Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Lieberman wanted half the West Bank now, the other half would come with it sooner or later.

I think it's funny that all these one staters are saying, "See, the two state solution isn't working. What we need to work towards is a multi-ethnic nation that accepts both Jews and Palestinians equally." It's not working because the Israelis have no reason to capitulate and changing the focus to one state isn't going to change that situation at all.

It seems so moronic to me because the Israelis are determined to keep Israel Jewish. There is no way they would ever risk a free and democratic one state country in which they would lose political control. All they want is the Palestinians land. It's obvious that the Israelis are trying to make the situation so intolerable for the Palestinians that they'll just pack up and leave, even if it means that they'll have to try and fit themselves up in Jordanian and Lebanese ghettoes. What reason do they have at the moment to even consider a one state solution? I'm bewildered!

Can someone please tell me what I'm missing?

Although JFK lovers refuse to budge from their belief that all would have been well with the 60's had he not come to an untimely end on Dealey plaza, but a better case can be made that it was another American president whose death uncorked this particular genie that was diagnosed by George Orwell as "partly a color issue" and which like Apartheid South Africa will continue to poison relations between the colonizing West and the less august rest until the contradictions of colonialism in the 21'st century are faced up to and dealt with.

---

THE PRESIDENT
After discussing the progress of the war, and expressing his confidence that Germany would be defeated, F.D.R. stated that he had a serious problem in which he desired the King's advice and help; namely, the rescue and rehabilitation of the remnant of Jews in Central Europe who had suffered indescribable horrors at the hands of the Nazis: eviction, destruction of their homes, torture and mass-murder. He, F.D.R., felt a personal responsibility and indeed had committed himself to help solve this problem. What could the King suggest?

Ibn Saud's reply was prompt and laconic: "Give them and their descendants the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who had oppressed them."
F.D.R. replied that the Jewish survivors have a sentimental desire to settle in Palestine and, quite understandably, would dread remaining in Germany where they might suffer again.

The King said that he had no doubt the Jews have good reason not to trust the Germans, but surely the Allies will destroy Nazi power forever and in their victory will be strong enough to protect Nazi victims. If the Allies do not expect firmly to control future German policy, why fight this costly war? He, Ibn Saud, could not conceive of leaving an enemy in a position to strike back after defeat.

In a few minutes, F.D.R. returned to the attack, saying that he counted on Arab hospitality and on the King's help in solving the problem of Zionism, but the King repeated: "Make the enemy and the oppressor pay; that is how we Arabs wage war. Amends should be made by the criminal, not by the innocent bystander. What injury have Arabs done to the Jews of Europe? It is the 'Christian' Germans who stole their homes and lives. Let the Germans pay." Once more, F.D.R. returned to the subject, complaining that the King had not helped him at all with his problem, but the King, having lost some patience, did not expound his views again, beyond stating (with a note of irony in his voice) that this over-solicitude for the Germans was incomprehensible to an uneducated bedouin with whom friends get more consideration than enemies. The King's final remark on the subject was to the effect that it is Arab custom to distribute survivors and victims of battle among the victorious tribes in accordance with their number and their supplies of food and water. In the Allied camp there are fifty countries, among whom Palestine is small, land-poor and has already been assigned more than its quota of European refugees.

...

The President then gave Ibn Saud the double assurance, repeated just one week before his death in his letter to Ibn Saud, dated April 5, 1945: (1) He personally, as president, would never do anything which might prove hostile to the Arabs; and (2) the U. S. Government would make no change in its basic policy in Palestine without full and prior consultation with both Jews and Arabs. To the King, these oral assurances were equal to an alliance; he did not foresee that Death was waiting in the wings to bear the speaker away before the promises could be redeemed.

---

After the [Congressional 1945] elections, the Director of the Near East Office of the Department of State was allowed to bring the four [US Near East ambassadors] in for a private conference with Mr. Truman. The spokesman for the group, George Wadsworth, presented orally an agreed statement in about twenty minutes. There was little discussion and the President asked few questions in the meeting whose Minutes have been carefully guarded in the Department of State. Finally, Mr. Truman summed up his position with the utmost candor: "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."

---

Thus ends my narrative (PDF) of this historic meeting. The President returned to Washington to live long enough to make in person one address to Congress in the course of which he said, ad lib, “I learned more [about Palestine and the Near East] by talking with Ibn Saud for five minutes than I could have learned in exchange of two or three dozen letters.”

---

reading the eddy memoir was a pleasure
thanx

thanks from me, too.

It doesn't appear that Roosevelt necessarily agreed with Ibn Saud, only that he promised to "consult" or work with him. Presumably the same electoral logic that forced Truman's decision was there to force Roosevelt's, if he had lived.

Truman's remark makes clear the racism and contradictions of America's attitude toward Zionism, spurning a mass influx of Jews into its own territory, inflicting it onto people it only respected because of their proximity to oil, heedless of the years of bloodshed it was spawning by so doing, and cloaking it all in the illusion of principle and humanity.

As Eleanor once noted, "When Franklin says 'yes, yes, yes,' it doesn't mean he agrees with you. It means he's listening." But, there is some evidence that FDR foresaw the dead end that Israel would become — a "dangerous sham" as a clearheaded, i.e. non-Zionist visitor in 1949 like Gabriel Kolko  described it —  and was looking for ways to accommodate the relatively small number of surviving Central and East European Jews elsewhere (interestingly, the bigger influx into Israel in it's first few years came from the Arab world and not from Europe, which has a sordid history of its own — based partly on the unwillingness of European Jews to move to the desert Middle East instead of, say, Toronto or New York). FDR broached the topic of resettling European Jews in Western countries including Britain with Churchill who surprisingly — given acute austerity in Britain — was also receptive to the idea.

There was a significant amount of domestic organizing and backroom maneuvering by the likes of David Niles and Henry Morgenthau, but unlike the the ex-VP of 3 months, Roosevelt had the political capital to stare down these pressure groups. There were also senior administration officials who shared his concerns, e.g. James Forrestal and George Marshall who actively opposed the machinations of Truman's consigliere, Clark Clifford. Marshall went so far as to tell Truman in front of others that he would vote against him if he gave the greenlight for the creation of Israel. The Mandatory power on the ground, Britain was also by then opposed to implanting a European colonial outpost in the Levant:

..In the autumn of 1947 the General Assembly, with its modest 56 member states, debated the partition of Palestine at its temporary headquarters in the suburbs of New York, with London still hoping that the vote in favor would fail to reach the requisite two-thirds of votes cast. The debate was described by Harold Beeley, a British official: 'The galleries were packed with an almost exclusively Zionist audience. They applauded declarations of support for Zionism. They hissed Arab speakers. They created the atmosphere of a football match with the Arabs as the away team.' After the Americans had twisted every arm and used all means fair and foul to persuade Europeans and Latin American governments to support partition, the home terraces got the result they wanted, by 33 votes to 13.

In the comment above, I should have said the "cynicism" of American policy toward Zionism, which created a "special case", or moral "exception", out of Israel, to mask our failure to protect Jews during the war, under pressure from a small segment of the post-war electorate which most Americans, including Truman himself, still regarded suspiciously, if not contemptuously.

So many American Zionists, so many who serve as willing salesdupes for the idea that Israel is about "saving a people" instead of destroying a people.

Soylent Green, yo.

Not sure if moderation is working. I entered something this morning that's still not shown up. I can post it again if the software ate it.

Yes, thanks, sk. Great, important stuff.

It would be interesting to know the full degree of intentionality behind the British-then-US maneuvers. Certainly, they knew the Saudi "royals" were the ideal "Arab" partners, as they could always be not only cheaply (compared to what they were delivering) bribed, but, if shit ever really got serious, also treated harshly and left to face their own domestic populations.

Regarding FDR, as Eleanor once noted, "When Franklin says 'yes, yes, yes,' it doesn't mean he agrees with you. It means he's listening." But, there is some evidence that FDR foresaw the dead end that Israel would become — a "dangerous sham" as a clearheaded, i.e. non-Zionist visitor in 1949 such as Gabriel Kolko  described it —  and was looking for ways to accommodate the relatively small number of surviving Central and East European Jews elsewhere (interestingly, the bigger influx into Israel in it's first few years came from the Arab world and not from Europe, a circumstance that has a sordid history of its own; it is also based partly on the unwillingness of European Jews to move to the desert Middle East instead of, say, Toronto or New York). FDR broached the topic of resettling European Jews in Western countries including Britain with Churchill who surprisingly,  given acute austerity there, was also receptive to the idea. FDR was also serious about extending "UN trusteeship" — once the UN had been set up — to replace the British Mandate, "although the fact remains that there was no evidence that a UN trusteeship could do what the British Mandate could not do — that is square the circle of these irreconcilable demands."

Probably the most salutary benefit of FDR's meeting with Ibn Saud was that it had opened his eyes to the fact that contrary to Zionist ministrations by the likes of Weizmann — who had personally painted the Saudi monarch to FDR as a gaudy "desert prince…very much removed from world affairs", not to mention "purchasable", if set up as a "boss of bosses" within an Arab federation with "development" funds from US thrown into the bargain — "the Arabs meant business" and that creation of a Jewish state in the middle of the Middle East would inevitably "risk incurring not only the enmity of the Arabs but the enmity of all Moslems as well." FDR's mentioning of the value of "5 minutes" spent in conversation with Saud seems to indicate that the real value of that time lay in that it had gaven him a better idea of what was and was not possible in Palestine.

There were also senior administration officials whose outlook was shaped by geostrategic long-range planning and interests as opposed to, say, the 1948 election and who would pay for whose campaign whistlestop tour. These officials included figures such as James Forrestal and George Marshall who actively opposed the machinations of Truman's consigliere, Clark Clifford. Marshall went so far as to tell Truman in front of others that he would vote against him if he gave the green light for the creation of Israel. The Mandatory power on the ground, Britain was also by then opposed to implanting a European colonial outpost in the Levant:

…In the autumn of 1947 the General Assembly, with its modest 56 member states, debated the partition of Palestine at its temporary headquarters in the suburbs of New York, with London still hoping that the vote in favor would fail to reach the requisite two-thirds of votes cast. The debate was described by Harold Beeley, a British official: 'The galleries were packed with an almost exclusively Zionist audience. They applauded declarations of support for Zionism. They hissed Arab speakers. They created the atmosphere of a football match with the Arabs as the away team.' After the Americans had twisted every arm and used all means fair and foul to persuade Europeans and Latin American governments to support partition, the home terraces got the result they wanted, by 33 votes to 13.

Posted again for moderator approval.

What FDR "would have done" about Zionism is one of those great subjunctive-mode questions on which people are wont to expend much energy -- idly, I think.

But it's hard not to be drawn in. FDR was a thoroughly political animal, and if his political survival had depended on it, probably would have espoused a Jewish state in Mississippi, or Mayfair.

But that crunch never came for FDR. Whereas Truman, in 1948, needed the Zionists badly.

Lawrence Davidson's America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood offers a nuanced view of what went on behind the scenes with FDR, Truman, Zionists, and Palestine. He also has an article entitled Truman the Politician and the Establishment of Israel whose conclusion is as follows:

When Secretary of State Stettinius's Palestine memo reached Truman's desk, it unleashed reactions that the State Department people could not have imagined. Psychological insecurities, political ambitions, class bias, and perhaps other undiscovered issues swirled around the memo. These, in turn, started a chain reaction of resentment, anxiety, and defensiveness that was only imperfectly hidden from view by a process of groupthink. The White House reaction must have come as quite a shock to the men in the State Department.

Despite its rather messy psychological roots, Truman's approach to the issue of Palestine and Israel created a precedent that has rarely been departed from. With the exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower's forceful approach to Israel following the 1956 war, groupthink and confirmation bias have been consistent techniques in maintaining a pro-Zionist paradigm for the policy-making elites of the U.S. government. Humanitarianism has been replaced by a series of other rationalizations/cover stories, such as identification with and defense of Israeli democracy (such as it is) and the notion of Israel as a "strategic asset." But in fact, the chief motivator for the United States' pro-Zionist policies have remained the same — the power of the U.S. Zionist lobby and their allies to buy and/or bully the politicians and bureaucrats of both political parties. Nor is the State Department any longer a source of counterargument. In subsequent administrations the department was slowly but surely purged of those who had the courage to openly question a pro-Israel foreign policy.

President Truman may well have served, as Lovett suggested in 1948, as "the midwife" of the new state of Israel. But he can also be credited with helping to shape a pattern of foreign policy formulation tied not to humanitarianism, much less national interest, but rather, as Forrestal described it, "squalid political purposes." It is hard not to acknowledge Forrestal's great prescience on this point. The essential aspects of Clifford's advice to Truman have been institutionalized, and subsequent U.S. foreign policy on Israel-Palestine has, with few exceptions, been a response to domestic political pressure. This is Truman's legacy and its harmful implications are yet to be fully played out.

i rarely venture into these waters ...publically

but the great george marshall resigned over the lizraelian scuffle in 48

Great stuff, again, sk. Interesting that the "strategic asset" rationale is here exposed as a myth, since in fact it never made any sense, except in the Bush-era Alice in the Looking Glass world, where "a little bit of chaos is sometimes creative" (paraphrase of Condaleeza Rice on US invasion of Iraq and destabilization of the entire region.)

Exactly. No conceivable Palestinian leadership, no matter how honorable and skilled, can negotiate any meaningful "concessions" out of Israel so long as it is backed by its golem in Washington. Fatah's leadership may be a pack of self-serving rats and Quislings, but harping on that fact is missing the point altogether. Israel's philosophy of "why should I negotiate with you when I can kill you" will dominate unless pressure is brought to bear on Israel from the outside.

Michael Neumann in CP calls out the "tough guys" who put the onus on the Palestinian leadership while ignoring the power differential:

These criticisms overlook something: the Palestinians are screwed. They cannot passively resist; they just get shot. They cannot actively resist; they just get blown to bits. Because they cannot resist, they have no bargaining chips, none at all. Israel sees an incentive to make concessions only when it senses a prospect of fewer goodies from America or of annoyance from Europe. The microscopic scope of its concessions shows just how little incentive that represents....

As for the demand that the PLO stand up to Israel, that's an expression of infantile faith in moral authority. Gee, if Nelson Mandela was there, it would all be different. The Israelis would pull out and there would be a Nelson Mandela High School in Nablus. Why? Stand up with what, exactly? Force the Israelis to do exactly what, and how? We never hear the answers.

http://counterpunch.org/neumann01262011.html

Well, that is certainly powerful evidence that short-term electoral politics outweighed imperial strategy circa 1948. But there have been a couple of watersheds since then, haven't there? First, the oil boss scepter passing into our hands in 1953. Then, the wars and oil embargo of the early 1970s. Those didn't remove the electoral factor. But didn't they radically deepen and clarify the "strategic asset" dimension for U.S. planners?

As to Palestinians being screwed, even if they found their Gandhi, Mandela, MLK figure? I don't buy it. The problem is that discovering and promoting and protecting such a figure is always unlikely, as there are so many ways for it to hit a fatal snag. Indeed, I've always thought that much of Israeli action is intentionally designed as an attack on the conditions required to produce a Palestinian Gandhi.

But look at what's happening in North Africa. Who is Michael Neumann to pronounce history over? How does he know there's not a another chapter brewing?

First, the oil boss scepter passing into our hands in 1953. Then, the wars and oil embargo of the early 1970s. Those didn't remove the electoral factor. But didn't they radically deepen and clarify the "strategic asset" dimension for U.S. planners?

I can't see any substantive link between Israel and the overthrow of a relatively democratic regime in Iran and the joint (indirect) Anglo-American condominium established over it in 1953. The wars of the late 60's and early 70's would not have taken place at all had there been no Israel, so the "strategic asset" seems to have been more of a liability. Nasserite Arab nationalism was certainly discredited when Israel wiped the floor with the militaries of Egypt and Syria within 140 hours in June '67, but given the clannish, religious, and non-industrial nature of Saudi and Gulf sheikdoms — where most of the oil is — it is unlikely socialistic rhetoric and Pan-Arab (comparable to the similarly tepid Pan-Slavic) appeals would have convinced the highly conservative subjects of these lands to give up the trickling oil wealth that was just making its way to their wallets and share it with their petroleum-less Egyptian, Syrian, or Yemeni fellow Arabic speakers. Furthermore, it's not like there was a shortage of American, British, or NATO military bases in the region (Mediterranean: too many to list, Dhahran air base in Saudi Arabia and infrastructure for rapid deployment in place, Shah's Iran until '79 was another "local cop on the beat" armed with Phantoms, F14s and thousands of American advisors and trainers, etc.). So, apart from being a useful intelligence source and a proxy for shady ops around the world, I'm not sure exactly what the "strategic asset" ever brought to the table.

Israel is not a strategic asset, but a massive liability. Even the likes of General Petraeus have admitted as much.

If the Palestinians found their Gandhi, the Israelis would run his brown ass over with a bulldozer and laugh at what a moron he was, just like they did to Rachel Corrie. There has always been a nonviolent resistance movement among the Palestinians. The Israelis shoot nonviolent protestors including children as a matter of course, so they don't appear very concerned about the political fallout.

There is no comparison between Tunisia and The Occupied Territories. If the Palestinians replace their corrupt leaders, what then? A better faux government under Israeli control than the one they have? Maybe, as Neumann suggests, if the rest of Arab world follows Tunisia's example and they get sincere leadership that can put some real pressure on Israel. But we don't even know what's going to happen in Tunisia yet, let alone anywhere else. Neumann isn't making a judgment on the future but expressing current reality.

I've always been skeptical about the "strategic asset" theory too. I've heard a semi-persuasive case made that Israel was maybe semi-useful during the epoch when Arab nationalist regimes were semi-cozy with the Sovs, and everybody was engaged in counting up pieces on the chessboard. But then what drove the nationalist regimes into the Muscovites' arms in the first place? Didn't the Israel connections contribute at least as much to the "problem" as it did to the "solution"?

As for more recent years -- I've never heard an argument I found at all persuasive that Israel, since the end of the cold war, was anything other than an absolute liability to the US, even by imperial standards. It's one of the reasons that I stopped believing in the unitary ruling class.

So, let's say there is no Israel. You think that makes US hegemony stronger? How do you reach that conclusion?

The core of the "strategic asset" argument isn't that Israel is a simple military staging point. It is that Israel is a great "cultural" schtick, a fantastic distraction from internal Arab-oil-state politics, a very useful and effective cat's paw, and a substantial outlet for U.S. arms sales and testing.

Personally, I also think another huge element is the "threat of a good example" principle. Fairness and the rule of law and a decent job of granting Palestinians their basic rights (say, by imposing UN 242, for starters) is, from the US overclass perspective, simply too awful a precedent to be allowed.

I don't deny that there is a lobbying and electoral element. But I also don't at all buy the notion that the US overclass would long allow 2 percent of the population (even if they are more like 5 percent of the voting population) to "lobby" it into doing things that are net losses to itself.

As to unified ruling classes, why did you ever believe that one, MJS?

P.S. If Israel had been built in South Dakota, wouldn't the Saudi "royalty" have long ago come under siege?

P.P.S. Sk, the transfer of oil command in 1953 was all about desperate, we'll-take-anybody-but-them suppression of Middle East secularism and democracy, for the obvious reason that local secularism and democracy adds 33% to the price of oil on world markets. You think U.S. Israel policy somehow arises from outside that circle? That being nice to Israel somehow overrides and contradicts this otherwise absolute bedrock of all other U.S. actions in the region? Why?

MD,

US fed govt was more controlled than controlling prior to and after '53 -- 'seven sisters'type arrangement began during 1920s....or look at post-wwii justice dept ineffectiveness vs intl oil.
see,e.g., Documents on the International Energy System:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/energy.htm
or oxford institute for energy studies..www.oxfordenergy.org

short form - from mid 19th c. the industry moved from competetive to national monopoly to intl cartel to opec cartel to futures mkt centered pricing which began masmenos 1986.

Aside from above, hard to believe that the national endowment for democracy [ned--Created jointly by Republicans and Democrats, NED is governed by a board balanced between both parties and enjoys Congressional support across the political spectrum] has not been involved.

'where we work, - http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/middle-east-and-northern-africa/egypt

So, let's say there is no Israel. You think that makes US hegemony stronger?

What this formulation leaves out of account is what might be called "collateral damage" from the relationship in the past. For example: Much ink has been spilled on just how influential the Israel lobby was in getting the second Iraq war started. That the Lobby was part of it, and a big part though not the only part, I do not personally doubt. Now has the Iraq war been a big success from the Hegemon's point of view? Looks to me like the big winner was Iran. The Heg surely doesn't like that.

MD makes a couple of other interesting points: a) the demonstration effect and b) the distraction effect.

The demonstration effect -- I think Chomsky talks about this somewhere -- dictates that insurgencies must never be allowed to succeed. So no matter what the immediate concrete Realpolitik of dealing with an insurgency might be, the insurgency must never succeed lest other potential insurgents get ideas.

By this reasoning Israel must be maintained, no matter how bad an idea it was or what a pain in the ass it is. This analysis seems to underestimate the intelligence of the masters of Empire -- as if they didn't know how to cut their losses. They're quite friendly with Vietnam these days, and the Emperor just hailed the Tunisian revolt from the throne the other night. Cuba might be considered a counterexample -- but then, Cuba too has its Lobby, just like the Israel lobby in every way.

As for the distraction effect -- keep those Arabs worried about Israel so they don't depose the Saudi monarchy -- this seems way too fine-spun. The masters of empire don't depend on delicate psychological machinations like this. They prefer bombs and bribes. And then again, I think they probably consider any mass mobilization bad -- it can so easily take an unexpected turn. They prefer a quiet, stolid, heads-down public.

I can see the "power of example" argument being relevant to communist regimes back in the day, as communism is a competing ideology which at the time was backed by a major superpower at odds with the US. It wasn't in the elite's interest to allow a successful communist uprising. Even so, Uncle has no trouble doing business with Vietnam or China, and has no natural reason whatsoever for hostility with the Arab world.

I don't see this being the case with the Palestinians, as the US has a lot to gain politically from the creation of an independent Palestinian state through political means, no matter how hamstrung that state will inevitably be.

As for who rules the roost, there have been few countries in human history that haven't been dominated by a small minority that usually rules to its own advantage and to the detriment of the majority of its citizens and other, competing elites. How long was Egypt ruled by a sybaritic posse of non-Egyptian speaking Greeks? That such a case should exist here should be no surprise, particularly when the elite in question dominates the media and political finance and largely controls who gets elected to office in this country. Being 50 percent of the nation's CEOs doesn't hurt, either.

As to unified ruling classes, why did you ever believe that one, MJS?

Sean: I've always like Michael Neumann, and it's worth the effort to fathom his argument here. I think he's right, that Palestinians will never get their rights, until enough western nations get behind them. An interesting question is, why haven't they? Germany and Britain have historical reasons for not leaving Israel out to dry, but France, Spain or Sweden?

I love Neumann's description of the grad student critics of the PA as "tough guys". However, I think what pisses them off about Fatah is not corruption but how it SEEMS to have to have sold out to US and Israeli goals. Neumann's sharper analysis of this issue proves that anti-imperialism alone does not guarantee sound thinking or practical politics.

MD, I'm not following you. imho, oil policy of US, Britain and other powers had little to do with Israel which underlines the marginality of this 'strategic asset'.

I didn't hear any mention of Israel in this panel discussion, nor do I remember any serious discussion of Israel in the formative years of US Mideast oil policy, as discussed in, say, David Painter's Oil and the American Century (summary: It's a Public-Private partnership between USG and oil companies in the field with the latter doing the bidding of te former while exercising some influence on it also).

I agree with MJS on the implausibility of finely-spun theories and inapplicability of demonstration effect here. Palestinians are after all not revolting against US and even if Israel follows the South African neoliberal one-person-one-vote model, it won't cause any major headaches to American centers of power, except perhaps to some whose stock in trade is "security".

i think israel is a very valuable
if not easily manipulated solidly "oxidental "
asset in the middle east
at one juncture or other
the baby state like a raptor unleashed
has played the scourge if not enforcer role

continouo role as the arab street's
ineffectual rage effigy

savage little mutt to uncle's jeff

the list is long of roles played
many contrary to each other
if tried simultaneously

i like
uncontrolable nutty off spring myself
especially if its partly true

"what can we say ...we try to restrain em but ...you can't expect us to simply liquidate em their our legacy ...as christians they bare living witness to our saviour's origins
...they our our older nastierarrogant narrow
god defying selves ".. .."

btw the all powerful israel lobby
with its fifth column-rojan horse jewish american "base"
is a great alibi isn't it
for doing exactly what uncle wants to do
in his own interest
but doesn't want to have to carry the blame

or how but this

"don't like israel third world folks
wanna condemn them as monster among nations?

fuck you
i love my mimi me

bring it on
as bush the younger might say

all these are moods of empire from time to time ...no

" I think he's right, that Palestinians will never get their rights, until enough western nations get behind them"
i couldn't agree less my friend

the struggle must continue in the teeth of western hegemony

what a splendid calling

hamas makes me hope
and my " second nature"
is to despise hope
even as i need it to go on
trying to be more then
an eating machine

Sk, I'm not saying the U.S. elite had its recent-decades Israel policy planned from the get-go. On the contrary. I think the evidence you posted about Truman looking at winning the 1948 election is powerful, if not decisive. Likewise, I believe that old fuckbag W.W. Rostow had a hand in authoring U.N. 242, which certainly was something resembling sane and neutral.

My analysis is that the early 1970s transformed U.S. planners analysis of the Israel situation, to which they'd previously allowed some free-float. After OPEC rose and pressed its point, all looseness and fooling around ended, and Israel moved both from distant to close friend and from quixotic conundrum to strategic asset. And this shift has progressively deepened over time.

Meanwhile, if one examines the declassified record (and even things like Wikileaks), the idea that the threat of a good example was a mere Cold War phenomenon goes straight out the window. Indeed, U.S. sponsorship of the White Army circa 1919 is neither more nor less than a cardinal example of the point: Alternative systems must not be permitted a chance to function in any attractive way.

As to the Israel thing costing its main sponsor more than that sponsor is or will get back, I don't see how that refutes the thesis that the sponsor is the sponsor for clear institutional reasons. This oil thing is indeed The Prize, and has long been clearly understood as such by those who make the calls and pull the levers. FDR knew this full well when he went to kiss ibn-Saud's rings. The point did not get lost or demoted after FDR sailed off to Avalon.

I, for one, simply find it preposterous that, in the exact region where all this centers, the USA might be permitting its true aims to be tossed away because of the religious fantasies of a clear minority of its population (2%), electorate (5%), and capitalist overclass (10%). No way. That's not how this system works.

Forgot to finsih the point on the issue of costs and sponsorships. Our Israel policy indisputably has fueled Islamic fundamentalism and things like 911. It might, very plausibly, wind up being a major reason we end up testing Einstein's thesis about World Wars III and IV.

But those are the costs of this effort. Losing dominance over the ME is simply more unimaginable than taking a 20% chance that the whole thing will backfire enough to actually harm the overclass.

I simply don't see how Israel helps in any non-neglible way with maintaining US dominance over the ME (and please don't trot out op-ed pundits' take on the Arab "street" and how Israel alchemically channels away local resentment from the ruling families). Oil is undoubtedly THE prize, but imho Clark Clifford's wager that the oil producing ones won't turn recalcitrant even if Israel is set up in their neck of the woods has held out. Not sure if you've ever been to the region, but countries like Saudi Arabia and Gulf city-states are extremely sparsely populated (and were a lot more so 40 years ago) and given the paucity of trained personnel to manage even the high-tech weapons they've bought over the years, they are military pushovers (Israel did that with far more populous Egypt and Syria combined between June 5-11 in 1967). Their reality is not very different from that of, say, Monaco or Luxembourg. If they really started to misbehave, the US will simply take over the oil fields (which are in remote regions and often clustered together). This is what Kissinger told the Saudi monarch in '73 who countered with his bluff of being able to live off dates and camel milk if it came to that, but the episode, like 9/11 actually ended up deepening ties between US and these "petrol stations" as Tariq Ali contemptuously calls them. Also, keep in mind pricing is not a deep concern for US planners, they're actually OK with someone else making profits as long as control over the spigot remains in Washington. The prognosis of rich industrialized societies getting even richer on natural resources is not very good. Again, if you think Israel is somehow a help to US in managing it's energy policies by augmenting any form of hard or soft American power, I'd like to see some serious discussion of that in print which rises above the level of social psychology. Also, keep in mind the decisive US tilt toward Israel occurred in '64 under LBJ, i.e. long before OPEC became a nuisance and had a lot more to do with domestic politics than international geopolitics.

Ok, sk, here you go:

Israel is threatening Iran, a task of long-standing vital importance to the United States and its dominance in the region.

Israel has stonewalled the PLO and encouraged the trend toward fundamentalist jihadism. Again, that's a force the U.S. elite greatly and clearly prefers to Nassers and Mossadeghs.

Israel has nuclear weapons and has generally played a key role in scuttling the idea of a nuclear-free zone, or even a demilitarized one. The U.S. elite has a double interest in this outcome: as the world's leading arms dealer, and as the force that reserves the right to invade and bomb the region as it sees fit.

BTW, news flash: Implanting and encouraging political agendas and attitudes is itself one of the material forces of history. You can pooh-pooh it as "social psychology." But one assumes you aren't somebody who thinks that social psychology is irrelevant and of no effect.

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated by your belief that the US could occupy the filling stations at will, with or without Israel. How would that be sold at home, if not mixed in with the "save the Jews" schtick made possible and likely by Israel's involvements?

sk, would you drop me an email? Got a couple of questions for you. stopmebeforeivoteagain [at] yahoo.com. Thanks!

> Israel is threatening Iran, a task of long-standing vital importance to the United States and its dominance in the region.

Maybe Israel will knock out a nuclear site or two, as they did with Syria not long ago, but that's not of much help to US or not something it can't do by itself. Israeli saber rattling is actually improving the standing of Iran's clerical regime with Arabs who wouldn't care much for it otherwise.

> Israel has stonewalled the PLO and encouraged the trend toward fundamentalist jihadism. Again, that's a force the U.S. elite greatly and clearly prefers to Nassers and Mossadeghs.

It might be of help to study the history of how Islamic ideas have been of help to imperialist machinations — a topic that stretches back to the 18th century at least (Napoleon in Egypt, the British in India, Russian Empire in Central Asia). In other words, manipulation of largely Muslim societies using strands of Islam is an old trick in the imperial bag of tricks that predates Zionist plans which began in 1881 and came to fruition in 1948. Contrary to popular opinion, Islamic clerics have been quite useful to imperial metropolises, as either flunkeys or bogeymen. Stoking Islamist sentiment anywhere outside the Gaza open air prison and West Bank is beyond the powers of Israel although they undoubtedly fish in murky waters in many places.

> Israel has nuclear weapons and has generally played a key role in scuttling the idea of a nuclear-free zone, or even a demilitarized one. The U.S. elite has a double interest in this outcome: as the world's leading arms dealer, and as the force that reserves the right to invade and bomb the region as it sees fit.

Yes, the Apartheid regime in South Africa had nukes as well, and overwhelming military power is a sine qua non of racist, colonialist regimes everywhere.

> BTW, news flash: Implanting and encouraging political agendas and attitudes is itself one of the material forces of history. You can pooh-pooh it as "social psychology." But one assumes you aren't somebody who thinks that social psychology is irrelevant and of no effect.

Yes, as I mentioned above there is a storied history of stoking various strains within Islam — and other thought systems — to the benefit of those doing the stoking (e.g. otherworldly or proselytizing oriented movements), but again Israel has about as much sway in influencing popular attitudes in areas outside its control as, say, a rump German settlement in Russia in 1943 — had such an entity existed — would have had on opinions of Russians outside its reach.

> Meanwhile, I'm fascinated by your belief that the US could occupy the filling stations at will, with or without Israel. How would that be sold at home, if not mixed in with the "save the Jews" schtick made possible and likely by Israel's involvements?

Americans don't have a hard time going along with any occupation of foreign lands, provided US casualties are low. Israel would be kept at arm's length if any such operation is carried out which is itself unlikely given the solicitude of the rulers of these petrol stations for American concerns, a reward of which was the granting of Soccer World Cup 2022 to Qatar (pop. 1.7 million of whom 80% are foreign guest workers) recently which houses key US bases. Keep in mind how frantically US kept Israel out of the '91 Gulf War when Saddam lobbed a few poison gas carrying Scuds toward Tel Aviv.

I have a hard time understanding how so many commenters who show occasional signs of working intellect would have a hard time understanding the so-called "strategic asset" line on Israel.

What the fuck else would it be if the USA spent a shit-ton of political and fiscal capital building and maintaining it?

It's about deeds, not words, you bumpkins.

You don't see how having a Mini-Me near the oil, gas, fertile lands, and water for farming/industry/survival would be strategically advantageous?

Give me a fucking break. You probably think Obama is actually brilliant at governing, too.

EssKay Franks,

Your "disproof" of the "strategic asset" angle consists of your statements of illogical disbelief in something's plausibility.

It's like you're trying to find out what your own tongue tastes like, by licking it yourself.

sk
nice stuff
and as u know i'm largely on the other side of this

but this is a very bad boo boo
"The prognosis of rich industrialized societies getting even richer on natural resources is not very good"

maybe you might check out the value of even our purely domestic natural gas coal and yes oil

the value of high prices for oil has nice implications for these folks
of course they are hardly decisive
notice the mid 80's to what ?? late 90's
price falls

of course i'd contend that was just
a part of a smart long range pricing path

http://www.listal.com/viewimage/1198523

oxy
nice to see we agree on this

and btw
welcome back ...ass hole

apropos resources "The prognosis of rich industrialized societies getting even richer on natural resources is not very good"

and the future how about this now

trans nat corporate resource/land grabs rising

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/28/africa-land-grabs-food-security