If Iran has no interest in peace why did it sign the nuclear pact with the U.S. in November?
Iran's no saint but they did much more to advance peace in that region in the past two years than Israel has.
Why is Israel stepping up settlement building? Why are they using such hyperbolic militaristic rhetoric with Iran? Why are they seizing apartments in Jerusalem? Why have they interned 10,000 African migrants? Why has the political culture veered so far right?
Israel is not Rabin's Israel anymore. It has actively inserted itself into the U.S. domestic politics to undermine the President's peace efforts. It is succumbing to a right-wing paranoid institutionalism that is increasingly isolating it throughout the world. The distance between Israel and the U.S./EU has never been wider. Mainstream Jews in the U.S. are more than ever starting to question what it means to be allied with Israel. J Street is growing in significance. All of this is pointing to a country that is looking more dangerous than vulnerable.
All the while, the conditions for peace negotiation have never been better. Abbas and Fayyad are about as good as you're going to get for a Palestinian leadership. The Obama presidency was well placed to drive a meaningful peace process and the Bebu scuttled everything. It makes you wonder whether peace is really an objective at all among the Israeli right wing?
That's for another post.
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