Comment on the Belmont Club: "This Land is Mined"

wretchard,
If Obama actually got what he wanted he probably wouldn’t want it

Even worse he might. Occam's razor shaves clear a message that says that he despises Jews so much he collects creatures like Emanuel and Friedman to do his dirty work.

The VOA statement is even better. Every single clause in it is a falsehood. It is a lie so complete as to qualify as a cult tract.

for decades he United States has tried to act as a bridge
False, the United States has generally been the ally of Israel against what were Soviet clients. The State Department, in their quest to be more English than the English, were always explicitly antisemitic. This is aided by the assumption many diplomats have that the Saudis are in their employment contract as a second pension plan. Only recently has the "honest broker" theory been put forward as a stalking horse for a U.S. not aligned with Israel. The Israelis can take a cold satisfaction in knowing that puts them in the same relation with America as the British are with regards to Argentina.

following in the footsteps of his predecessors
The only footsteps he is following in are Jimmy Carter's, and that may be unfair to Carter. While Carter may not like Jews personally I do not believe that he actually wanted to see poverty and suffering increase here or abroad. Obama knows where his policies lead and likes that outcome. What is needed to justify the policy the US has pursued as an ally of Israel for the last 62 years is not philo-hebraicism but simply faith in the American interest. Harry Truman who is still considered a saint by American Jews would not allow a Jew into his private house, because it was Bess' house, unlike the White House, and she did not like Jews.

Tom Friedman also tries to set the terms of the debate with a whopper by claiming the argument is "contested East Jerusalem." That is the least contested issue on the table. By stating it that way he a priori invalidates any Israeli counterclaims and makes the entire negotiation one between the Americans, whose position is "Shut up and sign," the PLO, whose position is "We want it all but will take it in stages," and Hamas, whose position is "Kill the Jews." Every square inch of formerly Mandatory Palestine is disputed by the Israelis and most of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, and their friends and relatives. The only ones who do not have a claim on any part of the land, on either side of the 1949 Green Line, are the governments of Jordan and Egypt.

Dry Bones is alive in the Middle East. His blog has an opinion of Mr Biden.



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Fred3,
The Hebrew University and the big Hadassah hospital are south east of Ramat Shlomo

Good point. Israel lived for 19 years with the hospital in an enclave. Redrawing the map and housing patterns to ensure that such situations do not reoccur are essential for any peace settlement. If the Americans were serious about a real agreement they would be assisting in this process. Merely obstructing anything that prevents a return to the intolerable staus quo ante shows that everyone but the Israelis have no interest in ending the conflict.

We have obviously been visited by whiskey's twin doppelganger, Lucid Soda. Good analysis.

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cdor,
(who related a cordial encounter between the Trumans and Jews)

Michael Beschloss is the main expounder of the theory. There are many responses on Bing to a query. Here is one.

Personally I think HST rose above his origins and learned how to both get along in public and judge individuals shrewdly. The question wasn't whether they would associate with Jews, clearly he did, but whether Jews were allowed in Mrs Truman's house. I have seen anecdotes that some did visit them and others, chiefly derived from Beschloss quoting Susskind, that there was a boundary.

There is no doubt that he grew up in an atmosphere soaked in racial and social bitterness as a legacy of the Civil War. Remember that he was as close to that conflict as someone born in the 60s would be to WW-II or someone born in the 90s would be to Vietnam.

ManuelLabor,
(who said peace would come when Jews got Khaybar and Medina back)

Yes, just call it Yathrib, otherwise perfect.

Remember all this noise about housing in Jerusalem came after the Arabs made outraged statements that there was no historical Jewish connection with Rachel's Tomb. They continue to desecrate the Temple Mount, destroying priceless archeological artifacts in their effort to create a myth that there was no Jewish presence in Palestine. While these facts from 3,000 years ago may seem peculiar to Americans today they are very important to the people there. The Arabs and the Left are united in trying to subvert reality and prove that they have the power to do so. That is why they expend such efforts to substitute a false history for reality.