Israel, Syria talking peace

If you recall, Our Fearless Leader recently bashed Senator Obama for his highly controversial reality-based announcement that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of nations with whom we don’t necessarily agree. According to W., such a move is tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolph Hitler in Munich in 1938. He made these ridiculous comments in front of a foreign (in fairness it was the Israeli) legislature. (In fact, the first draft of this post was titled “Godwin’s Law violation update.) Incidentally, talking to other world leaders is not the same as ceding half of another sovereign nation. Speaking of throwing someone under the bus….

Now we are learning that the Israelis have been negotiating with the Syrians for (if Al Jazzeera is to be believed) about a year. The main sticking point from the Israeli perspective is Syria’s barely veiled support of Hezbollah, the political party/army/terrorist group that has been one of the many thorns in the side of the Middle East’s only legitimate democracy. Granted, Hezbollah is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. The animosity goes back to the 1948 founding of Israel when Europeans unilaterally declared that sovereignty of Palestine would be transferred from the current occupants to the Jewish people. Here is a link to a powerful interview about the impact of this decision on the Palestinian people. It sounds an awful lot like land theft to me.

Regardless, this is how negotiations work. Both sides bring their extreme demands to the table and they concede on points until they come to a resolution. Perhaps Hezbollah would be more reasonable if Israel were to RETURN (not cede) the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms to Syria and discuss the status of some Lebanese prisoners being held in Israel. That might just convince Syria to end their support for Hezbollah and stop the killings by both sides.

Currently, Turkey is coordinating the negotiations between Israel and Syria. All things considered, it would probably be for the best if the United States were to let our NATO ally take the lead on this.

Of course, W. and the other Neocons contend that such foreign policy liberalism is irrational and only realism works. It’s almost as if they want us to be constantly at war with someone. That’s good news for the defense industry. Not so good for people like this. But as we all know, negotiations never, ever, ever, ever, ever resolve anything. Err… never mind. Keeping in mind, too, that Bush and Co. negotiated on the Libya thing. Jest sayin’

It should go without saying that peace talks in this region seem to fail more often than they succeed, but a single failure is not a reason to give up entirely. Syria is the only state bordering Israel that has not yet signed a peace agreement. Hopefully, this is another major step to a true peace in the Holy Land. Also, here’s hoping we can get this worked out sometime before Jan. 20, 2009.

Chris

Godwin's law violation

I really wish someone would fill Our Fearless Leader in on Godwin’s Law, which has been circulating on the Internets for a long time now. If you missed it, Our Fearless Leader decided that his best course of action would be to go before the Israeli Knesset on that country’s 60th anniversary celebration and use his time to engage in partisan politicking by likening Senator Obama to the Hitler appeasers. Check it out:



Ummm….Mr. President, you missed it, you made a pretty significant logical fallacy. You are equated negotiations with appeasement when they are not the same thing. Senator Obama proposes meeting with world leaders, friend and foe, to sort out our differences. You, Mr. President, seem to support continued conflict, which only helps the oil and defense industries, which you and your Little Friend are tied to. Ummm….

Anyway, there is a strategic advantage to knowing what the enemy wants to achieve. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that talks with Iran, North Korea and Palestine just might help. We are not proposing ceding Austria and Czechoslovakia. We are just interested in hearing the other side’s perspective.

Get a clue, Fearless Leader. Westerners are being targeted by terrorists. I would like to know some specifics regarding why we are being targeted. And, no. I am not referring to the tired “They hate us for our freedoms” line of crap.

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

And here, I thought Our Little Foe’s had a few other gripes about us as well. In fairness, you do have to take the good (ending discrimination against the Palestinians) with the bad (Shariah Law, destruction of Israel). I’ll just bet there’s a well-thought out solution to that one.

The point is, a mature state is one that is willing to listen to the concerns of other nations. It is childish, Mr. President, to continue to dismiss the very idea of diplomacy. That is why your presidency was a disaster. Likening your party's opposition as a Nazi sympathizer is really not helping your cause any. The most tragic possibility is that you are held personally responsible for destroying the Republican Party, making the United States a de facto one party state until the Right is able to reorganize.


I’m sorry Mr. President, but you just lost the whole argument via a violation of Godwin’s Law. Do us all a favor and take a few more months vacation just like you did before 9/11(Our Fearless Leader needed a full month of rest after a grueling 7ish months in office).

Chris

Not even tenuous at best

I was not planning to do a post this evening, but this gem from the BBC was WAY too good to let go:

Israeli politician blames earthquake on gays

At least they are not blaming all of their problems on Palestinians freedom fighters, er... terrorists, er... let's call them militants for now. I'll do a future post on what exactly to call these folks.

This weekend I am presenting at the Eastern Sociological Society in New York City. The next post will detail how that goes.

Chris