Long time readers are probably aware that I’ve got no love lost for Israel. In the general sense, I don’t favor Israel or Palestine in their conflict; they both have a right to the land they’re sitting on and it’s a damn shame that their situation is being exploited by certain forces so as to make it a microcosm for east vs west warfare.
That said, Israel has displayed some atrocious behaviour in the fight. A rocket flies into Israel, they firebomb a few neighborhoods. They sign treaties and then don’t follow them, expand into Palestinian settlements, and generally bully their way around largely because they have the US backing them up. Want an analogy? The Israel is to the US as North Korea is to China.
All of this has been met with condemnation by the people that has been almost disturbingly not present in our political discourse. While most Americans tend to say that both sides of the fight deserve their land and that the US should stay the hell out of it, politicians from Obama to Clinton to Romney to Palin have all bent over backwards to lick Israel’s nether regions.
Thus, Obama’s snub of Netanyahu is just friggin’ awesome.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
…
Sources said that Mr Netanyahu failed to impress Mr Obama with a flow chart purporting to show that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama was said to be livid when such an announcement derailed the visit to Israel by Joe Biden, the Vice-President, this month and his anger towards Israel does not appear to have cooled.
No matter what Israeli apologists and neocons might say, no one has ever suggested that Israel should be destroyed or that Palestine should be allowed to nuke their roommates. What has been said is that Israel has shown absolutely no willingness to compromise and refuses to take responsibility for even what we know damn well they did. They don’t want peace, they want the entire land. It’s been unbalanced, unfair, and often illegal.
And the world knows it, too. Israel got smacked around at a Middle Eastern summit recently.
The Arab League summit began on Saturday in the Libyan city of Sirte, with Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, warning that continued Israeli settlement building would end efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.
“We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure,” Moussa said in his opening speech to the two-day annual summit.
“It’s time to face Israel … We have accepted an open-ended peace process but that resulted in a loss of time and we did not achieve anything and allowed Israel to practise its policy for 20 years.”
The problem is that it’s impossible to criticize Israel without it being conflated with a “lack of support” for the oft-terrorized nation. Israel has been given every opportunity to play nice. They haven’t. It’s time to deliver an ultimatum and either get them to work with Palestine or they don’t get any more gub’mint cheese.
Hanlon\'s Razor 
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Careful on this one. You didn’t grow up during the Intefada. Israel’s current policies (and policy makers) are a direct outgrowth of the violence of the PLO and other terrorist organizations which bombarded Israel for years.
That said, some of their current folks have taken Hawkishness to a new level.
This is -not- like North Korea whatsoever. North Korea isn’t fighting against a force who’s literal, published, manifesto reads that they will “destroy the State of [North Korea].” And who advocate the genocide of every last [North Korean] on Earth.
For the record, and to repeat, there are numerous first-source documents and speeches that indicate the desire of certain “Palistinian” groups to commit genocide and destroy the State of Israel.
I think you've missed a lot in recent times with even Hamas and Hezbollah saying they'd agree to recognizing the Israeli state.
Moreover, Israel's actions are only making matters worse. If you don't want to create enemies, don't firebomb innocent civilians in areas where your enemies live.
“If you don’t want to create enemies, don’t firebomb innocent civilians in areas where your enemies live.”
Cough…Afghanistan…cough.
“…saying they’d agree to recognizing the Israeli state. ”
The problem, at its core is neither hatred nor statehood but control of religious sites. In one faction you have the Muslims, who were the last, chronologically, to occupy the Temple Mount (and the Dome of the Rock). In a second faction you have early Christians who chronologically took over the site from the Jews who held the Temple Mount first. (Preceded by other religions before them.)
Muslims and Jews, with strong traditions and laws pertaining to holy site “cleanliness,” consider each other to be “unclean” and violently oppose one another defiling (literally) their holiest sites.
There can be no “Peace in the Middle East” while three religions lay claim to one small area. The conflict cannot be resolved without an Alexandrian solution to the Gordian problem. And wiping Jerusalem off the map is a solution only the most radical advocate.
Careful on this one. You didn’t grow up during the Intefada. Israel’s current policies (and policy makers) are a direct outgrowth of the violence of the PLO and other terrorist organizations which bombarded Israel for years.
That said, some of their current folks have taken Hawkishness to a new level.
This is -not- like North Korea whatsoever. North Korea isn’t fighting against a force who’s literal, published, manifesto reads that they will “destroy the State of [North Korea].” And who advocate the genocide of every last [North Korean] on Earth.
For the record, and to repeat, there are numerous first-source documents and speeches that indicate the desire of certain “Palistinian” groups to commit genocide and destroy the State of Israel.
I think you've missed a lot in recent times with even Hamas and Hezbollah saying they'd agree to recognizing the Israeli state.
Moreover, Israel's actions are only making matters worse. If you don't want to create enemies, don't firebomb innocent civilians in areas where your enemies live.
“If you don’t want to create enemies, don’t firebomb innocent civilians in areas where your enemies live.”
Cough…Afghanistan…cough.
“…saying they’d agree to recognizing the Israeli state. ”
The problem, at its core is neither hatred nor statehood but control of religious sites. In one faction you have the Muslims, who were the last, chronologically, to occupy the Temple Mount (and the Dome of the Rock). In a second faction you have early Christians who chronologically took over the site from the Jews who held the Temple Mount first. (Preceded by other religions before them.)
Muslims and Jews, with strong traditions and laws pertaining to holy site “cleanliness,” consider each other to be “unclean” and violently oppose one another defiling (literally) their holiest sites.
There can be no “Peace in the Middle East” while three religions lay claim to one small area. The conflict cannot be resolved without an Alexandrian solution to the Gordian problem. And wiping Jerusalem off the map is a solution only the most radical advocate.
And… interesting. Both sides are now saying that there was no such snub or walkout.
And… interesting. Both sides are now saying that there was no such snub or walkout.
I have always thought that the city should belong to no state, but to the international community. Christians, Muslims, Jews…who deserves the city? None? All? Honestly, if you think the city is the root of all of these problems than it needs to be a separate entity, free of state rule. An international city much like Vatican City… I have always thought it funny that the religions at odds for "holy sites" are the most closely related theologically. ever notice that the "holy sites" seem to be holy to all parties? if you kids can't play nice then none of you deserve the city.
btw…Big Bad Wolf, when you put words in quotations it helps if you acknowledge the persons who are being quoted. If you don't then I assume you snagged the quotes from the back of a Happy Meal box.
p.s. weren't the Jews banished from the Holy Land by God, never to return? Wow, won't their faces be red when they have to explain Israel after they pass away…. like Lucy, they've got lots of splainin’ to do!
Achem. Here’s (one of) the Cereal Box(s) for you:
THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL CHARTER:
Resolutions of the Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968
Check out Articles 9 and 15 if you’re feeling particularly bored, they make for lovely breakfast-time reading.
And “banished from the Holy Land?” Do you, perhaps, mean the book of Exodus…dealing with their flight from Egypt and subsequent wandering for 40 years after a particularly bad decision involving a cow made of gold? (Particularly apropo, given that Monday is Passover.)
I have always thought that the city should belong to no state, but to the international community. Christians, Muslims, Jews…who deserves the city? None? All? Honestly, if you think the city is the root of all of these problems than it needs to be a separate entity, free of state rule. An international city much like Vatican City… I have always thought it funny that the religions at odds for "holy sites" are the most closely related theologically. ever notice that the "holy sites" seem to be holy to all parties? if you kids can't play nice then none of you deserve the city.
btw…Big Bad Wolf, when you put words in quotations it helps if you acknowledge the persons who are being quoted. If you don't then I assume you snagged the quotes from the back of a Happy Meal box.
p.s. weren't the Jews banished from the Holy Land by God, never to return? Wow, won't their faces be red when they have to explain Israel after they pass away…. like Lucy, they've got lots of splainin’ to do!
Achem. Here’s (one of) the Cereal Box(s) for you:
THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL CHARTER:
Resolutions of the Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968
Check out Articles 9 and 15 if you’re feeling particularly bored, they make for lovely breakfast-time reading.
And “banished from the Holy Land?” Do you, perhaps, mean the book of Exodus…dealing with their flight from Egypt and subsequent wandering for 40 years after a particularly bad decision involving a cow made of gold? (Particularly apropo, given that Monday is Passover.)