You don’t usually come across such loud and candid public debates about Israel within the United States. Or well, at least I myself haven’t. This is certainly a first.
Throughout the debate I found myself agreeing most of the time with Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.
Michael Scheuer, a former unit director at the CIA, came across as a bit of an angry nut. Disloyal American fifth column?
Erm, okay.
As for Alan Dershowitz, and especially the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold… well, they certainly cracked me up with some of their ludicrous statements.
Here’s part 1 of 5.
Here’s the rest:
- Getting Tough on Israel - Part 2 of 5
- Getting Tough on Israel - Part 3 of 5
- Getting Tough on Israel - Part 4 of 5
- Getting Tough on Israel - Part 5 of 5
Given the results of the debate, can we predict the gradual downfall of the notorious AIPAC, and the eventual rise of the better J-Street as a replacement?
Looks like it.
However, with American public opinion on Israel seemingly shifting towards the left, we can only expect more friction between the US and Israel as Israeli internal politics tilt towards the right.
Hint: Lieberman.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, that’s a way that has historically lead to peace: get tough on the Jews!
I’m not sure about the left-right distinction any more.
We used to call the supporters of religious fundamentalism and nationalism , the anti-Semites and imperialists, “right-wingers”, while the supporters of independent smaller countries, the Kibbutz movement, the minorities were the “left”.
This has somehow changed in the last ten years.
Suddenly everything that was bad about the right, the nationalism, the tolerance of religious fundamentalism, the anti-Semitism has become acceptable, while what at least I considered good about the right, the economic policies and the traditionalism, became evil.
These days a supporters of total Arab rule over the entire middle east is the good guy. But a supporter of European rule over the middle east was an evil imperialist just a few decades ago. (Does anybody believe that the Kurds felt more independent under Arab rather than British rule?)
So this is how we get closer to peace? We get tough on the only independent (from the Arabs) country in the middle east? Did this ever work anywhere else?
Interestingly, though, you do get these sorts of debates in Israel. Often. Which is what I understood was Dershowitz’s point throughout.
I wonder if the world will ever “get tough” on the Arab side.
Perhaps the world could demand at least ONE concession, SOMETHING from the Arab side that would show that there really is a willingness to make peace on both sides.
When I look at my world map and see the so-called “Arab world”, i.e. the middle east, I can see dozens of Arab countries and I cannot see Israel because it is so small. How anyone can look at the same map and come to the conclusion that Israel is too big and that there are not enough Arab states is a mystery to me.
Instead of adding more Arab states, perhaps the world should start adding more non-Arab states, like a free Tamazgha or an Aramaean state, or perhaps the odd independent state for Nilo-Saharan peoples currently living (and often dying) under Arab rule. I don’t think anybody has ever tried that.
Once all those peoples get their rights back, we can start worrying about the few Arabs living under worse conditions than the Jews (but better than most other middle-easterners), if there is still interest in it.
One thing that could be done immediately is for the Arabs to open the “refugee camps” and allow the “refugees” out. That’s not something Israel can do even if it wanted to.
Then perhaps the fighting should stop. For that to happen, the Arabs will have to stop attacking Israel. That’s also not something Israel can do. Israel can take fire for a few years without shooting back, but if it doesn’t end, there won’t be peace, I think that much is obvious.
As for the so-called main problem, the Israeli “settlements”, I think they should be treated just like Arab settlements in Israel. Can a PLO state protect them from anti-Semitic criminals? If not, Israel will have to do that. Just like the PLO and other Arab organisations reserve for themselves the right to protect Arab settlements in Israel against Jewish attacks. (But which Arab settlement in Israel is constantly under attack like the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are?)
Yeah, that’d be great Brehm, let’s see how many ways we can sub-divide the world. If you speak a different dialect, you get a state. If you speak a dialect and have a hairy nose, you get another state. Nose-picking one-hairy-legged Aramaic-speaking Chinese-food-loving Ghanaians of Paraguay unite! Cast off your shackles of oppression and demand your free and independent state!
The world needs unified states based on ideas of shared civic values anyone can accept, not endless subdivision based on ethnicity. The failure of ethnic states can be seen everywhere from Israel to Pakistan to Apartheid South Africa to Rwanda. Unified states or past empires often have severe failings in living up to the ideal of equal rights, but that’s just the point: those failures are failures of promoting equality. Creating a state on a foundation of non-chosen identity (ethnic, religious, whatever) ensures that state is choosing ethnic cleansing, genocide, or apartheid from its very inception. It is choosing failure at its foundation. States based on shared values may succeed or fail to live up to them, but they have an option of choosing to achieve a unified successful society. Ethnic states toss the option out from the beginning.
Hey Jamal, why did you leave off every Arab Muslim state when you slammed Israel for being an ethnic state? Don’t they count?
This is nonsense. Israel is a success story, one of the few in the Middle East. You don’t call failure a mini state turned a hi-tech superpower. And Ruanda, Pakistan and South Africa are anything but ethnic states. They are multi-ethnic states which is the reason that they failed.
South Africa seems to be now in advanced stages of disintegration. Jewish community has all but collapsed with 1/3 of it already out of the country and the rest on the way to Israel and elsewhere. The white community shrank bt 20%-25% and the exodus is continuing. Many say that South Africa is on the way to become another Zimbabwe. Hardly an example of a big success of the post Apartheid South Africa.
This is what everyone should do:
Look into themselves, not others.
Consider that everyone is connected, and be still enough to know who you really are - outside of all the external influences, programming and upbringing that we were brought up in.
Who are we if we were born in another country with a different skin, language, education?
Why are we so associated with our minds?
Are our minds, real?
Who are we, who are we all, really?
http://www.hislatestwords.com
Him
You and your mind are sure not real. Go away, you ghost
Suddenly everything that was bad about the right, the nationalism, the tolerance of religious fundamentalism, the anti-Semitism has become acceptable, while what at least I considered good about the right, the economic policies and the traditionalism, became evil.
You mean, according to the left? I’m a bit confused by your wording here. The left has always been pretty much the way it is now, here in the US. At least, it has been for as long as I can remember, and I remember the hippies. Maybe its just a case of you not being exposed to the truth about them until recently. The internet and other forms of pervasive global media make it pretty hard for people to hide what they are all about
The best argument against a “Palestinian” state I have heard in a while.
Or, alternatively, we just make all the middle east Arab without caring for “civic values” or minority rights.
The world doesn’t “need” unified states. The age of imperialism is over. What the world needs is free countries that associate based on their own self-interest (call it “civic values” if you want).
We’ll see how much the Kurds want to be unified with the Arabs now that they have a choice. And we have seen how much the Jews want to be unified with the Arabs who tried to drive them out of the middle east. Or ask the people of Darfur how great the experiment has worked for them, or the people in southern Sudan.
[quote]
The failure of ethnic states can be seen everywhere from Israel to Pakistan to Apartheid South Africa to Rwanda.
[/quote]
Israel is a failure? Really? Last time I was there I saw a rich, advanced country. Have you ever visited Israel?
Pakistan is not an ethnic state, it’s a state based solely on a religion. The ethnicity and languages of Pakistanis are the same as in Afghanistan and India.
Apartheid South Africa treated the natives better than the Arab countries do. I haven’t heard of Afrikaaners slaughtering blacks by the hundred thousands, but I hear such news from Arab Sudan every year.
The Rwandan civil war was a conflict between two ethnic groups. I fail to see how this is a failure of an “ethnic state” given that it was so clearly a failure of forcing two peoples to live in the same state.
I personally don’t care about ethnicity, but about common culture and language (and those “civic values” you seem to to see everywhere but in nation states).
If you are looking for “civic values” that unite a country, I suggest you visit Israel. You will be surprised. It’s the most impressive example of a country and people united by shared values that I have ever seen.
Craig,
In Germany the left was traditional FOR minorities, FOR multiculturalism, and FOR socialism.
Now they hate minorities (they want the entire middle-east to be one big Arab world), support Islamisation (which is the opposite of multiculturalism) and eschew Christianity and Judaism, and, for some reason, show the greatest disdain for classical socialist values.
Ah, I see… you were talking about your politics over there. I stopped trying to figure out European politics about a decade ago. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation to the way things are in America. Which is odd, since Western nations supposedly have so much in common.
Israel was more connected to Europe than America for most of its modern existence. Until 1980 (I think) Israeli passport were still issued in Hebrew and French rather than Hebrew and English.
I just checked my passport out of curiosity, and its in English, French and Spanish. Since i don’t think the US has any special connection to France or any Spanish-speaking country, I assume that’s done for practical reasons. Meaning that Americans are most likely to travel to countries where people speak (or can speak as a second language) one of those three languages.
Not saying I dispute your assertion about Israelis feeling more connected to Europe, though. I have no idea about that.
Craig,
Your passport is in English, Spanish and French because those are the languages of the countries you are most likely to travel to, your closest neighbours.
And the same probably is true for Israeli passports. In the past Israelis were most likely to travel to France. Now they are more likely to travel to the US.
Why? Lieberman is a “moderate”, like those Arab leaders. If he were an Arab and not a Jew he would be hailed as the second coming of Sadat with his views.
But since he is Jewish, he is a right-wing extremist and a racist.
And that’s why I would vote for him. Anyone who is called a racist because he is a Jews deserves my vote.
Scheuer’s an example of a man who watched his targets for so long that he began sympathizing with them - to the point of mimicking their views regarding the so-called “fifth column” of the US. I find his views of Israel and its supporters within the US to be, first and foremost, a mirror-image of himself - the man’s so utterly arrogant and obnoxious that I’d say the US would be much more stable in ridding itself of Michael Scheuer’s continued public spotlight, as I tend to find a person who treats a large segment of his own countrymen as a cancerous mental growth that needs to be fenced-off in great need of some fencing-off of his own.
Not to mention that he insists on dubbing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a “religious war”, which just makes me wonder if he’d ever seen an actual religious war before, or at least read of one properly. The increasing religious element within the Israeli-Palestinian discourse is noteworthy in and by itself, but the conflict is still centered on land, and pivots around two mutually-hostile national-ethnic groups that share that land.
I much preferred listening to Dore Gold later, at least initially - afterward he was basically dodging issues he wasn’t comfortable talking about, which made him laughable. His good points apparently ended with his prepared initial speech.
Burg… never liked him, I’m afraid, and this from his Israeli days. He has a penchant for demagoguery (”one of the longest wars in history”) and playing for the crowd - which he did here by bashing Bush’s policies and playing on the crowd’s American pride… which is little different from what happened in the Bush days, which is underlying certainty that “America knows best, even when we don’t bother with the facts”. Burg played on those strings of a benevolent United States that will rush in to fix all, regardless of past failures at such very policies.
Burg played the crowd well, I’ll give him that. My hat off to the professional politician, with his picturesque comparison of the US to a “parent” of the Middle-Eastern as “children”.
Burg won the debate by talking about hope. About the myth of the Obama Messiah. And he won by talking back to the otherwise incredibly erudite and biting Tim Sebastian.
*shrug* A politician will out-debate anyone. He will even out-debate the idiot sitting next to him who was otherwise undermining their position in front of the crowd.
I was quite amused by the “carrot and carrot” thing, though.
As for Dershowitz… his argument regarding the possible fallout of pressure is a sound one - Clinton’s ended in the Second Intifada. He became a bit weird later, but his main point remained that Israeli internal pressure is all that’s needed to get Israel geared up for negotiations and agreements is as sound as it gets - that’s just fact. Dershowitz seems to be more familiar with Israeli internal debate than most, and while I wouldn’t place my bets on Ehud Barak’s influence (dead horse, and his party’s rotting away under him), the Israeli peace camp won’t be invigorated by US pressure - it would, in fact, be invigorated by something resembling a peace process in which not only *they* participate.
Gold’s right on the money regarding US foreign aid, by the way - it all goes straight back to US arms deals, and the bulk of it is the Israeli air-force… such as, you know, long-range bombers and bunker-buster bombs. So his argument regarding cutting down *that* is clear - international affairs are a matter of perceptions. If Iran perceives that Israel no longer has the US to sell it what is, essentially, the only conventional weaponry that can reach Iran at all, or to participate in Israeli projects that are capable of defending Israel against Iranian ballistic missiles… then Israel is suddenly a *lot* weaker, regardless of what it actually has in its hands at the point of aid cutoff and what it is capable of developing itself.
And yes, looking around the world… Israel *is* the most small-scale conflict of its kind, and the only one where the obviously stronger opponent is actively tying a hand and a leg behind its back. Or even bothering with moral considerations at all. Most national-ethnic conflicts across the planet end with devastating genocides that leave hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dead and buried in unmarked mass graves.
Liked the Canadian who could barely hold her composure. And Scheuer’s obvious baiting of Dershowitz, which only showed him an even *bigger* asshole and nutter. Also liked Raza (sp?) from Pakistan’s question to Scheuer, which couldn’t quite understand - probably took him a while to work out the whole “listening to dumb little people who make up the country, and what they believe” thing, when obviously Scheuer Knows Best.
But my final line, based on the end results? *shrug* Meaningless, really. Georgetown Uni’s staff is more liberal than the average US uni (they contributed much more to Barack Obama’s elections campaign than others) so the student demographic is likely of a similar trend, and a crowd of young university students *is* more liberal on, on average, than the actual average in the US populace.
So what did it prove, exactly? That young uni students are liberal-minded? I think most of us already knew that. Interesting debate nonetheless - mud-slinging included. But I found nothing conclusive there other than Burg knowing his crowd, Gold being almost clueless, Dershowitz being a rather nice if emotional guy, and Scheuer being an obnoxious idiot.
Personally, I’m less interested in US pressure and more in rumors on the matter of revising the Arab Peace Initiative. I find the rumor to be a bit *too* optimistic to be real, mind, but one can hope… if it is true, then King Abdullah of Jordan is obviously far too good for this region, and should probably watch his back to avoid the fate of his great-grandfather.
Cannot agree more with Andrew on this subject.
Furthermore, there are always double standards in these kind of debate. Take e.g. Jerusalem. If in the hands of Jews, everyone nags and whines about it. If in the hands of Arabs, it is considered all natural. It’s not. Jews are longing for Jerusalem in their prayers for ages whereas Arabs are certainly not. I believe a sick jealousy of our Arab brethren towards the Jewish population is the real problem in the Middle East and islam is just an excuse to through oil on the fire (although there are pretty many anti-Jewish quotes in the islamic holy books - so I’m not so sure about this).
@Nobody, you’re being unfair towards South Africa. It is not easy to put back on track millions of ’slaves’ into normal labour. I read an interesting article recently on Zuma and the people he collected around him. It sounds promising. He was careful enough to put Pieter Mulder as deputy agriculture minister. Smart move. Especially as huge farms usually are still in the hands of the white population. If more of these smart moves are made, I doubt South Africa will become a second Zimbabwe.
Oh, and in case you mention it, there are serious doubts about his allegation that he’d rape someone.
to throw oil on the fire, not “through”. It’s been a looooong day
I don’t care for this rape story and even if South Africa actually degenerates to the level of Zimbabwe does not really matter. The point is that a rainbow nation South Africa is not and at the current rate of deterioration it is not and will not be any success story.
On South Africa, I’d add that both Mbeki and Zuma both played the “struggle against the white oppressors” ideological game vis-a-vis Zimbabwe, treating Mugabe as a natural ally and essentially supporting that country’s dictatorship and utter collapse.
Zuma only changed his views in 2007, which was when it became more convenient to gain the favor of people in South Africa who were opposed to Mbeki’s idiotic “black solidarity” with murderous dictators, and as such better pave his way to the presidency. Until then he was also part of the crowd that talked about “Mugabe the anti-colonialist hero”, and “racist western criticism”.
The problem with revolutionaries is that they live in a dream, and then make it a nightmare when the dream doesn’t come true. Time will tell if Zuma actually got around to waking up.
He is. And so was his great-great-uncle, King Faisal of Syria and Iraq.
That was the first time since the beginning of this war that the Arabs have made any kind of concession at all.
Before this it was always Israel making concessions. “Land for Peace” can work both ways. How much land are the Arabs willing to give to Israel in exchange for peace? We know that Israel is willing to give land for peace. So do the Muslims value peace higher than the Jews do?
As usual Roman, very nicely and articulately written! It’s a great summary of the debate you’ve got there.
I wasn’t aware that Georgetown University is liberal. But now it makes sense as the results did frankly surprise me.
I’ve got an American Republican friend who once told me something along the lines of “growing up, we’ve been taught that the next best thing to an American is an Israeli.”
So, yeah…
And dude, thanks for that awesome link!
Something tells me we *can* be optimistic about it. Obama is obviously aware of the fact that he’s made history as the first “colored” president of the United States, but I do strongly suspect he wants to accomplish something historic in terms of policy…
… something he will be remembered for, for years to come, and I think that’s the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
He can screw up numerous things, but if he succeeds in that, it will be his golden achievement.
So yes, indeed, one can hope. I sense that the current Arab-Iranian tension could boost the results of this too.
I mean, imagine. If the US and Japan can go from being staunch enemies to the allies they are today, who knows? Maybe Israel and its Arab neighbors will become allied together against Iran?
LOL.
Wild scenario. The ideal one will be a neighborhood of friends of course. Throw in some butterflies and rainbows too.
Btw,
what do you guys think of J-Street as an AIPAC replacement?
@Nobody, we’ll see. I just believe it is too early to comment on that.
@Roman Kalik, it’s understandable to have a grudge against those who thought of you literally less worth than themselves and also acted to you as such.
@Drima, what’s wrong with AIPAC? JStreet I don’t know so well, but if they are the ones protesting against Israel in antisemitic demonstrations and don’t give a rat’s ass, then I’m definitely not pro.
@Drima, J-Street’s no AIPAC replacement, and I’d argue that it’s doing its very best to become the anti-AIPAC by attempting to paint AIPAC as part of “the right” and itself as part of the “benevolent American interventionism in the Middle-East”.
I can see why Burg likes it so much - it’s his way of having someone else force his views on Israel all the way from the United States. But when even Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism (the biggest collection of liberal Jews in the United States) calls J-Street naive and childish, I’d say it doesn’t have much hope outside of the “Yes We Can!” crowd. And apparently even most liberal Jews have a somewhat more realistic view of the Middle-East even as they hold that kind of view regarding everything else about current-day US policies.
I find it amusing, by the way, that J-Street has more support from *failed* Israeli politicians than it has from prominent figures within its own country - the United States.
@Suzanne, holding a grudge is one thing - righteous self-destruction to fulfill that grudge enters the realm of the fanatical.
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I’ve got an American Republican friend who once told me something along the lines of “growing up, we’ve been taught that the next best thing to an American is an Israeli.”
That guy was lying, Drima. There is no “next best thing” to an American. Its just Americans, and everyone else. Any American can tell you that, he doesn’t even need to be a Republican :p
but I do strongly suspect he wants to accomplish something historic in terms of policy…
… something he will be remembered for, for years to come, and I think that’s the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Maybe. Or maybe he’ll be remembered as the President who woke up one morning with a horrendous hangover and all out of cigarettes who decides to launch a pre-emptive nuclear first strike on Iran, mumbling “Yes we can” to himself the whole time. You never know about these things.
I just had a chance to watch it… I found that guy Michael Scheaur a bit strong on certain points in but in general he seems to be on mark..
As an American, I don’t see any reason for American presences over there except for oil- saudi and iraqi oil should be more than enough.
US gets nothing but headache from its relation to Israel. Scheaur’s point about Israel being detrimental to American interests in the area is on mark.
That’s the attitude the US had before World War 1 and World War 2.
Especially in World War 2 it became clear that not opposing the “Death to the Jews” crowd can get expensive in the long run.
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