Folk, I just can’t talk to you: You twist everything I say.

All I said was that I PERSONALLY feel no guilt for Corrie’s death.  Why should I? I, like you, am powerless.  All the Jews I know have, at most, a little bit of power (like my boss, with a company of 50 people), but most have none. I don’t know Schumer or Lautenberg, or any senators. I don’t even know any Congressmen or federal judges. I’ve never met any, or any governors, either.  I’ve seen two Presidents, speeding by in their limos (Reagan and Bush 41), but never met or talked to any. I’ve only met one retired General, and he was a Brigadier (lowest level general).  I did get a signed thankyou from Obama, and a couple from Pelosi, but they were machine-generated, not real (the ink didn’t run).

So I’m just a little guy, noisy, but little.

But I’m still trying to figure out what Israel was supposed to do about the rocket attacks from Gaza prior to the border closing.  And I’m still trying to figure out how they are starving if there are major tunnels to Egypt you can drive trucks through.  And I’m still trying to figure out why Egypt’s detestation of Gaza and their threats of military action against it don’t make the radar…

So I’m still trying to figure out why Israel is held to a standard that Egypt is not.  Please explain.

Would I have run her over? No, of course not.  Would a Hamas paramilitary have? You bet your ass!  Do I justify it? No. But you MUST understand that if you put your body in front of a bulldozer you are committing a crime. And you are relying on the driver’s sense of decency not to kill you.  If he doesn’t have one….well, that’s not MY fault.

Damn right, Cyrena.  Neither the US nor Israeli government want peace with justice.  And their populations must be mobilized against them to forcethem to obey the elements of international law, decency, and morality increasingly ermerging from world opinion.

Mendez, I am a Jew and I am trying to talk straight to you.  You have stated yourself that most Jews, like every ethnic grouping, tends to be non-political.  Of course.  Politics throughout history has been conducted by minorities except in times of revolutionary upheaval.  The majority of every grouping are involved with their day to day lives and politics is on the margins of their consciousness, if that.

The American state or power system and the Israel state or power system do not represent their peoples, as is the case with every power system.  But when you talk about Jews you are talking about a population, not the Elite powerful who control the power system.

Do I think Jews have too much power?  The Jews that I know don’t have any power at all, like every other grouping.  The people that do I don’t know or want to know; they are Zionists. 

Do Zionists have too much power?  Certainly; what do you think I have been talking about in these commnents.  But I will agree with you on an importnat point that you raised.

Inherit indirectly justified the murder of Rachal Corrie, and the destruction of Palestinian homes, sometimes with people inside them.  He called the starvation blockade a bad policy.  This displays a gross moral insensitivity that disgusts, and is right to disgust, decent people.

This perverted morality is a function of traditional religion, extending from the bloody massacres and holy atrocities of the Jewish bible in the case of Israel.  So you are right, it is part of the heritage of the Jewish religion. 

But it is part of the heritage of EVERY religion, which has been hijacked by power structures to justify their predation.

A religion is part of a power structure, leading it to legitimate mass slaughters and justify murder.  If I said that the Holocaust was bad policy, whichamong other things I think it was, there would be righteous complaint that it was immoral and calling it bad policy trivialized the horror. And they would be right.

This is what Inherit and the others do, probably without being fully aware of it. 

They also distort and lie about the facts to sanitize Israel.  Rachal Corrie was deliberately murder: it wasn’t an accident.  She was runnover by a two man militry bulldozer with enhanced visibility, which then deliberately backed over her.  The Israeli’s don’t apologize for it because they approve it, as do many Zionists, and defend it. I find this as disgusting as you do.

Cyrena:

Suicide bombers attacking police and military targets is a regrettable but legitimate form of armed resistance and warfare.  I may not like it but I understand it.

Suicide bombers on public buses and in pizza parlors full of kids is not defensible or excusable. There is no “but they did it first!”

I find it interesting that Israel is condemned for destroying the houses of the families of terrorists.

Yet the old Soviet Union responded very quickly and viciously to terrorist attacks from the Middle East: They simply slaughtered every member of the terrorist’s family every time it happened and it soon stopped.

Israel could do that, but it doesn’t.  There are those who advocate that policy, too.

Ordinary Israeli citizens don’t go into enclaves of ordinary Palestinians and start shooting, or setting off bombs.  The number of cases of them doing it are vanishingly small.

Don’t get me wrong: I think the Israeli government has been doing a TERRIBLE job since that little racist bastard murdered Rabin.  He achieved his goal: to prevent a fair and just peace between the two peoples.  He put a string of racists and incompetents in office.

But I truly don’t believe the Israeli government which is terrified of Likud really represents the vast majority of Israelis.  I believe most of them are simply ordinary people, who are frightened, who just want to live in peace with their neighbors.  I believe that most Palestinians feel exactly the same way.

But on both sides an intense, fervent and VICIOUS minority not only thinks they are “right” and doing “God’s Will” but are willing to use any means, legal and non-legal, violent or otherwise to intimidate the rest of their people in into continuing this horrid war that profits nobody, except the vultures.

Allan Garfinkle advises:
By Allan Gurfinkle, December 15 at 5:52 am

“Israel expels UN rights envoy who compared Israelis to Nazis
Yoav Stern, Haaretz, Dec 15 2008

Professor Richard Falk, a United Nations envoy who once sparked controversy by comparing Israelis to Nazis, has been barred entry to Israel and was put on a plane bound out of the country early today (Dec 15).”

~~~~~

THIS makes me very, very sad, if in fact this is true, and I don’t have any reason to doubt what Allan has posted from Haaretz.

It also pisses me off more than I can describe,in part because it reinforces what we’ve ALWAYS KNOWN!! The GOVERNMENT of Israel is NOT interested in living in peace with anybody!!! So, it doesn’t matter that there are dozens of organizations in Israel working toward a Human Rights resolution to this conflict, when the GOVERNMENT of Israel will continue to wield military power to slaughter and starve, and use the same military might to control ALL of the land, ALL of the sea , ALL of the fish in the sea, and every other natural resource they can possibly control.
The UN (and particularly Richard Falk as an envoy) was and is their best shot, and they’ve consistently given the finger to the UN, (I mean come on, they won’t even join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and subject themselves to the same safeguards and laws of that convention.) And now, they’ve thrown him out. The Bastards!!!

I don’t remember the specific comment (from Falk) that allegedly compared Israelis to Nazis, but I do know that he has compared the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians to Hitler’s Holocaust, because they are the same.  Break it down, and the IDF is the same as the Nazi’s and their Brown Shirts.

Inherit,

I suspect most of us would agree that at least many of the Arab Governments are equally corrupt and lack the same compliance in terms of Human Rights Laws. Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia are all places that continue to practice torture, and false imprisonment, along with the rest of it, and they do share SOME of the blame, in their own refusals to create legitimate democracies.

At the same time, Hamas is and was the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED leadership for Gaza, and we have seen that Israel and the US were determined to prevent them from exercising that legitimacy. We can’t really condense this to a problem of ‘suicide bombers’ either, because suicide bombers wouldn’t exist if the IDF didn’t.  Israel has their military and it is probably the most well supplied military in the world. That system is so thoroughly entrenched in the occupied territories, (GAZA INCLUDED) that the occupants are the same as imprisoned, even if the places where the walls are not visible. So, they have HAD their suicide bombers..that being their ONLY weapon of warfare/defense, asymmetrical though it may be as a tool of warfare.

TBC

2 of 2

Many would agree that the right to self-determination is a powerful one, for which some are willing to sacrifice their lives. That’s why this level of political violence is so intractable. It pretty much boils down to this: We’ve got one group, the Israelis/Jews/Zionists, who are claiming a vague “right to self-determination” (or at least that’s what their apologists claim they’re exercising in their Zionist racism). This group obviously believes that in order to exercise their right to self determination, they not only CAN perpetrate genocide and/or ethnic cleansing against their chosen targets, (in this case, the Arab Muslims) but that they SHOULD, and it is somehow blessed by some sky god or burning bush or other. At least that’s the claim. OR they say it’s all ‘just’, because of what Hitler’s Nazis did to the Jews in GERMANY and other parts of Eastern EUROPE back in the early decades of the 20th Century. This is the excuse for the massacres of Arabs and other Muslims in the region that was Palestine until 1947, despite the fact that the Arabs of the region had ZERO to do with Hitler’s Holocaust.

Needless-to-say, those of us who have only secular logic and rationale to rely on, can’t really buy any of these as excuses for not only the DENIAL of that same right to self-determination for another group, (in this case the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims)  but for the perpetration of the most vile crimes of the land against them as well. So we don’t really believe all of the BS religious part of this as anything more than a hypocritical excuse for the exercise of greed in pursuit of land, and all other natural resources required for human existence. THAT’S how I am at least intellectually forced to see it though my lens; my lens being primarily constructed of the tenets of International Law, and specifically Human Rights Law.

So, there we are.  The ‘deportation’ of Prof. Falk says exactly this: Israel has thrown the UN out of the region just as they have spit in the fact of the UN over the decades. So literally, Israel has thrown the UN – the International Community, out of the region, just as sure as Dick Cheney told the UN to get out of Iraq so we could invade and occupy that nation. The pure disdain, contempt and cynicism that Israel AND the US have displayed for universal standards of behavior among states can and should be recognized/ACKNOWLEDGED for exactly what it is, as I’ve just described.

Until then…no resolution.

Mendez wrote

Are you proud of what your people did to Rachel Corrie?

Rachel Corrie chose of her own free will to fight for the Palestinians and she paid for that mistake with her life no more no less.

Israel did what it had to do.

Folktruther, December 15 at 8:06 pm #

I think that your modified idea of a two state common market has possibilities that has not been explored publically.
************************************************

Apology accepted. I am NO fan of AIPAC and I think the “starvation” blockade is a bad policy.  Defending the goal of a safe Israel is not the same as trying to rationalize idiotic and even criminal policies. 

But I can’t figure out why the major tunnels to Egypt, tunnels that even have a natural gas pipeline, have not been able to replace the links to Israel.  What’s up with that?

Actually, my idea is for a THREE state common market to begin: Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, with a real opening for Jordan.

mendez, December 15 at 3:02 pm #

Okay Inherit, lay off the writing punishments or you will be kicked off this board.  Since you are being so amenable to what you do admit to, why haven’t Jews apologized for the cold blooded murder of Rachel Corrie?  Do you not feel responsible?
*****************************************

I’m not Israeli, I’m not a bulldozer driver.  If you put your body in front of a bulldozer you are counting on the guy driving it stopping.  If he doesn’t…

I feel no guilt. Her death is regrettable, but she CHOSE to risk her life.  Can you IMAGINE anyone daring to lie down in front of a bulldozer driven by a Hamas soldier?  You think he wouldn’t step on the gas????

Fadel- I appreciate the thought that went into your four questions abaout Judism, but I’m afraid the only answer I can give you is:  It beats the hell out me.  I’ve never been much interested in Judism as a religion or ethnicity, except in its relation to the truth revolutionaries of the Western tradition.

When I was young I went with a catholic girl from Boston for five years and she was amazed that I had no interest in Israel. “But it’s your country.” she used to say.  But I kept telling here that she had been misinformed, until she shook her head sadly and accepted it.

But I’ve always wondered why there was such a tradition of Germanic-Jewish truth revolutionaries extending freom Spinoza, Marx, Einstein, Kafka, Freud, to van Neuman.  (I happen to be a Germanic-Jew by origin.)  Israel killed this tradition, since nationalism of any kind doestroys original thought.  This is why most American Jews are so mindless and braindead. (I mention no names.)

But, Inherit, I must have been mistaken about your derogratory comments about Muslims and Arabs.  I apologize.  I too am against sucide bombers and corrupt Muslim governments, as you so courageously rail against them.  Now were you to rail at Aipac and the starvation blockade in the same way, conceivable we could go on to more specialized political discourse.

I think that your modified idea of a two state common market has possibilities that has not been explored publically.

Are you proud of what your people did to Rachel Corrie?

To Mendez

I am proud to be Jewish and YES JIMMY CARTER IS A ANTI-SEMITE

I wonder how many of you Jews on this board are willing to admit if you believe if Jimmy Carter is also an anti-semite?

Quite an interesting article:

http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x1009157676/In-My-View-Emanuel-can-get-things-done

Okay Inherit, lay off the writing punishments or you will be kicked off this board.  Since you are being so amenable to what you do admit to, why haven’t Jews apologized for the cold blooded murder of Rachel Corrie?  Do you not feel responsible?

Folktruther, December 15 at 10:05 am #

These spiritual and emotional views are presuppositions and preconceptions inculcated primarily by religious ideology.  Like Zionism.  Mendez thinks Jews are Bad in the same way that Inherit thinks Arabs are Bad.  Religion fosters this kind of racism in its underlying tenets.  It is the basis or the racist War On Terrorism.
***************************************************

What are you, Joseph Goebbels, constantly spewing THE BIG LIE, figuring if you say it enough times it will be seen as the “truth”?

I do not think Arabs are bad. I have never said so, never will. There is much I admire about the Arab culture. I have even repeatedly praised the Lebanese for TRYING to have a Democracy. I even praise the Palestinians for the same reason.  I do not hate Moslems, either.  I have long stated that Islam is the ONLY major religion that explicitly FORBIDS racism (and the Sudanese government is actively violating THAT commandment).  I find the 5 Pillars to be an admirable basis for a faith-based religion.  So these statements that I hate Arabs and/or Moslems are TOTAL LIES AND FABRICATIONS BY VOLKLIAR!

I DO think most of the Arab GOVERNMENTS are bad, being selfish or nutty religious dictatorships. 

I also think Arabs who engage in suicide bombing of civilian targets are bad. It’s not the ARABs that are bad, it is the SUICIDE BOMBER!  Nor do I think Jewish or Christian terrorists are any better.  That guy who shot up the the Tomb of the Patriarchs was, to me, a vile murderer.  Here in the States, Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolf are “Christian” terrorists and are equally evil.

When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?
When are you going to stop lying about me, VolkLiar?

When?

Folkman, I find some of your posts well written and well thought out, however, in your last post addressed to me, you could not have me more wrong.  I am a Darwinist and more of an anti-religionist, than an anti-semite, though I really have no problem with that label. I never had a problem with a Jew in my life until I read about Rachel Corrie and then the stories of how many children they killed in cold blood and then listening to Jews around me justify it.  You are right to say that there is a “fraction” of them who don’t like what’s happening, but I have yet to hear one talk straight about what is empirical, as far as I’m concerned.  The one “killer” for me though that proves there is a conspiracy of Jews against everyone else is the fact that there is a taboo about discussing it.  Now don’t get me wrong, most Jews I know are fine people who are kind and generous and loving people.  But, like many other sects, they have zero to do with politics.  They fall in line or keep their mouths shut just like my Dad did when Mom made everyone go to church.  Yet, at every turn we see guys like Paul Findley’s career ruined for simply questioning our “special relationship” and Finkelstein loses his job for being one of the closest to fact on record.  I’ve read Chomsky, I understand what Edward Said had to say.  But don’t peddle your fluff about understanding my motivations until you’ve walked in my shoes.  I dare you to say you don’t think that Jews have too much power in our government and they are not afraid to use it?

By Folktruther, December 14 at 9:45 pm #

“Mendez, there are Jewish anti-zionists like myself, and like Falk, for example, and, on the other hand, Christian Zionists who support the oppression of the Palestinians.  There are Jewish Zionistfascists like Howard and Sepharad, and Jewish liberal Zionists like Maani and Inherit.”

“Support for the Israeli power system is a political position, not a biological one.  Anti-Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews, oppose Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews.  Lumping Jews all into one political position is classic anti-Semitism.  It’s understandable because it has been part of the West’s religious tradition for many centuries, much more so than the Muslim tradition, but it is counterproductive in opposing Israeli oppression and Zionism.”
==================
Dear Fulktruther:

I am intrigued by your piece above in which you categorize Jews according to a political and ideological criterion. However, you also mention the word “biological” as well as the term “anti-Semitism”. Despite my being a well-educated individual who has been an educator for over 35 years, I have to admit that I lack the knowledge of how a typical enlightened Jew, like yourself, understands certain terms and how he views the relationship of these terms. So I hope that you can address the following points:

1. Does the word “Jew” implies an ethnicity, a religion or both?
2. What is the etymological basis of the word “Jew”? Does it come from the ancient tribe of “Judah”, the geographical location of “Judah” in Palestine or from the term of “Jehovah” as one of the proper names of the God of ancient Israel?
3. When and how the term “anti-Semitic” was coined and introduced in the jargon related to Jews and Judaism? And is it common for a typical Jew to appropriate the word “Semitic” as a race connotation that applies to Jews only?
4. How do you classify a person like Maani who introduced himself as a Christian minister? Or a person like Inherit The Wind, who, if I am not mistaken, has once said that he does not believe in the Torah or the religious basis for Israel (I am not sure about his exact words)?

I highly appreciate your input on these questions for it will help me better understand and better compare my information about those who in the common Arab parlance are referred to as “cousins” who following the Balfour Declaration turned into sworn enemies!

Mendez, I didn’t think I would change your anti-Semitism, I just wanted to see how you would react to reason and evidence.  That an active fraction of Jews oppose Israeli policy, including true Israeli peace groups, like the one led by Uri Averny, obvioously has no effect on your views. In your heart you know you are right.

These spiritual and emotional views are presuppositions and preconceptions inculcated primarily by religious ideology.  Like Zionism.  Mendez thinks Jews are Bad in the same way that Inherit thinks Arabs are Bad.  Religion fosters this kind of racism in its underlying tenets.  It is the basis or the racist War On Terrorism.

Averny stated that the American people identified with Israeli racism because it was the same form of religious racism that marred US history.  The underlying princple of the US is that all White people are created equal, the Constituion not applying to the massacred Indians of the time, nor the enslaved African-Americans. 

American racism continued historically with the stealing of half of Mexico from the Latinos, and the immprisoning in concentration camps of Japanese citizens. Non-White citizens are imprisoned in American prisons far out of their proportion in the population.

The US has massacred milliions non-White peoples in the world in imperialist wars, especially since it developed terror bombing in WW2.  About 4 million in the Korean war and 3 million in the Vietnam war.  The current War on Terrorism continues this racist war against dark-skinned Muslems.

But oprression oppresses, and oppressed groupings are also racist.  American minorities are often racist against other minorities and anti-Semitism is also foond there.  It has been inherited in the Christianity of the Western tradition.

Of course there is Jewish racism as well inherited in the Jewish religion.  Miamanides, for example, in the GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED states it is not a moral law that a Jew should rescue a non-Jew that is drowning in a river.  And Inherit parrots the Aipac line that people like me hate all Jews because I oppose the brutal Jewish power of Israel. 

This kind of religous bigotry is very difficult to eradicate by reason and evidence, and probably requires the emergence of power that embodies an anti-bigot ideology.  Since people like Mendez and Inherit are more influenced by power than by truth and justice.

By Folktruther, December 14 at 9:45 pm #

“Mendez, there are Jewish anti-zionists like myself, and like Falk, for example, and, on the other hand, Christian Zionists who support the oppression of the Palestinians.  There are Jewish Zionistfascists like Howard and Sepharad, and Jewish liberal Zionists like Maani and Inherit.

Support for the Israeli power system is a political position, not a biological one.  Anti-Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews, oppose Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews.  Lumping Jews all into one political position is classic anti-Semitism.  It’s understandable because it has been part of the West’s religious tradition for many centuries, much more so than the Muslim tradition, but it is counterproductive in opposing Israeli oppression and Zionism.”

I suppose you may think I needed your lesson above, but no thank you.  I believe that Jews are responsible for what is happening and that unless they turn things around, we will soon be lobbing nukes over there little fence.  I really don’t give a crap if you or anyone else doesn’t like my take on things.  They will get what they deserve.

1 of 4

By Folktruther, December 14 at 9:45 pm #

I agree, Cyrena, John Falk seems a gutsy choice for the UN rep.  I also pretty much agree with your assessment of the Israeli settler policy.  there are nearly a half million now.

~~

Well FT, it’s actually RICHARD Falk, but I doubt he’d get too up in arms about an innocent mistake with his name. (actually, I think there are two Richard Falks on the academic rosters.) This is Richard A. He’s retired now; Princeton Emeritus, and has been a visiting professor at my own institution for at least as long as I’ve been back, and I returned 4 years ago. Having taken up a new field of study upon my return, I discovered a blessing in the faculty and staff of my own program, as well as the excellent Global and International Studies Program at my campus. (Had to put in a plug for it, because I really am as proud as I am pleased with the way it’s set up, (highly interdisciplinary) and the kind of academic and practical work that can be accomplished.) Anyway, I’ve been fortunate to work with both Prof Falk and his wife, who teaches there as well. And, the work continues. (hopefully)

The other thing is that he isn’t actually ‘the’ UN rep, as most folks might think of that title in terms of US political admin, so he’s not the John Bolton, (US Ambassador to the UN) since Obama has planned to nominate Susan Rice for that position. (ANYBODY would be an improvement over Bolton and the one before him). I don’t know a whole lot about Susan Rice, though I’ll have time eventually to look her up. I’m sure some of my colleagues (in their scholarly glee of course) have already started a full-scale investigation into her. So Falk was actually selected/elected to a Special Rapporteur to the Isreal-Palestine conflict by the Human Rights Council, which is in effect the UN itself.

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL ELECTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND APPROVES A NUMBER OF SPECIAL PROCEDURES MANDATE HOLDERS
Human Rights Council
AFTERNOON 26 March 2008

The Human Rights Council this afternoon elected 18 experts to make up its new Advisory Committee. The Council also approved candidates for its Special Procedures on the right to adequate housing, the right to food, human rights of indigenous people, sale of children, effects of economic reform policies, human rights in Myanmar, human rights in the Palestinian territories, human rights and extreme poverty, contemporary forms of slavery, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, people of African descent, human rights in Somalia and human rights defenders.

The rest is at the link.

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.nsf/5ba47a5c6cef541b802563e000493b8c/0da4ba56ade85249852574190058d462!OpenDocument

I said that just to repeat what I’d mentioned earlier, to make the point that the current US regime most certainly wouldn’t have appointed or nominated him as a representative from the US, to represent US or Zionist interests. Nope. Not him. (which is of course probably why there’s all this hell raising going on that Pfaff mentions – it’s not coming from the Arabs; Muslim or Christian. I know that much.) So this is all internal UN Human Rights Council, acting on itsr own as the international institution it is, and Falk just happens to be from the US, and Jewish on top of it. And, even on that wide international field or collection there is to choose from, Falk really is the best they could have recruited for the job, if only because there aren’t that many scholars (yet) that are as well versed in Human Rights Law and International Law in general.  That is in part because International Law, (including Human Rights Law) is comparatively new as a legal system/structure.(comparatively being the key word there.)

2 of 4
Ah, but I didn’t mean to launch into a lecture on my favorite topic of International Law.  You asked me what I thought Obama should do, and what I thought he might do. It would take me a long time to answer that even semi-professionally, though I’d be glad to give it a try.

But, you say that in context with what you say are his appointments of Zionists to key positions,  and that makes me think that I could be wasting my time answering the other questions, without reaffirming my own foundational principles regarding the Obama Administration and the politics of Zionism.

In short, (since I know I’ve mentioned this before) I don’t readily assign the Zionist label to people without at least some level of confirmed information about them, if only because I know a lot of Jews, (including in-laws) and most of them are NOT Zionists. In fact, this whole Zionist influence on US politics is relatively new; relatively being the past 40 or so years. (please note the US politcs part).

Still, my point is that somewhere along the way, this Zionism thing turned into a politcal party in addition to being a religious ideology and ethnic identity…IN THE US!!! That of course has been a disaster for us as well as for the Indigenous Peoples of the Middle East, (and specifically Palestine). However, despite that ever increasing influence of Zionism in US politics, I still don’t automatically associate an American Jewish political actor in terms of being a Zionist who will ONLY act as a representative for Israel in US politics. Yes, I know there are many, but I’m inclined to withhold judgement, (especially since I certainly wouldn’t judge any other politician or public servant based on his or her race/creed/blah, blah, blah.) in assigning such a mindset to someone without hearing what they have to say under various circumstances, and in their own words.

So, you say that Obama has appointed Zionists to key positions, and you provide that as the contextual part of your reference to any resolution of this conflict that I’ve long ago determined to be the root cause of what we are now calling “The Rise of Global Terrorism”. (Rise should be the key word here, since we’ve had terrorism since the beginning of time).  So in other words, you’re implying that the assignment of “Zionists” to key positions in in the Obama Administration will absolutely have an effect on any policy that Obama takes in respect to the Isreal-Palestine conflict.

I (personally) disagree with that as a basic assumption. IOW’s, I don’t accept that the so-called Zionist ideology of X, Y, or Z politician will nec essarily have anything to do with Obama’s policy in that specific venue. Then too, you don’t mention who these Zionists are, so that doesn’t tell us what positions they hold. Who are the Zionists that you’re concerned about?

The only person who comes to my mind as a potential Zionist is Rahm Emmauel, and I don’t have a particular problem with Emmauel, or his Zionism. (maybe he goes in your moderate group with ITW). More importantly though, I don’t expect Rahm, (as chief-of-staff) to be advising him on that issue.

So now I can better answer what I think Obama should do, which is not ENTIRELY the same as what I think he WILL do, because I honestly don’t know. So maybe this is a combo of what I would ADVISE him, if in fact I were. (that happens to be a popular academic exercise these days – at least for students of Prof. Falk and a few others of his school of thought), and what I think he might already have in mind, based on comments and positions for which he is already on record. (and apart from the pandering to AIPAC speech.)

3 of 4

A minor background item or two should be considered in terms of Obama’s potential action on Isreal-Palestine. While it wasn’t much noted during the campaign, Obama has had an on-going relationship with the Palestinian Community in Chicago, including a professional and social relationship with the late Edward Said. In short, Obama is keenly aware of the plight of the Palestinians, and has made this known. There’s not much doubt that this was downplayed during the campaign, and there have been many accusations that Obama somehow let them down, but I’m not buying that…at least not yet, because he hasn’t even taken the office yet.

Anyway, that’s just something to be aware of, as well as the long ago statement by him that “The Palestinians have suffered more than anyone” or something close enough. It was later twisted or turned around, but my point is that Obama is acutely aware of the dire situation that it is.

That said, my own (uncertified) advice or suggestions have pretty much remained the same in terms of that conflict and others. I firmly believe that while the US should have a part in the resolution of that conflict, I’m less than happy about it being the SOLE responsibility of the US to broker an agreement between these parties. Now of course that is a position and topic of expansive debate, because at the foundational level, I’m aware that the US has to have a leading influence here – realistically speaking. HOWEVER, I personally would like to see us have a far more ‘equal’ voice (and responsibility) in these Universal/International Institutions, rather than the take over by the US (frequently in collaboration with Britain and other Western nations) that ultimately undermines the entire system.  Such as it has been with this current regime, who has blatantly supported Israel’s illegal actions in the Middle East, not to mention the plethora of other illegalities of the most heinous nature that they’ve indulged in themselves all over the flippin’ world.

So, if I were advising Obama, I would first advise him to utilize his resources IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY to their fullest degree, and that would mean supporting Falk in his efforts, and keeping his own UN Ambassador and State Department in the loop. Now that could be tricky, because I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in Hillary’s knowledge on, or interpretation of,  International Law. But that’s for another conversation.

My larger point here, is that the US has to stop behaving unilaterally, (or with only Britain and a few others there under coercion) and needs to resolves these conflicts in conjunction with the rest of the International Community, using the International Legal system as it’s foundational guide for how to resolve this, because it IS resolvable in my own opinion, as soon as the US stops protecting Israel and providing the cover that allows for Israel to continue their crimes with impunity.

We should be very clear here, that Israel has already engaged in ethnic cleansing, at least in terms of the legal definition. They’re equally of genocide, and of perpetrating a Holocaust against the Arab Muslim population. These are crimes. That damn wall is a crime, having already been determined as such by an International juris opinion, (that should be italicized, but I don’t know how). So there is a mile long list of international crimes of which Israel is guilty, and Israel has NEVER, (to my knowledge at least) been forced to account for any of it.

So the international community, (The UN Security Council) is gonna have to start slapping sanctions on Israel the same way they love to do with every other state in the region. (or so it seems). They are in gross violation of Human Rights laws, so they need to be sanctioned, and I would say the best sanctions would be trade and other economic sanctions.  But again, I believe that this has to be an international effort.

4 of 4

That could involve (from a legal standpoint) a pressure on Israel to legitimize itself on the world stage, because all the Zionists can do is holler about being ‘recognized’ despite the fact that they refuse to provide the required documents for such recognition. They don’t have a Constitution, because they won’t commit to the physical borders of their state. Now of course that’s because the objective for the past 60 years has been land grab, land grab, land grab, so of course they wouldn’t dare commit themselves (on paper) to anything less than the whole region. But why should the rest of the international community recognize ANY state that won’t determine it’s boarders? In other words, WHAT do they want us to to fuckin’ RECOGNIZE????  I mean come on, it’s one thing to say that Israel has ‘the right to exist’ seeing as how that was already decided in their favor 60 years ago. But that doesn’t mean they can just ‘exist’ anywhere they flippin’ PLEASE, and murder anybody else that happens to already be in the space.

So, there’s that.

As for the two-state and one-state debates, there’s too much to consider here and now, although I’ve certainly participated in many of them. Sandy Tolan, (an author and Professor at USC’s Communications Dept) has done a lot of work himself. If you have time, you might appreciate his book “The Lemon Tree”. In a lecture last Spring, he mentioned the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and I tend to favor that myself, as a starting point, because they’ve been helpful before. But I’m realistic enough to know that certainly isn’t in the line-up on any agenda that I’m aware of, and you’re right about the direction that Israeli politics is taking. It was already difficult enough for me to imagine that it could become any worse. That is clearly a bad judgment on my part, and I should know better. Things can ALWAYS be worse.

Be that as it may, these gross violations of Human Rights must be stopped and punished accordingly. It is my hope that Obama will utilize the assistance of the International Community in making sure that this happens.

If the negotiations ever reach as far as establishment of a Palestinian state it would have to be disarmed because Israel neighbors ( Egypt and Jordan ) would insist on it.

One of the major problems now is that the IDF is the only thing keeping Abbas’ and his Fatah in power.
If the IDF were to pull out of the west bank , the Arab controlled parts would fall to Hamas in less than a month.

Egypt has stated as late as this month that they would not allow a militant Islamic state on their border because they view it as a threat to their national security.

Also a armed Palestinian state on the border of Jordan would be a serious threat to Jordan.
Jordan has a large “palestinian” population and the Jordanians remember that Yasser Arafat tried to overthrow king Hussein of Jordan in the early 1970’s

So to sum up

Abbas and Fatah don’t want Israel to leave the the west bank because their “rice bowl” if not their very necks would be broken.

Egypt and Jordan don’t want Israel to leave the bank

Many in Israel don’t want to leave the west bank.

So the only solution is for Israel to stay in the west bank.

I agree, Cyrena, John Falk seems a gutsy choice for the UN rep.  I also pretty much agree with your assessment of the Israeli settler policy.  there are nearly a half million now.

But what do you think should be done?  Israeli public opinion is going to the right and there is now a real threat of ethnic cleansing. This isn’t just an Israeli problem, it is an American problem.  And Obama has appointed Zionists to key positions.  What should Obama do, and what do you think he will do.?

Mendez, there are Jewish anti-zionists like myself, and like Falk, for example, and, on the other hand, Christian Zionists who support the oppression of the Palestinians.  There are Jewish Zionistfascists like Howard and Sepharad, and Jewish liberal Zionists like Maani and Inherit.

Support for the Israeli power system is a political position, not a biological one.  Anti-Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews, oppose Zionists, both Jews and non-Jews.  Lumping Jews all into one political position is classic anti-Semitism.  It’s understandable because it has been part of the West’s religious tradition for many centuries, much more so than the Muslim tradition, but it is counterproductive in opposing Israeli oppression and Zionism.

Whatever you want to say, it is the truth.  Deny it’s the truth and then I’ll give a damn what you call me.

mendez, December 14 at 2:41 pm #

It is the Jew who wants to take over the Middle East and run the rest of the world out of it.  It is the Jew who demands endogamy, to the point of inbreeding, and who insults the rest of the world with their chosen-ness and bigotry.  It is the Jew who controls Washington, Hollywood and the airwaves.  Lieberman, Emmanuel, Schumer, Frank, Boxer, Feinstein are card carrying members of Netanyahu’s Likkud.  It is the Jew who funded the wars in Iraq and who has blessed terrorism from the day Israel was born.  One day soon, the world will wake up and realize that today’s Jew, is the Nazi extremist of the thirties and forties we still blame ourselves for not eliminating sooner.  Unless peace loving Jews wake up soon and realize they are fighting a war they will swiftly lose, that day will soon be upon us.
*********************************************

Paraphrasing “Mein Kampf” does not make you a humanitarian.  It makes you a nazi anti-semite.  Hitler himself could have written the bolded section. In fact, he wrote almost the same thing in “Mein Kampf”.

That’s what it makes you.

Why thank you Howard.  Aren’t you kind.

Is not Mendez a beauty?
  Did not know there were people like that around anymore.  Hard to believe.  .
  Says it all.
        Imagine.

By Folktruther, December 13 at 9:50 pm #

“...Cyrena, if Obiden intended to announce a policy that was acceptable to the Palestinians, the last place he would announce it is from an Arab capital….”

Ok Folktruther, whatever you say. I won’t even ask you how you ‘know’ this.

I can agree with part of this however, that has already revealed itself to be policy of the past 8 years…

“...The notion of a non-militarized Palestinian state while the US arms Israel with huge expendintures, and Israel has nuclear weapons, is a non-starter to begin with…”

However, there is nothing to indicate, (aside from your unsupported predictions)that Obama’s administration will continue to supply Israel with weapons, and it’s the international community that will have to deal with Israel’s nuclear weapons. That doesn’t mean we can’t provide experts who might help, or that the UN can’t provide experts that might help.

I’ve already mentioned the excellent choice of Richard Falk as a special envoy, because he is not connected to the US Government, and knows the conflict and the International Law that prevails over such conflicts.

Having devoted a considerable amount of time and energy (over the years) studying this conflict along with the Laws of Conflict and the methods of negotiation, I DO have hope that a negotiated agreement can be reached.  But even I’m not confident enough to say that it will definitely be a two-state solution, because I’ve seen the reality on the ground in the region. The infrastructure in BOTH Gaza and the West Bank is too thoroughly entrenched now. People like Howard like to claim that Israel has removed themselves from Gaza, and we all know what a cruel lie that is. Israel still presides over the entire legal system/criminal justice system in the occupied territories, (farce that it is) and they still maintain all of the prisons and the torture of Palestinians within those prisons.

A two-state solution would have been possible a decade ago maybe, but it is very difficult, (though not impossible) for me to imagine now, unless Inherit’s suggestion could be accomplished. That certainly isn’t what is happening with the settlers in the West Bank now. They believe themselves to be privileged because that’s what they get away with. That’s how it’s set up. The thought of the IDF running off settlers is unimaginable, even though I agree that protecting the rights of settlers in Palestinian territories is suicidal for Israel.

That’s why the thing with Israel’s nuclear weapons has always been such an irony. How do they use them without killing themselves?

Mendez’s comment of moving all Jews to Israel is anti-Semitic,the usual confusion of anti-Zionism against the Israeli power system and anti-Semitism against the Jewish population.

Inherit’s comment that Arabs in 1948 ELECTED to leave their homes in Israel is the ususal deceit of Aipac Zionists and their supporters.  As the right wing historian Benny Morris ducuments in 1948, the Arabs were driven out by the Israeli military by threats of murder, and their villages destroyed.  It is deceit like this that makes it impossible to take liberal Zionists seriously.

I believe the most—practical way—to bring peace to the Middle east is to create one Jewish state; with possibly a city called Palestine.

Israel is Gods holy land…God created the Jewish religions, the Islamic religions, and the Christian, Hindus, Buddhist, etc.  religions…. but he specifically made the Jews his holy people; so they have a right to their own land called Israel

As a Catholic Jew, I don’t feel like I have some special right of return like the Palestine terrorists do, and we Catholics, and jews were around well before the Palestinians.

Let it go,  get over it; live in a state called israel; with your own city…I’m sure you will be quite happy there.

The reason why the Jews are treating—the Palestinians—like dirt now; is because of the covert wars; once violence stops—the Palestinians—will be treated like human beings.

To Abdallah and others.

My response “the time has come to stop kicking people out of the lands they live in” (which I still subscribe to today)referred, among others, to the forceful eviction of the Polish population from the so-called “Warthegau” (capital Poznan) by the Hitlerites during their occupation of Poland in WW 2, the removal of Dutch Jews to the death chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau (please,do not tell me that this comparison is unfair because I know that now but that was what I thought in 1946), and also to the lifesaving departure of my forbears from Portugal under the threats from the Spanish Inquisition. For hundreds of years they had lived unharmed as Jews in El Andalus (in Cordoba, Toledo, and Sevilla) under Muslim rulers. Guess who in essence forced them to leave their Spanish homes for Portugal in 1492? “El Reyes Catolicos”, the crowned criminals against humanity Ferdinand and Isabella who demanded that my forebears become “Catolicos” or else. My forbears chose “or else” which is probably one of the reasons why I am now a US citizen!
I did not yet tell you what else I said to the soldier from the “Jewish Brigade” namely “my reason is that I fear that a day may come when Arabs will try to kick me or my descendants out of Israel again”. I did not write that yet because I will certainly be compared to Ahmedinejad with whom I have little if anything in common.
Do I have to also repeat my oft stated conclusion that the United Nations committed suicide in 1947/1948 by willfully and illegally dividing the British Mandate entrusted to its care and has since then become a totally dysfunctional organization?

By dihey, December 14 at 8:47 am #

In 1946, when I was a youngster in Amsterdam, a member of the so-called “Jewish Brigade” on leave from occupied Germany in my city proposed to smuggle me armed with a gun into the British Mandate “to kick the Arabs out”. I declined; “the time has come to stop kicking people out of the lands they live in” was my response.
========================
To dihey!

In the scale of TRUTH, your words are the true jewels as opposed to the scum that people like Howard and Inherit keep ranting on the pages of TD.

It is not only the Israeli lawmakers but all Western governments since 1948 which have done a total of zero to stop the illegal theft of land and ethnic cleansing by Israel that can no longer disengage themselves from this larceny. They are prisoners in the chains of their dismal past. Even the well-meaning former President Carter is too late with his crocodile tears.
In 1946, when I was a youngster in Amsterdam, a member of the so-called “Jewish Brigade” on leave from occupied Germany in my city proposed to smuggle me armed with a gun into the British Mandate “to kick the Arabs out”. I declined; “the time has come to stop kicking people out of the lands they live in” was my response.
If I a young and totally unimportant lad knew then about the determination of some Zionists to take all of “Palestine” then the big politicos of the time must have known this too. In fact they should have been warned by the earlier and well-known statement of Herzl, the founder of Zionism, “we will be satisfied with half a leaf now (his reference to the Balfour Declaration); the other half we will take later”.
The complicity of Western politicians in the land-grab is a crime that cannot be washed or wished away any more. History will conclude that this is a permanent and shameful blot on our history equal or worse than slavery because slavery should have taught us to protect and support the Palestinians a very long time ago. Instead our leaders have created a festering sore in the Levantine Near East.
And if you think that I am an “anti-Semite” think twice before you write that because one of two Jews whose lives were saved by hiding in our home in Amsterdam is still alive today and can testify that I am not making this up.

Right on, INHERIT !!

By mendez, December 13 at 3:42 pm #

The suggestion that all Israeli Arabs move to Palestine, when they get their own city, should be followed by moving all Jews to Israeli, then finish that wall around them, then place a tight lid on it.
********************************************

It already happened.  When 800,000 Palestinians elected to leave Israel rather than be part of that new nation in 1948, the Arab states responding by forcibly expelling 900,000 Jews from their nations.

I’d bet dollars to donuts this is another phony “quote” attributed to Livni, like the phony ones attributed to David Ben Gurion.

Mendez you’re a genius! I knew that stupid damn wall would come in handy for something.

Cyrena, if Obiden intended to announce a policy that was acceptable to the Palestinians, the last place he would announce it is from an Arab capital.  This is obviously another public relations ploy to appear to want peace while supporting in practice Zionist oppression.

The notion of a non-militarized Palestinian state while the US arms Israel with huge expendintures, and Israel has nuclear weapons, is a non-starter to begin with.  What Israel wants is what it has always wanted: a puppet like Abbas who can repress the Palestinan population the way that US puppets repress the population of Arab and Muslim states.

However it is conceivable that a two state solution could have a kind of cooperative common market suggested by Inherit, which would not simply be domination, but genuinely allow the Palestinians to develop economically. I;‘ve never seen this suggested anywhere.  This two state common market could be done if the US pushed and subsidized it.

But it obviously will not be done by Obiden or by the regime currently being elected by the Israeli population.

correction it was 42% of palestinians supported it
Also here is a link to a 10 minute speech he made of this topic
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125313

Howard

US senator Sam Brownback has proposed a plan similar to your Idea.

In a Feb 2008 speech Sen. Brownback cited a poll of Palestinians that showed about 45% supported it , and this is with very little discussion of it and no
effort to sell it to them.

Current Illegal Settlements on the Other’s Land

“Israel currently has 223 ‘Jewish-only’ settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land.

Palestinians do not have any settlements on Israeli land. (View Source)”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take a moment to view statistical data / charts & other pertinent information on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

I posted this reality earlier.

Obama: Tough Love for Tel Aviv?
Monday 08 December 2008
by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

“It might have been only a straw in the wind, but The New York Times reported last week that, in his first 100 days, Barack Obama is planning to deliver a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital, most likely Cairo. As a sometime speechwriter, I pity the poor scribbler who will have to put those words together.

  Forget the vitriol from right-wing evangelicals, who can hardly wait to lambaste Barack Hussein Obama for pandering to Islam and turning away from their apocalyptic crusade against a quarter of the world’s people. Forget, as well, the muttering of conspiracy-mongers, left and right, who will read into the speech far more than Obama will intend. Hopefully, he will not wear a necktie with Islamic green, Israeli blue and white, or Hindu red and yellow.

  The real obstacle is more obvious: What will Obama say about bringing peace to the Middle East? If he fails to say something significant on the issue, his silence will overwhelm whatever else he does say. So, it stands to reason that Obama and his advisers would not have suggested the speech if they did not want to say something about how they hope to end the long-standing conflict.

  Nor can Obama simply repackage his last major speech on the issue, the talk he gave in June to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington. He spoke the day after he clinched his primary victory over Hillary Clinton, and watching on CSPAN, I thought he came across very presidential. If he felt at all like Daniel in the lion’s den, given the vicious rumor campaign to Jewish voters that Hillary’s people had directed against him, he never once showed it.

  In its wording and delivery, Obama’s speech was absolutely brilliant. But, for any Israeli or Palestinian who truly wanted peace in the troubled land they share, or any American who wanted a hint of even-handed justice, the speech was a real letdown.”

  “Talk about pandering, Obama told his pro-Israeli audience everything they wanted to hear - and then some. Giving a sweeping view of Iraq, Iran and the Holy Lands, he presented every problem from the point of view of Israel’s security, to which he gave an ironclad guarantee. He barely mentioned the Palestinians at all, and when he did, it was only to lecture them on what they would have to do to achieve any hope of a two-state solution. And he pledged that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.”

  His statement on Jerusalem was, of course, far more extreme than the position taken by either the Bush administration or the Israeli government. So, it came as no surprise when his campaign rushed to retract the pledge, calling it “poor phrasing” and leaving the question of Jerusalem’s final status to the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.”

(continues)

      “So, if he goes ahead with the speech, what will he offer to push ahead the process of peace in the Middle East?”

(continues)

“As the two men argued their case, the new element would be for Obama to announce American backing for four basic elements of peace. The first, and most important, would be “1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications.” The other three elements would be “compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.” Scowcroft and Brzezinski also suggested deploying NATO troops to serve as peacekeepers and to train the “nonmilitarized” Palestinian troops.”

The rest at the link.

http://www.truthout.org/120808R

“Moral substance”???

The suggestion that all Israeli Arabs move to Palestine, when they get their own city, should be followed by moving all Jews to Israeli, then finish that wall around them, then place a tight lid on it.

Robert- you are really a tremendous resource.  Livni is the first major pol that has come out publically for the transfer of the Israeli Arab population.  I have no doubt that it would be supported, and possibly finaced, by Obiden.

While the Palestinians complain that they are being isolated and persecuted and suffering terribly as a result of the “occupation” and the international boycott of Hamas ( I wonder why, eh?); the TRUTH is they have still recieved billions of dollars in assistance. As was the case under Arafat, who stole nearly $1 billion, most of this money is being squandered.  Moreover, the oil-producing states could easily support the Paslestinian economy for a year with a fraction of the profit they earn each month.  Instead, they shout about Palestinian suffering and do little to help out.

See these two articles:

Barack Obama: “America’s First Jewish President”
By James Petras
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21449.htm

The Legacy of Resolution 194
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot
By GHADA KARMI
http://counterpunch.org/karmi12092008.html

Settlement Extremists Threaten Israel’s Moral Substance!
=================
And since when Israel had a moral substance to her?!
This is really news for me!

Livni: Israeli Arabs should move to Palestine once state created

12.11.2008 | Haaretz
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

“Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday that the creation of a Palestinian state would serve as a solution to Israeli Arabs’ national problem.

“When the Palestinian state is created, I will be able to go to Palestinians citizens - who we call Israeli Arabs - and say to them: You are residents with equal rights, but your national solution is in another place,” Livni was quoted by Army Radio as saying to students at a Tel Aviv high school.

“The principle is the creation of two states for two peoples,” she added. “This is my path to a democratic state.”

When asked by a students why Israel continues to endanger itself in the face of Hamas when the Islamist group refuses to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit, Livni said: “If people think I can just go and release Gilad Shalit or that the government can, but just doesn’t want to, it’s not true.”

“The government must be responsible for the soldiers it sends out. We all want to avoid fatalities but part of what it means to fight is that we have no other choice. We can’t also bring everyone home,” she said.

Last month, Livni infuriated Israeli Arab lawmakers when she said: It must be clear to everyone that the State of Israel is a national homeland for the Jewish people.”

At the time, Livni added that the national demands of Israeli Arabs should end the moment a Palestinian state is established.

In response to Livni’s comments, Culture, Sports and Science Minister Ghaleb Majadele said, “The roots of the Israeli Arab citizens of Israel were planted before the state was established. They are residents of this country with rights; their residency and citizenship are not open for negotiation.”

“Anyone who raises the idea of transferring the Arab population in Israel to the territories of the state of Palestine is anti-democractic,” the Israeli Arab minister added.”

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2205

“A few years ago, the soldiers you have encountered at the checkpoints would have been me. Soldiers like myself who served during the second intifada, got our education on the job…

“Hebron is a ghost town, the settlers are unbearable and every soldier who is stationed there understands the 600 settlers there are psychotic; insane.”-Mikhael Manekin, discharged from the IDF in 2002, now the Foreign Relations Manager of Breaking the Silence, to this reporter July 27, 2007.

The Rest:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=595&Itemid=169

FT:
I expect you next to say that the REAL Nelson Mandela is a phony and a dupe as well.

You just don’t get it.  The Israelis cannot “create” a phony Palestinian Mandela, just as the British couldn’t create a phony Gandhi.  If such a man arises, the Israelis will be powerless to stop him, at least for very long, as the British couldn’t stop Gandhi, and the Boers couldn’t stop Mandela.

Plus, your term “liberal Zionists” and the behaviors you attribute to them make no sense.  Tarring every Israeli with the same brush is as stupid as calling every Palestinian and every Arab a suicide bomber and terrorist.  Both concepts are patently absurd.

No, my pipe-dream is of a confederation of a Middle-Eastern Common Market that morphs into a Middle-Eastern Union modeled very closely on the European Union and comprising, initially, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and a democratized Jordan as a Constitutional Monarchy. Then, either a unified Iraq or just the Kurdish region could join this MEU.  Like the EU, it would require each member to be a Democratic state.  Like the EU, the financial success of the MEU would break down the causes of war between members and be a HUGE magnet to the peoples of other nearby states.  This, of course, is why the typical Arab dictators will do ANYTHING to prevent it…..But it’s my dream.

•  “A novel factor in the situation is the appointment of a new United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestine territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, a law professor at Princeton University. He is Jewish, but his arrival has provoked furious criticism from the Israeli (and American Jewish) right.”

I am admittedly biased, since I’ve had the very genuine privilege to know and study under the guidance of Prof. Falk. That said, I cannot think of a better person for this position as Special Rapporteur to the UN on the situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories. He knows international law better than most. Seriously. He’s brilliant. As a Human Rights attorney, this is what he has dedicated his life to in the Academy and in practice.

All of that said, he has been thoroughly critical of Israel, which has landed him, (Jewish or not) on the neo-cons’ infamous list of “The 100 Most ‘Dangerous Professors in the US.” (and no, I don’t know what number he is on the list, but he’s in excellent company.)

That makes it a ‘given’ that the Israelis (at least the government) would be up in arms, as well as the current Zionist Cabal in the US government, not to mention the AIPACers on the right. Yes, they would be pissed, because Falk doesn’t buy the Zionist agenda that has been an ongoing violation of Human Rights for 60 years. Falk understands, and far better than I have so far managed, the reasons WHY Israel has so far gotten away with this, because he has such an incredibly keen sense of geopolitics, and the psychology thereof.  I do know this much though, Israel could never have managed to continue this, without more than just the tacit support of the US. The US has provided active support all over the place, from bullying and undermining the entire UN, to sending Israel weapons and logistic support to use against the people they continue to exterminate in this 60-year-old genocide/ethnic cleansing within the apartheid setup they’ve created.

At some point in time, (at least this is what I’ve been telling myself this past decade or so) the RIGHT people in the US, who have the knowledge as well as the power and the guts, are going to have to insist that Israel either clean up its act, or expect to be treated like the rogue and basically illegitimate state that it is. So far, as Pfaff points out, that hasn’t happened.

And, from the looks of the line-up for Israel’s political leadership, becoming even more theocratic on top of it all, (and they complain about the Iranians????) it’s definitely NOT gonna happen on their end. No survival mentality anywhere in existence there. Nope, Israel just says that they’ll pull out of the UN. They might as well, since they don’t abide by any of the laws of the International Community anyway. And membership is strictly voluntary. (‘Course that’s just my opinion – I’m not speaking for any other person or entity).

How ironic is it that a theocracy can be so morally corrupt? (That’s a rhetorical question of course)

I think besides the settlers having a right to stay there are other practical security reasons. For example, bowing to lousy advice and pressure of public opinion, Israel evacuated Gaza.  Not a single Israeli soldier or civiiian remains.  But instead of peace, violence started almost at once. Israel was and continues to this very day to be subject to almost daily rocket attacks.

Well, as Inherit indicated, I was wrong.  Liberal Zionists DO have a plan.  After the Palestinians have been ‘softened up’ with starvation, torture, continuous harrassment and humiliation, and increasing stealing of their land for settlements, Israel will produce a Palestinian ‘leader’ like Mandela, who will sell the Palestinians out.

He will create a rump state under Isreal’s economic deomination, the way that the Whites still economically dominate South Africa.  Hopefully, the Palestian ‘state’ will be a collection of Bantustans, as the Isreali’s have already offered them, but if necessary a contiguous state with Israeli occupation troops.

This is utter fantasy.  It is religous fantasy allied with the perverted moral values of traditional religion.  The religous identification with Jewish power, rather than the Jewish population, has engender a religious-political megalomania that sustains the liberal Jewish population until the inevitable massacre comes, which they will then piously disovow.

Indeed, such a massacre of the Jewish population is envisioned in the Fundametalist bible, the LSFT BEHIND series, by the anti-Semitic RAPTURE loonies, supported by AIPAC.  the massacre will instead be transferred to the Palestinians in the Jewish religious-political version.

It is difficult to know how to oppose this fantasy,since it is not driven by reason or evidence, but by the wish fulfillment of religious-political power.  In the next few months Likud will probably lead Israel, with strong pressure within it to de-citizenize the Israel Palestinians, and expel them from Israel.  Since Obama is now utterly committed to the Zionists, he will no doubt oppose this measure with lip service while supporting it with money and military.  As the US financed the Israel settlements and Israel Wall.

This would stain the history of the Jewish people like the Holocaust stains the German history, or the US imperialism US history.  Hopefully sufficient opposition can be generated in Europe to prevent it.

By the way, Howard, the PLO recognized Israel years ago, but Israel did not recognize Palestine and continued the land grabs.

Howard, your source?

[November 20, 2008, Hebron] On the afternoon of my first trip to Hebron, on June 21, 2005, I vowed that I would never return, for it was the most painful place I have ever been.

I broke that vow on November 20, 2008…

On November 12, 2008, I arrived in Tel Aviv for 2 weeks in occupied Palestine-my sixth trip since June 2005.

This time, i attended a conference organized by an intentional ecumenical Christian Liberation Theology movement founded in Jerusalem known as
Sabeel/Arabic for THE WAY

7th International Conference:

The Nakba; Memory, Reality and Beyond

.......My guide through Hebron in 2005, was Jerry Levin, who then was a full time volunteer with Christian Peacemaker Teams/CPT.

In the 1980’s Jerry was CNN’s Middle East bureau chief in Lebanon.

He was captured and held hostage by the Hezbollah for nearly a year, and on Christmas Eve, although a secular Jew, Jerry had a mystical experience and shortly thereafter, escaped unharmed, for the door of his holding place had been left unlocked and untended.

He became a true Christian and he and his wife [a life long Christian] have devoted their lives to doing something to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

He also told me he was treated well although captive against his will.

Jerry also said:

“Every time I get ready to return to Palestine, everyone asks me, ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ I reply, of what, the Palestinians? No way! But when it comes to the Israelis soldiers, you bet I am!”

“.......The CPT’s run interference by nonviolent resistance; we get the children and woman to where they need to be going and back again. Sometimes, the settlers curse and stone us all; it keeps it interesting.”

Upon formerly Palestinian homes, the settlers had painted graffiti, such as “GAS THE ARABS” and Stars of David.

the rest:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1108&Itemid=212

Israel has consistently made clear it is prepared to give up as much as 97 percent of the West Bank, in addition to the 100 percent of the Gaza Strip it has aleady evacuated.  But what are the palestinins prepared to concede? Nothing, not even the recognition that Israel is a Jewish state.

Amazing how, yet again, TD removes a POV that doesn’t fit their “acceptable” ones.

FT—the number if inaccuracies in your post is amazing.  All it needs is for the US and the center-to-left in Israel to say “enough! The settlers don’t belong on the other side of the line unless they are willing to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.

The South African model is totally inappropriate—the Blacks LIVED THERE already. They didn’t leave. They weren’t the grandchildren of people who left.  And they outnumbered the Whites by 10:1 or more. Plus there were the large populations of so-called “Coloureds” and Indians. Finally, there were lots of Whites (mainly Anglos) who were sympathetic and had lots of relationships with non-whites. Finally, South Africa had Nelson Mandela, a truly great, special and rare man, like a Gandhi, or a George Washington.  There is no Palestinian Mandela that I’m aware of. The only thing in common (and should be abandoned) is not treating ALL Israeli citizens as equals.

But what the Palestinians can do is find some way to communicate that if Israelis elect moderate non-likud types, that really WANT a fair peace, they will “reward” Israel with a real shot at peace, and will curb their own violent nuts.  Wise use of carrot and stick.  But this has NOT been the paradigm of Palestinian choices since the 70’s other than a few brief interludes.

This means that BOTH sides has to recognize there are moderates and reward the other side for choosing those moderates as leaders.

If there was a Palestinian Mandela, neither side could resist find a truely negotiated peace.

* How is it possible for me not to be outraged when there are many outrageous atrocities?!
* How is it possible not to be always dissatisfied when I see so much imperfections?!
* How is it possible not to be loud when there is much silence despite the obvious wrongs?!
* How is it possible not to be confrontational when there is much evil to be confronted?!
* How is it possible not to be a dissident when there is much cowardly complacency?!
* How is it possible not to a warrior for justice when there is much injustice all around?!
* How is it possible not to be outraged when I see too many outrageous atrocities?!
* How is it possible to be happy when there is much misery befalling humankind?!
* How is it possible to be at peace when there is much evil wars going on?!
* How is it possible not to resist when there is occupation, humiliation, oppression and national rape?!

In solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Palestine!

The problem is Israel does not want to be a puny country, but there happen to be indigenous people on land the Zionists want.

The Zionist squatters will steal as much of the indigenous people’s land and water as they think they can get away with.  They always say they can’t leave, but when they have no real alternative, they leave.  They left Sinai when they came to fear Egypt after the 1973 war.  They left Lebanon when they were thrown out.  They left Gaza when they couldn’t control it any longer.

However, they only leave when they are made an offer they can’t refuse.

Sure, I believe you, Inherit.  You would like Israel to remove the settlers and agree to a two state solution.  So would I.  So would the Palestinians.

But now it is politically impossible. All the major Israeli parties favored the settlements, which were largely funded by the US. There are now nearly a half million Zionist colonists on Palestinian lands.  Obama has surrounded himself with Zioinsts who favor the settlers, no matter what they publicly say.

So as Fadel says, the Palestinians must keep fighting.  They have no choice.  Even so, the US-Israeli attitude continues to become increasingly threatening, and, as Pfaff says, can only end in ethnic cleasing and massacre if it continues.

The other alternative is the destruction of the Zionist power system and a single state.  You equate the destruction of the Israeli state with the destruction of the population, which is ridiculous.  The arpatheid South African state was destroyed and there was no general massacre.  This merely plays on the existential fears of the Jewish population, like the Bushites induce Americans to fear Terrorists.

The key to the equation is a change of American policy.  If the US put real pressure on Israel to
compromise, they would have no real choice.  But this will not happen under Obama.  Therefore what may happen is worse than what has happened so far.  Much worse.  The situation is becoming increasingly unstable.

“Palestinians” cannot govern themselves because they are Syrian, Egyptian or Bedouin Arabs locked -up in refugee camps by all the other Arab countries which will not take them back or resettle them in ay of their 23 arab countries.  The Palestinians are given a pseudo-natioonal identity just to spearhead the destruction of Israel.  Far from a nation, they are in essence an “anti-nation”, and unable to unite behind any other cause.

Jordan, part of the initial Palestine Mandate, was separated by Britian in 1922 to create original Pal-Arab state and is today on of best-run Arab states.

Peace treaty with Egypt provides Israel with a Sinai security buffer.

A lasting setlement can only be based on Gaza placed under Egypt control. Like it was for decades before 1950.  And parts of the West Bank can be linked to Jordan—possibly through a confederation.  This would safeguard security and settlements for Israel, demographics for arabs, and holy sites for both

Egypt and Jordan face no alternative, and will have to step up to the plate because they cannot allow Hamas or Hezballah to grow and then threaten them.

Enough already, stop financing the Zionists, and then they will be forced into coming to the table with negotiations!  Much as the early Americans re-settled the natives in this country to “reservations”, the Zionists won’t be satisfied until they have the Palestinians on a “reservation”!  The only part is that the Palestinians are unwilling to cooperate!  They too were there when the “State of Israel” was decided in 1948 - they were displaced, lost property, and lost lives and continue to loose lives and property, I’d like to know at what point anyone in this world would be willing to continue to live under occupation and not fight?! I wonder at what point will it be that the Israeli’s have enough of the fighting?!  At what point do people outside of Israel not realize even those “Arabs” living in Israel are not “free and equal citizens”?!

Enough, I’m so tired of hearing Ashkashnazi Jews demanding that everyone remember the Holocaust, yet deny the Holocaust that they are perpetrating in their midst!  No, I believe in fair play - this isn’t anti-semitism, this is about what is fair!  European Jews were transported to Palestine, the people that were there were forcibly removed then, and have not been dealt with fairly since!  If it were you, I wonder, how much would you take it, and how long would you take it!  Israel collects the Palestinian taxes, controls borders that Israel has set up, regularly raids into Palestinian neighborhoods on the pre-text of chasing terrorists, I want to know exactly what do you think the Palestinians should do, and if it were you, what you would do?  Or do they not count because they are not white and they are Muslims?  And for those people that still don’t get it- all Arabs are not Muslims, and all Muslims are not of Arab descent!

Actually, the problem is quite simple to solve.  It is the U.S. that finances the occupation.  No financing would force the end of the occupation.

Anyone close to the situation can see that it is political theatre. The target audience here is world opinion; no one in the afflicted region buys a line of it.

The Zionists foolishly assert - in essence - that commingling the Palestinian and Israeli peoples into one multi-ethnic state would destroy the Zionist nation. Well, duh.

In this pronouncement - the “right of return” is forever off the table. The “right of return” binds the Palestinians into the same sort of nationalist myth that “Zionism” binds the Israelis. The competing claims for sovereignty over Jerusalem are similarly self-sanctified and obdurate. These two fiercely counter-poised ethnic belief structures are entirely antithetical. In short, there will never be a reconciliation.

There could some day be peace, certainly, but it will be the peace of the dead. Someone’s going to lose, utterly. Absent a concerted Arab/Muslim will to confront the massed power of the US and Israel, the Palestinians can look forward to their own trail of tears.

The permanent presence of a US military mission in the region guarantees - explicitly - that there will never be a unified Arab/Muslim power.

The Israeli political strategy has been both remarkably disciplined and remarkably effective for some sixty years, now…Just keep stalling. With the continued material and military backing of the West, Israel will eventually force the Palestinian people and the tattered remnants of their aspirations to melt away into history.

The only likely role available to Syria and Iran in this drama will be to host the diaspora of a defeated Arab people.

“The steady expansion of nominally illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories…”

is the entire history of Israel from day -1, summed up in one neat phrase.

http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/

Howard,

You should try to pay attention.  The International Court just got through ruling (when it dealt with the issue of the wall) that the settlements are illegal.

The settlers are ok.  They can be there.  As much as anyone else.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel recovered the “West Bank,” the eastern part of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, conquered Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and conquered and annexed the Golan Heights. During the 19 years that Jordan and Egypt were in possession of the “West Bank” and the Gaza Strip, it didn’t occur to them or to anybody else that the Palestinians should have a state or even that they were a distinct nationality. The claim for that did not arise until after the Six-Day War.

Jews have been living in the West Bank since Biblical times. The area was made judenrein (free of Jews), following the Nazi model, by Jordan, when it was in possession of the territory. After 1967, Jews moved back into the territory and a great hullabaloo was raised and is still being raised about the “settlers,” who do not occupy more than 2 percent of the area. But there is no concern about the hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who, lured by the prosperity of Israel, have flooded into the area, nor of the more than one million Arabs who live in Israel proper and who enjoy full rights of citizenship.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wants to make war on Gaza. She says that an extended truce or long-term calm “harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement.”

Likud Party candidate Moshe Feiglin is an admirer of Adolf Hitler. Feiglin says, “Hitler was an unparalleled military genius. Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status. The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order. Hitler savored good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals.”

William Pfaff is wrong.  The Israeli government did not simply look the other way regarding the settlers.  The government, including the Labor Party, actually subsidized the illegal settlers.

By eileen fleming, December 12 at 6:04 am #
==================
Thank you eileen fleming for bringing to the attention of the Truthdig readers the phenomenon of the Shministim. It behooves every warrior for justice and peace to sign such a letter in support of those young courageous boys and girls. I already did that two days ago when this issue was brought to my attention through Jewish Voice for Peace.

I likewise applaud and commend your own personal noble effort in advocating justice for the Palestinians. Such isolated efforts certainly bring a glimpse of hope for otherwise people who are at the verge of loosing hope-people like me. I am myself a direct victim of Israeli wars of terror, and I hope one day to be able to summon the stamina and the torturous emotions to write my personal story. However, the issue of Palestine is not one of isolated individuals, but rather a whole unfortunate nation that was singled out to pay for the crimes and atrocities of the West against the Jews of Europe.

The most painful part of the Jewish-Palestinian issue is when I dwell on the beginning of this problem- when a group of victimized ethnic-religious people turn out to practice systematically the victimization of their own native cousins while desiring to live among them in peace. This whole thing defies all basic principles of decency, justice and humanity! And this is why the Israeli-Palestinian issue should become the most pressing issue for all humanity to solve! Even a good part of the world economic crises is related to this issue!

“Israel today is as much the prisoner of the Palestinians as the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel” As an American and a person, who found out they had Jewish heritage, I find this statement an inexcusable and irrational sophistry.
No Israeli is a captive of Palestinian jails, no Israeli is forced to live in starvation conditions with no medical care, no electricity and no Israeli is forced to subject themselves to the language of taunting and sarcasm that Israel does Palestinians.
Mr. Pfaff, normally writes very appropriate and sound articles with sound reasoning and secure judgment.  This article however is one of the worst to come down the pike, it excuses the Israeli occupation on civil grounds, leaving aside the moral and legal implications of such an horrific occupation. 
Should not the Israelis have learned from their time in the ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw, their time in concentration camps, that man’s inhumanity to man, is only compounded by religion and “ethical” standards?  One would have hoped that the leaders of Israel had learned, but apparently they have not learned the lessons of history. For they continue to punish a whole race of people for the transgressions of a few, which few were elected legally and with binding force by the people of Palestine, pushed into this election by the major superpower-the US- and Israel.
How shameful for me, a putative Jew, to find that the people who are also my family by blood cannot get it straight that International Law is binding on them as well as on the United States.

Settlement Extremists Threaten Israel’s Moral Substance
________________________________________________

Israel has a “moral substance”?  Since when?

It is time that Pfaff turn his eye on the history of Israel, i.e., if it can claim antiquity. I am reasonably sure that “settlemet extremists” is a phrase that fits it from day one, which happened rather recently. To say that “.....Israel today is as much the prisoner of the Palestinians as the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel….” is uncharacteristic loss of nerve for the author of the article and supports and furthers a false myth created by that state.

“On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.” - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel

I have been reporting on Israel Palestine since June 2005, when I made my first of 6 trips and my most recent was Nov. 2008.

As bad as it is-and it is worse everytime-I bring you some good news that the times are a changin’ and Israeli youth are among the leaders:

Shministim means “twelfth-graders” in Hebrew and military service is mandatory upon graduation from Israeli high school.

The Shministim are Israeli youth of conscience who refuse to serve in the Israeli Army because it is the force that enforces Israel’s 40+-year occupation of indigenous Palestinians.

The first Shministim letter was sent to Prime Minister Golda Meir. In 2008 alone, one hundred youth have signed the following letter, which cost them a jail term in an Israeli military prison, ranging from 21 to 28 days. For those who refuse to wear the military uniform, they are punished with solitary confinement.

The Shministim Letter of 2008:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1128&Itemid=213

By prole, December 11 at 9:26 pm #

“This is more of the typical standard ‘moral equivalence’ sophistry that characterizes much imperial discourse….”
=======================
Thank you prole for saving me the time, effort and agony of saying what you so eloquently said!

As a victim of Israel’s and US’s double-standard and hypocrite policies always backed by their heavy-handed measures of state-sponsored terrorism, I have lost total hope that all this idle and repeated talk about Israel’s brutality, crimes and terrorism will bring the Palestinians any deliverance.

I know only of one honorable and practical way for the Palestinians to solve their problem: that’s to continue their struggle by all means possible, including fighting Israel’s and American state-sponsored terrorism with their primitive counter-terrorism acts. Possibly, with the help of a Merciful God, a new twenty-first century David will rise to defeat the twenty-first century Goliath!

This is more of the typical standard ‘moral equivalence’ sophistry that charactarizes much imperial discourse. Dramatic asseverations that are riddled with internal contradictions and external falsehoods. “Israel today is as much the prisoner of the Palestinians as the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel.” Great. Palestinians tortured in Israeli prisons or starving in blockaded refugee camps are no worse off than Israeli’s in Tel Aviv luxury condos or in the dining room of the Haifa Country Club. “Israel’s imprisonment is moral and political, in that it has now seemingly lost the ability to extricate itself from the dilemmas created by successive governments’ cowardice and connivance with the settlement lobby’s campaign to seize all of Palestine for Israel”.  While its certainly true that the Israeli government has shown plenty of “cowardice and connivance” in many ways over the years, successive Labor and Likud governments aided and abetted and engendered the settlers movement and lobby in order to further their own pre-meditaed expansionist aims. And, incredibly, “the American government’s passive acquiescence in this.” The American government has been anything but passive in this; but rather - except for the semi-honorable exception of Bush I in partly opposing settlement expansion - has provided active bipartisan support, including military aid. Not only by the American executive branch but even more especially, almost without exception, by almost every dishonorable member of a complicit Congress. Even more inexplicable is,“The steady expansion of nominally illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories”. Nominally??!! Except for the “cowardly and coniving’ U.S. and Israeli govt.‘s and their media shils, who else believes it’s only “nominal’ and not actual? But at least there’s one accurate statement in this whitewashed depiction that goes to the essence of the matter (even if it is only parenthehically),“one cannot say truthfully they have been unable to check it; they simply have chosen not to”. Exactly. This is essentially the nub of the matter along with the equally indispensable fact that, not only Israel itself, but the American government, too “cannot say truthfully they have been unable to check it; they simply have chosen not to.” And that’s why the “cruelty and unlawfulness” in the actully illegally occupied territories has dragged on for over 40 years. “Israelis have invariably”...imposed their will by inventing…“obstacles to agreement in Palestinian behavior, a result of the Israeli government’s increasing reluctance to”... withdraw from lands it wishes to annex permanently. “The shackles of Israel’s political imprisonment”... are of its own making and don’t cut the flesh the way the shackles’s on Israel’s Palestinian prisoners do. “Dramatic fighting produced by the recent police expulsion of settlement extremists” and “new talk of grave civil violence between the settlers’ community, supported by the religious bloc, and any elected government”... is political theater that provides the new government - whatever party label it bears - from having to reach a “realistic settlement with the Palestinians.” Such would iterate, once again, that “moral substance of Israel” is strictly an oxymoron.

It’s not only about the settlers but also the abuses and discrimination Palestinians have to endure under Israeli occupation. This article by Jamal Dajani in the Huffington Post sums it all up
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamal-dajani/west-bank-stories_b_148696.html

As far as I’m concerned (and I know FolkL won’t believe it), I think the settlers in Hebron are TRAITORS to Israel. The few hundred of them think THEIR settlement is more important than the safety of 5 Million Israelis.  That makes them as much the enemy of Israel as the terrorist orgs amongst the Palestinians.  I have NO problem with the IDF moving them out by force. 

Hell, in the US if someone did that, we’d condemn their property under Eminent Domain and pay ‘em a tenth of what it’s worth.  And we do THAT just to build a WalMart store or Bush’s Texas Rangers Stadium. They wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on, either. Israel is doing it to bring about a way to make peace.  They should use the laws of Eminent Domain, take the land, then, as a nation, give that, now “Israeli” land back to the Palestinians as part or a teaser to an international agreement and let THEM figure out which of them owns it!

Yeah, I really think that.  And if the settlers get violent, treat them like terrorists. The survival of the many outweighs the desires of the few.  A SC Justice commented early in the 20th century that the US Constitution is NOT a suicide pact.  Neither should the rights of the settlers force Israel into a suicidal situation.