Soros criticises Israel lobby in US

[bemildred]

The billionaire investor George Soros has added his voice to a heated but little-noticed debate over the role of Israel's powerful lobby in shaping Washington policy in a way critics say hurts US national interests and stifles debate.

In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Mr Soros takes issue with "the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" in Washington and says the Bush administration's close ties with Israel are obstacles to a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Soros, who is Jewish but not often engaged in Israel affairs, echoed arguments that have fuelled a passionate debate conducted largely in the rarefied world of academia, foreign policy think tanks and parts of the US Jewish community.

"The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism," wrote Mr Soros. Politicians challenge it at their peril and dissenters risk personal vilification, he said. AIPAC has consistently declined comment on such charges, but many of its supporters have been vocal in dismissing them.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0416/breaking50.htm

[SoFlaJet]

1. Anyone wanna bet

That BillO does a piece on this either on his radio show or on The Factor-because in FauxWorld we all know that George Soros=Satan

[xchrom]

2. now this should be interesting...n/t

[MLFerrell]

3. Cue the pro-Israel crowd...

Instead of being labeled an "anti-Semite", Soros will be smeared with that old canard of "self-hating Jew".

Doesn't make it true, of course, but remember, you heard it here first.

[peacetalksforall]

4. One of our serious problems in this country and we can't talk about it.

And no, I am NOT an anti-semite.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Scott Ritter has a similar take on things...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x658820

And guess what? The charge of "anti-semitism" for anyone who dares to criticize AIPAC has already begun.

I think we really, really need to engage this debate on the grounds of war profiteering, here and in Israel. What is occurring with AIPAC and the BushCons, and the Democratic leadership in so far as they are overly influenced by AIPAC, has NOTHING TO DO with the TRUE interests of the American or the Israeli people. It's all about war profiteering and fascists and corporatists in both countries.

I am deeply grateful to both Ritter and Soros for trying to bring some objectivity to this debate. But I think we need to go further, and understand WHY AIPAC has such influence, and I think that the reason is not at all obvious--until some upstart like me points it out. My point is that if the US "military-industrial complex" didn't have an Israel, they would have to invent one. They did in Vietnam. It's all about feeding the war machine beast--and has nothing to do with the interests, safety or welfare of any people. I think AIPAC has gravely harmed the true interests of the Israeli people, as the Bush Junta has gravely harmed the true interests of the American people. War profiteers are driving it all.

[The Magistrate]

6. It Was An Interesting Article, Sir

It seemed to me that, in setting forth what the proper course in the situation would be, for Israel and the U.S., he places far too great a reliance on the bifurcation of Hamas into a political wing and a military wing, which he feels can be played against one another in such a way that the politicals will eclipse the militaries. That is a vain hope, in my view. Where there is a political and a military wing, the latter is the real authority, and the former powerless in conflict with it.

[bemildred]

7. I have not read the NYRB article.

Now I'll have to look it up.

As I have said in the past, the underlying grievances will have to be addressed, if the conflict is to be resolved. So to that extent we agree that any fancy-dancing with Hamas factions is unlikely to result in forward progress in that direction.

Nevertheless, "divide and rule" is a time-honored approach to political matters, and would tend to support his view, in the sense of undermining Hamas' political power. It certainly seems to have worked well with Fatah.

My own view is that the ready availability of good jobs would do much to reduce the level of violence, and be cheap at the price.

[msmcghee]

8. Interesting view.

BM: "My own view is that the ready availability of good jobs would do much to reduce the level of violence, and be cheap at the price."

So would a renunciation by Hamas' of its dedication to a Mideast free of Jews and their calling for jihad to accomplish that goal. Maybe just a recognition that Israel has right to exist in peace.

I would also note that several hundred thousand Palestinians workers were passing into and out of Israel every day with no problems in the years after the '67 War. But that state of growing prosperity was a serious problem for Arafat and his Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Yeah, jobs for Palestinians would be nice - instead of the humiliating checkpoints they live with today. So would some realism when discussing the issue.

[bemildred]

10. Arafat was Muslim Brotherhood? nt

[The Magistrate]

16. Affiliated Loosely, At Least, At The Start, Sir

Whether truely committed as an ideologue is another question. He got his start in Egyptian based agitation that was carried out under the Brotherhood's aegis; they fielded one of the Arab militia bodies in the '48.

[bemildred]

18. A flexible fellow, he was.

I never had the idea he was an islamicist or whatever they are calling it today though. More a matter of one enemies enemies being perforce ones friends.

[The Magistrate]

20. It Was Something Different In those Days, Sir

In the context of its founding, the body was a reformist, even a modernizing movement. It did not regard or read the texts in any way particularly out of the ordinary, or much different from the way most people regarded them: it simply found in them a means to undergird resistance to colonialism and home-grown autocrats and the calamatous economic inequalities of their societies.

And then, too, you have the organizer effect: A.N.S.W.E.R. is an old style Communist sectarian front, but that does not mean everyone who shows up at a demonstration they pitch is a Socialist Worker's Party militant, or even a Marxist. The Brotherhood fomented resistance, and if you wanted to resist, well, there you were....

[The Magistrate]

11. Worth Getting, Sir

My copy has migrated somewhere out of sight, which often happens around here, but will doubtless pop up again sooner or later.

We are agreed that prosperity tends to help peace along: scattering currency from aircraft is a war measure whose time really ought to come....

Once the Sage wrote: "Having little to live on, the people know not to value life too much."

[bemildred]

12. Yeah, my Harper's often disappears before I get to it ...

It would be interesting to try your aerial solution to war spending just to see what happened. I don't really see how it could be worse than what we get with the present methods. It was a chestnut in VietNam that we could have bought the whole place for what we spent "defending" it.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".

[The Magistrate]

14. Buying Viet Nam, My Friend, Would Have Been A Sound Policy

What gave the Viet Cong its teeth was the land-lord/usurer system wracking the country-side, as it had from time immemorial, and the chief obstacle to fixing it was the standard 'property rights' shibboleth. Buy the owners out, distribute the land to the cultivators on favoreable terms, and the peasantry will hunt down collectivist revolutionaries without even offer of a bounty....

[bemildred]

15. Yes sir. It was no accident that Stalin decided to stomp out the Kulaks.

The decline of the small farmer in the USA is a change much to be lamented too, and has much to do with the corruption of our political life.

[The Magistrate]

17. Mao's Policy, Sir, Was A Masterpiece Of Double-Cross

Throughout the fighting against the Japanese, the chief recruiting tool of the Communists was precisely the distribution of land under title in the areas they controlled: collectivition was not mentioned, though it was enforced, and the plots confiscated, once the Civil War was won.

[bemildred]

19. Another excellent example.

It's hard to know which to choose between the two.

[The Magistrate]

22. It Is A Cold World, Sir

And people who say they are here to help worry me....

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. to a large degree...did not just that happen with the IRA and Sein Fein?

And if this is not an option, what then is the choice? Hamas, however bad they may be, have a deep grassroots connection with a major portion of the Palestinian population. A military attempt by Fatah to eleminate them would be disastrous.

I think of what the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami said and he was no pussycat when it came to matters of security:

"SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Yes, Hamas. I think that in my view there is almost sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.? Did they run the affairs of the Palestinians in a clean way? You mentioned the corruption, the inefficiency. Of course, Israel has contributed a lot to the disintegration of the Palestinian system, no doubt about it, but their leaders failed them. Their leaders betrayed them, and the victory of Hamas is justice being made in many ways. So we cannot preach democracy and then say that those who won are not accepted by us. Either there is democracy or there is no democracy.

And with these people, I think they are much more pragmatic than is normally perceived. In the 1990s, they invented the concept of a temporary settlement with Israel. 1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce, and the reason they declared the truce is this, that with Arafat, whose the system of government was one of divide and rule, they were discarded from the political system. Mahmoud Abbas has integrated them into the political system, and this is what brought them to the truce. They are interested in politicizing themselves, in becoming a politic entity. And we need to try and see ways where we can work with them.

Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it. The P.L.O., when Rabin came to negotiate with them, also didn't recognize the state of Israel, and they engaged in all kind of nasty practices. And therefore, we need to be much more realistic and abandon worn-out cliches and see whether we can reach something with these people. I believe that a long-term interim agreement between Israel and Hamas, even if it is not directly negotiated between the parties, but through a third party, is feasible and possible. "

link: http://www.democracynow.org/finkelstein-benami.shtml


.

[The Magistrate]

13. The Problem, Sir

Is that when the men with guns and the men who speechify disagree, the former simply shoot the latter, and there is an end to it. The I.R.A. made a collective decision, and also did it in the knowledge that the Irish Republic, both government and people, was through tolerating violence. Somehow contrive a situation in which a strong Arab Palestinian police, and a Syrian police, represent a genuine danger to clandestine militant operations by Hamas and are backed by the people in the doing, then you would doubtless see a similar development there.

[msmcghee]

21. But, as you described . .

. . the precursor to reconciliation in Ireland was " . . the knowledge that the Irish Republic, both government and people, was through tolerating violence."

And conversely, isn't the belief by large numbers of Palestinians that violence will eventually bring them victory - isn't that what's making peace there an impossibility?

[The Magistrate]

23. It Is One Of The Things That Is, Ma'am, Certainly

The evident resolve of Israel to arrogate to itself as much of the Jordan valley as it can manage is another.

The fact renains that the two peoples exist in a state of war, and wars tend to continue until one side or the other loses the will to keep on fighting.

"If you only hold on long enough, the other fellow will give way."

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. the Palestinians Sir will never give up

And the Muslim and Arab world will NEVER give up their claim on East Jerusalem and the Muslim and Arab sections of the Old City; never.

I do believe that the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world would accept a genuinely independent and viable state based on the 67 border with East Jerusalem as its capital; but it must be genuinely sovereign, independent and viable state. And there must be a resolution to the refugee problem. There can be a compromise on the refugee issue. But there must be a resolution.

But this is the bare minimum they will accept. As far as Palestinians are concerned conceding 77% of their homeland and asking most of the Palestinian diaspora to surrender their dream of returning home someday is already as bitter a pill as they will ever be willing to swallow.

The difficulty I foresee is that with a resolution to the conflict in the near future looking quite unlikely. And unfettered expansion of permanent structure in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and of course the Jordan Valley--a viable and sovereign state based even loosely on the 1967 border is looking increasingly implausible. Even the Geneva Initiative would require removing approximately one hundred thousand Israeli settlers from the West Bank. I would wonder if that is politically plausible within the domestic body politic of Israel?

.

[The Magistrate]

25. Then The Fighting Will Go On, Sir

And the condition of the people of Arab Palestine will grow more straitened and dire. They lack the power to force Israel to leave off fighting, and so the matter will cripple on, to the benefit of none.

We two are certainly in agreement concerning what a reasonable settlement would look like, and probably equally gloomy in our rating of the likelihood such a settlement will come to fruition.

[Douglas Carpenter]

26. "If not this generation, then the next. If not the next generation, then the one after.

If not that generation the one after that."

That is what they are saying. And that is what the youngest children and the oldest elders believe. In fact believe is too weak a term. It is what they know.

But you are quite right, living standards of Palestinians will get worse and worse.

_________________

There was this interesting New York Times Op-Ed by Hamas official Ahmed Yousef who is a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya.

Pause for Peace

unfortunately it is available for purchase for $4.95 or to NYT Premium subsribers. link: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70610F7395B0C728CDDA80994DE404482

"By AHMED YOUSEF

Published: November 1, 2006

HERE in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace.

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a ''hudna.'' Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one's opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.

snip: "This offer of hudna is no ruse, as some assert, to strengthen our military machine, to buy time to organize better or to consolidate our hold on the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, faith-based political movements in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey and Yemen have used hudna-like strategies to avoid expanding conflict. Hamas will conduct itself just as wisely and honorably.

We Palestinians are prepared to enter into a hudna to bring about an immediate end to the occupation and to initiate a period of peaceful coexistence during which both sides would refrain from any form of military aggression or provocation. During this period of calm and negotiation we can address the important issues like the right of return and the release of prisoners. If the negotiations fail to achieve a durable settlement, the next generation of Palestinians and Israelis will have to decide whether or not to renew the hudna and the search for a negotiated peace.

There can be no comprehensive solution of the conflict today, this week, this month, or even this year. A conflict that has festered for so long may, however, be resolved through a decade of peaceful coexistence and negotiations. This is the only sensible alternative to the current situation. A hudna will lead to an end to the occupation and create the space and the calm necessary to resolve all outstanding issues. "

[msmcghee]

27. Although we often agree, on this subject . .

. . I detect a persistent difference in our views. Since I generally respect your opinions as well founded - it makes me wonder what it is that I am missing. If you choose to respond to this please focus your reply to help me find the answer to that question.

You seem to consisently cast the conflict in terms of two parties at war - neither willing to give in to the demands of the other - and so therefore we will have war until one side gets tired of it. Bemildred often seems to share that perspective. I'll admit I find that view disturbingly detached as well as unrealistic.

Pelsar said something today that offers what appears to me an exceedingly clear view of the reality that underlies this conflict IMO.

Pelsar: If israel (IDF-settlers) put down their weapons, remove the wall, remove the checkpoints.....you sincerly believe that the jihadnikim wont go and start killing jewish israelis?...lets say all the jihadnikim put down their weapons.....will the jewish israelis start killing palestinians?

The truth in what he said seems obvious - and indeed it has been stated many times in various ways - here and elsewhere. It is verified every day by events on the ground - as it has been verified for decades with never a contra example.

The Palestinians repeatedly elect leadership that states their intention to take what they want (Israel) and to use violence to get it. Palestinians repeatedly attack Israeli civilians to carry out that goal. The Israelis repeatedly go to the table whenever some third party arranges it and has tried talks directly with Palestinian leadership. Israel repeatedly declares their intentions to negotiate an equitable peace. After the tremendous efforts at Taba we got Intifada II. Then Israel left the whole Gaza strip. After Gaza we get Hamas elected to power and never-ending Qassams fired into Israel.

I suspect that the difference in our views might lay with the settlements. I'll admit I don't understand Israel's policy in that regard. However, in 1967 this was not an issue as far as I recall. Granted that today it is the cause celebre of the resistance - although on some days the "humiliating checkpoints" seems to take its place. But, Arafat's quest for power and to profit from the misery of his own people seems to have been well underway before the settlements became today's best excuse for the "resistance".

And to me, Pelsar's prescient question - extended to the settlement question - does seem to trump all that anyway - do you really think that if all the settlements were forcibly evacuated that the PA would declare peace and actually prevent further attacks on Israel? I don't think anyone in Israel believes that. Why do you think that's the case, if you do? Didn't Gaza prove the opposite?

Indeed, if what we have here is really two people at war as you suggest, then why wouldn't Israel just start killing Palestinians until they decide not to fight back any more? That's the way disputes are traditionally settled in the Arab world - and very effectively. Remember Black September? In three days 10,000 Palestinians were dead. Palestinians have not attacked Jordan since.

And from all the many pages of history I have read on this and the people I have discussed this with - isn't that actually the way the Palestinians view the conflict? What truly sincere attempt have the Palestinians made in the last 70 years to seek some peaceful settlement of the issue despite chance after chance to do so? The fact is, the Palestinians sincerely want Israel not to exist. It's just that the IDF has not allowed them to kill enough Israelis to carry it out.

Do you see the problem I'm having with " . . two parties at war - neither willing to give in to the demands of the other - and so therefore we will have war until one side gets tired of it." ? What is it that I am not seeing here that seems so clear to you? Thanks

[bemildred]

28. What is it you disagree with?

Are there not two sides? Is it not a war? Have they not failed to agree? Is there some reason to think that a wash of generosity and altruism is going to sweep over the area?

As for Pelsar's question, it is a false hypothetical, nobody in his right mind would expect either side to disarm in the forseeable future, and thus any attempts at extermination/expulsion can be expected to be fought vigorously, as they have been in the past.

[msmcghee]

29. The purpose of a hypothetical question . .

. . is to ask someone to imagine "what if" some condition were imposed on the situation that is unlikely to happen in real life.

The fact that the "what if" condition is unlikely is what makes it a hypothetical.

It's like a scientific question where you change one variable at a time and observe the results. In this case pelsar is even giving you and other readers the opportunity to use your own judgment as to what would happen.

It's a time-honored method used to analyze complicated events and relationships.

Because a hypothetical is a question and not an assertion - it can't be false. But it can be uncomfortable to answer.

[bemildred]

30. I know what hypothetical means, I pointed it out.

A hypothetical based on a clearly false premise, as this one is, is just a fancy rhetorical trick to smuggle in some ideas you can't get in through the front door with an honest argument consistent with the facts.

[msmcghee]

31. Well, if you really want to press that one . .

. . that pelsar's question was a false premise - go ahead.

When the IDF pulled out of Gaza they effectively did just what pelsar was suggesting as a hypothetical for the WB - and just what you are now claiming is a highly improbable "false premise". In Gaza the IDF removed all the checkpoints and all their settlers and all their guns and themselves from a large contiguous area of Palestinian territory that was subject to its own autonomous Palestinian elected administration.

And of course, the Palestinians themselves provided the "what if" answer to pelsar's question - as we all know.

I assure you that the dozens of Qassams flying into Israel and the dead Israeli civilians that resulted from that - were not a rhetorical trick.

An honest argument consistent with the facts is one that recognizes reasonable questions when asked. The only false premise in this argument is yours, sir.

[bemildred]

32. Leaving Gaza is not disarming. I said nothing of the sort.

Israel has invaded and left quite a few places over the years, so have the Arabs. So what? Neither side is going to voluntarily hypothetically disarm so that the other can hypothetically exterminate it.

[msmcghee]

33. The hypothetical was more than close enough . .

. . for the question to be considered in this context. It's very disappointing when even the most basic forms of polite discussion - such as asking a reasonable hypothetical question - is treated with such disdain. If you don't want to answer the question then don't. No-one is making you. It was only one of several points I raised in my post anyway.

Also, I addressed the post to The Magistrate, not you. I have never seen you respond very reasonably to a question that goes so directly to underlying causes. The disingenuous posts above are what I was trying to avoid.

[msmcghee]

34. And another thing . . .

I will say more about this because it illustrates one of the problems with this forum. In context, here is what was said:

Pelsar said something today that offers what appears to me an exceedingly clear view of the reality that underlies this conflict IMO.

Pelsar: If israel (IDF-settlers) put down their weapons, remove the wall, remove the checkpoints.....you sincerly believe that the jihadnikim wont go and start killing jewish israelis?...lets say all the jihadnikim put down their weapons.....will the jewish israelis start killing palestinians?

The truth in what he said seems obvious - and indeed it has been stated many times in various ways - here and elsewhere. It is verified every day by events on the ground - as it has been verified for decades with never a contra example.

I used pelsar's questions to illustrate a reality that I saw as underlying the conflict - that it seems there's really nothing that Israel can do other than turn over their state to the Palestinians and leave that will result in an end to the attacks on Israeli citizens. And also that if the Palestinians stopped attacking Israeli citizens there would be an immediate cessation of violence on the WB.

Pelsar's hypothetical is entirely reasonable. But, its reasonableness is immaterial to the discussion. His two questions plus the text I put around them were plenty clear enough to explain what it was about that reality that I wished to highlight - which is why I used them.

That's why I characterized your posts on the matter as disingenuous. When someone uses such tactics in a discussion it shows they only wish to attack their opponents' words no matter what they say - and that they have no interest in an honest discussion of the topic.

[bemildred]

36. In mathematics and logic, when you reason from a false premise,

you can conclude anything you like. Everything becomes true. That's why it's forbidden, you can't discriminate true from false anymore.

Of course people, for precisely that reason, are very fond of false hypotheticals, you can go right to the conclusion you want to draw, in this case "we are great and they are not", without any messy details to interfere in your self-approval.

Are you going to tell the jihadnikim first? I mean they are trying to kill you now, so it wouldn't be a fair test if they didn't know you had thrown all your weapons away and made yourself completely helpless. They would just keep trying to kill you under the illusion that you were still armed, thus getting a bad name unfairly.

Can you imagine the suspicion going through their minds at that point? What if it was all another trick?

[msmcghee]

37. In mathematics and logic, a premise is what is being tested.

The purpose of argument is to show that the premise is either true or false.

If you actually understood my post (that was not addressed to you) you would have seen that I was arguing for no premise. I was providing Mr. Magistrate a summary of how I saw the conflict - and asking for his advice as to what I was missing.

Perhaps you thought it was a rhetorical trick - and even now still press that view - because you are not too familiar with the idea that posts here could actually rise to the level of honest attempts at discussion and understanding between people who have different opinions.

[bemildred]

38. That is not correct.

In science one conducts experiments or empirical tests to examine whether ones hypotheses are correct or not. The hypothesis is, in that case, a sort of premise about how the world works that one in testing inductively by experiment.

In logic or mathematics, a premise, also called postulate, axiom, and other things, is an unexamined assumption that is assumed to be true for the purposes of argument, to see what it's consequences are by deductive reasoning.

These things are easy to look up, if you are really interested. I tend to think about it mathematically, but you will find the same basic attitude towards the premises in an argument (syllogism) in Aristotle.

You mentioned my name and raised the question of Pelsar's speculation about unlikely future events, I fail to see why I should not respond. Leave me out of it next time, and I'll stay out of it.

[The Magistrate]

35. Several Points, Ma'am

Wars are fought for particular objectives, and when wisely directed, the means employed are calculated to secure them, not only immediately but for some duration of time. Though it has a certain superficial charm, simply killing the enemy till he stops is not necessarily the most apt means to the goal. This is particularly true where the enemy has friends not too involved in the fighting, and where the belligerent power is itself vulnerable to loss of important external supports to its efforts. When these factors obtain, a strategy of simply piling up the corpses may result in bringing new opponents into the fray, and loss of allies, and neither is helpful to achieving the war aim.

While by definition the war aims of contending enemies are irreconcilable, else the matter would be resolved by methods short of violence, they are not necesssarily symmetrical. Israel fights as a unified society for two aims: first, and principally, for its maintainance as a country in place, and secondly for the expansion of its territory into the Jordan valley, conceived to be the ancient heartland of its people. Because Arab Palestine is not a unified society in any meaningful political sense of the term, it is somewhat difficult to lay out its war aims, and one is reduced to trying to identify the aims of particular factions within the society. Certainly most Arab Palestinians would probably agree with the statement that they fight for the preservation of their people on its land, and that at minimum they fight to prevent any further incursions by their enemy onto what remains of it. Just as certainly, there are coherently organized factions among the people of Arab Palestine whose aims range to the destruction of Israel as a political entity, the return of all Arab Palestinians to the lands of their ancestors, and the expulsion of Jews from the region, save perhaps those descended from ancestors holding Ottoman citizenship. Owing to the inchoate state of governance among Arab Palestinians, the presence of these factions is of greater importance than the presence of similarly hard-line elements among Israelis seeking the expulsion of Arab Palestinians entirely from the Jordan valley, because while the Israeli government can be relied on to contain these factions in its own interests, there is no Arab Palestinian political institution that can do the same in regard to these armed factions among Arab Palestinians.

Comparing these various aims indicates some of them can be achieved by both sides, while some certainly cannot be. The principal Israeli aim of maintaining its existance can be achieved alongside the most wide-spread Arab Palestinian aims of preventing further incursions into their land, and maintaining that people on what remains of its land. But the secondary Israeli aim of expansion into the Jordan valley cannot be achieved alongside any Arab Palestinian aim, any more than the most militant Arab Palestinian factions' aims of destroying Israel as a state, etc., can be achieved alongside any Israeli aim.

This suggests that a course is available, at least, to each side, that would offer some possibility of easing the necessity of hostility each people perceives. If Israel let go of its secondary aim of expansion, success in its principal and essential aim would not prejudice the most wide-spread aim of the people of Arab Palestine. If the various militant factions among Arab Palestinians could be stood down, the principal and essential aim of Israel would stand satisfied.

Simply because Israel is a functioning state, it would be somewhat easier for it to take the first step, of foreswearing its secondary aim of expansion, than it would be for the inchoate polity of Arab Palestine to stand down the most dedicated militants among its people. As matters stand now, the only means that have been tried to stand down those bodies are Israeli military power, which has not worked and often proved counter-productive in the attempt, and the opening moves of civil war among Arab Palestinians, which is a dicey enterprise the right side might not win, were it to be pressed to a conclusion. People and states being what they are, the fact that something, such as military power, does not seem to work well, will fall far short of cause for it to be stopped, since something must be done, and nothing else is immediately or obviously available. It is, after all, a war.

[bemildred]

39. US-Israel ties bad for peace: Soros

Some more on this brouhaha. A couple interesting bits and discussion of what Mearsheimer and Walt are up to.

---

Historian Michael Oren, speaking at AIPAC's 2007 conference in March, said the group was not merely a lobby for Israel. "It is the embodiment of a conviction as old as this (American) nation itself that belief in the Jewish state is tantamount to belief in these United States," he said in a keynote speech.

Now that is an amazing statement from an historian.

---

AIPAC now has more than 100,000 members and is rated one of the most influential special interest groups in the United States, its political clout comparable with such lobbies as the National Rifle Association.

The AIPAC members are all US citizens and the group receives no funding from the Israeli government.

---

Mearsheimer and Walt are now working on expanding their article into a book - to be published in September by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The company has not commented on online reports that it paid the two authors a $750,000 advance and plans to print one million copies.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6E0926C-5211-45F2-8362-0D9FF113205B.htm

[The Magistrate]

40. Mr. Oren, Sir

Seems to put a bit more weight on Puritan "New Zion" rhetoric, and on the Barbary expeditions, than they are really engineered to stand....

[bemildred]

41. These little nuggets lighten my day, Sir. nt