So the greatest progressive candidate in American presidential politics in 40 years visits Israel and the occupation, and what happens the next day? Israel announces more colonies, "settlements." Why do they do so? Because they are arrogant, because they know they can, because they know Obama won't hold a press conference in Paris on the subject, as he should. Because they know what our press won't say, but Haaretz will (obviously influenced by the recent visit of Walt and Mearsheimer): that "the Israel lobby" has made our politicians into pantaloons.
The chief difference between apartheid South Africa and Israel/Palestine--says James North, who has seen both societies--is that after the Soweto uprising, in 1976, black South Africans knew that history was on their side and that the world would slowly strangle the regime. They had confidence. And lo, apartheid ended sooner than anyone anticipated. While in Palestine, North says, the Palestinians have none of this confidence. Especially when a leading progressive American visits and he can't make more than a coded peep about their conditions. It makes them desperate. I imagine I'd be crashing a construction vehicle into Israeli property if I were an Arab.
Speaking of South Africa, here is Dershowitz acolyte Joel Pollak writing in dispositive Dershowitzian form in a Harvard Law School publication on why it is time to stop discussing the "apartheid" issue and move on to creating a Palestinian society: "That means..asking real questions about the challenges facing Palestinians today. What is preventing peace? How can peace be achieved? What sort of Palestinian society do we want to build? All else is a distraction."
What sort of Palestinian society do we want to build? Asked by an American, a Jew, a Harvard law student? Oh my. When will Americans ask that most radical and democratic of all questions: What do Palestinians want?
Though this quote is said to be apocryphal, it certainly mirrors the reality.
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that… I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
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Dig this report from Haraatz:
"Near the close of his visit to Israel on Wednesday, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. A major topic of their long conversation was Obama's declared willingness to engage in direct dialogue with Tehran. Obama reportedly told Olmert that he is interested in meeting the Iranians in order to issue clear ultimatums. "If after that, they still show no willingness to change their nuclear policy, then any action against them would be legitimate," an Israeli source quoted him as saying."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005286.html
I think all sensible Americans should do their best for McCain. He might be evil but surely he is not as evil as Obama.
"Why do they do so? Because they are arrogant, because they know they can, because they know Obama won't hold a press conference in Paris on the subject, as he should."
The main reason, omitted here, is that the Israelis are overwhelmingly ethnic chauvinists, just as the Afrikaaners were. The rest is merely the enabling conditions.
You've got it wrong.
The reason that they announced it, is because it is possibly the last time that they will easily be able to get that in, without some discomfort expressed by the US.
"Why do they do so?"
Perhaps to probe Obama's reaction.
I've read somewhere that even after Obama's pledge of allegiance to Israel at the AIPAC conf many jews remain unconvinced that he's truly and reliably on their side. How would one judge?
It would be nice if the press questions him on this.
"The reason that they announced it, is because it is possibly the last time that they will easily be able to get that in, without some discomfort expressed by the US."
Richard, I agree with you there. In fact, I would not be surprised if behind closed doors, Condi was encouraging Israel to ramp up settlement building before a change in administration.
The reality is, however, as I have said before: it matters not who is in the White House. Republican and Democratic members of Congress are unlikely to allow any President to make changes to policy that would be viewed by AIPAC and others as anti-Israel, including withholding funds as "punishment" for continued settlement expansion. George H.W. Bush learned that the hard way.
According to Legistorm.com, between 2000 and 2008, members of congress took 268 trips to Tel Aviv alone, at a cost of over $2 million, the majority of which was paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation. The cost of all trips to Israel, including 3 trips each to Gaza and the West Bank, for the same period totalled $4.5 million. Israel as a foreign destination was second only to China.
When our elected officials refuse to witness the facts on the ground in the Occupied Territories, there is no hope for change. They have their heads in the sand.
I should add, more Democrats than Republicans made these junkets.
"That means..asking real questions about the challenges facing Palestinians today. What is preventing peace? How can peace be achieved? What sort of Palestinian society do we want to build? All else is a distraction."
For a second there I thought 'Richard Witty' must be a pseudonym for Joel Pollak. Then I realized insufferable pretentiousness and conceit is a cultural trait among these self-important, Neocon/Neolib types of the Zionist persuasion.
Yes these guys are so arrogant that in the next Child's Play Movie, Chucky dresses as an IDF soldier and tries to insert his evil Zionist soul into the body of a Palestinian Child.
Childs Play In Occupied Palestine…Chucky Joins Israeli Defense Forces In Latest Film Of Movie Series
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/07/childs-play-in-occupied-palestinechucky_25.html
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From the linked article in Australia's The Age (naturally, we're not going to hear about new settlements in the Slimes):
"The decision comes in the same week as two high-profile visits to Israel by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US presidential candidate Barack Obama, who both talked about the importance of a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Israel has defended decisions to press ahead with construction in occupied East Jerusalem and in West Bank settlements that it believes will become part of Israel in any peace deal."
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These quotes perfectly illustrate how the conventional wisdom of the "two-state solution" induces Israel to keep building settlements, under the theory that this will enlarge the future Israeli state at the expense of the Palestinian one.
The "two-state solution" is a crock which was designed by and for zionists. Proponents of the approach, such as Brown and Obama, understand full well that its purpose is to facilitate ongoing Israeli land grabs. So they can hardly act shocked and hurt when Israel continues doing exactly what it has been incentivized to do — GRAB MORE LAND.
Obama, with his kowtowing to Israel and plans to escalate the Afghan war, is nothing but Bush in blackface. Already I can't stand to listen to the slippery, jive-ass mofo. Maybe his "Change We Can Deceive In" plane will collide in midair with Air Force One, Allah willing!
There is nothing the US can do to stop the settlements. Israel will do as it wishes and the lobby's power in the US is too great for any effective political response.
We must accept that this is what Israel wants and they will probably get it. There is only one thing left for us to do: work for the civil liberties of the Arabs who live on that land. We must insist that they are given the right to vote. This is a demand that cannot be resisted in the long term. But we have to realize that the so-called 'two state solution' is just a charade to deny the Arabs their civil liberties. Just endless meaningless negotiations. The progressives in the west should work to undermine the Abbas regime, a fictional entity that only promotes the illusion of sovereignty and enriches the PA leadership. There should be no more international financial support for them.
This means that the one-state solution is the most likely outcome. Apartheid is politically inviable in the long term. Perhaps massive ethnic cleansing would work but Israel would not be able to do as they did in 1948 without some serious political backlash. Nuclear war with Iran may give her the needed cover, but that doesn't seem likely today. Nope, it looks like the one-state solution with equal rights for all of Israel's and Palestine's people.
What makes anyone believe these innately racialist Zionist fanatics will ever acquiesce to a single state? Their entire ethos screams out against it; they’d probably rather be blown up or commit suicide, Masada style.
The answer is to isolate and contain Zionism the way another Jewish-fanatic manifestation, Communism, was isolated and contained until it eventually crumbled of its own weight. Rabid Zionism will eventually reach a breaking point as well, at which time it will slowly integrate into the surrounding Levant.
Israel isn’t the deep South, or even S. Africa, both of which had a predominantly white Christian population lording over the dark skinned. Jewish religious ideology is much more stubbornly racialist, otherwise Judaism would have died out by now.
If one wants to take the wind out of the sails of Zionism, the best target is Jewish Zionists in American, who are enabling and engineering the entire enterprise through their money, lobbying, media influence, politicians and general agitprop. I say, deport the worst of them. But short of that, they should at least be marginalized as an un-American, alien entity that doesn't share our pluralistic values, and socially ostracized and ridiculed the way white supremacists have been in America for decades.
On that note, kudos to liberal white boy.
Ed, Ed , Ed, your an idiot
The settlement news isn't the only terrible development post-Obama's trip:
link to washingtonpost.com
Haaretz also says Obama basically gace Olmert the go-ahead to attack Iran.
Phil: I used to really believe Obama would be different as President. I give up. He's a veritable Israel-firster now.
If our politicians have to go to Israel to kiss the ring, maybe pogroms are necessary.
"The "two-state solution" is a crock which was designed by and for zionists," wrote Jim Haygood.
Very similar to comments made by Saif and others here. Fascinating how the human mind takes reality and pounds it until it resembles what the human mind wants to believe. The two-state solution was "designed" by the PLO and its supporters in the Arab world and elsewhere. It took much too long for Israeli Jews to understand it was the only solution that made sense, and for that they deserve much blame. And it's probably too late, and there's probably no hope, because the Israelis are making it impossible to find a solution any Palestinian leader could conceivably accept with settlement expansion and infrastructure development in the heart of the West Bank, AND because Palestinians are making it impossible for Israelis to believe that Hamas won't use the West Bank as a rocket launching pad.
But the real blame, of course, should be ascribed to Yasser Arafat, because he was the "Zionist" who designed it, right Jim?.
Olmert is too busy taking it up the ass from Hezbollah. Witness the release of the noted humanitarian Samir Kuntar. ( still no comment about that from Phil btw ) He isn't going to attack anybody.
Sowrd, I'm still waiting for your condemnation of any of the human rights atrocities committed by Israel — which has murdered FAR more innocent civilians than have Palestinians.
I replied to you earlier and condemned Kuntar and those who celebrate him. But his crimes and Hezbollah's embrace of him do not change any of the fundamentals of a dispute rooted in dispossession.
Wouldn't you love to see a HD short cable channel snip of the teenage Kuntar & the middle-aged American Dr. Baruch Goldstein–in an elevator going up the former twins towers?
What do the Americans get?
Why, look at all those human things diving off the towers…