Ever since negotiations between Israel and Palestine began the idea has been to progress slowly on an incremental basis, to take baby steps towards solving little problems one at a time. The idea behind this, one would assume, is to build up a level of trust. With all talks frozen and showing no sign of thawing, it might just be time to admit that this aproach has not worked and is not going to work. For sure, it has got the two sides, in their various incarnations, talking to each other, but it is not moving anything forwards. If anything, the current approach enables Israel to continue its programme of quitely deleting Palestine from existence - the longer these little talks go on, the more time Israel has to steal land.
On the one hand, the possibility of a viable Palestinian state is diminishing with the continued settlement activity on the West Bank, which undermines any results of any talks that do take place. On the other hand, continually deferring any discussion of the substantive issues - which are really what the whole discussion is about - breeds deep frustration on both sides. There was a glimmer of light when Olmert and Abbas were reported to have exchanged maps deliniating proposed borders. Hope, that is, born out of the thought that finally something meaningful was being discussed. However, we never really knew the contents of these maps, nor was there any outcome of them, if, that is, it actually happened. Nonetheless, the thought was a start.
Now we have gone back to a state in which we are only able to talk about talking. Cairo is talking about Hamas and Fatah talking, Israel and the PNA are talking about talking to each other, Obama and Mitchell are talking about everyone talking to everyone else, some dissidents are even talking about someone talking to Hamas. Something radical is needed to shift this along.
The only way forwards seems to be for everyone to commit to skipping to the end - that is, to discuss the final status issues of borders, Jerusalem and refugees. These are the real issues that everyone cares about, and discussing them first will sort those who are serious about Palestine from those who are not, as well as giving hope to everyone that something meaningful is actually happening. From the Palestinian point of view, the whole thing has been an abstraction about a state that doesn't even exist - giving them something concrete to look towards is essential. From the Israeli point of view, the uncertainty of not knowing how a Palestinian state will affect the state of Israel is frightening them into not even thinking about it.
If an agreement, even a relatively sketchy one, could be reached - in principle - about borders, Jerusalem and refugees, then everyone would have a clear sense of what they are heading towards, since the current problem is that nobody here has any concrete concept of a destination. Delaying the final status is not a means a progress, but a means of procrastination.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Friday, 19 June 2009
Iran did not take place
The continued uprising in Iran is fascinating. The more I watch it, the more I come to think that Ahmadinejad may well have won the election. Plenty of commentators seem to think so too.
Firstly, although the protests and marches being staged in Tehran are massive, especially given that such public spectacle has been largely unknownin Iran for a generation, but the protestors still onstitute a minority of the people, with the majority - who might be Ahmadinejad supporters - reminaing quiet and being largely ignored.
Secondly, the Western media coverage of the story seeks of accentuate (if not eggarate) the Mousavi support base - and therefore ignore the Ahmadinejad - because it wants to fuel the fire.
In short, there is no reason to doubt that the interests of this angry minority are being represented so widely as part of a larger campaign to damage Ahmadinejad.
Two things here:
One, the West only recognises the results of elections if it decides it has a certain pragmatic fondness for the winner, if, that is, the winner if someone they want to do business with. In this case, they'd prefer to do business with Mousavi, so are refusing to recognise Ahmadinejad's victory. Remember when we rallied round the PLO and demanded the PNA be constituted by free, transparent democratic election, and when we decided that perhaps we could deal with Arafat, until he died, so we demanded more elections until Hamas won, and suddenly - as if by dispensation of decency - we decide that democracy is not the way forwards and refuse to recognise the result which is the will of the people. This is what seems to be happening in Iran.
Two, there is something more deeply sinister at work here, as it calls to mind a sort of Baudrillardian simulation scenario. Suppose Ahmadinejad did win the election fairly - although this is possible, we must admit that we, here in the West, let alone them in Iran, have no idea what actually happened on June 12th - then the rest of the world now seems engaged in an effort to bring about an event that did not occur. No election fraud actually occured, but because we are so morally outraged with the result that did actually occur, we are now trying to simulate an imagined fraud as if we can bring it about by pretending very hard that it did happen. Like if you pretend with enough realism that Saddam had WMD, then they shall suddenly appear.
This may be absurd, and I hope it is, but lets not be so foolish and subserviant to accept what we are told without a little critical reflection and attention to the historical precedent.
Firstly, although the protests and marches being staged in Tehran are massive, especially given that such public spectacle has been largely unknownin Iran for a generation, but the protestors still onstitute a minority of the people, with the majority - who might be Ahmadinejad supporters - reminaing quiet and being largely ignored.
Secondly, the Western media coverage of the story seeks of accentuate (if not eggarate) the Mousavi support base - and therefore ignore the Ahmadinejad - because it wants to fuel the fire.
In short, there is no reason to doubt that the interests of this angry minority are being represented so widely as part of a larger campaign to damage Ahmadinejad.
Two things here:
One, the West only recognises the results of elections if it decides it has a certain pragmatic fondness for the winner, if, that is, the winner if someone they want to do business with. In this case, they'd prefer to do business with Mousavi, so are refusing to recognise Ahmadinejad's victory. Remember when we rallied round the PLO and demanded the PNA be constituted by free, transparent democratic election, and when we decided that perhaps we could deal with Arafat, until he died, so we demanded more elections until Hamas won, and suddenly - as if by dispensation of decency - we decide that democracy is not the way forwards and refuse to recognise the result which is the will of the people. This is what seems to be happening in Iran.
Two, there is something more deeply sinister at work here, as it calls to mind a sort of Baudrillardian simulation scenario. Suppose Ahmadinejad did win the election fairly - although this is possible, we must admit that we, here in the West, let alone them in Iran, have no idea what actually happened on June 12th - then the rest of the world now seems engaged in an effort to bring about an event that did not occur. No election fraud actually occured, but because we are so morally outraged with the result that did actually occur, we are now trying to simulate an imagined fraud as if we can bring it about by pretending very hard that it did happen. Like if you pretend with enough realism that Saddam had WMD, then they shall suddenly appear.
This may be absurd, and I hope it is, but lets not be so foolish and subserviant to accept what we are told without a little critical reflection and attention to the historical precedent.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
on Iran
It is possible that Ahmadinejad did win the Iranian election. The chances are that he didn't win it fairly and that it was rigged. But it is worth considering for a moment that Mousavi lost an election that he was never likely to win.
Now this depends upon us seriously considering our perspective: from the West, we know almost nothing about Iran; nothing, that is, about what daily life is like for 70million people. The people who do know are those who have lived there or those who actively study this matter, who are in the smallest minority of people. We only hear about Iran when Ahmadinejad raves about Jews or Israel, when Iran is accused of funding Hezbollah, Hamas or Iraqi insurgency. The day to day conditions of life on the ground in Iran are a mystery to us, and without this kind of information we are in no position to judge the fairness of this election. Therefore, without sufficient basic information we should keep an open mind about whether Mousavi was cheated out of the presidency.
Things to consider. Firstly, and this is an outrageous thought, perhaps Mousavi was never likely to win; perhaps the idea that Iran would be swept into a liberal, reformist frenzy was entirely a dream of the Western media. Perhaps our governments turned their dreams into news in the hope that at least it would give us hope for better relations with Iran, and at most even sway the Iranian people. We believe this is unlikely because we believe our governments don't lie to us like this; we believe that we have free, transparent media. Well, maybe, but Iraq has WMD...
Secondly, notice that the vst majority of all reports we saw in the run up to the election came from some 'wealthy suburb of Tehran' or another. Our attention was focused almost exclusively on Iran's educated, wealthy elite who probably were Mousavi supporters, with no admission that poorer, less educated, more religiously orientated Iranians might well have been Ahmadinejad supporters. Again, this depends on the fact that our media have keep the reality of life in Iran a closely gaurded secret - we have no concept of the population demographic in terms of education, wealth and political leanings, so it remians a sensible possibility that the Mousavi supporters of wealthy suburbs of Tehran are the minority.
Thirdly, then, suppose that it is possible that the majority of Iran's citizens are poorer than the educated elite we have seen, then they are likely to be swayed by the candidate who gives out free potatoes. In the end, hungry people will be more convinced by the man who promises to feed them than by the man who offers them liberty. Bceuase freedom is no good if you're hungry.
This may or may not be plausible, but the point is that in order to make a reasoned judgement about whether an election in a foreign country was free and fair we need to know so much about the voters. We need to know, first, whether the correlation we have seen beteen wealth and education and liberalism, on the one hand, and the correlation between poverty and religion and conservativism, on the other hand, is correct, and we need to know more about its supposed distribution across a population of 70million. Look at last year's American election: we can judge that Obama won fairly partly because we know how he appealed to the majority of poorer people in society and how he appealed to the wealthier, or more educated, people. This is something that most of us simply don't know about how things are on the ground in Iran.
I have to say, with a heavy heart, that I am not entirely convinced that the Western media has not had a hand in crafting a false story of Mousavi's popularity for its own ends, and I am not convinced that Ahmadinejad had to cheat all that much. But I am keeping an open mind and will wait and see. But it is important to consider that what happened in Iran last week is more complex than our media has allowed us to see.
Now this depends upon us seriously considering our perspective: from the West, we know almost nothing about Iran; nothing, that is, about what daily life is like for 70million people. The people who do know are those who have lived there or those who actively study this matter, who are in the smallest minority of people. We only hear about Iran when Ahmadinejad raves about Jews or Israel, when Iran is accused of funding Hezbollah, Hamas or Iraqi insurgency. The day to day conditions of life on the ground in Iran are a mystery to us, and without this kind of information we are in no position to judge the fairness of this election. Therefore, without sufficient basic information we should keep an open mind about whether Mousavi was cheated out of the presidency.
Things to consider. Firstly, and this is an outrageous thought, perhaps Mousavi was never likely to win; perhaps the idea that Iran would be swept into a liberal, reformist frenzy was entirely a dream of the Western media. Perhaps our governments turned their dreams into news in the hope that at least it would give us hope for better relations with Iran, and at most even sway the Iranian people. We believe this is unlikely because we believe our governments don't lie to us like this; we believe that we have free, transparent media. Well, maybe, but Iraq has WMD...
Secondly, notice that the vst majority of all reports we saw in the run up to the election came from some 'wealthy suburb of Tehran' or another. Our attention was focused almost exclusively on Iran's educated, wealthy elite who probably were Mousavi supporters, with no admission that poorer, less educated, more religiously orientated Iranians might well have been Ahmadinejad supporters. Again, this depends on the fact that our media have keep the reality of life in Iran a closely gaurded secret - we have no concept of the population demographic in terms of education, wealth and political leanings, so it remians a sensible possibility that the Mousavi supporters of wealthy suburbs of Tehran are the minority.
Thirdly, then, suppose that it is possible that the majority of Iran's citizens are poorer than the educated elite we have seen, then they are likely to be swayed by the candidate who gives out free potatoes. In the end, hungry people will be more convinced by the man who promises to feed them than by the man who offers them liberty. Bceuase freedom is no good if you're hungry.
This may or may not be plausible, but the point is that in order to make a reasoned judgement about whether an election in a foreign country was free and fair we need to know so much about the voters. We need to know, first, whether the correlation we have seen beteen wealth and education and liberalism, on the one hand, and the correlation between poverty and religion and conservativism, on the other hand, is correct, and we need to know more about its supposed distribution across a population of 70million. Look at last year's American election: we can judge that Obama won fairly partly because we know how he appealed to the majority of poorer people in society and how he appealed to the wealthier, or more educated, people. This is something that most of us simply don't know about how things are on the ground in Iran.
I have to say, with a heavy heart, that I am not entirely convinced that the Western media has not had a hand in crafting a false story of Mousavi's popularity for its own ends, and I am not convinced that Ahmadinejad had to cheat all that much. But I am keeping an open mind and will wait and see. But it is important to consider that what happened in Iran last week is more complex than our media has allowed us to see.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Another Round
This conflict will never end.
It is good to be optimistic; optimisim brings hope and the motivation to bring about real change. But it is equally important not to let optimism to give way to delusion, and Netanyahu's latest speech makes optimism very, very difficult.
There is no telling any more what could possibly bring about a end to the Palestine-Israel conflict, still less what could bring about a Palestinian state. What we do know, and can see very palably, is that an intense war of atrition is being waged by both sides: one impossibly implausible and unattractive 'offer' after another, Israel is slowing breaking grinding the Palestinians down into submission; and the Palestinians' factional divisions mean that they are gradually eroding any glimmer of decency that Israel might have by either not recognising the state or by failing to agree on strategy.
One reason the conflict now seems more endless than ever, is Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. It's not that he doesn't want peace, or that he is an incapable diplomat, or that he lacks motivation, or any kind of common frailty that politicians normally possess. Olmert was frail in these sorts of ways, but he was not, I think, such a bad guy. Netanyahu, however, is not doing himself any favours; he appears - from his own actions alone - to be nothing more than a despotic leader and an absolutely rotten, delusional human being. The Palestinians did not fare well under Arafat because he was essentially bad, now the Israelis have a turn. The Palestinians are beset by a an incompetant, bumbling idiot in Abbas. So it's not looking good for anyone on the ground for the forseeable future.
Netanyahu is not stupid. That's the worst thing. He says awful things, not because he didn't think or because he lacks social skills, but because he means them and he wants to tell people what he means. He says, "Settlers are neither the enemies of the people, nor of peace. They are our brothers and sisters. They are Zionists. They have values." Now if you really wanted to reach out a hand of reconcilliation to the Palestinians, you would not tell them that the people consuming their land apparently have values and that they are the very thing that is the root of a violent conflict.
The Western media is kicking up the usual storm of hope about this speech because Netanyahu said "Palestinian state" at some indistinct point. Blind, delusional optimism inclines us to think that this is a promise, but very far from it. Like Olmert's final - and most absurd - suggestion of a 'shelf agreement', Netanyahu's idea of a 'state' is little more than an open prison which people may occasionally have permission to leave.
His conditions are nothing short of ludicrous; they do not resemble anything like a state, not even by standards of an essentially stateless people who never even had a state. Palestine, he says, would be demilitarised, it would not be allowed to build an army nor make military agreements with any other state; it would not have control of its own airspace (although he didn't say so, he means Israel would control the airspace); it would not have East Jerusalem as its capital, which would reamin under 'eternal and undivided' Israeli control. Oh, but what a Palestinian state would have, he grants them, is "a flag, an anthem and an administration".
To pile disaster and wickedness on the pyre, Israel is now going to play its familiar turn: it makes an absurd statement which it thinks constitutes a decent offer of settlement, advertises the fact to the world with pride as if it has done everyone a favour, feeling mighty proud and virtuous that it has, once again, offered a hand of peace to those unruly, stubborn Arabs; then the Palestinians, who have already had Abbas' office speak for them, will reject this offer, claiming it is not a move towards peace and insufficient for state-building, and they will attempt to gentley tell Israel that it's not good enough. Finally, Israel will play the victim, again - it will stamp its feet while the world is watching, like a petulant, incorrigable child that America wants to mother; it will be insulted and horrified by yet another rejection and say 'well, you see, we made an offer and once again they rejected it. The Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves, we keep trying and they keep failing, it is their own stubbornness - and not violent occupation - that makes this conflict so intractable'. Again, everyone will fall in line.
The only point of mentioning any of this is to ensure that nobody pays even the slightest glimmer of attention to Netanyahu's latest affront to justice. Israel is a country in its infancy, so perhaps one day it will mature and stop making these outrageous claims, but for now we will all do well to simply ignore these flimsy 'peace' statements because paying attention will only encourse this endless absurdity. The conflict seems endless exactly because there does not seem to be a rational human being on either side, and Netanyahu saw fit to prove this for his side today; tomorrow it will be Abbas's turn, and then Haniyeh... There will be more to come, and the best thing to do with petulant children is, after all, ignore them until they grow up.
It is good to be optimistic; optimisim brings hope and the motivation to bring about real change. But it is equally important not to let optimism to give way to delusion, and Netanyahu's latest speech makes optimism very, very difficult.
There is no telling any more what could possibly bring about a end to the Palestine-Israel conflict, still less what could bring about a Palestinian state. What we do know, and can see very palably, is that an intense war of atrition is being waged by both sides: one impossibly implausible and unattractive 'offer' after another, Israel is slowing breaking grinding the Palestinians down into submission; and the Palestinians' factional divisions mean that they are gradually eroding any glimmer of decency that Israel might have by either not recognising the state or by failing to agree on strategy.
One reason the conflict now seems more endless than ever, is Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. It's not that he doesn't want peace, or that he is an incapable diplomat, or that he lacks motivation, or any kind of common frailty that politicians normally possess. Olmert was frail in these sorts of ways, but he was not, I think, such a bad guy. Netanyahu, however, is not doing himself any favours; he appears - from his own actions alone - to be nothing more than a despotic leader and an absolutely rotten, delusional human being. The Palestinians did not fare well under Arafat because he was essentially bad, now the Israelis have a turn. The Palestinians are beset by a an incompetant, bumbling idiot in Abbas. So it's not looking good for anyone on the ground for the forseeable future.
Netanyahu is not stupid. That's the worst thing. He says awful things, not because he didn't think or because he lacks social skills, but because he means them and he wants to tell people what he means. He says, "Settlers are neither the enemies of the people, nor of peace. They are our brothers and sisters. They are Zionists. They have values." Now if you really wanted to reach out a hand of reconcilliation to the Palestinians, you would not tell them that the people consuming their land apparently have values and that they are the very thing that is the root of a violent conflict.
The Western media is kicking up the usual storm of hope about this speech because Netanyahu said "Palestinian state" at some indistinct point. Blind, delusional optimism inclines us to think that this is a promise, but very far from it. Like Olmert's final - and most absurd - suggestion of a 'shelf agreement', Netanyahu's idea of a 'state' is little more than an open prison which people may occasionally have permission to leave.
His conditions are nothing short of ludicrous; they do not resemble anything like a state, not even by standards of an essentially stateless people who never even had a state. Palestine, he says, would be demilitarised, it would not be allowed to build an army nor make military agreements with any other state; it would not have control of its own airspace (although he didn't say so, he means Israel would control the airspace); it would not have East Jerusalem as its capital, which would reamin under 'eternal and undivided' Israeli control. Oh, but what a Palestinian state would have, he grants them, is "a flag, an anthem and an administration".
To pile disaster and wickedness on the pyre, Israel is now going to play its familiar turn: it makes an absurd statement which it thinks constitutes a decent offer of settlement, advertises the fact to the world with pride as if it has done everyone a favour, feeling mighty proud and virtuous that it has, once again, offered a hand of peace to those unruly, stubborn Arabs; then the Palestinians, who have already had Abbas' office speak for them, will reject this offer, claiming it is not a move towards peace and insufficient for state-building, and they will attempt to gentley tell Israel that it's not good enough. Finally, Israel will play the victim, again - it will stamp its feet while the world is watching, like a petulant, incorrigable child that America wants to mother; it will be insulted and horrified by yet another rejection and say 'well, you see, we made an offer and once again they rejected it. The Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves, we keep trying and they keep failing, it is their own stubbornness - and not violent occupation - that makes this conflict so intractable'. Again, everyone will fall in line.
The only point of mentioning any of this is to ensure that nobody pays even the slightest glimmer of attention to Netanyahu's latest affront to justice. Israel is a country in its infancy, so perhaps one day it will mature and stop making these outrageous claims, but for now we will all do well to simply ignore these flimsy 'peace' statements because paying attention will only encourse this endless absurdity. The conflict seems endless exactly because there does not seem to be a rational human being on either side, and Netanyahu saw fit to prove this for his side today; tomorrow it will be Abbas's turn, and then Haniyeh... There will be more to come, and the best thing to do with petulant children is, after all, ignore them until they grow up.
Friday, 12 June 2009
'Those useless trees'
Prof Greer recently wrote a lovely article in The Guardian in which she pleaded with the nation to do more to save cooling towers from demolition. The argument is simple and compelling: rather than saving trees, which can be grown back, we should save the architectural monuments of our recent industrial past because these things will never come back and they are crucial reminds of how we came to have the lives we now have.
This is what I have been arguing for years, in a series of papers on the fact that architecture crucially documents human history. Of course, we can't save all the architecture, but we can - and must - save some of it because, as Greer says, it is the very physical reminder of our history. It is important because architecture is something we, as minded, goal-directed, conscious beings create intentionally as a reult of some need or desire; to demolish it is to delete the document of our evolution in a society.
This does not mean we should favour buildings over trees. It means we should be realistic about what, in an urban society, it is important to preserve. The concern that everything will one day be concrete is a fanciful notion entertained by middle-class people who have the luxury of spending their time saving trees because they can afford to turn a blind eye to human suffering. There will always be trees, but once architecture is gone, it is gone and is not coming back.
The point is that environmental concern and sustainability are very real and important, which demand our immediate attention. But that it is delusional to suppose that we can do this by denying the reality of urbanism. We need to embrace our urban environments and make them work for us, rather than destroy them in the hopeless belief that nature will save us. Nature will not save us any more - we have industrialised our societies and now we have to live with what we have done. The disused colling towers are there to remind us of this.
This is what I have been arguing for years, in a series of papers on the fact that architecture crucially documents human history. Of course, we can't save all the architecture, but we can - and must - save some of it because, as Greer says, it is the very physical reminder of our history. It is important because architecture is something we, as minded, goal-directed, conscious beings create intentionally as a reult of some need or desire; to demolish it is to delete the document of our evolution in a society.
This does not mean we should favour buildings over trees. It means we should be realistic about what, in an urban society, it is important to preserve. The concern that everything will one day be concrete is a fanciful notion entertained by middle-class people who have the luxury of spending their time saving trees because they can afford to turn a blind eye to human suffering. There will always be trees, but once architecture is gone, it is gone and is not coming back.
The point is that environmental concern and sustainability are very real and important, which demand our immediate attention. But that it is delusional to suppose that we can do this by denying the reality of urbanism. We need to embrace our urban environments and make them work for us, rather than destroy them in the hopeless belief that nature will save us. Nature will not save us any more - we have industrialised our societies and now we have to live with what we have done. The disused colling towers are there to remind us of this.
Reshuffle
I always think there is something amusing, and quite absurd, in the notion of the cabinet reshuffle. Insofar as it is a key process of government, which aims to assert and cement the Prime Minister's authority, and to ensure effiiciency for purpose, it makes enough sense. But it also casts a mystery on what these people in government actually do. They seem to be nothing more than mere administrators with no intellectual power or importance; it is as if these ministers are, as their titles say, just secretaries and around them are the people who actually have the knowledge and the power to make the decisions.
Presuming that someone gets a job because they are able, even qualified, to do the job in hand, the reshuffle looks very strange. Someone who was qualified to be childrens' minister, suddenly knows all about transport, or someone who was education minister now suddenly can be defence minister. It's rather like a university having a reshuffle and deciding that a lecturer in theology can now be professor of physics, or professor of chemestry being given the job of lecturuer in family law.
It must be more complicated than that, but thinking of how it really looks on the surface, government appears very ill-suited to purpose.
Presuming that someone gets a job because they are able, even qualified, to do the job in hand, the reshuffle looks very strange. Someone who was qualified to be childrens' minister, suddenly knows all about transport, or someone who was education minister now suddenly can be defence minister. It's rather like a university having a reshuffle and deciding that a lecturer in theology can now be professor of physics, or professor of chemestry being given the job of lecturuer in family law.
It must be more complicated than that, but thinking of how it really looks on the surface, government appears very ill-suited to purpose.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Words are Not Enough
One of the reasons the conflict continues in Occupied Palestine is that Israel and its Western buddies depend - very fruitfully - on the fact that nobody over here asks questions, nobody looks carefully at what is being said, and everybody falls at Israel's feet as if it has done the world a favour. To illustrate this, consider this story from todays Guardian:
- Israel is to propose removing two dozen Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in the hope of winning US support for the continued expansion of its main settlements, reports said today
On the surface, yes, this looks encouraging, as if Israel has suddenly been coaxed by ardorable, fresh-faced President Obama into doing something good. Scratch the surface, however, and we see that even if we had any reason to believe Israel, it is clearly acting for the wrong sorts of reasons - this is not about making friends, it is about defending human rights.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, will take the proposal to senior US administration officials in Washington next week, the Associated Press said. The proposal comes after Barack Obama last week told the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to stop settlement building, but it is far from clear whether this latest proposal goes far enough for Washington.
Removing a few shacks in the desert is not, Mr Barak, the same as stopping settlement building, except that Israel is depending on us buying this feeble effort as some sort of concession. It is normally at this point that anyone who criticises Israel is accused of being anti-semitic and told to be grateful and appreciate that Israel is doing them a favour.
Netanyahu held what was apparently a tense meeting with members of his Likud party yesterday and told them that Israel needed to make some compromise over its settlement-building enterprise in order to encourage Washington to take a tougher stance on Iran and its nuclear programme
Let us ignore, again, the perverse motivation at the surface, and concentrate on the fact that Israel apparently thinks Washington needs to take a tougher on Iran. Not only could the stance not get diplomatically much tougher, but this is a clear case of Israeli war-mongering - the Israelis are planning a war and want to make sure that the US will stay friends with them long enough to join in. And, here we are again, Israel is trying to make us all feel we should be grateful by highlighting the pain it casues them to 'make some compromise' - this is not a compromise, it is a necessary condition for peace, an essential requirement for a Palestinian state and required by human decency.
This is the trick. Israel depends upon us taking words at face value because if we don't we see the horrific subject that this exerpt reveals. The worst thing of all is the fact that a lot of people in the Western world will swallow this without question and think Israel is alright after all.
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