Charles Krauthammer observes re Obama's demand that Israel retreat to '67 borders as a starting point in "peace" negotiations:
Note how Obama has undermined Israel’s negotiating position. He is demanding that Israel go into peace talks having already forfeited its claim to the territory won in the ’67 war — its only bargaining chip. Remember: That ’67 line runs right through Jerusalem. Thus the starting point of negotiations would be that the Western Wall and even Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter are Palestinian — alien territory for which Israel must now bargain.
The very idea that Judaism’s holiest shrine is alien or that Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter is rightfully or historically or demographically Arab is an absurdity. And the idea that, in order to retain them, Israel has to give up parts of itself is a travesty.
5 comments:
I know I'll sound like a broken record . . . but, as I've said many times before, Obama sees the Arab-Israeli (or perhaps it would be better termed the Moslem-Israeli) conflict through the (left side of the) prism of American race relations. Just as the whole notion that Moslems would be satisfied to leave Israel alone if she would just retreat behind her pre-1967 borders is bogus--heck, they weren't even satisfied to let her keep the sorry patchwork of enclaves the original U. N. partition plan allowed, so is the notion that Obama is invested in the survival of a honkie Jewish state in the Middle East. To him and his ilk--which includes the Leftist white intelligentsia, including, I am sorry to say, many Jewish intellectuals--Israelis are no more legitimately occupying modern Israel than the white settlers of Rhodesia or the Boer farmers of South Africa were occupying their respective patches of ground.
Should Israel be overrun demographically (by recognizing a Palestinian right of return, for instance), or destroyed militarily, the inner Obama will dance a jig like Hitler at Compiègne, though no doubt he will outwardly affect a suitably lugubrious expression. I can guarantee, however, that the majority of his racial fellows will not be so outwardly restrained. Most--admittedly not all--black Americans see _everything_ through a prism of racial resentment; they will gladly cut off their noses to spite their faces in racial matters, as the ruins of Detroit and Newark so persuasively attest. And Obama has chosen to be a member of that tribe.
One needn't be on/of the left to see the Israel-Palestinian through a racial prism. Recall that Condoleezza Rice, too, saw things that way, and as such the Palestinians' plight reminded her of what she faced growing up in pre-civil rights era Mississippi.
But you're right--if you look at things through the wrong lens, you won't be able to discern the reality of a situation.
The point regarding Condoleeza Rice--boy, she turned out to be a big disappointment--is well taken. I shall be the first to admit that the racialist prism through which the overwhelming majority of American blacks have come to see the world transcends political ideology. However, one is much more likely to find black friends of Israel--e.g., Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Allan West, Herman Cain, Alan Keyes, . . . any number of black acquaintances active in the Jacksonville Republican Party and the Tea Party--on the right side of the political spectrum than on the left.
The "narrative" the Left spins on Israel is heavily tinged with Leninist geopolitics, as expressed in _Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism_ and the many derivative books, essays, monographs, etc. from a Marxist-Leninist perspective that have been published since. Thus Israel is not only an illegitimate honkie encroachment on the "colored" Middle East, but an outpost of the imperialist, capitalist West to boot. One perspective reinforces the other.
I was disappointed that Herman Cain was so ill-informed about Israel. When asked recently if he supports "the right of return," he obviously knew nothing about it, and responded that he supported it in theory (because, in theory, who wouldn't support such a right?).
The others you cited, including Thomas Sowell, who is my favorite political/economic thinker, are obviously exceptions to the rule.
I must agree that Cain's "right of return" answer was not his finest moment. In mitigation, I would say that a man of Cain's age probably first internalized the concept in relation to _Jews'_ right of return to Israel, a principle that was often expressed by Israel's partisans during the nation's early days. Still, I concede that Cain is weak on foreign policy . . . but his instincts are right, which is probably more important in a politician. And he has made many public statements supporting Israel during his career as a public speaker, including many appearances on the very popular (in the American Southeast, anyway) Neil Boortz Show. Following is the web address of a video in which Cain is interviewed on the topic of Israel by Neil Cavuto: http://thepartyofknow.com/2011/05/21/herman-cain-explains-position-on-israel/
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