“The main issue is the nationality issue. No matter what we do in the area of equality, Israel will not be legitimate.”
I think this is the second most serious (after Iran) issue faced by Israel today. I’m reproducing in full the remarks made Tuesday at the Herzliya conference by Dr. Schueftan, Deputy Director, National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa. Unfortunately, the difficulties he describes will not go away by themselves. — Editor.
Barry Rubin had a very good column in the Jerusalem Post yesterday: Weakness and bad strategy. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but what struck me appears at the end, almost as an afterthought:
Partly due to its insolubility and partly to the many regional crises elsewhere, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue to decline in regional importance.
As for the Arab-Israeli conflict (as distinct from the Israeli-Islamist or Israeli-Iran conflicts), it exists only in demagogic speeches and the illusions of Westerners who know little about the region.
The real threats to Israel come from the soon-to-be nuclear Iran, as well as the Islamist Hamas and Hezbollah, funded and supported by Iran. So making an agreement with the Palestinians, as Peretz would like to do, can only increase the threat as long as the Palestinians are dominated by Hamas. And the same goes for Syria, where Hezbollah’s influence grows from moment to moment.
For us in the United States, there’s a lesson as well. The line of reasoning so beloved by James Baker and his Saudi patrons that says that the Israel-Palestinian dispute is at the root of the conflict in the Middle East has got it backwards. Trying to fix the region by forcing Israel to make concessions is actually strengthening the enemies of the United States — radical Shiite Iran and Sunni Islamists, solidifying their control of the area rather than cooling the conflict down.
Technorati Tags: Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel, Iran
Editor’s note: ‘Gary’ (not his real name) is an acquaintance. I’m posting the following in order to illustrate how some antisemitic notions – especially the ideas that the Jews control the mainstream media and use this control to prevent exposure of the their conspiratorial influences on everything else, are remarkably prevalent today.
I found the statement that the antisemite was just exercising his right of free speech somewhat strained, but it just could have been about not understanding the difference between ‘censured’ and ‘censored’.
I’ve obscured various details, such as the name of the blog from which he quotes, and so forth. Otherwise this is exactly what he sent me. I would especially like to receive comments about this.
…despite the criticisms that can be leveled at him, the recent effort by some leading intellectuals and media types to target Foxman as the man leading an effort to “silence” critics of Israel is something that even those who aren’t his biggest fans should be worried about. — Jonathan S. Tobin, The Jewish Exponent
First they came for Rosen and Weissman. But I didn’t speak up because AIPAC was too big for its britches. Then they came for Foxman, but I didn’t speak up because the ADL is tacky. You get the idea.
Carter, Mearsheimer/Walt, and all the others have a goal: to break American Jewry’s power to help Israel.
Read Tobin’s article about the attack on Abe Foxman here.
By Vic Rosenthal
“Every Palestinian contact that recognizes Israel, I see as a partner in negotiations – even if we’re speaking of Hamas,” [Amir] Peretz said at the Institute for Policy and Strategy of the IDC Herzliya, while not mentioning the two other conditions set by the Quartet – a cessation of terror activity and the recognition of previous Israel-Palestinian Authority peace agreements. — Jerusalem Post
Peretz has perhaps not noticed that Hamas’ ‘recognition’ of Israel is like my recognizing a tiger I meet in the street: I can’t avoid it, but I don’t agree that it has a right to be there.
