I’m not sure it calls for hope, but it at least deserves a good LOL.  What the hell do they want?  Maybe they want what they said: for you to stop settling poor Jewish immigrants on Palestinian land to further your territorial ends.

I think we can all agree that they’re pretty much the douchiest sons of bitches on the planet.

Sorry, but that title will always belong to Joe Lieberman, God-King of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

Sorry, but that title will always belong to Joe Lieberman

I just think there are too many contenders for that title right now, sean, to give it away yet.

I dunno, gil, this whole conflict has gone on for so long with no voice of reason seemingly able to make any inroads.  Which doesn’t mean it’s not POSSIBLE for a reasonable two state solution to be negotiated but is it probable in our lifetimes?  (I’m just thinking here how many more years I’m likely to live . . . )

The whole damn thing is a proxy war, so until we involve Syria and Saudi Arabia in the talks it’s kind of pointless.

Yes, I’m feeling cynical this morning.

Israel was a bad idea from the get-go, a product of colonial map-fucking hubris, cynical opportunism, a false but beguiling mythic narrative and a last-minute flurry of post-war horse-trading to stymie Soviet designs on the Middle East. What the Powers hoped for was a kind of mini-Utah with liquor, sex, decent shopping and klezmer music. What they got was a militarized Euro Disney that rents bulldozers to angry drunks and then drops burning magnesium on the townies when they complain.

The tragic irony at the bottom of a Jenga-pile of tragic ironies is that nobody really wants peace. The I/P conflict gives the Arab states a unifying grievance (without which they would turn on each other and/or collapse from internal tribal, ethnic and class tensions), as well as a potent bargaining chip with the West. At the same time, Israel’s status as a friendly democracy and a regional beachhead gives them leverage they’d never have if they were just another tiny nation with modest buying-power and delicious figs.

The Powers, of course, are happy because they end up with all the chips—selling weapons to everyone, and using the mere whiff of Israeli concessions to pacify our Arab friends and keep agreeable dictatorships in power, while simultaneously encouraging them to eye each other with deep suspicion, lest any Arab state embrace Israel first and blow the game for everyone else.

Israel, of course, is down with the program, because its leadership is keenly aware that—as both a concept and a nation—“Israel” would never survive a peaceful resolution of the I/P dispute. Without mortal enemies on all sides, Israel would become the Morocco of the Levant, with a majority Arab population and no oil, but a ton of cool dance clubs and Old Testament attractions.

As for the Palestinians, they are equally despised by both Arabs and Jews, and they know they’ll never get the land back. But after 60 years as a fenced-in turkey-shoot with no industrial infrastructure left and an economy based entirely on pawn-in-someone-else’s-game subsidies, I’m not sure they’d know what to do with peace, either.

More power to Hillary if she actually has a plan, and isn’t just keeping the chatter alive for another four years, or until the Middle East is swamped by glacial melting. But when no one in the equation stands to benefit from peace, a champagne toast is probably premature.

I’m not sure it calls for hope

but is it probable in our lifetimes?

a champagne toast is probably premature

It’s funny (not ha-ha funny, more like bawl-sob funny) that I couldn’t maintain my initial optimism for three whole paragraphs and I still wasn’t being bleakly cynical enough for this subject matter.

I’m not giving up on peace, though. In fact, I’d put the odds of a viable two-state solution slightly ahead those of me writing a post that’s more eloquent and compelling than whatever comment StrangeAppar8us leaves afterward.

Thanks for linking to the FT article, makes me a little more optimistic.  And I’m glad Mitchell is involved, he was crucial in getting all the parties in Northern Ireland to make compromises. 
I don’t have much respect for the Palestinian leadership. But as far as I’m concerned, Israel lost most of their goodwill points by selling arms to Apartheied South Africa,racist Rhodesia and Somoza’s Nicaragua. Plus,they invited Nazi collaborator John Vorster for a state visit(while he was Prime Minister of South Africa).
The frustrating thing is that there’s plenty of debate in Israel on the topic(just look at Haaretz), but if you say the same things in the US, you get denounced as an anti-semite or a self-hating jew.

Leave it to Mrs. P to summon an infinitely better and more thoughtful version of me, as a reminder and instruction to my present self to think harder and quit coasting.

The bottom line of both posts is that the I/P conflict is a tempest in a Petri dish, which all parties hope to weaponize, but none seeks to cure.

All talk of peace is bullshit, as is any tit-for-tat tally of “righter” and “wronger.” Israel is a nonsense nation encircled by other nonsense nations, none of which would exist today if Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif had parted as friends at the end of Lawrence of Arabia, and the secular Zionists had taken a longer, harder look at Northern Rhodesia or Palm Springs.

At the risk of invoking an overused trope (or two), this is all kabuki, and Netanyahu is a loud angry man who lives in his Mom’s basement, and really doesn’t have a vote in whether we serve him Mac’n'Cheese or Spaghetti-Os. Hopefully, Hillary will convince him that “Bad Cop” is a starring role, because there are plenty of hungry understudies available.

It would be even more swell if anyone was actually serious about resolving the I/P conflict, but they’re not. It works fine just the way it is.

mar—You’re right, of course, but Holy Joe is such an all-around douchiness athlete that it can be hard to imagine him being defeated in an all-around douche-off.  He has the sniveling voice, the craven opportunism, the blatant dishonesty, the phony moralizing…

Holy Joe is such an all-around douchiness athlete that it can be hard to imagine him being defeated in an all-around douche-off.

No question he’s definitely a finalist for the title.  I’ll have to give some thought to this and run a contest for Douchiest Son of a Bitch on the Planet.  I’ll put up some nominees (and women won’t necessarily be excluded) and ask for some nominations from the floor and we can get a vote on it.

I have nothing in particular to add.  I just wanted to say that I love commenting at a blog that is not only unafraid to touch the third rail of I/P disputes, but grabs onto the rail with both hands because it finds the electrical current refreshing…

Oh, and mar, when you put together the DSOBOTP ballot, don’t forget:

Rudy Giuliani
Mittens
Fred… oh what the hell, everyone who competed for the 2008 Republican nomination

The Media nominees:

David Gregory
Jake Tapper
Chip Reid
Ed Henry… oh what the hell, the entire WH press corps

I’m beginning to think this is going to be an extensive ballot.

Allan, I agree with Chip Reid. For sullying my ancestral surname, and for being a grown-ass man who allows himself to be called “Chip.”

Allan, I’m beginning to think it will be a monumental task to narrow it down to a top 5 or so.  But I’m feeling up to it!!

Hey, so did Obama actually forgive Lieberman into irrelevance just like the “he’s playing 3-D chess while we’re all playing checkers” crowd said would happen? I don’t think I’ve even heard the guy’s name mentioned since Fred Armisen’s “keep it cool” sketch.

All talk of peace is bullshit

This puts me in the awkward position of defending an optimism I was merely affecting to set up a cheap gag, but I’m gonna hafta beg to differ. Not that it’s bullshit, that’s inarguable, but that because it’s bullshit, there’s no point in engaging. Tying the Likudniks’ hands, even if it’s just for the sake of appearances, means less dead people. Same goes for unsustainable cease-fires. Intellectual honesty for a few lives? That’s a fair trade.

I dunno, maybe this is yet another one of those back-and-forths wherein the parties aren’t really having the same argument—-I seem to get into those a lot—-but you’re saying what, that we should just stay out of it? Yeah, probably, but that’s so moot it’s practically a Marvel What-If.

Dude, lookit us having a mighty clash of opposing worldviews! “Lost cause” vs. “sure seems like a lost cause.” Epic flamewar, gimme five. (knocks monitor off desk with palm of hand, retrieves monitor)

Allan, thanks man, that’s cool of you to say. To be fair, there’re plenty of bloggers out there tackling the issue, but—-not to toot my own horn here—-very few who’re willing to feign insight into a subject about which they’re hopelessly ignorant in order to justify the thing about the bullfighter.

That’s where I thought all the comment action was gonna come from, frankly. Homeboy got C0WN3D.

One of the great things about Rumproast is that it’s the only blog I know where the posters shit on you for agreeing with them, then melvin your underpants for a phantom assertion they only think you made because their neighbor’s dog told them so (in between the usual rant about cleansing the city of human filth with a hail of righteous copper-jacketed lead), and finally apologize by slamming your dick in a car door while shouting, “But, then, I jest!”

No, we can never disengage, because the prospect of an I/P peace is a necessary fiction, a maguffin, a geopolitical Treasure of Sierra Madre in the pursuit of which all sorts of otherwise unseemly connivance, mayhem and blackmail can be made to seem legitimate and proper, even noble.

So there. Now, come at me again and I’ll cut you, I swear.

shit on you ... melvin ... slamming your dick in a car door

With the minor exceptions of a) coming across in the opposite manner of that intended and b) realizing too late that the enjoyment being had was completely one-sided, I’d say I’ve done myself rather proud here. (leans back, stretches suspenders out with thumbs)