On "Zoning"

You know what? Bill Maher wasn't wrong last Friday night when he referred to Sarah Palin as a "dumb twat," he was just a little premature.

Having said that, I hope that she runs for the presidency and I hope that she wins. She's far and away the most unserious candidate in my lifetime and she's the ideal figurehead for a collapsing country in an era of almost irreversible decline. Why shouldn't a reality TV star be president of the United States, godfuckit? What national dignity is there left to lose? Besides, Palin would still be a better nominee for the Republican party than Newt Gingrich.

Sarah Palin was Snooki before there was a Snooki. She's more than halfway fuckable, entertaining on TV and everybody knows her name. If that's good enough for "Must See TV," it must be good enough for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! If the United States wants to take itself down in a truly entertaining way, I can think of no better way to do it than electing a President Sarah Palin. She's easily the angriest potential commander-in-chief since Nixon, yet far and away the dumbest.

If you doubt that, just look at her recent forays into foreign policy.

Hours after a terror attack in Jerusalem, Sarah Palin on Wednesday night hammered President Obama for not standing strongly enough behind Israel, conceding too much to the Palestinians, and interfering in a local “zoning issue” – settlement building on the West Bank.

“I think there are many in Israel who would feel even more comfortable knowing that there is an even greater commitment from those who presently occupy the White House that they are there on Israel's side, and that our most valuable ally in that region can count on us,” Palin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren in an interview in Naples, Florida.

(...)


Palin struck a pro-Israel tone saying, if she were president, she would take an opposite approach to Obama and stay out of Israel’s way regarding settlements in the West Bank, and take a harder line with Palistineans.

“President Obama was inappropriate to intervene in a zoning issue in Israel,” she said, referring to settlement building on the West Bank. "Let Israel decide their zoning issues themselves.”

Wow. Just .. wow.

There's a lot that can be said about the West Bank, and has been over the years. But I'm almost certain that it's never been called a "zoning issue" by anyone other than a halfway delusional media whore before.

Again, let's look at the history.

Israel conquered the area in the 1967 war and has occupied it ever since. Even they're not shy about saying that. Not only does Israel maintain that position, I'm not aware of a country that doesn't. Israel is, however, pretty much alone in recognizing its annexation of East Jerusalem, which is why almost every country that recognizes Israel has their embassy in Tel Aviv.

Even the Israeli Supreme Court has held that the West Bank has been held under a state of " belligerent occupation, since 1967" and "that the normative provisions of public international law regarding belligerent occupation are applicable. The Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 1949 were both cited."

Not only have the Israeli courts agreed with the standing international law, so has every American president since Lyndon Johnson. Without exception, they've held that the West Bank - including East Jerusalem - are occupied territories. Even though the most recent Bush administration was largely silent on it, they never deviated from it.

Problematically, building settlements on occupied territory is also illegal under international law.Were it not, you'd be seeing a whole lot of Iraqis in downtown Kuwait City these days, which you notably don't.

The United States has unfortunately subsidized the building of those Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza through loan guarantees, which was self-defeating in that they complicated U.S foreign policy in the region and committed itself to an illegal policy. The only halfway courageous president since 1967 was George H.W Bush, who suspended those loan guarantees, but he only did that because Yitzak Shamir unnecessarily complicated the promised Madrid Conference following the Gulf War.

America likes Israel, but it needs oil. And Israel doesn't have any. Every administration since Truman's has been able to fudge the difference by propping up Arab tyrannies. But as we've seen in the last few months, that trend has become untenable in the long term. They actually seem to have started taking U.S rhetoric about self-determination seriously.

Which is great ... if you assume that your average Egyptian feels the way about the Occupied Territories that an unemployed Pittsburgh steelworker - the ideal Sarah Palin voter -  does.

The problem is that that they most probably don't. There is absolutely no reason to believe that newly democratic Arab countries are going to feel any differently about the Occupied Territories than their authoritarian predecessors did. They're actuallyy far more likely, following their own liberation, to take an even harder line toward the Israeli occupation. Wouldn't you be?

Many experts think that the United States is essential to Arab-Israeli peace. I actually don't. Absent American influence in the region, I think that some sort of deal would have been made years ago. And a better deal was to have been made with Arab tyrannies than with democracies.

This is about a whole lot more than "zoning," and pretending that it isn't should automatically disqualify you as a serious person.

I want to see Israel survive. But given the demographic time-bomb Israel faces, it doesn't seem as though Sarah Palin does.

Sarah Palin truly is a dumb twat. And she proves it every day.