General Reveals Residual Neocon-Likudnik Haunting at Pentagon

For the neocons, it was not enough last month when Bush compared Iran to al-Qaeda. Forget the rhetoric, say the neocons. Bomb Iran, now. Of course, this is nothing new, as the Israel First neocons, at the behest of Likud-Kadima, the nationalist-religious parties, and the fanatical settler wing of the Israeli government, have called for mass murdering untold numbers in Iran for some time now.
However, with each passing day, the calls get more strident, more shrill, more desperate, especially with Israel’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Hezbollah last summer. Hezbollah over the border in Lebanon and a tarnished invincibility image, however, take a backseat to the cardinal fear of the Israelis—international pressure may force them to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians and, dread to imagine, work toward creating a Palestinian state.
“Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom the Israelis believed had been firmly co-opted into the U.S.-Israeli camp, has recently called for the economic boycott of the Palestinians to be lifted once the unity government is in place,” writes Patrick Seale for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. “This is all very bad news for right-wingers in Israel and their American supporters. They had hoped that the ‘land-for-peace’ formula of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 had been finally buried. They want to break the Palestinian national movement—hence Olmert’s unremitting assault on Gaza and the West Bank—rather than negotiate a political compromise with it. They want to seize more Palestinian land, not to withdraw to anything like the 1967 borders.”
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