“Mitt’s Magical Thinking Foreign Policy”: How Many Wars Is Romney Committing Us To?
Mitt Romney’s hailed foreign policy speech combined magical thinking and mendacity, with promises or threats to maintain, restore, escalate or commence military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran, at minimum. Speaking at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney had to have his audience of cadets wondering how many wars he’d commit them to if elected.
Ironically, in a speech most passionate about making sure there’s no “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, Romney repeatedly hailed VMI graduate George Marshall, the former secretary of state who famously opposed Harry Truman’s recognizing the state of Israel in 1948.
Romney used the tragic killing of Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stephens Sept. 11 to paint a picture of a region made more dangerous by Obama’s alleged weakness and fecklessness. “Americans are asking how this happened. I’ve come here today to offer a larger perspective on these tragic events,” he pompously proclaimed. But as he hailed “the massive protests in Benghazi” by thousands of Libyans outraged by Stevens’ killing, he seemed not to notice that it was exactly those forces Stevens, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had worked to support and strengthen in their Libyan military and diplomatic policy.
Certainly the administration has to answer questions about and be held accountable for the security problems that led to Stevens’ killing, but Romney seemed not to understand that Stevens died trying to empower the Libyan people who supposedly inspired Romney. He spoke of Stevens as though he were some rogue hero rather than a career diplomat committed to implementing a policy directed by Obama. He accused the president of “not partnership but passivity” in dealing with freedom-loving citizens in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, and once again pulled out the “leading from behind” slur as though it was stated presidential policy rather than an offhand, anonymous quote in a New Yorker story from almost a year ago. He didn’t say that the president goes around apologizing for America, though, so that’s something.
But he did tell one big lie, insisting Obama hadn’t signed a single free trade agreement, when in fact he’s signed three, with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Romney also committed himself to seeing a “peaceful, prosperous Palestine” living side by side in peace with Israel, even though he had earlier dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution at his famous Boca Raton fundraiser. “I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and I say there’s just no way,” he told his wealthy donors.“[S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem … and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”
CEO Mitt also seemed to think he can order other countries around, insisting he would get our European allies to spend more on defense, complaining that only three of 28 NATO nations spend what they are committed to on the military. Good luck with that. Mitt’s magical thinking was also in evidence as he promised to counter Iran’s military support for Syria’s Assad with … something. “It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East,” he insisted, sounding a little Palinesque.
Just before the speech, a Romney adviser told reporters that the former Massachusetts governor would consider sending combat troops to Libya – a reversal of Obama’s policy as well as his own earlier opposition to direct military involvement there. There were vague hints of more military intervention in Syria. Romney also accused Obama of abandoning Iranian dissidents who protested the 2009 election, but never said what he’d have done to support them. He expressed unhappiness with the exit of American combat troops from Iraq and seemed unsettled about their scheduled departure from Afghanistan, yet he was almost as vague about what he’d do differently as he is when it comes to which tax deductions he’ll eliminate.
Yet it’s possible Romney’s own advisers don’t know any more about his real plans than what he laid out in his speech. The New York Times revealed Monday that several of them say “they have engaged with him so little on issues of national security that they are uncertain what camp he would fall into, and are uncertain themselves about how he would govern.” They aren’t sure he’s even reading his foreign policy papers they write, and one told the Times:
Would he take the lead in bombing Iran if the mullahs were getting too close to a bomb, or just back up the Israelis? Would he push for peace with the Palestinians, or just live with the status quo? He’s left himself a lot of wiggle room.
Perhaps fittingly for a guy who has staffed his foreign policy team with Bush retreads, Romney got high praise from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who tweeted: “Terrific, comprehensive speech by Gov. Romney at VMI. He knows America’s role in the world should be as a leader not as a spectator.”
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, October 8, 2012
“The Double Reversal”: Why Did Romney Double Down On Anti-Palestinian Comments?
Mitt Romney has mastered the art of an impressive maneuver worthy of an Olympic gymnast: the double reversal. Within two days he has changed positions twice on why Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live in abject poverty.
After initially walking back his comments attributing Israel’s prosperity and its neighbors’ lack thereof to their respective cultures, Romney has decided to double down, posting an item on National Review’s website defending his statement.
It all started on Sunday, when Romney said the following at a fundraiser in Jerusalem:
The GDP per capita for instance in Israel which is about $21,000 and you compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality. And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States.… Culture makes all the difference. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. One, I recognize the hand of Providence in selecting this place.
Naturally, some Palestinians took exception to the implication that they are culturally deficient or disfavored by God. Speaking to the Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said: “It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation.”
Romney ignored the much more obvious culprits than culture, such as security restrictions, in suppressing Palestinian economic growth. As Ashley Parker wrote in the New York Times:
The Palestinians live under deep trade restrictions put in place by the Israeli government: After the militant group Hamas in 2007 took control of Gaza—home to about 1.7 million Palestinians—the Israelis imposed a near-total blockade on people and goods in Gaza. The blockade has been eased, and now many consumer goods are allowed in. But aid organizations say the restrictions still cripple Gaza’s economy. The West Bank, where 2.5 million Palestinians reside, is also subject to trade restrictions imposed by the Israelis.
The International Monetary Fund has observed the correlation between Israeli restrictions on trade and movement in the West Bank and Gaza and economic growth in the territories.
Even the people Romney was trying to compliment, Jews, might have been unnerved. Shalom Goldman wrote in Religion Dispatches, “It’s not only the Palestinian leadership that should be aghast at his remarks. Essentially, what the GOP’s candidate for president was saying is that ‘Jews are good with money.’… Students of Jewish history, and of Christian-Jewish relations, can’t help but being horrified by the tone-deafness of such language.”
Romney responded to the criticism by doing what he always does: he changed his position and lied about what he had said before. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday morning Romney said, “I did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy.… That is an interesting topic that perhaps can deserve scholarly analysis but I actually didn’t address that. I certainly don’t intend to address that during my campaign.”
But by Tuesday night Romney had changed his mind again, deciding that the effect of culture on economic outcomes is, in fact, central to his campaign. At 8 pm National Review posted a commentary by Romney:
What exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism. But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom.…
Israel is also a telling example. Like the United States, the state of Israel has a culture that is based upon individual freedom and the rule of law. It is a democracy that has embraced liberty, both political and economic. This embrace has created conditions that have enabled innovators and entrepreneurs to make the desert bloom.
Romney redefines cultures to include precisely the external factors—democracy, the rule of law, economic freedom—that liberals would agree are sources of prosperity. So now the Palestinians’ lack of economic freedom, at the hands of the Israeli occupation, is categorized by Romney as somehow a failing of Palestinian culture.
There are countries under no foreign occupation that also lack democracy, the rule of law and economic freedom, and their economies suffer accordingly. But to describe that as a national cultural characteristic—sort of the inverse of American work ethic—is absurd. North Koreans aren’t poor because their culture abhors economic freedom, while South Korean culture celebrates it. They are poor because they live in a totalitarian state that restricts it.
It is hilarious to see Romney pretend that Israel is some Republican paradise of free market policies. While in Israel Romney praised Israel’s healthcare system for being innovative and far more cost-effective than America’s. Israeli healthcare is, of course, completely socialized.
Romney’s intellectual dishonesty aside, it is curious that he even chose to do this at all. Why would he want to extend the life what is widely considered a gaffe? I’ve come up with three possibilities.
§ He wants to show strength. Romney has a well-earned reputation for flip-flopping and lacking core convictions. The current issue of Newsweek features a cover story by Michael Tomasky arguing that Romney is a wimp. Perhaps Romney wanted to show that he is capable of confronting critics and defending his turf for once. The only problem with this theory is that he would have been much wiser to do so on an issue where he had not already backed down.
§ He really believes this. It’s hard to fathom, since Romney seems to believe so little. But it’s the answer I got from every political professional I asked. Perhaps Romney does not lack a political spine but simply has his in an unusual place. Romney clearly lacks convictions on social issues, foreign policy and regulatory questions, so he makes the most politically expedient pander. But he does show conviction on certain vague economic principles. For example, he will not back down from saying that corporations are composed of people and they are not some evil abstraction. Perhaps the idea that economic benefits accrue to societies that are blessed with cultural virtue, rather than advantageous circumstances, is a similarly deeply held belief for Romney. It would make a clear corollary to his view that his own vast wealth is attributable to personal virtue rather than luck or greed.
§ Conservatives really believe this, and so Romney is trying to excite them. Typically, Romney reverses himself under pressure from conservative pundits. In this case, while conservatives were defending Romney’s original statement, there had not been a right-wing backlash against him for going wobbly on it. But perhaps Romney realized that standing on this principle would energize his base. “This is something that conservatives actually believe,” wrote Soren Dayton, a Republican political strategist, in an e-mail. “And, in many ways, it is clear that Arabs do too, reading the UN’s 2002 Arab Human Development Report, in which Arab scholars ask the same question that Romney did. To run away under pressure from Saeb Erekat and the political correctness police would be intellectually bankrupt and counter to a decade of debate within the Arab world itself.” (You can find a summary of the report Dayton references here.)
As the late, great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) observed, “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
By: Ben Adler, The Nation, August 1, 2012
“It’s Not A Gaffe”: When Culture, Context, And Cowardice Collide
Mitt Romney caused quite a stir this week, appearing at an Israeli fundraiser where he argued Palestinians have a weaker economy because of its “culture.” The comments have drawn sharp rebukes on both sides of the Atlantic and made an already-disastrous foreign trip even worse.
What’s more, as Kevin Drum explained this morning, it wasn’t a gaffe. “This was a deliberate pander to the conservative base in the U.S., which pretty strongly believes that the Palestinian culture is indeed corrupt, indolent, and sullen,” Kevin noted. “Romney knows this perfectly well. He was demonstrating once again, in a very concrete way, that he’s no RINO.”
Today, however, Romney insisted with Fox News that he didn’t say what he actually said.
“I’m not speaking about it, did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy,” Romney told Carl Cameron. “That’s an interesting topic that deserves scholarly analysis, but I actually didn’t address that. Certainly don’t intend to address that in my campaign. Instead, I will point out are that the choices that a society makes has a profound impact on the economy and the vitality of that society.”
As far as the Republican is concerned, the media is simply engaged in a coordinated effort to “divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough for our country.”
Apparently, Romney’s foreign screw-ups are the result of a pro-Obama media conspiracy.
As you might have noticed, there are a few problems with this.
First, when Romney told Fox he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture,” he’s simply not telling the truth. NBC’s Mark Murray and Garrett Haake, relying on the transcript released by the Romney campaign itself, published a report that removes all doubt. The presidential hopeful was talking about the relative size of national economies, and he made the direct connection to competing cultures.
It’s not even a close call. The relevant portion of the speech is a little long, but since Romney is denying the facts, it’s worth setting the record straight:
“I was thinking this morning as I prepared to come into this room of a discussion I had across the country in the United States about my perceptions about differences between countries. And as you come here and you see the GDP per capita for instance in Israel, which is about 21,000 dollars, and you compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority which is more like 10,000 dollars per capita, you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality. And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States. […]
“I noted that part of my interest when I used to be in the world of business is I would travel to different countries was to understand why there were such enormous disparities in the economic success of various countries. I read a number of books on the topic. One, that is widely acclaimed, is by someone named Jared Diamond called ‘Guns, Germs and Steel,’ which basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth. And you look at Israel and you say you have a hard time suggesting that all of the natural resources on the land could account for all the accomplishment of the people here. And likewise, other nations that are next door to each other have very similar, in some cases, geographic elements. […]
“But then there was a book written by a former Harvard professor named ‘The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.’ And in this book Dr. Landes describes differences that have existed — particularly among the great civilizations that grew and why they grew and why they became great and those that declined and why they declined. And after about 500 pages of this lifelong analysis — this had been his study for his entire life — and he’s in his early 70s at this point, he says this, he says, if you could learn anything from the economic history of the world it’s this: Culture makes all the difference. Culture makes all the difference. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”
Romney “did not speak about the Palestinian culture”? Please.
For that matter, it’s kind of amusing to hear the former governor suggest news reports had taken him out of context, given that his entire campaign message is based on rhetoric that’s been taken out of context.
As for Romney’s suspicion of a media conspiracy, it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when he insulted the British; it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when he misquoted the Australian finance minister; it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when his campaign kinda sorta gave the green light on a unilateral strike on Iran; it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when he used borderline-racist language at his Israeli fundraiser; it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when he praised a socialized health care system he claims to abhor; and it wasn’t news organizations’ fault when his press secretary said, “Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site.”
Take some responsibility, Mitt. Blaming the media is lazy and wrong.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 31, 2012
Blinded By The Right: Unwavering Support For Israel Hurts Wider U.S. Interests In The Middle East.
In 2003, Democrats upset about President George W. Bush’s plans to invade Iraq invited French President Jacques Chirac, an opponent of the war, to address a joint meeting of Congress. It was blatant political play, an attempt by the opposition to work with a foreign leader in offering a counterargument to the president’s invasion plans and limit his ability to carry though with his decision to go to war in the Middle East. Chirac was feted across Washington by liberal think tanks and pro-French lobbying groups as American politicians and Democratic activists fell over themselves to be identified with a strong anti-war leader.
This, of course, did not happen. The idea that Congress would openly side with a foreign leader against the president of the United States seems too far-fetched to believe. Remarkably, however, something not dissimilar happened in Washington Tuesday, May 24, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of Congress (a speech interrupted more than 25 times by a rapturous standing ovation). While these types of congressional addresses are rare, this particular event is even a bit more unusual: The speech’s intention — with the full assistance and backing of the Republican leadership in Congress and implicit support of Democrats — was to give Netanyahu a public forum to offer a rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s recent proposals for moving forward with the Arab-Israeli peace process.
As the New York Times reported last week, the invitation was initially requested by Netanyahu of the GOP leadership before the president’s Middle East speech plans had even been formalized: It was “widely interpreted as an attempt to get out in front of Mr. Obama, by presenting an Israeli peace proposal that, while short of what the Palestinians want, would box in the president.” In turn, Obama’s May 19 speech was scheduled purposely so that the president could get out ahead of Bibi’s remarks.
It’s one thing for Republicans to oppose the president’s position on Arab-Israeli peace. In the hours after Obama’s Middle East speech, Republican presidential contenders like Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney did just that, arguing that the president had proverbially thrown Israel “under the bus.” (Never mind that Obama simply reiterated long-standing U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli peace process.) They were joined — in a bipartisan manner — by prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in offering pushback on the president’s words.
It is certainly appropriate for members of Congress to disagree with the president’s foreign-policy agenda. But it’s something else altogether to be appearing to work in concert with the leader of another country in trying to put the president on the defensive –and seeking to score a partisan political advantage in the process. By openly siding with Netanyahu against Obama and making Arab-Israeli peace a partisan issue, Republicans in Congress are at serious risk of crossing a dangerous line and in the process undermining U.S. interests in the Middle East.
This behavior follows a concerning pattern. Last November, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, after a meeting with Netanyahu, suggested that a Republican Congress would serve as a check on the Obama administration when it came to Israel policy (a position he later sought to walk back). In the fall of 2009, Cantor criticized the Obama administration for its rebuke of the Israeli government over the eviction of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Most surprising of all, the attack was lodged from Jerusalem, where Cantor was heading a 25-person GOP delegation — an unusual violation of the unspoken rule that members of Congress should refrain from criticizing the U.S. government while on foreign soil. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took a similar position this February while traveling in Israel. He called the Obama administration’s opposition to Israeli settlements (a position long held by Democratic and Republican presidents) equivalent to “racism” and “apartheid.”
Last week, as Netanyahu lectured Obama at a frosty White House news conference and issued statements on what he “expected to hear” from the president about his commitment to Israeli security, Republican lawmakers barely batted an eye at behavior that by any other foreign leader would spark outrage from their caucus — and instead aimed their attacks at Obama.
This seems at pace with the GOP’s default position on Israel. This February, writing in the pages of National Review, Romney stated that “Israel must now contend with the fact that its principal backer in the world, the United States, is seeking to ingratiate itself with Arab opinion at its expense.” It’s a view that no doubt would have been met with astonishment in Arab capitals, where America’s image remains largely negative. One can’t help but wonder whether the tail isn’t wagging the dog — after all, is there a reason that the United States shouldn’t seek to ingratiate itself with Arab public opinion? There is an implicit assumption here that no matter what Israel says or does the United States must continue to be blindly supportive — an odd stance for an American politician to take, particularly when Israel’s actions occasionally run counter to larger U.S. interests.
Although one cannot ignore the fact that strongly held empathy for Israel is, in part, motivating this position, there is of course a healthy dose of domestic politicking at work. Democrats have long relied on Jewish support — both electorally and financially. Republicans, though less reliant on Jewish voters, have successfully made support for Israel a litmus test for Democrats to prove their national security mettle. Moreover, with strong backing for Israel among the party’s conservative base, defending Israeli behavior has become a surefire way for Republicans to politically cater to social conservatives and evangelical voters. In fact, Israel probably enjoys more clear-cut support for its policies among social conservatives than it does among American Jews! (And Netanyahu, in particular, didn’t just fall into this love fest: He has long supported and helped spearhead the alliance between the Israeli right wing and American religious conservatives.)
All this is a very far cry from George H.W. Bush’s open conflict with Israel and the American Jewish community in 1991 over loan guarantees for Israeli settlements. That the perception continues to exist that Bush’s aggressive stance cost him severely in the 1992 presidential election no doubt haunts the Republican Party — and any American politician inclined to put public pressure on Israeli leaders.
But ultimately there is more than politics at stake here. At a critical moment in the political transformation of the Middle East, America’s steadfast and unyielding support for Israel — underwritten by both parties in Congress — risks undermining America’s long-term interests in the region. Last year, Gen. David Petraeus commented in congressional testimony that “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region].” His statement provoked controversy in Washington, but ask any seasoned Middle East observer and you’d be hard-pressed to find one who disagrees with the general’s assessment. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya which is the greatest source of anti-American attitudes in the Arab world — it is the continued lack of resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the view of many in the region that the United States has its thumb on the scale in favor of Israel.
None of this is to suggest that Washington should turn its back on the Jewish state. But this is also a time when a more evenhanded position on the conflict is desperately needed — particularly as the United States will need to deal with a new government in Cairo that will likely be less supportive of Israel, a wave of unsteady democratic reforms spreading across the Mideast, and a U.N. General Assembly that appears ready to endorse Palestinian statehood this fall. These events will have serious repercussions not just for Israel but for U.S. policy in the region. Obama at least seems to realize this fact and has — albeit tepidly — challenged a recalcitrant Israel to get serious about peace. Yet Congress seems intent on restraining his leverage, effectively holding U.S. actions hostage to the whims of partisan politics — and in the process working in concert with a foreign leader to do it. At some point, it raises the legitimate question of who is looking out not for Israel’s interests, but America’s.
By: MIchael A. Cohen, Foreign Policy, May 24, 2011
Netanyahu Speech To Congress Shows America Will Buy Anything
A blistering piece of commentary by the esteemed (and leftist) Israeli political commentator, Gideon Levy, in Haaretz today is a must read for anyone who cares to see what progressives in Israel think of Netanyahu’s show today before the U.S. Congress.
Levy begins his piece with these loaded, and to my mind, honest salvos concerning Netanyahu’s speech to Congress today:
It was an address with no destination, filled with lies on top of lies and illusions heaped on illusions. Only rarely is a foreign head of state invited to speak before Congress. It’s unlikely that any other has attempted to sell them such a pile of propaganda and prevarication, such hypocrisy and sanctimony as Benjamin Netanyahu did.The fact that the Congress rose to its feet multiple times to applaud him says more about the ignorance of its members than the quality of their guest’s speech. An Israeli presence on the Jordan River – cheering. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel – applause. Did America’s elected representatives know that they were cheering for the death of possibility? If America loved it, we’re in big trouble.
As Levy notes, Congress today applauded some painful statements by the Israeli head of state, and this applause said much about both their ignorance on the true state of affairs in Israel as well as their willingness to remain ignorant about the true state of affairs in Israel for political gain (see: the vote of Christian conservatives and the campaign contributions of the Jewish elite).
Below is a brief look at a few of the standing ovations Netanyahu received by our representatives in Congress, and why such applause should be troubling for us as American progressives:
1. Jerusalem as Israel’s Undivided Capital – by applauding this statement by Netanyahu, our leaders essentially applauded the death of any possible peace agreement, for, as everyone knows, East Jerusalem is the proposed capital for a future Palestinian state in every iteration of negotiations that have been produced since Oslo. And yet, a standing ovation. And it bears noting: with the Arab Spring spreading throughout the West Bank and Gaza, and a declaration of Palestinian statehood on the horizon by the U.N. in September, the death of peace negotiations no longer mean what they once did: the status quo. Instead, such a death will mean major instability with unpredictable outcomes.
2. Israel is not occupying the West Bank – when Netanyahu claimed, with a straight face, that the Jewish people are not occupiers, and that the situation in “Judea and Samaria” is not an occupation, Congress roared to its feet. That the U.S. Congress could rise in boisterous applause to a known lie is chastening – Israeli leaders past, including Ariel Sharon, have admitted the obvious: that Israel is in the difficult and damaging position of occupying another people’s land.
3. Boasting on the Status of Israeli-Arabs – Netanyahu’s government has backed a series of anti-Palestinian, anti-democratic laws recently, the most notable of which forbid citizens from recognizing, in any way, The Nakba (which is the sorrowful observance Palestinians engage in as Israelis celebrate Independence Day). By applauding, our leaders, wittingly or not, gave sanction to a leader and an administration which has done much to strip non-Jewish citizens of their democratic rights.
Netanyahu’s speech today, more than anything, signaled the official death of the peace process, for none of the “terms” presented by Israel’s leader comes close to acceptable for the Palestinians.
And by standing to applaud 29 times, our leaders today gave sanction to that death. Even the White House, this evening, issued a statement saying that Netanyahu’s speech “reaffirmed the strength of U.S.-Israeli relationship.”
Here’s why what happened today matters: America has incredible leverage with regard to Israel, and has always been capable of using that leverage to talk Israel down off the pathological ledge it’s been toeing for so long due to my peoples’ existential fear of annihilation. (For good reason, I should add, but I digress.) The United States gives Israel unprecedented monetary, military and diplomatic support, all of which could easily be drawn down.
But as we saw today, the tail unfortunately wags the dog. And this wagging may end up being disastrous not only for Israel, but for American interests in the region as well, for a Netanyahu-applauded vision of Israel-Palestine is nothing more than a recipe for confrontation, for instability like we’ve never seen.
The Arab Spring has changed dynamics such that there is no going back. If Netanyahu, and America, stay on the course articulated today, this is where we may be headed:
1. A Palestinian declaration of statehood by the U.N. in September
2. Israeli & American rejection, with possible annexation of lands
3. A conflict that will not end well.
May my analysis be wrong. I hope such is the case. I fear such a case is becoming increasingly unrealistic.
By: The Troubadour, The Daily Kos, May 24, 2011
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