DEAFENING SILENCE by Harper

 
The deafening silence in Washington on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ heroic defiance of the Obama Administration’s efforts to kill of the Palestinian bid for United Nations full membership leads me to an obvious conclusion:  The White House has put tremendous pressure on everyone within their reach to go silent.  No doubt, similar efforts from AIPAC and others are bolstering this top-down effort to pretend that last week’s events in New York never happened.  Of course a few brave voices like Henry Siegman did not buy into the omerta, but the vast majority of people who should have commented on the Obama capitulation to Bibi Netanyahu have so far towed the line.  

            This is both unfortunate and foolhardy.  The die has been cast, and there will be a vote—sooner or later—at the UN Security Council.  It may, if the Obama Administration has its way, take months for that showdown vote to occur.  But it will occur, and likely, in the meantime, the PA will win General Assembly approval for non-member observer state status.  This will give the Palestinians access to the International Court of Justice and other UN bodies.  I know that senior Israeli Defense Force officers are very unhappy at the prospect of having to restrict their overseas travels, based on pending complaints and threats of arrest or interrogation. 

            The behavior of President Obama in New York—his patronizing scolding of the Palestinians in his address to the General Assembly, his pressure on Security Council member states like Nigeria, Gabon and Bosnia Herzegovina, to abstain from a Security Council vote on Palestinian full UN membership, and worst of all, his groveling with Bibi—cannot be swept under the rug.  An apparently deep rift has opened between Washington and Paris, after French President Sarkozy offered an alternative mediation to Washington’s hardline stance against any Palestinian action at the UN.  President Obama, according to my White House sources, pitched a fit that the French are suggesting that all roads to Middle East peace do not pass through Washington.  Europe is deeply divided over the fate of Palestine.  Saudi Arabia stepped in on the eve of the General Assembly to provide the PA with $200 million and a promise of further Gulf states aid, thus offsetting the Israeli freeze on tax payments to the PA and the anticipated U.S. Congress cut off of aid. 

            The next step is uncertain, but clearly the events in New York City last week and this will be looked back upon as a watershed.  The U.S.-led Middle East peace process has been shown for what is has been since at least the day that Bill Clinton left office, and maybe earlier:  all process and no peace.  Abbas has, for the moment, emerged from the shadows of the late Yasser Arafat and established himself as a leader in his own right.  It was a deft political move. The PA and Fatah are strengthened.  All of the good will that President Obama garnered from his Cairo speech in 2009 and his address to the same UN General Assembly in Sept. 2010 has been squandered, ostensibly in order to retain a few Jewish votes and the hope of continuing AIPAC largess.  I doubt he will realize either. 

Comments

[Matthew]

I know what faux outrage is. What about faux policy? This is getting embarrasssing. See http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-israeli-settlement-freeze-should-not-be-precondition-to-peace-talks-1.387038 and

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-condemns-israeli-plan-for-new-construction-beyond-green-line-1.387055

But President Obama is "disappointed." You can almost feel
the fear in Netanyahu's cabinet....it just looks and sounds like riotous laughter.

To paraphrase Norma Desmond, America is still big, it's the Presidents who got small.

[Matthew]

I think Nobel Peace Prizes should be made of the same substance as Kindle books. In that way, the Nobel Committe could revoke the prize and credit President Obama's account for one speech.

[YT]

J,

Adult supervision?

Like who? The Indians & the Chinese?

Or maybe the norks,like I just found out just seconds ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

Don't know 'bout the norks being adult though.

Probably the only thing adult is Ol' kim gettin' his monthly subscription of porn mags from various countries in his hood.

Still, my guess is plenty of Americans like yourself (Europeans?) gettin' tired of hearing 'bout the Samson Option.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

[YT]

elkern,

Re: the best "web forum"

Je suis d'accord, monsieur.

Thanks to the active participation of fellas like yourself.

[Anna-Marina]

Some new evidences for the boasted peace process between the Palestinians and Israel:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/201192714659256576.html

Who in a sound mind can ever trust Netanyahu? Israel is beyond redemption.

[JohnH]

The media may have disappeared the Palestine story, but it is alive and well in the Arab press. On Al-Jazeera coverage seems to be 24/7, reminding younger generations of the disaster and the perfidy of the West. I doubt that coverage will stop until well after the final votes are taken.

This is a public relations catastrophe for Israel and for Obama, who will likely be blamed for finally losing the Arab world by hardening its public opinion into something akin to the enmity felt for the US government in places like Iran and Venezuela.

[turcopolier]

YT

I caution you against the kind of stupidity into which you seem to be drifting. cur out the phony "hick" voicing and stop spreading israeli agitprop like the "samson option."

[YT]

Col.,

Aye,sir!

[Thomas]

Sir,

How about allowing Ali Saleh to return to Yemen on Friday, was that looking after the Kingdom's interests, an eff you to the US or both?

[J]

The Chinese and Indians behave as 'adults', the Israelis do NOT. The Israelis remind me of a spoiled selfish self-centered brat that doesn't have enough about themselves to wipe their noses, let alone their rears, they depend on others to do it for them. I for one am tired of U.S. having to 'diaper' the Israelis repeatedly at every turn. Time for the Israeli child to be returned to is baby crib and its toys taken away from it, until it can mind and act like a responsible child and behave. Notice I did not say 'adult', I said 'child'. The Chinese and Indians are engaged in a game of chess, an 'adult' game, something the Israeli selfish child would never understand.

[arbogast]

The story is Obama. What a sorry excuse for a man. What a pitiful creature. In Holmesian fashion we must eliminate the impossible and whatever remains...

I'll tell you what remains. He has been trying since the day he was elected to feather his nest for his retirement from the White House. He is pals with every get-rich-quick artist in Chicago. He has no goals for his "Presidency", just for his life after. What a sick joke.

I don't understand for a minute why the Right complains. What has he done wrong? Where is the fat cat he has not gotten down on his knees and begged to accept him?

The story is Obama.

[Nancy K]

Arbogast, I am disappointed in President Obama, but I disagree with all you have mentioned. You have no proof that he only cares about feathering his nest, that is really a ridiculous statement. I wish he were not such an appeaser and would get in the face of those on the right. I wish he would tell them that if it is class warfare they want, it is class warfare they will get, that whole class warfare cry by republicans is just stupid. I also wish he would tell Netanyahu where he could shove all the new settlements he is allowing to be built.
Do I think Obama will do either of these, no. Will I still vote for him, Yes. Exactly who on the Republican slate is not a complete and utter idiot, well Romney isn't, but I don't think fundementalists would ever vote for a Mormon.

[YT]

J,

Re: "The Chinese and Indians are engaged in a game of chess"

http://thedailyattack.com/2011/09/23/china-could-have-2-million-spies/

I have no idea how much truth there is in article (propaganda piece?) I've linked.

Or those accusations (real? or otherwise?) about Chinese cyber attacks/disruptions on other nations' infrastructure and espionage on the www.

I'm not looking forward to more friction & grudges at a time when everything else (world economic health, global ecological disorder, etc.) seems to be adding more "fire to the flames" （火上加油）.

The chess analogy/metaphor is kind of out-of-date even for folks who are well-versed in Realpolitik/Machtpolitik.

Even with what the Chinese excel at, it still seems a zero-sum game. --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

I just hope this guy(http://www.paragkhanna.com/?p=264) here is not just trying to sell his books to the uninitiated or ignorant, nor even trying to set some agenda of sorts for some (self) interest groups.

[YT]

Re: "fire to the flames"

Damn! I meant "add more oil to the flames".

[walrus]

Obama needs to be primaried out of contention, which I expect won't happen.

I expect Four more years of Obama toadying to the rich and famous, during which time the destruction of the middle class will continue.

A win by Perry or suchlike is possible if the American debt crisis causes an implosion before the election.

Meanwhile all eyes are on Europe - which has the money to deal with its problems if it wants to.

Wall Street knows that if it can sink Europe and the Euro, then funds will flow into American Treasuries which will keep the American Ponzi scheme afloat a little longer. This is why the American Financial press produces more "europorn" each day.

The real deal will be the outcome of the super committee in Congress. That will bring down the curtain.

[Phil Giraldi]

Exactly who? Ron Paul. He issued a statement yesterday saying that he would not veto Palestinian membership in the UN and also noted that Israeli interests and US interests are not one and the same. Incredible courage for an American politician.

[mo]

This was a gambit by Abbas; A man who is by no means desperate thanks to foreign largesse making a desperate act for a desperate people.

One can only think that he wanted the history of the Palestinian people to view him as more than an Israeli lapdog; Maybe he saw that pathetic picture of his hugging Olmert once too many times. Maybe he saw the storm coming after the Arab "spring".

And the reasoning is almost irrelevant. The fact is it is done and its the consequences that matter.
For the Palestinians the consequence is that an ever-increasingly right wing Israel will respond as it does with all threats to what it wants. It will harden its position and start making life difficult for the Palestinians. Settlements will increase (and, if todays reports are taken seriously, even annexed).

The US will continue to uhmm and ahh. The "Quartet" will continue to fight amongst itself about producing statements that dont offend Israel.

The only possible consequence of this, assuming everyone plays their part as expected, is that the Palestinians will drift back towards violence. Hamas's position will be vindicated and any pretence at a process (I will not out of respect of the intelligence of everone here include the word peace before process) will be well and truly abandoned. The Palestinians will go back to demanding Palestine from the Med to the Dead; The Israelis will continue to be belligerent.

So when the talking is over and the belligerence truly begins the political positions of Egypt, Turkey and Syria at that point will dictate how bad it gets for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. If that triumvirate becomes wedded to the Palestinian cause, and you throw in Iran, Iraq and Hizballah, and well, theres going to be a lot of nervousness in the Middle East.

[rjj]

American politicians can and do show courage until they have something to lose - at which time the political consultants intervene.

So

1. the major parties run a virtual "Who Wants to Be Bibi's Number One Butt-Boy Pageant"
2. all of a sudden there is increased support for the only guy who is not a contestant, and
3. all of a sudden the Ministry of Truth starts issuing hand-wringing epiphanies such as ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/friedman-israel-adrift-at-sea-alone.html

Wonder if 1-3 are somehow connected.

[John Waring]

I would like to nominate President Obama for the award of giving the most contemptible speech to the UN by a sitting president within living memory.

[mac]

True, very true....but I am wondering why now? How was the UN card not played many moons ago?

[David]

arbogast,

Ron Susskind, the author of the just released book on the Obama presidency said in an interview that he asked that very question to some fat cats. The fat cats told Susskind that yes, Obama has given them everything they had wanted, but when they complain, they get even more. Somehow I can't
imagine this ever working with Presidents Johnson or Nixon. As Mathew said in another comment, America is still big, but our presidents have become small.

[David]

I second the nomination.

[Matthew]

Third!

[J]

Phil,

I am sorely disappointed with Ron Paul situation, while he talks common-sense and talks a good game, he doesn't deliver because others have made sure he can't deliver. Virtually every piece of common-sense legislation he has introduced in the Congress has been sidelined or shot down, his audit the fed was watered down even before it made it through. Every time that Paul has gone against the Israeli power bases, they have made sure he was sidelined, like when he voted against their various and sundry legislation supporting Israel's push to have Jerusalem as their own sole exclusive Israeli ownership. Paul will never get anywhere, he will never be President. He can issue statement after statement all he wants, in the end they will all be meaningless as the Israel power base will make sure of that.

The Israel lobby has sewn up too many avenues making sure that Paul is blocked at every turn. It's sad that the Israelis are successfully preventing we Americans from setting our own course of events.

[J]

All,

I have to broach the 64 dollar question -- What is it going to take to make the Israel lobby let loose its Soviet-style iron grip from around our nation's political system so we as Americans can set our own course? Law suits? Use of Deadly Force? Something has got to give eventually. Either the Israel lobby stops their stupidity and dangerous behavior towards running our U.S. towards a cliff, or some of our fellow Americans are going to be so fed up that they will see no other avenue than the use of deadly force. And there won't be a fed agency surveillance or otherwise that will be able to stop them and protect the Israeli lobby. The Israeli lobby are becoming not only dangerous to our nation, but are becoming dangerous to themselves, and they're too stupid and too arrogant to realize it. When they finally wake up to the 'oooh shit moment', it'll be too little too late on their Israeli lobby part. And when that time comes (and it's coming like a steady moving freight train), this American will have no sympathy for them whatsoever, as they will have made their own bed.