The speech.
The reaction, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Coming from the WSJ, that's a rave review. I would agree with the general theme of the article, "Great speech, now what?" I think Obama did a good job of leveling the playing field, recasting the debate; everyone has a position, everyone has complaints, everyone wants something, now what? I don't remember much about the "Road Map" other than that the Bush administration was long on maps, short on being able to read them.
Like many others I consider the Middle East to be the most intractable trouble-spot in the world. There are nukes and nuts and there is a long history of bad decisions. Don't believe me? Relatively few know it, but Israel secretly helped to create Hamas, to act as a religious alternative to Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Boy, that really worked out well, didn't it? Fatah was staggeringly corrupt, Hamas is fanatically nuts. It is hard to choose which one should be more dubious of. In the middle are the Palestinian people, poorly governed and lead, disenfranchised, badly in need of new and more far-sighted leadership. Then there is Israel, expanding into lands taken during the 1967 war, in clear violation of UN orders to not do so. To date the UN has been unable to sanction Israel because the US vetoes any such attempts, but what if we were to stop doing so? And now the Netanyahu government is complaining that they had "side agreements" with Bush that permitted them to expand settlements, even though on paper they agreed not to do so. Brilliant. And we are supposed to honor such secret agreements, even when they violate UN mandates? I suppose we could, but wouldn't that make it far, far more complicated to find peace in the region? It seems to me that the Bush approach to peace in the Middle East produced results all right, but not the results we hoped for.
The best that can be said about George W Bush at this point is that his tenure has had the effect of making pretty much anyone who succeeded him look good. as a man on the street in Cairo said in speaking of Obama, "Just one of him is worth ten George Bushes". Okay, we have ten, shall we try for twenty?
Arthur
The reaction, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Coming from the WSJ, that's a rave review. I would agree with the general theme of the article, "Great speech, now what?" I think Obama did a good job of leveling the playing field, recasting the debate; everyone has a position, everyone has complaints, everyone wants something, now what? I don't remember much about the "Road Map" other than that the Bush administration was long on maps, short on being able to read them.
Like many others I consider the Middle East to be the most intractable trouble-spot in the world. There are nukes and nuts and there is a long history of bad decisions. Don't believe me? Relatively few know it, but Israel secretly helped to create Hamas, to act as a religious alternative to Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Boy, that really worked out well, didn't it? Fatah was staggeringly corrupt, Hamas is fanatically nuts. It is hard to choose which one should be more dubious of. In the middle are the Palestinian people, poorly governed and lead, disenfranchised, badly in need of new and more far-sighted leadership. Then there is Israel, expanding into lands taken during the 1967 war, in clear violation of UN orders to not do so. To date the UN has been unable to sanction Israel because the US vetoes any such attempts, but what if we were to stop doing so? And now the Netanyahu government is complaining that they had "side agreements" with Bush that permitted them to expand settlements, even though on paper they agreed not to do so. Brilliant. And we are supposed to honor such secret agreements, even when they violate UN mandates? I suppose we could, but wouldn't that make it far, far more complicated to find peace in the region? It seems to me that the Bush approach to peace in the Middle East produced results all right, but not the results we hoped for.
The best that can be said about George W Bush at this point is that his tenure has had the effect of making pretty much anyone who succeeded him look good. as a man on the street in Cairo said in speaking of Obama, "Just one of him is worth ten George Bushes". Okay, we have ten, shall we try for twenty?
Arthur
2 comments:
"Don't believe me?"
In a word, NO.
This historical faux pas is inexcusable. It gives the unaquainted reader a simplified distortion of the facts. Hamas was created in 1983 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, during the mass uprising of Palestinians against Israel. It is a wing of The Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. It's express purpose was, and still is, to reinstate the Muslim Caliphate or to regain the heyday of the Muslim Empire from Spain to Indonesia and beyond. Students of this movement include Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and the Taliban.
In 1973 the Brotherhood split into 2 factions. One 'moderate' and one radical. Israel, in charge of the civilian administration of the West Bank and Gaza, embraced the moderate wing and allowed paraplegic Sheikh Ahmad Yassin to accept foreign 'charity' donations as he established schools, mosques, orphanages, health clinics and financial aid to the poor. Meanwhile there was Fatah and the PLO (trained, supported and armed by the USSR and China) creating havoc in the Middle East and their friends "Black September" travelling to the Munich Olympics in 1972. Israel chose to support a proactive group in Gaza who appeared to be creating a positive atmosphere among the refugees but as always these 'moderate' Palestinians had ulterior motives as well.
Please note this interview with current Hamas leader and co-founder Khaled Meshaal.
"R.R. (Rainer Rupp)
For many years there has been the suggestion in the Western media that Israeli intelligence was instrumental in the creation of Hamas. I suppose you know about this story?
K.M. (Khaled Meshaal)
Unfortunately this tale is told by some Arabs, Palestinian Arabs. It is an attempt to distort the image of our movement. We consider this charge as something so ridiculous, that we don’t even bother to deny it. It is so illogical. How come, that Israel should establish an organisation that will combat Israel, how is that possible?
R.R.
The argument is, the Israelis helped to create Hamas in order to divide the Palestinian resistance and weaken the Fatah movement.
K.M.
Indeed, during the seventies the main Palestinian force that was combating Israel was the Fatah-movement. Consequently Israel concentrated its fighting against Fatah und the other, smaller groups of Palestinian resistance, which existed in this period. At that time, however, Hamas was not yet properly established. We were only starting to build our social base in Palestinian society, by focussing entirely on social affairs, organizing help, building hospitals and schools, looking after the sick and deprived. In that era we were only involved in peaceful actions. This is why Israel did not do anything against us.
Because they did not know at the time, what was going on in our minds. But, while we were focussing outwardly only on social and educational work, at the same time we were secretly already training and preparing for our future resistance projects. Because the Israelis did not see this danger they concentrated their actions against other brigades, not against us. And it is this Israeli inaction against us, which some Palestinian Arab elements unfriendly towards Hamas present as “proof”, that Israel was supporting the creation of Hamas."
Just like Egypt's Nasser and Sadat, Jordan's King Hussein and Syria's Assad before them, Israel was taken o the cleaners by the pre-Hamas Palestinians.
This interview with Khaled Meshaal was conducted in English at the end of November 2006 in Damascus by Rainer Rupp, German Journalist and Economist.
There is nothing in this interview that contradicts what I said. Hamas gained traction by being a social service organization, seeking to grow by serving the unmet needs within the society. Okay, so how does that differ from what I said? Israel gave preference to Hamas. Does Hamas now say that it hid its more radical plans for the region? What a shock that they would say that now. So let's understand, they are saying that (a) they lied then, but (b) trust them, they are not lying now. That stretches my credibility. Of course Israel had no idea how nuts Hamas would become, but they were desperate to find a counterfoil to Fatah. Something similar happened in Afghanistan where the US helped foster the Mujahaddin, only to live to regret it later.
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