Obama only reinforces the Palestinian myth
WASHINGTON — Obama the Humble declares there will be no more “dictating” to other countries. We should “forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions,” he told the G-20 summit.
In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth “start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating.”
An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone—Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity.
As Secretary of State Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: “a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.”
What’s the issue? No “natural growth” means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them—not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out.
No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns—even before negotiations.
To what end? Over the last decade, the U.S. government has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some of the close-in settlements—and compensating the Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel itself.
That was envisioned in the Clinton plan in the Camp David negotiations in 2000, and again at Taba in 2001. After all, why turn towns to rubble when, instead, Arabs and Jews can stay in their homes if the 1949 armistice line is shifted slightly into the Palestinian side to capture the major close-in Jewish settlements, and then shifted into Israeli territory to capture Israeli land to give to the Palestinians?
This idea is not only logical, not only accepted by both Democratic and Republican administrations for the last decade, but was agreed to in writing in the letters of understanding exchanged between Israel and the United States in 2004—and subsequently overwhelmingly endorsed by a concurrent resolution of Congress.
Yet the Obama State Department has repeatedly refused to endorse these agreements or even say it will honor them. This from a president who piously insists that all parties to the conflict honor previous obligations.
The entire “natural growth” issue is a concoction. It’s farcical to suggest that the peace process is moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new grandchildren—when Gaza is run by Hamas terrorists dedicated to permanent war with Israel and when Mahmoud Abbas, having turned down every one of Ehud Olmert’s peace offers, brazenly declares that he is in a waiting mode—waiting for Hamas to become moderate and for Israel to cave—before he’ll do anything to advance peace.
In his much-heralded “Muslim world” address in Cairo on Thursday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people’s “situation” is “intolerable.” Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations—Haj Amin al-Husseini in 1947, Yasser Arafat in 2000, Abbas in December 2008—rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders—Fatah and Hamas alike—built no schools, no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, no institutions that would relieve their people’s suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.
Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.
Blaming Israel and picking a fight over “natural growth” may curry favor with the Muslim “street.” But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter.
Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
Jun 26, 2009 at 1:16 p.m.
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Woenellie - I guess that explains why god terminated the women and children of jerico, unless of course the woman had not yet slept with a man, then they could be kept by the chosen people as slaves. I guess the slaughter of those children was justified since they were not the chosen people and the chosen people needed to live there.
Jun 26, 2009 at 12:31 p.m.
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Dr.Talk, don't religious people want to run this country? And if they had their way wouldn't it be a matter of extremisn on the right? And wouldn't that extreminism have as its basis a belief in the psychosis of scripture and the belief in some kind of imaginary, crazy creature? And wouldn't this regime compel everyone to abide by this stuff?
Jun 26, 2009 at 12:29 p.m.
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Dr.Talk, don't religious people want to run this country? And if they had their way wouldn't it be a matter of extremisn on the right? And wouldn't that extreminism have as its basis a belief in the psychosis of scripture and the belief in some kind of imaginary, crazy creature? And wouldn't this regime compel everyone to abide my this stuff?
Jun 26, 2009 at 12:24 p.m.
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Was god trying to make up for the Holocaust?
Jun 26, 2009 at 12:09 p.m.
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Personal attacks do not scare me, you have nothing intelligent to say so you attack me! Get a life! and God does back the winner as happened in 1948. He will always back Isreal as they are his chosen people!
Jun 26, 2009 at 10:25 a.m.
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Woenellie - doesn't god always back the winner?
Jun 26, 2009 at 10:25 a.m.
Jun 26, 2009 at 10:12 a.m.
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I believe God intervened in the war in 1948 and Isreal won! I believe He can do it again! Let them alone and let them go to war, we will see who desreves the land promised to Isreal in the Bible. However I believe that we must back Isreal too. They make their own decisions, they are independent of us or any other nation. they don't have to listen to our Pro-muslim leader Obama. Go get em Isreal!!!
Jun 26, 2009 at 9:40 a.m.
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Israel has a right to defend itself against the Palestinians. The Palestinians are not interested in sharing Israel with the Jews. The ultimate goal of the Palestinians is to kill all the Jews so that they can have Israel for themselves.
Jun 26, 2009 at 9:19 a.m.
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prounion,
If you take the Pournelle chart from the link you provided and flipped it over, then you have my perspective. So I'm not far off as you have claimed. Communists, Socialists, and Fascists are all on the left.
Jun 26, 2009 at 8:22 a.m.
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The left wing started this county. The right wing helped to stabilize it. The interplay of the right and left wings are necessary for any continuing stability.
You extremists have to get a gripe on this.
Jun 25, 2009 at 7:04 p.m.
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Far left wing = crazy and anti American
Jun 25, 2009 at 6:43 p.m.
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Far right wing = Anarchy
Far left wing = Communism (or total government control)
Jun 25, 2009 at 5:56 p.m.
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FOX news personalities and some right-wing bloggers have been promoting this idea that the right wing never, ever would tend toward authoritarianism. It's complete nonsense, of course, but it must make them feel better. It certainly is a revealing comment to make, showing either a lack of political education or an inability to process historical fact that contradicts your world view.
Jun 25, 2009 at 5:12 p.m.
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Totalitarian governmental control of people is naturally intrinsic to the extreme left wing and extreme right wing.
Either extreme is or leans toward totalitarianism. Totalitarianism controls all facets of the populace.
To claim that only the opposing wing is capable of totalitarianism is a requirement of totalitarianism itself.
Jun 25, 2009 at 4:25 p.m.
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futurerichguy,
No, you're wrong about the economics of fascism.
"Fascists explicitly promoted their ideology as a 'Third Position' between capitalism and communism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
That doesn't put fascism on the Right. It's mostly left-wing.
Jun 25, 2009 at 4:22 p.m.
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Dr. Talk is stuck in a single dimension.
Jun 25, 2009 at 4:15 p.m.
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Dr Talk - sorry pal you are way out there again. try this:
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_s...
Jun 25, 2009 at 4:13 p.m.
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prounion,
The far left extreme is Communism, not socialism. But socialism is still far left.
Jun 25, 2009 at 4:11 p.m.
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prounion,
No, the far right extreme is Anarchy.
Jun 25, 2009 at 3:29 p.m.
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Gandalf - well said. Enough already with Israel's abuse of financial and military strength.
Jun 25, 2009 at 3 p.m.
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Krauthammer has taken Obama's statement about interferring in the internal affairs of other countries totally out of context. The occupation of Palestine by Israel is not an Israeli internal affair (whereas, the Iranian election is an internal Iranian affair). Israel's aggression toward the Palestinians is no myth, and the entire world knows that, except for American politicians who are constrained in their actions by the hugely effective American Jewish/Israeli lobbying efforts. Israeli policies toward the Palestinians have caused an erosion of support for Israel among the American public. This erosion will eventaully cause the apologists for Israel (like Krauthammer) to become less credible with each new word they write on the subject.
Jun 25, 2009 at 1:42 p.m.
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Dr. Talk, you must have missed Political Science 101, or you took it in the 1950's. You need to consider both personal freedom and economic freedom. Obviously, facism has little personal freedom, but it supports free enterprise and thus scores high on economic freedom. Anyway, your assertion that facism is left wing is wrong.
Jun 25, 2009 at 1:31 p.m.
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Actually Doctor you have that wrong - on the far right extreme you have fascism, on the far left socialism.
Jun 25, 2009 at 1:06 p.m.
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MooShoo,
How can he be a right-wing nut and a fascist? Those two things contradict each other. Fascism is basically the same thing as a dictatorship. It's left-wing, not right. The farther to the left you go, the more government control there is. The farther to the right you go, the less government there is. It's impossible to be right-wing and a fascist.
Jun 7, 2009 at 10:56 a.m.
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That seems just a tad simplistic, don't you think? And what exactly do the Finnish have to do with any of this?
Jun 6, 2009 at 2:14 p.m.
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Let's just let them finnish off the Palestinians, then they can concentrate on Iran so we don't have to. Problem solved...
Jun 5, 2009 at 5:29 p.m.
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Chuckles has been a full-on Zionist for about a decade now. It's his primary hobby horse. Every column he writes seems to have some connection to his interpretation of what is best for Israel, even if it conflicts with rational American interests.
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It is in the rational American interest to avoid war in the Middle East.
Jun 5, 2009 at 3 p.m.
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Obama's Islam colors are showing? This is like Revelations coming to life? Can we keep the commentary focused on rational, competent thought not steeped in mythology and ignorance? Good grief, Janesville. It should be noted that it is not Israel's fault for the tyrannical leadership of Palestine, but comments such as "Obama's Islam colors" make me shake my head and worry.
Jun 5, 2009 at 2:29 p.m.
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Judaism, Islam, Christian, they poison everything. Looks like all three major superstitions have access to nuclear weopons. We need a full fledged rational education campaign.
Jun 5, 2009 at 12:44 p.m.
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Krauty can now add zionist to his resume that include right wing nut, bigot, and facist.
Jun 5, 2009 at 12:07 p.m.
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And not only that, when we turn from Isreal as their friend we might as well say goodbye! Obama is showing his islam colors more and more everyday!When will people stop adoring him and see what he is really like?? This is like revelation in the making right before our eyes!
Jun 5, 2009 at 11:19 a.m.
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Amen!
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