Re: <nettime> on nuclear diplomacy...

[Benjamin Geer <benjamin.geer@gmail.com>]

On 21/01/06, brian carroll <neuron@electronetwork.org> wrote:
>  the War of Terror is actually the Palestinian/Israeli conflict writ-larg=
e at the world-scale.

While this might be an interesting analysis from a psychoanalytic
point of view, if taken literally it runs the risk of blurring
political realities, by, for example, implying that Palestinians are
somehow responsible for, or that they benefit from, any acts of
terrorism directed against the West.  George Bush may say, "Either you
are with us, or you are with the terrorists"[1], thus implying that
that anyone anywhere who is opposed to some US interest belongs to
some imaginary global "terrorist side" in a single worldwide conflict;
that doesn't make it true.  Palestinians have enough to deal with as
it is; let's not imagine that kidnappings in Iraq or unmanned CIA air
strikes against Pakistani villages are somehow their problem, too.

Indeed, it is now commonplace for governments to use this very
blurring of distinctions in order to garner support for whatever
foreign or domestic policy they wish to pursue.  Iranian president
Ahmadinejad probably knows very well that the Israeli-Palestinian
struggle isn't an "overriding concern to the average Iranian", and may
simply be provoking an international crisis in order to gain the upper
hand in a domestic power struggle.[2]  Israel may be far less worried
about Iran's nuclear weapons than about the possibility of losing its
strategic importance to the US.[3]

Moreover, if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were really important to
the US, it could have brought sufficient pressure and incentives to
bear on all parties to resolve that conflict long ago.  It does not do
so precisely because the Palestinians have very little effect on US
interests.[4]

[1] George W. Bush, September 20, 2001, http://tinyurl.com/rrkj

[2] Karim Sadjadpour and Ray Takeyh, "Behind Iran's Hard-Line on
Israel", The Boston Globe, 23 December 2005, http://tinyurl.com/dn56s

[3] Trita Parsi, "A challenge to Israel's strategic primacy",
bitterlemons-international.org, 5 January 2006,
http://tinyurl.com/acuym

[4] Noam Chomsky, "The New World Order", 16 March 1991, http://tinyurl.com/=
crkxg




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