Obama's apology tour continues - this time in Israel

[Karee 4,191]

Well, this mess wasn't caused by the two Salafi guys that Hamas arrested, nor the rockets that injured no one. And handing them over to Israel wouldn't do anything to change the mess, either.

Probably wont change anything, but might change some perceptions. Hamas or Fatah, or both of them together will never beat the Israeli militarily. That's a fact. In my mind the Palestinians only way out of it, is try to change outside perceptions.

Realistically, how do you think this can be resolved?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Hamas doesn't get along with these Salafi groups. Additional reading:

Salafism: A New Threat to Hamas

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/middleeast/28iht-letter.html?_r=0

Salafi Jihadists in Gaza: 'Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/salafi-jihadists-in-gaza-compared-to-us-hamas-is-islamism-lite-a-566740.html

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Probably wont change anything, but might change some perceptions. Hamas or Fatah, or both of them together will never beat the Israeli militarily. That's a fact. In my mind the Palestinians only way out of it, is try to change outside perceptions.

Realistically, how do you think this can be resolved?

Well, there is no military solution, either for the Palestinians or for Israel.

The international community has already given the framework for a wprkable solution which is two independent sovereign states, based on the 1967 armistice lines (can include small mutually-agreed upon territorial swaps,) with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and a just settlement for the refugees. Israel dismantles its illegal settlements and military bases, and goes home.

However, the Israeli government has no intention of complying with international law - it's determined to expand its territory. And obviously, the US government is unwilling to exert any pressure that might induce Israel to comply with international law.

It doesn't really matter what the Palestinians do or don't do. The Israeli government is determined to continue on its course, which is to build more settlements as fast as it can - Naftali Bennett has said he wants to move 1 million more Jews into the West Bank and then annex the territory. Without international pressure to stop, it may do it - there are plenty of people in the Israeli government who will support the idea.

But Israel will not give citizenship and full rights to the millions of Palestinians who live under its control. So this de-facto single state will become the Apartheid State of Israel -- even if Israel tries to insist that the Bantustan of Ramallah and the Bantustan of Gaza and the Bantustans of Bethlehem-Hebron and Nablus-Jenin constitute the independent state of Palestine.

This path will inevitably lead to sanctions, and the US will eventually join them -- even if it's the very last to line up behind the rest of the world.

Can anyone stop the Zionist state from driving itself off a cliff ? I don't know.

[Karee 4,191]

Well, there is no military solution, either for the Palestinians or for Israel.

The international community has already given the framework for a wprkable solution which is two independent sovereign states, based on the 1967 armistice lines (can include small mutually-agreed upon territorial swaps,) with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and a just settlement for the refugees. Israel dismantles its illegal settlements and military bases, and goes home.

However, the Israeli government has no intention of complying with international law - it's determined to expand its territory. And obviously, the US government is unwilling to exert any pressure that might induce Israel to comply with international law.

It doesn't really matter what the Palestinians do or don't do. The Israeli government is determined to continue on its course, which is to build more settlements as fast as it can - Naftali Bennett has said he wants to move 1 million more Jews into the West Bank and then annex the territory. Without international pressure to stop, it may do it - there are plenty of people in the Israeli government who will support the idea.

But Israel will not give citizenship and full rights to the millions of Palestinians who live under its control. So this de-facto single state will become the Apartheid State of Israel -- even if Israel tries to insist that the Bantustan of Ramallah and the Bantustan of Gaza and the Bantustans of Bethlehem-Hebron and Nablus-Jenin constitute the independent state of Palestine.

This path will inevitably lead to sanctions, and the US will eventually join them -- even if it's the very last to line up behind the rest of the world.

Can anyone stop the Zionist state from driving itself off a cliff ? I don't know.

Thanks for taking the time. That's very interesting. I never gave much of it any thought back in the 80s and 90s. I remember when there were suicide bombings, and then the IDF would go and bulldoze the house of the family of the guy that did it. That seemed pretty unfair. For the most part I just thought like most uninformed people here in the U.S, that Muslims were a bunch of terrorists.

I got a job in Montreal about 6 months after 9/11. The company had people from all over the world working there. Everyone got along. It changed alot of my views on things. There was a guy named Alamgir from Pakistan that I hung with alot. He'd give me hell about being an American, and I'd give hims $hit about being Pakistani. I'd call him Al-Qaeda instead of Al. I asked him once if he saw all those idiots on T.V. burning U.S. flags in front of the U.S. consulate. He said yeah, it was cold out there. We still talk on a pretty regular basis to this day. I was also working there for the 2002 world cup which was alot fun with all the different nationalities there.

Not sure what all that means, but when I came back to Texas and talked to people here and questioned some of the policies of the U.S. with people I knew, I got the usual "if you don't like it here, move to x $hit country." or "America love it leave it" So when I got the chance to stay in Thailand, I took their advice. My attitude now is I can't stand living back in the U.S. but for financial reasons, I'm here. Once I get enough cash socked away, I'll be back in Thailand permanently.

So I'm taking all those people's advice, I don't love it, so I'm leaving it first chance I get.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I thought you were the one who was outraged over how Hamas treated prisoners. Make up your mind.

In return for Israel handing over all the settlers it arrests !

I did indeed find how Hamas publicly executed those prisoners and then dragged them through the streets tied behind motorcycles despicable. Who wouldn't? Oh yeah, you!

I will be curious to see how they treat these heroes of the conflict.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I did indeed find how Hamas publicly executed those prisoners and then dragged them through the streets tied behind motorcycles despicable. Who wouldn't? Oh yeah, you!

Oh please, Ready. If this dude had died at the hands of the IDF, you'd be pronouncing him a terrorist or collateral damage. And aren't you the one who was in here denying it when Israel tortured a prisoner to death a few weeks ago ? Oh yeah, that was you !

In fact, I have repeatedly stated that extrajudicial assassinations, torture - and yes, desecration of dead bodies - are all bad, bad, bad.

I will be curious to see how they treat these heroes of the conflict.

Only Hamas doesn't consider them heroes; it considers them enemies. I linked several articles for you that cover this in depth. However, the facts won't fit in with your agenda, so you might have to continue to insist on ignoring them.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I'm sure all five or six men publicly executed and who had their corpses dragged through the streets of Gaza were later counted as Palestinian casualties to pad the victims of Israeli stats when all was said and done.

I don't have an agenda beyond moving past both sides claiming that the mess is all the fault of the other. I do understand that Hamas seems to have a lot of enemies, but look at their friends and really see who they are.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I'm sure all five or six men publicly executed and who had their corpses dragged through the streets of Gaza were later counted as Palestinian casualties to pad the victims of Israeli stats when all was said and done.

I don't have an agenda beyond moving past both sides claiming that the mess is all the fault of the other. I do understand that Hamas seems to have a lot of enemies, but look at their friends and really see who they are.

6 men were publicly executed last November (shot to death) for collaborating with Israel on the "Pillar of Cloud" assault on Gaza, in which more than a hundred Palestinians were killed.

According to news reports, Hamas says the six were caught with high-tech cameras and other equipment they used to assist Israel in identifying targets for strikes. Remember that more than half the Gazans killed by these strikes (some 60 people) were civilians - including women and children.

Public executions are a very horrifying scene to imagine. I have never seen one, and thanks God for that, but I have unfortunately seen the aftermath where the bodies of collaborators (or suspected collaborators) were strung up upside-down in Manara Square in downtown Ramallah. It's a sight that I can never wipe from my memory, although I wish I could. I have never said that I condone these actions. I believe in law and order. And I'm not a big fan of the death penalty even in the US justice system.

But the biggest threat to any resistance group is informers. And Israeli intelligence forces use all sorts of devices to get Palestinians to inform - bribery, threats to harm family members, etc. So it is a serious problem for Hamas and they deal with it very harshly (so does Fatah, so do other groups in comparable situations in other countries.)

In fact, these incidents are not much different than the terrible fate suffered by many collaborators (or suspected or accused collaborators) during conflicts all around the world - including what Jewish resistance fighters did to many of the Jewish Nazi collaborators in the Warsaw Ghetto. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you would probably say those guys deserved what they got.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Hmmm part of my answer got lost, but I meant to say that the Palestinian casualty figures for Operation Pillar of Cloud have been independently confirmed by the UN and by B'Tselem who compile data including names, ages and addresses of each person and have indicated which persons were confirmed to be militants, and even which persons could be considered suspected or possible militants. But you would rather believe the IDF, which has no way of proving any of its claims or any of the names of the people it killed because it's not on the ground in Gaza conducting actual investigations like the other organizations.

Are claims of Israeli casualties held to such scrutiny ? Maybe they should be.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Fox is in love with Obama again this morning. I wonder if this infatuation with last as long as it did when the S.E.A.L.'s capped Bin Laden.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Thanks for taking the time. That's very interesting. I never gave much of it any thought back in the 80s and 90s. I remember when there were suicide bombings, and then the IDF would go and bulldoze the house of the family of the guy that did it. That seemed pretty unfair. For the most part I just thought like most uninformed people here in the U.S, that Muslims were a bunch of terrorists.

I got a job in Montreal about 6 months after 9/11. The company had people from all over the world working there. Everyone got along. It changed alot of my views on things. There was a guy named Alamgir from Pakistan that I hung with alot. He'd give me hell about being an American, and I'd give hims $hit about being Pakistani. I'd call him Al-Qaeda instead of Al. I asked him once if he saw all those idiots on T.V. burning U.S. flags in front of the U.S. consulate. He said yeah, it was cold out there. We still talk on a pretty regular basis to this day. I was also working there for the 2002 world cup which was alot fun with all the different nationalities there.

Not sure what all that means, but when I came back to Texas and talked to people here and questioned some of the policies of the U.S. with people I knew, I got the usual "if you don't like it here, move to x $hit country." or "America love it leave it" So when I got the chance to stay in Thailand, I took their advice. My attitude now is I can't stand living back in the U.S. but for financial reasons, I'm here. Once I get enough cash socked away, I'll be back in Thailand permanently.

So I'm taking all those people's advice, I don't love it, so I'm leaving it first chance I get.

Haha those same people are probably the first to b!tch about Obama and the Democrats (or whoever and the Republicans) but somehow that's different. I see some of that attitude, but I have to say - there are also a lot of open-minded people. I can't count how many have asked me so many questions about Palestine-Israel, and come back again and again for further, deeper discussions.

Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes had it roots during the Nakba, of course, when it was used to raze entire villages with the stated intention of keeping expelled Palestinian civilians from having any homes to return to. Since the current occupation began in 1967, home demolition has been institutionalized into the criminal justice system as a tool to pressure/punish Palestinians (it has never been applied in the case of a Jewish suspect or criminal or terrorist.) For a country's courts to actually create a mechanism to impose grievous collective punishment on relatives of a suspect or criminal or terrorist, without even any evidence of their complicity in the crime, is an outrageous tactic not used by any other government, and it has been denounced as illegal and as an egregious violation of human rights - even a war crime - by various international bodies. By the way, Israel also uses this tactic to punish people who take part in non-violent resistance - especially the leaders. The man in my siggy has a demolition order hanging over his home, in retaliation for his leading the protests in Nabi Saleh.

Edited March 23, 2013 by wife_of_mahmoud

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Jon Stewart's take was pretty awesome:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-25-2013/barack-atah-adonai

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

U.S., Israel To Negotiate Military Aid Extension

Obama Doubles Down On Bid For Mideast Peace

JERUSALEM — In an extraordinarily emotive visit here aimed at rallying Israel’s current and future leaders to seize the chance for peace, U.S. President Barack Obama doubled down on U.S. security support with a new agreement to extend annual military aid through 2027.

The pending 10-year military aid package would commit Washington to provide up to $40 billion in additional Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grant assistance to Israel, sources here say. It would automatically kick in at the conclusion of the current 10-year, $30 billion agreement signed in 2007 under President George W. Bush and would bind Obama’s successor to continued military aid to Israel.

The current agreement elevated Israel’s annual grant aid from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion, and Israeli officials expect the follow-on package to provide incremental boosts to nearly $4 billion per year.

At a joint March 20 news conference here with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama reiterated Washington’s “solemn obligation” to safeguard Israel’s “non-negotiable” security.

“As part of our long-term commitment to Israel’s security, the prime minister and I agreed to begin discussions on extending military assistance. Our current agreement lasts through 2017, and we’ve directed our teams to start working on extending it for the years beyond,” Obama said.

Obama’s unusually early authorization of negotiations for a follow-on aid package is one of the many confidence-building, security-enhancing measures aimed at “encouraging the Israeli government to take those risky, yet necessary steps toward peace,” a U.S. source here said.

In addition to extending annual FMF aid, Obama pledged additional measures to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge. As an example — and in reference to sequestration-mandated budget cuts — Obama said the White House “will take steps” to ensure “no interruption” to some $200 million in 2013 funding for Israel’s Iron Dome active defense system.

Moreover, Obama said his team would continue to work with Congress on future Iron Dome funding, which sources here estimated could result in an additional $600 million over the next two years.

Obama’s visit here in the opening days of Netanyahu’s center-right coalition government was meticulously crafted to accent the commonality of interests and points of agreement on the bilateral agenda. Differences associated with West Bank settlements or the point at which Washington would be prepared to exercise its military option in Iran were intentionally downplayed in White House attempts to set a positive stage for the next four years.

Obama sought to ensure the new government and the public at large that he was prepared to use military force if his preferred combination of sanctions and diplomacy fail to derail Tehran’s nuclear weapons drive.

In a public endorsement of Israel’s claimed right to act unilaterally to pre-empt the nuclear threat from Iran, Obama said, “Each country has to make its own decisions when it comes to the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action.”

Speaking to reporters here, Netanyahu also sought to assuage public doubts about Washington’s commitment to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

“I’m absolutely convinced that the president is determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons,” he said.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu maintained “Israel’s right and duty to defend itself, by itself, against any threat … including the Iranian threat.”

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130324/DEFREG02/303240005/U-S-Israel-Negotiate-Military-Aid-Extension?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

[Karee 4,191]

Amazing. Another reward for bad behavior.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Amazing. Another reward for bad behavior.

Or rather, a bribe to encourage a few positive actions from Bibi that will help Obama look like he accomplished something in the Middle East to help improve his declining support back home with the American people.