A detailed report by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, on opportunities and dangers facing the Obama administration:
American and foreign government officials, intelligence officers, diplomats, and politicians said in interviews that renewed Israeli-Syrian negotiations over the Golan Heights are now highly likely, despite Gaza and the elections in Israel in February, which left the Likud Party leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of a coalition that includes both the far right and Labor. Those talks would depend largely on America’s willingness to act as the mediator, a role that could offer Barack Obama his first—and perhaps best—chance for engagement in the Middle East peace process.
Within the article there are some quotes from Thomas Dine, an AIPAC man: “You don’t have to be Kissingerian to realize that this is the way to peel the onion from Iran.” Dine went on, “Get what you can get and take one step at a time. The agenda is to get Syria to begin thinking about its relationships with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah.” This is exactly the same argument used by the neocons to justify the Iraq war – it would peel away Iraq from the radical wing of the Arab world and lessen Iranian influence. We all know how that worked out. Not only Syria needs to be engaged, but Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. If Barack Obama can state that he sees Netanyahu as a potential partner for peace, then why not Hamas? Yes the latter officially denies Israel’s right to exist. But Netanyahu denies Palestine’s right to exist.
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