The New Republic

Well, Nancy Obama was speaking to an Arab audience and he did need to say the Jews have an historical connection to the land of Israel/Palestine. (Historically the name Palestinian was embraced by Jews but it has since been cooped. In the 30's Jews in mandate Palestine issued coins that identified them as Palestinian and in parentheses it had the initial EI, (Eretz Israel) the land of Israel. We can debate this but isn't debatable is that Arabs living thee did not identify themselves as "Palestinians" This came later and it was a political move.

- arnon1

March 20, 2013 at 3:50pm

"Offer, if Israel wants land swaps as part of a final border, to exchange for land Israel wants land that the Palestinians actually want, rather than scraps of desert no one wants?" /// What land would qualify for that that is not occupied by people who would not object to being governed by Palestine? The Arabs of villages on the Israeli side of the green line have consistently gone up in arms whenever there is talk about transferring their villages to the PA.

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 11:12am

"warning about the threat of occupation ... not because Israelis disagree with that, but because they do agree yet see no safe way to end the occupation." /// Could you address that argument instead of just self-righteously branding as a war criminal and Apartheid apparatchik everyone who does not instantly genuflect at the threat of occupation and shut out all information supporting the objection?

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 11:33am

Seems to me that you take a back seat to no one in genuflection, sighthnd. Oh, the Israelis don't have any land to swap that anyone would want? Maybe some corridors to the Mediterranean from the West Bank? Well, if they have no land to swap, then they need not. They can simply withdraw to the 1967 armistice line east of which they have no legitimate claim. That's kind of the point. The so-called "swaps" are anything but. If, as is the case, the land east of the Green Line belongs to the Palestinians, as it does by virtue of the 1948 Partition and a host of UNSC resolutions, including a bunch insisting that Israel not take any action to change the status there with only the possibility of border rectification for genuine security purposes, then swapping means bargaining for exchange. Israel has no intention of doing that. It merely uses the rhetoric of swap for the legitimation of its illegal settlements. As to your second point, occupation is based on military necessity. Nothing about the military necessity of occupation justifies either illegal settlement (illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a party and a designated war crime under the Protocols to the Geneva Conventions that Israel is not a party to) or the creation of an apartheid regime in territory, the West Bank, that Israel has no right to settle in the first place. The obligations of the occupying power include allowing as much political and economic freedom as possible consistent with the demands of security. Had Israel been fulfilling its responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions for the past 45 years instead of settling illegal and imposing massive security, travel, commercial and water burdens on the Palestinians in order to protect its illegal settlements, it might now be relatively easy for Israel to end its occupation with security. If not, it can continue to occupy and meet its security needs as long as necessary consistent with the maximum freedom for the population. We don't know whether a viable Palestinian state, not a threat to Israel would be possible if Israel ceased its illegal activities and were willing to make peace without insisting that they be legitimized. But we will never know as long as Israel continues its illegal activities. That addresses the argument quite sufficiently. But if there is a need to reduce it to very simple terms for you: Israel's bona fide security needs provide absolutely no legal or security justification for its illegal settlements. Those in turn amplify its security needs and make peace impossible. Israel is therefore responsible not only for illegal settlement but for affirmatively frustrating peace in pursuit of illegal colonial objectives that have become a de facto apartheid regime in the West Bank. Got it?

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 2:26pm

As far as the illegalities of the settlements go, the only distinction you've offered in the past between them and the Yishuv is that the Yishuv was pre-Fourth Geneva Convention (4GC) and the settlements are post-4GC. The problem is, that laws are not passed to say that an action that was okay before the law is no longer okay after the law. Laws are passed in order to make violations of norms actionable after they are passed that were not actionable prior. Therefore, relying on the law is saying that European-Jewish settlement in the southern Levant is wrong now and was ALWAYS wrong, and therefore the pre-building of the State of Israel was an unactionable crime. I'm all for giving the Palestinians an equal say in the distribution of West Bank resources, but not any rights granted by virtue of Jordan's 1949 conquest. // // As for the issue of land swaps, could you show the intellectual integrity to represent my argument correctly? My point is that any inhabited piece of land cannot be swapped because the inhabitants, whether Jewish or Arab, will complain. That can be circumvented by giving the PNM uninhabited land. However, you have stated before that that would not satisfy you because the PNM is not interested in any of those parcels. I'll ask this, should Israel be punished for the fact that the PNM has not created a polity that their people, everything in their rhetoric indicates that they consider the Israeli Arabs their people, wish to join? Face it, if the Arabs near the green line wanted to be part of Palestine, then there would be adequate land to swap for Israel to maintain the settlements under the VSP consensus. That such land is not available is a result of the PNM's failure, and you say that, as a result of that failure, Israelis living in the "wrong" part of their homeland should have to vacate their homes? // // A further point, even if there were no settlements, Arabs living near the green line should have the right to choose whether to be part of Israel or Palestine. The Palestinians' right to any parcel of land should come from the desire of the inhabitants of that parcel to be part of their polity. It should not come from a right inherited through Jordan's 1949 conquest or by acquisition through trading away rights inherited through Jordan's 1949 conquest.

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 3:53pm

You are babbling, sighthnd. That is the only way to describe it. Your convoluted description of pre and post Geneva Convention and the supposed application of the Geneva Conventions to render prior settlement illegal is complete, utter nonsense. Doesn't even rise to the level of a strawman. The Geneva Conventions prohibit an occupying power from transferring its population into occupied territory. That has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Yishuv, any more than the Yishuv does with the conquests of Alexander the Great. Lest there be any doubt, the UNSC has repeatedly instructed Israel to cease its illegal activity, the International Court of Justice has plainly ruled that that the settlements are illegal, the government of Israel was advised by its own counsel, Thomas Meron, now a distinguished international jurist, at the dawn of the settlement enterprise that it was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and Israel itself has not incorporated the occupied territory and accorded the inhabitants political rights, as it did the territories it held at the end of the War of Independence. Which is why you are babbling. Israel's violations of the Fourth Geneva Convetion occur long after Israel itself became a signatory. The Palestinians have rights to the occupied territory because it is land given them by the UN. Period. They do not have any claims by virtue of Jordan's 1949 occupation and have never claimed anything on that basis. That would be completely ridiculous. Israel has no more claim to the West Bank than do the Arabs to land given to the Jews by the partition plan. Israelis living in what you describe as "the wrong part of their homeland" moved there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They did not just happen to find themselves in the wrong neighborheood. Nor is it the obligation of any particular population to make itself available for land swaps to satisfy the aggressive designs of Israel. If Israel has no land to swap, in an actual bargain for exchange, for land it wants, it can get off of the land to which it has absolutely no legitimate claim whatsoever. Read Resolution 242, read any of the relevant UNSC resolutions, read the opinion of the ICJ, read the opinion of Thomas Meron, read the Fourth Geneva Convention. Try to say something, anything, that is addressed to the actual history and actual legal status. And while you are utterly mangling history and law, don't give me your garbage about my supposed inability to represent your point of view accurately. It is hardly "punishing Israel" that it cannot insist on the legitimation of its illegal settlements, to which it has absolutely no legitimate claim whatsoever, as a condition to peace.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 11:02pm

3,20,13, 11:05 pm, est//// @ Sighthnd/// ....As far as the illegalities of the settlements go, the only distinction you've offered in the past between them and the Yishuv is that the Yishuv was pre-Fourth Geneva Convention (4GC) and the settlements are post-4GC.... resources, but not any rights granted by virtue of Jordan's 1949 conquest...//// I don't follow any of this reasoning./// 1. I've read Roi fairly closely on these issues and have argued with him about them and have never heard him offer this distinction as the basis for legal argument against Israeli policy. 2. I have no idea how it follows that relying on"4GC" as a basis for a legal criticism of Israeli settlement policy after 1967 means that settlement before 1949, its coming into force, is wrong. Can you explain that move in your reasoning?

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 11:05pm

For your perfect clarity, sighthnd, I have never written a single word, here at TNR or anywhere else, about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of Jewish settlement in Palestine prior to May 1948. Apart from the fact that the Fourth Geneva Convention came into force in 1949, as basman points out, it says absolutely nothing relevant to such settlement even if it had been in force in 1849. As a matter of historical fact, almost all of the Jewish migration to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries was sanctioned by the sovereign at the time, the Ottomans prior to World War I and the British, under League of Nations mandate, from the end of the first World War until after the Second. That is all in any case rendered completely moot by the UN partition plan of 1947, providing for the creation of a Jewish majority state within Palestine, and the 1948 declaration of the State of Israel (for which Israel required no permission of the Arabs any more than the Palestinians now require the permission of Israel). From the declaration of the State of Israel, it is for that state to decide who is legally present there and who is not, including any who may have migrated in violation of the rules of the British Mandatory authority, subject of course to the Geneva Conventions. The West Bank is not part of the State of Israel; it is territory allocated by the UN for the Arab majority state in Palestine and is currently under military occupation, a legal fact acknowledged by Israel itself. Therefore, the Fourth Geneva Convention applies directly as, by its terms, it governs the responsibilities of an occupying power toward the occupied population. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Yishuv.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 11:59pm

Roid, could you show the intellectual maturity to follow arguments? My argument was the 1) passing a law is a statement that the action it prohibits is illegitimate, 2) the illegitimacy of such actions applies even before the law was enacted but is unactionable, 3) the Yishuv is an act similar to the act that is claimed is prohibited by 4GC and 4) if 4GC does prohibit the settlements, it renders the Yishuv illegitimate. Expose flaws in the chain of reasoning as you see fit, but jumping straight to complaining about imputing the conclusions without doing so is simply attacking the argument because its conclusion is "wrong." // // As a side note, define the word "transfer."

- sighthnd

March 21, 2013 at 9:47am

" Try to say something, anything, that is addressed to the actual history" How rich of you to call for addressing "actual history" when your definition of history is limited to what justification of your notion that the PNM's claims are limited to what they claim they are and you dismiss every reference to anything in history to suggest the PNM's actual grievance is that Jews have self-determination within Dar-el-Islam. I'll admit that I did not refer to any legal principle. However, if the law is one way or another, that would not affect whether or not the PNM's grievance is over Jews having self-determination or the denial of their rights under the law.

- sighthnd

March 21, 2013 at 10:30am

basman: I'll try to explain. Suppose George commits an act which John claims causes injury to him. Now John goes to court to seek redress, but the court says that there is no law against the action George did so John goes to the legislature to try to get it to enact a law to proscribe what George did. Is there any reason to believe that if society finds George's action legitimate that it would enact the law that John requests? Unless you can answer that in the affirmative, passing the law that John requests would be a declaration the George's action was illegitimate. It would still be impossible to grant redress to John for George's action because making George's past action actionable would violate ex post facto.

- sighthnd

March 21, 2013 at 10:37am

Sighthnd, your argument is unfathomable. The Fourth Geneva Convention, even if it had been in effect for the last thousand years, says nothing relevant about Jewish settlement in Palestine prior to the UN partition plan of 1947. It does not pertain to settlement, it pertains to what is and is not permitted in the course of military occupation. The Jews were not militarily occupying Palestine prior to 1947. Even if Jewish settlement prior to 1947 were not legal -- although overwhelmingly in fact it was -- that is completely mooted by the UN's determination of the competing claims by partitioning Palestine into an area designated for a Jewish majority state, declared by the Jews with no permission from the Arabs, as the State of Israel, and an Arab majority state. That's that. What went before is no longer relevant, whether it occurred during the Yishuv or during the Roman occupation. The West Bank is part of the Arab partition. Israel has no right to settle there and does so in violation of the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention TO WHICH ISRAEL IS A STATE PARTY. I cannot even make sense out of what you think your little story about John and George has to do with it. Israeli settlement in the West Bank is illegal because it takes place (1) after the UN gave that land to the Arabs for their Palestinian state and (2) after the coming into force of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Some argue that the fact of the wars in which the Arabs would not accept the partition renders it moor and so opens the West Bank to legal Israeli settlement. The UN Security Council has unambiguously and repeatedly declared that unacceptable and that Israeli settlement is illegal. The legal authority has spoken, sighthnd, just as it did when it made provision for the State of Israel. And, just as the Arabs must accept that authority, and so accept the legitimacy, integrity, and right to security of the State of Israel, so too Israel must accept that authority and the right of the Arabs to establish their state in the West Bank, free of interference or control by Israel except as necessary for the security of Israel within its legitimate boundaries, in land, west of the Green Line, that the UN gave allocated to the Jews or has since acquiesced in incorporation by Israel. There is simply no other way. In contrast to the land that Israel occupied at the time of the 1949 armistice, the UN has repeatedly and unambiguously rejected any attempt by Israel to take or claim land east of the Green Line. That is that.

- roidubouloi

March 21, 2013 at 11:27am

Your ideas about law are utterly idiosyncratic, sighthnd. Whenever a law is passed that prohibits something previously permitted, it is generally considered illegitimate that it apply ex post facto. If it were not possible legitimately to prohibit something previously permitted, there would be no laws at all. Israel's actions in the West Bank are not in violation of international law adopted after the fact of its actions. They are in flagrant violation of positive, international law that was in effect in 1949, well before the Six Day War and the occupation that followed.

- roidubouloi

March 21, 2013 at 11:30am

Sighthnd, Thanks for your explanation, I can see better what you're trying say. Your argument isn't nearly always the case. Whether it's the case will depend on the circumstances. Law isn't necessarily coincident will morality. Not every law codifies a moral moral. Not every law casts a critical eye to the past as law addresses changing conditions and new understandings. There are cases where law clearly codifies a moral norm, especially in the spirit of never again--one thinks of slavery, genocide, other examples. There the law says, in its spirit, that should never have happened and we hereby articulate a norm embody a universal moral norm. Two immediate problems attend this in relation to your ongoing argument with Roidubouloi. One, has never asserted a pre/post 1949 distinction nor does that distinction arise inferentially from anything I've read him to write. He makes that point clearly himself. Two concerning the "old" Yishuv, the relevant provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, in articulating a going forward norm of international conduct, wouldn't have applied to it in any event qua the Jews' immigration to Palestine between 1882 and 1947, even theoretically. The context and facts of that immigration don't theoretically invoke Article 49. So that isn't a well made argument here.

- basman

March 21, 2013 at 3:11pm

"...by Oslo to create a Palestinian state -- the only basis on which peace could possibly be achieved." /// Nonsense. There's the Palestinian Emirates plan. You can disagree with it if you please, but it is at least as viable as a path to peace and Palestinian sovereignty, as Oslo.

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 11:25am

The so-called Palestinian Emirates plan is complete nonsense. About like proposing to resolve the conflict by transporting all Jewish Israelis to Madagascar. Right up there with the flat earth and creationism, sighthnd. Do you really take such absurd garbage seriously? Viable? Oh, come on.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 2:29pm

Raise an argument roid. If you won't point out anything that would not work, spare us your self-righteous claptrap.

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 3:03pm

Again, I must take a back-seat to you, sightnd, both in self-righteousness and claptrap. Would you actually care to explain the so-called Palestinian Emirates plan in some manner such that its absurdity is not evident? Or did you advance some argument that I missed. I don't see any. Do you?

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 3:45pm

The Palestinian Emirates plan is a plan for local sovereignty of the Palestinians surrounding the major West Bank population centers that have a tradition of tribal rule. Each entity would be equivalent to the constituent emirates of the UAE. I did not include any arguments for previously because I felt it was sufficient to mention it. // // There are two possible explanations for your first response. One is that you didn't know what the PE plan is. That would justify doubt without explanation and a request for an explanation of the plan and why it would have a chance to work. It does not justify comparing it to relocating the Jews to Madagascar or flat earthism. Two is that you did know what it is about and found some reason to object. In that case, your objection would need some explanation of the plan's deficiency, comparing it to flat earthism does not cut it. Either type of response I described above would have been met with a rational explanation of what the plan is and its virtues. The response you did offer is what I call self-righteous claptrap.

- sighthnd

March 20, 2013 at 4:15pm

The PE plan is the ultimate claptrap, sighthnd. No wonder that you are a fan. Do you really think that dividing up Palestine into eight nominally independent cantons would somehow alter the security implications? Do you really think that in the 21st century one people can dictate the internal political arrangements by which another people governs itself -- you shall have eight territories, not one, you shall govern yourself thusly, you shall order your lives tribally whether you want to or not? On the tenth anniversary of our bloody attempt to restructure the politics of another nation, you have obviously learned nothing. The comparison of the absurd PE plan to creationism is perfectly apt. It is lunatic, nothing less. I await with fascination your defense of the virtues of this nonsense. Should be very entertaining.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 10:43pm

Who's dictating the internal arrangement of the Palestinians? You seem to be saying that the local leaders among the Palestinians should surrender their authority to the PNM whether they want to or not. Your allusion to Iraq is instructive. Part of what led to the disaster there was that we ignored the local power structure that even Saddam Hussein did not try to eliminate. The best illustration of this was in one of the slides from CPT Patriquin's "How to win in Anbar Province" showing a shoulder bringing in a slip of paper, "it's a transitional administrative law written by the CPA (25 year olds from Texas, and Paul Bremer) and it says 'No sheiks! Only elected governments!'" We started to turn things around after we started collaborating with the tribal authorities. Like it or not, the tribes exist and they have an authority structure. It is the PNM that is an artificial construct that was created not to realize the national aspiration of one group, the Palestinians, but to unrealize those of another, the Jews. There are legitimate questions as to what would be sufficient to give to each emirate. For instance, a Hebron emirate consisting of just the city limits of Hebron minus the Jewish quarter would be inadequate. Would all of the southern half of Judea be necessary? That's a legitimate area of negotiation. But that's not a reason to dismiss out of hand the notion that the PNM's legitimacy comes from locales and not the other way around.

- sighthnd

March 21, 2013 at 9:27am

sighthnd, the PE is a completely crackpot, lunatic scheme. If the Palestinians would like to organize themselves "tribally" into eight or 40 nominally independent cantons, they are welcome to do so. Who could object? But that is not at all what this plan is about. Rather than a lot of little islands and peninsulas of Israeli sovereignty threaded into the West Bank -- the so-called "land swap" solution that is nothing of the kind -- the PE plan calls for eight islands of Palestinian sovereignty surrounded by Israeli perpetual occupation. The word for this is "bantustans," sighthnd. The notion that this could be a basis for peace any more than it was in South Africa is precisely why I refer to this as crackpot. It is not for Israel to dictate the political structure of Palestine, anymore than it is for the Palestinian Arabs to dictate the political structure of Israel. The Palestinians have the same right to an independent state in Palestine as do the Jews, vouchsafed to them and repeatedly by the UN and repeatedly reconfirmed by UNSC resolutions. They do not have a right to be a continuing threat to Israel, particularly in light of the history in which initially the Arabs refused to accept two states in Palestine and now the Jews refuse. Israel's legitimate security needs are addressed by control over the Jordan River border with the Kingdom of Jordan. It is not beyond the mind of man to devise satisfactory arrangements. And, if the Palestinians will not agree, then Israel can continue its occupation, or occupy the Jordan River valley, subject to the same requirement of the Fourth Geneva Convention that the inhabitants be accorded the maximum political and economic freedom consistent with the security requirements of the occupying power. What Israel does not have any right to do is insist on occupation for the protection of illegal settlements that have no legitimate right to be there in the first place. Read the opinion of Justice Buergenthal of the ICJ, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, in the case involving the separation barrier. He makes clear that while such a barrier is a legitimate response to Israel's security needs, it is not legitimate to the extent that it is routed to protect the settlements that are themselves illegal. Israel needs to get out the West Bank, territory to which it has no legitimate claim, and allow the Palestinians to create their internationally sanctioned polity there. If Netanyahu had any brains at all, of which there is no evidence, he would not only be tolerating a Palestinian state but recognizing it and doing whatever is within Israel's power to see that it is not a failed state. However, such practical wisdom is completely beyond the capability of messianic nuts and their fellow-travelers and enablers such as Netanyahu.

- roidubouloi

March 21, 2013 at 11:10am

Still accessibility is far from satisfactory by tablet. Plenty of bugs.

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 2:44pm

"For Obama to comment on historic connection as the basis for the establishment of a state, or worse, as the basis for the boundaries of that state, would open a huge can of worms internationally. " NO IT WOULD NOT! It would make it clear to the enemies of Israel many of whom think the Holocaust was a Jewish invention to gain sympathy where it stand on the issue. The Arabs don't officially recognize

- arnon1

March 20, 2013 at 3:57pm

From Obama himself today: ...I’m so honored to be here as you prepare to celebrate the 65th anniversary of a free and independent State of Israel. Yet I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic homeland of the Jewish people...

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 4:19pm

Plus on this issue, apart from the fact that Obama spoke in the exact terms undercutting Icarus's prescription, Arnon is right for the very reason he states, among others.

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 4:21pm

I just read the whole speech. It's not long. It's actually replete with references to Jews' mytho-historic connection to the land

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 6:12pm

Sure Icarus and Rudibully their views and only their views are realistic. Nuts.

- arnon1

March 20, 2013 at 3:58pm

Halevi, is the right commenter on these issues who as an Israeli adds an authenticity to the conflict Israel is involved in that no American commentator has. Certainly not the narcissistic couple: Rudi and Icarus.

- arnon1

March 20, 2013 at 4:03pm

I didn't watch him. What did he do that's pretty good?

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 4:16pm

I just read the whole speech. It is at a minimum pretty good. And it's replete with references to Israel's historic connection to the land.

- basman

March 20, 2013 at 6:10pm

I have a hard time taking RudyBully seriously. He is one inflexible dude. The world has changed dramatically since 2005 when Israel gave back Gaza to the Palestinians. Since that time we have seen the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, Iranian threats of annihilating Israel but this putative lawyer Rudybuuly has never changed his mind. To him. Israel is guilty of "war crimes" and should be condemned or even annihilated because they don't trust the PA not to be taken over by Hamas. Rudybully is as inflexible as Ahmadinejad.

- arnon1

March 20, 2013 at 8:18pm

Obama can "speak Israeli" until he is blue and white. It is not in fact in the national security interest of the United States to enable Israel's colonial adventures. What interest of the United States does that serve? The geopolitics will win out eventually.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 10:36pm

You are ridiculous, as ever, arnon, a McCarthyite thug. If figures that in order to fashion an argument you must attribute to me the sentiment that Israel should be annihilated. You are an inveterate liar in the finest tradition of Josef Goebbels. Israel should be condemned for committing crimes that it is undoubtedly committing in violation of the rights of the Palestinians protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention and Protocols. It should be hauled before the International Criminal Court, because that is the way civilized peoples address crime -- not by annihilation -- and the matter heard and adjudicated. If found guilty, then international organizations, such as the UNSC, and states will have to determine what to do about it. Individuals who likely bear criminal responsibility should be arrested, tried, and sentenced if convicted. None of that has the slightest thing to do with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, Iranian threats, or anything that has happened in the world since 2005. Israel is an unrepentant violator of international law, and the Muslims, whether in Egypt or Iran, neither forced Israel to violate the law nor afford it the slightest justification for doing so.

- roidubouloi

March 20, 2013 at 11:12pm

"Who said that Jews and only Jews have that right? Rather, why would Jews (and only Jews) not have that right? The legitimate issue is Israel's borders, not whether it should continue to be "entitled" to exist - the latter is for the annihilationists in Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. etc. etc. " Excellently phrased.

- arnon1

March 21, 2013 at 1:03am

Well sir, now he's gone and done it. So what do you think of that? He did it in a balanced way that spoke to and respects Palestinians' aspirations for statehood and sovereignty. He will have tied a missing emotional connection between himself and Israel and he will have laid whatever moral foundation he was capable of laying down for a renewal of talks, which there now seems slightly better prospect for than before. Will his words affect what Israel will do as a matter of her policy? No. Nor will they affect Palestinian irredentism and rejectionism. Those are realities beyond his words. But his speech today was excellent and will do the most that words can. He inveighed against continuing He inveighed against continued settlement. But he's already learned the early bitter lesson of humiliating failure from trying to box Israel in. Modern polities, no matter how modern, need a balance between roots, a national myth, that is to say, and rights. Failing to see and acknowledge Israel's connection to the land is dessicated and a recipe for the kind of misunderstanding and narrowness that Obama philosophically and in his gut rejects.

- basman

March 21, 2013 at 1:14pm