When will this end???
BBC:
- Israel says it is pushing ahead with delayed plans to build almost 500 more homes for Jewish settlers in Jerusalem.
The project is for the Pisgat Zeev settlement in annexed East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
The announcement comes two days after Israel said it would build 450 new homes for settlers in [other parts of] the West Bank…
In GWB’s 2002 ‘Road Map’, Phase 1 was supposed to include both an Israeli settlement freeze and energetic and effective efforts by the Palestinian side to stop anti-Israel violence.
Anti-Israel violence has been just about dormant since January 18. Both the Ramallah-based PA and the Gaza-based PA have taken many energetic and effective steps to stop it.
But Israel has simply carried on with these settlement-expansion plans, saying it “might” agree to some very partial slowdown on new construction, sometime in the future.
What if the Palestinians– from either Ramallah or Gaza– said and did something similar?
What if they said, “Oh, we might agree to put some curbs on anti-Israeli violence, at some point in the future. But for now, we’re going to undertake 50 additional suicide bombings and 45 additional rocket attacks, and meanwhile let’s keep on endlessly negotiating about the freeze on anti-Israeli violence?”
Make no mistake about it, Israel’s longstanding project of implanting its own citizens as settlers into the occupied territories is also an act of great violence. The settlement project steals for the settlers land and other natural resources that rightfully belong to the Palestinians. And the whole machinery of repression that the government of Israel maintains maintain against the OPT’s rightful Palestinian residents, in order to protect the settlers, constitutes a huge edifice of ongoing structural violence, punctuated and maintained by the many acts of direct physical violence that the occupation forces take against the lives and persons of the Palestinians.
500 new settlement homes in Jerusalem? The Netanyahu government is just gleefully poking its finger in Pres. Obama’s eye.
Stephen Walt is right. It’s time to get tough.
What if they said, “Oh, we might agree to put some curbs on anti-Israeli violence, at some point in the future. But for now, we’re going to undertake 50 additional suicide bombings and 45 additional rocket attacks, and meanwhile let’s keep on endlessly negotiating about the freeze on anti-Israeli violence?” (Helena Cobban)
Ms Cobban’s “what if” question is easily answered. Israel would hunt down and kill the suicide bombers and their sponsors and they would bomb those launching the rockets into submission. The rockets didn’t stop and the suicide bombings didn’t halt because the Palestinians decided to follow the road map; Palestinian violence was subdued the old fashioned way, it was defeated; by the separation fence, by targeted killing of terrorists and by the attack on Gaza. If Palestinian violence starts again, it will be met in kind again.
As for Walt’s suggestion that Obama get tough, he wasn’t specifically referring to the Israel-Palestine situation but as Ms Cobban knows Obama already made a feeble effort to get tough; his rhetoric was politically unsustainable so he decided to try a new approach.
The Steve Walt/Helena Cobban strategy couldn’t even be maintained for a few short months. Obama knew it so he relented and decided to try something else.
It’s a good thing for the Palestinians that he did. Obama seems to really want a solution to the conflict; he’s come to understand that infuriating Israeli public opinion and a large percentage of the people in the United States who vote for and financially support Democrats, isn’t a propitious way to pursue peace.
WigWag,
I’ve been interested to see the Israeli government policy of humiliating an American president, of late. How long do you think that can be sustained?
A state occupying a country for more than 60 years doing atrocities and ethnic cleansing for so long attacking state and occupying land then retrieve back have a full immunity from International laws.
So which world you live in?
You either go and tell your congressmen to stand up or please forgot intentional laws all this grape with just one side of punishment for small countries like Iraq, Iran, or Mozambique.
Arabs taught us the fact that US Presidents come and go, but your goal and interests remain. In the case of the Arabs their leaders remain. Mubarak still there, Asad till death and then on to his son, Arafat till death spared us such a character, and Jordan of course the King on to the prince at his death, so which Arab ruler would get excited about such an ephemeral force as a US President?
Hope Israel is learning from such profound Arab wisdom.
And by the way, settlement are likely to bring peace sooner rather than later. They are the only mechanism for convincing these patient rulers that time may not be playing in their favor, and Peace now is better than the hope of getting it all much later. Settlements are like inflation in an economy, and a bit of them is what the doctor ordered.
“and Jordan of course the King on to the prince at his death,
Hum….Yes, Mr. BEEF was on CIA list of workers paid USD1,000,000/ Month, so he is a US dressed in Kofyah like others if we search the hidden names on the hidden list of CIA employee…
When will titus, WigWag and the other Habaristas acknowledge that Israel has no intention of letting peace come to the middle east? A constant state of semi war is essential to keeping the thugs who run Israel in power and keeping their economy running. It keeps the Israeli people distracted from the social, economic and corruption problems that are rife in Israel. If peace ever broke out, the government would have to respond to the people’s needs. Hence, the new settlements which are obviously a desperate measure to torpedo Obama’s push for real agreement and peace. The Palestinians cannot even come to the table in the face of this blatant provocation by Netanyahu. He has driven a stake into the heart of the peace push, just as he intended to. A Palestinian state will come eventually, either in the OPT or in the whole of Israel. Maybe in 50 years or maybe 100, but the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid march of history is inexorable. But not while this crowd controls the Israeli government; they will hang on until the bitter end, and it will be bitter.
The ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem continues… This is really awful. How can a country think it can just evict long-standing Palestinian residents from their homes as Israel has been doing for a while now in East Jerusalem. Maybe Arab East Jerusalem with its history and culture and old, mysterious winding alleyways stands as some kind of unacceptable blight to Israel’s self-conception. Jerusalem has more stories than the Israeli Jewish one and the Netanyahu gov’t, coupled with the settler fanatics, can’t deal with that. Incredibly sad and tragic.
WigWag, I’m afraid you think we live in some kind of oligarchy. Even if that is what the U.S. seems like and sometimes acts like in practice, that’s not what we’re supposed to be. If you took a poll of most regular Democrats (not talking the corrupt leadership, here) I think you’d find a lot of questions and skepticism regarding our Israel policy. I really get the sense you don’t what democracy is. Ever heard of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison? Just asking…
“WigWag, I’m afraid you think we live in some kind of oligarchy. Even if that is what the U.S. seems like and sometimes acts like in practice, that’s not what we’re supposed to be. If you took a poll of most regular Democrats (not talking the corrupt leadership, here) I think you’d find a lot of questions and skepticism regarding our Israel policy. I really get the sense you don’t what democracy is. Ever heard of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison? Just asking…” (Warren L)
Yes, Warren, I’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. For the last 50 years, in democratic election after democratic election, American voters have selected candidates who are pro-Israel. Some have been more pro-Israel than others but large majorities in both houses of Congress have been stalwart supporters of Israel and skeptical at the very least of Palestinian behavior if not their aspirations.
So I’m afraid it’s you who are suspicious of democracy. The candidates Americans keep electing fall all over themselves to increase aid to Israel, denounce critics of Israel and criticize Palestinians at the drop of a hat.
As far as I’m concerned, democracy is just fine!
The last 50 years?, again, you’re way out to lunch. Eisenhower and Kennedy supported Israel’s right to exist, as I do, but they were frankly rather ambivalent toward Israel as an “ally”, and they certainly didn’t DEFER to Israel like today. It was only really beginning in the late ’70’s that our Israel policy and the “special relationship” in anything like its present form started to come into place. The buying-off of Congress really began and settled in during that period, too.
Furthermore, I don’t think most Americans are electing their President or representatives for their stance on Israel. People choose between the abysmal choices that they have (and not much choice on that issue). If that’s your notion of democracy, OK, it’s not mine and I’d gander that of most Americans (certainly not the founders’). So if you really want to see our Israel policy as a small ‘d’ democratic product, go ahead. Some of us around these blog parts question that.
Like a lot of right-wing conservatives, you tend to take a given circumstance at a given period (particularly when you like it) and want to say that it is the necessary, inevitable reality. It’s a sort of genuflection to power that you guys obviously need, the notion of human agency is clearly anathema to your conception of the world. But however much the deck might be stacked in your favor vis-a-vis our government’s Israel policy now and in recent decades, some of us think and hope it can move toward a more just paradigm through effort and political engagement on the issue.
And if our Israel policy was really as solid and organically inevitable as you imply, the lobby wouldn’t get so hysterical and crackers over every “beyond the pale” pronouncement by Carter, Mearsheimer, Judt, et al., and their feared effect on the discourse, they’re obviously more worried about its continuity than you pretend (not) to be, otherwise why the constant demonization of those who go off the reservation? If our policy was really a natural outgrowth of informed majority American opinion, why the incredibly tight leash on the issue? Doesn’t rub.
Wigwag – Where is your morality and decency? Where is your compassion? Can you put yourself in the shoes of an average Palestinian and understand their yearnings and needs? Israel is in the power position here and it is totally within their means to make a just peace with the Palestinians. Why the greed for more and more leaving less and less for the Palestinians.
Is that what you learned at shul?
I do sympathize with the Palestinians jdledell, but I don’t sympathize with either the secular or religious bigots and terrorists who control Palestinian politics.
My sympathy for the Palestinians is just about the same as my sympathy for the Kosovars, the Uighurs, the Tamils, the Tibetans, the Balochs, the Basques, the Corsicans, the Aceh’s, the New Caladonians, the Quebecois, the Puerto Ricans, the South Ossetians, the Western Saharans, the Chechens, the South Moluccans, the Arakans, the Cordelleras, the Chaldeans, the Waloons, the Republika Srpskans, the Northern Cypriots, the Moravians, the Faroe Islanders; you get the idea.
I could go on and on listing the national, linguistic, ethnic and religious groups who think they are entitled to a nation of their own. I’d be happy to do it, but the owner of this blog would have to chastise me for violating her rules on comment length. We wouldn’t want that, would we?
I guess in some sense it’s sad when any group has its national aspirations stymied. The Palestinians have it bad; they are entitled to sympathy but numerous other groups who desire a nation of their own have it as bad or worse. One of the main assets the Palestinians have in their struggle for a national identity is their opponent. As you well know, bigotry against their opponent is one of the things that put the Palestinian cause on the map. It’s one of the main reasons why the bigoted left is more concerned about them than about the other groups I mentioned.
By the way, one group I don’t care about is the Israeli settlers. To my mind they’re just a tuned down version of the Palestinian resistance. They’re only marginally less despicable. Not only don’t I think they’re entitled to the West Bank, I would be happy to see them expelled from Israel proper. They (sorry to insult your relatives) are a cancer on Israel in much the same way that Hamas is a cancer on the Palestinian cause. Both Israel and the potential future nation of Palestine would be better off if the fanatics got what they deserve.
To paraphrase the Pete Seeger song jdledell, thats what I learned in shul today, that’s what I learned in shul.
When there is a single state solution, won’t Jews will be allowed to live on the West and East Banks of the Jordan River? Jerusalem and Amman? Chevron and Ram Allah?
Get used to it bigots: Jews have rights too.
Increasing the Jewish population of East Jerusalem and the West and East Banks brings peace closer by showing the bigots that Jews have rights and are here to stay. The change we need is for Mohammedans and Leftists to abandon their Koranic/Marxist belief in a Jew-free Arabia.
Leftist and Mohammedanic behavior triggered the Gaza War. Unless Leftists and Mohammedans rethink their policies there will be a thousand Baruch Goldsteins, a thousand Sabra and Shatillahs.
Time for Leftists and Mohammedans to engage in some self-reflection.