the USA, Israel, and national interest

To be fair I don't anticipate the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development sending out a phalanx of gunships on the eve of his confirmation.

I think he means in foreign policy terms

BTW in spite of the offensive, looks like Likud is going to win elections.

I think he means in foreign policy terms

It's still bogus to say that all nations behave as cynically as Israel has lately.

true

But I also think it's bogus to say "wait til he deals with *the Israelis*" as though there is something singularly cynical about Israel

If the subject is "what is dealing with Israel going to be like", this particularly nasty episode is extremely relevant.

Anyway, I don't understand the premise here. Obama's chosen middle east advisors have plenty of experience dealing not only with Israel but with the very people who will probably be in power shortly, including Netanyahu. They already know just fine what dealing with Israel is like.

my point was that military action is often linked to political power wrangling, but there is always political wrangling going on. so if this had happened 6 months from now we'd hear "its b/c obama's too busy dealing with economy" or something.

why i am always wary of those statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(December_1998)

It's really not comparable, like tipsy mothra said the relationship isn't controversial or secret in this case.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480625,00.html#

By getting its soldiers out before the Obama inauguration, Israel hopes to pave the way for a smooth beginning with the Obama administration and spare the incoming president the trouble of having to deal with a burning problem in Gaza from his first day, the Israeli officials said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the plan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090119/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Israeli officials said they hoped to pull all troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama was inaugurated as U.S. president Tuesday. The withdrawal would avoid subjecting Obama to a vexing Mideast problem on his first day in office, and also give Israeli politicians time to prepare for elections next month.

etc.

(Are there people who are pro-Israel and are anti-Aliyah??)

well, aren't there lots of people living in other countries who support Israel, would be entitled to emigrate to it under the law of return, but choose not to? They are kind of anti-aliyah, at least in so far as it applies to themselves.

spare the incoming president the trouble

This steaming pile had to be sourced anonymously?

XP That's not anti the concept. That's just not taking advantage of it. When I don't get free Ben + Jerry's when it's offered, that doesn't mean I'm against Ben + Jerry's giving away ice cream. Sometimes I just don't feel like leaving my apartment.

I getcha... though you do sometimes get people saying that people have a duty to take up aliyah.

By which I mean I read Ariel Sharon saying something implicitly along those lines once.

Yes, lots of people believe that. But the ability to make aliyah and the requirement to make aliyah are not the same thing. I support the former, not the latter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

anyone read this

belgium can't do it, but surely the israelis and palestinians can

belgium has less incentive

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n

thanks Hurting :)

wow, that was infuriating

>wow, that was infuriating

especially the woman's very rationale at the end. it's just all justified because of the Holy Land argument. we are going to use our sanctimonious teachings here to rip people out of their homes in the 21st century and hold onto this earth FOREVER. CHOSEN PEOPLE RAH

sure there are tons here and there who believe all manner of fundamentalist rhetoric. but the fact that she's the elected leader or whatnot is the disturbing factor

Yeah, it is maddening. I've had a number of conversations with a range of "moderate Israelis" on the settlers in the West Bank. It's not uncommon to hear outright rage against them, references to them as "crazy" etc., and even claims that they are going to ruin everything for Israel, but at the same time the reaction was more mixed when Israel was actually moving settlers out of Gaza (it was painful for many to watch scenes of the government forcibly moving "its own people.") It would be much tougher for Israel to relocate the West Bank settlers, who are numerous enough to make themselves felt very strongly within Israel proper if moved there.

I've wondered for a long time whether the settlements are more a case of deliberate, coherent strategic prevention of a two-state solution or merely the result of a lack of political will or an imbalanced political balancing act. My guess is that it's at least some of both.

Watching that video even I couldn't help feeling Holocaust resonances. I certainly don't think there's any "final solution" in the works, but there is certainly systematic oppression and humiliation.

That was the thing that struck me the most---I guess I'd never fully appreciated how systematic the oppression really was. Actually startled roommate when I said "what teh fuck" aloud to the part about only Israelis getting to use the roads.

But yeah, equally unsettling were the images of forcible removal. That kind of government action is stomach-churning regardless of your sympathies, though I can't shake the feeling that that is a very central part of the settler's strategy in the long run.

Yeah, I didn't know the thing about the roads myself. I actually didn't realize how massive the "settlements" had become -- settlement is a misleading word, really.

I know this is flawed as an analogue, but the first thought I had when they showed those aerial shots of the settlements was of Tibet, and the official gov't policy of the Han Chinese moving in there and just supplanting the native people by creating their own developments. But all comparisons end when you consider the demographics, and how the guy chillingly said that soon the Palestinians will outnumber Israelis, so...

"...according to the report: Within 10 years... The Israelis have three options:

1. They could try ethnic cleansing. Drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank.
2. Give Palestinians a vote, which would end of the Jewish state.
3. Inflict apartheid "

Then they show the guy from Jerusalem who's got family there and is never allowed to return again after getting kicked out, and you realize HOW fucked EVREYONE is going to be...it turns me against the last-minute-of-the-Bush-presidency-actions of the past 5 weeks so much more

these policies are basically leading to an inevitable march towards endless "active" war - unless some really strong third party intervenes that cannot compromise on rejecting a two-state solution

Tibet also came to my mind.

I'm not entirely clear on the immediate significance of the "majority" figure however since it refers to the total number of Palestinians within Israel and the territories combined. The Palestinians in Israel have the vote in Israel, but the rest live in a quasi-autonomous state and do not vote in Israeli elections. So I'm not clear on why the combined majority makes for an immediate problem that doesn't already exist.

Maybe they just meant that in reference to /context of fighting against a two-state solution

The real demographic problem I see is that religious nationalist Israelis breed faster than other Israelis, giving them more power over time in Israeli politics.

http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=COWi9OmJoo78dxCsAhjvATIIbib3zrRGNwk

Hamas torturing Palestinians

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4290553/Gaza-Palestinian-family-mourns-48-dead.html

LINK WAR! What we really need is some way that links could start taking down people not directly involved in the conflict, and then we could argue over whose fault that was.

Oh i think it's important, coming from a newspaper dubbed the 'TelAvivograph'

Keep seeing this on friends-of-friends-of-friends' facebook profiles.
The Jewish version of cryingeagle.jpg?

http://profile.ak.facebook.com/v229/1508/55/s720800818_9440.jpg

Tales of War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Reading Robert Fisk's "The War For Civilization" + stumbling across Kyl's recent address to AIPAC on Comcast (wtf, this is what passes for free cable TV entertainment?!?) have made me... um ... kinda deeply ashamed as an American Jew. Not like I have leverage with Israel or anything, but seriously wtf my people.

two neutral sources there.........

Haaretz on Bibi: 'You're nuts and your aides all loathe each other.' (This may well be SOP for Haaretz, I realize.)

If by SOP you mean telling the truth, yes.

Works for me!

Netanyahu was always nuts. Good choice there, israeli electorate!

the Jerusalem Post quoting Huckabee as saying: “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want.”

arrrgh fuck you there is so much wrong with this statement...

stay classy Israel!

Israel certainly has good reason to put him on its most wanted list. Al-Mabhouh was behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.

Stay classy, Hamas!

yeah tbh assassinating a terrorist + no innocent civilians dying = about as classy as this is gonna get

kind of a weird thread for this. p sure killing upper-tier hamas guys is in israel's interest?