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November 14, 2003
Another big lie
An astonishing and malevolent rewriting of history by Sidney Blumenthal, a former adviser to President Clinton. According to a piece by him in the Guardian, the Middle East road map went down the pan because of the 'neo-cons' around Bush -- to be more precise, Elliot Abrams, head of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, here stomach-churningly invested with quite diabolical power. In Blumenthal's version, the Abrams-controlled Bush refused to put pressure on Israel to stop building West bank settlements, the one thing that could have saved Abu Mazen's Palestinian prime ministership.This is truly fantastic. Mazen went belly-up because from day one of his office, Arafat refused to cede control to him of what mattered -- particularly security and foreign affairs. Arafat remained firmly in control of the Palestinian Authority, in breach of the very premise on which the road map was founded and which made it therefore a dead duck from the very start. Mazen was slowly but surely strangled by this deadly grip, as is his successor. Moreover, Mazen simply refused to do what the road map required as the very first step in the process -- that he should dismantle Palestinian terror -- because he said he had no intention of starting a Palestinian civil war. The idea that, if Sharon had stopped the settlement expansion (which I agree was and is unjustifiable, stupid and self-defeating) Mazen would have defeated Arafat and fulfilled the first requirement of the road map, is simply an insult to the intelligence. The road map is now dead in the White House because Bush -- who as Blumenthal said was only pushed into it by Blair -- came to realise that the PA would not deliver and was still actively involved in terrorism itself. Mohamed Dahlan, Mazen's security chief, went to Washington and produced a detailed plan to show how he would sort out the militants and stop the terror. He didn't do any of it. Bush simply realised he had been duped. It wasn't the neo-cons, Mr Blumenthal, who continued to pay the PA's Al Aqsa brigade to join with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in blowing up Israelis. It wasn't the neo-cons who blew up the two Americans who were in Gaza to award Fulbright scholarships. To blame the Israelis and the 'neo-cons' for the collapse of a corrupt process which revealed itself as such to everyone not willing to be manipulated by a vicious inversion of facts, morality and logic is truly disgusting. Posted by melanie at November 14, 2003
Comments
This may be an 'astonishing and malevolent rewriting of history' to M. Phillips, but the article seems entirely plausible when you consider the murky background of Elliott Abrams. Err...Actually Blumenthal is right. Even Israel's quite right wing chief-of-staff Moshe Ya'alon has acknowledged that Israel could and should have done more to help Abu Mazen. But never mind, eh, Israel's got another 15 years max. It'll implode because of its own extremists' desire to hang on to 'biblical' territory, despite the fact that demographically, Jews will be outnumbered by non-Jews. Posted by: Dan Gleebitz at November 15, 2003 10:16 PM"Perhaps its just another case of 'Only In America'." Right. Like there are no shady politicians anywhere else. Get down off your high horse, Eurosnot. "It'll implode because of its own extremists' desire to hang on to 'biblical' territory, despite the fact that demographically, Jews will be outnumbered by non-Jews." First of all, Melanie is right about Abu Mazen. Second, the majority of Israelis would be happy to hand the WB over to any group with a chance of turning into a peaceful state that will be a good neighbor to Israel. If there was a credible Palestinian leader who would keep the State of Palestine from being a staging ground for Arab terrorism, the "biblical extremists" wouldn't get traction. Posted by: Yehudit at November 16, 2003 03:45 AM'Like there are no shady politicians anywhere else'. 'The majority of Israelis would be happy to hand the WB over to any group with a chance of turning into a peaceful state that will be a good neighbor to Israel.' Mel is conveniently forgetting that Ariel Sharon was elected - not so long ago - by a very large majority, which is a reasonable measure of 'public opinion'. Prime Ministers have to lead, which often means employing a strategy that does not follow every twist and turn in public opinion. Elsewhere in this diary, there is comment about the death penalty, which public opinion in the UK has consistently supported for many years. Our elected politicians have chosen to ignore that public opinion. Right through the 50 years of her existence, Israel has been willing to negotiate and make concessions to those who would live in peace with her, The PLO Charter still calls for the destruction of Israel. In 1967, the whole of the territories taken during the war that the Arabs started was offered back (except West Jerusalem) on condition that Israel was recognised by the Arab nations. That was turned down. Meanwhile, one-sixth of the Israeli population are Arabs, virtually all of whom are law-abiding citizens with democratic rights and with a much higher standard of living than the majorities in the surrounding Arab dictatorships, whose leaders apparently regard the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel as a greater priority than running fair and just societies. The demonising of Arik Sharon by people who aren't prepared to accept the fact of his election by a well-educated, civilised society (many of whom have quite recently emigrated from the USA, UK and other European nations) is quite scandalous. Posted by: Peter at November 17, 2003 02:17 PMBlumenthal is just relaying (uncritically) an account of the discussion as presented by Khalil Shikaki (see the article). The claim is particularly untenable because "settlement building" was indeed frozen during the period that the "roadmap" was in effect - back then the discussion revolved around dismantling the hilltop clusters of trailers known as 'illegal outposts'. But Blumenthal, the Guardian, and some of the commenters above seem to feel that believing Shikaki is simply more comfortable for them. Posted by: Tal G. at November 17, 2003 02:25 PM |
