Well, since you wrote this I note that State Dept. spokesperson Ian Kelly has gone much further than Rice in saying that Goldstone was “unfair” to Israel by “concentrating on it so much” so the running of intereference for it by the U.S. has gotten a helluva lot less tentative. See:

link to haaretz.com

But I was amused to see that your previous musing about what Rice might have meant by keeping this in the proper “venue” was just *absolutely* spot on. From that Haaretz article again:

“Kelly said Friday that the United States wanted to keep discussion of the
report within the council and had very serious concerns about a recommendation that it be raised at other bodies, including the International Criminal Court.”

(I.e., good call dude.)

In any event given Kelly’s formal State Dept. statement now it seems to me the answer is in, and, taking off from Oscar’s very smart observation Obama may as well have come out and said that he was just kidding in his Cairo speech. Despite the probable frantic attempts to bribe or cajol Abbas to meet with Netanyahu and Obama at the upcoming U.N. meeting I suspect that ain’t gonna happen. And all this foolish excitement about Obama’s new peace initiative over there is now gonna go by the wayside as we hear the non-too-gentle sound of belief in Obama’s balloon justifiably go hissing away in the arab and moslem world.

The ball’s now in the arab court and as is typical I suspect we are just waiting for the next explosion over there when the Palestinian population makes itself heard.

Just dumbfounds me why Obama would do this to himself. After all it’s not even as if he was in the position of having to change something he was already doing; all he had to do was to say and do *nothing*. And yet despite that ability for no obvious reason whatsoever here he has his minions go out and put the lie to his Cairo speech which had hardly even stopped reverberating in the microphones, when at the very least he could have just waited and used the leverage to try and get Netanyahu to stop the expansion of the settlements. Instead, for free, and with Netanyahu’s thumb still firmly in his eye over same, here he goes and smears himself with insincerity, and at the same time has Clinton hammer at the Iranians despite essentially admitting they are no threat via stopping the deployment of those missiles in Eastern Europe. (And despite Ehud Barak now coming out and admitting Iran is no existential threat to Israel even.)

Mystifying. Like some case of voluntary castration the man has simply thrown his credibility out the window. If I were the Republicans I would be smiling into my sleeve knowing that this was a man who is all words who can be rolled with the greatest of ease.

That hissing sound is likely not going to be confined to the arab world I don’t think. And Mr. Obama may well go down as not only coming into office not only with perhaps the greatest of public hopes that any modern President has ever had, but also then of having destroyed what hopes the public had in him faster than any other modern President too.

What a spectacle.

To do so will require great courage and great strength – and that’s why it is so necessary for us to continue to speak out, so they know we have their back.

What kind of monsters would use their own babies as human shields?
Ultra-Orthodox Jews:

Police arrested 15 ultra-Orthodox Jews on Saturday during clashes that erupted after Haredim broke into a parking lot in Jerusalem, in the latest protest against the opening of the site on Shabbat. (…)

About 150 protestors managed to force their way into the site, despite efforts by police to prevent their entry.

Police subsequently threatened to forcibly remove the Haredi and bring a vehicle with a water cannon to the scene. At this point, a woman holding a baby joined the men demonstrating, in order to prevent police from making good on their threat.

see also:

–thehasbarabuster.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-kind-of-monsters-would-use-their.html

also

–vodpod.com/watch/1579256-must-see-11-year-old-girl-human-shield

–www.normanfinkelstein.com/wehrmacht-to-use-jews-as-human-shields-in-war-against-bolsheviki-bandits/

–www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Balatah_R_C__2210/Article_2566.html

–www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story2124.html

–www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Palestinians_as_Israeli_Human_Sheilds_5358/Article_2874.html

–www.palestineremembered.com/images/dailymail_humanshield.jpg

(strange formatting to get around spam filter)

Anyone remember Hillary Clinton’s April 3, 2009 tepid criticism of Israel demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem with modified Caterpillar bulldozers? “Um, this kind of, uh, activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the ‘road map’,” Clinton said, referring to the long-stalled peace plan.

Unhelpful.

Now, compare that to the fist-shaking rage of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, in referring to the Goldstone Report: “The United States is reviewing very carefully what is a very lengthy document. We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided, and basically unacceptable. We have very serious concerns about many of the recommendations in the report.”

So let’s do what MTV calls a “mash-up” of Clinton and Rice. An imaginary Reuters story:

Immediately following the news of the home demolitions in East Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton told reporters: “The United States is reviewing very carefully what occurred in East Jerusalem. We have long expressed our very serious concern with the activities of home demolitions in East Jerusalem and the Israelis’ policies in this matter, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided, and basically unacceptable. We have very serious concerns about the ongoing blockade and deprivation of basic human rights in Palestine.”

Instead, we get a mumbled “unhelpful.”

You probably believe the Jews killed JFK, Lincoln and Martin Luther King.
No, I do not. Not only is there not a shred of evidence to support any of these claims, there is ample evidence to thoroughly disprove them.

I read the ZOG article. I agree with everything Mr. Berlet says. He correctly denounces the notion that there is a some eternal nefarious ‘Jewish Lobby’ pulling the strings behind world events. However, he leaves out the massive evidence that there is an Israeli Lobby in the United States, the current leadership of which is comprised of extreme pro-colonization Zionists whose policies are stunningly detrimental to the United States, and also to Israel.

Their facilitation of opened-ended support of Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization has already ensured that in several decades there will not be a Jewish state, the continued existence of which I supported when there was a chance in hell of a stable two-state solution. One objective of some moderate Zionist supporters of Israeli, e.g. J-Street, that I support very strongly is a change in Lobby leadership. I think moderate leaders will be critical in ensuring that whatever state succeeds the current quasi-theocratic government continues to provide the function of a safe haven for Jews. If there is no justice for Palestinians with commensurate drawdown of hostility between Jewish and Arab peoples in the region, Israeli Jews might be queuing up at ports and airports after the first war that Israel loses. Everybody loses wars eventually. Tiny nations face the prospect of occupation, and sooner or later the regional nuclear balance will change, and their nukes won’t save them.

If you want to learn about the Lobby and understand this major aspect of where people like me are coming from, I suggest you read The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Here is an excerpt from Stephen Walt’s blog.

He might have invoked notorious terrorist sympathizer Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who called AIPAC “the most effective general interest group … across the entire planet,” or even former Senate Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) who told AIPAC’s annual conference that “without your constant support … the U.S.-Israeli relationship would not be.” Heck, bin Laden could even have brought up Alan Dershowitz, who once wrote that “my generation of Jews … became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of democracy.”

I can see where you might view the article with suspicion. Most of the critical links are either broken or had the content removed leaving a stub. The latter happened to Fox News’ (hardly an anti-Israeli organization) Carl Cameron’s four part series on Israel and 9–11. It was up, then just stubs were left. I have no idea if the stubs are still there, but you can find rips of all four on youtube.

60 Israelis on Tourist Visas Detained Since Sept. 11, Government Calls Several Cases ‘of Special Interest,’ Meaning Related to Post-Attacks, Investigation By John Mintz, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, November 23, 2001; Page A22

U.S. Deports Israelis Detained on Sept. 11: Diplomats Pitched In for Five Movers Caught in Anti-Terror in Anti-Terror Sweep, Cattan, Nacha, Forward, 11-23-2001

What did Israel know in advance of the 9-11 attacks?, Christopher Ketcham, Counterpunch

I do not blame the entire Israeli government for the role its operatives played in 9-11, which was almost certainly a passive one, of standing by with foreknowledge and letting it happen because their bosses, extremist elements in the Israeli intelligence community, thought that it would be good for Israel. I certainly don’t blame the Israeli people, and I think the notion that ‘the Jews’ were behind it is a facile anti-semitic slur. It may be shocking to you, but I don’t blame you either. :)

Did you get this propaganda from Mohammad Atta’s suitcase?
Aspects of this story are documented from many credible sources, including the American Jewish and Israeli press. I used to believe it was conspiracy nonsense, too. There is always wild nonsense floating around after complex events. Unfortunately, too many data for this story continue to stand up to reasonable scrutiny.

You quote some radical liar who has as much credibility as Tawana Brawley.
Exactly which source in the story do you think is a liar, or do you think the author is a liar?

You probably also believe 4000 Jews didn’t show up at the World Trade Center.
No, I do not. There isn’t a shred of credible evidence to support that claim.