Pitiful U.S. "Negotiations"

It's pitiful beyond the meaning of the word, to watch the U.S. diplomats fall all over themselves in their frenzied efforts to persuade, pressure, cajole, threaten, sweet-talk, bully, and otherwise try to stop the Palestinian Authority from applying to the U.N. Security Council for recognition of a Palestinian state, as if the Palestinians haven't noticed how the U.S. has been so strongly on the Israeli side and so weakly on the Palestinian.   This means that in effect the Americans have nothing to offer the Palestinians -- and especially not in regard to the most painful issue by far, and that is the constant encroaching on Palestinian soil by Israeli "settlements," about which no promises are being made, though it is a process that has been very aptly characterized by the Palestinians as their being asked to negotiate over a pizza when the other party is as busy as can be eating the pizza.

The obvious question is, "Why now?"   I seem to recall that months and maybe years have elapsed since attempts of any negotiations were attempted by the U.S. or by Israel.   They were essentially not even speaking to the Palestinians.   But now, all of a great sudden, before this coming Friday, it's being deemed absolutely essential that the Palestinians climb down "off their high horse" and agree to enter fresh peace negotiation with the Israelis, when nothing is more certain that if the Israelis enter such negotiations at all, it will be always be out of bad faith.   And meanwhile the Israelis aren't being asked to climb off a damn thing, least of all their determination to stop the establishment of more and more of the "settlements."

I don't know how much can be expected of this Abbas guy, the PA leader in this effort.   It seems to me that in the past he and the PA have been accused, and with apparently good reason, of being tools of the Israelis.   But, true or not, now he's on to a very good thing by going to the U.N. for this recognition.  I hope he doesn't let the Israeli and American threats or inviting promises divert him in any way.  And by doing so, he will accidentally do the United States a great favor, by demonstrating to its President the virtues of sticking to one's guns -- a trait that hasn't often been noticed in B. Obama's makeup.

Meanwhile another thing that I have noticed is how lacking the U.S. media coverage is on covering this Palestinian initiative, when it is by far the most dramatic and most morally important story that is unfolding in world affairs these days.   It shows how thoroughly the media, as well as the Executive Branch and most of the Legislative branch of the U.S. government, have been cowed by the supporters of the right wing Israeli leadership.   Instead, and strangely, you have to go straight to the horse's mouth, an Israeli newspaper called "Haaretz," in which so much time is bitterly spent on condemning the Netanyahu leadership that it's a wonder he hasn't ordered it to be closed down or at least for the Mossad to bomb it to bits.

Just the other day the leader of the Opposition Party in the Knesset, which I believe is called Kadima, a tough-as-nails woman named Tzipi Livni delivered a blistering attack on Netanyahu and his iron-assed coalition.   A rightwinger herself, ordinarily she isn't much to be admired, but simply because she is a female, she can't possibly be all bad, and in those statements she really outdid herself.  For a real treat in elegant and heartfelt polemics, check it out.

(The report in Haaretz on the speech is intriguingly titled, "Livni: Israel's Diplomatic Stupidity is Pushing the United States into a Corner.")