MetaFilter posts tagged with Israel and foreignpolicy

It's Tuesday

chuckdarwin — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:15:38 -0800

Martin Amis on 9/11 and the cult of death:

"Let us briefly trundle through the argument for moral equivalence, and let us begin with a trio of ascertainable truths. First, the years 1947 and 1948 saw two imperialistic decisions that guaranteed an increase in hostility between Muslim and nonMuslim: the partition of India along religious lines, and the establishment of the state of Israel. (These decisions also led to, but did not invent, murderous hostility between Muslim and Muslim – in East Pakistan, in Gaza). Second, throughout the 1970s the Arab regimes sponsored by the US started to head off political dissent by guiding the opposition towards Islamic fundamentalism. And, third, in the 1980s the US backed the Mujahidin against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and also helped to fund the Pakistani madrassas, whose graduates (all of them unemployable zealots) increased from 30,000 in 1987 to well over half a million by 2001. Thereafter, or so the equivalence argument goes, the Islamist vanguard, having wearied of seeing the battles fought exclusively on its own soil, visited a taste of this destruction on the West. Which turns out to suit the neocons and Christian Zionists, who can now place the US under military rule while they prepare their push for Islamic oil and for Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. The goals of the so-called “terrorists” (who are merely responding in kind to state terrorism from the US and its clients) are not delusive or messianic but solemnly political. So it has always been: the oppressed struggle against the oppressor; the wrongs of the past rise up to avenge themselves on the present."

A priest, a rabbi and a Hamas leader walk into a bar. .

Smedleyman — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 17:37:28 -0800

"If Hamas fails to agree to a permanent ceasefire, we will have to create another leadership, just as we did before with Sheikh Yassin." Former head of the double ISO (Mossad), Efraim Halevy Spoke at the Middle East Forum in Boston last week (yes, he's selling a book) and had some interesting things to say. Earlier post here. (More inside).

I'm sure we can talk about this without sounding conspiratorial

Dasein — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:23:11 -0800

The Israel Lobby. Writing the London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Harvard University's Stephen Walt argue that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been diverted from the national interest by a powerful domestic Jewish lobby:

[T]he thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

The article is an edited version of a longer working paper (pdf). While the authors focus on the potency of the Jewish lobby, including organizations such as AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, they also point to the role of evangelical Christians who believe that Israel's existence is a necessary precondition of the Second Coming, a group whose importance has been remarked upon elsewhere.

A Spreading Treason

mk1gti — Wed, 25 May 2005 07:43:35 -0800

A Spreading Treason The vagaries of U.S. involvement in the Middle East were surely brought home to First Lady Laura Bush on her recent trip to Israel, on a tour of Jerusalem's holiest sites. At the Wailing Wall, where she placed a note in the Western Wall – as is the custom – she faced surly throngs of protesters shouting "Free Pollard Now!" The Pollardites also showed up earlier that morning, as Mrs. Bush paid a visit to the home of Israeli President Moshe Katsav: "Pollard, the people are with you!" they chanted.

Q & A with former Israeli Mossad chief Efraim Halevy.

ori — Mon, 16 May 2005 15:04:10 -0800

Q & A with former Israeli Mossad chief Efraim Halevy. Halevy fields questions from readers around the world. See also his article "The coming Pax Americana".

adnanbwp — Tue, 02 Oct 2001 16:36:00 -0800

US-Israel Foreign Policy I dont agree completely with the writer but foreign policy is important. Interesting article nevertheless.

holgate — Mon, 26 Feb 2001 23:24:17 -0800

Pot criticises kettles for chromatic similitude. Now, on the one hand, it's refreshing that the US State Department acknowledges the human rights abuses of allies such as Israel; but this annual catalogue of the world's foibles smacks just a little of sanctimonious short-sightedness. But I'm torn on this one: are such state-sponsored surveys a useful basis on which to judge the "ethical" basis of foreign policy, or are they propaganda exercises, designed to direct attention away from domestic failures and to paper over the hypocrisies of policy?