Maybe some of you have an idea of what the Israeli government is thinking, but I doubt any of you can describe for me how they can possibly think this will work out well for them. They’re messing with their best and basically their last ally in the entire world. If they’re counting on running out the clock on this administration, they will discover that the next one has the same demands. And the situation in Israel isn’t going to improve through maintaining the status quo.
So, what explains their behavior?
They clearly seem to think that their influence through the Jewish community in America is so strong that they can do as they wish.
We may soon find out of that is true.
Not the Jewish community as a whole – most of the American Jewish community has strong disagreements with the Israeli government.
No, their influence is through the much smaller, but powerful, AIPAC-led Jewish Supremacist community in the US.
Yes but AIPAC ain’t what it used to be either.
http://jstreet.org/blog/post/j-street-news-roundup-482014
The actual Jewish community, as opposed to AIPAC, has less influence in Congress than End-Time Christians, unfortunately.
I was alluding to J Street. It is having an effect.
Do yourself a favor, read this.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/how-a-weaker-aipac-makes-it-easier-to-vote-against-iran-sanct
ions-20140122
Awesome. Some really comforting news in there. Sorry I didn’t check your first link before typing (too much Twitter).
They think…no make that they plan…to spend enough money and exert enough influence in the U.S. to elect a Ratpublican Senate and soon thereafter a Ratpublican president (Or at worst a DemRat who will be so hamstrung by the legislature that he/she might as well not even bother. That is, provided they aren’t AIPAC-in-debt as well.), both/all of whom will owe them big time.
Will they succeed?
They have before.
AG
Shh — we’re trying to ignore the fact that the mega-rich (practically overnight), casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is prepared to put almost all of it on taking over the WH and Congress for his beloved “greater” Israel. (Some of his like-minded billionaire buds will add another billion or so to the pot.) Meanwhile, the crypto-fascist Kochs will take over two-thirds of US state governments.
Maybe they’re true believers.
Wait, so according to the story they’re mad because Kerry said Israel is at fault for conquering 700 more homes but really it’s the fault of the Palestinians for APPLYING TO JOIN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS?
I don’t particularly like the Palestinians, but I think loathing Israel is justified these days.
Israel thinks the tail wags the dog, and until recently, I kind of think that’s been true.
I am so glad to see Obama and Kerry begin to be willing to tell the truth about Israel. Publicly, that is. I suspect it has been happening privately for some time.
Every single time Israel builds a new settlement or adds to an existing settlement it is a big FU to Palestine, and international law, and they’ve gotten away with it for so long they have forgotten which country holds all the cards, if we are willing to use them.
The truth is, Israel has never really been the tail wgging the dog. A more accurate analogy would be that Israel has been the fig-leaf for American interests in the Middle East, guaranteed in terms of domestic politics by support from the American religious right as well as the great majority of American Jews.
That fig-leaf has been so important to the American MIC that at times they have been willing to go along with so-called Israeli interests even at the expense of American interests. But in recent years, so-called Israeli interests (which more and more are identical with Saudi interests) have been genuinely diverging from American interests.
For this and other more complex internal reasons. American Jews are growing more and more critical of Israel. Strong American Jewish support for Obama and strong dislike for Netanyahu have intensified this divergence. Hence the fig-leaf is no longer there and Netanyahu stands exposed.
He oughtta be ashamed. But he isn’t because, well — because he thinks the fig leaf is still there. He’s so used to it, he probably can’t think any other way.
Probably true, but as irrelevant as the majority of Americans are politically to the left of Congress and Obama. It’ the money that counts — and that’s firmly in the Likudnik camp. (While Democrats are patting themselves and their elected reps on the back for the advances in LGBT legal rights, they never noticed where the big money for that effort came from — hint: not a friend of social democracy.)
The money was firmly in the Mitt Romney camp too, but the politics was not. It’s getting more like that with Israel. In fact the Romney money and the Likudnik money come mostly from the same money bags.
Mitt Romney outspent Obama? Or is your comment not meant to be factual and just one of those things that people pull out of you know where when the facts are inconvenient. FWIW — here’s the Open Secrets summary.
Total overall spending was $2.3 billion. That is practically chump change for Adelson — which is why all those GOP POTUS wannabes were in LV last week kissing his ass.
I didn’t say Romney outspent Obama. I suppose what the GOP got was all the money the RW was willing to cough up for a loser like Romney.
I’m not sure I get your point. If, after Citizens United, Obama had to, and was able to, outraise the GOP, I’m more than glad he did.
Because here is more land to steal.
Juan Cole seems to think Apartheid Israel is conducting a slow ethnic cleansing as the world watches. Israel thinks this will work out well for them because no one will be around to complain.
Israel is conducting a slow campaign of ethnic cleansing. And plenty of people around the world are noticing, but so long as the US is willing to use its political weight to provide diplomatic, economic, and even military cover for its crimes, Israel will proceed with the same success it has had thus far.
Obama et al can make all the critical public statements they like – and Israel will do their best to defeat any such politicians – but even the most critical of the serious presidential aspirants isn’t proposing cutting off the US money spigot (both public and private). Until that starts happening – with the prospect of possible success – the Israelis probably believe they can steal as much land and water, and destroy as many lives, as they like. It’s worked so far.
“The standard blog-post turn at this point would be to say that Americans will eventually have to decide whether they can support a state that dispossesses, disenfranchises and exploits millions of people in territories it has conquered on the basis of their ethnicity and religion. …
But I think this standard blog-post turn is too optimistic. I’m not confident that Americans will ever have to face such a decision. The human capacity for tolerating cognitive dissonance is immense. While some American Jews are starting to demand that Jerusalem reach a peace deal with the Palestinians or lose their allegiance, others will stick with Israel regardless of its policies, elaborating ever more baroque arguments to justify their position. Most American evangelicals and conservatives remain staunch supporters of Israel, and have little trouble blaming the conflict on Islamic extremism. It’s entirely possible that most Americans could continue backing Israel indefinitely, as the prospect of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recedes into the mist. Maybe we won’t force a solution for Israel’s treatment of its non-citizens any more than we’ve forced a solution for our treatment of our own non-citizens.”
~Matt Steinglass
Also every peace process inevitably results in its own Friedman Unit: “time is running out”.
Times been running out for decades.
It’s not clear Israel is an issue with much weight to the average American, in either direction. America’s policy is driven by official consensus, not what American’s want.
The “average” American’s take on Israel/Palestine is, and has been for decades, that “they’re always fighting over there.” It’s become a little more informed than that in the past 20 years, but not much.
It’s an atta-boy to Congress for messing up Iran’s envoy to the UN.
They’re still dancing the same old dance and don’t notice that the music’s stopped and everyone is staring at them.
Bibi just had a phone conversation with Mitt.
Sy Hersh’s article unsettled them; especially the reported conversation in which President Obama says to the Turkish Intelligence Minister, “We know…what you’ve [been up to].”
It’s the New York Times; it’s a personal message to Chuck Schumer.
Under a “watch what they do, not what they say” reading, it says that the Israeli government has sprung the single-state fait accompli and wants to distract from that fact by blaming their “policy change” on John Kerry personally. We could have continued negotiating….if not for Kerry.
It is indeed time to reconsider our foreign aid to Israel. And our position on Palestine’s applications to UN bodies.
Why stop with foreign aid? For years American money basically funded the IRA; when the Clinton administration started cracking down on that pipeline, a peace treaty (however imperfect) followed.
That was two decades ago. Now, if you’re Muslim and even give to a charitable organization in your home country, you can be disappeared at will.
If we don’t like our own private citizens giving money to bankroll terrorism, we should be targeting the private money Israel – a terrorist state by any sane definition – gets from the US, too. Of course, since the same people are also a huge income stream for both major US political parties, the gap between “what should happen” and “what will happen” spans galaxies.
They fucking own us man. They know and anyone who’s been paying attention knows it.
You know how Republicans constantly whine about political correctness and thought police? Well how about Christie going to Sheldon Adelson and apologizing for calling them the occupied territories?
The Republicans, nativist to the core and until not long ago anti-semites as well, now go hat in hand when telling the truth about what’s happening to the Palestinians. How’s that for being required to toe the official line?
Booman, you’re a pretty sharp observer. How the fuck has this escaped your notice?
“”I can’t stand him. He’s a liar,” Sarkozy said. Obama was heard to say, “You’re tired of him — what about me? I have to deal with him every day,” according to a French website.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/opinion/miller-obama-netanyahu-open-mike/
Tell me again why the president of the most powerful country in the world has to deal every day with the president of a small country whom we subsidize to the tune of several billion dollars a year? Does he also have to talk daily with the presidents of Burundi, the Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, Switzerland, all with similar populations? Do they all get about $3 billion a year in aid?
You know that saying about what you should do when you find yourself in a hole?
If you’re the United States, rather than stop digging, you declare that you’re digging a hole for freedom.
And money flows.
Well, the illegal abuses of Israel and its various governments have now been going on over 37 years, and I think we have to admit upon an objective appraisal that it has “worked out well for them”….certainly over the past 20 years or so.
“They” have expropriated thousands of square miles of the most attractive West Bank lebensra…oops, living space…oops, er, settlements, yeah, settlements, with most of the available arable land and water, erected a protected road network for colonist..er, “settlers”, while maintaining for all these decades the largest share of foreign “aid” doled out annually by Idiot America, their only ally.
Israel’s various lobbyists obtain almost unanimous agreement from both major parties on resolutions and legislation on a very wide range of issues. Elected dissenters are virtually non-existent. US public opinion massively “favors” (via non-stop propaganda) whatever Israel does or decides to do. Its positions are basically defended to the death on all corporate media outlets to the point that even hearing a critique or an opposing view is remarkable and noteworthy. Their prime minister receives a far more enthusiastic reception in our Congress than our own prez, ha-ha.
The idea that circumstances WON’T keep “working out” is (at best) highly speculative in my view. IMO the odds strongly favor the Likudniks (there exists no credible opposition) successfully implementing whatever the hell their long term vision is for their conquered colony, with no actual meaningful pushback by any significant nation, most especially the oppression-fightin’, democracy-spreadin’, justice-lovin’ US of A. Bibi isn’t worrying about a thing.
US public opinion massively “favors” (via non-stop propaganda) whatever Israel does or decides to do.
It does not, actually.
Israel’s various lobbyists obtain almost unanimous agreement from both major parties on resolutions and legislation on a very wide range of issues.
We know the right has nefarious motives but do you know what the DC Democrats motives are? Who funded the building of the DNC’s HQ inside The Beltway? When you know that, and the only issue he cares about, you’ll understand a great deal why elected Democrats always roll over re: Israel.
Well, who exactly funded the DNC’s headquarters in D.C.? I suppose that his only issue is Greater Israel.
Well, who exactly funded the DNC’s headquarters in D.C.?
Haim Saban, who also funds Brookings, to a large degree(did at least).
I suppose that his only issue is Greater Israel.
Yes.
What explains this behavior?
The same thing that explains the behavior of our own Congress: Re-election.
Netanyahu played by his playbook and time is in his favor. Five years ago, Obama dared to declare settlement building should stop and the 1967 boundaries should be part of starting peace negotiations. Netanyahu ran over Obama like a truck with concrete and Obama/Biden took a few steps back. Hillary Clinton is in the pockets of the Israeli lobby and beholden to her NY benefactors.
Israel will be closing settlement bloc C in East-Jerusalem, thereby cutting the West Bank in two towards Jericho. Israel wants to keep the Jordan Valley for their future settlements and as a “security corridor.” The Obama administration is awfully weak on foreign policy, especially on the recent developments in the Middle East. In my analysis, the White House National Security advisers run their own policy separate from the State Department and John Kerry. We have witnessed it in the period June-August on Syria and on the intervention to support Western Ukraine in opposition to the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine during the Maidan Revolution. Confrontation and a new Cold War policy is a neo-con policy supported by Susan Rice and Vicky Nuland. Obama does not take responsibility and loses credibility with US allies.
On the nuclear talks with Iran, the White House statements indicated the proposed Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in New York would not be accepted, never mind International obligations. US hypocrisy has reached a level never seen before in its history and hurts its position to lead on global issues. The division in US Congress is not helpful and makes Obama a lame duck to run his presidency.
My new diary – ‘Poof’ – Kerry Blames Israel for Breakdown Peace Talks.
○ International factfinding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem [pdf]
○ In Blow to Peace Effort, Israel Publishes Plans for New Housing in Settlements – January 2014
○ Peace Now – the Oslo Accords
Time is especially in his favor in that he’ll be dead when Israel has to face the consequences of his actions.
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