$$4Israel: The nutcutting Q in GOP foreign policy debate

So, if Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich et al want to start our foreign aid budget at zero for ALL countries, does "all" include Israel? You know the answer, of course.

Scott Pelley asked a follow-up question to Newt about Egypt's post-Mubarak foreign aid receipts, but took a HUGE whiff in not asking the same question about Israel. Let's put that down to a mainstream media general failure to confront Zionism, even when it supports racism and even genocidal actions against Palestinians as a people.

Ahh, a Twitter respondent picked up on what Pelley missed. And, he asked Perry this first. I noticed that this didn't get much applause. Since Pelley said "no booing," I guess he couldn't get booed himself. Too bad Pelley didn't have time to ask others, like Batshit Bachmann, this question before the first hour of the debate ended.

In case you're missing this and other deathless prose, here's the link for tonight's GOP foreign policy debate. (Good thing there's no spelling test afterward; Perry trying to spell, say, "Xinjiang" could produce a new oops.

OK, Tricky Ricky Perry has also morphed into Sarah Palin. The "commander in chief" of Texas? No sir, you do NOT send Texas National Guard troops into combat; only the actual president of the U.S. does that.

Someone from our armed forces, a sailor on a carrier, asks the GOP presidential candidates the question that neither half of the bipartisan duopoly will face: "How do you stand on torture?"

Cain: "Enhanced interrogation."
Bachmann: "I will use waterboarding."
Paul: "Waterboarding is torture ... illegal under international law ... immoral ... and ineffective." He's a nutbar on both social and economic domestic policy, but he's far and away the best on foreign policy up there.
Huntsman: "We diminish our standing in the world ... when we torture. Waterboarding is torture. We dilute ourselves down like a whole lot of other countries."

And, Paul and Huntsman get booed.

Pelley then asks about the al-Awlaki execution by Obama. Both Romney and Gingrich avidly defend the president unilaterally deciding to kill an American citizen.

Mitt starts the hypocrisy on China parade, saying it's stealing our jobs, when venture capitalists like him pay for companies to kill U.S. jobs on China.

Beyond that big whiff on Israel, Tricky Ricky, and torture, I'll possibly update this blog later, but it's clear that, in general, all the candidates on the podium:
1. Will try to look hardline on Afghanistan while not actually signing blank checks;
2. Won't be asked to, and won't try to, explain why we should remain in Afghanistan given what they're saying about Pakistan;
3. Will Israel-pander if given a shot, and thinking about it;
4. Will try to turn questions back to domestic policy whenever and wherever possible.

U.S., Palestinian statehood and Arab-world credibility

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal pens a mildly worded but strongly voiced op-ed in the New York Times saying the U.S. needs to support Palestinian statehood at the U.N. rather than "risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world."

If that's not a shot across the bow, this should be:

Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people. 

Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy. Like our recent military support for Bahrain’s monarchy, which America opposed, Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so.

 That's a big, big threat there. In Iraq, that would mean the Anbar Awakening would re-awaken; Shi'a-Sunni warfare would start over. That's especially true if "opposing Maliki" meant the Saudis (through appropriate third-party funneling) actually started providing money, arms or both to an Anbar Re-Awakening. The U.S. would either be hamstrung or else forced to keep more troops there. And, Iran would surely up its support for Moqtada al-Sadr, who would probably push Maliki to fight back harder, or else would himself disavow the Maliki government.

And, in an ongoing recession, if we do start to recover, any would-be Saudi help on oil supplies could go by the boards. Turki doesn't mention that, but ... does he have to?

Other than that, Turki is right: The only real losers from a Palestinian state, at least one with Hamas marginalized and the Palestinian Authority in charge, are Syria (and proxies in Lebanon) and Iran.

At the same time, as Israeli-Egyptian events of the past two weeks have shown, Tel Aviv is feeling isolated indeed. If the Saudis are leaning on us in public, they're leaning on the Netanyahu government through third channels, too.

And, Turki didn't write this column alone. This is the public expression, in some way, shape or form, of what Riyadh has privately told the Obama Administration through diplomatic channels in the past few weeks.

Will Dear Leader listen, or will he listen to Zionists and semi-Zionists in the U.S. instead?

Bibi's speech: Lies, damned lies, smugness, intransigence

Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was clearly playing to suckers like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he of undercutting Obama's non-change statement on 1967 borders, during Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

Let's start with the most basic of lies: Netanyahu's demand that Palestinian President Mahmoud Aabbas recognize Israel's right to exist. Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, did that LONG ago.

Smugness? Well, when you have somebody as stupid as Harry Reid running the U.S. Senate, it's easy to be smug.

Intransigence? Starting with his statement on borders, that's clear enough.

As for his offer to make "painful compromises," that probably means "I'll stop construction on one West Bank settlement of 50 houses."

And, I love the mainstream media that says there is no "Jewish lobby" manipulating public opinion. The mainstream media that doesn't have Arab commentators, even for an issue like this, on talk shows. That said, the claim is technically tru, only if you ignore the fundamentalist Christan "Amen corner." And, given Mr. Rapture, Harold Camping, ignoring Christian millennialists is something we do at our peril.

Speaking of that Amen corner, Glenn Greenwald snorts derisively at such "American patriots."

Surprisingly, Josh Marshall, whom I have characterized in the past as a semi-Zionist on Middle East issues over his eye-closing on the al-Jazeera leaks, sees through Netanyahu.

And that gets to the crux of the issue. Just as Israel essentially "created" Hamas decades ago, Zionists like Bibi want to yoke Fatah to it all they can, then claim Fatah did this freely, rather than being backed into an Israeli-American corner.

Don't forget that, Josh. You're still a semi-Zionist until you recognize how much a role the U.S. is playing here.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Goldberg notes Bibi is becoming as bumbling as stereotypical Palestinians.

And, here's great oversight on how theocrats are gaining more power in Israel, how it's a myth that Israel is so "insecure," and more.

Israel caused this - don't just blame Hamas

The "this"? The Fatah-Hamas reconciliation that is now official.

As I blogged repeatedly when the "Al-Jazeera leaks" were released, Israel, starting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, needs to look itself in the mirror when any Israelis talk about a "mortal blow to peace."

By constantly undercutting the Palestinian Authority, they emasculated it to the point where a detente with Hamas was the only way for it to maintain political legitimacy.

Now I know Zionists and semi-Zionists (and there's plenty of them in the U.S., right, Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo) and their Amen corner will blame any slowdown in peace talks all on Hamas.

That said, why SHOULD Hamas officially recognize Israel unless it's accompanied by "linkage." Not just Bibi, but allegedly more liberal politicians in Israel like Tzipi Livni have shown themselves to be:

Simply untrustworthy on Palestinian issues.

End of story.

More proof of that?

Israel's calls in the past for a Hamas cease-fire before any talks.

With links to mainstream media stories, Wikipedia's bio of Hamas reminds us what happened when Hamas DID call a cease-fire:

In June 2008, as part of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Hamas ceased rocket attacks on Israel and made some efforts to prevent attacks by other organizations.After a four months calm, the conflict escalated when Israel carried out a military action with the stated aim to prevent an abduction planned by Hamas, using a tunnel that had been dug under the border security fence, killing seven Hamas operatives.

So, let's talk Israeli hypocrisy.

Why did Goldstone flip-flop contra actual evidence?

NYT columnist Roger Cohen wants to know, as do I.

And a flip-flop it is, that South Africa's Richard Goldstone did, distancing himself from the report of his own UN commission on whether Israel, as well as Hamas, committed war crimes in 2008.

I have to quote extensively from Cohen's column to set the background:

He says his report would have been different “if I had known then what I know now.” The core difference the judge identifies is that he’s now convinced Gaza “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.”

His shift is attributed to the findings of a follow-up report by a U.N. committee of independent experts chaired by Mary McGowan Davis, a former New York judge, and what is “recognized” therein about Israeli military investigations. Well, Goldstone and I have not been reading the same report.

McGowan Davis is in fact deeply critical of those Israeli investigations — their tardiness, leniency, lack of transparency and flawed structure. Her report — stymied by lack of access to Israel, Gaza or the West Bank — contains no new information I can see that might buttress a change of heart.

On the core issue of intentionality, it declares: “There is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead.”

It says Israel has not adequately answered the Goldstone Report’s allegations about the “design and implementation of the Gaza operations” or its “objectives and targets.” Victims on both sides, McGowan Davis argues, can expect “no genuine accountability and no justice.”

In short there is a mystery here. Goldstone has moved but the evidence has not, really.

Was it all the varieties of the "self-hating Jew" epithet hurled at him after the report's release, as Cohen wondered? Did Israel threaten not to let him in the country as a private citizen, which may have mattered indeed to an observant Jew like him?

We don't know because he's not talking, which makes it worse.

That said, it's arguable Zionism has won again.

It's won not because Goldstone is or was a self-hating Jew, but because he's no longer a self-examining one, or however we phrase it.

It's won because many low-key Zionists will see this as affirmation of their low-key intransigence, NOT toward Hamas, but toward the Palestinian Authority and the UN.

It's won because these low-key Zionists and semi-Zionists in the U.S., along with their Christian millennialist Amen Corner, will up the political pressure on Democrats and Republicans alike, when Goldstone's report offered at least the possibility of relief.

Tzipi Livni, full of PR smoke

Oh, NOOOOOWWWWW Kadima's leader and Israel's former foreign minister is wanting to do more, including "linkage," to a genuine two-state solution in the Middle East.

Rather than kicking Mahmoud Abbas in the nuts like she did a year ago, per Al Jazeera's Palestine papers.

What this is is the "fear of Egypt's future" fallout starting to hit Israel.

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is on full bipartisan foreign policy establishment suck-up mode on this one, saying she's been saying the same thing in public for years.

He still said that, with a straight face, AFTER I e-mailed him links and comments from two Guardian stories based on the Palestine papers.

From one of the Guardian stories:

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

And more ...

Here’s Lipni, again from the Guardian, favoring “transfer:”

In several areas, (then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni) pressed for Israeli Arab citizens to be moved into a Palestinian state in a land-swap deal, raising the spectre of "transfer" - in other words, moving Palestinians from one state to another without consent. The issue is controversial in Israel and backed in its wholesale form by rightwing nationalists such as the Yisrael Beiteinu party of the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Seems pretty clear, Josh, if you want to open your eyes.

That said, Josh is, if not a Zionist, highly uncritical of Israel's current bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Also, he seems to have little love last for Al Jazeera. He's not given it and its coverage Mention No. 1 during the current Egypt crisis. And, on further reflection, I don't think he did a single blog post about the Palestine papers. For lack of a better word or phrase, I'm creating the new tag of "semi-Zionism."