Wednesday, February 22, 2023

What’s with US diplomacy in the Middle East?

 Make no mistake about it. Israel is afloat today because it continues to feed its people on American Christian charity and the free propaganda that’s done for it by the American network Fox News.

 

And yet, as pointed out by Geoffrey Aronson who is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, “Blinken’s low-key suggestions for diffusing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians signify the rapidly shrinking US diplomatic footprint on what was for many years a key component of US policy in the region”.

 

Aronson wrote those words in an article that came under the title: “The Death of US Diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” and the subtitle: “The United States long ago surrendered to the inexorable increase in Israeli settlements.” It was published on February 4, 2023 in The National Interest.

 

If we begin with the observation that the ultimate aim of a terror campaign is to occupy someone else’s land by force of arms, we must conclude that the terror unleashed on the Palestinian people at the start of the twentieth century by the Jewish Hagenah and Irgun terror groups and continues today, succeeded beyond all expectations.

 

But how could this have been accomplished by a band that is so destitute, it cannot feed its current population, yet brings in more settlers from around the world to kill more Palestinians and rob more of their possessions? The answer to this question is that more of what’s screwy in a relationship, happen to go on in the interactions that developed between America and Israel. To understand this part, we begin with Geoffrey Aronson’s remarks that lay the background of what transpires at the ground level. Here are those remarks, presented in condensed form:

 

“The administration’s current engagement in Palestine continues to be based on the assumption the Palestinian security services must protect Israel’s settlers and soldiers, without any prospect of the payoff long awaited by the Palestinians: independence, sovereignty, and the retreat of the Israel Defense Forces and settlers to a recognized border. it has been clear since April 2002 that there is no real prospect of any Israeli security or settlement retreat in the West Bank, and that diplomatic efforts led by the US to confront this reality and transform occupation into independence. The US long ago surrendered to the inexorable increase in Israeli settlements. No serious diplomacy between the parties has been conducted, and it has been more than a decade since the Americans even considered a diplomatic effort to freeze, let alone reverse, the growth of settlements”.

 

What follows, also presented in condensed form, is what Geoffrey Aronson is talking about. It is taken from an article which came under the title: ‘The construction surge in Judea and Samaria will return,’ and the subtitle: “Israeli decisions to expand Jewish life in the biblical heartland meet with joy and condemnation.” That article was written by Josh Hasten and published on February 15, 2023 in Jewish News Syndicate:

 

“The Israeli government is on a collision course with the US and others, including the UN, on the announcement of the advancement of 10,000 housing units for Jews in Judea and Samaria. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority is seeking a UNSC resolution condemning Israel’s decision this week to authorize nine outposts in Judea and Samaria. Israel’s Security Cabinet also announced it would regularize the legal status of several illegally built communities. The US Department of State released a joint press release on Tuesday along with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the UK condemning the move, stating: ‘We are troubled by the Israeli government’s announcement. We oppose these unilateral actions which will undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution’”.

 

So then, what happened when the superpower donor and the derelict beggar came on a collision course? Nothing happened except for the few meaningless words that were uttered by the superpower; words without the threat of a response that would have compelled Israel to change its ways. In the absence of anything like that, the status quo, as Israel wants it, persists. And while this kind of relationship exists between America and Israel in what concerns the Palestinian question, we wonder what it looks like when a collision course develops between the two in other situations.

 

We find the answer to that wonderment in the article that came under the title: “Israeli Minister Tells Us Envoy To ‘Mind His Business’ On Judicial Reforms,” published on February 19, 2023 in Jewish News Syndicate.

 

If that title shocks you, you’ll grasp the farcical nature of what’s played out here when you recall that America’s charity for maintaining Israel afloat has developed and continues to be sustained because the Jews of Israel and those of America never cease to tell the latter that Israel is a so-called democracy; one that’s modeled in the image of America’s own. But when the Jews of Israel began to mess with the thing, and America told them to be careful, they insulted America, spat in its face and kicked its rear end.

 

Was that all? Or was it just the beginning? The answer is that it was just the beginning because what’s exposed next is what had led to the development of that kind of a relationship in the first place between the wussy elites of a superpower donor and a derelict beggar — a relationship that’s now being rejected by a populist movement which began to grip America. In fact, what’s exposed came in an article that was written under the title: “Israel shouldn’t cherry-pick the American model in its judicial debate,” co-authored by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky. It was published on February 14, 2023 in The Hill. Here it is in condensed form:

 

“Israel’s Knesset voted to send a key provision of the judicial overhaul package for its first reading to the full plenary. This package, if enacted into law, would change the balance of power between the branches of government. Israel’s finance minister argues that the proposed judicial reform simply mirrors the American model. That, however, is not true. What is true is that it selectively takes the part of the American approach that politicizes the selection of judges and legal advisors, even as it ignores the checks and balances that protect individual rights. In the context of the US-Israeli relationship, the Israeli judicial independence has served the relationship well. It enabled Washington to urge groups like the International Court of Justice to trust that there is judicial oversight in Israel. It has enabled successive US administrations to believe there is due process in Israel when it comes to Palestinian land claims”.

 

Having exposed the reality of what’s developing in Israel at this time, the writers gave this warning:

 

“Much is at stake. With progressives and increasing numbers of younger Americans more critical of Israel, the last thing Israel needs is for it to look like it no longer shares American values. Israel will find it difficult to preserve what it has held for 75 years: a strong [near hypnotic] hold on the imagination of America’s [wussy] elites”.

 

It looks like America is on its way to become de-wussified at long last.