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January 23, 2009

Israel & Palestine: connecting the dots

The Jewish-American Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman is "concerned" that newly appointed Special Envoy George Mitchell too fair.

"Sen. Mitchell is fair. He's been meticulously even-handed," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn't been 'even handed' — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support."

"So I'm concerned," Foxman continued. "I'm not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East."

In other words, it doesn't matter what the Palestinians do, whether they fire rockets into Israel or not. Foxman doesn't care about anything other than seeing Israeli policy rubberstamped by our government. And you can bet the bank that if the national director of the ADL sees it that way then a hell of a lot of other Jews do too.

Meanwhile, on the heels of Israeli FM Livni having been accused of being a terrorist at the National Press Club last week, is the news that Livni is worried about being charged with War Crimes in Europe.

Israel's concerns about possible international lawsuits following Operation Cast Lead is apparently growing, as even the fate of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's trip to Brussels remained vague until the very last minute, fearing she may face legal action in Belgium for alleged war crimes.

Meanwhile back in Israel the hardline head of the Yisrael Beitenu party demonstrated his lack of racism as well as his dedication to the principles of freedom and democracy by threatening two Arab Knesset members with assasination.

Meanwhile, Palestinian diplomats urging reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas pointedly observe that P.A. President Abbas's concessions (to Israel) to crack down on militants in the West Bank had only reaped more Israeli settlement encroachment on the land of a future Palestinian state, more military roadblocks and an Israeli separation barrier. Which brings us right back to the Anti-Defamation League's opposition to Mitchell's fairness pointed out at the beginning of this post.

Lastly is the report that Israel has announced that it is setting up a network of bloggers to combat websites deemed "problematic" by the Zionist state...

Have you notice that almost all of the pro-Israeli pushback, both official and unofficial, these last several weeks has been aimed squarely at those who like myself have tried to treat both sides fairly? I haven't noticed any bloggers pushing an overtly pro-Hamas message being targeted for pushback. It's all been aimed at anyone attempting to be fair and honest.

The Hamas position isn't deemed "problematic" by Israel, for what seem to me to be self-evident reasons. The "problem" they've identified as a threat to them is any sense of fairness.

(hat tips to Spyder and Ten Bears for respectively linking me to the first and last articles linked here.)

Posted by Kevin at January 23, 2009 11:49 AM