This is a quick hit posing as a diary, but the article it draws attention to is just not a news event, but an analysis of why Obama seems to be screwing up on the Israeli-Palestinian peace front. Well, apart from the fact that he has most of Israel against him, then George Mitchell's threat to cut loan guarantees to Israel (which in any case support Israel's colonialism), and the blowback from Israel's finance minister who said, "who needs you," the article asks whether Obama know what the hell he is doing?
Two days ago, 1,360 Gaza Freedom March activists from 42 countries including the United States intending to enter Gaza for a commemoration of the Gaza massacre of a year ago, were confronted by Egyptian security forces on the banks of the Nile. These international activists have been continually denied access to the Rafah border crossing, and some groups have been confined to their lodgings, bus stations, and embassies under threat of deportation.
In the past few months and years, media coverage of Israel has had subtle but distinct change in tone. The mainstream media is taking a harder look at Israel's policies, and has found not everything is to its liking.
There are several reasons why coverage of Israel has previously been so positive, and why recently a slight change has occurred. In the first place, Israel is a country culturally very attuned to us. Israel is part of the West; it shares Western norms and values. Many Jews would be comfortable living in the West and do so to this very day. Some of them work in the media and are sympathetic to the struggles their peers face.
Moreover, many in the media (and the vast majority of our country) believed that Israel had been in the right before 2006. Israel had - has - a democracy and a free press and all the things we like a country to have; the Palestine cause and their Arab supporters by and large do not. Israelis such as Yitzhak Rabin were calling for peace; meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas were sending suicide bombers to kill Israelis civilians day after day.
Then came the 9-11 attacks by Muslim terrorists. In its aftermath media coverage of Israel was probably the most positive it had ever been.
There were three events, however, which changed things. At the very least, they have damaged Israeli prestige.
....seeking to reverse Obama's backtracking from his Cairo speech, in particular, contradicting a later statement that Palestinian East Jerusalem is part of the unified capital of Israel, an issue yet to be negotiated.
This gesture is sucking up to the right wing Likud government of Bibi Netanyahu at a time when Netanyahu seems to be putting Obama in his place. Who the hell does he think he is, Bill Clinton once said of the arrogant Bibi.
On October the 28th, 2009, Jon had the good sense to invite two guests who favor (get this) a peaceful, non-violent, diplomatic approach to the middle east problem. No harm in a little civil discussion, huh?
There are a million and one things that people can do to try to end the U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and to prevent new ones in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to close U.S. military bases in dozens of other nations around the world. Certain people are skilled at or interested in particular approaches, and nobody should be discouraged from contributing to the effort in their preferred ways. Far too often proposals to work for peace are needlessly framed as attacks on all strategies except one. But where new energy can be created or existing resources redirected, it is important that they go where most likely to succeed.
Jewish American peace activist groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) are beginning to become exasperated over Israel's progressive leaning toward ethnocentric fascism, as indicated by this review of recent untoward, anti-democracy developments by the right wing government. Requiring loyalty oaths from Palestinian-Arab citizens, outlawing anniversary celebrations of Nakba Day, the day of the year that Palestinians commemorate the "catastrophe," the ethnic cleansing of 1948, and other rules such as denial of Israel as a Jewish state, which seem intent on discriminating against Israel's minority Arab population, are cited.
Muzzlewatch, JVP's propaganda watch site, recently published this news about what is essentially the curtailment of free speech in Israel.
These headlines appeared this morning in the sometimes liberal Israeli newspaper, Haartez, about Netanyahu's meeting on Monday with President Obama and the issues likely to be on the table, including Palestinian statehood, settlements, Iran, etc.
(Despite recent disappointments--to put it mildly--I still think that Israel is one issue on which Obama might actually deliver on some of his foreign policy promise. But more importantly, we should not be giving up. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Friends, I just wanted to give you a heads up that over at Avaaz.org we have decided to run this Ad ahead of the Obama-Netanyahu face-off on Monday.
The Ad -- titled "Leadership" will run during the Sunday talk shows in the DC market. We have been inspired to take this step by a stunning poll of Israeli-Jews suggesting that 65% want President Obama actively involved in helping solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Ad draws attention to the controversial statement made by new, right-wing Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman that Obama will do as he's told. This comment runs counter to the sentiment expressed in our poll of Lieberman's fellow Israelis, carried out by major Israeli polling institute Hagal Hahadash, which shows that a majority of respondents believe Obama could help bring about a two-state agreement (53% said he could help a lot or somewhat to achieve this, and only 19.2% answered not at all).
When Netanyahu recently announced that this land belongs to the Jewish people, all of it, it merely harked back to the 1996 document, "A Clean Break" and the Likud Orwellian dictum: 'no land for peace, peace for peace.' A Clean Break essentially meant a break from the Oslo Accords, which had promised, falsely, to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians through a two state solution. It was the Clinton era, the settling of the Palestinian territories by Israelis doubled, and then ended in the Camp David/Taba hoax.
So when Netanyahu recently committed himself to giving the Palestinians 'economic peace' rather than promoting the two state solution, the past returned. Economic peace means peace for peace, which means no two state solution.
A Clean Break will undoubtedly, once again, guide Likud policy in negotiations with the Palestinians as well as Washington. Only one change is notable. Instead of Iraq being the security issue, pushed by Neocons Wolfowicz and Feith (along with Richard Perle, a Clean Break author), today it is Iran. But there is also a new player on the field: Obama.
Obama's recent pronouncement on two states suggests that a confrontation with the Likud government of Israel is inevitable. If understood correctly, it is a confrontation with an old if outmoded Neoconservative pro-Likud policy agenda.
And so how is the Obama initiative for the Middle East Peace going? Here are some interesting developments: hubris, blackmail, EU on board, Netanyahu peace plan stall, a Norwegian war crimes tribunal, and the sobering words of Gideon Levy.
And from these developments, what can one conclude? Israel has given up Hamas as its last red herring, to be replaced by Iran.
In his latest article, Biberman & Co, Uri Avnery, the sagacious Israeli peace activist and founder of Gush Shalom, gives his prediction about the next stage of Israeli peace avoidance, which applies to dealing with Obama. How Netanyahu will handle Obama is apparently an old formula used before in keeping the United States in line. Although I will only quote the relevant section from Biberman & Co (meaning Bibi plus Lieberman with Ehud Barak thrown in, as in Bibarak), the entire article can be read HERE.
According to Avnery, a clash with Obama is inevitable. Obama wants to create a new world order in the Middle East and he knows that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict poisons the atmosphere against America in the Arab and the entire Muslim world. Obama wants to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is exactly what Netanyahu and his partners want to prevent.
Some recent opinions suggest that AIPAC shot its wad by bringing down the Freeman nomination and will now recede into the background, no longer capable of influencing Israeli-American relations. But is AIPAC really flinching at this critical time, when Likud has the reigns in Israel, and Netanyahu is talking about nullifying any prospect for a Palestinian state, ending it once and for all by taking the Jordan Valley? Doubtful. Netanyahu is scheduled to speak at the next AIPAC convention in May.
The really big question is not AIPAC: it is whether Obama will flinch and backtrack from his Middle East agenda where a Palestinian state is up front and clearly voiced by Obama's envoy, George Mitchell.
Yet, even before Freeman's nomination was withdrawn, we already saw signs of kowtow from Obama. For example, Obama never responded after his request that Israel permit humanitarian aid into bleeding Gaza was ignored, even flouted. Now we hear Hillary threatening to withdraw 900 million dollars pledged by the US to help rebuild Gaza if the Fatah-Hamas coalition being negotiated in Egypt does not formally "recognize Israel's right to exist." The "right to exist" pledge demanded from Hamas, which only represents about 20% of the Palestinians living in the territories, is clearly an obstacle created by Israel to avoid peace negotiations, and although the administration is probably not oblivious to that fact, it seems to be acquiescing. But while not negotiating with Hamas appeases Israel, it also counters Obama's diplomacy tact in his pledge to change the Middle East.
It is not known whether Obama appreciates that he cannot linger when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as time may be running out. Israel's colonialism is inexorable and recently showed signs of acceleration, with the government's approval of another 73,000 homes to be built in the Palestinian territories (reported by Peace Now).
Thanks to Phillip Weiss of Mondoweiss for drawing attention to the following contrasting videos about Israeli Apartheid Week and the many educational videos that are being used to defend Israel's actions not only in Gaza, but over the past 60 years. Hasbara means "explanation," but when used in most critical settings, "propaganda" is its intended meaning.
There is even a site, Hasbara-Org, where one can go to obtain "explanations" from the Israeli side of the universe. For example, the settlement building that has been going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for 40 years, is not what we think it is. But first, the Palestinian view.
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