There is a complete blind spot to the reality that GWB through Condi Rice was pushing Olmert with the same demands! The only ‘sea change’ is that these Australians are now speaking up in support of the US moves to push for the end to the war for greater Israel that GWB was stalled on by a desperate Israeli government led by Olmert (mired in corruption scandals) that subsequently lost power after mass murdering Gazans for electoral reasons while Obama hid under a blanket excusing himself with there can only be one president at a time crap.

It seems that Obama will get the credit for bringing peace and our petitioners will all forget what he declared before the election when he was still opportunistically looking for the Jewish vote. Obama took a position to the right of GWB! He had to back down in 24hrs!! Now he is doing no more than continuing the line set down by the real sea change in US policies that occurred under GWB in the wake of 9/11 and the dramatic failure of the previous ‘realist’ policies (particularly notable here was the Obama supporter Brezinsky!) No matter how much the Brezinky types want to return to the old policies of propping up every dictator and opposing the bourgeois democratic revolution and so forth Obama has no choice but to continue in the general direction laid down under Bush. There is no going back now in the wake of the full blown crisis of overproduction that will see weak links like Egypt and Iran spin right out of control!

Obama is perhaps speeding up the reform of the military and the CIA etc who had been discrediting the war effort with the outrages of torture and Guantanamo etc but those reforms had been set in place under Bush. There’s a reason that Obama has kept the Defence Sec and the military command etc. What Obama thought wouldn’t work has worked and continues to be implemented.

But defending Bush is not important, history can sort all that out. What is important is welcoming the Obama supporters who are now speaking up in support of the war effort in Afghanistan and supporting the Pakistani government as they with US and Australian support continue the war and broaden the scope of the war. The pseudoleft anti war movement has clearly split apart (as it has done after every major event that marks the new era of US ME policies since 9/11) and most are signing up to support the revolutionary war led by Obama with the support of the ALP government! They now support the bourgeois navy’s as they deal with piracy! Can’t wait to see the support later this year for the (once more) internationally observed Iraqi elections in complete contrast to what the anti-democrats are up to in Iran. Can’t wait to see the effect that will have across the border.

Parliamentarian Aryeh Eldad said Netanyahu had lost the support of the national camp, and accused him of crossing all the red lines.
“In saying a demilitarized Palestinian state, Netanyahu is trying to eat a pig that has been slaughtered in a kosher way. There is no such thing as a Palestinian state,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat told Israeli television Netanyahu’s position will be impossible to accept. Netanyahu, he said, will have to wait 1,000 years before even one Palestinian will agree to negotiate with him. The Israeli prime minister spoke about a Palestinian state, but removed the status of Jerusalem and the refugee issue from the negotiations, he said.

And of course…’Netanyahu maintained the biggest threat to Israel and the region remains Iran and the confluence of “radical Islamism and nuclear weaponry,”" the Post said.’

Actually some Israeli’s think democracy in one country is the biggest threat to Israel and have memories long enough to recall the glory days of white ruled South Africa once supported by the US, Australia and Britain etc then not supported and now long gone with the wind.

Never mind yet another main stream Zionist leader has declared support for a two state solution that the REST OF THE WORLD (including the opportunist lawyer following GWB’s policies) is insisting upon!

So back to the question “how goes the war for Greater Israel”?

Will Obama really expect Palestinians to accept ‘back of the bus status?’

Can Netanyahu outlast Obama?

Can Israel really wag the US while the US interests are being so blatantly harmed across the entire region?

Can the revolutionary transformation of the Middle East, through the spread of bourgeois democracy, be slowed up much by a basket case economy where mass unemployment is spreading rapidly and that economy is so reliant on the worlds greatest debtor for financial support?

How long will the Netanyahu government hold together under the kind of pressure that is now being applied?

What of Livni and the Likudnik-’milds’ of Kadima if we all have to wait for yet another government?

‘In his first major foreign policy speech since taking office, [ask yourself why has it taken him so long, when Obama from the other side of world has moved much sooner] the prime minister expressed support for a Palestinian state, said no new settlements would be built and Jerusalem will remain the capital of a unified Israel.’

Obviously pigs might fly if one were to think this is a serious step towards even meeting with the Palestinians. The speech is only intended to stall and to cause problems for Obama as it highlights the extreme rightwing position that Obama took prior to his election supporting (for one whole day before he had to back down) the retention of East Jerusalem captured in 1967, a policy position well to the right of GWB and ludicrous to boot. But the important point is to note that Netanyahu IS in delay mode and conceding his positions as slowly as possible while the US (Obama with the approval of Condi Rice) is putting on the pressure.

Nevertheless the Obama administration politely welcomed ‘the important step forward’ by Netanyahu, then restated the US position that “The president is committed to two states…” while elsewhere the real
work goes on.

Actually he said because their “mothers are Jewish”. That is to say, Golda’s suggests an identifier of ‘Jewishness’ that is more rigid than the the Jewish State of Israel.

The real issue here is why has Paul Norton devoted a thread so breathlessly to a petition signed by “Jews”? Why has he focused on their being “Jewish” rather than their being socialists, for example? This reveals just a touch of disingenuousness, and perhaps compromised ethics.

Golda, I posted about the petition at the request of a member of the AJDS who emailed it to me with that request. I am not vouchsafed any special insight into the ideological or religious proclivities – socialist, atheist or whatever – of the members of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society or the other signatories of the petition. I did not decide that the Australian Jewish Democratic Society should include the term “Jewish” in the title, nor I did decide that the title of the petition should refer to Australian Jews. It is not my business to decide such matters one way or the other. In fact it is not my place as a goyim to start second-guessing the right of AJDS members and other petitioners to identify as Jews and to draw attention to this identification in the title of the petition.

Let us suppose a non-Jewish blogger were to blog supportively, with links, about an initiative of the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. How would you, Golda, react if a left-wing commenter on that thread were to: (a) comment along the lines that the Jewish members of AIJAC are not motivated primarily by their identity, interests and values as Jews but by neoconservative ideology; and (b) accuse the blogger of disingenuousness and compromised ethics for not trying to second-guess the Jewish identification of members of AIJAC; yet (c) fail to engage in any way with the political or ethical substance of the AIJAC initiative? You would probably conclude that the commenter was a rude fool who was not engaging in conversation in good faith.

Having drawn your attention to the mote in the eye of said hypothetical left-wing commenter, I hope I have enabled you to discern the beam in your own eye.

Ask yourself “how goes the war for Greater Israel”?