I'm actually a pretty optimistic person for the most part. To the point where, despite all past experience and evidence and mistrust, I always imagine that there is at least a slight possibility of some small success whenever there are Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Not this time. I cannot see any hope for this set of talks. I think in the past I fuelled my vague hopes with the belief (rooted I think in reality) that the majority of Israelis actually wanted a peaceful resolution. I don't believe that any more. It seems Israeli majority public opinion is now firmly on the side of ethnic cleansing and crushing the Palestinians. Plus it's also very clear that Obama has no real interest in providing any balance in the argument.

It's all deeply deeply depressing

Israel never wanted peace. I can't vouch for their public opinion but at the political level they've been as much a nation of warmongering cunts as anyone. What they're doing to the Palestinians is an atrocity, but due to the influence they hold in the US I can't see anything changing any time soon.

I get the sense that the Israeli's enmity toward the Palestinians is like people who smoke pipes. It's not a distraction. It's a preoccupation. A hobby. It needs constant care and attention. Without it, they wouldn't know what to do with their hands for more than five minutes? If peace does break out, it'll be purely by accident.

On the face of it, I'd tend to agree with ad hoc. But there must be some hope of success - else I'm not entirely sure why Hamas decided this was the time to re-start attacks on Israel.

I think also that there may be quite a lot going on behind the scenes between the US and Israel. Israel, I'm guessing, now sees Iran as a much more existential threat than the Palestinians. Is it out of the question to imagine that the Israelis might agree to larger concessions in the West Bank in return for stronger co-operation with the US against Iran?

I think there's a completely predictable, awful logic to Hamas's attacks on the settlers - it's their way of saying "you might be having talks with one section of the Palestinian body-politic, but it don't mean jack."

But anyway, like ad hoc, I don't really hold out any hope. After the flotilla attacks there was an oddly optimistic tone of "well, this'll force things to change", even on here, which seemed to be based on a very western-centric view that Israel's government is particularly sensitive to other people in the west getting angry with them. It isn't. Good luck to Obama for trying but these talks are being conducted on ridiculously unequal terms and are just as likely to fail as all the others.

It probably falls under the category of 'stating the bleeding obvious', but the basic problem is that Israel haven't got anything to lose. They become victims - they get sympathy and can retaliate; they become aggressors - they're getting their own way anyway. And whichever role they're taking, they will always have guaranteed support in certain quarters of certain countries. Plus they've already got The Bomb, so it's not like they rely on anyone for that anymore.

I can't help but feel that the only way their sympathisers/supporters might get turned against the Israeli establishment/right is if members of their cabinet are all filmed collectively raping and then eating their own babies.

That sounds about right, because members of the Israeli govt have been getting away with just saying that Palestinians should be exterminated.

Toto Gramsciddu wrote:
On the face of it, I'd tend to agree with ad hoc. But there must be some hope of success - else I'm not entirely sure why Hamas decided this was the time to re-start attacks on Israel.

Technically they didn't resume attacks on Israel but on Israeli citizens living illegally in the Occupied Territories. Not to condone it in any way, but there is a difference to me, and there sure as hell is to any Palestinian. Indeed it's only if you pursue the "Israel doesn't exist at all" line that there is no difference.

I think also that there may be quite a lot going on behind the scenes between the US and Israel. Israel, I'm guessing, now sees Iran as a much more existential threat than the Palestinians. Is it out of the question to imagine that the Israelis might agree to larger concessions in the West Bank in return for stronger co-operation with the US against Iran?

I think it is out of the question. (a) This Israeli government will never give any concessions for a genuine solution (even more emphatically never than for any of its predecessors), (b) They know full well that when push comes to shove the US will back them on Iran. If Israel decides to attack Iran, the US isn't going to be signing any UN resolutions, and if Iran dares retaliate, then they will join Israel and bomb the crap out of them.

Re: Israel/Israelis. When I initially posted, I wrote "israelis" - but then I saw a news bulletin saying Hamas had promised more attacks "on Israel", so I switched it. But I think you're right to make those kinds of distinctions.

Re: a deal on Iran - check out this month's lead article in the Atlantic...very, very interesting, I thought. And scary.

The sad thing is that the second I saw the thread title and the poster I knew this was going to be about those talks. It's hard to see any resolution to that conflict...

Obama's talk of one year doesn't seem very helpful. Just allows stalling, and then "fuck it, we tried".

These aren't any kind of genuine negotiations. Any "deal" which emerged would be bad news for Palestine.

Interesting article TG, thanks for sharing it. Though I think it falls very deeply into this "existential threat" line that Israel wants very much to be seen as what Iran is. The intro paragraph indeed says "But the view from Jerusalem is still more dire: a nuclearized Iran represents, among other things, a threat to Israel’s very existence."

Leaving aside the disingenuous use of Jerusalem there to represent the capital of Israel, it's very much the main argument that Iran will, given half a chance, launch a nuclear weapon at Israel. Only when you get to page 3 or 4 do you find out that even Netanyahu doesn't believe that this is the problem with Iran having nuclear weapons.

Indeed the whole piece is very reminiscent of more or less everything that was written during the cold war:
a) These are our side's motivations (or at least what we would like you to believe that our side's motivations are)
b) These are what we would like you to think their side's motivations are
c) And here is a cursory and extremely shallow set of disconnected anecdotes which confirm that
d) Hence this is what we think will happen next

If Iran gets the bomb, it will change the power dynamic dramatically, and in ways that we cannot possibly guess at. Any country having the bomb increases the threat to the world, and Iran is no exception, so it's better if they don't have it.

But it's a bit rich for Bibi to say "You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs", when he leads a government which contains a load of messianic apocalyptic cult members, which coincidentally controls atomic bombs.

Ultimately it comes down to the exact same argument that infests the question of Israel in Palestine. Is Israel acting in the interests of self defence (as it always claims) or in the interests of its own power (as many of us believe)? Once again, in this instance, I'd suggest it is the latter.

ad joc wrote:

Indeed the whole piece is very reminiscent of more or less everything that was written during the cold war:
a) These are our side's motivations (or at least what we would like you to believe that our side's motivations are)
b) These are what we would like you to think their side's motivations are
c) And here is a cursory and extremely shallow set of disconnected anecdotes which confirm that
d) Hence this is what we think will happen next

In fact, this is a pretty good summary of almost every foreign policy article the Atlantic has published in the last ten years.

But it's a bit rich for Bibi to say "You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs", when he leads a government which contains a load of messianic apocalyptic cult members, which coincidentally controls atomic bombs.


Apocalyptic? How so?

Fair enough. They are strongly supported by messianic apocalyptic members of another cult though.

And frankly, I don't see Shiism as being apocalyptic either.

No, nor do I.

I mean, the much more worrying thing about Iran is the language of "insects" and "viruses" and "tumours" to describe Israel that is used by senior people up to and including the President of Iran. This use of language by one state with respect to another is more or less unprecedented in the Post-War world (with the possible exception of North Korea).

Obviously, that doesn't *necessarily* mean that Iran will lob a nuke at Tel Aviv the instant they can put a bomb together, or that they are totally irrational and that deterrrence wouldn't work, but it does mean that this is kind of uncharted territory as far as managing international relations goes.

AG, I take it you are unfamiliar with the language used by many Israeli leaders to describe Palestinians and Arabs...

The PA mass arrests of Hamas members after the killings t'other day suggest they're serious about it, which is somewhat hopeful...

linus wrote:
AG, I take it you are unfamiliar with the language used by many Israeli leaders to describe Palestinians and Arabs...

I'm under the impresion they don't use language of anything like that level of invective and dehumanization, but I'm quite prepared to be corrected.

Obviously, that doesn't *necessarily* mean that Iran will lob a nuke at Tel Aviv the instant they can put a bomb together, or that they are totally irrational and that deterrrence wouldn't work, but it does mean that this is kind of uncharted territory as far as managing international relations goes.

Iran is now pretty much a military dictatorship, as I understand it. It's a standard feature of the military dictatorship playbook - I suppose it's part of every politician's playbook - to blame everything on some external enemy.