Another Tack: Masters and donkeys
By SARAH HONIG
22/01/2010
When Obama's special Mideast envoy fails to object to carrot-and-stick
speak, he implies that he's in charge, while we - threatened with a
severe whack on the rump - are his asses.
Consciously or otherwise, the carrot-or-stick motif conjures images of
masters and the dumb donkeys they try to prod and move along. Those
lucky enough to be in position to choose between inducing or punishing
are obviously the power-wielding honchos.
Those to be tempted or whacked into submission are clearly the brutish
troublesome beasts which must be disciplined - one way or another.
Therefore, when US President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy
fails to object to carrot-and-stick speak - and even bothers to
specify one stick's characteristics - he implies that he's in charge,
while we, threatened with a severe whack on the rump, are his asses.
So forget the nitty-gritty of George Mitchell's January 7
gibber-jabber in the PBS interview with Charlie Rose about withdrawing
loan guarantees if we Israelis don't obey pronto. Plenty of ink has
been spilled on whether this constituted a serious signal. The point
has been honed that we don't desperately depend on said guarantees,
that Israel repays all its debts dutifully and that it can get along
just fine, thank you, without Washington's grudging favor.
That's almost the lesser issue.
What ought to get our goat is Mitchell's attitude - and by extension
that of the White House resident who appointed him. It wasn't the
reference to a possible anti-Israel stick which made Rose's interview
with Mitchell outrageous. It was the hubris and presumptuousness it
exuded. Both interviewer and interviewee radiated supercilious
smugness and ostensible omniscience. Both the professed honest broker
and the opinionated talking head haughtily, almost frivolously,
reduced us to the lowly status of obdurate pack animals.
To be sure, it was Rose, patronizingly sounding the voice of impatient
reason - intermittently even chiding Mitchell for not getting the
pesky chore of contracting a Mideast peace out of the way quickly and
imperiously enough - who first mentioned carrots and sticks. But
Mitchell could have refused to resort to the offensive terminology.
The fact that he didn't - and that he went so far as to hypothesize
about the likely stick with which he might smack Israel, but
conspicuously noting nothing with which the Palestinians might be
thumped - speaks volumes in itself.
SO DID the air of lighthearted camaraderie and lightweight banter
throughout the one-on-one. At some points it became surreal. Clued-in
viewers had to wonder whether the mutually ego-massaging chums
actually believed what escaped their lips or whether they merely
pretended to.
Take Mitchell's portrayal of the PA's PM: "an impressive person, Salam
Fayyad, who is trying to build, from the ground up, the institutions
of governance that will be able to govern effectively on day-one of
the Palestinian state." Rose cheerfully chimed in: "They also call
that bottom up." On cue, an agreeable Mitchell contentedly poured on
more syrup: "Bottom up, top down." Yep, we get it, the Ramallah bunch
is on the side of the angels.
Mitchell then proceeded to lay it on even thicker: "Now, obviously, we
have great respect for President [Mahmoud] Abbas. We think he and
Prime Minister Fayyad represent strong and effective leadership for
the Palestinian people and are the ones that we think are going to
produce a Palestinian state."
Who is Mitchell kidding? If he doesn't understand that Abbas is a
virtual leader and that both he and his clique are neither respected
nor trusted by anyone in the Middle East, then we are dealing with
willful delusion.
Mitchell gets lots more cloyingly sweet: The Palestinian "security
forces are outstanding by any measure... Palestinians have taken very
significant steps. Until the last couple of years, the principle
problem from their side was the absence of security... that was the
Israelis' angle: 'We don't have a partner; they're not doing anything
about the terrorists and the violence.' Now you have a government that
is doing something, very actively, aggressively, successfully, as even
the Israelis acknowledge."
That upbeat assessment doubtlessly impresses Avshalom Meir Chai's
bereaved widow and seven children. He was shot in the head on Route 57
near Shavei Shomron, after Israel obligingly removed a checkpoint
close to Tulkarm as a "goodwill gesture" to appease Mitchell. Later
IDF troops clashed with and killed three of the murderers during an
attempt to detain them. Abbas's "outstanding" forces never tried to
apprehend these snipers. Moreover, Abbas soon shamelessly glorified
them on PATV as "martyrs executed cold-bloodedly by Israeli forces in
Nablus." So much for promoting the spirit of peace and coexistence.
By ignoring this, Mitchell doesn't just innocuously look on the bright
side. He masks reality and abets falsehood. Mitchell boosts an inciter
who exalts drive-by shooters. They hailed from Abbas's Fatah faction.
If Abbas can't even control his own splinter, what can rationally be
expected of him? To distort the truth that Judea and Samaria's
relative calm is the IDF's handiwork is to disseminate lies. To demand
the removal of roadblocks and checkpoints which curtail attacks is to
undermine security, not enhance it.
GET A load of the following exchange. It begins with Mitchell waxing
ecstatic over Obama's alacrity to rid mankind of our conflict once and
for all: "This president began 48 hours after taking office. He
appointed me to this position two days after he was sworn in as
president. You know what he said to me? He said, I want you to go over
there tonight. I said, Mr. President, I've got a wife and kids, I
don't have any clothes with me. I have to go home and tell them I'm
going to leave. I had to go home for a day just to get ready to go. He
was anxious from the first to get into it."
Rose: Okay, but tell me, do you think things - since the moment he
said that to you and the moment that you prepare next week to be back
there - things are better or worse?
Mitchell: Oh, they're much better.
Well, you could have fooled us. Mitchell's assertion, though, fits
snugly into the interview's clipped judgmentalisms, worthy of a
righteous 1930s Hollywood cops-and-robbers flick. Mitchell, for
instance, noted that Israel annexed east Jerusalem and treats it as an
integral part of the state. To this Rose retorted: "So you're going to
let them go ahead even though no one recognized the annexation."
Our complex context, the genocide plotted against us for over a
century, are all simplistically condensed and superficially redefined
as an irksome kink that requires a quick-fix. At best equal blame is
artificially apportioned to both sides. Our tribulations are boiled
down to tiresome bellyaching that must with great urgency be overcome.
Israel's very inability to risk the Jewish state's continued existence
for the sake of facile cliches paradoxically facilitates its
demonization. When our struggle for survival ends up trivialized and
kitschified, the remedy is clear: Get the darned donkey under control
with one stick or another.
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