The U.S. is now formally supporting Israel’s efforts at economic pacification, writes Jonathan Cook.
By JonathanCook
Jonathan-Cook.net
The White House’s prolonged financial bullying of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians’ government-in-waiting, has reached the point where there are now credible warnings that it is close to collapse. The crisis has offered critics further proof of the administration’s seemingly chaotic, often self-sabotaging approach to foreign policy matters.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials charged with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have demonstrated ever more blatant bias, such as the recent claims by David Friedman, the ambassador to Israel, that Israel is “on the side of God” and should have the “right to retain” much of the West Bank.
Critics view the Trump administration’s approach as a dangerous departure from the traditional U.S. role of “honest broker.”
Such analyses, however common, are deeply misguided. Far from lacking a strategy, the White House has a precise and clear one for imposing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century.” Even without publication so far of a formal document, the plan’s contours are coming ever more sharply into relief, as its implementation becomes observable on the ground.
Friedman during 2018 visit to Nazareth. (Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)
Repeated delays in announcing the plan are simply an indication that Trump’s team needs more time to engineer a suitable political environment for the plan to be brought out of the shadows.
Further, the Trump administration’s vision of the future for Israelis and Palestinians – however extreme and one-sided – has wide, bipartisan support in Washington. There’s nothing especially “Trumpian” about the administration’s emerging “peace process.”
Choking Off Aid
Paradoxically, that was evident last week, when leading members of the U.S. Congress from both sides of the aisle introduced a bill to boost the ailing Palestinian economy by $50m. The hope is to create a “Partnership Fund for Peace” that will offer a financial fillip to Israelis and Palestinians seeking to resolve the conflict – or, at least, that is what is being claimed.
This sudden concern for the health of the Palestinian economy is a dramatic and confusing U-turn. Congress has been an active and enthusiastic partner with the White House in choking off aid to the PA for more than a year.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, told The New York Times last week that the PA was on the brink of implosion. “We are in a collapsing situation,” he told the newspaper.
The PA’s crisis comes as no surprise. Congress helped initiate it by passing the Taylor Force Act in March 2018. It requires the U.S. to halt funding to the PA until it stops paying stipends to some 35,000 families of Palestinians jailed, killed or maimed by Israel.
Brink of Collapse
Previous U.S. administrations might well have signed a waiver to prevent such legislation from going into effect – just as presidents until Trump blocked a congressional law passed in 1995 demanding that the U.S. move its embassy to Jerusalem.
But the Trump White House is not interested in diplomatic face-saving or reining in the pro-Israel zealotry of U.S. legislators. It fervently and explicitly shares the biases that have long been inherent in the U.S. political system.
In line with the Taylor Force Act, the White House has cut off vital funds for Palestinians, including to UNRWA, the United Nations’ refugee agency for Palestinians, and to hospitals in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
The decision by Congress to throttle the PA has had further repercussions, leaving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exposed domestically. Not daring to be seen as less anti-PA than U.S. legislators, Netanyahu implemented his own version of the Taylor Force Act earlier this year.
Since February, he has withheld a portion of the taxes Israel collects on behalf of the PA, the vast bulk of its income, equal to the stipends transferred to the Palestinian families of prisoners and casualties of Israeli violence – or those who Israel and the U.S. simplemindedly refer to as “terrorists.”
That, in turn, has left Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in an impossible position. He dare not be seen accepting an Israeli diktat that legitimizes withholding Palestinian money, or one that defines as “terrorists” those who have sacrificed the most for the Palestinian cause. So he has refused the entire monthly tax transfer until the full amount is reinstated.
Now, just as these various blows against the PA finally threaten to topple it, the U.S. Congress suddenly prepares to step in and bail out the Palestinian economy with $50m. What on earth is going on?
Neighborhood in West Bank city of Ariel. (Ori via Wikimedia Commons)
‘Money for Quiet’
The small print is telling. The PA, the Palestinians’ fledgling government, is not eligible for any of the U.S. Congress’s promised largesse.
If the legislation passes, the money will be handed to “Palestinian entrepreneurs and companies,” as well as non-governmental organizations, willing to work with the U.S. and Israel on “people-to-people peace-building” programs and “reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.”
In other words, the legislation is actually designed as another strike against the Palestinians’ existing leadership. The PA is being bypassed yet again, as the U.S. and Israel try to bolster an alternative economic, rather than political, leadership.
This move by U.S. representatives is not occurring in a vacuum. Since the effective collapse of the Oslo accords nearly two decades ago, Washington has sought to downgrade a national conflict that needs a political solution into a humanitarian crisis that needs an economic one.
It is a variation on Netanyahu’s long-standing goal to smash the Palestinian national struggle and replace it with “economic peace.”
Where once the goal of peacemaking was “land in exchange for peace” – that is, a Palestinian state in return for an end to hostilities – now the aim is “money in exchange for quiet.” The U.S. is now formally supporting Israel’s efforts at economic pacification.
Outrage at New Elections
The Trump administration has devised a two-stage process for neutralizing Palestinians.
Firstly, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been tasked with winning over Arab states, particularly those in the oil-rich Gulf, to stump up money for pacifying Palestinians and their neighbors.
This is the aim of an investment conference due to be held in Bahrain later this month – the lynchpin of the “deal of the century,” not simply a prelude to it.
That was why Trump himself was so visibly outraged at the delay caused by Netanyahu’s decision to dissolve the Israeli parliament last month, a reflection of his political weakness as he faces imminent corruption trials. The new elections in Israel, Trump grumbled, were “ridiculous” and “messed up.”
The intention of the Bahrain conference is to use tens of billions of dollars raised by Washington to buy off opposition to the Trump deal, chiefly from Egypt and Jordan, which are critical to the pacification program’s success.
Any refusal by the Palestinians to surrender, either in Gaza or the West Bank, could have major repercussions for these neighboring states.
Alternative Leaders
Secondly, Friedman is at the center of efforts to identify recipients for the Gulf-funded handouts. He has been seeking to forge a new alliance between the settlers, with whom he is closely aligned, and Palestinians who may be willing to help in the pacification project. Late last year, he attended a meeting of Palestinian and Israeli business leaders in the West Bank city of Ariel.
Afterwards he tweeted that the business community was “ready, willing and able to advance joint opportunity & peaceful coexistence. People want peace and we are ready to help! Is the Palestinian leadership listening?”
At the invitation of the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce, I met in Ariel with Palestinian & Israeli business leaders ready, willing & able to advance joint opportunity & peaceful coexistence. People want peace & we are ready to help! Is the Palestinian leadership listening? pic.twitter.com/g91fGHNDzF
— David M. Friedman (@USAmbIsrael) October 16, 2018
Friedman has made no bones about where his – and supposedly God’s – priorities lie, throwing his weight behind the growing clamor in Israel to annex much of the territory that was once seen as integral to creating a Palestinian state. With that as the administration’s lode star, the task is now to find a Palestinian leadership prepared to stand by as the finishing touches are put on a Greater Israel ordained by God.
Concerns in Washington about the PA’s unwillingness to comply were voiced last week by Kushner, though he dressed them up as doubts about the Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves. He said of the PA: “The hope is that they, over time, will become capable of governing.” He added that the real test of the administration’s plan would be whether Palestinian areas became “investable.”
Kushner, second from left, in 2017, with other members of the Trump administration, arriving as honored guest of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 2017, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (White House/ Shealah Craighead)
“When I speak to Palestinian people, what they want is they want the opportunity to live a better life. They want the opportunity to pay their mortgage,” he said.
Washington is therefore looking to influential families in the West Bank that could potentially be recruited with bribes to serve as an alternative, compliant leadership. In February it was reported that around 200 businesspeople, Israeli mayors and heads of Palestinian communities met in Jerusalem “to advance business partnerships between Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs”.
Corrupt Tribal Fiefdoms
It has been natural for the Trump administration to look to a business elite – one that, it hopes, will be prepared to forgo a national solution if the economic environment is liberalized enough to allow for new regional and global investment opportunities.
These individuals belong to extended families that dominate the West Bank’s major cities. Such powerful families may be prepared to assist in the elimination of the PA, in return for a corrupt patronage system allowing them to take control of their respective cities.
Palestinian analysts, like Samir Awad, a politics professor at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, have told me that the Israeli and U.S. vision of Palestinian “autonomy” may amount to little more than a system of tribal fiefdoms, reminiscent of Afghanistan.
There are already a few Palestinian partners emerging, such as Hebron businessman Ashraf Jabari, who is reportedly planning to attend the Bahrain conference.
He and other business leaders have been quietly developing ties with counterparts in the settler movement, such as Avi Zimmerman. Together, they have set up a joint chamber of commerce covering the West Bank.
It is precisely such initiatives that are being promoted by Friedman and would be eligible for grants from the $50m fund the U.S. Congress is currently legislating.
Ultimately, these Palestinian business “partners” could form an elite to serve as an ostensible national address for the international community in its dealings with the Palestinian people.
Sword Over PA
The PA doesn’t have to be discarded for the Trump plan to progress. But alternative national and local leaderships need to be cultivated by Washington to serve both as a sword hanging over the PA’s head, to encourage it to capitulate, and as an alternative ruling class, should the PA fail to submit to the “deal of the century.”
In short, Washington is playing a game of chicken with Abbas and the PA. It is determined that the Palestinians will blink first.
Deeply implicated in Washington’s vision, even if largely out of sight, are the Arab states, whose role is to strong-arm whatever Palestinian leadership is required for the Greater Israel “deal of the century” to be implemented.
The burden of managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will shift once again. When Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in 1967, it became directly responsible for the welfare of Palestinians living there.
Since the mid-1990s, when the Palestinian leadership was allowed to return under the Oslo accords, the PA has had to shoulder the task of keeping the territories quiet on Israel’s behalf. Now, after the PA has refused to sign off on Israel’s ambitions to take for itself East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank, the PA is increasingly seen as having outlived its usefulness.
Instead, Palestinian expectations may have to be managed via another route – through the key Arab states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan. Or, as Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri recently noted, the Bahrain conference “foreshadows the beginning of abandoning the [Palestine Liberation Organization] as the Palestinians’ representative, thereby opening the door … for a new era of Arab patronage over the Palestinians to take hold.”
Years of Imperial Overreach
Members of the Trump administration in 2017 arriving as honored guests of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 2017, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (White House/ Shealah Craighead)
Under Trump, what has changed most significantly in the U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the urgency of Washington’s efforts to set aside the Palestinian national struggle once and for all.
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, U.S. administrations – with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter’s – had only a marginal interest in forcing a settlement on Israelis and Palestinians. Aside from lip service to peace, they were mostly content to leave the two sides to engage in an asymmetrical struggle that always favored Israel. This was sold as “conflict management.”
But after 15 years of U.S. imperial overreach in the Middle East – and faced with major foreign policy setbacks in Iraq and Syria, and Israel’s related failures in Lebanon – Washington desperately needs to consolidate its position against rivals and potential rivals in this oil-rich region.
Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and even Europe, are jostling in different ways for a more assertive role in the Middle East. As it tries to counter these influences, the U.S. wishes to bring together its main allies in the region: Israel and the key Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia.
Although secret ties between the two sides have been growing for some time, unresolved tensions remain over Israel’s demand that it be allowed to maintain regional superiority in military and intelligence matters. That has been obvious in current power battles playing out in Washington.
The Trump administration last month declared extraordinary measures to bypass Congress so that it could sell more than $8 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan. In retaliation, Congressional leaders close to Israel vowed they would block the arms sales.
Splinter in Region’s Windpipe
In the White House’s view, little further progress can be made until the Palestinian splinter stuck deep in the Middle East’s windpipe is removed.
Most Arab leaders care nothing for the Palestinian cause, and have come to bitterly resent the way the Palestinians’ enduring struggle for statehood has complicated their own dealings in the region, especially with Iran and Israel.
They would enthusiastically embrace a full partnership with the U.S. and Israel in the region, if only they could afford to be seen doing so.
But the Palestinians’ struggle against Israel – and its powerful symbolism in a region that has experienced so much malign Western interference – continues to serve as a brake on Washington’s efforts to forge tighter and more explicit alliances with the Arab states.
Serious Case of Hubris
As such, the Trump administration has concluded that “conflict management” is no longer in U.S. interests. It needs to isolate and dispose of the Palestinian splinter. Once that encumbrance is out of the way, the White House believes it can get on with forging a coalition with Israel and most of the Arab states to reassert its dominance over the Middle East.
All of this will likely prove far harder to achieve than the Trump administration imagines, as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intimated last week in private.
But it would be wrong nonetheless to assume that the strategy behind Trump’s “deal of the century,” however unrealistic, is not clear-sighted in both its aims and methods.
It would be similarly misguided to believe that the administration’s policy is a maverick one. It is operating within the ideological constraints of the Washington foreign policy elite, even if Trump’s “peace plan” lies at the outer margins of the establishment consensus.
The Trump administration enjoys bipartisan backing from Congress both for its Jerusalem embassy move and for economic measures that threaten to crush the PA, a government-in-waiting that has already made enormous compromises in agreeing to statehood on a tiny fraction of its people’s historic homeland.
No doubt the Trump White House is suffering from a serious case of hubris in trying to eliminate the Palestinian cause for good. But that hubris, however dangerous, we should remember, is shared by much of the U.S. political establishment.
Jonathan Cook is a freelance journalist based in Nazareth. This article is from his website, Jonathan Cook.net.
The original premise for supporting Palestinian claims was that the Palestinians were fighting a war of national liberation in accordance with the doctrine of national liberation from colonial rule that has been incorporated into international law.
However that premise is no longer valid because now the Palestinians are no longer fighting a war of national liberation but are instead fighting a religious war against the unbelievers.
THE EVIDENCE:
Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Supreme sharia Judge for the Palestinian Authority and adviser on Islamic affairs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, says “Jerusalem is Arab Palestinian land, and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with all its components and with its 14.8-hectare compound, is a unique Islamic-Arab-Palestinian right, and the Jews have not the slightest claim to it.” [Al-Yawm Al-Sabi’ (Egypt), August 16, 2016; Wafa.ps, August 16, 2016.]
Hamas official Rafiq Abu Hani said in a speech that aired on March 17, 2019 on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas/Gaza) that the goal of the Palestinians is Jihad for the sake of Allah. He then drew a handgun and brandished it, saying: “We all agree that our weapons – in which lie our honor and strength – will be put down only in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.”
in 2015 Mahmoud Abbas made a speech in Ramallah saying, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shaheed [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by Allah.”
“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours as well. They have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet, we won’t allow them to do that,” said Abbas.
Abbas: Blood of ‘martyrs’ spilled on Temple Mount is ‘pure’. Palestinian Authority president praises rioters, says Jews have ‘no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet’, Times of Israel, 17 September 2015
https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-blood-of-martyrs-spilled-on-temple-mount-is-pure/
Themes of Arab hatred of the U.S. within sermons often have Islamic historical undertones. For example, the leading Palestinian religious figure, Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories Sheikh Ikrimeh Sabri, stated in a sermon on PA radio, “Allah, destroy the U.S., its helpers and its agents. Allah, destroy Britain, its helpers and its agents. Allah, prepare those who will unite the Muslims and march in the steps of Saladin. Allah, we ask you for forgiveness before death, and mercy and forgiveness after death. Allah, grant victory to Islam and the Muslims…” The U.S. and its allies are also commonly referred to as Christian and Jewish Crusaders who must be fought. For example, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, speaking at a mosque named after UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, stated, “Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them… Allah, deal with the Jews, your enemies and the enemies of Islam. Deal with the Crusaders, and America, and Europe behind them…”
Palestinian Authority Sermons 2000 2003, by Steven Stalinsky
https://www.memri.org/reports/palestinian-authority-sermons-2000-2003
Hamas is allied with Turkey, which threatened religious war against Austria when the Austrian government shut down a Turkish mosque in Vienna for holding military spectacles.
CONCLUSION:
Evidently the Palestinian cause has now become an anti-western, anti-Christian struggle to impose Islam, not only in Palestine, but worldwide.
What exactly is progressive about supporting a religious war to impose sharia?
Consortium News ignores the pro-Israel Lobby, but the pro-Israel Lobby’s troll army does not ignore CN.
Comrade “Tekyo Pantzov” dumps a big steaming pile of Islamo-phobic maniac propaganda from MEMRI
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/middle_east_media_research_institute/
One of the Israel Lobby main propaganda mills, MEMRI was founded by Meyrav Wurmser and Yigal Carmon, both of whom have ideological affinities with Israel’s Likud Party.
Wurmser, the spouse of former Dick Cheney adviser David Wurmser, left her position as executive director in 2002 to join another pro-Israel Lobby organization, the Hudson Institute.
Carmon, a former colonel in the Israeli military intelligence, remains MEMRI’s president.
MEMRI cherry picks the items it “translates” in an effort to bolster the militarist advocacy campaigns of right-wing backers of Israel.
Current and former MEMRI board members include:
– John Bolton – Trump’s National Security adviser, Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush
– Elliott Abrams – convicted criminal for Iran-Contra, Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela, key architect behind 2003 Iraq War
– Michael Hayden – former NSA Director and CIA Director under George W. Bush
– Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush
– John Ashcroft, former Attorney General under George W. Bush
– Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General under George W. Bush
– Paul Bremer, former head of Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq 2003-2004
Hasbara, to be discarded as garbage!
Trump’s “final solution,” with malice aforethought.
Excellent article. Trump’s deal of the century receives strong bipartisan support bc Congress is Zionist controlled. So is our press. Hard to believe that once, in the past, Palestinians trusted the U.S. more than it trusted the Brits. As Cook’s article states, the only president who truly cared about a two-states solution was Carter, and after his book, “Palestine, Peace not Apartheid,” Zionists labeled him anti-Semitic. The U.S. is in the grip of Zionists who will tighten the noose whenever they want. We have lost this once-great country to Ashkenazi Jews who have led Americans to their deaths in WW1 to get Palestine, have led other Jews to extermination and most Jews don’t even see it. Bible students in the millions, have been hoodwinked to believe they are following God’s edict when they blindly bow to Israel and Zionism. They don’t see the link between America’s domination & what soon might become global domination. The Federal Reserve linked to Rothschilds & their ilk, linked to Zionism & Israel. I believe Bibi not only sees it, but wants it, as does Trump and his ilk. Friedman & other Zionists negotiating a “fair deal” for Palestinians? The biggest lie of the century.
“Just give me your house, your money, your car, your dog, your wife. That’s a really, really, really, good deal for you. Honest.”
Is there anything more contemptible than the Quisling Arab Dictators stabbing the Palestinians in the back, bootlicking their way around the Zionist Regime and Trump and his cronies, and pimping themselves out for them to destroy Iran, another Moslem country?
All this further underlines the degeneracy of the American Jewocracy, rule of the Jews, by the Jews, for the Jews. What we are witnessing now is a Global Zionist Putsch, the US, UK, Canada, France, Australia. It’s the same story everywhere.
The US should just get the fuck out of the entire Mid-East, stop funding the Israelis, stop sending weapons to the Saudis etc., and just stop meddling in other countries’ business. If American people were just a bit more, well, no, a lot more politically aware, they wouldn’t elect governments and Presidents which/who lie. Trump was elected on a platform that included withdrawal from failed wars but now seems intent on going into another with Iran. I have said before, the USA is in fact a rogue state, it supports discredited dictatorships and corrupt or criminal leaderships, e.g. Netanyahu, seeks to overturn elected governments which don’t meet the CIA’s standards, has an unhealthy history of military actions in support of its own massively exploitative resources thieves, the oil and gas industries, while encouraging or facilitating arms sales to corrupt regimes (see Israel above but also Saudies etc) and it consistently ignores or opposes United Nations resolutions aimed at trying to end the most egregious excesses of its own military industrial complex. Sadly my own, Australian, government marches mostly in sycophantic lockstep with the US.
all true, but the one state solution has a far, far better chance of bringing peace than the two state one ever did. first, israel retains all its conquests. second, making the palestinians israelis makes them, almost against their will, closer to allies of the current israelis, rather than intransigent opponents that a second state would surely be. third, the negotiation is radically simpler and morally much more compelling. and fourth, think of how compatible the disenfranchised arabs are with the current israelis: physical resemblance down to circumcision, both users of semitic languages, similar dietary constraints, muslims consider the “old testament” part of their religious heritage.
if a democratic israel, half jew and half arab, could be achieved, consider how many of today’s and yesterday’s atrocities might not be tomorrow’s.
Sure, just like European Americans allowed Native Americans full participation in the governance and development of these United States. We didn’t even honor the boundaries of the ghettoes (reservations) we consigned them to if there were resources, like gold, discovered on “their” land. Gold in the Black Hills is what got Custer killed and a generation of Plains Indians massacred in response. Palestinians will realise equal political rights to Jews in a Greater Israel only if the country is thoroughly Californicated. In which case, maybe Arab repatriates will even get two or three votes apiece. More interesting times ahead.
“Sure, just like…”
Like the opponents you appear to be immersed in linear framing, a default if the purpose is non-transcendence through modulation subject to context.
Some designate the opponents as being of the rubbing sticks school of thermo-dynamics.
Lateral perception is a facilitator and tool of transcendence, as is the immersion of opponents in linear framing.
Linear process is predicated on the belief that not all components interact and hence some components can remain the same, whilst some components will be modulated. This was the perception of Mr. Gorbachov and his associates which in part facilitated the ongoing lateral process of the transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the CIS and subsequently the Russian Federation.
Like present opponents Mr. Gorbachov and his associates sought to maintain their beliefs through iterations of increasing velocities and scope.
Lateral process is where all components interact and change/mutate in varying assay through various non-linear trajectories at varying velocities.
Like present opponents Mr. Gorbachov and his associates their “tactics” and “strategies” mutated into wishes and hope such as:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51790.htm
since even rubbing sticks can cause fires
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51786.htm
Impressive word salad. Run off and find us an interpreter so we can share your alleged insight.
Look closer and you’ll see a lot of parallels between current Israel and frontier America.
The outcome now is just as predictable as it was back then:
the natives are being stripped of all property and civil rights.
The motives of the colonists are essentially the same: complete hegemony over land and resources.
The power differential between natives and colonists are essentially the same: totally one-sided.
The history of the colonizing faction is just as bellicose now as then, both steeped in white supremacy.
The colonist’s sense of entitlement then and now is similar,
even the references to divine will, viz., “the Promised Land” vis-a-vis “Manifest Destiny.”
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Going forward one can legitimately make predictions for the future based on past outcomes in parallel milieus, including here.
You have every right to challenge this but your argument should certainly state HOW things will be different and WHY.
References to “iterations of increasing velocities and scope” get us nowhere.
Most importantly, you should try to use the English language in a way that users of the tongue can understand what you are saying.
Once they see your gobbledygook they quickly give up.
Re Realist
June 19, 2019 at 16:12
“Look closer and you’ll see a lot of parallels between current Israel and frontier America.
The outcome now is just as predictable as it was back then:
the natives are being stripped of all property and civil rights.
The motives of the colonists are essentially the same: complete hegemony over land and resources.
The power differential between natives and colonists are essentially the same: totally one-sided.
The history of the colonizing faction is just as bellicose now as then, both steeped in white supremacy.
The colonist’s sense of entitlement then and now is similar,
even the references to divine will, viz., “the Promised Land” vis-a-vis “Manifest Destiny.”
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Going forward one can legitimately make predictions for the future based on past outcomes in parallel milieus, including here.”
Olyapola
June 19, 2019 at 10:40
“Like the opponents you appear to be immersed in linear framing, a default if the purpose is non-transcendence through modulation subject to context.
….
Linear process is predicated on the belief that not all components interact and hence some components can remain the same, whilst some components will be modulated. This was the perception of Mr. Gorbachov and his associates which in part facilitated the ongoing lateral process of the transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the CIS and subsequently the Russian Federation.”
Thank you for your further illustration of your immersion.
Realist
June 19, 2019 at 16:12
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
How to learn from history, and what to learn from history?
Olyapola
June 19, 2019 at 10:40
“Like the opponents you appear to be immersed in linear framing, a default if the purpose is non-transcendence through modulation subject to context.
Some designate the opponents as being of the rubbing sticks school of thermo-dynamics.
Lateral process is where all components interact and change/mutate in varying assay through various non-linear trajectories at varying velocities.”
Hence you and other opponents are attempting to affect non-transcendence through modulation in a lateral environment, and when outcomes and expectations deviate resort to belief to bridge doubt to attain/retain confirmation through increased amplitude, scope and velocity as:
Realist
June 19, 2019 at 16:12
“The history of the colonizing faction is just as bellicose now as then, both steeped in white supremacy.
The colonist’s sense of entitlement then and now is similar,
even the references to divine will, viz., “the Promised Land” vis-a-vis “Manifest Destiny.”
which is also steeped in notions of supremacy since sole/prime agency and focus is assigned to the “colonists”, another tool used to attempt continued immersion in linear framing.
“Going forward one can legitimately make predictions for the future based on past outcomes in parallel milieus, including here.”
The opponents including you are resorting to belief to bridge doubt when outcomes deviate from expectations as is increasingly the case ( “iterations of increasing velocities and scope”.) refers.
” (References to “iterations of increasing velocities and scope” get us nowhere.)”
Once more like the opponents you attempt to use a derivative of “we” namely “us” to infer mutual purpose – “We the people hold these truths to be self-evident” refers.
References to “iterations of increasing velocities and scope” facilitate transcendence which some infer “get us nowhere” in the hope of non-transcendence through modulation your illustration being the restriction through framing of ” a lot of parallels between current Israel and frontier America.”
This hope is often disappointed rendering “tacticts” hopes and “strategies” wishes through various components in lateral processes including but not restricted to:
Olyapola
June 19, 2019 at 10:40
“http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51790.htm
since even rubbing sticks can cause fires”
Fires have multi-aspects including but not limited to illumination and burning of the fire setter.
An illustration of your attempts in rubbing sticks include but are not limited to:
“Impressive word salad. Run off and find us an interpreter so we can share your alleged insight.
….
Most importantly, you should try to use the English language in a way that users of the tongue can understand what you are saying.”
This faciltates
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51786.htm
as do many of the activities of the opponent.
“Once they see your gobbledygook they quickly give up.”
Evaluation is always a function of purpose and purposes differ, hence you appear to view the outcome you highlight as an unalloyed disadvantage since:
Olyapola
June 19, 2019 at 10:40
“Like the opponents you appear to be immersed in linear framing, a default if the purpose is non-transcendence through modulation subject to context.”
During the cultural revolution in China it was sometimes held that a grounding in Marxist/Leninist/Maoist thought was sufficient qualification for performing surgery even despite many patients dying.
Thank you for your “aid” in illustrating some of the components in the petri-dish of the opponents’ culture.
You provide inordinate lines of type, but you say nothing.
You offer no clarity on this or any other issue, nothing helpful, nothing even understandable.
You apparently do this to amuse yourself because no one responds to you other than the occasional individual weary of your gibberish.
“Linear process” underlies the structure of the universe. It is part of the “time” in space-time and offers no undiscovered solution to human imperfection and injustice, unless eradication of existence itself solves anything. God, and the Devil, is in the details of our highly differentiated environment, and it’s those with which you had better be prepared to interact, at least while you are still among the living. Now, go play, Grasshopper.
Re
Realist
June 20, 2019 at 15:41
““Linear process” underlies the structure of the universe. It is part of the “time” in space-time and offers no undiscovered solution to human imperfection and injustice, unless eradication of existence itself solves anything. God, and the Devil, is in the details of our highly differentiated environment, and it’s those with which you had better be prepared to interact, at least while you are still among the living. “
In lands of make-believe, where beliefs and words mean what believers believe them to mean, where believers believe they are realists, where time is a moment not a lateral process, the conflation of attempt and achievement is increasingly popular, and when achievements and attempts diverge, believers attempt to conflate reflection with reflex as in “Now, go play, Grasshopper. “
Thank you for your further “aid” in illustrating the contents of the petri-dish of the opponents’ culture, and your further “aid” in facilitating transcendence of that culture.
Realist and Olyapola : salad du jour. Realist I say this is an Alcoholic Republic, There was a book that was well read in College Curriculum in the last century titled The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (. I do not know if you read it as well.) and that’s before legalization of Medical Marijuana and prescription opiates. Basically we are all Lika Rolling Stone and just don’t know it ….,unless you got that workout craze thing going in your head that’s good for you.. I know I’m basically wasted half the time but it’s been like that since the late 70’s/ Olya> I remember a semi sarcastic comment from you regarding a cover band, I say if the pin head that they used in Venezuela could front a bad like this in Argentina, soon the Tango would be replaced by the Goosestep as the national dance .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whQQpwwvSh4 . Peace.Double Peace
Take away the Golan Heights, a single state, based on equality and a western style Bill of Rights makes sense. With all the cynical machinations, Washington may help back into such an outcome.
jeffmontayne:
Your response (to RomeoCharlie29’s excellent comment): “all true, but the one state solution has a far, far better chance of bringing peace than the two state one ever did.”
Yes, that could be best, given how a Palestinian State would likely be pushed around by all its powerful neighbors plus all the energy hungry meddlers starting with the U.S. But there’s one huuuuge condition – equal rights!
(I think there are some Israelis who are also horrified by their country’s aggression on Palestinian land and who also believe that perhaps the one state solution could be better for the Palestinians.)
As Realist points out – if the result is equivalent to how we (U.S.) treated our own First Americans/Native Americans that would continue to be ugly. And the Palestinians would lose decades fighting for their civi rights and continue to be unfairly treated as a sub class of people. Wrong!
There are, I think, initiatives by Israelis to integrate Israeli Arabs and Jews in the elementary schools and the young children understand each other better than the adults and ignore the superficial sectarian differences and focus on friendships based on trust and love. But the elephant in that room is – what about treating Palestinians as equals! Israelis might find they enrich their own lives by that act of humanity instead of diminishing themselves in the eyes of the world and surely their own eyes if they’re honest.
If we’re worth anything at all as human beings, we all must demand full equal rights for Palestinians under the law and economic opportunity, freedom of religion, the whole set of human rights if the One State becomes reality.
The oligarchs, as usual, have no interest in that and want a sub culture of poorly informed worker bees just like here in the U.S.
That is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, everyone knows or should know that it’s evil to uproot olive trees and destroy homes and lives. These are crimes that the world should never tolerate.
I appreciate this clarifying article that untangles the Power/Money plays at the root of the status quo.
How myopic and selfish those people are.
“The U.S. is now formally supporting Israel’s efforts at economic pacification, writes Jonathan Cook. “
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/06/19/memorial-honoring-the-life-of-lyndon-larouche-held-in-new-york-city/
“His policy for a New Silk Road program for international development, which has now become Russia and China’s joint initiative dates back to 1992 and which he and his wife have promoted through countless conferences, speeches and writings ever since. “
That is so.
However the framing perhaps illustrates an intention to suggest origin thereby obfuscating the roles and activities of:
The French Empire of Napoleon III after the “Crimean War” against Imperial Russia including but not limited to the construction of the Suez Canal in association with the Ottoman Empire,
the roles and activities of Imperial Russia and the French Third Republic from 1875 onwards including but not limited to the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
the Sykes-Picot “agreement” and efforts in pursuance of the creation of Israel and Saudi Arabia,
and efforts of various parties in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, including but not limited to the CIS from 1924 onwards, including exploratory meetings with Japan and others in 1973 and 1993 to circumvent various fiats.
This is understandable since scribes and their productions are functions of their sources and framing, often “exceptionalist”, despite sexual intercourse not being invented in 1963 but rather various positions were explored through time.
https://www.rt.com/news/462200-vyshinsky-detention-ukraine-blackmail/
The pathways is/was predicated on “plausible belief “ as is the continued existence of “The United States of America”.
As always, independent journalist Jonathan Cook brings valuable insight into the political and social realities of Israel and Palestine. But there are a few very important issues that Cook seems to forget.
PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY & AMNESIA
Cook seems to suffer amnesia when it comes to pro-Israel Lobby influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East. Here are some key issues that Cook appears to forget:
The Trump administration’s “vision of the future” is scripted by the pro-Israel Lobby.
The “wide, bipartisan support in Washington” is bought and paid for by the pro-Israel Lobby.
It would be deeply misguided to imagine that “serious case of hubris”, so obviously “shared by much of the U.S. political establishment”, just magically happened.
It would be similarly misguided to believe that “U.S. imperial overreach in the Middle East” is anything other than the consequence of a pro-Israel Lobby manufactured foreign policy agenda designed to “secure the realm” for lsrael.
Cook observes that the ” Trump administration last month declared extraordinary measures to bypass Congress so that it could sell more than $8 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan. In retaliation, Congressional leaders close to Israel vowed they would block the arms sales.”
Cook fails to recognize that this purported conflict between a pro-Israel Lobby managed Trump administration and a pro-Israel Lobby managed Congressional leaders is pure political theater.
FORGETTING SYRIA
Firstly, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan are de facto allies of Israel. Jordan and UAE are enthusiastic supporters of the US-Israeli-Saudi Axis dirty war in Syria.
In March 2019, Trump signed a proclamation officially recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria and has occupied since 1967. The move was yet another rejection of decades of US policy by the pro-Israel Lobby managed Trump administration.
In 2010, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “We must make Syria recognise that just as it relinquished its dream of a greater Syria that controls Lebanon… it will have to relinquish its ultimate demand regarding the Golan Heights”. Unsuccessful that its efforts to efforts to secure regional hegemony were being thwarted by an “uncooperative” Syria, Israel recruited its “allies” and resorted to more drastic measures.
Terrorist groups were set loose on Syria in early 2011, when the US and its “allies” launched a dirty war dressed up by the media as a popular “revolution”. Armed terrorists infiltrated Syria and staged attacks against Syrian civilians and security forces during March 17-18, 2011 demonstrations in the city of Daraa in southwestern Syria, just north of the border with Israel’s “good neighbor” Jordan. As the conflict progressed, the CIA trained terrorist fighters at a base in the Jordanian town of Safawi. The terrorists poured into Syria from Jordan along the 320-kilometer (198-mile) shared border. Most fought with Al-Qaeda affiliates while the rest joined the ranks of the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Cook mentions Syria only once and in passing as one of the “major foreign policy setbacks” in IS efforts to “consolidate its position against rivals and potential rivals in this oil-rich region”.
FORGETTING IRAN
Secondly, the so-called “retaliation” from pro-Israel “leaders” like the ever obsequious Senator Lindsey Graham is simply more political theater. Graham and his late “amigo” John McCain ranted and raved about the dangers of blocking arms sales to the Saudis. McCain and Graham repeatedly asserted that the Houthis in Yemen are Iranian proxies when the best evidence suggests that Iran’s role in the conflict has always been negligible, and then justified their complete indifference to the consequences of the Saudi-led war by complaining about Iranian behavior elsewhere.
The lie that Iran is a major player in Yemen’s conflict allowed Graham and others like him to distract attention from the governments most responsible for wrecking Yemen, and it gives them a way to shift blame and avoid addressing the reality that US “allies” are committing war crimes with active US backing.
Cook mentions Iran twice in passing, first in a roster of nations “jostling in different ways for a more assertive role in the Middle East”. He then claims that “Arab leaders” resent the Palestinian struggle for having “complicated their own dealings in the region, especially with Iran and Israel”. Cook then asserts that Arabs “would enthusiastically embrace a full partnership with the U.S. and Israel in the region”, were it not for the “Palestinian splinter”.
One could more reasonably argue that the Iranians would embrace closer relations with the U.S. were it not for the pro-Israel Lobby that maniacally thwarts any overtures to that effect.
NEVER FORGET
But it would be wrong nonetheless to assume that the aims and methods of the pro-Israel Lobby, or the bipartisan backing from Congress enjoyed by the Trump administration when it comes to Israel, is unlimited.
The pro-Israel Lobby both encourages and relies making the American public forget that “Israel’s fight” is not “our fight”.
As long as independent journalists, analysts and leaders remind the public that US “approach to foreign policy matters” has been perversely influenced by the pro-Israel Lobby with deadly effect, then domestic support for the warmongering Trump administration and its Congressional enablers will be lacking.
Spanish-born American philosopher George Santayana, in Reason in Common Sense (Vol I of The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress, 1905) wrote:
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Those who forget the catastrophic past wars instigated by the pro-Israel Lobby – Iraq, Libya, Syria – will be doomed to repeat them.
That why it’s important for independent journalists to remember to speak the truth and deliver the details about the warmongering pro-Israel operatives in the Trump administration and US Congress.
Never forget. No more weapons, no more money, no more US wars for Israel.
This article is somewhat humorous but spot on:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/04/opinions/jared-kushner-clueless-filipovic/
BTW, acccording to AP reporting jared/ivanka financial disclosure for 2018, their share of the loot was $135 mil income for the year. Not bad for being totally clueless but acting as a foreign agent every step of the way. Former Chief of Staff Gen Kelly has railed publicly that these two people should have been dispatched out of the white house long ago.
At 14 i suspected that god was an evil myth used by murderous humans to justify their actions. Now at 78 i am “Absolutely,” sure of such.
I won’t doubt that one of the biggest supporters of Israel tends to be American Evangelical fundamentalists. Meanwhile the rest of us who believe in a God, myself included, find that Washington’s actions are at odds with the teachings of that same God; besides, the sixth commandment says ‘Thou shalt not kill’.
The present set of Palestinian leaders and their predecessors have gotten nowhere in 50 years — not in the West Bank nor in Gaza. The Palestinian leadership has, of course, been faced with a determined adversary, but looking for a quick fix, those leaders opted for terrorism. Now, even if violence has been set aside, good will is exhausted. So, yes, a program of collaborative investment would probably create a set of Palestinian oligarchs, and in turn a new set of leaders with a different agenda. But maybe the agenda will include democracy for Palestinians. So, maybe — even though it is a Trumpian idea — maybe, it is an idea whose time has come.
People persist in underestimating Mr. Trump. The point of the two-state solution proposal was precisely to keep anything from happening, ever. ‘When faced with two undesirable alternatives, take the third,’ as the proverb goes. One third alternative is to delay and obfuscate. In the case of the two-state solution, make sure that there is no progress towards two sovereign states and continue to create complexities and impediments. Great for ideology pushers, war leaders, and cops, not so good for daily life. Trump, apparently not liking the prospects, seems to be pushing the one-state solution, which indeed means the Palestinian Authority will disappear in a thin cloud of money vapor, as it must. Things may turn out badly, but they are already pretty bad. Give peace and corruption a chance.
Incidentally, Edward Said wrote an essay decades ago demonstrating that the two-state solution was delusional. Has the first to catch up been Mr. Trump?
“But maybe the agenda will include democracy for Palestinians.”
You mean like the 2006 election which Hamas won and Israel and the US refused to accept the results of, leading to a coup by Fatah? And the end of further elections? That sort of democracy?
And zionists murdered and kidnaped the duly elected Hamas legislators.
no of course. nothing like that kind of democracy. not at all an election among palestinians for separatist leadership. rather just straight voting for the knesset with all people of age and offering peace toward the israeli state eligible to vote and stand for office.
in retrospect it will seem how could we have been such fools to waste so many lives, so much treasure and time coming to it. certainly busting 9-11 would give it a turbocharge but even without it, as has been said, the time has come.
Another reason why I have long stopped voting for either of the two parties – at all levels. I vote Green.
Amen, Nathan.
Yeah, but so do the Dems and GOPers… Long green. It’s all about the Benjamins… Netanyahoo and the banknotes.
Tell you what… why don’t you Greens simply draft Tulsi Gabbard as your presidential candidate in the next election? That way she remains an actual choice after the Dems shoot her down the way they did Bernie?
Friedman says Israel is on the side of God, but is God on the side of Israel with respect to the land?
Friedman needs to brush up on his Torah. Leviticus 25 verse 23 says “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.”
The land belongs to God.
Was that referring to “the promised land” or all the Earth?
Myopic if the former, enlightened if the latter.
Here is an article that clearly explains the pro-Israel bias in America’s mainstream media:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-pro-israel-skew-in-american.html
This study shows us that the pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the American mainstream media that it is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted Washington which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old conflict.
Here is another article about Israel and why so many in our government support them. There are a few things here that I disagree with, but for the most part I think it’s spot on. While millions of Americans are homeless and have no access to insurance and other things. Israelis have quality health care and its homeless problems are very low.
Plus governments are making laws stating that it’s not legal for Americans to participate in BDS. Israel has been spying on us for decades and now Google, Facebook and Apple are laying off tens of thousands of Americans and building their companies in Israel. But they are still getting subsidies and tax breaks from our government. Mintpress has the article.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-war/
so wouldn’t it be a kindness to help the palestinians achieve israeli citizenship, particularly in a state ultimately then half jew and half arab? compare it with the (never, ever going to happen) fantasy of a palestinian state, very poor, opposed and harassed by israel, a pawn in the game of thrones, again.
it isn’t perfect but it is lightyears ahead of anything else.
More like the population would be mostly Arab, but the political clout and financial holdings would be almost entirely Jewish. Otherwise this “solution” is pointless from the Israeli perspective. Cultural and economic dominance have always been their agenda. Seriously, are you pulling our legs? Or, perhaps you are the one “just man” of our era, like Job, Lot or Noah?
It’s almost like the great mass of us are simply being exploited for our labor, tax dollars and military to further the interests of some transnational Übermenschen who might have American citizenship but no loyalty to this country. After America is sucked dry, they will simply move their residence, citizenship and corporate headquarters elsewhere. They are commonly known to renounce their American citizenship when expedient for tax purposes (for type specimen, see Bill Browder).
Realist. Thank you for introducing honesty into the endless blather of so many postings.
Don’t forget Intel. They’re making their x86 CPUs in Israel too. If we don’t want to be accused of biting the hand that feeds us, then we’ll have to trade our Intel CPUs for another company’s (dunno about AMD).
I remember visiting the Facebook page for American-based Israeli news outlet ‘Algemeiner’, and some of the commentary denounced the New York Times as anti-Semitic. I can’t remember exactly why, but to the best of my memory it had something to do with Palestine. I’ve seen similar accusations of anti-Semitism thrown onto other left-leaning news sites.
Considering the findings of Viable Opposition (in that link), and the fact that some of the NYT writers/editors happen to be Jewish (one such hit-piece claims that corruption is in Russians’ DNA), I’m convinced nowadays that accusations of anti-Semitism in said news sites are misplaced.
“But it would be wrong nonetheless to assume that the strategy behind Trump’s ‘deal of the century,’ however unrealistic, is not clear-sighted in both its aims and methods.”
I admit that until recently I had assumed just that. How could it be otherwise? After all, the purported “deal of the century” lies in the overlap of two large realms of famously ineffectual hot air: U.S. “peace plans” for the Middle East (remember “the Roadmap”?), and Trumpian hype (Trump Steaks! Infrastructure week!).
It is clear, however, from this and other reporting by Jonathan Cook that what is going on is a lot more lucid than the usual output of either of those shops – while retaining the sinister qualities we have come to expect in both.
I’m not quite sure who on the U.S. side actually understands the play that is being made. It’s beyond Trump’s intellect, obviously. I would have said the same about Kushner, but maybe not.
Cook also calls the strategy “unrealistic”. Maybe.
Anyway, it’s ironic that Washington’s first real, coherent plan for the Middle East (pace the pretensions of “peace”) – one more blatantly pro-Israeli than any of its predecessors – comes as the monolithic Congressional pro-Israel consensus is showing its first tiny cracks in decades, as also reported by Cook elsewhere.
i hate america
nowhere i saw did you mention that the one state solution also gets israeli citizenship for the disenfranchised arabs aka the palestinians. it must or no chance of peace is possible. its what the u.s. immediately offered the conquered mexicans in 1848.
the two state solution is an illusion or a delusion; it’s opposed at the highest levels in israel and would be a recipe for further conflict if it occurred. only the one state solution can ever improve the lives of the palestinians who then will become israelis. after all, arabs are one fifth of the israeli voting citizenry now. when everyone in eretz israel gets to vote, it will be about half arab and half jewish.
A two-state solution was once viable, and it forms the basis of most international resolutions i.e. from the UN – the return to the 1967 borders etc. The Israeli politician who brokered the Oslo accords was assassinated by the right-wing forces which since have consolidated their own power and sabotaged the Oslo agreements through the settler program in the West Bank.
No Israeli citizenships is contemplated for the Palestinians, although it would be an important step to an inclusive democratic compromise. A call for such had already been anticipated, and that has been the reason for the rush to declare Israel a “Jewish State” and codify racial segregation.
Once the two-state chimera is dissolved, the stark resemblance of an apartheid state will be ever more apparent. It is up to the world’s people, not their foot-dragging leaderships, to recognize the reality and continue with the programs confronting this – as was successful with South Africa in the 1980s.
true. once the two-state chimera is dissolved the apartheid will be more apparent. that’s why the current palestinian leadership should be essentially ignored: they see themselves as president, prime minister, etc. of a fantasy state. getting the vote to the disenfranchised arabs in eretz israel is much more doable and will be much harder for the zionists to deny, particularly in the diaspora, imo.
this change need not wait to be instituted until “all”, or a majority, of the palestinians renounce violence. as noted, it especially need not be negotiated with the current palestinian “leadership.” it clearly could be done, and probably should be done, on an individual basis. when the holdouts see what a better life the brave early adopters lead, and the actual new powers and benefits of citizenship they possess, as opposed to the endless, fruitless battle for palestinian “victory” (never, ever going to happen), perhaps future violence against israel will be lessened.
“CE Notes
••Author’s Note and Acknowledgments still TK
••Expletives. Try not to overuse.
••Comma splices. Eliminate.
••Kid. Are you OK with the constant use of “kid,” instead of sometimes “child/children”?
••Chronology/sequence of events. There are some anomalies and spots that are a bit hard to follow. See comments.
••Specific info. I don’t want to be pedantic, but I do think that some more specific information would improve the story. See my prompts for names, dates, etc.
••Rehabilitation Act. The account of this act is kind of confusing. Dates are missing. When first passed? Background info is a bit scattershot. Relationship to Civil Rights Act is confusing. A straight chron. telling might be clearer and more informative.
••Space breaks. I have changed, subtracted, and added a few of these, depending on the context.
••Legislation. Give year of passage into law for all acts mentioned?
••Names. Author seems to be quite inconsistent in giving people’s names. Seems like anyone in public service can and perhaps should be named. Some passages would read better with a name than with a long title and no name.
••Be specific. In general I think the book would be improved by more specific information, not less. Lawsuit against whom? When? Name of public official? See my prompts for info.
••“Now, . . .”: To me this formulation sounds either like in a fairy tale or a pedantic professor.
••“You might be wondering . . .” : Avoid overdoing this. Readers might not be wondering! And so it is a distraction.
•• “You have to remember . . .”. I suggest avoiding such formulaic exhortations or use very sparingly. In most cases just stating the point (e.g., “Change occurs slowly”) is just as clear.
••“He paused.” Try not to overuse the “X paused” formulation. It becomes noticeable.
••Quite a few sentences seem to be “backward” or kind of inverted: starting with a phrase that doesn’t make sense or create context until the main part of the sentence tags along, or that is separated from another sentence element that belongs together with it. Some of these have been transposed, to avoid need to reread. Use of expletives often leads to this front loading.
••One-sentence grafs: I have left most of these, but changed them if I didn’t think it was working well or actually introduced confusion. I have run some in, in particular some quotes that I think should follow the ID of the speaker. But I have also added a few such short grafs where I thought it improved drama or emphasis.
••Sentence fragments: Breaking these into separate “sentences” with periods often confuses the sense so that one must reread to see that actually the separate “sentence” is a direct object. Not a new subject ( . . .)
”
The Jews will never stand for this. DOA.
Oops. This is a mistake—mods please delete!!