It's just a theory, and yes I'm an optimist. But the grotesque events in Gaza rise above, well, the previous grotesque events in Gaza. And here is the great Glenn Greenwald attacking Marty Peretz for his disgusting rationalization of the slaughter. And note that Greenwald goes on to the Real Enemy here: the "suffocating" orthodoxy of our politicians on Israel/Palestine and the "total abdication" of political responsibility. Honey, it's breaking up. Iraq and its lesson that terrorism arises from political disfranchisement is going to be applied to I/P under Obama. The Israel lobby is starting to fracture. "J Street"'s brave statement is huge. Just watch, you will see some major delamination in the days to come specifically on the suffocating orthodoxy issue. Jeffrey Goldberg will come over to our side. Or Tom Friedman. It's gonna happen, because Israel has completely lost the ability to imagine its future, witness Gaza, and who has been right about this again and again? The marginalized "left," from realist Mearsheimer to Ian Lustick, let alone anti-Zionist Jews and Arabs. And because history does not repeat itself. If Israel expects to do Lebanon II, it is going to find that it won't get the political cover it did 2 years ago.
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The essential problem is that there are millions of privileged colonists, living in more or less luxury, surrounded by millions of the native population, living in squalor and refugee camps, a situation which the colonists hope to solemnise and confirm under the guise of a 'peace process' while continuing to intermittently shoot the natives as necessary.
no doubt will have an unbiased discussion in mainstream media tonight: Wolf blitzer ‘moderating’ a discussion between Livni and Thomas Friedman, with analysis from Bill Kristol. That will help americans get to the bottom of it!
The entire world has condemned this, but Americans continue to be blinded. Then we wonder why people hate us.
Mr Hope and Change couldn't be bothered from his vacation to pass comment.
Well, its a great way to 'celebrate' Hannakah, I guess
oh phil, one more thing…
there are only 3 ways, barring a miracle, out of our financial mess:
a. hyper inflation
b. default on our debt
c. major war.
War also provides the opporuntity to ban guns, restrict speech, carry out radical political agendas. Which do you think Obama will opt for?
It appears the initial attacks killed 240, of whom 180 were Hamas leaders or fighters. This means that less than 25% (we're not sure exactly how many) of the dead were civilian casualties. The number is elevated because Hamas intentionally places its facilities next to hospitals, schools and mosques. In other words, Hamas uses human shields, which violates every facet of any moral code.
Further, Hamas rocket attacks and suicide bombings are aimed strictly at civilian targets and result in almost 100% civilian casualties.
Put simply, Hamas attacks civilians and Israel responds by attacking Hamas leaders and fighters.
How do you react?
Well, if you're a liberal, you complain when the folks getting attacked retaliate.
Like Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "[How can we not mention] …the ongoing four-decades brutal occupation or the recent, grotesquely inhumane blockade of Gaza — would find the slaughter of scores of innocent Palestinians to be a horrible and deeply lamentable event." (Shhhh… no one tell Greewald about Egypt's blockade of Gaza; or how Russia reacts when attacked by Chechen separatists. Those standards don't apply!)
Any country but Israel wouldn't elicit so much as a peep from the left for this type of retaliation.
I wonder why.
Yes, Hamas has the audacity to place residences and universities in residential areas. My god, they have police stations in neighborhoods as well. What should we do? Perhaps Israel should send personal letters to Hamas security forces asking them to stand in an open field and wave their arms around.
This crap about Hamas breaking the rules implies that israel has never broken the law, has never applied collective punishment on a group for the actions of an individual, and has always punished the members of its security force that have murderd (yes, murdered) dozens of civilians over the past years.
Britain has dealt with terrorism from the IRA, and it didn't send the RAF into Belfast to bomb hospitals, universities, and civilian infrastructure. It would have been seen as uncivilized and disproportionate to fight a war against a civilian population.
Besides, what Israel is up to isn't just about rockets in Sderot. It's about the generals who run the country still suffering from narcissistic disorder over the invasion of Lebanon in 2006 in which Hezbollah was not "destroyed" but strengthened. Like anyone couldn't have figured out that would be the outcome.
The problem is that the U.S. has not helped Israel to see reality–here are Israel's options. It can take its colonies and military and go home to Israel and facilitate the Palestinians having their own sovereign state, not a system of three cantons surrounded by Israeli roads, the military, etc. OR it can absorb the Palestinians over which it rules today in one state and give them citizenship.
What cannot go on is the status quo in which Israel has been enabled to run amuk by the U.S. administrations who are too tied to Israel's interference in domestic politics via AIPAC, JINSA, and Israel's considerable public relations work in the U.S. via its embasseys.
What also cannot continue is the West's double standards–that Israel can get away with ignoring UN Resolutions and international law under cover of the U.S. while the U.S. insists on throttling other countries that do not follow the UN Resolutions it believes in has created more ill will toward the U.S. and not just in the Middle East than anything else that America has done. It's the double standard that is now biting us in the you know what.
Hamas's actions are assuring that Palestinians will continue to live in abject poverty.
Israel's actions are hastening the day a nuclear device will be detonated in Tel Aviv.
The leaders of Hamas and Israel both gain tighter grips on power when violence breaks out. Until the common peace-loving people vote out/remove their belligerent leaders, Israel and Palestine will spiral downward.
It will take profound courage to take the first steps toward peace unilaterally. Peaceful leaders often meet violent ends by people within their own country.
Wow! What a discussion. The entire world knows Israel with U.S. backing, weapons and funds, is violating international law and committing war crimes. There are protests all over Europe as well as in the Arab countries, and in the U.S., too. There are criticisms of U.S.-supported Israeli assaults all over cyberspace. U.S. foreign policy has been and is to give all-out support to Israel for its own military, economic and strategic reasons–even though some of those who espouse this are anti-Semitic themselves.
Many Jewish people are totally opposed to what Israel has been and is doing to the Palestinian people. We all have to speak out and protest more!
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