Needlenose

General Petreaus says:

“enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the area of responsibility.” AND “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region]“

Uh – ya think?  More bluntly – our AIPAC-formulated Israel policy is the dead albatross around our neck that is dooming our Middle Eastern foreign policy.

Biden decries Israel’s illegal colony expansions!  Compare and contrast with the Status Quo Ante, Shrubya’s envoy’s reaction to getting sand kicked in his face.

*Update 3/11/10* We should retaliate for the snub by cutting off their annual $5B handout.  Ingrates.

*Update 3/15/10* The Empire Strikes Back.  Let’s see if Obama wusses out.

This fortified wall is for your protection! Really!

It’s bad enough that Israel and the Palestinians diverge on a basic and heretofore non-negotiable item in their discrepant visions of an independent Palestinian state, the nature of Jerusalem post-independence.  The Israelis consider Jerusalem in its entirety as the capitol of Israel and are continuing to evict Arabs and expand their illegal settlements in direct contradiction of world & US policy and Palestinian aspirations.

However that’s only one indication of the shape of things to come were Israel to get its way.  Whatayahoo naturally assumes a demilitarized Palestine, and more importantly, one still containing Israeli troops, ostensibly to patrol ‘the borders’ with that scary terror state of Jordan.

So if Whatayahoo and his ilk get their way, we’re looking at an Arab Palestine composed of a wiggly little patches of territory gerrymandered around Israeli colonies, surrounded throughout by an armed wall and riddled inside with Israeli troops, without a significant city to call a capitol.

Arab Palestine would have no port, all movement between Palestinian townships would be through Israeli military checkpoints, all goods and travel into and out of the territories would be monitored, controlled and subject to shutdown at any time at Israel’s whim.

Hmm that sounds like a Bantustan to me.  Hey Whatayahoo, I hope that works as well for you as it did for Botha’s Apartheid South Africa!

“Expanding the settlements” in Jerusalem - the “natural growth” of existing settlements to provide homes for new family members – it all sounds so pleasant – but in crowded Jerusalem, one family’s expansion is another family’s eviction - it’s ethnic cleansing, one family at a time.

*Update* Palestinian leadership seems to be ackowledging the imminent death of the two state solution and are starting to talk again about becoming citizens of Israel – not a bad idea.  Dr Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department:

“We are not short of options. If the two-state option is excluded, there is the option of a one-state, as happened in South Africa. The situation in the West Bank is worse than it was in South Africa.”

Flipping off the ‘Road Map’ and US policy on the Palestinian question appears to be a sacred Israeli institution.  Whatayahoo is going forward with the settlement expansion that Obama asked him not to do back in May.

While Obama is still enjoying high poll ratings on his foreign policy leadership, it would be  a good time to really test out the power of AIPAC and start cutting back on our billions in aid.

Seriously, there’s not much point in funding a client state that not only doesn’t follow orders, but publicly humiliates us in the process.  They are like the Billy Carter to our Jimmy Carter, but they don’t even give us Billy Beer – what a crock!

Following the hand-jive of uber nationalist and former Israeli PM Sharon, current Israeli PM Whatayahoo just gave the finger to Obama and his foreign policy.

Seriously, unless there are some consequences to their actions (like, oh, cutting off the $2.4+ billion in aid we give them every year), why would Israel do anything else but flip us off and laugh at us in disdain?

*Update 5/29/09* I guess the Israeli wrong-wingers grew unaccustomed to push back on their slo-mo colonization program, but Whatayahoo is puzzled by Washington demands to back off their settlment expansion program.  Unlike Shrubya, Team Obama at least told Israel to get back with the program.  Still, dialoging has done nothing during my lifetime, so unless Washington follows up with some consequences, Whatayahoo will stay ‘puzzled.’

Forget neocons, when it comes to Israel you’re dealing with ultracons.     Whatayahoo is back, now in a coalition government with ultranationalist Avigdor “Loyalty Oaths for Arabs” Lieberman, who is already turning up the rhetorical heat:

“Whoever thinks that he will achieve something by way of concessions – no, he will only invite more pressure and more wars,” Lieberman said. “If you want peace, prepare for war.

Sad thing is that he’s probably got a hot line to our Lieberman, you know, the one who is part of the AIPAC ‘family,‘ as well as to god knows how many other US Congressional leaders.

I doubt US policy re the cis-Jordan will change in any substantive fashion and the status of the Arabs in the Occupied Territories will continue to deteriorate.  Avigmentum?

*Update* Man I had no idea what a fucking rat bastard that Israeli Loserman is – I hope he’s just a loudmouth, and not a potential Butcher of Sabra II

The key justification for the crackdown on the Palestinians in the Gaza and the West Bank spouted by the pro-Israeli camp is that the Palestinians are terrorists, because their suicide bombings and other attacks ‘target civilians.’  Frankly, I fail to see the ‘fine point’ these apologists put on it when, for example, in the recent ‘put down’ of the Hamas rocket launchers, the Israeli army killed an estimated 960 civilians out of a total of 1434 total dead – 67%!

Israel, of course, immediately and automatically disputed the number of civilian dead.  The ultra-nationalist message of the country’s leaders, however, was undercut by direct testimony from members of the IDF, who are coming forward with tales of policy-driven slaughter of civilians, including unarmed women & children.

It’s hard to take the moral high ground after the US did all this and worse during the dark years of the Shrubya Iraqi fiasco.   However, now that we are under new management, I really hope (but sadly doubt)  Clinton will put some pressure on Israel to investigate their war crimes.

More evidence that our foreign policy is behind held hostage by extreme pro-Israeli nationalists – Chas Freeman is forced to withdraw from his appointment to head the National Intelligence Council due to AIPAC pressure on influential senators.  Greenwald has some good updates to the story.  I haven’t been able to figure out why they singled this guy out, I haven’t seen any stridently anti-Israel statements in a modest amount of googling.  He did chair some outfit called Middle East Policy Council, but that doesn’t look like some pro-Palestinian front or anyting.

War Nerd uses the Gaza war to make the point that the age of ‘total war’ (where civies are acceptable targets) is currently in abeyance.  The point he doesn’t make is that Israel seems to have mastered the art of the ‘focus group’ atrocity – pushing the limits of war crimes to kill civilians, trash infrastructure, do so and collectively punish a population – but stopping just before the point where they’ll lose political support among US politicans or provoke a serious civilian action in Europe such as a boycott.

Not convinced?  What could be more cynical then their agreement to a cease-fire on the day before the Obama inaguration?  I guess they want to figure out what they can get away with with the new guy.  Shrubya was the Larry King of cis-Jordan power-brokers, but they probably have figured out that Obama may actually pay some attention to what is going on.

My anecdotal bellwhether of course are a few die-hard liberal Jewish friends, who, while they decried the Iraq war, tow the line on Israeli politics of occupation.  None of them were shaken by the recent atrocity exhibition, so it seems Israel got away with it again.

It really makes you wonder though just what Israel can get away with, if torching civilians with white phosphorus, destroying their homes and fields, denying them power and foodstuffs and any but the most minimal contact with the outside world.  What would it take to get the Euroweenies to take action?  To revolt my bellwhether pro-Israel liberal pals?  To get the supposedly sympathetic Arab neighbors stop jawing and take any real action?

*Update* After lying for a few weeks, Israel admits to frying Gazans.  As they say,  ”Like Father Like Son.”  Israel is really our ‘Mini-Me,’ isn’t it?