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George Bush today made the ‘momentous’ announcement that he’s calling a Mideast conference for later this year including Israel, the Palestinians (that is, the ‘Abbas version’ of Palestinians–not the Hamas version) and unspecified other Arab countries (presumably Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt). My reactions: YAWN! And after yawning, I’d ask: what does he hope to accomplish? Indeed, what can he accomplish? What does he have to offer the Palestinians or Arab states?
Bush in all his reflected glory announces Mideast peace conference (Doug Mills/NYT)Indeed this comment from the NY Times’ coverage indicated that Bush was more interested in scoring anti-Arab propaganda points on Israel’s behalf than in dealing with real issues:
He exhorted Israel’s Arab neighbors to open talks with Israel and to show leadership by “ending the fiction that Israel does not exist” and “stopping the incitement of hatred in their official media.”
The accompanying photo image of Bush announcing the peace conference is suitably imposing, imperial and unilateral. Instead of the smiling, eager faces of Israelis and Palestinians who will supposedly benefit from this deal, we see Bush’s icy reflected image. It’s as if he’s announcing the initiative in a mirror. And this is a suitable metaphor for U.S. Mideast policy. It is created unilaterally by people looking at themselves in the mirror rather than looking in the faces of the real people they are attempting to influence.
Bush seemed to think that a reference to Anwar Sadat would create stars in the eyes of the Saudi monarch and make him rush to join the party:
He also urged them to send cabinet-level visitors to Israel, a request directed implicitly at America’s closest Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, which has refused to do so.
“With all these steps, today’s Arab leaders can show themselves to be the equals of peacemakers like Anwar Sadat and King Hussein of Jordan,” Mr. Bush said.
What Bush neglects to remember (and he knows so little about the Middle East that there’s very little there for him TO forget) is the respective fates of Sadat and Hussein’s father, both murdered at the hands of Arab extremsts who viewed them as sellouts. Actually, given the strength of Islamism in his kingdom, the image of two bloody murdered leaders’ bodies might motivate the Saudi king a bit more than that of Sadat and Hussein signing peace treaties with Israel.
I especially liked this comment from Bush:
“This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians. Now comes a moment of choice,” Bush said in a White House speech. “The alternatives before the Palestinian people are stark.”
Oh, I don’t know about that. If I were either a West Banker or Gazan I’d say: “what has George Bush ever done for me that I should heed his urging to see this as a “moment of clarity” or a time for a “stark” choice? Instead, I think I’ll just sit back with and enjoy this afternoon cat nap.” Remember, western powers come and go in the Mideast. How many presidents, secretaries of state or appointed peace negotiators have come and gone since 1947? They’re all gone with the wind. And who remains? The long-suffering Palestinian and Israeli people of course.
Then, after I woke up from that cat nap I’d invite George over for a leisurely cup of Arab coffee at my local cafe and tell him a thing or two…like, “come back when you’ve decided to stop telling me what I need to do and when you’re ready to tell me what you’re prepared to do to make any of my dreams come true.”
The Post quotes Shibley Telhami saying something similar:
“I don’t see how anything serious on the diplomatic front can be accomplished so long as the strategy to isolate Hamas continues,” said Telhami of the University of Maryland.
And he is right. None of us like Hamas much. But thinking you can negotiate peace with only one part of the Palestinian people would be like trying to negotiate the future of the United States after the Civil War while pretending the Confederate States (i.e. the South) didn’t exist. It simply won’t work. But hey, good luck! Maybe you’ll pick a rabbit out of your hat, George. Or perhaps a scorpion–that might be more suitable to the Middle Eastern locale.
Tags: george-bush, Mideast Peace, washington-post
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The Baker Hamilton study group? Well, excuse me if I don’t give them much credence.
Tony Blair? Really? He is a politican so what he is gong to say? “Well sorry most of the Arab world has been taught to demonize and hate Israel for decades.. so in my heart I believe until major reforms and changes in the Arab world take place, like Lebanon being our best hope… we can’t count on seeing any reform in the West Bank or Gaza…”
No, he espouses the same canned line “secuirty for Israel etc… etc..” and ‘peace is possible” just as we can talk Iran into not going nucleur… Which is what Baker Hamilton said by “talking” to the Iranian thugs…
OK, public now doesn’t everyone feel better… good…
Btw, not only do countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, etc… not only demonize Israel Soviet style in their media… but fund rejectionist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, etc…
However, your next statement is the biggest doozy……
Really? You know this… simply amazing.
What the Arab world recognizes? The last mouthed statement about the rehashed political football thrown by the Saudis supposedly at Tom Friedman… (Who’s ego and fantasy was/is likely up to par with the latest NY Times “fictional” writer who you yourself poo poo) talked about the Full Right of Return… and then maybe recognizing Israel’s existence? “Yes we recognize that you are in fact there… pat on the head.
The same Arab world that watches dehumanization of Jews and Rabbis on their state run televisions and Satellites? Maybe, if wey’re reallll lucky they’ll recognize Israel the way Egypt (the leader or close 2nd depending on your opinion of promoting anti semitism in the media) does… you know send an Embassador to sip coffee occassionally in an Israeli office… All nonsense…
American Jews opinon aside… I doubt “most” American Jews would agree to “peace” if it meant a Full Right of Return (whatever that means at this point btw… grandkids too lol.. like me going back to Poland) let alone sacrificing the Golan to Syria or even a so-called UN force like the masquerade now talking place in Lebanon….
I have some friends that just got back from Israel… pretty left wing folks… 1 of their first statements was “After being on the Golan if Israel ever gives that away they’re crazy”…..
Second, American Jews, if I may be presumptive (though not quite nearly as presumptive as yourself above) like to hear the words peace…. repeated every few years…. like “yes this time they’re making peace” then go back to their regular lives….
Let me add… I recently met some British/Irish protestants obviously from Northern Ireland… they laugh pretty loudly when they hear Americans say yes, don’t you have peace there now after what Clinton did..
Do you mean to say you think the Arab world agrees with you that “the big problems in the Middle East are not Israel” or “the idea that [the Israeli Palestinian conflict] is the cause of the real endemic problems there is a tragic fantasy.”
Wrong. The Saudi/Arab League proposal talks about the Right of Return, NOT the full Right of Return. The proposal clearly allows for readjustment of the Right of Return to replace physical return with monetary restitution.
Not what I said. I said American Jews agree with the Baker Hamilton report and most serious Mideast analysts that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a festering wound that helps exacerbate other conflicts in the region; and that it’s solution is key to improving U.S. standing in the Middle East.
Absolutely wrong. I’m not sure whether such specific polling has ever been done (if anyone knows of any pls. let me know), but I’m certain that since a majority of American Jews favor withdrawing from some West Bank settlements that an even greater majority would favor leaving Golan in return for a negotiated peace with Syria involving full recognition.
I just love statements like this & I can’t tell you how many times rightists have tried to pass off such silliness as evidence of some greater truth or phenomena. So you have a few friends who visited Israel who reject the idea of Golan withdrawal. This anecdotal evidence is supposed to represent what? An intelligent and informed judgment about what Israeli policy should be? And what is their specific expertise to make such a judgment? And they’re “pretty left wing folks?” Meaning what in an Israeli context? They support the Israeli left? You’re statement is so vague as to be meaningless.
a mind is a terrible thing to waste….
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/imprimer_element/0,40-0@2-3224,50-935544,0.html
http://www.sabbah.biz/mt/
Author: Sophia
French philosopher Alain Badiou gave this interview to Le Monde last week. The original title was about the crisis of the intellectual Left. While the first two questions focused on the crisis of the French Left, most of the interview was about the particularisms lying at the foundations of Israel as a Jewish only state. Badiou speaks with clarity on matters which appear to be complexe in the news, using fundamental philosophical concepts like Truth, History, Universals, and Universalism (as opposed to Particularisms and exceptionnalism).
Le Monde: You are, since the publication of Circonstance, 3. Portées du mot “Juif” (The Uses of the word “Jew”), at the heart of an intellectual controversy because of your position on Israel, a position some believe is favourable to the disappearance of Israel as a state. What is your opinion on this ?
Alain Badiou: I believe this controversy, if taken at its highest and most coherent level, is about the existence of universals. What is the relation between the word “jew”, in its entire extension, its historical and intellectual resonance, and the liberating and emancipating effect of universalism? Universalism is attacked from the Right, which maintains that we should return to the values of Nations, Traditions, Religion, Family values, etc. Universalism is also under attack from the Left which maintains that abstract Universalism is a form of intellectual Imperialism or an abstraction of the global market (or global economy) against which sexual, racial, and communautarian identities should be defended. In this debate, I stand in the middle, even if I am considered as a radical. I oppose the traditionalist defence of moral, national, and religious identities, but I oppose the modernist position on this matter which pretends to defend identities by making them the center and the principal player in the political opposition to international Capitalism. It is in this context that I consider the word “jew”.
Le Monde: Why reduce the whole question to a word ? Isn’t a reality ?
Alain Badiou: Certainly ! It is the same with the word “French”… However “being French” does not prevent me from being from a Moroccan origin, or a hereditary aristocrat, or half German, having this or this idea about my country, inheriting the French revolution or on the contrary a fetichistic vision of the land… Under a word, of variable value, we can find an infinite multiplicity. My problem is that I am against those who think that “jew” is a name, and not a word, those who insist that this word forms a homogenous and unified assembly non reductible to something else. In my opinion, their position can only be tenable in the case of divine transcendance. In this case, and in this case alone, we can argue that “jew” is a name and not a word, because it is bound to an elective space: “jew” is the name of the alliance. I argue, as Lévinas did before me in a coherent way, that it is impossible to maintain this nominal exception without the support of religion.
My target in this critique is not Zionism, neither the existence of Israel, not even a certain type of relation between the identity and the state. My target is the ideological manipulation of the word “jew” in the intellectual controversy you mentioned, especially in France where it serves some goals linked to the reactionary wave in which we have been immersed for about thirty years now.
It would be terrible for the Jews, this living multiplicity, to let the word that defines them – which has a close relationship, going on for so many years before, with the formidable question of the universals and the adventures of universalism – to become the symbol of modernised Capitalism, anti-Arab or anti-African xénophobia, and US wars. I notice, with a real sorrow, that many people to whom I was close, sometimes dear friends, who in the 70s used to gravitate around revolutionary Maoism (he is talking probably about André Glucksman, staunch supporter now of Sarkozy), have started slowly using the reference to the word “jew” and to Israel as a support for something politically and intellectually more large, that can be identified as an attempt to reintegrate the West. By “West” I mean the group of developped and “democratic” countries, their power, their way of life, which are judged superior. The unprecedented trauma that was the extermination of Europe’s jews in the Nazis gaz chambers has rendered this manipulation redoutable because it strikes the thought and immobilises it in a conservative memory.
Le Monde: You are accused of attacking the memory of the Shoah, or at least its usage. Is it because it served the itinerary you just denounced ?
Alain Badiou: I think that the promotion of massacres and victims as the only interesting contents to History is linked to a profound process of depolitisation. To examine all historical situations exclusively through moral categories results in political impotence. On the other hand, I don’t think memory is a good category if we want the non repetition of disasters, because the non repetition assumes a rational judgement about what happened. An emotional memory based on horror and its images is ambivalent. Discerning between what follows from a repulsive emotion and an emotion of fascination is very difficult. Yes, I mistrust memory, the memory of colonial atrocities, or the memory of Stalinism, as much as the memory of Nazism. Political and historical knowledge should universally become the alternatives for doubtful memory that is a designated prey for propaganda.
le Monde: Is it in this same vein that you suggest in Circonstances, 3 that we forget the Holocaust ?
Alain Badiou: This sentence, which appeared in an interview I gave to Haaretz, was, as you may suspect, a carefully designed imprudence: it cannot be understood outside the context specific to the conditions of a possible dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. My next sentence, that you don’t cite here, made it clear that the forgetting is, in fact, impossible.
Le Monde: Isn’t Israel’s legitimacy, at least in the West, tied to the memory of the Shoah ?
Alain Badiou: Things must be clear. I never thought that the destiny of Israelis is to be pushed into the sea. Moreover, I don’t think that the question of Israel’s frontiers is at the heart of the problem. From the internal perspective of an assumed de facto situation, in other words, the settlement of hundred thousands of jews in this place being irreversible, I still think that the regulating idea for a future for the region cannot be anything else than a common life and destiny for Palestinians and Jews on the same land. I always thought that the formula of a “jewish state” is perilous. Today, the politic of emancipation dictate that national identities and states should not be defined exclusively in terms referring to identity and race. We should have a minimal requirement here, the land right against the blood right. Israel will have to deal with the prospect of universalism retaking the places where particularisms used to strive, if it has to deal with its own future.
No though there are some liberal writers who have. Most as in Egypt and Bangladesh recently are clamped down upon… for simply mouthing a positive statement about Israel.
However, you are admitting the Arab world doesn’t in fact agree with your statement?
Obviously the fact that most of the Arab world doesn’t agree with my statement is the problem. The Israeli public has come a long way in the last 20 years… while the Arabic public has become more and more radicalized in regards to Israel and in general.
Notable though you yourself appear to agree with that analysis below where you say it helps exacerbate other (imopinion) real endemic problems in the Middle East.
Really? Funny they didn’t state it.. though you could say that’s just politics… fair enough… However, funny how it’s never rationally discussed then on their state run media or satellites then? or their education books? you know monetary restitution etc.. or how dispossession of MEastern Jews took place as well? Because it is discussed in Israeli and Jewish press?
More importantly however for that matter the average man on the street in Saudi Arabia, Syria or camps in Lebanon or Syria feel this way…..
It was just a statement thrown out to Friedman mouthed in English to Western press only (Not Arabic Press) so the Saudis could relieve some pressure, gain some good pr and goodies at the time from the US administration. If I remember correctly this was shortly after 9/11….
US standing will never become solid because most of the Arab world despises and rejects Israel to their core…. in any way shape or form… that’s what’s taught in their culture. And as long as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya not to mention the state run presses… tout lines in sync with the Muslim Brotherhood not much is going to impove US image.
On another note then you would agree with Clinton’s statement? …. which was something to the effect I wish we could just take away the Israeli/Pal conflict from them so we could then force them to face the real problems in their region”
Agreed… re West Bank though that’s not whats promoted “some”… its pretty much “all” that is promoted….
Excuse me? Was it not you who passed off the anecdote “most of the Arab world disagrees with you”…
Well the tar and smear brush appears to have reared its head. They’re left wing and very educated by anyone’s definition and people I respect very much so. However, leaving your smearing aside……… they are in favor of negotiating and land sacrifice for true peace..as you stated above most American Jews are…. (remember that statement)
However, what they were actually referring to in a conversation about other things as well was how glaringly obvious it is when you actually see it – how from the Golan Heights one could literally take target practice on Israeli towns and kibutims with a simple rifle.
Further, it was you who stated in another post how close Syria was to overrunning Northern Israel in 73. I’m sure the Mafiocracy that runs Syria – assurance of “full recognition”, excuse me if I laugh in light of what they’re doing in Lebanon right now, would be comforting… and reliable. and more than that worthy of sacrificing an extremely strategic and important piece of real estate for. I imagine that means they’d end the demonization in their press as well.
ONE Bangladeshi journalist wrote something positive about Israel. Just one. There is no “most.” There’s just one. As for Egypt, I’d like you point us to an Egyptian writer who believes that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not a major irritant and stimulant for much of the conflict in the ME.
Obvious to you but to hardly anyone else except Israel’s apologists. Solving the I-P conflict will go miles toward easing tension and conflict in much of the ME. It is perhaps the most debilitating factor undermining U.S. relations with the Arab world. This is what is obvious to most people in the world except you & a small percentage of others.
That may be true. But “publics” don’t make peace, governments do. And the Israeli government is bankrupt as far as providing leadership toward peace. Its stance, as proven by countless Israeli public opinion polls, is miles from where the Israeli public is on almost all the major war & peace issues.
The Saudi position on the Right of Return has been “stated” numerous times in the world press. Search through Google News & you’ll find it.
Unlike you, I’m not thinking about the IP conflict in world strategic terms or in terms of a battle bet. the West and Islam. I’m thinking about it mostly in terms of Israel achieving peace w. its neighbors. That’s my top priority. Also, I’m not willing to concede that the IP conflict is NOT a REAL problem esp. to the Arabs. Yes, Arab states have many internal problems they need to face and perhaps the IP conflict distracts fr. facing them. So if peace forces other Arab states to focus on the domestic problems affecting them that’s all for the good. But that isn’t what primarily motivates me.
You again claim they’re “left wing” w/o providing any proof of their actual views so that one can draw their own conclusion.
That’s not quite true now is it? They just told you that Israel would be crazy if it gave back the Golan. So if what they told you is what they do believe they not in favor of “land sacrific for true peace.” So just how “leftist” are they?
Yes, that was in 1973, not 2008. 35 years ago. Times have changed though you obviously haven’t.
Isn’t it interesting there has not been a war bet. Israel & Syria nor have their been serious hostilities on their mutual border since 1973. I’d say that’s a pretty reliable partner. Yes, Syria has made mischief using Hezbollah as their proxy. But clearly the alliance w. Hezbollah is one of convenience and one that will only last as long as they share mutual interests–which will be as long as Israel refuses to negotiate a full peace w. Lebanon settling territorial & related claims.
And as for Syria being unreliable–you think the Arab states see Israel as a reliable partner? Israel has violated almost every agreement it has signed with Arab parties since Oslo (so have the Arabs). Why should they see Israel any differently than you see Syria?
FIXED….
No my reference to most, was any liberal journalist that has in the past or would write something different than the company hard line is clamped down upon and intimidated.. not only from the gov’ts, as in Bangladesh and Egypt (quite a few cases there), but in the general culture. This is not the same in Israel or the US…
There are quite a few bloggers who have touted lines different than the hard line… a few have gone quiet recently bcs the Egyptian gov’t police have been calling… There is an Egyptian playright who visited Israel and spoke glowingly about the people and culture… He was shut up numerous times.
Actually you pretty much admitted above that’s its just 1 of many problems in the Middle East… and 1 the gov’ts and media use relentlessly in their propoganda machines… blame Israel and blame the US for everything and don’t ever look at yourself… There are serious endemic divisions and problems in most Arab countries… we peeled off Saddam rightly or wrongly… and now we see the chasms there that have been present within that society for how long? And these have what exactly to do with Israel?
And what does Israel have to do with the problems in Pakistan or Afghanistan again? And bcs Muslim and Pakistani press propogandize relentlessly Israel and demonize Jews suddenly Israel is relevant to that Asian country?
Or is it just your fantasy that all that hatred and demonization will end with a Utopian “peace” and end to the IP conflict?
So are you tacitally admitting the Israeli public has come a long way in 20 years and the Arab public has gotten more instead of less hard line? Bcs the man in the street is always more important in my estimation?
Are you further stating that comparably speaking the problem is not the Palestinian or Arab leadership but instead the Israeli gov’t?
I’ve read it and I have never seen anything that states a Full Right of Return in likely never going to happen and instead most would have to take other forms of compensation instead… In fact a Palestinian refugee was quote a few years back in Lebanon, as stating to the effect — the PLO is corrupt and he just wants some just compensation and to move on…. He was later intimidated and took back that statement.
So you agree with Clinton’s statement? Yes or No?
And where did I say anything about a West Islam conflict? I said that there are real endemic problems in the Arab Muslim world and to think a “real peace” can take place with these corrupt thug gov’ts, controlled medias etc.. the way they are today is a fantasy.
DID YOU AVOID THE ELEPHANT in the CLOSET? It’s Soviet style diversion… These gov’ts purposely maximize, focus and heighten all their intention on the boogey men… the Zionists, Israelis, Joos etc…. for a reason….
Sorry but I have no interest in discussing the world views and opinions of my friends who visited Israel… I could care less if you would “annoint” them with your stamp of approval as qualifying as “left wing” or educated..
Wow, you’re onto something? yes, they’re kahanists lol…. is this really an adult conversation?
They are for giving land back but after seeing the Golan they were impressed by how dangerous it would be to ever give back certainly the lower portion of it… to the Syrians… due to the ease with which 1 could shoot Israelis…
Again, as I already stated
Yes, in some sense they have. Hezbollah is now a real dangerous Iranian trained force. Iran, which is far more advanced militarily than any Arab country, is now fully backing and training the Syrian gov’t. So yes having Iranian special forces in Southern Lebanon and on the Golan, as well as advising Hamas in Gaza… would in fact be EXTREMELY dangerous to Israel…
And aren’t you tired of your little insults which really don’t win you any points…
Why have Syrians die when you can have Lebanese guerillas do your fighting for you? Supply them with guns, rockets, and training and sit back and enjoy? That’s your reliable partner?? That’s your proof?
Further, perhaps bcs the Mafia running Syria cares more about the Billions they steal from Lebanon every year in graft and monopoly kickbacks, price gouging etc… than a nice piece of land with farms and skiing etc… Sure they propogandize in their press the “boogey man Jews and Israelis” and the crime of how “they stole their national pride etc….” but the Mafia couldn’t care less compared to the Cash Cow of Lebanon. Even Javier Solana has admitted as much recently.
That’s a Scary statement right there. Yeah, their mutual interest is Syrian domination of Lebanon, and overthrowing the elelected gov’t in place today… AS well as preventing any UN investigations into the Harriri as well as other anti Syrian politicians, murders….
As if Syria does not care about the Billions of a Cash Cow they steal from the lebanese economy on a yearly basis? NO, they simply want Israel to be fair with Lebanon in peace negotiations!!
And give back Sheba Farms (a pile of rocks) and the Golan Heights?
No they simply want Israel to be “fair” with Lebanon?Wow… what a statement!
Again, obfuscation… Well, I guess you’re correct, I didn’t see it before.. .Israel and Syria are equally as malevolent on a governmental, and societal basis… Thanks!
Ah, now you change yr tune. At first, you claimed a number of Bangldeshi journalists were intimidated because they wrote favorably about Israel. When I point out the exagerration of this statement
You simply change course & claim you were talking about liberal journalists in general, not necessarily those writing about Israel. How inconvenient when the facts don’t fit yr claims. You simply claim you meant something else.
Again, you’re provided an example of precisely one person who fits yr claim w/o even a source mind you. One person does not prove a claim such as yours. If you want to claim there is one journalist in every Arab country willing to speak well of Israel I freely concede this is possible. But that person is an extreme minority & not representative of any class. And the fact that more don’t speak well of Israel has much less to do w. repression within the Arab country itself (though that exists) & much more to do w. the fact that there is almost nothing that an Arab CAN say that would be positive about Israel given its current policies.
It is THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM as far as I’m concerned. If there are other problems besetting the ME they pale in significance for me.
Palestine (& by extention, Israel) is as deeply relevant to Arab countries as Israel is for Diaspora Jews. It is a precise mirror. If you can understand how important Israel is for most Jews outside Israel then you might be able to understand how important Palestine & its holy places are for Muslims. Trying to belittle or demean such a connection for Muslims is a losing proposition which betrays yr abject ignorance of anything to do w. Islam.
Not at all. Do a Google search of this site & you’ll find numerous Palestinian public opinion polls which actually document how moderate Palestinian public opinion is on these questions; and in ways which precisely mirror Israeli public opinion. Call me whatever you want but it’s all there in the numbers & they don’t lie.
I’ve written this sentence 35 times at this blog. Why can’t you bother yrself to read a little before betraying yr ignorance of my views? The problem lies on BOTH SIDES. Not on one side.
That’s because that ISN’T in the document nor did I ever claim it was. The document talks about the Right of Return. In multiple news interviews & conversations w. Israeli & western diplomats the Saudis have made clear they are willing to negotiate about this & transform a physical right of return into a right to financial compensation. Again, I’ve suggested you do a Google News search on this & instead of doing one you betray yet more ignorance & sloppy reading of my words.
I just decided to give up on responding to the rest of yr comment. It’s a hopeless proposition since you are dense beyond belief.
And there is a new rule as far as you’re concerned. Since you’ve published three comments every day recently and these comments hav been incredibly long-winded, your ration has just been reduced to ONE COMMENT per day. Publish more than one & I am likely to delete anything over that number. I simply don’t have the time to rebut yr narischkeit & still write a blog.