Israel Faces No Existential Threat.

by Puck T. Smith

Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully in the Middle East for over 1,000 years prior to the Balfour Declaration and the mass immigration of European Jews and the ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land. Jews suffered greater persecution by the Crusaders than they ever did by Muslims.

http://www.soundvision.com/Info/politics/jewhistory.asp
http://www.imamsrabbis.org/en/publications/detail/2/10/19
http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1690
http://www.muslimbridges.org/content/view/318/83/

Neither Syria nor Lebanon want a war with Israel, they know it would be suicide. Israel has at least 100 nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Jordan and Egypt both have peace treaties with Israel. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran have common borders with Israel, they also hate each other as much as much if not more than they hate Israel. Neither has the capability to wage a military campaign against Israel. The most they could hope to do would be an air strike or a missile attack, assuming Iraq, Jordon, Syria or Egypt stood idly by while their sovereignty was violated. And I repeat, Israel has at least 100 nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. There is no existential threat to Israel. However, Israel also knows it does not have to make any effort whatsoever to live peaceably with anyone in the region because the United States gives it totally unqualified support no matter what it does.

If that support were removed Israel would either reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or it would become a pariah state much like South Africa was before it abolished Apartheid.

More importantly than any of that, the United States has no national interest in this conflict. If by some miracle Muslims were able to conquer Israel, or if Israel were to exterminate the Palestinians completely there would be no threat to the United States as a result. However, if either of those eventualities occurred while the United States was still giving billions of dollars a year to Israel every Muslim in the world be an enemy of every US citizen they encounter anywhere on the planet. On top of all of that we cannot afford it. The United States economy is about one shock away from collapsing. If we continue to attempt to garrison and bribe the entire planet much longer it won't matter who is killing who in the Middle East because we are either going to be killing each other here or experiencing Orwell's vision of the future: a boot on the face of humanity, forever.

Gaza, the Horror and The Hope

The following quotes stick out in my mind as exemplifying the salient points in the current situation in Gaza. The first is from an interview with Arnon Soffer, one of the intellectual architects of official Israeli policy with respect to the Palestinians. Whether you agree with him or not (I don't) he gives a clear indication of why the "peace process," whatever that means, is a meaningless fiction. I'm quite sure there are those on the Palestinian side who feel pretty much the same way Soffer does. I believe the term intractable foes applies.

[W]hen 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.

If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings. ~ Arnon Soffer

From my perspective the policy of the United States should be neutrality. We have no moral authority or national interest in supporting one side or the other. Unfortunately, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out here and here, there is little chance of our current policy is going to change. It is too firmly entrenched in both parties. The hope, such as it is, lies in the fact that the United States simply cannot afford to maintain the current foreign policy. It will change when the reality of our economic system rears its ugly head.

William Grigg, as he usually does, cuts right to the quick in his analysis of the situation.

U.S. withdrawal wouldn’t palliate ancient ethno-religious grievances, or those of a more recent vintage rooted in the dispossession of the Palestinians. But it would force the antagonists to make a more realistic accounting of the actual costs of the conflict, which might prod them to make the kind of grudging, halting, agonizingly reluctant material overtures that eventually lead to peace.

Of course, American withdrawal is going to happen anyway when the destruction of the dollar is consummated, a fact that should not be lost on those interested in Israel's survival. That nation's ability to dominate its rivals militarily is a particularly pernicious variant of an investment bubble, one that has distorted Israel's priorities and discouraged it from creating a security framework on assumptions that don't involve leveraging U.S. power on its behalf.

The bubble of U.S.-Israeli dominance in the Middle East will burst as soon as the fiat dollar's global hegemony ends. ~ William N. Grigg

The sad thing is when that happens it will be to the betterment of Israel and the Palestinians, but it will be a catastrophe for us. They'll be forced to find a solution, we'll be standing in the wreckage of our dreams.

The Amazing NAUDO

This gentleman is a master.



Here is his YouTube profile.

You'll be glad you did.

One Big Rez

In a fascinating interview with Scott Horton, Indian activist Russell Means describes how the American Indian Reservation System has been the incubator for totalitarian social engineering programs both here and abroad. The subjugation of the American Indian, he warns, provided the model for the ongoing dispossession of the American middle class.

As the financial system implodes, inhabitants of our de-industrialized country are having what remains of our wealth confiscated in order to serve the interests of the most corrupt elements of the ruling elite. The sky is thick with portents of impending military rule in order to suppress any organized resistance to this unprecedented plunder.

We will know that the Wounded Knee option is on the table when our rulers demand of us what they required of the conquered Sioux: The surrender of our personal firearms.

It is a glorious fact that America's private gun owners possess more firearms than the combined armies and police forces of the entire world. It is that fact, and perhaps it alone, that explains why the Regime hasn't succeeded -- yet -- in transforming our country into one giant Rez. We should never assume that this cannot change, in a hurry.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/01/one-giant-rez.html