Posted on 10/15/2009 5:14:24 PM PDT by a_Turk
Almost everyone in a dispute hopes to find an honest broker to mediate their differences. The controversy over the Goldstone Report on Gaza and the active role of Turkey’s prime minister therein has raised a collateral issue, which is the US role as a go-between or broker in the Middle East. So let’s look at the prospect that the US can be such a broker, either alone or in tandem with Turkey, which has been actively involved in the area.
No one can be a broker when beholden utterly to one side, and while US President Barack Obama sounds much better than George W. Bush (he could scarcely sound worse), and is better in some areas, where Israel is concerned he is all talk and no action — except where supporting Israel is concerned, where his words and deeds go hand in hand.
Israeli leaders have spit in his face diplomatically, and it has cost them nothing — not a penny in aid, not a bullet, not a plane, and especially not a veto in the UN. Obama takes the insulting rebuffs in public silence, reaffirms his support of Israel, fends off its critics, and continues to send it aid, just as if nothing had happened.
The rest of world generally crosses its metaphorical fingers, rereads increasingly tattered and bloodstained copies of Obama’s Cairo speech, and hopes that his promise is not for nothing. And hopes. And hopes....
Now, no reasonable person expected Obama to change America’s Middle East policies immediately. But few expected him to do nothing but talk, words without supporting actions being exceedingly cheap. The contrast between his forcefulness on the placement of a US missile shield in Eastern Europe and his dithering on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is striking.
There are three reasons for the inconsistency between Obama’s verbal hopefulness and his actual hopelessness where bringing Israel to heel is concerned. First, money talks, and campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and brigades of Jewish contributors shaped his election and have bought large majorities of both parties in both houses of the US Congress. Alienating them is the end of his program, the ruin of his administration, and probably the end of his re-election prospects.
Second, information is power, and the Jewish dominance of the US mainstream media noted elsewhere in 2002 is even greater today. This affects not only how the American public views the Middle East, but also how Obama’s program generally is presented. Negative views of Israel are a rarity. Anything showing Israel in a negative light is suppressed or marginalized. Anything even slightly to Israel’s credit becomes front-page and prime-time TV news for days.
So the Israeli assault against Gaza was presented to the American public as a justifiable and restrained act of self-defense. Criticism of Israel from abroad simply didn’t appear, even when made by eminent authorities like South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela. The Israeli hijacking of the Spirit of Humanity trying to bring humanitarian supplies to Gaza in June was almost totally ignored, except for some attacks on former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, an AIPAC electoral victim who was on the boat (attacks that backfired, given the comments from readers, and likely won’t be repeated). And the Goldstone Report criticizing Israel as well as Hamas has been given the most casual treatment and largely dismissed. Third, policy is people, and the people Obama has appointed to key foreign policy and Middle East positions would look equally at home in Bush’s or even Netanyahu’s administrations -— indeed, some such as AIPAC “poster child” Dennis Ross have become virtual fixtures, and many Bush carryovers simply changed positions under Obama. People who are not Israeli partisans are rarer than honest trial lawyers.
No one should expect Obama’s actions in this area to be significantly different than Bush’s, when most of his foreign policy and Middle East advisers are Jewish with close ties to Israel; his chief of staff served (briefly and very safely, let it be noted) in the Israeli military but not in US uniform; and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be replaced by former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni without any policy change on Israel being noticed — although I concede Livni is smarter, tougher and better looking than Clinton.
Besides, for anyone to broker anything, there has to be something — well, several “somethings” — on the table from all parties to a dispute. With the Netanyahu government in Israel, as well as any alternative on the horizon from either Kadima or Labor, the philosophy is simply: “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours will be, so let’s negotiate.” Israel has no intention of returning the Golan to Syria under any circumstances. It has absolutely no intention of ending its illegal siege of Gaza and the brutalization and impoverishment of the people entrapped there. Everything in the dispossession of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the corresponding spread of Jewish settlements throughout both areas, not only reaffirms this attitude. It also makes a mockery of the semi-legendary “two-state solution” — just look at any map of the West Bank now, consider the scattered remnants of what Israel has not yet absorbed, and understand that no “second state” could possibly be cobbled together from such scraggly remnants.
Make no mistake about it. The only way to bring Israel around on these issues is to hurt it, and hurt it badly. Diplomacy without muscle behind it is meaningless. This requires at least an initial decision by the international community to formally impose sanctions and embargoes against Israel, and if necessary, against any other country that disregards those measures, including the US itself. Moving the Goldstone Report debate through the UN Security Council, after the inevitable US veto, to the UN General Assembly under the “Uniting for Peace Resolution” (UNGA 377A) would be an excellent beginning of this effort.
What is this garbage? Do you support it?
I read it. Doesn’t look unreasonable. Do you think it’s alte Kacke?
The US can not be an “honest broker” any any type “process” for the simple fact that we do not have an “honest broker” in the White House (Barry, etc.) and State Department (Hillary, etc.).
Have no idea what J Street is.
This shit in the ME’s gotto stop. Either kill all the bastartds or step aside.
That has been the SOP for Dem presidents since (including) Carter.
No doubt the crap in the Middle East needs to stop, especially as it relates to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, but with that being said, truth be told, the creation of a Palestinian state will not stop the ongoing violence and hatred nor will a “peace” settlement.
As for the Taliban and al Qaeda, among others we are combating, US policy from the go should have been, and still should be, the complete and overwhelming use of US force, by any means if necessary, to overcome, eradicate, and win.
>>the creation of a Palestinian state will not stop the ongoing violence and hatred nor will a “peace” settlement.
We had them living side by side and in peace for centuries. We can do it again.
>> the complete and overwhelming use of US force, by any means if necessary, to overcome, eradicate, and win
Can’t do it. You’d have armageddon. Or maybe that’s what we want...
An equitable peace, and jobs. That’s all that anyone would want to raise their kids and have happy families. Given the right conditions the human being will opt to tend to their families and see to their happiness. And in a few generations a lot of this would have been forgotten.
On a related topic, do you support a peace process with the Kurds ending in a Kurdistan carved from Turkey?
So you think the US is controlled by the evil Jooos, and that Israel needs to be attacked? From the article:
The only way to bring Israel around on these issues is to hurt it, and hurt it badly. Diplomacy without muscle behind it is meaningless.
“We can do it again” runs along the same lines as “Yes, we can”?
When was the last time you heard the Palestinian ruling factions even remotely suggest that they will agree/accept to live side-by-side with the Israelis? You can not change overnight or anytime soon a mindset of hatred that has taken decades, if not generations, to foment and indoctrinate-—that which is being done in the vast majority of Palestinian refugee camps, Gaza, etc. It amounts to being nothing more than wishful thinking till PROVEN otherwise.
As for we “can’t do it. You’d have armageddon”.....let me simply state that I disagree. Of course we can do it IF our politicians would stop playing politics and political correctness with or engagements in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Terrorists only recognize and respect strength and engaging them on the basis of eradicating their arses to neverneverland will assuredly bring respect. Given your responses thus far, no doubt your idea of American engagement with these terrorists thugs is to formally recognize and legitimize their causes.....and then beat a hast retreat back home for American forces. Correct me if I am wrong.
Thanks for the links.
>> On a related topic, do you support a peace process with the Kurds ending in a Kurdistan carved from Turkey?
No, but do you?
The Kurd thing didn’t lead all the way to 911. Enough is enough. Time for Israel to make peace now. This mess is polluting our precious air.
>> So you think the US is controlled by the evil Jooos
No. Goldman Sachs is not evil. Lol!
>> and that Israel needs to be attacked?
No. You read too much into the article. Do you remember the altoids ad where the blue hair was grimmacing because she had one? The caption said: “She had been hurt before but never like this!”
>> It amounts to being nothing more than wishful thinking till PROVEN otherwise.
Well then let’s prove it.
We certainly must deal with terrorists, no argument there. But that’s a fools arend if we don’t also deal with the environment that grows them.
And in a few generations a lot of this would have been forgotten.
So Goldman Sachs and the Jewish People are the same thing? Who knew?
By the way, the last CEO of Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary Henry "Bailout Hank" Paulson, is a practicing Christian Scientist. You can't get more Jewish than that!
I don't know where you people make up this garbage, but you really ought to be ashamed of yourself.
You read too much into the article.
You know, I don't think that I did. The article states that Israel needs to be defeated militarily. I'm not sure how else to take that.
UM is a leftwing antisemitic, antiAmerican hellhole and has been for a good 40 years. The Berzerkly of the Midwest.
Now, quickly, for the real story: The US can't be an "honest broker" in the MiddleEast because the Middle East does not want and will not tolerate an "honest broker."
Any truly "honest broker" who engaged in the charade historically known as "The MidEast Peace Process" would have long since been rejected by the Arabs, or resigned on ethical grounds.
The Kurd thing didn’t lead all the way to 911. Enough is enough. Time for Israel to make peace now. This mess is polluting our precious air.
Last time I checked the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in response to the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, not anything Israel has or has not done. Similarly, the Saud clan harbored Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Tamimi 370 years ago and once they conquered Arabia, the Saudi family began to export Wahabbi teachings. These things happened 2 decades before Israel existed again. The existence of Israel and the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians certainly creates fodder for the extremists. But, lets not pretend that they would not have other excuses.
As for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it is a noble enough desire. The reality does not seem conducive to it. Claims are mutually exclusive and even if Fatah were an honest negotiator with a more dovish Israeli government, Hamas is not.
And as a postgraduate student in the study of terrorism (i.e.: my focus of academic concentration and interests are in religious oriented terrorism —to include apocalyptic terrorism and millennialism, the psychology of suicide terrorism, piracy and maritime terrorism), please explain to me those “environments that grow” terrorists.
Can religious fundamentalism be adequately dealt with?
Can religious militancy be adequately dealt with?
Can hatred be adequately dealt with?
Can the inherent clash between Western secularism verses a dominate Islamic patriarchial society be adequately dealt with?
Can radicalism be adequately dealt with?
Can the existence of Israel be adequately dealt with since we know that many of those involved in acts of terrorism are motivated by the very existence of an Israeli state?
These “environments” run far, far deeper and are far more problematic than those spewed out by contemporary academic and ‘experts’ delving into the likes of poverty, weak governance, lack of education or opportunity for such, ethnicity, government oppression, cultural or society alienation, Western-based globalization, etc.
No doubt, some to many of those external “environments” or mechanisms can be addressed but there remain those that are beyond simplistic notions of dealing with those environments that breed terrorists. Some of them are internal mechanism, and thus, are not sufficiently or adequately able to be addressed.
Therefore, as apparent via History, terrorism has long been with us and arguably, will long be. There simply is no addressing or dealing with all the “environments” that breed those will invariably participate in terrorism or committ acts thereof. Again, as noble a thought such is, it inherently amounts to wishful thinking backed by History.
Self-correction:
“There simply is no addressing or dealing with all the “environments” that breed those who will invariably participate in terrorism or commit acts thereof.”
I am not antiamerican; I am not antiisrael; I am not antisemitic; I am not promoslemterrorist; is it really timetobanaturk; I am not a troll;
I believe people are basically good and would prefer to live in peace.
Can you declare the following:
“I entertain no enmity nor ill will against a soul on earth which I would not freely reconcile should I find in him a corresponding disposition.”
This is where we would all have to start. I believe we can inspite of a few bitter individuals on both sides.
But you do believe that the investment bank Goldman Sachs is controlled by "the Jews", while controlling the United States. That's anti-Semitic nonsense.
As with all good conspiracy theories, there is a grain of truth in your theory -- Goldman Sachs has a lot of political influence -- and Goldman Sachs was founded by two Jewish people. However, lots of people who aren't Jewish work there -- including 2 out of the 3 most recent CEOs. And somewhere north of 99% of the world's Jewish population has absolutely nothing to do with Goldman.
Moreover, while Goldman has certainly influenced US fiscal policy, there is zero evidence it has tried to influence US policy one way or the other with regard to Israel or the Middle East. Goldman only owes allegiance to its shareholders.
You’re making too much of my Goldman Sachs tease answer. I don’t care Jew from non-Jew.
Enough of the silly kacke.
>>Our apathy and appeasement is going to get us all killed.
Man-oh-man..
Yeah, I never said Goldman lobbied for Israel or any other stupid thing of that sort. But here’s something for you to read. May want to print it and put it by the Kacker so you can read it while you’re kacking. lol!
It’s a little long. Worth reading carefully.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2348634/posts
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