President Obama held fundraisers in New York yesterday. One was at the “Tribeca home of Alexandra Stanton and Sam Natapoff,” political people active in the social/philanthropic world. They had 60 guests.
As you can see below in the foreign policy excerpt, Obama devoted 5 paragraphs, about 40 percent of his speech, to Israel and Palestine– an issue he says “so many people in this room are knowledgeable about.” Notice that Obama flies right by Syria and Afghanistan to get to Israel, that he got one of his only applause lines for saying he’d just visited Israel and the West Bank, that he praises the heck out of Israel’s achievements, and that the recommendations here are meaningless.
The “window of opportunity [for a peace deal] is growing smaller by the day,” he warns, then urges “those who are committed to peace here in this country continue to make their voices heard and continue to speak out… [including] on Capitol Hill.”
Here is the foreign policy portion of Obama’s speech:
So we’ve got a big agenda here at home. But we also have a big agenda internationally. Obviously, all of us are deeply concerned about what’s happening in Syria. And my administration has worked with international partners to mobilize humanitarian aid, nonlethal assistance to the opposition, isolating Assad, and continuing to press for political transition that ends the slaughter and brings about an end to the Assad regime.
We also have a lot of unfinished business with respect to Afghanistan. Our troops are coming home and we’re transitioning out. But it’s still a very dangerous place. And we have to make sure that the gains that have been made are sustained. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re being vigilant when it comes to dealing with al Qaeda and other terrorist elements.
And then, something that so many people in this room are knowledgeable about, the peace process and reinvigorating a sense of hope and possibility for both Israelis and Palestinians. One of the highlights, obviously, of this early second term was the trip that I was able to take to Israel and to the Palestinian Authority and to the West Bank. (Applause.) And what made the trip so incredible was not only the capacity to see the incredible progress that Israel has made on so many fronts — we looked at science exhibitions and to see how the economy is transforming itself into a high-tech, entrepreneurial center, and to have a chance to talk to young people who are doing so many incredible things.
But what was also encouraging was the sense that for all the difficulties, for all the setbacks, for all the false starts, deep down there’s still this incredible desire for peace. It exists in Israel. It exists among the Palestinians. And the question is can we create a framework in which to actually finally deliver on that promise, particularly because the window of opportunity is growing smaller by the day. And in some ways, it’s more difficult because of the incredible tumult that’s taking place throughout the Middle East.
When change is happening so fast — and in some cases, so chaotically and sometimes violently — it makes people tend not to take risks. On the other hand, precisely because those changes are taking place all around the region, Israel’s security and the prospect of Palestinian statehood all requires that those risks are taken and they’re taken now.
And in order for us to achieve that, it’s going to be important that John Kerry and my administration continue to work this thing very hard. But part of what’s going to be required is also that those who are committed to peace here in this country continue to make their voices heard and continue to speak out. So many of you already have and are already making a difference, but I urge you to continue. And it’s going to have to happen not just in interactions with the State Department or my administration — you’re going to have to be vocal on Capitol Hill as well.
And if we sustain that, then in fits and starts — it will be difficult, it will be tough, there will be times where it feels like we’re going backwards instead of forwards — I believe that in the end, peace can be achieved. I am a big believer in a quote that I took from Dr. King, but I think describes my general perspective about both America and our future, but also our role in the world, and that is that, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It requires persistence, it requires tenacity, but in the end, I think that good overcomes evil, and light overcomes darkness. And that’s what we have to strive for every single day, and that’s how I intend to spend the three and a half years that I have remaining as President, and I couldn’t have done that without the help of all of you.
So thank you very much. (Applause.)
Not a word about settlements or a two-state solution. I guess Obama is punting on the issue. But punting oleaginously. This is evidence for why Obama was “absolutely livid” last summer when the Democratic Platform did not include language stating that Jerusalem must not be divided and will always be the capital of Israel– because of fundraising on the issue “so many people in this room are knowledgeable about.”
Obama did not mention the Israel/Palestine issue in his first stop, at Harvey Weinstein’s house in Tribeca. Nor at his third stop at the Waldorf. The pool reporter on the Stanton fundraiser reported:
Elderly pooler tramped up 5 flights of stairs into the Stanton residence and into what appeared to be a dining room. There were six tables of 10 in a rose colored room with light gold curtains.
RE: “Not a word about settlements or a two-state solution. I guess Obama is punting on the issue. But punting oleaginously.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: During the next four years, the Israel-Palestine conflict will be Obama’s “Chinatown”. Like that “nosy fella”* Jake Gittes when he was assigned to Chinatown, Obama will do “as little as possible” regarding Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Expect to see a heavily camouflaged policy of “benign neglect”. “I get burned once, shame on them; I get burned twice, shame on me!”
* Nosy Fella – Chinatown (1/9) Movie CLIP (1974) [VIDEO, 01:13] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2y-Tkn7eg
FROM THE 1974 FILM CHINATOWN:
SOURCE – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/quotes
Citizens United is second only to 9/11 in being the best thing that’s happened to Israel in this new century. While American public support for Israel is at long last crumbling, the super rich Zionists can still contribute as much as they please to keep Zionism on life support with no end in sight. Interestingly, team Obama at the IRS seems to have a bigger problem with Tea Party funding, which supports the views of an American constituency, than they do with rich Zionists whose only concern is with a foreign country.
Not much ‘change we can believe in’ in that speech. I can imagine how humiliated Obama must have felt sucking up to pro-Israel donors and spouting what he must know is nonsense, in order to keep the cash rolling in to his administration and the Democratic Party. Sometimes I truly believe he wishes he had never run for president, never left Chicago. At this point, so do I.
Obama is a ventriloquist dummy……’the Dems and I luv,luv,luv Israel, Give us the money, money,money.
BWTTGASO
Minds like the one that wrote this article and the reasoning process of google’s Larry Page on recongizing Palestine gives me hope that there is some little nugget of ‘social intelligence out there. Now if only the techonological leaders could/would make a ‘political movement’ out of ‘Sociological Jurisprudence’ we could clean up I/P and a lot of other problems.
Google Palestine: Larry Page’s Sociological Jurisprudence
13 May 2013
Ahmed Teleb
‘Making the decision for Google to change google.ps’ website to mention “Palestine,” CEO Larry Page didn’t look at international law. Instead, he looked at what social institutions had done regarding Palestine. In turn, Google too followed suit.
Google’s decision on May 3 to change google.ps’ tagline to “Palestine,” implicitly recognized it as a state. It also encapsulated a jurisprudence (philosophy of law) that harkens back to a world-wide quasi-revolution in law from 100 years ago, called by many at the time, the solution to “a crisis of democracy.” Today, that approach may herald a new period of legal transition as recent technology and new economic realities collide with old laws and rights. Larry Page’s decision, after noting international practice and consulting with international social and economic organizations (UN, ICANN, ISO), illustrates what was termed “sociological jurisprudence” 100 years ago. It is worth a closer look because of its attractiveness to the 21st Century mind.
At the turn of the 20th Century raged a debate (begun in the 1870s in America) in legal circles in the US, Europe, and European Colonies, regarding the relationship of law to society. New social realities and economic organizations forced governments (especially in rural American States) to legislate to protect farmers, consumers, and workers, often clashing with older notions of rights and freedoms. In the United States, this pushed the Progressive Era head on into a Supreme Court with 19th Century ideas about property rights in the famous and infamous Lochner v. NY case. A law limiting work hours for bakers was struck down as an unconstitutional infringement on “liberty of contract” in a 5-4 decision.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, dissenter in the case, and Roscoe Pound (Dean of Harvard Law School), expressed views around the time that were termed “sociological jurisprudence” by others. Edouard Lambert in France and Eugen Ehrlich in Austria were their European analogs, and it was likely Ehrlich who coined the term “sociological jurisprudence.” It is his approach, it seems, that Larry Page recently adopted.
In Holmes’ view, law had always included a “social element” often obliging individuals to conform to group obligations even without “fault,” as expressed in The Common Law. He traced the social character of law through Roman, Germanic, English and American law. For him, “new” social and economic legislation that began with the 1870s Granger Laws was not at all novel in the larger view of history.
Dean Pound, on the other hand, historicized law not as legislation, but as “fundamental” rights themselves. He pointed out that rights and freedoms stem from the outlook and needs of each time period. With respect to the 18th and 19th Centuries in the west, freedom “to do what one will with one’s property” reflected the culmination of the Age of Discovery and the Era of Colonization. Society sought to encourage exploration, pioneering, and domestication through individual initiative that, in turn, it rewarded and protected. Moreover, Pound argued, law changes were made in character from a closed, formal system, during periods of socio-economic stability, into an open, reflective system during periods of rapid change. During such epochs of change, law would open up to society and philosophy to receive society’s new values and ends. These, in turn, would constitute the new rights and laws of the following era.
On the continent, Eugen Ehrlich took sociological jurisprudence a step further in the direction of political theory. In his view, that turned Hobbes on his head; law was not a product of the state or a sovereign but rather of a society that pre-dated the state and was logically prior to it. He cited examples of non-states throughout history where courts and judicial institutions exercised important roles. Those “social laws” were not always written in the form of statutes or cases, but were generally followed and enforced.
This is Larry Page’s view. Making the decision for Google, he didn’t look at written international law or law decreed or enforced by states. Page looked at what social institutions, like the UN and ICANN had done regarding Palestine. Since they and other international actors, including states, had treated it as a state for all intents and purposes, Google would follow suit.”
Ehrlich’s and Page’s approach is attractive to 21st Century thought for several reasons. First, it puts all social organizations on an equal footing. This relates to “net-neutrality” and open access to information and publicity. Second, it privileges organizational and social practice over the use of force. After all, the one missing element in Palestinian statehood is territorial integrity, akin to the ability to secure its borders. If almost everyone treats Palestine as a country in all other respects, then that should settle it. Third, it puts actual social practice over law in theory or “law in the books” as promulgated by political entities. Yes, both international law and even the UN Charter call for “territorial integrity” but the fact of the matter is that a people called the Palestinians elect a government, police themselves, and send and receive diplomats to other countries. In the sociological jurisprudence sense, Palestine is a state.
Lastly, sociological jurisprudence à la Larry Page, feels radically democratic. It is not the use of deadly military force, nor the decisions of political elites that determine what law-in-practice is, but rather people’s day-to-day values-as-practiced, or even if enforced only by habit, social pressure, or mutual agreement. Perhaps Page has given law professors and political scientists something to write about for a few years. He may have also just sparked another revolution in jurisprudence.”
http://www.fairobserver.com/article/google-palestine-larry-pages-sociological-jurisprudence