Serveto
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- Joined
- Apr 20, 2017
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- 1,043
I doubt that the USA ever did have that type of influence. Wrote Robert Fisk (my comments in brackets):... A few years ago, the US could have used its leverage (as an independent broker) to bring both sides together and force them into ceasing hostilities. I'm not sure the US has that type of influence, anymore ...
"There was a time when we [I assume he means acquiescent journalists] all went along with the myth that American peacemaking in the Middle East was even-handed, neutral, uninfluenced by the religion or political background or business activities of the peacemakers. Even when, during the Clinton administration, the four principle US “peacemakers” were all Jewish Americans – their lead negotiator, Dennis Ross, a former prominent staff member of the most powerful Israeli lobby group, Aipac ... the Western press scarcely mentioned this [note that here Fisk doesn't offer any reasons for how, or why the Western press were so uniformly silent on the issue]. Only in Israel was it news, where the Maariv newspaper called them “the mission of four Jews”.
The Israeli writer and activist [here, it seems to me, Fisk, keeping his career in mind, no doubt wisely follows standard protocol: in order to avoid being unfairly accused of antisemitism, discuss Jewish political power only by quoting Jews, or Israelis, themselves discussing that power], Meron Benvenisti, wrote in Ha’aretz newspaper that ... “it is hard to ignore the fact that manipulation of the peace process was entrusted by the US in the first place to American Jews ... The tremendous influence of the Jewish establishment on the Clinton administration found its clearest manifestation in redefining the ‘occupied territories’ as ‘territories in dispute’.
But lest they be accused of antisemitism [see Carl Bernstein's statement here concerning the taboo as it related to the Bush administration], said Benvenisti, the Palestinians “cannot, God forbid, talk about Clinton’s ‘Jewish connection’...” Still slandered as “antisemitic” for merely condemning Israel’s brutality and occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the same fear still eats away at the courage of the Palestinian Authority. When Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner became the disgraceful President’s [Go Fisk! -I think it's safe to conclude that Fisk is no Trump fan lol] peace “envoy”, the Palestinians, well aware that he supported the continued – and internationally illegal – colonisation of Arab land, even politely welcomed his sudden exaltation as peacemaker. It was the Israeli media that first pointed out how little he knew – and how few people he knew – in the real Middle East ..."
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