Someone explain this:
The prime minister’s associates said that he “desperately wants” Obama to use the diplomatic muscle of the US to protect Israel from the coming unilateral statehood bid the Palestinians plan for September; not only by vetoing in the Security Council, but also by leaning hard on Washington’s European allies to get them to reject it as well.
Obama has indicated that he will certainly do the first, but it remains unclear how far he will go to persuade the UK, France and other US allies to join the White House in rejecting the move.
Again, this issue nauseates me so much that I’m not sure if I understand this correctly, Israel wants the United States to be the one thing standing in the way of Palestinian Statehood? And we’ll do it, of course, but won’t that just confirm EVERYTHING folks on the street in the Middle East think about the United States as little more than a stooge for Israel? Is that why he wants us to pressure France an the UK?
Again, I’m assuming that unilateral statehood just means declaring them a state without going through all the negotiations that were outlined and freaked out about yesterday. Correct? If not, fill me in. I really am sick and tired of this issue, so just give me the bullet points. And for those of you who want to give me shit about not paying enough attention, I’ll pay attention when there is a non-Netanyahu government in place in Israel that actually wants there to be a peace process. Everything I’ve seen, from the settlement expansions and the other behaviors onward suggests to me that Netanyahu is quite content with the status quo. If I am wrong, explain why.
Bonus points if this thread goes 200 comments without the usual anti-Semite charges being hurled.
Yutsano
Unfortunately JC, the history of Israel going back to its founding virtually guarantees that will never happen. From Ben Gurion on, Israel has sought an ever expansive and lopsided policy that always guarantees the Jewish population will come out ahead. The settlements are just the natural offshoot of that original intent, if you will.
dr. bloor
Yeah, I’ll take the “under” bet, please.
As far as I’ve read, the UN move is largely symbolic, and is simply a formalistic way of calling bullshit on Israel and the US.
Mike in NC
Netanyahu must be Hebrew for “Gingrich”, i.e., a complete asshole who refuses to go away and whom the media inexplicably adores.
Linda Featheringill
I consider myself a Judeophile [is that a word?] but the government of Israel is very trying. I’m also tired of them. They do have moderate people in Israel but the voters won’t elect them.
As to the Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood, I am not sure at all what that entails or what the results would be, so cannot address that. Surely there is more to it than standing up and saying “We consider ourselves a state.”
What will the US do? Well, we usually do enough to piss off the liberals, anger the Palestinians, disturb Europe, aggravate Israel, and send the Republicans into a self-righteous rage. Whether Obama can do better than that remains to be seen.
Jazz Superluminar
What you said is about right. I can’t believe the admin are going to veto either. How the fuck is that good policy given the Arab Spring etc?
Also too, this thread will remain sane as long as m_c doesn’t chime in.
JonF
Bibi and the Hawks in Israel are stalling in the hopes that Obama loses next year and they’ll have a conservative in office to enable all their desires.
stickler
Linda:
It’s not the Palestinians “declaring themselves a state” so much as it is the UN recognizing them as such.
Which will pose new and interesting challenges for the state which is occupying the territory of a sovereign state which is also a member of the United Nations.
Dave
The last guy who gave a shit about forging a lasting peace in Israel got killed for it. Bibi and the rest are trying to wade against the tide of history. And it never works.
Napoleon
We are nothing more then an Israeli stooge. What is this “little more” of which you speak?
stuckinred
@stickler: It would if it happened and it won’t.
p.a.
Well, we won’t ‘need’ Israel after Saturday, right? Then they’ll either be with Jeebus or consigned to hell with the Palestinians.
stuckinred
@Napoleon: “WE” who?
Corey
I honestly do feel for Israeli politicians. They surely know, even the Likudniks, that they must allow a viable Palestinian state, but they’re caught between a demographic rock and a hard place; the only people in Israel with positive fertility rates are Orthodox hardliners and Israeli Arabs.
Obama made his move yesterday, I think, because if a peace isn’t achieved in the next 5-10 years it won’t be achieved at all.
merrinc
Sorry, John, can’t help with this one. The way I see it, there will never, EVER be a resolution to the I/P problem so I’ve stopped trying to figure out what’s going on.
But if your staycation is over, I would appreciate a thread on the reactions of West Virginians to the report stating Massey Energy was responsible for the Upper Branch explosion – if there was any reaction.
PeakVT
My question about the upcoming statehood declaration is: how does making such a declaration improve the Palestinians’ negotiating position? I don’t see it. I’m sure it will make a lot of Palestinians feel good, but it also takes away their highest card, which is to demand to be full citizens of Israel. All those new citizens would obviate the Jewish majority in “the Jewish state” and so negate the whole Zionist project. I think even the most dovish Israeli Jew would be opposed to such a thing. Declaring a Palestinian state would give everybody in the Occupied Territories (except the Jewish colonists) a citizenship, making it harder for them to demand citizenship from Israel. So I don’t see the point (other than the admittedly compelling psychological one) for Fatah/Hamas to take the step.
Culture of Truth
I do hope Israel hasn’t pinned all its hopes on a Pawlenty Presidency.
lamh34
O/T, but I thought this dude was supposed to be the “moderate” in the bunch?
“Huntsman, the Moderate, Endorses Ryan Medicare Plan”
I’m beginning to think that maybe Huntsman is just gonna jump in to get some name recognition for 2016.
The Moar You Know
Yes, it will.
Because the United States is nothing more than a stooge for Israel.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
The United States has been the one thing standing in the way all along. The U.S. provides billions in weaponry and unlimited diplomatic cover for Israel and has done so for decades, negating Israel’s incentive to come to a reasonable settlement with all the interested parties. For all our caterwauling about how we’re sick and tired of both sides, the U.S. is and has been the primary problem all along.
Davis X. Machina
@Culture of Truth:
I don’t think it really matters, not with the Congresses we elect.
People who seek an argument against the efficacy, or existence, of third parties in US politics need only point to the success of Likud.
lamh34
Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don’t Speak to My President That Way
BR
@lamh34:
It’s like DougJ always says: the “moderates” are really just as crazy as the crazies, they just hide it better.
PeakVT
Haha, the Israeli government is so predictably prickish.
Villago Delenda Est
The Israeli political system has some rather unique features (or, to be more blunt, serious bugs) that allow insane minority parties to hold the cat bird’s seat in forming governments. This creates situations where truly bizarre demands of microscopic religious parties can hold up the entire show if they are not met.
So, the moderates, who may actually have the plurality of votes, are perpetually pushed out of power by a coalition of dead enders who operate in an all or nothing mode.
And, yes, the last guy who actually made moves to resolve the situation got killed by one of the dead enders for his efforts.
arguingwithsignposts
@lamh34: For once, Jeffrey Goldberg gets a “well done” from me.
trollhattan
Leave Israel aloooooooooone! That’s not anti-antisemitic, is it?
This crap has been going on my whole life and I’ve not seen any genuine advances since that horror of horrors(tm), Jimmy Carter was in the White House. (And we saw how well received Sadat was, after the fact.)
I take the settlements to be the prime barometer of Israel’s intentions, which communicates, “We ain’t giving up squat.” Hamas are no walk in the park, either. There’s going to come a breaking point, and nobody will like the outcome. My only question is who will benefit?
beergoggles
@Dave: I wouldn’t put it past those powers to attempt the same. I really hope the secret service is more competent than whatever israel throws against us.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, a lot of your fellow Americans are cheering Bibi on for sassing that uppity near person.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
I’ll just leave a link to my post about this here: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/obama-netanyahu-the-middle-east-speech-what-might-have-happened-there/
…and then say:
OMG I’M ABOUT TO BE ON THE BBC’S WORLD HAVE YOUR SAY!!1!!
They contacted me because of that there post and I’m going to be on twice, from 1:00-2:00 and 2:00-3:00 (EST) You can listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/
And then, on Monday or Tuesday, I’ll be IN A STUDIO BEING INTERVIEWED BY RUSSIA TODAY, RUSSIA’S ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAMING!!1!!
They contacted me (I think) because of all my tweeting yesterday…!
OMG OMG OMG OMG.
Keith G
No anti-Semite charges here. Just saying that Israel is a spoiled child that needs to be told that it gets to face the results of its senseless behavior on its own.
Our financial crisis may drive that point home with a bit of emphasis.
MTiffany
Israel is like that friend you won’t go out drinking with anymore because of all the stupid bullshit fights they would start and then expect you to back them up.
arguingwithsignposts
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Congrats! We knew you when.
Svensker
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
You go, girl!
Woot!
Give ’em hell, honey.
p.a.
I guess I’m hopeful in the long term. After all, England and France were at each others’ throats for generations, and France and Germany from 1870 thru WWII killed each other by the 100’s of thousands. Yet now… So nothing is set in stone. But I can’t see things get much better soon as long as the US is Israel’s enabler.
If the ball-less mainstream US media would be more honest about what goes on in the occupied territories, public opinion might effect some movement by politicians, as when police attacked US civil rights marchers in front of tv cameras in the 60’s.
RP
@beergoggles: That’s funny. If I were to say anything even mildly supportive of Israel, I’d probably be accused of playing the anti-semite card or supporting genocide. But I guess it’s fine to suggest that Israel would like to assassinate Obama.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
PS John, by the way, by reacting as he did to Obama’s reference to “1967 borders,” Bibi outed himself as being, as you say, absolutely uninterested in the peace process as it’s been understood for the last 20 years, and as it’s been set out in every single proposal ever proposed, and as it’s been endorsed by the American government time and time again.
The announcing of a Palestinian state would be a symbolic act — an act which the Palestinians have undertaken not once but twice in the past — but in the framework of the UN it would mean that Palestine was being treated as a sovereign state, meaning Israel would then be occupying not “territories” but a sovereign state. So, technically, there are consequences to that, but I think we can all agree that the UN doesn’t always have all the teeth it might aspire to have, and sovereign states are dicks to each other all the time.
trollhattan
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Dayumn, that’s the Bigtime(tm)! Don’t let the anticipation/excitement/dread drive you crazy beforehand. (Is that like saying “Don’t think of a green elephant?)
Good luck.
Cris (without an H)
And we’re the guy who keeps going drinking with him anyway.
Ija
@Linda Featheringill:
I do think Hamas has a shared responsibility in this in that there seem to be an increase in attacks and suicide bombings closer to Israeli elections. I never understood that. What’s the point? Are you trying to get Israelis to elect the most far-right government most hostile to the Palestinian people? Are they getting pointers from Naderites or something?
trollhattan
@Cris (without an H):
Not to mention, picking up the bar tab.
Hungry Joe
Begin’s election and the rise the the Likud in ’77 poisoned the well: The settlements made a solution orders of magnitude more difficult. The great irony is that Israel would be much better off after the establishment a Palestinian state based on (but not the same as the indefensible)’67 borders, because it could then treat any incursion/rocket attack as an act of war from a foreign country, and respond accordingly. But in order for that to happen, Israel will have to make a move as bold as its ’48 declaration of statehood, and pull out of (almost all of) the occupied territories and remove the tens of thousands of settlers (hundreds of thousands, maybe?) by force, if necessary.
beergoggles
@RP: Well I don’t expect Hamas to be be competent. Also, let me say something supportive about Israel to appease ur hurt fee-fees: It is the only place in the middle east that treats its gays well and I have a soft spot for them for that. Still doesn’t override the protective feelings I have for the US.
Carol
@stickler: Stickler’s bullet point explanation is a good one.
Personally, the two state solution makes me uneasy because of issues like the right to return of 1948 refugees, Palestinians who live or are internally displaced within Israel itself, and just the idea that you have two states created and maintained based on ethno-religious identity doesn’t seem very “inclusive democracy” to me.
It’s also my understanding that apart from conquest of land and racism, the West Bank contains Israel’s water supply and this is part of the reason Israel is so zealous about hanging onto it. Will a two-state solution solve that problem? I don’t know. I would envision continued armed conflict over access to the resource.
Xof
Israel seems to be an exception to the usual rule on the right that no one is allowed to criticize the US, and once you add the CAN’T YOU SEE HE’S BLACK? factor to it, they’d probably love it if Bibi slapped Obama across the face.
autoegocrat
Can someone please explain to me what the United States gets out of this relationship? What compelling national interest causes us to continue cock-blocking the Palestinians?
Is there some vast trade of widgets between the U.S. and Israel that I don’t know about? Do they have oil? Rubber? Do they hold the keys to the United States Strategic Carob Reserve or something?
Seriously, I just don’t get this. I would appreciate a sincere and straightforward answer. From anyone. Zionists, explain this one to me, please.
Napoleon
@stuckinred:
Us (assuming you are a US citizen) in that the government takes positions that others can attribute to we, the voters. I understand that some, maybe most, may not agree with those positions, but at the end of the day our vote puts them in office.
Jim C.
These things may be largely symbolic, but they are also very important for public relations purposes.
I remember at one time in the lead up to the Iraq War, W. Bush was talking about all the U.N. resolutions they had passed that Saddam had ignored.
What never got mentioned was all the ones that WOULD HAVE passed against Israel if the U.S. didn’t have a permanent veto. A large part of the U.S. electorate tilts extremely strongly towards Israel on the Israel/Palestine thing because the vast majority of what they hear about is only the wrongs on the Palestine side and never on the Israel side.
I’m not going to argue that the Israel is worse than Saddam or that the terrorists that have attacked Palestine at various times aren’t more to blame than Israel is in the entire mess since both arguments would be pretty stupid, but I have to think that the views of the U.S. wouldn’t be so unequivocally pro-Israel on all things if both sides of the story were occasionally told.
Comrade Mary
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: OMG that’s AWESOME! Your post was definitely worth bringing to the world’s attention.
I was a WHYS caller for a musical topic several years ago, and was shocked to be an invited “expert” for a sequel on same topic. They are absolutely lovely people.
if anyone here wants to participate (and not just listen to Emily’s dulcet tones), the neat thing is that once you connect to them, they’ll call you back when it’s your turn to talk, so you aren’t going to get hit with a huge long distance bill for calling London. Go here and scroll down to the “How do callers get on the air?” section to find out more.
You can get the World Service Live Stream here, but if you miss it, the WHYS page has podcasts of recent episodes.
stuckinred
@beergoggles:Interesting piece on that in the Advocate.
Brachiator
Chill. Everybody is losing their minds over Obama’s rather mild statement, which is not much far removed from stuff that the first president Bush offered as a baseline for Israeli/Palestinian negotiations.
And the bottom line is that no matter what the president says, offers or opines about, it is up to the people of the region to work out their common future. Also, too, what “folks on the street in the Middle East think about the United States” don’t mean a goddam thing, no more than what the folks on the street in the United States think about the Middle East.
Some of the more insane comments about Obama’s statement reminds me of some of the equally insane comments surrounding the Queen of England’s visit to Ireland: people who are normally sane in other contexts suddenly start frothing at the mouth.
Mnemosyne
@Ija:
I would be curious to find out if those attacks are actually planned and/or condoned by Hamas, or if they’re freelancers like the rump of the IRA that’s still tossing grenades (literally) in Northern Ireland.
One of the biggest problems in the Israel/Palestine conflict is that an extremist on either side can disrupt the entire peace process. I’m not sure how you stop the two sides from constantly taking the bait, but maybe they need to talk to the negotiators in Belfast to get some tips.
p.a.
@Ija: I remember reading, and someone with more knowledge please correct me if I’m wrong, that in the 1970’s and 1980’s Israel imprisoned and deported Palestinian moderates and accommodationists while secretly subsidizing Hamas, in order to de-legitimize the Palestinian movement.
Comrade Mary
World Have Your Say is listening to Eve, a settler (who sounds like she grew up in the States or Canada) right now, who is not happy. Still awaiting Our Emily.
Phil Perspective
@lamh34: When the rest of the RWNj’s are to the right of Jeffrey Goldberg on Obama’s speech, maybe that dude was right about the rapture after all. Or at least the Mayans.
stuckinred
@Napoleon: The logical extension of that will cause you to jump off a bridge.
Superking
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the statehood issue is going to the security council. Rather, it’s going to be voted on by the U.N. General Assembly which is the main body of the UN and comprised of representatives of all the member states. We don’t have the ability to veto resolutions in the General Assembly, and their resolutions are non-binding in any case. Statehood itself isn’t a matter of any formal rules or recognition under international law. Holding a vote at the UN won’t make them a state any more than they are now. Statehood is more a matter of practice than votes and laws.
RossInDetroit
@MTiffany:
OT, Ukraine is experimenting with incorporating bar fights into legislative sessions.
Villago Delenda Est
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
OK, Emily is now officially “Big Media Emily” :)
Brachiator
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I look forward to hearing you on the Beeb.
Phil Perspective
@Jim C.:
Actually, no. Despite all the BS in the corporate media here, it’s still 50/50 at best. Congress is light years behind the public on this.
stuckinred
@Superking: “Obama condemned the Palestinians’ plan to seek U.N. General Assembly recognition for statehood, but Moussa said on Friday that any attempt to take the Palestinian issue to international forums was “a legitimate step.”
Tony J
@PeakVT:
Well, like you say, there is (and always was) zero chance of the Palestinians gaining Israeli citizenship. That card was never really there to be played, because Israel would never allow it, and the Palestinians themselves do not want to be citizens of Israel.
From what I can see, claiming Palestinian statehood at the UN puts them in a very different position. To get it, they’d have to accept the UN’s definition of what comprises ‘Palestine’, which gives them either the 1948 or 1967 borders. That puts the onus on Israel to explain why its continuing to occupy and settle its own citizens on the territory of a fellow UN member-state.
Basically (IANALSIIL) ‘Palestine’ being accepted as a member-state changes the whole game, which is why the Israelis are so adamant that the US sabotage the plan with their veto.
handy
breathlessly awaiting commenter Pancake to set all y’all Jew-haters straight.
Dick Dastardly
Israel will never have a government that actually wants a peace process. From the 1950s onwards any Israeli government has been a coalition of parties, some of which are small extremist groups who refuse to even recognise the possibility of a palestinian state. These small parties have the capability of collapsing the government overnight if they ever got serious about making peace. So the situation will continue evolving into a South Africa-like situation, where the majority Palestinians eventually take power like the ANC did in South Africa.
Jim C.
@Phil Perspective:
Do you have any poll links you can show on this case? This would be a very welcome surprise to me that the American electorate is more evenly divided than my perception of it is.
stuckinred
@Dick Dastardly: Now that is funny.
Napoleon
OT, but talking about the Rapture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LXuNpF6NVg&feature=player_embedded
Comrade Mary
Multiple bingo card hits from an American caller who is “ashamed” that Obama “put Israel under the bus” instead of “standing firm by our friends”.
Scott P.
How is that their highest card? They don’t want to be citizens of Israel.
Wouldn’t they get a seat on the General Assembly? And wouldn’t they be eligible to sit on UN committees?
burnspbesq
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
As bad as Netanyahu is (and he’s quite bad), my sense is that he is the only thing standing between the Palestinians and Prime Minister Lieberman. And I have no doubt that Prime Minister Lieberman would be infinitely worse.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@autoegocrat:
The US gets religion out of it. Every Christianist nut, every anti-Muslim nut, every can’t-get-over-the-cold-war nut, and everybody who’s just hawkish for any reason thinks Israel is fighting off the barbarian hordes. There are enough of them, and enough of them are fanatical about it that it’s a dangerous voting block. To make it worse, these dufuses have an extra concentration of people in power – not powerful Jews, but powerful CHRISTIANISTS.
As a result even the members of the government who think Israel is totally out of line can do nothing about it because they’ll be drowned in opposition. It’s about like closing Guantanamo. There are a few issues where our whole government is in the position the GOP are with the tea jerks now. Even the people who disagree know they’ll get slapped down the moment they say anything, so they act like they’re all in on it too.
In practical terms? No, we don’t get much out of an alliance with Israel. Countries like Saudi Arabia are way more useful.
RP
@beergoggles: I just don’t like seeing people on my “side” spouting crazy conspiracy theories. I’m funny that way.
MattR
I am still amazed I have not received any mass emails from the Zionist wing of the family – the relatives who are also related to the folks who owned the New Republic for a while.
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Congrats. Way cool. Bonus points if you sneak in a mention of Tunch, Lily or “the piglet” during the broadcast.
WaterGirl
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I’m so excited for you that I got goosebumps!
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
The Likudniks and their like make the mistake of conservatives everywhere: they assume that “status quo” is stasis rather than a dynamically evolving equilibrium. The sad irony is that the longer Israel waits for a resolution to the diplomatic impasse, the longer they continue to support the west bank settlers, the more they ultimately ensure a bloody war between the Palestinians and the settlers, or the settlers and the Israeli government. In this context “inaction” is not politically neutral, it is a tacit endorsement of the views of the crazy west bank settlers, who are itching for a race war with the palestinian arabs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Scott P.:
Not only do the Palestinians not want to be citizens of Israel, the more militant Israelis don’t want them as citizens of Israel, either.
Israel wasn’t founded as a secular state, and there is most certainly a component of it now that is vehemently opposed to a secular state, which is what one that incorporates Palestinians would have to be.
The entire clash over the Dome of the Rock/Wailing Wall is but one example of the historical baggage that can’t be resolved within the confines of a “Jewish state” on lands that the Palestinians have lived for generations.
The Dome of the Rock/Temple of Solomon clash is just the barest tip of the iceberg on this thing, as well. Jerusalem itself is considered a holy city by the three Abrahamic religions, and has been for millenia. The Crusades, you’ll recall, were about securing Jerusalem from the Muslims. Since each of the three religions is the one true faith, you can see how this might be a tiny problem.
jazzpoltobie
@p.a.: So basically, neocons are parasites who thrive by enabling each other’s bellicose saber-rattling. What else is new?
RP
Well, yeah. The extremists on both sides have no interest in peaceful negotiations. A constant state of conflict keeps them in power. See Hannah Arendt. See also “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Throw in the fact that the governments of the surrounding states like Syria have had little interest in seeing a peaceful settlement because they can use the conflict as a distraction, and you have a recipe for 60 years of conflict.
Superking
@Scott P.:
Yeah, I don’t know about that. I haven’t heard the terms of the vote yet, but there are specific things you have to do in order to get UN membership, though I don’t know them off the top of my head. This situation is comparable to the vote that Kosovo held within the past couple years in order to declare itself an independent state. The US supported it, but some other countries didn’t, and I think it is now fairly well accepted that Kosovo is an independent state.
But they are still not UN members. Membership in the UN isn’t automatic on statehood, and the reverse is also true.
Thoughtcrime
Cole, stop being so paranoid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaPBhxXhprg
bystander
Sooner or later, the US relationship with Israel will evolve from the steadfast, blank-check-like, relationship that has typified our history with Israel to something that is a great deal more even handed.
It’s funny. On vacation and desperate for a beach read, I picked up Dan Silva’s The Rembrandt Affair (2010). I hadn’t read Silva in a couple of years; his plots were beginning to feel boilerplate. But, I read this one. I found myself off-put by it’s heavy handed pro-Israel tone, and simultaneously surprised at myself for being off-put by that tone. It was interesting that Silva crafts a story where the transition in tone/nature/relationship between the US and Israel in 2004 to the US and Israel in 2008 is actually one of the themes of the story narrative.
The world is turning, and it will continue to turn on this issue, because it has to. Like a lot of other things we do because we’ve always done it that way long past a point where it’s rational and sustainable; it loses momentum as frictional forces override inertia. My guess is, this gravitational shift won’t be quite as dramatic as bed slats. But, it will come amidst – and, in spite of – the howls of outrage from predictable corners.
Ija
@Mnemosyne:
Sure. And then there’s also the issue with retaliation – a right-wing Israeli government can order an attack on the Palestinians close to the Israeli election knowing full well that Hamas would of course retaliate, thus proving to the Israelis the importance of electing right-wing government to protect them from Palestinian attacks compared to wimpy left-wing parties who want to negotiate. The cycle can go on and on and on to eternity.
bryanD
Once upon a time Israel (Shin Bet) nurtured, funded, and armed Hamas in an effort to sap support from the secular Fatah/PLO. It was supposed to be Jews and ISLAMISTS(Hamas)—oh, the irony!— versus the secular Pan-Arabist PLO. Then Hamas quit taking orders from Jewish politicians.
This historical fact is EXTREMELY embarrassing to the Powers That Be in Israel. Hamas is Israel’s golem and a golem should not speak according to Yiddish tradition. How dare it! …Plus: “COOTIES!”
Superking
@stuckinred:
Yeah, I think Obama knows what he is talking about, but the reporter for the newspaper that John Cole linked to said the vote was going to be in the UNSC, which it’s not. So, we’re not going to be the one thing standing in the way of Palestinian statehood, because we won’t have an opportunity to veto the resolution. Moreover, the UN vote won’t make them a state. The assumptions of John’s post are faulty. That’s all I was trying to point out.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think the Palestine/Ulster analogy is a particularly good one.
The Real IRA, Continuity IRA, and the rest of the rejectionist lot have been overwhelmingly rejected by the Catholics of Ulster. The recent election results make it clear: the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition has a solid majority in the Norther Ireland Assembly, and they also cleaned up in local elections. The Catholics in Ulster, by and large, feel like they’ve gotten what they fought for, i.e., a real voice in determining how Ulster is governed. The Palestinians have a long way yet to travel before they get to where the Catholics in Ulster have gotten, and for that reason I think the bomb-throwers still have significant popular support.
WaterGirl
@Comrade Mary: I tuned in at 1pm – Emily has not been on yet, right?
Commish
The issue is not letting Palestine stand up and claim it’s a state. It’s about the UN recognizing Palestine as a state, and, presumably, the current government as a legitimate one.
I’m no fan of Bibi or the settlers, and believe Israeli pressure and US support thereof has had more than a little to do with the time it’s taken for the Palestinians to get their self-governing act together. But Fatah has (as I understand it) recently joined with Hamas to form a coalition government for Palestine. Hamas continues to deny a right for Israel to exist, and rejects the UN resolutions that created Israel back in the 40s. The most they’ll admit to date is that they might be willing to live in peace alongside israel as a temporary condition, while they continue working toward replacing Israel and current Palestine with a single, Islamic state.
Until Palestine’s elected leadership formally accepts the UN’s creation of Israel and the latter’s right to exist within *some* borders – even the original 1948 ones – I have to agree with Obama it’s too early to recognize the Palestinian state. And that it’s not a trivial point.
RP
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus): For many years Israel was our client state in the cold war. Israel was one of our main outposts in the ME, while the USSR supported Eygpt, Syria, et al. Actually, I should have added that point to post 76 — throw in two superpowers fighting proxy wars, and you have a whole new layer of stupidity.
Comrade Mary
SHE IS ON RIGHT NOW! (Introduced as being from Chicago: but a guy is speaking first.)
Go here to listen.
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FPP THIS???
Ghanima Atreides
@Jazz Superluminar: you rang?
The problem is that Israel’s position is untenable in the face of the Arab Spring.
like Beinart points out, Israel is getting the arab spring treatment already. And not even Obama can put the social media djinni back in the bottle.
The Egyptian foreign minster already opened the Rafah crossing permanently which was closed in 2007. That probably is a treaty violation.
Last Friday-of-Rage saw thousands of palestinian protesters organize with social media and march on 3 borders of Israel.
American media only covered Assad’s border, and Assad’s doing that to deflect from his internal problems.
But both the egyptian and jordanian governments tried to suppress the marches on their israeli borders very, very, carefully.
Jordan’s monarch could fall to the Arab Spring also.
The Muslim Brotherhood franchise in Jordan is called al-Ikhwan.
It means The Brotherhood.
I predict Obama does not veto.
Because of the Arab Spring and the American Fall.
I dont think people realize that the SOFA means American can only leave 150 trainers in Iraq after December 2011. That means no airbases. we spent all that money for nothing.
Petraeus is trying to negotiate permanent bases with Karzai right now, but that probably wont matter, because when the Taliban become part of the A-stan government they will just kick America out. That is why O moved the timetable back to 2014, well after the 2012 election.
The really bad thing will happen if the Arab Spring comes to AfPak.
Pak has between 75 and 100 nukes and several powerful islamist parties in parliament already. American droning is destabilizing Zardari’s pro-american government.
America’s power is waning in the ME.
Comrade Mary
Guy talking right now is claiming a “walkback”, then “more nuance” re Obama’s more recent statement. Maybe nuance (and spelling things out for the dim), but not a walkback. Sheesh.
flukebucket
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
You deserve all accolades. You have one hell of a blog.
PeakVT
@Scott P.: Just because the Palestinians declare a state, doesn’t mean it will eventually be viable or have a meaningful amount of sovereignty. But once a state exists, they will always be trapped in it, in a sense, even if Israel ends up effectively controlling large aspects of its domestic and foreign policy. If one presumes that a Palestinian state will end up viable and sovereign, then declaring statehood is a logical move. I just think that’s a bad presumption.
Villago Delenda Est
The Arab regimes have been using the plight of the Palestinians for decades as a diversion from their own habitual misrule of their own subjects; Assad is using his father’s playbook, and Nasser’s, and the House of Saud’s.
This is absolutely nothing new. The “Arab street” can be every bit as kneejerk as the Israeli “Amen corner” in DC.
Ghanima Atreides
@Commish: dude, no entity can deny a states right to EXIST. It either exists or it doesn’t.
Muslims deny Israels right to be CREATED out of muslim lands.
The euros and americans should have made Israel in west germany, for reparations.
j low
How is the Isreali government (packed with militaristic nutjobs and religous freaks) any different than our own congress? Both are on the wrong side of history on just about everything, and out of touch with the moderate majority.
Howlin Wolfe
@lamh34: When Bibi has lost even Jeffrey Goldberg, he’s running close to shoulder on that mountain road.
Comrade Mary
Emily’s being a terrier. A polite and well-spoken terrier, but she’s clamping on and not letting go. Bravo!
World Service Live Stream
Ghanima Atreides
@Villago Delenda Est:
yup, but thanks to social media that game aint gunna play no more.
Social media is the new event.
And no one can put that djinni back in the bottle.
;)
Brachiator
@Ghanima Atreides:
Isn’t it a bit too late to be arguing about this? It’s already a done deal.
Ghanima Atreides
@Villago Delenda Est: Israel is not even a freedom of religion democracy.
Israeli Jewesses cannot legally outmarry in Israel.
Ghanima Atreides
@Brachiator: well, that is the argument for a palestinian state rather than muslim reservations within a jewish state.
You decide.
i wonder if that has been mistranslated all along.
id have to look at the original Hamas statement in arabic i guess.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ghanima Atreides:
This of course ignores the historical reason for the Jews wanting their Jewish state to be where it is.
They didn’t want to live in Germany, they wanted to live in the land of King David and King Solomon.
Unfortunately, the land was occupied. No problem. We’ll just buy up the land and form a new state out of it that way.
Which has worked out REALLY well for them.
Sasha
@Ija:
Considering that Hamas doesn’t believe Israel has a right to exist, doesn’t want the peace process to go forward, wants to delegitimize Israel in the world’s eyes, and would rather fight rather than negotiate, I’d say, yeah, that’s probably *is* Hamas’ plan.
Tony J
@Ghanima Atreides:
Already regretting this but –
But they didn’t. Absent a time-machine, it’s not going to happen, and in the real world it’s 60+ years later, events have taken a different course, and we are where we are, forced to deal with it as it is, not how it might or should or could have been.
Israel exists, the only questions are what its borders should be, what exists outside of them, and how we get from here to there.
Sasha
@autoegocrat:
Israel is the oldest and most stable democracy in the Middle East. As badly as they may have treated Palestinians, I’m pretty certain they still have the best record on human rights in the region.
They also (sadly) still serve as a proxy against other nations.
Xenos
@Ghanima Atreides: The Zionists were not in a mood to be told where to move to at that point. It is silly to even suggest something along those lines.
‘Come to the new, permanent Jewish homeland of Saarbrücken. Only 150 km from Bitburg! What’s not to like?’
Ghanima Atreides
@Sasha:
are they a democracy when they do not have freedom of religion?
Omnes Omnibus
It has boggled my mind for a number of years that Israel is not pushing to help create a viable Palestinian state. As I see it, a functioning Palestine would significantly decrease the number of people who view Israel as an enemy to be destroyed. At the same time, it would go, or at least would have gone, far toward increasing international sympathy for Israel in the event of attacks by those who do not accept its existence.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: and for Xenos too.
total agreement. besides, time travel to the past is impossible because of closed form time curves.
My point is that I dont think the question is “existance” on the Palestinian side. It is reparation for muslim land unjustly awarded to Israel.
The reparation should be a contiguous state, since Palestinians cannot be citizens in the Israeli nation state.
I think it is a bad translation of Hamas intent.
No entity can declaim “Israel has no right to exist.”
It EMPIRICALLY exists.
MikeJ
@Sasha:
This is certainly true if you don’t count Palestinians as human. Otherwise, eh. Sort of a toss up.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: agree. and the Arab Spring is rolling, so Israel does not actually have a choice anymore.
Take the chocolate or get driven into the sea.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ghanima Atreides:
Which sucks.
Although it’s not too different from other countries in the area, who are similarly all fucked up that way.
drkrick
@Xenos:
Not to mention – Israel North might not have been a whole lot more secure or well-received location than Israel Classic has turned out to be.
Postwar Germany was not exactly as repentant about the Holocaust as the narrative would have you believe. Tony Judt’s history of postwar Europe was an eye opener on this subject, including the fact that well into the ’70’s West Germans were telling pollsters the country was better off with fewer Jews around no matter how it had come to pass.
Xenos
@Ghanima Atreides:
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: People with nukes tend not to be driven into the sea.
Tony J
@Sasha:
Which is also true in all respects of Likud. Extremists don’t operate in a vacuum.
Hamas got to be where it is because, after it did the job it was created by Israel to do, there was a big yawing gulf in leadership and ideology on the Palestinian side that Islamism filled. Palestinians feel humiliated and oppressed, Israelis feel surrounded and threatened, both of them currently elect their leaders from the groups most closely associated with fighting back against ‘the enemy’.
That’s not going to change until the status quo does, and the first step in doing that is defining what ‘Palestine’ is. By joining with Fatah to start that ball rolling at the UN, Hamas at least looks like it’s willing to risk losing its top-dog status in Gaza in order to move the peace process forward. That’s not nothing.
Ghanima Atreides
@Xenos:
exactly, its a negotiating position.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Why does it suck? It is consent of the governed, like I keep telling you guys.
It is not americanstyle democracy. It is jewish democracy.
Like Egypt and Iraq and Turkey and Indonesia have islamic democracies.
Mnemosyne
@Sasha:
Yes, because Likud have been completely honest brokers and just want to help establish a Palestinian state, but those mean ol’ Palestinians won’t take yes for an answer!
I can’t take anyone seriously who can’t acknowledge that there is now fault on both sides. At this point, no one in this fight can claim to be an innocent victim.
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides: Democracy is just a form of government.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: Hamas is ‘the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.’
Every Arab Spring state has a franchise of the MB within the rebellion.
You are thinking of Hizb’allah, which was originally created by Israel to counter the PLO.
Ghanima Atreides
@daveNYC: agree! where people vote. but the juicers mostly dont believe it is a democracy without freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
;)
Mnemosyne
@Ghanima Atreides:
You may want to do a little more research if you’re under the impression that Turkey is an Islamic democracy as you keep defining it. Two seconds with Wikipedia would have cleared that up for you.
General Stuck
Ha ha . very funny. EXTRA bonus points if this thread goes to 200 comments without the usual Israel supporters cheer seeing Palestinian babies murdered. Or getting called Israeli Tribalist, Israeli Firsters, etc…
Ghanima Atreides
@Xenos:
its the only thing they can do. otherwise the Arab Spring is going to roll them like a tsunami.
And America will be powerless to stop it, just like America could not save Mubarak, and will not (in the long run) be able to save the monarchs of Jordan and Yemen who are american allies.
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides: Um, yeah. Which means the right to worship the FSM in the manner you wish (giving alms to the stripper factory and partaking of the holy beer volcano) just doesn’t enter into whether or not a country is a democracy or not.
Ghanima Atreides
@Mnemosyne: they have blasphemy laws.
That is shariah.
Ben
I’m so tired of the professional Jews. I’ve long said that the Israeli’s don’t want to solve this problem. They continue to build settlements even though they’ve signed treaties agreeing to stop. Whatever Israel wants to do is fine by me, but they need to do it on their own and we need to cease giving them money and technology. They made this bed so let them lie in it. Israel = the US’s 51st state.
MTiffany
@RossInDetroit:
That would be Teh Awesomenesses if we were to do that with the US Congress. The thought of all those broken hips in the Senate… tee-hee…
RGuy
Ok, admittedly I’ve skimmed some of the posts in here but there seems to be a pretty respectful conversation going on.
fasteddie9318
I don’t want to read back to see if I’m too late, but if we get the thread to 198 comments, is everybody cool with me taking post 199 to accuse all you fuckers of anti-Semitism?
Ghanima Atreides
@Mnemosyne: Turkey has shariah in the constitution like Iraq does. Turkey is evolving from 90 years of a Kemalist dictatorship/military junta to an islamic democracy, a representative parlimentary government.
Erdogan’s AKP is the islamist party, the majority party, and also the liberal/pro-business party.
In Turkey the secular party is conservative and anti-business. Isn’t that interesting?
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@Ghanima Atreides:
…how exactly is it going to roll over them like a tsunami? I’m failing to see what is stopping Israel from shooting every single protester and rebel. The other Arab nations won’t. The Israeli army is not going to refuse to do it. NATO won’t fall in unanimously against Israel like they did against Qaddafi. Israel has both the will and the means to use genocide as a method of dealing with revolt. I do not support that they do, but they do. This is completely different from what’s happened in other countries where half the government and most of the military are sympathetic to the rebels to begin with.
Ghanima Atreides
@daveNYC: i totally agree….but many here do not.
/sadface
Tony J
@Ghanima Atreides:
.
There are not going to be any ‘reparations’ like that. End of, full stop.
Palestinians exist, but ‘Palestine’ as a nation-state doesn’t – yet. There is no way that Israel is going to give up the land that would make the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza contiguous. Not going to happen. No one can or will try to make them do it, and if anyone was stupid enough to try, they would fail. That’s been a solved problem ever since Israel got the nuclear bomb.
Best case scenario is that Palestinian citizens would have the same right as everyone else to transit Israeli territory between Palestine’s two entities or go around. If you want to blame someone, blame the same people who didn’t plant Israel in Germany. They can take it, being far deader than Disco.
MTiffany
@Sasha:
And if in 1953 the CIA had not toppled (at the behest of what is now British Petroleum) the democratically-elected Mossadegh government of Iran, then today Israel would probably be the second- or third-oldest stable democracy in the Middle East.
Let’s not be so quick to hand out laurels to those who won the race by mere default.
Ghanima Atreides
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus): Its already happening.
The egyptian foreign minister opened the Rafah crossing last week which is a violation of the treaty. last friday there were social media organized marches on three borders. Israel will be forced into a Syria style crackdown that the US will be unable to morally support.
Israel against the entire Arab Peninsula is not a winning game.
If they threaten nukes the US will cut them off at the knees. Israel CANNOT exist for 20 seconds without US support.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Part of the problem here is that some Arab governments and Palestinian groups have never accepted the legitimacy of the state of Israel, so it would be as if an invisible force would help create a viable Palestinian state. But of course that invisible force could never manifest itself as a Jewish state.
I also find it interesting that a number of posters here also yearn for the state of Israel to quietly go away and to yield to a majority Palestinian state in which Jews are a happily compliant minority contributing to a secular state.
Kinda like the Kurds or other minorities in Iraq or the Coptic Christians in Egypt.
@Mnemosyne:
How do you get past the fault to something meaningful and lasting? Today I’ve heard various people on the radio go on and on about a “peace process,” but no one seems to be able to say “state of Israel” and “independent Palestinian state” as outcomes of a peace process.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: we shall see.
/sideways smile
WaterGirl
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Emily, good job getting this in on air, because i think it’s key to the whole thing, and I wonder if that wasn’t President Obama’s plan all along – to out Bibi.
Ghanima Atreides
@Brachiator: i’ll say it. but not credit the “peace process”. The Arab Spring will enforce the establishment of a palestinian state.
only 59 comments to go.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@Ghanima Atreides:
…good luck with all of that. Israel is not going to have to FIGHT the entire Arab Peninsula. The increase of force you’re describing might, *might* be just enough that Israel will be able to justify shooting to kill. If it’s not, then there’s not enough pressure to loosen the Israeli government. The Israelis are at least as determined to keep their land as the Palestinians, and are the ones with the excellent army.
Continental Op
Pre-Netanyahu governments followed essentially the same policy — drag out the “peace process” forever while filling the West Bank with settlers.
The two state solution is as dead as Monty Python’s parrot.
Chris
@Corey:
Fun, fun, fun. Talk about a race war in the making.
Brachiator
@Tony J:
The lack of contiguous territory only contributes to the problem. I get the sense that hardliners in the Israeli government see this as a good tactical move, but this only exacerbates problems in the long term.
Tony J
@Ghanima Atreides:
No, I’m thinking of Hamas, which the Israelis fostered and supported in Gaza as a non-secular, religiously inspired counter to the PLO, until it turned against them in the late 1980s. You’re right, though, I shouldn’t have used ‘created’, that’s my bad. Please don’t e-mail John.
Ghanima Atreides
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus): /shrug
today is another is another Day of Rage in dar ul Islam. Egypt broke the Israeli/Egyptian treaty with the permanent opening of the border crossing at Rafah. “insurgents” can now flow into Israeli territories like they flowed into American occupied Iraq. But only Iraqis were killed in large numbers in Iraq, because civilian Americans were far, far away.
Lets see the IDF protect their civilians against an infinite suppy of rockets and suicide bombers and “insurgents”.
How many jews are there in Israel? can they afford 750,000 dead?
liberal
@Ghanima Atreides:
Huh? Hamas is correct. Hezballah in this context is a Shi’ite faction in Lebanon.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: ok, fostered works.
Stupid Israelis, crafting their doom.
liberal
@Sasha:
Yawn. Israel doesn’t recognize the “right to exist” of Palestine. Furthermore, a few decades back Israel refused to recognize the mere existence of a Palestinian people.
For that matter, while e.g. the US recognizes the existence of various nation-states, in what sense does it recognize their right to exist?
Ghanima Atreides
@liberal: semantics. Israel created Hizb’allah, and merely fostered Hamas.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Their official name is the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.
no one mail Cole please.
we have less than 50 comments to go.
;)
liberal
@Ghanima Atreides:
Why do you think Israel created Hizballah, if you mean Hizballah of Lebanon?
Tony J
@Brachiator:
Nothing to be done about it. We’re not talking about the Israeli settlements carved out of the West Bank, we’re talking here about the physical division between Gaza and the West Bank that would exist in any real-world variation on what the future borders – might – be.
It’s a problem for the Palestinians that Israel has exploited (to its long-term detriment), but it’s not one the Israelis created.
El Cid
Most of the powerful individuals and political parties and influential institutions have recognized that an independent Palestinian state someday would be in their own interest.
But such a view need have nothing to do with a move to ‘peace’ or justice or some such.
And ‘someday’ has been just as perpetually postponed or loaded with every demand the Israeli political power structure (no, it’s not just “Likudnik,” which is a ridiculous way to characterize policies across all parties for generations, minus attitudes and extremes) desires.
The US has completely agreed with the same approach. Across political parties. Look at what actually was demanded that the Palestinians concede before even starting ‘Oslo’. Nice work, that.
I don’t think it will work in the basic terms of international legal recognition by the UN, but Palestinians should of course directly move toward statehood and recognition, because you don’t beg the illegal and colonizing occupier to please let you have it when it feels ready.
Nor do people typically demand that the nation etc with which they have warred / occupied / battled be what they desire to be when negotiations start.
It’s not like for every Hamas etc. attack someone can’t point to an Israeli cease-fire violation or shooting of one or more civilians or blowing the shit out of Gazan civilians (of course, completely incidentally).
And negotiations and peacekeeping and so forth gained independence for Southern Sudan (incl Darfur) from the ethnocidal Bashir government of Sudan, something which would not have happened if the fantasized and called-for military strikes had happened.
But there’s also no reason for Israeli leaders to avoid pursuing anything they desire from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and continuing the process of making any Palestinian state an absolute comedy of a coherent community and economy, and putting off any Palestinian nation-hood until such time.
And that’s what both Israeli and US policymakers seem to prefer. Take all you want, or at least all you can get, weaken the Palestinian future state such that it’s really hardly there, and then we’ll feel good about calling them free.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@Ghanima Atreides:
Assuming your description of the effect of lifting the blockade is correct, which I don’t cede, we go back to exactly what I said before. If you push up the violence enough to be any kind of threat to Israel, they will take military action. The rest of the Arab world will not step in. NATO will not step in. The UN will tisk tisk and that will be it. Israel is entirely willing to die to hold onto that land and is even more willing to kill. Your Palestinians are not magically more determined than the Israelis, and they’re certainly not better armed or organized. In many ways this is the whole problem. The best you could possibly hope for is a semi-war state of low level terrorism responded to by repression on the part of the Israeli government. That situation would reinforce neither side being willing to negotiate, and would leave Israel free to choke the Palestinian people as cruelly as they feel like. In fact, you’d end up with exactly what we have now.
Ghanima Atreides
@liberal: for the same reason– to counter the PLO under Arafat which was embedded in Lebanon.
They fell off when Israel stopped their paychecks and invaded Lebanon.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@WaterGirl: I think that was exactly it — because there is no way in heaven that they didn’t know he would react that way when they wrote the speech, and then, when they gave him a copy of it just before the speech took place, Bibi was apparently furious, but Obama went ahead and changed nothing.
I’ll see if I can find the link to that article.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Dear everyone
Thank you so much for your kind words and shared excitement! I think I went on and on a bit much a couple of times, but I think I did, at least, sound sane, and under the circumstances, that is its own victory.
Tony J
@Ghanima Atreides:
Sorry, tried to be nice, but just about everything in that extended sneer gets a WTF from me and a serious request that – someone – hands our resident Dreamer of Cruel Things a little time off the blog. callous I can deal with, but smug and callous just gets my goat.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@WaterGirl: Found it!
It was Nick Kristof in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=tptw (which John quoted and linked to, above)
For those who may have paywall issues (I apparently haven’t hit 20 articles yet this month!), here’s the relevant bit:
By all accounts, they do not trust each other. President Obama has told aides and allies that he does not believe that Mr. Netanyahu will ever be willing to make the kind of big concessions that will lead to a peace deal.
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far — a point driven home during a furious phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, during which the prime minister reacted angrily to the president’s plan to endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders for a future Palestinian state.
Mr. Obama did not back down. But the last-minute furor highlights the discord as they head into what one Israeli official described as a “train wreck” coming their way: a United Nations General Assembly vote on Palestinian statehood in September.
Ghanima Atreides
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus):
we shall see if that is true, I expect. They cant hold the land if they are dead.
And they cant hold the land if the US cant force the treaties with the border states (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) to hold.
A nation without borders cannot survive.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: we sowed the whirlwind.
and payback is a bitch.
but please, do mail Cole and tell him how awful I am.
daveNYC
No.
Here is the Turkish constitution
Edit: Only the first block quote is from article two. I just grabbed random paragraphs based on a search for ‘religion’.
dollared
@Phil Perspective: You must be kidding. 50/50? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Ghanima Atreides
@daveNYC: there is an amendment that is the same as the part of the Iraqi constitution, to the effect that no law can be made which contradicts shariah law.
That original constitution was modelled on swiss law and imposed by Ataturk to westernize Turkey. When he was the dictator of Turkey.
Turkey is evolving from a Kemalist dictatorship to an islamic republic.
Like I said, Erdogan’s AKP is the majority party and that is the islamist party.
I’m agnostic about Ataturk….he helped his country a lot, but he was still a dictator.
Tony J
@Ghanima Atreides:
FFS, girl. You’re gleefully talking about millions of people dying horrible deaths as if it were some sort of abstract ‘What-If’ no one should get too worked up about.
Cliches taken from works of fiction are no substitute for real-world empathy, they just make you feel cool about yourself while everyone around you rolls their eyes.
pajaro
The statehood resolution will be in the General Assembly. We can’t veto it.
Since Israel was created through a General Assembly resolution that approved partition, they are not well situated to object.
The effect of the resolution will be to give legal recognition to the state. When Israel continues to appropriate the water in the West Bank, for example, it will be violating the sovereignty of an entity approved by the General Assembly.
The US may not think this is important. The EU, a huge trading partner of Israel, may have a different view.
The bottom line is that Israel is facing increased international isolation and possible sanctions and boycotts if they ignore the Palestinian state. there is no way this is purely symbolic.
Ghanima Atreides
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Do you think Obama and Hillary play good cop bad with Netanyahu?
I saw them do it with Mubarak.
Ghanima Atreides
@Tony J: I have zero sympathy for Israelis at this point.
I have no empathy for those who starve children.
And I think Israelis can see what is going to happen also. Millions will not die.
There will be a palestinian state.
Because after the Arab Spring, the American Fall.
Mnemosyne
@Ghanima Atreides:
Wow. So you couldn’t even be bothered to check the Wikipedia link that I spoonfed you?
Turkey has been a secular democracy since 1923. It’s written into their constitution. But you just can’t comprehend facts that don’t agree with your pre-formed conclusions, can you?
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides: Links or get out.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Honestly, I don’t know. It took at least, what, 100 years to manage it in Northern Ireland? And they “only” had 500 years or so of bad blood to overcome.
dollared
@Tony J: Tony, no reason to react emotionally. Factually, there is no way on earth that 750,000 Israelis will die. There is no fact pattern, short of Pakistani nukes, that would result in that number. You know that. Think about what you personally know about Israeli society, its military, and the level of preparedness and individual protection and armaments amongst the population.
GA is always believing that history will just overwhelm her perceived enemies, like when she thinks (contrary to 500 years of Latin American history) that a majority-brown US will suddenly become peaceful, so-cial-ist France. Ha!
If you are a friend of Israel, what you should really fear is a renewed Intifada combined with a lightly armed Arab Spring popular invasion. 3,000-5,000 Israelis killed and injured, 100,000 Arabs and Palestineans, and the overwhelming IDF response destroying the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
dollared
Tony J: Tony, no reason to react emotionally. Factually, there is no way on earth that 750,000 Israelis will die. There is no fact pattern, short of Pakistani nukes, that would result in that number. You know that. Think about what you personally know about Israeli society, its military, and the level of preparedness and individual protection and armaments amongst the population.
GA is always believing that history will just overwhelm her perceived enemies, like when she thinks (contrary to 500 years of Latin American history) that a majority-brown US will suddenly become peaceful, so-ci al-ist France. Ha!
–
If you are a friend of Israel, what you should really fear is a renewed Intifada combined with a lightly armed Arab Spring popular invasion. 3,000-5,000 Israelis killed and injured, 100,000 Arabs and Palestineans, and the overwhelming IDF response destroying the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
keenanjay
Listening to an interview with a Hamas rep the other day about the merger with Fatah, I heard the interviewer hammer the guy over and over again with their formal platform statement that Israel has no right to exist. It occured to me that maybe Hamas is like some people I know, too proud to back down, but who’s behavior can be shaped.
I thought I heard the guy implying that realities have changed and that we should focus less on demanding they change their charter and more on watch their behavior for signs of change. Maybe saving face is just too important to these guys. I remember our government insisting, under the last administration, that Iran renounce this and that before we would even consider talking to them! No one likes to be bullied. To his credit, Obama gave them many chances to change their behavior, which sadly, they didn’t take.
Ghanima Atreides
@Mnemosyne: and dave too.
Pardon, but I thought we were talking about the new constitution, not the old one imposed on the Turks by a dictator nearly a century ago.
;)
MattR
@Ghanima Atreides: So you mean the new constitution that does not yet actually exist?
Ghanima Atreides
@dollared:
link where i said that pleez.
;)
Ghanima Atreides
@MattR: yup. the old constitution was imposed by an unelected dictator…turks didnt VOTE on it.
The new constitution will have the same disclaimer the Iraqi constitution has…..that no law shall be made that conflicts with shariah law.
Pretty mild, right?
Why does that bother westerner culture chauvinists? Shouldn’t the people have what they want? Isnt democracy consent of the governed?
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides:
So a plan to prepare a new constitution a month or more in the future somehow translates into the current Turkish constitution incorporating Sharia law?
Sasha
@MikeJ:
The first part: Of course they’re human. The second part: Not really, no.
chopper
yeah, get back to us when this new turkish constitution is actually written, much less debated, much less passed.
so again no, turkey does not ‘have shariah in the constitution like iraq does’. no. full stop.
Ghanima Atreides
@dollared:
oh be fair dollared! that 750k number is spread over 8 years of occupation.
Ghanima Atreides
@daveNYC: haha, but i dont have to think of the current document as a legit constitution do i?
it was imposed by a dictator. UNDEMOCRATIC.
ok, then ill retract.
The turkish constitution WILL have shariah.
there, happy naow?
why does this bug you guys so much?
another black eye for missionary democracy?
Sasha
@Ghanima Atreides:
Um, they do have freedom of religion. Perhaps if you elaborated your point.
Sasha
@Mnemosyne:
Of course they’re fault on both sides, but I feel that Hamas has acted more provocatively.
Chris
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’m sorry –
What the fuck are you talking about?
The Constitution of Turkey was passed in 1982, and was ratified by popular referendum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_constitution#History). No, it was not imposed a century ago. Yes, the people were consulted. Jesus, would it be too much to ask that you fucking check these things before you word-vomit? You just did the equivalent of claiming that the United States Constitution was imposed by the British in the early eighteenth century.
Think. Learn. Take a break from reciting your latest tagline to everyone who doesn’t want to hear it, and learn something about what the fuck you’re talking about. Christ on a pogo stick.
Ghanima Atreides
@Sasha: No they don’t. Israeli jewesses cannot legally marry non-jews in the state of Israel.
halakhah law has that in common with the dreaded shariah.
no outgroup marriage for females.
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides: Why does it bother us? Because you posted the equivalent of 1 + 1 = 3, and then bullshitted for a while before admitting that that was wrong. It’s called Google, use it.
For example:
So the current constitution wasn’t imposed by a dictator (Attaturk died back in ’38, BTW), it was written by a junta, but was still ratified by a popular vote. It also has been updated by popular vote since then.
You’re not just wrong, you’re McArdle wrong.
chopper
@Ghanima Atreides:
and fundamentalist mormons can’t have multiple wives in the US. yet we call ourselves a democracy.
MattR
@Ghanima Atreides:
So do you have a link to the actual text of this new Turkish constitution with the disclaimer?
@Ghanima Atreides:
I can’t imagine why people might think that there is a big distinction about what is currently in place and what may be put in place at some future date. It is like claiming that New York allows same sex marriage.
chopper
@Ghanima Atreides:
also, why focus on females (‘jewesses’? seriously?)? jewish men can’t intermarry either.
of course, you can get married elsewhere and the state will recognize it.
Ghanima Atreides
@Chris: oh.
ok, im sorry. i was wrong.
But Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt all do have shariah in their constitutions.
And Turkey will.
;)
No Likudnik
What’s the difference between a 1960s Klansman and an Israeli settler? They both want the U.S. government to use its power to enforce their racist views. But the Klansmen actually pays taxes.
Ghanima Atreides
@chopper: still means that Israel does not have freedom of religion.
and actually the American constitution was amended to outlaw polygamy. because of the mormons. They just get around that with spirit marriages.
;)
Sasha
@MTiffany:
OK: the oldest democracy in the region currently. :)
fasteddie9318
OK, we’re close enough and I have to go, so let me just say that you’re all anti-Semitic jerks. That is all.
Carl Nyberg
Why are Palestinian human rights less important than Israeli human rights?
RP
@Ghanima Atreides: First, stop using the term “Jewess.” Just say “Jewish woman.” Second, your comment is misleading at best because, AFAIK, Israel does not recognize civil marriages.
chopper
@Ghanima Atreides:
so the US doesn’t have freedom of religion either. and yet we have the nerve to call ourselves a democracy.
also, no, the US constitution was not amended to outlaw any of that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: Why does it bug people? Because you are making untrue statements.
RP
Is GA just a reincarnation of m-c?
Carl Nyberg
Israel is not a democracy. Palestinians have lived under occupation for decades without the right to vote and numerous other basic rights.
The claim that Israel is a democracy is not consistent with the facts.
MattR
@RP: yes
fasteddie9318
@Carl Nyberg:
See, there’s your problem, assuming that Palestinians are “human.” Let the good Rabbi Yaacov Perrin educate you; he famously explained at Baruch Goldstein’s funeral in 1994 (that’s the Baruch Goldstein who perpetrated the “Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre“) that one million Arab lives are “not worth a Jewish fingernail.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: Show me the Constitutional Amendment that outlawed polygamy.
chopper
@fasteddie9318:
let’s be honest, nutpicking will give you no end of good material with regards to this issue from either side.
Mnemosyne
@Ghanima Atreides:
Why would we be talking about a constitution that doesn’t actually exist yet?
Face it — you said something stupid without checking and you got caught.
Here I thought you couldn’t possibly be any wronger on any subject, and yet you managed to vomit this piece of bullshit out. Live and learn, I suppose.
Sasha
@liberal:
Israel now agrees that Palestinians exists, but is having difficulty accepting that they need a homeland too (which is part of the problem). Despite the de facto existence of Israel, there are Palestinians that simply cannot accept this fact and act as though Israel will simply vanish upon the creation of a Palestinian homeland.
That’s a bit of a meta-question. Does any country in general have guidelines about other countries’ right to exist?
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: oh i was WRONG.
it is the states that amended their constitutions.
sowwy.
;)
Ghanima Atreides
@Mnemosyne: i was wrong twice.
mea culpa
but we got over 200.
Mandramas
@Carl Nyberg: Democracy is defined like the one that have the guns wants. Is like to say that US on 1920 was a tyranny since women were unable to vote.
Ghanima Atreides
@RP: well, ill go look, but i think halakhah law is part of the Israeli constitution.
but ima look first. from now on. that mcardle stung.
;)
My israeli friend told me that jewesses cannot outmarry in Israel. He didnt say anything about men.
Is jewess less respectful than muslimah?
dollared
@Ghanima Atreides: Couldna dunnit witout you
Brachiator
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Very interesting that you mention this. Reporter David Gilbert was on a local (Southern California) talk radio show talking about this conversation between the secretary of state and the prime minister, as though the prime minister expected Clinton to give instructions to Obama about what correct US policy towards Israel should be.
There was also the odd implication that the prime minister expected Clinton to automatically take his side.
The sad thing is that I think not only is the prime minister under-estimating Obama, he is also squandering opportunities as he desperately looks for US officials to simply back his play.
Mnemosyne
@Sasha:
So?
No, seriously … so what? Are we talking about two small children in the back seat of a car who keep hitting each other because the other one started it?
As I linked to up above, the IRA is still acting provocatively in Northern Ireland, but no one is taking the bait and the peace process continues. If you decide that the act of any idiot who can get hold of a weapon counts as a “provocation” by Hamas, we’re never going to get anywhere.
daveNYC
@Ghanima Atreides: “You’re not funny, nobody likes you, you should have remembered that from school.”
-Billy Connolly
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Ghanima Atreides: I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s no way they didn’t know this would happen, and no way they didn’t have a plan. Say what you will about this President, the dude’s a planner.
Ghanima Atreides
@Mnemosyne: and to be honest, i actually thought the shariah law part got amended in 2010. but i just looked and its not there, so it was only in discussion then. I do read the turkish websites sometimes…but i was wrong.
intent is not reality, and i apologize. ill be more careful.
LB
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Well, Russia is currently occupying parts of two sovereign states: Moldova and Georgia. In fact, in Moldova it’s been going on for 20 years and is not even really Russia’s fault. So yeah, occupations of sovereign states are not that uncommon.
Chris
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Netanyahu: “So, you guys are partners, right? Good cop, bad cop?”
Obama/Clinton: “Shut up.”
Netanyahu: “Oh, okay, okay, okay, bad cop, bad cop. I know all your routines.”
(Okay, he wouldn’t say that last part, cause I doubt if he’d have seen that one from American politicans before).
Ghanima Atreides
@daveNYC:
this is actually quite true.
but remember i went to an all girls catholic school.
i was a flaming social pariah…i was also an atheist at the time. More like a leper, actually…..
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
it was really masterful during Tahir, where Hillary would chill Haaretz and Bibi and the Saudi King and Mubarak out, promise eternal fealty, and O could go all democratic on terebi and call for Mubarak to step down.
I think hes got this.
I feel more hopeful about a palestinian state because of Obama and the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring gives O some backup muscle and some urgency.
beergoggles
@RP: As long as there is a violent right wing to contend with (that is in some ways crazier than the American right wing), I will continue to call for necessary caution.
pattonbt
Stopped reading at about comment 150 (but will go back and read the rest) and want to say, this thread, at least up until then, has been great.
My take on the I/P troubles….there is no solution. Both sides have enough extremists who profit from the status quo (or worse) to make any viable solution work. Add on to that that any viable solution means serious concessions by both sides which many moderates really do not want (nor can be guaranteed because of said extremists).
It has been this way since the creation of state of Israel and nothing has changed in my lifetime, so I expect nothing will change now or in the foreseeable future.
That said, I do believe that in the long, long run (decades and with more troubled episodes to pass) Israel will lose and it will have to cease in it’s current form. They are becoming more and more like South Africa in the aprtheid days and their actions and their consequences are becoming less and less tolerated. Sure, both sides suck huge and have actors who are depraved and evil. I would never try and say one side is more or less at fault than the other. But Israel is creating a population of people who are stateless and rightless and their armed responses are disproportionate and against a civilian population that has no means to defend itself or govern in a way that could make any society stable enough to give security to Israel.
Israel, for right or wrong, will be the one who has to change and make the sacrifices and the rest of the world knows this. Israel will become more and more isolated over time until they have become an absolute pariah in the international community.
Israels international defenders are tired and patience is running out. Soon enough they will be on their own and they will have a very hard time coming to grips with what is the only possible outcome. Their choices are acquiesce to reality or genocide a defenseless population and take all their land. No one is going to let them do option 2.
The above opinions are not meant to defend or attack any of the parties, just my belief as to how I believe things will play out in the long run.
fasteddie9318
@chopper:
That’s not nutpicking. There are entire political parties dedicated to the spirit of Rabbi Perrin’s statement. Those parties are the reason, aside from his own innate dickishness, why Netanyahu has to behave the way he’s behaving.
chopper
@fasteddie9318:
yes, and i can find multitudes of such horrible statements on the other side out of crazy people.
unless you think the crazy people on both sides are in control of the whole thing, in which case let’s just nuke the whole place and be done with it.
Ghanima Atreides
wallah…..what if Obama becomes the president that got HCR, got OBL, gets us out of Iraq and A-stan, AND gets a palestinian state?
that would be….umm…historic?
RP
@Ghanima Atreides: “Jewess” isn’t a slur per se, but it has an unpleasant overtone. Similarly, there’s a subtle difference between saying someone is a “Jew” vs. saying that he or she is “Jewish.”
IIRC, marriages in Israel are strictly a religious institution, and the state does not recognize any civil marriages. So the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities set their own standards for marriage, and, not surprisingly, generally don’t recognize interfaith marriages (or same sex marriages). On the flip side, I’m not sure that marriage has much legal significance in Israel, unlike the US.
chopper
@Ghanima Atreides:
FFS, would it kill you to look something up before you start talking with authority on shit?
Mike M
The first time I visited Israel in 1995, I was struck by how even Arab Israelis were treated as second-class citizens. I was working for Intel at that time, which has an engineering facility in Haifa. I strolled along a Haifa beach one afternoon, and my Israeli friends later told me that they were shocked that I would visit a “dirty Arab beach.” Sometime later, I expressed my intent to do some sightseeing in Nazareth, and I was warned to avoid that “dirty Arab town”, even though the city is fully within Israel and largely Christian rather than Islamic.
I didn’t know how horrible poverty could be until I visited the Gaza Strip. There are so many people packed into a tiny area, where the air stinks and diarrheal diseases are common among the children for the lack of a modern sewage system. The years of intermittant fighting and endless embargos give the area the look of a scifi film depicting the world post nuclear holocaust.
I have many friends in Israel and I feel great empathy for their situation, surrounded as they are by so many hostile countries. But I cannot stomach their treatment of the Palestinians. As a US taxpayer, I am done with underwriting their occupation.
chopper
@Chris:
“I am aware of all diplomatic traditions”
Ghanima Atreides
@pattonbt: but there isn’t a long run.
the Arab Spring has arrived at Israel’s doorstep.
uh oh. No one expects the
Spanish InquisitionArab Spring.especially not Bibi i guess.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: RE: How do you get past the fault to something meaningful and lasting?
Good point. And I very much agree with your “Honestly, I don’t know.” I don’t get how anyone thinks that there is an easy or obvious answer to this issue.
Chris
@Mike M:
I remember when Joe the Plumber went to Sderot as a PJTV reporter. He came away saying “you know, I don’t think the media has any business covering war. I just think you guys should stick to doing WW2 type patriotic films and cheering on the troops. And just it’s terrible that you’re not doing that.” In a nutshell, if not an exact quote.
It’s probably the most revealing thing I’ve ever seen come out of PJTV. Even they couldn’t film anything in the Gaza strip and put a positive, Israelis-are-the-good-guys spin on it. Their hero whined about how mean the media was for filming anything, but he had nothing to put up in response (and this is PJTV, which revels in the art of half-truth/outright-lie/bullshit-spin videos).
So while I’ve never been to Gaza, that gives me a pretty good idea of how horrific the situation has to be.
pattonbt
@Ghanima Atreides: Oh, as pointed out many times, you’ve been wrong quite often. In each case clear, succinct evidence has been shown to you how very wrong you were and as always its “LA LA LA LA LA LA MENA, Arab Spring, I’m not listening, cudlip, so there” from you. Advice has been offered to you many times yet you still keep repeating the same mistakes and wonder why people jump down your throat.
Please, for the love of FSM grow up. You’ve got a shit-ton of word salad knowledge in your head, but take a deep breath and think it through before actually trying to communicate it to others, you might learn something.
You’ve got interesting ideas and can be very enjoyable, but take the all knowing, infallible schtick down a notch. It’s unbecoming, especially when you are demonstrably proven wrong as often as you are.
Ghanima Atreides
@RP: yeah, and as my Israeli friend explained, halakhah law governs marriage in Israel. Halakhah law says no outmarriage for jewish women like shariah law says no outmarriage for muslimahs.
pattonbt
@Ghanima Atreides: I don’t necessarily disagree with the concept, I just think your timeline is a bit, how shall we say, overly optimistic. Israel ain’t going anywhere any time soon and I think your Arab Spring will run out of steam and take a lot longer to come to fruition than you believe.
Things do not change overnight and positive, humanly beneficial systems of governance do not come into existence easily from places where repression and restriction was the norm. The Arab world has many more years of hard yards ahead of it before the idealism of the Arab spring can actually come to light. And even then, whatever the outcome is it will be of human creation and thus flawed.
Again, that’s my opinion and if proven wrong, so be it.
Ghanima Atreides
@pattonbt: well im not wrong about this.
there is not going to be any “long run”.
No one can put the social media djinni back in the bottle.
NobodySpecial
Eventual one state solution, no matter which side slaughters the other. That’s all that’s left. Sorry, folks. I’d love it to be different, but the crazies want war, and are willing to work together to prevent peace. Bibi can’t even make peace with Hamas right now if he wanted to; the guy currently running things is one he tried to have killed under Clinton’s term.
fasteddie9318
@chopper:
Why nuke the place? I’d rather just leave them alone.
Sasha
@Mnemosyne:
And idiot with a weapon may not mean anything, but an idiot with a weapon cheered on by his government is a bit more substantial. The IRA may be acting like idiots, but they don’t have the sanction of government.
It’s all a damn headache.
Sasha
@Ghanima Atreides:
That’d be a reason to amend the Constitution and make him President for Life. :)
MTiffany
@Tony J:
Yes, but the eye-rolls of lamestream lame-o’s is what makes cool people so cool.
dollared
@Mnemosyne: nicely put.
Ghanima Atreides
@MTiffany: let me repeat this.
I have zero real-world empathy for people that make war on children.
liberal
@Brachiator:
That’s true. But you’re looking at the wrong issue. The right question is, is it in the national interest of the US to continue to entangle itself in this issue by supporting Israel with aid? The answer to that is obvious: no, we have no interest. The resultant policy is obvious, if not politically easy to accomplish: maintain relations with Israel, establish relations with any Palestinian state that is born, but give no aid (which of course historically has mostly gone to Israel).