NOVANEWS
Amir Oren reports:
According to Ross, for all the importance of the recent increase in American military aid, Israel’s long-term security depends on real peace with its neighbors – and therefore, on the victory of the region’s moderates over its extremists. In the Palestinian context, this means seizing the fleeting opportunity provided by the leadership duo of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. This, he added, is an American interest, not just an Israeli one. Thus it is not subject to Netanyahu’s sole discretion.
Ross – that is to say, Donilon, which is to say, Obama – outlined the link between peace negotiations and Israel’s nuclear program in delicate but clear diplomatic language. In September, at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, the U.S. managed to foil a condemnation of Israel’s nuclear program (which had been pushed by Egypt ). The Obama administration will of course “continue to stand up for Israel in these organizations, but there should be no mistake that our efforts are strengthened when Israel is actively participating in peace negotiations.”
Between “Hoss” and Ross, the meaning is clear, and it does not depend on the outcome of today’s elections: You want to keep Dimona? Then you’ll pay the price to keep talking with Abbas – namely, a settlement freeze. And as for Iran, don’t be an idiot. Leave it to Obama.
According to Ross, for all the importance of the recent increase in American military aid, Israel’s long-term security depends on real peace with its neighbors – and therefore, on the victory of the region’s moderates over its extremists. In the Palestinian context, this means seizing the fleeting opportunity provided by the leadership duo of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. This, he added, is an American interest, not just an Israeli one. Thus it is not subject to Netanyahu’s sole discretion.
Ross – that is to say, Donilon, which is to say, Obama – outlined the link between peace negotiations and Israel’s nuclear program in delicate but clear diplomatic language. In September, at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, the U.S. managed to foil a condemnation of Israel’s nuclear program (which had been pushed by Egypt ). The Obama administration will of course “continue to stand up for Israel in these organizations, but there should be no mistake that our efforts are strengthened when Israel is actively participating in peace negotiations.”
Between “Hoss” and Ross, the meaning is clear, and it does not depend on the outcome of today’s elections: You want to keep Dimona? Then you’ll pay the price to keep talking with Abbas – namely, a settlement freeze. And as for Iran, don’t be an idiot. Leave it to Obama.
Again, this is further evidence that Obama is wavering between maximal support for Likudnik policies of territorial maximalism, policies that the Lobby strongly supports, and a Fayyad-Abbas-brokered apartheid-lite arrangement, policies that J Street strongly supports. There is no significant element in the policy-making apparatus of the American government that supports either a one-state “solution” or even Clinton-esque “parameters,” (Fayyad-esque apartheid lite won’t even go so far as the American government was prepared to go in 2000) because no one has made the case to corporate America how their interests will be served by a peaceful settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Freeman, Walt, and Mearsheimer can keep clacking those fingers on their keyboards, insistently making the case, but very few are listening. If they do listen, it will require an out-and-out rupture in the ruling class, between what Michael Klare used to call the Prussians, profiting off war and energy conflicts, and Traders, profiting off “globalization” and breadth regimes of capital accumulation. The problem is that American accumulation is concentrated in the finance, insurance, and real estate sectors, and for them, it doesn’t matter too much what the hell America does vis-a-vis Israel. They barely care.
Furthermore, one way to keep the electorate distracted while capital movements transfer the surplus from the middle-class to the upper-class is wars. Another source of capital accumulation is the increased presence of financialization even within traditional physical industries, including both manufacturing and oil firms, too. Finance is king, and finance, except for George Soros, does not seem to care about solving the Israel-Palestine conflict on any terms that even allude to the word “justice.”
While finance doesn’t care and oil and the military-industrial sectors, want war, something simple follows. There is no structural rupture in the ruling class large enough that it can be exploited to serve justice for Palestinians. It follows that it is our job to make that rupture, and the only way to do so is by raising the costs of pursuing the current policies beyond what the ruling-class will bear. The only way to do that is in concert with people who find other policies intolerable, linking the demands, and raising the stakes. There is a reason that the leftist solution remains relevant. Here’s why. It’s the only solution.
Technorati Tags: Israel, lobbby debate, lobby, military industrial complex, Nitzan and Bicherl, Palestine, Zionism
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