Sar Shalom
While there will be much discussion about the effects that the Republican takeover of the Senate will have on Palestinian negotiations with Israel, such as on this blog, a separate issue is how the Republicans are like the Palestinians. No, I am not suggesting that their policy platforms are similar. However, there mannerisms have a bit of overlap.
Both the Republicans and the Palestinians depend on people accepting their memes without question simply because every Very Serious Person talks as though they are obviously true. In the case of the Palestinians, the memes include the claims that Israel's settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and that Jordan's conquest of 1949 conferred an inalienable right upon them. In the case of the Republicans, the memes include the notion that out-of-control spending is what is holding back the economy and that both parties are equally intransigent about the bases' shibboleths.
Further, both the Palestinians and the Republicans profit by sitting pat and waiting for outsiders to punish their opposition for the "joint" failure to reach an agreement. In the case of the Palestinians, we see this in the Palestinians refusing to offer acceptable terms for Israel to allow a Palestinian state with the result of Sweden, joined by the British parliament, reacting to Israel's failure to reach an accord for a Palestinian state by recognizing a Palestinian state. In the case of the Republicans, the Republican Party adopted a strategy of withholding all support from whatever Obama proposed for the sole purpose of not allowing the label "bipartisan" to associated with the initiative and was rewarded by the voters' for the Democrats' failure to any agreements with them.
Now, is there any chance that we can convince the liberals who invariably take up the cause of the Palestinians, "You know, everything you say about the Republicans applies to the Palestinians as well," as well conservative minded voters, "You know, everything you say about the Palestinians applies to the Republicans as well?"
