Catch-22

Griff Witte and Ellen Knickmeyer report that "The shortage in U.S.-funded supplies threatens the Palestinian government's ability to provide security in the West Bank, which Israel has made a condition of future withdrawals from the occupied territories." And why is there a shortage in U.S.-funded supplies? Well, in addition to making competent Palestinian security forces a condition for withdrawal from the West Bank, "Israel has traditionally viewed Palestinian security forces as potential adversaries" and therefore "Israel failed to approve delivery of the requested supplies in time for the deployment, according to senior Palestinian officials."

Obviously, obviously, complex situation, much blame to go around, etc., but this kind of thing -- things which most Americans are very ill-informed about -- is why Arabs tend to doubt Israel's protestations that they're eager for a fair and peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Comments

I agree, but sadly, that post will probably make you the next Jewish pundit to be labeled "anti-Semite" by the AIPAC folks.

Posted by fostert | May 4, 2008 11:34 AM

Israel has only been playing this game of undermining the capability of the Palestinian government, then blaming the lack of progress towards peace on the Palestinian government's lack of capability since... oh, whenever the Palestinians first had a government. They've never approached this process in good faith.

Posted by J.B. | May 4, 2008 11:50 AM

Left unexplained by Matt: why we should give any money to people who drop rockets on civilian areas (Sderot) every day, in the hope of killing innocents.

For those of you practiced in the arts of moral equivalence: When Israel goes after a military target and civilians (typically used as shields by Hamas/Hizbollah) die, it's not the same.

Posted by James Robertson | May 4, 2008 12:00 PM

Yessir those poor Palestinians are just nice people who are under to boot of those terrible Israelis (not). Just a couple of links to demonstrate the good will of the Palestinians (not).

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/AntiSemi/12818.htm

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/12822.htm

But of course, to the Israel bashers on this blog, their minds are made up, the facts are irrelevant. The fact is that the Palestinians have only themselves to blame for their current situation. They have no interest in any solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem that does not involve the Government of Israel agreeing to go out of business. Until they change their ways, they will continue to revel in their misery.

Posted by SLC | May 4, 2008 12:09 PM

Left unexplained by Matt: why we should give any money to people who drop rockets on civilian areas (Sderot) every day, in the hope of killing innocents.

Because the PA and Hamas & Islamic Jihad & whoever are of course all the same? Because they are after all just Arabs?

For those of you practiced in the arts of moral equivalence: When Israel goes after a military target and civilians (typically used as shields by Hamas/Hizbollah) die, it's not the same.

Indeed. In 2007 Israel killed 40 times as many Palestinians as Palestinians killed Israelis. The scale is simply not comparable.

Posted by Kalkin | May 4, 2008 12:40 PM

This isn't an example of ill will on the part of the Israelis, it's a typical problem in this type of situation: assume that Israel wants peace, which might be mandated by a strong Palestinian authority. However, if that authority fails to reach an accomodation with Israel, the latter risks being attacked by the same.

Therefore, there are conditional incentives: Israel is unwilling to risk arming an authority that it fears may later turn those arms on Israel (or which may be toppled by extremists and have its arms stolen, etc.). You may argue that such a belief is wrong, but it's certainly not irrational.

Without credible guarantees of Israel's safety after a strong Palestinian authority is established, a resolution is unlikely. But it's silly to ascribe this problem to the Israelis' eagerness for a "fair and peaceful solution" per se.

Posted by gefferson | May 4, 2008 12:43 PM

Left unexplained by Matt: why we should give any money to people who drop rockets on civilian areas (Sderot) every day, in the hope of killing innocents.

You mean the Israelis? Cause um. Guess what.

Also. You don't drop rockets.

Posted by brenna | May 4, 2008 12:50 PM

"Indeed. In 2007 Israel killed 40 times as many Palestinians as Palestinians killed Israelis. The scale is simply not comparable."

By this logic, the Japanese Empire held the high moral ground on Iwo Jima, based on the losses they took compared to the US.

Better weapons and tactics are what that's about. As to the the person asking about "the rest of the Arbas" - what about "The rest of the Germans" in 1944? You don't get to deal with the powerless; you get to deal with those in power. If it worked otherwise, a lot of history's wars would have been way simpler.

Posted by James Robertson | May 4, 2008 12:57 PM

By this logic, the Japanese Empire held the high moral ground on Iwo Jima, based on the losses they took compared to the US.

You know, I thought this was a idiotic talking point that only lying politicians (eg, Netanyahu) trotted out. I didn't realize there were any individuals who were so incredibly moronic that they said it themselves.

Posted by 23456 | May 4, 2008 1:12 PM

this kind of thing is why Arabs tend to doubt Israel's protestations that they're eager for a fair and peaceful resolution of the conflict

Its the near hundred years of Jewish colonialism and ethnic cleansing of the native Arab population, all accompanied by paeans of ethnic self-congratulation, together with continued agitation for further ethnic cleansing and colonialism, which are why arabs tend to doubt Israel's protestations that it wants a just resolution of the conflict. The items MY refers to are just trivia within that overall context.

Posted by otto | May 4, 2008 1:17 PM

"By this logic, the Japanese Empire held the high moral ground on Iwo Jima, based on the losses they took compared to the US."

I doubt those losses were 40:1, but more relevantly this analogy would maybe work if Iwo Jima had been under US occupation for 40 years, an occupation justified on "defensive" grounds.

"Better weapons and tactics are what that's about."

It's true that Israel's possession of tanks and jets explains why it does not resort to suicide bombers, but this is a point usually not made by Israel's defenders, so I'm unsure where you're going here.

"You don't get to deal with the powerless; you get to deal with those in power."

I do like to make a distinction between a government and a people. Maybe not thinking that war justifies indiscriminate attacks on a civilian population makes me some sort of idealist, I don't know.

However, James, you've confirmed my suspicion that you just don't have the beginning of an idea what we're talking about here. Let's start at the beginning. Can you tell me a few relevant things that distinguish the PA & Hamas?

(Hint: one is the subject of Matt's post and governs the West Bank. Another governs Gaza, the source for rockets launched at Sderot.)

Posted by Kalkin | May 4, 2008 1:17 PM

"is why Arabs tend to doubt Israel's protestations that they're eager for a fair and peaceful resolution of the conflict."

The conflict gives the AIPAC crowd and their bought and paid for D.C. whore-a-ticians an excuse to go on milking the U.S. taxpayer for all kinds of goodies. Ending the conflict isn't on their to do list.

Posted by kafka | May 4, 2008 2:03 PM

Wow, I didn't realize that all the history books had covered up all those Japanese Civilian deaths on Iwo Jima. Good things James Robertson is here to straighten us out.

I used to think that right wingers were misguided, thanks to Blogs like this the actual right wingers show up and with their own words show us that they are depsicable human beings. They are either dumber than fence posts or lying assholes.

Posted by Eric K | May 4, 2008 2:04 PM

Left unexplained by Matt: why we should give any money to people who drop rockets on civilian areas (Sderot) every day, in the hope of killing innocents.

The PA in the West Bank isn't lobbing rockets at Sderot. The rockets are coming from Gaza.

Posted by daveNYC | May 4, 2008 2:30 PM

regardless of which side holds the moral high ground, this article shows how the israelis are putting roadblocks in the way of a program that the americans are ok with. i thought they were our allies.

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 4, 2008 2:52 PM

A modest GIYUS/AIPAC turnout.

Not a single "self-hating Jew" comment yet.

Posted by chet | May 4, 2008 3:16 PM

A modest GIYUS/AIPAC turnout.

Not a single "self-hating Jew" comment yet.

Posted by chet | May 4, 2008 3:18 PM

A modest GIYUS/AIPAC turnout.

Not a single "self-hating Jew" comment yet.

Posted by chet | May 4, 2008 3:18 PM

James Robertson is a POS who has no clue what he's talking about.

The attack on Lebanon in 2006 killed over a thousand Lebanese civilians who had nothing whatever to do with Hizballah or the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.

Israel dumped tons of cluster bombs on civilian areas - bombs which under the rules of their sale from the US to Israel were not supposed to be used in civilian areas at all. This was done in the hours before the ceasefire because Israel wanted to deny the entire south of Lebanon to the Lebanese. This is called "collective punishment" and is an illegal war crime.

Israel's military is known to engage in brutal practices of ethnic cleansing and the murder of Palestinian civilians at random. The list of war crimes attributed to Israel beggars any comparison to anything Hamas, Hizballah or the PLO ever did.

The Sderot rockets are irrelevant by comparison. The continued use of those pointless rockets as a justification for wholesale ethnic cleansing and murder is just bullshit.

There isn't a single Zionist who has the slightest shred of intellectual honesty. They're all scum.

As President Truman said:

"The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 4, 2008 4:37 PM

On the substantive issue, arming the PA simply means giving Abbas' thugs the means to suppress other thugs. While this is undoubtedly good for Abbas, and may help Israel in the short term, it's hard to see how this leads toward a future stable democratic Palestinian state.

Posted by faux facsimile | May 4, 2008 4:51 PM

Yeah, but Hack you're a deluded moron with a history of violence behind you. You have no credibility though, sadly, you have plenty of rage and a need to obsess. If things don't work out with your sad computer biz you might just want to kill yourself. That'd'probably be the class move at this point.

Man, this is one for the ages! A classic Yglesias post! He admits he really doesn't know anything about it, but posts anyway! Phenomenal! The rock's then lifted and the worms come out. Behold the glory of "the progressive coalition."

Jesus, the Palestinians have enough problems without Matt's sad crowd.

Posted by More angry loners please! | May 4, 2008 5:32 PM

SLC,

I don't think Israelis obsess about the Palestinians this much, and they live right next door to them. Here's something that might take your mind off them and make you some money in the meantime: Syneron Medical, Ltd. (trades under the symbol ELOS on the Nasdaq). Nice Israeli company with some proprietary, FDA-approved laser technology to zap women back to their pre-baby bodies. Has a couple hundred million in cash, no debt, and is selling these expensive laser machines to physicians in North America, Europe, and Asia. The stock is owned by one of the real champs of value hedge fund managers, Seth Klarman, who happens to be of Hebraic extraction.

Posted by Fred | May 4, 2008 5:33 PM

Mr Hack: Why did Israel bomb those areas of Lebanon? Could it have something to do with the fact that Hizbollah purposely embedded itself into the civilian population, thus guaranteeing that useful idiots like yourself would decry the collateral damage?

Let me ask you this - if a person drives a truck into downed wires, killing themselves and the occupants of the car, and 5 people who happened to be nearby, are you the kind of person that blames the manufacturer of the vehicle?

I suspect you are.

Posted by James Robertson | May 4, 2008 5:57 PM

While all the comments play on the "Israel bad" theme one way or another, nobody cares to show some knowledge of the facts on this specific issue. To wit: In the context of the 1993 Oslo agreements, Israel did supply guns & ammo to the Palestinian forces.
Guess what happened later.

Posted by Oslo veteran | May 4, 2008 6:15 PM

Mr. Robertson - I am a Jew with a long history with Israel starting with my Grandfather in Irgun, my first visit to Israel in 1956 and my subsequent 50+ visits. I have 35 relatives residing in Israel, mainly in the settlements. I am a long time Zionist yet even I do not have your rose colored glasses when it comes to Israel and some of their actions.

My grandfather slaughtered a significant number of arab civilians(as well as a few British soldiers) prior to Independence. I have seen first hand what my two IDF nephews have done to Palestinians at checkpoints as well as their pot shots at Palestinians and their sheep and donkeys from the safety of their hilltop settlements.

Israel is NOT blameless in this tragedy. In fact it is my contention that Israel is losing it's soul because of the occupation. Even after 67 and 73 Israelis were much more understanding of Palestinian aspirations than they are now. Go to any coffee shop in Israel and you will hear Palestinians described in words that defy humanity. People are courser and if you attend shul in the West Bank, you will hear the rabbi and congregants use words that no Jew should ever use like annihalate, exterminate etc. I never even heard such words used about the German people after WWII, even by survivors of the camps. Now you hear such talk every day.

I want a Jewish homeland but I fear the price we are paying to our souls for the brutal occupation of another peoples will cause G-d to throw us out of Israel, as He has done in the past.

Posted by jdledell | May 4, 2008 6:36 PM

Re jdledell

Maybe Mr. jdledell should consider why Israelis are being beastly towards the Palestinians. Perhaps he should visit Sderot and spend a week there. Sderot is not a settlement beyond the Green Line. I suspect he might have a somewhat different take on the situation. He might also pay a visit to the survivors of homicide bombings of pizza parlors and transit buses. The fact is that the Palestinians have nobody to blame but themselves and the terrorist thugs currently in charge of their affairs whom they elected for their current situation.

I have a flash for Mr. jdledell. Japanese Americans, even those who were born here, weren't too popular in the US in the days and weeks following Pearl Harbor. As a matter of fact, most of them were sent to concentration camps until the end of the war and their property was stolen.

Posted by SLC | May 4, 2008 6:56 PM

funny how all the nutcases on both sides show up any time and any where Israel is mentioned.

fact is that neither side is doing their best for peace. fact is that most Israelis like myself would be thrilled to be able to live in peace. fact is that peace would be economically prosperous for everyone in the region. but fact is that extremists hijacked the leadership of the palestinian people back in 1964 and it's going to take more than words to change the generations of misdirected hatred that has divided our two peoples.

I believe that the majority of palestinians do want to see this conflict come to an end. it's unfortunate that nobody on either side hears their voices.

Posted by Ari | May 4, 2008 7:07 PM

funny how all the nutcases on both sides show up any time and any where Israel is mentioned.

fact is that neither side is doing their best for peace. fact is that most Israelis like myself would be thrilled to be able to live in peace. fact is that peace would be economically prosperous for everyone in the region. but fact is that extremists hijacked the leadership of the palestinian people back in 1964 and it's going to take more than words to change the generations of misdirected hatred that has divided our two peoples.

I believe that the majority of palestinians do want to see this conflict come to an end. it's unfortunate that nobody on either side hears their voices.

Posted by Ari | May 4, 2008 7:09 PM

More angry loners please!

Whose post sounds more like an "angry loner" - mine or his? You judge.

Robertson the moron refuses to admit that after considerable research by the UN and others, it was established that Hizballah in the Lebanese war in 2006 did NOT fire most of their rockets from civilian areas. That was an Israeli lie.

Whereas research also showed that the Israelis were embedding or stationing their artillery and tank battalions in and around ARAB villages in the north of Israel. Most of the Hizballah rockets fired into Israel targeted those areas, and being inaccurate due to the nature of those Katyusha rockets, ended up hitting more civilian areas than the military ones, thus paradoxically putting more Arab lives at risk than even Israeli ones. But the motivation was to return fire to Israeli military fire - not to target civilians, most of whom within range of Hizballah were Arabs.

Robertson is an idiot who believes Arab lives have no value and Israeli lives have infinite value. This is why he complains about home-made rockets who have barely killed a handful of people and ignores the high-tech military arsenal used by Israel to deliberately kill civilians.

Here's Finkelstein counting up the balance:

"Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005 ’til today, the estimates run between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells have been shot and fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,000 Kassam missiles, crude missiles, have been fired into Israel. So we have a ratio of between seven and nine to one.

Let’s look at casualties. In the last six months, approximately 80 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. Now, on the Israeli side, we hear all of these terrible things about these Kassams. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami, yesterday on your program, who I respect, he said what’s Israel to do about these Kassams? What does the record show? I mentioned a moment ago, 80 Palestinians killed in six months. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge disproportion, a huge discrepancy.

Now, Josh says Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens. I totally agree with that. But Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians. They have a responsibility to protect their citizens. They have a responsibility to get back their 9,000 hostages. They have a responsibility to protect their Palestinian civilians, who are being daily attacked by Israel."

Robertson is the "useful idiot" for the AIPAC crowd and the Likudniks and the Zionist freaks.

By the way, welcome to jdledell whose posts have always been insightful over at TPM.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 4, 2008 7:11 PM

Richard Steven Hack: "The Jews, I find are very, very selfish."

So you're accepting the line of the Zionists as well as the antisemites that Israel is to be identified with all Jews, and you're doing so on the word of Harry Truman, the man who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima? This is progressive or helpful to Palestinians how?

James Robertson: "Hizbollah purposely embedded itself into the civilian population, thus guaranteeing that useful idiots like yourself would decry the collateral damage"

Human Rights Watch, more useful idiots, apparently:

Human Rights Watch’s assessment of Hezbollah’s practices does not support the Israeli contention that Hezbollah violations were the principal cause of Lebanese civilian casualties. Responsibility for the high civilian death toll of the war in Lebanon lies squarely with Israeli policies and targeting decisions in the conduct of its military operations.

Or perhaps you're the idiot, driven to such blind rage by the existence of Arabs - I note you haven't answered my question above - that you'll excuse the mass slaughter of civilians?

Posted by Kalkin | May 4, 2008 7:15 PM

No, I haven't accepted that line. I quoted Truman who was essentially correct except that he used the term Jews instead of the term Zionists, which is more precisely correct. In fact, he was merely using them as an example of how underdogs become scum when they get the upper hand.

I am not responsible for Truman's imprecision, neither do I support Truman in any respect whatsoever. I merely used his quote to make the point that Zionists - not Jews in general - are scum.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 4, 2008 7:33 PM

To wit: In the context of the 1993 Oslo agreements, Israel did supply guns & ammo to the Palestinian forces.
Guess what happened later.

The Israeli government labour, likud, or whatever configuration expandanded settlements and generally acted like shits and proceded in an incredibly obvious course from 1948 to this very day.

Arafat was a disgraceful puppet, and your ilk couldn't countenance him. Abbas is just so much nothing, and it's too much to even pretend he matters. An advance in expelling Arabs from Jerusalem was explained helpfully by an MK as a benifit from the relative quiet in the West Bank.

This isn't a region without history of colonists laying a spiritual claim to it and it's not one that bodes well for the future of it's newest, God is the landlord, inhabitants.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 4, 2008 8:14 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

Mr. Hack the crack, the blogs favorite bank robber and endorser of the assassination of police officers calls other people scum. None of those other people he points the finger at have ever spend a day in the slammer, let alone nine years like Hack the crack did. And Mr. Hack the crack quotes Norman Finkelstein, Don Black of stormfronts' favorite Jew. Well, Mr. Hack the crack and Dr. Finkelstein are the Bobbsey twins of antisemitism. Mr. Hack the crack is a pimple on the asshole of society.

Posted by SLC | May 4, 2008 8:15 PM

Re Ed Marshall

As usual, Mr. Marshall is a fucking liar. The State of Israel didn't build a single settlement on the West Bank or the Gaza Strip between 1948 and 1967.

Posted by SLC | May 4, 2008 8:23 PM

For those of you practiced in the arts of moral equivalence: When Israel goes after a military target and civilians (typically used as shields by Hamas/Hizbollah) die, it's not the same.

Can we retire the term "moral equivalence"?

http://dilan.blogspot.com/2008/05/on-moral-equivalence-one-of-biggest.html

Posted by Dilan Esper | May 4, 2008 8:24 PM

SLC,

If you actually read Mr Marshall's post, you might have noticed that he was not restricting the concept of "settlement" to the West Bank or Gaza. As usual, you are a loudmouth fool.

Posted by William Burns | May 4, 2008 8:36 PM

Well, no, but it did between '48 and '67 find ways to move Arabs around in the calculus of most Jews on the most land within the green line.

The settlement project in the West Bank after the war was nothing new. Maybe there was some hand wringing out of people who thought the methods used to achieve the aforementioned goal were gauche but no government ever really stood in opposition to it.

I could care less if you call me a liar. You lack the historical knowledge to even be a good propagandist. You don't even understand the Israeli side of most arguements.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 4, 2008 8:36 PM

Re Ed Marshall & William Burns

Apparently, Mr. Marshall thinks that settlements inside the Green Line between 1948 and 1967 were also illegal. Of course, that is in accord with Mr. Marshalls' view that the State of Israel is itself illegal. Of course, if the State of Israel is illegal because of displacement of Palestinians, then the United States of America is also illegal because of the displacement of native Americans. At any time when Mr. Marshall and/or Mr. Burns are willing to give the land on which their dwellings rest back to the true owners, the Native Americans, (assuming they are living in the US), then they will be in a position to point fingers at the Government of Israel.

Posted by SLC | May 4, 2008 8:50 PM

SLC,

Marshall didn't use the word "illegal." You really need to learn how to read.

Posted by William Burns | May 4, 2008 8:54 PM

No one but no one except insignificant Holocaust denying ziocon Jews disputes that Apartheid Israel is the most Evil regime on Planet Earth. When zionist historians like Benny Morris and Shin Bet oldtimers stopped making excuses for the shithole junta - it was game, set, match. Stealing the equipment meant for the Palestinian security services is the least of their daily Neo-Nazi War Crimes. Any apologist Jew for Apartheid Israel is of course complicit in its crimes and should be considered fair game for the Resistance. Nelson Mandela's ANC had a slogan:

"One settler - one bullet."

It's high time it be implemented by Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. Apartheid Israel will fall, but the sooner the better.

Posted by Trevor | May 4, 2008 10:49 PM

Nelson Mandela's ANC had a slogan:

"One settler - one bullet."

Posted by Trevor

Hardly. "One settler, one bullet" was a saying not from Nelson Mandela, not from the ANC, not from Umkhonto We Siswe.

It was from marchers often supporting the APLA, of the Pan-Africanist Congress that broke away from the ANC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Settler,_One_Bullet

If you'll notice, upon taking power the ANC actually did not go about murdering whites. Kind of makes me wonder how in the world you came to associate such an expression with Nelson Mandela, if indeed it was an honest mistake.

Posted by El Cid | May 4, 2008 11:01 PM

"Apartheid Israel is the most Evil regime on Planet Earth."

Doubtful. Besides the obvious alternatives both "rogue state" & US ally like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Sudan, etc, there's the US itself - which as enabler bears responsibility for all Israel's crimes, plus countless others from Iraq to Colombia.

Posted by Kalkin | May 4, 2008 11:32 PM

The U.S. is far worse than Israel. As appalling as many of their policies are, they have acted with much more restraint than the United States has, despite being confronted with a real existential threat (as opposed to a mere low level threat to one outpost of our empire).

Posted by LarryM | May 4, 2008 11:43 PM

The key phrase being "upon taking power". Unfortunately, the Palestinians have to contend with The Israel Lobby manipulating the world's only superpower into exacerbating the Apartheid regime's atrocities against the helpless dark-hued innocents. That, and the media masters of discourse spreading the Big Lie that the Palestinians are to blame for their own plight. As surely as Europe's Jews were to blame for their plight in WWII. When you consider what Israeli settlers are like, what they do, what they're responsible for - "One settler - One bullet" sounds like a mild redress.

And, if a litany of whines commences wherein Darfur, China, blah, blah, blah are posited as worse regimes than Apartheid Israel - it is "The Jewish Homeland" that is ground zero in the most volatile region in the world. Only the racist, murderous, militarized expansionist, crypto-fascist Apartheid Israel junta can set off a nuclear Armageddon when it chooses to cluster bomb its next neighbor. It is as Tony Judt said "a country that's never grown up" - the abused morphing into the abuser - savagely and relentlessly torturing and crucifying the Palestinians for what the Nazis did some 70 years ago. A new generation of Jews is NOT content to cheer on Israel's Evil. A President Obama will NOT be content to coddle Israel. The shitty little country will dissolve into the dustbin of History. Its poisonous Evil will drain away. But, we all must do our part to make that happen a.s.a.p. Or the world will go up in flames.

Posted by Trevor | May 4, 2008 11:49 PM

LarryM: "The U.S. is far worse than Israel. As appalling as many of their policies are, they have acted with much more restraint than the United States has, despite being confronted with a real existential threat (as opposed to a mere low level threat to one outpost of our empire)."

The ONLY reason the Zionists haven't exterminated the Palestinians or driven them out of Palestine all together is that it would blow their cover of being the "victims" here. Period. It would threaten their support from the US, since even US Jews would be repulsed by such an action without justification from Palestinian actions - and the lame Sderot rockets don't qualify.

This is why the scum in Israel - and scum here like SLC - resort to intellectual dishonesty and outright lies and historical revisionism - to justify such a policy on the lame notions that "there is no Palestinian state", "there were no Palestinians", and "Palestinians are evil anti-Semites." It's all bullshit intended to justify mass murder and ethnic cleansing.

The Zionists in charge of Israel are little better than Nazis. Their ideology is racist, imperialist, corrupt, war mongering, and genocidal - not to mention brain deadeningly stupid since the notion of such a tiny country dominating the entire Middle East forever is pathetically stupid. History makes no exceptions and Israel is doomed.

This is WHY they face an "existential threat" - their own concept of their program was idiotic from the beginning. It could theoretically have worked had two things actually been true from the start: 1) there were no Palestinians in Palestine, and 2) the Zionists actually came in, bought land, and worked WITH the Palestinians to implement the Palestinian Mandate. Instead of replacing Palestine with Israel, if the Zionists had implemented Palestine as an Arab-Jewish binational state with equal representation and treatment, it is possible the Palestinians would not have resisted.

But when you come in to a country with the express purpose of building a religious and ethnic state entirely separate from that of the indigenous population, you have to be a complete moron not to understand the consequences will be resistance and violence. This was true in the Americas and everywhere else where colonialism was tried. And it was also true in Palestine.

So the Zionists resorted to terrorism and ethnic cleansing to get their program to "work".

And sixty years later, they're STILL trying terrorism and ethnic cleansing to get it to "work."

Israel is an illegal, rogue, terrorist state. It is worse than Iran - because that country has made no effort to dominate the Middle East or threaten its neighbors with nuclear weapons. As Ahmadinejad has said, the Zionist regime must be "wiped from the pages of time."

It's too bad that the decent Jews living in Israel who would like a reconciliation with the Palestinians are going to pay for the excesses of the Zionist thugs running their country - but that's what you get when you have a state - as the United States electorate is going to learn when the Iran war starts and REAL terrorism comes to America.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 5, 2008 1:24 AM

James Robertson, when Israel was bombing Lebanon in 2006, it wasn't just bombing targets in the parts of Lebanon de facto controlled by Hezbollah, but areas in Lebanon under the control of the democratically-elected government. Destroying much of Lebanon's infrastructure put democratization and post-Syrian occupation rebuilding back. What good did it do bombing the Beirut airport? That bombing also put a number of Lebanese-American lives at risk. Rescuing a couple of kidnapped soldiers is a job for Mossad to do covertly, not for the Israeli air force.

Posted by Reality Man | May 5, 2008 3:23 AM

This back and forth justifications and name calling is asinine. It matters not one whit whether America's treatment and dispossession of the Indians was better or worse than Israel. Whether it was Australians, India/Pakistan, America, the arab countries, European pogroms, etc, etc, etc - no country has covered itself in glory in it's treatment of those it wishes to dispossess - Israel included.

The one and ONLY issue is how to resolve the conflicting land claims peacefully. Both Israel and the Palestinians have used violence, deceit, and denial for the last 100 years to avoid dealing with the hard compromises that are neccesary to resolve the issues. The conflict predates the 1948 Independence. In 1946 my Grandfather was fighting in Hebron to establish Jewish control there. When my sister and other relatives made aliyah in 1966 their goal was living in Judea and Samaria and they participated in settlement planning even before the 1967 war. Frankly, the plan of Zionists and most of the Israeli government was to get the most of Eretz Israel that it could, by hook or crook and arabs be damned.

Israel faces a bleak future if they cannot resolve this mess. The Palestinians, both inside and outside Israel will cause increasing turmoil and their numbers continue to increase. If much more time passes, a two state solution will no longer be viable. In fact if one tours the West Bank today you will see what an incredible "swiss cheese" it really is. Without a viable two state solution Israel faces (1) forcible transfer ( in my mind unthinkable to Jewish traditions and history),(2) a one state solution (also unthinkable to a need for a Jewish homeland)or (3) providing the Palestinians with either Egyptian or Jordanian citizenship. In this latter case neither Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinians would consider this acceptable and the result would be continuing low grade warfare.

In short, Israel is the power player here with the power to establish facts on the ground. It is up to her to lead the way to a solution. It's Israel's future that is at stake, the arab states surrounding her will be there for tens of thousands more years. There is a growing schism in Israel between the stagnant population of the "Israel small and at peace" crowd and " Eretz Israel" crowd which is growing quickly. That schism can lead to the same kind of civil war that we now see on the Palestinian side, or pre 1948 on the Israeli side. One only has to look at the weapons storehouses in some of the settlements (assault weapons, RPG's, and mortars) to see the handwriting on the wall.

For the sake of all that is Holy, we need to get to work on a solution. The entire Knesset and Palestinian Legislature should be locked away and not allowed out until they reach an agreement, whether a month, a year, or 10 years.

Posted by jdledell | May 5, 2008 8:42 AM

"a one state solution (also unthinkable to a need for a Jewish homeland)"

Not true. This is the ONLY way a "Jewish homeland" could have been established, had it been attempted from the start.

Now it may well be too late. But it is the only solution that could conceivably be made to work, with sufficient international pressure on both the Palestinians and the Israelis to guarantee each others rights under a specified Constitution.

However, if one's definition of "Jewish homeland" means EXCLUSIVELY a Jewish state with Jewish citizens in it, such as the Zionists believe, then it is not possible.

And that means Israel is doomed.

The notion that some Jewish homeland has to be exclusively Jewish is based on this fantasy that Jews must avoid another Holocaust AT ALL COSTS to rationality and logic. This is the politics of fear and cannot be made to work anywhere in the world any more. The absolute best way for Jews to insure that there will never be a Holocaust again happens to be NOT gathering all in one place and trying to turn into a Fortress Judaica - that is a militarily and technologically obsolete notion.

The original Diaspora insured that the Jewish ethnicity and religion would never die out. The best way to insure a lack of persecution against Jews is 1) keep moving out, and 2) oppose and expose the fraud that is Christianity, which hijacked a Jewish prophet, made up stories about his origin, then used that to start a religion which persecuted his own people for the next two thousand years.

When people everywhere understand the origins of anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church, the Jews will be safe.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 5, 2008 4:27 PM