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Originally Posted by flacaltenn
There is no such thing as a friendly or productive 40 year "occupation" of the West Bank. It's that occupation that I join you in questioning. However, you need to realize that the Palis don't value the same stuff that Israel does. Infrastructure, hospitals, schools, are a whole lot less important to them. They have been given money to build stuff, but have little to show for it. And Jordan -- the actual claimant to the West Bank has not cared a whit about them either.. Why isn't Jordan building infrastructure (or significantly aiding the Palis) in the West Bank areas that Israel has ceded to P.A. control?
Different value scale completely.. That's a LARGE part of the disparity you see when you visit there. Technology, commerce, economic growth? Ain't even on their radar. Unless they've already left to live abroad..
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All true enough. What I object to is the enforced & blind fealty on the part of our body politic to Israel's Zionist ambitions (something you seem to have experienced first-hand). Admittedly, Obama's position, as illuminated in the speech, is a nuanced/semantic change (though not substantive) from Clinton/Dubya, but the nerve of Bebe to lecture the President (and leader of Israel's only meaningful ally and biggest benefactor) in public bothers me. Then the body politic virtually demands that Obama "walk back his position" in front of AIPAC. WTF???
Lots of people are complaining that Obama even touched on Israel in his "Arab Spring" speech. But how does he go about expressing support for popular uprisings in Israel's neighbors (Egypt and Syria) while side-stepping the issue of Palestianian rights. Answer - he can't.
Personally, I don't much care about the details of the ultimate resolution of this mess, just that it ultimately gets resolved (as long as our country is so intertwined with Israel). Having said that, I'd much prefer agnosticism or benign neglect in our relationship with Israel and the Palestinians. There's no upside in picking sides in this intractable conflict, especially if it means signing on to the unsavory tactics undertaken by "our" side.