The word “concession” is value neutral. It refers to someone giving up/stopping something that they would prefer to have/do.
I understand that “It’s not really a concession because I think they should give it up!” is a meme that’s been going around the Dope recently, but it’s silly. Conceding something has nothing to do with any objective right of the person making the concession, but only their lack of uncoerced desire to give it up, or lack thereof.
Even if we look at a hostage taker, if the police ask him to give up some of his hostages, they are asking him to make concessions. That doesn’t mean that he had a right to hold people at gunpoint.
The Palestinians still have not lived up to the last agreement they made; nonetheless,
The administration has made a new demand of the Irealis – that there be no new building within long-existing settlements – but
the administration has made no demands whatsoever of the Palestinians.
I call that “unilateral concessions.”
There is no perfect solution, and I wasn’t necessarily saying that there was one. That’s the devil of things like foreign policy with a vast, disparate region: ofthen there is no “right answer.” Anything you do will piss somebody off.
But if you’re looking for Arab countries that are headed in the right direction on democracy/human rights (while still having far to go) Kuwait would be good choice.
You’re right. It was good for the President to invoke the long history of Egypt, and said how he respected it, while simultanously appealing to the vast numbers of Arab youth by talking about expanding student visas and how the future was in their hands. He even used Arabic words. That was great.
The United States isn’t located in the Middle East.
The USA can bring all the pressure to bear it wants, and it has a lot to bring. But if the solution is politically impossible in Israel and in the Palestinian territories, there’s no solution.
It’s certainly possible the Obama administration could improve relations between the USA and most of the Muslim states. That’d be fantastic. He’s not going to do it just by giving speeches but he certainly has the savoir faire to do what needs doing. But asking him to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just a ridiculous expectation, and it was ridiculous to expect Bush to do it, ridiculous to expect Clinton to do it. It’s great that the USA has put some honest effort into brokering a peace deal but neither Barack Obama nor any other President can make the Israelis and Palestinians comne to terms under the current circumstances or any other circumstances that could conceivably be in place in the foreseeable future.
I’m not arguing your point per se, but the US is present in the Middle East. XXk troops in Afghanistan and XXXk troops in Iraq. Not including our ever present (air/naval) presence. Not including the ME notion that the US always plays a role. The question is, is it for good, or bad. Who do they trust.
To me, this is a message from Obama that we are your friends, not your enemies. And a message from OBL that, don’t be fooled, they are always our enemies, not our friends (same shit, different suit). An Information war. Different and apart from a diplomatic (lawyers), military (guns), or economic (money) war. All which are fought at the same time. Yes, I simplify, but even though it’s just talk, it’s quite effective, and certainly necessary to win.
The message that needs to get across to the average Muslim is…Who is going to make their life better more? Who is on their side really? Who knows what they really need/want, ect.
It would be interesting to see some papers from different ME countries to see how they report the President’s name. Is it US President Obama? or US President Barack Hussein Obama? That alone would be very telling of the message they want to convey (or not convey).
If it helps mend fences and costs us nothing, why not ?
And America’s present unwillingness to grant respect to anything outside it’s borders is hardly something to be proud of; America’s self absorption is one of it’s defects. The ‘LOL’ is on us.
On the other hand, he directly challenged Mubarak during the speech. He specifically mentioned the Copts in Egypt as an oppressed group deserving of protection, which was a direct slap at Mubarak. He also went on about democratic governments that are repressive, which to me (and some others I have spoken to) sounded like another dig at Mubarak. Obama’s no dummy; he is aware of Egypt’s fairly abysmal human rights record and how that affects the credibility of his talk, and he took steps to rectify that by not exempting his host from direct and fairly blunt criticism.
I also think he did a lot to pull the rug out from right-wing critics. He was very smart to call Holocaust deniers ignorant and hateful, and to say the US’s bond with Israel was unbreakable *before *engaging in any tough talk toward Israel; and also in saying that the Arabs also have responsibilities (and not just grievances). Also, emphasizing that his first job is to protect US citizens was smart. You could see which parts of the speech were aimed at a domestic audience. IMO he did a really good job of saying what the Muslims needed to hear while not giving ammo to (rational) conservatives.
Why is it that I always find there are a few people on this board that are VERY well versed in why Israel is right, jus tthe same why the Scientologists are very well versed in their “religion”
If you view stopping settlements as a “concession” then how do you think Palestinians view the continued expansion of the settlements? I guess they have no right at all to call it an incitement, or antagonism right - after all, Israel is always more “right” than those stinking terrorist Palestinians.
It was a good speech, but still nothing more than a speech. If it isn’t followed up with concrete actions, it will be forgotten in two months. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that Obama can pressure the Israeli’s to take even the most basic step towards peace by stopping the growth of settlements in the West Bank.
There is nothing ridiculous about the US trying to stop it’s largest foreign aid recipient from launching rockets at refugee camps, or protecting stable democratically elected governments from terrorists. Especially since this issue is such a prominent stain on our foreign policy for approximately 20% of the people on this planet.
And no one said Obama’s going to MAKE any side do anything, and I don’t think even you believe talking for one hour in a Cairo university is all he’s going to do about this issue.
Why? Carter was able to resolve the Israeli-Egyptian conflict. All it requires is that both sides be sick enough of the conflict that a settlement does not appear even worse to them.
And this is why playing politics with the language itself become sort of… silly.
Yes, for centuries now the English language has been conspiring against your politics by having denotations that you do not like. Words have entered common usage with agreed upon definitions simply to piss you off. Your war against the meaning of words is noble and well thought out, and the fact that folks most cruelly point out to you that you don’t understand the definition of a word just shows that they might as well be Scientologists.
Only Scientologists own dictionaries.
It’s all about money. The sides involved in this conflict all want money.
Egypt extorts uncle Sam
Arab leaders use the conflict to distract their people (and to make them think favorably of their countries compared to Palestine)
Compensation for refugees is also not agreed upon.
Bottom line, it all boils down to a legendary haggling session between arabs and their cousins. A really vigourous haggling session, with children dying and stuff