Myself I was impressed by Obama's offering himself to the Muslim world as a leader, the supple use of the Koran and of Islamic teaching, the embrace of his own Muslim background, and the willingness to dive into women's freedom. The students here were wild for him on this basis too, many of them say the speech was "amazing," a word I heard again and again from them. Several have told me how moved they were by his appreciation for Islamic prophets.
They seem to be willing to be led by him, on democracy, on women's rights. Though yes he mispronounced the word hijab, as hajib, still he exceeded expectations by a mile. Here 's the student section:
My disappointment with his statements on Israel-Palestine was echoed by a few of the students I've talked to. I should say that mostly they said that he was wise to avoid particulars, and that it is healing to try and move the conflict into the past; but a couple of students expressed disappointment and even resentment on the issue. He did not say anything new or concrete. The putting of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust in the same basket as Palestinian refugees doesn't work. The language on settlements was not strong enough, and there was no real condemnation of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Gaza is "intolerable," but who is responsible for that intolerableness? He mentioned Israel as little as he could, a medical student said to me. And "smacked" a democratically-elected government, Hamas.
Having called for boldness and the expression of private thoughts (the high watermark of the race speech), he chose well-worn ideas.
Though the description of Jerusalem as an open city, without using those words, does make it clear that he was only pandering when he said "undivided" to AIPAC.
I felt proud of my president throughout, and loved the joy of the students crying Obama. What a great thing to see a world leader. And grabbing at hope, I saw in his repeated statements against colonialism, against the Iraq war, against states that discriminate against minorities, and for the American revolution because all men are created equal–I saw in this theme some recognition of the injustice that is at the center of our policy in the eyes of the Muslim world.
I see somewhere how Egypt was "an ideal place" for such a speech. Yes indeed, it's been ruled by a President for Life since 1981, and criticizing the government will get you thrown in jail. The problem is Islam is not the problem, and pretending he's trying to "make peace with Islam" shows how close Obama is sticking to the script. The problem is the Middle East is run for US interests by US clients and anyone who dares run counter – Hamas, Hezbullah, Iran ("the biggest democracy in the region", sorry Israel) – are bad guys who won't accept the "hand of friendship". Next stop where? Saudi Arabia? Now there's a shining beacon of tolerance and freedom. Go Obama go!
The speech may have been watered down because of back-channel communication between Israel officials and the US, where perhaps certain promises were made in advance. There's plenty of time to get-tough. Glad Phil could be on hand for this event, and we're looking forward to his full report from Gaza when he returns safe and sound. Godspeed, Phil, man.
He was clear, consistent. The issue of blame is one of Norman's pet dividing lines, and also one of the ways that he makes himself far less relevant than he could be. Blame is nearly always mutual, and is CERTAINLY in this case regarding Gaza. Its a question for a journalist (left or right, which you raise relative to your criticism of Jeffrey Goldberg), whether they are engaging in invocation or reporting/informing. I LIKED his clear and convincing comments that US relationship to Israel is uncompromisable. The form of that relationship can change, but not in a manner that fundamentally distorts its importance and intimacy. And, relative to factions like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran that have no latitude in their thinking, documents, actions, to accept Israel's existence beyond an unnatural temporary duration, the US has not shifted its policy from "terror is crime", to "terror is acceptable means of dissent". By "unnaturally temporary duration", I'm speaking in reference to Iran's official statement that Israel will disappear naturally, like all temporal forms.
This speech was a disaster for Israel. Any reapproachement with Muslims from around the world, any fight against caricaturing all of Islam as "radical" — terrible news. As Jeffrey Goldberg said ruefully, the interests of Israel and the US are now divergent. This is the first page of the new history.
Not a disaster for Israel at all. Possibly the Arab states involved may reconsider America's stance as being one that is beneficial to the Arab world and not a front for Israeli desires, that indeed, many of Israel's concerns are the same as America's, unlike was is spewed by phil's ULI's in the forum.
RE: " A stirring speech by the world's president–but nothin' new on Israel/Palestine" FROM: Jewish Voice for Peace (info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org) This coming June 10, we will be at the Caterpillar annual shareholder meeting for the sixth time. We will remind the Board of Directors that stopping the company's sales of bulldozers to Israel is not only ethical but affordable for Caterpillar. We will remind them that not changing course will be increasingly more costly to Caterpillar: Hampshire College has already divested from CAT, and so has the Church of England; other churches are considering similar steps. Twenty Israeli peace and justice organizations have come in support of divestment from Caterpillar. We want you to be with us at the meeting. Please sign a letter to Caterpillar by June 9th, and we will hand-deliver it to the Board of Directors the next day. Help us bring thousands of letters of protest! *TO SIGN – http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/1849/c...
Why didn't he say that the hate and violence in the Quran are wrong? Why didn't he mention how Muslims treat non-Muslims? This speech is a bad joke. I have nothing but contempt for Islam and our president. Kactuz
Even if Caterpillar stops selling armored bulldozers to Israel (which I doubt), then we will build our own. Too bad.
The "world's president"? Nonsense. Was W. the "world's president"? A small majority of US citizens who bothered to vote elected him their president. Stop fawning over him – it's disgusting.
Obama's a shape-shifter on this issue, we can all agree. But his core instinct on this issue is coming into relief… I don't see him as the savior (to riff on the right-wing smear of him) on this matter, but I think he's setting in motion some fundamentally new dynamics in the I/P issue… rather than leading us to a pre-ordained outcome (i.e. two states) I see as much more likely unforeseen convulsions at least in the short term. The pressue on the Israeli political classes will create new tensions within the coalition that has long assumed legitimacy in Israel, based on the Dayan plan (+) of a (somewhat) Greater Israel based on settlement and ethnic cleansing. This plan itself is dependent upon a particular ideological formulae of victimhood and special treatment, as well as military triumphalism tied into a localized manifest-destiny with the US playing the international patron protecting Israel from sanction. If the US ends its blind-eye approach to the settlements, and exerts a modicum of pressure in other arenas (let's say, the US doesn't veto the next 3-4 UN security council resolutions on Israel) this will have a rather immediate effect inside Israeli politics, with what I would wager will be fairly unforeseen results — this is because we don't know the "true" power of the various ideologically committed splinters that make up this coalition. Are the settlers more powerful than they pretend? What of the messianic parties, or the new immigrants (Russian and central Asian)? Will the old Ashkenazi leadership remain on the top, or will there be a fundamental reorganizing of the political elites? The best analogy would be that of Serbia's international situation since 1991. Israel is comparable to Milosevic's Serbia in many ways, especially ideologically — identity of self-victimhood, mythological claims to land inhabited by others, ethnic supremacist notions that legitimize ethnic cleansing, etc. If the US removes even a portion of its legitimizing support of Israel internationally, I think it will set off chain reactions within Israeli domestic political circles, as smaller constituencies will act radically to take advantage of the new context. We shall see in time what this may bring… But all of this depends upon the formulation as policy some of the trail balloon threats that have been leaking out from the administration — and the question of how Israeli leaders respond to the demand to a real end of settlement expansion will be the first test. The experiment could still be called off before it really begins.
Obama's a shape-shifter on this issue, we can all agree. But his core instinct on this issue is coming into relief… I don't see him as the savior (to riff on the right-wing smear of him) on this matter, but I think he's setting in motion some fundamentally new dynamics in the I/P issue… rather than leading us to a pre-ordained outcome (i.e. two states) I see as much more likely unforeseen convulsions at least in the short term. The pressue on the Israeli political classes will create new tensions within the coalition that has long assumed legitimacy in Israel, based on the Dayan plan (+) of a (somewhat) Greater Israel based on settlement and ethnic cleansing. This plan itself is dependent upon a particular ideological formulae of victimhood and special treatment, as well as military triumphalism tied into a localized manifest-destiny with the US playing the international patron protecting Israel from sanction. If the US ends its blind-eye approach to the settlements, and exerts a modicum of pressure in other arenas (let's say, the US doesn't veto the next 3-4 UN security council resolutions on Israel) this will have a rather immediate effect inside Israeli politics, with what I would wager will be fairly unforeseen results — this is because we don't know the "true" power of the various ideologically committed splinters that make up this coalition. Are the settlers more powerful than they pretend? What of the messianic parties, or the new immigrants (Russian and central Asian)? Will the old Ashkenazi leadership remain on the top, or will there be a fundamental reorganizing of the political elites? The best analogy would be that of Serbia's international situation since 1991. Israel is comparable to Milosevic's Serbia in many ways, especially ideologically — identity of self-victimhood, mythological claims to land inhabited by others, ethnic supremacist notions that legitimize ethnic cleansing, etc. If the US removes even a portion of its legitimizing support of Israel internationally, I think it will set off chain reactions within Israeli domestic political circles, as smaller constituencies will act radically to take advantage of the new context. We shall see in time what this may bring… But all of this depends upon the formulation as policy some of the trail balloon threats that have been leaking out from the administration — and the question of how Israeli leaders respond to the demand to a real end of settlement expansion will be the first test. The experiment could still be called off before it really begins.
Obama might take a tough hit by the lobby, congress & the media if the speech is a success in the Muslim world. Half of his party is probably plotting against him as we speak, and the opposition party will likely follow suit.
Bar_K, that works for us Americans. As long as our taxpayer dollars aren't paying to kill innocents like Rachel Corrie, have at it. Of course, the IDF is still violating international law by razing the homes of Paletinian citizen, but hey, since when did that ever matter to you guys?
Obama said "Palestinians must abandon violence… It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus." But he said nothing of Israeli violence and terrorism perpetrated over 60 years;. nothing of the 1400 dead Gazans and the 400 children. This strikes me as profoundly unbalanced to the point of being offensive.
I agree with this. The "Muslim world" does not lead a US president as de facto "leader". Nor does the world at large. The "unipolar moment" is over, Phil.
Corrie killed herself, you can't blame another person for an idiot laying or falling down in a place where a bulldozer operator can't even see her. And what was she protecting? Weapons smuggling tunnels. Check out Nasralla's blog: http://nasralla.blogspot.com/
Small majority? Yeah just 59 MILLION + in 2004!
Israeli actions are ALWAYS a response to Palestinian/Arab: 1920 Arab riots 1921 Arab riots 1929 Hebron massacre against Jews 1936-1939 riots 1949-1956 – 9,000 terrorist attacks against Israelis, killing hundreds of civilians the list goes on and on and on. I won't even get into the Palestinian involvement in the Holocaust: http://www.nyjtimes.com/cover/03-08-05/NaziRootsO... Or maybe I will: "Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: The Jews are yours." Former Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini in his post-World War II memoirs. [1} "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures." Adolf Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny in his Nuremberg Trials testimony. [2]
are you jacobwolfson's brother? you both need jesus.
"Not another dollar, not another bullet for Israel until they dismantle the hilltop settlements, halt all settlement construction and end the blockade of Gaza." But he didn't say that.
I'm surprised you guys aren't talking about the new framing of the conflict in Obama's speech. Already, Americans are seeing it as a simple civil rights struggle. Against segregation, separatism, legal discrimination, classifying people and depriving them of rights on the basis of being born the wrong religion. Now in the middle of the part on Palestine, Obama cites the whip of slavery and Jim Crow. And he said our civil rights movement overcame that most successfully when it used non-violence. Amen! Yes it is worse than Jim Crow, it's a modern form of slavery for those unlucky non-Jews in the territories, and yes, we shall overcome.
FROM: "The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict", published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East (EXCERPT) Shamir proposes an alliance with the Nazis “As late as 1941, the Zionist group LEHI, one of whose leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, was later to become a prime minister of Israel, approached the Nazis, using the name of its parent organization, the Irgun (NMO)…[Their proposal stated:] ‘The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis and bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in the interests of strengthening the future German nation of power in the Near East… The NMO in Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on Germany’s side’….The Nazis rejected this proposal for an alliance because, it is reported, they considered LEHI’s militarypower ‘negligable.’ ” SOURCE – http://www.cactus48.com/OriginMSW.pdf
I disagree on this one Phil – although he may not have put anything new out there policy wise, he affirmed the legitimacy of the state of Palestine… he also said something I would have never expected to hear from an American president, namely that both Israel AND Palestine have a "right to exist". Words don't get us any closer to making it happen, but I think his tone was clear and the table is being set. "it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people —Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.
Still trying to hide the fact that Palestinians DID conspire with Nazis by bringing up events that never even happened? It remains a historical fact that the 1st Palestinian leader DID collaborate with the most evil regime in history in the most evil of deeds in history. All of your ridiculous propaganda websites will never be able to hide this fact. The Palestinian leaders have never apologized for this horrible alliance with Nazi Germany.
That would not hold-up in criminal law in the US. A licensed operator of construction equipment cannot kill someone if they saw them in front of the bulldozer. It's murder or manslaughter.
When will the Arab governments, who are mostly responsible this 60 year old mess own up to their monumental mistakes? It is completely juvenile to place 100% of the blame on Israel as Mr. Weiss and his cohorts do. It looks pathetic when the countries who have been actively boycotting Israel, can't even get their own acts together. Obama was right about the Arab world needing to stop their scapegoating, but when will the babies take responsibility for the mess they created? Supporting Hitler during WW2 Supporting Saddam in 1991-2003 It was their choice to reject the partition plan in 1948 that actually gave Arabs land that was majority Jewish owned. It was the Arab's choice to attack Israel and murder 100 doctors and nurses in the Hadassah convoy. It was their mistake to line Israel's borders in 1967 and that's why they got their asses handed to them. It was their mistake again in 1973 and many more times afterwards. It was their mistake to publish blood libel at alleged "poison gas in green balloons in 2007" in Lebanon. When will the leaders of the largest group in the Middle East start acting like men?
It's ancient history. I like the NY(J)times link. Good work… If Israeli actions are always a response to Palestinians, why have the expanded illegal security borders been used for new housing developments? Would it make sense to keep the housing away from rocket fire? Please enlighten.
Of course we wish Obama's speech were stronger in criticizing Israeli colonialism, but we shouldn't overlook how revolutionary his positions are for an American president — and how panicked the Israeli's and their rightwing supporters are. Maybe he is showing that AIPAC and The Lobby are paper tigers after all. Congressmen who have routinely parotted whatever AIPAC says are having a second look. Don't underestimate their resentment over havng their arms twisted by the Lobby — and the possible swift change of tone when they are liberated to speak their true minds. And if Obama continues to speak out, the issue will be clearly posed as a choice: Obama or Netanyahu, possibly even Obama or Israel. Most of his supporters — including most US Jews, I think, will chose to stick with Obama and expose the fact that The Lobby speaks for only a minority, who are trending Republican anyway.
off-thread links: Despite Criticism, Majority Supports Obama’s Approach To Middle East http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html Obama Turns the Screws on Israel http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html Obama's "interference" in Israeli politics http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html Iran wages lonely war on terror http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html
An NPR reporting from Palestine said that many Palestinians were not even listening. The interviews of Palestinians were saying that they wanted to see the "talk" turn into the walk The reports said that some Jews in Israel worried about what Obama had to say "the settlements need to stop" several clips to listen to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor...
Really appreciated the references to the Koran, Torah, Bible….Important Now for the Obama administration to 'walk the talk" Does anyone else find the U.S. focusing on human rights issues in China just a wee bit contradictory? Thousands are dead in Iraq as a direct consequence of our illegal and immoral invasion, who knows how many people have been tortured by the U.S. Seems a rather odd time for Secretary of the State Clinton to be asking China to print the names of the innocent students and citizens killed at Tiananmen square. Maybe we should start by printing the names of all of the innocent people killed in Iraq the last seven years. You know "walk the talk" What a hypocrisy?
1.–"Blame is mutual"–Why don't you just be honest and say you are looking for moral equivalency between Hamas firing its homemade rockets into Israel, and the years-long, inhumane blockade, and the recent pounding of Gaza's civilian infrastructure? In other words, Israel gets a pass for its inhumanity because "Hamas does it too". 2. Israel and the US need to have a normal relationship like any othe two nations. Israel's chief importance to the US is as a thorn in its side. Intimacy? Makes me feel dirty. 3. Perhaps Iran would stop thinking about the disappearance of Israel is Israel and the US would cease funding for terrorists operating within Iran, cease the extra-judicial disappearance of its nuclear scientists, and cease threatening to bomb Irah. 4. The US has always supported and advocated for terrorism (not singling out the US, all nations do it), just depends who is doing it. Up to this point the US has wholeheartedly backed Israeli terror. Hopefully that will change.
In Followup: Daniel Maldonado I wrote:
of course in a medieval backwater with a veneer of modernism, things are altogether different.
If Obama failed to address any of these three issues in a meaningful way, his speech was less than worthless.
Help me figure this one out please: Let's see, you state that the Arab world perhaps will now see that the US is not a front for Israel, yet many of Israel's concerns are the same as America's. Israel's desire to absorb the westbank is not a concern held commonly with the US–and that is Israel's no. 1 political issue that drives all others. Israel's desire to attack Iran is not a concern held commonly with the US–and that ranks right up there with no. 1. Those positions are not US positions. What exactly does the US have in common with Israel on those?
Glad to see that the Zionists–except perhaps for Witty's faltering efforts–no longer engage in any pretext of morality. Certainly gives clarity to the issues.
Well because then in all fairness, he would have to mention the bloodthirsty God of the Hebrew Bible, and I figure he wouldn't want to go there, right?
When will American Jews grow up? Racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern European Ashenazim stole Palestine from the native population in 1947-8.
it is perfectly legitimate for all non-Jews throughout the world to hate Jews.
Slavery? Wow now that is a stretch, occupation sucks, so do the settlements, but comparing it to slavery is absolutely ridiculous. You guys let your emotions get in the way of any sort of reason
Racist, murderous, genocidal ethnic Ashkenazim invaded Palestine to steal the country and to genocide the native population. Palestinians had every right to resist by every means as they still do under Nuremberg Law which is an integral component of international law. When will American Jews grow up? Racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern European Ashenazim stole Palestine from the native population in 1947-8.
it is perfectly legitimate for all non-Jews throughout the world to hate Jews.
No, it is not. You are blaming all Jews for the actions of some, and completely ignoring the role of the Holocaust as the critical impetus for the creation of Israel. Any other people would have done exactly the same. A reasonable assessment of Israeli culpability encompasses their ongoing ethnic cleansing, colonization, and lack of interest in making a just peace, not some silly implicit assumption that they should have remained amongst the Europeans who just murdered half their number. Would YOU have stayed? I damn well would not have. Your comment is racist and way over the line. You should be banned.
That would be the racist Zionist regime Richard that will dispappear naturally…Do you have a problem with the racist Zionist regime disappearing naturally due to its own actions? I think that it would behoove you to read from the following reports to get a different perspective on Iran and Hezbollah, and Hamas, as your Zionist Israel has been no innocent player in the region and has managed to create much of its own enemies and problems with its over use of force, it's tendency to dispossess Palestinians ands Arabs from their lands and occupy them, it's tendency to oppress the Palestinian people, it's use of collective punishment, it's use of spies and covert operations in other countries to create situations that can be manipulated, and the list goes on and on and on… Israel's greatest enemy is not Iran, not Hezbollah, not Hamas… it is Zionism and the Zionists who run it from within and those Western Zionists who selfishly support it from without with no real sympathy for the best interests of the people of the region, including the Jews…: Iran wages lonely war on terror By M K Bhadrakumar http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF03Ak02... *** Hezbollah spices up Israel-Iran mix By Kaveh L Afrasiabi http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF03Ak02... ***** Obama's Iran overture derailed By Shahir Shahidsaless http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF03Ak02...
You've never actually read the Quran, have you?
I just love the typical responses of the average Zionist…
Chu, not entirely sure about that. Congress is a bunch of lily-livered cowards. They sign the AIPAC letters only as long as there's no potential blowback, because they've taken the contributions and are bought-and-paid-for. But there are limits. they no longer can hide under the cover of darkness. The only ones openly defying Obama are hard-core Zionists who have always put Israel's interests first — Weiner, Cantor and Berkley. Even Steny Hoyer who signed the letter has publicly stated he backs Obama's freeze on the settlements. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeq...
My comment is neither racist nor over the line. Americans are simply trained to believe that Jews should not receive the sort of treatment they dish out. What is sauce for the goose is gravy for the non-Jewish gander. Jews expect non-Jews to show acknowledgment, remorse, and atonement for anti-Jewish crimes that have arisen from non-Jewish politics. In reciprocation non-Jews must expect Jews to show acknowledgement, remorse, and atonement for the crimes that have arisen from Jewish politics. In the case of Zionism, Israel claims to be the Jewishstate (Judenstaat), Silentio consentio est.
To disassociate himself from Zionist crimes, a self-identifying Jews must 1. condemn Zionism and the State of Israel, 2. demand that Obama designate Israel a criminal genocidal terrorist state, 3. demand the arrest of at least the top 10,000 donors to Zionist causes for aiding and abetting Zionist terrorism, 4. demand the seizure of all the assets of those Zionist donors, 5. demand the seizure of all assets of the Israel Lobby, 6. demand the dismantle of the Zionist state, the repatriation of all Palestinian refugees, the reconveyance of all stolen properties to their rightful owners, and payment exemplary as well as compensatory damages to all Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims that have suffered damages as a result of Zionism. Any self-identifying Jew that fails to meet any of the above requirements is a stealth Zionist and as hateworthy as the Israeli soldier that kills Palestinian school children. All the formerly Jewish members of Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel take the position that I have outline.
I was somewhat disappointed in President Obama's speech in that I felt it wasn't as truthful as it should have been. I wonder why he did not refer to the Jewish state of Israel and instead referred to Israel, was it because it was an Arab/Muslim audience and not an American, Jewish Zionist, or Israeli audience? I think he should have clarified that the war on terrorism, which has been no doubt imprisoning, killing, and maiming many innocent Muslims, is supposed to be a war on Al Qaeda and its affiliates due to its attack on 9/11 and its attacks around the world on innocent civilians, and that it is not a war on Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas on behalf of the Jewish state Israel…. The following is a good analysis of Muslim expectation written by Ayman El-Amir before Pres. Obama 's speech: Muslim expectations The thing Obama most needs to embrace in his upcoming address to Muslims is a commitment that from now on the US will act even-handedly, writes Ayman El-Amir http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/949/op15.htm
Why didn't he say the hate and violence in the Old Testament is wrong? Why didn't he mention how Israeli Jewish Zionists treat the native to the lands Palestinian Muslims and Christians?
The Corries did not even get an apology from Israel for the death of their daughter. Israel's supporters embarked on a campaign to paint Rachel Corrie as a moron responsible for her own death and to smear any tribute to her cause as anti-semitic. Such depravity is shocking.
Richard, it seems to me that you use the language of balance rather than proposing an actual commitment to balance. Palestinian suffering, when mentioned by U.S. politicians, is nearly always "sourceless"–exactly what Phil was referring to in regards to Gaza being "intolerable." The insinuation of your comment on blame is that Palestinians are as much to blame for the massive destruction of Gaza as the Israelis are. That sounds very nice and "balanced", but do you actually hold to that philosophy in a balanced way? In other words, do you hold Israelis responsible for rocket attacks on Sderot? "Balance" language is all well and good, but it can also be cover for a lot of nonsense. Defenders of an unjust status quo, from segregationist America to apartheid South Africa, have always been willing to draw on arguments about "balance" and "not singling people out for blame" in order to protect a power imbalance in their favor. If there is blame on both sides, that's fine–let's stop giving military funding to both sides! I'm all about that proposal. You can start a campaign to end any military funding to Palestinians, which shouldn't be hard. I'll sign onto it. In turn, sign on to a preexisting campaign to end military funding to Israelis. There! We're even: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=21...
Plus, PWS, the world reaction to the speech was uniformly positive (wait until they show the approval numbers in post-speech polls), but the man-on-the-street interviews continually say Obama has to back up his words with action. He intends to. He's already got the entire EU parroting the same talking points everytime they meet with an Israeli gvernment official. That's why Bibi cancelled his trip to Europe (to avoid another butt-kicking) and he's reportedly been seen sweating, panicking and anxious in public.
Not the time, nor place, Geof. But believe me, there's been a lot of back-channel communication about that travesty, and that's colored Obama's perceptions of the M/E crisis.
Nice, Joachim can I join your KKK rally I hear your Klan leader hates Jews with a passion!
Wait a minute — that's a brilliant observation. Note how Obama characterized the Palestinian struggle — using violence against their oppressors as countrproductive. He compared it to the freedom of blacks in the US, which was won only through peaceful means. It was his very eloquent way of saying that the Palestinians = oppressed US slaves . . . which equates Israel occupationists = white supremacists of the South. Whoa!
Joachim nice sources, you forgot to include the Aryan Nation website that you so often blog at.
I do not even know how to read between the lines anymore. I hope this marks a substantial change in the US approach to dealing with the Palestinians. I would love to see the US use their foreign aid to Israel as leverage as well.
Congratulations Martillo! You got someone to reply to one of your self-promoting comments! Joachim, you are a self-hating Arab and in your old age you are returning to your tribal roots of Jew-hatred. Your postings make this quite very clear. You wouldn't know an Ashkenazi person from a French omelette, but that doesn't stop you from pontificating on this. What a laugh.
I worked for over 10 years either in the OT or in the Israeli Military Industrial Complex. Not only do I read and speak Modern Israeli Hebrew, but I am also a distant cousin of the late MK Zvulun Hammer and have a good number of contemptible racist Israeli family members, whom I despise and would like to see blown up by the Palestinian resistance.. I know exactly what sort of Nazis Israeli Zionists are. If you started by admitting your Jewish racism, I might pay attention to your accusation, but until you show awareness of what you are, you must be considered just another delusional racist Jewish Nazi.
I worked for over 10 years either in the OT or in the Israeli Military Industrial Complex. Not only do I read and speak Modern Israeli Hebrew, but I am also a distant cousin of the late MK Zvulun Hammer and have a good number of contemptible racist Israeli family members, whom I despise and would like to see blown up by the Palestinian resistance.. I know exactly what sort of Nazis Israeli Zionists are. If you started by admitting your Jewish racism, I might pay attention to your accusation, but until you show awareness of what you are, you must be considered just another delusional racist Jewish Nazi.
Chu, Hamas has been firing rockets from "peace-loving Gaza" and bombing the southern half of Israel. 1,000,000 Israelis lived in underground bomb shelters during Cast Lead and they still live under the threat of Qassam rockets. Hezbollah has been firing Russian- and Chinese-made Katyusha rockets into the northern part of Israel. The cities in the center have been subject to suicide bombings which the wall is trying to cut down on. Where precisely should Israelis live, then? Have a look at map next time, before posting.
Martillo, Arabs STILL live in Israel, in fact in even larger numbers than ever before in history. Genocide???? Martillo: "it is perfectly legitimate for all non-Jews throughout the world to hate Jews. " Doubtless it is perfectly legitimate for everyone to see Joachim Martillo for what he really is: a racist, bigoted antisemitic Arab. Go back to Syria, where you came from.
I am fascinated that Obama is pushing an "anti-settlement" policy which says, in simple terms, that there are certain areas where Jews may not live. What if someone said that about black people? Coming from Barack Obama, this is a remarkable piece of official bigotry. Fascinating.
Marion, if you think that Christians and Muslims were in the Holy Land before the Jews, then you really don't understand the meaning of earlier and later, do you?
The speech was full of deceit. The US is engaging in violence against Afghan and Pakistani civilians even while the president speaks. Yesterday it was reported there are now three million Pakistani refugees created from Obama's Af-Pak war. Arabs should realize nothing will change without more resistance to US dominance and Israeli aggressive expansion. Non-violent resistance is preferred, but whether that will stop the drones, aerial bombings of villages and Israeli expansion is doubtful. Obama should take his own advice: Americans must abandon violence..
Poor, poor ULI piney. As if any country has only two concerns. Go to school, come back when you are less ignorant and more open to learning the truth.
If you drive a car (or bulldozer) in the USA and someone jumps in front of you, the driver is not guilty of murder or manslaughter. Rachel Corrie was a silly girl who thought, along with others, that "resisting the Zionists" was some kind of video game where no one gets hurt. Instead, it is a war zone. Israel is perhaps guilty of being too soft on these foreign anarchists so they got used to the idea that they can play as much as they want. What would happen in ANY OTHER WAR ZONE? The earlier the anarchists recognize that this is quite a dangerous and deadly activity, the sooner they can safegaurd themselves.
Yes. Here's a related issue: Does anyone find it a bit contradictory that the US focuses on human rights in China while China is the biggest creditor of the US debtor nation, but the US avoids focusing on human rights in Israeli controlled lands while the US is the main creditor of Israel?
Good thing that criminal law is on the israeli side in this manner. Corrie clearly commited accidental suicide. Her parents should be paying for the trauma counseling required by the innocent driver.
Rachel Corrie jumped in front of a GIANT and ARMORED bulldozer which is covered in armor plating and has tiny bullet-proof windows. She thought that SINGING LA DEE DAA would stop the bulldozer. Maybe it did once. She only had to be wrong once to lose the game she was playing. She was wrong. She lost. Very sad. Very stupid, too.
Psalm 137: http://bit.ly/ANiSz (Rehearsing for Evensong a few years ago, the chapel choir I was a member of only agreed to sing it after some emergency theology;))
Consider the condition of Arabs living under Arab rule. Consider the condition of Pals living under Pal rule. Under Israeli rule, they are actually better off – better educated, healthier, more prosperous. Strange, but true. This is one of the reasons that they are trying so hard to stay connected to Israel (e.g. Gazans don't seek work in Egypt, only in Israel.) Pals are mosst certainly to blame for their own condition.
Ethnic Ashkenazi Zionists in Stolen and Occupied Palestine are racist, murderous, genocidal invaders, interlopers, and thieves. Their only connection to Palestine is mythological: Khaleej Times: Israel Steals Palestinian Heritage, History.
The Arab regimes were terrified of Obama demanding openness, honesty and democracy. If anyone was making back-channel demands for watering down, it was the ARabs. Mubarkak in Egypt and the alSauds in Saudi Arabia would have been first…
Yes, Marion, he did not acknowledge the difference between traditional resistance fighters such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and traditional terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. I suspect he knows the difference but fudged it as the distinction would too accurately by implication describe the nature of the state of Israel.
Huzzah for the colonialist argument! Jake, you are absolutely right. Israel should invade the entire Middle East, and all those poor Arabs would be better off.
More Jews lived under German Nazi rule in 1940 than in 1933. This fact does not make German Nazis any less genocidal and the comparable statistic for Jewish Zionists does not make them any less genocidal today. If anything Jewish Nazis like Jake are far more extreme and far more dangerous today than the German Nazis were in the 30s.
BTW, I am not an Arab. I worked for over 10 years either in the OT or in the Israeli Military Industrial Complex. Not only do I read and speak Modern Israeli Hebrew, but I am also a distant cousin of the late MK Zvulun Hammer and have a good number of contemptible racist Israeli family members, whom I despise and would like to see blown up by the Palestinian resistance.. I know exactly what sort of Nazis Israeli Zionists are. If you started by admitting your Jewish racism, I might pay attention to your accusation, but until you show awareness of what you are, you must be considered just another delusional racist Jewish Nazi.
"thors" is a piece of work – probably typing from some basement with swastikas all over… pathetic…
Obama should talk! Isn't the USA, which is following a policy crafted by racist Jewish Zionists, blowing up a lot of innocent civilians in Pakistan with predator drones? I have to reiterate that under Nuremberg Law, Palestinians have the right to blow up any Israeli Zionist whether in the OT or in pre-1967 Israel. Under the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, all signatories (including the Israeli government) probably have the obligation to remove or to destroy the criminal conglomeration of genocidal Zionist interlopers in Stolen and Occupied Palestine.
I am not an Arab and yes I do have some Ashkenazi ancestry, which makes it important to me that Jewish criminals like you be hunted down, tried, convicted, and sentenced to long punishments. I worked for over 10 years either in the OT or in the Israeli Military Industrial Complex. Not only do I read and speak Modern Israeli Hebrew, but I am also a distant cousin of the late MK Zvulun Hammer and have a good number of contemptible racist Israeli family members, whom I despise and would like to see blown up by the Palestinian resistance.. I know exactly what sort of Nazis Israeli Zionists are. If you started by admitting your Jewish racism, I might pay attention to your accusation, but until you show awareness of what you are, you must be considered just another delusional racist Jewish Nazi.
I think the death toll during the Gaza siege in January was 1400 Palestinians to 10 Israelis. Don't explain how they were all terrorists. I've heard it already. 4 Israelis were killed in friendly fire.
Chabad Rabbi speaks of how to treat Arab neighbors in answer to a question. In a nutshell:" Kill their children and their women and their cattle." His justifciation is the Torah. When he realized that he said something in front of the non-Jews that is only said among themselves, his damage control was whining about how when the Muslims say radical things their intent is racist and his is not. This is Zionism. This is the stuff they belive in but won't say it to your face. A rare look at what conservatives and ultra conservateves believe in: http://www.forward.com/articles/107112/
no what's pathetic is how predictable your replies are: "antisemitic!" "hitler!" "nazi!" you can't disprove the guy so you pretend to care about racism/bigotry Zionism is racism.
Bad analogy. What the anti-settlement policy says is that, under international law, there are certain areas (the Ocupied Territories) where Israeli citizens may not live. The fact that Israel only encourages Israeli Jews, and not Israeli Arabs, to move into the Occupied Territories merely proves that Israel's violation of international law is motivated by ethnic and religious bigotry.
Yoni C. try contributing an actual argument rather than hysterics, buffoon. Clowns like you have to straw man the opposition to mask your own ignorance.
Kind of like how the Nazi State of Israhell does not recognize the right of return for Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists and the Jewish terrorist Army in 1948. Yea, that's far worse because it's official policy that is accepted by most Jews in the diaspora and certainly Israeli Nazi Jews.
And Scum in Jerusalem does not give a damn about blacks or any other human being other than his own inbred political constituency. He doesn't even care about Jews. Just Zionists. No one is falling for your idiocy.
Yeah, I think the president said that Jews are not allowed to colonize space. A top secret file has been leaked that the Pentagon has plans to occupy the moon in the next decade. It also reveals that Jews cannot leave the thermosphere, because they have an invisible leash that anchors them to Jerusalem and they will explode if they explore this lofty altitude. Fascinating, isn't it?
That's funny. What does "international law" say about Arabs living in Israel? Or do you support the dismantling of Arab 'settlements' in Israel, too? Are you an equal-opportunity bigot or do you reserve bigotry only for your treatment of Jews?
I repeat: there was no ethnic cleansing of Arabs by Israel. This is why 1 in 5 Israeli citizens today is an Arab. The comparison with the actual-Nazi-supporting Arabs (see Mufti Hajj amin al Husseini) is most illuminating. You have your facts fack to bront. Sorry, the real world doesn't work that way.
Prove a single statement you just provided. Or stick it somewhere else.
Bull. YOu are an Arab of Syrian descent. Perhaps this explains why you "would like to see [your relatives] blown up by the Palestinian resistance". How revealing.
look who's talking.
It's refreshing to see such honesty in Israelis. Here in America, we believe Jews to be kind & tempered. You comments show your lack of respect for your main ally (if only) in the world. The way in which you laugh at the death of American citizen, shows us more than you can imagine. You would not see us laughing about Gilad Shalit.
Chu, you didn't answer my question: where should Israelis move to? You said they should move somewhere safe. I suggest that you have no idea how small the entire disputed territory is. Learn before you mouth off. You are embarrassing yourself in public. Repeatedly. As for death tolls, most Pals WERE terrorists. And they weren't bombed from the air; they were largely killed by ground forces in gunfights at close quarters, after they had boobytrapped hundreds of homes, schools and houses of worship. Remember, the PALS worship in a death cult. OTHERS just want to live.
Are you Martillo? Martillo is a Syrian Arab.
Martillo, we are tgetting tired of yoru cut-and-paste howling at the moon. Give the gentle readers some more respect. No one responds to your rantings because you are so obviously deranged. EVen MondoCritt3ers aren't intersted inyou. Get help.