Dean is right about the Middle East

[BurtWorm]

Belying charges of his servitude to AIPAC, Dean made the following statement about US policy in the Middle East:

"Israel has always been a longtime ally with a special relationship with the United States, but if we are going to bargain by being in the middle of the negotiations then we are going to have to take an evenhanded role."

The Washington Post article from which this comes hints at--or misdirects attention from--an apparent DLC/Lieberman campaign to smear Dean's stance as a "radical" (actually, that was John Kerry's term) detour from US norms and propriety:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45122-2003Sep8.html

For more than 50 years, the United States has backed Israel as its closest ally in the region, providing the Jewish state with billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid. Dean does not advocate breaking the U.S.-Israeli alliance, but believes the only way to bring peace to the Middle East is for the president to broker a deal without playing favorites. A top Dean adviser said the former Vermont governor is doing nothing different from what President Bill Clinton did when he reached out to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians as a path to peace.

Several Democrats predicted Dean would pay a political price for his remarks. Democratic candidates receive a significant amount of money and support from the Jewish community. It would be hard for any Democrat considered unsympathetic toward Israel by Jewish leaders to win the nomination, several party strategists said.

Gee, I wonder who those "Democrats" and "party strategists" were, Al and Bruce...

[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[CWebster]

2. Kerry has jumped on the bandwagon-

along with Lieberman to take Dean to task for not pledging allegiance to Israel exclusively.

Everyday Kerry makes it more difficult to support his potential candidacy.

[buddhamama]

3. i agree, Dean is right.

if the U.S. can't play favorites.

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. All nations play favorites

They favor their allies and the U.S. has ONE in that region and it's Israel. If Dean wants to turn his back on an ally, I don't think he'll be doing it from Pennsylvania Avenue.

[Gin]

5. "BOTH" sides are wrong...playing favorites is a no win game...

favoring one side makes no sense.

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Depends on how you define it

And which sides you mean. The Palestinian terror network wants not just the land from the '67 war, they want to wipe out Israel. Israel would love peace, if only the PA would handle the terrorists. But they won't.

[Celebrandil]

9. An alternative

As a european I see another alternative. Let the europeans talk to the palestinians, while US talks to Israel. On the other hand, Bush might to too proud for such a thing. Another possible move would be blaming Arafat and forgetting about the whole thing. The american public could probably accept that, but I definitely wouldn't.

[newyawker99]

12. Hi Celebrandil!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[laura888]

8. would Israel still be an ally if...

...the U.S. insisted on fair treatment of palestinians, insisted that they stop settling in unauthorized areas, and we stopped funding their massive military might?

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. Generalizations

What is "fair treatment?" I'm sure we won't see eye to eye on that one.

Israel was our ally throughout the Cold War and still is now. That's just the way it is.

[Solomon]

15. Tell Us. What has this great ally done for us?

You talk as though we owe them something. You see the Palestinians as wanting to completely get rid of Israel. Some others see that Israel wants to completely get rid of the Palestinians.

Are we sure we're not operating out of religious bias, i.e. the myth that Israel is "god's chosen people"?

[Mike_from_NoVa]

25. No Israel would stop being an ally if we did all those things.

But, if we CONTINUE to fund their military might (we're spending a boatload of tax dollars here!), America has the right to insist on any political behavior we choose, IMO. This would include dismantling (and not starting any new) settlements, tearing down Maginot Line South, equitably sharing resources like water, and practicing the best possible human rights behavior toward the Palestinians. We certainly insist on a far wider range of behavior changes for the Palestinian Authority for what, in comparison, is chump change.

As an American with absolutely no religious stake in the politics of the region, I simply want to be able to leverage the massive amount of US foreign and military aid that flows into Israel in the cause of real peace. There's no apparent reason, other than the loud squawking of special interest groups, that this aid needs to be a blank check, like it seems to be today.

This has the potential to be a massively divisive issue and it looks like the recent Kerry/Lieberman broadsides against Dean might bring them to the forefront of the political radar. To spill over and become an immediate national issue, not just an issue localized to the Democratic primaries. The DLC, Kerry/Lieberman, whoever, are making a big mistake, IMO. If this gets full and loud play in the media, aid to Israel and Sharon's defiance of US initiatives also will come front and center. Public sentiment is very pro-Israel as long as the amount of money we send there annually is not brought up. But if Kerry/Lieberman/DLC keeps pushing, the pushback will include the foreign aid numbers. The deficit is too big; everything the govt. spends is coming under "is it worth the cost?" scrutiny. US taxpayers don't want to piss their money away on blank checks to the defiant. When alerted to the size and failure of this "investment," John Q is going to be very tempted to cut his losses and walk away.

[CWebster]

10. An ally...

they are a fucking albatross around our neck.

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. Sure

What do he lives of millions of Jews matter, after all...

[sendero]

16. to your thinking....

... more than the lives of millions of Palestinians.

No thanks man.

[CWebster]

17. yeah

Lets kill off all the filthy swine sub-human race of Palestinians. They are not worthy of human consideration, after all. Corditioned off in ghettos, humiliated daily, their land robbed, their homes demolished, their water drained, targeted for extra-judicial assasination at any time. Violating more UN treaties than Saddam could dream of, but a staunch ally of the US, a militarized state, funded by the US taxpaper, Israel is truly a friend the US can boast of in a world of decreasing allies.

[buddhamama]

14. if the U.S. is going to make the claim

that they're brokers of peace then they can't be perceived as unfair.

We can keep Israel as an ally and still be fair.

[BurtWorm]

18. I could make the case that not playing favorites

is doing Israel an enormous favor. A hard ass could point out the problematic morality of Israel's land-grabbing, people-displacing history. Of course the US would look like a supreme hypocrite if we took that road. The best course for US policy in the Middle East is to take Israel's right to exist and the Palestinians' right to a state as equal, then work from there to forge a solution to the problems.

[jos]

22. And how is the U.S. supposed to settle the conflict

when it can't be an "honest broker" because it is supposed to favor Israel over the Palestinians?

[SOS]

26. Clinton

was instrumental in brokering the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998. While the agreement is under pressure now, one fact is undeniable - there have been no IRA bombs going off in London.
Your reasoning seems to be that the US can have only one friend in a difficult dispute. The Good Friday agreement shows that an even hand is the only way for the US to be effective in reaching a positive result.
Hopefully Dean as President will follow this mature approach, while throwing the PNAC playbook onto the scrapheap of history.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Dean is following Presidents Carter and Clinton's lead on peace

This has nothing to do with Israel's right to exist, or to America's iron-clad commitment to stand alongside Israel against terrorism.

The real issue at hand is whether the US is going to play a neutral role as a power broker for peace, as President Carter did at Camp David, or continue to pursue the Bush policy of photo ops and knee-jerk support of whatever Sharon does.

These damned American politicians that continue to speak of Palestinians as lower life forms without any legitimate grievances, not because they really believe this, but because they seek to fatten their campaign coffers with AIPAC's blood money.

I suggest that our "expert" on foreign policy, John Kerry who voted for the Iraq war, takes the time to read the requirements of impartiality imposed on the United States, and the other members of the Quartet, on the Roadmap to Peace.

I encourage the Kerry supporters to e-mail the following URL to Senator Waffle, for his reading pleasure:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
April 30, 2003

A PERFORMANCE-BASED ROADMAP TO A PERMANENT TWO-STATE SOLUTION TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

The following is a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet (the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia). The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush's speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial statements.

A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established, and a clear, unambiguous acceptance by both parties of the goal of a negotiated settlement as described below. The Quartet will assist and facilitate implementation of the plan, starting in Phase I, including direct discussions between the parties as required. The plan establishes a realistic timeline for implementation. However, as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below. Should the parties perform their obligations rapidly, progress within and through the phases may come sooner than indicated in the plan. Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/summit/text2003/0430roadmap.htm

[Karmadillo]

19. A welcome development if Dean sticks with it, but his past statements

suggest we may need to wait and see what happens. I'm not surprised Lieberman is attempting to make this an issue, but I'm disappointed to see Kerry do so.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16280

Dean Not Progressive on Mideast
By Ahmed Nassef, AlterNet
June 30, 2003

Although often portrayed as progressive, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean falls short on several issues important to progressives, with the Middle East being one of the more glaring.

True, Dean is one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls who opposed the invasion of Iraq (along with Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, conservative Sen. Bob Graham, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, and Rev. Al Sharpton), but he is closer to a hawk when it comes to Israel/Palestine and U.S. policy toward Iran.

In a major foreign policy speech earlier this year, Dean, while calling for an end to Palestinian violence, did not call for an end to Israeli violence, let alone an end to the illegal Israeli occupation.

And when asked whether his views are closer to the dovish Americans for Peace Now (APN) or the right-wing, Sharon-supporting American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he stated unequivocally in an interview with the Jewish weekly The Forward, "My view is closer to AIPAC's view."

"At one time the Peace Now view was important, but now Israel is under enormous pressure. We have to stop terrorism before peace negotiations," he said.

more...

[CWebster]

21. A welcome development

or an opportunity to attack from the other direction?

Dean's position actually evolved, and with the political climate of Likud dominance, it is politically a greater risk than whore and coward Kerry was willing to stand on.

[Karmadillo]

23. I think my post said a welcome development. I sincerely

hope he holds to this position throughout the campaign regardless of the pressure and, more importantly, if he is elected President, I hope he will let it guide his efforts to bring peace to a region where it is sorely needed. I posted the article not to attack him, but to show that he has made statements in the recent past that raise a question as to how serious he is about being evenhanded. As you note, it is possible for candidates (even those you don't support) to evolve and I hope this is one of those instances.

[CWebster]

24. Actually, this was the very issue

that caused pause in my intial support for Dean and he has been attacked by those supporting other candidates for his position on Israel. Now I want to hear what those other supporters have to say about their candidates now.

[paulsbc]

20. and why

do we want to be involved in that mess at all? stop sending our money to either side, and leave them alone. let the chips fall where the chips fall, I can't see the goal of constantly trying to help in that conflict that has shown to be unsolvable.