Tarquinis, is completely correct. I would like to know what benefit we have ever received from our support for Israel? We have spent 200 billion in direct aid in Israel and right after attending Annapolis they begin a large settlement construction project on land that the international community has recognized as part of a future Palestinian state. Israel promised that it would freeze settlement activity to get the arabs to come to the table, right after the summit they restarted settlement activity. This is what Israel did throughout the whole Camp David process. They would sign an agreement to stop or freeze settlement activity on Palestinian land and then they would simply ignore their promise and expand their settlements on stolen land. In the two years before the intifada only one Israeli died in a terror attack, this was the peak of Oslo/Camp David process, during that same period while the Palestinians where on their best behavior, Israel in the seven year prior to 2000 had doubled the size of its west bank settlements, in violation of the very agreements they kept signing. And while every miniscule Israeli complaint would get the attention of the president, the US government would simply ignore Israel's violation of Camp David and Oslo and pretend that Israel was living up to its word. In fact before the intifada, terrorism against Israel had slowed to a virtual halt, and this did nothing to stop Israel from stealing more land and increasing illegal settlements, it only emboldened them. Of course none of Israel's dozens of treaty and international law violations will ever be reported by the liars and frauds in our media, who are really part of the same criminal and immoral conspiracy.

Farzad nails it: "Israel is the giant albatross around America's neck when it comes to our relations with the nations of the middle east. They do nothing for America except collect money, refuse to listen to any of our requests for even a modicum of justice for the Palestinians, and they paint a giant target on our back."

And much worse, it cannot be denied that all the zionists in GWB's inner circle, all the PNAC signatories, jacked that poor idiot into the Iraq fiasco, which for him may have been finishing his father's conflict with Saddam, but for them was engaging America in an unending conflict with Islam that cannot be won, but can end with our bankruptcy and fatal decline. We are currently spending THREE BILLION DOLLARS EVERY SEVEN DAYS in Iraq.

And not in another section of Wapo today, note how Arun Ghandi was excoriated for anti-semitism in saying much the same, and even lost his job. If you have a high profile job in this country, cross AIPAC to your certain doom, their power is unrivaled. We are screwed.

Israel bears it responsibility and our politicians bear responsibility for auctioning off our middle east policy for positive media coverage and campaign contributions from Jewish and Zionist organizations some of which like the rabid evangelicals aren't even Jewish, so this isn't a religious criticism of Judaism or Jewish people. Damn straight Israel's apartheid and subjugation of the native Palestinians is the problem. And they are the problem, and our support for these policies is also the problem. Plenty of blame to be spread around, and targeting journalists and media outlets is a war crime. So if the government of Iran started bombing fox news reporters and targeting them this would be deemed a justified military action in response to a border shootout?

NO AMOUNT OF ISRAEL ABSOLVING RHETORIC CHANGES THE FACT THAT THE VERY FORMATION OF ISRAEL AS COMPENSATION FOR GERMAN GENOCIDE ON LAND OF ANOTHER PEOPLE IS iN MY MIND ONE OF THE GREATEST CRIMES OF THE 20TH CENTURY, RIGHT UP THEIR WITH POL POT AND HITLER. 60 YEARS OF OPPRESSION, MURDER, AND THEFT, AND YOU PEOPLE HAVE THE AUDACITY TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A FEW HUNDRED ROCKETS. WHO FIRED FIRST ON CIVILIAN TARGETS, ISRAEL. THAT IS NOT HOW IT IS REPORTED BY THE LIARS IN OUR MEDIA, BUT JUST READ THE CHRONOLOGICAL DATES OF THE ORDER OF ATTACK. HIZBULLAH RAID, FOLLOWED BY ISRAELI TARGETING OF LEBANESE CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE, FOLLOWED BY HIZBULLAH USE OF KATYUSHAS ON ISRAELI CIVILIAN TARGETS, FOLLOWED BY AN ISRAEL GROUND INVASION. Just like how the liars in our media try to claim that Israel was attacked first in 1967, yeah like Poland invaded Germany in 1939, like America attacked Japan on Dec. 7th, 1941. Please read a real history book, not "time immemorial" or some other propagandized right wing tripe.

"Israel is the giant albatross around America's neck."

I think Farzad is partally correct:

Yes, our implicit support of Israel's escalation to strategic bombing of Lebanon in 2006 hurt us and achieved nothing. Israel made the decision to attack the infrastructure of Lebanese society, on the theory that this would motivate the Lebanase government to drive Hezbolah out. It didn't work. Israel used American licensed cluster bombs, violating treaty agreements and technically committing a war crime.

Yes, our implicit (and financial) support for the ongoing seizure of land, and the ever-tightening web of apartheid-like restrictions on Palestinians, hurts us and achieves nothing.

Where I differ from Farzad is his assumption that the problem is in Israel, instead of here.

Remember, Bush also pronounced the 2006 campaign a "great victory" - to the shadowed amusement of my Israeli friends.

Just today, a major congressional report is out warning of an "appalling gap" in US homeland defense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101833.html?hpid=moreheadlines

In both the US and Israel, I think we're seen rot, corruption, politicization of policy, generals checking with their investment bankers before they give their orders, critical failures ignored.

This process leads to defeat. This is what happened to the Russians in 1914 - their huge army with its massive artillary, which had defeated Napoleon, crumpled when the Germans attacked. We saw the same thing in with the French in 1940.

Are we there yet? No. Could we get there? Just look at the Washington Post story I linked above. How is it that someone like McCain can call for a 100-year occupation of Iraq, when our urgent strategic needs are being ignored.

This isn't about Israel, Farzad. It's about us.

Somehow you think that cluster bombs kill civilians and randomly-fired rockets do not)

YES ACTUALLY I THINK THAT CLUSTER BOMBS KILL A HELLUVA LOT MORE, THEY BETTER THEY COST A LOT MORE. ISRAEL BEGAN THE BOMBING, THIS WAS A BORDER INCIDENT POSSIBLY A MISSION BY EITHER SIDE THAT WENT WRONG, AND ISRAEL STARTED BOMBING LEBANESE CITIES FIRST. Hezbollah did not bomb Israel first, Israel bombed Lebanon first. No the first targeting of civilian high casualty targets like power stations and the lebanese airport occurred by the IAF and Israeli military. Also it was Israel that invaded Lebanon, over two kidnapped soldiers? Do you know how many Lebanese and Palestinians Israel is holding without charge or trial?

Mossad and Shin Bhet are lame.
Yea; right.
Yo' mama...

"NOTE to Farzad: roads, bridges, and airports are all legitimate military targets in wartime. Just ask Hizbollah, or any court of international law. You show the same stupidity as the Winograd Commission. Hospitals ought to be another question, and I wouldn't be hard to persuade that both sides ought to be held responsible there. Somehow you think that cluster bombs kill civilians and randomly-fired rockets do not. When you start playing with rockets and kidnapping soldiers, you play for keeps, so don't complain.

Part of the problem of Israel's war on Lebanon is that it was doubly asymmetrical.
Hezbollah, a supposedly Shiite Muslim group rocketed Israel, and Israel then bombed every Maronite Christian site it could identify. Lebanon being a rather complex land, this apparently made sense to the Israelis. If you don't like the Shiites, do everything you can to make the maronites not like you.

Israel wanted us to think that bombing Northern Lebanon was important to keep Lebanese in southern Lebanon from bringing more ammunition in from somewhere. The munitions they brought in could be carried in through southern Syria by what the NVA once referred to as Brother Ant.

What Israel was up to is hitting out indiscriminately so that the radical right would think something was being done. Results were irrelevant.

bong_jamesbong2001:

NOT!!!!!!!!

bong_jamesbong2001:

I agree with you. You said everything that I was going to say. I would add a bit more - but what you said made the point; good enough. Don't concern yourself too much about Farzad - he gets off by constantly soiling his underwear with his insane rants - that he is attempting to turn into mantras.

This sounds like the Democrats harping about losing the Iraqi War. Israel lost nothing, and neither has the US, other than some allies and respect, which could have been avoided.
Somehow, the Israelis believe that rockets and other damage should never accrue to a state during a war. This is such misguided thought pattern that it scarcely deserves comment. Wars are about damage, and somehow they are different from shooting fish in a barrel. The Israelis were very lucky to have avoided much damage in a couple of wars, and somehow seem to have come to the conclusion that war is not damaging, except to the other side. Israel hardly suffered any damage in this war. Several hundred rockets landed in Israeli territory, but they hardly caused much damage-just how much aid did the US send over there, and what did it consist of? The pictures of Beirut and south Lebanon show a different story. Compare the damages in Lebanon with those in Israel, and then tell us who lost the war. How many civilian Israeli lives were lost? How much property damage did they suffer? What the Israelis lost was a myth, that of the army that could not be stopped. This army was sent into an area that is extremely defensable, and asked to take it from entrenched forces having medium range weapons. Nobody's tanks are going to work in south Lebanon, which twisted and steep hills are ideal tank traps. It was stupid to send tanks, or troops, there. The US Marines were pulled out by Reagan: do IDF proponents think they could do better without suffering immense casualties?
NOTE to Farzad: roads, bridges, and airports are all legitimate military targets in wartime. Just ask Hizbollah, or any court of international law. You show the same stupidity as the Winograd Commission. Hospitals ought to be another question, and I wouldn't be hard to persuade that both sides ought to be held responsible there. Somehow you think that cluster bombs kill civilians and randomly-fired rockets do not. When you start playing with rockets and kidnapping soldiers, you play for keeps, so don't complain.
I agree with Farzad about the Palestinians' complaints, otherwise. Everyone there is going to have to suck it up and face reality, including the Israelis and the Palestinians. The world cannot afford that this war escalate. Bush is one of the stupidest people ever to opine on the subject. He should have stayed in Crawford. He only spreads misery whereever he goes.

I meant he went to Israel and Lebanon. There was a picture of him standing against the backdrop of Lebanese ruins, if I remember correctly.

==No mention of Israel bombing airports, hospitals, roads and bridges. Not to mention dropping tons of cluster bombs into civilian areas in the south, leaving unexploded bomblets in southern lebanon to kill and cripple people for years to come.==

Arkin is a big supporter and booster of air-power. I think he went to Israel as part of some fact-finding mission and found everything to be basically OK with Israeli use of air power during the war. It is hard to imagine what he would find objectionable...

Farzad - Don't throw rocks in a glass house.

No mention of Israel bombing airports, hospitals, roads and bridges. Not to mention dropping tons of cluster bombs into civilian areas in the south, leaving unexploded bomblets in southern lebanon to kill and cripple people for years to come.

Israel is the giant albatross around America's neck when it comes to our relations with the nations of the middle east. They do nothing for America except collect money, refuse to listen to any of our requests for even a modicum of justice for the Palestinians, and they paint a giant target on our back.