Thursday, April 15, 2004
Brave And Courageous
With those two words, George W. Bush, surely destined to be the worst US President in the history of this country, and even, perhaps, the worst president of anything in the history of the world, torpedoed his own stated policy for carving from the chaotic violence of the fifty year-plus Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a path to a peaceful, just settlement, his so-called "road map" at the end of which Palestinians were to have forsaken random terrorist violence for a national state of their own.
Who else but George W. Bush could turn two excellent words like "brave" and "courageous," into lethal missiles which he then aims directly at his own stated policy, his big-picture vision for a newer, better version of the Middle East But that's what he did, by applying them to Sharon's peace plan for Israel; withdrawal from Gaza, in exchange for acceptance of a "security barrier," otherwise recognized as a huge concrete wall, whose path will guarantee that when Israel withdraws behind it, signifigant settler portions of the West Bank will become part of Israel, leaving Palestinians with an expanse of isolated bantustans from which to try and build a national state.
My expectations of this administration are minus nil, but it simple isn't possible to be sufficiently cynical not to find oneself surprised once again at the utter vacancy at the heart of everything it does. I did expect Sharon's presence at Crawford to produce a lot of attempts to dance on raindrops. Yes, Bush would probably endorse the withdrawal from Gaza, ignore the issue of that hideous wall, and give some kind of deliberately vague gesture in the direction of something less than total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
What happened is a complete capitulation to Sharon's master plan, the one he's been actively pursuing since 2002.
Bush's disgusting letter is truly the final stone in that commerative mounument, built primarily from Palestinian corpses, but also not a few Israeli ones, that will mark the final and complete death of the Oslo accords, and with it any pretense that we're engaged in a peace process, or following a genuine roadmap toward a just settlement between these two peoples. Two state solution? No, just another Bush lie.
Take the wall. Please.
Here are the words the President's speechwriters put in his mouth today:
Every word of that statement, including, as Mary McCarthy once famously said, the "ands" the "thes" and the "buts," is a lie. That security, separation wall is already all the things the statement claims the Israeli government recognizes and accepts it should not be.
Four decades of American policy, flushed down the Bush potty. No surprise there. Has this administation ever met a policy it didn't view as inferior to anything it could think up in the time it takes to fly Airforce One to Crawford?
Colin Powell, how do you live with yourself; how do you manage to shave everyday without looking at yourself in the mirror. And when you do, who and what do you see staring back at you?
This way, Sharon's way, Bush's and the whole parade of neo-con revelers, lies madness. And not only for the Palestinian people. It's a tragedy for Israel, precisely because it will not provide genuine lasting security. As long as enough Israelis are willing to keep in power a government which believes that there is some way to rid themselves of Palestinians once and for all, by making life so impossible for them that they will either finally leave, or take up arms, thus justifying Israeli's willingness to slaughter them in the name of all that is right and good in the world, Israel will never find either security or peace. And Israelis misread Americans if they think that American support is as impregnable as that wall in the face of the kind of injustice Israel is preparing itself to rain down on the heads of all Palestinians. When those Palestinians begin to be seen not as terrorists, but as the latest in a long line of oppressed peoples struggling for the most basic human rights, it won't be as easy to color them "terrorists." When the American people wake up to what Israel is allowing itself to become, all those bets so carefully crafted by those who claim to be supporters of Israel, will be inoperative. What happens when the rest of the world comes to a consensus that Israel no longer has a moral claim to Palestine so long as it denies and actively suppresses Palestinian claims to nationhood. This brave new Israel is a fool's fantasy. Not that Sharon hasn't been masterfully clever, far too clever for the likes of George W. Bush, whose road map leads nowhere, except, perhaps, to a hundred year war with the muslim world.
Who else but George W. Bush could turn two excellent words like "brave" and "courageous," into lethal missiles which he then aims directly at his own stated policy, his big-picture vision for a newer, better version of the Middle East But that's what he did, by applying them to Sharon's peace plan for Israel; withdrawal from Gaza, in exchange for acceptance of a "security barrier," otherwise recognized as a huge concrete wall, whose path will guarantee that when Israel withdraws behind it, signifigant settler portions of the West Bank will become part of Israel, leaving Palestinians with an expanse of isolated bantustans from which to try and build a national state.
My expectations of this administration are minus nil, but it simple isn't possible to be sufficiently cynical not to find oneself surprised once again at the utter vacancy at the heart of everything it does. I did expect Sharon's presence at Crawford to produce a lot of attempts to dance on raindrops. Yes, Bush would probably endorse the withdrawal from Gaza, ignore the issue of that hideous wall, and give some kind of deliberately vague gesture in the direction of something less than total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
What happened is a complete capitulation to Sharon's master plan, the one he's been actively pursuing since 2002.
Bush's disgusting letter is truly the final stone in that commerative mounument, built primarily from Palestinian corpses, but also not a few Israeli ones, that will mark the final and complete death of the Oslo accords, and with it any pretense that we're engaged in a peace process, or following a genuine roadmap toward a just settlement between these two peoples. Two state solution? No, just another Bush lie.
Take the wall. Please.
Here are the words the President's speechwriters put in his mouth today:
The Government of Israel is committed to take additional steps on the West Bank, including progress toward a freeze on settlement activity, removing unauthorized outposts, and improving the humanitarian situation by easing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities.
As the Government of Israel has stated, the barrier being erected by Israel should be a security rather than political barrier, should be temporary rather than permanent, and therefore not prejudice any final status issues including final borders, and its route should take into account, consistent with security needs, its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities.
Every word of that statement, including, as Mary McCarthy once famously said, the "ands" the "thes" and the "buts," is a lie. That security, separation wall is already all the things the statement claims the Israeli government recognizes and accepts it should not be.
Four decades of American policy, flushed down the Bush potty. No surprise there. Has this administation ever met a policy it didn't view as inferior to anything it could think up in the time it takes to fly Airforce One to Crawford?
Colin Powell, how do you live with yourself; how do you manage to shave everyday without looking at yourself in the mirror. And when you do, who and what do you see staring back at you?
This way, Sharon's way, Bush's and the whole parade of neo-con revelers, lies madness. And not only for the Palestinian people. It's a tragedy for Israel, precisely because it will not provide genuine lasting security. As long as enough Israelis are willing to keep in power a government which believes that there is some way to rid themselves of Palestinians once and for all, by making life so impossible for them that they will either finally leave, or take up arms, thus justifying Israeli's willingness to slaughter them in the name of all that is right and good in the world, Israel will never find either security or peace. And Israelis misread Americans if they think that American support is as impregnable as that wall in the face of the kind of injustice Israel is preparing itself to rain down on the heads of all Palestinians. When those Palestinians begin to be seen not as terrorists, but as the latest in a long line of oppressed peoples struggling for the most basic human rights, it won't be as easy to color them "terrorists." When the American people wake up to what Israel is allowing itself to become, all those bets so carefully crafted by those who claim to be supporters of Israel, will be inoperative. What happens when the rest of the world comes to a consensus that Israel no longer has a moral claim to Palestine so long as it denies and actively suppresses Palestinian claims to nationhood. This brave new Israel is a fool's fantasy. Not that Sharon hasn't been masterfully clever, far too clever for the likes of George W. Bush, whose road map leads nowhere, except, perhaps, to a hundred year war with the muslim world.
