What news on the Rialto? I’m afraid it’s all bleak. Elliott Abrams’s neoconservative rejection of the two-state solution is echoed on the left by Matt Berkman’s analysis: Nobody really wants it (though he’s not against its imposition by force). So some day the realist position in the Middle East may also be the idealist-democratic position: one man, one vote, one state. Give it five years or ten? And I say this as someone who entered this issue as a realist, who wants the whole dern mess off the U.S. plate and was willing to support Partition on that basis.
Berkman takes on the darling of the West, PA prime minister Salaam Fayyad:
Having come to power through a suspension of the democratic process, Fayyad’s popular support leaves much to be desired. According to a poll released last month, only 26 percent of Palestinians consider his government the PA’s legitimate successor (slightly less than the Gaza-based Hamas regime of Ismail Haniyeh). Fayyad himself lacks any real constituency outside the international donor community. His political party attracted only 2.5 percent of the vote in the most recent parliamentary election (which brought Hamas to power), and he’s been known to outrage other Palestinian factions with what they perceive as overly conciliatory gestures to Israel, including his apparent renunciation of the Palestinian “right of return” during an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last Friday.
While, for the West, Fayyad’s crowning achievement has been the creation of a durable Palestinian security force capable of waging war on Hamas (something I described here), his Palestinian detractors understand these developments in radically different terms.
“Fayyad aims to project an image of a competent Palestinian administration,” writes Ali Abunimah. “But what is really taking shape in the West Bank today is a police state, where all sources of opposition or resistance — real or suspected — to either the PA regime, or the Israeli occupation are being systematically repressed by US-funded and trained Palestinian ‘security forces’ in full coordination with Israel.”
Khaled Amayreh, a noted Palestinian journalist, observed this week that "Human rights and civil liberties are virtually non-existent [in the West Bank] as the PA security agencies exercise absolute control over all aspects of life. People are unceremoniously fired from their jobs at the slightest suspicion regarding their political or ideological orientations. And the justice system is in a state of chronic paralysis due to the often wanton interference by the security apparatus."
All of this speaks to a fact little acknowledged by pundits and analysts but tacitly recognized by the United States government — at least when it comes to the Palestinians — as early as 2006, when the Bush administration began orchestrating the overthrow of the elected Hamas government: namely, that the two-state solution as envisioned by the U.S. and the international community will never be implemented voluntarily, and can only be imposed by force on a resisting population (a fact that applies in equal measure to Israelis and Palestinians).
Which is not to say that the two-state solution is undesirable. It may in fact be the only alternative to perpetual warfare and apartheid-like conditions given Israel/Palestine’s zero-sum reality. But despite ideologically-motivated attempts to portray it otherwise, it’s not a popular solution, and it won’t come about democratically. Polls have long purported to show broad, mutual support for a two-state solution among Israelis and Palestinians. But this is a deception. Cheery journalistic framing almost always conceals irreconcilable differences that emerge upon closer examination.
…when respondents were asked to evaluate a range of potential solutions to the problem of Jerusalem, majorities on both sides rejected every known compromise.
On the equally insoluble issue of refugees, a 2008 poll from the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that nearly 90 percent of Palestinian respondents rejected a solution that would require them to “waive” the Palestinian right of return, “even if the price would be the non-conclusion of an agreement” with Israel. Israelis, for their part, refuse to entertain even a symbolic recognition of Palestinian suffering as proposed by the Clinton Parameters, no less the limited repatriation of refugees that a pragmatic accommodation demands (see the OneVoice survey).
For proponents of the two-state solution, then, the problem is democracy itself. And with Palestinian democracy now extinguished and replaced — at least in the West Bank — with an increasingly efficient “two-statist” hegemony under Salam Fayyad, the international community has turned its attention to Israel, where the reactionary political forces that subverted Ehud Barak’s peace agenda in 2000 are rattling their sabers once more.
Funny how Berkman leaves out the fact that US backed a coup attempt by Abbas, and that he long since exceeded his electoral mandate. But then, neoconservatives take a dim view of democratic process anyway. Just look at the caging lists they put together in Florida.
Chaos, I think you missed this–
“as early as 2006, when the Bush administration began orchestrating the overthrow of the elected Hamas government”
I don’t know who Berkman is, but overall this seemed like a very honest article to me. Far too people inside and outside the MSM aremuch like, well, Richard Witty. They ignore aspects of reality that go against the portrait they want to paint. In fact, if you point out certain realities that go against what they want to believe, they think you are being malicious. Berkman does a very good job pointing out here that what Fayyad is building looks an awful lot like an efficient police state. Crime is down, which Palestinians like, and economic activity is better than it was, but they pay a price in freedom for all this.
I got my wires crossed. I didn’t mean Berkman, I meant Abrams. I don’t believe Berkman is a neocon. :)
I agree. Very few people commenting on the situation like to point out the totally illegitimacy of the Abbas/Fayyad regime.
The loyalty of the Clayton forces is the key variable. Who will they support when the hammer comes down? Will they turn on the Israelis or take the side of the Palestinians?
Its hard to know if the citations by the left are realistic or naive bias or overt corrupt propaganda.
As Phil describes there is no single state, as in a single nation, a single identity, and the ideologically driven “advocates” aren’t working to construct that, certainly not through the path of BDS.
It is an EXTREMELY remote fantasy that the Israeli youth will mass uprise against the state.
It is a horrid irony that Berkman’s dismissal of Fayyad is based on his “being the west’s favorite Palestinian”, as imposed solution, while BDS advocates similarly seek an imposed solution.
Of the choices that are possible, the two-state solution is the only feasible.
They are two nations, not two federal states. They are not Vermont and New Hampshire.
Whites and blacks just can’t live together, huh, Witty? That’s what you believe, huh? Because that’s what we’re hearing.
Jews, Muslims and Christians all coexisted just fine before Zionism.
WTF? What on earth is Witty saying by comparing Israel and the Palestinian collective to not Vermont and New Hapshire?
He’s saying he doesn’t want to live with no Ayrabs or share his precious Holy Land with them.
Actually, I’m reiterating Phil’s comment that the communities are currently entirely separate, and then adding my own two cents that the proponents of the single state are currently advocating that that be exacerbated by BDS.
What single nation would you guys create? Are you capable?
Oh, that’s right, Witty. Because advocating that Israel tears down the wall and giving everyone in Israel-Palestine an equal voice in, say, who gets to do what with the nukes, that would just isolate people even more.
“Separate but equal,” Witty? Really now?
Gee, what about the federal model, all the separate states under the Fedral umbrella? Nothing worthwhile there? How about a confederacy, rather rather thab a federal republic?
Nope! Witty rejects the notion of a federal model, as he said earlier.
Not that he, you know, hates the United States. Because it’s not like we’re an example of a system of federated states where citizenship rights are no longer linked to ethnicity.
Witty, what do you think about the Iranian sanctions? and the sanctions imposed on Gaza? why double standards Witty?
Witty: put your brain in gear before you open your mouth:It is an extremely remote fantasy that the Israeli youth will mass uprise against the state.
“I’m reminded of the most salient fact of visiting Israel and Palestine: the two societies are completely separate, leave aside the colonization. The Israelis have nothing to do with Palestinians. They import their minorities. They avoid Palestinian culture, they think they live in the west. There is no sense of shared fate…”
True (if sweeping generalizations can ever be true…). On the other hand the Jews in the upper West and East Sides constantly mingle with Palestinians and Arabs and in fact are just one society for all practical purposes. In fact, Phil worships in a temple that is also a mosque. Also, the Jewish kids at home are encouraged to speak Arabic so as to make sure that the shared fate is constantly strengthened. During Ramadan, it is quite common to see the Jews visiting their Arab neighbors for the breaking of the fast. Ah, if we could only learn from the examples set by the Jews of Manhattan! What a great place the middle east would be! And those cheeky Tel-Aviv Jews. How dare they want to live like in the West. Don’t they understand that they have to live by the example of the Manhattan Jews?
These cheeky Tel-Aviv Jews, eee?
Chaos,
What you constantly do is racist. You take an example of a few Israelis behaving badly and imply that it is all of them. In your case you are implying all Tel-Avivians are bad based on a couple of interviews. And this is not the first time you do it. You are a hater with racist tendencies.
Sure. Israelis call Obama a “nigger” and I’m the racist.
Also, your “a few bad apples” argument isn’t going to cut any cake on a forum that is primarily composed of liberal-leaning Americans (Jewish or otherwise). We’ve heard it before.
“Sure. Israelis call Obama a “nigger” and I’m the racist.”
There you go again, implying that all Israelis called Obama “nigger”. Proving again that you are a racist.
I don’t suppose you’ve had any job offers from the Republican party yet, eee? I hear Glenn Beck is looking for an intern.
“Also, your “a few bad apples” argument isn’t going to cut any cake on a forum that is primarily composed of liberal-leaning Americans (Jewish or otherwise). We’ve heard it before.”
Ok, let’s find out how many liberal-Americans think that generalizing about 7 million Israelis from a couple of examples is not racist. Please chime in if you are a liberal-American and tell us what you think about what Chaos is doing. Is it racist or not?
We can wait for Shmuel to come around and talk about what he saw, as an Israeli living there. How about that? Will that satisfy you, eee?
Or better yet, just do a search and read up on past articles on this site. There’s a veritable gold mine of documentation about how Palestinians are treated differently, either as citizens or as an occupied people, in apartheid Israel.
A whole lot of Ammurkins call Obama a nigger, and according to eee, I’m a racist for saying so.
A twisty bastard, that one.
Technically, he’d have to use the label “self-hating” for you in that case, potsherd. You have to understand there’s a whole lingo to the Zionist propaganda machine that needs to be adhered to.
eee – your grasp of the truth and logic is faulty again. There is no such race as Israeli so how can it be racist to make a sweeping generalization about Israelis? If you want to claim that criticizing Israelis is equivalent to criticizing say Jews, then you are the racist for suggesting that only Jews can be Israelis. Or are you claiming that non-Jewish residents of Israel cannot be Israeli citizens? Come on hich is it?
As I said earlier on a different post, you are overlooking the current Megaphone talking point which is pointing out that Algeria did not automatically confer Algerian citizenship on non-Muslims when it kicked out the French Colonists even though the law did allow non-Muslims to apply for citizenship.
how do you make judgments, eee; how many examples do you include in a study before you reach a generalized conclusion?
earlier you wrote that “the whole world wants to make victims of Jews” (or words to that effect; you did use the term ‘whole world.’) What was your sample size; How many people did you ask before you reached that conclusion?
Israeli racism:
Poll: Half of Israeli high schoolers oppose equal rights for Arabs
“Nearly half of Israel’s high school students do not believe that Israeli-Arabs are entitled to the same rights as Jews in Israel, according to the results of a new survey released yesterday. The same poll revealed that more than half the students would deny Arabs the right to be elected to the Knesset. ”
link to haaretz.com
wow eee are you working with shin bet or something?
eee, how can you qualify the jews only privileges in Palestine ‘Israel for you’? for the right of return, settlements etc?
Chaos meant the Israeli state is racist that doesnt mean that all Israeli are racists.
I agree, we should generalize that Israeli Jews are racist because 75% of them wouldn’t agree to live in a building with Arabs, and 60% wouldn’t allow Arabs in their homes, and 40% believe that Israeli Arabs should be stripped of their right to vote. That’s a whole 25% who are potentially non-racist.
At least in this thread, I only read Chaos call Witty racist, not all Israelis.
eee, you make a true point about minimal mixing between Jewish and Arab citizens of Manhattan, but it is irrelevant. The fact is that there are millions of Jewish Americans and millions of Arab Americans. They are all guaranteed equal rights under the law in the US, the country of their citizenship and for most of them, the land of their birth. Is that true in Israel? Of course not. The Palestinians who are citizens are not granted equal rights by the Jewish State, and those more numerous in the territories are given no rights at all. In the one-state solution, they would all be equal citizens, like here. Each would be free to stick to his or her own, or mix with the other, as a matter of personal choice and circumstance. How much mixing between races is there in present-day South Africa? Does it matter? They can if they want to, but they are considered equal under the law regardless of their individual choices. If an Arab and Jew meet in the US and want to get married, they can; not so in Israel.
I know you were quoting and mocking someone – is it Berkman? – but the real question is equality of rights and opportunity, which is the western ideal, something that is shockingly lacking for 1.5 mil Palestinian citizens of Israel, and much more so for 4 mil non-citizens. What we Jews (and hopefully almost all Americans) would find INTOLERABLE here, Israeli Jews forcefully impose on others.
David,
I appreciate your civil tone .
I am the last one to argue that Israel is perfect. Israel’s attitude towards its Arab minority needs improvement.
On the other hand, I believe your judgement of Israel is not fair. Given the history of Israel and especially the second intifada the current attitude of Jews towards the Arab minority is quite healthy. Maybe I am wrong, but I wonder how long Americans would stick to their vaunted ideals if a certain minority started using suicide bombers in buses, restaurants, hotels etc and would kill 40,000 Americans? (1000 Israelis were killed in the second intifada, 40,000 is proportional to the population)
In Israel there was no one “pogrom”. The population never took out its anger on the Arab Israelis. Would people have been so sanguine in the US? I think not and I wish you never have to find out.
So in absolute terms you are right, Israel has much to improve. But in relative terms, you are being very unfair.
As for a one state solution, it will only lead to catastrophe, but that is another matter.
“Jews” and “Arabs.” Not Israelis and Palestinians.
Who’s the racist again?
Reading comprehension problems emerging again. Both Jews and Arabs discussed are Israelis. I am talking about how the Jewish majority treats the Arab minority. What is racist about that?
What is racist about the way the Jewish majority makes its Arab minority go through increased security procedures because they’re not Jewish? What is racist about the Jewish majority confiscating Arab land, making it “state land” and then giving it to Jewish immigrants? What is racist about a society that makes marrying non-Jewish non-citizens illegal and refusing to extend citizenship to theirs spouses? What is racist about the fact that polls show that almost half of Israel’s Jewish citizens want to see the others deported?
You tell me.
1) “Israel’s attitude towards its Arab minority needs improvement.” Improvement? How about full equality? Did US or SA blacks settle for improvement rather than equality? Would you?
2) You talk as if the second intifada occurred in a vacuum rather than after 30-plus years of brutal military dictatorship. You also quote a 1000 figure for Israeli dead that seems quite exaggerated (I haven’t bothered to look it up) but whatever is the true figure, it is dwarfed by Palestinian dead, as always. If you want to play the proportional game, which I don’t like no matter who does it, the Palestinian deaths could be extrpolated to hundreds of thousands of American deaths.
3) You talk about “the current attitude of Jews towards the Arab minority [being] quite healthy.” Which Arab minority? Those who are citizens did not participate in the second intifada, except for about a dozen victims, as I recall. Those in the territories are not a “minority” but a “majority” living under occupation by a foreign power. If you put them together, they are roughly equal to the number of Israeli Jews and will soon be a clear majority.
4) If you want to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians by virtue of the violence of the second intifada, what would you be willing to justify by the Palestinians in response to the far, far greater violence they have experienced at the hands of Israel. As for your hypothetical about the US, in theory, the US is supposed to identify the culprits who commit criminal acts, apprehend them, and prosecute them. If they imposed collective punishment on an entire minority group because of the acts of some, they would be behaving like Israelis in flagrant violation of international law.
5) It is a reasonable fear that the one-state solution will lead to catastrophe. It was reasonable in SA when minority whites feared that one person-one vote would lead to the same bloodbath. Reasonable, but erroneous. Permanent rule by one people over another is an ongoing catastrophe, and the idea of true equality between citizens regardless of religion or ethnic backgrouns is, I think, inevitable. It must be done carefully, perhaps in stages, with the benefit of experiences from other countries, and maximum protections against violence by one community against another, but it must be done. The alternative will never, ever bring lasting peace, because Palestinians, both citizens and non-citizens, will not accept domination by Israeli Jews any more than you would accept domination by another group. You want freedom and equality; is it so hard to imagine that others would have the same demands and will fight until they get it? Some will fight fair, and some will fight unfair, but those who fight unfair do not undermine the legitimacy of the principles of freedom and equality. Moreover, no matter how unfair they fight – suicide bombers and rockets — they are not as unfair as those who impose miserable conditions on millions of people with far greater violence.
6) I am always civil – almost always.
whoops – that was directed at eee
David,
1) How long since its funding did it take the US to give equal rights to all its citizens? 1966-1776=190 years. And the US did not have to fight for its existence constantly. It will take Israel less. Be patient and fair.
2) Check the figures, 1000 Israelis died. Of course the second intifada did not happen in a vacuum. It was part of the on going conflict since 1948. But what is your point? The fact is that it happened and it influenced attitudes on both sides. Take an example. Let’s say that several African American men in 1850 would go into a white town and kill 100 people. Do you think that the population in the town would not be outraged into blood lust because it would understand that the context is centuries of slavery? Would it even make sense to try to calm down the people with this kind of argument? And of course the argument works both ways. The Palestinians have excellent reasons not to trust us as we not to trust them. This lack of trust will need time to mend, much time.
3) I am talking about the Arab Israelis. As for the Palestinians in the West Bank, they will eventually be citizens in their own state. It make take time, but it will happen.
4) Again, you are talking about an utopia that doesn’t exist, not even in the US throughout most its history. You are trying in one fell swoop to make Israel an “utopia”. That is unfair. Social change takes time and it takes time for trust to build. There are no shortcuts that do not lead to war.
5) Unless you live in Israel your view about whether Israel should take a chance on the one state solution does not carry much weight. You have no skin in the game, and there will be no personal consequences for you if it fails. I am much less inclined to take any chance at this point and would rather face an uncertain future. I think also that the South African example is a miserable failure.
6) Thanks again, I understand my views on this blog are not popular.
So Israel is not, in fact, a modern country that currently extends equal rights to everyone?
I’m glad you’ve come to terms with that, eee.
Israel extends equal right to everyone de jure, but de facto the Arab minority has less opportunities because of prejudice and mistrust. Israel is certainly a modern country, but that doesn’t mean it does not have to improve.
That would hold water if there weren’t whole villages and highway systems in Israel and the occupied territories that weren’t Jews-only.
And as you’ve said, that’s exactly the way you like it. Why should your quality of life have to change, just because their are darker skinned people suffering to pay for it?
And in any event, that’s a bald face contradiction. You can’t say you extend equal rights and then not actually do it. And it’s not like that isn’t being legally institutionalized, either.
Again, baseless accusation. Show me ONE highway system in Israel that is Jews only. And the ones in the territories are because of security, nothing else.
And again putting words in my mouth, which is very low. I was speaking about Israel not allowing mass immigration to it by accepting the right of return.
Security? So that Israel can transfer its population to the occupied territories in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions? That’s you’re idea of security?
Really, the US did it for 190 years. You have a lot of practice. Does everyone in the US get equal rights even now?
The amendment to the law you link to is stupid but does not take rights aways from anybody.
Whether or not Israelis or Israel comply with the Geneva Conventions, they do not deserve to be shoot at without a trial. Their demand for security is legitimate.
Are Israelis all such total cowards like you, that they have to hide in the US’s shadow? Bonus points for equating yourself with the Confederate States of the South, eee — clinging to your abhorrent practices and willing to declare war on your neighbors if that’s what it takes to maintain your supremacy over “lesser races.”
Whether or not the Palestinians or Palestine comply with anything, they do not deserve to be shot at without trial.
Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.
is that a copyright infringement or are you permitted to plagiarize the Hasbara manual (this sentence is on page 9, iirc)
Whenever you don’t agree with someone go the dehumanization route, call them a bad, hasbara drone, etc, that is reading from a manual.
Gee, BSDNow, I’m sorry that are predilection for wanting to see Palestinian rights respected is getting in the way of our agreeing with your fanatical religious beliefs of judenreich uber alles.
Hasbara Manual : Israel Project 2009-Global Language Dictionary: (pdf document, can’t cut and paste!)
Paragraph5, page 7:
WORDS THAT WORK:
-Are Israelis perfect? No. Do we make mistakes? Yes but we want a better future and we are working towards it.
“Don’t pretend that Israel is without mistakes or fault. It’s not true and no one
believes it.
Use humility: I know that in trying to defend its children and citizens from terrorists Israel has accidentally hurt innocent people. I know it and I’m sorry for it ..etc.
Be careful with your tone: A patronising, parental tone will turn Americans ans Europeans off etc.
link to newsweek.com
————————-
En somme, eee is just another hasbara-trained dude!.
When you don’t agree with someone, call them a Zio-bot, Hasbara troll, robot, anything to not debate them on moral grounds, anything to call them sub-human. Anything to possibly cling to to try to get away from the fact that AntiZionism is immoral and wrong.
…Dude. He quoted it from the book. That actually exists.
Your emperor has no clothes.
Zionism is immoral and wrong.
Anti Zionism is immoral and wrong
I’m thinking that, thanks to the fantastic floor show BSDNOW with his “Eliminate all the Arabs!” rhetoric and eee with his “But oppressing the Palestinians makes me safe, economically!” have done a better job of showing that to the American Jewish viewing audience than either of us, as Gentiles, could ever have, Cliff.
you are such a dork, I never said eliminate anyone, you always try to pull racist stuff that doesn’t exist.
I’m talking about Jewish building and if you can’t accept that then YOU my friend are the racist because unlike me you have clearly expressed your strong desire to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people from their land.
The Israel project is about promoting settlements :
From Wikipedia:
“2009 Global Language Dictionary
The Israel Project commissioned a study by Frank Luntz who ran polls and focus groups to determine the best language to use to promote Israeli settlements to the American public.[11] The study was marked, “Not for distribution or publication” and was leaked to Newsweek online. It recommends being positive, framing the issue as being about peace not settlements and to claim that the rejection of Jewish settlements is anti-Semitic and “ethnic cleansing”. The document also lists arguments that don’t work, in particular noting that religious, ownership and “scapegoat” arguments failed to sway listeners, that Arab housing is being demolished in East Jerusalem because it fails to meet the building code, the worst claim by this group in the guide is “Israel is so rich and so strong that they fail to see why it is necessary for armored tanks to shoot at unarmed kids” para (3) page 90. This study states that “public opinion is hostile to the settlements – even among supporters of Israel” so instead of dwelling on settlements one should always talk positively and focus on past peace achievement. [11] [12]
Critics such as J Street describe the advice as “If you get a question about settlements, change the subject. If pressed, say stopping settlements is “a kind of ethnic cleansing”. J Street sent a mailing to their organization asking their members to send letters to TIP asking them to “remove pro-settlement fear-mongering talking points from The Israel Project’s materials”.[3]
link to en.wikipedia.org
eee is just another $3 coin..
Look at that, I’m starting to like this Israel Project, and it’s perfectly correct.
When you espouse to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people from their land, that should be addressed as “ethnic cleansing” we didn’t need a book for that but I am glad its out there
Jews have not been ethnically cleansed in Palestine in modern times.
Palestinians have.
Wrong.
Gush Katif, Homesh, Sa-Nur, all ethnically cleansed of Jews.
YOU are the one that is advocating the ethnic cleansing of Jews. If anyone here said that about Arabs they would be banned. Double standard.
List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus
You have three. I have over five hundred.
Go read it to yourself ten times. The Land of Israel and Jerusalem is Jewish land. It’s growing, we are building, and you can’t do a damn thing to stop us.
Oh yes I can.
I can vote in American politicians who will end your allowance.
You will be stopped. By your own hate and sanctimony.
No we will continue because we are right and moral. Building in our land is the most appropriate thing in the world and we will build MASSIVELY in the coming decade. Jerusalem is growing, we are spreading and there isn’t a tiny little thing bigots like you can do to stop it.
As I just said. Hate and sanctimony. Everything you say is dripping w/ it.
It will weigh you down. Hence, why you’re on this blog calling everyone bigots. You’re weak-minded and pathetic.
I’m going to really start worrying when people like BSDNOW start advocating for renewed terrorism against non-Zionist Jews.
That’s an outright LIE and you pass it off as a matter-of-factly.
You reserve the right to speak and generalize about Jews in Israel and about their attitudes without a semblance of honesty, and then turn around and criticize anyone who reaches conclusions about the Israeli society based on various polls.
And that brings us to the dozens of polls that show that a majority of Israelis (even the lying new Olim like yourself who claim to have been born in Israel) not only support discrimination and disenfranchisement against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, but actively engage in it as evidenced by case after case of Jewish town councils that refuse to allow Arabs into their communities.
Quit the “you’re a racist” shtick.
How can you claim it’s de jure when in fact the law of return does not apply to them as equally as it does to all Jews? How can you say de jure, when Israeli police shoot and kill 13 Palestinian citizens for demonstrating and posing no immediate danger to anyone, and yet a government mandated commission finds not a single government official or police guilty?
The same goes for economic and geographic discrimination. Arab municipalities pump more than 10% of tax revenues into the Israeli treasury, and yet they only receive 2.5% of budget allocations for social and education programs, while their Jewish counterparts receive three times as much.
These are government mandated policies. There is no escaping that. You lie and lie and have the gal to continue and make such bold statements.
Enough, already.
eee, I was out for the evening but would have wanted to respond. I thought I posted this last night but did not see it this morning, so I’ll try again, but don’t know ifyou’ll still see this.
1) It is a little absurd to compare periods in history when human rights were deprived to vast majorities of the world’s population. Israel was founded 62 years ago, and it still denies equal rights to one-fifth of its citizens. For example, it educates the vast majority of Arabs in separate schools and provides those schools with a fraction of the money per student spent on Jewish schools. This is 2010, for God’s sake. Do you contend that Israel is in the 62nd year of a 125-year educational equality program? Israeli settlers hog three or four times the amount of water per person in the territories that they allow Palestinians to have. Even if the settlers had a legal right to be there, which they most certainly do not, it would be obscene. And Israel is not even inching toward equality. If anything, it’s moving in the opposite direction. As a Jewish State, it will never get to true equality.
2) I still haven’t checked the figures – my fault – but you did not answer that many more Palestinians were killed. The ratio of Pal deaths to Israeli deaths was lower than in the first intifada, but it still was several times as many. And while you foresee “much time” before trust is restored, Israel holds all the cards, deciding how they will live and deciding how the Palestinians will live.
3) If you were talking about the “Arab Israelis,” you made no sense whatsoever. You said, “I wonder how long Americans would stick to their vaunted ideals if a certain minority started using suicide bombers.” Palestinian citizens of Israel didn’t participate in any of the suicide bombing that became part of the second intifada after Israel’s brutal response to the initial rebellion. How can you possibly justify inequalities imposed on those citizens since Israel’s founding on the second intifada?
And, the state you foresee for the Palestinians will still be controlled in certain ways by Israel, with absolutely no reciprocal control in the other direction.
4) You say I am unfairly imposing my vision of utopia on Israel by criticizing their use of collective punishment? Such punishment is illegal, immoral, and downright repulsive. It is precisely that ideology that leads to Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. It is no different and no better. In fact, because Israelis impose much more misery with their collective punishment, it is far worse. You mix up “social change,” by which you mean equality, I guess, with depriving human beings of the basic necessities of life, andeven life itself.
5) You’re right – I don’t live in Israel. But you don’t live in Gaza or the West Bank. Maybe if you saw their misery firsthand, you would change your mind. And I didn’t live in South Africa either, or the American South in the 50′s and 60′s. For that matter, I didn’t live in Nazi Germany. So what? There are a roughly equal number of Palestinians and Israeli Jews. If the wishes of the residents of the area are more important than mine – and they surely are — then count them all. You say you would rather face an uncertain future, but that is one in which your people are in control and domination. You are going to tolerate unfairness to other people? Not very persuasive. It is interesting that you call South Africa a miserable failure. Do you think it would be better off with continuing apartheid?
6) I do have very passionate feelings on the subject, but see no reason to be angered at people such as yourself. I used to do the same thing you are doing, that is, comment on frontpagemagazine and receive nasty comments in return. My guess is that there are a number of people inclined to your point of view who read this website but do not regularly comment. I think I stand a better chance of nudging them, and you, in my direction if I try to reason with you rather than curse you out. That’s what I sense you are trying to do. The only times I really get pissed off are when someone calls me a liar (Witty) or repeats hasbara talking points without rally responding to contrary opinions. You at least have tried to respond to me.
Do you think America is going to continue to give almost half its foreign aid to one tenth of one percent of the world’s population forever? Your skeletons are coming out of the closet and slowly and gradually it will be possible for American politicians to win elections without having to swear allegiance to Israel.
I deeply resent that the US citizens do not, nor have they had, any skin in the game. You must have forgotten WW2. And now, you must not personally know any families with US grunts. Nor must you be aware of the blowback resulting from US foreign policy in the Middle East, especially as it concerns Israel,
and the resulting burden on US taxpayers.
Er, do and did the Manhatten Jews condone the Gaza Turkey Shoot? Have they all been supporting the Golstone Report? Justa askiing,
The Manhattan Jews did not have kids risking their lives in Gaza nor were they living in Sderot. What they have to say is interesting but not relevant. You got to have skin in the game otherwise you are just a kibitzer.
Hey, I am all for the Manhattan Jews training to be specialized commandos and proving to us Israelis that they can bring security with much lower collateral killings. The trouble is, that some just feel like giving advice instead of doing the job themselves. I don’t appreciate that.
“Risking their lives in Gaza.”
Fourteen Israelis died. Over 1,300 Palestinians were killed. More than three hundred of them were children.
Eee? Did it occur to you that Manhattan Jews actually don’t have any interest in being storm troopers?
Also, when Sderot suffered the most violence the area had ever seen in modern history… it was called Najd.
Explain how sitting in the safety of an air conditioned cockpit of an aircraft hovering 3,000 feet up in the air amounts to “risking their lives in Gaza”, when the most advanced SAM technology any resistance or rebel group has ever managed to get its hands on was heat seeking rockets which can be easily defeated through the use of flares and other similarly common countermeasures.
Keep advancing that always-a-victim narrative and your posts will soon be as predictable as a gag reflex – if they aren’t already.
And you know also that only less than 2% of US citizens are jews, and you know
that more of them join the IDf than the US military; and you know that US foreign
financial aid and sweetheart memos and contracts heavily favors Israel–even though Israel is no longer a strategic US concern since the fall of the USSR. Right?
Does Israel have deep oil wells we don’t know about? No. If you take a humanitarian POV, rather than real politic, what is your answer to why the US congress always supports Israel, right or wrong? And do you conclude this might
he detrimental in the long run to the USA? If not, why not? And, how exactly should the world conclude as to the US-Israel “special relationship?”
I am very much against the two state solution, I would prefer a single state solution.
Yeah, we’ve already heard on other threads. You believe in the myth that Jews own all the land, end of story.
Yes in fact, though this is not a myth. I think there are a lot of ways that we can all live together in a single state.
“We.”
So you are from Israel actually, huh? No wonder that comment about your kid wearing these t-shirts struck a nerve.
Well since we have to go down the road of inappropriate T shirts, then here is the one that your kid wears.
link to cafepress.com
Was your child a sniper in the IDF, BDSNow? Care to tell us how many Palestinians might have died by his hand?
That’s a really weird and kind of sick / gross / crazy? question?
I can’t even begin to answer that. Again I have to say we should stick to appropriate dialog here.
Was that before or after you went and found an off-color t-shirt on cafepress and held that up to the news article I linked as if it was just as relevant as t-shirts that were actually made and distributed to IDF soldiers in celebration of their service?
I see a pattern or taking very minor stories and blowing them out of proportion.
If you want to play the game where we link to each other the grossest t shirts that’s ok I guess but I’d rather stick to I/P issues.
Okay.
Let’s talk about Israeli snipers actually shooting pregnant Israeli women. Put the t-shirts aside and talk about about what Israeli soldiers have been actually doing.
…pregnant Palestinian women…
I still wish this web site had a preview button.
If you insist, though I will counter with the pregnant women and babies that Arabs have killed.
“The Arabs.”
The Arabs, huh? Not Hamas, not Hezbollah… “the Arabs.”
I don’t talk about it in terms of all the innocent women and children “the Jews” have killed. That would be racist. Jews shouldn’t bear responsibility for actions Israel alone, as a nation, is responsible for.
Obviously, you aren’t quite as sophisticated when it comes to merely blaming “the Arabs.”
ok, that’s cool with me
Eee, remind us again how racism is totally not prevalent in Israel?
“…. this is not a myth.” UNIX
You mean that old book written by jews themselves, telling us that god chose them and gave them blah blah – that one?
The very book where jews self-appoint themselves god’s special breeders?
Taxi,
I’m not here to debate religion, and whose religion is correct or not. I’m not making comments on the Koran, Bible or Torah.
You believe also in the burning bush that talked?
Tell us precisely, UNIX, why it is that the Jews own Israel and OT land? What’s your non-biblical source of real estate title, again?
A good question citizen, but you’ll have to wait a bit for an answer, UNISEX is checking with someone who might know..
The land is not OT
Nobody with any authority outside of Israel accepts that, BSDNOW. Event he United States considers it occupied territory, and we’re the only friend you have.
Because Jews don’t have friends and they need the authority of outside powers to help them live in their own land oh boo hoo.
You don’t scare anyone.
Um… you do know that this site is run predominantly by Jews who live outside of Israel, right? They all seem to get by without kicking Palestinians out of their homes and putting up Jews-only gated communities. You can ask any of them if they’ve suffered anything like a pogrom — you know, like the stuff you guys do to Palestinians on the West Bank when you burn down their farms or throw stones at their schoolchildren?
The opposite, Jews have been kicked out of their homes on their own land. Arabs are constantly throwing stones and molotov cocktails, and Jewish fields are constantly vandalized and burned.
Just because a Jewish person espouses the ethnic cleansing of Jews doesn’t make it right.
You are an anti Jewish bigot, racist, sick individual who wants nothing less than to tear Jews from their home and land.
link to facebook.com
Well, my friends. It looks like we didn’t have to wait for eee. All this time we’ve had an Israeli in our midst… and now his true face is revealed.
In every sense of the world.
This is what it means to be Zionist, Jewish America. It means him.
Hey UNIX. Thanks for posting that link to Facebook.
Bluestar PR?
A Hasbara bot indeed.
Why do you always have antisemitism on your mind, BSD/UNIX? Are you like this disturbed girl:
link to youtube.com
It’s on my mind when I meet anti-semites like you.
Scratch a goy, find an anti-semite.
You are saying that is your thinking, BSDNOW/Unix?
Well I’m trying to give it a good long time before I drop the anti-semite label.
Right now I am working on these characteristics.
1) If you subscribe to the “Khazar theory” in order to negate Jewish rights in Israel
2) If you believe in ethnically cleansing Jews from their homes in Israel
3) If you inordinately focus on Jewish crimes when they happen around the world (organ harvesting is a great example)
Jews living in Occupied Palestine are illegal settlers and will either facilitate a One-State solution in which Israel loses it’s exclusionary Jewish character, or be removed as part of a peace settlement.
Either way, I doubt even the United States will put up w/ the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In any case, activism for the Palestinian cause will get stronger. In the age of the internet it is easy to get to the truth. I mean, I never knew a Zionist up close before I read this blog. And now I know people like you are criminals, thieves, liars, etc.
More promotion of the ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Really sick. I’m sure you would fight to the death to prevent the removal of arabs.
But when it comes to expelling Jews from their land and homes?
Fair game.
Anti-Semite
Noun, verb, anti-Semite.
Why is it not a myth that Jews own all the land? Just because you say “end of story” does not mean it’s the end of the story. Hitler had a similar “end of story” attitude. Hitler’s end of story did not come to pass, and neither will yours. Especially if those who don’t agree with you take the same approach both you and Hitler have and had. The US corporate MSM media muzzle on the historical truth regarding the I-P affair will not last forever.
Thank you for your opinion. Don’t call us, we’ll call you if we ever need an irrelevant opinion.
You’ve previously stated that you don’t care about this conflict. Seeing as you don’t even live there, who cares what you think, let alone what YOU would prefer?
You continue to exhibit delusions of grandeur. And that seems to be one of the most common trait among the Ziocane-addicted community.
Eee’s grandstanding aside, this site has provided a mountain of evidence and testimony that shows that Israel has nothing less than the destruction of the Palestinian people in mind, if that’s what it takes to build more Jews-only communities in the Middle East. We have people who have lived there — both Palestinians and Israelis — who have told us first hand what Israel does to non-Jews.
Anyone else find it sad that he thinks he can walk in, Johnny come lately, and divert attention from all of that?
Stop changing the subject. You are a racist. I have shown that.
YOU wrote:
“Sure. Israelis call Obama a “nigger” and I’m the racist.”
Just one example where you imply that all Israelis called Obama “nigger”.
You have the racist tendency to take something bad that one Israeli does and generalize about all Israelis. Plus your unwavering conviction that what Israel does to the Palestinians is “worse than the Holocaust” and that “Gaza is worse than the Warsaw ghetto” is proof that all you want to do is demonize Israel, not debate the issues.
You are a racist.
eee, an Israeli calling someone a racist is ALWAYS a double-edged sword. So it’s not in your interest to pursue this line of argument, you are better off to answer Chaos’ questions, which you seem to have a habit of dodging and pretending like “Israel is the eternal victim.”
I agree, there is a tendency to take something one person did, inappropriate T shirt, etc, and lay collective punishment.
Digressing back to the Holocaust is also counter productive and more hurtful than it is helpful.
I like it when Zionists drag in some stinking fallacy, wave it around, and then go strutting around proclaiming, “I have shown that.”
There is no doubt that Israel is a racist society, with a racist government. The evidence is all over the ground. Numerous Israelis have declared it.
But more despicable even than a racist is a person who will abuse logic in order to defend racism and ethnic cleansing.
Numerous Israelis have declared it.
potsherd, just read the posts of this latest ziobot arrival, eee.
According to him, ethnic cleansing is not morally reprehensible. His solution of peace is a NATO allied, Israel supervised de-militarization of the Palestinians. Apparently the right of return of the Palestinians is relinquished after three generations, but somehow the Jewish “right to Israel” survives for thousands of years.
There is no escaping double standards and privileged pass given to Jews in any defense of Zionism. That is why these people can do nothing but divert attention from the issue and play the eternal victims of “demonization” and “anti-semitism,” and in that regard this eee is as run of the mill a Zionist as they come.
Sherbrsi,
It is not just I, it is most of the US and Europe, India and China that support similar solutions. Take the blinders of your eyes. Oh, I forgot, the US and Europe are all “bought by the Jews”.
I believe even your idols Walt and Mearsheimer support such a solution. So, are you going to accuse them of “double standards” also? Or are they “bought” also?
Heaven forbid the Palestinians have a voice in this. Or is that concept just totally alien to you, as an Israeli, eee?
Up to your lame tricks?
If I would have said that some Palestinians support this, you would have accused me of talking for them.
So you tell me, do you think there is a percentage of Palestinians that would agree to such a solution? According to the polls it seems that yes, but I will not attempt to discern any Palestinian tea leaves. You tell me.
eee is an example of the sort of Zionist who lies and twists the statements of others, in lieu of the truth.
Glenn Beck calls people like me “racist” too. Hell, he’s called Obama a “racist.”
You’ll forgive me if I’m compelled to just file you into the same category as him.
Let’s have a logic lesson. “imply” and “infer” do not mean the same thing.
eee, in his malicious mendacity, accuses Chaos of “implying” that all Israelis called Obama “nigger.”
Of course, Chaos did no such thing. He stated, factually and correctly, that Israelis have called Obama “nigger.” It is eee who has inferred, incorrectly and fallaciously, that Chaos is making the universal claim that ALL Israelis have done this.
It is eee who is lying here, and lying further by making ridiculous claims that he has thereby proved Chaos is a racist. eee will now, bet on it, go on to base even more mendacious arguments on this claim.
This is how Zionists twist words and truth in defense of their otherwise indefensible state.
Let’s have a logic lesson indeed.
This is what Chaos wrote:
“Sure. Israelis call Obama a “nigger” and I’m the racist.”
He didn’t write that SOME Israelis call Obama a “nigger”, he wrote “Israelis call Obama a “nigger”".
There is nothing to imply or infer. Chaos made a sweeping generalization and it is not the first time. His aim was to slander Israel and he colored all Israelis as racists based on the fact that a few Israelis indeed are racist and called Obama a “nigger”. But just as those Israelis are racist so is Chaos.
So no Israelis have called Obama a “nigger?” Are you staking the claim that the people in that video were, what… paid actors?
Keep posting, incidentally, eee. I keep saying we need more Israelis and Zionists here so people know what it is we’re really up against.
Your reading comprehension problems are showing again.
No, actually it’s your reading comprehension. Copy and paste the part of my post that says “All Israelis” thank you.
Logic lesson two, here goes.
When you write “birds have wings”. What does it mean? It means ALL birds have wings. Otherwise you would qualify it with a word like “most” or “some”.
You did not need to write “all Israelis” because just writing “Israelis” without any qualifier means all Israelis.
But as usual, you are trying to weasel out of what you said.
Oh, well. How about, “Birds fly.” Does that mean I have now magically gifted ostriches with the power of flight? I guess the dodo bird just spontaneous resurrected from extinction!
You’re just going to embarrass yourself if you flee to hiding behind semantic prestidigitation. Not only are you patently wrong, it makes you look like an ass for protecting Israelis who do call Obama a “nigger.”
Logic lesson number three.
When you say “birds fly” you mean that all birds fly but you are also mistaken. You seem to think that something is true because you say it. That is kind of funny and illuminating.
eee
You shouldn’t attempt to give logic lessons. Its not a strong suit of yours. I’m not sure you would recognize it if it bit you in the ass. Saying “Birds fly” is not the same as saying “All birds fly.” You are stretching the truth and logic in order to claim victimhood, again. Speaking of funny and illuminating…
You did not need to write “all Israelis” because just writing “Israelis” without any qualifier means all Israelis.
Wrong. Fallacious inference. Which is to say, a lie. To say “Israelis” does not at all imply “all Israelis”. It implies “at least more than one Israeli.”
What happened was that Chaos made the true and clear statement that “Israelis call Obama a nigger.” This statement clearly implies that SOME Israelis call Obama a nigger.
You, however, have fallaciously inferred from this true statement that he made a claim about ALL Israelis. In short, you lie by false inference.
Wrong.
False.
Lie.
When you write “birds have wings”. What does it mean? It means ALL birds have wings.
——————–
Yes but that’s only because there are no birds WITHOUT wings. With people, it’s different, since there are people who are racists and others who aren’t. Maybe you should avoid this topic of logic..Obviously, It’s not your forte..
What a bunch of nonsense you would rather go throw than admit the truth which is that Chaos is racist.
This is exactly what Chaos wrote:
“Sure. Israelis call Obama a “nigger” and I’m the racist.”
There is no way to understand this except as a generalization about Israelis.
Saying “birds fly” when one could have also said “some birds fly” or “most birds fly” implies that the person making the statement believes all birds fly. That is the most reasonable interpretation. Attempting to say that the “Israelis” in Chaos’ statement means more than one Israeli is ridiculous. Does the following statement which is a valid replacement if the above is true make make sense:
Two Israelis called Obama a “nigger” and I am racist.
It doesn’t even come close to the meaning Chaos intended.
Bottom line, Chaos is a racist and you are defending a racist. I wonder why.
Yet you are the one that supports Jews-only roads on Palestinian land.
You have shown that you, eee, are the racist. You continue to point the finger at those who correctly identify you as a spade in an attempt to divert attention from your own prejudices and lies. You’re not that smart, really. Get over it. Anyone with half a brain can see you for what you are through the volumes of deceptive, bigoted spin you’ve managed to dump on this site over the past 24 hours.
תפסיק עם הבבל”ט. נמאס
Exactly, eee shows up randomly and demands evidence to all our assertions.
It’s simply too voluminous to list. Read the blog. Don’t comment as if you’re the first ZioTroll we’ve dealt with.
I do not ask for evidence for all your allegations, only some.
For example, Chaos has yet to show any evidence that Israel stole nuclear technology.
Another person has alleged that the Israeli government was behind an organ stealing operation till 2009.
Bring the evidence or don’t make unsubstantiated allegations.
Organ stealing? Oh, ’til 2009′ – I think they admitted to have done it in the 90s.
So isn’t that bad enough? You inset the ’til 2009′ as if it mitigates the repulsiveness? LOL
I’m still waiting for eee to even acknowledge that organ stealing is a crime. As I recall there are no Israelis spending time in jail in Israel for doing such.
Chaos, organ stealing is fine because blah blah Darfur blah blah.
Don’t create straw men. Bring the evidence when I ask for it.
We’ve presented the evidence on the organ trafficking. Do you believe it constitutes criminal activity? And if so, who is getting punished in Israel?
Show eee the evidence, since you are so adamant about sources
MRW already posted it, albeit on another thread and I can’t recall which one specifically.
Don’t rely on David Duke-style holocaust denial type tactics, BDSNOW. Your murdered ancestors aren’t likely to look kindly on you for it.
Chaos that above comment was disgusting. I am reporting that comment.
Evidence that Israel has been harvesting organs til the present? I don’t know. I’m not a detective, it’s kind of funny that you want forensic evidence.
The fact that they did it at all is disgusting enough. But yea, I guess you win, eee, Israel stopped being disgusting in this one regard in 1995! (right?)
But, if someone else accuses Israel of organ theft, there’s context to believe them.
Or if anyone accuses the USA, or China, or Germany since there have been allegations against all three for organ harvesting.
Or does it only make a good argument when Israelis are involved?
Blood Libel.
Oh, the scary Blood Libel!
Let me remind you about the Blood Libel, Kahanist – it was a false charge. It was an accusation of an act the Jews never did. As opposed to an act that Jews demonstrably have done and are doing. The latest organ-trafficking arrest is said to be only the tip of an iceberg.
Cling to alleged organ trafficing, it’s all you have. You don’t give a damn about organ trafficing, what you really care about is hurting Israel.
Congratulations, BSDNOW! You’ve graduated from stage one holocaust denial tactics — “You don’t have any evidence!” — to stage two holocaust denial tactics — “You don’t care about the evidence, you’re just out to hurt white people!”
Lol, your tactic is so simple when you lose scream either
1) racist
2) holocaust
The trick is to cry is so many times that nobody cares what you have to say in the first place.
Why won’t you let the Palestinians return home, BSDNOW? Why won’t you let them return home from the ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948 that stole their homes from them?
From BBC Online:
Israeli general arrested running organ-trafficking ring.
Police smash Israeli organ-trafficking ring
A retired army brigadier general is among six suspects arrested by Israeli police investigating an organ-trafficking ring, police say.
The trafficking ring came to light after a 50-year-old woman from Nazareth came to police.
She told them she was flown to Azerbaijan where doctors removed her kidney.
On her return to Israel she was expecting to be given $100,000, but she never received the money.
Another 18-year-old man complained to police after he was offered $80,000 and flown to the Philippines to have the operation.
“We ran an undercover investigation and we were shocked by the proportions of this,” Police Superintendent Ahron Galor told Ynet News.
link to news.bbc.co.uk
When in doubt, scream ORGAN TRAFFICING.
The Jews are stealing organs! This means it isn’t their land right? oh actually no? It’s still their land? Say it anyway! Anything to smear them. Blood libel worked in the past, it will work now!
Um… Not “Jews,” BSDNOW. Don’t hide your Israeli crimes behind the rest of Judaism. This is all you.
No one, but you, said ‘Jews’ are stealing organs. You are an antisemitic clown.
And the land never belonged to a bunch of European converts of Judaism. Land does not belong to religions.
Please, by all means, show your true face – snake.
Fine then don’t say Israel was doing it when it was certain individuals. Just like you wouldn’t say China was doing it, USA was doing it etc. In fact you never talk about Organ trafficing if it isn’t done by Jews.
Interesting.
In fact you are the snake.
You seek to deny Jews their birthright by calling them European converts. That is a conspiracy theory I have seen many times on neo nazi websites.
In any case the land is Jewish.
You cannot speak through both sides of your mouth on one side saying “its ok if I criticize I’m a Jew” and on the other “I’m not a Jew I’m a fake convert”
Pick one snake
You are a religious fanatic that is advocating for Jewish theocracy in the Middle East. That is everything any American — Jewish or otherwise — needs to know about you and your country and what you stand for. And how violently opposed you are to American ideals.
And you are an antisemite that is advocating forceable removing Jews from their Land and homes. That is everything any American – Jewish or otherwise needs to know about you and your country and what you stand for. And how violently opposed you are to American ideals.
Chaos,
He can’t be reasoned with. He can’t deny his link to Hasbara as he posted a link supporting the cause of BlueStar PR, a pro-Israel Hasbara group. He’s one of those idiots who went out during the Gaza offensive, draping himself in the Israeli flag and asserting the “right of Israel” to slaughter hundreds of Palestinians.
I would be honored to wear a giant Israeli flag at any time, war or not. We are right and we will build in our land of Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Gaza.
I would be honored to wear a giant Israeli flag at any time, war or not.
Tell me UNIX, which settlement do you live in? What do you think of the Judean People’s Front?
Well I prefer the People’s front of Judea personally :)
You don’t prefer them, that means you don’t entirely reject them?
Please be clear, Unix. Also, you didn’t tell which settlement you live in.
Well if you must know the Popular Judean Front is even better than the first two.
Unix, I notice you continue to avoid the question of telling us in which settlement you live. If you are so confident that the settlements are Jewish land and a Jewish right to live on them, why are you afraid of telling where you live? Sounds to me like you’re a traitor…
Evidence Israeli Organ Harvesting is alive and kicking (pardon the pun) comes DIRECTLY from the Israeli Police themselves:
link to haaretz.com
It’s only worth mentioning if Jews do it in your book.
Also this story is about police breaking up a ring, so stop saying Israel is harvesting organs. This is an individual ring, the same type of criminal ring you find in US and China.
Because they happen to be Jews you want to mention it.
Run by a general..
UNIX,
I only mention Organ Harvesting in Israel because you adamantly denied the existence of this ghoulish practice in Israel a few posts ago on this link (can’t be bothered to look it up but it’s there).
I was merely enlightening you and clarifying to the readers out there what the REAL deal is with Oragan Harvesting in Israel is.
Go ahead and throw your hissy fits about it – you don’t offend me but you do indeed draw pitty. You’re gonna run out of steam soon enough and run away from this site because you can’t handle facts and verifications.
You’ve arrived like a bombast, and no doubt you’ll be leaving with a whimper.
I hope the pay cheque was worth it.
You only mention it when Jews do it.
Organ harvesting by Jews is a very common theme on this website.
You conspire to ban me because you dont agree with my point of view and you cannot counter it either.
Scary
Organ harvesting by ISRAELIS.
YOU are doing it. American Jews are not. European Jews are not. South American Jews are not. Persian Jews are not.
YOU are. No one else.
And I’m sure you’ve researched that fully. That’s really sick by the way you are so gross. Go investigate Chinese organ harvesting sicko.
How come Israelis always run to the shadow of some other country? You’re like the schoolyard bully who pushes some kid down and then runs and hides behind the teacher who shows him favoritism.
Seriously, get a spine. Preferably one of your own, and not from a Palestinian corpse this time.
You are so morbid and gross. you should be banned.
now u are being silly, Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Gaza are Palestinian land.
You must be a Rhodes scholar seeing as how you had to walk down the street to get your GED.
Seriously, why is it that pathetic losers can never make any intelligent compelling arguments and always resort to bumper-sticker type sound bytes and slogans? Will your head explode if you subjected it to prolonged thought processes lasting longer than 30 seconds?
You sound an awful a lot like Sarah Palin’s groupies who chant, “Socialism kills” and “I want the guvment outta ma medicare”, or the all-time favorite “Get a clue morans”[sic].
Yeah, he comes in and writes to us as if all of what he says has not been digested and analized to the contrary in detail on prior threads here. He’s like somebody in the USA coming into a grade school class and repeats how the Alamo and Custer’s Last Stand was “end of story.”
What’s clear to me is that most Americans don’t have a clue regarding the US hand in the I-P conflict, including how the US unbalanced hand there has reserved for the US endless blowback, much yet to be seen beyond the twin towers.
Precisely.
America is presented as the neutral mediator between the two parties.
When in fact the United States plays the role of Israels lawyer in the conflict.
Which means, of course, the rest of the world will blame us too for what Israel does.
No one there really wants the 2SS
You’re damn right!
An unfortunate abbreviation there Phil.
If there is a two state compromise. Gaza should be connected to the West bank and not by just a tunnel. It is completely unfair for Israel to be all coastline of the Medittarranean while the Palestinians gets the wasted coast of Gaza.
Israel should be more accommodating in this peace process since their neighbors can take this a real gesture of sacrifice. I hope they do, but not likely with Netanyahu and cabinet of Polkovniks.
There won’t be a two state compromise. Israelis have made it impossible and they continue to make it impossible. A reasonably just solution has been on the table since 2002, with the Arab Peace Plan. Israel is the only party that is unwilling to subscribe to it, in spite of the fact that it gives Israel everything they claim they want, within the limits of international law.
The only fair solution now is to put Israelis and Palestinians in the same boat and strip away the apartheid. It’s the only thing that will stop the cycle of murder and ethnic cleansing, I think.
There won’t be a 2SS.
And the 1SS doesn’t work either.
Therefore there will be war.
Afterwhich the new borders will be drawn.
Everything else till then, is just human denialism and conjecture.
Instead of wasting time and resources, Israeli should have their airlift and evacuation plans well rehearsed and ready.
Lucky they still have relatives holding the forts for them back in Brooklyn and Odessa.
Disgusting comment above.
But there are double standards, if I said the Arabs in Gaza should have their airlift and evacuation orders ready I would be called a racist but it’s ok when it’s against Jews?
Really really horrible.
I suggest against warmongering. The best solution is to promote massive Jewish building in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Judea.
There’s a big difference between Palestinians being run out of their own homes, and some Jewish American tourists going home, BSDNow.
It’s clear that most commenters on this website want to run Jews out of their homes in Jerusalem.
Most of the commenters on this website ARE JEWS.
Dumbass.
Gosh I guess that makes it even worse to espouse the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of your own people.
But I see some fractioning here.
I heard many times that the Jews in Israel are just Khazar invader imposters from Europe?
Do most commenters on here have an identity crisis?
We see a trend here of transferring the Jewish birthright to Arabs, they are the true descendants of Jews, they own the land for this reason etc etc.
It must truly hurt very much to deny ones own identity and to work for the utter elimination of your own people.
I have one word for that. Traitor.
Oh… and where is the young, clean slate that was the supposedly naive BSDNow, who has now come full circle to burning Jewish “heretics” at the stake?
Nobody expects the Tel-Aviv Inquisition, huh.
Sorry if it upsets you – I’m just reading out loud the writings on the wall.
Doesn’t look like you guys have got a chance in hell surving the next war. And so when the shit hits the fan and when european jews start going back to europe etc and resettling with their roots and ex-communities again, we’ll all be able to see that really jews (semitic or convert) CAN ACTUALLY exist fine in the world out there, in this very village-like multicultural 21st century world.
People like UNIX would call this plausability “disgusting”. Others would call it: Karma.
I suggest against warmongering. The best solution is to promote massive Jewish building in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Judea.
—————–
But moron! You’re not against warmongering because Palestinians will never accept more building on their lands..Get it?
Taxi- It sounds like you want war and assume that the outcome will be positive for the Palestinians. I don’t want war.
But I wonder where your assumption comes from? Faith? Military analysis? And since you want war, God forbid that the war comes and many humans are killed, how will you feel about your wishes at that time, especially if Israel emerges victorious.
Odds are you will just blame Israel and try to erase all memory of the fact that you were rooting for a war that delivered not the results that you were hoping for, but just death and devastation.
BDSNow has been trolling along saying that Jews are right to expunge the Palestinians from “Eretz Israel” and it’s Taxi you bother to speak up to go after?
Like I said, I don’t know why anyone here bothers to respect you, WJ. To me, you’re perfectly transparent.
On this I disagree, Chaos. WJ is the one liberal Zionist around here I consistently respect–it’s not that I generally agree with him, but he raises issues and points things out that anti-Zionists and post-Zionists and non-Zionists in general (not sure which I am) ought to think about. I don’t doubt he’s said things that I would find utterly wrong–I can remember getting mad at him once or twice. But I want people like him around. The cult of civility is overrated–there are some people who act civil and yet are intensely disrespectful of others, totally ignoring all their points and mindlessly repeating their own. But WJ doesn’t fall into that camp.
So go ahead and tear apart his arguments, but in his case, I wish people would be civil.
In sharp contrast, I wish people would just ignore the entity formerly known as BSD. Phil should ban that one.
On WJ’s specific point, I think it’s valid. Fantasizing about Israeli Jews having to return to Europe just doesn’t seem sensible to me. It’s not going to happen. If it did happen it would be due to some catastrophic war, comparable to the bloodbath that’s been going on in Iraq.
Just because someone doesn’t accept something doesn’t mean it isn’t right.
You are warmongering if you think the best solution is to prevent Jewish building.
” Fantasizing about Israeli Jews having to return to Europe just doesn’t seem sensible to me. ”
Let me make that stronger. I think it would be ethnic cleansing. Now it hasn’t happened and so I’m not going to wail and get all upset about someone’s prediction about what could happen, but if it did happen it would be a Nakba in reverse. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If we’re going to fantasize, fantasize about complete equality breaking out.
Donald I applaud that statement
Yeah, but you also favor apartheid, with Jews building everywhere and Palestinians not allowed back inside Israel to build if they choose. Or are you a one state solution type in favor of equality for all? Somehow you haven’t said.
Now I’m replying to the entity. Time to leave.
Donald,
I guess you should find the quote where I said I believed in apartheid.
Also I don’t think it is right to dehumanize people by calling them entities instead of living and breathing human beings. My blood is as red as yours.
I wish people would just ignore the entity formerly known as BSD. Phil should ban that one.
Donald
—————–
I agree Donald and you should do what I actually did.. report him.Let’s do it instead of just talking about it.
Dehumanize and ban anyone you dont agree with.
You could refute me by saying that you support a one state solution where both Arabs and Palestinians live side by side in complete equality in the entire land of Israel/Palestine. Otherwise, saying that you support building by Jews everywhere without saying you support the same for Palestinians makes you a defender of apartheid. You’re not in the position of a liberal Zionist–they oppose settlements. With you, it’s really this simple–you either support one man,one vote, with a right of return for all Palestinian refugees or you support apartheid. If it’s the former, I retract my accusation regarding apartheid. If not, then I go back to ignoring you and recommending that others do the same.
There are many more options than that.
So why can’t the Palestinians come back to their homes in what is now Israel, BDSNOW?
WJ,
I don’t promote war. I’m reading the clear writings on the wall.
A realist doesn’t fear a smear campaign – make of my analysis what you will.
“There are many more options than that.”
Classic troll response. Not as skilled as RW, who wouldn’t even acknowledge that a logical conundrum had been set before him, but would just go on blithely as if nothing had happened. Still, if we keep feeding him he will no doubt hone his evasive reflexes.
Anyway, that’s clear enough. Unless he chooses to give honest answers, there’s no reason why anyone should talk to BSD/Unix. It’s not like we don’t already have RW here evading every attempt to acknowledge points he doesn’t want to see.
Donald I actually think you are all right.
The fact is that many people on this website have different views of the good resolution to this conflict.
Maybe a thread where everyone puts out their goals.
I’m not dishonest and I have never lied on here.
If people would open their eyes and see there is nothing wrong with Jews living in Hebron and Ramallah. I would feel a lot better.
Donald,
Since when do we call the expulsion of the occupier from occupied land “ethnic cleansing”? I must have missed that Alice-in-Wonderland memo. I think you’re sorely mistaken in your appropriation here, Donald.
As to my scenario of war breaking out being a “fantasy”. So you telling me that the last 64 years of peace-hubris has been a period of sobriety and brilliant reason?
Come on, Donald, you’re better than that.
Donald is right. Donald, stand up for what you believe in!
If people would open their eyes and see there is nothing wrong with Jews living in Hebron and Ramallah. I would feel a lot better.
Would any Palestinian be allowed to live in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Sderot, Ashkelon, etc?
After all the Palestinians have a far greater right to Palestine than a bunch of European colonists.
I’m not dishonest and I have never lied on here.
Is that a joke? For months you posed as a supporter of human rights for the Palestinian people. When you were exposed as a fraud you began echoing right wing extremist talking points. Then when your arguments were torn asunder repeatedly, you created a new screen name to repeat the same bullshit screed.
Seriously, stop embarrassing yourself already.
The only reason I switched opinions is because of people like you.
Jews have the right to build in Ramallah.
In fact you want me to say something that you won’t. You want me to say Jews and Arabs can build equally, yet in the same breath you say that have far more of a right.
We call it ethnic cleansing when people who have lived in a place for generations are driven out of their homes because of their ethnicity. The Palestinians have an irrefutable moral case for their right of return, but there is no moral case for saying that some Israeli born in Israel in 1970 has to live in Europe because his grandfather or great grandfather moved from there in the 1920′s or 30′s or 40′s, even if there was force and violence involved . It’s the same around the world. Many people are the descendants of ethnic cleansers or the beneficiaries of genocide, including all white Americans, even those whose ancestors moved here after most of the land had been stolen. (I hope nobody is silly enough to cite the JSF argument number 4 at this point). We can’t redress old wrongs by creating new ones. You try to make up for the crimes of the past without committing new ones.
So you can and should defend the Palestinian right of return–only Palestinians themselves have the authority to give that up if they wish and of their own free will. But that’s separate from saying that Israelis need to go back where they (or rather, their ancestors) came from.
“As to my scenario of war breaking out being a “fantasy”. So you telling me that the last 64 years of peace-hubris has been a period of sobriety and brilliant reason?”
Non sequitur. I said nothing so silly, nor was it implied, nor could it be inferred in any logical way from anything I said, nor do I happen to believe it.
Donald,
Our opinions diverge there, however I think we can have civilized debate and I respect your good nature.
The fact of the matter is that most commenters on this website support the mass expulsion of Jews.
Now if the people (yourself included) fought just as hard to protect Jews in their land as you do to protect arabs…
In this case I would be much more willing to accept a compromise.
Otherwise it just seems unfair and racist the demand from Jews what you wouldn’t from Arabs (forcible transfer from their homes)
Donald,
The children of the occupiers should be rewarded above the children of the victims? Sorry dude but this just does not seem right to me.
The point being, I reckon most european jews would leave Israel when the shit hits the fan – whether I want them to or not is besides the point: they’d still leave anyway. That’s the simple point I was making.
I don’t believe it’s out of the mainstream to state this. There’s been polls and studies to show this trend conducted by many Israel instituions. (I don’t have time to provide links right now, but I will later – I’ve seen and read some of them).
The fact of the matter is that most commenters on this website support the mass expulsion of Jews
That is a complete lie.
I can’t speak for the majority of commentators on this site, but I can assure you that most commentators here believe that anyone that lives under Israeli jurisdiction should be afforded equal rights.
That’s all anyone is asking for – Equal rights.
What is so hard to comprehend?
We realize that the Israelis today, stole the land, ethnically cleansed the indigenous population, and continue to deny the Palestinians their human rights. However, that does not mean I’m going to tell a 3rd or 2nd generation Israeli to go back to Europe. Palestine is his/her home now, but he/she should be able to reflect on how it is that he got to be an Israeli citizen, and try to rectify some of the grosses injustices that his status confers.
Giving equal rights to the non-Jews who live under Israeli jurisdiction would be a good start.
fuck that, if shit hits the fan i’ll be the first one to defend Israel.
If not for his views on Palestinian right to self-determination, then surely for his “liberal” Zionism, eh Donald?
You’re pathetic. Fuck you.
“If not for his views on Palestinian right to self-determination, then surely for his “liberal” Zionism, eh Donald?
You’re pathetic. Fuck you.”
Whatever, Avi. The fact that some ideologue online has a temper tantrum because I only agree with him on the issues and dislike his wildly inflated rhetoric–well, gosh, who ever heard of such a thing on the internet?
I often agree with your posts, and expect to do so in the future and will probably continue to (silently) cheer you on when you dismantle the arguments of one of the resident Zionists but you go ballistic if someone who agrees with you on most issues doesn’t agree with every one of your stands. I figured you’d start fuming and shrieking when you saw my post about WJ. You first accused me of Zionism for some reason I’ve forgotten (because it was all in your mind anyway). Then I objected to the Warsaw Ghetto comparison for exactly the same reason I don’t think Israeli suffering should be compared to Palestinian suffering. That is, the orders of magnitude are so different. You know the argument because we both agree when it’s about comparing Israeli suffering to Gazan suffering The Israelis lost 13 people in the Gaza massacre and the Palestinians lost more like 1300 or so, which is a 100 to 1 ratio. Now look up the Warsaw Ghetto and you find that the losses there were about 100,000 and that was before the Nazis moved in to finish them off.
So let’s see–it’s wrong to compare Palestinian suffering with Israeli suffering because the Palestinians suffered 100 times as much. But apparently that logic ceases to be valid when someone like you wishes to use a comparison of 1300 deaths to hundreds of thousands of deaths. The important thing here, apparently, is not logical consistency or fairness or a common set of human rights standards. No, the important thing is that we all agree with grossly inflated comparisons when they favor one side of an argument and that we all show a united front. I object to this sort of crap when some Zionists do it (everyone is Hitler to them and every atrocity is a harbinger of the next Holocaust) and it’s no better when done by anti-Zionists.
And now I’ve gone and said some nice things about WJ. Well, I expect I will get angry at WJ in the future, but unlike RW, it seems to me you can have a real conversation with him. I appreciate that even if you don’t.
Prediction–The fact that I agree with Avi on most issues will simply not register with him from now on. He’s worn a certain pattern into his neural net about me and that’s that.
You accuse me of being an ideologue? Pray tell, what’s my ideology?
I certainly don’t see where the “conflate” remark comes from. Are you referring to the Gaza Siege – Warsaw Ghetto comparison?
I stand by it. Have you ever been to Gaza, especially after the slaughter and destruction there?
No two events in history are ever the same, but comparisons can and are made every day. However, you seem to have put your own brand of Jewish narrative in a lock box, much in the same way many Zionists do, and no one else is allowed to touch it. It seems only you have the access and the copyrights.
And it’s not a matter of agreement. I could care less what you agree or disagree with.
No. What’s irritating about you is that you are a hypocrite who behaves like a slippery snake, wriggling out of a situation whenever his true face is exposed, retreating like a con artist to re-evaluate his plan of attack.
That fake facade you put on is what’s irritating. I despise liars and hypocrites. I don’t care what you think or what you agree with, but don’t insult me by urinating on my leg and telling me that it’s raining.
It’s rather telling that you have respect for a Zionist, whom you refer to as “liberal” (whatever that means in your world) who rejects the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and land simply because Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. You never criticized him for that.
Yet, you have a lot of respect for him. Why? He denies many of the legitimate grievances that Palestinians have under Israeli occupation and oppression and refuses to acknowledge many of Israel’s criminal behavior, and yet you respect him. What’s there to respect about someone like him? He certainly hasn’t sacrificed or made any compromises to be the “liberal Zionist” that you have branded him.
You’re merely supporting someone whom you view as the mirror image of you, but you prefer to stay in your closet without showing yourself for the hypocrite that you are. So, you want to give legitimacy to Zionism, even the vague “liberal” variety?
Then, when someone makes the comparison between Warsaw and Gaza you vehemently criticize such a comparison. Why the double standard? Why the hypocrisy?
How can you respect someone who views other human beings as a lesser kind, undeserving of rights or justice, yet demands to retain those same rights for himself?
It wasn’t a comparison with 1300 deaths. You may see it as existing in a vacuum, but it isn’t. Anyone who lived during or through the occupation, the first Intifada, the war on Lebanon in 1982 has a linear, chronological view of the history of the region and the knowledge that one event leads to another awful and trying event. I don’t expect you to understand that simply due to your living in pampered USA.
But the point is that the siege on Gaza is the culmination of more than 60 years, that’s SIX DECADES of dispossession, harassment, lack of economic and social stability due to the ongoing occupation and dispossession, the hopelessness and the helplessness that accompany that, the deliberate murder of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians over the years and the destruction of an entire people’s life’s achievements, their cultural, scientific and literary work and history.
This is certainly not a tragedy that started yesterday, or last year. You know that.
And yet, now that the besieged people of Gaza are actually being systematically and deliberately starved, you refuse to draw any comparisons with past historical events. YOUR justification is that there is no comparison. But, if you look at things from the perspective of the average Palestinian, certainly the father who snuggled into a cardboard box near a garbage dump seeking shelter from the rain and cold after having lost his home, wife and other children to Israel’s rampage, you start seeing things in a different light. Suddenly, the comparison makes a whole lot of sense. But, you’re sitting in your safe, comfortable environment where you have economic, financial and physical safety and stability and pretend as if you understand and comprehend the magnitude of the situation through the sterile text that you read online or the blips of flashing images on your TV screen.
Don’t you think that those who were corralled into the Warsaw Ghetto were making comparisons between their predicament and that of those unfortunate to have ended up in the Russian Gulags of decades prior? Would it have been an apt comparison during the early stages of the Warsaw Ghetto, during 1940, for example?
The question you have to ask yourself is when is “too late”, truly too late?
The situation certainly hasn’t improved over the last 40 – 60 years and its only getting worse.
Donald – You are far more active than I am in the comment section, but I have to say that I agree with your opinions more than any other commenter. I think Avi’s nastiness toward you is indefensible, and if I were you, I would not worry about anything he says to you in the future. He does have valuable contributions sometimes, but his “fuck you” to you for civility toward WJ is off the wall.
Obviously there are a lot of nasty comments on this site, and I don’t really see the point. If I want to respond to someone with a different view, I try to use rational argument. Some people I respect more than others – Witty is incomprehensible and Julian simplistic and silly – but I don’t see any value in cursing people out. The worst exchanges I’ve had here have been with like-minded people. I don’t know if Avi upset you, but I hope not.
yonira, you mindless tool, did that need to be said? we all know you’d ‘defend’ Israel in your comic-book reality.
Not with his own life, of course, because like most American Zionists he is a commensurate coward. But I suppose it’s the thought that counts, huh?
Avi,
As usual, you present a most compelling case.
Thanks, David. I’m a little nasty myself sometimes. I think there are times when people deserve to be called out for hypocrisy, but it can become a bad habit.
Avi appears to imagine that anyone who objects to his comparisons must be a closet Zionist. It’s silly. It’s also something you get in groups of likeminded people–invariably there’s going to be someone who thinks the more heated the rhetoric, the more virtuous you are.
Avi, you are correct that I know the history you outline. I’ve called what the Israelis have done to Gaza cruel and sadistic. But no, I don’t think one should make inflated comparisons of suffering, not just here, but in all such cases. I’d also object to a comparison of either side to what Pol Pot did. Now you appear to be the type of person who can’t tolerate criticism, so you have to imagine the worst about me. That’s your problem.
How so? Please elaborate. Thanks!
Ah, but you ignore the fact that the Arabs in Gaza and throughout the former English Mandate land, are NATIVES, nor recent immigrants from Europe, and even more recently, from the USA. Well, actually, you call for more of them.
UNIX, you really are (intentionally) devoid of historical information, hence irony.
Thought I’d go through line by line Avi’s tirades against me and see what I agree with and what I don’t. I’ll leave out most of the boring personal insults, except for one or two that aren’t boring.
“No two events in history are ever the same, but comparisons can and are made every day. ”
Yeah, and often exaggerated ones. There are some atrocities that are at the very top of anyone’s list of the worst atrocities in the past century or so–those by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Leopold II, Chiang Kai Shek (less well known), Pol Pot, Suharto and for that matter, LBJ and Nixon. Then there are very large numbers of smaller scale atrocities, smaller both in absolute numbers and on a per capita basis. It’s a sign of someone who’s an ideologue if they start making the Hitler comparison, not because I “own” Hitler, but because the Nazis killed tens of millions of people in six years and the Zionists have killed tens of thousands over 60 years. And on a per capita basis the difference is still huge. You want to talk about what the extreme Zionists might do in the future–fine. I might agree. (Oh, wait, you don’t care if I agree or disagree.) But to compare what has been done with the Warsaw Ghetto is a wild exaggeration and wild exaggerations are wrong.
“And it’s not a matter of agreement. I could care less what you agree or disagree with. ”
Which is clearly false. What are you raving about then? But when emotion kicks in, truth takes a back seat with you.
I’ll ignore the paranoid lunacy that fills the next few paragraphs. I get it. Anyone who disagrees with you on some point is BAD. Grow up.
“It’s rather telling that you have respect for a Zionist, whom you refer to as “liberal” (whatever that means in your world) who rejects the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and land simply because Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. You never criticized him for that. ”
More idiocy, but at least there’s some loose connection with a fact somewhere in the vicinity and we’re not wallowing entirely inside your imagination.
I have criticized WJ and in fact I did so in the thread where you were screeching about my Warsaw Ghetto critique a few days ago. WJ backed down on the Jim Crow complaint he had and we agreed about the Warsaw Ghetto comparison. That’s the sort of thing I respect about WJ–at least sometimes, you can argue with him and get him to acknowledge a point. Very different from RW in my experience, who won’t even acknowledge the arguments one makes. Again, you only registered what sends you off into a temper tantrum. You’re probably not registering anything here, thinking to yourself “Maybe I’m not entirely right about this guy.” That’s beyond you, I suspect.
In general I haven’t interacted much with WJ directly but others have. He’s a liberal Zionist — it amazes me that you don’t know what the phrase means, but perhaps this is just your temper tantrum taking control of your brain. It doesn’t seem to function well under those conditions, except as a mechanism for generating insults. Liberal Zionists say they favor a two state solution and admit some fault on their side, though with rare exceptions they generally downplay the crimes of their side. If I paid close attention to WJ’s posts maybe I’d remember some examples where he does this. I have seen him interact with others where he recognizes their points and raises decent questions. If there’s going to be peace it’s going to be with people like him. I’d like all Zionists to become non-Zionists, but the world doesn’t operate that way.
I do pay attention (probably excessive attention) to Richard Witty and habitually criticize his brand of liberal Zionism for the same reasons you give for criticizing WJ. On rare occasions I also give Richard some credit when he makes a fair point and I also acknowledge that in a very limited way, he doesn’t actually want the Palestinians to suffer–but unfortunately he places his ideology first. It’s a good idea to give people credit for their good points, in part because it’s the right thing to do and also because it lends more weight to whatever criticisms one may have of them. Obviously this is a foreign concept to you.
As for respecting people with flawed beliefs, people are mixtures of good and evil. Well, you’re pure good, of course, but I’m talking about the rest of us.
There were some more insults, but they were boring.
Your followup post was about Gaza. I agree completely about the cruelty and sadism of Israel’s behavior, and have said so, but of course you don’t care about that, because I don’t agree with comparisons to the Warsaw Ghetto. From this we can safely conclude that I am, once again, a closet Zionist and when I call Israel’s behavior cruel and sadistic, I really mean it’s fine and wonderful and we can conclude this because I don’t agree with your Warsaw Ghetto comparison. The important thing here is that I endorse your rhetoric in every particular and if I don’t, then I don’t mean anything I say. Understood.
Now which part of your boots would you like me to lick?
So I’ll continue to read your posts and often applaud them and agree with many or most of your points and understand that when I post something that is not in total agreement with your POV you will go apeshit and act like a maniac. I can live with that. It’s highly unlikely that you have anything to say in reply to me that I’d find worth reading–you’re not the sort to dig yourself this deep into a self-righteous hole and then admit you’re wrong, though I would love to be wrong about that.
This video spells out pretty well what Israel (and the US) has done to make peace impossible for the Palestinians.
link to youtube.com
This is from Jake Horowitz
link to war.change.org
“What will not fade away, however, is Israel’s ongoing military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. For all practical purposes, a two-state solution to the conflict is moribund. Israel has engaged in such prolonged and systematic settlement growth since the June 1967 War that most scholars and Middle East experts now believe that there is no longer enough Palestinian territory remaining in the West Bank to create a single, unified Palestinian state. Cut-up by Jewish settlements, checkpoints, high-speed highways, and a soaring wall of separation, a Palestinian state centered in the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, has become a vision of the past.”
I am so depressed. Taken with the article from Mark Bergmann this means that all the palestinians can look forward to is living in an apartheid version of monte carlo. The state of Israel holds all the cards and power. The government is more or less democratically elected and clearly does embody those it choses to represent. We can only reasonably conclude that the majority of the israeli people deliberate and callously intended to create this apartheid state, and I strongly suspect to provoke a further war in which most of the remaining palestianian citizens will be driven out. Everything I hear from the Israeli partisans on this site and elsewhere, underpins this conclusion. [although I must again thank Mr Alan D for convincing me first that they really intended what their policies inevitably lead to].
Many people drawn the same conclusion earlier, although more eloquently. To “get rid of as many Palestinians as possible while holding on to as much land as possible.”
I have often wondered whether the wrong side won the little civil war that is remembered at Hanukkah. The losing side was trying to embrace greek civilisation and the outside world. If they had won or there had been some compromise, would things have turned out better? I suppose probably not, but history does seem to be “rhyming” again.
Good post. It pretty much sums up Israeli society and the Zionist Jews who frequent the blog.
LOVED Berkman’s analysis.
As for 2SS… I was at a fundraiser for a Palestinian charity recently, attended by most Palestinians and Palestinians-Americans. The featured entertainment mentioned his support for a one-state solution and the entire room burst in applause…
I do believe the tide has turned.
I applaud the one state solution.
So do I, Jews and Palestinians able to live anywhere as equals in One-State. No more war, no more hate. Interfaith dialogue, etc. everything it takes to settle differences and just live and let live.
Exactly, once Jews can massively build in Ramallah.
I applaud the one state solution.
————————-
With one hand only..A Jewish one
“I applaud the one state solution”.
Arab-rein, no doubt :rolleyes:
“I do believe the tide has turned.”
What did you expect from Palestinians. They have supported this for over 60 years and they are not any closer to getting it.
I’m happy for you that you enjoyed the entertainment.
Great, so now that Julian’s here too, we have a racist Zionist three of a kind.
I wonder if calling the Zionists racists even affects them anymore. It’s like calling a prostitute a whore: it comes with the business.
At least prostitutes are just trying to earn a living. That I can actually respect, even if I’d wish for them they didn’t have to resort to a job that didn’t have the pay commensurate with the risk.
Actually Julian, 10-20 years ago at a Palestinian gathering in the US, the crowd would have cheered 2 states.
Israel’s unrelenting land grab and apartheid system of laws have indeed turned the tide.
lol, whats your point? it just proves that when something is within reach the Palestinians will shit it down the toilet. Now its a one state solution, lol what next, all the Jews out of ‘Palestine,’ its obvious thats what it will become. don’t kid yourself, thats the motive, and that is why I will fight a one state solution w/ my life.
You are quite mistaken, yonira. The 2 state solution is not closer at hand or “witnin reach” more than it was 10-20 years ago, but less likely. In the past to decades, Israeli Jewish settlements, clearly illegal under international law, have exploded in population to about hald a million. The two-state solution has been made impractical by this settlement policy, which would require removal of at least two or three hundred thousand settlers.
Moreover, the sensibility is changing. More and more people are viewing the one-state solution as not only more practical, because it would not involve uprooting so many people, but also more just, because Israel’s insistence on discriinatory treatment of its own Palestinian minority citizenry would end.
You think it’s obvious that expulsion of Jews from Palestine is the goal, and that’s why you would sacrifice your life to fight the principle of one person-one vote? You’re not being rational. If you think the one-state solution with equality for all citizens is unfair, then make your case. But are you really stating that even if it is fair, it will probably lead to ethnic cleansing of Jews, so you will oppose what is fair out of your wildly speculative fear?
yonira said:
You’ll ‘fight the One-State solution’? How so? You act as if it’s the Palestinians who are making the One-State solution a reality and not the settlers, the IDF, the apartheid policies, the colonial policies, etc.
What are you fighting currently? What are you doing other than reflexively siding with the most vulgar segments of the American Jewish community and the Likud Zionists?
You are a sad ignorant person, yonira.
Look at your friends on this blog like UNIX/BSD and the other freaks. Does their views (and your sycophantic affirmation) ensure anything OTHER than One State?
Israel is and has been the main opponent of peace and a just settlement.
All you do is cheer-lead. Make one substantiated argument, you clown.
Bullshit, yonira. You’re just a racist hick from the Midwest. You aren’t fighting for jack. Have you volunteered for the army? Are you a reservist? No. I’m guessing you’re on unemployment too.
You talk tough, especially when you get the urge to kick around Palestinians, but you’re nothing but some pathetic white failure making a mockery of his own religion.
Chaos & Cliff,
Besides spending all your time insulting people, what else do you guys do for fun? Don’t you have girldfriends to shag or something? After all you are just some young dudes. Do you have pimples? Weight problem? Is that why you live virtual lives?
I don’t recall a single thing of interest you have posted except for “fascistracistscumhypocrit”apartheidblablablaziocaineziobotblabla. What do you contribute to this site? Who nominated you as its gatekeepers? You are such little babies. Schoolyard bullies really. You think you are hurting peoples feelings by flinging the same tired epithets at them? Oh, you look so macho ehind that computer screen. How juvenile is that ? And you go to medical school?
Why don’t you lay off those you disagree with and let people say what the fuck they want. You don’t own this site. Let people express themselves. If you don’t like what they have to say, ignore them. Take your playgrounds taunts somewhere else and let the adults talk.
.
“Take your playgrounds taunts somewhere else and let the adults talk.”
Oh, I’m sorry, ruth, I’ll stand aside and let you have that adult conversation you wanted about my weight problem. Or were you intending to talk about my pimples? Talking about my lack of a girlfriend is an exercise in futility, since I’m gay after all, but you can feel free to have your adult conversation about that. OhioJoes and yonira got a lot of mileage out of that, back in the day.
I could give a shit if you are gay Chaos, that is probably your only endearing quality…..
Chaos, you should get a kick out of this……
link to jewlicious.com
You won’t find that shit in Gaza…..
And how many times have they had to postpone or cancel gay pride celebrations? Your blog conspicuously fails to cover that.
Oh, and then of course there was that Israeli who gunned down all those children in the LGBT center.
and I suppose all Israelis hate gays because of that huh Chaos? You don’t mean to generalize, but…….
This coming from the guy who hates all Israelis because of an encounter on an MMORPG…… LOL
They did cover that Chaos, the cover everything good and bad w/gays in Israel…..
something that is absent on Mondoweiss……
Yeah, well, I still remember when you were snickering right along with OhioJoes, you sheep-poking Dakotan homophobe. Maybe you feel all special that you have a Native American to dominate over (“It’s almost like having a Palestinian!”) but the rest of us aren’t impressed by your capacity to treat anyone with darker skin than you like shit.
No, you said, “Oh, that will only encourage him.” After agreeing with him on pretty much everything he put out there.
Do you think the people have forgotten that, yonira? How you cozied up to OhioJoes before he was banned?
Chaos,
your memory sucks, I told OhioJoes that calling you a faggot was wrong, I defended you.
Ruth you are so right on! It’s simply personally attacking people they don’t agree with.
“fascistracistscumhypocrit”apartheidblablablaziocaineziobotblabla exactly!!
What about you UNISEX..? Don’t you have some more building in Ramallah to do?
Enough already.
“fascistracistscumhypocrit”apartheidblablablaziocaineziobotblabla”
I think BSDNow is kind of like HAL. Remember as HAL was being unplugged, he began to mumble nonsensically?
BSDNow has shown his/her/it’s true colors as a racist, religious nutcase and this last post of it’s is indicative of that meltdown. Beautiful really. I’m glad you’re here BSD. It’s always fun to watch a Zionist self-destruct.
When you don’t agree with a Zionist then do your best to dehumanize them. call them robots, ziobots, anything at all to hide from your own racism.
This time its a computer, next time a bot. The goal is the same, dehumanize those who stand up for Jews.
buiold build build
Unix, take off the masks and stop the games. You’re showing you’re a phony with your whimsical changes in demeanor. I really get tired of fake ass people like your dumb ass self.
You don’t stand up for Jews. You stand up for people who agree with you politically – other Zionists.
Stop using Jewishness as a human shield, you coward.
Hey I’m so sorry that you are tired of fake ass people like my dumb ass self.
If there is anything I can do to change I will I promise. In the meantime, I’m building Jerusalem the Jewish capital and massively expanding.
Just report him. This is getting boring anyway.
sure I mean, when you can’t cogently make an argument. And when you begin to realize that espousing the ethnic cleansing of Jews is wrong, then call for a ban, anyway, out of sight, out of mind.
There is no one doing any of those things here.
You are not making a substantiated argument. You are simply regurgitating a very narrow religiously extremist opinion of the conflict.
Your commentary is useless and unintentionally hilarious. So I would miss your charisma. Beyond that, you’re simply annoying.
The Jews living inside the OT are illegal settlers, all the settlements are illegal under IL. Hence, I advocate the rule of law, you advocate the opposite.
It’s like if a group of Zionist Jews moved onto someone elses land, and built a home there illegally, and the homeowner wanted them out – the Zionists turn around and cry antisemitism.
No, you weren’t kicked off that land because of your religion or w/e. You were kicked off because you’re invading/occupying/stealing/abusing someone else.
You are a criminal and you advocate murder/ethnic cleansing/war and religious extremism.
That’s why you should be banned.
capital
—————-
Yesterday you wrote, twice, capitol..Why the sudden change?..Something strange is going on here..I’m suspecting UNIX to be more than one person.
Passive aggresive cowards like yourself would never lift a stone to build illegally occupied Jerusalem. We own it! That’s original.
You’re a lightweight.
It’s possible TGIA, but not really relevant. None of the people that are posting out of that account have proven to be anything more than militant Zionists.
I am not a criminal.
I have a perfectly valid viewpoint which is that the land is not Occupied and Jews have the right to build.
there should be a plethora of viewpoints here.
If you want a narrow minded circle jerk then go ahead and stifle free speech.
Kicking Jews out of their homes is stealing Jewish land.
Given UNIX’s obsession with Ramallah, I’m guessing the settlement s/he lives in is Beit El.
None of the people that are posting out of that account have proven to be anything more than militant Zionists.
————
Well in the beginning he sounded like a cute 13 years old boy-scout who had lost his group..
You are a criminal and a liar.
The law is not up for interpretation as if it were a painting. The law is the law and the land is occupied.
You can delude yourself of course, just as you delude yourself into thinking that the land is ‘Jewish’ arbitrarily simply ‘just cause’.
Israel has no claim to Occupied Palestine.
Occupation is not obligatory, it is completely voluntary. Occupation is usually agreed between regional powers under an armistice agreement. E.g., Israel AGREED to Jordan & Egypt occupying the West Bank & Gaza in their armistice AGREEMENTs. Their occupation’s were legal.
Likewise with Israel occupying the territories of the non-state entity of Palestine. Although there was/is disagreement on how much of the “territories occupied” Israel should withdraw from (UNSC Res 242), common sense tells us that “territories occupied” and not withdrawn from, are still occupied. A glass of Palestinian water half emptied, still contains Palestinian water. It does not change into Israeli water, despite the Israeli froth surrounding the issue.
Occupation is exactly the opposite of acquiring territory. An occupier cannot unilaterally annex or change the status of “territories occupied”. It is the occupier who is responsible for maintaining order in the territories it chose to occupy.
The UN does not care which Member state becomes the Occupying Power over a non-state entity, they do however, require the Occupying Power to uphold the UN Charter, Laws of War and the Conventions the Occupying Power has ratified, making them obligatory and binding on the signatory.
An Occupying Power must legally annex territory on order for it to become a part of their sovereignty. Legal annexation is only through agreement with the other party or via a treaty between the two parties.
It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war/force, regardless of who started and/or who wins a war, no matter which UN Member State is in control of territory outside it’s own sovereignty. Laws of War Art. 55. “The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.”
This is the basis of the Geneva Conventions, all civilians and belligerents (who comply with the Laws of War) are protected persons who might not have voted for or even been able to vote for the regime in power when war was waged.
It is often held that the Geneva Conventions do not apply because Palestine is not a state. i.e., not a High Contracting Power. However, we only have to look at who signed the ceasefires, armistice agreements and peace treaties. The reason the UNSC says the GC’s do apply, is because Israel’s wars were all with states fighting was over the territories of the non-state entity of Palestine.
In fact, no war has been fought over or in the Sovereign territories of Israel. There are no UNSC resolutions calling for peace in Israel. No Resolutions calling for any Arab state to withdraw from Israeli territories. There has never been a War in Israel. No Arab state has invaded Sovereign Israeli territory.
All the ceasefire, armistice and peace agreements call for peace in Palestine and a resolution to the Palestine question. Israel ceased to be a part of Palestine May 14th 1948.
—-
Israel has not upheld it’s obligations as a UN Member State. In an attempt to have Israel do NO MORE than comply with it’s obligations, there have been 223 UNSC resolutions adopted against it. None of which would endanger or compromise Israel’s security or it’s rights as as Sovereign State. Many of which are reminders of previous, un-heeded, UNSC resolutions.
The law is up for interpretation
LOL, get a clue Cliff, you spout out a bunch of shit you read on the net and don’t know what any of it means, you are laughable. Stick to your PS3 if you want to try and ‘pwn’ ppl
More “adult conversation” for Ruth, huh?
The law has been interpreted.
Dozens of UN resolutions were passed.
Israel ignored them.
read 242 again, its written how its written on purpose, THE is key.
That’s not a strong argument at all Yonira, an argument I’ve seen quite a few time in the Hasbara handbook =P
But its besides the point.
Israel militarily occupies the West Bank and Gaza, treats the people living their like dog shit, and continues to illegally build Jewish only colonies in the West Bank while subjecting Gaza (a territory under Israeli jurisdiction) to a medieval type siege.
So even if Israel were legally entitled to occupy the WB and Gaza, they are once again breaking international law by settling Jewish colonists on occupied territories, ethnically cleansing people in the territories, subjecting the people in the territory to draconian laws, stripping them of ALL their human rights, stealing land at an ever increasing pace, etc.
are you joking James, you know better than that. you know 242 is all about wording….. any scholar of IR will tell you that….
There was much bickering over whether that resolution should say from “the” territories or from “all” territories. In the French version, which is equally authentic, it says withdrawal de territory, with de meaning “the.” We wanted that to be left a little vague and subject to future negotiation because we thought the Israeli border along the West Bank could be “rationalized”; certain anomalies could easily be straightened out with some exchanges of territory, making a more sensible border for all parties. We also wanted to leave open demilitarization measures in the Sinai and the Golan Heights and take a fresh look at the old city of Jerusalem. But we never contemplated any significant grant of territory to Israel as a result of the June 1967 war. On that point we and the Israelis to this day remain sharply divided. This situation could lead to real trouble in the future. Although every President since Harry Truman has committed the United States to the security and independence of Israel, I’m not aware of any commitment the United States has made to assist Israel in retaining territories seized in the Six-Day War
anyone who has taken a collegiate class (or probably high school) on the ME knows about this.
You mean besides the fact that we gave Israel a pass for trying to turn the USS Liberty into a false flag?
You disgust me, yonira. Any excuse to keep your greedy, greasy little fingers on your lebensraum.
So how did you find out about it, yonira? Your Native American girlfriend tell you between “sweat lodge” sessions? (“Remember, the safe word is ‘annexation’)
any scholar of IR will tell you that….
Actually most scholars won’t.
Furthermore, even the ones who do buy the “vagueness” argument NEVER ever thought that Israel would use it as a pretext to keep virtually all the territory. Nor did they think that Israel would begin the colonization of the West Bank.
Many people assumed that perhaps Israel would retain a few positions for “security reasons” in the WB and Gaza. No one thought that Israel would completely annex, colonize, and begin expelling Palestinians from the land.
Nor did anyone think that Israel would begin appropriating the best portions of the WB, stealing the WB water aquifers, or force the people living there to endure Apartheid.
Actually, the provincial goy rube Truman, also a Christian Zionist since his youth,
got a good taste of the Zionists; they clearly rubbed him the wrong way; he noted in his diary how so many jewish victims quickly turned into the oppressors, but he still
was selfish enough to want to be elected, and so he sold his better character
to the zionists to pay for his whistle-stop campaign and prevent the same moneybags and NY votes going to Dewey.
you are a fucking racist chaos. a homosexual should stick up for different, not mock their traditions.
again Chaos (and Cliff) if your schools offer a class on the ME or the Israel/Palestinian conflict in particular, I recommend to take them. You can learn a lot.
Scholars James, not lefty anti-Zionists.
Ruth, such a backseat hypocrite. One who gives it but can’t take it. Lars provoni is banned from this site and I have to listen to people like you? don’t think so honey. Stop playing mother hen for Yoni and others. Say what you have to say.
Actually I think Ruth has made a very good point and it should be internalized. She shouldn’t be banned for a reality check.
Ruth should not be banned. However, you should because you are a religious fanatic and racist. I urge all responsible posters to report BSD/UNIX. Your hate is not welcome here.
Hey if you want to play the racist card that’s fine. You’ll be hard pressed to find one racist statement from me though I have many from you.
1) Jews aren’t really Jews they are fake white europeans
2) Jews need to be forcibly removed from their homes
3) Jews have no right to their land.
I say let the Oblomovs stay. BdS said kick her out.
Already done Cliff. Others should follow…
haha, u are such a fucking spoiled child Cliff, seriously, your going to be a doctor, grow the FUCK UP!
This would be Ruth’s idea of an “adult conversation,” huh yonira?
Further, check this out when evaluating what BSD/UNIX has to say:
link to intifada-palestine.com
I really don’t understand this reference to Oblomov. If memory serves, Oblomov (the novel character) was a member of the Russia nobility who rarely got out of bed, and even when he did, he had servants helping him.
Hey Ruth, you’ve been here for what – a day or two?
How about you stick to the issues.
I call fascists, fascists. I call idiots, idiots. You are not a fascist. You’re just an idiot.
It’s not bullying. It’s truth-telling. The unvarnished truth.
You clearly cannot make a substantiated argument about this conflict. Your allies here are either the religiously inane (BSD/UNIX), the infantile supremacists (yonira) or the passive-aggressive piss-ants (eee).
I suggest you do some homework and actually say something.
Why would you assume people here fit the internet stereotype? Do you have pimples? Does it matter? Do you have a weight problem? Does it matter? Etc.
Even if your implications were correct, the only thing important is the cause and the debate.
Since you and your cult cannot debate, you’ll instead whine incessantly (as you are doing now).
You’re boring.
Cliff this woman’s insane. Another angry Jewish woman, likely from Brooklyn. You heard me Ruth.
Wow Ruth,
thanks for saying what I always wanted to say, but wouldn’t waste my time to type up. You are right on……
“haha, u are such a fucking spoiled child Cliff, seriously, your going to be a doctor, grow the FUCK UP!
you are an idiot chaos, did you really just hyperlink a comment which is 2 above that? you need to grow the fuck up too man…. u are a sad person
Is this ruth’s idea of “adult conversation?” I just wonder.
Jesus dude, that is the 3rd time you’ve said that in 5 minutes……
Anyone else notice that BDSNOW is gone and now yonira is posting at the same prodigious rate? Oh, It’s probably a coincidence.
Wow Ruth, you tell Chaos and Cliff to take their playground taunts elsewhere yet you posted an entire paragraph of personal insults at them.
Cliff, Chaos, and others are doing us all a favor by exposing the racist arguments used by some of these commentators. Unlike you, some people actually take offense when someone tries to support the ethnic cleansing of an entire people.
If people want to post their opinions on this blog they can. However, they should expect that people will call out their arguments, especially when those arguments call for the ethnic cleansing of an entire people.
Its to bad that none of you Zionist trolls have ever been able to address any of the issues nor respond adequately to any of the criticisms that have been put forward by Cliff or Chaos.
Perhaps it is you with the weight and acne problems.
” It is a reasonable fear that the one-state solution will lead to catastrophe. It was reasonable in SA when minority whites feared that one person-one vote would lead to the same bloodbath’
Absurd comparison. Israel is far different than South Africa, though you anti Zionists try to paint them with the same brush. Israelis will never agree to give up their country. It won’t ever happen. Someday if the Palestinians can change their attitude about ruling Israel there will be some sort of Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza.
What, Julian, because Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu don’t know what the hell they’re talking about when they compare Israel/Palestine to the apartheid they suffered under, huh.
You really can’t stand it when black people speak from a position of authority, can you, Mr. Tea Party?
Chu, I am so not from Brooklyn! ESL, you know. Go ahead and call me insane or whatever you like, it is not like it is going to impact on my social life.
You guys are so parochial. Let in some diversity for christ sake!
Cliff, I have been reading this blog for at least 6 months. So I know the archetypes here. I will say something when I feel like it. Or may be I won’t comment at all. Why should you give a rat’s ass? Quit patrolling the place. You are very boorish.
Anyways, I have to go to bed, I work for a living.
Must be Florida
Ruth, if you had come in and said that too many people on both sides are flinging insults (I’m one of them from time to time, though my insults fly in both directions) you would have a valid POV. But you singled out cliff and chaos, so it seems like it’s the rudeness of one particular side that really bothers you. And your comment was pretty laden with childish insults in itself, which pretty well ruined whatever effect you intended to have. It’s a little late to pretend to be above the boorishness of this place, given your own entry statements.
Screw that Donald, do u realize what Cliff and Chaos do on here on a daily basis, Chaos will single out the ‘zionist’ scum on here even if we haven’t posted for days. its like an obsession to him.
Could we maybe run a statistical analysis and find out what percentage of yonira’s posts are not personal attacks against me?
Should I be flattered by all this extra attention?
Israel knows apartheid has no future
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, The Electronic Intifada, 8 April 2010
“After decades of military rule over Palestinians and theft of our land, Israeli leaders are increasingly seeing the writing on the wall. They are at least acknowledging reality, if not yet grappling with the consequences.
In 2007, Ehud Olmert, then prime minister, declared: “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights [also for the Palestinians in the territories], then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” More recently, making a similar point, Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, said “as long as between the Jordan and the sea there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic … If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a bi-national state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.”
But when do the “ifs” of Olmert and Barak no longer describe a possible future, but the current reality? Apartheid is here. There is one set of Israeli laws applied to Palestinians in the West Bank and another set applied to Jews in the West Bank. Israeli settlers live illegally in beautiful subsidized housing on stolen Palestinian land while we are relegated to smaller and smaller bantustans.
I believe, even today, in the importance of the two-state solution. But with every passing day I see what can only be described as Israel’s dogged determination to block such an outcome. The time has come to tell Washington that the viability of the two-state solution is being destroyed on Barack Obama’s watch. President Obama inherited this difficulty from his predecessor. But old problems have become Obama problems.
When Washington fails to act decisively towards this festering conflict, it is in fact acting decisively. Billions of American taxpayers’ dollars continue to flow to Israeli coffers. And American diplomatic capital is still spent to shield Israel from world censure.
link to electronicintifada.net
“Apartheid is here. There is one set of Israeli laws applied to Palestinians in the West Bank and another set applied to Jews in the West Bank. Israeli settlers live illegally in beautiful subsidized housing on stolen Palestinian land while we are relegated to smaller and smaller bantustans.”
Israel only has prospects for future existence and intra-community and inter-community peace, if it applies the rule of law consistently in a color-blind manner.
Law of title does not permit the annexation of land by direct or indirect means.
Civil rights law does not permit the suppression of voting, peaceful assembly, free speech and press (even if contreversial), and supports equal access to courts applying law in a color-blind manner.
The significance of that IS represented in the slogans that describe “I was silent when injustice was done to them, and now it is being done to some group that I am a part of.” That has been the purpose of law since inception, a clearly understood law that originates in consent, is consistent with cardinal law (beyond just the statute formed by who was in the room – hence an appeals and then supreme court adjudication process), and is applied.
BOTH the far right and the far left indulge in abuses of law, misrepresentation for opportunistic purposes that are ultimately trivial and unreliable.
Moderation and commitment to principles (not conclusions) are what add up to a lawful society.
Good thinking and good presentation are what confronts ideological abuses. A better mousetrap.
Did you read the Burston opinion today in Haaretz?
Berkeley’s Israel boycott: The occupation’s new friend
link to haaretz.com
Israel does not follow IL, IHL, and is indifferent to the many condemnations of it’s behavior.
There is only a prospect for blah blah because Israel has the power to ignore the rule of law. Money and guns. There is no morality, only power.
These are pathetic equivocations.
Israel has NEVER legally annexed ANY territory outside it’s Declared Sovereign borders.
Letter From the Agent of the Provisional Government of Israel to the President of the United States, May 15, 1948
It is illegal to acquire territory by force/war and Israel has never legally annexed ANY territory outside the Sovereign borders of it’s declaration.
This is either re-affirmed or emphasized in the UNSC resolutions. In order to acquire territory outside one’s sovereignty, it must be legally annexed with the consent of either the state or non-state entity to whom the territory belongs. A) The territories it acquired by force by 1949 have not been legally annexed B) The annexation of East Jerusalem was declared illegal by UNSC Resolution 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 UNSC Resolution 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969 UNSC Resolution 271 (1969) of 15 September 1969, UNSC Resolution 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971, UNSC Resolution 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980, UNSC Resolution 476 (1980) of 30 June 1980.
Peace agreements are based on Internationally recognized Sovereign territory. If only one party is Sovereign state, it’s sovereign territories, by default, define what ISN’T it’s own.
After all this time, you’re still as much a pathetic leach as ever, Witty.
Wierd response, how surprising?
The 1949/67 were consented.
If you are interpreting my comments as advocacyor rationalization for expansion, then you are self-talking ONLY. Again, how surprising.
If anything, my post was a delayed response to Unix’s.
You and many exagerate the relative importance of international law and human rights law. It is a sliver of law, of which international law and human rights law is (in very many ways) and should be consistent.
You prove Burston’s point about the vanity of the left and right of having someone to conspicuously bash and dismiss, rather than engage.
By whom? By the Palestinians?
You’re such a racist, Witty. What will it take for you to give a damn about their rights?
Witty lives in a goddamn fantasy world where the Nakba never really happened. He’s like the German who thinks Nazi Germany almost worked out fine — there was just one or two little things they got wrong!
Let alone the mountain of physical evidence we have to show him, he’s in denial about what ISRAELIS THEMSELVES are saying, right here, right now. Where has he been when BSDNOW/UNIX made all his posts, or eee?
Another wierd response.
You know what others’ think? Such enormous presumption.
How many tangible apologies do you owe the universe and my and others place in it?
All documented here. When you feel like improving the world and your specific ethical relationship to it, you can go back and apologize for misrepresentation, especially the opportunistic, careless, and knowingly malevolent ones.
“Show me ONE highway system in Israel that is Jews only. And the ones in the territories are because of security, nothing else.
And again putting words in my mouth, which is very low. I was speaking about Israel not allowing mass immigration to it by accepting the right of return.”
“Well, I think it has to begin with massive building of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, I think also we should promote more massive aliyah from around the world. There is a lot of potential for North American aliyah, In fact this is a record year, but there can be so much more. ”
That’s what Israelis are saying, Witty. Why don’t you go address what they are saying?
Jewish only roads
link to fourthreichisrael.files.wordpress.com
link to fourthreichisrael.files.wordpress.com
link to fourthreichisrael.files.wordpress.com
Photos of “by-pass roads” — for Jews only,
which go to illegal Jews-only ’settlements’
stolen on Palestinian land.
Palestinians are forbidden to use the by-pass
roads, and if caught will be shot and/or beaten
and arrested if they are caught trying to use them.
The winding roads underneath are the original
Palestinian roads, which are in need
of repairs and lengthens the trips by hours.
Of course there are no signs that say,
“No Palestinians allowed”, because that would
broadcast the fact that Israel is an Apartheid
country by putting it in writing,
confirming the obvious.
You’re really sick-minded Witty. You just want Israel to define the premise, and the negotiations, and all final-status agreements.
You’re greedy and shameless.
Elaborate or stop commenting on this blog. Everyone here is sick and tired of your intellectual cowardice and your purposeful obfuscation. Stop being a slimeball.
The 1949 armistice lines were consented as sovereign. They comprise the boundary of Israel and territories.
The subsequent annexations are extra-legal. “Illegal” is an exagerated term. When there is formal acceptance of Israel by Syria, Lebanon, and ultimately Palestine, then the status of borders will be clarified and that becomes the starting point. There is none yet.
By your reasoning, it would be equally illegal for Palestine to annex the land, as those were never constituted by international law.
I personally think of the land outside of the green line as Palestine. But, that is me thinking ahead, not yet by international law.
A) Did the Palestinians get to sign that armistice?
B) Israelis do not recognize those 1949 lines that they themselves signed. How can the rest of the world acknowledge Israel’s borders when Israel continues to bulldoze homes and build condos and country clubs with Jews-only requirements outside of those lines?
You haven’t addressed what I linked to of what Israelis themselves are saying. Because Israelis themselves contradict you.
Wrong. The acquisition of territory by war/force is inadmissible. This is either re-affirmed or emphasized in the UNSC resolutions. In order to acquire territory outside one’s sovereignty, it must be legally annexed with the consent of either the state or non-state entity to whom the territory belongs. A) The territories it acquired by force by 1949 have not been legally annexed B) The annexation of East Jerusalem was declared illegal by UNSC Resolution 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 UNSC Resolution 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969 UNSC Resolution 271 (1969) of 15 September 1969, UNSC Resolution 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971, UNSC Resolution 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980, UNSC Resolution 476 (1980) of 30 June 1980.
It is admissible to ‘regain’ by war (failing a UN Chapter V1 solution), one’s own Sovereign territory, illegally acquired by another party. What Israel has ‘acquired’ illegally by war, was not Sovereign Israeli territory.
A) That Israel informed the International Community that it had accepted and declared Sovereignty ONLY over the boundaries recommended by UNGA Res 181. The majority of the International community recognized Israel based on that notification, over riding the Arab States legal objections. B) Israel has never legally annexed any territories C) a key word – “sovereign”
From Stephen M. Schwebel – Judge of International Court of Justice:
[...]the lawful sovereign.
It is inadmissible to ‘acquire’ territory by war in a defensive OR an aggressive war to acquire for that simple reason. If it is one’s sovereign territory already, one is not ‘acquiring’ it.
A) “territories occupied” and not withdrawn from, are still occupied! B) UNSC Res 242 is between States. The boundaries it refers to are those of States, which had all been recognized and acknowledged as theirs before 1967. C) It only allows Israel to remain occupying some territories, pending the resolution of the question of Palestine.
It is also inadmissible to acquire territory by defensive or aggressive war, because the citizens of the entity to whom territories belong, might not have voted for, or even been able to vote for, the regime in power at the time war was waged.
Egypt and Jordan were already a Sovereign States in 1948. They were both regional powers, with the right and duty under the UN Charter, to protect non-state entities from aggression. Egypt did not annex Gaza or claim it as it’s own. It occupied the territory as per the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, as the Occupying Power, by AGREEMENT with Israel under their respective armistice AGREEMENTS.
The West Bank as it is now known, was legally annexed at the request of the Palestinians Jordan’s annexation was as a trustee. Unlike Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, there is no UNSC resolution against Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank or against Egypt’s occupation of Gaza.
By the 15th of May 1948, Israel was a newly Declared Sovereign State, with clearly defined Sovereign territories. The Arab states had every right to protect the territory not under Israel’s newly Declared Sovereignty of 14th May 1948, from the aggression Israel inherited from Plan Dalet, launched in the weeks PRECEDING it’s Declaration. Whether the Arab States formed a state or not of these territories is irrelevant to their right to protect the territory of the non-state entity they represented.
The UNSC did nothing because A) Prior to Declaration, it was a civil war and under the British Mandate B) after Declaration, they knew even as Israeli was Declaring Sovereignty over the borders of Res181, it was already in breach of the borders it was claiming. The Arab states attacked Israeli forces in non-Israeli territory. The Arab states actually launched a defensive war.
Israel was admitted to the UN under the presumption that it would abide by the Charter and Laws of War (both obligatory in their entirety) and withdraw after the war. Israel did not, it illegally claimed the territories it had acquired for strategic position, forbidding the return of civilians who’d fled.
Arab League Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine May 15, 1948
In order to Declare a Sovereign State, an entity must have full control over the borders it wishes to claim as it’s own. The British ended their protective Mandate over Palestine so that Sovereign States could be Declared in Palestine if the parties so wished. It was not mandatory. The same rule applied to East Timor’s Independence from Indonesia. Indonesia had to withdraw from East Timor in order for East Timor to Declare Sovereignty.
Even if they wanted to, the Palestinians were denied the privilege in 1948. By May 14th 1948, under Plan Dalet, the Jewish Agency was already in control of territories allocated for the new Arab State, making it impossible for the Palestinians to Declare Sovereignty.
Israel must withdraw from the Palestinian territories, for the Palestinians to declare Sovereignty.
AN unfortunate ‘facts on the ground’ situation has been created by Israel. It has never annexed the territories it illegally acquired by 1949, it has, of it’s own accord, deceived it’s own citizens for 61 years and created a monumental stumbling block in the path to peace.
I guess you don’t understand what the term “extra-legal” means.
There has not yet been a Palestinian state. To state that Israel is what prevented a prospective Palestinian state in 1948 in the West Bank is REVISION.
At this point it is a future goal, an important one. But, to state that it is a restoration is false.
Title rights are transferable beyond change in political jurisdictions, but the maximalist interpretations of imagined sovereignty aren’t transferrable. They can only be approached as new.
The illusion of political solidarity that the Arab world attempted to impose on ANY Israel from 1948 – 67 and then revised post 67 is still impractical. That you seek to revive that political basis, is a cul de sac, a vanity in the multiple meanings of the word.
Again, rather than pursue the goal of sovereign and viable Palestine, you are pursuing the religion of political correctness with its opportunistic revisions. (Imagining that there is a single authoritative “truth”, but only considering the halves that support your attitude.)
You pick and choose what to respond to in my post and constantly equivocate/straw man.
Hence you misconstrue the reality by making it seem as though this Palestinian State has simply not spontaneously built itself because it ‘just hasn’t’ – ‘
It is not revision AT ALL you liar.
The “recent conflict” was the 1967 war. Not the war of Independence where, by 1949 Israel controlled some 50% of the Palestinian territories it agreed were not it’s own when on May 14th 1948 it accepted the borders recommended in UNGA res 181, declared Sovereignty over them and was recognized as a sovereignty by those borders by the majority of the International Community of States. (democracy at work folks, over riding the Arab states non-recognition). These territories came under Israel’s control via Plan Dalet, launched weeks before the Israeli Declaration.
There is no UNSC resolution condemning the Arab States Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine, 15th May 1948. Israel was already exceeding the borders it had just Declared Sovereignty over. The Arab States had every right to protect what remained of the non-state entity of Palestine.
Although Israel could not ratify the Geneva Conventions until it became a UN Member State, it did declare that it would abide by International Law.
The deeds of Government/regime & private/corporate/institutional land ownership do not give those parties territorial or sovereign rights. The deeds of Government/regime & private/corporate/institutional land ownership can change hands. The territories of an entity, whether Sovereign, state or stateless, titled or un-titled, belong to all the entity’s citizens, regardless of their political persuasions or ownership deeds. This includes the homeless, non-voting, non-land owning, alcoholic bum who lives under a bridge. They do not require a deed. The territories of the non-state entity of Palestine belonged to only it’s citizens. This is true of all entities. (this BTW also applies to RoR).
All immigrants into Palestine under the British Mandate, including Jewish immigrants, had to become citizens of Palestine. Any person or organization who did own land in Palestine but were not citizens of Palestine, were not a part of the non-state entity of Palestine.
There is no obligation for an entity to declare statehood or sovereignty, nor is there any obligation to recognize states. If however, the majority of the International Community of states do recognize an entity as a Sovereignty or State, the objections of the parties who do not recognize the entity, are over ridden. Despite the Arab States objections, Israel was recognized as a Sovereign State.
Israel’s Sovereignty over it’s Declared boundaries was given de jure recognition Only the provisional Government was given de facto recognition because it was only a provisional government. The US granted Israel’s elected Government de jure recognition on the 31st Jan 1949.
The territories captured by war by 1949 were never annexed to Israel as required by International Law. You straw man and misconstrue International Law as ‘political correctness’ – typical of a criminal to say.
When Israel Declared Sovereignty 14th May 1948, what was left of the non-state entity of Palestine was still called Palestine. The area of the territory has changed, who has had control over it has changed, but the name has not changed since at least the end of the Ottoman Empire. It is still called Palestine. The people who live in Palestine are Palestinians.
In declaring Sovereignty, Israel obliged itself of the legal obligations of Sovereignty. As a UN Member State it is also obliged to the UN Charter, resolutions and conventions it has ratified. In respect to Jerusalem, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem was declared illegal by the UNSC. Legal annexation can only be through a treaty or by agreement, such as Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank as a trustee, asked for by and in agreement with the Palestinians.
It is often argued that the Palestinians could have also declared a state on the termination of the British Mandate over Palestine in May 1948. However, in order to declare Sovereignty, an entity must have full control over all it’s territories. The Palestinians were denied the privilege. By May 14th 1948, under Plan Dalet, the Jewish Agency was already in control of territories allocated for the new Arab State, making it impossible for the Palestinians to declare sovereignty, even if they wanted to. IN FULL
Israel is in breech of some 223 UNSC resolution, most of which are only reminders of previously unheeded resolutions. The US veto vote on the UNSC has only prevented action being taken against Israel for it’s gross violations of International Law. The Laws and Israel’s violations still stand.
The UNSC says “It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war” It doesn’t differentiate. The reason is simple. The inhabitants might not have voted, or even been able to vote, for the regime in power at the outbreak of or waging war.
Furthermore, Israel acknowledged that the captured territories were not it’s own through voicing it’s demands in August 1949. It was promptly told to go read the Armistice agreements.
It is Israel in breech of 223 UNSC resolutions. It is Israel who has illegally acquire territory by war and illegal annexation and illegal settlements, not the Palestinians. The US veto vote in the UNSC has only stopped action being taken against Israel. The Law still stands, Israel is still in breech.
It is only because Israel is powerful that it evades IHL, IL, past agreements, etc.
Israel is a criminal State. You are an accomplice, spouting bullshit hasbara on this blog.
What kind of immoral prevaricator tries to insist that something is neither legal nor illegal?
As usually, fantastic job putting Witty in his place, Cliff. Note that he still refuses to confront what Israelis themselves have to say.
I agree that Israel has illegally acquired territory by force.
I don’t agree with your interpretation of what constitutes sovereignty or any prior status of Palestine.
Its still a present -> future effort, not a restoration of prior status.
Its needed. I hope you agree that the current status of non-statehood for Palestinians is untenable and undesirable.
One of the significances of the prospect of a democratic single-state in all of the land, is that as Unix presents, it will have to be legal for Jews to purchase land and build in Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Hebron, etc. that any pretense of exclusion will be illegal.
That’s of course assuming that you are advocating for a democratic state, and not an ethnically favored one.
I prefer the tack of creating two viable states that are capable of being democratic national states, both democratic AND national.
On recognition of states. There is no necessity to recognize another state, but if ANY warring action occurs then between those states, it puts those states into a status of war, as occurred in both Lebanon and Gaza.
I prefer to avoid that idiocy, instead preferring diplomatic relations that can at least theoretically resolve war before it starts. Isolation prohibits that.
Its startling to hear your advocacy of resistance movements as institutionally functionally immune from the scrutiny of international law, and functionally immune from the questions of their participation in initiating states of war.
Well, you could have fooled us. Palestine isn’t a state! It was never a state! And yet Gaza is “at war” with Israel, you say. A state that you don’t consider a state, which has no formal military, no air defenses and — thanks to Israel — no capital buildings, police stations of civil infrastructure that isn’t in ruins, and they are waging war on Israel.
But, no comment on whether you wish for Palestine to actually achieve sovereignty, just the medieval religious denunciation of Copernicus. (He was wrong you know. The planets don’t revolve around the sun in circles.)
Copernicus was obsessed with the idea that the planets must move in perfect circles. He went so far as to design a system of epicycles — perfect circles that had to move within perfect circles — to justify his preconceived notion that the heavens must be “pure” of “imperfect shapes.”
Funny you should bring him up, given your attitudes that a “Jewish” state must be “pure” of any non-Jewish majority, and anything else is a crime against nature.
I thought you would jump on Copernicus’ imperfections.
You know well that I’ve never advocated for anything pure, so that is a malevolent misrepresentation or ignorance on your part.
What do you work for, anything?
Has your position changed, then, on denying Palestinians their internationally guaranteed right of return to their homeland? Or is that still a right you only extend to Russian, Polish and German Jews?
My opinion on Palestinian right of return hasn’t changed. I believe that individuals that can make specific land claims should be able to, in most cases for compensation, though prospectively for residence and citizenship in Israel.
To descendants, it would be up to Israel to offer or not, or to Palestine to offer or not (when it comes to be). There is definitely no inherent legal right of return to descendants, as much as repeated or asserted.
I think it is unrealistic as well as extra-legal to assert so, a taking by force from innocents by non-participants to protest a taking by force. A second wrong that doesn’t heal the original.
I think it IS a crime for Lebanon and Syria to deny full citizenship to descendants of Palestinians within lands that the individuals were born.
So let me get this straight –
ANY JEW in the world can fly to Israel and squat on land that was previously owned by Palestinians, no questions asked;
ANY PALESTINIAN may only return at the whim of Israel, regardless of international law and regardless of Israel’s establish record of oppressing the non-Jewish residents (previously the majority, now ethnically cleansed to a majority).
Furthermore — as you have stated in the past — while you believe Israelis have every right to keep Palestinians out of their territory, you do not believe that Palestinians have any right to keep Israelis out of their territory.
Just to clarify.
Any Jew can fly to Israel and become an Israeli citizen in an expedited manner. He/she will have to acquire a place to live legally, either by purchase, rent, or camping.
I would prefer geographic birth site as basis of application for citizenship for Palestinians to something more arbitrary.
But, definitely not a right of return for descendants. Maybe in time, when the two states actually live in peace for an extended time, the rights of travel and residency can relax, hopefully quickly.
If that is what you desire, why not work for that?
Actual, not rhetorical.
Did you read the Burston opinion today?
He stated that the BDS movement is the gift that keeps on giving to the right-wing within Israel, because it is so rhetorical, punitive, inneffective, isolating.
There is no better propaganda for those that claim that “the world is isolating and sticking it to Jews, again”.
The rational, moderate majority becomes silenced.
The “rational, moderate majority” represented in Israel were responsible for Operation Cast Lead.
Unless their Jewish.
There is definitely no inherent legal right of return to descendants, as much as repeated or asserted.
Which, of course would mean that there is no inherent legal right of return for Jews either. But you don’t seem to object to that at all. Another example of your hypocrisy.
The right of return exists as long as the expelled or his/her descendents are refused return. Once a refugee or his descendants is given the right to return, and it is refused, only then can the right be extinquished. Anything less is an invitation to exactly the kind of denial of rights that Israel continues to engage in: longstanding refusal to acknowledge that right until the original victims are all dead and gone, in the hopes of permanently thwarting the right through extended delay. Rights delayed are rights denied and that delay should not be rewarded.
I think it IS a crime for Lebanon and Syria to deny full citizenship to descendants of Palestinians within lands that the individuals were born.
So, I’m sure you are likewise willing to admit that it is a crime for Israel to deny full citizenship, and basic human rights. to the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria have more rights than do those in the Occupied Territories. But I have never seen you refer to the treatment by Israel of the Palestinians in the occupied territories as “criminal”.
Tree,
Jews control Israel, they can decide who has a right of return or not.
its reality, love.
And another point I forgot to mention. Israel is presently deporting or threatening to deport the Israeli-born children of foreign workers. Will you at least admit that that is a crime much worse than denial of citizenship but acknowledgement of residency rights, which Syria and Lebanon provide for the Palestinian refugees.
link to haaretz.com
Can you take a step towards breaking out of your hypocrisy by calling this action of Israel a crime as well?
“Jews,” huh? Just so we’re clear that Israel is, in fact, an ethnocracy and/or a theocracy, then. Such that we can put it in the same category as countries like Saudi Arabia.
And the Nazis controlled Germany in the 30′s and 40s. They got to control who could live there. I’m sure you didn’t object to that either, right? Its amazing how apologists for bigots never find anything wrong with their own biases and denial of rights to others.
You aren’t thinking, yonira. You are merely cheerleading for “your team”.
Yonira is right.
Israel’s right of return is not because it is an inherent right, but one that is offered by a specific state with a specific jurisdiction.
Palestine could do similarly, or it could wait and wait and wait.
Regarding the West Bank and Gaza (a very different story). The favored status of settlers in the West Bank over other residents strikes me asintrinsically illegal, as I’ve stated that in many cases it seems obvious that land was taken and transferred to unwitting individuals through elaborate transactions resulting in imperfected title (where the residents thought that they had perfected title).
The remedy for that favored status includes electoral efforts within Israel, to assert West Bank Palestinians’ relative rights (so long as they are occupied rather than sovereign the best that can be will be less than equal), and to work for Palestinian sovereignty.
I believe that Fayyad and Fatah are accomplishing much to realize Palestinian sovereignty, which will be practically possible in the time frame that Fayyad proposed (1 1/2 from now), and politically possible shortly thereafter, unless disrupted.
Obviously there are many individuals and groups that would seek to disrupt that, among Zionists, among Palestinians, among the “solidarity” left.
But will Richard admit that? Can he use the word “crime” to describe it?
Yes, its a crime of epic proportions Tree.
You are being hypocritical again, Richard. You call the denial of full citizenship rights to Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon a crime, but you justify the same thing in Israel as the right of the state. You can’t get past your own blinkers.
The occupied territories can never have sovereignty if they are ruled by an occupier. That is the first necessary step to obtaining sovereignty. Setting up institutions under ultimate Israeli control does not provide sovereignty for Palestinians, it merely further institutionalizes the occupation. You are the one being cynical here. Much more is possible, why settle for the institutionalization of the occupation. Why not work toward full equality and full rights for all living in the area? Again, you remind me of those to whom MLK addressed his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
“relative rights” huh. So now human rights are “relative.”
Keep digging that hole, Witty.
Of course human rights are relative. All rights, all phenomena is relative.
What planet do you live on?
Its the same question I asked you earlier. Was Copernicus right?
Yes, he was relatively right, but not absolutely.
Galileo then, Newton then. And, then the industrial revolution was possible, which really changed things in the world.
Physical laws, undeniable (even if not perfect at different scales of breadth, mass, time)
Very different law than the constructed legislated local, national or international law.
International law is more Copernican.
Palestinian sovereignty even if impure?
Actual civil rights for actual Palestinians within Israel, even if impure?
Actual formation of integrated social institutions within Israel/Palestine, or just through the religion of BDS?
Well, we’ve already seen that when Palestinians vote to build institutions, Israelis simply vote to bomb them into oblivion. Seems to me that if the Israeli military is going to be crawling all over the West Bank no matter what the rest of us say, maybe it behooves us to at least give the Palestinians a say in whether those F-16s are going to bomb more police stations, or if the bulldozers are going to raze more farms, or if more non-Jewish residents of Jerusalem are driven out by force of arms and apartheid laws, etc.
Don’t you believe in democracy, Witty?
Hard to know what you just said. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
It sounded cynical, like giving up frankly. “Lets not try, because we encountered obstacles in the past.”
I assume you are talking about the Hamas representative election. I think it is reasonable for Israel to do everything even remotely legal to oppose an active terrorist party from achieving power in an immediate neighbor.
Show of hands. Who here had a problem understanding what I wrote, and needs a clarification? Or alternatively, feel free to explain to Witty what I meant. I think I was pretty transparent, but let’s put that to the test, huh?
One little coda:
Do you believe the same about British and Palestinian action against terrorist parties like Irgun and Haganah? Remember, those parties have since evolved into controlling political parties in Israeli politics.
You are one of the least intellectually generous people that I’ve enountered.
When someone asks you “what did you say?” your response is to condemn and gang.
VERY ODD.
IF reply == NULL
{
Ad_Hominem.attributeAttack(source.MentalCapacity)
}
See? I can write you an automated script that will emulate your rhetorical technique. It’ll save you time, Witty!
I’d read your argument, Chaos, like this -
1. All armed forces should be either:
a) under the democratic control of the people who live in the territory over whose whole extent they operate
or b) operating for a military objective on foreign soil;
> it being noted that ‘foreign soil’ means a place where there is normally another sovereign government, even if that is in abeyance for the duration of the conflict
1.1 If there is no such thing as a sovereign Palestine and no intention to set up such a thing or let it emerge from abeyance then option b) cannot apply, and we are left with option a).
2. The Israeli armed forces operate all over the whole extent of the territory in question.
3. Therefore the Israeli armed forces should be under the democratic control of all the people who live in the territory
3.1 This is a way of saying that there should be what people call a one-state solution.
I’m seeking to state literally and formally what you state with greater irony.
I think it’s a valid syllogism. The minor premise (2) seems beyond question.
The major premise (1) , for which almost universal consent might be claimed, might still be questioned by
i) introducing the idea of ‘permanent no man’s land’, ‘terra nullius’, though I don’t see how this could be done without denying the (to me) plain human right of the Palestinians to form a government by social contract;
ii) distinguishing between those who live in a place legitimately and those who do not – but in this case I don’t see how that could be done without linking legitimate residence in a crucial way to race and there I cannot see any possible moral justification that can be taken seriously. This linkage is being advocated by what Donald calls ‘the entity’ – I agree with him that the entity should be ignored.
Thank you, Ms. Hughes. I consider that a valid interpretation of what I stated.
Oh! Ack, sorry. This is why I wish English had a gender neutral sentient pronoun. Partly I saw the ‘M’ at the front, and also I had a friend who’s last name was Hughes. Your intelligent dialog style also reminded me of her and so I therefore projected her, inadvertently, on you.
I hope you are not offended by the honest mistake. :)
I am not a ‘Ms’ but what in the UK is called a chap or a bloke.
You find me cute? Should I be aroused, or disgusted?
Chaos,
Chaos must have took a beginners programming class in school. You are so cute Chaos, before it a was a rhetoric class, now its a programming class. Can’t you take a class on ME, it would benefit you more on here than an attempt at being Witty.
Consent of the governed is an important reasoning, and applicable in this case.
It is the reasoning that supports the two-state solution as preferable to a single state, and also supports the reasoning that reducing and stopping Israeli expansion into hoped for Palestine, occur, so that it can occur.
Its not occupation of something that previously existed as Chaos and Cliff and others imply. Its occupation of something that should be, something new.