Why President Obama’s Concept of the Middle East Will Fail: Just Listen to It
Whom does the Egyptian government support among the Palestinians? Hamas, despite their recent bickering. So how would progress on negotiations with the Palestinian Authority soften Egypt’s attitude? Is President Mursi going to say: wow, that treaty with Israel is worthwhile because there is hope of a deal with the Palestinians that will ensure a non-Islamist government in Palestine and help to guarantee the existence of a Zionist state in the region?
Yay!
No. He would say that such progress would indicate a betrayal by the PA, and make it harder for the Islamist cause to flourish. Hence, any such deal must be stopped. Mr. Rhodes, let me explain. It was Mubarak who perhaps benefited from an advancing peace process.
Mursi hates the idea.
Rhodes continued:
I think there’s an opportunity, frankly, for there to be a deeper source of support for peace broadly across the region if there can be progress.
I will give Rhodes the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that he does not believe one word of that sentence.
Again, Obama’s trip is not about this issue. Yet by keeping the mythology alive about the state of the conflict, the Obama administration does another disservice to Israeli interests and American understanding of the region.
Oh, and let’s not forget something else: Rhodes didn’t say that the PA, whose leaders Obama will also meet, must show Israel that it’s serious about peace.
Supposedly, making peace is a one-way street in which the burden is always on Israel. Yet Israel’s behavior is not due to stubbornness, paranoia, or ideology.
It is based on experience.
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Footnote: Of course I am aware that there have been circumstances in which specific Arab factors were responsive to Israeli concessions. To act, Arab leaders — autocrats or otherwise — must believe they can get away with defying Islamists, who will declare anyone wanting to make peace with Israel as enemies of Allah. That was most obviously true of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Mursi’s ideological compatriots killed Sadat.
That graphically sums up who is on which side, and why Rhodes’ — and hence the Obama administration’s — formulations are absurd.
This is pre-emptive cover for his issuing a promise to Israel that he will protect that nation from Iranian nuclear weapons once they announce they have them---on the condition that Israel grants in full whatever extravagant wish-list the "Palestinians" are even now preparing.
He will point to his visit as proof of his pro-Israel sentiments and of his acting as an "honest broker," even as he does his level best to dismember Israel and leave it as vulnerable as possible from within and without.
The low-information Jewish voters who reflexively vote Democrat will buy this, as they have bought his every other utterance on the Middle East---and the many nominally-Jewish low-information voters who work in the mainstream media will loudly and repeatedly trumpet this nonsense.
I already see too many articles in the Israeli media which reveal an eagerness to send the IDF into Syria, and I am guessing that this thinking reflects that of their sources inside the Israeli government. This would be a disaster of epic proportions. If the IDF tries to occupy any of Syria A) it would render the 1973 armistice lines (that are much to Israel's advantage) completely meaningless B) they would breach their own Golan defenses and once al-Qaeda and the IRGC learned how to penetrate IDF lines inside Syria (which they would) they would be able to stage terrorist attacks in the Israeli Golan and possibly even the Galilee C) create incredible casualties for the IDF with their Iraq style attacks D) smash morale among the Israeli public and military.
But there seem to be those, using this screwed up bipolar view of the world common in Israel, that seem to want to encourage this nonsense.
They prefer some fantasy where everything will magically go back to 1947 or some Muslim prince will rescue them. To me that's too dumb for words. Cutting off your nose to spite your face reminds me of The Mikado where they say cutting off your own head is "an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt"
Yes, it is.
Declare peace, give assurances to Israel and move on already. You'll have the West Bank all to yourselves and your movements will be constrained only to the extent you attempt further idiocies. In this regard I give you Gaza.
You lost - get over it. It happens. The past can't be replayed.
It picks "victims" based upon its own prejudices and then rigs the outcome.
Why do you think the LA Times kidnapped and is holding hostage that tape of the constant dinner companion Rashid Khalidi and Obama?
Israel and America are not "underdogs". Mother Russia and Father China have their favorites and this administration has pushed all the "reset" buttons.
Obama won't sully his name by bringing a peace process to the table because the Jews aren't willing to learn how to genuflect. And the laws of his "friendship" are based upon submitting to his predetermined outcomes for "victims" and "their oppressors".
The fact that we are continually surprised by this...is baffling.
America, once bright eyed and immune to this, has now gathered it own baggage about itself. Bigotry only has a hood and swastika, and certain skin and gender. Like the Old World, we now see things only where we used to see them and expect to see them.
That's why bald-faced bigotry has been mainstreamed in America, cuz we all "know" a 19 yr. old girl with cute braids is incapable of hate, and so we listen to their hate and judge it to be wisdom. Cuz "wisdom" has a look, and a last name, or a skin color.