Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Could this be theater? Obama says "1967 borders". Bibi says "hell, no".

Likely supporters in both places are placated. Nothing happens on the actual peace initiative as more of East Jerusalem is urban-renewed for deserving Jews.

The problem in the USA on this issue is the same as on every issue. The motivated populace finds that every elected official is swathed in giant pillows and carrying a 'kick me' sign.

"Saying something" is the reason he's there. It was the next logical step after killing Hitler. And did you see that one shot of them in the WH? It was like a Hagler/Hearns III promo.

I'm cheered by it all. Let Bibi and Avi drive the entity off a cliff. Justice will never be done by the US govt nor will it determine the fate of the conflict. This will all work itself out in the long run (and perhaps even before we're all dead).

As noted in an earlier comment, I've reflexively supported 2 states. Will never happen, and it's liberating to come to that conclusion. If it's apartheid that Bibi-Avi want, fine. Let 'em and their state, with its illusory right to exist, meet the same fate.

If it's apartheid that Bibi-Avi want, fine. Let 'em and their state, with its illusory right to exist, meet the same fate.

They want ethnic purity, i.e. "as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible" (Ilan Pappe). This is a given among ruling elites, with the difference that the more "dovish" of the lot remain attached to the Bantustan (reservation/homeland) solution imported from the Apartheid regime with the fate of Afrikaaners serving as as a cautionary tale:

If the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the State of Israel is finished.

The meetings and speeches are pre-scheduled, of course. But the tone was set by this:

http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2011/05/return.html

AIPAC and the Irgun-Sterners in the Likud want the US to pay its dues. To give the Eretz sanction for its inevitable Reaction.

Obama represents interests which not only want, but need, to get extraction concessions in the Sudan, Libya, Kenya and whatever proto-failed state next takes shape in Somaliland.

Interests which need something, anything, to happen in Pakistan before it's too late to intervene, partition and paralyze China's export ally on the Arabian Sea.

Bammy is probably genuinely torn. Needs the moneyed network and the bankers to get re-elected. Needs a little more breathing room to tie up loose ends before the Arab world goes from Spring to summer eruption...

I forgot: there's not a lot of difference between either Corporate party, but differences do exist. Bammy's from the "managed conflagration" camp. His presumptive Republic replacements are from the school of "conflagration, and Jesus can sort it out."

That scares the technocrats. They need Bammy to buy some time...

Spell it out, Jackcrow, for the drunken dufuses (dufusses? dufusi?) among us. Geopolitical sanskrit will not do.

Oy. It's simple. The link is to a video. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Palestinians hopping fences to make a Return without permission.

The border no longer functions. It's not in their minds, anymore. So now, for the Israelis and their legion of allies, it's violence or a profound alteration at the heart of Israel.

Anyone wagering on the profound alteration?

I'm not. So, violence.

Which needs US sanction. Needs Obama's imprimatur, or him replaced a year from now.

Obama is caught. His re-election depends upon the money network of predictably pro-Israeli bankers, financiers and party bundlers.

But, he also needs to make sure that the other factions (oil, minerals, defense) get their concessions in places like Libya. And Pakistan.

He has to contend with the same two camps who've dominated the body politic since Reagan learned to manage them both. And he's not up to it, the stupid little "scholar."

If he alienates the financiers - who really do need a scheduled and managed deconstruction of Arab, European and comparatively timed domestic unrest - he has to rely on the extraction and defense companies, who want, want, want their concessions before the Chinese lock 'em up (see how Darfur started, for a preface to the globabelization of this trend).

He's not up to the balancing act. And the Israelis are playing him for it. Playing him the naked fool. They're going to React. And he's going to be the one left looking like he failed.

* - "comparatively timid"

PS: Sanskrit is a remarkably rational language. As is its grammatically elegant offspring, Devanagari, which I am still currently attempting to learn.

"pro-Israeli bankers"?

Maybe, you need to learn German also:

Der Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle.

I thought Devanagari was the writing system, not the language...?

I'm confused. There's no such thing as a pro-Israeli banker?

Oh and the video was wonderful. Warmed the cockles of my heart.

Devanagari is a script, but it's also a cognate of northern Hindi, Mr. Smith. I have to learn the script before I can learn to read Hindi/Hindustani. And the script itself is far more rational than English.

Devanagari is a direct descendant of Sanskrit script, though Sanskrit rather obviously has more than one language and dialect derived from it.

*

Sk,

I - far more Jew than you, I imagine, and long accustomed to both charges of antisemitism and Jewish self-hatred - am immune to your knee-jerk and lazy implications. You can do better, and often in fact do so.

Kindly, re-read what I wrote. "Pro-Israeli" means exactly that. That someone like Blankfein is a self-conscious, deliberate Jew of course has some bearing on his attitudes towards Israel. But, the point of his influence is his position at GS, as a banker, not his self-defined religio-political identity.

He is an objectively "pro-Israeli" banker. It is lazy, stupid and ultimately boring to follow the neolib/neocon line - that opposition to Israel and Zionism is equal to anti-semitism.

*

I will celebrate the fall of the shitty little colonial garrison state, right along with the best of them.

But, my bacchanalian festival and feast days remain reserved for the fragmentation, balkanization or demise of the waspy, imperial US most of all...

Jack, thanks for tolerating my dummy-ness. I get it now. Are your views influenced by Nitzan & Bichler?

By "sanskrit" I simply meant a mode of communication which requires translation for me to understand. I'm sure it's very rational. As is your analysis.

glue,

I'm sorry, I'm very pedestrian, in all truth. Comes with being a bit of a preeny anti-academic. I don't know the reference. I'll guegler them now, but only out of a mild shame that I don't know who they are.

...the neolib/neocon line—that opposition to Israel and Zionism is equal to anti-semitism.

I'm not peddling that line, but I do get a little nervous when I hear phrases that sound suspiciously close to cliches that germinated in the well fertilized imaginary of the Paranoid Style. Just google phrases like "international bankers" or "Cadillac driving welfare queens" to see if these are so many "objective" descriptions.

sk,

You are nerved by a toothless discussion wherein none of the catch phrases which bother you were actually in fact used?

Whatever.

I guess I need to make it really clear: I wish Israel was no more. Because Israel is a colonial garrison state. Because its existence is an affront to my sensibilities. Because, as Mr. Smith mentioned for himself several chapters back, I've a drop of the contrarian opposition to it as a sacred cow beloved of American elites of all persuasions.

But, "pro-Israeli bankers, financiers and party bundlers" means just that. People who make as a condition of their support political cover for Israel. And that doesn't mean "Jews."

It means Jon fucking Corzine and Jamie clownshit Dimon.

lazy digs trying to undercut an analysis, sk.

very lazy. the backpedal of "clarification" merely amplified the obvious quality of the laziness.

but it made for a good Abe Foxman riff.

Naming the names works better, especially the monikers.

MJS,

I'll proudly confess to watery eyes, and not the maudlin kind, watching that video. At the part where the first man makes it across and collapses into the embrace of another who welcomes him.

Yes indeed. That was a great moment. Reminded me of how much I like Palestinians, their manner and emotional tone, on a purely personal level. Oddly enough the only word I know of to describe it is a Yiddish word -- haimisch. Which I hope I'm using correctly.