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.

“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.”

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.