There is one statement you make here that I have given a lot of thought:
Perhaps the single largest mistake in the history of the Israeli government’s long war on terrorism was its covert financing, cosseting, and arming of Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement

I can see you being both right and wrong at the same time with this statement, James. There are many ways to look at this.

The “right” way should be a strategic long term view. Anything that leads to more radicalization and violence between people can only be bad in the long term, and in this sense you are right. That is even more the case when those people have ultimately few choices: peacefull cohabitation or violent destruction. Clearly in this case, there was a de facto bet taken that the long term security of Israel and its people could best be maintained in through violence, apartheid and violation of the rights of the Palestinians, for an indefinite duration. I would not like those odds if I was living there.

At a craven political level, for the likes of Netanhayu, you are clearly wrong. This is the best thing that could happen to them. First, Hamas was nurtured as an internal opposition to the PLO and Arafat (he of many shortcomings, but at least one who would engage on a political peace process with the Israelis, and as such, was of no appeal to the hawks and needed to be either radicalised, marginalized or removed). Hamas provided those Israeli hawks with perfect excuses for a step wise disengagement from the peace process, ramping up of an apartheid policy and eventual war of aggression. What’s not to like? :(

In addition it gave those politicians a vehicle by which to manipulate and control the (already too willing) US government. For example, I regard the Palestinian elections as a stroke of genius on the part of those craven Israeli politicians. I have no doubt they fully planned and expected (and probably hoped for) a Hammas victory. They played the US government (Condi in particular) into believing there was a real hope for a real democratic process that they really supported, and that would yield a Palestinian government that would be ready for a peace negotiation in earnest. But does anyone seriously believe they did not know Hammas would win, and maybe even that they did not do all the could to help them win? At that time, a falsely shocked Israeli governement and a naively but truly shocked US government both denounced Hammas and the Palestinians as unworthy. The US was tied in even deeper than before, and Israel did not have to worry about peace talks anymore.

Hence, if you’d written your initial sentence in this way, James, I would have agreed with you:
Perhaps the single largest mistake in the history of both the Israeli people’s and the Palestinian people’s long quests for sustainable peace was their tacit support of their respective extrememists’ complicity in the Israeli government’s covert financing, cosseting, and arming of Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement.

Regards

It’s not hard to understand.

“Moderate” means “compliant”. Compliant states that do what they are told by Amerika are “moderate”.

States that disobey the Evil Empire and pursue their own interests instead are “radical”.

Forcing people into a giant open air concentration camp, sealing all the exits, denying them food, water, medical supplies and electricity and murdering UN workers who attempt to deliver aid to them, then bombing the city and burning them with white phosphorus are not
war crimes and crimes against humanity because they are being done *by* Zionists. If these things were done *to* Zionists, then those would be monstrous crimes.

It’s important to understand the language and how the meaning of words is twisted. Israel has not launched an aggressive war and this one-sided massacre is not genocide ( even though Matan Vilnai let the cat out of the bag last year when he threatened Palestinians with a “Greater Holocaust” – see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israels-warning-rocket-fire-from-gaza-will-result-in-a-palestinian-holocaust-790004.html ). Instead, it is just Israel “defending itself”.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

In fact it doesn’t deserve it at all. Nor is it in the interests of Americans to give it. It all just goes to show what a powerful organized ethnic lobby can accomplish in the dysfunctional corrupt American political system.

Secondly, the aid given to Egypt is a direct cost of support for Israel. If Israel hadn’t shunned Egypt’s treaty proposals after the 1967 Israeli aggression then it would never have been necessary to buy the Egyptian elite’s complicity.