Clinton rebukes Israel

[DEDixon 39]

That's an interesting perspective, considering the Jews will never quit whining about the injustices of the holocaust. Maybe it's a quantity game, and smaller numbers just don't count. So much for minority representation and "in the eyes of God, all men are equal".

i didn't know that this to be the majority point of view, but even if it is, at least their whining hasn't blocked progress, they did what was necessary to move beyond the dark ages and they did it in the most unlikely of places. three cheers for the jews!!!

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Post containing racial slur and a violation of TOS, and posts quoting same have been removed. Additional information from posts quoting same have been returned to the thread below:

##########:

As long as everyone is being pejorative, probably not. headbonk.gif

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(DEDixon @ Mar 13 2010, 09:43 PM) *

i didn't know that this to be the majority point of view, but even if it is, at least their whining hasn't blocked progress, they did what was necessary to move beyond the dark ages and they did it in the most unlikely of places. three cheers for the jews!!!

Saying "the Jews" will never stop whining is kind of like saying "the blacks" will never get jobs or "the hispanics" will never learn to hold their pee till they see a urinal. It's stereotyping and wrong. mad.gif

Please avoid racial slurs and comments promoting intolerance and animosity - they are not acceptable on VJ.

Edited March 14, 2010 by Kathryn41

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

i didn't know that this to be the majority point of view, but even if it is, at least their whining hasn't blocked progress, they did what was necessary to move beyond the dark ages and they did it in the most unlikely of places. three cheers for the jews!!!

In all fairness, we all know that a few hundred billion dollars (some estimates are in the trillions) will make a lot of unlikely places prosper. Question is, though, as we rage on about deficits and debts, can we afford to continue to pay for all that and do we even want to? Or should we push the beneficiary of our aid towards a solution that will lift at least some of that heavy burden from the US taxpayer in the long run?

[scandal 951]

Tom Friedman had a great piece today in the NY Times. Friedman was also on MTP today, and the first paragraph of this article was quoted for his live reaction.

Shas ... IEA.

Friedman is spot-on correct on the big picture of US-Israel relations, but he's wrong about Hamas having stopped its attacks from Gaza.

From Dover Zahal, there have been 25 attacks so far in 2010.

March 12, 2010...17:23

IAF Targets Terrorist Sites in Southern Gaza Strip in Response to Rocket Fire, 12 Mar 2010

The Israel Air Force successfully targeted a weapon manufacturing facility in the southern Gaza Strip and an arms smuggling tunnel on the Rafah border in a joint IDF-ISA operation tonight.

The attack is in response to the firing of a rocket that hit the Israeli village of Nirim on Thursday, causing damage.

More than 25 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel since the beginning of the year.

The IDF will not tolerate the firing of rockets by terrorist organizations at Israel and will continue to respond harshly against any attempt to disrupt the calm in Israel’s southern communities.

The Friedman article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14friedman.html?src=me&ref=opinion

Op-Ed Columnist

Driving Drunk in Jerusalem

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: March 13, 2010

I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government rubbed his nose in some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem, the vice president missed a chance to send a powerful public signal: He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: “Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And right now, you’re driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you’re serious. We need to focus on building our country.”

I think that — rather than fuming and making up — would have sent a very useful message for two reasons. First, what the Israelis did played right into a question a lot of people are asking about the Obama team: how tough are these guys? The last thing the president needs, at a time when he is facing down Iran and China — not to mention Congress — is to look like America’s most dependent ally can push him around.

And second, Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem.

Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits — economic and security — of ending the conflict.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened last week. For nine months now, America’s Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell, has been trying to find a way to get any kind of peace talks going between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians don’t trust Netanyahu, and Netanyahu has serious doubts as to whether the divided Palestinian leadership can deliver.

Nevertheless, Mitchell was eventually able to persuade the two sides to agree on “proximity talks” — the Palestinians would sit in Ramallah and the Israelis in Jerusalem and Mitchell would shuttle 30 minutes between them. After a decade of direct talks, this is how far things have fallen.

Mitchell’s and Netanyahu’s aides struck an informal deal: If America got talks going, there would be no announcements of buildings in East Jerusalem, nothing to embarrass the Palestinians and force them to walk. Netanyahu agreed, U.S. officials say, but made clear he couldn’t commit to anything publicly.

So what happened? Biden arrived the day after the proximity talks started and out came an announcement from Israel’s Interior Ministry that Israel had just approved plans for 1,600 new housing units in Arab East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said he was blindsided. It’s probably true in the narrow sense. The move seems to have been part of a competition between two of Netanyahu’s right-wing Sephardi ministers from the religious Shas Party over who can be the greater champion of building homes for Sephardi orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem. It is a measure of how much Israel takes our support for granted and how out of touch the Israeli religious right is with America’s strategic needs.

Biden — a real friend of Israel’s — was quoted as telling his Israeli interlocutors: “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and endangers regional peace.”

This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment: Only a right-wing prime minister, like Netanyahu, can make a deal over the West Bank; Netanyahu’s actual policies on the ground there have helped Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security force, which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism; Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find; Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza; with the Sunni Arabs obsessed over the Iran threat, their willingness to work with Israel has never been higher, and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran’s hand.

In sum, there may be a real opportunity here — if Netanyahu chooses to seize it. The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to make history or once again be a footnote to it.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

FOX was reporting yesterday that the 1600 settlements were old news, in an "undisputed" area, within the Green Line. They are blaming the Administration for trying to look tough, yet the result will be Hamas and all the rest of the players trying to look even tougher. How much tougher things will get, is hard to say. The "peace" talks, at the moment, consist of George Mitchell hand carrying notes back and forth between the parties.

There is a large faction in this country that will support Israel, not matter what it does. That, in itself, is a big part of the problem.

[scandal 951]

FOX was reporting yesterday that the 1600 settlements were old news, in an "undisputed" area, within the Green Line. They are blaming the Administration for trying to look tough, yet the result will be Hamas and all the rest of the players trying to look even tougher. How much tougher things will get, is hard to say. The "peace" talks, at the moment, consist of George Mitchell hand carrying notes back and forth between the parties.

There is a large faction in this country that will support Israel, not matter what it does. That, in itself, is a big part of the problem.

As to the "undisputed" part - the settlements are to be built on land in Ramat Shlomo that was annexed as part of east Jerusalem in 1967.

That is - it was not part of pre-67 Green Line Israel, but it is part of 1967 Jerusalem annexation, as opposed to the rest of the West Bank which was not annexed.

Official Israeli policy distinguishes these two categories, and justifies settlements in Jerusalem neighborhoods (as opposed to, say, Ma'ale Adumim) even after the 2003 road map agreement to halt settlements. Everyone in Israel knows that no one else sees it that way and that it will inflame Palestinian passions whenever this justification is used. Still, it plays to the hard right-wing popular sentiment in Israel - many of whom would be willing to annex the West Bank itself and either deprive its residents of citizenship or even talk of deportations. That's how they would "deal" with the need to maintain a Jewish Israel as a democratic state in a one-state solution.

As to the "large faction in this country that will support Israel, not matter what it does" ---

I know what you mean Bill, but you didn't phrase it very well. You meant to say that many support Israel, and support all actions it takes no matter what they are".

I support Israel. I support Israel unconditionally. That doesn't mean I support every government action or policy. But it does mean that I support the state and what it represents.

Try substituting "America" for Israel, and you'll see what I mean.

Do you support America, no matter what it does? Even after Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA renditions, waterboarding.... ?

The answer is yes, of course you do. America is your home, you are a loyal American, you support America. You may criticize government policies you disagree with, but you don't stop supporting the nation itself. That's how we (the "enlightened left" of Israel) see our support for Israel.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I appreciate the distinction.

Many times when I visited places that are US protectorates, you would hear the phrase, "We love America, but we hate what they do." The "they" were American officials sent over to "protect" them, obscure State Department officials that were most often relatives of political appointees.

I would often ask, "So you want the Americans to leave?"

"No, no! We remember what it was like before the Americans came here!"

Back on topic, this is an emotionally charged situation, that few folks want to look at critically. I still think the best solution is to separate the parties to different part of the world, even though they have more in common with each other, than they do with the rest of the world. It is hard to bring sanity to an insane situation.

Edited March 15, 2010 by ##########

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Argghhh....That ongoing issue will never be resolved in my lifetime. I had hoped for it, but no go....

Someday...you know when global warming takes over and we all die out like the dinosuars and the earth can support only cockroaches...the earth will burn up and hurtle toward the sun like a cinder and the cockroaches in the middle east will be fighting each other.

[scandal 951]

Well isn't that special.