict “boiling.”
The MICC has little skin in the settlement game. The only money in settlements is in bulldozers and concrete.
The real game for the MICC is in the Iran arena. If they can foment another mideast war, the settlements can go hang.
“There is something completely awry here and it has rarely been more evident than in the last twelve months.”
Andrew, it’s been completely awry for decades, including when you were fully supportive of the awry-ness. Glad you’ve come to this realization, even if its rather late in the day.
Goldberg writes:
…it is true that a small minority — fundamentalist settlers — has kept Israel entangled in the lives of the Palestinians on the West Bank…
Is Goldberg ignorant of the facts or is he a habitual liar like WaPo’s Cohen and NYT’s Bronner?
It’s convenient to characterize those “fundamentalist settlers” as a “small minority” when the entire colonization enterprise in the occupied territories of the West Bank was started, financed, facilitated, protected and defended by the State of Israel.
It’s not these settlers, or more precisely colonists, who are the obstacle for withdrawal from the occupied territories, it’s the Israeli government that has created them and continues to support them.
After 1967, Israel needed to create facts on the ground and Judaize the occupied territories, in turn, it propped up the so-called settler movement and encouraged them to take acre after acre from Palestinians.
Today, that “small minority”, is a rather gigantic majority comprised of close to 500,000 individuals.
If the Israeli government did not want them to take over the occupied territories like looters after a hurricane, it would not have awarded them monetary incentives to live on occupied land.
It would not have granted those colonists tax breaks to live on occupied land.
It would not have provided students with shuttle buses to and from schools in Israel proper.
It would not have granted them discounts on home appliances, transportation (cars) and utilities.
It would not have provided them with 24/7 military protection.
It would not have built for them security fences around the perimeter of each colony, fences that rival the border fence with Syria and Jordan with their advanced sensors and surveillance technologies.
It would not have provided them with permits to obtain as many guns and automatic weapons they wish.
But, since the likes of Jeffery Goldberg are no different than the liars in the mainstream media, including liars like Bronner, Cohen and Blitzer, he takes little issue with mischaracterizing, nay lying, about these fundamentalist Jewish fanatics.
Incidentally, Yigal Amir who murdered Rabin belonged to a group of such fanatics that resided and operated in the colonies of the occupied territories of the West Bank.
In the coming years, while Israel will be forced to undergo a transformation, Zionists in the US would still be clinging to Hertzel’s dream.
Then one day they’ll wake up from their stupor and wonder, “When did that happen? We were following news from Israel on a regular basis.”
“Is Goldberg ignorant of the facts or is he a habitual liar like WaPo’s Cohen and NYT’s Bronner?”
Habitual liar, considerably worse than Bronner. Goldberg made his name in the New Yorker with a spectacular (and wrong) article linking Saddam to Al Qaeda. As is usual in the MSM, he paid for this blunder by having a very successful career and lots of respect, because his blunder benefited the plans of the powerful.
He also wrote a despicable condescending article on Hezbollah for the New Yorker–I particularly remember the mocking tone he adopted towards a museum about torture inflicted on prisoners by Israel and its SLA allies. He couldn’t be bothered to check with human rights groups to find out if the accusations were plausible because he was having too much fun ridiculing the museum for the amusement of the sophisticated (provincial rube Manhattanites) who read the New Yorker.