Building on Rocky Ground

Benjamin Netanyahu is a bratty little shit. Despite earlier agreeing to stop Israel's land-grab in the West Bank for awhile (giving in to some uncommon U.S. pressure) as a good will gesture toward talking peace again with the Palestinians, the Prime Minister last month doggedly made clear that he has every intention, instead, to keep on building and staying there forever.

He was on board at first, sure, until he wasn't; when the Jews who are already settled there started raising a ruckus about him giving in and stunting their growth, then all of a sudden he is planting trees and making nice, acquiescing that, "Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel for eternity."

Well, yay. Never mind that that sort of complicates things, blowing out of the water whatever peace mission Obama's envoy has been on for the past year. Not that it should be very surprising, really; that eternal quagmire over there is never going to be shored up, that's just a fact, no matter how much the U.S. intervenes, at times even pretending to be stern. Leader of the pack George Mitchell should probably just step down now, indeed while his reputation is still somewhat intact.

Apparently, for whatever reasons, we are expected to keep on always trying to straighten out the unmitigable impasse in the Middle East, ignoring the fact that Israel in particular keeps on making the mess even messier by continuing to break international law, taking over where they ought not even be in the first place, and getting away with it, usually with the blessing of the U.S.

They have gotten away with it for so long, in fact, it's little wonder they have become so arrogant about how they choose to do things. Israel's top persons usually have tended to be almighty stubborn pricks, but I suppose that is understandable, seeing how hard they have tried emulating the United States for so long; they don't know how to act any better. No wonder we like them so much, imitation as flattery.

I'm not saying that the Palestinian leadership has made things any better toward fixing things up; they for sure have not. Dunderheads on that side of the fence are just as responsible for fueling the fire and keeping it going. What I am saying, though, is that the Jewish leaders built that fence and started that fire in the first place, arbitrarily pushing out an entire people from their rightful homeland to claim as their own.

I guess we do have an awful lot in common, the U.S. and Israel, what with our records of taking away others' lands because we want it for ourselves, and because we can, and whatever parts we for one reason or another designate for shoving the original hometowners into, eventually deciding we want that, too. Then to wonder why they get so angry and hateful toward us and want us dead. But I digress...

So Netanyahu is being a bratty little shit, like I said, not following through on stopping building up the West Bank as he promised us he would do. But so what? To build or not to build there, what difference that makes toward resolving the multitude of the rest of the atrocities against the Palestinian people means squat. He's a bratty little shit whether or not he had kept his word.

An "A" for effort, perhaps, on the part of Obama and the U.S. for the rare chiding of Israel's behavior, but it's a moot point anyway. It really would make no dent in the situation there, whatever we might try to do. Not to mention that deeming ourselves qualified to set down rules for peacemaking, well, that's kind of laughable on the face of it.

The point is, not until Israel's leadership owns up to its responsibility for perpetuating the goings on in that neck of the woods, accepts their share of the blame, and stops faulting only the Palestinian authorities, resolves to quit flagrantly breaking, and to instead abide by, international law, maybe then that could be a start. I just don't see that happening.