@McTag,
McTag wrote:
Quote: A schlemiel is a kind of putz or schmuck, I think.
Its relative: Its been explained that a schlemiel is the guy that spills his soup at an important dinner party. A schlemozal is the guy he spills it on.
So the correct analogy might be a schlemiel like democratic Senate Majority to the American public's schlemozal.
My take on the induced Palestinian/Liberally self induced debacle:
PALESTINE
In examining the Israeli/Palestinian conflict a bit of history is in order. Nineteenth century Jewish intellectuals founded the Zionist movement with the goal of establishing a national homeland for the Jewish people. This spurred by centuries of anti-Semitism by Christians and Muslims alike- from 11th century pogroms against Jews in North Africa, through the Spanish Inquisition, to the Holocaust. The area in question was controlled by the Ottoman Empire which sided with Germany in WWI. Being at war with Germany Britain therefore encouraged the Arabs in this region to rebel against the empire. The modern Arab (Palestinian) claim to this area stems from a vague promise and fuzzy border distinctions by British officers to the Arabs for their rebellion which started in 1916. The next year British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour expressed official support for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. This Balfour Declaration spurred Jewish immigration and saw Britain repeatedly affirming its desire for Palestine to be home to both Jews and Arabs. This was later affirmed by the League of Nations (a UN precursor) which gave Britain control over present day Israel and Jordan (The British Mandate). Clashes over Jerusalem’s west wall and in Hebron raised tensions, Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, and Jewish immigration continued as did Jewish/Arab tensions. A British effort to find causes of the conflict, The Peel Commission, recommended abolition of the British Mandate and reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration’s division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. The dominant Arab leadership, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Haj Amin al-Husseini) opposed while mainstream Jewish leadership whole heartedly agreed to it. In November of 1947 the new UN passed Resolution 181 calling, like the League of Nations, for separate Jewish and Arab states. Arabs rejected the proposal and in May of 1948, after the British officially leave, Israel declares its Independence. The Arab states Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq invade and then lose much of the land the UN had set aside for the Arabs. And so it went and so it goes.
The Arabs (Palestinians) say they were robbed by westerners of land that they occupied for hundreds of years and that the British Officers’ promise was broken. Israelis cite history and ancient biblical passages that name Zion and Jerusalem, whereas the more recently written Koran is silent on this. Israelis also can point to modern actions of The League of Nations and The United Nations that legitimatize both Israeli and Palestinian states. But, where the Israelis seized the day regarding statehood, Palestinian leadership seems hell bent on an all or nothing attitude and refuses to agree to any solution that recognizes a Jewish state.
Obama has stated in his Cairo address:
Quote:
“Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”
This is misleading in that it mistakenly links European (Western) actions of anti-Semitism and the holocaust with the Arab narrative that the Palestinians must pay for European crimes by the presence of a Jewish state in their midst. Obama is correct in saying that Holocaust denial is wrong and hateful. But, he is wrong when he equates the founding of the state of Israel with the Holocaust. The previous short history informs us that the concept and actual creation of Israel was pretty far along well before Hitler killed his first Jew, if any thing, a well established Jewish state would have worked against the Holocaust had it existed before Hitler. As to anti-Semitism, those in Cairo would do well to remember Egypt’s welcoming back of Grand Mufti Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, as a hero, who spent the war years as Hitler’s guest facilitating the murder of the Jews. North Africa was just as guilty as the Europeans.
The second paragraph of the Obama quote demonstrates Obama’s attempt at analogy between Jewish suffering and an Arab people who have been denied a “homeland… for more than sixty years...” President Obama forgets to mention that all during that time Palestinian leaders have absolutely refused any and all deals that involved a Palestinian state co-existing peaceably along side a Jewish one. From the Balfour Declaration thru the 1967 Arab League’s “Three Nos” Khartoum Resolution (No peace, No recognition, or No negotiations with Israel) to Camp David to Oslo to the Road map Arab leaders have been the consistent obstacles to a solution, not the Israelis. Indeed, to this day Hamas, and Hezbollah still call for the destruction of Israel. Fatah controlled media still produce hateful anti-Semitism in the West Bank. Many like to opine that President Obama’s recent efforts to solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem (along with all the other kowtowing towards Muslims) is an attempt to appease or assuage the Iranians to drop their nuclear program. If so, this is wrong headed. One of the keys, in the region, to pressuring the Iranians to drop the nuclear thing, lies with Arab states such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia who fear an emergent Persian hegemony more than a possible two state solution. Actually, an attenuated Iran could arguably lessen Iranian support of Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah militants, facilitating further, a two state solution. Iran and its nuclear ambitions should be dealt with first.
Obama made a big deal out of the settlements issue:Quote:
” the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." This is the first time an American president has denied Israel’s settlements in occupied territories. Indeed, all agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, including The Road Map, has admitted this issue can only be addressed in the final peace agreements and is not a precondition for negotiations .Elliott Abrams, who handled Middle East affairs at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009 tells us: Quote:
” Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.”Indeed, regarding Obama and his Secretary of State’s newly found aversion to Israeli settlements, Charles Krauthammer asks:Quote:
” To what end? Over the past 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 expel people from their homes and turn their 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 past 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.
Additionally the” right of return” of those Palestinians who chose to leave (many stayed and now enjoy Israeli freedoms) during the earlier conflicts is a dead issue simply because those Palestinians are mostly dead themselves. To allow their children and their children’s children, who have little if any memory of life in such areas, to return spares no one suffering and only works towards an Israeli boycott of any such negotiating position (Israeli acquiescence would mean the eventual destruction of the Jewish state) and is, therefore, an impediment to peace. However, it does work towards the original Arab goal of the destruction of the state of Israel. This is, of course, consistent with the “bargaining” position of groups such as Hamas and Fatah.
The refugee problem that President Obama mentions in his context of Palestinian suffering should have him asking the question of why it has persisted “For more than sixty years”. Jordan has taken in many of these refugees over the years. Obama should hold other Arab nations accountable and ask why more don’t offer naturalization to those remaining. Do those nations find the refugees undesirable for the same reasons the Israelis do or do those Arab nations merely find Obama’s “stalemate” politically convenient for their own purposes? Richard Chesnoff opines:Quote:
” Let's face it. Why has every major post war refugee problem in the world been settled except for the Palestinian one? You know the reason: the Arab states have never wanted to settle it. With the exception of Jordan, no single Arab state has ever offered citizenship to Palestinian Arabs, preferring instead to maintain them as political fodder, locked in refugee camps, surviving on the international dole and the political wet dream of destroying the Jewish state.”
Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city has enjoyed peace and unprecedented plurality ever since the Israelis took over the ancient city in 1967 during the Six Day War. Even candidate Obama clarified this on June 04, 2008 in a speech to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Council) :"Let me be clear … Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." But President Obama just cannot seem to stop his micromanagement tendencies. First insurance then automobile companies and now real estate in Jerusalem. Jeff Jacoby informs:Quote:
” Late last week, the Obama administration demanded that the Israeli government pull the plug on a planned housing development near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. The project, a 20-unit apartment complex, is indisputably legal. The property to be developed " a defunct hotel " was purchased in 1985, and the developer has obtained all the necessary municipal permits.
Why, then, does the [Obama] administration want the development killed? Because Sheikh Jarrah is in a largely Arab section of Jerusalem, and the developers of the planned apartments are Jews. Think about that for a moment. Six months after Barack Obama became the first black man to move into the previously all-white residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.”
Meanwhile the centrifuges in Iran whir on.
Perhaps the Obama admin’s present focus on Israel as the bad guy is simply a failure to understand the history or perhaps it is simply a lack of diplomatic imagination. Of all the ME actors, who does the U.S. have the most leverage with… Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, or Israel? But to those who know the history, making Israel the bad guy here is like looking for your lost car keys under the street light while knowing full well you dropped them somewhere in the unlit back alley down the street. Is this policy for pure show?
But even if we assume that President Obama is right, I think it is safe to say that the Obama admin would insist that any two state solution agreement would have, as its number one priority, secure borders that guarantee both states their national security and, therefore, their right to exist. If so, exactly what entity should Obama force Israel to sign on the dotted line with? That is, who will administer the proposed Palestinian state responsibly?
We all are familiar with the incessant string of No’s that continually punctuate Palestinian answers to negotiation efforts. But, how about if they discontinue the spewing of hatred against Israel in schools, mosques, and the media? This is the stock in trade of, not only, Hamas and Hezbollah but Abbas’ Fatah. Perhaps, when Abbas weeds out corruption and stops naming computer centers after terrorists that hijack buses and kill women and children, they can be considered a bit more responsible.
After Prime Minister Sharon withdrew from Gaza and Palestinian elections put Hamas in power, how did a responsible Hamas run government respond to the needs of its Palestinian charges? We all know. They launched thousands of rockets into Israel forcing Israel to become an international Boogie man when they set up security into and out of Gaza to prevent or, at least, diminish the rocket attacks. This prevented normal trade and employment in the region and therefore led to suffering of the Palestinian people. Voila, the “international community” laments the suffering of the Palestinian people and blames…wait for it…Israel!
The most glaring problem recognized by many is Palestinian deflection of blame. This is a subject in and of itself that I addressed in a thread that examined the fertility of the Middle East regarding democratic governments a few years ago, but Palestinian blame deflection in combination with the modern liberal mindset of many western statesman has been the main impediment to peace in this conflict.
Simply, Obama, on examination of the history and actions of the players in this conflict, would have a better chance of success in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict if he recognized and informed the “international community” where concurrent American actions would be directed and most effective, including:
--Stalwart support of the robust democratically based U.S. ally and the internationally recognized state of Israel with assurances it would help ward off any entity moving towards its destruction.
--Ceasing any and all support to those groups who interfere with or co-opt humanitarian aid (UN or otherwise) to the Palestinian people.
-- Ceasing any aid (while working towards international concurrence of same) to those entities who call for or whose actions imply the destruction of the state of Israel.
--Calling for greater responsibility of the Arab nations to help the Palestinians form their own secure and responsible state
--Imposing painful sanctions upon those (especially state actors) that support groups that fall under the third action above.
That is, Obama should put the pressure on Palestinian “leaders” to abandon their dream of Israel’s destruction and settle for just a mere peaceable internationally recognized Palestinian state. Obama must realize that a true and just two state solution depends upon a Palestinian state recognizing and living alongside, in peace, with a Jewish state of Israel. Israelis have been reluctant about a two state solution for one simple reason; many Arab negotiation points would ultimately threaten Israel’s preservation. If Obama is to be successful he must help, cajole, and force the Palestinians to present their plan for a peaceful responsible Palestinian state. For if it is the Palestinians that say they wish a nation of their own, they must demonstrate this willingness through responsible actions. The Israelis already have theirs and have had it for, well… “over sixty years”.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/CGME_transcript.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-z-chesnoff/how-do-you-say-kumbaya-in_b_211848.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/09/AR2009060902594.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-speech-in-cairo-vid_n_211215.html
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0609/bayefsky060909.php3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060403811.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588743827950599.html
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/06/04/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_74.php
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby072209.php3
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/richard/chesnoff061609.php3
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/mort/zuckerman061009.php3
http://jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby052009.php3
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0609/glick062609.php3
