Haaretz/ here"... But the conflict becomes a strategic threat when it endangers America's stature on the global stage. When this is the threat, the United States can no longer afford merely to let the sides "desire" peace and gloomily watch from the sidelines as they continue to eat into each other's flesh. It's not Obama's personal pride that's at stake, and it's not the enormous U.S. aid to Israel. The Americans now see that when put to the test, this aid is not enough to help them implement their policy.Israel is challenging the United States' strategic status. This provocation goes beyond the question of Israeli sovereignty versus American might. Idiotically, Israel is competing against itself because U.S. status is a fundamental part of Israel's strength. And when Israel is ready to demolish this foundation for the benefit of the bullies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank outposts, Israel puts its own citizens at risk.Faced with Israeli foolishness, Washington can no longer afford to merely shrug. Too many American interests are at stake. So how will Obama deal with the Israeli naysayer? Will he renounce his demand to freeze construction? Will he present Israel with an obligatory work plan for reaching peace with the Palestinians? And to cut to the chase, will we see a rerun of the famous scene from the tenure of secretary of state James Baker, who left Israel a phone number it could call when it got serious about peace?..."
Saturday, April 24, 2010
"...Idiotically, Israel is competing against itself because U.S. status is a fundamental part of Israel's strength...."
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2 comments:
About sixty two years late, this comment is nonetheless a breath of fresh air in the stale air of US foreign policy. How far will this administration go in putting US interests first remains to be seen. What is more interesting is when the administration will realize that not only its interests differ with those of Israel but are contradictory. Israel has become a negation of US presence in the region. Will it stand?
Is it "Israel" that has become a negation of the US presence in the Mideast or the particular faction that favors the nasty combination of ethnic cleansing plus incitement to a US war with Iran?
To what degree does a body of opinion exist in Israel today that would extend from, say, Zvi Bar'el to Uri Avnery? That would constitute a political position on Israel's proper role in the world that Americans concerned with national security could comfortably accept--a position that could both offer security to the Israeli people and leave the U.S. free to extricate itself from the trap of hostility toward activist Islam that today so imperils the security of Americans.
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