velvel in decatur—I wish I could think that Lieberman might pull off a Nixon-to-China but am afraid that doesn’t follow logically. Nixon was all for business, and saw China as an opportunity. Lieberman wants Palestinians out of the West Bank, and a second state would do just the opposite, establishing the heart of their country there for time immemorial. The only possible value he can serve, at least as far as I can see, is to remind Israelis (those who obviously need it) what a fascist looks and sounds like, in his case a Judeofascist as much as his opposite numbers are Islamofascists.

Black September, like the Liberty, is not understood by most Americans uncomfortable with complex grey areas. (Tony Wicher’s sketch of the Liberty occurrence is correct but fill in the details would take much more space than it should on this thread essentially re Avigdor Lieberman.) Re Black September, the king of Jordan, one of the more enlightened monarchs—if it’s ever possible for a monarch to be truly enlighted—turned his Bedouins loose on the Palestinians and drove them out of Jordan because they were launching attacks on Israel from Jordanian soil, and he didn’t want the Israelis to return the favor. But he was impartial re his neutrality. Once, when Netanyahu was PM, he read intelligence that the head of Hezbollah or Hamas (I think Hezbollah; still living in Syria), was temporarily in Jordan, and dispatched two Mossad agents to assassinate him even though Israel is forbidden to attack anyone on Jordanian soil. Mossad protested strongly and for a long time, but had to give in: the PM is their ultimate “Decider”. Their attempted assassination was hastily put together and botched because it was interrupted. The victim was taken to hospital and the King of Jordan called Netanyahu, asked him (according to the story in one of the “old spies” books) what he was playing at,  demanded delivery of an antidote to the poison used and got it. The victim recovered, returned to Syria, and to this day continues his fight against Israel. A side effect of that adventure is that Netanyahu’s judgment is not highly regarded by Mossad, and perhaps they will be able to forestall or compromise any more bad ideas he comes up with that could have far worse consequences than his foray into Jordan. We can hope so anyway.

Although Sepharad’s analysis is the usual Zionist bullshit, there appears to be an incresed recognition that Israel’s policies are disastrous, not only for the Palestinians, but for Israel and the US.  And the US is in a crucial position to change them, especially if some Zionists are serious about putting pressure on Obama and Israel.

Being serious means suspending all aid to Israel until it changes its polocies and helping to isolate it with a world wide boycot as one Jewish group is helping to do.  Until a real two state solution emerges,not a fake peace process while Israel continues to increae settlers.  A two state solution with aid to the Palestinina economy would start a general economic cooperation envisioned by Inherit.  So we could think about something more important than the wretched country that is causing all this suffering.

If Sepharad’s assertions indicate a real change on the part of Zionists, this is a real step forward.

velvel in decatur,

How can you possibly suggest that Lieberman may have a hand in the establishment a Palestinian state, when he is ideologically opposed to such a cration? Nixon went to China to improve realtions between the US and China.  Lieberman is umabiguous in his disdain for the Arabs.

It’s true that Jordan and Egypt have a lot fo answer for but the reason a Palestinian state does not exist is because Israel is opposed to it’s creation.  Pure and simple.

Remember that the Arab League (which includes Jordan and Egypt) offered a peace treaty to recogbise Israel as per the 1967 borders, yet Israel has rejected this offer.

No one needs Israsel but Israelis. The tyrants i nthe Middle East are kept in power by the US who support and arm them.

>> And Shingo—-why not send an email to Dershowitz and to the rest of your readers waiting with bated breath why Dershowitz is “fundamentally dishonest.?”

Dershowitz is ideologically impervious to reason, but if others on thisforum are interested, I could give hundreds of reasons.

In the mean time, I’ll leave it to Dershowitz to do that for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dZkblZk4_g

Nissar Ahmed A. Naik, You’re right: the Iranian nuke threat is nothing compared to the demographic bomb. The Palestinians’ high birthrate is why Arafat said the greatest weapon was the Palestinian womb, and why Sharon pulled all Jews out of Gaza (with the West Bank next on his agenda, were he not mysteriously cut down). Given the Palestinian birth rate, Jews would be submerged unless they separated into two states. One of Sharon’s last appearances was his walk down the Jordan Valley, saying to reporters that the West Bank was no longer necessary as a buffer zone, given modern surveillance tech. (Someone else—Night Gaunt?—suggests that Israel pulled out of Gaza to create an open ghetto. The true motive was pure demographics.)

Demographics are also why a single secular state would not work. Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Turks and Persians have lived together for two thousand+ years, but since the spread of Islam c.600-700A.D.
the Jews were always second-class citizens in Moslem countries, forbidden to practice their religion publicly and sometimes forced to accept Islam. (This is where the expression “lip service” originated, as many Jews—with death the only alternative—pretended to accept Islam and had to worship in secret, just as they did vis a vis Christianity in Queen Isabella’s Spanish Inquisition.) Many of us are secular and would be happy with a secular state, but probably under a majority Arabic state the term “secular” would soon be replaced by Islamic law, worse, the Wahabbi or Taliban severe versions of Sha’aria. Though secular, we still value our traditions and culture and Western thought, and so would not last long under a theocracy. So, to many Jews, the second-state solution is the only alternative.

Also, most Jews in and out of Israel are unalterably opposed to the present government’s policies as well as the many injustices done to Palestinians in the past. Ethnic cleansing is abhorrent to us, we want justice and reconciliation and will continue working toward a second-state. Avigdor Lieberman is a fascist and it sickens me that he has a place of authority in Netanyahu’s government. Though Tzipi Livni wanted to negotiate a second state, removal of the settlers from the West Bank even it took a civil war to accomplish it, and a shared Jerusalem, you will recall she got MORE votes from Israelis than Netanyahu. She was unable to form a governing coalition because she refused to incorporate extremist religious parties and because the most liberal parties, Gush Shalom and Meretz, refused to join Labour because they felt Labour was too compromised by a centrist agenda. In retrospect, given the government Israel has now, both Livni and the leftist parties should’ve been more pragmatic and less pure. We will fight Netanyahu and Lieberman with every weapon at our disposal but it may not be enough or soon enough. For that we need America to be firm with Israel re not just Iran but re policies regarding Palestinians, and to punish Israel econmically if Netanyahu and Lieberman persist in their unjust and dangerous folly. I’m a secular Zionist living in America, a member of MeretzUSA, and have family in Israel who joined their relatives there in 1828. Their ties with Arab neighbors and friends are long and enduring, and it would be a tragedy if, after all this time, Palestinians and Israeli Jews as well as Israeli Arabs can’t find a way to live together in peace, because there are so many ways we can help one another.

After all that has happened, you might be thinking “words are easy” and you would be right. Actions are what count, and any way that you and other Palestinians could work with the Israeli Arab and Jewish leftists to bring the people a true understanding of how vile Lieberman’s policies are would be useful in undercutting him. Netanyahu rode to office on the back of fear and distrust; the Israeli people have other qualities that must be rallied before it’s too late.

Tony, who was in the planes that tried to sink the Liberty? Who sent them out?
  Open up your eyes. Israel could have stopped all the carnage years ago. You have to wonder what kind of people would sacrifice their own children over land that doesn’t belong to them.
  The United States role in this has been a disgrace going back to the forties.
  After 911 there were a lot of suicide bombings in Israel but what most people seem to forget that in a weeks time before the bombings Israel assassinated three Hamas leaders.
  Israel is going to take and keep that land no matter what.
  Think of an Israeli mother or Palestinian father and try for a moment of putting yourself in their place as they grieve the loss of their child. For a moment, close your eyes and visualize someone you love lying lifeless on the floor. Is it easy to just shrug your shoulders?
  Why is it so hard to stop this insanity?

re: By Tony Wicher, April 15 at 5:17 pm:

God, Tony, this is fantasizing at its most fantastic. You admit that the attack on the Liberty was committed by Israel deliberately, but you think Israel must have done it only because Johnson or McNamara told them to?

Why are the conspiracy theories of Israel’s defenders, no matter how ridiculous, never called “conspiracy theories”?

Tony, do you not see how ridiculous this is? Israel did it, but they didn’t really want to do it? If one concedes that Israel did it deliberately, which you don’t dispute, it is much more reasonable to assume that they had their own reasons for doing it. Only someone absolutely determined to bend over backward to absolve Israel could entertain your theory that they were following orders from the US President.

Why is it unacceptable anti-Semitic demonizing to say that the Israeli government was criminal enough to do this deliberately to US soldiers for its own purposes, but it’s not unacceptable anti-American demonizing to say that the American government was even MORE evil - evil enough to do this deliberately to it’s own soldiers?

re Folktruther, April 15 at 4:05 pm #

“I remind you that Israel attacked an American ship in 1967 as a false flag operation, and the US power struture is still covering it up.”
 
x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

FT,

I am inclined to agree that the Liberty was a false flag operation and that it is still being covered up. However, the prime movers in that operation would have been those snakes Lyndon Johnson and Robert MacNamara, neither of whom was Jewish or had any strong Zionist sentiments, as far as I know. But they were happy to use Israel as a pretext to start wars and excercise hegemony over the Middle East and its oil. Sound familiar? Nothing has changed.

The basic problem is that it is human nature to want to possess territory exclusively, no matter how much room is available.  Per the Old Testament, Cain couldn’t handle sharing the earth with Abel (supposedly Cain & Abel only shared the earth with their parents Adam & Eve, right?).  Apparently half a hemisphere of the entire globe was too confining, right? 
  So the conclusion must be that there will NEVER be an adequate solution, no matter how much land is ceded to any nation.  The guy who made up the expression “good fences make good neighbors” didn’t take missiles or even slingshots over those fences into account.

By Eugen, April 15 at 2:59 pm #

Sorry Night-Gaunt. I should have paged down. About the bombs? I think Carter gave Israel 4 nukes. Israel then brought them back to the US and buried them around DC. That is why every president since has danced like puppets for Israel
——————————————————————————-
Eugen,

This is an example of what I was talking about in my previous post. It is just too remniscent of something Hitler might have said about the Jews in 1930. Zionists do not control the U.S, but it serves the purposes of those who do control the U.S. when U.S. policy is blamed on Zionists, Jews or Israel instead of our own Nazis - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al.

Humanism must be part of any ‘ism’ and if it is incompatible then something is wrong with said ‘ism’ no matter what else they may say. Would Gandhi do it? Would Dr. MLK do it? Jesus, if your not a fig tree that is, do it? Would a Buddhist do it? Would anyone who is a Humanist do it?

Tony Wicker-  You dn not appear to understand the danger implied by Lierberman and the other yahoos.  They may ‘clarify’ Zionism the way the Nazis clarfied Germany. 

Only they have nuclear weapons.  I am against the Zionism of Inherit and Sepharad, but we all consider their ascension to power a disaster waiting to happen.

And they do not have to be supported by Obama: it is just necessary to neutralize Obama to prevent him from blocking their aims.  I remind you that Israel attacked an American ship in 1967 as a false flag operation, and the US power struture is still covering it up.

Tony Wicher, Thanks for the good clarifying post. I would ask you, however, to rethink your view of Zionism. It is an ideology with a big tent, and covers a great many people with wildly variant definitions. If you can google Foreign Policy magazine and look at Uri Avnery’s most recent article, rather nostalgic for old Zionism, you might feel differently. Or at least understand those of us who consider ourselves “Zionist” in a way that makes a second-state solution the only humane possibility for the region (assuming the survival of its Jewish residents under their own Western law is acceptable). If I didn’t think Zionism could be an “ism” consist with “humanism” I wouldn’t consider myself any kind of Zionist at all.

Tony Wicher writes:

“Indeed there is an “Israel lobby” but it has the power it does because its activites serve the interests of our MIC. “

That’s just not true. There is some confluence between the two lobbies, but this simple-minded, one-way linearity - the idea that all of the Israel lobby’s power is just a sock-puppet that serves the MIC - simply does not square with the facts.

For example, Mearsheimer and Walt show that the US has sometimes used its aid to Israel to benefit the Israeli arms industry, to the detriment of our own. Israel’s supporters have insisted that we ought to help Israel build its own arms industry — which now competes with our MIC for arms contracts all over the world.

Normally, Tony, US military aid to any country does benefit our own MIC exclusively, as the beneficiaries are required to buy the arms from our own arms manufacturers. But in the case of Israel, and only in the case of Israel, the US has sometimes nurtured and promoted Israel’s own arms industry, infuriating US arms merchants.

Ed, I agree with a lot of what you just wrote to Shingo except for the lack of a linkage: Israel DOES fear for its existence which it sees (I think correctly) as greatly endangered by a hostile nuclear-armed Iran that supports both and Hamas and Hezbollah and is also hostile to the neighboring Sunni Arab states, two of which have treaties with Israel. 

Many Israel supporters in the U.S. such as myself and Inherit as well as many Israelis themselves are just as angry as you are, perhaps angrier (because such things betray values we’ve held all our lives as Jews and greatly endanger Israel’s existence through folly and cruelty out of fear and, sometimes, religious extremism) i.e. the hardening policy toward the Palestinians and their rights, the abuse of American good will and endangering American interests as well as the longterm best interests of Israel. There are other places and times where I act on and express in the strongest terms that anger, my reasons for it, and what I believe the consequences to be both morally and existentially speaking. I’m not wealthy or connected in any way, but as a researcher and writer I can provide material to people in the U.S. who are eloquent and have platforms from which to speak to other Jews, far removed from AIPAC types, whose support Israel needs because there are more of us. Also I can summarize and give instances of anger among American Jews and Americans in general to people in Israel who can use it in many ways, from newspapers and periodicals to discussion among groups and agencies who can act with some effect. That is ALL I can do. But there are many likeminded, including people who also have ways of affecting policy and eventually we will win because, as James Carville famously wrote, “we’re RIGHT and they’re WRONG.” Eventually America got rid of Bush. There is a struggle in Israel of the same kind going on. Remember, there are many human rights groups also active in Israel as well as a Supreme Court that has backed West Bank Palestinians in cases against the placement of the security fence. Also remember that a candidate who ran on returning the West Bank and sharing Jerusalem actually got more votes than Netanyahu but was unable to form a governing coalition. Some of our own peace parties are perhaps partly to blame for that. I’m confident that in the longer run we WILL change things. But it may not be in time, and therefore the only way to force the current government to do the right thing is probably American insistence on what in unacceptable, specifying the economic and other consequences if Israel does not cooperate. And America, for its own sake as well as Israel, must start talking with Iran along some of the lines Inherit suggests in his recent post.

Meanwhile Palestinians are suffering right along with Israelis who feel the wrongness acutely, living with knowing they and their children may disappear because of wrong-headed government policy on one side and people on the other side who, because of their failure for several generations to listen to the voices of leaders who would help them rebuild their lives, chose insteadg instead to follow men who cheated them, oppressed them, encouraged the persistence of old grievances instead of moving on, and now are accepting leadership from men whose religious hatred and extremism is, has always been and remains dedicated to the destruction of Israel. All Palestinians—perhaps most, don’t really   feel this way but they are not in power, pretty much mirroring the case in Israel.

One of the fascinating things about foreign policy (other than the “gone native” clowns infesting the State Department) is that the most unlikely people negotiate the most unlikely resolutions, such as the miserable Richard Nixon moving to open things up with China.  Lieberman may be more successful in having a hand in the establishment of a Palestinian state than have been many of his predecessors for the very reason that you condemn him:  he understands that no state was established before because the now-royal family of Jordan did not want a Palestinian state (a threat to them) and Egypt did not want repatriation of the Gaza (a cesspool even by their standards) and even with all the talk and toadying of Carter and Clinton and their State Departments (who refuse to intelligently discuss and understand politics anywhere) and suckups in previous Israeli adminstrations, Egyptian administrations, Jordanian and Saudi and Turkish (and the rest) have not ever been willing to admit that they NEED Israel.

Israel keeps them in power because it keeps the attention of the folks in their countries preoccupied with something that then keeps attention off of the pathetic way the rulers and royals treat their own countrymen.

Is it any wonder that King Hussein’s smashing the Pals led to Black September—-and you, Chris, either did not know about Black September or choose to blame the King’s massacre of his own brothers and sisters on Israel.

And Shingo—-why not send an email to Dershowitz and to the rest of your readers waiting with bated breath why Dershowitz is “fundamentally dishonest.?”

Dwight:

1. Don’t know how other than the “begats” in the Book of Numbers.

2. They were from the family of Noah, the chosen survivfors, I guess.

Chris Hedges shots straight pardon the pun.

What about the co-opting of language & symbols. The corporations are doing the same thing today they did in the 1920s….destroying democracies….Weimar Republic anyone? And, finding little Hindenburgs & Adolfs the do their bidding, with no regard to the consequences. The use of the American fundamentalists dovetails perfectly with the Nazi exploitation of German fundamentalists ( hello Wagner) and the manipulation of language. Living space(genocide zones) terrorism(Reichtag etc) and calling themselves National Socialists while exterminating Socialists….American Republicans shopping as defenders of the Democracy while destroying the basic values. The degree of manipulation in Israel is just out of control…..millions of new settlers means a return of the apocalyptic mania which has defined the single tribe fanaticism of the hebrews. Since when does the creator require HUMAN   help? JESUS did, look who that turned out.  Its so self-loving…..

I understand Naziism and Zionism as complimentary forms of national chauvinism. They are equally incompatible with universal principles of democracy and human rights. We should be grateful to Avigdor Lieberman for representing the ideology of Zionism in its purest form, with no “two-state solution” hypocrisy, no pretence of anything but pure national chauvinism. The clearer this is, the closer we are to an international consensus that will include the United States to treat Israel not as an occupying power but as an apartheid state like South Africa was. In the end, Avigdor Lieberman or Binyamin Netanyahu could turn out to be Israel’s Pieter Botha, and sign a unification agreement with some Palestinian Mandela.

I do not agree with many of the posters here who believe that Zionism is in control of the U.S. government or its foreign policy or the media. I believe that that control is exercised by our military-industrial complex, which ultimately controls and uses Zionism as well. Indeed there is an “Israel lobby” but it has the power it does because its activites serve the interests of our MIC. In this sense, Zionism is actually a red herring, and those who say that that our government is controlled by Israel or Zionism are falling into the same anti-Semitic trap that the German people fell into during Hitler’s rise to power. These people’s anti-Zionism really is just anti-Semitism under another name, and they are ripe to follow some other demagogue like Hitler - say Alex Jones for example - and blame everything on the Jews -  again.

Sorry Night-Gaunt. I should have paged down. About the bombs? I think Carter gave Israel 4 nukes. Israel then brought them back to the US and buried them around DC. That is why every president since has danced like puppets for Israel. Tonight I think I’ll kick back and see if there is life after taxes. Last night I tried standing on the olive in my Martini. Tonight I’ll try the Maraschino cherry in my Manhattan.  Watch out for the ice Eugen. I’m always talking to myself even when I’m talking to others. Did I give you enough ammo Dwight.

I would say when a bomb falls on the present location by ‘accident’ or by ‘al-Quada’ terrorists or some other means to get it open for them to begin construction. It would be as bad as attacking Iran in my estimation. It could easily touch off the third world war or 10th crusade (war of the cross) in our benighted world.

I was the one who made that assessment. The degradation of things have gone so far that such an obvious racist can have such a powerful position as Avigdor Leiberman shows us. Remember that the “Samson Option” is national suicide by buried nuclear bombs around Israel. Remember the black comedy movie “Dr. Strangelove?” Where the Russians had created one (bury many nuclear bombs around their country) of their own in 1964 which would produce a doomsday shroud that would engulf the earth for 93 years? I wonder if it influenced the strategists of Israel for real? Or it could be just life imitating art. Certainly a vainglorious move and selfish along with a certain narcissism one finds in those husbands who kill their wife and children because they can’t manage whatever in their life or a divorce. The same psychology at work.

Don’t you know that money comes with power but it is power through which all other things flow? Money without power is dangerous—-for you. Power will get you money, and much more! Too many I find fixate on the money and ignore the power angle that is the heart of most of it.

Dwight, no I’m not going to entertain you. If you want to study the history of religion there are many books out there on the subject.
  This thread is supposed to be about Avigdor Lieberman who could easily screw up the real world, not some imaginary place and time.
  Whoever said that Lieberman’s agenda is to start a war to cover up the future genocide of the Palestinians is right on.
  Any bets when they start building the third temple?

Dwight you have to be kidding. If you really believe in that Bible crap you would know that all man is a result of incest several times over. Adam and Eve, Noah’s family, or Jacob (for the Jews) all had close family ties if you know what I mean. The truth is they can’t find any thing that confirms any of these old Bible myths. They are just stories like Harry Potter.

Sepharad- I agree that attacking Iran would be a disaster and agree with Gush Shalom uniting with Peace Now to try to prevent it.  And I encourage anti-Zionists to unite with Anti- Iran war Zionists in the US to try to prevent such an attack.

Which may occur.  The real Israeli reason for such a war, as Night-Gaunt commented,  is to increase ethnic cleansing, just as the War on Terrorism increased stripping the American population of civil powers. And Obama might go along, since he is in thrall to Zionists.  But some Zionists, like Biden, appear to be against it. I’m glad you and Inherit are among them.

I liked your video Tor.
That’s what this all about, religion. Hopefully the Rapture will come before Lieberman starts WW III.

As long as Hamas is labled a ‘terrorist organization’ and the Palestinians are considered less than Israelis then nothing will happen that is good for the Palestinians. Some wonder why more isn’t said about the Israelis leaving the Gaza area? One even said it was ethnic cleansing? (maybe not this forum) which is nuts considering who wants to live in an open air ghetto or gulag? Israelis left because the Palestinians were going to get to suffer. Water & food shortages, open sewage,sporadic electricity, constant bombing, missiles, and who knows what else they get every day as they suffer a hell on earth slowly dying. Human caused. Those tunnels are treated as ‘weapons conduits’ when their primary use is for food, medicine and water. Walled off and sealed off to die. Have some Amontialdo!

For the German Nazis (romantics) they wanted to be the new Jews to their Aryan God so for them in their addled mysticism they believed they had to remove the old Jews from their Holy Land (Helig Stadt)by killing them off in the old Biblical way of extirpation. (How ironic.) Now in Israel today they have a similar mandate of addled mysticism and romaniticism by removing all of those who aren’t Jews and don’t belong in their Holy Land as mandated by their god JHVH. They have just been doing slowly and you can see over time many Palestinians have left or are dead since 1948.

Mr. Kahane is most quotidian AND amusingly so since Jews were originally…..well, see for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7iQRFP_e90

dwightbaker:

Five good questions.
1. From the line of Shem- Semites.
2. See answer one.
3. Free democratic elections.
4. Don’t know.
5. Better discriminate drones than indiscriminate Katyusha rockets.

Ed,

Believe me, the anger and frustration you feel about this topic is probably a fraction of what I feel, but while the odd bit of vitriol is unavoidable, there’s no point in making ITW bear the brunt of Israel’s crimes.

I just felt that the thread was going off topic, and by that I include myself. I am certainly not suggesting you be less angry.

Like you, I feel that Israel’s honeymoon is comming to an end.  History has shown how rapidly and disasterously seemingly invicible states can crumble.  Just look at this country!! Just look at the Republican party!!

I think that Iraq and Afghanistan have revealed how vulnerable even a super power like America really is and that hegemony has probably been an illusion.

Israel’s day of reckoning is fast approaching, and sadly, that day is being hastened by the very arrogance and selfishness you alude to.

Shingo writes:

“Let’s hope that the sarcasm and vitriol subsides.

“The obsession that Israel’s leadership has with Iran is not so much about whether or not they are producing nukes, but the balance of power in the Middle East.”

Shingo, one may as a firm matter of principle hope that everyone will be nicer to everyone, but you imply a “because” between these two statements.

That is, “We should all calm down and be nicer about this, because Israel doesn’t really fear for its existence, but only that it will lose its regional dominance.”

This is a reason for me to be less angry?

Maybe vitriol is never justified. But if it ever is, the fact that Israel’s existential fears are phony should make us more angry and vitriolic, not less so.

It really, really makes me angry that, under pretense of an existential threat to itself, Israel is trying to drag us into a major new war - one with ruinous consequences for the United States -  not to protect Israel from an existential threat (which still wouldn’t be our problem), but to maintain its absolute regional hegemony. The arrogance and selfishness and abuse of the good will of the American people is outrageous beyond measure.

Sepharad, thanks.  Nice to read a friendly post that is NOT just FT giving me crap just for the fun of it.

I think BOTH Israel and Iran are going about it the wrong way.  Somehow, both need to realize their natural alliance and that ALL their enemies would LOVE to see them at war with each other. Think about it: Most of the Arab nations hate both of them.  Israel isn’t Arab and isn’t Sunni Moslem.  Iran isn’t Arab and isn’t Sunni Moslem.  Hell, Darfur isn’t Arab and a large number of Darfurians aren’t Moslem.

It all adds up.

Second: Hi-light the similarities.  While both are states with a heavy religious emphasis, both are the MOST democratic in the region.  No Arab nation (Palestine isn’t yet a nation even if it should be) yet compares even to Iran in the ability to choose leaders. Lebanon did but, sadly, due to Syrian (and Iranian) influence it is a failed state.

Third: Back down on the nuclear issues. Maybe Israel can back off threats and objections in return for the right to inspect?  Even AID in building nuclear power plants.

Fourth: Trade. Both have lots of stuff the other needs.

But it all starts with talking.  And I think Obama can make that happen.  He has to assure Israel that an attack from Iran would be answered by the US, but that an attack ON Iran would be met with the severest sanctions and may even be blocked militarily.  Let him use The Big Stick so BOTH sides see it will never be used against them unless they attack the other.

The only thing Obama has in his favor is that while Netanyhu is easily as right wing as Begin, he at least has the personal charm that Begin lacked.  So Obama should be able to at least get him talking and not have him ranting (as Begin was prone to do at Camp David).  Of course, as an IMMENSELY popular President, and an extremely bright man, Obama has both the backing and the brains to push Netanyahu even were Bibi doesn’t want to go.

I’m sort of thinking it through as I write….and now I have to go…..

Shingo,

You’ve put your finger on the two big truths of the situation: 1)the Israeli government (not just the hawks Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Silvan Shalom)is primarily concerned with the balance of power in the Middle East and 2) because no one has found nuclear weaponry it proves they exist(sounding despressingly like the WMD shellgame leading up to the Iraq war).

Problem now is that at the moment the Israeli goverment is led by the very people who are willing to run with part 2) of the equation. So left/liberal groups like Meretz and Gush Shalom are joining forces to field and publicize arguments that may be taken up by the media and into account, as the leadership is obviously not concerned with the faulty logic of the situation. Probably the biggest influence will be the Obama administration’s position. This is the time to say that if Israel attacks Iran (and this is doable using Turkish airspace) our country’s special relationship with Israel will become a little less special. There are a number of ways even a slight shift of consideration could be acted on. My best guess is that even Netanyahu would not do anything as self-destructive as attacking Iran when it not only threatens America’s interests (as well as Israel’s, though he doesn’t see it that way), especially as it would pose a direct threat to American troops still in Iraq.

Folktruther regards Amos Oz’s Meretz as a fake peace party and Uri Avnery’s Gush Shalom as a real peace party but they are pretty closely allied in the political fray. The basic difference is that Meretz is not pacifist whereas Gush Shalom is. But they both are committed to the same goal: two separate states, one Palestinian and one Jewish. Avnery agrees that in the Jewish state Jews should be a majority. Avnery’s most recent article for Foreign Policy Magazine in English (available online) is based on the holiday nostalgia Passover often evokes for the old pre-WWII Zionists in Israel, and he writes concisely and movingly of the development of the country he came to with his parents as a boy of 10, and how the concept of identity and growing awareness of the Arab community came about. Very informative, very well-written. I think you would enjoy it. I learned a few things I didn’t know about the period, and was astonished to learn that Avnery was a member of Irgun for several years. His explanation of his own development of consciousness of his surroundings is as revealing as any lesser writer’s longwinded book.

Your comment re sarcasm and vitriol reminded me of Larry McMurtry’s character Woodrow Call (in “Return to Lonesome Dove”), telling Gus’s old love Clara that “I’m pleased to hear your hostilities have subsided.”

Sepharad,

Let’s hope that the sarcasm and vitriol subsides.

The obsession that Israel’s leadership has with Iran is not so much about whether or not they are producing nukes, but the balance of power in the Middle East.  Israel’s leaders are talking about Iran’s nukes as though there was no doubt about their existence, yet as you point out, their argument is based on facilities they assume to be there, without knowing explicitly where those facilities might be.

In essence, the argument has become that the fact we haven’t found anything proves they are hiding them.

Inherit, am just back and feel guilty seeing the flood of invective you’ve been valiantly holding at bay. There’s so much of it I can’t even begin to catch up and respond. Basically, I agree with everything you’ve written (and am in awe of your ability to maintain your equilibrium; didn’t even tell Ed the Joker is with Batman, not Superman).

There’s one huge problem on which I’d like YOUR input: the strongest arguments for disabusing Israel’s rightwingers of their apparent intent to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. There are many such facilities, some not known, others so deep as to be impervious to bunkerbusters, and still others underneath heavily populated areas, so any such attack is bound to be ineffective, only infuriating Iranians including the moderates, handing ammunition to Israel’s enemies, increasing terrorist attacks, etc. These arguments HAVE been made yet still they persist. What if Obama’s people tell Netanyahu that any Israeli attack on Iran at this point would derail America’s nascent effort to communicate with Iran with inducements in return for inspectors’ access to all sites, and other demands—e.g. Iran stop funding Hamas and Hizbullah in undermining a two-state solution. Just now, with Egypt in high dudgeon re Iran, the U.S. might have a forceful case. We could tell Israel any such attack would make the Iranians less receptive to American and Euro policies. What else? (I’m just working with people here trying to present reality to the new PM hawks. We could use your wise input on reaching these guys.)

I’m sorry your mother has Alzheimers. Mine did too; it’s awful. She was bright, aware and terrified of what was happening to her mind. Lived with it 10 years before dying. She was in St. Louis and we’re in California; flew back whenever we could but largely kept in touch on phone as long as was possible. Always, the best communication was about things that’d been important to her, or that she liked very much, in familiar settings. Music was one of her great loves:  once our 5-year-old son gave her a private “concert” on his small violin, making her very happy. She asked him to play along with her and went to the piano. (He gamely did his best.) In later years, when she recognized voices but didn’t understand words, I’d talk a bit then hold the phone so she could hear son play the violin or piano for her. (Always talked to aides before and after calls so we could tell how they affected her.) The last time I saw her she was still beautiful, and recognized us, but couldn’t speak. Early in the disease, a couple years after my father’s death, she remarried. Her husband, not very religious, doted on ham. We’d never been kosher, but ham wasn’t a regular menu item. One day, he went out to the store and Mom wanted to cook a ham for dinner. But she forgot where the cookbook was, we coudn’t find it and I had no idea how to deal with a ham, so we both ended up sitting on the floor laughing, telling each other “You can’t remember where the cook book is!” and “You don’t know how to cook ham!” Was a good moment. Other times, she’d forget who we were and be afraid. One day walked out of the house and away. Searched for hours. Returned home to call cops, when our oldest son, who’d just driven back from college for Hannukah, pulled up with her in the car. He’d just turned off the interstate and spotted her walking up the onamp. Pulled over, asked her “Is this my grandma running away fromn home?” She said “don’t tell anyone”, and got in the car. All I can tell you, Inherit, is try to not be too hurt by the bad times and cherish every good moment. (There WILL many of those too, despite the disease’s cruelty.)

re: By THE MANGEMEISTER, April 15 at 12:28 am:

Thanks! I have finally learned to stop suffering and love being uncomprehended so spectacularly. I cherish each fantastically contorted misreading that pops up, like an exotic orchid that can only grow in the most feverish, ultra-Zionist conditions.

ITW says:

“Actually, my mom’s suffering from Alzheimers, but I’m sure you find that funny too.  It’s probably even more hilarious to see how worried my siblings, our spouses and her grandchildren are about her.”

My condolences. That is a very difficult disease for the family to deal with. I hope you the best. But keep in mind that is one heredible disease, hope you have been spared.

“Am I crazy?

Come on, Inherit, you’re embarrassing me.  The reason I argue on these comments is to have good enenies to tell me what I don’t know, or to think of arguemnets to refute them.  I always respected you as a reliable enemy.  But seven hundrea and fifty milliion people under a caliph?  Which Ed supports?It must be the Ayn Rand coming out.  Try to get a hold of yourself.

Very amusing, Virgina, the Mia Faffow stuff.  Like most people, I tend to be charmed by Hollywood celebraties, what little I know of them.  Mia Farrow doesn’t feature much on the maginzines in the checkout line in the grocery store, so I missed her latest political endeavor. but I did learn that Angilina is really pissed at Brad.  I didn’t have time to learn why.

Ed, I’ve corresponded with Michael Nuemann and some of his colleagues.  He is obviously a good hearted person but perhaps a wee bit politically naive.  But Dershowitz is such a pig one is instinctively on his side. 

I’ve found that the best comments on Israel come from Uri Averny, an Israeli peacer who is head of Gush Shalom, a real Israeli peace group.  As opposed to Peace now, a fake peace group.

Night-Gaunt a very perceptive comment, that a war with Iran would be cover for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.  Which is probably why the Zionist power structure is pressing for it.  And it is concievable that Obama can’t resist them, which would be another catasestophe.

ITW writes:

“I find nothing funny about you….”

I can honestly say, ITW, that I would never say this hurtful thing to you. In fact, I am prepared to swallow my pride and admit, with all magnanimity, that I find lots funny about you, and I really mean that.

Harges:

Actually, my mom’s suffering from Alzheimers, but I’m sure you find that funny too.  It’s probably even more hilarious to see how worried my siblings, our spouses and her grandchildren are about her.

I already know you and your cronies think the women being raped in Darfur is a big joke—just ask Virginia777—he thinks it’s a big farce!

But if it was ARAB women being raped and impregnated by non-Arabs he’d be in an uproar.  But why give a shit about black African women, half of whom aren’t even Moslem? “Heh-heh! Cook another brown cake in that Black oven!”

You guys are SUCH comedians!

(excuse me while I retch)

I think my favorite ITW phrase is this:

You don’t give a rat’s ass HOW MANY people die to achieve your vile end: a completely homogeneous Arab world all under one Caliph.

It sounds like something Superman spits out, in high dudgeon, to the Joker — while the Joker of course has the hero temporarily weakened by Kryptonite and tied up in the path of a slowly advancing buzz-saw.

ITW: just remember, your Mom said you can wear the costume outside, but don’t let the cape drag on the ground.

Simple answers for simple questions. ITW asked:

“Am I crazy? “

Not really, but definitely deluded. Ed Hedges and myself made a few points. ITW’s summary of those points make no sense whatsoever.

EH,

I find nothing funny about you. You don’t want to admit that that’s where your whole philosophy leads you.  Now, is it that you don’t want to admit it out-loud, or you don’t want to admit it to yourself?  I hope for your sake it’s the latter.

But your refusal to accept any evil in this world that’s not generated by Jews—err—“Zionists” is incredibly myopic and disturbing.  Your attributes of near-divine demonic powers of Jews—err—“Zionists” over far more powerful nations using nothing more than “anti-semitic” labels as leverage borders on the outer levels of cognitive dissonance.  No wonder you’ve hooked up with Va777 whose anti-semitic postings are truly revolting.

ITEW writes:

Now, you, yourself and this incredibly vile Virginian bigot show yourselves as the monsters you are:  You don’t give a rat’s ass HOW MANY people die to achieve your vile end: a completely homogeneous Arab world all under one Caliph.  750,000,000 subject to one will, all of the same people.

I am literally shaking with laughter! This is just amazing!

I just think it’s so amazing that ITW is capable of extracting this bizarre conclusion from anything I have ever written. Truly this is intellectual alchemy.

ITW: go to your piggy bank right now, take out all the pennies, and focus your magical powers on them. If the above demonstration of your talent is any indication, I’m sure you can turn those pennies into gold nuggets, and then you can go buy a pony!

Yes, I’ve heard all the Darfur rape stories,

something like a million times!! They repeat these things over and over and over in the Media,

and Nicholas Kritof has made a fetish of it. He is the “Darfur Rape Horror Story” King.

It is disgusting to abuse these very real horror stories, the way the “Save” Darfur Media Publicity team, to which Kristof owes his allegiance, does.

and I am especially sick of seeing them used as “bait” in so-called “liberal” publications, like the New Yorker.

Yes, Virginia - and after we start the war with Iran, causing the closure of the Persian Gulf, oil will shoot up to $500 a barrel overnight, making the oil we steal from Darfur all the more valuable!

The 47 people left in America who can still afford to drive will pay Chevron a whole lot for their gas! Congress will pass a new, zillion-dollar aid package for Israel, so the Holy State will suffer no economic consequences.

And while everyone in the US and Europe is suddenly distracted with trying to figure out how to find enough food to survive for the next month, Israel can expand its borders from Cairo to Beirut. No one will even ask what happened to all the Arabs that used to live there; everyone will be too numb even to ask where that rotten, fleshy smell is coming from….

Virginia777, April 14 at 10:14 pm #

But of course, we know he won’t hesitate to bring it up again, with that wonderful freshness he has — the eternal freshness of the fervent Zionist believer who cannot be made to notice that he is utterly ridiculous and should shut up.[
******************************

With each post you show your selves to be the radical fascists that you are, drugged with a hatred of any that oppose you, any that challenge your crack-pot ideals.

Now it’s revealed that the rapes and the murders and the ethnic cleansing WELL-DOCUMENTED are to you all a big phony for an excuse to get the oil beneath the ground.

Ed Harges, when I first said I didn’t think you gave TWO SHITS about the human lives in Darfur, and therefore the human lives of the Palestinians, it was a postulated hypothesis.  Now, you, yourself and this incredibly vile Virginian bigot show yourselves as the monsters you are:  You don’t give a rat’s ass HOW MANY people die to achieve your vile end: a completely homogeneous Arab world all under one Caliph.  750,000,000 subject to one will, all of the same people.

Except I think much more highly of people than you do.  I think that most of those 750,000,000 want to live in peace and freedom.  They don’t want a Taliban, or a Caliph.  They don’t want a commissar or a King or a Shah.  I think they want want all people want.  And I think their religious leaders want what all religious leaders want: Absolute Power. Absolute decisions over life and death.  Absolute power to f*** and woman, man, girl or boy they chose WITHOUT ANY HESITATION on the victim’s part.

Am I crazy?  No. But I know you two are.  Just this crazy.  All one needs to do is extrapolate from your posts. 

NOTHING in either of you ever acknowledges the human spirit to be free to challenge or question. Notice how EH heaps abuse on me for challenging his fascist ideals. He doesn’t LIKE to be challenged—he doesn’t LIKE to find out he’s full of crap. Therefore, EH’s ideal society is….The Taliban.

And so is Virginian777’s.  Did you notice they executed a 14 year old girl and 17 year old boy for who, in love tryed to escape her intended loveless marriage? They were executed for….“Insulting Islam.”  As if Allah would sanction such an abomination.  That’s YOUR heaven!  You can have it!

Exactly!!

Only, they don’t want to “Save” Darfur, they want a military base in North Africa, they want US troops there too.

They want rights to the oil that lies beneath the Darfur sand as well.

re: By Virginia777, April 14 at 8:43 pm:

Thanks so much Virginia. That’s hilarious! To summarize the “Save Darfur” movement, I suggest the battle cry: “Join the Israel lobby, the Christian right, and Blackwater Inc. in the great moral crusade to save Darfur from the evil Ay-rabs!”

Now that you, Syvanen, and I have all shown that this “Save Darfur” stuff is nothing but the fishiest of red herrings, we should be able to expect that Inherent the Wind will be too ashamed to bring up this crap again on future occasions when he’s desperately trying to shut up Israel’s critics. 

But of course, we know he won’t hesitate to bring it up again, with that wonderful freshness he has — the eternal freshness of the fervent Zionist believer who cannot be made to notice that he is utterly ridiculous and should shut up.

Here is my favorite Darfur media madness,

Darfur “activist” Mia Farrow, who Nicholas Kristof has supported many times in his column, including pieces called “Mia the Gold Medalist”, “Long Live Mia Farrow”,

Mia Farrow approaches none other than Erik Prince, of Blackwater (sorry, make that Xe) to ask for help with her “Save” Darfur campaign! http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4699eda6-3d65-11dd-bbb5-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

talk about Rosemary’s baby!

see here: Activists turn to Blackwater over Darfur
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4699eda6-3d65-11dd-bbb5-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

“She acknowledged that many people might have reservations about Blackwater being involved in Darfur – the company’s men were involved in the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians last September – but said the threat of violence to refugees meant all options had to be explored.”

You’ll have to forgive him: Folktruther’s a little mixed up. His boob fetish is racing out of control and bouncing all over filling his mind with them, curiously, always in odd numbers. Boobs, boobs, boobs! FT’s just overwhelmed with them! It’s kinda sad, y’know?

re: By Shingo, April 14 at 7:36 pm:

Ah, here’s an interesting issue: that famous shibboleth, “self-determination”.

Actually, the issue of “self-determination of peoples” is something that Neumann takes up in his book, “The Case Against Israel”, and his position is not quite what one might expect. He doesn’t fault Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians on the principle that Israel is preventing the “self-determination” of the Palestinians in a nationalist sense. Neumann recognizes this as an ethical trap. Israel bases is its own legitimacy on this principle, which has a history in US politics that goes back at least to Woodrow Wilson and his bleeding-heart interventionism.

Neumann points out that their are many ethnicities in the world which do not have their own sovereign, ethnically-based nation-states, and it would be madness to assume that they all have the right to have such separate nation-states.  The whole concept of blood-and-soil ethnic territorial nationalism was a romantic 19th-century European idea that has given us nothing but trouble and has no basis in any any fundamental ethical principle.

Neumann faults the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians not because Israelis are thwarting the ethnic nationalist “rights” of Palestinians, but for a more fundamental, human, moral reason: you don’t have the right to dispossess, expel, kill, humiliate, or otherwise oppress people who have long lived in a place, regardless of whether or not the people living there constitute a “real” nation or “people” by your ethnic nationalist standards.

This is how Neumann summarily parries Golda Meir’s famous dismissal of the Palestinians (“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”): he shows that it doesn’t matter whether this is true. It has no moral weight whatsoever. It’s bigoted crap.

And take note, all you Americans — Jewish and non-Jewish — who are such worshipful admirers of Israel: according to Zionist ethnic nationalist standards, very few countries on earth are anything like as legitimate as precious, pedigreed, blood-and-soil, biblically-sanctioned Israel. Certainly the United States falls laughably short of the Zionist standard that is used to deny the national existence and rights of the Palestinian people. Israel cannot possibly think much of us a “people” or a “nation” either, my dears. They’re just glad to take our money and the blood of our soldiers and whatever else they can get from us, as long as we’re foolish enough to keep coughing it up.

Ed Harges, April 14 at 6:52 pm #

You’re sort of endearing, actually, the way puppies and babies are endearing: they can’t help being what they are. God’s in his heaven, the stars are in the sky, and there’s ITW, just being ITW. This is kind of the way Lefty was, just toward the end. Totally wrong, yet as blameless as a dandelion.[

***************************************
Well, I guess you told me off!  Clearly I’m probably not capable of wiping my own nose or ass according to you.

Now you’ll go back to phonying down the death toll in Darfur… Soon you’ll have it down to three fellows who stumbled into a dry well.  Heaven forbid an ARAB could engage in a crime against humanity!  Only a Jew can do that.

Still, I’m so stupid I still haven’t figured out how Obama is totally in thrall to Zionists solely because he’s afraid they’ll label him “anti-semitic” if he dares criticize ANY policy of the Likud.

It’s clearly obvious to YOU that Obama has no backbone, no fibre and no ability to stand up to anybody who doesn’t have America’s best interests at heart.  But I haven’t seen any evidence that Obama is anything less than the best President we’ve had since FDR.  Only an idiot would think that, right?

So saith the self-proclaimed genius Ed Harges.

“By rfidler, April 14 at 3:43 pm #
folktruther:
You support Palestinian resistance ergo you support murderous policies, unless you can convince me that random rocketry and cafe bombing are somehow not murderous “policies.””

And how is the best equipped military in the region, with nukes no less, who’s whole stance is not and has never ever been, defence, free from accusations of murderous policies?

No Ed, I haven’t read Neumann’s book, though I keep meaning to.

cd024,

So, as I understand it, national self-determination and nationalism is a good thing except if Jews do it—then it becomes racist. Is that right?

Interesting you should bringup self determination.  The US and Israel voted against a UN resolution last December calling for the Palestinians to have self determination.  In other words, the party in this conflict that does not have self determination are the Palestinians and even worse, your beloved Israel (who has had self determination for 60 years) is opposed to the Palestinians having it.

So what does that tell us? That your ad hominem is baseless and that the real racists are the Israelis.

Thanks for playing dude, but really, it wasn’t necessary for you to soil yourself in public.

I’m with you, Ed, the Save Darfur Campaign is a P.R. scam.

re: By Big Wave Dave, April 13 at 12:09 pm:

Heads up, y’all: a big crop of “unregistered commenter” posts just came in, and this one from ‘Big Wave Dave’ is really worth scrolling down-page for.

“So, as I understand it, national self-determination and nationalism is a good thing except if Jews do it—then it becomes racist. Is that right?” cd024

Only if it includes killing other people who live there and treating them as less-than-human. Whether it is the Hutu vs Tutsi in Ruwanda or Palestinians (Semites) by Israelis (Semites) using starvation and terrorism by way of bombings and missile attacks.

I just want Israel to be treated equally as any other which the USA isn’t doing yet and may never do it.

Note; if Israel does attack Iran, Avigdor Lieberman may get his wish of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and West Bank. That tends to happen when war breaks out—-see the Armenians by the Turks in 1915.  Look up Jews in Germany after 1939.
“Never Again?”

In the Torah the Jewish nation is listed as having boundaries between the Nile and Euphrates rivers and the Levant encompassing present day Jordan, Syria, west Egypt and what is now Israel. [There is a reason why their boundaries have not been officially set.]

re: By Folktruther, April 14 at 6:50 pm, By Shingo, April 14 at 6:41 pm, and By Shingo, April 14 at 6:54 pm:

The points you make are much in the vein of Michael Neumann’s book, which I mentioned in By Ed Harges, April 14 at 5:20 pm. Do you know of it? Have either of you read it?

Folktruther,

Very good point.

Like the Nuremberg trials stipulated, the rapist foesn’t get to claim self defense when the victim tries to fight back.

ITW writes:

Stop trying to imply that I’m an idiot, EH.

Good lord, I’m not “implying” it.

Nor am I hinting, insinuating, or seeking to convey the impression of it. I’m not foreshadowing, adumbrating, alluding, eliding, or circumlocuting.

You’re sort of endearing, actually, the way puppies and babies are endearing: they can’t help being what they are. God’s in his heaven, the stars are in the sky, and there’s ITW, just being ITW. This is kind of the way Lefty was, just toward the end. Totally wrong, yet as blameless as a dandelion.

rfidler is actually arguing a common position of bourgeois pacifism.  Namely, that the force and fraud of the oppressed is equivelent to the force and fraud of the oppressor, and should be equally condemned. 

so that an aggressor that invades a courntry, steals its resources, tortures the people and destroys its economy is no worse than the people trying to resist this communal rape by resisting by violence.

This is the bullshit of oppressive power to prevent opposition to its oppression.  It is Israel’s position, to turn the Palestinians into a defeated people with a lack of self respect and communal respect.  This position is supported by Inherit, Sepharad and the Zionist lemmings who identify with Israeli opprssion under the guise of justice and humanity.

rfidler,

You can’t pretend that the rocket attacks and the Israeli bobardment are equivalent.  Firstly, Isral’s scale of violence is an order of magnitude greater than anythign the Palestinians inflict.

The terroroist attacks and rocket attacks, as henious as they are, are an act of resitance to occupatoon.  The Palestinians have a choice to reists or die quetly.  Those are their only options.

The Israelis could put an end to the vilence tomoorow by ending the occupation, but they have opted for land over peace.

As Ricahrd Falk, UN special rapporteur desribed the conditions in Gaza, prior to the siege as a war crime.  Of the rocket attacks, he described them as a crime of necessity.

Hedges concludes:

The public embrace by a senior Israeli official of a policy of ethnic cleansing, however, is ominous. It signals a further evolution of the Israeli state from one that at least paid lip service to equality to one that increasingly resembles the former apartheid regime in South Africa. Racism, once practiced in private and condemned in public, has become to many Israelis acceptable.

Well then, Mr. Hedges, it’s just a matter of the mask coming off, isn’t it? If this makes it harder for Israel to keep the American public fooled and obedient, speeding us toward the day when Americans finally cease all support for Israel, in a great vomiting up of all the Zionist lies which we have been forced to swallow, then perhaps we will be able to say that some good came from the rise of Avigdor Lieberman in Israel.

Ed Harges, April 14 at 5:46 pm

One small correction in your summary.  The number of dead (200,000-400,000) are contested. Those numbers came from the Save Darfur pr people and were widely spread by Kriftoff in the NYT. Those who have tried to come up with real estimates have usually arrived at as low as 70,000 up to 150,000.  In any case it is a real tragedy with multiple millions of displaced people living in refugee camps. But these displacements are the result of environmental changes as well as war.

If western armies could solve the problem of the Sahara encroaching on grass-lands, then maybe they would be of some help.  Otherwise they would just create more problems.

re: By syvanen, April 14 at 5:02 pm:

Syvanen: thanks for the information and link concerning the mischaracterization of the Darfur conflict by the obsessively anti-Arab, anti-Muslim partisans of Israel, who have distorted the Darfur case in order to turn it into another piece of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim agitprop and a distraction to deflect criticism from Israel.

Take a look also at this article, which outlines ten reasons why the entire “Save Darfur” campaign smells more than a little fishy:

Ten Reasons to Suspect “Save Darfur” is a PR Scam

Though the “Save Darfur” PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/69170/

“Murderous policies”? Don’t make me laugh. What do you call everything Israel has ever done since becoming a state? Peace negotiations were underway in Sudan when Bill Clinton was conned into bombing the al Shifa plant in that country, after being told it was a chemical weapons plant by the usual suspects. It was not a chemical weapons plant but it made affordable medicines for humans and veterinary supplies for animals over a large area of Sudan. It was a fiasco for these people, subsistance farmers most of them,  and for their livestock. Soon the NGO’s pulled out, as diseases went untreated, and the peace plan died, never to rise again. They’re not having a war because they’re Muslims, they’re having a war because they’re a subsistance economy with vitually no subsistance to speak of and they were unfortunate enough to have Osama bin Laden among them for a short time. That’s all it took. This whole ‘Muslim=evil’ thing is moronic. This kind of thinking is the basis of all wars and all human conflict and leads to monstrous cruelty and ultimately to self-destruction. Liebermann will be a disaster for Israel, like all the other disastrous ‘leaders’ who preceded him. He has the face of a butcher.

shingo:
I’m not arguing who’s on offense or defense, or who provoked whom. I’m stating that a rocket attack or cafe bombing is just as “murderous” a “policy” as Israeli smart-bombing, or targeted assassination, and that you can’t condemn one without condemning the other.

rfidler,

The concept of evil is a simplistic and juvenile construct that appeals to the right wing brain, because it sees the world in black and white.
Are there evils acts not originating from the US/Israeli?  Sure, but even those are somehow facilitated by Western meddling to some degree.  In any case, the US and Israel are the 2 states that have a policy of invading and attacking countries that are no threat to them.  Since Netenyahu came to office, barely a day goes by where Israel has not made a threat to attack Iran.

Most significantly, is that Israel and the US have the ability to drag the world into another world war.  Indeed, Israel’s leaders consider this an option, which is not only evil, but simply deranged.

Even if you don’t believe that Pol Pot had any CIA connections, his rise to power in Cambodia was facilitated by the illegal and secretive of Cambodia by the Nixon administration.

AS is the case with most Zionists, you seem to struggling with the concept of cause and effect, or rather you do understand it, but are determined to ignore it.

re: By rfidler, April 14 at 3:43 pm:

Rfidler: while there have been wrongs committed on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict, it is Israel that is fundamentally in the wrong and the Palestinians who are fundamentally in the right. Violence committed in resistance against oppression cannot be considered morally equivalent to violence committed in order to accomplish or maintain oppression.

For an explanation of why this is so (in case you can’t figure it out for yourself), please read “The Case Against Israel”, by Canadian professor of ethics Michael Neumann.

Besides being a professor of ethics at a major university, Neumann also happens to be Jewish and the son of a renowned political scientist who was forced to flee Nazi Germany in the early 1930s; so I’m sure you’ll agree that he at least has permission to speak on these matters and is not automatically required to shut up and genuflect to Israel like us lowly shaygetz untermenschen.

rfidler,

>> Harges says to you, “Your assumption that my silence on Darfur is proof of pro-Arab bias is complete crap, you impenetrable moron.”

Avigdor Lieberman couldn’t have said it better.  According to our little Eichman here, all Arabs a liars and not to be trusted.  Notice that no one has said anything derogatory about Jews, but Israel itself?

Rfidler,

You support Palestinian resistance ergo you support murderous policies, unless you can convince me that random rocketry and cafe bombing are somehow not murderous “policies.”

This is a perfect example of the bizzaro mindset of the Zionist propagandist.  By definition, Israel are always defending themselves and the Palestinians are the aggressors, regardless of the facts on the ground.  It doesn’t matter what has happened prior to that rocket attack or the cafe bombing (the Zionists still talk about that one as though it happened yesterday), history always begins from the moment an Israeli is hurt.

Israel fires hundreds more rockets, destroys many more cafe’s (as well and schools, hospitals, mosques, UN compounds) and murders more than ten times as many people as Hamas do, but because their actions aren’t random (ie.  fully intended) , they are not murderous policies but legitimate.

This is where Orwell meets Zionism.

Those who find the Hedges words too painful to ponder, often bring up Darfur as a way of deflecting both introspection and public discussion. Darfur is simply a dissembling device and not an effort at discussion.

However, there is one obvious falsity in this deflection that should be addressed. The war there is NOT a case of Arabs against Africans. It is a case of two groups of North African Muslims, one of which is mostly a herder people and the other mostly farmers. They belong to about 20 different tribes and over the past 15 years there has been some shifting of alliances so this dichotomy is a simplification. Habitable land in Darfur is being lost because of 20 year drought and desertification. It is a civil war caused by too many people competing for diminishing resources. See Mamdani’s article in LRB if interested in some background:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html

folktruther:
You support Palestinian resistance ergo you support murderous policies, unless you can convince me that random rocketry and cafe bombing are somehow not murderous “policies.”

Ed Harges, April 14 at 12:44 pm #

Your assumption that my silence on Darfur is proof of pro-Arab bias is complete crap, you impenetrable moron.
*******************************

Typical. As I pointed out and I’ll try to use simple words:

Congo:  Many, many sides.
Darfur:  Two sides, One Arab, one not.

That’s it.

Stop trying to imply that I’m an idiot, EH.  You use every possible device to attack except the one you don’t have: Unimpeachable facts.  You call me names, you toss out red herrings, you quote obscure or radical sources, you make totally unsupported assertions….

And ALL of this flies apart under rational examination by a reasonable mind.

The reason I’m “ineducable” is that I cannot digest swallow and digest bull$#it, and, furthermore I can’t be “educated” to believe it’s not bull$#it to sucker me into swallowing it.

I’ve seen no mark of intelligence on you, EH. You rather remind me of that poster, Robert, who never had an idea, just lots of quotes or abuse.

And Folktruther is still hung up on his boob fetish, but never with two at a time, and never with them gracing a woman.  Kind of disconnected and floating—an odd image.  I guess it must be that way with fetishes, but I wouldn’t know…

ED:

Ohhhhhhhhh- “Chas” Freeman, Junior. Why the hell didn’t you say so before?

You got it about Inherit, Ed.  Dispite his personal intellignece, he is an ideological boob.  He has to be one because he cannot acknowledge Israel’s ethnic cleansing and war policies, and therefore has to divert attention from them.  He focused on Dafur when Israel was slaughtering the “poor, poor Palestinians” as he sarcastically called them.

That is why he states that you hate Jews; he said it to me as well, and I’m Jewish These kind of boob absurdities is merely repeating the Aipac line of Lichud Zionism, since he can’t acknowledge the Israeli despotism that disgusts the whole world.  Therefore the whole world hates Jews and that is why they pick on Israel.

This is how the Isreli death geostrategy has developed.  The Israeli power structure, and its American Zionist counterpart, has gotten more and more rightwing as its despotism has become obvious and evident despite the US Zionist media.  All Zionists have left in naked aggression and boobish deceit-delusion necessary to justify it.

And Shingo, this Zionism historically is more and more displaying fascist characteristics.  I consider those that support it ideological enemies whatever they claim and whatever their personal attributes, and this includes my relatives.  I don’t embrace differences which include support for murderous policies.  And despite his misgivings, Inheit implicitly defends these death policies by attacking truthers who expose them.  Often with boob absurdities.

re: By rfidler, April 14 at 12:50 pm:

I’m glad you’re giving your case a rest, Fidler; it looks kind of tired and frail.

No, no, of course tiny Israel does not have veto power over US foreign policy. Only Ed Harges thinks that. Nobody with any brains or credibility would agree. Ed Harges is completely out on a limb here.

No wait — here’s somebody who agrees:

Charles W. “Chas” Freeman Jr. speaks: By vetoing U.S. appointments, the Israel lobby is enforcing adherence to a foreign government

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel.  I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel.  It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.  This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/freeman-the-powerful-israel-lobby-is-determined-to-prevent-any-view-other-than-its-own-from-being-ai.html

Ten Reasons to Suspect “Save Darfur” is a PR Scam

...Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust U.S.-backed or U.S.-led military intervention in Western Sudan….

...If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?....

Though the “Save Darfur” PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/69170/

I just had an epiphany.

I’ve racked my brains, trying figure out why oh why Inherit the wind will not absorb and understand what I actually write, why he is so completely impervious, and goes back to making the same assertions over and over, just as though they hadn’t been completely addressed and refuted.

And then it hit me: this is simply the best he can do. That’s just all there is to it. It’s like when a piano teacher reaches the point with a frustrating student, trying this, trying that, with never any luck, until the realization finally comes in a quiet moment of reflection: “Wait! What if this kid simply has no talent?”

ITW:

Harges says to you, “Your assumption that my silence on Darfur is proof of pro-Arab bias is complete crap, you impenetrable moron.”

I rest my case.

The utterly uneducable Inherit the Wind writes:

“Nobody wants to talk about Darfur because it is a clear-cut case of racial cleansing but it’s being done BY Arabs, not being (supposedly) TO Arabs.”

I JUST showed you that this is garbage. I don’t talk about Congo, either, though the death count in that conflict is 20 times that of Darfur. There are no Arabs involved in the Congo bloodbath, so you see, when I’m silent about something, it can’t be because it’s a crime being committed by Arabs.

Your assumption that my silence on Darfur is proof of pro-Arab bias is complete crap, you impenetrable moron.

Jason.

To complain about people only quoting from one source then posting a link to information provided by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), shows that you have really lost the plot.

But..we can all post links so,here’s some for you..

general stuff..
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article7
http://www.electronicintifada.net/

as for the Iranian threat..
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=1850

what about some cartoons..
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/03/20/idf-t-shirts-boast-of-killing-babies-pregnant-women-sodomizing-hamas-leaders/

human shield..yup!..
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073243.html

broken ceasfire?..yup
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1230/1230581467173.html?via=mr

hate speech?..yup..
http://www.abdolian.com/thoughts/?p=2574

terrorist acts?..yup..get the books and read them..

http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Religion-Unmasking-Jewish-Democratic/dp/0745325556/ref=pd_sim_b_14

Even the Prime Ministers daughter demonstrates…

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261125,00.html#n

There’s a lot of information to be had that’s for sure..

ITW:
Thanks.

Harges (who has this habit of saying something loony, then when asked to explain/prove the point, accuses you of changing the subject)et al, put Darfur, etc way down on their list because they have a very hard time accepting that there really is evil in the world which is not directly or even remotely indirectly sponsored or supported by the dreaded US/Israeli axis of evil. By their lights, ALL evil originates with, is inspired by, or a direct reaction to, the mere fact of US/Israeli existence.

I’m sure if you let them, they’d “prove” to you that even Stalin’s purges were caused by his fear that the US was ready to nuke him at any moment, or that Pol Pot was a CIA stooge. And the argument would start with a string of ad hominems to show off their rhetorical and debating skills.

re: By rfidler, April 14 at 11:46 am:

Dear Rfidler;

Often, as a matter of shorthand, I do write that Israel “controls” our foreign policy. But no, this control is not total. They don’t absolutely always get everything they want in a every matter.  Israel has a very high degree of control, but no, not perfect control, of US foreign policy regarding the Middle East.

You write that if Israel really controlled US foreign policy, they’d already have gotten rid of all the Arabs and annexed all of “greater Israel”. But it’s obvious that there are constraints on what Israel can do even with its control of US foreign policy. Even the most maximalist Israeli expansionists know that more than US backing would be required to get away with all they’d like to do.

Often Israel’s control of US policy is exercised negatively: they don’t always get what they want, but they are very good at shutting out people and ideas that they don’t like. They are very good at limiting the scope of our foreign policy to a narrow gamut, and enforcing those limits in journalistic coverage by our corporate media, in which Israel’s American devotees are disproportionately prominent at every level from ownership on down. How this control works is complex; read Paul Findley, “They Dare to Speak Out”; Noam Chomsky, “Fateful Triangle”; and Mearshimer and Walt, “The Israel Lobby”; and Finkelstein, “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”, for starters. As Finkelstein in particular shows, an important element of this control has to do with powerful post-WWII social mores against anti-Semitism, and the ability of Israel’s supporters to enforce highly questionable definitions of anti-Semitism, contrived to serve their ethnic-nationalist purposes.

Also read Charles Freeman’s angry and candid speech recently made after the Israel lobby forced him out of an administration intelligence post to which he’d been duly appointed and for which he was spectacularly qualified, because Israel wants to make sure that the “intelligence” reaching President Obama supports Israel’s alarmist claims concerning Iran — just as Israel provided much of the phony “intelligence” that was used to drag the US into the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Fidler:
You’ll never get through to Ed Harges.  The man detests all Jews and wants Israel wiped off the map. This, he believes, will bring peace to the world.

Nobody wants to talk about Darfur because it is a clear-cut case of racial cleansing but it’s being done BY Arabs, not being (supposedly) TO Arabs.

The situation in Myanmar (Burma) has been neglected as well, as has Congo.  But where Congo is very tangled and there’s about 8-12 different sides (if not more), in Darfur there are two: There are the non-Arab peoples. There is the blatantly racist and GENOCIDAL government of Bashir. It’s genocide going on there, whereas even with the WORST exaggerations of Israeli excesses there’s no genocide. Period.

Ed Harges hasn’t “dismissed” anything but the arguments he doesn’t want to face.

Fidler, the inherent logic of your argument blows away ALL that EH is saying.

Just as it’s so simple that if the ONLY hold the Israelis have over Obama is fear he’ll be called “anti-semitic” (that’s EH) then they have NO power over the US (which is the real truth), so it’s equally simple if they packed the power and evil in the ME, they’d simply start dropping daisy-cutters in a swath on Gaza and the borders with the West Bank.

WHICH THEY ARE NOT DOING!

I won’t even answer Shingo on this one—it’s clear Shingo thinks Palestinian lives are worth saving but Darfuian lives aren’t, no matter how Shingo tries to do a Houdini on that one.

With the supposed unconditional support of the US from day one, what has stopped Israel from militarily wiping Arab Palestine off the map and reclaiming all of Judea and Samaria once and for all?

People like you have been whining about Zionist hegemonic proclivities for over a century now and what has come of it? A few million dispossessed Jews, with the blessing of the U.N., make an economic and political success out of a slice of desert. And they didn’t do it, despite your protestions to the contrary, by resorting to “ethnic cleansing”, “genocide”, or Nazi-like holocaust.

Arab-Muslim Israelis live far better political, economic and cultural lives than Arab-Muslim Gazans or West Bankers. That is demonstrably and undeniably true. And it’s NOT Israel’s fault. What has the Arab world done for Palestine lately?

You simply can’t support your assertions that Jews run the world power centers and own the US Congress. If they did, there would be no “Palestine problem,” no Iranian nuke program, etc, etc. And you can’t say they are just biding their time, either. That will make you sound like those wacko apocalyptic Christians who have been saying “the end is near” for two thousand years. Well. We’re waiting. When will these all-powerful Jews make manifest their power?

Actually, I’m not finished with dispatching ITW’s “save Darfur” garbage.

Pro-Israel “liberals” like ITW are always braying at Israel’s critics, “You just gripe about what’s happening to the Palestinians, but you never get upset about Darfur.”

Well, as I explained, the difference is elementary: our own government is not aiding and abetting and praising the oppressive government of Darfur as it goes about its crimes. For Americans, there is no other situation in the world comparable to that in Israel/Palestine, where our own government is fanatically, bipartisanly, self-destructively determined to be Best Friends Forever with the oppressors.

That alone is enough to debunk the “but what about Darfur?” distraction game.

But I have another point I’d like to make. IF Inherit the Wind really thinks that we should all get equally upset about all evil in the world, even where our government is not doing or assisting in that evil, then why is it always only Darfur that ITW brings up?

I brought up the example of Myanmar in a previous post, but even more pointedly relevant is the Congo conflict, where by 2007 the death count had already reached TWENTY TIMES the scope of that in Darfur. ITW notices that I don’t bring up Darfur, and with his incredibly narrow Zionist mind, he instantly assumes that it MUST be because the oppressors in Darfur are Arabs, so I’m motivated by pro-Arab bias. Well, ITW, sweetheart, I never express outrage over the far more horrendous matter of the bloodshed in the Congo either, and there are no Arabs involved whom I might be protecting with my silence. If ITW were not so blindered, he would see that his assumption of “pro-Arab” motivation on my part is utterly ridiculous.

See this article, about the wildly disproportionate attention given to Darfur, as compared to the far larger Congo bloodbath:

In the last decade, 4 million people in the Congo have been killed in the ongoing conflict and 800,000 more displaced. The death toll is 20 times higher than in the war in Darfur, yet Chicago Tribune foreign reporter Paul Salopek says the Congo much more rarely makes the news.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17494392

Please also read this next article; the writer points out that the whole “simplistic picture of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur” is highly suspect, and that the bloodshed in the Congo dwarfs that in Darfur; he points out that there’s an oil angle here, and that “supporters of Israeli rejectionism” figure heavily in the astroturf “grass roots” promoters of the “Save Darfur” PR campaign:

Ten Reasons to Suspect “Save Darfur” is a PR Scam

Though the “Save Darfur” PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/69170/

“Without loyalty, there is no citizenship.”

god, i hope our leaders haven’t heard of that….

BTW Jason,

It just goes to show how extreme and deluded you ar when you are supporting a man, whoeven in Israel, is regarded as a rascist and a facist.  It guess that makes you one, even by Israel’s standards.

Jason,

Part 1 of 2

You’re all so predictable.

First, your logic needs some help.  Facts are facts, no matter which side they originate from.  I know that being a Zionist propagandist means that you are unable to tell the difference between spin and truth, but you can’t have it both ways.

If you want to insist that Hamas are liars, then you can’t then turn around and base your argument on what they’ve been saying can you?  Either they are telling the truth or they are lying, but you don’t get to pick and chose what to believe.

No I don’t speak from Hams propaganda, I am quoting independent sources. 

For example, here is an interview done by a Jew with Meeshal

Is Hamas Looking For a Two-State Solution? Should We Listen?
http://southjerusalem.com/2008/04/is-hamas-looking-for-a-two-state-solution-should-we-listen/
Here is a news link from CNN
Hamas official suggests ‘two-state’ solution
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/04/mideast/index.html

Here is an interview with Seymour Hersh
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/seymour_hersh_on_syria_calling_the

And here is another interview with a French Jewish Novelist and editorialist Marek Harek,  who interviewed Khaled Meshaal
http://www.france24.com/en/20081230-hamas-israel

You’ll notice that none of these are Hamas sources.

I am not interested in any sides of this argument, just the facts.  The Israeli version or Hamas version are irrelevant to the facts.  You are the one who is pathetic because having turned your childish attempt at a debate on it’s head, all you can do is just up and down and complain that I am not considering both sides of the issue.

Now let’look at your patetic little links shall we?

http://tinyurl.com/9dkh58

Well, well, what do we have here? A link to the Israeli Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center!!  What a joke!!  Are you for real?  Why are you so afraid to link to a mainstream news source?  Of I know, your beloved Israelis banned the foreign media from entering Gaza during the massacre so that no one could report on the carnage that Israel were perpetrating, isn’t that right Jason?

So there were no journalists were there verify is Hamas really did exploit civilians as human shields.  How convenient.  Let me see, could it be that the last time Israel used that phony excuse, it was completely debunked by independent sources?
Amnesty and HRW Claims Discredited in Detailed Report
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/amnesty_and_hrw_claims_discredited_in_detailed_report
Human Rights Watch: Troubling Report
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/human-rights-watch-troubling-report/46037/
Israeli ‘human shield’ claim is full of holes
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090113/FOREIGN/591536290/1002

Isn’t it interesting how the only reports of the use of human shields in Gaza y the UN reveal that it was Israel that were using human shields?
U.N. reports say Israel targeted civilians in Gaza
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE52M6G220090323?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

>> Hamas’s military buildup in the Gaza Strip (Updated April 2008)

Let me educate you. The one and only comprehensive scholarly history of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is a book called “Lords of the Land”, by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar.  It’s been translated into English.  Here is what they had to say about Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
“After Israel withdrew it’s forces from Gaza, in August 2005, the ruined territory was not released for even a single day from Israel’s military grip, or from the price of the occupation that the inhabitants pay every day. Israel left behind scotched earth, devastated services, and people with nearly a present or a future. The Jewish settlements were destroyed in an ungenerous move by an unenlightened occupier, which in fact continues to control the territory and kill and harass it’s inhabitants, by means of it’s formidable military might.”

Jason,

Part 2 of 2

>> The Hamas Charter

From the first link.

http://southjerusalem.com/2008/04/is-hamas-looking-for-a-two-state-solution-should-we-listen/

“The leader of Hamas is saying that the Charter has no practical relevance. He really wishes Israel would vanish, but that’s not his political program. He’d rather take a couple pills against nausea, and accept reality.”

>> Summary of rocket fire and mortar shelling in 2008

From an interview of Israeli spokesman, Mark Regev.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6e-elrgYL0

Throughout July to November 4th, Hamas fired no rockets at Israel.  The rocket attacks were resumes after Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4th.

Interviewer: There were no Hamas rockets during the ceasefire. Before November the 4th. There were no Hams rockets for 4 months.

Mark Regev: And that’s correct.

>> Iranian Support of Hamas

Irrelevant to the debate.  The US supports Israel and Iran support Hamas.  Hamas are the democratically elected government in Gaza.  End of story.

That, Jason, is what is called research.  Go away and get yourself educated before wanting everyone times o this list with you childish efforts.

Shingo,

you get all your “facts” from one side. most of what you say is hamas lies and made up legend all created to fuel hatred. You speak directly from thier propoganda with no shame.

I am willing to wager that you have never sought the other sides view huh. You take hamas propoganda as the gospel and truth and then you come here like a good little talking head to spew info you have no first hand knowledge of. Pathetic.

Try this research link. some very good studies that dispute you lies.

http://tinyurl.com/9dkh58

Hamas Exploitation of Civilians as Human Shields
This study (completed during the first week of Operation Cast Lead) provides many examples of how Gazan civilians are used as human shields during terrorist attacks against Israel and combat against the IDF.

Hamas’s military buildup in the Gaza Strip (Updated April 2008)
The Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 created a new situation which accelerated the establishment of an area fully controlled by Hamas. It was quick to use its increased military power to make political capital in internal Palestinian affairs.

The Hamas Charter
Overtly anti-Semitic and anti-West, radical Islamic in outlook, it stresses Hamas’ ideological commitment to destroy the State of Israel through a long-term holy war (jihad).

Summary of rocket fire and mortar shelling in 2008
The year 2008 saw the peak of rocket use by Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.

Iranian Support of Hamas
Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 created a new situation which accelerated the establishment of the area controlled by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

re: By Shingo, April 14 at 2:43 am:

Thanks, Shingo.

rfidler,

>>Wow, prole! Joseph Goebbels couldn’t have said it better.

You would know, being such a fan of his.

Wow, prole! Joseph Goebbels couldn’t have said it better.