Tough Love Is No Love at All

I have said this before, that just as in parenting, not being liked for your decisions is often a sign that you are on the right track.

Israels settlements, all of them, are morally indefensible, and serve no good purpose. They needlessly inspire terror against both the US and the Israel, and they are the sole reason that the occupation must continue to exist in the job of the IDF is to1) safeguard the hundreds of settlements and settler only roads crisscrossing the occupied territories, 2) to safeguard the settlers as they brutalize, harrass, and murder Palestinians in order to soften the way for more land grabs, 3) to violently remove Palestinians from the new areas that are being stolen.

God willing, Obama will bring a great deal more pressure to bear. He is hardly alone in his efforts and his viewpoint, in that Bush Senior tried to end ALL US aid to Israel until they ended the settlements (he got booted before he could finish this) and Carter was and is VOCALLY against all settlements.

You talk about buying restrictions, can a Jew buy land in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen where Jewish towns and kingdoms existed continously from time immemorial? Can a Jew buy land in Jordan or even in Israel proper in cities like Lyd or Umm El Fahm? Can you tell me what JorDan even means? It means the possession of the tribe of Dan on the east bank of the river - aka Jewish land. The Arab invaders are the illegitimate occupiers and their claims to Judea are no more valid than claims to Andalusia in Spain, Malmo in Sweden, or Kirkuk in Kurdistan or the entire cult of Islamofaschism itself. All the snakes (Nazis, Black Racists, Communists, Islamists, Big Cross Gibsonites) feed on the same pool of filth and attack the Jew. If you think that buy throwing the small and weak people like Jews under the Islamist bus will somehow prolong the inevitable Jihad by winning favor with people who look at kafirs as tiger looks upon a piece of meat, you are dead wrong. And I assure you, even if the state of Israel doesn't survive the spirit of Jewish resistance will outlast your evil moral gymnastics, baseless lies and accusations, and rabid anti-Semitism dispersions just as it outlasted every evil empire but now at much higher costs to both the direct attackers and their behind-the-scenes-enblers, that is you.

Your analysis is funny, granted, but it's a great deal more simple than that.

Israel is running the worlds only violently enforced colonial settler movement, an activity that is illegal under the Geneva convention, and which is condemned by virtually every other nation in the world.

If it occurred here in the US, It would be met with unrelenting violence (including terror) until it stopped.

When it stops and all settlements are removed in the occupied territories, and the IDF in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are all replaced with UN peace keepers so that Israel, can, Under no circumstances, enter any of that territory, and the Palestinian factions are unable to enter or shell Israel, the violence will begin to abate and a peaceful Palestinian state will emerge.

It should be the unrelenting policy of the US to ensure that the settlements are abandoned in total and the IDF completely removed. We should first employ diplomacy, followed by removal of Aid, followed by sanctions, boycotts, and forced divestment if necessary. We should also, if necessary, make contributions to any settlement supporting organization illegal under the premise that they are actively engaging in terrorist actions against the Palestinian people on an almost daily basis.

The settlements needlessly inspire terror against the US and Israel, and have prolonged the fighting for decades, and now have begun to create blow back terror against the US. They need to be put to the same end that Apartheid South Africa met with, and must be recognized for what they are; violently enforced apartheid and ethnic cleansing that NO self respecting people would ever tolerate.

P.S. Mr. Rozen, you have my permission to take this document to Israel and share it with the government there. While not classified or oriented towards sparking an utterly unnecessary war between the US and Iran (your normal M.O.) , It will, if heeded, do a great deal more for the peace and security of Israel than any of the espionage you have committed against the US to date.

"It should be the unrelenting policy of the US to ensure that the settlements are abandoned in total and the IDF completely removed. We should first employ diplomacy, followed by removal of Aid, followed by sanctions, boycotts, and forced divestment if necessary. We should also, if necessary, make contributions to any settlement supporting organization illegal under the premise that they are actively engaging in terrorist actions against the Palestinian people on an almost daily basis."

Well sure, that's what we *should* do.

But notice who makes the front pages here on ForeignPolicy. Is it you, or is it Steven Rosen, the fanatical ultra-zionist whose charges got dropped?

That's enough to say the USA probably will not do anything truly effective. There will not actually be any peace treaty or any peace. So we need to prepare for the consequences of that.

The predictable result is that we will have a minor public rift with israel. With that, the liberal zionists who have promoted change will close ranks with the others because israel's survival will appear to be threatened. Then there will be another spectacular terrorist incident, perhaps by people who appear to be palestinians. US public opinion will tilt against arabs and against palestinians. US politicians who were hard on israel will get voted out of office, and the zionist lobby will be significantly weakened -- a lot of US politicians who used to love israel will fear them instead, while those who feared them before will start to hate them. I can't see it any farther than that.

However, there might be unpredictable results out of israel. For all I know the israeli government might fall and be replaced by one that actually wants peace.

I agree with A Balanced View and Dancing Cat- the idea that allowing settlement to continue when all that has done is ensure there won't be any prospect for negotiations, is self-defeating- unless of course people like Bibi and Mr. Rosen don't really want any meaningful peace (which would necessarily include *compromise* on the part of both parties.

Obama is right to try a different tact with both parties- allowing Israel to define the terms of the US-Israel relationship, hasn't really worked and it's undermined our ability to be viewed as credible in the peace process. Given the US gives huge sums of money to Israel, why *can't* Obama condition it upon something that is ultimately in the US' best interest?

As Obama and Clinton hold firm to their previous statements regarding settlements, the hawk wing of pro-Israel special interests in the US and abroad are getting increasingly worried- I mean, my goodness, balance? How dare the US govt try to be more balanced in their/our approach! And expect more commentaries like Mr. Rosen's to start to appear with greater frequency in the media in an attempt to try to poison the peace efforts of *their own* President and paint the Obama admin. as anti-Israel.

If Obama backs down on settlements, then he will have no credibility and he knows that.

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Secretary Clinton Blog