I gotta be honest. I know some horrible stuff has been going on in Israel and I’ve seen the headlines and some of the social media, but I haven’t had the interest to actually open any of that stuff and read it. I find it all depressing and enervating, and I don’t want to write about it. I’ll probably suck it up soon and get up to speed on what exactly went down, but it’s such an unpleasant situation I kind of want to just go on avoiding it.
The whole region seems doomed and I can’t find anyone to support. There are lots of good people there who want good things, but they never prevail. I try to fight the urge to just write everyone off as a kind of capital loss, but they don’t make it easy.
For Israel, at least, they need to do something new to give progressives any reason to hope. After their latest snubs of U.S. efforts, I feel like they’ve basically decided that they don’t want or need our help. So, how long before we take them up on that?
Christ, I hadn’t seen Rand Paul’s op-ed about Israel and the Palestinians in the National Review until this morning. I expect to be disgusted by Rand Paul, but even so I was taken aback at how viciously one-sided his comments are. What a hollow fraud this man is.
I remember when it was Republicans who applauded killing Jews.
Israel has written off Kerry and Obama. They know that in 30 months the president of the US almost certainly will be either the former senator from New York or a certifiable lunatic who thinks that it’s his biblical mandate to give Israel whatever it wants. So why should they give progressives anything? To their thinking, time is on their side; so long as the US doesn’t do anything to stop them, the rest of the world can go fuck itself.
Whether that’s a wise direction even from the Likudist standpoint is a separate topic. But that’s what they’re thinking, and for the last 50 years (at least) it’s a strategy that’s worked out just fine for them.
Seems like flawless logic, and a can’t lose tactic, especially given the Israel Lobby’s unbreakable control of Congress.
Until there is an actual alternate position put forward for debate in American politics. Which seems unlikely.
If one is just looking at the short and medium term, the logic is sound. But if one looks longer term, Israel is seriously fucking itself over. The U.S. is changing demographically, which means right-wing fringe support is time limited, and Israel is losing support in the American Jewish community at a rapid rate as the old folks die off and the younger ones take a broader view of what’s right and best.
I see four choices that Israeli society can make. They can become a pariah state by ethnically cleansing themselves. They can become an apartheid state, with the Palestinians forever in second-class (for Palestinian Israeli citizens) and fourth-class (for those in the territories) status. They can sign on to a two-state solution and have a morally defensible state (wherein, even if Palestinian Israeli citizens are still second class, they overall have better lives than most of those in neighboring Arab states). Or they can have a one-state solution in which, before long, Israel’s Jewish character is lost.
I’m a Jew who would like to see a one-state solution that includes a right of return for all Palestinians (just as Jews have the right of return too). Both religions and both peoples should stand as equals. Anything less is abhorrent and racist in my view.
Or maybe not. 50 years of kicking the Palestinian can down the road has not made them any friends in the ME or the world in general.
And as the original post proposes, what happens when the USA stops caring about what happens to Israel? The Israelis really live up to that old saying: “with Friends like these, who needs enemies”.
the problem is that the minority in the USA who DO care will continue to own foreign policy. the fact that you and i don’t care is not important.
And the fact that they’ve lost friends in the rest of the world matters to them how, exactly?
The surrounded countries’ leaders hated Israel at least as much 50 years ago (save US stooges like the Shah). As for the rest of the world, any economic cost from, say, EU annoyance has been more than offset by the benefits of seizing Palestinian land, water, belongings, etc., and offering stolen land to wealthy, educated immigrants. From the Likudist standpoint – where the existential paranoia and the historic mandate for a Greater Israel is a lot less insane than what passes for ideas in most of the US right these days – pushing in that direction rather than taking the “risk” of trusting their neighbors has been wildly successful. Plenty of Israeli voters obviously agree.
Your post perfectly encapsulates the logic of Israel as it stands.
I applaud you honesty: “seizing Palestinian land, water, belongings, etc., and offering stolen land to wealthy, educated immigrants”. And Greater Israel. Capital letters there. If you can hold it, you can keep it.
Who needs friends anyway. And the neighbors, whatever. Certainly we don’t need any more stooges like the Shah! That was certainly a waste of US tax dollars wasn’t it. We are not competent are we.
It’s like Viet Nam. You are winning every battle. How is the war going?
I think this misses the point. I believe the point of Israel’s founding in the first place was because to their POV “the rest of the world can go fuck itself.” I believe US support is gravy for them, but that they’d be be ok with everyone – including America – condemning them so long as they can maintain their self-determination. Their nuclear arsenal ensures that nobody seriously threatens that point so I believe this is much ado about nothing, ultimately, but I could be wrong.
arsenal insulates them from all consequences.
They are wrong, but that reckoning might still be a couple of decades out.
When US support falters, as it will when the US enters deeper decline, then the errors of the last four decades will be revealed.
Israel is an outpost of the West in the Middle East. Like the Crusader states of the 12th century, it will not last.
Nuclear arsenals are useless against asymmetric warfare.
If they try to use them, they will just go down faster.
Jews world-wide would do well to consider how Israel threatens their own well-being.
–Gaianne
Time for the Palestinians to declare their independence and erect their own wall. A DMZ between the 2 might work. It works for the Koreans and Pakistan/India. Force the Israeli hand to end occupation.
Netanyahu is the moderate voice in his Cabinet of Ministers, can you imagine that?
PM Netanyhau has shown no courage in leading the Jewish nation and made the choice after the last election to put hardliners in his coalition: Naftaly Bennett and Avigdor Liberman. The government is corrupt, the leadership of police and the prosecutors take bribes, rabbis act as ‘spiritual’ leaders who do the bidding of businessmen and politicians.
From the start, John Kerry’s gallant mission for peace talks was doomed to fail. Soft power from the White House, Barack Obama and Susan Rice, were unhelpful and failed to put pressure on the Israeli government. Since the peace talks started, Israel has announced an additional 40,000 house to be build on the West Bank for Jewish settlers. When Netanyahu negated on his part to release the 4th tranch of prisoners, it broke the agreement for talks to continue. The Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank are making an effort to unite, Israeli government, settler extremists and Palestians fron an rogue Hamas group attempt to dislodge this union. See my recent diaries on the violence that has erupted and likely will lead to the 3rd intifada.
○ Liberman announces Yisrael Beytenu splitting from Netanyahu’s Likud party
○ Religious Racism: Rabbi David Batzri and Son Yitzhak
○ Israel Exacerbating Settler Violence with Gag Orders
How should Netanyahu react to the Jewish terror cell responsible for the kidnap and brutal racist killing of Mohamed Abu Khdeir.
He should not forget pre-emptive strikes, assassination of the Shas leadership and banning of its members to Ukraine.
“Though well known as a rabbi of a relatively ‘strict’ nature among the haredi public, like his predecessor, outside the community he is known for his polemic comments – namely against the religious Zionist party Bayir Yehudi and its voters. The most recent of such comments was when he called the religious Zionist public ‘Amalek’ – a derogatory concept used by some rabbis to describe atheism or threats to the Jewish people and faith.”
○ Rabbis Threaten Kerry with ‘Divine Wrath’
○ Right-wing rabbis compare Kerry to Titus and Haman
Appreciate your posts on ME. I do not look at much in the way of “news” over here except at blogs like Booman. You give me an idea of what Europeans are reading and thinking. Thanks
Thanks for all the work you put in to keep us informed. It seems as if the continuous onslaught of hasbara, in my life decades of being ‘dershed’ on the TV, has dulled many folks’ sensibilities and power. There seems to be a decided ambivalence to grasping the obvious nettle. All anyone has to do is follow Mondoweiss for a few weeks to get the gist of the I/P dynamic, and for the more advanced there is MoA and the Saker to broaden one’s horizons.
I wish that BooMan would give you a Front Page status, call it “Foreign Desk”, to give us a more formal place to discuss these issues. I’ve felt for a while that the unraveling of the sick, deluding aspects of our relationship with Israel will be a big step toward the lessening of BS worldwide.
Count me among those who share Stephen Zunes views:
US culpability in the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks
Although in a way, they’re not a failure; that purports that the present result isn’t what the US government wants, when every year that this fucking charade carries on, more settlements are being built.
The U.S. isn’t in favor of more settlements. Most Israelis are not either. Unfortunately the lunatics (in both countries) have power disproportionate to their numbers. This is far more true in Israel than in the States.
Coulda fooled me.
The US saying it’s not in favor of settlements reminds me of Obama saying he would renegotiate NAFTA while sending staff to Canada to tell them on the hush hush that it’s just campaign rhetoric.
That’s nice that most Israelis aren’t in favor of more settlements; wholly irrelevant to the fact that the Israeli governments — from Likud to Labor — promotes and encourages them through lower taxes and subsidized housing.
Let me clarify:
it comes back to issues like Gitmo, or even aid to Egypt. Obama opposes Egypt’s crackdown on journalism, but he doesn’t care enough about it to take away their aid. The US government “opposes settlements,” but not to the point of doing anything about it. In effect, the US “opposition” is pure lip-service, and doesn’t matter if they refuse to do what should be done about it.
You overlook the fact that Obama’s not a dictator. He has to deal with a House and Senate in which Israel still has overwhelming support regardless of how immorally it behaves. I’m sure he’d love to sanction Israel but he would be overplaying his hand in a big way. The public support isn’t on our side; not yet.
Not even Europe is sanctioning Israel, although many governments are actively discouraging doing business with companies operating in the Occupied Territories through a series of “warnings”. Obama would never, ever, sanction Israel.
Ignore Congress for a second and go read Obama’s pathetic, groveling op-ed downthread posted by lamh; half of it (maybe more) is dedicated to how much we love and support Israel no matter what they do. I can’t know what’s in the president’s head. I’m sure he hates Netanyahu’s guts. But if given free reign I know damn well he would not sanction Israel.
I disagree with you. I think, if Obama could, he would threaten to withdraw U.S. aid. Perhaps that’s not what you consider a sanction but I know that even the mere threat, if credible, would have an enormous impact. Israel would be terrified by having to go it alone. They’ve relied on the backing of their superpower friend for many years now. This is what’s allowed the extremists to be so extreme. The rest of the country isn’t frightened of world opinion so long as the U.S. stands beside them, right or wrong.
Obama’s editorial is obsequious because he’s hemmed in so tightly. The Republicans accuse him and Democrats by extension of not being on Israel’s side. So Obama bends over backward to say that’s not so while trying, at the same time, to tell them they need to change.
I guess we’re going to see. For my money, if I were a betting person (which I’m not because it’s too easy to lose), I’d bet that there is no Palestinian state for the foreseeable future, Israel continues to gobble up more land with settlements, and then Palestinians are put on reservations. Similar situation to today’s Native American decedents.
The Editors of Ha’aretz:
“Abu Khdeir’s murderers are not `Jewish extremists.’ They are the descendants and builders of a culture of hate and vengeance that is nurtured and fertilized by the guides of `the Jewish state’: Those for whom every Arab is a bitter enemy, simply because they are Arab; those who were silent at the Beitar Jerusalem games when the team’s fans shouted `death to Arabs’ at Arab players; those who call for cleansing the state of its Arab minority, or at least to drive them out of the homes and cities of the Jews.
No less responsible for the murder are those who did not halt, with an iron hand, violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians, and who failed to investigate complaints `due to lack of public interest.’ The term `Jewish extremists’ actually seems more appropriate for the small Jewish minority that is still horrified by these acts of violence and murder. But they too recognize, unfortunately, that they belong to a vengeful, vindictive Jewish tribe whose license to perpetrate horrors is based on the horrors that were done to it.
Prosecuting the murderers is no longer sufficient. There must be a cultural revolution in Israel. Its political leaders and military officers must recognize this injustice and right it. They must begin raising the next generation, at least, on humanist values, and foster a tolerant public discourse. Without these, the Jewish tribe will not be worthy of its own state.”
I think it will require people getting to know each other. So much of Israeli life is segregated, which allows people to think of others as less than fully human.
>>… I can’t find anyone to support. There are lots of good people there who want good things, but they never prevail. I try to fight the urge to just write everyone off as a kind of capital loss, but they don’t make it easy…. they need to do something new to give progressives any reason to hope.
pretty much how i feel about the democratic party.
I fully understand your disinterest, or of you will, resignation at year another Israeli atrocity. Three teenagers were killed – horrible event to be sure, although not unusual for the region. Nuttyyahoo announces boldly that there will be a penalty, and here in America we are treated to headlines about how Israel is “pounding” (with missiles) Gaza in response for thie murder of the three teenagers in the West Bank. Good luck finding any US news coverage of the killings done in search of the three teenagers or of the death and injury toll of the Gaza “pounding” – Israeli censorship rules apply. Besides, those babies were baby terrorists.
Then, more by luck than design, a death of a Palestinian gets actual news coverage. Probably because it was done by Israeli wingnuts, not the military. So Nuttyyahoo decides to make a PR point and pretends to be equally concerned with this obviously non-chosen inferior race. He says unfair deaths have to be treated the same. Does that mean he’ll order his military to conduct “pounding” of an unrelated part of Israel in response, like he did to Gaza. Don’t be silly. He won’t do anything.
And with the Israeli gag order, we don’t even know the details surrounding those 3 murdered Israelis, who was responsible, etc. We may never know, and might not know even if the order was lifted. It certainly didn’t help, though.
Sometimes, I feel like the only way to get Israel to agree to something significant is to present a credible threat to give Iran some nukes and the capability to use them against Israel. Sometimes, I want to do just that.
Iranin nukes would be pointed at Riyadh, not Tel Aviv…
Where is the Palestinian Mandela? Their Gandhi? Perhaps the conditions aren’t right for such a figure or movement to emerge, but I have often wondered that.
how many such people might there be in Israeli prisons (or cemeteries) being prevented from emerging?
this very common question always makes me wonder if the point is that the cause is less valid for lacking a saintly leader.
Obama’s op-ed in Haaretz: “Israel cannot be complete and it cannot be secure without peace” http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.603324 …
Netanyahu government knew teens were dead as it whipped up racist frenzy
The issue will be brought to head when Israel really is victimized, and the US will not be in a position to help. Are American moms really ready to send their kids to fight and die to preserve apartheid Israel? I doubt it…and when that happens, the Middle East will finally have its cataclysm.