A few weeks ago I heard on Democracy Now! an interview of Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament. He made a very good point about whether we should be talking to Hamas:

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the Israeli government should speak with Hamas?

AVRAHAM BURG: No doubt. I have no doubt about it.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken with them?

AVRAHAM BURG: I’m speaking with everybody who’s available, both in the region—both in the region and around the world. I cannot go to Gaza, because it’s impossible now, but I see them in the West Bank, I see them in Israel, I see them in London.

And I have one thing—I have two things in mind. The first is, I don’t remember even one funeral who came out of a dialogue. I remember many funerals coming out of no dialogue, and shootings. The second is, look at Middle East history. Every time we rejected somebody, we were missing him or her a couple of eras later. Today’s extremist is tomorrow’s moderate. And I ask myself, when will—

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that.

AVRAHAM BURG: When will be the time in which we’ll look back and say, “Ah! We missed the opportunity to talk to Hamas?”

Here is ’67. We conquered and we occupied the West Bank. The first thing we did, we kicked out of the Occupation Territories all the king’s—King Hussein—Jordanian supporters. Then the PLO walked in, and we said, “Where are the supporters of the king when we need them?” But they were not there, because we were the ones expelled them. Then we said, “We shall never talk to the PLO, never talk to them.” So we didn’t talk to them and didn’t talk to them and didn’t talk to them. Now Hamas is there; we say, “Where is the moderate PLO we missed so many years ago?”

Now, a day will come, I don’t know when, al-Qaeda will be there in Gaza. It will be the global Islam front, and some of the Palestinians will be disconnected from their national political reality and become part of something else. Then I’ll say, “Where is Hamas?” And I say, as difficult as it is, it is there. What will happen? You build a higher wall? You go for more unilateral, arrogant, but still escapism policy? It’s not right. You’re here, Amy. I want to talk to you.

The emphasis is mine. The full interview can be seen/heard/read here:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/12/former_speaker_of_the_israeli_parliament

I know I'm not adding anything to the discussion. But note that members of all three of the British political parties are in agreement here. Basic human decency is something we all ought to agree on. That we don't in this country is still shocking to me.

I don't know what I would do without my daily fix of Greenwald and Goodman. Congratulations!

Readers of this blog know what it's strengths are. For those who don't regularly view or listen to Goodman's Democracy Now!, they have been especially strong on our current economic and financial problems and on Obama's economic and financial policies.

If the idea is to get credit flowing again why is it so important to save the bad assets? The inevitable answer has to be that what we are really being asked to do is to bail out bankers and investors rather than get credit flowing again. As Joe Stiglitz put it on Democracy Now! (Feb. 25) the government could have taken the $700 Billion financial bailout, leveraged it 10 to 1, and had $7 Trillion to lend to people and companies who need credit. Let the thieving Wall Street alpha males crash and burn on their own. (click my sig for the DN! show)

Obama is currently making a mistake with the financial bailouts (which need to be kept distinct from the stimulus plan). As economist Joseph Stigliz puts it, Obama has confused saving the banks with saving the bankers. (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/25/stieglitz or click on my sig). Why is Obama doing this? Because of the political clout of the bankers. But this "revolt" can give Obama political cover to do the right thing, which is to cast off the bankers and bad investors who got us into this mess, rather than bailing them out. The financial bailout is deeply unpopular, deservedly so. Forcing a change in this disastrous policy while finally making the bad actors pay rather than bailing them out would play well with the constituents, and it would be right for the country.

Oh how the rats leave the sinking ship. It's not a conservative ideology that offers nothing positive to anyone that is at fault, oh no. It's the party's fault. It's Bush's fault. He's a crypto Democrat anyway. All those Republicans in Congress are fake conservatives, don't you see.

They deserve each other. And though I loathe both the Republican Party and Limbaugh (seeing how they are no longer the same thing), I get no pleasure from watching this revolting spectacle. A healthy political system requires strong opposition parties. We've now had the pusilanimous Democrats the last 8 years, who did nothing whatsoever to stop Republican excesses and crimes. Now we have the clueless, repugnant Republicans whose answer for everything is a bomb, a tax cut, and fear and loathing.