The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in a New Arab World
The democracy movements spreading across the Arab world have placed the region in turmoil. But they have also created an opening for a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. That's what President Obama suggested after meeting this week with Israeli President Shimon Peres. "He and I both share a belief that this is both a challenge and an opportunity," Obama said, "that with the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, it's more urgent than ever that we try to seize the opportunity to create a peaceful solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis." Many Middle East analysts are highly skeptical. We'll talk about the challenges for Israel and the U.S. in resolving the long-standing Palestinian conflict in a changing Middle East.
Guests
a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and former adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state; author of the forthcoming book "Can America Have Another Great President?"
senior editor, NPR's Morning Edition; co-author of "This Burning Land."
president of the Arab American Institute; author "Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters."



Comments
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This authoritarian/totalitarian reaction to -----------(Fill in the blank ) Spring is scaring me. No matter what the hemmed up Palestinians offer the hardline Israeli government keeps upping the price. Kind of reminds me of the T-party and Paul Ryan talking about the US budget. And again I ask: Where is the North American Spring?
You know there can be no peace when one side insists they are genetically superior and that their opponents must surrender their human rights in perpetuity just to begin negotiations. I'd say if the P-tardies are gonna cut anything it should be aid and weaponry for Israel and Saudi Arabia. It's not like the extremists in Iran can hold back their own youthful Spring for long. And the price for our corporate oligarchy retarding natural inevitabilities (North American Spring) at minimum will be an implosion equivalent to the USSR in 1990. When you can't secure food, medical treatment, and old age pensions what is left? War and celebrity worship and gambling is about it.
Aaron David Miller: Thank you for giving "Great Man Historical Theory" it's well-deserved permanent dirt nap in your new book about the U.S. presidency. I saw your discussion on the Woodrow Wilson channel, and you let the White male supremacy theorists down with great aplomb and pinache. Let's just hope Alan Dershowitz isn't ready to pounce on you for what wisdom you may be offering this morning.
Circumstances always determine what is possible, even for the greatest mind arguing the worthiest cause. Norman Finkelstein could advise you about that. He's out of the picture now as far as our national discourse is concerned, and why is that?
Is there any chance of peace without invasion in the Middle East? Changing facts on the ground hasn't brought us peace. Is Palestinian self-sufficiency possible?
@Grady Lee Howard
Amen! I find James' comments compelling.
Here's that Parity spin again' this time from a caller
In 2001 Bibi Netanyahu was caught on video saying America is a country that can be moved and moved very easily.
How did we become puppets for Israel?
How did AIPAC, ADL, Jewish Federation, etc. get this much control over our government? Israel's proxies lead United States into war in Iraq and now are attempting to get us into war with Iran.
When will America wakeup? We are being had.
Netanyahu has made it very clear that he will consider a state for the ARabic speaking people who call themselves "Palestinians" ONLY when they first recognize Israel as the JEWISH STATE! If the Arabic-speaking non-Jewish peoples occupying liberated Jewish soil who call themselves "Palestinians" refuse to recognize the NATIONAL rights of the Jewish people, why should the Jewish state recognize yet another, 23rd Arab state to be created on its liberated homeland? I just don't get it.
When deciding to supply Israel with arms as it's foreign aid, I wonder what the role of the military industrial complex lobby is, in that decision.
What legal basis is there for a so-called "Palestinian" state when there has never been such a nation in all of recorded history? In 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to authorize a "JEWISH STATE" and an "ARAB STATE" west of the Jordan river, but the Arabs refused to accept it, and went to war to destroy the Jewish state. The are called "Palestine" was formerly called Judea before the European Romans occupied and changed it to "Syria-Palestina" in 135 AD after crushing three JEwisih revolts.
Until the Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish state, Jews are going to continue to return and resettle their homeland just as the League of Nations authorized in 1922 in the Mandate. And no one can stop it short of recognizing Jewish national rights.
The US needs Israeli military technology. That's the connection.
And vice versa. The two industries have become symbiotic.
Because the US knows that Israel is the ONLY stable partner it can rely on in the Middle East. The rest of the Middle East is just a house of cards, that as we see periodically collapses. But at some point, ISrael is going to get sick of US bullying, and is going to find a more stable partner with someone else.
Ha ha, the "Palestinians" keep looking for a lynch mob to string up Israel, but Israel is very "stiff-necked" and not so easy to hang :) First, during WWII they waited for Rommel. That failed. Then for the arab armies in 1948. That failed. Then for Nasser in '67. That failed. Then for Arafat. A little bit of success. Now for Ahmadinejad or for the UN or the US to hang Israel. Guys, it's not going to happen. Israel is the legal, moral, authentic Jewish homeland of the Jewish people. Only the God of Israel can change that.
In 1948, when the Jews were fighting for their lives, the US did not send Israel ONE SINGLE BULLET! The JEws were saved by Czechoslovakia, which sold the Jews WWII leftover arms which turned the tide. And at that time, the Arabs in Palestine outnumbered the Jews by 2 to 1, not counting the 50 million Arabs outside of Palestine.
The idea that Israel was created by the US, and its survival depends on the US is LUDICROUS!!!
In fact, Stalin allowed Czechoslovakia to send arms to the Jews, hoping that it would become a communist Jewish state. But after the war, when it became clear that Israel was going to be western oriented, Stalin became enraged and took it out on Soviet Jewry and changed Soviet policy towards the Arabs.
Sure, give more US aid to the Palestinians, and it will end up in Geneva banks in Swiss accounts. Go ahead, cut off aid to ISrael and give it to the Arabs, and see where it ends up :)
This is NOT a struggle for freedom for the Palestine Arabs! That is a LIE! It is a struggle to destroy the JEWISH STATE! Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a fool.
The Christians of Bethlehem have FLED due to MUSLIM persecution!! Nobody wants to tell the honest truth!
How did Jews get so much influence in America? Because we Jews helped BUILD America and definitely helped make it prosperous over the last 350 years! What have Arabs and Muslims done to build up America over the same period?
"jgarbuz wrote:
Ha ha...
Only the God of Israel can change that.
April 7, 2011 - 1:09 pm"
Ha ha, is that the same G_d that brought the Holocaust down on your heads?
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Because they want their land back and their right-of-return. 43 years of occupation really have corrupted Israel and those with Israeli citizenships here, haven't they. Where has the Jewish humanity gone toward non-Jews?
"jgarbuz wrote:
How did Jews get so much influence in America? Because we Jews helped BUILD America..."
Jews contributed nothing to the Revolution but suck up to their former Patrons, the Brits, who they dumped as soon as they got a better deal elsewhere. And will turn against the US too.
In your own words-
"jgarbuz wrote:
But at some point, ISrael is going to get sick of US bullying, and is going to find a more stable partner with someone else.
April 7, 2011 - 1:02 pm"
Good riddance!
"and definitely helped make it prosperous over the last 350 years!"
They made prosperity for themselves and 2 plus Depressions for us Goys which robbed the Nation of most of it's wealth.
During the Civil War, the Traitors sucked up again to the Brits even spilling American blood (The Israeli way, far, far from the battlefields). A Slave owning Jew Traitor Secretary of War signed the Death Warrant for one of my Loyalist Ancestors.
Furthermore, I don't appreciate your snotty, ungrateful comments that we didn't do enough for you people during and after WWII. Three of my Uncles served in WWII with one getting shot up pretty good, racing across Europe to save you people from the Ovens.
"What have Arabs and Muslims done to build up America over the same period?
April 7, 2011 - 1:36 pm"
The Iranians delivered $2.00 a Bbl oil to us for 40 years. The Turks fought with us in Korea and other conflicts.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Well, I was born in a German refugee camp to Holocaust survivors, and most of my family was wiped out then. SO maybe the Holocuast was God's way of saying, that it's time to go home. After all, the League of Nations gave Jews the right to return and immigrate to Palestine in 1920, but not enough Jews decided to take that opportunity. And so, maybe a Holocaust was what the God of Israel has to send down on us to make us realize we were not safe anywhere.
It's not their land, any more than Germany or Poland or Morocco is Jewish land. They were occupying Jewish lands, and resisted the right of Jews to peacefully return and resettle. And they decided to resist violently the JEwish return. BUt 145,000 Arabs, Bedouins and Druze decided to remain as citizens of the JEiwsh state, and now they are 1.5 million non-Jewish citizens of Israel.
To Mchaun
You didn't do anything for us. I was born in a DP camp in Bavaria after the war. The GIs handed out chocolate bars to the blonde haired Nazi kids while they gawked at the Jewish survivors. Patton was made governor of Bavaria and had all ex-Nazis working for him. He put barbed wire around the Jewish DP camps, because we were just all a bunch of commie Jews to him. That was what finally got him fired by Eisenhower. My mother was liberated by the Red Army, and my father was in the Red Army and took Berlin at the cost of 300,000 dead Russians. I am thankful though to Truman. We were in the camps waiting to go to Palestine, but he decided to let us come to America, and I am grateful for that. But don't kid yourself. It was Gromyko in the UN in 1947 that was the first to suggest a Jewish state in Palestine. Once the Russians were for a Jewish state, the US has to jump in and recognize ISrael first. The whole US STate department was against a Jewish state, but Truman needed his Jewish Democrat base. IT wasn't all a big favor. IT was politics. It's the same today.
The Jews contributed nothing to the American Revolution? You don't know your history. Look up Haym Salomon. He saved Washington's army at Valley Forge by raising the money to pay them. He gave away all of his own money, and lent many of the "Founding Fathers" personal loans that were never repaid, and he died penniless. He was one of the Sons of Liberty. Of course there were only 4,000 Jews in the whole country at the time, but they fought in the same proportionate numbers as the rest of the country.
As for the Turks fighting in Korea, first of all, Turkey was happy to become a member of NATO. Why? Because the USSR was on its border and very aggressive, and Turkey NEEDED the US then, which is why the Turks were so happy to have US bases on Turkish soil. It was for their OWN protection!
But in 1950, when South Korea was attacked by North Korea, the UN voted to send forces, mainly US GIs, to fight to save South Korea. But in 1948, less than two years earlier, when the new Jewish state was invaded by 5 Arab armies, the UN did NTOHING to help ISrael. The US did not send one bullet nor one soldier to fight on the side of ISrael., The Jews fought all alone, except for some mostly Jewish volunteers who came at their own expense to help the new state.
Also, between 1945 and 1967, who do you think were the biggest recipients of US aid? Israel? No way Jose. It was TURKEY and IRAN who were the largest recipients of US aid before the 1967 war. Only when Israel defeated the Soviet--backed Arab armies, did suddenly the US decide to make Israel a "strategic asset." The US came to ISrael when it was bogged down in the Vietnam war, to covertly back it up in the Eastern Mediterranean where the Soviets were building up their naval forces. And ISrael handed over vast amounts of captured Soviet weaponry to the US CIA after the '67 and '73 wars.
P.S. You saved NO one from the ovens. Not my grandparents or anybody. Not a single concentration camp was bombed from the air. When the US invaded France in 1944, most of the dirty work had been done already. It was the Soviet army that saves the few hundred thousands JEws who were left alive, including my mom. During the 1930s the Jews had been asking and pleading that the West stop Hitler when it would have been easy, just like ISrael has asked the US to stop IRan for the last 15 years. Now it will be too late. Israel will save itself. The US is just a pain in the butt to Israel now.
Why do Arabs cave in to the crazed neo-fascist Jews that promote the lies about Sharia Law.
Living in Michigan, the insane rants about Sharia are nearly a daily ritual by the right wing crime machine here.
The truth is, America should be more concerned about the the true terrorist we should fear. That would be the Zionist "thieves of Wall St."
How does America ignore that the Wall St. theives are in fact 90% Jews?
How many Muslims at Goldman Sachs? How may Muslims at Lehman Brothers? AIG? Bernie Madoff is a Muslim?
There should be an investigation into Tamuldic Law, not Sharia law. Tamuldic Law defines that Jews can lie, cheat and kill legally all non-Jews.
Solition is very simple and it is there - do we have the will
http://www.humangenome.com/solutionToMiddleEast.htm
You can find all the details of the implementation is here; very concise and easy to understand. End of this problem, folks!!!!
Overview of the Solution:
++++++++++++++++++++
Israel will compensate Palestinians either individually or as an entire family or even as a village with “cash money”. In return, Palestinian will “legally” give up their claims to the land, leave the Palestine and recognize Israel’s right to exist forever. Read the “implementation details” regarding how this will be done.
International community (countries) will submit bids to the Compensation Commission regarding how many Palestinians they will accept in various phases with various demographic attributes (average age, male/female ration, education and health levels). One of the most important components of the bids will be how much compensation money each Palestinian refugee will have in their pocket before they arrive to their new hosting country. The Palestinians will be matched with desired countries that they want to be part of.
In the event that mutually desired match cannot be made, the amount of the compensation will be increased until each and every Palestinian is “generously” compensated and each host country is more than happy to have a new, diverse and “wealthy” additions that will be integrated to their existing populations.
You know, you would have to excuse me b/c I feel there was a basic follow up question that was just not asked.
Your guests spoke the entire show about what Israel needs to do in order to better compromise with the Arab world as a whole, and Palestinian's in particular.
Your guests also spoke eloquently about the need for a political change in the Arab world.
Somehow, nobody ever stopped to ask, so, who exactly should Israel compromise with? How should they go about it? How would you consider any of these dictators stable in the long run? And how would it help Israel to associate itself with some of the worst leaders of our times.
There are many things Israel could do better, but I would suggest that Arafat was absolutely not the partner for anything, Abas took over leadership in a non-democratic manner and only represents part of the Palestinian territories, Asad is killing his own people in order to protect his seat (and bank account), and is more concerned with Lebanon's internal politics then his own. Not to mention Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq, all nations that could never find money to educate their own people, but did find the money to send their military to try and destroy Israel. oh, and not to mention Bahrain's "unrest".
Also, when the issue of foreign aid comes up, I would like to remind you that that aid is more then anything else a way to subsidize American military industry since the aid is structured in a way where HOW the money is spent is mandated in advance.
It's sad that all this happened the same day that an Israeli school bus was shot by an anti-tank missile while taking students to school OUTSIDE the gaza strip, the same Gaza strip where all settlements were (rightfully) removed.
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of blame to go around, but the picture this morning was very far from being accurate, and it's a shame such educated people chose to present such a simplistic picture.
Why should Israel compensate the children of 700,000 Arabs who chose to flee? Who compensated me for my mother's lost properties in Poland, not to mention the extermination of my family? And who will compensate the children of the 856,000 Jews who fled the Arab countries???
There was a population swap from 1947 to 1967, and there is no need for either side to compensate the other. The Palestinians are just cry babies. They tried to throw the Jews into the sea in 1948, and because they failed and some of them got thrown out instead, now they are entitled to compensation? Why? WHat for? Israel is not guilty of anything besides defending its own right to exist.
Because Sharia law makes Christians and Jews DHIMMIS, or "protected people" who have to pay "protection money" called the "jizya" the way shopkeepers had to pay the Mafia for protection. Sharia puts Islam over everyone else, and demands that everyone acknowledge its right to rule over them. That is not a diatribe. That is just a fact.
No Muslims at Goldman Sachs, because Muslims don't believe in banking, which is why Muslim countries were so poverty stricken for the last 5 or 6 centuries. Banking is what made Europe and later America rich. Who do you think financed the railroads? Or even the Revolutionary War? Someone has to put up the money and take the risks of losing it all.
Talmudic law says nothing that says that Jews have to rule over Christians or anyhone else. It only says that ISrael is Jewish land.