Palestinians disappointed by Obama's UN speech

[Jefferson23]

PLO Secretary-General, members of PLO delegation in Washington say U.S. president's speech was 'double standard' when he praised the Arab Spring but did not express support for Palestinian state.

By Reuters and Natasha Mozgovaya

A senior Palestinian official voiced disappointment at U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, saying he had hoped for an expression of support for Palestinian freedom.

Obama urged Israel and the Palestinians to relaunch direct peace talks as he made a last-ditch attempt to avert a UN crisis over Palestinian statehood and pull his Middle East policy back from the brink of diplomatic disaster.

He also touched on the "Arab Spring" uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, remarking how "change had come to Egypt and to the Arab World."

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), told Reuters there was "a gap between praising the struggle of Arab peoples for the sake of freedom and between an abstract call for negotiations between us and the Israelis."

remainder: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-disappointed-by-obama-s-un-speech-1.385871

[bemildred]

1. Lieberman praises Obama's UN General Assembly speech

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman congratulated President Barack Obama Wednesday on his speech at the United Nations General assembly, praising him for not stating that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on 1967 borders.

“I congratulate President Obama, and I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands,” said Lieberman during a post-speech press conference. Lieberman also stated that he does not resort to “threats” against the Palestinians in light of their UN statehood bid, and that Israel will try to be “considerate” of American demands.

Moreover, when asked about terms for entering negotiations, Lieberman reiterated his previous stance that he would not support “even one day of settlement freeze.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-praises-obama-s-un-general-assembly-speech-1.385863

[Jefferson23]

2. Yep, mission accomplished. n/t

[totodeinhere]

130. And yet many Republicans accuse President Obama of being anti Israel.

And of course that is nonsense. Obama is a good friend of Israel and Israel can feel safe as long as he is in the White House. Republican efforts to politicize this are disgraceful.

[kayecy]

3. Even if you take his speech at face value it doesn't make sense.....

Surely negotiations between two states is more likely to lead to peace than the present one-sided negotiations......Why should recognizing Palestine as a state have any negative effect on the Peace process?

Of course the Palestinians could then go to the International Court of Justice but why should Israel be scarred of that?....Justice should be available to all people.

[hack89]

5. But that is the problem - Hamas rejects the PAs efforts for statehood

and refuses to be part of any such state. So any resulting "state" represents half of the Palestinians. The biggest potential negative effect would be civil war between the PA and Hamas. Another one is that it may provoke even more violence on the part of Hamas to undermine the PA.

This is a cynical ploy by the PA to somehow gain negotiating leverage on Israel while undercutting Hamas. Don't be surprised if there are significant unintended consequences - the PA is not known for their judgment.

[kayecy]

9. The Palestinians need every negotiating 'leveller' they can find...

The Palestinians need every negotiating 'leveller' they can find...How can anyone seriously think that negotiations between a state carrying out a military occupation and a non-state under occupation will lead anything other than more confrontation?

[hack89]

12. Being a state does not give them any leverage if it is a failed state

they have to show they can run a state - do you think for a second that Hamas is going to help the PA succeed? Hamas wants to defeat both Israel and moderate Palestinians - they want an Islamic theocracy. Hamas doesn't think they need statehood to defeat Israel - they just want the blockade lifted so they can arm.

[kayecy]

16. The West Bank seems to be better governed than many African states....

The West Bank seems to be better governed than many African states....Have you an objection to simply accepting the part of Palestine controlled by Abbas?......The Cypriot Government is a UN and an EU member and doesn't control the North of Cyprus.


As for Hamas...In what way is it worse than the Taliban?.....Afghanistan is a UN member state.

As for Israel, it doesn't want a Palestine state because it is afraid it will go to the International Court and have the settlements ruled illegal......Netanyahu has not even accepted the 67 Green Line as a negotiating start point to negotiations.

[hack89]

17. So a three state solution makes things easier?

Palestine, Gaza and Israel? I could understand the benefit of two smaller, weaker states but I suspect the Palestinian people might not like it.

The Taliban were not running Afghanistan when it was admitted to the UN. Cyprus was a UN member and controlled all of the country before the Turkish invasion.

The ICJ has no mandatory jurisdiction - unless Israel agrees to have the court hear the case, the ICJ will not accept the case.

[kayecy]

138. The West Bank with or without Gaza is surely a matter for the Palestinians....

Palestine, Gaza and Israel? I could understand the benefit of two smaller, weaker states but I suspect the Palestinian people might not like it.

The West Bank with or without Gaza is surely a matter for the Palestinians....Would Israel accept a Palestinian state on the West Bank and a separate failed non-state in Gaza?......I don't think so.......As Netanyahu said to the UNGA last night.....Israeli (but not Palestinian!) security is paramount....Israel will insist on demilitarization, IDF bases and military over-fly rights...Would Israel ever accept similar limitations on its soverignity?........would it ever accept that a foreign power (one moreover that had occupied it for 50 years)should have such rights on Israeli territory?

[hack89]

141. Four failed wars and a long terror campaign

doesn't give the Arabs and the Palestinians much say as to what Israel has to accept regarding their security. Shooting rockets non-stop from Gaza is also not conducive to peace. Perhaps the solution is for the PA to step aside long enough for Israel to remove Hamas for good - what do you think?

[kayecy]

145. With a history of seven wars and 50 years as an occupation power..........

Four failed wars and a long terror campaign doesn't give the Arabs and the Palestinians much say as to what Israel has to accept regarding their security

With a history of seven wars, (mostly fought on the territory of its neighbors) and 50 years as an occupation power, I don't think Israel is in a position to say anything about the security of others.


As for Israel removing Hamas for good, I thought that was what Cast Lead was supposed to do?.....Don't you think Israel has already caused enough death and suffering?.....Hamas is a failed government but Israel has taken every opportunity to provoke it into violence.

You will remember, Israel and the West placed financial sanctions on the PA and Hamas following the Hamas election victory simply because they didn't like Hamas...Then in 2007, Israel (and Egypt) imposed a major blockade on Gaza/Hamas following the Hamas over-throw of the PA.....You will also remember that there was a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel just before Cast Lead which Israel broke after discovering a tunnel and then proceeded to undertake a major incursion.

The rockets are indeed a problem, but so are Israeli financial restrictions,blockades, assassinations and bombings....The solution is to move forwards where you can....Recognising a Palestine state now would place the Israelis and Palestinians on the same legal footing and give them both equal rights and responsibilities.

Israel’s problems with Hamas rockets would be made no worse by recognizing a Palestinian state......A Israeli rejection supported by a US veto will lead to further Israeli intransigence and Palestinian despair.....Hardly a recipe for stability and peace.
.

[hack89]

147. Starting wars you can't win is the problem

Let's not forget that the birth of Israel was heralded by a war of annihilation started by the Arabs. And let's not also forget there would.be no occupied territories if Jordan had heeded Israel's pledge of no war if the did not attack Israel. We know how they answered that olds. And then we have 1973 which was hour basic.surprise attack in another attempt to.destroy Israel.

There would have been a Palestine in 1948 - the first.of.many opportunities squandered.

[kayecy]

149. You are wrong....The problem is taking unilateral actions that lead to war......

Starting wars you can't win is the problem

You are wrong....The problem is taking unilateral actions that lead to war and of course surprise attacks on ones neighbors.

Start with the Zionists massive immigration to Palestine post 1917 against the wishes of most of the indigenous inhabitants.

Then there was the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the villages of what is now Israel.

The 1956 and 1967 surprise attacks on Egypt by Israel.

And of course, the building of settlements beyond Israel's border



I don't know what point you are trying to make, but if my country were still at war 50 years after its creation, I would come to the conclusion that it must be doing something wrong.

[hack89]

151. So any unilateral action on either side is bad? nt

[kayecy]

154. Yes......Unless it is self-defence aginst a unilateral action by the other side

Yes....Israel's unilateral declaration of independance was bad...The Palestinian declaration is merely a response to Israel's unilateral action...Self-defence is the right of all people.

[hack89]

156. How should have Israel gone about declaring independence? nt

[kayecy]

159. Palestine was a British Mandate.......

Palestine was a British Mandate.......Did the Jews negotiate with Britain for their independance?......Did they attempt to negotiate with their neighbours?......Did they attempt to promote independence for the whole of Mandate Palestine as against carving out a part of it for a Jewish state?


UDI is always likely to lead to war....Israel's UDI did just that.

[Shaktimaan]

161. What does UDI stand for? (unilateral declaration of independence?)

Originally the Yishuv did try and promote a shared single state between Jews and Arabs but it was determinded over many years that such a thing was pretty much impossible, re: the white paper following the Great Arab Uprising.

Did they attempt to negotiate with their neighbours?

That's a pretty funny question. In this case it was attempts at negotiating (not declaring independence), that actually instigated the war. So, basically, yes. Yes, they did attempt to negotiate.

The war against Israeli independence started almost a year PRIOR to Israel actually declaring independence. The catalyst was the UN's suggestion of partition, which was accepted by Israel and rejected by the Arab Palestinians, who then also began the civil war against Palestinian's Jewish inhabitants.

[kayecy]

162. Zionists were never prepared to share power with an Arab majority.....

Originally the Yishuv did try and promote a shared single state between Jews and Arabs but it was determinded over many years that such a thing was pretty much impossible, re: the white paper following the Great Arab Uprising.

That is rather disingenuous isn't it?...The Zionists were never prepared to share power with an Arab majority.....Zionists have only ever been prepared to accept a Zionist-majority state....Not surprisingly, that was not accepted by the indigenous inhabitants.

Did they attempt to negotiate with their neighbors?
That's a pretty funny question. In this case it was attempts at negotiating (not declaring independence), that actually instigated the war. So, basically, yes. Yes, they did attempt to negotiate.

Attempts at negotiating?.....What attempts?.....With which states?

The war against Israeli independence started almost a year PRIOR to Israel actually declaring independence. The catalyst was the UN's suggestion of partition, which was accepted by Israel and rejected by the Arab Palestinians, who then also began the civil war against Palestinian's Jewish inhabitants

Not true....The war against increased Zionist immigration and their plans to engineer a Zionist majority in Palestine started in the 1920s......The Zionists never accepted that Jewish immigration to Palestine should be limited and subject to approval of the local inhabitants.


What do you think the reaction of US citizens would be if New York decided to declare that it was to become an Sovereign Jewish State with a Jewish majority to be achieved by allowing unlimited Jewish immigration?


PS: Shaktimaan - Did I satisfactorily answer your 'crucial' question in your post No 142 (Shira's thread "6 in 10 palestinians reject a 2-state solution")?
.

[Shaktimaan]

173. Beware of oversimplifications.

Zionists have only ever been prepared to accept a Zionist-majority state.

The Zionists had a specific agenda; they wanted self-determination to the greatest extent possible. The better they could achieve this the better they could mitigate burgeoning anti-semitism across Europe and Asia. To this effect they used every tool at their disposal to achieve the best outcome possible. That said they were certainly willing to "take what they could get" at certain points if it ensured that they would get SOMETHING. So sure, while they never wanted a home in an Arab-majority state (which would have been pretty pointless towards achieving their goals), they were more than willing to share or split the land with favorable terms for the Arabs. Consider the proposed Peel Partition accepted by the Zionists as an example.

....Not surprisingly, that was not accepted by the indigenous inhabitants.

I think this is an oversimplification of the complex political situations surrounding Palestine. A lot of the indigenous Arabs truly did oppose Jewish immigration on nationalist grounds. But there were other influences, some of which used the Zionist issue to leverage political influence. For instance, Haj Amin al-Husseini instigated a lot of the early violence by preying on xenophobic fears. (It did not matter that the targets of these anti-semitic attacks were indigenous themselves.) Later he rejected the 1939 white paper outright, as it did not name him as the leader of a future Palestinian state. As one later result of this, illegal property sales to Jewish buyers were facilitated by his opponents.

It goes without saying that oppressed minorities like the Druze supported Zionism's goals from the start.

Attempts at negotiating?.....What attempts?.....With which states?

Initially it was with Emir Faisal; re: the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement. I think that document shows that a pretty significant attempt at engaging with regional leaders to gain support. Admittedly it didn't last long, but I think this is due primarily to the British reneging on their own agreement with the Arabs (and pressure from the syrian national congress), not because of anything the Zionists did.

But the event I was referring to was the UN Partition Plan. What else was that if not a negotiated recommendation for a solution? It is telling that the Palestinian reaction to this document was not to plead their case or offer alterations which would render it acceptable, but to start a civil war.

Not true....The war against increased Zionist immigration and their plans to engineer a Zionist majority in Palestine started in the 1920s

That's hardly the equivalent of declaring independence. In the 20's there was no official policy of engineering a Jewish majority; the "war" at that time was against Jews regardless of their immigrant status. In 1936 the Great Arab Revolt started, and THAT was about immigration and ousting the British.

The Zionists never accepted that Jewish immigration to Palestine should be limited and subject to approval of the local inhabitants.

Right. Why would they? Was this something that ever happened WRT the formation of any other Mandate-created states? And why would those people have the ultimate right to determine who immigrates to and buys land that isn't their own? Had there been a strong national movement then you might have a stronger argument, but Palestine was merely considered a section of Syria then. The Jews had a reasonable claim to build their homeland there. This isn't to say they had a right to expel the Arabs. Just that the Arabs lacked the right to deny them from coming.

And immigration was very much limited... specifically to Palestine. Transjordan was partitioned and exempted from settlement as well. So the area in question was really a tiny sliver relative to where Jewish populations were concentrated at the time. And was tiny relative to the proposed size of Greater Syria.

What do you think the reaction of US citizens would be if New York decided to declare that it was to become an Sovereign Jewish State with a Jewish majority to be achieved by allowing unlimited Jewish immigration?

Do you honestly think this example is a reasonable parallel to 1920-40s Palestine?

That said, there were certainly towns in New York State that Hasidic Jews decided to immigrate to en-masse and basically take over. Which is the closest actual example of your crazy example you'll find in modern day America. They overwhelm the local political system, essentially taking it over for themselves. They hire their own police force, the Shomrim. They have huge families and finagle huge tax breaks for themselves along with taxpayer financed religious schools to educate them in. To top it off, they are generally exclusive, obnoxious and extremely rude to gentiles, or anyone who isn't a member of their sect, honestly. The Zionists brought a lot of benefits with them to Palestine. These guys don't bring anything to benefit the community outside of their own.

In short, they suck and the original inhabitants hate them. No one got their permission before letting them move there. But it doesn't matter. They don't get to decide who is allowed to move in a few miles away from them or even right next door. Even if it totally alters their lifestyle, making the town sucky and impossible to get laid in, it is not permissible to start killing them. (Come to think of it, Dave who does live next door is Jewish! He's been there forever, and isn't religious at all. But still, he IS right next door and I really don't want to return that lawnmower of his. And he IS Jewish. Hmmmmmm.)

[kayecy]

179. This really is the critical question for me......

Zionists have only ever been prepared to accept a Zionist-majority state.

The Zionists had a specific agenda; they wanted self-determination to the greatest extent possible. ........they never wanted a home in an Arab-majority state (which would have been pretty pointless towards achieving their goals), they were more than willing to share or split the land with favorable terms for the Arabs.

As you say.....The Zionists were willing to split Palestine into two states (after they had crammed as many Jews into Palestine as they could), but they were only ever prepared to accept a Zionist-majority state.....Alternatives might have been pointless to the Zionists but that was no excuse.

....Not surprisingly, that was not accepted by the indigenous inhabitants.

I think this is an oversimplification of the complex political situations surrounding Palestine. A lot of the indigenous Arabs truly did oppose Jewish immigration on nationalist grounds. But there were other influences, .......

We seem to be in agreement here..... “A lot (in reality, a large majority) of the indigenous Arabs did oppose Jewish immigration”.......So my question for you is why did the Zionists continue when Palestinian resistance to Zionist immigration became clear?

Attempts at negotiating?.....What attempts?.....With which states?

......the event I was referring to was the UN Partition Plan. What else was that if not a negotiated recommendation for a solution? ......

You call that negotiating?.....The UN Partition plan recommendation formulated by UNSCOP contained both a majority and a minority proposal and as such was not even a clear recommendation......Prior to the UNGA vote, the two-thirds majority required was one vote short.....In the words of President Truman “I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders—actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats—disturbed and annoyed me “.

In any case, were Palestinian representatives involved in these ‘negotiations’?...Do you not think that any plan without at least the tacit agreement of the majority of the inhabitants of Palestine could lead to anything but conflict?......How ironic that Netanyahu and Obama are now insisting that negotiations must be between the Israelis and the Palestinians!....It is a pity the US did not take that position in 1947.

Not true....The war against increased Zionist immigration and their plans to engineer a Zionist majority in Palestine started in the 1920s

That's hardly the equivalent of declaring independence. In the 20's there was no official policy of engineering a Jewish majority;

How do you explain such Zionist statements as:
Herzl.....”Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly.......”,
Zangwill....”We cannot allow the Arabs to block so valuable a piece of historic reconstruction....”
Weltz, head of the Jewish national Fund....”...we shall transfer all the arabs out of Eretz Israel”

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that there was no official policy of engineering a Jewish majority?

The Zionists never accepted that Jewish immigration to Palestine should be limited and subject to approval of the local inhabitants.
Right. Why would they?

Why would they?.....Well, for one thing, I thought Zionists claimed their movement was a moral one?....Unlimited immigration would clearly remove the Palestinians right to eventual self-determination.... Moreover, such unlimited immigration would not have been accepted by any western democracy.....Why should you think that the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine had less rights than the inhabitants of western societies?

The obvious conclusion is that the Zionists had an agenda and were going to stop at nothing in order to get what they wanted......Not a movement I would have thought you, as a progressive, would be willing to support.

Was this something that ever happened WRT the formation of any other Mandate-created states? And why would those people have the ultimate right to determine who immigrates to and buys land that isn't their own?

An irrelevant question....Was any other Mandate-created state subject to massive immigration by an alien culture?

What do you think the reaction of US citizens would be if New York decided to declare that it was to become an Sovereign Jewish State with a Jewish majority to be achieved by allowing unlimited Jewish immigration?

Do you honestly think this example is a reasonable parallel to 1920-40s Palestine? That said, there were certainly towns in New York State that Hasidic Jews decided to immigrate to en-masse and basically take over.

I would not have suggested New York if I didn’t think it was a reasonable parallel....What are your objections?.....In any case, if you don’t like New York, take any other area of the US as a comparison (Idaho?.... Arizona?).....I ask you again, what would be the reaction of US citizens if Jews (or any other ethnic group) decided they wanted to go to an area of the US and set up a separate sovereign Jewish state?

Your example of Hasidic Jews taking over a part of new York is irrelevant......Did they make it clear they wanted to create a sovereign Hasidic state?.....to become a UN member and form their own military?....to have their own sovereign government which would allow unlimited Hasidic immigration to their area?




This really is the critical question for me......If you consider yourself fair-minded and you really do think that the early 20th century indigenous Palestinians had no right to reject Jewish immigrants (immigrants, moreover intending to carve out a Jewish-majority state), then you must explain why your reasoning does not equally apply to the 20th century people living in Europe or America.
.
.

[hack89]

164. The Jews and the Arabs agreed to separate states in 1919

when the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement was signed. So yes they did negotiate with their neighbors. The Arabs were fine with separate states but were unhappy that France and England were not willing give up their control of Arab lands through their mandates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal-Weizmann_Agreement

[kayecy]

167. Not relevant....Faisal died 15 years before Israel Unilaterally declared Independence.........

The Jews and the Arabs agreed to separate states in 1919 when the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement was signed. So yes they did negotiate with their neighbors

You asked "How should have Israel gone about declaring independence?"
I replied with a counter-question.."Did they attempt to negotiate with their neighbours?......Did they attempt to promote independence for the whole of Mandate Palestine as against carving out a part of it for a Jewish state?".


Do you really think that a man who died 15 years before Israel declared Independence is relevant to that declaration?....As I said, unilateral actions often lead to war and Israel's UDI is a classic example.

[hack89]

168. Don't you think that independence was a long drawn out process?

It is hard to think of any county that came into existence without years of work, negotiations and struggle. Can you name one?

Here's some questions for you - why didn't Egypt and Jordan establish an independent Palestinian state while they controlled Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967? Were the territories considered occupied in that time frame?

And why didn't Jordan refrain from attacking Israel in 1967? Israel did not attack them - in fact they told Jordan that they would not attack if Jordan was peaceful. The Jordanian king said "the die is cast" and attacked. A unilateral action that cost them the West Bank. Think about it - there would not be any occupied territory today if Jordan had made a wiser choice.

[kayecy]

171. Yes.......How long did Israel negotiate with the other residents of Palestine?.....

Don't you think that independence was a long drawn out process?

Yes.......How long did Israel negotiate with the other residents of Palestine?

Here's some questions for you - why didn't Egypt and Jordan establish an independent Palestinian state while they controlled Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967?

I seems likely that they cared as much about Palestinian rights as Israel does.

Were the territories considered occupied in that time frame?

According to Wikipedia, the West Bank was under occupation by Jordan during that time frame.

And why didn't Jordan refrain from attacking Israel in 1967?

Because it had a mutual defense pact with Egypt...Israel carried out a surprise attack on Egypt, Jordan was obligated to go to Egypt's defense.

Think about it - there would not be any occupied territory today if Jordan had made a wiser choice.

So why does Israel continue to encourage settlement in the West Bank?.....To punish the Palestinians for the 1967 Jordanian attack on Israel?
.

[sabbat hunter]

166. few things

1) Britain announced its intention to give up the mandate, the UN partioned the mandate in to two states, Israel and Palestine. What was there to negotiate?
2) there were members of the intended Israeli government that attempted to negotiate with Jordan. King Abdullah I wanted them to not declare independence and instead he would annex all of the mandate, give the jews seats in his parliament.
3) Yes they did, Palestine was supposed to be formed at the same time as Israel. unfortunately that did not happen
4) Many of the Palestinians living in the mandate area did not want any jews living there, as part of two countries or one.
5) Even though there are Palestinians, there was never an independent country of Palestine (it was always a province of one empire or another since Roman times)

[kayecy]

169. Israel never negotiated a partition agreement with the other residents of Palestine........

1) Britain announced its intention to give up the mandate, the UN partioned the mandate in to two states, Israel and Palestine. What was there to negotiate?

UDI often leads to war if the people breaking away do not attempt to negotiate with fellow residents (Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Katanga, Abkahzia etc) ....Israel never negotiated a partition agreement with the other residents of Palestine and the result was war.

2) there were members of the intended Israeli government that attempted to negotiate with Jordan. King Abdullah I wanted them to not declare independence and instead he would annex all of the mandate, give the jews seats in his parliament.

And to hell with the Arab Palestinians?

3) Yes they did, Palestine was supposed to be formed at the same time as Israel. unfortunately that did not happen

Yes they did what?........It would help if you would state what particular part of my message you are objecting to.

(4) Many of the Palestinians living in the mandate area did not want any jews living there, as part of two countries or one.

True but irrelevant.

5) Even though there are Palestinians, there was never an independent country of Palestine (it was always a province of one empire or another since Roman times)

Again true but irrelevant
.
.

[Mosby]

4. No double standard at all, abbas is an unelected dictator

Why would our president support that?

The Palestinians deserve better.

[King_David]

6. People forget that he is a Dictator

In 2011 .

Time for the Gaza and Westbank Arab Soring

In those 2 states !

[Mosby]

7. Exactly - the Palestinians deserve an Arab Spring just like Egyptians etc.

and Israel and the US should not support despots, even if their positions might have some merit.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. I don't think you understand the definition of dictator...

From the trusty Oxford: '1. a ruler with (often usurped) unrestricted authority. 2. a person with supreme authority in any sphere 3. a domineering person 4. a person who dictates for transcription.'

So, which of these definitions is it that you think applies to Abbas? Also, just in case you don't spot the question I asked upstairs, which Palestinian politician would you approve of, if any?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. It was a very lack-lustre and hypocritical speech...

Hanan Ashrawi summed it up when she said "Listening to , you would think it was the Palestinians who occupy Israel," His speech was all about Israel's interests and security, and he portrayed Israel as being the victim, and didn't even address the suffering of the Palestinian people under a brutal military occupation carried out by Israel.

[vminfla]

13. Why would he mention something untrue?

Israel has a right to defend itself. Everyone has a right to protect themselves.

[Violet_Crumble]

18. Where did I say untrue?

I specifically said his speech was lack-lusture and hypocritical. While he spoke of Israel's 'right to defend itself' and made Israel out to be the victim, he made no mention of Palestinian suffering nor the Palestinians right to protect themselves. Seeing you said everyone has a right to defend themselves, I'm sure you'd agree...

[Jefferson23]

14. Obama, an Israeli patriot?

After the president's speech to the UN, our senior analyst wonders why US leaders continue to pander to a foreign power.
Marwan Bishara Last Modified: 22 Sep 2011 18:23
Obama is the "the first Jewish President". That's the title of New York magazine's lead article, written by John Heilemann and quoting a major Obama fundraiser.

Listening to Obama speak at the United Nations on Wednesday many would nod in agreement, not less in Palestine and the Arab world.

The US President has embraced the rejectionist Israeli position on the question of international recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

But that's not a Jewish position. It's a radical Zionist position. Many Jews, including US and Israeli Jews, do not embrace such extremist views.

But the fact that Obama surpassed his predecessor


The cover story makes this conclusion by quoting one of Obama's fundraisers

George W Bush, the most radical supporter of Israel among all US Presidents, has left everyone in Israel dumbstruck. The latest Zionist US president sounded like Israel's own founding fathers.

Never have they heard a US president read straight from the papers of the Israeli government.

Propaganda passes for history

You would think after six decades of dispossession, four decades of occupation and two decades of peace processes that President Obama would recognise a political and moral discrepancy that needs fixing.

That he would underline, not undermine, his own words uttered in Cairo a year and a half ago about the need for Israel to stop its illegal settlements in Palestine.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192216365733499.html



The conversation that requires more attention in US politics is lobby influence, and this is not exclusive to this issue but it
has been a significant poison from Wall Street to health care industry etc.

[shira]

15. Obama's 2 states based on negotiations is a radical extremist zionist position? ROTFLOL! n/t

[Jefferson23]

122. Obama gets a kosher seal of approval

In the eyes of his Israeli audience, including Netanyahu and Lieberman, Obama’s speech was nearly faultless, an assessment subsequently confirmed by the harsh criticism leveled at it by Arab and Palestinian officials.
By Chemi Shalev

U.S. President Barack Obama certainly never dreamt that one day he would be so warmly endorsed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, of all people. But today, following Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly, Lieberman was literally gushing with praise. To contradict the attacks of Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Republican frontrunner, for Obama’s supposedly “arrogant” attitude toward Israel, Obama will now be able to wave to his Jewish voters a kosher “seal of approval” from no less an authority than Lieberman, the “Rebbe,” as it were, of the ruling Israeli right-wing coalition.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-gets-a-kosher-seal-of-approval-1.385896

[Casandra]

19. Having a lot of confusion here

Can someone please clarify to me WHY Palestine can't have statehood. I thought that was the ultimate goal for them to have their own state and live next door to Israel as TWO states. I'm really not understanding why we are vetoing their request for statehood. Something here just doesn't make sense to me. Thanks in advance

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[King_David]

25. Statements of fact do not make one an anti-semite.

True that,

but this post is antisemitic protocol type hate.

' mattvermont
because the Jewish lobby

pretty much controls american middle-east policy and by extension, who becomes president.
Flame away, and show evidence to the contrary. Statements of fact do not make one an anti-semite.'

[mattvermont]

26. I in no way subscribe to the

antisemitic protocol hate. I have just spent most of my academic and personal life with Jewish folks who sympathize with the plight of the palestinians.

[King_David]

Some of my best friends are ____ ?

;)

[mattvermont]

28. Kingdavid

Are you countering my thesis that the "Jewish" vote in this country is formidable (just like the "black", "Hispanic", or pro-life vote)?
Jimmy Carter the other day said that he would support the UN vote, as should Obama....he then made it clear that neither of them would likely be re-elected.

[Shaktimaan]

36. wow.

Do you even know the difference between what you wrote originally and what you wrote here?

the Jewish lobby pretty much controls... who becomes president.

is different than

the "Jewish" vote in this country is formidable (just like the "black", "Hispanic", or pro-life vote)?

One more thing... that whole "I can't be anti-semitic, I have Jewish friends" thing doesn't actually insulate you from the repercussions of making obviously anti-semitic statements. Unless you are also clearly a moron, in which case it is excusable.

[mattvermont]

38. I never suggested that I even have

Jewish friends...how do you come to the conclusion that I hide my hate behind having them?
Oh yeah, that's right it fits your agenda .

Do you think I did not expect instant and outrageous accusations of hate for stating some very simple realities?

[Shaktimaan]

44. you didn'?

you said, I have just spent most of my academic and personal life with Jewish folks...
Is that not a suggestion that you have Jewish friends? Or have you spend most of your life with Jewish people and not made a single friend among them?

how do you come to the conclusion that I hide my hate behind having them?

Huh? Well, I said no such thing, so there you go.

Oh yeah, that's right it fits your agenda .

Um, you don't know me, therefore I doubt you are aware of my so called agenda.

Do you think I did not expect instant and outrageous accusations of hate for stating some very simple realities?

I did not accuse you of hate. I accused you of stupidity. If you really think that the only definition of bigotry, whether it is racism or anti-semitism or whatever, can only be an unbridled hatred of the group in question then you have a lot to learn about bigotry. The vast majority of predjudicial statements are not made by people out of hatred but out of ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that your statements are not only untrue, but happen to dovetail precisely with classic anti-semitic memes such as the protocols of the elders of Zion... ie: Jewish people control the government. Your argument smacks of the stereotypical white guy whu makes racist jokes but defends them by saying that he knows a black guy at work and doesn't hate them at all, therefore he can't be racist.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mattvermont]

37. could a candidate

for president win Florida with a strong stance in support of Palestine? Sorry for using the term "lobby". How about "A strong voting block of Jewish people in the US would vote against a radical shift in the status quo in the middle east." ?
Moron? really?

[Shaktimaan]

45. That's your logic? Jeez.

Could a candidate win Florida with a strong Pro-Palestine stance... No, probably not.
So what? Are the Palestinians super popular in America except for within the Jewish community or something?

Nothing you have said so far comes even a tiny bit close to proving your statement that Jews control either Mid-East policy or who becomes president.

Did you take logic in school? If you did then you know that you have to show CAUSATION to prove something... not just a CORRELATION. Really, if you are going to make such an offensive statement like you did then you should have some kind of ironclad evidence to back it up. Not some half-baked exercise in lateral thinking.

Give us a history. When did Jews take over the process? How? What is the historical evidence? Answer some obvious questions, such as, "If the Jews control who becomes president, then how come the candidates they overwhelmingly supported in 2000 and 2004 lost?"

[Ken Burch]

40. Is there a REASON you didn't say the "Israel lobby" rather than the "Jewish lobby"?

A significant number of Jewish people are NOT uncritical defenders of Israel.

A significant number of uncritical defenders of Israel are NOT Jewish(and some of them don't even LIKE Jews).

Watch the way you say things...and the way you think them.

[mattvermont]

41. I appreciate the distinction

thanks for that. I need be more careful when responding to such a tender subject. You are most astute.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

I wasn't using code

And you damn well know it. Stop assuming that EVERYONE is an antisemite already. And stop slandering people just because they disagree with you.

I wasn't endorsing any of the implications in his posts.

[Shaktimaan]

Because...

it's the Israel lobby is who installs the president and dictates our mid-east policy. Not the Jews, of course! He should really be careful or he's liable to have his statement mistaken for some kind of anti-semitic meme... best to stick with the term "Zionist" to be on the safe side.

BTW, as he made clear in his other posts, he really is talking about the Jews, not the pro-Israel lobby. And just to reiterate, I do NOT think he is anti-semitic. Not at all. I DO think he might be mentally retarded though. And could probably benefit from testing.

[Ken Burch]

It's possible that you're right about that.

There are some strange things in those posts.

[Shaktimaan]

much obliged...

yeah, his posts are seriously ill.

[King_David]

Ha ha.

[Codeine]

Because he's not as good at coding as most of his ilk on DU are.

He'll get better.

[FarLeftFist]

21. Because it's political suicide.

[Ohio Joe]

22. If you are referring to the UN application...

I would be interested to know exactly what it would mean... Besides that they would be allowed to vote at the UN. With no agreement with Israel in place to actually create the state, what else does it mean?

[shira]

23. Because, among other things, UNSCR 242 calls for negotiations, not a unilateral move. n/t

[mattvermont]

24. recognizing the state in theory

would not preclude actual negotiations. In fact, it would make them more worthwhile..., unless the only negotiations that Israel is interested in, would not include a 2 state solution.

[shira]

27. The PA doesn't want to negotiate. They had to be dragged to the table at the butt end of a 10 month

....settlement freeze. Ehud Olmert offered a credible deal in 2008 and there was no counter-offer to speak of from the PA.

What makes you think they're interested in genuine negotiations?

[mattvermont]

31. Just feel the PA

Have much more to lose by doing nothing. Like further occupation and erosion of what land they tentatively hold. There are no virtuous actors in this theatre.

[shira]

32. You're right if we assume all they want is their own state in peace alongside Israel. n/t

[mattvermont]

33. or perhaps..

if Israel would remain in peace within their own state, or did historically.

[Ken Burch]

42. ANY peace deal, shira, requires the assumption that both sides are actually willing to make peace

It requires parity of esteem and parity of trust, and also an admission that both sides have equal reason to have distrusted the other side in the past and to have felt victimized by it.

The only way to see is to try. It's clearly not possible to get peace by keeping the Occupation in place until the Palestinians accede to all the Israeli poison pill language...like the permanent survival of the largest settlements as Israeli territory AND permanent IDF troops on all sides of the Palestinian state(while the Palestinians themselves are expected to remain unarmed and helpless, living entirely at the IDF's mercy). Nothing will ever get ANY Palestinian leadership to accept those terms, because all Palestinians will always regard them as an intolerable humiliation, to say nothing of the fact that keeping the largest settlements in place means a Palestinian state wouldn't be contiguous, and thus could never survive.

You can't really say you want peace if you're working under the assumption that the other side is, somehow, pathologically incapable of wanting it as well. Since YOU make that assumption(racist as it is)you might as well admit that you never really did want peace at all...and that everyone who opposed and continues to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state was and is opposed to peace, since it was never reasonable to expect the Arab world to accept Israel without such a state being created.

[King_David]

3 state solution seems to be the direction we are going.

Gaza,West Bank and Israel.

[Shaktimaan]

really?

since it was never reasonable to expect the Arab world to accept Israel without such a state being created.

why not?

I ask this because no one in the arab world seemed to be in a big rush to create a Palestinian state when they had the resources and ability. It actually seemed more like no one cared at all about the Palestinians except to use as a wedge against the US and/or Israel. Besides, Egypt made peace without solving the problem. So did Jordan.

And many of those states in question have rounded up and evicted all of their own Palestinians over the past few decades. Others just slaughtered them.

Look, the requirements being asked of the Palestinians now are far from onerous. If they are unable to clear such modest hurdles as these to build their state then they truly might be incapable of making a state themselves. "Being too humiliated" is a really, really poor reason for one's state to fail. Seriously, if that is what is holding the Palestinian state back then they better pray that nothing else goes wrong... like locusts, or beavers, or a bad bee sting.

[Ken Burch]

It's not honerous to be expected to accept large foreign settlements

that would make the West Bank non-contiguous? Or to have another country's troops surrounding your country on all sides, prepared to invade and wipe out your sovereignty at any moment(while YOUR country is expected to have no means to defend itself against such an invasion)?
how are those things NOT honerous?

[Shaktimaan]

large foreign settlements?

is 3 or 4% with arable land swaps really that large? "Non-contiguous?" Give me a break... no one really believes that, do they? Christ, do you believe everything you read Ken? (Provided it is anti-Israel?) The West Bank would obviously not be non-contiguous in any final settlement. Having access to their land is a key requirement to building any state. Yes, parts of it are non-contiguous now. Big whoop. That's not any indication that Israel even plans on keeping most of that infrastructure anyway. The only settlements that could stay would be the big ones near the border, (and Ariel.) This whole non-contiguous thing is a fake issue. If there's a legit offer, and it leaves the WB all broken up, THEN you'd have a case. But now, it's just political scare-mongering.

Or to have another country's troops surrounding your country on all sides, prepared to invade and wipe out your sovereignty at any moment

It seems to me that there would be far more pressing problems facing Palstine than the worry that Israel would just decide to attack suddenly, for no reason, seeing as how they would have gone to so much trouble for Palestine to even get created. If Israel wants Palestine destroyed I can think of a trillion less retarded ways to go about doing it than by building them a state of their own out of land that Israel already controls.

You would have Israel's assurance that no one else could attack you, freeing the state up to focus entirely on economic and social matters. Which is a great gift considering the resources any similar state would have otherwise had to devote to war.

And imagine you WERE allowed weapons. What good would they do you? If Israel wants to invade, then it will do so at will anyway. Any weapons that could possibly stop them would be monsterous and expensive. Like the rockets Hezbollah uses. Do you really think that Israel should allow this nation of people who have never once ceased to press any advantage or exploit any weakness in the defenses of its state, to gain access to the most effective offensive weapons available (they're not even defensive weapons), as part of a long term peace agreement?

You said earlier:
It requires parity of esteem and parity of trust, and also an admission that both sides have equal reason to have distrusted the other side in the past and to have felt victimized by it.

How would arming the Palestinians give either side the impression that everyone was serious about peace? To me, SERIOUS about peace is when they don't feel that they need arms, (aside from small arms for cops and stuff.)

Consider the fact that if any of those weapons are used against Israel, it would SHATTER the peace. Israel would have to invade with the aim of cutting off their supply and ability to attack. Many, many, many people would die as a result. So, bearing that in mind, are you willing to bet everything, the whole tamale, on the hope that every single radical Palestinian faction will refrain from stealing some of these sophisticated arms and using them to rain two dozen or so rockets down on Tel Aviv?

You know, THAT sounds mighty onerous to me. Palestine'll have enough problems of their own. If I were there I would be just as happy letting Israel handle our international security so that we could focus on statecraft, economics, jobs, investments and infrastructure. There's a far greater chance of violence coming from within Palestine than from outside of it. I'd work on preventing that.

So to answer your question, no, I do not find any of it onerous, especially compared with the birth of other states such as the US or Israel. In fact I think the opposite. I think it is an opportunity to build this state with far less obstacles than we would have seen in the past (or are likely to in the future.)

But it doesn't matter anyway. I really think that any Palestinian state declared now is all but certainly doomed to failure.

[Ken Burch]

I don't really want either side armed.

The issue with having the Israelis armed and the Palestinians NOT armed is that insisting that the Palestinians agree to that means demanding that Palestinians accept the notion that Israel can be trusted with the right to self-defense, but Palestine can't be. In other words, it requires a Palestinian state to basically make a public statement that it is, and always will be, intrinsically morally inferior to Israel.

This is an inherently insulting thing to ask any country to agree to.

[Shaktimaan]

and there you go...

maintaining the palestinians pride is then more important than getting a state.

How sure are you that a fully militarized Palestine would never attack Israel in any form? How many innocent lives would you be willing to bet on it? Because that is the exact price in your view, of Palestine's honor.

I'm curious... is it 1000? Less than 1000?

How many dead children is it worth to keep Palestine's feelings from being hurt IYO?

[Ken Burch]

The issue isn't simply about "hurt feelings", as you condescendingly put it.

It's about making sure that the deal sticks.

It won't stick if anyone on the Palestinian side can make the case that their leaders allowed themselves to get played-just as The Troubles in Northern Ireland stem from original British insistence that the Irish accept inflammatory and degrading conditions-like a partition arrangement that made Catholic/Nationalists in the North live totally at the mercy of the artificial Protestant Unionist majority in the Six Counties(and a requirement that the members of the Free State Dail, or parliament, swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown). It was the sense that the deal had shamed and degraded Ireland that gave the violent extremists in the IRA their window of opportunity.

This is why, for example, it was so reckless of the Unionists in the power-sharing executive to demand that the IRA decommission all weapons, rather than simply leaving them to rot as they were going to do, before allowing the executive to continue. Demanding decommissioning was about insisting on looking like the Unionists had defeated the republicans, rather than about any genuine security concerns. The decommissioning demand nearly ended the executive, and nearly restarted the Troubles.

The I/P dispute needs to be resolved with a document that doesn't make any significant group of people on the Palestinian side feel that they're being forced to accept something that is, essentially, an admission that their side is "worse" than the Israeli side.

It's perfectly possible to work out a stable peace arrangement that is NOT based on the assumption that ONE side can be trusted, but the other can't. That's what you have to do when the peace arrangement isn't a document of surrender-as it won't ever be in this war.

The way to guarantee a permanent cessation of hostilities here is with parity of esteem, and with an agreement that neither side will try to incur on the other-and this can be done without making the Palestinians live at the mercy of the IDF, which is the situation they'd be put in if the insistence is kept that the Palestinian state be demilitarized, but the Israelis get to have all the damn weapons(even nukes)that they want.

And the truth is, as a result of post-1967 events, Palestinians do have JUST as much reason to distrust Israeli intentions as Israelis have to dstrust Palestinian intentions. If any significant number of settlers are removed from the West Bank, someone will form a "settler party" in Israeli politics that is dedicated to revanchism-and that party will win several seats in the Knesset. This will mean that that party will probably be part of a future right-wing coalition government, meaning the next Bibi will pull all sort of confrontational shit just to keep them in at the cabinet table. The fact that a large number of IDF personnel have been and are settlers will also make West Bank revanchism a major concern for a long time, and a future independent Palestinian state will have every right to try to protect itself against that.

A future Palestinian state could easily become the Kosovo of Israeli politics...and an Israeli Slobodan Milosevic could easily appear to seize the moment. Any independent Palestinian state will know that such a situation could happen.

Don't assume that Israel is any more immune to the darker impulses of nationalism than any other state born of a nationalist movement, my friend.

[Shaktimaan]

They don't have to do nothing.

But to be honest there's not much anyone can do right now. Negotiations with Bibi will probably not come to much. Barring some grand gesture on someone's part, at this point with everything that's happened in Gaza, the peace process is likely in stasis.

But so far the Palestinians have not really seen their land erode at all. The opposite really. In the past 15 years or so they gained sovereignty over a good deal of the west bank and have seen settlements close in the northern WB and all of Gaza. The building that has been done has been within existing settlements. Not that I condone it, but it is not the same thing as whole new swaths of land being allocated anew.

Considering that they had nothing at all before, they have considerably more now. Only 25 years ago Jordan was insisting that the entire WB belonged to it. Only 5-6 years after they abandoned it Israel began transferring authority for parts of the WB to them.

IMO the best thing the PA could really do to hasten the peace process is form a real united government with Hamas and convince them to develop a platform based on something other than destroying Israel. Cuz til that happens any comprehensive peace agreement is a non-starter.

[aranthus]

30. One does not recognize a state in theory.

Recognition means the formal acceptance of a state in fact. Either the Palesintians actually have a state to recognize right now, or they don't. And they don't.

[azurnoir]

well the Palestinians UN bid does not rule out negotiations

well unless Israel refuses to negotiate afterward isn't that correct? what it does do is add legal and political weight to the Palestinians claims so why is it that Israel will only 'negotiate' with a weakened Palestinian entity? no one seems to want to answer that one why?

[aranthus]

29. Several reasons.

1. Because statehood requires a unified functioning government able to control the territory of the state, and the Palestinians don't have one of those yet.
2. If you're referring to the upcoming UN bid, because the UN can't create states.
3. Because the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinians agreed to, require negotiations with Israel to resolve borders, among other issues, and the UN bid is an end around those agreements.

[shaayecanaan]

35. I'll try and answer your question as best I can...

The official Israeli position and the United States position is that Palestine should not have the status of a state at the UN until the Israelis have consented to them having that status as the result of negotiations.

There are a couple of clarifications to be made at the outset. The first is that the UN cannot award "statehood" to the Palestinians. The only parties that can extend diplomatic recognition to states are other states. Currently, most of the international community recognises Palestine, apart from Europe and North America:-



However, the UN can allow the Palestinians to have a seat in the UN General Assembly along with the other 190-odd countries, which is what the Palestinians are currently seeking. Obviously, this doesn't mean that the world would recognise the State of Palestine and some countries would still not recognise it, but it definitely would have consequences at international law that would make it much harder to not recognise the rights of the Palestinians.

For a state to become a member state of the UN it is necessary to be approved by the Security Council. The US holds a veto in the Council along with the other four permanent members. This means that it is unlikely that this would be approved as the US is dead against the Palestinian initiative.

However, it is possible for the UN General Assembly to grant Palestine the status of a non-member state, which was the status that South Korea had for a long time. This would entitle the Palestinians to participate in international fora. It would also mean that Israel would potentially be liable in the International Criminal Court for violations of the Fourth Geneva convention, which they are particularly concerned about.

Whatever motion the Palestinians ask for in the General Assembly they will probably succeed as the vast majority of the world's states support them, which is why there has been a flurry of activity trying to persuade the Palestinians to drop their application for state status.

The main argument, as far as I can tell, is that if the Palestinians take these unilateral steps at the UN, it would harden Israeli opinion and cause a crisis in the "peace process", although it has to be said, the current right wing government in Israel is not overly enthused about the peace process anyway. The Israelis are very apprehensive about the UN and are particularly inclined to become upset whenever there is a UN initiative against their interests. The current Israeli government is made up of right-wing, populist parties and there would be a lot of pressure on them to react aggressively if the Palestinians have their way at the UN. This might include reoccupying large sections of the West Bank, seizing tax receipts from the Palestinian Authority, and otherwise making the lives of the Palestinians miserable.

Moreover, the United States would feel substantial domestic political pressure to back the Israelis, particularly in an election year, and this would also risk a populist reaction from American politicians keen to demonstrate their pro-Israel credentials. Currently, there is a house resolution with 30 co sponsors that seeks to authorise the Israelis to annex the West Bank and Gaza (in effect, the destruction of Palestine).

There is an element of unfairness in this in that Israel routinely takes unilateral steps over the objections of Palestine (and the United States) when it authorises new settlement construction in the West Bank. The Palestinians are humiliated whenever this occurs and it certainly makes mustering support for the peace process on their side that much harder, but as they are the weaker party in the conflict they are more or less expected to put up with it. As in all things international, it is a case of the strong doing what they can and the weak doing what they must.

[hack89]

39. The Palestinians that control the West Bank

have unilaterally walked away from the international framework for negotiations to declare statehood. The Palestinians that control Gaza vehemently oppose this action and have refused to be part of this Palestinian state.

So what we have is a recipe to ignite civil war while not solving any real problems.

[shaayecanaan]

43. The Palestinians that control Gaza

vehemently oppose the Palestinians in the West Bank walking away from the international framework for negotiations?

You certainly do read some quite tortured logic on this board, that's for sure.

[hack89]

46. "to declare statehood"

tortured reading comprehension skills are the issue in this case, I think.

But just for you - Hamas opposed the PA's stunt and will do everything in their power to undermine it. There will be civil war as Israel simply sits back and watches the dream of a Palestinian state go up in smoke.

[shaayecanaan]

They oppose the negotiations with Israel as well...

so are the negotiations with Israel a recipe for civil war? Or are Hamas' objections to Palestinian statehood somehow more significant than their objections to the peace process?

In any event, I have a simple, tried-and-true method for debunking spurious predictions such as this one. Behold.

I am willing to offer $50 USD to a charity of your choice if your anticipated "civil war" between Fatah and Hamas breaks out within six calendar months of the declaration of member or non-member state status of the Republic of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly or Security Council in September, 2011.

On the other hand, if it doesn't, then you pay $50 USD to my stipulated charity, Medical Aid for Palestine.

The losing party shall provide proof of the transaction by linking to a copy of the receipt on a photo-hosting website such as Photobucket.

If you are actually making a serious prediction, and not simply engaging in gratuitous blather, then it will be the easiest $50 you ever made. So do we have a deal?

[hack89]

No.

this is a internet discussion board. You take this stuff too seriously.

If you want to discuss, OK. If you want to flash your progressive cred by posturing, find someone else that is equally pompous.

[shaayecanaan]

Works well, doesnt it?

Presumably you werent being serious in your prediction. Thats fine. We all talk out of our arse on the internet from time to time.

[hack89]

Do you really any thing serious happens here?

this is a place to verbally joust and spar - all in good fun. This is not the place to be if you are serious about making a mark on the world. Certainly not the place to invest a lot of emotion - the problem with the internet is that there will always be someone who disagrees.

[pelsar]

from an israeli point of view...

the concept is two responsible, western styled democratic states.......a Palestinian state that is not going to follow the footsteps of gaza (hamas) egypt, libya, syria, lebanon, iran.....all unstable), where a stable, democracy exists. The present status of the PA is that the president is essentially a dictator of a corrupt society that has essentially rejected western values (there are however some movement in opposite direction....a lot depends upon internal politics if they will succeed). Their other "half" gaza is controlled by hamas, a theocratic party, that totally in word and deed rejects western values.

hence what this state to be is, will not have any of the responsibilities of western democracy, will be inherently unstable, yet have the tools of a state to attack israel via additional legal tools...in essence, using the very tools to attack israel, that it rejects (and it will have little if any real pressure to change its ways, by their supporters, as we have seen in the past).

so from an israeli point of view, a corrupt dictatorship(s), that rejects western values will be empowered,
(the belief, that i and many others like me, find unrealistic , is that some how the Palestenians leadership will suddenly see the light of western democratic values and peacefully change or if the people demand it, they will quietly accept their fate and accept going on trial.....also not very realistic, but thats the fantasy.

that is why many are against it......its just adds fuel to the fire.

[shaayecanaan]

So the Palestinians would have to build Denmark on the shores of the Mediterranean...

before you would acknowledge their right to become a state?

[pelsar]

that would be ideal....but not realistic

i believe most of us would settle for a society that actually implements basic western civil rights as an actual part of their internal society.

the goal for most of us in israel, and this should be very clear, its not that we really care if the PA/Hamas drags people behind cars for holding hands in public as punishment, toss their gays in prison, we're just interested in a stable society next door that will keep the random rockets and attacks from happening,

the best bet is a western style democracy, not some illegal dictatorship that has to balance various pressures from non democratic arabs states that will be supporting it, training the PA citizens to attack israel, sending cash with conditions etc.

only a western style democracy will reject the demands of iran, saudi arabia, syria etc...a corrupt dictatorship won't....and if not pre state, once they get their state, there will no pressure on them to reform at all.....

your basically supporting the creation of another unstable dictatorship, when other options exist.

[Ken Burch]

Look, everybody should have the chance to build a democracy

But you can't make one country create a democratic system by letting another country keep troops on its soil(AND continue stealing the first country's land to expand settlements for its citizens to live as occupiers) until the country WITH the troops and settlers is satisfied that the country being subjugated is ready to NOT be subjugated anymore.

Democracy can't take root if it's imposed as a punishment. And it's arrogant to assume that Palestine can ONLY become a democracy if Israel forces it to become one. They have to be allowed to do it on their own, and on their own terms. It can't be shoved down their throat.

You aren't showing any respect for the dignity of the people of Palestine when you take the tone you take towards them. You are treating them as spoiled children at best and as unredeemable villains at worst. Please stop doing that-when you keep on like this, you only make it harder to achieve what you say you want to achieve.

[shira]

So you support a terror state that discriminates against gays, women, religious minorities...

...and denies the most basic civil rights to its citizens.

Is that right?

A state that is in no way - not even in the slightest bit - progressive.

You fully support the birth of such a state and will continue to support it - when it's a state - even if the situation there never changes?

Better yet, when will a 'real' progressive like yourself think it's finally time to criticize the PA/Hamas and advocate hard for liberal democracy there?

[shaayecanaan]

So just to clarify, you don't support such a state?

Because it certainly sounds that way.

Exactly what do you advocate? Continued occupation? One state?

[shira]

I would never support Israel if it was like that. Who the hell would? n/t

[shaayecanaan]

So you wouldnt have supported the newly established State of Israel?

At the time that Israel was founded, "sodomy" was illegal in Israel, whereas it was legal in the Jordan-occupied West Bank, as Jordanian laws never criminalised homosexual activity.

Anti-sodomy laws in Israel remained on the books until 1988.

[pelsar]

thats what you got?...sodomy laws? wow!

i'm impressed, i hadn't realized that israeli democracy had absolutely no foundation at all in 48 with sodomy laws on the books. It must have been gods interference that helped israel get through that....
_______________

i can only assume that you didn't know that in 48 israel had multiple parties screaming at each other, each with their own news paper, protests, committees etc...meaning the culture of democracy was well established

otherwise if you had known this, no doubt you would have wrote about it, compared it to the PA/hamas and then explained the differences..........

[shira]

LOL. n/t

[shaayecanaan]

our friend said that she would never "support a society that discriminates against gays"

obviously, sodomy laws very much discriminate against gays.

It is rather strange that we seem to have gone from heartfelt support of gay rights to scoffing at Israel's history of sodomy laws in the space of about two posts, but I must say I am rather inured to this kind of hypocrisy by now.

"i can only assume that you didn't know that in 48 israel had multiple parties screaming at each other

Even better. In 1948 Israel had multiple parties shooting at one another.

[shira]

....that discriminates against gays, women, religious minorities, etc.

I really don't think it's possible to carry on an honest rational discussion with you guys.

The USA still has laws that discriminate against gays, unlike Israel. That doesn't mean I don't support the USA, which has institutions to turn things around. If the USA were to discriminate by law against women, gays, religious minorities, AND incite/cheer on terror AND deprive its citizens of basic civil rights THEN the USA wouldn't deserve any support either. It's not just one thing, but whether the society has institutions to address injustices in the system. If they do, then eventually things will turn around.

The PA is in no way, shape, or form REMOTELY progressive or liberal. If it were truly on its way with freedom of speech/press for example, that changes everything.

I'm still shaking my head wondering what's wrong with you guys....

Maybe you do realize what you're doing and all you've got in your arsenal is building strawmen and tearing them down. I'd say that's more likely because it appears to be a pattern here.

[shaayecanaan]

I think you're entirely incapable of having an honest discussion

I think your strategy is entirely dependent on quantity over quality. You simply generate a rash of ill-informed posts that might nevertheless have an impression on a casual observer, but which fail to stand up to any level of scrutiny.

To take just one small point from your latest missive above - you claim that the PA discriminates against religious minorities. To some extent perhaps most societies do on some level or another - but to claim that the PA does this to a greater extent than Israel is just absurd:-

"The Palestinian Authority (PA) has no constitution, and no single law in force protects religious freedom; however, it generally respects religious freedom in practice. Although there is no official religion in the occupied territories, Islam is treated de facto as the official religion."

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/reloccupiedterritories00.html

All of this is of course is just pointless churn. After all, when Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt it didnt concern itself with the status of religious freedom in Egypt or how many newspapers there were. I think had they done so, most people would have realised it as an entirely disingenous ploy, and that Israel didnt really care one way or the other how free the Egyptians were.

It does beg the question though - if you oppose a peace treaty with the Palestinians because of their inadequate democracy, would you have opposed the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt?

[shira]

Then please don't refrain from calling bullshit. These discussions demand honesty and accuracy.

• The PA Draft Constitution... declares “in the State of Palestine…the religion of Islam will
be the official religion.” The Draft Constitution also states that “the Sharia will be the
primary source of legislation.”
http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/christianspersecuted.pdf

There's plenty more on that page showing the PA is far worse WRT state-sponsored religious discrimination than what you accuse Israel of being. And please don't come back with something weak like Israel being a theocratic state with Judaism as its official religion...

:eyes:

It's funny you call me an opponent of the 2 state solution when you're an anti-zionist against Israeli self determination. I'm for a peaceful 2 state solution. You're for an end of occupation, not 2 states, and wouldn't mind seeing Israel go bye-bye. One of us is for a peaceful 2 state solution, the other is not. I wouldn't call Palestine under Hamas or PA control alongside Israel a situation that would remain genuinely peaceful for any significant amount of time. One of us believes Palestine should be at least somewhat liberal/progressive and therefore capable of being peaceful. I think they're capable. The other could care less whether they remain hopelessly regressive/rightwing and warmongering. I suspect you believe it's impossible for them to be anything but what they are. I'm not sure what your definition of 'peace' is WRT the Arab/Israel conflict. Peace of the grave?

[shaayecanaan]

I call bullshit on you all the time...

Right now, I'm calling bullshit on you because you're attempting to counter an official publication of the US Department of State with a two-page flyer typed up by a bunch of right-wing Zionist hacks.

The updated 2009 version of the US Dept of State report on religious freedom in the occupied territories is here:-

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,USDOS,,ISR,,4ae86134c,0.html

It contains this worthy nugget:-

"Societal attitudes continued to be a barrier to conversions, especially for Muslims converting to Christianity; however, conversion is not illegal in the Occupied Territories. Both Muslim and Christian Palestinians accused Israeli officials of attempting to foster animosity among Palestinians by exaggerating reports of Muslim-Christian tensions."

Its certainly true that Christians have been leaving Bethlehem. Largely this is due to the settlements that are increasingly ensconcing Bethlehem, bringing with them the obligatory Israeli checkpoints. Christian girls in particular tend to be targeted for sexual harassment by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n9zuNh4PDw&list=PL70D8F8198908B7EF&index=4

Moreover, Christians tend to be wealthier, and generally form the mercantile class in the occupied territories. The economic disruptions brought about by the settlements and checkpoints impact upon them in particular, and make it difficult to do business.

[shira]

Well, you try. I can't see how State Dept. claims trump facts....

I guess if they say so and you like it, that's good enough for you.

Please tell me, how does a Christian population that was once 15% of the OPT in 1950 drop to 2% today, due to Israeli policy? Whereas the christian population within Israel has grown at the same rate as the Jewish population?

This should be good...

[shaayecanaan]

perhaps the US State Department has been overtaken by the Elders of Mecca

Why else would they publish perfidious Arab propaganda that there is religious freedom in the occupied territories?

As for Christian emigration, the same thing happened in Lebanon. The Christians had better education, more money, more contacts, generally spoke English and/or French, and generally found it easier to emigrate generally. I am speaking from personal experience here.

or straight from the horse's mouth:-

'Although the dire economic situation has affected Christians and Muslims alike, emigration from Bethlehem is higher among Christians, who are helped by higher levels of education and better contacts in Western countries.

Catholic civil engineer Khalil Hanania, 22, was part of a close-knit group of seven friends at school.

"Now I am alone, six of my best friends emigrated - America, London, Australia, France," he says.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4548312.stm

[shira]

Yeah, I guess all the proof in the article linked is complete bullshit. n/t

[shaayecanaan]

Pretty much (nt)

[shira]

And an Islamic PA state ruling via sharia is not by law discriminatory vs. religious minorities.

Like you say, a secular state like Israel is worse than that.

Want to take that one back? Or are you sticking with it?

[pelsar]

thats your sexual harassment proof?

Christian girls in particular tend to be targeted for sexual harassment by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints:-
note the video is of israeli soldiers talking to themselves about a few girls, something that considered normal in israel (males talking about females).

this is one of those examples of the "reverse anti semitism, that states that if israelis act normal, like regular normal human beings, that means something is wrong with them...


reminds me of the Doctoral thesis (by Tal Nitzan.-hebrew university) that israeli soldiers are racist for NOT raping Palestinians, you might want to pull that out once in while, when you need to demonize us.
-------

i think your grasping at straws here...first the sodomy laws as proof that israel is not really a democracy, now a video of some soldiers at a checkpoint with a few private comments about some of the girls, but they certainly are enlightening

[shaayecanaan]

Then I think we have different views on the way women should be treated...

I certainly view the conduct on the video as amounting to sexual harassment, particularly the obvious way that the soldiers used their power over the women and the way they attempted to continue their exchanges with them when it was clear that the women were uncomfortable.

I certainly don't think that such behaviour is normal, or normative, and I think that most people that live in stable, functioning democracies would feel the same way.

[pelsar]

that 'sexual harassment" is everyday in every country of the world

I certainly don't think that such behaviour is normal, or normative, i take it you don't get out much...ever been to a bar? a college party? an office party? meet some kids traveling? Advances (wanted and otherwise) are part and parcel of male/female interaction

but more to the point.....you have an indictment of the entire IDF because of a singe exchange ....clearly that is a racist remark.....

[shaayecanaan]

"Advances (wanted and otherwise) are part and parcel of male/female interaction"

I don't think that unwanted advances are part of normal male/female interaction. Certainly not any interaction that I've had.

You probably need to get your story straight. On the one hand you are suggesting that this sort of harassment is a routine occurrence. On the other, you seem to be suggesting that I am condemning the IDF on the basis of a one-off, isolated and unusual incident. I don't think you can have it both ways.

[pelsar]

i'm condemning the usual demonization, where israel is "different"

Christian girls in particular tend to be targeted for sexual harassment by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints:

and yes its clear you are condemning the IDF for an illusionary version of your sexual harassment, racial discrimination (i.e. just christians)-the both ways is your attempt to demonize israel for a non sexual/racial incident:

its becoming a standard, be it the IDF stealing organs from Palestinians, genocide, starving them to death, non rape being defined as racist, old sodomy law redefines what a democratic country is, etc; Make some bogus claim against israel and see what sticks, accuracy not being relevant.

btw for general information......
and if you've never had or seen any interactions of that type, then clearly you've haven't been outside much.....especially with a bunch of college boys....( where have you been your whole life?).
---------------
most interesting of all, is the way the girl is not afraid of the israeli soldier, that be far is the most telling of the general interactions and cuts through all the accusations of the evil israelis at checkpoints

[shira]

They've got nothing but throwing shit against the wall, hoping it sticks.

And they can't stand having to defend themselves rationally.

When challenged, they go into attack mode attempting to discredit, demonize, or ridicule those challenging them.

As though doing that defends whatever silly argument they make.

======

It pisses them off something fierce that they can't enjoy throwing their feces around without being challenged and exposed for their weak tactics.

It's not "fun" for them anymore.

:(

[Violet_Crumble]

125. Who's 'they', Shira? n/t

[shira]

133. You get one guess. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

134. Are you referring to pro-Palestinian posters in this forum?

In that case, you need to put the mirror down and step back from it very slowly....

[Violet_Crumble]

142. C'mon, Shira. At least have the guts to own what you said n/t

[shira]

144. Some of them, yep! n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

146. Well, I did think that calling out other DUers the way you did was against the rules...

I might be wrong, though.

[Violet_Crumble]

153. I don't think so. It looked more like an apt self-description if anything n/t

[shaayecanaan]

123. This is what I call "stage three"

"its becoming a standard, be it the IDF stealing organs from Palestinians"

Lets take that as an example. When the allegation was first made, there was uproar from the Israelis. This was despite the fact that, at the time, the Israeli government knew that organs had in fact been stolen from Palestinian corpses, at least during the 1990s.

That was stage one. Histrionics. Jumping up and down, rallies, insistent letters to editors of newspapers. Demands that the Swedish government apologise. Accusations of blood libel, neo-Nazism, the full 21-gun salute, in other words.

Of course, this can go on indefinitely. Or at least until some information comes to light which gives added weight to the allegation.

If the new evidence is anything less than cast-iron proof, then proceed to stage 2. This is where you pour scorn on the evidence and claim that it establishes nothing (for example, the fact that all 14 of the Dubai assassins appropriated foreign passports from Israeli residents is proof of nothing).

However in this case the added evidence was Israel's chief pathologist Dr Hiss confessing that in fact Palestinian corpses (and Jewish corpses to boot) had been harvested and had parts removed. A bit hard to deny that one. So proceed to stage three.

Stage three is tricky, because it involves a 180-degree turn from Stage One. The accusations that were considered monstrous in Stage One are now to be considered allegations of routine misconduct that probably happen everywhere. After all, a guy I knew who worked at a hospital, he said that if they don't have time they just take the organs without getting the consent of the families. And plus those Arab countries harvest organs all the time. So does China. So why aren't you criticising them? The fact that you are singling out Israel without dedicating equal time to the faults of other countries means that you are an anti-semite.

Stage Three is usually a tactical retreat, meant to salvage a modicum of credibility whilst the Hasbara machine quietly abandons the issue. Within a week of Hiss' confession going public, the rallies had disappeared and the demands for an official Swedish apology had fallen silent. The only thing that remains is to wait for another opportunity and hope it goes better next time.

The problem is that you need to make a choice between Stage One and Stage Three. Either I am lying and sexual harassment does not happen at checkpoints, or I am making a mountain out of a molehill and sexual harassment should be tolerated everywhere. So which is it to be?

[bemildred]

128. LOL.

:thumbsup:

[pelsar]

132. its that wonderful gray area of demonization....special for israel

this is very simple..you have claims that you claim are standard, you do understand the definition of standard?...(more than a single example)


lets take a look at the single video you chose as standard israeli harassment at checkpoints of Christian girls and your claim:
Christian girls in particular tend to be targeted for sexual harassment by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints
notice the subtle hint of racism (christian girls vs muslim girls)

you claim she is a christian:
how do you know ? and if you can't prove it, why do you claim it? and why are you even mentioning her undefined religion?

sexual harassment:
single example of a single incident (which is even debatable, as the soldier was questioning her age)..... and your claiming its the standard
are there further examples? if not how can you claim its standard?

_____

so what do we have so far?
racist claims, exaggeration of what you claim is the standard, but no real proof (do you have other links? or just the one?)

i would say thats pretty clear that demonization is a good description so far.
_______________________________

on to the organs....this is embarrassingly simple
only it really requires honesty, which is not the strong part when one wants to demonize israel:
the article was about:
Israeli troops harvested organs from Palestinians that died in their custody. written in 2009

the author: Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote that he allowed the article "because it raises a few questions", while acknowledging that the paper had no evidence for its claims.
so here we have an article that the author admits he has no evidence......

nothing to retreat...you actually have to go back to 20 years previous to 1990 to a guy who no longer works in abu kabir to find the illegal harvesting (and he wasn't an "israeli troop"), hence it has nothing to do with the claim in 2009.

so you asked me if your lying....its either lying, poor research, or some PC terminology....you tell me (the mountain out of a molehill is not a good definition)
---------


the one constant in your post is lack of accuracy/omission of information and that is the basic characteristic of the demonization.

[shaayecanaan]

136. Yes, its all terribly demonic...

Its pretty hard on any country when someone makes allegations that turn out to be true, I suppose.

"you claim she is a christian:
how do you know ? and if you can't prove it, why do you claim it? and why are you even mentioning her undefined religion?

The giveaway sign is, if you look really closely, you can see small gill slits on her neck. Its basically an evolutionary response to infant baptism, it enables the baby to keep breathing while submerged. Try to remember when was the last time you heard of a Catholic drowning? Protestants on the other hand don't baptise their babies so they've gradually lost their gills. This is some top secret shit I'm telling you here, you're probably the only Jew who knows about this.

"to a guy who no longer works in abu kabir"

The guy still works at Abu Kabir. My guess is he probably knows a few things about a few things, its probably easier to keep him quiet. My recommendation is, if you ever have a relative die of non-natural causes, ask to be present at the autopsy. I would.

Yehuda (also, Jehuda) Hiss (born c. 1946) is the chief pathologist at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine and has held this position since 1988.<1><2> Hiss has also served as part of the faculty for the Terrorism and Medicine Program at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at IDC Herzliya and in the Department of Pathology for the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.<3><4>

As director of the Institute at Abu Kabir, the only place in Israel authorized to conduct autopsies in cases of unnatural death, Hiss conducted the autopsies of and authored the pathology reports for notable figures, including Yitzhak Rabin and Rachel Corrie, among others.<5><6><7><8> His position as director was a subject of controversy.<9> He was dismissed from this position after the legal system took up some of the charges against him.<9><10> Investigations revealed that Hiss had removed organs, bones and other tissues from corpses, against the expressed wishes of family, and had sold many of the organs he removed to medical institutions and universities.<10> He remained the chief pathologist of the Institute and has since regained his position as director.

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

[pelsar]

139. I'm impressed..you totally ignored everything...i'll even make it simpler

you asked if you lied or made a mountain out of a molehill....except that you didn't answer (surprise surprise surprise)

lets stick with a single issue

2009 allegation of israeli soldiers killing and stealing organs (a rather gruesome visuality comes up). The writer than admits he made it up. From what understand of your post, your claiming that its true

further research discovers that 20 years earlier at abu kabir the pathologist took organs from all bodies.
_____________________

and i understand that you are claiming that at the time of the article in 2009:
1) its still going on
2) only Palestinians organs are being stolen
3) its israel troops that are doing the stealing

and your proof is that the israeli govt has PR statements that contradictory/confusing

I'll summarize, since this is a classic case of demonization:
1) accusation is made against the IDF, based on racism
2) accusation is simaler to the classic blood libels against jews
4) israel protests
5) the anti semites, anti zionists, "pro palestenians" jump on it as proof of the super evil IDF/Zionism/israel
6) research discovers that something happened in israel 20 years earlier that is related (without the racist aspect or IDF aspect)
7) Writer admits he made it all up
8) the usual bunch, continue (as per your posts) to defend the original accusation as real


go on...try to defend the accusation that IDF troops were stealing Palestinian organs in 2009 with actual proof (guessing is not consider proof of anything), when the writer himself admits he made it up.....
_____

i also noticed that you made the racist accusation about the "christians" and obviously can't back it with anything.....

demonization classic no 2:
racist accusation, when called out on it, you simply don't/can't answer
____

btw, the classic of making a good demonization is that it contains a kernal to truth, hence the stealing organs is great, because the pathologist did it 20 years ago, so that can be expanded to add the racist aspect (ignoring the non palestenians.....), and the evil IDF soldiers

Reminds me of the movie Jenin Jenin, where the director there also admitted he made it all up (oops you didn't know?)

i believe your real defense is that you believe that "the ends justifies the means"....one can argue about its morality but at least its a defense that doesn't require, lying, making a mountain out of a molehill and it frees you up attempting to defend stories that are just made up.

[shira]

143. It's okay for a reporter to make up any wild accusation against Israel...

No proof necessary.

Eventually, the hope is that there will be SOME slight evidence to back it up. If anything remotely CLOSE to the accusation is found, then the whole story is TRUE and reporting is honest and accurate.

Therefore, outrage vs. Israel is justified.

Always.

[vminfla]

152. No, but retractions are too little too late

Irresponsible journalism led to the false belief of the "Jenin Massacre" that never actually occurred and so many other false accussations at Israel. Look at the number of threads on this forum that incorrectly assume that the Gaza Flotilla did not bear arms.

[shaayecanaan]

148. I should have included a Stage Four...

thats where the original article is misrepresented and criticised for making claims that were never in the article in the first place.

The article is here:-

http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article11973850.ab

To wit:-

1. The original article never claimed that Israel killed Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The article published claims that organs had been harvested from dead Palestinians.

2. The original article did not make any explicit claim about when the organ harvesting took place. However the case that it dealt with in detail was Bilal Ghanan, a Palestinian that was killed by the IDF in May 1992. This was, in fact, during the time that Abu Bakir Insitute was harvesting organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians.

3. The article published claims that Palestinians had had their organs harvested. In the event, it turned out that Jewish corpses had also been vandalised. However, it is quite absurd to criticise the article on that basis. The author of the article was approached by Palestinians who claimed that organs had been removed from bodies. It turns out that there was some truth to this. That Jewish organs were also harvested makes the author's claim no less true.

I would point out that the Israeli government has made absolutely no attempt to deal with these revelations appropriately or transparently. In a normal, functioning democracy, Dr Yehuda Hiss would have been dismissed from his position and there would have been a transparent enquiry aimed at informing the relatives of the dead whether organs had been harvested from their loved ones. Obviously, given that this is Israel we're dealing with, that didnt happen.

Im not quite sure how you claim my earlier response was "irrelevant". You said that Yehuda Hiss had been dismissed from his position. I made the point that in fact he had been reinstated to his position and remained the chief pathologist at Abu Bakir. Seems quite relevant to me.

[pelsar]

150. stage 5-vage claims exposed - ignored, on to the next demonization

a good demonization requires a certain amount of vagueness and to leave out the essential elements:
in this case the author admits to making it up:

the paper had no evidence that such horrific practices were being carried out

I note that you ignore this basic, core detail, because it ruins the whole demonization credibility-you asked if you lied, I believe omission of important information can be considered such.
______

as far as the rest of your comments, they either are irrelevant to the demonization aspect or are vague enough to keep the argument alive

1) for instance:
The original article never claimed that Israel killed Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The article published claims that organs had been harvested from dead Palestinians.
___________________________
the article states:
young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.

i suppose if your a complete idiote you would think they all died of the flu....fortunately us in israel aren't that dumb, and we understand the "hint." But demonizations are not meant for us, they are meant for the mentally challenged, or those with an agenda

3) However, it is quite absurd to criticise the article on that basis (just Palestinian organs were taken). The author of the article was approached by Palestinians who claimed that organs had been removed from bodies.

thats the beauty of a good demonization, the author (who we already know had no proof of anything) if he had anything other than an agenda would have did the research and discovered that 17 years earlier the israeli health dept had a failure. Instead his article is about the IDF, Palestinians and organ stealing...i.e an excellent article about how racist the IDF and israel is (again leaving out essential facts is simaler to lying)

4) The failure of the israeli govt, in 1992 has nothing to do with a fake article in sweeden that leaves out essential information and closely resembles the classic blood libels. What do i care how the israeli PR system works or doesn't work, or why the rehabilitated Dr got a second chance (obviously your against rehabilitation of criminals)
____

i will note that this is the third time I'm writing this and your ignoring it:
the author admitted he had no proof, did no real research and essential wrote up a bunch of stories disguised as as serious article. Perhaps you might want to explain why your ignoring it?
like i wrote: your best defense is the "ends justifies the means"
_____________________________

[shaayecanaan]

155. Well, imagine something like this happening in China...

some Uyghur separatists stage a rally in East Turkestan and things get ugly. A Uyghur man is shot through the head. The Chinese police bundle up his body and bring it back five days later. The relatives notice that there is a neck to navel scar across the chest of the dead man. They know that there is a large trade in human organs in China and that the Chinese government has been involved from time to time.

A western journalist happens to be passing by and publishes the claims of the relatives that they think that organs were harvested from the dead body by the Chinese government. Is this beyond the pale? Probably not. He`s not publishing the claims as fact, he`s reporting the claims of relatives without making a finding on whether they are true. The claims are speculative and unproven, but they are plausible, given that there are corroborated stories of Chinese government officials harvesting organs in previous incidents. Besides, the best way to find out whether its true or not is to publish the claims, and see whether someone out there knows more that can verify the story one way or the other.

Actually, as it turns out stories about organ harvesting in China in the western media are pretty commonplace. I`m not sure whether you have a problem with that, but as far as I can tell you seem to have a problem with the newspaper article looking at the problem in Israel. You seem to be saying that because of the history of blood libels in Christian Europe, etc, that the media should be very sensitive when looking at this sort of misconduct in an Israeli context.

Thats understandable, but you have to understand that from an Arab point of view this "sensitivity" amounts to a double standard. American newspapers in particular are loath to publish examples of Israeli misconduct - and generally the worse the misconduct, the less likely they are to publish. On the other hand give them a story like Jessica Lynch and the US news networks will go apeshit telling ever-more lurid stories about how every Iraqi in the hospital was lining up to gangbang her.

[pelsar]

157. China?.....just a bit off base

as far as i understand, your comparing the journalistic standards of the west with that of China. And then you mention that, as far as i understand, western journalistic standards should be put on hold because the arabs are sensitive (i have no idea really why china is relevant nor why arab sensitivities should have an influence on western journalistic ethics)
_____

so back to the core problem (i believe this is the fourth time i've mentioned it)

the reporter admitted he had no proof, all he has is a bunch of stories from 1992, did zero fact checking....and wrote an article as if the IDF was stealing organs from Palestinians in 1992 and that it is still going on....or so he "hints" in the article. And i repeat: he admits he didn't check anything.....

as i understand in your view, that is responsible/ethical journalism

[shaayecanaan]

158. No, I'm not...

I am asking why Israel should be treated with greater "sensitivity" than China, given that complaints of organ harvesting in China are published in Western media on a regular basis.

"as i understand in your view, that is responsible/ethical journalism"

Note that I'm not endorsing the quality of the article. The grammar, for one thing, is quite poor and in terms of narrative it touches on quite a few matters without attempting to bring them together, which is a problem that arises largely because of the length of the article.

On the other hand, I think that it is quite legitimate for a journalist to publish complaints of organ harvesting by Palestinians, as long as the normal journalistic standards are followed:-

ie the claims are published as claims, not facts (check)
if the government has denied the claims, then mention of that denial is included (check)

"the reporter admitted he had no proof, all he has is a bunch of stories from 1992"

If that's your standard, then Woodward and Bernstein had no proof that Richard Nixon ordered the Watergate break in. They just had the word of a guy that told them so.

It is also worth reiterating (I believe this is the fourth time that I've mentioned this) that Israel did in fact harvest organs from dead Palestinians. Insisting that there is inadequate evidence of a contention that has nevertheless proven to be true might strike an impartial observer as being a bit churlish in the circumstances.

[pelsar]

160. so you have no problem with the "sin of omission"

"sin of omission" as an ethical problem

his omission is that it wasn't just Palestinians, but israelis and guest workers whos organs were also removed....which had he written that would have changed the whole article from a racist demonization to a simple criminal act done years ago. Since he was writing in 2009 about 1992 he had done that basic research

the question is, how are you going to defend his "sin of omission" or perhaps you don't see it as a problem?


furthermore, he doesn't write the whole article as if they were just stories, he wrote as if they were also facts:
While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.

now how are you going to defend that sentence as a journalistic standard?

oh yes and his final sentence..he claims its continuing without any proof at all
It’s time to bring clarity to this macabre business, to shed light on what is going on and what has taken place in the territories occupied by Israel since the Intifada began.

so his "proofs" are all from 1992, when it went public and the article is written in 2009, and he claims its still happening, without even a single "witness" or claim

would you like to defend that as a journalistic standard?


but whats to defend? he admits he has no proof...so why are you trying to defend what he has already admitted to be nothing more than a bunch of stories, that he did not investigate, because he had an agenda...

and the guardian had the ethical integrity to admit their own error:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/guardian-our-israeli-organ-harvesting-headline-was-serious-error-1.1451

even the Palestinians discounted it
http://www.hudson-ny.org/769/swedish-report-harms-palestinians-journalists
___________

btw, i also noticed this aspect of the "defend the demonization" try to prove that its really the 'standard": so your comparing his article to journalism in china and to a legendary investigation of watergate (both opposite ends of the journalistic spectrum) at the sametime.

your comparison to china is surprising, I can only assume you don't know the following
1) There is no freedom of the press in China, hence there is very limited if any investigate journalism especially by westerners on sensitive issues.
2 Both sweden and israel have freedom of the press, where investigative journalism is in fact part of being a journalist, hence there is no excuse for poor journalism and there are western journalistic standards/ethics in those two countries

Do i really have to explain that woodward and bernstein used the initial witness as the start of the process to gather more information where this guy used the stories simply as "proof", you didn't know that? sheesh

and just for fun...along the same quality lines:

reports that foreigners were shaking hands with Sudanese men and causing their penises to disappear
given your journalistic standards, can I assume that you believe there may be some truth to the above, it was written in London Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and in fact the penis can "disappear", as its a medical condition.

[shaayecanaan]

163. A "sin of omission" hardly makes for a "blood libel", though...

Yes, he probably should have referred to the vandalism of Jewish corpses, which was public knowledge at the time. And yes, that particular bit of information probably would have affected the narrative of the story, and made it more of a story of criminality than institutional racism.

On the other hand, we all omit those pieces of information that do not serve our narrative. If one listened to Jewish organisations, one would assume that only six million people died in Hitler`s concentration camps, and not twelve million (3 million Poles, 3 million Russians, half a million gypsies and 5.5 million Jews). The Jewish organisations tend to ignore the other six million as it gets in the way of their narrative, namely that Jewish suffering is sui generis, and beyond comparison with the suffering of other people.

In terms of openness, I can verily attest that Western governments these days are not much better than China. Freedom of information has been gutted, official secrets legislation has been passed, and the lack of transparency is probably worse than it has ever been. Compare the fates of Daniel Ellsberg forty years ago to Julian Assange today if you dont believe me.

[shira]

165. The blood libel is not only the omission, but that the IDF killed Palestinians for their organs

The Aftonbladet story claimed the IDF killed Palestinians for their organs.

Do you believe that's true?

If not, it's a classic case of blood libel.

=====

Same as the Goldstone lie that Israel deliberately set out to kill civilians.

Same as Jenin, that a massacre occurred there.

Same as the IDF deliberately killing Muhammad al-Dura.

Same as the trumped up false charges against the IDF wrt the Lebanon war.

Mavi Marmara.

etc, etc...

=====

It's very difficult to not view these vicious lies as anything but blood libels.

[pelsar]

170. so just add a few more sentences from the article....

There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies.....

meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed

PRESTO!!! classic blood libel and the demonization of a whole country.
israelis killing just Palestinians (non jews) for their organs.

i have no idea how your going to defend this, but it will require a bit of imagination and twisted logic.
__________________________________________

the "sin of omission" is used for many reason, sometimes justified sometimes not....in this particular article there was clearly an agenda and journalistic unethical behavior involved.


and your still, for all of the western imperfections (including the FOIA failures/transparancy issues) actually claiming there is no difference between the west and china? Journalist can still investigate in the west, the govts may turn them down, but there is no fear in investigating or asking. China and its dictatorship is a whole different world....i don't know how you can claim that the west is not much better.

[shaayecanaan]

172. Well, there was hardly a dramatic increase

statistically, Israel killed only a few more Palestinians in 1992 than it killed in 1991. I do accept that that particular allegation should have been reported more critically.

"meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed"

Ghanem was a stone thrower. He was shot through the chest during an IDF raid on a village. His family says he died instantly from the chest wound. The official IDF account said that he was severely wounded but still alive. In any event his body was taken away by helicopter, and indeed when it was returned, without explanation, to his family swaddled in green sheets five days had passed.

As his cause of death was non-natural his autopsy would have been conducted by Abu Bakir, the institute that was guilty at the relevant time of harvesting the organs of Palestinians (as well as others). The IDF admitted that the scar was the result of an autopsy but denied that his organs had been taken, although given that Israel has never bothered to find out which Palestinians had their organs harvested, it would be difficult to know if this happened or not. Exactly why his chest would have been opened when the cause of death was quite apparent was not explained, nor was the Israeli motive for conducting the autopsy in the first place.

In the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine what else Israel could possibly have done to create the impression amongst his family members that his organs had been harvested. And it is worth noting that his organs may well have been harvested, given the admission by Yehuda Hiss that he was stealing organs from Palestinians at that time.

In the circumstances, I find it extremely difficult to have even the slightest sympathy for the IDF. He was shot and killed in circumstances that arguably amounted to murder. His body was treated with flagrant disregard and his family with contempt. Although Israel has apologised for and verified the identities of the 429 Jewish corpses that were vandalised, it hasn't taken even the most rudimentary steps to address the concerns of Palestinians whose relatives may have had organs harvested. As such the relatives of each of the Palestinian dead can only speculate on whether their particular relative suffered this fate or not.

There is an old saying "if you look like a duck, walk like a duck and quack like a duck, then you can't complain when you get shot". Or in this case if you act like an arsehole, be prepared to be treated like one. The one aspect of this affair which saddens but does not surprise me is that notwithstanding the stunning revelations of Israeli misconduct, Israelis were still convinced that the actions of a Swedish tabloid journalist were a greater crime against humanity than their own sins against the Palestinians, which in this case were numerous.

[pelsar]

174. your "saddened"?

why do i have to write this again?- the article was written as if it was the specific policy to kidnap/kill/ steal the organs of Palestinians..... and then you have the gall to be saddened, because we're not doing any soul searching about a crime that is over 17 years old and was publicized back then by israel? and only re-publicized now with a bunch of made up stories to make it racist And you expect us to me upset with that?

blood libels/demonizations don't get any credit around israel....now i shall explain why your viewpoint, only prolongs the conflict and the Palestinians would do a lot better if they would disown not just articles such as this, (as they did) but their defenders as well. I doubt you will understand, since i have learn that you have trouble admitting that even the most blatant journalistic lie, that was even admitted by the writer, that embarrassed the Palestenians as well as the Guardian newspaper, who actually wrote an apology...and you STILL cannot clearly state it was wrong.

you used the word PROBABLY
he probably should have referred to the vandalism of Jewish corpses, which was public knowledge at the time. And yes, that particular bit of information probably would have affected the narrative of the story, and made it more of a story of criminality than institutional racism.

and then the attempt to justify it by saying "others do it"
On the other hand, we all omit those pieces of information that do not serve our narrative


Israel was born out of the blood libel, its reason to exist, is the demonization of the jews, be it the pogroms of europe, the blood libels from the arab countries etc. Its been going on for a few thousand years now, with the cumulation of industrial genocide of the holocaust. Mind you that didn't change anything, as already in 1946 in poland there was pogrom against the jews as one simply example.

Any peace between the Palestinians and israel is going to have a base somewhere where we have a minimum of confidence in the other..whatever the agreements details are: they don't try to kill us, we don't kill/kidnap/raid them…..

However, when we read/hear and see that these blood libels/demonizations are still coming out, we are not suprised, as anti semitism/zionism/israel is not going away. However, this time around, we don't have to accept it passively, coming from the Palestinians and their friends. If its still coming out, and its defended and promoted, by those who have influence on the Palestinians, clearly we are not going to have any confidence in any peace agreement. The Palestinians are going to need people like me to push forth any peace agreement…..and reading and listening to really really pathetic defenses by pro Palestinians of blatant lies against us, only pushes it further away.

Given your attempts to defend such a clearly racist article…..that after a (week?) of discussion you can barely squeak out a "probably" its clear to me that you believe criticizing us, using faux articles, is the way to go. (a good definition of demonization)

i'm afraid your under the wrong impression, its doesn't help your cause, the more you demonize us (and its telling that you can't understand how such an exageration/set of lies is seen by us as demonization and a blood lible), the more you push away any peace or your version of justice-because we simply see that nothing has changed, except that were not that wimpy jew any more and unlike the years before there is actually a "cost" for the demonization and blood libels.

you can play your word games "probably" others do it (sin of omission) etc, but we see through that, its a weak defense of a classic demonization.

the "ends justify the means"…..thats an immoral stance, and we don't accept it. Your inability to understand that in this conflict is what is sad and its influence on the area is what is worse.

[pelsar]

175. your "saddened"?

why do i have to write this again?- the article was written as if it was the specific policy to kidnap/kill/ steal the organs of Palestinians..... and then you have the gall to be saddened, because we're not doing any soul searching about a crime that is over 17 years old and was publicized back then by israel? and only re-publicized now with a bunch of made up stories to make it racist And you expect us to me upset with that?

blood libels/demonizations don't get any credit around israel....now i shall explain why your viewpoint, only prolongs the conflict and the Palestinians would do a lot better if they would disown not just articles such as this, (as they did) but their defenders as well. I doubt you will understand, since i have learn that you have trouble admitting that even the most blatant journalistic lie, that was even admitted by the writer, that embarrassed the Palestenians as well as the Guardian newspaper, who actually wrote an apology...and you STILL cannot clearly state it was wrong.

you used the word PROBABLY
he probably should have referred to the vandalism of Jewish corpses, which was public knowledge at the time. And yes, that particular bit of information probably would have affected the narrative of the story, and made it more of a story of criminality than institutional racism.

and then the attempt to justify it by saying "others do it"
On the other hand, we all omit those pieces of information that do not serve our narrative


Israel was born out of the blood libel, its reason to exist, is the demonization of the jews, be it the pogroms of europe, the blood libels from the arab countries etc. Its been going on for a few thousand years now, with the cumulation of industrial genocide of the holocaust. Mind you that didn't change anything, as already in 1946 in poland there was pogrom against the jews as one simply example.

Any peace between the Palestenains and israel is going to have a base somewhere where we have a minimum of confidence in the other..whatever the agreements details are: they don't try to kill us, we don't kill/kidnap/raid them…..

However, when we read/hear and see that these blood libels/demonizations are still coming out, we are not suprised, as anti semitism/zionism/israel is not going away. However, this time around, we don't have to accept it passively, coming from the Palestinians and their friends. If its still coming out, and its defended and promoted, by those who have influence on the Palestinians, clearly we are not going to have any confidence in any peace agreement. The Palestenians are going to need people like me to push forth any peace agreement…..and reading and listening to really really pathetic defenses by pro Palestinians of blatant lies against us, only pushes it further away.

Given your attempts to defend such a clearly racist article…..that after a (week?) of discussion you can barely squeak out a "probably" its clear to me that you believe criticizing us, using faux articles, is the way to go. (a good definition of demonization)

i'm afraid your under the wrong impression, its doesn't help your cause, the more you demonize us (and its telling that you can't understand how such an exageration/set of lies is seen by us as demonization and a blood lible), the more you push away any peace or your version of justice-because we simply see that nothing has changed, except that were not that wimpy jew any more, more so, there now is a cost for those demonizations, a high cost in case you didn't notice.

you can play your word games "probably" others do it (sin of omission, expecting us to be super moral) etc, but we see through that, its a weak defense of a classic demonization. (you clearly stated that omitting information that is "probably" important to the story can be omitted if it harms the ones political viewpoint....)

the "ends justify the means"…..thats an immoral stance, and we don't accept it. Your inability to understand that in this conflict is what is sad and its influence on the area is what is worse.

[shaayecanaan]

176. Over 17 years old?

There's a fair bit of evidence that organ harvesting went on a lot longer than that:-

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/9384/bizarre-death-of-scottish-tourist-involves-suicide-missing-heart/

On April 8, Alisdair Sinclair, a 47-year-old Scot, arrived in Israel on a flight from Brussels. A bachelor with shoulder-length dark-blond hair, he lived in Amsterdam -- where he made a modest living as a pub musician, and buying and selling vintage guitars.

Fifteen hours later, Sinclair, described by his brother James as a "gregarious man who loved to travel and had friends all over the world," was found unconscious and near death by strangulation in his cell -- an attempted suicide, as the police tell it.

British records also indicate that Israeli police also "informally made a request for an organ donation." The police deny ever making such a request.

Sinclair, says the hospital's associate director, Dr. Yigal Halperin, had suffered irreversible brain damage. Left in a corner of the emergency room, he died at 7 p.m. on April 15. His corpse was transferred to the Institute for Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir for an autopsy.

Three days later, the Sinclair family was tracked down in rural Selkirk, Scotland. They were informed of the death and told they had three weeks to come up with about $4,900 to fly Sinclair's corpse home. James says the Israelis seemed to be pushing a different option: burying Sinclair in a Christian cemetery in Israel, at a cost of about $1,300.

The Sinclairs raised the $4,900. And on May 10, Sinclair's corpse was brought back to Scotland along with his passport, unused airplane ticket and a box of personal effects, which to James' bafflement included women's clothing and what looked like leftover decorations from Israel's Independence Day.

Three days later -- at the family's request -- another autopsy was performed, at the University of Glasgow. Then Sinclair's corpse was cremated. Pathologist Jeanette H. McFarlane determined that Sinclair was alive when the noose was applied. She put the cause of death as "consistent with suicidal hanging...unless the victim was drugged or otherwise incapacitated." And then she added the following shocker: Alisdair Sinclair's heart was missing, as was the hyoid bone -- a tiny U-shaped bone at the base of the tongue.

When it turned out that Sinclair's heart and hyoid bone had remained in Israel, at the Forensic Institute, the British Embassy protested.

A heart said to be Sinclair's was subsequently repatriated to Britain, free of charge. James wanted the Forensic Institute to pay for a DNA test to confirm that this heart was indeed their brother's, but the Institute's director, Professor Jehuda Hiss, refused, citing the prohibitive cost, estimated by some sources at $1,500.

Ah, there he is again, Jehuda Hiss of the Abu Bakir Institute. Someone should really consider firing that guy. Lets face it, for all we know good old Dr Hiss is still harvesting organs as we speak.

"The Palestenians are going to need people like me to push forth any peace agreement"

I'm not sure you're capable of delivering, mate. Only 6% of Israelis identify as leftists, the Labor party has just elected a pro-settler hawk as leader and I see election victories for the right wing coalition as far as the eye can see. If Israel were still capable of electing someone like Sharrett or Eshkol, a peace agreement with the Palestinians could be nutted out in two weeks. But those days are long gone. The only way I see a peace agreement is if Europe puts enough pressure on Israel that leaving the Palestinians alone becomes a business decision.

[pelsar]

177. its now 2011...you found one more from 13 years ago?

wow....anything a bit more up to date?...i would even accept an israeli soldier taking out some Palestinians heart on the street in the year 2009 and putting it in a cooler as some serious evidence.

so far you've come up pathetically short of anything serious. Why don't you just do what the author of the actual article that your defending did? admit clearly, with out maybes, probablys, that guy wrote an article that left out crucial information to provide a racist slant and had a conclusion in the year 2009 that had no evidence what so ever ?

i really don't understand the problem...but

you never did really answer did you?

"the ends justifies the means".....i guess we can take that as something you do believe in- can't say that does much for ones credibility does it?
____

israels left was decimated with gaza where we ignored the blood libels and demonizations and decided to see what actually happens when we: make the big move, stop the cycle of violence, remove settlers and settlements and all those other grand statements pre gaza pullout....

and the demonizations continued and continue..my favorite being how egypt is always forgotten when it comes to the starving gazans and how israel has locked them in.....stop the exaggerations, the blood libels and demonizations and they're might be steps back to the left.

[shira]

178. They can't admit to a demonizing blood libel, ever. That would mean there could be others...

...and that Israel really and truly is the target of a demonization and delegitimization (antisemitic) campaign that needs to be dealt with.

Better to pretend nothing is wrong so that the demonization can continue....

[shaayecanaan]

180. So an accusation that Israel is harvesting organs is a blood libel even if it is true?

You really need to bone up on the meaning of the term "libel". Generally, truth is regarded as an absolute defence.

"wow....anything a bit more up to date?"

As a matter of fact:-

Who is Dr. Hiss? The chief pathologist of Israel for a decade and a half, Hiss was implicated by a 2001 investigation by the Israeli Health Ministry of stealing body parts ranging from legs to testicles to ovaries from bodies without permission from family members then selling them to research institutes. Bodies plundered by Hiss included those of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. He was finally removed from his post in 2004 when the body of a teenage boy killed in a traffic accident was discovered to have been thoroughly gnawed on by a rat in Hiss’s laboratory. In an interview with researcher Nancy Schepper-Hughes, Hiss admitted that he harvested organs if he was confident relatives would not discover that they were missing. He added that he often used glue to close eyelids to hide missing corneas.

When Craig and Cindy Corrie learned that Hiss would perform an autopsy on their daughter, they stipulated that they would only allow the doctor to go forward if an official from the American consulate was present throughout the entire procedure. An Israeli military police report stated that an American official did indeed witness the autopsy. However, when the Corries asked American diplomatic officials including former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzner if the report was true, they were informed that no American was present at all. The Israelis had lied to them, and apparently fixed their own report to deceive the American government.

On March 14, during the first round of hearings in the Corries’ civil suit, Hiss admitted under oath that he had lied about the presence of an American official during the autopsy of Rachel Corrie. He also conceded to taking “samples” from Corrie’s body for “histological testing” without informing her family. Just which parts of Corrie’s body Hiss took remains unclear; despite Hiss’s claim that he “buried” the samples, her family has not confirmed the whereabouts of her missing body parts.

“It’s so hard to know that Rachel’s body wasn’t respected,” Rachel’s sister, Sarah, told me. “Doctor Hiss and the Israeli government knew what our family’s wishes were. The fact that our wishes were disregarded and a judge hasn’t done anything is absolutely horrifying.”

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/09/we-are-going-to-carry-this-cause-on-for-everyone-who-cannot-rachel-corries-family-vs-the-israeli-government/

[shira]

181. Be honest, please. It's not true. The accusation was Israel killed Palestinians for their organs.

You know it's not true and it's a blood libel.

First you denied that was the accusation. Then you deflected with China as a red herring. Are you at stage 3 or 4 now?

Prove me wrong and admit this was demonization, a blood libel....

[pelsar]

182. Stage 6 getting cold feet-.....repeat original accusation

hmmm....i thought this was about a story about a system that involved the IDF killing Palestinians to steal their organs organized by the israeli govt?

I already mentioned that a good demonization requires some truth somewhere to give those who demonize something to defend with....
so basically what we have here a failure of the Israeli political system counter balanced with the free press and justice system to expose govt criminals - thats considered a good thing in western democracies, in fact we depend upon a press that can do real research and has credibility. I understand from your view point, that journalistic credibility is not really an issue.... (ok i'm stating the obvious here)

__________


is this Stage 6, where after you partially admited it may not all be true, you jump back to the beginning and start all over?
So an accusation that Israel is harvesting organs is a blood libel even if it is true?

well what happened to defending the article, that had no proof, no real research........that concluded that in 2009 the IDF was still killing Palestinians to steal their organs.-you've seem to have wandered off from the central issue....you did mention that the "sin of omission' probably changed the understanding......or did you get cold feet that perhaps there might be something to the accusation of demonization and you simply can't admit it?


and come on...you can answer:
do you believe that the "ends justifies the means" If you do, as i believe you do, then this whole thing is a waste of bandwidth. This is only a forum on an internet site, its doesn't really take much guts to admit what you believe.

[shaayecanaan]

183. So you don't think that Israel has a case to answer?

This is absurd. An Israeli pathologist has been proven to have taken body parts without consent in 1992, 1998, 2003, and 2008. And you think that the contention that they might have taken body parts in 2009 is beyond the pale? A "blood libel" as you call it?

You are asking for a double standard to be applied for Israel, and for it to be given the benefit of the doubt where no other Western democracy could or should expect to be given the same indulgence.

Had the Australian government been proven to have harvested organs from Aborigines a royal commission would have been ordered, the relevant people would have been charged, compensation would have been paid and heads would have rolled. This would have been the case had the organs been stolen in 2002, 1992 or 1952.

If you do not hold a shred of sympathy for the Palestinian families whose relatives were killed, eviscerated, had organs stolen, then been returned to them in the dead of night and buried under a military watch, then how the hell do you expect anyone to have the slightest sympathy for your hurt feelings over an article in a fucking Swedish tabloid newspaper?

[pelsar]

184. there it is again..."just the Palestinians" nothing about the others....

and you were soooo close.

did you already forget that the author admitted he has no proof?-nothing?....did you already forget that even the guardian apologized for a misleading headline?..did you already forget that you yourself even mentioned that it was "probably" misleading?....

what happened..did you get "scared" that maybe it was merely criminal, and that the article you are defending is simply racist?
_______________________________________

i'm not "hurt" i was just pointing out how demonization works: take something that happened, expand upon it, limit the information and presto:
israel the racist country.

you keep trying to change the subject to the fact that its illegal, etc to steal organs...well it is, and though a bit slow, the israeli govt did in the end get rid of the guy. But that was not and is not the subject. The question is of demonization and blood libels and of course credibility of the press

to me its now obvious that your view of journalism is nothing more than a means to and end....this whole idea of ethics and credibility is clearly not one that you believe it-and that is essential element for a demonization.

i just think its interesting reading your posts as you simply can't admit it....and if you disagree, how foolish you'll look with this whole series of posts where you basically defending an article as proof of a racist event, where the author himself admitted its false because he had/has an agenda.

My suggestion?
come clean, just admit you believe that we are at our core nothing more than a racist society, you'll have plenty of company. And perhaps this particular incident was not racists, there are more than enough others to prove it, hence whether this is factual or not, its not really an issue.

[shaayecanaan]

185. The author has said what all journalists say

namely that he doesnt know the truth of the allegations one way or the other, but he thought that there was a case to answer and published the claims of the Palestinians in the hope that more information would come to light - which is exactly what transpired.

just admit you believe that we are at our core nothing more than a racist society

I don`t believe that.

[Jefferson23]

Stand With Us..nice group.

Pro-Israel Group's Money Trail Veers Hard Right
By Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON, Oct 21, 2009 (IPS) - StandWithUs - an "organization that ensures that Israel's side of the story is told" - has become increasingly aggressive in challenging the "pro-Israel" credentials of moderate Jewish-American groups, going so far as to suggest that receiving money from Arab donors and supporters of Human Rights Watch undermines a group's commitment to Israel and peace.

J Street - the "Pro-Israel and Pro-Peace" advocacy group - faced criticism last week for accepting contributions from donors who have been critical of Israeli government actions.

But an IPS investigation into the tax records of the donors to StandWithUs, which professes to be ideologically neutral, found a web of funders who support organisations that have been accused of anti-Muslim propaganda and encouraging a militant Israeli and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Some of these organisations have tied the origins of Palestinian nationalism to Nazi ideology, and suggested that a vast Muslim conspiracy - in a similar vein to the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion - is mobilising to undermine the U.S. constitution and impose Sharia law.

StandWithUs, known in its tax filings as the "Israel Emergency Alliance", unleashed a flurry of faxes to 160 lawmakers on Oct. 16 expressing concern over their plans to attend the J Street conference, "Driving Change, Securing Peace", in Washington from Oct. 25-28.

The faxes warned lawmakers that while "J Street claims to be 'pro-Israel' and 'pro-peace' and to represent mainstream Jewish opinion, we are troubled because their positions seem to undermine Israel and its search for peace with security. Their views may also contribute to anti-Israel biases and misinformation."

Five members of Congress dropped out of the conference. J Street characterised the campaign as the work of "neoconservatives and their Swift Boat tactics" led by the neoconservative Weekly Standard magazine.

in full: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48946

[Violet_Crumble]

Did you read the exchange?

If you had, you'd have seen the other poster claimed they'd NEVER support a state that discriminated against gays. Shaay pointed out that when Israel was founded, it did discriminate against gays, so according to that other posters claim on a post prior to that, she wouldn't have supported the creation of the state of Israel. Sorry, but are laws against sodomy somehow not discrimination against gays? It just seems sometimes as though to some folk discrimination is only something to make a big deal out of if it's Arabs or Muslims doing it...

[shaayecanaan]

I know, bugger me, why I am bothering?

there has to be some kind of neologistic illness compelling me to keep replying to these stupid posts...I only wish that the rest of us were unemployed so that we too could dedicate every bloody waking hour to spamming this forum with inane piffle.

I generally enjoy posting here for shits and giggles but recently it has become quite frustrating.

[Violet_Crumble]

I feel the same way myself at times...

I generally enjoy posting here for shits and giggles but recently it has become quite frustrating.

The I/P forum is a far cry from a few years back, and I don't think I'm looking through rose-coloured glasses in thinking so. I wish it could regain its former 'glory' (mind you, back then there were members of Team Israel and Team Palestine who would turn the forum into a cyber-battlefield at times, but there was humour and entertainment in there as well, not the incessant flood of posts that contain not one iota of humour or personality).

[shaayecanaan]

124. The problem is that I just bloody enjoy arguing on the internet...

I get very little opportunity for it otherwise. My wife is Asian, has no interest in politics, has no enthusiasm for argument.

Like you, I remember when fora used to attract a much more interesting crowd. When people were posting on bulletin boards using their crappy 4000 baud modems, the technology was rubbish but the people were ideologues, they actually had arguments. They were anarchists, or lassez-faire capitalists, or socialists or libertarians.

I remember around 1998 or so I noticed that this was on the wane and that more and more posters were engaging in boilerplate defences of either the Democrats or Republicans, or Labor/Liberal/whatever. It was becoming just football cheer squad stuff. If I was wearing an acoustic guitar right now I would go so far as to say it was the day the internet died.

[Ken Burch]

I do not support the status quo among the Palestinian leadership

I simply reject the idea that keeping the Occupation in place could possibly lead to a better leadership.

The winds of democracy are blowing throughout the Arab world...and they are blowing in states that haven't been, as yet, democratic. If such things can happen in other Arab countries without Western outsiders acting as if only WE are the ones that can create democracy, then it can happen that way in Palestine as well.

Letting the country have its independence is the BEST way to encourage democracy there. It can only come if they make it happen themselves...on their own terms...and it can NEVER come as a result of "pro-Israeli" people like you acting as if you have the right to demand it of them as a concession. They owe it to themselves to do what they want to do naturally, which is to create a non-repressive state-they don't owe it to either you or me. OK?

And neither of us is entitled to lecture them as if we are intrinsically morally superior. We're not. We're just lucky enough to live in a country where the conditions for change exist...and those conditions can only exist in INDEPENDENT countries.

I don't like Hamas or the corruption in the West Bank...but the way to change that is to let the people of Palestine control their own destiny. Is that so hard to understand?

So don't ever accuse me of being an apologist for the Palestinian leadership again. I'm not. I just don't agree with your approach to trying to change that leadership. Your way isn't the ONLY way...and your way can't work.

[shira]

But you feel you can't criticize them, neither Hamas or the PA, for anything they do.

For example, the PA says they won't accept refugees from the WB and Gaza as citizens in a future state.

Can't even criticize that one, right?

[Ken Burch]

OK, I'd say they should.

Also, I've never liked the ultrareligious thing with Hamas, which should have been clear.

I'm willing to criticize the leadership, and I've done it here sometimes.

It's just that I don't accept your idea that the leadership JUSTIFIES continuing the Occupation, or that the leadership is the explanation for all the problems. You're still basing your whole argument on the assumption that the entire dispute is the fault of the Palestinians and the other Arabs, and that the Israeli side in this is blameless. That simply isn't the reality.

[shira]

You're still throwing in red herrings and strawmen. You've got nothing else...

I'm not saying their leadership justifies occupation.

You're saying that.

And you don't believe you should criticize the PA/Hamas for much of anything because you feel that if you do, that takes pressure off Israel and only prolongs the occupation. What you're missing is that if progressives like yourself were to criticize the PA/Hamas for what they do - in proportion to how you criticize Israel - my guess is that Hamas/PA wouldn't be anything remotely as bad as they are now and the occupation would have ended years ago. They'd have been too embarassed to carry on with their regressive, rightwing hate policies.

In fact, I'd say it's you guys who are prolonging the occupation. You're giving the PA/Hamas every reason to believe they can carry on doing what they do and it's A-OK with you. You're letting down the average Palestinian who has to suffer under that type of leadership.

IMHO, I think it's YOU guys who feel criticizing them is a waste of time and that's why you don't do it. YOU guys feel they're incapable of changing and that they'll forever be extreme rightwing terrorists and hate-filled warmongers.

[Ken Burch]

I just did criticize Hamas in the previous post, and I've done it before

I don't have to do it every time you demand that I do it.

[Ken Burch]

No, I don't support such a state

It's just that I don't accept the argument that continuing the Occupation is an effective way to prevent such a state. Hamas only has the strength it has now BECAUSE the Occupation has continued.

The best way to disempower Hamas would be to end the Occupation and give the Palestinian people the breathing room to control their destiny. The momentum of the Arab democratic movement will do more to defeat Hamas than anything any IDF garrisons can ever do.

Please let go of this absurd notion that the Occupation is about defending liberal democratic values. It isn't and it can't defend those things.

[pelsar]

you can't ...you can't ...you can't.....except your wrong.

i see the tune has now been changed. I used to be that they can't under and occupation, when then was shown to be false you have now altered it, to claim they can't when there are anothers troops on their soil.

EXCEPT it happened to japan and germany (did you forget those two?...OOOPS, time to modify the "the "They can't rant".
______________

Israel is not imposing democracy, it can't, thats for them to do, though its pretty arrogant of you to believe that certain peoples do not want to live with basic freedoms and made need some help. i have no idea if they can become one on their own, neither do you, however given the culture, their own recent history and the forces lined against democratic reforms, its is not a sure thing......so what is this divine law that says it can't be shoved down their throats and made to work...again, it was done to the germans and japanese and worked incredibly well. OOOPS (wrong again)


what with the "respect and dignity" rant....thats not really a factor in these parts, you might want to expand your knowledge of international politics and reduce the level of ethnocentrism. This is pure intl relations and power politics over here.

The Palestinians in case you didn't notice are a fracture people with massive amounts of outside influences affecting their actions and internal politics and its not just israel. We've already seen hamas take over gaza, and arafat establish corruption as a business model and abbas remove some basic freedoms, seems to me their moving in the wrong direction. They may "choose" to establish a dictatorship, a hamasland 2 on the west bank, but we don't have to agree to accept an unstable dictatorship next to us, while their internal politics leads them to an unknown.

I really don't care if it makes it harder or easier, on them. Real world politics is not a matter of kid gloves, if i insult them and they fall apart, then clearly their society/govt is not ready to play in the real world. According to you all iran, syria, russia has to do is "insult them" and they will fall apart and some strong man (hamas like) will then take over......thats your position?

and just for the record..your wrong AGAIN!
I simply reject the idea that keeping the Occupation in place could possibly lead to a better leadership...
it did, the leaders that emerged from Intifada I, your question should be what happened to them and why.. (on second thought, you won't ask, you won't like the answer and won't be able to accept it)

[shaayecanaan]

The US didnt build settlements in Japan or Germany

or even Iraq and Afghanistan for that matter, although its true that they did leave military establishments in each of the above. They had their motives, of course, but for the most part they were genuinely interested in building functioning societies.

My guess is if Afghanistan had a government that was as functional as the PA, the US would leave tomorrow.

[pelsar]

so having a israeli settlement near hebron means....

abbas and friends have to limit freedom of the press to the Palestinians....

would you like to explain how they are connected?

[shaayecanaan]

No...

but as I recall, I remember you saying that you don't really give a shit how many TV channels they have, just as long as they don't throw missiles at you.

Mission accomplished. The PA does not throw missiles at you, and it works quite hard to ensure that no one else in the West Bank does either.

What made you change your tune?

[pelsar]

i dont understand your statement....

i still don't give a shit how many tv channels they have.....but in the end i do believe there is going to be a land swap, major settlement blocks stay put and the PA doesn't get everything they want.....

its not a religious thing, its just a realistic thing

[azurnoir]

Let me ask what what would be the result of a 250,000 settlers having to

move back inside the Green Line? What would the effect be on already high housing prices? and be honest here how many in Tel Aviv or Netanya say you for instance want settlers some of whom are rather 'out there' fanatics living as close neighbors, I'm thinking that's not a very desirable situation

[pelsar]

they won't be....

its not even a matter of housing prices, part of it is social integration, bureaucracy getting them settled, jobs, etc. The 8,000 from gaza still have trouble getting help/jobs from the govt and only got resettled when they basically kicked out the members of a failed kibbutz and took it over as a "bedroom community" and they're still living in caravans.

(btw, its about time someone actually asked a realistic question around here....)

part of the reality is that, they will have a hard time fitting in to israel socially, the west bank, settler culture is not just different from the gaza settlers (who were farmers and independent people) but from main stream israelis as well. They won't have that "mission" from god" feeling while living a multistory apt building that looks out onto their neighbors window in netanya. Furthermore they're over energetic youth, (hill top kids) who are in their core basically just hooligans with the religion to give them cover will be lost in israel and probably become clinically depressed or just plain hooligan/criminals.

At best they would need to be settled in "gated communities" as in those from gaza, but there are only so many failed kibbutz that are willing to pack up and leave.

furthermore we don't want them...we've created a monster. The only real solution is that land swap, keep them out of mainstream israel and let their dream of greater israel slowly die as reality creeps in. (that and let the PA catch them as they cross their borders and toss them in the dungeons without trial and claim "who? we never saw anybody...."

_____

btw that is also the same reason why the PA won't be inviting back Palestinians from refugee camps from around the world (after olso they took in selected ones with education etc). They are not going to have the means to integrate them in......and who knows what their influence will be on the status quo within the PA.

[shaayecanaan]

So basically, the Palestinians can deliver, but the Israelis can't?

Maybe kindly Western nations such as Australia could launch a special humanitarian program to offer residency to all the poor beleaguered settlers that Israel can't accomodate. Although I rather did think that absorbing Jewish refugees was Israel's raison d'etre.

[pelsar]

the Palestinians have a lot to deliver to catch up

and there are consequences for ones actions, the whole west bank settlement industry is a direct result of an attempt to destroy israel....and that concept of destroying israel is for the most part still going on in parts of the Palestinian society, parts for the arab world, and those parts certainly have influence........etc, so they don't get any benefit of any doubt for anything.....and israel doesn't have to pay "any price" in the hopes that perhaps, maybe, they will change their tune.....

the onus is on the Palestinians to start delivering, and they faster they start the better it will be.

[Ken Burch]

All of which makes an excellent case

for why, even if Israel had a case at one point for having troops in the West Bank, it was never a responsible idea to invent the settlement movement.

[pelsar]

know your history.....or at least don't ignore it (can't decide what your prefer)

whereas I'm hardly a fan of the settlers.....there would have been no wb settlers had Jordon decided not attacked in 67, had egypt not started the war by closing off the israeli port.....The settler movement is a direct consequence of actions designed to destroy israel.......dumb decisions have unintended consequences.

btw even if Israel had a case at one point for having troops in the West Bank......your 'skirt" is showing

[Ken Burch]

I know about Jordan and Egypt's roles(they were at the border, possibly egged on

by disinformation planted by the Soviets about Israeli nuclear intentions).

But the Palestinians weren't to blame for what Jordan and Egypt did.

And Palestinian elders offered to make peace with Israel right after the Six Day War in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. You would agree that there was no reason not to take them up on that, right?

[pelsar]

i assume you don't expect me to respond seriously....

Palestinian elders offered to make peace with Israel right after the Six Day War

i have no idea what his means...
But the Palestinians weren't to blame for what Jordan and Egypt did.

so? neither was israel

[Petrushka]

Here's a link to a video that might explain "WHY" --->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O7ByJb7QQ9U

[Jefferson23]

Video's with information regarding the settlements, if you're interested:

Challenges in Defining an Israeli-Palestinian Border

Palestinian leaders plan to seek recognition of statehood at the United Nations this month. Below, explore some of the contentious issues that negotiators will face in drawing a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/16/world/middleeast/the-settlement-issue.html?ref=world

[Ken Burch]

47. Show your support for a UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood here

Clearly, Bibi is never going to give up on keeping the majority population of the West Bank and the people of Gaza in permanent colonial servitude...and the Kadima party, the offical opposition, is in lockstep with Netanyahu on this.

And equally clearly, the administration will keep caving in to AIPAC and keep refusing to make any real change in the I/P situation happen.

The only way to break the deadlock and allow a decent, humane, just resolution of this crisis is for the UN to step in.

Every other people on the planet is given the right to self-determination. Israel has no right to deny it to the Palestinians.

The UN vote is the only way.

Check in here to support peace and justice in the Middle East.

[malaise]

49. K & R

The UN vote is the only way.

I support peace and justice in the Middle East.

[TomClash]

50. K & R

[teddy51]

51. Yep, I agree with that.... Long overdue. n/t

[cali]

52. I support Palestinian statehood.

but fuck no, every other people on the planet are most certainly NOT granted the right to self-determination. That is one of the silliest frickin' claims I can imagine.

Ever hear of the Kurds? No? How about the Tibetans? Or do you actually think that neither is "a people"? And they aren't the only ones.

[Ken Burch]

57. The right is recognized by the UN for all of them, whether or not they currently have

a state. A lot of Canadians, for example, recognize Quebec's right to self-determination(as does the New Democratic Party, Canada's official opposition).

[cali]

59. the claim in your op: Every other people on the planet is given the right self-determination

and to my knowledge the U.N. has not recognized the Kurds right for a nation, nor to my knowledge have they endorsed a separate Quebec nation.

Now you're not only being disingenuous, you're making stuff up. You really, really should change that claim in your op. It's demonstrably false. And facts matter. Making shit up is just a crap thing to do.

[Ken Burch]

69. I didn't make anything up

I said the right existed; it would have been a made-up thing to say that all countries in the world are, in fact, independent. Of course a lot of them aren't.

I could have put it another way; still, it's not as though self-determination as a right, whether or not it's gone into practice, isn't recognized.

Your anger is misplaced here, and I think it's more about the personal animus you've displayed towards me for a long time.

It's enough to say that there are a lot of countries that should be independent which aren't, at the moment, in that status in practice.

[azurnoir]

108. Have the Kurds petitioned the the UN for a state like the Palestinian are trying to do?

did the UN originally partition a Kurdish state?

At the San Francisco Peace Conference of 1945, the Kurdish delegation proposed consideration of territory claimed by the Kurds, which encompassed an area extending from the Mediterranean shores near Adana to the shores of the Persian Gulf near Bushehr, and included the Lur inhabited areas of southern Zagros.<37><38>

At the end of the First Gulf War, the Allies established a safe haven in northern Iraq. Amid the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from three northern provinces, Iraqi Kurdistan emerged in 1992 as an autonomous entity inside Iraq with its own local government and parliament.

This page was last modified on 6 September 2011 at 11:12.

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

[sabrina 1]

53. K&R

[barbtries]

54. peace and justice in the Middle East.

and throughout the planet. amen

[TeamsterDem]

55. I support a Palestinian state and have never seen why they shouldn't have one. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

56. Too bad American support for the Arab Spring doesn't extend to the Arabs in Palestine. K&R

[sabrina 1]

79. Or the ones in our created democracy, Iraq. When they tried

to peacefully protest, they were shot down in the streets. No surprise anymore to anyone around the world, that the US would oppose people's right to rule themselves. We have to start here first.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

94. That's because the US doesn't support democracy ...

... and never has.

[hifiguy]

58. Kickety Rec!!

:kick:

[ixion]

60. k/r

they certainly deserve it as much as any other nation-state.

[patrice]

61. K!! & R!! for a FREE Palestine!!

[EmeraldCityGrl]

62. K&R Can't happen soon enough.

[leveymg]

63. Count me in. KNR. The status quo is unsustainable

and will likely end in catastrophe for all involved, if we don't finally do the right thing by the Palestinians.

[dtexdem]

64. It's simple justice.

And the U.S. will ensure that it's justice denied.

[tomg]

65. What can I add but that it is

basic justice.

[cali]

66. Much as I support Palestinian statehood I had to unrec your op

because you wouldn't change your utterly false claim about every other people on the planet being given the right to self-determination. It's just a bullshit claim and a false claims shouldn't be countenanced. Ever.

[Ken Burch]

70. You make it sound like I was intentionally lying

I clarified what I was saying in a response to another post of yours. Your anger about this is way over the top and borderline inappropriate.

[Kaleko]

75. Any excuse to blow a gasket

will be seized upon. You just happened to provide one.

[riverwalker]

67. yes, and long overdue! n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

68. K&R

It is long past time for some justice for the Palestinians.

[Scottybeamer70]

71. 60 plus years past due!

n/t

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

72. If not now when? They have waited long enough.

[spanone]

73. seems like the logical route

[Raksha]

74. K & R

[L0oniX]

76. K & R

[Odin2005]

77. K&R

[UndertheOcean]

78. k&R

[DonCoquixote]

80. Yes

with one caveat:

There must be a two state solution, not the 1947 borders, not the 1967 ones either. Religon will not allows a true secular state on either side of Jerusalem (and no, Israel is not secular either.)

[donheld]

81. .

:hi:

[potone]

82. K & R

I agree. How much longer are the Palestinians supposed to wait? And for what? Until the so-called facts on the ground make statehood impossible? I don't see any other way forward at this point, although I know that we will veto it and thus make our reputation even worse in the Arab world.

[Heywood J]

83. Jerusalem should belong to no one or everyone.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig">Get rid of that problem and the remaining problems become much easier to deal with. This is a first step.

[yellowwood]

84. IF

If I thought that Israel would ever "negotiate," I would approve of supporting the veto. But I have not seen any sign that Israel would ever soften its harsh treatment of the Palestinians.

I am so disappointed with Israel as a country. I once bought the "making the desert bloom" propaganda. It was hard for me to separate the admiration and respect that I have for the Jewish culture and accomplishment and the sympathy I have for the victims of the Holocaust from the dislike I feel for the mean-spirited Israeli government.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

95. Israel doesn't represent Jewish culture ...

It represents a western neo-colonizer mindset.

[pelsar]

129. I'm sorry we disappointed you....

getting threatened with the continuation of the what hitler got going (but by no means started), having to fight back continous attempts at organized and random attacks on our citizens both with israel and abroad...reading about how we steal palestenians organs, knowing that the "protocols of zion" have been made into a movie as well as zaras blue eyes, taking in 6,000 missiles, while being condemned for limited attempts to stop them, having our soldier/citizens kidnapped and executed...

....well it does have an affect on our psych and ability to believe mere words of the Palestinians and their friends, we apologize for not being so trusting of the world and our neighbors...

[City Lights]

85. K&R. eom

[harun]

86. Support for justice.

[PaddyBlueEyes]

87. It is time....

K&R

[DirkGently]

88. KNR

[WinkyDink]

89. Why must the land be from teeny-tiny Israel and not, say, from Jordan?

Just thinking in terms of actual HISTORY here.

[Ken Burch]

98. Nobody's taking land FROM Israel

The West Bank isn't part of Israel.

[Violet_Crumble]

103. The land isn't from 'teeny-tiny' Israel...

You do know the West Bank and Gaza aren't part of Israel, don't you? Or do you think that all of it is Israel?

[Dragonfli]

90. K&R /nt

[Blue_In_AK]

91. Absolutely.

[lunatica]

92. I support the UN on this

All people deserve a country they can call home.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

93. Supporter here. n/t

[Jefferson23]

96. A good thread of support Ken Burch, looks like it lasted awhile too before it came here. Kick.

[Ken Burch]

99. Thanks.

By any chance, do you know what the deleted message was? And/or what charming individual posted it?

Reply by pm if that's more comfortable.

[Name removed]

97. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Shaktimaan]

100. sure.

cuz the UN is so great with their "decent, humane, just resolutions" around the world. Face it... If any of their workers avoid being caught selling food aid for sex then they consider a job successful.

The UN is a political organization. Nothing about it is necessarily decent, humane or just. You're basically saying, "Since America failed here, let's send in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Ukraine, Uganda and Chile instead. Those guys are sure to come up with a decent, humane and just solution."

Out of 193 member states only one has severely truncated rights and privelidges, Israel. During the 2006-7 session the UNGA condemned Israel 22 times while ignoring the genocide being perpetrated in Sudan, failing to issue a single ruling then that even deigns to mention it.

But The only way to break the deadlock and allow a decent, humane, just resolution of this crisis is for the UN to step in.????

yeah. right.

[shira]

101. Just as you can't rationalize with a bible thumper, same goes for those...

....whose church is the UN.

The UN is basically infallible WRT their decisions on Israel.

[azurnoir]

102. Perhaps the UN should treat Israel exactly as it did Sudan in 2006

would you agree with that ?

[shira]

104. Nah, the UN should treat Israel fairly like an equal member. n/t

[azurnoir]

106. an equal member that made P M a man who murdered a UN negotiator ?

an equal member who has repeatedly ignored UN resolutions for 60+ years like that kind of equal member?

[shira]

110. Yes, an equal member. You're pretending Israel is worse than any other nation...

...and that's why they're not currently an equal member.

As though Israel deserves to be treated worse than every other nation on the planet. What Israel has done and continues to do is far worse....

Shameful.

[Violet_Crumble]

105. I've got a solution! There should be a 'world' body called USIsrael!

Now that would be such a fair international body. None of that irritating nonsense where other countries dare to accuse them of committing human rights abuses...

Out of 193 member states only one has severely truncated rights and privelidges, Israel.

Really? And what would they be?

[Shaktimaan]

127. you don't know?

Israel's exclusion from the regional group system prevents Israel from participating in myriad functions related, most of the methods through which nations exercise influence. Are you really unaware of the role that regional groups play in the day to day activities of the UN Violet?

Amongst other things, Israel is the only nation ineligible to serve in a temporary slot on the security council.

[Violet_Crumble]

137. No, and that's because it's not the case...

Israel isn't excluded from the regional grouping system, nor is it prevented from participating at the UN. Israel has been a full member of the WEOG group since 2004, participates on various UN General Assembly bodies, and Dan Gillerman was elected Vice President of the General Assembly.

Now compare that to Palestine, where not only does Israel oppose it gaining full UN membership, but also opposes it being granted non-member state observer status.

[Ken Burch]

119. You know Bibi will fight forever against any real Palestinian state

And Kadima, the supposed "opposition", has no real disagreements with him on that(they have few real disagreements with Likud on anything else, since they support the neoliberal economic model that is destroying Israel's social values, but that's another story).

Why should anyone pretend that "negotiations" still mean anything?

To be an Israeli prime minister means to fight forever against peace. That's what opposing a Palestinian state always meant-it meant wanting the conflict to go on forever.

[azurnoir]

107. K&R Ken

:thumbsup:

[Crunchy Frog]

109. I'm a one stater myself. I don't think a Palestinian state is viable at this point.

I support your post in principle, but my preference would simply be to recognize Israel's de facto annexation of "Judea" and "Samaria", and recognize the equal citizenship of everyone living there.

[LeftishBrit]

111. I support recognition of a Palestinian state, but it's simply not true that 'every other people on

the planet' has been given the right to self-determination.

[LeftishBrit]

112. This may be a good time to consider a donation to Peace Now.'s campaign

http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/netanyahu-and-lieberman-you-don%E2%80%99t-represent-us

https://www.israelgives.org/custom/peacenow/cart/

[hack89]

113. I also support the right of all Palestinian refugees to become citizens in the new state

lets hope the PA changes their mind.

[hack89]

114. Then the UN can implement a "decent, humane, just resolution" for the Kurds and Tibet.

and Sudan, and Somalia, and Cyprus, and Syria, and ....

[Swede]

115. Don't forget the Uighurs in China.

nt

[hack89]

116. The list of injustices ignored by the UN is a long one. nt

[Harmony Blue]

117. I want to see it happen

so the U.S. vetoes and then loses its luster on the world stage. A humble thumping is needed for the United States to re-evaluate its priorities.

:dem:

[Harmony Blue]

118. DP

[shira]

120. More than half of all Palestinians won't have self-determination in a future Palestine.

Interview: Refugees will not be citizens of new state
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx#axzz1YhRZovVf

So the point of statehood is......?

[Lithos]

121. Locking per I/P guidelines

Not based on a recent news or op-ed article.

Lithos
DU Moderator

[bemildred]

126. Dang, I don't get to reply to locked threads very often.

:hi:

[totodeinhere]

131. I also replied upthread. There must be some kind of glitch. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

135. Heh, I only just spotted the locking message....

I don't remember seeing a locked thread remain open before...

[Exilednight]

140. And so are many Americans. n/t