Bea: Do you know many American politicians who are for an “evenhanded” approach of this conflict? I mean, when Dean basically suggested the US should ask for a fair and equal treatment, the official US position for 99% of the rest of the world, he got crucified.
That said, the prospect of having Feith as the next Sec of Defense is frightening. Bush II should rather directly appoint Netanyahu, or even Shaul Mofaz.
The last poll I saw had something like 17% of the US people openly wanting their govt to favor Israel, and something like 50% or more wanting a fair and equal position toward both. Basically, 80% of the US pols decide to pander to 20% of the US people. Ain’t democracy great?

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 6 2004 15:27 utc | 3

An Unwavering Commitment To Reforming the Middle East
By John Kerry
The Forward, August 27, 2004
Snippets:
We are not secure while Saudi donors fund terror, while Iran pursues a nuclear weapons programs and while Syria sponsors terrorist operations.
And we are not secure while Israel, the one true democracy in the region, remains the victim of an unrelenting campaign of terror.
Let me say it plainly: a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable.
The Syria Accountability Act, which I co-sponsored in the Senate, gave the president authority to sanction Syria, a concrete step against Syria’s support for terror and its occupation of Lebanon. As president, I will never delay implementing sanctions as the Bush administration did for many months.
The greatest long-term strategic threat to U.S.-Israeli relations is U.S. dependence on Mideast oil.
If we are serious about energy independence, then we can finally be serious about confronting the role of Saudi Arabia in financing and providing ideological backing for Islamic fundamentalist jihadists.
As president, I will use bold diplomacy to get governments to recognize the growing crisis of resurgent anti-Semitism, and take action to deal with it — not hide it.
As president, I will support the creation of an office within the State Department dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, as well as adding reporting on acts of anti-Semitism around the world to the State Department’s annual human rights reporting.
I believe that we must stand with Israel, supporting our ally’s right to build a security fence and to allow its own Supreme Court — not the International Court of Justice — to address the issue of the route of the fence.
Experience has made very clear that for the Palestinians to meet this key test, new Palestinian leadership is required, as Yasser Arafat has proven himself not to be a partner for peace.
My commitment to a safe and secure Jewish state is unwavering.
The Forward
Edwards was prepared – feel the echo. So was Cheney; Kerry is hijacking the neo-con agenda, therefore Cheney takes the opposite position, which after all is a more traditional position for Republicans. Even Bush Junior made some timid NON rabidly-pro-Zionist moves in the beginning of his presidency, in line with his Pop, who offended the Jews many times, and, some say, lost the election because of that.
See for example here:
Slate
To conclude:
Bea wrote: Is the Kerry/Edwards team going to abandon all diplomacy and continue to let Ariel Sharon dictate all realities in the Middle East as Bush did?
They will go several steps further than Bush.

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 6 2004 16:25 utc | 5

Question for the Americans who come and share their views here.
Why so much one-sided support for Israel?
Money? Jewish vote? Arms industry? Florida?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 6 2004 19:29 utc | 7

Edwards & Kerry continue a long American (Dem & GOP) tradition of unconditional support for Israel… there is nothing new there (unfortunately). What I worry about is Kerry surrounding himself with Richard Holbrook, Madeline Albright, and others who are looking to create two new states (Kosovo & Montenegro) through another Balkan war.

Posted by: kat | Oct 6 2004 21:15 utc | 9

Hate to break it to anyone who might think that K/E might be an improvement over B/C with regards to the Palestinians, but our government has completely sold their souls to Israel and it’s interests. When America’s interests get to be taken into consideration I have no idea. But hey, it’s easier to tell us that we were attacked “for our Freedom” than to admit that we are hated for our policies, and for whom we choose to associate. It should be a shameful embarrassment to Americans that we cannot even discuss Israel in our Congress without every statement by either party vying to outdo the other for Pro-Israeli stances. Nothing the Zionists do, including murdering American citizens, is permitted to be frowned upon by our master’s at AIPAC. We have been subjugated, and it is not permitted to even mention the fact.
Look for the democratically elected President of Palestine to be assasinated prior to the election, when not one of our “leaders” will be able to say a word about it. Not that they would, anyway! The suggestion to just be honest and appoint Netanyahu or Mofaz as our Sec.of State or Defense should be ridiculous, but it’s not. And all I forsee from K/E is more of the same.
To the poor inmates of KZ Gaza and KZ West Bank, there is nothing to look forward to but slavery and death, but likely to include the continuation of the ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing since the end of WWII. All paid for by the American taxpayers, and cheered on by our Knesset, which includes only Likudniks, on both sides of the aisle, in both houses. Sad, that there is not one thing that those of us who despise these policies by our government,(and I believe we are the majority of Americans)can do to change the CW, that it is the Palestinians who are always at fault for every atrocity commited against them. We have no representation in our own government. Approximately 2 million actual card carrying Likudniks control what the other 290 million of us hear, see, and are permitted to believe.

Posted by: Castaway | Oct 6 2004 23:53 utc | 11

I just want to point out in passing that if the Palestinians turned into Finns, they’d be White. Sometimes, in the heat of rhetoric or when trying to be clever, people say/reveal far more than they really mean to…

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 7 2004 4:16 utc | 13

We might begin to recognize the costs of our ties to Israel when China becomes the world’s richest country. But not before.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 7 2004 6:26 utc | 15

Zarqawi: In a way, the other guerrillas, Shiite, ex-Baathist, and other “grassroots” Sunni insurgents may benefit from the US focusing on the bogeyman; they waste their time and assets hunting a guy who commits barely 1/10th of all the attacks, just a few visible ones, and the main guerrillas aren’t bothered or spied on by the Americans who mostly seem to ignore them.
Frankly, if I were a guerrilla leader, I would pick a trusted member, send him to the US so that he can feed them some BS, and then he comes back with good money to fund the movement – the enemy paying you to be disinformed must be a wet-dream of many.
Then we have possible cases like the mail Andrew Sullivan quotes on his blog, linked to by Bernhard in the Open Thread, where the Green Zone itself is infiltrated. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Tet-like attack on Baghdad, including into the Green Zone, before the election – not that they would take over the Green Zone, but that would make enough damage to make the point the US won’t win in the long run.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 7 2004 11:00 utc | 17

The interests of Israel and the US have been made to coincide, first, by long-haul Israeli propaganda and manipulation, second, through the gradually dawning awareness on the part of the US that it cannot subsist in its own territory – it must expand, take over, dominate, control more land, to wield power and gather resources — or die, that is change so radically that it would no longer be the US we know. (I think this perception is mistaken but it seems to be held by US elites.)
The US has a long history of territorial expansion and genocide, and seemingly it cannot detach from this model.
So it is a symbiotic, unholy (a-hem) alliance, bent on cooperating to crush and despoil others.
As the vital, but geographically very vulnerable, colonial outpost, taking the brunt (hate, terrorism, lack of oil, etc.) Israel can demand more and more concessions, and can ‘drive’ the agenda. It is on the front line: The US is the back office, doling out cash, arms, tentative advice, while submitting to its brave front-line soldiers at the same time. Israel has had its head turned so completely by its wild success and sadistic ambitions – fed and fostered by the US – that it no longer controls its own destiny. The US is in the same position; its wheels are off and it is scraping down the gulley at a terrific speed, to end up who knows where.
No wonder Cheney is depressed and exhausted.

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 7 2004 18:47 utc | 19

@Bea sorry if my comment seemed cryptic. it was a back-reference to a previous thread on which we were discussing the peculiarities and ironies of the Occupation and the role of Israel as a colonial outpost of “European-ness” (i.e. White-ness) in the “dusky savage” regions of the world. certainly there is a racist undertow (sometimes quite visible on the surface too) in rightwing Likudnik politics, in which “n*gger-jokes” are told about Arabs/Palestinians, Arabs are said to be “dirty,” “uncivilised,” “stupid,” etc.
the meaning of “White” is very fluid and has nothing to do with genomes. an anecdote I was told a couple of years ago illustrates this perfectly: an American politician went to Canada on a goodwill trip. in order to counteract the “ugly stupid American” stereotype he carefully rehearsed his brief remarks in French as well as English, knowing that much of Canada is bilingual. so he got to some godforsaken place — possibly in Saskatchewan — facing an audience of rural guys with John Deere hats and so forth. nervously he started his French speech, reading from cards and trying to pronounce the text properly. he hadn’t got more than two or three sentences into it when a big guy in the front row called out scornfully, “Talk White, for Chrissakes!”
so, what that anecdote has meant to me, ever since, is that White is code for “like us,” i.e. not-foreign. back when Jewish people were not considered White, for example in the 1920’s in upper class British society, they were often referred to “politely” (i.e. euphemistically) as “Orientals” (which is very confusing for modern readers), lumped into the same category as Chinese, Japanese, and “all those -ese” from exotic foreign climes.
who gets to be “White” is not really about DNA or even skin colour — remember that “yellow Japs” often had a paler, creamier complexion than the Americans who were shutting them up in internment camps. it’s about “Us” and “Them,” about superiority and inferiority, about trust and mistrust, about claims to culture and civilisation and denial of claims to culture and civilisation.
“if they turned into Finns,” imho is shorthand for a whole way of thinking about the Palestinians — i.e. they are savages, they are the opposite of “European,” European being taken in a self-congratulatory way as a synomym for urbane, civilised, educated, intelligent, rational, reasonable, etc. “if they turned into Finns” has (to my ear) all the casual cruelty of Cinderella’s stepmother throwing the peas into the fireplace, or later saying that she might go to the ball if only she had a proper dress. it’s saying that there is nothing, nothing the Palestinians can do to become White and therefore deserving of negotiation, diplomacy, reasoning, bargaining — they are as far from civilised humanity as the climate of Finland is from the climate of N Africa. or so I read it.
the doublethink of occupiers is brilliantly self-serving. if the occupied people meekly accept domination then it proves that they are inferior, they have no backbone, they are “weak and womanly” and destined to be slaves. but if they dare to fight, to try to defend their land, to raise their hand against their self-appointed masters, then that makes them “savages” and “animals,” “brutes” who must be put down with an iron fist to protect Civilisation from their barbaric onslaught. heads we win, tails we win.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 8 2004 4:39 utc | 21

The full interview with Weisglass is now available from Haaretz. Some snipets:

If something happens – an unusual military operation, a hitch, a targeted assassination that succeeded or one that didn’t succeed – before it becomes an imbroglio, she calls me and says, `We saw so-and-so on CNN. What’s going on?’ And I say, `Condy, the usual 10 minutes?’ She laughs and we hang up. Ten minutes later, after I find out what happened, I get back to her and tell her the whole truth. The whole truth. I tell her and she takes it down: this is what we intended, this is how it came out. She doesn’t get worked up. She believes us. The continuation is damage control.”
…
“The disengagement plan is the preservative of the sequence principle. It is the bottle of formaldehyde within which you place the president’s formula so that it will be preserved for a very lengthy period. The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.”
…
“The American term is to park conveniently. The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians. There is a decision here to do the minimum possible in order to maintain our political situation.
…
in regard to the large settlement blocs, thanks to the disengagement plan, we have in our hands a first-ever American statement that they will be part of Israel. In years to come, perhaps decades, when negotiations will be held between Israel and the Palestinians, the master of the world will pound on the table and say: We stated already ten years ago that the large blocs are part of Israel.”
…
Because in regard to the isolated settlements there is an American commitment stating that we are not dealing with them at the moment, while for the large blocs there is genuine political insurance. There is an American commitment such as never existed before, with regard to 190,000 settlers.”
…
And we received a no-one-to-talk-to certificate. That certificate says: (1) There is no one to talk to. (2) As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact. (3) The certificate will be revoked only when this-and-this happens – when Palestine becomes Finland. (4) See you then, and shalom.”
…

Posted by: b | Oct 8 2004 10:16 utc | 23