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Go Home Tel Aviv Journal: President Obama’s Wrongheaded Middle...

TEL AVIV JOURNAL MAY 18, 2011

Tel Aviv Journal: President Obama’s Wrongheaded Middle East Counselors

BY MARTIN PERETZ

Wowy, zowy, Obama is doing his own thinking on the Middle East and here’s the even worse news: He’s taking advice from Tom Friedman and Fareed Zakaria.

These pathetic tidings about the inner Barack Obama, who puts his very own twist on all things, particularly Arab and Muslim matters, and the other Barack Obama, who needs counsel from two political therapists, famous and even clever but not especially deep, come from the subtle and highly reliable journalist Mark Landler in The New York Times. These tidbits are not contradictory. Zakaria’s diagnosis, at least for the last few years, is that America is over, just plumb over. Or, to use the ill-omened word from his The Post-American World, “enfeebled,” which implies continuous decline. Enfeebled nations do not, after all, usually rise again. Zakaria was, however, more than a bit mortified by being called a presidential adviser, although it was he who labeled himself. He posted a statement on Saturday saying, well, that he didn't really advise but spoke to Obama several times in face-to-face meeting about the Arab Spring (which, by the way, in my view is fast becoming Arab winter, like the east coast winter last season.) Anyway, if he is trying to establish a difference, it’s not a distinction.

 But why should I paraphrase? Read it all here:

The characterization that I have been “advising” President Obama is inaccurate. Over the last few months I’ve had a couple of conversations with the president, off-the-record. At no point did President Obama ask me for advice on a specific policy or speech or proposal, nor did I volunteer it. I know that he has had similar meetings with other columnists.

On Thursday night, in badinage with my good friend Eliot Spitzer, he had given Obama a B-plus: “It’s been a very thoughtful conversation.” Thursday, Saturday, what difference does it make? And who cares whether Glenn Beck puts you down? Which is actually what happened after Fareed was on Eliot’s show. Anybody should be willing to give the president counsel, if asked or not asked. And Zakaria not only confirmed the fact that he did. He trumpeted it. He’s a self-important guy. In the news business who isn’t?

What’s strange about his putative advice is that Obama didn’t need it. He and Zakaria are in fundamental agreement. America is weak. America is poor. America is politically sundered. The only real difference between them is that the president believes that America is historically and morally compromised. But rising upper class minority Muslim from Bombay, rising American from Yale and Harvard (and now a member of the Yale Corporation, from which perch he counseled the president of the university and the university press not to permit images of the Prophet to appear in a book it was publishing, The Cartoons That Shook the World by Danish scholar Jytte Klausen), Zakaria was once a supporter of the great imperium. So I don’t know whether he thinks it is a matter of ethics. It’s more a matter of “can do” or “cannot do.” He thinks it cannot.

The president’s disposition is similar in that, from the campaign on to this very morning in the Middle East, his message has been restraint. Yes, I know there was also, “Yes, we can.” But, if you remember, there was no “what” attached to the can do. It was all in the abstract. It was to “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,” according to the great Johnny Mercer song made famous by Bing Crosby and more recently by Bette Midler. It’s exactly the opposite now. According to Obama, we are forced into restraint and we choose restraint. Restrained hopes and restrained actions. The Mickey Finn in all this is that American restraint is applied to and felt most by the damned of the earth, in whom Obama, despite the expectations of his young campaign enthusiasts, has little interest.

He has numbed the nation’s idealistic impulses by playing it oh, so cool—not agitated by evil or especially perturbed by calamity. I wonder, in fact, how he maintained his energy and perseverance as a “community organizer,” since the vocation itself doesn’t have real gauges of success. Or maybe that was its secret. If there’s no recognized measure of achievement or, for that matter, of failure, you go on doing what you’re doing “till the cows come home.” Or until you get a real job. Obama appears to be allergic to passion, although he can get a bit nasty when some foreign leader doesn’t quite accept a simple remedy—his simple remedy—to an intricate strategic dilemma. Take the president’s irritable manner with Israel and its prime minister. Yup, Zionism is something he just doesn’t get. And also doesn’t like. (Did the Obamas’ Passover show seder include the crowning prayer, “Next Year in Jerusalem,” which even the Daily Kos said “ends every seder around the world”? I doubt it. But he did include a lame and certainly premature allusion to “modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.” From his mouth to God’s ears. Still, is this really the Passover of the Arabs? I am sure it is not.)  

In contrast to Zakaria, Friedman is not embarrassed by being seen as the president’s counselor. His column is the closest thing there is to an up-front advice column, like Ann Landers and now her daughter, my old flame of half a century ago, Margo Howard. Tom even writes open letters to those he wants to exhort, advise, dissuade. It’s an old journalistic trick, the oldest trick in the book, really. When you are desperate for a hook you use this one. I should admit that I nurse a certain envy towards him and doubtless it is because of his sway over millions. We are friends but only because he is tolerant. In any case, my first tangle with him was after he published From Beirut to Jerusalem, which I reviewed hostilely in these pages. Anyway, Tom’s lens for seeing contemporary America is through contemporary China. He wishes America were China, almost the way some native fascists like Charles Lindbergh wanted America to be like Germany and the way ignorant but “idealistic” oodles of American intellectuals and radical Jewish immigrants wanted the country to be like Soviet Russia. The Chinese can do everything. America can do nothing. Except push the peace process. Yet even Obama must grasp that there is no peace process to push. Mahmoud Abbas has dispatched those killed trying to invade Israel on Nakba Day to the heavens as “martyrs,” moral exemplars, indeed. It took only a few days after the reunion of Fatah (alias, the functioning Palestinian Authority) and Hamas before the Muslim jihadists in Gaza and those exiled in Syria were cursing the U.S. for killing Osama bin Laden.  

Now, Abbas has written a little essay in yesterday’s New York Times op-ed page, which purports to be both historical and legal but is neither. It deals with the 1947 Partition Plan, which he argues was aborted by Israel in starting a war against the Palestinians. First of all, no Palestinian body of any sort accepted either the map or the concept of partition. Second of all, the armies that waged war on the nascent Jewish state were Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq (yes, Iraq) and pathetic Lebanon. There was some small number of local Arabs who also participated in the fighting, but for the military and political aims of the surrounding “fraternal” peoples. It wasn’t as if Egypt and Jordan came away with nothing from these battles. They governed what is now thought of as Palestinian patrimony and without a bitch or a hitch from the locals. Jordan took the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and then annexed them as part of the Hashemite kingdom … again without a peep from the Arabs of Palestine, who barely existed either in name or as a political force. (And, believe me, when the monarch, King Abdullah I, though descended from the Prophet, possessed Al Quds and the Haram al-Sharif, they were hardly the third holiest anything in Islam. As for the Shi’a, they don’t venerate Jerusalem at all and have their own holy shrines in Iraq, which are regularly terror-bombed by Sunni fanatics.) Egyptian troops were turned back from their rampage and pillage to Gaza, where they set up a vast prison house in comparison to which Gaza under Israeli occupation was the French Riviera. Even King Farouk—yes, the one with the silly Turkish fez—apparently grasped that Gaza was a prison house also for its captors. Abbas does not mention the one widely-recognized leader the locals did have: Haj Amin Husseini, the “Grand” Mufti of Jerusalem. Sadly, he was a passionate Nazi who spent the war years in the Reich, from where he “commanded” Arab troops fighting for the Germans against the British in Iraq. Take a look at a scrupulous book by Jeffrey Herf, one of our contributors who teaches history at the University of Maryland. It is titled Nazi Propoganda for the Arab World, which is about the essential synchrony of the one for the other.

I wonder what Obama can really learn from Zakaria and Friedman, neither of whom know Arabic, neither of whom know the sources (arcane or simply erudite), both of whom jump from one fashionable topic to another. Today, it’s energy. No, that was yesterday. Wouldn’t the president have been better off and the country better off, too, if he had sat down with, say, Fouad Ajami, who doesn’t agree with him but has the learning to explain why. Maybe Obama should also sit down with Paul Berman, who has explored the ties between radical Arab politics and radical Muslim theology, a generally forbidden topic, especially in this White House. (Berman has done much of his essay writing in this magazine.) Or is it the president’s habit to talk only with people who agree with him?  

In one of his almost weekly columns, Ajami has pinioned the administration’s “look away” attitude towards the Assad tyranny between both strategic and moral imperatives. Ajami quotes an exchange between The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and Hillary Clinton. Goldberg asks: “Would you be sad if his [Bashar Assad’s] regime were to disappear?” Hillary: “It depends on what replaces it.” Sequestered in this breezy answer is the Obama entourage’s firm belief in Assad’s moderation and reform commitments. Even now, after the massacre of nearly 1,000 Syrians, some—to be sure—nasty pietistic Muslim Brothers. (I hope you don’t attribute sexism to me if I remind readers that another secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, was convinced of Papa Assad’s reforming instincts. Poor morally compromised lady: She was the one who, with Susan Rice, then her assistant secretary for African affairs and now our ambassador to the U.N., also labored hard and succeeded in keeping America from intervening in the Rwanda genocide.)  

And here’s one more suggestion for whom the president ought to meet: I don’t know Timur Kuran, a Turkish economic historian at Duke. But I did read his book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. It will clarify why Obama is so wrong in insisting that Muslim religious principles are unrelated to the regressive politics and economics of countries under their sway. Obama should at least have a conversation with this man, especially since he can’t possibly have time to read a serious scholarly book.

Of course, it is not exactly the president’s lack of knowledge about the Arabs (and the Jews, for that matter) that has left his Middle East policy in shambles. It is the continuous Arab sandstorm of sanctimony and duplicity which has blinded him to the precise underlying realities the sandstorm was meant to conceal. He is a victim of their deceit and his own credulity. But it is even more than that: He believes in his own powers to discern and to persuade as a function of that discernment. Now that virtually every society in the region has upended Obama’s benign take of their reality, it remains to be seen whether he himself can adjust his inner lens to accommodate the brute bedrock.  

It may be tempting for the president to persist in his antagonistic fixation on Israel. Indeed, given his general move to the center, it is the only issue that would connect him to his progressive past … and, by the way, to his former pastor. But this still is a matter of conjecture, and we will only know when he reacts (or doesn’t react) to Abbas’ link-up with Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal. He will also have to react to Bibi Netanyahu’s ever more conciliatory initiatives, conciliatory in that they entail a withdrawal from some 90 percent of the West Bank and the communities in that territory. I wonder what he thinks now of his appointment, two days after the inauguration, of George Mitchell as his special envoy for the conflict. No president enjoys conceding errors, so we will never know authoritatively. (As it happens, the last days brought news that the settlement of the Irish conflict was not so settled as we thought. Mitchell’s success in Northern Ireland may turn out to be a failure also.) As it happens, Obama met on Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, the grandson of Abdullah I. They talked as if the monarch had anything to contribute to the situation. But the president did his “more vital than ever” spiel which, believe me, will not make the Palestinians more conciliatory. They will read Obama’s urgency as a sure sign that Israel can be pressed and pressed some more.

Yet we have little idea of what Obama’s policy in more brutish areas of the region really is. In Libya, NATO forces (basically without much American participation except for air coverage of British ships) are fighting inconclusive military battles. The big initiative against Qaddafi seems to be in getting him indicted in the International Criminal Court. This will not frighten the colonel dictator. After all, the president of Sudan has also been charged by the I.C.C. and he still rules with the protection of all the other Arab despots whom he needs. The United Arab Emirates have hired an 800 man armed force, put together by the founder of Blackwater—just in case. Pogroms are now in fashion in Egypt. But they are pogroms against the Copts, who are roughly 10 percent of the population. Who will be the country’s next president? Probably Amr Mousa, the old secretary-general of the Arab League, with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a long record of surplus hostility to Israel, and a generally villainous character. Yemen? What do you expect?

Syria is where the new paradigms of Arab history will be made. The brutality of the Assad dictatorship is legendary, and it has gone over 40 years from father to son. No one is willing to predict whether the family will survive or be taken out. If it survives, it will be more dictatorial than anyone imagined possible. If it is overthrown, it will be replaced by a regime equally cruel but more pious, much more pious. It is not easy for outsiders to decide what they want.

But Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have already more than indicated that they prefer the continued dominion of Bashar Assad. You have to be pretty cold-blooded to make a choice like that. There are other consequences to this decision. Syrian dominion over Lebanon will continue. The Syrian alliance with Iran will continue. Syrian influence over Turkey will continue, perhaps intensify. Syrian intrusion in Iraq will continue. Syria might even get its chance to be on the U.N. Human Rights Council. Hey, and here’s a good thing: The Golan will remain a part of Israel.

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic.

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149 comments

This article is like a collection of Rumsfeldian "snowflakes." And I fear I now have frostbite from having been exposed to this 2 page blizzard. There's this: **And here’s one more suggestion for whom the president ought to meet: I don’t know Timur Kuran, a Turkish economic historian at Duke. But I did read his book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. It will clarify why Obama is so wrong in insisting that Muslim religious principles are unrelated to the regressive politics and economics of countries under their sway. Obama should at least have a conversation with this man, especially since he can’t possibly have time to read a serious scholarly book. ** It is of course a simple matter of diplomacy, tact, and realism that our President can not [publically or officially] say that a certain group's religious principles *are* related to the regressive politics and economics of countries under their sway. (Before the Taliban, and before the Soviet invasion, even that hellhole Afghanistan was on the verge of becoming a progressive or at least moderate Muslim society.) Jihad vs. McWorld, etc.. Everyone acknowledges that it will be difficult, but, theoretically, democracy could coexist with & be the governing principle of a chiefly Muslim nation-state. {Insert Audacity of Hope snark here. No, wait, insert Indonesia anecdote here.} Why blame American leaders for their naiveté in pushing for the accomplishment of this goal, which you seem to deem absurd, and then also take a swipe at their willingness & patience to deal with utterly anti-democratic leaders in the region? I'm no Zakaria or Friedman, but I do speak Arabic, and my many conversations with Iraqis (admittedly all low-level sheiks, imams, mayors, and elders in the vicinity of Baghdad) indicate that purple thumbism there is more than a passing fad. The local men in power there hated it on some level, because as it happens they told me they missed the days of Saddam Hussein and the certainty of status his rule afforded at least the male half of the Iraqi citizenry, but, thanks in no small part to the flexibility & commitment of American troops and (at least in the post-Bremer provisional government chaos period) a coherent State Department strategy in the uncomfortably Sunni-Shiite mixed desert hell I made my professional realm for the better part of my mid-20s, those Iraqi neanderthals have all gradually been dragged into the world as it is now. Iraq is the middle east nation where America has been most present, obviously, in the last 10 years (dollar amount of US-sold weaponry now possessed by Israel notwithstanding). That is the example by which American influence should be judged, especially as long as we’re “leading from behind” elsewhere. Everything adjacent is just that -- adjacent, periphery, and touched upon by the trail of the blood splatter that marks the peace & hope centralized in Iraq in, hopefully, the very near future. If this is the example, then why should not Obama listen to Zakaria or Friedman concerning Iraq’s neighbors? Would we rather he consult with Dr. Condi Rice? General Schwarzkopf? Anyway, to go down the litany of other hotspots mentioned in Mr. Peretz’s piece, my only experience with Syria is eliminating a couple of her citizens/exported mercenaries from my battalion’s HVT list. Rumor was, there were snipers who may have been trained in or based out of Syria, and my team ended that threat when they showed up in our AO. So there. You write a column on “where the new paradigms of Arab history will be made.” You note that the “brutality of the Assad dictatorship is legendary.” My boys have knocked off a couple of well-armed pawns, a couple of the offspring of that legendary brutality. You devote a paragraph. We deliver bullets. I don’t think either of us has yet come close to solving the issue. When I’m not wearing the Kevlar sweater, I trust Obama’s levelheaded, if frustratingly slow approach to addressing this issue. I’ll take a professor over a cowboy in this situation, especially if there’s any chance that the former will propagate peaceful godlessness while the latter will maintain a faith that insinuates Jesus will soon be here to end everything according to scripture. Let’s gently push Iran, and while we’re at it Israel as well, toward moderate secularism, because that’s the kind of “leading from behind” that I would support, and see if that eventually reduces the frequency of “Death to America” chants emanating from Syria and elsewhere. Let’s embarrass the Islamo-barbarians by exposing their ignorance, but let’s not do so via brinksmanship and a policy of responding violently to their anachronistic machismo & misogyny. Shall we spark another decade-long war, or shall Obama try again to videoconference with Ahmadinejad? Shall you denounce the President’s approach to influencing “the new paradigms of Arab history?” Will you chide him for weakness? Will you authorize me to go on another few deployments to the desert because you are worried that the US is perceived to be weaker than China at a given moment? Concerning Egypt, Sudan, UAE, Yemen, and Libya, which, in a Rumsfeldian memo-like swoop, you tackle all in one paragraph, I am not interested in fighting a holy war in any of those places. To ask the Obama administration to do more or to do better in our relations with these places is to ask Lebron James to win the gold medal in the decathlon. Concerning Palestine or Israel, I will neither visit nor worry myself about either place until the Grace of blessed Atheism is visited upon more of the inhabitants of that ridiculous region.

- Konstantin

May 18, 2011 at 4:45am

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Zakaria and Friedman play it by ear. That is my impression. Whichever way the music goes, this is where you'll find them, joining their fiddler's tune to what they feel is the administration's inclination. Small wonder that Obama finds them useful. They enable his thinking by their supposedly journalistic objectivity. So he reads them in order to be reassured and comforted, as he cannot deal with trenchant criticism. So far whenever that kind of criticism is leveled at him, his many supporters immediately translate it as signs of inherent racism, as was the case when Marty sneered at Obama's military ignorance. As if the deep racist commitment of some Southerners can so easily be transferred to and assumed by the child or grandchild of Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe. Zakaria's thesis about America's waning power is the lamest I have heard. As if the fact the Burj Khlaifa at Dubai is the tallest building in the world has any meaning at all, except that for Zakaria size matters, less so - substance and quality. Kudos for Marty, for taking this bull by the horns, contrary to TNR's editorial policies of late which seem reluctant to criticize any aspect of Obama's administration. He will be kicked and spat at by the usual suspects, and he knows it. Still, he is willing to stake out such unpopular positions with honesty. I do wish he could refrain from his sneering asides which only diminish from the general message. but he is a burly, ungracious writer so I doubt he will heed my advice.

- noga1

May 18, 2011 at 9:15am

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Friedman and Zakaria play it by ear? Well then, Peretz plays it entirely from the bowels of his digestive system. He is not courageous. He is a vile, old man beset with dementia. The pre-innoculation that he will be "kicked and spat at" changes nothing. Martin Peretz shames the Jewish people every time he opens his mouth.

- roidubouloi

May 18, 2011 at 9:41am

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Good heavens. This is as close to the textbook definition of word salad as anything I've ever read. Word salad from the Levant isle, but salad nontheless. What a mess. And once again, what precisely is Marty's suggestion for what should be done? In just one of many criticisms he takes the President to task for "support" (I'd hardly call it that) for the Assad regime. Then he goes out of his way to make sure we all hear his pridiction that an overthrow of the regime would lead to a fundamentalist Muslim facist state (I can only assume he meant this by "equally cruel but much more pious" and wasn't implying Syria would in the future be ruled by the nuns from my high school). So what's his solution? He obviously knows more - so ever much much more - than everyone else about the region's history and challenges. Just once, can we maybe get a suggested course of action from this sage, instead of just the usual anti-Obama screed?

- Tristan

May 18, 2011 at 9:48am

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I agree with roidubouloi. Peretz seems to be not in control of himself. His piece above is incoherent.

- duncand909

May 18, 2011 at 9:50am

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@ Konstantin.... fantastic post, my friend. You and I have walked on some of the same dirt, and if I read into what you wrote, for what look to be the same reasons. Arabic by way of DLI, sunny Fallujah with the 101st, and other fun places with some other fun people. You? Honored to make your acquintance.

- Tristan

May 18, 2011 at 9:58am

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Setting aside the rambling incoherence of this article -- man, it was really tough to read it to the end -- what really stands out, as usual, is that this article tells you far more about Peretz than about Obama, Zakaria or Friedman. Peretz just makes a series of unflattering assumptions about these men, supported by nothing more than his own suspicions and dark fantasies. You are reminded of many things about Peretz, but unless you regard his inner mind as factually authoritative, you just don't know anything more about his subject[s] at the end than you did when you started reading. The one thing that I really notice when reading anything by Martin Peretz is how strange he is. He's a very, very weird man. Trying to have a decent, civil conversation with him must be extremely difficult. I'm sure he's long since convinced himself that his paranoid misanthropy is a sign of wisdom and perception, which only makes him even more odd. I hope Mr Peretz is giving or will give serious consideration to donating his brain to science upon his demise [which I hope is many years away]. His contributions to political science and history are infinitesimally small, but he could do much for the study of disturbed individuals.

- DC Spence

May 18, 2011 at 11:01am

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What is incoherent is Obama's foreign policy although 'American decline" does appear to be the over-arching theme. I tend to agree only because Obama's presidency has accelerated our economic decline, which is the foundation for any ability to be taken seriously as a global voice for something. It does look like the Arab spring is now a winter with so frequent storms, each with a different form of frozen dumpings. Peretz should stop fretting over one of his anxieties: Amr Moussa is a political opportunist much more than he is a rabid ideologue. I assume the more interesting backstory is 'what do the Saudis want?', which so far at minimum is to expand the GCC into an Arab monarchy League to counter the increasingly irelevant Arab League. Jordan is being wooed to join the monarchists. Four speeches by two men start with Obama's Thursday ME "policy" speech, then Obama and Netanyahu speak to AIPAC this weekend, then Netanyahu addresses joint session of Congress next week. To think that Obama is talking with Zakaria and Tom Friedman instead of Timur Kuran and Fouad Ajami helps me appreciate Marty Peretz's blogpost here. Because all I can do is think Obama is really going to screw Israel on Thursday, then backtrack with platitudes within 24 hours, just like he did with "undivided Jerusalem" in 2008. Peretz: we did NOT need to know you once dated Ann Landers daughter. Welcome respite from the image of DSK sitting in Rikers Island, where so many of Peretz's rabid antagonists belong.

- K2K

May 18, 2011 at 11:24am

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K2K - Obama's presidency has accelerated our economic decline? How so?

- Tristan

May 18, 2011 at 11:29am

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There are many good points in this long and rumbling article. I wish Martin Peretz would stick to a limited number of themes and connect more clearly. Disliking political positions or disagreeing with someone or other does not a coherent topic make.

- arnon

May 18, 2011 at 11:44am

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I second Tristan's question. How so? The only things I can think of is that Obama did not do enough to rescue us from both the legacies of Bush and the current depredations of the fanatic Republican opposition. I fault him for lack of sufficient aggressiveness and leadership on those scores, but I would hardly lay economic decline at his feet. The blame lies with the right wingnuts who have been in control of economic, fiscal and tax policy through most of the last 30 years.

- roidubouloi

May 18, 2011 at 12:07pm

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I read this (or tried to anyway, its utter jibberish) just in the hopes that Konstantin and Tristan would check in, as Marty is just an embarrassment as Roi so apty put it. Thank you gentlemen, your contributions to the dialouge are always the best. K2K - Cute scare quotes - you showed us! How do you know who Obama is speaking to? Your arrogance is hilarious.

- WandreyCer

May 18, 2011 at 12:08pm

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Tristan: our decline has been accelerated because we don't hate Arabs enough.

- WandreyCer

May 18, 2011 at 12:09pm

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It never ceases to amaze me that TNR, a journal which claims that it strives to be a serious and influential publication, and with a history that does indeed support that claim, will almost daily post the arrogant, incoherent and outright racist ramblings of the twinned morons Marty Peretz and Leon Wieseltier on its front page. I cannot begin to imagine the humiliation that the other serious journalists there (those that remain, that is) must feel amongst their peers.

- bunthorne

May 18, 2011 at 12:17pm

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Wandrey, great observation. As a solution I suggest we all lock ourselves in a room for a few weeks and watch the movie Ishtar several hundred times. Forget Arabs, by the time you're done you'll hate everything that evokes the slightest image of sand.

- Tristan

May 18, 2011 at 12:23pm

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direct quoting of Yossi Klein Halevi in today's WSJ, apparently inspired by Netanyahu's speech to the Knesset on Monday, framing 'land for peace' in a a way that I find very hopeful: "...but Israel will be ceding territory that is the heart of the Jewish nation—territory legitimately won, moreover, in a war of defense against the Arab attempt to destroy Israel in 1967. The Israeli left is incapable of conveying those national sentiments. Its historic mistake was to emotionally withdraw from Judea and Samaria—the biblical West Bank—ceding any claim to the disputed territories. The ability to achieve a credible agreement with the Palestinians depends on Israel asserting—and only then reluctantly ceding—its historic claim to the whole land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria. That's because even moderate Palestinians insist on their historic claim to the whole land of Palestine, including what is today the state of Israel. The moral logic of partition depends on each side sacrificing a precious part of its patrimony. That logic works only if Hebron and Jericho belong to the Jews—just as Palestinians say that Haifa and Jaffa belong to them. ..." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703421204576329292195130326.html I refer all who want to discuss America's economic decline to first read Paul Kennedy's 1987 "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers". and then find another blogpost to attack me in my absence. Obama's version of the Democratic Party is the nail in the coffin because they had no spine to let ALL the Bush43 tax cuts expire, instead becoming the party for identity politics, driving out all the fiscal conservative Blue Dogs. as for the GOP? when Starve-the-Beastie Grover Norquist is tried for treason, then I might believe there is some hope for rational government at the federal level. A pox on both extremes of both parties. I am trying to figure out how to emigrate to Finland so I can die in peace.

- K2K

May 18, 2011 at 12:32pm

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Goldberg has an interesting article about Abbas well worth reading: "Was Mahmoud Abbas's Family Expelled From Palestine" http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/was-mahmoud-abbass-family-expelled-from-palestine/238999/

- arnon

May 18, 2011 at 12:43pm

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While Martin Peretz' could have been better written, most critics here would criticize him even if he had written a well structured article. Many here hate whatever Martin Peretz says and their criticism isn't either true or interesting.

- arnon

May 18, 2011 at 12:47pm

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"The moral logic of partition depends on each side sacrificing a precious part of its patrimony. That logic works only if Hebron and Jericho belong to the Jews—just as Palestinians say that Haifa and Jaffa belong to them. ..." Very interesting, except that the UN has already partitioned the land. Israel has more than was originally accorded it because, although it was not the intention to make the armistice lines into borders, they became de facto borders through collective acquiescence. In 1967, the UNSC, aware of the history, took rather more care to prevent Israel's military occupation from turning into annexation. The Palestinians can lay claim to all of the land west of the Jordan. So can the Israelis. And both do. But there is not going to be a settlement that deviates very much from the de facto borders of 1967 before the Six Day War, much as Israel longs to incorporate its illegal settlements. _________________________ Compared to the long list of Martin Peretz's hates, everyone else here is a piker. What Peretz writes is not even capable of being true or false; it is meaningless ranting and spewing of bile. Interesting only as evidence of the effects of madness.

- roidubouloi

May 18, 2011 at 1:11pm

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What a mish mash! Quite boggling that it got daylight. Here's a better, recent discussion: http://tiny.cc/gc7vf

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 1:30pm

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Tristan, WandreyCer, thank you for your kind words. I never made it to lovely Monterey, Tristan; those California pretty boys sent an MTT to Bragg & me instead. So I'm jealous of you, but I'll try not to hold your affiliation with the hundred-n-worst against you. Death from Above, Sua Sponte. In case some of my description of the above article's rambling was unclear, here's the most notorious example of the Rumsfeld memos to which I referred: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/22/rumsfeld_memo_and_you_thought_your_boss_was_demanding

- Konstantin

May 18, 2011 at 1:33pm

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Nice try, arnon, but no amount of editing would save this shameful pile of trash. Before I read TNR, I didn't know Marty Peretz from Adam. Do I dislike him? Intensely, but that is due solely to what I know about him, and that is what he writes. Like roi says, his criticisms of Obama cannot even be addressed on their face, since they are not even coherently true. It's just pure hated that he pumps out.

- bunthorne

May 18, 2011 at 1:33pm

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...While Martin Peretz' could have been better written, most critics here would criticize him even if he had written a well structured article. Many here hate whatever Martin Peretz says and their criticism isn't either true or interesting... Don't think so. Peretz typically gets the comments he deserves. And this case is a summary judgment case in point. People here are more discriminating here than you give them credit for.

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 1:40pm

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Konstantin - Great link, Ranger.

- Tristan

May 18, 2011 at 1:58pm

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arnon: you would also enjoy reading Noah Pollak and Rick Richman skewering the NYT op-ed page historical fiction by Abbas at http://www.commentarymagazine.com/ "Fatah Agrees With Hamas: Palestinian State Will Be At War With Israel" Noah Pollak 05.17.2011 - 5:30 PM "The Thrice-Offered Palestinian State" Rick Richman 05.17.2011 - 4:46 PM yeah, arnon, some just come here to trash-bash anything Peretz writes and anyone who might want the thread to be commentary on one or two of Peretz's ideas. on the fifth day of cold, dreary spitting rain, I am returning to America's Civil War, now that I realize Obama's legal-scholar-presidency has much more in common with Lincoln's Democrat pre-decessor: "...[James] Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Buchanan's view of record was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Buchanan, first and foremost an attorney, was noted for his mantra, "I acknowledge no master but the law."[2] When he left office, popular opinion had turned against him, and the Democratic Party had split in two. Buchanan had once aspired to a presidency that would rank in history with that of George Washington.[3] However, his inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst Presidents. ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan [I do increasingly think Lincoln should have let the Confederacy secede. It would have withered over time, and spared America almost 150 years of Southern Senators filibustering progress.]

- K2K

May 18, 2011 at 2:04pm

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clarification: Obama on solving the Israel-Palestinian Peace compares with Buchanan's failures on maintaining peace between America's North and South. I foresee total war with unconditional surrender being the same solution for both irreconciable conflicts.

- K2K

May 18, 2011 at 2:07pm

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One thing I will say is that it is completely (and provably) wrong to suggest that Friedman has jumped from fashionable issue to fashionable issue and to quote energy as the example. Friedman has been clear and consistent over many years, if not decades, about his view that a serious transformation of U.S. energy policy is required on both environmental/economic and foreign/strategic grounds; he says so in his piece today in the NYT, and his arguments don't leave a lot of space for dispute. His criticism of Obama is that the new permits for drilling and nuclear don't amount to a new energy policy, they amount to a campaign contribution policy.

- ironyroad

May 18, 2011 at 2:40pm

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"It never ceases to amaze me that TNR, a journal which claims that it strives to be a serious and influential publication, and with a history that does indeed support that claim..." I didn't notice such righteous complaints about this: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/88478/david-brooks-caption-contest

- noga1

May 18, 2011 at 2:56pm

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Poor Marty. Don't pout, man, I'm sure President Bachmann will have you on speed-dial.

- W_Bombay

May 18, 2011 at 3:46pm

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""It never ceases to amaze me that TNR, a journal which claims that it strives to be a serious and influential publication, and with a history that does indeed support that claim..." I didn't notice such righteous complaints about this: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/88478/david-brooks-caption-contest" Well of course, had you quoted my entire statement, it would have included the observation that Peretz's post has been prominently placed on the front page of the web publication. On the other hand, the link you provide is under the byline of Johnathan Chait in his blogging capacity, in which he makes no prentensions to seriousness or import. Furthermore, the author of this piece is described as "editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic," a title that, I would assume, carries the imprimatur of the entire publication with it. Again, it is not one of several comments made that day on a blog written by a staff journalist. Finally, the tone of this incoherent article is such that it is intended to be a descriptive (certainly not prescriptive) set of observations on American foreign policy, and as such should be examined at its face value as the insane ramblings of an incontinent man that it is. Again, the blog post in question makes no such pretensions of importance. But if you like, very well; shame on you Jonathan Chait. I would much rather have heard another example of the follies of ignorant Ohioans.

- bunthorne

May 18, 2011 at 3:54pm

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... the insane ramblings of an incontinent man... Perhaps a tad overstated but otherwise a good, well argued post: 05/18/2011 - 3:54pm EDT | bunthorne

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 4:24pm

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Is it my lyin' eyes or did someone actually try on this thread to mount a defence of the above spewage?

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 5:30pm

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Is it my lyin' eyes or did someone actually try on this thread to mount a defence of the above spewage?

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 5:30pm

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I also think the opening rhetorical gambit of Marty's piece should be "Wowie! zowie!" with ie rather than y. But I don't believe racism has anything to do with it.

- ironyroad

May 18, 2011 at 5:45pm

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I wasted a whole lot of time trying to respond coherently and at length to the above spewage, but finally decided to leave it at this: "C'mon, man!"

- Sophia

May 18, 2011 at 6:56pm

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"Obama met on Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, the grandson of Abdullah I. " King Abdullah I was King Hussein's grandfather, and the present King Abdullah's great-grandfather. It is unseemly that Marty, who (correctly) criticizes other journalists for their ignorance, should make yet again this kind of mistake. "It may be tempting for the president to persist in his antagonistic fixation on Israel." The president cannot, and will not, resist this temptation. He feels obligated to prove to the Arabs that he really really feels their pain. Those poor 400 million Arabs, with all that oil, and all that territory, suffering so much because Israel exists on .01% of the Middle East.

- noga1

May 18, 2011 at 7:09pm

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The job of the US president is to protect, defend, and advance the interests of the United States in accordance with its laws, international law, and American standards of decency. If that is achieved by "feeling the pain" of 400 million Arabs, or seeming to, then he is doing the job that the American people elected him to do. If not, then not. The defense of Israel is not the job of the US president, except insofar as that achieves, or at least contributes to the achievement of, those objects that are the purpose of his job.

- roidubouloi

May 18, 2011 at 7:22pm

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"The defense of Israel is not the job of the US president, except insofar as that achieves, or at least contributes to the achievement of, those objects that are the purpose of his job." The only way Obama can cure, or at least narcotize, Arab pain is by taking resolute steps to demolish Israel. Bit by bit. This way or that way. I don't put it beyond him to strive in that direction. He has been nourished by the milk of Rashid Khalidi's hatred of Israel.

- noga1

May 18, 2011 at 7:36pm

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A more useful and better written article on Obama and the Middle East: "President Obama's Delicate Pivot: From Abbottabad to the Arab 'Winds of Change'" By Robert Satloff http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3361

- arnon

May 18, 2011 at 10:00pm

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Statements about Obama stray into the whimsical on these threads, and who knows the mind of another human being, but one thing I feel fairly secure in saying is that Obama doesn't believe that he can cure or narcotize Arab pain. He would be a fool if he thought that, and the evidence is he's not one. I think he believes that by consistently putting a road to the future in front of Arab audiences he is showing them that pain doesn't have to be the overpowering determinant of political culture and foreign policy. Now that may turn out to be wrong, or to be too difficult a path to walk, but it isn't a dishonorable or indeed a naive position to take.

- ironyroad

May 18, 2011 at 10:01pm

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...The only way Obama can cure, or at least narcotize, Arab pain is by taking resolute steps to demolish Israel. Bit by bit. This way or that way. I don't put it beyond him to strive in that direction. He has been nourished by the milk of Rashid Khalidi's hatred of Israel.... Whimsical? I don't think so and much too polite a characterization. Errant, paranoid horseshit would be more like it.

- basman

May 18, 2011 at 10:08pm

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"...and who knows the mind of another human being, " Such wise words ought first to be tried on one's own theories. Fact is you, ironyroad, have no more knowledge of Obama's intentions than I do. Your speculation is as good as mine, and at least I'm not bedeviled with the obsessive need to justify Obama whatever he does or says. That gives me a better shot at clarity. But I will say this: if you are thinking like roidubouloi that Obama's first obligation is to care for American interests even if the price is Israel's very existence then I would suggest to you that the position is dishonorable, but not at all naive.

- noga1

May 18, 2011 at 10:11pm

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And how did Israel's existence, other than the claims it has under the very international law that you constantly deride, come to be the singular obligation of the United States? Does Israel have any obligations with respect to its own existence? Might its own existence be more secure if the Likud were not turning Israel into a pariah out of colonial ambition and greed for land? Here is the Likudnik Deputy Speaker of the Knesset on today's Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/opinion/19Danon.html?ref=opinion arguing that, if Palestine declares a state (in his mind tearing up the obligations of Oslo not to make "unilateral" changes), Israel should respond by annexing the "Jewish communities and uninhabited lands" of the West Bank. Now, let us just ignore the fact that the Palestinians haven't been able to do anything unilaterally while Israel has been violating Oslo from the gitgo with unilateral settlements that it now declares make a Palestinian state on the 1967 line impossible. Of course, throughout the period of settlement, Israel was claiming that it wasn't unilaterally changing anything because the settlements could be uprooted by agreement, an agreement it refuses to make. Forget all that. What does this fanatic Danon think will be the response to this annexation in violation of many UNSC resolutions? Danon thinks none that won't blow over, as he says all reactions to the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan have blown over. Have they? Is that what he thinks has happened in the world? Has he taken note that Israel has but one friend in the world, one nation upon which it is utterly dependent? I think the response to Israel chopping up the West Bank will be sanctions, not immediately, but soon, and Israel will fold right up, because it cannot survive without international trade. There isn't enough there there. And, if the international community forces Israel to buckle, what makes a Danon think that the place at which it will stop will be along lines congenial to Israel? If Danon and the Likud press their luck, they may just find themselves living within the lines of the original partition. Israel's security and existence are first and foremost Israel's responsibility. Israel itself puts them in jeopardy with its aggressive violation of its international responsibilities and its blatant dissembling that it is doing nothing of the kind. It is surely not the obligation of the US to compromise its own interests in order to rescue Israel from its own fecklessness.

- roidubouloi

May 18, 2011 at 11:54pm

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This blathering post would make a fine exhibit in someone's civil commitment hearing. Obama's approach to Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East may not be what everyone would want (and sometimes seems to change by the hour, but he can hardly be blamed for that). Peretz' plan, however, is nowhere to be found, either because he doesn't have one or because it is lost in all the rage, jealousy, irrelevance, and inability to influence events, some of which many of us start to feel as we get older and others take over the field. It's a shame, but how long can you keep publishing these rants without discrediting the enterprise? Can't someone at least edit them?

- mlottman

May 19, 2011 at 12:17am

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"That gives me a better shot at clarity." No, it doesn't, Noga, because the last couple of years have shown that no matter what Obama does or says, you'll find fault with it. That isn't clarity. That's prejudice. Now, I do agree with you that I tend to look for the positive. But that does no more than balance out your tendency to look for the negative. In the case of Marty, it's different. It's not like you or me, where either of us can argue a different interpretation in good faith. In his case, he makes ludicrous statements that are very clearly without basis in fact.

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 12:27am

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"...because the last couple of years have shown that no matter what Obama does or says, you'll find fault with it. " True. I am like the child in that parade, who sees that the emperor has not cloths on, never mind splendid new cloths that you and those who share this infatuation, perceive. I have a list of Obama's foilbles which were never properly explained, chief among them his bow to the Saudi king, his glad handing with Chavez, his disgraceful slip about the special Olympics, his twenty years as Rev. Wright's faithful, his friendship with Rashidi (a friendship he shares with my most recent object of interest: The insanely angry Arab), his total mishandling of the I/P conflict, making a bad enough situation much much worse, his sucking up to the Muslim world pointedly ignoring its antisemitism and pogromism, and a few other things. Of course all these are nothing to you, which is why you simply categorize them as "prejudice" and thus deserving to be discarded into the garbage bin. But I wonder, who between you and I is really suffering from prejudice and biased blindness?

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 7:03am

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Obama's new iteration on Arabs will be broadcast live on CNN at 11:40 am EDT. Any hint that Israel has to re-start "peace" talks based on the 1949 armistice line that has been re-named '1967 borders' will mean the O has learned nothing, and deserves a barrage of rubber flip-flop sandals made in Malaysia. The throwing of shoes as protest is very Arab...

- K2K

May 19, 2011 at 9:41am

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I have no idea what Obama will say. I don't even have an idea of what I think he should say. However, since the only basis on which there are going to be peace talks and peace itself is the 1967 de facto border, it would surely be a mistake to exclude that possibility. Israel seeks to extinguish Palestinian refugee claims and to make a new border that incorporates settlements. The Palestinians seek recognition of a Palestinian right of return and a state within the entirety of the territory east of the Green Line. Both have claims in Jerusalem. It is perfectly obvious that peace will not be made on a basis that gives either side more than one of its principal objectives. Thus, if Israel wants to extinguish Palestinian claims in Israel, it will give up its territorial ambitions. Likewise, if the Palestinians want to claim all the land east of the Green Line, they will have to give up their claims west of that line. There will be compromise on Jerusalem. Only Israeli revanchists and their self-declared friends fail to see that which is perfectly apparent. That is why the Palestinians have no partner for peace.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 9:52am

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roi: I'm quite dumfounded. I see no reason to quarrel with you over any part of your last comment except for the last two sentences that spoil the effect. There are very few "Israeli revanchists" who will torpedo a genuine peace agreement (key word: "genuine"). There may be pockets of resistance but I think eventually they will bow to the general will. The difficulty is not on the Israeli side. It is the Palestinian RoR which has gained the status of the sixth pillar of Islam. They will not renounce it and I fervently hope that Israel will agree to even a symbolic gesture in the matter. That means that there will be no peace in our times. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/17/fatah-agrees-with-hamas-palestinian-state-will-be-at-war-with-israel/ "Fatah Agrees With Hamas: Palestinian State Will Be At War With Israel" And this is from my favourite Arab blogger, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley, aka Angry Arab: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/pledge.html "On this sad day, one should pledge to the people of Palestine that: We shall not forget; we shall not forgive, ever. That we shall count your dead and injured, one by one. That we know that all Israeli crimes are registered in notebooks--as Mahmud Darwish had said. We pledge that we are committed to: No peace with Israel. No Negotiation with Israel. No recognition of Israel. That all the deeds and treaties by Arab tyrants represent their oil and their polygamous ruling families and the external backers they have. That they don't ever speak for the Arab people. We pledge full return AND compensation. And when Palestine is liberated, we should ensure a safe and peaceful and democratic and secular transfer of power. All flags of Zionist occupation will be discarded but can be used as bathroom mats--we should commit to recycling in liberated Palestine. " I believe he reflects the will of the Arab Street, also known more recently as "The Arab Spring".

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 11:50am

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http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/17/fatah-agrees-with-hamas-palestinian-state-will-be-at-war-with-israel/ "Fatah Agrees With Hamas: Palestinian State Will Be At War With Israel" And this is from my favourite Arab blogger, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley, aka Angry Arab: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/pledge.html "On this sad day, one should pledge to the people of Palestine that: We shall not forget; we shall not forgive, ever. That we shall count your dead and injured, one by one. That we know that all Israeli crimes are registered in notebooks--as Mahmud Darwish had said. We pledge that we are committed to: No peace with Israel. No Negotiation with Israel. No recognition of Israel. That all the deeds and treaties by Arab tyrants represent their oil and their polygamous ruling families and the external backers they have. That they don't ever speak for the Arab people. We pledge full return AND compensation. And when Palestine is liberated, we should ensure a safe and peaceful and democratic and secular transfer of power. All flags of Zionist occupation will be discarded but can be used as bathroom mats--we should commit to recycling in liberated Palestine. " I believe he reflects the will of the Arab Street, also known more recently as "The Arab Spring".

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 11:52am

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But they will renounce it, noga. Because there cannot be a Palestinian right of return and even they know it. The question is how to get them to renounce it in a manner that allows them to save face. The Israeli right has almost as insurmountable a problem facing the necessity of abandoning the settlements as the Palestinians do abandoning the right of return. And Israelis, even a majority, insist in the face of copious evidence to the contrary that a peace will include the incorporation of at least the settlement bloc. Netanyahu is so far unwilling to contemplate the inevitable that he does everything possible to avoid having to sit at the table, because he knows where that leads and he would rather procrastinate than accept the clear outcome. That is why I say the Palestinians have no partner for peace. The tragedy for Israel in this approach, as Wieseltier also points out, is that time is NOT on Israel's side. The bargaining chip of the occupation is a wasting asset because it cannot last that much longer in the face of slowly gathering world opinion. So, if you have a wasting asset, the smart thing to do is to get as much as you can for it before its value is exhausted. Netanyahu is completely stuck politically. All he seems able to do is procrastinate and let the value of the negotiating chip run out. The very difficulty of Israel accepting the uprooting of the settlements as the price for peace, and of the Palestinians accepting the abandonment of claims in Israel as the price for peace, is why I have said, and firmly believe, that both sides would be better served, both politically and in terms of the durability of the agreement, by compromising their core demand in exchange for a bit of the other side's core demand, which, in each case, is their number two demand. All of the land east of the Green Line is a more important goal for the Palestinians than the RoR because they know the RoR is politically impossible anyway. The final extinction of the Palestinian RoR is the more important goal for Israel because it is the only way in which a peace settlement could ever be said to be final and the borders of Israel internationally recognized and thereafter inviolate. But it would be easier for each side to swallow the bitter medicine if it compromised a bit. Leaving the settlement bloc in place in Palestine does that for Israel. Allowing a like number of returnees to Israel does that for the Palestinians. Each can have claimed some realization of all its goals, and also that it had to compromise its core goals for the sake of peace. The symmetry alone makes it appealing. If the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem is an enclave, so that the city can be open without Israel losing control of its border, then the trade-off that Israel can claim is security control of the Jordan and, if it wants, an Israeli enclave in Hebron. This amounts to both sides taking hostages. That is good. It will be motivation for both sides to honor the agreement. If the Palestinians don't honor the peace, there goes Jerusalem in a heartbeat, just by Israel closing its border. If the settlement bloc in Palestine is threatened, shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at the most to invade, occupy, and annex it. A settlement is possible. Attitudes will eventually follow if the settlement proves durable. But no settlement is possible as long as Netanyahu avoids negotiations. It is time for Israel to say, we do not concede anything, but we are going to give the United States every tool it needs to help craft a fair outcome that both sides can live with. That means suspending settlement activity and getting to the negotiating table. If the Palestinians stiff the US, they will be made to understand that the US veto in the UNSC will remain in their way indefinitely. Time for this to be over, and waiting for the Palestinian and Arab fanatics to abandon their anti-Semitism is as self-defeating as avoiding negotiations. Even if final peace is not possible now, even if a settlement is not the end of war, the right settlement can hugely enhance Israel's strategic position. It is a profound mistake to think that the only alternatives are the status quo or a true and lasting peace. Those are not the only alternatives.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 12:58pm

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"and I fervently hope that Israel will agree to even a symbolic gesture in the matter' That should have been: "and I fervently hope that Israel will NOT agree to even a symbolic gesture in the matter"

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 1:17pm

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With Obama just having declared that a peace settlement must be on the basis of the lines before the Six Day War, now perhaps (1) Israelis can start reconciling themselves to the inevitable, much as they do not want to, as the US is the only thing that stands between them and the rest of the world and (2) Benjamin Netanyahu will start to appreciate that pissing on the shoes of the president and vice president of the United States is a bad idea. If Netanyahu were not such a clod, he would have given Obama what he wanted on the suspension of settlements and held that as a debt due from the US in the context of negotiations. Obama just did the people of Israel a colossal favor by giving them the avenue to accept the inevitable, but as the unavoidable response to the US rather than as a concession to the Arabs. It will take some time for the dust to settle, then we will see if there is a way forward.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 1:19pm

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Can you not now see, noga, which way the wind of international diplomacy is blowing and how much better it would be for Israel to navigate before the wind rather than just stand obdurately in its way?

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 1:20pm

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whatever happened to the idea of "no preconditions"? "Facebook Groups Call for Mass Invasion of Israel on Friday" just what Palbama deserves - his voice gave away his duplicity every time he had to say "Israeli security". Whatever will he do when Lebanon and Syria expel all their five generations of palestinian "refugees"? Time for the US to stop funding UNRWA and the PA - good place to find the money just promised to Tunisia, a nation worth saving.

- K2K

May 19, 2011 at 1:34pm

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No preconditions? As in, "The Palestinians must first recognize Israel as a Jewish state." Which Michael Oren helpfully explained means conceding their claimed right of return in advance of negotiations. That sort of precondition? Or only the other kind. UNSC never contemplated that the lines before the Six Day War would be modified other than for security reasons. Illegal settlement by Israel, and the modification of the border to accommodate the illegal settlement, was never in the cards. Israel gambled that it could dominate the outcome by building settlements in occupied territory. It was a foolish bet that it will lose, is losing.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 1:56pm

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Obviously there is no interpretation that can't be countered by its opposite, Noga, except in the case where facts clearly favor one (this was the distinction I was making between your, my, and Marty's positions -- only the latter are truly screwy). I could line up things from Iran to START to drone attacks to Bin Laden to give a very different -- and at least equally plausible -- picture of Obama. As we're in the projection mode here, let me say that I think that Netanyahu made a kind of bad bet on Obama -- he bet that if he dug his heels in, either Obama would bend toward him or he could just wait out the four years until there was a change. I think this will prove to have been a stupid mistake, that an Israeli leader with more imgaination would not have made.

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 2:04pm

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Incidentally, Obama's message to the Palestinians deserves some attention: "In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel - how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question."

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 2:15pm

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I just want to express my admiration for all those who hate Marty's pernicious ramblings but force themselves to hang out here just the same. It must take some extraordinary self-discipline to regularly read and comment on material that you find totally worthless. Thank you for making the recurring effort to warn unenlightened fools like myself that Marty's writings are not worth my time.

- willjames77

May 19, 2011 at 2:47pm

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You're welcome. It is the least we can do.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 3:29pm

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"let me say that I think that Netanyahu made a kind of bad bet on Obama -- he bet that if he dug his heels in, either Obama would bend toward him or he could just wait out the four years until there was a change. I think this will prove to have been a stupid mistake, that an Israeli leader with more imgaination would not have made." What a strange fulmination and schadenfreude moment from a poster who prides himself on his cool minded approach and on not "doing outrage". Refuse Obama's instructions and woe to you. eh, ironyroad? I thought peace was Obama's suit but apparently it is all about his own sensitive ego and sticking it to those uppity Israelis. I thought Netanyahu's response hit the right note: Israel is grateful to Obama for his peace message but his foundational premise, back to 1967 borders, is out of the question. Didn't you voice a similar attitude, ironyroad, just a little while ago? "05/19/2011 - 4:12am EDT | ironyroad No state will embrace fragility willingly. Israel will quite legitimately refuse to retreat to a more delicate and threatened model of national existence. For their part, the Palestinians have to grasp that the victory that is there for them has to be available in a way that makes others not feel threatened." What happened between 4:12am and now? Obama has shown himself to act according to a different calculus (tunes of Rashid Khalidi, who has no interest in a two state solution) and you suddenly realized you miscalculated his position?

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 4:02pm

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Willjames: I'm sure you are familiar with the medieval custom of charivari, "rough music", in which the community gave a noisy, discordant mock serenade, pounding on pots and pans, to humiliate those they considered as deviating from their social norms. The intention was to make such rumpus as to drown any possible response. Among TNR'ers it has become a social norm, a universally acknowledged truth, that any article by Marty which advocates for Israel and warns against indulging Arab fantasies must be attacked as a racist tract. It is impossible to criticize Obama without being accused of prejudice (racial, I presume). Lucky Obama that his skin colour provides such a shield from criticism. This is the new liberalism, I presume. Mind boggling. As if skin colour is a guarantee for good sense, understanding, knowledge and a natural defence against bad judgment or bad faith.

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 4:19pm

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I hereby offer an open competition to anyone here. If anyone can locate for me the "outrage" or "fulmination" that Noga claims to see in my (as I see it) fairly neutral comment on Netanyahu, cited above, I'll send them a $10 voucher for Starbucks. Nothing happened between 4:12 a.m. and now. I think that Obama pretty much said what I say in that quote. If a real deal is done, however, then Israel will not be a delicate or threatened model, as Palestinian nationalism will have its own affairs to concentrate on rather than being a threat to its neighbor. Certainly a retreat to '67 borders in the current climate is not going to happen, as I noted, but it's not clear to me that Israel has a political leadership able to see more than two yards down the road.

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 4:20pm

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"... but it's not clear to me that Israel has a political leadership able to see more than two yards down the road." When there is a heavy fog, seeing two yards down the road is much better than not seeing the front of your car which is how i see Obama's driving capabilities. The outrage and fulmination are there, ironyroad. "let me say that I think that Netanyahu made a kind of bad bet on Obama -- he bet that if he dug his heels in, either Obama would bend toward him or he could just wait out the four years until there was a change. I think this will prove to have been a stupid mistake, that an Israeli leader with more imgaination would not have made." It is the sort of description that takes pleasure in one man knocking out another, not because he is the better boxer, but because the watcher really dislikes the other guy. You are actually saying nothing for Obama but you do enjoy seeing Netanyahu beaten (by your own estimation) because he made a bad bet. Reminds me of a Seinfeld episode: "JERRY: Is that my paper? KRAMER: Bad news, my friend. JERRY: What? What news? KRAMER: Sendrax. JERRY: Oh, c'mon! It's down again?! KRAMER: Two and a half points. JERRY: Oh, I can't believe it. Let me see that. (Looks at the paper) That's four and a half points in three days! That's almost half my money! KRAMER: Hey, I told ya. JERRY: (Sarcastic) Yeah, you told me. KRAMER: It's all manipulated with junk bonds. You can't win. JERRY: (Holding the phone, calling George) There's one thing I don't understand. Why does it please you? "

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 4:40pm

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"I think that Obama pretty much said what I say in that quote." No. What you said was: "Israel will quite legitimately refuse to retreat to a more delicate and threatened model of national existence." Obama said: pre-67 borders. Which borders did call "a more delicate and threatened model of national existence.""? 1947?

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 4:43pm

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Voucher still on offer. Noga and ironyroad barred from competion, otherwise it's open. Award will be given for identifying "outrage" in either tone or content or both. I have to disagree on the other thing -- I have almost never mentioned borders because I don't consider myself a super-informed commentator in that specific context. But like many here I have always assumed that '67 borders plus some arrangement on Jerusalem plus land swaps that make sense would be the solution -- isn't that what was on offer in Camp David, that Arafat turned down?

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 4:55pm

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Also, I can't find that borders quote on this thread.

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 5:01pm

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Let us not pretend that the 1967 lines have any different security implications than lines adjusted to include the settlement blocs. The issue is not security, it is that Israel wants to take more of the Arab partition of Palestine. Not that security is not AN issue, but it is not the basis for Israeli refusal. Can there be anyone left who believes any longer that Netanyahu and the Likud want peace? They want land from the Arab partition and will forgo peace in the attempt to get it. The movement of world affairs is making the pretense harder, indeed now impossible, to maintain. Talking about "land swaps" as if there is nothing much at stake is disingenuous. Israel wants to swap land that the Arabs do not want for land that Israel desperately wants because it has settlements on it. Usually in negotiations, if you want to get something, you have to give something that the other party wants. Israel's idea of negotiations is to get something it wants in exchange for something the Palestinians don't want. On top of that, Israel demands that the Palestinians surrender their claims in Israel. The only thing Israel offers is Palestinian statehood, to which they are entitled anyway, in a shrinking piece of the Arab partition. The Israeli position amounts to this: You give us what we want, including what we have taken illegally, and we will allow you to have what you are entitled to anyway, just less of it. It is no wonder that they have never been able to make a deal on that basis.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 5:17pm

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Obama's done it again. By mentioning the 1967 borders in his most recent speech, he's fanned the flames of "indefensible borders". I suppose he threw that in there as a sop to the Palestinians, because that's what Hamas most recently asked for. But he's deceived. Hamas only wants that as a starting point, the ending point being full-scale regional war to eliminate Israel. Now Obama IMMEDIATELY after that said that Israel SHOULD have defensible borders. I suppose Netanyahu will get him to clarify this at their meeting this weekend. But it was still a horribly irresponsible thing to do, which is going to require lots of clarifying conversations with everyone concerned.

- AllanL5

May 19, 2011 at 5:37pm

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And what do you suppose would constitute "defensible borders," Allan? Particularly if the Palestinians are demilitarized, have no heavy weapons or armor, and the weapon of choice for terrorist attacks is the missile?

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 6:08pm

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Noga, I'm flattered that you assume I must have heard of the "medieval custom of charivari" but it's news to me. It does, however, seem like an apt description of the noisy, pointless negative tirades that greet anything Marty posts on any subject. The good news is that once the sneerers and jeerers have finished puking their guts out, they seem to move on in search of new venues to foul and one no longer has to wade knee-deep through the mindless posts. I think that Noah Pollak nailed it well in the Commentary article you linked to. Also Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post had some thoughtful comments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mahmoud-abbass-formula-for-war/2011/05/18/AFsdUl6G_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage David Harris' response to Abbas NYT OpEd is also right on the mark: http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=gpINKWNwGcIIL3K&s=csITJaMNLiIOJ1MJLrG&m=hkJYJ7OQJqL2IlI No doubt they, along with any number of other thoughtful analysts, will be dismissed by the jeerers as 'right-wing', 'racist', 'neocon war-mongers' along with various other slurs of delegitimization. Yet what seems to me to unite informed opinion is the realization that there really is no peace process. There is--or was, until the recent Hamas-Fatah pact--a pretense of participating in a peace process for the purpose of extracting concessions that weaken Israel. When one looks at the Palestinian culture that Hamas and the PA have fostered during their respective tenures, one is hard-pressed to find a single element that bears witness to a desire for future compromise and reconciliation. But there is an abundance of evidence that all of the government's resources have been devoted to nurturing a genocidal hatred in the hope of ultimately destroying their adversaries. It's incredible that Obama thinks that by having Abbas put on his peace mask again, he can bring new life to his moribund fantasies of peace in our time. The desire of certain Western naifs to believe in Palestinian reasonableness and moderation is so powerful that it seems impervious to any and all evidence to the contrary. The fact that every concession offered by Israel has been pocketed and turned against it makes no impression. There's always an explanation of why it wasn't enough and didn't merit reciprocity. I am most heartened by the fact that Israel is no longer being led by those who prefer their dreams of a better world to the realities of the one they live in.

- willjames77

May 19, 2011 at 6:24pm

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(post seems to get lost after the link: let's try again) Noga, I'm flattered that you assume I must have heard of the "medieval custom of charivari" but it's news to me. It does, however, seem like an apt description of the noisy, pointless negative tirades that greet anything Marty posts on any subject. The good news is that once the sneerers and jeerers have finished puking their guts out, they seem to move on in search of new venues to foul and one no longer has to wade knee-deep through the mindless posts. I think that Noah Pollak nailed it well in the Commentary article you linked to. Also Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post had some thoughtful comments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mahmoud-abbass-formula-for-war/2011/05/18/AFsdUl6G_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage Also David Harris' response to Abbas NYT OpEd is right on the mark: http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=gpINKWNwGcIIL3K&s=csITJaMNLiIOJ1MJLrG&m=hkJYJ7OQJqL2IlI No doubt they, along with any number of other thoughtful analysts, will be dismissed by the jeerers as 'right-wing', 'racist', 'neocon war-mongers' along with various other slurs of delegitimization. Yet what seems to me to unite informed opinion is the realization that there really is no peace process. There is--or was, until the recent Hamas-Fatah pact--a pretense of participating in a peace process for the purpose of extracting concessions that weaken Israel. When one looks at the Palestinian culture that Hamas and the PA have fostered during their respective tenures, one is hard-pressed to find a single element that bears witness to a desire for future compromise and reconciliation. But there is an abundance of evidence that all of the government's resources have been devoted to nurturing a genocidal hatred. It's incredible that Obama thinks that by having Abbas put on his peace mask again, he can bring new life to his moribund fantasies of peace in our time. The desire of certain Western naifs to believe in Palestinian reasonableness and moderation is so powerful that it seems impervious to any and all evidence to the contrary. The fact that every concession offered by Israel has been pocketed and turned against it makes no impression. There's always an explanation of why it wasn't enough and didn't merit reciprocity. I am most heartened by the fact that Israel is no longer being led by those who prefer their dreams of a better world to the realities of the one they live in.

- willjames77

May 19, 2011 at 6:28pm

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( last try, without some of the links. Then I'm throwing in the towel and going to bed...) Noga, I'm flattered that you assume I must have heard of the "medieval custom of charivari" but it's news to me. It does, however, seem like an apt description of the noisy, pointless negative tirades that greet anything Marty posts on any subject. The good news is that once the sneerers and jeerers have finished puking their guts out, they seem to move on in search of new venues to foul and one no longer has to wade knee-deep through the mindless posts. I think that Noah Pollak nailed it well in the Commentary article you linked to. Also Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post had some thoughtful comments. Also David Harris' response to Abbas NYT OpEd is right on the mark: http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=gpINKWNwGcIIL3K&s=csITJaMNLiIOJ1MJLrG&m=hkJYJ7OQJqL2IlI No doubt they, along with any number of other thoughtful analysts, will be dismissed by the jeerers as 'right-wing', 'racist', 'neocon war-mongers' along with various other slurs of delegitimization. Yet what seems to me to unite informed opinion is the realization that there really is no peace process. There is--or was, until the recent Hamas-Fatah pact--a pretense of participating in a peace process for the purpose of extracting concessions that weaken Israel. When one looks at the Palestinian culture that Hamas and the PA have fostered during their respective tenures, one is hard-pressed to find a single element that bears witness to a desire for future compromise and reconciliation. But there is an abundance of evidence that all of the government's resources have been devoted to nurturing a genocidal hatred. It's incredible that Obama thinks that by having Abbas put on his peace mask again, he can bring new life to his moribund fantasies of peace in our time. The desire of certain Western naifs to believe in Palestinian reasonableness and moderation is so powerful that it seems impervious to any and all evidence to the contrary. The fact that every concession offered by Israel has been pocketed and turned against it makes no impression. There's always an explanation of why it wasn't enough and didn't merit reciprocity. I am most heartened by the fact that Israel is no longer being led by those who prefer their dreams of a better world to the realities of the one they live in.

- willjames77

May 19, 2011 at 6:31pm

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Ah yes, but to the mindless acolytes of Peretz and the Peretzian worldview ever get tired? Here is a nice quote: "The fact that every concession offered by Israel has been pocketed and turned against it makes no impression." And just what concessions have the Palestinian's pocketed at the expense of Israel? Since 1967, there has been nothing but expansion of the settlements, the West Bank remains occupied. One could rather say that Israel pocketed the concession of Palestinian recognition and then continued blithely on as if nothing had happened. One can argue about who is to blame for what, but as far as I can tell, the Palestinians have gained nothing and Israel has consistently aggrandized itself. This, we are told, is how Israel adjusts to the "realities." Oh yeah, the greenhouses. Time to mention the greenhouses.

- roidubouloi

May 19, 2011 at 6:38pm

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hello willjames :) [link to actual text of Palbama's speech is below] it seemed to me that Palbama should have made new textbooks, and maps that show ISRAEL in all palestinian classrooms the first step to any possible deeply-frozen peace by the time the seventh generation of 'refugees' finish high school. Palbama's use of the word "refugees" was deliberate, just as deliberate as his OMISSION of the term "defensible borders". Incredulously, Palbama's vision has Israel only with borders with Palestine, which gets to have borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. So, Israel does not get to have borders with Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan???? What map is Palbama looking at when he envisions "The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state."??? in President Obama's own words - to substantiate my point of the missing "defensible borders", and the "contiguous" state of Palestine - guess somehow Israel's 250 billion barrels of oil reserves will get tapped on the palestinian side of the 1949 armistice line: "...The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation. Ultimately, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them, nor can endless delay make the problem go away. But what America and the international community can do is state frankly what everyone knows: a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace. So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state. As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself - by itself - against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism; to stop the infiltration of weapons; and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. The duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated. These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I know that these steps alone will not resolve this conflict. Two wrenching and emotional issues remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians. ..." http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2011/05/19/obama_middle_east_speech_a_moment_of_opportunity_99527-4.html a speech that pisses off everyone except the acolytes of the O who troll Peretz.

- K2K

May 19, 2011 at 8:14pm

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I have never been so disgusted with any American president.

- K2K

May 19, 2011 at 8:22pm

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Just occasionally, it's the job of the president to piss off people. Usually it involves setting out the situation in a way that bugs those who are benefiting from an existing but unsustainable state of affairs. Whether it's accurate or not, the broad perception is that the Palestinians (Fatah) are just spinning their wheels because they think politics and demographics are on their side in the longer term, and the perception is also that the Israeli leadership either can't or won't think outside the box -- and doesn't really care to -- as they believe that Obama will either be gone in a couple of years or is all talk and no walk. In any event, I believe that this speech contained some clear warnings, including about the Hamas-Fatah romance, as well as an attempt to direct people's minds toward the future rather than to morbid replays of the past.

- ironyroad

May 19, 2011 at 9:08pm

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"Palbama?". K2K, you are sick in the head. Absolutely disgusting.

- bunthorne

May 19, 2011 at 9:59pm

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"05/19/2011 - 5:01pm EDT | ironyroad Also, I can't find that borders quote on this thread." So what? Does your mind change from one thread to another? http://www.tnr.com/article/washington-diarist/magazine/88641/fayyad-abbas-netanyahu-israel-palestine#comment-324749

- noga1

May 19, 2011 at 10:05pm

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Marty, if I were Ke$ha, I would say like "Hey dicksauce, why the fuck are you such a bummer?" and then I'd buy The New Republic from you and replace all your crazy barf Rorschach posts with Leon and other people who don't write really creepy stuff all the time.

- SarabandeG

May 19, 2011 at 11:06pm

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Now there's a breath of fresh air, SarabandeG. I would read that New Republic.

- bunthorne

May 19, 2011 at 11:12pm

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Please edit this work next time. I suppose to those smarter than me this is brilliant stream of consciousness. But to me it reads like a first draft -- angry, incoherent. This magazine has a duty to publish the most article and intelligent work on the Middle East, from all sides. This is not close.

- brucebrown

May 19, 2011 at 11:21pm

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Noga, I found it earlier. I had completely forgotten about the Leon Wieseltier thread. My mind often does in fact change from one thread to another, in the sense that I might alter the emphasis or the perspective according to the surrounding context. I often think about things differently depending on what the flow of discussion is like. That said, I'd also point out that my full -- but short -- comment was somewhat less one-dimensional that the first two sentences taken alone would suggest: "No state will embrace fragility willingly. Israel will quite legitimately refuse to retreat to a more delicate and threatened model of national existence. For their part, the Palestinians have to grasp that the victory that is there for them has to be available in a way that makes others not feel threatened. Ironically, Israel will one day be the most important guarantor of a Palestinian nation-state. What's needed is a couple of leaders willing to see how a mutual confirmation of robust existence is the only way forward."

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 12:50am

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Israel should sit down, shut up, and do as it's told as long as it chooses to take our money. When it decides to stand on its own two feet, it can decide what it's going to be. Until then, we call the shots.

- ATLeft

May 20, 2011 at 1:43am

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"That said, I'd also point out that my full -- but short -- comment was somewhat less one-dimensional that the first two sentences taken alone would suggest:" Is that an "oops" ironyroad? This voicing clear support for Israel's legitimate concerns? You didn't really mean to be so one-dimensionally understanding of Israel's position. You had to temper it with some qualifying contempt for Israel leaders, comparing them to Palestinian leaders. I ignored that part as the necessary dues an Obama supporter would have to pay to his like-minded readers but your insistence on re-asserting them makes it clear to me that the first half of the statement was in fact an unguarded moment of weakness.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 6:46am

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I want to note here my unqualified contempt for Israel's leaders.

- roidubouloi

May 20, 2011 at 8:38am

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"I want to note here my unqualified contempt for Israel's leaders." Ironyroad will be gratified to have his contempt validated by you, roi.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 9:12am

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I don't have contempt for Israeli leaders, and nothing in anything I've written anywhere, anytime, would support that accusation. I don't think very highly of Netanyahu, that's true, but that is not the same thing. He seems to represent a kind of political thinking that involves closing down options at a time when imo Israel needs some opening up of options. I note that, so far, nobody has taken me up on my Starbucks offer and shown me where the "outrage" and "fulmination" that Noga identified can be found in my brief comment earlier in this thread. So I'd now like to extend the offer, and promise a $10 Starbucks card if they can show that I have anywhere, at any point (including in this thread), written anything that suggests "contempt" for Israel, Israeli leaders in general, or Netanyahu in particular. Again, anyone except for myself and Noga can enter.

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 12:28pm

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Irony, I will never understand the eternal patience that you display in trying to have a rational argument with noga. She is a snake, for whom logic has no meaning. Nothing you can say will change her preconceived and deluded notions of righteousness and victimhood. Why waste your time and get bent out of shape?

- bunthorne

May 20, 2011 at 1:35pm

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"Irony, I will never understand the eternal patience that you display in trying to have a rational argument with noga. She is a snake, for whom logic has no meaning. Nothing you can say will change her preconceived and deluded notions of righteousness and victimhood. Why waste your time and get bent out of shape?" Yes, ironyroad. I've been similarly puzzled by your patience and rationality dealing with my snakehood. It makes so much more sense for you to join the choir and just stop engaging with my annoying comments. BTW, even though I'm excluded from the coffee contest (and anyway your measly 10$ would hardly cover the cost of two Lattes at my favourite Starbucks), I would like to remind you that when you say "What's needed is a couple of leaders willing to see how a mutual confirmation of robust existence is the only way forward." you are actually equating Israeli and Palestinian leaders which I consider demeaning for Israeli leaders. It's only OK to criticize Palestinian leadership if at the same time you make perfectly clear that you are also criticizing Israeli ones. AS IF every Israeli leader, Right or Left, in the last decade, has not gone to some great effort to solve the impasse, only to rewarded by more terrorism, shredded bodies (yes, victimizationt here) and delegitimization. You don't have to spell out contempt for it to be sewn into the very premise of your evaluation of Israeli leaders. For myself, I respect Israeli leaders for the very fact that they are elected and choose to lead in these awful times. There is no international glory attached to Israeli Leadership in the present immoral world and any one who freely chooses this path deserves a little more respect than is afforded to Netanyahu by the posters around here. There is a free-for-all "Alei-hum" when it comes to Israel's leaders, something that is not done with regard to any Arab leader. To me this translates into contempt, and your compulsive need to equate Israeli and Palestinian leaders is just that, contempt, a learned, almost mandatory, contempt.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 2:18pm

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Rather more contempt for Obama here than for Netanyahu.

- roidubouloi

May 20, 2011 at 2:43pm

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You might have said that, roi, if people spoke of Obama and, let's say, Osama Bin Laden, as if they were equally to blame for the problems the West has with the Arab world. Such an attitude prevails, btw, in the Arab blogs that I visit. You have not seen contempt until you have seen what is written about Obama, and how, in that part of the Internet. http://ashraf62.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/bin-laden-fictional-film-comes-to-an-end/

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 2:56pm

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". . . you are actually equating Israeli and Palestinian leaders which I consider demeaning for Israeli leaders." I take note of your consideration, Noga, and invite all others to identify any "contempt" (your term) in anything I have ever written about Israel, Israeli leadership, or Netanyahu specifically. I also note, again, that nobody seems to be able or willing to locate the "outrage" or "fulmination" I was accused of earlier. In fact, I've been actually fairly dismissive if not contemptuous of Pal leaders, in the sense that I seriously doubt their ability or willingness to find a constructive mode of nationalism. And, finally, for the umpteenth time, I am NOT responsible for what others write in their posts, so it's a waste of time to quote them at me as if I have something to do with it.

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 2:56pm

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"And, finally, for the umpteenth time, I am NOT responsible for what others write in their posts, so it's a waste of time to quote them at me as if I have something to do with it." No, you're not. But the point of my comment was to agree with you on that, in my own peculiar way. I was mimicking buntsy's solicitous comment to you in order to show its presumptuous empathy with your plight. (You might consider being less cute, so that posters will not try to sidle up to you or try to get you to climb on their respective bandwagons.)

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 3:15pm

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I've just listened to some reporting from the WH and it seems that Obama clarified to Netanyahu that he did not mean to say a return of the 1967 borders but rather than the 1967 borders will be the starting point of negotiations, with possible swaps of territories (Olmert's proposal, which Abbas rejected). And they both agreed that the Fath-Hamas alliance is an obstacle to any negotiation taking place. So things are not as bad as I thought they were. Unless I'm missing something here. I'm wondering if the source of the kerfuffle is rooted in Obama's formed passions (as much as he is capable of them): his heart is with the Palestinians but his reason is with Israel. Maybe he is trying to negotiate between his heart and his mind.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 3:59pm

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"And they both agreed that the Fatah-Hamas alliance is an obstacle to any negotiation taking place." I noticed that was expressed in quite an unambiguous way by Obama yesterday, but everyone seemed to just ignore it and pass by. My guess is that O and N were looking for things to agree on today, and that's pretty low-hanging fruit.

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 4:31pm

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Well, there can be no negotiations while this alliance continues. Unless Hamas gets to renounce its charter and agree to the principle of two states for two peoples. I think it is more likely that the "alliance" won't last.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 4:43pm

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I never thought I'd ever have to consider becoming less cute. Cuteness not being the first thing people notice about me. But I think you mean British cute (too damn clever by half) rather than American cute (pretty or endearing), right?

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 6:15pm

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Oh, won't you please come on board my bandwagon, though? We'll have ever so fun a time. Really, I don't care what you guys say to one another, I'm just amazed that irony choses to try to have a civil conversation with someone who so consistently treats him like shit on the bottom of her shoe. Guess it's none of my business, but then again, you're the ones having the conversation on a public forum. Cheerio.

- bunthorne

May 20, 2011 at 6:43pm

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ironyroad and I are old virtual pals, refugees of a really neat message board that got shut down 5 or 6 years ago. We started our acquaintance with a quarrel (about something Harold Bloom said) and we never stopped quarreling since. We share a certain sensibility, and an interest in literature and the movies and we are at loggerheads when it comes to Obama. And yes, ironyroad puts up with a lot of provocations from me. Why that bothers you, I have no idea. I can only speculate. Are you a Guardian reader, by any chance?

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 7:01pm

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Nope, just a years-long lurker here at TNR. I guess that puts you all at something of a disadvantage, since I feel like I know everyone here quite well, and you know nothing of me. Like I said, it's none of my business, I just admire irony's restraint at your piquancy. As for me, I am a fairly strong Obama supporter, but with wavering conviction. I guess my attitude towards the president would be like Churchill's toward democracy, "the worst imaginable president, except for all the others," or something like that.

- bunthorne

May 20, 2011 at 7:08pm

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As it happens, I think Obama is a pretty good president, and so far in advance of the previous one, it makes me dizzy thinking about it. GWB had some pretty hair-raising things happen on his watch, and there were some personal things about him I liked, but his lack of critical thought and his inability to take control of the debate inside government were scary. He let Cheney create a parallel national security team in the vice-president's office, something I don't believe ever happened before.

- ironyroad

May 20, 2011 at 9:41pm

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Ach, Roi has gone home for the day. Well, Roi, if you're out there somewhere, haven't talked in a while, but I've had a change of heart lately. And for me, this is something of a radicalization. Here's the thing. Let's say we get back to, or close to, 67 borders. That's giving up quite a bit. Leaving the Jews with, well, an every-growing population of Arabs within its own borders, and a Juden-rein West Bank. Fuck this, man. The Arabs want the West Bank. Fine. But then they get all the Arabs the Israelis have essentially been subsidizing within its own borders, because we all know there are quite a few Palestinians squatting in old buildings, working illegally, and building settlements within Israel illegally. (The Galilee might as well be Little Palestine By the Sea.) And the minute the Israelis try to get them out, boom, the press is there and the Israelis become the Nazis and they become the victims. And here, Marty's right. They see themselves as a people, but they don't really want nationhood. Because that means work. That means paying taxes. Paying mortgages. It means complaining about your fellow Arabs, instead of getting to play victims. And you know what else? I'm happy to let BeBe give the religious all of East Jerusalem. If the Palestinians wanted it so badly, and if they fellow Arabs cared so much, they'd have had it years ago.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 20, 2011 at 9:54pm

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It is my opinion that history will be kind to George W. Bush.

- noga1

May 20, 2011 at 9:56pm

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History will show Bush to have been the worst president in the history of the United States. One need only compare the military, economic, diplomatic and moral stature of the country when he assumed office and when he left. Everything he did or failed to do was a disaster. Molly, I can appreciate the sentiment, but it is not responsive to the problem of how Israel ends its growing and dangerous isolation and secures its future.

- roidubouloi

May 20, 2011 at 11:00pm

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I want to take back my above assessment of Obama. It was far too glib. I have nothing but the deepest respect for Barack Obama, and to have him following the abject disaster that was the second Bush presidency makes him all the greater in my estimation. In terms of cool-headiness and the ability to make good decisions, I would follow him to the end of the earth. His dealing with domestic issues has been deeply disappointing, but what can he do in the face of the perfidious traitors that make up the republican party? In terms of foreign policy, I think that he has done about as well as can be expected given the truly fucked up state of the world right now.

- bunthorne

May 21, 2011 at 2:08am

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"As it happens, I think Obama is a pretty good president, and so far in advance of the previous one, it makes me dizzy thinking about it." What can I say, ironyroad, what I see when I read these far-fetched accolades is only the dizziness. I once compared Obama to Tom Grunick, the handsome news anchorman in "Broadcast News", and I have seen no reason to reconsider. Even his handling the aftermath of OBL's assassination was messy. Media people were turning themselves into pretzels trying to explain away and justify the contradictions and misinformation that emanated from the White House about that event. Imagine if anything similar had happened W. how much the same media would have enjoyed skewering him for incompetence and even lying. Obama is treated as if he is some fragile china piece, which must be swaddled in tissue paper and kept in a box, away from any trenchant robust criticism. It's very strange to see how MSNBC and even CNN protect him and attack anyone who dares to criticize him. Clinton was much attacked by the Republicans as well but there is no comparison between the way the media, that favoured him, handled his foibles and the way the same media sees itself as the guardian of Obama's honour. It's a little scary, in fact. Almost like a personality cult or whatever it is called. Sometimes I wish to fast forward into the future when we can actually know how this president makes his decisions, what exactly makes him tick, what are his basic assumptions.

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 7:12am

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MollySimon: I'm very curious as to what has brought about this change of heart. You seem to have gone from one extreme to another. That doesn't sound like a mere "change of heart". It sounds to me like a conversion. The Galilee is not "little Palestine" and which sea are you talking about? If you are referring to this Arab-Israeli http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4056304,00.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haneen_Zoabi#Political_positions then I think she presents a challenge to Israel's democracy, which is a very different construct from American democracy. I have no solution or even a theory as to how she can be accommodated within any normal state, being an elected member of Knesset while disowning the very right of this parliament to exist.

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 8:11am

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Hey ironyroad, I thought this might interest you: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/20/obama-irish-roots-european-tour

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 11:45am

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hey noga - fwiw, watch the podcast somewhere at C-Span.org of "Obama, the Arab Spring, and the Peace Process: Assessing a Pivotal Moment in U.S. Middle East Policy" http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=347 Robert Satloff explains why "1967 lines" was important. Even the WaPo editorial board agreed today http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-blowup-with-israel/2011/05/20/AFwl827G_story.html

- K2K

May 21, 2011 at 1:24pm

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Thanks, K2K, I will watch later I'm a bit Obama-67 borders saturated at the moment. But here is some comic relief: http://modernityblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/angloeu2.jpg

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 1:33pm

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Roi, I see your point, completely, and it is completely a practical point. And my point, too, is a comletely practical point. Right now, they are twenty percent of the population, and they are growing at 2.6 while Jews are growing at 1.75. Let's get real here. at some point, it will no longer be a predominantly Jewish state. Also, you go on about the practicalities of what ISrael should do, but let's face it, whatever Israel offers, the Palestinians will never accept. So here we are, a bunch of fair-minded, well-meaning liberals, who just want what's right and just and fair, and we're dealing with a bunch of middle-Eastners who laugh their asses off at us. Furthermore, Noga, and I hate to say this, is right when she refers to the MPs. But I don't think she'll agree with the following of what I have to say about Israeli democracy, which is this: Israeli democracy is beautiful and rare and noble and a flowering of the Jewish mind and intellect and idealism. but it is dangerously naive. And deadly. And I think, and it pains me to say this, that the Russians there have it right. Loyalty or out. Israel cannot afford to have enemies within. I mean, for all our talk about America's electorate being divided, can you imagine our tolerating MPs like those Noga points out above? They'd be booted out in a second. We'd find ways to impeach or recall them faster than they could order their Capitol Hill office stationary. So, Roi, my friend, and though our outlooks have now radically diverged, and I hope we can still stay friends, I say, sure, let Israel go along with these talks, and then, later, maybe, they quietly begin their campaign of getting rid of Arabs. Or maybe they ask America to write in a clause of allowing for expensive buy-outs of Arab land that is completely voluntary. They make offers at the cost of the American taxpayer that really are impossible to refuse. But they get out as many Arabs as they can. Shabbat Shalom from Gush Santa Monica.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 21, 2011 at 2:40pm

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".. let Israel go along with these talks, and then, later, maybe, they quietly begin their campaign of getting rid of Arabs." What are you saying, MollySimon? Do you know there are Arabs serving in the IDF? And proud of it? Israelis don't want to kick them out. They want them to feel they really belong in Israel. Who has been feeding you these radical sentiments? Let me tell you about Israel's democracy. It's not "beautiful and rare and noble and a flowering of the Jewish mind and intellect and idealism". There is no such democracy, anywhere in the world. Democracy by its very nature is a messy work in progress, like a self-cleaning oven. Israel's democracy is no different. There are things to sort out, a constitution to write, determine immigration policies. The education system is near collapse. Society is becoming very complex. All these have to be addressed. And Judaism doesn't have all the answers.

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 3:03pm

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I think the Irish part of Obama's trip is around 5 hours -- the Queen was there for four days this week. The Irish are confused about race and even five hours gives a window of opportunity for someone to make a fool of themselves. I'm not sure about Obama's decision-making process. I do believe he considers a lot of options before hitting the button, which is ok by me. I'm not sure that history will be particularly kind to Bush -- but we don't know. I do know that he invaded a country on shaky-to-fraudulent grounds and precipitated an armed conflict that has not even now, eight years later, reached a conclusion after a fortune has been spent and thousand of American lives (and countless non-American ones) lost. History may judge that differently in fifty or a hundred years, but it will hardly cease to be controversial.

- ironyroad

May 21, 2011 at 4:03pm

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"History may judge that differently in fifty or a hundred years," I think it's going to be a lot sooner than that.

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 7:00pm

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"I do believe he considers a lot of options before hitting the button, which is ok by me." I do believe that there is no leader of a democratic country who doesn't consider many options before pushing the button. You are only saying that he does as any democratically elected leader does. A-propo, pushing the button: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz0qww8eKsE

- noga1

May 21, 2011 at 7:04pm

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150 non-Jews in the IDF. Big fucking whoops. And my feelings about there being a demographic crisis within Israeli borders does not negate the fact that there are human rights abuses going on in the West Bank and within Israel itself. In fact, the abuses would stop were the two peoples completely separated. Also, what the hell does the education crisis have to do with my opinions? Or the increasingly complex nature of Israeli society? Finally, Israel's democracy is beautiful and noble. Name one other country in the world that would tolerate the kinds of MPs Israel does--the hateful Palestinian members of the of the knesset who don't really believe a one-state solution, more like a final solution. Please, just get out of my face. I was directing my comments to Roi. As usual, you managed to butt in.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 21, 2011 at 11:30pm

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irony - Obama is visiting his Irish roots - one of his ancestors' village, and I guess you do not realize that any candidate for the American Presidency (and mayor of New York City) is obligated to visit the three I's: Ireland, Italy and Israel. Nice stopover for the real business in England, France, and Poland. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip's four day state visit to Ireland was truly historic - to finally start the real healing of 900 years of British colonialism. I thought it so sad that the security requirements kept people from being on the streets to welcome them. btw, a Bloomberg reporter on "Political Capital" said that it was Hillary who wanted the "1967 lines with mutual swaps" in the speech. Donilon and Ross were opposed.

- K2K

May 22, 2011 at 12:12am

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We can be friends Molly, as long as you don't start calling me an anti-Semite. But you still sound out of character for you, just frustrated as anyone would be. I don't think ethnic cleansing and forced population transfer is going to be the solution. The solution is pretty much as Obama outlined, mutual acceptance that the lines of 1949 are to be borders, unless the parties can mutually agree on modifications. Israel so far refuses to accept the outcome that it does everything it can to avoid coming to the table. Whether the Palestinians will accept the abandonment of their claims in Israel if the get pretty much everything west of the Green Line remains to be seen. If there is some compromise on Jerusalem, I think they will. I think measures along the Jordan can be devised too if Israel want a solution. I don't think it does unless the solution includes land it wants and cannot have. Hence, stasis, with the clock ticking.

- roidubouloi

May 22, 2011 at 9:04am

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I guess that proves that Hilary, like Obama, hates Israel. That part of the speech must have meant something or it would not have been a source of contention. I think that as much as anything else it is another warning to Israel that it cannot expect to stand pat indefinitely with the US carrying its diplomatic water. It either negotiates its way out of the West Bank or it will be pushed. Time for Netanyahu to suck it up and get to the table. The problems facing Israel are far to grave to subordinate their solution to "a few apartments in the West Bank."

- roidubouloi

May 22, 2011 at 9:08am

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Och. "if they get pretty much everything east of the Green Line"

- roidubouloi

May 22, 2011 at 9:09am

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I don't think Obama should have reinforced the Green Line mythology. Here's why: because it's impossible now and it was immoral in 1947, if only because of the status of Jerusalem; but also of the Etzion bloc and Hebron and other areas of Judea and Samaria that are not only sacred but which had substantial Jewish populations at the time, which had been historically part of the Jewish world for thousands of years. The 1967 "borders" demarcate land actually conquered by Israel on the one hand in 1948, but also by Egypt and Jordan on the other. They still left large populations of Jews and most of Judaism's holiest sites outside the Israeli border. These regions were then ethnically cleansed of Jews (deliberately, not accidentally) and even the Western Wall was out of bounds for Jews. Land that had been legally purchased and cultivated was seized and its inhabitants were not treated kindly to say the least. Importantly, these "borders" ARE indefensible but also they don't address Jewish spiritual concerns AND they did not create a "Palestinian state," they were annexed by Jordan and Egypt. Indeed, "refugee camps" still exist in Palestinian controlled areas which I find appalling and amazing. What attempt has been made to build towns instead? On the contrary - people retain the idea that they will "return" to Haifa. And, Israel remained a target long before "the occupation." Recognition is really key here; stressing borders rather than recognition and an end to destruction belief systems has allowed the right to hijack the discussion and reinforces anti-Israel elements, none of which is conducive to peaceful discussions. Also importantly, there are resource issues - these can only be managed by peaceful, cooperative states and peoples; desertization is a constant threat especially with climate change but also with recent patterns of drought and population explosions particularly in the Arab world. The idea of land for peace has thus far proved stable in Jordan and Egypt but not with Lebanon and not with the Palestinians. The Egyptian truce may be illusory, it could vanish leaving Israel once again vulnerable on the long Sinai/Negev border. But returning the Old City of Jerusalem, stranding 500,000 people outside the Green Line (not a border) and leaving the coastal plain vulnerable to attack is simply a bad idea on a number of levels. So even reinforcing the idea that the Green Line is per se sacred is leading down another blind alley. Rather, there is room to the east - and why not emphasise the idea of land exchanges rather than the Green Line? Obama backed himself into a corner here, same as with the misstep over apartments in Jerusalem. It's beating the same dead horse instead of using the opportunity to ask people to come up with some new ideas, for example borders for the Palestinian state that reflect their majority status in Jordan as well as swaps with Israel. The situation of Gaza, were Hamas not in control, could be helped by land donations from Egypt. However, given the attitude that any Israel is too much Israel, strengthening these areas and linking Gaza/West Bank is asking for trouble. Nothing good will happen, period, unless decades of hate and propaganda are confronted and addressed. There is no use mincing around about the problem of religious bigotry in the ME. It's a huge problem. It isn't just limited to bias against Jews, but rather against many ethnic and religious minorities. No people(s) are secure until this issue is addressed, period. Finally, Jerusalem divided is a lousy deal for the Jewish people, historically it is a huge slap in the face. Why are other people's religious ideologies and origin myths considered so much more important and valuable than ours, especially since Jerusalem figures only as a dream in Islam and denial of Jewish history is part and parcel of a twisted narrative that bases nation-building on destruction? I don't think Obama "hates Israel," but I do think he isn't empathic with Jewish history, and I worry that he is listening to Zbig and his ilk - the same way I sometimes think, with the economy, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that he's more on the Right than on the Left.

- Sophia

May 22, 2011 at 10:14am

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JLTV is broadcasting AIPAC live, and Steny Hoyer should be the Democratic President (I have always preferred Hoyer to Pelosi) based on his powerful speech - almost a continuous standing ovation. Obama actually said "Israeli allies" (with a slight choke), but still can NOT say "defensible borders". He clarified what he meant on Thursday by "1967 lines with mutual swaps". Yawn. Standing ovation for Sophia's post.

- K2K

May 22, 2011 at 11:50am

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Roi, of course you're not an anti-semite. I have not changed that much. I still believe Israel commits human rights abuses daily in the West Bank, and that the Gaza war was a mistake, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just think it's a mistake to think Jews and Palestinians can live side by side, and that it's unfair for Jews to have to welcome Arabs into their midst, but not vice versa. But I don't think in practical terms israel can cleanse itself of Arabs. Not with the rest of the world ready to pounce, though they have no problem with the Arabs cleansing themselves of Jews--from '48 to present. God, I hate the world. And I really hate Europeans. Though I love visiting Europe. I love their bread, I love their cheese, I love their countryside, and their trains. In any case, you seem to think that the 68 borders are defensible. And I think that's laughable. Do you think the borders at Gaza are defensible? Do you think Tel Aviv will be safe at these new borders? Come on man. Maybe if Obama says Israel can keep its checkpoints in the West Bank, though they'll have to be given a lot of sensitivity training, but they're extremely callow and sometimes cruel. And that's trickle-down from the top, I believe. I'm telling you, all these problems would be resolved by separate populations. Not cleansing. Separating. Because cleansing implies purifying. It implies a value statement.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 22, 2011 at 2:06pm

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Molly, I was only joking about the tendency of others here (happily less in evidence since Peretz largey went away) to claim that those who disagree with the Israel's government are anti-Semites. I am not claiming that the Green Line is somehow a good line for military, strategic purposes. My point is that, given the nature of the threats and the geography, there is no line west of the Jordan River itself that is any more defensible than the Green Line. Hence, the claim that the line needs to be modified for security reasons simply does not fly unless Israel is going to incorporate the entire West Bank and its population -- the one-state solution that Israel above all does not want. Israel wants to stick with the principle of partition. Israeli insistence on the ability to prevent arms smuggling across the Jordan would make sense. There should be no repeat of the Philadelphia Corridor. It is fine to claim security needs, but one has to keep track of what is a bona fide security need and what is a rhetorical claim made for other purposes -- incorporation of settlements. Sophia, You ignore inconvenient parts of history. The land was already partitioned once between Arabs and Jews and the territory of Israel west of the Green Land is already more than the Jewish partition. Also, while Jews have legitimate claims east of the Green Line, so do Arabs west of the Green Line. There is no plausible basis for crediting the Jewish claims but not the Arab claims. If Israel wants to extinguish the Palestinian claims to the west, it is going to have to give up its claims to the east in exchange, and vice versa. Alternatively, the two sides could negotiate a mixed solution that involves mutually agreeable land swaps and/or mutually agreeable population exchanges, with Israeli settlements remaining in Palestine in the east and some comparable number of Palestinian returnees being allowed to go to Israel. Israel cannot realistically expect to draw new borders to its demographical satisfaction in exchange for which the Palestinians simply surrender their claims and get the state that they, as a people, are entitled to anyway without need of Israeli consent. The Israeli position is one for me and one for me, a bargain that simply cannot be struck.

- roidubouloi

May 22, 2011 at 10:17pm

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Listen to Bibi Netanyahu's statement made while sitting next to President Obama after meeting with him. Bibi is a class act, a man of vision who wants peace and knows that illusions are the number one enemy of peace. If only we had a man of his character as president of our country. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/05/029066.php Among the posters above those who side against Israel fall into two categories: naive liberals who believe that fanatics can be appeased, and hard core anti-Semites.

- bulbman1066

May 22, 2011 at 11:43pm

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The problem with you and other other paranoiacs around here is that you forget that Israel, and Israel along in the middle East, has the bomb. Israel also has the best intelligence, the best conventional weaponry, best air force, best planes, best tanks, etc., of anyone else in the middle East. So, yes, the barbarians on the other side of the wall can throw bombs that kill, but they are unable to commit genocide. BeBe and his friends' real goal is to get as much of the West Bank as they can before time runs out. I have no problem with this strategy as far as Jerusalem goes, but the rest of the world does, as they do with the West Bank.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 2:30am

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Roi, not so. You need some kind of cushion between Tel Aviv and the West Bank. Of course, if Israel can keep its checkpoints, maybe you don't need that cushion. But the checkpoints need to be made more humane.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 2:32am

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Bulbmann, that first comment above addressed to the paranoiac was meant for you. Just in case you couldn't guess.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 2:34am

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Molly Simon, when the president of the United States appears ready to reverse America's long-term commitment to the survival of Israel it's time to get worried. It's not just his speech. It's the speech in combination with his background of black nationalist, Islamophilic, anti-western radicalism that has us "paranoids" on edge.

- bulbman1066

May 23, 2011 at 4:21am

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Militarily, Molly, I don't see what difference a larger "cushion" between Tel Aviv and the West Bank would make. Cushion to what? Missiles? Given current technology, that would be quite meaningless unless it took in the the Judean Hills. By the time you have done that, you have already eaten most of the West Bank. That is the one-state solution that the Arabs want and Israel does not As well, with missile technology, the difference is not great. If missiles cannot be kept out of the West Bank, there will be trouble. The rhetoric about defensible borders dates from an era when a tank army was the main threat to Israel, and that was primarily a threat by Iraq via Jordan. It made sense to speak of the threat of Israel being cut at the waste, but even that it is not clear that anyone thought about where the borders could be located to neutralize or even significantly diminish that threat. Even then they would have had to be located sufficiently far east to include a great deal of the Palestinian population. As an abstraction, the idea of "defensible borders" makes sense. Concretely, I don't think there is any place to locate them that would make a meaningful difference without including far more of the Palestinian population than Israel would accept within its borders. As a result, the "defensible border" talk have become merely a cover for incorporation of settlement blocs. Those have little or nothing to do with defense. The United States is, and has demonstrated, its commitment to Israel's security. It is not committed to Israel's colonial adventures in the West Bank, nor should it be. Israel does its best to entangle the two, morally, politically, and in every other way, so that it can stretch the US security commitment to cover incorporation of the settlements. It has never worked (the closest was Bush's very misguided letter to Sharon) and is not working, but it was moot for a long time when the Arabs were locked into their rejectionism. Now that that is not the case, it is becoming necessary for the US to separate its support for Israel's security from the issues of settlements. That is what Obama is doing. It is inevitable given US interests that this will occur, which is what the Israeli irrendentists refuse to recognize. The US will not pay a diplomatic and strategic price for Israel's settlements. If Israel can negotiate a deal on settlements that the Arabs accept, that is certainly fine with the US. The US has certainly tried, several times, but there is now no reason to believe that the Arabs will accept unless they are offered something in exchange that they want. Israel has offered nothing in exchange other than the statehood to which the Palestinians are entitled anyway. Thus, Israel's negotiating strategy is simply to hold Palestinian statehood hostage until they give in and accept the cession to Israel of the settlements. I have negotiated a lot of deals successfully. To do it, I always have to put myself in the shoes of the other party and understand his interests and how he would logically pursue them. I do this not out of some syrupy notions about love and harmony, but because I assume the other party is smart enough sensibly to pursue his own interests. If I think about the deal from his perspective, I can anticipate where he is likely to go and what I can offer that I am willing to part with that is likely to be accepted. Of course, there is some acting and drama involved. I do not simply think about what to offer and than offer it all up in one fell swoop. I give ground slowly, making it appear that what I am conceding is valuable to me and difficult to concede. In the end, when I finally give up all of what I would have offered in the first minute or two if if would seal the deal, the other party's perception is that he has won the negotiation and extracted from me that maximum obtainable. That is in fact the case, but without the drama, he would not have believed it to be the case and would not have been satisfied. When I put myself in the Palestinians shoes and look at what Israel offers them, it looks to me like a stupid deal for them, quite apart from their emotions, their hatreds, towards Israel and Jews. They are asked to abandon their claims west of the Green Line forever, concede to Israel territory that Israel wants, and accept security arrangements that certainly will infringe on normal concepts of sovereignty. In return, they are offered some land they don't want. I wouldn't make that deal unless my back were to the wall and I had to do it to to save life, limb or livelihood. Israel cannot put the Palestinian's back to the wall in that way, and in any case the deal would never stick if it extracted it in that manner. The defensible borders claim is largely meaningless. The land grab that Israel has been hoping for (although it denied it the entire time the settlements were being built) is out of reach. The strategic situation is deteriorating, both in terms of Israel's standing vis a vis the rest of the world, the threat of missiles from Lebanon, and the likelihood that Iran will obtain nuclear weapons. Israel will never get a better deal than it can get today as its position is eroding. It is time for the stupid, stupid Netanyahu and his right wingnut supporters to make a deal and stop risking Israel's future for these ridiculous settlements that should never have been there in the first place. If he is so desperate to leave the settlers in place, he should agree that some can stay as citizens of Palestine in exchange for a like number of Palestinian returnees to Israel. Obama is doing Israel a big favor by pushing it, but not enough of a favor because he is not pushing hard enough for Israel actually to get out of its own way.

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 10:37am

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must be a brain deficit that makes it impossible for some to read the topographical map of Judea and Samaria. tonight's speeches are Senate majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu. C-Span2 sort of says their coverage starts at 8:40 pm, but I find JLTV's complete coverage more reliable. (Note: JLTV - Jewish Life TV, other than their coverage of AIPAC's annual conference, seems to be trying to prove that Jews can produce the worst cable channel on earth - although I suppose some day I will be bored enough to watch "The Goldbergs", I still am puzzled that JLTV can not have at least 30 minutes a day of news from Israel.) still looking for transcript of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer's speech that preceded Obama's. In it, Hoyer pledged to stop US funding of the PA gov that includes Hamas, and, more interestingly, invoked R2P by promising to defend the citizens of Israel the same way the US protected the citizens of Benghazi. so far, AIPAC has only posted the video of Hoyer's speech.http://www.aipac.org/PC/webPlayer/2011-Sunday-Hoyer.asp

- K2K

May 23, 2011 at 10:42am

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What does the topographical map of Judea and Samaria tell you, K2K? Where are Israel's "defensible borders" located short of the Jordan River? And how much of the Palestinian population would be included within those lines?

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 11:14am

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Are you fucking kidding me, Roi? The daily shelling and shellacking of Sedorot means nothing to you? And that these pigs (not the Palestinians, the terrorists) could be that much closer to Tel Aviv? I do not trust the Arabs as far as I can throw them. And of course, they could say they don't trust the Israelis, given how we've treated our agreements, with our continued building and colonizing, this is true, but we don't shell them non-stop. We don't shell at all unless we are provoked. And there are, no doubt, exceptions to this, but there's a difference between land grabs and terrorizing. I am not minimizing the land grabs. They are despicable. But as I write, my thoughts begin to evolve, and on some level, I do see the Israeli point of view, which is, why should THEY negotiate. Deep down, the Palestinians really have no intention of allowing a Jewish state. As I wrote elsewhere above, I believe, their solution is the final solution. (Sorry, I like my own cleverness.) And I still say that Israel should agree to concessions, but that somewhere in there should be a clause to move some of Israeli Arabs to those abandoned settlements. Some of them are, after all, squatting illegally in Israel. Why not entice them with legal real estate? There are some pretty swell houses in "Judea" (cough) and "Samaria" (cough). Worthy of Encino or Calabasas. Could fetch at least a mil or two over here in SoCal. I think the Israeli Arabs really are among the biggest threat to Israeli security. Not as big as Iran. But demographically speaking? They are growing at almost twice the rate. I'm not sure there are enough orthodox to keep up with them. Also, Roi, I'm a little confused here. Last time I brought up the argument that Israel was offering desert to the Palestinians in exchange for the green and verdant lands of the West Bank (I refuse to call it Judeah and Samaria--that's for the superstitious, land-worshipping nuts who you could call idol-worshippers, in a sense, because they care more about land than the spirit of God's law), you told me that wasn't correct. I'm sure I'm misunderstanding. By the way, I'm feeling feisty today, hence the use of the f-word. My fondness (the other f-word) for you continues. Our opinions may be diverging, though in reality, only slightly.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 12:26pm

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And by the way, Roi, if you think modern warfare makes these border disputes meaningless, do you think Israel ought to give the Golan Heights back to Syria?

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 12:46pm

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I don't remember, Molly, every disagreeing that Israel was offering patches of desert for the parts of the West Bank that it want. That is indeed exactly what it is doing. I cannot imagine why the Palestinians should accept that and then, as Israel demands, thrown it to the bargain their claims west of the Green Line. Israel offers the Palestinians a bargain for fools and then, when they refuse, carries on about how there is no partner for peace. I did not say, Molly, that there is no strategic value to a border further east. Only that you cannot change the strategic calculus much without moving the border so far east that you have absorbed most of the West Bank. Also, the nature of the strategic threat matters. Palestine will be surrounded on three sides by Israel with Jordan and the river on the other side. It will be demilitarized. It won't have tanks and artillery and there is not much risk of those being smuggled in. The threat from Palestine is missiles. Just as missiles rendered the buffer zone in southern Lebanon largely moot and thus a diplomatic liability, a border somewhat further east in the West Bank would be of little value against the actual threat. In the Golan, the threat is from tanks and artillery, not random missile attacks. As well, there is no demographic threat in holding the Golan. As for your newfound enthusiasm for forced population transfers, I disagree with the morality and with the claimed need. But it is moot. This is not going to happen in the modern world with a western nation. Whatever the post-WWII precedents, the world has moved on since then. Just ask the Serbs.

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 1:59pm

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K2K's new enthusiasm for the Jordan River as the border runs afoul of the demographic problem. This is the one-state solution that the Arabs want and Israel cannot possibly allow. So, if the border were to be on the Jordan, there would have to be ethnic cleansing and/or explicit apartheid. This is a pointless avenue of discussion. Nothing like that can possibly happen. The United States would not be a party to it and, without the United States defending it in the UN, Israel would be toast. The sanctions would be so quick and so devastating that Israel would be history in no time.

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 2:03pm

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K2K's new enthusiasm for the Jordan River as the border runs afoul of the demographic problem. This is the one-state solution that the Arabs want and Israel cannot possibly allow. So, if the border were to be on the Jordan, there would have to be ethnic cleansing and/or explicit apartheid. This is a pointless avenue of discussion. Nothing like that can possibly happen. The United States would not be a party to it and, without the United States defending it in the UN, Israel would be toast. The sanctions would be so quick and so devastating that Israel would be history in no time.

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 2:03pm

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Roi, LISTEN TO ME: THE ROCKETS FROM GAZA INTO SEDEROT. This is what happens when Israel retreats and leaves nobody behind to mind its enemies. You have bombs coming directly into Israeli territory. Not settlements. But within the green line. Let's say you take away the settlements. And you've got that bright, shiny green line separating Arabs from Jews (though not all Arabs, of course, because you have a fast-growing minority that wants to destroy you growing within your own borders. But we'll pretend that's really not a problem. And that we're too moral to do anything about it). And that's all you've got. A line. And rockets that could possibly make it into Tel Aviv. And Roi, it's not just the tanks, etc. that Israel fears in the Golan. It fears real, live Syrians anywhere near its population centers. As is the case with the green line. The closer Palestinians get to your population centers, the happier they'll be. Because they'll have that much better a chance at sending rockets into Tel Aviv. At wiggling through your border to detonate themselves. Or just doing an old-fashioned Kibbutz raid where you slash a mother and her kids in the dead of night. You could ask even the most peace-minded Israeli and they would agree. I'm not suggesting that we keep all the settlements. Just enough as is reasonable and safe. And by the way, if you think that having Israelis parked at the Jordan River is enough, think again. The Israelis have blockaded the entire Gaza strip and still, they shell the Israelis. And now, there's talk of Egypt opening its borders to Gaza. I mean, I can see many of your points. And many times in the past you've opened my mind, brought new understanding (i.e., I'd never really thought of the difference between colonizing and occupying. That may seem very elemental to you, but to me, it was kind of a revelation). It would be nice if you could concede on a couple of my points. I think they're extremely valid. There may be nothing Israel can do. They may have to live with horrible, trashy neighbors. But at least give them the respect of acknowledging that their fears are real--it is not the bogey-man under the bed (or the gargoyle over the fireplace) that has them worried. It is an actual, self-avowed enemy.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 9:20pm

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Well, Molly, I can concede every one of your concerns, but in no case is the concern reduced by maintaining settlements in the West Bank. The settlements only makes everything worse, strategically, tactically, and diplomatically. Most importantly, the prevent Israel from negotiating any sort of sensible peace and security arrangement. Israel has hung itself with these settlements. I think Israel was foolhardy in the extreme to withdraw the IDF from Gaza at the same time as the settlements. I think it was foolhardy not to maintain control of the Philadelphia corridor unless and until the security situation permitted. I think it should maintain control over the Jordan. However, instead of taking the opportunity to negotiate just that, Israel under the Likud has done everything it could to frustrate negotiations, just up to the point of generating too much anger on the part of the United States. I cannot overstate the stupidity of this because the occupation is a wasting asset. With or without a settlement satisfactory to Israel, it will not go on indefinitely. When you have a wasting asset, the smart thing to do is cash it in for the best deal you can get while you have time. But the Likud, utterly transfixed by the settlements and its land ambitions, has refused to do this. The window to negotiate such control over the Jordan may already have closed. As anyone not transfixed by either the settlements or Israeli propaganda would have understood years ago, the Palestinian position would only strengthen vis a vis Israel as long as the Palestinian violence was kept to a low level that could be attributed to individual actors. This is indeed what has happened. The Palestinians have realized that they can appeal to the UN, have their statehood recognized, and then proceed to US international legal and political machinery to push Israel out. Israel could have, should have, seen this coming a long time ago. I think I have been predicting it here at TNR for a couple of years at least. But Israel has mesmerized itself into stupidity over the settlements. So, I concede the legitimacy of all of Israel's fears. But I think the way Israel has addressed those fears has been nothing short of disastrous and ill-motivated. Israel has permitted its own greed for more of the Promised Land to overcome common sense and military sense. I thought so roughly 40 years ago when, as a teenager, I argued with my father over the early settlements and predicted that they would come to ruin and Israel would be the loser as a result. The disaster is now unfolding and all Netanyahu can do is cover his ears and say la-la-la to drown out the sound.

- roidubouloi

May 23, 2011 at 10:06pm

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Roi, you refuse to deal with the facts. Israel is faced with opponents who seek its annihilation. Opponents who supported the Nazis and later the Soviet Union once that country began courting the Arabs in the early fifties. Opponents one half of whose government belongs to an organization, Hamas, which makes no effort to hide the fact that it is terrorist through and through, while the other half belongs to an organization, al Fatah, which has only a terrorist "wing". The Palestinian Arab politicians make nice when they speak to western audiences, but when they speak to their base it's Heil Hitler. The evidence that there is any good will or willingness to negotiate with Israel in good faith is zero.

- bulbman1066

May 23, 2011 at 11:20pm

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So what are you saying, Roi: That Israel give up these settlements and, then, what? What does Israel do to protect its population? Because it sounds to me like you think the occupation, and not just the colonization, is the problem. So what does that leave Israel with, exactly?

- MOLLYSIMON

May 23, 2011 at 11:52pm

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What you think of as facts bulb are totally irrelevant to the problem at hand. What I am saying Molly is that the occupation would have been both far less controversial and far lighter in its impact had it not been for the settlements leaving Israel in a better to position to protect its security interests while allowing the Palestinians control over their national life and a state. But that doesn't matter any more. Water under the bridge. What matters now is that the settlements are, as a negotiating chip, a wasting asset. They are going to go anyway. Thus, Israel ought to stop procrastinating and negotiate, even at the cost of suspending settlement construction, as much as it can for them, such as the Palestinian agreement to abandon claims west of the Green Line and some sort of plausible security arrangements, demilitarization, as Obama called for, and methods to assure it. If they don't negotiate something for the settlements in the near future, they will lose them anyway in the end and get nothing for them. The settlements have no value in protecting the population. Their value is in negotiating them away in exchange for things that will - end of the claimed right of return and sensible security arrangements. I don't disagree with you about the threats, but the attachment to the settlements is preventing any rational effort to address the threats. Israel is incapacitating itself with these settlements.

- roidubouloi

May 24, 2011 at 12:06am

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Alright, so we agree. I say get rid of the settlements, and entice as many Palestinians as possible to move out of Israel and into those homes, some of which, as I said, would go for at least a million here in SoCal. But I do think we need to keep a military presence. But I'm not sure I'd give up every settlement. I don't think that's even realistic, as far as the Israeli polity goes. But then you're left with the practicalities of what to swap. What does Israel give back, realistically?

- MOLLYSIMON

May 24, 2011 at 12:04pm

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I agree that Israel should try to keep a military presence, particularly along the Jordan, as long as possible. This matters. These settlements are ridiculous. Despite the illegality of the settlements under international law, I have a visceral dislike for forced population transfers. The notion that a change of sovereignty or government should produce a movement of population fundamentally contradicts the idea of universal human rights. Conflicts leave mixed populations in their wake. This is true all over Europe and the former Soviet Union. There will always be claims that stranded minority populations are illegitimate and I don't think we should attempt to decide such claims. Rather, if sovereignty changes, people should remain secure in their homes. For that reason, I think Israel and the Palestinians would be far better served by leaving settlements as minority populations in Palestine. There is no acceptable principle that says Jews should not live and be secure as minorities in a Moslem nation and we should not encourage that idea. It perpetuates in a way the legitimacy of Moslem anti-Semitism. Of course, there are practical issues. One can well understand settlers feeling deeply insecure under those conditions (not unlike Arabs in Israel, however). If it were up to me, I would evacuate the remote settlements and keep those near the Green Line. The Palestinians would know, without need of anything being said, that if those settlers were threatened in Palestine, it would be a matter of only hours for Israel to invade and annex them. I think the implied threat is sufficient to keep the Palestinians honest on that score. But, just in case, there is an easy hostage: Jerusalem. I have suggested that while a Palestinian Jerusalem is likely inevitable, it should be an enclave, not contiguous to the rest of Palestine. This has several benefits. One is that Israel can control access to the city at its border with Palestine as a whole. This would allow the city to be open and individed. A collateral benefit is that nothing much would be required for Israel to seize control of Palestinian Jerusalem other than closing its border. Thus, if the Palestinians do not protect their Jewish minority, they would be at risk not only for having the settlements annexed but for losing their presence in Jerusalem permanently. It is not perfect, but I think it would be enough. It would certainly be a far cry better than the current situation. To have legally extinguished the Palestinian claims west of the Green Line, established a security balance, ended Israel's diplomatic isolation, and left easy channels for defense if necessary would be a vast improvement in every way over the unstable status quo.

- roidubouloi

May 24, 2011 at 12:39pm

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bulbman: Obamitis makes people delusional about the facts of arab muslim intolerance that descends from Jew-annihilation. just ignore those who can only repeat revisionist history that thinks this conflict is about land. Even it was about land, a truly visionary American president would suggest that direct negotiations must begin with the "2011 lines with mutual agreed swaps". The 1967 lines are the 1949 armistice lines. All Obama has done is to lead to yet another war, with Islamist ideology instead of Arab nationalist ideology. Must be having nightmares after a full day and state dinner in the bosom of Britain, although he did do a very nice rebound on appropriate gifts to the Queen, Prince Philip, and Prince Charles.

- K2K

May 24, 2011 at 6:31pm

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Oh really? The conflict is not about land? What then has it been about all the last 100 years? Talk about revisionist history.

- roidubouloi

May 24, 2011 at 10:04pm

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Where is Marty Peretz since this post? I've written TNR twice about this .. no reply.

- dream

July 12, 2011 at 6:21am

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It's a pity that Marty Peretz's deal with the current TNR editorship seems to be that whatever he writes will be published unedited. This underlines the contempt of the current crowd for Peretz, who has valuable things to day but needs an editor.

- mgorvine

July 20, 2011 at 11:16am

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