SubscribeIf only the Israelis are criticized for actions that are otherwise ignored, it is anti-Semitism.Thats a very simplistic attitude.
Don't you guys get it? All fascist movements start with anti-Semitism. It is still the one universally accepted prejudice.I would generalise that all facist movements start with anti-anything -- Uniting the people against a common enemy helps to maintain control.
The Arabs are anti-West and they have stated unequivocally their desire to kill us and place all of us under Islamic law.The Arabs? All of them? The entire populations of the north african, middle eastern and gulf states? Most of whom will sell their grandmothers to have a chance to live in the affluent west, drink coca cola and wear nikes?
On Oct. 17, 2004 Israeli military forces invaded Balata, a dense, poverty-stricken community deep in Palestine's West Bank (Israel frequently invades this area and others). . . . The witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance--no "clash," no "crossfire," not even any stone-throwing. At one point, after most of the vehicles had finally driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a pre-pubescent boy nearby, and pulled the trigger.
We went to the hospital and interviewed the boy, Ahmad, his doctors, family, and others. Ahmad had bandages around his lower abdomen, where surgeons had operated on his bladder. He said he was afraid of Israeli soldiers, and pulled up his pants leg to show where he had been shot previously.
In the hospital there was a second boy, this one with a shattered femur; and a third boy, this one in critical condition with a bullet hole in his lung. A fourth boy, not a patient, was visiting a friend. He showed us a scarred lip and missing teeth from when Israeli soldiers had shot him in the mouth.
This was not an unusual situation. When I had visited Palestinian hospitals on a previous trip, I had seen many such victims; some with worse injuries. Yet, very few Americans know this is going on. AP's actions in regard to Ahmad's shooting may explain why.
We discovered that an AP cameraman had filmed the entire incident. This cameraman had then followed what apparently is the usual routine. He sent his video--an extremely valuable commodity, since it contained documentary evidence of a war crime--to the AP control bureau for the region. This bureau is in Israel.
What happened next is unfathomable. Did AP broadcast it? No. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? No.
According to its cameraman, AP erased it.
Never Allow a Weak Ally to Make Decisions for Youlanguagehat: I think if you'll look into it, you'll discover that most Arabs were quite friendly towards the US -- the governments allied with the Soviets were, of course, ritually hostile, but the people tended to be friendly and curious. After 1967, the US started embracing Israel more and more closely and the Arabs started getting more and more hostile.
Strong nations that are oblivious to the preceding rules are particularly susceptible to violating this one. They lose their freedom of action by identifying their own national interests completely with those of the weak ally. Secure in the support of its powerful friend, the weak ally can choose the objectives and methods of its foreign policy to suit itself. The powerful nation then finds that it must support interests not its own and that it is unable to compromise on issues that are vital not to itself, but only to its ally.
Aside from NATO and South Korea, already mentioned, [the United States] has only two major and serious commitments: one to Japan, the other to Israel. ...I think Mearsheimer and Walt also underestimate the precariousness of Israel's situation. Israel has no strategic depth and no ability to absorb large population losses. Israel can't afford to lose a single war. Given the disparity in population, in the long term, once the Arab and Muslim states modernize and catch up to the West, Israel's going to be extremely vulnerable. (Which is why I think it's in Israel's interest to settle the conflict with the Palestinians sooner rather than later, but that's a separate topic.)
As for Israel, the commitment is founded less on demonstrable geopolitical interests than is the case with Japan, but it is no less real. No one could deny that the United States, by its conduct over the course of 25 years, has incurred a heavy moral commitment to the preservation of the state of Israel and the protection of its inhabitants against massacre or political disaster at the hands of their irreconcilable Arab neighbors. As in all such cases, the main burden of responsibility lies, of course, with the people to whom the commitment is made. The commitment assumes a reasonable degree of prudence, restraint and good will on their part. It is not a blank check for any and all behavior. The task of American policy-makers, as they themselves have well understood, consists of trying to assure to the Israelis that which is really essential to the maintenance of their existence as a state, of dissuading them from claiming more than is essential to that purpose, and of avoiding any escalation of the situation into a serious Soviet-American conflict. This is a thankless, complex task -- a species of Sisyphean labor --
The United States, with its never-equaled political and economic and military might, should peremptorily put a stop to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has already wasted too many lives, taken up too much of our attention, and consumed resources that could have helped move the area forward. It has been too much of a distraction. The expression "confidence-building measures" has a fantastical, even cynical air of unreality to it, at least as applied in the Middle East. The so-called "peace process," has proven to be little more than a diplomatic perpetual-motion machine. It provides excuses for all to keep things on hold. Between Arab anti-Semitism, and Jewish fear of Arab revanchism, no agreement is likely to be reached or to hold unless we take a strong hand.
To us and to many other friends of the region, the outlines of a settlement are pretty clear: they would resemble the Camp David proto-accords. There would be a Palestinian state committed to living in peace with Israel; Israel's West Bank settlements -- a bone in the throat to any peace effort -- would be dismantled. There would be security guarantees for both Israel and the Palestinians. As a corollary to any agreement, there should be measures in place to monitor the sort of Palestinian state that would emerge; one Taliban-dominated state has been enough.
We should work hard to enlist the association and support of our Western allies in this effort. But we should not get bogged down in details. We should ignore and bypass by those who would slow our peace efforts by reviving objections drawn from over 50 years of failed peacemaking. It has been my experience, that when the United States makes it clear to all the world that we are utterly determined that something must be done, reality tends to rearrange itself in a complaisant pattern. Once we do, Arab and Israeli leaders could turn to their populations, and say with a shrug, "What could I do against the might and desire of the United States?"
There are three decision making capitals involved here, Beijing, Taipei and Washington. Of these three, two know exactly what the United States will do in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing knows the United States will intervene. Any doubt it had was dispelled in 1996 when carriers turned up in the Philippine Sea. Beijing’s military planning pre-supposes American intervention and takes into account the need to sink aircraft carriers and other things…I have the impression that the more militaristic neoconservatives think the US ought to take a harder line against China and recognize Taiwan as an independent state.
Mr. Gelb: Chas., is it so self evident that we never had to tell them we would intervene?
Mr. Freeman: I’m telling you that their operating assumption is that we will intervene. Taipei’s operating assumption is we will intervene. That’s why they take the risks that they have taken. The only one of the three capitals that doesn’t know what the United States will do is Washington!
The Domestic Lobbies
The limitations of our governmental institutions for policy-making are not restricted, however, to the habits and organizational confusion of the executive branch. There is also the effect on policy-making of domestic political considerations and pressures. It is to the power of these pressures that we owe the fact that what American policy has too often reflected has not been the national interest but something quite different: the parochial interests of minorities--lobbies, factions, or special interest groups of one kind of another--to the influence of which both branches of the government, legislative and executive, have shown themselves to be extensively responsive. Anyone who has ever served in a policy-making position in the State Department knows how frequently this source of pressure has been the determinant of governmental action, and how unfortunate have often been the consequences of this abuse of the policy-making function.
So numerous and conspicuous have been the instances of this sort of thing that illustrations would seem superfluous. The China lobby, the Israel lobby, the sugar lobby, and dozens of others that could be mentioned: they have all been there to twist the arms of American politicians whenever the interests of their particular clientele appear to be at stake. And who can blame them? If blame is to be assigned for such eforts and for the effects they have had on American policy, it is not the lobbyists themselves who deserve it; their motivations are understandable enough. It is rather the statesmen who have yielded to them even when they knew that the national interests would have warranted a firmer resistance.
... real power is always something far greater than military power alone. A balance of power is not a balance of military power alone: it is, rather, a balance in which military power is one element. Even in its crudest aspect, power represents a subtle and intimate combination of force and consent. No stable government has ever existed, and no empire has ever become established, except with an immensely preponderant measure of consent on the part of those who were its subjects. That consent may be a half-grudging consent; it may be a consent based in part on awe of superior force; it may represent love, or respect, or fear, or a combination of the three. Consent, in any case, is the essential ingredient in stable power--more so than physical force, of which the most efficient and economical use is to increase consent.As far as I know, US policy has always been opposed [to Israeli annexation of the territories], or at least mute on the subject, especially since the Oslo accords.
By using physical force in such a way as alienates consent one constantly increases the requirements of physical force to replace the consent that has been alienated. A vicious spiral develops that, continued, ends in the collapse of power.
« Older Pierce Bush in 2024?... | No Hunting on the Sabbath, Y'a... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Dasein at 4:23 PM on March 17, 2006