Failing to learn anything from recent history, the Obama administration continues to insist that Jews building housing for themselves on the western bank of the Jordan river is unacceptable:
"Continued Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank undermines peace efforts and contradicts Israeli commitments and obligations including the 2003 road map,” a State Department spokesman said.
“The US position on Israeli settlements is clear,” he said.
“We do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. We also oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts.”
This is blatant anti-Jewish racism coming directly out of the Obama administration. This administration is telling the world that it is the Jews of the Middle East who are undermining the "peace process." They claim this despite the fact that it was Obama, himself, who drove the final nails into Oslo's coffin through the racist demand for "total settlement freeze."
The implication of Barack Obama's policies around the Arab-Israel conflict is that the presence of Jews in Judea means that Mahmoud Abbas cannot sit at a table with Benjamin Netanyahu and draw a line on a map. And the implication of that, of course, is that the Palestinian leadership is justified in demanding an entirely Judenrein Palestinian state.
Given the never-ending Palestinian refusal to accept a state for themselves in peace next to Israel, one would hope that the Obama administration might eventually come to realize that the reason there is no peace between the Arabs and the Jews of the Middle East is not because Jews live and build in Judea. One would think that they might come to the realization that it is the Arabs who refuse to end the conflict, not the Jews, and that they do so largely out of Koranically-based race hatred toward us..
One would also think that the Obama administration might finally recognize that there is no "peace process." I suppose that it is more understandable that the administration refuses to recognize this because it is they, more than anyone else aside from the Palestinians, who killed the damn thing to begin with. To honestly acknowledge that there is no peace process would be to acknowledge the administration's role in killing that process, which is something that they naturally refuse to do.
Why should the Obama administration take any blame for ruining whatever possibilities there may have been for a peaceful resolution of the conflict when they can blame Israel for this failure? And why would one expect the Obama administration's Jewish supporters to do anything else?
And now, lo these many months and years after the Obama administration killed off the last remaining vestiges of the Oslo peace process, they are still whining at Israel for building housing for its citizenry on historically Jewish land. This represents not only a failure to recognize reality (a reality that the administration help create) but justifies Palestinian racism towards Jews.
If there was any indication that the Palestinians actually did want a state of their own in peace next to the Jewish one then administration blinkeredness on their own racist demand for a Judenrein Palestinian state might at least be somewhat understandable. After all, many well-meaning Jews oppose Jewish settlements on land they hope to see go to the Palestinians, but to continue to insist upon it long after the death of the peace process is little more than anti-Jewish racism.
After all, are there any other people anywhere on the planet wherein the administration weighs in on where they may be allowed to live? I don't think so.
The US Department of State regularly comes out with these gratuitous and counterproductive slaps at Israel and, yet, they keep telling us what great friends they are to that country. This is obviously a lie. The very last thing in this world the Obama administration is is a friend to Israel. If the Obama administration was a friend to the Jewish state, not to mention the Jewish people, it might stop blaming the Jews of the Middle East for their own persecution.
Make no mistake. Every time some Obama administration official claims that Israel is undermining the peace process by building housing for Jews, they are essentially blaming the Jews of the Middle East for their own persecution. If the Obama administration was a friend to the Jewish state they might stop justifying Palestinian racism toward us, because it is precisely that justification for Palestinian racism that undermines any possibility of peace.
And, yet, against all reason or common human decency, they still expect our support.
I say that we do not give it to them.
To sum it up, this paragraph:
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake. Every time some Obama administration official claims that Israel is undermining the peace process by building housing for Jews, they are essentially blaming the Jews of the Middle East for their own persecution. If the Obama administration was a friend to the Jewish state they might stop justifying Palestinian racism toward us, because it is precisely that justification for Palestinian racism that undermines any possibility of peace.
Is bullshit. You know why I think it's bullshit. You know it's bullshit. I don't even think you believe it. It's an argument so detached from reality, it can't even see reality.
Stuart, claiming that a statement is "bullshit" does not represent a refutation of that statement.
DeleteDo the Jews of the Middle East remain under siege?
Yes, they do.
Does this not represent Jewish persecution at the hands of the majority population there?
It does.
Thus when the Obama administration claims that Israel is undermining the non-existent "peace process" through building housing for Jewish people on traditionally Jewish land they are, thus, blaming Israel for its own persecution.
It's perfectly logical and entirely true.
What saddens me, however, is the fact that well-meaning progressive-left Jews continue to see the conflict through Arab eyes, rather than through Jewish ones and the reason for that is because we are heavily influenced by decades of Arab-Soviet propaganda which led us to believe that Jewish sovereignty on Jewish land is a form of "colonialism" or "imperialism."
It isn't.
We absolutely have got start thinking about the conflict in fresh ways, which is the entire purpose of this blog.
Oslo is over and until progressive-left Jews get that fact, they will continue spinning their wheels and will continue to blame their fellow Jews in Israel for the failure of peace there.
Are the Palestinians under siege? What does that represent?
DeleteThe Obama administration recognizes that the Palestinians see the expansion of the settlements as an act of war. (I share that view.) The continued expansion of the settlements is an obstacle to peace. It isn't any more complicated than that. It isn't racist. It isn't anti-semitic. It isn't even anti-Israeli. Stopping the expansion of the settlements is a logical part of the peace process.
And while I'm at it, the "historically Jewish land" really needs to be removed from this argument. It's as absurd as "the koran made me do it". I can make a much better analogy. You really don't want me to. You should just stop using it.
You see it as an act of war? I think that is a statement that has no basis in law or fact.
DeleteI can see why Palestinians may see it that way. They see all of Israel as occupied, too. That does not make it so.
On the issue of settlements, generally, I think that Dershowitz had a good idea, which would reveal that it is a false issue from the Palestinian side.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303674004577432640819025670.html
Just to clarify, no, I thought the settlements were a horrible idea almost 40 years ago, but no, not an act of war. I share the Obama administrations recognition that the Palestinians see it that way.
DeleteAnd, as I said, they see Israel as belonging to them, too. At some point, there has to be a line and a reality check, including for Palestinians, rather than this fantasy they are interested in a durable peace and that resistance is the means to achieve it.
DeleteStuart,
DeleteI know that you are an intelligent man, and I know for a fact that your heart is in the right place, however I also think that you are dead wrong on a number of levels.
The first way that I think that you are mistaken is in your discounting of the history of Jewish victimization under Arab-Muslim imperialism.
Asking people to understand the Arab-Israel conflict without recognizing the long history of Jewish dhimmitude is like trying to understand the American Civil Rights movement without reference to African-American slavery.
It simply doesn't fit.
So, yes, the Jews of the Middle East have been under siege through continuous Arab-Muslim race-hatred toward us for 14 centuries and it continues to this day.
We need to understand Israel within this light, because the default is not only ahistorical, but provided to us by anti-Zionist propagandists who insist that the victims are the victimizers and the victimizers are the victims.
We do our fellow Jews in Israel no good whatsoever when we take their enemies line against them. It's a huge and fundamental mistake that tends to come from the Jewish left.
And while I'm at it, the "historically Jewish land" really needs to be removed from this argument. It's as absurd as "the koran made me do it".
It is unclear to me why you believe this with such certainty given the dubious nature of the assertion. It only makes sense if you do not believe in "peoplehood" and thus hold to a progressive-left universalism in which there is no such thing as peoples, but only a greater humanity.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that the vast majority of human beings see themselves as part of larger groupings such as families, tribes, religions, and nations. The claims of any people on any land is dependent, at least in part, to their history on that land.
Why do you dismiss this with a wave of your hand?
You think there's something inherently Jewish about the land? Because a few thousand people lived there for a couple thousand years? Is the lower east side of Manhattan historically Jewish land? Where hundreds of thousands of Jews have historically lived? Or Crown Heights? Or Fairfax? If it's Jewish land that you can't dismiss Palestinian's right of return to where hundreds of thousands lived for much of a century.
DeleteThe specific land doesn't matter. Jews are not a piece of land. Anymore than the Palestinians are a piece of land. Israel needs to be protected. Expansions of the settlements to meaningless pieces of additional land doesn't make Israel safer. It makes Israel less safe.
And I'm not dismissing any victimization. It happened. It's real. Expanding settlements is not logical mitigation of that victimization any more than promoting a peaceful settlement is racist. Israel exists today. It seems you want retribution. I don't really much give a shit about the last 2,000 years in the context of Israel today. Pointing at history doesn't strengthen her safety. It doesn't lead to peace.
Stuart,
DeleteAre you of the view that nations and states are less preferable than the state of humanity?
You may not understand the connection to the land. Than does not mean it does not exist for many.
As for the role of history, ignoring it does not necessarily strengthen Israel or Jews, or lead to peace either. History helps define intentions.
What do you believe will lead to peace? Do you think the Palestinian collective is more interested in a state or the removal of Israel as an entity?
No Karma, that land isn't as Jewish as French land is French. France has been French since...I don't know, the time of Charlamagne? 1200 years? Jews lived there for what? For a few centuries, 2,000 years ago, before the diaspora? That's what's so unique about Jews, we never had a home until 60 years ago! It's nice we got that home where we used to live. But we have no more right to that land than Apaches have to the land that my house sits on.
DeleteHumans have been yelling GO! for thousands of years. The people all die off. Only the land remains. In this modern world, we have deeds, and histories, and surveys and borders. But we're just renters. The temporary occupants might believe it sacred. But it's the land that's sacred, having nothing to do with anyone who's ever lived there.
Obama wants Israel to continue to exist and he wants peace. That area of the world is as big a pain in the ass fro US presidents as it is to guys who run blogs. He doesn't really give a shit how it happens. He happens to think that ceasing the expansion of settlements might help. Not because he hates the Jews. Not because the Arabs hate the Jews. Because someone who knows the politics of the area told him that the settlements are an obstacle to peace. It could have been me. I would have told him that. And it wouldn't have had shit to do with Arab hatred of Jews. It wouldn't even have had anything to do with Jews.
Just out of curiosity...do the Turks let the Iraqi Kurds just move across the border and build settlments in Turkey because at one time that was Kurdish land? Is it because they hate Kurds?
btw, according to A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People, edited by Eli Barnavi, there were about 2 million Jews living in Israel around the time of King David within a world population of about 120 million.
DeleteSo, no, Jews actually have a far greater claim to the land of Israel than the French have to France.
This means that "historically Jewish land" is proper usage and that we, as a people, did not just sprout out of the earth like mushrooms, but have a long history in the land of Israel.
It amazes me that you would not think so.
Talk about incorporating anti-Israel Arab propaganda into one's understanding of the conflict!
OS, I don't understand the pertinence of your first question.
ReplyDeleteI do understand the connection to the land. I also understand full well, that the settlements beyond the green line have nothing at all to do with any historical connection to that land. It could just as well be Gaza or the Golan, where there is virtually no historical connection. I've been there. I've talked with the people who live there. Had them in my home. Those settlements are a land grab. Nothing more. That was the historical intentions 40 years ago. It is still the intention.
As to your last question, I don't really know the answer. Between 1973 and the late 80's, I would have answered that question unequivocally that a atate was more important to the Palestinians. But the 25 years of influence from destructive internal and external sources, I'm not sure that's true today. The problem is that the lack of a Palestinian state guarantees perpetual hostilities. Conversely, a Palestinian state would tremendously increase the likelihood of a lasting peace with Israel's other neighbors.
With the exception of the Iranian government, none of the other governments (prior to the recent uprisings) gave two shits about Israel's existence. A peaceful arrangement between Israel and a Palestinian state would create more commerce, more tourism, more advancement for a Palestinian society than any relationship the Palestinians could wish to have with any of their other neighbors. The Israelis are their much more natural partners. 30 years ago, I think they knew that. Arafat knew that. Now, I have absolutely no idea. But regardless, peace is the only good option for either side.