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Palestinians not ready to play Broadway, need more time in dinner theaters

The Dubai insult is at last breaking down the doors of the American discourse. Maybe those Palestinians aren’t so crazy? Israeli Palestinian Ahmad Tibi is printed in the Times. Oh: that’s The Washington Times, breaking the news about Jim Crow:

We are entering a time period similar to that faced by the United States 50 years ago. Then, at long last, some American allies finally were waking up to the reality of Jim Crow discrimination in the American South and not liking what they saw. Israel’s policies are putting it in league with the West’s most notoriously racist governments of the past five decades. So far this year, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned of Israel becoming "an apartheid state," and Mr. Baker expressed concern that if Israel did not find a "negotiated peace" it could become "an apartheid type of nation." Neither man thought that day had arrived yet, but we Palestinians see it every day with the separation wall running through the West Bank and East Jerusalem and different Israeli laws for Jews and Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Israel’s response to its declining international standing, however, is to put out propaganda rather than wrestle with the fundamental injustices meted out to Palestinians every day.

And Amjad Atallah, Palestinian-American, is printed in the Times. Wait, that’s The LA Times.

Israeli-Arab peace is an over-riding American national security objective, but it is also a hot-button issue domestically. Those who think Israel’s borders are set by divine fiat probably can’t be won over. But they are not the majority, and those who are worried about Israel’s security can be convinced of the need to move forward. The majority of American Jews (including the 78% who voted for Obama), and the majority of American Muslims, American Christians and American Arabs all agree with the president’s reading of this conflict. But the president needs to energize them to be his support network as he presses for an agreement.

This conflict remains an impediment to America’s interests in the Middle East. We have no choice but to engage fully in ending it.

In fairness: Amjad Atallah is on the New York Times website, too. With the usual neocontext.

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