One can contrast two ways of thinking about Israel/Palestine. One focuses on the rights and wrongs of the conflict....
However, in relation to the strategy of Israel and its lobbyists abroad, there is an alternative approach, rather in the spirit of the comment made by detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon to Bridget O’Shaughnessy, confronted by her demands for help:
You’ve got to convince me that you know what it’s all about, that you’re not simply fiddling about by guess and by God, hoping it’ll come out all right in the end....
If I understand Henry k. Broder all right, on the basis of a brief look, his position is very similar to that of many of Israel’s British supporters. The underlying conception is of the country as an isolated outpost of Western civilization, among the barbarian hordes....LOL
Let us, simply for the sake of argument, accept the view of the rights and wrongs of the conflict implicit in this version, and ignore the simplistic nature of the picture. What I simply cannot understand is how on this basis one can construct a coherent strategy for the country which gives it a realistic prospect of long-term survival....
In 1919, the former Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, remarked: 'We had to die. But we could choose the means of our death, and we chose the most terrible.' Peoples in Europe, and also the Middle East, have been living with the consequences of that choice for almost a century.
In my view, the long-term prospects of a Jewish settler state in Palestine would be acutely problematic, at the best of times. However, the history of the country since 1967 has seen a repeated failure to take the least-worst option, which has boxed it into a dead end from which I have difficulty seeing any way out....
At the same time, Israel is able to exercise a very large amount of influence both on the United States, and on the European powers. And this influence has been deployed to get Americans and Europeans to pursue reckless courses -- not least, in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Meanwhile, Israel also has a large nuclear arsenal....
You may be confident that the Israeli government are 'supreme realists'. I think your confidence is quite delusional. Indeed, I am skeptical as to whether Netanyahu can afford to be a 'realist', as to look soberly at the options open to Israel would entail recognizing that the whole course Zionists of his stripe have pursued for decades has been disastrous for their country....
The catastrophic potentialities of this situation frighten the living daylights out of many, for reasons which have rather more to do with concerns for the fate of many a country... than for that of anyone in the Middle East.
In relation to other peoples, I think there is a lot to be said for the Hippocratic principle of trying to avoid harm. Emotional involvement is however not directed any more or less to Israelis than to Lebanese, Palestinians or indeed Iranians....
My impression of the Europeans both on a personal level and through anecdotes from others is that very many of them – perhaps up to half – believe in their moral superiority. And it is strikingly clear among very many European tourists to Lebanon, Syria, Iran....etc.!
Mr. Straw who did not come across as yet another sanctimonious European trying to lecture those benighted fools on their stupidity.
But this presumed moral superiority is the road to perdition, in my opinion, and possibly war, in my opinion.
The victory of Israel in 1967 War was indeed a disaster for Israel, for Jews, , for USA, for EU, and for Arabs in particular and Muslims in general.
It elevated a war between Arabs and Israelis into a religious war between Judaism and Islam.
There are 2 mosques at the site of the Temple Mont – one is built on the site were God had gathered all prophets for a prayer led by the Prophet Mohammad and the other is built on the site where the Prophet Mohammad had ascended to Heaven during his Night Journey.
These sites cannot remain under the control of non-Muslims in any future peace deal.
Yet my Jewish friends tell me that Israelis will never give that up....?
So the war in and for Palestine will continue; in my opinion unless something else is attempted.
And as it continues, it will inflame more and more religious passions.
The alternative, in my opinion, is a conference attended by US, Israel, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestinians to forge a new peace soonest....
Once these principals have agreed on a settlement, others such as EU, OIC, the Russian Federation, and China could be brought in to help implement it. EU, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Japan, and Korea will be needed to open their cheque-books and write big cheques to under-write the Peace.
Almost certainly a new dispensation must be created for the area between the Jordan River to the Sea – since the 2-state solution is long dead .....
After De Gaulle’s June 18 1940 speech, this French lawyer went to see him in order to find out what he could do to help. Knocked at De Gaulle’s hotel room and introduced himself. De Gaulle stated that he was just the person that he (De Gaulle) wanted to see; a lawyer to help him draft the post War French Constitution. And if someone else watched those two, during darkest days of 1940, working on a post-war French constitution, that person would have thought them to be stark raving maniacs....
Geostrategic context:
1- There is a pan-European policy....
2- This coercive diplomatic policy increased in tempo and intensity as the US and NATO positions in Iraq, Lebanon and in Afghanistan - indeed in South Asia - deteriorated.
3- At several junctures during the last 8 years; namely in 2003, in 2006, in 2007, and in 2010 the Iran Nuclear file could have been closed by US and EU.
4- This has been a Trans-Atlantic policy that twice - in the last 7 years, brought the world close to a war in the Middle East (perhaps even WWIII)....
Well, I do not buy this explanation of Israel, Shoah guilt, etc.
The Russian Federation had to publicly warn the United States and Europe that "attack on Iran was attack on Russian interests".
In my opinion, US and EU did not take these enormous risks on behalf of Israel, Jews, etc.
In effect, those who argue thus are attributing super-human cunning and cohesion to at most 12 million Jews on this planet.
I take the much simpler explanation: destruction of the independent geopolitical autonomy of Iran - a state in close proximity to where 40% of world energy is shipped....
Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there has not been a Muslim state with Strategic Autonomy until 1980....
Of course, Israeli leaders love the attention lavished on them by the Western powers--it fits right into their own hubris, their inflated sense of self-importance, and their delusions of being special....
Western antipathy to Iran has long surprised me, but perhaps it shouldn't. As many have emphasized, the influence of Israel and its lobby groups is surely profound. Taken alone, however, it's questionable whether they're quite enough to account for everything we see.
In much the same way that America became the Great Satan, the hostage crisis in 1980 and everything that followed (the mullahs, the desperate war with Iraq, the demonization of America and so on) almost certainly set attitudes towards Iran in stone for many in the west. Not a few of these are presumably now at the pinnacle of their power and influence, not only in the US but also elsewhere.
Entrenched attitudes, particularly when their roots feed on fear and anger and incomprehension, don't shift easily. We may not, therefore, need to fall back on deeper calculated agendas, to account for this otherwise apparently incomprehensible irrationality. Human foibles have perhaps provided a decent chunk of the following wind that Israel has needed.
Question is, I guess, whether the sheer scale of the strategic error under contemplation at last allows saner influences to gain the upper hand....?
...“Unless you’re so far over on the neocon side that you’re blind to geopolitical realities, there’s an overwhelming consensus that this is a bad idea,”
What is of more interest are the possible implications of a strike by Israel and/or the United States and later NATO, or a coalition of the Zioconned willing... Israel and the U.S. are playing each other right now, and unlike what some anti-American sites continuously purport, Israel is not the U.S., nor vice-versa... Yes, Israel has significant influence in U.S. Middle Eastern foreign policy, but they do have different agendas, . In this regard, Obama is a very interesting character, and he seems to have been groomed and hand chosen for this particular time. The zeitgeist is right for him, and he is right for the zeitgeist. I believe his allegiance is with his progenitors, that being the intelligence services, CIA to be exact.... I believe there is a battle currently going on behind the scenes as it relates to Israeli influence in U.S. politics and policy. Both constituencies are in bed together on many and ALL issues pertaining to the immediate countries surrounding Israel....and the infamous White House Murder INC's Shenanigans in the Levant and beyond, but it's a very uneasy alliance when it comes to Iran and Energy in a larger sense..., and both sides have eyes wide open and one foot out of the bed ready for a quick exit when that bed catches fire....the U.S. side being closest to the door, and there are no windows, so the U.S. has the upper hand....
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