[Peace-discuss] Aaron David Miller interview / the U.S. as not being the peacemaker in Israel / Palestine

[David Green]

Mr. MILLER: "I'm saying that - to borrow a wonderful phrase from Larry Summers, who once argued that in the history of the world, nobody ever washed a rental car: We care only about what we own. And Arabs and Israelis, if this is going to succeed, have to own their own negotiations. They have to invest in them. That has not happened. So the real question is whether or not an American president can compensate for the absence of urgency, the absence of leadership, the absence of will, which is missing from the Arab-Israeli arena today with his own leadership, urgency and will. That's the question."

Really, this is all based on standard assumptions, as the reference to Summers shows, which is also a reference to Thomas Friedman. Of course Israel won't "own" negotiations when it has spent 60 years expanding its territories and expelling Palestinians, and it has the power to keep going. And all Obama would have to do is enforce international and American law, first of all by cutting off aid and arms to Israel. As Chomsky keeps saying, the solution to this problem is the simplest on on earth.

But this is, after all, NPR.

DG




________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com>
Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thu, April 22, 2010 5:26:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Aaron David Miller interview / the U.S. as not being the peacemaker in Israel / Palestine

This is important for understanding the discussion, such as it is, in 
the US media.  Here's the transcript of the interview:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126155449


Karen Medina wrote:
> Miller is actually saying in this interview that the U.S. is not an
> honest broker, or at least the U.S. is not a respected broker. He
> openly states that the wars are about oil.
> 
> Though I value David Green's opinions and agree with most of what Carl
> is saying, I do think Miller has a few valid points:
> 1) The U.S. Government should be asked to focus tremendous attention
> on stopping the settlements and opening up the borders to Gaza.
> 
> 2) The U.S. is a lousy peace negotiator.
> 
> The part I don't agree with is that Miller implies that we, the U.S.,
> should not aim to bring Israel and Palestine to an agreement [forgive
> the double negative here]. In my opinion, we (the U.S.) need to stop
> supporting Israel. Full stop.
> 
> My academic adviser recently gave me some sage advice: "Even if you
> think this person is half crazy, you still need to read what he has
> published and consider some of his arguments. You can't just disregard
> everything he says."
> 
> -karen medina
> 
> On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 7:05 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> I think we need to do more to expose the propaganda position of the US
>> government - vigorously promoted by people like Miller - that the USG is at
>> most an "honest broker" in the ME, regarding the warring parties with
>> (even-handed) benevolent concern. The object of this propaganda (US &
>> Israeli) is primarily the US public.
>>
>> What he says is "the question" is of course not the question.  The question
>> is, Will the USG be forced to stop directing its corrupt Sparta to continue
>> oppressing the Palestinians as part of the US policy of dominance of the
>> region?  And the only people who can apply that pressure are the US
>> population, who have to be propagandized and misled into not noticing what
>> the US and its client are doing.
>>
>> The problem is to make Americans AWARE of what the real policy of the US in
>> the ME is, against the lies of the Republicans & Democrats.  --CGE
>>
>>
>> On 4/21/10 6:16 PM, David Green wrote:
>>> Miller has been part of the "peace process industry" for years. His
>>> comments mean nothing and will come to nothing, such as they are.
> 

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

_______________________________________________
Peace-discuss mailing list
Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss



      
-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20100422/8af25bf3/attachment-0001.html>