Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Grrrrr
Summer heat. And now this asshole.
The unbelievable gall/obliviousness of this statement sums up the current crisis:
"Fourth, as far as most Israelis are concerned, Mr. Obama has made a mistake in focusing on a settlement freeze. For starters, mainstream Israelis rarely have anything to do with the settlements; many have no idea where they are, even when they’re a half-hour’s drive from Tel Aviv."
You can't have it both ways. You want to be recognized before the global community and treated like a mature country with some semblance of self-awareness, yet when it comes to problems/crimes taking place A HALF HOUR from where "mainstream" (whatever that means) citizens live, it's a Who Me? situation.
This op/ed cheats between two totally irreconcilable perspectives. One is the notion that Obama should somehow connect to Israelis by giving them carrots and responding to what they think-- i.e. their amazing and willful ignorance of their own country's human rights abuses-- because perhaps Obama really does want Israel to do what is best for it. The other perspective is that there is in fact some sort of truth to what Israelis think about their country-- and a preexisting sense that Obama does not agree with them and is thus an enemy or anti-semite.
It is clear from this accidental confession that Israel is in the saddest of states, perhaps an all-time rock-bottom. This leads me to conclude that Obama's freeze-out has been, without doubt, the right approach.
posted by James Hussein Dixon : 7/28/2009 03:33:00 PM
The unbelievable gall/obliviousness of this statement sums up the current crisis:
"Fourth, as far as most Israelis are concerned, Mr. Obama has made a mistake in focusing on a settlement freeze. For starters, mainstream Israelis rarely have anything to do with the settlements; many have no idea where they are, even when they’re a half-hour’s drive from Tel Aviv."
You can't have it both ways. You want to be recognized before the global community and treated like a mature country with some semblance of self-awareness, yet when it comes to problems/crimes taking place A HALF HOUR from where "mainstream" (whatever that means) citizens live, it's a Who Me? situation.
This op/ed cheats between two totally irreconcilable perspectives. One is the notion that Obama should somehow connect to Israelis by giving them carrots and responding to what they think-- i.e. their amazing and willful ignorance of their own country's human rights abuses-- because perhaps Obama really does want Israel to do what is best for it. The other perspective is that there is in fact some sort of truth to what Israelis think about their country-- and a preexisting sense that Obama does not agree with them and is thus an enemy or anti-semite.
It is clear from this accidental confession that Israel is in the saddest of states, perhaps an all-time rock-bottom. This leads me to conclude that Obama's freeze-out has been, without doubt, the right approach.
posted by James Hussein Dixon : 7/28/2009 03:33:00 PM
