1) "If the Obama administration can break out of the simplistic,..."

We've long given up on Obama and hope he will do the right thing.

2) The skepticism isn't because the "peace" negotiations are inherently bad, the skepticism is that Israel has any intention of stopping its occupation expansion and ethnic cleansing policy of Palestinians. To attack progressives for being skeptical of Israel and the US as an honest mediator only serves to put less pressure on Israel and the US and serves to allow Israel to continue its occupation and ethnic cleansing policies that have existed for decades, even when we were optimistic of the "peace process".

"...the fundamental Israeli demand: recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, alongside a Palestinian state..."

This is the same as:

"...the fundamental South African demand: recognition of South Africa as a white state, alongside black states (i.e., bantustans)..."

Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are Arab-Israelis. They are not Jewish. Why should anyone support the idea that they must continue to be second-class citizens forever? Obviously, it is all about continuing a racist Israeli system that privileges Jews over everyone else.

That is why, in addition to the ethnic cleansing Israel is continuing in the occupied Palestinian territories, to create "lebensraum" for Jewish "settlers" on land stolen from Palestinians, Israel is also continuing the ethnic cleansing of Arab-Israelis in east Jerusalem, and the Bedouin Israelis in the Negev.

It is not only "easy to be skeptical about the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," as Chernus puts it, it is delusional not to be. I wonder why Chernus failed to point out that Palestine Authority "President" Abbas's term of office ended 18 months ago, and he and his fellow office holders refuse to hold elections, preferring to stay in office illegally, with the support of U.S. funds. Abbas not only doesn't represent the Palestinians in Gaza, he doesn't even represent the Palestinians in the West Bank.

"All of those charges are generally true and worth repeating at every opportunity, to remind the world what is really going on in the Middle East."

the "world" doesnt need reminding. the US and Israeli govts. need to be hammered with the "facts on the ground" as stated by Chernus and the previous commentators.

the fix is in. this is what needs reminding and raising hell about.

"U.S. public opinion plays a crucial role - very possible the decisive role - in the outcome of the process."
What a lot of crap! This assumes that A) Americans actually have a say in who runs the country (as in the U.S.) and B) that there is a large block of either Democrats or Republicans that don't unconditionally support Israel.
There would be a chance if some strong U.S. leader withdrew the 3.5 billion of U.S. aid the U.S. hands over to Israel each year, demanded that Israel sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, announced that the occupation of Gaza is a crime against humanity and that the U.S. is unwilling to support any country that insists that it is a racially/culturally/ethnically superior.
The skeptics are realists who understand that democracy in the U.S. has been replaced by a plutocracy that has absolutely no interest in the opinions of a generally brainwashed and politically ignorant public who are more concerned about Paris Hilton than nuclear war in the Middle East.
The only way corporate America would pay attention is if the public tossed out the two corporate parties at election time. The fact that that won't happen, is proof of the effectiveness of the MSM's dumbing down of the masses.
Ira, wake up and smell the coffee. The public doesn't have a say in what happens in D.C. or anywhere else.

I think that, with the elections coming up, Prof. Chernus is reverting to his Obama cheerleading mode.

The so-called "peace process" is already doomed.

The Geneva Accord was already negotiated by Israelis and Palestinians, and Israel could start implementing it now. They won't because the real piont of agreeing to a process is to gobble up the rest of the land during pointless "negotiations. "

There is no difference between the right-wing "support Israel" crowd and the Democrats. They are one and the same. Progressive calls for Palestinian Arab justice are ignored by ALL those in the power structures of the US government---R and D. The only thing that will move the Israeli government to do the right thing---a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with a right for displaced Palestinians to return to their land stolen in 1948---is a robust boycott, divest, sanction BDS movement in europe and the US. Led not by corrupt governments but by the people.

At the outset, I saw that Chernus had firmly screwed on his tendentious Attitude Police riot helmet. Again. As previous comments also note, this is one of his "standards".

So I wasn't exactly shocked, or impressed, with another of his periodic variations on the message: Clap Harder!

FWIW, I just posted a reply on another comments thread here to someone wondering about the excessive comments-flagging. I pointed out, not for the first or last time, that the growing epidemic of "spite-flagging" here is exactly like the false-alarm sprees I used to experience when I lived in a big apartment complex.

So too, these simplistic paeans to the Power of Positive Thinking.

IMO, whether the subject is the Middle East or reforming the Democratic Party, the "Clap Harder!" alarms have long since passed their sell-by dates. Attentive, discriminating consumers will respond accordingly. [edited grammatical error]

Ira Chernus: “In recent months the Israeli press has been filled with anxiety about what's called the threat of ‘delegitimization,’ the growing perception around the world that the Jews have no claim on the land they call Israel and that very idea of a Jewish state should be questioned or outright rejected.”

Another misguided, if not cynical, Chernus article. Chernus tries to disarm critics by proclaiming himself an advocate of Palestinian rights, but if progressives listen to his siren-song, Israel will continue to use peace talks as a cover for incremental ethnic cleansing and annexation of Palestinian land.

I use the term “cynical” advisedly, because Chernus should know better by now. His earlier articles supporting continued peace talks were thoroughly debunked by CD readers. What is his real agenda? To help Palestinians, or to defuse the growing threat of “delegitimization” of the Zionist project? For Chernus, derailing the peace talks (although just a cover for more Israeli land grabs) means derailing the racist regime in Israel, and this is obviously an unacceptable outcome for him.

Chernus avoids all mention of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. No surprise here, since Zionism’s goal has always been the expulsion of Palestinians, not their return, which would undermine the racial and religious integrity of the Zionist state.

He also avoids all mention of the most powerful weapon available to progressives to help Palestinians, the BDS movement. Perhaps he is silent about the BDS movement because it poses a real threat to the Zionist regime, whereas bogus peace talks pose a threat only to Palestinians.

Instead, Chernus insists that progressives should waste their time trying to apply pressure on an Obama administration that has already sold out the Palestinans.

Progressives should concentrate on the establishment of a democratic, secular government in Israel/Palestine, and the collapse of the illegitimate Zionist regime. With time and persistence, a worldwide BDS movement can achieve this goal. There can never be peace as long as racist Zionists rule anywhere in the Middle East.

Reminds me of something a commenter said of Professor Chernus's periodic exhortations to support the "Peace Process":

"This rambling exercise in reading Mideast policy tea leaves is silly at best and damaging at worst because it perpetuates certain questionable presumptions about the intentions and strategies of the U.S. and Israel."

Did Ira Chernus read Israel's newest Reut Institute report? Sounds like it!

http://www.reut-institute.org/gazaflotillacasestudy.pdf

Why is it that on almost any "progressive" site that I visit, on practically any article dealing with Israel, those commenting on the articles seem far more well informed than the authors of the articles that these sites put up?

If we want peace in the Middle East, there is a very simple solution. Stop funding and equipping those that perpetuate the violence.

Any solution that does not put that forth as it's first point is not a solution.

Skeptics or realists? The "peace process" is a sham.

Excerpted from "Israel: The U. S. Watchdog"

By Lance Selfa

-snip-

The Jordanian crisis highlighted one of Israel's chief values to the U.S.--helping to prop up reactionary regimes in the Middle East. But Israel didn't confine its dirty work for the U.S. to the Middle East. Since 1948, just about every pro-U.S. repressive dictatorship in the world has received some kind of overt or covert Israeli aid. The U.S. funnels weapons and aid through Israel when it wants to evade congressional bans on aid to repressive regimes. The U.S. and the CIA subcontract training of death squads and terrorists to Israel.

Consider the following examples:

# Israeli military advisers helped to train the militaries and secret police agencies of such "friends of Israel" as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Emperor Bokassa in the Central African Republic, General Idi Amin in Uganda, and Ian Smith of Rhodesia.

# In 1978, Israel sold U.S. jets and attack helicopters to Indonesia as that country's military carried out genocide against East Timor. To date, the Indonesian military has killed more than 200,000 Timorese. Israel's arms trade with the Suharto dictatorship continues today.

# In the last year of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, Israel provided 98 percent of the arms Somoza used to kill 50,000 Nicaraguans. In 1980, Israel supplied 83 percent of the arms to the genocidal military regime of Guatemala. 14

# In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Israel earned more than $1 billion a year selling weapons to the military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile and Brazil. "Thus while Jewish newspaper publisher [and human rights advocate] Jacobo Timerman was being tortured by the Argentine military in cells painted with swastikas, three Israeli generals, including the former armed forces chief of staff, were visiting Buenos Aires on a 'friendly mission' to sell arms." 15

# In 1977, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan announced that Israel would not abide by the international arms embargo against the racist South African apartheid regime. Even an Israeli newspaper conceded, "It is a clear and open secret known to everybody that in [South African] army camps one can find Israeli officers in not insignificant numbers who are busy teaching white soldiers to fight Black terrorists with methods imported from Israel." 16

# Israel anchored an international terrorist network which ran guns, drugs and other weapons between Panama's Noriega, the contras in Nicaragua, Middle Eastern arms dealers, the Sultan of Brunei and the CIA. The Reagan administration made use of this network during the "arms for hostages" Contragate affair in the mid-1980s.

Israel's aid to repressive regimes reflects more than a tradeoff for U.S. dollars. To be sure, Israel's economy, of which one-fifth is devoted to the military, gains from the military contracts and trade. But there is a more fundamental reason why Israel supports murderous dictatorships. As a state whose entire existence depends on an alliance with imperialism to suppress the Palestinian national liberation movement, it opposes in principle any movements for democracy or liberation in what used to be called "the Third World." In the Middle East, "...[t]he Israeli establishment knows that an Arab democracy will be much stronger than any Arab autocratic regime," the radical Israeli human rights campaigner Israel Shahak explained. Israel wants an undemocratic Palestinian bantustan in the occupied territories because it knows that "democracy will strengthen the Palestinians while Israel wants to keep them weak." 17 From Rhodesia to apartheid South Africa to the Gulf monarchies, Israel ties its interests not with the masses fighting for freedom, but with their jailers.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/04/Israel_watchdog.shtml

petrkrop wrote: "...the fundamental Israeli demand: recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, alongside a Palestinian state..."

This is the same as:

"...the fundamental South African demand: recognition of South Africa as a white state, alongside black states (i.e., bantustans)..."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Brilliant observation.

Here's the bottom line... well, we really have a bunch of parallel lines that underline each other:

The status quo suits the Israelis just fine. Zionists control both houses of Congress IN THE USA. NOT ONE current prominent politician has EVER/WOULD EVER DARE TO publicly denounce ANY Israeli action or policy. The Israelis are (always) making steady progress towards their final goal, which varies according to the facts on the ground. The Israeli government is not considering any meaningful concessions.

There are no consequences for Israeli violations of international law.

Only the US (kinda) has the capital to induce a respectable settlement. However, because of Zionist domination of US politics, no one has the cojones to insist on anything approaching justice in this case.

So, yeah! These talks are going nowhere.

I went back over this article numerous times because the author does such a sophisticated job of obfuscating. I do not mean to imply that this obfuscating was deliberate.
I would like to believe that Mr. Chernus is an optimist, but, sadly, there are too many angles, too many assumptions, and too many accusations.
The so-called "peace process" is almost an unendingly bleak charade.
Too many times does Mr. Chernus say something like "if Obama" or "the Obama administration could." Then, he tries to portray Netanyahu as a reasonable person and Abbas as something more than a U.S. tool.

Only on one point is Mr. Chernus adamant. If these so-called "peace talks" fail, Mr. Chernus will blame the progressives.
The same progressives who have been REPEATEDLY ostracized and belittled by the coulda/woulda/shoulda Obama right wing administration and its simpleton supporters.

This article is simultaneously misguided, shrewd, pathetic, and cynical.

PLAN =Z=
Relocate Israel - lock stock and temple - to northern Saskatchewan.

"to build a noisy constituency for the fair and reasonable resolution of the conflict that the international community has long ago agreed upon. "

I don't know what "fair and reasonable resolution" Chernus is talking about.

The resolution that's largely been bandied about in the U.S. press and last put forth by Bill Clinton is far from fair. No right of return for Palestinian refugees, Israel gets to keep large swaths of occupied territories and Palestinians don't actually have a genuinely sovereign state, rights to live in their native city if it happens to be the major parts of Jerusalem Israel keeps. They might gain some freedom from the nightly raids by Israeli troops into the bantustans into which they've been herded in return for U.S.-trained Palestinians doing the same function.

The international community, on the other hand, is largely in agreement that the Palestinians have the right of return and no country should be allowed to acquire any territory by conquest. The international community largely agrees that colonial ventures such as Israel should be ended and that especially colonists should not claim superior rights over native peoples. That ethnic cleansing should not be allowed to stand, neither those by the brutal policies of deliberate mass murder, such as those by which Israel was founded, nor by imposition of racist bureaucratic nightmares designed to make life near impossible for Palestinians in parts of the occupied territories Israel wants to keep.

I suspect Chernus is asking progressives to get behind the former resolution, and I guess with significant arm-twisting especially by the U.S., at least some world leaders have agreed. That those world leaders represent the international community is a rather dubious claim, it may arguably be reasonable to wish to stop direct beatings and bring some relief from Israel's economic siege to the Palestinians, but what it boils down to is asking progressives to support Israel's racism..