Simon Wood’s Reviews > The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine > Status Update

Brilliant analysis.

Very impressed with a lot of it. Peace will happen when the Americans decide it will and act with sufficient rigour to assure Israel complies. A bit of an oversimplification but it's the major step needed. That or the EU acting independently and Abbas being strung up from a lamppost!

Oh no, Americans will not decide anything. EU will not act independently. And Abbas is a symptom, not a problem. Sorry for being depressingly realistic. Realism is why I liked this book.

The US - dishonest brokers par excellence - will decide to do nothing that is capable of causing an Israeli rethink and making a settlement that gives the Palestinians a State in the 22% of Palestine that remained after 1948. Abbas and the Palestine leadership are a problem, I didn't think the PLO could have a leader worse than Arafat, the Palestinians need to get shot of them which is essentially what they did in the 2006 elections before the Americans, and the EU wagging their tails behind them, showed that their commitment to Democracy was worthless rhetoric.

I agree with a lot of his analysis, but I'm wondering as I'm reaching the end of the book where he is going with his realism... my monies on nowhere.

Hell, this is why they ended up voting for Hamas. Surely not a particularly pleasant alternative. He is going nowhere and I concur. I simply cannot see a decent solution. Yes, realistically speaking. There is no reason for an Israeli government to withdraw from the status quo, Palestinians are to weak to make it, and nobody else cares enough to do anything.

Voting for Hamas was the Palestinians choice - that's democracy and the response to their winning shows how shallow the US and EU's commitment to democracy is - no surprise there. Sure a Hamas victory is not utopia but it's not ISIS or Al Qaeda either. Compared to the corrupt quislings of the Fatah it seemed to the Palestinians to be a pleasanter alternative.

Nathan Thralls analysis is generally good but at its core is a moral vacuum. It's if he's saying to Palestinians and their supporters - Nothing is possible, nothing will change so you might as well just sit on your hands.

The International Crisis Group, of which Thrall is a member, markets itself is an Independent organisation but is itself headed by a guy thst members of the Israel Lobby have happily regarded as pro Israel. His deputy was a former minister in Gordon Browns government. It's just another establishment outdoor relief scheme.

Not a bad book - the clear headedness of most of his analysis is it's saving grace. But I'd rather have one Edward Said than a score of Nathan Thralls.

I would rather have both. I do not think there is a moral vacuum, I suspect that the next step is a fight for civil rights for Palestinians within Israel. Not sure how well that would work, the level of racism within Israel is very high. But the current situation, when the idea of occupation is utilized by Israel in order to keep generations of Palestinians from having any civil rights, is bad. Now, a struggle of a weak group against a very powerful one always looks hopeless. Still, for some groups situation improves gradually, but only after struggle and never completely. Besides, passivity is not an option, Palestinians are really not given an option of avoiding politics and living a private life. As for Hamas, I doubt many Palestinians were happy with the alternatives they were given.