Too many of my Israeli friends listen to Arutz 7. :(
Lum
1902
And let’s not forget Fox News!
Lum
1903
Ick. They’re who I break out when I want to make right-wing Americans look sane.
It’s seems totally obvious, yet completely politically non-viable in the US, much less Israel. I didn’t have much to say.
Some of them live in “kibbutzim” which forbid Arabs, non-Jews, and other dogs from entering, and whose gates are closed to MDA ambulances on Shabbat.
It’s sick.
I don’t have any problem with Israel engaging in land swaps to make its borders more defensible. The 1967 borders are a bit ridiculous and unmanageable. But that’s part of the negotiation process. It shouldn’t stop the process before it even starts.
Another American president tries for another peace settlement in the Middle East. News at 11.
Wake me up when the pres is willing and able to hold some feet to the fire. Israel has clearly grown comfortable with the position it is in now and the level of violence it faces (and inflicts) and sees no need to negotiate. The palestinians are always their own worst enemies and we all sit in the middle wringing our hands.
Bah. Jaded.
Kalle
1908
The Palestinians are showing some signs of not being totally selfdestructive lately with the Hamas-PLO peace treaty.
But yeah, wake me when the Israelis actually feel compelled to do something in response to US statements.
Just to point out, Arutz 7 is definitely not main-stream media. I don’t know anyone who reads this site regular except for when they specifically look for several articles on the same issue.
For that matter, “Aushwitz borders” is not a term used in mainstream media.
Anyhow, I don’t expect any dramatic change due to Obama’s speech yesterday (at least not with Israel/Palestinians). We can wait to Nethanyahu’s speech today and see how will he respond. (Then again, what Nethanyahu says and does are two different things…)
Saw Obama and Netenyahu on TV today. Obama was trying to force choke Net with his mind. I kind of wonder why Obama has put himself out there with a proposal he must have known Netenyahu was bound to reject. Are there some wheels turning we’re unaware of? Is Obama trying to make the Israeli right look like the bigger part of the problem in order to move domestic opinion? What’s going on? Where am I? Are you my mommy?
edit Here’s the video if you want to see it yourself.
Dejin
1911
AIUI the concern was that Netanyahu was going to make a proposal to congress and Obama was going to have to respond to it. Given the current right-wing state of Israel, a Netanyahu proposal would be something that Obama couldn’t live with and would be very unhelpful to our foreign policy efforts. Therefore the Obama administration decided to preempt the discussion by scheduling a speech on the Middle East the day before Netanyahu arrived and forcing Netanyahu to respond to Obama’s proposal instead of vice-versa.
Oh that makes sense. Otherwise we’d see the GOP going “OMGZ this r a totally legit proposal, Obama doesn’t want peas in the middle east!!11!”
JeffL
1914
Yeah, I have been trying to figure out what Obama’s game plan/intended results was. He knew that there is no way Israel is going to accept the 1967 borders. So all he did was side with Israel’s enemies on that, and in a very public way. Not sure what that gained him, other than losing the Jewish vote in 2012.
jeffd
1915
The President did not call for a return to the 1967 borders.
The Jewish vote doesn’t support Israel’s brand of neoconservative insanity quite as much as people assume.
In fact, there’s a lot of wangst about it in that community; I get a lot of people complaining at me that kids nowadays (and by kids, they mean anyone under 30) don’t support Israel and why aren’t they being good Jews?
I explain to them that it’s because the Israel they would support is to the left of the left-wing parties right now. They don’t like that answer.
Electorally it makes no sense, but not all foreign policy is done for votes. It’s a logical followup to Libya and reorienting policy in the region after all the uprisings.
It makes Israel look 40 years out of touch. Especially if we see some good developments in Egypt and Syria (fingers crossed).
The problem is that Isreal thinks of the areas they would have to give up as a defensive buffer zone among other things. To give away those areas brings their enemies like Hamas far too close to thier cities to launch missiles and other such attacks at them.
Kalle
1920
People are still being shot and killed in Syria every single day for assembling in public so any good developments are still some time away.
