generalspeaking

Just Do It ...

It's quite sad that a country like the United States of America finds itself in a perplexed position, not knowing how to react to a situation it has itself designed, placing it in an impossible reactive condition of failure to achieve what it told itself it could.

That level of hubris speaks hugely to the depth of lack of intelligence on the ground. How it could be possible that the president of the U.S. would not have been given adequate background to inform him that what he was demanding of Israel would not, could not play, simply because Israel itself had attempted time and again, to produce the effect he wanted, with the very same overtures, yet was rejected repeatedly, is intriguingly absurd.

There could not possibly be anything more Israel could offer irate, entitled, disengaged, disinterested-in-peace Palestinians than it had already committed to, and had thrown back in its face. Absent the total surrender of the land upon which the country sits. And that, precisely, is the matter at hand. The rabid hysteria emanating from the Obama administration over a trumped-up charge of 'insulting' it, through a routine announcement of a routine and commonly-practised event speaks to its infantile need to be obeyed on its terms.

That its terms do not match the existential need of what America claims is its great good friend and partner in democracy, the State of Israel, appears to have been handily overlooked in the rush to bully that country into a cowering, obedient servant reflecting America's needs. And that need, at the moment, is to be seen in the light of approval by Arab and Muslim states. For this is what President Barack Obama promised those eminent countries; that they would see a new relationship emerge with him at the helm of the U.S.

All those brilliant strategists and students of Middle East history who are advising the President of the United States somehow forgot to mention to him that it's all been tried before, and failed. And not necessarily because Israel wasn't sufficiently prepared to sacrifice much that it holds dear, but because at the eleventh hour, the Palestinians pulled back. Everything was never quite enough. The attitude being that of the old horse trader; if he could get that high a price, his goods were obviously valuable and he could insist on more.

The United States does not appreciate being made to look unprepared, it does not like to be surprised, nor does it care for a country so needful of its support, to prevaricate or to ignore its demands. Yet nothing stops the U.S. administration from publicly castigating its great good friend, causing it to lose, if not face, then any conceivable advantage it might have in dealing with an intransigent, grievance-laden, victimhood-adoring adversary who can sniff advantage to itself when it emanates from a mystified and stymied Israel.

If the U.S. is steamed with Israel that's a signal that the Palestinian Authority can call on its stalwarts to riot, because that's all right, they're just joining the bash-Israel festivities. Israel and the Palestinians have dealt for decades upon decades with building permits for both contingents within Jerusalem; there was nothing unusual about the latest announcement of a series of building permits to allow for increased housing on Jewish-owned and Jewish-majority land. The U.S. is angry with what it perceives as a 'right-wing' Israeli government.

Yet the current president has fairly well accepted all that his Kadima and Labour predecessors did in their search for peace, inclusive of a two-state solution supporting Palestinian statehood. Do the Palestinians, however, want that two-state solution? Fomenting violence on an unceasing basis does not bode well for commitment to that two-state solution, for instead of inciting to riot, Mahmoud Abbas could have resumed peace talks, not absolutely and utterly reject them, which he did do and continues to do.

The PA and its Muslim clerics teach Palestinians and their children to mistrust, to hate, to fear and to do violence. A conspiracy is afoot, they say, to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The PA denies that Jerusalem represents Jewish heritage, its antiquity. Each time remedial construction work is undertaken before and during which archaeological teams carefully sift the areas for ancient artifacts, the PA hold their breath and Muslim clerics deny such artifacts represent an ancient Jewish presence.

What they do however, is encourage Palestinian youth to riot, to deny Jewish worshippers access to their own holy sites, and continue to create situations of chaos leading inevitably to further aggravation of already dire relationships between Jews and Arabs. The U.S. administration's testy arguments with Israel over imagined slights due to their irritation over Israel's inability to reach an agreement with an unwilling partner-for-peace has them fuming, and in that process, further destabilizing relations between Jews and Arabs, leading to increased uncertainty and violence.

To punish Israel for its unacceptable behaviour in refusing to accede to their demands, needed defensive armaments have been suspended in their delivery, and that should teach Israel a lesson now, shouldn't it? The U.S. military has been ordered to divert a shipment of 387 bunker-buster bombs from Israel. Instead they will be delivered to a military base in Diego Garcia, where they will do Israel no good in defending itself from attack. This was, it was explained, a "political decision".

Delivery of the bunker-busters capable of destroying underground facilities such as nuclear weapons sites in Iran, has been deliberately held in abeyance by President Barack Obama's administration. A mutinous ally must be disciplined. But this is not particularly new, apparently, as President Obama has refused approval of any major Israeli requests for weapons platforms of advanced systems. Including Apache helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E.

"All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010. This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly", said a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests. This, despite that in January 2010, the administration agreed to an Israeli request to double the number of U.S. military stockpiles. Bunker-busters as well as Patriot missile interceptors had been included in that agreement.

However, things change, allies become dispensable, evidently. The current U.S. administration, inclusive of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given warning that Washington could reduce aid to Israel ... because of its construction policy. Diplomacy has succumbed to idiocy.

Labels: Conflict, Israel, United States

posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 19, 2010