What a contrast between the bellicose rhetoric and actions that the Bush administration deployed against Saddam Hussein’s regime three years ago and the pathetic bleats it is issuing against Iran today. Back in 2002-2003, the Bushies were threatening (and preparing to use) a concerted military attack in order to meet the strong “concerns” it had voiced about Saddam’s WMD program. Today, the worst threat that hawkish ambassador to the UN John Bolton can muster is to suggest that,
- if the Security Council doesn’t take tough action, the United States might look elsewhere to punish Iran — possibly by rallying its allies to impose targeted sanctions.
Many things have happened in the interim, of course. Firstly, the US military has become majorly bogged down in Iraq, where 130,000 US troops are deployed in positions extremely vulnerable to attack– especially by any forces sympathetic to Teheran, of which there are many inside Iraq. So Washington has zero possibility of mounting any credible threat of a major military intervention against Teheran. Bolton and Co. have ramped up the rhetoric against Iran a lot in recent months. But it is all hot air. Its major effect has been to stiffen Iranian defiance in response.
Second, of course nobody this time round, after what happened in Iraq, would take seriously any amount of questionable “information” the Bushies might claim they had that would point to an Iranian breakout from the NPT. And let’s remember that Iran still has not broken out of the NPT.
(AP reported Thursday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on state television that, “We don’t want to be the ones to remind [everyone] who was right and who was not in Iraq, although the answer is obvious,”)
Third, the Bushies themselves have taken major steps to shred the NPT, culminating in last week’s decision to give India a completely free pass on its defiance of the whole NPT approach to cooperative, multilateral nonproliferation efforts.
My base-line on nuclear nonproliferation is firstly that I am strongly committed to creating a world without any nuclear weapons (or other WMDs), and secondly I believe that using a cooperative multilateral path is by far the best path to get to that goal. From this point of view, the NPT regime has its flaws– primarily, because it privileges those five countries that were deemed to be “nuclear weapons states” back at the time the treaty was concluded in 1968. But the NPT has some strong advantages, too. It aspires toward becoming a single, universal franework from nuclear non- and de-proliferation. (So it’s a pity the US never expended any real energy trying to get proven proliferators like Israel, Pakistan, and India to join it– back in the past time when such pressure might have made a real difference.) And Article Six commits all states including the nuclear-weapons states to participating in good faith in negotiations for a complete and general disarmament.
Certainly, the NPT is a much stronger and more egalitarian framework for nonproliferation efforts than the Bushies’ preferred approach of building selective alliances on a purely political basis around the world– an approach that surely, as with Israel and India (and the countries that have acted in response to those two), has merely spurred the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.
So far, the Iranians have been at pains to say that their aim is to develop a peaceful nuclear energy capability. Though who honestly knows what their longterm intentions are? But developing peaceful nuclear capacity is precisely what is allowed– or even, supposed to be facilitated– by the NPT. (It is probably quite unwise on longterm environmental grounds… but that’s another issue.) President Ahmedinejad has meanwhile done very well politically, at home, by portraying the US campaign against the plan as an attempt to deny Iran’s access to peaceful nuclear technology that is of real value to the country’s longterm development. He, and many other Iranian leaders, seems in general very happy to portray Iran as “standing up to Washington’s bullying.” (And some degree of support for this position can be felt far beyond Iran’s own borders.)
This, from AP yesterday:
- “The people of Iran will not accept coercion and unjust decisions by international organizations,” Ahmadinejad said, according to state television. “Enemies cannot force the Iranian people to relinquish their rights.”
“The era of bullying and brutality is over,” he added.
My best judgment at this point is that if either the US or Israel take action against the Iranian nuclear program, the response– and not just from Iran, indeed, perhaps not even from Iran at all– would most likely be broad and highly detrimental to the stability of the present, already very fragile strategic “order” in the Middle East. What’s more, I am sure that the decisionmakers in Washington and Israel all understand this. Hence the bleatiness of Bolton’s rhetoric.
We should not forget, though, that Israel’s raid against Iraq’s Osirak reactor was undertaken in the context of a hard-fought election campaign in Israel, in 1981. Is there any ffear that a besieged Olmert, fighting for his political life at the polls, might seek to launch a repeat performance?
So far, I don’t think so. Hawkish former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon told a US audience yesterday that Israel could launch an attack on Iran that would set back its nuclear program “by several years”. He hinted that this attack might come from submarine-launched missiles, not just from the air. (But I wonder where the Israeli subs would be located for this? Interesting question.) But according to that same Ha’Aretz report,
- Ya’alon also warned that Iran would clearly hit back hard in the event of such an attack, and cited Tehran’s long-range Shihab missiles, Katyusha rockets that Hezbollah has in its possession, and Qassam rockets that Palestinian militants habitually fire into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. He added that a rise in oil prices could be further fallout from such an assault.
I also note that retaliatory action could well be launched against the US troops in Iraq, since no-one in the world would imagine that israel would take such an action against Iran without getting at least an orange light, if not a green light, from Washington first.
(Former Israeli Air Force commander Eitan Ben-Eliyahu told HaAretz that speaking publicly about these things in the way Ya’alon had done, could be harmful.)
Also of note from today’s HaAretz on the Iran-nuclear question, this from Reuven Pedhatsur:
- There could not have been a worse timing for the signing of the nuclear pact between the U.S. and India last week. While President Bush is leading the international campaign against the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, it legitimized India’s nuclear program, and thus granted India the status of a legitimate nuclear power in every respect.
This happened two years after he announced with great resolve that new nuclear powers should not be added to the list of the five nuclear powers, and eight years after the American administration imposed sanctions on India after it conducted a series of nuclear tests.
Tehran can rub its hands with glee, reading the details of the agreement that Bush signed with Indian Prime Minister Singh.
…When Bush was asked at the joint news conference with the Indian prime minister why the U.S. is rewarding a state that conducted nuclear bomb testing in 1998 and did not sign the NPT, and what message he was sending to other countries, the president responded with “what the agreement says is that things change and times have changed.”
That’s not a particularly successful response, nor does it strengthen the American position as the country that is supposed to lead the campaign to prevent nuclear weapons from reaching other countries.
…[T]he American president has greatly harmed the chances of denying nuclear weapons to Iran. From now on, the U.S. will find it difficult to present a morally authoritative position in its negotiations vis a vis the Iranians. And then there’s the Israeli angle. If India is accepted by the Americans as a legitimate member of the nuclear club, and even wins some nice benefits from it, it is possible that the time has come to start thinking about certain steps along the nuclear path it paved.
Bottom line: We should think of George W. Bush not just as someone who has launched a terrible and quite unnecessary war that has wrecked Iraq, destabilized the Middle East, and given Osama Bin Laden a virtually free pass to roam around the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border at will– but also as someone who has significantly aided the spread of nuclear weapons around the world while undermining the global mechanism that is best-placed to contain and then reverse the spread of nuclear weapons.
What an extremely dangerous man.
I confess I don’t see the benefits in the India deal that President Bush has arranged. Perhaps they will become clear during Congressional discussion. Perhaps they do not exist.
The central issue with regard to Iran, is their support of terrorism, especially Hizbullah and Hamas. The world simply will not perform the experiment of seeing if Iran will or will not provide nuclear materials to terrorists.
All the criticisms of Bolton and Bush, and all their genuine flaws, do not detract from the danger of a nuclear holocaust originating from Iran.
Iran burns off massive amounts of extra natural gas but turns around and says it needs nuclear reactors to make electricity. Nobody believes them.
While India has shown itself to be restrained in the use of WMD’s, nobody with any sense will rely on the current administration of Iran to show the same restraint. Lives are in the balance, by the millions.
We can all pray that a peaceful resolution to this confrontation happens soon.
He concluded the Foreign Affairs piece by forecasting the “Lebanonization” of the entire region, save Israel: “Most of the states of the Middle East … are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties.”
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2846b_lewis_profile.html
Don’t forget the programs to develop new kinds of “bunker busting” nuclear weapons (an application for which these weapons are poorly suited). And also the gratuitous threats to use nuclear weapons which leak out from time to time from administration officials. Hardly an incentive for other countries to renounce their desire to own these weapons.
Iran supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and land from the cruel yoke of Israel’s devouring military occupation.
That’s not terrorism. It’s simple, WarrenW, just give back to the Palestinians what is rightfully theirs (UN 242), and peace there will be.
Any other supposed “confrontation” you try to inject into this is simple artifice to “support” Israel’s hateful genocide of Palestinian people and society.
Timothy,
UN 242 did not call for an inch of land to be given to the Palestinians.
Bolton’s comment sounds like a threat to the security council as well as Iran.
The irony of this situation is that because of the Bush/neocon crusade against Iraq’s non-existent WMD the U.S. is in a weak position to attack Iran’s potential WMD capability.
I really not justify any side here.
But let remember the Iraq case with this “extremely dangerous man” and his bad attitude and all sort of things that make him very bulling figure.
Do you remember the Brazilian arms-control specialist Bustani, this man fired from his position because he stepped firmly with his believes about Iraq MWD saga, but he has the curage and dignity to fight back for his dignity and his rights.
Bolton was the heart of this scandal and the main cause for firing him from UN.
I wish he took action against him.
But no matters in the end Bustani win his argument.
“In a stern rebuke issued in July 2003, the three-member UN tribunal said the U.S. allegations were “extremely vague” and the dismissal “unlawful.” It said international civil servants must not be made “vulnerable to pressures and to political change.”
“Noting that Bustani did not seek reinstatement, it awarded him unpaid salary and 50,000 euros, the equivalent of $76,000 Cdn, in damages. He said he would donate the damages to an OPCW technical aid fund for poorer countries.”
From this case it show us how much US administration backed by Israelis and other manipulated the world for untruthfully clams just to “Lebanonization” the ME for planted Israeli to survive.
“UN 242 did not call for an inch of land to be given to the Palestinians.”
Come on, Joshua! Enough with these standard-issue specious arguments. Can’t you guys ever come up with something new – and something that actually has some basis for a change?
1. UN 242 is based on the principle of the inadmissibility of territory by war. That means unquivocally that Israel is forbidden from keeping the territory it acquired by means of its 1967 war.
2. UN 242 demands that Israel withdraw from the territories it occupied as a result of its 1967 war And please do not waste our time with that standard nonsense about the omission of the definite article meaning that 242 allows Israel to keep whatever parts of that territory it wishes to. Just for starters, that interpretation utterly contradicts the basic priniciple on which the Resolution is based as well as most of the rest of the contents of the resolution.
3. Resolution 242 demands that Israel withdraw from Palestinian (and Egyptian, and Syrian) territory occupied as a result of its 1967 war. By definition that means giving back to the Palestinians (and to Egypt, and to Syria) what is theirs.
Sherry,
1) UN 242 says nothing about giving anything to Palestinians. Israel was supposed to negotiate a final peace with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. The Palestinians are not given any interest in UNSC 242.
2) The issue is not that of the absence of the definite article “the.” A more obvious indicator is that the Security Council considered and explicitly rejected a version of the resolution which would have required Israel to withdraw from “all” the territories.
3) The reference to “principle of the inadmissibility of territory by war” [sic] is a red herring. Even if Israel cannot acquire territory through war, it can negotiate a subsequent agreement over the proper boundaries. At best, UNSC 242 says that the territories are not automatically Israeli simply due to conquest. Nowhere does it say that the parties (back then, Israel on one side, and Jordan Egypt and Syria on the other) could not negotiate final borders different than the prior armistice lines (which the Arabs had categorically rejected as borders prior to the war).
Ultimately, I think Sherry’s (deliberate?) misinterpretation of UNSC 242 is one of the root problems in this conflict. It creates an framework of entitlement rather than negotiation. Reasonable people can sit down and work out adjustments in the borders. Rejectionists will say “it’s all mine.” Israel has begun to take on its own rejectionists. The question is will the Palestinians take on theirs.
Finally this is not to say all Palestinians are so rejectionist. The negotiators of the Geneva Accords, the Beilin Rabbo agreements, and the like have all come up with creative solutions. Often it is not Palestinians themselves, but those who patronizingly act as their proxies, who are more rejectionist.
Helena,
It is a mistake to try to interpret Bush’s actions as reflecting some sort of governing philosophy. Bush and his “administration” are nothing but the public face of global capitalism. The India nuclear deal and the Dubai ports deal both show this clearly. The people they represent are not interested in government, except as a tool for controlling the resources that generate their profits, and suppressing popular revolts. To them, “national security” means protected cash flow, not public safety. They do not have “allies,” only temporary business partners. The craven politicians in Congress sway in the breeze of meaningless public opinion, which is why real power is channeled through the executive branch. It does not matter that George W. Bush is losing popularity. His period of usefulness is almost over in any event. Another front man will be found to perform the same role. Outsiders may claim that Bush’s “policies” have all been failures, but they have not. The global capitalists are far richer than ever before. They have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of past generations of moguls and robber barons. Of course, climate change or nuclear war may destroy human civilization, but that is an “external” factor that does not affect anyone’s financial projections. So the party continues . . .
“UN 242 says nothing about giving anything to Palestinians. Israel was supposed to negotiate a final peace with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. The Palestinians are not given any interest in UNSC 242.”
UNSC 242 does not refer to Palestine, Jordan, Egypt or Syria. The resolution states territory cannot be aquired by force and calls on Israel to withdraw. After 1967 an international consensus emerged that the OPT should form a Palestinian state.
“The issue is not that of the absence of the definite article “the.” A more obvious indicator is that the Security Council considered and explicitly rejected a version of the resolution which would have required Israel to withdraw from “all” the territories.”
The French and Russian versions of the resolution do include the article “the”. The U.S. has blocked many resolutions critical of Israel thanks to its veto. In fact today the U.S. has vetoed more resolutions then any other country thanks to its defense of Israeli crimes.
“3) The reference to “principle of the inadmissibility of territory by war” [sic] is a red herring. Even if Israel cannot acquire territory through war, it can negotiate a subsequent agreement over the proper boundaries.”
U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers explained what was intended by a modification of borders in 1969:
‘We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established and agreed upon by the parties, any changes in the existing lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism. We believe troops must be withdrawn as the Resolution provides.’
Israel’s conquest and colonization of the OPT is not different from the Nazi conquest of Poland. It is ironic that Israel’s apologists will blast the crimes of the Nazis while defending many of the same crimes perpetrated by Israel.
Dear Helena,
I think you provide an excellent summary and assessment of the issues associated with Iran and the NPT.
A few observations:
1) As you point out, US troops in Iraq are quite vulnerable to attack and this vulnerability places limits on the ability the US to start a new war with Iran. It follows then that those who want to see the US leave Iraq soon (including myself) should perhaps be careful what they wish for.
2) You mention that an attack on Iran would upset the fragile strategic order in the Middle East. So does a nuclear-capable Iran. It would place further limits on the freedom of action of the US military. Iran’s rise as a regional power would be consolidated. This is a very real threat to US interests in the ME and could signal the end of its hegemony in the region. It’s one reason that they, as opposed to the other major powers, are pushing this issue so hard.
3) The idea that Iran is going organize a nuclear attack Israel or anyone else is pure hysteria.
4) Apparently there are many within the IAEA who are of the view that Iran does not actually intend to build or test a nuclear weapon, but rather that it seeks only to be capable of doing so on short notice. This would be consistent with Iran insisting on its right to enrich uranium and, at the same time, signing the voluntary additional protocol to the NPT to allow intrusive spot inspections by the IAEA.
edq,
I was going to respond to your misrepresentations regarding Israel’s obligations. Then I got to the end of your message where you start throwing Nazi accusations at the Israelis.
It is clear that you are not an honest interlocutor. If Helena had any sense of decency she would ban you for that. My guess is she does not.
It is clear that you are not an honest interlocutor. If Helena had any sense of decency she would ban you for that. My guess is she does not.
It seems that when anyone disagrees with your position, you start making personal attacks and claiming that they are being defensive. How sad.
Posted by Joshua at March 9, 2006 05:53 PM
So sick and pathetic, he is saying he is not Israeli, he is not Zionist but he behaved as any Zionist and accusing the others as anti-Semitism as a favourite words by those who really not believe in freedom of expressions and freedom of speech
Dear John C.
except as a tool for controlling the resources that generate their profits, and suppressing popular revolts. To them, “national security” means protected cash flow, not public safety.
Welcome back we miss you here, long time no see here?
John C. I agree totally with you.
You may remember my post when Iranians start bathetic talking about the holocaust, and I said it’s a free gift came from Iranians to Israelis and necon’.
Here we go there will be tension here in Gulf and ME, more arms to those stupid regimes recently Saudis planning to singe arm deals from US/UK worth 72Billions, the other states in the way also and by small hit to Iran nuclear facilities the OIL prices will be $100 per Barrel or more “hoops we got them all “Two Braids In One Stone”……..
As for 13 years of Saddam saga that US and others milked those states in the gulf because look he is there, he still have power to do stupid thinks he will come to you again and invaded you, Hahahahah.
Joshua,
Thanks for yet another collection of specious arguments. Try basing your arguments on something real and consistent a change and we might have something to discuss.
By the way, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war is anything but a red herring in terms of 242. It is the very principle on which the Resolution is based. If you doubt that read the remarks of its authors. They make the intent very clear, and the intent and the letter are consistent.
Sherry,
“If you doubt that read the remarks of its authors. They make the intent very clear, and the intent and the letter are consistent.”
I agree, the diplomats who negotiated and authored the resolution made clear that they were not contemplating a complete withdrawal. The British and U.S. representatives were very clear about that. The Russian representative objected, to no avail, that the resolution did NOT unequivocally require complete withdrawal. The Arab nations unanimously rejected the resolution for that reason among others.
Contemplated a negotiated agreement with changes in the prior armistice lines is not “acquisition of territory through war.” The resolution’s principle in this regard is logically read to say that Israel cannot unilaterally annex the land, but that a final agreement will include modified borders.
UNSC 242 doesn’t give anyone a “do over.”
Joshua,
Two quick “yes” or “no” questions: does Palestine have a right to exist? Do Palestinians have a right to exist?
And a not-so-very-long range, speculative one: in, say, 2156 – just two generations from now – how do we – I use the pronoun loosely – get China “onside”?
Ladies and Gentleman’s
If you need the reset of the thoughts that Joshua will keep telling us about resolution 422, its better to read this.
The Meaning of Resolution 242
This exactly what Joshua taking us with his journey and thinking resolution 422.
We understand the slippery words and slippery Israeli talk also well chosen words in regards to the problem with Arabs, you don’t need to tell us what those Israeli thinking when its come with the talk and written words.
Go and read what Israelis thinking about this resolution and other UN orders.
Just one question to Joshua, if some one come to your home and takes it from you with all the assets, he has all the power and you are powerless what you do to get your home back? Think about it carefully and tell us the truth.
Ladies and Gentleman’s
If you need the reset of the thoughts that Joshua will keep telling us about resolution 422, its better to read this.
The Meaning of Resolution 242
This exactly what Joshua taking us with his journey and thinking resolution 422.
We understand the slippery words and slippery Israeli talk also well chosen words in regards to the problem with Arabs, you don’t need to tell us what those Israeli thinking when its come with the talk and written words.
Go and read what Israelis thinking about this resolution and other UN orders.
Just one question to Joshua, if some one come to your home and takes it from you with all the assets, he has all the power and you are powerless what you do to get your home back? Think about it carefully and tell us the truth.
Here’s the text of 242. In anybody wants to actually read it. It isn’t very inspiring or enlightening.
It’s clear that the overall idea was a swap of land for peace. Recognition of Israel and an end to war along with withdrawal of Israeli troops. That swap never took place, and 242 is receding into history, replaced with the new doctrine of unilateral disengagement.
In any case, neither 242 nor any other Security Council resolution has created peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Overall, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been bubbling along since 1948 under the meddling influence of Western Powers, the UN, the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the Arab states. I cannot help but feel that if the rest of the world had not been so tightly focused on this tiny piece of real estate that peace would now have been found. But it’s clearly too late for that. In recent years, Iran has joined the party, now with nuclear ambitions.
I guess that for a nation to feel it’s one of the big boys it has to have nuclear weapons and to weigh in on the Arab-Israeli dispute. Like a rite of passage.
Warren and Joshua, anyone who approaches this issue with a fair mind, and some time, will come to the conclusion that today’s “Arab Interpretation” is a lot closer to the truth than the effective Israeli interpretation. To this purpose I present my:
Farrago of Fun Facts about SC 242:
Serious people agree that the “correct” interpretation of the Resolution, if that is what one calls the interpretation that the people who wrote and voted on the resolution had is simple: Essentially complete withdrawal for peace – neither side would gain any territory but minor and mutual border adjustments would be allowed – to make more sensible, more secure, more natural, straighter borders. Here security was not meant in terms of some mythical ultimate security, but just common sense – a border shouldn’t cross and recross a ditch or stream near it, it should just go along the ditch. If you want to be picky about it, the WB-Israel borders was the only one meant to be played with. This was the content of a then secret US-UK memorandum which the UK required in order not to veto the resolution its own ambassador had written! One way to start convincing oneself of the facts is (A) go to a site like jewishvirtuallibrary or much the same the book, Myths and Facts by Mitchell Bard, king of the edited quotation. There you will read ironclad quotations that support the most extreme Israeli interpretations. (B) This is the hard part, hunt down the actual original. Then you will see that Bard has edited the quotation to make it sound like the opposite of what the author is really saying, which is usually that for practical intents and purposes the “Arab interpretation” is right. The main author of the resolution, Lord Caradon in particular always emphasized that withdrawal would be practically complete. Israel’s effective interpretation, that it can just grab what it likes, incidentally making its borders less secure, is the opposite of the original understanding. Joshua’s remarks about the two parties and rejectionism reverses the facts. WIth some (long-ago) wavering the rejectionists have been out of power for 30 years on the Palestinian and Arab side, while it is only recently that Israel has wavered from its rejectionism with things like the Taba negotiations: it could have had peace a long time ago, just by accepting Arab offers and living up to what SC 242 requires.
Secondly – and this is telling – it is very interesting how widespread this error is, Joshua’s statement:
The Arab nations unanimously rejected the resolution for that reason [lack of complete withdrawal] among others.
is completely false, and utterly reverses the facts.
In the real world, Jordan and Egypt immediately accepted the resolution. Israel did not! If the original understanding was so favorable to Israel as its latterday propagandists proclaim, why on earth would Israel balk? Syria rejected the resolution, while Lebanon very soon publicly accepted it too, some time before March 1968. Meanwhile, Israel did secretly accept it in a communication with the UN SG in February 1968, but only with its own unclear interpretation, being very vague about withdrawal, and this was quite unknown to the outside world. Israel only accepted it publicly, and publicly used the word withdrawal (which caused Begin to resign from the cabinet) a couple years later, in connection with one of the Rogers plans. (Assad of Syria accepted it in 1972, and more formally when he accepted SC 338.) Begin, even when he was PM and Dayan, two prominent Israeli politicians, opposed the resolution because they understood it the “Arab” way – complete withdrawal.
Lastly, edq went too far comparing the conquest of Poland; there was more reason and excuse for Israel in the 6-day war than Hitler attacking Poland. Also there is no systematic murder of the inhabitants. But there is nothing different about the colonization/settlements. Both Israel and Germany robbed, and at times murdered other peoples for their homes and land, for the purpose of putting their own nationals in these lands, with the ultimate purpose of securing a land grab. Article 49 of the Geneva Convention was put there because of this German practice, and it is a simple fact that Israel is engaging in this practice.
John R,
Silly me, how could I forget. You’re right. The Israelis and their Zionist allies held that meeting Khartoum where they announced “No peace, no negotiations, no recognition.” Thanks for clearing that up.
Anyway, what is being talked about today is in line with UNSC 242. Minor adjustments, all along the West Bank. The Sinai was already given back, completely. Gaza has been evacuated, completely, and will all be part of a Palestinian state. As for the West Bank (and Golan Heights), these are where the minor negotiated adjustments will take place.
M. Upsarhin,
In response to your first two questions. Yes and yes.
I’m not sure what you mean re: China.
Salah:
What would I do if I lost my home? Don’t know. I know what some of my ancestors did when they left what is now Belarus due to the, umm, lets say inhospitable climate (and no, not weather, though I gather it is pretty lousy there). They made their way to another country (America), settled down, and moved on.
I am very glad that they chose to do that rather than pass a demand to “return” down to me generations later. Believe it or not, I don’t harbor any desire to strap a bomb to my chest, walk into a building in Belarus, and blow myself up.
Is this Bolton-Iran-threats thread or am I missing something here ? More generaly, why about half of all discussion threads here (in my estimation), regardless of Helena’s topic, end up with Israel/Palestine issue ? Just wondering…
Joshua, when was the Khartoum conference? Many argue as if it were after SC 242. Of course it was before. So arguably, it took all of 2 months after Khartoum for Jordan & Egypt to moderate their position. Again, think why Israel accepted SC 242 so grudgingly, and why you didn’t know this. Modern Israeli scholarship, right or left, say Avraham Sela or Avi Shlaim, agree pretty much that Khartoum was a tactical PR mistake for the Arabs because they made it sound a lot worse than it was. e.g. the difference between sulha and salaam – they were saying no friendly tranquil peace/ peace treaty, not no state of (unfriendly) peace, and that in many ways it was a victory for the moderates, Jordan and Egypt, it just didn’t sound like one.
Modern Israeli plans like the psychotic grab of the Jordan valley – what kind of drugs are people taking when they think that grabbing this will improve Israel security? – are not minor adjustments. The question is whether slowly increasing, two steps forward, ones step back, Israeli moderation and peacefulness and movement towards an honest approximation of SC 242, towards a position as reasonable as the Arabs had decades ago, will come fast enough, if it comes at all.
Andrew, I apologize to you and Helena and others – of course it is pretty silly – I just went along because the thread seemed hijacked already, and I thought I had something to say. 🙂
I love you so much! Great place to visit!
Mike Furir Mike 8