The Israeli-Palestinian doomsday scenario

The two-state solution has been dead since it was felled by the assassin's bullet that ended Rabin's life.

The few remaining efforts of the US and the PA to keep the charade alive have now been wiped away by Netenyahu's refusal to accept the tactic of suspending settlements.

A stark reminder to the world that all the US' warbling about international law is insultingly and transparently specious. We are a rogue state, as is our Israeli ally, supporting actions long ago deemed illegal by the world community and even our own government.

Obama's climb-down has not only highlighted this amazing arrogance, but has destroyed the nascent credibility he created in Cairo among Islamic peoples of the world. That's about 1.5 billion people. Good job!

And Abbas' flip-flops on the Goldstone report have indelibly stamped "Quisling" on his forehead.

So, the alternatives are a single democratic state that embraces Jews and Arabs, or a series of explosions of increasing magnitude -- possibly including nuclear strikes.

The peaceful option is vanishingly small and verging on non-existent.

Only a diktat by the US using the levers of our aid -- which sustains Israel minute-by-minute -- will cause the desired result. But sadly the spectacle of a "great" power that makes important foreign policy based on domestic policy is certain to continue. We're not only destructive, we're profoundly amateurish and risible. And increasingly ignored.

The thing is, it seems sometimes that America is beset by a double standard. This double standard specifically relates to the relative "value" of an innocent person's life. Israelis and Palestinians have their own double standards. Israelis value Jews more, and Palestinians value Muslims and Christians more. This is simply the way it is in every nation, in time immemorial. The problems occur when two double standards collide, and specifically when they try to occupy the same space.

I think America's bias in favor of Israel's double standard has given the Israeli government a false sense of security and justification. While Netenyahu defends the Gaza operation in the same terms as Churchill defended Dresden (even going so far as to link the two himself) he forgets the very humanity of his victims, and the fact that unlike the Germans, Hamas does not pose a grand, existential threat to Israel alone. Likewise with settlements, Israel acts like its a huge sacrifice to stop settlements without acknowledging that the practice justifies violent resistence in itself, because they are so beyond hearing the voice of the other.

And when Obama questions that, I see articles in even liberal Israeli papers like Haaretz suggesting Obama's nobel be stripped from him. I think the Israeli press and media have it mixed up; the US is going out on a limb, and has been for years, for the ethnic Jewish nation in Israel. We do this because Israel has been unjustly victimized by its neighbors, and because the Jewish people themselves have been driven from their homes across the globe. But when we criticize Israeli excesses, suddenly we're the bad guys, and equatable to the people who have victimized Jews unfairly.

A number of factors.

Ignorance. A distressingly high number of Americans can't find their own country on the map and have no concept or interest in foreign policy. They are very susceptible to the grammar school "good guys vs. bad guys" scenarios presented by Israel's friends and simpletons such as George Bush. Arabs are often presented in the media and in moves as raving lunatics, and people buy that.

Laziness. Sports, reality shows, T&A, shots and beers -- all those things that many Americans would rather do than take the time to learn what's happening and form an intelligent opinion. How many people still don't vote?

These two factors helped us react to 911 with ignorance and blind fury, which George Bush used to launch some of the greatest blunders in US history.

Fear. The Israeli lobby is expert at installing fear -- starting with their removal of Fullbright who opposed Israel by mounting and financing an opponent who unseated him. The label "anti-Semite" is applied willy-nilly to intimidate and if that doesn't work, sterner measures are employed. The difficulty that Mearsheimer Walt dh in getting their sudy of the Israel lobby published is a clear record of that.

Many, many are intimidated in Congress. It would be more difficult to get a declaration passed that God exists than to pass anything then Israel lobby wants. This has an upside. Fear creates resentment, and many Israeli "loyalists" no doubt seethe as they vote for things they must. If things ever change, count on many of these people to revenge their honor.

Greed. Unfortunately, the lobby doesn't have to intimidate too many. It has large sums at its disposal and there's no need to convince many people that our legislature is bight and sold. Here's just one example of the sources of the money, there are many

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all

The Israeli lobby reflexively accuses people who expose its network and tactics of promoting belief in a Jewish cabal. And while most of Israel's sincere supporters fare Jewish, the truth is much less dramatic than some repackaging of the Protocols.

Our system is extremely vulnerable to well-financed and tightly focused lobbying. Others play this game all the time -- the NRA, the insurance industry, Wall Street. American foreign policy has also been distorted by the China lobby, the Greek lobby and the Miami Cubans.

Of course none of them can accuse the opponents of "blood libels" and pogroms, that's one advantage Israel's friends have.

It's a fundamental weakness of our system that we're an amateur nation that permits foreign policy -- which ought to b directed by experts -- to be hijacked by domestic policy. The average American scarcely realizes what a laughing-stock our country is.

And dangerous to ourselves and others.