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(Part 2) Gideon Levy – the "peace process" is a joke
Today’s Haaretz announced this explosive bombshell…
Victory for Israel’s right as ‘Jewish state’ loyalty oath nears vote
After intense negotiations, Netanyahu loses battle to soften controversial citizen’s declaration, paving the way for approval in the Knesset.
…Ministers approved a draft of the proposed oath, which would require anyone taking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state". [...]
Sources close to Netanyahu said the prime minister had decided to approve the proposed legislation in light of continuing peace talks, in which he has repeatedly pressed the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
"What we demand of the Palestinians, we must demand of our own citizens too," a Netanyahu confidante said.
*gah* The march onwards to a full-fledged, Fascist State continues on unabashedly…
Now, to it’s credit, the nominal ‘Left’ in the Knesset seems to be pushing back…
Labor expects new settlement freeze as payoff for loyalty oath
Junior coalition partner furious after PM hands victory to right-wingers with backing for citizenship requirement of pledging loyalty to ‘Jewish democratic state.’
Labor party ministers angered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s snap decision to back a controversial citizenship loyalty oath said late Wednesday that they expected a new freeze in settlement building as a payoff. [...]
But the prime minister must perform a balancing act. Allies at both ends of the political spectrum and the Labor party hope that his latest concession is a sop to right-wingers ahead of a decision to renew a ban on settlement building in the West Bank – a key demand of the left.
"I hope that Netanyahu’s support is a payoff to Lieberman, so that the prime minister will be able to extend the freeze without breaking apart his coalition," said one Labor minister, who declined to be named. [...]
"Netanyahu is under heavy pressure from the Americans," the minister said. "I presume that he intends to announce an extension of the freeze soon. " [...]
"The decision is outrageous and irresponsible," said Minority Affairs Minister Avishai Braverman, calling on Labor leader Ehud Barak to convene an immediate debate in the party with the aim of blocking the move.
Now, since I’ve been remiss the past few days on the latest news on the Peace Farce, let me bring you up to speed…
Last I’d blogged, Bibi was inclined to reject it…
It is hard to imagine anything Ross left out. For Bibi, the Ross offer was a dream come true. All that for a 60-day freeze.
But Bibi said "no".
And why? "Netanyahu said he appreciated the letter but could not accept the American proposal because it included a two-month extension of the construction moratorium, which he said would damage his public credibility.
The Jpost had noted at the time…
Pressure mounts on PM to reject US ‘benefits package’
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has begun efforts to persuade Likud cabinet members to support a deal with the US in which Israel would limit construction in Judea and Samaria for 60 days in return for American promises, Likud officials confirmed on Sunday.
While the proposal has not been finalized, Netanyahu’s associates have started making inquiries with the ministers, asking them to be flexible. [...]
Following those pledges, Netanyahu would have little to no chance of passing a proposal that would limit construction in the cabinet, security cabinet or septet. No votes have been scheduled ahead of this weekend’s key Arab League summit in any forum of ministers.
Subsequently, the ‘Cabinet’ of seven MP’s, the ‘Septet’ even… Didn’t even talk about the ‘extension’…
Septet talks delegitimization of Israel, UN flotilla probe
Ministerial forum makes point of releasing statement after meeting saying that peace talks, possible freeze extension not discussed.
Now, Let’s take a good gander at what Bibi and the Septet was actually talking about at that meeting…
The Gaza Flotilla: The Collapse of Israel’s Political Firewall
This case-study deals with the Gaza Flotilla which caused tangible and significant damage to Israel. Israel’s response to future flotillas and the entire campaign being waged against it, requires a comprehensive systemic treatment of the delegitimization challenge.
Folk’s…! It’s a mighty spooky read… (PDF!59pgs) Some key graf’s…
The evolution of the Delegitimization Network. This network aims to turn Israel into a pariah state so it will ultimately cease to exist. It is based in a number of metropolitan cities (US!), within which a relatively small number of individuals and organizations mobilize the assault on Israel’s legitimacy. The Delegitimization Network’s success lies in its ability to harness the Western liberal and progressive elite. It does so by employing a variety of means aimed at blurring its true intentions; [...]
11. These groups are leading a systemic and systematic attack against Israel’s political and economic model, which has already had strategic consequences and may become existential if ignored or inadequately addressed.
12. Moreover, Israel suffers from strategic conceptual inferiority in contending with this threat. In other words, Israel has no effective response to the challenge it faces. This inferiority has caused Israel to repeatedly suffer from political and diplomatic disappointments, despite evident quantitative and qualitative military, technological, and economic superiority. For example, Israel’s ability to defend itself militarily has been compromised; its sovereignty has been challenged by increased international involvement in its domestic issues and the leveraging of universal jurisdiction against it; and it faces the risk of boycotts. [...]
40. It takes a network to fight a network - The delegitimization campaign against Israel is carried out by a network of NGOs based in a number of international metropolitan cities. Disrupting this network should become the main anti-delegitimization focus.
41. ‘Re-branding’ Israel is critical for the battle against delegitimization, as well as for Israel’s ability to communicate its messages effectively and for disrupting the Delegitimization Network’s ability to fulfill its goals.
59. Israel is dealing with the parallel ripening of two processes:
- The successes accumulated by the Delegitimization Network, which opposes Israel’s existence based on a variety of political, ideological, and philosophical principles. Western-based radical leftist elements shape and lead the Delegitimization Network, with the aim of turning Israel into a pariah state. To this end, they purposefully advance the association of the state with the South African apartheid regime in order to undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s existence;
- The efficacy of the ‘Strategy of Implosion’ advanced by the Resistance Network – led by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas – which rejects Israel’s existence based on Islamist and Arab-nationalist ideology. The Resistance Network aspires to precipitate Israel’s implosion by means of ‘overstretch’: sabotaging processes aimed at ending Israel’s control over Palestinians, advancing Israel’s delegitimization, and developing means of asymmetric warfare deployed against Israel’s military and civilian population.60. The Reut Institute contends that combined, these forces represent a political-diplomatic strategic threat that may become existential. Resistance Network leaders repeatedly and publicly declare their goal of causing Israel’s implosion inspired by precedents set by the Soviet Union, South Africa, and other countries. This logic is ripening into a strategy that is yielding tangible gains.
Maybe Sibel Edmonds had a point or two…!
How much of our vaunted FBI is in AIPAC’s back pocket…
*gah*
31 Comments
I really don’t think that the israeli leaders are addicted to occupation. I think that they will not stop until they have driven out or killed all of the Palestinians. The rightwing claims that land even though they haven’t been in control for 2000 years. the israeli government is going to declare – maybe – a 60 day moritorium on building in the West Bank. We saw how stringent the last moritorium was, so why should this be better? The talks won’t end in 60 days, and even if they did, the building will begin again because israel will not ever agree to end it. I’m just annoyed that we keep playing this game.
*sheesh* You and I, both…! Even, Bibi’s own ‘softening’ of the loyalty oath; with the inclusion of the ‘and democratic state of Israel’, ring’s hollow on the Palestinian’s ears…! 8-(
I can’t believe the banned Leen. Wow. Sad day.
Those key paragraphs are quite eye-opening, frightening even. They appear to propose a kind of semi-secret warfare upon *us*, upon progressives, liberals, or anybody else who thinks Israel has done and is doing wrong to Palestinian peoples.
And when you think about the current state of right-wing politics in America, it seems that is exactly what is occurring — a wide-spread, broad spectrum attack against liberals and progressives, designed to discredit, or to confuse the issue with nonsense.
How did you find that out?
Good read. I’d say they are addicted to the use of force and they can’t think outside that box.
The Reut institute isn’t doing Israel any favors with this report; it’s just more kool-aid. (of course, they have to keep their customers happy, just like climate change denialist scientists who’s research is sponsored by BP)
How about a stated clear delineated conception of Israel? ..i.e. borders.
This orwellian report misidentifies or skips around naming the actual source of their problems. If sunlight is their enemy, what is their goal, really?
Is it peace or eretz israel?
I wonder where they got that idea?
Moral authority is missing from the equation, Sovereignty exists over defined territory. Issues cease to be domestic when they occupy others peoples homelands.
No one does Israel favors by letting them live in a fantasy world.
“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” MKL
It’s getting late.
Good posting, recc’d in the hope that it stays on top of the list for longer.
du
What I can’t figure out is why Israeli’s don’t see their government as hastening another holocaust.
But consider this; why is it that EVERY branch of the Abrahamic religions have schisms internally?
Recommended!!
A Mondoweiss discussion.
Because that schism is what’s happening in human consciousness at the collective developmental moment those religions represent.
I’ll say more if you like, but all the Abrahamaic faiths (of which Capitalism is one) represent the development of the psyche in the ~2 year old – where the ego begins to solidify and the experience of separation of child from parent (equivalent to the separation of man from God) becomes dominant.
So that schism in the religion, since a religion is just the psyche and personality of a consciousness where the cells are the size of humans and the cell count is a billion or so, simply holds for the collective the ego boundary.
There’s slightly more to it, in that human development isn’t only psychological but also energetic (in this case the progression of opening of chakras at the collective level).
But essentially the Abrahamaic faiths all hold, like a traffic jam holds the memory of the accident that caused it or a person’s ever-changing cells hold the memory of their psyche, the solidifying of the boundary, i.e. schism, between man and God.
They won’t change, either, anymore than one’s childhood changes. Childhood ends. And so those religions, again including Capitalism, will eventually weaken and be replaced by faiths that hold a different, later psychic development for the collective once those stages are the most energetically active.
P.S. One should also recognize that the Abrahamaic moment was also the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the greater good, as seen both in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, or the symmetric willingness of God to sacrifice Christ.
Without the original split, that willingness to sacrifice oneself for another – a state of infinite beauty and love – couldn’t exist, since the notion of “other” couldn’t exist.
Half-full, half-empty.
Most of all, the glass is just the glass.
*heh* Well put…! Btw, my Faith which is considered an ‘Abrahamic’ religion does not have a schism…! ;-)
which religion is that? because Islam and Christianity have had schism,s Christianity has had two colossal Schism’s
The Bahá’í Faith…! *g*
Other than that my-faith vs. those-other-faiths thing, of course. ;-)
Hey now…! I doth protest…!
We do read and embrace all those “other’s” beliefs and writings…! 8-P
However, we don’t ever subscribe to Joseph Smith’s writings or views, nor, any polytheistic views…!
Understood; personally, I tell people that the glass is neither half empty or half full; it’s a glass with water in it; what are you going to do with it?
*heh* If I’m thirsty, I’ll drink it and it’ll be empty and just a glass again…! ;-)
I am proud of delegitimizing the Israeli form of government…
I’d also be proud if I was old enough to help delegitimize fascism when the nazi’s used american business and religious leaders to push it in the US and I’d be proud of delegitimizing south afrcan apartheid.
Oh noes fascism and apartheid are under attack we have to be pro israel and support fascism and racism!
Dayam Skippy…! I chuckled when I’d read that Cindy Sheehan was miffed when she wasn’t targeted by the FBI recently…! ;-)
This is a critical part of the PDF you linked to. They are explaining how to target those who criticize Israel. Its worth the read:
I’m not trying to piss in your cornflakes here, but I do want to help you see something (mostly because it seems to be something that matters to you).
First off, and most importantly, it doesn’t matter what the split is. Worrying about whether it’s between sects of a single religion or between man and God or Republican and Democrat or male and female, split is split is split. The labels on the two halves of the yin-yang are immaterial.
So, understanding we need to look for where split is, reading the Bahá’í page you referenced, we see over and over the us-them split between Bahá’í and the rest of the world’s religions:
“it also forms a single community, free of schism or factions”
“Bahá’u’lláh stands out from other religions”
“It takes a distinctive approach”
“In a world so divided in its loyalties, this is in itself a singular achievement.”
There’s also a pretty clear giveaway that schism and split is the shadow of Bahá’í by the constant emphasis on “unity.” It’s like all the right-wing candidates who demonize homosexuals only to later be found out as secretly frequenting gay bars. The projection (which I’ve referenced in your diaries in the context of understanding Israel, but it’s just as applicable to religions or anything else) of Bahá’í’s shadow – of schisms and splits and separation – is undeniable. (Undeniable to those outside the complex, anyway.)
So the reason I say any of this at all to you is so you can see how schism and split is already hard-wired into Bahá’í.
That, like whether the glass is half-empty or half-full, is neither good nor bad. It simply is. But if one cares about “unity” it’s essential to see and accept, otherwise the Bahá’ís will end up just as the Israelis, sincerely blaming for the world’s ills those who carry their shadow for them.
The only true form of unity is to include everything I reject.
To quote Yudhisthira from the Mahabharata, as he is questioned by Dharma:
Dharma: “What is your opposite?”
Yudhisthira: “Myself.”
Wholeness is inherently self-contradictory. Were I to exclude the parts that are contradictory, then I would no longer be whole.
Neither is better or worse. It’s just a choice.
Me, as best I can I try for wholeness. And in doing so I honor and include being split.
Namaste, CT.
Personally, I don’t think I ever argue for delegitimization of Israel. I support its right to exist. Within the 1967 borders.
I completely am willing to criticize its policies, just like I criticize American policies, because I believe Israel is capable of being a better nation than it currently is.
Look, remember the movie Valkyrie? That was based on a true story. It was about German officers wanting to reverse what Hitler was doing to their fatherland. A lot of Germans were legitimately upset at how evil their homeland had become.
Who are the heroes of that era? The Nazi party? Or the German Resistance?
So, what about America during the Vietnam era? Were all of those who opposed the War and opposed the brutality and war crimes the enemy? Or were those who stood up and said, “Bring our boys and girls home” the true patriots?
If Israel wants to subsume the West Bank into a Greater Israel, but deny the rights of citizenship to those millions of Palestinians, then it will be, by definition, an APARTHEID STATE. There is no “redefine the word now that WE are doing it” bullshit.
If America were to ethnically cleanse a minority or religous or ethnic group, committing genocide, would we all be quiet and told “Genocide only means when its other people. Not when WE do it?”
I have made this argument before: RIGHT NOW the only “STATE” that exists in the West Bank is the Israeli one. Israel. So, Israel asserts control and governance over that region but those people have no effective ability to influence or change policy with respect to their masters – the Israeli government.
Am I talking about delegitimizing ISrael? No. I am talking about delegitimizing the OCCUPATION OF THE WEST BANK.
We all need to be wary of any attempts to throw what WE are saying into the same category as Hamas or Hezbollah. They are attempting to throw a wide net on people like us to silence all dissent.
Amen…! Exactly…! ‘Course, truly treating the Arabs like ‘equal’ human beings would be nice too…! ;-)
And lifting the total seige on Gaza would also be much appreciated…! 8-(
Fair, Fair. I completely support all those things as well, without a second thought!!!
I just got focused on the issue most at top of mind, right now (which, of course, is settlements in the WEst BAnk).
I encourage people to look at that Interactive Map. If Israel waits long enough to avoid actually reaching any kind of agreement, the entire West Bank will be built out and occupied by Israeli settlers. Sort of like the American continent west of the Mississippi one day just sort of became settled. All that was left was disjointed reservations.
Interactive Map here:
http://www.peacenow.org/map.php
Apartheid-like ‘Bantustans’…! 8-(
And for those new to the map, try using different layers.
Turn all layers off, then just turn on the Palestinian Residential Areas layer. That will show you where Palestinians are allowed to live. You will have to zoom in just to see them.
Then, turn that off and turn on only the Israeli Municipal borders, the Israeli Settlement layer, and the West Bank Wall Layer and the 1967 Green Line Layer. You will see where the 1967 borders are (as recognized Internationally by the UN and all states in the region, including Israel), and you will see how the combination of the Wall, the Municipal borders, and the settlements create 3 or 4 discrete zones. THose zones are also largely unpopulated right now (because the approved residential areas for Palestinians is VERY SMALL). You will also see that all natural borders with Jordan are effectively cut off. Israel is claiming all the land that runs along the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. In effect, a complete 100% surround of the WEst Bank. And a series of strips that cut the West Bank into smaller dicrete regions.
In 10 to 20 years, the majorit of the West Bank will belong to Greater Israel. Whatever is left will be the already existing “Palestinian Residential Areas.”
And notice the PDF that CTuttle listed above. The strategy is to make Israel look good in a rebranding effort. That effort says to “Create a West Bank state for the Palestinians.” But, what if that “State” is really just a series of disconected reservations whose traffic in and out is governed by Israeli armed forces? IS that a “state?” Or Reservations?
We have to look past the optics on this one. Human lives are at stake, and we can’t just let this become a “branding campaign.” Its not a choice between Coco-Cola and Pepsi. Its about HUMAN LIVES, SUFFERING vs. DIGNITY, OCCUPATION vs. FREEDOM.
Jim Crow hardly had any of the plethora of apartheid-like legislation/infrastructure as the Israelis do…! C’mon now… Separate roads…? *gah*
Thanks, I’ll look it up.
spot on comment
The state of Israel – as a Jewish state just as every Arab state calls itself an Islamic State – must be respected.
After that everything outside its border (which should be the green line with that 8% modification to take in the two very large Jewish towns on the border – but not the towns that are a few miles away) must revert to Arab control – be it one state or two Arab states – one under Hamas and the other under Fatah. The TABA water agreement must be respected – and the settlements in the Arab area must be under Arab control.
But I fear the the Palestinians still want to drive the Jews into the sea via the “right of return”, so that I and my children will die before the above is achieved. Indeed the “build-out” will change the facts on the ground as you noted, so in a few years Israel will be unable to give up total control of the West Bank and will want to have police rights to the settlements – making the Bantustan effect the OP described very real.