“The White House regrets… “

48 thoughts on ““The White House regrets… “”

1. If thas all the White House is capable of then the Sallam (Shalom) Alleykum by Mr. Obama is pure “hillbilly”.
   The ME is heating up again what with Iraq massing troops on Syria’s boder. Bibi playing cutsy with Mr. Obama. And exiting Afghanistan is now on the table.
   Overplaying one’s hand like Mr. Netanyahu one too many times has much to gain as to lose. Interesting times.

2. Relatively speaking, the US administration’s stance towards the settlements have been effective. There has been a de facto settlement freeze since Netanyahu took office.

3. Excuse me, Michael? What ‘de facto settlement freeze’ are you talking about? A quick glance at Peace Now’s settlement-data page, the latest news from the Fdn for Middle East peace, or any other data source– including the Israeli MSM– shows there has been a ‘freeze’ on NO aspect of settlement building since Netanyahu took office.

4. “There has been a de facto settlement freeze since Netanyahu took office.”
   That has got to be one of the most daft statements I have ever seen here, and that is saying a lot!

5. Okay, construction hasn’t stopped, but tenders haven’t been issued till now.

6. REDUCE AID BY $1m FOR EVERY ILLEGAL HOME BUILT ON OCCUPIED LAND
   For every illegal home built by Israel on occupied Palestinian land, the U.S. Government should immediately
   REDUCE its military and civil AID to the Israeli state by $1m (one million Dollars).
   Those who bite the hand that feeds them must learn that arrogance comes before a fall.
   Without American tax dollars, Israel is just another olive-growing Mediterranean state, little different from Cyprus or Malta.
   Israel needs to learn that AIPAC does not control American foreign policy – any longer!

7. Obama’s statement is entirely consistent with the US policy of putting up smokescreens to distract attention from Israel’s desperate attempts to substitute its mythical self for the actuality of Palestine.
   From an environmental point of view these ‘settlements’ are as unsustainable and degrading to nature as they are ugly. From a human point of view they represent the long suffering of the displaced people and the fascistic cruelty and greed of those behind the settlements.
   From an historical point of view they are merely follies in the making, which cannot last. For the state responsible, whose capital is Washington not Tel Aviv, they are hostages to fortune and badges of a state of hubris which has degenerated into the authentic americanism of ‘Know Nothingism.’
   These settlements can only lead to war; that is why they are there, in the irrational belief that Israel will triumph in any conflict and that therefore conflict is to be sought after.
   And wars should be fought until,the defeat which brings peace and rest, and which is the deepest of the desires at fascism’s heart, comes.

8. The idea that the United States has a “strong national interest” in the establishment of a Palestinian State is a canard. Might U.S. interests be advanced by peaceful reconciliation between the Israelis and Palestinians? Perhaps slightly, but for the most part, little would change. By the way, Ms Cobban’s obsession with, and selective interpretation of, international law is also a canard.
   Let’s say for argument sake that the US interests in a two state solution were indeed marginal at best. Would that mean the United States was free to support the side to the conflict that it liked better or had more in common with?
   Israel is being asked to do something that has been done extremely rarely in world history; give up territory it won in war. After World War I the British, Americans and French defined the borders of Europe, not the defeated Germans, Austrians and Ottomans. After World War II the victorious allies defined the borders of Europe not the defeated Axis powers. The Americans, British, French and Soviets didn’t solicit the opinion of the nations they had defeated before Europe’s borders were set and they didn’t negotiate with them either. The only parties at the negotiating table were the parties that won the war.
   After the Spanish defeat in the Spanish American War, the United States decided which former Spanish colonies it wanted not the defeated Spanish.
   After the Mexican American War, the United States decided which parts of the southwest and west to incorporate into American territory not the Mexicans.
   While the French lost Algeria and Britain lost India and the rest of its empire, it wasn’t because the French or British governments decided to repent, it’s because the native populations defeated the British and French.
   Of course, Israel isn’t fighting for land it won halfway around the world; it’s fighting for land it won only miles from its Capitol.
   Because the Palestinians are unlikely to ever be able to win the land they want by force, their only choice is to rely on the good will of the Israelis and the assistance of the Europeans and Americans (the rising world powers such as China or India couldn’t be more disinterested in the Palestinians).
   If the Americans and/or Europeans want to induce the Israelis into voluntarily giving up land they won in war they had better drop the threats and figure out how to provide some serious inducements. European threats don’t impress anyone; Israel is unlikely to ever be motivated by them.
   The American constituency that supports Israel won’t tolerate threats from Obama or any other Administration (that’s why Obama’s language has become so much less belligerent in the last few weeks). The ascendant wing of the Republican Party doesn’t care about Palestinian rights and Democrats are extremely reliant on the American Jewish community which is a core constituency for both votes and to fill its campaign coffers. With the independents abandoning Obama in droves and with progressives increasingly infuriated at what they view as Obama’s betrayal, losing another core constituency would spell doom for Democrats on 2010 and perhaps in 2012. Without Jewish support, Democrats simply can’t win, especially in battleground states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Polls show that most American Jews support both a settlement freeze and a two state solution; they also show that the American Jewish community won’t tolerate criticism of Israel by the Obama Administration that is too public or to vociferous.
   Israel behaves just like every other nation in the world. It works to make its citizens safer and more prosperous. If the United States or Europe want Israel to relinquish territory to be incorporated into a future Palestinian State they had better figure out how to convince the Israeli Government and Israeli citizens that they will be safer and richer with a Palestinian State as a neighbor than they are with the status quo.
   If they can’t do that, there will never be a solution and the status quo is likely to go on far into the future.
   The time for threats has ended; they simply won’t work. Ms Cobban and others who hope against hope that someday these threats might be something other than empty threats are deluding themselves. Figure out how to enhance Israel’s security and prosperity by having it withdraw to negotiated borders and a solution might be found.
   If the Israelis are going to be asked to do something that nations throughout history have almost never done, return land they won in war, those doing the asking are going to have to come up with a package that’s pretty special.
   Anyone who has been paying even slight attention to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute should have realized by now that whether settlements are expanded or frozen in the interim is really beside the point.

9. They did NOT win land in a war. Israel illegally expropriated land which had been settled by Muslim Arabs for over one thousand years, continuously, as the majority indigenous people in Palestine. There was during that period, intermittantly, also a minority Jewish settlement.
   However, there is no question whatsoever that the 700,000 Palestinians who were dispossessed by the terrorist acts of the LEHI and Irgun militias in 1947-8, are entitled to the return of their lands and assets.
   Until that happens, there will be no peace. At the present time, the Middle East awaits the start of a nuclear war instigated by Israel against Iran. That could spread around the world. These are very dangerous times.

10. According to Colin Dale, Israel “did NOT win land in a war.” How does he think Israel won (or to use his term “expropriate”) Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai; in a poker game?
    Each side has its own narrative about how the Six Day War started in 1967; undoubtedly the truth lies somewhere between the explanations offered by each side. But it’s hard to fathom how anyone could deny that what took place between the Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians was an actual war. If it wasn’t a war, how does Mr. Dale explain all the bullets, tanks, bombs and death?
    Throughout human history, losing wars has had consequences. Typically those consequences have included the payment of reparations and the loss of real estate. The losing side always has numerous explanations to account for its defeat and always believes that despite its defeat they were in the right all along.
    I am sure that if we examine all of the wars in human history, as often as not, the losing side was in the “right” and the victors didn’t deserve their victory.
    It doesn’t matter.
    Regardless of which party is objectively “right” in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute (and that can be debated endlessly as the existence of this blog proves) the victors call the shots not the losers.
    The Palestinians are powerless to get what they want (the land they view as theirs) through military means. Their only hope is to rely on world powers which are stronger than Israel to induce the Israelis to relent and withdraw from at least some of the acreage they captured.
    The Chinese and Indians, who most people agree are likely to become future world superpowers, are indifferent to Palestinian aspirations. Both of those nations have increasing economic, political and defense relations with the Israelis. The Europeans are feckless and incapable of putting pressure on anyone including Israel. And rightly or wrongly, Americans view Israel far more favorably than they view Palestinians, a reality that is unlikely to change appreciably anytime soon. Moreover for a variety of political reasons, neither the Democratic or Republican Parties is likely to sympathize with the Palestinian narrative or to threaten Israel in the foreseeable future. In fact, just the opposite is true.
    Whether you consider Ms Cobban’s posts astute or mere rants, nothing she or other Israel critics say is likely to make a difference.
    But Israel probably can be induced to accept territorial compromise if it can be convinced that it will be safer and wealthier if it does.
    Ms Cobban’s strategy of threatening the Israelis (especially about something like the settlements that she herself admits are not critical to a final peace deal) is childish, counterproductive and won’t get the Palestinians anything.
    My suggestion is that Ms Cobban and her fellow travelers spend more time thinking about and writing about what rewards can be offered to the Israelis if they do what few other nations have, voluntarily withdraw from land they took by force from defeated adversaries.

11. wigwag – So we meet again. Your position of “might makes right” denies any moral aspect to situations like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a Jew, I am deeply troubled by your attitude. It goes against the grain of everything I was taught about our religion. You are correct that in the past, might makes right was the common approach states took to conflicts. However, in the modern world that approach is abating.
    Who better than Jews to lead to a more moral approach to conflicts. As you know, I have extensive ties with Israel and visit at least twice a year. I just returned two weeks ago and the attitude I found prevelent was appauling. I spend most of my time in the West Bank visiting my relatives. The racism and hatred amoung the Jews is stunning. You can hear calls for the annilation of arabs at just about any shul in the west bank.
    I don’t know about your faith wigwag, but the current Israel does not embody my Jewishness. It is the primary reason, I rejected aliyah earlier this year. For all of Olmert’s faults he at least recognized that Israel’s future as a Jewish state depends on a satisfactory two state solution. Israel is becoming more and more a pariah state and sooner or later UN sanctions will be imposed on Israel.
    Remember we have been tossed out of Israel many times over the past few thousand years. You would think knowledge of that would introduce at least a little humility for the Israelis. You state that Israel needs inducements to allow a Palestinian state. Based on my visits to Israel no amount of inducement will pry their fingers off the bulk of the west bank. As you know the Likud talk is strictly about “reservations” for the Palestinians. It was good enough for America so it is good enough for Israel. Go visit Israel and see how much talk you hear about Justice or Morality – there is none. They simply want to do to the Palestinians what other nations got to do to their minorities. After all fair is fair.
    If you want, I can outline the cruelty I have seen in Israel over the past 53 years of visiting. After our experience at the hands of the rest of the world over millenia, you would think that Jews, of all people, would reject the kind of treatment they give to Palestinians.

12. On this occasion I am happy to relax JWN’s usual length limits, given the interest and importance of the discussion between WigWag and Jdledell. However I’d ask these two commenters and all others to try to respect the commenters’ guidelines in the future.
    WigWag, as for your argument that might always has made right and always will– i.e. that land that nations have won in war they get to keep– how about Sinai, how about Iraq, how about East Timor, etc etc.
    Your view of the world as one in which there is no such thing as the rule of law is bleak indeed. It is also inaccurate.

13. Ms Cobban, I didn’t realize that there were restrictions on length. I apologize if my remarks violate your policy on comment length and hope that you will redact or delete them if they do.
    If you think my argument is that might always makes right you haven’t read them carefully enough. I am simply suggesting that the strategy you’ve suggested in this post is naive, unworkable and a recipe for failure. There’s a reason Obama has turned down the volume of the rhetoric; it wasn’t working and he couldn’t sustain it politically.
    jdledell, I always enjoy reading your comments here and elsewhere even though I usually disagree with them.
    Speaking of disagreement, this comment of yours just strikes me as silly:
    “You are correct that in the past, might makes right was the common approach states took to conflicts. However, in the modern world that approach is abating.”
    Where is the evidence that power politics and the use of violence is abating; U.S. and European behavior in Iraq or Afghanistan? Chinese behavior in Tibet? Russian behavior in Chechnya or Georgia? Violence is as ubiquitous today as at any time in world history. Self-righteous references to international law do nothing to change that. But that doesn’t mean that reconciliation between people and nations is impossible if creative strategies are followed.
    Your family in the West Bank sounds terrible; why do you spend so much time visiting them? I don’t doubt your assertions about the settlers for a moment; I am sure that many if not most are bigots. I would be happy to see the settlements abandoned and the settlers forcibly repatriated to Israel proper or Brooklyn where many of them came from. I would be equally happy to see them live as a small minority in a Palestinian state.
    I understand that hatred and bigotry are universal features of human society and that the same type of hatred you experienced in the West Bank is found all over the Arab world including Palestinian Society. Anti-Semitism and hatred are as commonly found in Arab Society as hatred for Arabs and Palestinians is amongst the settlers.
    It’s unfortunate but it changes nothing.
    The bottom line is this; Israelis won’t take “chances for peace.” No nation would. What Israel will do is what every free nation does; attempt to make its citizens safer and wealthier.
    The Israelis can’t be forced to do anything. In any event, President Obama has already learned that attempting to bully Israel with belligerent statements is a recipe for failure. And he already understands that it simply isn’t politically viable for him to attempt to force Israel to make decisions it doesn’t want to make. If he can’t even force a one year settlement freeze, how is he supposed to force the incredibly difficult actions that will be necessary for Israel and a Palestinian nation to live side by side in peace?
    If sticks won’t work (or you’re afraid to carry them) you better try some carrots. Some Americans may feel that the United States has already given Israel far more than it deserves; they may even be right.
    But if they really want to see a Palestinian State, the sweeteners are going to have to be dramatically enhanced and the threats are going to have to be recognized for what they are; ineffective.

14. Hey Collin, what fraction of Israel’s GDP is US aid? If you look at the numbers you may realize that, unlike the Palestinians, Israelis are working for a living.

15. “Without American tax dollars, Israel is just another olive-growing Mediterranean state, little different from Cyprus or Malta.”
    And you make this claim based on what?

16. Ms Cobban asks,
    “How about Sinai, how about Iraq, how about East Timor, etc etc.”
    Iraq and East Timor prove my point about the futility of international law; the United States did what it wanted in Iraq (and now Afghanistan) with little regard to international law and the Indonesians did the same in East Timor.
    Israel left the Sinai when it was convinced its security would not be compromised by doing so. Whether the Americans will fully withdraw from Iraq is anybody’s guess.
    East Timor is an interesting case. The East Timorese wanted independence from Indonesia because they’re mostly Roman Catholic and couldn’t stomach the thought of living under Muslim rule.
    Ms Cobban’s hero, Jimmy Carter, vetoed a Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Indonesia for not withdrawing from East Timor as the UN had requested. President Carter was more interested in Indonesian loyalty in the Cold War than in the human rights of East Timor residents.
    A quarter century later after the East Timorese voted for independence the UN induced Indonesia to leave East Timor. Anyone who thinks the situations are comparable and that the United States will insist that Israel leave the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights just isn’t being serious. There is a strong pro-Israel constituency in the United States, there is no pro-Indonesian constituency. Israel is a wealthy nation with a powerful military. At the time of the East Timor crisis, Indonesia was facing political crisis and economic catastrophe. The Indonesians could be bullied; the Israelis can’t.
    By the way, East Timor has experienced nothing but violence, famine and insurrection since it achieved independence. Its per capita GDP is amongst the lowest in the world. By most accounts it is a failed state.

17. WigWag, you’re incredibly deluded. Israel is totally dependent on the United States for the ‘sustainability’ of its policies. If it wasn’t for us, Israel would have been coerced into giving up the settlements a long time ago and into making peace with the Palestinians and her Arab neighbors. A powerful bloc in Washington and the media facilitates our Israel policy, but our Israel policy does not reflect the wishes of the vast majority of Americans in any meaningful way. If the political power calculus in the U.S. can be shifted (and this is beginning to happen, however haltingly), Israel will be eventually made to give up the settlements and change its perennially barbaric behavior toward the Palestinians. How about total international isolation, massive sanctions, etc? I think that would do the trick.
    Your predictable & lame WW2 comparisons are specious. Germany’s borders changed (historic Prussia is gone except for the far western parts, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania that made it into the north-eastern corner of the new ‘East’ Germany), Germany wasn’t erased like Palestine has been, with part of it now Israel and the rest the OPT. In fact, Germany exists today as an independent nation-state and has for quite awhile, the 2nd or 3rd largest economy in the world last time I looked (and the largest exporter in the world), you could fit all of Israel into a corner of Bavaria. So get a grip, seriously. We need to set up an award for inane analogies.
    Also, part of what gave the Allies (they felt) the right to so radically alter Germany’s borders were the crimes and aggressive warfare of the Nazis, and let’s face it, historic Old Germany was kind of a weird, unwieldy shape, what with the Baltic corridor, majority Slavic communities were geographically spliced and diced & cut off from each-other, etc, etc… it’s a cultural memory now, Kant walking the streets of 18th century Konigsberg, yada yada.
    There is no meaningful parallel between the settlement of those borders after the war (at least how you intend it), and what Israel has done to the Palestinians, its history of ethnic cleansing, occupation, etc. Israel is the historic and on-going aggressor, here.

18. The one thing that the Israeli government is really afraid of is economic sanctions. Their economy exists only by the grace of the US and EU governments. Sanctions will work just as well against the Israeli apartheid as they did against the South African apartheid. What we need is a government with the guts to declare that US interests, not Israeli interests, come first and that peace in the ME is in the US interest and then impose the economic sanctions necessary to bring the Israeli government to its senses. It would work. I do agree that Obama so far, to my great regret, has shown no spine on anything.

19. ” A powerful bloc in Washington and the media facilitates our Israel policy, but our Israel policy does not reflect the wishes of the vast majority of Americans in any meaningful way”
    This needs repeating on every political platform – both Republican and Democrat, in every State, in every church and religious gathering, in all union meetings and town halls and in every home up and down America, every week.
    AIPAC and the entire Israel lobby work, not for the good of America but to maintain their extensive influence within the legislature in order to fulfill their specific agenda.
    That agenda is detrimental to American democracy as it works for the advancement of a foreign state and not for the welfare and good of Americans and America.

20. Helena, you are worried now? How genteel that is, considering that it has been quite obvious for months now that Obama intended on doing nothing other than continuing to allow Israel to strangle Gaza and the West Bank. That’s a done deal. The emotion you should be expressing is OUTRAGE.
    Now here’s something you should worry about: the big AIPAC congressional junket to Israel makes it clear that Israel is planning something big. We pretty much know what that is, I think: an attack on Iran, as prelude to a wider war in which Israel attempts to make Greater Israel a fait accomplis. They’ll drive to the Litani, to Jordan or into Jordan and through Gaza, while the US (necessarily) takes on the war against Iran.
    Obama’s duplicitous and vicious policy re. Israel/Palestine is not a worry at this point. It’s a reality. Time to call it what it is. The impending war – that’s a worry. There MIGHT still be time for a global popular movement for peace to prevent it.

21. Helena, you are worried now? How genteel that is, considering that it has been quite obvious for months now that Obama intended on doing nothing other than continuing to allow Israel to strangle Gaza and the West Bank. That’s a done deal. The emotion you should be expressing is OUTRAGE.
    Now here’s something you should worry about: the big AIPAC congressional junket to Israel makes it clear that Israel is planning something big. We pretty much know what that is, I think: an attack on Iran, as prelude to a wider war in which Israel attempts to make Greater Israel a fait accomplis. They’ll drive to the Litani, to Jordan or into Jordan and through Gaza, while the US (necessarily) takes on the war against Iran.
    Obama’s duplicitous and vicious policy re. Israel/Palestine is not a worry at this point. It’s a reality. Time to call it what it is. The impending war – that’s a worry. There MIGHT still be time for a global popular movement for peace to prevent it.

22. WigWag,
    You’re a piece of work, aren’t you?
    No compromise on Arab demands for a state. Unless you pay us! Are we expected to buy them from you – as so much human chattel? Do you believe that superior firepower gives you some rights of ownership? Where have you been all these years?
    I tend to agree with you that the US government – or any other government for that matter – will not do what is necessary to free the Palestinian’s from your grip. That was the same in S Africa. But I think you – like other Israeli posters who troll this site – truly underestimate the potential for forced change that excludes governments. If the need for that course of action (I’m talking of a boycott, of course) proves durable it cannot be turned off like a tap.
    You’ll likely scoff at the idea that ordinary people can effect such change against a powerful military machine such as Israel. Well scoff away. A major effect of the informal sanctions against S African Apartheid was the way it attacked the regime where it was most vulnerable – in the souls of its people who could no longer stomach the pariah status conferred on them. Many left, ashamed of what bred them. The hard liners – people like you – were increasingly isolated politically and ended up with what they were given instead of what they believed was rightfully theirs. “Might is right” was turned on its head. The days of the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must are well and truly over.
    You and your ilk can sue for peace now – on highly favorable terms, it must be said – or accept whatever you’re left with at the end of a long, painful struggle against an unstoppable reality that has far from certain consequences. If I were in your position (which, of course, I’m not) I would be trying to save Israel, not bury it.

23. And, right on cue:
    “Former US president Jimmy Carter said Sunday Palestinian leaders were “seriously considering” a one-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a visit to the Middle East.”

24. wigwag – In the past couple of decades there have been a number of conflicts that have been settled without greed. Take the reunification of Germany as an example. The breakup of Checkoslovakia was peaceful. While there was western violence associated with breaking Bosnia and Kosovo free of Serbia, it ultimately served the purpose of fulfilling the wishes of the people. The Ukraine, Baltic states and the rest of eastern Europe gained their freedom without firing a shot.
    South Africa succombed to coercion but without war to the will of the people The French in Algeria finally left as did the US in Vietnam. The Israeli occupation and dominance of the Palestinians has now lasted 42 years. The only similar long running occupation is Tibet by China. Do you really want Israel to be on the same moral ground as China?

25. “The Israeli occupation and dominance of the Palestinians has now lasted 42 years”
    In historic terms, this is but a few minutes. The macho pretenders, Sharon,Olmert,Barak and Netanyahu, strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then will be gone. Gone as if they never existed. Like all politicians who fail to become statesmen,they are but passing egos who shout into the wind.
    At some point, a statesman or woman will arrive who will bring sanity and peace. Then the brutal occupation will be as the Berlin Wall – just a sad memory of another failed regime and an affirmation of the stupidity of man who follows anyone who shouts the loudest and throws money and empty promises.
    But the preening of egos, the shouting of idiots and the throwing of dollars will never bring peace because that is not the true agenda or purpose.
    Israel needs a statesman, a man or woman of integrity who truly seeks peace and justice for both Arab and Israeli and an end to half a century of bloodshed.
    Peace will come – have no doubt! But how many more innocent civilians have to die to feed those who strut about.

26. “But I think you – like other Israeli posters who troll this site – truly underestimate the potential for forced change that excludes governments.” (Steve Connors)
    Troll this site? I think my comments have been substantive and not personally insulting to anyone. Disagreeing with you doesn’t make a reader of this blog a troll. Your suggestion to the contrary just makes you look sillier than the substance of your comment already does. Presumably if Ms Cobban objected to people who vehemently disagree with her posting on her site, she would delete the objectionable comments.
    So, you think that people power instead of governmental action is going to force change in the Israel-Palestine stalemate; fair enough. Why don’t you tell us where that people power is going to come from? Certainly not from Palestine itself, every strategy adopted by Palestinian revolutionaries has result in Palestinians being poorer and more miserable than ever.
    Is that people power you’re referring to gong to come from the United States? Other than a few disaffected leftists do you see any massive movement (or even budding movement) taking to the streets to take up the Palestinian cause? I don’t. The anemic divestiture effort has been swatted down by every major university in the United States. Obama tries to do something as simple as criticize Israel for building settlements and it proves so controversial in his own party that he’s forced to relent and resort instead to tepid pronouncements like the one Ms Cobban laments in this thread. Here’s a newsflash, there will never be a President more committed to a two state solution than Barack Obama. If he can’t inspire Americans to care about what happens to the Palestinians, no one can. The plight of the Palestinians gets no attention in the American press. Even most of the so called progressive blogs barely give the Palestinians the time of day. If you think people power in the United States is going to come to the assistance of the Palestinians, I have one piece of advice for you; don’t hold your breath.
    You think people power in Europe might help? The French, Italians and Germans have all recently elected the most pro-Israel politicians that Europe has seen in years. When Cameron is elected in Great Britain that country will also have the most Pro-Israel Prime Minister in its history.
    As for Eastern Europe, both the governments and the populations in places like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Baltic State are assertively pro-Israel and dismissive of the Palestinians. Even Russia and Russians are growing closer to Israel and more distant from the Palestinian movement.
    How about people power in the budding superpowers like China and India; do you see any evidence of a mass movement in support of the Palestinians in those nations? I don’t. What I do see is governments with increasing political, economic and defense ties with Israel who can hardly even bring themselves to announce the ritual condemnations of Israeli settlements that they used to periodically make.
    I’m afraid your premise is flawed; neither governments nor people’s movements are coming to the rescue of the Palestinians. Hackneyed references to apartheid and boycotts might make you feel better but they’re about as relevant as Sanka and Eight Tracks.
    The Palestinians confront many challenges; several are of their own making. But one of their biggest challenges is not their fault; the dimwittedness of their Western allies.
    Want to help the Palestinians? The best thing you can do is recognize that’s its time to think up a new strategy. Nothing you’ve tried so far is bringing the Palestinians any relief; nor is it apt to any time soon.

27. “Wigwag – In the past couple of decades there have been a number of conflicts that have been settled without greed.” (jdledell)
    Yes it is true that Germany was peacefully reunited and the Czech Republic and Slovakia divorced with less rancor than Donald and Ivana Trump. But if you have an example of a war in which the victorious party negotiated territorial borders as an equal with the defeated party, you haven’t mentioned it.
    Personally I support a two state solution. I believe that Israel should relinquish all or nearly all of the territory that it won as a spoil of war from its defeated adversary. I don’t care about the land in the West Bank, the settlers or what happens in Jerusalem outside of the “Old City” (which does matter to me)
    I’m not convinced that Israel can safely withdraw so I’m skeptical that a satisfactory solution can be reached but I’m willing to be convinced.
    My point is that what Israel is being asked to do is not only hard, it’s virtually unprecedented. The knowledge that if a peace deal is reached Israel is likely to be bordered by a failed Palestinian State far into the future only makes what Israel is being asked to do harder.
    Why do I think that a future Palestinian State is likely to be a failed nation? Virtually every majority Muslim nation without oil in the world today is poor, violent and backward. How the Palestinians are going to escape the fate of their coreligionists not blessed with oil wealth is a mystery.
    In light of the difficult challenge Israel is being asked to undertake, it seems to me that major inducements will be required.
    Threats and recriminations against Israel are likely to have all the success that they have had so far; that would be none.
    Supporters of the Palestinians like Ms Cobban and several of the people who have commented on this thread offer the Palestinians nothing but more of the same.
    The Palestinians couldn’t ask for more misguided or unhelpful friends.

28. WigWag, your basic fallacy is that you essentialize power too much. Yes, it’s true, most all of the power and influence in American foreign policy (at least related to Israel) rests with right-wing Zionists and this has been true for a long time, but it doesn’t follow that that situation is beyond remediation and will not or cannot change.
    We are supposed to be a democracy, after all, and more and more Americans are becoming dis-affected with our Israel policy. What keeps the numbers who actively speak out on the issue relatively small, is at least partly due, imo, to the power of intimidation, the way in which moral black-mail, insinuations of anti-Semitism, etc., are brought to bear on the issue of Israel in the context of Jewish history, the whole way the issue is framed in the media and discourse. Because of this, many non-Jews, particularly white gentile Americans, often avoid the issue or say what they think will avoid the hard, frowning stare. They just don’t want to deal with that hornet’s nest, and feel intimidated from speaking out about Israel’s behavior.
    But I’d suggest there’s a statute of limitations to that sort of intimidation and coercion, as people get more international media and see how Israel actually behaves on the ground, the level of repulsion will (I hope) eventually overcome the sort of bullied silence that exists with much of the country.
    Obama has made some positive steps toward independence. You can worship and essentialize power all you want, but things do change and who holds power and influence is not some static, never-evolving ‘reality’.

29. Also, your idea that the rest of the world is “pro-Israel” or becoming so in anywhere remotely the form that the United States government and foreign policy is, just re-inforces how divorced from reality you are. You’ve internalized the American ideological bubble and think it’s the world.

30. er … “When Cameron is elected in Great Britain that country will also have the most Pro-Israel Prime Minister in its history”
    I hope, ZigZag, that the rest of your thoughts are better informed than this one. It would appear that you are not exactly an avid student of European politics or history …

31. I suggested that when David Cameron is elected the next Prime Minister of Great Britain that country would join France, Germany, Italy (and I should have added Poland and the Czech Republic) as having the most pro-Israel Chief Executive in its history. Colin Dale suggested that I was misinformed and that unlike him, I wasn’t an “avid student of European history or politics.”
    Here, for Colin Dale’s edification are several statements that David Cameron has recently made about Israel.
    “I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party”
    “Why should supporters of Israel support the Conservative Party? Conservatives instinctively know that when any society is faced with a profound threat that the only answer is to be resolute in the face of that threat.. Conservatives have shown, both during the Cold War, and since 9/11, that we have the toughness to hold the course when faced with global challenges. Conservatives appreciate in their hearts what makes Israel strong – the durability of the Israeli people’s values, the freedoms the nation has defended under considerable pressure as well as the vigor and creativity of modern Israeli society.”
    “I am a Zionist,”
    “If it wants to be recognized “[Hamas must] recognize the state of Israel… put an end to violence and accept previous agreements,”
    “There is something in the DNA of Conservatives that is profoundly impressed by what Israel has achieved.”
    “Where I slightly part company with [Blair] is that while I think a two-state solution is vital… I think sometimes politicians can be a bit naive in believing that if only we solved the problem of Israel and Palestine then roadside bombs will stop going off in Iraq, A two-state solution would not solve all the problems between militant Islam and the West,”
    “Israel is a democratic country and these Trotskyists are treating Israel as some sort of pariah state, They are a bunch of lunatics, and what they are doing is profoundly wrong and profoundly damaging,”
    “My belief in Israel is very deep and inside of me and indestructible.”
    “Israel is a force for good in the wider world….Conservatives share many of the same values and outlook as Israel. Quite naturally therefore we should work closely together”.
    The Palestinian leadership should live up to its responsibility to end the corruption, violence, prejudice and terrorism which has blighted their people’s prospects.”
    “Jacqui Smith was wrong to include controversial Jewish-American radio host Michael Savage on a list of extremists while ignoring Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Ibrahim Moussawi, Hizbollah media relations officer.”
    “The academic boycott against Israel is unacceptable.”

32. Dear ZigWAg,
    ALL Europeans political leaders have virtually identical themes for their electorates. Suggest you put in equal research for Gordon Brown & Nick Clegg, leaders of the other two main British parties.
    Whilst you’re at it, check out the utterances of the French, Dutch and German mainstream parties. They will all appear to be pro-Zionist, at this point in time.
    It’s what we call in Europe as being PC – politically correct.
    Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on where you sit – these platitudes are worthless and meaningless.
    They are comparable with stating, currently, that torture is never condoned or practised. That’s not true either, in America or anywhere else,is it ZigWag?

33. “So, you think that people power instead of governmental action is going to force change in the Israel-Palestine stalemate; fair enough. Why don’t you tell us where that people power is going to come from?”
    As Mr Shaw said, “Sneering doesn’t become either the human face or the human soul.”
    Yes, WigWam, people power. Warren L puts it nicely: you invest a great deal in the power of governments. Do you think the German or the British people will go to the polls with a small, violent Mediterranean seaside resort in mind? Have you been paying attention to the news recently? Do Afghanistan and Nato ring a bell? Not to mention a host of other pressing concerns.
    At the height of the anti-Apartheit campaign the US and British governments were against the use of sanctions in S Africa. Indeed, the Thatcher government actively opposed them. That the Prime Minister’s husband, Dennis, was a major investor in S Africa was adopted as a weapon by the a-A movement. Thatcher was, nonetheless, re-elected but on this issue government was irrelevant.
    The anti-Apartheit movement – for the majority of those who were involved in its activities – was a hobby; something they did in their spare time. Some people went to the garden center on a Saturday and others picketed the S African embassy and tumbled a regime. Quite banal sounding, really. Those of us who supported it from a distance did little. We bought someone else’s apples and drank someone else’s wine. And we laughed at Spitting Image (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSLMKUXZ3hk)and felt we were doing something that bettered the human condition. And if, at a dinner party, some feckless fool decided to raise a defense of the Afrikaan’s they were subject to a pretty intense questioning of their humanity. What happened to Apartheid? Are the Afrikaan’s still in power? No. It worked.
    Perhaps it’s time that you began to use your imagination, game the possibilities that are laid out before you and decide on a direction that salvages something from the disaster you face. Time is short.

34. Steve, thanks so much for the Spitting Image clip! I wasn’t in England when they were all the rage.
    It was great. I think, however, we’d have to add a few other “nice South Africans” to Breyten Breytenback there, starting with Dominic…
    your broader point is important: that regardless of what governments or chinless-wonder, ex-Eton political aspirants like David Cameron say and do, there’s a lot we can do at the level of popular culture and daily practice to undermine all the myths of Israelis specialness and rectitude (“the most moral army in the world!” etc), including by using a good dose of humor.

35. Please don’t sneer at the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Steve Connors. You don’t know of what you speak. If it was only a hobby for you, personally, fine. Speak for yourself in that regard.

36. Yes Helena, SI was a powerful political tool which, looking back, seems like a great, golden age of British humour.
    Domza. Who’s sneering? I’m not. I’m only stating the facts. The rank and file anti-Apartheit campaigners were working people with jobs to do and living’s to make. They brought down a regime in their spare time. Indeed, judging from other posts you’ve written recently I would say that you are the one to hold these people in disdain for they were, generally, what you would call the “bourgeoisie”.
    The great working class army you seem to so nostalgically imagine was nowhere to be seen. FYI, in this regard I know only too well, that of which I speak.

37. Colin Dale says,
    “Whilst you’re at it, check out the utterances of the French, Dutch and German mainstream parties. They will all appear to be pro-Zionist, at this point in time.”
    I guess Colin Dale is unfamiliar with the expression “if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
    What he calls the “mainstream parties” don’t just “appear” pro-Zionist, they are pro-Zionist. Their pro-Zionism doesn’t appear to have hurt their political prospects either; at worst it’s irrelevant, more likely it’s helped them win elections. Given the fact that these nations are all democracies it casts grave doubt on the idea that some type of mass movement in support of the Palestinians is about to sweep the continent.
    By the way, while Europe’s left likes to think most Europeans sympathize with the Palestinians, the left in Europe is a mere trifle compared to the movement sweeping the continent; disgust with Muslim immigration. The fastest growing political movement is not the pro-Palestinian movement, it’s the anti-immigrant movement. Its power is on display almost every day as recent elections to the European Parliament proved. This movement is natavist, bigoted and as often anti-Semitic as it is anti-Islamic. Nevertheless, as unfair as it may be, its growing power is far more likely to diminish the saliency of the Palestinian cause in Europe, not increase sympathy for Palestinians.
    Of course as pro-Israel as these European governments are, they oppose continued Israeli settlement activity. So does Obama; so do most American Jews; so do many if not most Israelis; so does the leader of the political party in Israel (Kadima) that won the most seats.
    The question is how, if Israel can’t even be forced to completely stop its settlement program, it’s going to be forced to make the far more difficult concessions that will be required for peace. (By the way, getting the Palestinians to make the necessary compromises will also be difficult.)
    Helena Cobban’s strategy of badgering the Israelis, criticizing them vociferously, calling them names and repeating blood libels while ignoring Palestinian misdeeds has produced no results to far. Given Europe’s and America’s unwillingness to force the Israelis to do anything (which shows no signs of abating) it would seem a more effective strategy is called for. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, none seems to be forthcoming.
    Obama’s strategy, which he has now abandoned to the chagrin of Ms Cobban, accomplished nothing but turning even those Israelis who oppose settlement expansion and support a two state solution against Obama. Given the fact that he’s politically incapable of sustaining his belligerent rhetoric it’s hard to imagine what Obama thinks he may have accomplished. As I said before, when your sticks are mere twigs, you better look for some carrots.
    Steve Connors is nostalgic for the good old days of the Anti-Apartheid struggle. That’s fine, but pretending that movement provides a model for influencing the situation in Israel and Palestine is naive at best and narcissistic at worst. Not only are the situations substantively different but unlike South Africa, Israel has a powerful constituency in the United States and benefits from the reality that after destroying its entire Jewish population less than a century ago, Europeans are reluctant to treat Israel the way it treated South Africa. Nostalgia may feel good to some but it will provide no relief to the suffering Palestinians.
    The Palestinians are too weak to achieve their national aspirations through their own efforts. Most of the world is indifferent to their plight but fair minded Americans and Europeans aren’t. Nevertheless, the United States and Europe are politically incapable of forcing Israelis to do anything they don’t want to do.
    The only strategy that will work is one that offers very compelling sweeteners. If the Palestinians are to get their State they need American Jews and a significant portion of the Israeli public to support their aspirations.
    Ms Cobban and some of her readers call for “tough love” for the Israelis. What they should really be calling for is “tough love” of the Palestinians.
    Without it the current status quo will be maintained for decades.

38. WigWag, I gave you and JDL a ONE-TIME exemption from the discourse-hogging guideline. Instead of saying thank you you’ve gone on posting extremely long comments here.
    If you want to have some discursive space that you control and can dominate at will, please start your own blog. If you comment here, however, please read, understand, and stay within the guidelines.

39. WigZig – you are not only wrong but totally mistaken. Not only is mainland Europe, and the UK, not pro-Israel but there is now throughout the EU a growing distaste for the Zionist Movement. MEPs are turning their backs on Israel in droves.
    When the IDF killed 305 children and 100 of their mothers last December/ January on the pretext that these unarmed civilians were a threat to the heavily-armed, US equipped, Israeli army – Zionism sustained a huge political blow. People throughout Europe began to see what they had been unwilling to recognize before: a brutality unheard of since the atrocities of WW2.
    There is no other army, in the 21st century, that deliberately targets unarmed women and children.
    Whatever you wish to believe, the fact remains that you cannot build a sustainable society on the blood and bodies of a whole people that you have first dispossessed, and then dehumanized. The modern world will no longer support such a society or its political movement. Zionism has nowhere to go.
    There is now a net emigration from Israel itself, as former immigrants seek a better life where they can bring up their families away from brutality and corruption.

40. WigWag,
    I’m not sure why it is that you’re so completely missing the point of what myself and others are saying here because it really has been quite simply but adequately stated.
    On this issue, as with South Africa in the 70’s and 80’s, government positions do not matter. Can you show me any government action that opposed the Apartheid regime? The Thatcher administration’s policy was very favorable to the government of P.W. Botha’s National Party despite the popular domestic opposition to such a relationship.
    Israel is very unpopular among the type of European’s who are most likely to do something about it. They’re liberal, they’re well educated, they have time and resources to hand, they’re articulate persuaders and they haven’t fallen into the Islamophobia trap of the past few years.
    In the US the situation is different, of course, and is considerably less advanced than that of Europe. However, it’s catching up fast and in the vanguard are young Jews who do not wish to be tarred with the same brush that history will paint their co-religionists who continue to pursue abusive policies against fellow human beings.

41. Helena Cobban says,
    “WigWag, I gave you and JDL a ONE-TIME exemption from the discourse-hogging guidelines.” I don’t know about discourse hogging Ms Cobban. Other commenters engaged me and I responded to them. What’s “discourse hogging” about that? But the 300 word limit is your rule; I respect that and will no longer add posts beyond that limit.
    By the way, the remark you posted above,
    …regardless of what governments or chinless-wonder, ex-Eton political aspirants like David Cameron say and do…”
    hardly seems in the spirit of your own guidelines.
    What exactly your discourse on the size of David Cameron’s chin adds to the debate seems mysterious to me.

42. Most Israelis would feel much, much more comfortable with a SA-style future if Islamic Palestine were represented by a party like Ra’am-Ta’al rather than Hamas. Ra’am-Ta’al’s public declarations resemble those of UWS much more closely than those of Hamas/JIhad resemble UWS and most Israeli Jews are already accepting of control of the Triangle and Umm al-Fahm by an explicitly Islamist party of Israeli-citizenship Arabs. Have you seen how marginalized violent political Islam is in South Africa compared to Palestine? That is partly because UWS is not a monocultural, mono-religious powerhouse based around an eschatological hadith. South African communities also have cultural memories of monopole states–the Zulu Empire, the Cape Colony, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State–being a disaster for those involved, so I would argue that SA actually has a healthy skepticism about the power of the state and checks on the power of the state and religion in the life of the individual citizen–that Israelis and Palestinians DO NOT, and moreover ones that they DO NOT WANT.

43. .Can you show me any government action that opposed the Apartheid regime?
    what am I missing?
    http://articles.latimes.com/1986-10-03/news/mn-4137_1_south-africa
    needless to say, nothing like this would ever occur today with regard to Israel. US support for Israel is near all time highs.

44. As an Anglo, I would highly doubt that David Cameron is committed to anything at all, except getting elected. If he is, as is apparently probable at the moment, he will have no particular agenda, other, I suppose, than defending the wealthy.
    The serious point I have to make is that Wigwag’s “might is right” line is misconceived. The Arabs in general (I don’t think I am going too far in saying that) have understood for a long time, that Israel cannot be defeated militarily, nor the United States. Politics is the game, which takes a long time, and may be generational.
    The interesting case in this respect is Iraq. Maliki understood well that the US was not going to be removed by force. When the chance came, with Bush’s ridiculous neo-colonial text for a SOFA at the end of June 2008, he knew how to resist, and in the end the US signed Maliki’s conditions in the November. You may say, as many do, that the US will not obey what it signed. That is not the way things are going at the moment. Indeed, what the US would do, if it did decide to break the conditions, is not clear. Nobody in the US wants eternal war in Iraq, but that is what is on offer if the US decides to break the agreement.
    In that case, politics seems to be working, at least has made great advances. We will have to see what happens in the end, though I don’t have much doubt, and there may be delays – Maliki assassinated, Maliki defeated in the January elections etc.

45. Well done Vadim.
    One could argue, of course, that official sanctions – which were widely circumvented by S Africa and its trading partners – had far less impact on the internal social dynamics of S Africa than the opprobrium conferred by informal sanctions by millions around the world. Perhaps someone who was there could comment about that.
    Anyway, carry on regardless.

46. It is hard to bet on the mild disgust of the Western populace to force a just outcome.
    With the decline of the West and the possible upcoming competition for Mideast oil, does anyone forsee a stirring of the pot in favour of the Palestinians?

47. It is hard to bet on the mild disgust of the Western populace to force a just outcome.
    With the decline of the West and the possible upcoming competition for Mideast oil, does anyone forsee a stirring of the pot in favour of the Palestinians?

48. What keeps the status quo Israeli behavior going is the support of the United States. We are the enablers. You take away or put a lot of strings on that support, and Israel will be forced to change its behavior. If you can’t see this basic point, then you’re lost. It’s about American foreign policy, and if you think the power of the Israel lobby is some set in stone, never-changing reality, you don’t understand the nature of politics & society that well. Our unquestioned support for Israel just goes back about three and a half decades.
    What you quaintly and condescendingly call “people power” (don’t display your rightist colors all at once, now), most Americans would consider “democracy”, and yes the American political balance of power can, and eventually will, change. If or when that happens, Europe will be only too glad to go along with us, since most of what holds back more outright European criticism/action regarding Israel is deference to (mixed with some fear of) the U.S.
    Your assumption that Israel’s actions/behavior in the Palestinian territories can exist independently of American enabling is just nuts. Israel is not an independent power like the U.S. was in its period of post-war dominance and arguably still is in relative terms, or European powers used to be (and the EU is to some degree, today). It is a fundamentally DEPENDENT country in a way that is different from the U.S. and the countries of the E.U. (particularly Western Europe), or China and India, that’s the big difference you don’t seem to get. Being a genuine, autonomous power I’m afraid takes more than having a big stockpile of WMD and an over-sized military like Israel does… it takes having some kind of real, potentially self-sustaining (yes, even in the age of globalization) economic, industrial & agricultural infrastructure and substance, Israel has none or very little of that, it’s completely and totally dependent on the outside world.

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