National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones Scares Me

Set aside the deplorable joke which was dropped from the transcript (and if it is a metaphor for the Middle East peace process, why disguise the Palestinian as a Taliban but not the Jewish merchant as, for example, an Indian merchant?).

Gen.Jones talks about Obama's global foreign policy vision; after mentioning Iraq (peace with honor!) he lands in the Middle East with this:

Whether or not the rights and responsibilities of nations are upheld will in great measure determine whether the coming years and decades result in greater security, prosperity and opportunity—for Americans and for people around the world.

Perhaps nowhere do we see this more than in the Middle East, where we face two defining challenges that I want to touch on tonight: preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, and forging a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians as part of a comprehensive peace in the region.

Jones explains that the Bush policy of not engaging Iran had clearly failed,and now Obama has almost completed his demonstration that engaging Iran will also fail.  Well, he phrases it differently.  But then we get to this,with my emphasis:

Of course, one of the ways that Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.   Iran uses the conflict to keep others in the region on the defensive and to try to limit its own isolation.  Ending this conflict, achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians and establishing a sovereign Palestinian state would therefore take such an evocative issue away from Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas.  It would allow our partners in the region to focus on building their states and institutions.  And peace between Israel and Syria, if it is possible, could have a transformative effect on the region.

Really?  Surely that depends on the process by which "peace" is achieved.  We had "peace" after World War I, yet many embittered Germans simply pointed to the Treaty of Versailles as one more grievance and another reason to go back to war.  As David Bernstein and Barry Rubin noted recently, it is not at all clear what Palestinians believe about this. 

Many Palestinians (and their partners in the international grievance community, such as Iran) may believe a narrative in which the tide of history is running their way - Israel is more isolated now with Obama in office, Iran is closer to a bomb, Gaza has been returned to the Palestinians in exchange for not much, and  who knows what the next decade will bring - in this environment, why should Palestinians sign away their imagined "right of return" now?  And how would Palestinians react to a "peace" deal imposed by the US - would they say "Peace at last" and resume something like a normal life, or would this become the Versailles Treaty of the 21st century? 

More from Gen. Jones:

Since taking office, President Obama has pursued a two-state solution—a secure, Jewish state of Israel living side by side in peace and security with a viable and independent Palestinian state. 
This is in the United States’ interest.  It is in Israel’s interest.  It is in the Palestinians’ interest.  It is in the interest of the Arab countries, and, indeed, the world.  Advancing this peace would also help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations.

Well, is it in the Palestinian interest?  To repeat Mr. Bernstein's question, is there polling or other evidence suggesting the extent of the Palestinian commitment to that belief?

And I hope this is obvious - a cram-down "peace" deal that vindicates Obama's Nobel Prize but leaves the Palestinians embittered is not in America's interest.

The General makes a similar point, unconvincingly:

In our pursuit of a two-state solution, we recognize that peace must be made by the parties and cannot be imposed from the outside.  At the same time, we understand that the status quo is not sustainable.  It is not sustainable for Israel’s identity as a secure, Jewish, and democratic state, because the demographic clock keeps ticking and will not be reversed.  The status quo is not sustainable for Palestinians who have legitimate aspirations for sovereignty and statehood.  And the status quo is not sustainable for the region because there is a struggle between those who reject Israel’s existence and those who are prepared to coexist with Israel — and the status quo strengthens the rejectionists and weakens those who would live in peace.

If the status quo is working for the rejectionists, why are we so sure that a peace deal will command vast popular support?

Let me clip this from recent Times coverage (my emphasis):

The administration’s immediate priority, officials said, is jump-starting indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is still a vigorous debate inside the administration about what to do if such talks were to go nowhere, which experts said is the likeliest result, given the history of such negotiations. Some officials, like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, advocate putting forward an American peace plan, while others, like the longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross, who now works in the National Security Council, favor a more incremental approach.

Troubling.  My suggestion - Obama should offer the Palestinians subsidized participation in the new US health exchanges as part of a peace deal so he can pin down two legacies at once - has not caught fire.

Comments

[anduril]

Whatever. That was a long one.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Maybe Obama could establish a too big to fail West Bank with access to the Fed's discount window too.

[Frau Argwohn am Montag]

So a Turk, a Greek and a Phoenician come into a bar...

Since taking office, President Obama has pursued a two-state solution—a secure, Jewish state of Israel living side by side in peace and security with a viable and independent Palestinian state.
How does the Won do it? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? :snort:

" ...those who are prepared to coexist with Israel." And who are they, Gen. Jones?

[steve sturm]

The sad thing is that Jones and Obama actually believe they have a clue.

The really sad thing is that they actually believe their policies will help.

And just as Obama convinced himself that Obamacare critics were unworthy of being listened to, he's done the same with critics of his foreign policy.

[Threadkiller]

"And just as Obama convinced himself that Obamacare critics were unworthy of being listened to, he's done the same with critics of his foreign policy."

Mission Accomplished!

Bryan

[RJ]

Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?
Eisenhower offered the "Palestinians" a state of their own in the 50s. Nope, didn't want it. So screw 'em. They've had ample opportunity. If this is such a big issue for exploitation by radical governments, let "moderate" Jordan absorb them. Or better yet, the extremely "concerned" Syrians or Iranians, as a show of Muslim solidarity.

Bottom line is that this has never been about land, but rather about elimination of the Jewish State.

The sad thing is that Jones and Obama actually believe they have a clue.
They don't even know what they don't know. And yet Obama struts around issuing pronouncements and demands like some sort of maven.

[Clarice]

The Iranians are not Arab. They have no real interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict . Their leaders might like to stir the pot, but l it's a non-issue with the rest of the Iranians.Notice just yesterday the nuclear scientist from Iran seeking asylum in Israel,
When my Iraqi Jewish friends were forced out of Iraq they found a reception in Iran until they were able to leave for Israel.

This administration is clueless and dangerous.

[Thomas Collins]

Jones's argument that not engaging Iran failed ignores the fact that the George W. Bush Administration supported the European efforts to engage Iran on its nuclear program. Thus, on Iran, US talk therapy is just a continuation of European talk therapy.

Jones must be really clueless. I can't even imagine Joe Biden saying this.

[Janet]

When my Iraqi Jewish friends were forced out of Iraq they found a reception in Iran until they were able to leave for Israel.

Same story in my husband's family. His cousin married an Israeli that had come from Iraq via Iran.

[Pagar]

"The really sad thing is that they actually believe their policies will help."

The really, really sad thing is that there are
apparently some American voters who think their policies will help. That still believe that someone in the Obama Administration has a clue.

[Thomas Collins]

Let's hope Jones doesn't send any memos to the Pope. see LUN.

[MayBee]

Jones's argument that not engaging Iran failed ignores the fact that the George W. Bush Administration supported the European efforts to engage Iran on its nuclear program. Thus, on Iran, US talk therapy is just a continuation of European talk therapy.

Exactly.

[NK]

BHO much like the Bourbon rulers of France has "learned nothing and forgotten nothing". BHO is an 'effin muppet. The scary part is that BHO thinks he's an 'effin genius, like Wiley Coyote.

Gen. Jones, he hitched his wagon to the BHO star to get his NSA job. Jones is no fool, but he works for the man, and he carries the man's water, no matter how much of an 'effin muppet the man is. Hence, Gen. Jones has to look like an idiot to keep his job; so he does.

[Cecil Turner]

Gen. Jones has to look like an idiot to keep his job; so he does.

If he does it well, for long enough, people are going to think it's his niche. That lead-in joke was typical hamfisted Jarhead humor . . . but still inexcusable. The cluelessness in the speech is remarkable. (Though admittedly he's fitting right in with the "smart diplomacy" crowd.)

[JM Hanes]

Shorter Jones:

We're going to pretend that an Israeli/Palestinian peace accord is the key to disarming Iran, so we can blame Israel when Iran gets the bomb.

[Ignatz]

--National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones Scares Me--

Would be nice if any of our national security team scared our enemies.

[centralcal]

No kidding, Ignatz.

I see Dingy Harry voted against his own bill again. So we can pronounce dingy: din-jee or ding-ee, both are appropriate.

[matt]

they just sort of ignore the past 40 years of diplomacy in their public statements, don't they?

The reality is that, like almost everything Obama has done so far, it is being done behind closed doors.

But the reality is that their policy is that it has publicly and spectacularly blown up in their face. Hezbollah's SCUDs, the Syrian mischief in Lebanon and Iraq, the utter disregard and sabre rattling of the Iranians are indicators of a failed policy.

As the Palestinians are emboldened, they will double down the pressure on Israel. And the majority of Palestinian political organizations are pellucid on wanting to drive the Jews into the sea. Once again, our government is rewarding bad behavior.

[anduril]

Wow! Really great discussion here, but would it be OK to inject a bit of reality into the discussion? Anyone who's uncomfortable with reality can just SOB.

Here's a link to a book that some of you may not have read yet: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. It's by the Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe. And here are a sampling of reviews of the book. Most of them say, hey, he's just repeating stuff that everyone knew already, but I'm guessing (that word again) that some of you may find this perspective new:

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe: The borders of fact and myth

Ilan Pappé’s Latest Book Exposes Zionist Ethnic Cleansing as Premeditated

Divided loyalties: Ian Black wades into the troubled history of the Middle East with four books on Palestine

Here's a brief excerpt from the last review:

Historical interpretation and contemporary controversy coexist even more explosively in a new book by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. His story begins in March 1948, when the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion and his advisers met in Tel Aviv to discuss strategy. Fighting had been going on since the previous November when the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. By May 15, when the British mandate ended and Israel declared its independence, 250,000 Palestinians had already become refugees. By the end of the year there were 750,000-plus. Few ever returned to homes taken over by Israelis in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, or blown up and bulldozed in hundreds of villages.

Pappe, the revisionists' revisionist, identifies that March meeting as the start of a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" - a term coined in Yugoslavia in the 1990s but foreshadowed in Hebrew usage at the time. For him it was the result of a Zionist ideology whose "wordless wish" was for the Palestinians to disappear to make way for the Jewish state. Israel's "war of independence" or "liberation" was the Palestinians' nakba - "catastrophe".

Pappe takes issue with fellow scholar Benny Morris, pioneer of the "new" history that has supplanted the rose-tinted version of the birth of Israel in which intransigent Arabs were largely the authors of their own misfortune. If Morris undermined the foundations of the old myths and smashed large parts of the walls, Pappe brings the roof crashing down: his clear view is that the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinians was a grand design, not the partially planned and locally varied phenomenon - tragic but inevitable in the circumstances - that Morris painstakingly reconstructed from the Israeli archives 20 years ago.

Emphasis apart, it is hard to say what is new in his account. The scheme discussed at the Tel Aviv meeting, Plan Dalet, has been known about for years. It has long been clear that the Palestinians were not, as used to be claimed, encouraged to leave their homes "temporarily" by Arab leaders. The fledgling Israeli state was not invaded, as the old David and Goliath narrative goes, by five Arab armies. Egypt attacked in the south and Jordanian and Iraqi troops entered the territory allotted to the Palestinians by the UN. Ethnic cleansing in Palestine is Israel's "original sin" laid bare - but without any mitigating circumstances. Rare exceptions in a catalogue of intimidation, expulsion and atrocity include the Jewish mayor of Haifa appealing to the city's Arabs to stay, despite attacks by Haganah forces. Nazareth's Christian Arabs were spared because Ben-Gurion realised that the outside world would not tolerate their removal.

Pappe follows writers such as Meron Benvenisti who have documented the post-war cover-up: the rubble of Palestinian villages buried under parks and nature reserves, their fields and olive groves taken over by kibbutzim and immigrant housing projects, their Arab names Hebraized - or restored to their pre-Islamic biblical Hebrew ones.

He fights the "power of deletion" over the fate of the Palestinians. But he does historical understanding a disservice by all but ignoring the mood and motives of the Jews, so soon after the end of a war in which six million had been exterminated by the Nazis. Ben-Gurion's public rhetoric about the dangers of annihilation or a second Holocaust, Pappe argues, was matched by private confidence about the outcome of an unequal fight. That does not mean the shadow of the Holocaust can be airbrushed out of the story. The Jews were fighting, as they saw it, with their backs to the wall, for survival. To ignore that perception - a huge factor in western sympathy for Israel in 1948 and for so long afterwards - is to misrepresent reality.

Pappe's Israel is the "last post-colonial European enclave in the Arab world". It is true that Zionist settlers did act in many ways like French pieds noirs in Algeria or Brits in Rhodesia. But most wanted to replace rather than exploit the natives. The immigrants who began arriving in the late 1880s, their numbers peaking in 1935 with 60,000 mostly German Jews, were invariably fleeing discrimination, pogroms or, after 1945, worse. Few were leaving good lives or moving to a classic colony.

It is not sufficient, in other words, to subsume Zionism into the wider narrative of colonialism, though that specificity made no difference to the final outcome - the near-eradication of Arab Palestine. Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian historian, lingers perceptively on this absolutely vital point: Zionism simultaneously oppressed the Palestinians and represented a movement of national liberation for the Jews - and has produced a new people speaking their own language, living in a country called Israel. It is not a question of whether Arabs or anyone else find that paradox palatable or just. It is that this important story, then as now, doesn't make any sense without grasping it.

Khalidi, tackling "historical amnesia", brilliantly analyses the structural handicap which hobbled the Palestinians throughout 30 years of British rule so that by the time the last high commissioner sailed away in 1948 they could neither accommodate nor successfully resist the Jews. His image of an iron cage represents the limits placed on them by the Balfour declaration in 1917, when the Jews were promised a "national home" as long as it was built without prejudice to the rights of what were absurdly called "non-Jewish communities" (then 90% of Palestine's population). This inbalance was constant: the UN partition decision of November 1947 gave the Jews, by then 33% of the population, half of the territory when they owned just 6% of the land. By 1949 they controlled 78% of it.

Auden might have been anticipating the fate of the Palestinians in 1937 when he wrote in his great poem, "Spain", that "History to the defeated may say alas but cannot help or pardon." Pappe's militant work challenges such fatalism - though his call for a single binational state to replace Israel will neither persuade his Jewish fellow citizens nor convince Palestinians that it is achievable. Khalidi restores the Palestinians to something more than victims, acknowledging that for all their disadvantages, they have played their role and can (and must) still do so to determine their own fate. The lesson of these books - and the drearily familiar row over Carter's - is that in Israel and Palestine the past is still far from being another country. It will always be hard to change that. But independence and freedom for the Palestinians is the only way it ever will.

[peter]

"they don't even know what they don't know"

That my friend is epistemology.

[centralcal]

A cute kinda-sorta Jewish news story from Althouse:

I'm Jewish and I don't even know how to drive a stick shift!

[nathan hale]

Yes, and I'll raise you the Yathrib and Khaybar settlements in the Medina regime from 610 AD, do you really want to go there

[JM Hanes]

Next up from anduril: Israeli crimes against humanity in Jenin.

[TBlakely]

It is puzzling and a bit demeaning that so many people refuse to believe that a large number of Arabs want to eliminate Isreal and kill lots and lots of Jews. I mean they've stated so inumerable times. Why not believe them?

[Carol Herman]

Michael Yon is on record of calling McChrystal, and other military brass CRAZY MONKEYS. There's nothing new here, either!

Israel's been living with this, coming as it did from James Baker ("Israel is that shitty little country.") And, what the saud's have bought with their trillions in bribes. (The best names. Including Tony Blair's.)

What's next? Israel doesn't cave. If anything it empowers Bibi Netanyahu, and brings Israelis together. Which is what democracies do when they're fighting off EVIL.

It's not an American plan! This stinker belongs to the saud's. And, all the crap their petro-dollar bribes have bought. And, the saud's are on their last legs.

If the bamster thinks this is great publicity for him, and his muslem brotherhood, he's nuts.

Remember to vote. Jury subpoenas are going out like crazy, in a very real attempt to lower voter turnout in November. We'll never get rid of the bums if we fail to vote. And, each vote counts! Don't let a robed imbicile fool you! Go. Be counted. The thieves at the court houses around the USA, think of you all as fish in a barrel.

[jimmyk]

I missed the discussion of the 1929 massacre of the Jews in Hebron by the Arabs in Anduril's narrative. Never mind how fighting a defensive war against an attacking ethnic group now gets called "ethnic cleansing." It was the Arabs who were trying to do ethnic cleansing.

[MayBee]

But independence and freedom for the Palestinians is the only way it ever will.

That much seems to be agreed upon by pretty much every party. It's working out the definitions of "independence" and "freedom" that seem to be a bit of a hitch. As Tom points out in his post- which I understand might have (for some) been too long to read.

[Janet]

You can even tune into the Arab children's television shows and hear how to kill Jews...while some giant Mickey Mouse knock off cheers the little ones on.

"wearing their hatred like a ball and chain"

[NK]

Cecil Turner--

You're right of course; ultimately Jones having hitched his wagon to the BHO star, when things blow up, he will be blamed by Left Wing Jounalists (is there any other kind?) and historians who will do the whole BHO was let down by his NS team schtick;

TBlakely-- personally I don't believe the average Arab in Cairo, Tunis, Baghdad or even Palestine wants to kill all of the Israeli Jews; they just want the Jews to move where they belong, NYC, LA, London, and Sidney.

[Dave (in MA)]

OT: Police raid home, seize computers of Gizmodo editor who wrote about the lost Apple prototype. If something like this had happened 8 years ago...
_____________________________________

[nathan hale]

Yes, and I left out Fritz Grobba's assistance
of Haj Amin Husseini, in the pre war and
during the war, or his assistant Hassan Salameh, whose proud son organized Munich
under Husseini's nephew Arafat

[nathan hale]

Having recently read Bouallem Sansal's the German Mujahid, in translation, I was surprised it was the first novel of it's kind to tackle the Holocaust in the Arab world. I heard of it, through Adjami's review in the
New REpublic

[Extraneus]

Has there ever been a negotiated peace without one of the parties having been defeated?

[Clarice]

ah, jimmy--the Hebron massacre. My paternal grandfather had been in Hebron. He was visiting there having traveled back to his hometown in Poland to be with his parents and before returning home he stopped in Palestine. .By chance he left Hebron the evening before that massacre.

[Cecil Turner]

"Reality" and "brief": You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think . . .

[Y.]

Thanks, anduril, for referring to a person who thinks that "‘there is no such thing as truth, only a collection of narratives’"[1] as an authority. In reality, Pappe loves inventiving "facts" out of thin air[2] (one of the students completing a master's thesis under his supervision was literally convicted of falsifying data in a libel lawsuit[3]), and people accepting his "thesis" say more about themselves than about the conflict...

[1] http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/pryce-jones_11_06.html - a review of the same Pappe book. [2] below repeats this.

[2] http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/4479.html - a review of a previous book, but still sufficient to show Pappe (lack of) attachment to truth in the service of propoganda...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantura#Massacre_controversy

[Rick Ballard]

"Has there ever been a negotiated peace without one of the parties having been defeated?"

The Treaty of Ghent can be argued as one such. The primary issue, the pressing of US citizens into the service of the Royal Navy, became moot with Napoleon's defeat and both sides returned to staus quo ante bellum. (The British defeat at New Orleans occurred after the treaty was signed and the question of who "won" depends upon the POV of the person deciding.)

The Indians definitely lost though.

[Ignatz]

Seems our cut & pastey friend has been dredging the Lew Rockwell backwaters again.

[MayBee]

Has there ever been a negotiated peace without one of the parties having been defeated?

Exactly.
How many borders have been drawn (and redrawn) based on the results of war?

[anduril]

I missed the discussion of the 1929 massacre of the Jews in Hebron by the Arabs in Anduril's narrative.

Anduril's narrative? What narrative? I linked to the Amazon page for a book by an Israeli historian, and also to some reviews of the book--part of one of which I pasted in. Amazing. But I'm looking forward to a critique of the book.

[sammy small]

" ...those who are prepared to coexist with Israel."

Maybe we should just airdrop millions of those "COEXIST" bumper stickers all over the middle east. It seems to work for all the libtards here in SoCal.

[nathan hale]

WEll we could go here, in the LUN,

[JM Hanes]

"Anduril's narrative?"

I'm sure she meant to say Anduril's reality.

[JM Hanes]

With apologies to jimmyk, that would be *he* not *she,* of course. :-)

[Buck Smith]

Best move for the US is to renounce all responsibility for Israeli- Palestinian peace. Drop all aid to Israeli, Palestine and Egypt. Save $5B per year right there.

If the Palis want to fight the Israelis I say knock your selves out. Put all the jihadis up front. We know those boys are fighters.

The ideas about religious freedom that were embedded in the US constitution do not carry license fees or royalty assessments when used in other countries. The Middle East. with a long history of religious wars, oppression of religion, fights over Holy Land, etc. chooses not to adopt US style religious freedom. But somehow we are responsible for their dumb wars?. Give me a break.

[matt]

according to Loretta Napoleoni's book Modern Jihad,the PLO is one of the most successful criminal enterprises in the world.

Why on God's earth would we empower a bunch of criminals with the tools and resources of full statehood?

In addition, while billions are funneled into the West Bank and Gaza in aid, where does it all go? Surely not into any form of long term reconstruction.

It would seem to be just one more scam.The Palestinian people are served by perhaps the worst leaders this side of Afghanistan.

Peace has been for many years, but it does not serve the interests of the corrupt or the Iranians.

[Clarice]

Really, don't you think if we all promised to buy some big ticket item from Amazon, Glenn would stop linking to TM and we would't have to keep disinfecting the place?

[anduril]

Y., thanks for the links, especially the one to Benny Morris' review. As you know, Pappe's claim to fame is that he takes Morris' thesis one step further, asserting that the ethnic cleansing was deliberate policy, whereas Morris does not go that far:

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (1988)

In his first The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (1988), Morris argues that the 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in 1947 left mostly due to Israeli military attacks; fear of impending attacks; and expulsions. He argues that there was no centralized expulsion policy as such, but expulsions were ordered by the Israeli high command as needed. This was a controversial position when Morris first wrote of it; the official position in Israel was that the Palestinians had left voluntarily, or under pressure from Palestinian or other Arab leaders. At the same time, Morris documents atrocities by the Israelis, including cases of rape and torture. The book shows a map of 228 empty Palestinian villages, and attempts to explain why the villagers left. In 41 villages, he writes, the inhabitants were expelled by the IDF; in another 90, residents fled because of attacks on other villages; and in six, they left under instructions from local Palestinian authorities. He was unable to find out why another 46 villages were abandoned.(Wikipedia)

This is progress, when we can argue the facts rather than merely reassert mythology. Since you cite Morris as an authority in criticizing Pappe (who does sound like a flake in many ways), I assume you are willing to consider Morris as an authority on the events covered by his critique of Pappe--the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

[Rick Ballard]

Try and think of it in terms of birdwatching, Clarice.

Look! A flock of warbling loons has landed! And, over there - a newly fledged solitary nuthatch! I have to make some notes in my Peterson Field Guide to North American Birds and Moonbats.

[anduril]

Seems our cut & pastey friend has been dredging the Lew Rockwell backwaters again.

Uh, no. Amazon, The Independent, etc. I never, ever, visit the Lew Rockwell site and know nothing about it, but I assume that's intended to slur me. So that's the extent of your critique of the notion of an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?

[anduril]

Heh. Ballard gives the lie to his claim that he uses the narcisolator. But he's afraid to enter substantive discussion. Pitiful.

[nathan hale]

Yes and David Horowitz had kindred sentiments about this country, when he wrote his first work, yet he is a proud patriot now, Morris,
has grown up, in part he realized the consequences of his scholarship, his recent
work, including the evisceration of Primakov's
all too naive memoir in the New Republic, is
really first rate

[Dave (in MA)]

Clarice, Insty has to put up some quality links once in a while to offset the usual "The Carnival of somethingorother is up" & "Heh" and "The latest from so and so - read the whole thing" fare.

[anduril]

True, nate, his political views have changed somewhat (he's still a lefty), but he stands by his research. He says that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed but, because he's a Zionist, he says it was justified. I can deal with someone like that who's willing to look at the facts, rather than just spout the usual mythology. (Cf. his 2004 Ha'aretz interview)

[nathan hale]

Jones Arabist proclivities which are less pronounced than say General Zinni, thank heaven for small favors, were clear when he criticized the security fence back in the early 00s, not surprising he has turned out
to be such a weathervane on Iraq and even
Afghanistan

[Mad Jack]

I'm sorry, I'm just a dumb mick from Massachusetts who just came home from a fantastic 5 course beer dinner but I've never understood how anyone could argue with a straight face that if, God forbid, Israel was gone from the planet that somehow all would be well with the world. For 60 years the US has stood with the only mideast democracy but now I just don't know. What's worse is that the Jewish community that I deal with cannot bring itself to admit that they backed an SOB who would just assume Israel went away. I'm a strong backer of Israel because they stand for freedom and democracy. It's frankly irrelevant what religion is involved. The whole subject and approach the learned class takes to this issue ticks me off. I'm in my cups and probably should not be commenting but I just think if we give up on Israel we have given up on ourselves.

[boris]

I suppose one could argue that white flight is a form of "ethnic cleansing". Let's start calling white suburbanites on their genocide.

[jimmyk]

Anduril's narrative? What narrative? I linked to the Amazon page for a book by an Israeli historian

I hate when people cut & paste big chunks of garbage and then don't take responsibility for it. If you're not endorsing it, don't post it. And why should anyone feel compelled to critique every piece of carp that someone cuts and pastes here?

My point was that this "history" was rather selective, and had a rather warped view of who was responsible for the fighting, and who was really trying to do the "cleansing." Why don't you address those comments instead of falling back on the "Hey, I just posted someone else's words" defense.

[anduril]

I'm in my cups and probably should not be commenting...

Yeah, it shows. Nowhere on this page does anyone suggest:

if, God forbid, Israel was gone from the planet that somehow all would be well with the world.

On the other hand, you have an excuse. What excuse is there for some--well, a few--of the other comments?

[anduril]

boris, I'll leave you and Charlie to duke it out over that one.

[boris]

"Nowhere on this page does anyone suggest:"

To be fair that is a somewhat reasonable inference about the sources of some of your cut n paste.

[boris]

"I'll leave you and Charlie ...

... afraid to enter substantive discussion.
Pitiful.

[Melinda Romanoff]

anduril-

What reaction are you trying evoke?

[Mad Jack]

Hey anduril: At least I'll be sober in the morning! What's your excuse.

[JM Hanes]

Mad Jack:

Not to worry. Some of the other folks around here are pretty fond of beer themselves! Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtain who feels free to jump into the middle of any thread on any topic with whatever his hobby horse of the day happens to be. I'm not sure why he seems to assume you should be responding to his putative challenge, instead of TM's subject.

[Rick Ballard]

Another thread shot on Plutonic dialogue. I wish Mickey and Minnie would stay home once in a while.

[squaredance]

oh, those two idiots, Obama and Jones, do not "think that their 'policies' will help" a ME peace; they just think there "policies", such as they are, will harm and humiliate Israel.

This is what all of the Left desire.

Did you not hear the Jewish joke he made? The meaning could not be clearer--they are just throwing it all in our faces. It most surely was not "incidental" or "insensitive". It was a coarse, anti-semitic jab at Jews made to telegraph intent. These people are Leftists after all.

The American Left has been waiting to get a shot at Israel for decades. The evil always slaver after Jewish blood; it is a chief way one can mark them.

They have no idea at all about ME peace, or even desire such a thing. They no more want peace in the ME that they want "racial harmony" at home. This is just cocktail hour prattle. The ME peace racket it one of the longest running scams for the American and EU political classes of the Post War years. End it? Really now.

Israel, of course, must be humiliated. Never forget that Israel started out as a vaguely socialist state. Being sharp as matzahs, however, the Israelis figure out that one pretty quick, and turn away from it. The Left has never forgiven them for it. Besides, how could they abide such able capitalists? If there is any group of people who set fire to the lie of the Left's notion of "equality" it is the Jew.

And then there is the matter of the Jew having had a pivotal and highly positive role in shaping Western civilization.

No, peace is not the target. Israel is the target.

They do not even bother to mask it. It is not a lack a reason that leads them to mouth the loopy conclusion that someone "doing something about the Jews" will solve the problems with Iran or the larger ME. Rather, it is their contempt for the intelligence of the American voter that leads them to spout such howlers. They do not even care to hide it any more

[Dave (in MA)]

Some of the other folks around here are pretty fond of beer themselves

Yeah, but I'm drinking Diet Mt. Chill even though I'm a "dumb Mick".

[Mad Jack]

I went fancy tonight because my standard seven course dinner is a six pack and a baked potato.

[anduril]

If you're not endorsing it, don't post it. And why should anyone feel compelled to critique every piece of carp that someone cuts and pastes here?

Sometimes I post things because they're a good introduction into an issue. In this instance, I posted this as a challenge to the standard mythological approach to the modern history of Israel. If you don't want to address the complexities of the Israeli - Palestinian situation, that's fine. No one is forcing you to do so.

Here's the second part of your initial post:

Never mind how fighting a defensive war against an attacking ethnic group now gets called "ethnic cleansing." It was the Arabs who were trying to do ethnic cleansing.

I agree that the Arabs would ethnically cleanse Israel if they could--I disagree with some of the critics of Israel about that. I would, however, argue that two wrongs don't make a right, and that Zionism and Islam have a good deal in common--not coincidentally, since Islam was heavily influenced by the Arabian Judaism of the 7th century.

As for the specifics of a defensive war, even if you don't want to go as far as Pappe, Morris (whom Y. and nate endorse) takes you most of the way to the conclusion that it wasn't a strictly defensive war. The views of some prominent 20th century Zionists--who were in direct control of policy--certainly point in that direction:

Ben-Gurion recognized the strong attachment of Palestinian Arabs to the land but hoped that this would be overcome in time. Nahum Goldman, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote that in a conversation about "the Arab problem" in 1956, Ben-Gurion stated: "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country ... There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it is simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army." Goldman criticized Ben-Gurion for what he viewed as Ben-Gurion's confrontational approach to the Arab world. Goldman wrote that "Ben-Gurion is the man principally responsible for the anti-Arab policy, because it was he who moulded the thinking of generations of Israelis." (Wikipedia)

[anduril]

What reaction are you trying evoke?

Historical and philosophical curiosity.

[Melinda Romanoff]

I'm going to have a fun morning tomorrow.

I get to ask Jean Claude Trichet questions, in person.

I don't think he will want to discuss French refinancing issues.

Heh, heh, heh.

I'll check back in the AM, on this thread, but does anybody have something pertinent they want brought up? My queries can take a back seat, if they're good.

(and don't tell Chaco I'm going)

G'night all.

[Clarice]

Fortunately my IT provider was down again for quite a while. I got to finish the sweater for my grand daughter's doll and to miss more cut and pastes with lots of bold spots from wiki and Amazon. PHEH

[Y.]

anduril,

Morris thinks that the Palestinian refugee problem is the result of the Arabs genocidal war upon Israel. I'll let him do the talking:

"...Just to give one key example: I most emphatically never stated anywhere that “the dismantling of Palestinian society…and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians [were] a deliberate and planned operation intended to ‘cleanse’…those parts of Palestine assigned to the Jews.” Quite the opposite. Had Siegman bothered to read my books, he would have discovered that mainstream (Haganah–Jewish Agency) Zionist policy, until the end of March 1948—meaning during the first four months of the war—was to protect the Arab minority in the Jewish areas and to try to maintain peaceful coexistence. Intentions changed only in April, when the Yishuv was with its back to the wall, losing the battle for the roads and facing potentially politicidal and genocidal pan-Arab invasion. And even then, no systematic policy of expulsion was ever adopted or implemented (hence Israel’s one-million-strong Arab minority today). The Arabs have only themselves to blame for the (unexpected) results of the war that they launched with the aim of “ethnically cleansing” Palestine of the Jews. (Contemporary Arab apologists, always full of righteous indignation, conveniently forget this.)" [1]

[1] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/apr/08/israel-the-threat-from-within-an-exchange/

[nathan hale]

Yes that is why they cleansed the Yathrib valley, because Islam and Judaism are so alike. Now Kanan Makiya in his tale of the
building of the Dome of the Rock, chalks it up
to conversion. Or we could look at the seven plus centuries of the Iberian peninsula from
the Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk and Ottoman

[Y.]

Btw, I do not "endorse" Morris (and I hardly have the rep. to endorse anyone). He is far more objective than some on the Left, but I have disagreements with him (he gives far too much weight to the few real transferists like Weitz and to some out-of-context quotes). I simply found his criticism of Pappe to be accurate, which is not very difficult giving Pappe's obvious distaste for truthseeking and numerous misstatements of easily verifiable fact...

[squaredance]

Oh, and "anduril", your bigotry is leading you toward insanity and immorality. You would be well served to come to terms with it before it is too late. No good ever comes of Jew hatred.
(and do not mistake me--I am not a Jew.)

I suggest you go live in the middle east for a while. It would cure that looniness of yours, one way or the the other.

Ethnic cleansing? You are projecting. It is that Jew that has been tossed out of most of the nations railing against Israel. It is debatable if in actuality there even is such a thing as a "Palestinian", but most of the folks you seem to think are "Palestinians" were actually kick out of Jordan. That is how they ended up in Israel in the first place. You have it all just backwards, like you do most things.

Non-jewish citizens can vote in Israel. There is a Arab section in the Knesset. Try being a Jew is Saudi Arabia.

Regional tyrants in the ME merely use "the Palestinians" to distract their own people form their own perfidy. The wiser n those nations know this, BTW, and are not taken in. Why are you so easily fooled?

As usual, you have not the faintest clue of what you are jabbering on about.

[Melinda Romanoff]

"Historical and philosophical curiosity."

OK, now I'm curious.

And I'll ask the next question later.

I have to prepare a bit.

G'night all.

[Mad Jack]

Sox win 13 to 12 and I'm off to bed. Glad to see the pitching and defense plan is working out. TM should be happy.

[anduril]

Y., I agree that Morris has tried to put a different spin on some of his research, but he still maintains that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed--just that it was justified and that no formal policy had been adopted. He said that the same year (2004) as the quote you provide. See my quote, above. The reality that he describes however is that of Palestinian villagers being driven from their land at gunpoint and the land then being quickly converted to Israeli use--there was never a question of anyone returning. Morris says--at least now--that was justified. You can argue that several ways, but what I'd like to see is people simply accepting the facts instead of silly mythology about Arabs voluntarily leaving. No one who knows peasant mentality thinks that peasants would voluntarily desert their land. Once we accept the facts, we can argue rights and wrongs and solutions--if there are any. Ben Gurion recognized the reality of the situation. At least he was honest.

[anduril]

Oh, and "anduril", your bigotry is leading you toward insanity and immorality.

Yikes!

[anduril]

Try being a Jew is Saudi Arabia.

Can I take a pass on that? I'm quite sure I wouldn't want to even try being a Christian there, and being a Christian is something I at least have a little practice doing.

[anduril]

Yes that is why they cleansed the Yathrib valley, because Islam and Judaism are so alike.

Often the bitterest fights are between people who have the most in common.

[nathan hale]

And here we come to the main point, Wahhabism
or at least that aspect of the Hambali school
is the real threat, yet Walt and Mearsheimer
dare do a tome on the Wahhabi lobby, so why focus on a distraction to that issue.

[anduril]

yet Walt and Mearsheimer dare do a tome on the Wahhabi lobby

Freudian slip, eh?

[aa]

the garbage can said at the beginning he thinks the joke is true!!

thats no joke

[aa]

this stuff happens when the leader of the free world is an undeclared muslim - taffiq - gonna be much trouble folks

[CrypticGuise]

The General is clearly "over his head" in his confusion regarding the issues at question between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip Arab IslamoFascists, errr Palestinians.

The Obama Administration is totally inept in foreign and national policy and their weakness is going to get tens of thousands or more people killed. Oh, yes and destroy the American economy while experimenting with Marxist Socialist Central Control theories, or should I use the word "schemes".

What a bunch of incompetents.

[Ignatz]

--being a Christian is something I at least have a little practice doing--

As a Christian you should recognize that what the Israeli's have done defending themselves in the last few decades is exceedingly tame compared to what God instructed them to do in the OT.
As then, their reluctance to be as ruthless as necessary is far more of a problem than their alleged savagery.

[Warren Bonesteel]

The pertinent question is really about money.

What do little generals and admirals do when they retire from active service?

How many of them become 'lobbyists' and 'advisors' and sit on the boards of directors for companies who employ and use lobbyists and advisors in D.C.?

What boards of directors has the good little general in question belong to?

Always. Follow. The. money.

It isn't just a cliche

[an]

The new us health exchanges are already there. Overseas we've made the clinics a priority after spending hundreds of billions on health care entitlements like PEPFAR. Now, we find the health bill has funding for innovation and health clinics and 'volunteers' to pay off their loans that O is taking over. It's O saying what we did overseas is okay by domesticating it. It's not like he blackmailed the US with pain, seeing, and all the other non normal stuff we had to put up with under Clinton.

Giving Palestinians health care entitlements like we have for many overseas is just giving them what we gave others, not them, for whatever reason; really isn't much. Unless your talking a health exchange like global taxes on us corporate employees; then it makes more sense.

Palestine just wants what Israel got. Let's look at the numbers over the years and pay them what we paid Israel. What's the problem we do this everywhere else.

Generals and federal employees are in a wait and see. Soon, O will be gone then we can get back to operations.

[Mike G in Corvallis]

This "viable and independent Palestinian state" that Jones wants to bring into being -- does he also insist that it be judenrein, as the Palestinian Arabs do?

If the citizens of this "viable and independent Palestinian state" were to allow Jews to live within their borders, would these Jews be able to vote or own property?

Why is it that Jewish settlements in the West Bank area are such a sticking point for the Palestinians? If the Palestinians are such wonderful people that we should be backing their noble aspirations for statehood, why can't they simply allow Jews to live there in peace, subject to the just laws of the Palestinian state and with the same civil rights as the Arab citizens?

[matt]

you know, I appreciate these conversations. Today, we need more of them.

A German friend was here a couple of months ago, and I may have posted on it. His casual anti-semitism was stunning in its naivete and depth. he just assumed all right thinking people felt the same. We've been friends for 30 years so I kept my mouth shut.

I did lead him into a dialectical conversation on the existence of God, though. To me, empirically, there is no doubt about His existence. The mathmatical probability of His nonexistence is infinitesimal.

1,000,000 monkeys with 1,000,000 typewriters coming up with a Shakespeare sonnet still ain't happened. the typewriters simply become clogged with banana residue and monkey shit.It's shooting a BB into the universe and expecting a direct hit on Alpha Centauri.

Besides, I think Aristotle and Plato and Aquinas and Augustine knew a little bit. Derrida and Nietzsche and Sartre are hobos in comparison.

As I stated earlier, the Palestinian argument simply holds little water. It is fundamentally flawed. Until they can rectify these flaws, why should anyone take them seriously.

These are the questions that would have been asked in the Age of Reason.Now we are faced with the Age of Knuckleheads.

[Gary Rosen]

"it wasn't a strictly defensive war."

Why was there any war at all in the first place? Because while Jews accepted the partition of Palestine, Arabs rejected it and vowed to "drive the Jews into the sea". After the war the West Bank and Gaza were still in Arab hands but Egypt and Jordan refused to establish a Palestinian state. Therefore the Palestinians' statless condition is:

100% the fault of Arabs.

Zero percent the fault of Jews and Israel.

[Sinner]

it is not at all clear what Palestinians believe about this.

It is absolutely clear what Palestinians believe about this: it's written in their constitutions. Judenrein from the mountains to the sea!

The sooner Israel acts in self preservation against Iran the better.
Unfortunately fallout prevents similar decisive action against the Palestinians.

[-Ed.]

A rabbi, a priest, a nun, and two Irishmen walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "Hey, what is this, some kind of joke?"

[Janet]

OT - Andrew Breitbart has a great takedown article and video of the lies told about the Tea Party. From the article -

“Are you calling a civil rights legend a liar?”

Unfortunately, I am. And the mainstream media are as complicit in this lie as Congressman Lewis."

Then this morning the Washington Post has another unsubstantiated rumor put out by John Legend (a singer). He says he had a run-in with 2 old racists.
Maybe the truth is 2 older men from Virginia had a run-in with a liar? Who knows?...but I sure don't believe this story based on my past experience.

[nathan hale]

I thought the Post had some standards, then again I thought my own paper the Herald had some too

[nathan hale]

Meanwhile outside the bearded spock universe
we have this, in the LUN

[Clarice]

Rick Ballard, a scamster is using your name and an email account to spam.
Friends of Rick be on alert.