Andrew Sullivan misses the elephants
Blinded by his liberal obsession with Israel, Andrew Sullivan misses the
elephants in the room.
A revolt along three borders puts Jerusalem in the company of other Middle Eastern states with large, restive Arab populations:
...
Will Jerusalem follow Cairo's lead and allow true democracy for the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, allowing them to forge their own destiny? And how will Washington cope with an important Middle Eastern ally bent on repressing the people whose land it occupies?
The logic of the Arab Spring - self-determination and democracy as a fundamental right - cannot but involve Israel's occupation and continued settlement of the West Bank at some point. Israel is, after all, no longer the only democracy in the Middle East. It is just the only democracy forcibly occupying a foreign land and refusing to give the occupants full civil or political rights.
How much did Sullivan miss? Well, for starters, the 'Arab spring' is supposed to be about people taking their own countries back, not about destroying another country. For seconds, the attempts to invade Israel from Syria and Lebanon (and Egypt and Jordan, although there the local armies stopped them) have nothing to do with the 'Palestinians' in the 'West Bank' and everything to do with an attempt to destroy the State of Israel. Third, the 'Palestinians' feel so 'repressed' in Judea and Samaria that all they really want is to
be part of Israel, and not part of 'Palestine' should such an entity ever - God forbid - be formed. Fourth, even if we wanted to give up the 'West Bank,' no one would take it without also getting a 'right of return' to what would be left of Israel, which would destroy what is left of the Jewish state via demographics. Fifth, what country is Sullivan counting as a democracy in this region other than Israel? Egypt? Let's see what happens after the Muslim Brotherhood wins the elections before making that judgment.
Andrew is so blinded by his obsession with Israel that he can't see the elephants in the room. And you thought it was only
Sarah Palin's bustline that did that to him.
Labels: Andrew Sullivan, elephants in the room, Sarah Palin
Don't donate money to fight Israel's forest fires?
Jeffrey Goldberg has been spending too much time listening to the lunatic ravings of his co-blogger Andrew Sullivan. He's urging you
not to donate money to help rebuild from the ravages of the forest fire in Israel (Hat Tip:
Shy Guy via
Hot Air).
Inevitably, the Jewish National Fund, which, among other things, plants forests in Israel, is asking for donations from Americans for its "Forest Fire Emergency Campaign," in response to the massive fire spreading across the Carmel mountains. But I'm not giving.
Israel's per capita GDP is nearly $30,000. Israel is a rich country. The fact that it doesn't possess adequate firefighting equipment is its own fault. The fact that the leadership of its fire service is incompetent is its own fault (you can read more about that here). At some point, the good-hearted Diaspora Jews who still think of Israel as a charity case are going to have to tell their cousins to learn to fully-fund basic services like firefighting if they want to be thought of as citizens of an advanced country.
There are a great many good causes in Israel that deserve help, and a great many causes here in America that deserve our help. It seems to me, however, that Israel's national fire service should be funded by Israel's government, not by the people of Boca Raton, Potomac and the Upper West Side.
By Goldberg's logic, I suppose Israel should not have sent any equipment to help out with Hurricane Katrina. For that matter, neither should anyone else outside New Orleans have helped. After all, it was well-known that the levees around New Orleans were at a risk of flooding. New Orleans is a rich city, and America is a rich country. The City of New Orleans should have dealt with the problem, and if it didn't, its residents should have paid the ultimate price.
The same goes for the specialized equipment Israel sent to help after the earthquake in Turkey. They should be prepared for earthquakes - they're relatively frequent occurrences there. The same for tsunamis in Indonesia and Thailand earthquakes in Haiti (okay, they really are poor) and embassy bombings around the world.
In fact, why don't we just become isolationists altogether? You know - ignore everyone outside our own neighborhood/city/country. Ridiculous....
If this had been any country other than Israel, would Goldberg (or anyone else) even have suggested it?
Labels: Andrew Sullivan, arson, Carmel forest, forest fire, Haifa, Jeffrey Goldberg
Where was he during the Bush administration?
Andrew Sullivan rips incoming House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor (R-Va) for his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu last week and his remarks about supporting Israel against the anticipated Obama administration onslaught.
Steve Benen: This is a legitimate scandal worthy of far more attention. When dealing with foreign policy and climate change, Republicans believe in trying to deliberately sabotage the position of the U.S. government. The same is true of U.S. policy towards Iran, and in the case of New START, possibly even U.S. policy towards Russia. Now it's true of U.S. policy towards Israel, too.
It's obviously not unreasonable for Americans to debate whether the Obama administration is pursuing the correct course on foreign policy, and I fully expect members of Congress from both parties to demand accountability of the White House. People can and should speak out when they disagree with the administration's approach to Israel, Iran, Russia, or any other country.
But Cantor's move is something altogether different. Just a few years after he suggested it was literally criminal for an American official to talk to a foreign leader and work against the sitting president, Cantor has done just that.
Where's the outrage?
Where indeed?
Funny, I don't recall hearing anything from Sullivan in 2007 when then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democrats to Damascus to
undermine the Bush administration's policy of isolating Bashar al-Assad.
So maybe Sullivan's (and Benen's) criticism is just partisan?
Labels: Andrew Sullivan, Bashar al-Assad, Binyamin Netanyahu, Eric Cantor, Nancy Pelosi
Blinded by his liberal obsession with Israel, Andrew Sullivan misses the elephants in the room. 
