Tuesday, May 15, 2018

On Jerusalem and the embassy:

politicalprof

Well, for 30 years (or more), ever since people thought up the idea of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (from Tel Aviv), experts on US foreign policy have been saying it was a bad idea for at least two reasons:

1. It would incite protests and violence across Palestine and across the Middle East, opening up a Pandora’s Box of evil consequences with no concomitant compensations for US policy in the region (in other words, it would only make things worse with no meaningful upside); and

2. It would end whatever vestige of neutrality the US had as it claimed leadership in solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict (not that it had much credibility left in the region).

To be fair, those same experts missed how Netanyahu’s vile government would use the occasion of the opening of the US embassy as cover to use snipers to shoot Palestinian protestors across a demilitarized neutral zone such that those protestors were near no one except each other. But then again, 30 years ago no one could have known just how vile and corrupt the current Israeli Prime Minister is, so, maybe the experts deserve a pass on that one.

Otherwise, all of this was predictable. And predicted. But, much like the Iraq War, no one in power wants to hear. So yet another entirely predictable shitstorm profoundly harmful to American values and interests is coming.

It’s a hell of a thing watching a nation kill itself.

Source
http://politicalprof.tumblr.com/post/173923913813/on-jerusalem-and-the-embassy

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