The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Yes to Obama on Israel

    By Flavius on Sat, 05/21/2011 - 2:23pm |

    It boiled down to the inevitable  but innocuous statement that we don't support the IDF being stationed on the Jordan

    Inevitable because endorsing  that position would have been= to publically washing our hands of the situation. Which was/is  politically , and geopolitically, unacceptable: Jewish American voters don't want us to do that,The Saudis ,ditto. Ergo we won't.

    Innocuous because it was a restatement of the obvious impossibility of  US support for this bargaining chip masquerading as an existential  requirement, the Israeli equivalent of Hamas' denial of the Israeli's right to a Jewish State. 

    It's inconceivable that the IDF should be permanently stationed on the eastern border of a full fledged Palestine state. With daily convoys crossing Palestine with supplies? Would they wear signs saying Please bomb me?

    As for Hamas re:the Jewish State  every Hamas spokesman when questioned essentially replies "Why don't you start negotiating and see what we're willing to do about this "demand"?  

    No one apart from a few ferocious bloggers believes that either of those two impossible demands is intended as anything but something to be abandoned at a strategic point.

    To win a sled dog race you need 8 huskies to pull the sled and a puppy dog to be thrown to the wolves.  Those demands are their respective   puppy dogs.

     

    Comments

    Do they actually throw puppies to the wolves? Yikes!


    by Peter Schwartz on Sat, 05/21/2011 - 7:10pm

    Probably not considering the source who is .Donald Regan who was Reagan's first Secretary of Treasury (after running Merrill Lynch I think). In an interview in Barrons in the early 80s. Not someone I ask to hold my wallet.


    by Flavius on Sat, 05/21/2011 - 8:40pm

    The entire "Quartet" -- Europe, Russia, the UN and the U.S. -- immediately backed Obama's reformulation of Mideast policy. Not Canada's newly re-elected rightwing government!

    With a majority of seats meaning it doesn't have to face electors for four years, it chose to parrot U.S. Republican talking points:

    In Ottawa, the Harper government refused to publicly endorse Mr. Obama’s starting point for Middle East peace talks. A federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, insisted that outsiders cannot dictate the basis for negotiations.

    “If the two parties are of the view that this is a starting point, that is fine for them,” the senior federal official said. “If it’s border, if it’s other issues, it has to be negotiated, it cannot be unilateral action.”

    Douchebags.


    by acanuck on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 2:57am

    What "reformulation"? It was business as usual.

    Of course Russia's fine with us wasting years more on a formulation damaged from the start.


    by Desider on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 5:03am

     I almost agree with you. It was less  a change than  a signal of our positiion if there were ever a serious negotiation. Which there won't be. Since Bibi reflects  the view of  Israel's majority. .

    Or to qualify slightly , not until  there are some years without any Palestinian attacks. You can make your own assessment of when that will be. 

    Which is very sad. 

     

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 8:51am

    My point, Desider, was merely that one of the first foreign-policy moves of the new Conservative government was to position itself to the right of Obama on I-P. And "reformulation" is the mot juste for what Obama did. If you've read any of my other comments on the issue, you'll know I think it's a lame and tepid gesture (as shown by the applause that greeted him at AIPAC). Maybe we're using different dictionaries.


    by acanuck on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 2:26pm

     [riːˈfɔːmjʊˌleɪt] vb to change or update (an idea, plan, etc. already formulated)

    In this case I think there's a more clever synonym for "regurgitate" lurking in there, but I can't think what it is at the moment.


    by Desider on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 2:48pm

    Yeppers; the wags who claimed he wouldn't need a different speech at AIPAC were sooo right; '67 borders with land-swaps agreed to by all parties was juuuust right, as long as he signaled utter objection to the Palestinians declaring a sovereign state at the UN.  Even Mitchell demurred to criticize on Amanpour this morning.  Good soldier, but then, he resigned in frustration.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 3:14pm

    Talking heads today: Michael Oren, Israeli Amb. to the US is on CNN's State of the Onion and George Mitchell is on ABC's This Week.  Doubt he'll unload, but....    ;o)


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 9:19am

    CNN's State of the Onion

    Really? They have a whole show about the onion? Why not the tomato? Or potato, say? And what does Michael Fucking Oren know about onions anyway?!?!


    by Obey on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 9:29am

    "Why not the tomato? Or potato, say?"  Because there is only one way to pronounce 'Onion'.  Less arguments that way; no 'Let's call the whole thing off' walk-off moments.

    Michael Fucking Oren knows that you can peel an onion forever.  And he showed Glenn Beck that an onion can make you cry.  And he knows that pragmatic,well-reasoned arguments about I/P get you fired, thank God.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 9:45am

    O' course, this sort of Onion would be a tad more popular here....


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 9:52am

    Me, I'm going with the potato. 


    by Desider on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 2:53pm

    Top o' tha morr-nin' to ya, Des!  Now wherrrr in the the fook didja locate that fine piece o' teachin'?  And oh, by grrace; where the hell did I be layin' my shillelagh yestedee?  Ya looks ever so much like ya might need a bit o' wackin' with the thing!  And frum what I be hearin', ya may actually be crrravin' it...


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 3:06pm

    Well I be cravin' a lot of things with me shillelagh, playing paddywack I guess fits the bill. Even use it as a beer stand as need be. Luch of the shamrock and all.


    by Desider on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 3:13pm

    Ach!  And ye still got o' bit o' the poet in ya, my fine sir....  I'll be dreamin' of the shamrock fields and the twitterin' birds soon; hark, and don't I just feel a nap comin' on?  To sleep perchance to dream of the shillelagh and the wee people....ahhhh..........


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 3:18pm

    Hmmmm, can't tell if you're slumbering on pederasty or circus midgets. But some say there's (a pot of) gold in them thar hills.


    by Desider on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 3:29pm

    Michael Fucking Oren knows that you can peel an onion forever.

    There is a deep truth to this, I sense. I must stick it in my pipe and smoke on it a while...


    by Obey on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 10:00am

    Yes, O Pug, it is a Very Zen Truth to contemplate.  To meditate on that is akin to pondering the question: "If one hand claps alone in the forest, does it affect how the tree falls?"

     


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 10:57am

    Well, as long as you keep doing the one-handed clap, the tree tends, ... uh... not to fall. As it were. Or as Montaigne said, tout ceux qui branlent ne tombent pas...

    But I fear we're drifting from the subject at hand here.


    by Obey on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 11:10am

    'All who wank off' whaaaat?  My HS French dudn't stretch that far and the sensagent translator just tells me I've won a free iPad...and franly, I didn't grasp the OP, so...

    Uh-oh; I just got it.  Fall.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 11:25am

    You have reached the Satori, young crabapple...

    ;0)


    by Obey on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 11:37am

    (bows to the Old Apple Tree; backs away; trips...'shit'...)


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/22/2011 - 11:42am