Israel’s Plan to Build in East Jerusalem Clouds Peace Talks - By Ethan Bronner

"The Palestinians say they cannot return to negotiations without an extension of the freeze because they are watching their future state disappear under their feet; Mr. Netanyahu says the fate of settlement construction, which has been going on for four decades and now houses hundreds of thousands of Israelis, should be part of the mix of contentious issues that the two sides negotiate, not a condition for negotiations."  Ethan Bronner

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Yes.  It is true.  The United States wants peace between these two peoples more than either of them does.  The two (or three) regional sides want peace but they want a peace that favors their group and that disadvantages the other.  In typical Middle Eastern fashion the concept of a "win-win" outcome is conspicuously absent from their minds.

How much longer will the US continue to participate in this farce?  The longer we maintain this humoring of the foolish behavior involved, the more danger there is that one or the other of them will succeed in having us concede something that we should not just to keep them at the table.

This is going nowhere.  The Palestinian side wants to see what they are going to get.  Bibi and company want to see how much of that they can avoid giving the Palestinians.  This does not lead to peace.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

PL's comment hits the proverbial nail on the head.

[Norbert N, Salamon]

The limiting factor on USA protection of Israel is one or both of the following:

1., Peak oil, as per US joint command 2015 at the latest - USA can not act against her self interest re oil sources: Arab and Muslim nations [and Venezuela].

2., Economic collapse of the USA reserve currency status -- concurrent collapse of the USA economy.

There is no hope of the USA political elite abandoning Israel until such protection is untenable. Either of the above scenarios would make such untenable.

[Matthew]

Col: Considering the size of our budget, the amount of aid to Israel (and Egypt) is miniscule. As long as the Sunni kings continue to spend billions on our weapons and stash their cash here, how will this ever change?

[walrus]

"If not now, when?"

My guess is that Bibi realises that time is not on his side and is therefore going for all he can get as fast as he dares.

Time is not on his side for Three reasons.

1. The American economy is going to require that defence expenditure be cut back very shortly, and by a lot. This will preclude an American strike on Iran for economic as well as domestic political reasons. Given that almost unimaginable levels of domestic austerity are going to be called for, I don't believe the luxury of an Iran strike will be tolerated.

2. As Peter Beinart stated, the variance between American values and Israeli actions is going to become too big for American liberal Jews to tolerate for much longer. The settlers cannot and will not be contained. This means that the potency of AIPAC is a wasting asset.

3. Every day that Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq spend building their economies makes them harder for Israel to attack.

Bibi has to grab what he can now while America still supports him. He is calculating that he can hang on to all of it after the American retreat begins; "Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law." as they say.

[Patrick Lang]

Matthew

Do they stash their cash here? There are better places. pl

[fanto]

walrus,
the American liberal Jews seem the minority opinion among American Jews - so I do not follow the logic of AIPAC as "wasting asset"
and with "possession" comes power of law, so that the liberal Jews will be the wasting group, no?

[br]

Cant agree with you about this Col Lang, that the "United States wants peace between these two peoples more than either of them does."

I reckon the Palestinians want it a bit more than most.

I agree with Chomsky's basic thesis of "rejectionism": that the reason why there is no peace deal in Palestine is because it is consistently rejected by the US and Israel.

Uri Avnery once made a remark that if Arafat had the same offer Sadat had (all his territory back, every cm), he would sign in an instant. And everyone, the Arab League, the PLO, even Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran would accept this.

But Israel has no intention of abandoning the Occupied Territories. They want to push the colonial project forward. It's a colonial project at the outset and they are trapped in it.

[jerseycityjoan]

The Israelis seem to think that to delay on this is to win.

But how so?

What is going to change? -- what deux ex machina can they be hoping for? -- that will materially improve their position in 25, 50 or 100 years?

Can it be that this conflict serves as a politically convenient distraction for Israeli leaders, as it does for many others around the world?

If this were settled satisfactorily tomorrow, what issues would Israel have to face that it avoids now?

[Byron Raum]

Obama is just following a long-honored American tradition. Every American President has pretended that he can solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

Much has been made of the fact that Americans are not aware of their place in history and that a few decades seems a long time to us. Yet it seems to me that if both sides spent less time living in the past and a little bit living in the future, they might have a better chance at peace.

[Patrick Lang]

BR

I really disagree with that. We keep making mistakes because we steadfastly insists that context is unimportant. this is part of the American delusion that the world is new. pl

[Dorcas]

Everybody loves peace. Let us fight for peace all over the globe