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  • The Forgotten Palestinians
    http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/189-israel-palestine/51844-the-forgotten-palestinians.html

    The Forgotten Palestinians
    ( Security Council and Israel/Palestine )
    2-15-6eca7palestine
    Picture Credit: ramallahonline.com

    On May 15, the New York Times published an article by Aaron David Miller entitled “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller’s picture of Israel as a struggling democratic state facing external threats presents the usual bland confection. Miller fails to address the genuine threats that are affecting hopes for peace and promoting extremist ideas within the country: Israeli police attacks on J14 demonstrators in Tel Aviv; trends towards greater economic inequality, the expansion of the separation wall, the continued siege of the Gaza Strip; and Israel’s categorical backing of violent West Bank settlers.

    By Patrick O. Strickland
    Counterpunch
    August 20, 2012

    On May 15, the New York Times ran an editorial authored by Aaron David Miller under the title of “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller argues that the Israeli government’s attempts to achieve a “more peaceful and prosperous future” must “count for something.”

    In his discursive analysis of the contemporary political climate, Miller unfolds an unabridged list of threats to Israel: the Israeli social justice movement, the Syrian uprising, the Egyptian ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Iran, the security vacuum in the Sinai, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis, and ‘Arab Israelis’ (which is, of course, a crass euphemism intended to disavow the collective identity of Palestinian citizens of Israel).

    Cataloging this exhaustive account of dangers, he resorts to a number of boorish clichés and Western media assumptions. Indeed, despite Israel’s malicious enemies, he argues, “the Israelis will prosper and keep their state, but the Arabs and the Iranians will never let them fully enjoy it.”

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