Obama's apology tour continues - this time in Israel

[^_^ 5,021]

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Obama just reminded President Peres, "I gave you America's highest civilian medal, last time we met."

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Bibi said he had a bar in Tel Aviv and a mustache already picked out....

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Early photo ops...

They lugged an Iron Dome battery (maybe just a replica) out to the airport for the greeting...

Then Shimon Peres was in charge of Obama for a while...

Even had him do some gardening...

They're all having dinner at Bibi's house right about now... along with a few other guests...

[Darnell 8,479]

Harriet Sherwood is a rocker !

[ready4ONE 5,400]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR13y76Itks[\youtube]

[Darnell 8,479]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR13y76Itks

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Thanks for the fix Darnell!

[OriZ 3,157]

A very warm welcome for Obama by Hamas:

Five Qassam rockets were fired at southern Israel from Gaza on Thursday morning, on the second day of US President Barack Obama's visit to the Middle East.

After a long period of calm following Operation Pillar of Defense, a Color Red alert sounded in the city of Sderot at around 7:15 am, followed by additional air raid sirens, one of them in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council.

One of the rockets hit the backyard of a house in Sderot, while another landed in an open area. There were no reports of injuries, but the yard sustained slight damage. Two additional rockets are believed to have landed on Palestinian territory.

According to initial estimates, the rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

Meir, a resident of the Sderot neighborhood hit by a rocket, told Ynet: "When I heard the first siren I thought it was a false alarm. We've already had some of those in the area. But immediately after I heard the second siren, I came to my senses. We've come to learn that even if you don't hear an explosion at first, it doesn't mean that it won't come. And it really did come, when the third siren sounded."

He said he used his bedroom as a fortified area, but that "the high alert and the fear caused by the Color Red alert take me back to terrible days here in the city."

Doron Fartush, who lives next to the house hit by the rocket, said he also thought it was a false alarm at first, but that "when we heard the second Color Red alert we realized it was serious and that they were firing at the city. And then, after the third siren, we heard a loud explosion.

"When we realized it had landed in the area, we started checking. Luckily, it landed in the neighbors' yard. It looks like someone on the other side wants to show its force when an important personality arrives in Israel."

Sderot Mayor David Buskila is also certain that the Gaza fire is directly related to Obama's visit. "The rockets fired at the city this morning are the Gaza organizations' way of communicating with the US president who is now in Israel. I believe they are trying to tell him that he can go to Ramallah or any other place in the territories and finalize things with Abbas, but that they are the ones setting the tone in regards to calm or escalation in the region.

"I think this was a one-time incident and I hope it will stay that way. The last time Obama was here he visited Sderot, but this time it's not on his itinerary. I don't think he knew sometimes and therefore decided not to come here."

There are no Iron Dome batteries in the Sderot and Netivot area. several batteries have been deployed in the Ashdod and Ashkelon areas.

President Obama, who held a lengthy meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, is expected to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday afternoon.

After visiting the Israel Museum, Obama will fly to Ramallah in his helicopter at around 10:45 and meet with Abbas at the Muqataa. After lunch, the two are expected to hold a joint press conference.

Defense establishment officials voiced their concerns over a Palestinian terror incident during the visit and the security organizations have been on a heightened state of alert in the past few days.

Obama landed in Israel on Air Force One at 12:10 am Wednesday. He was greeted by Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, and following a military ceremony he said in Hebrew, "It's good to be in Israel again."

Immediately after his arrival, he was taken to see the Iron Dome rocket interception system, which guards Gaza vicinity communities. He met with IDF fighters and was briefed on the system. Later, during his visit to the President's Residence, a child living in a Gaza vicinity community thanked him for the American funding of the Iron Dome.

During his previous visit to Israel, while he was running for US president, Obama visited the rocket-battered city of Sderot, where he met a child who was injured in a rocket attack and lost his leg.

The last rocket to hit southern Israel before Thursday occurred in late February, south of Ashkelon. The rocket remnants were located on a road south of the city, which sustained damage. There were no injuries in the incident.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4359306,00.html

Meanwhile, Hamas claims Israel is making this up(yeah, I kid you not! If you choose to take their word for it, more power to you...).

This is not a new tactic by Palestinian terrorists to try and do what they can to stop any progress that might be made. After Israel signed an agreement with the PLO in September 93, Hamas, which tried to do all it can to stop negotiations, started with the suicide bombings. April 94, a car bomb. Jan 95, a bombing which killed 22 people. Between 93 and 95 164 people were killed in terror operations and hundreds were wounded.

After Rabin was assasinated Peres was supposed to take his place, and it seemed like he was going to win the 96 elections. Hamas knew that this would lead to continued good relations between Israel and the PLO, and so did everything it could to prevent him from winning, by terrorizing the Israeli public. The wave began in Feb 96(27 people), a week later in Jerusalem another 18 people. A day later, 13 people in Tel Aviv, most of them kids and teenagers, in the middle of a busy street on Purim. Of course Peres ended up losing by a tiny margin to Bibi and that was Bibi's first term. So when people complain about the prime ministers Israelis elect, it is crucial to remember that terror attacks are the main reason Israelis lost alot of faith(which they had in the mid 90's) about the peaceful intentions of the other side.

[decocker 7,198]

Meanwhile, Hamas claims Israel is making this up(yeah, I kid you not! If you choose to take their word for it, more power to you...).

yeah, cause why would israel make up such a thing, i mean who did not completely expect something of this sort..?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

A very warm welcome for Obama by Hamas:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4359306,00.html

Only your article doesn't mention anything about Hamas - that is your own "embellishment." Naughty, naughty

Meanwhile, Hamas claims Israel is making this up(yeah, I kid you not! If you choose to take their word for it, more power to you...).

This is not a new tactic by Palestinian terrorists to try and do what they can to stop any progress that might be made. After Israel signed an agreement with the PLO in September 93, Hamas, which tried to do all it can to stop negotiations, started with the suicide bombings. April 94, a car bomb. Jan 95, a bombing which killed 22 people. Between 93 and 95 164 people were killed in terror operations and hundreds were wounded.

I'm sure that's how United With Israel explains it. However, as Hamas itself has stated, it carried out the attacks in direct response to Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 Muslims praying in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron in February 25, 1994 - a fact which is conspicuously absent from your little story. Check the dates of the Hamas bombings - 2 on Feb. 25, then 2 more on March 3 and 4.

After Rabin was assasinated Peres was supposed to take his place, and it seemed like he was going to win the 96 elections. Hamas knew that this would lead to continued good relations between Israel and the PLO, and so did everything it could to prevent him from winning, by terrorizing the Israeli public. The wave began in Feb 96(27 people), a week later in Jerusalem another 18 people. A day later, 13 people in Tel Aviv, most of them kids and teenagers, in the middle of a busy street on Purim. Of course Peres ended up losing by a tiny margin to Bibi and that was Bibi's first term. So when people complain about the prime ministers Israelis elect, it is crucial to remember that terror attacks are the main reason Israelis lost alot of faith(which they had in the mid 90's) about the peaceful intentions of the other side.

Once again, your attempt at “history” is hilarious. The supposed "good relations" you say existed between Israel and the PLO before 1994 is such a ridiculous claim I can't stop laughing... but will move on to address the main points of your post:

In fact, suicide bombings by all Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, remained at a fairly consistent level between 1993 and 1998. Hamas conducted between 1 and 4 attacks each year. The death toll of 1996 was higher, but not due to an increase in the number of attacks.

Also, 1996 was not the first time that a single attack had such a high death toll - the Dizengoff bus bombing killed 22 people in 1994, and the Beit Lid bombing killed 21 people in 1995.

In fact, the “wave” you talk about didn’t happen until 2001 with the 2nd Intifada, long after the elections of 1996 and choices between Peres and Bibi.

See it here:

1993 - 2 bombings (including 2 Hamas)

1994 - 5 bombings (3 Hamas)

1995 - 4 bombings (3 Hamas)

1996 - 4 bombings (4 Hamas)

1997 - 3 bombings (3 Hamas)

1998 - 2 bombings (1 Hamas)

1999 - 2 bombings (2 Hamas)

2000 - 5 bombings (3 Hamas)

Now see the “wave”:

2001 - 40 bombings (27 Hamas)

2002 - 47 bombings (22 Hamas)

2003 - 23 bombings (12 Hamas)

2004 - 17 bombings (8 Hamas)

2005 - 9 bombings (2 Hamas)

And then after the Palestinian elections of 2006, Hamas announced it would no longer use the suicide bombing tactic, and began preventing other groups from using it:

2006 - 3 bombings (not Hamas)

2007 - 1 bombing (not Hamas)

2008 - 2 bombings (not Hamas)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks

Notice since 2008 - no suicide bombings. Yet in 2009..... Israelis elected Bibi again. (Maybe this is Hamas' fault again - for not sending suicide bombers.)

What Israelis keep putting their faith in is the lies that their government keeps telling them: that Israel somehow has the right to attack its neighbors and take their land and that this behavior is somehow “defensive,” and that Israel can continue to do these things without any consequences to the Israeli people - and that even if there are any consequences, then it’s all the fault of Palestinian Jew-hating terrorists, and certainly not the fault of Israel’s illegal occupation forces and illegal settlers turning the lives of Palestinians into a hell on earth in their own land.

Because when you get right down to it, according to the Zionist credo, Palestinians don’t really have any rights at all.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

And as far as the claim that Hamas was trying to stop peace talks - many say that was actually Goldstein's motive, and that he is considered a hero among radical settler groups (including his own fanatic followers in Kiryat Arba) for that very reason:

In the weeks following the massacre, thousands of Israelis traveled to Goldstein's grave to celebrate Goldstein's actions. Some Hasidim danced and sang around his grave.[40] Although the government has said that those who celebrated the massacre represented only a tiny minority of Israelis, a New York Times report states that Israeli government claims may understate the phenomenon.[40] According to one visitor to the gravesite in the wake of the attacks, "If [Goldstein] stopped these so-called peace talks, then he is truly holy because this is not real peace."[40] Some visitors kissed and hugged the gravestone, or even kissed the earth under which Goldstein was buried, declaring him a "saint" and "hero of Israel".[40]

The phenomenon of the adoration of Goldstein's tomb persisted for years, despite Israeli government efforts to crack down on those making pilgrimage to Goldstein's grave site.[41] The grave's epitaph said that Goldstein "gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land".[42] In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli army acted to dismantle the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment.[42] In the years after the dismantling of the shrine, radical Jewish settlers would celebrate Purim by invoking the memory of the massacre, sometimes even dressing up themselves or their children to look like Goldstein.[1][41][43]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Obama is still going hard line support of Israel. "Every child in Israel goes to sleep afraid a rocket will come through the roof."

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

"Israel is not going anywhere."

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Obama is still going hard line support of Israel. "Every child in Israel goes to sleep afraid a rocket will come through the roof."

Netanyahu's got him by the you-know-whats