Interesting read, @The New York Times, "Netanyahu’s Talk of Peace Finds Few True Believers":
Mr. Netanyahu has been explicit ... about his conditions for a deal. He says the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Palestinian negotiators reject such recognition, contending it would preclude the demand of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants for the right of return to their former homes, and be detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab minority.But check out the Jerusalem Post, "The Legal Assault on Israel is Gathering Speed":
Mr. Netanyahu adds that the problem of the refugees has to be resolved outside the borders of Israel and that Israel will only accept defensible borders, and he wants international guarantees that any Palestinian state will be fully demilitarized.
Although talk of peace, "two states for two peoples" and the "Arab League initiative" fill the lofty speeches of American and European leaders, the political war to delegitimize Israel is accelerating.Related: The Astute Bloggers, "Obama Meddling in Israeli Affairs Again - ******* UPDATED: Bibi Tells Barry to Eff Off!" (Via Memeorandum.)
Officials of the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority, working with powerful groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, exploit the rhetoric of international law to brand Israeli defense against terror as "war crimes" and "collective punishment." As a result, talk of peace process continues to be a façade, demonstrating that the core ideology and objectives - the elimination of Jewish sovereignty and statehood - remain unchanged since 1947.
The Gaza war that took place six months ago, like the 2006 Second Lebanon War, provided major platforms for accelerating political warfare against Israel. Erasing the context of Hamas rocket attacks, this coalition uses international frameworks to pursue a campaign of delegitimization. The UN Human Rights Council's Goldstone Commission, with a mandate that found Israel guilty before any "evidence" was gathered, is one example, and there are many more.
These objectives unite the "moderates" and "radicals" who, on other issues, are bitter enemies. In theory, the PA, dominated by Yasser Arafat's old Fatah organization, is supposed to be the moderate wing and Israel's peace partner, while Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the militant Islamic terror group. But in campaigns to label Israel as an "apartheid state," Mahmoud Abbas' PA and Amr Mousa's Arab League are on the front lines.
9 comments:
I see no problem in recognizing Israel as a state. But a Jewish state?
What’s that all about?
Obama has not choice but to oppose any attempts to promote a religious state.
Blacks fought long and hard so they could sit at the front of the bus and eat in “whites only” lunch counters, It would be hypocritical to turn around and support the efforts to ethnically purify Israel
Israels attempt to create a Jewish state sounds no different than the Chinese attempts to populate remote areas of their country with Han ethnic people to the exclusion of ethnic minorities. or the southern whites with their “whites only” policy
In Arab countries like Saudi Arabia being a Muslim nation has led to a marginalization of people of other religions and bans on religious freedoms
The United States should always stick up for religious and ethnic equality. It should not support an Israeli government whose goals are to seek advantages for particular race or religion .
Hamster, Israel is not "ethnically pure", nor has it attempted to be. Go there, and see how many Muslim Arabs are walking around in the tourist center of Jerusalem; in the Western section, on the side that was Israel before 1967. They were shopping and eating and doing the same things us Jews were a'doin, and no one was kicking them or throwing them out, in spite of the fact this was in 2008, after the Intafada and the many bombings IN that part of Jerusalem
Ethnically Purified? Where?
But it IS a place Jews could go, and unfortunately, MY GRANDPARENTS had no place to go in 1944, because the U.S. KEPT THEM OUT, nd thus, my grandparents ended up on a transport to Auschwitz and the gas chambers.
Now, THAT was an attempt by the Third Reich and certain Polish people to "ethnically purify" Europe.
I didn't see such things going on in Israel.
In fact, my dad was the slave...Obama should be more enthralled with my dad's heritage. My dad worked as a slave to the German overseers in camps including Dora-Nordhausen...
But Israel is a place for Jews to go, for us to have our own place, yet, Christians can live there, and do, and Jews live there, and Muslims live there.
Jerusalem wasn't the only place I saw Arab Muslims. I got gas at a service station near the Sea of Galilee...Arab proprietor. I hiked behind a group of Arab Muslim kids on a school hike, at the Banias National Park, and I followed them for a good part of a long hike to see a beautiful waterfall; they, as did EVERY group, Jewish or Christian or Arab, of school kids, had an armed guard with them.
This class had an Israeli guard, who bantered with the kids. Didn't hurt them, was protecting them.
And WTF, where is Obama on Saudi, speaking of a religious country. Why doesn't he open his mouth about their religious intolerance, which is quite real. they don't allow Christians except into segregated off areas...no infidels, you know...not in the holy areas.
Nope. Obama BOWED to the king. the ruler of the Holy places.
So your entire essay is just so much bullshit.
Tell the Muslim states to stop calling themselves Muslim, then you can talk about Israel. And seriously, read about what Israel does via its different religions vs. what the Saudis or other Arab countries have done, or say, that other bastion of tolerant Islam, Iran and its religious police.
No gay kids have been executed in Israel. In Iran, gay teens have been hung publicly.
Ok, I'm off topic, we're into other kinds of intolerance, but just sayin...and yeah, go to Israel, see how it's ethnically trying to purify.
READ NETANYAHU's Statement, because he was right: Arabs LIVE and own property in French Hill, in the Western side of Jerusalem, the putatively "Jewish side", which alone destroys your argument. And lastly, I just read an article about a restaurant that my niece's husband's grandmother (sorry that took a bit) took me to there, in Jerusalem, when I visited, the Ticho House.
It's kosher, it's in the Western side...and the main chef is an Arab.
Yeah, ethnically purified my ass.
Oh, and the Israelis took in thousands of BLACK Ethiopians. Yep, Jewish, but has it caused a lot of conflict? Yep. It has not been easy to integrate them into a modern Westernized society and into, for them, a very different type of Judaism.
But Israel did it, and saved thousands from hunger and death, and fulfilled the mission of Israel to take in Jews. NOT at the expense of Arabs, but for a place where Jews could have a home. (this is in contradistinction to the Palestinian refugees, who were kept in fetid refugee camps as pawns of the leadership of the PLO and PA). Israel took in the Yemenite Jews, the Holocaust survivors, the N. African Jews (more were made refugees by Arab countries than Arabs made refugees by Israel).
Hamster,
Israel has always referred to itself as a Jewish state.
You may not be aware of this, but many, many Arabs hold an Israeli citizenship. They do so because they are afforded far more rights by the Israelis than they would have as Palestinians.
I see no move on the part of the Israeli government to change this.
Israel is a lone democracy surrounded by hostile totalitarian states. They are trying only to survive as a nation.
As such, they deserve our support, no matter what they chose to call themselves.
Should America turn its back on Israel and throw it under the bus, as it appears Obama is looking to do, you will soon see a war that you aren't going to believe.
And it won't be merely a regional conflict, either.
-Dave
Keep it up, Palestinians ...
... and sooner or later, the reasonable people in this world will tire of the games you and your unprincipled, statist supporters -- Western and Middle Eastern, inside and outside the Turtle Bay International Graft-and-Bloviation Society aka the United Ninnies -- play ...
... and there will be a one-state solution ...
... Israel, "from the river to the sea".
Someone needs to ask groups like Amnesty International about how the Christian Palestinians are being treated by their Muslim brothers. At this point in time it appears that the vast majority of crimes against humanity are being committed by Muslims. They only point to Israel so that the press won't see what they are doing in Thailand, the Philippines, India, and even their own territories.
Youj know this "Israel is the victim" game is getting old, and all the fanatical right-wing nutballs here should try something different.
If you want to use an evidence based analysis go for it, you'll be washed into the sea with evidence against the policies and actions of the State of Israel.
Until then, you can continue to throw out random phrases of "Palestinian terror, and intifada and so on" to undermine the real factual based evidence in this conflict.
INfact, there are several prominent Jewish scholars who have noted that there is no shadow of a doubt of Israel's blatant and on going violations of international human rights laws. Yet, there is a sea of right-wing western douchebags still being brainwashed by the Israeli propaganda machine, claiming to be the "victims" of some sort of fantasy hate.
Richieboy,
Clearly, you aren't one of them "reasonable people in this world.
Real factual evidence ... as opposed to the bias-and-agenda-flavored sausage of "evidence" produced by your sources, Rex:
> Missiles from Gaza.
> Suicide bombers.
> Palestinian schoolbooks with maps that omit Israel.
> Hamas' refusal to honor Israel's right to exist.
> Israel's respect for the rights of Arabs who are not seeking its overrun and destruction ... which is far more respect than they get in the other nations in the region.
When all that is dealt with, then we can talk about the shortcomings of Israel.
Y'all strain at gnats, while swallowing camels of destruction whole.
And despite your assertions, anon., mine is the position of a reasonable man ... as opposed to those who seek to denigrate the Judeo-Christian influence upon civilization BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, no matter how unprincipled, to replace it EXCLUSIVELY with their own relativist, hedonistic self-worship that is passed off as "reason" but is anything but.
Maybe the above isn't what drives you, but what I describe IS what is behind a lot of the criticism of Israel.
Such as these, though, will fail in their efforts ... for even if they were ever able to suppress the Judeo-Christian influence, they wouldn't ever attain exclusivity ... for they are only able to prevail over an adversary who respects their unalienable rights.
Their erstwhile allies in Islam do not share that respect ... so either dihimmitude or death would be their fate.
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