AIPAC Gets Sucked In

Andrew 'Sullying' Sullivan lays it on:

...it has long been Netanyahu's plan - and that of his coalition partners - to permanently coopt the West Bank. This is obviously stupid, but not "bafflingly" so. It's obvious why. Netanyahu and his allies have long wanted Greater Israel. God, they believe, gave all of Judea and Samaria to the Jewish people, and they also believe that occupying them permanently is essential to Israeli security. Christianists believe the same and see the process as an unfolding of divine destiny. Why are we supposed to be incapable of recognizing fundamentalism when it stares us in the face? This is the issue - which is why I do not believe for a moment that Israel will voluntarily leave the West Bank in my lifetime.

They're there for ever, if they can manage it. And when your policy is ultimately governed by religious diktat and fathomless paranoia, then there is no reason to wonder why it's self-defeating. It doesn't matter if it's self-defeating. It's your religious and sacred duty to stay put and expand; and psychologically impossible to withdraw.

This, to echo Matt, is obviously more than a tactical error, like Tora Bora. It's a strategic goal. AIPAC is just waiting for president Palin to back an acceleration of settlements and a full-scale war, subsidized by Americans, against Iran.

a. I wish that AIPAC would come on our bandwagon but from up close, no way that will happen.

b. residing in one's homeland isn't stupid. people who suggest that are stupid.

c. God just didn't "give" us this land. we entered a covenant and for 3000 years we've been there. in large and very smaller numbers. as sovereign, as exiles sneaking in during the rules of Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans and others, including the British.

d. no fathomless paranoia. why was the PLO founded in 1964? 1964, three years before there was a supposed "occupation" and "settlements".

Andrew, can you think and not rant?

d. fundamentalism or not, without Judea & Samaria, we have very little security in pre-67 Israel. ask the residents of the Gaza wrap-around region, you know, where the Qassams fall?