John Kerry set a real argument into motion when he used the term “apartheid state” when talking about Israel……
Personally, I do not think that he went far enough…but then I am not in the pocket of Israeli special interests…….
Is John Kerry Wrong About Israeli Apartheid? « Antiwar.com Blog.
Inkwell Institute
Middle East Desk
For more than twenty years the US has tried to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians…..and for twenty years it has failed and failed with a flair……nothing new there.
The latest failure was on John Kerry……he promised that there would be a deal this time around…..and as of yesterday the talks are off…..and yep….NO DEAL!
Kerry let it be known that he was not a happy puppy…….he rattled on about the failures of bothsides…..and then he made a bold statement……..
John Kerry tossed the A-word around Friday during a closed door meeting, saying that Israel could become “an apartheid state” if peace talks with Palestine failed to generate a two-state solution. The Daily Beast acquired a recording of Kerry’s comments, which came during a Trilateral Commission meeting. Kerry told the assembled world leaders that he might eventually unveil a peace deal and tell the sides to “take it or leave it.”
A two-state solution, he said, is “the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.” US officials generally avoid the word “apartheid” in relation to Israel, and President Obama has previously called it inappropriate. The Anti-Defamation League has issued a statement calling Kerry’s comments “startling and deeply disappointing,” Haaretz reports. Meanwhile, Rand Paul is burnishing his pro-Israel credentials by introducing a bill banning US aid to Palestine until Palestine recognizes Israel’s right to exist, Politico reports.
The truth of the matter is that Israel cannot become an apartheid state because it already is an apartheid state…….walls built to keep Palestinians in their place…….laws made for Arabs alone…….an authoritarian suppression of a people…..call it what you like but if it looks like apartheid and sounds like apartheid….it probably is apartheid.
Like I said that was a bold statement coming from Kerry…….and after he made it I wondered how long it would take for him to walk back the statement. Did not take long at all……the next day Kerry made this statement………….
“For more than 30 years in the United States Senate, I didn’t just speak words in support of Israel,” Mr. Kerry said in his statement. “I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it came time to fight.”
Mr. Kerry added that he did not believe that Israel was an “apartheid state” or intended to become one. Mr. Kerry did not dispute he had used the phrase but said it had led to a “misimpression” about his views.
“If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution,” he said.
“In the long term, a unitary, binational state cannot be the democratic Jewish state that Israel deserves or the prosperous state with full rights that the Palestinian people deserve,” he added.
Damn these people are GUTLESS! Of course someone will say that Israel is the lone democracy in the region……that is pure BS…….there is nothing democratic about the way they treat Palestinians….or how they steal land……or the massive killing of civilians…..
There will NEVER be a peaceful solution for the Middle East….as long as American politicians are gutless and Israel is allowed to do whatever they want unchallenged. Or as long as the US has to apology for every criticism of Israel.
America needs to grow a pair but first they will have to ask permission from Israel.
Our prez is making an Asian swing and during his many public appearances he has made some disturbing comments about the world and explosive situations………it seems that we are still more than ready to commit Americans to settle some international disputes…….
Obama: We Will Go To War For Other Nations’ Petty Territorial Disputes « Antiwar.com Blog.
A little full disclosure…….when I was at university I took many philosophy courses and by grad school I was intrigued with political philosophy…….I wanted to find answers to the really big questions of life and thought that philosophy would help in that search……
To me politics, in the beginning of my quest, was to help me in my search for the right balance to turn this country that I felt it could become…but year after year things have gotten worse………No longer does politics help in answering questions….all it accomplishes is creating more questions without useable answers……
When I began this post I was trying to work out the best way to present it….and then I saw this bit of info that will help…….
Politicians devote a lot of energy to what Ezra Klein calls the “More Information Hypothesis,” the theory that voters would agree with them if they understood the issues better. But a 2013 study suggests that’s not true, Klein points out at his launched-last-night site Vox. Researchers first polled the participants on their political ideologies and tested their math skills using a word problem about skin cream. Then they gave them some more word problems, about gun control and climate change. The result: Respondents were drastically more likely to arrive at the right answer if they agreed with it politically, and vice versa—and being better at math actually exacerbated their likelihood of getting it right or wrong depending on their political sensibilities.
The authors theorize that “humans reason for purposes other than finding the truth,” like “ensuring they don’t piss off the leaders of their tribe,” Klein explains. If Sean Hannity changed his mind about climate change tomorrow, it would have profound personal costs. “He would lose friendships, viewers, and money. He could ultimately lose his job.” He’s incentivized to use his intellect to reinforce the ideology he socially identifies with—and to a lesser extent, that’s true of almost everyone. Washington has made this easy; our two parties (or “tribes,” per Klein) have developed “their own machines for generating evidence and their own enforcers of orthodoxy. It’s a perfect storm for making smart people very stupid.” Click for Klein’s full column.
We put ourselves in political camps……we do not know what a conservative is or for that matter what a liberal….what we have is what the media and select special interests that form our opinions for us…….it is as if we do not really want to have to think about solutions to our problems…..we had rather to point fingers and accuse each other of dogmatic ideals…….
NO politician can stay on topic beyond a 30 second ad…….henceforth there will NEVER be any useable answers to our mounting problems…….ergo…politics, in the classical sense, is dead!