Remember how last August Robert Malley and Hussain Agha, the world's two most effective apologists for the Palestinians, came out and said explicitly that peace between Israel and Palestinians was not realistic? At the time I noted that while they still weren't exactly Zionists, they were essentially admitting the truth of what most Israelis have been saying for a decade.
Now it's the turn of Aaron Miller, a professional peace-processor rather high in all American administrations since the 1980s, and not famous for his warmth towards Israel. Well, he now admits not only that peace can't be had, but also that the dogmas that motivated him, his bosses and colleagues, and the current president, were only that: dogmas. Articles of faith. And false ones, to boot.
He never manages to come out and say: peace is impossible because the Palestinians won't accept it in any form any rational Israelis can offer. He's not that far gone yet. Short of that, however, he basically says what a majority of Israelis have been saying for a decade (and a minority, myself not included, said even earlier). Which of course begs the question: OK, so you've been wrong all along and only now admit it. What would have happened if we'd listened to you and your bosses, various presidents of the United States, only later to learn that you'd been wrong? Why should we take the current one any more seriously?
Read the whole article. It's a humdinger.
h/t Powerline
completely OT or may be not but in any case just too juicy a bit on the human rightists to let it go unlinked to
ReplyDelete"Mrs Figes, Stephanie Palmer, is a Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and a barrister at the human rights specialists, Blackstone Chambers."
Mrs. Figes under the name of "Historian" wrote wild amazon reviews against books of her husband's competitors.
- but the juice of the story for me is in the legal shenanigans and arguments (see Sylvia on Alynski) which preceded the disclosure which of course she will now claim were only her husband's doing and not inspired by human rights' habits??? or won't she???
Silke
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article7103624.ece
Jewish anti-Semites - the Margalits, Sternhells and Burgs of Israel along with the Levys and Eldars of Haaretz fame, believe if Israel would only stop existing, the Jews could have peace with the Palestinians. They are the "peace processors" who devoutly believe it just hadn't gone far enough - to Israel's extinction.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any mention of the corruption of Arafat and his Fatah cronies. Every Palestinian I've spoken with agrees that the emergence of Hamas as a political force was a direct result of that corruption, which was blithely ignored by the US and everyone else in the West.
ReplyDeleteYaacov if the Palestinians had gotten good government instead of Arafat and his thugs do you think things would be different (for the better) now?
Regards, Gavin
If you read Dennis Ross' description of the "peace process" ("The Missing Peace", it become clear that there are three people he basically detests - Arafat, Netanyahu, and Aaron Miller. Perhaps now its clearer why, even though he was Miller's boss, he couldn't stand him.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in his book, I recall Miller saying he started out as a supporter of the Jordanian option. As he grew friendlier with the Palestinians, specially the snake in the grass Saeb Erakat, he bought into the Arafat myth of a Palestinian people and history, and basically the so called "peace process", which, of course, has led nowhere for one simple reason:
No mater what Israel has been willing to agree to the Palestinians have never agreed to anything at all - at a minimum they want Israel to return to the Green Line, despite UNSCR 242, 40 years of change, and the presence of hundreds of thousands of Israelis in major towns just over the Green Line.
Well, although I don't think he has abandoned his love affair with the Palestinians, Miller has at least apparently realized that the peace process, road map, quartet, and all the other wacky terms used in this issue are meaningless in the face of Arab absolutism and unwillingness to accept both the reality of today's situation and the fact that they will never get 100% of what they want.
In addition, of course, the status quo suits some of the leadership only to well - they have become fabulously wealthy through corruption and control of the money flow and resources of the WB.