Hermit
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Yet another brilliant South African (even if he does work fot Time)
« on: 2008-02-02 08:30:41 » |
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I discovered this one purely by chance when I found a guest editorial on France and liked it enough to read further. I'll post the brilliant dissection of how the US has completely misunderstood France (as it has a tendency to completely misunderstand everything) on its own thread. But strongly advocate reading:The 8 Fallacies of Bush’s Abbastan Plan
...Bush and Condi would now have us believe that in fact some kind of opportunity has arisen to promote “peace” between Israel and the Palestinians by starving the Gazans and ignoring the political party in which Palestinian voters placed their confidence 18 months ago, while pumping cash into a new authoritarian regime under U.S. tutelage headed by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. The Administration has “no good options”, the New York Times tells us, although the truth is that’s only if you accept the limits set by the Administration’s extremists who have ruled out the obvious option — talking to Hamas. (Gasp!) Spare me the adolescent rubbish about not being able to talk to people who don’t recognize Israel — Mahmoud Abbas’s own Fatah movement only did so in 1998, five years after the Oslo Accords were concluded. (The U.S.-backed Iraqi government, by the way, is led by a coalition whose basic political platform includes non-recognition of Israel.) Hamas has made clear ever since winning the election that it wants to engage with the West, most recently in a New York Times op-ed from a key adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. It is the U.S. that has — to the point of criminal irresponsibility — refused to consider it....
And:
The West’s Costly Hamas Error
Hamas represents the moderate current in Islamism that advocates for democracy and electoral politics.
The alternative — which the West is effectively chosing – is violent nihilism
First, it’s worth noting that the whole idea that Palestinian “moderates” are being bolstered in order that they will make peace with Israel is just a PR line, or a rather sick joke. The Israelis have left no doubt that when they talk about boosting Mahmoud Abbas in order to strengthen prospects for a two-state solution, they are simply taking the piss — or more correctly, to borrow a line from Mike Leigh’s “Naked,” the U.S. media is giving it away. Nor is it only the media: the Western world’s political elites seem equally comfortable with the charade. Leading Israeli political correspondent Aluf Benn reports that there is now a firm consensus, across Israel’s political spectrum, that there can be no withdrawal from the West Bank for the foreseeable future. Benn writes: In this atmosphere, it is clear that any talk about a “two-state solution” and the prime minister’s declarations at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit about “new opportunities” and “accelerating the process toward a Palestinian state” are bogus. This diplomatic lip service, disassociated from reality and real expectations, is meant to assuage the Americans and the Europeans and deflect pressure on Israel. ...
Compelling stuff.
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Hermit
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