Didn’t the Europeans of centuries past do that to the Jews, treating them like second class citizens?
So, basically we have the modern day equivalent of a Jewish Ghetto?
The problem is that if Israel doesn’t make peace, then the day is coming sooner rather than later that they’re going to have to resort to some very, very, very ugly tactics (uglier than those used to date) to deal with their “Palestinian Problem.” The demographics race is not on Israel’s side.
Is there any historical analogy for a superpower spending so much time sucking up to a minor power?
Speaking before a warmly receptive joint meeting of Congress that showered him with more than two dozen sustained standing ovations…
I was browsing news.google this morning and noticed USA Today’s capsule:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress today, he’s likely to find a receptive audience in his quest for peace with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu IV: The Quest for Peace
Quest for peace? Isn’t his dream of peace bulldozers and bullets?
Israel has quite the interesting problem.
In the first instance, they are one of the few countries to have successfully concluded wars resulting in territorial conquest against enemies other-than-colonial powers since 1945. Given the fundamental shift in international norms pertaining to armed conflict since mid-century, they have never been “safe” in those gains. The so-called “land-for-peace” formula is actually almost a given in international conflict resolution in this day and age.
Secondly, Israel has identified a highly successful counter-terrorism strategy in the form of the Wall, which has reduced civilian deaths in suicide attacks dramatically over the course of the past few years. This has both reduced the incentives to make negotiate with the Palestinians – the pressure for which is already substantially diminished by their own serious political divisions since Arafat’s death – at the same time that it eliminates a major source of external sympathy for the Israelis: it is no longer Israelis who die in car bombings, but Palestinians who die during incursions. In other words, Israel’s external credibility is diminishing over time.
Third, Obama is an avid humanitarian. His national security team includes appointees such as Susan Rice and Samantha Powers – the same people who believe that American inaction was partly to blame for the Rwandan Genocide, and who argued passionately for military intervention in Darfur. It is probably the case that our involvement in Libya stems from Obama’s conviction that this is an appropriate role for U.S. power. Unsurprisingly, he appears to be more in sympathy with the Israeli cause than his predecessors, and also more willing to cross lines that were previously considered taboo.
Fourth and finally, with the pull-out from Southern Lebanon in 2000, Israel turned the page on any hope of standing up an Arab Christian pseudo-state, and thereby potentially making greater common cause with the American Right than it already does today. In fact, that opportunity was already moribund on the death of Bashir Gemayel.
Surely you mean the opposite of what you wrote here.
Fourth and finally, with the pull-out from Southern Lebanon in 2000, Israel turned the page on any hope of standing up an Arab Christian pseudo-state, and thereby potentially making greater common cause with the American Right than it already does today. In fact, that opportunity was already moribund on the death of Bashir Gemayel.
Being pretty conversant with the aims of the American Right, that is shocking since I have never read or heard anyone mention the aim of standing up in Lebanon an “Arab Christian pseudo-state”. Is this some kind of allusion to Israel as a “crusader-state”? Being stalwart allies of the United States and the only established democracy in the region does the job well enough.
Lum
1969
Having a Christian puppet micro-state in Lebanon might have made fundamentalists even more in Israel’s pocket (look at how Pat Robertson came out in support for Laurent Gbagbo) but it’s purely theoretical since Bashir Gemayel didn’t live long enough to test that and the South Lebanon Army never had any perceived legitimacy of its own. It’s also unnecessary since fundamentalist Christians have made common cause with the Israeli right wing anyway. Israeli Jews may not be Christian but they’re a damn sight more acceptable to the average right-wing voter than Palestinian Muslims or, um, er, Palestinian Christians.
Surely you mean the opposite of what you wrote here.
Yes, I surely did.
Being pretty conversant with the aims of the American Right, that is shocking since I have never read or heard anyone mention the aim of standing up in Lebanon an “Arab Christian pseudo-state”. Is this some kind of allusion to Israel as a “crusader-state”? Being stalwart allies of the United States and the only established democracy in the region does the job well enough.
It was a pie-in-the-sky objective of Evangelical Christians during the 1970s, perhaps even before that demographic became identified almost exclusively with the Republican Party in the United States.
Having a Christian puppet micro-state in Lebanon might have made fundamentalists even more in Israel’s pocket (look at how Pat Robertson came out in support for Laurent Gbagbo) but it’s purely theoretical since Bashir Gemayel didn’t live long enough to test that and the South Lebanon Army never had any perceived legitimacy of its own. It’s also unnecessary since fundamentalist Christians have made common cause with the Israeli right wing anyway. Israeli Jews may not be Christian but they’re a damn sight more acceptable to the average right-wing voter than Palestinian Muslims or, um, er, Palestinian Christians.
Gemayel’s death certainly scotched the idea writ-large, as applied to the whole of Lebanon or even only the Mt. Lebanon area. However, the notion of a South Lebanese pseudo-state persisted (if largely corpse-like) until the Israel Defense Forces pulled out of the area in 2000.
By 1976, Israel had reasonably strong economic and humanitarian ties to the Maronite Christian and Shia communities of South Lebanon. Indeed, two years later, during Litani, the IDF encouraged Shia Muslims to form cooperative self-defense militias making common cause with Haddad’s troops. Of course, the Christians themselves made thoroughly poor neighbors, although one could argue that Israel’s policy was hardly itself mature: they ought to have twisted some arms in order to obtain a modus vivendi between their erstwhile “allies.” But, as you have noted, this is a whole lot of speculation, and not terribly significant – merely very interesting.
I loved this on my friend’s Facebook wall: “Israeli Ambassador Micheal Oren explains why Israel’s 1967 borders are indefensible by explaining how Israel defended them in 1967.”
Organize a boycott against Israel or the settlements? Prepare to get sued!
According to the law, a person or an organization calling for the boycott of Israel, including the settlements, can be sued by the boycott’s targets without having to prove that they sustained damage. The court will then decide how much compensation is to be paid. The second part of the law says a person or a company that declare a boycott of Israel or the settlements will not be able to bid in government tenders.
The first part of the law I do see problems with in what is supposed to be a free society. But the second part does make sense, if you are going to boycott the country why should you then be able to bid on contracts from the government of that country.
But an Israel boycott produced one of my favourite posters of all time :(
Because they are citizens who pay taxes and have rights, including freedom of speech. It might sound “logical” to you, but look at it another way: do you believe that someone should be denied the same rights as others based on the political opinion they express? Because if you agree with denying people the right to bid on government contracts based on their point of view, that’s exactly what you believe.
Lum
1976
The real subtext is the West Bank settlements. No one in Israel (except the very far-left and some ultra-Orthodox crazies who think Israel shouldn’t exist without a handy Messiah) actually advocates a boycott of Israel proper. Boycotts of goods produced in West Bank settlements, on the other hand, are very common. This is not only an attempt to prevent that via judicial fiat, but also in legal terms treats the West Bank as part of Israel proper. Which is… not right. But it’s what the extreme right in Israel wants, and lately they’re getting everything they want.
In essence, the Boycott Law is the first law passed in Israel that says dissent is a crime.
Viewpoint from inside Israel:
“When the Knesset passed the boycott law, it changed the history of the state of Israel.”
In real time, a tipping point of great magnitude can sound a lot like nothing at all. But if the Boycott Law makes it past challenges filed by human rights and pro-peace organizations in Israel’s High Court of Justice, then anything goes, beginning with democracy itself.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and 10 other cabinet ministers already know this. That’s why they failed to show up for the vote.
They stayed away because they know that this is the stain that may prove indelible. The Boycott Law is the litmus test for Israeli democracy, the threshold test for Israeli fascism. It’s a test of moderates everywhere who care about the future of this place.
This is the one. This is where the slope turns nowhere but down.
Lamalo
1977
Though he had some flimsy excuses for not showing up for the vote, Netanyahu actually later on went and said he approves of the law.
Israel is in an desperate position. They are the client state of a failing power, demographics are completely against them and they have already missed golden opportunities for peace. They have already compromised on the original secular principles of the state of Israel through deals with the Shas party in the Knesset (courtesy of their terrible proportional representation political system which gives minority parties far more power than their popular vote warrants). They are surrounded by old enemies and new, such as Turkey under its Islamic government, post-Mubarak Egypt, etc. Now they are facing a General Assembly vote in the UN that will almost certainly produce overwhelming support for a Palestinian state. Isolated, besieged states pass laws like that one.
Are you a bad enough dude to save Israel?
melak
1980
I think it’s important to point out that Turkey’s recent enmity towards Israel has little to do with the Islamic nature of their governing party and very much to do with a combination of grossly mismanaging diplomatic relations with the Turks prior to the war in Gaza, the delibarate insult of the Turkish ambassador by the Israeli foreign minister, and the death of nine unarmed Turkish citizens when Israeli commandos stormed the Ship To Gaza convoy.
