Comment at end
Ban Blair-Baiting
21st March 2010
CONFUSED OVER “INSULTS”?
Did you notice anything unusual about the response from Hillary Clinton regarding Israel’s announcement of 1,600 settlements?
‘In an interview with CNN aired Friday night, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Israel’s announcement of new construction of homes in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem was “insulting” to the United States.’
I’ve racked my brains, and the search engines, but I can’t recall any other time that a grown-up western nation has described the decision/announcement/behaviour of another nation with which it is diplomatically and politically entwined and/or negotiating as “insulting”.
Not “political positioning” or “boundary (as it were) setting”? Or “negotiating from a position of strength”?
No. It was “INSULTING”.
We are all familiar with the insulted feelings proclaimed by some in our societies, such as evidenced here. Never before, between western states, has the language of diplomacy included such seemingly puerile statements as “we are insulted”.
SETTLEMENT BUILDING IS PAR FOR THE COURSE
Yet the Israeli settlement-building announcement is hardly unusual. In fact, it is par for the course.
It seems that –
In March, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker complained to Congress that “Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process.., I have been met with an announcement of new settlement activity… It substantially weakens our hand in trying to bring about a peace process, and creates quite a predicament.” In 1990, he had become so disgusted with Israel’s intransigence on the settlements that he publicly gave out the phone number of the White House switchboard and told the Israelis, “When you’re serious about peace, call us.”
WE’RE STILL INSULTED
But, hey! This is the Obama administration. In order to be understood by ALL who might be listening his administration needs to speak the prevailing language.
And the prevailing language is? One guess.
This is PC taken to a dangerous extreme.
Just in case Americans are still feeling “insulted” the Israeli Prime Minister today rubbed salt into the wounds:
“Israel has no intention of backing down in its argument with the United States over Israeli plans to build 1,600 apartments on disputed land in largely Arab East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
“Our policy regarding Jerusalem is the same as it was over the past 42 years. We have made it clear to the Americans that for us, building there is just like building in Tel Aviv,” Netanyahu said. Israel captured the land in question in the spring of 1967, nearly 43 years ago.
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I’m not so sure about those who insult a nation, though.
THE HAGUE, 11/03/09 – The Supreme Court yesterday produced an important ruling in principle in favour of freedom of speech. The highest court of the Netherlands acquitted a man of insulting Muslims although he dubbed Islam a tumour.
The Supreme Court quashed a ruling by an appeal court in Den Bosch. As had a district court earlier, the appeal court did find the man guilty. Yesterday’s acquittal can have consequences for all future court cases on insulting followers of a faith or ideology, including the notorious case against MP Geert Wilders.’
Tony Blair 