Seth poses the question very starkly:
'It may seem far-fetched in today's atmosphere, but there's nothing unrealistic about the idea of the US calling a Rambouillet-style conference with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, laying out a settlement and threatening to cut off aid / impose sanctions on anyone who says no. The question is why the US won't do this.'
I think that you have to take this seriously as a question, and the answer is that it will not do it because the Israel-Palestine conflict is a synecdoche for conflicts between the US and Arabs, and, increasingly for conflicts between the US and Europe.
Let me make an important qualification, I mean the US establishment not the American people, who it seems to me have no special interest in supporting Israel over the Palestinians. However, the interests of the elite are reflected in public opinion.
But the establishment itself would no more see Israel defeated than they would see New York defeated. It is morally an extension of the US. Anti-Israeli feeling outside of Palestine proper is inevitably a form of anti-American feeling. The US elite could never bend to it, without harming themselves.
The difference with Rambouillet is palpable. Sharon is not Milosevic, however much we deracinated intellectuals might draw formalistic comparisons: I mean that Israel is identified with the US in a way that Serbia just never could be. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'