Policy Change or Ministerial Cluelessness?

Maxime Bernier has now twice refused to answer a question about whether Canada opposes new settlement construction in East Jerusalem. The Canadian policy had been to oppose all new settlement construction, but now observers on all sides are wonder whether there's a new policy or if Bernier simply didn't know this file very well.

Insofar as there's one thing that seems to genuinely and legitimately piss off the Palestinians, it is surely ongoing construction of new settlements. Interestingly, the settlers are not well liked in certain segments of the Israeli population as well. Settlement construction seems like an attempt to gobble up as much of the West Bank as possible before any final settlement is reached. Bernier needs to clarify Canada's position on this matter.

Daniel Pipes Breeds Violence

Daniel Pipes is upset that people are giving money to the Palestinians. If there is one man who truly hates the Palestinians, it is surely Pipes. He attempts to show some kind of correlation between violence and funding, and yet what is his alternative? Turn Gaza into Mogadishu? Now Pipes does not conclude that funding causes violence:

"As Stotsky notes, 'These statistics do not mean that foreign aid causes violence; but they do raise questions about the effectiveness of using foreign donations to promote moderation and combat terrorism.'"

But if it doesn't cause violence, then why criticize it? Is Pipes upset that the Palestinians get any money under any circumstances? Does he think that the massive aid packages the US gives Israel every year could be topped up with this money? Pipes probably did not like how Jimmy Carter subtitled his book but the only long-term implications of Pipes' policy seem to look a great deal like apartheid. Yeah, I can't see cutting off people and starving them as a way to peace Mr. Pipes.

The Last Dash for a Legacy

Is this a trend? It feels a little like deja-vu to see Bush, in the last year or so of his presidency, groping for a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. Bill Clinton tried to used the last year or so of his presidency to get a deal - and I suspect that Bush, like Clinton, will fail at this.

It's odd to look at these very different presidents attempting to achieve similar ends in the last months of their respective reigns. Clinton was never as unpopular as Bush is now - but he did seem to be aware that his legacy would be his impeachment. What he had accomplished in Kosovo or in Bosnia was probably not enough to cleanse the public memory of his various indiscretions. If Clinton were able to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to get some kind of deal on a "final status" for the occupied territories he could cast himself as a sort of flawed-hero statesman. Instead he was staring at legacy of being little more than a philanderer.

Bush is in worse shape. His legacy is one of squandering global sympathy after 9/11 for the pursuit of an invasion that was ill-considered at best and criminal at worst. Clinton was respected in many places outside of the US where it was not apparent why the public should become embroiled in a scandal over sexual favours. Bush is widely disliked though - some of his cabinet minister may very well one day be in the position that Henry Kissinger is in today where they cannot travel safely for fear of war crimes indictments in old Europe. What Bush is hoping for I suspect is a deal. This way he can attempt to cast his other Middle Eastern mis-adventures in the light of an honest (if horrendously executed) concern for democracy.

What might be nice is if presidents did not wait till they were in search of a legacy to do something about the festering problem of Israel and the Palestinians.

Alan Johnston: Free at Last

Alan Johnston is out of the hands of the obscure Palestinian militant group that has been holding him. I do not know if freeing a Western journalist buy Hamas any credibility with anyone, but they appear to be the ones that got the job done. I'm just relieved that this didn't end in an internet snuff film like many other hostage takings these days.

Oh the Irony!

Tony Blair is being put in charge of the one file at which he failed abysmally as Prime Minister. At least that's how I look at his new job being the Middle East peace envoy.

I remember after 9/11 that it was popular to speak of the "death of irony" and all that. Irony isn't dead, it's become darker and more monstrous. I started writing out examples, but really, I'm tired and they are obvious.

Supporting an illegitimate ruler

Isn't that what the West is doing by suddenly rushing to support Mahmoud Abbas' all-new government in the West Bank? I mean, I'm sure that the Palestinians need whatever help they can get but surely this contradicts the whole Iraq project. Remember all that neocon idealism about democracy in the Middle East and no more support for strongmen just because they might be expedient?

Bullshit.

Abbas is seen as marginally easier to deal with than Hamas, so he gets propped up with a government that the Palestinians never voted into office. Like I said before, if it puts bread on the table in Ramallah and elsewhere I'm sure that not too many in the West Bank are complaining, but make no mistake, the West has always, always preferred strongmen to democracy as an expedient for governing the parts of the developing world where it has strategic interests.

"Me, I'm with God and a bag of flour."

So says a man known only as "Yousef" in Gaza today (he was afraid to give his full name). The same man comments about Hamas' Gaza victory by saying,

"Today, everybody is with Hamas because Hamas won the battle. If Fatah had won
the battle, they'd be with Fatah. We are a hungry people; we are with
whoever gives us a bag of flour and a food coupon,"

This is important to keep in mind when the inevitable images of Gaza draped in Hamas-green get spewed out on the news networks. Hamas sustains its popularity by being more adept at social services than Fatah ever was. Now long-term Hamas may not be the wisest choice for the Palestinians (they are something of an international pariah), however hungry people do not have the luxury of long-term thinking.

On Israel, The Palestinians, and The Media

Jason Cherniak has written a post about his dissatisfaction on how The Toronto Star portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was going to just leave a brief comment, but I ended up writing the jeremiad that you see below:

On the specific matter that Cherniak claims was under-reported: I was aware of the Fatah-Hamas conflict, no I don't recall if I read it in the Star, but I was aware. I'm sure that the National Post reported this affair in a far more Israel-sympathetic way so it balances out.

I have to say that there are vicious war criminals on both sides of this conflict. Any honest inquiry will lead you to that conclusion. I am sick though, so sick and tired of reading one-sided, myopic commentary from either party. I'm sick of the ex-pat peanut gallery on both sides engaging all manner of rhetoric and conspiracy talk to suggest that they are the forces of shining truth and it's only those idiots in the media that ruin a glorious narrative.

Why do I say "war criminals?" Well, neither side in this conflict has the faintest idea what a proportionate response is, one side shells and bombs randomly, the other claims a "targetted" response that often involves bombing the hell out of an entire building, neighbourhood, city or UN Peacekeeping post.

On that note I see the slogan on pro-Israel fundraising signs that reads "We don't leave our sons behind." Sure, fine, but you'll bomb the fuck out of Canada's sons too. I don't care that Israel apologized or that Harper eagerly accepted, if one of the premises of Israel going to war was to contrast some kind of IDF "leave no man behind" ethos with suicide bombers, I really think that killing the soldiers of other countries to make that point sort of undermines it.

I don't know if I've made a coherent case here, about anything, but I'm so sick of this. I want to believe that ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are too. What fuels this conflict in part has to be the aforementioned overseas cheering sections. Everyone from US evangelicals to Saudi financiers has taken an interest in this conflict. It reminds me of Bono talking about Irish Americans who hadn't gone back to Ireland talking about the glory of the "revolution":

Gaza's "Riverbend"

Dennis Perrin stumbled on the blog of a Palestinian single-mother trying to raise her son in Gaza. I haven't really even had a chance to read it, but I'm interested already. If there's one benefit we can derive from blogs on a global scale, surely its that we can look beyond the talking points of Israeli settlers or Hamas or whoever the media goes to for a sound-bite.

3 = 1 or Peter Kent's Middle East Non-Solution

Jason Cherniak has been talking about how Peter Kent, a likely Tory star candidate in the next election apparently endorsed a three-state solution to the whole Israel-Palestinian kerfluffle. Jason unpacks the utter lack of appeal that this would have here.

I want to go one step further, a three state solution would be a de facto continuation of a single state with some territories under occupation. What could keep two sovereign states from uniting? Even if they did not formally unite into one Palestinian state, then for all intents and purposes they could act as one. What would Kent block? Could the two states have free trade? A customs union? What about a common currency?

Moreover, who would enforce such things? I don't see the UN doing it. I don't see NATO doing it. Really, only Israel could stand in the way of a united Gaza and West Bank. In effect then, neither of Kent's two ministates would have independence of any real sort.
Picture: Peter Kent once thought he was Howard Beale