Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumObama in Israel: Can he overcome low expectations?
Later this month, President Obama will visit Israel, a country intended by an act of international law to be the reconstituted Jewish national home. The visit will be highly charged, but at the same time, many Israelis have low expectations for what could come of it.
The president's protracted but unsuccessful attempts to stifle Iran's nuclear weapons program, his insistence on zealously challenging Israel's right to a united Jerusalem and his inability to pressure the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations are among the chief reasons for the lack of excitement in Israel.
Still, as befits the representative of Israel's most faithful ally, Obama will be treated with respect, for it is our hope that the visit will help the president come to a truer understanding of the needs of Israel and the reality of the region. In the meantime, he might want to contemplate a few issues.
In September 2009, at the United Nations, Obama referred to Israeli communities established across the former Green Line as the "settlements." His exact words were: "We continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-medad-israel-and-obama-20130308,0,1435971.story
Yisrael Medad resides in Shiloh and acts as a foreign media spokesperson for the YESHA Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)I am not sure where this "low expectations" crap is coming from, except maybe by people occupying illegal settlements in occupied territory.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I have no idea why it would have been posted here.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Frankly, I see stuff like this all the time here, though I don't often post it myself.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Then again Ayalon writes from much more practical experience.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I'm seeing nothing in this person's writing that puts them in a different category than say, yourself. Or Shira, King-David, Mosby, or any of the other good and true "liberal Zionists."
I've admitted my difficulty in determining the difference between the rhetoric of "extremist right-wing" Zionism and "good liberal" Zionism previously, but you weren't able to help me figure it out that much.
So, if you can try again. Where is the difference? could you cite from the article what makes this person an "extremist right-winger" and show me how you, the Liberal zionist, have a profound disagreement with it?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)to a UNSC resolution against the Israeli settlements, his justifications for the settlements is boilerplate stuff that we see almost daily. He then skips on to blubber about Jonathan Pollard, now here is where it gets rather curious, Pollard is an American who was imprisoned for espionage against America, making this a security issue for Americans, so while he's going on about Obama not being sensitive enough to Israel's security, he seems to not understand or completely ignores the US's need for such
bemildred
(90,061 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)maybe we could live without them?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Try again.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)there now do you feel good?
aranthus
(3,385 posts)and works for Yesha.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)The president should be careful about using the word "illegitimate," by the way. A lot of Israelis are particularly sensitive to it because it is a word favored by those who think our state shouldn't exist. In an October 2006 live broadcast, for example, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labeled Israel a "counterfeit and illegitimate regime that cannot survive."
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)power when the UN even attempts to address the illegal settlements.
The OP imo, is more about defining Obama as unreasonable..please temper your language
and don't focus on what we do.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)He 'resides in Shiloh' (i.e. he's a West Bank settler) and 'acts as a foreign media spokesperson for the YESHA Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria' - yes, I'm sure he'd have 'low expectations' about Obama sharing his extremist views.