It looks like the realists are growing weary. The venerable Landrum Bolling has produced a new video, New Hope for Peace: What America Must Do To End The Israel-Palestine Conflict, that looks aimed directly at the Obama White House. In it Bolling interviews Jimmy Carter, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, all of whom offer their advice for the current Obama efforts. There seems to be tinge of concern that the administration isn’t willing to do what needs to be done. Scrowcroft says we have to change the way we have been doing things, while Brzezinski says frustration is widespread. Jimmy Carter takes the cake with the quote that became the title of this post. The message is clear – the US needs to speak clearly about Israel and apply pressure to change conditions on the ground.
If Avigdor Lieberman and the purveyors of the mufti/Hitler-photo gambit in Israeli embassies want to be honest, they might add photos of India’s Congress Party leader Subhas Chandra Bose visiting Germany. He was in Berlin at the same time as the mufti, and for the same reason: to rid his nation of British colonialism.
Christian Zionist and all-around nutter John Hagee last night:
“The chief obstacle to peace in the Middle East is not Israelis living on the West Bank but the regime in Tehran.”
Israeli embassies are circulating a photograph of Hitler meeting the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who once owned the Shepherd’s Hotel and who opposed Jewish settlement in historical Palestine. Settler Avigdor Lieberman is behind this gambit. Well he would be. He’s a blood and soil man himself.
As a contributor to the film Cruel but Necessary: Israeli Opinions about the Settlements and Obama, I wanted to add some perspective on the debates that have developed on Mondoweiss. Those who find the interviews unfair seem to fit into two categories: the first disagree that the views shared in the video are representative of Israelis, and the second agree that they are, but think these perspectives should be kept private. I want to respond to both of these.
When Joe Klein wrote that the neocons had divided loyalties and were selling a “benign domino theory” to make the Middle East safe for Israel, he meant Elliott Abrams. When Tom Friedman told Haaretz that if you’d just kidnapped a bunch of intellectuals within a mile of his office a few years back, there would have been no Iraq war, he meant Abrams too. When Eric Alterman said that of course the neocons had dual loyalties, he meant Abrams. When John Judis said that the Jewish leadership was permeated by dual loyalty, he meant Abrams too.
Netanyahu started selling ethnic cleansing of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as equal opportunity for Jews, and lo, the lobby is parroting him. He has been joined by the Boston Globe, of all places, which prints a repulsive op-ed