By "Hamas's charter calls for the establishment of an Islamic state in the areas now encompassed by Israel," did you mean "Hamas's charter calls for the Destruction Of Israel?" I think that sugar coating their call for the destruction of a state, and ignoring the fact that Hamas is a Terrorist group, misleads your readers. Maybe
the United States should fund Al-Qaeda? Maybe Ireland should fund the IRA?

If indeed the Palestinian people voted Hamas into power, they are to deal with the international resistance that comes with such a vote. If they support an organization that murders innocents and calls for the destruction of their neighboring state, then they must embrace that militancy and all that comes with it and consider themselves, in effect, deputized. They cannot vote their miitancy at the polls and then complain about the consequences. To knuckle under now is to ratify what is essentially a terrorist state, and to tell the people of Palestine their vote doesn't matter. In a democracy, it does. We are living with George W. Bush and his policies because a majority (this time) put him in power. The majority that put Hamas in power was much greater than that which put W. in the White House here. Let it be known I am neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian, but a logical fallacy must be addressed. Or restated simply: Be careful what you wish for . . .

Fantastic if Hamas is starved out of its stance... but also fantastic if the PA finally learns to actually run a government. That is when a two-state solution will actually be implemented, whether it be by mutual agreement by two governments, or imposed by Israel, seeing as how the representatives of the Palestinian people has never yet over the decades accepted any two-state solution put forth in good faith by the Israeli government. When the Palestinians have their own independant state, any further attacks perpetrated against Israel will no longer be framable in a light of a "fight for freedom" but will rather be seen for what it is, and has been all along: a war against the Jewish State, and will be treated accordingly.

By actually starting to assign funds to different parts of the PA we (as in donor countries) are effectively taking over the Palestinian administration by controlling its budget allocation.

That may not necessarily be a bad thing, as long as Hamas continues to retain its terrorist aims and roots the donor countries can continue to show goodwill towards the Palestinian people despite their choice for violence and confrontation at the ballot box, and in the face of Arab unwillingness to get involved helping their Arab brothers out.

america asks for democracy in the middle east, palistine has a democratic election for the first time in the middle east and hammas takes the majority, and know the bush puppets will not view them as a real leader, just another joke in the fight over oil, a not to bush Jr, every dog has there day, look at sharron

Well, then I guess these 'innocent people' shouldn't have elected terrorists as the leaders. Seems like a non-brainer to me.

too funny they say the holocausts was performened against the jews(which is not very true)because if it was then why would these jews turn around and slaugther innocent palistinian children, and starve them to death, god bless Hammas, and may they deliever a strong blow to the isreali state and put them in the same state as sharron, my donations will going to Hammas and all my prayers. what gives one state the right to steal land from another, if Palistine has no right to be there then isreal should not be there either, but aslong as the jews are blowing the americans, or vise versa there will always be war there because Hammas will never give up

Hmmm. Interesting how the International press and others view the US as being 'obligated' to send aid, regardless of the recepient's government policies or actions. I am truly sorry for the suffering people in the Palestinian territories. Too bad the press and the quoted 'experts' don't point out that the people suffering are the very same people who elected a terrorist government that wants Israel destroyed.

"Hamas's charter calls for the Destruction Of Israel."

Exactly. Let's spell it out explicitly. What Hamas wants is complete and utter destruction. Specifically, they want to load absolutely everything within the borders of Israel into rockets and shoot it into the sun. Complete and utter destruction - nothing left at all.

Those liberal fools think that "destruction of Israel" means changing the official name of the country and maybe getting the government to renounce ethnic discrimination. Hah! What fools!

Hamas wants nothing less than to see every last molecule within the boundaries of Israel broken apart at the nuclear level.

If you want to bite the hand that feeds you, you should expect dinner to get cancelled.
I don't want a single one of my tax dollars rewarding the Palestinian peoples choice of a terrorist organization to represent their views.

And I don't want my tax dollars used to subsidize an apartheid regime which is actively seeking the destruction of an entire people.

I'ts time for peace in the Middle East. The United Nations Mandate for an Israeli and an Arab State, side by side in the 1940's was agreed to by Israel. It was the Arab countries that refused to accept the reality of two states, side-by-side, living in peace and who vowed to push the Jews into the Mediteranean Sea and sieze territory that wasn't theirs. The Arabs must now accept the reality that Israel is going to remain in the Middle East and come to the table to talk peace. It is the Arabs that have brought this current food and drug crisis upon themselves.

Saudi Arabia and all it's Arab allies could be sending massive aid to the area and have only sent a pittance, why have they not fed the people of Palestine? Israel continues to supply water and electricity to the area.

Sometimes the carrot is more effective than the stick. It is disturbing to see soldiers and buldozers razing abandoned Israeli settlements. A better solution, I believe, would be to turn these villages over to the U.N. for distribution to Palestinians whose homes are demolished by Israeli reprisals although they were not involved in terrorist activities.

It's rather sad to see how backward and ill informed the west is, in general and Americans in particular. Do they not know that Israel, has an end date? its even mentioned in the Jewish books. The people voted for Hamas for Palestinian government. They had agenda and policies, based on which they were voted-in. Now they must do what they promised. In the west it may be normal to break promises and trusts. Hamas will have no credibility in sight of man or God, if the break their promises. Short-sighted must end and real solutions must be found. Blocking and imposing sanctions and other means will show the world the hypocrisy and double standards of the Americans and others. Real people power is needed to end Israel and tyranny and colonial puppets. The word terrorist must not be used to describe everyone we oppose, it will be like crying wolf. Palestinian people must have the resolve to stand firm and the solution will be near.

"Sometimes the carrot is more effective than the stick."

Yep - and sometimes, when facing a man bent on violence and immune to reason, the stick is the only solution.

"For ordinary Palestinians, the U.S. policy has begun to pinch. Paychecks to most Palestinian civil servants stopped several months ago, notes the Gulf News. "

The idea of sanctions is to get Hamas to do what you want them to do. If Hamas won't do it on there own, perhaps they will when the people they govern feel a pinch. Why stop the sanctions just because they are having the affect you want them to? The US should stand by it's snactions until Hamas recognizes Israel and not sooner.

"Real people power is needed to end Israel and tyranny and colonial puppets."

"Adam Jones" has, perhaps inadvertantly, highlighted the real issue here. People everywhere should be given the right to democratically elect their leaders. But if they use that power to seek to destroy another people, they must be opposed. Insisting that the Palestinians must be given the right to vote does not - cannot - mean that we give up the right to oppose them when they seek to destroy Israel. It is absurd to suggest that we should, in essence, be required to cater their party while they seek to do so.

The following off-the-record comment from a State Dept. official speaks volumes:

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/world/middleeast/10diplo.html

A senior State Department official, speaking anonymously under briefing ground rules, observed that the American and European governments faced different political pressures. In effect, the official said, Europeans are alarmed about reports of a crisis in the West Bank and Gaza, but Americans are not that upset.

"..but the Americans are not that upset."

That last line encapsulates completely and perfectly why the U.S. is at the lowest point in recent memory regarding World opinion. Frankly, my dear, they don't give a damn. Expediency now is what rules the day, whether its empowering warlords to fight on their behalf, or amassing a huge database of domestic calls of U.S. citizens. There is no principle now that will not be violated, or paid lip service too. Any you think the gang that couldn't shoot straight is going to win over the Muslim world anytime soon? Think again.

Hamas agreed to change their stance towards Israel if they stop the land grab, and fall back to the pre-1967 borders. Now why is it so difficult for most Americans to realize that the United States government is in a choke hold by the Israely lobby. We are undermining our security and way of life by backing the brutal occupation of Palestine. This occupation goes against everything the USA use to stand for. It is no wonder our credibility around the world is so low. When will we wake up and do what is right? The USA can solve many of its security and terrorism issues by steping up and forcing Israel to stop the illegal land grabs and giving the Palestinians back their land.

The "Destruction of Israel" Hamas calls for is not unlike the original destruction of Palestine the Zioninsts called for pre-1948. To quote David Ben-Gurion "We must expel Palestinian Arabs and take their places...and if we have to use force, then we have force at our disposal." Furthermore, using some logic that an informed conservative seems to lack, one would realize that Hamas would not want to nuke the land of current Israel since Hamas WANTS THE LAND BACK! They want to repopulate the land with the original Arabs who still have deeds to that land. The destruction they call for is for an end to the Israeli regime, not the death of millions of people.

The current aarguments ignore the FACT that the USA declared Hamas a terrorist organization long before they 'won' and election. We also objected, as did the west in general, to the Israely attacks on Hamas. Another inconsistency and hypocrisy on our part. NOw the complaint is that the people that want a terrorist organization [that killed innocents and rewarded the families of those that did] are suffering. they are not innocent, nor are we, nnor is the west in general. The ignoring of Hamas and like organizatdions has led to 9/11, to the bombings in ENgland and Spain, and indonesia, ...
Why the outcry. Carter's statement is paarticularly egregous since he was president while the threat was growing, and he like all the administdrations before and since ignored it. As with the Nazis, do we hold accountable those that support murdering select groups? The Germans objected, and prevaile, in having the disabled removed from the list of groups to be exterminated. Were they accountable? Is Hamas accountable for the murder of innocents? Why is Israel condemned by many for reacting to the attacks?

Adam Jones - UK - Your post reads like a collage of one liners that you cut and pasted from other sources in hopes of making an argument. You didn't succeed as the whole post just rambles and is nonsensical. You best try again, in your own words.

What people tend to forget when discussing these issues, is that the problem did not start when Hammas was voted into power. The problems, caused by Israel and her lap dog Ameria, started long before Hamas was even a party.
What has happened in PALESTINE, is a direct result of the Israelis trying to exterminate a people, with the support of America (They didn't like it, why should the Palestinians?)
The Palestinians, in an effort to settle the issue with ballots not bullets, voted for a party they thought might make their lives better, not one that would make them worse.

Too bad they didn't know that there was no right answer. Anything they had done would have given the Israelis a chance to kill more of them, with American weapons, and destroy more houses with American Cat Bulldozers.

The Arabs in the middle east openly hate Israel. Why would they not lay down more than enough aid out of their limitless bank accounts to a country who's leaders hope the destroy every last woman and child in Israel?

Why should the US or Israel have to support a regime that hates them, burns their flags, and celebrates our deaths (*cough* 9/11 *cough*. I apologize to those of you out there that pretend that only the Palestinians are suffering. In the real world millions of people in far too many countries starve to death, cannot get clean water or medical supplies. Why do the Palestinians deserve the aid that others need just as much or more? Especially after electing terrorists into office.

The US has no reason to believe that their aid will be used to help the people. If even one Cent is used for arms and terrorism against any of the women and children of Israel, it is unacceptable and reprehensible.

For all of you bleeding heart, uninformed, pro-terrorism (excuse me, Palestinian) readers ask yourself one question. If the Palestians/Hamas never bombed or attacked Israel, would Israel attack them or just be happy that they can finally live in peace and eat bagels?

If I recall, Hitler was voted in to power too. And since when do the American tax payers have the obligation to fund other countries. I would give money to someone in need, but not if they were going to use it against me or my friends. And as far as I know, .

I have Arabs in my family. Arabs hate to be wrong - like anyone. So... they argue that freedom fighting is different from terrorism - and now they say terrorists AND freedom fighters are both in play...

I say "BS". Anyone who uses a gun vs dialogue is a terrorist in my view.

When the secular government of HAMAS goes head to head with the terrorists in HAMAS and REJECT them PUBLICLY there will be an obvious difference between a humanitarian government and the terrorist organization... which will be shooting in the streets at civillians.

Until then STARVE THEM OUT. Yes, the civillians are hurting - but HAMAS secularists have to gin up the spine to go to war with the terrorists amongst them.

Hamas and the PA might both be whining about the "humanitarian crisis" that they are facing, but it is NOT stopping them from spending huge amounts of money on arms.

According to debka.com on May 9:
"Abu Mazen controls the Arafat Fund, whose capital is estimated $ billion - certainly enough to cover the public sector payroll and ease humanitarian distress in the Palestinian territories. Instead, his Fatah released $25,000 to each of the 15 or 16 terrorist groups under its aegis, thereby following in the footsteps of the late Arafat, who used this secret nest-egg to finance his war campaign against Israel.

The total remitted by Abbas to these groups runs to around $9 million.

Hamas correspondingly distributed to each member of its armed Ezz e-Din al-Qassam force, a large food package to keep him and his family supplied for two weeks plus the sum of INS250."

And also from debka.com on May 8:
"Hamas executed the biggest arms transaction in its history - a $250,000 cash deal with Sinai arms smugglers.

The new items now restocking the Hamas arsenal include 1,000 Kalashnikov automatic submachine guns, 500 Italian-made Beretta pistols and a large supply of ammo."

So excuse me for not worrying too much about their humanitarian crisis: they've not only brought it on themselves, but they're perpetuating it themselves.

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel - are essentially identical.

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Why won't the Arab nations fund them?

Jamil - stop listening to your jihad tapes and go visit the ovens and gas chambers, the testimony of regular germans who had their families murdered in a factory of death, or at least the holocost museum in DC.

You look like an uneducated fool dude.

Yoni get your facts straight. The other Arab countries would send Palestinians money if not for the US governement threatening to shut down Arab banks if one cent is sent to Palestine. Also, to imply that Palestine/Hamas bombed Israel first is absolutely ridiculous. In order for Israel to be formed the Zionists had to bomb and kill Palestinians to take their homes from them. So maybe the question you should ask is if the Zionists (who are terrorists themselves - if you dont believe me ask the British people who died in their embassy pre-48) never bombed or attacked Palestine, would Palestine attack them or just be happy that they can live in peace and eat falafel?

Steve - I think many US citizens just don't care what the world thinks of the US. Instead, the counties of the world might want to start caring about what the US thinks of them.

I want the West to give more money so more palestinians can live and thrive and become human bombs. I don't want peace there, it's better to honor whatever god you serve by having 4000 more years of bloodshed.... (????)

A hard thing must be done. The Palestinians must all die or there will never be peace.

ABOUT MONEY

The reason that so few countries have given money to Hamas, comes right back to America. We have threatened ANY BANK in the world with limitless sanctions of all American money, federal and private, and also a freezing of all of their funds, if they transfer any money to Hamas. Since the borders are closed, all conrolled by Israel, how is any money going to get to them?
Do we have the moral right to do this? No. Will people resent it? Yes.
Is it our fault that children elderly and sick are dying? You Bet.
Does the rest of the world know? Oh, Yeah.
Do we look like hypocrites? No more than Usual.

Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a 'neglectful and discriminatory' manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.

Also,
Hitler wasn't elected, he was placed in power by then president Hindenberg, in response to huge Nazi demonstrations outside parliament.

Thom

If you hate america so much leave!

The only one of you who knows anything | May 11, 2006 12:34 PM

This writer seems like a zealot to me!

The Palestinians have their own state now.
For years I've heard the complaints about their land, their land.
Their land is headed by a terrorist govenment, it should not be funded by the United States.

They will live and learn that having a democratic form of government is the worst in the world! But it is much, much better than all of the rest!

I think that the situation is truly tragic for ordinary palestinians yet one must remember that these ordinary folks have voted for Hamas.
Alas, deeply rooted hatered for the state of Israel is the current agenda illustrated by Hamas government. So who should be blamed for this tragedy?
The answer is quite simple.
I suggest these folks better change their agenda or the situation will further deteriorate while Israel continues to grow and prosper. It is not too late for the palestinians to switch direction in order to achieve their national aspirations

Open your eyes America - Your right, we are suppling Israel with way to much military aid, especially when history has shown that the arabs are such poor fighters. Israel could fight the arabs with one hand held behind her back and still win.

Hahahaha! You really think that you are educated...dont make me fall on the floor laughing!! Israel was created with peaceful intentions and in fact those living in the area outnumbered the Jews. The jews decided to give all the people citizenship in the new government and many did. Only in Israel can both a Jew and an Arab gain citizenship. Try that in another arab country. A Palastenian can gain citizenship, even to this day, in Israel. They cant even get it in any other Arab nation. The palastenians are getting what they deserve by voting in a terrorist group. Dont send my tax dollars over there to let them blow up another person.

It's hard to justify the creation of Israel after WW2. it isn't like it was empty land. I can understand why the Palestinians are a tad miffed.

q: Is Israel going to go away by itself?
a: Unlikely, so deal with it.

q: Is Israel going to voluntarily move to some other place?
a: no.

q: Can the Muslims defeat Israel militarily?
a: Not without horrific cost to themselves. And maybe not even then.

q: Can the Palestinians have peace and prosperity with Israel next door?
a: Yes, once they stop murdering Israelis.

So it may suck, it may not be fair, but the Palestinians need to either
1) adapt and coexist with Israel, or
2) defeat Israel non-militarily

The Hamas way encourages and calls for armed struggle against Israel. This simply can't work. Therefore the Hamas way isn't the way to peace and prosperity for the Palestinians.

Palestinians should view the sanctions as a compliment. We accept their government as legitimate if sick. Instead of patronizing them a la Jimmy Carter, we treat them like adults who are responsible for their own actions.

A final reason to question Israel's strategic value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from 'targeted assassinations' of Palestinian leaders). Israel has provided sensitive military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the State Department inspector-general called 'a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorised transfers'. According to the General Accounting Office, Israel also 'conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally'. In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value.

I would really love to understand the mindset of the Palestinians. The one story that still sticks in my craw is the recent one where a Palestinian girl with burns over 40% of her body and who was saved by Israeli doctors. She was found with an explosive belt when crossing into Israel for her routine checkup. To kill her doctor and as many hospital patients as she could?
And the kicker? Her mother was upset, not over her actions or arrest, but that she was prevented from blowing herself up!!
Just lovely.

Holocaust denial, fudging history and wholesale slaughter has become the clarion call of the Islamo-Fascists and has even found a home amongst the morally bamboozled.

The sorry state of affairs has not erupted in a vacuum. The fact is that Muslims and Arabs can not even get a long with each other and their bloody history validates this as a fact. Does Darfur ring a bell?

I would suggest that the 'Arab Street' attempt to control themselves from sending rockets over the border, homicide bombers into markets, calling for the destruction of Jews and voting for Nazis with headscarfs as their chosen leaders. They might find that their circumstances improve; well at least it will with Israel, I can not vouch for how they will conduct themselves amongst each other.

Most people on these comments don't want their tax dollar spent on bombs or weapons used to blow up or kill people.
WAKE UP - THEY ARE!!!

Almost every Palestinian murdered, by gun fire or by "targeted assasination" (read: presumed guilty until killed) can be laid to rest on your doorstep. It was your tax dollars that made each and every one of those attacks possible.

Why are some murders a problem, but not others?

Jamil -- You are really sad if you think the holocaust never occured. That's complete and utter nonsense. I acknowledge Palestinian suffering, so why can you not, in turn, acknowledge others' suffering. Open up your mind!

As for more current issues, while I certainly feel badly about any Palestinian suffering, I agree with Ben Rosenthal. The Palestinian people voted Hamas into power, and have to deal with the harsh consequences.

And for all the talk about the "Arab brotherhood", if Arabs care so much about the Palestinians why don't they give them the money to help during these difficult times?? As usual, it's not there at all. I'm not surprised. It's been the same way all these years in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's pure Arabic rhetoric. The Arabic countries are comprised of some of the world's wealthiest people and yet they refuse to help their own...all so they can continue to push for the end of Israel. And that's one of the real reasons Palestian's suffer to this day. So Arabs, you have no one to blame but yourselves. Don't blame everyone else.

If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should the palestinians accept that?

On previous occasions I have made my position very clear about war crimes, torture,and conduct that threatens the lives of non-combatants. I don't like it! I don't care how you feel about governments or movements, You do not threaten the health and safety of civilians. Anybody who condones or supports such activity is the lowest form of life, and proves it by their conduct.

Unfortunately there is no easy solution to this problem. Obviously we do not want to finance terror operations, and we know that will be the case if aid goes directly to the Hamas-controlled government (although, in that respect, the situation is not much different from the days when Fatah was in power).

At the same time, the wholesale punishment of the Palestinian people for having elected Hamas is unacceptable. Beyond being inhumane, it also follows the Al-Qaeda logic in justifying the massacre of civilians on 9/11: "They voted for their government and they pay taxes to it, hence they are not innocent civilians".

It would have been nice if we could channel aid through international organizations directly to the Palestinian people. That approach has its own drawbacks: First, if the aid is in the form of cash, it could easily be taxed or otherwise appropriated by the Hamas government. So it should be in the form of goods and services, and those require an infrastructure to dispense. Second, if we bypass the government, we basically relieve Hamas of the responsibility of running the country, and they are free to continue acting as a terror organization while being in government. Still, of all the options available, this one seems to be the lesser evil.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly sought to deny the Palestinians' national ambitions. When she was prime minister, Golda Meir famously remarked that 'there is no such thing as a Palestinian.' Pressure from extremist violence and Palestinian population growth has forced subsequent Israeli leaders to disengage from the Gaza Strip and consider other territorial compromises, but not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state. Ehud Barak's purportedly generous offer at Camp David would have given them only a disarmed set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control. The tragic history of the Jewish people does not obligate the US to help Israel today no matter what it does.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the Zionists relied on terrorist bombs to drive the British from Palestine, and that Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister, declared that 'neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.'

Hey NiceDay

Way to start a productive dialog.

Not only did I never state that I hate America, I never even suggested it. In fact, I love this country, primarily because, as a citizen, I have the right to say what I want about the government and its policies.

If you disagree with what I have to say, that's one thing, and we can deal with it. But try to point out places where perhaps my argument was weak, and I'll try to elucidate it. Or even, give you websites to look at. But don't EVER tell me to leave this country, or insinuate that I don't love it.

The only thing I don't like about this country are people like you who think you own it and/or control the borders.

Have a NICEDAY

Open Your Eyes -- I think yours are actually closed.

Yes, the founders of Israel did fight, but much of that land legitimately belonged to Jews to begin with. Read some books, will ya? Even my own grandmother was born in Jerusalem in 1902 and it was mostly Jewish then --almost half a century prior to Zionists started bombing the British.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see a problem. Obviously the Hammas Gov't has the backing of the people, so let the people fund it. Why should my tax dollars go to a people who by their vote put a terrorist organization in charge of their daily lives. I think it's time to reap what you sow...

The Palestinian situation reminds me of a begging dog that feels it has the power and position to demand more food of it's benefactors. Without the largesse of modern societies, especially the USA, these pathetic holdouts from the middle ages would be nothing more than topsoil. T

The Palestinian situation reminds me of a begging dog that feels it has the power and position to demand more food of it's benefactors. Without the largesse of modern societies, especially the USA, these pathetic holdouts from the middle ages would be nothing more than topsoil.

Lets start by goibg back to the pre '67 borders and take it from there.

Another aspect of this situation that is being ignored: Palestinians would not be so dependent on international aid if Israel was not actively destroying the Palestinian economy.

Junior Mint - I did not say there wasn't any jews in Palestine before they started bombimg the British. In fact, Yasser Arafat used to happily play soccer with his jew friends in his younger years. In fact there are jews all over the world. The USA has millions of Jews. Should we give New York to them as well?

Can someone enlighten me?

Prior to the recent elections, the US strongly pushed for Hamas participation. At the time, did Condi or Bush or anyone else warn the Palestinians that if they decided to exercise their democratic rights and elect Hamas, then the result would be starvation of the Palestinians? Maybe they did, I just don't know. I don't remember hearing about it. All I remember was Bush going on about how wonderful democracy was, how great freedom was etc. etc. i.e. his usual speech.

If they didn't warn about the consequnces of voting for Hamas and make that very clear to all Palestinians before the elction, it seems like this whole election was designed to create a situation where starving these long suffering people could be justified in addition to all the other misery inflicted on them. If so that would be truly a great crime.

With democracy comes with responsibility. The palestinian people are solely responsible for Hamas being in power and in turn deserve the repercussions from their actions.

Junior Mint - One more thing..."Jerusalem in 1902 and it was mostly Jewish" Where do you get your facts? If Jerusalem was mostly Jewish, why does Israel need to import Jews from around the world? Jews are experts in distorting the truth. Thatis why they make sucessful lawyers.

Answer this: if a killer expressed a desire to eliminate you and your family, would you support and help the killer? Also, how would you feel if your neighbors were criticizing you instead of criticizing the killer? Any sane, rational person in a situation like this would be outraged. That said, there is an insidious double standard that is applied to Israel. Whenever Israel defends itself, it is demonized by the world as an "aggressor". However, when Hamas or Islamic Jihad murder innocents like children, there is no criticism. Heck, there's even tacit support from deranged terrorists and anti-Semites all around the world. Let's be crystal clear - Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself. No one has the right to demand that Israel sacrifice its security and survival to killers like Hamas. Moreover, the Palestinians should learn that choices have consequences. They made their bed, let them sleep in it.

The Palestinian people ELECTED their government in a DEMOCRATIC election. If Bush wants to spread democracies around the world, as he preaches, then Bush needs to accept the Palestinian people's choice and find a way to work with them.

Its not a democracy if we put caveats as to who can run and whom we can vote for.

Jay NY - Ben-Gurion acknowledged that the early Zionists were far from benevolent towards the Palestinian Arabs, who resisted their encroachments - which is hardly surprising, given that the Zionists were trying to create their own state on Arab land. In the same way, the creation of Israel in 1947-48 involved acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres and rapes by Jews, and Israel's subsequent conduct has often been brutal, belying any claim to moral superiority. Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2700 and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. The IDF murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars, while in 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.

During the first intifada, the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. The Swedish branch of Save the Children estimated that '23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada.' Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. The response to the second intifada has been even more violent, leading Ha'aretz to declare that 'the IDF . . . is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.' The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then, for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1). So who is terrorizing who? What abour ethinic cleansing, is that OK as long as it is done by a Jew?

If indeed the Palestinian people voted Hamas into power, they are to deal with the international resistance that comes with such a vote. If they support an organization that murders innocents and calls for the destruction of their neighboring state, then they must embrace that militancy and all that comes with it and consider themselves, in effect, deputized. They cannot vote their miitancy at the polls and then complain about the consequences. To knuckle under now is to ratify what is essentially a terrorist state, and to tell the people of Palestine their vote doesn't matter. In a democracy, it does. We are living with George W. Bush and his policies because a majority (this time) put him in power. The majority that put Hamas in power was much greater than that which put W. in the White House here. Let it be known I am neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian, but a logical fallacy must be addressed. Or restated simply: Be careful what you wish for . . .

Posted by: Ben Rosenthal | May 11, 2006 11:42 AM

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't this the same logic used by Bin Laden to justify the murders of thousands of people on
Sep 11? that in a democracy votes count and thus people are as guilty as their government? if so , then we did let milions of germans of the hook so easily.let's make up for this mistake and nuke Germany.

"Prior to the recent elections, the US strongly pushed for Hamas participation"

Manfred can you back up that claim?
Hamas was always regarded to be a terrorist organization by the US- and by most of the world gov't. I don't believe there was any call for any representation by the West.
There is a huge problem considering what their goal is.
Recent news, interception by Israel of a huge load of explosives destinied for Gaza.
To be used for what?
Financed by whom?
The ordinary Palestinian unfortunately is in the middle, but there is a war.

Every historian would agree that in what constitutes Israel today, the Jews were a small minority around 1945. On that we should have no back and forth. It's silly to say otherwise. We can't rewrite history. We must just make the best of what has happened, however wrong it was when viewed in retrospect.

Any discussion of who owns what must acknowledge that a great historical injustice was done. However the world is full of such injustice and what we can work towards is to make the present as decent as possible for all concerned.

Shalom and my apologies for the hatred expressed by so many of my fellow religionists.

I would like to see what Americans would do if a foreign power occupies the country, and bulldozes entire neighborhoods whenever it suspects 'American terrorists' in one of the houses.

America, of course, would immediately agree to not fight back, to renounce all violence, and to acknowledge the right of the occupying country to exist, inclusive of the many choice pieces of America that the occupiers have annexed and put inside big walls.

Yeah, right.
I'll sell that scenario to Hollywood. What a blockbuster that will be: Rambo the Negotiator - the hero who gave America away.

As long as these double standards persist whereby Israeli atrocities are 'self-defense', Iraqi wedding parties shot to pieces by the US are 'regrettable accidents' but Palistinian atrocities are 'terrorism', we'll never get anywhere.

We need to apply the same standards to everyone. Cut funding to Hamas? Fine, but then cut off support for Israel too.

Open Your Eyes -- I think yours are actually closed.

Yes, the founders of Israel did fight, but much of that land legitimately belonged to Jews to begin with. Read some books, will ya? Even my own grandmother was born in Jerusalem in 1902 and it was mostly Jewish then --almost half a century prior to Zionists started bombing the British.

Posted by: JuniorMint | May 11, 2006 01:20 PM

Are you telling me that after 1400 years of Arab and Islamic domination to the region, there were Jews living in Jerusalem? What a miracle to have survived all these years under the "racist","fanatics" "jew haters" arabs.

let the palestinians starve.the more that die will mean less for us to fight.they wanted this joke of a govt.now they shall suffer the wrath of the west.the world is to small now to just put our heads in the sand and hope this goes away,we must take the fight to them.these people are the exact type of extremist that have no place in todays world.if they cant evolve with the rest of the world then they should go the way of dinosaurs.the entire arab world should take a good look at how we handle this as its a shot across the bow of any country that wants to export hate and violence.any person who thinks that they should be helped is an enemy of the free world and should be treated as the pal's are.these people are the minority of the world and should not force the majority to except them.every place the muslim people live there is trouble,they cant live in peace with any other religion.they will not accept us so why should we accept them.being the minority they should accept thier place and try to get along and not force the rest of the world to cower in the corner in fear.The USA was born with a gun in her hand and if we must pick up our ARM'S again ill be the first to step up and put this uprising down with all the force that science has given us.and yes that means nukes.american blood should not be spilled on that sandy ground.We should send them back to the stone age except thats where they are now and like it.the only way to send them a message is brute force as that is thier culture.they treat women as dog's,so they should be treated the same.they must show the world they are ready to move into the 21 century or be wipe clean from the earth so the rest of us can go about our lives.there is no place in todays world for ANY people who will not accept the rights of all human beings to live free .so stand up and scream as loud as you can "I will not be a victim,i am strong and will not be afraid".thanks and have a great life

Open Your Eyes, et al -- why are you so anti-Israel? Did some Jewish boys beat you up when you were kids? Seriously, I know you are all trying to sound intelligent. Instead, you appear to be nothing but raging anti-semites. Why don't you try educating yourselves a little and read books like Alan Dershowitz' 'The Case for Israel,' which explains, that, prior to 1948, there were many areas where Jews lived in what is now Israel. And hey, if a Jew can read No God but God, you guys should be able to read the Dershowiz book.

Rami is right. The Jews were least persecuted by the Moslems, when viewed broadly through history. However today it appears that many Jews ( as seen by the postings) think of Moslems as lower than dirt, camels etc. and other insults. Strange isn't it?

The Palestinian resort to freedom fighting as a consequence of the brutal occupation. I am sure Americans would do the same. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions. As Ehud Barak once admitted, had he been born a Palestinian, he 'would have joined a terrorist organisation'.

Alan Dershowitz' 'The Case for Israel'----written by a Jew...

Kelly - It's true that prior to the elections the U.S. had exerted some pressure on Israel to make sure the elections are open to all and free of any restrictions.

However, support for the concept of democracy and opposing the policies of a specific government are not mutually exclusive. Those who argue that by supporting the elections the U.S. has taken on some moral obligation to assist any elected Palestinian government, are logically challenged, to put it mildly.

Junior Mint
None of us is anti-Isreal, we are pro-reality. Realizing that blind unswerving support for Israel is detrimental to everyone involved, we have decided to learn a little more than common knowledge, and have formed our own opinions, rather than spouting half-truths and bald-faced lies that one of our parents told us.

When the people of Palestine voted for a government whose sworn and standing policy is the destruction of another nation, they voted for war.

Why should any othe nation be obliged to fund of a state whose sworn purpose is the destrution of another state? The Palestinian people are getting only a small taste of exactly what they asked for.

Pro-Israel Crowd and Hypocrites-

If Israelis can elect terrorists like Shamir and Begin and war criminal like Sharon (Man of Peace per W.), and our gov't supports such despicable Israeli actions, then Palestinians should be allowed to elect their own leaders. Or free/popular elections and human rights are privileges reserved only for Americans and our fellow Israeli brethrens?

Thom-

Please don't respond to NICEDAY and give him any importance. As Americans, you and I are committed to this country which means that we want America to flourish and exist in peace with other nations. America is our home "for better or worse" - I wonder if we can say the same for NICEDAY.

Open your eyes America-

Please keep posting!

How arrogant some are to criticize Palestinians for voting for Hamas, hypocritically saying "You shouldn't have voted for terrorists".

These same people make no mention of Israelis voting for Olmert who has openly stated he intends to steal Palestinian land ("unilateral decisions on borders" is Olmert's spin on it) and will use terrorist violence in the form of guns, bombs and tanks supplied by the US and its money.

By the way, the US$50million that Israel has stolen by refusing to give it to Hamas? That money is taxes paid by Palestinians and is earmarked for the Palestinian Authority. The theft of the money is but another example of Israeli economic terrorism against the Palestinians.

Junior Mint - I do not have a hatread toward jews. I hate the hypocracy and the unjustice from many Jews not all. Jews should be the last of people to opress others for their religions and ethinicity. they are the ones that always want everyone to cry with them over the holocaust. What about the holacaust being imposed in incent Palestnians? anti-semi, Holocaust are words used when ever any one has anything to say about the Jews. The Palestinians should come up similar words to used for their sake as well.

1. Palestinians/Hamas should NOT recognize Israel right to exist as long as Israel does not recognize the Palestinian rights to exist in Palestine.

2. Terrorism as it is defined by Israel/US is the "terror that is done to them" but the terror that they cause onto others (especially the Palestinians) is not terror.

3. What is Israel (in conjunction with US) has done and continues to the Palestinians is Terrorism in all it forms as defined by US state dept and Israel govt.

I don't think anyone should ever have to starve. However, let's tell it like it is: the Palestinians are starving themselves.

Sure, Hamas was freely elected. They are their people's choice, and that choice has consequences. All Hamas has to do is pay lip-service to what the West wants and the money rolls in. But they won't even do that.

They would rather starve than admit that Isreal is a soveriegn nation and pledge to settle any differences with legtimate forces, rather than cowardly cult-suicides.

These "ordinary Palestinian people" that are suffering are the same people who blow themselves up in crowded buses, launch missiles with no aiming capability and voted Hamas into power in the first place. If they want to be treated like human beings, then stop acting like terrorists. The two are mutually exclusive.

Well, the way I see it is...the Palestinian people voted Hamas in so I say let them live with it.
Muslems have been making decisions to suppot terrorist orginazations for decades and it is about time they learn the consequences.

What would each side need to do to make peace and live in peace as neighbors?

The Muslim world today *in general* has a very big problem (more than any other religion/culture) with intolerance, denial, a desire to live in the stone ages and lack of self-esteem. This seems to manifest itself in the form of hatred and horrific violence. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is just one of the highly visible front lines... but it's everywhere Muslims are. With globalization moving forward, either Muslims are going to have to come to terms with the rest of the world, or we're going to have to come to terms with the fanatical Muslim world. The 'west' not going to succumb (except for the phony guilt-ridden liberals), and the fanatical Muslims are not going to succumb. So what do we have? War. It sucks, but it's true.

So that's what happened in Northern Ireland. All those Muslims supporting Terrorists. Well thank goodness that's solved.

Kelly, Hamas was permitted to fully participate in the elections. The main sponsor of the election was Bush/Condi. Why did they allow a supposedly "terrorist" organization to participate in the election? That is why I said they were fully encouraged to participate. There was no discouragement as far as I can tell. Do correct me if I am wrong.

Oh, one other thing...for all you Hamas lovers, the ones that feel the Palestians have been wronged for so long.

You all have big problems with Israel and the US but that doesn't stop you from asking for lots of stuff.

When you want something you must ask nicely and I haven't heard anyone say PLEASE.

Peter,
PLEASE explain to me what that last post meant.

What is lost in this discussion is that many ordinary Palestinians voted for Hamas not for ideological reasons, but because of the corruption of Arafat/Fatah such that ordinary g'vt. functions such as trash pick up were ignored or done poorly... a "throw the bums out" type of vote. Had the other countries supporting Palestine financially had some oversight, rather than just giving $ to Arafat and his cronies, maybe this situation could have been avoided.

What is lost in this discussion is that many ordinary Palestinians voted for Hamas not for ideological reasons, but because of the corruption of Arafat/Fatah such that ordinary g'vt. functions such as trash pick up were ignored or done poorly... a "throw the bums out" type of vote. Had the other countries supporting Palestine financially had some oversight, rather than just giving $ to Arafat and his cronies, maybe this situation could have been avoided.

Ditto, PLEASE explain yourself Peter.

Well, when you really think about it, the people in Middle East have been living together for so long...no-wonder they hate each other.

Look at the US, we have only been a Nation for a couple of hundred years and we are hating each other more and more each day. We fight each other with rhetoric right now...but who knows when the first live round will be fired.

Okay, does anyone understand why Israel exists? Because after WWII, it was abundantly clear that Jews weren't wanted around or alive. Wouldn't you want someplace where you felt safe, too, if you were persecuted for thousands of years? And so, yes, I suppose this is where all the supposed pro-Palestinians chime in about the establishment of a Palestinian state. And suprise, suprise, I agree with you but Israel MUST exist, too. And that's that. Over and out.

Thorn, it is obvious that you are an elite liberal intellectual...you should be able to figure it out.

Junior Mint et al. want the uneducated to read Dershowitz's book. Isn't this the same guy who represented OJ Simpson after the wife was murdered? I guess if he could get OJ off, then he could defend anything!!! Even more, he could convince you of pretty much anything, leaving facts aside. Why not read Noam Chomsky or Edward Said instead?

Dershowitz may be a lawyer and simpson was a miststep for him in my opinion. but he is an unwavering supporter of israel and for that i respect him.

Noam Chomsky... ha ha.. you crack me up. How about all you people stop relying solely on your silly books and poke your head out into the real world.... use logic and reason to come up with your own opinions.

JuniorMint, you hit the nail right on the Dershowitz head-"unwavering". Synonymous with "uncritical". Eventually, if not already leading to "fanatical". Not the source for an unbiased view would you agree?

"unwavering" = "uncritical"? What a stupid thing to say. Do I really need to tell you the difference?

Chomsky is the worlds greatest living logician/linguist. Silly me to have thought that Chomsky used reason and logic. Pardon my foolishness.

Peter,
Again, PLEASE tell me what that post meant. You accuse many of us of being anti-Israel and Anti-US. How could you possibly know that?

What have I asked for? Other than fairness and equal treatment for two equal people, my requests are few and far between.

Also, PLEASE spell my name right T-H-O-M

"Pardon my foolishness."... You can be forgiven if you repent your gullibility.

Seth, and by the way, you missed the obvious point. Remember what I said about using your own brain? Again, you're falling back on your crutch when you can stand on your own two feet.

"ordinary palestinians" - Hah!

They are only yet receiving a fraction of the pain and suffering they gleefully wish on Jews, and us Americans for that matter.

I only hope that when the full force of the evil they wish on Israel backfires on them (and it will, we should all hope and pray), that it does indeed cause the needed re-evaluation of priorities by "ordinary palestinians", which is desperately needed both for the security of Israel, and less importantly (since they are currently quite sadistic perpetrators) the palestinians themselves.

Where did Arafat get Billions of $$$$? Foriegn Aid sent to his people, or a factory he built in Palestine that employed Palestinians at a fair wag?
Did foreign aid stop with the death of Arafat?
Did Palestinians vote for Hamas because they were terrorists fighing zionism, or were they hoping for a less corrupt government?
Did Fatah lose because they were dealing for peace, or because they continued to steal from the people like Arafat?
Why do most Palestinians work in Israel? Could it be better pay? Or, maybe even better working conditions?
Why, if not for Israeli jobs, would there be 90%+ unemployment in Palestine?
Would you go to Palestine to work? If so, where would you work in Palestine?
If they have a LOT of inexpensive labor, why will foreign businesses not locate in Palestine? Was the government to rupt? (that is corrupt, abrupt, and disruptive)
If I vote for a less corrupt government, and my only option is a terrorist, how should I vote?
If 20% of the people of my state have guns and my neighbors and I do not, and food is delivered, how much do I get, or get to keep?
If money is sent, will my government that is angry and committed to waging war buy my family food?
Is the only occupation open to my children that of becoming a militiaman or continuing to starve?
Is it hatred over past wrongs, or greed that drives my governors?
If they tried to obtain peace so we could have jobs, would those they have taught to hate let them?
Would my brothers in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, or Iran promote peace so I can have a job?
Why does the world media teach the world that those small percentage of us who dance in the street at the death of another, or who forment strife on the streets represent the people of Palestine?
How do the 80% of us who would prefer a good job at a fair wage and a safe place to rasie our family get from here to there?

The Palestinians threw away 80,000 jobs with the witht the 2nd uprising. That was their decision. Why does the worl have to support their stated bojective; to quote Hamas:
"our highest aspiration is to die for the Jihad"

That is their choice.

As we speak, JuniorMint etc, there are people dying in hospitals in Palestine due to the cutoff of aid. Will we please simply have the heart to address this? That dying man is not a terrorist. Don't let him die and leave his blood on our hands.

To the "Questioner":
If you are for real, and I hope you are, you have a long and difficult road ahead of you for peace and a good life for you and your children.

As I wish you success and strength in confronting "those who teach hate", understand this. To protect my people, family, and children, I may have to reflect all the suffering your evil compatriots wish on us back to themselves.

If you are living among terrorists and just being quiet while allowing your back yard to be used for rocket launches, I must hope for your demise as well.

The way out is not just a token condemnation of terror. You and hopefully a large number of similarly peace-loving friends must organize and, with ZEAL, rise up to defeat the terrorists among you.

Then, maybe, only maybe, those with friends and relatives who have been torn limb from limb painfully with nails purposely added to bombs by your compatriots, can start again to begin to consider peace with you and a new majority-which-is-peace-loving palestinian people.

You will have to understand if this takes the limbless a while.

Almost all of Israel's leaders past and present were former terrorists. Why aren't we withholding our $3 Billion from them.

Shamir help out his hand to Nazi Germany during WWII and Israel elected him....as for Sharon ....everyone knows his history and Israeli's elected him...

Everyone looks to gain the moral high ground in this debate but I would posit that even from the high ground you would have to crane your neck skyward to look at a snake's ass...

Angus, that went nowhere... keep trying though.. it's fun.

To who thought they owned me. Are you seriously reference something that was admittedly horrible and a ONE time mistake from over 50 years ago! That the last and only act of terrorism done on behalf of Israel. The reason I am not referencing any Palestinian acts of terrorism is that there are far far too many to keep track of.

If you don't remember the British set up the Jewish state of Israel in the desert because the Jews where being systematically eradicated in a little thing we call the Holocaust. After which the Jews built a thriving democracy.

The point is not about first. The goal is to end the suffering and death that pervades the middle east. The point is who shoots last. Israel would love nothing more than to live in peace. The palestinians teach their children in grade school to hate and kill all jews and force them into the sea. Then they bomb women and children not the military.

Also be sure and check out that other comment that shows the wonderful and loving Hamas leadership starving it's citizens while stockpiling weapons. Yeah, these people really need more money.

"Shamir help out his hand to Nazi Germany during WWII"

Are you out of your mind?

How very interesting. The US has been giving for decades taxpayer money to help Israel, but it shouldn't help Palestinians. I would much like to have the right to choose where my taxes go, but unfortunately I don't. If I could choose, I would definitely want my tax money to go towards helping the Palestinians whose land has been taken by the Jews, whose houses are distroyed by Israely bulldozers and whose children are starved to death.

Since the beginning... the natural order of all life on earth has been 'THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST'. So lets not fool with mother nature and let matters play out without interferance from us. There is not another country in the world willing to take our place so nature can take it's course. Considering her strength of character, strong will to survive as a nation and cultural inheridance I'de bet on Israel and all the peace loving Muslems in the region as winners not fundementalist fanatics bent on destroying an entire people.

To say that Hammas just wants to govern is like saying that Hitler was only the leader of the "political wing" of the Nazi party.

Going thru some of the entries, my only thought was that they just finish that damned wall and get it over with

Going thru some of the entries, my only thought was that they just finish that damned wall and get it over with

Lorna, there are few more gullible than you. Find out the facts.

Land has not been taken. In fact it has been given away (Gaza).

Houses are bulldozed, yes, but only to stop terrorists gleefully tearing children limb from limb.

Starved to death? Come on! Israel pays welfare to Arabs. Starvation is caused by Arab brethren denying exits from politically maintained refuge camps.

You would break down and cry if you knew the truth about how completely 180 degrees wrong you have it.

Every other nation in the world would have bombed Jenin safely from the skys. Only Israel puts its own soldiers at risk, going door to door, and in return got condemned for a non-existent massacre.

Be open to finding out the real truth. Then decide which side your soul wants to be on.

Perhaps you're not really gullible, but simply misinformed.

CommonSense, I admire your faith that there are "all the peace loving Muslims". I truly fear that is not the case. There is a silent majority, but I fear what is in their hearts. Very sorry to say it.
Someone please prove otherwise.

For the life of me i can not understand how palestinians can be so un greatfull.sure the zionists stole land and then put them in refugee camps,but hey get over it.Sure zionists dictate were and when you can travel,but hey really get over it.sure the zionists are putting a wall that cuts you off from your family,but is that really any reason to be mad.Sure the checkpoints are degrading and intended for humiliating you,but man dont get mad.Just go the UN and ask them to look into the resolutions,im sure they would be more than happy to help.But please understand you are dealing with special people,it is there world you just live in it.Always remember even a dog eats crumbs from the masters table.

Personally, I agree with Marc, I think the name was, who said we should cut funding to both Israel and Palestine. They're both committing acts of terrorism on each other, and the justification of each is 'They attack us, and we should own the land.' I think it was a damnfool idea to create Israel in a place where they'd be surrounded by people that hated their guts, and no doubt came about as a result of lobbying by people who ardently believed in two thousand year old fairy tales. If America really felt the Jews weren't safe and needed a homeland, why didn't we just give them North Dakota or some other nearly unpopulated section of America? Buy out the few current residents with double or triple market value, create Israel in a place where it would be contiguous with countries not actively seeking its destruction... what a novel concept. And ever since that monumental postwar idiocy, American policy towards Israel has been based on two things - Religion and Power.

Keep all of the fundamentalists who believe in the strict interpretation of the Bible happy as they wait for armageddon, and keep a supposed ally in a region we're highly dependent upon for oil...

Why should we ever expect them to not be at each other's throats?

Thom, sorry for the spelling error. I think you can see how I could make the error. I ask you though...do you love the U.S.?
Be truthful... are you a bleeding heart liberal?

I would say that the answers are NO and then YES. Am I correct?

What I meant by the post is not only directed at the Palestinians but to all of the countries in the world that beg for and accept the treasure of the US but continue to HATE us anyway.

I'm sorry but I simply don't understand how and why we should be so generous and continuesly get slaped in the face.

From today's Post:

By Richard Morin
Thursday, May 11, 2006; A02
(Casinos and Crime: The Luck Runs Out)

A Terrifying Truth About Terrorism

Who supports terrorism in the Middle East? Not the people you'd expect, according to Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Organization. Surveys in eight Muslim countries revealed that supporters of terrorism -- defined as those who applauded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- were no more religious than other Muslims and tended to be better-educated and more affluent.

The polls found those who regularly attended prayer services were no more likely to back terrorism than those who did not. Nor were Muslims who agreed that religion "was an important part of your daily life."

About 25 percent of all Muslims with higher-than-average incomes supported the Sept. 11 attacks -- slightly more than those who had below-average incomes or were poor. Among high school or college graduates, 44 percent held extremist views, compared with 38 percent of less-educated Muslims. And the unemployed were no more likely to back terrorism than those who worked full time, according to the poll of 8,000 Muslims in October.

What did distinguish terrorism supporters? Belief in self-determination, Mogahed found. Extremists were only about half as likely as moderates to believe that the United States would allow people in the Middle East to fashion their own political future.

TO jay NY,if some one stole your land would you fight back.so to say the palos face reaction for there actions so do zionists.as american indians were once savage killers in the eyes of the white man,that is the view of palos,they are fighting for the ground under there feet.not the land the zionists tell them they can have but the land they were born on.dont spin the facts and hope it reads like the truth.a lie is always a lie.this is not some slick talk,this is real life.

To seth,so your saying a wrong was done by pushing the palos off there land but its to late now we must move on.who do you think makes the rules.the palos have a say my friend whether you like it are not.Its haggar against sara.

For any of those that claim to be American conservatives or Republicans, let me remind you of a few things. Real American conservatism (The Republican Party) is based on a tradition of fiscal and moral responsibility, and a desire to defend our nation with a strong military. We freed the slaves. We strive for smaller government. We strive to stay out of foreign conflicts if at all possible, and to increase the free market world wide.

So if one looks at our military, monetary, and diplomatic support of the settlements in Israel, it is difficult if not impossible to conclude that they are in line with conservative principles in any way. Defending Israel is fine. We defend many of our allies in that it meets our security needs. On the other hand, defending the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories has been the greatest financial, diplomatic, and geopolitical (not to mention humanitarian) disaster we have ever created. The occupation and the settlements are morally reprehensible, and no US administration has ever dared to assert otherwise, because it violates the very principles that our constitution and nation were founded upon. Yet, strangely, we have still sent the Israelis the cash and weapons necessary to maintain this utterly dysfunctional behavior for about the last 40 years.

An odd juxtaposition of theory and practice you might conclude. The reason is maddeningly simple. Elections here are often very close. So pre 9/11 , no politician wanted to jeopardize their political career by unnecessarily alienating Aipac or the Christian Right and be branded (wrongly) an anti-Semite (among other unpleasant consequences) in order to interfere in a conflict that was not perceived by voters to really matter to America. It's called Political Cowardice. Let me repeat: Political Cowardice. And many members of both parties are guilty, with rare exception.

So now, In terms of sheer cost (look at this as an investment, then calculate the return on the US's investment in supporting the Settlements) the losses are greater than any other foreign policy debacle in US history: It gave rise to and maintained middle eastern world terrorism; The war in Beirut; Inspired Osama Bin Laden to perpetrate 9/11 (he said that he conceived of 9/11 when he saw the towers burning in Beirut and has maintained all along that the Palestinian conflict is a main reason for his activities, going so far as to say that "if we really just hated freedom, why did we not attack, say, Sweden?") ; is one of the main recruiting tools of Al qaeda ; led to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and all subsequent middle eastern conflicts; necessitates the creation of huge and costly government institutions such as Homeland Security, and last but not least, leaves us in the unfortunate and morally bankrupt position of literally starving the Palestinians until they forsake their democratically elected government during a time at which we are supposed to winning the hearts and minds of Arab and Muslim people across the globe.

So lets make the US, Israel, the Middle East and the entire world safer by forcing Israel to quit all settlements in the occupied territories and rebuild the wall along the green line only. We regain the moral high ground, we dramatically reduce world terrorism, we reduce tensions with every country in the middle east, and we can begin recovering from the trillions of dollars of losses that we have incurred as a result.

And then, how about a Manhattan project to create a working fusion reactor on US soil.? There is a much better use of US capitol than endlessly sending arms, money and diplomatic support to Israel in order to cover the massive shortfall and geopolitical repercussions caused by the settlement movement. The Chinese already are working on their own right now.

J

Baffled, you deserve an explanation.
The Jews were put in refugee camps pulled themselves out, and built a nation. Palestinians are permanently kept in refugee camps by their Arab brethren for political reasons. Zionist put up a wall, which has prevented hundreds of murderous attacks and loss of life. Wouldn't you do that if your family were threatened? Bombs still manage to get through checkpoints though they slow them down and filter them out significantly. You would prefer letting people be blown apart in order reduce humiliation by the part of the perpetrators?
It was the UN which brought Israel into existence, though the palestinians refuse to honor that.
You are indeed dealing with a special people, one that still sells water, gas, and electricity to those that openly cry for their destruction, one that treats even those that hate them in their own hospitals, and one that still refuses to launch an all-out war killing as many of the blood-thirsty enemy as possible, though this refusal is not matched by the palestinians, who would eagerly kill as many as possible if only they could.

Even a dog does not take sadistic delight in the pain and suffering of fellow dogs.

To Michael O:

"Shamir help out his hand to Nazi Germany during WWII"

"Are you out of your mind? "

Well perhaps these questions are not mutually dependent but since I am not qualified I will not speculate on my own sanity.

Now regarding Mr Shamir - his terrorist group LEHI sent out emissaries to Vichy (French Nazi Sympathizers) -controlled Lebanon to meet with representatives of the Third Reich and submit an offer that his group would fight against the British on the side of Nazi Germany.

Remember the US and Britain were on the same side in WW2.

Countries that beg.do you also mean the guilt money the US pays for the rapeing of a countries natural resources.The us takes alot more from the world then it gives.So im not sure what you mean.

It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel's security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel's enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world's only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby's point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.

Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself would probably be better off if it took a moderate role and the US policy more even-handed.

Mitch im not sure i understand your reasoning that the jews did it, so now can the palos.if the palos dont like the situation forced on them they have the right to resist.history 101.and do they give this gas and water away to a people they kick in the teeth or are they charging good money.lets not confuse business with good will.even the white man sold guns to the american indians.money is money.and even an israelis minister said the wall was a land grab.to make the borders permanent,so dont sell me the story of protection.it was planed many many years ago this state called israel and the towns it wants.so please dont tell me different.and i can see you know little about dogs.but enjoyed the sales pitch all the same.

Angus - 2 questions:

1. What's your source on that?

2. When, according to that source, did it take place?

I agree with J. Politicians in the US are cowards. Theyare not doingwhat is in the best interest of the US security.
'Terrorism' is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or 'the West'; it is largely a response to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits.

Robert:

"as american indians were once savage killers in the eyes of the white man,that is the view of palos,they are fighting for the ground under there feet.not the land the zionists tell them"

So following your logic, America should be returned to the Indians?

Michael O: "Still, of all the options available, this one seems to be the lesser evil."

Basically, what you are saying is that it is better to have Hamas preach and act to destroy Israel than to have the Palestinians suffer? Seems like you're deciding on who is to suffer: the Palestinians or the Israelies.

Israel's advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a 'new anti-semitism', which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would 'have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain', while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: 'There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist - verging on anti-semitic - attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.' But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.

Critics are also accused of holding Israel to an unfair standard or questioning its right to exist. But these are bogus charges too. Western critics of Israel hardly ever question its right to exist: they question its behaviour towards the Palestinians, as do Israelis themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely accepted notions of human rights, to international law and to the principle of national self-determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.

I haven't heard any good reason why foreign aid should be sent to the Palestinian Authority, by the US or any other nation. What do we gain by it? In all these years, the PA has never established a functional civil society; is there really any reason to hope that can change? When we know they give their priority to guns, not butter?

It's also worth noting that in the entire history of the world, there never was a
'Palestinian' nation. 'Palestine' would've been a completely new nation out of wholecloth, just like Israel. Except the territory left after the Nakba was annexed by Jordan & Egypt. I'm not sure why Jordan & Egypt didn't just keep that territory; it would've solved a lot of problems.

All this makes me wonder, "What if man never invented all the religions there are today? Would the world be better off?"

It seems like most of the worlds conflicts (past, present, and probably future) all evolve around one race having another religion than another. Maybe there's something to be said for Atheism. At least there wouldn't be religious landmarks, like Jerusalem, to fight over.

I hear so much about the holy land,and how it was a gift to the jews.that they were gods chosen people,they were given the laws to be the light unto the world.and all i see is war,manipulation,bullies,misinformation,i see laws that are conciderd racist,and laws that say women couldnt speak in a religous setting,and laws that say a women is unclean during a week of every month.we spend 10 billion a year to keep israel afloat,is it because they need it more than sri lankans or ethiopians,no it is because we need to fulfill prophesy.the money in the last 70 years that has poured into that tiny tract of land probaly could of started a million farms in africa.but jerusalem is not in africa now is it.so at the end of the day we try to prop up our beliefs by supporting israel.you would think there are a million christians in israel.there is not,it is the great devide that is not talked about.because we have the same end, just different results.when last has a black politician even mentioned the plight of africa,heck they visit israel before they go to africa. why is this why do they care more about israel instaed of aids and hunger.to say zionism has not hijacked foriegn policy, is not getting at the truth.just look at the political clout and the money that pours into a place the size of,well its small.so do we do things out of goodness or out of fullfilling prophesy.you tell me.starving hamas has every thing to do with religion and nothing to do with human rights.

B: Because then those countries would have had to take care of 100's of thousands of impoverished Palestinians - something they avoided by making them Israel's problem (which also incidentally made a good focal point for Arab hatred of a non-muslim nation in the region).

Can anoyone tell me - I'm only somewhat familiar with the history of the region - why is it that this land was so unimportant and undesirable until the Jews started immigrating there? And why is it such a crime to buy land?

ABH - "Basically, what you are saying is that it is better to have Hamas preach and act to destroy Israel than to have the Palestinians suffer?"

Hamas has done it up till now and will continue to so in the future. What I'm saying is there should be a search for an effective way to avert a humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian territories without helping the Hamas. I'm not sure such an effective way exists, but that does not mean we should not make an honest attempt to do it.

"I hear so much about the holy land,and how it was a gift to the jews.that they were gods chosen people,they were given the laws to be the light unto the world."

If you hear so much about it that means you get your information from bird-brained Arab propaganda outlets. In Israel nobody speaks that way, and if anyone does, no one takes him seriously. You are welcome to read the Israeli press, most of which is available online in English, and see for yourself.

To Michael O.in response to:

Angus - 2 questions:

1. What's your source on that?

2. When, according to that source, did it take place?

Posted by: Michael O. | May 11, 2006 05:25 PM

I am glad to offer you a source - please refer to the following wikipedia link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29

And the pertinent lines:

"Contact with Nazi authorities

In 1940 and 1941, Lehi proposed intervening in the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany to attain their help in expelling Britain from Mandate Palestine and to offer their assistance in "evacuating" the Jews of Europe arguing that "common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO (Lehi)." Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met the German official Werner Otto von Hentig and delivered a letter from Lehi offering to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for "the establishment of the historic Jewish state". Von Hentig forwarded the letter to the German embassy in Ankara, but there is no record of any official response. Lehi tried to establish contact with the Germans again in December 1941, also apparently without success."

Does that work for you?

I love the way Jewish PR makes it sound like Israel is doing Palestinans a favor by releasing funds that are already belong to Palestinians. How nice of Israel to do that. The reality is that Israel is brutal state not far from fashist state. I used to fall for Jewish impressively powerful PR until I found out how they treat Palestinians. I'm ashamed that my county is supporting Israely government because it is not what US used to stand for. It shows the influence Jews have in this country and that they are not using it with best interest of US in mind. War in Iraq costing us arm and leg can largely be attributed to best interest of Israel and had very little to do with our security or even control of resources.

Mitch, I believe the naive or misinformed one is yourself. I wouldn't be suprised to find out that your only source of information is the American media. To claim that the Jews didn't steal the land is truly a naivity. History tells us how they started to move back to the "Promised Land" at the end of the 19th century, how the Jewish State has been created after the WWII as a "compensation" for suffering, and then, through successive wars, how they grabbed more and more land from the Arabs (pretending that they wanted to protect the security of the Jewish State). As for the living conditions of the Palestinians, you should go see for yourself. I've been there and there is no question in my mind of whose fault primarily is. Unfortunately, the common Jew living in Israel today is a victim of its own state policy and as long as Israel will deprive the Palestinians of some of the most basic human rights, the latter will continue to do acts of violence. If they want Palestinians to give in, then Israel must give up some of its own policies.

Angus -

OK, so let's get a few things straight:

1. If that account is correct, the contact with the Nazis was meant to save the European Jews, a small fact which you neglected to mention.

2. Lehi was a splinter group of a splinter group and counted no more than a few dozens at the time. It was in conflict not only with the British occupation forces and with its parent faction, the Irgun, but also with the mainstream Jewish population of Israel which numbered close to half a million at the time. To say that it spoke for the Jews in Israel is like saying that "The Real IRA" speaks for the Irish or that David Duke speaks for the Americans.

3. Shamir became a legitimate Israeli politician only after his group ceased to exist and he himself was no longer involved in terrorism. Arafat had been a terror leader for decades and was responsible for thousands of Israeli casualties, yet Israel signed a peace accord with him as soon as he agreed to change his ways. The same policy is now applied by Israel to Hamas: No contacts only as long as Hamas persists with the terror.

What you're suggesting, on the other hand, is that today's U.S. policy towards Israel should be dictated by something the some marginal character did 65 years ago. Did I get that right?

Michael O.,

"What you're suggesting, on the other hand, is that today's U.S. policy towards Israel should be dictated by something the some marginal character did 65 years ago. Did I get that right? "

No, U.S. Policy should be dictated by what serves U.S. interests, and hopefully, what is morally correct and geopolitically helpful. As your well aware, the Legitiamcy of Israel is not in question. To even discuss it is to simply obfuscate the matters at hand.

The settlements, and the occupation that make them possible on the other hand, are morally reprehensible, and politically indefensible.
They make so little sense from an american perspective that they're impact on world terrorism and bringing about 9/11 is NEVER discussed by politicians and almost completely avoided by the press, all of whom are afraid of losing "sponsors".

Chime in about your support of them and how they benefit US intersts if you like. In fact:

A QUESTION FOR EVERY ONE:

HOW CAN THE SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND JERUSALEM BE CONSIDERED ANYTHING BUT A LIABILITY AND AN EMBARRASSMENT FROM A US POLICY PERSPECTIVE?

Not Israel, which America will always protect, but the settlements.

I seriously doubt there will be any credible takers.

(Also, if your a racist, please skip this question, as your not thinking rationally in the first)

J

J- So where do you propose to draw the line? RE your question bolded, if you substitute "Israel" for "settlements" would the expected answers change?
Interesting question, if the settlements were not there, would that have prevented 911? Note that Bin Ladin, Ahmadinejad Assad and their ilk did not stop merely at the settlements but at the presence of Israel proper. Note the maps distributed by the PLO depicting Palestine that completely obliterated the Israeli border.
There would still be a physical disconnect between Gaza and the West Bank.
Would there have been peace? I really don't think so.
In the end the solution is to define her borders and build that wall asap.
Security is primary, world opinion is secondary.

No Michael O. You could not in fact get it more wrong.

Are you then saying that the offer to aid the Nazi's in WWII was acceptable because the potential result was moral?

I did not say that Lehi spoke for the Jews in Israel so I will refrain from responding to the comparisons with "The Real IRA" and David Duke. However the numbers were in the hundreds and far from being "in conflict" with the Irgun and mainstream Jewish people they fought alongside both Irgun and Hagannah.

Regarding Shamir and his legitimization - LEHI was integrated into the IDF in
1948. In fact Israel instituted the Lehi Ribbon in 1980 which is awarded to former
members of the Lehi underground who wished to carry it. Doesn't this seem to be at
odds with a policy of denouncing terrorism and those who perpetrate it?

Also please don't brag about Israel signing a peace treaty with Arafat as being some sort of moral badge of honor. Israel signed a treaty with Arafat because after 2 years of negotiations with non-militant Palestinians who refused to accept a treaty that did not require the dismantling of settlements, Rabin decided to rattle Arafats cage in Tunis and of course got a treaty without removing the settlements.

So why not go back to 1967 lines? Build your wall there. I would be happy to send my tax dollars to support Israel's defense of 1967 borders if anyone attacked them after a new treaty.

Isn't a lifetime of peace worth a few hundred miles of land and a few thousand pissed off religious bigots?

Seth,

"Why not read Noam Chomsky or Edward Said instead?"

Thank you for the above reading suggestions. I am an American Muslim and would like to learn more about this conflict. I very often hear that the Jews have been persecuted over thousands of years by gentiles/Muslims. I was wondering if you care to share your thoughts on past Jewish sufferings.

Ron Day,

The lines are already quite clearly drawn. The green line, Israels pre 1967 borders are already recognized by most of the entire world as their real borders. 40 years plus of conflicts have arisen solely as the result of Israeli extremists
trying to take land that did not belong to them outside Israels borders. Furthermore, your answer is in no way pertinant to the Security of the US. It is not even pertinant to the security of Israel, because the vast majority of all actual crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians and by the Palestinians against the Israelis over the last 40 years have been solely concerning the dispute over the occupied territory, and not the presence of green line israel. I would say it's clear that 9/11 would not have occured if we would have forced the Israelis long ago to do the right thing and abandon the settlements instead of financially supporting their effort to do the wrong thing. Remember, it is Israelis who have been destroying the daily lives and futures of the Palestinian people by occupying the West Bank, east jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and slowly stealing more and more of it by building settlements. Meanwhile, the daily lives of most Israelis over the last 40 years has been more akin to european or US life. The inequity is so huge that it has enraged arabs and Muslims worldwide.

regarding the wall, sure build it on the green line and you'll get few arguements from anyone, including Hamas. They have offered a 40 year truce if israel leaves the occupied territory. Its their way of saying give us our country back and you'll have peace without losing street credibility. All your answer does is try to blend the obvious crime of the settlements and the occupation that makes them possible with Israels right to exist. The two subjects are in no way related, especially from a US security perspective ( we have always offically condemned the settlements and called for the end of the occupation)

Come on, can't someone do better than this to my earlier open question?

J

J- Regarding the green line, ok, most of the world may recognize that border. The problem is the ones who don't recognize it - you know, the rest of the world, and that includes most of her neighbours.
Regarding 911, please do not equate policies surrounding Israel to that event..bin Laden spoke of many greviances from the Saudi and other "puppet" regimes to the mere presence of foreigners in the Middle East.
Another point, who does Hamas speak for? All of the Palestinians? How about Hizbollah or the many others out there?
Will they respect Hamas's pronouncements?
40 years of "truce" By only Hamas? How nice. And what after that?
Regarding the quality of life of the Palestinians vis Israel, it is a concern. How to rectify that? Their economies for better or worse are co-mingled, and the present atmosphere rightfully prohibits Palestinians from crossing into Israel.
There has to be a real change and in that regard, the ball is in the Palestinians court. They have to put a stop to all terrorist activity, and that is a first step.
Moving the settlements back to the green line, would this stop the terrorism? I believe you are naive if you believe this to be true.
Again your mention of Us policies and embarrasments etc is secondary security is foremost.

Ron Day

In a speech before the US congress after 9/11, Tony Blair said that there will never be an end to the war on terror until there is a fair and peaceful settlement in the occupied territories. Bill Clinton said that a fair and peaceful settlement with the Palestinians would remove the philosophical underpinnings of Islamic terrorist recruitment in the Middle East.
The CIA analyst in charge of gathering intelligence on Osama Bin Laden blames the US support of the occupation and settlement movement as being one of the main inspirations for al Qaeda recruitment and 9/11. Osama bin laden himself said that he conceived of the attacks on 9/11 when he saw the Towers burning in Beirut, Lebanon (a conflict Israel engaged in solely to further the settlement movement) and talks extensively about the treatment of the Palestinian people as being a major reason for his actions.

So yes, I will make a direct connection between the settlement movement and 9/11 and go so far as to say that without the 40 years of needless oppression they consigned the Palestinians to, the 40 years that inflamed Arab and Muslim radicalism throughout the Middle East, that 9/11 would likely never have occurred and I daresay there might be a great deal more peace in the middle east.

As an American, my first concern is US security, which support of the settler movement has needlessly imperiled. Why? The settlements are morally wrong, internationally condemned and illegal. The settlements provide no additional security to Israel; in fact they endanger Israelis security by needlessly angering their neighbors and necessitating the occupation, which even many Israelis find to be offensive, immoral and wasteful.

Regarding commingled economies, that's a pretty sanitized way of saying that the occupation and settlement movement have devastated the Palestinian economy, which, by the way, is by design. Desperate people act desperately and are therefore easily vilified, which makes it easier to justify continuing the occupation and building more settlements. End the occupation and remove the settlements and the "commingling" magically comes to an end! Most Israelis lives will not change at all as a result, but it will be the end of 40 years, I repeat 40 years of continual suffering for the Palestinians.

Build the wall where it belongs, within Israel's borders. Put the settlers back where they belong, within Israelis borders. Then if Israel needs to be defended, The US and Israel can defend it from the moral high ground, where I and most Americans prefer to be and where Israelis greatest security is waiting.

J

Isreal will burn for this. Maybe not now, maybe not tommorow but someday. The stealing Zionist will burn. Jews will never ever be safe while they pretend to be something more than the rest of us.

huh?

Angus -

"Are you then saying that the offer to aid the Nazi's in WWII was acceptable because the potential result was moral?"

If the end result would have been the prevention of the holocaust, of course it would have been moral. Would you rather see millions of people get killed than deal with someone whose ideology you find abhorrent?

"I did not say that Lehi spoke for the Jews in Israel so I will refrain from responding to the comparisons with "The Real IRA" and David Duke..."

Sorry to interrupt, but you did say that. You said the U.S. should withhold support from Israel today, because Shamir was a terrorist in the 1940's. If Shamir did not represent the Jews in Israel (which he did not), why should it matter to the U.S. one way or another?

"However the numbers were in the hundreds and far from being "in conflict" with the Irgun and mainstream Jewish people they fought alongside both Irgun and Hagannah."

If you are not familiar with the history of that era, at the very least you could read your own Vikipedia posting. In contrast to the policies of the Hagannah, which was the major military organization of the Jewish population until 1948, Lehi targeted the British to the exclusion of the Arabs and - during WWII - the Germans. The Hagannah regarded Lehi's attacks on the British as harmful and, following the end of the war and the resumption of Jewish immigration to Israel, acted to curb those attacks, and on occasion even helped the British in rounding up Lehi members. It's true that all those Jewish organizations aimed to bring the British mandate to an end. That does not mean that they "fought along each other".

"Regarding Shamir and his legitimization - LEHI was integrated into the IDF in
1948."

In 1948 all underground organizations were abolished and absorbed into the IDF. What's your point?

"In fact Israel instituted the Lehi Ribbon in 1980 which is awarded to former
members of the Lehi underground who wished to carry it."

In 1980 the Israeli government was held by Likud who included some former Lehi members, and Israel had had full diplomatic relationship with England for 32 years. If Hamas today stops attacking Israel and agrees to live in peace with it, they can give their members all the ribbons they want, not in 30 years but tomorrow. Ribbons are not the problem. The continuation of violence is.

"Also please don't brag about Israel signing a peace treaty with Arafat as being some sort of moral badge of honor. Israel signed a treaty with Arafat because after 2 years of negotiations with non-militant Palestinians who refused to accept a treaty that did not require the dismantling of settlements, Rabin decided to rattle Arafats cage in Tunis and of course got a treaty without removing the settlements."

I'm not sure where you got that particular story from, but it's irrelevant to my point. I mentioned the peace with Arafat not to brag about anything but to illustrate the fact that Israel's foreign policy is not dictated by grudges about the past. It will fight against whoever is attacking it, and will make peace with whoever is willing to make peace, regardless of past hostilities. As I said before, that applies to Hamas as well.

"So why not go back to 1967 lines? Build your wall there. I would be happy to send my tax dollars to support Israel's defense of 1967 borders if anyone attacked them after a new treaty."

I have no argument with that. What does it have to do with what Shamir did in 1940?

1. If anyone thinks that Israel is going anywhere, they are kidding themselves. Israel has 50 nuclear weapons to the Arabs 0. Israel is toying with the Palestinian militants like a lion would with an irritating mouse. Israel is very smart, strong, and determined when real danger faces them i.e. multiple wars against other arab nations since WWII.

2. It's very obvious that half the world is pro-Israel and the other half against. If the arab countries are adamant on getting rid of Israel, WWIII is the only way to do it. I would take the side of the West in this war and I don't know what would become of the middle east after that. It probably be a land grab and end up in the hands of the West. Israel would definitely define it's own borders then.

3. Why don't the Palestinians spend there energy developing a self-sufficient country and showing the world that they are not the second-class citizens that they are acting like. Rise up, stand tall, take advantage of the current stage that is seeing the greatest overall economic boom in world history. They need to find their piece of the pie.

Paul-

"3. Why don't the Palestinians spend there energy developing a self-sufficient country and showing the world that they are not the second-class citizens that they are acting like. Rise up, stand tall, take advantage of the current stage that is seeing the greatest overall economic boom in world history. They need to find their piece of the pie."

Well said! Just like a typical American - STUPID, IGNORANT, SELF-CENTERED and ARROGANT.

You can add REALISTIC, UNDERSTANDING, SELF-ACCOUNTABLE, SELF-RELIANT, NON-HYPOCRITICAL, SELF-AWARE, and PRO-PALESTINIAN to that list.

Dear God it is sickening to read of the savage Israelis gloat over starving Palestinians. Why the world hates them.
And why America's support of that preadatory, warmongering, and again, savage nation has cost America her soul...and will in the future cost her her
physicial being. How in the name of God did we get glued to that foul entity. And how will decent people escape? Israel, even if it were a decent society, isn't worth it. Not one hungry baby. And not America's morality.

The problem is that no one is actually thinking what is the most RATIONAL plan for the Palestinians moving forward. Is continuing to pick a fight with a country that could destroy it in a 3-day siege the best plan? They are trying to start a war where the only outcome is the end of a Palestinian state.

Accept the current situation, work with Israel to define borders, learn how to get along with it's neighor and try to lead a happy, peaceful existence.

..."every other nation would have bombed Jenin from the air..." but the Israelis (were dear enough) put their own kind "soldiers on the ground and went door to door..." to commit their atrocity. Good God, with posts like that why would anyone read here? Perhaps one should have sympathy for people so deluded, who have to spend their lives defending ISrael, the indefensible.

Paul-

"You can add REALISTIC, UNDERSTANDING, SELF-ACCOUNTABLE, SELF-RELIANT, NON-HYPOCRITICAL, SELF-AWARE.."

Your brain size = Neanderthal man

I refuse to debate with a subspecies of human beings because I won't get anything out of it and you certainly won't comprehend anything that is logical, rational, and fair.

You are welcome to live in your small world!

No Name -

"Your brain size = Neanderthal man"

Wow. What an intelligent argument you make. Resorting to personal attacks show the kind of problem solver and debater you are.

Retorts like that show why there is no rational solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. There are too many irrationals in the fight.

Please, I challenge your super-human mind to come up with a solution to the current crisis we face.

No Name -

Also, thank you for taking "PRO-PALESTINIAN" out of the list. Just another reason why the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will never end...paraphrasing, misrepresenting, and taking quotes out of context.

No michael o,i did not get my information from some bird brained arab.i got it from the torah.as for the people of israel not feeling that way may have to do with alot of secular people coming from russia and poland and not understanding of the biblical past.and that information comes from a jewish agency.

Ron day,the settlers just burned a trialer with a palo security gaurd in it,local settlers say they knew he was in it.the settlers are not a bunch of go to church on saturday pray on monday boy scouts.Some of these guys make punk rocker skin heads look good.they are as fanatical as they get and they are growing in numbers.So for all you that say there is no evil in the israelis actions,are only feeding this crazed lot who have the power to destroy israel it self.These settlers are protected by the israel army,that must make the palos feel real comfortable.But hey they are the good guys right.As the blues brothers said we are on a mission from god.

"No michael o,i did not get my information from some bird brained arab.i got it from the torah"

That's lovely. If you want to know what's going on in Israel today, I strongly recommend that you get your information from newspapers, not from a book written thousands of years ago.

"Steve - I think many US citizens just don't care what the world thinks of the US. Instead, the counties of the world might want to start caring about what the US thinks of them"

ABH,

You just summed it all up right there. Amen brother. All this "we hate America" language fails to consider that the REASON we dont care is we stopped liking the global left a long time ago. Amen!!

This is actually similar to Iran situation in a way.

According to the left it doesnt matter that Hamas intends to destroy Israel. Hamas either

1. Doesnt mean it
2. Is just kidding
3. Or never actually said "destroy" just "change" the government.

Its sophistry at its worst. When you want to believe that the Palestinians are the "true victims" its hard to argue that when Palestinians and Iranians threaten Israeli citizens with sudden violent death. So the leftist solution? Say "destroy" really means to "change".

If it wasnt so sad it would be hilarious. Actually it still is :)

"Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult..."

To Open you eyes...,

This is my favorite liberal argument. The same people who ridicule the war on terror come back and claim that the way to "win" the war is to abandone our allies and give in to the demands of "freedom fighters" who target 5 year old girls with C-4 and ball bearings.

Thats like saying the only way to "defeat" Hitler is to take away the anger that German citizens have for their defeat in WWI. So we should obviously have abandoned Britain and Continental Europe to Hitler, because it is the only way to ease German anger and to "win" the war.

Note to the left: In war to "win" is to defeat your adversary, not to give in to his demands.

"The object of war is to make the other poor bastard die for his country."

Gen. George S. Patton

It's rediculous to watch these exchanges go back and forthe. It's the Palesinians fualt, no it's the Israeli's fault. It seems like both sides of the argument are too stubborn to admit that it's both of their faults. Neither side is inhocent, both have commited acts of barbaric terrorism against one another and both spout off one-sided propoganda. But what is even the point. This is just an argument to assess blame - it will yield no solution or result except more hatred and contempt for the other side.

This argument is useless because you cannot prove whose fault it is when it's everyone's fault. I hold the entire world in contempt for this problem. Name one single party that has no blame.

If you can accept that, then you can move on to a debate that might actually be of some use: What is a fair solution? And since neither party is going to leave the region that simply means, what are fair boundaries? And what are fair penalties for crossing those boundaries?

I think the blame game has been played out to exhaustion so that there is no doubt it will ever end. The world will never agree on that, and it doesn't matter that it can't - it only matters that it can fix the problem. It is clear that the actions of both sides are selfish and full of spite - so some other party needs to step up and force them to stop this cycle.

Isn't this exactly the kind of reason the UN was created? Why haven't they stepped up and put a stop to this? They could send in peace keepers and force negotiations. This whole mess began with the UN trying to split up the region, so why shouldn't it end there? If neither side will compromise, they must be made to compromise - this is something the UN has never been able to do before, but if it is to have any purpose at all, it must step up and make it happen - with the help of it's members.

To Michael o,which newspaper do you recomend,the jerusalem post,or newyork times,better yet cnn and wolf blitzer.And that book written a few thousand years ago is the reason this war in the middle east is going on,this war did not sprout from an irish fabel or a greek tragedy,it is from the book.It is haggar and her kids against sara and her children.to say different is to hide the facts.every thing else is window dressing.Now if china becomes a world super power,things change because as they say they dont have a dog in the fight.I dont remember confusios ever call for a holy war.For me to say i have the answer for the war between judaism and muslims is not going to happen.that can only be answerd when we are gone,if then.Or if the creater sends down a message that does not imply that the return of jews to israel is the prophesy.So As long as the holy land is part of our belief system,and our belief is strengthend by the return of jews to israel we will fight with our last breath.there is no answer to a holy war.Thats the thing we fight to full fill prophesy..What is a jew with out gods promise,what is a muslem with out gods promise, what is a christian with out gods promise.the question is does the fighting prove the winner,because as far as i can tell it has flucuated over the decades.But to say this is not about the book is something i will never concede.

Michael O.

"Are you then saying that the offer to aid the Nazi's in WWII was acceptable because the potential result was moral?"

If the end result would have been the prevention of the holocaust, of course it would have been moral. Would you rather see millions of people get killed than deal with someone whose ideology you find abhorrent?"

If your logic is to be followed one would have to assume that Lehi were aware that millions of people were being obliterated in Europe - if so, surely as fighting Zionists wouldn't it have been more apt to ask the British to allow you to go to Germany, Poland, Greece, Balkans, North Africa - wherever really - as long as you could go up against the people who are trying to annihilate your fellow Jews.
I would suggest that their motive was different and if you feel so inclined I suggest you read the text of the Lehi proposal. Linked from Wikipedia. I will not post it in full as it will take up huge amount of space.

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/irgunazi.htm

Next:

"I did not say that Lehi spoke for the Jews in Israel so I will refrain from responding to the comparisons with "The Real IRA" and David Duke..."

"Sorry to interrupt, but you did say that. You said the U.S. should withhold support from Israel today, because Shamir was a terrorist in the 1940's. If Shamir did not represent the Jews in Israel (which he did not), why should it matter to the U.S. one way or another?"

Again I did not say that Lehi spoke for the Jews in Israel please reread my earlier posts. You disbelievingly asked me for source and dates and I supplied both.

And more:

"However the numbers were in the hundreds and far from being "in conflict" with the Irgun and mainstream Jewish people they fought alongside both Irgun and Hagannah."
If you are not familiar with the history of that era, at the very least you could read your own Vikipedia posting. In contrast to the policies of the Hagannah, which was the major military organization of the Jewish population until 1948, Lehi targeted the British to the exclusion of the Arabs and - during WWII - the Germans. The Hagannah regarded Lehi's attacks on the British as harmful and, following the end of the war and the resumption of Jewish immigration to Israel, acted to curb those attacks, and on occasion even helped the British in rounding up Lehi members. It's true that all those Jewish organizations aimed to bring the British mandate to an end. That does not mean that they "fought along each other".

Here is one example of Lehi & Irgun fighting together and seeking coordination with Hagannah:

"During the battle for Kastel, the Irgun and Lehi took their plan to attack Deir Yassin to Haganah for coordination. Rivalry between them made matters tense. The guerillas contacted David Shaltiel, the Haganah district commander, and asked for his approval. Shaltiel was surprised by their choice and asked: "Why go to Deir Yassin? It is a quiet village. There is a non-aggression pact between Givat Shaul and the Mukhtar of Deir Yassin. The village is not a security problem in any way. Our problem is in the battle for the Qastel. I suggest you participate in the operations in that area. I will give you a base in Bayit Vagan, and from there you will take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel.".

The page that details all the information concerning Deir Yassin is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

Next:

("Regarding Shamir and his legitimization - LEHI was integrated into the IDF in
1948."
In 1948 all underground organizations were abolished and absorbed into the IDF. What's your point?
"In fact Israel instituted the Lehi Ribbon in 1980 which is awarded to former
members of the Lehi underground who wished to carry it."
In 1980 the Israeli government was held by Likud who included some former Lehi members, and Israel had had full diplomatic relationship with England for 32 years. If Hamas today stops attacking Israel and agrees to live in peace with it, they can give their members all the ribbons they want, not in 30 years but tomorrow. Ribbons are not the problem. The continuation of violence is.)"

I thought my point was self evident from the initial posting but I guess not. Terrorists are either pariahs or not. Israel seems to have tacitly condoned terrorism by accepting these groups into it's armed forces and also as it's leaders. Do you not think that the Palestinians look at past history and see people like Sharon in the highest ranks of power and not question why Israel has such a double standard.

In 2002 The Saudis made a proposal and Hamas made an offer - not 100% of what Israel wanted to hear from them but an olive if not a whole olive branch. You say earlier that sometimes in some circumstances it may be ok to deal with someone whose ideology you find abhorrent.

Why not see if their offer held any merit instead of dismissing it out of hand?

Andrew,

Do you have any idea why Israel quit the Gaza? does anyone here? because the Israelis understand that the settlement movement has failed. The cost of maintaining an army around 8000 settlers who were surrounded by over one million Palestinians in the most densely populated area on earth was becoming too crushing both politically and financially. People were sick of sacrificing their children in the army for the sake of a bunch of religious extremists and ultra nationalist wackos that most Israelis do not actually support anymore. Thats why they formed the center Kadima party and the Likud is largely history.

Guess what. The same thing is going to happen in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The only question is to what degree. If my guess is correct, it's going to be a lot more extensive than what has been discussed before in the press. In fact, I am reading about the possiblity of Israel quitting all of East Jerusalem. God willing, They will quit most of the West bank as well, except maybe for the largest settlements. As a republican, I can only hope that our government is pushing for them to pull out completely, although based on their actions and rhetoric since the Iraq war, its hard to believe that they could be that smart.

Regardless, I think the Israelis see the hand writing on the wall and are looking forward to living without the weight of the occupation around their necks.

Our government has been catering to it's own relious whackos with regard to Israel(both Christian and Jewish) for far too long and the price that we have paid for that bit of political cowardice is staggering. Putting pressure on Israel to finish the job they started in the gaza by clearing out the West Bank is not abandoning Israel. It's helping it. It's also going to reduce terrorism and save us trillions if we play our cards right.

I look forward to a day when our alliance with Israel is no longer a total liability, but one that actually benefits us both, and if they quit the settlements, that day may come relatively soon.

One more thing, Every country in the world began with some amount of ugly and dubious circumstances, including The US and the entire European Union. So argue all you like about Israel's inception, but it's not going to prove or change anything. Israel is most definitely not going anywhere, As Paul said here earlier. The settlements, on the other hand, are doomed. Hopefully they will be ended in a way that benefits the US and Israel from a diplomatic standpoint with Hamas and the rest of the Middle East, and not as the result of a long and bitter fight. It will probably help ratchet down the talk coming from Iran as well if they see us putting an end to this awful chapter of US and Israeli history.

Actually, yet one more thing. I can't believe the amount of open racism on this forum. It amazes me that people with that level of emotional and mental deficiency would so willingly display their offensive afflicion to others. If you can't look at others in the world, (even those you disagree with) with with the same respect that you would expect yourself, then you are too dim to have an opinion worth typing. I am, in fact, amazed you can type at all.

P.S. Andrew, read Pat Buchanan on the subject of Israel and the settlements if you want the view of a true conservative. He's a little xenophobic in his other views but right on concerning the damage caused by our support of the occupation adn settlements.

For other people here,(for those who are not Bigoted) Cornel West might be a good read on the subject.

J

J,

I actually agree with you that Israel should withdraw from the 1967 "occupied" territories mainly because if they can withdraw their settlers behind a wall then their borders will be more secured and they wont have to worry about negotiating with Hamas terrorists or Fatah's duplicitous kleptocrats. I think a unilateral withdrawal and a construction of the wall is the best idea yet. So in that sense I agree, but only because it is the smart thing to do.

As far as whether Israel has been MORALLY wrong for occupying the territories, well thats ridiculous.

1. Occupation is what happens when you launch a war of aggression and lose. Egypt thought it could destroy Israel and it thought wrong. Just like Germany and Japan in 1945, if you lose a war you started, dont complain about the injustice of being "occupied" after you lose.

2. There never was a state of Palestine, so how can it be occupied? WHat you call occupied Palestine was itself "occupied" by Egypt and Jordan before 1967. Interesting how there was no liberal condemnation of, or suicide bombings against Egypt and Jordan then.

"It's also going to reduce terrorism and save us trillions if we play our cards right..."

I disagree with that point totally. Although we both want to see a withdrawal from the occupied territories. I dont think America should force that on Israel, and I dont agree that giving in to your enemies demands for the sake of reducing violence actually works. Thats called appeasement J.

If they withdraw from the West Bank because they are building a more defensable border then thats fine. If they are doing because they hope terrorists will not want to kill them as badly then both you and they are deluding themselves. All that would do is embolded a bunch of psychopaths who already think targeting innocent people is a good idea, and convince them that anytime they want to force a policy change on Israel they should just blow a few five year old girls to bits. Appeasement always fails. Feeding the crocodile only makes it more hungry

I think its a good strategy to unilaterally withdraw, but not because I believe terrorism will decrease (it wont), but because it will make terrorist attacks much much harder after the wall is complete, thus removing Palestine's last bargaining chip, indiscriminate violence.

PS I think both Pat Buchanan and Cornel West are bigots. They are just bigoted against different races of people.

Andrew,

I'm curious. What in your opinion qualifies either Pat Buchanan or Cornel West as Bigots? Have You read their work? Buchannon was a Reagan advisor and West was a Professor at Harvard and now teaches at Princton I believe.
I would never vote for Pat based on his antiquated isolationist beliefs, and yes, because of his fundamentalist christian slant he is anti gay rights and seems abrasive when queried on many subjects, but that describes The majority of american conservatives as well. He does make's some great points about US Israeli policy and the effect that engaging in endless wars while not increasing the the actual internal productivity of the country can have, similar to the fate that befell the English empire after having to go it mostly alone during WWI and WWII.
As for Cornel West, I will let his words speak for him;

"It's very simple but it cuts very deep. If you love black folk,
you hate white supremacy. If you love Human Beings, you love Justice. If you love the life of the mind, then you hate all forms of dogmatism and parochialism"

A much better middle ground on the subject might be Colin Powell. He definitly has identified the escalation of middle eastern terrorism as being caused by the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, i.e. The settlement movement. Bush I was against it and tried to cut off at least some of the U.S. money that helped support the Settlements. I suppose Bush I and Colin Powell are bigots as well?
How about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Tony Blair? Bigots?

The main reason why I suggested these two authors is because they do come form absolutely different ends of the political spectrum. But its like they were twins separated at birth regarding the folly that is our support of the settler movement. Not Israel, the Settler movement. They are two completely different things.

By the way, have you ever wondered why we have to send money to Israel in the first place? And not just some money, but more money than we send any other nation in the world? they are on the same economic level as a country like Spain, and I guarantee you we send little or no money to spain nor many other economically similar nations (and spain has their own internal terror problem with ETA, and is just as "similar" to the US culturally as Israel, maybe more so).

It's because the occupation and settlement movement have devasted an otherwise healthy economy, and all the while has been a policy that every US admistration has officially condemned. Ironically, if we stop paying for the tremendous shortfall caused by the crushing expense of the occuption and settlements, Israel would not be able to afford to maintain them and would be forced to withdraw, a move that would actually help their economy in the long run and raise their standing in the world. Think about it. The effect on tourism alone, with people from all the major religions in the world traveling to all those historic places would make them financially independant almost overnight.

It is not capitulation to end a policy that is morally reprehensible, offically condemned by our own government and virtually the rest of the world, that drives terrorism, costs us 3 to 6 billion every year ,(money we will never be repaid) brought about 9/11 costing us trillions of dollars, and that has the net effect of economically devastating and isolating the counrty we are supposed to be helping.

Capitulation is to give up a legimate thing of value in order to quell violence. Ending a brutal and internationally condemned behavior is simply the right thing to do regardless of what else is going on, especially when stopping it actually greatly benefits us and the Israelis.

No, it is not Capitualtion. It is simply common sense.

J

J,

As an African American conservative I think although Cornel West talks as if he is addressing past wrongs, he seems to advocate an antagonism between black and white in America, that is based on making current whites who are not racist feel as if they are somehow responsible for past wrongs. Although, I have never real West's books, I have seen one of his speech's televised and got a pretty good idea where he is coming from. His argument on reparations is essentially that current white's must atone for the sins of their ancestors, which is essentially lumping all people of one race into one negative category. That is by definition bigotry. The fact that he is black does not change that fact.

As far as your statement about the "morality" of the occupation, well I addressed that already above and theres no need to repeat myself. To sum up those who lauch a war of aggression to exterminate their neighbors should not complain that they are occupied.

ALso I am pretty sure "our government" never condemned the occupation as "immoral". If so please quote it for me. As far as the "rest of the world" well you know how I feel about that:)

As I mentioned before this all depends on the presumptions you make.

"Capitulation is to give up a legimate thing of value in order to quell violence"

That statement is what seperates your point of view from mine. I see no moral issue with occupying an enemy who tried to exterminate your nation. As they say in Brooklyn "dont start none and there wont be none."

If it is immoral then I see your point, but I dont think it is immoral to capture enemy territory and use it as a buffer zone to prevent a future attack against you. Israel did not capture the West Bank and Gaza strip through aggression it captured it through a war of self defense.

PS: You said
"As a republican, I can only hope that our government is pushing for them to pull out completely, although based on their actions and rhetoric since the Iraq war, its hard to believe that they could be that smart."

J you sound like a Democrat to me. I think you're in the wrong party.

Angus -

I assume the last unsigned post addressed to me was from you. If not, my apologies.

I could continue on the track of answering your points one by one, but that would have been both too easy and redundant. We have strayed too far afield unnecessarily, so let me go back to the beginning and try to make the point as simple and concise as possible. Your initial argument was this:

"Almost all of Israel's leaders past and present were former terrorists. Why aren't we withholding our $3 Billion from them."

Assuming that the first sentence is correct, which it is not, the key word here is FORMER as IN THE PAST. During the years in which Shamir was ACTIVE in the underground, neither he nor Israel saw a red penny from the U.S. By the time the U.S. started supporting Israel, Shamir was a FORMER terrorist. Likewise, Israel signed a peace accord with Arafat, and the U.S. and Europe started supporting him when he agreed to become a FORMER terrorist (or at least that's what they all thought). The reason the U.S. is not supporting Hamas is because Hamas are CURRENT terrorists, at the PRESENT TIME. If they agree to become FORMER terrorists, Israel will be glad to negotiate with them, and the U.S. will be glad to assist them. That's all there is to it.

MY GOD! Read the 2:12post, May 11 by BOB, above. Now THAT's why the whole world hates Israel. And make no mistake, the whole world does. What DDDO they tell themsleves about being hated by every country, in every century, in which they have appeared? Don't they get it? Some one else posts that America will always support Israel. Don't count on it. History will repeat.

FOR JUNIOR MINT: Your earlier posting notes that after WWII it was "abundantly clear that no one wanted Jews around or alive..." A nd that they had been persecuted for thousands of years, etc. I have this question, true and real, not rhetorical. WHY do you suppose they've' always been so hated? And shouldn't there be some correction in behavior to waylay more of the same? Like Israel in it's behavior (5 incursions, land grabbing, assinations, Jenin, etc etc etc) isn't asking for more of the same. HOw smart is it? I mean,what do they tell themselves about the recurring results?

Andrew -

As an African-American conservative how do you feel about Israel's past support of South Africa?

Michael O.

Yes it was my posting - in my haste to pursue Friday evening revelry I neglected to add my name.

I must admit I'm a little disapointed that you won't take the "easy and redundant" path of responding to my responses to your question but so be it - I think were it so easy you would happily post rebuttals - unfortunately with the advent of the internet historical information is available to all and Israel's history has many warts that are plain to all.

Having said that - I do believe that history is past but my point is that everything Israel gained was at the point of a gun - NOT by negotiation - refusing to talk to the "enemy" does not help anyone. How can they become "FORMER" terrorists if Israel won't negotiate with them - as I said earlier why not take the olive that was offered in 2002 as a starting point - if Israel had accepted that as a start to talks and Hamas not lived up to their promise of a 40 year ceasefire then we are just back to the same point as now. Also it's possible that Palestinians would not have voted them into office had they promised something and not delivered it.

I see from your earlier posting - prior to your questions to me - that you are somewhat pragmatic in understanding that punishing civilians is not a solution - I would add to that and say that if a people have no hope they become HOPE Less - unfortunately people without hope are easy targets of extremists...

Maybe I have too much faith in human nature but knowing many Palestinians in the US who are succesful businessmen, teachers, realtors etc. etc. I believe that given the chance to provide a future for their children they will grab at the opportunity with open arms - people who are oppressed can only flourish when they are free - the success of the Irish and Scots diaspora in America and around the world are testimony to that.

I notice earlier these was a comment from someone who suggested we read Alan Dershowitz's book "The Case for Israel" - I also suggest that people read it and then read the rebuttal by Gary Malone at the followiing link.

http://www.obelus.org/index.php?artID=3

Hi J:

I attended a small dinner with Cornel West recently. A really nice man, who spent most of his time during his stream of consciousness lecture praising dictator Hugo Chavez and hip-hop. He had nothing to say about Israel, except that it was formed as a result of WWII (which is completely wrong, BTW). He's not a serious authority on the Middle East. He has merely written about it from a political perspective that happens to be in line with his skewed, Marxist worldview - which as a rule tends to be very critical of Zionism.

I know you think that because he's a celebrity academic who espouses lots of your POLITICAL biases against Zionism, that his opinions are important. But they're not.

And I can almost guarantee, having spoken with the man and being close to someone who is a friend of his, that he would disagree with you about Pat Buchanan not being a bigot, since Buchanan questioned the existence of the gas chambers during World War II. Virtually noone - besides Alexander Cockburn - takes Buchanan as a legitimate authority on Israel or matters pertaining to Jews given his loathsome track record.

And another thing: Israel is not going to give up East Jerusalem entirely, since there are Jewish holy sites in East Jerusalem that include the Western Wall. Where did you read that one? In Buchanan's essays? Not even Ha'aretz leftists in advocate that as a solution. You obviously don't know your geography.

And Israel's per capita income is actually HIGHER than Spain's - but its GDP is nowhere near, being that it has over 30,000,000 million people less.

Finally: Spain is more similar to the U.S. than Israel? How so, and what does that mean? (You've obviously never been to Israel, and probably not Spain, for that matter) Is this the kind of nonsense that passes for intelligent argument on your planet?

J, no offense, but you sound like a faker. Perhaps you should read up before coming on this board and making a fool out of yourself, while condescending to people who disagree with you.

If you have criticisms of Israeli policy, there are much more reputable sources you could quote than Pat Buchanan and Cornell West. Even Edward Said has more chache than those guys.

Get reading..

J:

"It is not even pertinant to the security of Israel, because the vast majority of all actual crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians and by the Palestinians against the Israelis over the last 40 years have been solely concerning the dispute over the occupied territory, and not the presence of green line israel."

Wow, J. You really are a faker. Fatah was formed before the six day war - when the West Bank and Gaza were not under Israeli occupation - and terrorist attacks started immediately after its founding.

"Lebanon (a conflict Israel engaged in solely to further the settlement movement)

Huh? That's a new one. Gamayal asked Israel to come into Lebanon, and Israel invaded to oust the P.L.O. How were the settlements connected to Lebanon?

Man, you're full of it.

Saxyboy,

"And another thing: Israel is not going to give up East Jerusalem entirely, since there are Jewish holy sites in East Jerusalem that include the Western Wall. Where did you read that one?"

I agree. Where does he get this stuff from? I think J does a lot of mind reading through ESP or The Force, but never has quotes to back up the assertions he makes. So far in the last two forums he has claimed:

1. Iran does not want to destroy Israel despite saying so.

2. UK,France, and Germany dont consider Iran a threat, or think he has any ill intentions despite them saying so.

3. Hamas doesnt really want to destroy Israel despite saying so.

4. Israel intends to withdraw from East Jerusalem despite saying they never would.

5. THe US government has declared the "occupation" "immoral" which has never happened.

Saxyboy, I think The Force is with J. :)

Andrew:

The problem is that J's dissembling and b.s. perfectly represent what passes for "criticism" about Israel. I love the internet, but any shmuck can post whatever they want, and it lowers the level of discussion to what you see here and the dishonest "facts" you read on Wikipedia.

Also, Jefferson Morley's board tends to attract people like J, who have nothing to do but sit around and write bile about the Jewish state.

Me - I'm curious as to why Morley indentified Wolfenson as a "Jewish" businessman. I'm assuming that from now on he's going to identify the race and religion of all the people he talks about.

And frankly, a lot of this about the horrible conditions in the Palestinian territories is a push by the press and Europeans to slam Israel, that's all. The truth is that conditions in the territories have been abominable since Arafat moved from Tunis, and nearly all the money has gone into Arafat's pocket.

What I'd love to see from Jefferson Morley and his collegues, is an article about Palestinian "civil servants". Who are these people and what do they do? The press always reports about people on the Palestinian payroll and how the Palestinians can't cut checks for them, so I would think it would make sense to have an article about some of these people who are recipients of unlimited largess. After all, critics of Israel are always demanding an accounting about U.S. money going to the Jewish state - I would thihnk they would feel the same way about their money that goes to the UNRWA and the Palestinians...

Oh - I just woke up.

Saxyboy,

1. AntiSemitism and Anti-Americanism are easy and painless. They cost nothing. European Leftist are not worried about dying violently at the hands of the IDF or the US Marines Corps. They are worried about Islamofascist psychopaths. Also such criticism allows the left to appear to be "compassionate" and "intellectual" at the same time by standing up to those mean Israelis and NeoCon AIPAC fascists like me who support them and who are being so mean and unfair to those Palestinians who obviously are peace loving. Remember Zionism IS racism Saxyboy (sarcasm off)

2. As your suggests their criticism of US outlays for Israel has nothing to do with financial accountablity, and everything to do with a desire to see millions of innocent Israeli's dead, so their own liberal guilt can be eased.

3. Maybe Morley thinks that all Jews must think alike, so the fact that a "Jewish Businessman" (There is a stereotype if I ever saw it) feels sorry for the Hamas government, that all Jews must think that. (sarcasm off) Otherwise why is the opinion of one person even relevant compared to the Jewish population as a whole that supports current Israeli policy?

4. The "horrible" conditions that exist in Gaza are the result of lawlessness, corruption, and a culture of violence that has arisen from this Palestinian ideology that killing the innocent is ok.

Therefore, if that is the new morality what happens when Israel leaves and there are no more innocent Jews to kill? Well Palestinians get murdered by the thousands by the "freedom fighters" who are such heroes to the Arab world and the left. Well they wanted the Gaza occupation lifted right? Be careful what you wish for...

Apparently Hamas and Fatah have declared a truce so they focus on killing more Jews effectively. Its amazing the how insults of racism have been flying at the US, and yet we were the only thing keeping Palestine intact, alive, and from ripping itself apart. For all the talk about favoritism to the "Zionist Entity", the Palestinians are sure accustomed to relying on US tax dollars.

5. I too am amazed at the level of "debate" here by these "sophisticated intellectuals". Here is a sum of the comments that have been direected at me here:

1. "Are you an American citizen? If yes, then you are a SICK and SHAMELESS TRAITOR to America" for supporting Israel.

2. 'Perhaps you'll be blow apart by some suicide bomber. But, hey, "I don't care."'

3. "folks like "Andrew" make me think that perhaps we in Europe, Canada and Latin America ought to go a little further and actually wage active war against America."

4 "NeoCons Should be Shot"

OH!!!! I am so proud today that huge amounts of American taxes and support go to that bastion of human rights, Israel, whose Supreme Court today ruled it illegalfor a Palestininan married to an Israeli to live in Israel. In otherwords, Jews around the world demand to, and do
live where they like and demand every right therein...but on their own (stolen) territory...you finish the sentence.

SAXYBOY--You're so perfect. Your posts so illustrative of why everyone feels about you and yours as they do. And always have.

Andrew -

As an African-American conservative how do you feel about Israel's past support of South Africa?

Posted by: Angus | May 13, 2006 09:18 PM

The text of Jimmy Carter's letter....

Hamas and the Palestinians

Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.

Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises. Although Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as their president.

It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.

One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.

The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month. The additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.

With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.

Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians. Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance into Palestine.

There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.

(Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization working for peace and health worldwide. )

Angus,

Quotes give me quotes! I know the left governs itself on all emotion but I need facts. I have no way of knowing whether that is true or not. And what do you mean support? Merely Diplomatic relations? Military Alliance? Business contacts? Thats what Saxyboy and I were talking about, FACTS and QUOTES. Who said that?
when? why? what was the context? I need details. Unlike you leftists I wont spout off if I dont know what I am talking about. So I GIVE ME SOMETHING TANGIBLE!

In short: what the hec are you talking about?

Angus,

WHEN WAS THE LETTER WRITTEN? Was he POTUS when he wrote it? FACTS PLEASE! CONTEXT MATTERS!

Carter has behaved as an absolute idiot in the past few years, so unless that letter was written when he was President, then why does it have an credibility? Of all people you pick him? Who cares?

I

Angus,

You quoting what Jimmy Carter thinks about Palestine is as convincing to me as J Quoting Pat Buchanan. They both have axes to grind against Israel. Buchanan is an outright racist and Carter has always been leftist apologist Palestinian Terror.

If I quoted an letter written by Ariel Sharon would it change YOUR mind? Of course not! So why are you posting this?

Praline,

Are you deaf? Dont you get it? We dont care that you dont like us. If you cant just debate the merits of what you believe then why respond?!

But why do you think you telling us:

"Your posts so illustrative of why everyone feels about you and yours as they do" or

"Thats why America is hated"

accomplishes anything except make it seem like I am debating a Kindergartener?

Is that it? Is that all you have to debate with? FOR THE RECORD (for the 1,000,000th time)WHETHER YOU LIKE AMERICANS OR AMERICA OR ANY PARTICULAR AMERICAN IS MEANINGLESS TO MOST OF US. Just make you argument with facts, otherwise I dont want to be your buddy anyway.

For Crying out loud Its Amateur Night Here

Here you go Andrew - enjoy...

In 1981 Sharon, then minister of defense, paid a visit to Israel's good friend, President Mobutu of Zaire. Lunching on Mobutu's yacht the Israeli party was asked by their host to use their good offices to get the US Congress to be more forthcoming with aid. This the Israelis managed to accomplish. As a quid pro quo Mobutu reestablished diplomatic relations with Israel. This was not Sharon's only contact with Africa. Among friends he relays fond memories of trips to Angola to observe and advise the South African forces then fighting in support of the murderous CIA stooge Jonas Savimbi.

And more.....

Apparently Sharon has changed his views: Since becoming prime minister, he has said he favors a Palestinian state. That's allowed him to appear more centrist in Israel and more conciliatory in Washington while arousing wrath in his own right-wing Likud Party. Again, the key word is "apparently." Sharon has spoken of the Palestinian state getting 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- the amount of land turned over to the autonomous Palestinian Authority under Oslo. The Palestinian "state," in other words, would consist of discontinuous enclaves. Palestinians would become citizens of that state -- and not of Israel, though Israel would annex most of the occupied territories.

It's no accident that the plan bears a striking resemblance to the "grand apartheid" promoted by the old South African regime, in which blacks became citizens of "independent" bantustans. According to an Israeli diplomat who spent many years in Africa, Sharon paid both secret and public visits to South Africa in the 1980s. "I saw what interested him: bantustans, as if it were just an intellectual interest," the diplomat told me. "He had a fixation with bantustans that seemed out of proportion."

The diplomat's evaluation is that Sharon is seeking to re-create the bantustan system in the West Bank. "If you tell him it failed in South Africa, he'll say that there it didn't work because of the disproportion between blacks and whites, but that here [the Jews] are still a majority." Backing up that evaluation is a recently published booklet by far-right politician Benny Elon, who regards even Sharon's version of a Palestinian state as dangerous. The booklet contains a map of the state-to-be -- taken from a document published by Sharon a decade ago, according to Elon's spokesman. The map shows 11 separate enclaves with a gerrymandered shape familiar to anyone who remembers the bantustans of the old South Africa.

Jimmy Carter's letter was written on May 7th.

Paul,

"Please, I challenge your super-human mind to come up with a solution to the current crisis we face."

Very simple. If we remove our IRRATONAL support of Israel, Israel will have to negotiate with Palestinians. Without US, Israel can't exist in this world. Period.

"It's very obvious that half the world is pro-Israel and the other half against."

You obviously get your information from American media.

"1. If anyone thinks that Israel is going anywhere, they are kidding themselves. Israel has 50 nuclear weapons to the Arabs 0. Israel is toying with the Palestinian militants like a lion would with an irritating mouse. Israel is very smart, strong, and determined when real danger faces them i.e. multiple wars against other arab nations since WWII."

Below are a few excerpts from Michael Neumann's article in an on-line publication regarding Israel's military prowess:

"Then Israel is supposed to have indispensable, overwhelming military power. If the power is indispensable, why did the US dispense with it on the only occasions when it might have come in handy, namely the last two Gulf Wars? If it is overwhelming, why is it that Israel was almost overwhelmed in its last real war, in October 1972, when it avoided defeat only because the US came in and replaced the weapons it had lost in the fighting? Why couldn't Egypt replace Israel as a US ally? Is it somehow less capable of receiving massive US aid? Egypt's instability--which is probably less than supposed--would quickly vanish were it so lucky as Israel with American largesse, and were America to wean itself of its attachment to Israel, which discredits all Middle Eastern governments that receive US support.

Last time we looked, its battlefield performance was less than impressive, though of course it is very good at bullying Palestinians armed with the equivalent of slingshots--oh, and sometimes slingshots are literally all they have to fight with. But the idea that Israel is an indispensable US ally is more than false; it is deadly to the Palestinians.

If Israel is indispensable, then the Palestinians might as well forget about having minimally tolerable lives, because only breaking the US-Israel alliance can spare them their agonies."

I don't think one has to possess a "super-mind" to understand the sad reality in ME.

Saxyboy,

First, here is a section of an earlier post of yours written to karim. I read it earlier in one of the Walt and Mearsheimer sections (whom you have the audacity to refer to as racists!)

"Also, I'll move to Israel when you and your fellow camel jockeys move back to Mecca."

A racist such as yourself should not attempt to condescend to anybody. Racism is akin to a mental disorder and marks your views of the world as lacking in vision and understanding out of hand. Even though calling me a "faker" may be the only intellectual ammunition you have available to you in order to attempt to discredit me simply because you don't yet know what sort of racial slur to use against me, I still have to say.... Touché!

With regard your other points,

40 years is along time. If during that time or even during a significant portion of that time Israel would have allowed a Palestinian state to form and stayed out of it instead of trying to make the entire occupied territory a suburb of Israel and a prison for the Palestinians, terrorism may well have dropped to minimal levels and peace may have ensued. This would have saved the US a lot of money and many lives as well.

Regarding Lebanon, so are you implying Israel had no other motive for invading Lebanon than heeding the call of a leader who was known to be a puppet of Israel and assassinated shortly there after? Very generous and stupid I may add. No, I think it was in response to the fact that their own conflict had spilled over into that country and they wanted to take our the insurgency leadership that resided there. Again, if there was no occupation and settlement movement, then these problems may well have fixed themselves long before.

Regarding Cornel West and Pat Buchanon, I chose those two because they represent two political extremes who both agree on the folly of the US support of the settler movement. So let me fill in the middle a little bit to finish the point I was trying to make. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell, and George Bush I. all have come out against the settlement movement. Bush I as evidenced by his actions in office (although very quiet on the matter afterwards for obvious (GWB) reasons), Carter for both his track record as president and his vociferous condemnation of it after his term, Clinton for both his actions in office and his comments after his term, and Powell for his comments both in and out of office.

Do you (a racist) really think that you can completely discredit three past presidents and a secretary of state? (with witty repartee such as "CAMEL JOCKY" AND 'FAKER" I'm sure YOU beleive you can) These are men who all sat at the top of the worlds information pyramid. No one in the world has better information at their disposal regarding matters concerning US support for Israel than these men.

How about the analyst for the CIA in charge of gathering intelligence on Osama Bin Laden. He credits a great deal of our problems with Terrorism in the US with our ill conceived support of the Settler movement. (not Israel,
The Settler Movement, they are completely separate issues, of which the Kadima party is living proof)

Furthermore, Neither Pat Buchanon or Cornel west are racists. You may not agree with their views (I have little in common politically with either of them) but neither of them are "foam at the mouth, racial epitaph spewing" bigots, as you appear to be.

Regarding Spain, well your right, I have not been to Israel or Spain. My parents have friends in Israel, seems like a nice place.

But one similarity that the US and Spain share that Israel does not that seems very topical is that if you marry a Palestinian in the US or in Spain, you and your spouse can still live in your respective country. The same cannot be said for Israel. I think that separates Israel and the US significantly with regard to "values". Try applying that law to any racial group in the US and you'll quickly learn the true meaning of the terms "constitutional rights" and "Human Rights". Israel appears to have a very different constitution and a very different view of human rights than the US.

Finally, when the idea of pulling out of the Gaza was first floated there was talk of keeping some of it as well. Reality told a different tale. Regarding my source for the speculation that East Jerusalem will be split: BB Netanyahu,Ynet, in an article that says Likud accuses Kadima of having plans to give up all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Hey, maybe he's a "faker" too)

My only hope is that our government involves itself in such a way as to show that they approve of and in fact demand the complete withdrawal of both the W.B. and E.J. It is the type of action we need to engage in to help win the hearts and minds of people in the middle east in order to finally end the war on terror, and very possibly one that does not involve fighting multiple, simultaneous wars.

And why doesn't it make sense that Israel would try make peace with it's neighbors by giving up the occupied territory now? If they wait another 40 years, Oil may well be almost entirely replaced as a fuel source world wide, Fusion energy (ITER Project and the current Chinese project) is well on it's way to becoming viable in that time frame. If the current Chinese project is successful it may speed up the time table significantly, otherwise ITER will probably result in working power plants in 30 to 50 years.
That is not to mention the myriad other ways that oil might be replaced due to the rising cost of gas and the market pressure for new energy sources that will inevitably ensue.

When that does happen ( and it will eventually) Israel really ought to have straightened out their disputes in the region because I think that the US interest in all of our "shared values" and our "special relationship" will fall to the same level that we reserve for, say, Sweden. Sweden gets no money, no military support, and has never needed something like a SWEDPAC to sway our views one way or the other.

So Israel should (and probably will ala Kadima) work very quickly at being a good neighbor before the welfare (and the oil) runs dry.

J

huh?

Israeli court confirms apartheid policy - Bars Israeli Arabs from reuniting with families but rolls out red carpet for Jews who have no family there

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday upheld a controversial law that prevents Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from gaining legal residency to join spouses and children who are Israeli citizens.

In an unusually close 6-5 decision, justices rejected the petitioners' argument that the measure was illegal because it blocked family unification on the basis of ethnic or national origin.

The measure bars most Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from obtaining legal residency or citizenship in Israel...

Thanks, America, for foisting this apartheid state on the Middle East. One day you'll figure out why you're so despised here.

Angus:

"I must admit I'm a little disapointed that you won't take the "easy and redundant" path of responding to my responses to your question but so be it - I think were it so easy you would happily post rebuttals"

Not at all. You tried to draw a bogus parallel between some obscure event of 65 years ago and the events of today. I showed you there was no such parallel. End of discussion.

"unfortunately with the advent of the internet historical information is available to all and Israel's history has many warts that are plain to all."

Even more unfortunately, with the advent of the internet the Arab propaganda machine has found an effective tool for spreading lies, half-truths, distortions and conspiracy theories of all sorts about the history of the Middle East conflict. As far as historical warts go, there's plenty of them to go round.

"Having said that - I do believe that history is past but my point is that everything Israel gained was at the point of a gun - NOT by negotiation - "

While all the time the Arabs were just PINING to negotiate, isn't it? Could you please be a little more specific about what precisely did Israel "gain at the point of a gun" while having the option of gaining it by negotiations?

"refusing to talk to the "enemy" does not help anyone."

That's true. However, you are barking up the wrong tree. Hamas is the one who came to government announcing that it would not talk to Israel, would not follow the road map and would not honor previous accords signed with Israel. Of course, that came as no surprise, as it's in line with their covenant and with their actions so far. Someone reading you without knowing the facts could get the impression that the Palestinians are just jumping up and down with eagerness to negotiate peace.

"How can they become "FORMER" terrorists if Israel won't negotiate with them - as I said earlier why not take the olive that was offered in 2002 as a starting point"

That olive tree - if that's what it was - was not extended by the Palestinians. You may wish to go back and check what was the initial Israeli reaction to it and what was the Palestinian reaction.

"if Israel had accepted that as a start to talks and Hamas not lived up to their promise of a 40 year ceasefire then we are just back to the same point as now"

What promise of a 40 years ceasefire?

"Also it's possible that Palestinians would not have voted them into office had they promised something and not delivered it."

Pure speculation, not worth addressing.

Suleiman:

Do you know a lot of countries around the world who grant citizenship to residents of enemy countries based on "family unification" considerations?

Also: Do you know any Arab countries who let in Israelis who had been driven out after 1948, or who recognize their property rights?

Last question: In what respect did the U.S. "foist" Israel on the Middle East?

Michael,

I know one, where I am from, Morocco.

Morocco never revoked the Moroccan Jews citizenship even though many of them went to build a state that was at war with few members of the Arab league. If you know of any Moroccan Jew who couldn't return to Morocco, please DOCUMENT THE CASE.

The Moroccan community in Israel is the biggest sephardi community, close of 1 million (1/6th of Israel).

Imagine if some country restricted marriage rights to its Jewish minority, what would you call that?

That Israeli policy is racist, inhumane and appalling.

A recent Israeli poll showed majority of Israeli want Arabs out (mass expulsion) and that many of them do not even want Arab neighbors!!

Michael O,

The point you are entirely overlooking is that if Israel had simply occupied the territories waiting for the Palestinians "calm down and get it together" as our troops are (hopefully) doing in Iraq, there still would be violence, as there is in Iraq, but it would have been easy to pull out at a time that looked promising.

Obviously, that is not what happened.

Rather, Israel's plan from the outset
was to steal increasingly larger pieces of the territories using the occupation as cover. In other words, moving poeple of one ethnicity out of an area to make room for people of another ethnicity through violent means. This is known as ethnic cleansing and America has conducted bombing campaigns and had people tried as war criminals for this type of behavior.
It is therefore incumbant upon israel to remove the settlements completely first before any reasonable peace can be acheived. 40 years of abhorrant and failed political policies have proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt and that is why , post 9/11, the Israelis are in fact beginning the process.I hope that it is at our very quiet insistance.

The only question is to what degree. My guess is that eventually it will be a total
removal to the 67 lines, but maybe with a little tradeoff to save some of the bigger settlements right on the border.

I really hope at some point we become a more public player in causing

you said you want an acount of the palestinians to see were american money is being spent.And it is because Israel is forced to account for there money.When has there ever been an open and transparent debate on funds for israel with out it being squashed by that now famous phrase anti-semite.To look at the palestinian goverment now that it has been decimated by the zionist is like judging an amerian indian on a reserve today instead of pre european "american indians".To look at the way palestinians are being forced to live during an occupation is the same as south africa the natives of south america as well as the the natives on the reserves in america, and many more,they are all occupied by europeans, just like palestine.

Last comment by me was for saxyboy.

J:

"Intellectual ammunition"? "Touche"

Huh? What are you talking about?

What about facts?

J, you didn't even know the FACT that Fatah was founded before the settler's movement! C'mon, that's Arab-Israeli conflict 101 stuff.

And using Bibi as a source only confirms that you're neophyte. If you knew anything about Israeli politics, you'd be aware of the FACT that he's a right wing politician known for his dishonest, hyperbolic attacks on everyone who disagrees with him, hence his very low popularity with the Israeli public. He is not an honest man, and his stake in formulating policy is virtually nil. What do his political polemics have to do with your statement that Israel is going to give up all of East Jerusalem - which includes the wailing wall? I'm telling you, they AREN'T, and mainstream politicians who are making policy have not said they will.

As far as your statement about the settlement movement and various people's opinions - including you're old Arafat loving buddy Jimmah - I don't know why you're trying to argue with me in regards to that. I never came out in favor of the settlements on these boards.

Another FACT: I never called Cornell West a racist, either - and even if I had, what is your point? As I said, he recently gave a lecture in New York and is close with the family of someone who is VERY close to me. I dined with the man and liked him. I simply said he is NOT an authority on the Middle East. He has done no independent research on the history or the intricacies of the region. That's a FACT. He merely talks about it from a political viewpoint, and his geo-politics are all over the place. His most recent obsession is supporting dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Why? Beats the hell out of me.

And Pat Buchanan is indeed a bigot, as he has questioned the existence of gas chambers during the Holocaust. Holocaust denial IS racism. That's a FACT, even though on your planet it obviously isn't - and you're a RACIST for not acknowledging that. I would not expect you to accept my citing someone who denied the existence of a Palestinian people, hence, I will not accept your citing of someone who has dabbled in denying the Holocaust.

And Gamayal was not a "puppet" of Israel. Where did you get that "fact" - from a pro-Syrian website? He certainly worked with Israel, but that doesn't make him a "puppet". Tell that to the Christians who supported him since the 70's while they watched their family members get massacred by the Palestinians, before Israel even stepped foot in the country.

Israel's main reason for attacking Lebanon was to try and oust the PLO - noone denies this - which had been in an official state of war with Israel since 1964 (before the settler's movement) and was using Lebanon as their home base in '81, when Israel invaded. BEFORE the settler's movement started. The morality of the invasion is open for debate, which I invite.

But where is your proof that if it hadn't been for the settler's movement, the Lebanese war wouldn't have happened? That's just more speculation on your part.

And Israel's law restricting Palestinian Arabs from flooding the country through intermarriage is perfectly justifiable, given the fact that the Palestinians have voted in a government that supports destruction of the Jewish state through genocide (See David Remnick's article about the Hamas charter), and that the P.A. supported the "Right of Return" as a means to bring about the end Israel. But that's just my OPINION - some Israelis disagree with me, and since Israel is a democracy, it's being hotly debated.

I STILL don't see how any of that has to do with Spain. Immigration law is a HOTLY debated issue in this country right now, and all over Europe. There are politicians in in Europe who want a moritorium on Islamic immigration. France banned Islamic headscarves in schools. Why are you singling Israel out and not considering the difficult context?

Actually, a more apt comparison would be the situation of Jews in Palestinian society. Wait, let's scratch that, since there aren't any Jews living freely in Palestinian society (with the acception of Amira Haas and a few anti-Zionist writers). They can't step foot in Gaza without the risk of being lynched, and Hamas has made it clear that any Palestinian state will be, by religous law, Jew-free. The P.A. banned Palestinians from doing business with Jews or selling land to them.

So I can see why you didn't bring that up.

And which CIA analyst are you talking about? Robert Baer, who hates Israel and doesn't think ANY support for Israel is healthy for this country? John Loftus has experience in the CIA, and he says the total opposite. He's more right wing than most Israelis. I'm sure you can find people in every area of government who support your P.O.V., as I can mine. Doesn't make it right.

As far as Karim: he's just as bigoted as anyone - his most infamous moment being his posting of conspiracy theories which claimed that Mossad was responsible for the suicide bombing in Jordan. Camel jockey was indeed a racist dig, but no more racist than his posting of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, or the other garbage posted about Jews on that thread.

My point here is not about Cornell West or the settler's movement. I am simply taking you to task for not having your facts straight, while condescending to everyone else as if you do. YOU DON'T, J.

When you come on this board, I have the right to demand accountability for your opinions, and to see you do more than say you are right because Pat Buchanan said so. If you don't like that, fine, but you certainly are not going to make a case to people who disagree with you. You'll just keep preaching to the converted.

From what I see, that's all you're interested in.

Michael O:

You ask whether I know of a "lot of countries who grant citizenship to residents of enemy countries based on 'family unification' considerations? REPLY: Do you know of ANY country whose modern-day settlers drove out the vast majority of its indigenous people and enacts and enforces racist laws to keep them out? No, in fact, Israel is the only state that fits that description.

You ask if I know any Arab countries who let in Israelis who had been driven out after 1948, or who recognize their property rights? REPLY: Driven out of where? Name me one Arab country whose courts actively discriminate against an indigenous Jewish population by enforcing racist laws and denying them the right of return.

You ask in what respect the U.S. foisted Israel on the Middle East? REPLY: The U.S. foisted this racist apartheid state on the Middle East by supplying it with billions of dollars of no-strings-attached military aid, turning a blind eye or burbling meekly when the beneficiary of this aid used it to bomb Palestinian civilians' homes, rob them of their remaining lands, impoverish them and humiliate them on a daily basis. Israel's illegal occupancy of the West Bank and Gaza are directly financed by Washington.

Now do you understand why the United States is so despised in the Middle East?

Saxyboy,

As I've said during earlier posts I am not interested in debating with racists such as you in that racism is clear evidence of an inability to accurately decode the meaning of events in this very complex world. Furthermore, having read your posts in other forums of interest to me, I see that you are never willing to actually discuss the real issues, whatever they may be, but rather resort to either using personal attacks (as you used against me in the absence of your knowledge of my race) and racist slurs to attempt to discredit others or just endlessly use meaningless spin to obfuscate the actual debate until it is drawn hopelessly off course.

I invite anyone else reading this to go back and check this out in any of the other recent Washington Post Middle East, World Opinion Roundup forums, and see saxyboy's "methods" of debate for themselves.

In the future, have the courage to actually debate with people without resorting to personal attacks or racist slurs. Have the courage to try to actually apprehend the issues at hand.

Furthermore, I invite anyone to read my earlier posts, and read saxyboys responses and see if what I am saying here rings true.

There are many other people here who debate respectfully and with a real interest in each others viewpoints. Even Andrew, whom I could not disagree with more on almost every issue, and whose method of articulating his views seems to piss off a great many people, still has yet to actually insult me personally and has never used racial slurs against anyone that I am aware of.

So please don't expect a response from me in the future, in that you seem (as a racist) to have very limited skills of decoding the meaning of events that unfold around you with that hood of hatred over your eyes.

J

J

Ok...I have had enough of all the blame-tossing here. Let's keep this real. Both Israel and Palestine are wrong. And both are right. When one attacks the other, it is only natural that there will be retaliation! For everyone who says that Israel is just defending themselves; they are! When they are attacked. And likewise for Palestine. I understand Israel's point. The Bible says that God gave the land to them. FINE... But Israel wasn't there when the Palestinians received the land.
I am a Native American woman. Although I would love for the United States government to return my people's land, I know it is not going to happen. Trust me, I understand where Israel is coming from but let's be real. Palestine didn't steal that land from them. If they did, then I would support Israel 100%. But they didn't. I think it is high time that everyone focus on a way to work and live together, rather than new and improved ways of destroying more lives.

Dude, this is hella long

quote Suleiman:
"Name me one Arab country whose courts actively discriminate against an indigenous Jewish population by enforcing racist laws and denying them the right of return."

Iran, although that's technically not "arab." Indigenous jews are also subject to persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq. Egypt is becoming increasingly inhospitable to its native Coptic Christians. Arabia expelled its native Jews centuries ago, and is absolutetly intolerant of any non-muslim religion today. See a pattern here?

It's also worth noting for this discussion that US cash aid to Egypt is about the same as aid to Israel. The US also provides significant cash aid to the Palestinian Authority (though I can't understand why, as noted previously). So, why single out aid to Israel for criticism? What about US military aid to Arabia? Could there be a more intolerant and racist aid recipient? If human rights were a condition on US aid, Israel would certainly not be among the first to be cut off, and it would be last to be cut off in the middle east.

Saxyboy---So.." holocost denial is Racism? That's a FACT..." ? Like, who died and made you the ruler of the world? And you know someone who had dinner with someone...which makes you the expert on what? Such small potatos. And any criticism of peole like you is racism? Well, son, there's a lot of that kind of racism in the world: not without reason. And is it growing. And if reactions to you are like mine, you feed it daily. SUCH misplaced silly arrogance. Everyone else is soooo stupid, right?

SAXYBOY says and this is a quote:"When you come on this board I have the right to demand...etc." Who IS this person?

THE ABOVE POSTS ARE SILLY. LET'S PUT A FINAL POINT ON THIS IDIOCY. THUS:
American friends in Middle East, and all over the the rest of the world, warn over and over, formally, and they would know, that 70% of AMERICA's danger and the war on terrorism would cease if America stopped supporting the foul, savage predatory actions of Israel. Support which has cost our moral standing. Our allies, our self respect, 9/11, our safety. And what's the reward of that support? The dual loyalty neocons who trick us into war, the better for Israel to continue the
attempt to take over the ME. Didn't work, but if history guides, itll be tried again.
Same trick tried when Germany was the armament ruler of theworld. Didn' turn out well. Bloviate on.You'll spend your lives defending. Israel isn't worth it, in spades.

Michael O.

I'll get to your other stuff when I have more time but I had to respond to this one as it's so comical.

"Even more unfortunately, with the advent of the internet the Arab propaganda machine has found an effective tool for spreading lies, half-truths, distortions and conspiracy theories of all sorts about the history of the Middle East conflict."

The "Arab propaganda machine" are you kidding me !!!

to no name:

Iran, although that's technically not "arab."

What exactly does that mean?

Why technically?

Some examples of Israel's yearning for negotiation:

In 1974 there occurred a breakthrough. The PLO, having by then secured both UN and Arab recognition as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, proposed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, based in the West Bank and Gaza. On November 13, having renounced international terrorism, Yasir Arafat appeared for the first time before the UN. The PLO leadership had come a long way: it had acquired Arab recognition at the Rabat (1973) and Algiers (1974) summits; had softened its position on the nature of a Palestinian state; and without any inkling of whether it would have anything to show for it from the Israelis, had risked a schism within its own ranks (George Habash's PFLP refused to toe the moderate line). So how did the other side react? Israel responded to this historic opportunity by refusing to even turn up at the UN meeting. (Arafat was shown on television addressing the world and one vacant seat.) The refusal to even consider recognition of a Palestinian political entity representing a people with legitimate rights to national self-determination was by then a standard posture. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time declaimed that a Palestinian State 'would be the beginning of the end of the State of Israel' and removed all doubt by later adding: 'I repeat firmly, clearly, categorically: it will not be created.' The paucity of room this position left for negotiation became clear when Rabin affirmed that on the question of the West Bank, Israel would deal only with King Hussein of Jordan. The possibilities for a two-state solution were thus strangled at birth.

And some more:

Rabin's rejection of the PLO was not a principled refusal to negotiate with 'terrorists' in the absence of a genuine peace partner. We know this from what followed in the early 1990s when the exact opposite scenario presented itself in Madrid. Here, a non-PLO Palestinian delegation from the occupied territories presented workable peace proposals to an Israeli team helmed by Rabin. During these negotiations the Palestinians steadfastly stuck to the line that a solution should adhere to both UNSC resolution 242 and the rules set down in the Geneva Convention proscribing acquisition of territory by force. After ten rounds of the Madrid talks over nearly two years during which it became apparent that the Palestinians could not be weakened on these issues, Rabin finally fled from his peace partners in late 1993 and turned to Arafat, who, at that stage, had been sitting uselessly in Tunis for years. Rabin's perception, as cynical as it was accurate, was that 'the PLO was "on the ropes" and it was therefore highly probable that the PLO would drop some of its sacred principles to secure Israeli recognition.' And so:

Unable to persuade the Palestinian negotiators to concede their rights, the Israeli and US negotiators rediscovered the PLO in 1993. ... Within two months of the Madrid team's rejection of the US draft DOP, the PLO stunned the world and announced that it had secretly and independently agreed in Oslo to a Declaration of Principles with the Israeli government. In this declaration, the PLO team agreed to give away what the Madrid team had valiantly struggled not to concede throughout two years of the Madrid talks.'

Specifically: a halt to human rights violations, land expropriations and deportations; a commitment to adhere to the terms of the Geneva Convention; and especially a halt to the building of settlements, which, if allowed to continue sine die, would constitute a 'rolling abrogation' of any agreed solution. As Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart observed: 'While the local Palestinian delegation insisted in its negotiations with Israel that it would not accept any agreement that didn't include immediate dismantlement of the Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip, Arafat signed such an agreement behind its backs.'

And even more........

Other rejections of the two-state solution include the gilted opportunity handed to Israel by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in March 2002, following the collapse of Ehud Barak's Camp David proposal, which we will learn more about later. The Saudi proposal offered the Israelis 'full normalization of relations' with the Arab world in exchange for 'full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with UN resolutions, including Jerusalem.' What immediately struck commentators around the world about this plan was how strikingly similar it was to the one Israel claimed it offered Arafat at Camp David. There were other striking features: Arafat himself, probably believing that full normalization of relations with the Arab world would increase the pressure on Israel to reach a final peace, actively backed it, despite the fact that it did not even mention the refugees' right of return. Moreover, Hamas, one of Israel's most implacable enemies, surprised everybody by also endorsing the plan. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, spokesman Abu Shanab spoke of being 'practical' and said that the organization would 'cease all military activities' if Israel withdrew behind the 1967 borders. Hamas also declined to link the proposal to the right of return. Even if Israel did not believe in the sudden moderation emanating from Gaza, it had nothing to lose and everything to gain by calling Hamas's bluff. So what happened next? Nothing. The White House and the Barak government went through the usual throat-clearing motions of regaling the move as a 'note of hope' before deciding to stick to the moribund Mitchell peace plan, which was at least US-controlled. In a scathing article, Israeli journalist Uri Avenery accurately forecast Israel's passive euthanasia of the Saudi peace feeler. 'If, in May 1967', he said, 'an Arab prince had proposed that the whole Arab world would recognize Israel and establish normal relations with it, in return for Israel's recognition of the Green Line border, we would have believed that the days of the Messiah had arrived.' He then added:

The preferred method [of quashing the proposal] is to kill the spirit of the offer slowly, to talk about it endlessly, to interpret it this way and that way, to drag negotiations on and on, to put forward conditions which the other side cannot accept, until the initiative yields in silence. That's what happened to the Conciliation Committee in Lausanne, that is what happened to most of the European and American peace plans.

Israel's track record of renegotiating and hairsplitting a willfully vague (typically US-shepherded) peace plan is familiar to anyone who has watched the Oslo accords being death-marched from the 1993 DOP through the 1995 Oslo II Agreement, the 1997 Hebron protocol, the 1998 Wye Memorandum, all the way to the 1999 Sharm El Sheik Agreement, with increasingly shrinking concessions to Palestinians en route, while they watch their sincerely promised state slowly disappearing under Jewish-only settlements. So the fact that the Saudi offer was slowly starved of oxygen until nothing more was heard from it should come as no surprise. Note that for an Israeli political establishment that prefers to treat this issue as 'an interstate conflict', this slow-burning rejection of a comprehensive interstate settlement was an augmentation of even the usual rejectionism. Of course, visionless attack-dogs in the media such as Charles Krauthammer were on hand to hoarsely bark the old line that the proposal was 'just smoke and mirrors'. But we can at least be grateful to the Saudis for a shining an illuminating light on the supposed bona fides of the Camp David proposals.

Information Source of the above:

http://www.obelus.org/index.php?artID=3

A rebuttal to dershowitz's case for Israel...

Oh My, Friends of J (Since J is above reading this):

Even if I'm the depraved bigot you claim me to be, it still doesn't change the following:

1. J doesn't know basic history about the region.

2. J has no comprehension of Israeli politics.

2. J's never been to Israel to see the situation for him/herself.

Since J has invited everyone to read my former posts - I invite J and his sycophants to find factual quotes that support J's claims that:

1. Israel is going to give up all of East Jerusalem.

2. The war in Lebanon would have never happened if not for Israel's settlement policy.

3. There was no violence directed against Israel until after 1967 when Israel started to build the settlements. The violence in the region is solely because Israeli extremist building settlements (Never mind that the first settlers in the West Bank were secularists).

Please, oh Middle East experts on this thread, teach me the history of the region!

LOL...man, you guys are a riot!

And Angus:

"Other rejections of the two-state solution include the gilted opportunity handed to Israel by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in March 2002, following the collapse of Ehud Barak's Camp David proposal, which we will learn more about later."

Oh, professor Angus, teach us!

what?

Michael O.

"While all the time the Arabs were just PINING to negotiate, isn't it? Could you please be a little more specific about what precisely did Israel "gain at the point of a gun" while having the option of gaining it by negotiations?"

Israel gained EVERYTHING at the point of a gun - why do you not get that!!

This whole Hamas (PA) mess is truly a joke because it has nothing to do with Hamas, funds for the Palestinian authority, or "terrorism". It really is all about the hypocracy of our government- (US): Call and push for democracy and then starve the people when they practice it simply because you dont like the results. Well, too bad. By definition, democracy (From the Greeks- demos cratos) means the rule of the people. When the people chose, you-as an individaul- must go by it, whether or not you like or agree with their choice. Over the decades, Israel (a terrorist state by any 'real' human criteria) has elected ultra terrorist organizations (e.g. Likud, Labor, etc.) to lead its government- but that kind of choice is always-emphasize always- respected in the US media and by the US government. I just cant help but wonder what would one sea/ear from our government or in our media if the situation in Palestine was reversed. Israel, after all got over 78% of historic Palestine, a sad fact currently recognized by much of the world. Of course, they still don't think its enough and are trying to steal the remaining ~20% of the land so that they could deny the Palestinain people their
unalienable basic right-as humans-
to be free and have a country of their own- on thier own legitamate soil-one must absolutely add. Nonetheless, Israel is still celebrated in our media not only as a democracy, but as the only democracy in the region- instead of the only aperthied, racist, land stealing, home demolishing, and baby killing regime. Of course, if anyone says the truth, the are immediately labelled as anti-semitic or the usual terrorist. Because fyou dont agree with the policies fo Israel..you somehow become either a terrorist or an anti semite!!!!!
Who knows, but may be one day, we Americans will be free and Have a country of our own, just like the Palestinians. I would like to finish by referring people here to an excellent research titled
"THE
ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY",
conducted and published by two renowned
american Scholars:John J. Mearsheimer Department of Political Science University of Chicago &
Stephen M. Walt John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University    March 2006 RWP06‐011 . Now here is my favorite!! These researchers could NOT find a single major american paper or magazine, etc. to publish their work! This fact alone, should tell anyone just everything.
With Respect.
Mark

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday upheld a controversial law that prevents Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from gaining legal residency to join spouses and children who are Israeli citizens.

Interesting how these great friends of our's gave the right of return to Samuel Sheinbein, American citizen, who murdered, chopped up and burnt a friend and then took off for Israel where eventually he is jailed for 24 years. He may be walking their streets when he is 33 !!

Oh well al least he is not here...

Hey Saxyboy (are you Bill Clinton? soon to be FLOTUS)

Anyway glad we are amusing you - just because you are not learning doesn't mean that there aren't others who are reading and learning.......

Angus:

Look, ...I'm sorry if I ever came across as belligerent to you. I've read your posts, and I owe you an apology. Let's not fight.

Could you fill me in on some information? Really.

1. About the history of the conflict:

Your post about Arafat renouncing terrorism in 1974. Where did you get that information? Even Edward Sa'id never accused Arafat of renouncing terrorism in 1974, so this is new to me.

Please provide me with a solid source, as Wikipedia is an open forum whose accuracy has been contested on many subjects. Many high school teachers do not even permit it to be used by students for research anymore, and journalists shun it.

http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/Wikipedia/editorial.asp
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/your_take_roundupbelievers_neg.html.

We need something more solid than a forum where any Zionist Lobby guy can just make entries that are favorable to Israel. I'm sure you understand and agree with me.

The stuff about Shamir helping Nazis is fascinating, also. Please do the same for that.

And finally:

"Everyone looks to gain the moral high ground in this debate but I would posit that even from the high ground you would have to crane your neck skyward to look at a snake's ass..."

Please tell me what that means, as I really don't get it.

Thanks.

Saxyboy
Are you pretending to be anything other than a wannabe mouthpiece for the Israel Lobby? You pretending not to be now? Do you know your posts are mostly "I"...all about you and how superior you are. Cliche

Note to everyone,

While I'm reasonably sure gaining my approval is not among your list of lifetime goals, I still want to state how disgusted I am that so many anti-Semitic remarks continue to appear here. Saxyboy, a bigot himself, is not a representative of either Israel or the Jewish people. He is simply an irrational and small minded individual who is clearly filled with an anxiety he cannot cope with properly when confronted with opposing opinions and facts that threaten his world view.

Racist and anti-Semitic remarks oriented towards him or any body else are indicative of the same emotional and intellectual deformity, which clearly is equally distributed throughout every race culture and religion (there are always a few bigots, anywhere you go)

I sincerely hope that you don't apply the same logic to Andrew and construe his behavior to be indicative of all Americans.

(Note to Andrew, if you really are a guardsman who might go to Iraq, for your safety, please take some advice. Once you are in Iraq, (or Iran, if you get your wish) NEVER SPEAK. Use hand gestures and non vocal grunts to articulate your needs and desires. If you follow this simple advice, you might emerge from your tour alive, safe from both Iraqi and friendly fire.)

I hope that we can return to a debate, (as Angus and some other have done quite admirably) about what can realistically be done to reduce the damage that current US and Israeli policies are helping to continue.

Hating Jews, Israel or Israelis is not an idea or a plan. Many Jews throughout the world and in Israel find the occupation and the settlements to be morally and religiously offensive.

In my opinion, the settlement movement has been and remains to be the only barrier to real peace. Remove the settlements, build the wall on the green line, and most of the world is satisfied with Israel and most of the "philosophical underpinning for terrorist recruitment in the middle east" is removed.

It (among many other huge benefits to the US) would take us out of the unenviable position of literally starving innocent people until they renounce their democratically elected government, a situation so tragically out of step with every value that America holds dear that it's irony is only outweighed it's tragic consequences and total lack of it's vision and imagination.

J

what?

Angus -

"Israel gained EVERYTHING at the point of a gun - why do you not get that!!"

When a gun is pointed at you, there is not much you can do other than pointing back. Israel's wars have been started or provoked by the Arabs. If you have any complaints about violence, take it up with them.

Angus -

Aside from which, you did not answer my question, which was "what precisely did Israel 'gain at the point of a gun' while having the option of gaining it by negotiations?"

You can start with its own existence.

J -

I'm sincerely sorry if I said anything to offend anyone. This is heated stuff, as you know, and as someone who feels very passionate about Israel and the Jewish people, I can get over the top.

So, again, I apologize for calling Karim that name. It was really lame and childish.

That being said - I'm really open to learning from you and Angus, and I hope you will point me to the source material that I have obviously missed, which says:

1. That Israel is going to give up all of East Jerusalem.

2. The war in Lebanon would have never happened if not for Israel's settlement policy.

3. There was no violence directed against Israel until after 1967 when Israel started to build the settlements. The violence in the region is solely because Israeli extremists started building settlements.

Also, I really appreciate your impassioned attack on people who make anti-Semitic remarks on this board.

I'm assuming that means you no longer think that Pat Buchanan is a legitimate source on issues pertaining to Jews, since he has dabbled in Holocaust denial and defended Nazi War Criminals.

And since you were appalled by my bigoted remark - which I withdrew and acknowledged was wrong - I'm sure you'll have the intellectual honesty to withdraw your statement about Pat Buchanan not being a racist - even though his attacks on blacks, gays, immigrants, and women are well documented.

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/buchanan.html

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2553

Thanks, I await your intelligent, reasoned, thoroughly honest response.

RE: Note to everyone -by J.
"In my opinion, the settlement movement has been and remains to be the only barrier to real peace. Remove the settlements, build the wall on the green line, and most of the world is satisfied with Israel and most of the "philosophical underpinning for terrorist recruitment in the middle east" is removed.
It (among many other huge benefits to the US) would take us out of the unenviable position of literally starving innocent people until they renounce their democratically elected government, a situation so tragically out of step with every value that America holds dear that it's irony is only outweighed it's tragic consequences and total lack of it's vision and imagination."

Right on the money J! Good on You! As always, it is refreshing to read material posted by intelligent, thoughtful, and balanced individuals. That bigot, who has no problem turning an intelligent and open debate into hateful arguments, calling people names, etc. is an uneducated fool. He has no problem misquoting people and taking things out of context. Below is just one example of the hate spewed from his mouth, followed by a couple of lines I thought he would benifit from.
Re: saxyboy: "........don't you ever get tired of writing Islamo-facist propaganda here? ".

You certainly are even more hateful.
Your use of hateful words such as "Islamo-facist" indicate the following(just to mention a few): 1. A serious lack of knowledge about history, religion, and politics. 2. A dangerously low level of education in general. 3. An more serious lack of solid intellectualt thinking and logical thought processing. One must therefore promote you to the category of "uneducated fools" without hesitation. Note:Use of others' "philosophies", etc. as your own, without giving due credit doesn't reflect good on you. Try to not listen too much to characters like daniel Pipes, Bill O'Reilly, and the likes. You claim that you are Jewish. If that is actually true, you of all people, should know better than hate is an evil thing. The jewish people suffered plenty throughout the centeries because of it. You, and people like you, should know better. Its never too late to learn. Don't be an ignorant fool.

Angus:

I did some research into your post about Shamir helping Nazis. Your source, which comes through Wikipedia, is from Marxist Historian Lenni Brenner's book, the Iron Wall. According to the Journal for Historical Review, this book is not definitive.

It does appear that there was collaboration between the Zionists and Nazis before the exterminations began in earnest , so those of us who attacked you on that ground stand corrected. But the collaboration was NOT for the reasons you and your ideological allies are implying. Evidently, The Germans wanted the Jews out, and the Zionists were more than happy to comply, because the situation for German's Jews was declining rapidly.

The definitive book about this subject is THE THIRD REICH AND THE PALESTINE QUESTION by Francis R. Nicosia. I plan to read it one of these days. This book shows how, "Above all, the arrangement greatly promoted the removal of Jews from Germany, a principal domestic goal of the Hitler regime."

See the following link from the Institute of Historical Review.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p372_Ries.html

According to Martin Kramer -

Francis Nicosia's book is concerned with German decision-making toward Zionism and Palestine during the 1930s, a question of policy complicated by the uneasy interaction of racism and raison d'état.

For Nazi Germany, the issue of Palestine did not begin as one of foreign policy. Hitler immediately designated the excision of German Jewry from the fabric of German society as a foundation of domestic policy, and German authorities did everything in their power to encourage the emigration of German Jews. [German] Policy circles...agreed that the dispersal of Germany's Jews throughout the world would create a powerful economic class hostile to Germany everywhere. Various departments of the German government debated among themselves whether a German Jewish influx to Palestine would or would not pose an even greater threat to Germany, since it was assumed that a future Jewish state in Palestine would constitute the center of the 'international Jewish conspiracy'. But the immediate aim of ridding Germany of its Jews as fast as possible produced a certain preference for Palestine, since the Zionist movement had already put the emigration of German Jews on a well-organized footing."

"Nicosia therefore has much to offer to the debate over the Transfer Agreement--a debate which stirred again following publication several years ago of two books on the subject by journalists Lenni Brenner and Edwin Black. Brenner and Black argued, each in his own way, that the Transfer Agreement represented a grave moral compromise (and one that Zionism, by sharing the Nazi view of the Jews as inassimilable, accommodated too readily), and that the agreement foiled a chance to undermine Nazi Germany through a worldwide economic boycott. Nicosia undermines both propositions. From the German sources, the Transfer Agreement emerges as an arrangement born of the deepest mutual enmity, in order to speed the total disengagement of Germans and Jews."

Here's some more about it:

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105

Mark said:

"That bigot, who has no problem ... calling people names, etc. is an uneducated fool...Don't be an ignorant fool".

Now there's a sensible argument.

To Mr. Morley,

Would it not have been more accurate, less misleading, and less biased had you used a different title to your column "Starving Hamas"? How about calling it exactly what it is: starving the Palestinian people for their democratic choice? Or would such a title never be allowed by the Washington Post Company, as it would not be in line with the Israeli government propaganda? Here are some lines from your own article, Sir. "The growing humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories......"

"In the U.S. press, the story focuses on the struggle of Washington policy makers to come to terms with the radical ruling party Hamas and the collapsing Palestinian economy. Among Israeli, Arab and British news sites, the commentary digs past the policy debate to underscore the negative impact on ordinary people caught up in the conflict."

" The confrontation between Hamas and the West is creating a harsh reality for ordinary Palestinians, bluntly conveyed in overseas commentary in ways only occasionally heard in the U.S. mainstream media or on Capitol Hill."

("Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals," says former President Jimmy Carter in a piece for the International Herald Tribune.)

If you can clearly see the problem, why not call it what it really is??

Respectfully

"the arab propaganda machine through the internet"I dont know were you have been,but Cnn and the NewYork times Washington post in the US as well as the global network in Canada owned by israel Asper that owns 51% of the media in Canada is so pro israel that it makes you want to find the truth and for that i thank them.The internet has allowed us so many different views that we no longer have certian groups able to control the message to the people.It is no longer the Conrad Blacks,Israel Asper,Rupert murdock trying to corner the media market.

There's a new report out there (The University of Stuttgart) based on wartime records from the German Foreign Ministery that exposes the Nazi intention to kill the Jewish population of Palestine. If the army of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had defeated his enemy, General Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's troops and made it to Palestine, a special unit would have received orders to slay all 500,000 Jews there (notably with the assistance of Arab pro-Axis leaders like Amin al-Husseini).

"Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord - Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart" (Universität Stuttgart 2006):
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/presse/2006/36.html
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3534184815/302-7117702-3735252

60 years later we have an organization with nearly identical views as the Nazi Party: Hamas. In their charter from 1988 they even mention the Freemasons and other "cells of subversion and saboteurs" (article 17, 22). So the dream of Mr. Hitler is still a reality. Not just in the Middle East but also in Europe.

In principle, which is worse the killing of many jews during the Holocaust by a deranged lunatic (Mr. Hitler)or maknig an industry of this sad story(not just by one individual and his subordinates) but by millions of people? The promotion of this Holocaust industry by the jewish people, and both the Israeli and American governments is sickenning to put it very mildly. There is a daily Holocaust against the Palestinian people (on their own soil) that has been criminally ignored by our coward, "enlightened", and "democratic" western world for decades.
The [historical] accuracy of this modern day Holocaust, in contrast, can be examined and verified readily. Invoking Hitler, the Holocaust, anti-semitism , and terrorism each and everytime the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially the Palestinian tragedy, is discussed is not only illogical, but is also highly immoral.

Michael O.

Angus -

"Aside from which, you did not answer my question, which was "what precisely did Israel 'gain at the point of a gun' while having the option of gaining it by negotiations?"

You can start with its own existence"

I honestly am not getting your point here -

Are you saying that it was ok to use the gun because there was no ability to negotiate - if I am wrong please let me know - I am not trying to be a smartmule but I think I am misunderstanding you..

Jan...

Fascinating stuff. Can you direct me to an English translation? I can't read German.

Thanks.

Saxyboy,

My first post was in response to the subject of the Blog - "Starving Hamas"

The post was to illustrate what I felt was the double standard of punishing a whole nation of people for choosing a government when your own has many shameful episodes in it's own past and it's electorate had on many occasions elected to high office people with blood on their hands.

Regarding the Lehi stuff and the other Zionist contact with Nazi's to be honest I place no "value judgement" on their
actions (vis a vis the Nazis) as I was not there and do not know what was in their minds.

My responses were in response to the incredulity, then disbelief and finally the "liar, liar pants on fire" dismissmal by MichaelO.

I actually could have come up with a much better defense by reminding people about the many Jews from Palestine (some of whom may have been zionists)who did chose to fight against the Nazis in the Balkans and other places.

Regarding my idealogical allies and what I/we(?) were trying to imply I am a little lost on that one. I really don't take offense (as I have been called everything from fascist to commie)but I would appreciate clarification if I am misreading this line.

The stuff you posted from IHR etc is interesting to me - their is so much more history from that time that we are unaware of so I welcome links such as these.

To anyone who is interested in solutions:

One last post tonight - it is an article from Haaretz I came across - which even if you disagree with is still worth a couple of minutes of your time.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711997.html

RE: Zionism

I have noticed that many individuals here are wrong on many facts of great relevance to the issue/s being discussed. Of particular importance is the issue of Zionism. In an effort to aid these individuals to reach a better understanding of this and other equally important issues pertaining to the current state of world affairs, a scholarly reference is thus invaluable and is hereby provided. For an extraordinarily rich source of scholarly research materials, archives of articles, links, and real news, the reader may wish to consult the work of Mr. Frank Weltner at jewwatch.com .

From the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (from protocols I and II -respectively)
[23. Our countersign is - Force and Make-believe. Only force conquers in political affairs, especially if it be concealed in the talents essential to statesmen. Violence must be the principle, and cunning and make-believe the rule for governments which do not want to lay down their crowns at the feet of agents of some new power. This evil is the one and only means to attain the end, the good. Therefore we must not stop at bribery, deceit and treachery when they should serve towards the attainment of our end. In politics one must know how to seize the property of others without hesitation if by it we secure submission and sovereignty.]
[5. In the hands of the States of to-day there is a great force that creates the movement of thought in the people, and that is the Press. The part played by the Press is to keep pointing our requirements supposed to be indispensable, to give voice to the complaints of the people, to express and to create discontent. It is in the Press that the triumph of freedom of speech finds its incarnation. But the GOYIM States have not known how to make use of this force; and it has fallen into our hands. Through the Press we have gained the power to influence while remaining ourselves in the shade; thanks to the Press we have got the GOLD in our hands, notwithstanding that we have had to gather it out of the oceans of blood and tears. But it has paid us, though we have sacrificed many of our people. Each victim on our side is worth in the sight of God a thousand GOYIM.]
* GOYIM is anyone who is not Jewish
"The only statement I care to make about the PROTOCOLS is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. THEY FIT IT NOW." - Mr. Henry Ford, in an interview published in the New York WORLD, February 17th, 1921.
Source: jewwatch.com

Angus:

I think in general, people get hostile and emotional when the Middle East is discussed. It's best to put that behind us and do what we are doing right now - link to articles that we find interesting, and discuss their contents.

What I was saying about ideological allies - is that many anti-Zionists point to the Nazi-Zionist agreement in an effort to link Zionism to Naziism. I find this abhorrent, and I sincerely apologize if that's not what you meant to do.

I meant to link to Martin Kramer's analysis of the book I found, which shows how the early Nazi-Zionist relationship was built on mutual enmity - not admiration by Shamir, as many anti-Zionists claim, and as the Wikipedia source implies.

The IHR link I included was a BIG mistake, actually, picked up by my Yahoo Smart Tools feature. I thought I had gotten it out of my clipboard. IHR is a Holocaust Denial think tank that was started by the notorious Liberty Lobby in the 90's, and therefore, it is off limits as a legitimate source.

Now, your link to Tony Judt's article, while thoughtful, isn't on my side politically. I see the conflict differently than Judt. Judt is an outspoken anti-Zionist who is against a two state solution and calls for the liquidation of Israel through a bi-national state. Such a state is not what the majority of Jews want, as they would not feel comfortable living in a country with an Arab/Muslim majority. I am a two state solution Zionist. Nothing on this board that anyone says will sway me from that.

As far as my taking you and J to task for claims about Israel (the statement about Arafat renouncing terrorism in 1974 and supporting a two state solution, and J's claim that terrorism happened only in response to the settlement policies), well, I stand by my assertions that they are not true. I have been waiting for one of you to link to sources that back your claims. Neither of you have. J has simply called me a racist, Mark has said I'm a fool, and you haven't followed up. I won't make a judgment about this, and will give you the benefit of the doubt for now. Perhaps you didn't know that's what I was looking for, as this thread has gotten confusing.

But I don't appreciate the herd mentality here, that allows people like J to make false statements and get a pass. I have the right to hold people accountable for any "facts" they post, just as you have that right with me. Otherwise, we are not debating honestly.

If J is not aware that Arafat started leading attacks in Israel in the late 60's, or that the PLO was founded in '64 - before the settlements - with a charter that called for Israel's destruction, then I'm afraid it disqualifies him/her from being taken seriously, as that stuff is 101 that can be pulled up in seconds through a simple Google search. There is no reason to come here and make things up as one goes along.

Anyway, that's about it for me on this thread. I'd like to stick around, but I've put in enough time and I really have other things to do. Perhaps I will see you later. Jefferson seems to be very interested in the Middle East, and I'm sure he'll post more about it.

Peace out.

Angus:

See what I mean? We now have someone linking to a Neo-Nazi website. Where's the moderator, and why do these people consistently get through, and go unchallenged on these boards by guys like you?

And back to Israel and Nazis:

You said the following - "Shamir help out his hand to Nazi Germany during WWII and Israel elected him..." That's what I was refuting. Are you now going back that you said that? The implications of that statement are crystal clear. And I provided a link to Martin Kramer refuting it.

You have to be consistent, Angus, if you want to hold a fair debate.

I'm still not sure you do.

Interesting how everyone who doesn't agree with you is either an anti-semite or a neo-nazi !!!!

There we go, again! Anything that doesn't quite fit with your background, political view, agenda, etc. is labeled by you (and by people like you) as either anti-semitic or neo-Nazi, etc. etc. etc. You don't have to agree with everything, but you should be able to "live" with views that are different from yours. You should also be aware that the more some individuals like yourself try to stifle debate and restrict what people can see or hear, the more likely it is that those people will feel a "need" to find "it" and they will. You yourself provided a link ["See the following link from the Institute of Historical Review. http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p372_Ries.html] that you felt (at least initially) that it serves your point of view. Only after you figured that it doesn't quite agree with your point of view, that you immediately and with great astonishment and mortification, discredit it and it and labeled the people behind it ["The IHR link I included was a BIG mistake, actually, picked up by my Yahoo Smart Tools feature. I thought I had gotten it out of my clipboard. IHR is a Holocaust Denial think tank that was started by the notorious Liberty Lobby in the 90's, and therefore, it is off limits as a legitimate source."]
Think about that! Thanks for the link, BTW. Why not let people read and decide for themselves just as they see it and understand it? Anti-Zionism, anti- Israeli terror does not mean and should not be interpreted as anti-semitic. Nor should those with views that differ from yours should be labeled as Neo-Nazis. You may find some of the material below enlightening.
Zionism (from: http://www.serendipity.li/zionism.htm)

Saxyboy,

Several European newspapers including the news agency AFP have written about the Report from the University of Stuttgart mentioned above (about the Nazi policy in the Middle East and the plans to kill 500.000 Palestinan Jews).

I'll try to make a brief translation

From ZDF - German Broadcasting, 5/5, 2006 (some quotes):

"Holocaust in Palestine"

Hitler's [secret] so far unknown plans now revealed

The nazis planned an expansion of the Holocaust to Palestine and looked for Arab support to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state. That is what the two historians Klaus Michael Mallmann and Martin Cueppers have found out.

/.../

Presumably Rommel was unaware of the SS Death commandos. Their existence was top secret, their employment secretly decided by Hitler and Himmler. If the Rommel 1942 celebrated by the Nazis would have struck the British troops in Egypt and afterwards penetrated Palestine, the employment command would have received the order to kill the Jews in Palestine.

/.../

"The leader of the command was Walter Rauff, expert on mass murder. He developed mobile gas chambers used in Eastern Europe."

/.../

Hitler was hailed among parts of the [Arab] population as a hero of the people, who could release them from the British and Jews equally.

/.../

There was at that time a certain axle between the Third Reich, fascist Italy and parts of the Arab world.

/.../

His (Amin al-Husseini] person expose exemplary, "what a crucial role [doctrinal] Jew-hatred (Judenhass) mattered in the project of the German-Arab communication".

/.../

"The history of the Near East would have run completely differently and a Jewish state could probably never have been established there, if the project had been put together by Germans and Arabs into practice", writes Mallmann and Cuepppers

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/3/0,1872,3930019,00.html

P S

When reading the charter of Hamas one understands that there is a DIRECT connection between Third Reich, Nazi ideology and the contemporary islamists of Palestine (and elsewhere).

There's also obvious that several segments of Europe continue their policy from WWII - now by proxy.

I'm convinced that historians of the future will discuss Palestinian and islamist terrorism in a totalitarian Nazi context. Actually it's the same ideology (anti-Western, anti-democratic, anti-Jewish, based on paranoia, death-cult and narcissistic dreams of world domination).

Oh, That's nice. Someone posted the Protocols and then proceeded to complain about being called an antisemite. Now we have to prove again that water is wet.

To Saxyboy -

I am not sure what I missed but as you said this thread is getting confusing I will look back tonight when I have more time and try to respond to what I missed.

Angus -

"Are you saying that it was ok to use the gun because there was no ability to negotiate"

I have tried my best to answer a statement which was framed in a meaningless way to begin with, and you would not clarify it. So let me try once again: When you say "everything Israel has ever gained" - what exactly are you referring to? Its independence? Victories at war? Territories? International relationships? Its population? Its economy? Its culture? Its immortal soul? what?

I take it the reference is not to territory, because the current territorial holdings of Israel (in excess of what was allocated to it by the U.N. in 1947) are the result of two wars both of which were started by the Arabs, a point I had already made above. So if it's not territory you were talking about then what?

As to the Tony Judt masterpiece: Judt is a cerified idiot, and even though he has nothing useful to say, he might do himself a favor if he got rid of the snickering, patronizing, holier-than-thou attitude before he said it.

Michael O says:

"Oh, That's nice. Someone posted the Protocols and then proceeded to complain about being called an antisemite. Now we have to prove again that water is wet."

Yes, fascinating, isn't it?

BTW, Michael - while we're on the topic -Pat Buchanan is blaming Jews for the Da Vinci code. He just wrote an Op-Ed in the Miami Herald, shreaking, "Whose God May We Mock!"

The anonymous Moron who thinks the Protocols are real Protocols says:

"GOYIM is anyone who is not Jewish."

Right. But you forgot to note that it's usually used in the phrase DUMB GOYIM. Go figure.

J,

WOW.

This is fascinating stuff. I did some more searches. Thanks for the heads up.

This information challenges "New Historian" literature that blames Israeli intransigence for the conflict. It also puts into perspective some more controversial actions the Zionists undertook during the War of Independence, since it affirms the genocidal goals of the Arabs in Palestine. Will Arabs and Israel's critics acknowledge that this historical informaton flies in the face of their attempts to blame the conlict on Israeli intransigence?

I doubt it.

It also sheds light on the main reason that the Arabs haven't opened their archives - and why they always rely on Israeli Leftist HIstorians to shill for them. Imagine, if German historians have uncovered this stuff - what types of damning evidence is locked away in Arab vaults. It's pretty sickening.

Angus,

Don't sweat it. This thread has gotten more and more ridiculous. I make my exit when people start quoting the Protocols of Zion, and neo-Nazi rhetoric.

Perhaps I'll see you another time. I'm done talking.

Angus -

"My responses were in response to the incredulity, then disbelief and finally the "liar, liar pants on fire" dismissmal by MichaelO."

You got that part wrong too. I was expressing amazement at the inanity of the argument.

Saxyboy -

Apologies if I'm wrong, but didn't you intend to address "WOW..." to Jan instead of J.? As far as I can tell they are two different posters.

If not, then let me thank Jan for the translating effort, and hope that a formal translation to English would be published.

It really is frustrating when you have explain and substantiate the obvious over and over again. As far as I know the Jewish population in palestine was all too aware of the Nazis' intentions, and had even made plans, prior to the battle of El-Alamein, for an organized retreat to the top of the Carmel range for a "last stand" battle.

It is appropriate that Anonymous,
who posted sections of the "protocols" remain Anonymous.
That he does not have the courage to even use a made up moniker to represent the vile and moronic bursts of short circuiting neural cacophony that he attempts to pass for ideas and information is indicative of his association with a long line of mentally and emotionally challenged anonymous Hood wearers.

Anonymous, You are in fact a racist. You are in fact a hate monger. Your input here enlightens no one, in fact, quite the opposite. Your appear incapable of offering any ideas that are not born directly out of a very weak and pathetic tradition of blaming troubles in the world on conspiracies that can never be quite completely uncovered, but that go on and on throughout history and throughout generations and remain active in all areas. In other words, a tradition carried on by people who have a very difficult time deliniating the parameters that seperate their own ass from a hole in the ground.

J

To Angus-
Thank you for the link you provided:[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711997.html]. Certainly an excellent article, well written and well thought out. The fact that its written by a Jewish Scholar only adds to its credibility given its subject matter. Here is a link to an interview with its author (professor Judt):
[http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.12.26/news5.html].

One more attempt to get this forum back on track, which as I understand it, is about cutting off support to the Palestinians.

It is wrong to hold millions of people in a brutally guarded prison camp for literally generations. It is wrong to leave them without a nation and without basic human rights. It is even worse to slowly steal more and more of the land they once resided on while holding them prisoner and then act genuinly surprised when they retaliate.

For the United States to be associated with this policy in any way is a stain on it's character as a nation, a betrayal of our most valued democratic and constitutional priciples and has played a very big role in starting and maintaining the "war on terror" that we are now spending literally trillions (over time) to fight.

If the consequences of our support of the Israeli settler movement is an increase in terrorism, and we are supporting something that is just morally wrong and geopolitically stupid in the first place, then it makes sense to stop supporting it, or even to take an active stand against it.

Although that "stand against the settlements" may already have begun in the form of the withdrawl from the gaza, I feel that America stands to benefit greatly by taking a more active and public role in clearing the West Bank and East Jerusalem of it's settler population, and helping the Palestinians form a stable and autonomous nation of their own.

I am interested primarily in the current situation and the future security and well being of the US. A stable Palestinian state run by democratically elected leaders is in the interest of the US. It is in the interest of Isreal. I hope that we do the right thing, break these sanctions and in fact begin empowering the Palestinians to start the job of building a nation.

J

Dear, Dear, blovaiting J. THe reasons the
Protocals keep on keeping on is that they track very well the schemes and
wars of the zionists. To this very hour. Have you read them? Can't argue with
history. All your constant pontificating. Without any meaning and certainly not informed.

> Michael O, Saxyboy,

I'm the one with the (untidy) translation above. As an European with some skills in both Scandinavian languages, English, German and perhaps a little bit Dutch, French etc. I've undeniably access to the "other" contemporary debate. But due to the creepy climate in post-modern Europe you have to dig a bit or read between the lines. Anyway, all Westerner of today - both Europeans and Americans - should study the history of 20th century Fascism and National Socialism. Then you'll find the key to Arab aggression.

J- There are many good points in your post. The creation of the state of Israel is itself morally reprehensible because there is no moral righteousness in creating a "homeland" for one people at the expense of displacing and destroying another people. However, Israel as a state is now a fact on the ground and we have to live by that fact (BUT only within the Green Line) and not at the expense of our image, the blood of our sons and daughters, our tax dollars, and our security. I have no doubt in my mind that this is clear to and understood by everyone- even those who would fiercely argue against it. Even the political prostitutes in our government (AKA Congressmen and our Israeli puppet Presidents) who have no qualms about overlooking what is good for us and for our country in exchange for a few votes and a handful of dollars), precisely what we poor American taxpayers end up paying back, not only in the hundreds of billions of dollars, but also by our blood. It is therefore only wishful thinking to expect that these cowards would look after America's real interests because that would mean upsetting their masters (owners) at AIPAC. It is only after we (the people) stand up for what we know is best for our country that one might expect things to change.

If I may, I would like to point to a couple of lines from something you posted here on May, the 11th- Because, while I do think that you are trying to say something that is honorable, I am afraid that the middle part of your statement is wrong. Here is your statement: "The occupation and the settlements are morally reprehensible, and no US administration has ever dared to assert otherwise, because it violates the very principles that our constitution and nation were founded upon...." No US administration has ever dared to assert otherwise? (??!!) I got excited for a second and my heart swelled with pride after I read this but sadly, it all evaporated when I realized that it was only a "dream" "I" was having. Just a little reminder from the very near past... remember when George W. Bush (the Israeli puppet that he is) sat in the lap of Ariel Sharon during a white House visit and in front of the media and for the whole world to see and hear announced that Israel cannot be asked or expected to leave all the settlements and withdraw to the 1967 borders, because- according to the puppet- these settlements are now 'facts on the ground'? -. Was there any reaction to his comments in Congress? You bet! They were embraced instantly.
In the meanwhile, we will continue (at least for sometime to come) to pay dearly by our blood and our dollar to fight Israel's wars (and call it "war on terror"). This just might satisfy the judeo-cons, neo cons, the Zionists (and their associates of hateful tragic characters) such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John R. Bolton, Elliott Abrams, James Woolsey, Rupert Murdoch, William Kristol, and so many others. Unfortunately, The list of such hateful, vicious, and tragic characters is long. See: [http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html]

Apologies! It would be very disrespctful for Daniel Pipes to not be included in that list of hateful,vicious, and blood-thirsty tragic figures. His hate, blood thirst, and viciousness is therefore hereby aknowledged so that the record stands clarified. As I mentioned before, the list is very long..but this one specific tragic figure simply cannot be left out.

Is zionism a racist policy?If zionism and judaism are the one true message of god, and judaism does not shine a light on the faith of the other religions ,why do zionist feel that we should help in there prophesy? by treating palestinians as second class people, are we doing Gods work?Is that really the message?Why are we asked to treat an occupation as acceptable for the sake of zionism.To bring families from russia and poland and put them in the west bank in the name of god just does not sound right .For me there is something wrong with this picture.And to hear the story that the land was void of people,come on' there is a sea right there; but no fisherman?Oh thats right a farmer is not a person either.Is it a crime to remove people by force and then occupy them,destroy there economy,there goverment,there roads, there schools, all this in the name of God.All this so there can be a jewish majority. Is it acceptable for the rest of the world to follow this practice?Has Zionism the God given right to treat palos in any way they see fit?Is it wrong to starve a person in the name of religion or does religion supercede human rights?WE always hear about the palo terrorist,what then are the settlers of Gaza and the west bank.( i know the gaza has been given back, but the scars remain)They prevent a farmer from his fields and children from there schools and are known to commit murder,and all this in the name of religion.What came first the occupation or the resistance?Why Is a family whose only language is russian and who is living in the west bank,( and who is supported by jews and christian fundamentalists in the Us),and they are given more freedom then the people they supplant,could this cause a problem?Is that anti semetic? no because palos are a semetic people.Why dont we scream anti semetic when our clergy our rabbis our politicians mock muslims and arabs,when did anti semite become a jewish sword.And a mighty useful one.One that is to make us feel shame when we question anything to do with zionism.So it gets back to the beginning is judaism the real deal and christians and muslems are frauds.By faith alone we spend ten billion.By faith alone we treat palos as less than human.By faith alone we punish millions.We starve another man in the name of the father.I dont see seperation from church and state when each war we fight is a religous war.W e support saras children in the war against haggars chidren so christ can return to a jewish majority.

Forgive me, but is it just me, or do the "Protocols", (a segment of which appeared above) due to their tone, grammar, dullness, and general resemblance to the screenplay of "Lord of the Rings" (but with a lot more really poorly scripted Jewish parts in mind, as opposed to hobbits, orcs, ect.), not sound as though it was written by a total idiot, rather than people intelligent enough to actually run the world from behind the Scenes?

If people actually do run the world behind scenes, and they write to each other in that manner or sound anything like that in real life, then everyone else deserves to be ruled in the first place. But hey, it's not such a bad situation. We get Seinfeld and the Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm out of the deal, which to me makes it all worth it.

P.S. Larry David and Jerry must not be in on the whole "rule the world" thing, because their writing is infinitely better than the writing in the "Protocols", although the protocols are, in some respects, equally funny.

J

[Big win for Israel's Sharon
Bush endorses pullout plan
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This week, the White House press corps tried to get President Bush to admit he had made mistakes. They failed. Bush said he couldn't come up with one.
But someone else succeeded in getting this president to reverse himself. That's quite an achievement. It's also the political Play of the Week, and it goes to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
After meeting with Sharon this week, President Bush agreed to recognize Israeli settlements in the West Bank, accept a temporary security fence between Israelis and Palestinians, and repudiate Palestinian claims to a right of return to Israel.
In every case, it's a departure from long-held U.S. positions.
Sharon was, to say the least, pleased.
"I was encouraged by your positive response and your support for my plan," he told the president at a news conference.
How did he get Bush to sign on?
Frustrated Palestinians see election-year politics going on.
"I don't see why the United States would involve itself in two issues that are left for final-status negotiations, except maybe for political expedience in the United States in an election year," said Hasan Rahman, PLO representative to the United States.
Sharon did not seem unaware of politics.
"You have proven, Mr. President, your ongoing, deep and sincere friendship for the state of Israel and to the Jewish people," Sharon said.
Sharon's deal is with Bush, and Palestinians are enraged that they were left out of the negotiations. Bush is telling Palestinians to accept reality and that this is the only way they will get what they want -- a state.
On May 2, Sharon faces a crucial vote by his Likud party on whether or not to endorse his plan. That vote was in doubt before this week. Bush's endorsement is likely to put it over.
"I think the presidential position represents really as good as it could get for Sharon," said Israeli analyst David Horowitz. "The Israeli TV correspondent came out of the White House session yesterday and said that, you know, short of going to the homes of every Likud voter and telling them to support Sharon, Bush did everything Sharon could have wished him to do."
Including giving the Israeli prime minister the political Play of the Week.
Sharon's plan is has been criticized as a unilateral plan. But that's not exactly a term that horrifies Bush.]

** Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/16/sharon

Quote of the Day:

"Dear, Dear, blovaiting J. THe reasons the
Protocals keep on keeping on is that they track very well the schemes and
wars of the zionists. To this very hour. Have you read them? Can't argue with
history. All your constant pontificating. Without any meaning and certainly not informed."- By Henry

Excellent article Mark - Let me post it again so people don't have to dig to find it.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html

to Michael O.

You state that your questioning of my initial post was not incredulity but "inanity" - that would have made your questions following a little strange. No?

"Angus

1. What's your source on that?

2. When, according to that source, did it take place?"

to Michael O.

You state that your questioning of my initial post was not incredulity but "inanity" - that would have made your questions following a little strange. No?

"Angus

1. What's your source on that?

2. When, according to that source, did it take place?"

Is it important for a jew to support Israel?What is a jew with out judaism?So is your first priority as a jew to the US or to the state of Israe?Which is the most important to a practicing jew?So faced with these complex questions,it is easy to see why the middle east does not have a simple answer as long as it is political suicide to utter a word other than support for israel.There is not a palestinian who thinks the US will give them a fair shake,there are so many jewish intellectuals who voice there opinions about how Bush senior lost the jewish vote and thus lost the elections.Those same voices believe that Bush jr will not repeat the same mistake.You can not boast these claims with out scrutiny.When was the last time a politician gave a speach during an election that they oppose the occupation,nope its allways israel has a right to defend herself.So why is it that one is worthy of help and another is not.there is no equality.The palos of today are viewed the way american indians were viewed,but instead of savages they are terrorists(what right do they have to resist a take over of the house they live in).so its all in the eye of the beholder.

From: "One racist nation" by Gideon Levy- Ha'aretz March 25, 2006

["Who would have believed that in Israel of 2006, the killing of an 8-year-old girl at short range, as happened last week in Yamoun, would barely be mentioned; that the ruthless attempt to expel an Ethiopian with AIDS who is married to an Israeli, just because he is not Jewish, would not raise hue and cry; and that the results of a poll showing that a majority of Israelis--68 percent--don't want to live next to an Arab, did not raise a stink. If in 1981, tomatoes were being thrown at Shimon Peres and in 1995, there was incitement against Yitzhak Rabin, now there are no tomatoes, no incitement and not even any election rallies."]

The full article can be found at: http://www.nimn.org/articles/whats_new/000516.php

I am not sure why you guys keep jumping on J. as far as I can see J. is the only person who consistently takes to task the racists and nazi types and answers respectfully even though you have disagreements.

So as I am off for a few days without Internet or Phone - woo hoo!! - I am going to try and answer some of the points requested by others.

Very quickly on the Haaretz article - although I agree that perhaps his vision of a multi ethnic 1 state solution is a little Kumbaya at this stage - I certainly feel he had some good things to say - on that Michael I think your response says far more about you than anything I can post - at least Saxyboy acknowledged it was thoughtful but not in keeping with his point if view.

So I will say again - (Saxyboy for the record I am confirming it was my post ) ...the Lehi stuff and Shamir holding out his hand to the Nazi's is NOT something I place a value judgement on - as far as I am concerned the Zionists were free to make whatever choices they wanted to during the years of and surrounding WWII - in fact I absolutely believe that there was never any intention to "support" the Nazi's or their philosophies, but interesting I also do not think that the letter implied that I viewed it as a "false flag" approach - kind of like writing what you would expect a Nazi to want to hear but intending something completely different once you achieved your own goal in this case a Zionist state. Nothing wrong with that in my book.

My point from the start was to illustrate the duplicity of refusing to talk to "Hamas" and subsequently punishing the Palestinian people because they are terrorists, ideological enemies etc. etc.

Michael had tried to make the point that the Israeli's - or at least Shamir - were "FORMER" terrorists so once Hamas changed its verbiage that negotiations could begin. The fact is that the many Israeli' leaders, "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" depending which side you were on, did not put down the gun and pick up the olive branch because of a change of heart - it was because they had achieved their goals of a Jewish State and were then absorbed into the IDF.

So for me I think Israel, Palestinian the US and all the other involved parties have so much to gain and so little to lose by entering into negotiations. If you must - make the first negotiation about the terms of their "charter" anything really just start talking!

In the past 20 years or so we have seen the Berlin wall come down, the end of Apartheid in S. Africa and rudimentary capitalism taking root in China - most of that would have been unthinkable 25 years ago so why not a peaceful 2 state solution.

To much too hope for?

Have a peaceful weekend everyone!

Once last thing I forgot - a source for some of my postings - have fun - it may not be perfect but it's certainly interesting.

http://www.obelus.org/index.php?artID=3

Mark,

The inception of every nation in the world has been riddled with blood shed, treachery, and mountains of inequity. That certainly includes the US, just ask any Native American.

Israel's beginning is no exception. You would do well to consider this when criticizing Israel's fundamental right to exist. My only problem with Israel is the occupation, the settlements, the needless suffering that those initiatives have brought on the Palestinians, and the problems that our support of those initiatives have brought upon us.

Don't be deluded into thinking that this is a one way street. For a long time, we used our association with Israel as a hedge against Soviet expansion and aggression in a very important area geopolitically. Although Israel did not always play by our game book in those times it was better than having no strong hold in the area and as you might already know, nothing, absolutely nothing, ever works out exactly the way anyone wants in geopolitics forever.

I am not a big conspiracy advocate. I don't believe that George Bush is a puppet of Israel or anything remotely like that. I think it's much worse than being the puppet of another nation. He's a politician. He does precisely what it takes to allow him to remain in office and to support the Republican Party's strong hold, and then, after that, what he believes might be good for the nation. Nothing more, nothing less. His comment about the settlements is catering to the Christian right (certainly a much larger voting bloc than Israel's US supporters), Republican hawks, and then Aipac and its supporters.

But look what has happened since 9/11. The Gaza has been abandoned by the Israelis. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are going to be relinquished to a very large degree (disengagement.... sounds like they are breaking up or something), and despite what is currently being discussed the amount of land that is going to be returned in both of those areas is ultimately probably going to be much more than is currently being discussed, just as it happened in the Gaza.

Why, you might ask? Because the Israelis are a great deal more pragmatic than you are giving them credit for. They realize that the dream of a greater Israel is over. I think they also understand that despite the public face our government puts on it, post 9/11, we are not going to tolerate the collateral damage for much longer before real steps are taken. I think they may also be a great deal more secure in their long term viability, and finally, if you think your sick of the occupation and settlement movement, imagine what it must be like to be one of the great many Israelis who have strongly disagreed with them from the beginning and who may or may not have kids in the army, out their standing in a circle around a bunch of religious whackos and ultranationalists who give their entire country a bad name and are helping to keep them on the US dole, as opposed to being the successful and self determined nation they aspire to be.

Many of the people that you list above had a very clear plan for improving US security and access to oil by toppling countries they see as threats in the Middle East. Part of that plan included keeping Israel safe, and ensuring it remained a strong and dominant force in the region. I believe they feel that they had our and Israel's best interests in mind. I also believe they were tragically wrong and that current events are bearing this out.

There is nothing wrong with keeping Israel safe, although given Israel's armaments and military prowess I think that they are fairly "safe" already. But the Neo-cons original plan for securing the settlements is crumbling around them, as are their plans for toppling regime after regime in Muslim countries that they consider to be a threat.

Some time ago I read an old joke in either the Jerusalem Post online or Haaretz or something like that. It goes: there are two old men playing chess in the park and discussing what is wrong with the world. They discuss famine, poverty, wars, politics
disease, ECT. And finally one gets really mad, slams his fist down on the board and says
"It's all because of the Jews and the Plumbers!!! The other man stops, thinks about his comment and then says, Why the Plumbers?

Don't be one of those guys. Don't blame a nation or a people for problems caused by governments, interest groups and individuals. The US government and the multitude of interest groups that help shape it's policies are equally if not a great deal more to blame than Israel's supporters are for the situation we are currently in. If it was not for our money and support over the last 40 years, I doubt the settlements could have persisted. I think if you read the "Israel Lobby" with this in mind, you will see that the authors try very hard to make this point.They see a problem with our ability to discuss and act on these issues, but Israel's supporters are hardly the only one's who deserve the blame. But by the same token, that is why it is so important that we take action to change the situation ASAP. I really believe that this is why the Gaza was given back and why a great deal more change is in the making. I only wish it would happen faster and that the US would take a public role, as it would benefit us a great deal in my opinion.

J

J. -

I admire your efforts to engage the loony racists in this forum, although in my experience, any attempt to either reason with them or give them a piece of your mind is an exercise in futility.

You are absolutely correct that the whole settlement enterprise should never have come into being, that it should be dismantled, that Israel should withdraw from the West Bank, and that all parties involved will be better off for that. I have felt that way since they started settling, and I'm glad to see they are finally moving in that direction.

Of course, the part about millions of people being held in a prison camp is sheer nonsense, unless your idea of a prison camp is a place where people live in their own homes and are free to leave any time they want. This is one of those catchy phrases concocted by Arafat's PR men Saeb Erekat and Nabil Shaath for the benefit of the Western media who laps it up without thinking twice (other such phrases include "the apartheid wall", "Jeningrad", and "it can be called a massacre even if only one man dies"). That no people should have to live under occupation is axiomatic, and does not require vacuous inflammatory rhetoric as proof.

However, if you truly believe that israel's withdrawal to the 67 borders will reduce, let alone bring to an end, the terror campaign against America, I'm afraid you'll be in for a rude awakening. For one thing, when you say "ending the occupation" and when Arabs say that, you may be referring to two entirely different things. Secondly, the growth of Islamic terror is fed by a variety of causes going way beyond the I/P conflict. That conflict is just the one most easily grasped by Westerners. Of course it should be resolved, but that does not mean its resolution will bring about the end of terror. Don't take my word for it. There are some Muslim posters on this forum, and you can ask for their input on this question.

As to your wish to see "A stable Palestinian state run by democratically elected leaders", I share it of course, but as of now, it appears that Israel's ceding of territory to a Palestinian democratically-elected government leads to internal Palestinian slaughter, not to stability (again, that is not a reason for Israel not to withdraw).

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/716667.html

two days ago I received here a shower of indignation when I suggested that Muslim countries practice discrimination. And as if on cue, this little piece of news rolls in:

Iranian expatriates: Iran may make Jews wear yellow badges
By Haaretz Service

Iranian expatriates living in Canada have confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament passed a law this week that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear colored badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims, Canada's National Post reported Friday.

The expatriates also said that the law sets a dress code for all Iranians requiring them to wear "standard Islamic garments."

According to the Post, Iran's 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on their clothes; Christians would have to adorn red badges and Zoroastrians would be have to wear blue strips of cloth.

The report states that the law was drafted two years ago and was revived recently by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In recent months, Ahmadinejad has expressed doubt that the Holocaust took place and said Israel should be wiped off the map.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has written to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan urging the international community to pressure Iran to drop the measure, the Post reported.

To go into effect, the law must be approved by Iran's supreme leader and highest authority, Ali Khamenei.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717902.html

The use of profanity says more about you and your background than anything I or anyone could. Now go back and continue to listen to deranged lunatics , the likes of your "beloved" slaves- the vicious dogs with zionist blood in their veins like Daniel Pipes, Jerry Falwel,Pat Robertson, Charles Kraunthammer, the hateful judeo-cons, neo cons, and the Zionists (and their associates of hateful tragic characters) such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John R. Bolton, Elliott Abrams, James Woolsey, Rupert Murdoch, William Kristol, and so many others. Unfortunately, The list of such hateful, vicious, and tragic characters is long. See: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html

Michael O---Oh, my heart bleeds. Let's see. Israel won't let Palensinians live with their Israeli spouses. Live in fensed in settlements, Jews only, thank you. And refuses right of return by Palestinians to their own property so to make a Jews only nation.(which the Bushies inexplicably condone!) Doesn't mind a little genocide in Jenin. But the rabbis start to scream bloody murder when asked to wear a little yellow thing in Iran. What're they doing in Iran,anyway? Spying?And don't mind if Christians are asked to wear a little blue thing. Etc.

Michael O-
["Iranian expatriates: Iran may make Jews wear yellow badges
By Haaretz Service"].

What's your point?? We have heard enough lies about your friends the expatriates be it Iraqis or (now) Iranians. I am sure that after you get us in another war with Iran, you will start talking with your friends the Syrian expatriates and get us in a war with Syria. Of course, you will then start talking about your friends the Egyptian expatriates and get us in a war with Egypt and so on and so forth until your Zionist dreams are "accomplished" at the expense of our precious American blood, treasure, our security, moral image, and just about everything that that is dear to us as a nation and as a people. We are far too intelligent (as Americans) to fall in these Zionist traps and we know full well that those beloved expatriates of yours are but traitors to their own countries and peoples- precisely why Zionists like you love them so much and use them as "reliable sources" of Doom.
If Jews in Iran are having a problem of some kind, let Israel deal with it. We have shamefully given Israel so much and even made it a nuclear super power so it can handle its own problems (if it has any). Stop crying about your supposed mortal danger that your beloved Israel is facing from a 10 year-old Palestinian child throwing a stone at a tank or some Jew in Iran "being made to wear a yellow badge". How comical! Talk about the real issues- the apartheid, baby killing and land stealing, illegitimate, terrorist, genocidal, and racist little Israel of yours.

["Who would have believed that in Israel of 2006, the killing of an 8-year-old girl at short range, as happened last week in Yamoun, would barely be mentioned; that the ruthless attempt to expel an Ethiopian with AIDS who is married to an Israeli, just because he is not Jewish, would not raise hue and cry; and that the results of a poll showing that a majority of Israelis--68 percent--don't want to live next to an Arab, did not raise a stink. If in 1981, tomatoes were being thrown at Shimon Peres and in 1995, there was incitement against Yitzhak Rabin, now there are no tomatoes, no incitement and not even any election rallies."]- From: "One racist nation" by Gideon Levy- Ha'aretz March 25, 2006.The full article can be found at:

http://www.nimn.org/articles/whats_new/000516.php

The Jews in Iran (and elsewhere) are where they are of their own well. If it really is so bad for them over there as you seem to suggest, I am sure that they can leave whenever they so wish. I am as equally sure that no one is going to wrestle them to the ground to prevent them from leaving.
You and the Zionists of your ilk are becoming aware that you could have our treasonous American government wrapped around your little finger FOR ONLY SO LONG. Just as you and your Zionist friends are becoming aware that the American people are getting very sick and tired of your immoral, deceptive, and treacherous anti-American tactics. It is precisely this that is making you and your Zionist friends short circuit and shake like a leaf. You can try as hard as you like to hide the truth and continue to deceive us- but the truth is shining brighter and brighter and your deception and treachery is being exposed by the minute - and you certainly are not happy about it.

Mark

J- The sweeping assumption that "the inception of EVERY (my personal emphasis added here) nation in the world has been riddled with blood shed, treachery, and mountains of inequity" is a bit too much and is simply inaccurate, as I am sure any sane person like yourself would agree. Yes- there are many nations whose inception was "riddled with blood shed...." but certainly not anything like the inception of Israel. This is, in part, because the very inception of Israel as a state is based on a moral wrong, moral wrongs as a matter of fact.
Israel has always been a security, political, moral, and economic liability of the US- in fact, a liability in every other "sense"- so one is not clear as to how our association with such an apartheid, terrorist, baby killing, genocidal regime can be used as a hedge against the soviets or anyone else for that. You can review the results and findings of an excellent research conducted and published by two of our brightest and patriotic American Scholars:
"THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: By John J. Mearsheimer Department of Political Science- University of Chicago & Stephen M. Walt - John F. Kennedy School of Government - Harvard University
March 2006 RWP06-011" -For those who are not aware, these good Americans could not find a major paper, magazine in this big town of ours that we call Amrica to publish their work. They had to publish it somewhere in Britain. ( !!!!! ). Not only that, but they were immediately labeled as anti-semitic by vicious Zionists- the likes of the very venomous, hateful Alan Dershowitz.

[1Indeed, the mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest group to bring it about. But because Israel is a strategic and moral liability, it takes relentless political pressure to keep U.S. support intact. As Richard Gephardt, the former House Minority Leader, told the American‐Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), "Without [your] constant support . . . and all your fighting on a daily basis to
strengthen that relationship, it would not be." This quote was downloaded from the
AIPAC website [http://www.aipac.org/] on January 12, 2004. Also see Michael Kinsley,
"J'Accuse, Sort Of," Slate, March 12, 2003. ]- From the endnotes of the source above.

As to whether or not George W. and other American presidents are puppets of Israeli governments, we will just let the facts (and history) speak for that because it's so clear. Politician? I don't even see him being as such because to many people he is just a weak, unintelligent, inexperienced political child at best- a failed businessman, a wannabe crusader, an individual with a deep-seated inferiority about his faith (sees everything through the spectacles of his masters the Judeo-Cons and the Zionists, had to convert and be born again, and what have you..), a miserable fool at worst.
[.....The neocons took advantage of Bush's ignorance and inexperience. Unlike his father, a Second World War veteran who had been ambassador to China, director of the CIA, and vice president, George W was a thinly educated playboy who had failed repeatedly in business before becoming the governor of Texas, a largely ceremonial position (the state's lieutenant governor has more power). His father is essentially a northeastern moderate Republican; George W, raised in west Texas, absorbed the Texan cultural combination of machismo, anti-intellectualism and overt religiosity. The son of upper-class Episcopalian parents, he converted to Southern fundamentalism in a midlife crisis. Fervent Christian Zionism, along with an admiration for macho Israeli soldiers that sometimes coexists with hostility to liberal Jewish-American intellectuals, is a feature of the Southern culture......]. The full article (How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington - and Launched a War - by Michael Lind- can be viewed at- http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html -

Mark

Well, Angus, if you think the only problem with a bi-national state is that it's a little kumbaya, I would welcome your response to this: Do you think such a bi-national state would be more like Canada or more like Rwanda?

"My point from the start was to illustrate the duplicity of refusing to talk to "Hamas" and subsequently punishing the Palestinian people because they are terrorists, ideological enemies etc. etc."

That was a smooth attempt to equate Hamas with the Palestinian people, but not smooth enough to slip by me. No one says the Palestinian people are terrorists and no one is punishing them. No one is even punishing Hamas. The approach towards Hamas is dictated by its own policies and actions, and that approach is the official line of the quartet overseeing the peace process - the U.N., the U.S., the EU and Russia (although, not surprisingly, some of its members are wavering already).

"Michael had tried to make the point that the Israeli's - or at least Shamir - were "FORMER" terrorists so once Hamas changed its verbiage that negotiations could begin. The fact is that the many Israeli' leaders, "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" depending which side you were on, did not put down the gun and pick up the olive branch because of a change of heart - it was because they had achieved their goals of a Jewish State and were then absorbed into the IDF."

Yes, but before they became a state, and for many years after, they did not see any support from U.S., or hardly from anyone. Aren't we going around in circles? You're so in love with your arguments you keep coming back to them even after having recognized that they are bogus.

"So for me I think Israel, Palestinian the US and all the other involved parties have so much to gain and so little to lose by entering into negotiations. If you must - make the first negotiation about the terms of their "charter" anything really just start talking!"

All those parties have been talking for years with each other, in case you haven't noticed. The only ones not talking have been the Hamas. They are the ones you should be addressing.

As to your favorite website: I do believe it's the first time I see a website without a single name, or address, or any sort of reference in the "about us" section, and no name on any of the "articles" if that's what you want to call them. Hush-hush. That's hardly surprising either. If I had managed to cram so much bunk into every sentence, I'd be embarrassed to sign my name too. So why are you wasting people's time on a source that does not have an ounce of credibility?

All you need to know:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=717574&contrassID=2

/Continued
As to the claim that Gaza has been "abandoned" (abandoned- as if it was theirs in the first place!!), one finds it hard to believe, unless, of course, one is of the view that the Palestinians should be happy at whatever the Hebrew State throws at them. At best, this claim is factually wrong, at worst, it is intellectually dishonest. The provided rationale behind this "abandonment"- that 9/11, etc. etc. had anything to do with it, is no less perplexing. The fact of the matter is that Israel withdrew it military and removed its illegal settlements from there as a direct result of the brave resistance of the oppressed locals- just as was the case in southern Lebanon after nearly three decades of criminal occupation and oppression- to say little of the massacres committed by Israel and its henchmen under the direct control and orders of the terrorist, bloodthirsty baby killer Ariel Sharon. This killer (BTW George W calls him a "man of peace", and his "good friend" !!) is now in a deep coma- and is only present among his murderous cults of Judeo Cons, Zionists and Neo Cons by his evil spirit . One can't think of a REAL HUMAN (one with HUMAN blood) who wouldn't cringe just at the mentioning of his name. However, he still deserves his dues. As thus, it is a moral responsibility to very sincerely wish this bloodthirsty killer (and the likes of such killer) continuous and prolonged agony.

["What we found inside the Palestinian camp at ten o'clock on the morning of September 1982 did not quite beggar description, although it would have been easier to re-tell in the cold prose of a medical examination. There had been medical examinations before in Lebanon, but rarely on this scale and never overlooked by a regular, supposedly disciplined army. In the panic and hatred of battle, tens of thousands had been killed in this country. But these people, hundreds of them had been shot down unarmed. This was a mass killing, an incident - how easily we used the word "incident" in Lebanon - that was also an atrocity. It went beyond even what the Israelis would have in other circumstances called a terrorist activity. It was a war crime. ............]

[.........Jenkins and Tveit were so overwhelmed by what we found in Shatila that at first we were unable to register our own shock. Bill Foley of AP had come with us. All he could say as he walked round was "Jesus Christ" over and over again. We might have accepted evidence of a few murders; even dozens of bodies, killed in the heat of combat. Bur there were women lying in houses with their skirts torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies - blackened babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24-hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition - tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded US army ration tins, Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey...]
[......But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly Christian militiamen - from which particular unit we were still unsure - but the Israelis were also guilty. If the Israelis had not taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance - the Israeli airforce had dropped all those flares to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila - and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps]- From: SABRA AND SHATILA By Robert Fisk - see: http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-fisk180903.htm

Mark

Mark,

I'm afraid Michael O, Saxyboy and others here are correct. Your a racist. You utterly misapprehend "The Israel Lobby" and you do no one who is genuinely interested in peace or security anywhere in the world any favors. In fact, your hateful views cloud the issues until good points become so polluted with hate that they become useless. Your rhetoric would shock and disgust the authors of the "the Israel Lobby" and any other person with normal sensibilities. Based on your language of hate and total blindness to the human condition, you may as well hold up the Protocols of zion right next to the "Israel lobby and proudly proclaim that david duke loves them both.

J

J- You must certainly be kidding yourself before you are kidding anyone else by your comments. I tried to address you in a civilized manner even though I knew all along that you were nothing more than a soft-spoken Zionist or one of their pathetic slaves. You seem completely lost, and overwhelmed by the facts (evident from your response and name calling). If speaking the truth, and disagreeing with your crooked philosophies is the kind of criteria you rely on to label people as racist- I wonder how many people wouldn't want to proudly be "racist". My "total blindness to the human condition.." What(human) condition are you talking about? I am sure it's not the babies and mothers with their throats slit or the 8 year old babies who are shot repeatedly at close range (execution style) by your masters and with ammunition provided by American taxpayers' dollars (and evidently with your blessings). You got so heart-broken by the condition of a bloodthirsty baby killer- and a true, heart-felt wish for his agony to continue- but the butchering of babies simply didn't captured your conscience. So much for the Zionist blood in your veins- you could have at least paid lip service to the genocide and baby killing that has been going on for over 60 years and tried to fool people just a bit more before you showed the true color of your skin to the world. But I am sure your hateful comments and stupid name-calling will no doubt promote you in the eyes of your Zionist master's (making you an even "bigger" slave). It didn't take too long for you to (publicly) find your den with your Zionist masters. It says so much about you. In fact, more and better than anyone can care to describe you and your Zionist masters.

You have no honor or conscience and the blood in your veins is certainly not that of humans.

You therefore "stand" short, ashamed, and condemned.

You know nothing about me or my family and certainly less than nothing about what my family has given to this country for literally hundreds of years- yet you stupidly jump and call me names without hesitation just because I don't subscribe to your Zionist masters' genocidal philosophy. But being the lost coward and hateful Zionist pawn that you are I am sure that nothing short of complete submission to and acceptance of your Zionist masters' agenda by all Americans, would be acceptable to you. In fact, it would be an extraordinary dishonor if the American blood meant anything for you- although you just might pay lip service if that American blood was shed for the causes of your Judeo Cons' and Zionist masters' causes- like the war in Iraq, etc. But even if it were to mean anything to you (hypothetically speaking) it would truly be such a dishonor. Go dine with Michael O, Saxyboy et al., - but do make sure to read about the Zionist massacres of children and women by the Zionist army of that beloved Hebrew State of yours- that has been committed for over SIXTY Years- and about the young Americans who are being killed everyday in Israel's Zionist wars. Just don't forget to tell American mothers and Mothers the world over about your heartbreak for your beloved bloodthirsty baby killer Ariel Sharons' condition (or as you call it "THE human condition" !!!) and your complete disregard for his slaughter of children and their Moms.

Continue to stand short, ashamed, and condemned. The Zionist blood in your veins is certainly not red.

Mark

** P.S, from your post "........you may as well hold up the Protocols of zion right next to the "Israel lobby and proudly......"
Sounds like a good idea. I actually didn't think about that. But I will Post copies of both " THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION", the " "THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY" and other educational material on My Website. Let people read and decide for themselves. I am sure that's not quite the kind of principle you and your friends the Zionists would like to see people do because your philosophy is based on filtering the press and basically TELLING people what to read, and how much to read, and what source to read it from. Still in doubt? look at this post from your Zionist friend Michael O:
["All you need to know"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=717574&contrassID=2
Posted:May 19, 2006 08:44 PM"]

As with the Zionist tradition and exactly as is stated in the Protocols HE decides for everyone else not only what they "need" to know but Also, and just as critically important, how much. Let me rewrite that line again so that people would compare it with the sections of The Protocols Of the Elders of Zion concerning Control of the Press.

"ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW" !!!

It truly says it all. Wasn't it Henry Ford who siad: "The only statement I care to make about the PROTOCOLS is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. THEY FIT IT NOW." ? - Mr. Henry Ford, in an interview published in the New York WORLD, February 17th, 1921.

Mark

"Still in doubt? look at this post from your Zionist friend Michael O:
["All you need to know"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=717574&contrassID=2
Posted:May 19, 2006 08:44 PM"]"

Not that I have any idea what is that article supposed to prove, but for the record, that "all you need to know" blurb was not posted by me but by a pretender who could not even spell my name correctly, probably Mark himself.

The guy is a moonbat, J, and arguing with him is a waste of time. He strikes me as some sort of a white-supremacy "arian nations" type (the foaming-in-the-mouth writing style is always a dead giveaway). People like that are usually their own worst enemy. In my view they should be allowed to rant on without interruption, because the more they do, the more they expose their ugliness.

Just because the dream of a greater israel is not happening does not mean they didnt try.But to hide the truth,the truth being the dream of a greater Israel,is a crime.Now there are so many people who are claiming the effects on the palestinian people are not true.What do zionists not understand about the effects on the people from an occupation.go look at every civilization after being occupied and see the results.Zionists just feel it is there God given right,and the damage to non Jews is collateral damage.It is not viewed as human on human.It is jew(the chosen)against non jews(goyim,pagans and worst.)there is no justifiable responce to zionism with out it being mentioned as a crime against God.This war has no end because Israel still must keep quotas, jews at a favorable number,so the actions of the next hundred years and more will be the same.As long as the policy is for a jewish majority and jew is defined by his faith then you have a religios state.So how is that a democracy.

Michael O.

Your absolutely right. My mistake for not reading some of his earlier posts. Total nutcase. In comparison, I don't particularly care for saxyboy's style of always attacking the credibility of every poster and every source (and he also occasionaly uses racist slurs), but he's at least a reasonably intelligent and informed person.

But I have to tell you, the sheer amount of racism here is really disgusting. Your right, these guys all end up revealing their own stupidity with every unfolding sentence, but it still makes it hard to carry on a normal discussion with those posts sitting between other more normanl communications.

Given a choice between mental infirmities, I think I would prefer to labor under the delusion that Barney the Purple Dinosaur was sending me secret messages on the television than spend any portion af my life obsessivly looking for hidden zionist masters and their machinations in every event.

Regarding your earlier post, no, the territories are not truely a prison camp.
But having armed guards who have the absolute ablity to stop you from going where you like (a daily occurance), detain you, beat you , take your house for use as cover, bulldoze your house without warning if they deem it necessary, collect your tax money and dispense it when they want,
and protect a group of settlers who are (even still) taking more and more of your land every day, makes it a great deal like a prison camp. This is not 40 years without real rights, statehood, autonomy, and an economy that has been ruined by the occupation. I could not imagine the pain of tryong to raise a family in such a situation, yet it has persisted for 40 years, so generations have been raised in that hopeless atmosphere, while Israeli's
have lived very comfortable lives right next them.

As to the reduction in terror, I am not naive enough to believe that Israel's occupation is the only cause. But it is one
of the main catalysts, and has certainly been the most persistant causes and because of it's persistance, one of the most brutal and unacceptable to arabs and muslims.

In comparison to the war in Iraq, it will cost a great deal less, and will be infinitly more effective in reducing terrorism, in that Iraq seems to inspire it ,rather than quell it.

I don't believe that it will stop all terrorism. Rather, I think it will do just what Bill Clinton said that it would do, which is that it will remove the philosophical underpinnings of terrorist recruitment in the Middle East.

In doing so, it will discourage terrorism in the future, which, given our current situation, is about the best we hope can
hope for, and in any case, it is simply the morally correct thing to do.

Finally, check out the ITER project. It's
a coalition of countries working on a tokamak, or a working fusion reactor. The Chinese are involved in this as well, but also have their own national project. I believe that in 25 (best case) to 50 years, there will be sustainable unlimited energy and by that time the Israeli's had better have made more friends in the region because our interest in protecting them or fighting their neighbors (geopolitics really suck) will be greatly diminished. Allowing a free and Autonomous Palestinian state to thrive is a necessary step in that direction.

J

Michael O How would you feel going through a check point three times a day that is patroled by a settler from Poland or Russia,who ask you questions in a language that is not indigenous to the area.Yet you are considerd the foreigner.Every day they tell you this was the land of there ancestors 2000 years ago.They may have a quarter of Jewish blood they may have none.But as long as they are given land, a free house, and goverment grants they will stand side by side with the religious fanatics. They are given the rights to the land you were born on and the house of your family,which was passed down for generations, and removed for new zion .You are humiliated day in and day out,you are told God will strike you down like so many times before in Jewish scripture.To think that the settler is percieved as a friend in the west bank is merit less.They have so much dislike for the theft of there land that it will take many years after the end of the occupation to heal.It has been the goal of zionists for many years to get back the land mentioned in the bible.It is all by design,this rhetoric about safety is a clever disguise.It is a bad joke already about the fence,clever but a lie.How is it right to demand a fence to protect an illegal settlement.A fence to protect an illegal settlement that must really go over well in the west bank.How is it wrong for a palestinian to fight against the people who are trying to drive them out.Today zionists have achieved there goal of having any palo who objects to the occupation classified as a terrorist.Even today the heading in the post says terrorist killed and three others in gaza,three others were a little girl and a gramma.So are the zionists starving hamas?yes and they have been starving the palos for forty years in the hope they will just go away.They are still there because the land is in there blood,more so than a family from russia.It is going to take alot more then aipac to spin the truth,as long as there is living proof.I do not believe for a minute that Gods judgement rests on greater Israel being a jewish majority.To kill people to fulfill Gods promise is unconscionable.

J said:

"I don't particularly care for saxyboy's style of always attacking the credibility of every poster and every source (and he also occasionaly uses racist slurs), but he's at least a reasonably intelligent and informed person."

Gee, J, thanks.

J:

I was simply taking you to task for rewriting history as you went along, and for citing Pat Buchanan - a defender of Nazi war criminals who has dabbled in Holocaust denial - as a legitimate source for information forming one's opinions about this subject. I also questioned why Cornell West is really someone of importance here, given that he's just a political blowhard about this subject and hasn't done any independent research into the Middle East.

You're jumping on Mark for his use of specious sources and reasoning, and I was doing the same to you. You might not like my "style", but isn't debate about questioning someone's credibility? Academics do it ALL the time.

You also said, "As to the reduction in terror, I am not naive enough to believe that Israel's occupation is the only cause."

Good to know you've learned something, because on one of your other posts, you said the occupation was the root of terrorism, and when I called you on it, you said I was "intellectually challenged" and got on me for something I had said to Karim.

And I'm glad you like self-effacing Jewish comedians. Everyone digs a nebbishy Jew who makes fun of himself and other Jews. And I like it, too. But defending ourselves when murderers blow up our kids on busses is another matter.

Your impassioned attacks on Mark are appreciated, but he's not worth the time. You won't get anywhere with him.

Let me ask you this: If the Protocols of Zion so nauseates you (and I'm convinced it does) and people on this board who share your point of view, then why are you insisting that Israel should play nice with Hamas, a group that cites the Protocols in its charter as proof that Jews run the world and need to be destroyed? And that is in the Hamas charter. I'm not making this up as I go along.

And why is a paper that accuses ANY supporter of Israel as being part of a Lobby working against the interests of our government - so different than the Protocols? One thing Jefferson didn't cite is that the paper explicitely accused the Washington Post, his employer, of being part of this conspiracy. This is despite Jefferson constantly defending his employer's objectivity and reporting on the region. You would think that would undermine the Lobby Paper's credibility in his eyes. But it obviously hasn't, since he said that any accusations of anti-Semitism are "baseless". What a glaring double standard you guys operate under in your support of that paper, and you don't even see it. That's what's so sad.

You also said, "I believe that in 25 (best case) to 50 years, there will be sustainable unlimited energy and by that time the Israeli's had better have made more friends in the region because our interest in protecting them or fighting their neighbors (geopolitics really suck) will be greatly diminished."

Would you take this lecturing tone with a black person - after telling them they're part of a Lobby, and that they need to aid a group of people committed to their destruction,- and then say, "Hey, I love Richard Pryor and Dave Chapelle"?

I doubt it.

And one last bit of information: I do NOT support the settlements, but I've tired of reading the misinformation on this board about the birth of the settlers' movement. The first settlers were secular Zionists, who had just fought a war of survival and were committed to defensible borders. The religionists hijacked the movement AFTERWARDS. I think the movement was basically a mistake, regardless, but again, if we are talking past each other politically, at least we can come to an agreement about basic history.

That's all for me. Have a good weekend and good luck in your life.

Letter to ADL Director Foxman
from Ralph Nader
"The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced." -- Ralph Nader

August 5, 2004
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
823 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Dear Mr. Foxman:
How nice to hear your views. Years ago, fresh out of law school, I was reading your clear writings against bigotry and discrimination. Your charter has always been to advance civil liberties and free speech in our country by and for all ethnic and religious groups. These days all freedom-loving people have much work to do.
As you know there is far more freedom in the media, in town squares and among citizens, soldiers, elected representatives and academicians in Israel to debate and discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than there is in the United States. Israelis of all backgrounds have made this point.
Do you agree and if so, what is your explanation for such a difference?
About half of the Israeli people over the years have disagreed with the present Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinian people. Included in this number is the broad and deep Israeli peace movement which mobilized about 120,000 people in a Tel Aviv square recently.
Do you agree with their policies and strategy for a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians? Or do you agree with the House Resolution 460 in Congress signed by 407 members of the House to support the Prime Minister's proposal? See attachment re the omission of any reference to a viable Palestinian state -- generally considered by both Israelis and Palestinians, including those who have worked out accords together, to be a sine qua non for a settlement of this resolvable conflict -- a point supported by over two-thirds of Americans of the Jewish faith. Would such a reasonable resolution ever pass the Congress? For more information on the growing pro-peace movements among the American Jewish Community see: Ester Kaplan, "The Jewish Divide on Israel," The Nation, June 24, 2004.
Enclosed is the "Courage to Refuse -- Combatant's Letter" signed by hundreds of reserve combat officials and soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces. It is posted on their website at: www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp. One highlight of their statement needs careful consideration: "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people. We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense. The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose -- and we shall take no part in them" (Emphasis in original). Do you agree with these patriotic, front line soldiers' observation that Israel is dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people -- the Palestinian people -- and that in their words "the Territories are not Israel?"
What is your view of Rabbi Lerner's Tikkun's call for peace, along with the proposals of Jewish Voice for Peace, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Americans for Peace Now? As between the present Israeli government's position on this conflict and the position of these groups, which do you favor and why?
Do you share the views in the open letter signed by 400 rabbis, including leaders of some of the largest congregations in our country, sent this March by Rabbis for Human Rights of North America to Ariel Sharon protesting Israel's house-demolition policy?
Have you ever disagreed with the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinian people in any way, shape or manner in the occupied territories? Do you think that these Semitic peoples have ever suffered from bigotry and devastation by their occupiers in the occupied West Bank, Gaza or inside Israel? If you want a reference here, check the website of the great Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
Since you are a man of many opinions, with a specialty focused on the Semitic peoples, explain the United States' support over the decades of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes, in the greater Middle East, over their own people which is fomenting resistance by fundamentalists.
These questions have all occurred to you years ago, no doubt. So it would be helpful to receive your views.
As for the metaphors -- puppeteer and puppets -- the Romans had a phrase for the obvious -- res ipsa loquitur. The Israelis have a joke for the obvious -- that the United States is the second state of Israel.
How often, if ever, has the United States -- either the Congress or the White House-pursued a course of action, since 1956, that contradicted the Israeli government's position? You do read Ha'aretz, don't you? You know of the group Rabbis for Justice.
To end the hostilities which have taken so many precious lives of innocent children, women and men -- with far more such losses on the Palestinian side -- the occupying military power with a massive preponderance of force has a responsibility to take the initiative. In a recent presentation in Chicago, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made the point explicitly -- Israel should take the initiative itself unilaterally and start disengaging from the West Bank and Gaza and not keep looking for the right Palestinian Authority. Amram Mitzna, the Labor Party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2003 election, went ever further in showing how peace can be pursued through unilateral withdrawal. Do you concur with these positions?
Citizen groups are in awe of AIPAC's ditto machine on Capitol Hill as are many members of Congress who, against their private judgment, resign themselves to sign on the dotted line. AIPAC is such an effective demonstration of civic action -- which is their right -- that Muslim Americans are studying it in order to learn how to advance a more balanced Congressional deliberation in the interests of the American people.
Finally, treat yourself to a recent column on February 5, 2004 in The New York Times, by Thomas Friedman, an author on Middle East affairs, who has been critical of both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership. Mr. Friedman writes:
Mr. Sharon has the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under house arrest in his office in Ramallah, and he's had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office. Mr. Sharon has Mr. Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who's ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year -- all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing.
These are the words of a double Pulitzer Prize winner.
Do you agree with Mr. Friedman's characterization? Sounds like a puppeteer-puppet relationship, doesn't it? Others who are close to this phenomenon have made similar judgments in Israel and in the United States.
Keep after bigotry and once in a while help out the Arab Semites when they are struggling against bigotry, discrimination, profiling and race-based hostility in their beloved adopted country -- the U.S.A. This would be in accord with your organization's inclusive title.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

Abe Foxman wouldnt know an American Indian from a hindu.His only agenda is to serve zionism and Israel,he does not speak for us never has.HE is all against bigotry as long as zionists are job one.

Nader Lectures the Abe- Devastating!!!

A Letter from Ralph Nader to Abraham Foxman:
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
By : Ralph Nader
Dear Mr. Foxman:

[You started your last letter with the sentence: "We are not engaged in a dialogue about the issues you raised in your letter." That is precisely the point, is it not, Mr. Foxman. For many years you have eschewed engaging in a dialogue with those in Israel and the United States who disagree with your views. Your mode of operation for years has been to make charges of racism or insinuation of racism designed to slander and evade. Because your pattern of making such charges, carefully calibrated for the occasion but of the same stigmatizing intent, has served to deter critical freedom of speech, you have become sloppy with your characterizations when it comes to attempts to hold you accountable. Of course citizen groups make charges all the time but their critics and corporate adversaries do review and rebut which keeps both sides more alert to accuracy especially when they desire press coverage. Few groups get the free ride that has been the case of the ADL when it ventures beyond its historic mission into covering the Israeli militaristic regime and its brutalization and slaughter of far more innocent Palestinians it occupies, than the reverse casualties inflicted on innocent Israelis.

Your insensitivity here is legion. You fail to understand that your studied refusal to reflect the condemnations of Israeli military action and mayhem against civilians, by the great Israeli human rights organization B't selem and the major international human rights organizations, contributes to the stereotypic bigotry against Palestinian Arabs and the violent Gulag that imprisons them in the West Bank and Gaza. Yours is more than the "crime of silence" so deservedly condemned in other periods of modern history when despots reigned. You go out of your way to silence or chill others who are raising the same points that B'T selem and Rabbis for Justice and other U.S. and Israeli peace groups, such as Rabbi Lerner's Tikkun initiative, do.

You are not above twisting words of those you take to task in order to be able to deploy the usual semantic vituperatives. My comments related to the Israeli government with the fifth most powerful and second most modern military machine in the world through its prime minister possessing the role of puppeteer to puppets in the White House and Congress. You distorted the comment into "Jews controlling the U.S. government." Shame on you. You know better. If you do not see the difference between those two designations, you yourself are treading on racist grounds. Indeed, you are too willing to justify any violence against innocent Palestinian children, women and men in the mounting thousands on the grounds of inadvertence and security when such casualties are either direct or foreseeable results of planned military operations. Your refusal to condemn bigoted language, cartoons, articles and statements in Israel up to the highest government levels, can be called serious insensitivity to "the other anti-Semitism." Both Jews and Arabs belong to the ancient Semitic tribes of the Middle East either genealogically or metaphorically. There is, as you know so well, anti-Semitism against Jews in many places in the world. There is, as you always ignore, aggressive anti-Semitism against defenseless Arabs in many places in the world and in Israel whose military might and nuclear weapons could destroy the entire Middle East in a weekend.

Consider for example, one of many, many episodes of similar impact excerpted from an essay in CounterPunch by Jules Rabin, "An Israeli Refusnik Visits Vermont, The Man Who Didn't Walk By", August 3, 2004:

The man who "didn't walk by" is Yonatan Shapira, until recently pilot of a Blackhawk helicopter and captain in the elite Israeli Air Force. I met Yonatan not many days ago when he came to speak in my town, Montpelier, Vermont, about a major turning point in his life.

Yonatan is a lover of his country, a composer, and a handler of extraordinary machines. He was dismissed from Israel's air force in 2003 because he refused to take part in aerial attacks in areas of the Occupied Territories of Palestine where there exist large concentrations of civilians liable to become a "collateral damage." In Yonatan's view, such attacks are both illegal and immoral because of the near-inevitability of their killing innocent civilians. In support of his position, Yonatan cites the authority of the Israeli army's own code of ethical behavior, and the fact that, (by a recent reckoning) of 2,289 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in the current Intifada, less than a quarter (550) were bearing arms or were fighters.

At the same time, Yonatan has declared himself absolutely ready to fight in the defense of Israel proper.

* * * Yonatan was shocked into his refusal to obey orders by two occurrences, among others.

One was the action of a fellow Israeli pilot who fired a 1-ton bomb from his F16 fighter jet, as ordered, at a house in Al-Deredg, where a suspected Palestinian terrorist was staying. Yonatan identifies Al-Deredg as one of the most crowded districts of Gaza, and indeed of the world. Besides the targeted Palestinian, 13 local people were killed in that attack: 2 men, 2 women, and 9 children, one of whom was 2 years old. 160 other people were wounded in the explosion. A 1-ton bomb, Yonatan calculates, has approximately 100 times the explosive power of the type of lethal belts worn by Palestinian suicide bombers. In proportion to the US population and the fatalities of the original 9/11 disaster, now an icon and classic measure of terrorist devastation, the fatalities of that single attack on tiny Gaza (population 1,200,000) were greater by 10% than the fatalities in America's own 9/11.

Nor was the bombing of Al-Deredg unique in the scale of its impact on civilian life. Yonatan has cited the casualties resulting from 7 other targeted assassinations conducted in Palestine by the Israel Defense Forces, where, along with 7 other targeted individuals, 44 bystanders were killed. Taking Palestine's overall population at 3,500,000 and that of the US at 290 million, those 44 bystander deaths would represent, in proportion to the US population, another one and a-third 9/11's.

As a volunteer in Selah, a group that assists victims of Palestinian terror, Yonatan has first-hand knowledge of the appalling effects of the multiple 9/11-scale attacks that Israel has itself experienced, at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. He was nevertheless or consequently appalled by the action in Al-Deredg of his fellow pilot. He considered the means used in the attack, a 1-ton bomb, and its goal, the assassination of one man, to be wildly disproportionate to the attack's predictable collateral effects, and a violation of the rules of engagement concerning which all Israeli soldiers are instructed. Those rules, as Yonatan has understood them, include the obligation to refuse to obey orders that are clearly illegal and immoral.

The other occurrence Yonatan cited, that pushed him to become a refuser, came out of a disturbing exchange he had with the commander of the Israeli Air Force, General Dan Halutz, concerning his refusal to serve on a mission in the Occupied Territories. In Yonatan's words:

In the discussion of my dismissal, I asked General Halutz if he would allow the firing of missiles from an Apache helicopter on a car carrying wanted men, if it were traveling in the streets of Tel Aviv, in the knowledge that that action would hurt innocent civilians who happened to be passing at the time. In answer, the general gave me his list of relative values of people, as he sees it, from the Jewish person who is superior down to the blood of an Arab which is inferior. As simple as that.

As simple as that.

Yonatan is convinced that actions like those of his fellow-pilot and attitudes like those of his commanding general are destroying Israel from within, whatever their effect on Palestine.

* * * Superficially, Yonatan conforms to a stereotype of a career military officer, air force style. He's tall and lithe, dresses trimly and wears his hair closely clipped.

He departs from the military stereotype in other respects. There's nothing of the eagle in his bearing. He's unassuming, and in conversation and argument, he's almost humble in his appeal to his interlocutor's reason and understanding. He listens and speaks with the innate respect and the close attention of a scholar pursuing an investigation, or a navigator studying a chart.

If you do not condemn such behavior as anti-Semitism against Arabs, by your international stature, you are not restraining the present Israeli government's sense that it can conduct such operations with impunity, with a free pass from moral condemnation by a man so accustomed to moral condemnations.

Attached is a copy of my letter to you of August 5, 2004 in which I urged you once again to address. In addition, would you use the same words in your previous letter regarding my characterization of the puppeteer-puppets relationship to the writings of Tom Friedman, Rabbi Michael Lerner and many other Americans and Israelis of the Jewish faith? If not, why not? Is there a thinly veiled bias working here or would you have to use another one of your semantic sallies portraying them as "self-hating Jews?"

In conclusion, Abraham Foxman has a problem. He is in a time warp and cannot adjust to the new age of total Israeli military domination of the Palestinian people. A majority of the Israeli and Palestinian people believe in a two state solution an independent, viable Palestinian state and a secure Israel. This is the way to settle this conflict and live in peace for future generations. The ADL should be working toward this objective and not trying to suppress realistic discourse on the subject with epithets and innuendos. As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak stated in Chicago last June, Israel needs to begin disengaging from the occupied territories and not wait for the right Palestinian Authority. The overwhelming preponderance of military force permits this to happen.

If you have not met frequently with the broad and deep Israeli peace movement, you might wish to change your routine so that you can play a part in the historic effort to establish a broad and deep peace between the two Semitic peoples. The exchanges should be videotaped and widely distributed to further the cause of peace and to witness Abraham Foxman dialoguing without his customary lines that evade the issues.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader]

remaine you must a be a zionist jew bastard so I take nothing you say seriously.

Posted by: Angus | May 19, 2006 10:35 AM

This is NOT my post - Mr Morley or moderator can probably confirm this and remove it - I suspect it was placed by either tremaine or yossi as it enabled them to post their homo erotic fantasies as responses

"Abe Foxman wouldnt know an American Indian from a hindu.His only agenda is to serve zionism and Israel,he does not speak for us never has.HE is all against bigotry as long as zionists are job one."

http://www.civilrights.org/issues/hate/details.cfm?id=42882

ADL Report: Extremists Declare 'Open Season' on Immigrants; Hispanics Target of Incitement and Violence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2006

White supremacists and other far-right extremists are engaging in a growing number of violent assaults against legal and illegal immigrants and those perceived to be immigrants, while singling out all Hispanic Americans as potential targets, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). To counter this emerging new threat, the League has outlined a broad public policy Action Agenda stressing Congressional action and increased vigilance by law enforcement.

Extremists Declare 'Open Season' on Immigrants: Hispanics Target of Incitement and Violence takes a detailed look at how white supremacists, racist skinheads and others identifying with far-right extremist groups are using the national debate over immigration reform as a means to encourage likeminded racists to speak out, or even commit violent acts against immigrants. The full report was issued today at a special session at the ADL Shana Amy Glass National Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.

"It is time to shine the spotlight on those who have seized upon the immigration debate as an opportunity to advance their agenda of hate, bigotry and white supremacy," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "This report reminds us that there is a direct connection between the national policy debate and the atmosphere surrounding the daily lives of immigrants. Extremist groups are seeking to exploit the flow of foreign workers into this country to spread a message of xenophobia, to promote hateful stereotypes and to incite bigotry and violence against Hispanics, regardless of their status as citizens."

The extreme fringe of the anti-immigration movement includes white supremacist groups, anti-Hispanic hate groups masquerading as immigration reform groups, and vigilante border patrol groups who have conducted armed patrols along the borders of the United States.

While most hate crimes targeting Hispanics have not been the work of the extremist groups themselves, the groups' virulent anti-Hispanic rhetoric has contributed to a broader climate of hate. Thus, it comes as no surprise that since 2000, the FBI has reported over 2,500 hate crimes directed at individuals on the basis of their Hispanic ethnicity. The reluctance of many victims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities compounds the safety risk.

The new focus by far-right extremists on Hispanics in particular and the immigration debate more generally has been borne out over the past several years with an increase of violence against Hispanics, according to the ADL report. The report also shows that white supremacist organizations have also amplified their hate-filled rhetoric as the issue of comprehensive immigration reform has moved to the forefront of national policy debates.

J. -

"But I have to tell you, the sheer amount of racism here is really disgusting. Your right, these guys all end up revealing their own stupidity with every unfolding sentence, but it still makes it hard to carry on a normal discussion with those posts sitting between other more normanl communications."

Yes, it is virulent. But it's a function of how much resources can the host newspaper allocate to monitoring the talk. I sometimes visit the Guardian political chat rooms for instance, where you have to register with your email and a fixed screen name before you can post. They seem to have several people monitoring the contents there, and you can get banned for going overboard. It can get pretty bad there too, but I've never seen anyone posting something as openly anti-Semitic as the Protocols, for instance. Here it's a different type of operation, so it requires some "self-monitoring", i.e. ignoring the sophomoric and the hateful posts, and stay focused.

As to the situation in the West Bank: It has not been this way for 40 years. The restrictions on movement and the ensuing economic decline are a direct result of the activities of the terror organizations starting September 2000. The Israelis are bending backwards to find non-lethal means to combat the terror, but given that the terrorists are waging their war from within the civilian population and under its cover, that population inevitably feels the consequences. Of course the checkpoints are a huge burden on the population, but they stop suicide bombers every day. And yes, unemployment is at 60% since Israel has started closing its borders to Palestinian workers, but the fact is, the borders have been re-opened numerous times over these past 5 years, and each time, without fail, the terror organizations would use it to send in their people to massacre Israelis. So it's not true that all those hardships experienced by the Palestinians are the result of some evil whim on the part of Israel, and it's not true the the Israelis "have lived very comfortable lives right next them."

As to the generations that "have been raised in that hopeless atmosphere", the hopelessness is very much of their own leadership's making and that of the surrounding Arab countries, and it need not have been this way.

I have a lot of respect for Clinton's peacemaking efforts, but your quote about removing the philosophical underpinnings of terror does not state when it was made. We know a lot more today about the true causes of fanatic Jihad than we did a few years ago, and about the role of fundamental and xenophobic islam as a driver of global terror, not only as fertile ground for its growth. I invite you to read this article, which has been at the top of the Wash Post's most e-mailed list for two days now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html?nav=most_emailed

And also to read Al-Qaeda's two war declarations against America, from 1996 and 1998, as well as any of their numerous public statements since then. And if, having read that, you still think that what Israel will or will not do in the WB would make any difference to those people, please come back and tell me how.

"Finally, check out the ITER project. It's a coalition of countries working on a tokamak, or a working fusion reactor. The Chinese are involved in this as well, but also have their own national project. I believe that in 25 (best case) to 50 years, there will be sustainable unlimited energy and by that time the Israeli's had better have made more friends in the region because our interest in protecting them or fighting their neighbors (geopolitics really suck) will be greatly diminished. Allowing a free and Autonomous Palestinian state to thrive is a necessary step in that direction."

Never heard of that project, but obviously if it's true, the sooner it happens the better. I don't really see what it has to do with Israel's relationship with America, as Israel is not an oil producer and has never required US military protection. There are some other countries in the region whose relationship with the U.S. would probably be drastically different if not for the oil they produce, and who have required US military intervention for their protection (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia come to mind instantly), so they are the ones who should be worried. Regardless of all that, an independent Palestinian state and a relationship with the U.S. which is free of dependency, would benefit Israel greatly.

"The Israelis are bending backwards to find non-lethal means to combat the terror....."

Heh! you must be some Zionist virus to say something so stupid and misleading like that. Are you some kind of those ring worm Kahanists or just a very sick, worthless, Christian-hating talmudic? I don't hear you saying anything that is remotely American.
But at any rate,

No need for the Israelis to bend backwards or anything. Why not Just get the hell out of a land that is not theirs? May be if they stop stealing peoples' lands and natural resources things would be muh better for everyone, but most importantly for America.
If the Chinese were to come and steal American land and build colonies on it- and tell me that "their bible" say it belongs to them, I would fight them anyway I can without giving a damn what they call my resistance- terrorism or otherwise. You sound like a fake american to me.(one with "dual" loyalties- to say the most).

Well! I didn't know I was so very fond of Ralph Nader. Nader for President!

for JEFFERSON MORLEY. Sir, why don't you suggest to your vaunted newspaper that they public the Nader letters? Such a public service to give the other side for once.

FOR JEFFERSON MORLEY
Sir, why don't you suggest to your vaunted newspaper, the Washington Post, that they publish the Nader letters to Foxman.
Time the truth be told. A little of the other side.

Olmert:

"We cannot wait forever for Hamas" !!!!

Wait a minute I thought they have only been in power for 4 months!!

I guess the land grab begins....what a shocker....

To Michael.

"Well, Angus, if you think the only problem with a bi-national state is that it's a little kumbaya, I would welcome your response to this: Do you think such a bi-national state would be more like Canada or more like Rwanda?"

What on earth are you talking about - who's who in this world of yours? are the Israelis Hutus or Tutsis - Anglais or French Canadien?

"No one says the Palestinian people are terrorists and no one is punishing them. "

So taking away their income, locking the borders, letting their produce rot etc. etc,. is not punishment - Interesting what do you think it is? The Kadima Health Plan?

"Yes, but before they became a state, and for many years after, they did not see any support from U.S., or hardly from anyone. Aren't we going around in circles? You're so in love with your arguments you keep coming back to them even after having recognized that they are bogus."

I am not sure what your argument is but please elaborate what have I recognized as bogus?

"As to your favorite website: I do believe it's the first time I see a website without a single name, or address, or any sort of reference in the "about us" section, and no name on any of the "articles" if that's what you want to call them. Hush-hush. That's hardly surprising either. If I had managed to cram so much bunk into every sentence, I'd be embarrassed to sign my name too. So why are you wasting people's time on a source that does not have an ounce of credibility?"

Here's the website again - the article I refer you to "Fuming for Israel" which is debunk of Dershowitz's book is available as a download and it does contain the authors name and is fully cited.

http://www.obelus.org/index.php?artID=3

This is from The Economist Last month - methinks it contains the real reason for "Starving Hamas".....

The last conquest of Jerusalem
Apr 12th 2006 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition
Israel's plans for Jerusalem will create a large Jewish city but will have harsh consequences for the Palestinians, on both sides of the barrier

Bridgeman
IN THE twilight of a Bethlehem evening, Jerusalem shimmers on a distant hilltop like the Wizard of Oz's Emerald City, its floodlit walls giving it a surrealist glow. Except that these are not the fortifications of ancient Jerusalem as seen above, but the appropriately named Har Homa (Wall Mountain), one of the new Israeli settlements that now ring the city.
After millennia of violent conquest and reconquest, Jerusalem, centre of pilgrimage, crucible of history and the world's oldest international melting-pot, is changing hands once more, but with a slow and quiet finality. Israel redrew the municipal boundary after the 1967 war to enclose some of the West Bank land that it had occupied, a de facto (though not internationally recognised) annexation.
Settlements like Har Homa gradually encroached on the empty spaces. In 2002, as the second intifada raged, and central Jerusalem took the brunt of suicide bombings, Israel started building the West Bank barrier or wall, supposedly to keep out Palestinian bombers. But its route, enclosing Palestinian as well as Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem suggested another purpose too.

Before Israel's election last month, Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister, outlined his plan to do unilaterally what years of peace talks had failed to achieve: separate Israelis from Palestinians. Most of the smaller West Bank settlements would be removed, their residents brought over to the Israeli side of the barrier. A few days later, Otniel Schneller, a settler leader and member of Mr Olmert's Kadima party, publicly listed the Palestinian parts of Jerusalem that might stay on the West Bank side. Right-wingers accused Kadima of dividing the Jewish capital, but in fact all but two of the areas he mentioned--At-Tur and Az-Zaayem--were already on the West Bank side of the planned route of the barrier. The talk among politicians, said an article in Haaretz last month, is of "a strong, large, Jewish Jerusalem".
In Mr Schneller's vision, the bits Israel does not want can serve as the capital of an eventual Palestinian state. But they are just fragments of what was once not only the Palestinians' cultural and religious centre, but also the hub of the West Bank's central economic zone. The concrete-block barrier, when finished, will cut right through Palestinian Jerusalem, severing it from its hinterland in the West Bank.
The Old City and its holy sites, the stumbling-block of countless peace negotiations (see article), will be put finally out of bounds to all but the couple of hundred thousand Palestinians living in Jerusalem, and the lucky few others who can get visiting permits. Moreover, the wall is just one part of a gradual and complex process of Israeli takeover.
East (Arab) and West (Jewish) Jerusalem functioned as two cities between 1948 and 1967, when the east was under Jordanian occupation. After 1967, Palestinians living within the expanded Jerusalem got blue Israeli identity cards. These give them the right to move freely within Israel, collect social benefits and vote in municipal elections. They do not bestow citizenship.
Box them in
Yet Jerusalem is still essentially two cities--not just in population and economic ties, but also in municipal policy. In a recent book ("Discrimination in the Heart of the Holy City", International Peace and Co-operation Centre, Jerusalem, 2006), Meir Margalit, an Israeli peace activist and former city councillor, has detailed the differences. Arab Jerusalemites, now about 33% of the city's residents, get just 12% of its welfare budget, even though their poverty rate is more than double that of Jewish residents. They get 15% of the education budget, 8% of engineering services, just 1.2% of the culture and art, and so on. Overall, their share of the services' budget is under 12%, meaning a four-to-one difference in spending per person between Jews and Palestinians. In countless other things, from the number of garbage containers on the streets to the employment rates at city hall, there is a massive disparity in favour of the city's Jews.
Arab Jerusalemites share some blame for their disenfranchisement. They tend to boycott local elections in protest at the occupation, so that the city council is now dominated by ultra-Orthodox Jews. But the bias in policies is too blatant and too long-standing to be down to that alone.
There is a similar bias in the property market. Getting building permits, always hard and expensive for Arab Jerusalemites, has got still tougher. This is partly because a lot of East Jerusalem has been zoned as non-construction land, while other chunks have been allocated for settlements; partly because the Palestinians' land records are not always clear; and partly because the requirements for permits have got even more stringent than they were already.

Some people therefore build illegally to accommodate growing families. But even then, there is discrimination in enforcement. Inspectors recorded three to four times as many infractions of building regulations in West as in East Jerusalem in 2004 and 2005, but in the west charges are much less likely to be brought, and in the east far more houses are demolished.
The same tough enforcement is rarely meted out in settlements like Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev, both built after the start of the Oslo peace process in 1993, which have filled in the gaps between Palestinian districts, constricting their growth. The final boxing-in will be done by building thousands of houses in the currently empty zone known as E-1, east of the city, to form a Jewish swathe joining Jerusalem to the settlement of Maale Adumim.
Other settlements stake out absurd claims for Jerusalem's new boundaries. Tel Zion, an ultra-Orthodox settlement on an isolated hilltop near Ramallah, describes itself as "part of North Jerusalem". Travellers heading eastwards from Pisgat Zeev see a billboard advertising Anatot, still just a small gaggle of buildings lost in the desert a few kilometres farther on, as the "best deal in Jerusalem". Both Tel Zion and Anatot will be outside the barrier. Yet in both, building continues apace.
Squeeze them out
Because of the expense and difficulty, some Arab Jerusalemites have left for villages on the outskirts, or for Ramallah or Bethlehem. That makes their homes targets for a form of settlement more subtle than Har Homa. Religious Zionist organisations, such as the El Ad City of David Foundation and Ateret Cohanim, want to recreate the Jewish communities that used to exist in and near the Old City. In a place with so long and multi-layered a past, making a historical claim to land is merely a matter of going back the right distance in time. Such bodies specialise in buying properties from Arab Jerusalemites, sometimes through middlemen so the owners do not know who the real customers are, and selling it on to fervent Zionists. Arab neighbourhoods like Silwan (where the biblical City of David stood) are now dotted with fenced Jewish compounds.
In the late 1990s, when Israel briefly threatened to take away blue ID cards from anyone who could not demonstrate that their "centre of life" was in Jerusalem, many Arab Jerusalemites rushed back. The policy was then revoked, but the fear that it might be renewed as the barrier takes shape has made more people return. That has increased the pressure on space and services in the already run-down eastern city, and pushed up property prices.
There will be other consequences as the barrier is completed, writes Yisrael Kimchi of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) in a recent report (in Hebrew) called "The Security Fence in Jerusalem: Consequences for the City and its Inhabitants". Jerusalem is already one of Israel's poorest cities because both Palestinians and ultra-Orthodox Jews, two groups of which the city has plenty, tend to have large families and be low-paid or unemployed. Overcrowding and rising poverty in East Jerusalem will add strain to the budget. And with them will come higher crime rates and greater friction at the seams between Jewish and Arab areas.
To escape such conditions, better-off East Jerusalemites and those from districts like the Shuafat refugee camp, who hold blue IDs and are going to be left on the Israeli side of the barrier, are already moving to Jewish neighbourhoods--among them, ironically, settlements like Pisgat Zeev. A paradoxical result of walling off a strong, large, Jewish Jerusalem from the Palestinians is to make it more Palestinian.
Fence them off
In the easternmost parts of the city, where the barrier cuts between the Mount of Olives (inside) and Abu Dis (outside), running right through residential neighbourhoods, a strange sight presents itself. The great concrete wall leaks people. In the morning, they squeeze through gaps between the blocks and existing buildings, helping each other to negotiate piles of rubble and loops of barbed wire. In the evening they are sucked back in. For thousands, this is the daily commute.
Most of them are blue ID holders who prefer some discomfort to a long detour to the nearest official crossing point. One way or the other, some 60,000 people are thought to cross each day in each direction. While the wall is still incomplete, the soldiers often tolerate their infractions.
But according to a survey by the JIIS, a wide swathe of West Bank Palestinians without blue IDs are also in East Jerusalem's catchment area. For it is (or it was until recently) their main place of work or study, of shopping and recreation. An unknown number--some say 40,000--also live there illegally. Cutting them off from Jerusalem not only complicates their lives and splits up families. It takes away business from Jerusalem, impoverishing it further. And it creates joblessness in Ramallah, Bethlehem and the surroundings, adding to the severe depression of the West Bank's economy.
A series of industrial estates that have gone up around the edge of Jerusalem and in the West Bank could help. Ezri Levi, head of the Jerusalem Development Authority, says that places like the Atarot industrial estate, located just by the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, are intended partly to create jobs for those West Bankers who can get permits to work there, which should, he argues, "reduce the tensions between the two populations". But Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a pressure group, points out that the estates also allow Israel to maintain its economic dominion: Israeli firms can compete with West Bank firms for cheap labour, yet the Palestinian firms cannot compete with the Israeli ones for custom.
Before the barrier began to go up, the intifada had done its worst to the tourist industry on which both Jerusalem and Bethlehem thrive. Though more than a year of relative calm (thanks less to the barrier than to a ceasefire by the militants) has brought an upturn, tourists and pilgrims are still reluctant to stay the night in Bethlehem, on the West Bank side of the barrier, so the city's hotel business is collapsing.
The cruelly winding wall
If there has to be a barrier--and Israel is not going to abandon it so long as a hostile Hamas remains in control of the Palestinian Authority--how could it create less damage? There are no easy answers. The JIIS outlines a number of possible routes, each with pros and cons. Following the pre-1967 border would mean leaving settlements with over 200,000 people, which the wall is supposed to protect, outside it. Drawing it along demographic lines--separating Jews from Palestinians--would preserve a sensible economic division, but nobody wants a new Berlin Wall down the middle of the city, and it would mean depriving 230,000 blue ID holders of at least some benefits. Following the municipal boundary exactly would still drive in the economic wedge that the current route does. Enclosing everybody, Arab or Jewish, who lives in Jerusalem's catchment area would take a huge bite out of the West Bank.
What may matter more than the barrier's route, says Maya Khoshen, a researcher at the JIIS, are the arrangements: the economic ties between Israel and the West Bank, Israel's readiness to grant permits to cross the barrier, the number of available crossing-points, and how efficiently and civilly they are run.
If the barrier really is just for security, Israel could take measures to reduce its economic impact. It could improve the conditions for Palestinian Jerusalemites and it could stop the incessant encroachment of Jewish neighbourhoods into Palestinian areas. But so far its main concern seems to be to ensure that this conquest of Jerusalem be the last one.

The statement by the Haaretz editor tells it all. The US president, he said, with his sagging polls", will listen to Ohlmerts needs more carefully. So like the stinking Israelis, (our great friends), they always strike, make their foul moves when America is most vulnerable. Watch, it's always thus. They want the US to ok their land grabbing, protect them from harm.The rest of the world wretched, as usual.

Angus -

"Wait a minute I thought they have only been in power for 4 months!!"

And Olmert has only been in power for one month. So? Neither side has just descended from Mars, they've all been around for years, they know the facts of life, they don't need any more information to make a decision. It's funny to watch those who have been screaming for years for Israel to withdraw, and all of a sudden it's "Hey, what's the hurry?".

"I guess the land grab begins....what a shocker...."

Have you ever seen any of those "Road Runner" cartoons where the coyote is running full speed ahead on some railroad bridge, sees the oncoming train, makes an effort to halt and turn around, but is still being propelled forward by the momentum? It's equally as amusing to watch those who've grown accustomed to spouting the "land grab" refrain continue out of sheer momentum even as Israel is moving in the opposite direction.

"What on earth are you talking about - who's who in this world of yours? are the Israelis Hutus or Tutsis - Anglais or French Canadien?".

Sorry, I thought that was clear enough, but evidently I was mistaken, so let me put it in plain language: The phenomenon of one country shared by two peoples who are hostile to each other is not new, and every so often it leads to massive slaughter. In the last 15 years alone we have seen this happen in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Sri-Lanka, and in several other places. So far, the circumstances leading up to those tragedies have never been created by design. They had grown out of all sorts of historical forces and trends over the course of decades or centuries, until boiling over and erupting in violence, sometimes leading to a genocide. So for any person with a minimum amount of intelligence, let alone someone who calls himself a historian, to propose manufacturing a situation like that out of scratch, by intention, simply defies comprehension. That's why I said he was a certifiable idiot, and I think that's being charitable.

"So taking away their income, locking the borders, letting their produce rot etc. etc,. is not punishment - Interesting what do you think it is? The Kadima Health Plan?"

The Palestinians are in the middle of a war with Israel. Their government is a sworn enemy of Israel and is committed to its destruction.. For as long as the war continues, of course the borders should be closed. What part of that doesn't make sense to you? On your planet, if you declare war on another nation, do you then expect that nation to take care of your people?

"I am not sure what your argument is but please elaborate what have I recognized as bogus?"

The Shamir argument. You can go back and check your posts from a week ago. Personally, I think we've spent way too much time on something which may or may not have happened generations ago, which was of no consequence even if it did happen, and which proves nothing. So I'm not going to rehash all the back and forth. You are welcome to hold on to your weird analogies to your heart's content.

"Here's the website again - the article I refer you to "Fuming for Israel" which is debunk of Dershowitz's book is available as a download and it does contain the authors name and is fully cited."

No It does not. It contains the name of the article and the table of contents. Isn't it a bit unusual that the name of the author does not appear below the title? As I said, someone must be embarrassed. To accommodate you, I even opened a couple of the links in the Table of Contents. Zilch.

Of course the Jew Olmert is in a hurry! He knows that the deranged Bush is not going to be a round for much longer and he also knows that the next american president just might not be as stupid, and as a zionist slave as Bush is. So his best chances is the coward Bush...becasue he would sign on anything Israel dictates whatsoever- with complete disregard for America's interests. So, let Him make peace with Israel as much as he likes because in the end, it only matters what the Palestinians sign on to. Just as clear as this.

Michael O.

"No It does not. It contains the name of the article and the table of contents. Isn't it a bit unusual that the name of the author does not appear below the title? As I said, someone must be embarrassed. To accommodate you, I even opened a couple of the links in the Table of Contents. Zilch."

Please click on "right-click here" and save the document in Microsoft Word.

The author's name is Gary Malone and the name appears right after the title of the article. It is dated August 2005.

"Please click on "right-click here" and save the document in Microsoft Word."

I never download anything from unidentified websites. Internet security 101.

I keep seeing people referening to Dershowitz' NONSENSE "The Case for Israel".... how about some factual stuff like "The Case Against Israel".. by professor Michael Neuman? Now if this is not a devastating rebuttal to Dershowitz' lies I don't know what is.
You can see some of it at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann01262006.html
The actual book is a must read and is highly recomended.

To MichaelO:

Posted by: Michael O. | May 19, 2006 07:20 PM

Partial.....

"That was a smooth attempt to equate Hamas with the Palestinian people, but not smooth enough to slip by me. No one says the Palestinian people are terrorists and no one is punishing them."

Posted by: Michael O. | May 11, 2006 01:11 PM

"At the same time, the wholesale punishment of the Palestinian people for having elected Hamas is unacceptable. Beyond being inhumane, it also follows the Al-Qaeda logic in justifying the massacre of civilians on 9/11: "They voted for their government and they pay taxes to it, hence they are not innocent civilians".

So Michael O. - May I ask which of these contary statements is your TRUE belief?

Michael O.

Angus: "Wait a minute I thought they have only been in power for 4 months!!"

Michael O. And Olmert has only been in power for one month. So? Neither side has just descended from Mars, they've all been around for years, they know the facts of life, they don't need any more information to make a decision. It's funny to watch those who have been screaming for years for Israel to withdraw, and all of a sudden it's "Hey, what's the hurry?".

So are you saying here that NO effort should be made to talk - I am not sure if you saw Frontline episode on Monday where one of the Hamas spokeseman spoke of the Hudna offered to Israel with negotiations starting on the basis of 1967 ....if one were to follow your argument there was no point talking ever - is that what you mean?
And what are these facts of life you speak of?

Angus: "I guess the land grab begins....what a shocker...."

Michael O.

Have you ever seen any of those "Road Runner" cartoons where the coyote is running full speed ahead on some railroad bridge, sees the oncoming train, makes an effort to halt and turn around, but is still being propelled forward by the momentum? It's equally as amusing to watch those who've grown accustomed to spouting the "land grab" refrain continue out of sheer momentum even as Israel is moving in the opposite direction.

Are you really trying to say with both these points that Israel's wall building and removing a few West Bank settlements is an act of benevolence? If i am mistaken please let me know.

Michael O.

"Sorry, I thought that was clear enough, but evidently I was mistaken, so let me put it in plain language: The phenomenon of one country shared by two peoples who are hostile to each other is not new, and every so often it leads to massive slaughter. In the last 15 years alone we have seen this happen in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Sri-Lanka, and in several other places. So far, the circumstances leading up to those tragedies have never been created by design. They had grown out of all sorts of historical forces and trends over the course of decades or centuries, until boiling over and erupting in violence, sometimes leading to a genocide. So for any person with a minimum amount of intelligence, let alone someone who calls himself a historian, to propose manufacturing a situation like that out of scratch, by intention, simply defies comprehension. That's why I said he was a certifiable idiot, and I think that's being charitable. "

So while I am sure he appreciates your charity I am sure he would disagree with your premise that peoples should live in mono ethnic groups.

I actually did think for a brief moment that the argument you were trying to make was something along the lines you detail but I dismissed this as being too specious an argument for you and thought you may have been going for something else.

If your logic is to be believed we sure would have a lot of countries to start carving up - including the U.S. and most of the western world.

But I do not actually believe that most people follow your logic and I think that your response to the article says far more about you than it does it's author.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711997.html

Having said that I do believe that a 2 state solution is the preferred solution but Mr Judt still has some excellent things to say whether or not you agree with his conclusions.

Michael O.

"The Shamir argument. You can go back and check your posts from a week ago. Personally, I think we've spent way too much time on something which may or may not have happened generations ago, which was of no consequence even if it did happen, and which proves nothing. So I'm not going to rehash all the back and forth. You are welcome to hold on to your weird analogies to your heart's content. "

If you like I am more than happy to go back and "rehash" this ...really...there is plenty more information on Mr Shamir - Lehi - Irgun et al?

Michael O.

This is regarding the link to "Fuming for Israel" the rebuttal to dershowitz's book.

"No It does not. It contains the name of the article and the table of contents. Isn't it a bit unusual that the name of the author does not appear below the title? As I said, someone must be embarrassed. To accommodate you, I even opened a couple of the links in the Table of Contents. Zilch."

Here is the link again - as a previous reader noted and as I said before there is a word doc download...and don't worry too much about Security 101 - I downloaded it and my computer is still working per789721e8ydqwdjsqkectly fine.

http://www.obelus.org/category.php?catID=3

Back on Tuesday - Happy Memorial Day if anyone is still on this blog.

Canada's Judeo-cons BUSTED !
National Post apologizes for anti-Iran story
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian newspaper apologized on Wednesday for a story that said Iran planned to force Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from Muslims.
The conservative National Post ran the story on its front page last Friday along with a large photo from 1944 which showed a Hungarian couple wearing the yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to sew to their clothing.

The story, which included tough anti-Iran comments from prominent Jewish groups, was picked up widely by Web sites and by other media.

"Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany? Share your opinion online," the paper asked readers last Friday.

But the National Post, a long-time supporter of Israel and critic of Tehran, admitted on Wednesday it had not checked the piece thoroughly enough before running it.

"It is now clear the story is not true," National Post editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly wrote in a long editorial on page 2. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."

The story was based on a column by Iranian expatriate writer Amir Taheri, who said a law being debated by Iran's parliament would force Jews to sew a yellow strip of cloth to their clothes. Christians would wear a red strip while Zoroastrians would wear a blue one.

Iranian legislators dismissed the story.

The story and the column appeared at a time when the international community is pressuring Tehran over its nuclear program. Iran is also under fire for comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he doubted the scale of the Holocaust.

Asked about the Post story last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Iran "is very capable of this kind of action." He added: "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany."

A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister had started off his comments with the words "If this is true."

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060524/wl_canada_nm/canada_iran_paper_ca_col

Angus:

I was just passing through this board to see what is going on, and lo and behold, you're still here, posting any anti-Zionist claptrap you can find.

You really need to get a life.

Saxyboy
I was just passing through the board, and "low and behold" , there you are, again mouthing off about everything again. One remembers your post, way above, about how you're just too superior and wonderful to post on this board anymore. But here you are, arrogant and snotty as ever. Defending the indefensible, as everyone knows...

It's intriguing,isn't it, (more like sickening) , that Israel is called a "friend" of the United States. Vile, rapicious Israel, whose denizens have been reviled and detested, wherever they roamed, always. The current vicious genocide against Palestinians and the land grabbling and (silly defenses aside). Clearly the US
support of Israel has cost the US it's moral authority and it's standing in the rest of the world. In such a short time! And the rest of the world can't be that wrong, collectively, can they? Europe has had unhappy long experience in that regard.

Henry:

Is that the best you can do?

Noone on this board - J, you, or Agnus - has stepped up to my challenge to provide any evidence that backs J's statements, which are what I tackled in this dispute.

J has actually backpeddled, realizing how ridiculous it was to blame terrorism exclusively on the settlements after I noted his gross distortion of history. And Angus has resorted to posting links to bogus anti-Zionists who truck with Holocaust revisionist and Protocols of Zion supporting Norman Finkelstein.

Tell me what is snooty about asking people to back this nonsense, and then scorning them when they don't.

You and your little jew-hating crew - which thinks that because you like Jerry Seinfeld means you are allowed to say whatever you want about Jews and Israel - attacks anyone on these boards who in any way defends the Jewish state and discredits your sources.

Israel and Jews who support Israel are going to be around a long time. And I know it infuriates you and keeps you up at night. But you gotta learn to deal with it.

"Israel and Jews who support Israel are going to be around a long time. And I know it infuriates you and keeps you up at night. But you gotta learn to deal with it."

I am not sure about that, and I am afraid that you are aware of this and this is the reason why you are furious and unable to sleep at night!

Don't make it about the jewish people because it's not. Its about the hateful zionists (the biggest danger to the jewish people-in the long run and to the world) and a very small number of jews, or what one would call "the organized world jewry" as well as vicious, racist, and terrorist zionist organizations worldwide but primarily in the USA- such as the ADL, JDL, etc.
You keep talking about the 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion'
I suggest that you read them, if you have not. Provided below is a link (one out of many nice links to the protocols)for your convenience.

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm

[Notes II - The Symbolic Snake of Judaism.
Protocol III opens with a reference to the Symbolic Snake of Judaism. In his Epilogue to the 1905 Edition of the Protocols, Nilus gives the following interesting account of this symbol:

"According to the records of secret Jewish Zionism, Solomon and other Jewish learned men already, in 929 B.C., thought out a scheme in theory for a peaceful conquest of the whole universe by Zion. As history developed, this scheme was worked out in detail and completed by men who were subsequently initiated in this question. These learned men decided by peaceful means to conquer the world for Zion with the slyness of the Symbolic Snake, whose head was to represent those who have been initiated into the plans of the Jewish administration, and the body of the Snake to represent the Jewish people - the administration was always kept secret, EVEN FROM THE JEWISH NATION ITSELF. As this Snake penetrated into the hearts of the nations which it encountered it undermined and devoured all the non-Jewish power of these States. It is foretold that the Snake has still to finish its work, strictly adhering to the designed plan, until the course which it has to run is closed by the return of its head to Zion and until, by this means, the Snake has completed its round of Europe and has encircled it - and until, by dint of enchaining Europe, it has encompassed the whole world. This it is to accomplish by using every endeavor to subdue the other countries by an ECONOMICAL CONQUEST. The return of the head of the Snake to Zion can only be accomplished after the power of all the Sovereign of Europe has been laid low, that is to say, when by means of economic crises and wholesale destruction effected everywhere, there shall have been brought about a spiritual demoralization and a moral corruption, chiefly with the assistance of Jewish women masquerading as French, Italians, etc.. These are the surest spreaders of licentiousness into the lives of the leading men at the heads of nations. A map of the course of the Symbolic Snake is shown as follows: - Its first stage in Europe was in 429 B.C. in Greece, where, about the time of Pericles, the Snake first started eating into the power of that country. The second stage was in Rome in the time of Augustus, about 69 B.C.. The third in Madrid in the time of Charles V, in A.D. 1552. The fourth in Paris about 1790, in the time of Louis XVI. The fifth in London from 1814 onwards (after the downfall of Napoleon). The sixth in Berlin in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian war. The seventh in St. Petersburg, over which is drawn the head of the Snake under the date of 1881. [This "Snake" is now being drawn through the Americas and in the United States of America, it has been partially identified as the "Council on Foreign Relations" (C.F.R.) and the "Trilateral Commission"]. All these States which the Snake traversed have had the foundations of their constitutions shaken, Germany, with its apparent power, forming no exception to the rule. In economic conditions, England and Germany are spared, but only till the conquest of Russia is accomplished by the Snake, on which at present [i.e., 1905] all its efforts are concentrated. The further course of the Snake is not shown on this map, but arrows indicate its next movement towards Moscow, Kieft and Odessa. It is now well known to us to what extent the latter cities form the centres of the militant Jewish race. Constantinople is shown as the last stage of the Snake's course before it reaches Jerusalem. (This map was drawn years before the occurrence of the "Young Turk" - i.e., Jewish - Revolution in Turkey)]

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm

There you go, Henry, Angus, and the rest - another sicko for you guys to swim with.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that your salivating over Norman Finkelstein or The Lobby Paper is much different from what your friend above has posted.

I'm outta here, much to your pleasure, and mine.

Angus -

"So are you saying here that NO effort should be made to talk - I am not sure if you saw Frontline episode on Monday where one of the Hamas spokeseman spoke of the Hudna offered to Israel with negotiations starting on the basis of 1967 ....if one were to follow your argument there was no point talking ever - is that what you mean?"

Of course an effort should be made. The first question is: Talk to whom? There are at least a dozen individuals constantly making statements on behalf of Hamas, and as soon as one of them says this is our position, another one pipes up and says no it's not. So the first order of the day is for them to get their act together and decide who speaks for them. For now, it doesn't seem like they can even decide who makes the decisions.

Second, they have to decide what they want to talk about. For a hudna there's no need for negotiations, because it's not peace, only a temporary cease-fire. It can be done unilaterally, and in fact there's one already in effect now. There have been hudnas before and they were broken after a few months.

And third, they should decide who they want to talk to. Their position so far has been that they would talk to anyone except Israel. If that's the case, they can make peace with anyone but Israel. Bottom line, if they are serious about negotiating an agreement they should cut the crap and start negotiating. And if they are not serious, why should anyone else make the effort?

"And what are these facts of life you speak of?"

The facts of life of the Middle East. The reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Are you really trying to say with both these points that Israel's wall building and removing a few West Bank settlements is an act of benevolence? If i am mistaken please let me know."

Yes, you are mistaken. Israel acted on its own interests, and benevolence has nothing to with it. That does not change the fact that it withdrew from the Gaza strip and is shrinking, not expanding, in the West Bank.

"If your logic is to be believed we sure would have a lot of countries to start carving up - including the U.S. and most of the western world."

First, you're talking logic, and I'm talking history. That's two completely different things. If world events followed logic, there should have been no wars at all. Surprisingly, there have been, and continue to be, quite a few of them.

Second, I started out by defining the situation as "one country shared by two peoples who are hostile to each other". How does that model fit the U.S.? Who are those two peoples here?

"Having said that I do believe that a 2 state solution is the preferred solution but Mr Judt still has some excellent things to say whether or not you agree with his conclusions."

For example?

OH? Leaving again, are you Saxyboy? Your protestations of leaving are just as credible as your other protestations. You are a perfect you.

Saxyboy-

"Angus:

I was just passing through this board to see what is going on, and lo and behold, you're still here, posting any anti-Zionist claptrap you can find.

You really need to get a life."

Posted by: saxyboy | May 26, 2006 10:12 AM

What a lame "drive by" comment.

You guys really don't like any one else's version of the truth do you!!

Michael O.

You seem to have forgotten to respond to this !

"To MichaelO:

Posted by: Michael O. | May 19, 2006 07:20 PM

Partial.....

"That was a smooth attempt to equate Hamas with the Palestinian people, but not smooth enough to slip by me. No one says the Palestinian people are terrorists and no one is punishing them."

Posted by: Michael O. | May 11, 2006 01:11 PM

"At the same time, the wholesale punishment of the Palestinian people for having elected Hamas is unacceptable. Beyond being inhumane, it also follows the Al-Qaeda logic in justifying the massacre of civilians on 9/11: "They voted for their government and they pay taxes to it, hence they are not innocent civilians".

So Michael O. - May I ask which of these contary statements is your TRUE belief?

Posted by: Angus | May 25, 2006 09:02 PM "

It's important for me to understand if your hand wringing, angst ridden post of May 11th or your May 19th - surely it's not THAT difficult to answer!!

Saxyboy -

Trying the old guilt by association tactic huh - your arguments are getting weaker and weaker -

although I guess the zen question is If I post and you are not here to read it does the post still exist....

By Betty McCollum

The letter below was sent by Representative Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, to the executive director of AIPAC. The bill mentioned, H.R. 4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, would place so many restraints on aid to the Palestinian people, and so many restrictions on the administration's ability to deal with the Palestinians, that even the State Department has opposed it. AIPAC has strongly backed it. The Senate version of the bill, S. 2237, would allow the administration far more flexibility. On April 6, the House International Relations Committee passed H.R. 4681 by a vote of 36 to 2; McCollum was one of the two nays. As of May 11, AIPAC has yet to respond to her demand for an apology.

--Michael Massing

April 10, 2006

Mr. Howard Kohr
Executive Director
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
440 First Street, NW; Suite 600
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Kohr:

During my nineteen years serving in elected office, including the past five years as a Member of Congress, never has my name and reputation been maligned or smeared as it was last week by a representative of AIPAC. Last Friday, during a call with my chief of staff, an AIPAC representative from Minnesota who has frequently lobbied me on behalf of your organization stated, "on behalf of herself, the Jewish community, AIPAC, and the voters of the Fourth District, Congresswoman McCollum's support for terrorists will not be tolerated." Ironically, this individual, who does not even live in my congressional district, feels free to speak for my constituents.

This response may have been the result of extreme emotion or irrational passion, but regardless, it is a hateful attack that is vile and offensive to me and the families I represent. I call on AIPAC to immediately condemn this un-American attack and disavow any attempt to use this type of threat and intimidation to stifle legitimate policy differences. I will not stand to be labeled or threatened in a manner that questions my patriotism or my oath of office.

Last week, I did vote against H.R. 4681 during mark-up of the bill in the House International Relations Committee. As a Member of Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution, and ensure the security of the US and represent the values and beliefs of the constituents who I serve, it was my view that H.R. 4681 goes beyond the State Department's current policies toward Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and potentially undermines the US position vis-à-vis the coordinated international pressure on Hamas. The language contained in S. 2237 accurately reflects my position.

Keeping diplomatic pressure on Hamas to renounce terrorism, recognize the State of Israel, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, and honor past agreements and treaty obligations, while preventing a humanitarian crisis among the Palestinian people, are all policy goals already strongly supported by myself, the Bush administration, Congress and the American people. But, if the purpose of H.R. 4681 was to send another strong message to Hamas and the Palestinian people, as Congress already has sent with the passage of S. Con. Res. 79, then I disagree with the vehicle for that message. In my opinion, Congress should be articulating clear support for the Secretary of State's present course of action; not creating a new law which likely diminishes the diplomatic tools needed to advance US policy goals with regard to the Palestinian people, potentially cuts US funding to the United Nations, and largely restates current law while creating on-going and burdensome unfunded reporting requirements.

As you well know, in Congress we do not shy away from condemning the vile words of despots and dictators who use anti-Semitism as a weapon to incite hatred, fear and violence. AIPAC should not have a lower standard for persons affiliated and representing its organization when they label a Member of Congress who thinks for herself and always puts the interest of our nation and people first a supporter of terrorists.

You and your colleagues at AIPAC have the right to disagree with my position on any piece of legislation, but for an AIPAC representative to say that I would ever vote to support Middle East terrorists over the interests of my country will never be tolerated by me or the families I serve. This incident rises to a level in which a formal, written apology is required.

Mr. Kohr, I am a supporter of a strong US-Israeli relationship and my voting record speaks for itself. This will not change. But until I receive a formal, written apology from your organization I must inform you that AIPAC representatives are not welcome in my offices or for meetings with my staff.

Betty McCollum
Member of Congress
4th District, Minnesota
Washington, D.C.

George Washington Had It Right

by Charley Reese

Have you ever thought how peaceful and prosperous we would be if our national leaders had followed the advice of George Washington in his "Farewell Address"?

For starters, we would not be hopelessly in debt, and there would not be so many Americans buried in national cemeteries and in distant lands. Nor would we be as hated as we are today in so many countries, where new polls show people not only dislike American foreign policy and the American government, but are now deciding they don't like the American people.

Washington's recommended policy can be summed up as armed neutrality, the same policy Switzerland practices. While the rest of the world participated in a slaughterhouse during the 20th century, the Swiss remained at peace.

Washington was a very wise man. He said that no country can be trusted beyond its own self-interests. He said that habitual friendship toward a foreign country is as dangerous as habitual enmity. The policy of America should be trade with all but entangling alliances with nobody. The quarrels and vendettas in other parts of the world were none of our business, he said. As far as trade goes, all countries should be treated equal, with no favors granted to any of them.

He warned against foreign influence, calling it a poison to republican government. While he was no doubt thinking of the French, his advice applies to Israel. No foreign country should be allowed to influence American policy because that country will always seek to influence policy to favor its interests, not ours. If we followed Washington's advice, the only thing we would be sending to the Middle East would be oil tankers and tourists.

We could build a military force that could deter attacks on this country for a fraction of the cost we spend on trying to maintain an empire with about 745 military bases in 120 foreign countries. The only people who might attack us are a gang of terrorists, and, of course, our massive military machine is not equipped to deal with them.

As for domestic policy, Washington said the best way to preserve the union was to obey the Constitution and to never tolerate any branch of government usurping the Constitution's power. He said that a republican form of government required a virtuous people, and since religion is the best way to instill virtue in the masses, anybody who was an enemy of religion was an enemy of republican government.

All of that is pointless now, because we no longer have a republic - or a virtuous population, for that matter. We have an empire. We have a federal government that does nothing more than pay lip service to the Constitution, if that. Elections are decided by money, not by the people. Greed, self-indulgence, and commercial entertainment seem to be the main motivations of a goodly number of our people. We will, as all empires have, bleed ourselves in foreign wars and domestic tyranny until we collapse. President Bush is a heck of a lot closer to Nero than he is to George Washington.

Too bad, because we could be such a happy place if we had sense enough to mind our own business and to elect men and women who would obey the Constitution. We have no legal authority, no moral authority, and certainly no divine authority to interfere with the internal affairs of any other nation. It should not matter to us what kind of governments other people have or what their cultures are. There is nothing in the Constitution to authorize the federal government to tax Americans and then write checks to foreign countries. There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the president to take us to war. That is a power reserved exclusively to Congress. The Constitution also requires a warrant based on probable cause before the government can spy on us or search our homes and businesses.

Americans ought to read their Constitution, if for no other reason than to see what kind of government they are missing. It's written in very plain English and is easy to understand.

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It was Germany during World War 2 who committed the terrible holocaust against the Jewish people living in Europe. The Palestinian people had nothing to do with this but yet, instead of creating a Jewish State in an area in Germany to make them pay dearly for those atrocities.....the Palestinian people instead were driven from their land and Israel was created there.......pushing the Palestinian people out of their homeland. The then so called: "Tiny Little State of Israel", as it was constantly referred to, has now become a military giant and in possession of nuclear weapons. We have created a monster in the Middle East and no nation is willing to stop the racist spread of zionism that threatens the peace of the world.