Does the world face what some style as Armageddon because American pro-Israel groups still believe out-dated Israeli “public relations“?
According to Ha’aretz chief political columnist AKIVA ELDAR in an October 8, 2007 Democracy Now! interview, while the Israel lobby is “a very important instrument in order to pursue Israel’s policy… they’re a little bit behind the Israeli government and the Israeli people.” He clarifies: “We have seventy out of 120 members of the Knesset who support a two-state solution based on the ’67 lines.”
Then what’s the problem?
Says Eldar, “…if for forty years, you tell the [American] Jewish community that Israel cannot afford to give up the territories, they are important for Israel’s security, just overnight to tell [them], ‘Sorry, we were wrong. Now, we don’t need those territories,’ …It’s very difficult. I think that we are paying the price of having our PR doing a very good job for many years.”
The continuing “Palestinian problem” then, the core problem in the middle east which underpins the others according to The Iraq Study Group, Jimmy Carter and others, may be laid on the doorstep of too-effective Israeli “public relations,” especially as applied to the United States.
So the neocons, AIPAC, their amen corner, and other assorted groups, riding Israel’s coatails on to what some style Armageddon, are clutching a coat the bulk of Israeli society is no longer wearing.
And there’s an underlying anchoring sub-problem: As many Israelis have noted, it’s much easier for Israelis to criticize Israel and the Israeli government than it is for Americans and American Jews — who are likely labeled “anti-semitic” or “self-hating jews” — even have their livelihoods destroyed.
This roadblock to free and open discussion here in the United States endangers not only those men, women, and children living in the middle east, but people throughout the world.
So, the key to mid-east peace is already in the lock. But who in America has the cahones to turn it?
If justice and reason ever prevail and the Territories become part of a Palestinian state, the status of the “settlers” will have to be addressed. Of course, the proposed solution will be for the “settlers” to be compensated and resettled inside Israel (with America footing the bill, which will be enormous). My solution would be to let them stay in place and become proud new citizens of Palestine. After all, they supposedly have a deep attachment to this stolen land. If they wish to return to Israel proper, they can look for Palestinians to buy them out.
“Two-state solution” = BLOCKADE AND STARVE instead of OCCUPY AND CRUSH.
Exactly. The Palestinian “state” will be no state in any normal sense at all. This is the Sharon – Wolfowitz solution. A slave labour colony with no power over its affairs, ever shrinking borders and wages at 15% of the Israeli minimum.
It is genocide.
So, you ‘think’ a two-state solution (rhymes with Final Solution) will *solve* the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and will *not* be merely a prelude to the war with Iran, do you?
Well, “Go ahead. Make my day.”
The prophets, of course, have something quite different to say.
But, after all, what could *they* (being nothing more than religious *lunatics*) possibly know?
Some people believe the Truth when they are told.
Others, unfortunately, will not believe until they see with their own eyes–*too late*, of course–that the prophets were not wrong.
Michael Cecil
Michael Cecil,
For those of us not familiar “the prophets” of which you speak, what are you talking about? And, excuse me, but isn’t this country interested in expanding democracy? And wouldn’t ending Israel’s occupation and granting Palestinian statehood be a real democratic thing to do?
Richard Vajs,
Don’t have your e-mail, so I have to respond here.
All of your questions are certainly valid and important, although skewed by the propaganda vomited out by the media.
They are covered on my web page at:
http://unsealing-the-seven-seals.blogspot.com/
Michael Cecil
(!) GIGO
Eldar and all of the members of the groups he cites should much, much more strongly stand up to AIPAC, in fact, denounce its strongarm tactics, warmongering messages, etc.; in fact, try to FORCE them and other Israeli lobbies that speak in the name of Jewish people and Israel to stop lobbying/connecting with our US government to go to war with Iran and other Mid-Eastern countries, BEFORE it is too late, and we, USA., start a war with Iran. Believe me, if that happens, there will be all hell to pay — welcome Police State USA. NO THANK YOU! Alkiva Eldar is too sweety, sweety about these scoundrels that he speaks about to Amy Goodman, and her manner of interviewing him was also a disappointment to me. I feel really, really, really sorry for the Palestinian people.
Nobody asked, but isn’t it a rather perverse notion that the creation of another, albeit counterbalancing perhaps, cold and cruel monster is the key to peace?
I read somewhere that Hitler’s party was pro-zionist and was heavy envolved in a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. I wonder if that Regime had the same interests as America–Israel as a Oil bouncer in Middle-East. Turth hurts !
A link to an important article by Arthur Neslen on how Israel and its extreme right wing has tried to become the supposed and infallible Vatican of all the world’s Jews, whether or not they agree:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arthur_neslen/2007/02/let_a_thousand_flowers_bloom.html