Middle East Peace Talks Degenerate into Farce
At the moment, the Middle East peace process appears to have descended into a bizarre impasse, more akin to farce than tragedy. Both sides are announcing demands and possible concessions, none of which seem to last longer than a single news cycle.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses a renewal of the settlement freeze, then says it might be renewed in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians hint that they may be willing to recognize Israel as such, and soon after declare that it will never happen. Then they publicly declare that only a return to the ’67 borders will satisfy them, something that, given the facts on the ground, is impossible, as they are well aware.
Now, there is the controversy over Netanyahu’s issuance of building tenders in Jerusalem, which would normally not be a problem, but in the current atmosphere is generally being considered as yet another shot across the bow of the Palestinians.
This tit-for-tat bickering is not particularly dignified for either side, but it is more or less to be expected, considering that neither Israel nor the Palestinians were particularly interested in negotiations in the first place. Politically, economically, and psychologically, the time could not be less ripe for serious talks of any kind, let alone talks dealing with the most sensitive final status issues essential for any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
The talks, and the farce now surrounding them, are wholly the creation of the president of the United States. Barack Obama’s sudden push for direct talks between the two parties, motivated mainly by electoral considerations, has had its predictable effect. Thankfully, it appears unlikely that anything worse than embarrassment will result from Obama’s ineptitude, but this is not entirely certain. Certainly, the two sides are now more alienated than they were beforehand, and positions are being taken by both sides that are considerably more hardline than before. When and if serious talks begin again, they will likely be even more difficult and protracted than if Obama had simply left well enough alone.
Until it becomes accepted that Mr. Obama suffers from a serious personality disorder, his actions will remain an enigma to commentators. He has been called narcissistic, but he is in truth a psychopath.
This is not an ad hominem attack; rather it is a carefully reasoned position. From it we can understand and indeed predict many of his actions.
1) He will pressure Israel relentlessly; in particular he will not veto anti-Israel votes in the UN Security Council unless Israel caves in to his demands
2) He will not compromise on any of his positions not matter how badly the Democrats lose in November
3) He will pursue any policy that will concentrate power in the Executive Branch, i.e., his own hands
4) He will be unable to control his own slips of the tongue and will therefore remain distant from the electorate because he will only be able to speak from prepared texts
5) He will never accept – in public or private – that he has erred in any manner – unless the admission is composed for him by others.
6) He will run again in 2012 unless he is ousted by his own party, no matter how poorly he does in the upcoming interim election
7) He will use tactics to obtain re-election that most other candidate would eschew
8) He will blame others for the country’s poor situation
9) He will pursue policies that are consistent with the Cloward-Piven strategy without mercy or reference to the sufferings of the population
Apparently his DoJ has invited other countries to get in on the “legal” battle against Arizona’s immigration law.
Nuts.
I give him a little more credit for being a skilled speaker than you do.
I am not a psychologist but I would term his psychological condition as politically driven psychopath. I read that it is a characteristic of psychopathic personalities to seek power. His early betrayal of his mentor in Chicago certainly argues for this scenario. There is certainly more than enough material in Obama’s history to clearly indicate he is disturbed. Pity the media forgot to mention it during the election.
If he tries all that, and pursue it rigorously, the upshot will be civil war in the US. I would guess that there are enough who care about keeping the US intact to stop such a series of actions, if undertaken (and I understand that the guy has started on the road).
Excellent outline, Jerry. I fully agree. I call him a pathological narcissist, which essentially means that it has progressed to psychopathy in that he has moved himself into a totally fictional world where he controls and must control ‘all events and people’.
As such, he is a pathological liar; truth or reality has no meaning to him. His words are meant only to control you, therefore, he can make one statement to one audience and the next day or month, say its opposite to another audience. Shovel-ready projects? He insisted they were the criteria for his ‘absolutely necessary Stimulus (pork)’; now, he admits there is no such thing and even, admonishes us for believing in such. How about his lies about health care, including his tales of doctors cutting off limbs for money; his lies about Arizona and ‘they’ll pick you up if you are out eating an ice cream’..
How about his manipulative tactics of promising the fulfillment of all that is ever hoped for..including the oceans ceasing to rise.. and his threat that if you don’t pass his stimulus, his health care, his..without reading or debating them..the result will be an apocalyptic disaster.
And his ever-present racism, where he openly suggests that if you don’t vote for him, you are, consciously or unconsciously, a racist because, he informs you, he..sigh..doesn’t look like the guys on the dollar bills.
What does he do when criticized? After all, in his fictional world, he is supreme. He can’t lose control of what goes on; he can’t allow anyone not to adore him; he can’t allow equality of others with him.
Therefore – he rejects criticism. He blames your view on..your ignorance, your political bias, your religious bias, your..whatever. But you are the problem. Not him..sorry..Him.
Then if this doesn’t work, he’ll attack – as he’s attacked the Tea Party, Town Halls, FOX news, Hannity and so on.
And..he’ll attack people who ‘do their own thing’, such as in Arizona, where they finally got fed up with Obama’s refusal to secure the borders and stop the illegals.
I think that Obama will do all those actions you are suggesting. In addition, I think he will more and more ignore Congress – and he already has, with his insistence that Congress pass his bills without reading them. He’ll try for more Executive Power.
Since he can’t accept that he is ever wrong, then, he’ll assume that he will run in 2012. But – Obama doesn’t like the work of being president. He’s basically lazy, superficial, ignorant of history and economics and has no desire to learn..or work. He likes the public accolades and that’s all. He’ll retreat more and more to golf and delegating and executive decisions. And open hostility to Congress.
I suspect the Democrats will have to themselves get rid of him before 2012. He’s destroying their party. The only way to get him out – is to fob him off onto some meaningless but public UN job, where he can pontificate and preach all he wants. But they’ve got to get rid of him.
This is an ad hominem attack, and you’ve doubled down by saying it isn’t. Can we have some more serious commenters at PJM?
Why I rarely read the comments anymore:
“but he is in truth a psychopath.”
Come on. I’m not in love with him either but do we have to have the stupid talk like we had with Bush. I know. You don’t like his policies so he’s a “psychopath.” Very persuasive, Doctor.
Middle East peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians deteriorate, and yet …
Yesterday, via Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, our [outrageously] irresponsible president, Barack Obama, invited a delegation of emissaries from our mortal enemies, from Israel’s mortal enemies and from the most prolific financier and exporter of terrorism in the world, Iran (of all people), to assist us and to paricipate in discussions with Hamid Karzai to develop an exit strategy from Afganistan .., thereby making us look weak, thereby strengthening Iran’s influence and power in that region, thereby defeating our purpose for being in Afganistan (and in Iraq), thereby conceding victory to Muslim extremists, thereby making the sacrifices of our troops and their families to have been in vain and thereby affirming my long-held belief, also, that Barack Obama is certifiably insane and currently the most dangerous person on this planet.
True story.
Not that Obama’s sycophants in the MSM will report it this close to the election.
It must gall Netanyahu to have to try and hold the circle while forced to deal with a dilettante like Obama.
Well said.
With all due respect Mr. Kerstein, I believe peace between the Palestinians and Israel will occur only after the Palestainians lay down their arms, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and demonstrate that they truly desire peace by teaching their children that Israel is not their enemy.
I don’t believe that any president of the United States can sway the hearts of the Palestinians to seek peace.
Consequently, there will be no peace in the Middle East in the foreseeable future.
The only way for peace in the Middle East is for everyone to get out of the way and let Isreal do what needs to be done. Then there will be peace for both sides.
Absolutely nothing will happen between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Palestinians are stalling and waiting for Iran to get a nuclear bomb. Once that happens, Hamas and Hezbollah think they will be “nogotiating” from a position of strength. Instead, they are going to push the Middle East into a nuclear war. This is madness on the part of the Palestinians. But it is also to be expected because Hamas and Hezbollah never accepted Israel’s right to exist and will not stop fighting until Israel is destroyed. But Iran doesn’t understand the horrific chain of events it will unleash if it does get its nuclear bomb. And what does Obama do about all this? He continues to alienate Israel and think that Iran will somehow give up its nuclear program through sanctions. Our president is a naive radical Muslim appeaser who will push the Middle East into a confrontation that is going to make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like child’s play.
I agree with the author on how Obama will react. For him to admit that it was his own fault that he lost the election or that Middle East peace is a failure is not within his psychology.This man is an anti-Semite. He will fall back on his usual tactic and blame others (either Bush or the Jews) instead of reexamining his own foibles. Interestingly I think the Jews who have characterized his administration are actually seeing the writing on the wall and are leaving in droves.Remember anti-Semites do not have a problem using Jews and there are some Jews who are so lacking in common sense that they allow themselves to be used.This Jewish exodus from the Obama administration speaks volumes about Obama’s character and his intentions.
“Palestinian negotiator” is an oxymoron.
First, they are not even a country, ethnicity, or cohesive people. They are a construct of the hostile Arab world: a proxy to fight Israel.
Second, nobody really recognizes their honor, trustworthiness, credibility, or capability to abide by ANYTHING agreed to in negotiations. Hamas owns Gaza, and is under no control of any “Palestinian” government.
Finally, when in history has a country ceded land won in a war launched to obliterate their existence?
Finally, when in history has a country ceded land won in a war launched to obliterate their existence?
Ans: Israel after the Six-Day War, eg the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
The Peace Talks are the very definition of futility and self delusion.
We have, on one side, a party that wants you dead and wants to take everything you have. Well, maybe they’d compromise and let you live if you move to Arizona.
Where do you compromise? They kill one of your children and take half your property now, with more to come later? You play refugee and they let you live elsewhere – until the caliphate?
Let’s make a deal, or not. I’m not a party to this mess, but I’m sickened by the thought that my country would participate in this disgusting charade. No Peace Prize for me, I’m sure.
Accurate prognosis. Our Commander in Chief leads with his Jaw and digs his heels in. Stupid and stubborn. This administration is a national nightmare.
….. and a national embarrassment …. and a national disgrace ….., for which we can thank that 52% of the electorate who elected that empty suit, street hustler and decadent dilettante to office. Those moronic, damned fools deserve as much of the blame for our present untenable predicaments as Obama does …, and let’s not forget to blame his [other] sleazy enablers, Pelosi and the other Democrats in Congress, who have shirked their responsibilities and who have flagrantly abused their power, also, all to advance Obama’s maniacal agenda of viciously redistributing wealth and power from white people to people of color – not just in this country, but all around the world, also …, immoral imbeciles who are now wringing their hands gleefully that slick street hustler Obama is putting one over on whitey with the full cooperation of insane, suicidal white Democrats in Congress.
This is a fine state of affairs: Now that the immoral dummies are in the majority, they’re running the country, bringing the rest of us down to their level, instead of cleaning up their acts and elevating themselves …, so immoral and stupid and hateful, indeed, that not one of those degenerates has had a twinge of conscience or shame or guilt or remorse about the direction that their outrageous misbehavior is taking this country.
(Never mind that, with the full support of [extremely] irresponsible Democratsa in Congress and their moronic, equally irresponsible constituents, the Obama Administration is now overtly forming alliances with this countries worst enemies, also.)
Oops, that should be country’s, not countries in the last line of my previous comments.
This sets the stage for Bill’s wife to exit out of the SOS job.
Some thing big happened in the last few days. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised Hezbollah, in Lebanon, walked up to the Israeli border and said that Israel will soon disappear. He added, “Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.” These statements come from a man hell bent on acquiring a bomb capable of evaporating Tel Aviv, or Manhattan.
This is the reality Netanyahu, Hamas, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the President of the USA must face. George Bush tried benign neglect, would not get sucked in, much to the disgust of his opponents. Obama has jumped in with both feet; he sent George Michell into the region, and put Hillary to the task of achieving peace. It is difficult to see any progress
However, it easy to foresee several mushroom clouds rising over the middle east. The status quo can not exist for too much longer. People who wish that their children will stay alive should drop silly issues such as settlement rights.
There are two kinds of peace: the give and take between neighbors, or standing over your enemy’s grave. Peace is coming to the middle east, one way or another.
Nice, but it is only if and when Israel insists in ‘settlement rights’ on a grand scale – as in, we will exist here and that’s that – will the big-bad types like A-jad shrink to their rightful size, ankle-high. Try applying this thinking to America’s wars and see how you come out.
standing over your enemy’s grave
what if your enemies like ZOMBIES?- they just get up after each defeat and don’t care if thousands or millions of their own die too?
(see Iraq vs Iran war, or 5x losers still think they can make the demands- 6 day war,intifada, Leb etc))
in every case except ISRAEL- all losers of wars LOST and got dictated the terms of peace, enforced by all nations– we have a UN not only incapable but hostile
Ineptitude is the kindest explanation for Obummers actions, personally I lean more to anti-Semitism for the explanation.
Obama has already given up on Jewish voters, although many Democrats in Congress have not. Wait for the returns to see the reality, especially in New York where Obama could not sell out a fundraiser in Manhattan even when the tickets were marked down from $1,000 to $100 (Gail Sheehy posted that story at DailyBeast when the UN opened).
But, to be fair, Obama has also given up on older voters, white men without a college degree, and seems to think his base is now black, single women, under the age of 45, and scared.
Anyway, always a great pleasure to read Benjamin Kerstein!
Richard, They are not actually mututally exclusive.
All this is true and yet, and yet:
1. The problem with blaming Obama for the breakdown of the “peace process” or “peace negotiations” or however one wishes to characterize them, is that no matter what Obama did or didn’t do, there were not, in any event, going to be any negotiations—or meaningful negogitionas—between the Palestinians and Israelis. How could there be, when the Palestinian position, non-negotiable, is the disappearance of the State of Israel (what else could “Palestinian right of return” possibly mean, unless one is under the illusion that this is a negotiating tactic?).
2. One can only conclude that there would have been the hemming and hawing and double talk that has characterized the “peace process” since Oslo, with Camp David, Taba, Annapolis, and the Abbas-Omert talks as stations of absurdity along the way.
3. One can blame Obama—and his advisors (and most of the media, and even many of Israel’s solid supporters, and even many Israelis)—for not realizing this.
4. And one can certainly blame Obama for is making it so easy for the Palestinians to say “No”, to provide Palestinian rejectionism with the moral upper hand while enabling everyone involved to forget, or ignore, that the issue is not settlements, or Jerusalem, or borders for that matter, but the existence of the State of Israel. That is the issue that is so conveniently forgotten here and which the Palestinians and their allies—to their credit, one might add, have so cleverly been able to conceal—with the help of a world that prefers to remain clueless and/or would prefer to cast the blame for the impasse on Israel alone.
5. What needs to be understood (and what bears repeating) is that the issue is NOT the creation of a Palestinian State. Rather, the issue is the Palestinian goal (of both Hamas and Fatah, though with differing methodologies, even if they have in the past and may well, in the future, converge) to eliminate the Jewish State. The discussions surrounding the creating of a Palestinian state (seemingly so reasonable, so deserved, so just—at least for those who either have not been paying attention or those who don’t care about Israel’s existence) are a deception—a strategy to weaken the State of Israel with the ultimate intention of toppling it.
6. As such, it must be understood that the Palestinians will continue to loudly and unequivocally voice their need, their goal, their aim, their aspiration, their dream of Palestinian statehood (and one should add, hint or threaten to unilaterally declare statehood)—for Western and Israeli consumption, while saying other things in Arabic—without actually agreeing to do so, without actually wanting a Palestinian state….unless the correct conditions exist: they will only agree to a Palestinian State if they believe that doing so will quickly lead to the destruction of Israel, will unquestionably bring about Israel’s elimination. If they believe such conditions exist, they will immediately declare statehood (since there is no possibility to “negotiate” Israel’s demise with Israel), AND NOT BEFORE. Even if statehood is conferred upon them (by, for example, the UN, by Obama, by the EU, or by others—or any combination of the above), they will reject such an attempt if they believe it is not opportune.
7. Obama’s entirely ideology leads him to blame Israel for the impasse. For political reasons, he has had to limit his very personal animus for the State of Israel, and particularly for its current Prime Minister.
8. Once the November elections are over and the Democratic Party is decimated if not utterly destroyed, his extreme Left views, hatred for those who disagree with him, and political toxicity becomes apparent—to even those to whom it is not already obvious—Obama will have nothing, politically, left to lose. And it is then that he will try to put as much pressure on Israel to follow what he believes is necessary to solve the problems of the region, which is, the PROBLEM OF ISRAEL. John Bolton has already warned about this. Obama, having treated the American people as he has treated Bibi Netanyahu, and having been rejected by them for it, he will now perceive America as his adversary. And when America rejects him for his views of America and his way of “governing”; and if and when a newly constituted Congress rejects his Middle-East policies, he will be able to declare that Israel and its “Lobby” has indeed hijacked the US. This is not new; but it will become dominant. It will come to the fore. And it will get very ugly.
9. Meanwhile, the Palestinians will wait, and believing that time is on their side, relish the situation. Who knows if this time they will have reason to celebrate?
“Until it becomes accepted that Mr. Obama suffers from a serious personality disorder, his actions will remain an enigma to commentators. He has been called narcissistic, but he is in truth a psychopath.”
Jerry,
Your supporting evidence refutes the statement.
Obama’s foreign policy, and his policy towards Israel in particular, are a reflection of his background. His choice of policy advisors, in the main, reflect his background. Iman Rauf, of the Mosque at Ground Zero fame, has stated that Obama’s Cairo speech contains much of his narrative.